Guild Wars 2

After the last patch, I have been experiencing some really, really strong frame drops when playing with windowed fullscreen -> approximately 10-12 fps in lions arch, 15 fps in the pvp lobby. Input also feels very sludgy, and makes the game essentially unplayable.

Strangely enough, this only occurs when the guild wars 2 screen has focus. For example, when I click out of the window onto something on my second monitor, my fps will shoot up to about 60, confirmed by the fps counter in the GW2 options page. Not sure why having focus on the game would cause such a drastic change in fps.

Anyone else experiencing this?

edit: Never mind, re-installed my nvidia drivers and I’m fine now. Strange that it was only happening in Guild Wars 2, though. Moving on!

Yup, still happening. Also, sometimes I can jump into the wind spouts and it shoots me into the air, and sometimes I have to press F. First time I didn’t need to. Second time I jumped at the spout and nothing happened, so I died, and then the floor didn’t come back. And, Mordremoth kept all of his special attacks, so the beginning of the fight was way more difficult than it was the first time.

The power on Cleric’s is more or less wasted when playing a Druid. Not like the skills do any relevant amount of damage, even with full power.

Can confirm, I just had the same issue. I went for the updrafts, got the spinning jumpshroom animation over and over, and died because of it. When I used the retry mote, half the floor was missing, and I couldn’t click on the rift. Great fun.

Since HoT dropped, I ranked up from personal rank 8 to personal rank 10 and noticed that I did not receive any pristine fractal relics.

Is this the intended behavior?

Oh thank goodness. Nice to hear this is actually considered a bug and not intended. Thank you for the communication.

Aye.8392:

Teq can be killed, but it takes too long to get set up and organized. Wasting 30-45 minutes before even getting to start the Teq battle isn’t fun; but waiting until 15 minutes before the battle starts to join the map pretty much guarantees failure.

It isn’t worthwhile anymore.

I’ve also stopped doing it for now. With my work schedule, I get one shot at Teq a day, and I can’t show up a full hour early. Add that to the fact that I enjoy playing a ranged build, and ranged builds can’t crit Teq’s weird cleave spot without a target, and that means I’m done doing Teq for now. Teq isn’t worth the time as it stands, and it was one of the shrinking list of events I enjoy in GW2 which get me to log in daily.

I wish they had done something more interesting than just doubling his health. Something that increases difficulty by changing the playstyle or adding mechanics. Doubling health does not increase difficulty — it increases the rate of failure without any interesting benefit. Diablo 3 suffered from the same problem.

Teq is not funner. It’s the exact same fight. It just takes longer.

This has to be a bug. They stated in the patch notes that Tequatl was supposed to be crittable, but I haven’t seen any crits yet. A response from the devs would be nice.

If it’s not a bug, then I guess it’s just one step closer to running out of reasons to log in every day, since pugging Teq is one of the few things I still do in GW2.

Honestly, I think part of the problem are the invincibility frames (dodging, skills with evade, etc). If it’s possible to avoid 95+% of the damage by dodging properly, why would anyone run anything other than full damage? I think Wildstar did a much better job with dodging. The dodge physically moved you out of the way (and much faster than simply running), but did not make you invincible.

Yup, I can confirm this. Farrah runs into the flame shield forever.

silvermember.8941:

Laki.7160:

Leo G.4501:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

No way, they do that. It’s hard enough to balance Ele as it is.

That’s what people said about a new profession in general…and added weapons to professions.

People are really too worried about extreme balance. That stifles innovation and fun, to an extent. Diablo 3 is currently suffering greatly from that. Guild Wars 1 had a ludicrous number of skills to try to balance, but they still pulled it off just fine. More than just fine, to be honest.

Guild wars 1 never pulled if off. You just have a nice tint rose glasses.

A lot of skills in guild wars 1 were either useless in one mode. Useless because they was significantly better version of the same skill. A combination of skills completely trivialized and broke the game and sometimes allowed heroes to play the game successsfully with little to no input from the player and player character.

Guild wars 1 was just a whack a mole balancing fortunately for the balance team since 80% of the skills were worthless the balancing was slightly easier.

Seems I struck a nerve with you. And no, they aren’t rose tint glasses. I was playing Guild Wars 1 less than a month ago. Your 80% estimation is nonsense, and offtopic again.

I would be very surprised if the new specializations were PvE only. PvPers would be up in arms (myself included) if that were the case, especially since specializations are going to be how Arenanet intends to add content to GW2 from here on out.

Fuzzion.2504:

For those that are wondering, this topic was discussed 3 years ago and it was stated by Anet that it would make the ELE op.

I hope the elementalist specialization is one of the first things they officially announce. They stated each specialization would receive access to a new weapon, and I’m wondering if they misspoke / didn’t mean elementalists.

Maybe they’re still partially deciding on what to do with elementalists. That seems less likely, though, since there’s a publicly playable build in a month and a half.

silvermember.8941:

Laki.7160:

I sure hope not. This game needs less weapon swapping, not more. It’s an awkward mechanic, as far as MMOs go. The idea of swapping weapons to keep yourself relevant based on what is going on around you is okay. Unfortunately, it seems like usually the only thing weapon swapping is for is to keep using your longer cooldowns, regardless of the situation. I suppose that’s the downside of every game that’s based solely on cooldown, not resource.

Reading your other posts makes me glad you are not a game designer, or every mmo will be even more similar then they currently are.

Your complaints about weapon swapping and the lack of resource management would be valid if that prevented people from other games from spamming skills and we both know that rarely happens. In a lot of mmorpg, potions usually circumvent whatever resource management the game has and the cooldown is short enough for the potions to allow players to spam it as well.

Point being resource management never works anywhere. The only thing that stop players from spamming powerful skills wasn’t this imaginary resource management it was the cool down.

Resource management worked fantastic in Guild Wars 1, WoW (depending on the expansion), basically every MOBA I’ve ever played, Counter-Strike grenades, mana in Final Fantasy, bullet time in Max Payne, the obvious resources in RTS games, among tons of others. It’s a tried and true mechanic in most game genres, and Guild Wars 1 did it the best. Seems silly to write it off because some other game allowed you to purchase and chug potions. Cooldown based games turn your rotation into "Are my big damage skills off cooldown on either of my weapon sets? Great, let’s press them again, " unless there is a reason to press those cooldowns for something other than damage. In Guild Wars 2 that tends to be the exception, not the rule. And for the record, thieves still have standard resource management, so even Arenanet didn’t throw it out entirely.

I could go on, but I don’t want to distract from the point of the original post any more. You don’t seem to want to have a reasonable discussion anyways. I want to see this game flourish. Plenty of players found that there wasn’t the right amount of longevity or space for creativity in Guild Wars 2, and they moved on.

I will end by bringing it back around and saying a weapon swap doesn’t seem necessary for Elementalists in my opinion. We already have access to 20 primary skills, and we swap between them. It really plays the same as multiple weapon swaps with longer cooldowns than usual.

Softspoken.2410:

It’d be interesting to see an emphasis on non-damage roles in the expansion, but I think that would be more impactful if it was reflected in the encounter & enemy design.

I agree. The encounters need to be tuned to allow for support to shine. I’m glad they tried breaking away from the trinity by trying to say every class can do everything, but there needs to be room for classes to do something other than zerg.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Laki.7160:

There IS no trinity though, GW2 style or otherwise. It’s just zerg zerg zerg. Occasionally people will play some form of bunker in pvp, but that doesn’t count as having a new version of the trinity as a core concept of the game.

i don’t know, have you seen WvW groups? like WvW guilds, not pugging zergs. the people in there have very defined roles. a zerg without support, heal, and/or CC won’t win a fight.

I suppose I can’t comment on that, since the last time I tried WvWing it was completely empty. I have been playing structured pvp and dungeons, though, and it feels slightly better. Huge emphasis on slightly. It feels like arenanet is toying with the idea of making support more viable, but are unwilling to dive all the way in. I’m still crossing my fingers, hoping for the ability to specialize in a single element, so I can play a water-specific elementalist.

There IS no trinity though, GW2 style or otherwise. It’s just zerg zerg zerg. Occasionally people will play some form of bunker in pvp, but that doesn’t count as having a new version of the trinity as a core concept of the game.

Forget the Trinity. Just make support roles (tank/soak damage, heal/reduce damage, control/delay damage) viable and/or required for group content. I’m sick of zerg dps. I plan on coming back for the expansion, but I’d like to stick around longer before getting bored, like I unfortunately did with Guild Wars 2. I think it has the potential to be amazing, but more zerg content will hold it back.

Leo G.4501:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

No way, they do that. It’s hard enough to balance Ele as it is.

That’s what people said about a new profession in general…and added weapons to professions.

People are really too worried about extreme balance. That stifles innovation and fun, to an extent. Diablo 3 is currently suffering greatly from that. Guild Wars 1 had a ludicrous number of skills to try to balance, but they still pulled it off just fine. More than just fine, to be honest.

I sure hope not. This game needs less weapon swapping, not more. It’s an awkward mechanic, as far as MMOs go. The idea of swapping weapons to keep yourself relevant based on what is going on around you is okay. Unfortunately, it seems like usually the only thing weapon swapping is for is to keep using your longer cooldowns, regardless of the situation. I suppose that’s the downside of every game that’s based solely on cooldown, not resource.

I don’t see how another weapon would work for Elementalists. That’s 20 more weapon skills to make, compared to 5 weapon skills for other classes.

To be honest, I’d like to have a way to specialize in a specific element. Or to have some bloody skill choices instead of being handed all my skills based on what weapon I take (but I’m not holding my breath for that).

Durzlla.6295:

Zenith.7301:

Who wants to bet it’s a support profession that’s essentially blacklisted from the PvE “kill kitten before it kills you” zerker meta.

This is why i play with my friends and not pugs lol

This is why my friends don’t play GW2 anymore.

I’m pretty casual when it comes to PvP, but I have one or two friends online a lot that I would like to play sPvP with.

It really kills the fun to get constantly autobalanced to different sides, though. I honestly can’t remember the last time I even tried PvPing with them, because of this.

Agreed about never getting fair fights.

It’s really unfortunate — they based the game around having no healers, to make for even fights. In fact, they said themselves that some of the funnest/most dynamic PvP they experienced in Guild Wars 1 was when two teams without healers squared off in random arenas.

In Guild Wars 2, we never get to experience that, since in sPvP, fights are never evenly matched for numbers.

I would LOVE to see a 3v3 or 4v4 random arena format. I think that would shine.

Patience people… goodness. Guild Wars 2 was easily one of the best MMO launches to date. So there’s a few bugs here and there. So the PvP isn’t perfect yet. At least they aren’t tossing the game out, collecting their money, and ignoring the players. Most game companies do that now, because they don’t care about the game. Instead, gw2 devs are working weekends to give us blogs to read.

It’s incredibly overpriced.

However, it wouldn’t be overpriced if it was exotic. I wouldn’t have a problem spending 120 gold on exotic gear.

Rare gear on the other hand? No thanks.

Flavius.9580:

We did get our elite skill for water combat, which is nice. More of a bug fix than a buff, but I’ll take it.

Still going to avoid underwater combat on the ele, though.

I’ll gladly dive in the water when whirlpool is off cooldown. … And once it’s done, I’m leaving, haha.

Flavius.9580:

I switch to air attunement when moving from seige to seige…or when I have to run away. For all practical purposes overland travel is conducted at bonus run speed on demand.

I wasn’t aware of this team heal on the warrior (never unlocked it on mine) but I’m doubting this is anywhere near as useful as an ele attuned to water.

Look, the bottom line is this: you do not play a warrior for combat at range or for heals or for support. They may have limited options in this area, but it’s simply not their main focus and other professions can do these things better, including the ele. If you want to be jealous of anybody in WvW, I can understand, say, ranger envy. (I certainly envy their range.) Warriors are meh there. They are the poor bloody infantry.

I actually really like the Warrior rifle skill set. It’s got a cripple, spike damage, pressure damage, and a knockback.

As for the Warrior heals, yeah, they probably don’t do very well in WvW, but they really shine in sPvP.

megrim.3189:

I can’t help but feel attunement swapping is kinda the problem here.
It feels to me a bit shoe-horned in, and the class suffers somewhat as a result. If they left the trait lines more or less as they are, removed combat attunement swapping and added weapon swapping I might be more interested.

Agreed. I feel like I get punished when I don’t constantly swap attunements. Lowered cooldowns of skills (3-5, usually) would make me feel like I’m not wasting time in an attunement. Once I use the skills with a long cooldown, it’s time to move on to the next attunement.

Compare this to ranger shortbow. Most of my damage actually comes from 1 and 2. When I use 3-5, it’s because I want the utility those skills provide, not because they increase my damage. I don’t feel like I have to be constantly using those skills in order to be effective.

Flavius.9580:

Sure. But combat at range isn’t their forte and is very much a second best option. More importantly, a warrior cannot lay down aoe and cc at range in the way an elementalist can. Nor can they heal and support at range. (Actually, they can’t heal at all, except for themselves.) There’s really no comparison here. Rifles and longbows are very much auxiliary weapons for a warrior.

And warriors feel so slow compared to my ele at perma 25% run speed.

Warriors can team heal. There’s a trait that makes shouts heal in an area. It’s quite nice. In fact, sometimes I run with a cleric’s amulet on my warrior, because of it.

I don’t think runspeeds stack. I think they just take the highest one. Find a thief with signet of shadows and try to keep up with him.

… Unless you’re talking about sitting in air attunement all the time. Which isn’t really a good idea.

I would agree to some degree. Some skills do need it (Hundred Blades, Meteor Shower, for examples).

Some skills definitely don’t need to lock down movement (Ranger Sword#1, Warrior Hammer #3, Guardian Hammer #2, for examples). And yes, I realize Ranger Sword doesn’t technically root you, but it does take away your ability to control your character.

Yup, I’ll throw my hat in this ring. I love the melee ranger archetype (was my favorite class to play way back in the original NWN), and I wish I could use Sword/Dagger on my ranger, but it always backfires and punishes me because I don’t have enough control over my character.

Agreed. I know they changed some of these skills in beta (for example, Cyclone Axe on a warrior used to lock you in place, but now you can use it on the run).

Ranger sword/dagger has too many skills that control your movement for you. Serpent strike bothers me especially.

Wasselin.1235:

It’s because, contrary to popular belief, elementalists are not meant to be played by swapping through attunements constantly.

They may not be meant to be played that way, but that’s definitely the way they are the most efficient.

I wish it wasn’t, though. It’s not much fun flipping through attunements left and right. The really high cooldown on most skills is part of the problem.

Still bugged for me too. All the mobs constantly respawn, so I’m fighting groups of 4-5 enemies at a time, if (or when) I die, I go back to the beginning and more enemies are alive than when I started. And Trahearne won’t follow me. Super frustrating.

Works with staff fire #4 too (burning retreat). Although I typically just swing my camera around, instead of using the 180 button.