Showing Posts For bosky.3190:
If you’re feeling useless or bored try switching weapons. I basically ran GS until my #2 key was broken. Now I’m trying high crit axe/mace with Bull’s Charge. Having two knockdowns (Bull’s Charge and mace #5 Tremor) is fun utility, and the super fast auto attacks of the axe with many stacks of vulnerability (axe #2 and mace #4) mean you do a lot of damage. It’s not as bursty as HB, but you can be more mobile and in longer boss fights it’s nice.
It sounds like tanking might not be your thing, but in that group a solid frontline might help? Using a mace/shield while trying to keep Weakness on all the enemies, and being mobile enough to stun important attacks, can be quite enjoyable.
Really though, what kind of style do you like? Try playing with other parties and see if there is a role you enjoy? Maybe ask for advice from your static group as they might see deficiencies or problems from the back that you don’t up front.
Hammer is fun until you’re sitting autoswinging against a boss because he’s immune to all your fun tricks. I struggle with the same issue with mace, where you see a big attack coming and it’s like “Ooh, stun time!” and then a big red Immune smacks you in the face.
I like to imagine how many times I’ve pressed #7 to do For Great Justice. I wish it had an autocast like your basic attack, because I pretty much spam it my entire Warrior career.
I was in a similar position not that long ago, and I found buying a balanced armor/trinket set is the best approach at the start. Eventually once you get familiar with other builds and situations you can look at specializing.
If you just try to specialize you might regret going full Berserkers, but getting a couple pieces of that and a couple of Valkyrie or Knights will let you be more of a jack-of-all-trades. And it’s easy to swap pieces later (when funds allow) if it turns out you like doing dps or like being support.
I started with a balanced set and had leveled with a Greatsword. Then I went full Berserker’s so I could try the dps route, and now I’m slowly getting a defensive set too when I need to “tank” in a dungeon with a mace/shield.
Generally you want your traits to match your gear though. When I’m running axe for dps I go fully for crit and crit support traits, as compared to trying to pick up some Tactics or the like. Similarly going support means 30/30 in Defense and Tactics.
As was mentioned Shout heals and banners are helpful in groups. There are a couple support traits as well (like Empower Allies http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Empower_Allies)
I levelled with Greatsword, and used that for a while, but got bored of it (HB doesn’t feel very dynamic).
Now I’m trying high crit axe/mace when I want to go dps. Or mace/shield with a defensive support build if I’m in a group of squishies in a dungeon. The Weakness from the mace’s final attack makes a huge difference (it’s just not as flashy as a knockdown or stun).
Even using Longbow can be pretty effective by allowing your teammates to spread burning, or blinding bosses at a critical moment, etc.
Since the game is so geared towards dps and avoiding the “holy trinity”, I think it’s hard to find a role for a lot of classes.
There is no absolute answer, as it really depends on what you’re doing.
I have Fire on my GS, since it’s mostly used when I’m going dps.
I go Blood on my Axe because my crit is already really high and constant proccing lifesteal is nice.
I go Water on my Mace since I tend to use it tanking or Shout heal, so extra group heals help.
Still need to get a Bloodlust set to build up stacks before dungeons.
I have trouble considering completing skill points, dynamic events, and vistas a grind. I’d think of that more as…hmm…playing the game?
The only real grind is if you want a full set of dungeon armor, and want to do that in a short period of time. Running the same paths over and over feels grindy to me.
It’d be nice if rewards from running around killing stuff in the open world was as good as dungeons, but alas, not anymore.
Power (attack) will be the same at +20 per orb. Crit damage is also the same at +2% per orb.
The only difference is +14 Precision (Ruby) vs +14 Vitality (Beryl). A full set is +14x6 = 84.
This is 840 health if Beryl is used.
At max level, based on http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Precision , this is around a +4% Crit chance if Ruby is used.
I too find the combat becomes tedious, especially in the open world where you’re basically fighting the same fight hundreds of times. The terrain doesn’t have any real effect (ie: ranged doesn’t do more damage from a higher position), and even if you find a good position the monsters just turn Invulnerable.
Right now I’m able to stave off boredom by switching weapon sets. But eventually I’ll run out of weapons, and I’m not sure where that’d leave me.
What would be nice would be uniquer monsters that do cooler things. All the time. Everywhere. Is a battle against a Charr archer really any different than a Carrion Devourer? Maybe even random spawns or a wide set of abilities per monster that differ per individual creature. For example three Charr archers spawn. One can pin down, one can bleed, and one switches to a backup melee weapon when you get close. Then you’d have to evaluate each encounter instead of just “Bladetrail, Rush, Hundred Blades, loot, repeat forever”.
Oh, and at this point I think it’s safe to say they aren’t going to make weapon skills customizable. That is a core part of the game and a design decision they probably made years ago. But a monster spawn based approach like I outlined would hopefully be achievable.
I agree the difficulty could be tweaked for explorable mode. I imagine the problem is the vast variety of players. With dungeons you at least are getting a “more hardcore” subset of players who know what they are getting into, whereas world exploring players may just be super casual and a trivial fight might challenge them.
Anyway I find this especially noticeable when going from a dungeon to an open map. You can just run whatever build and totally steamroll all foes. But maybe that was the intent of open maps.
Yes, please this!
Healing Signet: “Passive: Grants regeneration.” Okay…how much? It seems like the community has to fill in a lot of the gaps for regeneration based skills.
I think the movement skills could use some more information too. Again for Warrior, abilities like Bull’s Charge, Rush (Greatsword), Shield Bash, etc. would be great if they said “Move 200 yards forward and do XYZ”.
The biggest culprit in my opinion are traits. These are so incredibly vague that it’s painful trying to make a build. I could list basically a ton of Warrior traits that don’t include numbers.
Death From Above, how much damage? Likewise Powerful Banners. Adrenal Health, again numbers calculated by the community. Vigorous Return, Inspiring Banners, Empowered, Vigorous Shouts, etc.
Some could also use clarification, like Empower Allies “Increases power of nearby allies by 70 points.” when it should clarify that you are included in this.
Runes and sigils are also sometimes bad for tooltip detail. Sigil of Blood, hoooow much life steal? And so on.
Sure a lot of these numbers have been discovered, but it’d be nice to just have that information readily available. GW 1 did a great job of tooltip detail right out of the gate, without any hidden features to skills, and I’d love to see that replicated in GW 2.
Ugh, I WISH Greatsword was actually overrated…and not just as awesome as it is. I’m so tired Greatsword but it keeps outperforming any other weapon I try. I’d love to go axe/axe or mace/axe on Warrior but it feels like crippling myself. Even on my Guardian who feels so right with a mace/shield I end up going Greatsword for damage and crowd control.
It’d be great if some of the other weapons were given a look by Anet, I feel like Greatsword ends up always coming out on top, which is annoying because I’m so bored with it but also I feel incapable of nerfing myself by using something else.
It’d be nice if we could zoom into first person view to remove our character model, as was possible in GW1. I’ve been taking a ton of screenshots so far but it’s always annoying having a giant Norn blocking the way.
I hope the add better anti-aliasing options soon too, since some of the scenery is ruined by jagged eges.
I think GW1 flat out has better PvP. The balance of incoming damage and protective/healing as well as key roles like interrupts and spiking were some of the best done in an RPG or MMO ever. The innovative approach of the monk doing more than just pushing up health bars but actually preventing damage was really well done. Battles were less flashy and chaotic and you could actually recognize animations and skills instead of being swamped with fireworks and blasts filling the screen like in GW2.
However I find PvE to be much more inviting and interesting in GW2. I mean as if half of us didn’t fall asleep in the Maguuma Jungle running our fourth character through it in GW1.
I guess I see it as super trained warriors who can instantly draw or sheathe whatever the situation calls for. They could even have the 5s switching timer reduce as you level up to represent this, for extra immersion.
The case you described sounds exactly what I’d like to see. Extra micro managing beyond just skill cooldowns and positioning. An advanced element of play that can be powerful if used, but isn’t required. I think if a player can confidently switch between (and effectively use) a bunch of different weapons, more power to them. The current implementation seems like an artificial restriction, and that’s frustrating.
Ah good point about the traits and sigils activating on switch, I didn’t think of that. It’d be nice if they just put the cap on those (like “can only fire every 5s”) so that people trying to spam them for damage weren’t rewarded, but players who just wanted to quickly switch sets for different tactical situations still could.
I just find it awkward switching to a Greatsword for an up close finishing kill, and then trying to quickly switch back to a Rifle to attack the next enemy, but being stuck waiting 5 seconds. It doesn’t feel fluid or smooth or natural.
I might have missed this in a developer interview or something, but why is there such a big delay between weapon swaps?
Having to wait 4-5 seconds as a timer cools off seems a little silly. I know comparisons to GW1 might not be valid, but the ability to instantly switch between 4 weapon sets added a whole new level of skill and timing and making sure to cast on the right set and so on.
Was the idea to stop players from being really good at timing skills from two different weapon sets? Seems like it frustrates new players and is a silly imposition on micro-oriented players.