Guild Wars 2

Zintrothen.1056:

The trap heal worked great in some games today. The extended CD wasn’t much of an issue overall, and I could tell it was helping keep my team alive, especially with Sigil of Transference. Could you clarify about the “old regen” thing?

Another question: what are your thoughts on Rune of Leadership over Soldier? The traited elite shout is a CD of 48 seconds, which times perfectly with Leadership. I’ll also be running the trap heal, and the teleport res won’t be used for the condi cleanse. Only protect me the elite would be useful for that, and the elite with Leadership would cleanse two and turn them into boons (possibly 2 seconds of resistance from chill).

Before it was a trap, we could stack regen pre-fight, by casting it. Now that it is a trap, the regen only comes when the trap is activated, so when the player lost some health, which limits the ability to stack regen.

Only for personal condi cleanse, Lyssa is the strongest (I believe). But it does not give the many advantages the other give.
Leadership; I’m not sure of it’s range. If it’s below 360, I do not feel it would be worth it to take it if thinking about allie’s condis.
Soldier. it’s strong points are vita and toughness. Personnal sustain. I personnally find a one condi per shout taken off weak in the current meta, especially since it might be taking off a weak condi, and not the one that’s killing you.

All in all, ranger have alway been somewhat adaptable in PvP.
It is not a “one build to conquer them all” kind of class. It kept that versatility with the introduction of druid.

Hello!
What I meant about the traitline was that you rely on pet for damage on the one hand, yet you rely on hurting the pet for automatic stunbreaks and condi cleanses. Condis might be just blind that would make your next pet attack useless, if he takes it from you, or it may kill it, while you would have few or no way to save it. Plus, stun and dazes that the pet takes from you stop it’s attack. Sending them to pet in a non-BM build is a good option… Sending them to pet in a BM build has always seemed counter-productive to me. If you’re good with it, and you did take it in consideration, then go with it…

About sigils, in the patch note after they the runes and sigils were re-worked, or in the explanations they gave surrounding the sigil change, Anet stated something that two runes of the same category wouldn’t stack, just like on-kill can’t stack, or two same quality air sigils share the same CD.
Can’t find the post, it was too long ago for me to remember precise words to look for it.
About power, your power is 1900 unbuffed. which mean a basic maul would do only average 1200 damages, so not even a 2 k critcal hit.
Why waste a sigil for 3 crits that will not even give you a 1.5k bonus in the standard swipe (749 base + 375 crit), hilt bash (390 damage +190 crit), maul (1247 base, plus 623 crit) rotation (damages are the one indicated in the build editor). It is even worse on staff. 3 crits per switch on a low damage build would have a meaning with on-crit bonus (from traits or sigils), which you do not have.

Heal is really a matter of preference.
Many prefer your choice to survive to high-damages/bursts classes.
with staff you do have a water field anyway, and with allies, you might even benefit from explosions in your celestial water.
These are all just options worth considering. For mobility, I prefer the shout. For point bunker, I prefer the trap.

As far as bug goes, I never experienced the bug where it would not trigger. I did sometimes have one where standing inside, it wouldn’t trigger.
Note: The trap design prevents the old regen stacking from the source…

OK. First. There are a few things that I find off with your build.
Beastmaster/druid, OK. But Why wilderness survival? It hurts your damage source.
It seems to me that nature magic line would better harmonise to the two other traitlines, while still being defensive. Skirmishing, with quick draw, can also help with survival (eg, when using staff 3 or staff 5, the staff 3 (combo heal / explosion in water field) or GS 3 or 4 as first attack) while also being offensive (staff 4 and GS3 can help your pets land hits).

I also see that you use sigil of intelligence. You have no power. No ferocity. Nothing that triggers on critical hit. They are swap sigils, and you can only have 1 on swap sigil trigger per switch. Permanent bonus sigil of transference might be better. Or the on-hit sigil of ice. Your GS could be sigil of air and sigil of intelligence, and leave the healings sigils on staff. I keep mixing good and bad sigils, so don’t take my word on which sigils are best.

As for fighting. GW2 is made in a way that there are always going to be builds against which we are strong or not.
As a BM, your purpose is to keep your pet alive and help it deal damage, while keeping the attention of the ennemy.
DH. Know their traps. If you are up against a DH, do not try to cross the sword wall animation. You can evade in the sword trap (never cross it!), block with GS, evade with staff 3. Keep protect me to break that stun (if DH traited for daze on trap activation ^^. Get to know the trap laying animation…
If you feel heavy condition damage might be a thing in a given match, I would advise you take healing spring, which cures some conditions. you can also blast it with staff 3, and jump with GS3 for more heals. You can also swap your glyph with glyph of empowerment which gives you 2 condi cure on 16 seconds CD.
The best is still to find the dangerous attacks tells and avoid the arresponding attack. EG, necro might self inflict alterations to send them to you. blind him on th spot, get your pet to taunt them, dodge if you have to…
As for thief, depending on the build, they are pretty easy to make out. I see one goe in stealth, I slowly count until attack. next time I know attack will likely be on the same pattern, allowing me to dodge. Your build migth lasts some against thief (taunt wisely!), but you do not have what it takes to get one of pretty much any builds down. Call for help^^.

Hope it’s intelligible and it helps. I’m not a PvP expert, but I enjoy dueling with my guildies. Take my words with a grain of salt, and practice, practice, practice…
If you can, try to whisper someone who keep killing you to ask if they would be nice enough to do a few duels against you after the match. They could explain what they do, so you can improve. In my experience, most players are nice about it. It really is worth it to try, and really helps to get to know the dangerous things to avoid.

Though I agree that it would be nice to have the possibility to put normal skills on the elite position, it would soon get to be a nightmare, balance-wise.
I feel that possibility would do more harm than good for the game,

anduriell.6280:

Ehecatl.9172:

Rangers have two great elites in Strength of the pack and Entangle.

Elementalists are the ones with terrible elites.

I already pointed you they are pretty bad and the reasons. You saying thing that are good because they are used coz you have to choose one is not a real reason.

strength of the pack
I like the one button 25 stacks might, when well timed with the pet. It might not be much compared to other classes, but I’d rather use a 60 secs utility than a lot of button pressing to get to 15 unconstant stacks.
The awesome amount of stab stackings also help to survive many situations.
We get 3 stacks per 3 sec, so 12 seconds on a 60 seconds CD
Since elem were mentionned, they get, as a regular skill, 6 secs of 10 stacks of stab on a 75 seconds CD.
War Elite, though giving other utilites, only give 2 stacks of stabs every 3 seconds. So total 18 seconds of stab on a 180 seconds CD.
1 second of stab per 10 seconds CD, while we have 1 second of stab per 5 seconds CD.

You might not like that skill, it is still worth taking.

Entangle
It is good in PvE, to gather a pack of mob and keep them in one place while the pet AoE. They are also nasty with conditions.
It is useable in PvP, with good timing. did the foe just used it’s blink/teleportation/burst skill? if he has any? did he just used his dodges, so he can’t avoid them?

In WvW – in most combat, people are not even aware of what struck them, thought the vines usually get destroyed way too fast, it is often enough to secure a down.

glyph of equality
lack of damage mitigation? Did I miss something? Is druid forgotten? Is celestial not allowhing to get back some health? If one can’t stop/evade burst damage, it is time to use it. At least the damage eaten will weaken the ennemy while still allowing us to react.

Spirit
I used to take it when I was, mid-melee in WvW as a revive mechanism, back when we had 70 points and spirits moved. Though it needs two presses, the total activation time is comparable to warrior’s elite banner, on a way shorter CD. At that time, it could also do two revives traited, so it ensured that the ally was raised, enven in heavy AoE situations.
I changed function since, and backline don’t really use this utility…

General notes

I do not consider elites as “always useful”, but as utilities that can change the tide of battle. I feel our elites moslty achieve their purpose, though it would be nive to have them tweaked to fit with current game mechanics

So, all in all, they not so bad, as far as I am concerned… They might not be “Wow” elites, but their CD is decent for the utility they bring.

Edit: @ Wondrouswall, entangle IS unblockable…
+Edited for spelling

John’s quietly watching us ^^

Great work on screenshot :o

As for yellow, they are able to take a color too close to guild, or that wouldn’t be discernable on some monitors.

My preference would go to purple, like the tag.
this color is already in game and easy to make out.

The main problem is that it’s not as vivid as yellow.

As bacline sustain/emergency support, I would love to be able to manually differenciate subgroups – ex: nameplates of subgroup 1 are in yellow, nameplates of subgroup 2 are in purple, nameplates of subgroup 3 are in light blue, and so on. It is not as needed on minimap for my purpose (subgroup color on mini would be great, already), but when I see anyone in my sqad running low on health, I’d like to find that person as fast as possible to send them water field.
Many times, the few seconds trying to find that low-health player is enough for them to be downed…

I guess personnalized colors are way off the system’s capacity, thoug, so subgroup color would already be a great improvement.

They did add the centaurs bag.
I believe adding sand to the loot table wouldn’t be too hard.
Sand is needed for illustrator upgrades, isn’kitten
So not useless…
Anyway… it stills sells on TP.

Ranger / druid might not be in the “best” spot, but I don’t feel we are lagging behind other classes.
We have many working builds (power/condi/healer with or without BM), where many classes only have one or two;
No class have all weapons equally useful / strong. Most have weapons nobody uses, either because of their clunkiness or of their poor scaling.
All distant builds are open to LOS problems on apparently flat ground.
We are not the only profession relying on deficient AI.

The Elem and mesmer ports sometimes get me struck – then I have to /emote to be able to move – easy to do, in combat. Sometimes, I even get struck like that when getting out of Deathshroud… Never figured why… Anyway, that never happened to me on ranger.
Since the stability change, melee classes don’t have it easy in WvW. Casters are insta-killed with DPS everywhere. The unwanted jacks of all trades of the past (engies end rangers) are, imho, the ones that do the best (not considering revenant).

As long as one do not expect rangers to be a ranged only classes, we are in a good position.
When I ask the PuG WvW l;eader which class I should bring, most say my main is best, while they used to ask me for elem or necro.

All classes have ups and downs.
And I do not believe rangers are still in the “more downs than ups” category…

I can only +1 on keyring.
Really annoying to get the fancy to go on a map (answering taxi LFG), with a character that doesn’t have the currency.

I also dream of a blueprint holder that would allow an account-wide access to blueprints (how many times am I in WvW, with everyone asking who has x plan, cause all of us who carry plans around are on alts).

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

- Quaggan security team

- Fighting minis

I see my team’s minis figting off other teams’ minis, as long as owner is in combat

:o

Well, but as fast as one can press buttons, there is a limit in the number of explosions that one can do in a 3 sec water field ^^

I’d be more than happy to buy a shared bag for account-bound siege.
And a rune / sigil recyclor is a great idea

A stealth commander item that would allow commander tag to be hidden to non-commander and people not in squad.

Tower decorations (like we have in guild halls, but for WvW structures)

WvW guild halls sets – To get WvW upgrades for our guilds without needing to do PvE.

How does the Ranger compare with the Engineer…

I would say the learning curve of the engineer is way steeper than the ranger’s one.
Anybody can play ranger, and get going with minimal dedication and work. Few are the players who master the ranger.
The engineer is very sub-par if he is only casually played. To really take advantage of it, one has to use the many combos it offers (it can explode up to (5?) times in it’s water zone, for instance, which means lots of heal, or it can might stack by exploding in fire fields multiple time, and so on). And to use the combos, get ready to switch a lot.
A bad ranger can go on playing PvE, for his pet eats the damage. A bad engineer would get rekt if he doesn’t know what he is doing. I brought mine up to 80 with flamethrower, but I can’t solo a WvW old-style tower with it, while I could with my ranger. Good engineers I know can solo the new tower lords without problems.

So, all in all, it is just different gameplay.

I don’t mind specific content giving specific skin.
I do mind gated content giving better stats.

Current legendary can be done at a slow pace. I play, I get stuff, nothing more, nothing less. If legendary armor is acessible game-wide, but that raids give a specific legendary skin, that’s ok for me. It is not OK if raids are the only way to get legendary armor.

I like to explore at my own pace. For me, this is casual play. Having to join a HP train to get HP is not the gameplay I like. I like to walk a map and just do the HP’s I come by. I don’t mind map events needing more people, I like it actually. I meet people, and do events, as I freely roam the land.

So, for me, the rewards gated behind ONE content and the necessity to group for HP, while HP are a personnal advancement are what I’m having the most problem with.

I also remember a time where we would get an event item just for playing as we wished. We could do the dailies or do specific activities achievements to get the events reward. I’th not much, but it’s a kind of “I was here”.
For example, there have always been haloween crafts that would need a somewhat more “advanced” play to craft.
But, If I did the daily, it would give me one “haloween events” point. I did the nex day’s daily, another point in. I kill a monster in the lab (which was an achievement), another point.
I was rewarded for my casual play.
People doing the clock tower or who farmed the Lab were able to get more, but I had basic reward for basic play. I would not complain for not doing the shield, people worked for it…
This year, there was no reward for casual (haloween and wintersday). One had to do specific events for the collection things, specific events that not everyone could do. Lots of resources were needed in a short timeframe, far from what a casual like me could or want to put in.

I feel cheated. Yes, for an ugly skin I would never wear, or a miniature that I would never show.
I should get a little something to show I did take part in whatever event, as it used to be.

But yes, there was a time GW2 was casual friendly.
For me, casual-friendly is not about giving casuals the same as hard core, but about giving casuals the possibility to get something for their involvement.
I do not feel I can get much HoT stuff with my current involvement.
I feel sad to have nothing to show for wintesday and haloween participation.

I enjoy the difficulty.
I do not believe PvE should be easy.
I like how the new maps are a group effort, without being too penalising for empty maps.
I like playing with random people, joining in an epic fight, then going our own ways till we possibly meet again.
I don’t like having to beg in /map for people to come help me at “whatever hero point”.
I believe hero points are personnal and that it should be possible to get them alone.

Did it 3 times, at the beginning.
Only once the patch update cut it short. I usually avoid intense gaming (such as this two hours run) in the few days after an update.
I also restart the game before, to clear up memory.

If you always are playing at the same time, maybe try some other times, if you can.
My guildies who PvE after our guild raids seem to have more problems with closing instances than people playing during prime time or at more quiet times…

For a levelling purpose only, I would say the first signet (signet of the hunt), so that you can go faster on the maps (active goes well with Maul – GS#2).
Then traps – they will allow you to tag more mobs in events, and ice and fire traps offer nice combo fields (ice, less in PvE, though) so traps up to fire.
Then survival. Lightening reflex is nice as a get out ability, and Quickening zephyr adds to your DPS.
For traitlines, I think skirmishing would be a nice first one – already go for spotter and quick draw, which raise DPS.
(now, there are as manu ways to level a ranger as there are final builds, so any way, they would work).

The state of our Weapon, from a direct damage perspective, in PvE is LB and sword/Axe.
word is tricky to use, I strongly advise checking these vids out https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0YdygHp1vKfJ6iu9ZIIeWOQYNVexSeJW
though old, their swrods comments are still true. (I personnaly don’t use sword – I use GS, which is not too much of a lost with QD).

foste.3098:

…
Replacing the leap and kick animations with generic ones and allowing the new 2nd and 3rd aa skills to give you super speed (with their current effects of cripple and pet might) upon starting the skill will have the exact same effect as the current aa chain does. Only difference will be you will always have full free movement of your character while hammering your quick auto attacks and will still have the (as Wondrouswall posted the math) same chasing ability of the current sword aa!!!!

I detest ignorant people who refuse to look farther then their established perspective of things.

Super speed is not an auto leep to target…
thus it would not ensure the ranger sticks to it’s target like it does right now.

And I detest ignorant people who refuse to look farther than their desired perspective of things…

Sword AA is unique, it is the only skill that keeps the player tied to it’s target, which is a feature many people like and they have the right to like it. It’s OK for you not to like it, but it’s not OK from you to dismiss what others like just because you don’t.

It would be great to be able to dodge, but if allowing dodge means losing a great feature, I’d rather keep the great feature…

(nota, calling ignorant people who don’t agree with you is not an argument, and is unlikely to get any sympathy for you real arguments)

If they have stability, they cannot be stunned or launched.
Jade wind is a stun. Consume chaos is a launch.
It’s easy for most groups to come in battle with at least one stack of stability.

You might also get blinded, which would negate the effect of those skills.

Depending on balances iterations, rangers/druids are great for your options.
If you know how to play with your pet, use your offensive/defensive abilities well, and, like others said, don’t AFK on LB, ranger is a great class.
Especially in PvE, where the pet takes less damage, and where mobs don’t run off or don’t use terrain to negate your damage.

I would say, the more the better.
Do not hesitate to pair rangers with revenant, and War with elem. You do not need to have only one 80 class. enjoy your leveling time, since GW is about the journey.
The interconnections between those pairs are great.
Elem has lots of fields, which your war can finish (combo). Your ranger can have many combo fields that your revenant friend can finnish.

Classes have very different purposes and uses. Straigh DPS is not the only point.
Sometimes, you will find it really handi to be able to switch.

Rangers are in a better state than the old unwanted everywhere.
It is hard to get Raid meta (on metabattle), since it depends a lot on encounter and group composition.

Pets got a boost in PVE – any mobs hits them for less, unless they are apecifically targetted. It is not likely to ever being applied to players, since the reductions are calculated from the damege dealer, and players have too many attack – it would take too much resources to calculate.
So, in PvE, rangers and druids are used and are not shunned as they used to. I believe we are still over Necro.
Passive and active defensive abilities increase, along with more possible damage increase got us in an OK position in PvP and WvW roam.
Druids gave us group utilities that make us somewhat complete for WvW zerg purpose, but we are still less wanted than GWEN + Revenant.

Thieves replaced us in the bottom of the barrel, but things might change with the upcoming balance patch (balance patches are now every 3 months, so not too bad)

(edit: pets AI and pathing is still as bad. I don’t expect it to get any better anymore. They seem to try to give more utility to pets, and to take in consideration the fact that we do not decide where the pet is by giving ranger-centered pet utilities, e.g., pet teleports downed ally to you on the revive shout, healing from you, and not from pet on that shout use)

Some people enjoy the fact that the AA is keeping the player on target. This is a very unique feature. It also allows for higher play (check these out : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0YdygHp1vKfJ6iu9ZIIeWOQYNVexSeJW)

Take AA off, manually aa to time the jumps/non-evades attack, and there you go!

Tragic Positive.9356:

Mcrocha.3891:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Mcrocha.3891:

I disagree. We have good burst now with pets. The problem however like you mentioned, is that thieves might be difficult to deal with. We will have to see as glass ranger has a few new mechanics thanks to hot to deal with thief, namely Celestial Shadow, an on demand smoke field, and now the new PM.

That’s a spike. Not burst.

I’m not going to argue semantics with you. But if we’re being like that, then no class except warriors have bursts.

Mesmers and Thieves do.

You can’t compare a hit for 8K form a thief’s backstab against Bristleback that has a 3,5 second cast time while adding a pet swap + Smoke Assault that has another 2 second cast time.
It is an increase in DPS, but it doesn’t tear your HP out of nowhere in a split of second.

Burst is an attack or series of attacks made to hit simultaneously resulting in high damage dealt in the least time possible.
Spike is a combination of attacks that makes your DPS go higher than average for a limited amount of time.

With all due respect… You can’t consider a combo that takes 5 seconds to execute to be a burst, can you …

Mesmer and thieves are paper. They need to burst and get out or die. And mesmer’s burst is most of the time pretty easy to avoid, when you know what to look for.
Thieves had it pretty bad in the last Meta – worst than us. Nice for them they are getting something, even if it’s not really what I’d call on point.
Can’t compare oranges and apples. They are fruit, but that’s it…
We are way more durable when focused than the two classes you cited…

I used to be sad with the state of ranger. Now we have many working options. Might not be best, but we are not bottom of the barrel anymore either.
LoS, terrain bugs, pretty much all classes suffer from it one way or the other. Rangers have been somewhat upped, even if pet are still problematic. I am not feeling like a half something (wannabe war, wannabe thief, wannabe whatever). I am feeling like a ranger – one that roams the lands to steadily bring down foes, with the tools to keep foes away if I want, and also with the tools to defend myself from close if I want.

Do we have weapons that could use some love? Yes. Pretty much all classes do.
Do we have no working weapons and build, like we used to? No, We have working options.
Always look on the bright side of life!
Given the fact that there is not gonna be only damages that count for events participation, it’s pretty good.
With each balance iterations, we get closer to the description.
Coding takes time, and it’s not a task on which one can just assign more people for it to go faster. They have to work with an achitecture where everything is interrelated.

On an other note
I might try the new search and rescue In WvW zerg. Even if it’s just one person, getting one downed ally out of harm’s way to allow for revive is gonna be great. Even if it’s just one target, it can change the tide.

I would enjoy having more. I have a character’ bag full of keys and other event-related items. It would be great to put them all in a shared bag, so that I wouldn’t feel like I’d better take the specific character to go on “x” map.
Also, most of my blueprints are on one character. Sharing them would be so convenient!
Food and boosters also would be nice to share.

Maybe it would be doable to have someting like “18 slots account-wide blueprint unlock”, or “20 slots consummable account-wide unlock” to avoid a price that would be too high per slot, while not making the price to low for account-wide single slots in which gemstore items (copper fed recycling, airship passes, …) can be putted?

Also, an option to “exchange” gemstore items with slots? Like, I have 3 copper-fed salvage o matix, adn would only need one, now, so it would be great to “return” a copper fed (800 gems) for a slot (700 gems). The difference would make-up for the “used” portion?

Or could the extra copper-fed get a one time option to be gifted?

Fuzzion.2504:

Everyone is correct. WvW today is about playing cancer builds and classes. Prior to hot, wvw was more fun and better. The inbalance today is crazy.

Cancer builds and imbalances did not come with Hot. They existed long before. Just think GWEN – it was all that was needed. now, pretty much all roasters make use of pretty much all classes (feeling a little sorry for the thieves, though).

People are getting tired of a game. it’s normal attrition. I know I’m almost at 5k hours, which is way more thant what I spent on any other game, so I believe retention rate is pretty good, altogether…

We need server chat. Just like we have map chat, local chat, team chat. Server chat could be used to indicate that there is activities going on in WvW.

I remember befor megaservers, we used to go in cities to say “name is leading on map, and name is to tag up on map at time” and that would bring people…

Gold and such might be an incitative, but we don’t want to attract a populaiton of people who disappear when the going gets hard. Some people really just look for something to do.

When I was commanding, I had a few PvE’ers in my frind list that I used to whisper to When I putted a map in wood. One loves to siege up with his guild, another liked to take objective with her two friends, so they needed paper structures or undefended ones to have a chance.
Server chat might be used for that, or to say that structure on map is under attack, and get some involvement.

Conner.4702:

ham.8209:

Lord of Rings.5371:

Server population check online

Markus.6492:

www.gw2-tools.com/worlds.php

thank you Lord of rings i knew this information was here some place. just for got this

part of it. and also thanks for posting this too now maybe some will get the idea

more better but iam not holding my breath on it

Meaningless data without actual numbers, though I know it’s easier to just spew nonsense as fact rather than actual facts.

All we know is there SEEMS to be less people in WvW. Are there factually less people, only anet knows. I know for a fact that I spend a lot less time in WvW, but I can only say that for myself. It could be most people do the same as me and just do some dailies. It could also be people avoid it all together. While the end result is the same the reason for it isn’t.

Here is a fact for you that you seem completely oblivious to. Anet peridodically changes the threshold for low/medium/high and full servers. Without actual numbers all you are spewing is bloated opinion not fact.

Great summing up of how it is…
I would add that lower population on some servers might also be linked with transfers.
Was there not a big movements of NA WvW guilds at approx. the time HoT got out, in a effort to spread the population?

There was a drop of wvw population during the halloween events – which is always the case (On most server, WvW activities gets lower when there is a PvE event)

Without firm numbers, we cannot know if total numbers really went down.
Example
Full @100 +
High @75-99
Med @ 50-74

Before………….After
a-110 ………….99——————From full to high
b-105………….98——————From full to high
c-110…………..95——————From full to high
d-101…………..90——————From full to high
e-098…………..92——————From high to high
f-089…………..96——————-From high to high
g-085………….93——————-From high to high
h-076…………74——————-From high to med
i-062…………..73——————-From med to med
j-054…………..72——————-From med to med
k-065………..62———————From med to med
l-055………….66——————-From med to med

In this example, total number is always 1010
Before, we had 4 full, 4 high, 4 med. After, we have 7 high and 5 med.
The removal of full, does not equal in lesser population.

Also, OP keeps stating he/she knows for a fact that Anet didn’t change the treshold. Ham, you can believe what you want, believing does not make a fact.

Even if PvE population is not used for world population anymore, new players cannot join full servers, so it would make sense for Anet to change the tresholds fot HoT realease, given the amount of players wanting their frieds to join them.

I know “for a fact” my server’s population went up with the arrival of new guilds, or with some old guilds coming back. Even if it is listed as “high” since August. We have more players most of the time.
I know “for a fact” I am playing less WvW. HoT gave new PvE to explore. New ways to enjoy the game. A chase fot new legendaries. Raids.
Anet’s data would show that I am playing less WvW, but that I spend more time in PvP and PvE. That my overall playtime is somewhat lower, as it always is around the hollidays.

Taking the previously full BG, It was full up to oct 26, then very high up from oct 27 to nov.2, on Nov.3, it got back to full, then went back to very high on November 24…
TC was full up to oct 26, then very high up from oct 27 to nov.2, on Nov.3, it got back to full, then went back to very high on november 19…
These two servers seem to have shifting populaiton depending on the PvE Events (Hot reales / haloween, raids reease, followeb by winterlude)

YB played yoyo.
Full up to oct 26, very high up to nov.2, full up to nov.11, very high up to nov.19, full up to nov.24, very high up to the 30th, full up to dec. 7, then very high since then.

JQ’s only “very high” episode was from nov 24 to Nov. 30, incl.

Except for TC – they all went down on Nov. 24.
A quick look of other servers also shows a decrease for a few days in the end of november (on nov. 19 or 24)

I am not going to try to analyse these datas. Ups and downs might be because of PvE or PvP releases. It migh be that the players favourites commanders were off. It might be because guilds moved around. It might be because of the designated period taken in consideration by the Anet algorythm.

All in all, levels of population proves nothing….
It is not solid data…

We used to have big balances patches every six months, with almost no changes in between.
I love that they now take care of bugs, instead of just always hiding them under shinies elsewhere.
They already came a long way, and making balances on bugs is not the way I hope they would take.
I wonder what those “unnamed awesome e-sport games” who do better are really doing. I guess they do have their downsides, like LoL, that changes so much that what was great yesterday is garbage the next day? or are they unidimentional games that are way less interactive than GW2 is? If there was such an “awesome” game, then why not just go there?

I want to thank Anet Devs for their dedication, for looking at incredible amouts of codes to try and correct what went wrong.

Maybe the ones who are so sour and salty should take a GW break, and just focus on those games they find so great…

No to EotM style WvW. It would just kill it…

They stated druid was intended to be “burst healer”, that mean, evaluate when a burst heal is to be the most needed. (Guards and Ventari rev. are meant to be the sustained healers)
I find staff heals (with almost no heal in my build) is correct. If it is not good with healing power, maybe they should look more closely at coefficients…

The headache would come if they would change Astral form to be almost permanent… already some people complain abour druid sustain. With permanent access to heals, what kind of complaints would arise? how could it be balanced? Heals would need to be nerfed, wich would not be a good thing – we would no more be burst healers, wich, imho, would be a loss…

About AF genereation, I can only agree that it should be a percentage of healing and damage dealt, and not a flat amount per healing or damage tick. Adjusting that would make it easier to balance druid, and would be a more intuitive approach for players

The Ace, I looked at your post history.
Your argument would be way more believable if you didn’t only write posts complaining about nerfs to the class you played at the moment and things that hot you killed otherwise.

If that ranger played traps, notice the bending down animation of laying traps to not go there; CC him and druid is easy kill…

I got owned by reaper last night. My whole party got owned by a DH, reaper duo. I know many complain about reaper and DH right now, but I also know that they outplayed us.
If druid was so strong, I would just own everything… I beat some build, some build beat me, I adapt my build, and then beat the one who beat me…

Balance in game is not all things equal, it’s about paper-rock-scisors. Some builds are stronger than some other, which can be beaten by others…

Arcan Soulstorm.4356:

Notsoperky.2348:

I like the ‘also’. Are there still ruins? No. So there is no ‘also’ unless there is something in addition to shrines that counts?

Why should there still be ruins (now)?

However this would make sense considering that I’ve red on reddit that someone heard about inofficial rumours that they’ve promised to look at putting a borderland rotation on the table.

They said it when they first announced the extention, that there would be map rotations.
They also stated they would keep the new bl at least a month – I guess to allow players to get used to it, and get data to work on.

I’m on Augury Rock (fr).
It has it’s ups and downs.
There is a core of grear players who really enjoy seeing new faces.
They are welcoming and communicate much in map.
Out of that core, most are individualistic. They do the minimum to be nive to the community, no more, no less.
Welcoming and open to real interest, they are hard on broken promises and hardly ever forget any kind of perceived wrongdoings. They also take to trolling any newbies who they perceive as arrogant.
Communication in /map are not optimal, but they are existent.

Organisation made up of coordinators and moderators try to hold ot together, but the more time passes, the harder it is to keep the guilds cooperating.
We have been stable at 9th position for quite some time, but the increasingly individualistic approch of some, the lack of pug commander in-prime and off-prime and a lack of continuity in the coordination team had our numbers going down.

You obviously gave quite a though about this, Melanion, and it does answer most complaints against both ideas.
But except for the color choice, it is too much like EOTM.
No permanent map = no incentitives to play strategically, which might mean K-Train or fights.
The 50 blue would get tired to be outnumbered, and would falter, or green subsequently getting numbers would get on a map where red already established themselves.

Language have not been discussed.
Shoveling under the rug the server identity and the desire to keep playing with people we know is not adressing it…
(Appart from one who present the possibility of a dynamic server based alliance)

The problems with dynamic temporary server merge :
-language (how to organise with servers we don’t share a language with? )
-culture (would it be two servers who hate each other or two servers who react differently – read a post from someone who moved from ET who got insulted for asking about a contested objective – and that is only one point of culture)
-Map capacity. In EU (from mid silver? In silver and up?), maps are pretty full at primetime. but pretty empty otherwise (depending on commander and who is winning) bringing servers together would only create file at prime, without changing much about shalow times.

An anecdote. Most nights, we are somewhat 5 to 20. A commander came. We were 30, then 40, then, after somewhat a month, we were regularly 50-60 when he took the lead. When he was leading on daytime, he would fill a map.

All servers have access to numbers. But they need to go get the people. To make it so people want to join. Stop begging a third party to save them and start saving themselves.

Why would you punish your self by joining one? Most guilds have guilds they like / dislike /hate and take it bad if their players play with the ennemy. In pretty much every guild there are clusters of players badmouthing other clusters. It eventually make drama and the guild implode.
Any WvW guild around for some time has those little problems of part pushing for optimusation, part not wanting to change, part wanting to help server and part wanting nothing to do with it.

Even with same-minded individuals, dramad lurk in the backgroung. Some may like it, some don’t. I know I don’t.
I enjoy playing with who I want, when I want, not to feel guilty because I play with soneone my guild does not like because he is part of x guild we should make fun of.

Saying servers have no identity is twiting the reality to make it fit the concept.
Vizunah went down when it’s leader stepped down and went back up when he came back. Jade Sea was below AR and did manage to reach out to it’s populaiton despite the megaservers, to enroll them and to get them fighting around the clock.
My server, AR, has for a long time been around 9th position. We lost people because we were not able to motivate our troops – because we arean individualist bunch.

3 servers, 3 identities. 3 national servers, should I add.
Those alliances do not consider langage. They take for granted that everyone can and want to play in one langage.

And languages often mean timezone. French would play from 9-11, spanish are more active 11-1, Deutches are earlier, and so on.
On EU, server identity is not just pride, it’s also the ability to choose to speak in your prefferred language with the insurrance that everyone will understand you.

I’ve seen french writing on megaserver map, being told to go english please.
Alliances… We would need to make alliance with foreign speaking people to get a working alliance? Because our guilds are not playing around the clock. They play at prime time. Most don’t accept pugs when they raid. Most guild commanders hardly command in pugs. Pugs are the ones making the MU, they are the ones getting together to get things done, they are the ones creating the spirit that makes people stick for a little longer, out of prime time.

Leadership of the community, that is what keeps people on a server – Few of our servermates went to winning free server. The community kept us together.

Alliances is not going to solve anything. It would only stop people from playing together.

I raid with my WvW guild once a week. Almost all night I pug for a few hours. My mates are more my fellow night’s group than my guild, but I wouldn’t want to give up my weekly outings with them.

The new map should not be a reason to ask for a change in how things work.
It is unlikely that they would increase the population, given the server load.

I believe how they are doing it is good. It might take time, but eventually it will trickle down – just give it the needed time.

Skyhammer is about position awareness.
If I am bumped or feared out of a platform, it is because I’ve let myself in the position to being feared off or bumped.

I don’t like this map because so many people have no clue about what to do with it, but I do like how strategic positionning is on it and how it makes environmental awareness a very important part of gameplay.

All great, imho, except for 4 and somewhat 5.
1. Before changing the way upgrades are ordered, I would just change how they are gotten. I mean that dolly and camp should be required and that time should play no role.

2. Money, badges, whatever, they have to be earned, or gotten through the community. I used to send gold to scout, because scouting is something I cannot do, but their work is awesome.
I can’t send badges… it would just be back to “always the same contribute”. So I do not believe it should be paid. Might be ordered, but not earned.

3. I don’t mind the current block upgrades, but I wouldn’t mind a six-tier approach.

For the little I played, the upgrading choice is not the main problem. Automatic and relatively fast upgrades with no camps needed is.
Take that off, then we can see if the upgrading scheme needs changing…

Some people wont most duels playing rangers when rangers were bottom of the pile. Winning means nothing more than a player met opponent that were of lower level or whose builds were no match/ countered by the winner’s build.
Only problem is TU charging LF at a too high rate.

Verticality is fun with gliders and mushrooms. It is not in WvW.
I do not feel auto upgrades are the problem. Auto upgrades are too fast, which is the problem.
Roamers (who might kill dolly) do not much go on them because they find noone to fight. Dots on sentinel are not much use, because it takes too long to get there.
It is hard to get a WvW gang to do middle PvE event.
Last night I had from 3 to 7 people with me. In 3 hours, going twice on EBG to help the one scout who was there, we still had one tower and one fort to take on our home. The one ram we could build would take too long to open, the camps were so far that walking back took forever, the mobs spawned so fast we had to leave a figher with the ram guy to help.
The boss fights are gimmicky and too PvE like.

While my little gang usually keep the tick at somewat 200 + at nights, we were only averaging 130 something, despite noone defending, because it was upped everywhere.

One big bis do not gave the high end on these new maps, bit groups below 10 are almost useless…

The purpose of this post is to try to find sensible solutions to the loot problem in WvW.
Please keep your comments constructive and on topic, so that our forum specialist have good points to bring to the dev, or so that the dev can easily consult the thread.

First, lets start with two points raised by Devon on Reddit.
1-loot in WvW is higher than perceived because it keeps dripping
2-it’s hard to balance loot because of possible collusion

1-We might get lots of green and blue, but these are not worth much. The drop rate of yellow, exotics and ascended is subpar compared to PvE.
A) Maybe the loot tables should be checked to be proportional to PvE loot. For example yellow and up drop rate should be increased in level-up chest.
B) The chest might also be dropping materials for legendaries, ascended crafting, special WvW collections or others. This might be decided by the player who would select a ‘path’ (legendary, ascended, huntsman, cooking, armorsmith, wvw skin, and so on, depending on player’s interest)

2-I believe this is a false problem.
A) a while ago, something have been added to PvE maps, so that loot would be reduced for players who farm it too much.
WvW has something that reduces WxP of foes killed too fast.
The same kind of system might be added for capture; a player always capping gets reduced WxP. It might be harder to implement because in PvE, I guess, the duration of a player activity on the map is considered, while we want the nature of the activity on all maps to be considered, but I do not believe that this is impossible.

So your take?

Though I appreciate the argument of “people should play WvW because they want”, I also think that reward more on par with other game modes would be needed.

With all the new HoT shinies, I hardly go in WvW anymore. I used to be a hardcore player. I spent all my money on siege, on helping commanders or scout, I would get off the main bus to solo a camp or scout a contest, didn’t bother much about tower caps, the mere fact of being on TS with friends was enought.
From 15 or so, we are now down to under 5. We don’t cap fast enough to avoid T4, forts are out of our reach, I don’t make enough in WvW to make up the increased costs of capping structures, camp soloing got way harder, and so on.

Before belt pouches we would go in our server’s lion’s Arch and cities to inform people something was going on in WvW, and convince them to join.

That allowed us to keep our numbers somewhat stable, to renew the population, get new faces in WvW. We could get people for golem rushes, last minute, desesperate defense with few risks of alerting foes.

That way to renew the population and get people yo join fun events that would surprise the adversaries is now hardly possible.

What do we have left to call on our server’s troops?
They need to be brought to WvW, to not have the impression that they are “missing out” on opportunities. I also need it. My guild needs it.

Right now, WvW needs to go in PvE to get hall advancement items, gold, the crafter needed to get guild siege, and so on. How is it that pve guilds can claim wvw forts, while wvw guilds hardly got to buffing camps?

(Sorry ideas not in order because wroting on a phone makes reorganisation hard)

Ranger’s weapon coefficient is lower, that is, the stats a ranger equips have less of an effect on damage as other profession.
Lb hits harder partly because pet has to travel.
30 percent is a general percentage, depending on traits and build.

Guild level also go up with player activities, not just with upgrades.
I believe my guild was somewhat level 7 when we claimed our hall.

Trock Bronze.9625:

Xbon.9086:

Pimsley.3045:

No solution has been found yet, nor have we heard from Anet officially about the problem.

we have on reddit… go watch gw2 reddit

post or link it here then, and redditt is not a good place, facebook, twitter or here is where they need to post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3qnd6w/what_did_they_break_cant_log_in_since_patch/

Same problem, can log in, cant select carqacter, but maps won’t load.
Multiple error codes :
7:0:0:990:101 for a character in the last map
1083:5:7:1595:101 for a character in Lion’s Arch
and others I didn’t note

eventually was able to get in with a reroll.

I believe an easy way to solve the alt problem while keeping with the actual design might be to add a level up token to pve like is earned in WvW, which can be used to unlock HP or to buy little things (nothing that would give an advantage or would sell for too high; champion / hero bag, maybe would be fair)

It keeps a cap on HP earned, it allows to earn specialisations for alts without doing Hero challenge or while playing other classes.

For me, 250 is a great balance between too easy and farming days to get.

I do not mind having to wait to get it on alts, I took the time to level them up, dicover some part of the world with them, I’ll take the time to keep on advancing them.

I used to have fun when I logged in.
I’d connect, then look where are my friends, then decide on what I’d do.
I mostly WvW. I only went on the new map twice. I did a little bit of lab / halloween.
The rest have been either EOTM farm, or running around the new map.

My main have 100% map completion. I did it slowly, taking time to talk to NPCs. I love the immersion in story.
I didn’t discover the new maps for the sake of discovery. I went on them to unlock HP. I tag event mobs then move on. I get exp, while I look for the next point. This is not how I like to play.

It was the same when they introduced character progression that was linked to events. That was not fun. So, they changed it for the HP progression. At least players got some from normal leveling… I thought this would have shown Anet that gated progression is not fun…

I want the elite to play WvW with my guild. When Anet announced they would allow wvw players a way to unlock HP, I thought it would be one hot HP per level (10 hp). I could live with that 20 to 40 WvW levels… I did not expect only 2 to 4 token while 10 are needed…
Without farming, one would need up to 200 wvw levels…
With my normal gameplay, up to 150 days would be needed to unlock specialisation on one caracter… If I play one character, since token are caracter bound… unless I take lots of room in bank for unopened unstakable chest?
And I thought past levels would give me something… but no…

Anyway, I do not look forward to connect myself anymore.
I log in only to farm EOTM or the new maps…
When a game gets not fun, I eventually stop logging in…

TL;DR

- My profession’s elite is wanted for my wvw raid guild.
- To enjoy it asap, I have to grind a mix of EOTM and PvE.
- Grinding is totally contrary to my notion of fun.
- WvW tokens should be account bound, or chests should be stackable.
- The amount of tokens gained per level of normal play is way too low.

NT needs minion, and won’t BS if there is no path to target (minion)
SW, I know noone slotting it for BS, it has the same shortcomings as our QZ
SA is a trait, like shared anguish for us, except worse because it’s not triggered by controls applied…
PS, 30 sec BS, same shortcomings than many of uor SB, plus the added inconvenience of passively attracting condis…
Plague form / Foot in the grave needs a trait to give one stab… and does not allow to get away…
Infusing terror is reaper and no BS… needs to go in reaper, then use skill 3….

We have Glyph SB on Elite specialisation…

I believe we need a BS on trap, so that condi builds get some BS. Not on spike because it’s already great, maybe on ice trap so that it serves two purpose – Slowing ennemies while allowing to get away…
But I do not think power builds need more SB…

And I do stand by what I said about DS… necro don’t have much more than that… get DS down, necro is down…

Edit to add that we at least have nice mobility and great attenuation in most of our weapons (evades, swoop, stealth, movement skills) while they higly lack the possibility to get out of the way of damage or to evade…

Lazze.9870:

Justine.6351:

You can do everything right and still lose.

That’s not the point, the point is that the ranger is arguably the weakest proffesion in scenarios like that, with no instant stability, few stunbreaks/unreliable stunbreaks, some times with long cooldowns, no ports, little stealth (prior to HoT), awful defensive passive traits (or lack of, rather, which I’m all for except that most other profession got a decent amount).

The evades alone doesn’t cut it, and then it becomes a question about fair balacing.

Necro says hello?
Except DS – which is not much – they have nothing…