Guild Wars 2

Reading all this gave me a headache

It seems that CoR spam is on its way back as soon as they finish working on a patch. I knew it was coming as soon as I read all of the crying on Reddit.

Can we just give CoR a range buff to 5,000, increase the damage coefficient to 4,000 and reduce the cool down to 0.5 seconds? I really think these changes would be wonderful for WvW.

At least we got a one week break from what is probably the most poorly balanced WvW skill in history of this poorly balanced game. Hopefully they buff condition application, nerf condition cleansing, and buff burn damage’s coefficient. That would make things much more wonderful as well.

Silverkey.2078:

It’s been a week now since the patch. So what do you feel is our best build right now, and how viable is it in the current meta?

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I have been trying a few things myself, among others:

• chrono shatter (dom-duel-chrono)
• core shatter (dom-duel-X)
• mistrust (duel-ill-chrono)
• crusader interrupt (dom-chaos-chrono)
• chronobunker (chaos-insp-chrono)

and I feel like chronobunker is still our best. Chrono and core shatter feel like subpar version of thieves. Mistrust build could do very good damage, but were too glassy and simply outclassed by condi reaper. Crusader interrupt dies too easily to reaper to be the “bruiser” I intended. Only chronobunker seems to hold its grounds.

Note that my analysis is very likely biased because of the very bad unranked team compositions. I often played alongside 4 DPS/roamers, usually at least 1 or 2 thieves, so playing a node-holder and team fight support spec was the best way to “rebalance” the comp. At the end, even in a more thief-rich and DPS-centric meta, the team that can win team fights has an edge.

I’ve found a few builds I like, I’m going to get a lot of hate for this probably but double ranged shatter (power mesmer) has almost always been outclassed which is why I never liked it to begin with.

When they weren’t relying on +1ing, they were thief bait. People can say “condition and bunker builds are so cheap blah blah blah” but when power shatter always loses to both of them I don’t care about what takes “uber skillz” I care about what gets the best results. How many zerker mesmers I’ve seen lose a point because they can’t hold against condi or tankier mesmers.

Leave the +1ing zerker stabbing to thieves, mesmers have unique qualities and inflicting confusion and doing interrupts sound way more mesmer-like than swinging a greatsword, bursting and then leaving.

I myself want MORE messages plastered all over my screen about what the enemy is doing. That way, I can’t officially duel or roam anymore. The more lag and messages the better, that will really bring more players back.

I’m feeling pretty good about the updated software. Higher ledges too please, I want to really push my skills to the test between being blinded by a larger font in bright neon colors “Jade Quarry has taken a tower!!!”, lag so bad my skills don’t even react, or pve mobs. Let’s really crank up the difficulty meter here anet.

RandomWolf.3986:

I’ve seen on countless sites that GW2 in on the top mostp layed MMOs out there, mostly in second or third place.

I also noticed a lot of the controversy caused by the expansion — more related about its content, features, perfomance and price.

I’m on a weak laptop, but I manage to run GW2 with average 25-30 fps in all of Tyria. Sadly my fps are below 10 in HoT, but I manage to play it if I select the lowest graphical setup available.

I don’t really like the new maps. They’re really hard and I feel lost. I prefer to play by myself and when I bring a friend we just rush it. I also have died a lot.

There are way too many threads complaining about GW2: HoT. Many people have left because of the expansion and another handful of players avoid the expansion like the plague. I also heard that the HoT sales were dreadful. Is this true?

Depends, this game has 3 game modes

If you are a WVW focused player then yea, there is literally no point in playing right now, even if you’re on a high tier things are just bleak and getting bleaker, and low tiers ………… just forget it, not even worth logging on.

PVE is still decent and SPVP is somewhere in the middle between the 2.

The new PVE maps are somewhat of a novelty for a while, but once the novelty wears off, you’re left with the extra tedium of the vertical, jumping puzzle like and grind elements. The new WVW map is even worse because too many of those elements hinder PVP on its various scales and in various ways which is the whole point of existance of the game mode.

What a lot of people do not realize, is that longterm WVW players were also PVX players such as myself. We do everything, but remain focused on WVW. These were guild leaders, officers, people who helped others, A LOT, the folks that drove communities to unite, which is what makes an MMO an MMO. And they left, in troves. Only a handful of us remain, and we play less often, MUCH less often.

Automatic upgrades in WvW were terrible. I think everyone playing agreed on that one. And with the release of the latest update I was pretty hopeful for all of the new changes, including the changes tying upgrades to the number of Yaks through the door. Sadly, ANet seems to be interested in extremes, rather than fully thought out changes.

With the patch release on the 26th many of my guild mates and I were looking forward to seeing all of the changes. PPK is great, no rezzing the dead while in combat, and finally an end to the auto upgrades. Unfortunately, the upgrades have now swung too far in the other direction.

I’m a numbers guy by nature, and after the patch launch I went out to an enemy BL to see the changes myself. We hit SE Camp, S Camp, and SE Tower to get yaks rolling into the tower. And I timed the yaks from each camp to the tower.

Yaks coming from SE Camp took 2 minutes and 20 seconds each. Yaks from South Camp took 3 minutes and 20 seconds each. The goal to get to secured is 20 Yaks. Reinforced is another 40 Yaks.

Running the numbers you find that SE Camp will supply a little over 12 Yaks in 30 minutes time. South Camp will supply 9 Yaks in the same time frame. In total, 21 Yaks in the door in 30 minutes. That’s if all things are perfect, no Yak killers show, and nobody flips your camps. To get to reinforced you’re looking at almost another hour and change. So, to have those harder doors and walls plan on about 1 and a half hours.

The results are pretty visible. So many objectives are now paper, and will remain paper.

ANet has now created new “challenging content”. And by challenging I mean the content takes longer. In the recent updates you’ll find that capture and hold missions have had their time adjusted to 1 hour to get your objective to tier 1. Those missions were 30 minutes, and it seems with the mission adjustment they’re acknowledging it takes a long time to get there. I’m pretty sure most of our remaining guild members who are still desperately trying to hang on to this game mode won’t have the patience for 1 hour long WvW guild missions….

I have to say, I’m feeling like Goldilocks here. First it was too fast, now it’s too slow. Will we ever be presented with just right? I’m not sure I can hang in to see.

Good lord, you are arrogant. Burn on Reaper Shroud 1, burn on converting Aegis, on Plague Signet/Deathly Swarm/Staff 4 if you have any. The Reaper build I play takes maybe one or two seconds to ramp up, then pound out a healthy hard to cleanse (near impossible) 8-10k condition damage per second. My condi engi can’t match that in its dream. Stop defending something this strong. When I land a power skill, you never get a 50% damage reduction. When I land a power skill, I never make your abilities queue 50% slower. When I land a condi skill, I kill your endurance, damage, move speed, and defense. Permanently. No ramp time. Condis USED to ramp, now its just “yo here, suck kitten”.

nearlight.3064:

Serious Thought.5394:

Tried one for a few matches- I hate calling this, but Reaper is nasty. I press my Staff 3 skill and they get 5 conditions. 5. Logic?

With a wanderers amulet and Grenth runes (or maybe thorn runes, can’t remember) staff 3 could do 7k damage if not cleansed. Pretty high, but there are power bursts that are more deadly than that.

You’re missing why this is wrong. These are conditions. Cripple slows your movement, slow reduces your ability speeds, chill kills ability recharge and slows movement, poison reduces healing, immobilize disables movement, fear is control, bleed and burn are just damage, confusion discourage ability use, torment discourages movement, weakness reduces damage by 50% and endurance regeneration by 50%, taunt is another control (not available to necro, thank god), blind disables your next attack, and vulnerability increases all incoming damage. This is why its wrong. You should not be able to do this to someone and out damage a power spec. I can’t do this to you with power. I can’t terrify your skill usage or discourage you from moving, I can’t reduce your damage, I can’t goof your recharge times or ability queues. I can’t do anything like this without control abilities and my own conditions. I can do all these effects to someone permanently, still put out good overlapping damage from power and condi, and remain alive and tanky.

But I know people are going to argue. I’m fine with Necro/Reaper being strong I just wish people would stop trying to defend condition damage being this potent. If you step back for a second, you realize how utterly out of hand it is.

In the olden days, your team would respond en masse to a call out because you didn’t want to lose a WP that took forever to upgrade, etc. Defending a tower or keep had a feeling of reward when the enemy was pushed out. And that reward was defending something you worked hard on getting built.

Now, with nobody wanting to play the BLs, calling for help is like pulling teeth. Smaller groups that were able to jump between maps now cannot be bothered to respond because the new Bay and Hills doesn’t give them a chance to WP in and save it. So it falls.

And it becomes a domino thing. If Bay and Hills fall, what’s the point really of defending garri? The attitude is “let them take the map, we’ll get it back later.”

WPs need to be returned to the home BL map — not divided up by team like in EB.

I’m glad the dolyaks play a role in upgrades now .. but the auto upgrade system has simply taken pride of ownership away from those defenders who loyally covered the home map.

Couple that with real life options — play the game in my free time and not be happy, or actually go out and do something is now an easier choice.

I don’t usually complain on forums or anywhere else for that matter, but reaper’s current state is almost irrational, the damage pressure they can put out is beyond absurd, noone within his/her right mind would have let this hit live, ever. The pletora of corrupts may be the couse, other classes nerfs and/or amulet changes, I don’t really know, but this should not really stay like this for long if you have any morals and appreciation for your current player base.
I tried a 4 glyph druid with nature spirit, empathetic bond, purity and generosity sigils and evasive purity for the sake of it. I still exploded. Any sort of boon is a liability against them and you can’t even prevent getting a boon most of the time, counter-play just doesn’t exist here.

This is not balance, this is not shaking up the meta, this is turning it upside down, from one OP side to another.

Also, thief AA damage is too rewarding. Removing tanky amulets would have been enough.
Power heralds with invocation (which reapers don’t really counter all that much) are extremely strong and survivable.
All these 3 professions are going to be meta really soon.

I’ve been a faithful customer for long now (since GW1), but this is too much, with your balance decisions is like if you’re mocking us. That is something I wont tolerate.

Wrote a novel worth of complaints of the lack of counterplay in this game, how unblockable should not = un-reflectable or un-destroyable, some skills like mirror blade shouldn’t be unblockable, condi application is way over the top, spam spam spam, spectral armor was balanced at 60s cooldown with no internal CD to scale with foes, blah blah blah, why is phoenix unblockable, BLAH BLAH, return of the evade spam thieves, spam spam, mesmer getting a new shatter to reset skills was extremely stupid to create for counterplay, blah blah, etc.

I’ll just leave this here.

This is the kind of crap that causes this game to not be esports – game modes and leaderboards aside. Who the kitten wants to watch this? Viewers don’t even know WTF is going on in fights. There’s so much SPAM in this game now. It goes for every class.

Yes, it’s a golem. Cry to someone else if you don’t get the point.

This is what people actually enjoy watching. No spam + counterplay is clear.

(wtf is with the spaces?)

Even people who don’t play the game can understand most of what’s going on AND there are clutch moments. Exciting. Exciting because there’s no SPAM.

I can’t believe how BAD the devs are at balancing this game. This game will go down in history for having the highest failed potential.

Passives and on crit junk has to go. Sigils that apply a new condition for no reason other than crit shouldn’t exist. For example: Sigil of Torment should not apply torment on critical hit for no reason. Instead, make it so that any skill that applies torment applies 1 extra stack on critical hit. This is balanced.

What is a balanced passive? Endure Pain at 25% health is balanced. You can land a burst to kill them before the 25% health proc and they are susceptible to CC and conditions.

What isn’t a balanced passive? Soothing Bastion
Basically invulnerability with health regen. Just WTF is supposed to be the counterplay to this?Unblockable attacks? Lol K.

Don’t agree? Good. Keep arguing badly and sewer this game some more.

This game was more balanced at release. Over the years: We’ll take a few seconds off this skill for no reason… increase this skill a little bit… NERF PISTOL WHIP!… let’s add some more ways to gain quickness… OMFG QUICKNESS OP REMOVE ITS FUNCTION FROM EVERYTHING!… let’s not buff warrior and guardian mace autos because we don’t wanna… OMG MAKE CONDIS STACK… shave the coni duration on this by 1s cause just cause… hmm maybe make this unblockable… REMOVE AMULETS!!!!… add this on crit passive here… maybe make an evade everything at 25% health here… GIVE NECRO BOON CORRUPT ON EVERYTHING!!!!!!! :@ :@… etc

no no no no no no no no no no no

if you build a house blindly from beginning to end and nobody wants to live in it because the kitchen is outside, the bathroom is in the basement, and the bedroom is in the front entryway…do you just hire an interior decorator?

if there is a huge pile of poop on the ground, will smoothing out the edges make it not poop?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Downloading now… Can we even talk about this here? xD

Anyways. How does Mesmer feel since the alacrity & friends nerf guys? Is it really “mez ded” or more of a really inconvenient and ill-thought change that makes the class harder and less rewarding to play… But somehow still viable?

Remember the time when Mesmers only had 1 role and not only were thieves better at it but they hard countered us? Like then but now 4 classes are better at it then us, thieves do even more damage, are immune to our conditions and can perma evade when not in stealth.

nDroid.8190:

" Heres a tip Anet, fire your kittening balance team. I could balance this game better by throwing darts at a board of post-it notes of balance changes written by a potato.?" -Someone on youtube

I told them to use the kittening CDI on that general post about the most recent patch.

Needless to say, that didn’t go over well and I had to redo it in a more “constructive manner”.

So I did it as condescendingly as possible, by telling them how to do their kittening jobs without the word kittening.
Ofc, it got 0 response.

Instead, ANet’s trying to have an “air of communication”, where they pretend like they’re actually communicating with the community. While realistically only answering questions they like, and that aren’t “hardball”.

lockdown…not clockdown?!?

That HoT hype train disappeared fast.

Gaile Gray.6029:

direx.8207:

@ Gaile Gray – However by that logic if lots of people are saying something on the forums or in game and we don’t see it in the patch notes is it reasonable to assume it’s not being listened to? Because that’s what it feels like much of the time. And since there’s no way to tell without dev comments what’s being payed attention to people tend to assume they’re not being listened to unless told otherwise, and then when patch notes hits and doesn’t list a change to what they were talking about it confirms they’re being ignored instead of perhaps something just not being ready to release yet.

No, it’s not reasonable to make that assumption. If changes are not made, that is in no way an indication that (1) the devs are unaware of a situation or (2) they are willfully choosing to ignore reasonable and practicable feedback.

The fact that something is not changed could be related to the fact that the suggestion is not reasonable, is not practical, or or cannot be achieved in a specific timeframe but may (or will) happen in the future.

Random examples:

• Not Reasonable: I say “Give Ranger pets +1000 to their skills!” Ok, clearly that’s just not reasonable.
• Not Possible: Someone says “Give everyone access to limitless inventory space.” This is technologically impossible. Or, someone suggests, “Give everyone who bought your base game in 2012 every expansion pack for free, forever.” That completely ignores the costs of development over the years and the general costs of keeping the lights on.
• Not in This Timeframe: Someone says “Make changes to ZYX!” Well, as you know, changes happen all the time, and the fact they didn’t happen in January doesn’t mean they are dead in the water, simply that more time is needed to develop them.

As I said, those were off-the-cuff examples, but the main point is that feedback given is not an order placed, but an idea shared. Whether it comes to pass is dependent on many factors, as I’m sure you can appreciate.

Here’s the thing: I don’t believe anyone’s expecting dialogue on unreasonable or impossible suggestions.

But the problem crops up when players make the same reasonable, possible suggestion over and over in thread after thread (just drop in on the profession forums once in a while if you need examples), and nothing happens.

Without direct interaction from the devs (on THESE forums; not reddit) on the suggestions that players keep putting forth, the only reasonable assumption we can make when nothing makes it into the patch notes is that 1) the devs aren’t reading the suggestions, or 2) that they don’t care, or 3) that keeping the playerbase informed on development decisions isn’t a priority. The first two things you say aren’t true, so it must be the third.

As the playerbase continues to make reasonable and possible suggestions, they deserve to at least have interaction from the devs vis-a-vis those same suggestions.

I think dialogue would go a long way in bridging the development gap. But the frustrating reality is that, apart from the CDI (which has been indefinitely suspended for whatever reason), there has been precious little dialogue coming from the devs.

Professions are broken. Players have given thousands of reasonable, possible suggestions to fix them. Patches come and go and they’re still broken. And no dialogue.

Surely you can see how this comes across?

YuukiAsuna.3417:

Magira.6390:

Carighan.6758:

baylock.1703:

Am I only 1 much more fun than last build stop crying I started playing hybrid mesmer dueling crono illusion with sinister scrapper runes and gs scepter shield

PvP. Can we please think of the other 99,8% of the game, too?

In the other 98.5% it does not matter which class you play.
Plus, it’s been proven, over and over again, that condi shatter just isn’t a competitive choice in high level PvP.
Want to troll hot join and unranked? Sure. Winning a Championship? No.

Yeah it does too…
Mesmer is only wanted in WvW for veil. Thief is hardly ever wanted for group play, etc.
in OPEN world PvE you are right it doesn’t matter. But some people actually play more that just one game mode. GASP!

In WvW you are there whether people want you there or not. in PvE you are all on the same team so who gives a c*** if its not perfectly balanced. The game should be balanced around PvP and tuned to other game modes.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Worse case scenario is when you are moving and juking clones.

If you’re setting up your illusions to hit the ele with 1s+ gaps between each other so that trait procs, you should either be not worrying about a silly diamond skin ele because that’s mad complex shatter setup for one enemy, or you might want to get better at shatter-bursting with mesmer, cuz in any burst that trait won’t do crap when they get hit by 8 illusions in the span of a couple seconds.

msalakka.4653:

11,178 Gun Flame on 2100 toughness. There was no “balance patch”.

I feel you lol this was on a glass build.. 19k hit yet only have 14k hp.

ThrottleFox.2735:

Buy it through Anet, better safe and spend more, then be banned/hacked and out of pocket

It’s actually safer to buy it through an official 3rd party than it is directly through ArenaNet. If for whatever reason your method of payment happens to be refunded, like if your bank/credit card flags the transaction as suspicious and cancels the payment, ArenaNet will permanently ban your account with no option to recover it.

Oddly, a little after pre-purchasing, ArenaNet’s policy on this changed where they’ll revert and unban the account, but only for those buying fraudulent keys.

PR online. Gemstore online. Thread ignore mode, online. All systems nominal.

I have to say, your video kinda shows why shatter mesmer is not a good solo queue spec.

You were doing pretty good in every fight. However, you never really utilized your portal well. W/O portal play, shatter mesmer is not that impactful in the gameplay. I would say you would be much better off with a dragonhunter or reaper.

You were complaining team losing fight at 8:12. But it is not the reason your team was losing.

You guys won the first teamfight because one opponent team member was killing boss. Then after the first teamfight, the rotation completely fell apart. Your engi teammate pushed far. But no one went together with him. This is extremely risky because all the dead enemy players are respawning. He indeed ended up dying.

Then both bunker mesmers were sitting at mid doing nothing. He clearly didn’t even learn PvP 101: almost never sit on a cap doing nothing. They were the main reasons you guys could win teamfights. However, their inaction resulted in a very bad fight at home node. You guys did end up getting home node back, but only by having quite a few deaths over the map and then respawn to home node.

My advise is don’t move, stay put. There’s going to be a major update and overhaul of WvW in the not too distant future which depending on what is going to happen might mean switching would be a waste of gold/gems.

You’re in bottom gold, there’s only really 6 servers you could move to that may not be completely empty on the BLs and even then the friends I see on deso and FSP are usually in EB.

You like the community on Gandara so stick with it, that’s what matters most of the time, not the rest of the stuff.

John Corpening didn’t rule out gliding in WvW in the Guild Chat interview, he simply said they had other priorities to fix first… and I agree with this. I’ll take my icing after the cake is baked properly.

However he didn’t then go on to mention these other priorities are the overly complex maps and a falling player population so who knows what will happen.