Guild Wars 2

HeavenSwordz.2813:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

My take on a trait redux.

This give the actual feeling that you make strategic choice in your SoulBeast Trait and that those choice will be impactful on your gameplay much more than currently.

I feel like Fresh Reinforcement should share our boons to your pet when leaving Beastmode too.

I really like your idea for Leader Of The Pack, I can actually see it being really useful in Zerg or GvG especially with the dolyak stance (which might be a little too powerful combined with this trait).

Oppressive Superiority in my opinion, should be reworked,
I don’t really like this trait to begin with, should at least give condition damage, not condition duration.

Ranger is in dire need for condition duration traits. Duration is much better than condition damage if you want to stay competetiv as condition class in PvE after the food change.

You still can’t provide perma alacrity as the heal with it costs too much and the cooldown of Orders from above limits you even with reduced energy costs. Glint will be most likely still better as you can give perma protection. The protection from heal skills procs everytime you move the tablet.

Beastmode is meant to be a tactical ressource like necromancer shroud. The CD will never go away. Maybe we will get pet swap in beastmode.

Hero points are part of the character progession. You can have over 350 spare hero points right now. There is no dilemma.

Zenith.7301:

Gonna say it again, a measly 200+150 stat buff does not come even close to making up for the loss of dps from the pet.

200 power and 150 ferocity does not equal 2-3k DPS. This is pathetic.

Please try to get someone who knows math when designing elite specs.

How many times does it need to be repeated? You are not supposed to stay permanent in beastmode.
It is not a petless ranger. Get over it.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Miellyn.6847:

kappa.2036:

considering the hybrid theme of the dagger

There is no hybrid theme of the dagger. Everything screams condition.
Why do you thing it is a hybrid weapon?

Because it has power damage, but the base condi durations are not long enough for it to focus on being condition damage. Take a look at Necro Scepter for a condi weapon by comparison. Dagger needs either way more power damage or way more condi stacks at those durations.

I would actually far prefer more stacks at short duration than long duration condis, so it is more of a condi burst weapon and you need to keep attacking to gain the full benefit.

Both of their condition off hands deal less damage than our torch. Mainhand alone doesn’t make a weapon set.

Actually dagger offhand can be used on many power builds. Dagger mainhand would be nice in a power build aswell, especially with a slightly buffed AA and #3. But yeah, right now the weapon is mostly condi damage based.

Yes for utility, not damage. Off-hand dagger scales even worse with power than mainhand dagger.

kappa.2036:

considering the hybrid theme of the dagger

There is no hybrid theme of the dagger. Everything screams condition.
Why do you thing it is a hybrid weapon?

Why does everyone say that stances don’t last long enough? Look at the other stances in the game, compare the duration and the cooldown and be in for a surprise.

The only stance I see as weak is Vulture, the rest ist strong especially with the share trait.
But Bear, Griffon and Dolyak are strong on their own. Moa needs the share trait and Wolf needs a bit more testing.

Same goes for the dagger. It is a condi weapon in it’s current state. Stronger than the axe. ArenaNet never said that it is going to be a hybrid weapon. People want it to be like that but that doesn’t mean it should be a hybrid weapon.

They got careful after the kittenstorm from HoT. Everything that is not available at release day of PoF didn’t get promoted.

Because WvW, PvP, raids and fractals are not expansion content anymore. They have their own release cycle and get release when they are ready. Raids got promoted for HoT because they were new, that is not the case anymore.

Dark.1823:

RedDeadFred.1256:

Danikat.8537:

According to the profession forums every single new elite is terrible and proof that Anet hates that profession. Yes, including the Deadeye.

I mean that’s just par for the course. People on these forums always think Anet is out to kill their class. Doesn’t matter how good the class currently is. It could be at the top of the meta and people would still complain.

According to Reddit, there’s some pretty ludicrous power burst with Soulbeast since one of your shouts just gives you 40% extra damage. There’s people mauling for 26k apparently. Yup, Soulbeast useless guys!

This is either a lie or you misread something. Maul cannot do 26k. It’s true that “Sic ’Em!” works on you (inb4 nerf) when you’re combined but even with “Sic Em!”, Maul does at most ~15k dmg or so which is not that impressive considering you only get 10sec of that sweet dmg boost. Right now it seems that a lot of pet traits and skills affect the player instead when you’re combined. Oh btw I was hitting for 30k+ on Thief Deadeye.

15k burst useable two times in quick succession is not impressive? You can use it three times during ‘Sic Em’.

GW2 is a visual game. The aura will stay as a fast indicator in PvP. Same for the herold aura, many complains and it is still there.

Sartharina.3542:

Hepatolith.6389:

Smoke Assault doesn’t seem to be an Evade while in Beastmode

It’s not an evade for Smokescales, either.

Graphical Bug: Charr animations are completely nonsense, and do not correspond to what the skill says it does.

Both state in their tooltip that they are evades.

Adenin.5973:

Substance E.4852:

lol so are 90% of our skills. Are you slotting lighting reflexes or muddy terrain in pve? I doubt it.

Boon duration increase and spamable stab are fantastic group utility and not worth giving up for whatever piddly perma-buff you would rather have.

Lol, you would rather have 6s 66% increase with 30s cd than permanent 15-20% or something like that?

I wouldn’t call 6s stability on 30s cd exactly spamable (3s for your allies).

Also you only share stances at the moment you activate them and only in a 360 radius and only with 50% of the duration.

So your allies can get happy if they stand directly near you when you activate your dolyak stance once every 30 sec and then they get 3s stability.

Imo that’s bad. For open world pve completely useless and even for structured group content not that great.

So yes, I would absolutely prefer a indefinitely lasting stance. Or a stance that builds up stacks over time that then get automatically used under the right conditions, something like that. Maybe you could even activate the stance to use all the current stacks of your stance and get a nice extra buff or whatever.

It also makes you immun to movement impairing conditions.
Perma 100% endurance regeneration is not even remotely balanced. 50% is useless there is a boon for that.
The stances would be nerfed into uselessness if they last permanent.

Einlanzer.1627:

I think not having pet swap in beast mode form is a design mistake. This spec will mostly appeal to Ranger players who prefer not dealing with the pet. It should not be a required gimmick to hop in and out of beast form. I would also just get rid of the silly aura.

You are not supposed to camp beastmode permanently. Can we please stop now with those suggestions? It is not a petless ranger.

The stat bonus from Ambidexterity is always active regardless of the weapon if you traited it and wield a corresponding weapon in the a weapon set. Nice buff but likely unintended.

I had a strange bug where my pet was permanent stowed even infight and beastmode did nothing. Could be fixed with unstowing the pet.

Live Fast fast don’t trigger on F2 skills but they are classified as beast skills.

Shortbows Crippling Shot only affects only one attack in beastmode instead of three.

psizone.8437:

• Double Arc, let players get the poison damage on strike when in Beastmode.

All pet buffs from weapons affect the player in beastmode. Some seem buggy like shortbow only effects 1 attack instead of 3 but the effect is there.

anduriell.6280:

Entering\exiting beast mode should counts as weapon swap like the avatar from the druid.

Beastmode doesn’t change the weapon skills why should it count as a weapon swap?

For example shapen spines from bristle in beastmode is a very underwhelming skill. It should work like a buff which for 30 seconds (in 30 seconds CD ) your attacks cause bleeding (or have a chance on hit) without the charges (is 1 stack for 5 secs..). The skills must be significant and there aren’t that many so it should be easy enough. That would empower condition builds. Same for carrion it should have an skill which does the same but for poison.

Yeah lets double shortbow damage with one button, seems about right. Perma poison with 1 button yay. Soulbeast doesn’t need to be overpowered. It seems more like you lack any sense of balance. Your suggestions would make that specialisation completely broken.

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

- you lose beastmode when entering water.

This looks like a bug. We have aquatic pets categorized for stat boni and skills for them. Why should they develop it and disable it afterwards? Waste of ressources.

Lukas.6153:

Miellyn.6847:

It will replace condi ranger in PvE.

Thornwolf.9721:

Feels like beastmode does not do as much damage as the Pet and the player together do, It’s damage seems kind of… eh at best? I dont know just something I noticed, could be something to look into.

You are not supposed to stay in beastmode all the time.

Do you think soulbeast will have a place in raid meta? Soulbeast dps>cranger dps?

Yes. It needs verification that the grandmaster is percentage based but the 10% condition duriation alone is better than the entire beastmastery line especially on moving targets when the pet hits much less. The food nerf hit ranger the most as we use 3 conditions not 2 like all other condi classes.

psizone.8437:

Miellyn.6847:

It has 25% movement speed if you take beastmastery.

Had beastmastery running and saw no movement speed buff?

The grandmaster minor trait is supposed to give you 25% movement speed and some ferocity in beastmode.

It will replace condi ranger in PvE.

Thornwolf.9721:

Feels like beastmode does not do as much damage as the Pet and the player together do, It’s damage seems kind of… eh at best? I dont know just something I noticed, could be something to look into.

You are not supposed to stay in beastmode all the time.

It has 25% movement speed if you take beastmastery.

Changing the boon trait to copy boons to your pet when exiting would be much more useful than copying boons to you when you enter it, the boons weren’t created for you anyway. Also mainting boons on yourself is easier than creating them new for the pet.

The only cat that is hard to obtain right now is Simon, the celestial cat from the Shattered Observatory. Maybe add a chance to recieve the Essence from lvl 100 normal. You can’t use them anyway unless you complete the challenge mode. It also gives a small gold boost and an incentive to run it.

Xera, Escort and Trio don’t have an damaging aura, not sure about the rest.

We can see the weapons a class can use in the trait tab of the hero menu including the ones only available for elite specialisations.
It would be nice to see when a weapon is only availabe with a certain elite specialisation equipped without the specialisation equipped so we don’t have to remember them all with the addition of more specialisations.

I really would like the Mistfire Wolf as a pet or as a skin for the existing wolf.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Sorry…i have to laugh at the “doing raids correctly” line. There is only one metric you need for knowing if you’ve done a raid correctly: Did you beat it? Yes or No. Yes? Then you did it correctly, yay! No? Try again.

Raidheroes lets you compile arcdps logs into graphs that show you failed mechanics, so yes you can improve with them without looking at DPS.

Aenaos.8160:

Support for BGDM is not being terminated,it will stay compatible with the game.
I wouldn’t use ARC since it is not TOS compliant,and it gives Anet the right to ban you for using it if they choose so.

Arcdps is TOS compliant. Only BGDM had a time where it wasn’t.
The BGDM developer quit the game, if he can’t find a successor BGDM will die.

Before we get a rifle or pistol we will get off-hand sword or hammer. Rifle and pistol don’t fit the theme.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Some dev somewhere said that new fractals and raids will only require HoT. No idea where this is coming from but that’s what a lot of people say.

Fractals are core content, not HoT content. I doubt this was a dev statement.

Forsaken Thicket and Bastion of the Penitent are both tied to HoT thematics (White Mantle). I think we can expect the new raids to touch PoF thematics and require PoF, LS4 will also require PoF same as LS3 requires HoT.

Why do so many people complain about this? The mount is instant and can be used while running. One button to press more, don’t you have other problems?

Johnny.1634:

Fail to see how anyone is excited about this, you lose 30% of your damage with pet gone, reden many of your utilities/traits near useless, just so you can gain skills your pet can already use and +400 stats….lol no thanks ill pass.

We don’t know how traits and utilities change during Beastmode.
You are not supposed to stay permanent in Beastmode for optimal play. That was wishful thinking from players who want a complete petless ranger.

Astralporing.1957:

zealex.9410:

The flaws are also incosequential if you just ignore their existnance. Something that you can do in a non raid centric game.

Actually no, the problem is that the raids do have an impact on the whole game. You can’t really ignore them, not even if the emphasis is not on that content (which, by the way, in gw2 is still debatable).

Why can’t you ignore them?

It is not debatable that GW2 has a extended emphasis on raids, that is just not true.

Kraggy.4169:

bigchunk.5190:

i’m glad it’s there for those who need that experience as it retains quality hardcore players.

Not sure how the presence of an elite who are often openly hostile to people trying to start off raiding (as the OP has accurately commented on) is an asset to the 95+% of players who can’t get in or don’t want to get into this small niche content; the vast majority will never interact with this elite in any way that advances their [the majority] game experience.

As a non-raider myself all raiding means to me is scarce dev. resources being used to create content I’ll never get a chance to see, as won’t the vast majority of players: only WOW of all the major MMOs has a ‘raiding’ community above single-digit percentage and that’s because of the tiered raiding system, which the vocal elites shout down in most other MMOs when the subject is raised.

And where can we look up the percentage for GW2?

Oh wait, again someone who makes up percentages to proof his point.
If the raid population is so low, why do they still develop raids?

They add legendary armor to WvW and sPvP on Tuesday, but PvE is raid only.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

Gullig.8796:

Ashen.2907:

If fractals are fun for you, but one particular fractal, at one particular level, with CM isnt..wouldnt a wiser decision be to play the other fractals or levels, etc?

It would be like me quitting GW2 because I dont care for one particular event in one zone.

I totally understand and you are probobly right. It is just that my left side hurt since I fell on the floor. I have never let a game dmg me IRL before, both mentally and physically. I am very scared what game developers are turning fractals into and I don’t wanna not be able to join daily runs cause one of them happen to be 100 (Yes, I can clear 100, but I HATE it). Maybe it just burned me out.

I understand the frustration you feel. Sometimes it is best to just put it down and take a breather. We don’t build these experiences intending to cause people physical or mental anguish, but we understand that everyone has different opinions and emotions and will react to things differently. And obviously, the bugs are just plain frustrating.

When I find myself failing at a particularly difficult challenge, I’ve learned over the years that the more angry or frustrated I get, the worse I do, and then the more angry I get, and then it is just a self perpetuating cycle that leaves me feeling terrible. These days I have been trying much harder to realize when I’m starting to get frustrated, when my emotions are clouding my judgement and causing my blood to pump too fast. In those times I try to take a deep breath and calm down, and either walk away from the game for a day, or try again with renewed vigor and concentration.

Remember that it isn’t about the rewards, it is about the experience of the journey and the self improvement that always comes with overcoming a difficult challenge, and not every challenge can be completed in a day, or even a week or a month. The hard things in life are what make us stronger people.

Fractals are supposed to be repeatable. Colin Johansson kept using the word ‘metrics, metrics metrics’. Of one thing i’m certain. Your metrics have a ton of people doing (no CM) t4 fractal runs every day. What your metrics will see is that a lot of player, STRAIGHT OUT ignore nightmare. I still manage. What you still notice is that if there no ‘hidden secrets to combo out against the boss’ kind of things, coming soon (wich i doubt), then this boss will be by definition worse then Vale guardian/gorseval for me. And it’s a ‘insert shouting word’ fractal… FRACTAL. If you made a very rare to do ever T5 fractal (no extra loot, apart from title), and normally T4 for eternity to not be harder then 110% as hard as nightmare. I would be happy (and many peopl). The problem is, you are kiling the repeatability. And guess what? In all this toxic, over the top overpowered bosses, mechanics, instant kick cause no experience via lfg kinds of things, I was overwhelmed by how good the instance felt. It’s a true fractal story, myself kitten ed. Totally not expected. Except… you need better then raid composition/skills/execution/lag toleration to do it. Also will you please disconnect CM from normal t4 rewards. Because people can combine them, all the ‘do all raids every week with the same 10 ppl, not allowing anyone to join ever’ teams, that need +1 are filling lfg non stop, with insane requirements, making the ‘non CM’ crowd smaller, and the ‘i quit nightmare and Arkhh forever’ crowd bigger. If they had to repeat in t4 for loot, this would be much better. Cause then those people can do their own instance, but would not steal away from the t4 daily repeat crowd.

Anyway Anet (pretty much) killed dungeons. Fractals is the new dungeon. And now (a feature of dungeons, and supposedly of fractals) is killed: repeatability.

‘but but you can do lvl 25-75’. No. Loot is not worth it. Repeting it, is thus not worth it. Also it’s proven on forums lvl 25, almost acts as lvl 100 cause mechanic spam. So why do almost lootless fractal, while it’s time consuming? There’s a lot of time consuming stuff in gw2 (if you want it). And T4 (master chest) has 95% of the loot chance of something good. Expert level only 5%. So no i will not every play lvl 75 again except for a guildie to teach him, level him up. Repeatability? No. Also Raids are much more acceptable to loose (no victory) then fractals. You even get few magnetite shard for attempt, so it’s clearly made for ‘try hard, and maybe fail’. Fractals does not really have that. It’s win or loose. Worth it or not worth it. Fun or no fun. If worth it, possible to win, and fun to play are there, then it’s by definition repeatable.

If the non-cm crowd is smaller than the cm group than you just disproved your own text. Most people that play T4 on a regular basis are fine doing Nightmare CM and it will happen to Observatory too when people get more comfortable and the bugs are fixed.

How did you gain access to their metrics? Or do you make up facts and the metrics from ArenaNet show the exact opposite?

Wanting loot does not warrant a nerf only because you can’t do it. You can use the same argument for normal nightmare and observatory. People who can play their CMs will never do normal for the daily as the loot there is not worth it. Where did you get those percentages from? Personal experience doesn’t count.

You can also just create your own group.

Toan.7326:

They still dont fix Thaumanova Fractal boss teleporting bug and release new fractal, Oh My Gosh

Those fixes will likely roll out on Tuesday.

Supz.9836:

When HoT first came out her and myself included spent a lot of time exploring new content and leveling up masteries etc. I unlocked every elite spec before even looking at raiding. By the time I got around to looking for raids people were already asking to link completions. This has obviously gotten a lot worse now.

Regarding WoW I now you don’t consider LFR a ‘proper’ raid but for casual players the content is still a raid. Which is why I am asking for the different difficulty.

Raids are a significant part of the game nonetheless, if it wasn’t both you and I wouldn’t be here discussing it.

I am already in two raid training guilds, as I said its not impossible, however the hours that the training raids are done, and getting an actually spot in them is not always easy. Even though I do train some raids in this way, it would be much better if I could raid at the times I want to play and having the ability to train easily with more players.

Why would the gap increase if there were multiple difficulty levels?

Fractals do not provide training for it because its not the same raid, would you take someone who ran VG for a Deimos run and call them experienced? No

While they teach you to use your build while playing around instanced mechanics they do not teach you the specific instance. Which is why a difficulty with lower DPS checks and mechanic damage would help. So players can focus on learning the mechanics and getting a feel for the map. Once they do that they can focus on perfecting the rotation etc.

There is nothing that says all aspects of the raid has to be training in one go. Why do FPS players train aim separately rather than playing scrims all the time?

Why does GW2 have a training area to practice rotations in isolation?

You are correct I do not have any hard and fast metrics. The fact that more players have tried raids according to GW2efficiency doesn’t prove we don’t need difficulty levels.

Only GW2 devs potentially has access to the real metrics. All I hope to do is as a customer who has spent a lot on their product, have already bought the ultimate edition of POF is to provide feedback on their product. I hope that it will provide more clarity around the stats they see and at least help them analyse my spending and playing habits.

As I said before previously I took a long break, went and played WoW and FF 14 which I didn’t enjoy as much as GW2. I also know devs want to bring back a lot of old players, I have been trying to get my friend to come back and raids were something she explicitly mentioned.

Of course you could be correct and me and my friends could be in the minority and losing my sales for hard core raiders in the future might be worth it. The cost of developing easy mode might not be worth it and Raiders might be spending more money.

I just want to be sure that the devs take my point of view into consideration IF players like me who want an easier to access version of the raids are not in the minority and do form a material component of sales.

LFR does nothing for you other than seeing the content. Nobody will call you experienced after doing LFR as you can ignore most mechanics. Many groups want kill proof after the first two days in WoW after a raid release.

Relearn or forgetting something is harder than learning something completly new. If you played this easy mode and the mechanics are changed so you play the encounter differently than you would in normal mode, you have to relearn the boss while also trying to not execute it as you learned it while a complete newcomer just learn the boss. The mechanics will change as you can now already ignore some of them (green circles at VG, Cairn, last add at Deimos to a certain extend).

Fractals teach you the basics: dodging the right attacks, positioning so you don’t have to waste dodges. The raid mechanics are not that complex that you need to train for weeks in an easy mode.

There are no real DPS-checks in the game except Gorseval and Samarog CM. You die to mechanics long before the timer runs out. It is easier to learn a DPS rotation in a seperated area without stress and when you learned it you can apply it regardless the enviroment. You won’t execute it perfectly but deal more than enough damage to kill the boss.

The expansion is actually a really good time to start again, the raid compositions will change due the elite specialisations and when the next raid releases everyone is inexperienced and a lot of new groups will start.

Fractals proof the same as LFR in WoW did. Most people who play those modes just want to see the content once or twice and don’t progress through the difficulty scales. Nobody uses such a mode for training.

I think people that want an easy mode for training are a really small minority. Most just wanted legendary armor, not the raid and you can get it at Tuesday via WvW and sPvP. You can expect this topic to slow down and fade into the void.

Supz.9836:

Thats not true at all, she quit shortly after the expansion which they were really looking forward to. Additionally I can say with certainty I took a very long break and stopped spending because of raids.

If Arena net can implement new raids and have multiple difficulty in fractals they can surely implement multiple difficulty levels in raid. If resources are an issue they should take time to develop difficulty levels first before implementing new raids.

Actually I started WoW very late (when I took a break from GW2, I actually thought raiding stinks in GW2 so lets give it a shot in WoW). I find the game itself mediocre compared to GW2. However it is very easy to break into raids in WoW. I have never had to wait long to access any raid in WoW. They did a much better job than GW2 at getting more players joining the raid community.

I think if it wasn’t for raids WoW would be dead so it makes sense that they spend time improving the system and catering for the largest and most profitable player base.

WoW still at the same time manages to have hard difficulties as well.

The reason why players stay longer in WoW is you bother to stay and learn and you aim for more challenging content because you can set SMART goals which are achievable.

Currently in GW2 the challenge in finding a group to learn with (although not impossible) and then the time required with such groups to effectively learn the raid for new and returning players usually puts them off raids altogether. The gap is too large which is why we need multiple difficulty settings.

The achievable goal to get to harder content is why you need BOTH challenging content and content which leads up to that content (again I stress fractals doesn’t provide sufficient training for raid mechanics). This will probably increase the number of players, and the time spent on raids by those players.

Why couldn’t she find a group in the beginning? Everyone was inexperienced, it was pretty easy to find groups.
Yes they could, but with a cost. Either longer development for raids or other content. Between Wing 3 and 4 were 8 months, Wing 4 was released 6 months ago. The development is already slow, there is no reason to decrease it further.

Raid access in WoW seems easier because you can outgear it. You won’t find a rnd group with an appropriate level, all groups have the same item level or higher as the drops as requirement. LFR is not a raid.

WoW is built around instanced content. Of course it would be dead if you removed it, they have nothing else.

GW2 is built around open world with tacked on instanced content as a challenge. Instances are not the primary content or focus of GW2.

Do you have any metrics how long the average player stays?
Doing the same content over and over in different difficulties is the exact opposite of smart.

There are 3 or more guilds in EU dedicated to raid training. It is actually really easy to find a group to train with if you want to. There is no need for difficulty settings for a training purpose. It would actually increase the gap.

Yes you need content that leads up to it. Not the same in different difficulties. T4 fractals and fractal CM is where it at. Why do fractals not provide training for mechanics?

The only metrics we have (GW2efficiency) actually shows that more people raid or have tried raids than reached lvl 100 fractals.

Supz.9836:

Honestly from a Revenue point of view for GW2 I think it makes a lot of sense to add a ‘easy’ and ‘normal’ difficulty to the current existing raids.

I think players who are strictly against the implementation of additional difficulties would be in the minority here. I would also imagine given how much time said players would be spending in game, selling raids etc. they would have enough gold that they do not spend too much real money on buying gems (devs would have actual information on this).

Taking these 3 factors into account, i.e lower spend on GEMs, lower percentage of player base and only a portion of raiders (I don’t think all current raiders are against multiple difficulty settings only a portion would be). The loss of revenue from implementing this would be minimal.

On the other hand I know plenty of players who I use to play with during the release of HoT who have quit due to lack of accessibility to raids.

I myself who spent quiet alot on GEMs, took a very long break from GW2 because the way raids have been implemented left a very sour taste with me and have recently come back in anticipation of the new expansion.

I tried to convince another friend to come back and buy the expansion. One of the key reasons she mentioned that made her find GW2 no longer interesting is how hard it is to get into raids and how toxic it can be.

I honestly wonder if the time and resources devs spent on developing raids in its current form vrs the net increase/decrease in real world money spent on the game was profitable. Given how many players who have told me they have either quit or taken a long break from the game due to raids I would imagine they actually lost money by making raids so hard to access.

Let me be clear I am not saying remove raids with the current difficulty. Challenging content is good. However not having steps to learn the mechanics and progress your way to the more challenging content makes no sense.

Fractals do it very well as you progress to harder and harder content, why not for raids?

Fractals are NOT a stepping stone into raids because you DO NOT learn actual raid mechanics, having an easier version of the raids, with a higher chance of success would encourage more players to form the group of 10 players required to go and try learn a raid.

In the long run raids can be a very good thing for the game if the difficulty modes are added. Currently I think its one of the few things done very poorly in GW2 due to lack of difficulty settings.

ArenaNet is not big enough to maintain multiple difficulties in raids without major drawbacks.

If your friends quit over raids they would have quit anyway shortly after.

Look at WoWs LFR. It teaches you nothing, mechanics are irrelevant. The only way you learn mechanics is if they punish you for failing, everything else just teaches bad habits that kills you in normal mode.
Raids have easier and harder encounter, the same content in different difficulties is boring and most leave before they get to the end.

1) Every purchase includes the basegame.
2) Seems pretty stable, I don’t have problems to find players most times. Ranked PvP and WvW is more empty off times but that hasn’t changed.
3) There are players from Australia on EU who clear all content. You should be fine.

Khisanth.2948:

Might as well put this in an existing thread …

So is this going to be the future of fractals where the rest will be slowly replaced by this style of design? If so I would like to know so I can stop wasting any more or resources I might end up spending going towards fractal related things. I don’t really mind quitting fractals since I was never all that attached to it and unlike other people I don’t mind losing a chunk of the game either. I just want to be able to make an informed decision going forward.

This “throw as much things at you simultaneously” style of design is just not for me.

On top of everything else who decided to give the place such crappy lighting? Is not being able to see the boss properly supposed to be part of the challenge? There is constantly this weird back lighting on it. Already got issues with the cursor disappearing in the middle of a fight and this is not helping that problem at all.

Playing through this fractal has been the most depressing experience in GW2. Nightmare was already borderline tolerable I guess this just crossed it.

Edit: The entire fractal feels sluggish for some reason. No idea what is causing that. Maybe it’s the jump and the slower animation.

No it’s not the standard style. They said multiple times that they also want to create fractals in the old style even here in the forum.

TexZero.7910:

Miellyn.6847:

TexZero.7910:

Miellyn.6847:

You compare Elite specialisations to other specialisations that fill the same role, not to others of the same class. Soulbeast is DPS with some support, it doesn’t compete with druid in any way.

Or i can compare, as i already stated Ranger to Ranger. We already have a decent baseline for where Ranger Sits. Considering Soulbeast has to directly compete for the 3rd trait line it first has to compete with Ranger itself. Knowing this we can pretty safely place it relative to the others by doing the exact same thing across the board.

It competes with beastmastery. Skirmishing is mandatory for every PvE build in the current state, Wilderness Survival for condi builds and Marksmanship for power builds, which aren’t competetiv anyway right now. Beastmastery doesn’t bring that much to the table damagewise so it’s a safe bet to say it will be meta for every damage build und competes with other damage builds from other classes and not ranger itself.

Implying it wont have synergy with BM making the other two option the slot competitors thus lowering the effective damage putting it below baseline ranger…..

But you know that’s what happens when you don’t look at the whole picture. Compare apples to apples first before you compare the apple to oranges. It’s common sense here.

If the synergy puts the complete damage output below base ranger you can still ignore Beastmastery and go Wilderness Survival, Skirmishing and Soulbeast. It’s highly unlikely that Soulbeast will bring less damage increase than Beastmastery for the current condi ranger. The grandmaster trait alone invalidates Beastmastery after the consumable nerfs if it’s percantage based.
But lets wait until the balance patch on tuesday and the pvp preview of the specialisations.

Solitude.2097:

OnizukaBR.8537:

Yes reducing the reward will make more casual play the raid content /s
How you could think that giving people less reward would make more people play raids?? Or make veteran whilling to carry others? 0 logic

The casuals could aim for something called LEGENDARY Armor
It will give a reason to players to buy the HoT , while the pro players can stay on PoF contained…ehm avoiding the casuals .

Legendary armor is available in WvW and sPvP next week.

Looking at the threads about Shattered Observatory where people complain that they can’t clear difficulties that are not aimed at them and they could do a lower difficulty shows that there is no point in easy mode raids, the threads will continue because the rewards are higher in normal mode.

TexZero.7910:

Miellyn.6847:

You compare Elite specialisations to other specialisations that fill the same role, not to others of the same class. Soulbeast is DPS with some support, it doesn’t compete with druid in any way.

Or i can compare, as i already stated Ranger to Ranger. We already have a decent baseline for where Ranger Sits. Considering Soulbeast has to directly compete for the 3rd trait line it first has to compete with Ranger itself. Knowing this we can pretty safely place it relative to the others by doing the exact same thing across the board.

It competes with beastmastery. Skirmishing is mandatory for every PvE build in the current state, Wilderness Survival for condi builds and Marksmanship for power builds, which aren’t competetiv anyway right now. Beastmastery doesn’t bring that much to the table damagewise so it’s a safe bet to say it will be meta for every damage build und competes with other damage builds from other classes and not ranger itself.

kluki.3915:

I just hope there will be more fractals than what we got in hot… I’d like to see at least 4 new fractals at launch.

There won’t be any fractal or raid at launch of PoF most likely. Those development cicles are independent from expansions and release at their own pace.

TexZero.7910:

OnizukaBR.8537:

zealex.9410:

TexZero.7910:

xarallei.4279:

TexZero.7910:

Ranger (Soulbeast) Doubtful it can compete with druid without significant nerfs to druid first

It doesn’t have to compete with druid. Druid is good at what druid does, which is support. Soulbeast is not a support spec. Current condi ranger does not even use druid spec, so I’m guessing soulbeast will be the go to spec for condi rangers.

Sure and that’s fair, but the question then becomes about the changes to condi that are upcoming and if that knocks base condi ranger down enough to either Require Soulbeast or even have a spot.

Why not compaire soulbeast to any dps class instead of only compairing it to other ranger builds? Soulbeast might be a power dps on par with condi ranger so ye.. Also dont forget these condi nerfs happened to bring condi classes on the same lvl with power ones.

http://imgur.com/a/yOwJy Its actually a cond elite, look at traits 10% cond duration, poison and bleed on AA. So cond ranger meta will 100% sure use soul beast

That trait is bad though. Especially for raiding, for it to be useful the boss would have to be nearly dead to begin with. All for a measly 10% ?

I could see it being better if it was foes had a less % health than you, but as its currently worded good luck using that for any significant portion of the fight.

The trait will be most likely percentage based. Otherwise it is just bad in every gamemode if you play against a more tanky build.

Also the reason i compare Ranger Specs to Ranger Specs is to get a good baseline as to where they will fit in currently. We already know where Ranger / Druid and Condi Druid sit, by comparing SB to these 3 it’s easier to see the tradeoffs and get a rough playing field for where SB will land relative to other classes.

You compare Elite specialisations to other specialisations that fill the same role, not to others of the same class. Soulbeast is DPS with some support, it doesn’t compete with druid in any way.

zealex.9410

Feelsbad so another condi elite spec. And i hoped for a spec that buffs gs in some way.

Why does everyone assume that Soulbeast will be condition only? Because of the dagger? Reaper didn’t use greatsword in the meta builds for a long time.

The trait in question also promotes power builds. From the information we got it looks more than a general DPS specialisation than condition only. The elite stance is power based and has no place in a condition build other than group support with one of the grandmaster traits.

Nick.6972:

In my opinion, if this becomes a Fractal that can’t be pugged, there’s a problem – 99CM groups are easily formed.

Care to elaborate why it is a problem that a challenge mode can’t be played with PUGs easily? There is still the normal version if you want to play it. This content is meant to be challenging not to be cleared by your average PUG.

cafard.8953:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

cafard.8953:

Well, I still want a ‘hunter’ rifle-based spec at some point, but this spec looks fun to play, main-hand dagger always looks cool, and it actually synergises with pets, unlike our current cosmic healer spec… Looking forward to it.

Deadeye.

I’ll give it a go for sure, just as I tried rifle warrior and engie, but they never quite feel right. I miss the pet and the rest of our toys.

But neither rifle nor pistol fit the ranger theme in GW2. It’s all about nature and those two are the complete opposite. I don’t see this happen in the near future.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Miellyn.6847:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Miellyn.6847:

F2 in beastmode would be ridiculously op with some pets, especially the smokescale…

Care to elaborate on why?

5 seconds evade on 16 second cooldown.

Oh yes, forgot about the evade. Ok, that’s one. What others?

Consuming Flames from the Fire Wyvern, also an evade (5 seconds) and Stalk from the Jaguar (+critical strike, + critcal damage, stealth that doesn’t break on attack). While Consuming Flames does not let you perform other actions it is still an evade and would be extremly strong in PvP as it doesn’t prevent capture point contribution.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Miellyn.6847:

F2 in beastmode would be ridiculously op with some pets, especially the smokescale…

Care to elaborate on why?

5 seconds evade on 16 second cooldown.