Showing Highly Rated Posts By ronpierce.2760:

The truth about the Diamond Skin issue

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Well, actually, Ele is just poorly designed anyways and here’s why:
- Eles are designed to use all attunements and swap frequently.
- Elemental trees try to favor only 1 attunement.
- Arcana Supports swapping frequently.
- Arcana also has weapon specific traits.
- Eles have low HP, thus they often need Water’s support to survive heavy burst/conditions.

Hence; Water/Arcana is so popular and will likely not change from that. Elemental trees need to be redesigned to affect all elements and support swapping, even if the focus is still on one tree. OR give a 1% CD reduction per point for any given element. If neither of those happen or one tree doesn’t get buffed out of its mind, then likely Water and Arcana (specifically arcana) will always be the go-to. :/

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Ele stacking officially seen as an exploit ?

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

I love how all those silly people were all “Eles are fine, it’s just a l2p issue” and as a result of not tuning them down, 4 and 5 ele teams have won tournaments, had rules shaped around them, some of the biggest lash backs that I’ve seen in a long time, and unlike Turrets, they plague the late game and have perfectly acceptable mobility.

Blows my mind people can be so selfish. And shame on ANet with this one. Dhuumfire was nerfed in like two days and wasn’t half the balance problem Elementalists are causing.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Minion Master Revision (by Sikari & Bhawb)

in Necromancer

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Current Issues Overview :


AoE Gating Viability:
As it stands, AOE is by far the largest issue with Necromancer’s minions. They simply don’t have the ability to last in any ‘decent’ AOE and have no real defenses against it. Unlike Turrets, which can be placed outside of battle range and are immune to critical hits and conditions, our pets run directly through any hazard and has no protection against them~ at all. In fact, many times even with the 50% increased health trait, a bone minion will die before it ever reaches a longbow warrior once, it’s that bad. And that is just a single person and skill! AoE is very heavy in the current Meta and they simply have no protection against it, to the point that even 1v1 is becoming a downhill battle (our king utility to a team), and team battles are a lost cause entirely.

Low Risk, Moderate-High Reward:
Minion Masters get a lot of hate for their ease of play (granted, some is ignorance), but this doesn’t have to be the case over all. There are changes that could be made to reduce the stream of decent damage from minions and increase Master/Minion collaboration to maximize usage. This way, lower skilled minion masters aren’t wiping the floor with other low skilled players, and if handled well, great MMs can potentially rise higher in the ranks for their efforts. This would be the ideal outcome.

Clunkiness:
There are a lot of clunkiness issues with minion Masters center around poor and outdated mechanics. I don’t doubt MM tends to get forgotten about when it comes to updating outdated issues, especially since they can be subtly tucked away(though powerful) issues, such as Putrid Explosion’s blast going off 3 seconds late and long activations on Minion abilities. Others, on the other hand are not so subtle. Minion movement, especially on terrain needs serious help. Scenarios such as someone running up a ramp and jumping off the side leave them backtracking and spending a lot of idle time out of our control.

Major Bugs:
While I’m not entirely sure how to separate bugs from general clunkiness, there are a few notable bugs that are undeniably bugs and need to be fixed sooner rather than later. For instance a mandatory trait (Flesh of the Master) currently kills all pets when you go down. Similarly, due to poor coding, when being transformed via the Moa ability you also lose all of your pet skills. I can assume this is a bug because this does not happen to Guardian Spirit weapons, Ranger Spirits, Mesmer Clones and Phantasms, nor Engineer turrets, and is likely a function having to do with Elite transformations killing pets, and someone took a shortcut and in the process we took the hit for their shortcut.

Suggested Changes and Reasoning: (Warning, Length.)


We’ve taken the time to discuss in depth solid ways to handle the issues stated above. We consider ourselves “experts” as far as playing Minion Masters goes, and have a high interest in balance and gameplay. That said, while biases are inevitable, we tried to be as fair as possible in our suggestions. As such, I will also try to explain our reasoning behind our proposed changes to the best of my ability.

General:
Cast times: I believe all pet cast times in the game should be brought down from 1.5 seconds to 1 second. All summons in the game share this number except turrets that sit at a comfortable .5 second cast and phantasms that have a comfortable ¾ cast. It can take 6 seconds to summon 4 utilities, 7.5 if you run your healing pet, which is enough time to lose if you didn’t already have them (post fight), and mid-fight it just isn’t a reasonable activation, especially in comparison.

Pet Health: I suggest a small 15-20% increased health in sPvP and WvW to lessen the gap from PVE, and in conjunction with a proposed Trait change (effectively lowering max minion health).

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

(edited by ronpierce.2760)

Minion Master Revision (by Sikari & Bhawb)

in Necromancer

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760


Traits:
Flesh of the Master. Reworked. Remove the 50% health bonus. Instead, Pets are now immune to damaging conditions and critical strikes. Reasoning: Our primary issue in PVP is our unrivaled weakness to AoE effects to the point of effectively pushing MM out of high end PVP. As a baseline benefit, Turrets can be used in team pvp because they have a natural protection from all Conditions, CCs and Critical Hits. We just want some of that AoE protection ( while still being able to still single target down the pet if needed) without them being obliterated in high spam situations. Additionally, unlike turrets, we don’t think full condition immunity is the way to go. Cripple and chill are valid defenses against Minion Masters and should remain as such, but this way, condition builds and berserker builds will not be able to clear our board within a single sweep in 5 seconds (literally). In addition to making them survive better in team play, players in a cluster are also less susceptible to mass minion death Death Nova, equally toxic.

Training Of the Master. Reworked. Remove the passive 25% bonus damage to minions. Replace with an increased functionality and damage to minion activations. A basic set of examples:

[Putrid Explosion: Increases damage by 50% (consider the 25% we’re losing, which is why these numbers may seem high) and is now unblockable.
Haunt: Greatly increased damage on haunt. Haunt now spawns a 4 second dark field on the enemy when activated in addition to the initial blind.
Rigor Mortis: Increased damage, and Rigor mortis now also dazes the target for 1 second in addition to the Immobilize.

Necrotic Traversal: Now grants 2 seconds of stability and removes cripple, chill and immobilze on sacrifice.

Charge: Increased damage by 50% (Again, from base) Flesh Golem gains 10 seconds of swiftness and 100% crit chance for 10 seconds on activation. (Probably about 6 seconds or 4 hits after the animation ends)

Taste of Death: No longer sacrifices the Blood fiend. Now heals all minions for the healing amount when used. 35 second cooldown added to the on use. (About 4k healing to pets every 35 seconds)]

Reason: I know that’s a lot, and the numbers might sound scary, but these are 50% increases from the trait in conjunction to the 25% they’re losing on ALL auto damage and triggered attacks. In net, this would be a loss in damage but put more damage into the commander’s control. Additionally, this adds a key point for increasing build diversity, as non-Minion Master necromancers may wish to take this to make specific use of single pets instead of taking other traits.

Minion Master: Now also reduces the cooldown of pet active abilities. Reasoning: This is to help counteract the large dps loss from sacrificing 25% bonus damage and to increase the active portion of playing Minion Master.

Vampiric Master: Revert the 10% nerf to leeching. Reasoning: Our survival in high end absolutely needed no nerfing, and lower skill play will be benefited by other changes.

Abilities
Putrid Explosion: Currently, the blast finisher portion of the attack doesn’t trigger until 3 seconds too late. This makes it so that most times, the weakness isn’t applied when using Explosion with the Death Nova Trait. This delay in the blast needs to be reduced to .1 second (enough to recognize the field).

Necrotic Traversal. Currently, the poison field is spawned at the base of the minion. Instead, (baseline) spawn the field from the point of the necromancer prior to teleportation.

Haunt: Haunt currently has a 3 second “cast time” by the pet before activating. This makes its already questionable ability a huge lack in DPS and healing for a single blind. It isn’t even viable for a stomp cover as it takes longer than a stomp to activate even if you use it prior to stomping. As it stands, trying to have your pet place a blind on one enemy requires the same set up as churning earth… Think about that. 1 second ready insead.

Rigor Mortis: Currently, it takes two full attack rotations (quite a while) to fire the immobilizing shot. Instead, make it interrupt its current auto attack and instantly cast for the rigor. This is purely a QOL and clunkiness change, as the tell for the attack itself has always been its unique projectile. Even making it more noticeable would be acceptable.

Charge: Charge has a very unusual 1.5 second cast time. Post changes and nerfs to Charge, the cast time should be removed considering its weaker state (as far as connecting potential goes) and to match other minion skills.

Bone Minion, Shadow Fiend, Flesh Golem: Currently, when spawned, all melee pets are summoned at the base of the necromancer. Instead, these melee specific pets should spawn at the foot of your target when spawned with a target, or at the necromancer without a target. This would be similar to Mesmer phantasms.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

(edited by ronpierce.2760)

Staff Thief revealed this Week!

in Thief

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Still think that stick is a rifle people?

Clearly, he’s moving his hands down the barrel trying to find the hilt at the end… l2investigate…

Attachments:

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Chronomancers are still Shatterspike 2.0

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Mesmers are scary but are not easy to play in the least bit, anyone who thinks they’re a face roll class has never touched one.

A.) That’s not a reason to allow it. B.) they’re not THAT hard… I’ve picked one up and did far better than I should both BWEs.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Minion Master Revision (by Sikari & Bhawb)

in Necromancer

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Critical Bugs:


Necros are no strangers to bugs. We have bugs flying out of our warhorns, but Minion Masters specifically suffer unlike no other from its list of crippling bugs.

Moa: Currently, Moa, unlike for any other class with pets, despawns or kills all of our pets. This is due to our utilities’ unique functioning with Transformations. (Critical**)

Pet Pathing issues: More specifically, hitting an enemy directly when pets are 600-900+ distance behind you, they lose the ability to track their target and will freeze in place for the duration of the fight, this includes instances of jumping terrain and starting a fight and them having to take a long route, in many cases they won’t come at all until the fight is over. (Critical**)

Flesh of the Master: Currently, when this trait is in use, going “down” causes all pets to die. (Moderately Critical*)

Misc.: I’m not sure whether to consider the blast finisher on putrid explosion, and activation times “bugs”, but they certainly need looked at, as they are unreasonable in their functionalities.

Conclusions and Expectations:


Hopefully at least someone is still with me at this point. What do I expect from this massive list of proposed changes? I want to remove some of the sustained and passive damage from the pets and move it into activation, and increase the impact of timely activation. Additionally, I want to retain the ability to counter minions by CC and snares, as well as single target damage, while also reducing their excessively potent weakness to AOE to more match that of turrets, but still with more downfalls (kitable, and in the thicket). Additionally, I’d like the general and inexcusable “clunkiness” to be reduced on minion activation abilities so that they can be used as clutch and with more precision when watching the flow of battle, rather than feeling random at times. Essentially, this is the goal and these are a strong step toward that goal. While they are rather bold, we feel this will take Minion masters further out of the purely passive damage spectrum, and add more benefit to time attacks and ensure they land.

Lastly, I think 2+ years is long enough to want some of our major bugs fixed, especially with pathing and Moa.

Past Threads:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Sikari-s-Push-to-Revive-the-MM-Necro/first

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

(edited by ronpierce.2760)

Stuck in PvP match/queue [merged]

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

It should let the winners leave and keep the losers. By the end of the night we’d know who the best players are.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

What is your objective, Anet?

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Double/triple hammer war for team spamming earthshaker off cd with zero penalty..it’s not exactly the definition of balance. The game was briefly fun to play for 2-3 months after launch, ….then the worst happened, the worst mistake any dev team can ever hope to commit, a danger area any experienced dev team stay well clear off, the first rule for any MMO company is to never, ever…..base the balance of a game on the feedback of the community, specifically by reading the forum

I’d argue the worst decision was to try to balance a game around a conquest mode that pressured people to fight in a confined circle. 70% of the balance issues spawn from that alone.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Chronomancer sounds amazing!

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

all the new specializations are going to be insanely OP.

P2W incoming

That’s the kitten iest thing to say… Hell, in most MMOs you can’t even play top level stuff without buying the expansion. At least here you can… Buy the kitten expansion and stop being cheap.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Describe the Tempest in 3 Words

in Elementalist

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Needs Overload Stability.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Tempest Skill Types?

in Elementalist

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

They didn’t say they wouldn’t double up on any, just that they would all be existing types. Definitely shouts.

“Freeze!”
“You’re fired!”
“You’re full of hot air!”
“I’ll rock your world!”

And of course, the heal, “Water you doing, trying to kill me!?”

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

RNG and Grind in GW2 is not that bad

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Here’s how I see it.

The RNG is a necessity of the MMORPG, and it is even more a necessity in Guild Wars 2.

If they had come out with a game that says “Go and do [insert task here] for a guaranteed [insert reward here],” then some players would either complain that they have gotten everything they needed too quickly and there is nothing left to do, or some players would say that they don’t want to get their reward in that manner and they want to play their way.

The RNG is what allows us to play our way and still get rewarded. It is a necessary evil.

I don’t find the RNG a grind, since it allows me the chance at the reward I want by playing the way I want to play.

Its not about the grind. Its how long each grind is. They could have added smaller grinds and added more armor sets (with actual stats) in permanent content instead of some wings in content every 2 weeks. I’m sure people would be much happier with 5-10% drop rates on final bosses and new perma-instances every 6-8 weeks instead of some meh stuff every 2-4 weeks. I mean… I can almost bet money on it… I think they don’t add as much ingame armor because the more they do that, the less likely people are going to be to buy gem armors, hurting sales.

So basically based on this you ware wanting everyone to walk around at this moment of time with a legendary weapon by increasing the odds of precursors by a huge amount. Precursors are rare for they are needed to make legendaries and if they were common there would be more people with the legendaries at this point of time. Whats the point of having a legendary if everyone else has the same?

I do agree however they do need more armour sets, weapon sets, and stat combinations. Their current setup requires more combinations and update in this regard. Saddly it is also the hardest as all sets of armour have to look good on all races (which Charr make difficult to make for).

Um… After 1.5 years hell yeah I think everyone should have a kitten legendary. They should have new ones to obtain by now via different methods continuing the game, not keeping everyone on the same carrot-on-a-stick chase for 2-3 years… Are you kidding me…? 1.5 years is DEFINITELY long enough to get BIS gear for any game… they need to add NEW stuff…

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Can we re-fix Wings, please?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

I’m happier with them flowing instead of jerking rigidly back and forth when running. I think of them as costume pieces, not functional wings, just something Tyrians have made to adorn themselves.

The previous stiff jerkiness was distressing to my eyes in the same way as ceiling fans, whirling orbs around characters, flickering wasp wings, swishing charr and drake tails, or any other back and forth strobing motion is. As in I get motion sickness. So I’m all for the physics that got introduced.

I don’t necessarily want it to go back to cardboard, but a little less floaty/papery would be nice. Right now it flows with movement like hair. Feathers don’t really do that, especially heavy wings. I’m sure they’re capable of finding a happy medium that doesn’t look super unrealistic like the added physics does.

Essentially, I think they overshot their mark.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Healing in Death Shroud just became dire...

in Necromancer

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

I think some of you are completely missing the point. Builds will be focused on sheer healing. If a Necromancer runs over and wastes a Revenants shards for example, or frustrates their support all because their mechanics completely clash, it will create frustration amongst players playing together. It is a frustrating and unfun design. Remember, the impact of negating ally support will mean much more than it previously did, where even now it causes issues (wasting shout heals to save a necro fleeing from a thief and realize he hit shroud at the same time as I tried healing him and he gets finished because my 4k+ healing was wasted).

It will create player-to-player (allies) frustration because of a poor core design. This is a major design flaw, even if you can “learn to live with it”, because this goes beyond the Necromancer. It’s annoying to deal with from the outside too, from experience. Necros design goes well beyond the realm of “selfish” to “anti-team”.

Necromancers already have issues in teams due to a lack of scaling defenses, and they are unnecessarily hard to support. This should have minimal (not nonexistent) affect on 1v1 anyways, as we don’t have full healing capabilities in shroud, but in a team, allowing us to not waste support could make us a better team player and less target priority without homogenizing classes by giving us evades (which isn’t likely to happen anyways).

One more time, this goes well beyond “getting by”. This is a design issue that more than just the Necromancer has to deal with. It’s annoying to play with as well.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

TY For making Hambow Stronger :D!

in Profession Balance

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

I guess lyssa nerf, arcing arrow, pin down, merc hammer, healing signet etc don’t count. Warriors are easier to take down while still being effective at wha they’re built for. Only thing that needs a nerf now is the size of longbow F1, other than that, hambow is fine without being worthless. Stun also only applies to the f1, not knock downs.

(FYI, I don’t play warrior.)

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

New virtue of resolve is a NERF for support

in Guardian

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

There has to be SOME freaking trade off… If they all were straight boosts and who whammies, chances are it would make the elite almost too necessary… Unlike Chronomancer where the minor adds a shatter, Guardians gains 3 very distinctive ability uses, and they retain their old effects in some way.

If you prefer the old, just don’t play a DH.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

[Suggestion]:Return best burn to Ele/Tempest

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Lol was this thread written in 2013? Elementalists are like the #1 DPs and fight cheeser in PvE, and beyond broken as D/D in pvp. And in fact, are still one of the best pvp burners in the game, probably second to Burn Guardian who basically focuses on nothing but burn.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

RNG and Grind in GW2 is not that bad

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

it will be hard to find a correlation that having ascended gears in wvw is necessary when numbers alone is capable of shadowing everything

A thief can let you know pretty quick in less than bis gear. :P

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Next xpac is called PoF ?!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Whatever it is, I just hope it isn’t The Pinnacle of Failure. Fingers crossed.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Sikari's BWE3: Feedback & Suggestions. (Long)

in Revenant

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Introduction

Hey everyone. I’m Sikari, known for long posts in the PvP and Necromancer section with not enough TL;DRs. I’ve come to take a liking of Revenant recently and wanted to weigh in some opinions, suggestions and things of that nature. To cut down on space and fluff, I’m just going to jump in and go down the lists hitting weapons, utilities and traits. I’ll try to generalize each point, I’ll separate more in-depth/specific notes I wish to make. Feel free to discuss, criticize or add to the discussion in any way you see fit. Keep it civil and constructive, please!

Weapons

Two-Handed
Hammer: Hammer overall is in a good spot, and still fills a strong slow but hard-hitting niche.

  • Hammer bolt – I actually mostly wanted to point out, I dislike the animation. Throwing a Hammer seems a lot less epic than it could have been, but that’s just me. More importantly, though this is not revenant specific, bolts do hit far past their distance cap, a projectile issue within the game.
  • Coalescence of Ruin – I believe this damage could be shifted to be a ‘little’ less hindered in close combat. Currently it looks like the weapon has coefficients of 1, 1.5 and 2. Something closer to 1.20, 1.60, 2 would be a bit better, as a 40% damage reduction is still significant. Being that a strong portion of hammer’s damage is in this ability, it’d be nice if it was a bit more impactful in close range. Also, the damage area does not completely match up with the animation, leading to moments where you would think you hit your target, but actually have not (Especially at high range).
  • Drop the Hammer – Drop the hammer is an interesting beast. In chaotic situations, it isn’t bad. However in more realistic scenarios and smaller scale fights, the 1.75 cast time, on top of being ground-targeted makes for a really hard to land skill. That said, it being a low cooldown aoe CC, it makes it risky to make too powerful. I suggest either a 1.25 cast time, or an even shorter cast time (3/4), and having it work similarly to Dragon’s Tooth, where it’s still delayed significantly, in this case 1 second after the cast (to keep it about the same, but less time spent casting), so that it can be more easily comboed with, and locks your character for less time on a skill that is very easily dodgeable. Either route taken, the cooldown could go up to 20 seconds. Personally, I feel a more reliable ability is better than a short cooldown ability that is less reliable and less impactful. I understand this might be controversial though.

Staff: Overall, I actually think staff is fine, so I won’t add huge text walls. I think the Weakness on #2 is a bit too short, though. 4 second and I’d just settle with that. Surge of the Mists might be a touch too strong.

One-Handed
Mace: Mace isn’t bad, but I do find it sometimes hard to be reliable. Torment would be better given the suggested trait enhancement of Torment, that Roy suggested, which is boosting the base damage of Torment for still targets. I think that would go a long way, alone. Wish it had a soft cc (cripple), but it’s not a big concern. Lastly, something I had mentioned before, the power damage could go up a bit to support hybrid builds (Sinister/Rampager/Celestial). I think this is important due to a lack of a ranged condition weapon.

  • Searing Fissure – I find this to be a decent move. It’s one of the few burn skills I don’t hate because it appropriately only stacks a single burn per tick. I do feel, however, it is maybe a LITTLE too easily side-stepped. A minor width boost would go a long way for me to make this weapon more beneficial. Wouldn’t mind hearing opinions on this.

Sword: Sword is strong, but I’m still having a hard time accepting the projectile on auto. Perhaps increasing the width of the projectile could reduce some issues, but I think without a projectile at all would be a better, though, less interesting, solution.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

(edited by ronpierce.2760)

Stronghold Poll

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

I don’t agree with placing Stronghold in the conquest queue, but I doubt “most of the time” will be accurate! Most likely anytime Stronghold comes up, it will be picked!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

No, one guy will pick skyhammer and it’ll get picked.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Staff Thief revealed this Week!

in Thief

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

How do we know this is not the Ranger? The official post did not say it was thief.

Color, the class backgrounds use the class colors. Also, brainpower.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Simple Obersvation Pindown vs Dark Pact

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Dark Pact:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dark_Pact
1 full second cast for: 3 second Immob, a small amount of damage, 600 range (for an attrition class that’s meant to keep people from running), 25 second Cooldown.

Pin Down:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pin_Down
1/4 second cast for: 3 second Immob, damage and 6 stacks of bleeds for 12 seconds, 1000 range as a finisher on a 25 second cooldown.

Seems a little off centered, especially given the purpose of the dagger/necro class in general, wouldn’t you be able to agree?

My suggestions would be:

Remove 1 bleed from Pin Down and increase it’s cast to 3/4 and make it noticeable which attack is being casted. (For those wanting to know why I request moving a bleed stack, simply because with a condi build and some might stacks it’s a 4 sec imob with a fast cast that does 10,000 damage. Yes it can be cleansed but it’s too much for one skill.)

Make Dark Pact 1/2 3/4 cast time, and 1200 1000 range so that it’s a more viable gap closer, which is the niche of a necromancer, keeping enemies from fleeing, and add a 2 second chill after the immobilize wears off.

Edited/updated the suggestion a bit based on feedback.

Can anyone back me up on this?

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

(edited by ronpierce.2760)

Stop it with the toxic attidude to newcomers

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

NOT ENOUGH PVPERS!
TOO MANY NEW PVPERS!

Human logic, everything seems in place. Nothing to see here!

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Dark Humor

in Necromancer

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

We’re telling jokes?

Necromancer.

/thread.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

"DragonHunter" name feedback [merged]

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Justiciar.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Stop with the QQ for ele nerf

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

More lack of understanding of core issues. Yay!

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

GW2 pvp is GREAT !! But... (___________)

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

GW2 pvp is GREAT !! But… Developers like to play around too much. Not in the sense of having fun, but ignore players with real concerns and don’t seem to take their duties seriously. They also come up with silly excuses why they must take months and months to change or even fix obviously broken things. They also lack the ability to make game-saving changes to the game mechanically, so players know we’re stuck with a kitten game and rely on balance to fill the fun-void in our hearts, not yet knowing that even with better balance we’re still at a loss because GW2 simply could have been so much more if not for pride covering up poor design choices.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

RNG and Grind in GW2 is not that bad

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

One, uh… WoW. You can get caught up and SEE new rewards daily, just by running heroics… Do a few BGs you get a new epic. It has more grinds but each one is less frustrating and you can feel the difference fairly quick. It’s that gratification that makes ANY grind worth it. Plus you can see your rewards in wow, like drops in dungeons, raids feel fun because you have a (good) chance at skipping some grinds and getting awesome instant gratification. If GW2 dropped say 1 ascended armor piece at the last boss of any dungeon, could be 1 random piece with any random set, people would be FAR MORE likely to grind because anticipating that drop (knowing SOMETHING WILL drop) and hoping it would be tailored to you gives people excitement and gratification. Grinding 250 of a material you can’t even grind alone without spending money isn’t fun. You HAVE to make the grind (no matter big or small) fun and FEEL rewarding. There is nothing epic feeling about grinding gold and buying mats.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Gamescom 2015 necro footage

in Necromancer

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Doesnt matter how long you’ve played. If you dont have an open mind you will be stuck with the same delusions forever. Expanding to other classes is the biggest eye opener you can get in this game. I would suggest you do the same. But since you have played since release you probably have right?

No I only play Necro….

I don’t mean to step out and be a jerk, but according to this, and your “I play to have fun!” signature… why do you care? There are some deeply rooted issues that undoubtedly make Necromancers, including GOOD ones (not excluding Nos, and for the record, I’ve been very high MMR Necromancer myself), suffer in higher tier game play. So, what if people want to get the kinks worked out? If you just play to have fun a few buffs here and there will not kill your casual-buzz? I don’t see the point in going out on a limb so far as to stop class progressive thinking if it really doesn’t matter to you, because you have a sense that things are “fine”? o.O

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Balance Goals for the Winter 2016 Update

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

In other words, rev nerfs with NO COMPENSATION.

Half legends will remain worthless

To be fair, the game has only been worse since Rev came on the scene. Coincidence?

The game has only been worse since they started focusing on PvP :^)

I think that’s because they tried to make everyone have too many tools at once. The result was that, yeah, people felt that their classes were “complete” and everything was flashy, but everything ended up too good.

The devs have a difficult challenge here, and usually developers don’t act on it because they don’t want to feel like they’re “stripping classes down” (though in reality, they’re actually just taking classes back to their roots and identity) and that’s actually REMOVE a lot of stuff that they should have never had tons of. Everyone has about a million blinds now, and blocks and evades. Once everyone can do everything the next step is (which has already begun) is start adding every effect to skills that already have effects and piling it on (Picking on scrapper a bit here). Or in order to fill a unique role you have to be extreme to the point of silly gameplay (Daredevil evade time, the potency of Alacrity).

Simplicity is what makes games work. You can have tons of depth and still maintain simplicity and likewise you can have tons of complexity and very little depth.

I’d like to see them actually take classes back to their roots and pretty much globally reduce the power contribution of a lot of traits or make them more about changing play styles more-so than just adding tons of ridiculous passive benefits.

Sadly, this isn’t really a “balance patch” task, but I hope they take it to heart because the game needs less pseudo complexity (randomly firing components and passives) and more depth (thoughtful building, hard choices and sacrifices) that is more about actively playing the game and not ‘cheesing’ the mechanics in your favor.

(ps, note, I know DD isn’t considered OP, but they were a shining example of having to go to extremes to forge a niche in a world where everyone has a bit of everything.)

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

QoL change: UI adjustment

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

All UI stuff should disappear from the top-right in PvP and WvW, except for achievements specifically tracked.

Or simply a ui options to “turn off achievement tracker” + “Turn off objective tracker.”. Also make the target UI hp bar/profile a ghost so you can left click to use ground target skills through them.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

No Balance patch! Feb 23rd

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Yeah… that wasn’t even “minor balance” updates. That did pretty much nothing at all… Great season we have ahead of us. :/

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

"Fire"

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

As I’ve said a million times, the problem with Ring of Fire is both that it hits super had (4.5k in total, some of which being up front every time it affects someone), which makes it a strong hitter, but the bigger problem is that it’s a Ring (much more powerful than a wall, as it covers more area) that can be maintained 50% of the time. As easy as it is to say “l2p, don’t stand it in!” You also have to consider Ele is one of the highest Sustain classes in the entire game and people don’t have the amount of necessary evades to always avoid the ring of they want to have any type of pressure on an elementalist. Elemebtalists already have a 300 distance mid-range, so it’s very easy to use RoF defensively and maintain pressure at a safe distance from most 130 ranged melee.

Overall point is, for some reason RoF is an unfair “l2p” issue for everyone else, but Elemebtalists don’t seem to take notice to how much haphazard damage they get as well as pressure defense due to this single skill. One could argue because of RoF the Elementalist doesn’t have to L2P because they have such easy fire-and-forget damage that allows them to sustain themselves while still dealing frustrating damage. Not to mention, burning Speed +RoF makes standing and fighting in a point nearly impossible, which is why D/D are Conquest gods right now. Easy Haphazard damage that is empowered by the game type. There’s no good reason to have the skill as strong as it is, and in defending it you’re admitting that you don’t want it nerfed because it’s incredibly valuable to the Elementalist.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

(edited by ronpierce.2760)

A Plea: 2v2 and 3v3 Support

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

We’ve tried and tried and tried to get 2v2/3v3 support. No avail, but we keep trying…

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Next up: Reanimator and Prot of the Horde

in Necromancer

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

I’m MM and I don’t even want them… But at the same time, I wish they’d make greater marks baseline

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

So...no pvp changes this patch ?

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Never seen anyone so enthusiastic about wanting the game to be screwed up more. :p

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Cheese Builds

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

It’s a build that allows you to be effective with little to no effort.

This is the real answer, the first answer is a kitten answer.

Cheese builds are builds that you can play fairly safely and win in most cases, often with an easy means of escape. The context of a cheese build changes depending on the situation but is most commonly used for builds that are too strong in small scale fights. Condition mesmer is a prime example of this.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

People are actually leaving GW2 PvP

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

I quit pvping for a mix of reasons.

- Balance is wonky.
- Damage is too high.
- Classes are becoming watered down, losing definition.
- Still no 2v2 and 3v3.****

It’s a great game, just getting boring without the highly demanded arena, and needs a lot of work after the last shake up. Still have hope though…

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Guild Wars 2 April fools 2015 [merged]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Last year, I had a family member who died in a plane accident.

Yet, I found this April Fool’s ingame joke quite amusing.

I did not made any link between the two. Because there are none to be made.

Really, who here never pretended to be a plane by stretching their arms and making noise with their mouth when they were kids?

Yes… When they were… Kids… O.O

-slowly lowers arms irl-

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

A Few Suggestions (Sikari)

in Necromancer

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Hey, everyone. After talking to some other Necromancers, non-necromancers and doing some own reflection, I wanted to throw in a my few cents on a couple changes I feel that could tidy up the class a bit and I’ll try my best to explain my reasons. (Note: For this post, I’m going to try to keep it relatively short and sweet, nudges and fixes that could make what we have going for us now more solid, without significant reworks.)


Issue 1: Shifting some LF outside of Soul Reaping.
a) Soul Marks: Move 2% life force gained from marks to the baseline skills. Change Soul marks to: “Marks are unblockable and increase the LF gained by marks by 50%.”

b) Vital Persistence: Baseline 3% life force degeneration. Change Vital Persistence to: “Shrouded Persistence – Reduces the cooldown on shroud abilities by 15% and reduce natural LF degeneration by 33%.”

Reasons: There are a couple reasons for these changes. First off, these changes would not benefit our standard builds at all, but we find ourselves commonly using these two traits in a majority of our effective PVP builds. I wanted to retain a bit of that LF focus on the trait line, but reduce the impact of giving up Soul Reaping. Ways this becomes beneficial is by opening up some diversity options, specifically for Spite/Curses/Reaper condition builds and Spite/x/Reaper Power builds, including allowing just enough freedom to take a broader range of choices in Soul Reaping, allowing Unyielding Blast to be coupled with Decimate Defenses or taking Spectral Mastery over Vital Persistence. All would be more viable and fit well as small but impactful changes to our side builds that are close but not quite there with the heavy reliance on these two traits.


Issue 2: Deathly Chill…
a) Deathly Chill: Change from 1 bleed (8s) to (either):
- Inflicts 2 torment for 8 seconds on chill.
- Chilling an enemy inflicts 2 torment for 5 seconds. Striking a chilled foe grants Chilling Assault (name) increasing condition damage dealt by 2% for 8 (or 10) seconds, stacks up to 5 times. (New stacks do not refresh the entire stack.)

Reasons: There has been a lot of talk among the community. The Developers openly admitted the reason they went with bleed is to ensure it was an offensive trait, thus poison was not a contender for the condition applied. Many of us felt the most obvious choice would be Torment, as Reaper lacks access to the trait and the condition fits thematically with the class style perfectly. There are other technical considerations too wordy to need spelling out.

Additionally, some felt it would be an interesting place to work in a modifier, and I tend to agree. I personally would support the second option most, but the first option is easier, so I put both as this is intended to be more “easy” solutions to problems without major reworks.


Issue 3: A few Shout touch ups.
a) “Your Soul is Mine!”: Slight touch up on healing amount. While I understand there is a Life Force component, the skill falls short of being competitive against a traited CC (and often a non-traited, considering the additional health gained in addition to damage removed from conditions). The skill falls just short to other short cooldown heals (Ether Feast, and others) that I don’t feel is made up for by the Life force alone, especially in smaller scale battles. One possible solution would be to move more of the LF into the heal itself.

b) “Rise!”: Rise is almost perfect, yet AI and AOE still sells the skill short. My suggestion to bring it in line with other similar 50% absorption effects (Guard, Phantasmal Defender/MD, Bulwark Gyro) is to reduce the Max duration of the minions to 20 seconds, but reduce the cooldown from 40 seconds to 30. I feel this is important because the skill is very useful to survive heavy pressure that is common for Necromancers to face, but the cooldown is long and the pets die quickly or are easily kited. A more frequent button press with no other practical gains would make it a more well rounded skill and fit better against other similar skills.

c) “Chilled to the Bone!”: The change to Deathly Chill, I feel, left this skill feeling quite a bit less impactful, especially when you consider the chill duration nerf it took along with the damage loss. I think it’s time to make the leap to a shorter cooldown to allow it to function as a more frequent CC than the old Chill spike it once was. I suggest:
- “Chilled to the Bone!”: 1 Second cast, 60 second cooldown. Damage and freeze enemies around you inflicting 4 seconds of chill and stunning them for 2 seconds. Gain 1 stack of stability for 8 seconds per target struck."


Closing notes: I realize there are a lot of other issues with Necromancer and Reaper, many of which are very well known and noted. Unfortunately, a lot of other issues require deeper investigation and more development time, which is not the point of this thread. I just wanted to get out a few to-the-point changes that could get us out of our slight rut (mostly funneled into signet builds or corruption builds, lack of diversity and slight help for Power builds via diversity).

Please, let me know what you think, like, dislike or would just like to add. Thanks a lot, Reapers and Necromancers.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Beta weekend players, HoT worth it or not?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

No.

From what I have seen, all we we are getting another “drytop” or “silverwastes” type of map. Complete with the absurd amount of busy work grinding also associated with the aforementioned. (which we would have gotten for free in its entirety already the same way we got drytop and silverwastes if anet hadn’t decided to start withholding living story in order to label it as an expansion and sell it to us)

There is literally nothing that would make me want to buy this, and unless anet is just acting like verdant brink is the only map we are going to get to troll us, and we are getting a lot more than a grand total of: one new map, one new profession, the specialization system, guild halls, a few new legendaries… and one raid.

This is not an expansion…. this is living world season 3 with a price tag.

…and I’m already bored to tears with what we have available.

I’ve already got my pitchfork in my hand waiting for the day the expansion releases and everyone realizes the same.

Why so cynical? LS3? I don’t remember previous living stories bringing Raids, a new class, a large expanse on total skills, new trait lines that alter the base class, role necessity, harder creatures, new legendaries, legendary armor, fractal and pvp revamped systems, a new pvp mode (short of Courtyard if you consider that a pvp ‘mode’).

If you don’t think 50 dollars is fair after 3 years of playing the game and many much more time to follow, then… I’m sorry. But even 60 dollar console or PC games don’t amount to many hours of non-social entertainment. I’m not sure where you’re basing your views of “worth”. If you don’t like the game, don’t play it, but as far as content goes, saying its just a new Drytop is simply wrong and deceiving…

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

2v2 Annihilation, Why Not?

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

It would attract a lot of wow players so why not do it, specially how awful wow pvp is right now at it’s current state. I don’t get anet’s filosophy of doing things sometimes.

That’s what I said… They have such a great opportunity AND set up (no need for grinding gear to be competitive)… It blows my mind that its not a priority… I’d flip my kitten if I was a higher up in Anet. Like yeah lets NOT take advantage of this great opportunity by introducing the most basic and popular game mode that requires only a few players to start up!

I can’t even…….. -breath-

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

We need more counterplay to Thief Stealth

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Ofc thieves should be punished for missing attacks!! After all, all other professions get punished with conditions for missing their skills right?!… Right?!….

/facepalm

Lol… Yeah, as said above me, if other classes miss they hit 10-60 second cooldowns depending on what the skill is… That’s not a risk to poor execution, right? o.O

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

deleted 2

in PvP

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

I think a lot of people are overly excited about Necro’s being more of a thing and Eles not as powerful as they were. I don’t feel Necro is as OP as people say because they’re still fairly easy targets to focus and tunnel down, and Ele aren’t nearly as bad off as people are trying to suggest (specifically Tempest).

I get the feeling a lot of these lists are still in the “theorycrafting” phase and not quite reality.

(Note: I wouldn’t say Necro is bad, but as far as team competitiveness, I’m willing to bet it won’t stand where people are suggesting it stands. This happened last time Necromancer was buffed into viability too, people overreacted.)

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

ZAM Berserker Exclusive Reveal

in Warrior

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Will need to see how this will interact with Adrenal Health AND Clensing Ire.

Nerfing our already lacking passive healing and or condition Cleansing makes this a non starter in pvp.

They already said the 1 bar acts as a tier 3 “as far as traits go”.

No they said the burst skill counts a 3rd tier burst.

““If you were worried about the shorter adrenaline bar having a negative impact on those traits that scale according to adrenaline level fear not, as the primal burst skills are all considered Tier 3 burst skills.”

Is what they said. So maybe your concern is there with adrenal Health, but as far as Cleansing Ire goes and other tiered traits off of burst skills, this should answer your question fairly easily.

I’m sure 1 bar equates to 3 in terms of AH and Peak Performance, too. But something to look out for either way.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Chuka und Champawat collection items

in API Development

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Hypothesis confirmed correct. Only one person has ever gotten the PvP Destroyer Scythe, and it’s a GM.

Hype train derailed :>

You just shattered so many dreams right there… You monster.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

What one thing that Rev should excel at?

in Revenant

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Revenant’s are the best Healers/Support in the game.

Actually, that’d be an Elementalist.

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)

Deathly Chill nerf

in Necromancer

Posted by: ronpierce.2760

ronpierce.2760

Reaper useless now. Rerolled to scrapper.

Lol. Can’t tell if this is serious or not. :P

High Warlord Sikari (80 Reaper) / Lord Siekron (80 DH)
Warlord Sikari (80 Scrapper)