Guild Wars 2

I love having class specific effects.

And I think Anet can design or program legendary armor in such a way that they will just display different effects based on the class wearing it. It’s just overlay after all.

So basically they just create three main types: light, medium and heavy; and 8 special effects.

Elementalist will have element based effects (as already said); thief with a shadowy/smoke effect; guardian with light/angelic effects(?); necro with a spirit siphoning effects around the character and plague infesting the ground around the caster, etc.

Hey all,

We’ve had a few cycles of 2 week living stories. how are you guys finding the durations?

ANet said the activity drop off point is around 2 weeks.

Do you guys like the 2 week duration or would you prefer it slightly longer, say 3 weeks?

it’s not unfair…armorsmith needs to mine + salvage to get cloth….yet you can sell all the ores you gather.

Jabronee.9465:

GW2. A Truely Persistence World!
And they came up with Grinding Instances to get BiS items lol!

Not counting neck/back ascended, cause that’s just two items and devs said they are introducing more ways.

WvW for exotics
Crafting for exotics
JPs can drop exotics…though very small chance but its possible

And it’s hardly a grind in the dungeons.

arrownin.3128:

…and $60.00 for 6 months of entertainment is a godly deal.

And you can come back anytime in the future should there be functions and features that you find interesting or enjoyable.

Tarvok.4206:

I play a water focused elementalist, and when I’m in a dungeon, how much time I spend in water depends on how the rest of the team is doing.

I play staff. I do this thing where I burn it with fire, switch to earth and grab the projectile finisher. Then I look at my party’s hit points. If they’re dropping at all, I hit, the earth blast, swap to water, and drop healing rain. If they’re not, I hit the earth blast, switch to either water or air (it’s kind of a whim) and drop either freezing ground or that air combo field. I do see keeping the rest of the team alive as my responsibility, and so keep an eye on their hit points, but unless someone really needs healing, why would I do anything but damage and crowd control?

I get that’s your play style, but gw2’s design is really that the party’s survival isn’t anyone one person’s responsibility. Each person should take care of themselves and shouldn’t be relying on another person for heals.

If someone is dying, it means they are not dodging, need to retrain or regear for more defensive stats or learn when to self heal.

This is unless you are in an organised group where there are others who are built as glassy glass cannons., and you are the designated support person for topping up minor damage and they are dodging all big attacks.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

If I’m having fun, I win.

I feel the same way. And every time I login, I have fun cause I get to do whatever I want.

Gombie.3860:

In my opinion you cant win in any MMO. Im going to sound like a downer but winning requires accomplishing something, and you dont really do that playing MMOs :P its just an endless cycle until you get bored. Still having fun currently though. I think i played an MMO for 3 years and i never felt like i won, sad but true but better to accept it, then delude myself

Well, I agree that it’s an endless cycle, only because there are always things to accomplish, not that you don’t accomplish anything.

In wow, I felt like I won when I defeated lich king, when I defeated lady vishj, then again when I beat kael, and again when I beat kiljadan, and illidan, etc.

In gw2, I won when I got my first 80, then I won when I geared him with exotics.
I won again when I got my second 80.

The two moments when I felt the proudest and like I’ve won the most are when I figured out a build that I can use for my warrior and thief for DEs, soloing, dungeons and WvW.

I don’t care about ascended gear for now cause I rarely do fotms. Though I dread the moment when I feel that I HAVE to upgrade my exotics.

Trinity: He’s correct in that the replacement of the trinity system isn’t explained to the players, but this is a problem with the game as a whole, not just the trinity replacement system, i.e. many concepts in the game isn’t discussed.

Though, it could be argued that GW2 is all about self-exploration and discovery. It is not noob-friendly, thats for sure. Players must do their own research to get good at it, as you have said, which traits have synergy with which weapons and utilities. And to be fair, I am not sure spoon-feeding all that to a GW2 noob is ideal, as they would miss out learning how to really play the game. I do agree though, there should be some simple explanations on the fundatmentals of support/heal/control, i.e. what they are, etc. The rest should be done via self-discovery.

DEs, leveling and Area flow: Hearts wasn’t even mentioned. Hearts form part of the leveling process. There are some flaws with Dynamic Events, as was pointed out, but it’s not so much in relation to levelling but rather fine-tuning to cater better to the number of players and adding more paths for variety.

He mentioned that there’s not enough DEs to help level a zone, and yet under “Area Flow”, he also said that he would hit the level cap long before moving onto higher level areas, which is contradicting itself.

When a zone is outleveled, a player gets both types of drops (in 60/40% ratio, iirc), i.e. zone level drops and character level drops.

In regards to ‘No breadcrumb quests to move on to another zone’. This is by design. GW2 is designed to be a very free flowing game, apart from personal quests (cause it’s personal). One shouldn’t need to be told where to go, if he/she is high enough level, they should go wherever they want. Why is “having the freedom to do anything” is good, but “nothing forcing you to move on is SIGNIFICANTLY less awesome”?

I think many gamers are still very linear in their gameplay. It’s the reason why I love GW2, cause one can do whatever and has so many paths of achieving the same result (bar the new Ascended gear, though I would think ANet will rectify that in future patches).

Crafting: I’ve not played FFXIV, but I don’t really see any issues with crafting. There will always be things you craft that you end up salvaging or selling or whatever, and crafting is quite easy (with both discovery and finding mats).

Tailoring/Leatherworking are probably slightly harder than Blacksmith/jeweller, due to supply/drops, but at least crafting can gives Best in slot (not counting Ascended gear since that’s for one dungeon use only), unlike WoW or SWTOR.

Story: I agree the story at times feels lacking. I myself couldn’t even bother to finish it.

Personally, what I consider things going wrong…are:
- bugs are not getting fixed for a long time. Game has been out for almost 4 months and many simple bugs are still not addressed.
- Halloween patch was done well but the Lost Shore event wasn’t. It felt rushed, bringing in 2 changes (Ascended gear and FOTM) that impacted the player base in negative ways, i.e. the possbility of vertical progression and pulling players to FOTM.

if the signet player is not a burden to the team, i.e. dying all the time, poor dps, etc, then who cares….gw2 was built so people can play how they want.

could it be a better run if he/she wasn’t a signet player…possible…but
- just because the person doesn’t use signets doesn’t mean they are a good player…or;
- just because they are not using signets doesn’t mean they are using an optimal pve build.

so…like I said…as long as they are pulling their weight, i.e. not dying, following boss mechanics, dodging, hitting the right targets, etc, then who the kitten cares.

It isn’t no synergy. Thief doesn’t have as many weapons as say a warrior, so each weapon provides both condition and/or direct dmg for both types of play style.

Sword is direct dmg but has weakness/daze ability and sb has more evade moves for a more condition nature.

this is mine…..like many others..I am going for assassins creed look.

edit: added a bigger image from loading screen.

SimianChaos.3219:

hartmoore.9632:

I am hoping the fact that they haven’t added a section for dungeon tokens is due to the current stack limitation of 250. And that they need new tech implemented so we can store maybe 1000 or something like that.

And the “Deposit collection” option wasn’t available prior to the wintersday patch.

The reason it’s 250 is a basic computing thing. most variables are stored in Hexadecimal and most also only use up two bits. Well in Hex the maximum number you can express with only two ‘digits’ is FF or 255, hence the 250 stack limit because your average person would look at a stack of 255 and go “what the jesus bloody kitten is this kitten?”.

In order for them to change the stack size they have to increase the number of bits allotted to each item in regards to quantity, not as easy of a thing as it sounds as it’s a base code change. And just so you know, FFF would be expressed as 4095 in base 10 (the everyday number system we use).

that’s provided they are using hexa to store these variables. but I would have thought that it would just be a simple int (with advanced programming languages these days, why make it complicated and define it as base16 type variable?).

In any case, if it was xFF, then changing it to xFFF and limiting it to 999 would be a nice addition already.

too long..separated.

3. different yet the same

another point you raised was your friends found all professions play the same, that they could not take up a defined role? Perhaps they are thinking of roles in a trinity sense, and haven’t adapted to GW2 system?

Or you can elaborate how it is the same?

The way GW2 implemented the various sub systems (professions, self-healing, traits, utilies, control/support/dmg, weapon skills, etc) are inter-connected, changing one part will break everything else.

Therefore many of the game mechanics must be shared by all professions. all classes can heal, some classes can block, some classes can stealth, some classes can remove boons, some classes can remove conditions more easily than others. BUt I don’t see how this plays ‘the same’. Even warrior and guardian who have very similar weaspon skills (compare GS, mace, hammer, sheild skills), they still play vastly different.

4. your support theif

If you don’t like to be support theif, why are you forced to be one? why can’t you just play a dmg theif with less support tools? spamming a finisher doesn’t make you a support thief.

it’s the tools (group heaing, poison sharing, cripping tools, etc) that you bring that makes you a support thief, if you don’t bring those tools, then you can’t ’support.

I’ve played this game since launch and it took me a month plus to decide which type of warrior I want to play…and I am playing and enjoying my ‘support/defense’ warrior very much. I offer lots to my group (stated above).

OP, I am a bit confused with your posts.

1. skill spamming

You mention that 75% of the time is skill spamming. well…one can play how they want…they can spam 100% of the time as well…but if you want good dps and know your class well, you would be using many keys including right timing of utilities.

e.g. I play an axe/warhorn warrior specializing in support/defense.
my skills are usually horn5 for aoe weakness (traited for added dmg), axe2 for vuln, shout and elite skill for might/fury, then burst for max dps, all the while watching for big hits to dodge, combo fields to use, shouts to heal and/or remove conditions.

All this is hardly one button spamming. for easier content I can be lazy and spam axe1, but if you choose to spam 1 key, then that’s your choice.

For bosses where you said would 2 hit you? why are you being hit in the first place? If it is an attack that will kill you in 2 hits, it means you should NOT be taking these hits at all. You don’t have to use dodge, you can move out of the boss’s melee range when he does his big attack and then move back in. Or if everyhit is like hard-hitting, then you should be using a range weapon, thats why each profession has a range option. This is by design and if you don’t think this is right, well…don’t fight this boss. lol.

2. ROLES

yOu want more roles…but i don’t understand why you wouldn’t consider the current ‘support’ or ‘control’ as roles? is it because they don’t provide enough healing or constant control?

Perhaps you can explain in depth what sort of roles you like to see changed/add/implemented? i.e. what would they do? what are their skills?

I think a lot of people are still new to this game and does not really understand the core concepts.
If people play their ‘support’ roles or ‘control’ roles properly, it makes a huge difference.

IMO, i think Anet did a great job in implementing a support/control/dmg system where you don’t have to rely on someone else, but yet works well in a team environment.

GW2 just doesn’t offer a profession that does 100% support (i.e stand at the back and heal full time) or 100% control, but if thats what you prefer…well…GW2 doesn’t suit you.

I mostly run dungeons with a RL friend and we play in the same room, usually pugging 3 others, and our runs are mostly very smooth. Only when we pug with people who are new and doesn’t say they don’t know what to do, do we have problems, but otherwise, we know our ‘roles’ and do what we do well.

WHen more people get out of the glass cannon/dmg only mindset, things are heaps more interesting. sadly though, I think a lot of people don’t get to that stage and leave. They just think about getting gear, learning all skills and say there’s nothing else to do. They never bother to experient with all the traits, the synergies between the traits in each of the lines, it is very deep and can be made to do so much.

when you say, “it is useless to trait as a tank, and you aren’t helping any one.” I disagree.
- When you solo, it means you can live longer.
- When you group up in pve, there is no tanking in the traditional sense, because people should be dodging and self-healing…but there are always people who are not as fast or over-estimate themselves….and being alive in a battle and rezzing them can turn the battle around. Being a tank in GW2 means being able to control the battle at the right time, i.e. stuning/dazing/KB/KD at the right moment, moving the boss or target away from people needing a rez, etc.
- when you pvp and you are bunker build, people don’t bother, doesn’t that in a way achieve the objective of being ‘support’?

And each profession can indeed pick their roles. all professions have control/support elements to a varying degree, and they may come in a different flavours, i.e. not just healing.

edit: continue next.

I am hoping the fact that they haven’t added a section for dungeon tokens is due to the current stack limitation of 250. And that they need new tech implemented so we can store maybe 1000 or something like that.

And the “Deposit collection” option wasn’t available prior to the wintersday patch.

This was inside EB JP, i was on my thief last night (S/D and P/D) and was up against a D/D ele. We fought for I think 8-10 mins before I gave up and ran away. It was fun even thou we couldn’t kill each other.

My support build is 10/0/30/30/0 with axe/horn primary, use shield as secondary.
I am traited for reflect missiles on shield, retailation, cripple on immobilise, horn converts cond to boon and shout healing.

I rez fast, shield block when retreating, horn5 to keep enemies dealing half dmg, shouts to keep allies buffed and healed, axe3 to catch runners, axe2 gives invul.

Overall I think I do a good job supporting my team and my world.

Edit: with rage signet, I get perma swiftness which is IMO, a necessity in WvW.

Freezenox.8534:

Although it is a good combo, but unbeatable is a bit overstatement. any skill with break stun + block can easily counter 100B. Warrior’s shake it off + endure pain, Guardian’s any breakstun + shelter. Elem’s mistform, and etc.

I was gonna post the exact same thing, I run with sword or axe mh with shield, depending on team make up and 100b 1on1 isn’t a problem at all.

Why not change server to DR for a week or two with alts doing all the JPs, then xfer back when u have the 500?

I have 1 warr with no magic find and a thief with travellers and mf runes.

I find that doing DEs, my thief does get more fine crafting mats than my warrior, a noticeable higher number of t5/t6 bones instead of broken bones or whatever the grey version name is.

This is the only diff I’ve noticed. Gear wise, it seems to be same, ie, roughly same number of rare and masterwork drops.

On a separate note, since mf doesn’t affect chest loot, I’ve received 3 exotics from chests on my warr and 0 on my thief.

I run with axe and horn too. AOE weakness is awesome and indeed under valued.

And I just love perma swiftness with horn and rage signet use.

Axe I think is the only viable main hand to go with horn for power build.
For burst I build up adren, FGJ, rage signet, axe2, horn5 then F1.

I also have the +dmg when weakness traited.

I personally dont value bleed duration highly, cause it doesn’t increase DPS, only Damage per attack.

I would rather get more condition dmg if i can. i have not found many situations where longer durations work out better.
- for solo, mobs die quick
- for group DEs, mobs die even quicker and champions usually have 25 stacks, I want my conditions to matter even more for the short duration that is on them
- dungeons may be useful but only if there are no more than one other profession doing bleeds to be fully effective
- pvps or W3, conditions are usually cleansed, rarely do they last the full duration

In short, I prefer my bleeds to be short but deadly.

Having said that, I’ve moved on from playing bleeds to axe/horn now, cause of the limitations of bleeds.

Just interested to know, here’s mine:

My play times:
I play roughly 20-30hrs a week
- 60-90mins mon-thurs
- 3hrs friday
- 6-10hrs sat/sun.

What I do in-game:
- mon to thurs – LA JPs, a bit of resource gathering, TPing
- fri to sun – non FOTM dungeons, orr/frostgorge DEs, general world wandering, TPing, some WvW, some PvP

Play objectives:
- 100% map complete on the two professions (warr/thief) I love.
currently sitting at 45%/51% respecitvely.
- in-game Wealth building, sitting at 30g
- very long term goal, store enough mats to one day get legendary items that I actually want to own (Twilight is the only legendary I like but I don’t play a GS warrior).

What’s yours?