Guild Wars 2

If one’s build and gear doesn’t work; it’s either suboptimal or bad. Balance is merely a part of the equation. If it’s proven that no viable combination exists, then we can actually form some meaningful conclusion.

Nope. But in a way it doesn’t really matter, because even with the large costs today to move guilds over, it ended up stacking regardless. People will just naturally do that.

The problem is that numbers and coverage dominate all else. Thus, if your side is losing, what can you do to improve your situation? More numbers. You can’t blame them; blame Anet for the gameplay. It’s an arms race to stay competitive, and it’s had quite some destructive effects on some lesser ranked servers.

Yea. And low ones. Currently not is there only no incentive to move down, but it comes at a sizable cost.

And since moving servers is solely for wvw, expecting people to grind pve to play wvw is an extra detour that they won’t appreciate.

What is alt friendly anyways? lol.

Of course, the rewards system for wvw is entirely borked anyways. /stares at achievements.

And no, adding more stuff on top of it does not help. As for the level vs wxp argument, it does have some validity, though I would like to note that other forms of progression such as MF and achievements are account bound and is quite a boon to those with alts.

Noodica.5428:

It’ll make me sick seeing how high SBI’s ego will be if they win this round.. Cmon FA ><

Our egos are already inflated by people from other servers stalking us. Stop it already. =p

It is worthless no doubt.

How about activating a virtue increases it too?

I’ll put as much effort into getting them as they do into making them.

I don’t need anyone to dictate an endgame to me. I’ve never been like “Omg where’s the end game?”, but I guess I don’t need to compare myself to other people. I just play the game, and honestly, I’ve only leveled 2 characters. There’s a long way to go after 900 hours of play.

I don’t care it taking time or effort.

My concern is that crafting it will take tons of space, especially with that pathetic 250 stack size.

If you don’t target anyone, you don’t deliver any bleeds to yourself.

It’s a most excellent way of prebuffing.

Life blast underwater version is sick. Use it.

Oh, it’s only to yourself? That’s pretty tacky.

Yea, honestly what is with all the burning? Because burning builds are so popular. >.> Chilling would have actually been something. Burning looks cool, but that’s about it.

Svarty.8019:

This may seem melodramatic

It is melodramatic (not unlike 90% of the complaints on this site), and if you want to see any changes, you should write something of substance, such a describing the problem in a particular game mode if you want to see change. Because you’d be hard pressed to prove that in pve. So I assume you’re talking about “esports” pvp (lol) or wvw, the later of which is quite debatable since it was never meant to be balanced.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Divinity.8041:

for SPVP, you guys show your rank (low) when you talk about Guardians being bad, or needing buffs?

Every team in every tournament since this game has started contained a guardian.

Guardians are borderline OP, the only reason people don’t complain is because they don’t deal huge damage, that is it. Done.

I don’t main a guardian…but am not bad enough to say they need a buff.

Who needs a buff? How about the class that had a 0% showing during the last tournament…ele.

no eles were harmed in this tournament

This guy right here, is a real PvP’er. Most people in this thread probably play WvW and call themselves PvP’ers.

Or they kill lone uplevels in wvw and call themselves pvp’ers.

The lack of long hair makes me sad. I’m disappointed in you, Anet.

My hair kit will wait for you though.

I guess the moral of the story is to get a job.

There’s no point in having stuff out there that nobody will pay for, right?

Playing wvw for rewards is a fool’s errand.

Uhh… I’ve been waiting for this for quite a while. Aesthetics are important; in fact more important than hamster wheel grinding.

Pro Tip: “I don’t care about it” /=/ nobody does. Then again persistent narcissism seems to be a huge problem on these forums.

They should have let ascended mats make ascended hairstyles too. I wouldn’t mind that at all. :p

Poultry and Leek soup. Yea, I’m cheap, sue me.

mrstealth.6701:

ArchonWing.9480:

The part of the competition of “our server is better than yours”.

They aren’t “the server”, when they are doing a gvg they are acting as “their guild”
The only times I’ve even been aware of a gvg going on is when it was interfering with wvw gameplay. So I’m certainly not seeing any interaction, aside from the negative impact.

They aren’t representing their server any more than am representing my server or my guild by posting here. Just like the dev that sparked this thread was presenting his own opinion, not his companies. Even though he made the poor choice of flashing his Anet tag while doing so. That Anet tag is somewhat of a mark of authority, our guild tags are not.

Well of course it’s an unofficial representation. This is something arranged by players.

But is it that unreasonable to expect that organized wvw guilds have some form of server identity? just because you don’t see any interaction doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

mrstealth.6701:

ArchonWing.9480:

Except they are part of the competition. Just not in the way people demand…

I don’t see how a gvg can be considered part of the wvw competition. The only benefit to the server are points from finishes, if they have a bloodlust buff. If matchups consisted of only two servers, they would be occupying an equal number of enemies to offset their absence from wvw, but there are 3 servers per matchup.

They are ‘hiding’ in a generally deserted part of the map, and participating in wvw no more than the players that have duels or “fight club” at the windmill. The location chosen for this just shows that the intent is to avoid wvw, while using the wvw map for a completely separate gametype.

Others that are in wvw just for a good fight do so while still participating in wvw. Roamers take out dolyaks and players carrying supply, serve as a commander’s eyes on the field, and help secure our own supplies. You don’t have to be doing something that directly causes PPT gains to be participating in wvw.

The part of the competition of “our server is better than yours”. All in good fun of course. It doesn’t add to the concrete part of the matchup, but there’s more interaction than this, I’d think.

And they’re off the map to not cause interference. So are the people at the windmill an eyesore too?

Finally, sometimes there no longer is a point for playing for PPT when the outcome is nearly inevitable. We have no end to the list of matchups where there are blowouts and there is literally nothing to do. When matchups get this lopsided, it does serve as a valid avenue for valid fights in this server vs server vs server scenario.

mrstealth.6701:

ArchonWing.9480:

This is of course, besides the point. My point is that I’m going to do whatever I want regardless of what people think how something should be played even if I allegedly take up a spot that of course would be taken by someone who’s going to change the outcome of the matchup. It won’t.

It’s not about whether or not it effects the end result of the matchup, but rather the effect on the players in wvw at that time. Having your guildmates being locked out of the map and being disadvantaged versus another server because of a gvg is a negative and souring experience.

“Play your way” and “do whatever you want” are not the same thing. I doubt you will find many (if any at all) games with a competition between number limited teams where doing “whatever you want” is considered acceptable.

Play your character/build how you want, but if you’re going to join a game mode that was designed to be host to a competition you are generally expected to spend your time there participating in that competition. If you can do other activities there without causing any interference with that competition, then do so. But if your activities do start interfering, you need a find another time or place for them.

Except they are part of the competition. Just not in the way people demand…

My problem with this thing is that every action that does not garner ppt could be considered so called “interference” if we just set the baseline as just taking up a slot.

But I admit. I sorta laugh at considering wvw competitive.

I don’t know. The complainer in the OP might be very into gvgs, but he has helped out our server greatly in all aspects, and I would credit these events as greatly enhancing the wvw experience, in forming communities and having fun with other servers. And as a result, wvw on our server has been a lot of fun. And no, I don’t gvg, but I do not believe gvg’ers are out to sabotage my server’s efforts.

Oh, I should really go back to the game now. I’m logged in wvw now for my dailies; yea I’m an evil person for posting atm.

This is of course, besides the point. My point is that I’m going to do whatever I want regardless of what people think how something should be played even if I allegedly take up a spot that of course would be taken by someone who’s going to change the outcome of the matchup. It won’t.

Jamais vu.5284:

ArchonWing.9480:

So umm, if I go into wvw to finish my gathering daily, am I a terrible person for not “participating in the match in good faith” and should be prohibited from doing so?

Yep. According to people like Riondron or Sir Arthur.8905, you should be banned from every regular activity taking place in WvW apart from siegeing and defending castles. Even open-field battles are frowned upon by the new generation of WvW purists, because they at best have the same effect points wise as a GvG. Going by this new doctrine you are to avoid any fights (or like mentioned any other activities) that don’t take place in the context of capturing an objective.

Ah yes, them purists should officially rename wvw to pvd.

It’s funny because it’s not like in the past opposing factions haven’t sent some of their best warriors to challenge each other and prove their superiority. And clearly chivalry has no place in a role playing setting that is placed in a vaguely medieval environment. Oh wait… :p

MithranArkanere.8957:

ArchonWing.9480:

So umm, if I go into wvw to finish my gathering daily, am I a terrible person for not “participating in the match in good faith” and should be prohibited from doing so?

No. There’s gathering nodes in there.

Part of the ‘rules’ of the game is gathering. If you gather here, you’ll get your daily gathered achievement.

You’ll be using up slots that others could use since you could be gathering somewhere else. But that’s just opinion. Since it’s part of the game’s rules, you are allowed to do that, an it’s your choice if you go there just to gather. It’s on your conscience.

Conscience lol. By that logic, I shouldn’t even be going to Sparkfly fen to gather, because people would be knocked into overflow. What makes them more important than me?

Would have, should have, could have, are irrelevant to me. If I’m stealing supply and building 30 rams, then that’s griefing. Taking someone’s spot in line that the game allows me to? Nope.

These “GvG” guys that do something that can be hardly called “GvG” would not be that much of a problem if they didn’t tend to take up slots at times when there’s lots of people waiting in the queue. But the fact is that they do take up slots others could be using.

They are not following the rules, and they are not doing anything good for others.

It’s the same when people harass others not to complete an event to farm it, or when people grab a turrent in the Tequatl event and start firing at risen and ambient creatures instead focusing on the event’s objectives, or when people grab a keg in keg brawl and run outside the field to get their achievements going.
You can do that, because there’s nothing coded or scripted to prevent you to do that. But you are harming other player’s experience with your actions, and so you must stop.

Actually gvg’ers might just be pulling away some of our best wvw’ers to their events, and that means them from the other side. Meaning, people I don’t have to face when defending actual objectives. In some matchup situations, this can actually be beneficial. Server pride is something that is tangible, and since wvw is the only instance where your home server actually matters, then I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all.

This is of course assuming wvw isn’t a 11111 zombie fest where numbers only matter. And that is the greater problem.

And it’s funny you bring up people harassing others to not complete events to farm it, since in every instance I’ve seen, it’s been the other way around. I don’t really feel either side is necessarily more right than the other.

Anyhow, an official response has been given, so I guess the issue is moot. I guess the reaction, while justified, got a bit out of hand. I would tell Star to please calm down, because every moment he’s raging in the forums is one moment are pugs are running around like fools. Just kidding! We all love you. Usually.

So umm, if I go into wvw to finish my gathering daily, am I a terrible person for not “participating in the match in good faith” and should be prohibited from doing so?

I’m gonna laugh when they announce they’re going to use the ranks from two weeks ago.

I don’t understand what “complete” means.

It’s true.

The attention to detail could be better.

Well, I think it was worth the money. It definitely has problems though; a lot of boneheaded problems that shouldn’t exist, but pretty solid scenery and the gameplay takes a bit getting used to but is pretty simple once you get it down.

PVT? No shouts?

Well you could try this though of course don’t take it that seriously. Hey, you said tough, it didn’t mention killing things so maybe you could support in wvw. (use staff instead of gs)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR7dlUgKDHGyIEfIFSmCRCBteQQAk/UVIeuKkQA-j0xAofBZ6DMRIQZvioxWGLiGryGT9SEVLFATCjA-w

edit: Why the heck would I take Power of the Virtuous when I have so little boons? Changed… :p

It’s terrible because you cannot heal in Death Shroud, meaning that if you want to press f1, most of the time it doesn’t even help anyways not to mention the large cooldown of wells.

The only good thing it’s for is going afk during big zerg events in wvw and pve. For actually fighting enemies, you’re better off putting points anywhere else. I mean it works and the heal isn’t insignificant. ; but it’s a waste of points for just healing yourself.

If you really want to try out 30 blood magic, I’d go with a minion siphon build and that draw conditions trait @ 30 blood magic. That would actually help other people.

Currently, most necros only pick up siphon because it’s in the way of better traits, like Ritual Mastery.

Any class regardless of build can solo the majority of any open world zone aside from group events. You just need to learn when to dodge and to not waste all your cooldowns.

Svarty.8019:

As a guardian, I feel abandoned by Anet. Every other class eventually kills me but I can slow most of them down a bit.

Necros are obviously top of the pile thanks to Josh Groucheroo and his influence and access to the devs on the State of the Game show.

Cool story bro. We’re talking about necros here, and in pve of which guardians are lot valued over necros. I mean, I’ve been asked many times to switch to my guardian during an dungeon run. Now either share some necro experience or go back and complain with other spoiled guardians about how 0/0/30/30/10 doesn’t do any damage and thus guardians are bad. Let’s not realize necros need to spend 30 points just to have some stability and being flung around like a ping pong ball is just a fact of life. Or that awesome condition cap in pve.

Oh where was I?

You can easily solo most champions in low-mid zones; other stuff seems unassailable. I am not able to do that Risen Noble guarding that skill point in Cursed Shore. A If you really insist on breaking through those, wearing them down as a minionmancer is entirely possible but not advised.

And yes, don’t pull too many mobs; you can run back. Flesh golem is your friend.

I will say though that mid level zones, especially the deserted ones are annoying due to the high respawn rates. This isn’t because your character is weak, it’s just true of any character really.

It sorta is. PvP is sorta just there and PvE just feels like collection time for junk (farming). At least the scenery never gets tiring.

WvW is not meant to be fair because it is impossible to make it completely fair in in absolute sense due to all the factors involved. The only way to achieve perfect balance is to make all sides equally identical with as few choices as possible, but that doesn’t make it fun and as it turns out, not even the best games can be 100% balance. Heck, even chess is ever so slightly imbalanced. It just doesn’t matter until players get good enough. Therefore, there is no point in whining about stuff that is inherent to the gameplay format.

However, that doesn’t mean there can’t be a semblance of balance to make sure the most people get to have a decent experience (aka not getting spawn camped) It would be like not wiping your behind after going to the bathroom because it’ll get dirty later anyways.

You simply can’t have good gameplay if you decide to throw whatever in without taking in account how it affects other aspects of gameplay, aka balance.

In the end, the “fun” factor is related to a degree of fairness. Some people can say “well, you might enjoy fighting an uphill battle!”, but this is nonsense, because not everyone asks for it, and it can be used to justify any kind of change. Especially when it comes from someone that isn’t affected. “So let’s fight. I’ll get a level 80 character, and you’ll have a level 25 uplevel. You shouldn’t complain, because it’s a challenge! You should put yourself up to it [or pay out of it] nor should you complain when you get down leveled again to level 10!”

My point is, that bad design and player wills are two different issues. Some people may have the will or not to “deal with it” but it doesn’t change the quality of what was actually done. It would be like if someone took a dump in your living room and left. Of course, you’d have to deal with it, regardless of what you thought, unless you want that crap in your living room, but it still doesn’t justify them taking a dump there.

Butter.3024:

Aside from the top servers, medium -> low population server will get freaking wrecked. I don’t know how can you achieve fun from losing garrison every 5 mins.

It’s fun for whoever’s beating on the low pop server, so they can pat each other on the back and consider themselves superior @ mass 111111.

Cactus.2710:

ArchonWing.9480:

DevonCarver.5370:

We will have an announcement about the NA leagues and seasons generally soon. But there are changes coming in.

Ah, well whatever it is you decide, I’d just like a more in depth argument behind the reasoning. Then again, as long as you all are open to change, then anything can be dealt with.

LOL. Dream on.

lol, let’s at least try to pretend to be reasoned and mature so we can be taken seriously and save the QQ for later, which of there is plenty of time.

DevonCarver.5370:

We will have an announcement about the NA leagues and seasons generally soon. But there are changes coming in.

Ah, well whatever it is you decide, I’d just like a more in depth argument behind the reasoning. Then again, as long as you all are open to change, then anything can be dealt with.

Southsun is the answer to “omg open world is too easy”. But the problem here is that it was designed towards zergplay, and thus the zone is very annoying to do alone. The other thing is that the outposts get overrun so easily even after you win that it feels futile and let’s not forget being able to waypoint in areas that are already swarmed with enemies.

While it can be appreciated that Southsun has many difficult types of enemies, the problem is when you design an area around “oh, let’s give players a ton of mf and hope they swarm to it.” Once the mf buff disappeared… crap.

This is not to mention that the Southsun event itself was pretty poorly done— no good skins, settler gear is crap, and you don’t really get any good experiences from it, much less want to come back to a worse version of it. The resort area was ok at least.

Pretty sure Zephyr Sanctum should have been the way to stay.

Some people will go “Omg this is so trite and boring and easy”, that’s casual.

But it’s not true— while your average casual player may support easier content because they don’t have time to devote to get better at certain things , it would be safe to say only hardcore grinders can deal with trite, boring and repetitious content. This is because “fun” and “playing the way I want” takes precedence as a casual player.

This doesn’t mean hardcore players can’t have fun either, though I’m referring to the subset of grinders who do content not because it’s fun, but to grind towards some goal. Though dailies aren’t too big of a deal really because any semblance of progress is arbitrarily defined and being “behind” just because you have 30-40 less laurels than someone is just silly. If you’re comparing yourselves to other people, I don’t think you can be considered casual anymore, unless of course you’re comparing yourselves to other people and don’t want to do anything for it, but that would be that “e” word again.

In the end, laurels are the lowest common denominator award. It is the minimal amount of effort you can put in to get crap, and while some dailies are worse than others, you have to set the bar somewhere.

I don’t know. Breaks are nice. I originally played a necro and frustrated, tried other classes. When the necro buffs and they got fixed, my necro was still there and it was a good experience. Balance is not an easy thing, and takes time. Nobody can predict metagame evolution.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/mm-zerker-build/2883241

I posted my thoughts in a recent thread. It’s a 30/0/30/10/0 build mostly around spamming minions. My main problem with a MM build is the mobility issue (lack of swiftness unless you want to sacrifice a minion slot).

I suppose Axe Focus and Dagger Warhorn would work too as staff isn’t that needed in pve.

Also, you don’t need soldier gear outside of wvw. If you want survivability you can just take 20/0/20/30/0 http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBHhZakQrUvTzWjePRIpIaUb6R3AX4gU8epB-jAyAYLBRyCItBiKAk8KiGbboIas6aMlLRUtUA6pMC-e or 30/0/20/20/0 for balance.

A well/minion hybrid could be an extremely tanky support variant as well that still outputs alright damage: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBIhZaESrUvTzWjePRI9IaUDbTK624gU8epB-jwxAYrISWApNQJviox2GKiGruGT5SEVLFgeKjA-e

It has the ability to cast protection and healing on your army, so nothing to scoff at.

I tried that before all those June buffs, and it was usable. I used 30/0/20/20/0 and found it decent but a bit slow, both in offense and mobility. The June buffs make it more solid, and yes at least in pve berserker is best, minions or not.

With the post-June necro, I would most likely try something similar to this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNBHhZakQrUvTzWjePRI9IaUbaTF6G0j3LtaB-jAyAYLBRyCItBiKAk8KiGbboIas6aMlLRUtUA6pMC-e

You could go for focus to stack even more vulnerability, but I prefer warhorn’s speed. The cone daze is helpful for keeping minions alive too.

This build takes both minion mastery and death nova for an ample about of suicidal, spammable minions, since no matter what you do, they’ll die anyways against tough enemies. I mean, bone fiends are pretty sick, on a 16 second cooldown, and you can already blast them; Death Nova addition means even more damage.

Well of Power is for emergency stunbreaks and aoe conditional removing, plus I don’t like any of the other minion choices. Taking blood fiend means the healing is good but burst healing would suck if it gets knocked out. Transfusion is good for healing minions. I don’t forsee that as being too big of an obstacle since the cooldown is short and we can hide in Death Shroud for a bit. We’re also pretty durable anyways with protection of the horde and toughness boosts.

If you don’t care about minion uptime, you can also take 10 from blood and put it in soul reaping for unyielding blast for more vulnerability and the piercing damage will be strong.

Honestly, I find the new Teq sorta humorous. It’s true, this is a game and people need to lighten up because it’s just one boss that is meant to be a terror; ez mode farm is still available elsewhere. It’s not like your server implodes and your character gets deleted if you can’t beat him.

I can agree with 1,2,4, and 7.

I don’t really see the achievements as a big deal, since I’ll get them eventually. Sure, it’s kinda annoying certain things can’t be done again, but if I have no interest in it, I doubt I ever will anyways. I’ve never been like “omg, that potential AP is gone” since there’s like 10,000 other choices anyways.

It is valid to say that the things that require you to look up a guide are not indicative of good gameplay— usually gameplay should be intuitive and engage the player— letting them figure out as opposed to mindlessly wandering around, wasting their time, and usually making them look it up.

It’s true. It took me a while to realize my necro was better around the turrets.

Of course, this is because I had no experience in the fight and didn’t even know what to hit. I didn’t even want to fight the dragon; I was in Fen when I logged out, and when I logged in, it kicked me into an overflow right in front of him, lol.

Power.

Spam wells, especially in big group events and collect big phat lewtz; it only gets better when you reach 80.

We’re the minority though…. The majority of people in WvW, the major numbers are…

Hmm, that’s because guilds aren’t important. This game isn’t called… oh crap.

That’s a nice idea actually. It keeps the limited time appeal for the collectors but in terms of functionality, it remains the same for all.

It’s only gonna get worse because someone (not sure who, but they matter more to Anet than us) feels there’s not enough variety.

Aren’t you thankful?