Guild Wars 2

So with the combat log revamp we can finally see the precise damage minions, including illusions can do, yay! But Phantasm attacks aren’t identified as a selectable attack for damage, and instead have unique names for what they do (which I believe are the beta names? So this might be changed later). It makes it a little confusing to parse at first (esp if you haven’t been attacked by enough Mesmers in PvP modes to have caught on), so I did some quick runs and this is what each Phantasm’s attack is called in the combat log:

Berzerker (greatsword) – Imagined Burden
Swordsman (sword) – Illusionary Sword Attack
Warden (focus) – Whirling Defense
Warlock (staff) – Mage Strike
Duelist (pistol) – Illusionary Unload
Mage (torch) – Backfire
Whaler (trident) – Whaler’s Volley
Mariner (spear) – Mariner’s Frenzy

I believe these are also the names shown when you get hit by their attacks, but if anyone can confirm if that’s been updated that’d be great! There is no distinction between your auto-attack/condis and clones auto-attack in the combat log.

There are plenty examples of the standard Sylvari traits in the open world and in Sylvari storylines—ambient dialogue, characters that embody it, conversations you can have as either a Sylvari or other races. But they’re not the only thing that the Sylvari are about, and all of those traits have negative sides to them as well. You can be youthful, but immature. You can be idealistic and honorable, but naive and deluded about how the world works. You can be eager but brash, curious but tactless and obnoxious. And this is displayed just as often, because they’re still individual people who think and feel and experience different things.

And Caithe and Trahearne are firstborn—they’re much older, more well-traveled, so they stand out beyond their race because they will do things that are more pragmatic, things that might contradict the tablet, or are more reserved because they’d had their hands burned a few times.

Also Caithe’s actions against the Courtier are harsh, but they are a member of a fanatic organization that uses torture, abuse, manipulation, lies, and murder to further their cause. You didn’t just promise them their life, you promised to let them walk free, in which they could continue hurting other people. Caithe just recognized how stupid that was and dealt with the problem swiftly. Honor vs. pragmatism.

It looks like this.

I will grant it’s got a nifty animation, but I’m tired of swords that are as wide as I am. It just looks silly.

I’m pretty disappointed with it too—I would have even taken another skin besides the rapier, if only it wasn’t so bulky. The amount of thinner and/or more elegant options for swords leaves a lot to be desired.

It’s just how Caladbolg works. It’s not really explained lore-wise but as a piece of the Pale Tree it just seems to have its own sort of magic that any wielder can tap into, separate from actual professions. It’s what allows so many different people (Trahearne, Riannoc, Waine, every Sylvari PC) to actually be able to use it even if they can’t use greatswords otherwise, and they all use the same skillset.

If it’s a full CD either you’re summoning out of range or the target you were selected on died/deselected before you were finished, and it doesn’t count it as interrupted.

I’ve noticed a weird delay happening on iLeap and Chaos Storm in particular, where there’s a gap between when I activate the skill and when the casting actually occurs (as in, I can see the animation literally not happening for a second). It’s like skill lag, but unlike skill lag I’ve experienced before it’s not happening with all skills I try to use. It’s also not happening to me consistently.

I don’t think it’s impacting my Engineer but I’ve only played her post-patch in the dungeon once, if anyone can vouch whether they’re feeling weird delays on other classes we’ll know how wide of an issue this is.

Avorzik.3825:

healing mist is a stun breaker!!??? :o

Oh my god it is. It really actually is.

Well my Mesmer’s in a sorry state, but my Engi actually got some really nice boosts this patch! And nothing nerfed for me, it’s incredible.

Any Engineers out there better at math than me wanna find out if Stabilize Armor stacks with the protection boon? Because that could be a really great trait with Protection Injection.

I’ll probably grab that new Legs Mod though.

O U C H. I was hoping I would only have to make a few tweaks and still be able to salvage my build but this really just dismantles it.

What was the Mind Spike change even for?

I’m going to need to give my build a total overhaul and see if I can’t still pull off a versatile Phant spec, because I don’t want to play shatter.

You mean this armor set?

Edit: I wasn’t done forum. The pieces of this armor are Karma heart rewards in the Ascalon area—I think the leggings are in the Iron Marshes, you should be able to find them through the Wiki.

Curunen.8729:

Arale.4207:

<snip>However, I think a 10% shave off of non IC cooldowns is in order to balance it out. Then, IC could give the other 10, thus giving illusion tree specced mesmers the old cooldown times that they were used to anyways, while easing things a bit for non IC mesmer builds.

This is a good compromise. Lower base illusion cooldowns by 10% across the board. Reduce IC to 10% and leave it somewhere in the illusions tree – whether a minor or a major trait.

I wish I could believe Anet was gonna do something like this, but even I have to admit they’re not good at compromise in their actual balancing. I’m not expecting a lot of compensation in this patch if this goes through, and probably not for months afterward.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@fadeaway: You’re definitely right. The question is, would you have rathered this or a flat damage nerf?

The 1v1 masses have been roaring for a nerf to phantasms, so Anet had to do something. That 12 second difference is nuts though… but, on the brightside, Phantasms should be lasting longer with Signet of Illusions working properly.

This is something that’s never popular to say here but I’d take the damage nerf.

A pure Phant build is a gimmicky dueling build with no place in other areas of the game, but honestly if Signet of Illusions is fixed and keeps the 200% health charge a pure Phant build probably isn’t going to feel a kitten thing from this anyway, and the masses will still be crying about getting wiped on the floor with it.

Phant builds that hybrid with actual support and utility are the ones that are going to be in a tight spot for this. Phantasms are a fragile mechanic—the rapid spawning is the one counter we have to that where we have the capability to trait ourselves and take utilities for things that are not related to Phantasms. Those few seconds can make all the difference.

And for me, the double cooldown is important for Phase Retreat, iLeap, and iRiposte so that I can maneuver outnumbered battles (which is most of what you fight in PvE). The rapid Phant cooldown means I don’t have to take SoI (which I hate) and have all three utility spots open for things more beneficial to group play or survival/mobility, because Phants don’t have the self-utility that shattering does.

There has actually been a lot of potential in Phant builds doing more than just dueling but this has the potential to wreck that.

God, normally I’m of the “it’s not as bad as you think guys really” crowd, but no this could be really bad.

It’ll be Illusionary Retribution—all shatter skills inflict confusion.

Pyroatheist.9031:

The issue with this change isn’t phantasm mesmers—it’s every single other non-shatter build. It does nerf phantasm mesmers, but the irritating thing is that it is a strong nerf to every single other build as well. Condition builds are now even less viable, the shutdown build they seem to be pushing isn’t going to be easily viable…it’s just a flat nerf to every Mesmer build that isn’t shatter.

I wasn’t sure how deep Condi builds (that aren’t Glamour builds) tended to go, because I know Illusionary Elasticity is popular with those that use staff (which is bugged anyway last I heard) but you’re right—it’s a heavy-handed punch to pretty much everything that isn’t shatter, which was already one of our most common builds.

Hyung.6140:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

athuria.2751:

“The Minor Adept trait “Illusionists Celerity” has been made the Minor Grandmaster trait and the other Minor traits have been pushed down.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHH

At first I read that and said “Oh thats not so bad.. no one used the speedboost anyways.” (Compounding Celerity)

Then I stopped, did a double-take, and kitten ed myself. =[

Yeah I read that as Compounding Celerity first.

This is massive. Rip ALL mesmer builds that don’t go 25 into illusions

So much for increased build diversity – build diversity for mesmers has just been crucified.

It wouldn’t even be that big of a punch of it was something that only hit Phantasm recharges but IC affects so much more (Phase Retreat, iLeap which remember is buggy as kitten, Mirror Blade, etc), so it punches our main mechanic and a lot of our weapon’s utility by stretching them out. Anyone using Decoy (Or Mirror Images, if anyone not a shatter build does that) just got a longer CD on it as well.

shimmerless.4560:

It probably wasn’t intended that you’d get fantastic uptime on phants without speccing into Illusions. My real worry is that Celerity is still too integral to the class because almost all of our weapon skills and utils are tied to clones.

If only the Illusions line wasn’t otherwise by and large useless for Phantasms. Even Haste is a give or take since it doesn’t even work properly on a lot of them. \o/

“The Minor Adept trait “Illusionists Celerity” has been made the Minor Grandmaster trait and the other Minor traits have been pushed down.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHH

Most likely they both stole heavily from actual Fae lore and old tropes about them (like the plant-based clothing). From what I can see from the wiki the Summer/Winter courts are outright called Seelie/Unseelie, which are the folklore that the Dreamer/Nightmare concept is based off of.

GW2 puts some interesting dressings on the Sylvari but when you get down to it they’re fairies, and fairies are a very old and expansive concept. You find ’em everywhere.

No, you got the Vigil letter and act on Vigil terms even if you had escalated to Commander by that point—your dialogue with Rytlock when he expresses his surprise is even “I’m Vigil first.” The Commander references were from NPCs in the instance, and it was the only way to get into the war meeting going on in the back.

(And I wish Anet hadn’t turned the LS letters into account bound things, because I liked seeing the differences between my characters.)

There was outright confirmation that Lost Shores was post-Zhaitan’s death, and every living story/holiday is happening in chronological order as they appear. Lore-wise, the living story most certainly happens after the Personal Story (and the storymode dungeons, which are parallel to the PS).

However, Anet is avoiding as much crossover (and thus, before and after references) between the two as they can precisely because new players will be likely doing the personal story alongside living story events, and could get confused. Any references have been kept pretty subtle, and in places like dialogue where they can easily have it adjust based on where you are in your PS (Rox’s first instance in F&F was a good example of this).

Oh pleeeease oh please oh please let us get stunbreakers on kits.

I wonder if Torment, as a movement impeding condition, will be removed by skills that already remove those kinds of conditions specifically (Thief’s Withdrawal, our Overcharged Shot)?

jheryn.8390:

athuria.2751:

Rarity is exclusivity. Making something rare to obtain makes it limiting, it’s literally the same sort of thing. That a handful of people get better luck than the chance doesn’t change that. If we were taking more like a 1 in 5 chance, yeah, that’s not very rare of exclusive, but we’re talking much lower than that.

I understand what you are saying, but I still have to disagree. If we go by that way of thinking, then there should be no levels of rarity at all in any part of the game. All drops should be white and that is just that. I have been playing since the head start and I have only gotten four exotics to speak of. But I don’t think my friends who have gotten dozens have exclusivity over me. Just my bad luck. I won’t complain about something is random.

Completely beside the point given if there’s ever an exotic skin you like that’s a loot drop you don’t have to wait for it to drop for you—you can go buy it off the TP. The only exception to this is Fractal skins, which exist permanently in the game and are acquired through gameplay luck, not spending all your money in a short timeframe luck. Legendaries require a lot of work for, making the prettier stuff rarer of okay (And while it’s a matter of taste, it’s clear the intent with current gear is “the rarer it is the prettier it looks”) as long as it is actually accessible to people who work for it.

In that, providing an in-game alternative dropbox like the dragon coffers is a good direction to go, and I’d probably be a lot less annoyed with it in regards to the dragon skins if it didn’t just come on the heels of another set of RNG weapon skins. But the rich coffers still have so ridiculously low of a chance (current estimate is about 1% I believe?) that there’s little justification for me to ever spend money on that, not only because there’s little reasonable assumption I’ll get one but because everything else out of the box just simply does not hold near the same value.

And it’s not even a matter of this RNG existing, but of it being so heavily relied on at the expense of alternative methods of getting skins. Again, the only full weapon sets that Anet had released past the base game have been RNG boxes—everything else has had certain weapons, maces, pistols, focuses, neglected from it.

If you use a greatsword, three weapon skins you might not get for the gamble doesn’t seem like such an issue. If you use a rifle, you’ve had more new skins behind RNG than you could actually outright buy or craft.

And really, there’s no reason to just not make these things tradable like Halloween and Wintersday and SAB, so those who are lucky and don’t want it can make a buck and those are unlucky and do want it can put together the money and assure themselves they’ll get it.

Like there are compromises out there that even let Anet keep their RNG model that they could be taking to make people less frustrated with them and I think they’re getting the idea with the dragon coffers but I’m still going to be on the side of people who keep nudging them until they finally get a clue.

jheryn.8390:

athuria.2751:

And I’m well aware nobody’s forcing me to buy RNG boxes for skins, nor do I do so. But that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be annoyed with overusing it as a business practice when their alternatives past the base game have been lacking (especially when you see on the forums that a lot of people unfortunately lack that self-control and continue to buy into it).

I absolutely believe you should voice your opinion. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be annoyed with anything, I just want people to be realistic. None of us, without exception, are going to get everything we want to make the game perfect for ourselves. And as much as the “RNG” topic keeps popping up, I am sure ANet is well aware of what some people on the forums think about it. I don’t like the way many businesses practices are handled by many companies, but I don’t blame them for the lack of self-control their customers have in spending their money. If it was the company’s fault, Vegas would be a ghost town.

Oh, I put plenty of blame on people who can’t control themselves and continue to enable this, or who actually seem to like the RNG box chase, but ultimately they’re not the ones holding Anet up to this practice—Anet, or some higher up, is making the decision to milk these specific people at the cost of everyone else.

Why won’t you let me edit: TL;DR BECAUSE I’VE TRIED THIS THREE TIMES NOW I am not mad at Anet or boycotting supporting them I just want to see them hit a better medium between player accessibility for these things and their own revenue.

jheryn.8390:

RNG skins are hardly exclusive. I see many people having them. I got a Jade Weapon skin ticket yesterday in one of the boxes I got fighting holograms. It wasn’t a rich box. It was certainly dumb luck that I got it, but it wasn’t because I was spending lots of money on RNG boxes. Just because something is very rare does not make it exclusive.

Also this game is not entirely about cosmetics. I don’t grind away to get gold and items because I want all my characters to look awesome. I do it because I like the game play. I also like finishing achievements. I like running dungeons. This game is much more than about cosmetics.

Also, I don’t have a lot of money to throw at Anet, but what I do throw at it, I do so because I want to do so. No one is forcing you to buy anything. That carrot analogy works great for donkeys, but human beings are supposed to be above that. We are supposed to have self-control. If you buy RNG things, then you take that risk. Don’t blame anyone but yourself when the risk doesn’t fall in your favor. Random does not equal guaranteed.

Rarity is exclusivity. Making something rare to obtain makes it limiting, it’s literally the same sort of thing. That a handful of people get better luck than the chance doesn’t change that. If we were taking more like a 1 in 5 chance, yeah, that’s not very rare of exclusive, but we’re talking much lower than that.

And yes, this game is more than cosmetics, but Anet is not just continually releasing skins as a large draw for content, has not implemented a system to let you get any skin on any stats, for no reason. They reward PvP and dungeons with things that are only unique in their appearance for a reason, Legendaries are treated as the primary end-game grind despite only being a unique skin for a reason—because the appearance is what is important. You don’t care about working to make your characters look good for the sake of looking good, but a lot of people do because cosmetic progression is part of what the horizontal progression people come here for is, just like achievement points or skillful play.

And I’m well aware nobody’s forcing me to buy RNG boxes for skins, nor do I do so. But that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be annoyed with overusing it as a business practice when their alternatives past the base game have been lacking (especially when you see on the forums that a lot of people unfortunately lack that self-control and continue to buy into it).

Hjorje.9453:

We do need more sets in this game, but they need to keep some sets on RNG to keep the rarity there and make that set even more desirable.

See, rarity and exclusivity don’t make something desirable for me. I don’t care about being special or unique, and I don’t get any satisfaction out of comparing myself with others. All I care about, in my end-game cosmetics, is being able to make my character look the way I want, getting aesthetics that appeal to me. And it doesn’t matter if it’s the cheapest, easiest item to obtain or the biggest grind, or if everyone else is going to have it too or not.

I understand, to some people, that prestige is important! Not everyone wants a legendary because it looks good, they want it so they can say they have something with rarity, with difficulty to obtain. And I don’t mind the occasional set of pure-RNG skins, or super-heavy grind skins, to appease that.

But I do have a problem with the approach Anet has taken with it. I have a problem with that being the only sort of weapon skin released with an event, giving you no (even less exciting) alternatives. I have a problem with every full weapon set having been put into luck-based boxes, and every skin with a reliable way of getting them has had a chunk of weapons left out and leaving those who use them SOL (even the direct-buy Wintersday skins were not a full set).

My anecdotal evidence is opposite yours—I have not spoken to a person in-game yet who actually approves of constant RNG weapon skins. Even those farming coffers like mad to get their tickets weren’t happy doing it.

I get this is an easy way to make short-term profit but Anet has not as all hit a happy medium with it, and it’s frustrating to be barricaded repetitively from new cosmetics in a game entirely about cosmetics because I just plain don’t have the money to keep trying for them, and what money I do have to give to Anet I don’t want to drop to get nothing out of. I’d rather use that for actually useful stuff like Transmutation Crystals, or kitten even town clothes. I buy town clothes from them, and I’m almost never in them! But they didn’t dangle a carrot over my head with it, they just let me drop 600 gems and there it was.

The Nightmare Dragon you fight in the tutorial is meant to be representation of your Wyld Hunt to kill Zhaitan (and indeed, has a lot of similarities with his lieutenant dragons), so that one in particular has nothing to do with Mordremoth.

That said, that the Nightmare Court are being passively corrupted by Mordremoth/that Sylvari/the Pale Tree are minions of his are a theory that’s been running for quite a while now.

The big wrench in the cogs for it, though, is that the Nightmare Court are actually just as against the Elder Dragons as Dreamer Sylvari are—they just wish to handle it (and mark their place in the world) in a much more brutal manner, and the issue has taken a backseat to trying to turn the Pale Tree and all Sylvari to their views before taking them on. Dragon minions are unfailingly loyal to their cause—they’re so controlled by the Elder Dragons that they have little self-expression (except for a handful of higher-ranking minions) and none have shown any sense of rebellion once corrupted. The Nightmare court are not only totally off-track from the pure-destruction in the name of their dragon (even as not-full minions A-La the Sons of Svanir, they invoke absolutely nothing in the name of Mordremoth) but actively believe they are a menace to be put down.

So personally I would say the Nightmare Court are a natural, if fanatical, off-set of the Sylvari as we know them—understand that while the Nightmare Court makes active attempts to turn and absorb every Sylvari to Nightmare, they are not synonymous with the idea. Nightmare is part of the Dream, the Nightmare Court is a collective cult of Sylvari who have fallen into it. Their ideas, however twisted they have become due to their nature, are their own. And their goal has nothing to do with serving any Elder Dragon.

As far as I know no invulnerability stops existing conditions from ticking (and if it does I’d like a refund on my Mesmer, because he must be defunct). That sounds like a Cleansing Formula 409 effect, which should trigger upon use since Elixir S is, know you, an elixir.

I continue to get the “invulnerability” message, and it prevents all incoming attacks exactly like it’s supposed to.

It is pretty ridiculous it auto-fails the Steampipe Steading when the Queen pops (and then you have to retake it when the event is done regardless). People coming from Kiel’s, Pride Point, or even the Asura gate have little chance of actually getting through there without getting wiped. Luckily Captain’s Retreat usually doesn’t recontest that quickly (at least with how we were doing it) so I’ve been able to use that waypoint, but it shouldn’t be a matter of “don’t’ help the North settlements or waypoint because you died/to avoid dying in Steampipe”.

I’m well familiar with our scaling problems, but it’s not quite the same issue—the skirt’s width is actually fine (as is the way most cultural sits on Sylvari) but my weapons are sitting too close to my body and don’t seem to be scaling out to the coat (mostly the sword and, though you can’t see it, pistol), hence the clipping. Female Sylvari had a big issue with this until it got fixed in Feb, so I’m not sure if this is possibly still an issue with some coats or if it’s just an error of the preview window and it’ll look mostly fine in the actual game.

I’ve been looking at the T3 medium cultural coat for my female Sylvari, but noticed in the preview is seems to have really bad clipping issues with, well… every weapon. Since it’s a whopping 30 g, I thought it best to ask first:

Does the coat, in actual practice, clip a lot with weapons (swords and bows especially) or is that just an error with the preview window?

I’d rather help the settlers by punching the Consortium and Canach in the face. \o/

Good intentions don’t matter when all his actions have done is put the very people he’s trying to protect in danger, and I don’t feel a whole lot of sympathy for people who don’t take responsibility for their actions (which I’m assuming he won’t (again), considering we’re going to have to go out of our way to capture him).

I doubt we’ll be killing him, just setting him up to be locked behind bars proper (assuming he doesn’t escape again). They seem fond enough of Canach to want to do more with him in the future.

Blingg recognized Canach based on his voice, which has presumably gone unchanged. It’s also been about ~5 months, we don’t have a precise timeline for when Noll sent people to kill him, when which changes to his appearance were made, when (and where) he was last actually in public/seen in public, etc. It could be the assassinations were shortly after Lost Shores, and Canach did not make such heavy modifications to himself until after a few episodes of that. The Molten Alliance Facilities were pretty recent, it’s possible he’s been completely untracked for some time now.

Though I do think keeping the same face and using the sliders to heavily modify it would have been a better option, maybe they just really wanted the cactus prickles I dunno.

I was curious about that too: I don’t know if it’s meant to imply a “fall to Nightmare” or just look rattier because he’s been living in refuge on the island for months. There’s some suggestion that Nightmare can twist their actual physical form, but if it’s the latter: does that mean Sylvari in general have the ability to cause/experience drastic changes in appearance (Facial structure, hair texture, skin color, not just superficial changes like, idk, growing an extra flower or the clothes that come off their skin), or was this just a design oversight/ret-con over what he looked like before?

Whoa now, what’s this about Canach’s journal being up Captain’s Retreat?

Can you be more specific where that is? I’d like to see it.

It’s actually not true that you have no way of finding out Canach was involved/was spreading toxins yet outside the backpiece.

So I don’t think trying to hide his identity around the achievements and backpiece would have mattered because we could already find out he was involved (and it feels kind of obvious anyway, I can’t think of anyone else who would make half as much sense).

The future achievements they probably could have released later with the proper content like Flame and Frost, I’ll grant. But really, they’re still nothing more than vague suggestions and there’s a lot of room for how the rest of the story will flesh out. Like maybe Lord Faren will be our tag-along dungeon NPC to help take him down, that would be a surprise.

Not run with weapons, walk with them—I believe the weapon-drawn run is largely the same as the human male weapon-drawn run (Our walk is different but even I think it looks ridiculous), which is kind of back to what I said about not wanting to just be a complete mimic of everything the human does. We’re Sylvari, and if the Norn can be given largely unique expression despite their human-like appearance, idk why we really weren’t aside from running out of time.

I dunno, I like it in it’s slightly flaily glory, and it’s one of the few emotes we have that isn’t just a copy of the human’s. I do wish the male Sylvari didn’t skulk around like thugs when you walk with your weapons drawn, though.

You mean escorting the supplies to Thunderhead, correct? I’m honestly not sure how your spawning any vets running that chain alone, let alone ten, unless there are a lot of people in the area who just aren’t helping but upping the difficulty. I’ve run that chain on my own multiple times (including post-mega Orr scaling update), and you should only be getting 3-4 spaced out normal mobs over the entire run.

Sylvari do feel cold (and other temperatures), but they’re not affected by it in terms of risking frostbite or hypothermia. It might make their muscles feel locked up, or slow down because of it but it wouldn’t hurt them. A Priory member in… Either Lornar’s or Dredgehaunt, I think, I forget, mentions that the cold doesn’t bother her at all, so it can be individual how Sylvari feel about it.

I like going back to a more dynamic cutscene style that stays within the world, but to be honest I still felt disconnected from the Living Story ones for a different reason: that my character was completely excluded from interaction. You don’t do anything in them but stand back and watch, and maybe it’s just me but it always breaks my connection to what’s going on because then I don’t feel like my character even actually exists in the world. I’m just a tack-on, and I know the lore won’t ever remember me but I’d like to at least be a part of the present. The previous cutscene style did tend to break the mood, and really slowed things down, but at least my character was actually a part of it, being addressed and talking and observing. I didn’t feel so distant from what was happening.

IGN: Arabelle Jones
Day Available: Saturday
Record Capability: Enjin
NA or EU: NA

Also I’m wondering if, now that most (if not all) our interrupt traits work with all our weapons something could actually be done with a control-based build for us that would be viable. :|a Anyone tried something like that yet?

Enjoyluck.2618:

athuria.2751:

I don’t think it’s going to make much of a difference at all, really. That’s only 3% extra damage from Warriors who trait it (It’s a grandmaster down their profession mechanic line), and there’s always been a risk of your might stacks getting stolen by a Mesmer, Thief won’t be any different. Boon stripping and corruption have always been existing counters as well.

One persistent boon, and even a bunch of short duration boons, are probably not going to get hit very hard because either the effect is very low or the window to time large hits for extra damage is very small. Flamethrower should be fine.

Runes of lyssa any one?

5 seconds is a short window, yeah. My experience with using Consume Ectoplasm on Thief (which gives most boons for a full 10 sec duration, stability and retal are shorter) is that those are all gone well before you can even count them—and remember, two of those boons are aegis and protection (and regen, and vigor). Those’ll buffer hits for the duration unless you get an unlucky boon strip. You’ve always had a chance to get smacked with corrupt boon using it, too, which I’d say is worse since protection will buffer direct damage but not an onslaught of conditions (not that you’d have protection anymore anyway).

Plus anybody using Supply Crate wasn’t getting that bonus for crap anyway.

Signet of Illusion’s tooltip changed to reflect a 200% health increase, rather than the original 50%. Does anyone know if it’s still pulsing, then, or if it’s an automatic increase?

Humans do have an in-racial enemy—the bandits, who are actually a cohesive effort to sow disarray and create negativity towards the Queen in hopes of forcing her out of power (And Ministers hoping to usurp her have been using said bandits for such a gain). Every human character gets to fight them in the first part of their storyline, like every Sylvari with the NC, every Asura with the Inquest, etc.

Other races also do have multi-racial conflicts as well—Sylvari and Krait (humans have problems with the Krait too), Norn and Dredge/Jotun, Charr have a peace treaty with living humans but they’re still fighting the Ascalonian ghosts, Asura… mostly just pick on the Skritt, to be honest. They’re just less equalized since they aren’t a primary early antagonists like all these dark factions are. They’re more fluid to the open world.

I don’t think it’s going to make much of a difference at all, really. That’s only 3% extra damage from Warriors who trait it (It’s a grandmaster down their profession mechanic line), and there’s always been a risk of your might stacks getting stolen by a Mesmer, Thief won’t be any different. Boon stripping and corruption have always been existing counters as well.

One persistent boon, and even a bunch of short duration boons, are probably not going to get hit very hard because either the effect is very low or the window to time large hits for extra damage is very small. Flamethrower should be fine.

kevkelsar.9507:

Normally I do use the turrets, quite often. Especially when I’m fighting Veterans/Champions. With this current set up using the Rifle, FT, Net Turret, Rocket Turret, and Supply Drop I was able to kill a Champion on my own with only getting hit maybe two or three times. The control side of this build, which is not shown in my video, is absolutely INSANE! Four different nets (two on longer cooldowns, one on very short, one on relatively short), a blind, two knockdowns, and a AoE knockback. And when fighting touch melee bosses that can drop the cookie cutter no survival builds in one or two shots, keeping that boss basically rooted in one spot can save a lot of butts. And last time I checked, being dead reduces your DPS by more than any change in skills or gear…

See, this is what I was curious about. I run a control-based build with Rifle/FT as well, and used to run turrets along it—but I just found them too fragile and unreliable (and with too high of cooldowns) and I’ve since dropped them for other utilities entirely. I was curious to see if you were doing anything differently, or if it’s just a matter of “Net Turret outclasses every other turret in PvE” for its constant immobilize as long as it’s up (and its toolbelt). They’re probably less unwieldy against single targets but I’m honestly not in 1v1 outside boss fights all that often.

kokiman.2364:

athuria.2751:

But it is gated on other people’s behavior, as there’s no feasible way to grab any sort of tower or keep on your own. You need some sort of actual server presence in WvW, and you need other people to actually be going for the points that you need.

You actually have to interact with other people in order to achieve something in the game, oh noes!

It’s not a matter of interacting (I would not be playing an MMO if I didn’t want to play with other people) so much as a personal reward is actively reliant on other people cooperating with you and with your server having enough or a presence to be competitive. I don’t care that you have to go into WvW (for a Legendary you have to for BoH anyway), it’s that you need people with different objectives than you to work in your favor, and that you need enough people in your server as a whole playing to be able to stand a chance against your competitors.

It’s not like a dungeon where everyone’s end goal is exactly the same (and honestly there are dungeon paths with mechanics that can allow you to solo them if you’re persistent enough, and your numbers are much smaller for a dungeon instance), or the open world which you can complete on your own. It’s this bizarre in-between where you need people to work with you to reach your goal, but it’s an open-area gameplay mode (on a much larger player scale) where people are there for the sake of different, conflicting things, if they’re there at all.

You could just have the ability to get those PoIs while standing right outside the keep (I’d suggest alt routes to vistas but that’d probably let people drop into the keep in a way that they don’t intend, so maybe just move those). You would still have to go WvW, you would still have to explore all the maps. You just don’t get gated because other people don’t work for what you need them to (and they shouldn’t feel obligated to, anyway).

Siphaed.9235:

The thing is….I don’t see it as a PvE Achievement. It’s Exploration, a thing that covers all areas of the game in all aspects. “100% Map Completion” means all maps of the game in all areas are 100% explored. Sure, for WvWvW that means it could take days, weeks, and even months to get this; but it’s still not gated to be impossible.

But it is gated on other people’s behavior, as there’s no feasible way to grab any sort of tower or keep on your own. You need some sort of actual server presence in WvW, and you need other people to actually be going for the points that you need.

I really don’t think the problem is that WvW is necessary for completion so much as there is a physical barrier in the way of being able to get it if your server is not holding a particular building. Even with large group events like the temples in PvE, you can grab the PoIs and skillpoints in it while the temple is contested and nobody else is around. It’s harder and more dangerous, but it is doable. You aren’t reliant on gathering other people and running a multi-event chain for your map completion, it’s just a lot easier.

Running into enemy territory to ram my face into a door for a PoI when nobody else on my side is around would be harder and more dangerous, but doable (in fact there are PoIs in PvE that function like this). Taking a tower by myself isn’t really feasible at all—it takes far too long and the enemy is warned far too early for that to be in any way reasonable, unless maybe you’re doing it while they’re asleep and you’re very lucky that the people around are too preoccupied or are ignoring you.

Raphael Williams.3671:

ToT.7018:

i am also on Desolation and had to wait 9 weeks for map rotation and my final poi. Why should players now get an easy shortcut to world completion when everyone else has had to work for it.
I spend most of my time in PVE but i actually enjoyed my time in WvW when i was getting my maps there. I even go back now and then with my guild as it can actually be fun.
Oh and we have a few members in our guild waiting for map rotation to complete their 100% map.

yeah hate to say it , and its probably against the code of conduct, but some people just have to L2P its that simple.

They could have made map completion a dolyak-ton harder by making you do guild bounties for it or something, but they didn’t .

Anet just asks that people go play WvW for a while because someone(s) there worked hard on making it.

Someone worked hard making dungeons, but the PoIs and waypoints in there don’t count for map completion. Nobody’s forced to go into them in order to get a token for a cosmetic item designed to be enticing and something that people would want to pursue.

If PoIs and Vistas weren’t locked into keeps, and if it didn’t force you to trek across three of the same map I could see “trying”, but it in fact is designed in a way that requires a higher level of dedication and time to get, just like every PvE map for completion isn’t “trying” PvE—it’s dedicating yourself to covering a large zone.

Killing ten invaders for a daily is trying content, just like doing 4 events in the Shiverpeaks is trying open-world PvE content, doing one dungeon is trying dungeon content. Trying is a very poor argument for the current state of Map completion, because it’s not designed around trying anything. It’s designed around dedication.

The question is, then, was it good design to include both PvE and PvP elements in that dedication? I don’t think, in the way that they set it up, that it was. I don’t think keeping these things in buildings that your server has to have control of in order for you to get into was good design—and I would say the same for any PoI or Vista or waypoint in PvE.

That’s really the crux of the issue for WvW map completion for a lot of people, I think (and it was my problem with it, aside from just not liking WvW)—it’s no longer about you, but about everyone, because it requires everyone coming together to take this keep or that tower so that you can actually get into it. And if you can’t? Then there’s no alternative you can take. You just don’t get it.

Even Badges of Honor can be gotten by running around by yourself and killing people/doing jumping puzzles. You’re not reliant on the numbers and coordinated efforts of other people for something that, ultimately, is only a reward for you. Because the only person map completion matters to is you.

What was the point of taking turrets? You didn’t use them or their toolbelt skills aside from firing one toolbelt rocket (which I find pretty underwhelming as is) so I’m not really sure why you’re taking them rather than just having gadgets/elixirs/other kits as your standard utilities and putting your inventions point into something other than turret survivability.