Guild Wars 2

Harper.4173:

Why would you brace if you dealt no damage while doing it? What would be the point?
Sure you’re absorbing damage but not taking damage is far better especially if you can still deal damage while not taking it.

You dismiss the idea way too easily, but it was a really good suggestion. You seem too stuck in the way of how combat in GW2 works now, that you can’t imagine what it could be like if they implemented some better combat mechanics.

Harper.4173:

Ultimately the goal of any encounter is to kill whatever you’re facing as quickly as possible so that you’re getting your rewards as fast as possible.

That is not what the only goal ‘should’ be. If that’s all there is to your encounters, you need to rethink your encounters.

Harper.4173:

Why would anyone bother to “brace”?

I can think of a reason. If bracing protected your allies from a heavy area attack, it would definitely have a purpose. Maybe bracing protects your party from attacks that would otherwise knock your whole party away, and put them flat on their backs (see my example of poise in the post above).

Rather than spamming protection on the whole party with a click of a button, you would have to actively time your bracing move, and absorb the right attack to protect your allies. That would promote active play, while playing a tank.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I believe Lostwingman is advocating an alternative to dodging for heavy armor. NW does this — squishies dodge and bulkies “block.” It works in that game because the window for damage avoidance works differently than in GW2. Here, the “evaded” proc is very short. To be able to stand in AoE would in fact require a character who “braces” to hold his brace longer. This would not fit in well with GW2’s mechanic. Now, if that AoE is that damaging to begin with, getting out of it seems smarter to me.

If bracing prevents the attack from hitting to begin with, it would definitely provide an alternative to just dodging everything. In Dark Souls they have a great stamina management system, where the player saves his stamina to brace himself for a heavy hitting attack (stamina which would otherwise be wasted on an attack). In Dark Souls, it’s not all about spamming attacks. Of course that’s a singleplayer game (mostly), but if you were to apply this to a multiplayer game, then bracing for impact would have to protect your allies as well.

Harper.4173:

Lostwingman.5034:

I’m just going to throw this out there while it’s fresh in my mind, what if they added a second type of active defense called “Bracing” (as in absorbing a blow)? Have armors provide two inherent stats, defense and load . Currently, we use endurance to dodge attacks but what if we had an active defense that used up significantly less endurance for reducing damage taken by a certain percentage (determined by the ‘defense’ stat) but gain back endurance slowly (rate determined by the “load” of the armor) and you are unable to use skills while “bracing”. Thus heavier armored players could remain in position and absorb more consecutive blows (as opposed to largely being limited to two dodges) but not able to unfairly capitalize on it because they would not be able to use a skill while bracing. From there I would open up all armor types to all classes and let people mix and match, choose how they want to defend, and open up a lot more playstyles within various classes.

#plsbegentle

When you play an MMO and are in a fight there are two things you’re focusing on.

1. staying alive.
2. killing what’s trying to kill you.

Why would you brace if you dealt no damage while doing it? What would be the point?
Sure you’re absorbing damage but not taking damage is far better especially if you can still deal damage while not taking it.

Ultimately the goal of any encounter is to kill whatever you’re facing as quickly as possible so that you’re getting your rewards as fast as possible.

Why would anyone bother to “brace”?

Sure you could put this in the game but any serious player would stay far away from it.

I believe Lostwingman is advocating an alternative to dodging for heavy armor. NW does this — squishies dodge and bulkies “block.” It works in that game because the window for damage avoidance works differently than in GW2. Here, the “evaded” proc is very short. To be able to stand in AoE would in fact require a character who “braces” to hold his brace longer. This would not fit in well with GW2’s mechanic. Now, if that AoE is that damaging to begin with, getting out of it seems smarter to me.

I think that what he meant to say was Block.
It costs significantly less Endurance than a dodge roll and prevents skill usage while being used.

Also, I think Blocking and Attacking was meant to be more of a duelist type game, if you look at the Claypool Heart in Human Starting Zone.

i think i know what you mean. the story could definitely earn some points by diving into related story arcs, instead of being so narrowly focused on one single aspect. because it’s so narrow, but still wants to present more lore, it comes off as extremely rushed. you look at the GW1 campaigns, and there were several story arcs, chapters if you will, that were solved one at a time and led the player one step closer to the overarching objective.

it feels like instead of several arcs and an overarching story, there is a single arc, mordremoth, and everything else is just a detail. they went from one extreme (too many mini-arcs that were barely related and not particularly interesting) to the other (just one big arc). the problem with season 1 wasn’t the multiple story arcs, it was how disjointed they felt, and how uninteresting/hit-and-miss they were for the most part.

for example: the dragon’s reach is an excellent opportunity to delve into the lore of the races and their personal struggles, but we brush off sylvari, asura, norn and charr in one stroke, and humans happen off-screen. hell, that whole plot with rytlock trying to cleanse the foefire, failing, and trying to come back from the mists could’ve been a chapter of its own. provided enough context and work, each race could’ve had its own chapter. this isn’t unlike befriending the luxons and kurzicks in factions, it’s only done much faster.

now, of course, for the sake of pacing, it probably would be in the best of interests if these progressions happened simultaneously. so you’re getting a bit of each race at a time, maybe divide and only a few races appear in one chapter, then other races appear on other chapters, or whatever. the point is, all of this was solved incredibly fast, being brushed off in the span of an hour, maybe two, with a single mission per race (hell, not even that for the norns, humans and sylvari).

TL;DR: slow down, guys. you don’t have to slow down to a crawl, but you don’t have to rush through everything because dragons.

I get the feeling the Pale Tree is up to something.
She refuses to give straight answers and she insists on gathering all of the major leaders on her home-turf.

According to the balance update, the following is the description of necromancer changes for 9/9:

Anet:

Necromancer

Our focus for necromancers in this balance update has been on improving their survivability through utilities and traits as well as improving the overall effectiveness of their melee and skirmishing weapons. You’ll see that the dagger auto-attack will now hit two targets, while the axe’s animations have been tuned to be more fluid. Along with weapon skill updates, your utility skills have been updated to provide more survivability over time.

Changing 1 single utility is hardly enough to give meaningful impact to necromancer sustain and doesn’t even fit in line with your own description.

Below are issues and suggestions regarding necromancers from a post I made some time ago.

Necro PVE

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Anet-this-is-just-wrong
-Summary: Necromancers unwanted in PVE Dungeons, this is unacceptable.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Necromancer-utility-idea-Bone-Wall/first#post4191750
- Summary: Idea that addresses necromancer’s lack of group utility in PVE groups.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvE-Necro-needs-team-support-buffs/first#post4168935
- Summary: Ideas to improve necro, needed because of lack of utility for groups in PVE and cleave damage.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvE-Necro-Sig-of-Undeath-shorter-cast
- Summary: Signet of Undeath’s cast time is too long to be meaningful and the passive is weak too.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Necro-Cleaving-Weapon/first#post4124139
- Summary: Necromancers lack cleave – only class that does.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Suggestion-Necros-stronger-as-fight-goes-on/first#post4124077
- Summary: Highlights the idea that necromancers should be stronger as a fight goes on, although they currently don’t do that.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvE-Necromancer-Can-we-get-a-rebalance/first#post3995987
- Summary: Necromancer is unwanted in PVE, concerned for lack of direction.

Necro Stunbreaks

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/necro-Well-of-power-a-secondrate-stun-break/first#post4201607
- Summary: Well of Power doesn’t function as well as most other stunbreaks.

Necro Traits

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Necromancer-Foot-in-the-Grave/first#post4200217
- Summary: Foot in the Grave is weak, despite high hypothetical stability uptimes. Promotes potential fixes to justify 30 point trait.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Necromancer-Path-of-Midnight/first#post4190025
- Summary: Path of midnight offers a strangely smaller reduction in cast times compared to many other cooldown reducing traits.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PVE-PVP-I-hate-necro-traits/first#post4177832
- Summary: Outlines weak Necromancer traits and lack of trait synergy.

Lack of DS Synergy/Functionality/Design

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Why-can-t-necros-stomp-and-res-in-DS/first#post4198456
- Summary: Discusses necromancers being unable to stomp and rez in DS.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Death-Shroud-Show-Skills-6-10-Cooldown/first#post4185839
- Summary: Display utilities while in DS so necros can make better decisions about leaving DS.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Deathshroud-or-why-Blood-magic-is-pointless/first#post4093766
- Summary: DS prevents heals from all sources, including our own traits and class minor mechanics like siphons.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PVP-Deathshroud-needs-redesign/first#post4084407
- Summary: Death Shroud is overwhelming when full and a big weakness when empty. A smaller more refillable bar may be better for everyone.

Lack of Necro Sustain/Attrition

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/put-stability-on-locust-signet/first
- Summary: Necromancers aren’t able to stay in fights well due to CC, although the class requires aggression to function well.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/recieving-heals-inside-ds-is-needed/first#post4060897
- Summary: Teammate heals are wasted when necromancers are in DS, and many Necro skills are also wasted by entering DS – including three #6 heal skills, all regeneration and siphon-like traits.

Cygnus.6903:

Yet the difference in armor is insignificant.

That is also something that should be changed.

Cygnus.6903:

It does not make sense for light armored classes to be very mobile coming from a gaming perspective. Mage classes have always been slow and hard hitting.

Dark Souls would disagree with you. When you have a system that makes sense, you have better balance. Heavy armor should make you more tough, but also more slow. And light armor should make you more vulnerable to damage, but more mobile.

In Dark Souls lightly armored characters have faster endurance regeneration, which allows them to dodge more, and move faster. And heavy armor really makes you quite slow, and less able to dodge (but you get a lot of tankiness in return). It seems this balance wasn’t considered as carefully for GW2. That is why berserker gear currently dominates the game. Cause and effect.

Cygnus.6903:

So OT, 20% extra endurance regeneration in a game where active mitigation is EVERYTHING is so imbalanced, just wow. You would have to up the armor of the heavy class so much. Besides, what about condition damage? Armor does nothing against that…

Armor is not supposed to do anything against condition damage. Condition damage is the counter, to balance out the damage mitigating effect of heavy armor. Currently however, armor has little effect at all. They need to change that.

When armor works the way it is supposed to, conditions can be considered a fair counter against bunker builds. Currently however, conditions negate something that wasn’t providing much damage reduction to begin with. The numbers are just all wrong in GW2.

As a significantly handicapped person —

I totally disagree. Completely. Absolutely. Disagree.

It’s time we stopped treating the disabled as invisible.
It’s time we stopped patronizing the disabled.

Pretending the disabled don’t exist in a “fantasy” setting is ridiculous.

ANet has done a wonderful job of integrating a disabled character into the current story. She is imperfect, sometimes bitter, but fighting back against her disability. She is refreshingly realistic without being preachy. Her presence adds an interesting aspect to “heroes.”

Renkencen.6127:

Ok I had bookmakred this thread! Seeing the moose, made me laugh, seeing a Quaggan, had me in stitches and now that Doylak link!! I will died from laugher if this keep up!

Dolyak is displeased with your humor

I’ve witnessed it comrades.

I look at the death as a good part of trying to make the living story have some semblance of realism. Haven’t you had a friend of someone close to you die or suffer a tragedy? It wasn’t directly impacting on you, but you see how it impacts someone closer to you?

To have a real living story, not every single thing is going to always be focused directly on the main person. Every one that dies within your circle of acquaintances isn’t going to be the most important person in your life. When a story makes it seem that way, it loses the bit of realism it could have.

I’m giving this a giant hell no as I prefer to solo it. I had a hard time getting a group just to kill Zhaitan for PS and don’t want to have to deal with that again. I hope Anet completely ignores your request.

In season 1, ANet released both content that could only be played solo, and content that required a full group. In both cases people complained and asked that ANet made the instances similar to the personal story ones, so they could be played by 1 to 5 players at the same time, depending on what the individual player wanted. They have now done exactly this.

In addition, there is the open world stuff in Dry Top, which can be played solo, but will generate better rewards the more players cooperate.

We got our way. I really don’t think that there is anything left for us to criticize. Not this aspect, anyway.

Well to be fair you CAN do all the instances in groups (like Personal Story).

I don’t think forcing people to group in order to do story content is the way to go.
Just look at all the rage with the battle against Zhaitan in Personal Story.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Shadowmoon.7986:

And to be honest, is there any characteristics to Majory to make her female, beside her voice and character model. If she was replaced by a male character, the script would not need to been changed. Otherwise if we replaced Kasmeer with a male, it would be extremely funny to have the exact same dialogue. This is why I conclude that the decision to have Majory female is so that Anet could capitalize on immature male fan service.

The point is that the standard hard-boiled detective is male. Delaqua’s personality, voice, and actions fit that trope well when originally introduced. It was only later that she and Kasmeer hooked up (and that’s also a trope: opposites that spend too much time together under dangerous conditions fall in love).

I’m pretty sure there’s absolutely nobody in the world that could create a character that isn’t attributable to some kind of trope, because I’m pretty sure that everything is a trope.

Shadowmoon.7986:

So pretty much a female character who pretty much had has no story development is killed for as a plot device in this LS. She is involved in only one mission, and then is sent to her death off screen in the next mission. Pretty much this character was created to die for the A-team to feel emotion, but for me I feel nothing because she has as much development as the thousands of npcs I kill everyday. This is unlike the mentor you get in your PS who you actually develop a relationship with, and then dies in a heroic way. Personally I do find this type of story extremely lazy and somewhat offensive.

OP has misunderstood the woman in refrigerator trope.

What makes the refrigerator trope harmful is how it uses a heroine’s death to further motivate and add emotional depth to a male protagonist, and perpetuating the trope of heroines being more helpless, more susceptible to brutalization in stories, as well as merely existing for the character development of a male character.

In Entanglement, all that happens is that JORY loses her sister. Belinda’s death suggests nothing about the brutalization of women, and the nature of her death is no different from all the other people (including men) you see strangled like Foreman Abe, random male civilian in Prosperity, Drooburt, etc.

Belinda died a brave warrior doing her job, and her death served as a harsh reminder of what kind of threat an Elder Dragon brings. Throughout the personal story Anet has made your character endure all sorts of deaths (from both sexes) in order for you to feel the pains of loss/sacrifice and all that jazz. Belinda’s death is no different.

It’s because killing a biconic is going too far. They couldn’t kill Marjory so they tried to find some other way to hook some emotion into it. You don’t know Belinda well but you know her sister. You’re supposed to feel empathy for Marjory, I’m sure many people won’t care though.

As far as her being a woman, most of the NPCs introduced last season were female. If you kill off an NPC from last season, chances are it will be female. If Marjory had brothers instead of sisters, it would have been a man in a refrigerator. Belinda was a Seraph, many other Seraph died – Elder Dragons are dangerous. Part of having female characters that can be respected in combat roles in the story means having female characters that will die in combat roles. Belinda wasn’t a helpless victim, she was a soldier that died in battle.

To be honest, I did get attached to Belinda (more than Kasmeer en Marjory anyway) due to the extra dialogue in the first mission. I suspected something was gonna happen to her but not this…and I certainly didn’t like having to move on.

But as far as stories go, this LS release was actually good. I’m expecting Anet to do something sneaky and underhanded next though…so far they always did when I started to like the game again.

I think it could have made for a shocking cutscene, witnessing Belinda ensnared and killed by the vine in front of Marjory. Instead we just get the usual pantomiming.

Sure, she was a short-lived character. But “offensive”? Seems melodramatic.

So what the OP is saying is: Now the warrior has immunity to forum based arguments as well.

Another buff for Warriors!

Suko.3518:

Hi,

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYnMISlDW4AOOAfEGgAQIVNcjARKv+bZA-TBCBAB1s/Qlq/AwDAILlBecCAMTpHjKB1TPApA0TYE-e

Geomancy is terrible, but Sigil of Battle (Might on swap) and Sigil of Energy (endurance on swap) are pretty meta.

I just “love” how ArenaNet dismissed the gods’ actions because it was too human centric and they wanted to make it less human centric (despite the fact they could have kept the gods’ actions unchanged but give the other races’ views and interpretations to it).

And then they go and make the Pale Tree the center of all things – or at least the entryway into the meaning of the Elder Dragons’ existence, by all appearances.

Yeah, we’re not human centric. We’re sylvari centric!

With a side of asuran centric.

Humanity gets looked over even in their greatest nation (Orr) where they could have had the biggest lore impact, in favor of sylvari stuff primarily (with a side of asura and charr). And now we’re going all sylvari again (with a side of human and asura).

Where’s my norn focus? Charr focus? Human focus?

So much for being multi-racial in storytelling, am I right? :/

And as a side rant: The funniest thing to me, though, is how they introduced ley lines as being so uncommon and unknown… but yet they exist wherever waypoints are. Wow, they already went and reduced the importance of their new lore just like they did their old lore.

Really… sigh.

I think the problem for a lot of people though is that this isn’t humans or norn or charr discovering that what they previously knew is part of something larger, this is Asura knowing everything and all of the other races having some reductive simplistic understanding of the world that is wrong. At least for me that is the problem, you can’t have equality between races when one race is the designated ‘we know everything/figure everything out’ race. You can argue that each race brings something unique to the collective, but the Asuras involvement has become ridiculously deus ex machina, as other people consistently point out.

Well, we first find out about the Eternal Alchemy 250 years ago during Eye of the North. If so much about the gods/bloodstones were deemed myths then surely everything about the Eternal Alchemy isn’t going to be 100% true. There’s no reason to believe that the Asura are all knowing.

lordkrall.7241:

Back in the days it was common knowledge and a fact that the Earth was flat

No it was not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

Jake.1430:

Thalador.4218:

Shiren.9532:

I dunno, it can make sense if you follow the prophecy. Originally Ascalon belonged to the charr, it wasn’t human territory, it was charr territory. So if you follow that interpretation, no human could possibly be the true heir, it would need to be a charr.

Ugh… totally wrong. Ascalon wasn’t charr territory to begin with. They conquered it from a primitive species of simian-like humanoids who lived in a greatly divided, tribal communities.

If you want the “true” heir to Ascalon, go fetch a grawl king.

The words “Greatly Divided, Tribal communities” mean they didnt have a king. They were just there, the Charr had the first kingdom of sorts, therefore they were the first to have a ruler of Ascalon. The grawl were most or less just animal natives than the rulers.

Learn to take sarcasm – no matter how truthful it actually is.

Concerning who owned Ascalon or at least had greater claim to her…

…the charr propaganda of Ascalon being their territory from the get-go is the greatest BS I’ve ever heard in GW. Fact is, Ascalon NEVER belonged to the charr to begin with. They came in as conquerors, dominated and enslaved the primitive originals called the grawl, they fought and probably pushed out the dwarves whose empire in Ascalon had spanned from the southern Blazeridge to the northeast, and they fought the Forgotten who also had a presence on the northern shores of the Blazeridge and southern Ascalon. Out of those three, two were defenders or close allies of humanity. Forgotten were their shepherds for a time and assistants to the Six Gods, and the dwarves of old were on good terms with the humanity until their schism and civil war (mind you, Deldrimor still maintained good relationship with both Kryta and Ascalon). If anything, humanity took back what was originally the property of their allies, but those conceded to let them hold it and build their empire there.

Even though it was the Flame Legion that opted to use the Cauldron of Cataclysm, many charr still approve of using it as it “won” back their ill-earned and usurped lands – they approve of the mindless destruction that wrecked a country for decades and led to the slaughter of thousands of innocent, defenseless people.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/cutthroat/TeamKiel/page/2#post2429013

And let’s not forget that Ascalon was a dominantly human kingdom for 1,000+ years. Ascalonians created culture, built and maintained a flourishing civilization, cultivated the land while still managing to remain in balance with nature, constructed wonders… and then the charr came and destroyed it all.

I wonder how much the charr contributed to Ascalon’s welfare during the mere decades (if not a century at best) of their reign… slave pens for the grawl, slaughterhouses, arenas of bloodbath (both for themselves, their prisoners, as well as captured beasts), trampled, unattended fields.

As a corrupto-mancer main for a long time most of this is actually true.. warriors are still weak to conditions.

It is just not as easy as before. You tank until zerk stance runs out then fear chain them corrupt the stability and its over pretty soon.

Warr v Necro is one of the best matchups IMO. A true skill matchup. Can the necro survive 15+ sec for zerk stance and initial stuns to end. Can the warr take advantage of this time to destroy the necro? Bad necro does not dodge earth shaker gets stunned for 10 sec then gets zerk stance rekt and its GG. Good necro dodges earthshaker tanks in DS while getting hit during zerk stance. Transfers when hit with pin down or fire field. Brings corrupt boon for stability and starts the chain of fear to death.

In the end though noob warr > noob XXX

That is why most people cry