Guild Wars 2

Do also note the exceptions, like dungeons, where “everyone has to pull their weight” made a mess of these principles, with predictable results.

Anet worked hard at it. Implemented things like shared mining nodes, eceryone getting his own drops and XP. They made it so that other players are not competitors but cooperators.

What the… has happened to all those arrows I made… bah, never mind. Anyone that wants to understand what I’m saying will get it.

Only a raid expert, IIRC, but that’s not the point: the hardcore players always want more and more content. So will everyone else. Fair enough.

But don’t cry when, for example, wood prices soar because no one actually is going out to chop tree nodes. Don’t cry when, like myself, more and more players decide that the content they have done was fine, but the rest is simply too much effort to be worth the effort and take a break from the game.

There is only one MMO I’m even considering playing. GW2. But it really is awesome that you can always take a break from GW2. Because I only do dailies these days, and then go and play something else. Got a huge single player game backlog that I never got to because I always simply logged in to GW2 for the limited time I have.

Try this idea:

instead of:

>BOSS1—→BOSS2—→BOSS3—→FINAL BOSS

the structure of content could be:

I
I
I
V
MODERATE BOSS—→HARD BOSS (that the party can see and skip)
I
I
V
MODERATE BOSS—→HARD BOSS (that the party can see and skip or fight for loot)
I
I
V
MODERATE BOSS—→HARD BOSS (that the party can see and skip or fight for loot)
I
I
V
MODERATE FINAL BOSS

That way, anyone can play, feel the “I was THERE” feeling, and have a personal stake in the story of the content.

But even thinking about inclusive content is apparently Too much to ask for.

Ok, then let’s also ask Anet to expend only the proportional amount of work hours and funding on raids. You know, proportional to the number of people who do play them.

Worked wonders for dungeons, didn’kitten

As previously pointed out, resetting story opens up either “no rewards for story” or “personal story farming eith lvl 80”issues.

Really it would be nice, but before that consider this: how do anet store racially cued “flags”? How do they read them? What does it mean for racial identity feeling oc the more lore bound players and similar.

Anet have never even suggested they were thinking of such a thing. They never commented in any if the previous discussions on the subject.

General player opinion is that such a functionality would conflict with the personal story and race keyed discussions, and it is very unlikely that Anet would go to all that trouble, especially considering how few astual money spending customers there would be for it.

How to do SW:

Play the events or chest farm, and once the cycle is over, LOOK AT THE INVENTORY and note all the T6 mats, cores, lodestones, expensive cloth craftim materials and so on. THOSE, if sold, make the gold. It’s really easy to forget about them if you use “deposit collectables”.

Guild Wars 2 is not a failure. It has made lots of money and allowed the team that made it to be paid for a long time. So far, Anet haven’t done any downsizing, rather, they seem to be always looking for new people.

GW2 isn’t the WoW killer some expected it to be, but that was always an unrealistic expectation.

GW2 isn’t exactly what people wanted and/or expected it to be, but it is still, to many of its players, the ONLY MMO they would consider playing at all. It’s not exactly what I wanted it to be, only about 80%, but that is still enough that I’d never even consider other MMOs that aren’t like it.

GW2 is fine.

Sorry for the second post, typing from my phone…

Apart from the programming, the proposal is a net gain for everyone:
- to the first time buyers, difference is minimal, but the increased functionality makes buying an infinite tool more attractive
- To people with up to full set of tools, the mix and match option is very attractive and the full set becomes a more attractive option
- to people with a full set, the amount needed to gain an improvement in functionality is significantly lowered,
- To people with multiple sets already, the reduced inventory clutter is attractive

You don’t need to do all the dailies. If you look at the structure of the dailies you can clearly se le they are meant to gently push players towards a varied gaming session…

Just do a daily you can instead.

Situation: infinite gathering tools combine the cosmetic and functional aspects of the item. A player that has already purchased infinite gathering tools for his characters would need to invest a high amount of money to have the preferred look when a new tool comes out. Example: all my characters have infinite tools, the original first three (molten pick, southsun axe and sickle). But i much prefer the watchwork pick animation. However, there is no way i’d pay all that money once again just to get the desired looks. It is simply too much.

Effectively, in the current system, a player who has already bought the infinite tools for all their characters is no longer
a prospective customer, except otlr the very “whaliest”.

Also, there is the inventory clutter issue…

Proposal: split the cosmetic and functional aspects of the gathering tools. Create generic infinite use tools and then add a wardrobe tab that allows the player to select the animation displayed for the tool when used. Sell wardrobe unlocks for the tools in the gem store.

This way a player who already has all the functional needs covered would still have an incentive to buy more in the gem store to further cosmetically upgrade the account.

Thank you. I thought I was missing something. A bit of a bummer, though… So much work, reselecting all the gear…

Is it only possible to play the beta with new characters in the beta slots, or is it possible to take your regular characters to the new areas?

Possible explanation: guild plans to host, but the map fills out with “outsiders” before all the guild members arrive. So, everyone leaves for a new map where they can all fit?

Trust me – a far better idea is simply to go out and earn some more hero points or level up. The game is quite well known for the speed of levelling, and you get enough to unlock everything by lvl 80.

It’d mean 7 weapons that my favourite class can’t use…

EDIT: perhaps I should elaborate a bit:
A new weapon means the need for a whole set of new skills, new animations, new skins, and expands the existing sets. This is a LOT of work, and I believe such great investment in resources should be aimed at being accessible by as great a part of the player base as possible.

Playing EU PUGs exclusively, I hardly ever see anyone kicked, at all. Most cases are if someone is unresponsive, AFK for a while and similar. I seriously question whether all the people complaining about getting kicked here are telling the full stories.

For example, with NonToxic’s story, I really wonder why people would kick him. I see two possible explanations. (not trying to place blame here, just pointing out that there are possible alternate ways people would perceive situations)

Or were they, as stated, simply predators tempted by a juicy almost complete dungeon for their friends. Who knows. I wasn’t there. I’m just saying people should try to see things from others’ perspectives too.

But in the end, given the amount of problems having no party leader solves (offline or AFK people being removable, not getting kicked for people switching characters,…), compared to the problems it creates… the new system is WAAAAY BETTER.

I just finished my ascended heavy armor set, which happily can be used by both my guardian and my warrior(s). Great. Except I’m not exactly sure what to put into the upgrade slots. I am, after all, quite out of cash

Of course, rubies for the time being, money being tight and all, but for longer term, I was considering Runes of strength, since they’re generally useful and allow the warrior to run a phalanx setup, which is appreciated by PUGs.

Any alternative suggestions?

I think the “Bind soul to weapon” is actually a legacy of GW1’s Ritualist skills – it seems to use the principles of weapon spells and ancestor ashes.

Ah, a Dev made the mistake of asking for our opinions… let’s teach her the error of her ways

First of all: the narrative side of the living story has improved significantly, so, to the entire story team: good work. While the first chapters were sorely lacking, the storytelling has now become perfectly adequate. It’s not perfect, but it serves its purpose.

Second: the background buffs among us probably don’t mind reading. The latest chapter of the living world has finally shown that not everything the NPCs say has to be voiced, and that is the proper way. Don’t hide the character just because the voice actor isn’t available. We know the time of the voice actors is costly, but the writers can write a lot. The dialogues with Zojja and the rest of destiny’s edge were a nice touch.

Third: items could use some lore, too. A few lines of text can supply a nice touch to a weapon, and shouldn’t take too much effort. Even just a “The armour of the Lionguard is made by apprentice armorsmiths still on their way to mastery, but steel plate is still steel plate.” or similar. The reknown heart vendors items descriptions have not gone unnoticed. You could get away with a single description per, say, a weapon family or armor set.

Last: could we have something nice happen to Faren, in the long term? He may not be a great guy, but I still have a soft spot for him. Let him get some character growth, maybe let him meet that fan girl of his, take up sword and shield and hold the line in an important battle?

I would also add my voice to those who are annoyed and frustrated with the lack of waypoints. No waypoints and above average difficulty foes really makes for a frustrating experience.

Continued:

3) I have a bad team here, what CAN they still do?"

Have the developers not only think “the players need to learn to do this, this and this to pass”. Have them also think “suppose I’m the sergeant of a washout squad. What can I still get them to do that will make a difference?”
-can they remove annoyances? kill spread out adds, keep some defensive mechanism interrupted? man some turrets that provide boons to the “heroes”?

4) Find the ways to make different gearsets have a place

Currently, Glass cannon berserkers rule all. Which is surprising, aren’t the glass cannons supposed to be fragile, requiring protection or forced to go Hit and Run? Well no, not really – the offensive gearsets hardly lose any defensive abilities since everyone, even berserkers, gets their full endurance alottment, granting them two dodges that are worth more than +3000 toughness.
So, I’d propose differing damage profiles that make different gearsets valuable.
-force Berserkers to go hit and run by implementing non-condition damage over time attacks – many many small hits
-make places where a Nomad can go in, get something done in one run, but that berserkers will have to do in several runs

5) Have an element of the content that will let everyone say “I was THERE!”
-the introductory “infiltrate disguised as a slave” quests of GW1 Sorrow’s Furnace was a nice way that let everyone get into Sorrow’s furnace, look around, experience the “feeling” of the place. Everyone could go and “Be part of it all”.

6) Implement multiple ways to achieve objectives

Imagine having the party at a point where they face, say, a very tough gate guard. Now, we can make the guard do all the work of the challenge through AI and skills…. or, perhaps, we can implement three solutions: a short jumping puzzle to pass around him (mesmers, bring the portals!), direct confrontation with the guard (zerkers zhis way, please), or activating a nearby superweapon that takes out the guard… and the chest with loot he’s guarding (oh, just skip it). This leaves space for three different skill sets, all with meaning, and allows the party to choose their own difficulty.

Hello all. I wish I had more time to write my ideas up, but RL workload is… kinda bad.

First I would like to stress that with any discussion of raids in GW2 the first question should be: shall we go for exclusivity for exclusivity’s sake.

To clarify: some people WANT exclusivity, and if the result is not exclusive, all issues of gameplay, difficulty and rewards are unimportant. They are motivated strongly by being able to stand out of the crowd. There are some such, and their viewpoints are valid – there should be games around for everyone.

But I must say I oppose the viewpoint strongly, preferring inclusive game elements. I would also argue that there are already many games out there for such people, take Wildstar for example, and that a strong point in favour of GW2 is that it is not such a game, that much work was done to implement elements promoting cooperation, content for everyone, during development.

It’s up to the devs to decide who they should target with future content. Raids sound like a LOT of work, that would come at the expense of new dungeons, living story and similar. If these immense resources were devoted to exclusive content, I would personally not see it as the end of the world, unless it indicated a massive shift in the GW2 paradigm, but it would make for content I would enjoy less, or wouldn’t be able to enjoy at all. For example, it would be content I couldn’t enjoy together with my casual GF.

So, for me, and any who share my views, exclusivity is bad and work should be done to make content inclusive.

However, I also see many ways to make for INCLUSIVE RAIDS.

Key elements I would propose:

1) avoid punishing the weakest link.

The biggest problem with the otherwise excellent Marionette was that the hard work of all platforms was staked on not one platform failing. If one platform alone failed, it meant all the work of the others was lost, leading to much frustration. However, what if instead of keeping the successful platforms locked, instead they got to rush to the aid of the slowest platforms. This changes the dynamic. Instead of all the world resting on the player, he can also see it as “Just need to hold out a few seconds more!” “Here comes the cavalry!” “Heroes to the rescue!”. Sentiments that the core GW2 experience was aimed at.

2) Hard content vs. Content that makes you work

While many complain about the content being too easy, I’m not sure that HARDER content is the only countermeasure. The problem is possibly content being effortless. Now, if that is so, perhaps it is enough to make content that forces the players to do more than just stand still and stick to the autoattack. The Dry top bosses were already a step in the right direction – they moved. This alone made them much less susceptible to “AFK autoattack”.

Ideas:
-make enemies that need to be chased, rather than grinded down
-if enemy area denial skills (Clockwork Oakheart gears, for example) are implemented, don’t just punish ranged attackers with them – make the melee guys move too

Actually, the reason I’d like additional Mawdreys is, amusingly, that it’s the rare piece of gear that actually likes you back. Mawdrey is half a pet, and that’s why I like her. I like having some emotional investment in my games.

(yes, I know the Shop of Horrors reference and the possibly dual meaning of the “embrace”, but I choose to interpret it in a positive way).

The fact that I have 10 characters that could use gear is also a factor.

Now, if I could just remake the final stage, taking a week to create and the materials for the final stage only, I’d be willing to repeat that a few times. But all three stages… that’s too much. Too bad, really.

P.S. Thanks for the replies.

Well, I guess I’ll just craft and sell the components for others, then. I don’t really want to create another full series of three…

I made my own mawdrey and also worked on one or my GF. It’s a LOT of work, and takes a month per piece.

If I want to create additional Mawdreys, do I have to start over from the first seed or is it possible to get a pet seed directly somehow?

And the ascended…

Mists infused pot
1 Clay Pot (transferable)
20 Foxfire Cluster (farmed)
100 Bloodstone Dust (farmed)
1 Mists Stone (Five days in Fractals)

Elementally Charged Plant Food
100 Thick Leather Section (farmed)
7 Plates of Meaty Plant Food (transferable)
100 Bloodstone Dust (farmed)
1 Pile of Elemental Essence (field trip)

Rhand Blessed Food
100 Thick Leather Section (farmed)
7 Plates of Piquant Plant Food (transferable)
100 Bloodstone Dust (farmed)
1 Water of Rhand (field trip)

Powerful Grow Lamp
1 Box of Captured Light (field trip)
3 Bloodstone Bricks (450 crafting needed)
4 Exotic Essence of Luck (crafted but no req. crafting level)
1 Grow Lamp (transferable)

Destroyer Heated Stone
1 Heat Stone (transferable)
1 Heart of the Destroyer (field trip)
1 +5 agony infusion (crafted, but no req.)
3 Bloodstone Bricks (40 crafting needed)

Bloodstone bricks again. Crafting wise.

Watching Dulfy’s guide, the exotic version is made using:

Chaos Infused Clay Pot
1 Resonating Chaos Orb (story reward + field trip)
20 Foxfire Cluster (farmed)
100 Bloodstone Dust (farmed)
1 Clay Pot (crafted, but transferable)

Package of Ley Line Dusted Plant Food
100 Thick Leather Section (farmed)
7 Plates of Meaty Plant Food (crafted, but transferable)
100 Piles of Bloodstone Dust (farmed)
1 Pile of Crackling Ley Line Dust (Story reward+field trip)

Oasis Soaked Plant Food
7 Plates of Piquant Plant Food (crafted but transferable)
1 Vial of Mending Oasis Water (personal story+field trip)
100 Bloodstone Dust (farmed)
100 Thick Leather Section (farmed)

Attuned Grow Lamp
1 Grow Lamp (crafted but transferable)
3 Bloodstone Bricks (oops… 450 crafting needed)
4 Exotic Essence of Luck (fastest is to salvage ectoplasms and then use artificer to upgrade it to exotic lucks) (crafted but no req. level)
1 Germinated Foxfire Cluster (story reward+field trip)

Only Bloodstone bricks are account bound, the rest seems all transferable…

Hello, gentlebeings.

Me and my girlfriend both play GW2. Myself, I’ve been playing from the start, but she’s a new player.

And she would like to get the new backpiece.

And I would like to help her, as much as I can. After all, my characters have all the crafting disciplines maxed out, and I have ten characters parked at the little grove in Malchor’s reach to keep the foxfire clusters coming in.

Now, looking at the recipes, am I right that, crafting profession wise, all that she has to get herself are bloodstone bricks? IE, she only needs a single crafting profession at 450.

Anyone want to help me double check?

Never forget that you don’t “marry” a game.

If a game is stale from playing it too much, then take a break. Play another game. Single player, preferably, since those aren’t as… time demanding as MMOs.

If a game is simply not working out, then… you can always uninstall it. Or reinstall it when the fancy takes you.

As someone who only ever PUGs due to a dead guild, I can say that all of my PUGs successfully killed the spider queen, so no, it’s not “the end of casuals”.

General scenario, with about 10 runs, including one with a party including only two lvl 80s, is:
-someone may insist that we stack, resulting in a “learning wipe”
-group engages queen in the open space, and if people stay out of AoE (sometimes problematic if the queen camps inside an AoE circle or if someone runs out of condition removal just when he gets immobilized in a circle) the queen generally dies with 1-2 defeated people.

Really, people on this board seem to mistake the idea that the meta way is the fastest way to do a dungeon with the misconception that it is the only way to finish one.

Also, it’s much more fun now.

No, only one account has the Eternity skin and another one has Twilight and Sunrise skins. Only one can, for example, choose to have permanent Twilight and only one can have a changing skin.

Look, I know it hurts – but don’t you think it’s impossible to improve anything if we take the position that it’s unjust that some suffered from what is improved earlier?

Look toward a brighter future, instead

Or it could show more than one ley-line, since what was under LA was a ley line nexus, IIRC.

Everyone seems to assume that Mordremoth is in Maguuma, presumably accessed through Brisban wildlands.

I have an alternative idea:
Remember the drawing on the ceiling of Scarlet’s lab? The white dragon? Now, remember the maps in the Breachmaker finale, showing new probes? I think the one on the right looks rather the white dragon from the ceiling, and looking at the map, the area seems to actually be in Deldrimor Front.

Does anyone have clear pictures of the screens? I’m afraid my screenshots are… lacking…

I would like to thank Anet for one element of the new update – the fact that it lets us feel like real heroes for once.

Recently, for a lot of updates, we’ve been mercenaries, assassins, investigators. All those are good, but the new update also makes me feel like a real hero, standing between raiders and their prey, protecting evacuation routes, helping out… This is where this LS update really hit me.

Even before, one of my favourite things to do was to go to and save centaur slaves. And now, I can save the civilians of an entire city.

Oh, BTW – search the net for a Gw1-Gw2 comparison map, and be sure to check out the remains still in GW2

Welcome!

First, I’d advise you to accept that GW2 is not GW1. There are substantial differences, and not all elements of GW1 have been retained.

a) Gear now matters much more. GW2 is grind-LITE, compared to the competition, but there’s still quite some grind compared to GW1.
b) Combat is very different. You have to stay active and you cannot rely on passive defences. You can’t take three hits from a boss – you need to dodge, block, blind and generally be a nuisance.
c) PvE is all about doing the most damage in the least time. Unless Anet change the game design, this IS the way to go, hard as it may be. Try this: an all out defense character will be only twice as resilient, while an all out offensive one will be five times more damaging. And both will have the same amount of dodging – the main REAL defense.

Plus the all out offensive guy will finish content five times more quickly…

d) In relation to above, Melee weapons deal significantly more damage than ranged weapons.

e) have fun. GW2 is still an amazing game in its own right

Fractals time requirements to be reconsidered

Description of Topic Feature:
Comparing activities, most GW2 activities are not very time demanding – they can be started and completed in a short time period and then repeated. FoTM are the exception: in order to do a fractal cycle, one must prepare to do four fractals in a row, successfully, which takes significantly more time than other comparable activities (a dungeon path, a personal story path, a living story cycle, world boss…). One consequence is that people are not able to participate in FoTM unless they have a large uninterrupted chunk of time, which, as people get older, get harder to assure, resulting in people avoiding FoTM. Essentially “I want to do fractals, but I don’t often have two hours of free time in one chunk to PUG them. I’d do one, but everyone wants to do a full cycle…”.

Goal of Proposal:
Allow people with less free time or more fragmented free time to participate in FoTM evenly. Similar to how fractal relics can be acquired by doing a single fractal, but pristine fractal relics can only be acquired after a full cycle.

Proposal Functionality:
Rebalance the fractals to an even more even length and rework rewards so that the same rewards are granted per time, but without demanding the same time needed for a standard full fractal cycle. Possibly, reduce fractals to 2 regular+1boss format and adjust rewards to reward the same. Possibly, keep rewards (in terms of fractal relics and pristine fractal relics) the same, shorten the times needed, but double the prices (resulting in, essentially, the same reward, but allowing people to earn it “bit by bit”).

Alternatively, award pristine relics and special drops in every fractal played, but at a reduced rate.

Associated Risks:
Of course, this would demand a careful rebalancing of the fractal rewards and times needed to complete a fractal. However, most of the thread I’ve seen is already all about rebalancing fractal lengths and rewards, so…

You will see the problem, when you see your guild die due to people leaving for other games wit the years: all that new content put out is group only, and you can’t do it.

GW1 was, for me, a nice single player game with optional chat and multiplayer. I wish GW2 were too – but everything looks like it won’t.

Fasalina.6571:

Jure Simich.6154:

The “pit of vipers” seems extremely proud of having that reputation, so I doubt they’ll mind. But, I’ m still hoping they can think out of the box, if they make the effort, and accept a change to the usual format of discussion here.

Heya, I see you hoping on the forums good luck with that mate! And since you’re a lurker (pretty much like me) I’m sure you’re ready for the bashing these guys will bring. Great post and keep up the good work.

Still playing on the Engie?

P.S. I miss the CoE runs we were doing back in the day (before they nerfed Alpha’s HP, and before “stacking”, both of those made that dungeon pretty much unintersting for me atm)

Fas, ol’ buddy! Been a while! Sure, I’m still playing. Every profession, really, and since I’m working on the Emperor title, I’ve been running dungeons all the time, which is why I decided to speak up a bit.

I think PUGs should be sentenced to watch these guys play, and these guys should be sentenced to forced PUGs

Anyway, not really sure how to implement the guru builds… a lot to read…

Do we know how the Glory currency phaseout will affect the PvP reward boxes that we get from the achievement rewards? I have four stored, and don’t know whether to save them or to open them with haste…

1) updated the original posting with contributions

2)Since apparently no one plays engineers here, here’s what I try to make work:

30 30 0 10 0 trait spread, vigor on swiftness trait gives lots of vigor needed for the longer PUG fight times.

The Explosives trait line leaves several possible configurations:

Long ranged: full zerker, +10% explosions, Grenadier.

Stacking: +10% explodions, replace grenadier with larger explosions and go for bomb kit.

Reliable might stacking: zerker with two runes of altruism, a sigil of battle weapon and Enhanced performance instead of grenadier to grant low power groups 9+ stacks of might. For long range, leave in grenadier. For stacking, replace it with 10% explosions trait and run bombs. Also, try to blast bombs for extra might (Healing turret, BoB, Elixir gun’s acid blast).

The reason I searched for and posted the above was that there is much debate about how long dungeons do and/or should take to finish. Every skipping debate, every optimization debate, all eventually also need to consider how long Anet think a dungeon should take.

While the expected dungeon times above are »obiter dictum« to a debate about dungeon rewards, they are still a source for the intended gameplay length. I’m also pretty sure there were other sources stating the 45 minutes intended dungeon gameplay times.

This is important. Dungeon rewards are balanced around how long dungeons take. Remember that for economy vs. gameplay balance is an important subject. If the elite earn too much, while they are happy, the masses are cut off from the shinies – and if ALL the shinies are too far… the masses could move on. And I don’t think dungeon runners are the most cash spending kind, rather the obvious, they are express gold earners, who are the most likely to buy gems with gold rather than cash. Hmm, I think THAT issue deserves a thread of its own.

It is an indication that the paths that take 10-20 minutes can still expect further changes, more invisible walls, more safe spots made inaccesible. It is an indication that longer parths are not likely to receive shortening changes.

After lots of searching, I finally found the post by Anet devs about how long dungeons were supposed to take:

Short way: expected run time: 45 minutes, 30 minutes is “super fast”. I think we should consider this when we think about what direction Anet’s future changes might take. (like, which paths are too short and can expect further changes that lengthen them).

Original post, in context of DR restrictions:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Being-efficient-in-dungeons-means-less-reward/page/4#post272866

I actually wonder why the invisible walls also affect the camera, actually…

The “pit of vipers” seems extremely proud of having that reputation, so I doubt they’ll mind. But, I’ m still hoping they can think out of the box, if they make the effort, and accept a change to the usual format of discussion here.

Twice already now, I’ve seen the game’s Living story’s more difficult bits get still more difficult by what certainly is not supposed to be a part of the difficulty – view angle truncation.

Remember the Marionette’s boss fights? Circular arenas, impossible to fall from… because of solid invisible walls around them. These are there to make sure each arena fights alone. But, since the walls are there, if you get close, the camera’s view point if forced to zoom in.

Look at the pictures below: In the first picture The Warrior and Guardian silhouettes are far from the wall, and get a clear view. The engineer at the border, though, has the view field significantly forced in. The resulting view difference can be seen in the two grayscale images at the bottom.

I admit, I have serious trouble trying to read the »tells« of the third Marionette boss, since if I go to range, All I can see are his ankles and shins. Given that 90% of the Marionette fights I’ve been in end at two severed chest, this is likely the hardest of the bosses, and I’m pretty sure that while the excessive damage he dishes out is mostly to blame, the view angle trouble is also to blame.

The same happened in the Queen’s pavilion arenas. The view from the spectator’s ring was very nice – but as the player inside the cage, I’m pretty sure at least a third of Liadri’s trouble came from the simple fact that my view angle was all over the place. Not only was I too zoomed in most of the time, the uneven distance also made the camera view point zoom in and out unpredictably, adding distraction to the already significant difficulty.

To be honest, this is actually meant for Anet’s terrain designers. I hope in the future, such confined spaces can be designed so that they at least don’t interfere with the camera angles.

Thank you for your time.

Update:
To recap the thread:
-it is inadvisable and possibly not necessary to completely rebuild the character to be PUG friendly. PUG adaptations should be in switching utility skills, carrying alternative gear and switching traits within the same trait point build.

-suggested builds:

Elementalist: Fresh air D/F build is PUG friendly. Suggested swapping out Fire V for II to use Lightning Hammer. Ice bow where it’s useful (AC)

Warrior: No changes, as the standard builds incorporate banners and sigil of battle options

Guardian: Obal’s hammer DPS builds

Mesmer: few changes, suggested spreads 0/30/0/25/15 or 10/20/0/25/15

Ranger: No changes, the group friendly Healing spring, Spotter and Frost spirit are already the ranger meta. Axe offhand can be carried for personal reflection when no one else brings any

Necromancer: Spoj’s DpS build

Thief: META still suggested. META already seems to incorporate extended stealth trait.

Engineer: no one plays…

*GW Guru builds not yet implemented, will add when I have time.
*Thanks to all who decided to contribute.

Original post:
We, (OK, you guys, actually, since I’m a lurker), have discussed the optimum, coordinated synnergy maximizing builds for months. They’re beautiful to behold. But now, I’d like to talk about another kind of build – the PUG-proof builds ( I wouldn’t expect this pit of vipers to consider PUG friendly as a term…).

For example, everyone knows the best way to stack might is to blast fire fields… but in a PUG environment, you might very well find a necromancer’s well, a thief’s gun #5 or a guardian’s Symbol of swiftness at the bottom of the field stack. In these situations, a guardian’s Empower, which works reliably and for two thirds of the time, suddenly becomes of some use. In my experience, you do get groups with perma might and fury and vulnerability – maybe once a week. The rest… you rarely see more than single digits might on the group, unless you alone bring it along.

So, thinking along these lines… what builds would you take? Even if it’s only a mental exercise for you… And please, don’t suggest SOLO builds, those are for a different kind of player.

Personally, I find at least that Warriors can still lug banners around, since they’re PUG-resistant. Guardian’s Empower and Line of warding see much more use. An Engineer’s Enhanced performance+Sigil of Battle+2x Rune of Altruism is also PUG-proof 9 perma-might, as is the vulnerability from blasts.

Thoughts?

Thanks. Not thrilled by the news, but thanks.