Guild Wars 2

I have the same problem. Good start in season 3! xP

And the lesson is: tell people a little earlier than three days before launch what you expect them to do for something they paid money for.

250 is a good amount – not everything one can achieve because he or she obviously has absolutely nothing better to do with his time should be treated as something with more value than what it actually has.

Yeah, stop “caving in” to people who bought your game twice, put up with your weird decisions from time to time and does not even adress the fact that HoT offers 4 new maps, some elite specs, one new class and a short story, while GW1 got a new continent, two classes, a ton of new skills, new PvP modes and an epic, full-fleshed story for the same price.

The change was nessecary. Deal with it. Maybe ask them to give players who had the elite specs already fully unlocked ( = with no life) a fancy skin that tells other people that they have no life.

250 is perfect! All I wanted: not too easy, but not tedious either.

Thank you, over and out! I see you in HoT.

Oh yes oh yes oh yes Heart of Thorns hype is SO back OMG OMG HRNNNNGHHH!!

In all seriosness though, thank you so much! Now I do not even care about the mastery grind, because I can at least grind them with my sexy new elite spec. Really put the fun back into the game!

Kulvar.1239:

So heavily gated that many players start HoT with half their elite spec unlocked and those who play instead of cry are near or already unlock it fully.

So let me understand this: we complain about the massive need for grinding, and your solution to this is “go grind more and you eventually will get what you want”?

…kitten , aren’t you a genius.

Also, do not talk nonsense – i went into the jungle with over 200 HP, and it was barely enough to unlock half of the elite spec because just the unlock costs 60 points. Just because 200 is half of 400 does not mean that you already have access to half of your new spec. And of kitten kittening course people who completed Tyria 100% with several characters have obviosly more time to waste and a natural resistance about grinding than normal people. So your whole argument fails at the point where people do not have map completion on every character they wanted to play in HoT because of the new elite specs – you know, for example PvP players or people who actually want to feel some sort of progress after playing in their little freetime.

Let’s see: why did you quit GW2? Depending on your answer, I would heavily recommend against buying HoT, because it caters to a very… let’s call it “special” audience.

Laniya.9520:

YAY…..Someone who makes sense. I totally agree. This is a instant world. They want it all and they want it now….Just play, explore and enjoy it. If you get it all now, whats to look forward to. Im enjoying the challenge. Its an accomplishment! The expansion is really well done. Spectacular! Thank you Devs for your hard work and good job on a beautiful new world.

What there is to look forward to after having the elite spec – nobody talks about logging in and having everything the expansion offers. Story, map exploration, world completion, heck in my case even the masteries would be things I would look forward to. Instead I grind stuff so I can play the game how it was promised through countless livestreams and previews.

In my ideal world I would’ve played HoT for about two or three hours, have my elite spec fully unlocked and would continue to play the story as my elite spec, instead of playing everything else first because elite spec is so heavily gated that when I get it through natural progression there is not much left to do.

But of course, this would imply that there even is more than three hours content, and that is the problem right there…

captaincrash.6528:

Kaykero.7251:

1) But I and many people paid precisely to do that.
2) But I paid real money for it.
3) But I want to complete the maps with the elite spec. What should I do once I have it fully unlocked? Stand around and not caring for anything because I already did it?
4) The new content is designed to be harder than the core game, so switching a barely useful traitline with one that is not only fully leveled but also complementing my current build and available skills is nonsense. Of course people can technically use them, but you could also technically walk to work instead of drinving your car.
5) That point I do not even care about.

It is a problem: people want to play the new classes, but instead of being able to do that and concentrate on the fun aspects of the game (story, new maps, events) they are forced to rush through, ruining every bit of exploration and immersion. I never expected to have my elite spec unlocked instantly, but through some kind of story or sidequest near the beginning of the new content. Needing 400 hero points, with 60 of them only just unlocking the ability to use a new weapon, is just to kitten much for something I and many other people paid 50 bucks to play as.

When you buy a Zelda game do you cry to Nintendo that you can’t go onto and complete the last dungeon, have all equipment, at the start of the game? Prerelease they marketed progression in this expansion to that of Zelda and Metroid, you knew what you were getting into.

Nice one, just ignore the last statement in my post, what a solid base for a discussion. That is how I like it: just brain diarrhea to read instead of actual insights on why this system of amassing masteries and hero points to play what everybody paid 50 bucks for is not a total kitten-up.

If they release an expansion for a Zelda game and advertise with new stories, items and maps, when in reality I need to farm for hours first so I can even afford the slightest minumum of what was promised and advertised months befoe, than I would be kittened at Ninteno to. I do not differentiate between companies – but a kittened-up system is still kittened-up.

Here is what it comes down to for me personaly: I wanted to play the new specs since I’ve seen them on the livestreams and previews, and I did not even think that we would unlock them instantly. I always presumed that it would take at least some effort or time to unlock them, but this is just a mess. My plan was to explore the new maps at my own pace, having fun exploring and leveling masteries as a Scrapper/Reaper/whatever, but what I am really doing is desperately rushing through every map so I can get the required hero points. What choices do I have? Save the good stuff for later so I can play it like I itended to (but not really, since I cannot unsee the new maps or events), or play it with the same class I played since launch?

Really, it is like going through HoT with blinkers on: just… need… hero points.

1) But I and many people paid precisely to do that.
2) But I paid real money for it.
3) But I want to complete the maps with the elite spec. What should I do once I have it fully unlocked? Stand around and not caring for anything because I already did it?
4) The new content is designed to be harder than the core game, so switching a barely useful traitline with one that is not only fully leveled but also complementing my current build and available skills is nonsense. Of course people can technically use them, but you could also technically walk to work instead of drinving your car.
5) That point I do not even care about.

It is a problem: people want to play the new classes, but instead of being able to do that and concentrate on the fun aspects of the game (story, new maps, events) they are forced to rush through, ruining every bit of exploration and immersion. I never expected to have my elite spec unlocked instantly, but through some kind of story or sidequest near the beginning of the new content. Needing 400 hero points, with 60 of them only just unlocking the ability to use a new weapon, is just to kitten much for something I and many other people paid 50 bucks to play as.

I am not able to come up with a rating, because I do not have the right mastery yet.

I even wonder how we all are able to still post in the forum without having to grind a mastery first. After affecting even stuff from the core game negatively (ascended armor, fractal rewards, guild-stuff) I really find it interesting how they can kitten up the game so badly with just one update. I get that they want the f2p-players to buy HoT, but why the hell do I, as someone who plays this game since launch, grind millions of experience just to get where I was three days ago?

I love the difficulty, the more diverse palystyles it encourages, the look & feel of the new maps and even the story has a much higher production value – but I would like to enjoy those things as my elite spec. Also, I found not one single thing yet in this “expansion” that I could have instantly fun with, as I need to have “Mastery XYZ” first. How is this exploring if everything I can find is just useless?

It is such a shame too… The same company who brought us Factions, Nightfall and Eye of the North.

Grind of Thorns – 4/10, hope we do not see the next expansion for a loooooong time

I play GW2 since launchday (although not throughout the whole nearly three years, i tend to take breaks and return every now and then), but I only just reached my 7,5k AP chest. Playtime is over 1,2k hours. And yes, I know that sounds “casual” as all hell, but I personally think I am quite good in this game, at least in PvE (yeah, yeah, i know) and also know pretty much everything there is to know about that one mode.

I never found a precursor. At launch, all my friends said that i should work on my legendary, because there is nothing else to do, and i told them that i would work on it once i have the RNG-part done, hence when I hold a precursor in hand – and I still stand to that! I don’t know why exactly, but I really do not care that much about a legy anyway (big part may be that i main engineer and equipping the legy rifle would lead to using Hip Shot with a sniper rifle).

To get to the point: yeah, there are moments when i really hate RNG – but as it is my decision to wait for it, rather than to work for it, I don’t see myself in any position to complain. Some people are just more lucky, and I personally play GW2 for it’s world, lore and gameplay.

Location: Vienna, Austria
Time and date: since November 4th, but probably even sooner (I started playing again because of Living World)
Game World: Whiteside Ridge
Description: people blinking around like crazy and/or run against walls, multiple disconnects, heavy lag spikes (up to 15 seconds, at times), even shifting items in the inventory is delayed by one or two seconds, delayed input, and so forth – and that happens in pretty much every area of the game: Rata Sum, Silverwastes, personal instances, Kessex Hills, Metrica Province…

All my other games and apps work fine, so it is not my connection. It is not unplayable, but annoying as hell and not really fun. I hope you will fix that in time for Wintersday!

Also, how about an update? Having thousands of people (just an estimated guess when regarding the view count of this topic – nearly 13k, btw) not being able to play properly should be a HUGE deal to you guys, so at least pretend that you are working on it.

DesertRose.2031:

Maybe it’s not what you’re looking for but the meta Engineer build can also be played with SD:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpLr9ZxmKseNSaBNq7A6Xsi6+5JkgAA

Thank you so much for this! I tried it, and i love it. At first i kept messing up the rota, and I also overlooked the group stealth at the beginning, but after some practice it worked fine (well, not perfect, but it will get better I’m sure).

The Hobo Sacks are also one of the reasons for me to run Static Discharge. Nevertheless, they are ugly and completeley unnecessary, so i support the idea of them being changed, in whatever way.

Hey guys!
As many of you would have guessed, i am playing an engineer. Actually, i play him since launch and tried many, many different things since then, including grenades, bombs, the flamethrower, some weird combinations and even simple “rifle only”-builds.

While i still enjoy playing my engineer and try to switch things up quite often by trying out different builds and traits, most of them have heavy problems or don’t work quite as well as imagined. For example, i tried a group-support-PvE-build that would stack boons through the new trait in “Elixiers” by spamming turrets, but this would lower my personal DPS and when the turrets are gone, the whole build is useless. Lately, i tried an HGH build for many might stacks, but by “sacrificing” my utility-skills and the corresponding toolbelt skills, i felt like dealing much less damage overall. So, the point that i am trying to make is: i always come back to the same few builds.

Now i know what many of you think right now: “just use bomb/grenades and you are set” – but i really, really have enough of throwing tons of grenades at my enemies, i did that at launch and many months later, it is just annoying and not fun to me anymore.

To finally get to the point: i really enjoy playing with Static Discharge, the occasional bursts feel pretty good and it is more active than turrets or elixiers, while not too active so i have not a fun time playing, and still offers some utility. My usual build is:
4 – IV/X
4 – V/IX (sometimes, depending on the situation, i run IV/IX)
0
0
6 – II/VI/XII

with full Berserker Gear and following utilities: Utility goggles (stun breaker, fury buff and vulnerability), Rifle turret (quick cooldown on the toolbelt skill) and Tool kit (3 seconds of block, cc and nice toolbelt skill).

That being said, i do not feel like “dead weight” in dungeons or fractals, but i am kind of unsatisfied with this build. Also, when i do some research in patch notes and skill changes after not playing for a while, i often get the impression that, even though none obvious changes would affect my build, i just feel uncomfortable with using the same build after some patches simply because i fear i might have overlooked something.

Keep in mind: i strongly focus on PvE, so that is where i want to be effective!

tl;dr: I want to know if my build, according to some of you more experienced and seasoned engineer players, is viable for PvE and, if not, what you would change in order to be most efficient without (!) having to get my good old grenade kit out – i think i have thrown enough grenades by spamming 1-5 back at launch.

Help would really be appreciated!

Hey guys!
As many of you would have guessed, i am playing an engineer. Actually, i play him since launch and tried many, many different things since then, including grenades, bombs, the flamethrower, some weird combinations and even simple “rifle only”-builds.

The thing is, while many options have various pros and cons (for example: grenades offer the best DPS, but spamming 1-5 while manually targeting gets annoying after a week, at least for me), i personally liked Static Discharge (with rifle) the most because of the simple, but still effective gameplay while offering slight support through crowd control and vulnerability and some option to defend myself (gear shield through toolkit).

My usual build is:
4 – IV/X
4 – V/IX (sometimes, depending on the situation, i run IV/IX)
0
0
6 – II/VI/XII

with full Berserker Gear and following utilities: Utility goggles (stun breaker, fury buff and vulnerability), Rifle turret (quick cooldown on the toolbelt skill) and Tool kit (3 seconds of block, cc and nice toolbelt skill).

That being said, i do not feel like “dead weight” in dungeons or fractals, but i am kind of unsatisfied with this build. Also, when i do some research in patch notes and skill changes after not playing for a while, i often get the impression that even though none obvious changes would affect my build, i just feel uncomfortable with using the same build after so many patches because i might have overlooked something.

Keep in mind: i strongly focus on PvE, so that is where i want to be effective!

To finally get to the point: i want to know if my build, according to some of you more experienced and seasoned engineer players, is viable and, if not, what you would change in order to be most efficient without (!) having to get my good old grenade kit out – i think i have thrown enough grenades by mashing buttons back at launch.

Help would really be appreciated!

I play engineer since beta and i like how i can switch things up at a whim. I used the grenades for a very long time, then i got bored so i switched to flamethrower. After i got bored of that, i switched to some random melee tool kit build – although it sucked, it was fun whacking stuff with your wrench. Later, i tried out static discharge, and really enjoyed playing engi like a “normal” ranged class, without having to spam 1-5 like with grenades oder getting in real close to drop some bombs.

Since then, i stick to SD, but lately i feel kind of not satisfied with SD, so i hope someone could answer me this question: is SD still “viable” for PvE? I feel like i am dealing enough damage in dungeons and fractals, but somehow, I am not perfectly satisfied with “just enough”.

tl;dr: I really enjoy playing engineer for the variability that it offers when soloing content, but the general assumption that engineer is “weak” in group content when not running “the ONE build” kind of takes the fun out of trying different things.