Guild Wars 2

I find it both sad and amusing that when we get a patch that buffs us and brings us closer to balance with most of the other classes we immediately expect to be nerfed and worry about being op.

I have been a using a power/well build for a long time and after moving some points around yesterday I settled on 0/10/10/20/30 with Death Perception. Torment is a real boon for locking people down and landing wells. Death Perception is really nice and combined with the new LB scaling I can spend more time in DS without feeling like a drain. All around boost for me, but I still get eaten alive by cc just like before. We are definitely doing better, but we are certainly not op.

Also, I have been stomping thieves long before this patch because I have enough def to eat the burst and still be able to go after them. Prior to the patch they would just reset and run or die. Now if I get shackles off they just die.

I am by no means great, but the PuG I ran with didn’t have a lot of trouble. Granted I died on the laser boss because… kitten I’m bad at trying to keep up with the rotation and dodge. But we one shotted it still.

Wiped once on the last boss, but once we got the hang of the mechanics it wasn’t that tough. I actually think the laser fight is a lot less forgiving.

Overall it was pretty fun, so yeah leave it as is. Think it should be permanent dungeon, it’s at least as long as some of the exp modes.

I haven’t played in a few months, but my main has been a necro since headstart. When I read about the revamp I started playing again last week. After the patch today I have to say I am pretty darn happy with the changes. Now I can understand that some people might not be due to a few abilities that got nerfed/tweaked, but overall I think this will open up a lot more build diversity.

My necro is a power/well build and the changes to DS are a real boon IMO. I moved some points around and am currently doing 0/10/10/20/30 (might move 10 out of Death and into Blood) and with the Death Perception I have over 95% crit in DS. LB and LT basically always crit and so do my well ticks. With the increased Lifeforce generation and removing the LB scaling I can actually afford to stay in DS longer and not feel like a drain, add to that the decreases on well cooldown… yeah I’m a happy camper.

I’ll be sticking around for a while I think. Going to try and do some fractals and maybe even some sPvP. Looking forward to it, thanks ANet for giving us a revamp.

Yeah I’m using emerald and beryl accessories. Think I might swap them out for just emerald. The only thing that is bothering me is that I’m sitting at about 2k power, 44% crit chance and 42% crit damage bonus. The crit damage bonus just seems comparatively high and I’m wondering if I should try to swap it out for precision (at least to get 50% crit chance). I’m really maxed out on power unless I want to ditch defensive stats, but I could move some %crit to prec. Just not sure it is worth it. Thoughts?

Also, anyone have a recommendation for a 6piece rune set that synergizes with power/well builds?

I’m running axe/dagger and staff for weapons since the axe scales better with power and dagger for condition removal. Usually running Blood, Suffering, Darkness and either Corruption or Power depending on the fight. Right now I’m 0/30/10/30/0, but I"m considering moving 10 out of Curses into Soul Reaping to maximize DS Life Transfer and Life Blast. Right now I have about 1400-1500 in tough and vit, which is right where I want to be, the rest is in power, prec, and %crit. I have no condition damage atm.

Should I try to move some gear around to ditch the %crit for something else?

I am reconsidering some of my stat priorities and wanted some input. I’m currently running a well/support build with about 1.5k tough and vit. I am primarily gearing power/prec, but to fill in some spots with more defensive stats I’ve also picked up a bit of crit%. I am wondering if I would be better served replacing my 2 pieces of power/crit/%crit pieces with power/prec/cond. I am using axe/dagger and staff for weapons.

OK I have to respond to one part of this. How in the name of…. do you have only TWO designers working on class fixes for the entire game?

Wow, that is really disappointing. I haven’t played in a couple weeks and had really been looking forward to the fixes hinted at for both my classes (necro and ranger). Both got minor fixes and none of the glaring issues even addressed at all. Guess I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up seeing as both classes have been in various states of broken since beta.

This makes me a sad bunny…

That’s not bad. Especially since Fire has a decent radius for AoE. Probably going to go for Fire then. At 1K on normal hits that is considerable more than a non-crit autoattack hits for on my shortbow. Even in full exotics I’m lucky if my autoattack hit 700-750, on plate it is more like 500-600.

Actually I’m more concerned with Explorables/WvW so I am not really considering the stacking Sigils since there is a high likelihood of being downed in that content, which resets the stack.

Does anyone happen to know how the Fire sigil scales compared to Air?

I a trying to figure out the best shortbow sigil for my build so I though I would ask some advice. Currently I’m specced heavy pow/prec (47% crit presently) with some %crit pieces. My second weapon is longbow and for that I am using Rage since I can “usually” time the quickness proc and get off a complete Rapid Fire channel, which seems to work out pretty well for me. I have been using Rage also on the shortbow, but it seems a bit underwhelming.

Options I’m currently considering:
Fire for some AoE splash
Air for the DD nuke.
Ice for maintaining distance in PvP

Any advice?

Armadillo, there are some wandering around in the charr zones, but aren’t tamable. Would make a great defensive pet and they could give it an ability where it rolls into a ball and slams into the enemy :P

Crab, the ones in game are really tough and seem like they would make great defensive pets. I would name it Citizen Snips.

Skelk, they have that cool shadowstep ability that would be awesome in PvP, and they are already semi-aquatic so they would work under water too (need more aquatic pets). Skelk would probably be at the top of my list as a PvP pet.

Skale, similar to skelk, they are small, vicious and semi-aquatic. Would think they would make great pets since they are like little raptors, plus they have health regeneration. I would much rather have one of these than a raptor personally.

Confirmed

I just tested this with a friend in FGS on a champion mob. Fired at him for at least 5 minutes and not a single fury/might/swift proc. I didn’t have the opportunity to test it last night so I can’t comment on it working then, but is is DEFINITELY not working now.

Lauren would you be able to answer if they are Account Bound and not functioning properly or if they are supposed to be Soulbound and are mislabeled as Account Bound?

Same issue. I just spent $5 worth of gems that I bought with cash to buy the Mystic Forge Stones to make these. Made 3 stacks of Mystic Salvage Kits which state “Account Bound” in the tooltip and now I can’t transfer them to any of my other characters.

Is this intended or not? Because if these are supposed to be Soulbound I am ticketing to get my gems back.

Also a Well support build here and I can tell you as I’ve been swapping out condition gear for power/prec/%crit I have seen my Well damage consistently increase. I am currently focusing heavily on power/prec with some dip into %crit by mixing Knight and Valkyrie gear (trying to keep my Tough/Vit high as well). I am picking up some extra vit/%crit through jewelry (pow/vit/%crit gems… Beryl I think)

Currently what I’m using is a Rage/Accuracy Sigil combo on primary (which works really well). I haven’t decided what I want to slot into my staff yet. Perhaps someone could enlighten me on that.

Also as a side note, what is the best mainhand weapon to use with this type of build? I am currently using scepter even though it doesn’t scale well with power, but axe just seems really lackluster in it’s present form.

Yeah I am primarily gearing Knight presently. But I can also swap some pieces for Valkyrie (power/%crit/vit) or even 1 or 2 pieces of Berserker (power/prec/%crit).

I can also pick up some Vit with jewelry as well. I’m just wondering if it is worth it to stack Vit past 24-25k HP or focus primarily on toughness.

Seeing as how I have found a Well build that I am really liking, I’m the process of getting my crafted exotics in the next few days but wasn’t sure on stat priority for defenses. I am focusing power/prec currently with a bit into %crit. Now my question is this – since we have such a high base health pool is it worth it to split defense between vit and toughness or just gear toughness as much as possible? I am currently leaning toward getting my health to 24-25k and then gearing toughness past that. I would appreciate some advice on this one.

Also as a secondary question for a Well power/prec build should I even bother with %crit or just gear power/prec?

What is wrong with the dagger? I haven’t seen it yet, but just based on reading is seems like it would be pretty cool. If I start working towards one it will probably be the dagger, or maybe the axe. But seeing how axe is complete crap in terms of usefullness it almost has to be dagger.

I have a question. Is it possible to set up the system so that you only have to use the authenticator PIN if you are logging in from a new IP address instead of having to use it every time? It is not a huge deal, but since e-mail auth is locations dependent, it would be more convenient if the Mobil Auth worked the same way.

As for quickening zephyr, the old crossfire, firmly clocking a critical mass of 14 bleeds, correctly corresponded to 4.66 (14 / 3s per bleed = 4.6666….). The new critical mass is firmly 10, though it does not tick down to 9 between shots so I am going to treat this as 10.5. This corresponds to a firing rate of 3.5 arrows per second during quickness, or a 25% nerf to the old firing speed of 4.66 arrows/sec. This most certainly seems excessive. The correct firing speed, if quickness is to still double actions, and arenanet maintains their .04 second increase on the casting time, should be ~4.24 arrows/sec, 21% in excess of the 3.5 it is at the moment.

How would it figure into your math if instead of halving the new .04 sec delay in Quickness it leaves the delay as baseline under Quickness. So instead of it being 20ms under quickness is stays at 40ms. That might account for the massive variance we are seeing between the 10% nerf under normal circumstances and the colossal 25% nerf under quickness. It appears what they may have done is instead of adjusting the actual time between shots on shortbow (adding in the extra 40s to the time between shots) they added a delay to each shot, which gets compounded when under quickness because the shots are going faster, but the new 40ms delay between shots stays the same.

What stats should I be stacking for that type of Well build? I just got my Ranger to 80 and have a ton of silk that I can use to craft a decent set of rares for my Necro. I know Condition isn’t great for Well, so what is the best bet? Does Power effect Wells or only Prec/Crit%?

I was thinking of something along the line of mixing Prec, Vit and/or Tough, and Crit%, but if Power boost Wells I should probably mix in some Power there too.

Ok I’m going to be playing around with a new Well build soon and this kind of peaked my interest.

Is it better to pick one defensive stat and get as much as you can (all vit or all tough) or is it better to mix both vitality and toughness if you are goign for a more defensive oriented build? Similarly, for Well builds is it better to focus on cond or cond/prec?

Yeah that is similar to what I was thinking. But I was going to go dagger instead of axe for second set and Plague for elite. That way I can lock down an area for the maximum amount of time with Wells and Plague, and swap to dagger at close range if need be. With high tough/vit I should be able to last the full duration on Plague before popping DS for the AoE.

Probably going to put this on the back burner until I get my Ranger to 80 since I’m going to have to rebuild by Necro’s whole armor set. My current gear is glass cannon condition/prec/crit%, which I am not at all fond of.

Personally I’m a big fan of the Jungle Spider for both PvE and WvW. First thing I did after creating my sylvari ranger was to run to Morgan’s Spiral and tame one. Having 2 roots (one autocast and one F2) is really nice plus the AoE poison field. Also since it is ranged it doesn’t have as huge a problem hitting things. I have been playing around with the devourers too, but I still think I like my spider better.

For second pet it is mostly situational:
- Wolf for the AoE fear both in PvE and WvW since it can really scatter a large group and buy you time. Just wish it casted faster. Also all canine-types have knockdown on auto-cast which is really nice. Before I got my wolf I was using a Drakehound, which was also very good IMO
- Raven is also our only way to Blind that I’m aware of so it comes in handy for WvW and dungeons to eat up some of the big hits.
- Red and Blue Moas if I’m defending in WvW. The AoE protection and fury is always nice. Only problem is the duration is so short. Protection is supposed to be 10 secs and only lasts 4.
I have never been a big fan of bear-type pets, IMO anything they can do other than damage soak can be done better by other pets.

For aquatic I use Armored Fish due to the F2 stun and tankiness and Shark for the Fear autocast and Frenzy F2 ability. My shark’s name is “Way Bigger Jaws”.

Meh, once I hit 80 on my ranger I’ll probably play my necro a bit more. I’ll try to work a condition or well build around scepter+dagger and dagger+warhorn/focus.

I really wish we could get a buff to the axe so it is actually viable. I liked it when I was using axe/focus, but the DPS is just WAY to low to make it worthwhile especially since it really doesn’t stack conditions. Feast needs a substantial boost, 2 needs to cleave, and all the attacks either need to bleed or have their damage buffed to put them on par with the dagger and scepter. Because at present axe just isn’t worth using. Personally if axe applied vulnerability or bleeds reliably it would make it much more desirable.

Are there any viable builds out there that don’t require staff as a weapon choice? After playing to 80 I really do not like using that staff, combined with ground targeting on wells it is a pain for me to manage, especially at close range, and it just doesn’t feel satisfying.

I really like scepter/dagger combo for primary, but since axe is so grossly underpowered (wish I had figured that one out prior to lvl60 when I switched to scepter) and the range on dagger is so short I can’t really figure out how to mix it up. I was considering a high tough/vit well build with scepter/dagger and dagger/warhorn. That way I can have good abilities at long range, but still be able to do something in melee with dagger skills and swarm and pop into DS for AoE and snare. Another idea was something similar, but going condition heavy with signets and epidemic to have multiple ways of spreading conditions.

Any thoughts?

There have been several threads on this and the problem seems to be only with that particular face model/skin. It took me forever to sort this out on my ranger since I used that face as well, but based on mine and others trial and error it only pops up if you adjust the iris size. As long as you do not touch the iris size slider at all you shouldn’t see this happening.

They are lying or obfuscating about having a tool that does it. They are most likely not being dishonest about being allowed to use it or have it activated on live. Our guild received the same response when we lost 2500inf to a bug with the guild system. Regardless, this refusal to replace items/currency lost due to bugs is short-sited in the extreme. The bug we uncovered due to the loss of our influence (which they swore up and down wasn’t a bug and working as intended) would allow someone with upgrade privileges to completely obliterate a guild’s banked influence in seconds with no recourse for the guild. This is something that needs to be rectified on live ASAP, this isn’t GW1 where a lot of the legwork is client-side, nothing short of a server breach is going to allow someone to “abuse” a tool that allows CS people to replace lost items/currency.

The ability to replace items lost to bugs and through no fault of the player is a necessary part of the system. There are no other AAA MMOs that do not have this ability enabled on live. This is going to be an increasingly large problem in the future as the amount banked inf/gold/gems/exotics, etc… increase and start getting lost to bugs. What is going to happen the first time someone loses a legendary through no fault of their own and gets told to suck it up and move on? Can you image the kittentorm that will proceed?

I am sorry to rant about this, I can overlook all the other bugs, but not being able to refund people items/currency they have lost through no fault of their own is inexcusable.

I believe the running thing is intended. As soon as I got into the stress test right before launch I noticed it. They run like a child runs, the logical assumption is that they run like that because most sylvari are very young and from movement perspective running on two legs is one of the most challenging things for children to master. It makes sense to me at least. As for the facial animations, I like them personally, but I have only made female sylvari so i can’t comment on the males.

Now if you want to complain about running animations look at the charr. I cannot play charr characters for more than a couple hours because of the ridiculously slow run animations. It looks like a cat running in slow-mo. Something on four legs should not move like that. It literally bugs the hell out of me.

This post is in response to what I believe is a major design oversight and will continue to cause massive problems in the future. I call it a design oversight since it has been stated by several CS reps as being “working as intended” and “no plans to change in the future”.

That is the inability to replace lost items/currency/characters and lack of warnings on what will cause the loss of large amounts of currency (gold/inf/karma). I’ll state for the record this post is a direct result of my guild losing 2500 inf due to an upgrade that was canceled and the full amount was not refunded and our dealings with CS as a result of it. We were researching an upgrade and someone accidentally clicked speed up to get it done faster, realized their mistake, canceled it, and instead of being refunded the entire amount was only refunded the cost of the original upgrade. In a small (~20 members) guild this is nearly 2 weeks influence lost as a result of what should be considered a bug. Despite several communications with CS (see above) we are still out 2500inf and told to suck it up.

There is no warning or confirmation box on the speed-up option that informs you that if the upgrade is canceled you will lose the 2500inf for the speed-up (which was more than twice the original upgrade). This needs to be made abundantly clear in the guild options or it needs to be refunded because in the future this will be increasingly more common and a bigger problem. We were also informed that there is no way for any CS or dev to add back currency, items, etc even if they wanted to. Are you kidding me? What MMO does not have an ability to replace lost items, especially when the loss is clearly documented in the guild log? This is further evidenced by the fact that if you lose a character to a hack you are only getting a roll-back and not full replacement. In many cases you aren’t getting your characters back. This has been stated to be something that is being worked on. So which is it? Is the inability to replace lost/stolen/error permanent or is it going to be available in the near future? Because this appears to be mixed messages.

The CS reps compared this to someone selling a valuable item in error or having second thoughts. This is a completely flawed argument for several reason. The first being that selling an item in error only affects one person and the second being there is a buyback option to prevent this error when selling to vendors. Further invalidating the argument that this is working as intended is that fact that when you cancel an upgrade you are refunded the price of the upgrade. So if the original amount can be refunded why not the full price that was spent on the whole upgrade? Which leads me to believe this is indeed a bug that CS doesn’t want to admit/deal with. Especially considering that the influence from Tomes of Influence that has been lost to a bug is being replaced with new Tomes.

This bring me to my final point. As more and more people start reaching 80 and losing high leveled characters and gear to hackers the inability to refund lost items and currency is going to be a source of more and more rage. Also, this whole thing has exposed a very serious error in guild management. What is to stop the first POed guild officer with upgrade privileges and an axe to grind from completely obliterating all of the banked influence of an entire guild by exploiting this bug? This either needs to be fixed or the influence need to be refunded, because this is going to continue to happen in the future and the rate is only going to increase.

I am not going to threaten to quit, I am not going to threaten to bad-mouth the game to others, what I am going to say is that at this point, I will be far less likely to spend any cash on the gem store and the same can be said for my guildies. It is going to cost the equiv of $25 to replace the lost influence, which beyond that I wont purchase anything with real money since there are no mechanisms in place to replace in-game items and currency purchased with real money if they are lost to a bug or hacking. This whole situation could have been easily rectified, but instead we are told in effect to “too bad, suck it up”. This is not how you should be treating customers if you want them to keep spending money on your product.

This post is in response to what I believe is a major design oversight and will continue to cause massive problems in the future. I call it a design oversight since it has been stated by several CS reps as being “working as intended” and “no plans to change in the future”.

That is the inability to replace lost items/currency/characters and lack of warnings on what will cause the loss of large amounts of currency (gold/inf/karma). I’ll state for the record this post is a direct result of my guild losing 2500 inf due to an upgrade that was canceled and the full amount was not refunded and our dealings with CS as a result of it. We were researching an upgrade and someone accidentally clicked speed up to get it done faster, realized their mistake, canceled it, and instead of being refunded the entire amount was only refunded the cost of the original upgrade. In a small (~20 members) guild this is nearly 2 weeks influence lost as a result of what should be considered a bug. Despite several communications with CS (see above) we are still out 2500inf and told to suck it up.

There is no warning or confirmation box on the speed-up option that informs you that if the upgrade is canceled you will lose the 2500inf for the speed-up (which was more than twice the original upgrade). This needs to be made abundantly clear in the guild options or it needs to be refunded because in the future this will be increasingly more common and a bigger problem. We were also informed that there is no way for any CS or dev to add back currency, items, etc even if they wanted to. Are you kidding me? What MMO does not have an ability to replace lost items, especially when the loss is clearly documented in the guild log? This is further evidenced by the fact that if you lose a character to a hack you are only getting a roll-back and not full replacement. In many cases you aren’t getting your characters back. This has been stated to be something that is being worked on. So which is it? Is the inability to replace lost/stolen/error permanent or is it going to be available in the near future? Because this appears to be mixed messages.

The CS reps compared this to someone selling a valuable item in error or having second thoughts. This is a completely flawed argument for several reason. The first being that selling an item in error only affects one person and the second being there is a buyback option to prevent this error when selling to vendors. Further invalidating the argument that this is working as intended is that fact that when you cancel an upgrade you are refunded the price of the upgrade. So if the original amount can be refunded why not the full price that was spent on the whole upgrade? Which leads me to believe this is indeed a bug that CS doesn’t want to admit/deal with. Especially considering that the influence from Tomes of Influence that has been lost to a bug is being replaced with new Tomes.

This bring me to my final point. As more and more people start reaching 80 and losing high leveled characters and gear to hackers the inability to refund lost items and currency is going to be a source of more and more rage. Also, this whole thing has exposed a very serious error in guild management. What is to stop the first POed guild officer with upgrade privileges and an axe to grind from completely obliterating all of the banked influence of an entire guild by exploiting this bug? This either needs to be fixed or the influence need to be refunded, because this is going to continue to happen in the future and the rate is only going to increase.

I am not going to threaten to quit, I am not going to threaten to bad-mouth the game to others, what I am going to say is that at this point, I will be far less likely to spend any cash on the gem store and the same can be said for my guildies. It is going to cost the equiv of $25 to replace the lost influence, which beyond that I wont purchase anything with real money since there are no mechanisms in place to replace in-game items and currency purchased with real money if they are lost to a bug or hacking. This whole situation could have been easily rectified, but instead we are told in effect to “too bad, suck it up”. This is not how you should be treating customers if you want them to keep spending money on your product.

Posting again:

Ticket# 120920-000802

Finally got a reply today which was another copy/paste response and still didn’t fix the issue. We lost 2500 inf on a canceled upgrade, with no warning that it would happen. Can we please get an actual resolution to this issue? It has been sent back twice now.

Guild: Prophets of the Infinite Edge
Server: Tarnished Coast

Posting this for a guildy:

Ticket# 120920-000802

Guild functionality bug, lost 2500 influence on a cancled upgrade. Been 5 days and no follow-up from support.

As much as I really hate to say it you can count me into the re-rolling as well. I have been playing necro since head-start (I didn’t get into any of the BWE) and would say I am at least moderately skilled at playing the profession. After hitting 80 and doing some PvP I have come to two possible conclusions. Either I don’t have the necessary multitasking skill to make this class work in PvP (I don’t think this is the case because I have my usage of DS down and have a good handle on condition spreading and wells) or that the necro in it’s current state just isn’t viable in PvP.

When I can roll a ranger, warrior, or mesmer alt and immediately hop into PvP and do better than on my lvl80 necor something is wrong. We simply don’t have the DPS to burn someone down before we get flattened even with traited DS and decent defensive stats and our control isn’t enough to buy enough time to get our conditions up. I don’t want to rant or whine, but I’ll say all of our problems have already been stated, low conditions damage, lack of control, bugged traits and abilities.

Necro just isn’t fun to play at max level and I wish I had read more of this stuff before leveling to 80 and spending all my money to max out my tradeskills, it would have saved me a lot of time. Now I’m working on my ranger, which is way more fun to play and can actually succeed in PvP when played well. The big problem with necro besides the bugs and balance issues (or possibly because of them) is that there is no reward to playing well. If I play at my absolute best I wont do as well as my fresh ranger alt, which is really disheartening.

I still like the class, it is still probably my favorite in terms of playstyle, but until necro gets rebalanced and the bugs fixed I’ll be playing my ranger where I can actually see tangible benefit to playing well in WvW and sPvP.