Guild Wars 2

Asko.4120:

Look it is this thread again. Zerker doesn’t need a fix – you take defensive stats assuming that you take damage, and if you trust your skills enough to be able to survive without any defense you are free to do so and enjoy the benefits. It is working exactly as intended.
What is needed however is to make conditions a viable alternative in PvE but I’m sceptical about the possibilities to implement that considering conditions are way OP in PvP. I don’t think it can be done without completely splitting PvP and PvE balancing but as it seems atm Anet isn’t willing to do that.

This.

I’d also like to add they have great PvP combat system and then failed utterly to account for it in their initial mob designs for PVE. This is why you see so much more diversity in the sPvP and WvW builds. Because there you aren’t facing a clumsy AI, you are facing people. But keep in mind it’s nearly impossible to create a PVE encounter that doesn’t get old the Nth time you’ve done it.

It also boils down to most PvE is meant to be completed by anyone and just about any build. That puts a hard cap on how tough they can make something, it also means players who can build for zerker and stay up through encounters are ALWAYS going to dominate.

Non-zerker builds are already being given preference because they simply can’t make a encounter that would challenge zerkers and still be accessible to non-zerkers. And despite all the bellyaching, zerker builds are every bit a valid play style as any other.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Please NO!

There are a lot of players (besides me), who utterly hate:
- jumping puzzles
- Edge of the Mists

EotM is a good idea on paper (I love the idea of the overflows), but currently the implementation is bad (nightmare map design for roaming, incredibly boring zergy fights with no point, too many powerful NPCs, added totally unnecessary buffs and new mechanisms), so please do NOT force your players to play it.

In fact, I once again propose reverting the Borderland changes (September 17th, 2013). By now it is obvious that the ruins of power (which replaced the BL lake) are a failure. Very few players spend time there and the changes actually DECREASED the popularity of BL maps. I used to dislike EB due its blobby nature and huge lag. Now I am forced to play EB, because it is only decent WvWvW map remaining. The borderland bloodlust buffs have received almost unanimous negative feedback from the player base. Instead of removing them, Arenanet shaved their effectiveness.

There was a lot of good user feedback how to redesign the BL maps, including:
- doing something to the Northern East and West parts, let’s face it the Skritt and Tamili are superfluous
- no map wide bonuses to stats, but more objectives to hold, defend and contest, which also give players rewards
- restore the lake, but make it have a small partially underwater keep in the center. The central location of the lake keep would make it a good location for epic battles, I also like the idea that the you cannot play most siege in the water, thus attacking that lake keep wouldn’t require different strategy

Here, here.

Most of the people I know in WvW see EoTM as a good spot to dump achievement farmers, PVE content, and karma train loot whores while we go fight. The only time we go to EoTM is if we have nothing better to do.

Boons are already too strong in WvW and you want to add more . . . The damage cap is there for a reason, and everything else is already being accomplished with voice coms.

Additionally the idea strips commanders of vital utilities they need to survive fights, for some useless role playing nonsense.

The rating system is dippy. Look at NA tier 2. Mag beat FA last week and moved past them in rating, yet got sent to tier 3.

Meanwhile SoR is continuing to crater making for an unbalanced match between FA and SOS, and DB and SBI have to suffer a week of Mag trying to salvage some rating.

Dunno if it’s been said, but as you are learning don’t be ashamed to go full-bore survival. Logic being you don’t learn anything when you are dead. I do this for every aspect of the game – make sure I don’t die first, then as I learn what works I dial down the survival and dial up the DPS.

As far as structured goes it will certainly help for all the reasons already listed, and it will help you hone situational awareness, and reaction times more quickly than WvW alone can. It cranks your brain into a higher gear that will help you in every aspect of the game. Be warned though, getting used to the action in sPvP and WvW can make the PVE part of the game (if you like that part) deadly dull.

Dayra.7405:

But higher tiers aren’t related to better opponents/fights, higher tiers only mean: more (quite often worser) opponents all around the time.

You are flat out wrong.

Coverage puts servers in higher tiers, true. But all those bodies mean more fights, and more fights means more opportunities for good fights. You might have more chaff to sift through but you also get more wheat. Especially if we are talking GvGs.

Mag has seen a lot more action this weekend from SoR and even (terrible as they are) FA than we saw all last week from SBI and BP. It’s not really SBI’s or BP’s fault, they only have so much population, and by extension – only so many good players.

Outside of GvG, I’ll take busy maps with periodic good fights over casting around for something to do while we wait for an outnumbered and demoralized foe to reclaim enough territory to make it worth moving out again. This also usually leads to a lot of PvD and lopsided fights, depending on who has coverage when. AKA Boring.

If you want to be able to pop into WvW at any time of day and find significant action Tier 1 and 2 are where it’s at. And significant action leads to good fights happening.

Heezdedjim.8902:

As one wise SoR commander has said: “PPT is how we get good fights, guys.”

This.

Mag is renowned for really wanting fights but when we don’t mind our PPT we get stuck with nothing to do but Ktrain for most of the week. So we push the PPT a lil more than we’d like to get the hell away from Tier 3.

WyldKat.4712:

I’m kinda burned out on the whole death doom destruction thing, after WoW’s Cataclysm and all…

I for one, am glad to see some doom and gloom, the’s been far too many Quagggan finishers, and SAB, and not enough drama for my taste. There’s nothing wrong with the lulzy cute stuff in and of itself, but the game has been lacking in the “holy kitten that just happened” drama. You know, the things that makes us care or get fired up about the characters and the world.

Dayra.7405:

Basharic.1654:

Why do you ask? Because show me a way to reward defense and I can show you garbage players who will exploit it.

The problem from the beginning is:

No player has any influence on who is in his team.

You have to accept trolls, you have to accept leachers, you have to accept karma-train-blober, you have to accept small-skill-roamer, you have to even accept hacker and …., because your only way to refuse playing with them is to leave the game yourself.

And this is the same in WvW as it is in EotM.

Allow people to build alliance of Guilds (meta-guilds) that form WvW and EotM teams for a challenge and make overflow random teams for the rest.

Eh it’s WvW, it’s open world pvp, the control you want there still comes in the guild groups. And an acknowledgement that there is only so much you can worry about. Kinda like real life. There’s been plenty of times I’ve seen a public commander turn off the tag and go full guild/mumble team, or pull a couple of stunts to loose the brainless players. And to a degree yes, we have to accept the “some people suck” aspect of things.

I just like to remind folks that there are plenty of things ArenaNet can do to reward defense. But because of a certain subset of the player base we can’t have nice things. It is 100 percent a player issue that prevents it. Every game has to deal with it, and in my experience, no game has ever managed to deal with it successfully.

Because if you try to jerk proof something, people just make better jerks.

Necro bugs aside, and it varies depending on the location, but it really is is easy to defend structures against the typical karma train. All it takes is a bit of siege and players willing to scout. Almost every gate in WvW can be defended from rams by a well placed treb, either within the structure or in neighboring ones. Even a couple of well placed superior ACs will discourage door bashing.

The thing is players often do not defend or scout. This is entirely a player issue because Anet hands are tied. They cannot buff defending rewards in any significant way. Why do you ask? Because show me a way to reward defense and I can show you garbage players who will exploit it.

Give WxP, ExP, gold, or anything else for refreshing siege, and watch troll siege bloom. Give a tick of reward for staying in one structure for any given amount of time and watch your ques fill with people who do nothing but sit there. It’s the very reason Yak escorts no longer give rewards.

And these useless players still find ways to be useless. I personally blessed out two up level players the other day for repairing a wall that was still being trebbed. We were trying to pile up supply in SM after having been attacked on two fronts with more incoming possible, and saw them evaporate at least 300 supply just for the WxP/exp. Despite repeated requests from commanders and other players to not draw SM supply. And were openly defiant about it when called out in chat.

Supply, I might add, that was earned through the actions of good players taking/defending camps, and escorting yaks. For minimal rewards.

Which is why you defend or scout – for the good of the team, not game rewards. Personally I try to take the last hour or so of my night and just pick a spot, running supply, refreshing siege, minding upgrades, and calling incomings, it’s a great way to wind down. But I also do it if I’m split off from the main group for some reason, it just takes a minute or two it’s not hard to do.

I do think there should be some sort of WvW block on this, but you can exploit it if you are commanding and know you are being tracked in this way.

You also change your status to Invisible, but you lose certain features of chat I think.

Inimicus.7162:

Only in Orr where everything is a group event that really can’t be soloed or respawns too quick…

Horsefeathers. The only things in Orr that aren’t soloable are some of the champs and parts (usually the ends) of the temple chains. Some of them are very tough, but they are soloable. In fact even when soloed the event mobs can fill your bags. It’s why I never pass up a camp defense, temple advance or Megil when I see them on a farm run.

Was thinking it might be nice to list some of the tougher/fun events and/or champs that put up a real challenge to solo/few players. The one’s where you’ve got to do just about everything right to even pull it off. Include professions you’ve tried or beat them on to as that can really affect the difficulty level sometimes. And how you managed it.

My favorites so far:

Eastern Collonade, Malchor’s leap – done it on Thief and Warrior. The trick is to get many of the dead NPCs up at once quickly, start rezzing them but don’t finish until you have most of them almost up. The trebs need to be destroyed as much as possible. You can also mange mob spawns a little by killing the fish heads, but if you kill to many you’ll force repops. Slight element of luck in that some of the vets are tougher than others.

Modinir chain, Hirathi Highlands – thief and warrior. I’ve taken this one all the way up to the puppies solo, and killed the boss with 3-4. Don’t think he’s soloable. The champs are the only real challenge, and solo the ranged ones are nasty. The good news is for the ones where you are capping a ring, you can get them out of the ring and cap. This will advance the event but despawn the champ.

Champion Abomination, Cursed shore – Thief. I don’t think this one is soloable for all professions. Done it once on Thief. Trick is to not get hit and keep that frenzy stack down. Poison helps to keep the regen in check. Pets are a liability on this fight, and Basilisk venom thief elite works as a good short cc.

Champion Ooze, Frostgorge Sound – at the end of the mini-dungeon in the south east corner. Thief. Ranged fight all the way, melee is to punishing, at least for thief. You can line of sight it a little with the nearby pillar but it is on a fairly short reset leash. Watch your positioning too, if you get knocked off the platform you will either be outside of the mini-dungeon (rare) or killed by falling rocks.

Risen Chickens, Malchor’s Leap – Thief. Great variability possible on difficulty level. The four vets hit like trucks if you let them, easiest way is to solo each one down. Add more for more difficulty. They poop an egg at you at range and claw your face off in melee. The eggs are the biggest hit. I’ve managed two at once, though usually I’ve been working on one before the second adds. The other variant of the chain spawns a champ inquest who shoots eggs at you. Line of sight her for the win. Bet the chicken coop pre-event for the champ, fail it for the vets.

So what events have you found to be fun and or tough with solo or few people?

If you are a competent player almost every event in the game is soloable. Some are much tougher than others. Unless it is an event I actively dislike, or have just recently done, I generally do them.

My favorite events to solo are: The Eastern Collonade in Malchor’s, the champ Abom in CS, all the variants of the risen chickens in Malchor’s, the three pack of mobs in North West Brisbane, and the Modinir chain in Hirathi up to the final boss. Haven’t soloed him not sure it can be done.

I guess the point is I see uncompleted events as “yay something to do, if I want to” rather than “omg teh serverz r dyng”. When leveling or zone completing it actually MORE boring to come in and have no events up.

ronpierce.2760:

Basharic.1654:

The real question is why do players who like the trinity, and have access to multiple games in multiple genres that support that play style keep bothering us with this tired question.

If you want trinity-based play go to a different game. This isn’t the game for you. It’s ok to not like it, but not liking it doesn’t mean you have a right to annoy the people who DO like it with your inanity.

As far as the zerker argument goes, that is a player issue. I’ve been here since beta, and not once have I done a full zerker run in a dungeon. It’s not even remotely necessary outside of the community that likes that sort of thing. Even IF it were, despite what a vocal bunch of idjits say, there is no one way to play this game, and that’s what makes it wonderful. There is no, “We can’t do X without Y,” beyond needing a certain number of bodies, there is only “What do I feel like doing today?”

I happen to think there is nothing wrong with the current group combat dynamic that couldn’t be fixed with better/more plentiful combo fields, and drastically better encounter design. I don’t think even ArenaNet had a firm grasp on what the lack of trinity would mean for boss fights. That theory is supported with how static bosses were at launch. They’ve obviously learned a lot since then as the encounters have steadily improved.

I’ve also explained this. GW2 was announced WITH a trinity, but the eye-catcher was a SOFT trinity. Meaning it’s less “omfg, we don’t have x”, BUT the idea would have been you’d do BEST with a mix, utilizing each role. Instead, we ended up with singularity and NO use for other builds in PvE that are IN the game already, they’re just useless. If the game had no support trees/stats I wouldn’t argue, not a bit.

Also, that’s a very lame question because, I like the mechanics in gw2 if it would have stayed true to its word. The soft-targeting system, being able to attack without a target (with cleave moves), the fact that weapons cleave like they naturally would and you’re not only hitting the “hard targeted” person, various other aspects makes gw2 a revolutionary game taking steps to get away from the traditional hard-targeting system used by practically all tab-target mmos. So the answer to why is, I LIKE gw2, but mostly for what it was supposed to be/was advertised at, less on its execution. This isn’t a difficult concept. It’s the same reason most people buy a product that sounds great but ends up being less than ideal.

The game DOES have a soft trinity, unfortunately they forgot to have the combat system people talk to the boss design people. Aaegal hit the nail on the head. We have a great combat system and got crappy boss design, especially the bosses from launch.

Almost every boss consisted of “stand in middle of the room and telegraph big hits”. Even in a trinity game you wouldn’t need a healer for a fight like that.

The reason they are doing this is it’s really hard to design a unique fight that uses the combat mechanics they have available and still make it possible for every possible comp to do it. Trinity fights are paper rock scissors compared to (well designed) GW2 encounters’ three dimensional chess. The problem has been that a lot of GW2 boss fights where just plain old War with a deck of cards.

But the fault isn’t with the lack of trinity. We have cruise missles, sniper rifles, combat medics, tricksters, shield bearers, stealth fighters, and nuclear bombs then we got sent off to fight cavemen. All those tools are cool and can kill a caveman sure, but so can another caveman with a rock. And they’ve rarely given us any reason to use anything other than that rock.

It’s why I’ve basically left PvE for WvW for my day to day game action. WvW has us using all our tools on each other. Even the most mismatched zerg fight is more interesting than most of the PvE encounters I’ve seen. If you want a game mode that insists you use your abilities to their fullest go there. There are even preferred roles/builds if you want to go that route. And healing/support is both encouraged and appreciated.

Ya, I was thinking it when I posted mine that it’s not really “bunker” in the usual sense, but it works, and I kill packs, vets, and many champs easily. The real trick is “enough” survival is very specific to how you play.

The real question is why do players who like the trinity, and have access to multiple games in multiple genres that support that play style keep bothering us with this tired question.

If you want trinity-based play go to a different game. This isn’t the game for you. It’s ok to not like it, but not liking it doesn’t mean you have a right to annoy the people who DO like it with your inanity.

As far as the zerker argument goes, that is a player issue. I’ve been here since beta, and not once have I done a full zerker run in a dungeon. It’s not even remotely necessary outside of the community that likes that sort of thing. Even IF it were, despite what a vocal bunch of idjits say, there is no one way to play this game, and that’s what makes it wonderful. There is no, “We can’t do X without Y,” beyond needing a certain number of bodies, there is only “What do I feel like doing today?”

I happen to think there is nothing wrong with the current group combat dynamic that couldn’t be fixed with better/more plentiful combo fields, and drastically better encounter design. I don’t think even ArenaNet had a firm grasp on what the lack of trinity would mean for boss fights. That theory is supported with how static bosses were at launch. They’ve obviously learned a lot since then as the encounters have steadily improved.

For direct damage (my preference) either S/x will work. For traits, just stay out of Shadow Arts. I prefer 10/30/0/20/10. S/D is more fun than S/P in my opinion. I find S/P in PVE to be easy mode, it’s very plant and spam while S/D feels like a much more “flowing” fight.

For condis go D/D, boost your condition damage and duration as much as you can. Take dodge trops, and caltrops for bleed stacking, if you take poison on steal you won’t really need to put poison on your bar. Even without it dagger 1 and Shortbow should give you plenty. For my condition spec I go power, vitality, condition damage on gear. But I’m not expert on condition builds.

Shortbow should always ALWAYS be your other weapon set. Packs larger than 3 or 4 will probably have you in Shortbow and kiting a fair bit.

How much you gear for survival just depends on how often you get hit. In my direct damage load out I’m to the point that even for solo pack slaying I’m full zerker, on all gear, with Wurm runes. For sigils I use air on my sword then swap between a bloodlust stacker and 5% on dagger. Air sigil is mostly because I don’t feel like changing it. Fire or another 5% would prolly be better. I run a hydromancy sigil on Shortbow since I tend to stay S/D until it gets thick. The chill on swap helps with getting some breathing room.

For utilities I have Shadowstep, the power signet, and swap the third around situationally (usually have run speed in there). Refuge is also a good one to have handy in case you get in trouble. For heals, Hide in the Shadows.

Thieves guild is almost always gonna be your best bet for elite in your desired situation. They tank for you, and give you get a good DPS boost. If you are doing some champ fighting you can swap it out for basilisk, it ignores defiant for most. It is flat out better than thieves in certain situations. . . Like Champ Aboms, or pretty much any mob that will one shot your posse.

If you are solo condis can be just as good as direct damage, if you are getting in on the big events go direct. Really big Zerg fights should be Shortbow shotgunnig with cluster bomb spam for the packs and tags, swap to melee for more DPS on fewer targets.

Keep in mind there’s no real stand and deliver tank build, even in S/P you are eventually gonna have to move. The tanking come more from how well you play, and how good your timing is. The best you’d ever be able to build for is taking 2-3 big hits.

What I did as I was learning was a mix of zerker/Valkyrie/knights stats, then gradually swapped survival stats for zerkers as I got better.

Haralin.1473:

No leather wearing class is wanted in a zerg fight no zerg wants engis, rangers or thiefs in it zerg.

These classes are good at roaming or 5vs5 but not in zerg fights. Play a warrior and look how easy it is to survive in a zerg compared to the 3 leather classes and do also good damage or cc. I have a engi and a warrior in zerg warrior is way better than the engi.

I frontline thief with high survivability load out, Sb and S/D. For zerg busting, I’ll usually run dodgetrops, caltrops, and dagger storm for a cripple spam build. Dagger storm with Lyssa runes makes for some long stability. I only die when I’m out of CDs, and haven’t had the good sense to get out of the pile. Surf the Zerg with Sb, swap to melee to focus anyone who’s low.

While there are some ranger players I respect greatly, I can’t say it is a profession I’ve had any significant trouble with.

It looks like they tried to make the PPT info more granular and in the process screwed it up. Good news is sites like Mellenium seem to be unaffected. And I don’t think it’s affecting total score. Could be wrong about that though.

I’d love to see a machinima tool. I’m not a creator of such things, but I am a big fan. it helps bring the game world to life. At the same time it offers free word of mouth promotion for the game. All for a minimal cost of resources to ArenaNet.

Let this sink in.

The primary purpose for EotM is WvW overflow. It is a PvP zone. If you are not prepared for PvP to happen don’t bother going in. I don’t like it when Anet dumps LS into WvW. If I want to do LS I am perfectly capable and willing to leave WvW for it.

My keenest hope is that EotM can contain LS pollution of WvW to its maps and leave the real maps alone.

If you are that concerned bring friends. And in this game it helps to bring friends who know how to kill people.

My female sylvari necro has a sort of similar issue. She rocks the light feathered skirt/underwear legs. I noticed while swimming a while back that when certain parts are dyed red they blend with her red glow making it appear she’s going commando.

Around 2300 of about 3000 hours played . . .

Your siege placement is bad. And you had more than enough people there to clump up and smash the siege.

If you didn’t want to do that, you also had enough people to have manned a proper set of lord-room siege. Let the Zerg breach, and then farm them.

All of this should have been in place and kept refreshed before the attack ever began.

I’m saying this as gently and politely as possible, when I say it is a learn to play issue for your server.

Cactus.2710:

Grav.3568:

The matchup system shouldn’t have to be a choice between variety and competitiveness.

If server populations were properly balanced across the board, then we could have both.

Not true at all. Server pops don’t equate at all to WvW pops, and WvW pops aren’t consistent within the same server from day to day and hour to hour. Besides, ANet has far less ability to control server pops over time since it involves player actions, while setting up Red-vs-Green-vs-Blue matches with equalizing caps is totally within ANet’s control purely via coding on their end.

If the folks who show up for Maguuma’s World boss train all participated in WvW, we wouldn’t be the number 5/6 server.

The problem is a lose/lose for ArenaNet right now. They have to balance between getting everyone who wants to WvW in vs having parity. Right now with no proper overflow system, they’ve erred towards letting people in for the majority of the servers.

The players who suffer the ques on high pop do it because they know they are on a high-ranked server. They are obviously willing to make that sacrifice. But that is not necessarily true for everyone.

This is why the new map is going to be such a big deal. With a channel to handle WvW overflow they will have the ability to clump some servers together to populate the maps more evenly and still have somewhere for WvW players to go when those maps fill up.

I would also warn ArenaNet to be very careful in any implementation that combines servers. I love Maguuma and the people on it and we definitely have a distinct “personality” in WvW. The fun and gameplay I’m enjoying in WvW is greatly enhanced by the larger community-forming aspects of fighting for you server.

I saw what battle groups did to WoW BGs first hand. While it solved some significant population balance problems, it also turned the only WvW analog battleground of the time (Alterac Valley) into an uncommandable Zerg fest mess because no one knew anyone.

Dee Jay.2460:

mini.6018:

Dee Jay.2460:

AoE stuns should be well-telegraphed and on lengthy cooldowns.

Unfortunately they aren’t in GW2.

ANet can either reduce the amount of CC Hammers can apply, say by changing on the the stun-attacks into something else, or they can make Stability the only counter to CC more available to ALL classes (including Thieves).

Thief doesnt need stabilty, if you get hammer trained while playing a thief with the ammounts of dodges, teleports, stunbreakers and stealth you should really stay out of wvw.
Gw2 Hammer is the most telegraphed weapon in the recent history of mmos.So where do you get your input from claiming aoe cc is not telegraphed?If else mesmer and ele aoe stuns are not telegraphed but warriors are as extremely telegraphed as they could possibly get

Telegraphed in duels maybe, but not in overall combat and especially not in zerg-fights. But then again, almost no skills in GW2 are nearly as well telegraphed as they should be.

Anyway, a Hammer Warrior will have

• Earthshaker on an 8 second cooldown
• Staggering Blow on a 16 second cooldown
• Backbreaker on a 24 second cooldown

That means your opener might be with Earthshaker into Staggering Blow into Backbreaker which is 3 consecutive stuns within 6 seconds, which could then be followed again by another Earthshaker just a few seconds later.

How does a single stun-breaker with a 30 second cooldown help much?

Without Stability surviving such a CC-cleave-train is impossible.

Also consider that all of this CC isn’t just applied to a single target, but rather to a rather generous Area of Effect.

So please reiterate how 2 dodges every 20 seconds and 1-2 stun-breakers on a 30-60 second cooldown are supposed to counter that?

You have not run with any good commanders fighting hammer trains. I know this because you are flat out wrong.

The first rule of facing any hammer train is do not be anywhere near the head. The telegraph for incoming cc is that the head is coming right at you. The counter is to get off that forward axis. We have done this on Mag with nothing more than competent commanders and mumble with what are technically pug zergs. Some of our guild teams are even better at it.

Have I been crunched before? Sure, but it happened because I didn’t position properly, or got caught with my britches down.

Rule two is scatter your Zerg, find the enemy zerkers at the back of the train, and kill them. Then finish off the heavies.

I promise you, do this and, you’ll never feel the need to complain about hammer trains again.

Have No Faith In Me.1840:

- Move out of the train (left or right of them)
- Dodge straight through the train
- Stability
- Stay at max range
- Spread out, if you all stop balling up the hammer train becomes ineffective.
- Spam clones. Nothing funnier than watching clones get earthshakered

To many people complain about things in this game that can be countered by playing better, instead they just scream for nerfs.

All of this. Btw to the person mentioning thieves. You can get a nice stack of stability with dagger storm. Pop it and either ride it out or dodge/esc. By itself it gives around 9 seconds of stability, I use lyssa runes in WvW which adds another 4 seconds or so. That is plenty for a profession that can juke as much as we can. Steal from a Mesmer and get even more. If you get caught shadow step away, you should be able to do so before you die.

I frontline a thief and while I usually run a lot of survival, I have also frontlined in full zerker armor and PPT jewelry.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Basharic.1654:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Keep in mind, OP, that the world that you’re experiencing now, is what you can expect at 80. Your gear will be better, but you will still be scaled down to the appropriate level for a specific zone. Nothing is really different at 80, except that you will be pigeon-holed into a specific gear set up, and one of a few cookie cutter builds in order to maximize your effectiveness.

Begone troll. OP the game is whatever you choose to make it. Grumpy here is talking about a specific subset of the player base. Coming from WoW you’ll know the type when you see it.

You will be scaled but as you level up you will also unlock skills to pump up your power level a little vs a true level x. There are lots of helpful people in game, just ask around a bit.

Nah, not really. I tried a variety of builds for both my thief and mesmer, as well as different gear setups. Only one or two builds standout for each, and I chose to use what is most effective. I don’t even bother trying anything else out because this game has very poor build variety.

Why would you knowingly handicap yourself?

The fact you think an “off” build is a handicap pretty much makes my point.

Why does it matter if you are enjoying it?

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Keep in mind, OP, that the world that you’re experiencing now, is what you can expect at 80. Your gear will be better, but you will still be scaled down to the appropriate level for a specific zone. Nothing is really different at 80, except that you will be pigeon-holed into a specific gear set up, and one of a few cookie cutter builds in order to maximize your effectiveness.

Begone troll. OP the game is whatever you choose to make it. Grumpy here is talking about a specific subset of the player base. Coming from WoW you’ll know the type when you see it.

You will be scaled but as you level up you will also unlock skills to pump up your power level a little vs a true level x. There are lots of helpful people in game, just ask around a bit.

Verdelet Arconia.6987:

Thanks for the discussion on racial attributes and dredge + stealth.

So far we are on the notion that these racial attributes are for players only. How would you feel if they are applicable to the PVE mobs that you face as well?

The pve mobs have a nameplate which indicates briefly what types of attacks they use and their immunities. Should there be a weakness also to the race specific mobs?

This would affect how dungeons are currently played.

Nightmare court will be easier to kill with burns,but they will be immune to bleeding, The fire legion charr will be easier to chain fear and immobilised,etc.

Again no. ArenaNet’s stated goal is to let us bring whatever build we want to dungeons. That is more or less true. If you’ve got the skill and the patience all your build really dictates is how fast you complete. Tell me what benefit comes from starting a dungeon encounter plan with: “Let’s completely write off these specs for these professions.”?

Your example flat out eliminates the possibility for condi necros and thieves to ever set foot in TA in their preferred specs. For no significant benefit to the game. To see the dungeon at all they’d have to retool their build and their gear to a direct damage build.

See WoW and the original version of Will of the Forsaken.

Rightly or wrongly players would prefer certain races for certain professions which is not what ArenaNet wants.

The flavor you are seeking is already in game in the racial skills. Which to my mind is the perfect implementation of the concept. It’s there for folks who want that flavor, but almost never has any bearing on game balance. And when it does affect balance the skill in question gets the nerf bat.

I just cruise with mystic kits on rares, until I decide I need more ectos then switch to BL kits.

Masters rate for ectos is only acceptable at a lil shy of 1 per salvage, BL rate I’d classify as decent, but RNG is RNG.

Khisanth.2948:

Lord Kuru.3685:

If a zone ever has zero population, the map resets — that might be what you’re seeing.

Different way of saying the same thing but I think the map actually fully despawns when empty. That way any resource it is using can be used for maps that actually have people in it. I actually saw this happening last night for Mount Maelstrom on my server. Had the Megadestroyer pre events pushed until the last event but couldn’t get enough people to finish it. Then around 7 hours later the whole thing reset back to the start of the chain without the main event starting.

So this is also another function of server population. Of the maps with world bosses I know Cursed Shore, Malchor’s Leap, Southsun Cove, and Frostgorge Sound will not reset except for patches on my server. Well I have see Malchor’s reset maybe twice in the last 6 months outside of patches but in those cases temple of lyssa was broken for around a week. Unfortunately Fields of Ruin doesn’t empty out as often as I would like.

I’m pretty sure it is as you stated though, when there are no players the zone ceases to exist and will load a new map the next time someone zones in. It’s something to keep in mind when someone gripes on these forums about how “no one ever goes to Orr”.

I do my mapping on Orrmaps.com and have been doing it more or less consistently for about a year now. I’ve NEVER seen Cursed Shore change without a patch, and can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen Frostgorge change. Malchor’s on Maguuma went through about a month were it would change a couple of times a week then stopped.

Southsun has always been inconsistent – to the point I don’t bother mapping it anymore. It’s not that hard to find everything anyway when you a familiar with the island.

Travlane.5948:

Brett.4305:

A few days ago, I removed any weaps and traits that are set to be
“balanced.” A few hours ago, I double checked my traits and can
guarantee that I won’t be dancing to their fife.
Players gravitate to certain builds on certain classes when everything else sucks.
ANET, in their wisdom, breaks the things that work to stop popular usage.
Then everyone will find something else that doesn’t suck AS BAD.
Then those builds get nerfed …

this is basically what happens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiXhgsfoL6c

when i see things like this it makes me mad. no i dont want a warrior nerf. even as they are now….OP and all. i just want no nerfs. undo all nerfs and make all classes better with buffs. should never nerf. rarely ever anyway.

a warrior can do that in the video an a thief would have died in EVERY instance. so a thief is slippery! BIG DEAL! 1 v 1 assassination is what a thief is. IR nerf? why bc they are hard to hit? BS

I’ll wait for the changes to completely form an opinion. Though I don’t love them.

But you are flat out wrong regarding that video. I am something like 170ish rank in WvW. I consistently blob surf right next to the commander/leader. I run in full Soldiers with Sb and S/D as a default, but have run in zerker armor/weapons (Wurm Runes), and full condi/P/V with D/D and Sb before. I often survive team wipes. I also occasionally get evaporated if I screw up and get in front of the train. The last time I went zerker, the two times I died the commander and the group died too.

I run a 10/30/0/20/10 build most of the time. HiS for a heal, (Withdraw works well too, but I prefer HiS for it’s condi removals), SS, RfI, and run speed/caltrops most often. DS elite for the stabilty. Lyssa runes on the PVT set.

Going into the fight I pop DS then hit escape/dodge or stay spinning as I see fit. Lyssa runes pop after DS finishes so I can ride it out and still have stability. Shotgun Sb when it’s really thick (or fields need blasting), dodge and Sb3 if it gets hairy. Run with dodgetrops on, and caltrops on utility and I’m a cripple/blastbot. SS for repositioning, and stun break as needed. I usually swap to S/D for clean-up, spikes and super pursuit mode.

That Warr looks slow and lumbering to me.

Chaith.8256:

I don’t agree. When I bait 2 dodges and go in for the bursties, I don’t find it fun when the Guardian/Mesmer opts in for a triple roll. I find that infuriating. When I want Elixir X to give me Rampage, and I get Tornado – which seals my doom, I find that infuriating. When I wanted the old Toss Elixir S to give me invisibility, and it gave me stability – causing my death, I found that infuriating.

I think the ideal PvP environment which you visualize that’s full of surprises and counter-plays is pretty far from the reality of how Energy Sigils are used to throw a bit more random blanket avoidance in the mix.

I actually agree with you about elixirs. No player should have to worry about their own skills betraying them. As a thief I can feel you there. You need some of the same love we got. Not knowing what your own skills might give you was a bad design choice.

As for your Guardian/Mesmer example, you illustrated my point. As players/predators we want our targets to be predictable. It’s a natural and understandable preference, but it isn’t necessarily what is best for the game.

Now a debate about how much random blanket avoidance is available is a perfectly valid discussion. Maybe there is a better way to give the level of possible avoidance ArenaNet wants through player choice/play instead of RNG.

But throwing a bar up where you know for sure what a target has outside of health/buffs/condi is a terrible idea. Especially since the current implementation does provide a line between experienced players who can “read” their targets and inexperienced players who can’t. It gives us something to learn generally about the professions, and then specifically about an opponent, and that problem solving makes games fun.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I think the minimalistic quote “Less is More” should be applied here.

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” -Albert Einstein

I sense a touch of irony after getting to the bottom of that post.

Regarding the thread topic, the unpredictability of what the other guys is gonna do is half the fun. Figure it as best you can and take your shot. You know . . . like combat?

No one likes randmomness because dealing with randomness is difficult, but it exists to emulate the uncertainty in RL combat. If you want predictability go to PvE.

Right now we have a nice balance of knowing what the profession you face can do, but not necessarily knowing what they WILL do. This is a good thing because it forces us to learn the player in the seat in tandem with the profession on the screen with a little luck thrown in. That is what makes PvP way more fun than PvE. Why on Earth would you want to take that away?

Hayashi.3416:

There’s a very easy way to buff havoc squads without buffing zergs.

1. Raise tolerance for Outmanned, so it procs when your world’s players are half or less of an opposing worlds forces OR your world has 10 players or less, regardless of opposing forces.
2. When a world is Outmanned, allow all players in the world to carry 20 supply instead of 10.
3. When Outmanned fades, current supply carried by players remain held, but any new pick up of supply will be back to 10.

This should encourage people to start attempting to cap Outmanned borderlands, and in doing so draw a few people away from each zerg.

If a zerg moves to a borderland, it will fade Outmanned before anyone from the zerg can possibly pick up supply, so 60×20 is impossible.

Zerg players are unaffected, as 60×10 is still more than enough supply. There’s also little appreciable difference, as even if 10 people decided to move to a BL, 50 people are still in the zerg.

By the way, I run a guild specialising in small-group tower (and occasionally Keep) captures, using golems in conjunction with rams/superior rams. It’s not impossible to take a tower with 2-3 people (and almost guaranteed with 4+), but it involves running a golem from a supply camp to the tower, which is unfairly expensive to use on the Commander.

I highly dislike zerging because in those circumstances, results of battle are generally dictated by the number of people, and each person in the zerg adds very little battle power to the overall power of the zerg (2.5%?)… whereas in havoc squads, a skilled player may represent up to 30-40% of the power of a 5-man squad alone.

I came in to say this. Outmanned should let you carry 20. No need for more changes than that. It’s a very simple way to buff the little guys while not having to directly debuff the Zerg. It should also add in with WvW traits and guild buffs for a maximum of 30.

I’d even be in favor of ditching the extra supply trait line, dropping max possible to 25, in light of this new mechanic. It’s ridiculously expensive for what you get, and would be a way to soften the outmanned buff if you felt you needed it.

This would let a small team take some undefended stuff easily, forcing the larger force to keep a close eye on their territories, but it would also allow for a stronger potential defense for the outmanned team. This could allow servers who don’t have full coverage to at least hold some things.

Wish list changes I would like to see is to lock supply in a fortification when upgrading. Upgrades cannot start until enough supply is available then it takes the prescribed time. This is a buff to defensive play as taking the camps would no longer be able to prolong the process once it’s started, but it is also a buff to offensive play as hitting a tower or keep right after the process starts would leave defenders with no supply.

Additionally, players should be able to access a time stamped log at a fortification’s quartermaster. With a tab noting the players who ordered upgrades, and a tab for who took supply. If possible include the ability to click names for chat/reporting purposes. This should go hand in hand with adding siege placements to the combat log and/or siege showing the owners name.

Chuck Zitto.2367:

Removing downed state would be a good start.

I have no issue with downed state. But once you are fully dead there should be a timer that will kick you to the nearest uncontested WP.
30 seconds to a minute maybe. After that away you go.

It would offer a chance to increase the attrition on the big groups but still leave it to player choice and how well they fight. The impact on small groups is minimal, since most of the time if you are killed in small group format you will be WPing anyway.

Another possible variation of this would be to allow a special (or even a second) finisher that sends the dead to a WP immediately. All kinds of ways you could do it.

SHM.7628:

Basharic.1654:

Clockwork Bard.3105:

A lot of the GW2 community kind of reminds me of that one kid at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

See, when you go to Chuck E. Cheese’s, you eat pizza and you play games (or I guess you could spend your whole day in the urine-soaked ball pit). Some games give out tickets. Those tickets can be exchanged for little gifts. To complete the experience, it’s nice to at least go home with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pencil topper.

But there’s always that one kid who knows the trick. He knows that skee-ball pays out way more tickets than anything else, if you’re good at it. And he’s good at it. So that’s all he plays for 6 hours straight, with only a quick break for pizza. By the end, he’s probably sick of skee-ball. But the tickets! He’s going home with pencil toppers of all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

There’s a lot more to do in the game when you’re not chasing the tickets.

This right here is dead on. I’ve been playing since beta, and I know I’m in the ball park of 2500 hours played. 2 k of which is on my main. And I still love the hell out of this game.

It retains my interest through living story, WvW, and sPvP, all of which I do depending on my mood. I have all that time in and STILL not even close to significant rank in PvP, nor a dungeon master title. I hate plugging and my guild is both small and often busy irl.

The key is I never do anything that doesn’t really interest me. It creates this positive feedback loop where every time I Iog in I’m entertained or challenged in some way. Which keeps me logging in.

Yet somehow while playing this game in ways the “uber” players would consider stupid and inefficient, I’ve managed to enjoy the hell out of this game to date, AND still have plenty left to do.

You make some very valid points. You should only do what you enjoy. I’d never enjoy a great deal of what this game has to offer because much of it is for the uber player. I find what i like and I do it too.

Anyway, the intent behind my post is that I like to PVE. I put in the hours get to 80 nad I’ve done all the PVE I enjoy already. I think it’s more a question of the content not being grated properly than it being bad per se.

I am not a gear chaser either. There’s really only one set of gear you are going to focus on That is your top tier 80 gear. But why? I’ve run through the content without it. The same could be said about crafting. Why bother?

Gating isn’t going to fix your issue. You are making the choice to ignore 2/3 of what the game offers and then on top of that ignore half of the segment you do focus on.

The thing is even if you treat GW2 as a single player experience, you’ve long since gotten your money’s worth and will continue to get added value on into the future. If you’ve currently done all that interests you, move on to some other game and come back when they add something new. Buying this game is literally a lifetime pass to Tyria and all it offers with no other commitment on your part.

In fact, the very thing you say is a problem helps you do this: Your level 80s are already maxed out and adequately geared to deal with anything new ArenaNet might add. You can jump in, do the new stuff and pop right back off again.

I’ve just had a guildie come back after months away. The guild got her up to speed on the latest popular builds, then went and did living story together. All she missed out on was content, some of the most interesting bits of which are about to be re-added into fractals, the accompanying skins, and getting laurels.

Clockwork Bard.3105:

A lot of the GW2 community kind of reminds me of that one kid at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

See, when you go to Chuck E. Cheese’s, you eat pizza and you play games (or I guess you could spend your whole day in the urine-soaked ball pit). Some games give out tickets. Those tickets can be exchanged for little gifts. To complete the experience, it’s nice to at least go home with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pencil topper.

But there’s always that one kid who knows the trick. He knows that skee-ball pays out way more tickets than anything else, if you’re good at it. And he’s good at it. So that’s all he plays for 6 hours straight, with only a quick break for pizza. By the end, he’s probably sick of skee-ball. But the tickets! He’s going home with pencil toppers of all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

There’s a lot more to do in the game when you’re not chasing the tickets.

This right here is dead on. I’ve been playing since beta, and I know I’m in the ball park of 2500 hours played. 2 k of which is on my main. And I still love the hell out of this game.

It retains my interest through living story, WvW, and sPvP, all of which I do depending on my mood. I have all that time in and STILL not even close to significant rank in PvP, nor a dungeon master title. I hate plugging and my guild is both small and often busy irl.

The key is I never do anything that doesn’t really interest me. It creates this positive feedback loop where every time I Iog in I’m entertained or challenged in some way. Which keeps me logging in.

Yet somehow while playing this game in ways the “uber” players would consider stupid and inefficient, I’ve managed to enjoy the hell out of this game to date, AND still have plenty left to do.

Kuroi.2910:

i think the best way to balance/nerf stealth with out reworking all the thief class is to make the target ( victim) see the thief/mesmer or any class that is on stealth on a radio between 0-100 range of him, any melee weapon have a 130 range so the perma stealth thiefs won’t recive a major nerf, they can still perma stealth and do backstabs , the only thing is if they don’t want to be seen , they have to do it on a 101-130 range, other wise you will see them and you will have a change to dodge the backstab. other thing when you see them , they don’t lose there stealth status, so they can still walk away from the 100 range and escape.

This is simply one of the better suggestions in the thread. Something akin to WoW’s mechanic where you hear a specific noise, and even see the stealthed toon if they are pretty much right on top of you and you are facing them. This gives the non-stealth player a chance to react to or find the stealthie. You could even go so far as to add traits, or a passive through runes to increase “awareness”.

I have mained a thief since beta, I love and understand the class. And I’ve tried every build. I’m no high-end pvper but I’m also not without experience. My “skill” level increases exponentially when I go D/P. It is simply out of line for the benefits it gives the thief. That is why it is getting nerfed. It’s a cheese build.

Apparently I’m retaining water . . .

Footfall sounds will retain the gooshy “walking through water” sound after transitioning to dry land, happens in swampy areas and upon exiting the water after swimming. Usually corrects after jumping on a rock or other obstacle.

I tried changing my socks it didn’t help.

Charr thief, noticed it in multiple different zones/locations. Intermittent. Pointed it out the the wife who is usually on a sylvari Mesmer. She hears it too.

The easiest builds in PVE are AOE builds for every profession. S/P is the easy mode leveling melee weapon set for thief.

I’d like to point out you don’t have to take the easy mode. I leveled with S/P but was thoroughly bored with it by 80. I currently favor S/D, and I bounce between a crit build and variants of the acro/trickery build.

You don’t have to do the “best” build, do what you find the most fun. If you know your stuff, very little in the open world is going to present much challenge anyway. It’s more important to me that I stay entertained and engaged in my fights than get through them the fastest way possible.

I think the only change they need to apply to encourage even server populations is to reduce the run speed of every player in the map by 1 percent per “extra” player they have.

So if you have a 50/60/70 population split for example, server 1 will have normal run speed. Server 2 will lose 10 percent, and server 3 would lose 20 percent. Cap it out at 40 percent reduction.

This does correlate to real life where smaller units are generally quicker than hulking armies. I know I as a player HATE being slowed down so it can give serious impetus to smoothing out population.

We came up with this on the mumble tonight in WvW.

A top tier Golem mastery skill that let’s the driver self-destruct the golem – doing massive damage to nearby enemy players.

We could have damage radius/effect affected by amount of life left in the golem. Though I suspect the skill would have to be locked out to the last 20 percent or so of HP. If we didn’t we’d likely have trolls exploding them any chance they get.

The intent is to give smaller forces a way to possibly drop a significant portion of a larger force in a pinch, and it opens up some interesting tactical variables for commanders.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Do people actually find grinding out ascended gear fun? The 100s of gold spent PER profession, the time gating, the champ/event trains for ascended mats, the tons of lower tier mats required…THIS is fun? THIS actually makes people happy and want to keep playing the game?

I have a legendary and three ascended weapons from two professions. The only time it felt like a grind was towards the end of the legendary. But that was my choice to do it that way, I could have waited another month, and had no grind at all. I knocked out Bolt in 6 months.

I just play the game, and occasionally focus on a specific aspect to top some particular mat off. I’m currently happy with my weapon loadout at the moment so I’m probably just gonna let the mats build back up naturally.

shimmerless.4560:

GW2 has very deep-seated issues that are a natural consequence of many different game mechanics and design decisions made (intentionally or not) during development. I will always give this game credit for having wild ambition (and for being the wonderful Mesmer’s second outing) but it is frankly impossible to ignore GW2’s gaping flaws.

Damage output across the board is much too high (probably as a consequence of ANet refusing to split PvE/PvP). This and a lack of cast bars on otherwise poorly-telegraphed attacks also leads to tremendous amounts of block and evade uptime to keep the TTK ratio from becoming completely obscene. Since every class has to have a bit of A and a touch of B, conditions like burning are completely trivialized and end up becoming this constant source of blind pressure damage like so many other passive factors.

Skills have little situational use, and thanks to the lack of a mana system there’s often a low (to non-existent in the case of “condition” builds) opportunity cost, meaning many are just chained off cooldown. For the Mes we really lost the ability to control and set up spikes as well as dominate the direction of a team engagement, in exchange for gimmicks like stealth which don’t carry to competitive-level play. The lowered skill ceiling hurts the natural drive players have to better themselves at their class.

What it boils down to, though, is that because of the way a lot of things interplay in this game — because of the existence of certain equipment and specs — there’s really little difference in effectiveness between an average player and a skilled one. I confess that myself and many friends have had trouble guessing whether a particularly effective decision was made by a player intentionally or just through sheer dumb luck. In my view events in this game tend to be due to the latter more often than not.

Specs are so simple to play and so strong right out of the box that someone new to said spec can toy around for a couple hours and achieve comparable results to someone who’s been playing the same class for six months. This cold truth effectively natches competition and quells any desire to log in for practice, and so players eventually just don’t log in.

So . . . because someone can pick up a toon, learn it quickly, and be reasonably effective the game is bad? I’d call that a strength. To me it encourages practice, because the only way you can truly win is to play that “easy” spec better than the other person.

Players who spam their skills on CD are bad, they have always been bad, and they will always be bad. Sure they can still be sort of effective doing that in the open world, but don’t confuse how blindingly easy the open world generally is with anything that requires skill. Cast bars are for the lazy who can’t watch their screens.

And maybe it’s because you aren’t playing (not sure, you didn’t say in the post I quoted) but I see terrible/inexperienced players all the time, they are the guys you have to pick up 6 times in a big event or are laying there dead 20 seconds into the fight. Or the first ones dead in a WvW zerg fight. Or the ones calling for help to do regular events or skill points.

I don’t consider myself an expert player, there are plenty of folks better than I am, and I still managed, just yesterday, to basically solo the priest at Grenth to about 30 percent before I screwed it up. I don’t think the two other folks who showed up for the event ever touched him; they died before he was to 80/85 percent, and lay there dead until he finally beat me.

I’m not saying those folks were necessarily bad, it’s very easy make a mistake in that fight, but try and tell me with a straight face that one or two more players at my ability/experience level or better at that moment wouldn’t have made a difference.

I’ve got Weaponsmith and Huntsman to 500. Three weapons crafted, and I spent less than 100 g. That being said I am a fairly consistent T6 node runner, so I had the mats for Exotics mostly already lying around. Getting to 500 both times I did still have to buy more ore and wood, I did not have to buy any trophies.

My wife, who has considerably less play time than I do, just got Weaponsmith done this past week.

It’s really not that bad, although you may have to do some aspects of the game you don’t normally do. It depends on your preference.

Ore and wood are cheapest farmed, and if you have time to do events along the way you’ll get plenty of trophies. Alternatives can include making cash elsewhere and buying mats, but prices are high across the board at the moment. Ascended mats come with different aspects: Bloodstone dust is obnoxiously easy to get from champ farming, dragonite comes from world bosses, and empyreal shards come from dungeons (20), WvW (tower lords, camp supervisors, and most JPs).

The other fun bit is the lowbie mats. Luckily I had a fair bit built up before ascended came in, but I burned through them very quickly. If you want to gather them, I’d suggest taking toons who don’t have the zones you need to farm complete. Doing it on a zone-complete toon got boring fast for me. They are still relatively cheap, and I did a mix of framing/buying.

The good news is that because so much of the ascended bits are account bound you will always make some kind of profit if and when you choose to sell the pieces you can. I’m not planning on building another weapon for a bit, and have been selling off the exotic inscriptions to build up some cash, but the ascended inscriptions (if they sell, I have no experience with this yet) are listing at more than 40g last I looked.

Some of the often-contested waypoints have counter attacks shortly after you unlock them. The two that spring immediately to mind are the Eastern Collonade, and the Valley of Lyss in Malchor’s.

Collonade will stay unmolested about 15-20 minutes after opening it.

Lyss is about 5-10 minutes. I’ve literally gotten the southern escort past the champ knight/skill point and had it go locked again. I THINK they stay open longer after that first defense but I could be wrong. The Lyss WP has the added problem of the group almost never making it past the champ knight. Which leaves the event stuck and the WP contested constantly. The only time I’ve ever be enable to do that escort is right after a server reset.