Guild Wars 2

Nafets.1238:

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,

We’re wrapping up work on Episode 4 of Living World Season 3 and expect to launch it in February, hitting our normal cadence of a new episode every 2~3 months. I want to give a quick heads-up here on a few topics that I know the community is anticipating, things that will and won’t be bundled with this episode.

This release will include the promised fix to AB multi-looting. The fix is simple: you can loot each of the great and grand chests once each time you complete the meta, once per map cycle.

This release will also include a new, challenging group-farming spot for leather.

This release won’t include legendary armor. We’re getting close to completion, though, and may be able to ship legendary armor with the Ep5 release.

This release won’t include a skill balance update. As we did last time, we’ll ship the next skill balance update off-cycle from Living World releases.

Mo

What about the next raid? When can we expect it? Will it come with the legendary armor? Before?

If the next raid is ready before the armor, please do not hold back the release date of the next raid. These two do not have to be released together. Just leave an item out of the raid release that is required for the armor

The problem itself can stem from multiple sources.

1. There isn’t enough punishment/incentive to not use alt accounts at the high end
FIX – Make leader board require a high level of min games played. I think 100 is a decent number. If you play over 100 games on multiple accounts, then sure you can have 2 accounts on the leaderboard.

2. There still is no where near enough penalty for DCing. If someone DCs for longer than twice the respawn time of a dead player, the team with the DC should no longer be penalized. The player who DC’d should also not be allowed back in the match to try and “salvage” it and make the teammates lose progress. The winning team (assuming the 5 man won), should get reward, but lesser.

3. There is no penalty for AFKing. The AFKing algorithm needs far more information to it, such as the current score, the players location, etc.
a. For example, if there is a blowout and the score is 450-50, if the player doesn’t want to move for 10s at base, that’s likely not something you should penalize.
b. The players on the losing team should never be allowed to stay still outside of a node that you are capping for more than a few seconds.
c. If the players on the losing team are moving, the algorithm should detect if they are doing something productive, such as attacking something, capping/decapping, etc.
d. The higher the ranked match is, the more strict these should be. For example, if someones internet is so bad that they end up in Bronze, maybe we let them continue to play. In platinum/legendary, there needs to be penalty/incentive in the game for this to never happen.

Once the algorithm is adjusted and proven to be accurate, the penalties need to increase. If you login to a game and just sit AFK, you shouldn’t be allowed to play ranked for a week. Period. If you do it twice, a month. Three times, the whole season. Four times, permanently.

@OP

Not sure if you are trolling at this point or actually concerned. Many folks above tried to get an example, give constructive feedback, etc but it sounds like you are pretty set in this being true, yet you counteract your own argument.

“Everything goes from 100-0 in 2s”, and “play warrior or DH and chain one invulnerability after the other”…well which one is it? Because it can’t be both. Either you die in 2s, or you are using your skills well enough to not die.

Warrior – Endure pain lasts more than 2s
Guardian – Renewed Focus lasts more than 2s
Rev – Herald heal lasts more than 2s
Ranger – Signet of stone lasts more than 2s
Engi – Tini elixer lasts more than 2s
Thief – You can perma dodge or stealth for more than 2s
Necro – Using shroud you have more HP than anything can do in 2s
Mesmer – Distortion and blurred frenzy last more than 2s
Ele – Obsidian Flesh lasts more than 2s

Literally every class has tools to be able to last more than 2s. If you aren’t using them…thats a build or a play issue. Folks have asked for a build or video of this happening, yet you can’t provide them. So if you die 1v1 in 2s…thats on you.

What is a static target? I’m not sure what that means in PvP. In my head, that means 1 of two things
1. The bosses on Forrest
2. A player who stands still and does not move/dodge/use skills

In either case, if you die in 2s, that again is on you…not the game.

I think accuracy also has its place, and it really depends on your setup. You need more assassins, precise infusions, or precision on food in order to crit cap with air sigil and signet of fury.

Accuracy sigil is also better if you cleave adds and can use signet of might.

Both are pretty solid. Air is marginally better single target if you build your setup perfectly. I personally went with accuracy and a large amount of precise infusions so I can’t crit cap and use golden fried dumplings.

Sykper.6583:

Astralporing.1957:

…oh, really? Good to know. Then i can ignore BlaqueFyre comments about legendaries in WvW, right? Since, as you say, nobody really cares about them anyway…

The guy who wants to make a point about WvWers needing more from the stat-changing than General PvE? Go for it, I don’t care, that’s an entirely different discussion. Hell, even the SPvP Legendary Backpiece doesn’t make much sense either when you think about it, but since there’s a Fractal Legendary Backpiece notice how no one seems to care about it huh?

Astralporing.1957:

And? Are they the majority of players in WvW?

No? What’s your point? I was driving the idea that WvW is still a path of least resistance for a valuable currency that’s a pain to get normally.

Astralporing.1957:

Crafting itself isn’t. Obtaining mats (or gold to buy them) to craft with however is.

That’s a large amount of time though. I don’t diminish how much time is invested into Legendary items, I’ve got multiple myself. But it’s not a high effort, which I believe is where we might be having our confusion. You understand that effort implies the degree of difficulty of the task right? The difference between cleaving down mobs for Vicious Claws versus doing Nightmare Fractal 100 as an example.

Agreed on the effort portion. That’s my biggest problem with the legendary weapons. Gathering materials does not take effort, it takes time. I personally think the challenge behind most prestigious items in the game should be gated much MORE by effort than by time. It can have some of both, but currently the challenge is gated simply by time.

Also, effort can scale with time pending on player skill. But things that anyone can do with their eyes closed for 6 months doesn’t count as “challenge” to me.

@Ohoni, I’ve generally agreed with you conceptually, we’ve just have different opinions of what the ideal game state is.

However, this kind of irks me: “It excludes them from a positive choice in the matter. If a reward is locked behind a single type of content, and you love that content, then great, win/win for you! But if it’s locked behind content that you hate doing, or cannot do at all, then you’re stuck in the position of either doing it anyway to get the reward, in which case you hate the experience, become more disgruntled with the game, but eventually get that thing you wanted, OR you abandon the thing you wanted, have fun playing elsewhere in the game, but still pine after that item you wanted to get. When the choice is between “win/lose” or “lose/win,” there really is no good solution, just the “least worst” solution.”

You’ve made it pretty clear in older posts that the "only people who’s opinion really matter in terms of raiding are those who do it for the content, not for the rewards at all. You are entitled to a “fair” reward, but anything additional shouldn’t be the purpose of your raiding"

My question, is why doesn’t this apply everywhere else? Why do open world PvE players need any reason to do the content other than they enjoy PvE? Or WvW players or PvP or fractals etc?

Talking about “fair” rewards from a monetary perspective, raids are one of the only parts of the game where you can spend hours playing and actually lose money. The gold you spend from food and changing builds so frequently due to balance greatly outweighs the monetary rewards from raids.

If everyone only does the content they want because they actually like that content, then why argue over where the rewards go? It shouldn’t matter if somebody else gets legendary armor in raids because you only care about playing the content that you like and being rewarded “fairly”. In that case, isn’t one interpretation of “fair” that the hardest content gets the “hardest to get” rewards?

It seems a little hypocritical to put a burden on raiders that “you only really want to raid if you don’t do it for rewards” and not put that same burden on everyone else.

Ohoni.6057:

Re rewards: I’ll just point out, again, that all game modes have exclusive rewards.

Really only deserves one sentence at this point.

And I’ll just point out again, that no game modes should.

He doesn’t care, he/she/it only wants the rewards he feels he can’t get normally. Never have I seen him actually advocate on getting alternate methods of acquisition for all Legendary rewards.

Then you haven’t been in the right threads, but I do pick the battles I choose to fight, just as someone might give money to one charity, without that meaning that he believes that all other charities are not worth supporting.

Come on man we just discussed this a few days back. It is your opinion that no game mode should have exclusive rewards. This is NOT fact. I believe 100% the opposite, that the ideal game state is where all game modes have multiple sets of rewards that are unique to that game mode. The socialist reward style of gaming is just an opinion, not factually any better or worse.

I guess I try and view it from ANETs perspective. I don’t recall 100% the kind of content you enjoy but for arguments sake let’s pick open world.

In my opinion it is advantageous for ANET to give players incentives get out of their comfort zone and try other parts of the game. One of those incentives may be exclusive rewards.

The reason I think they may view it as advantageous is that they simply cannot push out enough content in 1 specific area of the game to keep players occupied long enough to play in silos. So a player who only plays open world may never have enough content in open world alone to keep them playing.

But if that player tries fractals, dungeons, raids, wvw, PvP, etc. Then they may find something that they like in addition to open world. Even if they hated everything and just went back into open world, that trial time period alone is likely longer than they would have stayed if there wasn’t enough content in that one area.

This goes for every area of the game. They simply aren’t big enough to keep pushing content in each area to keep players isolated to only the things they currently enjoy. And more over, they want players to try new things because there will likely be just as many people who end up liking the other area if the game as the ones who don’t.

The grand plan in this whole thing is that they use rewards as the incentive. Now there may be better ways to do that. I personally would enjoy a really cool hard to get raid title as much as I would Legendary armor, but others may want a more flashy rewards.

Incentives to increase competition is a good thing in my opinion. I would LOVE it if there was something as simple as a temporary title for those people who win the most recent gw2 PvP tourney, or clear a raid wing first, or who win the weekly wvw matchup in T1. That would encourage more players to strive to dethrone the current winners. Based on my life experiences, I believe more competition is always better, but I can understand some may disagree. With competition needs to come a more mature audience who embraces competition and doesn’t belittle those who “lose” at that given time

I appreciate the honest response and you are right. In the very large scale the player base opinion matters because at as point they wouldn’t have jobs. But just like voting, the opinion of the whole matters much more than the opinion of the few.

I am one of those people who would do raids even if there were no rewards. For me personally, I enjoy the hours spent failing and learning and researching. To me, that is the real reward, but I understand how not everyone has that same opinion.

However, I also believe that the benefits of exclusive rewards outweigh the downsides. Again I recognize not every shares that opinion. I personally think a future state where every part of the game has many pieces of exclusive rewards is a healthier game state than if no content has exclusive rewards. We may not be there yet, but this could be setting a precedent that the “if you are a human and can login, you can get every reward” mentality is no longer the direction they see fit.

I would personally agree. I spent 3/4 of my life as an athlete competing an training with world record holders. To me, competition and challenges e a bare minimum requirement for something Legendary…inside and outside a game.

That being said I respect that you may not agree and I’m frankly tired of others belittling your opinion in response to their own.

I’ve posted this in the past but I don’t think it saw a response. Really the only thing were discussing here is math. The equation is AxB=C where: A equals the amount of time spent doing a task, B equals the difficulty of that task, and C equals the rewards, in this case legendary armor.

At some point, B =0. Just like in math, if B=0 then there is no amount of time that will equal a non zero reward. The problem is that everyone’s opinion of where that point is different, and that’s fine because in the grand scheme only ANETs opinion matters.

For example, some people would argue that easy mode raids essentially means B=0. This would mean that no amount of time ever spent doing them would result in Legendary armor. A larger population of people would probably argue that Legendary armor shouldn’t be given as a login reward, even if you login every day until the the sun blows up the earth.

I’m personally tired of hearing arguments that are essentially differences in opinions of where B=0 is set at. However, considering:
-ANETs desire to keep raids in all possible forms at the current level of difficulty as a whole, (or higher)
-ANETs comments in video about the nightmare fractal that they want to encourage players to play more challenging content to improve their skill sets.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume they find B=0 at a relatively high level of skill/content difficulty (I.e. current raid difficulty)

Sarrs.4831:

ButterPeanut.9746:

This was my point exactly. The LS3 community and the community that would benefit most from"easy mode raids" overlap much more than the current raiding community. So it would be most fair if the compromises came at the expense of the overlap versus at the expense of the raid content pacing.

I don’t know whether we’re on the same page here but the logic is bad on a basic level because it assumes people who are currently non-raiders would all become raiders with the diversion of resources.

In reality, the vast majority of people who participate in LS content have no intention of touching raids with a 10-foot pole and an ‘easy mode raid’ would likely do absolutely nothing for them. It’s a waste of time and effort. Reducing LS content on the other hand would have a very real reduction in the game’s ability to retain players.

Like I said tho dunno if we’re on the same page, you probably already know this.

My point exactly…taking resources from the team that makes the most sense still doesn’t make any sense…

Linken.6345:

ButterPeanut.9746:

Ohoni.6057:

I would be okay with that so long as the resources came from the ANET teams matches the intended audience for the easy mode, the more casual audience. If they were to take people from the LS3 team and have them work on easy mode raids that could work. Raid team keeps up status quo of content pacing and easy mode raids are made at the expense of LS3. Only ANET knows what kind of expense that would be.

And again, we have no idea how much time this would take, which developers would be needed, or what projects it would keep them from doing. That’s not our job. Our job is to make the case for features we want to see, it’s their job to figure out how to manage that process, and whether it’s worth the associated costs.

Our job is to play or not play the game. Everything else is equally not our job, it is a privilege. If you can argue for features, I can argue what content I would be willing to slow down pacing in order to implement said feature.

If an easy mode raid had to be put in the game and it were to take a significant time investment (which we cannot confirm or deny unless you work for ANET), then I personally would only be okay with it if it came at the expense the development most similarly affiliated with the intended audience…LS3. I’d rather a 3month delay in LS3 for easy mode raid than a 1week delay of the next raid wing

Considering ls season 3 was pushed and came out what was it 9 months after hot released due to raid releases, yea we can push the next raid release afew months.

Its been 5m since the last raid release and they’ve stated it takes 6m for a new LS3 map. The additional months for the Bloodstone fen release were due to figuring out the process and fixing open world HoT problems.

That’s true and you are right the numbers are superficial. My main goal was to have folks consider what they would sacrifice for a feature.

IMO there is no reason to sacrifice raiding timelines and release schedules for an “easy mode” because they don’t serve the same audience. Every audience is slightly different, but I would argue the most similar would be the more casual audience. Would that same audience be okay with sacrificing one piece of content that is intended for them (I.e. LS3) for another piece of content they want (I.e. easy mode raids). That is the most fair IMO. Otherwise you are just asking to sacrifice content other people enjoy for your own benefit. If we go down that route I’d hope for no LS and all raids :P. But being fair, pull from the pool of effort that matches most similarly with what you are adding.

Hey they may be able to do both without sacrificing timelines and effort but I always assume the worst and hope for the best.

Ohoni.6057:

I would be okay with that so long as the resources came from the ANET teams matches the intended audience for the easy mode, the more casual audience. If they were to take people from the LS3 team and have them work on easy mode raids that could work. Raid team keeps up status quo of content pacing and easy mode raids are made at the expense of LS3. Only ANET knows what kind of expense that would be.

And again, we have no idea how much time this would take, which developers would be needed, or what projects it would keep them from doing. That’s not our job. Our job is to make the case for features we want to see, it’s their job to figure out how to manage that process, and whether it’s worth the associated costs.

Our job is to play or not play the game. Everything else is equally not our job, it is a privilege. If you can argue for features, I can argue what content I would be willing to slow down pacing in order to implement said feature.

If an easy mode raid had to be put in the game and it were to take a significant time investment (which we cannot confirm or deny unless you work for ANET), then I personally would only be okay with it if it came at the expense the development most similarly affiliated with the intended audience…LS3. I’d rather a 3month delay in LS3 for easy mode raid than a 1week delay of the next raid wing

Sarrs.4831:

ButterPeanut.9746:

I would be okay with that so long as the resources came from the ANET teams matches the intended audience for the easy mode, the more casual audience. If they were to take people from the LS3 team and have them work on easy mode raids that could work. Raid team keeps up status quo of content pacing and easy mode raids are made at the expense of LS3. Only ANET knows what kind of expense that would be.

Frankly I would be very, very strongly opposed to easy mode raids if it in any way compromised the regular pacing that they’ve achieved with Living Story episodes so far.

This was my point exactly. The LS3 community and the community that would benefit most from"easy mode raids" overlap much more than the current raiding community. So it would be most fair if the compromises came at the expense of the overlap versus at the expense of the raid content pacing.

Ohoni.6057:

So you will repeat the same thing even when someone gives you new arguments until it is implemented? Just wow.

I address each new argument as it comes, but most of what I hear are the same old “raiders deserve pretty things and you don’t” line of “reasoning.”

Then why care only about the Raid rewards?

I don’t only care about raid rewards. I care about a great many things. I’m only discussing raids here because unlike some people, I’m trying to stay on topic.

You ARE hiding. You are not staying on the topic when you are talking about long term goal accessibility.

Again, I only comment on it when someone else brings it up.

I’m saying that the same principles apply to all other types of content, you want to apply the different “idea” only in Raids.

Nope.

So your problem is with long term goal accessibility and it’s irrelevant to the Raid discussion.

Again, I care about a lot of things, but it’s relevant to the raid discussion in so far as raids have one of the longest term goals in the game locked behind them, and I do not think it is healthy for the game for them to do so. Keep in mind, I was not the one who raised the topic of rewards, my comments on the matter have been in direct response to others who said things like “well if you get easy mode, it can’t have good rewards,” or “you don’t care about easy mode, you only cares about the rewards,” or similar things. If you have a problem with rewards being discussed in this thread, your problem is with them.

They’ve also not said how easy it would be to impliment either. That’s the whole point of the response by Gaile: You do not know, so stop pretending that you do. Even her opinion, which is far more informed than yours, is being dismissed off-hand by you.

Right, but you guys are pretending too, pretending that you know that it would take an unreasonable amount of time to implement. So long as you guys insist that it can’t be done because it would pull too many resources away from other “more important” areas of the game, I’ll continue to insist that this is unlikely.

I never said we don’t need introduction encounter/easier bosses. But we don’t need them in every wing.
VG is actually fine and fun even after many runs, but the siege event gets pretty boring after 3-4 runs.
You have to be careful how you design an introduction encounter and who many you actually want.

Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of having an introductory encounter that hardcore raiders would quickly get bored with, they could just have all hardcore raider-style encounters, but with easier modes for players to use as an introduction? That way, the hardcore raiders would never have to play those modes and could just have fun doing the version they like, while everyone else would have a version they could enjoy too!

I would be okay with that so long as the resources came from the ANET teams matches the intended audience for the easy mode, the more casual audience. If they were to take people from the LS3 team and have them work on easy mode raids that could work. Raid team keeps up status quo of content pacing and easy mode raids are made at the expense of LS3. Only ANET knows what kind of expense that would be.

Lets think about Envoy armor as an mathematical equation.

The question is AxB=Envoy armor, where A = amount of time spend doing a particular task and B = the amount effort required for that task.

I may be totally wrong, but what I’ve interpreted as the differing opinions on this chain is that some people believe that B can never hit 0. I would disagree.

If a task is too simple (i.e B=0), then there should be no amount of time spent that could equate in the envoy armor.

If B can never get 0, then there might as well not be legendary armor and they should have just put it as a 2000 gem store outfit. IMO part of what makes an in game item legendary is the fact that it CANNOT be acquired by all methods of playstyle

Now the question is, where is the point where “B=0”? I would argue that Legendary armor should not be given out as a login reward. I would argue that it cannot be acquired soley by open world PvE. I would argue that it cannot be acquired by “easy mode raid”. Some may disagree.

But there is a misconception that just by allowing B to decrease and A to increase that it will automatically include more players. Yes it may include more players who couldn’t do the current level difficulty, but it then may exclude people who currently want the item solely for the prestige value. It isn’t so black and white.

From ANET’s perspective, why would they add Envoy armor elsewhere?

Envoy armor was one of the many incentives to have players play their new content. It wouldn’t surprise me if WvW eventually gets a specific reward that takes a large investment. And you know what? We’d probably see increased game time and player population in WvW. Rewards aren’t the only reason to play the content, but they are part of it.

Personally, I like exclusive rewards across the entire game. I want fractals to have its own set of armor, or open world to have more exclusive rewards…wait it does. It just isn’t as “valuable”

Can I just buy legendary weapons with LI instead of parking characters at material farms?

Ohoni.6057:

1. Pending how good you were at PvP, the time gate behind the PvP legendary backpiece was much longer than getting 150 LI.

Time gate? Maybe, but who cares? The actual effort gate was WAY lower. And besides, what do you have to show for 150LI right now? Nothing! So the actual time gate to getting actual Legendary Armor is at least 3-6 months higher than The Ascension.

2. “Making sure that desirable rewards are not locked off behind undesirable content” – this sounds like you are stating it as a fact, when it is your opinion. Personally, a reward is only desirable to me if it is locked behind some sort of challenging content. Otherwise I don’t find it desirable.

Then they shouldn’t waste desirable content by putting it behind such things. I mean, if I care about it whether it’s locked behind challenging content or not, and you only desire it if it’s locked behind challenging content, then they should obviously NEVER lock it behind desirable content, and instead, for people like you, have completely undesirable rewards that are locked behind challenging content, because you’ll enjoy those exactly as much.

Let alone if we talk about Raids, the apex or epitome of proving what you can do with your character. I want to know honestly from some of these players who cry out against Raids now, if they truly believe they ‘loved’ the way they could play their characters, that they were comfortable spending hundreds of hours not worrying about their stats, build, utilities…typical things you would normally see any regular MMO player worry about.

Yes. That was the exact reason that I was playing Guild Wars 2, and NOT one of those many other games that obsess over such things.

And why do they feel like Raids which make up such a small insignificant amount of content in the game currently, are a smack to the face when I bet you they haven’t even come close to exploring all the other casual content in the game.

But I have explored all that other content. I’ve done all the other things. And raids are currently blocking me off from things that I’d like to have available.

Raids are not blocking “relevant in-game lore”. Someone who is saying that has never dealt with raids and their lore profoundly.

Wrong.

1. Again for PvP that all depends on how successful you are. There are many people who find PvP way more difficult and more stressful than getting into raids. (most people TBH) 30 LI for 1 piece may end up being fast and less effort for them. You can’t argue that my time argument doesn’t count but then you account for ANET development time in your argument. The fact that it isn’t available yet has 0 relevance in relation to how difficult it is to aquire since we “know” the LI mats ahead of time.

2. We both know that argument doesn’t make sense for rewards. Maybe for me it would work, but there are probably lots of people in between you and I. The point I’m making is that you phrase your argument in a way that makes it sound like “Rewards should never be behind challenging content. If they are not behind challenging content, it is 100% always better”. This simply is not true. Maybe for your circumstances it would be better, but there are plenty of people whom it would be worse.

Ohoni.6057:

Really? You are making that argument? That’s ANY game anywhere and not even anywhere near to what is trying to be discussed here. As mentioned before I like many do not PVP, never have and most likely never will. But does the game suck or is it not fun…not even close.

Some people make the argument that those who claim to not enjoy raiding just haven’t given it enough of a chance, and that if they were only to drink the Koolaide, they would love it as much as raiders do. Now you might recognize that as completely ridiculous, but I was pointing it out for those who actually believe that.

I’m totally fine with there being parts of the game that I don’t enjoy, so long as 1. they don’t block off relevant in-game lore (which raids do, PvP and WvW do not), and 2. They do not block off access to rewards that interest me. Both PvP and WvW do block off access to some rewards, but gaining access to them is MUCH easier than gaining access to raid-locked rewards, so while it may not be pleasant, it’s at least relatively quick and accessible when compared to raids.

They could do better in ALL of these areas at making sure that desirable rewards are not locked off behind undesirable content, but failure in one area does not in any way justify failure in another, so “but they do this in some other part of the game” is never any excuse.

1. Pending how good you were at PvP, the time gate behind the PvP legendary backpiece was much longer than getting 150 LI. This also was a single piece versus needing 150 for 6 pieces. 30 LI is definitely quicker, but that isn’t really important.

2. “Making sure that desirable rewards are not locked off behind undesirable content” – this sounds like you are stating it as a fact, when it is your opinion. Personally, a reward is only desirable to me if it is locked behind some sort of challenging content. Otherwise I don’t find it desirable.

Rednik.3809:

CptAurellian.9537:

Your insistence on that nonsensical claim is almost impressive. But it’s getting old, so you should try something else. Stuff like Earth is flat, for example …

Ofc. I’m wrong, everything is fine, there was a tons of new content for everyone to enjoy, and these NCsoft numbers are just statistical error.

I’m not sure what numbers you are looking at? Q3 of this year was the lowest of the year. Q3 also had no raid releases but it did have 2 LS3 releases.

That obviously means that the living story is the reason for the revenue drop and raids were the reason for greater revenue (than currently) in the past quarters. This means we should obviously take everyone off of the living story team and focus solely on releasing more raids.

See how it feels when you take anecdotal evidence and try and foolishly use it for causation?

Rednik.3809:

Hypairion.9210:

hmm, there was no focusing on raids. You’re just over reacting. Do you forget that raid just had 3 wings in 1 year? And how was it a disaster?

While everyone else got… what, 1 hastily made fractal after NCsoft published worst financial result since game launch? They even postponed LS3 again, and again, and again. And at the same time, making exited reddit posts about how much they love raids and how much they are successful, and how their team is ready to make more of them, while completely ignoring everyone else who asking about something new for non-raiders. Afaik there was even some “l2p” posts.

The point is that you have zero proof that raids were responsible for any of that. If there were 0 raids in the game, you still may have only gotten one fractal. LS3 may still have been delayed just as long. We don’t know the reason for those things happening. People could have left the company while working on them. Things may have gone wrong in their development cycle for those projects. This list goes on and we will never know. Since that world doesn’t exist, using raids as your scapegoat is foolish.

On the sales front…Really? How is there enough evidence that raids are responsible for sales? There are way to many factors both inside and outside of the game to pin point any of them as a single culprit. Raids, LS3 delays, open world problems, WvW maps and dysfunction, a shrinking PvP community, WoW legion expansion sales and hype, Overwatch, the release date around a holiday season, just to name a few. You cannot pinpoint any one of them as the main culprit. You can only say that the state of the game as a whole, and the environment surrounding it was not enough to continue to drive increasing sales. Anything more specific than that…I’m sorry is just plain wrong.

Unless ANET specifically says “We are sorry we lied to you. Instead of having 6 people on raids and a handful more from each team when necessary (lets say maybe 20-30 total), but instead we had our entire LS and expansion 2 team working on raids, and we find that responsible for our drop in revenue”, then you have 0 argument.

Many folks on this forum use the word “opinion” as if it shelters them from needing any kind of proof behind their argument. Just because something is your “opinion”, doesn’t mean it cannot be 100% incorrect.

Ohoni.6057:

There are plenty of LFGs without any limitations. There are also plenty of guild and group advertisements on reddit and forums.

I can never find any. There are just “met and LI” groups, and “training runs” which go nowhere.

First, remove that “we” from there you aren’t talking about the entire community.

Nope. I am referring to this game’s community.

A big “what if” question, but would we have Raids now, if they continued releasing new Fractals and Dungeons with the same pace as they did during the first year?

As impossible to determine as it is irrelevant to the conversation.

The “we” statement is by far the most hypocritical thing you have ever posted. “Oh this game wasn’t designed for hard core players….oh this game didn’t implement hard core content at launch…oh we didn’t ask for this”

WRONG!

If you can’t accept the argument that “raids weren’t designed to be easy so they should never be made any easier under any circumstances” then you can’t use the reverse argument to represent the game as a whole. I mean I guess you can, but it completely invalidates 100% of your argument.

Blaeys.3102:

CptAurellian.9537:

…

For that, we’d need to give all unique buffs to at least two classes. For example, give revs something that is equivalent to (and mutually exclusive with) warrior banners and suddenly you have the choice which class to take. Give eles something comparable to GotL/spotter on their heal skills and tempest healers are a thing. And so on.

While I agree in spirit – and we should definitely strive to make sure more professions and builds have a realistic place in raids – how do you do this without starting to make every profession feel the same?

I do agree that a 10 person cap on boons in raids is a must have to start, but beyond that, it’s hard to come up with anything that doesn’t start the class watering down cycle we’ve seen in so many other games.

In related to the 10 person cap, I think in theory this could work…but it definitely cannot be done without making the current scaling even harder. Allowing the same buff/boon output of warrior, chrono, and druid to apply to 10 people instead of 5 allows you to take 3 more DPS classes as a replacement. That is a HUGE group DPS increase. In its current format, the 4 DPS classes do WAY more than 40% of the total group DPS. I would guess its closer to 60-70%. If you were to add in 3 more eles on KC, KC you probably wouldn’t need to use any rifts at all.

I don’t think this should be a reason for them not to explore the possibility of increase the buff cap, but it definitely cannot be done alone. It would have a huge impact on raid power creep and it would likely require them to increase raid boss health at a minimum.

I don’t know a ton about the top end, but what I imagine is happening is the gap between the largest and smallest servers is too big.

As others have said, a free transfer is nice, but it isn’t incentive to leave.

How do we close that gap? Put the overpopulated servers in consistent match ups where they should lose considerably. If you want people to leave the crowded servers and have a more consistent spread across them, make them want to leave. Then once the #s looks a bit better across the servers, you can relink.

Let’s talk about the shiny for a second. I understand that my opinion is very strong and others may greatly disagree, but I’d bet that there are some people we agree with me.

Due to my experience, I am slightly considering going for the legendary armor. The only reason I’m hesitant is because it still costs WAY too much gold. The only “challenge” of all of the original legendaries is deciding which characters to NOT play the game and park at material farming locations, or how much money/gold you want to spend to buy it. This is poor design IMO.

There are folks who have suggested that adding slight legendary progress on an “easy mode” raid would increase the desire for more players to strive for legendary armor. While that may be true, it will also pull certain players, like myself, away from going for the legendary armor. The fact of the matter is that the only reason I am considering it at all is because if you cannot get 150 LI in the current state, you cannot get legendary armor. That prestige and exclusivity is the only reason I’m interested in it at all. I know that is harsh but I also know I am not alone. You can’t get into enough raids that clear content for whatever reason that may be? Sorry but just like Thor’s hammer “you are not worthy.”

IMO, the only legendaries that are even close to being on the right path to “good design” are the armor, the fractal back piece, and the pvp back piece. Why? Read above, they actually require you to do something remotely challenging. IMO the average player, if they remain in the average state, should NEVER get a legendary item even if they put infinite hours into the game. They should have to strive to be better and improve. Why gate the most prestigious items in the game around things that don’t require any prestige/challenge/accomplishments to do? The original legendaries should have included a similar item. For example, you want Twlight? Well then one step could require to solo X amount of dungeons with all characters that can use a GS.

Are these 3 legendaries perfect? No absolutely not, they are still too expensive IMO. I also wish the challenge promoted skill play even more. This could also prevent selling raids to get LI. You die at the first flamewall at Sabetha? Do you really deserve an LI? IMO no, there should be some sort of equation that determines if you were effective in participating in the groups success. Now I understand this will never happen because the implications of getting it wrong/buggy are too high.

I hope that when they add WvW specific legendary items that I cannot get them in my current state of gameplay. I do not WvW enough to deserve this progress. But, if I were to strive to improve and participate, maybe then I could work towards that progress. That improvement could look like the following:
1. Joining a specific WvW guild
2. Reading and watching specific tactics on advanced WvW play
3. Asking questions and opinions of my wvw guild
4. Wiping them a few times
5. Continue to show desire to improve
6. Make myself available and not put my own restrictions on the game play
7. Not complain that Edge of the Mists (i.e. easy mode) doesn’t contain progress towards the theoretical WvW legendary.

Sound familiar?

Again I know some folks will disagree, that’s okay too! But I also know that I’m not alone.

AndyS.5630:

Obtena.7952:

I won’t argue with your wall of text. You don’t recognize the fact that if a group can’t raid without unnecessary elements like chronos or what have you, that’s not Anet’s failure in game design; it’s simple something that veteran gamers recognize as ‘lack of skill’. If remaining unskilled as a player is not the players’ fault, then I will just chalk that up to hubris.

No, you don’t recognize that it’s a direct consequence of poor game design. Because once again, players (and humans in general) behave in an expected way. Remaining unskilled is of course a player’s fault, but it’s forgiving for some classes, and not forgiving for other classes, and this difference is entirely on Anet.

Maybe for PUGS or very inexperienced groups. In reality, an unskilled perma dead berserker ele is just as bad as dead berserker necromancer. Dead DPS is no DPS.

Classes have inherent differences in skill cap. This was established on day 1 when each class wasn’t given the same amount of toughness, HP, etc…not by raids.

I can 100% guarantee you that a brand new elementalist who just got his first set of full “meta” berserker gear is MUCH farther away from Fennec’s optimal 45k+ DPS rotation on than a berserker necromancer who is in the top % of player skill.

Player skill flat out matters more than the classes you play, pending you use a reasonable gear and build. I completely understand why people would want to play off meta classes. Not everyone is going to only like to play Warrior, Druid, Chrono, or Ele. That doesn’t mean you can bring in your full nomads staff guardian and “loot stick” into raids. I can understand being attached to certain classes, not gear which is just a superficial mathematical equation.

Its hard to give tips without knowing exactly how you are fighting xera as there are a few different strategies.

The biggest tip I can give is to clear as few as possible but when you need to clear them, do so ASAP.

When people (myself included) first started fighting xera, they approached the shards similarly to the orbs at Gorseval. In reality this is unnecessary because the orbs at Gor expand and they are random, where as the shards at Xera are planned.

So instead of trying to “clear all of the shards” all the time, focus 100% of your attention on Xera. Then, when it is time to focus the shards, do so with 100% of your attention. (i.e. auto attack, lava font, meteor shower, etc if on ele). I’ve found this makes for a much safer run because:
1. You will do more damage because less total time is spent shard clearing and more time on Xera
2. The adds will be less of a problem because you will likely also increase your cleave by attacking xera more often.

Good luck!

Xyonon.3987:

No, hasn’t been always like this. Made a post on reddit how it did work and how it works now:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/58jv0l/raidschronomancer_a_test_on_the_new_quickness/d910r5b/

:)

Still find it crazy you and I came to this same conclusion within a few minutes of eachother

Artemis Thuras.8795:

ButterPeanut.9746:

While I agree that Time Warp could be changed to be improved a bit more, there is lots of false information in this thread.

Time Warp will NOT overwrite older stacks that are single stacks in of a longer duration. If you cast Time Warp on yourself with 5 stacks that have a longer duration than 2s (TW duration with 100% boon duration) that individual pulse of TW is NOT applied to you. It will only apply a pulse of TW if you do not have maximum stacks, or if one of your stacks is <2s.

This means that it is useful to use TW in CS. I’ve been using it at the very end of CS as to have the TW stacks applied as the WoA, ToT, and SoI stacks run out.

Video proof
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TV0Kd7zdY4

Reddit Discussion
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/58jv0l/raidschronomancer_a_test_on_the_new_quickness/

afaik, boons have always overwritten only if there is a shorter duration stack to overwrite.
But yes, it seems that nugget of knowledge is lesser known at this point.

I still need to play around with the rotations to see what I can do with it.
I’ll give the kitten the end of the rotation a try.

However, keep in mind, if you only use time warp, it will overwrite one of its own stacks currently.

The change I proposed simply removes that without actually buffing tw on it’s own.
It will make it play nicer with other sources of quickness, a little bit though.

The idea of tw affecting 10 people ( mass invis still affects 10 afaik..) is interesting.
Would make tw much more worthwhile in raids/wvw/open world. But it would still be a bit.. lacking in 5 man content. It does seem on paper like a much greater buff to the skill, though it may be justified(see below).
Comparing quickness and CD on time warp to well of action, tw actually seems quite weak to me. But other effects.. /shrug.

I don’t disagree with you at all. It definitely is pretty weak for the length of the cool down. However, the immediate consensus after the patch was “DROP TIME WARP IT MAKES YOUR QUICKNESS WORSE”. This is what I was trying to point out that isn’t true.

You can give permanent quickness with many builds now, some of which don’t include time warp. But if you need a few filler seconds due to group positioning, bad rotation, etc. Having TW can help fill those gaps.

While I agree that Time Warp could be changed to be improved a bit more, there is lots of false information in this thread.

Time Warp will NOT overwrite older stacks that are single stacks in of a longer duration. If you cast Time Warp on yourself with 5 stacks that have a longer duration than 2s (TW duration with 100% boon duration) that individual pulse of TW is NOT applied to you. It will only apply a pulse of TW if you do not have maximum stacks, or if one of your stacks is <2s.

This means that it is useful to use TW in CS. I’ve been using it at the very end of CS as to have the TW stacks applied as the WoA, ToT, and SoI stacks run out.

Video proof
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TV0Kd7zdY4

Reddit Discussion
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/58jv0l/raidschronomancer_a_test_on_the_new_quickness/

Obindo.6802:

kdaddy.5431:

@ Obindo.6802

You wrote “Also; rev does not counter dragon hunter.”

You were talking roles and i simply said that rev can take any role. With that being said i said that you could simply rotate a rev to a DH.

How is that a bad mentality when the so called best DH in NA is not winning 1 vs 1 vs the top tier revs. Not even the best revs but simply ESL level revs, he will lose too.

Im not arguing for EGO or what ever your trying to assume, im pointing out facts in the game at the top level of play. We have had 16 teams- 8 from NA and 8 from EU and only 2 players are playing DH. They struggled all 4 seasons to find there place since necro’s did more damage in team fights, revs-druids- some mesmers and warriors are better in the 1 vs 1.

You specially said that revs do not counter DH …………. and now you write “I’m sorry but I do not care if some NA rev beat some NA DH.”

Im not using some rev or some DH im using the BEST PLAYERS in the game as my examples.

It’s an even matchup, and I do not care if a 1 rev player won a dh player once or twice or whatever in a match, it doesn’t counter and it’s that simple. Also I meant the mentality where if you don’t take a 1v1 that means “you can’t win it”, it’s the same kitten mentality that most people have.

It can take the role of 1v1’ing but it would be a waste of your rev. Rev is basically your mvp and using it to 1v1 is a complete waste, and nobody will do that. Hence not it’s role. You don’t take a rev to 1v1

Agreed and I made the same point a while back. Which class the revenant could in theory face in a 1v1 is 100% irrelevant when discussing revenants role in a 5v5 match. It is simply so much better in team fights, that even if you could kill the other class in a 1v1, you are hurting your team by doing so because your time is better spent elsewhere.

Carighan.6758:

ButterPeanut.9746:

I’m thinking use commanders to get to 40% duration, 30% from food and 30% from runes. This way you don’t require a rev.

In addition, without chronomancer runes you will likely only take one well, well of action.

Wouldn’t you also use 33% from the sigil? As in, axe the commander down?
And Well… hrm… I still like Well of Eternity for the extra healing and cleansing, in raid situations. Granted for damage a signet is better, but I guess it depends on the fight. Finally got to play a healer in a raid yesterday and noticed just how low healing requirements usually are >.<

Yes you totally could. This was just pure speculation based on the patch comments. Personally if i was going to use the signet heal to spawn avengers quickly, I wouldn’t want to rely on weapon swap to max boon duration. Just an option, but again today we’ll see what actually happens

kdaddy.5431:

I just wanted to share some screen shots of my raids today before the patch.

I couldnt get the sab kill but got the first 2 in 4 runs. So took about 40 min to get to Sab.

The other one is the Tier 4 -90- fractal.

I just want to point out that its simply easier/better for many of the areas of the game to not run warrior.

Looking at the VG screenshot, you being a rev with 15 might, running shiro not dwarf, having staff out while VG is above 66%, and only being ~80-85% with 7:20 left is enough for me to consider all of your argument completely invalid.

We won’t know until the patch but I’m thinking leadership will be the way to go.

I’m thinking use commanders to get to 40% duration, 30% from food and 30% from runes. This way you don’t require a rev.

In addition, without chronomancer runes you will likely only take one well, well of action.

Utilities could be: Signet of Ether, SoI, Mimic, Well of Action, TW.

Mimic inside CS to get 3 SOI inside if you have the trait SOI off cooldown.

With 100% without the sigil of concentration, you could open fights in sw/shield instead of weapons swapping into shield. This could allow you to have 3 shields up right away.

Again we won’t know until Tuesday but this is a possibility.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Magnus Godrik.5841:

Go to the quantify website or check out thier youtube channel. The ps burnzerker is a meta build now used in raids. Guess what it uses sword/torch and longbow with 20k burns.

Burn fields do not overlap now and have an internal cooldown of 0.5 seconds. Maybe once upon it did 20k..but those days are gone.

F.Y.I it was longbow doing the burns..this discussion is about sword. Get back to us about the bleed ticks and durations this meta build does currently. I will show a necro build that can do double.

No previously you could get 30k+. 20k burns is very achievable in current state and it DOES require swapping to sword. With alacrity you open with sword berserker burst, swap to LB for burst rotation, and swap back to sword for a final burst that you wouldn’t get by camping LB.

Watch a high end warrior go through the DPS rotation and you will realize sw/torch is essential to the rotation. Especially with the change to king of fires and the easy fire aura with the sword leap.

I’m not sure what the purpose of the comparison to necromancer is. Myself and others have repeatedly mentioned that the comparison is 100% irrelevant because necromancer and warrior do NOT fulfill the same role, even though they can both play condi.

You don’t see Mesmer compared to staff else in terms of power DPS. Those two classes don’t fill the same role, and neither do necro/warrior. That comparison is equally irrelevant.

I think the challenge with “tweaking numbers” is there is a fine line between making something less punishing than the current state, and actively teaching players the incorrect mechanic because the punishment is essentially removed.

For example, if you removed the instant defeat from Sabetha’s flame wall, you are actively teaching players that they can ignore it. Either by dodging through it, stacking in a spot and healing through it, etc. I would argue that makes the player WORSE than if they hadn’t done the “training mode Sabetha” at all. For some people breaking bad habits is more challenging that not learning it at all and starting from scratch the right way.

ANET may have the capabilities to determine where that line lives. But is it worth the development cost? Nobody but ANET can answer that but I personally would rather the raid team, fractal team, living story team, etc focus on making more content versus trying to fine tune an “easy mode raid” for a small subset of players.

Again, only ANET knows this, but it would not surprise me if the number of players who want to raid but don’t because they think its too hard or they don’t want to wipe constantly is smaller than both the number of players who do raid, and the number of players who don’t raid and won’t do “easy mode” either.

One thing I just thought of but haven’t really formed a strong opinion on yet is the following. What if “easy mode raid” was the exact same encounter, except that if you wiped the bosses state (aka HP, phase, etc) was maintained? This wouldn’t change the nature of the encounter at all and it could be beaten by anyone if they kept trying because the HP would slowly dwindle down. Champ bag only for loot.

Okay last post here because you have turned this into a finger pointing game when the goal was to point out that there are cases where sword is useful.

“First, you have pointed nothing out other then some people use it in raids.”
- Not only that, but I pointed out that it essentially equivalent or advantageous to a power warrior on 7/9 encounters in the raid.

“Nothing else, you say you use the drazah build from S3 but you are comparing yourself to the team who dominated S3 and S4 finals”
- Where did I say anything about my skill? I simply stated that I am a fan of the build and that it was strong in that particular matchup.

“Also no engy did any 1 vs 1 except maybe Olrun who lost to tarcis which is probably why he picked up thief.”
- Rewatch the Astral Authority games in the World championships. Chaith spends the vast majority of the time in a 1v1 on far. If you read my post you would know that I am NOT advocating for this matchup, but it did happen which invalidates your post.

“You are literally arguing for a weapon that you have now stated you dont use in PvP. It isnt any good for WvW and im pretty sure everyone on the warrior forum cana gree with that. Then you try using raids on VG to justify it when literally people are healing threw greens and not even worrying about the mechanics.”
- I never said in any post that I use sword in anything other than PvE. Here is the first sentence of my first post per batum: Sword/Torch+LB condi PS is meta for many fractals and raid encounters in PvE. Not every weapon is going to be meta in every game mode.

“Ive clearly made my points and not changed my stance on any of them. Sword is a near useless weapon in the game for warrior, warrior is not a dominant force in PvP and will lose to multiple classes in 1 vs 1 at the highest level especially if they use sword and even pointed out that the DPS greatsword PS warrior is used threw out the game far more since it is the clear alpha.”
- Exactly, you derailed the conversation. The conversation was NEVER about how useful warrior was in PvP 1v1. The conversation was never about how good GS is. The conversation was about how sword is “useless” and I simply provided examples of that not being the case.

“You also have said “You have no idea about how often I pvp or wvw” when i simply said i bet ive done more then you. I stand by everything ive said and you are simply back tracking and started talking about other things which you are also incorrect about.”
- You literally told me you wvw and pvp more than me, not that it matters. In order for you to have done it “more” you have to know how much I have…please read

“you have a post about how you need X amount of warriors in a post then you simply said the next post well you can obviously beat a raid boss with any class”
- I never said the word “need”. I said “Either you have 2 warriors or you don’t and you should”. This is true. Just because you can beat the content without wariors does not make this any less true. You could have had an easier/smoother/faster time with 2 warriors and that has been proven by many in the PvE community. There is a reason why the best groups take 2 warriors. It isn’t because it is required to complete it at all…it is because it is the most efficient way.

“You are waddling and struggling to make sure your point originally that sword is useful.”
- Of course I am because this was the original question! The original question wasn’t about whether rev or druid or warrior or engi or mesmer can beat eachother 1v1 with any weapon set. Or whether or not people use it in wvw specifically. The question was a generic question about how sword isn’t useful…and I provided examples of that not being true. Case Closed.

kdaddy.5431:

You are simply making the argument now that anything can be useful depending on what the group wants which is what i basically said except you are now saying that you want 1 warrior in a group.

Also no rev beats warrior 1 vs 1. Especially a power warrior if they are both of good skill quality.

A revs enchanting daggers goes threw warriors endure the pain. Also a well timed staff 5 takes out over 12k and combo into 2 different blocks and stun breakers. Its why you saw tarcis using a rev at the start of S1 Pro League go to rev. As well as Rom now playing ranger. Tarcis brought it back for the last ESL but only really because of the 1 class stack rule.

If you go back and watch the ESL, tarcis lost a 1 vs 1 to phanta on druid. A good rev can take on any 1 vs 1 and stalemate for a long time. Rev has been the hard counter to DH in 1 vs 1 and warriors as well. Rev is the jack of all trades class right now capable of anything so saying its role isnt 1 vs 1 is a bit off.

Also i never said how much you PvP or WvW but simply that you havent done it was much as i have.

This is becoming very derailed as the original thread was about how sword is useless…which I have already given plenty of examples of that not being true.

That being said, not one of your arguments for pvp was warrior versus rev, because that shouldn’t happen all that often. A pure power warrior in pvp right now is pretty poor. I’m partial to the condi GS/M+SH hybrid build that Drazeh ran in S3 pro finals. That build was designed to be able to 1v1 anything, including hundreds of 1v1s against Helseth on Mesmer. They had both commented that this build was one of the major reasons they won the S3 season finals. It has since been nerfed a bit with nerfs to adrenal health and it is niche to begin with.

If you rewatch any of the pro league finals, almost never does anyone explicitly send a revenant to a node to 1v1 a class. Maybe in the early seasons but that was due to class stacking and how crazy overtuned launch rev was. But since season 2/3, revs role has been pretty well defined.

That doesn’t mean it cant, it is just better suited in the team fight with large CC, downstate cleave and burst potential. The vast majority of the time you see mesmer, druid (if the team has an ele in team fight), or engi being sent to the 1v1 to contest/win a non team fight node. I personally wouldn’t send engi or druid if you’re team doesn’t have an ele to keep the necro alive, but thats a different discussion.

In the current meta revenant is without a doubt NOT the 1v1 class on a team because everyone takes 2 of mesmer, druid, engi. I haven’t included guard or thief because I don’t feel they are that viable at a high level, but both can be effective in lower levels.

kdaddy.5431:

I was thinking the same thing without the warrior but it was fine.

We killed Vg and Gors in 4 runs. Failed each boss once.

Also i would say im not gonna see it your way simply because im seeing more and more people basically have no need for a warrior.

In PvP its kind of behind rev and ranger in 1 vs 1 and doesnt bring as much DPS as a necro in team fights.

In PvE its works fine doing anything but you can just wish for more since other classes have it.

Then in raids, simply put im seeing less and less need for them. Thieves are being looked at more for heavy damage, eles seem to be a must for DPS and some heals, obviously the bunker mesmer and druids. Every raid is simply mesmer,,rev, 2 tempest, 1-2 druids and fill in the gaps.

The guild group im in carried me through some bosses since im not great at the sab fight. Basically they won that 8 man and a friend of mine is in a guild that sells raid. They use 2 thieves in there 8 man team to sell them and they only run 1 ps greatsword warrior.

Im more then willing to bet you have more experience in raids then I but im pretty sure i have more WvW and PvP experience and am only going off what the people in raids are telling me and my personal opinion on warrior. I honestly feel that the people who use condi warrior have a role but simply are not needed.

“It was fine” isn’t the argument I’m making. You can say that about every class. People have cleared with 10 guardians, 10 necros, 10 rangers, etc. No one class is 100% required. Just yesterday there was a 3 man Vale guardian kill by SC…yes 3 man. Mesmer, Druid, Condi warrior.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t strive to create the best possible group. The fact of the matter is that raids aren’t challenging enough to require such a strict group composition. That can be a pro/con depending on your perspective.

The point I was making is that warrior is a critical part of a successful raid group. How you define “success” depends on that group. If you want smooth, fast, easy runs, you should have a minimum of 1 warrior. Can you do it without it? Of course. But that doesn’t mean you should aim for that.

You have no idea about how often I pvp or wvw.

PVP – I’ll give you druid and necro. A good warrior should beat rev 1v1, but rev’s current role isn’t to 1v1.

WvW- An equivalent statement would be like saying “You don’t need any frontline guardians in a zerg v zerg”. Sure you can probably win without them if you are more skilled than they are, but that doesn’t mean you should avoid guardians in your group.

kdaddy.5431:

ButterPeanut.9746:

kdaddy.5431:

If i could point out that on meta battle PS DPS warrior has a rating of 100 and the condi build you spoke of has a rating of 82.

Fractal has same scores for DPS Greatsword 100 and condi being 82.

WvW same thing, DPS warrior rating 95, next build is shouts at 90.

Just because someone uses a build and makes it work doesnt make it viable. I use rifle in PvP and ive had people ask me mu build. Then 2 days later i see them back on mace/shield- long bow and simply put its easier.

Also the raid guild im in prefer DPS warrior over condi and they said that necro/engy and even ranger can do condi damage better then warrior. The warrior is there to give might in raids and give as much DPS as possible.

The meta battle scores are pretty irrelevant. Many of the lower votes were put in well before the build was complete or realized as being strong.

“DPS warrior over condi and they said that necro/engy and even ranger can do condi damage better then warrior.”
This again also does not matter because warrior isn’t compared to those classes. When making a raid team you never think…“hmm should i take another warrior or a necro/engi/ranger?”. Either you have 2 warriors or you don’t and you should. Not 1, not 3. Condi warrior does give might and in some fights gives more DPS than the power build.

Wing 1
- VG = Having at least 1 condi is better because they can provide range might and buff the red guardian team
- Gor = Both are pretty strong and have their own pros/cons. I like condi when doing no updraft but power when you go to an updraft because you need to rebuild might quickly when flying back into the fight.
- Sabetha = Condi is better because of her positioning and Karde is extra vulnerable to conditions.

Wing 2:
Sloth = Power is a bit better I think because it provides stronger CC and you don’t lose might from swapping out of GS. Also he does clear conditions.
Trio = Doesn’t really matter cuz its EZ but condi is probably better because of Narella needing burn damage to light the kegs on fire.
Matthias: Condi is way better and you should ideally run both warriors on condi for clearing icy patches and ranged damage is very valuable in this fight.

Wing 3:
Escort = Both are fine, however condi warrior is probably best class in the game as locking down and killing the wargs. I typically solo 3-4 of them when doing this encounter.
KC = Power damage is king on all classes
Xera = Both are strong but I typically run condi because we usually have a few necros so stronger Epidemics.

Totals:
Condi: 4
Power: 2
Both are strong: 3

Not so clear cut?

Just did wing 1,

On VG 1 power warrior, 2 necros, 2 druids, 1 mesmer, 1 rev, 2 tempest. 1 thief

On gors 4 eles, 2 revs, 1 mesmer, 1 thief, 2 druids

On sab 3 necros, 3 tempest, 1 thief, 1 druid, 1 mesmer, 1 rev

Im sorry but i disagree completely, i can take screen prints next time. This was a pug group and the person running it saw no reason for a warrior period and they allowed it for VG for banners.

The raid guild im in has a A raid team and a B raid team who clear all 3 wings twice a week and they only run 1 power PS warrior. And they too will take it out/trade it for a thief,Dh,or tempest.

Once again im sorry but im seeing more and more people take warriors out of team comps and when people say i got a condi warrior. The team always ask “do you have anything else”?

The “no warrior PUG meta”. Thank god I don’t pug because that is just terrible. Doesn’t seem like there is any convincing you, but literally watch any successful guild or group run raids. Warriors are likely the 2nd most important class to have in raid, only behind chrono.

Simply put, if you aren’t using sword on a condi warrior because a pug raid leader says its bad…then leave the group

kdaddy.5431:

If i could point out that on meta battle PS DPS warrior has a rating of 100 and the condi build you spoke of has a rating of 82.

Fractal has same scores for DPS Greatsword 100 and condi being 82.

WvW same thing, DPS warrior rating 95, next build is shouts at 90.

Just because someone uses a build and makes it work doesnt make it viable. I use rifle in PvP and ive had people ask me mu build. Then 2 days later i see them back on mace/shield- long bow and simply put its easier.

Also the raid guild im in prefer DPS warrior over condi and they said that necro/engy and even ranger can do condi damage better then warrior. The warrior is there to give might in raids and give as much DPS as possible.

The meta battle scores are pretty irrelevant. Many of the lower votes were put in well before the build was complete or realized as being strong.

“DPS warrior over condi and they said that necro/engy and even ranger can do condi damage better then warrior.”
This again also does not matter because warrior isn’t compared to those classes. When making a raid team you never think…“hmm should i take another warrior or a necro/engi/ranger?”. Either you have 2 warriors or you don’t and you should. Not 1, not 3. Condi warrior does give might and in some fights gives more DPS than the power build.

Wing 1
- VG = Having at least 1 condi is better because they can provide range might and buff the red guardian team
- Gor = Both are pretty strong and have their own pros/cons. I like condi when doing no updraft but power when you go to an updraft because you need to rebuild might quickly when flying back into the fight.
- Sabetha = Condi is better because of her positioning and Karde is extra vulnerable to conditions.

Wing 2:
Sloth = Power is a bit better I think because it provides stronger CC and you don’t lose might from swapping out of GS. Also he does clear conditions.
Trio = Doesn’t really matter cuz its EZ but condi is probably better because of Narella needing burn damage to light the kegs on fire.
Matthias: Condi is way better and you should ideally run both warriors on condi for clearing icy patches and ranged damage is very valuable in this fight.

Wing 3:
Escort = Both are fine, however condi warrior is probably best class in the game as locking down and killing the wargs. I typically solo 3-4 of them when doing this encounter.
KC = Power damage is king on all classes
Xera = Both are strong but I typically run condi because we usually have a few necros so stronger Epidemics.

Totals:
Condi: 4
Power: 2
Both are strong: 3

Not so clear cut?

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

ButterPeanut.9746:

Sword/Torch+LB condi PS is meta for many fractals and raid encounters in PvE. Not every weapon is going to be meta in every game mode. You don’t see similar comparisons on ele forums saying that staff is “pretty dumb” because it isn’t used well in PvP?

Sword/sword-Longbow is meta. However, the weapon sets themselves don’t matter. It is the phalanx strength people are wanting. Pound for pound viper warrior does a subpar job in the role of condition stacking. If you take a viper warrior with agony sigils and they can only build about 10 stacks of bleed and maintain on average 4-6 stacks of burning. They can peak higher than this, but the duration just doesn’t last for any substantial time and requires them to be in melee range the entire time. When compared with Necromancer, these numbers are laughable at best and their ability to tank simply does not compare.

Too many adjustments have been made to warrior weapons which have rendered them subpar.
1) Offhand axe
2) Back-loading main hand axe damage.
3) Sword neither scaling with power or condition duration/application
4) Hammer across the board.
5) Longbow being a jack of no trade.
6) Off hand mace.

There is a whole lot wrong with your first statement. Granted there are problems with other weapons, but that wasn’t the focus of the OP. The focus of the OP was that there is no point to sword, which simply is not true.

1. The fact that people take a warrior because of PS, EA, and banners is irrelevant in the discussion. You still only take a power GS warrior in PvE for the same reasons. Not because GS does significantly better damage. In fact, in many fights condi PS with LB/Sw+T does greater overall damage than GS warrior and it still checks all the boxes of 25 might, banners, EA.

2. Condi PS should not take agony sigil ever. The bleed and burning estimates are so far off its laughable.
Here’s a video of Fennec’s benchmark on condi PS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV9pbcKCggw

If you want a real fight video, look at qT’s 5 man Gorseval kill from 1up’s perspective.

qT’s 5 man kill is arguably the most challenging PvE content anyone has performed to date. The amount of failures, min maxing, and rotation requirements needed for this kill was something that very few players could ever accomplish. Not only that, but for their role of warrior in the group, they were MORE successful with condi PS LB/S+T than they were with the traditional GS power PS. But obviously you know way more about LB/Sw+T than arguably the best PvE players in the game.

3. Comparing to a necromancer is irrelevant because they don’t fulfill the same role. Warrior, no matter what gear you use in PvE, is meant to be a support class. The might generation, banners, EA, are the #1 reason you bring a warrior in a PvE group, not the solo damage. Necromancer fulfills a DPS role, so it should be compared to Ele, Thief, Engi, Guardian…not warrior.

4. My argument are based mostly on high end PvE, but the original OP was never specific in saying that sword is only bad in PvP or WvW and that’s what they don’t like. They simply argued it was bad all over, which isn’t true.

Sword/Torch+LB condi PS is meta for many fractals and raid encounters in PvE. Not every weapon is going to be meta in every game mode. You don’t see similar comparisons on ele forums saying that staff is “pretty dumb” because it isn’t used well in PvP?

Absurdo.8309:

Blaeys.3102:

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

zero need for a story mode.

do LS3 and you can get a recap. Walk into wing 3 and talk to glenna and you can get a recap. YOUTUBE still exist…..

At this point if you still truly care about the story, you’d have used any of these options.

It’s even better, because at this point you don’t even need to play ls3 either. After all, if Youtube covers all your needs…

It’s basically what you guys are asking for because it’s clearly not the gameplay your after. May as well just sit back and watch cinematics all day long.

It really isn’t.

It is possible to simply tone the mechanics down rather than completely remove or invalidate them when developing tiered difficulties. It doesn’t have to be one extreme or the other.

Oversimplification like this doesn’t really address the issue.

The OP is asking for a mode with no rewards so he can focus solely on the story. I don’t think this is an oversimplification.

What problem are you trying to solve? Why do the people you know not raid? And do they want to?

I think we’ve had enough back and forth on other threads.

Blaeys.3102:

Sorry for the confusion. I’m talking about low manning stuff as I assume that is what the previous poster was talking about.

I would like to see scaling to party size as a solution (for lower tier difficulties only), but that has nothing to do with the post I was responding to.

But where do you set that scale? It isn’t as black and white as it sounds. There are people would would benefit from the current difficulty being the “easy”, “medium”, or “hard” versions of the raid content. As we’ve seen from fractals, simply scaling numbers on enemies isn’t as straightforward as it looks.

I made long posts on the previous topic and got no responses.

The TLDR version is that I believe they could make the “easy mode” part of a single difficulty of the raid. Just make certain “splits” in the path instead of a linear one. One example could be that the split is after the first boss (maybe wing 3 escort level). Then groups could decide to go down the “easy” or the “normal” path. These paths could eventually link back up, or the easy could restart at the normal path.

This way they are developing one set of content where the content itself is intended to allow groups of difficult abilities to progress at different rates.

I also believe they should implement repeatable achievements (like KC challenge mote for example), with actual incentive to repeat them multiple times. If I’m in a group that can do the challenge mote every time, I should want to. That reward could be gold, % of shard increase, % drop rate increase, repeatable achievements for titles/AP, etc.

Lets take a look at KC for an example. For those who don’t know the challenge mote for KC just makes the arena stuck in its “smaller” state permanently. The reason this is “challenging” is because there are mechanics that require the group to spread out from each other. This becomes more difficult to do if the arena is smaller. Granted, I personally don’t find this challenge mote all that hard, but the idea is still solid. It applies to all players and is something you actively think about in the fight.

Now, in order to address #3 above related to the “Easy path” being too hard, i believe they should restructure the "hard mode’ parts of the fight to have incentives to repeat them. Currently, the only incentive to repeat one of these achievements is if someone in your group doesn’t have it. Otherwise, there is really no need. Yes the “hardcore only” players may want to do it every time, but getting 10 people to agree on that would be a challenge to say the least. So, there should be incentives to repeat them. This could include things like, repeatable achievements, small % increase in drop rates, more shards, specific titles/rewards for doing it X amount of times, etc. These are just a few ideas, but you can imagine a scenario where a raid group comes into a fight and based on the comp of 10 people in that group, they could decide if they want to try the “hard mode” or not every time they do the encounter…not just once.

So back to KC, lets say instead of the challenge mote being “spread out less”, lets say instead they did one of the following:
1. Make the number of total rifts you can close to give KC his stacking buff reduced from 5->3
2. Reduce the effectiveness of the debuff so you still do 5 total but it impacts KC less.

In this scenario, you could have groups like qT who could probably still phase KC from 100%->66% in one burn of rift closing, but you may have other groups who need 2 burns. This provides extra challenge/rewards that would otherwise never be attempted.

Now you might be asking, why do you want to make more “hard modes” but not an “easy mode”. For a few reasons:
1. This is already a concept in all aspects of the game. Living story achievements, raids, fractals, etc. They all have concepts of making things more challenging for some kind of reward, whether that be an achievement or more loot. I think raids just need more incentive to repeat those ever week.
2. There is a framework in the game for this already. I could be totally wrong, but I don’t think it is outlandish to say that adding in a “hard mode” like the one I described for KC would be less total time then having to redesign the fight entirely to make it easier, but not too easy. ANET is used to adding unique snippets that make content more challenging, but doing the reverse isn’t always as trivial. I could be totally wrong here but just a thought.

Now, lets jump back into the legendary armor discussion. Personally, I find the PVP backpiece, the fractal backpiece, and the legendary armor a much better set of legionaries than the original weapons for example for the following reasons:
1. You can’t strictly buy them off the TP. This also means you can’t effectively by them with your credit card.
2. They have some sort of “challenge” associated with them.

IMO, #2 is the reason why I don’t go for legendary weapons. I personally don’t find grinding 10000 wooden logs challenging. The goal grind/sink isn’t hard, its just time consuming with activities that aren’t challenging. I’d much rather spend that time doing a challenging piece of content that gives you a trophy required for the legendary. This also means that there will be players who no matter how much time they spent doing that “challenging piece of content”, they may never beat it…aka they may never get the legendary. That may not be the route ANET wanted for legendary items, but IMO that is a better system. Legionaries should be earned through doing something you are proud of, not spending $$$ or running around collecting wood for months. For example, instead of having to grind resources for a legendary weapon, maybe you have to solo X amount of dungeons with all classes who can use that weapon. Again just one small idea that probably has its own set of pros/cons.

Well that was a long. Hopefully someone enjoyed reading/commenting on it.

So, lets say in this imaginary raid you’ve now beaten the Escort. Let’s now say that after Escort the raid has a choice, to go on the “easier” path and do Bandit Trio, or go to down the “regular/harder” path and attempt to kill Vale Guardian. This would allow more "hardcore’ groups to skip the easy path if they wanted. Or they could go and quickly kill it. It would also allow the “easy mode” raiders to chose the easier path and attempt it. They may fail a few times, but then they may succeed. The actual difficulty of the Bandit Trio in this imaginary raid isn’t important, but the concept of players choosing their fate is.

Now, lets say you went on the easy path and there is 1 more “easy boss” before you would get looped back around to Vale Guardian, where the “normal/hard” mode group went after Escort.

This split could even happen for the first encounter, but for this example I chose to use a consistent starting point.

I think something like this would encourage players to start off easy and see their progression. It also means that ANET doesn’t have to completely redesign every encounter to have 3 modes, easy, normal, and potentially “challenge” motes.

The rewards for the “easy” path would of course be different than the “harder path”. This is consistent with the encounters today. Trio doesn’t give as many shards/rewards as Sabetha for example.

So there is my proposition, now I’ll play devil’s advocate and talk about potential criticisms of this proposal:
1. The “easy path” wouldn’t cover every boss. This has its downsides in terms of rewards, lore, diverse content for the group, etc. However, I think most groups who aren’t raiding at all today would either decide raiding still isn’t for them after doing the “easy mode”, or rise up to the challenge and continue along. No evidence to support this, just a thought.
2. Based on the current reward structure (again this could in theory change), this means that the “easy path only” group would never be able to get legendary armor because there are items that only drop from certain bosses. Personally, I’m okay with that because of my argument in #1 above. I think the people that start in the “easy path” group that also want legendary armor would soon have the drive/incentive to continue along the “regular/hard path”.
3. The “easy path” may be too easy/boring for existing groups and there may not be enough incentive to run this content. I’ll address this one next.

The next enhancement that I would suggest would be to take a look at the “hard mode” achievements that are currently in the raid. For example, slippery slubbling on Sloth, the Bandit trio without help, Matthias with Blood stone Bisque, and KC with challenge mote. Personally, I don’t like Sloth or Matthias because they are either:
1. A challenge that really only involves 1 or 2 players
2. A debuff you put on and forget about.

Hey all,

I’ve been catching up with this thread but haven’t posted yet. Recently felt compelled to share some thoughts and ideas. This may be a bit long

EDIT: Had to break it into multiple posts

Background about me
Before I dive into the topic at hand I’d like to give a bit of background of my play style. I am a dedicated raider who raids with multiple guild groups per week. I am one of those players who doesn’t care about legendary armor and doesn’t really care about shards or gear. The only gain I’ve received so far from shards/drop has been gearing out other characters that I can use to raid and start the process over again.

That being said, I am very aware and respectful that other people may not have the same opinion and play style. I’m okay with that. MMOs are meant to have a diverse community. Even inside the “raiding community” there are players with different play styles. I’d be willing to bet that every consistent raid group has at least 1 person of the following:
1. A player who loves to raid no matter the day time, shard cap, boss, etc. (aka. me)
2. A player who likes to raid but not spend a ton of time every night. One or two bosses then they leave.
3. A player who likes to raid, but doesn’t like to be part of the process of learning the fights. They just like to come in and beat the boss once the strategy is established.

And i’m sure there are many more and other people who don’t raid have their own set of play styles as well. This wasn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, just a few examples.

So now that is out of the way…I’d like to pose a few questions and then maybe a few ideas based on them.

For those folks who are pro “easy mode raid”, are you particular about the “easy mode” being the same content as the “regular or hard” mode. For example, does an “easy mode wing 1” need to include an “easy mode” of all 3 bosses? Or could it have a slight variation?

What about something like this?

We do have signs that ANET is open to putting encounters of varying difficulty inside a raid. The escort event in wing 3 and the bandit trio in wing 2 are prime examples. What if instead of “easy mode” being a direct copy of the existing raiding difficultly, it instead was built into the raid itself.

For example, imagine a Spirit Vale with only 1 or two wings. (Ignore lore reasons why this wouldn’t work in this example, you can imagine it could work with a new raid with new lore).
Lets say the Escort event was the first boss. Personally, I think this is a great encounter for people who want “easy” or “entry” level raiding. It has no enrage timer, has no DPS requirement, and failure is 100% based on mechanics. It even opens up skills that don’t get used elsewhere. For example, I usually play condi PS warrior on this event and I take Throw Bolas because with Bolas, LB #5, and Sword immobilize, I can solo a warg while keeping it permanently immobilized. There is no other content in the game where I use that skill! That is pretty cool IMO. I think this is a perfect example of “entry level raiding” because it isn’t all that challenging but it teaches you 10 man coordination and group effort.

Agreed with the OP. Raids are by far and away my favorite game mode right now. I only hope that they aren’t satisfied with releasing one full raid with HoT. Please, continue to push boundaries and create new content. Each raid doesn’t need 3 wings, story, 3 bosses, etc. Even a “1 off” wing with 1-2 bosses would be fun.

The only major suggestion that I have is with the achievements. I feel like they have gone about 80-90% of the way there. I think achievements similar to wing 2 could give the community that extra difficulty that some groups are looking for. IMO more “Challenge Mote” achievements would be a great addition. Not only that, but they need to be designed to be repeatable. My only criticism about the wing 2 achievements is that there is no additional incentive to repeat them. I don’t know what the best way would to give that extra incentive, but small gold rewards, additional drop rate, repeatable AP, are a few ideas. I think it would be fun to decide depending on the individuals you have in your group whether or not you want to try the “Hard mode” every week.