Guild Wars 2

Lucky.9421:

^^^ I’m scared

Me too…. tho’ mostly b/c someone apparently likes Trehearne…

zerorogue.9410:

Seriously though, if this happens anet needs better writers.

Sedition Inhibitors
Sedition Inhibitors
Sedition Inhibitors
(anyone who’s ever crafted in rata sum is cringing right now)

PainShot.7154:

Luthien.7938:

[…] told at one point to stay in a safe spot while they fought a boss.
[..] was this just an elitist group I happened to find myself grouped with? I’m really hoping that’s not what this game’s community is like normally.

Dont worry. A elitist party probably kick you at the very first moment when you demostrate dont know what are you doing and, most important, SAYING NOTHING ABOUT THAT.
This “elitist group” carry you to the end of the dungeon, give you free work tokens and full cover on death situations and YOU are here, in the forums, crying like a baby because THEY have the fault of ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? .

L O O O O O L

If that is elitist, i would love to see you being kicked hundred times from “gentle soul partys”. Right at middle of run because you DONT SAY ITS YOUR FIRST TIME; when they note your lack of all interest on make yourself useful for the group.

Funny you should mention it that way… Actually that’s EXACTLY what the bad-reputation cliche` elitists do. They’ll carry people sometimes and then never bother explaining their methods or educating anyone on why they do things the way they do. It’s the biggest problem with “Competitive” communities and tourney-tryhards too. They really need to get over themselves and stop acting like they’re some gift from god. When all they do is hand out wellfare and then insult people for it, they just make the game they spend so much time in, worse for the wear.

The truly Elite don’t even say much. And they definitely don’t need to insult anyone to feel better about all the time they’ve wasted on some game. They do what they do because they enjoy it more than they enjoy the imaginary status they get from “being among the best”. This is especially true in FPS games. But in a few cases, those Truly Good players will also take the time to explain all the details to initiates. They won’t do that with total newbies b/c the total newbie has no frame of reference yet to even understand the concepts yet. So that means there still has to be some kind of “training program” in between Newbie and Initiate levels.

If you have no interest in that level and educating those like the OP. Then plz don’t dirty up a thread that is clearly “looking for help” in nature. Either provide real help, or go back to farming plz.

Templates? What are these templates they speak of? Sounds almost too good to be true. …like something we couldn’t live without if we had been given them last year…

Just so long as they DONT TOUCH the #3 skill…. I use that as my “Mount”.

If they ever mess with the #3 then I’ll be demanding that they let us ride our Pets instead.

No they’re definitely obsolete, atleast in my case: I’ll never take up jeweler (cook was enough of a headache for me thanks) so my next plans included replacing all my cruddy masterwork jewelry with Exotics. I had the money set aside too. But now that I know I can just get it from Dungeon runs (which is all I’ve been doing lately anyway), I know I can just wait until amulet and accessories are added too and to-heck with whoever wasted all their time jeweling up to 400. They’re not gettin’ my money now. (especially since I already know it’s one of the only profitable crafting disciplines there was)

OP contends that Zerkers use their 3-9 skills not just more often, but more effectively than players built to survive more than a single hit. ….I laughed pretty hard.

I contend that they’re actually less skilled because they play a special version of the game that’s easier than what a balanced team faces, simply because whatever they focus all their damage on, dies in half the time so they’re not facing enough exposure time for the fight to GET difficult in the first place. And Exposure MATTERS. “Resource Management”, MATTERS. Skill in using your 3-9 skills, doesn’t just come from frequency, but also timing and saving them for when they become the game changer. They don’t know what that’s like because the Mob is already dead before that game changer situation even happens.

In other cases, they don’t even fight most ‘Elite’ groups of mobs and instead run past them. When asked why, you’ll always get a bevy of half-truths about “well they’re beneath us” & “We’re just saving time, they give no decent drops anyway”. Some of which is true… But what they’re not telling you is that they also don’t have enough stamina to dodge every single attack by those mobs and their 3-9 skills don’t recharge fast enough either b/c all of those skills are balanced around a PvP minigame called “Conquest Mode”. …and not balanced around PvE. Thus they’ll often get downed repeatedly by those Elites, especially the tougher ones in AC, CM, Path2Arah, & a few other niche places that actually present more difficulty than COF/HotW/COE/SE do…

Crater.1625:

It’ll get you through a dungeon, but it takes longer, costs more, and is much less fun than playing it properly.

Well… like most things that are missing Tutorials or gradual skill-curving content, the design of the encounters are indeed still poorly designed. I wouldn’t go so far as to say trash, but they have no “Crescendo” to their mechanics that teaches the player how to deal with them by doing it…

I can count on 1 hand the number of instances where your party gets a preview of how a specific mob’s mechanics are supposed to work (including the little hidden parts of it that aren’t so evident, or are just plain buggy … like scavenger lunges for example) …and then the fight itself get tougher after that. GW1 did a pretty good job at this. Most of GW2 dungeons however are trial and error (read: CorpseRolling from WP) for MOST people followed by Youtubing & guide reading for anyone else who isn’t a masochist. Sorry but that is not good inviting gameplay design

I dunno, but they better not ever bring her back in Ghost Form. I really really DONT WANT TO KNOW what she thinks b/c whenever she thought something, she always verbalized it too. …Always.

She’s basically the Veruca Salt of JarJarBinkses

Well if we’re gonna be serious… that number was at peak of production where atleast 80 of them were artists and another 50 were some sort of “strike team” handling all the logistics of Beta… (and right about now is when Reggie usually corrects me just to score a few more points)

Atrophied.8725:

Torment =http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Weaken_Knees ?
Seems right for necros to get that, and assassins had something similar, iirc, as did rits.

Well yeah… Mesmers and Guardians directly inhereted most of the things that Rits did best. IE: SpiritSpam + Destruct/Rapture, Quickening, channeling, etc.. I’m not sure where random conditions came from but I’ve already said we don’t need the RNG picking winners and losers in sPvP TYVM :\ …it’s bad enough it picks them in PvE/crafting

DarksunG.9537:

yeah, i’m kinda confused.. aren’t Eng & Ranger the classes that need the most tweaking & not Ele & Thief? I main Guardian so I’m not sure.. but..

in PvE, most definitely…
But apparently this balance team doesn’t think it needs skill splits anymore… even though only a fraction of the people PvP’ing are actually doing it in sPvP

I could understand the timer being 15 minutes….. IF the fight reset like every 30 minutes when it’s failed (and 3 hours when it’s won).

But it’s taking a lot longer than 30 minutes to start again.

…I thought one of the biggest no-kitten-sherlock realizations EVER that Anet got from watching other MMO’s punishing players arbitrarily, is that you’re not supposed to make them stand around for hours waiting for something to respawn?? We had it bad enough just standing around outposts waiting for a Monk to show up in Gw1 and they fixed that and made a HUGE DEAL out of it.

Then this gets overhauled and unlike the Temples, we have to wait and wait and wait to try again just to learn what progress looks like. Doesn’t jive at all with their original Game Aesthetic. It runs completely counter to it infact. (not the timer… the waiting and waiting and waiting)

I don’t mind losing them when downed…

what p***es me off is losing them just b/c I entered personal story instance, changed zones, or guested another server really quick….

I run more healing or vitality in my Dungeon mains than I run power…. And I’ve been lucky to never be kicked once despite that. So I’m not a Gear Checker…

That said…. If the rest of the team finds a Pugger who’s new to the run after this update, and DOESN’T have an AW as their mainhand Melee… I will /votekick on the spot b/c they definitely will not be competitive with the rest of us who all will have crafted either a Zerker or Assassin’s mainhand by that time.

I don’t mind carrying guildies. But I’m absolutely not going to carry puggers and I won’t expect anyone else to either. Anyone who thinks that’s elitist, go ask the rest of the dungeon forum if I’m exaggerating. I guarantee they’ll tell you exact same if not worse.

It’s always been flawed. It’s supposed to be a staple Material like Wood, Metals, & Leather. Yet it only drops like scales/blood. It never should have been as common as it was from Orr farming. Now Anet has to fix it the right way. They were going to have to fix it anyway once they started adding new Expansions and Storylines that didn’t take place in Orr…

I stand with the OP on this. I’m no saint… anytime there’s a new ‘abuseable path’ through a tedious dungeon …be it more of a Jump Puzzle motif, or just straight Glitching, I’ll follow along just to see why it’s being done. I’ll guest other servers on multiple characters whenever the Herb nodes are too sparse in areas that should have had a lot more. I’ll put down ranger players constantly for their poor ranged damage and awful potential in content that demands optimized classes (yet my other main IS a ranger). … so I can say with full confidence that I can abridge the necessary cognitive dissonance to approach this issue without whiteknighting the Naivete in Anet’s dynamic event design like some goody two shoes.

But if you ever let yourself cuss someone out over chat b/c of something that happened in a video game (unless they were hacking), then you’ve already LOST THE GAME

There’s not a lot of other ways to put this nicely. You mad b/c you Bad … <—- if you’re any of the farmers who do this. Better players can make the same amounts of gold doing any other number of activities right now. And better economists can make several times what those guys make. So there is never any reason to react like that or worse threaten and “counter sabotage” someone b/c they’re simply following Anet’s event Instructions in a way that is merely incovenient for the farmers who have already set aside Hours upon Hours in which to average out their gains…

.

And once you GET that new Shiny…. who are you going to show it off to??
The other farmers who have the same exact shiny junk?
The same ones who ran out of gear to chase and started playing some other game?
No you’re counting on impressing the more Casual players.
But what happens when you poison the well?? …and everyone else,
…starts associating those new Shinies with the abuse we’re seeing now?

He saw this thread and Ran away. Good Job

Allie Murdock.8152:

The bold is not necessarily true. In unique situations, we are willing to split skills. Regardless, that is not the reasoning for asking for the game mode. Sometimes feedback is pertaining to very specific scenarios in different game modes. Sometimes there is a way to balance the class that doesn’t hurt the other game modes, but helps to bring it up in the areas where it’s felt to be weak.

Knowing a players primary game mode is very important for us to understand where they are coming from. We also want to make sure that all 3 game modes get the love they need when it comes to balance.

If that doesn’t make sense, then here is an example: Sometimes one skill can be particularly good in PvP. If a player that plays solely PvE feels that skill is weak, it would seem strange if they didn’t specify that it is in PvE when we know that it is already good in PvP.

Does that make sense?

It would make sense…. except that we were told this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/It-s-time-to-balance-PvP-apart-from-PvE-WvW/1801535

That month (April), only 4 skills were “split”. The following update month, June, only 2 skills and clone HP’s were “split”. The next split after that (excluding bug-fixes) wasn’t until December and only used on Necro->M.o.B. And I can’t find anything beyond that. (other users can replicate these results quickly by searching the phrase ‘in PvP’)

Adding to this confusion: the Ranger has already overwhelmingly been voted a “unique case” once the votes were tallied, having over 800 mentions in the voting thread. Was that “feedback” accepted at face value? In the past year, the vast majority of changes to ranger over that time period or rather since April, resulted in real reductions in WvW & PvE effectiveness that were confusing to most players, until some core Conquest players explained how those changes were aimed at structured PVP only.

Saying: “unique situations” only, and then “that is not the reasoning for asking for the game mode.” just confuses me even more in trying to craft any solution that has chances of being implemented. It feels like a hurdle against PvE’ers, honestly, where only very subtle “buffs” that walk around PvP on egg-shells, will be the best possible proposals due to our area of experience being such a dividing factor, in your own words.

Really Sorry, hope this isn’t seen as dragging anything off-topic. But would it be possible at all at this time to get a really rough estimate of how many “splits” your team would be willing to consider as opposed to last time? And if any of them would be directly related to how the pets function? Currently there’s a HUGE conflict here because the first couple pages of proposals I’ve read, would all be overpowering in PvP

Kexin.5946:

I’ve been wondering about the events, in particular the event of Sanctum Sprint.
As I was participating in these events for the achievement, someone said to us “Plz winner leave no winner x2 leave plz stop winner x2 stupid noob fsxk i need acheivnmtnz” or something along those lines.

Now, seeing someone whine like this just made me want to beat him more, troll him more. But I was wondering what the general consensus was: Should we just people who want to win… win?

And is there some sort of expectation that “winner” should “leave plz no winner x2” nowadays?

What about a Compromise? …. go join a Different instance perhaps?
If you’re so gooood…. that you keep coming in First, then shouldn’t that be your next step anyway?? Trying to find other competitors who are also on your level? If you’re just camping the same instance … then you can indeed be accused of “staying in the kiddy pool” and all your wins, are only wins because they’re against far less experienced runners.

Is that what you want want to be known for??

fellyn.5083:

The reply was basically what I said “it’s not worth or time to make stuff that only few people will use”.

Also funny b/c that describes 90% of the stuff in the Gem Shop which accounts for the vast majority of all new clothing & skins & art resources in general that they put into the game.

I think the solution is clear then: They just need to data mine which helmets for Charr are most often worn, and then make “Proper” ones that don’t clip or disable Manes, to then sell in their Gem Shop… Cost Effectiveness issue solved…

LuRkEr.9462:

IF you can get a wonderful mesmer they can port to each panel an all four can get it. You just have to find a mesmer that has it or don’t care about achievements.

This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of for an achievement that’s supposed to be about skillful navigation of a floor pattern. OP’s right, this one wasn’t thought out one bit before they just threw it in there and now people are condoning cheating to get it. They could have just as easily made it “solve the puzzle without being downed” instead of “don’t get zapped at all”…

I’d like to know why SAB & Molten is still temporary stuff

…while this Zerg DPS check crap got made permanent…

It’s not the fact that some JPs give more than others…..

It’s which JP’s give more. ….3 of the ones in Caledon give 6-9 while none of the ones in Orr give that many. Very inconsistent “what the heck?!?” headshaking there.

Kain Francois.4328:

Another niche the Ranger needs is the old effects of Search and Rescue. This is something that made the Ranger an essential team player for High Level fractals, but awhile back they removed the functionality to resurrect Defeated players.

Willing to bet it was a pure PvP focused change too…

Easy to split, but read Sharp’s latest post, noooo they claim they don’t have time/manpower for simple things like that. …yet Colin’s blog says all new skills are coming in the future. I think I liked it better when they weren’t saying anything at all.

^spoken like someone who’s never seen what a D-series Golem can really do…

Zorby.8236:

Question: Do I use Norn elites?
Answer: No

Also, there are other problems than duration, such as loosing your heal and utilities. On Ranger I loose my pet…

I’d be fine with all those downsides. What grinds my gears about it and forces me to use my profession Elites instead in like 90% of the content, is the fact that I’ll spend most of my time in Wereform on my BACK. why do piddly little rock elementals get Stability yet when I’m a Were’d out 16ft tall beast-of-nightmares, I get flopped around like a hacky sack??? I don’t get that time back either. I get to just lay there staring at my transformation time slipping away, wondering why the Devs won’t just change ONE LITTLE NUMBER in their spreadsheet under “Defiant” from a 0 to a 1. We’re not expecting 3 stacks like Champions get…

But Norn’s been crying about transformations since release and devs don’t care…

okay well that’s just depressing then… didn’t know how long it’s been mentioned here, not a regular reader or the species forums

(And no this isn’t “bumping” a dead thread you darn automated forum-bots, it’s still on the FRONT PAGE)

stick a fork in it folks

…think I’ll definitely be making Ascended Armor for my Guardian first now even though my ranger was the one who really really really needed it….

Syzygy.5031:

Apples are too confusing for new players, so they removed them from the game.

Nah they just didn’t wanna get sued for trademark infringement by the uholy spawn of steve jobs

Asudementio.8526:

Price of dust will go up?

You do realize how BAD this would be in the middle of a massive increase in demand for T6’s, right?? ….unless this update also comes with a change that REMOVES Ectos from the Clover recipe…. Bad Bad Bad things are going to happen.

As a consumer, I just like having a choice in when (and therefore, how much) to pay for an expansion. I waited years and years to get Factions b/c it was in my opinion a poor expansion compared to Nightfall which to the opposite extreme I had purchased instantly when I found out what it included (customizable Heroes).

And before anyone says “Well this is free”, uhh uh, there’s no such thing as Free.
And If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. All the “Free content” they’ve been handing us lately has only made the Content I actually paid good money for worse, and worse …. and worse still.

aeneq.1760:

Sorry but no…

What you are describing is going back to the old tank/dps/heal/support roles and thats a step back.

We already have that actually…. If you and everyone in your party only ever wears Berserker, then you’d never noticed it b/c the stats don’t effect Aggro as much as say…. a Guardian in a PVT using a Staff does (Bosses go crazy for that kitten, their Aggro algorithm just eats it up)

So yes, the AI already is capable of fixating and Lupicus especially will almost always do this. It’s actually part of almost every guide written about him, that he will divide aggro between 2 out of the 5 Players. When I’m my Full Cleric Guardian, he will usually focus me with the ShadowStep, light bolts cone, & Barf-Bubble. When on my “Shaman’s/Valk” Ranger he will usually focus me with his Heavy homing double bolt & the LifeTransfers.

.

The problem is that there’s really nothing that changing the AI would do when it comes to Berserker meta. Berserkers will just buy TruffleMeat Stew in bulk instead and just dodge more often until the Boss is dead in its usual record time. What really needs to happen is more Adds that cast good old Gw1 protection skills that combat pure physical pressure along with some of Shiro’s BS that also combated mindless DPS’ing. The Mobs should also have a lot more Boon Stripping. I hate that… everyone hates mobs that AOE steal all your boons (with a long telegraph though)… As a Prot-Monk, Chilblains was the BANE of my existence. But it needs to happen anyway. More bosses also need to gain stacks of “Enrage” when the DPS they’re taking breaches a certain threshold.

It’s heavy handed, but when it comes to the Zerker Fo Lyfe crew, numbers are all they listen to. Change the numbers?…Change their attitudes

Guardians are probably the most difficult ones to tell for sure…. but ALL bots have lots of “Tells”:

• Running always in mostly straight lines and only engaging mobs that come into direct aggro-range with them. (Easily missing easier-to-kill mobs off to the side by mere feet from their aggro-range).
• Always dodging or using Evading skills even when not seriously hurt or even outnumbered. (Shortbow rangers especially.)
• Popping their Elite skill even in 2 on 1’s instead of grouping mobs together before popping it.
• Appear to be wearing Knights or other gear that sacrifices Power for survival when every actual human being is capable of Zerking (or atleast Valk’ing/Assassin’s) every group of mobs when out casually farming for mob drops.

But probably the most FUN giveaway (in my testing) …has been when… you for instance, pull a Veteran Giant into their pathway and just casually leave it there for them to fight. This is the real giveaway…. b/c the Bot will usually just target whatever is closest: usually the endlessly respawning Grubs. And it won’t be smart enough to path away or “run for it”. It will continually rally itself (Necro Bots especially) until it’s downed so much it insta-dies. And then it will usually WP away instantly.

In some cases Guardian & Warrior bots may actually defeat the Giant. But that’s only b/c Guards/Wars are OP in PvE in general (and everyone knows it, haha)

Parisalchuk.9230:

Spira.4578:

I still find it funny how people are complaining about a guy doing what he wanted to do inside their mini-game, while they were doing the same thing – on a bigger scale

In this case, i’m on the side of the developer.

Your again missing the point that an Anet employee used his tag as a means of trying to project himself over the GvG and troll.

Who cares… guild leaders and commander pull the same crap everyday.
Smart people understand that’s just a status gimmick that can be ignored

Knote.2904:

Ecto’s are overused as it is.

I suggest Anet makes dungeons/fractals drop more Ecto/T6 mats to help balance it out, and it makes them more rewarding at the same time, 2 birds 1 stone anyone?

They don’t need to force more to drop or change drop tables one bit. All they need to do is take the stupid Diminishing Returns back off them.

When I first got my magic find set, I’d rapidly find 3 rares in a short period of time and then 2 more an hour or two later. Now I’m surprised as hell when I even find ONE despite doing nothing but killing mobs for hours and hours on end. The game KNOWS when you’ve gotten X # of rares for that day, and then it proceeds to slap you with DR even if those first rares came from World Boss / Temple chests. The reality is there there’s no shortage of opportunity here, just more timegating mechanics where none were needed.

Another bad update in a long run of bad Updates.

Their Balance team only cares about “Conquest” Mode.
And their PvE team & Dungeon team only cares about RNG boxes & Heavy classes.

I think there’s a huge difference between “feminine” and “skimpy”.

Just looking at this: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Human_female_heavy_armor
…I’d say only the Whisper’s armor is feminine and that forces a personal Storyline investment you might not have wanted.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heavy_plate_armor …is also close without needlessly involving “skirts” that some people are really sick of. …and if you like a flowing skirt, there’s always Draconic which is the default 80 crafted… It’s not so much feminine as it might be called “Canthan” but probably the majority of armor sets I saw females preferred in Gw1 were also Canthan. (maybe we’ll get more of that content back eventually?).

Things to the cash shop.
That’s about it…

^WTB Seige Weapons in PvE plz

I like it. I definitely agree that the biggest shortfall of Ranger’s design atleast in PvE is that it can’t stack boons without jumping literally through hoops. And also that the “Combo” system in general is just TERRIBLE or too short-lived for the Ranger. In general, not nearly enough of its weapons even support Boon stacking from Combos that most other classes can do all day long without sacrificing choice in weaponry.

I get why they did it…. because it would “break” Conquest Mode even worse than Beastmaster did before that was nerfed. But this is a case where a PvE split was desperately needed while the Community-Dev talks completely failed us b/c the community itself failed to recognize it. All they cared about was Hating-the-Pet dependency and all the bugs that came with it

After only 3 message, I just got some PM…. that I can’t even find what it’s pointing to…

All it stated was the following:

A moderator moved a message you posted to the forum ‘Trashcan’ with the reason:
Conspiracy thread
Follow the new thread here.

…which links to a 404 and doesn’t tell me anything about the message content or what was “done wrong” … no warning included. And like I said, I only posted 3 messages today before this point and all 3 of them were completely neutral non-offensive stuff, focused entirely on just Lore, & all of them are still intact as well … I’m not certain but I think this might have been an automated bug even.

In any event, the Web team really should make sure in the future that all Messages delivered like this, are always CLEAR on what the topic’s name was so that we atleast know which posting it could be referring to. Thanks!

It wasn’t flooded by unique poster Proposals though. It was flooded by the same exact people adding 10-20 proposals all saying the same basic things while accomplishing NOTHING as far as naming an actual direction/theme that the ranger needed to go in.

Every little proposal was based off some personal grudge or brainfart each person has in one little specific part of the game they do the most of … which if they’re STILL actually playing ranger, is either Conquest, pointless WvW regen Roaming, or soloing Long-Bear like a bot but with slower reaction time and only slightly better environmental awareness. There might have 2 or 3 other people who ran Fractals too but that’s also a niche.

I never even got a chance to make a single formal proposal myself because of it.
If the Devs are real professionals about this, they’ll start a second round of this instead and just narrow the entire discussion down to the things they were already planning to do themselves anyway and just focus the entire discussion around that instead. And again, some flood control would be nice so that the forum-illuminatti (who post more than they actually play games) don’t bogart the entire thing.

Randulf.7614:

The nature of the internet will always cause this, all popular mmos suffer from this (except lotro which always seemed immune). The devs put out content which requires server coordination…

NO

You’re NOT ALLOWED to use such general and positive terms for this fight

This fight’s win condition is 100% an absolute DPS check, and nothing more…
There’s lots of servers who coordinate daily to achieve what others call the impossible.
Then there’s other servers who do not coordinate one bit beyond bringing maxed out pure power vit builds to this who succeed with time to spare. ….This is not a server coordination issue. This is artificial difficulty. This is a Spreadsheet in action….

Feel some of the questions were leading….

But that’s the case with most surveys, it’s really hard to construct well-stated options that all have equal plausibility behind them

I’m Kittened off by this

That’s supposed to be a unique HOM reward. Now not only is it no longer unique, but all we have is the plain dark Grey 2h version that’s roughly the same size as these ONE HANDED SWORDS.

Not sure where to stand on this…

…on one hand, I used to farm all the time in GW1. I don’t even know why. There was just something interesting about constantly making up new builds and testing them out in 3 different continents until I got each one down to a science…

On the other hand… the problem with any path of least resistance is that no one spreads out. It’s Human Nature. People always go where all the other people already went. I actually LIKE the Orrion areas & their Aesthetics & Challenge a lot but I avoided them completely b/c there was just TOO MANY DARNED PEOPLE THERE.

It’s a really hard issue to blame Anet completely for… If they don’t nerf the super-easy farms then no one will ever leave them and try to find new ones, and then the Entire meta just lunges into the same 3-year ditch that Shadow-Farming was in in GW1. :\

That Aside, I have to give the OP props for his impressive dedication to the game and very mature write-up of the issues. It really helps bridge the gaps of misunderstanding…

Here’s the good news: They obviously had to increase Server capacity for Peak Hours
Here’s the problem: That population you see in the server list is ONLY based on Peak Hours. (Or worse, it might be based on total Daily log ins)

There’s basically a lot more people logging in Daily (b/c they’re forced to with all the timegating) but overall they’re playing a LOT LESS and not keeping any variety of zones or borderlands actually populated. (b/c everything in those zones either provides insufficient gains to keep up with the Champ Farmers, or has literally been BROKEN by Anet’s rushed patching schedule and awful PvE Balancing).

IE: We’re looking at servers with 5000 intended logged in player slots… and only about 500 of those people actually doing anything together during off-peak hours. (while a bunch of them are either Bots… just sitting in LA flipping the TP instead… or BOTH)

Nike.2631:

Those Aren’t Holes… They’re Opportunities!
The above steps create several gaps in the Ranger trait array. These holes would need to be filled with new effects, hopefully enhancing the diversity and effectiveness of our weapons or utility skills. While this represents additional work before the process could be considered complete, its work that should bring the Ranger more in line with expected performance levels and increase competitive build diversity.

Some elaboration on this please? I get the concept… I think we all know that scattering “companion” buffs throughout all the other trait lines just confuses people. And frankly seems like an intentional hurdle put in place specifically to PREVENT us from specializing into the ‘old Turret rangers of yore’, or stealing Sword&Dagger thieves jobs from them like we did in the first game. This is even more apparent when attempting to make a working Spirit build for PvE for instance. (b/c it was still too good in structured??).

But how can this actually be manipulated in a way that avoids the return of Bunkering condition Beastmasters while giving our power archer/axers a real role in WvW & Dungeons? I think most people understand by now that a lot of those current functionalities, (especially conditions/CC used against Bosses/GuardianZergs) are useless to them because they are redundant from other classes and don’t really do much to begin with or fail as “boons” b/c they DONT STACK. And the don’t stack, b/c they weren’t built around PvE. They were built around 5v5.

Regeneration & Vigor for instance. In PvE, we don’t “feel” either of those, we just “feel” stuff like Stability & AEGIS b/c it actually does buy more time for us to focus on DPS’ing & stay alive until our #6 Heal pops again. We also want a lot more access to Might because it helps end the fights sooner which means less worrying about when our next Troll Unguent can be popped for the kind of regeneration we actually NEED. And we want more Quickness b/c … well, it’s QUICKNESS. It’s what our class should have been all about from the start in PVE.

What I’m saying is, there still seems to be a huge disconnect between what people expect, and what little gains can be made by only shifting TRAITS around. You mentioned filling in better traits after doing this compression and shifting. What kinds of effects are we talking about for these New traits then? I think that’s where the discussion really needs to trend if we expect to actually bargain for anything beyond Piecemeal here. IOW: You need to take the reigns on that and not just leave those holes up to them to fill

PVP skill splits. There’s a Reason GW1 had them (it was the dungeons)
/thread

71% of whatever melts to a zerg in 1 second is ….. 1.71 seconds.

Yah, gratz … enjoy your 60 sec cooldown on it while I’m playing Guardian and moving OUT of the dozens of lovely red circles with the help of Stability that’s up every 10 seconds

Elite mobs (silver rimmed) hit harder than many Bosses.
Elite mobs almost always spawn in packs of 4 – 6
Elite mobs often chaincast more Crowd Control skills than Epic bosses
Elite mobs sometimes walk right through wards or ignore entire skill mechanics.
Elite mobs are always tougher than level 80 Veteran mobs in normal PvE.
Elite mobs deal damage 2-3x greater than those Veterans regardless of level-scaling.
Elite mobs’ stats aren’t scaled down appropriately either to the recommended level of the dungeon

…yet…

• They have drop tables based exclusively on their down-scaled level instead of their actual Combat/Damage & HP stats level … which means they typically drop low-tier materials or gear
• They often don’t drop any materials … least of all “fine” Blue crafting materials that scads of normal PvE mobs constantly drop.
• They don’t drop money often and when they do, it’s the same amount of copper that normal mobs drop.
• They rarely ever drop rares, and when they do, it would have been much much faster to have simply filled up on MF% gear instead and gone “herding” up a bunch of regular PvE mobs instead that pose much less threat to even unskilled players. <— meanwhile MF% gear in Dungeons is considered a huge Faux Pas

PS: I’m torn on the running part. I was a huge fan of Running/“Taxi” in GW1 and wrote guides on it. If you have the skill to actually be a great runner, I think Anet supports your decision so long as you’re doing it because it’s exciting and a nice alternative to grind. I can’t stand however… some of these Pugs that assume everyone wants to do it in every single team when some of us came to see the entire path instead of just parts of it.

It’s even worse when they don’t wait up, & and don’t equip support skills that would help their teammates who aren’t used to the run. ….people like that have no business being in Dungeons and need to go back to solo-farming

Beldin.5498:

Just ignore Teq and forget totally that he exists ..

done and done.

Worst design revamp I can remember … and I can remember all the way back to the 80’s