Guild Wars 2

fadeaway.2807:

Nike does have a point.

The decision to ignore defensive stats and load up on offensive stats SHOULD mean you deal a lot of damage and die easily.
That is exactly what zerker gear does. You have low hp, no mitigation, and massive dps.

Not true. Zerker have low hp, massive dps while retaining the same level of active defense of a tanky build.

Low hp/defense is not obvious because OHKO from boss pretty much ignore that entirely.
You can wear full soldier yet still die to lupi if you don’t dodge red circles.

Dodge/evade/invul/reflect/block/perma-vigor > tank stats anyday. And these are independent from gear.

What soldier gear will save you from is sustained damage like conditions or environment degen like the toxic whatever or anything that hit you constantly. These rarely exist in dungeon.

In trade for the loss of armor/hp, zerker gains dps which shortens the time you have to fight the mobs, reduce the number of times you have to dodge. With the right setup you can kill some mobs before even having to dodge. So you can say in some battles, having zerker gear is less risky than a tanky gear.

Atherakhia.4086:

Necromancers have a ton of AE in their marks and wells. You have several skills to AE conditions. You have a utility to spread conditions. You have a piercing staff. You can make Death Shroud #1 pierce.

Perhaps ANet feels this is enough AE for your class? I could see increasing damage on Staff #1, but I don’t think you need more AE or Cleave.

Wells are decent aoe but their CD is way too long so it’s more of bursting.

Marks are mostly for utilities and condition. Mark of blood does less dps than s/d.

Epidemic spreads whatever is on your target and that’s it. Any further condition applications are not transferred. So the spreaded bleeds in fact wear out fairly quickly.

Staff 1 is horrible damage.

Very hard to line mobs up in a line for you to take full effect of the DS1 pierce.

Either run when anything starts to happen, like when you see your side has more and more downed players than enemy then it’s probably the time to flee.

Or fight till the last breath.

Most importantly, stick to the dorito.

Frye.4608:

So, reading this thread as an outsider who never pve’s, if all this is true, then you would think that bringing one tanky player into a group of zerkers will make the zerkers job harder. Makes you wonder if it’s really the zerkers who are ‘leet’.

Nope. Zerker is not the one to blame. It’s the pve mechanics. I see some people are nervous about the change and trying to call anyone supporting anet’s decision by calling them “zerkernerfer”. But the fact is we are trying to make other builds more useful (or less a dead weight if you want to call it that way), not nerfing zerker.

I wouldn’t say stealth being a replacement for evade. But last time I checked s/d thief has an evade skill. A heal that also gives evade. I dunno others evade/invul/vigor/block skills as I’m still leveling my thief but I know there are at least 2 evades.

somsom.5201:

fadeaway.2807:

You play a sword focus reflect mesmer and don’t already consider yourself bringing the control and support you want so badly? To me that’s precisely what control and support is. You control the mobs into a corner/wall using focus, and you support your team with reflections. Why do you feel you need tank stats to be viable to accomplish this?

Exactly this. Why is there this notion that you NEED tank stats ALONG with dps stats? That just isn’t going to happen.

With the way PvE is setup, it makes more sense to gear towards DPS stats and group utility traits. People seem to want both survival stats, utilities, and “support” for their group. News flash: that isn’t going to happen. You can’t have your Celestial and eat it too.

People are too focused on old trinity mechanics of stat based dmg mitigation. Get with the flow: dps is a form of dmg mitigation, party utilities(ie non-selfish) are dmg mitigation. It’s like “peace through superior firepower”.

People need to either wake up and adapt or they need to go back to whatever trinity based MMO they came from.

And I think that lays some of the problems. I mentioned above and I’ll say again. Right now reflect/evade/aegis etc are pretty much independent from stats. Yes, boon duration affect to some degree but not game changing. Trait passive isn’t that important either. Result in any build can bring those “supports” without sacrificing much stats.

And no, it’s not right. A build becomes imba when it can access too many things at once. For example in pvp, the old hambow having access to good damage ALSO good cc, now you know what happen to them. Same in pve, if a class has good utilities like reflect, the dps or other stats should be bought down to equal it out. Right now, I don’t see it balanced this way. Warrior has great party buff while having good burst dps, many evade skills, god mobilities. Guardian has awesome reflects, party support, block/vigor/aegis in the world while having good dps.

I want it on my dreamcast too!

Bright.9160:

Finnway.2183:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Still waiting to hear what the “problem” is. In a good player’s hands, pve dps builds are objectively superior.

SO WHAT? Please explain why and how this is a “problem” that requires “fixing.”

It’s not how the game was advertised. We were told “any class can play any role” and right now that is ludicrous because DPS builds are far superior to anything else.

Right now people are tired of face-rolling through content to farm gold. The fact that DPS builds are the only viable ones is part of that equation. If I had three viable builds on my Guardian each with different stats I might be inclined to earn different armor sets and unlock cosmetics for them.

The way the game works right now do you think combat is better or worse than other MMORPG’s you have played? I’m asking for your perspective on this.

Some classes are better at some of those roles than others, but all in all, they’re fairly balanced.

They are balanced around PVP only. No I’m not saying PVP has perfect balance, that will never happen, but at least they shift the meta around. Anyway, classes in pve ain’t balanced. Certain classes have much more say “active defense” than others. Also 90+% of the “active defense” ie reflect, vigor, evade don’t require much stats sacrifice. And control is complete kitten in pve thanks to unshakable. Healing is unimportant due to the OHKO. Conditions are constantly being cleansed from boss. People are punished because they invested in anything other than DPS. And some classes are unwanted because they excel in something irrelevant in pve.

PvE will always revolve around maximizing DPS output. I honestly don’t understand what you people are asking for. If they nerf zerker (which they probably won’t) the next best thing will take it’s place. If they buff other setups, they will be weighed against the current zerker setup, if they’re better, the meta will change, if they’re not, it won’t.

People ain’t asking them to “nerf zerker” and I think some people get nervous because the meta may change. I don’t think it will change much but I do hope for any small steps towards a better balance. I hope one day an full ascended tank can actually tank. I hope unshakable gets rework so you can actually control bosses. I hope reflect/vigor/evade/etc cost more so you can’t have the full effect of them with any build. I hope bosses have less OHKO and more sustain to make healing/toughness/vit more viable. An additional hope, that AI is cleverer to not stand in aoe all the time.

kyubi.3620:

maybe allow pet to scale with power? youd bring decent damage as well as a somewhat efficient way to control crowds

I don’t think it would help much. More (direct) damage is always welcome but that’s not what we lack the most. Control still has minimal impact if unshakable stays the current way.

Think I saw them before. Loading screen, character creation, trailer, something along that?

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

It’s just too many times in a small group fight that a target goes down that I’m focusing and I finally get a decent amount of stacks up over the course of 10-20 seconds due to the amount of condition cleanses and I either just miss epidemic (where I get the “invulnerable” text to pop up after casting) or I now have to either risk stomping or slowly build the stacks again. It’s just difficult to seal the deal when one other person rez’ing my target can easily get them back up.

I’ll just try to come up with a way to cope. I may have to drop Signet of the Locust and grab the well of darkness but it’s on a crazy 50 second timer.

I think if I could stomp/rez in DS, it may make it a little easier. Or just some more access to stability.

Indeed, and I find it rather hard to 1v2+ because of this.

Yea the reward is definitely nerfed in fractured.

It’s annoying whenever conditions get cleansed. But if it’s not cleansed, target with a high bleed stack already built will melt without stomping or any further action from you, so I understand.

agree the duration is fine, but the CD kills it.

you can still shroud stomp by DS then immediately (almost instantly) stomp.

I hate leveling even for my first character. I’m so ruined by GW1.

I hate dredge, I hate dredge fractal, I hate paper.

I have to adjust my TP habit just to get fewer of this. No point going certain markets if this stops me from listing.

Julie Yann.5379:

Afya.5842:

I don’t think the game is even using all of DX9’s potential. Yes DX11 can support more texture and effect, but it doesn’t mean GW2 will automatically have more texture after switching to DX11. Dev will need to make more detailed models.

But DX11 would allow a more efficient use of multi-core processors which would greatly improve game performance.

True. But it still comes down to optimization, from both game side and driver side. It can do amazing performance difference but can also do absolutely nothing.

ofc I will welcome them to go DX11, especially if it means offloading the calculation more to the GPU. But I can see why it isn’t in the first priority. Let’s hope

I don’t think the game is even using all of DX9’s potential. Yes DX11 can support more texture and effect, but it doesn’t mean GW2 will automatically have more texture after switching to DX11. Dev will need to make more detailed models.

At launch, I have my necro at the pipe event in queensdale. It was overscaled due to whatever reason and it has mobs that out level everyone, making it hard even with that amount of people. People actually asked me and other necros to keep boons off mobs. Also mesmer.

But then I never hear such things again. Over the months, necro’s impression became condition only and no one wants in pve; mesmer became portal/blink machine; Thief was THE dps back then but now it’s warrior; Ranger pet was the tank; Guardian was the protector/healer but it’s now narrowing into reflect.

Ofc, those ain’t necessarily effective builds, but it sure is more interesting. Imho, PVE balance is long overdue. The zerker centric gamestyle is hurting the community. They really need to bring control/support back into pve.

ChaosKirin.1328:

IS THAT what’kittenting me on the platform after the exploding presents? Wind!? God that’s irritating. You can’t see it coming. There’s no method to avoid it. You CANNOT dodge-roll ‘cuz you’ll dodge right of the platform. Every single time I get to that platform, I get hit by wind. The only thing I can do is to go to the far right of the platform so I don’t get blown off. But because the wind HURTS you, that doesn’t leave you enough time to get to the end of the puzzle.

It’s the stupidest mechanic since torment.

If I’m exercising my skill in a jumping puzzle, I shouldn’t be penalized because random.

Just dodge forward at that single spot. I dodge every single time without seeing if there is wind or not.

One thing I miss the most from GW1 is the build synergy. Yes, GW2 has combo but it’s nothing more than giving buffs/debuffs. In GW1, you heavily rely on your teammates. Making the team more “close”. I know it’s something they intentionally removed from GW2, but I still miss it.

And people have been reporting to get stuffings from gift.

Sirendor.1394:

Because condition damage… does not go away when you dodge, while direct damage does?

You can dodge condition attack. Dodged that attack = dodged 2000 dmg in the following 5 secs.

Kojiden.8405:

It would be an easy JP is other people didn’t kill me by jumping on the packages.

They won’t kill you. If you’re already jumping on the presents, and they start after you, it’s them who get killed. You should have more than enough time to finish.

This is just stupid. I’m not here to argue whether Wintersday is Christmas. It IS NOT, period. So don’t put argument like “Christmas time is a time of giving.” Or “Get in the effing Xmas spirit.”

And donation isn’t necessarily in pure money form. You can donate food, clothes, etc. which would be better in game because you earn those stuffs from completing wintersday activities. And that encourages people to participate more in the event. The gold option however, drives people off the event because wintersday activities don’t reward gold.
(ofc you will come up with the argument that earning gold and buying sweaters would be the fastest method, or to sell the stuffs from wintersday to buy gold , blahblahblah.)

edit: Not gonna create anymore reply because it’s just stupid to argue about that. I just don’t get why some people always try to use the meta as an argument. An achievement is an achievement, when did I ever mention the word meta?

This is Wintersday not Christmas! It’s the celebration of moving from the Grenth season to Dwayna season! We are NOT celebrating the birth of Jesus!
Dwayna sends presents and Grenth destroy them. It’s never Dwayna sends money nor Grenth stealing them……
The dolyak to divinity reach carries presents only. And inside it’s only some old ugly clothing, not gold bar. So tell me where the heck did the gold go?

I said it many times, if it’s like a thousand sweaters, which probably worth more than 3g, I’m absolutely fine with it.

Phy.2913:

It’s hard to balance. Like, really hard /15

My job is so hard I’m just gonna leave it \(^0^)/

tweeve.3782:

at lvl 35 you can just run AC a few times and you will have more than enough money.

Which is absolutely unrelated to the LS. Make it a tons of sweaters or gift and I’m ok with that. It’s grindy like some achievements we had previously, but at least it’s related to wintersday. 3 straight gold!? No thanks.

Created 2 short clips, hope they help. I like the wintersday JP and I hope everyone can enjoy it

http://youtu.be/RRHgolaue3w
http://youtu.be/KBiM7j0Qi0s

Mystic.5934:

regarding #4: I’d like to turn your attention to the Fashion achievements.
essentially, they are 5 AP for each full set of cultural armor. If you get all of them, that’s 130 AP for 90 cultural armors (from tier 1-3)
Tier 1 costs 2g88s
Tier 2 costs 7g10s
Tier 3 costs 119g
for 5 full sets (one for each race), that’s 644g90s
I believe you can sell them back to a merchant for like 1/15 of their cost, so your net expense is 601g90s66c
basically you’re paying 4g63s PER ACHIEVEMENT POINT

now tell me again how paying 3g3s for 30 AP (10s10c per AP) is outrageous. You certainly don’t have to do it, as you can just do dailies instead. So the only reason you would do it is if you are AP hunting, in which case there is no cost high enough to keep you from your goal.

other responses:
1. I wish wp cost was higher. it’s too convenient imho. I find myself wping within the same zone far too often – get out and see the scenery!
2. the market would be far too unpredictable without TP fees. for starters, there would always be 1c difference between buy and sell prices (what with everyone undercutting each other every 10 seconds because relisting is free)
3. you can make money. you’re just not supposed to be making 40g/hour from farming temporary bosses. makes the game too easy and you stop playing. it’s for your own good.

I think you’ve missed the point. It is not about g/AP. But it’s just a lazy achievement. It is unrelated to the theme and you don’t get the gold from wintersday. If it’s limited to sweaters, no matter it’s 3g worth or even ridiculous amount, I would have no problem with that. But 3 pure gold? It’s lazy work from the developer for lazy players.

For PVE, give monsters the GW1 mobs intelligence. Teach them how to rainbow spike, how to scatter from hundred blades, how to drop protection on front liners.
And ofc, revamp defiant.

Mystic.5934:

you don’t need to make it to the end before health runs out. you need to make it to the peppermint platform that tixx is next to (just before the stairway of presents).
when you are on that platform, you are healed to full and don’t take damage. you can then talk to him for some choices. after the stairway is the snowballs – you need to be patient for that one, but quick as well
I think I’m a pretty good jumper and I make it to his platform with about 2500 hp left (about 15%). That is close to the fastest it can be done in. so not a lot of time to lollygag. using a mouse for turning is a requirement. Basically the only time I’m not holding down the forward key is for those two candy canes sticking out of the wall.

I usually have 4k hp left for mid or right path. I’m on a necro maybe that’s why?

For the planking bug, dodge roll and you’re good. It also happens sometimes outside the JP after you fall.

last, it’s not xmas. It’s wintersday

I agree to 4)
gold for achievement is just lazy design

I think you’re thinking too much……

People only fight in middle because they simply don’t know what the heck they are doing. Or they enjoy fighting people. Also fighting in the mid still contribute to the team as you secure the next gift, especially if the last one is surely safe or alrdy over. Sometimes I even tell people to go straight back down to mid.

You get the same thing in pvp that people just fight not cap. I don’t believe many think that far to intentionally lose a match to get the achievement. And afk will just be kicked very quick, ofc you can report those anyway.

Necrochild.1497:

Eh, we just got a crappy new skill. Short end of the stick, sure, considering there were some cool things that other classes got, but this isn’t the only new skill we’re ever going to get.

Maybe we’ll get the better skill next time, and truthfully (as far as healing skills go) it’s going to be hard to replace consume conditions no matter what the skill is.

Personally, I would just like Flesh Golem to learn how to use his flippers underwater.

No. I won’t make the mistake again. I shouldn’t expect anything awesome for necro and I did the wrong thing for hoping the signet will be at least good in pve for damage buff.

Try it anyway.

wvw:
necro is probably one of the top or at least mid-top zerg class.
roaming not as good because of mobility but viable

pve:
open world solo, every build is fine.
normal dungeon pug, do fine because team have few buffs and people running soldier gear do less damage than you.
fractal, not very good imo. In some fractal, it’s fine. Problem is we have no reflect, no invul, no vigor. Condition is too slow to do dmg when every one including pug in higher level run zerker. Zerker necro has no cleave that after the two wells you’re left with single target attack. Debuff conditions which should be good against bosses are reduced by defiant.

spvp:
it was one of the best but I believe other classes now has more counter. Tho I haven’t go pvp for a while.

Not relate to the wintersday although I feel for OP.
Imo, every LS should last at least a month.

Not bug, but it takes away the fun.
Last year we are being chased by melting snowflakes, stopping too long will fall. Like clock tower.
This year, we are waiting for snowflakes to spawn (EVERY SINGLE TIME on left path), I can chat with friends while jumping.

Rennoko.5731:

Its too bad the game doesnt have a damage meter which would actually let us know how we do compared to other classes…

Aaaaand that might be the reason they don’t make such a tool.

Nice. I think with ascended armor now. I’ll give power necro another go. Before I didn’t quite like the play style but I’ll try again.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Afya.5842:

I still like last year’s version better, it wasn’t broken, I don’t know why they choose to change it.
Randoming the pathing is more fun, and snow flake drops faster.
I think they randomize the present part to make it more challenging but farmer always know the way up, however casual has much harder time now. I often see 70% of the scoreboard is <=1 but on the run I always see 4+ people at the checkpoint, so they probably don’t make it pass the presents.

I prefer this year’s version. I couldn’t finish last year’s, simply because I got annoyed at having to wait for ages (at least, after the umptieth time it feels like ages) before I could try again. The same with the clocktower.

This year, I actually finished it. It still took me a few tries, but I could restart immediately again.

I’d like to refute what you say, that the casual has a harder time now. Because of the halfway point, it’s a lot friendlier for the casual, as you can take a breather there and watch others do the next area.

Last year I can catch the next run after opening the chest. Because unlike clocktower, which has a set time you have to wait for the opening to jump in, wonderland could be finished as fast as you can possibly do.

It is friendlier, but it’s much harder as there isn’t really a set pattern that they can “learn”. Even if they use the checkpoint feature, the 1st and 2nd try won’t be the same. Unless ofc, to wait for all presents to disappear.

Simple.

This patch is much much more noticeable than all those previous nerfs.
If people don’t use DS to block OHKO, they ain’t affected by the falling damage nerf.
And some people don’t notice the condition transfer number
Then some people never use signet to rez, etc, etc

This patch, everyone in the game is getting a new skill. I repeat, a new skill, that people dream about for months. And when the patch come, everyone will discuss it, the warrior guildy, or the thief in LA. So obviously people pay more attention to it. And then when they test it, even an 8 yo can know it’s absolutely garbage. Start the active, dropping everything on target, and you see nothing changes on your health bar. Ofc people rage.

I’m starting at her.

zerotwo.4731:

The problem I’m finding is that I get to a point where I’m waiting for the snowflakes to spawn in front of me as I jump. I guess this is to control the time you arrive at the present boxes but who knows. For me its annoying.

Especially left path…..The other 2 are ok. I only experience that once in a while. But left path….EVERY SINGLE TIME. I quite like the left path’s route but this really ruins it.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Azure Prower.8701:

There is a trick to do the exploding presents whilst the blue parcels have appeared.

No waiting involved.

So far my record is completing the puzzle 15 times within the 30 min timer.

What do you do when someone has already crossed the exploding presents, and the thing doesn’t reset?

Unlike what people say, you don’t have to jump in a straight line… I did it last night (and you didn’t hear me cursing in guild chat! so I must have managed relatively easy :P) and didn’t take a straight line to the other side. I went to the right and got to the other side easily.

(I did some tries earlier and only failed because I had no idea where to go after the exploding gifts bit… luckily, I had somebody in front of me who showed me the way on the track with the rolling snowballs… I’d never have found it otherwise!)

The reason of jumping in straight line is to make the jump easier, takes out potential error, and you get pass there fast. Also you don’t have to look and think where to go next. You just w, space, space, space, space, space…..

I still like last year’s version better, it wasn’t broken, I don’t know why they choose to change it.
Randoming the pathing is more fun, and snow flake drops faster.
I think they randomize the present part to make it more challenging but farmer always know the way up, however casual has much harder time now. I often see 70% of the scoreboard is <=1 but on the run I always see 4+ people at the checkpoint, so they probably don’t make it pass the presents.

I quite like scarlet. At least she has some character. I think the problem is how they try to relate everything to her. I don’t mind the fact that she is the one creating all these troubles. But for every LS, they just put scarlet in there for 30s and say “hahaha, this is all my work, now time to escape~” and we move on. I don’t know how it can be done, and I don’t want to think. But I think it is fine if they fix that.

Wintersday is always about Dwayna and Grenth.

But I wouldn’t mind if they bring the other gods to other LS.

Opened other thread saying the same about the presents.

1) It’s less of a problem for me than last year because not everyone start at the same time.

2) Sometimes you see a bunch of people at the checkpoint to wait for someone to sacrifice.

3) I don’t have problem with wind. Did they change anything? It is not random.