Guild Wars 2

Yeah I was thinking about Spiders as well, though they’re more a utility option.
That’s what I asked in the last line of my post though, overhauls for all pets to be as useful as the Bristleback now is.

It’s no big news that the Bristleback outshines every pet as far as top damage is concerned.
It bothers me though, that the Bristleback seems to be a straight upgrade to the entire Devourer family.

The Bristleback takes what was originally the Devourer role, sustained ranged damage, and does it better.
The two have almost exactly the same stats, except the Bristleback has 1000 more attack.
All three Devourers have a 24s CD F2 ability, and all have a hefty wind-up animation, unlike the BB’s 12s CD, very fluid 3/4 cast time ability (that also does more damage).
Of the three Devourers, the Lashtail comes closest in terms of similarity, boasting a long-range, multi-hit ability with a condition component that approximates the BB’s damage, but it still has twice the cooldown.

It can be argued that Devourers have a stronger focus on survival, taking into account their other skills (knockback and evade), and that is reflected in their lower Attack value. But then, why does the Bristleback maintain both the same Defensive and Condition values, on top of its attack bonus? It doesn’t seem to me that any other pet family has this issue.

This wall of text brings me to my final point; I was originally worried that the new pets, based off new technology, would undermine all the old pets.
This is most apparent in the Bristleback; the responsiveness of it feels much better than any pet thus far.
So I have to ask, will the Bristleback be brought back in line with the other pets? Or, better yet, can we have any word of incoming Pet overhauls that utilize the newer technologies introduced with HoT?

Thanks for reading.

Mostly this is just to vent about the excess RNG and price associated with these two items, and to a lesser extent, the battered bat wings.
The bat wings, at least, can be found within a reasonable amount of time by simply farming AtM. Fine.
The brew? Thousands, and thousands of bags opened, and it’s possible to never get one. I still haven’t. And now it’s nearing 500g. Gating something behind that much RNG is simply ludicrous.
Collection-based precursors had the right idea; Mad King Memoires had the right idea.
Spending time playing the game, interesting adventures, that makes for a compelling experience, and fun.
Instead it’s “Have enough money or get kittened”. Wasn’t that the fault in the initial legendaries? I won’t even bring up items like the Jetpack.
Prestige is one thing. Limited-time RNG is something else altogether.
If that’s the case, may as well have thrown Nightfury on the gem store, at least our money would make obtaining the wings a sure deal.

Not to mention my graphics card decided to take a hike for a while so I can’t even farm Halloween (more) to get more bags for the most miniscule chance at a brew.

Why not place the endless brew under a recipe? Or at least on the Candy Corn vendor, it’d give us something to do with the thousands of candy corn we’ve all accumulated.

/rant

I mentioned this before, in a whole “AED sucks and needs a reboot” rant.
AED still sucks, but it should at least be updated to remove confusion since confusion now does damage whether you attack or not.

Bip. Bop! BAP!

(Psychic spin staff animation looks bad though)

I don’t see anyone mentioning this: On-evade traits also proc from non-dodge evades,(something the thief in particular has plenty of), thereby giving you more opportunities to proc the traits.

I can’t be the only one thinking this, warrior sets self on fire, gains Xbuffs and pulses out burning. You know, Berserker stuff.
That and pocket ash.

I applaud the condi changes, but I actually have 2 concerns:
1- The confusion changes effectively remove counter-play to Confusion, since you’ll take damage even if you stop attacking. Hopefully the numbers are adjusted to make confusion damage extremely minimal when not attacking.
2-Vulnerability now increases condition damage taken; however, they made no mention of Weakness, which is almost exclusively a physical damage debuff. Should weakness now also reduce condition damage output? Since this is about balancing the scales an all, and the scales would still lean toward condition users in a pvp scenario.

Yeah there’s also an issue where the bosses don’t drop the Jetpack or Mini, might need to look into that, too…

Thanks, and this along with some newer forum posts that have popped up, had me thinking that perhaps an undertone of my initial post questioned the viability of Warrior Rifle in general, and in light of the update.

There wasn’t mention of Longbow+Cleansing Ire interaction, true.
But maybe they’re going to mention Longbow updates at a later time that address this?
The Ready Up was all about traits anyway, not individual skill functions (mostly).

The devs welcomed our concerns, thus I’ll air mine, though I doubt many will share them. This is a personal build I enjoy greatly; I understand it’s not PvP viable, but it works well enough in WvW for me. That said:
This is the build I run for WvW.
The principle is to maximize Killshot Damage and Crit chance, maintaining Rifle as the primary weapon, falling back to Sword+Warhorn for mobility (read: escape) and the necessary condition cleanse.
As the current proposed changes stand, I will no longer need to rely on Deep Strikes to maximize Precision, as Burst Precision has me covered.
The Discipline line then covers the necessities for Rifle, though I do lose out on some mobility (Mobile Strikes merged against Crack Shot). That’s generally fine.
The problem arises in the Tactics line, as going for Quick Breathing limits my choice of GM trait. Assuming I stick to Signets (which I will, Signet of Might/Killshot synergy is too much to give up), Shouts become a null choice. Rifle isn’t something known for might stacking, so Phalanx Strength is out as well. That leaves Powerful Synergy, but considering the build, not only do I not want to get hit (essentially nullifying Aura benefits), the one leap I have doesn’t have an accompanying field.
Frankly, I question the usefulness of Powerful Synergy in any build barring the latest Longbow/Sword+Warhorn meta.
The revive-oriented minor traits don’t go very far toward helping my build either, though I’ve lived with that until now.
If this remains as is, I will either end up with one nigh-unviable GM trait, or have to forfeit the mobility/condi cleanse aspect completely, which invalidates the entire build.

In short, if I opt for Warhorn, I end up with no truly useful Tactics Grand Master traits.
Might those Tactics GM traits be revised to compensate for this, to have a different Damage or Utility oriented trait in place?

To further explore the build: I would be trading Leg Specialist for Empower Allies (since Quick Breathing shares the slot), and perhaps Brawler’s Recovery rather than Destruction of the Empowered.
Furthermore, I’ll lose the focus on maximizing Precision (since stats from Trait lines are being re-located), and be able to take Power food/sigils/utilities.
Might these things already compensate for the lackluster Tactics GM choice; Powerful Synergy then serving as a situational quirk rather than a build-making pillar?
I’m not convinced, but thus works bias, so I’ll ask that to the community.

Thanks for reading.

Is the possibility of switching the positions of Experimental Turrets and Elixer-Infused Bombs being considered?

I’m definitely on this boat, I’ve been wondering for a long time why we don’t get loot directly into our bags. The whole “pick up from ground” thing is pretty archaic.

A.E.D. does not remove Confusion when it activates, an (arguably) damaging condition.
Healing back to about half health but still having confusion stacks on you hurts, especially as an engineer.
I know A.E.D. (gadgets in general) needs a lot of work, but this is one aspect of it I’ve never seen mentioned, so I’m just adding it to the pile.
Thoughts?

More accurately, the 10% attack speed increase is similar to quickness, meaning you will perform every skill 10% faster as long as you’re dual weilding; in other words, 10% shorter cast times.
On movement skills, for example Bull’s Charge or Eviscerate, the decreased cast time also means less distance traveled.

There’s a lot of null discussion going on here, the end point is :
We’re supposed to be able to play as we want, and time-gating stat combinations prevents us from experimenting with different builds.
There’s no point to Celestial time-gating specifically, because it has zero effect on the economy. Time-gated Celestial is just a nuisance.

I’d much rather a new currency consolidation, as they tried once before. Serves toward the same effect, that is, older players can’t right hoard it if they have to spend the same currency toward a myriad items.
At the same time, it’ll save up space taken up every update by some new currency.

NA EST and Verizon here as well, could barely finish the pvp daily, delay upwards of 30 seconds, plenty of rubberbanding.

Ignore most of these people, PvE turrets are wonderful.
I’ll vouch for them, since I’ve run pretty much record-timed fractals with my build.
It’s a very simple Power-based build, though you’ll want to make use of trait changes depending on the encounter.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdQQFAUlUUpEr1Ux2KseNyiBNqZE6HmtA85olwFC-TBCFwAsU/54+DAeAAXVCiUZQSleOuAAp1BAA-e
You might consider changing the Brawler runes for Altruism, depends how much you like helping parties (healing turret loves allies).
The basics: 9 stacks of might most of the time, and a whole lot of vulnerability, most likely 25 stacks if you’re really on top of things.
Aside from that, Static D provides a nice chunk of damage whenever your turrets aren’t out, or if you decide to pop them (as you should do whenever someone’s packing fire fields). Not to mention that using toolkit abilities gives you a hefty endurance pool.
Power Shoes for quality-of-life, Energized armor to benefit from Knight’s stats, these which help survive those big level 50 fotm hits.
Only 30some-odd precision, and no big focus on ferocity because turrets don’t scale off those, but what’s present is decent enough that you should always have Air sigil on CD and your grenades will benefit nicely.
In the end, it’s all about cranking up turret and party damage, while being able to hold your own when turrets aren’t available.

I didn’t find a thread on this, though it has been mentioned; this is more directed toward an A-net voice:
Can we get confirmation that something similar to Mawdrey II is being worked on for Dragonite Ore and Empyreal Fragments? Or maybe even Ascended JC/Cooking?
I’m sure I’m not the only one with intensifying stacks of those materials specifically, we’d all really appreciate the knowledge.
Anyone else sitting on a 1:1-scale Mt Everest of ore and fragments?

-not sure whether to place in General or Crafting sub-forum

I’ve been running with a variant of the “Chillruption” build posted here some time ago by someone, and I make heavy use of scepter+torch, mainly Confusion and Torment.
It’s worth mentioning that these two conditions act as a sort of “soft” lockdown, punishing your opponents for kiting or using skills(complimented by Torch5’s Retal), or forcing them to remain static for some time until they can deal with those conditions, all the while allowing your other lockdown skills time to go off cooldown.

I’ve been having disconnects since a few days prior to the feature patch. Every few minutes it’ll disconnect with this error, usually mid-pvp fight or just after a PvE boss kill (both dungeon/fotm and open world).

I tried defending AED once, but eventually I caved; Healing Turret is way better. 15 second heal, by simply LoSing here and there, you can survive a lot longer than with AED.

The thing with AED, it doesn’t cleanse Confusion (despite being a damaging condition), and your being squishy nullifies the “second health bar”.
On top of all that, if, after you kill someone, you have any long-lasting stack of any condition (vulnerability), and at mid-low health, you’re effectively weakened until it wears away, and oftentimes you’ll be engaged again before you can fully recuperate.

I do miss the stun though…

Final thrust is about 80% the damage of a Killshot, I’d say Arcing Slice should, at most, do as much damage as Final Thrust.
As it is, Arcing Slice is definitely too weak.

So, Arcing Slice was touted to be a new execution-style attack.
Instead, we got a glorified Auto-Attack crit.
Arcing Slice still needs a major damage buff.

It has always been 3 seconds, on both burst and normal skills. Same as the interrupt CD (non-Power block).

Mortar is indeed still awful, it is outperformed by even untraited Grenade kit; reason being, Mortar only has one projectile, so one (slow moving) chance to proc traits. The bleed-field is also close to pointless, since most people will simply walk out of it.

Mortar-5 is almost useful, but it knocks enemies away before all projectiles hit, and is on a long cooldown.

In any situation, you’re better off with untraited Grenade kit, even better traited.

A thought: Are you sure the first time you use it, you’re above 25% health?
AMR has worked for me, but you have to use the AED with >25% health, then go under, for AMR to proc. Otherwise it just refreshes an off-CD AED, making AMR pointless.
This has also happened to me.

Meh, stacking’s no big loss to me. I play engi and rarely stack might. Let the staff guards and eles slave away at that, I’m too busy standing still. --

Yep this is bugged, can’t stomp unless you stop attacking, which means cancelling your auto attack. Makes pvp unplayable, especially as a Flamethrower engi with channeled AA.

Asked in the Mists, someone mentioned that you can stomp like usual if you don’t hold down Right Click while doing it. Still, annoying bug that should be fixed ASAP.

Well, A-net has seemingly forgotten all about Keg, but some people really love the game. It was the very first mini-game upon release, although it’s kind of dead by now, compared to the many people that played back then.
Some people agree to some rules so that there can be a fair and fun game, instead of just running multiple Kegs back and forth to the goal.
It’s how they get around A-net’s neglect.
There’s some stigma against lobbing the Keg across the field as well, that’s all I can recall at the moment.

JETWING.2759:

The OP is probably using wrongly a condition build to comes here QQ about not only a specific skill of one specific weapon, but the better way of sustain that the class haves (Longbow + Defense line with CI)

Wrong on both counts I’m afraid. I main warrior, and I use an axe/hammer power/signet build. Being a warrior, I understand that LB is simply better than every other weapon, thanks to guaranteed CI proc. And that should be fixed.

Fishing sounds like a great idea. I know people don’t like to compare games, but WoW’s fishing activity was silly fun. I spent hours at times, looking for that one rare fish, being surprised by the kinds of junk you can fish out of a pond, or even just collecting fishing poles. But it really doesn’t have to be all that in-depth, just a thing to do on a lazy day.

Just read the article, a lot of us want SAB back Anet, and the last portion of it promised to be a very interesting story, please bring it back between living world seasons at least! Can’t let my infinite coin go to waste :/
And I’m still waiting for red/purple Super skins!

A passing observation: Minor traits in the Tactics line seem to be next to useless, and this is an issue that has been brought up before, though I don’t remember the post that did so.
They focus on reviving, requiring that either you or an ally be downed, yet most (every, ideally) builds usually focus on staying alive for as long as possible, thereby making those minor traits useless in combat, while every other Minor trait in the game gives some sort of combat advantage (with the exception of Ranger’s Instinctual Bond, although the right pet can deliver a decent burst with the added quickness).

In light of the pending Adrenaline nerfs, perhaps these traits could be tuned to better support the warrior/team? Especially since this trait line is usually left alone by all except gimmick-bunker types.

The idea that brought about this post was for a single trait in particular:
:Insert Name Here: T3 Tactics Minor
One bar of adrenaline granted if a burst skill connects.
The obvious issue with this is that the burst skill effect is a reward in itself. However, since missing will now cause full Adrenaline loss, perhaps this will alleviate that penalty somewhat. I also realize the intense synergy that this would carry with something like Burst Mastery, hence why I suggest placing it at T3.
A second problem would be Longbow guaranteeing a reserve bar of adrenaline, assuming such a build goes 5 points into Tactics, and such a problem can only be solved by nerfing Combustive Shot (fingers crossed).

No clue what the former two Minor traits could be, but they could certainly be better than what we have.

Open to thoughts; am I wrong? Do Tactics Minor traits play a useful role to anyone? Let’s hear it.

Rengaru.4730:

• The field no longer does physical damage (to prevent this skill from generating loads of Adrenaline).

Just a quick clarification, Combustive Shot damage does not generate Adrenaline as is, at least not in the testing I did.
Still, good to see that a handful of us can see the problems with Longbow.

silentnight warrior.2714:

.

:

Exactly what you just said, it is a worry of mine as well- that warriors will be forced to not only use Longbow, but refrain from using their burst at all, opting instead for passive play through Adrenal traits (Adrenal Health, Berserker’s Power), saving adrenaline instead for on-demand condi cleanse through Combustive Shot.

The second proposed solution was to (hopefully) keep not just Longbow, but all burst skills viable, simply because they’re difficult to land without an elaborate set-up. That’s at least one or two conditions cleaned, despite having missed the first burst (and assuming you can land the second), while lowering the damage output/utility duration on the burst.

Ultimately, not nerfing Longbow will make it mandatory post-patch.

Having waited a while before posting my thoughts on the Adrenaline nerf, I think the revelation of the Balancing Act post is my cue.

It seems that the Adrenaline nerfs were a reaction to the excess utility of the Longbow, and not the adrenaline mechanic itself.
Specifically:
-Longbow AA generates adrenaline quickest of all weapons, and at range.
-Longbow Burst does not require it to hit anything to activate Cleansing Ire

That’s without mentioning the might-stacking capability that only Longbow can bring, as a warrior. There’s no question as to why Longbow is practically mandatory in PvP.

Every other weapon has a much harder time both building adrenaline, and landing a burst skill, because of any combination of activation time, animation telegraph, and travel distance/range.

Now, I won’t argue that burst and adrenaline management didn’t need a nerf, but perhaps losing all adrenaline on a miss, when it is so easy to miss without longbow, is a harsh penalty. Assuming the ease of landing a burst skill with other weapons will not be changed, I propose the following solutions:
-Require longbow to hit on the initial strike in order to activate cleansing ire. This requirement may also extend to creating the fire field, I feel the former change is enough. This removes one of the massive advantages and reasons for using longbow over other weapons.
-Instead of losing all adrenaline, lose 1 or 2 bars of adrenaline per miss. Traited with Burst mastery, this can be reduced to 1/2 or 1 bar of adrenaline. This is to balance out the ease with which burst skills can be avoided.

On the note of adrenaline generation: without traiting specifically for adrenaline generation, warriors actually gain very little adrenaline over the course of a fight, with the exception of course of Berserker Stance. Taking adrenaline traits when they compete for slots with Berserker’s Power, Last Chance/Dual Wield Agility, DotE, and even Warrior’s Sprint is, in most cases, an unfair choice.
Perhaps adrenaline gain should be looked at again, especially if a full adrenaline loss is planned. The secondary effect of Cleansing Ire, which I’ll admit I wasn’t even aware of until it was pointed out during the Skillbar warrior episode release, would make sense as an inherent part of the warrior profession; one would become increasingly agitated as one is being hit. Changes of this sort might encourage warriors away from Cleansing Ire and Signet of Rage, which seem to be the most popular (if not mandatory) components of a working warrior build.

Edit: That second bit about Adrenaline Regen—not really part of the post, more like thinking out loud. Mostly Fix LB interaction with CI to put it in line with other weapons

Thanks for reading, open to thoughts.

Just a note: I think you mean Vulnerability, the debuff.
And I agree, Mace is on the slow side, makes it a bit of a boring weapon.
Offhand mace is pretty fun.

Seras.5702:

I’ve noticed this about heavy Draconic gauntlets too. The color swatches are different for male & female versions.

Right, that’s a little odd to say the least. Different styles are understandable, but colors should be just as variable on each piece, no? Especially when it comes to lights, seeing as a lot (if not all) of the latest gear that comes with lights allows you to customize them. Magitech, Scarlet, even the starter Guardian shoulder guards.

Not sure where else this would go, but it just came to my attention that the female version of the Aetherized Heavy Gauntlets has color-customizable lights, which the male version does not.
Is there any reason for this to be the case? Or could this be changed?
Maybe I’m a little late on the uptake, but I didn’t see any mention of this anywhere else, hopefully someone takes note.
Any ideas from the community?

There wasn’t any mention of this, but will pets be receiving any tune ups? The last major patch was aimed to make them more responsive, but they are still arguably clunky. Maybe allowing them to attack on the move just like players.
Or maybe there’s a pet-system overhaul in the works?

Hail, Captain of storms!

Thanks to the new haircuts, I was able to make this seafaring Elementalist!

So I’ve been using this build for a while, but only recently realized that the “Explosion” designation doesn’t apply clearly.
-The trait Explosive Powder works with the skill Detonate Turret, but it does not work with the Rocket Turret attacks/skills.
-The trait Steel-Packed Powder works with both Detonate Turret and the Rocket Turret attacks.
-Also, there is a disparity between the text on the trait Accelerant-Packed Turrets and the skill Detonate _______ Turret , probably just a text issue.

I assume that, it being a rocket turret, it should be an explosive (note also it has a radius on attacks), so Explosive Powder should work on it. Or perhaps it does work but is not represented in the blue text. Thank you.

Well, I’ve seen it on at least a couple of other head-pieces, and it looks silly to say the least. Charr have been getting the short end of the stick for most of the game as far as gear (the latest Ninja outfit), this could be a small step towards remedying the issue.

Just checked these out on Charr, and they look terrible.
Must the headband really stretch over the top of the head? Can’t they just rest on our ears, or face even, something like Magitech or the Viper headgear.

Any chance this’ll get a quick look-into from A-net? :/

Open to thoughts:

This might be a controversial point so let’s dive right in, I’ll try not to wall o’ text.

As it stands, Elixer Gun seems to be a very popular choice among engineers, and not without reason. It provides healing, condi removal (self removal on Super Elixer? unless that was changed), mobility, group support, and a stunbreaker, albeit on a 40s cooldown. This lends most engineers a hefty survivability boon, most notably the condi-bunker metas of old (and perhaps even the turret-boon guys).
However, Elixer Gun happens to be a Weapon-kit. The prevailing pattern I’ve noticed among weapon kits is that their skills are mostly alternate attack forms and some “soft” utility, as would be expected on a weapon (soft utility are the sorts that won’t exactly get you out of sticky situation, but certainly help avoid it, blocks, blinds, CC).
That being said, Elixer Gun is the only weapon-set (in a way) that comes with a stun breaker; sure, other weapons may have displacement effects (mesmer staff/sword, thief sword/dagger, ele staff, etc.) but never actual stun breakers.

Now, because EG is inherently a support weapon, I believe the added stun breaker puts it just a tad over the top within its builds. Removing the stun break would force an engineer to choose between an alternate stunbreaker or the extra soft-utility that comes with EG (healing, mobility, team-condi removal), ultimately making it easier to deal with the builds that make use of it, since they usually have plenty of sustain as is.
That stun breaker could be placed back in the ol’ rocket boots, except as part of the toolbelt skill (since frankly the skill is useless otherwise, forcing us into a 1/2 second immobility as it casts). This puts it along a similar line to Thief’s “Roll for Initiative”(stun break/condi clear/lateral motion).
Another issue comes up here though, rocket boots clash with (updated) slick shoes for the slot. At this point it becomes clear that gadgets just need a general overhaul, but that’s an old complaint. In any case, 3 stun breaking gadgets would give more incentive to use the things, and the accompanying trait Gadgeteer.

TL;DR:
-EG is hyper-useful, remove stunbreak to balance.
-restore Rocket Boots’ stunbreak on Toolbelt skill, give incentive to use gadgets.
-(Bonus) examine dynamics between Rocket boots+Slick Shoes

Thanks for reading, open to thoughts!

Tyragon.2496:

I can only answer that I have actually met a warrior with axe/shield + gs that was devastating to go up against when on my ranger.

I have to wonder if that was my warrior you were talking about. I did put together a build since i never really liked the condi meta, that sounds a lot like it.

Build

That’s it, more or less, the sigils and runes are variable, the heal as well. The big weakness I found to it was heavy conditions, since it doesn’t come with much health. Evade heavy classes will give you a headache as well, and the sustain is minimal, even with adrenaline surge. It has very high mobility though, giving you some room to high-tail it before things get hairy. And of course Cavalier’s amulet to make full use of Burst Precision. Hope it helps.