Showing Posts For ObsiMoth.6342:
Transformations are very unlikely given the fact that transformations are thematically tied to the Norn. I doubt ANet would entirely undermine an entire race in their game by allowing Asura, Charr, Sylvari and Humans to just ‘learn’ how to turn into an animal.
More functional interaction with animals/pets is something I’d love to see from a thematic standpoint, but transformations are a completely different ball game entirely. We already have skills like Hunter’s Call that summons birds to attack a target; I’d like to see more of that. Though, if we do see more of that kind of interaction it’d likely be communicating with ancient spirits as opposed to carrion birds or cats due to the lore ties that already exist in Tyrian ‘druids’.
Also, has there been any speculation on possible interactions with a particular god that more or less defines what nature is in this game? I’d love the druid to have ties to Melandru.
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Well.. not to be a downer or anything, but here’s why I don’t want to try using the lb in a condition spec. On its own, there’s all of 0 damaging conditions that it can apply from untraited weapon skills. So that’s pretty rough. However, you do have the ability to blast out a rapid fire and stack some bleeds. So let’s consider that for a second. There’s 10 shots so 10 chances to bleed. But there’s a 66% chance to get the bleed proc on crit. Now we’re down to 6-7 stacks of bleed. But then there’s the whole crit chance thing. Even with fury that build is going to be roughly 60% to crit I’d say. That knocks your bleeds down to about 4 stacks. That’s not really that good in the way of damage especially when the sb autoattack can 100% get one from flanking and that’s not even on a cd and it can still proc those on crit bleeds too! In addition it also has poison on it’s 2 skill that will benefit from your condition damage. I don’t think the ability to get the free couple of hits at 1500 range will justify all the other shortcomings that are associated with using the lb. For those reasons, I think you would find greater success in using the shortbow!
I used to agree with this too, but the utility of the stealth and knockback are just too good to pass up. Stealth into Entangle is a great way of avoiding dodges, and the double knockbacks you can get with Quick Draw really limit aggressive players mobility. Not to mention the condition stacking on the axe/torch are insane right now and generally make up for the lack of condi application from LB.
WvW Zerg – pointless. No support, just a backliner that spams 1 and 2 on LB. Thats literally all you do. If you front line with ranger, your useless. WAY BETTER frontliner classes out there… why even bother with ranger lol.
You’ve obviously never played frontline ranger in a zerg before. It is, hands down, the most fun you can have in a zerg. The amount of attention you have to pay to survive is huge, but its probably the most rewarding experience you can have in a zerg.
The only role we can play better than any other class is direct, long range, single target pressure. A team of 5 Rangers is basically able to instagib any person not behind wall of reflection.
Playing a front line ranger is just a worse in every aspect warrior. Less damage, less CC, less team support, and less durability. Never mind the fact that even with the new traits, pets are still very fragile in most zerg fights if they get near the AoE’s making our entire F skill mechanic not frontline friendly.
I don’t disagree with you, but I’d prefer if you actually read what I wrote instead of just ignoring it. There are different ways to play the game and different rewards individuals can get out of it; Skitz said theres literally no reason to play a frontline Ranger in WvW, I disagree – it’s the most fun thing to play in a zerg imo. As much as people like to think this is a ‘game’ of numbers where we must pursue every inch we can get so as to statistically out-Math our opponents, at some point we have to reconnect with this notion that something fun/challenging can infact be a viable build, and not just the other way round.
WvW Zerg – pointless. No support, just a backliner that spams 1 and 2 on LB. Thats literally all you do. If you front line with ranger, your useless. WAY BETTER frontliner classes out there… why even bother with ranger lol.
You’ve obviously never played frontline ranger in a zerg before. It is, hands down, the most fun you can have in a zerg. The amount of attention you have to pay to survive is huge, but its probably the most rewarding experience you can have in a zerg.
Hello everyone.
I’ll preface this topic by saying this is my first build post on the forums, and ordinarily I find enough enjoyment in just playing ranger without having to worry too much about what is or isn’t meta, thus formally making builds and posting them here wasn’t much of a desire of mine.
However, since the patch things have gotten pretty exciting and despite what people are writing I’ve found that we’re far from weak/nerfed. I’ve been trying out new stuff – one such build is this one and I’m keen to hear what you guys think about it. Since I’ve never really seen any viable Longbow/condi mix builds I thought I’d throw my idea into the mix for those who enjoy those weapons types but don’t enjoy power builds.
Before the patch I’d never considered the LB to be particuarly viable in a condition build, however with a number of traits being baked into the LB itself (the bonus range and velocity) I figured it was time to try it out, and what I’ve found is that this build can deliver huge bursts of condition damage with such a low cooldown that it can even out pressure builds with substantial condi cleanse.
Utilising Quick Draw the options for dueling are huge – for dealing burst damage with Rapid Fire into Bonfire/Splitblade OR with Point Blank Shot/Hunter’s Shot as a means of escape and evasion. Personal condition cleanse is also substantial with 4 of 5 utility skills triggering Wilderness Knowledge. The combination of Hawk/Eagle (with the alternative to either being Wolf) grant blind/weakness spam on a 4.75 second cooldown.
I wont go into the specifics of rotations, but note that I wouldn’t post this build if I hadn’t had particular success with it, and I encourage people to play around with it because it’s been dominant in many matchups. It’s primarily designed for WvW application but I’ve been running it in sPvP and had decent results.
Cheers.
I don’t have a problem with this. Traps are going to be vastly more useful in PvE with higher front-end damage components, and in addition to the condi changes they are far more viable.
Also, now they will actually feel unique and not just like glorified grenades, and hopefully they will be used more defensively now which is the way I always wanted them. Overall buffs to ranger condition damage is more than enough to make up for losing the ranged traps anyway.. who needs ranged traps when your bleed and poison are doing insane damage.
We also don’t know how the druid will interact with traps, or what types of skills the staff will have synergy with.
completely irrelevant. they have an arming time now so there is no point in throwing them. they’re basically area denial, with very powerful effects. that’s why we’re not talking about this too much.
Obviously we are talking about them a lot.
My build and combat play style was built around throwing the traps strategically during combat.
Arming time or not, especially in mob combat, I will have to be in the thick of the mob with my bow if I want to use my traps, making my ranged trap Ranger an oxymoron.
So they have basically made bow rangers with traps worthless unless they want to be melee bow rangers.
66% additional bleed damage stacking for free against players while they dance around refusing the step on your traps sounds pretty kitten good to be honest. Think of it this way: trap rangers hopefully wont be reliant on traps landing to actually do the damage now, instead they’re the explosive defensive tools they should have been on release.
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The most recent maps released by ANet have had significantly fewer waypoints, which is great I think; it means they are aware that people aren’t running places enough or seeing enough of their world, and are actively fixing the reason for that. I think anyone trying to justify the inclusion of mounts on the basis of exploration is not seeing the ‘real’ problem, which isn’t the waypoints themselves but the fact that theres just too many in vanilla content.
On the other hand, having mounts as a collectible is an interesting idea. I’d love to have a horse on my human a lot, but I’d really object to having some Sylvari riding around on some obscene plant wolf thing, or a charr riding in an iron motorbike. Unfortunately, you can’t really give mounts to one race without another, so for that reason I’d prefer to have none at all.
These precursor topics are always the same. People who want an easier way of attaining something that they have neither the willpower nor attention span to obtain. People say they have spent 5000 hours playing the game and have never gotten a precursor, but if they spent a fraction of that actually trying to save for one then they would have one, no problem.
And not to mention the amount of ‘ideas’ floating around about how to reward precursors based on skill, how long you’ve been playing and dedication etc. It’s a joke. You suggest this knowing full well that as soon as it’d be implimented you’d be elligible for one free legendary. Look at the bigger picture folks; people have legendaries, they work hard for them, they exist. Nothing in the game is unobtainable, just stop waiting for someone to make it easier and earn it yourself.
Take a moment to actually consider how you could impliment a method of obtaining a precursor without completely breaking the balance of how many there are, and when you come up with a fullproof system that retains the rarity and prestige that they currently have, tell me, I’m dying to know.
Edit: Also, obtaining a precursor is not RNG. A precursor dropping is. Same with all items. If you want one, they put a system in place whereby you can get one at any point anytime and with little hassle. It’s called the trading post.
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I think the most viable form of condi damage builds Guards have right now are hybrid builds which are really fun to play. It still think its a really odd design decision by ANet to give guards access to only 2 conditions – burning and vulnerability.
Proposal Overview
A location that promotes the idea of guild communities participating together in various activities, primarily GvG.
Goal of Proposal
No particular problem is being solved through the inclusion of guild halls, its just a way of getting my much beloved GvG into the game. For that single reason, its definitely worth having them – having more uses for the guild hall is definitely a plus (see GW1 where vendors were added.)
Proposal Functionality
Unlocked similiarly to how they were in GW1; you pay for them either with an item purchased or obtained in the world – essentially through gold – or they could be free. Don’t make the initial purchase expensive or difficult to unlock (time based is fine, similar to how it is with current guild upgrades). Simply unlocking a guild hall isn’t the sole reward of a guilds hard work, you should want players to use them, not struggle to obtain one and then have nothing to do in it.
They are instanced locations based on different parts of the world that are accessed either through a portal or by teleporting through the guild panel, ala the mists/wvw etc. These are zones designed for combat, so any additional features (crafting spots, portals) must not factor into the design of these zones. Don’t have big empty places where the NPC’s mysteriously disappear during fights against other guilds.
An extensive upgrade system can be included, which ramps up from simple things like having NPC’s such as merchants, to crafting vendors/stations, Black Lion traders, Bank access and up to portals. The upgrade systems should be enticing, and function similarly to how guild upgrades function at the moment. Whichever form ‘GvG’ takes, either as castle seiges using seige weapons or a more traditional GW1 experience, having to spend time/resources repairing walls/gates or replace ‘lost’ NPC’s is a sure fire way of slowing down the overall progression of the guild halls – guilds would be more reluctant to use their halls for their intended purpose just to keep their little mini LA. As someone who is excited about the prospect of guild halls FOR GvG, I want as much competition as possible, which means more people using them.
Associated Risks
How do you keep players invested in their guild hall once upgrades are finished if they aren’t interested in the competitive aspects of GvG? Is that important? How can we make sure smaller guilds are able to upgrade their halls (a similar issues to how current upgrades work)?
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Condition builds in general are okay on guardian for WvW and PvP purposes. They’re not exceptional, but they’re good. The reason I disagree that Amplified Wrath is bad is simply because burning is the only condition available to Guards on condi builds, and this trait single handedly boosts your damage output potential to pretty ridiculous proportions without having to sacrifice many defensive stats.
Kindled Zeal is however completely useless. If guards had reliable bleed available to them then it would be infinitely better than Amplified Wrath, however they don’t so theres no reason to take it.
GW2 doesn’t necessarily reward well organised, deliberately formed team compositions/builds like GW1 did, which is the reason spirits could be so interesting and varied in the first place. You made the decision to have Quickening Zephyr, or Energizing Wind, and you made sure the effect was more damaging to the enemy team than to your own. In GW2, you don’t always get that decision, you are in WvW with random players who will use every skill on their bar before they take the time to read what they do etc. Not to mention the fact that you have far more people on a screen at any time, so focusing and destroying a spirit that is crippling you is that much harder, and in many cases it’ll probably be hidden behind a gate where you can’t even reach it.
It’s not the same playing field at all, so it would really be a challenge to transfer the same spirits from the original to GW2. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want it, cause I’d absolutely love it, though from a developers standpoint I can understand why they tried to reduce their effectiveness.
Quite why they thought making spirits follow you was a good idea is beyond me though. Teleporting them to new locations or being able to manually destroy them/restart the cooldown on the skill is a much more efficient way of making sure they are having an impact on fights.
The active effects too are just pointless, I mean really really useless, and I’d like to hear ANet’s argument on why they wanted to push this unnecessary active coefficient to a skill that was primarily interesting due to its passive benefits and positioning strategy.
for me, Outnumbered tells me two things:
1. an enemy zerg is on this map: roamers be careful, defenders man your siege
2. deaths will be free (no repair costs)death is still something to avoid, of course. there’s no reason to give the enemy rewards if you don’t have to (not to mention the inconvenience of losing your stacks).
the other features of Outnumbered are meaningless.
-ken
Exactly this. It isn’t there to even the playing field but to help track enemy activity and organise against it. Ideally you wont see the buff for very long if your world is active and coordinated in WvW, and if you do see it often then ANY benefit you could get from it is worthless.
As others have said, a healthy guild is a good solution which permits a lot more freedom in how you play and what you play, and ultimately makes all experiences in the game more fun.
However, roles don’t need to be defined by stripping them down and forcing them to rely on other players to be successful, they need to be defined by promoting particular strengths within certain areas. Player A doing multiple roles simultaneously is not a problem if player B can excel at one particular role better than they could. And when I refer to roles I don’t mean tanking/healing/dps, I refer to control builds, condition stacking, support, high damage power builds etc. In this regard, I think the games balance is more or less fine with the exception of ranger that just doesn’t feel strong enough in any particular area, but still does okay for its versatility. [should note that the reason power/zerker builds are popular lies in the balance of damage types, not balance of classes/roles]
The example of ranger is important though, as it extends to all classes in all areas of the game. You can literally play anyway you want because of how each class is independently responsible for its own power and role within a team, which means that build diversity and player role is vast. If you want to roam on a necro you can, and even though you detailed that Thief/Mesmer ‘excel’ in these roles, they still rely on player skill, build, equipment etc. to be successful. On the flip side, a Necro/Thief/Mesmer can also build themselves for group oriented combat quite easily, and successfully. Group interaction and the satisfaction of working with others hinges entirely on the group of ‘people’, not roles. If you are joining a dungeon speed run and you don’t satisfy the group criteria of killing things fast then you are in opposition of the other players yourself.
Again, in answer to your point on Guild Events it depends entirely on what guild you run with. If you’re in a guild with a WvW focused commander then you will have a lot of opportunities to play with people you like on a daily basis. I don’t see opportunities to play exclusively with your guild as a reasonable excuse for the lack of cooperation in the game, though I will concede that daily guild events etc. would be awesome. Also, if you haven’t done any guild WvW runs I would thoroughly recommend it; you can roam as a small group or zerg if you have more players, and using voice comms its a very enjoyable experience.
Your comments on melee are true to an extent; the range thing I never really realised, but its true. I suppose that as a compromise to having dynamic combat there really needed to be a way for melee to be competitive; in WoW for example, there are many problems with the balance between melee/ranged, with ranged generally having an advantage in fights because melee is unable to close them down enough. I think the balance is fine in GW2 though, but I play WvW mainly and movement/positioning is critical during a fight. “Then you are told you are playing wrong” is a troubling thing to read as it implies you’re playing with the wrong people; role diversity is a staple of GW2 combat and is part of its charm, so you are in essence never playing the game wrong. Min/maxing is player choice, and it shouldn’t impede on a players ability to play with others and have fun.
My post is written from someone who focuses on WvW more than any other aspect of the game, and compared to PvE there is far more incentive to group up, communicate and work together to achieve success, but that’s not to say its impossible to have that in PvE, it just requires more effort on the players part, as it is in any other game. I’ve played WoW on and off since Vanilla and participated in raids, dungeons, arenas, battlegrounds; you name it, I’ve done it, and the most satisfying part of the game to me are the opportunities to play solo. Cooperative gameplay, teamwork, group activities; it doesn’t mean anything if it isn’t fun, and the dynamic fighting and being able to change roles at any time is what makes GW2 enjoyable to me.
Introduce flying mounts > Fly mount to unintended part of map > Get stuck and fall forever before death. Too much has to be revamped to allow for so much freedom of exploration, and also its completely unnecessary.
Mounts for collection are a good idea, mounts for speed buffs etc. aren’t and I’ll tell you why. Movement based skills become redundant, which means weapon skills become more or less useless and cripple players that invest in them. If you counteract this by limiting them to only PvE then you will feel the backlash from PvP’ers/WvW players like a slap across your face.
Not sure why people always push for mounts; its not like ANet has never thought about the idea, and obviously they came to the conclusion that it was not possible/needed/thematically correct for their game and I respect that.
Edit: If you use movement enhancing buffs/skills you can move pretty darn fast. The maps are perfectly sized to allow exploration on foot, whilst maintaining the threat from enemies because you can’t just fly/ride straight over/through them.
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The mesmer fall trait affected PvE, there’s your answer on why that got fixed quickly and this won’t.
Has anybody tested whether the skill works to the same effect on world bosses?
What about those people that only want to play PvP but also want to obtain a legendary. Having to 100% however many PvE maps there are sure does sound a lot worse than 4 WvW maps. But that’s just my opinion, like yours is yours.
Edit: This thread is full of people who have never tried or thought about trying WvW, yet absolutely reject the idea despite this. What is so devastating about having to do new or different content, with the possibility of finding that you actually enjoy it?
Edit 2: @ Wreave are you seriously trying to argue that exploring the WvW maps have absolutely nothing in common with any of the other maps you have to explore in the world? Running around finding waypoints, vista’s and area’s of interest in Eternal Battleground is like playing golf to win the world cup. Oh right, okay.
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GW2 stuggles to keep me interested for any longer than a month at a time, which is a shame, but I keep coming back because everytime I do I feel like there’s something I haven’t seen or done before. The living story does a good job of offering brief distractions, and the regular updates for it are admirable, but there needs to be something besides them to pass the time in between. I feel like a strong set of new dungeons, a new WvWvW map or instanced raids would alleviate a lot of the problems it has right now.
Introducing the holy trinity system would kill the game stone dead and I don’t get why people are pushing for it so much? Three-headed wurm proves that challenging content is possible without having to conform to traditional MMO standards, and being able to see content regardless of who, what or how you play is the definition of GW2 gameplay. The changes people suggest for the game should be content related, not gameplay related, and if you don’t enjoy how GW2 ‘plays’ then it isn’t the game for you; a little definition is important in a genre saturated with clones of one another, and I think the game does a good job of seperating itself from the crowd.
It’s not possible to just add mounts for the purpose of travel. They would have to do mass zone redesigns to make it viable.
As something to collect mounts are super awesome though, and having more cosmetic items like mounts or minipets is always a plus in my book and you don’t need to redesign the way people explore just to include them.
With a trinity system I think half the playerbase would feel completely alienated from the content, and far less people would actually experience what the devs produce.
There is no other game like GW2 where you can have a hundred people working together to bring down a boss, and that’s because everyone feels like they can participate without the anxiety of being expected to fulfill a certain role. Sure, its not always clear what the individual impact of my actions is during a fight, but at least I can participate.
The only thing that needs work is ANet creating challenging yet satisfying content that players can feel a strong sense of participation and that they made a difference. The marionette fight is cool because you work together and rely on each other, and rewards are tiered so you feel progression even if you didn’t succeed right away.
Also more on topic, I think there is a kind of trinity system already except it works on an individual basis. At some times being tankier is more of an advantage to being pure damage, or speccing into a more support/heal role is beneficial to the team as a whole. Its actually a very similar system to GW1, except without the ability to bodyblock you can’t force mobs to attack you.
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The reiterate what many have already said, people are displaying a ridiculous amount of impatience here. Typical MMO’s would take just as long as this to release any substantial content updates, and the 8 months that people like to bandy around is simply the amount of time ANet has had to develop such content. Expect to hear information towards the end of the year following the games anniversary, not before.
Also I’d like to add that the communication between ANet and fans is superb. How often do major game developers interact so often with the playerbase? I’ve been with them since GW in 06, and hell even I quit GW2 about a month or two following its release, however I came back because I felt that this product was seeing the love and attention of its developers, and I felt that the community was the driving force behind development. We may not get everything that we want immediately, but I’m kitten sure we’ll get it.