Guild Wars 2

Assuming in a big guild of 500 people, about 50 of them are major contributors to build the hall. If you have 5 people in your guild and they are all major contributors, it would take about 10 times the gold and time to build the hall. The hall cost is constant among all guilds, which is fair. Small guild should not have “discounted” cost over large guild. Recruit more of you want to lower the shared cost. It’s the way it is.

Many guild have reached max level by now (2 months since the xpac launched). If your guild is 1/10 of the size and if you plan to keep it that way, it would take 20 months, i.e, a year and 8 more months to reach the maximum size. Or about 1/3 that time, give or take 6-7 months to reach the half way mark. This is normal.

Juanpierre.8913:

I played for 2 months. […]
- Gear grind (I appreciate that in a game). Finally got to the point of crafting ascended gear, and I like the work involved.
[…]
- Masteries. I like the concept. But I’m new so I don’t have many achiements. The options for Central Tyra mastery points are all gated behind achieves- and ones that generally require grind. OK, that’s fine. Something to work towards. Problem is my XP bar for masteries is now stuck. That is incredibly unmotivating. Poor design, or a middle finger to new players. Either way, poor. This honestly is my biggest gripe with the game.

Hulloh? Contradiction here. You are a new player. Don’t expect to have the same amount of mastery points as someone who played for three years. Just do the achievements. They are easy. Not even a grind. Yet you call yourself ok with gear grind?

- Fractals. Dungeons look like they could be fun, but it seems that no one does them.

Not sure if you know how to use the LFG tools, but there are fractal groups in lfg every moment…

But I couldn’t get past the following:

- Exclusive focus on dynamic events in newer content. Whenever I go into a newer zone (SW or HoT) I get a serious case of “wtf is going on?” Disconcerting, and less than fun. I guess I could try to figure them out, but there’s nothing about it that makes me want to put that work in. The zones leave me feeling alienated and confused. Not much motivation to play in them.

- Ridiculously difficult open world PvE in HoT. I enjoy difficult content. But I’m used to it being instanced content. Fractals are fun and challenging. I hear the raid is hard as balls, which it should be. But when I die over and over doing the basic expansion content in VB, it’s not so fun anymore. And on top of it they make most of the way points contested so you have to run across the entire map to get back to what you were doing. Yes, I should be better, but I usually expect open world stuff to be more relaxing as opposed to instanced content. Not fun.

Um, maybe ask in map chat? Or maybe you’re not ready for the expansion. Look, the expansion isn’t going to be as easy as afk at world bosses and press 1 and grab chest. If you are used to that, then I’m sorry you’ve been taught to play the game the wrong way. Obviously then when you get into HoT zones you will be creamed.

But honestly ALL open world contents can be facerolled now. Even the raids are easy. Vale Guardian is now completed with 5 man instead of 10 on record and is consistently do-able with 8 people with 2 mins on the clock and that’s a bad team. Gorseval the second boss is now beaten with 8 people as well. Same for Sabetha the last boss. Open world in the zones are not even worth mentioning in term of difficulty…

My advise is go back to the core tyria and practice your skills in full berserker and try to learn the mechanic of the class while earning your mastery points. Maybe in 3-4 months you’ll be ready to go on the new zones

If you bought the game for $50 at launch and did not play it, it is your fault. Then when you look at the price today and think that charging another $50 for the expansion+core game is ridiculous, then you are unreasonable. AreaNet simply removes barrier to entry to all new players.

A new HoT player is not on equal footing with a 3 years old veteran. No way. Let’s not talk about all the restriction on free account. A 3 year old account can worth tens of thousands of gold in collection, dyes, ascended weapons/armor and legendary weapons. To even think that somehow you’re cheated that suddenly a new player that just purchased HoT is somehow magically equal to you is unimaginable. Yes they got both parts of the game for the same price while you paid twice. But guess what, you get so much advantage over those people.

I can jump into a raid whenever I want, can a new player do it? Nope, they better wait for a month or two before they can even attempt if they want to have a chance at it. Can a new player join a raiding guild? No, not if they are not sufficiently equipped or can play proficiently.

Can a new player craft a legendary weapon old or new? No. They’ll have to wait for months if not years down the road? Me, I have enough resources to cook up one or two or three if I want to.

Can a new player do anything as efficiently as I am? No, not if I’m also doing it.

Can a new player reach where I am at right now? Sure, maybe 2-3 years down the road?

By the time they reach my point, which is a few months if not years down the road, I would be hundreds, thousands of mile ahead still. There will be new raids, new weapons, new armor. I want them? I can cook up any any time. New players? They have to wait.

People speak of 3 years game play as if they are not worth anything. They are wrong, 3 years is A LOT of advantage for head start.

At HoT launch, I had a choice of buying a new account or add the expansion to my old one to have TWO accounts. But then I thought, well yeah, I don’t want to be a new player right now.

The gemstore sale is the bundle pack (gliders and outfit and stuffs) that costs 2000 gems. Great for Christmas season.

archmagus.7249:

Stars.2179:

Vayne.8563:

If the stats are the same, then yes, it’s not a new tier. Stop making up definitions to suit your argument.

I don’t think you understand how the game works. Equal amount of stats does not equate in equal effectiveness. Hence the ability to change the stat FREELY makes Legendary a completely separate tier from Ascended tier.

Here is a specific example:

In this picture. It clearly demonstrates that being in full berserker has effective power of 10159.12 while 4th column demonstrate a different scenario with Zerker/Assassin mix having only 9822.72 effective power. That is quite a big difference right? Now this is assuming you have all buffs.

You’re pointing to spreadsheet calculations here, not what you’ll realistically see in-game. There’s a lot of things which can affect DPS; weakness, chill, slow, just to name a few. Also, with a glassy build like that, chances are you’ll be using heal skills, and/or getting downed; those will also affect your ‘effective power’.

Some classes have traits which provide bonuses to Crit chance and damage as well, or provide a stat bonus based on another stat. This means you don’t have to run full zerker to get the max DPS

The spreadsheet is made specifically for elementalist. I forgot to point out. I agree with you that Necro and to some extent Revenant, it’s ok to sub in some valkyrie pieces. Otherwise all other classes should run Berserker, Berserker/Assasin Mix, Sinister, Viper, or Sinister/Viper mix. Yes even druid should be running full berserker.

There is nothing wrong with spreadsheet calculation. It is accurate and you can assume that. Effective power is effective power. It doesn’t change its value if you chilled, weaken, downed etc. Those affects your dps output which is proportional to effective power. So if you care about your dps output being affected by those condition, then learn to play better and don’t get those condi or down.

There is a reason why speedrun guilds like DnT (yes even after that RP debacle, they are still a respected guild), NA, SC, Vc, iQ, LOD already beaten the raid wing so quickly, heck some of them are even going so far as beating it with 8 man and sell the last 2 spots now.

And at the same times, those using Nemesis’ builds haven’t even scratched the toes the vale guardian. Oh wait, those people have to use what? the center no cc exploit to get it? Even then fail to kill it until like the 20th pull or something. Gorseval? Wishful thinking. So much for avoid being down by putting in vitality/toughness?

Nevertheless, you agreed with my point that you have to go out and change your sinister set to viper if you want to be optimal. Oh wait, the next patch they’ll nerf condi damage by adding resistance mechanic to bosses or they can simply cleanse it (just hypothetically here)? So sinister > viper, gg, time to change back, fork out another 200g please. See? That’s why legendary > ascended just by the nature of this function alone.

However, now, take a look at this picture.
If you miss out your spotter and/or banner of discipline. Then the 4th column demonstrate superiority to the first column.

Having legendary armor/weapons? BAM, change with a switch of a button. Without? Do you want to go craft 3 extra pieces of ascended armor / weapons just in case?

Vayne.8563:

If the stats are the same, then yes, it’s not a new tier. Stop making up definitions to suit your argument.

I don’t think you understand how the game works. Equal amount of stats does not equate in equal effectiveness. Hence the ability to change the stat FREELY makes Legendary a completely separate tier from Ascended tier.

Here is a specific example:

In this picture. It clearly demonstrates that being in full berserker has effective power of 10159.12 while 4th column demonstrate a different scenario with Zerker/Assassin mix having only 9822.72 effective power. That is quite a big difference right? Now this is assuming you have all buffs.

I keep telling anet devs this every time i have a chance but i guess they don’t care.

I would like to know if this is a bug or intentional as well.

BitterClinger.8490:

Now, it looks like we’re done. It seems there is no way to progress our guild, no matter how slowly.

Make some friends? There are tens of thousands of other players out there willing to help you. The only reason why you don’t have a way to progress is because you don’t want to (invite other people, make friends, etcs). It’s called an MMO for a reason.

4 maps, each map has 3 layers, so you are looking at potentially 12. And plus 4 new wvw maps. That’s 16. And 1 new PvP. New legendary, new professions etc.

Yup representing now is for the sake of representing.

1. Most 100% rep guilds have more than reasonable exceptions: personal guild banks, pvp.
2. Some guilds actually request that you do not rep them if you don’t attain certain rank.
2. You don’t have to join a guild if you disagree with the rules.

This was a bug. If you have Guild Stash and Treasure Trove unlocked before the Guild Mission thinggy update back last year. Then after that if you subsequently made the Deep Cave, the Deep Cave will be placed ABOVE the Guild Stash.

So a normal guild vault order:
Guild Stash
Treasure Trove
Deep Cave

but I have my guild vault on this order
Deep Cave
Guild Stash
Treasure Trove

I know i know I’m just OCD but it’s really annoying that you can’t change the order in which these appears. Soooo will HoT come with a QoL fix for this, pretty please.

Ohoni I know this is a little bit early but here you go:

Selling raid spot, 450g a spot (50g per raider) – Legendary Armor Precursor drop NOT guaranteed. We, each, will refund you 5 packets of salt, one in each item slot if you don’t get a drop.

#justkidding

On another thought,…. actually I was serious. Let me know

Vayne.8563:

dsslive.8473:

Stars.2179:

Actually, there are such thing is non-viable builds a well as game play. Just because Goku or Abe or Wethospu can solo the crap out of everything naked doesn’t mean other people can do it. There are such thing as non-viable way of playing for others and for them, sometimes it IS IMPOSSIBLE!

not sure if this was in reply to my response to the arah guy, but here we go

He already managed to complete arah once, so it’s not out of his reach, the thing is that it simply took too long (all dungeons are gonna take long if you’re doing the for the first time) Instead of sking for help or just joining a party and learning as he goes he decides it’s “out of reach” when it really isn’t. No one is saying he should be able to solo arah naked (i surely can’t), you don’t do dungeons alone, you’re there with a group and most of the times (from my experience) people are totally willing to explain the bossfights and to help (ofcourse there are exceptions).

So no, it’s not “impossible”, he jsut made the decision that it wasn’t worht the effort. And thats a totally valid decision, there are skins i like but i just don’t see it being worth the effort, they aren’t “impossible” to obtain for me though (and i’m far from good). It’s just me weighing their value agaisnt whether i’d enjoy getting them. I rather have fun , than force myself to grind or do something unfun for a skin. And that’s okay, i won’t get that skin , i move on.

Wrong or right, that’s the attitude of a lot of people. This isn’t a job, it’s a game. You play games to have fun. If you don’t find dungeons fun, you don’t do dungeons. If they make it so you can ONLY get rewards from dungeons and you want those rewards, you’re forced to do something you’re not enjoying, at which point, it’s not a game anymore.

Sure anyone CAN do it. I can go to the gym and work out too, but I don’t, because I don’t find it fun. The thing is, I have huge amounts of time to play so it doesn’t matter if some stuff I do isn’t fun for a bit, but people who have less time to play…it becomes a bigger deal. How many of these people are there? What is the threshold before they throw in the towel? It varies from person to person.

But it doesn’t make those people wrong.

Yeah but how do you balance it out if I only ever wanted to roleplay and run 50 laps around divinity reach every day and I don’t find dungeons nor fractal fun AT ALL. I HATE THEM but I WANT those skins ANYWAY. So should I be just get them without doing the appropriate contents?

Sorry, I forgot the hashtag. #Sarcasm. (I fotm 50 everyday and have one tonic XD)

Shoulda hashtagged it when I mentioned roleplaying tokens….

Actually, there are such thing is non-viable builds a well as game play. Just because Goku or Abe or Wethospu can solo the crap out of everything naked doesn’t mean other people can do it. There are such thing as non-viable way of playing for others and for them, sometimes it IS IMPOSSIBLE!

dsslive.8473:

Stars.2179:

I totally agree with OP. I don’t want rewards to be exclusive. For example
Fractals 50 are too hard and I want those fractal skins. But I can’t afford 4-5 hours a day grinding one fractal at time all the way to 50 then a few hundred more. What I can do is spending 50 mins on ACp1 and 30 mins on CoFp1 once day. Fractal skins is out of my reach. When HoT comes out I will quit the game if I can’t trade maybe 1000 ac and cof tokens combined for each fractal skin. Please don’t be exclusive.

When september hits, I can only afford about 30 mins a day on this game due to work. I don’t even know if I can grind out those AC tokens anymore. It takes 30 mins for path 1 or 3. What I can do I roleplay in Queensdale. Please let me earn roleplay tokens every time I type /e followed by a sentence that’s more than 100 characters long and let me exchange 10,000 role play tokens for those fractal skin please! Please!

you don’t need lvl 50 fractals to get the skins they can drop from lvl 25 and up (i believe). Source: guy who has half of the fractal skins and never completed lvl 50.

Considering fractal level 9 takes me 4-5 hours. , let alone higher than 9. This is out of my reach

I totally agree with OP. I don’t want rewards to be exclusive. For example
Fractals 50 are too hard and I want those fractal skins. But I can’t afford 4-5 hours a day grinding one fractal at time all the way to 50 then a few hundred more. What I can do is spending 50 mins on ACp1 and 30 mins on CoFp1 once day. Fractal skins is out of my reach. When HoT comes out I will quit the game if I can’t trade maybe 1000 ac and cof tokens combined for each fractal skin. Please don’t be exclusive.

When september hits, I can only afford about 30 mins a day on this game due to work. I don’t even know if I can grind out those AC tokens anymore. It takes 30 mins for path 1 or 3. What I can do I roleplay in Queensdale. Please let me earn roleplay tokens every time I type /e followed by a sentence that’s more than 100 characters long and let me exchange 10,000 role play tokens for those fractal skin please! Please!

On a second thought it might just been [shaolin] monks with BARE HANDS. (insert knuckles) – might call it “brawler” something

It’s [shaolin] monk with bow staff YO!

I mean… we have those [redguard] warriors with curve swords, CURVED sword. Then we have revevant with range hammers, RANGED HAMMERS! I mean then we have overloaded OVERLOADED warhorns. What’s the next crazy thing that can happens? OF COURSE it’s BOW staffs!

26^6 = 308,915,776

You have over 3 hundred millions names to choose from and yet you can’t come up with one? Urgh. And here is the audacity to force people to change names to play by your rule? ABSURD!

starlinvf.1358:

FoXX.4159:

Do you guys how hard it is to sort out what you need from milions of accounts?

Its a point system…. you can’t get much simpler then that. The flags are tallied into a total, whole number, which is then checked against a linear progression table. There is NO conditionals in the output that can possibly introduce an error.

This means the error can only occur in the setting or reading of the individual flags. Be it 1 account, or 1 billion, the template they use would be identical.

You clearly haven’t thought through the whole thing. May I refer to a CS101 course, it will help you understand the complexity of software development.

My guild bank is a guild of four accounts, all under me. So for all intent and purposes it has 4 separate people in it. I should have a way of getting a guild hall as well. Please don’t make guild mission a required thing. I should be able to get the guild hall and all its upgrade by logging all the chars on each one. Please.

DeWolfe.2174:

There should be a Spirit Shard to hero point conversion in game. That would make the discussion irrelevant to some extent. Also, make those of us whom have a metric kitten ton of them happy.

For those of you saying to just level or just 80, that’s not a solution. I have characters at specific levels for specific reasons. I had stacks of SP scrolls I could have used on them. And, had characters with everything unlocked on them. That was all removed during this update. At the very least, the Dev’s should have been crystal clear on what was about to happen so players could protect the investments they’ve made into their characters. Now, they should give us the ability to “fix” what they broke.

Hm, that could be a problem. I believe they announced it back in April/May that this system would come out so players have time to prepare. I did lose about 90 sp from this too but apparently my mesmers who are at lv 20’s didn’t lose their skills. Not sure what your situation is.

I believe that in general people will leave characters in the 20’s usually 23-28 for the silver doubloons or at lv 52-57 for opening champ bags for linen. And the 20’s are usually mesmers with Portal Entre/Exeunt unlocked for the jps. Not sure if there are other reasons to leave characters under 80 for other purposes.

Ashen.2907:

Actually I do know that a reset would have taken less programming because the functionality already existed before this situation arose. It has already been used by Anet in GW2. Zero additional programming is less than the programming needed to develop the build assignment software. 0 < 1 is pretty basic math.

Leveling does not dispel the problem because the problem is playing the character with a build that is not desirable or fun to play.

The system assigned choices are sometimes based on a character’s previous selections, and sometimes not. I prefer to think that it is random because the alternatives are that it is incompetence of malice.

No you don’t. It’s a new system. :P If you actually read, the quote you quoted noted that the reset was on the old system not the new one. Hence you don’t know if the reset feature needed to be modified and how much is needed. I suggest taking a few programming courses in college. It will help you understand more the software development cycle.

Ashen.2907:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Tombs of Knowledge. Do a little sPvP and you’ll get enough tombs to ding an 80 in no time. I’ve levelled 3 characters from around 35 to 80 in a few weeks. And I don’t play every day, or even for that long. Not only that its been raining ascended gear too. I’ve had 6 items drop. 3 armor, 2 weapons and a ring.

Honest question here:

Is, skip playing your character, really a good solution to a situation where playing the character has been rendered unenjoyable by developer fiat?

Neither ranting here is a good solution to your situation. Also at the issue at hand,
you skip the level, you don’t skip the content. Playing the content at lv 80 vs at lv 30 is similar due to scaling mechanic, AND you have the build you want. Let me point you the wiki page you can read about it more https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dynamic_level_adjustment
Unlike other MMOs, in this game, the level of your character as well as the extra stats from gears are scaled to the level of the zone/content you are playing to generate a similar feel.

Also pvping is not skipping content, you actually connect at a similar feeling with your character in pvp compare to that with pve. I suggest you give it a shot. ToK is a plus though ;D

I did have to open the training panel and retrain the rest of the skills / traits I didn’t put into my builds for 32~ characters. Then reset the appropriate traits. Thanks god anet gave me some of my skills / traits. Oh well. haha

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

It was a decision based on practicality, even though, yes, it conveniences a portion of the player base.

But the amount of time and energy it would have cost in programming time to create something that would fix the problem is actually greater than it’s worth to the game over all.

And yet it would have taken less programming time and energy to reset characters to zero than to program a system that looks at existing choices and then assigns a random selection that may or may not have any connection to those existing choices.

After all, the reset option already existed. All that would have been needed was a pop up directing people to rebuild.

The whole, “it would have taken more programming,” argument falls apart for the simple FACT that what people have asjed for would have taken LESS programming than what was done.

Your entire argument falls apart here. First you DON’T KNOW if the trait assigned to players are random. Second you DON’T KNOW if it would take less programming to reset than assign -not random- but traits that players have selected and taken out those that have over the amount of hero points the players have. Third, you DON’T KNOW whether the reset option exist. It did exist for the old system. But the new specializations are completely being redone. Things shuffled around. Each trait and skills assigned different amount of hero points, not just simple 14 points system anymore. THEREFORE, you DON’T KNOW if it would take less programming to reset.

It actually more practical to give players as best as the engine could the skills/traits that they actually SELECTED prior to the patch and for the traits that would EXCEED the amount they would have had – according to their levels and amount of hero challenges they’ve done – those traits would be removed and the extra hero points refunded.

So these players, who are complaining here, actually have CHOSEN their current build that they are “supposedly locked”. What they should have done is reset all their traits to 0 and remove all the utilities skills they don’t want on their skill bar before the patch. But then there was no way of knowing that but they should have known. But then how does Anet supposed to know players actually want a hard reset on all their skills. If anything I would say several people at level 80 don’t want that. And currently the amount of people having characters at 80 is more than those that don’t have any 80 by an overwhelming margin.

And as several people have said leveling will dispel the problem. Unfortunately it’s so hard to gain a few more level to unlock the other choices and so easy to come to the forum and rant yet ironically they’ll eventually just quit (which is fine) or start leveling and stop ranting.

Brandu, here are a few straight up fact for you:

1. Complaining here won’t give you any hero points nor reset your character hero ability. We are here to point you to solutions to HELP you. I’m not here to discuss whether it was a “right” or “wrong” decision from my nor Anet’s standpoint.
2. Getting to level 80 gives you enough hero points to unlock every core specialization and every current utility skills.

So you have a choice, either you are going to play the game or quit.

If you quit, bye!
If you are going to keep playing, get some more levels and/or do more hero challenges and the situation will resolve it self.

Didn’t I tell you guys? Here goes my post

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/June-23-stealth-nerf-to-critical-chance/first#post5204481

New record is 14:11. Looking to make it 14:30 or 14:50 or something.

I haven’t found a will to take picture post patch yet still working on theocrafting and stuffs. But here’s a pic pre patch :P

Ok guys, Teq is better now and a lot more exciting than ever before.

You just have to find the right parties composition for it. Here is the list of people you need.

Two groups of tanky warriors with maximum defense to block Teq at its head. Full sentinel equipment including ascended sentinel rings and accessories preferred but soldier sets will do just fine. Shout heals and all the good stuffs. Banners of defense and Battle standard to raise everyone’s defense and res just in case.

Two groups of ultimate tanky guardians, spec in healing. Shout heals with bow of truths. Bring battle presence and Force of will to further increase health and regeneration to the group. Nomad gear with superior rune of the water is highly recommended. Cleric accessories if you don’t have access to ascended nomad. Mace/Shield and staffs with all that good stuffs with symbols.

Two groups of backline elementalists. Staff preferred. Fire/Air/Water. Camp in fire, spam 1,2,5. Full celestial gears is highly recommended to full opportunity of criting teq from afar AND all that burning, not to mention to be able to heal the front liners! Spread out and place down some fire fields at your feet and blast it with arcane wave or something to give yourself +3 stacks of might. Don’t put them on the warrior/guardians because they will interfere with their symbols. Switch to water and place the water fields on the warriors and guardians to heal them.

Two groups of midline necromancers and all that poisons. I heard rampagers stat is good. Not sure.

One group of mesmers. Remember to spread out your time warps. Calling 1-5 is essential here. Also when the eles are too far away from the front line and the warriors/guard needs healing, put down portals for them!! Stat doesn’t matter so pick the most tanky set. Sentinels / Soldiers are good. Otherwise, just autoattack in staff.

Rangers! Take out your bears, preferably both. There is a brown version and a black one I believe. Use longbow and range from afar. Rampager stat is perfect for this. About 2 groups would do.

6 Thieves. Put down shadow refuge on the front line so the tanks can phase in and out of stealth while attacking Teq to confuse him. Otherwise, run back to the turrets and make sure the scales are low. Spam heal the front line. Gear doesn’t matter but if you insist, soldier is nice to survive and not as expensive as sentinels

6 Engineers. Place your turrets next to the turrets so your turrets protect the other one. Flamethrowers here is nice so use it. Sinister gear is highly recommended for the new uncapped condi stacks here.

Three extra groups composing of: 1 warrior, 1 guardian, 2 eles and 1 thief – the standard dungeon meta. The warrior and the guard will be tanks of course. So wear full soldier/sentinel. 1 ele will be dps ele and the other is a heal so wear cleric. The thief should use full berserkers. Your job is to defense North, mid and south.

With the new high spirit from ArenaNet, doubling Teq’s health, this team will be able take down Teq just in time. I believe all builds are viable and people should play the way they have the most fun with, though dividing people into groups like this will make it much easier than just stack and autoattack. This will take a little bit of practice but eventually we shalt defeat it again.

Kaz.5430:

[edit] also, wouldn’t it make more sense to complain about “non-transparency” tomorrow when they’ve actually posted the notes.

Aaaannnnnd it’s not in the patch note. Obviously, they don’t want us to know this.

Also, Anet, what’s the point of giving us +74 precision (1000 from 926) and then change the formula to take it away anyway? Is it to make the number look BIGGER?

So basically you don’t compensate precision for us at all for taking away the attributes from trait line.

The official formula is currently this one.

Also for those who are interested. The stats from equipment are as followed (in the format [Major, minor, minor, total infusion]

Old: [1087, 745, 745, 70] with the total being: 2647
New: [1382, 960, 960, 70] with the total being: 3372

The difference being 3372 – 2647 = 725

Everyone also gained 74 points from power, toughness and vitality and supposedly precision (but in fact not precision): so the total amount of stat compensated is: 725 + 3 × 74 = 947. Although Anet would like to claim that it is: 947+74 = 1021.
Precision formula change however make that realistically only 947.

However note that to some, this might not be a buff. It’s actually is a nerf.
If you remember, we had 14 trait points. Take guardians for example, previously we could dump 6 points into zeal to have +300 power, +300 condition damage, and 6 points into valor to have +300 ferocity, and +300 toughness. Then 2 points into radiance to have +100 precision. That is a grand total of 1300 points.

We have actually lost 1300 – 947 = 353 stat points after the patch in this example.

Well ok, it’s not that I’m complaining about anet nerfing crit chance. I’m complaining about the non-transparency when this kind of patch is getting out.

The idea is: previously, they said that all base stat (Power, Precision, Vitality and Toughness) got buffed from 926 to 1000, in compensation for removing the trait-attribute thing. Sound great right?

But in reality, they are buffing only Power, Vitality and Toughness and INTENTIONALLY scale precision back so that 1000 precision is still scaled with 4% critical chance. Yes, I would prefer this formula instead of dividing by 25 (oh god).

But the thing is this SHOULD have been mentioned when they told us about the buff but in reality they do not buff. In fact when everything is considered that the 74 points you missed out were part of your trait attribute that should have been compensated is now practically not there, it IS A NERF.

Source:

http://www.twitch.tv/purpleishawt/v/6461231

at 00:29

Precision 1664 :: Crit chance: 35.61 %

The resulting formula is: Crit chance = (Precision – 916) / 2100

The CURRENT formula: Crit chance = (Precision – 832) / 2100
Currently with 1664 you get 39.61 %

That’s a 4% nerf to critical chance given the SAME level of precision.

Taku.6352:

You should do maths before starting to throw hyperbolic claims around. And besides record runs already threw their guardians away a long time ago in favor of mesmer portal tricks but in everyday runs guards still have a staple spot since it allows everyone to play more relaxed instead of try harding all the time.

It’s stated above if you actually read and learn how to do the math. Guardians lost most their multipliers. 10% from powerful blades, 10% from radiant power, 20% from unscathed contender – which one would take master of consecration. It is at 1.1×1.1×1.2 = 1.452 which is actually a 45% lost in direct damage. Even if you count unscathed contender as only a 25% upkeep, it would be 1.1×1.1×1.05 = 1.2705 which is a 27.05% damage reduction. When I said 20% loss of damage, it is an understatement, not an exaggeration.

As for the argument that Guardian gain more power, ferocity and precision from gear, that’s true, but that’s the same for all classes which hasn’t ran 66xxx before, hence I put “relative” earlier. Other classes such as Eles and Warrior actually RETAIN their multipliers and got extra stuffs added.

Sure, because of the new gear stats you might see your damage unchanged or “increased” a little, but then every other classes has their damage multiplied by 1.2, or 1.3 instead of staying the same.

Also yes I agree that in record run nowaday guardians are already less seen but because what you said that guardians have something to contribute such as reflect and blocks and their damage is semi-decent that’s why you see many in pug groups. Now, guardians have the same things they have always contributed but their dps contribution will be pathetic compare to the rest of the other classes with the exception of possibly necro. Hence there are the more reason to not bring a guardian and replace it with a mesmer in meta runs instead, thus the POINT of this thread.

As for the trait Radiant Retaliation: the formula for retaliation is this:

Retaliation damage = 198 + (0.075 * Power)

In PvE, obviously Power > Condition Damage, now replace Power with Condition Damage

Retaliation damage = 198 + (0.075 * Condition Damage)

Obviously, the new retaliation damage would be lower, why would you even want to use it?

Linnael.1069:

I honestly don’t see it as a terrible change. Loss of damage mods sucks sure, but we aren’t losing any raw functionality. Numbers are numbers at the end of the day, and nobody is going to stop bringing guards because they do 10% less damage. SoA/WoR practically guarantee the guard a spot in any party without costing you on dps really, so I can see anet wanting to differentiate full DPS groups from supporty groups a bit more.

It is more like a 20%-25% damage nerf relative to all other classes had they not buff the other classes. With all other classes buffed, including necromancer – in form of condition damage buffs and rangers, it will feel over a 30% damage reduction nerf, not a 10%. Guardian is going from 4-5th place in term of damage down to last, probably lower than the Revenant.

In PvE there are already too many stupid pug groups that that has support guardians already, what nomad / cleric staff guards? This change will steer the general populace toward that direction even more.

Meta groups will just drop guardians and replace them with mesmer/chronomacers now.

So much nerfs. Anet, why? ( -><- means interferes, conflicts )

Zealous Blade -><- Binding Jeaopardy -> Nerf
Right-Hand Strength -><- Inner Fire -> Nerf

Radiant Power (10% flat damage increase to conditioned foes) -> +25% crit to burning only foes -> 10% crit to burning only foes NERF

Radiant Retaliation (Retaliation damage scales from condition damage instead of power) – Power base starts out at 1000, Condi dmg base starts out at ZERO, you need to invest an extra 1000 from equipment to cover the ground then more. You could just dump those 1000 into power to DOUBLE your direct damage and your retal damage, what’s the POINT of this trait anyway?

Symbol Avenger (20% dmg increase while standing in your symbols: seemingly a buff but it does interferes with ele’s fire fields!!!)

Unscathed Contender -><- Master of Consecrations

RIP Guardians for PvE 2015. Chronomancers ftw!

glehmann.9586:

I doubt they would go the route of trying to figure out which skill points came from what source.

Currently, you get, what, 76 skill points from leveling? And I think you’re supposed to get 400 hero points from leveling in the reworked system? So the points from leveling don’t convert 1-for-1, but the points from skill challenges do. So, if they wanted to convert skill points into hero points, they have to subtract 76 skill points and convert that into 400 hero points, then subtract all of your completed skill challenges from your remaining skill points and convert those directly into hero points. And since you probably spent all the skill points you got leveling on skills, they’ll have to refund all your skill points from your skills first. And what if you leveled a character to 80 before the NPE? Now they need to subtract 79 skill points instead. And if a bug crops up that mistakes a post-NPE character for a pre-NPE one, you start cheating players out of spirit shards they earned. And if a player spent all their skill points on mystic forge items instead of buying skills, what do you do? Do they get negative spirit shards?

Frankly, that’s a lot of work that doesn’t really gain anyone anything. It would be a much easier solution to simply look at a character’s level and completed skill challenges, and give them the appropriate number of hero points. Then look at a character’s unspent skill points and unused scrolls of knowledge, and convert those all into spirit shards. Fewer calculations and less possibility for bugs to screw up how many spirit shards a given character should have since the two sets of points will be considered independently, and everyone has exactly how many spirit shards/skill points to spend on mystic forge items as they had before the update. The only question at that point is whether you refund skill points spent on skills.

If I were a software developer at ArenaNet, I know which solution I would have pushed for.

This is the solution that I would have pushed for as well as what Ariyalana implies but that’s not the case here.

Rauderi.8706:

Simple stuff here.

Any item scrolls and any spare points left over for each character, are getting converted into currency. The difference between 200 stocked points + 200 scrolls and 400 stocked points is nil. It all becomes 400 spirit shards.

If the skill points have been spent, they’re gone. So if you bought your way into getting skills and traits, no refund.

The number of Hero Points will be based on level (5/level after a certain point, if I recall right), and one for each hero challenge completed. That’s it. As of right now, level 80 and 65 hero challenges is projected to be enough for all core competencies.

That’s not what Donari seems to imply here. What Donari seems to imply is that if you have 200 stocked points + 200 scroll points, you only get 200 spirit shards since 200 “skill challenges” will be subtracted out to become “hero points”

No body but the devs and insiders know. The trait-attribute splits screw up everything not to mention all coefficients are susceptible to changes as well. But if the sum of all attributes stay fixed (which is unlikely), you’ll get about 1104 extra attributes from gears to distribute among your stats, so yes your condi damage would likely rise.

Note: 70 1087 745 + 745+100 x14 + 4 × 926 – 4 × 1000 = 3751 attribute points to add from gear. The current gear system gives you: 70 + 1087 + 745 + 745 = 2647 attribute points from gear. 3751 – 2647 = 1104 points increase if the total attribute points is to be unchanged.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Stars.2179:

Ok ok let me summarize this:

There are two arguments here. One from Donari and one from Ayrilana

Please Read before you answer:

A character with 400 skill points: 200 points from leveling and skill challenges and 200 points from skill scrolls.

---

In Ayrilana’s argument: ALL these 400 skill points will converted into shards. REGARDLESS of the sources. Ayrilana says you will get 400 shards after patch. You also get 200 hero points

In Donari’s argument: You get 200 hero points and ONLY 200 skill points from this pool becomes shards (which sounds more fair – but to this later)

---

I ask this question because the reaction to which the argument is correct IS IMPORTANT.
—-
If Ariyalana is correct, everyone should be contend – no need to do anything (which is more fair)

If Donari is correct, then you SHOULD be USING ALL of the 400 skill points. (convert to mats) – why? because you will LOSE 200 skill points. You can’t even just use 200 skill points because you will be awarded ZERO shards.

Have you never purchased a single skill, or mat? I have something to the effect of 400 skill points in my pool. I will get that number worth of spirit shards and then some because I’m level 80, done all the skill points, and purchased every skill, and purchased mats. There is no chance that I have not gone well over capacity.

But, it seems that the answer is yes. It is possible in the current system to short yourself skill points. Only purchasing the bare minimum and using the rest to purchase mats. If you have done that and you consider the loss of those excess points to be a material loss, then spend them all immediately, so that you will be unable to lose them.

If you’re like me and don’t have unused points that are anything more than excess, then don’t worry about it, you’re not going to lose anything.

This is exactly the point. Yes I’ve spent skill points on mats, quite a few hundreds if not over a thousands. All 21 of my characters have full unlocked on all utility skills which is in the thousands of skill points spent and if Donari is correct which is likely, then I will lose about five thousand of supposed “excess” shards because they are not considered “excess” by the system.

And this applies to many people too not just me. If you, say have full world completion and level 80. Say you earned about 400 skill points total. And if you have 3 characters like this. You have 1200 skill points – which can be converted to money say 4 skill points = 1g (hypothetically). That’s 300g that will simply DISAPPEAR – if Donari’s interpretation of the situation is correct. Don’t you feel cheated by the system?

Actually if you’re crippled, you can now use leap skills or warrior greatsword 3 to get out of the way quicker. It’s a buff to mobility during fight. A nerf to mobility when you’re running yes a buff during fight.

Ok ok let me summarize this:

There are two arguments here. One from Donari and one from Ayrilana

Please Read before you answer:

A character with 400 skill points: 200 points from leveling and skill challenges and 200 points from skill scrolls.

In Ayrilana’s argument: ALL these 400 skill points will converted into shards. REGARDLESS of the sources. Ayrilana says you will get 400 shards after patch. You also get 200 hero points

In Donari’s argument: You get 200 hero points and ONLY 200 skill points from this pool becomes shards (which sounds more fair – but to this later)

I ask this question because the reaction to which the argument is correct IS IMPORTANT.
—-
If Ariyalana is correct, everyone should be contend – no need to do anything (which is more fair)

If Donari is correct, then you SHOULD be USING ALL of the 400 skill points. (convert to mats) – why? because you will LOSE 200 skill points. You can’t even just use 200 skill points because you will be awarded ZERO shards.

Donari.5237:

In that scenario you will have 400 points from being 80 and 120 challenges done. Those will be your hero points. Any skill points greater in number than you get from those will become shards.

Again, not a conversion when it comes to current traits -> hero points available. Look at your level. Look at your challenges done. That is what you will have to spend on the new system. Excess will be a conversion, from skill points you spend at Miyani to spirit shards you spend at Miyani.

So you’re saying I will completely lose all 400 skill points because these are not excess. Meaning I should be spending all these 400 skill points yes?

Ayrilana.1396:

Skill points, irregardless of the sources, are converted to shards. This does not affects skill points that have already been spent. Those ones are gone. Hero points are awarded based on your level and the number of skill challenges completed. If you currently have 65 skill challenges completed now, you’ll sit exactly where you are once the update hits.

I highly suggest reading the older article that explains all of this.

I would like a confirmation of this from the devs.

But according to this on a 3rd scenario: I have a character that’s lv 80 with sitting on 300 skill points and done about 20 skill challenges. If I go and do 100 more skill challenges now it will have 400 skill points. Will all 400 be converted to shards?

The devs never answered that thread nor answer that fundamental question in the new article.

This is confusing because – Aryilana and Guhracie say: “Yes they will be shards” but Donari says “Yes they will count towards shards if they are extra past your first time to level 80 + your 187 skill challenges. If they came from leveling and challenges and you just never spent them, then I think they won’t count.” Among your answers are disagreement! – That is why it is confusing!

How does it know if that 20 skill points are “extra past your first time to level 80 + your 187 skill challenges.”

A second scenario: I have a level 10 character that has 400 skill points by skill scrolls only (no tomes). Now I take that character and go around and grab 20 skill points from skill challenges and then buy an angur stone from Metani. It now still has 400 skill points. Will that character get back 400 skill shards? Or does it get 380 skill shards? I used 20 hero points for the angur stone, not my 400 skill points!

@Ayrilana, where is it in the article that says “all existing skill points will be converted into shards”?