Guild Wars 2

Q: Was this change intended?

Fractals of the Mists

Bug: Mai Trin and First Mate Horrik no longer scale appropriately with fractal levels.

The recent changes did not fix the scaling issues with Mai Trin and First Mate Horrick. Rather they have introduced a number of inconsistencies when it comes to NPC damage.

The amount of damage done at doing a fractal at the level 1-19 bracket is the same as the amount of damage done at the 40-49/50 bracket. This appears to be an exact opposite as to what the patch notes imply.

• Mai Trin’s Teleport Shot constantly hits for the same amount while wearing the same gear and agony resist values across fractal levels.

• Mai Trin’s Electric Blast constantly hits for the same amount while wearing the same gear and agony resist values across fractal levels.

• Mai Trin’s Pistol Spin constantly hits for the same amount while wearing the same gear and agony resist values across fractal levels.

Compared to Mai Trin’s other attacks such as Slash,Slice, and Champion First Mate Horrik’s attacks Cannon Explosion,Electric Blast,Momentous Strike which indeed appear to scale exponentially as the level of the fractal increases.

The end result is even the most heavy of classes can be killed in one damage rotation; drastically changing the prior mechanics and tactics required for this encounter.

(Overall negative community perception here)

It is possible that the Captain’s Shield buff is having unintended effects of the current scaling; Damage appears inconstantly high within in this fractal to other fractal bosses while the shield stacks are present.

If you manage to remove around 7-8 of the shield stacks the damage with the “high damage” special attacks do appear to decrease in value; however inconstantly the non “special” attacks (slash/slice) do not appear to change.

Oozo.7856:

DB takes the prize for the worst zerging trash server of them all. Good job, and well deserved.

^This.

In other words…

It’s not so much the coverage and PPT that makes people upset / tired against DB. Many of the regular/hardcore players on IOJ stopped caring about PPT about 6 matches ago during the Coverage Wars 2: League. Many from IOJ are used to not having the most points ticking – and play the game for the fights and encounters not how much of the map we can paint a colour (Pretty Painted Terrain).

I can’t speak for EB.

But I have to agree with Ozoo.

The thing with DB – Is it often seems that the apparent average skill level of players and groups is less than desirable – as an overall generalisation. Something that has been noticed / compared in light of recient servers we have been fighting against.

Servers zerg and get zerged, sure. In my time zone (Pacfic AUS/NZ) I’ve just never known a server to have such a weak forced zerg. So easily countered with so few until DB numbers simply hit critical mass and the rally mechanic starts to save them from been downed vs substantially lesser numbers.

You can regularly charge into 7-10 DB players with 4-5 players knowing full well you’ll likely win the fight.

It’s a good thing DB generally does zerg because until the odds are sitting at around 2:1 most of DB’s guys just don’t stand a chance. Sorry. This is a generalisation sure. There must be some semi decent groups out there somewhere on the server. That can handle themselves on a 1 to 1 ratio… At least I’d like to hope.

I can totally understand why DB with the coverage you guys do have – are not actually a higher ranked server however.

I’m sure there may be some on IOJ whom don’t see things this way – but I know there are many whom in my time zone do.

Yeah, Happy New Year.

[REC] GT.

@Chris Whiteside

Why can’t ANET invest in creating some real in game tools to get actual clear feedback on issues from the actual people that play the game?

A number of other studios run a system that, on logon to a server, a pop-up in game survey runs asking the player base a series of non-loaded questions ranging from yes/no, to rate something on a scale 1-10. Optional to answer (players only see it once and can opt to close)

Hell, even get really creative and make a NPC that pop’s the form and gives a fluff reward to players for completing if you want to break from the norm.

Surely getting metrics from the masses that people can choose to fill out with the anonymity/privacy of only them seeing there response is far more powerful than pitching to the small number who bother to visit, let alone frequent the forums?

Let the masses decide on chosen DEV topics via smarter tools via votes or ranking certain closed statements.

Make the player base feel more involved. Get better metrics. Make a bigger chunk of people happy. Win/Win?

Then use the forums to actually have the discussions as well as seek ideas for further ones?

Somewhat understand the goals outlined for warriors, in trying to prevent high C/C and DPS at the same time. However, can someone expand on the following statement when it comes to warriors and the preposed changes?

JonPeters.5630:

Our goal for many of the classes was to increase build diversity while still maintaining class roles and identities. Some of the things we increased were abilities/skills that people don’t run very often. Our goal was to increase these abilities to make them viable alternate builds.

Combined, all the changes below possibly go too far and are borderline overkill and will likely completely destroy the hammer / mace warriors; (other classes rejoice?)

JonPeters.5630:

Warrior:

• Arms IV – Unsuspecting Foe. Moved to Master Tier.
• Discipline XI – Burst Mastery. Reduced damage increase from 10% to 7%. Removed erroneous adrenaline gain fact.
• Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
• Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.
• Skull Crack. Increased the cast time from 1/4s to 1/2s. Updated the animation and effects of this skill to be more clear.

The end result likely been, rather leaving people the choice of alternate viable builds. You are removing current effectiveness of weapon choices outright.

If this change is overkill you have choosen for them. People will have to regear/play another build to keep up.

Mace: Longer to cast, easier to see – Can the range be tweaked slightly (minimal) on this as part of the adjustment? Mace has no other forms or cripple, snare or leap to assist in this landing. Hitting a moving target with server lag as it stands will only get worse.

Hammer: An outright 20% baseline damage debuff for the main attacks on the slowest weapon (high telegraph) in the game combined with the triat changes I think will be too far.

Warriors do need a change with the balance between DPS & C/C, but the combined changes seem possibly overkill.

Again, Why not start with just the changes to UF/BM and the longbow and see how it all evens out with other professions being buffed

If only the public had access to a test server to test changes out vs players with real gear and builds – it wouldn’t be a guessing game and soul destroying when ANET don’t quite get it right pushing to production servers.