Guild Wars 2

dagrdagaz.4913:

1. Ranger
2. Necromancer
3. Elementalist

I mainly PvE.
Ranger and Necro proved best in surviving for me.
I really prefer a profession like Ele though, but i play it rarely cos its to squishy for me.

If you like the d/x fresh air playstyle on ele (I did!) but find it a little too squishy to get comfortable with (I did!), you might give engineer a try. It has that same busy feel with swapping in and out of kits the way ele does with attunements, but I feel the survival side of the class is a good bit more forgiving than ele on average.

The trouble with labeling GW2 P2W is that it has only one “tier” of endgame gear (ascended) beyond the baseline (exotic) and there is only one game mode that requires this gear (fractals). Ascended gear does provide a modest boost to stats over exotic, but the primary purpose is as a vessel for infusions that provide the agony resistance you need to progress into higher level fractals.

So, while you can certainly buy gems with cash, convert them to gold, and deck yourself out in full ascended gear, the only requirement to do so is to reach higher level fractals. That’s about all the P2W that exists in GW2: one game mode that is not in any way required (I’ve barely done any fractals myself, even though I’m only 2 pieces away from full ascended and have crafted my first legendary).

Slightly P2W? Yes. Very slightly. To the point where I imagine most players don’t consider it an issue.

I played WoW for years and tanking was my favorite role. Nearly half the classes were capable of tanking and all of them had a unique feel (although my personal favorite was brewmaster monk!).

All credit to WoW for refining these class roles. But this isn’t WoW. GW2’s combat system is different in nearly every way, yet I don’t find myself missing tanking as it existed in WoW. The fact is they don’t need it here. They have their own thing going and it works!

Daredevil is my favorite. I love the fast gameplay and superior evasion and mobility.

Engineer is my second. This class just has so many options. If you don’t like one playstyle you can simply create a completely different one by swapping out traits, gear, and kits! It’s hard not to enjoy this class.

Redfeather.6401:

AliamRationem.5172:

Redfeather.6401:

Most fun I had was playing a thief in core game, then at lvl 80 I got the heart of thorns expansion and made my thief into a daredevil. Daredevil is most fun class I have played, and I played them all. Exploring with the HoT zones with a daredevil is very challenging and fun. I went with pistol/pistol and staff for that.
It’ll be a long journey, but it will keep adding new things to your character that keeps things fresh and frantic. My daredevil is the only character I have taken the time to fully complete zones with after I got gliding, because it’s just fun!

Hey! Your story sounds just like mine! I liked thief (dagger/pistol) from the start, and daredevil is just a faster, more powerful thief. I also ended up running staff with pistol/pistol in HoT.

It is very fun. I put together a build that reminds me of Tracer from Overwatch. XD

Yeah? Care to share? Always curious to see what other thief players come up with.

I’ve been running around with this, mostly just doing open world stuff on my own:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6an8lCFOhFmCOOBkmiFqiqrnCgGYLHHsqbu63+yH-ThRBABPcRAwT3wV7PK/oU9HzUCCwTAgUA6pMC-e

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Unlikely given how ANet has expressed that they ‘learned from their mistakes’ with HoT. Also, Bloodfen is a drastic step from the usual maps that started with Silverwastes and continued hardcore with Heart of Thorns.

We’ll see with new maps in Living World and with the expansion. But for now, I’m going to say future content will be casual and solo-friendly in the extreme.

It took Heart of Thorns to make ANet realize—once again—who the core audience is.

I know where you stand on HoT in general, but am I to understand that you consider bloodstone fen an improvement over the other HoT maps? If so, I’m just curious what worked for you there that didn’t in the original jungle maps?

Obtena.7952:

I’m glad someone recalled this history because it illustrates the fundamental problem with this thread. For a period we didn’t get anything for XP bars … yet where was everyone then? I can tell you, they didn’t care because no one really expects to get something for XP once they level.

So what’s the problem here? The current situation is an improvement over getting nothing like it was for the 6 months … Oh, let me tell you in case we have forgotten … the problem isn’t that people don’t get a reward for XP (otherwise it would have been chaos around here for those 6 months). The problem is that people wanting additional spirit shards but without having to do the necessary activities to get it.

In my case, I wasn’t playing GW2 yet. I’m new to the game this year. But if you had asked me before I played GW2 whether it’s generally poor design to reward nothing for experience gained, you can be sure my answer would have been no different.

In my opinion, it would be superior design to provide this reward independent of the mastery system. The mastery system is its own progression and reward track. I suggest a reward track for experience the same way we have for achievement points.

As you say, there is no reason it has to be any which way. There is no moral obligation here. Poor design may cost the company money, but ultimately they determine the priority. So why don’t you relax and let people make their suggestions? ANet will make the call.

Redfeather.6401:

Most fun I had was playing a thief in core game, then at lvl 80 I got the heart of thorns expansion and made my thief into a daredevil. Daredevil is most fun class I have played, and I played them all. Exploring with the HoT zones with a daredevil is very challenging and fun. I went with pistol/pistol and staff for that.
It’ll be a long journey, but it will keep adding new things to your character that keeps things fresh and frantic. My daredevil is the only character I have taken the time to fully complete zones with after I got gliding, because it’s just fun!

Hey! Your story sounds just like mine! I liked thief (dagger/pistol) from the start, and daredevil is just a faster, more powerful thief. I also ended up running staff with pistol/pistol in HoT.

Obtena.7952:

You don’t seem to understand the difference between implementing something different and reverting back to something that was something already done.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

According to you. To others, iterative developmental improvements in response to changing needs are the sign of a healthy application.

Except we aren’t talking about iterative developmental improvement here because going back to giving shards without unlocking masteries is simply going back to the way it was prior to the change. There is no improvement here; they spent resources to get exactly zero …

so yes, there is no strawman; the idea they go back to what they did before is rather ridiculous and DOES have a very strong business element to it because business don’t take lightly to wasting their resources. Furthermore, defending that change as an iterative developmental improvement is disingenuous.

I may have missed where anyone asked that we go back to the way it was prior to the change. Why would anyone ask for no reward from post-cap experience after a reward system was put in place?

I’m more concerned about the impact on other content. There have been several recent threads comparing the TD meta to AB. Even without multi-map, AB clearly provides vastly more rewards despite being the easier event to complete by far.

Of course, the solution to that doesn’t rest entirely in fixing the exploit. The more critical piece to that particular issue is to increase TD rewards (because they really need it regardless!). Then again, this isn’t only about the TD meta either.

I find this mildly annoying. I don’t PvP much, so it isn’t as critical. But when I’m lagging it often looks like I should be hitting with an attack when the game sees me as slightly outside of melee range. It’s easy to miss attacks this way, and a 1s skill lockout under those circumstances seems unreasonable. What issue did this change address exactly? I’m confused as to why it was necessary.

That’s odd. I don’t do DS often because I simply don’t enjoy the meta, but I believe literally every single time I have shown up on a dead map and let the dragon kill me upon map reset, I arrive dead at the entrance portal and commanders appear out of nowhere and start organizing the meta.

The only explanation I can think of for this is that nobody plays this map outside of the meta (which makes sense for obvious reasons). Those commanders appear out of thin air like clockwork because I’m on the only open instance of the map, guaranteed by the fact that I let the dragon kill me – who sticks around for that, right?

Do you guys have a similar experience or am I just experiencing ridiculous luck when I do it this way?

Cyninja.2954:

Doam.8305:

Mounts should have been implemented at launch

Swiftness, mushrooms, signets, skill, traits, masteries, and so forth that give speed should never have existed and all the time and energy they wasted implementing systems to replace the mounts would have been better spent on other aspects of the game.

To little to late now though all people ever really wanted was an additional fantasy aspect of a matching mount to their cosmetic choices. As for myself I just wanted them to have a simple baseline speed function that doesn’t mess with my choice of skill, traits, or so forth on my bars but your stuck altering a perfectly good combat build in order to get any sense of speed since the launch of this game. A Mesmer needed travelers runes, focus, signet, or even becoming a chrono in order to get any sort of speed or movement. None of that would be an issue at all if we had a mount movement system early on.

Furthermore I don’t think TC is really beating a dead horse there are many new players and many vets who have left so to them its a new game and its a new horse and their repeating and asking for the same things people have asked for since the launch of this game. The outcome will be the same for these new players as it was for the older ones and the neglect will continue.

A.) it is a dead horse no matter if people are aware of past conversations. One short google search throws up the gw2 merged mount thread. People jut being lazy as usual.

B.) What you wanted (a baseline speedfinction) was specifically left out and introduced with value into the character build aspect of the game. Mounts never fit and are not needed in the GW universe. Then again, most people comming from WoW are used to classes getting dumbed down and streamlined to all play the same.

C.) Especially considering players comming from different MMOs, we get it, you had something in game xyz which you really liked and want this aspect to get copied to GW2. Why stop at mounts? Why not introduce item degradation, regular raids, cash shop only mounts, etc.? Let’s make this game a full copy of the game you came from. Then again, why not just go back to the game you came from? Seems so much easier.

Oh, so I’m lazy because I’ve never seen a mount thread before and replied to one on the forums before doing an exhaustive search for any potential “dead horses”?

Thank you for your judgment on WoW players. As a former WoW player, I feel right at home with the degree of rudeness you display to total strangers on the forum. Did you used to play as well?

And picking up on your disdain for players like myself…

Look, bud. I get that you think I’m encroaching on YOUR game, but drop the attitude. It’s unnecessary. I made a suggestion not realizing it was such an emotionally charged issue. I apologize for peeing in your cornflakes. Forget I said anything.

Sheesh! So sensitive around here!

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Nice statistics btw

But yeah , i am not so sure too if forum activity/ingame activity , because we had the uproar from the community that wanted the removal of the new WvWvwW map .
And they where …. the 34,6% …. of the ppl who uses or have any interest to go in the forums :P

Or the 3x Devata megathreads in the past , where from the 250 posts in each threads , he made the 55% of the comments and said :
‘’look how many agree with me’’
or
‘’this thread would be dead if ppl werent agreeing with ’’
or
‘’i will comeback and say to the devs ’’I TOLD YOU SO!!!’’’’ (you are not prepered to be a pseudo-prophet like me!!!!)

Or the achentant fiasko at launch with ppl that moaned that they didnt like this Dress up Barbie game and wanted character progression like other games (gear)

Or the Thief megathread at launch with the 350k combined views

Yeah, but it looks like forum activity was literally cut in half within 3 months of HoT release (not accounting for the brief post-HoT bump either!). That’s unprecedented according to that graph. Something else would have to have happened during that brief time period to explain this, no?

It may have been too much of a cash grab. The price being too high is a frequent complaint. They may have anticipated that and packed features into HoT as an incentive to purchase that probably should have gone baseline (as explained in my previous post). Again, that’s pure speculation but I’m trying to go off what I hear from players who dislike the expansion.

I hear guilds declined as a result of the changes to the guild system. I hear WvW/PvP declined as a result of elite specs (players not having access to them dropped out) and maps/mechanics that weren’t well-received, generally.

The maps themselves were not universally well-received either, with players who find the maps tedious due to the combat and the layouts often expressing their frustration with having to “grind” HoT. Grinding core Tyria wasn’t a problem for them because they apparently enjoyed those maps. Thus no “grind”. HoT further forces the issue with masteries that are required to some extent for storyline completion (bounce mushrooms and updrafts should have been baseline via the storyline!).

It is difficult to explain away such a dramatic drop in forum activity post-HoT without suggesting an overall decline in population, also reflected in the sales numbers. Working under the assumption that HoT was largely a failure, I wonder what the most critical aspects of that failure were?

I lack the pre-HoT perspective, and I could be completely wrong about your average player in this game (a group I am fairly certain I am not a part of!). But I think one of the biggest mistakes may have been not offering the elite spec as baseline.

I think this divided the population with regard to group content specifically. If you don’t have your elite spec, you’re generally less useful in PvP, WvW, dungeons, fractals, and raids (if you could raid without HoT) – basically everything that players do together.

I’m afraid I understand very little about the guild system as it stands or as it existed prior to HoT, but I have heard numerous complaints about the impact of HoT guild changes as well.

I guess my line of thought is that big hits to player ability to enjoy group content together, guilds, and other very social aspects of gameplay are especially detrimental to the overall health of the game. While many players could take or leave the HoT maps themselves, being unable to run with their friends in pre-HoT group content due to these barriers could have been a deal-breaker.

What do you think? This is purely speculation from a fairly new player (signed up at the beginning of this year) still trying to understand the community here. But given that I absolutely love so much of HoT and have a strong preference for it over the earlier content, I would like to see them produce the same sort of quality while simultaneously correcting what went wrong in the first expansion. In order to do that, we need to identify the biggest problem areas.

I haven’t done any of the HoT legendaries yet, so forgive me if I misunderstand the process. It just seems like the process is much more complicated, both from a player perspective and likely from the developer side as well.

I think there’s merit to the idea of moving toward a more simplified system where they could put out more legendaries in less time.

I’ve only done one legendary so far (Quip). The process was a bit of a grind, but it did get me to do some things I otherwise wouldn’t have (Tyria map completion, WvW) and I really do love these legendary skins.

Grind? Yeah. But it gives me a longer-term goal to work toward and the skins are really cool! I think it’s a shame we won’t have new skins to work toward in the forseeable future.

Timberfox.3961:

It occurred to me that GW2 begins as a Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery game that changes into a Survival Horror game. The HoT maps seem like something that H.P. Lovecraft could have written about. Writhing vines, zombies and other horrific creatures sprouting from the ground all around you, darkness and the constant feeling of being under attack all seem more like survival horror than anything else. What do you think?

I get the feeling that I’m entering a warzone when I step into VB, which makes perfect sense because that’s exactly what it is! The storyline introduces you to the scene, where the Pact assault that was so successful against Zhaitan was halted instantly by Mordremoth. You see the aftermath of that everywhere you look in VB, in particular from the cliffs as you enter the zone from the Silverwastes.

I wasn’t impressed with the storyline overall, but I thought the introduction and entrance to VB was perfect and I absolutely love the feel of these maps. But obviously, your mileage may vary!

Based on your criteria, I recommend warrior. They’re popular in group PvE for their ability to stack and share might, among other things. They are also among the stronger solo open world classes, in my opinion. And because they can greatly reduce weapon swap cooldown, they also meet your criteria for being less bound by cooldowns. They also tend to deal more damage than any of the pet classes, if I’m not mistaken (I haven’t tried ranger yet myself).

General Health.9678:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Before the current wheel-style skill unlock system in our Hero panel, there was a skill tree system .

I’m not disagreeing with you that the old system was changed for a new one but in terms of apples and oranges we’re comparing a massively different skill system and one level of masteries.

I personally don’t care whether they do anything to allow people to get shards without doing raids and you’ve already said you’ll probably just go and do part of a raid to unlock masteries which, pragmatically, is the approach I’d take. But if we look at the new skill system being better than the old one and raids making for a better GW2 experience.. then this isn’t reverting a development, it’s improving it.

Adding rewards to post-80 experience gain independent of the mastery system is arguably an improvement as well.

Well, it’s megaserver. And while that system doesn’t work perfectly for various reasons, it’s unlikely any map/meta is “dead”. However, TD does have a fairly obvious mismatch between effort/difficulty and reward. The meta requires more coordination than most and the rewards are the worst of any HoT meta by far. Still, I haven’t noticed it being “dead”.

What I have noticed is that the event cycle on this map does not require anything close to the 2 hours between the boss meta. This usually results in a lull period where it appears the map is dead.

The chak gerent shows up every 2 hours on the half-hour. I find if you show up 20 minutes ahead of time and/or begin checking LFG about that time you can usually find a meta map.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

The part of this thread that discusses the economy and the effect of the AB multi-loot on it intrigues me.

But the part of this discussion that’s just a kittening contest over the definition of “exploit” is just tedious. Is it an exploit? Probably. Is it emergent game play? Probably. Does it matter what you call it? Nope. You’re all correct. Everybody wins. Let’s move on.

EDIT: typo

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I just like reading the responses trying to explain away the obvious in the hopes that ANet will continue to overlook it if we just do our best not to refer to it as an “exploit”!

Ashen.2907:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Ashen.2907:

Is it not, “conjecture and assumption,” very reasonable and likely in my opinion, that it is an exploit? At least until Anet makes a statement as to the matter of design intention?

I dislike it. Find it abhorrent in fact, but dont feel that I can speak for Anet in declaring their intent (even if I do have an opinion on the matter).

It is assumption that the exploit has been in existence long enough that it is considered emergent game play; that is a decision that ANet makes. It is conjecture that a thread discussing the possibility of an exploit has not been closed is acknowledgement that it is not an exploit; correlation is not causation. It is assumption that the last patch would have fixed the exploit if it is an exploit; we have no information on how difficult, time consuming, or urgent this ‘fix’ would be, despite many people’s claims to the contrary. It is conjecture that a QoL update made to salvage kits was for the purpose of AB multi-mapping; no statement to that effect has been made, it’s a QoL change that affects all areas of the game, and it has been stated that QoL updates are what devs work on in their free time.

Seera.5916:

@EphemeralWallaby: I’ve also never said it wasn’t an exploit. Just that there’s plenty of good evidence to support that it’s no longer an exploit.

What evidence do you have to say that it’s still an exploit?

I stated that in an earlier post, that the actions of AB multi-mapping looting fits the definition of an exploit that I also quoted with it above. There is no time limit on if it remains an exploit, instead the determination of emergent game play is up to ANet to decide, whether it be 2 weeks or 2 years or never. You haven’t yet provided a definition of an exploit that doesn’t fit this phenomenon, where as I have.

~EW

And isn’t it an assumption that multilooting is unintended? Every definition of exploit that I have seen depends on the behavior being unintended by the developers.

Again, I believe that multilooting is unintended and that it is an exploitx but that is opinion, not established fact.

There are strong assumptions and there are weak assumptions.

Can anyone provide a plausible explanation as to why a developer would design an encounter, design loot for the encounter, and yet in this one encounter in all the game players are intended to loot as many times as they can by jumping from map to map? Additionally, can you explain why this encounter is further differentiated by the fact that it provides vastly more loot than any other content in the game?

Of course, the answer is that none of this was intended. Did I hear that from an ANet developer? Of course not. But it’s just common sense in this instance.

Easy, guys. I’m pretty new to GW2. Like I said, I came over from WoW where mounts have been a thing since before GW1 came along! I apologize if the very idea of mounts in GW2 is abhorrent to you here. I’m honestly confused by the reaction.

As for going back to my world boss train? I think I did my first Teq run a couple of weeks ago. I had no idea what was going on, the rewards didn’t seem very good for the time invested, and so I never went back! I think I also randomly stumbled across the shatterer once while doing map completion and some other ice dragon thing that I still don’t know the name of. That’s about the extent of my world boss experience!

Like I said, I just figured faster movement outside of combat is pretty much an all around good thing. But I guess I was wrong!

Obtena.7952:

Not really, but if you want to spell it out, go ahead. It’s generally bad practice to reverse your developments, especially if their isn’t anything wrong with their implementation.

That’s not true. WoW does it. GW2 does it. It’s not even uncommon.

WhiteKnight.6759:

Djinn.9245:

AliamRationem.5172:

Djinn.9245:

AliamRationem.5172:

The canopy in VB is always accessible to anyone with access to updrafts (bounce mushrooms are also recommended). You just haven’t learned your way around yet. The HP challenges themselves are far more difficult in AB. Most of them are champions where VB has only 3 champions out of 11 total HPs. AB HP champions are also a little tougher on average.

Explore a little more in maps like VB and especially TD before you make your final judgment. You might be surprised.

I have done all of the maps in HoTand I still think VB is a more difficult map to traverse than AB in general.

That’s what we call subjective information, or “opinion” if you prefer. It’s subject to interpretation and preference. As opposed to objective information, like the number of HPs that spawn champions in each zone.

You may personally have more difficulty navigating VB, but as I said that would be because you aren’t as familiar with the layout as you are with AB. If completing HPs is your goal, however, VB is objectively the easier zone (provided you don’t have an HP train, which would obviate the need for this discussion). A player with the requisite skills can far more easily complete more of the HP challenges in VB than they can in AB.

I had 100% map completion on TD long before I knew my way around it. I’m not surprised maps like TD and to a lesser extent VB still give players trouble after they complete them. I think that was partially the point: to present a true exploration challenge. And they succeeded beautifully in that!

Yep, the OP was opinion and I am expressing that I have the same opinion. The OP didn’t talk about Champions being an issue – that seems to be YOUR opinion. Apparently mobs are what you see as difficult while the OP is talking about navigation via Masteries and gliding skill. I can see why you disagree with the OP but that is a difference between your opinion and his.

I’m going to guess the difference is unlimited gliding. VB becomes a pleasure when unlimited gliding is unlocked. Before that it’s a puzzle.

If you like puzzles, you might like it. If you don’t like puzzles it’ll be painful.

Certainly advanced gliding is one of those obvious QoL improvements that nearly everyone is going to unlock. But the key to VB is finding the routes into the canopy.

If you know those routes well, then you know that you don’t need advanced gliding at all. The objectives are in easy reach of one or more of these routes.

I always feel bad for those guys you see in map chat asking when the choppers will arrive to take them up into the canopy. I have to show them the way!

IndigoSundown.5419:

AliamRationem.5172:

So here’s an idea for starters:

Mounts grant +50% movement speed out of combat and may only be summoned out of combat. Upon entering combat, the speed boost drops to +25%.

So if you have a movement speed trait or access to swiftness, you aren’t gaining anything by staying on the mount in combat. But if you’re just passing through and you didn’t trait for foot speed, staying on the mount is the better option.

My thinking is to minimize/eliminate any potential combat advantages from mounts, instead using them to increase convenience and travel speed out of combat. This would also free up players who don’t necessarily need the foot speed in combat to trait as they like instead of feeling compelled to take speed traits due to the overall time reduction to the leveling process.

Opportunity cost in relation to character builds happens when players have to choose between taking one desirable option and another desirable option. “Freeing up players” so they don’t have to trait, etc. for speed would remove an opportunity cost from the build system.

While there may be some people who build for speed to have in combat, most build for speed to get where they’re going faster and avoid getting bogged down with fighting mobs. Players run past or through mobs constantly unless they’re looking to fight them. Speed boosts enable that. There is currently an opportunity cost for that ability. Your proposal would remove that cost.

Is that a bad thing? It seems to me that traits are most relevant in combat. I mean, you can just swap them at will outside of combat, right? So what is a trait for out-of-combat swiftness but an extra button to push for no reason? These are not permanent choices we make.

Ashen.2907:

AliamRationem.5172:

Ashen.2907:

AliamRationem.5172:

IndigoSundown.5419:

It’s my hope that ANet never provides a mount that removes the opportunity costs associated with build choices for speed. Cosmetic only, thanks.

They could perhaps come to a solution that’s agreeable for both sides. In WoW, they have mounts but you can only summon them out of combat.

So here’s an idea for starters:

Mounts grant +50% movement speed out of combat and may only be summoned out of combat. Upon entering combat, the speed boost drops to +25%.

So if you have a movement speed trait or access to swiftness, you aren’t gaining anything by staying on the mount in combat. But if you’re just passing through and you didn’t trait for foot speed, staying on the mount is the better option.

My thinking is to minimize/eliminate any potential combat advantages from mounts, instead using them to increase convenience and travel speed out of combat. This would also free up players who don’t necessarily need the foot speed in combat to trait as they like instead of feeling compelled to take speed traits due to the overall time reduction to the leveling process.

Mounts should probably be restricted in PvP, as foot speed out of combat is a factor in capping/decapping objectives, etc. But I wouldn’t rule out future maps that are designed to include mounts.

Im not sure how having mounts give a speed boost that is unavailable to non mount users, without a build opportunity cost, is supposed to be palatable to those who share Indigo’s view.

My thought was that separating the boost so that it exists only outside of combat would be an acceptable compromise. Currently, boons like swiftness and passive speed boosts via traits work both in and out of combat (and would continue to do so). I figured this would make those combat-oriented features while the mounts would become the out-of-combat travel option.

So mount users would get a 50% speed boost, out of combat, without a build pportunity cost, and a 25% in combat boost without a build opportunity cost while non mounted characters would have to spend traits, utilities, and/or sigil/rune slots?

Yes and no. 50% speedboost for out-of-combat travel. 25% speed boost in-combat, but the only time you could be in combat and mounted is if you entered combat on a mount. I’m not proposing mounted combat at this time. So there should be no combat advantage to this proposal whatsoever. Also, I suggest restricting mounts to PvE, at least until any potential impact on PvP gameplay could be assessed.

Basically the same way mounts work in WoW. It’s for getting around more quickly out of combat. That’s all. If you need more speed in combat, you would still need to trait for it or use sigils/runes. The 25% in combat boost is simply so that every monster you pass doesn’t slow you down to base foot speed (that would be counterproductive).

That’s pretty weird. I don’t know what to tell you. If it’s a persistent problem and you aren’t stuck on keyboard turning, many players actually unbind turn altogether and replace it with strafe in games like these.

You can also exploit the fact that the projectile attack roots the bristleback in place and walk right past them. Honestly, I can kill them with little risk but why waste my time? They’re rarely located in a position where you actually need to kill them to achieve an objective.

I find it’s difficult to avoid the projectile stream at close range. I usually drop back to medium range and kite the edge of the stream. The bristleback turns slowly to face you as he fires the projectile stream, so just stay ahead of it. Use swiftness if available and dodge as necessary. Once the projectiles stop, break his bar and finish him off.

Reflects and blocks are good, too, obviously. It’s just that this particular attack is a continuous stream that outlasts most reflects/blocks, making these effects a partial solution at best.

Ashen.2907:

AliamRationem.5172:

IndigoSundown.5419:

It’s my hope that ANet never provides a mount that removes the opportunity costs associated with build choices for speed. Cosmetic only, thanks.

They could perhaps come to a solution that’s agreeable for both sides. In WoW, they have mounts but you can only summon them out of combat.

So here’s an idea for starters:

Mounts grant +50% movement speed out of combat and may only be summoned out of combat. Upon entering combat, the speed boost drops to +25%.

So if you have a movement speed trait or access to swiftness, you aren’t gaining anything by staying on the mount in combat. But if you’re just passing through and you didn’t trait for foot speed, staying on the mount is the better option.

My thinking is to minimize/eliminate any potential combat advantages from mounts, instead using them to increase convenience and travel speed out of combat. This would also free up players who don’t necessarily need the foot speed in combat to trait as they like instead of feeling compelled to take speed traits due to the overall time reduction to the leveling process.

Mounts should probably be restricted in PvP, as foot speed out of combat is a factor in capping/decapping objectives, etc. But I wouldn’t rule out future maps that are designed to include mounts.

Im not sure how having mounts give a speed boost that is unavailable to non mount users, without a build opportunity cost, is supposed to be palatable to those who share Indigo’s view.

My thought was that separating the boost so that it exists only outside of combat would be an acceptable compromise. Currently, boons like swiftness and passive speed boosts via traits work both in and out of combat (and would continue to do so). I figured this would make those combat-oriented features while the mounts would become the out-of-combat travel option.

Is it really recommended to use the +7% crit chance sigil if your crit chance is below 100% raid-buffed? I feel like that can’t be right or they’d be more in demand.

Cortair.1279:

onevstheworld.2419:

Don’t get satellite, my understanding is that it’s download speed is ok but uploads are terrible, and you need both for gaming.
I’m in Sydney on ADSL2+, no NBN for me either, but I doubt NBN will make a big difference to GW2 ping cos the data still needs to cross the pacific.

I won’t be getting Satellite but makes sense what you say about the upload.. NBN would be amazing, maybe one day

onevstheworld.2419:

Another advantage of the thief suggestion is once you get the daredevil spec, you’ve got 3 dodges instead of 2, so you’ve got more margin of error if you mistime one.

I started a D/P thief just before and I had a great time.. The centaur archers were ALOT easier for me. I have a good feeling so far about this class.

Daredevil spec for the 3rd dodge sounds like a good idea as well

Thanks everyone for your help, I will play my thief and switch to guardian when I feel like a change

Nice! My first class to 80 was a thief and dagger/pistol clicked with me right from the start. I gave it up for staff in PvE once I unlocked daredevil (just hits harder and against more targets without much of a downside for PvE), but dagger/pistol is still a fun set and I hear it’s great for PvP, if that’s of interest to you.

In fact, I just did some testing last night and made some improvements to my solo open world daredevil build. You might give it a try once you get there. You can take on an army with this build once you’re comfortable with it. Works great for solo champions, too. High damage, high survivability via rapid healing on offense and evasion.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6an8lCFOhFmCOOBkmiFqiqrnCgGYu63+yfLHHsqD-TBSBwAAeCAFV+hX3wN1fioE8xFB46+DIM/RKA9UGB-e

You can swap invigorating precision for no quarter to increase your damage output, but you’ll still have assassin’s reward for heals on offense and you can also swap out your heal for signet of malice if you’d like to increase that.

Stacking all 3 produces an insane amount of healing on offense. But channeled vigor will give you an extra endurance refill and a large heal on a short cooldown. I use either one, depending on the situation.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

AliamRationem.5172:

Thus it IS an exploit. Whether or not it needs to be fixed is entirely up to ANet.

If it can be fixed. There seems to be a lot of assumptions through this thread that it is an easy fix. What if it’s not? What if it’s an expensive and time consuming fix that they don’t have the budget allocated to fix when there are game-interrupting bugs that have higher urgency?

It is a popular enough exploit that I think it is safe to assume they’re monitoring the impact, especially using information they can gather that we can’t or wouldn’t know to look at. I think that if there were a significant urgency, a severe threat to the game’s economy, that it would take a higher priority to fix. That they haven’t changed it yet tells us only that they don’t view it as a an extreme game-threatening urgency. Again, if it can be fixed at all.

~EW

I have no idea what the overall impact of this exploit is, what it would take to fix it, or what ANet intends to do about it. I was simply observing that we’re playing a lot of mental gymnastics here to justify what is very clearly not the intended design. If it were intended, they would have just given you 10 times the loot (or whatever you get from multi-map) as the reward for Tarir and called it a day, right?

Somehow I expect that most of us are able to recognize that if they had done that it would have represented an obvious imbalance.

Also, I wanted to add that I think mounts would look pretty silly at base speed and nobody would use them if their character moves faster on foot (traits, swiftness).

IndigoSundown.5419:

It’s my hope that ANet never provides a mount that removes the opportunity costs associated with build choices for speed. Cosmetic only, thanks.

They could perhaps come to a solution that’s agreeable for both sides. In WoW, they have mounts but you can only summon them out of combat.

So here’s an idea for starters:

Mounts grant +50% movement speed out of combat and may only be summoned out of combat. Upon entering combat, the speed boost drops to +25%.

So if you have a movement speed trait or access to swiftness, you aren’t gaining anything by staying on the mount in combat. But if you’re just passing through and you didn’t trait for foot speed, staying on the mount is the better option.

My thinking is to minimize/eliminate any potential combat advantages from mounts, instead using them to increase convenience and travel speed out of combat. This would also free up players who don’t necessarily need the foot speed in combat to trait as they like instead of feeling compelled to take speed traits due to the overall time reduction to the leveling process.

Mounts should probably be restricted in PvP, as foot speed out of combat is a factor in capping/decapping objectives, etc. But I wouldn’t rule out future maps that are designed to include mounts.

Sciva.4865:

DOOOM DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Milhouse? Is that you?

Tongku.5326:

HoT – maps. I hate, and I mean HATE with a passion platformers, platforming and vertical puzzles, and they forced me to do maps like TD ….. Not much else to say about this one. If I wanted this sort of gameplay I’d be playing some of the jumping games available on consoles which are 100x better. I don’t play MMORPGs for the jumping puzzles.
Then they put a jumping puzzle map in WVW ……

Hey, we all like what we like, but don’t you think you’re exaggerating a little bit? The core game has a lot more JPs than HoT did, as far as I can tell? Seriously, I keep hearing this “platformer” complaint from various sources. I just don’t see it? Do you literally consider every time you jump and glide in HoT a “jump puzzle” or something?

I really don’t get it at all.

Seera.5916:

Fluffball.8307:

Why are the mods merging threads on this when they delete or ban threads on other minor offenses???

Because maybe ANet has decided that while at the time it started was an exploit, but ANet’s decided that the multi-map looting isn’t horrible to the game that they will allow it to continue. Which would make the Auric Basin multi-mapping emergent game play.

If it was an exploit, it would have been fixed or been attempted to be fixed in the last patch. Especially with the patch adding salvage all which makes it less annoying to get tons of loot.

Wrong. ANet’s decision on whether or when to make a change has no bearing on whether or not it is an exploit. An exploit is simply utilizing game mechanics in an unintended way. It doesn’t necessarily indicate that it must be “fixed”. Some exploits are rather minor and just become part of the way the game is played.

Again, there is no sound argument we can make to explain why they would have intentionally designed this one event so that players may participate once, and then receive the rewards multiple times. Thus it IS an exploit. Whether or not it needs to be fixed is entirely up to ANet.

Jahroots.6791:

AB multi-mapping doesn’t provide an unfair advantage over other players, it’s one of the most participative and ‘socialist’ uses of the squad function. Is it also an exploit to invite people into your home instance if you’ve got a bunch of nodes they cannot afford?

Some commanders can be excessively strict, but it is somewhat necessary for the greater good and overall this does far more good for the community (efficiently run farms allow more people to participate, multi-mapping encourages people to complete the AB map events) than harm.

I’d argue that it helps the economy by generating a steady supply of a number of essential mats as well. This isn’t a ‘gold out of thin air’ kind of deal like dungeons and fractals.

You’re correct. It isn’t a “gold out of thin air” situation like dungeon rewards. But to suggest that this somehow indicates that the exploit is problem-free is disingenuous. All actions have repercussions in economics. AB multi-map floods the game with salvaged loot at a rate FAR beyond anything achievable anywhere else in the game. A situation which you seem to indicate is purely a benefit to the game.

Somehow I doubt you would agree if I made the statement: We should get 10 times as much loot from everything because it wouldn’t be a “gold-out-of-thin-air” scenario like dungeon rewards.

Of course, that would obviously not be justified. Why multiply loot across the board by 10? It would simply result in tanked prices as the supply increases while demand decreases due to everyone having more supply with the same number of ways to utilize it.

All you’ve done here is localize that scenario to one event in the entire game. Does that sound like a good idea to you?

Djinn.9245:

AliamRationem.5172:

The canopy in VB is always accessible to anyone with access to updrafts (bounce mushrooms are also recommended). You just haven’t learned your way around yet. The HP challenges themselves are far more difficult in AB. Most of them are champions where VB has only 3 champions out of 11 total HPs. AB HP champions are also a little tougher on average.

Explore a little more in maps like VB and especially TD before you make your final judgment. You might be surprised.

I have done all of the maps in HoTand I still think VB is a more difficult map to traverse than AB in general.

That’s what we call subjective information, or “opinion” if you prefer. It’s subject to interpretation and preference. As opposed to objective information, like the number of HPs that spawn champions in each zone.

You may personally have more difficulty navigating VB, but as I said that would be because you aren’t as familiar with the layout as you are with AB. If completing HPs is your goal, however, VB is objectively the easier zone (provided you don’t have an HP train, which would obviate the need for this discussion). A player with the requisite skills can far more easily complete more of the HP challenges in VB than they can in AB.

I had 100% map completion on TD long before I knew my way around it. I’m not surprised maps like TD and to a lesser extent VB still give players trouble after they complete them. I think that was partially the point: to present a true exploration challenge. And they succeeded beautifully in that!

ZudetGambeous.9573:

If you are a brand new player then I would not get HoT right away. The games difficulty grows as your character grows, with HoT content being pretty frustrating if you haven’t taken the time to level up normally and learn the ropes. You are expected to be a pretty decent player in HoT zones and have at least exotic level gear. If you use the boost to 80 you will not have the experience to do HoT content and you will kill low level content too easily (even with level adjustment) to learn the skills you need well.

I would highly recommend leveling a character to 80 naturally at least once before purchasing HoT. Or buy it right away but don’t use the booster. Save the booster for a second or third character, you will be glad you did later.

This is probably good advice. The core game is dead easy, so leveling might be a bit boring if you’re an experienced MMO player with above-average skills. But the shiny new-to-this-MMO smell can probably carry you through that while you learn the ropes.

I would say even if you are experienced with MMOs, you may get frustrated if you attempt to jump right into this game fresh, boost to 80, and head straight for the jungle. HoT exploration alone is a challenge for most any player, but the enemies don’t mess around either.

If you don’t know your class fairly well, I imagine many enemies will take you out pretty quickly until you start to become familiar with them. But that’s action combat for you. With fewer passive defenses and more reliance on active avoidance, tougher enemies are designed to make you pay if you don’t make the right moves.

There are ways to stack the deck in your favor, though. The AI in the game tends not to deal well with pets. So classes like necro and ranger especially are known for having a relatively easier time in solo combat and are frequently recommended for new players. The enemies get distracted by your minions and by the time they zero in on you, it’s often too late.

Still, any class will thrive in this game once you learn how to play it.

Hey, this is somewhat unrelated but last night I finally got my lazy self over to those training golems they have in the raid staging area and did some testing. I was surprised at some of my results!

While my daredevil’s staff raid build produced about 20% more damage fully raid buffed, by swapping out deadly arts for acrobatics (and making a couple of other minor tweaks to traits) I was able to produce better damage AND survivability for solo content.

If you decide to try daredevil, you might give this build a try for open world. I tested it out by flying in and pulling an entire shelf of those white mantle in BF surrounding the bloodstone stalagmites. I must have had 20 of those guys fighting me, it got a little dicey, but they died and I lived. That passes the solo survival test in my book any day of the week (YMMV)!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6an8lCFOhFmCOOBkmiFqiqrnCgGYu63+yfLHHsqD-TBSBwAAeCAFV+hX3wN1fioE8xFB46+DIM/RKA9UGB-e

Notes:

If you don’t need the extra stun break (you have a passive stun break in acro on a 30s cd), you can swap out bandit’s defense for extra CC or whatever you need at the moment. But if you can time the block, bandit’s defense doubles as a CC anyway.

If you have too much healing going to waste, change out invigorating precision for no quarter. This should bump your crit damage up to around 250% with about 100% fury uptime and an 80-90% crit rate. And unlike a pure damage build, you will still gain healing for initiative spent via the acro line.

You can also change out channeled vigor for signet of malice to add even more healing on offense. You lose one of your endurance refills, but you have plenty of other options for that and you get solid vigor uptime at +50% efficacy.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

I have tried every one of my (very few) weapons, every kit, and everything else I can think of. I can deal with them on every other class, but on engineer there isn’t any weapon I can use to deal QUICK AOE (all the aoe is either in a delay, a super long CD, or has flight time that means they aren’t there when it lands), and then I can’t change to kits fast enough to even try anything if I manage to rally.

Flamethrower. You can just clear them out with the AA if you like, but it’s probably easier if you drop a fire field on them, fire the projectile blast into the field as you enter melee range, dodge their first charge and finish them off with the auto attack.

Grenades. You can toss a bunch of these from range, so there really shouldn’t be too much left.

Bombs? I don’t see why you couldn’t use these. Pocket raptors rush at you, so maybe just tank up with bulwark gyro/protection and let them pick at you. Just make them pay for the meal! I haven’t tried this method as flamethrower just looks like the most hilarious way to clear pocket raptors to me.

Honestly, there should be so many ways to handle this on engi. They can do basically everything.

Take it easy, man. You’re just going there at the wrong times. Each camp (the above ground part with a waypoint, not down in the lanes) has an event cycle that begins after the chak gerent event is over. But there are also other events that occur after these main event cycles complete. The bat matriarch is one of those that isn’t part of the events you need to complete.

My advice is to use the wiki timers to check when the next chak gerent will arrive (every 2 hours on the half hour). As soon as the event is over, WP to one of the camps and begin the event cycle. These are the events you’re looking for.

Obtena.7952:

AliamRationem.5172:

As the thread title indicates, this is an issue for some because now a reward that really should be available to all (continued rewards from experience gain) is instead locked behind the mastery system (and raids) when it really has nothing to do with that system at all. It was an odd and arbitrary choice that could easily have gone the other way.

For me, that’s where the debate begins, not ends … why should there be a reward for people with XP who haven’t completed their masteries? I still don’t see this as a ‘right/wrong’ thing … I don’t get the point of rewarding people with tangibles from repeated completing XP bars in the first place … it’s just another participation reward; even the fat kid that walks the race gets them. THAT’S garbage game design.

I disagree that providing a reward track for experience gain post-cap is poor design. Providing nothing at all seems the far worse option from my perspective. But we aren’t going to agree on that.

By the way, I’ve repeatedly agreed that this is not an issue of right or wrong. Why does it need to be the way I suggest? It doesn’t. Neither does it need to remain as it is. The point seems irrelevant, so I’m not sure why you keep bringing it up. It does nothing to strengthen your argument or detract from my position.

Moyayuki.3619:

Donari.5237:

I find VB far easier. There aren’t any poison areas. I can get to anywhere in the canopy at any time thanks to updrafts (start at Faren’s and go up past golem hp to start) and advanced gliding. No section of the map is locked behind an event — in AB you cannot enter the city during Octovine or get up to the northern ledge poi unless the north tower events are completed. The only two hp I cannot solo are the vampire/guano and the frogs at Treacherous Path, but a callout in Map generally gets a few people there quickly enough.

I used VB to complete for each of the nine elite weapons and have completed it a few times since just helping others do so. I have completed the other maps at most twice each.

I’m not saying AB is ultra hard in comparison, though. It’s just not as guaranteed you can do it at any time that you want regardless of meta status.

The other day I had gone to some parts I hadn’t been to in VB by gliding from Faren’s, but it was incredibly difficult/obnoxious for me. Sometimes I’d miss an updraft, or not be able to see where I was supposed to go next to reach a Vista or other point of interest. I guess I just find VB far more complicated than it should be, being the first map of HoT that every HoT player encounters. AB has far less vertical maneuvering/less gliding. I guess my luck with accessing Tarir was good every time I went into AB in the afternoon.

There are other paths besides Faren’s Flyer (go to the top and glide across to the vine heading northward and from there to an updraft chain above the canopy).

You can take the updraft near Mellagan’s Valor WP to get on top of the crashed airship there. Run across and up onto the fins at the far end of the airship to find a vista. From there you can glide down to a wooden platform. At the far end of this platform is a bounce mushroom up to the platform where you fight the 3 amigos. An updraft next to this platform will lift you above the cloud cover.

You can also start from shrouded ruins WP, heading west up the stairway to the top of the plateau. Take the bounce mushroom up and find the large vine on the far side of the plateau. Follow the vine until you reach a large island suspended by vines with adolescent wyverns on it. Take the center path through this island to a bounce mushroom on the far side. This will take you to the bottom of the JP above pact encampment waypoint (just above the wyvern matriarch platform), from which you can take updrafts to various objectives including the guano HP.

Just give it a little time and do some real exploring on these maps. The more convoluted they look, the easier they are to navigate once you figure them out. Did you know you can hit every single WP in TD in <10 minutes using only Nuhoch wallows, bounce mushrooms, and updrafts (7 MPs total)? It’s not as bad as it first appears.

The canopy in VB is always accessible to anyone with access to updrafts (bounce mushrooms are also recommended). You just haven’t learned your way around yet. The HP challenges themselves are far more difficult in AB. Most of them are champions where VB has only 3 champions out of 11 total HPs. AB HP champions are also a little tougher on average.

Explore a little more in maps like VB and especially TD before you make your final judgment. You might be surprised.

DeceiverX.8361:

Raids and leagues catered to only a very small portion of the player base.

Obviously, general balance means way more.

Only in PvP, bud. We’ve been through this already. PvE players only complain about balance when their class has no group support (and thus has a hard time justifying a spot in group PvE dungeons, raids, fractals) or gets nerfed due to PvP balance concerns.

Raids and leagues may cater to a small portion of the player base, but that does not indicate that general balance should be the primary concern. It should be the primary concern in PvP, specifically. But PvE players don’t care a bit about that. They want content.

Obtena.7952:

I mean, what is exactly wrong with my response? You refer to choice of game options to get rewards … well guess what … this is EXACTLY that case. You can get spirit shards with XP bar unlocking from raids or just from playing and they drop randomly … or both. That didn’t happen before. So what am I missing here?

Again, I think the people complaining about this are not aware or simply ignoring these various options that they get shards, just to make it seem like the changes are really bad when in fact, they are exactly inline with what you were talking about; giving people options to get rewards.

Those of us who aren’t complaining about anything are suggesting changes not because we can’t get spirit shards, but because we get no reward from experience gain due to the fact that we haven’t completed the mastery system.

As the thread title indicates, this is an issue for some because now a reward that really should be available to all (continued rewards from experience gain) is instead locked behind the mastery system (and raids) when it really has nothing to do with that system at all. It was an odd and arbitrary choice that could easily have gone the other way.

As you pointed out to me previously, this is not a moral issue. It would not be wrong to change the way this works so that masteries are earned independently of post-cap experience rewards. They could also leave it as is.

In my opinion, that would be a mistake. I see no benefit to the current system over my proposal (aside from the additional resources required to make it happen, of course). The way it works now you have a lot of players who gain no benefit whatsoever from gaining experience.

Why is that the way to go? Wouldn’t it be better if everyone gained rewards from post-cap experience gain? And why stop at spirit shards? They should make a reward track like they have for achievements.

So, yeah. Not whining here. Just suggesting a better design to ANet. You should relax a bit and stop talking down to everyone. It’s unnecessary.