Guild Wars 2

Going from 100% stoppage of actions to 50% action speed. No duration increase. Slow is literally a 50% daze, except it doesn’t interrupt… Nerfs always feel bad, maybe bad enough to not have the trap trait be mandatory? The immobilize trait starting to look good eh?

Why does it take like 10 extra seconds for the game to recognize being out of combat after killing dredge?

has so much invisible stuff going on, it should be called the invisible keep.

Ragnarox.9601:

We are giving you some quality updates :

Decreased cd of Save yourselves to 38 sec.
Decreased cd of Bane signet to 22 sec.
Decreased cd of Signet of mercy to 100 sec.
Decreased cd of Sanctuary to 75 sec.

Enjoy.

That would not surprise me. They keep decreasing the cd of Bane Signet to the point where it shares cooldowns with Signet of Wrath, its completely inferior alternative. Bane Signet = 3s knockdown on 30s cooldown
Signet of Wrath = 3s immobilize on 30s cooldown
Condition damage is inferior to Power.
How does this make any sense. They need to lower Signet of Wrath down to 15 seconds, that would be pretty sweet.

Bought HoT on cdkeys a few days before launch, saved 20 bucks. Seeing as I’m still here, I’d say it’s probably fine. Anecdotal evidence best evidence!

Your pets/minions/illusions can damage treasure mushrooms. No idea when it got fixed, but just noticed today.

TD is a wonderfully designed map. It’s not too flat and simple like AB, and not too much of a messy hodgepodge like VB.

I’m gonna guess it’s either revenant or ranger.

For some reason you can equip the gem store gathering tools, but can’t equip orichalcum gathering tools in the pvp lobby. It’s weird.

Has anyone tested whether you can get the 10% damage boost from another player’s spear? Or if having multiple spears increases the bonus from the trait? I was just wondering if maybe they pulled another Symbolic Avenger, and it just wasn’t noticed because spears aren’t as common as symbols and you don’t spear a gate.

Thaddeus.4891:

Yes the Hammer dps was tested. You can find the videos on youtube and reddit. It’s the third best dps for raids behind Tempest and Thief (especially for Sabetha).

It was tested full buffed, compare to other profession full buffed.

The Hammer build dps is better at sustain dps, while GS + Bow is better at burst dps. The shorter the fight, the better GS + Bow will be. Hammer dps is also higly dependend on the movement of the boss. So GS + Bow for short fight against mob that move a lot, Hammer against longer fight against mobs that move not too much or slowly. What is the exact line where one is better than the other is higly variable, use your judgment.

Every professions are improved by quickness. Profession that use a good portion of their dps from auto-attack like Guardian Hammer, Thief D/D or Herald Sword will see thier dps boosted more than profession like Tempest by quickness. That said, alacrity usually almost never affect auto-attack profession, while affected the dps of profession like Tempest by a lot.

So the notion that some wrote here that you must have quickness for the Hammer build is doubtful. I’m not saying they are wrong, but Hammer won’t go from one of the best dps build to not worth using just because the party don’t have any quickness.

IMO, use whatever you want, there is too many variable and in the end, the difference between GS + Bow isn’t that big anyway. In 30sec fight, the GS + Bow only have like 10% more dps than Hammer without quickness, so unless you go for a record run or you really want to min max your build to every situation, just use the build you like the most.

For now, there is only at sabetha that we extensively tested Hammer build to say for sure that Hammer DH is the best Guardian build to use.

Alacrity is useful to hammer dps too since it isn’t just all autoattacks. Alacrity increases uptime of Big Game Hunter and lowers cooldown on dps traps like Procession of Blades.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Xhyros.1340:

You are wrong and demonstrate a clear lack of understanding of what dps means. Stop posting, spend a day or 2 and think, and then delete all your wrong posts, it might confuse other people.

Without a clear explanation of how the OP is wrong or even of what DPS means in the context of condition duration, I have to assume this respondent simply wanted to rant and isn’t really interested in helping others understand.

He is simply describing dps between t0-t1. A metric only useful if the fight happens to last 1 second. If a fight did happen to only last 1 second, I’m pretty sure no one would care about how much damage you’re doing, congrats on killing that ambient creature! What matters is dps between t0-tn, where n is the amount of time it takes the target to die. Arbitrarily picking the first second and saying it proves his point is wrong and shows a clear lack of understanding of what matters (time to kill).

DGraves.3720:

That Guy.5704:

you are comparing apples and oranges now. you re either missing successive applications or you are trying to effectively compare different skills.

we are talking about an individual application of the same skill under different stats. that application is going to have some kind of a cooldown.

When you double the numerator and denominator of 720/6 without doubling both of 1200/12, what you are saying is that 720/6 gets to cast 2x in 12 seconds while 1200/12 only gets to cast once.

Sure, if we have a 6 second cooldown here and we look at 12 seconds, 720/6 does in fact do 1440 damage over that time (120 * 12), but 1200/12 also has 6 seconds of a second stack because we are talking about a 6 second cooldown. In otherwords, 100*12 + 100*6 = 1800 total damage compared to 1440.

Alternatively, lets say its a 12 second cooldown. If the duration on the 120 is only 6 seconds but on a 12 second cooldown, then you actually only get 720 damage per 12 seconds: 720/12. whereas double duration at a 100 damage per stack still gives you 1200/12.

If the damage ticks at once per second the cooldown is 1s. That’s it. There is an equivalent number of ticks, regardless of duration, captured in an equivalent amount of time and this is where it gets interesting; if you have a 1:1 application of a bleed then the true ratio is simply ( Bleed A / Bleed B ) because when you take and expand time you’ll get different ticks.

To show this let’s say second 1, at second 1 you do 120 and 100, which is equivalent to 1 second, at second 2 you do 120 and 100 + second 1 at 120 and 100, for a total of two ticks, at second three you do second 3’s 120 + 100 and and second 2’s 120 and 100 and second 1’s 120 and 100. Simple enough.

But let me shake it up to make the proof clear, let’s say that Bleed A has a duration of 1 second @120 and Bleed B has a duration of 10 seconds @100.

Second 1: 120 | 100
Second 2: 120 | 100
Second 3: 120 | 100
Second 4: 120 | 100
Second 5: 120 | 100
Second 6: 120 | 100
Second 7: 120 | 100
Second 8: 120 | 100
Second 9: 120 | 100
Second 10: 120 | 100

The duration of the bleed has no effect. If it is applied every second the bleed of 1s will do 120 damage and if it is applied every second the bleed of 10s will still only do 100 dmg. But what you will see is very different; instead of Bleed A appearing as 1,200/10s you will see (120/1s) ten times and Bleed B will “appear to build” as such:

S1: 100
S2: 200
S3: 300
S4: 400
S5: 500
S6: 600
S7: 700
S8: 800
S9: 900
S10: 1,000

Clearly 1,000 is far greater than 120 so the 120 obviously looks inferior but again without taking things as like denominators we find that 120/1*10=1,200 and 1,200/1,000 = 1.2

Since 1.2 is the answer to the system that’s all that matters. Stacking bleeds gives an illusion of damage being dealt because it is additive but the duration of the actual tick is still 1s and so while it will tick for longer it does not actually tick more given any period of time. You can do this for 10s or 10,000 years and the answer will always be the same.

You are wrong and demonstrate a clear lack of understanding of what dps means. Stop posting, spend a day or 2 and think, and then delete all your wrong posts, it might confuse other people.

Pure of Heart turns the aegis trap into another heal. Combine it with the aegis trap on cc trait for ridinkydonk sustain. Take the condition removal on block trait and you got a heal that removes conditions.

Idea: revert alacrity to 66%, half duration of all sources of alacrity. Same overall effect, but more multiple mesmer friendly.

Scepter autoattacks are weird. It’s pretty much a melee weapon. The next bolt won’t fire until the previous one hits, so being right in your target’s face is much faster than max range. Try using skill 3, it goes much quicker. Or go mining or chopping, the animations are definitely sped up. At least you still get the condition damage boost. There’s a reason it can get away with having that 30% attack speed trait and not be OP. Attack speed doesn’t really affect it.

coso.9173:

“oriental” is offensive? I have never heard that before. english isn’t my main language, but in spanish “oriental” (the same word) is not an offensive word at all.
about my dream expansion, I’d love to see something with lots of creepy things, maybe the shatterer, with destroyed towns, and awesome ruined places.

And “insert spanish word for black here” is spanish for black.

I want to go deep underground with lava filled caverns and weird bioluminescent mushrooms and whatnot. Shadows and darkness and refuges of light. The lighting effects would have to be really top notch to sell the feel though.

I just noticed outfits do this too. Here’s a list: Ancestral, Arcane, Cook, Fancy Winter, Hexed, Jungle Explorer, Lunatic Guard, Lyssa, Mad King, Mad Scientist, Noble Count, Pirate Captain, Raimant of Lich, Wedding Attire, and Witch. Some seem to clip harder than others.

Also the Forgeman Breastplate also moves back-stowed weapons into the back just like the Mistward Plate.

Sadface. I miss the special decal for Symbol of Energy, even though it didn’t actually represent anything as the burn effect was changed to be the entire circle. It looked so clean.

Shows as default for me. In fact, one decal that WASN’T the default decal before (Dragonhunter’s Symbol of Energy) is now the default decal.

DeceiverX.8361:

AA damage on MH dagger and staff way, way overtuned. Just what the hell are they thinking?…

And sword aa was sped up about 30%!

Back-stowed weapon positions on charrs are lower than with the rest of the armors. It makes weapons like Sunrise clip really hard into the back.

On a subtly related note: I can’t believe it took me this long to notice.

Mistward Plate on charrs makes back-stowed weapons move in closer to the body, making them clip a bit. It makes Sunrise REAAAALLY clip.

Nike.2631:

I think the real lesson isn’t that they are or (clearly) aren’t optimal, but that a Guardian can deliver every single tool that fight calls for. Heals, tanking, CC, Power DPS, Condi DPS, & pushes. All. Of. It. Which to me makes a skillfully played Guardian the universal fill-in for that fight. Its one of the few classes that lives up to the concept that “your profession doesn’t determine your role, it determines how you fulfill your role.”

“What are we missing? Fine, have a Guardian do it.”

I find almost every comparison of such-and-such profession does this-or-that better than Guards, ignores that a Guard can do 2-3 needful things very well with a single build even if it doesn’t match the ultimate outliers at their one thing at a time.

Except for boon strip. Guard has 0 boon strip. Sigil of Nullification is not a guard thing. It would be neat if for the balance patch they re-added the strip boon on burn trait somewhere, maybe on the torch trait. Or add boon strip to torch 5.

Precision strike is being buffed to stupid OP levels. Would be too OP to not nerf 3 with 2’s insane single target damage/chill. Precision strike has 1.0 coefficient per projectile x 3 with chill and 600 range on a 4s cooldown with .5s cast time. You know what else has a 3.0 coefficient? Gravedigger, except that skill is melee, doesn’t chill, has a 1.25s cast time, and has twice the cooldown above 50% health or if it misses. Hundred blades has an 8s cd too, but only has a 5.31 coefficient, and has a longass 3.5s channel. Of course those other skills CAN hit more than one target, which is sort of what a.net was going for, sword being the Shiro/assassin weapon to wreck that single target’s day.

Still too strong, needs more nerf. A 3.0 power coefficient skill on a 4s cooldown? Are they high? With only .5s channeling? That is OP as hell. And its a projectile, so you can’t just walk out of it? And it permachills? kittenmit a.net what is this insanity? Sword is gonna be gamebreakingly OP, it is basically 100b without the 3s cast time, so what if you need to use it up close? Then use it up close, it should be easy to stay on them with the kitten permachill. This skill is gonna need a cooldown increase or a chill and damage nerf if it’s gonna fire all 3 projectiles with just one target.

What would it look like on an asura?

Rodzynald.5897:

Obtena.7952:

I would prefer if there was a ‘smart’ way to apply Aegis but i don’t think stacking it is the answer; it’s way too easily abused that way.

Personally, I would like to see changed to absorb a certain amount of damage instead of a single hit. That way it’s not so easily wiped away by clever players.

Yeah, that hits the spot.
An Aegis that absorbs damage instead of getting popped by a random AA.
But the question indeed remains:
What kind of damage, both power and condi ?

If it comes to scaling I guess it might scale off of the highest stat so that every guardian could get absorption.

Pure of Heart already exists, which is almost the same as damage absorption. The heal is just kinda really weak.

Asmodal.6489:

I need to jump in cause I do not understand

cranos.5913:

It’s a fact that guardian got the unique defensive buff instead of an offensive one.

what buff is this? and why is FMW not unique in its execution and characteristics? And how is this a fact?

cranos.5913:

It’s a fact FMW pales in comparison with chronomancer quickness even if we disregard the extremely broken chronomancer rune.

How is that a fact? FMW provides a lot more uptime of Group Quickness. If you are talking about personal quickness thats a different story but each tool has its uses.

cranos.5913:

It’s a fact that it doesn’t bring a lot of other offensive buffs like fury and might.

28% fury uptime through FMW add in 30% through LoW+smiters Boon. this is not considering any boon duration. I think that is not not a lot … so where is that a fact?

A fact is that a guard has 6 useable shouts that can do certain things. Nothing becomes a fact just because you found three other peope that agree wit your opinion.

Guardian provides more quickness than mesmer. Chronomancer provides A LOT more quickness than guardian. A dragonhunter does more personal damage than a chronomancer. Did you know Signet of Inspiration is a thing? That personal quickness on a chronomancer just became group quickness.

Just checked ingame, it seems like many, but not all were fixed. Nicely done!

I’m not crazy, it sounds even “grander” than before, right? Any other changes in the city that came with the new music?

King Cephalopod.7942:

Xhyros.1340:

You won’t need fire fields when you get 5 guardians autoing providing 5 stacks of might each XD.

Not gonna lie, there’s a part of me that deeply wants 10-guardian hammerway to be a thing. But hammer AA doesn’t have much on real damage rotations.

Before HoT, I believe just using hammer auto was 2nd to guardian’s best rotation between GS and Sw/F. Though LB throws that out the window. Luckily though, Procession of Blades fits quite well inbetween hammer 2 and 3 (and the blades seem to start spinning right exactly when the symbol appears, it’s wonderful), so it’s not JUST autoattacking now; you gotta fit in Spear of Justice, FMW, and PoB so at least it’s not as stupidly mindless as Herald’s “rotation”.

Unfortunately, 10 guardians will never be as effective as 8 guardians and 2 revenants since the 50% boon uptime would turn the 25s/45s quickness uptime into 30s/45s quickness uptime, and they have that one ferocity party share trait. At least you wouldn’t need any healers with all that protection and symbol regen going around (and Wings of Resolve being a surprisingly powerful group heal).

King Cephalopod.7942:

Xhyros.1340:

Why would mace have a strong auto, it’s slow as heck. It may seem strong because of how big the third hit looks, but it’s weaker than GS autos. By a lot. And NO GS in this game has good autoattack chain damage, they’re all about burst. It’s hammer. Hammer is only very slightly behind Revenant sword at the moment. Guardian hammer auto does about 99.3% of the damage Revenant sword auto does (against single targets), although it’s less stable and obviously is horrible against targets that run around.

Yeah, but that’s because the AA has an aoe tacked on and a huge cast time on chain 3 to compensate. Also everything else it does is a little wonky. 3 gets caught on terrain, not a long immobilize and a long startup. 5 makes you stand still. 4 huge cast time low damage. 2 has okay damage and is a blast finisher (good). All the damage is frontloaded on 1, because nothing else is a damage skill (2 is more for the blast than the damage, well, post JI synergy nerf). And the thing about hammer is the light fields are really obnoxious when trying to make synergy with the blast.

You won’t need fire fields when you get 5 guardians autoing providing 5 stacks of might each XD.

Malchior.1928:

Xhyros.1340:

Guardian has the 2nd strongest autoattack chain in the game, right behind Revenant sword. Revenant sword auto is getting nerfed. Guardian will (probably) have the strongest autoattack chain, hopefully still decent burst with traps, and good offensive support with FMW.

Are you talking about mace?

Why would mace have a strong auto, it’s slow as heck. It may seem strong because of how big the third hit looks, but it’s weaker than GS autos. By a lot. And NO GS in this game has good autoattack chain damage, they’re all about burst. It’s hammer. Hammer is only very slightly behind Revenant sword at the moment. Guardian hammer auto does about 99.3% of the damage Revenant sword auto does (against single targets), although it’s less stable and obviously is horrible against targets that run around.

Guardian has the 2nd strongest autoattack chain in the game, right behind Revenant sword. Revenant sword auto is getting nerfed. Guardian will (probably) have the strongest autoattack chain, hopefully still decent burst with traps, and good offensive support with FMW.

kuscheldrow.6415:

I’d like THE EGG as a backpack skin. It looked so nice.
And… well… my signature says it all.

Can’t you just replay that part of the story and not continue it?

Many of the Charr cultural armors and a few others severely mess up location of shield on a charr character, moving it into the arm for some reason. The pieces for the glitch can be easily determined by previewing a shield in the “Wielded” form with the offending piece of armor. I spent a few minutes checking which ones did this: here’s the list of which pieces move the shield into the arm.

Headgear: Archon Helm, Fanged Dread Mask, Flame Legion Mask, Harelequin’s Mask, Heritage Masque, Invoker’s Helm, Mind of Koda, Phantasm’s Mask, Priory’s Historical Cowl

Shoulder: Archon Shoulders, Flame Legion Epaulets, Heritage Mantle, Invoker’s Shoulders, Mantle of Koda, Priory’s Historical Mantle

Chest: Archon Coat, Flame Legion Vestments, Heritage Greatcoat, Invoker’s Coat, Priory’s Historical Vestments, Soul of Koda

Gloves: Arms of Koda, Flame Legion Wraps, Heritage Gloves, Invoker’s Gloves, Priory’s Historical Gloves

Leggings: Archon Leggings, Heritage Pants, Invoker’s Leggings, Priory’s Historical Pants, Way of Koda

Boots: Archon Boots, Flame Legion Shoes, Heritage Shoes, Invoker’s Boots, Path of Koda, Priory’s Historical Shoes

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. Guys, the expansion can’t be upcoming if it’s been released over a month ago. Isn’t it high time to merge this back into regular Discussion?

Correct me if I’m wrong but, people keep on spouting nonsense about Revenant sword autos being the “strongest”. I mathed it out myself, giving each class the approrpriate damage traits and guardian hammer auto chain came out to be ~20% stronger than revenant sword auto chain (assuming ~5 boons on revenant and target that is crippled and burning). This is for single target only. I came out with:

Guardian: 2.65 p/s (no Spear of Justice), 2.92 p/s (with Spear of Justice), 2.73 (Spear of Justice used on cooldown)

Traits: Fiery Wrath (7% burning), Symbolic Power (10% to symbol damage, (turns the 2.5 power coefficient into 2.75)), Symbolic Avenger (10%), Writ of Persistence (+2 ticks, turns 1.5 power coefficient on last auto into 2.5), Zealot’s Aggression (10% crippled), Pure of Sight (7% at 0-600 distance), Big Game Hunter (10%, but with low uptime = 3% if used on cooldown).

Hammer has 10% more weapon damage than sword, so that’s the same as having a 10% damage trait on permanently.

Revenant: 2.22 p/s (5 boons), 2.01 p/s (>50% hp), 2.41 p/s (<50% hp)

Traits: Vicous Lacerations (10% after hitting 5 times), Targetted Destruction (7% vulnerable), Swift Termination (20% while under 50%, or pretty much 10%), Ferocious Aggression (7%), Elder’s Force (2% per boon, 10% if have 5 boons, good average I’d say).

Yes, revenants have a lot more group damage buffs, and a strong burst skill on sword 3, but they do NOT have the strongest autoattacks. Their autoattack is ~20% weaker than guardian hammer auto. Twenty, freaking, percent.

Sorry for all the math, I just got annoyed from constantly hearing how god kitten ed strong the revenant sword auto was.

Used power coefficients and autoattack sequence length from wiki.

Edit: I found what I was missing: reve gets the +20% crit chance trait, so with ~220% crit damage that would essentially be a 24% damage trait which would make that 2.22 become a 2.75. I’m slightly sad now.

Yes yes yes yes yes, need a dps meter so bad. How the hell am I supposed to know if changing up my build up this way or that way is improving my overall performance? I want to know my numbers so I know whether what I’m doing is working or needs changing. There is no way in hell I am going to go through the combat log and add it all up myself.

If you’re complaining about timers or gear viability, raids are not for you. Neither is Tangled Depths, or probably HoT for that matter. Go back to Central Tyria, where you can wear whatever you want and be see success (except for Triple Trouble, that’s not for you either). I am not being sarcastic. Different situations have different requirements, deal with.

It most definitely didn’t show up in the daily chest, and the icons above the bouncy chest area are kinda wonky when all the events are going on. I didn’t see the box there until I was half-way through opening all the loot bags and loot bags within loot bags from a DS win. As I clicked one of the boxes, the option to select invisible shoes popped up and I freaked the eff out. I did kill 2 treasure shrooms there though, so I probably just didn’t notice the icon rolling down the side in the confusion of running around for the noxious pods.

Aaaaand it’s gone.

Kal Spiro.9745:

My understanding of toughness is that each point over 2000 is increasingly less valuable. Mine is over 3000, I want to convert SOME of it to Vitality.

I don’t use conditions, so condition damage is a totally worthless stat. I could put into precision, but unless I committed to precision to get at least 50% it is also a worthless stat, so I’d prefer not to bother. Without committing to precision, Ferocity becomes a worthless stat as well at that point.

Healing Power keeps my regen high enough to out heal most damage I experience and personal healing high enough to negate all the rest.

1 toughness negates 1 power.

Someone listed the medium boots for 1.5k on the TP, still there. Wonder if they’ll sell.

How do multiple applications of soft cc like immobilize work? Since it normally only has 3 active duration stacks going at a time, is it the same with breakbars, with every application after the fourth not doing anything until the first stack has worn off?

It’s a knockback with a crippling toolbelt. Engineers have an absurd amount of soft and hard cc. Turrets can be traited to knockback on death or detonation. Thumper has a launch. Throw mine has a knockback. Supply drop stuns, and can be detonated. Net turrets immobilize. Overcharged rocket turret knocks back. Grenades can chill. They have so many choices for breaking bars, they are king of control. Also during the raid testing I heard they were also top dps? Engis aren’t a jack of all trades, they’re a master of all.

Not breaking the blue bar when it appears is counterintuitive and needs to be fixed. The stun duration and bonus damage need to be finaggled with until it is a reward rather than a punishment. The duration of said reward needs to scale with how long it had left on its channel to encourage fast breaking. Where was the game designer for this? It should’ve been obvious, unless they WANTED you to not break the bar, which I highly doubt, like how they didn’t want you to fail events in Orr.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Breakbar

Mobs with breakbars are always immune to cc. When to cc you ask? When their bar is blue. Soft cc dot is not equal. Cripple is weak, while fear is very strong. Someone should probably try to figure out their relative strengths, that would be useful information.

Kinda annoying how they make the picking up grunting noises every time they start running with a GS or hammer though.