Guild Wars 2

Tijgertje.7461:

Also reading your bottom note, you are a Ranger, which is one of the classes thats not very good for WvW right now

You are wrong. There are plenty of good rangers, and there are plenty of youtube videos to prove it. Not to mention the rather large buff they’ll be getting soon.

The “ranger lol” sentiment has been around for so long that when people get killed by a ranger with any amount of skill, oftentimes I hear my ranger friends complain that the person parties with them to let them know they’ve been reported for hacking.

BL defense is almost entirely thankless, it’s true. The most recent topic on this, I believe, was mine:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/BL-defense-and-upgrades-do-you-bother/

None of it really has any suggestions for increasing rewards or anything, though, just about nerfing Siegerazer, and that’s because I couldn’t really think of a better reward system.

I do think that building siege should at least award WXP (not just cannons/oils/mortars), although I’m now at the point where WXP doesn’t mean anything to me anymore except a rank chest with (generally) 2 green items in it. I think the costs for upgrading could come down, because relying on people to share the costs is not really practical in many cases, and with so little reward from even successful defenses, it’s not enough to cover the costs of even upgrading a tower.

I don’t know. Perhaps if they kept the same bronze/silver/gold reward tiers for defense but at least increased the reward based on the objective being defended it would be a step in the right direction. At the very least a successful defense should be rewarded with more coin/karma/WXP that also scales with the objective type as well. Right now I get the same exact reward for a gold defense of a camp as I do for a gold defense of Garrison. It’s silly.

Belenwyn.8674:

Very helpful videos. I really appreciate that you explain the use of mortars and cannons. Many people have no idea how to use them and how powerful thy are for defending keeps. With some mortars and cannons you can even hit the lord room in the garrison.

The last part is true, although most people make it general practice to wipe all siege before going after the lord. Those who don’t either haven’t played much or have an 80+ blob where it doesn’t really matter.

Catalin.5341:

Here are the siege placement map images for Lake Tower: http://imgur.com/a/y2mLV
Here are the siege placement map images for Briar Tower: http://imgur.com/a/oRaOr
Here are the siege placement map images for SunnyHill Tower: http://imgur.com/a/oZFXk

There’s a spot in Sunny/NWT to place a treb that makes it incredibly difficult for catas on the cata ridge to hit and impossible for ballistas to hit, that still allows you to hit every spot along that ridge and destroy whatever siege they have there. I found it by accident after a guild group had speed built a ballista and 2 catas, and had taken out our ballista, wall ACs, and supply hut treb. The catas could cata into the tower and destroyed our gate treb. It was built in somewhat of a panic but I made sure to SS it for future placement.

This thing saved the kitten tower.

Welcome to the club! We lost rather badly in T5 and moved up to T4. Wut? And so, of course, got our kitten handed to us in a wonderful kittenstorm of double-teaming (although, granted, maybe downgrade double-teaming to simply “they each stay out of each other’s BLs but make sure they wipe ours at least once a day”). After that matchup, we’d have to drop, right? Nope! Same one again this week! Same colors! Same behavior from both servers! Same results! WONDER HOW IT’S GONNA TURN OUT ON FRIDAY GUYS

pdavis.8031:

draugris.9872:

pdavis.8031:

Not my rules of ethics, ArenaNets Code of Conduct that users agree to when using the forums.
“•Do not spam. This includes bumping threads or making posts that lack content.”

No i´am sorry but no,

he wrote in his initial post

Due to the rash of necroposting on this subforum, anybody caught posting in a dead thread will be subject to infractions and possible suspensions from this point forward

This tells nothing about the lack of content. It just says if you post something in an old thread you will get infracted.

Don´t you get what this is all about ? They could have easily decided that they auto close old threads without any drama or the need to threaten people. But this is not what they want, what they want is to make people uncertain whether they can post or not and many won´t because they don´t want infractions. Goal achieved, less posts, less complaints, Anet happy.

This is just a lousy attempt to shut people up.

In general providers of forums want to keep information about one topic in one place, for better readability and to keep the boards clean. Anet wants the exact opposite. Hey if a thread about ta topic is 30 day old, please open another thread about the same topic and if that gets thirty days old, rinse repeat. This make absolutely no sense if you want to keep your users informed and information to be accessible. But if you want what Anet wants it makes perfect sense.

Again I am going disagree.
“•Do not spam. This includes bumping threads or making posts that lack content.”

Bumping a thread to call attention that X Y or Z hasnt been implemented is what Mark was refering to. Again, bumping threads is against the Code of Conduct. And only Anet reserves the right to interpret and apply what that means. Why they dont auto close, or lock threads after 30 days is for them to decide.

It seems that much of this community is bent on hating Anet no matter what they do. They issue a warning about bumping threads (which is already outlined in the code of conduct) and people claim its an attempt to shut them up. They come out and say they are working on things but are not at liberty to discuss them. The community is outraged and say they arent working on anything. If this is the attitude of the community, I for one am not surprised they post at all. While it may appear to be “bad business”, even the best customer service eventually just stops responding to threats and rants and insults.

The main reason, and for me the sole reason for the anger is that this entire subset of the community has been seemingly ignored for a long period of time, as shown by the lack of ingame updates, commentary from developers or even community managers, or even a hint as to what, if anything is being worked on. Mark coming in months after the last dev post (which was actually just a days-late response to rewards being bugged from the tourney, and wasn’t even from a dev) to essentially post nothing of substance aside from updating the forum rules as he sees fit, and then following up that post with “we’re working on something, we just can’t tell you what” is downright insulting. And, yes, made people even more angry. There are constant updates on what’s being worked on for PvE (sorry dungeon people). PvE threads receive constant developer attention both in the LS and discussion forums. People routinely bump age-old threads in other forums without incident.

Although the code of conduct does indeed say that bumping threads is against the rules, it’s allowed to happen all the time. In fact, when you try to post in a thread older than a week, there’s an option that you have to check that acknowledges you are bumping a thread. If it’s flat-out against the rules, then why is there an option to do it, why aren’t threads archived after 30 days, and why do people do it all the time?

Simply put, this community has been neglected and ignored for a long time, and that’s lead to people becoming angry. It then gets neglected and ignored more and more, for even longer, and people get angrier. Then someone comes in and tells you to stop reminding them of their failed promises and people get even more angry.

I disagree with your disagreement.

Tyeme.6589:

IThe eng didn’t stealth…..he was blinking in and out like a xmas light for 4-5 minutes and defeated a group of 2 war, a mez, a thief, and a ranger…. twice.

I ran into an engi like this and after 20+ minutes of fighting him, and pulling 6-7 more people into the fight, had decided he was hacking. He teleported around like crazy and when using his movement skills it looked like he wasn’t jumping but instead warping (like he was blinking) to the spot he landed in.

Turns out he wasn’t hacking. I recorded a video on my end, and he recorded a video on his end. He was actually just lagging so badly that Anet’s absolutely horrid server-authoritative movement/location replication was actually respecting where he thought he should be on his end, not where the server thought he should be and therefore reporting it on our end. I decided to take my video down after finding out he wasn’t hacking, but even from his perspective it looks like he’s glitching all over the place (you can see many of us swinging at empty air because that’s where we saw his character, not where he actually was).

He posted the video in the forum here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Being-to-mobile-is-dangrous/

At approx 5:14-5:17 is when I started suspecting him of glitch jumping/teleporting (look at how he instantly moves about 20 feet), and 5:47-5:50 was when I was sure of it — I had jumped below the bridge to go after him, because that’s where I saw him land, and then suddenly he was on top of the bridge; this is even evident on his screen.

I’m a bit more careful about accusing hackers anymore. Although [OPs] of IoJ you guys are hilarious, using your floathack underneath hills to get to the top next tp the inner cannon and porting your buddies in, classy! Note that these guys have been recorded, screenshotted, reported, many many times, and they still do it.

http://i.imgur.com/TwHRRYx.jpg

Daily land claimer is achieved by eliminating sentries and capping them for your own side.

It’s not a bug. Spend 15 minutes in an enemy BL being sneaky, flip their sentries, and it’s done.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

3531 attack? 30k HP? 3.37k def? 210% crit dmg? That must be PvP, right? Those kinds of stats are unobtainable anywhere else (I’m only guessing, I don’t play PvP). I’m guessing you’re running.. zerker gear with what looks like assassin trinkets and Lunaria.

Stats are higher in PvE, so it is most likely PvE.

You just don’t play Anet’s favorite class most likely. If you aren’t a Warrior then you can’t get those stats. Most classes need to make a trade off. I.E. high damage low survivability. Warriors just get the highest of everything.

I play PvE and that combination of stats is entirely unobtainable as a warrior even running full signets. I do not play PvP.

Who the hell? What the hell? What’s going on? WHO’S FLYING THIS THING?

Same bullkitten matchup again despite us being completely destroyed in the last one (and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that). Keep up the good work!

3531 attack? 30k HP? 3.37k def? 210% crit dmg? That must be PvP, right? Those kinds of stats are unobtainable anywhere else (I’m only guessing, I don’t play PvP). I’m guessing you’re running.. zerker gear with what looks like assassin trinkets and Lunaria.

Quick Mouse.7635:

Straegen.2938:

Funny but not “cool” camping N camp with a guild group if that is what you were doing.

North camp farm best farm

Tiny invul corner outside of gate most hilarious farm

I for one am glad to have tooltips on guild ACs that tell me they’re superior-level as I’m furiously running towards one to begin immediately firing on an enemy trying to break down a gate.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Again I can assure you, the developers are reading the forums regularly, even though they don’t have time to post a reply to everything they read. Additionally, as I read these forums probably more than anybody here, I regularly compile reports for the competitive team to make sure they are up to speed on your concerns and desires. Does this mean your every wish will be granted? No, it does not. What it does mean is that the team is regularly being made aware of how the community feels about the game and what features, content, etc. that you like, dislike or want to see in the future. What it also means is that we take note of when you all ask for or suggest a feature that is currently under development, so that down the line, when it’s actually released and a bunch of people clamor to the forums to complain that “nobody asked for this” (you know who you are), we can refer back and be secure in the knowledge that somebody did, in fact, ask for it.

I would just like to point out, and I hope you realize this, that the first dev post in MONTHS in this subforum since the tourney reward debacle was… yours. To tell us to shut up and stop bringing up old threads.

It’s not about developers reading this forum and not having time to reply to everything. It appears that they have no time to reply to anything.

I’m glad you’re compiling reports. What exactly do those reports contain? A lot of the threads over the last couple of months have simply been people asking if there’s anyone still answering phones over there, and that’s because we keep calling, the phone keeps ringing, but there’s nobody on the other end.

I’d simply like to point out that your follow-up post to the sticky feels somewhat ironic to me, and even the sticky itself perhaps a bit insulting, in that the only response that we’ve gotten to let us know people are reading this forum is that someone got a little miffed over thread necros and decided that it had to stop.

If you think your post ended up being longer than it had to be, it didn’t. We needed to hear it. All of it. People are leaving. People have left. People have been considering if there’s any worth in investing our time and money in this game anymore, and we absolutely, 100%, needed you to write every single word of that.

Farzo.8410:

Warriors are pretty much always conidtion built but instead of longbow they go greatsword with sword/warhorn. The moment their HP is down by 50% they bullrush away and then use all the leap skills they can to get away as far as possible.

Wait, what? Who runs a condi War with a GS/sword+horn?! What conditions are they applying besides bleeding? Are they using sigil of doom or torment or… I don’t even know how this works. Do tell. I have never, ever come across a condi war that used a set like that.

Posting an extra post that prevents me from seeing the page because one was presumably deleted.

Holy hell, did you ever survive a bombard phase without being able to see those circles? I mean, my god…

1. Capture camps
2. Kill enemy dolyaks
3. Take out sentries
4a. Place and build defensive siege for your side
4b. Man said siege when an enemy attacks
5. Roam, get into solo fights. Each stomp is a point for your server if you have bloodlust (and you should most of the time)
6. Run confusion (aka havoc) if you know your side has a zerg in an enemy map or area. This means “tapping” or attacking the gates/guards of a large objective that your side’s zerg isn’t near as a diversion tactic (this causes what people call “swords”, or when you see swords on an objective on the map, indicating it’s under attack), or taking camps or sentries in a similar fashion. Basically all of the above but #4 put to use as a tactical advantage.

Also, use sites like wvwintel.com to see if your side has captured an enemy objective with a POI or vista that you need. That’s how I got my 100% completion in a single week; I just watched the maps and waited until we flipped things, one by one. Even if the window to get those vistas or POIs is small, you’re probably guaranteed about 15 minutes to get in and grab them, and that’s exactly what I did.

Of course, and this is a whole other story, once I started watching the maps and looking at the tactical side of things, I started to fight with them. I had never played WvW until I was ready to finish my first legendary. I went in for the map completion, and never left.

I ended up picking up the rifle because of its unique firing/wield sounds. It’s not the prettiest rifle in the world, and the sounds would probably better suit something that looked more like a phase rifle from Star Trek, but it stands out and I actually think the magical FX are rather cool despite the bland moldy cheese design of the weapon itself.

TexZero.7910:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

TexZero.7910:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

TexZero.7910:

Sororita.3465:

Sucks to have him but i dont see you losing it any time soon in the match up.

We could all afk and still win the match with the way the servers we face both currently play.

Still annoying to deal with though.

The way we currently play has nothing to do with facing down numbers 3-4x ours and heavy coverage at all hours of the day that we simply don’t have.

Go back to T3 already, this is boring.

We’re equally as bored, but you all could atleast stop hiding in towers. Would make it more fun for everyone

When I’m out solo running supply or checking camps and I see a red tide of 40 CD suddenly headed my way, you can be kitten well sure I’m going to be the first one on an AC in the nearest tower. 40v1? That sure as hell ain’t fun for me! Maybe you get a rise out of overwhelming odds, but those people “hiding in towers” are likely the only players we have in the map and they’re desperately trying to save maybe one, just one tower from the CD tide that has randomly decided to roll in to hit the reset button on our Borderlands because why the hell not, you can throw 80 people in our map and still have enough to defend yours, attack the other BL, and cap and hold SMC at the same time.

50 of you: “Come out and fight! Stop hiding behind siege!”
1 of 3 people: “Are we the only ones in the map?”
A second of 3 people: “Yeah, I think so. Hey, anyone else around? We’ve got about 40-50 CD at ne tower, probably inc to garri”
*crickets *
All 3 of us: “Welp, back to our arrow carts.”

We rarely have 50 people on a map in one go, let alone in the same area. I mean i get it you feel out manned. However, there has been times when its 15v15 in an open field and either server will just retreat to a tower sit under their excessive siege and pretend that’s something fun.

Not trying to start any PvF here, but we know you still have guilds and groups, it would be nice if they came off EBG

Hey, I think that would be nice too! I’m typically a BL commander (enemy and ours), and I’m the one who eyes enemy numbers and if we have people to match, I’ll call for a push. Unfortunately, many don’t follow that lead and half will stay behind in the tower/keep/ruin/hidey hole/whatever. Which I don’t really get, since they’re not gaining anything by letting you guys cata or ram your way into the tower when the other half of us are dead, not losing anything by going for a push and potentially winning — a great feeling in and of itself — and there’s no penalty for dying. Just waypoint, run back, start fighting again.

Unfortunately that’s out of my control. I would love to see more pushes and open field battles. That’s the most fun I get out of WvW aside from good roaming encounters, although yes a successful siege defense can have its merits as well especially against overwhelming numbers.

On Saturday you guys had MvM running a skill group and hammer training our spawn in EBG for over half an hour. I sat in the invul zone and could just watch them group up, veil down, and only warn the people outside spawn (to little/no effect). I think that’s why so many people on our server are scared in general, combined with overall lack of WvW experience/never having run with a skill group or GvGd, etc.

If you haven’t guessed, I’m on the server that’s red this week.

Wow. Super classy.

TexZero.7910:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

TexZero.7910:

Sororita.3465:

Sucks to have him but i dont see you losing it any time soon in the match up.

We could all afk and still win the match with the way the servers we face both currently play.

Still annoying to deal with though.

The way we currently play has nothing to do with facing down numbers 3-4x ours and heavy coverage at all hours of the day that we simply don’t have.

Go back to T3 already, this is boring.

We’re equally as bored, but you all could atleast stop hiding in towers. Would make it more fun for everyone

When I’m out solo running supply or checking camps and I see a red tide of 40 CD suddenly headed my way, you can be kitten well sure I’m going to be the first one on an AC in the nearest tower. 40v1? That sure as hell ain’t fun for me! Maybe you get a rise out of overwhelming odds, but those people “hiding in towers” are likely the only players we have in the map and they’re desperately trying to save maybe one, just one tower from the CD tide that has randomly decided to roll in to hit the reset button on our Borderlands because why the hell not, you can throw 80 people in our map and still have enough to defend yours, attack the other BL, and cap and hold SMC at the same time.

50 of you: “Come out and fight! Stop hiding behind siege!”
1 of 3 people: “Are we the only ones in the map?”
A second of 3 people: “Yeah, I think so. Hey, anyone else around? We’ve got about 40-50 CD at ne tower, probably inc to garri”
*crickets *
All 3 of us: “Welp, back to our arrow carts.”

shadow.6174:

lol yeah, that place is terribly known to have that issue. It gets even worse if you decide to jump on that slope and then it takes off around 80% of your health at once. It needs to be verified ASAP.

Since it’s already verified, I think the word you’re looking for is “fixed.”

TexZero.7910:

Sororita.3465:

Sucks to have him but i dont see you losing it any time soon in the match up.

We could all afk and still win the match with the way the servers we face both currently play.

Still annoying to deal with though.

The way we currently play has nothing to do with facing down numbers 3-4x ours and heavy coverage at all hours of the day that we simply don’t have.

Go back to T3 already, this is boring.

Stealing enemy stuff when killing them, wow, that brings me back to my Lineage 2 days. Yeah, no, you can’t in this game.

Skye Terrier.3805:

But I’m confused. Whenever I’m in WvW (as little as possible), there’s no way to talk to the “enemy”. How did you invite him? If there were only a way to say “PLEASE! Just let me get to this Vista and this POI and then you can smash me to your hearts’ content”! I’d be ever so grateful.

Typically I block them to get their name/account name, type it out in /whisper, and then unblock them.

I had a situation with an uplevel thief during the tourney that was desperately trying to get the yak kills achievement done in the last few hours (this was, of course, before people realized you could still do the achievements for days after the tourney ended). I had repeatedly killed her at SE camp trying to kill yaks, until she stood at the top in the invul zone and whispered if she could just kill 6 yaks coming out of SE camp to get it and she’d be on her way. Our towers were fully supplied, our hills were T3, so I said sure. I told people in map chat not to worry about the disappearing yaks from SE camp and kept an eye on her to make sure she was only killing yaks — forgive me for being a bit distrustful, but a tactic like that could allow her to call her buddies to let them know SE camp was free for the taking or some such and it was a tourney after all. She got her achievement, thanked me, and left.

Honestly, while I’m typically of a “red is dead” mindset, stuff like that makes me feel good.

Speaking of roaming, I recently ran across a condi engineer using what I assume is this food:

Prickly Pear Pie

+40% Condition duration
33% Chance to steal life on critical

He melted me. It’s a new food made from cactus introduced with the Dry Top area, and it’s insane. The only other lifesteal foods, of which one was my favorite until the direct damage nerf and rise of the condi metas, Omnomberry Pie, was a fantastic food. Unfortunately, I haven’t used any food other than Lemongrass Poultry/Poultry Leek since, because even at the maximum rate that my warrior can cleanse using quick breathing, mending, shake it off, and cleansing ire, it’s not enough* because they just get reapplied over and over.

*Yes I am aware of sure-footed+Berserker’s Stance, but if you expect a battle to last less than 10 seconds you had better be sure you can kill the other person in 3 or 4 hits. Which, for direct damage dealers, has become increasingly difficult against condi bunkers.

Roaming is a coin flip. I had a fantastic fight with a guard the other day that lasted a good minute or so, and while I won I would not have been upset at all if I didn’t. He left me with ~1k health at the stomp and I saluted afterwards. Unfortunately, roaming has typically resulted in running into a condi meta of one type or another that typically keeps their distance (really, part of what makes a condi meta work) and oftentimes I can’t prevent/cleanse/allow the conditions to wear off fast enough to be able to even put a dent in them.

I also find it a bit ironic that much of the food introduced with Dry Top has been offensive in nature instead of defensive given the stats of nomad gear and such. There’s one new food that I would actually love to use more often after having crafted some*, but simply can’t until I can find a way to better deal with conditions other than reducing their duration by 36/40%.

*The food is Plate of Roasted Cactus by the way, if anyone’s interested. +100 Ferocity, 33% chance to gain might on crit with an internal CD of 1 sec.

All of these new foods are bizarrely account-bound on craft, though, so I don’t expect to see too many people running around with them — yet. I don’t think Anet will leave it that way as Chef is a way for many people to earn income and these are definitely valuable foods, expensive to make no less, so we’ll see what happens. There’s already a huge backlash on the fossil/ambrite weapon RNG and non-tradeability of fossils or weapons, so I expect to see that change as less and less people are hanging around Dry Top and therefore willing to pump the Zephyrite tier influence to the level required to be able to buy the recipes.

TL;DR, sorry, went off on a bit of a tangent there.

Olba.5376:

Every time ANet says anything about “the future”, people take is as guaranteed promises that cannot, will not and could not be broken under any condition. Once those views on the future turn out to be untrue or not as beautiful as ANet envisioned, people will hate ANet for it. People will call them liars. And then… people will start asking for more.

Except, that’s not what’s been happening at all lately. People aren’t asking for more than what was promised, or what was said to be worked on, lately (last couple of months) people have simply just been asking for anything. It has been deathly quiet in this subforum, and you can’t blame people for wondering why, and when each new patch hits and there are so many PvE changes, why we’re left with, and I’m being serious here, the biggest (and one of only 2, stealth map glitch fixes aside) WvW change since the April feature pack:

• Fixed an issue in which Build Master II caused the incorrect amount of supply to be spent when building burning oil, cannons, and mortars.

Yeah.

It’s been 4 months since Devon has posted anything, and that was only to announce the beginning of the spring tourney. Utter silence since.

Otaur.9268:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/devon-carver-on-the-future-of-world-vs-world/

It’s the future, can we get an update on this please ANet? Just something, so we know that you guys still have a WvW Team, or if Mr. Devon Carver is still working for ANet?

1. Yes, he still works there, and is apparently the head of the WvW team.

Devon Carver

I’ve been in the Video Games Industry for a little over 6 years now. I started as a QA analyst working on games for the PC, Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. For the past 3 1/2 years I’ve been a designer at ArenaNet working on Guild Wars 2. I am currently the head of the World vs. World team and am responsible for driving the direction of that game type.

2. Whether the WvW team is doing anything or not is impossible to say, because they never post here and never talk about it in any of their livecasts. Many threads like the one here are deleted shortly after they’re made. This leaves many of us with little hope that there is actually any active progress being made on WvW.

It’s a little funny when you’re traited for 50% fall damage as a warrior to have that happen and watch enemies fly through the air as you cut a path through them.

I had the same thoughts as those here, and I didn’t see this thread (it was buried probably a couple dozen pages back when I made mine), so I made a suggestion:

Upgrade Extractor Kits

It might not ever happen, but Anet has to at least realize that there is an untapped market here that they’re missing out on.

BUT BUT BUT YOU CAN UTILIZE BLOODSTONE DUST TO MAKE TOXIC STONES/OILS/CRYSTALS! TOTAL PROGRESS!

Right guys? RIGHT?!

Yeah. It’s stale. I feel like there isn’t much point in playing anymore.

In the case of our server over the last 6 matchups (even though the actual matches have changed), there has been one server that has an absolutely huge population and coverage at all hours of the day, and then 2 other servers (us and someone else) that are essentially just fighting for second place, with the one server almost always at double our points. We lost second place in the last 2 matchups by a few hundred points, whereas trying for first for either of the other two servers was downright impossible.

Add to that that all of these matches have had the other 2 servers actively hitting the reset button on our BL at least a few times a day while not touching each others’ and it’s just another week of “oh, yay, this crap again.” It’s stale, there are few decent fights to be had, and a vast gap in population and point difference between the first place server and the other two below it.

Working as intended!

I’ve noticed this as well. Putting it on Ultra results in the same transition distance between low and high detail models as putting it on Low.

Changing maps, restarting the game, running a -repair, all do not work.

Wanze.8410:

Introducing a gem store item that will enable you to make gold profits (extracting melandru runes from karma armor for example) at the present gold/gem ratio will only result in gem prices getting higher until its not profitable anymore.

Ah, I wasn’t thinking about karma armor. That’s really the only case it would be an issue, though, because while the current upgrade extractor makes any upgrade you pull account bound, you can slap it on a green item and salvage it with a BL kit to get it back non-bound for sale.

Perhaps karma armor should really be the only exception, because no matter what way you look at it, there is almost no reason to use an upgrade extractor as it stands now over simply replacing the upgrade or item with something else (in the case of ascended gear that you won’t be salvaging to replace, just slapping a new rune/sigil on top of it is still far cheaper than (stupid censor) using an extractor, then applying it to a green item method).

The issue I’m seeking to address is not that you can’t make money with the current extractor, but that build experimentation using different runes and sigils is extremely expensive if you’re running karma/wvw/ascended gear that can’t be salvaged. I’m trying to find a way that doesn’t result in a massive gold sink to simply try out a new build, which is generally in line with the trait refund system introduced in the feature pack.

Basically, this one’s been on my mind for a while, pretty much ever since ascended gear was introduced. As it stands, a single upgrade extractor from the gem store will run you 250 gems, or at gold->gem exchange rates at the time of this post, 33 gold, 70 silver. There are currently no upgrades excluding forged/crafted agony infusions and Superior Sigils of Generosity that would even meet 50% of the cost of buying an extractor in the game (rune of strength hovering at about 15g right now). That’s a pretty narrow market; only 3 upgrades in the entire game are actually worth the cost of buying an extractor.

So, with the feature pack we were given the GW1-esque ability to refund trait points at any given time as to allow people to experiment with their builds without visiting a trainer and having to pay for it. It was a great addition, and I’ve done more build experimentation than I ever thought I would with the new system.

The one thing that didn’t really catch up with the times, though, are ways to get upgrades out of things such as ascended gear that cannot be retrieved through salvaging, which requires an upgrade extractor. Experimenting with builds often requires experimenting with sigils and runes, and with, say, an exotic weapon or armor piece it’s not such a big deal to use a BL or Master/Mystic kit to salvage a rune or sigil out of it, as oftentimes the sigil or rune is worth far more than the exotic. I’m not talking about skins, of course, because while items like Whisperblade, Foefire’s Essence, Infinite Light, etc, are very expensive, an exotic with identical stats can be bought for only a couple of gold and reskinned with a more expensive look once you’ve unlocked it in your wardrobe. Generally any upgrade you care enough to retrieve by salvaging it out of your weapon is likely worth more than the weapon itself (stats-wise), so using an upgrade extractor on a salvageable item would seem ludicrous when compared to the price of simply replacing the upgraded item at 5-10% of the cost you would pay for an extractor.

So, with that in mind, I’d offer up a suggestion akin to BL Salvage Kits, except instead of a single extraction for 250 gems, perhaps offer a 25-use kit for 500 gems. That’s far more palatable, in my opinion, to the majority of the GW2 population, and 25 extractions at approximately 67 gold works out to about 2.7g per extraction. This falls more in line with the average cost of superior upgrades, and with more expensive situations where you may end up replacing a whole rune set which could add up to quite a bit of gold, it would potentially pay for itself after 7 uses, counting underwater headgear.

Bottom line: do away with the old upgrade extractors. They’ve fallen behind the times of trait refunds, free armor repairs, and ascended gear. There are nearly no situations that warrant their use at the current price, and I’d say more people are likely to fork over the 500 gems for a 25-use kit than however many (I’m guessing not a lot) are currently buying the single-use extractor. I know I’d be first in line to buy one, and with all the complaints I hear from guildies/other players in the game about dealing with rune/sigil experimentation and ascended gear, it’s likely I’m only one of thousands who’d jump on such an item at the first opportunity.

Farzo.8410:

1. Gem store 800 gems.

Question answered, no guessing required.

People have reported that guesting (or taxiing) to a server shard different than the one you got the coin on causes it to appear again if this occurs. Might want to try that as well.

I’m maxed on GS, axe, sword, LB, and spear. My lowest, at zero, is warhorn.

roamzero.9486:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Increasing condi duration and damage needs a cap.

Condis are already capped at 100%. Personally I think the main problem lies with power builds that also utilize conditions, since they can’t really afford +duration, rendering alot their cc/vuln stacking/etc useless when they come across -duration. IMO all conditions should be guaranteed at least 1s.

I said that as a play on the OP’s thread name.

The simple points I was trying to make were:

1) There are far less sacrifices that need to be made to achieve a high amount of condition duration and damage than there are to achieve less condition duration (nothing you can actually do to mitigate damage, so that’s the best we have).
2) Direct damage received a large nerf already from the ferocity change of an average of 15%, in some cases even higher.

Reducing the already-few ways of achieving -condition duration that we have right now? Insane.

edit: I will actually add this: gear, food, or rune bonuses that reduce condition damage, but not necessarily duration — leaving non-damaging conditions such as immobilize, chill, vuln, etc, intact. I would not be opposed to that at all.

Straegen.2938:

Khal Drogo.9631:

And the condition duration decrease occurs AFTER condition duration increase has been added.

Condition duration is resolved BEFORE the final calculation. For example if player A (+150% duration) hits player B (Negative 100%) with a 5 second base Burning the result is 7.5s of burning not zero.

Adding condition duration is easier on most builds than subtracting it. A warrior has two traits that can reduce mobility conditions, Dogged March and Mobile Strikes. Neither are OP since one is a modest adjustment to duration and the other is a major trait that only effects Immobilization.

Then there is the reality of the situation… condi at least in small sized fights is ridiculously powerful right now. Any change to make it more so would be game breaking for the few direct damage builds left.

Dogged March will only respond to the first time any 4 of those conditions hit as well, with a 10 second internal CD. It’s not listed on the wiki page and I think the CD wasn’t added to the trait’s tooltip until recently, so Dogged March isn’t the awesome be-all-end-all solution to movement conditions people make it out to be. I’ve shed it in favor of increased stance durations and rely solely on -condi food. I’m not ready to give up as much power as some others and going with Melandru runes just yet, but if I can get my precision balanced on my armor/trinkets to a comfortable level without Rune of the Pack, I’ll probably use Hoelbrak. And even then, still use the -condi food, because it feels like there’s just no other choice. As said, it’s far easier for someone to increase condition duration and damage than it is for someone to decrease it (and that’s another thing -- there is no -condi damage food, rune, or anything else -- the damage per tick can’t be reduced, only the amount of time that damage is done to you).

Increasing condi duration and damage needs a cap. How about that instead, so we’re all not forced into using the same food to counter it? Or sacrificing our direct damage by using Melandru runes? Direct damage dealers already had a nerf to critical damage through ferocity, we shouldn’t be forced into a corner with specific gear and nourishment simply to stay competitive against increasingly-powerful condi metas.

LotuS.4378:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Your ping is not a static number, it measures the amount of time it takes to send a request and receive a response from a server. What is your ping to the shard you’re on? Where you’re located relative to the shard is going to determine your ping. Type /ip when ingame, open a command prompt, and ping that ip. If you’re halfway across the world from the server shard you’re on, 500 is not necessarily unreasonable.

1. You cant ping anymore.
2. Poland, the problem started after patch.

1. How do you know your ping is 500 if you can’t ping the server?
2a. Okay. Doesn’t mean anything to me.
2b. Which patch?

Theftwind.8976:

…something new is being used/absused.

Occam’s Razor, I think. If there’s a penalty for something, people will find a way around it. With the shear amount of hacks and number of hackers we have running freely around the game, it would not surprise me whatsoever that we keep getting more, new hacks/ways to get around the system because the people doing it know nobody’s answering the phone at Anet anymore. It’s open season with the way things are now.

It’s the people who self insta-revive that have been getting me lately. I’ve seen that a lot more often than usual:

I down someone, nothing/nobody else is around (i.e. nothing to rally off of). I move in for the stomp, the guy is suddenly alive again. Has happened fighting a bunch of different classes.

I’m not sure what they’re using to do it, but it surprises me every time and it is pretty kitten annoying.

Fantastic SEA coverage, inb4lock

Your ping is not a static number, it measures the amount of time it takes to send a request and receive a response from a server. What is your ping to the shard you’re on? Where you’re located relative to the shard is going to determine your ping. Type /ip when ingame, open a command prompt, and ping that ip. If you’re halfway across the world from the server shard you’re on, 500 is not necessarily unreasonable.

I had a war alt-f4 on me while he was trying to escape earlier. He still left behind a bag of loot. As far as I know it’s acting the same way it did before.