Guild Wars 2

Holy SMOKE you guys…. YOU GUYS…….. People need to read this because there is so much QQ about this patch that I think is great and put GW2 into the RIGHT PATH.

First of all, first time I went into fractal, I went in with ONE other player, a friend of mine. We nailed it. Took long but we 2-man’d fractal (the charr vs human battle, the blizzard area and the asura lab) and yes maybe those were a bit easy and also take into consideration that we did it in Scale difficulty 1 because yeah.. it was our first time.. WE STILL 2-MAN’D that.

As my friend logged out and left me hungry for more as I knew there was more than 3 path (that were awesome by the way) I asked a few friends to come and try it. They didn’t really like doing dungeons in the game and one of them is a full berserker glass cannon warrior that has NEVER done ANY explorable and my other friend was a Necro that did a couple EXP.

We went in, difficulty scale 1 still (because they hadnt done it before) and as you figured probably, we didn’t bring ANYBODY else with us, meaning we did 3-man that.
Again I will have to say and precise that it was difficulty scale level 1 nothing to brag about but that is not the point which imma get to in a sec. These are the path we got: The underwater path with the dolphins, the dredge cavern path and the captured collossus path. The underwater was quite easy, with 3 player it took a bit of time to kill the boss but nobody really got into a dangerous situation during the run, the second path was the dredge cavern which was HARD with 3 people and we figured we got lucky that we were 3 since you can’t actually do it with less than 3…. it is literally impossible since you won’t be able to open the doors… but we managed to open each doors and get to the last boss which took us about 20 sec to realize how it worked and about 1 hour of try and fail to kill him WITH 3 PLAYERS. The collossus path took us less time to complete but was rather hard too with 3 players. Would’ve been a cakewalk with 5 (AGAIN.. it was difficulty scale 1 so it’s kinda normal to finish it without too much trouble).

My point is that you said the mechanics were badly designed and this is where I think you’re wrong here, the dredge boss is awesome, there is everything you need in a boss fight, a specific role for someone and a important one at that (the one activating the cauldron of lava), dpsing while moving and dodging trying to squeeze every bit of dps into this 30 sec of vulnerability the dredge beasty machine get and a need to survive at all cost. OP, if I/We did it with 3 people, which one of them never did any explorable before and was fully glass canon, I think the problem wasnt the encounter, it was YOU/YOUR GROUP. It may sound a bit elitist or something and have that flavor of ’’L2P’’ but in that case, it is the truth and you have to face it. You also said that the hammer was not always working but thats probably because you didnt understand how it worked in the first place. You had to kill a chanter with it to get a charge to be able to smash the seals (not needed to have the killing blow but at least ‘’tag it’‘). Normally I’m not the one saying those kind of things as I hate to be ‘’THAT GUY’’ but for real…PEOPLE….. sometimes when you cry on the forums… we just want to say one thing: GET GOOD

Off topic: The fact that you can’t rez(use a waypoint or checkpoint) until your whole group is dead is AWESOME too, no more graveyard running. 5/5 for me on that one.

It is intentional, for what I know at least. We have no way of getting stability so our only way of making sure you stay down and for good is to stealth and finish you off. Please, take note that most interrupt abilities don’t require targeting. I’ve been throwed down while stealthed by a warrior, stunned by a ranger and one time feared by a necro (all while stealthily finishing them). Got to check on the necro part tho maybe he did fear me as soon as I went into stealth.

Wait, wait… we got traps? Never heard of it.

Safer Saviour.9685:

I think you misunderstood what Arenanet meant by their ‘everything is endgame’ retoric.

In WoW, you are stuck running the same dungeons over and over until you get the gear to progress to the next level of dungeons and while running those dungeons can be fun, that’s all there is. You are stuck doing the same content over and over again. What getting to level 80 in GW2 does, is open up the whole world to you. Just like completing a dungeon for the first time in WoW, getting 100% map completion in an area doesn’t mean you’re done. You can go back to the areas you liked, play through the events you most enjoyed and garner gold/karma rewards adjusted to your level (I do believe something has to be done about the loot).

Okay, let me start by saying that I think GW2 has a lot of potential. That being said let me just express how I feel about something.

I don’t know why, really it is hard to understand, why people have such a strong HATE for World of Warcraft. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a fanboy but sometimes we have to face reality. You probably NEVER EVER played WoW to say that you have to run dungeons over and over and even if you did actually play the game and think/strongly believe it was played that way….. HOW IS IT DIFFERENT IN GW2??? For the LOVE of all the ’’KITTENS’’ in this game, can people stop saying non sense and talk kitten and compare those 2 games! Most of you don’t even succeed in doing so ANYWAY. IF.. and only IF you actually in reality played WoW for even more than 10 hours, how can you confirm without a doubt that you were doing dungeons over and over.. and over… HOLY GIGANTIC FACEPALM you were playing the game WRONG. Also in WoW you have MULTIPLE leveling zones.. for god sake if you were bored as hell of ‘’silverpine forest’’ you had the option to go to barrens, stonetalon mountain and such. There wasnt any real incentive to do dungeons at low level except to just see the story and such but eh same with GW2. Anyway my point wasnt to rent about one game or the other, all I am trying to explain is STOP comparing both games if you didn’t intensively played both and have a general experience of MMORPGS in general because all I’m seeing right now is fanboys trying to make ‘’their fav. game’’ look like the best.

On the OP subject, I totally agree.. It may sound harsh coming out that way but being a lvl 80 doesnt mean much, except playing barbie doll with your character.

Honestly not only craft… I’ve looked for rabid set of stats… (precision toughness condition) and even tho it was hard to find.. it was there and found out it wasnt that hard to find actually. A couple of vendor of ‘’dungeons armor’’ are selling this set of stats so it’s all good but for the shaman set of stats… didn’t find ANYTHING at the TP in exotic quality with shaman set of stats (for armor in leather) and didn’t find any shaman armor set sold in dungeon vendor. You also can craft EVERYTHING except soldier rabid shaman… I mean cmon… I thought this game wasnt about stats? let us have the combination we want…. there isnt supposed to be one stronger than another.. RIGHT?

Here is my thief. I may be walking in the darkness but I never lose sight on the light that guide my path.
Here’s Zackath the thief.

Here is my thief. I may be walking in the darkness but I never lose sight on the light that guide my path.
Here’s Zackath the thief.

Looks like everybody knew about it or nobody care at all.

Just to be sure…

B u m p !

There is a potential bug on a trait for the thief that I discovered. (Unless it is working as intended?)

Trait line: Shadow Art

X: Patience: Regain initiative faster while in stealth

1. If you use it with say cloak and dagger/Hide in Shadow/Blinding Powder you will see a increase in initiative regeneration maybe as much as Quick Recovery trait or a little stronger. (Hard to see really)

2. If you use it with Shadow Refuge (mass stealth AOE) the initiative regeneration is strongly increased. My theory is that each time the stealth stack during the ability, it also stack the initiavie regeneration of X:Patience, making it very good. Combined with Infusion of Shadow (gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealth you) you fill up your initiative bar in 4 second (if you don’t break out of stealth of course) and make the trait very good.

Now is it a bug or is it working as intented? Try it yourself.
My opinion: The X:Patience trait in Shadow Art is underwhelming considering you have to be passive in stealth to fully benefit from the trait but if it was as good as when combined with Shadow Refuge, thiefs would think twice before choosing their traits in Shadow Art. Could even make a backstab build in PVE very strong (stronger) as it would allow the thief to Cloak and Dagger and regain the initiative spent from C&D waiting for 1-2 sec (according you have patience and shadow infusion) and using the trait Cloaked in Shadow that blind foes when going into stealth you could stealth backstab 1-1-1-1-5-stealth-backstab-1-1-1-1-5-stealth-backstab and actually blind your foe, helping your group alot. It could be an actual ROTATION, something that this game seems to lack, or don’t want to see implemented.

On a side note: I’ve also noticed a bug (or maybe again working as intented…) with the trait line Uncatchable (leaves caltrops behind when you dodge) and venoms. When you dodge, it consider that you ’’attacked’’ making it proc the venoms (including balisisk venom). Screwed me up alot a few times in sPvP.

People need to grasp something really important about this game. I am sorry for those that were having a laugh for the last month in pvp but it is going too far.

Okay. Let’s say it, loud and clear.

1 TOUGHNESS > 1 VITALITY

Translating into normal language:

In this game, or more like in the current state of the game, TOUGHNESS IS BETTER THAN VITALITY. Therefore, LOGICALLY, if you think you’re ‘’defensive specced’’ with vitality (knight’s amulet and such) YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. You should have WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY more TOUGHNESS than vitality. I hope the caps helped I really really wanted you guys to see it.

Honestly to all those saying ’’NO’’ you guys are really the kind of player that is annoying.
It would ONLY do good to the game. Yes, NO FLYING MOUNT but for god sake all the ‘’no to mount and this is why’’ argument are EMPTY OF SENSE. You guys seems to just not want mounts because it would feel like ’’WoW’’ and such and you just don’t want to be like that or maybe you’re afraid someone will have a better looking mount? (which would be ridiculously ’’kitten’’ in a game where you only do things for the look)

Let’s completly crush some argument:

1. People will miss the content.

Wait, what?.. If someone pass by a D/E on a mount and doesnt do it, it isnt because he’s on a mount, it’s because he ‘’DOES NOT WANT’’ to do it. Same thing happen when people are on foot, they can and will pass by and not stop for the event if they don’t care. So missing the content isnt a point really it’s a false argument throwed in there without any thinking before-hand. In short, no they would’nt miss ANY content.

2. We have Waypoints, we don’t need mounts!

Okay now the trolls/QQer will jump at my throat because I’ll use WoW as an exemple.
In WoW you could have a mount, or something similar to waypoint called a FLIGHT PATH (it is literally the same thing you pay to go FAST to a location instead of doing the run yourself.. except it didnt teleport you there instantly). It didn’t keep me from using my mount? To come back to the argument of ‘’people will miss content’’ well waypoint make people miss content more than mounts, since they just teleport you to somewhere instead of making the trip from where you are to your destination, thus seeing (probably) lots of terrain/content. And seriously, 1.80 silver the waypoint in high level zones crowded with zombies?.. Cmon you are either really lacking intelligence or disagreeing on purpose even knowing you’re wrong.

3. It will give an advantage to players.

This was TRUE in a world like TOR or WoW or any mmo FACTION BASED where you can do OPEN WORLD PVP. You could just ignore your enemies and run by. In GW2 it doesnt happen since, well you know it, there is NO FACTION. Only in WvWvW it would be a problem (MAYBE) but even there, in WoW it wasnt much of a problem until the flying mounts came by. For the love of what is good on earth, why would it be a problem.

The fun part.

Pros: Offer an objective to people and more achievement and cosmetic item and add
to the ’’hero’’ feeling/look.

Are usefull and make people actually want to travel on them, use them to
explore the game and make them view the content. I’d rather have no waypoint
and only have mounts really than the contrary.

It will improve the immersion in the game for a vast majority of players as it does
add to the real aspect of the game. The argument of no mount it doesnt fit is like
saying a day and night cycle doesnt fit.

Cons:
Really I can’t see any.

THINGS TO NOT DO WITH MOUNTS:

1. Give them for cheap. (Make people WORK for them)

2. NO FLYING MOUNT AT ALL COST, it destroy a game.

3. Don’t make them too fast but honestly they should be faster than someone with swiftness otherwise it doesnt make much sense. maybe 50% speed increase or even 45%.

4. OH and also make mounts RACE BOUND. Only humans should ride horses and only a charr could ride a tank or something. Or make it hard to obtain (a mount from a different race that is)

Quite a post and somewhat true, ’’you’re an achiever, you achieve things!’’

Now if you please I’ll go check some other threads so ‘’eat my dust’’.

Efaicia that’s my point. You either can’t read, or didn’t read me at all. I am smashing 1 button in instances and we are doing them easily. I said I was watching the floor in AC but that was because I went melee more than anything. We one shotted the so dreaded lover fight that everyone call hard (which was easy as lying to be honest) as soon as I went mega-blind build things started to be piece cake walk. You’re just throwing non constructive comments raging on about WoW only because I mentioned it once as an exemple. World PVE isnt ALWAYS a zergfest. Where have you been? You’re probably one of those that goes right for the big dragon in sparkfly fen, not watching behind them the people killing the zombies and reviving the technician to activate the cannons. That’s not what I call a zerg fest… The last event in Mount Maelstrom in the volcano. People had to be organized to do it, there is a timer and he does some nasty aoes that one shot you if you don’t move properly or don’t dodge in time. You are obviously playing another GW2 because not all events are zergfest.

Part 2 of my reply (yes it is THAT long lol :P)

Now watch out, just for your info, when I did catacomb with my guildies/friends, we completly crushed it, no wipe on any bosses except the last one (little misunderstanding on the strat) and we were all ‘’glass-cannon’’ (at least I was..) and stuff. We also did Caudecus Manor yesterday and it waskittenfine, easy to not say completly BORING. Why? Let me explain you.

As a thief, if I go melee (which would be a reasonable idea for a thief, right?) and want to dish out some pretty good dps, I get completly trashed, destroyed, cooked and eaten alive by anything that moves. I literally spent half AC watching the floor, licking it while the ranged people where face smashing their keyboards. It was awfull. That’s when I realized that you couldn’t do an instance without being properly specced and geared. That’s why I started doing some builds and tested stuff on mobs and such. I came up with a pretty good build that allow me to almost be able to constantly blind any target that is near me for the entire fight and also gives me alot of survivability, healing and utility. In fact it is by going into the Toughness and Vitality traits lines and going Sword/Gun. The ’’5’’ ability is the aoe blind that last for a couple second.

What I am doing in dongeons: Press 2, Press 1 (get some aggro), Press 5.
When I got the aggro or the mobs aren’t moving around anymore.
Here is my rotation: 5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5……-5-5……………-5-5
(Of course I am also using my utility skills here and there to help my allies but it is pretty much that.)

I am, literally, smashing ’’5’’ each time the AOE blind is gone. Awesome right? You may tell me ‘’why are you doing this then?. Well kitten it worked the instance was so EASY it was boring except for the first boss the robot that one shot you with his missiles when you’re in melee range because it isn’t telegraphed enough… I’m a fan of hard games, heck I played Demon Soul and Dark Soul and loved it. The point is, it isn’t hard anymore nor impossible, it’s completly ridiculous. You either die one shot, or eat the encounter like it was a piece of cake/cookie/pie. Making a fight hard isn’t making the mobs one shot you it is making a mechanic that challenge the player. A non-telegraphed ability isn’t challenging because people don’t ’’dodge’’ it, they just learn to completly avoid it (like I did with perma blind). People are right, the holy trinity isn’t gone, it just changed. Tank/heal/DPS is gone, replaced by Support/heal/dps(ranged dps at that because melee are dead meat).

Exemple of hard but fun fight is Rotface in Icecrown Citadel in WoW. (Pre-buff and before you had awesome gear) Yes the fight wasn’t easy at first but when you learned it, it wasn’t so bad but you still had to have a perfect coordination between group members to do it. You had the slime on you? Run and make it merge with the bigger slime while STILL DPSING. <——- THAT is challenging. DPSING while dodging stuff is incredibly challenging. When you focuse on just dodging abilities because of the ONE HIT YOU’RE DEAD fear well it isn’t challenging nor fun anymore. There is a flaw in their instanced PVE and it can be fixed it’s not a lost cause but as for now, it is incredibly boring/annoying, at least from a melee perspective.

I am sorry for using WoW as an exemple, knowing that many people hate it when it is used as one but it is still one of the best exemple in the genre. Not saying it is a better game too, there are plenty of fight in WoW that are boring as well. Don’t get me wrong I love guild wars 2 it’s just that it’s not a perfect game for now and we have to be objective and expose the flawed design.

TL;DR

There is no TL;DR read it all lol.

Alright, this will probably be a long reply so keep up with me I believe it’s worth it!
(I had to cut it into 2 parts so PART 2 is under this one)

First of all, I want you to know where I come from (as a mmo player). I’ve been playing a tank (warrior) in WoW since day 1 of the game (did warrior dps too) and did end-game content in multiple expansions. I also played a sentinel jedi on TOR (which is, by the way, considered like one of the most hardest class to play in that game as it feels like you need to be a professional piano player to be somewhat good at it) and assumed a dps role. I also played AION, WAR and I played (and still play) EVE online. So, when I tell you that I know something about modern mmos, it isn’t complete bullkitten. When it comes to PVE, you can count me in. Same thing for PVP but usually I tend to go deeper into the PVE aspect of a game before diving into the hardcore PVP. I love to do dongeons and enjoying the PVE with the friends/guildies.

Regarding Guild Wars 2 PVE, I have to say that this is one of the best PVE I’ve seen so far when it comes to the WORLD PVE (as in area events with tons of people like the shadow behemoth or the shatterer). On the contrary, in INSTANCED PVE (dongeons), this game is ’’TERRIBADLY’’ designed. The ‘’holy trinity’’ is gone in a wide environment like in WORLD PVE because there is alot of people that can revive you or because you usually don’t die in 1 hit. The absence of the holy trinity in INSTANCED PVE doesn’t do good… Basically if someone get downed it’s almost a GOOD GAME WIPE IT moment (notice the ’’ALMOST’’). You have NO CONTROL over the course of the fight whatsoever therefore making those fights chaotic as hell and sometimes confusing. We also all know for a FACT (note that when a word is in capital letter it is to emphasize this word and also because I don’t want you to miss it ) that melee roles (dps or tanks) in any games, get the most difficult job e v e r y s i n g l e t i m e. No matter the mmo, a melee role will be difficult (from my experience of course maybe there are some mmos that aren’t like that). This game doesn’t make things difficult for melee dps (let’s say dps because ANET said tanks didn’t exist anymore in their game) it makes it completly retardedlykitten It is either boring or frustrating/annoying as hell.

**NOTE: Most of the comments on this thread that goes around those lines ‘’ oh this isn’t hard I do it like that with X trait or with Y class or by doing Z things’’ are mostly playing freakin RANGED DPS.

Itari.1063:

Dunno why so much QQ. The Game is pretty fine atm. Who said a “Tank” must be able to tank every mob group perfectly? And one hit? hmm the only mob i know who can one hit me is Deadeye when i stand far away which hit me for 70k dmg
Btw i play Elementarist with 13k hp and i rarely die… I would say u do something wrong in most cases.

Play a melee role and let’s see your point of view on that matter after that.

As for me, I play a thief and to be honest with you, as far as I love the concept of ‘’no more trinity’‘, I’m starting to miss this so hated trinity… At least there was some strategy (pre-sunwell BC and stuff) you needed to do enough dps but not too much to not steal aggro and focus on dodging aoe while keeping your sheep on the right target or sometimes kite the boss around if there was a mechanic that was designed to do that. Basically, you had a strategy. Now, honestly, all I see in a dongeon is people running around pressing V to dodge stuff that appear from nowhere in a nanosecond and blow things up, one shotting anything in range or people going down, getting revived, going down, revived.