Guild Wars 2

Anyone tried something like this with barbaric amulet before?

http://goo.gl/Z1fVy8

I just tested it in unranked and it was kind of… meeh.. it… worked. Main goal: fast decaps and creating 5 vs 4 situations for your team. Plus fast finishes thanks to Impact Strike.

Boring as hell to play though: staff 3 – dodge – staff 3 – dodge – … – staff2/steal – dodge – dodge – staff 3 – dodge – staff 3 – … – roll for initiative, staff 3 – dodge – signet of agility – dodge – …

Barbaric amulet seemed a nice choice. It never occured to me using it before. For more condi cleanse I’d take Melandru instead of Strength runes.

I wish it would provide some buffs to the team though… maybe using bountifull theft and painreaction with melandru runes? Stealing buffs and providing 10sec vigor every 20sec.

Although I very much hope for the current “powercreep” meta as it is called to get nerved as a whole too, I don’t see an additional stunbreak every 30sec (20sec if traited) actually adding to it.

Big difference to sword 2: it’s spamable (at least for a while)!

I don’t really see Anet reducing the amount of dazes and stuns they just introduced to the game though (unfortunately! I whish they never introduced that much CC.)

That being said, Thief in my opinion needs some kind of “buffs” to really be viable have fun and challenging fights, also 1 vs 1: I’d prefer additional survivability to yet more damage (powercreep).

Steal could be a “true” stunbreaker – baseline. With all the dazes and stuns flying around…

Funny thing is: The better (or is it because of the higher division?) I get, the more people hate. I guess it’s because everybody thinks holding mid and close is the only way to win (“meta”), so the classical thief-“decapping”-role is not wanted.

I found a nice D/D build that works fine for me though. It’s very squishy, high risk/high reward and almost classical backstab – but lots of fun and very, very fast in decapping points thanks to Dash and shortbow.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYVnsMBVOhFOBmOBkmiFfCjLEUBuAbBgXzZaOAmAjgA-TZBFABFcCAKZ/BqLDswhAAgnAAA

I’d really, really like to make staff work for me but it still feels lacking or I kind of can’t find my purpose with it.

would be nice to have less after- and/or precast on some abilities. especially on staff. I guess that would be enough of a buff. And reduce all that AE daze flying around.

My experience isn’t good at all. Even if winning (I guess the rate is at about 53% to 56%) I don’t feel like having contributed much (my score as thief is low pretty much all the time since HoT launched – I know it’s not about personal score and I don’t bother finishing a cap if someone is there already – but it feels bad if other classes just easily get double the score).

Druid, Scrapper or DH are sooo much easier and feel like they contribute a lot more to a match overall.

What bothers me most is all the AE-CC, stuns and dazes flying all over the place. I die in dazelock way too often. Staff (or thief in general) would need stability more than anything else in my opinion. (As a druid I am able to AE daze for 4 sec every 10 seconds or so…. that’s just ridiculous!)

Other than that I find thief hard if it doesn’t have a good team that supports the “thief kind of gameplay”. (going for decaps) Deffing points just doesn’t make much sense as a thief. Long group fights at mid too. Decaping is nice, but then if there is a DH sitting on a point (which happenes to me 2 of 3 times), what are you going to do?

Some fights are engaging and fun, but overall my experience is frustrating.

I didn’t get much hate as of yet though. Just once, when I tested a build in a ranked match – but hey, that was my fault.

Very interesting idea and a lot better than what we have now!

I too – like some of the above posters – think that having 3 Borderlands is too much though. I guess with being able to fight against “every” server, it would be enough to have only one “homeland” (aka home-borderland map). So deffing becomes a lot more interesting too. (Dolyaks and upgrading keeps would have to be more important in my opinion though)

That would almost be like “declaring war” to some other server/globe! And you could just roam whereever you like to.

In order to do that there would have to be some UI / Globe/serverwide communication tool though. Like a map channel for WvW/Globe that would be visible even if you do PVE or whatever (just like a seperate guild channel) – and maybe a special UI, so you know which worlds you have declared war on.

Some fights would probably turn out unfair, or some homelands might just get crushed… but hey, that’s real WvW!! I’d rather get demolished than having no fights at all, as is the case now!

Supported!

I guess I’d like the new map, possibly even it’s verticality (it’s something to get used to)…

…IF it was full! And I mean really full, an enemy behind every corner.

Right now it is about PVE mostly, running, running and running again.

– Get rid of some of the too playfull PVE gimmicks (I do like some of them though)
– make supply and Dolyaks important again (no autoupgrades withouth supply)
– and get rid of the two other identical maps.

(and maybe of Edge of the Mists. I still don’t really understand what it’s good for other than taking players away from WvW. Honestly there is enough PVE content out there.)

After all, we got plenty of different maps (Stonemist, old Borderland, new Borderland, Edge of the Mists) but less WvW than ever.

I’m at a point where I’d prefer 1 WvW map only (with it’s design on rotation) over 4 empty maps and 1 that is about grinding and raiding in circles exclusively. I was even thinking about some kind of system where a second map only opens up, if there are enough players. (I know that might be technically impossible and it would introduce lots of other problems, but it’s a thought).

Thanks Caed for your help and feedback.

Changing my game options to “Snap Ground Target to Current Target” really did the trick for me and changed my gameplay and performance completely. My damage output has encreased tremendousely, so playing more offensive actually makes a lot more sense now – that way DA line indeed provides lots more utility and I don’t need Palm Strike for damage anymore.

In WvW I do however prefer Acro over DA. I even use Dash instead of Bounding Dodger, which was lots of fun. Your almost impossible to catch (especially with buff food +40% endurance regen and might on evade). Fights are long and not always easy but lots of fun and you have a chance to win or at least get away in almost every situation. (I have to say it’s a bit of a troll build…)

Shadow Step comes even more handy in WvW of course, so it is a must. I found myself using Escapist Absolution too in WvW to compensate for all the condi flying around… but I still use my old Runes of the Strength set, so changing to a more defensive runeset (Melandru) and using Staff Mastery would probably turn out better.

Wow! I just found the solution to all my problems with Staff:

it’s called “Snap Ground Target to Current Target” – I can’t believe I’ve missed that. In pair with Fast Cast Ground Targeting it’s amazing how much more damage I now deal!!!!

Daredevil rocks! :-)

(And I love Flanking Strike proccs with Impact Strike! :-) )

What do you think about this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn0MB9OhFOBWmCkmiFqiyLEShSoLCCgDYu63+xH-TZBFABiXGom9Ha7SAswRAAgHAAA

I kind of feel better with Acrobatics instead of Deadly Arts. Hard to Catch has nice synergy with Bounding Dodger and I feel I get into situations where I need an extra Stun break quite often. I like the extra Vigor that adds a lot to my survivability and it doesn’t feel like sacrificing too much damage. I’m not really sure about the grandmaster though, none of them seems really good.

Utilities:

I really like the interupt and damage on short cooldown of Fist Flurry although I know there might be better utilities. I’m getting the “No Valid Path” message very often, so on certain maps Shadowstep became a bit unreliable to me. (probably a l2p issue) I might try Scorpion Wire as some of you sugested, but it seems very unreliable too in many situations. I tried Smoke Screen and that seemed fun.

1 vs 1 Situations:

Besides of Dragonhunter and Tempest I too have big problems fighting Druids (takes forever) and especially Sword (Staff) Revenants. I haven’t found a good way to counter Sword 3 yet without blowing too many dodges at once. If I don’t dodge at least twice I’ll find myself dead in most situations. Then they switch to staff and CC-kill me with Staff 5 – Does anyone have advice?

I guess “aiming” and actually hitting foes is one of my big problems with staff. I find it hard to hit good players with Dust Strike and Vault because of the long telegraphs both abilities have. It’s similar with Bounding Dodger. All of those abilities are pretty easy to evade, you can literally just move out of the way. So I have to kind of anticipate where my enemies will move.

Anyway, cheers, and have great fights,
herzeleid

Can anyone give me some advice on how to play this? Is there a video out there?

I keep loosing against pretty much any class in 1 vs 1 situations. Except maybe warri.

I know I’m not a good player, but I really wonder how you guys make it work.

I very much like the build below.

“Trapperdruid”.

It provides heavy condition damage with lot’s of heal and group support. So it might provide the roles you are looking for.

It’s great also because you stun and immobilize your targets frequently. That adds some nice synergy to the new available pets, because those have knockdowns!

It’s good in PVP and even better in WvW as a roaming build or for small groups. Healing Trap is the only trap that won’t trigger damage, so together with staff 3 it is a great escape otpion if things go awry. Add beastly warden (I love it) and you almost always get away. :-)

Statwise I use Apothecary, and in WvW Shaman for more Vitality because other than Healing Spring you don’t have much condi removal! I don’t think I would use celestial though, because power, precision and ferocity aren’t much needed in this build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWVjMqQ7K2tCmrAXLWcEM4m6UNr+k6+VlOmAwkryVy0KD-TRRQABCpLwElfru/AAq/4kSwAAHAs7u7u7u7GA-e

After having fooled around with many, many staff builds your’s is one that seems to work best for me, though I do indeed (desperately) need the extra condi removal and evade from Roll for Initiative. (plus rune of the scrapper) (– And yet against good DD/condi thieves or PU condi mesmers I still don’t stand a chance).

As a casual player without a proper team, nor the time to actually play in a balanced team I still feel thief is one of the hardest and frustating classes to play in sPVP at the moment though.

It might not be thief so much that I feel is underpowered, I just think there is way too much damage and AE Condi around… and, well, Dragonhunter traps ARE op. Adding to that in my opinion there are too many passive mechanics (that thieves don’t have access to in the same amount).

Honestly Trapperdruid, Dragonhunter, Minionreaper or PU Mesmers are so much easier to play. Having fun in PVP with a thief starts to feel like an exclusive “pro” thing – which is sad, because I really like it (it’s my main since beta).

So all in all I agree with my foreposter:

Azukas.1426:

I agree with the toning down of other classes, but let’s be realistic here.

There’s been 2 major power creeps in the game since June, and the thief has been left behind in both of them significantly. Truth be told you either need to nerf 6-8 classes or just buff 1 class. I’m of the mind that the devs will go for the easiest road.

Either way I find thieves underwhelming to fight against or on.

To but it in other words, not thief but PVP is in a bad spot – at least from a casual players point of view.

It’s sad but Thief really isn’t much fun in PvP anymore (and I don’t like being forced to play condi/evade builds, that’s just now “my” kind of thief-playstyle). It is however PVP as such that has severe issues not just the thief class alone.

Most classes have too many passive evades/blocks/passive condi dealing, etc.. and damage numbers got ridiculously high since the last two patches – especially with the new elite specs.

Thieves particluarly rely on either controlled use of stealth or active dodges, both of which need proper timing. With the crazy amounts of AE, passive trap CC and Condis around even all the dodges Daredevil has are useless. It just takes a little longer until you get killed. So yes: stay out of 1vs1 if you’re a thief… and stay out of AE too… and reroll either DH or Revenant.

Sword-Revenants what are they supposed to be anyway – aeehm… thiefs in heavy armor? They kill you while being an unattackable mistform plus they wear heavy armor? really? is that supposed to be fun?

And DH traps!? Seriously?

I like my thief and yes I’m not a great player, so l2p is always an issue here, yes, I am still trying to find that valid staff PvP-build (even though I know it doesn’t exist), but even when taking all of that aside: the amount of frustation in PVP as a (mediocre) thief player has never been that high before. :-(

EazyPanda.6419:

If you do run out of dodges in this build, you are either tanking 3-4 players at a time, or you should really learn how to calm down.

lol!!

The new Rune of Durability is quite nice too! Maybe worth a try?

I started playing around with a build I call the “Trapperdruid” – very nice and fast for roaming and yet a good supportive build centered around “Runes of the trapper” and “Shamans” Equip and “Ancient Seeds” for immobilize and bleed on knockdown/daze/etc.:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNMQJAVWjMqQ7K2tCmrAXLWcEM4m6UNr+k6+VlOmAwkryVyySD-ThBOABAoJ4Llgto8j29HEQHQCq/EAABgZOzZOzZOzA-e

I love it, though it has poor condi cleanse. For more condi cleanse I prefer survival over beast mastery.

well, I’m still testing it. (And yes Chronos are tough…)

You did it Anet!

I started playing Daredevil yesterday (had to unlock my "trapperdruid! first) and all I can say is:

I’m loving it!

I’m impressed at the amount of work you put into the class and I think it really worked out fine. Animations are great now.

And it’s so, so much fun to dash or bound around constantly.

I just had to say this because I guess we tend to criticise but rarely give positive feedback and I can see that thief went a long way from Beta to release – and it worked out fine in my opinion.

What else can I say: I’m happy. :-)

I’d prefer a dark field on Staff 4 over a smoke field for a variety of reasons:

1. because we have access to smoke fields with other skills (pistol 5, smoke screen) and to stealth with lots of other utilities . (Shadow Refuge is a dark field I know, but I usually don’t do combos in it for not getting revealed)

I haven’t tested staff with shadow arts. Doesn’t make too much sense to me right now. Lotus training was really strong last Beta and I can totally see myself going Condi with Shadow Arts, Daredevil (Lotus) and Trickery – DD/PD or SB. But that isn’t Staff and I personally prefer direct damage over condi with my thief.

2. Dark fields synergize better with a non stealth role: more AE blinds and life-leech

3. no stealth needed. Use signet of Agility, Acrobatics trait line, plus Withdraw and Roll for Initiative and you have a sheer unlimited number of evades – almost 6 dodges in a row plus perma swiftness!!! – Add “trickster” and “Escapists Absolution” for great condi removal. That’s why I personally liked the Daredevil being a non stealth build!

And that’s why I did like staff 3 too. It’s yet an extra evade. If combined with the “Bound” dodge variant it is especialy usefull because it will move you from your target to exactly the position it takes to land a “Bound” on it! That’s some nice synergy there (especially if we had a dark field.. ).

I also liked Staff 2 ifor that matter. It’s great. Lots of weakness for little initiative cost plus quite a lot of damage if you manage to hit the enemy with the last few animation strikes – which again puts Staff 3 to use – add another evade frame and it’s perfect.

Honestly I very much liked the Daredevil – if they fix the animations and do a little tweaking with the numbers I’d go with it even though there might be better PVP builds out there.

That being said, we might not get any field on Staff 4 at all.

(And by the way: Getting invisible? Not magic? I think Dark doesn’t make more or less sense than Smoke does – Shadow Refuge IS a dark field and hey: my thief IS magic! )

Here is my Beta-Weekend 3 Feedback for Daredevil:

I had a blast playig it this time and almost couldn’t stop jumping and dashing around. I tried several different builds, sPVP, WVW and some Dungeons and I feel it was viable everywhere. Daredevil starts to play as a class on it’s own I think. (Especially with Staff)

PVE: Power/Berserk build with Staff, Bound as dodge and Signet of Malice, No Quarter and Assasins Reward for heal it is fantastic to jump into large groups and deal massive AE damage while healing yourself!

WvW: I loved to dash around. Either with Critical Strikes/Acrobatics or Trickery/Acrobatics for better condi removal with tricks. Lyssa rune and Impact Strike is nice too. Tried dual pistol which was fun, but shortbow seemed better!

In sPVP Daredevil was hard to play for me. Also 1vs1 situations where very hard for me. Maybe that is because I’m not yet used to it or haven’t found the right build – or maybe it is just slightly too weak in comparison. I think there are other better builds out there which is sad, because I really like that new feeling to thief. :-)

Staff:

feels a lot better now, more fluid:

1. autoattack felt good with decent damage (animation is a placeholder I guess?)
2. Weakening Charge: in my opinion it would be great ot have a small avoid frame here, maybe it’s just because of the animation. It is really nice to use though and damage output is great. I think in terms of How you target your enemy yet move through it, it is perfect right now!
3. Debilitating Arc: Not sure about this onw. In combination with Vault or Bound nice though. You evade backwards and Leap back on your enemy dealing massive damage. Has quite some potential.
4. Dust Strike: Feels a lot better but still a little underwhelming. A Dark field would be fantastic and add greatly to Vault and bound.
5. Vault. I don’t think it needs an evade frame but maybe slightly more damage. It still is a high risk high cost ability in my opinion which is easily interupted in the middle without doing anything. With a Darkfield on 4 it would be great too. The Animation is a lot better now, but still slightly clunky.

Dodges feel a lot better now – the animations of dash and lotus are very strange though but I think they are still playceholders, are they? It would be great if dashing backwards looked different to dashing aside or forwards!

Physicals:

Fist Flurry: I’m still having problems using Fist Flurry. I guess I’d like to see the interrupt on the first strike, not having to hit 5 times then being able to land an interrupt.

Channeled Vigor is great.

Distracting Daggers: underwheling to me, but well..

Bandit’s Defense: Very nice against single targets.

Impairing Daggers: Not worth it.

ImpactStrike/etc.: Loving it!!

Cant wait to play DD again. :-)

Raven.9603:

• Condi meta just gets worse and worse, via Dire, Food, new condi traits/runes/effects while not also increasing cleansing options.
• Mesmers right now are stronger than any class has ever been in the history of roaming. Its a very bad thing. Cele-ele-DD is bad too, but not “unprecedentedly broken” the way PU mesmers are today.
• Roaming player base overwhelming gravitating towards cheese means less enjoyable experiences. This is our fault for playing them and Anets fault for not keeping the specs in line.
• Damage is all around too high. Fights since the specialization change are too short, so many 1v1’s or 1v2’s are over far too quickly now for them to be enjoyable experiences.
• General lack of interest in WvW. There were more roamers during Golem week than there have been this week in NA/T3.

– signed!

I’d go for the UI switch too, if they give us one. :-)

Being able to save more than one gear/build-set for gold/gems would be great though. I find it very cumbersome always having to change each piece of gear and each trait.

Being able to save Builds and Gear with one Click would definitely be worth the Gems or Gold to me if it was implemented in which Way ever.

(But I somehow like to imagine well fortified WvW keeps with hundreds of Scarces and Dolyaks standing around… haha.. maybe another stimulation to defend it. :-) )

I really like the way traits are seperately saved for WvW / PvE and sPVP now. I would like to take the idea of saveable builds (and gear!) one step further though, which is why I would like to introduce another quality of life improvement:

Tadaaa (rolling drums and fanfares) – The Scarce!

You spend gold or gems on having a Scarce, he needs (and likes) to eat and drink. He will however hold to your weapon-sets and remind you on your strategies of warfare (saveable builds and build-attached gear). Scarces are somewhat fearfull though. In WvW they only dare to move to well defended keeps, in dungeons they will stay at a safe spots or close to the entrance to await their returning masters orders, maintain their wounds and, if well equiped, nourish them with salves and tonic.

Depending on how well equiped your Scarce is – did you provide him with a mule or even a costly dolayk? – he will be able to save one or more builds and weaponsets for you.

What do you think?

Being able to save builds and attach certain gear sets at NSCs that could be bought by guilds for WvW or Dungeons (raids) or by players themselves (but available only in WvW keeps of a certain expansion stage) would be a great quality of live improvement to me and allow us to easily change gear and build according to the different play styles: Zerg, Roaming, Support, Tank, etc… without having to change every single piece of equip and trait.

One of the reasons I never bought any of those account wide salvage- or other items is because there is no account wide bag. I’d love to have it for Account-wide items.

This – and no seperate activation needed for berserk mode but rather just choosing the F2 burst making you simultaneously enter it.

Kalendraf.9521:

It feels a bit sluggish to go berserk with F2, and almost always I want to follow that up with a burst, so I wish there was some kind of option to merge or auto-chain F2 and F1 activation.

It would be great to have F1 AND F2 ALWAYS be available and not overlapping – however if you choose the F2 berserk-burst that would simultaneously activate berserk mode (locking up your F1 for its duration). That (plus maybe adding a couple of seconds) might also change the feeling of berserk mode not lasting long enough.

I also think that some of the berserk burst skills need a bit of rework – greatsword for example. Right now I just don’t see the benefit of it – using a direct damage weapon without condi to apply burning once in a while for the cost of raw damage? really?

I very much liked the hammer berserk F1 though. It’s the one skill that felt like being enraged to me (without nescessarily being that usefull).

As far as the utilities go, I’m not sure what to think. Summoning rocks just doesn’t feel like a berserk to me. Headbut is nice but the animation doesn’t convey the feeling, it’s so subtle I don’t even see it with all the other effects swirling around.

Daendur.2357:

at least it has to have its stop moments removed. before and after the animation you are rooted, it’s not fluid = bad

Agree! That’s what makes it terrible. You stop before you start running and stop again afterward. Remove the stop animations and it is nice.

As far as PVP/WvW goes I haven’t found a build that works as of yet though. Soldiers gear interupt pulmonary strike build was kind of ok, but then – almost every other build is better… :-(

I actually liked Impact Strike. It’s nice if you use it on enemies that are very low on health. If you manage to time it right the combo – daze, knockdown– will insta-finish them. I found it kind of hard to use on allready downed enemies though.

You don’t have to equip a staff to play the specialization. But you have to specialize in DD to equip a staff.

Most of my feedback was posted already.

To but it short: Dodges, Staff Animations as well as most of the physical abilities feel quite clunky and therefore not much fun. That’s my biggest issue with the DD.

It’s nice to hear work is being made, the clunkiness however doesn’t seem to be a matter of lag but more so of the way the animations and skills are designed.

Some examples would be: Staff 2 makes a short stop when moving forward and the skill can’t be interupted. Dash: At the end of the dodge the animation stops the character for a short while. Same goes for bound where it makes more sense though.

Other than that: Staff seems very underwhelming and useless.

Bandit’s Defense is nice in single target fights but might easily kill you when fighting more than one target.

Finishing Blow is great and impairing daggers kind ofnice – But are they worth skilling into an otherwise useless trait line?

Changing dodges in fight as an above poster suggested sounds great. I would love to be able to use the standard dodge too though– especially if the new dodges stay that clunky.

Pilmonary impact seems to be bugged or do I miss something? I can’t get it to work at least not with pistol 4.

What worked best for me (in WvW and sPVP) interestingly was with Dagger/Pistol. I don’t think I would ever play that though and honestly – no… not another D/P Build!

As far as PVE goes S/D still feels a lot more powerful and fluid that staff.

Interestingly the Revenants Staff skills feel more “martial arts” than the thieves.

another thing that kind of annoys me: when you use the speed-evade it will look like you carry a staff, even if you don’t. The weapons will disappear. And of course right before the evade ends you will stop for a short time. Meh!

By the way: The dodges are a good example of why the specialization don’t feel like an adittion but rather like a restriction. We HAVE to chose a new dodge if we want to play staff thief.

I too think the new dodges feel very clunky. They kind of stop or slow down the animation at some point which just doesn’t feel “martial arts” and makes fights a bit cumbersome. It’s the same for some of the staff animations (i.e. number 5). All in all fights doen’t feel as fun as they could/should if animations where smoother.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

sephiroth.4217:

Activate friendly fire.

This would make things very interesting.

Would probably kill the servers.

Friendly Fire AND no AE restrictions… booom… hahaha. I’d love to see that as a special event. ;-)

I tested “unrelenting strikes” again:

It does NOT work with Shortbow autoattack which is how I tested it – but it seems to work with everything else (also shortbow 2).

kind of nice to have perma rage. :-)

Zero Day.2594:

Works fine for me Did you try in sPvP?

hmm, I tried it in sPVP and it didn’t work, but I think I haven’t zoned out before. I’ll give that a shot!

I thought about testing a build centered around “runes of rage”, “unrelenting strikes” and “no quarter”. anybody tried something like that?

well said alain!

Unrelenting strikes doesn’t grant rage when target is below 90% health as stated in the trait describtion.

The trait “unrelenting strikes” doesn’t give Rage – is it bugged?

Zackie.8923:

sunny.5789:

or make GW2 have only one mystic forge in SMC XD
( a crazy thought from China fourm

i like this insanity

ha – me too!!

Anyway: I think we need a different server system.

Maybe like this: joining a server with a given charackter (each charackter can only join one game.) Those servers have a max population and will be closed when the max population is reached. Those WvW servers also have certain times when they can be played on. If you want to play some other time – use a different charackter, join a different game.

To me what I need is a system that makes me care for the outcome of a WvW fight again. Right now it is only about population and time zones.

Concerning Zergs:

What about a new Condition called “Taunt”:

When active it will also activate friendly fire. So the back line of a zerg will have to really be carefull about who they bomb and about condition removal. In small fights the skill would make almost no difference at all.

3 Suggestions/thoughts for a better WvW experience:

1: new Debuff/Condition: “Taunt”

When watching Wooden Potatoes on youtube talking about data mining for HoT content the other day I saw that there was a new possible skill introduced called “taunt”. That gave me an idea:

What if there was a skill called “Taunt” that actually activates “friendly fire” on a target for a given amount of time?

Example: You taunt an elementalist in a zerg, therefore all his skills will now also hit friends (for, say, 10 sec). When he gets tauntes he enrages and just doesn’t pay attention whether he hits friends or enemies anymore.

That would make those boring zerg fights a lot more interesting in my opinion. ;-)

2: server balance

It’s really, really time to make some changes when it comes to server balance. WvW just doesn’t make sense when the outcome of a fight is known weeks in advance because it merely reflects server population. The new maps are exciting – but to me it’s mainly the unbalanced servers that make WvW boring. New maps alone won’t help getting that excitement back, that made me want to fight for my server.

In my opinion we desperately need a different (mega?-)server system. What about the ESO system – does anyone have experiences with it. Is it better “population-wise”?

3: make the obsidian sanctum a true arena

What if the Obsidian Sanctum got a real Arena without factions but plain, deadly PVP, everyone on his own, everyone against each!? It’s empty and completely useless the way it is now anyways. Storywise it would make sense too: Everyone wants the treasure in the end, so it is played against each.

I’m on the same server since Beta and am really attached to it. Now that the Metaservers are here, it might be time for a complete rework of the server system for WvW too though.

Maybe something similar to the way ESO does it. (Although I have no idea about ESO matchups in detail honestly) Maybe like this: People who want to partake in WvW join a game, as soon as that “game” or “Wvw server” is full, no one can join anymore. You’re stuck with that team for let’s say one season. After the season you can signup for whatever “WvWServer” you like again. There might be need for a guild system of some sort. Maybe guilds should be able to open up “WvW servers” at the start of a season with a certain number of “slots”. I don’t know – I guess everything’s better than now.

Gw2 is a nice game, but WvW starts to really suck. There’s a lot of potential but without somewhat balanced matchups it’s just no fun anymore – and I really don’t care about losing or winning, all I care for are interesting fights and matchups. Right now WvW unfortunately starts to get very, very boring – even for a fanboy like me.

First of all: Great patch. Some things I’ll need to get used to. Others are fantastic from the beginning.

I’m not yet sure about the new traits, some I believe are great other, depending on classes, maybe not so.

What really bugs me though is – as others posted allready – that you removed the right-mouse drop down when traiting.

Zylonite.5913:

Colin Johanson: Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game

Absolutely signed!

Where have those promisses gone? Will I really have to grind FOTM to have fun WvW??

And where are all those unique skins they talked about? All I can see is skins for money via jewel store. Why not add more interesting looking skins in different distinct stiles for completion of achievements, WvW or special dungeons, PVE instead of the old usual gear grind treadmill for stats? That way everyone could descide himself if he wanted to do the grind or not and HOW he wanted to play the game!

Ascended armor, jewelry and weapons in WvW have been a very bad idea.

Please A-Net: Ban Ascended items from WvW or make them easily accessible so we can stop the grind and play what we bought the game for: WvW.

I like to twink and yes I like to change my build now and then – not in sPVP but big scale WvW / open World PVP. Right now I don’t even know if I will even be able to ever get one full set of ascended armor for only one build and one charackter.

It’s sad to see the game go where all other MMOs have gone eventually: grinding, grinding, grinding!

If grinding is so important: Let us grind for special skins and add interesting unusual or maybe even just slightly different skins for pretty much everything we can achieve in the game. It would be a much better descision to add different looks not in the jewel store but in-game, for achievements, crafting, etc. Why not have several looks with the same stats that need very special ingredients? (But NOT the way you did recently: adding a glow to T1 light armor… where have your designers gone???)

I really like the new architecture and mechanics but when Bloodlust is concerened I too think it will ruin the WvW experience for many of us (me myself included) – it’s just no fun fighting against overpowered enemies (no matter if it is because of gear or a buff they earned) and 150 is just too much.

As a roamer, oftentimes alone, it’s nice to have those small objcetives to fight over – but against enemies that have a plus of 150 to all of their stats? no fun at all!!

this is the exact same problem we had with the orbs of power. – so why do that again?

I very much like the fact that with blodlust we have a way of gaining WvW Score per kill though. That does indeed add a new flavour to the game, allowing for different strategies.

so what about hightening bloodlusts impact on the score? what about 2 WvW points per kill and bloodlust stack? but no buff on stats!

or what about a small speed buff, instead of 150 to all stats. might be nice to have something small such as +3% or 4% speed per stack or something similar. or something less gamebraking that only affects siege weapons: maybe the buff could be a buff on the speed you build siege weapons? or something similar to the WvW traits?

or a completely different idea: make the gain to WvW score really high, like 5 to 10 points per stack and kill but gain a CONDITION that substracts 150 stats, if you have all three stacks and yet add a serious boost on magic find and karma, etc… :-)

oh and by the way: right now the visual interface is somewhat irritating – lots of people don’t really get the mechanics and it would be nice being able to see on what borderlands a server has a stack in the Wvw overview.

Hi Guys!

First of all: let’s keep it civilized.

You should know there are reasons why people (AM) play the way (zerg) they do:

1: it’s successfull to a certain degree. blame the game! especially if you have only few people who are willing to organize things and when you have lots of casual gamers. if it was not successfull, AM would have a hard time trying to adapt – we would (and actually do) try though. if it was not successfull other servers wouldn’t have to cry out about it.

2. fighting servers such as baruch bay tought us that we indeed have to split and need other strategies than running as one huge blob. there is one problem though: in higher tiers not only do they have organized guilds with small TS groups using highly efficient skirmishing tactics – they have gigantic blobs AS WELL!

it is simply a lie that other servers don’t blob – everybody does if he has the masses to do so… believe it or not, there are people out there who have different play stiles, some of them simply having a beer, bashing 1 and not taking the whole thing too serious. it would be nice indeed if AM had more of the smaller more interessting groups – give it some time though, they might evolve – especially if tactics and maybe rewards (such as anounced by ANet) will benefit those at some point in time.

3. AM has indeed been a server that startet to have an organized WvW Team (Server TS, commanders, etc.) late in comparison to other servers.

The interesting thing on AM in my opinion is, that this organization has not come from some elitist Guilds who seek small and possibly more interessting battles but always been the attempt to get everybody on the server to play as a collective. Honestly I think that’s great – even though it leads to a playstile that I don’t really like myself all the time.
Our commanders have always tried to get all the PVEers, the WvWers or sPVPers for that matter (which I feel we don’t have that many, but I might be wrong) together as one. Therefore we have a strong sense of community, no one get’s excluded, it doesn’t matter if you’re random or casual or a skillfull or whatever player. You log in and run with the pack which can be fun.
And by the way: I don’t consider it all that easy to get 30ppl+ into TS and be civilized enough to make any kind of conversation possible – the reason why we even have those huge blobs is an achievement in itself.
:-)

I myself prefer small groups but am a very casual player. – so there of course are AM players who roam and prefer smaller tactics.

Anyway – I usually have no organized group and yet I prefer to not join the zerg but roam around alone, try to solo cap things and always find one, two, or three other roamers who join in. Feel free to kill me (us) if you see me running around alone or with two or three others – if you can!

And believe me: I’ve been wiped with my face to the dust from no matter what server so many times by zergs or groups of 30 ppl+ I can’t even count it:

that’s unfair, that’s dirty – that’s WvW – enjoy it! ;-)

yes – switching language and loading all the language files then start again and load all the language files really needed worked for me. ;-)

cumbersome- but it works.

In the German Forum somebody wrote about a possible fix to this problem, which might help at least sometimes (if there are no other problems such as with a firewall):

switch language to french, then relaunch the client, load all the files and switch back to english. (for some reason only french seems to work… )

if you’re lucky it might solve the problem.

I’m just about to load all the french files at the moment, so possibly it will work – at least the client is loading something right now…

I have the exact same problem – the client doesn’t load the last 1 kb.. it jsut doesn’t do anything. I am able to loginto the login server – but the last kilobit doesn’t load and I’m unable to start playing…