Guild Wars 2

Here’s my question to you guys: Do you think Warriors ought to have the capability to pop a bunch of cooldowns for a very-high-damage ranged attack?

I personally don’t think it fits the class or weapon design very well. First of all it was obvious to every non-Warrior player that the ability was way too strong. If you won’t admit that, welp… Secondly, I think the high-damage sniper role should be filled by the ranged classes, not by Warriors.

If this really were as devastating as people are claiming, I think they’re replace the skill altogether.

The formatting and length ruin this for me. I can’t even understand you at all. Couldn’t get past the first paragraph.

There are no assassins in this game. Arenanet have balanced against it. You can’t burst someone from 100-0 as well with a Thief as you can with a Warrior or even Necro. This certainly isn’t the place for you if you want a ranged assassin (which to me sounds ridiculous).

Shortbow is awfully designed, slow-shooting, boring, and overall ineffective. Feel free to not believe me and waste hundreds of hours discovering what the rest of us already know, though.

I’ll send you a message when I get some time. I didn’t mean asking for a 1v1 was inappropriate, I just meant to head off at the pass any comments that I didn’t play it right (because I admittedly probably didn’t.)

I have a ton of respect for anyone who’s put as many hours into the Thief class as you have, whether I agree with them or not. TTYS.

I tried this out, and I can’t make it work. Call me bad if you like, but I just don’t think it’s that great.

Improv. is incredibly risky, as has already been said. I’d much rather have a lower cooldown on those venoms we so regularly use in this build.

Stealth, while quite powerful, is at a very weak point right now, I feel. Everyone knows to just spam stuff while you’re in stealth, and odds are you’re going to take damage inside it no matter what. The condition cleanse (Shadow’s Embrace) is also WAY too slow-ticking to be of value to me. Condition classes (Necro’s, Engi’s, even Rangers and Mesmers) can load up so quickly on those condi’s —- and reload them back when you cleanse them —- that one every 3 seconds just isn’t worth it. Not to mention the initiative (init = damage) costs of going in and out of stealth!

I would much rather put the points from SA into Acro. Vigorous Recovery + Withdraw = almost unlimited endurance. Tier 2 of Acro is admittedly limited, but there’s nothing else do spend the points on if you want Feline Grace, which is OP as hell. Finally, I use D/D for Death Blossom bleed stacks, giving 2 sources of major condition damage instead of just one (poison).

I have a feeling you’ll just say “You’re not playing it right, I have 139804289 hours, 1v1 me” and everything you’ve already said in this thread… Which I don’t really get. I mean, you post a build for others to use, right? When we use it and dislike it, you come back at us with “You’re not that good, 1v1 me”? I dunno. Seems like a waste of your time to me.

You instinctively run away from anyone in your workplace with the title “Engineer.”

Yep I’m a thief. And this isn’t rock paper scissors, so one class shouldn’t be able to insta-kill another just because of class choice.

That’s about it. Access to every condition, ridiculous survivability, and strong damage.

Enjoy it. Maybe someday Arenanet will wise up and nerf you. In the meantime, you get zero respect.

Backstab really needs to auto-crit naturally.

Anyway, interesting build. I would still submit that stealth is so short and people are so vaccinated against it that landing backstabs just isn’t reliable any more.

What do you mean by “worth it?” The only PVE content with the numbers (that is, statistics) to challenge anyone beyond rares is Fractals. If you’re not going to grind Fractals —- and, personally, I don’t see much reason to do that at this point in the game’s life —- then sure. Otherwise, Exotic is just fine.

IMHO, get your exo’s cheap through dungeon runs/PVP/gold, play and enjoy the content you want, and maybe go for Ascended weapons if you want a “goal” but don’t care about Legendary weps.

It is absolutely astonishing to me how much press Town Clothes are getting now that they’ve been changed. I never saw anybody use them, heard anybody talk about them, and I’ve never been inclined to buy them. Heck, the most I’ve heard about them has been “Man, let us wear Town Clothes in combat, bro!!”

Guess there’s always a hidden minority somewhere ready to get stepped on when something rather minor changes. Glad your experience was good, though.

Elementalists are notoriously annoying to level. I barely got mine to 90 without giving up.

Anyway, I have to say I disagree. Difficulty does not equal poor design. If you want to mow over mobs like a demi-god for 40 hours, play World of Warcraft. I, for one, find that to make the leveling experience boring and unbearable.

I would rather them do nothing than “just something small.”

I guarantee if they’d done the latter, the forums would be full of “wow, this is all we get?!” type things.

I mean, the tone of your post (OP) doesn’t facilitate discussion. If I were a developer, I wouldn’t respond do you either.

P.S.: ALL we heard before this patch was “OMG 2 weeks so fast we need less frequent bigger content Anet sucks.” They responded by saying “Okay, we agree, 2 week minor content isn’t a good model,” and they’re presumably going to change it. Now you come in here claiming that their model was perfect and they should have stuck to it.

Puh-leeze.

need to be looked at across the board. There are so many procs, passive effects, traits, and etc. that are held back by stupidly long ICD’s.

I just can’t bring myself to give up an extra 20% CD off of Steal. But it’s a compelling choice.

Coca-cola? >_>

If that’s true, then why take it at all? Stealth builds all rely on their in-stealth “1” attack for a huge portion of their damage. They might as well have just not added anything in Deadly Arts.

Test it.

Take the trait, do a few Backstabs. Now change the trait to Panic Strike or something and do a few more. No change at all in Backstab damage.

I’d really like to know if this is intended or not, because if it’s intended, the trait is 100% not worth it.

Whiners gonna whine. I think some of the new traits are really good, and the costume system makes me actually care about getting skins (even when my main looks exactly how I want him to).

Long live GW2.

So your reason for quitting GW2 is that they made a completely necessary change to Berserker gear?

See ya.

I think blind on burning is freaking awesome. Get an ele and a thief in a dungeon and never get hit by anything ever.

A nice weapons combo/spec is Pistol/Pistol, Sword/Pistol. You can spec for combo moves (3 on your hotbar) to deal more damage, making Pistol Whip and Unload both much more viable. With this combo you also have constant access to Head Shot (interrupt) and Black Powder (the most OP blind in the game by far).

Throw down black powder in a group of minions, go through a few auto-attack rotations. Then use the stun/evasion on Pistol Whip for some burst/CC/evasion. It’s quite fun.

My biggest tip: Don’t get too hooked on being the “stealth high damage melee class” like a Rogue from WoW. A Thief is a Thief, and that can mean ranged DPS/combo detonator as well as good melee burst.

Look guys, the bottom line is that Precision and Power scaled exponentially better than any other stat in the game in PVE. These changes needed to go through. Warriors are also quite strong in PVP (and have been since launch), so I’m not sure I believe any of the sky-is-falling-we’re-unplayable type comments.

If your question/accusation is “A-net just wants us to use tanky/condi/whatever!” Well… yes, that’s absolutely true. The point of nerfing straight damage builds was to take a step towards other stats becoming more valuable. (Look at how much healing allies was buffed in this patch.) By making the LOLSTACKMIGHTANDKILL builds weaker, they indirectly make tanky, control-y, and heal-y builds more powerful.

Sorry you’re suffering from the changes. I am too. But I can recognize things for what they are.

Full Berserker Warriors are dominating (and ruining) PVE at the moment. I’m sorry it feels bad to be nerfed (us Thieves were nerfed too), but it’s good for the health of the game.

So what was your plan? After having played the game for yourself, you’ve come here to, what, get fans to try and talk you into loving it?

The “end game” is essentially the same as “the game.” There are some dungeons to run if you want, fractals, map exploration/completion, and of course PVP/WPVP. If you’re feeling particularly frisky/min-max-y/grindy, you can set out to get Legendary weapons and/or Ascended gear.

Living Story content, which is released periodically, is often a big part of it… although there hasn’t been any for a while since the “season” ended…

So like I said, the end game is the game. I’m always a bit confused by this concept in MMO-RPG’s where people go, “Okay, I’ve done a bunch of quests, now I want to fight the same bosses over and over for 4 months so that my numbers go a little higher.”

Best advice I can give, as someone who currently plays both games, is to completely change the philosophy of what you believe an MMO should be when you boot up GW2.

WoW is a job. You log in, do the same stuff you’ve done a million times, get some more of XYZ currency, buy XYZ new item, to do 5% more damage or healing or whatever. The upside is, you can quantify your accomplishments when you log in and out of the game and make yourself believe you’ve “done something.”

GW2 is more of a “game” to me. It’s about experiencing new environments, enjoying the scenery (quite literally), testing your skills (rather than your knowledge), and generally joining a fantasy world. Like most games, it sometimes gets boring. When it does, take a break. No sub required. But keep an open mind, and come back when something that interests you comes out.

Oh, and for the love of all that is holy, don’t hang around General Discussion/the forums until you’ve formed your own opinion of the game. Nothing but negativity there.

Hey guys,

I’ve never even attempted to make any Ascended items before. Tomorrow, I’ll probably start work creating my weapons (couldn’t care less about the armor). Got a question, though:

While I don’t know all the requirements to make Ascended weapons, I do know that it requires maxing out the appropriate crafting discipline(s). I have a separate character (from the one who’ll be using the weapons) whom I’d like to level up. Would I be able to level the professions of the second character (for XP) and then use those levelled professions to craft Ascended weapons?

Thanks in advance!

I dunno. The races of Tyria have largely been at war with everything else: Zhytan (sp?), Scarlet, the Aetherblade pirates… etc. The constant destruction (which, by the way, I personally feel you are exaggerating) seems appropriate.

It’s not like you’d go to Iraq or North Korea or something and be like, “Ok guys, we’re gonna do a lot of damage here… but for everything we destroy, we’ll build something else.” I just don’t see the game working that way.

I do agree there need to be new areas though.

15% sounds about right.

Berzerker gear and Power/Precision builds are too strong, and it’s killing the game. If you’re not smart enough to realize that, sorry, but you’re just wrong.

Paulytnz.7619:

Heck, WoW has less grind than GW2 does. Most “AAA” MMOs I have played have less grind than GW2 does.

No. It doesn’t. We got SoO in September 2013, now we’re waiting OVER A YEAR for ANY NEW CONTENT AT ALL. And we’re paying subscriptions for this nonsense. Grinding is doing the same thing over and over, and SoO counts..

EVE Isn’t an MMO*RPG*.

Substance E.4852:

People really need to stop using WoW as the metric to gauge all MMO’s by. It leads to silly comparisons and a lot of companies farting out bad attempts at WoW2.0

By the way, just wanted to comment on this: It isn’t just WoW. Look at ESO. Look at SW:TOR. Wildstar? Neverwinter? Final Fantasy?

Welcome to the MMORPG world market, in which Arenanet looks pretty kitten generous if you ask me.

Substance E.4852:

Every EvE expansion, ever, has been free and added new ships and/or mechanics to the game.

They also release one about every 6 months or so. For free.

People really need to stop using WoW as the metric to gauge all MMO’s by. It leads to silly comparisons and a lot of companies farting out bad attempts at WoW2.0

I mean… that’s great for EvE? I’m confused about how this is supposed to be an indictment against Arenanet.

First of all, I flat-out don’t believe you. Every update has added major new mechanics? Bull. Second of all, even if it did, EvE is not an MMORPG. I don’t like EvE. I want an MMO that is built around fun, not life-sucking grinds and subscriptions. Guild Wars 2 gives me that, and it should be applauded. Heck, even if A-net were to come out and say, “We don’t have the money/resources for any more than this, but here’s some free stuff,” people should be happy about it. It’s free.

With the new (excellent) patch launching in a few weeks, there is really only one major thing I think holding me back from playing the game “full time” again: Class balance.

It kills me (literally) in both PVE and PVP that Warriors, Guardians, and etc. continue to dominate balance-wise.

Of course, this is largely because stats don’t scale correctly. There’s math do be done, folks. Power and Precision yield an insane reward in scaling, while Healing Power and Vitality might as well not even exist… and that’s not even hyperbole. Conditions are also really suffering, as they’re insanely strong in PVP but almost worthless in PVE due to things like condition caps and, again, lack of scaling.

Really, the work of this patch would be twofold, with comparably little programming/art resources used:

1. Get some math whizzes on those Excel spreadsheets, run DPS tests, figure out which abilities/classes are too weak/strong, and close the gap. This could be done in a month or two.

2. Beef up the balance team. Seriously. We know they’re trying, but their ideas just seem to be wrong at every turn. This game desperately needs a Xypherous or a Morello that will be simply correct in his balance decisions. The current direction of PVP balance, particularly, screams of an unwillingness to let go of certain crippling ideas and abilities.

What do you guys think? This would personally be something which, if done really well, would bring me back.

People forget that they’re getting these features for FREE.

And they’re coming here to make spoiled-brat posts about how it’s not enough? I just don’t get it.

Personally, they’re not quite enough to bring me “back” to the game from WoW. Yet. Another month or two of these kinds of steps in the right direction, and I might be able to convince myself to unsub to that greedmongering game. Class balance is going to have to improve a LOT, though.

I had to log in just so I could tell you how spoiled many of you are being. You expected new weapon sets? New classes? Really?!? Arenanet never intimated anything of the sort. If you read that much into it, you had a fantasy. This particular, singular update didn’t fulfill your fantasy. Grow up! Sheesh!

First of all, these are fantastic changes. Not all of them are as big as others —- you keep quoting free armor repairs like it’s all they’re adding, though. New traits are desperately needed, depending on what they are. The wardrobe system is a HUGE systems overhaul, and very welcome. I could go on, but I won’t.

You complainers are forgetting your place, and the place of GW2 in the MMORPG market right now.

#1: You’re not paying a dime for this.
If World of Warcraft had a press release tomorrow saying that they were adding these same exact features, the entire community would rejoice. I guarantee you would not see a single “This won’t save WoW, WoW is dying, fml omg” forum post. WoW-ers pay over $1,000.00 just for the privilege of playing that game.

When new LW content or a Feature Patch releases and I want to check it out, I don’t have to agonize over whether or not to re-sub. It’s not a kitten committment signed in blood and credit-card-numbers. I double-click my GW2 icon and boot up, and instantly have all the content available to me.

#2: This is not the last “Feature Patch” ever.
This is the first of many. If any other MMORPG company decided to release a slew of quarterly QoL updates for free, the community would jump for joy.

#3: Arenanet is dramatic. Get used to it.
Have you seen the “trailer” thing for GW2? The really weird, corny one with the guy covered in dirt or dust or whatever? Yeah, A-net have fun with this game, they’re passionate about it, and they get excited when they’re about to release cool stuff. So sue ’em.

If you hear word “feature” and extrapolate “new classes/weapons/raids,” you are just nuts. You have unrealistic expectations and have no idea what goes into making that kind of content!

Eskarina Tigress.3785:

Pawstruck.9708:

These changes are really good, but they’re also desperately needed. The game still has some flaws that are major sore spots for most MMO players, like the utter lack of endgame. Honestly, we’re about 3 or 4 “feature patches” away from the GW2 realizing the potential it could have had… and that’s only if the balance team makes a total 180 with regard to class balance and stat scaling.

I think you are confusing GW with WoW or traditional MMO’s, the design notion behind GW was never to provide constant play and endgame content until doomsday. Sure, if you want you can grind your behind off but its not like there’s an actual need to do so. If you read what Mike O’Brien says on the subject still today its that his views havent changed on that score.

No, I’m not. This is actually a misconception of a misconception. The argument isn’t “end game grind vs. not.” If it were, this game would be much more popular.

The argument is “We can provide an MMO with only fun and no grind” (GW2) vs. “Good luck with that” (WoW).

This isn’t about the kind of content we have, it’s about whether we have content at all. And we don’t. If we did, everyone wouldn’t have this same, nagging question… one that has never been answered well… “What do I do at max level in this game?” In other words, how do I progress? How do I continue living the fantasy of being my character? GW2 hasn’t provided the content yet. Period. My hope is that they do so in the future, because MAN am I sick of playing World of Warcraft.

These changes are really good, but they’re also desperately needed. The game still has some flaws that are major sore spots for most MMO players, like the utter lack of endgame. Honestly, we’re about 3 or 4 “feature patches” away from the GW2 realizing the potential it could have had… and that’s only if the balance team makes a total 180 with regard to class balance and stat scaling.

Outside of stealth, there is really only Acro VIII, which removes condi’s once every 30 seconds when you’re struck below 75% hp.

Why are you needing to remove so many conditions in PVE?

It’s really hard for us to give you advice based on a rather scant anecdote.

All I can say is that, generally, Elementalists are really a pain to level compared to Rangers and Warriors, who steamroll everything. At level 80, with a decent amount of offensive gear, Ele’s do some of the best PVE dungeon damage in the game. But then, the PVE in this game is so easy that you don’t need to worry about “topping meters” and the like.

I’m headed back from a 3-month stint in World of Warcraft.

The amount of content Arenanet puts out for free is absolutely stunning by comparison. People complain about “temporary content is temporary” and “I didn’t like X event” or whatever, but hey… you never know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone.

I sure as heck wasn’t going to raid SoO for another YEAR while waiting on WoD, which is essentially featureless as an expansion.

While I think your thread is very insightful and sparks good discussion, you might want to think twice about posting glassdoor reviews here. I’m not sure it’s the proper place. You might encourage people to go gain insight from those sites themselves, but what you’re doing here is kind of like walking up to A-net’s studio and drawing mustaches on pictures of management. It just seems off color to me, and at the very least might be cause for an unnecessary forum ban or post deletion.

I’d hate to see this thread get derailed or censored due to content like this.

As a current WoW player wishing I could return to Guild Wars 2, this post is everything that’s keeping me from doing so. I love GW2 so, so much. The art is masterful, the combat technology is the perfect blend of action and RPG, and, barring Scarlet, the lore is pretty great at its heart.

However.

The game can go two directions from here, and it needs to decide fast.

It boils down to there should be no such thing as PVE/PVP balance. Only class balance. Scores of spells and abilities need only SIMPLE NUMBERS ADJUSTMENTS —- this is infuriatingly simple! —- to become viable or interesting! Might and Precision need to scale less, Healing Power more, and etc. Warriors need some flat nerfs. Period.

I’ll tell you what they need to do: Hire someone from Riot Games to come over and do a massive balance pass on their game.

As much as I am furious with Riot sometimes at their balance decisions, they get a few things right. They are precise, active, and intelligent. Arenanet —- I love you guys —- but you need a 180-degree turn in this direction yesterday. The only other direction is utter destruction, and I can’t come back to the game in the state it currently occupies.

Maybe folks could fill me in on what TERA does wrong, because I haven’t made it past level 10 yet…

I hadn’t thought about a couple of these things before.

The world bosses, other than the recently-updated Tequatl, ARE very “get a big enough group and don’t stand in the fire.” I have a Ranger friend who quite literally has been killing a world boss in GW2 while playing a match of League with me. That’s really silly. This brings up a good point: Your enemies are a large part of combat, too. I feel like GW2 does an okay job of this: At least most mobs have special abilities, and I don’t think you can just faceroll through any mob like it was any other (unless you’re a Warrior )

Also, GW2 gracefully disguises quests as “part of exploring the world.” I guess I buy it, because they feel effortless to me.

The absolute most critical areas I think the combat could improve are:
1) Class balance in PVE
2) There are still skills/talents that do almost nothing or are worthless. They’re working on fixing this, it seems. Ofc, whether or not they’re doing a good job of it…
3) Boons/conditions need to be balanced. Badly.

Of course Tera has great combat. That’s ALL it has!

I literally did a quest in Tera to kill 10 XYZ’s, turned it in, and got ANOTHER QUEST TO DO THE SAME THING. lol. The combat system’s not archaic, but the questing system and the rest of the game is.

TLDR:

Guild Wars 2’s combat is, in my opinion, extremely well done. I’m now spoiled on it and cannot go back to other games.

TL;Read Anyway:

I recently tried to go back to WoW for a friends’ sake. I noticed myself trying to dodge roll all the time, and interrupting my own spellcasts because you can’t move while casting in that game. (Unless you’re, what, a Shaman?)

For kicks, I booted up SW:TOR as well, because I figured hey the story might keep me into it. Nnnnnnnnope. Nothing quite like standing still watching a bar go down for 3 seconds while “channeling” Force Lightning.

I don’t know what to do, really.

There’s so much right about GW2 combat that anything else feels very weird. I like that boons and conditions are consolidated, instead of having to memorize what 13899424 buffs/debuffs do. Dodging is actually really nice. Not having dedicated healers in PVP is really nice. Downed State adds interest and is actually a mechanically-necessary part of how GW2 combat works.

Also, the fact that my mage just switched from using a Staff to a Dagger should matter. It blows my mind that it never mattered before. To be honest, I’d love to boot up WoW for a few months and have fun with my friends… but I don’t know how to deal with such a huge leap backwards. Other MMORPG’s coming this year (Wildstar, Elder Scrolls Online, etc.) don’t seem to be adding anything new to combat, either.

Does anyone else feel this way?
Any suggestions?

EDIT 1:

I want to say that for me, great combat in an RPG is defined by two things in equal parts.

1. Ability interest/synergy.
Are abilities themselves interesting? Do they give me the feeling of “Dude. I can’t wait to try THIS out”? Can they be combined effectively to produce unique results?

2. Action/playability.
I don’t feel like I can AFK, go get a pop, surf the web on my other monitor, or watch Netflix while I fight. My mind has to be engaged. This can be accomplished with movement requirements, combo’s, procs, and etc.

Because the whole thing was silly. Not like “ha ha” silly. Like the kind of silly where you’re in chess club because you like to play chess, but slink really low in your chair at graduation because the chess president/valedictorian names you all as “loyal followers” and “pledges allegiance to chess 4-EVAR!!!”

You know that feel?