Guild Wars 2

SolarDragon.7063:

Asudementio.8526:

What is your goal? to win, to have fun, to master a class that fits your self-image?

Daredevil is a ton of fun, i play it because i enjoy its pacing and mechanics- you should play it too if that’s the case, but if your goal is to win realize that at times you will have to very much outplay your opponent to achieve results. Bad thieves and daredevils are a dime a dozen, trust me i keep their company, and all they do is cause a team problems.

There are a lot of reasons for this, but sufficient to say- the nature of the meta renders our ganking ability and teamfighting overall worse than a lot of other classes. We can still perform great, and at time be the tipping factor for your team, it just takes some attenuation of expectation and solid work.

I say give it a go, but be ready to practice a lot and get yelled at by randoms even more often.

I believe Toker showed that it can still win games, but the problem with current thief is that to be the tipping point requires you to be far better with thief than someone else could be with a different class for the same result. And eventually, you’re going to end up in a situation where you aren’t better enough to counter the class imbalance.

Yeah that’s Toker though so those wins were from skill. Thief should be the best single target DPS class but have a very high skillcap to balance it out. So you’d have novice friendly classes that seem “OP” in low tiers but would be underpowered in top tiers (low skill cap so an intermediate and pro would yield similar results with it) and stuff that seems “underpowered” in low tiers but overpowered somewhat in high tiers.

“This would effectively remove half the classes from PvP”

That’s why I qualified with major class rebalancing since without it I could see it being a problem, like retune some skills so base damage modifiers get reduced and buffed accordingly (PvP only, PvE versions will remain untouched.)

Thanks. Yeah they can be a tough duel but druid seems equipped to deal with them decently compared to some other classes.

Dustin.2793:

There is potential for this to be one of the funnest metas. Unfortunately, revenants and bunker memsers are not in a imbalanced, but broken state in my opinion. Which leave close to every team being force to convert to using these compositions. It is very boring to watch and play in. My team scrimmed the double rev, double mesmer, tempest team for hours the other night and by the end of the scrims I had such a headache and everything just blended in. If a balance patch cannot happen until the end of the season a one class limit per team should be considered. If something doesn’t change this could be a big disappointment not only for the players, but to the already hard to spectate side of things as well.

Agreed with the one class per limit, not quite 100% on rev or mesmer being broken. I’ve been destroyed by a rev on a druid but put that down to me not learning quite how to counter yet. That was with celestial and staff too but relentless assault gives insane pressure and burst. Combined with chaotic release it’s an especially nasty combination. I don’t wanna simply not engage them since sometimes I’d need to challenge the point when teammates are elsewhere. As a druid I was 2v1ing by default and the rev still beat me. There will always be some classes better than others, then the balance gets shifted towards others. Elite specs are relatively new though. Before you’d have a top team running two elementalists, engineers, and a thief. Was that “cheap” of them? Of course not, other teams could have worked with the information the game gave them and determined the objectively best compositions,, builds, and counters. One class per team would be great to increase the scope of potential tactics and composition diversity and balancing does need a major overhaul.

“we need a proper balance between bunker and squishie”

I think only allowing celestial and allowing primary role be determined by rune instead would help towards that. People would still be relatively squishy, but not truly squishy. It would require major rebalancing however, but with only one amulet should be easier to balance around than the many we have. It could turn out to be a horrible idea so weeks of inside testing need to be done first.

They do what they determine would optimize winning chances, like anyone else in any other competitive game.

Or remove all the other amulets, make celestial mandatory and rebalance (for PvP only) accordingly with runes being the key player for stats since they’re small bonuses but still noticeable. This would make shift play more towards skill and situational awareness than builds.

“the skill ceiling of this game has completely collapsed.”

If anything I think it went up because…

“The biggest offenders: immunities, blocks, and evades on low cooldowns "

This means you have more of their boons (especially stability) to keep track of and have shorter windows to exploit your openings and time your interrupts properly. Some classes can even boon strip or convert boons to conditions so there’s that dynamic to consider.

No way. The idea behind it is to be well rounded. You could do everything reasonably well instead of just doing one thing. Let’s say you’re running marauder and see a situation where good healing is called for, sorry, your heals are too weak for them to matter.

Celestial is a tradeoff, you don’t hit as hard as marauder or bunk as well as sentinel.

Anastasis.7258:

Hi everyone, I’m Tarcis, the captain of Apex Prime.
First of all, I would like to make sure that everyone knows we are not depressed at all by losing today’s match.

It’s just the nature of the game, when two teams meet someone has to be the loser. Only time I’m really depressed is whenever my team is thoroughly destroyed by the other or even if we thoroughly destroy theirs, as if to think, “Yeah it’s great to win…but like this?”

In fact, we know that almost every teams in Pro League on NA are going to run this comp, which is 2 Sentinel bunker Mesmers, 2 Viper Revenants, and 1 Tempest. We prepared our kitten already and treating today’s match as a chance/practice to seek a weakness from this comp. Unfortunately, we didn’t pull out our A+ games and cannot seek any weakness in time.

I’m personally doing research on that too. By the time I find something it’ll probably be dated knowledge with future rebalancing. Chill should neutralize alacrity but I honestly haven’t been paying as much attention as I should. Reaper is optimal for chill but it can be kited.

The reason why I’m making this thread is because that I feel extremely disappointed when I play against this comp. It is not fun to play against, and I believe it is also not fun to watch. I do understand that everyone wants to win, but this just not healthy for this game.

It’s how Anet shuffled this season, they like shaking up the meta. Maybe it isn’t fun but it’s optimal and as such it’s practically a crime for a team not to run it or something similar.

The comp isn’t unbeatable, but the fact that this bunkiersh comp can eliminate the mechanic skill difference between players is not cool at all. In this stage, I think everyone can just make a team and play with this comp, and will be able to compete with pro league’s teams.

Yeah stylistic diversity is important. Some players simply gravitate towards a certain way of doing things. Two players could have identical skill levels but prioritize some stats or skills over others because they’re more comfortable with it. I strongly disagree with your last sentence however, the pro league teams have way too much skill for typical players with that comp to cope with.

EU are also running the similar comp but instead of 2nd bunker mesmer, they run marauder engi. In my opinion, both are similar but 2 bunker mesmers can be far more superior and more aids.

marauder engi sounds like it wastes all that good healing and condition damage potential, but I admittedly know very little about engi. Maybe its power damage modifiers are really, really good. In that case one could get good damage with celestial and not feel like sacrificing damage while the marauder would give already good skills serious bonus damage. Either way sounds viable to me but again I’m not familiar with engi.

I know the balance patch will not hit until February, 2016, but imagine that if we or no one else can figure out a solution for this comp, what will we expect on the ESL Finals in Cologne? I don’t believe that anyone wants it and I also don’t believe that Anet wants it.

I think saying Anet doesn’t want is accurate, if they didn’t they wouldn’t have balanced the way they did, or maybe people didn’t find the intended counter to this composition yet. I’m starting with warrior and druid, warrior is best up close but it can be kited, but once it’s in range (sword 3 is a gap closer and shield bash is an interrupt) can use shield, hammer, or kick to interrupt. Problem is stability, which a lot of classes have, but warrior also has some. Since warriors are tanky they can tough out some unrelenting assault, and have big enough HP pools to eat some burning from condition Mallyx builds.

Druid also has some interrupts, damage immunity, and an AoE interrupt. Celestial form gives good interrupts, healing, CC, and condition removal. A chronomancer can use alacrity to speed up the druid’s avatar form skills while in regular form staff and longbow should work with their CC, damage, healing, and cleanses.

I’m not 100% on that and it’s just theory, but sounds like it could work. Warriors may be far from meta but they do have interrupts, stability, gap closers, and good base defense (crusader, soldier, or marauder amulet?)

Aww, and I thought you meant the community. In both open world and dungeons I’ve met some terrible rangers (mechanically and as people).

While all classes have disrespectful people ranger mechanics seem to attract griefers who implicitly say, “No bronze for you!” by killing something they already secured credit on or pushing stuff away. Things like thieves and guardians with shadowstep can instantly reach the target after a point blank shot but others could have trouble. Then in dungeons they simply get themselves killed and blame the de facto healer.

That unrelenting assault spam can be vicious and dodging only mitigates some of the damage. Should I pop signet of stone during this and if so at what point? Since revenant is an energy class that should give me some leeway for countering. I run staff and longbow, pets are bristleback and smokescale.

I’m thinking of just tanking the first relentless assault then popping signet of stone. Since sometimes there’s just one guy on a point the need to be good at dueling is obvious. I’ve beaten engineers, reapers, and even some revenants before but matches seem to be getting tougher. This isn’t a complaint thread but a learn to play thread.

Crinn.7864:

Splitting balance makes balance easier but it doesn’t make it a good decision. The problem with split balance is that it is extremely hard on new players, which isn’t good if you are trying to grow your playerbase.

The reason it’s hard on new players is that it’s a rule change. A new player gets used to abilities in PvE, if then then go into PvP and all of a sudden their class is working completely differently it tends to make the game feel completely arbitrary, which quickly leads to a /quit.
One of the big rules of game design is never change how the rules work. If X ability does Y thing in most of the game it shouldn’t just change to doing Z thing for some other part of a game.

Also this game’s balance isn’t perfect but it’s well within the scope of reasonable, especially by mmorpg standards. Players need to realize that balanced games still have metas and bad builds. Metas will always exist for any game with asynchronous class design.

You wouldn’t be changing anything on a basic level though, just cooldown times and how long CC abilities last. If a knockdown is on a 20 second cooldown and lasts 4 seconds in PvE then it could be on a 15 second cooldown and last 1.5 seconds in PvP. Since players have lower health than elite or even vet mobs this split makes sense.

Don’t hate the players, hate the game. People are simply doing what they determined is best that the system put into place. I’m currently doing some theory and “practice” to find a counter to that composition. There were some duels where I got creamed hard on druid against Dragonhunter and while I have successfully dueled some revenants I still need to find a viable counter (I run celestial). The teleport attack that follows you can be spammed, but reventant uses energy. Unrelenttng assault seems like a good time to pop signet of stone. Glyph of the tides would just be evaded by the attack.

Daecollo.9578:

Who cares about Esports? New Sylvari Hair
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/2925339

Views: 3,372

Great, if only they’d release new sets for a race I actually have (i.e., the rest of them, including all genders but female charr, just need medium and light human female next, but I’ll just temporarily turn my main into a female for some nice screenshots with different armor kombas and outfits since I want my engineer to be an asura male like my elementalist)

As for why the finals don’t have enough views maybe people are waiting for the post-mortem coverage? That’s where you really learn the most. It’s better to learn from the pros’ mistakes than make them ourselves…then again if we aren’t pros we’re making bigger mistakes than them in the first place. Still, their matches should be instructive enough to justify having far more views than it does.

DaShi.1368:

They should really reduce the penalty for losing so that people can at least make progress. Having all your wins wiped out because of some bad matches is disheartening.

Yep, I think a progress bar would be more appropriate since you could still lose progress but lose it in different degrees, though it might even out to be the equivalent of losing or gaining a pip, at least typically and for most players. Still, after hundreds of matches the smaller differences the progress bar takes into account would add up.

I remember soloing AC, and even without exploits. The second from last phase was the hardest but you had to get creative to keep the bosses separated. I think adding solo achievements to dungeons would give them new life.

Ever consider coordinating with a team of 3-5 with team speak?

And I thought my ranked score was bad. I’m at 44.12% and double queued at best and did most of my amber solo.

Serious Thought.5394:

Signet’s have shorthanded burst, not sustained burst (crazy concept). I am capable of annihilating Revenants, Reapers, a few DH’s (I hate that daze so hard), most tempests, many other thieves, and so on. Trouble is from scrapper because 100% block uptime is 100% block uptime. Have to time Headshot for that Hammer 3, and 5. Have to steal into whirl or pistol whip. Have to run for my life from Hammer 4. Then wait it out via the blocks on the Wrench Kit thing, then some distance makers from Elixir so on so on. Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh. Still, 8/9 professions being nukable is a great booster to confidence ^.^

Had a funny moment I killed a Revenant in that Herald shield thingie with 4 pulm stacks. Trait procced and he just expired.

That…was awesome! Congratulations. How do you deal with the teleport attack/evade attack? Seems best to proc invulnerability and wait until their energy is depleted but thief doesn’t have that option. That attack should be an elite on a decent sized cooldown but with rebalanced modifiers that assume it isn’t spammable. So it would hit harder but do less overall since it can’t be used as often.

There’s no honor in winning with Akuma, but if you beat Akuma it’s a real achievement.

Dragon helmet, glorious boots, viper pants, shoulders, and gloves. Dyes are shadow green (helmet), algae, and shadow abyss.

Revenant. Can seem really cheap until you learn to dodge the big dragon move or their teleport attack evade spam. That ability should be an elite skill reserved for thieves’ next elite spec: monk (no weapons equipped would be like having two ascended zealot weapons since the intent would be a melee/healer hybrid and barehands 4 would be like solar beam but cost initiative, a little stronger, and wider radius so same healing overall since solar beam on druid is auto that heals and attacks)

Kam.4092:

Make a normal version that drops Exotic only gear then? Call it story mode

Problem there is it would imply that the mobs and bosses are canonically weaker and less skilled than in hardcore mode.

Sparkly quivers are sorely lacking :(

xarallei.4279:

Not everything in the open world needs to be completely faceroll. Keep chak gerent the way it is please.

This needs to be stickied.

Pip loss is a good thing, it means you can’t simply grind to legendary. The problem is too many pips needed and MMR making you lose if you go on a winning streak, making maybe even diamond unrealistic for top teams (since they’d be playing each other up there and are close enough in skill to take each others’ pips) with our current system.

Some people play by their own self-imposed rules and think it’s “cheap” when people don’t share their mental prisons. In fighting games for example some people think you’re only legitimately “good” if you do hard to execute moves but sometimes there are simple counters. Learn to counter projectiles and throw spam, they’ll find a counter to that counter, and so on.

Likewise it’s the same with the trading post. The mechanics make flipping and speculation viable and even optimal for those skilled so why not reward that skill?

“At this time, Skyhammer and Spirit Watch will appear in the solo queue, but not in our team queues.”

No! :( Funny how they wanna randomize maps since people overwhelmingly vote for certain popular maps and only premades vote for overly gimmicky ones.

Kain Francois.4328:

Yeah, Chak Garent needs fixing. Stop allowing people to cheese it with the no CC strat. Maybe just a 5% hp nerf.

Other than that…

Git Gud.

The entire point is to avoid breaking his bar. It’s intended by design. You see you have only ONE second of stun whereas he gets much tougher afterward. Therefore the player is supposed to learn from that mistake, not break the bar, and continue playing as intended (deduce that breaking the bar only hurts the team’s chances of winning and therefore not do it).

The word cheese gets abused too much.

Fade to Black.7042:

A Valkyrie helmet like this, but leaving a bit of the hair if the hairstyle is long beneath it

The crafted ascended heavy helmet would have been so great for my charr warrior…but it makes him bald :( They add weird parts to some hats to hide the fact that it makes them bald since hair would clip through the helmets yet if the obstructions weren’t there the character’s hair would suspiciously be gone. So there wouldn’t be hair due to how the engine is :(

There’s already the glorious helmet:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glorious_armor_

What about two healing specced crusader amulet dragon hunters on a team? Valor, virtues, and dragonhunter looks like it warrants further investigation and practice.

Welcome to the club. Going for length doesn’t work due to character limits so no Sir Awesome the Executor for you.

You could look to other games or cartoons for inspiration, or go with a theme. Since the name itself will likely be taken you want to write a descriptive term like, “the cool” or whatever and keep going until something isn’t taken.

Espire.9723:

score =/= skill

Yep, you can get penalized for being at the “wrong” place at the wrong time (not in the big skirmishes where you accrue personal score) and simply staying on point.

Umm, you won 4/10 which looks like MMR is working as intended.

Someone once said it isn’t enough to succeed, others must fail. What this means is if you can succeed at something that makes intermediates fail hard then you’ve accomplished a task with real weight. Sure anyone can obtain the skills, but not everyone has the dedication to do so. If they don’t have the dedication they frankly don’t deserve the rewards and the game itself implies such. I remember a thread where a WvW’er who doesn’t like sPvP wanted a phoenix finisher, but if you don’t sPvP enough to earn it you don’t deserve it, same principle applies to the TD meta.

+1,000,000 for the OP! He says what his guild did and even did a post-mortem to go over what went right or wrong and were a well organized machine. All skill ranges from how do I equip stuff to people who win tourney money should be represented.

Haptic Repulse.9437:

Because Engi must hard counter thief no matter what, for Anet tells us so. Thief must work 3 times as hard and be two times as good as the Engi to win, especially scrapper. As if ranger and revenant reveals weren’t enough…

I have a ranger and don’t take any reveals. If they have sic’em it means that they have a non-meta utility and the AoE daze, knockback, or invulnerability aren’t there. Two of those will probably be, but not all of them. It’s a bad policy to sacrifice a good general skill just to reveal a thief or mesmer who will only reveal themselves sooner or later anyway.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

Tarn.1374:

You shouldn’t get rubbish at all (i.e. common dyes), it’s a laughable mechanic.

It would be like going to the bookstore to buy a new book only to have the owner say there’s a 75% chance I’m buying the book I already have back at home. That’s just crazy.

Except it’s not, because the item itself is the equivalent of a real life “mystery bag” or “blind bag”. If you want a specific dye, you can buy it directly from the TP.

Statistically speaking it’s even going to be cheaper than blowing gems on the dye packs. On the one hand if no one buys dye packs then no one can sell them, on the other hand trying to get a dye pack could realistically cost more in gems (gambling) than converting gems to gold and simply buying the dye you want.

Mogar.9216:

chase the dragon..

If they stick with it long enough that finisher will be his.

I remember fire elemental powder getting me through It’s about time. I thought eight minutes was way too little since I was burning everything down and still never making it. Then I bought fire elemental powder then knew exactly why it was eight minutes. The devs probably programmed those achieves assuming you’d use it.

Narcarsis.5739:

Agemnon.4608:

What do you think of this build?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYWn0MBFOhlOBemCkmildCzbKEFuCbBgazBa+A+AvgA-TZRBABR8AAivMwGHCgZ2fAgzAAA

I haven’t actually tried it out in practice but I like sword and dagger primarily for the daze stun chains and shadowstepping utility (besides swords simply have the coolest skins in the game) while the eagle runes are to reduce the opponent’s chances of recovering. If I get the opponent below 50% then getting a 6% damage increase would burst them down even faster thus widening the gap between our respective hit points. It’s also when interrupts should be kept in mind since they’ll eventually try healing back above the 50% threshold.

Staff is the raw DPS plus blinding weapon, vault isn’t a problem since I have ground targeting locked to target so I don’t have to juggle moving with targeting as I’m holding down my mouse buttons. I have switch to chill since that slows their cool downs.

I’ll think about swapping out critical strikes for something else though and I only use it in PvE to make up for the crit and ferocity loss from a crusader helmet, zealot shoulders and pants, and marauder chest and boots (nearly all accessories are berserker however). Since in PvP I’d go marauder as I think I’d have enough crit to justify dumping critical strikes. Is acrobatics still a joke? I might also dump sword/dagger for shortbow if that’s optimal.

And last but not least…how would I deal with druids? Goal mostly being interrupts until team can burst them.

I wouldn’t run without shortbow in PvP. As for traits I’ve explained above the difference between critical damage modifiers and damage modifiers. That being said I’d take Deadly Arts over Critical Strikes (yes, Acrobatics is still lacking). Personally I think the build you have lacks enough damage to be useful. You give up Staff Master (both defensive and offensive trait) and Bound (not only direct damage but a damage modifier). Dash isn’t a dodge I’m fond of (also outlined above).

As for dealing with Druids you have to have bound and you have to make sure you land everything. Vaults, dodges, auto attacks, etc. If you miss anything you will likely lose pressure to be able to kill them. Make your dodges count (evade an attack and land damage on them or you will fall behind). Also make use of the Healing Seed.

Just my 2c.

Thank you very much for the input. I thought not taking shortbow would be at least be viable but my reasoning for potentially switching it out for sword/dagger is if you need the initiative to get away you likely won’t have it so I was thinking from a purely combat perspective and didn’t think about decapping points.

I’ve decided on Deadly Arts, like I said the Critical Strikes was influenced too much from PvE familiarity and I only take it over Deadly Arts there is to make up for a precision and crit deficit from a crusader helmet and a couple of zealot pieces, but a marauder trinket in PvP invalidates that reason since it gives good enough crit and ferocity especially with eagle runes.

Staff master looked very attractive but the dodge removing a condition looked important since burn and others put on too much pressure, but thinking about it I think it’s impractical since one condition isn’t worth it especially since the really nasty stuff is always somehow low on the priority list and conditions always come in batches, rarely ever just one. So yeah staff master it is.

I took dash over bound because of just how much CC there is but bound looks great for gap closing and damage.

Cam Ron.4170:

Let’s give everybody participation trophies too

Well there are still daily logins, 500 points for losing, and a little reward track progress instead of getting nothing upon losing.

But the ability to lose pips is important because you can’t have novices being carried to legendary.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Tiger Ashante.1792:

Since launch, GW2 prided itself as having one of the best, if not the best community of any MMO and rightly so. Always friendly, helpful and more than willing to assist those in need

Featuring: "
-Full zerk or GTfO!
-LFG: no necros or rangers!
-Link gear on join!
-Know how to stealth skip 90% of the dungeon!
-5k AP or GTfO!
-Nothing but constant complaining on the forum since the release of the game.
-“Play something other than DD ele / Burn GRD skill-less n00b”!

DD ele actually requires some skill because you need to manage your utilities, all those CD’s, and make snap judgments on when to switch attunements like water. Even the autoattacks have a slight charge to them.

What’s wrong with asking for people to know how to stealth skip? If they don’t know then they can be told when. Yeah the full zerk is a bit silly but if that’s what the leader is looking for it has to be respected. As for no rangers…yeah Pet AI can screw up strategies and mechanics but druid is one of if not the best class because it has so much condition removal, healing, long ranged attacks, and pets on top of that.

Zerker I think was intended to be a PvP or WvW niche assassin that required teamspeak to be viable, but due to poor AI and rotations would up being the dungeon meta. Dungeon bosses traditionally hit very hard which is why tanks traditionally were needed. Some big thing with millions of HP that can two or one shot glass cannons and immune to CC demands a different statset from fighting other players. Since Guild Wars 2 has no hard trinity players were assumed to take some vitality and toughness to account for how hard bosses are supposed to hit, you only have two dodges so you should be guaranteed to eat some damage but save dodges for when it really counts.

Apart from the givens (salvage kits and gathering tools) a tree tonic, witch broom from the witch outfit, and dragonite ore to feed Princess.

Lanaeris.3845:

Conquest is the most boring game mode ever conceived. Yet another thing that wasn’t tested before launch, what a shocker. And now I can’t PvP for wings. I don’t care about PvP. I just want wings and to semi enjoy getting them. Thanks again, guys.

Try grinding in Silverwaste for hours. Why would you want the wings if you don’t care about PvP? The entire point of those wings is to show your PvP mastery and tell the rest of the game not just, “I’m a PvP guy!” like glorious armor or some titles do but, “I’m an excellent PvP guy!”

I personally think conquest is kinda fun.

Aguri.2896:

Let me just clarify again: I don’t mean the looks of the maps, I mean how fun they are to play game play wise. Personally I hate the look of fireheart rise, but the gameplay was one of the most fun experiences I have had map exploring in this game.

I really like how they make getting to a rich platinum node an actual challenge. You basically size up the environment, calculate jumping trajectories, then arrive. And there’s lots and lots of enemies to slay. It’s quite polluted, meaning aesthetically the player knows that something’s wrong so it works there from a narrative perspective too. It’s really made clear that bad people who really want us dead run the place (Flame Legion in this case). I think it’d be great for part of living story season 3 or 4 to take place there if we’re going to Flame Legion territories next.

PvP favorite: Tough call, but anything with decapping that’s just straight up cap and decap. Least favorite: Skyhammer, though actually using the cannon is fun. It isn’t fun however to have the cannon used against us or have all that falling risk. Fighting areas are too cramped and narrow.

PvE: Favorite: Probably Tangled Depths because it’s easy to get lost and the layout itself adds to challenge with some dead ends and confusing twists and turns, so knowing my way shows I mastered the area, lots of nooks and crannies to explore and mob groups require some strategy to deal with. The waterfall dive is fun, got there because I thought I found a jumping puzzle since you can calculate that it’s possible to glide from a helicopter to a helicopter blade then onto the cliff. Up that ramp is the free mastery point for diving and a vista. I’m not even done exploring it yet. Then you have the meta which is very unfriendly for casuals and PUGs, meaning if you clear it it shows skill and coordination on your part. Rata Novus is also a really cool place and those big frog people are kinda cool like the one I agreed with on the story mission from Verdant Brink.

Least favorite: I don’t know, many lower level maps seem to be in line with each other. maybe Queensdale, it’s generic, bland, a starter zone so you don’t get any of the necessary mats for ascended crafting, and not really much to do there once you fully explore it.

“Least: TD. Of all the MMO’s that I have ever played in my life, TD is the absolute worst zone I have ever experienced.”

Maybe why you think it’s the worst is actually proof that it’s the best ironically? The map pushes you to scout your environment, not just for enemies but the actual land itself. Everyone on the scale from “How do I equip stuff?” to “I just earned some cash at the ESL tourney! Suh-weet!” should be represented. Besides isn’t breaking into a new level of skill a lot of the fun with these games? That’s what Tangled Depths does, pushes you out of the comfort zone so one learns better and obtains more skill.

Erzian.5218:

feel free to add druid aka “I just evade, run in circles and heal while my pet does everything else” to the list

You forgot about sigil interrupts and black hole utility.

Scrubs have no business in ruby, but I agree that the pip system needs some kind of overhaul.

“Since the beginning the rewards in PvP have been terrible..they still play.”

Terrible is too strong of a word, I’d maybe give them a 6/10, could be better, and it’s six instead of 4 or 5 because you can get dungeon tokens without actually doing dungeons and can win PvP only armor sets and finishers. When people see a dragon finisher in WvW they’ll know you’re experienced in sPvP. I know I’m on record for wanting to get rid of grind levels, so I’d give people new finishers based off MMR. It wouldn’t be fair to take away people’s dragon finishers moving to the new system so that’s why I’d advocate new MMR based finishers after rabbit through dragon is scrapped.

And league badges are a kind of reward. If you’re doing Teq and have a sapphire or ruby next to your name people will know you’re awesome. I’m planning on doing some emerald+ story mode dungeon runs to unlock some more reward tracks.

They’re good enough to earn it though.

“Although I really like the story in GW2, I always hated the fact that I’m this single hero off to save the world, and it just so happens there are 1000 others just like me.
I would love if every story element of the game was designed around the idea of this 5 man party.
Back to the leveling process, make the story take you through the hoops of choosing a class, maybe tie them into each one of the orders?”

I see lots of problems here:

1.Lots of vets wouldn’t even bother helping lowbies help with their story, resulting in long queue times. If anything story mode dungeons should be made soloable since they’re needed to unlock PvP reward tracks.

2.Makes the gameplay bend to the story too much instead of the other way around.

3.Too story-centric, meaning focus and resources go into cutscenes and voice acting instead of actual gameplay elements.

4.Story carries with it the baggage of limits. Imagine this discussion:

“Let’s add this cool outfit!” “Nope, that wouldn’t logically exists in the world” “Fine, scrap it.” Because of the rules and “logic” of lore and story great ideas get the ax. Fun and mechanics must always come first. Story just gives us the excuse to do awesome stuff, a story should be written to accommodate doing cool things and seeing cool things. In other words when writing a script for Batman minimize Batman’s time as Bruce Wayne and fit in as much action as possible while still making sense and being plausible in that universe.

5.I made my thief join the priory and elementalist whispers on purpose because I liked the neat contrast.

“In the case of Tequatl, we could have NPCs screaming to the players that they need people covering area X and Y, and that those turrets are still empty, etc.”

Problem there is people would get penalized for listening to their Ipods, keep cues visual.

“For the runes and sigils, I would rather have them changing my gameplay rather than just increasing my stats. I want more things like air and fire to add effects to my weapons, or vampire runes to make a character cenetered around life steal.
Runes and sigils need to add a new dynamic to your character rather than increase in stat.”

They already do. For example I know that eagle runes give precision and extra damage to those below 50% health. This means mobs I’m fighting have a decreased chance of recovering and ensures my advantage and pressure stay up. Likewise against champs their HP goes down faster. I also have gear that lacks precision on it for my thief, so eagle runes and critical strikes are a good way to make up for that (zealot has no ferocity, crusader has no precision though I only have a helmet, and marauder has less precision than berserker.) I also use fire runes. They do change gameplay but in a subtle way. For major gameplay changes you need traitlines or even classes.

“Fix the object directions in skill effects (many objects spawned as effect for skills have broken axis atm, which makes them to face odd directions)”

Yeah I sometimes aim druid staff 4 in odd directions because aiming it while moving is difficult since you need to either hope the mouse cursor is in the right spot or stop and turn it. It should always face target if AoE lock under target is selected.