Guild Wars 2

Yes, I have the mastery ( In fact, I have all masteries)/
I will edit my main post to clarify that.

I need this for the luminates backpiece collection.
According to both the wiki and the ingame description it drops of nodes in Auric Basin.
I have been mining for days now, burning through quite a few Orichalcum Mining Picks of 50 uses each, and the item simply never drops.
The fact that Auric Basin has so few mining nodes that you have to switch instances every 10 minutes doesnt help either.

Is the droprate this item bugged?
Even with a low droprate I find it hard to believe it has not dropped for days…

EDIT: I have the Exalted Gathering Mastery unlocked.

Dadnir:

I am sorry you seem to hate my initial ideas.
However, I feel like you are mostly sounding very angry, and your post is not very constructive.
I respectfully disagree that Sand shroud is the same as reaper’s shroud.
What they both have in common with the normal shroud is that they are all shrouds.
The shroud skills that Arenanet has made so far have a certain pattern to them.
1: auto attack chain.
2. some form of movement.
3. will have a form of cc, mostly fear.
4. is a channel of some sorts.
5.basically a freebie, but it does have cc in there, either with immobilize ( normal shroud) or stun+chill ( reaper ).

I’d say I have stuck to Anet’s pattern, but have tried to add some flavour alongside of it.

Mainhand Torch..
This mostly feels like a matter of taste to me, and it is hard to argue when the argument is mostly based on feelings.
However, when looking from a thematic perspective, dark/hellish flames could fit a necromancer, and so could a torch. While naturally any weapon can be thematically modified to fit the necromancer theme if done properly, I’d say torch is the closest to the necromancer in its unmodified state.

About the survival skills: I do not see why semi invulnerabilities in the form of melee blocks couldn’t happen. Necromancer is currently lacking active defenses, and the skill can still be countered by simply swapping to a ranged weapon. If elite specialisations are about adding new flavours to a class, I do not see why active defense would not be a possibility.

About the traits..Ofcourse they are OP in their current state. That is why this is a first draft. I rather start with a lot of OP stuff that can be toned down until it is considered good but not OP. However, you only say that it is OP, and give no suggestions about what could be done to tone it down in a way that it could still see play. As I said before, you sound very angry, but not constructive.

the Palawa Joko connection is once again, a matter of taste and feelings, thus hard to debate. You either like it, or you don’t. But considering Joko rules Elona and most of the Crystal Desert+Desolation at this point, it would not be strange to assume there is a possibility that we might encounter him or his influence if the next expansion decides to bring us to the Crystal Desert.

As for saying this would be limited in PvE, once again you say something, but offer me no examples or suggestions for improvement. Personally, I feel the burns and blinds give new toys to condition necro, while sand shards and some other traits help power.
What this spec does not do is give real support or hand out boons, but there should be another spec aimed at that. Let’s cement the DPS roles first before venturing into unknown terrain where necro would have to compete with support roles like chrono.

Balancing is about making professions viable, not equal. Last patch they took away the minions. However, the damage the necromancer got out of that only put it on par with other condi dps classes. the real problem, the interaction of necro’s, conditions and epidemic, remained untouched. Meanwhile power is still a joke when compared to the power builds on other classes. You would be better off not blindly believing Arenanets words when it comes to balancing.

You claim specs should think out of the box, yet you hate it when I try to do so.
While it is fine to disagree, you provide no feedback, no pointers and no advice.
It is okay to dislike what I made, but please be constructive so I can make this idea better, thank you.

Traits:

Is this balanced?
Probably not.
If anything I would mostly try to aim this at PvE.
Considering the nerfs for rev and nec in the last patch I no longer believe in a single balance for all 3 gamemodes.

Also sorry for the triple post, the forum did not like me trying to dump all of this into a single post, or even two.

New Weapon, Mainhand Torch:

Utility skills: Survival

Hello all.
Some time ago I created a necro elite specialisation known as The Envoy, that focused on boons and spirits. After seeing all this talk about a possibly leaked spec known as Scourge, I could not help but try to think of a version myself.

Necromancer specialisaton: Scourge

After Palawa Joko mercilessly conquered Vabbi and most of Elona, the resistance against the undead ruler quickly faded away. It was in this time of need, that the scourges were born.
A scourge attacks from beneath the cloak of the desert sands, utilities powerful burns from the desert sun, blinds its foes with whirling sand…and disappears like he was never there in the first place.

Philosophy:

This is an elite spec that focusses on blinding, burn, and giving necro some active defense as well.

New Mechanic: Sand Shroud

Morte De Angelis:

Balthazar’s Pendulum: While I understand your reasoning ( or more, your active dislike) when it comes to passive traits, they are unfortunately a part of the game, and it will probably stay that way ( as in: Arenanet will probably keep giving us these in the future). I deemed this trait to be okay, mirroring crowd control back every 30 seconds seemed not that gamebreaking. It is also something you have to actively choose, you so are free to pick something else. Still, if you have suggestions for a similar “anti-disable” mechanic that would promote active play, please hint me into the right direction, the spec would only benefit from this

The truth is ugly: Fair point. Removed the additional active effects in favour of keeping passive ones.

Defender’s Zeal: Once again, fair point. advice taken and trait adjusted.

Zealot’s Fire: Scrapped the condition part, kept the when granting a boon, and added a 5 second ICD. Also renamed this trait to Heart Of Holy Flame, to avoid confusion with the torch skill that has the same name, and to emphasise that this trait deals with burning.

Surgical Incisions: Added a 10 second ICD.

Flames of faith: Seeing other people being very sceptical about the light to fire-field change and even say its overpowered when the 2-field part was scrapped, I have scrapped this trait and replaced it by just the combo finishers heal you. Renamed to Mystic Vigor.

Tainted Body, Pure Spirit: While it pains me to basically see “uber condi virtues” go, I can see why it would be overpowered. Decided to keep the universal shadowstep ( perhaps this could use an ICD to prevent infinite jumping guardians in pvp)and picked the buff to Silencing Justice.

Auto-attack: I am sorry if I struck a soft spot, you seem to be quite outraged about this. If it provides any solace, I had forgotten that thief dagger #4 had inherited this name from Guild Wars 1. It was not meant to insult thieves in any way. Renamed to flashing daggers to avoid confusion or insults.

Dagger 3: I can see your point. added a 100% longer recharge fact if volatile combustion is used.

Thanks for the feedback, appreciated!

Fashion Mage:

I am sorry if you dislike the theme, that cannot be helped.
Fitting or not is a matter of personal taste, and elite specs are supposed to bring new roles/themes/gameplay/niches to existing profs. Thus disliking it is okay, but ‘stealing niches’ goes a bit far. If we would follow that logic we could not create anything new for any profession because it would steal something from another.

If you have any objective input for balance that is certainly appreciated, but I am unwilling to get into an argument about what are fitting thematics and what is not ( since it would not add anything to my goal with this topic, which is achieving acceptable balance with this spec).

First of all, thank you for your detailed response!
You make some good points, and I will adress them one by one.

Adept 1: I agree that the trait needs an ICD. But I also feel like guard should have semi-reliable acccess to resistance, we are supposed to be the number # 1 defensive support class overall. I feel if I would go on a 15+ seconds ICD it would hardly be usable as something you would tactically activate for the resist, instead of it just being a side-effect of protection. I will put it on a 15s CD for now, but I’d rather cut the duration in favour of a lower ICD in the end. I am just unsure what the magic number on both resistance and ICD should be.

Adept 2: Do you mean only a single condition, or that the trait can only affect a single virtue?

Adept 3: I suppose I am trying to push retaliation a bit. Basically I am trying to find a way to make retaliation something you would actually WANT to have in both pve and pvp ( right now retaliation is usually a side-effect, but not something you would solely pop a skill for). The 5% bonus that stacks is mainly to force a choice: If you use all possible elixirs you get 25% damage. But only for 6 seconds maximum, and after that you just sit there while having blown all your cooldowns. In PvE I see no problem with this, and in PvP, would such a “one-trick-pony-build” actually work? since guardian has no real ranged options, I felt it wasn’t that OP. But if you still deem it OP after this explanation I will rework it.

Minor 2: Advice taken and added a 1 second ICD and blocking component. Raised endurance gain to 10.

Master 1: I love bonus retaliation, but perhaps a mirror’d cc is enough. retaliation removed.

Master 2: What do you mean with one but not both? That the trigger should be either when inflicting a condition OR when giving a boon, or do you mean the effect, either burning or damage, or is it meant for both parts of the skill? As for an ICD, what sort of number are we looking for? 1 sec ICD?

Master 3: 15% bonus sounds about right. added the cap.

Minor 3: I suppose I tried to do 2 things at once ( making retaliation wanted and giving guardians the 25% movement speed most want so bad) while failing at both. I would actually make it scale extremely low with healing power. I just figured the trait sort of had a precedent with the scrapper trait that heals with swiftness and superspeed. but perhaps a small heal when you get retaliation with a small ICD or something? This should basically be a minor trait to make retaliation go from “whatever” to “ooh, I want this!”. So how should I approach this?

GM 1: Just the healing part for doing a combo-finisher alone won’t cut it for a grandmaster I think… This trait was basically created because in PvE guardians get yelled at a lot for overwriting firefields with their light fields, meaning we cannot make good use of most of our skills. Any proposals here?

GM2: Advice taken, although 20% CD reduction does worry me a bit, considering the trait makes you share effects with allies..

GM3: Advice taken on Silencing Justice. I had not considered adding a disable upon other virtues actives when used, but if that is what it takes to balance it…how long would the disable have to be in order for it to be strong but balanced?

As for the flavor:
I suppose we all have different opinions on what is “guardian-like” and what isnt.
This is a mix of the witcher/fanatical inquisition that took engineer lessons.
I felt a fanatic-theme could work for a spec, considering nobody really considered traps to be guardian-like, yet now almost everyone accepts Dragon Hunter.

Once again,thanks for the feedback, please keep it coming

*bumped for visibility, feedback still welcome

*bumped for visibility, feedback still welcome

I like the idea, especially how you handled preparations.

May I suggest to rename Dual Shot to Forked Arrow(s)?
Dual shot is ( already mentioned ) in use by ( I believe ) warriors, and Forked Arrow did something similar in Guild Wars 1.

Sword → Serpent’s Quickness : This one would need careful balancing because the ranger sword already has quite a few damage modifiers through traits and can easily be pushed over the edge. Perhaps either the CD reduction or the attack speedbonus, but not both?

After reading all these unique preparations I actually felt a bit disappointed when I saw Axe and Greatsword had some re-used ones instead of unique ones like the others.

Axe could perhaps do something with:

Body Throws, cooldown skills inflict vulnerability/
Debilitating Throws, cooldown attack-skills make the target lose endurance (5-10)?

Greatsword possibly:

Splintered hilt: foes near your target take damage when you use a cooldown attack skill?
Disrupting accuracy: Critical hits with cooldown attack-skills daze foes ( 1/4 s, just enough to interrupt)?

I also love the hammer as a new weapon, I do get the nostalgia feelings from my golden pvp bunny thumper days.
But have you considered to work the Guild Wars 1 bunny thumper build into the weapon skills?
something like for example this:

auto: bash, bash, twomp, every hit applies vulnerability, last hit applies (1s) cripple ( if you hit someone’s with a hammer they won’t walk away that easily).

2: Bunny thumper → hammer bash. Knockdown for 1(s), your pet’s next attack inflicts poison ( reverence to the rangers that ran poisonous bite back in the day)

3. Bestial Mauling → knock back target ( 250), summon (3) bunnies (3s) that apply (3s)bleeding with their attacks ( mostly novelty, but the thought you had with skill 2 about summoning bunnies made me laugh).

4. Brutal strike: Deal damage in a chain (3x), last hit dealing bonus damage if target is under 50% health. If under 50% health, your pet gains quickness.

5. * place any of your skill 3/4/5 here, they would all be great additions to a cc/control set).

I see you have opted to give each utility skill-line a single new skill instead of opting for an entirely new line?
I am unsure what I think of that, but it is creative, that is for sure!

The heal:
I feel this is doing way to much.
heal 50% of your health back ( more if coupled with your own hunter’s proficiency trait), a dodge (50% endurance), lose 3 ( 5 when you trait for wilderness knowledge) conditions AND swiftness?
Other heal skills need to be traited and still won’t get this much!

Conceal presence seems fine, dependant on the duration of the stealth.

Signet Of Sight…
I feel a bit conflicted.
The duration is fine, so is the recharge and stunbreak, but the effects..
They feel a bit uninspired.
Is there a way this could inherit some of the traits of the GW1 skill Archers signet?
Like when active it increases your condition duration by X for your next X attacks that inflict conditions, and passive decreases blind duration on you by X%?
While precision may seem like a cool buff, most rangers already bring spotter for this and this skill would have to compete with that trait ( and most likely lose).
This way it might have a niche imo.

Finish’em: In the line of thinking that spawned Search And Rescue. Sure, why not!
But perhaps think of something to make it useful in PvE as well, not much stomping to be done there.

Bear Trap and Glyph Of Diversion could perhaps use some small buff.

Spirit Of Favourable Winds: This feels…clunky…and unfun to me.
Perhaps something among the lines of enemies within range move 5% slower and have less range on ranged attacks ( like 200 range because the spirit makes the winds blow their projectiles back) and allies move 5% faster and have increased range on ranged abilities?

Hunting Pack: OH MY GOD I WANT THIS!
Seriously, this is pure gold, I cannot wait to spawn my own pack of pocket raptors.

Traits:

On it’s trail: since it’s the first minor make sure the speedboost is not extremely big.

Tranquillizer: Would need an ICD to prevent abuse.

Hunting Party: would need an icon on the statusbar of the target so both allies and enemies know who is getting focused ( so counterplay can be a thing). Once again, careful balancing is needed, since we talk about ( probably) an unstrippable effect.

Hunters Companion is something pets need that is for sure. I would have loved to see this as a minor trait. Perhaps instead of On it’s Trail? Then you have a free trait spot for whatever you desire.

Hunter’s Defence: Ok.

Hunter’s Determination: Depends on the availability of cripple ( for example, it would be OP if combined with my own suggestion for a small cripple on the auto). 3s CD reduction does feel like quite a lot tho. Either a change or an ICD I think.

Salted Wounds:
I am confused at to what this does ( wording is a bit unclear to me)

Camouflage: Extremely strong when combined with other traits and skills.
Quickened Pulse: Since preparations have no CD, this would basically be free quickness 30% of the time without any investment besides picking this trait. I’m okay with giving ranger some more access to quickness, but I am unsure if this is the way to do it.

Hunter’s Proficiency: Depends on the amount of healing, would need an ICD most likely, and would have to exclude your healing skill probably.

These are my thoughts, I hope some of it can help you

Hello all.
Like a lot of you, I like creating new elite specialisations in my spare time.
Unfortunately, balancing is not exactly my strong suit, and I could use some constructive critisism in that department.
I hope I can achieve something for guardians among the lines of my specialisation for necro, The Envoy. ( link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Elite-Specialisation-Idea-need-Feedback/first#post6277614 ).

That spec also started out as extremely overpowered, and is now, after community help, nearing a state of relative balance.

Without further ado I present:

The Seeker, the first condition damage specialisation for Guardians

Lore

Changed Virtues

Weapon: Main hand dagger

Utility Skills: Elixirs

Traits

I have tried to create a spec that is able to unload a lot of conditions within a short timeframe, while being mobile within a small range. This is a guardian with mobility from close to midrange, keeping the class its original weakness of being unable to go long-range effectively. While many would want to see this otherwise, I feel everything should have an achilles heel.

Is this balanced?
Probably not, I am not that great at initial balancing.
That is where you guys come in.
Please give me feedback, both positive and negative ( as long as it’s constructive).
Hopefully, with the help of the community, I can transform this from an initial idea into a balanced spec that’s fun to play.

Enjoy the (long) read

Quickness is 3s once upon casting it, not per pulse.

While I understand your reasoning for Spirit’s Strength, I feel like upping the damage on spirits themselves would bring way more dps to the table when you consider how many of them you can spawn when chaining skills. Even if spirits do not last long, the spikedamage would go through the roof.

Attuned Was Songkai: I opted for pulsing stability and aegis with protection upon ending. Scrapped vigor, you can still get that if you trait for Tsungrais Generosity. Endurance restored I kept at full ( 100). Reason is that while necromancer was originally designed as a passive defense class ( just eat the damage and outlast people), one of the reason these days for it to struggle ( in pvp) is because active defense is spammed by other classes, with necro being unable to do the same. I figured 2 additional dodges every 40-50 seconds could give necro a slight push into more survivability through active damage migitation without breaking the original class theme ( in a meta with close to perma-evade thieves, block&blur chaining mesmers, revenants evading 50% of the time, necro needs some help for both itself and teammates).

Grasping Was Kuurong: Right now I feel this skill lacks identity and flavour. it is an elite skill on a long cooldown, and I really want it to do something unique, something that makes people go: Oh boy, watch it, Kuurong is up!/ok guys, necro placed Kuurong, we’re good now!

If Kuurong simply adds to boonduration it would simply become an inferior kitten child of Revenant F2 and Revenant Mallyx elite. I personally felt the original 50% additional boon effectiveness ( later nerfed to current 20%), added a unique flavour, considering it is an effect that untraited is only up for 10 seconds every 3 minutes.
10 seconds of “superboons” for the lack of a better word, and only if people stand inside it’s effect.. Is it really that broken,even on such a cooldown?

Something else that is missing right now is an effect upon the spirit leaving.
It needs an “on-end effect”.
Xinrae gives you a small heal and a waterfield,
Kanhei transfers conditions and does a blast finish,
Glaive pulls foes in for damage while doing a whirl,
Songkai gives protection and fully restores endurance,
Kuurong does…nothing right now.

For an elite that feels rather boring.

TL;DR: Kuurong needs effects worthy of being elite, a unique flavour/effect, and an “on-end” effect.

I would love for an end effect that involves multiple leap finishers like I had in the first draft of the skill ( original it increased attributes by 10%, boons were 50% more effective, and performed 3 leap finishers upon ending, resurrecting downed allies and finishing downed foes).

Kuurong needs help.
Let’s all try to be very creative here.
The other desecrations have fun unique effects.
Let’s make him even better.

I would like to add a link to a project in the Necromancer forums I started: The Envoy.

Link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Elite-Specialisation-Idea-need-Feedback/first#post6277096

Tries to open up multiple options for necromancer: power , condi, and support.
Heavily inspired by the Ritualist.

Updated main post.
Cleaned up several skill facts, updated several traits.

Scholar Of Sins damage decrease now has its own 5s duration seperate from the mark’s active effect for balance reasons. Still wondering if it’s current state makes it worthy of grandmaster considering the other options.

Added a small lifesteal effect on Splinter Weapon if foes are already bleeding.

So far, this ES seems to provide:

1. boon support through Desecrations
2. condition counters for allies through resistance, Mi Lings Purity and Soul Barbs
3. Condition damage options through Splinter weapon, Spirit’s Gift and Soul Barbs
4. Power dps through spirits.
5. Opens up some viability for builds going full lifesteal.

You want some more options?
I will give you some more options!

We have 2 trait spots to fill, ideally 2 but probably at least one that deals with improving condition damage builds.

One trait is the last minor trait and the other is a master.

Options I thought up:

Lingwah’s Anguish:
When you inflict poison you now also inflict torment (4s).
If a target is moving when a condition you inflicted expires, that condition gets re-applied (10s).
Lingwah’s Anguish cannot re-apply the same expired condition twice in a row.

Soul Barbs version 1:
Whenever a condition crosses the threshold ( every 10 stacks), it makes the target drop a Soul Barb. Conditions inflicted near the Soul Barb last 10% longer. Pick up the Soul barb to cause the condition that spawned it to be cleansed, but to also deal all of the damage it would have done over time at once ( basically the same, but only one Soul Barb, while giving a choice whether to pick it up or not, depending on the situation). Untriggered Soul Barbs disappear after 10 seconds.

Soul Barbs version 2:
Whenever a condition crosses the threshold ( every 10 stacks), a Soul Barb (10s) spawns near your target. Enemies touching a Soul Barb take damage based on the amount of conditions on them ( base of 500 damage + x for each condition). Allies touching a Soul Barb lose a condition. Untriggered Soul Barbs disappear after 10 seconds.

Tanasen’s Tranquility version 1:
The next time you would be the target of a successful crowdcontrol effect, gain stability ( 3 stacks 5 seconds) and reflect the effect back to its original target ( so if someone would have hit you with a 2s stun they now eat that 2s stun themselves). This trait has a 60s ICD.

Tanasen’s Tranquility version 2:
Take reduced damage while under the effects of crowd control. Damage reduced: 25%

Kaolai’s Protection:
The next time you would be the target of a successful crowdcontrol effect, gain protection (4s) and heal yourself based on your current amount of lifeforce ( 380-2380 heal). ICD: 60 seconds.

Xiko’s Resilience version 1:
Gain a stack of Xiko’s Resilience (30s) every time a new condition gets applied to you. At 5 stacks, gain the Resilient Xiko effect. Resilient Xiko (5s): Reflect incoming conditions back to their original target. This trait has a 15 second ICD after triggering the effect.

Xiko’s Resilience version 2:
Gain a stack of Xiko’s Resilience (30s) every time a new condition gets applied to you. At 5 stacks, gain the Resilient Xiko effect. Resilient Xiko (5s): Reflect incoming damage from conditions back to their original target ( Xiko triggers while you suffer massive damage from 15-20 bleeds? Whoever put those bleeds on you is going to eat it for 5 seconds). This trait has a 30 second ICD after triggering the effect.

Daoshen’s Cruelty:
Whenever you siphon life, have a chance (33%) to apply vulnerability (5s).
Siphoning life has improved effects when siphoning from targets that are vulnerable.
( siphon an additional 117 health).

Balancing aside, are any of these worthy of becoming either the last minor trait or the last master trait?

Edited main post:

Scholar Of Sins is now a grandmaster trait, Splinter Weapon is now adept.

Harbinger Of Desecrations now gives 3 seconds of quickness upon casting a desecration.

Utility Desecrations ( so except Xinrae and Kuurong) are now fixed at an 8 second duration.

Tsungrais Generosity: All granted boons now have a 6 seconds base duration.

Vengeance Of The Fallen: This trait now has a 1 second ICD ( to avoid the instant pain of a fully channeled Storm Of Souls to dump the damage of 20+ spirit on a poor person)

Torch skills 2 and 3 have been reworked.

I see some confusion regarding the traits Soul Barbs and Vile Miasma.
Thus I propose the following:

Vile Miasma: This trait gets scrapped and gets replaced by Lingwah’s Anguish.

Lingwah’s Anguish:
When you inflict poison you now also inflict torment (4s).
If a target is moving when a condition you inflicted expires, that condition gets re-applied (10s).
Lingwah’s Anguish cannot re-apply the same expired condition twice in a row.

Soul Barbs:
Whenever a condition crosses the threshold ( 10 stacks), it makes the target drop a Soul Barb. Conditions inflicted near the Soul Barb last 10% longer. Pick up the Soul barb to cause the condition that spawned it to be cleansed, but to also deal all of the damage it would have done over time at once ( basically the same, but only one Soul Barb, while giving a choice whether to pick it up or not, depending on the situation).

Thoughts?

You are right, sorry for not thinking about that earlier.
I have edited my original post, the envoy section is now updated to it’s most recent version based on suggestions made in this thread.

Taunt has been removed, Torch is reworked into a ranged condition weapon that also generates lifeforce, desecrations have been balanced, vices have been balanced, Envoy Shroud has seen some balance changes and several traits have been reworked or replaced by something new.

First off, thank you all for the feedback so far!
It shows that my spec needs a lot balance and/or re-thinking.
While I saw that a bit myself, the posts you guys made have showed me way more than I could have ever hoped to spot on my own,thank you all for this!
I will try to adress all of you and all your points, one by one.

Tseison

I agree with the taunt being very long, as a matter of fact, after reading some other comments I am toying with the idea of getting rid of taunt all together. This would open up some trait spots so that besides power spec I could also give condi specs some options. Your idea of replacing the taunt with weakness sounds good and also fits both the skill and the theme. Considering Vice Of Gluttony has a 60 sec base CD, what do you feel is a decent weakness duration without becoming OP? like somewhere between 7-11 seconds ( probably on the lower end since with necro you pretty much always have to factor in condition duration)?

I see the suggestion of torch becoming more of a ranged weapon coming from multiple people. Personally I thought the idea of a melee torch was fun, but apparently it does not seem to be very popular. So I will keep the idea of it becoming ranged in mind. This would however mean some changed to the burn on the auto-attack, since ranged burn-spam might become overpowered pretty quick ( since the third auto also has a blind in there).

Other people also mentioned torch having an identity problem, with the auto-attack being condi and torch 2 and torch 3 being more power based. Should I make a decision here to go one way or the other and adjust accordingly?
Also, torch 1 deals 10% bonus damage if the target is burning and damage in an area ( 3rd auto would hit like 3 targets instead of 1). Would this make torch viable for condi and power, or does it make the identity-crisis only worse?

Gaze from Beyond: Changes are fair, and it would give necro access to revealed for the first time ever. I like this change.

Rupture Soul: This would push the torch more into the realm of condi. While surely possible, it would mean torch has to compete with the massive bleeds over time from scepter. I am not sure how to achieve this without upping the burn on torch-auto.

Defiant Was Xinrae: Basically I envision these desecrations all together as the necro doing a small kneeling animation, followed by a ghostly spirit or something appearing ( like how ascalonian ghosts spawn) with a unique model for the skill, who then does the desecration, and does another animation on leaving. If it is too strong I do not know. I envisioned it as giving a small heal ( let’s say in the range of 2k), then absorbs all power and condi damage for 3 secs ( only absorbs to calculate damage bonus later on, THIS DOES NOT HEAL YOU), and then gives you a damage boost of 1% per 1000 damage absorbed for a small amount of time. the time I was not sure, perhaps something like 5 seconds. That way you could get like 1-2 skills off with some powerful bonus damage, and people would get punished for bad play ( mindlessly attacking you). In PvE you could eat massive boss attacks and throw them right back. I personally feel this would only really be an issue in WvW where you would absorb an entire zergs worth of damage for 3 seconds, only to follow up with insta-kill wells.
The effect is strong, but you do sacrifice your heal ( a small one at that) for it. The waterfield…I liked the idea and did not think it was overpowered due to necro not having a lot of blast finishers.
After this explanation, do you still feel it’s on the strong/OP side?

Grasping Was Kuurong: Perhaps this skill needs simplifying, by removing one of the three effects it applies ( either the leap finishers+effects or the 10% attribute bonus or the +50% boon effectiveness). Basically I tried to make something unique here, something noticable and worth taking in a group scenario ( since people always call necro selfish in the support section).

I look forward to read further suggestions from you!

Dadnir

Vices: I feel unsure about swapping Wrath and Gluttony, but I do agree that lifesteal every x attacks is a better passive than 20% passive condition duration. It would probably be like once every 5-8 attacks, perhaps leeching slightly more than vampiric presence/aura does now ( in the realm of the revenant trait that steals like ~350?).

Shroud: I can understand that it might feel a lot combined with vices, but personally I felt it gave a unique twist, and warrior also gained 2 new mechanics with both primal bursts and berserk. I suppose if I had to choose it would have to be the shroud, but I’d rather keep both ( and perhaps tone down both to balance it out).

Desecration: Perhaps that blast finisher on Khanhei is overdoing it, but I liked the idea of Vengeful Kanhei coming to…you know…get revenge by throwing condis back into everyones face and proceed to go out with a ‘bang’ basically. Since as I described to Tseison above in the section about Xinrae, each desecration would get a unique spiritmodel, they could also get a fitting animation upon ending ( Khanhei could raise his weapon and proceed to slam his weapon into the ground before disappearing or something).

Traits: Harbinger probably needs to lose either the quickness or the taunt. Since I am already toying with the idea of dropping taunt all together, it would probably be taunt. Would reduced CD and 1 quickness every 3 seconds still make it overpowered ( it would basically mean 2-3 seconds of quickness spread over 7 -8 seconds on average with downtime between each 1 sec pulse).

Conclusion: I can see where you are coming from here. Perhaps I am trying to push necro into the traditional boon-support instead of trying to find new ways. Any suggestions are welcome., you might never know if Anet ever reads something they might like!

Cecilia

First of all: Thank you for taking over an hour to provide me with feedback!
I have to admit I became a bit defensive at first after reading all of it, but then I realised that the points you are making are fair in nature and deserve a respons/are worth looking at.

Vice Of Wrath: You have convinced me to drop taunts all together. I will replace this with something else ( in this case perhaps with a burn). I take it that your notion about it being OP mainly applies from a PvP standpoint? Wrath is revolving around anger, and the idea was to hit something quick and hard while being angry ( thus quickness). Would it work if going the “I am so angry I am going berserk at you” route and replacing the quickness on hit by fury on hit?

Vice Of Envy: You got me, that was a type coming all the way from the word document where I first thought of this thing. Taunt is getting removed already ( not sure what to replace it with for this skill, perhaps a short lasting small amount of poison). the 10% damage buff is mainly a PvE perspective, I could see this being a problem in PvP and WvW. Perhaps this could be remedied by allowing either condition cleanses or stunbreaks to remove the Vice’s Mark effects? Would that balance it a bit or would that still push the envelope in your opinion?

Gluttony would also get it’s taunt removed and probably get it replaced by weakness.
The Passive condition duration would be reworked into lifesteal every x attacks.

Shroud 1: It would function like this: You attack your target, deal damage and summon a hateful spirit. spirit attacks on his own for 25% of your auto attack damage. Spirits last 5 seconds untraited, and you can only summon 3 per target ( for a maximum of 75% weapon damage on top of the auto). I feel this could be balanced because:

a) shroud 1 damage could be modified/lowered to account for active spirits. Spirits die after like 2-3 cleaves maximum and die on their own after 5 seconds untraited. Basically you would have to camp shroud 1 forever while doing nothing else to get the most out of it. Considering that makes you sacrifice everything else you could possibly do, I felt this wasn’t that great. Spirits would be seperate entities and thus spirit attacks would not apply burn from dhuumfire.

Shroud 2: Taunt would get removed. perhaps the skill could give a stack of stability for you instead?

Shroud 3: Fear will stay then, taunt will be removed in favor of another effect. The taunt here was meant as a way to draw attackers away from the necromancer. Perhaps the Soul Of Suffering could attack more often or do something like copying some conditions on nearby allies to nearby foes?

Shroud 4: I can see where you are coming from. However, Souls untraited die after 7 seconds, unlike turrets who would stay up for years. and they would have a lot less health than engi turrets did when they were played in PvP. If anything I’d see this skill as a way to give necro some space in a 1v2 situation or a temporarily relief in a 1v1/capping situation ( aoes would cleave this things down in a decent timeframe, thats why they can deal auto attack damage, to make up for their lack of health and short uptime).

Shroud 5: Taunt will be removed, possibly replaced by fear or perhaps immobilize. It is meant as a storm of ascalonian-like modelled spirits that run in a direction designated by the player ( you can choose direction upon cast), that, if people allow to be hit by all 10, to spawn a crapload of spirits for a short duration to wreak havoc, a true storm of souls so to speak. This would also synergise with certain traits. See it as a spike-skill with high risk and high reward. If you hit people you are good, but since the direction is fixed, if people dodge out of it/stunbreak away after 1 hit, you got nothing.

Heal: I will copy here what I told to Tseison, to explain the idea behind Xinrae ( a small heal, but mainly meant as a damage boost and to punish bad plays. Waterfield I agree not having a lot of blast options, we could think of something here however, since with the removal of taunt we get some trait-space).

Defiant Was Xinrae: Basically I envision these desecrations all together as the necro doing a small kneeling animation, followed by a ghostly spirit or something appearing ( like how ascalonian ghosts spawn) with a unique model for the skill, who then does the desecration, and does another animation on leaving. If it is too strong I do not know. I envisioned it as giving a small heal ( let’s say in the range of 2k), then absorbs all power and condi damage for 3 secs ( only absorbs to calculate damage bonus later on, THIS DOES NOT HEAL YOU), and then gives you a damage boost of 1% per 1000 damage absorbed for a small amount of time. the time I was not sure, perhaps something like 5 seconds. That way you could get like 1-2 skills off with some powerful bonus damage, and people would get punished for bad play ( mindlessly attacking you). In PvE you could eat massive boss attacks and throw them right back. I personally feel this would only really be an issue in WvW where you would absorb an entire zergs worth of damage for 3 seconds, only to follow up with insta-kill wells.
The effect is strong, but you do sacrifice your heal ( a small one at that) for it. The waterfield…I liked the idea and did not think it was overpowered due to necro not having a lot of blast finishers.

Torch: I feel you about the identity crisis, I felt like I solved this by giving the third auto attack a damage aoe ( 3 targets) and 10% bonus damage if the target burns, but perhaps this is not enough. Perhaps I should move the torch into the condi camp since spirits are for the direct power dps part. I took some suggestions from Tseison for the torch, removing some cc and adding conditions and revealed. However, a condi mainhand has to compete with scepter. Any suggestions as to how I could be able to do that without making scepter absolete?

Elite Desecration ( Grasping Was Kuurong): It probably has too much going on. It now has 3 effects: 10% attribute bonus, 50% extra boon effectiveness, and the 3 leap finishers that rally/finish. Would remove one of these 3 balance the elite out?

Utility 1 ( Vengeful Was Kanhei): I can see why you would think it’s not very necromancer like. Personally I tried to give necro some way to support allies that have trouble with conditions beyond plague signet. Also, with necro being a master of conditions, we should know everything about them, both how to make them effective, and how to ignore them. Thus I felt resistance would fit the part.

Utility 2(Destructive Was Glaive): I can see why you would think that. It has a decent cooldown however, and the pull+whirl at the end would get an animation to warn in pvp ( think Kohler from Ascalonian Catacombs). Still, how would you propose to balance this? Is it simply a numbers/duration issue with the might?

Utility 3 ( Attuned Was Songkai): Stunbreak seems a neat idea, added. You also say you are unsure if it’s worth standing in the desecrated area for it’s buffs. So this skill itself could use a buff possibly? Would perhaps pulsing aegis be an option?

Traits:

Harbinger Of Desecration would lose the taunt portion. That leaves 20% reduced CD on desecration and 1 sec of quickness every 3 seconds provided you are in the desecrated area. Would that balance it?

Taunt traits will be removed, this gives us a Major and a Master trait slot to think of something for conditions ( since you would like some options for that).

Icy Lights: what would your suggestion be for ICD? 1 second? 3 seconds? 5 seconds?
And would you remove the fury/quickness part?

Weapon Of Souls: Feels redundant indeed ( “one bleed trait”). Perhaps if looking at GW1 we could rework this into something like Splinter weapon, where attack a main target applies bleed stacks to nearby targets or something? Or perhaps give necro access to confusion in some form?

Hello all.
A few months ago I entered this idea into an elite spec contest and I have not been able to let go of it ever since.
Thus I would like to ask all of you to read up on it and give me your ideas/input/balancing feedback.

I took a lot from the GW1 Ritualist inspirationwise to create this, so you might see some familiar names.
I present: The Envoy.

Necromancer specialisaton: Envoy

Envoys are shepherds of the souls of the dead. When a mortal dies, an envoy will appear before the newly released soul to guide them into the Mists. All envoys were once wicked criminals in life, forced by the Oracle of the Mists to serve as soul shepherds as penance for their mortal crimes. Envoys appear to possess tremendous power, including the ability to control souls and influence the dead, while also channeling the essence of their crimes into powerful vices.

Philosophy:

Trying to open up new playstyles for damage, condition damage, control and support options.

New F2, F3 and F4 skills: Vices

New Shroud: Envoy Shroud

New Weapon, Mainhand Torch:

Utility skills: Desecrations

Traits:

STATUS: GRASPING WAS KUURONG NEEDS TO BECOME WORTHY OF ELITE STATUS

Necromancer specialisaton: Envoy

Envoys are shepherds of the souls of the dead. When a mortal dies, an envoy will appear before the newly released soul to guide them into the Mists. All envoys were once wicked criminals in life, forced by the Oracle of the Mists to serve as soul shepherds as penance for their mortal crimes. Envoys appear to possess tremendous power, including the ability to control souls and influence the dead, while also channeling the essence of their crimes into powerful vices.

*Philosophy:

_ Trying to open up new playstyles for damage, condition damage, control and support options._

New F2, F3 and F4 skills: Vices

New Shroud: Envoy Shroud

New Weapon, Mainhand Torch:

Utility skills: Desecrations

Traits:

As in the title, I am wondering how you can ever possibly get into raiding unless you have been doing so from the very start.
Even for the Vale Guardian groups now demand 25+ insights and an eternal title.
I supported raids when they were announced, and I still do.
But I am currently losing hope of ever being able to get into a party reliably.
I do not have a ton of insights, nor do I have the eternal title.
In the current situation, that means no party will ever take me, with most even flaming and shaming me upon joining ( EU server).

Currently I feel like I have almost exhausted all options available to me.
People only want experienced players, but how do you even get experience if nobody is willing to help new people get into raids at all?

I have tried to join parties while being honest.
result: got flamed and kicked.

Tried several guilds who claimed to have a raiding presence among other pve things.
result:Raiders sticked together and only laughed at new people in the guildchat, making fun of them while linking their raid shinies.

Tried raid roster guilds.
result:Only form parties with eternal title and 25+ insights at minimum.

Joined guilds that train/teach raids.
result: Rarely see a run forming, if ever.

Also tried making my own parties.
result: people leaving the second they see people who needed a bit of explanation or unable to link the desired amount of insights or if the party composition is not 100% to their liking, or people who do not want to take suggestions.

After a while, raid wing 2 came out, and a lot of people claimed that that would be the perfect point to get into raiding. So I went out there again.

But once again, the people forming parties demanded eternal title and 30+ insights or even more.
Doesn’t matter, people said, they just want their experienced buddies with them for a first kill, new people will get their chance afterwards!
I am still waiting for that chance, since all parties for wing 2 also demand massive amounts of insights and usually eternal title and killproofs as well.

I have basically been trying since day 1, not saying no to any party or any attempt.
After all this time, I got 9 insights to show for it.
9.
From wing 1, in all this time.
I have never even got the chance to try out wing 2, every time I try and be honest about my insights I get so many profanities and insults at my head it is not even funny and makes me actually afraid to join anything at all.

Do I really have to pay precursor-level prices to get into a raid or straight up lie to people about insights and experience, just to set foot inside of the raid wings?
I am not an idiot, willing to learn, and generally won’t make the same mistake twice.

I really do not blame raiders for wanting to play with those who know their stuff, but please do realise that the entry barrier into raids for people without dedicated raiding guilds is being made very high this way.

It seems like you are either a dedicated high end pve raider with a raiding guild and a big friendslist, or you are a filthy casual who doesn’t care.
But the middleground, people like me who can do it if gotten the chance, are willing to man up and train to ‘git gud’, it seems like we will not get that chance.

I am sure a lot of people will claim otherwise and will tell about their weekly pug succes-stories, but I am really starting to lose hope.

I just got this message, and I was wondering if anyone else has had it today.
Decided to make a new topic because currently most of the buzz has to do with a problem concerning BitDefender(?), a program I do not use.

I am unsure where this error suddenly comes from, since I was still playing the game last night, haven’t installed anything new during that session, nor have I had this problem before since the launch back in 2012.

I have reset&unplugged both my modem and router, restarted my computer, ran a diagnostics test, triple-checked my firewall/anti-virus ( both have everything concerning GW2 whitelisted since launch but I checked it anyway ), tried to connect to these forums ( obviously worked ) and to Guild Wars 1 ( also worked without a problem ).

I also tried everything on the connectivity troubleshooting page.
Basically: Am I the only one right now, is the game borked/down, is it something I must fix, or does Anet have to reset something somewhere?

As someone used to playing this game daily, this is quite annoying.

I feel this is another sad day for this game.
You promise as a full 2nd set of legendaries, advertise with them to bait people who love legendaries into buying the xpack..and now you don’t deliver…after you have taken their money.
I have no words for this that would actually get through the “kitten” filter.

No legendaries, yet you manage to release Black Lion Skins and Gliders almost weekly.
It’s clear that these generate easy cash, and that cash is becoming more and more important to ArenaNet.

Same with HoT.
The expansion is already rushed, systems are bugged or half in place, story is rushed out with gaps, we got 4 maps…we had to pay the full price for this…and instead of giving priority to fixing the problems we have now, you almost proudly tell us the amount of devs you have working on the “next expansion”.

And then I am not even mentioning actually actively destroying content.
Destroying dungeons, killing of WvW, PvP is still a nightmare as well…

Wake up Anet.
If you guys are going for the cashgrab nobody will be around to actually play the next expansion.
Such a different company since Guild Wars 1, even so much change since the start of GW2, or even pré HoT…
What happened to you people…

I had the OOM error in the coregame as well after long hours of playing or after crowded world events.
Back then I tried everything, changed every setting, disabled uninstalled/re-installed every possible type of software, even made my local computer store check my hardware for errors.
Nothing came up, all clear, yet Anet support insisted that is was an error on my end, and not theirs.

The issues finally stopped when I shelled out money for a new graphics card, a GTX 970.
However, now in HoT the OOM crashes are starting again.
This leads me to believe that we are dealing with a pretty bad memory leak in the HoT client ( and possibly still the coregame as well), but unfortunately Anet has denied this in every possible way so far, and always points the finger at your own system.

I am running Gw2 on an I7 2600 processor, a 4GB GTX 970 Graphics Card, 16 GB of RAM, and a 64 bit Windows 7 OS.

It’s very hard to believe that this system would crash due to being “out of memory”.

I had the OOM error in the coregame as well after long hours of playing or after crowded world events.
Back then I tried everything, changed every setting, disabled uninstalled/re-installed every possible type of software, even made my local computer store check my hardware for errors.
Nothing came up, all clear, yet Anet support insisted that is was an error on my end, and not theirs.

The issues finally stopped when I shelled out money for a new graphics card, a GTX 970.
However, now in HoT the OOM crashes are starting again.
This leads me to believe that we are dealing with a pretty bad memory leak in the HoT client ( and possibly still the coregame as well), but unfortunately Anet has denied this in every possible way so far, and always points the finger at your own system.

I am running Gw2 on an I7 2600 processor, a 4GB GTX 970 Graphics Card, 16 GB of RAM, and a 64 bit Windows 7 OS.

It’s very hard to believe that this system would crash due to being “out of memory”.

D/D ele….

I have mixed feelings about the subject.
In its current form there is no doubt that celestial D/D is overpowered in current pvp.

Biggest issue for me: It can do everything.

It can hold or contest a node, outsustaining you in a 1v1 or even 2v1/3v1 if opposing players aren’t that bright.

It can easily decap points or escape lost fights with their great mobility.

They can easily force kills through might and burn stacking, they even have CC in earth and air.

They can also support their group with boons/heals/cleansing.

Counters are extremely limited.
Perhaps it gets better on higher MMR matches and tournaments ( altough even in tournaments you will see 1-2 D/D eles on each team a lot of the time), but in an average pvp match it is very hard to counter a D/D ele.

Burst it with condi? He goes into water and all your condi’s are gone.
Wait with your condi burst you say?
Cleansing fire in both utility and traitline says hello.

Physical burst?
On demand protection from earth/armor of earth, or a simple water attunement and they are almost back to full.

Almost got them down anyway?
Watch in awe how they disengage with dagger air #4.

This particular build is just to good at everything, has very little counters, and if the counter does not play extremely well the ele will probably destroy its counter as well.

What does that mean to me?
The problem comes forth out of the following combination:

1. celestial amulet giving eles to big of an advantage due to eles being able to use all stats it gives.

2. massive survivability due to (mostly) water and arcana.

3. massive might stacking

4. additional damage thanks to burning ( drakes breath and ring of fire)

5. disengage ( perhaps the smallest issue of all).

Thus for me the problem is not one single thing, it is the combination of all of the above. But how to balance?

Celestial amulet is only a problem with elementalists, not with other professions right now ( celestial engineer/warrior is a rare sight these days and celestial revenant has not arrived yet). Still, it could use some tweaking in the numbers, so it won’t give more stats all combined then the other amulets ( ideally, it should give a bit less imo to reinforce the ‘jack of all trades but master of none’theme).

Elementalist itself… Water sustain needs a hit. and perhaps replace the current water&earth dodge effects from evasive arcana.
However, it needs to be done very carefully.
Cele D/D needs to be brought in line, but I don’t think anybody wants elementalists to become useless.
Unfortunately, that is what happens if we would simply place a balance-nuke on water and arcana in its current form.
With those traitlines ele is OP, without them ele is crap.
Thus we are looking at either a complete re-design of the profession, or looking at huge buffs in other areas to compensate the big hit water and arcana deserve.

As for the might stacking…. would removing 1-2 blasts on the D/D set fix the problem?

I would give anything for a true random dungeon ( which I imagined fractals to be when it first came out).
Inside of it, anything would go.
Every dungeon/fractal path could be in there with every possible type of enemy with every possible endboss with every possible moveset.

Cofp1 lay-out with ghosts from AC ending with lupicus as the endboss with skills from the original lupi for the first 33%, getting the skills and mechanics from subject alpha for the next 33% and getting the skills from the molten shaman from molten fractal for the last 33%? It simply could happen.

Cliffside fractal lay-out with icebrood enemies from HoTw ending with the fractals molten duo behaving like mai trin for the first 50%, then the one remaining switching to the skillset and mechanics of the ghost eater from AC P2? Could just happen to be the combination you’d run into.

You have randomness, you have a certain amount of challenge ( crapload of combinations, and you do not know what the boss is gonna do, adding a certain level of needing to adapt), while also having 90% of the content needed available.

Naturally, rewards would need to be worthwile for completing something like that, and better rewards for harder combinations ( a cofp1 lay-out/coe mobs/ SE P2boss ( mechanics blanc) would give less of a pay-out then an Arah p4-layout/dredge fractal mobs/lupicus boss with mai trin mechanics). Perhaps make rewards vary from 5-25g excluding drops?
Limit the dungeon to once per day per character/account or make the money reward daily if you feel like it would destroy the economy.

Not hard enough?
Do a run in challenge mode.
In challenge mode, al normal mobs can also have different skills ( nightmare court mobs having aetherblade skills? It really isn’t your day…), and naturally have increased health, damage…and sometimes spike in a certain stat. Some mobs might be 99% resistant to physical or condi damage, others might get breakbars you have to break before taking damage, you name it.

Still not hard enough?
Take partywide gambits.
Gambits like unable to switch skills and traits, taking double damage, perma cripple, condition removal has no effect, unable to reflect, no elite skills, etc ( certain fractal instabilities are a step in the right direction).
Take the randomness and make it as hard and challenging as YOU want it to be.
Naturally the amount of gold received upon completion would be more depending on the amount and type of gambit ( a gambit that locks you out of healing skills would net more gold then the one that applies a random chill for example).

You could make it even more demanding of the player by making it that a partywipe means failure and a partywide kick out of the instance.

Would it be annoying? Yes.
Hard? Yes.
Challenging? If done right yes ( no zerker stacking, better AI, promoting other gear types etc).
Fun? For those who like some randomness yes.
Rewarding? Sure thing, why not.

Is there anybody here who would play and might enjoy something like this?
Or is all of this just a random brainfart I had in the middle of the night?

If they fix grenade barrage they should also fix warrior rampage, mesmer stealth instagibs, guard burn bombs, etc.

Atm that bug is the only thing zerk engi has aside from a slow to set up elixir build.
It is one skill, every 30 seconds.
It has a cast time, it can be blocked, it can be dodged.
If it misses the engi melts.

If they take away 100nades, but fail to adress the other overpowered damage specs engi will drop out of pvp. Traits are already all over the place, and builds that normally would have been viable in the previous meta won’t cut it now.

Fights no longer take 1 minute.
They take mere seconds.
barrage is the only thing engi has to compete in this burst meta.
I am not saying it isnt bugged, it is obvious that it is.
But it’s the only thing they have to match the instant burstpower of other classes.

Sure, nerf 100 nades.
But also nerf instagib stealth mesmer spike, 11k backstabs, warrior instagibs, etc.
If everyone is OP and has oneshots, then nobody is OP.
take away 100nades and engi has no power build for pvp left to compete.
It is all about instagibs now, the one-shot meta has arrived.

Celestial engineers and eles that have the sustain of a bunker and the damage of a full condi dmg or almost full zerker spec, thus never die yet need to be 2v1’d to kill.

And the horrible matchmaking system that seems to think it should pair you with people that enter pvp for the first time while facing full pre-mades or even tournament teams.

I suppose I am a noob.
But I just think the current meta is the worst one we have ever had, and that every day is another nail in pvp’s coffin.

In light of all the turret hating, I will just leave this here:

http://puu.sh/gWxkL/72d74f67ce.jpg

It is funny how everytime Anet claims to make something better they only make things worse.
Going from a ~50% winrate pre-patch to a 10% winrate AT BEST post-patch is complete bullkitten.
So is getting matched as solo player versus pre-mades with dragons, voice-chat or even tournament people, while your own team is as dumb as a rock.
After lots of games to give this new matchmaking an honest go I am done.
PvP is dead.
Gratz to anet for putting the final nail in the coffin.
Not only do they fail to adress the massive celestial engi+ele unbalance ( which will kill the game all by itself since the first balance patch, if they ever adress it is still months and months away), now they also screwed over the matchmaking AND merged solo and team pvp, something nobody asked for and should never have happened.

And now i read a few posts up that Anet has no plans of re-implementing solo queue?
Fine, you won’t see me in pvp anymore, nor will you see a massive amount of your casual to semi-pro population.
Soon the entire PvP population will be 50 people maximum.

It is always sad seeing a game die, but it is even more sad when you see the developers doing it themselves while refusing to see their screw ups.

Quitting Guild Wars 2 as a whole?
That depends on Anets vision of high end pve content.
If that does not improve I will probably leave.

Quitting pvp?
I will stop playing solo, and only rarely when I have a team that is for sure.
I do not know how the new matchmaking works, but it seems borked to me.

Skillwise, I am not a pro player, rank 69 ( shark ).
Before the patch my games were pretty even, you win some and you lose some.
Sometimes I won loads in a row, sometimes I lost quite a few.
In the end it averaged out 50/50.

Since the path I played over 75 games.
Got creamed in ~70 of those.
Everytime I get faced with premades, or facing Jebro/Rom/Tage.
I am nowhere near that skill level.
Yet whenever I queue, that is what happens.
premades, top players, full dragon teams…

Until the matchmaking is fixed to be more..realistic, so I don’t lose 30+ times in a row between each win, I will probably let pvp be.

Always loved the format despite its obvious shortcomings, but this is just not fun to me anymore.

Losing is ok, you learn from mistakes.
But not like this.
This is bullkitten.

I have played loads of matches before this ‘new matchmaking’.
Never a big problem, you win some, you lose some.
Sometimes you had a winning streak, sometimes you lost a few in a row.

After the matchmaking?
Played over 50 games.
Only won one, and then I am not even starting about the bullkitten that is called celestial engineers and d/d eles that ruin the format ( the team with the most celestial abusers wins).

Always enjoyed pvp, but I see it is time to say goodbye to it now.
Losing is ok.
Losing 40+ times in a row versus celestial bs and premades is not.

Seriously, there is nothing wrong with this bossfight.
It is perfectly doable on every prof.
I did it, and many others did as well.
I am really sorry, but if you manage to die a bazillion times here, it really is a learn to play issue.
This fight is nowhere close to Liadri was in terms of difficulty.
Every class has their own tricks for this encounter.
The massive dragon aoe can also be blocked by aegis, warrior shield, mesmer sword offhand, engineer shield/gearshield, etc.
elementalist can simply equip a focus and call it a day.
the dragonhead appears at the exact same spot every single time…
Honestly, if you are willing to learn and think, you can do this.
Look at that weaponset you never really use, give that odd utility skill a second chance, try that niche trait..
I may be wrong, but I see a lot of crying from people that refuse to learn, adapt, or even dodge, and then accuse others of being elitist when this gets pointed out to them.

Hell, if you can’t do it in zerkergear, go tanky.
It’s not like you lose a lot of damage here, both the bossphases and tendrils have pretty low health.

Here, I will give you a headstart.

guardian: focus #5 , retreat, renewed focus, shelter…gazillion blocks. add your favorite stunbreaker and perhaps a reflect wall and you are golden.

warrior: shield #5 for OSHT moments, shake it off, healing signet ( or healstance trolling by healing to full by standing in the AoE ), endure pain, perhaps balanced stance for unlucky moments. having longbow secondary helps. tendrils hate the F1 burst.

mesmer: sword/sword set. sword #2 evades, sword #4 blocks, shatter f4 ( be brave and trait illusionary persona for on-demand invuln ), signet that recharges shatters, and good ol’ feedback.

elementalist: love your focus. love your conjured weapons ( frostbow&FGS trolling ). bring arcane shield and mistform for your OSHT times. ether renewal heal to laugh away those conditions ( if anything gets through focus air #4 and earth #4/#5)

engineer: grenades. 1500 range grenades. hit everyone. never get hit. offhand shield for reflect lolz and the block on shield #5 when you have no dodges and aoe hits you. gearshield for another block. invuln elixir for more OSHT. supply drop because..it’s supply drop.

necro: well of power + consume conditions ignores any condi anything can throw on you. smack your own conditions on the tendrils, then time epidemic well so suddenly 3 tendrils have all your delicious bleeds. well of corruption is optional if the mordrem wolf causes you so much pain. dodge/jump/deathshroud dragon vomit/aoe.

ranger: shortbow is cute with a nice evade. be pro and melee the vines with sword/dagger. you have three evades on that set. sword #3 and dagger #4 evade aoe, sword #2 gets you out of there if it gets truly nasty. healing spring to counter condi, lightning reflexes for more dodging and vigor..last skill is optional. if you are very bad, and are sylvari, use the racial that spawns the seed turrets, 3 sec invuln is sexy, and DPS is not that important on the big evil salad.

thief: pistolwhip the kitten out of everyone while evading stuff & healing with signet of malice?
daggerstorm + smokescreen versus projectiles?
signet of agility for anti condi/extra dodges?

And those are just weapon skills, you have all these awesome things called “traits” to help you out even further.

Same situation as most.
Server : SFR.
Placed first, got the achievement for placing as first under my WvW achievement tab, showing an opened chest, yet never got a chest or key or anything.
Yet somehow my guildies did get their chests.
I know kitten about coding/programming, but is it really that hard to make things function properly for once?

I am indeed running on Windows 7 64 bit.
I did not mention it because it seemed pretty obvious to me.
Why would I have 16 GB of RAM if I would not have a 64 bit OS to make use of it?
Furthermore, if you would have looked in the error log I attached, you would have seen it specifies my OS as 64 bit on one of the first lines of text.
But perhaps some people are not as knowledgeable technically, so my apologies if I was unclear.

I can assure you that all of my hardware is in perfect condition.
Not only did I test all hardware myself ( memtest and benchmarks like 3Dmark, Prime, Heaven etc. Memtest found no errors, and all benchmarks ran without problems for over 24 hours straight), I also sent the whole system to the computer store that built it and made them look at every part.
No issues were found.
The crash is also only during Guild Wars 2, and not in any other game whatsoever, no matter how long I play it ( All maxed. Think games like The Witcher 2 with übersampling, Tomb Raider 2013, Battlefield 3, Skyrim with a gazillion graphic-enchancing mods).

Thank you for your answer.
I indeed find it to be very frustrating that I have to turn down my graphical settings due to bad optimalisation.
Especially because I have opened a support ticket about this, and the person assisting me got extremely annoyed when I suggested it might have something to do with the code of GW2 because I double checked every hardware part in my machine ( both myself and the computer store that built the rig ) and did not install any new software for months.

Do you by any chance have some suggestions as to what settings I should tone down?
I run everything at Ultra/highest, so pretty much every option can be toned down.

Also having this crash issue, solely happening at World Events or invasions ( or shortly after).
Never had any crash issues before the invasion patch.
Just like others I have a well specced computer running everything on Ultra while achieving ~ 50 fps in normal open world, 70-80 fps in dungeon, and over 100 fps in calm areas.

This is not even funny anymore.
Ever since the scarlet patch that removed culling I crash during world events.
With culling settings to highest I crash during the first world event I do, if I set it to high I live through 3 world events before FPS goes to hell and I crash.
Sometimes even getting the crash after a few hours of play and simply walking around.
What the hell is going on here?
The game claims it’s an out of memory crash….
seriously?
My amount of RAM should blow this game out of the water.

system specs:
processor: i7 2600 quadcore @ 3.4 Ghz not overclocked.
GPU: Asus Geforce GTX 590 3 GB
RAM: 16 GB
OS: Windows 7 64 bit servicepack 1