Guild Wars 2

The one thing that I have noticed from todays event is that the priority of the culling is not correct. Especially with mobs like the Veteran Kraka that steam roll us for massive amounts of damage. The culling really needs to prioritize enemies at a much higher distance and needs to load them immediately. Right now a lot of times I’m standing there watching numerous allies shoot at something I can’t see or target. The problem is I’m not supposed to dodge or kill my allies.

Honestly the exotic gear is a piece of cake to obtain and is entirely achievable even by the casual player. If anything for me the ascended gear fills the void of not having legendary armor sets. I mean would you be crying foul if they introduced legendary armor sets that were the equivalent of what legendary weapons are, including crafting difficulty because the way I read it that is exactly what has been done except this should be easier to obtain.

The fact of the matter is you can’t provide content expansions and not provide something unique to be obtained through it. Unless you just want a level cap increase and a whole knew set of exotics/legendary items every time they add content. I’m amazed by the number of people that instantly rant about a “gear treadmill” but lets face it obtaining a legendary in this game is already more work then the top tier armor set in just about every game I have ever played. Adding the Ascended armor in a fashion that it appears won’t make it nearly as hard to achieve as the legendary weapons doesn’t come close to creating the gear climb most of you seem to believe in.

That said I also agree with those people that have stated quite clearly that its a game that is effectively free if your on these forums complaining since you’ve already paid for it. If you choose to invest more via gems that is entirely a personal decision and give that spending no validity in these arguments. So if you are unhappy with them adding the content you can simply quit and you’ve probably already gotten better value for your money out of this game than many of the MMOs released over the past decade.

I agree with Fred that the combat system and the class design isn’t the problem but the attitude of the players is. The GW2 class system and combat systems are designed to make the fights more engaging and feel faster paced. I think for the most part they’ve done exactly that.

There are some fights where you can just stand and dps and it feels boring. The opposite is getting into situations where you feel that its impossible to survive with these same tools. Often in impossible situations I’ve found that there is some little thing I’m missing. It may be a different way to pull, it may be that I haven’t noticed the give away to a specific ability. Whatever it may be a little study generally results in a solution and if not there are a couple spots where nerfs were necessary and ANet has been good about dealing with both these as much as possible.

If you are trying to build the highest dps spec possible then you don’t understand the combat system and need to re-evaluate your priorities if you want to participate successfully in PvE content. Its not about the class and its skills nearly as much as its about the player and attention to details.

I’m not against the changes that were made and understand that these were done as just the first step toward curbing retaliation builds.

I agree that Leap of Faith’s CD was to long and that Symbol of Wrath’s was to short. I actually agreed with the changes to the skills but have also noted the unfortunate consequence to the damage curve of the Greatsword. As such I don’t think a revert is in order but perhaps a smaller change.

-Add 1-2 seconds to the duration of Symbol of Wrath
OR
-Increase the damage boost Symbol of Wrath provides to other Great Sword skills

I actually favor the Increase in damage boost provided to Symbol of Wrath because it helps recover the damage lost in PvE while upping the required awareness for it in PvP. I’m also talking about a very small boost here where total damage output would only be increased by 2-3%.

Regarding the traits that effect symbols, I don’t think you can analyze each one individually as that is not how traits are intended to be viewed. Yes individually you can argue the effect this change had on those traits but at the same time it demonstrates why this nerf was necessary. If you were really taking all those traits with only Symbol of Wrath in mind then Symbol of Wrath was to strong. If you took them all in order to focus on so many of the other Symbols we have then this change doesn’t really effect the build that much.

I agree that the free server transfers are absolutely detrimental to WvW on most servers and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Dragonbrand is a perfect example and the discussion is even raging on our private guild forums right now.

Dragonbrand started as an unorganized server with a decent population and a couple of large guilds formed and started to lead the masses. But then it became apparent that it was easier just to transfer to another server with a night population to win WvW. Overnight we lost several of our top guilds that were helping keep WvW successful and it shows in our performances over the last couple weeks. Unfortunately at this point the damage is done, the transfers have occurred and the queues are the only thing left to force people to move away from the top servers. There is nothing at this point that won’t be to little to late.

An update on my observations following the downtime at 11:59 pm Oct 3rd.

I did a full survey for Omnomberry, Orichalcum, and Orrian finding 3 of each in the Cursed Shore zone. I harvested all of them except the last Orrian as it was near the end of the survey and I had exhausted my axe and was not carrying an extra.

I returned at 1pm and surveyed the entire zone again finding no new nodes. The interesting result is the status of the nodes I had previously discovered. 2 of the Orichalcum nodes were harvestable again, all of the Omnomberry and only 1 of the Orrian. Of the Orrian nodes it was one I had harvested the prior visit that had refreshed while the one I had not harvested was no longer harvestable and showed an exhausted stump. The fact that across the T6 nodes there is such a great disparity in respawn and the fact that one I hadn’t harvested was exhausted shows that there is definitely a bug.

This is not a bug, it has already been confirmed else where that there is an upcoming event. The 4th part of the monthly achievement will be tied to that event and will not be available until then.

Class: Guardian
Race: Sylvari
Level: 80
Server: Dragonbrand

Alright so my full report as I’ve experienced so far.

The night following the latest patch that required a client restart I spent some time between 1:00 am and 3:00 am PST surveying and mapping all of the Orichalcum, Orrian, and Omnomberry location in Cursed Shore. I found a total of 5 Orichalcum, 4 Orrian, and 4 Omnomberry locations at that time.

I returned at approximately 12:00(noon) PST to gather these nodes again and found all of them absent and in many cases I couldn’t even find the depleted node where it was. I did find a single Omnomberry that I had likely missed the night before at a different location from any of the prior node locations.

I again returned to survey at approximately 1:00 am (24 hours after the original survey) and did yet another survey. I found 2 Orichalcum, 3 Omnomberry, and 2 Orrian nodes. One of the Omnomberry nodes was the same one I had found previously that I thought I had missed in the initial survey. The other 6 nodes were all in locations differing from my initially surveyed locations for those nodes.

I returned again today at about 9:00am PST and found only the Omnomberry that I had previously figured I missed on my initial survey. Among my other observations through out these surveys is that Mithril nodes seem to be acting as normal and respawning as expected.

My conclusions having discussed this with others and perhaps restating what some have already said: This bug appears to be only affecting players whom mined a T6 node after the most recent patch but before some trigger (it was suggested perhaps the maintenance the following morning) early the following day. Any T6 node harvested in any zone during this time has become bugged in some way. I would agree that perhaps a longer spawn timer or random location system was in place but this is acting very differently for different users and individual nodes are even acting differently for single users.

Things worth looking into:
-Does the bug affect characters on the same account that didn’t harvest nodes during the mentioned time window?
-Does the bug affect characters on different servers if only a single character on one of the servers harvested nodes during that time.

The likely fix:
I expect that ANet will not have an easy time replicating this bug because of the window in which it appears to have been triggered. With that I also expect that the next server patch which resets node locations will likely resolve the bug without any required work from ANet and they are likely hoping the same. With that said it would be nice to see any response just so that we can verify that ANet is acknowledging it and looking for the cause to prevent a similar future issue.

It would be nice though to see ANet up the patch rate to deal with these kind of issues. Similar to the problems with last week with instance tokens these are the kind of bugs that can really take away from the game for many. I generally expect them to be adressed more frequently then they have been the last 2 weeks. Even if its just attempting a late night server restart to reset the node locations.

It wouldn’t make sense for it to be an anti farming code, it has to be a bug. Anti farming could be changed by simply delaying the respawn for everyone or decreasing the number of nodes. As of this morning none of the nodes I mined last night had respawned and it wasn’t just the Orichalcum. I’ll be checking them again shortly almost 22 hours after I last mined them to see if they have respawned. If after 24 hours they haven’t then I’ll be posting detailed information here so they can hopefully resolve this.

Alright this is something from the suggestions thread I’m compiling over the first couple months of play…

Right now basically all the end game gear is the same as far as strength given the same stats so we’re basically working for vanity pieces if we care enough. So I suggest a different system on top of the current tokens for “vanity” gear.

After the dungeons have been properly adjusted for difficulty add a new vendor and a new set of tokens. Make a token that is specific to each path of the explorable mode of each dungeon. Then require a select 3 or 4 types of tokens and up to say 5 of each of those tokens to get a given piece of gear. So say I want the legendary Heavy Armor set chest piece. To get it I have to run the first path of HotW, the third path of AC, the middle path of CoF, and the first path of Arah to get the tokens I need. Now assuming there are different skins for each specific piece then maybe I have to run HotW twice as many times to get the specific skin on that piece.

So I run CoF 5 times, Arah 5 times, AC 5 times and HotW 10 times. Now to collect the other pieces of that set if I want the matching pattern say I have to run HotW 10 times for each piece but the other 3 token runs may force me into other dungeons.

An alternate possibility to this suggestion is to make it new mystic forge mats instead of new tokens…

I logged on and everything is fine, if re-logging didn’t fix it make sure you fully closed the client and the logger. If you have to shut down your computer to make sure all associated processes are ended. If the problem persists on a large scale at least we can start narrowing the scope for them. I can’t test the guild upgrades as I don’t have permissions in guild.

I haven’t had the ability to check party status with someone, I’ll update on this after I get the chance.

8/10

I’m going to be honest I don’t like the quick and repeatable farming, there is just no satisfaction to actually achieving anything that way. I like the fact that you now have to change it up a bit and that dying means something in this game because of its cost. I haven’t played a game where I hated dying since Lineage 2 and I’ve finally got that again in GW2. So why 8/10…

A big part is because this is a step in the right direction….but…

First off it really doesn’t give people a reason to run multiple dungeons a day it just makes them run different versions of the same dungeon. It amazes me that people complain about how slow it is going to be to get gear now with this system but its still a far faster system for obtaining a top tier gear set then most games available on the market.

Secondly dungeons still don’t offer much more then a skin for a weapon or armor set that has the same stats as something crafted or obtainable a hundred other ways. Honestly as I look at the legendary weapons assuming what we know is true and the rewards for different achievements in this game they pretty much all are the same. Its all working for vanity gear basically and this is my biggest issue so far.

I want there to be a reason to work for this other then just looking cool and I want to have to work for it. I want to run around in my armor and know that most people don’t have that because they won’t put in the time or effort. All the people on here complaining about the state of dungeons after the patch are exactly those people. The idea of a dungeon isn’t to give you something for free its to make you work for it and a properly designed dungeon will do that. If everything is designed properly it should be so challenging that when you finally get to your goal you actually feel a sense of achievement. Not to try to create a flame fest but that is exactly what made World of Warcraft so good through Sunwell Plateau was that it was hard and you had to work for it.

Give players something that makes it worth working for and then make them work for it.

I would guess this is an exploit and not working as intended. I have noticed issues with certain concentrations having their ranges applied on the horizontal access while being limitless vertically. I would fill out a bug report because it should not be acting as you described. Additionally all single target effects should require line of sight which it would seem they did not have from that position.

That said be very sure that this is the case and that it wasn’t just retaliation damage. You can view your combat damage information via a chat window to see where the damage is coming from.

It seems to me that people don’t understand the fundamental purpose of WvW…its the PvP

The fact is there are low pop servers, high pop servers, late night servers, organized servers, and unorganized servers. Which one you chose to play on was your choice and the fact the no one has stepped up to organize your WvW groups and that you have no night crew isn’t anything that ArenaNet can do anything about.

Balancing PvP doesn’t mean buffing the less populated side until it can successfully compete with a server with a higher population and better organization. I’ve enjoyed the WvW when we’re losing and when we’re winning because I enjoy the PvP. The win basically means nothing other then you’ll get better competition next time.

I’ve found the setup of the WvW maps to be fantastic and very rewarding of good strategy. These are exactly the things we look for in PvP, its about organization and skill. I understand numbers are numbers but there is no reason you shouldn’t be taking back stuff if your in a queued situation because its impossible to hold everything in that situation. Figure out some good communication techniques, get your server organized, and then stop worrying about the fact that you lose everything at night. The score really doesn’t mean much regarding the PvP itself which is what this is all about.

If you play late at night and are upset because your server doesn’t have a night population then transfer servers cause thats not really ArenaNet’s problem.

The only 2 changes I would like to see:

1 – Supply available to players at the home locations. I don’t want it to serve like a camp or such because it shouldn’t supply keeps or anything but players should have access to supply even if they are pinned in their spawn.

2 – Better options for exiting the home locations on the outer maps. Lets face it if its not your home map then you are funneled into a very easily blocked choke point. Referencing #1 – This happens while you don’t have access to supplies to counter a blocking siege with any weapons of your own and no way to get to a supply camp. It should never be an issue to get out of your own home spawn point.

Well it seems to me that only about half of us really understand the intended purpose and how to use our virtues. They aren’t meant to be our primary skills they are meant to suppliment given builds.

Virtue of Justice – I’m fine with how this works now, stacking to properly use burning and it becomes very strong. Work with an organized party that can use burning and it just gets that much better. Keep in mind as well that using a greatsword or other weapon with an AOE attack and that burning strike burns every enemy that swing hits. If any change the only thing I would maybe like to see is another half second plus added to the burn duration on the passive: 1.25s → 2s

Virtue of Resolve – My favorite virtue of the group its absolutely awesome and an incredible addition to any healing build. The passive shouldn’t be a heal in itself and yet in a large group with +healing gear it is exactly that. The active is great in pvp and pve but if you think popping it off cd just for the sake of it is better then you don’t understand the strength of this virtue nor healing in GW2.

Virtue of Courage – I can agree that right now this seems to be the weakest virtue. As someone already pointed out I’m not sure that this skill is working as intended. I find this with a lot of effects with a restricted re-use timer in this game. It should work where if aegis hasn’t been applied in 40s then it should be applied but similar to our abilities that remove a condition every 10s that’s not how it appears to work. The 40s appears to start when the prior Aegis breaks. My second issue is with Aegis itself…

Aegis is a great protection in small scale confrontations but with the overwhelming amount of consecration style AOEs and multi hit attacks it suffers greatly in larger scale pvp. This makes the active almost worthless since your generally going to take your first hits from such multi-hit attacks. I see only 2 options to make this viable in such a scenario. My preference is blocking the entire duration of the attack or effect and all conditions it causes. The second is to make Aegis a shield with a given amount of health that while its up you cannot receive new conditions. This is a very sensitive skill to deal with as any change that was to drastic could completely break the class and require a large nerf to restore balance.