Guild Wars 2

Relshdan.6854:

zerk is probably ideal, but i like marauder armor w/ zerk weaps and trinkets….the extra HP helps with condi mitigation….and rev isn’t short on ferocity buffs

Untill it hits 100% crit rate, ferocity is never wasted. If anything ferocity is even more important for rev than others due to roiling mists

CadeRG.4508:

If you still grind dungeons (for some reason), then zerker gear is best since it allows for maximum faceroll. -_-

In the HoT Maguuma, you should have at least some defensive stats on your gear, even if it’s just on your accessories. There are many things in the jungle that will instantly kill you if you use full zerker (pocket raptors, smokescale, any champion). Raids are coming in the near future and will punish players for running full damaging gear stats.

Now, there is nothing wrong with using full berserker gears – it’s still an option. The only thing that it’s good at is for killing things as fast as possible.

Playing supportive roles are useful for every and a lot of fun for many of the tough bosses found in the jungle. Herald, being a highly supportive class, works great when played in such a way.

Just like players were punished for being full zerk in fractals amiright

Cyninja.2954:

Jekkt.6045:

tbh sword is in a great spot, now with the change to the auto attack even more.

you can’t compare offhand sword, axe and shield at all because they all fill different roles.

axe is a fast offhand with a teleport, designed for use when you don’t slot shiro.

offhand sword is a defensive dps weapon to pull people out of a crowd, isolate and kill them.

shield is a sustain offhand weapon and offers no damage at all but only support/defense.

This.

Not every offhand needs to be high damage numbers. Sword offhand has a place, and it fills this place nicely. The fact that we can x/sword and x/shield for block rotations alone is amazing.

Sword mainhand is borderline broken(aka very good) as far as usefulness goes. Stop trying to make arenanet focus on stuff that is already good. The only thing that can come from this is nerfs.

Having a good block and a kinda useless evade pull is borderline broken?

The offhands for rev are all a tad lackluster. Though this seems a normal trend for offhanded weapons in general.

Kanto.1659:

The thing i that playing with toughness and vitality or not does not really matter. The mobs hit harder, yes, but it all still relies on dodges and utilities. I was traveling with my Rabid engineer and passed by a saurian champ who did a tail sweep and was insta downed. All that toughness? It did nothing.

We can gear for 10% of the game where a one shot will turn into a almost one shot, and then play 90% of the time at a slower speed, or we can make 90% of the time go faster and dodge/utilities the 10% needed.

Thats always been a common complaint. The damage levels are so high in GW2 that when gearing for def, you have to do it full on to see any difference, and even then its rarely much of one. You’re better off going full offense to end a fight sooner.

This is especially true when you factor in that skills and buffs have a far larger impact on defense than stats ever will. Having that protection buff up, using that dodge skill, or using that shield block is vastly superior to having full vit and toughness.

This doesnt apply to PvP mind you. Just PvE where foes often have one hit kill moves or ways to bypass defense.

tldr; Anet did a crappy job with stats and the game is geared towards everyone gearing for straight offense: usually power, since power will almost always end a fight sooner and offense is meant to be its own defense.

Destabilizator.2789:

Namica.2951:

Destabilizator.2789:

Torment is cool idea, but needs pimping to bring it up to speed. I was thinking that any launch/pull would proc Torment dmg based on the distance – wouldn’t it be nice?
Eg. Mallyx R stack some -> Glint -> R R.

I didn’t do the math, but how strong Torment is (compared to other condis), if we assume the target will be moving for whole duration?

Torment is absolute garbage since legendary/elite/boss mobs dont move that much.

A abit better in PvP, but still not that great.

Torment is a good idea on paper, an atrocious idea in action.

Yah, as I said – it needs a bit of pimping. Maybe your typical trick from other MMOs – consume stacks of it and deal full dmg now?

It kinda needs a complete rework. Buff it to be useful in PvE and it becomes over powered in PvP where people tend to move.

Destabilizator.2789:

Torment is cool idea, but needs pimping to bring it up to speed. I was thinking that any launch/pull would proc Torment dmg based on the distance – wouldn’t it be nice?
Eg. Mallyx R stack some -> Glint -> R R.

I didn’t do the math, but how strong Torment is (compared to other condis), if we assume the target will be moving for whole duration?

Torment is absolute garbage since legendary/elite/boss mobs dont move that much.

A abit better in PvP, but still not that great.

Torment is a good idea on paper, an atrocious idea in action.

Berserker is still the most effective build type by far yes. Until mace AND torment stop sucking (and we get a condition range) it will remain the hands down most effective choice for PvE

As has been said, the issue is mostly that outside of Glint, Shiro, the legends are unpowered and shouldnt be used, and outside of sword, hammer, and the offhands, the other weapons kinda suck.

Its limited because its not balanced. If the other legends were all viable then there would be much less of an issue.

That said, we do have a total number of utilities less than other classes. The class definatly needs another legend and another weapon or two since they are severely limited there too.

I know racials are a minor thing, and not many use them. But kitten it, they’re fun. Has anet given any reason why Revs cant use any? I feel my human will never be complete till she can summon her hounds of balthazar.

Youkay.5294:

This is a something I wonder about when I reached that stage in HoT storyline, in which we seek to rescue a destiny’s edge member. If you haven’t played through the storyline, here is a spoiler alert!

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Eir Stagalkin’s death was quite dramatic and very well executed storywise. But I can’t help but wonder: Is she going to be available to the Revenant as a Legend? Possibly allowing the Revenant to use a Longbow? What do you guys think about this prospect? What do you hope for?

Dear god I hope not. Not only would it be a spoiler to those who havent done HoT, but there are so many better choices for new legends.

An option would be nice.

Guild Wars is full of legendary heroes and villains. Let’s hear some ideas for new legend stances.

Pyre Fiercshot
Focus: Condition damage and self buffing.

Skills:

Healing:
Warband Support
Heal yourself and heal 1 condition for every nearby ally up to 5

Tactical Retreat
Upkeep Ability
Gain swiftness and every time you’re damaged, the enemy gets one tick of torment.
Reduced upkeep for every nearby ally up to a maximum of -2

“We Killed our Gods”
Targeted Shout
Gain stability and do bonus condition damage to your target depending on how much HP they have left. More hp = more damage.

Ignite Weapons
Upkeep ability
High Upkeep
Your attacks now cause burning, strike in a an area, and have a chance to be a blast finisher (10 second CD on blast finisher)

Elite: Chain of Command
Shout
All boons and their duration on up to 5 friendlies near you are copied to you.

The idea is that on its own, its a subpar legend line. It needs allies to really shine. Focuses on Pyre as the Charr’s great hero, leader, and liberator.

Naturally, Rev’s had better get access to longbows if such a legend were to ever be implemented.

Argon.1563:

I think ArenaNet deliberately limited it’s weapon pool, so theres more room for Elite Specializations later on, so it doesn’t end up like Warrior, where it can use nearly all the weapons in the game, leaving very little room for Elite Specializations, meaning they’ll have to go to the trouble of making completely new weapons eventually.

Pyre Fierceshot legend with longbow when

Don’t get me wrong, I love Rev, no doubt.

But there is one thing that bugs me: weapons. They feel rather lacking in variety.

main
1 range (favors power)
1 power weapon
1 condition weapon
1 support weapon

offhand
1 power weapon
1 condition weapon (that you wont use with a power build or main hand due to redundant second shadow step)
1 support weapon

It’s all so hideously cut and dry. We’re already tied to always using specific legends that we can’t customize. Rev strikes me as a class that absolutely needs a myriad of weapons. At least a hybrid dps main hand weapon and another range weapon. Or even the legends changing one of the weapon skills per weapon similar to the thief and its middle skill changing depending on off hand.

As it stands, I kinda see myself getting a little bored with Rev and its lack of customization pretty soon.

Pets have had major glaring issues since launch.

We arent getting changes.

evnw.9324:

I’ll be really kittened if they are a BL collection and not something directly tied to the revenant

How long have you been with gw2?

Of course its going to be black lion.

Justine.6351:

I was working on a list for AFG producing stuff but the forum ranger community hates any thread that even remotely threatens to make druid look viable. I imagine some of these things would crossover. BTW, lingering light has a CD. But maybe you are looking at a staff less build?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/How-To-Astral-Force-Generation/first#post5650485

I stopped working on it after I realized it was a waste of time trying to help people who only wanted to be spoon fed.

People are just mad because Druid is such garbage. There is no special way of doing it or secret, its just a poorly made spec.

One thing that has been bugging me about the Druid form is that it seems to go against one of the core aspects of GW2: there is no trinity. But then we get Druid, which more than any other elite introduced in HoT, is based around being a healer. Using the staff is almost entirely about healing, using the avatar form is nothing but healing. The trait line likewise is almost entirely dedicated to healing and condition cleansing. Hell, its kitten near impossible to even use unless you’re entirely dedicating yourself to be a healer due to how the resource gain works.

Now mind you, I am not against what Druid form is doing in its entirety. What I am against is that Ranger’s only new option in the whole of the expansion, is something against the games original philosophy.

With that in mind, I believe that Celestial Avatar should be given a DPS and or DPS/support hybrid counter part. When using a staff the avatar skill gains more resource with healing and less on damage (as it is now), and when switching to any other weapon, you gain more on damage than on healing. The form itself would have more damage and buffing components, rather than being entirely based around healing ones.

This would keep current druid relatively unchanged, especially since getting avatar up with anything but a staff is a chore in and of itself to the point where very few if any people are using avatar without a staff as is. While at the same time giving ranger an elite that isn’t against the games dynamic and allow them something to use when they arent grouping.

Condi does good damage.
Power does more

There is the issue.

Kill.3458:

The elite was made for pvp, using it in PvE is pointless to say the least

Daredevil is bad for both PvP and PvE.

In PvE it just doesnt do enough to warrent being used and other specs are better

In PvP physical skills are to slow to be used period and you lose to much taking it over other specs.

Thief is in a horrible position at the moment.

I feel as though they made Druid back when they were intending on making a heal support heavy meta. Then they decided not to do that, so they were left with a whole spec based around something they no longer wanted.

Let me start by saying I love my ranger to death. I love its skills, its utilities, its look, even the pets I kinda like even though I think we should have a no pet option.

But I would also like something new after so many months playing Ranger. Was hoping the changes in HoT would rekindle my joy for the class. Instead we get a staff which, imo, is a clunky weapon to use and, while effective, isn’t really fun. And we get glyphs, which ranks up with mantras as the worst skill type in game.

I really dont know what anet was thinking with Druid. But for me its garbage and simply doesn’t fit ranger. Glyphs are slow and clunky, and when I think ranger I don’t think “heal bot”. But apparently a-net does, so I’m now looking for another class to main.

I think they’ll be reworked a small bit, mostly because hammer seems to be getting moveable turret like minions. But I imagine you’ll have to be a hammer engie for this, leading me to believe that the hammer is meant to be highly mobile while the other engineers more immobile.

CaptainBBQ.9045:

Its a little disappointing to hear that the most efficient way is constantly switching between the kits. I did my fair share of hardcore min-maxing in my WoW days and I’m looking for a relaxed laid back experience without a crazy amount of micro.

Would I be kicked from parties if I’m just using one or the other or do people generally not care? Aka how seriously would I be hindering myself by not rotating between them?

Its not as overwhelming as it seems, you pick up on it quickly, or at least, most do.

Ariete.6509:

I saw ppl stating that the pet is roughly 30% of the ranger’s damage done. Let’s go with that. Please consider bringing Guard shout, it increases its survivability and control, plus the Agility Training increases pet’s moving speed, it’s an adept trait on skirmish, a line where there’s not much (apart from 2 other pet related good traits) to give up for and it will have good impact on its management. Now tell me there’s other Trait/Utility skill worth 30% more damage to you.

TLDR:
When i ppl complaining on AI, i tend to ask: what AI? The pet is pretty straight forward you send in to a target, you call back to avoid tricky situation, there’s no need for Artificial Intelligence. It’s not like you want the pet to decide for itself after you’ve been to boss X that red circles on the ground hurt. You are the one having to adapt.
/tldr

Another pro tip is, sometimes spiders and devours for being ranged can survive bettter than bears, i see my spider/devour as a turret i can place on the battlefield with a 12 sec movable cooldown. Most fights the pet will be useful, without the guard utility and agility training to be honest, in several modes, but let’s face it, for WvW and PVP you’ll be using canine for it’s on-swap-on-demand knock down + F2 snare.

AI is typically a catch all term in situations like this. Essentially in this case it means: poor pathing, poor responsiveness, and trouble hitting targets.

Sebrent.3625:

There is this thing known as quality. If the quality of the information is low, then it is suspect. The quality of the information that you’re using is low. That is the problem.

I ask for numbers and you take numbers from before a pet nerf and use them from numbers after a pet nerf … do you not see the very obvious problem with that?

If you aren’t willing to do the work, then don’t make the statements. This is all very simple, basic stuff.

Where is ArenaNet’s admission that 1/3 is the expected DPS a pet does in relation to the whole of a Ranger’s DPS? That should be an easy one to provide the proof for if it exists.

Let’s get something clear as well … I’m not denying nor accepting that the pet is some X% of the Ranger’s DPS … I’m stating that you have not provided solid data to support the numbers you’ve provided. There is a huge difference that you need to wrap your mind around.

Others are the same. Wonderous has pointed out that there too is a huge amount of variance given the plethora of build, gear, and pet options.

What % is a pet for a Tanky build? A glassy berserker build? A condition build? With a bear pet? With a drake pet?

So many variables.

All you have provided is a combination of outdated data with new data which doesn’t make sense due to the changes that happened between the calculations of those two sets of numbers.

Provide quality information or just present your opinion as what it is … an opinion.

As far as “[putting] the spotlight on the problems with ranger pets” … I was unaware that people weren’t quite intimately familiar with the current status of pets. Did something get stealthily changed in some patch?

My view of your OP is, to be bluntly put, that it is just another gripe about pets and a statement that “I didn’t like things then and I still don’t like them and I don’t think that’s every going to change” … which is fine. But it is your opinion. It is not a fact outside of the fact that you don’t like it.

Wait, you’re disputing my claim, and then saying the problems are real. I’m quiet confused here. Are you arguing for the sheer sake of arguing?

That said, am trying to find the dev post. But its not as easy as you’d think. The forum search feature is atrocious. I figured it wouldn’t need explaining since it caused such an uproar when they first said it.

Sebrent.3625:

Perhaps my eyes are getting old, but I don’t see that showing what percentage of our DPS that is … just the DPS he is calculating for his own pet … in some cases using, in his own words, “crude methods” (see: not completely accurate math). In fact, if you read the thread, there is debate on some of the math.

Also, it’s not a great idea to take math done in a self-admittedly crude fashion from one time in the game and compare it to numbers that are more current … especially given that pets were nerfed between when these two sets of numbers were calculated.

---

Again, I ask … what is the point your OP?

I feel as though no amount of information will sway you on this, despite other people in that thread posting their own numbers which are around the same as the threads original posters math and the ongoing estimate of pet dps sitting around 1.2-2k dps depending on traits as well as anet own admission that 1/3 is the expected dps a pet does in relation to the whole of a rangers dps.

And I suppose the reasoning is to once again try to put the spotlight on the problems with ranger pets. Case and point, the denial in this thread over the pet accounting for a large percentage of our dps and how they end up being a detriment due to this paired with their horrible AI.

Sebrent.3625:

Namica.2951:

Sebrent.3625:

(1) We know. There may be some fixes coming with the expansion. We’re in a holding pattern on this one.

(2) How much? That’d be a nice thing to prove before making this claim.

(3) Lol, have you not met Mesmer illusions?

What exactly is your point here? I feel like you could have made a post saying:
1. Guardians and Eles give boons every time they break wind.
2. Warriors have highest base health and armor in the game.
3. Mesmer clones look like them.
4. Rangers’ pets are animals.

The on going number for pet dps sits around 1/4 – 1/3 of a rangers DPS, this has been true for ages.

Mesmer illusions being difficult to use =/= being openly detrimental to the class. The two are difficult to compare since a mesmer has a much stronger hand in positioning their illusions, they dont persist like the pets do, and they attack like players do, so their pathing AI and attacking animations arent near as much of an issue.

Where’s your proof that the pet DPS sits around 1/4 to 1/3 of a Ranger’s DPS?

I still see nothing but a claim.

Well it has been the go to percentage for ages, but if you want more indepth:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Pet-DPS-number-crunching

Essentially, it can sit around 1300dps to 2100dps. That low end being without buff stacking and no pet traits.

1/3 of your damage was also the damage a pet does stated by the devs.

Now then, based on this, which is about as close as we’re going to get for calculating dps, ranger dps, inluding pet, with meta builds, sits around 7-8k. This is accounting for buffs.

http://gw2dps.david-reess.de/

Note, that in PvP, your pet will have less time on whatever its fighting, so, their damage will drop. Which is a problem, since by the devs own admission, pets should account for a sizeable chunk of our dps.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Even though people always and constantly claim the pet AI to be that horrible…
… Could you tell me an option how to make it better?
Because I don’t. I find it bearable. Quite fine but not perfect.

What I’d address is probably the survivability, their management … And that’s probably it. You can’t expect pet AI to be on a level of a human. They are not like that even in real life, for Christ’s sake.
They merely listen to your commands. They won’t make much decisions on their own.

Their reliability is the issue. Not their AI.

Their reliability is directly tied to their AI, they arent responsive enough to manage for instance. If they were properly responsive then their survivability wouldn’t be such an issue.

Then there is the matter of their attack animation which is single target and easy to dodge for both players and NPC. If it cleaves and/or had a small range to it then it would fix many of the issues.

Sebrent.3625:

(1) We know. There may be some fixes coming with the expansion. We’re in a holding pattern on this one.

(2) How much? That’d be a nice thing to prove before making this claim.

(3) Lol, have you not met Mesmer illusions?

What exactly is your point here? I feel like you could have made a post saying:
1. Guardians and Eles give boons every time they break wind.
2. Warriors have highest base health and armor in the game.
3. Mesmer clones look like them.
4. Rangers’ pets are animals.

The on going number for pet dps sits around 1/4 – 1/3 of a rangers DPS, this has been true for ages.

Mesmer illusions being difficult to use =/= being openly detrimental to the class. The two are difficult to compare since a mesmer has a much stronger hand in positioning their illusions, they dont persist like the pets do, and they attack like players do, so their pathing AI and attacking animations arent near as much of an issue.

I’ll admit I’ve been on and off with my ranger and information pertaining to rangers. But I know that from day 1 there have been major complaints about the ranger class mechanic: pets. Mostly revolving around three points:

1. The AI is terrible
2. It accounts for to much of our DPS
3. Its the only class mechanic that is openly detrimental to the class, and able to be shut down

Yet, its been almost 3 years now, and as far as I know, there have been seldom a hinting at this horrible mechanic being fixed. At most, we were told AI would be bettered awhile back, but of course, it never was.

Perhaps a bit basic, but I love my Charr Ranger

Rin.1046:

Namica.2951:

Its why you constantly have these threads. People want at least some of that GW1 complexity back. Because as of now, GW2 has some of the least depth of any MMO, whereas GW1 had the most depth.

I do not agree with the complexity statement. You may have had more variety of skills, more choice and freedom in what skills to take. But I think GW2 has a more complex system. People seem to only look at the skills when comparing GW1 and GW2, but don’t forget that traits play a big part in your build in GW2. We have more rune and sigil choices in GW2, more stat choices (though some are underused in certain parts of the game), and we can change weapons in combat giving us more skills in combat at any given moment. In GW1 you have 8 skills, in GW2 you can have a minimum 15 (14 on a non-kit engi, soon to be 15).

GW2 may not offer the same freedom of choice, but it does offer a complex system, that more importantly is more balanced and in my opinion offers a larger number of viable builds than GW1 did. In GW1 you had a handful of meta (often gimmicky) builds that in some cases you needed to run in order to beat certain content. This in turn left you with literally hundred of unused skills. We do have unused skills (and traits) in GW2 as well, but it doesn’t feel as bad as it did in GW1.

To be honest, I preferred GW1 when it was just prophecies. As they added more and more skills, things started to get watered down more and more and the amount of unused skills increased. I think Anet made the right decision to limit the number of skills you could select. I just hope they don’t undo that by adding more and more specializations.

Its a difficult thing to get right at the end of the day. You want to give players choice without it having a negative impact, and you don’t want to keep things the same for too long without people getting bored. Offering new stuff without it ruining the game is a tricky balancing act, and I do not envy Anet this task one bit.

Thats the thing. There are many options in GW2, but most of them aren’t worthwhile. PvE, you pretty much stick to zerker gear and a very small few types of runes. There may be many runes, but you’ll never use the vast majority of them. Likewise many traits you wont ever use.

In GW1 you had hundreds of builds for each class. In GW2, rather few. Some classes have very pathetically few good builds.

GW2 has -potential-. It has had potential for years. But things haven’t changed much, still, so very many things in the game are simply useless.

Rin.1046:

Vayne.8563:

Even without the heroes, though, the game was still build wars. It appealed to those people who liked it. I’m pretty sure more people walked away because it was that way than stayed. I can’t prove it though.

I played GW1 almost from launch and stayed with it until GW2’s release. I really enjoyed the game, but prefer GW2’s build system a lot more.

I agree with the princicple point of what you’re making though. Both games have very different systems and will appeal to different players in varying degrees, or not at all. It’s personal preference at the end of the day. Neither system is better than the other, because they are both very different to each other.

I suppose that was the problem many people had with GW2. GW1 the gameplay was built around how you could build your character. They completely changed that in GW2. GW2 is sequel in the same was, say, wow is a sequel to wc3. Same setting, but absolutely everything else has changed. though some may even debate the setting part, since so very much has changed for human, charr, and norn from both a lore stand point and a theme standpoint that its hard to look at their gw1 counterparts and say they’re the same, and of course sylvari have been the story focus and they werent even in gw1

Its why you constantly have these threads. People want at least some of that GW1 complexity back. Because as of now, GW2 has some of the least depth of any MMO, whereas GW1 had the most depth.

Vayne.8563:

Namica.2951:

Diovid.9506:

CureForLiving.5360:

Dawdler.8521:

You know, most weapons arent even used due to meta. Why throw in more weapons?

Because diversity in and of itself is a good thing?

Is it though? More diversity leads to two things: 1) more disregarded skills and 2) more unexpectedly overpowered combinations. Someone mentioned GW1 and this is exactly what happened there and the exact reason why Arenanet is now very cautious about adding too many skills.

Yes, it is what happens. But you know what? It made GW1 a hell of a lot more fun. It was more work for the dev team for sure, but it was also a great deal more fun and interesting for the players.

It made Guild Wars 1 a whole lot more fun FOR YOU. Not for everyone. There were a number of reasons why it was less fun for me.

I knew if I would success or fail before I even left an outpost based on my build. I could spec heroes to do all the heavy lifting and have almost no risk at all through most of the game. I could AFK and my heroes could take care of anything that cropped up, even in hard mode.

The game was called Build Wars for a reason and if you liked making builds (as I did), then it was great. For everyone who wanted to play a game and not just make builds though, it completely sucked.

Now I’m wondering if there were more people who liked that sort of thing, or more people who couldn’t get into it at all and walked away from the game.

Oh. You played late guild wars when they started adding all the hero builds and pve only abilities. That would certainly explain why you didn’t care for it much. The game went way downhill around eye of the north time, because at that point the devs largely didn’t care (EotN was a big “wait on thesequel now, we’re done” expansion). The PvE abilities and the OP stuff they added ruined things quiet notably.

Diovid.9506:

CureForLiving.5360:

Dawdler.8521:

You know, most weapons arent even used due to meta. Why throw in more weapons?

Because diversity in and of itself is a good thing?

Is it though? More diversity leads to two things: 1) more disregarded skills and 2) more unexpectedly overpowered combinations. Someone mentioned GW1 and this is exactly what happened there and the exact reason why Arenanet is now very cautious about adding too many skills.

Yes, it is what happens. But you know what? It made GW1 a hell of a lot more fun. It was more work for the dev team for sure, but it was also a great deal more fun and interesting for the players.

maddoctor.2738:

yakuza snowdragon.4639:

I’ve been playing since 1st beta and followed gw2 since the first word of its making. Before this I had played gw1 for years. One area I feel GW2 is lacking is the weaponry. I know each weapon can give separate skill set like with a ele or engi but imo its still very limited. I would like to see a much broader range of weapons for each of the class’s. 1 handed hammers for guards and warriors. scythe for necros, throwing stars for assassins etc. and I don’t mean 1 more weapon pre class I mean at least another 2-3 weapons. I am aware of the skills etc that would have to be designed and included but that’s the point. Anet already has all the ideas for sills etc from gw1. Anyway just my thoughts.

Funny what you say about GW1 because GW2 has more weapon types available. Also, in GW1 professions were severely limited in the weapons they could use, sure you could use all of them, but there was no point in doing so.

Adding more of the old weapons to more professions is a better choice in nearly all aspects and I’m glad that’s what they are doing.

That’s largely because in gw1, it wasn’t the weapon that was important, what was important was the skills you brought. Even then, every class could find a build that required use of any sort of weapon.

Need less Sylvari looking stuff.

Need more Charr themed stuff.

I dont find the issue being the weapon skills. At most I’d say that instead of adding more weapons, would be a very large under taking since you’d need to add so many new models, to instead give each weapon ten skills rather than 5. As in each button has two choices, giving you more variety in what your weapons an do.

Failing that, more utilities to choose from. The issue here is variety, and there isnt much. But, you dont need to add weapons for variety, just tweak what you can do with existing ones.

Do you think anet will ever get back to this plot point: all the charr legions have a homeland, the ash one being unknown. We cant access any of them at the moment. For that matter, no one knows what the leader of the Ash Legion is doing either.

Just be glad you can do them, they’re still unplayable lag fests to me.

Cirian.8917:

Overall for Living Story, I liked it.

I’ve gone down the formulaic route of expansions many times in many previous games. I was ready for a fresh kind of content delivery, and ArenaNet delivered.

I encourage the devs to keep exploring these fresh ideas and to not to be afraid of making the occasional mistake. It’s what makes GW2 stand out from everything else!

Not occasional mistake, constant, recurring, mistakes.

Good end of story, story wise

Terrible rewards
Terrible execution
Terrible middle story

Carighan.6758:

Namica.2951:

Like how each event is little else than zerg fests that dont even reward you ACTUALLY PLAYING (thus, afkers at zone in). Heck, I find that they, ONCE AGAIN, put most of a patches armor on the gem shop (Scarlet armor) to be flat out insulting. Or the constant DPS check bosses. Those are two MAJOR issues that have been on the table for months. Or how condition builds are almost literally worthless (with the knights, they are infact a massive detriment). How nothing can hold a candle to full zerker in PvE.

Right-o:

1. The fights are specifically not zerg fights. They break up the large mass of players, forcing them to focus on multiple targets at a time. In the case of these knight/hologram fights we’re broken up into groups of 33-50 players (for most instances it should be ~35, as little taxi-ing is going on). For the Marionette it was 20-30, for Escape it depended entirely on where you wanted to go only, as there was no real mass-event going on.
2. You’re right about the Armour, though, the Helmet and both Rifles are available ingame, Shoulders and Gloves gem store. So far, advantage ingame (though I fear this’ll change as they’ll release more of the armour).
3. There’s been no DPS check other than the 5-man platforms at Marionette. Now if you mean “The fights are done by dealing damage to a target”, well then welcome to lvl1, sorry, can’t say it any nicer. :S But a “DPS check”? What? 50 players in condi specs using a non-condi weapon and just using AA and perfectly getting a boss down in time makes it a “DPS check”? That’s the lowest possible DPS the group of players can bring without being AFK! How can that be a DPS check?! Speaking of AFK…
4. AFKing disqualifies you from the loot. You need to fight the knights to get the rewards, and you need to join the hologram fight (which nukes the afk-areas) to qualify. Escape had this issue, granted. Battle doesn’t.

Many servers cant beat the knights because the DPS check: Not everyone has zerker gear, this has been a recurring problem for months, stop sweeping it under the rug like its not an issue, its a very obvious one.

You can afk for many parts of the content and you know it.

Carighan.6758:

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

I’ve never seen people trash an update this badly since the original Southsun update, it’s not just the forums but openly in map chat. We can’t even do the event on my server anymore since the last patch and we’re not exactly a small server, I can only guess that it’s similar elsewhere.

Well we’re Aurora Glade, we’re full of incompetent slackers like me, and we do it every time in the evening.
I’m not sure whether the issue isn’t a social one. That is, everyone on your server thinks “We can’t do it”. Hence people don’t go there, hence you can’t do it.

The event is really simple. I mean seriously.

And it’s rather well-designed if you think about it:

• Non-trivial fight mechanics (we’ve been asking for this), yet unlike Marionette single players cannot ruin it for other players (we’ver been asking for this) and it’s still simple enough to be open for everyone.
• Split combat, which was positively commented on during Marionette. Better FPS for everyone leading to less deaths.
• Story-end in single instance (again, this was player feedback).
• No unique rewards behind walls like raid bosses or grind achievements, hence you can’t lose out on anything. It’s funny ,we complain about “kitten rewards”, before we complained about “having to do the meta”. What now? :P
• Thematically sensible change. Before we were fleeing, so we had to evacuate LA every so often. Now we are pushing back, hence we can go in whenever.

There’s two huge issues however:

• QA. The big one. This release was terrible in that regard, with bugs all over the place and the QA team having serious issues even reproducing the problem.
• Too much condition-reflect time versus too little condition-spam time on the knights. This isn’t massively out of balance, but adds to the frustration when coupled with the QA issues.

Or in short: QA fail.
And really, “QA fail” (sorry Autumn ) describes a lot of GW2’s problems. It feels like we’re getting content hot from the build servers, not perfected by repeated QA/Fixing/QA/Fixing.

Other than that though, this event shows a lot of listening to player feedback, all in one patch. Yet somehow we’re again unhappy, which makes me wonder whether it was the correct decision to listen to that feedback in the first place.

Namica.2951:

People have been making the same complaints and leaving the same feedback for events and balance issues for -MONTHS-.

And most of those complaints have been listened to.

Scarlet invasion inverse reward structure? Fixed.
Jubilee lag issues due to mass player zerg? Fixed.
Marionette single-player fail? Fixed.
Tower structure event inaccessibility? Fixed.
Story hidden behind achievements? Fixed.
Style rewards hidden behind achievements? Fixed.

These were issues we specifically mentioned in regards to previous events. And? They have all been alleviated.
I mean I get that you’re angry, but do you realize that comments such as these make us – the playerbase at large – look extremely stupid, because all we do is complain and we never mention it when our complaints get listened to?

Your cherry picking minor offenses and treating it like it means the major issues arent there. Like how each event is little else than zerg fests that dont even reward you ACTUALLY PLAYING (thus, afkers at zone in). Heck, I find that they, ONCE AGAIN, put most of a patches armor on the gem shop (Scarlet armor) to be flat out insulting. Or the constant DPS check bosses. Those are two MAJOR issues that have been on the table for months. Or how condition builds are almost literally worthless (with the knights, they are infact a massive detriment). How nothing can hold a candle to full zerker in PvE.

You just brought up some minor issues that were specific to the time. Those get fixed, while the large issues that crop up constantly go ignored.

person brings up an issue thats been known and talked about for ages: DPS checks

someone else comes and says “play better”

argument is told about why it is just a DPS check, with examples why and explanations why

the same tired old “play better” is parroted over and over

This is why we cant have nice things

People have been making the same complaints and leaving the same feedback for events and balance issues for -MONTHS-.

No, our feedback is not getting through. They just band-aid it with a thread every few weeks going “Oh, talk to us, we listen” and then you never see results of the “We wanna help” thread.

All I’m seeing in this thread is:

“Boo hoo, the only people who are saying these bad things about Ranger are trolls and a minority!”

In other words, OP is right: CDI isn’t needed, so long as you believe that people posting on the forums can’t be right or make a point.

If you don’t want to fear nerfs, then roll a warrior. They’ll always be in a good place because they were badly designed from the start (har har har, lets fill a class up with passive abilities, highest hp, highest armor, and high damage, and some of the best buffs out there)

Is Xallevar honestly trying to say there is nothing wrong with ranger?

This thread in and of itself is proof positive that the devs ADMIT there is a problem.

The issue is they admit the problem, and then we players present the problem they go “Well no, we won’t be doing anything about that”