Guild Wars 2

Just started experiencing the exact same issue since this most recent patch. As others have said basic troubleshooting steps don’t appear to fix this (repair, driver update, windows update ect) so I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed for a solution.

Hi, with this last patch I’ve been seeing the game client crashing on launcher resulting in the following error.

—> Crash <—
Fatal Error: Fatal disk-error (997: Overlapped I/O operation is in progress.) on read,
App: Gw2.exe
Pid: 6088
Cmdline:
BaseAddr: 00ED0000
ProgramId: 101
Build: 41380
When: 2014-11-04T19:50:55Z 2014-11-04T11:50:55-08:00
Uptime: 0 days 0:00:11
Flags: 0

My drivers are up to date and my system can easily handle the game so I’m just looking for any assistance. Thanks to one and all!

I just want to applaud you OP for not taking the easy way out and going for the no skill, brainless Rapid Fire/SoS spam build that seems so prevalent in WvW these days. Honestly, melee rangers are way more fun and still very viable.

Leggendalex.4659:

I need a WvW dps build, i already have all the berserk ascended trinkets, i`d like a strong build for roaming updated to the last patch.
:)

Not trying to be contentious but… you might want to WvW with another class if you have any others. Warriors are in a bit of a bad spot in WvW right now and it doesn’t really appear that’s going to change anytime soon.

zapv.8051:

nicknamenick.2437:

Sarrs.4831:

They also made it strike five targets?

If you want Eviscerate, take Eviscerate.

did you even saw the ready up?

Did you know they buffed arcing slice because its an compensation for the nerf on 100b and whirlwind

Did you know arcing slice was ALWAYs a terrible burst because it doesnt hit like a burst

Now it even got 8% less dmg.. and ONLY 42% more dmg below 50% health..

I aint asking for an second EVI.. but this ISSNT what they showed to us in the ready up..

So in the end they just nerfed 3 skills on GS..

Lol, so your complaining about an overall 21% damage buff to one of your skills plus a 5 target cleave because you wanted a 25% damage buff plus a 5 target cleave, is that what I’m getting?

We didn’t need another AoE attack, GS has more than enough of that. For everyone saying “it does fine damage” keep in mind that it’s damage coefficient is lower than that of Rush.

Also it’s not only that it’s bad it’s that after over 2 years of Arcing Slice being one of the worst skills in the game we’re promised a great new revamp and what we got was a new version of the same ol’ crap. The whole new Arcing Slice feels cobbled together and apparently is made to fit a gap that doesn’t exist in most warriors repertoire. Seems like if you’re going to revamp something after years of it being complete garbage you ought to do a pretty good job, sadly I think this is because ANet has stopped taking pride in their work (I’m not trying to be mean it just really feels that way recently).

Hell, personally i generally don’t find myself starved for AoE, Fury, or Endurance there is no point at all to use this skill other than being forced to if a fights ending and I might as well.

I roam in WvW a lot, and about 50% of the players I’ve encountered in the past two weeks have been greatsword warriors specced specifically to run away. These players just pick fights and then run away from them. That’s what I mean by a “cowardly warrior” (in case that somehow wasn’t clear).

I roam in WvW a lot, and about 50% of the players I’ve encountered in the past two weeks have been greatsword warriors specced specifically to run away.

50% of the players I’ve encountered

This is the part I realized the OP is kind of full of it. 50% of the players you encountered over the last two weeks have all been one spec of one class specifically made to run away? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight…

And I’m sure their get aways work 60% of the time, every time… by Odeon.

Fact is I’m fairly certain I could get away from the OP on a thief or mes with stealth, a ranger, guard or engi using leaps, stealths and teleports as they apply (not sure about a necro). You’ve just chosen to zero all your angst and frustration on warriors because they seem to be the ones that have the easiest time doing this. But have you ever thought that perhaps you might be running a low mobility high damage spec yourself so it’s natural that you can’t catch them? I’m just saying that if a mobility specced warrior chooses to run from my necro or mesmer they’re most likely going to get away and I’m fine with it. Why? Because they’re no threat if they choose to try to engage me, I’ve chosen to do one thing well, they’ve chosen something else, different specs can do different things well, that’s what makes this game interesting.

Until I see powdered wigs and muskets I think it’s fine that we don’t all line up and fight each other till we fall over.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Zuko.8021:

Hi guys , iv never posted on gw forums before but since I have time now and saw this post with a lot of interesting post from experience warrior players I thought I would input my ideas . A little bit about me iv been a warrior since day one of guild wars a norn at that love it I look real af like a true warrior.

Here’s my thoughts , I got on read the patch and played I love running gs\hammer always have I love dps an smacking all weak classes so hard their dresses come off. I see my gs not bursting those beautiful crits all over the place and my whirl wind not leaving Mesmers on the floor with feathers scattered . So I decide to go hambow and it’s my first time running this and I was doing awesome doin good burst damage what I didn’t like was my waste of adrenal when I didn’t hit any thing with a burst. Why would you take a warriors main purpose “destruction” now you got rangers and other classes who can hold and evade bunch of stuff. It feels kinda clumsy because I some times use my f1 hammer to get away from a necros circle skill or Mesmers or ele don’t ask me their weak classes skill names cause iv never played them never will . I do like the brawlers trait better now works good versus condi thiefs . Warriors should be super op cause we r warriors with heavy armor made for war forget the rest . I still whoop that kitten tho =D

This mentality is partially the reason they nerfed us this hard in the first place.

I cant tell if trolling or sincere.

I think he’s serious and like 12… but yea I agree, it’s comments like his that lead to knee jerk responses like what’s just happened to us.

I can do point by point rebuttals too, it’s so easy when you can just ignore what the other person really means

It hits for 2 auto attacks for less cast time than 1, it is not supposed to be hitting as hard as level 3 evis.

Yes, it actually kind of is, do you recall from the Ready Up video we were told that we were getting an “executioner style” attack that would do significantly more damage sub 50%? Here I’ll remind here, you can find the cliff notes at http://dulfy.net/2014/08/08/gw2-ready-up-upcoming-warrior-and-thief-class-changes/

It gives you fury without needing to spec for it because it is a skill you will want to be using, ’Nuf said.

So does For Great Justice and Signet of Rage, you don’t have to spec for either of those as well.

Comparing this to final thrust is hilarious, arcing is a million times faster and easier to land… and oh yeah you can have BOTH

You’re missing my point… I was inferring that Arcing Slice isn’t exactly “executioner style” when it hits for substantially less than a skill like Final Thrust.

What other adrenaline dumps? This isn’t even a dump, you can fire it off and get meaningful damage from just swapping weapons once (with adren on swap). Evis will still miss due to random garbage or good players saving escapes because evis is way more telegraphed.

Earthshaker? Combustive Shot? Flurry if you’re condi specced? You do understand there are more specs out there than the typical ADHD hyperactive GS warrior one right?

We do not have enough aoe on greatsword, after blowing 100b and almost dying trying to cleave down a body, this is exactly what we needed

Well the fact that you’re trying to use 100b in PvP or WvW at all is a bit of an issue because anyone at all with a stun break and/or knows how to dodge will render that skill pointless. But I digress, you’re completely ignoring that you’re often sacrificing a ton of passive bonuses to use adrenal dump skills like Berserker’s Power, Adrenal Health and Heightened Focus. Fact is I don’t want to constantly be running at1 bar of adrenaline just so I can spam Arcing Slice in it’s current state, it’s just not that good.

Also yes it actually is supposed to be hitting that

ens.9854:

skill is pretty kittening good, why dont you try it instead of whining

full damage on 1 bar of adren, easily spammable, quick enough to combo with cc, large aoe, gives enormous amount of free fury…

sword/greatsword zerk is so much fun now

I did try it… a lot and it’s not that good.

1.) Sub 50% it hits for a little bit more than a good crit but not much
2.) We don’t need another way to generate “enormous amount of free fury” we’ve already got that covered in spades
3.) It’s not “free fury” when you have to spend a resource to get it
4.) Try to combo a CC with final thrust a couple times then take a good look at the damage Arcing Slice is offering you (I’ll give you a hint, AC has a damage coefficient of 1.4 and FT has a coefficient of 3.0 for a little perspective)
5.) You can combo most Adrenaline dumps with a CC outside of kill shot
6.) We don’t need another form of AoE, again we’ve already got more than enough of that on GS already.

So I really get the feeling that you’re trying really hard to love these changes even though if you took step back and really looked at them from a design standpoint you’d realize like so many others how bad they are.

No, no and no.

Just saying “no” to using WP’s doesn’t make them anymore viable. They can get you around a map faster than any reasonable mount can.

Also there’s a reason why mounts would break something like WvW, there’s a reason why it’s intentional for you to have to and from objectives. So please see beyond your desire to ride some absurd attention grabbing mount and look at things from a design standpoint.

Yargesh.4965:

People don’t like change that is at the heart of it.

People don’t like regressive change, changes by their very nature should progressive building on what we already know and have established works. The leveling changes are anything but that, it’s like establishing a child while no pro BMX rider can ride a bike pretty well and then all of a sudden making them slap on training wheels and every piece of padding imaginable to ride their bike. It’s just annoying, and frustrating AND all together unnecessary.

Also ArenaNet should kitten well know by now (since this almost never works in any game) that you have to be extremely careful using gating in MMO’s since many MANY players generally hate it. Sure a little here and there for specific applications is understandable but this much is way too much. I mean who in their right mind honestly thought that new players would be so overwhelmed that they could only handling using 1-2 skills to mindlessly spam on mobs for the first several levels? Really? They can’t possibly think even brand new players are that dense, they just can’t.

Anyway, yea… ArenaNet if you’re reading this you NEED a PTR or more time internally test things because the flaws in many of your recent game changes are all to apparent to anyone trying them in short order. So please let us help you get things right in the future so we can avoid all this chaos and dissonance.

bartmoss.5107:

I created a new Guardian before the patch. I was sort of excited about leveling it up. Then feature pack 2 hit. It became an exercise in futility and annoyance. At the end of the evening, I was browsing the black lion shop. I saw several things there that I’d normally have bought and I thought to myself:

“Do I really want to invest more money in this?” And the answer I got for myself was a resounding “no”. Instead, I came to the conclusion that I do not see a future for GW2 on its present course, and decided to deinstall the client.

Basically, I am voting with my wallet. “You’re not doing a good enough job.”

I kind of hope everybody who dislikes the recent changes does the same, maybe that will get through to ArenaNet. GW2 was a good game, once, and it’s a shame to see what happens to it.

Good luck.
No you can’t have my stuff.

I like the way you think, if more people did this ArenaNet would have to listen far more. Hell I was trying to level a thief too and did the same thing, “Huh, a ninja outfit eh? That’d be pretty nice while I’m stealthing around but… nope, I’m not spending any money on a game that thinks I’m so dense I can’t handle having more than a couple of skills on my bar at early levels.”

chronometria.3708:

Mhm, I am still scratching my head over why they nerfed the greatsword burst skill. Its a low damage attack that was only used for its buff at the start of combat….now we wont have the adrenaline to use it at the start of combat and it gets reduced damage till the enemy is almost dead anyhow.

You know, I never mention warcraft, but for the first time in two years I am going to say it – my warrior back then had execute….and execute actually hurt people when it hit, without hindering any of my other attacks.

Warriors were flat out lied to this patch – the announced buffs were nerfs.

Keep in mind that prior to this patch everything we heard was that Arcing Slice was going to be completely different than what we got. Remember in the Ready Up when a developer was describing that it was going to become a execute style skill? Yea, apparently at the last minute all that was scrapped and we got a worse version of already one of the worst skills in the game.

I mean it completely blows me away that after 2+ years of knowing Arcing Slice is reviled and unused when ArenaNet FINALLY takes the time to revamp the skill they fall on their faces this hard. I mean you’d think that after all this time they’d exert a modicum of effort to make sure what they’re releasing is something that’s actually something warriors are going to enjoy and be excited about. But that’s clearly not what we got, Arcing Slice hits for little more than a normal crit even sub 50%, we have never needed it to generate fury, we don’t need the endurance restoration, hell we don’t need IT at all. As I’ve said before it’s like it was just randomly cobbled together to fit a role that doesn’t exist for warriors and as such will remain a lame duck just as it’s always been.

Purifer.3946:

I agree with the OP. Those who need a god mode profession will search for another. More bags for us.

And this kids is how you tell that someone doesn’t play a warrior. They say things like this showing a clear lack of understanding of the different between a nerf" to skills and a change that makes just playing your class AT ALL difficult.

So for those (like this guy) who think that warriors are complaining just because we’ve gotten a “slight nerf” it’s not that, it’s that the adrenaline change makes the class feel awkward and clumsy and not function at all how it should. Sure warriors could have used a little tuning I would have adapted and been okay with that but what we got was being hacked off at the knee’s and told we’re still able to run around. Oh and trust me if a change like what’s happened to warriors happened to your class you’d be just as frustrated.

The main thing that still blows me away is how haphazard all this feels, it takes about 2 seconds of play in either PvE or especially in any form of PvP to feel how exploitable and bad these changes are. I can’t believe the Development team at ArenaNet would be okay with this, so it’s led me to believe that either; there’s next to no oversight and one inexperienced Dev was tasked with these changes and no one else questioned them or there were multiple Devs who decided on these changes on a white board and never bothered to test them in a practical game environment at all. And yes as I said, if you’d play warrior you understand the issues with this adren change are actually that apparent.

Oh and for the record, also if you thought warriors were “god mode” you’re doing something wrong.

Dand.8231:

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

I’ve been playing since launch.

The crying will not stop. The best warriors will continue to dominate and the weak will re roll to other classes. Simple as that. Plus, it’s more of a challenge for me. I welcome the change!

So…. basically, you’re claiming that that this change was nothing but sunshine and puppies, and everyone who feels otherwise, must feel that way because they’re bads who’re worse than you?

Welcome to the forums, this is the standard comeback to anyone who suggests something is either over powered or over nerfed. L2PNUB mentality is pretty awful, the worst part is they don’t seem the understand the difference between mechanics that are weak and those that are just clumsy.

The adren nerf makes many warrior mechanics extremely clumsy due to the fact that they didn’t adjust skills to compensate for the ripples the main adren decay change would have on them.

So please to everyone who is saying “dis gud chainj cus I da bst nuthin stahp meh dattebayo evry1 else is a nub if dey dunt agrey” please please take a look at the general flow of warriors now and realize the issue isn’t so much that we were nerfed it’s that the constant adren decay completely messes with how a ton of skills are supposed to function. And without updating those to compensate for the new constant uphill battle to generate adrenaline warriors feel incredibly clumsy.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

hope they don’t nerf at all. learn to dodge or be dead. QZ cuts rapid fire duration almost in half which means 1 sec , which one dodge roll can take care of.

You… don’t play much WvW do you?

Warlord.9074:

how about stop being passive and start demanding ANET either fix warriors now or un due bad changes.

That would imply ArenaNet is listening which… they’re most likely not. Also if their track record is any sort of indication any fixes will be very slow in coming. So we either have to adapt or die, that’s the nature of the beast my friend.

kikojak.7051:

Atticus.7194:

Enter my friend, learn to live it and love it if you ever expect anyone to read what you write.

maybe make your replies make more sense before u reply at all. What are u trying to say?

How could you not understand what I was inferring? Just wow, okay well…

What I was trying to say was that using your enter key to separate your thoughts into paragraphs is necessary if you want anyway to read what you’ve written. As it stands now no one in their right mind is going to wade through that deluge of nonsense.

Chan.4256:

Is it just me or does anyone else feel that the change to adrenaline consumption (consumed even when the hit misses), and the decay break warrior viability in PVP?

Or maybe I’m just playing the Warrior wrong?

You’re not.

Sorry to double post but yea, after just messing around a bit in WvW and Arena’s these two things together are just brutal. I feel like I’m playing a class that constantly struggling to keep it’s head above water and generate enough adren to even effectively use my burst skills let alone constantly having to worry about wasting all that by missing or getting out of combat just hurts… a lot. Hell I’ve been afraid to even pop Signet of Rage to keep it’s passive up rather than go for the might/fury/swiftness it gives, it’s all very strange.

As I said before these changes just feel incredibly poorly thought out, they can’t have meant to change warriors this much.

Caedmon.6798:

A class evolving around adrenaline,and a change like this is just…I dont want to get myself infracted but its beyond stupid.For the fun of it,Use berserk when not in combat and see what it does to your adren.Absolutely nothing..you wont even gain 1 bar..you will lose adren faster than you are gaining it.The out of combat adren lose is also Way to severe,it just drains too fast and the drain starts happening too early.Were talking about a class where most builds evolve around Adren.It will again..push more people to go bow..and burst mastery is basically a must now.You’re just pushing all warrs into the same direction anet.Is this Really what you want ?

I have to agree, the rate of adrenaline decay is in fact so fast with absolutely no grace period on exiting combat that it really feels haphazard and poorly thought out. Clearly there was no real thought given towards how much this changes the effectiveness of Berserker’s Power and Heightened Focus AND Cleansing Ire which are all defining talents for many warriors. Not to mention that there was no reorganization of adrenaline heightening talents like Sharpened Axes, Furious ect to make them more accessible to help them make up for our new constant struggle to ramp up any sort of meaningful adren.

This of course coupled with the god awful Arcing Slice which after being told was finally going to be “fixed” after years of it being ignored, shunned or otherwise reviled is insult on insult.

I don’t know, it’s just all the changes feel very… shoddy and poorly thought out. I mean I know warriors shouldn’t be able to horde their adrenaline indefinitely but these changes feel like a knee jerk response to a problem without any real thought as to the ripples those changes will cause throughout the class as a whole. Hell we didn’t even get the obvious caveats to the adren nerf like; a grace period after exiting combat before the decay so we can move between mobs before starting over, a decay rate that feels like it’s been tested in something other than a narrow range of PvE, adjustments to traits to help compensate for new constant struggle to generate adrenaline, nothing.

It’s all just very frustrating and compounding on that is the typical ArenaNet silence, which is hilarious because I would have thought that after all this time they would have learned that ignoring spurned players is a awful idea. At least acknowledge that they’ve heard us and are looking into the issue.

Enter my friend, learn to live it and love it if you ever expect anyone to read what you write.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

nicknamenick.2437:

EnemyCrusher.7324:

Simon.3106:

Hmmm have you ever seen a Thief? Try catching a pro Thief and tell me how it goes… Highly likely with you dead and they full life. Want to know how? Apply conditions on you, shadow step away… reset fight…. come back with full life while conditions still ticking off your life, then blast you again.

The Warrior class deserves this… unlike most, they have to step up to their target to strike them (unless LB or number 4 with GS). Other than that, their hundred blade won’t do anything a mile away from their target. They should be able to rush/dash in toward their enemy when desired.

The damage from Hundred Blades or thief condition damage is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

As for killing thieves in WvW, I’ve gotten good at predicting and killing them, even if they do stealth. It may be hard to kill a stealth thief, but it’s impossible to kill a warrior who is suddenly way out of your range.

suddenly way out of your range.

SUDDENLY???

Thats the point.. you will always SEE where or what the warrior is doing …
So if you play well you shouldnt have any trouble.

Whirlwind Attack + Rush can put about 2000 distance between you in under two seconds, and both have fairly short recharges. Combined with stability, immunity to conditions, and permanent swiftness, please tell me how you would stop that warrior from getting away, as any other class (or even a non-greatsword warrior).

What class are you playing as?

silentnight warrior.2714:

The thing is nobody compalined about Arcing-slice and ANet nerfed it.
A big number on people complained about torment on auto attack on mesmer and clones (mesmer included) and ANet let that go.

This is how they “listen” to players…

Remember that the Arcing Slice change was “supposed” to be an improvement a complete redesign that up until this point many were guardedly optimistic about. However it looks like at the last minute they scrapped what they were planning and cobbled together the monstrosity that we got instead.

So now we have a worse version of a skill that literately no one has ever used since day 1.

Spartacus.3192:

Hambow warrior in sPVP was so freaking faceroll easy. I main a guardian and i decided to start a warrior 2 days ago. I literally bought a hammer and bow from TP (never fired the bow before my first sPVP match). Specced the Meta Hambow build. Walked into arena and was immediately killing players and lasting way longer than i ever did as my Medi guardian which ive been playing for 2 months now. So yeah, it was kinda OP in pvp.

Dont worry i have my flame kittenant suit on.

You also have to realize that a big part of why hambow was/is good in sPvP is because of how amazing condi’s in general are. So unless ArenaNet is going to work out balancing those in PvP (which clearly they’re not able to do) they’re going to have a hard time addressing any class that can use them and have ready access to control skills like stuns and knockdowns without completely over nerfing the class for all specs not just the one they intend to address.

I just really hate that the two big changes to warriors, namely arcing slice and adren decay are sooo heavy handed. I mean it seems to take around 2-3 seconds to completely lose all adren when you’re out of combat so you’re constantly starting over from step 1. It also trivializes talents that reward full adrenaline and makes them far less viable.

Not to mention Arcing Slice is just almost unbelievably underwhelming, it hits for very little. we don’t need another way to generate fury or hit things with an AoE or regen endurance or anything else. It’s like running marathon and being rewarded with a brick, it’s just not something you really want.

Olba.5376:

Final Thrust is a 3.0 coefficient at <50% HP. That’s the same as a full adrenaline Eviscerate. If you were expecting that kind of damage from Arcing Slice, considering that it was known to be an AoE and to grant ridiculous amounts of Fury, you’re on some serious drugs.

That’s the problem though, greatsword in no way needs another aoe attack, it doesn’t need another fury generator, it doesn’t need another way to restore endurance it doesn’t need anything. What it needs is basically what OP was asking for, an execute style attack. What it got was a 1.4 damage coefficient that hits like a wet noodle with a very obvious tell that is completely awful.

So yea, it’s nice to see that after knowing that Arcing Slice has been completely and utterly worthless since day one of the game after their great redesign it’s still completely and utterly worthless. Only now thanks to rapid adren loss we’re somehow being told we should use it anyway. What a joke, who ever designed this really needs to learn how to do their job.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

Can we please do something about this cowardly play style? It’s very frustrating when more than half of the people who pick a fight with you run away as soon as they start losing, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I feel so much dumber for having read this statement…

Classes are classes and people will play them how they want. Trying to force them into a playstyle means absolutely destroying the class for most of the population.

Also you can do something about warriors running away, it’s called cripple, it’s called immobilize, it’s called chill, it’s called stun, it’s called knock down, it’s called knockback. So before you start complaining about not being able to do anything about warriors running away how about you really use the tools at your disposal.

Vermillion.4061:

You know the adrenaline nerf wouldn’t be such a problem if it was with the warrior from day 1, now it’s just going to be somewhat hard to adjust to it and get used to a complete rework of how the class works.

But I’ll be playing my longbow ranger for a bit, those changes seem good.

The adrenaline nerf is just sooo harsh, I’m amazed after playing on mine for just a little bit that there is absolutely no grace period between fights before your adrenaline just vanishes. It’s super unforgiving, if you’re not constantly pulling to constantly stay in combat you constantly have to start building your adren all over again.

It also wouldn’t be so bad if Arcing Slice wasn’t complete garbage as well, honestly that is one of the most cobbled together worthless redesigns I’ve ever seen. And for a skill that’s been garbage since day one it’s adding insult to injury.

I’m trying to understand what ArenaNet’s design team was thinking, what practical application they thought this would be used for… we already didn’t need another way to trigger fury, we didn’t need another aoe attack, we didn’t need another way to regenerate endurance sooo… yea this was apparently designed to fill a niche that doesn’t exist.

Remember all the BHB’s who said this change was compensation for the 100b and WWA nerf?

Yeah.

Remember when they said Arcing Slice would be something like an execute?

Yeah.

Right now this is a completely pointless skill, I can’t see ever using it and now with the adrenaline nerf I guess we’ll have to just constantly be switching to axe to use eviscerate. Or just not use the greatsword at all anymore, regardless I’m just flabbergasted that someone on a design team thought this was okay. It feels so poorly thought out and utterly untested I’m amazed.

Just commenting that I’ve had the exact same issue, had the cultivated seed (have the mysterious vine backpiece sitting right next to it) and now I’m back to a pet seed.

Sure this will get fixed eventually, just wanted to throw my 2 cents in.

Just curious why the incredibly long cooldowns on Norn shapeshifts. I know most everyone ignores them anyway but perhaps if we didn’t have to wait 2 min between each use it might incentivize players to give them more of a shot.

Dunno, always seemed sad that one of the defining abilities for Norn in general is generally ignored and relegated to collect dust for most players.

Yea, very disappointed actually, mainly with the lack of background events associated with these new boss events and hugely because of the wait times.

Things would be so much nicer if they had just designed these encounters to activate once a minimum number of players were present or at least have included an actual countdown timer for them (as in how many hours/min before they begin). Regardless standing around waiting for stuff to happen then losing early because players have been trained by this game to mindlessly zerg is sort of a buzz kill for new content

Kentaine.4692:

Nice they added hard core content, but frankly the only reason why ANYONE plays an MMO is for the instant gratification that is the reward for their effort.

So far, I’m not impressed. The chests that drop for the event don’t have silver in them, only one green item, and a bag full of useless tokens that combine for some mysterious purpose no one has figured out yet that I have heard.

Hard content should have equally good rewards, GW2 cannot get the idea that risk vs reward is what’s making the game such a let down since they started upping the difficulty. They make insane events you stand around two hours for only to get wiped and the trash doesn’t even drop anything worth selling because its account bound. Idiotic.

I have to agree to an extent, players put in the effort to kill bosses for the experience, the reward/ sense of accomplishment. So the experience revolves around the bosses design itself which is hopefully challenging without being frustrating, while the rewards are usually something unique or distinctive that is representative of your accomplishment like a skin, title or the like in the place of something like that players have come to expect some sort of monetary reward.

So given how ArenaNet is moving towards bosses where the best rewards are very RNG oriented, leaving some fairly lackluster achievement rewards and monetary gains it’s kind of understandable players are disappointed in what they’re offered.

But I guess it all comes down to 1.) the fundamental disconnection ArenaNet has with their playerbase that prevents them from understanding what players actually want and 2.) ArenaNet trying to add grinding to a game that was intended to be anti-grind

That’s what really struck me too, it wasn’t even how worthless the rewards were it was how thoughtless and… lazy they were. It was like someone at ArenaNet just grabbed a bunch of items off a spread sheet and decided they were “good enough” and tossed them in a chest. There was no thought at all about “what would WvW players appreciate getting as a representation of their hard work.”

It’s like we’re all little kids again on Holloween, and after working really hard to hand make our costumes show up at ArenaNet’s house and they give us a box of raisins, some old bittersweet chocolate chips that have clearly spent too long in the cupboard and a fridge magnet. It’s not even the items themselves it’s just the sheep indifference and lack of thought paid to them that really hurts.

Honestly and I’m not saying this as a threat or anything but, you guys need to treat your playerbase better if you expect to survive, you’re already in a downhill slide and you don’t seem to want to put in the effect to stop or reverse that.

Or maybe Scarlet was behind the rewards too?

I really do think this needs to be looked into as well, I know a ton of people who run high level fractals quite a bit and they’ve never had a new skin drop either.

It would be far easier if you just make the skins purchasable with relics for fairly high prices but god knows thats never going to happen.

No one knows, probably about the same time they fix the inability to rez in the new Fractal Instance and the plethora of other bugs plaguing this patch

So I personally would also like to know if come Tues you’re going to refund all the ecto’s and mats that I spent maxing out my Fractal Capacitor once it’s relegated back to only having a default +5 slot

Mardermann.7468:

I have Zero feeling that I “live” in a living world.
Lots of little junks with lots of folk who are interesting/semi interesting heroes…
Just I as a player dont feel like a hero…
it started with the abysmal written and also very badly voiced Trehaerne (cant even spell his name right and he does not deserve to be googled)
and all the events (except for the Roxx and Emoguy Norn dungeon) where not really that interesting.
The zephyre market was interesting because different…

Ireally hoped for more character / race driven storydevelopment
(I love Norn… why didnt you write something interesting connected to their lore?
Why are the animal spirits still missing… give us wolverine back or ox… (owl is dead I guess))
divide the living story teams into racial story teams and further the interesting story behind each of the races…
enough of all the little things and rather grindy reward things…. I really dont need a shiny gadget if the story is well written…
just sell that stuff on the bltc and be done with it…

Sadly I have to agree with much of this post, the living story really doesn’t seem to have made the world feel “living” at all and I think there are a number of reasons for that.

First and foremost is the fact that the updates included in the “Living Story” are often disjointed, unrelated and fairly one dimensional. Players can’t get invested in a story that jumps from strange sky people, to new alien islands, to steampunk dredge/charr to who knows what else, it’s just too jarring of a transition. The story needs to pick one very plotline and focus on telling a story that takes it (and in turn the player) to a very specific and compelling conclusion. In addition I really REALLY think right now that plotline needs to be the Elder Dragons and bringing back the menace, the threat and the excitement associated with them especially to redeem them from the understandably very underwhelming confrontation with Zhaitan.

Oh and the poster above also mentioned Trahearne, he’s… a very bad character (to put it mildly) in fact I personally think he’s so bad it’s not even worth trying to redeem him in any future updates. I’m fairly certain about the best you could do with him is allow players to vent some of their frustration at his condescending, fame stealing, holier-than-thou ways by changing him into a villain somehow. Then at least he’d be gone for good and no one would have to worry about him stepping into the player characters limelight again to take credit where credit is most assuredly not due.

So all in all I just think GW2 needs a much narrower focus on the Elder Dragons, tying in established lore from GW and making sure that the player character(s) are taking front stage in helping save and impact the “world” is what this game needs to get people invested in what’s going on. I mean aside from Roxx, Brahme and Destiny’s Edge I think most players have no real idea who any other NPC’s are or what they’re even doing on their screens. And how can you become attached to a story where that is the case? We need to really get to know a few character, to watch characters grow, change and evolve with us as the story progresses. Then we can and will care about what’s happening to them, to our characters and to the world.

Oh and one last thing, I really feel like ArenaNet pulls punches far too often in their narrative to prevent upsetting anyone. You guys really shouldn’t be afraid to make something dramatic but doing to illustrate how “real” things are in your stories.

Personally I’d just love to see a concerted effort to implement or improve a feature to help offset the tremendous advantage sheer numbers provides in WvW right now. I understand this isn’t such an issue in the higher tier WvW matches where all 3 servers can field a fair amount of players but in the lower ones it’s a massive problem. While skill, strategy and execution can certainly help offset the players organized enough to pull these things off are few and far between so inevitably it just comes down to zerg vs zerg and whom ever has the larger one wins.

I have to admit it can quickly become very discouraging when your server is constantly rolled because you simply don’t have the numbers others do.

I have to agree about much of this, AR is simply broken beyond repair in WvW. Whenever I join a match our player makeup consists of 60% new players who have joined to try WvW out or are just interested in leveling, 20% old veterans who while good often leave quickly due to how poorly we often do, 10% of people who are just sort of lonely and want to act out in a more populated area as most cities and zones are deserted and the last 10% are autopilots who simply mindlessly attack whatever is in front of them no matter how bad an idea it is.

Suffice to say it’s very discouraging logging into WvW atm, often outnumbered and usually doing pretty badly it’s hard to even bother to try. Personally I think much of this could be fixed by simply adjusting the outnumbered debuff to apply to a smaller player gap and awarding an increase in Vit, Toughness and Power to help a smaller group maintain have some chance of standing against a more populated server.

Esplen.3940:

Hey, just because you’re outnumbered all the time doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to be in last place…

Just look at NSP.

True but given that we’ve been consistently slipping down the WvW ladder and in our current bracket are regularly getting spanked due to our server having next to no WvW coverage I’d say we’re on the decline and headed for an even lower ranking.

Wish I had something more positive to say =/

I just came back for a couple days after a few month hiatus and I have to admit that Anvil Rock seems pretty much dead or almost there. In Lions Arch there is no chatter, we have no presence at all in WvW and unless I’m mistaken are last place of all the servers there, see very few people out in the world, dungeons are abandoned, and very few players to be seen in any major city.

I mean I hate to say it but Anvil Rock while once a great server seems to have all the vitality of an asthmatic 90 year old

mixu.4281:

So, I happened to stop by the GW2 State of the Game stream just in time for their discussion on thieves. Apparently, ANET plans to change stealth so that it applies the revealed buff, regardless if you hit something or not.

Discuss.

Good change, also prevents thieves from having infinite stealth inside forts and castles and running around untouchable for 45 min.

Zonzai.2341:

Thieves only dominate new/unsuspecting WvW players. Once people get used to fighting against them (e.g. not standing still, using AoE) they aren’t nearly as effective – then they’re more like a normal glass cannon that kills fast but dies fast.

WvW presents players with a huge area and they never know when a thief will strike. I think that it is a fun dynamic to have, take away that burst damage and you’ve ruined one of the most frightening aspects of WvW. I like that sensation.

So, I am against a nerf to thief damage. They should eat glass cannons for breakfast. I’m okay with that. They should frighten new players. It creates a degree of intensity you couldn’t get if a thief didn’t burst you down so fast. Also, it helps to balance the meta. Play a glass cannon and you know the risks. Risk number one being thieves and other glass cannons that get the jump on you.

Anything we do to make zergs more powerful will, in my opinion, be bad for the WvW meta. The upcoming AoE nerf could do that. However, the thief shortbow AoE (2) could stand to be changed. But single target burst damage shouldn’t. (I think the short bow will be the next nerf for thieves anyway. And that’s probably for the best.)

Yea man, I think ArenaNet should send someone out to everyone’s home to stand over them with a raised fist so no one knows when they’re going to be punched in the head it adds to the “intensity”…

Come on, thieves being able to take out players who aren’t able to anticipate their actions at any and all times is a dumb mechanic, just like the current form of stealth. Stealth should be a tool carefully utilized not something that is an automatic “get out of jail free” card that can be facerolled to escape or attack.

This one is pretty simple, everything should have some means of a counter and atm stealth finishers have none so unless ArenaNet is willing to add a new downed skill to all classes to prevent thieves from finishing you off with impudence then they need to remove this. Thieves shouldn’t be the only class that can negate all other classes downed abilities simply because they have one ability that trumps all others.

Thanks for your time

Habib Loew.6239:

WvW ranks & abilities are character based. The best way to think of this system is as alternative/extended character progression.

This is a poorly thought out idea, by making ranks character instead of account bound all your doing is locking people into playing one character to “progress” in WvW which will inevitably equal players getting bored and leaving just as they are now.

How do you guys not understand that the right way to do things is to offer players as many choices and as much diversity as possible to play the game as they want to keep things fresh? Sure you’ll extended the “progression” of characters a little further by making them grind rank every time they want to try a new class but is that what you want? You really think that players doing the same grind over and over again is going to make them happy and keep them interested? Being locked into one character because they can’t or don’t want to invest that time in a new class?

Stop trying to figure out new ways to keep that carrot just out of reach and start thinking of new things to offer and new ways to do it because eventually that carrot is going to rot and we’re all going to find something new to go for.

Mank.2183:

Intigo.1653:

Making World XP (and by extension, titles / ranks) character bound over account bound is a horrible mistake.

Habib said it himself, “The best way to think of this system is as alternative/extended character progression.” You want pve xp to be account wide too?

Judging by how easy levelling is, the new system probably won’t be the end of the world either, and I’m looking forward to specialising on all of my alts. ANet have made it character specific for a reason, I’d guess that having it account wide takes away most of the meaning, for both the progression and specialisations they have planned.

See you’re basing your assumptions off of your personal preferences, you don’t mind grinding the same thing over and over and over again for all your alts, however for myself that sounds like the definition of boring. You feel that the reason they’re making this progression character bound instead of account bound is to make sure it isn’t trivialized, to me I see this as a means to control the amount of progression there is and make sure that players choose specific goals rather than having the freedom to experience multiple ways to progress. If you’re cool with grinding the same thing over and over then that’s awesome, but for me I’d like the option of playing whatever character I like on any given day in WvW and not feeling like I’m starting from scratch. To each their own.

Sadly AR no longer really has the numbers to stay competitive, sure there are guilds that help keep us around but by and large this is a dying server (like so many others) where the vast majority of players have just lost interest in WvW. So I guess the only thing now is to hope ArenaNets WvW update helps renew interest when it comes out (not holding my breath after all these delays) because right now logging in to play is just an exercise in frustration.

Also doesn’t help when we have folks sabotaging our own server by placing 25 rams inside bases to siege cap us right before Darkhaven attacks, that’s pretty awesome and I wonder who is behind that…

Wow logged in today and the whole of EB is under BP control, I mean every last node, never thought I’d see the day. But I guess this is what happens when you’re constantly outnumbered by 10 or 20, people lose the desire to play and stop giving a kitten. Enjoy farming our spawn points, I’m sure that’s exactly the sort of competitive PvP you’re looking for.

Warriors have the Highest Mobility, then Elementalists as a close second.

Despite what you think warriors mobility pales in comparison to what a thief with some decent imitative can do with a shortbow in terms of sheer movement distance.

He is right, thieves have a pattern how long they stealth/restealth, and many of them all follow the pattern, take time to learn this and thieves are easier, this is why as a thief I have no trouble killing other thieves.

Not sure I buy this,. thieves are not machines, they don’t all follow a predetermined “pattern”, they’re played by human beings whose actions can’t reliably be predicated so please don’t try to sell me some craziness about “reading their movements”, it doesn’t work and no class should have to consult a crystal ball to try to counter another.

Thieves are quite balanced in WvWvW due to the strengths they have and don’t have, they don’t have the aoe capabilities and survivability and sustained damage other classes have, due to have little to no access to boons, and they do not help there team-mates unless they plan on being useless or gimping themselves.

Thieves don’t need many of these things, why bother with sustained damage when you are so front loaded with burst you can take players from full health to dead in 5 seconds? AoE? Dagger Storm is some pretty amazing aoe in my book. Survivability? If you’re thinking survivability means how many hits you can take then you’re thinking of thieves the wrong way. they’re not meatshields and they were never meant to be. However if you consider that thieves have more “oh crap” buttons than any other class, an uncounterable class skill to escape with some of the highest mobility in the game I’d say they have plenty of survivability.

Thieves actually need more access to boons such as swiftness and fury and a slight nerf to burst, but a big increase to sustained damage.

Slight nerf to burst? Really? They need a fairly large nerf to burst and that damage moved to sustained damage and I’ll agree with you about that. However as they stand now thieves don’t need swiftness when you can move 25% faster all the time, have tons of teleport and movement skills incorporated into your weapons and generally have very little risk while moving from place to place.

Thieves need a lot more survivability in SPVP and PVE.

Not sure about sPvP but in PvE they sure do and that’s totally cool with me

Thieves also have little to no access to crowd control, we have very few abilitys that can knock people down or away.

Crowd control is a very limited thing for most classes and is often used to gain a momentary advantage or some breathing room, with stealth thieves can start and stop combat on a whim so the idea that they need this on top of their ability to disappear and choose when and how to attack makes me think that giving them any other ways to control combat would be a very bad thing.

Thief is also a very narcissistic class, as I mention before, we are “not” team players, which sucks, because this is a very team oriented game.

Dunno I think you guys can do a fair bit, mass stealth can make a huge difference for a team, so moving past defenders and quickly taking out key targets, harassing zergs ect ect

Jan Roman.1270:

tl;dr: Thief and his stealth are perfectly counterable. Stealth is not bugged (except for culling), it’s just the fact that player somehow deny to learn how to counter it properly.

Wow you… you are out of your mind, so much of this is you trying to oversimplify combat so you can trivialize counters to thieves abilities. In the real World vs World (see what I did thar) it almost never ever works like this. Let me give some examples:

What’s more, dodging backsab is not very difficult. Even these Steal -> Stealth -> Backstab -> death “combos” can be fully avoided. Therefore, there is no problem with stealth while the Thief is running a crit build. I’ve played it and I know very well that these builds can be countered quite easily by a good player (good is an important word here).

Except for those rare occasions when you don’t have full endurance or you’re attention is elsewhere or when you don’t have emergency skills off cooldown or you’re not attacking or rezzing someone else or basically playing the game at all. Then yea that combo can be countered so as long as you stand in one spot, on your tip toes and don’t move and are always ready for thieves then this is super easy to counter, but in reality this whole combo if far too easy to execute, far too powerful, and the risk vs reward factor is far too high.

What can we do then when in 1vs1 combat?

Uh maybe you can use your massive burst to take players down, your superior mobility to run circles around others, your many forms of stealth to control the flow of combat to what you desire ect ect

Stealth can be quite easily countered. While battling another thief, I find myself running around, thinking about his next move. You have to predict what will the thief do, and if you don’t, you’ll die.

So as long as we’re all clairvoyant and can see in our crystal balls where an invisible opponent ran off to we can counter them? Yea, that’s sounds super simple.

Tell me, what are we supposed to do except stealth? We can dodge – that’s right, we have to dodge in fact, but so can and should other classes.

You’re really going to complain that thieves don’t have any tools except stealth at their disposal, really? You have the highest mobility in the game, the most emergency buttons, one of (if not the only) class skills without a hard counter and one of the best resource systems of any class. You should really play another class where you don’t have a get out of free card and don’t just get to start and stop combat if you get in trouble.

So yea, thieves do need some MAJOR tuning in WvW, specifically to address the fact that they like every other class should have to face the consequences of their actions and don’t get to be the only class privy to a “start/stop” button in combat.