Guild Wars 2

Confusion is the Ultimate FEAR!!!!

1. When you get hit with Confusion, you can’t do anything.
2. When you get hit by Confusion, you have to run away.

Ultimate because:

1. It is AOE.
2. Last more than 1 sec.
3. Can re-apply stacks faster than 30 to 90 seconds.

Want to melt a Zerg?

1. A few mesmers running Glamour which should be called a ZAU.

ZAU= Zerg Annihilation Unit

Lately I have been seeing many posts complaining about the Zerg, so I wanted to put this out there. I have no problems with the Zerb/Blob, I think it is really fun. Now with the culling fix, it is simply awesome.

With all the complaints, I started thinking about the differences between an army and a Zerg, and the main difference came down to organization.

An Army is professional because it is disciplined and organized, where as a Zerg is a posse of people with no guidance, no strategy, no other mission, other than kill the other side, literally, a mob.

I have seen many solutions posted by others, such as, change the AOE limit, or alter the way VP points are handed out, but I think that the solution is more fundamental and should start with the UI.

A Commander has someone (a solider) click his Icon to join Squad, and then gets allocated into a Group automatically. The solider now has his party icon fill up with other soldier’s and his Group is now automatically given a name, like Grp 1, 2, 3, so on and so forth.

The solider cannot see all the groups in the commanders UI as it is not necessary, just his group and its name. The Commander, though, can see all the Groups and he can also assign a Group Leader for these parties that comprise the Army.

That’s it. From this UI change, now, the Zerg is organized, or, at least, has the ability to organize itself.

Some fun ideas:

1. The ability to see all the groups on the Map with their group Icons, not just the commander, but the whole army.

2. Commanders to have a chat command which lets them talk to the Group leaders only, (this would be really high speed and require a whole new level of discipline and organization from all involved to work, highly doubtful in an MMO).

3. Customizable groups, for better strategy. For example, 2 Warriors 1 Ranger 1 Guard and 1 Mesmer, or say you want a Recon Party of 4 thief’s and 1 Mesmer to hit Camp XYZ; an all Necro party vanguard to charge the enemy army to Plague form and spam Blind while the rest of the Army follows in blowing stuff up, you get the idea.

Slot Skill Abilities? Elite skills?

I was just playing GW 1 and man o man are there options.

I would love to have some of those options later on in this game. Create a really unique play style.

I know the game is brand new, and we are really spoiled by the developers; (with tweaks and fixes), near full game expansions every month, but, I am curious to know if perhaps in the future we might get new skills for the classes?

I thought I saw some talk about future classes, but what about new skills?

OP got me thinking if Anet has there /ignore list?

JonathanSharp.7094:

Sorry I can’t respond to everyone, but I’ll try to hit some other issues you’ve brought up:

-Words aren’t enough: Agreed. In the coming patches we have plans to give the Warrior: more resistance to movement hindering condies, the ability to punish boons, and we want to improve some of their specs that are out-shined by 100 b’s.

-Responding overall: We read a ton of things on the forums, but as you can imagine, we can’t respond to them all. When time allows, like today, I try to get on the forums as much as I can with actual responses – not just reading.

-Banners: We’re playing with some other ideas on how to make them stronger/a unique play style, while also trying to make sure they don’t “step on the toes” of similar abilities for other classes, like Ranger spirits.

-“Soon” vs. actual ETA’s: This is a fine point, but the reason I don’t give actual dates is because things can sometimes slip past those dates. When this happens, players can feel like we were lying or we didn’t fulfill a “promise”. I know it sucks, but it’s just safer for us not to use dates or ETA’s until we’re REALLY close to a feature or change being ready.

Gonna go hit some of the other sub-forums, thanks for all the feedback guys!

WHA? WOW!! I peek my head in hear and see this many Dev responses and can’t believe my eyes :O Speaking of sub-forums —-——>Necro forum this way

The Zerg is an option, and the zerg is more like the servers Army. I love it. It is epic. It is WvW.

Want to run a small squad, go run in a small squad. Get in /map and form a small strike force.
I think there are already many people that have guilds that specifically focus on small strike teams, you just need to call out and find them or make your own.

It is not as if you can’t play that way on any of the current maps. It all boils down to choice.

carlvinmadarang.4130:

Anyone got a Necro Tank build? So far I’ve just specced into Toughness/Vit with self healing traits. I dunno what to choose for skills though. My minions are making me mad since they dont do anything but stand there.

Minions also clap for you, don’t forget that. We are the only class that gets a pack of pets that can cheer us on, while we battle and fight for their entertainment.

I want to see my pets get buffed with small red hats, and small hand cymbals.

Maybe in the Gem Store, in the future? One can only hope.

I think it was Wiazabi who said that it is ridiculous that there is an axe 30 points into our trait tree, when all the other classes get it early on. He also said that the 30 point trait for the Necro should be a CLEAVE.

Great suggestion, but, think about that for a second, imagine if we got a cleave weapon; talk about weapon diversity!

Yeah, Thanks Anet, great job.

The WvW is truly like two armies going at it now.

I had skill lag as well, but then I went out and bought a cable USB keyboard and mouse and voila, no more skill lag.

Also, I turn down all the GFX settings to low and cruise just fine with no stutters or lag what so ever.

I have an ancient Q9550 cpu and 650ti card.

I am not an RP’er, but out of curiosity, what is the unofficial RP server for the Euro side?

I was just thinking that this months monthly was a way to depress the market by inflating player created items that might be trading at a slight profit. These windows will now be closed up by everyone doing their monthly.

I also felt that this months monthly, was an unabashed means of of acting as a material sink and possible a gold sink, depending on what the player crafted.

I did not look at laurels on the same level as running a fractal, as, this is the same as going for map completion or running a dungeon, or playing WvW.

I also consider the Mystic forge to be exactly the same thing as crafting 40 master items, which is one of the reasons I started this post.

While gathering cost gold, as do most all things in the game, I think there are differences, like categories or classifications of gold sinks and that laurels/achievements were not something that would be used to ‘regulate’, or ‘manipulate’ Rare Materials and Gold by acting as a direct Sink.

Rather, laurels were something that you did, along side running fractals, gathering, running dungeons so on and so forth.

Hi Darksanity,

I crafted master and rares and made money and I also bought everything :O

Again, not my point, and not at all what I was asking, please re-read what I asked in the original post.

On a side note: apparently there is a 60s hole in one of the exotic markets that you exploited and filled by crafting your 40 items. Others that might not have made their 40 items yet and might not have been aware of this, and can just head over to spidygw2 quickly and find this hole and maybe make a profit for themselves also. So thanks for helping out some others by sharing Darksanity.

Regarding my second question in my opening post, perhaps this will be one of the ways in which this monthly will ‘impact’ the market.

It will put a lot more items onto the BLTC causing item inflation for those that simply craft without taking the time to seek market inefficiencies?

I understand the concept time = money, and I am not discussing this law. Ipso facto logging into the game means this.

Yeah you could grind Fractals, but the monthly or daily says you must pay xyz amount of gold depending on what you craft.

What I am asking is, when did laurels start to ‘DIRECTLY’ cost gold outright?

(btw, not shouting ‘directly’ above, just capsing it for emphasis as I was not clear in my first post.)

While I have no data, I would presume that it is a combination of a few factors, some of which have already been stated in this post and others which have not.

To add some more reasons:

1. Monthly Master craft, everyone and their mother, now has put 40 /master/rare/exotic items into circulation, coupled with this fact brings us to

2. ‘Most’ no one wants to craft/do stuff at a loss, so before you start your monthly master crafting, you look for items that will sell at a profit or at least near profit.

So you have to craft 40 master items.

When did laurels start to cost gold?

What will be the impact on the market?

I have already finished my monthly, but I must say that this Master craft item was a pain.

Is this the way for them to inflate the BLTC with items, Gold Sink or both, or what?

This was not fun and not cool imho.

Just got this idea from reading another post, asking for comparisons between NA and EU tier strategies.

Is it possible to mix the continental servers based on tier ranking?
That sounds like it could be pretty epic. Don’t know if this has been mentioned before but it has to have been, so I guess there is some kind of issue in doing this or something.

A little Na vs. EU?

So could one of you’s answer some questions for me?

1. Is it better to break down blue items with a crude kit, or sell directly to the vendor?

2. Is it better to break down green items with a crude kit, or sell them directly to the vendor?

3. Is there something better to do with my blue/green items other than directly vendoring them or breaking them down that I am not aware of?

4. So far, based on what I can tell, the crude kit is by far the (big) winner here, if you assume that one day you will stop playing this game, meaning that there is an end point?

Thanks

Bas.7406:

@Hieronymus – Bone Minions are the absolute worst pets. They sometimes get stuck and never move. They die repeatedly before you can use them, and sometimes I want to chuck them. I never use them. Flesh Wurm is awesome! It does the most damage, and dies the least. It’s not great for questing, but for dungeon fights it’s awesome.

I wholeheartedly agree, that worrying about healign them is meh. It can be done, but I let them die and simply resummon them when the cd is up. It’s not that long of a cd, The cast time is ridiculous, which is my major complaint. That and the fact that sometime I have to hit the utility skill twice to get him to do their ability.

Death Nova is meh, but it’s an added damage. It applies it to a small area where the pet dies. About the size of an extended Mark.

Yeah, the cool down is not bad at all on Minions with the appropriate trait, I mis-typed when I typed cool down and meant the Cast time. Re-reading what you wrote at the top of the forum, about the cast time on the minions being roughly equilvalent to the cast time on all of our abilities, and so not making much of a difference in suckyness, though I agree with.

Yeah, bone minions are terribad, but when they go pop, I really love it. I am looking for a replacement for this utility, and will try the Wurm when I run a dungeon as you suggest.

As far as running everyday Pve/PvP, maybe I will stick with the Epidemic? I just hate the intolerable cool downs on the wells and corruptions, it makes it so, you have to stand around with your thumb up your necrotic kitten waiting to do something. At least with the Epidemic, I can target a MOB that is being focused by the group/zerg and spread some loving every 15 seconds, which is acceptable, as opposed to the 60 seconds or 45 seconds or half minute that is the current deal.

What are your thoughts on Fetid Consumption? I’m really enjoying that fact that my conditions get stripped off of me every few seconds. I have yet to take the MM build to WvW granted, won’t be able to till they reset and my server gets bumped up.

I have been scared actually to Dungeon run with the AI of minions. I am so worried that I will wipe the group because of the insane, psychopathic AI. You have given me a little courage to try though, any tips/pointers for doing this?

Also, you might want to check out the trait Death’s Embrace in the power tree, which makes your downed state 50% more effective. I found this to be a remarkable good trait that has saved me many times. It really eats through an enemy’s heath, transferring it to you.
I have to agree that so far my experience as MM has been pretty fun and effective.

Can’t wait to try it in WvW (whenever they reset). Also, hoping they fix this class or address it in three days.

Thanks

Only a necromancer can WHAH WHAH WHAH WHAH WHAH WHAH WHAH WHAH WHAH.

I have been playing a MM for the last week now. I started to play this build, at least I became tempted as I entered Orr and was struggling (I had lowish 70’s and high-ish 60’s gear). Besides being bored with Condition, I also wanted to try something new for WvW and the GrandMaster trait Fetid Consumption sounded intriguing.

Well, I unfortunately have not been able to test my build in WvW because of the recent guild migrations. I happen to have been on a server that absorbed all these migrants, and has had complete map domination for close to the last two weeks. The WvW maps are virtual ghost towns.

This also blows because I consider WvW to be the penultimate end game.
On the environment level, which I have experienced now for the last week or so I can make so comments. Since switching over to MM, I first tried the condition build, that is 0/20/20/30. I ran with Epidemic and dropped the bone fiends. Again, this was in anticipation of trying the build in WvW.

I found it sub-par in PvE so I changed it up to 20/0/20/30 and have been going at the environment like so. First off my survivability jumped, the life-siphoning ability kept me near 90% or above. I ran axe first, but the axe sucks. I like the scepter because during the Dynamic Events, I could blanket an area with DoT’s and get my loots.

When looking for an axe replacement, I tried the staff, but the staff also sucks. I hate the repetitive sound, the annoying Wha Wha Wha Wha; I hate the other four buttons also, that have stupidly long cool downs and that are just in general under-powered and majestically BORING Clones of each other.

I found that I did not need the Staff #2 to revive Minions; it is no bother if my minion would die because with the 20% cool down on Minion Summoning, by the time I would even notice that I had had a Minion die, the cool down was already up. I am now using Dagger and Scepter/Dagger and am happy as far as our potential weapon combo’s go.

Summoning Minions in general though is a problem; the cast time is very long. You don’t notice it at first, or, at least, I was not aware of it at first, but, quickly I became aware at indeed how long the cool down is. When you are soloing a DE, in Orr, I found that, even with the staff, the Minions cannot handle four or five regular Mob’s and a Vet before they start dropping, and then to re-summon at that time is too late as the cast time to get those shields back up is enough to chew though your Hit Point pool.

The AI on Minions is tragic, to the point that I want to repeat this, the AI on Minions is TRAGIC. I think enough has been said on this topic already, and that we are all aware of these flaws. Bas has some pointers/potential work arounds above, but, unfortunately, I feel that is simply wishful thinking, (which he/she is amply aware of also, which is why he provided the work arounds in the first place).

Over-all, my last week and a half of MM has been a good experience. The 30 points into the Blood line could be potentially done better by the Consume Conditions; the Well of Power just has a ridiculous cool down, which, even traited brings it down to only 48 seconds. And makes it all but worthless.

I have found that I like bone fiends better then Well of Suffering as the cool downs on the Well is again just too long and that the Bone Minions are up really fast. The down side though to the Bone Minions is that the AI is broken and when you pop them, sometimes, a lot of the times, they are nowhere near the combat, a lot of times I found them gazing off into the distance, purring at my ankles or even behind me?

I would like a comparison to the Utility Corrosive Poison Cloud and Death Nova, so if anyone has tried this out and could comment?

Thanks

Korgov.7645:

Ivano.2604:

Demannu.2805:

.. As for FoW the only thing they were obviously good at capping at night before we arrived
—-

Demannu

You are coming from a different server, your original home where you left only defeats behind you.

You came on Vabbi server claiming yourself as “the saviour” who would repopulate the WvW community, any victory you will achieve will be tasteless.
Even if you would manage to climb the chart (thing that i doubt it will ever occur) your efforts will always be noticed as the easiest way to achieve some scoring.

Funny part is that you most prolly end up to be victim of your own spoil, RoS are turning up like the ones who will tier up while you “players who inhabit Vabbi” will be stuck on last tier afterall :p
Then WsR will tier down and you ll end up 2nd once again, but ofc by then i expect you and your precious army to have left Vabbi for goods.
You may prouve me wrong if you ll still be on Vabbi server for the next 30 days. Easy win…
You are going down, your arrogance is matched only by your blindness

Now, you have a good evening…

Your prediction was spot on. This Vabbi project was scrapped, Xaoc hopped to Gunnar’s Hold, the Vabbi WvW presense is nigh nonexistent again. Only the Whiteside Ridge falling down a tier is yet to fulfill.

Wow! Was this spot on. Nice prediction.

There was no reason to come then to go. I feel bad for the WvW players on Vabbi & FoW, also, for Ruins of S as now the maps are ghost towns; all 3 servers are boring and suffering because of this now.

Good evening, my fellow Minion Masters.

Allow me first to apologize for stating a possibility, a potential fix, that may be, but alas, may be not, just as well become to be.
I do, like many of you, appreciate the the crazy AI of our minions every day routine, like watching our Minions decide that they are OUR masters; the security of the familiar, like when our Golem claps happily to the mobs beating on their masters, the tranquility of repetition, like watching our minions watching us as WE attack.
I enjoy them as much as any bloke.

But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone’s death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 15th, a day that is sadly not given any credit as a day of possibility, and think and hope about it, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.

There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power.

Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with our Minions, isn’t there?

Cruelty the injustice in pretending we don’t exist by forum monitors, the intolerance and oppression, when our threads where we write our words are deleted.

And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.
How did this happen?

Who’s to blame?

Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it.

I know you were afraid.

Who wouldn’t be?

You’re outnumbered by them.

Bone minions, Flesh Golems, Jagged Horrors, working as intended.

There were a myriad of coding problems which conspired to corrupt the reason and rob your minions of their functioning AI. And make them the Master and you the minion.

Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you fogot that you are the master.

So in the end, they have never promised you order, never promised you peace, and all you needed to do is be silent, and give your obedient consent, that this is not a bug, that this is working as intended.

Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed my Golem, to remind myself of what I had forgotten. I had him charge various mobs and placed copper wagers on his victory or defeat.

So now, for more than a few days a great DEV wished to embed the 15th of November with a NEW HOPE.
His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives.
So if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of our minion’s AI remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the 15th of November to pass unmarked.

But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one week and a half-ish from tonight, outside the fountain of Lions Arch, and together we shall give them a 15th of November that shall never, ever be forgot.

I am not big on the crafting also. Truthfully the highest level I ever got to was 90 on one of my characters.

I just noticed that when ever I made anything, the cost of the materials going into making the item.

I then would pause, alt-tab action to the GW2 data-base, look at the highest exotics out there and noted that crafting was simply stupid if done with the idea that you will make profit later.

Also, the notion that you can craft your own gear was stupid as, if you sold all the crafting materials, you would have enough to buy all the gear you wanted and still have a lot of silver/gold left over. Multiply that by 80 levels and you will have a nice piggy bank full of gold at end game.

The draw backs to this that I can see: This may be fixed later in time. (How later and to what effect will then be the relevant questions).

No experience from crafting. The trade off being again, more money.

Not able to convert materials into finished products, like copper ore into bronze ingots. Which fetch a higher value on the TP.