Remember now Agony Slots and Infusion Slots are not standardized to one single Infusion Slot resulting in 18 (plus one – 19th Enrichment Slot in amulet) slots where you can put any kind of AR stuff. You can either go: for example into 18x +9AR +5stat (giving 162 AR) or 18x +10AR Agony Infusions (or to reach 150 12x +8AR and 6x +9AR) which is way cheaper if you don’t care about additional stats (up to +90)
I think the most recent trailer for S3 dispels any notion that raids were not a significant part of the next story arc (the introduction, in fact).
Hold that judgment until you play the episode.
Okay, but if the next story is about the White Mantle, then you have to agree that our introduction to them – as the antagonists and primary source of conflict – came through the raid.
Even if you choose to retell that in some way in living story, it was still introduced to the smaller group of raiders first – something that could have been avoided with a more open raid model. That is where the bad form comes from (again, if WM are a major part of the next story).
Oh no! White Mantle was introduced to large group of people who played GW1. Now they can know all lore behind WM and what is worse – if, we, GW2 players want to experience it we would need to pay for that by buying game! Shame and pay2experience-lore.
Seriously? Can we stop that madness and endless (also pointless) discussion and let each subgroup of community enjoy content without interfering with game balance?
Thanks!
Calculating all possible % mods:
10% Pyromancer’s Training
10% Burning Rage
20% Bolt to the Heart (under 50% hp)
20% Tempest Defense (vs stunned)
10% Harmonious Conduit (after overload)
10% Scholar rune
10% Food (Seaweed salad)
5% Sigil of Force
15% Grace of the land
10% Sigil of Impact
In best case scenario you would have (without sigil of impact):
1.1*1.1*1.2*1.2*1.1*1.1*1.1*1.05*1.15 = 2.8 dmg mod
with sigil of impact (2.8*1.1) 3.08 dmg mod – so in that manner sigil of impact would increase your base damage by 28% rather than 10% due to multiplicative nature of dmg mods.
Of course you won’t always have 5 stacks of GotL and HC lasts only 4s but as you can see it increases overall dmg way better at burn phase than sigil of air.
But it shines only at classes with lots of % dmg mods
And a big NO to making raids easy! They are good as they are and many decent players have been successful in there. We don’t need the last percent of content to be like the other 99% cakewalk.
I’m not saying that raids should be easy. I’m saying that the story-driven experience that raids offer should also be available to players that enjoy story-driven content but not hardcore, organized raiding. All Anet needs to do is add an optional story mode. It’s quite simple. If their content appeals to two distinct audiences, then it should be accessible to both audiences.
Again, there is no story driven experience. All story elements are available in a completed raid instance.
If you want to experience the boss fights, you still can (although you won’t necessarily beat them).
Making a story mode just seems like a massive waste of time.
Then why not when the final wing is out after x amount of time, introduce a completed empty (beat) version of the raid anyone can explore solo so you don’t need to bother people asking for a beat instance to go into.
There’s definitely no reason NOT to do that.
I mean a bunch of heroes cleared this area right? I don’t see any logical reason why you can’t just code an empty version of the raid that anyone can generate by running in the instance or something.
Because you’re lazy you want waste some developers time for that? I’d rather let them focus on more important things than adding something you can achieve by posting few words on lfg and waiting 5 mins.
Honestly I think all raid-whines will stop when LS3 will come. These people got huge 14 episodes of HoT story, finished it and now they won’t allow any other type of content to be released.
Other reason for whining could be as somebody said – “If I spend 100+ h on Silverwastes then I can get my Legendary weapon but I can’t do same with armor – lets make it simpler so I don’t need to put any effort in getting my shiniest armor”
Do some of you understand why people enjoy narrative game design? Why there are people out there who buy games for the story? They could very well stick to books and movies only (but they don’t).
Gameplay allows for very immersive storytelling in an unique way. It allows you to experience the story right within it, interacting with the world, with the characters/ NPCs and having to deal yourself with the dangers of adventure.
If your most intelligent suggestions are to “go to youtube”, “ask for a instance with gameplay cleared” or “ask Anet for a mode where all bosses have 1 health”, then you are clearly missing the point. You could very well tell them to ignore GW2’s story, ignore storytelling in videogames, stick to books and movies and play GW2 only for its “intended gameplay”.
I personally am not a hardcore raider. I can’t see myself ever raiding. However, the story that they are presenting in raids is really interesting, touching on subjects that players (especially from GW1) have been asking for years.
Yes, I definitely want a “story mode” for raids. Ideally, by having it work like Arah’s story mode: tuned for solo playing that scales if you invite someone else. Let us enjoy the raid’s storytelling at our own pace, do some of its explorable achievements (those that can already be done through “cleared instances”), a simple final reward at the end of it, and call it a day. And, who knows, maybe that would also be a good way to have more players jump into actual raiding.
Please tell me the difference between: 1) I enter raid – they are easy mode (with less reward) which scales and I can solo and 2) Boss have 1 hp so I can explore and if I encounter anything I just 1 hit it and continue exploring? As from what I see 1) is your idea on it and 2) is mine. And apart from boss fights how does it differ from using lfg to ask for an opener for cleared instance or just after some events?
It will not be necessary to play Forsaken Thicket—or any future raid—in order to complete Living World or expansion stories. Raids do not gate main story progress.
But do raids still gate raid story progress? Because I want all the story, both raid and living world, it doesn’t make me feel better that the gated content does not link up with other content. What we’re missing is a way for players who for numerous reasons aren’t part of the “hardcore raider” environment to still be able to experience the story, environments, and general content of the raids.
Oh I want dungeons to be more accessible so I can learn story of explorable paths but nobody wants me in party in my Nommad’s gear and got kicked because I don’t know where to stack or skip in Arah. I don’t have time to learn from youtube because I have 4 children and work 12h/day…
/sarcasm mode off
Obviously text above is not true but this is how I see people whining on how they cannot experience lore of raids. As somebody above said – you can ask for cleared instanced or look for opener after a boss but before cleared events between and there is no lore in boss fight itself. Moreover there are plenty raid lore related videos on youtube (like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WAzluW33sQ).
Btw I don’t say you are one of those players. I just generalize about that kind of people.
Sadly it’s far to 1st of April… then if I were ANet employee I would make 1 day option to open easy-mode raid instance where every boss and mob would have 1 hp so people can ‘experience lore’ as they cannot do it without killing bosses (without rewards of course).
How raid and non-raid lore will link eachother? We will see in LS3 as raid lore is brand new and there are no back-references (apart ref to GW1).
Agree with above however you need to remember that chests for daily fractals have increased rewards only when you have fractal masteries (I don’t know which part of reward do they affect).
This is what I use on my Condi Necro. I’ve done some math and it seems that Nightmare runes are bit better than Besersker’s one – but I’ve only calculated condition damage and skipped direct damage as it is quite low in comparison to condi.
I play chrono at raids and honestly it was a bit kittened to swap squad sub-groups to give them quickness and other boons. SoI is and will be still viable for quickness uptime. Now mesmer in raids will be optional rather than mandatory. The only argument I agree is that ANet have discrepancies in what they say: “we want less chronos in raids” – but now they change it that 2 will be required for full party quickness uptime.
About alacrity – imo it hurts burnzerkers rather than other classes however they should reduce mesmer’s cooldowns to keep his rotations.
Well of precognition is now total crap in raids…
Edit: Anyway, actually alacrity got nerfed by 37,5% rather than 50%.
