Guild Wars 2

It’s more convenience than cost-effectiveness. Getting one means you never have to use up extra slots in your bag for spare picks, and you never have to worry about finding an ori or rich ori node and run out of picks before you finish off the node.

Given that you can also convert gold to gems, it was a no-brainer to withdraw some gold and drop it on one, if only for the quality of life boost.

A trinity system doesn’t make for much more exciting combat. It just creates a privileged minority out of tanks and healers. So now, instead of a dungeon group just falling apart because of rampant stupidity and failure, it can also fall apart because of primadonnas rage-quitting when you don’t bend to their will.

There are only two ways I know to achieve permanence of events (or the illusion of such).

WoW has/had a phasing scheme where you would complete certain events and then you would be permanently shifted to a different “phase” where something that changed on the map would stay changed.

Of course, this is unsustainable for a large number of independent events, and it has some really annoying quirks like being unable to see party members who are standing on the same spot on the map who have a different set of completed events than you.

The other alternative is true permanence, where the outcome of an event for one group of players actually changes the map for all players. This would allow each server to organically change according to events that occur and do so in any number of ways. It involves allowing for NPC deaths and building/terrain destruction.

The potential issue with this is if your world/realm/server gets into an irrecoverable state – for instance, if Jade Quarry decided to sit out Claw of Jormag events, only to discover that the dragon wiped out every waypoint on the map, with no hope of allied forces re-taking them.

Imagine starting a game months (or years) after release, only to discover that the game is unplayable because of the state that previous players left it in. Or just as bad – there’s nothing to do because the previous players already eliminated the enemy.

If you want raw power, I suggest heading for Warrior. While Elementalist isn’t bad, Warrior is hands-down more powerful in DPS. This class is still on the chopping-block with the upcoming AoE nerfs, so it’s only going to get weaker, and Warriors are nerf-proof in PvE.

As with every MMO out there: pick the plate-wearing melee.

You could get exotic weapons and forge them for a shot at precursors, but I second Zudet’s response – why didn’t you purchase keys as you picked up the commendations?

By the way, the casual gamer title is a tough sell with that many commendations on hand

The reason I mentioned RAM is because that’s the stated reason many MMO devs gave for the stack limits – it’s an attempt to save on resources, because you have to allocate memory for every DoT stack on every boss fight in every instance going on in a given moment. If resources were not a limiting factor, you could have each DoT stack behave independently, which is extremely simple to do.

The wicked witch got put into a downed state because she cast tornado.

woeye.2753:

Also in WoW DoTs rarely stack. Most DoTs work like poision or burning. Applying a DoTs in WoW typically resets the timer. And in many cases a DoT consist of an initial direct damage component and the damage over time component, like 100 initial damage followed by 400 damage over 10 seconds.

Since DoTs do rarely stack in WoW multiple players of the same class can “stack” the same DoT on a mob, e.g. ten priests can put up to ten Shadow Word: Pain DoTs on a mob.

Actually, some burning effects (e.g. ignite) did stack, and they did so very poorly. It was the bane of the mage class, because fire mages had an undocumented, random damage nerf due to flaky ignite mechanics.

The way it was supposed to work was that 40% of a critical strike’s damage from a fire spell would be added to a single stack of Ignite on the target, which ticked away over a few seconds. Subsequent critical strikes would increase the intensity of the ignite stack for the duration of overlap.

For example,. 400 ignite damage ticking for 100/sec over 4 seconds would jump to 200/sec if another 1k damage critical occurred. If the first one had already been ticking for 2 seconds when the second was applied, the damage would tick away as follows: 100, 100, 200, 200, 100, 100. This was casually referred to as rolling ignites.

What actually happened is that a critical could reset the dot timer. It would cause a small delay as to when the ticks would fire, but it would not properly extend the expiration timer on the existing ignite stacks, depriving the caster of ignite damage ticks. Sometimes it meant that ignites ticking away for large damage would be reset for much smaller ticks.

So, an example scenario could be that a 10k damage crit occurs at time 0 and starts ticking for 1k a second for 4 seconds, then a 100 damage crit occurs 2.25 seconds later. The damage would then tick as follows: 1k (1s), 1k (2s), 1010 (3.25s), 10 (4.25s), 10 (5.25s), 10 (6.25s). In that case, you just lost 1k damage because of the timer reset.

DoTs are notoriously badly handled in MMOs in general, and I’m sure they are a synchronization nightmare. Sometime in the (hopefully not-to-distant) future, memory will be available in large enough quantities that they can simply be stacked without bound and the problems mostly go away.

It’s a suicide elite even without the buggy behavior with confusion.

Soulbind the legendaries and precursors, remove them from the loot tables, and institute an epic quest line to get the precursors. Market manipulation and determinism solved. With a sufficiently long/difficult quest line, the argument of effort is solved as well.

The trouble with RNG drops is that there’s always a few people who get lucky early, then simultaneously rub everyone’s noses in it and argue about how much of a crime it is that anyone else should ever get it.

IndigoSundown.5419:

There sure are a lot of complaints about drop rates. I’ve seen a lot of nebulous requests for better drops, but other than “drop DR,” nothing specific. So, what exactly would people like to see from drops? How often “should” desirable drops drop? For that matter, what constitutes a desirable drop?

For starters, make the value proposition even across the board. For a time, I would run dungeons (primarily FoTM) nightly. It was great – I made enough money to feel satisfied that I could actually afford to save up and purchase things if I was patient and put the time in.

Fast forward to recent weeks, where I don’t get enough time to do much but the daily achievements. Game world drops are abysmal in comparison with dungeons. I can spend an hour or two online and make little more than the cost of repairs and waypointing, aside from the ori and ancient wood I gather, which still isn’t worth much.

Case in point: Southsun Cove
Occasionally, on a whim, I would take the time to hunt the veteran karka after hitting up the rich ori node. I would get nothing perhaps 2/3 of the time. When I would get drops, it would be grays with maybe 1 or 2 karka shells to show for a 30-45min hunt. I have tried it twice since the Jan patch and it’s no different, despite the promise that vets should always drop something.

With how disappointing world drops are, I don’t really have the motivation to play anymore.

havoc.6814:

@ATMAvatar: If you had bothered to read my original post, you would know that I do not support a generic AOE nerf, and stated quite specifically that single target skill options were needed in som skill sets. Thank you for your tips, but I already know how to deal with AOE. Often I am “that elementalist” you’re giving me advice against. Do you honestly expect a warrior for example, who neads to be on his target to do damage, to run out of every red circle? That poor warrior would never get anything done if he followed your rather poor advice. Lol, they are too easy to kill already….. Trying to hide the OPness of AoE behind the broken stealth tactics of thieves? Really? Is that your best argument? Why dont you actually go read my post, and then try to think beyond your own character?

I did read your post. You seem to lack the understanding of how AoE works and what it is intended to do. You lack the understanding of the downsides of AoE in the game as it stands currently, because your arguments entirely depend on the idea that you should be able to stand in AoE and survive. It’s clearly OP because you can’t ignore it.

AoE, as its name implies, is for area denial. If you refuse to leave the area that AoE covers, you need to L2P. It isn’t very difficult.

With that in mind, yes, I expect the warrior to run out of the red circle, swap to a ranged weapon, and attack that way if there are too many area spells in effect on his/her target. That’s the primary purpose of AoE.

havoc.6814:

This is exactly what I expected. Scream L2P in rediculous defense of your abuse of an OP tactic. If you knew how to play, you wouldn’t need this crutch, so right back at you.

Elementalists have nothing but AoE, with the exception of 2 or 3 skills across all weapon sets. Using AoE isn’t a crutch – it’s a necessity due to the lack of alternatives.

All AoE have red circle indicators for you to move out of quickly to minimize damage. Most AoE, especially many of the Elementalist AoE, has delayed damage, allowing the alert player to move out before any damage occurs. Many AoE spells introduce varying opportunity costs, such as long cast times and/or rooting the caster.

A good example is Meteor Shower – it has a 4 second channel (which can be interrupted), roots the Elementalist for the duration of the cast, has a large red ring, has an unmistakable flashy effect, and the random nature of the meteors could even mean that the intended target never gets hit.

Contrast that sharply with a Thief, which can stealth, wait for a player, then unload 15+k single-target damage inside a few seconds.

So yes, it is very much a L2P issue.

• Be aware of your surroundings.
• Run out of red circles if you are taking too much damage.
• Learn to dodge.
• Avoid choke points by using siege to open up multiple paths, or run through them quickly rather than standing still.
• Learn to heavily utilize blast combos with teammates’ water, ethereal, and light fields.
• And don’t let that Elementalist stand in one place and cast big AoEs uncontested.

A whole lot more context is needed for your anecdote, I’m afraid.

• What dungeon was it?
• Was it a story dungeon or explorable?
• What gear did each person in the group have?
• What professions were you and your friend?
• What weapons did each person in the group use?

There are plenty of explanations for your experience, the most likely of which is that one (or more) of your group were playing sub-optimally.

Without more information, we cannot really draw any conclusions about game balance.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

WvW is PvE.
get over it already.

I know Stormbluff Isle Invader looks like an NPC and even sometimes acts like an NPC (with broken AI), but he/she is not an NPC.

I second the sentiment that it would be preferable for the dailies/monthlies to be separated better. If I want to do nothing but PvE, I should be able to do so. If I want to do nothing but WvW, I should be able to do that as well. If I want to stick to sPvP… well, you get the idea.

Inkubus.7529:

Small correction, Churning Earth doesn’t root enemy, it cripple enemy. So, using Hundred blades still can be effective if not too far from ele. Having in mind Churning Earth is PBAoE, enemy it is near ele.

While technically correct, I think his point is that it roots the ele casting the skill for the full duration. The cripple is just a (not so effective) means of keeping enemies in the circle for that cast time.

Jski.6180:

Well if they just simply make AoE only hit 5 ppl and 5 ppl only like most boons / support skills i think they will get a good handle on the AoE vs single target skills.

AoE already only hits 5 people.

Xenon.4537:

Last night I saw first hand the crazy power of AoE that Anet seems to be worried about. We (Dragonbrand) were attacking Anz tower in EBG and they (Maguuma) seemed to have maybe 4-5 people only inside defending. When we breached the wall and got to the stairs, we were hit by a massive surprise attack. The stairs were a choke point and they were simply painted with a blur of particle effects. There must have been a good 50 of us in the zerg and most of us were killed right there in the opening seconds.

Remember that player AoE skills are limited to 5 targets. If you got wiped out that quickly, there were a) several more than 4-5, all using siege for AoE or b) LOTS more than 4-5 (likely hidden due to culling issues).

In the particular case of AoE:

One of the biggest issues in WvW right now is the fact that zerging is the end-all-be-all of gameplay. Nerfing AoE only makes the problem worse.

As far as my own profession (Elementalist) goes in general – it nerfs specs which are already weak in general (staff/scepter) and in conjunction with what seem like inevitable nerfs to survivability (to reign in bunker eles), there’s a real good chance the profession is going the way of the Engineer (or worse).

All of this is speculation based upon vague information given a little over a week ago, so the fears could be completely overblown. We won’t know until Monday.

For reference, Meteor Shower has a base 30 second cooldown and a 4.25 second cast time. You can get its cooldown to 24 seconds if you take Pyromancer’s Alacrity, but that means you would have to go 20 points minimum into fire.

I just thought I would clear that up, since “a few” players keeping Meteor Shower going non-stop really means 5+. If your zerg is actually fighting back and forcing them to heal rather than letting them stand in place unopposed, it means there are even more players than that.

Grevender.9235:

this is completely wrong: AoE classes are nearly fine as they are, just add some combo field for protection for the other classes and problem solved.

Combos with light fields give retaliation to everyone in the area, which absolutely wrecks someone using AoE. Guardians are the most well-known to have light fields, but Mesmers, Engineers, and Necromancers give light fields as well (see http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Light_field).

Ironically, the profession balance is such that the only profession which reliably uses (or often times, even knows about) combos is the Elementalist, because it’s the only one which needs to use them to be effective.

jobah.7241:

And why are all the Elementalists so mad. Are you so sure that you will be the victims? Or do you just like to hate?

That’s simple. Nearly every elementalist skill is AoE.

Many people notice only the big, flashy AoE spells eles have, but when you go skill for skill, there’s only a half dozen or so single-target skills across all weapon sets for the profession.

One of the statements made in the talk was that AoE was going to be toned down in general, and if taken seriously, that means that elementalists can look forward to an across-the-board damage nerf.

Of course, there have also been conflicting statements made that the devs will look at skills on a case-by-case basis, so it’s hard to know what to think.

Also keep in mind that none of the balance team plays an ele.

Calsifer.6079:

It gets you more kill credits and more participation and there’s nothing you can do about that.

Even that statement is not true in all cases. The 5 target limit can often times randomize where your damage goes, ensuring you don’t reach the damage threshold to get loot.

Superman:
started from middle chord

Krypton Theme:
8-4-(9)7-(0)4-7-8-(0)2-(9)7 (repeated)

Superman March (only got about halfway so far):
[brass]
4-4(9)7(0)4-4
7-4-(9)7
(0)4-4(9)7(0)4-4
(0)211
(9)4-4(9)7(0)4-4
7-4-(9)7
(0)444 555 (0)5 44 [this is a little off – no sharps or flats]

[strings]
(9)777-777-77777-777-777-77777
(0)333-333-33333
555-555-55555
4-7-(0)1-4
444-444-44444-444-444-44444 [need sharps/flats]

[brass]
(9)44-7-7(0)4-45434
(9)444-7-7(0)4-453154
(9)77777-(0)6-4
(9)777-(0)6-4
(9)777-(0)6-5-6-7-(9)777777

44-7-7(0)4-45434
(9)444-7-7(0)4-453154
(9)77777-(0)6-4
(9)777-(0)6-4
(9)777-(0)6-5-6-7-(9)777777

[strings]
(9)77-8 – 88(0)3-2-1-5-44
(9)777-8 – 88(0)764-5314
(9)777-8 – 88(0)3-2-1-6-5-6-7
(9)7-(0)2-4-7-6-7-8
(9)7-(0)2-4-(0)3-22

LF1M AC story must be level 80 and have at least 30 AR will inspect.

Rebinding the revive function to something else would be great.

Equally good, though, would be to give us an option to kick a downed player aside so we can pick up what we need to. I leave it to the devs to figure out how an Asura like myself would kick a Charr or Norn very far without mechanical assistance.

Catisa.6507:

And how is that any different when I need to swap from GS & specter/focus to GS & scepter/pistol?
AS I said above, ALL classes need an addition to the UI for quickslots for weapon swapping or consumables or minis or whatever the player wants to put in there. Stop trying to fix one class when all classes go through the same issues.

It isn’t, which is precisely why you’ll notice my comment above asking it be done for all weapon combinations across all professions, much like Litego just did.

GummiBear.2756:

read the whole thread again and you notice quite a few ppl bringing bagspace up as an argument, (not all no, but still quite a few does)

I don’t see that many people talking about bag space. In fact, a quick find-in-page revealed two people aside from you mentioned it at all, and neither of them made it a core part of their request.

The aggravation is having to fish through your bags to change weapons. It gets worse when you want to swap from staff to one of our main/off combos (D/D, D/F, S/D, S/F), because the second weapon won’t take up a slot next to the first unless you take the time to constantly maintain your bag slots.

I think there is an out-of-whack loot table, and it varies from map to map as well.

Just spend some time in southsun cove, and watch as the veteran karka only drop things maybe 1/2 the time (when soloing to eliminate cases where the damage threshold isn’t met), and when they do, it’s usually worthless grey items. The only real incentive to spend time there is for the daily run to the rich ori node.

Alternatively, they could simply let players designate which priority the action key takes for which actions.

I would very much like to configure the game to prioritize picking things up over resurrecting players after the vast number of times I’ve been downed at Jade Maw because someone died on top of a crystal.

I propose a modified version: allow all classes to define any number of out-of-combat sets they like.

For consistency in the game interface, you could let those professions (read: most) which can in-combat swap simply designate a second set out of the larger set to be used for in-combat swapping. The primary in-combat set would be whatever set is currently selected.

When out-of-combat, ~ cycles between all weapon sets. When in-combat, ~ only cycles between the designated sets.

Add the bell to the gem store. Not all of us were so lucky with presents ;/

You’re glossing over one if the biggest problems with the trinity setup: it creates primadonnas.

It vastly cheapens the experience for the majority of the player base and places a minority on a pedestal, allowing them to do as they please at the expense of everyone else. It was quite common to have a tank or a healer hold their group hostage. If you failed to bend to a tank or healer’s demands, they’d drop, forcing you to spend sometimes a half hour or more looking for a replacement, as often as not breaking up the group before one could be found.

True, there were some interesting mechanics you could introduce as a result of the trinity, but I can’t say I miss any of it. Groups in GW2 aren’t perfect (e.g. I refuse to do PuG fractals anymore), but they’re better than the alternative.

jportell.2197:

Which is saying the tornado is overly powerful because confusion just redirects damage that you would do to the target back onto you when you use the skill… its a defense mechanism as well as good for destroying overpowered zealots.

No.

He is saying confusion is bugged when it interacts with some skills, resulting in a large amount of incoming damage in a short period of time that most players would not expect from a condition.

Confusion is a powerful enough condition that it does not need to rely on buggy behavior. It should be fixed, and if that makes Mesmers too weak as a result, they should be propped-up in other ways. Class balance should not rely on buggy skills.

Rather than having a similar walk effect, why not leave bloody footprints?

The problem with having meters is that once it is in place, everyone but the most casual of groups will feel obligated to live and die by the meter.

It’s nice to have an objective measure to gauge myself and to challenge myself, and it would be interesting to see how the professions stack up. However, it’s been shown multiple times that the gaming community at large is incapable of handling meters.

Selling ultra-rare items for gems would be a nice solution. I could see myself footing the bill for some gems for a few things if I was guaranteed to get what I want (e.g. the unbreakable chorus bell).

Unfortunately, the rings for perfect relics system only partially addresses the issue. In order to progress much further, you need infused rings, which require RNG 20 daily drops or RNG vial/glob/shard drops.

One way to address the latter would be to allow players to purchase vials for perfect relics directly. Another way would be to allow players to salvage rings (which could be purchased with perfect relics) for vials/globs/shards. Yet another way would be to allow players to purchase infused rings with perfect relics.

However, you also need to address the issue of RNG vial/glob drops to forge the backpiece. The first two options above address this, but the last one doesn’t.

Finally, you have the issue of rings being useless once you get the two infused rings you want. Allowing players to salvage the rings and get vials from them addresses this issue as well as the other two issues above. It’s the best idea of the three I presented, but I am certainly open to alternatives.

I would be happy salvaging the rings for ectos and vials, then having forge recipes for the skins.

MarzAttakz.9608:

… although since the oldest field gets blasted in it is a moot point.

Honestly, if multiple people put out overlapping fields, it would be nice if the blast could finish all of them simultaneously. It might be an incentive for people to actually use their blast finishers.

TWMagimay.9057:

Did you try…mentioning that? I’ve been in parties with a lot of thieves. Today, for the first time one of them decided to share that “i got lots of blast finishers, lay fields for me”. And sine I have spammable fire and water field…the two of us maintained 25 might stacks on the party and the bosses were melting. That happened only because he had the bright idea of informing the non-thieves that he’s really good at blasting.

I wish I could run into more players like that, honestly. Outside of incidental blasts by people just running through their skills, the only blast finishers that occur for my fields when playing staff support are my own blast finishers (eruption and arcane wave). I would actually go so far as to say we should start a thread to call out people who do exceptionally well at finishing fields because of how rare it seems to be.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Yea, who the hell are you playing against that puts trebs in an area that can be hit by meteor storm?

I’m more curious to know which world you’re on where you can count on people to spend their time and resources to deflect treb fire for zero reward. I’m lucky if I can get someone to help build anything, let alone give up any badges/honor on a defense that also doesn’t achieve anything more than buy time. About the only thing I can count on is a group of people following around a commander on the field.

I don’t know if I would be quite as strict about the tiers, but I agree it would be pretty awful if I started regularly getting people with 0 AR in my fractal 20 daily groups. Unfortunately, that’s precisely what I see happening.

With as many people as I run into who don’t know the mechanics in my 20 daily groups already, this would be a deal breaker. It may open up people to play with friends, but it does mean that no one in their right mind is going to be running PuGs in fractals anymore.

What’s really needed is a mechanism to see what the max progression is for each character in the party, so a group can choose whether to allow a lesser-progressed person in or not. This allows friends to stick together while preventing PuGs from suffering (more than usual, at least).

I’d personally rather have those 3 eles equip staves and burn down the trebuchet. It’s pretty rare I see one set up where I cannot hit it with meteor storm, and it’s usually in a bad enough spot I can hit it with lava font and eruption, too.

Asking people to sit around using an ability that earns them neither karma nor badges (nor xp) is silly, especially if it makes no forward progress.

If one of you is in an overflow server, you can party up and join each other in the same overflow server to accomplish this.

A corollary to 2):
In fractals, learn all the fights before progressing to later tiers. If you make it to 20+ and do not know the mechanics, do everyone a favor and go back to the lower tiers. Not knowing basic mechanics sub-10 and some of the additional mechanics 10-15 is forgivable, but at 20+, each player is expected to know what they are doing.

As none of the other dungeons have similar progression mechanics, this applies only to fractals.

I would prefer they group the available fractals into three distinct groups based upon difficulty and/or length and ensure that you get one of each group during a run. Getting dredge, grawl, and cliffside all together really sucks when compared against the luck of getting underwater, swamp, and ascalon, if only because you’ll take twice as long (or longer!) on the former versus the latter.

In general, I like it. It does wear thin that it’s universally better to drop target when using Fiery Rush, but you have to have a target for Fiery Eruption to land where you want it.

This doesn’t require a wipe. If your party gathers crystals up front and inserts them before starting the fight, the same thing happens.