Guild Wars 2

I would recommend Cavalier reaper. Necro already boasts high health pool and thanks to some smart trait choices, u can have high crit chance with high defense. Literally face tank mobs and there’s always minions when u feel lazy

There’s a few options I would recommend. For starters, anniversary sale should be coming up; I would compile a list of things you want/need and purchase at that time. Things to consider( at least stuff that I would prioritize) would be some convenience items like copper fed salvage kit, shared inventory slots, additional bank storage or toon storage, stuff that you are likely to use everyday. Even if you want to convert it all to gold and buy something from trading post I would still advise waiting. During the sales there is bound to be at least one item that will make a lot of people convert gold to gems to get. Take advantage of that opportunity and enjoy your purchase.

VectorVineyard.8379:

MikeyGrey.2496:

The map currency nodes in new maps are a good source. Berries for dragonite ore as you mentioned; bloodstone crystals/jade fragments for bloodstone dust and petrified wood for empyreal fragments. Also, if you have a lot of alts, I’d recommend jumping puzzles for fragments.

I’ve been meaning to ask: can you use TP to Friend items to enter the new maps without buying story arcs? The wiki doesn’t mention it either on the item’s page or under the “Getting There” section of the new maps.

Thanks your your replies! I’m sure it won’t take long to get my set of armor thanks to you.

I had someone in party trying to get to maps using ttp without actually having those areas unlocked for the account. He got sent to LA and used up the ttp as well

Danikat.8537:

I’m hoping the Shared Inventory Slots will go on sale. I think they’re too expensive at full price so I only ever buy them when they’re on sale.

I am hoping for that as well. Plus storage expanders & character slots

The map currency nodes in new maps are a good source. Berries for dragonite ore as you mentioned; bloodstone crystals/jade fragments for bloodstone dust and petrified wood for empyreal fragments. Also, if you have a lot of alts, I’d recommend jumping puzzles for fragments.

In my experience, an individual may be nice but people in general are kittenholes… always were and always will be. Its not like ANet tapped into some previously unknown politeness well; game mechanics enforced cooperation. Now that there is conflict, people will use anything and everything to further their cause. In the right hands, DPS meters are amazing; in the wrong hands they are enabling.
I would suggest ANet come up with their own official in-game meter. That way they can better control its influence by what is shown to who and where it is used.

It isn’t unique… but it isn’t exactly the same either. Outfit =/= Armor. You may try submitting a ticket but it is doubtful if their response will be a positive one.

Personally, I think this is good (not you having to pay extra part…portions of outfits being converted to armor part). Anet gets more sales; both outfit & armor crowd get their piece of the cake; everyone wins (almost… there are no perfect solutions).

Giving free armor pieces to outfit owners won’t be fair to those that purchase armor piece. 1/6th of outfit converted is priced 300 and, while I don’t honestly remember the price of outfit, I doubt if it was 1800.

The one to Rule.2593:

Pretty Pixie.8603:

The one to Rule.2593:

Lyp Sao.1375:

The one to Rule.2593:

Third, you label all raiders as toxic …

ehm, no

Ehm yes. Your post is entirely pointless.

He said

The recent rant of WP about (in)acessebility and raids, is dividing Ur playerbase into toxic factions. IMHO this is moving in a wrong direction.

He’s clearly saying there are toxic factions, including the more negative anti raid crowd. In the context given he clearly isn’t going after the raider population at large.

That makes your statement disingenuous at best.

And who is he to decide who is toxic and who isn’t? You must realize this is a statement most commonly used by casual players to describe raiding because they refuse to put time into the game. That makes your statement intellectually dishonest at best. You can stop nitpicking now

I decide who is toxic and who isn’t and then choose to either ignore, report or retaliate. I do what I can and let Anet handle the rest. Each and every one of us, yourself included, is free to do the same. This may be an MMO but none of us is under any obligation to bear through anything someone else throws at us. OP mentioned factions; if you choose to label that on raiding community then thats on you.

OP: game is evolving. It would certainly be nice to predict the future based on past but people that worked on it before don’t do so now. Things change over time, people change, agendas change. You can let your voice be heard (as you did) but beyond that you can either keep trying, adapt yourself or leave. Maybe take a short break or change up your ingame habits; there are still likely many aspects of it that you may find appealing still. And you never know: it may eventually change again in your favor (it = your opinion or the game but its all the same if you are having fun).

The best cost & time efficient method: pick alt from same weight class that uses similar build loadouts. Then swap gear back & forth. After considerable t4 runs you will have enough +1’s & ascended gear to not have to swap

AP cap exists so:

New players can get a little closer to the top
All players can miss a few days without feeling penalized
Oldest veterans can stay on top without working too hard
Anet can better control the earned AP to plan out the rewards
all the bonuses to MF, XP, Karma, etc are easier to keep in check

Nobody’s said cap will never be raised. I believe that this scenario is the ideal compromise for all. Anet can slowly raise the cap every once in a while when they feel it is best. Of course, no one sad it will be raised either. Just being optimistic.

Go to the Grove first and follow along the story until you are asked for the sword. Then the option to buy from Miyani will be made available

That likely wont happen. Too many players have too much AP already. Higher it goes, the more stuff you have to design to reward them at higher tiers; more reasons to discriminate new players against (regardless of however idiotic that may be). You should have noticed it by now… Numerous achievements awarding 1-2 points, lack of meta achieves, recycled achieves, etc.

The ring has nothing to differentiate it from others: doesn’t come with any aura, no infusion slots, not a precursor, nothing unique on salvage, probably can’t wear two at the same time and lore connection is weak. Acquisition being locked behind high rng potentially makes it costly and unattainable while other maps offer cheaper/quicker & guaranteed ways to get the same thing with different name.

The idea of small-scale scavenger hunts is great; it just needs tweaking. Increasing drop-rate, reducing contract price or improving ring should fix it.

Here’s an idea for both smaller guilds and personal housing: a pre-set limit on max # of members for the guild. Set to 1 for poh & 2-499 for however smaller than 500 for guild. To prevent exploitation, guild must pay suitable cost in gold & mats to break through the pre-set limit that will not be refunded when members leave.

All costs for smaller guilds can be lowered depending on the max limit set. Single member guild can work the same way as home instances so that the guild member has to be in party/squad for others to access services at all times.

As for scaling, here’s an example: single member guild costs 1/500th of regular (since 500 is max), 375 members = 75% of the cost, 250 members = 1/2 & so on

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Randulf.7614:

PopeUrban.2578:

Anet already confirmed they are not adding new central tyria lines, like ever. This reward was to give new/slow players a nice buff to help them out.

This is just a small lore/fluff event, it isn’t supposed to pay out amazing rewards.

When did they state no more core masteries ever?

I’d like to see that statement, as well. First I’ve heard tell of it.

This was Anet’s response to COF farm (or something along those lines):

Central Tyria Masteries were designed with older content in mind, how quickly you level and obtain those masteries is your choice.

Judging from the continued presence of that farm, and an impressively fast response (and nerf) of another exploit that was discovered in Heart of Thorns, you can see their intent and shift of focus regarding old content. Sure, its not a black & white “no central masteries ever” answer. Even if they do (or did) respond in such a way, it isnt written in stone; things can change. Take from it what you will.

This could add a lot of replayability. They could make it so everything remains the same except stats and level are reset to 1 (can still use all ur old gear/skills). This can increase traffic to all the old maps; every level up reward could be a requirement that’ll add a small account-wide boost of some kind at the end (extra gold find/increased gathering critical/etc). Maybe have those rewards be combined with something else for some cosmetic item; add another gold sink.

Khadez.4958:

Edit: Playing 2h a day might seem super casual to you Lux but by real life standards that’s already hard-core. The 10h gaming sprees some people pull should’nt be called hard-core, it should be called pathological behaviour

each person has their own version of “hard-core” and “casual”. frankly, i wish i had more free time to spend however i please; the fact that some choose to play games in it doesn’t automatically mean that something’s wrong. if they choose to spend 40 hours playing video games than its their choice; there’s certainly worse ways to spend time…

As to the topic, just continue being you & let them be them. in this context, the only ability anyone has is words & whatever power they have over you is given only by you. so rock your casual/non-casual/hard-core/no life/ zomgburstingfullofsomuchlifeimmadie/insert whatever label self man… flaunt it.

It’s a game… Play it as such.

Both my parents are dead… Been so for years… One death heavily impacted by alcohol… And I’m still in my 20’s… And not bothered by this achievement.

Don’t take things too seriously or personally… You will be happier for it.

Soon.5240:

Ayrilana.1396:

The stuff im trying to point out …..

I notice that:

1) You apparently think that nothing in the HoT expansion should be criticized, and
2) You have 179 Post Tabs….

Do you play the game? Or just play the forums?

Or do you work for Anet?

Yea… There are some whose opinions pretty much never change. After a while, such names start to stick in ur head. Quickly glance at the name before reading message… You will save time by skipping them.

Expansion took the game in a different direction. Or rather… Added another direction. Problem with catering to all: something for everyone and everything for no one. You will probably find what you expect… Just don’t expect too much. It hasn’t been long since release. Let the dust settle and we shall see what’s what.

You have to complete all the pre-meta events for the lane that you want achievement for. Then stay in the map, defend that lane and kill the gerent for that lane. Best start right after a meta completes.

runeblade.7514:

There may be four maps, but they are leagues better than the core 25 maps combined.

They are good… but to say HoT is better than core Tyria? No. Maybe for you… but not for everyone; definitely not for me.

Daddicus.6128:

It’s closer to 20 maps worth of material.

Don’t blindly buy into the “biomes”. Consider the surface area of the ground level of these maps. Are the other levels the same size? If you dig in the ground and drop in there its ok to call it another level? Granted I exaggerated the size difference but I hope the message is clear. They are very good… among the best map in the game even. But not that good

For starters, this thread might be more suited to be in general discussion.

Ok. So now you can…
-Run all dungeons (story & explorable) at least once just to know the story and mechanics
-Clear one map to get the feel of the experience; if it was good then head onto world completion
-Try WvW/EoTM if you haven’t yet
-Finish LS S2
-Kill all the world bosses & beat all the metas at least once
-Try out Fractals
-Go for a raid
-Join a guild (if not in one) and do guild missions & whatever other event they sponsor
-Try a new race/profession

For now, enjoy wintersday in divinity’s reach

1. Balance skills separately for PvE & PvP

2. Greater variety of skills/traits and a separate pool of weapon skills

3. Increased availability of ascended gear (via drops or currency; overall acquisition to be about 2-3x harder than exotic) and stat-changing; legendaries with rune/sigil change.

4. Heroes for instanced content; hard mode with a sidekick option/stat boost solo for regular pve

5. trading without tp/mail

6. dungeons scaling to party size (solo-friendly)

7. Re-re-worked reward structure (specifically for dungeons & fractals)

8. Districts from GW1

9. Build-saving

10. Better mechanics for 50+fractals instead of stacking instabilities

11. More armors & less outfits; bundled AND unbundled items

12. Bring back content like SAB, Queen’s gauntlet, etc.

13. Less RNG across the board

14. rework guild upgrades to work around primarily aetherium, resonance, guild missions, etc. (instead of draining member banks)

15. separate lobby for raids; multiple difficulty levels for raids; separate tab in lfg for raids

16. fine-tuning for adventures availability; remove mastery points from adventures & add them to other open-world/story content

17. remove timers from meta in hot maps; player driven meta progression (closer to SW)

18. participation credit reworked; lenient reconnect feature for disconnects

Manifesto fell off the table. Honestly, that table’s been holding everything for years now… something had to go.

Pandaman.4758:

Cakemeister.5792:

Please post a complete set of the boosters that we should use.
I have:
Birthday booster (100% exp)
Killstreak booster (10?)
Strawberry ghost or other food (15)
Experience booster (50)
Potion of Flame Legion Slaying (+15)

Am I missing something? I was getting approx 1300 experience per kill

Experience bonfire
Experience banner
Birthday cake gun + utility primer
Experience booster from the laurel merchant also stacks separately from the gem store experience booster, from what I’ve been told

yes the laurel boosts stack with gem store ones. in addition, u should use the chinese fireworks boost (10) & xp infusion boost (20).

gem store xp (50) + laurel xp (50 + 100 from killstreak) + b’day xp (100) + food (15) + utility (15) + fireworks (10) + infusion (20) + banner (10) + bonfire (50)

instead of one running circles, use two strafing left & right btw north & south cages with other 3 in the middle… faster spawn rate. took around 4 hours. apologies if i got some of the % wrong; going off of memory

Jordo.5913:

found a fix!

choose 13….then re-choose 14….char select…log out….log in

as an addon, do it in tangled depths. I was trying in la and wasnt working. many thanks to you sir

patch says its done but some got it & others didnt. mine still requires it

dont wander off; stay with the npc’s; taimi does her thingy to find the research. even if u do find the lab without them (and u can coz i did) u wont be able to open the final door

As others have suggested before, downscaling mobs around HP to allow for solo captures would go a long way to reducing the frustration some of us feel.

Another idea to seemingly reduce grind without actually doing it… allow for free trait/skill unlock progression in elite spec line. In other words, allow players to unlock whichever trait/skill they want to use first. This way, we can start using the specialization and continue working towards fully unlocking it while playing.

This change can be unique to elite spec so other branches wont be affected; ultimate hp req wont change so sounds like a good compromise (although i really do hope the sheer # of req hp does go down… 400 X 9 is a LOT).

Apologies in advance if someone else suggested it before… 52 pages is a lot to read through

Yes I was referring to the experience scrolls (the one that takes ur character straight to lvl 20 or 30… depending on the scroll used) that you get from 2nd/3rd b’day & massive achievement chests. Perhaps someday we will be able to trade them for tomes of knowledge as I, for one, have no intention of making 30 new toons anytime soon to use them.

As the title says… exchanging experience scrolls for tomes of knowledge would be considerably helpful for those that have multiple scrolls but no lower lvl toons to use them on. Adding another tab to Miyani right under the writ of experience should do it. Or maybe change their functionality to grant 20/30 shards when used on lvl 80 toons.

Yojimaru.4980:

If Jennah had died, there would have been no peace treaty between humans and charr, which quite effectively removes two races as a threat to the elder dragons because they’d be too busy going at each others throats. Do you really think just the Norn, Sylvari and Asura could have taken down Zhaitan?

As for Destiny’s Edge, they could very well have failed even if Logan was there.

There are no definite answers as to what would have happened. An elder dragon falling to a small team comprised representatives of all races would’ve potentially united the world better I believe. Fall of Lion’s Arch seems to have done that very well.

As for Jennah dying… she may have survived had she chosen to run instead of fight. And even if she died, it is rather unlikely that new ruler would lead his race to extinction. Maybe he/she comes around after a few deaths (or few thousands… either/or) & that would still have been preferable to get rid of an Elder Dragon and saving Glint & Snaff. Even one of them alive may very well have saved comparatively more lives in future conflicts against other dragons.

And Destiny’s Edge would most certainly not have failed.
Rytlock missing the hit coz dragon flew away. He flew coz snaff died. he died coz caithe failed to stop mobs. she failed coz logan ran away.

Logan made an extremely bad call as did Jennah for calling him back… knowing full well what he was doing. They are both to blame.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Does it matter? Age is just a number.

IMHO, age is a measure of wisdom, so it does matter to me.

Only thing definitely coming with age is wrinkles (unless you happen to be a Mesmer… apparently). Wisdom comes with experience… provided you learn from them.

Mine is i7-4790 @ 4 ghz, 16 gb ram, ssd & gtx 760. all settings maxed @ full hd framerate on empty map is around 200, major cities at 100-150 (depending) and middle of zerg drops to 20 something. I seriously doubt if outcome will change much with a stronger rig; problem is on both ends & fixing one side wont do much. Even right now my toon is standing in la & cpu @ 26%, ram 20%, ssd 0-5% usage. I have yet to hear my fans go off even once middle of the game & it never broke 50% usage (i get a notification when/if anything does use that much).
At this point it may very well be overkill for GW2 but there are other benefits. Playing RE5 I bought recently off of steam sales (last time played on ps3) and wow… it looks amazing at maxed settings.

Harper.4173:

“you get good at it after practice regardless of time or effort” – tell that to the countless failed pug runs that wipe in every dungeon or even the open world.

Tell that to the countless would-be zerkers constantly dying and proving that zerker is in fact not easy to wear and perform in.

Tell it to the majority of the player base that still consider content challenging. Or difficult. Or whatnot.

You don’t get good at the game unless you step outside your comfort zone. And a lot of the whining and QQ on these forums comes from people who won’t step out of that comfort zone. Be it because they’re stubborn or afraid. Or don’t like being told what to.

Common sense – as a construct is exactly what it sounds like. When you have no idea what to do the most sensible idea is to adopt the common practice. Because the time and experiences of others have in most cases determined a somewhat above-average performing strategy that you can adopt saving yourself the hassle of having to try out everything yourself.

The whole concept revolves around using other people’s failures and experiences to your benefit. Where others failed they were forced to adapt and improve. You can simply pick up the latest iteration and use it for yourself.

Yes there are those that find it difficult but that doesn’t make it so. Different people have differing learning curves as well. It’s not easy for beginners… but nor is it something that would require dedicated effort to just be good. Being optimal, however, is a different story.

To me, actually getting the idea yourself would make vastly more sense than copying others. Using failures of others to succeed would only be of benefit if there is some reward or saved effort. Not everyone values time and failed attempts grant a lot more experience.

Its somewhat similar to using guides I suppose. Figuring it out yourself can be rather fun. Too bad there isn’t much left to figure out.

Harper.4173:

I can monitor if they switch armor to another set with different stats and same skin. The moment they get hit ( and they will) and I see their HP not going down hard enough ( and it won’t) I’ll know they pulled a fast one and kick with the fury of 1000 angry suns.

Same goes if the boss doesn’t melt properly – I’ll become suspicious and upon finding the culprit swift retribution will rain down.

You can play how you want in GW2. What you can’t do is trample of over people and trick them by not adhering to party requirements – I won’t stand for it.

Zerker is not optimal in all cases – look at Teq. Look at Wurm.

A good player can perform well in zerker gear because like you said “the right player” has a right do to it. He’s invested time and effort in getting good and being skilled.

If a new player wants to go with what the majority is doing – why is that wrong? The person obviously wants to not waste time trying to figure out the meta.

Do you think if I started a new MMO today I would try to blindly try every build and spec and see what’s optimal?
I would just research it and get it from the start – that’s not wrong – it’s common sense.

Your detection abilities are great but that has nothing to do with my post. I was talking about the system monitoring all gears and kicking as an effect of escalation. Lies/deceit are not ok no matter the situation. On that note, you will see no arguments from me.

Teq/Wurm do have roles where other gear sets are useful… As i mentioned, there have been changes that promote some diversity but we need a lot more.

The thing with this style of combat is… you get good at it after some practice regardless of time or effort. After 2 years, its no great mystery. And not everyone values such things equally. I play to waste time so it holds no meaning for me. But… to each his own.

As for that new person… I got the vibe that he “obviously” hasn’t got a clue whats going on and is just blindly following the crowd. That’s not common sense and if it is, I’m happy to stick to the not-so-common sense and see what else game has to offer.

Harper.4173:

All I ever wanted was that the people who don’t care about the way I play stay well clear of me and my parties and all is well. Sadly that does not happen. Even when I clearly post that I’m looking for people like myself.

Also – it’s not forcing it “on the entire community”. It’s not forcing it at all. You want to run with the groups of people who care about their time? play to their expectations.
You don’t? Nobody cares – just don’t interfere and make your own groups.

That, as you say, does not happen. In all likelihood, it will never happen. Unless lfg tool adds filters to only let certain gear/trait type in. But that would come with its own problems:

What if they change the armor with same skin but different stat? Have a system to continuously monitor gear throughout the instance. What if gear breaks? Require party members to ping repair canisters &/or additional sets of gear with required stat but differing skin. Now all that seems a bit drastic… but i would be ok with it. I have no intention of using such features. To each their own.

However, solutions like these are temporary at best. Ignoring/isolating the problem won’t make it go away. We do interact with each other as it is an mmo. Influence spreads across the whole game. I have seen parties trying to gather similarly geared toons for dynamic events (last i remember was during maw… not sure why though) in open world. While that in itself isn’t a problem as of yet, it does set a dangerous precedent. There is no way to not-interact during open world content short of map change and that isn’t always going to happen. Not bothering others is one thing but inconveniencing yourself for someone else’s convenience (regardless if it takes an hour or half a second) isn’t a choice for all… definitely not for me.

But why berserker? As many have pointed out before, meta (for lack of better word) will always be there. Zerkers wouldn’t get so much hate (or love… however you want to see it) if it wasn’t efficient everywhere. Yes…a skill or trait might be needed here & there… but for a vast, overwhelming majority of the time, its efficiency is unmatched. And even when it isn’t best, it is good enough to get through (when used by the right player). Such universal approach (combined with locked traits… curtsey of NPE changes and widespread appeal of zerk) renders experimenting/investing in anything else meaningless & gives it undue influence over all aspects of the game. I myself witnessed another new player geared all zerk simply because “everyone else doin it”.

IMHO, recent additions to the game have done much (compared to the past at least) to increase usefulness of other stats but much more is needed. Changes need to be implemented across the board. Also, active defenses need to be tied to your stat combo. As it is now, active damage mitigation has little-to-nothing to do with your build and it is good enough to decide the outcome of a fight. In its face, build diversity (apart from time differences) means nothing.

Tman.6349:

Incoming: 3/3/3/3/2 Celestial meta with a mishmash of runes/sigils/utilities…

The game was not intended to be anything like that. If it was, the would have missed the mark by a mile and, surely, would have completely overhauled the entire system before two years. You described trinity roles/games perfectly.

Stats (passive) affecting the quality/potency of ACTIVE defense mechanics is a silly notion. Why in the world would someone who’s already stacked tons of personal, passive damage mitigation stats need/deserve access to more effective active defenses as well? (Remember, there are no ‘tanks’ with an aggro system to support them.) This idea would only do one of two things a) force people into trinity roles or b)encourage completely homogeneous group/build comps. (Maybe a slight variation in between.)

How would this effect the balance of other game modes, ie. PvP/WvW? It would be an absolute mess to change to a system like this outside of very organized groups.

What I described is true freedom to do anything… including trinity. Go solo by occupying no role/party with similar, independently built toons or pick one role and party up to balance your build. There will always be a meta… the goal is to not have the same meta for everything &/or multiple metas for the same thing: to have choice and efficiency together.

passive defenses don’t mean anything when actives overrule combat; what use is toughness when aegis/dodge/blind/invul mitigate damage almost perfectly? That is why we are stuck with zerk because there is no need for passive. This is why we have not just homogenous but near identical build setups. Variety is what we are missing here. PvP would honestly become a bit more fun: trinity vs celestial x3. And if balance cannot be achieved then simply separate pve from pvp. Variation is key. Frankly, it would be a blast trying to see how high in offense you can go without dying…

I don’t care for trinity one way or another; just for the need to pick different build setup… for something other than all out offense to make a significant difference one way or another. And those not wanting multiple armor sets… Build isn’t all about gear.

Hume.2876:

Boosting passive mitigation = bad idea. It’s already fairly terrible – they should do the exact opposite. They should revamp weapon skills to allow for more blinds/aegis/evades etc. They should make sure the mobs can’t turn themselves around instantly. They should make sure the mobs are slow attackers.

You want to do everything to enhance playing the right way – and do everything you can to bury WoW style – passive spreadsheet oriented gaming. This is why people like shooters – its about the action – not about the grinding to achieve gear superiority or the 5 minutes you spend ‘planning’ your build.

All boosting the passive stats does is allow players to ignore in game mechanics. The zerker elitists are a force for good encouraging the players to play the way the game was meant to be played. Arenanet WANTS you to learn to dodge the wind walls. They WANT you to learn to hit aegis on your guardian right before Lupicus kicks the rogue. What they DON’T want for you is to face tank and roll kitten.

They make this exceedingly clear. Look at the wicked Rodeo and dodgy achievements from the living story. They want you to learn how to play the right way. How friggin boring would those be if you just face-rolled it.

There is ZERO wrong with the zerker meta. The really problem is the rest of the combat system in combination with encounter design. Fields and Boons and utilities only cover a small area and thus it pays off to stack. You stack together you can leverage fields/boons/reflects for extra damage/utility for the entire party.

Arenanet didn’t quite think that stuff through in PvE. It’s pretty obvious giving people powerful boons, fields and reflects is going to make people want to stack. Zerker stuff in PvE is just the intelligent way to deal with content.

They need to find a way to prevent stacking that does not ruin player synergy in PvE. They have not done this. Hate all you want but stacking might/stealth/timing reflects/using blinds etc takes a lot more teamwork they letting guys gear up and face tank hard stuff down.

There’s plenty wrong with zerk meta… and with active defense measures in general. passive and active defense should scale according to your build. zerk aegis should negate significantly less damage than knights; zerk retaliation should hit harder than nomad; giver’s (weapon)/sinister blind should last longer and block greater number of attacks/mitigate damage than assassin. Combat can have so many more dimensions by tying all effects to attributes i.e. blind from sinister converts greater # hits to glancing/missed blows with reduced duration or from giver to stay on mobs longer but less converted blows. Have attribute types specialize in certain boon/condition type i.e. tie vitality to endurance and toughness to aegis and zerk to retaliation & so on.

there should be greater risk and greater reward for choosing to max a specific attribute: zerk should hit harder but heal for nearly nothing… glass cannon needs to be actual glass. bunker should have lower offense with way higher passive defense. Should you wish to avoid such roles as dps, tank, heal, etc then you should be required to allot your trait points overall accordingly across all areas

celestial is good for builds that utilize multiple attributes i.e. i use it on my ele coz my build deals conditional & critical damage while utilizing multiple boons through attunement changes. i think my mesmer uses it as well; similar reasons. Celestial also benefits from rather high ferocity so a build with high precision could see some decent use out of it as well (so long as you have fair amount of power and on-crit effects). you can certainly make a warrior build around it (longbow/sword may benefit from it a little). its just that some professions can pull it off much better than others.

Andred.1087:

It’s called Guild Wars 2 because it’s the second game in the Guild Wars series. Jesus. That doesn’t require it to be the exact same game. Rather, it kind of requires it not to be.

kitten if you refuse to like the game, go find a game you do like! It’s a lot more fun than complaining about one you don’t like but apparently play enough to complain about it.

It’s the other way around… at least for me. I complain because i care; i am here because i want to be here. I show my support by gem purchase instead of “thank you posts”. I will always be complaining because things can always be better.
I have said it before and will say so again: GW2 pales in comparison to its predecessor (in its prime) but it is still the best game on the market at the moment (personal opinion). I will be here, complaining as much as i can, until i can no longer find the time or some other game occupies my attention.

Random Wax Orc.7695:

Apart from giving criticals a cooldown, not much else is going to break the monopoly on zerker gear.

The problem is that there isnt enough risk to going zerk (or all offense). Active defenses are the same across the board no matter the gear and with proper utilization, they are good enough to get you through with any gear. Now i suggested this in another post earlier :

Tie in active defenses to your stats i.e. aegis thrown by zerker lasts one attack mitigating 25% damage with potential boosted retaliation at end or giver’s aegis will last 4 attacks mitigating 50% damage or knight’s aegis lasts 2 attacks mitigating 75% damage & so on. Your gear/point allocation should strengthen/weaken all that you do be it active or passive.

Increase the difference between the gear types; make each one stand out in its own way.

Serophous.9085:

I wonder if there were any complaints about gw1.

If only there were fan sites we could go to to see threads starting from the beginning of players complaints and concerns of changes to the game, or grind, or balance, or solo play….

there were numerous. but they were mostly regarding skill balance.

Harper.4173:

This game is not designed to force you to tank and heal. If it did that for high skill level players it would absolutely demolish mid-tier and low-tier players.

Imagine it – content that forced the best of the best in tanky gear and forced someone to go full healer.
Now imagine what it’ll do to the random PUG group. And there you have it. It would murder them.

Why is that bad? Because video games fulfill a power fantasy – where you are the hero and killer of all bad things that wins at everything forever.

If that fantasy is no longer fulfilled players don’t want to play and Anet’s Gem Store revenue goes down.

It’s as simple as 2+2 = 4 really.

With low standard comes low average. Why would anyone bother going the extra distance when there is no extra reward? Not everyone values faster runs.
We are lazy, not incompetent. Raise the bar slowly & steadily and see the community respond. But only if there is reward, of course. This is not a game built to challenge after all.

Saint.5647:

Want to bring your random mix-match paragon into a UWSC? lol….good luck finding a group. Here, bring a random Bonetti’s troll farmer warrior into DoA…again nope. There were specific builds expected to be run by every class and every player. Variation was of course necessary for niche areas or strategies; innovation is always necessary. For the most part however, if you wanted to chase speed or efficiency as a team, you were expected to play your class, your build, and your role.

No one stopped you from going 8 Water Eles into FoW just like no one is stopping you from going 5 P/P Apothecary Thieves into Arah.

Yes there will always be meta and you will have to conform. GW1 had it too. But at least that meta was situational. Different place had different requirements. Over here… One Meta to Rule Them All… Hail Dark Lord Zerker -_-

spoj.9672:

Theres nothing stopping you from running defensive stats if you want to. You run them because you dont care about the meta. That doesnt mean you have the right to destroy other peoples playstyles.

I dont have the right to do anything in regards to this game or i would have changed it by now lol. I just present my ideas and hope something comes off of it. Do try to counter them with something more productive.

Hume.2876:

Windsagio.1340:

Hume.2876:

Here is the deal – this game is supposed to be all about active ways to stay alive.

“Meta” as understood in the dungeon sense is the ultimate in passive play though, you know your specified role and you do it exactly as you’ve done it every previous time. It totally freaking works, but let’s not pretend it’s active play. It’s less active than old-style ‘get out of the red circle!’ raid fights

And switching to all Nomad fixes this how? Don’t confuse bad encounter design with boosting of the passive mitigation stats. Like I said if you understand how combat works – you will understand why Zerker is the best case scenario for the game designers.

If you want to enable the content designers to put the focus on active abilities – you are smart to devalue passive mitigation.

Then what about other non-3x offensive gear types. They should just disappear? Do you really think its ok to go all offense and triumph in all aspects of the game? what kind of build variety is this game promoting?

How your character is designed should have a clear impact on how you handle encounters. As it is, players can run dungeons naked and that most certainly is not ok. It isn’t a matter of experience. I myself ran end of arah p4 first and only time almost naked way back when it was new(not by choice; multiple deaths & i was opener). Nor is it completely the game difficulty. Different situations should require you to adapt accordingly. Mechanics can go a long way to introduce variety.

Your build goes beyond just what you wear. Even if your choice armor is limited, point allocation should make the difference in the gameplay. As it is now, anything (and in some cases, even nothing) is viable. Your build design should reflect on more than just your time.

Windsagio.1340:

IndigoSundown.5419:

At which point we’d be seeing posts about how the “Knight’s meta” needs to end.

There’s a certain class of player that will always cleave to their received wisdom best play. If there wasn’t a meaningful gear advantage people would just switch over to classes (see the pvp meta).

Ultimately the ‘meta’ discussion is a people problem not a gameplay problem.

There will always be a meta yes. But the game can go some distance to make certain there is no universal meta that works for all places of the game. Our choice of gear and point allocation should have some other merit than time.

So many other mechanics that can be brought into account to change gameplay… playing alone or with someone, fighting one enemy or group, being near water or lava, positioned uphill or downhill, elemental affinities, weapon damage types, etc etc etc

Point being… multiple factors interacting with one another will make for numerous different type of encounters that would increase re playability and discourage stagnant builds. Yes we will always try to find the most efficient route but does that route have to be the same everywhere?

Akari Storm.6809:

Hyper Cutter.9376:

GW1 was a bloated mess by the time EOTN rolled around, iirc that was a large part of why they started making GW2 in the first place.

To me, the only things that felt bloated was tutorial beginnings of each campaign and maybe the many skills that no one used at all. I understood it though as each campaign (besides EoTN), could be played on it’s own. Those extra skills were more often than not redundancy skills.

I wouldn’t say it was a mess at all though.

I recall reading some article by a dev saying that they themselves thought the skill pool was bloated. Yes there were a lot of skills and most went without use but thats only because their use was conditional. I recall “shove” in particular. Warrior tactics based touch range elite skill that reset your entire bar for just knocking down a single target (or so i remember; could be different now). In all the years i played GW1, i never saw that skill being used anywhere other than Deep and in that location, it was a requirement (until eotn rolled around and brought ymlad along; but i still used to take both to accomplish dual kd alone).

CoRtex.2157:

lets say how it is,, they used the name “Guild Wars” to earn money,, not because they wanted to make a good sequel for the game.

In the beginning there were greater similarities between the two games. They just took a different road, that’s all. “Good” is subjective. Nor is this game done. While it may not live upto its predecessor, it still is the best game in the market for now (personal opinion).

It greatly depends on what part of the game you are referring to. For instance, players would know more about playing the game after spending thousands of hours playing and devs would know more about making the game after spending thousands of hours making.