Guild Wars 2

I like the minigame, but I’d say there’s too many food items spaced strangely. It’d be improved if there were fewer items or they were more closely clustered by type (meats in one place, fishes another, fruits, sauces/water/wolf pheromones). If there were fewer items in general it’d be better because you wouldn’t have to run around trying to speedread all the text on the first couple tries, or if the items were clustered by area it’d be more of a logic puzzle to go through mentally “oh that’s a fish it’ll be in that corner”. But it doesn’t matter too much since it’s only run once per account I suppose.

I would rather they had found a way to make them better summons, but SW feel way better than they did before at least. Didn’t play with sword or hammer much. Bow of Truth should instantly make the healing field after the cast, currently the delay is too long between finishing cast and the field appearing and you have to predict where people will be or tell them to hold still. Shield is alright, but should either be instant-cast or have a slightly longer bubble duration. I want to suggest it applying aegis to 5 allies like before, but there’s a lot of aegis buttons already.

otto.5684:

What guardian is lacking is condition damage and support. This seems to address both ends. How effective? That remains to be seen.

Core guardian is lacking non-burning conditions, and long-ranged support. This elite spec appears to be melee burning, and possibly melee support. Hopefully it is actually ranged support, but the answer to better condi guard isn’t just stacking so much burning. Except for pve I guess.

I’d be a fan of firebrand if it was a ranged support spec with burning options, but melee support and burning were already huge on core guardian. Maybe it does strong burning and support at once instead of core where you had to pick either? I’m afraid this will become core guard mkII even after core guard got a ridiculous number of buffs the past few balance patches.

With many “class-unique” buffs being increased from 5 to 10 target cap, are there any chances of Guardian’s Battle Presence virtue GM or possibly Signet of Courage’s passive receiving the same treatment?

SoC may not fit the philosophy since it technically isn’t a buff like banners or GotL, but Battle Presence seems to fit perfectly as it performs poorly since it was moved from honor and altered to no longer continue applying the passive while on cooldown. It can’t currently compete with Indomitable Courage on support builds except in environments totally devoid of CC, and the gap was further expanded with the reductions of both Virtue of Courage and Resolve’s cooldowns. With a shorter Resolve cooldown the active becomes a more valuable choice, and BP is secondarily devalued.

Again about guardian, but more applicable to other classes, is there an ongoing plan to deal with severely underperforming or plainly out-of-place traits?

There’s a lot of stuff that feels like it was forgotten after the overhaul years ago. E.G. Retributive Armor. I know it wasn’t changed in this patch, but the lack of change could use comment of itself. RA is a Valor GM that offers negligible survivability and competes with the two strongest GM traits for guardian survival in pvp game modes. It seems to originate from when valor gave toughness and ferocity, but it is the only trait besides Smiter’s Boon in the line that’s offensive. All the survivability sacrificed by not choosing one of the other GMs in the line means it would be a better decision to pick another trait line (radiance, zeal, virtues, or dragonhunter) for more damage.

L I G H T F I E L D S
With the 10-cap increases my only real disappointment with this patch is that Battle Presence wasn’t also given a 10-target cap. It’d fit right in with other stuff since it’s class-unique and (especially given the buff to core F3) cannot reasonably compete with Indomitable Courage even on support builds.

Everything else is good. Even if the greatsword tweaks don’t shift the meta they are giving it a bump to keep up and helping core guard compete with DH. I’d still rather they nerf elite specs rather than buffing core, but that’s personal opinion.

EDIT: Also reminder Retributive Armor is still a GM trait. That garbage needs out and more should be done generally about dumpster traits that exist across the board.

I think elite specs were a mistake, and core specs of all classes need worthless traits to be fixed. E.g. Retributive armor.

Travlane.5948:

yes they can literally have all that in same build. maybe not in abundance….. but its all there

“heavy burns and other condis” “maybe not in abundance” “true shot (DH power-based)” you wanna, you know, maybe re-evaluate what you’re tryna say here?

It was 788+(healing power x .60), it should now be 788+(healing power x 1.002). Which checks out since with mender’s amulet I get ~1800 healing.

They buffed the healing scaling on the base virtue, meaning more value out of healing power. From that and trying to buff signet of courage so it isn’t worthless it seems they’re trying to bring back core bunker guard.

loseridoit.2756:

you know. some of us hated the new fractal.

The way I see it. There are two camps for hard mode in dungeons

overgrowth vs wildstar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaxiKobmAR8

I am in the overgrowth group for ai

But none of the ai in gw2 went anywhere near as deep as that seems. They’re just meatsacks with 1-3 attacks (more for bosses) on long intervals and high stats. I agree that player-like ai can be more fun to fight than unique-mechanics-based encounters (and would make far more game mechanics/playstyles usefully applicable across game modes so maybe they’d actually have balance) but it isn’t a step back compared to what existed before.

Braham is a Guardian. Braham used a scroll. Scrolls are made of paper. Paper burns. Braham’s bow burns. Tome of Wrath burns. Paper is made of tomes. Tomes are made by scribes. Scribing requires focus. Tomes used to have Guardians.

Guardian “Scribe” tome/main-hand-focus elite spec confirmed!

Power damage+off-support.

This has already been discussed to death, and your post isn’t a question.

Now that I’ve replayed the story for achievements, battling the ice beast in the last instance is terrible. Because it depends on both the ice beast AI and the idiotic pathing of the elementals, it is not enjoyable in the slightest given the emphasis on moving around caused by the aoe knockdowns.

Harbinger mode is everything I didn’t realize I wanted in my 5-man endgame content. We got to 25% on a “just to see how it goes” run after 100 normal and I got pounced and we all died because of it. On normal it’s clear enough to see where aoe’s will hit and you generally can understand that in melee range you worry about melee attacks, at range you worry about ranged. Probably the most fun I’ve had in PvE combat, and definitely the most fun I’ve had in fractals.

I’m not a fan of the final ice beast battle, mainly because of the way the icebrood minions work. Since they move around and the only way to beat them is with another mob’s abilities, it can be annoying when they take a jank path and miss narrowly. Mechanics that depend on loose AI pathing annoy me.

Based on the quaggans in the gemstore, it would be safe to headcannon the patchnotes are being delayed by quaggans.

Ayrilana.1396:

King Cephalopod.7942:

Ayrilana.1396:

Again, I was speaking about access to swiftness. Going off on an entirely different subject with build usefulness doesn’t change that.

It isn’t a different subject. Access to anything (boons included) doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There is almost no scenario where you have full utility choices but no traits/runes.

It is. The post of the OP’s that I was responding to had zero reference to build usefulness. Please don’t bring in something that my post wasn’t event about and then use it to argue against said post. Thanks.

Since you are not reading the specific post I was responding to…

Toasa.1236:

HardRider.2980:

Because Guards already have a ton of swiftness applying skills.

" a ton" are you kidding me? there is actually 1 skill with swiftness, 2 skills if u have a staff….

I did read the post. Guardian may not need +25%, but SYS isn’t a reason. Which appears to be part of your argument along standing still in a symbol. Saying SYS is a mobility choice because it has swiftness is like saying rifle is a defensive weapon for warrior because it has an evade on #4.

Ayrilana.1396:

Again, I was speaking about access to swiftness. Going off on an entirely different subject with build usefulness doesn’t change that.

It isn’t a different subject. Access to anything (boons included) doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There is almost no scenario where you have full utility choices but no traits/runes.

Ayrilana.1396:

I’m talking strictly about access to swiftness… I’m not talking about its usefulness for builds.

If you don’t care about usefulness of build then you can just run superior rune of the centaur, retreat, and pure of voice for 108% swiftness uptime and still have two other free utilities with no staff requirement.

Ayrilana.1396:

You have Save Yourselves and Retreat. You also have a skill by using staff which stacks swiftness if you stay in the symbol for the duration. Guardians can apply perma swiftness so there’s no need. Of all of the classes, they’re one of the few that have easy access to swiftness.

SYS isn’t a good utility to take for swiftness on builds meant to be useful. Retreat craps out enough swiftness.

Lahmia.2193:

Here’s an idea. Give Guardians a trait that gives +25% movement speed but put it in the Valor traitline as a grandmaster. Then watch as all the guardians get salty about having to sacrifice a traitline for +25% movement speed. Then they’ll realise why they should just be quiet and be happy with their adequate swiftness capabilities.

It would be more useful than retributive armor.

Condition removal is only personal from hunter’s fortification. That healing may be good burst, but probably not enough for raids. You’d likely need to maximize sustained healing which means virtues for battle presence/absolute resolution, honor, and possibly radiance to boost signet of courage, alternatively DH+renewed focus but I don’t know if that offers enough hps to be worth it. Valor would probably be overkill with full defensive stats. You also wouldn’t want to take pure of voice to make healing breeze cleanse because you’d be giving up a lot of healing potential from WoP or FoW.

But beyond all that the most important thing is that guardian can’t effectively heal from range.

Druid/tempest provide more healing and druids also give unique offensive buffs. Chrono has good unique buffs but no dps which is why they’re default tanks.

Enrage timers exist, and the goal should be to kill without dying rather than getting as close to enrage as possible without hitting it. Before you consider your own builds you should watch videos and read guides if you haven’t already. There are some bosses with no aggro mechanics. It’s better to try and fail and learn on a tested glass build than to gain bad habits from stacking defensive stats. Remember there are 9 other people in the raid at least one of which exists solely to keep you and the 8 others alive. If you don’t want to do anything but tank you could run enough knight’s armor to reach ~1500 toughness and use the hammer build but that’s about it.

Fractals just do whatever your heart desires. Remember low tiers exist to teach you the mechanics in a more survivability-lenient environment.

As with anyone asking about tanky builds, let me preface this with: tankiness is largely unnecessary in pve, as killing things faster tends to make it easier. Even then druids/water eles usually do healing better. A glass PS warrior can cover might. Raids prefer chronomancer tanks as they offer alacrity, distortion (invuln), and some quickness. The difference between heavy and light armor defense with no added toughness is ~15%, and full toughness is only going to reduce that gap and lower incoming direct damage ~50% assuming you double your defense. Most of your survivability comes from abilities/traits, so you generally only want as much defensive stats as is necessary to survive (applies to all game modes). Everyone could run T4 fractals in nomad’s, but it would take hours.

Assuming your heart’s set on holy/protection paladin life, if you’re doing pve (which I assume to be fractals) minstrels is far better because the added group support far outweighs any possible benefit of greater personal survivability (generally unnecessary by stats) given by nomad’s. You probably won’t be allowed in a serious learning raid with either, and you shouldn’t try to join on that. I haven’t tried full minstrel’s in wvw but a mix of nomad’s and minstrels can make a near-unkillable rezbot. If you’re running in a blob it’s just a mosh pit, but generally doing damage is a good thing. Be aware neither stat set exists in pvp, mender’s/magi’s are the two healing amulets (they have a separate stat system). Also be aware that your weapons/utilities need to change based on the situation between wvw/pve. That being said I’d still recommend having different armor sets for wvw/pve especially if doing fractals, as infusions make a case for separation and runes have different effectiveness in either.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Merciful_Frontline This is pretty good considering the stats you’re looking for, but if you want something with more consecrations it might be more difficult/custom. Stand Your Ground is one of the best buttons on Guardian in wvw, and two different consecrations provide boons/healing, and the healing one disappears after 10 enemy bumps. If you’re really set on using the same armor, it’s easier to run wvw runes in fractals than fractal runes in wvw.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeSlsAhehYrQwYIwPEHMEFuCmgv8WsdZAkbh8b/A-ThxHQBg7JA6DeoSQAcKA+x+DAU5H8U/hUA+tFA-e If I ran minstrels on uncategorized fractal this is probably what it would look like for the harpy sections. Given the boon duration you’d probably want to run staff instead of hammer. But you need to know what skills do what and change them based on the situation. Take battle presence always unless you need extra stab. Signet of courage can work if you don’t want/need an invuln or virtue reset. Healing breeze is less tanky than shelter but gives more group support. If you’re dying but your party isn’t (how it feels to run with necros), take writ of persistence and invigorated bulwark. Shield of the Avenger is good for dealing with projectiles. Sanctuary can be good for providing space to rez or breaking cc bars. Purging flames is good when the instability is “afflicted”. Merciful intervention can heal for a lot and get you to a downed ally instantly. Retreat is good when you have to kite aoe’s like in Mai Trin or the end of Snowblind. Also remember your dodgeroll heals and weaponswap gives you another dodge.

Lag Spikes.9253:

Cut the cast time to 2 sec, to match warrior banner.
Add 6sec of swiftness and 6 sec of regen with each passive pulse.
That would solve passive movement speed issue and add some sustain at the cost of not having an ‘oh carp’ button.

Not boons, we can get those by shouts. Not to mention boons from inactive “signets” is a herald thing, and as much as I want to give that class the boot that’s their elite spec and it needs to stay somewhat unique and potent. Reducing cast time is good, but the passive needs something more.

I don’t know about other things, but 94 cliffside became obnoxious. On my cleric’s carry guard I eat 2-6k damage enemy autoattacks when I have 4k toughness. From 8+ enemies while glass eles and a necro try to burst things before enrage, and each of them (but necro) go down to one hit. My build hasn’t changed in ages (actually got buffs over time) but cliffside has caused me great agita recently.

Shield is fine. It isn’t supposed to be a dps weapon. Shield trait is kinda booty.

Just checked this. It does increase boon duration, it just doesn’t show the increase on the stats page. Which it should considering right-hand strength works that way.

drunkenpilot.9837:

To be honest I dont think they nerfed the bosses. As someone in my labyrinth map mentioned, with the power creep from HoT and so many elite specs carrying tons of CC, it’s just much easier to kill them with the skills we have now.

Skeleton lich was absolutely nerfed. It no longer applies nearly as much retal, and the retal does less damage. It also seems to spawn fewer adds less frequently.

Festivals are like honey-traps. They pull an obscene portion of the playerbase together for a brief time, and give a nice filler between “major content”. Probably better that they improve them a bit each time they come around, rather than make them less, considering the community aspect.

Pour one out for skeletal lich, must be hard to fall so far from power. One day you strike fear into the legions of your enemies, the next you get ruined by eight lootsticks.

Boons applicable to siege.

I’m pleasantly surprised they buffed MI, especially by the margin they did. Although the changes to SoC aren’t enough to change use, it is in the right direction if in the wrong way.

Still want a SoM buff tho

Guardian
The guardian is faring well in multiple game types with a few exceptions. In the next balance patch, we’ll be normalizing some of the dragonhunter specialization’s defensive capabilities while increasing some effects for baseline guardian abilities.

Shield of Courage: The baseline duration of the blocking effect has been reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.
Zealot’s Embrace: Projectile speed has been increased by 100%.
Cleansing Flame: The casting time of this ability has been reduced from 4.25 seconds to 3.25 seconds.
Merciful Intervention: The recharge time of this ability has been reduced from 50 seconds to 40 seconds. Base healing power has been increased by 20%. Healing-power contribution has been increased by 83%.
Signet of Wrath: The recharge time of this ability has been reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds. This change also modifies Wrath of Justice in the Radiance specialization.
Symbol of Punishment: Skill facts have been updated to display the light combo’s field effect.
Signet of Courage: The casting time of this ability has been reduced from 4.25 seconds to 3.25 seconds.
Purification: The cast time of this ability has been increased from 0.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds. The initial heal’s base healing value has been reduced from 80 to 40, with level scaling also reduced by 6%. The initial heal has had its healing-power contribution increased by about 33%.
Piercing Light: Daze duration from this trait has been reduced from 0.5 seconds to 0.25 seconds.
Hunter’s Determination: The ability triggered by this trait has been split from the utility skill and renamed Shards of Faith. The cooldown of this trait has been increased from 45 seconds to 60 seconds. The number of fragments dropped has been decreased from 5 to 3.
Hunter’s Verdict: This ability can now be used underwater.

Now that I’ve played a bit more I’ve decided I don’t particularly like toxic trails. Enemy mechanics are already fine for making ranged safer, particularly on some bosses, and anomaly bomb and social awkwardness are far more fun while still being instabilities that keep melee more on their toes.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gas_Mask_Skin ?

I think the next quarterly patch should be in october, so hopefully then.

Vayne.8563:

Can’t have it every which way though. If you’re increasing the work factor by 3 to put something into a living story coming out every 2-3 months, you’re going to see months without anything.

Time constraints don’t necessarily equal lazy.

“them taking a long time is fine”

sophiewhite.3149:

i love how people call them bad players for being caught in spear of justice.

TBF situational awareness is half the battle.

I’m lazy so I just run cleric’s, consecrations, mace/shield+hammer and don’t let anyone die.

Them taking a long time on each armor piece is fine, I just don’t like how every armor piece from LS3 is the same regardless of weight type. It makes sense with the bloodstone visage since that’s more or less a modification of the glint’s gaze type thing, but for the headpiece and shoulders from episode 2 I’m worried they’ll just keep putting armor pieces that are the same on all weights and we’ll effectively end up with non-gemstore outfits, which seems pretty lazy in a game of cosmetics.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Yeah, they should call it “Tome of Courage”. :p

“Alas, my guard, you do me wrong/ to cast me off discourteously” -Tome of Courage, 2012-2015; xxxx-?

Signet of Mercy OP!

I think they meant to say “symbols” instead of signets but I have no idea.

erndan.6793:

Thank you to all who have taken the time to reply to my rant.

I have found someone to run around with and I really appreciate all the offers of help.

After re-reading my original statement, and all the responses, I can see that I was “whining” a little. This was not my intent, but it is what it is. I should of taken a little more time before I posted this. Thanks again for pointing this out.

Nobody is a machine.

Rauderi.8706:

I can appreciate this perspective. Rather than wishing for some ultimate, uber-imbued mobs, having sections of the zone where some skills are more useful than others would still encourage build-tweaking as preparation. Note: one of those preparations is bringing your best Stability skill to the NW portion of Ember Bay.

I kinda want them to make the destroyers teach people what it’s like to have 10+ bleed/burning/poison stacks. Hoooo boy, smells like wvw.

Mist convergence is fantastic, 10/10 would get double horace’d at T100 again. I’m on the fence about the rest of the changes since it’s been two days, but so far I haven’t had any real problems beyond flux/social/enrage on cliffside and that was a bit more to do with target focusing and lack of cleave (or maybe too much)+enrage than anything else.

I’m hoping that this is more of an introduction to mechanics, and as we move north in the island chain things get harder, ramping up to HoT levels further on. Despite the relative ease there actually is a good spread of enemy offense types to counter with different utilities. Destroyers apply conditions, constructs have knockbacks, and karka (and some destroyers and constructs) have projectiles. Each are on different parts of the island so it feels more useful than usual to swap traits/utilities based on the area. I like the way it’s going, but want a bit more.

I’m just enjoying how Hal is to ember bay as Mankrik’s Wife was to vanilla barrens. Every half-hour or so someone new asks where he is in map chat.

Map is fun, skritt and circus are strange but w/e. Hearts are nice; the karma vending is pretty good too. “Patron” achievement is godly. JP is hard, but feels more like an exercise in fighting nonsense terrain rather than careful/thoughtful jumps. Sulfur sea is gross. Overall I like it.