Guild Wars 2

I don’t understand the noisewall of complaints here.

Those who already hate them and don’t use them, can still continue to hate and not use them.

Where’s the problem?

Its a bait and switch program, which is pretty typical of this kind of balancing
From the minds behind class balance development:

1. Lets take away all the DPS from all over;
2. Now let’s add the difference to the new elite;
3. Now lets direct the new elite to be DPS oriented;
4. Now lets give people a level 80 boost and ignore actual level based strategies.
5. Make them open the box;

And that’s the way they do it…..

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/clS04NzXNbU/maxresdefault.jpg

I yearn for the day that weapons actually look practical, and not something that got lost on the squaresoft cutting room floor.

Having run into Gaile Grey several times in the open world, can confirm she has ALWAYS been on ranger :P I also have ran with Linsey Murdock for a few hours, who was playing a human guardian at the time.

Hex.8341:

Ok, I guess there’s too many posts now that no one bothers read any replies so just ignore this thread. I know I’m not going to repeat myself over and over again when you can’t be bothered to read.

Or it could be the classy tantrum responses. The fact that people are giving you advice and their experiences that you asked for, and here you are getting all knotted up about it. I posit you have yet to display the skills necessary to maintain a discussion.

Or did you want to create and manage a thread where everyone agrees with you?

OriOri.8724:

Maximus.8376:

Aren’t there like only two mobs that are counter melee? We have wyverns and smokescales. The rest of the mobs can be killed in melee without issues.

Weapon swap if your friend.

However, the Itzel frogs >_> HALP!

Those veteran mordrem vine thrashers or whatever they are called are annoying for melee too. The ones that constantly swoop up in the air to drain the health of everything in their rather large circle. The only way to avoid healing them is to stay ranged.

I don’t know if things are unfriendly to melee, but I do find a lot of enemies in HoT, mainly in the TD map, to be much more annoying then fun to fight. Almost everytime I get in a fight in that map I find myself getting kittened off because I don’t think any of those encounters are fun, they are all just a pain in the kitten to me. I don’t die from the mobs, I just kittening hate them. Hate the chak. Hate the mushroom bullkitten mobs. Hate smokescales etc…

Thashers take more damage from behind. You can also stun or knock them down because it resets their ability to siphon health. Menders operate the same way.

Chak are hard because each of them has a unique ability and not everyone has really shared information on how to deal with all of their defenses and defenses at once. If you get caught in the Chak Tunnel surrounded by 3-4 different kinds of Chak.. its difficult to learn which mob has what abilities or mitigate many of them all at once. Its at this point that mobility, utility, and defensive skills put an attrition spin on fighting them all at once.

Mushrooms feel like faster/deadlier Risen mobs from Orr. You can kite them, circle beat them, but keep your condis cleared while doing so. Other than that, mushrooms are easier to deal with when you pull small numbers or one at a time. Watch out for their social agg.

Im shocked people still have problems with Wyverns. You can pound them through the floor if you wait to exploit their main attacks.

Smokescales are just annoying. If you are quick enough to CC them out of their zones of threat, they can be dealt with. Most of the time, I just skip them because outside of that zone of threat, there’s no real point in engaging them unless you’ve made a critical error.

The mobs of Auric basin all have one critical design flaw in their combat AI. They are extremely predictable. Anything that charges can be dealt with by using your environment to your advantage, and there’s so much of it to use. Anything that has a field or template attack, then you shouldn’t be standing on that field. If there is one thing that HoT has taught me is that you really shouldn’t rely entirely upon damage to save you. That’s an uphill fight all the way. If you’re in a group setting, things get easier, and damage will always happen and you will always get credit. In a solo situation, its smarter to pick and choose your battles.

Several friends of mine have discussed whether or not the orb we rescued from the Krait in PS is in fact a DSD egg. Hence, why the Krait wanted it so badly, and why it powers Fort Trinity

“We can figure out /how/ it works when this is all over!” That’s what the priory charr said when it was brought up during the opening sequence.

Hex.8341:

Ramethzero.3785:

I’ve no problems going melee with new mobs. You can do the same thing that ranged players do, by circling and engaging and disengaging. The problem I see most of the times when it comes to new content is that there are a large number of people who mostly faceroll and facetank and wonder why this system works in so many other games and not in this one.

Yeah I played a Warrior and Slayer mostly in TERA and I don’t know if you’re familiar with that game, but facetanking in TERA is NOT an option with said classes. I know how to play an action MMO quite well. It’s not about not knowing how to deal with things at all and I even said as much in my OP.

In fact, this game is TRIVIAL to TERA’s hardest content. My point was that it’s BAD design to make mlee so much harder compared to ranged. At least in TERA ranged had to actually DO something because shots required actual aiming and positioning.

Except that’s another game, and not this one. I’m not devaluing your experience, but you posed the question like its a developer fault that melee is challenging. Its meant to be. There’s a good reason to go melee on many mobs. Raid mobs are in a different category because there’s very specific methods to deal with those mobs, and that is part of their challenge. It’s hard? Of course it is. Its supposed to be.

I posit that its good game design to give mobs each a type of challenge. Don’t waste your blinds on the Dredge. Don’t waste your burn stacks on Embers. If you choose to go melee in with a difficult mob and you’re not entirely familiar with how that mob operates, then perhaps you shouldn’t be in melee with it to begin with. That’s the challenge of that mob is to get people to think and act differently.

I’m not so ignorant of the fact that even the best melee players can have off moments or just got gotten the hang of a particular type of mob or situation yet. It could be any number of things that aren’t working in someone’s favour. What else have you tried other than ranged options? These are the questions I’d be asking myself.

I’ve no problems going melee with new mobs. You can do the same thing that ranged players do, by circling and engaging and disengaging. The problem I see most of the times when it comes to new content is that there are a large number of people who mostly faceroll and facetank and wonder why this system works in so many other games and not in this one.

The next direction leads to hype. It always has. It’s the one thing you can absolutely count on.

Thirded. While were at it, lets bring back the rest of the stuff that was taken from us as well.

I am personally fearful that everything from here on in is not going to feature enough of the other races other than Sylvari, Humans, or Quaggans. The people who admire or play these races are the cash cow and I’m not entirely confidant that Anet is going to move away from that any time soon. All the top game developer companies have always bent for money demographics, and has always had the the power to veto otherwise good content. It is my supreme suspicion that the entire HoT story line and all of the living season content progression were forced into a travel tube you needed to get from point A to point B. I had very little time to enjoy or process fully what was going on. I like seeing what’s over the next hill, but when that becomes the only reason for continuance, then you’ve really lost the meat of action and drama.

I have to go into this thread by saying, I’ve rarely been impressed by the majority of the skins that have gone into circulation. I maybe feel lukewarm about 1 or 2 of the skins in each rotation that has come into play. There were in some cases, entire stretches where I asked myself ‘in what universe do these weapons even look practical or remotely pretty?’ Honestly, this goes back all the way to the beginning of the game. The moment I saw certain weapons like the Quip or the Dreamer I knew I wanted to skin over them because I can’t get behind them in terms of aesthetics.

In short, I’m picky as all hell.

Then, came the cavalier/gallant weapons. I had to admit to myself that at least 50% of them appealed to me on some level. Two of them I picked up instantly. I was happy about that.

Now the privateer weapons. I was actually… impressed. It was a long time since I looked at a weapon set and realized how well designed in not only terms of function, but also very detailed and well thought their appearances were. I actually found it difficult for me to narrow down which skins I could actually afford. It was fun, and maybe a wee bit sad I couldn’t get all of the ones I enjoyed, especially so since they were account bound upon purchase. I had a feeling that Anet knew what they had and that’s why unless you’re a key farmer/buyer, then you’re kinda out of luck in terms of collecting many of them.

Now, the thing that makes the difference to me is that I like things like form, function, and only a light amount of fluff to express how deadly or how pleasing I want my character to look. Fashion is a nuanced priority to me.

The outfits I find equally sort of varied. I like the Mad Scientist, the Arctic Explorer, and the Monk attire. I use them pretty often over more than one toon (I have 20 of them!). Back before outfits were implemented I preferred the old method of buying individual sets or even pieces of sets. Those of you who remember meshes from games like City of Heroes/Villains will remember who fun it was to pick through wardrobes.. and for some of us that took hoursssss.

I have in the past enjoyed very primal and barbaric sets. Furs, skins, and even outfits like the Norn shaman outfits that NPC’s wear. I LOVE THOSE. But, then we get outfits like the Slayer, the Harbinger of Mordremoth, and Nature’s Oath.. we are getting back to what I feel is again, over the top. I imagine the design philosophy may include over the top themes in order for people to raise eyebrows and be interested in some of these things.. but.. I’ve yet to react to the outfits the same way I reacted to the more recent weapon skin designs.

So, maybe a few suggestions?

Here’s a couple of mine (I would throw my wallet at the BLTC if these ever got into play)

1. I want to be able to put on a robe or something that makes sense, as a warrior. Some sort of battle dress? Maybe a military officer’s oufit? A Kimono? A Commodore’s button up coat? Even something like the GW2 version of a Jedi Robe would work. I would absolutely kill for something like a Travelers or an Adventuring cloak! Something that feels useful to me so I’m not constantly walking around in a clanky suit of thick metal bands and chain.

2. I would love to see a set of light armour that screams that they are a Battlemage. It has to be form fitting to a degree, with little in terms of frills. Something that a Necro, Mesmer, or an Elementalist could all put on like an armoured uniform. Mostly cloth, but reinforced with a few metal plates covering vitals – and some leather bits for areas that add a sense of ease of mobility. I wanted the Arcane Robe to be this, but honestly the Arcane Robe looks more like the old gw1 Dervish style to me. The criteria is in the right vein but on the larger races it starts to really show how bulky and ill fitted the design is, particularly below the waist. I swear people who wear this are probably tripping all over themselves.

3. Much like suggestion number two, a little more into the plate and chain theme. Form fitting and strong, that anyone can look like a soldier. The Vigil order armour is/was a pretty nice starting point, but what about those that didn’t join the Vigil? The other orders seem to be less foot-soldierly and more specialized but what about the spaces in between? Is there a common soldier themed outfit that anyone from any order can wear?

4. Less waist coats. I like pants, and I like coats. What I don’t like is when I have a perfectly acceptable pair of pants that is covered entirely by the coat. It is possible to create top armour that stays in the top. In fact, I am a little fatigued by how often we are forced into choices like: “Well, all these waist coats the only real choice I have is what position I want this split up the side, or in the front?” I’d like to find a way to evolve past this issue. There just aren’t enough choices here.

5. Since Heart of Thorns (and yes I know its part of the theme) there has been a tendency to place blades, spikes, crystals, and thorns on everything. Are we wrestling people to death? I get the theory of it all, but its merged into so much that its seriously taken over more than its share. I’d like to see less of this.

6. Unless you’re playing a human or a sylvari, then the differences in the outfits really start to show. Asura and Charr are in similar predicaments because once you get below the waist, the differences are very visible. I have one human and one sylvari out of the 20 something characters I play, and outfitting them is so much more frustrating. I get that the large majority of people who play gw2 are human or sylvari, and thats fine.. but I get the sense that the other races were just given up on in certain areas. Norns in particular I see a re-occuring theme is the torso models. Males seem to have a competition for the largest shoulders, whereas the females have a competition for cleavage. I get this is part of their design study but its also getting a little stagnant. I would love to see something that breaks away from this focus.

I’m not going to post a large number of links of what I’d like to see (because that’s a truly long list of stuff that I’m positive won’t be used for legal reasons) but if you google fantasy outfits, fantasy cosplay, fantasy wardrobe, and the like… you get a very broad spectrum of decent examples (some tasteful, some racy, and some barbaric) that I could very easily endorse.

Any of you readers out there seeing this post, whom have a large number of ‘clothing and armour’ mods on their nexus client can tell you the sort of crunch im talking about.

I picked Norn for my main Ele and I love the ability to have transforms.
When someone asks ’what’s the /best/ for X or Y’ I get sort of fatigued by this, because if you are biased towards one race or another and you use their racials in the right situations, then they all have potential.

I enjoy my snow leopard transformation because I can use the prowl and dash ability for very quick ambush attacks when i need them. Before a certain nerfing of the Norn racial transformations, there was a video floating around of a party of norns in WVW who used the same transformation all together to gank entire havok squads.

To me, prowl and dash are WAY more useful (and fun to use) than FGS. Every single skill in the entire game is situational, and has potential to be useful. And to give people an idea of what it means to be familiar with an elementalist in any aspect of the game, realize there will come a time when developing reflex to swap skills in your bar in between combats will become a boon to you. If you rely only upon the same skills day in and day out, then you’ll never understand what ‘best’ means.

1. Ele.
2. Thief/Daredevil
3. Engi.

I like active combat and mobility.

I would also like to throw my vote on conjures to be like kits.

I’d like to a few more hats in game.

But, I’m not gunna lie. If you’re serious ‘bothered’ by the lack of hats, perhaps I can suggest Team Fortress 2. You’ll absolutely drown in them. Also, implying that the game needs ‘fixing’ because of said lack of hats?! Huh?

I thought it was a ridiculous poll, honestly. One name in that list had anything relevant and it was kinda a no brainer, and it was fairly simple ( Dragon’s Watch, that is). The other two names I felt had no real bearing on anything. Part of me is sort of curious as to what thoughts went into all three of them because they are kinda terrible and lack imagination. I got the sense that they were on par with pretty much every grimdark latin guild name in every fantasy MMO ever created that doesn’t actually feature latin anywhere in its world design.

And while I like GoT, let’s try to be a little more focused on GW2, shall we ANet?

Hamfast.8719:

Ramethzero.3785:

Clearly this woman did not hear about Eir’s unflattering death during HoT storyline.

Neither did I. Thanks a lot for the SPOILER ALERT.

CURSE MY SUDDEN BUT INEVITABLE BETRAYAL

Traveler.

I get around a lot. Legit.

Clearly this woman did not hear about Eir’s unflattering death during HoT storyline.

I know that Anet sometimes seems to flip scripts around to NPC’s every now and then. Kinda cool, actually. Hints and the like are often hidden inside certain texture dialogues here and there kinda really do help the world feel a bit more active in current affairs.

But one Norn outside the BLTP in Hoelbrak? Clearly she’s behind on the times. I am just communicating this along. Enjoy.

How is it that I’ve been with this guild for as long as I have, and never bumped this thread?

BOOM. One of the best guilds I’ve ever been a part of. Do eeet.

I kinda feel like I should be paid a dime for every one of these kind of posts I’ve read since launch. I’d be a millionaire by now.

Ankas.9023:

Miku once again what does ur crit chance do for u if u don’t have ferocity to deal damage u can crit all u want with 200 damage its pointless

Have you ever heard of this thing called ‘procs’?

Yeah the first bundle I was like okay, whatever.
But now that the second one is out I’m wondering is this how its gunna be?

Because I’m already kinda not on board with the having whole entire outfits. I much preferred getting the individual sets, for their bit parts. Now, its gone to a whole new level, and I’m just getting more and more skeptical about bundles.

@kolompi.1287: I think you’re missing the point of desiring one item out the package, and not willing to buy the entire thing.

Very nearly the same condi build I run with. A few differences, but a strong solid build regardless.

I’ve also taken it into HoT and yes it does work. The mobs tend to move quite a bit, but they can be anticipated with enough practice.

Completed VB and AB already, and got nothing.

Ghanto.9784:

How do you even use the horn? I just got Warhorn Proficiency and got a Tempest’s Warhorn and it tells me that the weapon is unusable by my profession. What am I missing?

Read your tooltips.

You can’t equip anything tempest oriented without speccing it first.

I use warhorn. There are good things about it, and some bad things. The first thing is that Warhorn benefits group style play. I dont feel its meant for solo play because Focus seems to be a better offhand option for that.

I find the negativity about Warhorn to be a bit offputting. I see lots of people using Wh in situations where it seems ill warranted. But, because its shiny and new people are trying, and that’s a good thing. But, it took me all this time to play around with it and I’m forced to confirm it has a niche use, and in that niche it performs rather admirably. But, I see a glaring number of posts of people using it in environments it’s not well suited for and the complaining and crying heaped upon it and I can’t help but shake my head.

I use it in large scale PvE combats. That’s where it shines. Speccing tempest AND using warhorn you can crap out so many boons between skill, shout, and overcharge synergies. You can do the same thing with focus too, but warhorn lends itself to a slightly different gameplay, and that’s where I think lots of people are getting stuck trying to use it like a focus.

Hrm. I misinterpreted then. 95% total overall reduction is a much nicer game changer. Thanks for clarification on that.

I’ve not really played either of my rangers since the HoT dropped. Spent it all on my Ele.

Gilburt.9146:

Zabrios.6079:

No.

/15charsblabla

Thanks for your waste of space post. Don’t bother next time.

Its okay to have that opinion. Its okay to not agree with theirs, too.
Being a kitten about it makes you look like a arrogant turdcutter.

Enjoy your salt.

This one change made my night so much easier to do what I need to do in order to make this fun again. Thank you Anet.

5% damage reduction is nothing. I have no idea why people think this is going to help.

Even if someone takes 1000 pts of damage, that 5% isn’t even noticeable.
I guess thanks for something, anyway.

After trying to avoid slotting tempest because its not complete yet, I decided after the second day to try it.

Traited/geared completely for support. My survivability went up quite a noticeable amount. I am not terribly happy I had to do that just so I can be present in these new maps. I have to practically solo events, because the content zerg is already done with everything, and now I’m stuck in the back of the bus in a stupid hybrid build I don’t actually like just to break even on an event grind.

I don’t mind the content is tougher. I expected that. I don’t want to beat all this is in a couple of days. What I do want is to enjoy what I’m playing, and I am finding it mind-numbingly boring to do the same events over and over that require groups, as a solo player. I have one or two levels 80’s of every class in the game. If doing this once is being an utter PIMA, I don’t think I’m going to enjoy doing it a second or third time either.

I’ve not taken my Tempest into WvW or PvP yet because I can’t even finish what’s in front of me. Not because I’m playing a Tempest either. It’s because wtf good is a support profession if there’s no one but myself to support. Most of the NPC’s are dead in seconds, and their dog fart level damage isn’t even worth rezzing them. I have to spend 10 seconds getting boons up with a ten second duration so I can take another 10 seconds to actually kill a mobs.

90% of the skins in this game look terrible to me, so this is nothing new. I’m still keeping my promise if I ever get my hands on the dreamer, I’m going to skin it into the slingshot.

I’m with the sword crowd. goes to his seat

I loved the Charr race in GW1. In GW2 they seem to have been watered down quite a bit. I still like my Charr characters ( I have 3 ) but I have no plans to make any more of them.

I also don’t particularly care for how they have been sissified by a particular group of players, but that doesn’t stop me from playing mine the way I envision them.

Har-har. Not a true one shot, but yeah stupidity kills.

I noticed something today as I was dying things. Several new dye previews are available.
Some of them are quite nice. =)

Why make this so complicated? Give me the dagger, I’ll slit your wrists for you.

intense breathing

I vote with my actions, not my wallet.

@OP: I think your viewpoint is a little narrow. Game designers make games because they like games, not because they want to drain your wallet. And, let’s not completely overlook the fact that the desire for money is not always a bad thing, and its somewhat universal. Everyone can always use a little extra cash.

I’m okay with the fact you stopped paying for GW2, and have since deleted it from your computer. I’m a little skeptical however, on coming back and appealing to thieves specifically over some bitterness about the state of the game you experienced months ago.

Enjoy dem feels.

Things I can appreciate Roy/Irenio for:

Making big decisions that may kitten people off, and being confident enough to keep doing it.

Things I can do without:

The theatrics. I want a solid discussion, not smug commentary.

I don’t agree the nerfs needed to happen. I think they were a step backward in the evolution of the class. What I personally feel the problem was is that they couldn’t find a quick easy solution to solve the problem (dat feature of Ice Bow 4), and instead opted to nerf the skill itself.

Meanwhile, there are other skills that are similar to Ice Bow 4, and they weren’t nearly as affected. Why is that, you think?

When they fix that, I’m certain conjures will make a comeback. Until then, this is just another disappointment. Its also the same sort of logistic approach that happens in every other issue that is this large. They break what’s wrong further, and then revisit the issue 6 months to a year down maybe.

In the meantime, the playerbase has to soldier on through the numerical changes, and I gotta keep digging through the never-ending cycle of ragequit threads.

I am in love with the concept. I am not terribly enthused with the implementation in its current state. I hope the future evolution of this spec starts to really shine, but we’ll see.

I still play my thieves because of my D/D ele. There’s just something to be said for extremely active skill caps and playstyles. Since then, almost all of my other toons I have a found a way on them to be more active in their approaches as well. For a while I gave up signets because of that, back before they actually had better abilities.

My fave engineer race is
http://cdn2.funscrape.com/Images/9/9292728197715759.jpg

I have two rangers, and I love them both despite the problems the profession faces in the current state of the game. This is not going to change that.

The druid reveal? I like it. I think it adds a long-awaited flavour to rangers that I was happy to play during gw1, and the lore finally catching up to us now? I’m good with it.

The balance patch details? I’m ambivalent. As an older gamer, balance patches come and go and the evolution of the game changes. This is nothing new to me. The only balance patch that ever blew up my skirt were the condition changes during the last big drop. Beyond that, no matter what we’ve been given its always been an up and down process. I see no reason to white knight the ranger, and I definitely never saw a reason to blather on about hurt feelings about when they suffer dry spots. To me, its all the same. Maybe it makes me jaded, but the important thing is my rangers are gunna survive, and be what they are for me as long as I have them.

Pets reveal? I am one of the wierdos that actually doesn’t mind all the pets. They have their uses, like tools. And you can use the right tool for the right job. The more tools I have the better the craftsman I can be. Each of the pets have their good points and their bad, and the new pets are likely going to follow suit. The Bristleback kinda caught my eye, but we’ll see how that plays out.

The entire elite I’m going to add it to the list of things that are available to me, but are likely going to serve niche roles, like all the other builds. I find the term ‘elite’ spec is sort of ephemeral. Is it really elite? What’s so elite about it? Will it cost more than the regular specs? Why? Because after seeing what’s available the traits seem about as damp across the board as all the others. Has the elite specs widened the spectrum of possible builds? Maybe. Should it cost more than the others? I don’t think it should.

I said it before and I’ll say it again, that meta builds are sort of just another niche build. They work good in specific circumstances like all the others, but that one build that performs well against certain bosses well how many do they number? 3-4? 5+? Those mobs in those portions of the game represent a small faction of the whole. These elite specs I don’t think were meant to supplant all the other builds out there, and people who are flailing their arms crying about not wanting to be a healer? Well, you have a choice to not be. You can be the same ranger you always were. No one is forcing people to use these specs, and likely never should be.

What’s wrong with the specs is they are what they are, and they are going to change and evolve as the game progresses. They are not the problem. To my mind, its the thoroughly unhelpful vocal community that is the problem. There’s too much unrealistic expectation and ‘feels’, and not enough logical and critical discussion that is helpful to the community at large. Its true you have to dig through poop to find the gold, but if the unhelpfuls could stop kittenting all over everything, perhaps we can get to the meat of the issue a lot faster.

Taldren.7523:

And again you prove your ignorance. The post is about condition builds where elementalists have none that are viable. Burning is the only real condition we have, thus “Elementalists and burning”. What the hell this has to do with what your oblivious tangent, I have no idea. Warriors have one now, and look to get an even better one in the future. Right now every class has a viable condition build … we get D/D sustain where after a long period of time the condition damage may eventually kill you if you don’t walk away.

kitten , read you lazy bastage.

As for the burning abilities themselves … they are also pretty lame considering the range and secondary benefits provided other classes. The only exception is Burning Speed.
FlameStrike, Dragon Tooth, Flame Burst – all lolz

Thanks for the circlejerk logic. I appreciate that.

In long fights you’re better off with condi duration. In short fights, you want all out damage with faster cooldowns.

Its more useful in duels, PVP and WvW. As a PvE weapon I almost never take it with me.