Guild Wars 2

I find it funny how moderators probably would have shut down nothelseth’s threads if it was anyone else but they just come in and give warnings.

I agree with the feedback. Seems like I just need to learn to follow through better as in get better.

Situation: How to finish off an actually good mesmer as condi war. Tier: Mesmer who plays with competence and awareness in a 1v1 situation.

Required: teach me what do in the window where I am not at advantage or how to get the kill very fast when the mesmer panic kites

Scenario: How to force kill a mesmer (that actually knows how to play) as condi war after forcing skull grinder after blurred frenzy ending. Mesmer will panic and die (bad mes) or kite and do mini jumping puzzle long enough to stabilize. Swapping great sword and chasing does not gib a good mesmer and staying on mace I can not catch up. Good mesmer recovers and comes back with cooldowns, before mine are back and has advantage for 30 sec provided the mesmer does not make big mistakes he has a good chance of beating me in this time period.

Well people always saying GW2 will never be an e-sport. The changes to ranked matches not having full premade teams cement this as fact.

List of problems to ponder, unrelated to problems with the game mode:

-We are not going to see any new teams form that can play at a competitive level

Reason 1: competitive matchmaking (ranked) does not allow full team queues. therefore a team will never grow in skill required to be real contenders. We have some proof of this by the one team that entered the tournament made of last seasons top legendary leader-board players that suffered a somewhat humiliating defeat.

Reason 2: Heart of Thorns has shown that one cannot be competitive without having access to all trait lines. Would be pvpers that only care about pvp will not want to spend $60 for the latest expansion to get into the action, at this point in the gw2 cycle. As the game has aged this price to entry puts a barrier to new capable players to become contenders.

Reason 3: Difference between players in the highest percentile of skill and those matchmaking provides is too wide. Top players will not want to scrim and train would be contenders because they want their pay cheque from anet. The same subset of players have been winning cash prizes this along with system adverse to creating competition is not looking good for growth in GW2 e-sports prospects.

This is not an exhaustive list but it if I were management at Anet there are two options available:

Seeing as Anet is not capable of producing a matchmaking system that is favorable to the masses and to the production of e-sport caliber players a decision must be made. Management being profit oriented and about saving face has limited options.

Option 1) Increase spending on e-sports and attract players from other games. Can be done by increasing prizes or talk to people who know people in the E-sports with some secret sponsorship money. There are ways to get talent usually involves money. as discussed before GW2 incapable of producing e-sports quality players anymore. high risk limited reward potential.

Option 2) Grab your finance and accounting department create projections on what is the most efficient spending on their failed e-sports to save face or continue for it to be net positive for Anet. Low risk, limited cost, potential cost savings or efficiency generated.

Conclusion: GW2 e-sports cannot organically be a thing anymore. Current top players happy to take Anet’s money without caring about gw2 since its easy money due to lack of competition.

How Anet can provide a plausible explanation as to why Primordious has not caused a chain of volcanic incidences or seismic instabilities crippling all life on Tyria. Within the game there is considerable proof that Destroyers are capable of agitating volcanoes. This is shown in mount maelstrom and in the ring of fire islands.

Now we must ask the question why has there not been any significant seismic activity or volcanic activity in Tyria over 250 years. It must be due to one of the following reasons: Destroyers have not figured out how to purposefully cause earthquakes. Primordious does not want to cause a mass extinction event. Dwarves are still keeping the Destroyers at bay. Primordious does not understand causing volcanic activity would annihilate Tyria. I believe this list covers the most believable reasons as to why Tyria isn’t covered in ash.

Time to examine the plausibility of each scenario, there is little evidence to support Destroyers are capable of causing significant seismic events. For example, Mordremoth somehow tunnelled half way across Tyria with vines and never caused any seismic events. Various tunnelling species such as dredge Wurms do not cause seismic events. It is safe to say creating vast tunnel networks in subterranean Tyria does not cause seismic events for some reason. It does not matter whether it is true in real world science or not but the fact that there is consistency in the GW2 universe is enough. Therefore I conclude destroys currently are unable to cause seismic activity in any meaningful way.

Primordious may not want to cause a mass extinction event. This could be due to various reasons one of which is causing a war between Elder Dragons. It has been shown that Elder Dragons have no desire to cause direct conflict between each other. Another reason could be Primordious living things are in some way important to the Elder Dragons diet thus should not be completely wiped out.

Destroyers could be actively attempting a Doomsday plan but are unable to due to dwarven intervention. This theory seems increasingly less plausible. Significant time has passed with dwarves believed to be fighting the Destroyers without other races help. There is no in game evidence to my knowledge showing any of the known races currently aiding the dwarves. Ogden is in the surface helping the Orders. Our second encounter with a dwarf is Rhoban whom is in broken state. He informs us that all his friends Dwarven buddies which were three are dead and the devices designed o stop the Volcano Islands from erupting could not be activated for this reason. Therefore it must be that there are not many dwarves around to fight the destroyers as compared to the past or that more recently the Dwarves can no longer hold against the destroyers.

Primordious has no idea that agitating the Ring of Fire volcanoes and the Shiverpeak volcanoes could cause a mass extinction event. Destroyers have been shown to have goals and to act in an intelligent manner to achieve their goals especially when guided by a champion. When closely examine the destroyer intelligence is very linear and goal oriented. They are capable of organizing themselves and performing coordinated attack but lack the ability to think critically. Zhaitan for example was able to raise legendary historic figures to command and think critically for him. Primordious due to his selective corruption of the inanimate and things or things lacking the ability for higher thought impairs the Destroyer’s ability to enact any complex or scheme. I find this reason the most plausible and thus dub Primordious the dunce of Elder Dragons

TLDR: Primordious is the dunce of Elder Dragons he cannot think critically.

I think Anet got what it deserved. Just pointing out a very important fact, Anet was warned about their lack of account security. Who ever did this repetitively exclaimed, Anet has bad security. If anyone bothered to read the screenshots of what the hacker said while using the account, they would know.

The hacker did what is right using the wrong methods because nobody would listen. Now Anet has reaped what it has sown. They deserve it for ignoring an important issue brought to their attention months ago.

Sucks for Gaile but if Anet actually listened to the community this hack would have never happened (Either she did not do her job or she was ignored by management which would mean she did not lobby enough to do her job effectively).

When Anet does actually listen to the community they listen to the wrong segment of the community. Example go to GW1 guru to instead of Top GW1 guild forums for balance. They made HA 6v6 after consulting pve community in GW1, it killed HA so bad they had to revert it back to 8v8. This is just one example of how Anet implement changes with input from the wrong segment of the community another is example WvW community being decimated by Anet’s incompetence.

Do not forget recent unwanted changes because they no foresight such as the GoB changes in GW2, due to over rewarding badges in WvW. Anet has a long standing history of screwing up their games. Luckily for them GW1 was an amazing that their poor management couldn’t kill until they released gw2 and ceased to support it. GW2 is also a good game yet they continually make questionable choices.

Conclusion/TLDR: Gaile or another employee had it coming. Kind of appropriate that Gaile was hacked though due to being the community liaison not being able to lobby enough to get serious security issue fixed. Anet has a long standing history of listening to the wrong segment of the community when making decisions or not listening at all. Anet was warned about this security threat months ago. The hacker even laments over the fact he was able to do what he did. Anet was warned their failed CS protocol implementation. Good Day, now maybe you Anet will be embarrassed enough to take action.

I still can not queue for pvp does not show dishonor as the reason. Anet chicken scrap code very sad. I am sure the reason is because the game thinks I am in queue but i am not clicking leave queue makes me leave the lobby.

I just had gw2 crash into the launcher screen twice in a match. I got desertion and point loss. I want it back, why do we have to suffer for Anet’s chicken scrap code.

Well many agree Gift of Battle (GoB) changes were not good for players. Especially bad for us people who never read about the changes but those already have their own complaint topics.

The real problem is anyone who wants legendary items will never complete any reward track other than Gift of Battle. For example, if rumors of requiring 1 (GoB) per legendary armor piece is true obtaining a set will require 6 (GoB) 3 sets of legendary armor that means 18 GoB. Want to have also set of legendary weapons get 2-6 more (GoB). Therefore if you want to craft some legendary items forget that any reward track exists except (GoB), for you other reward tracks may as well not exist as they would never have time to complete them. At 8.5h under ideal settings the farm for GoB is in poor taste for non primary WvW player. Even for WvW player they are having to forgo other reward tracks such as Triumphant which could require completion 6-18 times and with the addition of new Hero Weapons thus more reward track completions to get their WvW exclusive items. This problem does not exist for PvP players as Gifts are not locked behind 1 PvP track (Classic Anet add content then then do something that functionally makes said content not exist eg. Post nerf dungeons pre buff tokens)

We are going to assume that the type of player that crafts legendary items is typically not a WvW heavy player or has WvW in the past but no longer does. Reason’s for this assumption WvW players do not make enough wealth to craft multiple legendary items without profiteering of the Trading Post.

Who does this change benefit? It certainly does not help the WvW community by forcing angry PvE players into WvW grind. It Does not help new players as it does not matter if they had badges or not. What it does is hurt vet players who were not ready for the changes. Oh it helps rich players flip legendary because they are more time expensive to craft on the Trading Post thus new legendary prices will reflect the increased time cost to craft.

TLDR
Conclusion: This change helps nobody except anger many players. This does not help WvW community as PvE players will maximize their personal utility at the cost of the server or semi afk, they certainly wont play WvW as intended. Does not help new players. Does not add to legendary item prestige that has been gone ages ago. Potentially helps very rich players flip legendary items due to increased value due to time investment to craft.

Someone tell me a useful logical reason for this change. What am I missing
Solutions:
1) Revert changes-Anet admits this change was stupid
2) Add GoB to any WvW specific reward track. Besides WvW players do not get enough rewards anyway. Anet saves some face and makes pvp reward tracks somewhat relevant.
3) Get (GoB) on gaining wxp ranks as a special chest. This helps keep reward tracks relevant and easier to balance when the (GoB) is awarded. Anet admits it was wrong but still for some illogical reason doesn’t want (GoB) with badges.

Best Solution=1
2nd=3
3rd=2
Worst Solution=Ignore the problem

Your argument about value is silly. Note that only people harmed are the people that obtain the item only because its rare not because they want it. This item has high relative value because as you said some people will throw it away others “OMG”. This item has a value of 0 or priceless since it is not available for sale.

Wanting an item because its rare is a poor mentality. If we can agree on this, then as you said most people will bank theirs but the people that actually want one for using it will be happy. Thus making an item that is account bound and super rare is a bad idea. The consumer of the item will never obtain the item and the others who randomly obtain said item can not sell it. So actually Fractal Tonic currently has very little value other than being rare drop.

TLDR: Items being only valuable because they are rare and account bound is poor design the end user can not obtain the item and others cannot sell the item to the end user for a profit.

Reminder to Anet: Fractal Tonic is an RNG based account bound item that is as rare as a precursor. It is also gated behind a one chance per day mechanic. Please fix the drop rates or add other ways to obtain one that are somewhat reasonable.

At first I was not going to bother responding to your critique but I believe there is some hope to get my point across so I posted. I will address you on a point by point basis

-Nobody has factual evidence on a scale to prove anything except someone who can data mine anet’s logs. What we can prove are only things based on our experiences in game.

-On meta builds: search and rescue druid as I briefly explained is not a build that can carry a team to force wins. resurrecting a bad player means hes going to die again faster than search and rescue gets used or you get countered while using search and rescue by good player. I will not go further in detail I am not writing a thesis on why res bot druid is bad. What I will say res bot druid not good because you get destroyed when outnumbered by competent players or in team fight if focused by ppl with ports. Resurrect druid will not make wins happen when you are behind. Where as a good Mesmer for example can make a win happen with a good portal play. A good elementalist on a team with no elementalist will increase the teams chance of winning if he can support mid and not let it get capped regardless of teammates deaths occurring the point stays decapped until it can be contested again into another fight. A druid not wasting utilities on SnR and not in clerics can force wins by being one of the best 1v1 builds thus forcing wins on side points and rotating in and out scoring points increasing likelihood your team wins.

-On point 3: People do not have low MMR for no reason. I will concede if it is true new players starting in low MMR and not some average number as bad design. Having low MMR means you do not meet the games expectations of you. You can get out of so called MMR hell in 1 of 2 ways. Team Q or play well enough to beat expectations unless someone can prove the expectation system is deeply flawed which I have yet to be shown. If a player can not do either then they will get stuck is that fair I think so is it fun no it is not and perhaps Anet should do something about it.

-On positive win ratios: This ties into being good enough to carry to some extent or not being dead weight to your team. If you are better than 50% of the population playing you should have more than 50% win ratio. Thus over time you will get needed wins to become a legend. if you are this good but not winning because of MMR system. You need to start performing above expectations in matches, score more points to be where you should, which is hopefully in a place where you are on the winning 50% of the population.

-It is pointless to keep blaming your team for losing under the current system. The system expects you to rise up out of the hellhole that is low ranks and be deciding factor in your team winning or to perform above expectations to get better teams.
-the world is not fair but in GW2 there is are underlying systems that generate what is perceived as unfair. Long time players do not have low MMR or negative win ratio for no good reason. So if you have low MMR you deserved it for not performing well enough. If MMR should be reset at new leagues is a different debate and maybe it should to make the game more fun for certain people. Unlike the world GW2 success is a much greater degree in the hands of an individual. As in playing builds with potential to swing games and make plays, performing better than expected, and gaining in skill.

-To address your points of deserving I will point out as much as I hate to Helseth is going to carry someone he found who believes he is skilled enough to rank up but hard done by the system on a brand new account (IE low MMR) while I will be the first to admit there are a few flaws in his methodology what it will at-least prove if you are good enough you will rank up because you deserve it and will earn it because you are a deciding factor in games and/or queuing with a good player is enough to rank up. On another point Helseth plays Mesmer a known good player and as I have stated before a good Mesmer can steal games. I am very sure He will succeed in ranking up his adopted player.

There is no such thing as MMR hell. I do not have factual evidence but I have anecdotal evidence based on my experience.

1) You play trash build res druid is a bad build. especially vs good players that can and will counter you if they have the right cool-downs
2) I got stuck near the end of ruby when I was about to get diamond I’ve lost only 4 games until t4 ruby. I knew I was destroying enemy team as I could win most 1v1 and 1v2 or 1v3 in emerald and less so in sapphire consistently. I got stuck t6 ruby for what I believe was longer than I should have due to bad luck.
3) I noticed I lost because bad team compositions. once you reach ruby unless you can still carry hard and be a one man army like before, builds start to matter. I realized I could not go in outnumbered fights and win without my team rotating all the time.
4) I have a positive win ratio: Thus i knew I would leave ruby eventually and I understood why I lost when I lost.
5) Do not blame the system even if it is flawed in spite of the system the people who deserve to rank up will rank up if they play enough.
6) If the game feels completely out of your control it means you do not have sufficient skill to carry which I have felt at several times also certain builds have the potential to swing games more than others. Your build amplifies a team but can not carry it.

Possible conclusions
Conclusion 1) Maybe You belong where you are.
Conclusion 2) Play a better build.
Conclusion 3) Your analysis skills are lacking and holding you back from improving at the game and seeing the truth behind your losses.
Conclusion 4) If you deserve to rank up you will be enough of a factor in your games to push wins.

TLDR: We have pro players trolling and match maker that puts pros with baddies in the same game. Fix unranked matchmaking and we can have real games

unranked match making is just bad I do not understand how it works. I have Helseth my team trolling on mes. one baddy and the rest mid tier or higher players.

Story:
I tell a friend to go watch his stream to understand what Helseth is thinking. He bad mouths the entire team before the start of the match just because of their names. I realize he is trolling to boost viewer ratings.

Match proceeds we have 1 noob player. other team has a good thief, Helseth gets farmed by the thief. Thief spends half the game farming Helseth. He is trolling playing mes and not playing well. Thus we get kitten fests of pro players, good players, average player and baddies all in one game. This is why unranked is bad. the game was lost when other team caps bot buff in temple and we could not recover. The level of play was much higher than the video he uses to show how bad unranked is but it still lead to a bad game.

PS: I bring up Helseth only because you used his video as example could have been any other supposed to be good player or pro mixed in with players mixed in with players from each end of the skill spectrum.

Cat theory not entirely correct cats do communicate each other with body language to signify if they want to be friendly or not to each other when forced into each others territory. I do understand what you are trying to get across but reality there is no 100% animal instinct there are forms of communication that trigger certain reactions. So it stands that there is a form of communication between ED setting up territory that is respected to a degree.

I am inclined to agree with your sentiments on Zhaitan. It gives a better feel when the ED is more anonymous. Also i would not be surprised if in fact Jormag is the way you describe it to be. He does not seem to care much for his followers other than a means.

Anet has created a issue which they have to resolve now they confirmed that ED are intelligent enough to understand consequences of actions and communicate. Anet has to either come out and say all ED are megalomaniacs for some reason or come up with another reason why they are the way they are. They are past the point of being portrayed as forces of nature. They have shown to feel emotion and a degree of critical thinking. ED characters demand to not be as linear and more complex based on the direction Anet is heading.

Mordremoth was and will probably be the most talkative ED. It may be a poor design choice for ED to interact so much with Tyrians.

Reasons:
If an ED is willing to talk that means it recognizes what is talking to as worth speaking to. If they are supposed to be incomprehensible that does not work. It humanizes them too much. which lead us ask why has no ED empathized with the things it is crushing. Glint does not fully count not an ED and it owed its freedom of mind to lesser races.

If ED willing to talk other than to play mind games it proves we are a threat to them. ED were marketed as “more powerful than though”. It is understandable that ED may talk after we killed an ED but Mordremoth just too talkative.

lastly if someone can be communicated with they can be reasoned with to an extent. As of today no reasoning attempts have been made. This probably ED not knowing how to negotiate or unwilling. Seeing as ED do not go into each others realms it means they do know a form of negotiation among each other. For this point I conclude ED are all jerks that value their lives.

Good story writing is not always about making new events more epic than the past. If this is done the writer will quickly find the story becomes nonsense less believable losing impact. This is why when a story climaxes to a high point like it has in GW2 it is good to explore secondary plots that poke emotionally at the reader. Example other dragons could do some devious things that make the reader have to rethink our perspective (moral truths, shocking revelations) This could also include good character development arcs, world and lore building. If any of these is executed well the story can go on without it feeling poor because of previous events. Other Dragons can be threatening in different ways (Not in power level).

It would be deeply interesting actually if Jormag engaged in economic warfare. It would open up strange plots alas this is too far removed from GW2 narrative. I doubt such a thing would ever happen in an Elder Dragon plot. Typical corrupt Sons’ of Svanir do not care much about anything but slaughtering in Dragon’s name. This is referenced for HoTW. I would like to see a fan fic of Elder Dragon Economic Ware-fare.

Sell heroes of Tyria Legendary weapon mats but buy all DR’s wheat. Beware the power of the merchants of Jormag. As added bonus you can make Sous-Chef Seimur Oxbone turn to Jormag because of promises of gold.

TLDR: I only have problem with how the plot ends with going behind enemy lines every single game to win with no deviation. Tired of being Tyria’s Commando Squad.

Zhaitan seems to be a slight exception like Prophacies. GW1 plots were the same with Shiro, Abaddon and great destroyer. Prophecies was more complex bigger plot but also included the going behind enemy lines plot

You are right in that it follows typical plot of heroic quest. I think Anet needs to deviate from this. Especially with the part about going behind enemy lines with your crew. Every single GW game did that. Why do we always need to do the go behind enemy lines. For example, why not have a plot where we just have no idea how to win and are forced to fight the foe head on. No going behind enemy lines we kill the minions at great loss and we brute force the antagonist shear grit. Or another example allow/force said antagonist to come out and fight due to reasons. They surely can vary the final part of the formula. They do vary the plot in between the first 3 steps.

Does it not bother anyone else that Anet resolves its plot the same way each GW game for the major antagonists?
1) What happens each game there is this enemy something bad happens to drive hero to do something.
2) Go find out who the bad guy is and/or how to beat’em up.
3) Get means to win
4) Go behind enemy lines and exploit weaknesses researched in earlier parts.

Post would be huge if i summarized each games plot. The above is what the plot boils down to for the most part every single GW game. Especially the part about going behind enemy line with your elite crew of heroes to eliminate the antagonists. GW plot always solved the same way.

The better question of who is the strongest Elder Dragon is: Which dragon given the same resources would be the strongest? As proven by earlier discussion Elder Dragon powers varies by access to food and length of activity.

Therefore we should look into the powers of each Elder Dragon and their weaknesses.

Bubbles not much information on it other than it drove Largos Krait and Karka to the surface. Karka being fairly strong species lends credit to Bubbles capacity to be powerful but hard to rank.

Kralky created the dragon brand but we should consider that all Elder Dragons seem to do great feats on their awakening. so we will discount this. Kalky beats glint in combat. Considering that GW1 heroes best Glint in combat that does not make him seem strong. Karlky’s minions do not seem to have overtly oppressive features that make them threatening over other dragon minions. The Dragon Brand is said to be expanding by npc. I consider this a plus to Karlky power level. If it is expanding then Karlky corruption is dangerous in that it grows expanding his area of influence indefinitely. Kralky seems to have vulnerable mind and vulnerability to his own body.

Primordius in theory has very threatening minions when compared to other dragons. They are a hive mind based army therefore highly effective in army based combat provided destroyer leading them is a good at commanding them. Destroyers are literally made of some kind of magical magma lava stuff. Lore wise that means attacking destroyer with weapons should make your weapons melt. Destroyers in GW1 were fairly oppressive to fight and tough to kill. In GW1 this is seemingly retconned. Destroyers forced almost the entire Asuran race to the surface. In theory Destroyers are dangerous foes. but with their downgrade in GW2 not so sure. Supposedly Dwarfs are still fighting destroyers underground. That is a hit on Primordious because of his lack of success in winning. Conclusion Destroyers are contenders for most dangerous minions, in theory.

Zhaitan’s power level is hard to peg. In theory he had access to very powerful people to turn into risen. Legendary pirate commanders, magically adept Orrian priests, etc. In the end we did not see this translate into military power tactically. Zhaitan did not win any key engagements against the pact and eventually got killed by a laser designed to kill him.

Mordremoth very hard to kill. We sort of kill him dues ex machina style near the end in the mind duel. If there was no access to the dream to defeat his mind. It is theorized he cannot be killed without wiping out every Mordrem creature capable of being its vessel. Mordremoth itself demonstrates a high degree of intelligence and sense of purpose compared to other Elder Dragons based on presentation. He himself destroyed entire pact air fleet along with the Sylvari he corrupted. Mordrem guard act intelligently with some semblance of military tactics. They are still not considered on par or miles close with us the pact commander in military strategy.His minions are semi dangerous. His corruption methods are not much more pervasive than other dragons given the resources available. Conclusion Mordremoth itself if anything neigh impossible to kill without access to the Dream. He seems more intelligent than his peers.

Jormag is interesting one his corruption method is fairly passive. The sanguinary blade though is anything but passive if it can be demonstrated that Jormag can corrupt in this process in a larger scale or his minions produce more blades. It would not bode well for Tyria. Jormag lost a tooth to a powered up Norn. since no comparative analysis for how powerful that Norn was compared to other things its hard to judge this event. Jormag’s primary minions are Norn. Lore wise a Norn warrior can defeat an entire Charr warband. So in this fact Jormag’s primary minions are fairly dangerous individually.

Based on these facts. I would Say most dangerous minions goes to either Jormag 2nd to Primordious. If more information comes out on Bubbles he might be up there. Mordremoth wins hands down on being hardest to kill as he is neigh impossible to kill. from Zhaitan and Mordremoth it has been demonstrated that it takes entire armies + technology to defeat an Elder Dragon itself. It is hard to judge which Elder Dragon is the most powerful in this sense but from what is seen in game Mordremoth’s avatar seemed the strongest of them all based on known dragon information. We should note though that Mordremoth is well fed in this instance.

You are right in the fact that due to magic existing Tyria has had little reason to advance technology. The Charr not wanting to rely on magic spurred an industrial revolution. Tyria has a woking understanding in these areas.

-Astronomy
-physics and magic
-mists
-metalurgy
-no idication of reaching modern age technologies

Alchemy can refer to potion making both chemistry and magic.

Average citizen in guild wars is probably not that smart humans are probably the least educated. Sylvari seem to have a standardized education from the pale tree. Norn they are norn they do not actively seek to produce modern technlogy or advanced magitech as a society Norn are educated by the family and possibly seek it out if thats what their legend to be based on. Charr have standardised education system and most likely includes engineering lessons for some Charr. Asura have colleges average asura probably most educated.

@kalavier: I think your theory of mesmer collective policing such activity has some credence but we also have to look at society in guild wars universe.

TLDR: If mesmer could manipulate people effectively society would actually fear them for what they could do but they do not. I pulled evidence in reference of how mesmers are treated in society to show they do not have the capacity to shape events on a grand scale.

In most of Tyrian history mesmers are respected members in the theatrical community. pre-searing GW1 you see mesmer trainer near an amphitheater. Norgu is a respected actor. These examples show mesmers are never feared for what they can do but loved. There was no historical reason in general to fear mesmers. When we compare historical social hate towards necromancers who pull souls unwillingly into undead and constructs they get a lot of hate. I can cite Verata’s cult which used forbidden practices to further minion research. There not many easily cite able cases of mesmers doing activities such as political manipulation and puppeteering.

Further cases showing Mesmers are not partaking in mind control activities. If mesmers were mind controlling for influence, how come historically the leaders of humanity often are martial professions. there is no evidence of mesmers pulling the strings people close to the leaders were often not mesmers either. Only recently have we got leader that is a mesmer. Also note that countess Anise in the story mission where she uses a mesmer clone of herself at a party the reason nobody notices is because Canach is there scaring off everyone from interacting with the clone. Canach realizes that it is a clone after a couple of minutes and begins actively behaving in a manner to drive people away. This shows that people have potential to see through mesmer magic with proper insight and this is why we are not ruled by mesmer overlords.

Shiro chosen as the emperors bodyguard rather than a magic profession. Shiro being one of the most powerful assassins ever can gut any magic caster in seconds at the first hint of magic use. It can also be argued that the demon that tricked Shiro into killing the emperor with magic. the real trigger that made Shiro kill the emperor was the a series of odd event changes in the proper way the ceremony occurs and the fortune tellers influence. The fortune teller is probably the only true example of mesmer manipulation to shape events and it was not 100% mesmers doing. There was also little proof magic was involved in the cutscenes

Now you could argue mesmers brainwash people to not know about these events but I think that goes into the realm of pulling evidence from thin air.

I will address and quash a few points.

1) Mesmer’s can not do all the stuff people say they could potentially do mass scale stuff=death as someone said quoting books. To be honest even though some mesmer stuff is canon its poorly written. the fact that gw2 world is not run by mesmer puppeteers proves you are wrong. Even if it is implied some things as possible does not mean they are.

2) Liches are not your average necromancers. Liches in gw2 are made by magic rituals and certain situations and artifacts. (liches are super rare) So using liches to boast necromancer capabilities is wrong. Khilborn became a lich after reading scroll in arah that caused a cataclysm nuked the place killed the charr turned him into lich. He also got more powerful when he got the scepter of orr (controls undead and titans). They are also hard to kill. in prophecies you had to kill the lich on the bloodstone to suck his soul into the soul batteries. Ossa did not kill joko after defeating him because probably hes also a powerful lich and hard to kill.

Martial classes are the weakest based on historical feats achieved. magical classes strongest. Its hard to argue which is the strongest but we can reference materials to get some clues. We also have to note that magic casters are not rare in Tyria neither are martial professions. Therefore it is safe to assume martial classes are competitive enough with magic users.

We also have to note commonly held belief that martial classes use at some level magic to empower their attacks to be devastating as they are.

My take on it is magic professions may be able to do things on a cataclysmic scale given right conditions. 1v1 a powerful magical class could just lose for example Turai Ossa beats Joko.

Its a hard question to ask. magical users may be able to do some epic things but when bearing down against a powerful martial class they could easily be decapitated.

There is suicide in GW2. There are two examples I can think of off the top of my head. One is Malchor. Commits suicide because he could never see Dwayna again. He also suicides again as a ghost. Eir also was going to commit suicide in a Norn way.

“Hail, mighty hero!

I don’t know how to tell you this, but I am afraid that Eir Stegalkin has been in a dark mood of late. Apparently her recent meeting with Zojja has affected her badly, and I (and others) are afraid that she plans to do something rash, to “go out as a hero”. I have heard this from Caithe, who has been following the norn northwards into Frostgorge Sound. There, a great sanctuary ship of the kodan, the Honor of the Waves, is floundering, as a result of the attacks of Jormag’s minions. Both Caithe and I fear that Eir is looking for a battle too big for herself, and I said that you would catch up with them to help Eir.

Please attend to this at your earliest convenience,

—Your Herald"

GW universe has some actually more disturbing things if you think deeply.

You know nothing! GW3 will pick up terminator parody story from GW1 in which charr send robots from the future to kill Gwen. We will get Commando class and it will be more OP than ele and mesmer combined.

you guys are kind of off topic. The point is how do u counter play a the skill when the entire team revolves around it. The mode conquest is about holding points Unyielding anguish=100% chance to cap even during full out team fight.

Unyielding Anguish: creates a field that teleports foes away for 4 seconds that cannot be entered even with stability.

This skill enables tanky compositions to get ahead by full capping any team fight and drag it out to get ahead in score. There is no counter play to the skill itself. Sure the revenant is investing a lot of energy but the team supports him in his celestial gear until full cap then he swaps to offense mode. The revenant is not going to die neither are the bruisers.

When combined with elementalist ring of fire this skill will cause instant stacks of burning potentially more if targets disoriented and moving when the port happens.

There is no role for pure bunker.
Point form analysis:
-Defending bunker does not have dps to fend off determined cele build or zerker who just wants to kill your guards. The bunker dps not enough to kill door breaker waves either after guards die. Will be useful in lord room if its full of npc.

-Offense lane: You need damage to either destroy treb or take out guards before defense can do anything. If enemy concentrates on npc and you have advantage dps builds will just kill enemy then control supply and get back on offense again.

-teamplay and hero caps: guard in general is useful in team play if bunker or not. but bunker lacks mobility and may not be able to join in a timely manner but if and when there are team fights bunker is useful for support.

-Depot control: players will just ignore the bunker and take their supply.

conclusion: Bunker has too many negatives and not enough positives. Other builds can support and move faster than bunker. Being able to kill things solo quickly is important bunker can not do that or drive away players from anywhere in the map but lord room.

Golem Event Price Shocks, Golems!
I am curious what John Smith has to say about this.

Hop into World vs. World between July 17 and July 24 to experience our newest special event, Golem Rush, where siege golems are better, faster, and stronger!

During the special event, all golems will be supercharged and have the following effects:
All siege golems in WvW no longer require supply to construct.
All siege golems in WvW will deal 100% additional damage to other golems and players.
All siege golems in WvW will move at 100% additional movement speed.

Seriously bad economics to shock an item double-triple price in a single patch. Anet probably wanted to remove all the duped golems out of the economy but shocking the tradepost like this is bad practice even though its going to be short term till the event is over, but soon golem prices will be almost merchant prices.

Conditions are applied before boons are removed when they are corrupted. This causes stability to never cause fear. Boons need to be removed first then conditions applied for fear to work.

@Hybrid: I watched both video’s and barely understood what was happening in each one. I read what you typed and that i could understand.

TLDR-Rebuttal: This is not a personal attack. I believe there is value in what you say and some of it may be worthwhile additions if balanced and used properly. It is not our job as players to make the game but the developers. My opinion is it doesn’t matter if a game is hard or easy but how fun it is. Designing MMO to cater to Hardcore crowd is counter to MMO business model. If you want to play something with stress inducing difficulty there are other genres of games.

There is a push and pull in GW2 between Casual and Hardcore (for lack of better word) For example highly experienced group can do lvl50 fractals in less than 40 min where as complete casual run could take 1.5 hours. Here in lies the problem the game can not be balanced in difficulty to please Hardcore crowd. Reality is no matter what encounter developers design it will get beat unless its not beatable. The best solution is to make GW2 mechanically fun. To iterate, there is no point in making an encounter only 100 of 100,000 can beat in an MMO. It is a waste of resources to make content 1% of the community will see or beat for an MMO developer.

There are many ways to make challenging content. The questions always are how challenging should the content be? Will anyone enjoy it?

TLDR Conclusion: No good way to make challenging content in GW2 because its either does not fit for MMO or to punishing for the average player to have fun.

A list of ways to make more challenging content and insight:

No waypoints full wipe=fail: This is very unforgiving especially if combined with other ways to make content challenging. It only hurts newbies as they are more likely to fail than veterans. Spending more time is already punishment enough according to Anet.

Dodge Tax: Dodge/move or die encounters such as Subject Alpha. Once players learn what to do it becomes muscle memory. No longer challenging.

Split Second Decisions: Attacks that require a high reaction time. If you ever attempted to solo Lupi with lag or high ping some of his attacks occur way too fast to react to without predictions. Guild wars is an MMO and not a twitch game so this mechanic is not appropriate.

Give all enemies CC: They did this in old Orr and they removed it because players complained. Something about being CC chained did not sit well with the majority of the community

Give enemies GIANT HP pool: Already happened when fractal 80 was a thing all it did was make completion take longer.

Infinite spawn mechanic: Already have it in dredge fractal and cliffside. People hate dredge fractal spawns mechanic so much they came up with every exploit possible to skip.

Create fast and hard hitting enemies with varied skills: Already exist in Molten Facility. Making enemies with more synergy and abilities as veterans would just make it a requirement to have a blind bot in the party. This would be against GW2 design philosophy.

Adding mechanics to augment game-play: We have this plenty of it. Seems to me the only way to add enjoyable challenging content to the game. The only problem with it is it gets stale.

Increase AI capability: Out of Anets budget/scope from what can be observed.

In conclusion: No good way to make challenging content in GW2 because its either does not fit for MMO or to punishing for the average player to have fun.

I am glad somebody else knows war reflects are OP. Same thing can be done in volcanic fractal vs grawl shaman first form I did it couple times low levels. Captain Ashym much harder to fight GS phase due to having more attacks. The whirlwind and AoE can sap so much hp really fast, nice video. I saw you respecting his whirlwind and keeping your distance, good man. Grawl shaman hits for a lot less and takes longer. That FGS damage crazy though always has been.

If playing necromancer versus a thief that never commits you will never win. The thief will also be unable to kill you for at-least 40 sec and an extra min if you pop plague form during when cool downs are off. for every min you survive you can survive another min because you would rotate all cool downs again.

Advice for condition Necromancer:
D/P thief that stealth spams, You must never play at their pace. if they stealth kite 3 seconds stealth runs out if they chased that means they are in range and you can cc and attempt to kill. You can not win against a good thief by honorably standing there waiting to get back stab. If the thief does not want to die you probably wont win but they will not be able to kill you. If they get mad and make mistakes you can win.

Blind spam thief: All your necro skills are slow and clunky to use when a thief is in your face and blinding you. Solution dodge the blinding shots. and counter with a conditions they will have to stealth or lose. while they are in stealth swap staff and lay low cooldown marks kite around them. they have to either dodge triggering the marks giving advanced notice for you to dodge a backstab of which you should have kited out their stealth duration so they can not do it again. if in tight spot ds 5 and 4 before fearing because those skills will consume your blind.

Dire condition thief: You win by outsmarting the thief. Having plague and spite signets gives you the highest chance of winning/scoring the kill. always try to land hits they will skirmish let them blow a few cool downs use putrid mark or dagger 4. they will pull back if you hit them and spend valuable condition removal. next engagement land spite they will have to burn all remaining condition removal. now let yourself get condi bombed and land plague sig they will die. If they ever use perplexity runes use your plague sig to bounce confusion stacks when they are attacking you. plague signet can be used at any time that you have sufficient amount of condition stacks on you in the rotation of cool downs. Do not use your heal to cleanse unless the theif has stealthed away and you can not bounce your conditions away. using your heal makes you susceptible heavy skirmishing tactics.

sword/evade thief: It is all about timing you must hit them between evades. You win or lose based on who plays better. if they skirmish a lot you may have trouble but they will not be able to kill you in a reasonable amount of time kite to friendly territory.

Table contents
Why Tyria Has Not Been Desolated
Requirements for Doomsday Scenario and Tactical Victory
Doomsday Scenario
Tactical Victory

Why Tyria Has Not Been Desolated
The most important question if Primordus can wipe out all races in Tyria why has he not attempted to do already? The answer is simple the right circumstances have not occurred. We are able to infer based on current lore that the Elder Dragons themselves are probably as intelligent as an average human in Tyria which means they have the capacity to act intelligently but do not because they lack knowledge and to not pursue it. If Primordus can produce a lieutenant that can act tactically and systematically he would become the most dangerous Elder Dragon

The only instance found of Primordus obtaining a sapient minion is the Imbued Grawl Shaman in fractals and that is technically not canon in open world. According to Ree and Jeff Grub Primordus has the potential to obtain sapient minions like Jormag via similar slow corruption method.

Primordus in particular of all Elder Dragons employs the least intelligent minions because his personality is not conducive to generating and obtaining them unlike Zhaitan who corrupted Orrian royalty and some great military commanders.

Requirements for Doomsday Scenario and Tactical Victory
Primordus grawl fractal events happen and the newly imbued Grawl tribe sacrifice more intelligent races into corrupting lava pits producing a minion with enough scientific intelligence or military knowledge to lead the Destroyers on world extinction campaign.

Primordus Doomsday Scenario:
Provided the right circumstances and logistics, Primordus can use destroyers to agitate major volcanoes to cause mass extinction of all terrestrial races. The simultaneous eruption of many volcanoes would cause the world to be filled with ash wiping major parts of arable land in Tyria ensuring long term victory by making it impossible for advanced civilizations to thrive. Short term any volcanic activity near civilized nations would cause cataclysmic results crippling said nations. Therefore if the doomsday plan ever successfully starts Tyria is screwed.

Tactical Victory:
Under the guidance of an adept military commander Destroyers would be neigh undefinable in guerrilla warfare. Destroyers have shown that they currently dominate subterranean Tyria. with over a century to expand and takeover previous underground races’ tunnel networks and build their own they have the capacity to to strike anywhere in Tyria. Using these networks the newly recruited military leader would employee scorched earth campaign of resource denial with little fear of retaliation from the races’ Tyria.

Divinities reach may be heavily fortified but surgical strikes on its farmlands would cripple humanity due to food shortages. The Asura reside in Metrica which is dense in fauna systematically causing of forest fires could desolate their land making it difficult to obtain special resources crippling their economy and abilty to make deus ex machina solution. The Pale tree is a kitten plant kamikaze destroyer crabs into its roots until they are so degraded it dies without her the entire Sylvari race is destined to be extinct.

The Norn and charr are more difficult to lead a successful military campaign against. Norn individual strength enables them to more successfully deal with the Destroyer hit and run tactics. The Norn are not reliant on farming and live in a cold climate. The Charr have vast land holdings and better equipped to secure food than humans versus a Destroyer scorched earth guerrilla campaign. If campaign against the humans, Sylvari, and Asura is successful. The Charr war-machine should not be able to successfully mount any underground assaults and the Norn are not organized enough or suited for underground excavation and combat. bear in mind I assume that other dragons are still active and that Merdremoth has been dealt with. Thus Primordus would likely achieve a military victory over span of decade.

Orbs will never be added again. I will tell you why.
1) Hackers: can take it, would be very public, embarrassing for Anet.
2) Winning servers win more
3) Ruins fulfill the same roll as orbs

Disclaimer: The only reason I am arguing is because the mentality of GW1 was/is different. Its hard to differentiate but it is not the same as you paint it.

GW1 was different in that damage needed to score kills can easily be achieved by combining 8-20 of 64 available skill slots, to kill infinite amount of enemies in a tight ball in 3 seconds. GW1 it was possible to have too much damage in GW2 you never can reach that much damage even max dps parties. In GW1 after finding a suitable spike the build would dedicate the rest of the build to defense in GW2 its easy enough to survive and they dedicate most of their build to damage. There is a difference

Loading up on as much damage as possible was not the meta. Monsters melted but could melt players just as fast. Meta was how to defend against more monsters so to kill more at the same time.

The End: My final post on the matter you can disagree but that wont change how GW1 builds were created.

@spoj: Your comments about GW1 being about least defense required are completely wrong. The game was the exact opposite bring as much defense as you can and still be able to score kills via spikes.

TLDR: Bars were built defense to survive perfectly first then left over into a few powerful damage skills. This is how the majority of builds operated. Proof is below.

All variants of triple necro heroes use half the the bar for defense quarter for minions and 1 or 2 strong spike skills. One of the most popular vanquishing builds.

Spiritway second most common build uses ritualists and spirits for high energy management often coupled with necromancers all hybrid builds with only a couple of damage skills.

The difference between speed clear and regular builds was your defense was super broken strong skills and synergies that an entire map or area of it could be agroed and cleared by 1-4 players. A skill that could could scale its damage to the number of enemies agroed like smites, punishment curses, or sliver armor cleaned everything. For areas where that failed ppl used super strong synergies like 100b MoP + FoC spike or something of similar style to clear the area.

I did not know u could reach that area without turning into a dolphin. There is an easier way to break the map as a dolphin that anyone can do. On the plus side choice of music greatly enhanced your video.

Immobilize plus signet of might sounds like a plan, I will refrain from putting your suggestion as an answer because its untested. I am going to try again but something tells me I will get some other map.

I was bored and decided to solo low level fractal. I was able to defeat grawl shaman boss by purely reflecting his projectiles with traits and all my blocks. Now come final boss form, i can not hit enough to bust his protective bubble due to the 50 hits requirement. So can it be done?

based on your data Fractal Tonic so hard to get that GW2 would be a dead game before required number of average runs is reached to obtain one for unlucky people. For example if a person required to average 1.5k runs to obtain tonic. It would take about 4 years for a unlucky person. Crazy stuff, I want the tonic that’s why I only run 50 but I never get my hopes up.

I know its not just me I talked to other people. This is on EU server. Experiencing frequent 3 sec lag spikes. This needs to be addressed, the game is unplayable in any dodge or die content. Please tell us that you are aware and going to do something.

Your prices are very high. If and when I buy paths i kittentainly get almost all at half or less your quoted price. As any person with a sense of thrift can find much better deals on LFG. Good luck with this to anyone who wants to be client of them you should seriously negotiate better prices. I will not even bother to negotiate anything they seem out of touch. Dungeon tokens are not worth enough and gold rewards do not offset your prices. I can easily buy CM runs for less than 3G which is one example of your wacky prices. If anything your prices should be lower than random LFG sellers since you want a steady clientele, the ideal being you run dungeons fast and no selling downtime but no crazy prices. Do not buy you can find better deals in which buying the run is actually profitable to self not just the seller.

I would like standardized models for WvW if there is an option to toggle for everyone, for performance reasons. If Anet has enough programing muscle to put into it they can make graphics cards not need to work as much because all the things it wants to render are similar and there for take less juice. Anything that can help FPS in zerg fights is good.

Vexander that is an amazing theory but there is one thing wrong with it. Gwen and Keiran have no indication of being of the royal line. Anet has been known to pull things out of hat so who knows.

-Also I have done some research and King Adelbern is actually of royal blood according to GW1 mkittencripts (wow filter over much, GW1 lore book). This is probably why he could cause the foe fire in the first place.
-The only known heir to Ascalon currently is Wade Samuelsson

Final note cleansing of foe fire will fail because they would have to rewrite hearts for all Ascalon areas and changes dozens of events.

Short answers to your questions:
-Gods are real and reside in the Rift, a portion of the Mists. They are not omnipotent they do not decide fate.
-In guild wars 1 Kersh does research into human gods and concludes they are an important part of Eternal Alchemy.
-Real reason gods are not as important as in GW1 is because GW2 is not a human only playable race game. In game reason debated as they feel humans can stand on their own or gods have more important things to do/conflict with dragons would be bad for Tyria see lore of Abaddon. When godly beings fight they scar the land.

I just wanted help as to what would be the best way for me to share a very comprehensive set of theories meant to explain the workings of the GW universe.

I thought it appropriate to ask here because I want to post in this forum. since no other sub forum is available for help on best ways to go about posting things.

should i attach a document if so what format I also made a 1 diagram i want to include for reference.

I was playing LS: I noticed the new Inquest assassin enemies actually use thief skills. They use stealth and evading skills. I was on my warrior and was very annoyed how they were constantly dodging and blinding me at the same time impressed. I actually chose to just camp my axe for high hit frequency through blinds and ability to DPS while on the move. See complexity forces me to make decisions because monsters are doing reactive things. if I had a immobilize, zerker stance or longbow i could have dropped a fire field and immobilize and swapped to melee weapon to efficiently kill the assassins one by one.

What I am looking for is complexity. It is easy to make hard fights that are not complex. The game does not necessarily need to get harder although it may be a side effect of added complexity.

Complexity implies that there is no true one right answer to a encounter due to enemies having the capability to react to the player. If monsters had defensive cool downs, heals and skill synergies the path to victory can have deviations from the norm which would be good for the game. developers would not need to give them 100k HP because they are no longer punching bags but DANGEROUS foes. Fights become shorter but more heated.

Most important things we can gain. Control effects matter interrupting a heal or key skill increases your chance of success or speed of winning stopping 15k heal=deal 10k damage. Monster use of boons such as protection provide value to boons trips or condition builds. Support matters more because a team mate who gets focused will likely down if the party does not work together.

PS: Esurge spike was so lame from those roaring eathers. I always manually protted myself and a hero with some AoE interrupt to stop those big damage spikes