Guild Wars 2

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

A good melee Ranger is scary. IMO, a good Ranger, Ele and Engi are the scariest things you can come across

Yes. Melee rangers and mid-range condi/hybrid rangers can be very dangerous. It is very much a mind game. They can be tricky like thieves, but they can use hybrid builds more effectively. Like thieves, they can also get more evasion than most other professions, so a battle of attrition will often favor the ranger.

I would say they aren’t nearly as scary as a good Engi, and they probably aren’t as scary as a good Ele. But, a really good ranger will give you a run for your money if they are using the right build.

You do realize that the spawns have multiple exits, right?

Perplexity is annoying and really powerful in 1v1 fights. If you expect to fight a lot of Perps, then you NEED to be using condition duration reduction. It is also a good idea to have condition removal, but I prefer duration reduction due to how often a good mesmer or engineer will be able to reapply it.

Basically, your tactics is to block or dodge their Confusion attacks. If they are still applying too much confusion for you to handle, then just run away. You can’t really win through that confusion, which means that you either have to run away or attack during the times when the confusion is down. If you aren’t using condition duration reduction runes and food then you will probably have some trouble.

Also keep in mind that a lot of Perps aren’t actually that good. They basically rely on the strength of their runes to win. If you are fighting a Perp who is not a good player, try to attack them at an opportune moment. A bad player won’t survive long against an experienced player. If you can get them on the run or in CC you can sometimes turn the fight into your favor.

Someone mentioned that you have to kill Overgrown Grub to unlock one of the traits. That reminded me of that last time I was in WvWvW and someone was trying to get a group together to kill the grub. The chat went something like this:

Casual: Hey guys let’s kill the grub boss!
Me: Why would you want to kill the grub?
Random1: Go back to PvE, n00b.
Commander1: Everyone get to the keep!
Random2: Swords at keep!
Casual: We need more for grub, there’s only like 4 or 5 of us.
Commander2: If you aren’t on my tag, just uninstall the game.
Random3: Why are there a bunch of people fighting the grub?
Random4: More like, why are there a bunch of people dying at the grub.

I don’t think I’ll ever play another MMO that felt as “involved” as the first Guild Wars. Although, I don’t really consider the game to be an MMO. But, it was genuinely fun and the game rewarded me for experimenting and investing time in my characters.

I actually preferred to use SABway.

Menaki.6329:

And … we have the right to say “this cake is a lie” after there is no pie available anymore

I was under the impression that the cake was NOT a lie.

Then again, I’ve never actually played Portal.

Manasa Devi.7958:

I got 4 collections instantly upon logging on and I imagine I’ll get the honorary skritt one someday because it’s a funny title

Honorary Skritt is totally the best title in the game.

Vayne.8563:

A trait like the falling trait for each class they gate, because they don’t consider that something useful for low level characters trying to survive.

But, what if someone wants to do jumping puzzles, and they are really bad at jumping.

Actually, I almost never use the falling trait. The only time I remember equipping that was to drop off ledges in the Borderlands maps to survive a fall that would be fatal without the trait. It can also be fun to troll people sometimes by using the trait and falling off a ledge, and seeing if they will chase you and die because they don’t have the trait equipped.

Charleston Chew.1209:

I’m sorry to hear ArenaNet holds you at gunpoint forcing you to fill all collections. I wish there was something I could do to help you, hold your hand or something. #staystrong

Let’s all hold hands and repeat:

There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

Bluefox.9580:

I wish Mesmer stayed in GW1.

At least they can’t completely shut you down like they could in the first game.

Engineer
Guardian
Ranger
Mesmer
Elementalist
Necromancer
Warrior
Thief

CureForLiving.5360:

]
They QQ when it’s too hard, they QQ when it’s too soft, they QQ when the sun comes up :P

This is true.

You can have as many axes as you want if I can get my Dervish or Ritualist in this game.

CureForLiving.5360:

Actually I use the cultural armor for leveling my alts, so that at least at level 35, 60 and 80 I don’t have to worry about my equipment too much (granted I don’t buy duplicates but I also only have 1 character for each armor type per race).

I usually only get the cultural weapons on alts.

Rem.9627:

I would like to say that if the content was the challenge and not the drop rate, it wouldn’t be a grind more than a skill issue. What they did with Tequatl was OK not the best…but IMHO it should be harder with a guaranteed drop upon completion.

Except that everyone was QQ’ing about how Tequatl was way too hard.

I don’t even pay attention to tags in PvE.

Dirdyy.1648:

The GWVCHA “Guild Wars Veteran and Champion Association” fully agree with the OP.

We will call a unfair labour practice strike in the next few days.

I think you need to petition Arenanet to increase the minimum wage. You deserve at least one Masterwork item on top of whatever loot and champ bags you currently spawn with.

Vayne.8563:

One of the problems with the old system that annoyed me early on, was that I was getting 1 skill point per level, but I needed to buy 6 point skills at that point and it was like really?

I actually liked that system. The fact that I wanted more skills was a motivation to go do skill challenge. Now that I have no idea what level I get skill points, the motivation is to just go to skill challenges just to even get tier 1 skills, much less the tier 3 skills.

The 1 skill point per level made it a lot easier to judge when I would be able to unlock certain skills. I also felt like I was actually getting something for each level, whereas now I really don’t feel like I get anything unless the clicky-click UI at level-up gives me something shiny, or I happen to reach whatever level gives a dump of skill points.

I much prefer the old trait system, as well. Not so much because I got something at every level, but because I had access to traits earlier and I could build on that over time. IMHO, cramming the traits later into the leveling process actually hurt progression in the game. It is more convenient with the respec to have 14 trait points instead of 70. But, I would have preferred to start getting trait points at around level 16 or whatever the equivalent level would have been to keep the gains the same as what we had before April. It also meant that lower levels were more useful in WvW mode, whereas now low levels are significantly weaker.

Silentsins.3726:

Eh, they just changed it to how other MMOs do it already by tying skill unlocks to levels. The difference is that other MMOs give you at least 2-4 skills immediately, while we’re stuck spamming 1 through the intro… bleh. That’s 10 minutes just running around letting the autoattack kill things for you, 20 (ish? dunno how long it takes a completely new person to hit level 4) with essentially 1 button to press, then however long with 2 buttons to press… that seems really, really boring.

I think that’s one of my main issues. Guild Wars 2 has so few skills to begin with, and now our skills our gated. You can go play any FTP MMO and start with at least one or two skills, and get a new skill every five levels, with at least as many if not more skills than are in Guild Wars 2 and no limited action bar.

Labjax.2465:

Pratfaller – Complete every Jumping Puzzle

I fixed it for you.

Berk.8561:

I think the bigger problem in WvW is rallying off of kills, which makes beginning players, uplevels, and players with weak builds a liability. Without rallying off of kills, it wouldn’t matter so much if a weak character on your side died. That’s the part that really needs to be changed.

I can’t tell you many many times I’ve seen groups wiped because two or more opponents managed to rally off one of our guys. It’s really annoying to have several of their players down, and they just all stand back up because of one of your guys died.

Most of the serious WvW’ers I’ve played with rarely if ever go to EotM. The only reason to go there is to get sick WXP if your server is dominating so much that they don’t need you in the real WvW maps.

HardRider.2980:

WP WHEN DEAD! -.-

That’s usually what I do.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Sokia.3710:

LordByron.8369:

(something far Beyond the most grindy mmorpg ever existed)

I’m sure there’s some Korean MMO’s with more grind.

I dunno, given how many grinding wheels I own in FF14 . . .

I’ve never played FF14. But, with the way you describe it, it sounds like that game has a lot of grind.

As far as Guild Wars 2, we already knew that it had a huge Gear Grind. I saw someone doing it when they added How To Dance Volume 1 to the game.

Even reviving someone who is merely downed reduces effectiveness if that person gets downed frequently. This particularly hampers timed events or difficult events where failure could happen. If someone has been defeated and there is a waypoint close by, they NEED to waypoint and run back. It takes way too long to revive a defeated player unless they died out of combat range. If you are defeated and sitting right next to a boss, nobody has any reason to try to rez you even if they can do it without being pounded by attacks. It simply takes too long to rez people unless you can get out of combat.

The only time I would rez a defeated person is if the closest waypoint is FAR away. Other than that, you’re on your own. If I get the opportunity maybe I can save someone when they are downed, but if they get defeated I’m not rezzing them. There really is no reason to spend all that time and lose all of that DPS to rez a single person who could get back up FASTER by waypointing and running back to the event.

It’s a matter of game mechanics. There are no rez skills in this game like in the first Guild Wars. You can’t just bring someone back after they die. If people are unable to or choose not to bring you back up when you get downed, you should waypoint and run back to the event. That’s just the way that it is. If you can’t survive the encounter without being downed, you should consider using more Toughness or more defensive traits and skills.

LordByron.8369:

(something far Beyond the most grindy mmorpg ever existed)

I’m sure there’s some Korean MMO’s with more grind.

Vayne.8563:

Osculim.2983:

JCROY.5730:

chemiclord.3978:

(Additional note: the simplification of some heart quests was… humorously poor. Were people really having so much trouble with “see cow, grab bundle, feed cow?”)

besides the fact that I agree with you on this…
I am SO gonna steal this from you as my new Signature..“see cow, grab bundle, feed cow?” LOL PRICELESS!!
tnx for the effort on the new levelling stuff

You do know why the cow bundle was removed right ? If you don’t then let me tell you. The lazy key farmers used the bundles speedbuff to run to the story quest at the bandit cave and thats why not because it was to hard to do the quest

Not sure that this is the case. In Plains of Ashford the removed the cattle prods from the cow event as well.

The cattle prods were removed because keyfarmers were using the cattle prods to get to the Tela Range story instance. You didn’t think only humans could keyfarm, right?

(and, just in case it wasn’t clear: sarcasm)

Vayne.8563:

I ran a store at one point with between 40 and 50 employees. I had five guys that were amazing. I mean really really awesome. I had another 10 that were good. There was simply no way to find another 30ish people who were as good as the main guys.

The Pareto Principle. That’s pretty much true in everything, though, not just in business. The same is true in science where the greatest breakthroughs can often come from a select few geniuses without the help of and often even in spite of their colleagues.

It’s actually quite common to have a few people pulling most of the weight. That happened at one of my previous places of employment. You’d have eight people on the floor, but only three of them would be doing any of the work. The other five would goof off unless you had someone to babysit them. But, there rarely was anyone to babysit them because many of the shiftleaders and even managers also didn’t do very much. So, unless you were lucky enough to be scheduled with a shift leader who made sure everything ran smoothly, or there was a manager there who would actually address any serious issues rather than pretend to be busy, you basically had the majority of the workforce doing little or nothing.

Some of the managers were even worse than the shift leaders, because they would literally do nothing when they were out on the floor. They basically just looked important and got upset with you for not being able to keep up with the workload, even if everyone else was goofing off and you were the only one trying to get anything done. So, some of the managers never really did or helped anything unless they were doing management work in the office or there was an issue that needed a manager’s attention (and even then, most issues were the result of work not being done by the employees who would goof off if nobody watched them)

It’s pretty common for a small number of people to be holding everything together. At that place, it was basically two managers, one shift leader, and three or four people on the floor who kept everything running on a daily basis. I don’t know about how efficiently things ran off the floor, as I never worked in the other departments.

At one employee meeting we even came up with an idea to elect one of our most competent coworkers as an unofficial floor leader who could give an overall direction for what the team should be doing at any given time. I thought this was a good idea, since that’s what the shift leaders were supposed to be doing but they rarely ever did. The management didn’t think it would ever work.

Zoso.8279:

When playing my thief I tend to notice sometimes some ranger skills stay locked on me even when I’m in stealth.

That has nothing to do with acquiring a target. That has to do with the way channeled skills work. Channeled skills activated before you go into stealth will still track you while you are stealthed. I used to use this a lot on my ranger. Back when Rapid Fire had a really long activation time, I would use it right before a thief stealths. For the next several seconds, I knew exactly where the thief was because my arrows would track him.

Vayne.8563:

I have a working theory. But it’s just that, a theory. I’d have to do a lot more testing to see if this is what happened. Anet didn’t believe people could make their own builds so they made certain traits they saw as advantageous to leveling very easy to get (like the chest in Kessex which anyone can do), and put the ones that were much less beneficial (on average anyway) behind harder targets…trying to guide people to the easier stuff that might help them right away.

That actually makes a lot of sense.

Tman.6349:

#AnetPlzHireMeForCheap b/c your balance and QA teams are clearly overworked and/or doing heavy drugs.

The latter theory would go a long way to explaining how the 9/9 patch got released in the state it was in.

Behellagh.1468:

Yeah I know. There are a couple of adept traits for thieves which are similarly heinous. They should have made all the unlocks at the level or below where you can slot that trait

I have no idea why they would even make it to where you need to go to a higher level area than the level that it takes to get enough trait points to get that trait tier. That is hilariously bad design. How did that even leave the brainstorming room?

I will agree that the targeting system in this game is horrible. Targeting in the first Guild Wars was easy because you rarely had much stuff to target in the first place. But, in this game you have huge zerg WvW battles with tons of targets, and clicking on them isn’t always easy. I rarely ever clicked anything in the first Guild Wars, but in this game you almost have to click in some areas because the number of targets is too big to cycle through.

Is this bug really still in the game? Arenanet had a lot of bugs slated to be fixed yesterday, and I figured the golem bug would be a priority along with the experience bug.

That would be pretty troubling if this bug is still happening.

Lord Kuru.3685:

A lot of people fall for Anet’s illusion of content patches. That’s why they keep doing it.

It’s because Arenanet is a secret group of mesmers. In the first Guild Wars, we had Illusion Of Pain. In this game, we have illusion of content. Very soon, we will see the unleashing of the Mesmer MASTER RACE since the Inquest failed to conquer Tyria with their superior Mark II golems.

The Mantra Of Pain buff is only the beginning. Very soon, you will see the true power of the SCEPTER.

Shogun.8649:

Didn’t know if things stacked.

I think everything stacks, even symbols. The only thing you really lose is Aegis, because it stacks in duration and not intensity. So, if a bunch of guardians use their Aegis skills at the same time, you’ll get a really long lasting Aegis that will still only block one attack. That’s one thing to watch out for.

The other thing that I don’t think stacks is their F1 skill. I’m not sure how it stacks, if at all. I would guess that it might stack in duration, but I’ve never had a good opportunity to test it. So, multiple guardians popping their F1 skills probably won’t help any. But, for most other things, you shouldn’t have much issues playing with other guardians. So, basically it’s your Retreat, F3, and F1 which are likely to be crippled the most.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I think the big one is Speed/Traveller runes.

And Candy Corn, though that’s less reliable.

Oh, I see. He’s saying that he made money on stuff like Speed/Traveler runes. That actually makes a lot of sense, because if they made it to where boons are removed when you enter golems then it means that Speed/Traveler runes would be one of the few methods left of increasing golem speed. Before, we would just exit the golem and stack a ton of Swiftness, then hop back in the golem. But, one of the patch notes said that you can’t do that anymore.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think unlocking any trait should require group content. That is to say no dungeons, no giant grub in WvW, no taking a tower even.

I agree. I don’t necessarily mind a challenge to unlock skills and traits. I mean, some of the stuff in the first Guild Wars was pretty annoying to unlock for me. But, having to do things which is basically impossible to solo just to unlock fundamental skills and traits for my profession is very discouraging. Fortunately, you can just buy traits from the trainers.

I can solo a tower, actually. But, that is with all of my traits almost completely unlocked, and hoping that the enemy doesn’t notice me catapulting the wall down before I even get inside the tower. Nobody who isn’t already level 80 with access to a lot of traits and at least exotic gear is going to be able to solo a tower, and even if they did it would be luck that they were able to kill the lord before the opposing server came to defend.

Aicus.3174:

First, the sword auto attacks locks players into the attack animation for too long and too often

Us rangers have been dealing with that for…. two years.

Why do you think I use Greatsword?

Someone said that you could get around the problem by making it to where you don’t autoattack, but you actually press the button to attack. They said that it helps. I’m not sure exactly how. But, I’m not willing to destroy my 1 button and my finger just to be able to dodge. So, greatsword it is for me.

Vayne.8563:

Yep, Anet really dropped the ball on the trait unlocking thing.

The main issue that I have is that some of the traits need simpler tasks to unlock. Difficult events or events which require a group, and things like mapping are a bit exsessive just to unlock a single trait. And, Obsidian Sanctum? Seriously? Is that really a requirement for one of the traits?

I mean, even capturing elite skills in Guild Wars 1 sounds less tedious, and some of those capture points were way out of the way. But at least there, you only had to kill a single monster and not uncover the entire map.

phys.7689:

the NPE doesnt end at level 20, you still have skills locked out, the trait rework is actually also part of the NPE.

I agree. The trait rework is basically just an NPE that we got back in April. So, really, the NPE lasts up until you reach level 80.

Zaxares.5419:

Dear hated adventurers,

You killed Momma! Why you kill Momma?! Rrrraaaaagh!

Sincerely,
(Dead) Bear Cub, from Queensdale

Sorry, cub. Momma bear attacked me while I was farming copper ore. I’ve got to have my copper. Nothing stands in the way between me and the COPPA

Fernling.1729:

I definitely missed this update. Was this well received?

Not by me.

chemiclord.3978:

I suspect that opinion will change once I hit 30. I haven’t really attempted the trait hunting system, but I know I loathed the elite skill capping of GW1, and this promises to be even more obnoxious.

I never saw why the GW1 system got so much praise. It was nice having a huge number of skills that created a huge build diversity, even if a lot of those potential builds were bad. But, capping skills was extremely tedious. I usually just went to PvP to earn faction to unlock skills so I can learn them from trainers/tomes, because it was usually faster for me than going out of my way to cap skills, especially if those skills were from a boss in a hard to reach area or mission which could sometimes be a headache to get to.

The idea of capping skills was interesting, I suppose. But, the sheer number of skills in the game made it tedious. Fortunately, quite a few skills could be learned from trainers or quests.

Capping elite skills, or even just capping any sort of skills, was my least favorite part of the first Guild Wars. Once I capped several skills, there was really no sense of adventure or reward for capping more skills. It just felt like busywork that I had to do to try out some skills.

Fernling.1729:

I’m missing something here… You only have to unlock a few of the top traits, right?

You have to unlock every single trait individually, except for Minor traits which still function the same as before.

Jana.6831:

Sokia.3710:

Jana.6831:

I’m usually only in wvw, but then again I should farm some soft wood.

The borderlands maps have soft wood.

Try to survive in wvw as an uplevel =)

True.

sirian.4981:

So far so good. I recently doubled my money by investing in an item that boosts move speed on siege golems(WvW tourney skyrocketed the price).

Wait…..WHAT!? I thought with the NPE patch they also made it to where boosts no longer affect golems. Or was that only for common boons like Swiftness?

I seem to remember reading in one of the patch notes that they removed a lot of effects on golems that you could get from using skills/traits before entering a golem.

Jana.6831:

I’m usually only in wvw, but then again I should farm some soft wood.

The borderlands maps have soft wood.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Behellagh.1468:

nirvana.8245:

As a veteran starting from complete scratch, starting out in this game is extremely intimidating. It is so much harder to level now. It is ALOT more costly. And everything that was once free, is now a cash sink. If I wasn’t a veteran of the game, I probably would give up as a new player.

Please elaborate. What is a cash sink that was once free?

Traits, actually.

Traits were never free. It used to cost a little over three gold to unlock all of your traits.

However, traits are significantly more expensive than they used to be. It takes much longer now to unlock all of your traits, regardless of what method you use to get them. If you buy traits from the profession trainers, they are significantly more expensive than before. If you try to unlock the traits by doing the tasks, it takes significantly longer than just farming a few gold pre-April and buying traitbooks.