Guild Wars 2

I like the idea of gaining traits by exploring the world and doing things in it, but the exact objectives chosen are extremely questionable. Don’t make low level character who are already handicapped in WvW (more-so now that they don’t have trait points) play against fully leveled and spec’d characters to gain a trait. That’s not going to be fun for anyone. Don’t put traits behind content that can’t be done in a reasonable sitting with a moderate amount of effort. Some of us play during off hours and there’s just not enough people around to complete these events. Consider adding multiple objectives for traits so unlocking them provides a fun goal for the player rather than a tedious slog through parts of the game they have no interest in.

The unlock system could be good, but it’s current implementation is not.

I played on my lower level alts (< level 30) and it feels as though their survivability is substantially lower without trait points. It also feels as though leveling up doesn’t provide much reward now that trait points are not gained until much later. The ‘carrot’ leading me to the next level doesn’t really exist anymore, which makes leveling less enjoyable.

So long as the best way to control mobs is by killing them and the best way to prevent damage is by killing what is damaging you then damage will be the optimal way to play in a group.

They know where you are because they only exist in your mind. Can you hide from your own imagination?

Updates get missed from release notes commonly in software development, the more elaborate the product the more likely that the update notes will be less comprehensive. It’s not a major blunder that this happens and given that in this case most of the changes will be found and updated in the wiki within a few days it’s hardly an issue.

Defender only really shines when you stack toughness and have Signet of Illusions but when that is the case he is quite nice, combined with phantasmal healing and another (different) phantasm, like the swordsman, he can stay alive for some time and provide a nice damage reduction for your group.

This is probably sub-optimal, but I’m running 0/0/20/20/30 with restorative mantras and Magi armor with water runes and sapphire jewelry. MoR for healing and utilities are generally Signet of Illusions and whatever other two are most appropriate for the situation but I tend to favor iDefender and Mantras. I’ve been going staff + Sword/Sword, but I’m still experimenting with the weapons. Both me and my phantasms are tanky as hell and the group gets regen plus mantra healing, but the damage is terrible.

Scepter is also our only weapon that doesn’t have a combo finisher on it, if Scepter1 at least had 20% chance for projectile finisher it would be something. It might make the clones worth more than just shatter-fodder too.

The lack of a workable in-game LFG tool is really this games most glaring oversight, especially this far after release. gw2lfg.com is an excellent resource, but it shouldn’t be necessary.

Illusion of Drowning still puts Reflection on the target, making it fairly damaging to one’s allies.

Same here, I occassionally burst up to 15Kb/s, but for the most part it’s stuck at 0.01Kb/s.

This is a good change, I look forward to what you come up with to replace it.

Sylvari Mesmer
No buffs
It took me about 3 1/2 hours about half of which was failing the last jump due to being out of sync with the server.

I really enjoyed the challenge, after awhile I just kind of tuned out and let the rhythm of the puzzle get me to the end.

souldonkey.9534:

I did it a bunch of times and I did run into a syncing glitch in the puzzle a couple of times. It seemed my character was out of sync with the server by a few seconds. So that when I would jump it would look like the perfect time to my character but in actuality it was waaay too soon. Exiting the client and re-logging fixed it. Happened to me twice and to a friend once. We even tested it by having him and I both on the stairs and I jumped when it looked perfect to me and he told me the window hadn’t even begun to come around yet so I was way early.

This must be what I ran into, it just took me hours to realize that was the issue without someone else there to spot me. Relogging fixed it for sure. I hope future timed puzzles have fewer sync issues.

I failed the last jump a good dozen times due to a glitch on the overflow server that made it impossible to time, logged out and back in to get to a different overflow and made it first try. I’m kind of miffed about spending an extra 90 minutes due to the glitch, but I can do the whole clocktower in my sleep now.

This looks fun. I wonder if I can make it work in WvW. Retaliation seems to be very strong there.

This one’s going to be close all the way to the finish, all three of us seem evenly matched. Great game this week, everyone.

Keep up the good work. Also changing up more heavily-bot-farmed events the way you did the bridge in Kessex Hills would be awesome. That event is far more interesting and fun now.

I find the Temple of Lyssa event chain to be far interesting. It still requires coordination to hold all the generators while providing a challenging fight that is not just a series of instant-kill attacks.

If you’re in the borderlands hit the gold veins in the south whenever possible. They fund my WvW efforts fairly well.

In my experience Feedback and reflection do seem to prevent the damage of the daggerstorm, but they do not damage the thief, probably because of the reflection built into daggerstorm.

I’ve tried doing the Mind Stab/Illusionary Wave combo on daggerstorming thieves with mixed success. Often the stability is covered by other boons that I strip instead. And Mind Stabs area is small which, combined with the casting delay, makes it’s difficult to hit a moving target.

I’ve not tried Arcane Thievery on it yet, that may have better chances to strip the Stability, once that’s gone it’s trivial to stop the daggerstorm with a daze/stun/knockback/fear.

I took a group of new players through CM Story and one of them (it was his first dungeon) has pretty much written off dungeons altogether as being too frustrating. This type of experience could be avoided if more experienced players were encouraged to show new players the ropes in these dungeons, but this type of mentoring is not really encouraged by the current reward system.

It’s something I hope is addressed soon, I don’t want too many people to have frustrating experiences finding groups and running story mode dungeons when so much work has gone into making them.

I don’t want anything that’s completely automated, but a better way to advertize what you are looking for a group for (which dungeon, which mode, which path) would be helpful. LFG at the moment is just too vague to be useful.

The puzzles themselves are pvp resources (free siege plans) that can be controlled and it provides an interesting change in venue for combat.

WvW just needs a better rubber-band mechanic. The intention is for the 2 weaker servers to gang-up on the leading server so they can come back, except that in practice the two weaker servers are unable to challenge the stronger server and so just cannibalize each other while the stronger one mops them up. The orbs are making it worse by making it easier for the side that’s ahead to just get more ahead. I don’t mean to say that a bad rubber-band mechanic should be implemented, but blow-out matches are not desirable or fun for any of the participants.

I suspected such, now I’ll feel bad every time I get jute off a player in WvW. Poor guy didn’t stand a chance.

I agree that I don’t see how WvW excludes casual players. There’s enough people on your team so that you don’t have to have ferocious timing and finely-tuned builds, you can jump on and play for an hour, or stay on all day and be rewarded either way. So individual skill and play time are not really enforced by the system. There’s not really anything that pushes casual players out of the format.

Linsey, are you sure all WvW loot scales? I was getting level 16 drops in WvW just yesterday (on my 80). I was getting level 80 drops too, but it seems to be a mix just like when I’m in a lower level zone. I’m not complaining, the jute I’ve gotten is more valuable than the silk.

I should mention that, in my opinion, many of the other greets are not as bad, I think the Tailoring Master is worse because it’s longer than ’How can I help?" and her voice is pitched higher which causes it to cut through the background noise and music so it becomes more noticeable.

Matthew, it’s the greeting for the tailor in Lion’s Arch. When there’s a crowd of people working on the trade skill someone is almost constantly buying thread from her so there’s a constant stream of ‘Ideas are like cream, good ones rise to the top’ for everyone standing there. I’m pretty mellow, but even I found it bothersome after awhile.

That’s not a citadel, look at the minimap.

The only thing I’d suggest is granting the merchants the invulnerability buff that players get so there’s no reason to go back there.

I’m a little concerned that if running Story Mode after the first time is unrewarding that over time groups for Story Mode will become harder to find, effectively shutting newer players and alts out of the dungeon system. I’ve generally felt that since Exploration Mode offers tokens as an incentive to run them, that Story Mode should offer a different (lesser) incentive so that experienced players have more reasons to join new players to run them.

I actually would like doors to be a bit more solid than they currently are, several illusions go through them as well and some sword swings will hit someone standing very close on the other side. The doors should be full barriers until they are down, that way you have to drain the supplies of the keep you’re attacking like a real siege instead of just preventing repairs. Aside from that, I agree with the OP that once they are down it should take effort to get them back up, not just a single hammer swing.

It’s not that it’s not worth the cost of the charge up, which as mentioned can be worked around by using it out of combat or when your target is out of range, blocking, invulnerable, etc., it’s that the skill isn’t worth the opportunity cost of not having a different, more broadly applicable skill in it’s place.

I’ve tried three different builds in PvE; the first used clones and phantasms as control, either soaking damage with them or using on-death mechanics to weaken and cripple the enemy, the second was a phantasm build and the third was a shatter build. With the first two builds shattering had a cost that outweighed the benefit, only in the shatter build was it worthwhile to shatter mid-fight.

Are other professions like this? I’ve heard Steal is only good if Thieves build to add a bunch of effects to it. I’m not sure about the other professions.

That’s probably it. Thanks, Embolism!

It also appears as though the bounce from the clones confusion causes confusion on me. Either that or every single underwater opponent I use it on can cast confusion on me when I’m nearby.

That is how all signets work by design, it’s meant to make you choose between having the passive buff and utilizing the active effect.

Maybe some veteran mobs that buff all their nearby allies with retaliation would cut down on the AoE spam a bit.

Grimgold, you should look at the official response in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/events/Event-Participation-Problems-In-Large-Groups/first#post94386

Because it looks like that is an issue being investigated already, which is good because I agree with you that it is a big deal.

That’s actually pretty funny. I can’t imagine it being that effective against a skilled team though.

In general I think if these type of events are pushed to one side of the chain too far they should get progressively harder every time they are completed successfully. Not that it should ever be impossible to win, but it should take a coordinated effort involving a decently-sized group to defend it at some point.

My experiences mirror the others here, dynamic events that spawn waves of minions disproportionately reward builds that can deal burst area damage by awarding the lion’s share of drops to those characters. As numerous events in Orr use this model, and as Orr is the only reliable place to get quality drops, this encourages every player to spec entirely for burst area damage at the expense of all other play styles.