Guild Wars 2

Ok, so after digging around I’m told I can’t change my email to my account without submitting a ticket, but that tickets take like 5 days to respond to? That’s kind of shoddy isn’t it? Is there a faster / more efficient way to handle it?

I’ve played an engineer since launch and a little during the open beta weekends. From day one I enjoyed the class on a condition that the obviously broken traits and kits would HAVE to be fixed sooner over later.

Instead it would seem those glaring bugs and broken traits seem to be ignored, leaving us with few viable ways of playing with any level of decency compared to the other classes. Of course then for inexplicable reasons those viable builds get broken apart or “rebalanced” so we have almost nothing that compares to anyone.

The arguments have been made from the players on this forum and others. Many see the engineer as the class that is to be abandoned in lieu of obviously better ones. I gave the Dec. update a shot, hell I never even liked grenades to begin with so it was a wonderful opportunity to pull out the tricks I haven’t tried yet but have thought about. Having our weapon sigils alone was fun for a few days, but as the month rolled on and the wintersday novelty wore off, I was left playing the class with nothing left to distract me from its continuing failures.

So it’s been about a week and a half since I logged in last and I know that doesn’t seem like much of a break but I just have no motivation to play this class, nor the motivation to try again on another. I’ve worked hard on my engineer, I’m 80% of the way towards the legendary rifle and for all the fun that having a new shiny can be, it’s again just a distraction and a brief one at that, from the glaringly bad class that is the engineer.

So I ask, has anyone heard hide or hair from a developer or anyone with some kind of official knowhow? Is this just simply the way it is for those who wanted to play the engineer? Stick it out with a terrible class and keep hoping, or reroll? Or in my case quit?

I use a slight variant on the bomber / healer build. I don’t use elixer U or trait for faster elixers because it feels like a waste of a trait for just the one. Besides, I’ve always been of the opinion that if I’m in melee range bombing someone, I don’t want to take 50% more dmg.

I slot in elixir R or S depending on what i’m going to do, and I put 10 points into tools so I can get attacks when switching to kits.

Basically run up to the mob with guns blazing, switch to bombs and bomb away. Switch to elixir gun if you need a bit extra healing, and add another super elixir ontop of it if you need a bit more. Don’t forget about the healing mist regen and of course the medkit if you really want to add to the healing fun.

The build is 10 / 0 / 30 / 20 / 10
I use Rifle for enhanced CC, leap finisher and the #4 attack to get out of melee quickly if needed.

In the inventions line I trade out power shoes for cloaking device (cuz I think its fun)
And in the alchemy line I trade out the 10 and 20 slot for self regulating defense and backpack regnerator.

So far I’ve been enjoying this build quite a bit. Decent DPS with bombs, less so with the rifle but hey it’s ranged. Plenty of healing! I use power / prec/ toughness gear to stack up the dps a bit. Currently I run runes of Lyssa but am considering a swtich to rune of water.

hybrid tax.. I hear no such thing with my elementalist[/quote]

Yeah..trust me, we engineers know that you elementalists are apparently better at versatility (Which is all we can do) but don’t have to pay for it.

1: Did Transmute (15 pt alchemy trait) get a 5% buff or was that always 8%?

2: Does the trait scope (10% + crit if standing still) work or is that fubar?

Wait, so now let me get this straight. All our other kits dmg still sucks right? Flamethrower still aims odd, bombs radius still messy, basically every kit that sucked before still sucks? Just..now we’re balanced…so all of our dmg sucks? Super.

Blah, sorry but the DE story isn’t a good one, at least in my opinion. Maybe the stuff that happened before gw2, but the stuff that goes down during is just a bunch of supposed heros whining and crying and looking for every opportunity to blame one of their “friends” for Snaffs death.

About halfway thru doing story modes for the dungeons I decided I wanted to sign up with the dragon and end those tools. Thankfully none of them have any power at all so all die over and over and over again during dungeons anyhow.

Still, DE is as bad as Trahearne. At least the tree man doesn’t whine like a mule the whole time.

Bannok.3152:

Out manned for us all day in 3 borderlands. For about an hour or so had a little something going then everyone vanished again. Kind of amazed we’re holding 150 points.

Yeah, JQ isn’t what it used to be that’s for sure. I suspect that in the next few weeks, maybe even this week, if this trend continues, that we’re about to drop to tier 2.

Player housing ala LOTRO wouldn’t be bad. Instanced neighborhoods with various styles of housing. I’d be okay with that, however there’s so many more important things to come first. Honestly I’d be upset if player housing made the top 100, and if it did Guild halls best be first.

The price is exactly the same as it was when the game launched. Ten US dollars for 800. I know you meant in game money but you didn’t actually believe they were guna stay affordable or even become affordable again did you?

This is a cash shop game, the gem prices are right where Anet wants them.

I know this is really neither here nor there, but up until today I can’t say I truly enjoyed WvW. Oh sure, I’d do it, go with the zergs take a keep, defend it, etc etc. I’d get my 50 kills for the month and then not likely go back again.

This time, that’s what I intended to do. I went in with my fave toon to get my 50 and actually really got into things. The drama of pushing at a keep so hard you could taste it and then having to defend that hard won fight not more than 2 minutes later.

HOWEVER, I truly found my joy when I went into the EB jumping puzzle just to get the Rich Ori node, and sidetreked to find the log / spike / flame trap chain. For about 6 hours straight I just knocked people off that walkway, spiked ‘em and lit ’em on fire. I learned that Mesmers can still pull me from there, I learned that Eles think they can try to attack you from there (And even can do dmg if you’re dumb enough to just stand there). I learned that I can really bring the two enemy teams together when they’re forced to team up just to get past the traps..(even funnier when a group of one would get by and then turn around and turn on the others).

Honestly tho, I know I didn’t really get any kills (I got about maybe 20) and only a VERY limited number of badges. Still, I enjoyed myself thouroghly. I got my butt kicked by people who made it by that’s for sure, and yes people did make it by. I’m no Jedi, just a guy swinging logs. Still I kept coming back in and swinging those tree trunks and kitten near belly laughed everytime I’d send some poor schmuck back down to try try again.

OH, and to that one SoS Charr Ranger, your persistence was awe inspiring, but it did make me specifically go for you for that full hour. I hope you got up there eventually.

Grenades are something you have to train with to become good at. Once you’ve got it down you’ll never go back to that FT. Well, not unless they give us a reason to. FT is a buggy, hard to reliably hit with, underperforming kit. I honestly cannot think of a situation I’d use it in…ever.

Yeah, come to think of it I started with the backpack on creation and Xmuted the goggles. Which BTW is pretty much the only solution you’ll have. need to start with the pack plain and simple.

I run a support build as well but I don’t sport healing gear. I currently run with power / prec / tough gear. I’m spec’d 0/20/30/20/0. In essence I’m middle ground for everything. I have survivability and healing and can do alright dmg with decent crit chance. I may not do the impressive numbers as the glass cannon types, but they tend to love having me around.

I use healing turret (For it’s fast CD and for the fact that I can blow the turret in its own water field for an area heal), bomb kit (With elixir infused bombs for healing luv), elixer gun (mostly for the heal field and condition removal of #3), and elixir R (for rez if needed). My elite right now is avatar of Melandru (Human elite heal guy) but honestly I could switch it out for supply crate and be just as content.

I used to run the full OMGWTFBBQLOL NADES glass cannon build and it got dull. So many people in this game spec glass cannon that entire groups can wipe on stuff that shouldn’t be that lethal. Especially now with FotM preventing rez runs, a support guy is almost always appreciated.

Oglaf.1074:

The problem is that for it to work you need a neutral, non-soulbound piece of whatever armor you’re doing it with.

As far as I know, there are no such back items in the game.

You kidding? Open the TP and type (I think) backbrace, or just back and you’ll see plenty of ‘em. I’ve bought a bunch just to see if any of them had any cool looks (turns out they all look like nothing!)

Yes you can still xmute these items, I did it literally 2 days ago with the backpack. For some reason I had to put the backpack and the white item in the bank as well as the xmute stone. Right click the stone and select use and then put the items in from the bank and it worked fine for me. Outside the bank it wouldn’t let me click the accept button.

ANyhow, my engi now has the eyepiece and backpack. So there you go, just do it out of the bank.

Editing because in the case of the backpack you’ll have to be a high enough lvl char to use an actual back piece. I lvld my newbie engineer to 80 via crafting so just picked up a cheap lvl 80 one off the TP. The principal still works tho, just do it from the bank.

I don’t mind a certain amount of RNG, games need it. The problem is this game relies almost 100% on it. There’s nothing I can do to WORK towards anything, I can merely farm RNG and hope to get it.

Naturally i’m talking precursors, ascended stuff, t6 materials stuff like that. I duno, RNG is a mechanic that can be fun from time to time but to rely so heavily on it just reeks of a lack of imagination.

Okay, time conversion not sure, google it, it’s not that hard. As for the dungeon thing. It’s attached to the event, I believe we won’t see fractals until the 17th.

This isn’t the kind of attention they’d want. People are still riled up now even after they’ve explained everything in a proper way. It could have all been avoided by just talking with us and communicating from the start.

I get the impression that they need to hire someone to actually TALK with us. Or if they do have someone like that then they need to allow them to talk more.

Snerf.1650:

Gurpsmeister.9068:

WHOA calm down now. It’s not a power creep, it’s the insertion of a new tier to gap the ease of obtaining exotics and the difficulty of obtaining legendary stuff. If what they say is true than great, our tiers our now flushed out and we won’t have to see anymore.

I suspect they’ll make much use out of those infusion slots over time but whatever. Let this thread die now..pls?

But it is a power creep. There is currently no gap. Legendaries are the same stat-wise as exotics. This only bridges the gap if there is a gap. There is currently no gap.

If ascended gear has the same stats as exotics, but bridges the skin gap to legendary, that is a totally different animal. And it’s one that would make a lot of us very happy.

That’s why people are continuing this thread.

The gap isn’t in stats, it’s in difficulty to obtain. Exotics rain from the skies and are super easy to get. Legendarys are ridiculously difficult to get, there’s no middle ground. that’s what the Ascended stuff is supposed to be, something in between to allow a sense of accomplishment.

You know what I felt when I got all exotics? Nothing, it came so fast and so easy I felt no pride in being full orange. I’m hoping Ascended will allow me to feel a lil’ swell of WOOT as I work towards my legendary.

So yes, there was a gap. It’s addressed now and post go bai bai now?

In my opinion all five of the Destinys edge crew are like members of a crappy teenage reality tv drama.

Not one of them has any common sense or maturity during the (badly written) story to make having them along anything other than obnoxious. I’m outright happy when they die during those runs, just upset I can’t kill ’em myself.

I swear if I could’ve joined Zhaitan I would’ve. Between they whiney kittens in DE and Trahearnes dull character I would’ve enjoyed working against Tyria quite nicely. Oh well..

As the person who started the nega-topic that has all but exploded all over these forums in rage filled messy way I wanted to say something separate of that massive post-hemoth.

That 6k+ reply anger fest could’ve been avoided entirely if there was a little more communication between the dev teams and the players. Forget the FB page and Twitter, use your forums to communicate road maps and let us know clearly what you’re planning on.

When the other websites had the information that this one did not there was rampant speculation and negativity. When you guys posted that blog that was full of babble and spin the negativity grew to enormous sizes.

It could’ve been avoided right off the bat by making a post saying exactly what you all finally had to say to get things to calm down anyhow. So, instead of saying what should’ve been said from the start we got a cascade of insanity (started shamefully by yours truly) that just went out of control.

In the future, talk with us. We’re only irrational if we have to draw our own conclusions. If you explain ‘em to us for the most part I’m hoping we can see eye to eye.

Okay okay okay, we got some confirmation about how the system is going to work. It’s a gap closer between exotic and legendary not a treadmill starter. The gate mechanic is still there and that sucks BUT if it stays in that dungeon then it’s not really a big deal is it?

Can we let this beast die now? I’m ashamed I started this thread to begin with..

Wow, when I started this thread I was apprehensive, I had no idea it would become the forum merging central hub for all things Ascended. I apologize to those who’s legit threads have been mooshed into this insanity.

After reading are re-reading the blog I am honestly a bit in shock. I’ve lost the enthusiasm I had for this game being able to stand up on its own legs. Turns out that’s just not the case, I’m not saying I’m leaving or even sure what I’m doing. I don’t take my gaming that seriously nor would I be so arrogant as to suspect anyone else gives a care.

I’m just upset and I feel like I’ve been tricked. Not cool.

Harder content in terms of more interesting and varied mob mechanics, that’s how you make the game more interesting and fun. Just making the mob hit 10x times harder is just “meh.”

This I agree with. In my opinion the two laziest things any dev can do in any game is; 1: add enrage timers. 2: Increase the dmg / health pool of mobs and call it new.

These are lazy ways of trying to make encounters harder. Note I don’t use the word fun there. All they do is frustrate and make things hard. FUN is new mechanics, not new numbers.

TurtleofPower.5641:

Gurpsmeister.9068:

Say what you will, but with a new tier in, everyone is going to expect that you have your ascended weap or whatever when doing dungeons soon enough.

Just like everyone expects you to have a legendary now?

Lies. Lies. Lies.

Calm down and see the reality or get mad about nothing… that’s up to you.

Legendary weapons are just skins, they are the same stat layout as exotics. So no, everyone doesn’t feel the need to obtain them. However, as in every other MMO EVER, if you give a stat boost to a new something, everyone is going to want it because it’s BETTER.

Ascended items are BETTER than exotics. Got the point there bucko?

So yeah, it’s to be expected that this is the next “required” set, assuming it is just another gear tier.

I agree about the power creep concerns, in an MMO any upgrade is a MUST HAVE. I like the thought of an above poster tho, stating that this will be the balanced final tier and it just didn’t get in in time. I guess we can hope, but the whole infusion thing makes me worry still..

So I read that the new dungeon, Fractals of the Mists, will contain a new tier of gear called Ascended. It’s supposed to be “slightly stronger” than exotics and have a slot of some kind that can be upgraded to keep it on par with things in the future.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/news/read/26040/Guild-Wars-2-A-Peek-into-the-November-Update.html

What does this mean for legendaries? They’re going to get boosted to those stats yes, no? I don’t personally own a legendary but I still wonder. Personally I don’t particularly like the idea of another gear Tier. The game isn’t supposed to be about stat grind but if this keeps happening it definitely will be.

Say what you will, but with a new tier in, everyone is going to expect that you have your ascended weap or whatever when doing dungeons soon enough. Also, if Legendary weaps don’t get a boost then WTF!?

The problem with Engi isn’t that we can’t DPS, because we can. The cookie cutter nadegineers are proof of that.

In my opinion the problem is that we have SO many options and so few of them seem viable. In some cases because the traits that are supposed to effect them don’t, or in other cases simply because things are skewed or designed poorly. I’m hoping that this months update is going to address some of the pre-beta bugs we’ve had. If not, hey I’ve got a war on the back burner just like 90% of the rest of the players of this game. Greatsword and Sigils at the ready. >.>

How about they just fix the classes and make the traits work the way they say they’re supposed to and give us some balance?

Class changing would be a nightmare. Imagine all the FOTM every patch? OMG They nerfed ranger and buffed mesmer. I’m class changing to mesmer cuz they’re OP. Then next patch they switch to somethin’ else. No thanks.

Already too many warriors as it is, don’t wana walk thru lions arch and see more greatswords and heavy armor blocking my views

Oh it makes a difference alright, a huge one. Like, when I go to a dungeon and some schmuck is in full MF gear and contributing less to the group because he’s geared like a nub.

Other than that I duno and I dun care. MF has no place in this game and should be a removed stat.

This was much needed, MUCH. For you all saying OMG I canna play wif my friends. They’ll have guesting up for you, in the interim you still can very much play dungeons across servers and if you and you friends could show an ounce of coordination you could even all end up on the same server like me and my friends.

I kno, communication and organization hard right?

WAIT WAIT WAIT

I wana see if I have this straight. Your plan is to lock onto a suspected person who may or may not be botting. Once you have a suspicion you’re going to stalk them for days or weeks at a time..somehow. If they don’t respond to your whispers then..BOOM BOTS!

Let me tell you how many of your whispers I’d respond to, zero. You weird stalker, you’re not Tyrian Batman and your guild aint the justice league. Let the professionals at Anet screw this up, I mean handle it. They don’t need you helping.

Who knows, maybe? They originally said they wouldn’t yield on the FOV thing either but they’re changing that so maybe first person could happen someday.

Well, exp is exp. 2 or 2k, fact is it’s still possible. Mind numbing and dull but..possible.

Okay, Op you got awfully wound up about this eh? I can’t tell if you’re a troll or some kind of bleeding heart activist that wants to protest Tyrian behaviors. There’s GOT to be a better cause for you to fight the good fight for than what pixels did what to another pixel in a made up history…right?

Actually it is possible, can’t imagine it’d be fun or worth it, but it is possible. You get xp for those centaur mobs just like any other, as far as I recall. You can just sit there..forever I suppose and kill those eh?

yeh, it’s tough to be a shorty in the clocktower that’s for sure.

I second this. It’s like they took the culling problem in WvW and said..now how can we piss people off with the OPPOSITE of this.

the only change this needs is to be removed as a group event and make it solo. The speed and dificulty are just fine and challenging. Puting 4 fat kitten norn or charr on my baby asura is NOT fine.

Oh, and the giant norn and charr that are basically making this jump puzzle a frustrating nightmare. I’m up for challenge, but if I can’t see what I’m doing well, that’s not a challenge, that’s impossible.

Each act gets a little worse..

I am waiting anxiously to play new content and the event but I’m not so buggered about it that I feel entitled to some kind of second by second call out. Unfortunately I do have to say that this is just another example of Arenanet having a VERY poor understanding of how to communicate to its playerbase.

Since the beta they’ve done kitten poor at conveying even the smallest thing. It’s been equal parts conjecture on the part of the community and downright detective work taking quotes from one source or another and trying to apply it to the situations that have come up.

We have never been given direct, straight answers or updates about anything. Remember, they coined the term and are going to cling to it like a Koala on it’s moms back now. When it’s ready. They will not ever be any more specific than that, and we praised them for it.

PFFT.

Blaeys.3102:

Shutting down free transfers now will not fix the issues we currently have.

There has to be greater incentive for playing on “losing” or low population servers to balance out the numbers. Otherwise, the only reason to move from a winning server is long queues, and that really isnt a compelling reason any longer for most people.

well if this is the case than this game is in for a world of hurt. As it stands WvW is about who has the biggest and most consistent zerg. This means high pop servers are the best in terms of WvW. Low pop servers will NEVER hold a candle to them.

WvW is a wonderful concept but its implementation is very poor. It doesn’t reward skill or even trying hard. It simply awards the biggest horde and punishes the weak. Ultimately however, the server transfers are the root cause of more than just WvW issues.

There is no swift answer to balance WvW. You can’t over-reward small pops and you obviously can’t leave it where it is. Honestly I don’t see any fix in the near future for this. WvW is thus far a failed experiment that is now causing a lot of collateral damage in the process.

Turn off the transfer switch all the same. Let servers form a sense of community, WvW isn’t going to be balanced no matter how you look at it either way.

So as I read forums and talk to friends and other gamers in guilds across various servers there is one pattern that seems to be clearly emerging. Servers are in a constant and never ending state of flux because guilds and groups are moving from one server to another for whatever reasons.

Some are saying because they want to be on a successful WvW server (but apparently don’t want to do it themselves). Some are saying because the pop is too low where they’re at and want to go somewhere better, meanwhile those servers they’re moving to, others are leaving because people are saying the pop is getting too high!

The problem is this won’t change as long as that free switch is still turned on. Things will just ebb and flow and constantly change. There will be no server pride or server community because people are switching servers every two weeks or less!

I’m on a heavy pop server who’s doing good in WvW. Recently we’ve gotten a massive influx of people who apparently want to be carried. Because of that the groups and guilds that helped make our server do well in WvW are talking about moving where there are (To quote) “less scrubs and bandwagoners”.

So they move and the scrubs that came for a carry follow them to the next place? Or the pop gets low and so another mass shift to another server which suffers the same nonsense?

This is all my opinion as are most things on a forum like this. I do believe that shutting down the free transfer service would be doing the players a GREAT service by allowing them to form community and server pride and stabilize the game a bit.

IRL money has VERY weak buying power in game. For 10 bucks I get 800 gems which converts into what? 4-8 gold I think? That same 10 bucks to some random gold seller buys 20+ gold.

I don’t condone the use of gold sellers because of the methods they use to get their gold. If for a second I thought they were legitimately farming that gold than I’d be okay. However I believe they hack accounts and bot the crap out of everything and that ruins the game.

Still, the economy isn’t all that shiny and people who want to spend money tend to want to get the most for their dollar. Right now, the gem store is insulting us. You may as well include a link TO gold sellers for all the people actually spending money in your store.

Fix your prices, fix the values, then you’ll have something. Until then, you’ll never beat the gold farmers.

I love the game and the concept of these dungeons are wonderful. Unfortunately the implementation is absolute poo. Every single one of them, story or explore mode is a rehash of the same thing. Crowds of mobs with CC / conditions that you really can’t control or handle other than take it like a man and try to win the war of attrition. The bosses are all equally the same, either boring stand there and kill it fights with nothing interesting happening, or WTF 1 shot fests and huge run back zergs so the boss doesn’t reset.

The dungeons need love, a lot of love. There need to be rewards for running them other than tokens and a handful of silver. Chests should actually drop good loot, not just be a garbage can full of crap that you go and throw away in another garbage can.

More importantly, the fights themselves need to be reworked, dang near all of them. 1 shot mechanics is a lazy devs way of working something. Dodging a red circle, sure fine. that’s part of the game but to make it the end all be all in EVERY encounter is just weak minded development. There’s a fine line between challenge and hard. People enjoy challenges, people avoid hard.

Normally I don’t say this but, the game is young and they’re still gauging what will and will not be acceptable in the gem shop. Trust me you’ll start seeing things in there that people will buy. Already people ARE buying and thats with subpar stuff in there.

Heck yes. I play a grenade engineer and there are times where I actually have to stop dps to try and figure out just where the heck my target actually is. There’s so much smoke / glitter / sparkly razzle dazzle that the enemy could be behind a corner giggling like a fool for all I know.

Change it so we can limit who’s fx we see maybe? I duno, something NEEDS to be done about this tho. This coupled with the culling so that NPC’s and people show up on my screen at a reasonable rate would be wonderful.

This is just my opinion but I’ve found that going all in one way or another works best for engineers. Sitting around at halfsies with stats just makes you weak in both stats.

the point is what everyone from every class has been saying for a while, healing as a stat is a useless thing to put points or gear into. It doesn’t give a big enough boost, or in our case, any boost to make anything matter. You were better off with more tough or vit if you’re trying to be defensive.