Guild Wars 2

domness.6719:

Pugged it yesterday, highest tier, killed it 1st go. It’s definitely not too hard, some players are just incredibly bad and need to improve rather than complain. Git good.

‘sigh’ We (three people) had to cycle through half a dozen randumbs before we finally got some who understood what (not) to do in that fight. I wonder how long it will take before you reliably get pugs who can do Bloomy

Mitch.4781:

And why remove the little underwater cavern? It worries me that they are trying to remove underwater from the game. Removed it from the pvp map. No meaningful water encounters in HOT, not new UW weapon skins. Piece by Piece.

As if that cavern was interesting/relevant in any way. But tbh, I’d be rather happy if they actually removed underwater combat from the game. It’s severely restricted (few weapons and half of our utilities locked), poorly balanced and just feels clunky. I doubt the massive resources necessary for a proper rework would be a good investment, at least until they bring the Bubbles dragon.

New Bloomy isn’t bad when you adapt to him. I’d just like to see his HP reduced by a substantial amount (and possibly the champ gone, since it doesn’t bring anything to the fight except another large HP bar to be killed). Damage is already low during this fight due to forced ranged combat for most of the time, so why does Bloomy need bazillions of health in addition?

For 81+ fractals, Virtues is a no-go.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a change to (our) light fields, but that’s not the solution to boon thieves. We’d still have the problems with the Virtues trait line and a crapton of our abilities.

They should rework the instability itself, probably along with almost all the others. Social awkwardness is about the only one that feels remotely interesting, anything else is incredibly boring. I remember having seen a list with suggestions for new instabilities a long time ago, the devs should look there to make stuff more interactive.

But any fix will probably take 8+ months …

Bloomy already stacks might himself when he does his ground pound thing.

gin.7158:

Just wanna comment a bit. a no-no doesn’t mean “don’t use gs” coz gs has a good pull utility. Some places you wanna use it is at uncategorized the 4 golem boss and arch diviner during the bell phase to pull 4 adds to the center.

That’s a niche application for GS, but mesmers do the job better. Generally, hammer is way better than GS in high level fractals if you wanna play guard.

Chaos is really nice, except the final gladiator guy. Bosses that punish melee so much aren’t fun.

sigh The other abilities, that’s exactly where you lack reading comprehension. Gimping yourself (there’s a metric ton of more useful utility skills) just to compensate for the reta problem is neither fun nor good design. Especially when 90% of reta is directly or indirectly caused by exactly one class.

Besides: If your entire group knows their stuff, it’s little problem. As soon as you take a random guy with you, it’s a lottery.

Vinceman.4572:

Remember: The instability has a 20-second cooldown.

Mesmer autoattack sword which is the standard weapon on mesmer, you don’t switch it:
“Mind Spike: Stab a foe and rip a boon off of them.”
This applies every third hit. Due to enemies not having many boons, all of them are ripped of within a second. You just have to press 1111111111111111111.

No kitten, Sherlock. In your brilliant post, you forgot only one factor: boon thieves steals up to 5 boons per player, so you typically have 5+ on the boss. Teach me how to rip “all of them of[f] within a second” by just autoattacking. As for the rest of your post, I guess demanding some reading comprehension would clearly be too much.

As to quickness, I have yet to see that having any noticeable effect on bosses. With reta accidents, by contrast, I’ve seen more than enough people blow themselves up in 1-2 seconds. And when you have fields or other passives down, you can’t even prevent it by stopping your other attacks.

Quickness? Who cares? If you double 0 attack speed, you’re still at 0. By contrast, dealing up to ~5k dps to yourself is rather unhealthy.

Actually, 5k is still too low. I forgot quickness.

Vinceman.4572:

Yes, really. You don’t have to rebuild mesmer or mecro. Every 3rd hit with standard weapons (Sword & Scepter) will remove a boon. The problem is more – I see it every week in Pugs on VG – that the mes is not consequently autoattacking the enemy when no “perfect meta super mega rotation” is needed. Just spam 1 to remove boons, and rotate while the cooldown is active.
Also Mesmer has another ability to remove boons, so does Necro. You only have to have players that use their brains and not running all 3 T4 Fractals with exact the same abilities in every corner.

I don’t play a necro, but the mesmer part is utter nonsense in reality. Yes, you can be lucky, have your boons including reta stolen, finish the AA chain instantly afterwards and accidentally remove reta instead of the alternative boons. Some people also win in the lottery, I’ve heard. Otherwise, reta will stay up for several seconds, which is more than enough time for many classes to blow themselves up twice. The guard can’t even fully control reta application himself, as you just need another player using a blast (or possibly leap) finisher.

In theory, a mesmer could also use PDisenchanter or arcane thievery, but then we’re back to the point Astral already mentioned – kitten yourself just to get a bandaid fix for having the one class in your group which has been thoroughly screwed by FailNet. Easier solution: don’t bring a guard. Reduces the risk of blowing up the entire party to negligible.

Lahmia.2193:

That’s mainly due to using Retaliation and the boon thieves mistlock. Hence why most Guardians use Hammer instead of Greatsword.

I know. And then anyone in the group accidentally uses a blast finisher.

To add some PvE stuff, guardians are utterly screwed in 81+ fractals.

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

Not everyone has multiple classes with the needed equipment to rock 150 AR.

Should I have planted a giant “Warning! May contain sarcasm!” sign next to that post?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

CaptAurellian exaggerates the issue. It’s not impossible to play guardian at higher levels; it is, however, a lot harder on the team if the guardian isn’t careful enough. That’s why a lot of high-end fractallers do as the Capt suggests: bring another prof; it’s a lot easier, by which I mean, you don’t have to pay as much attention.

Big surprise, people (including myself) use hyperbole as a stylistic device. I played my guard, which I still consider to be my main, till F100 and till my mesmer had 150 AR.

However, the hyperbole actually isn’t very strong in my post above. It’s not just the guard player who has to be extremely careful (better don’t fall below the HP threshold or the wonderful reta symbol from Zeal will spawn), it’s also everyone else. Playing a guard without light fields is virtually impossible (if you do, an empty slot in the group is approximately just as effective), so blast finishers are effectively forbidden. Good luck ensuring no one ever uses one. If reta appears in the wrong moment, and that’s bound to happen sooner or later, people will go down, no matter whether you have boon strip in your group or not.

Sadly, the easiest solution to all those issues is simple: don’t take a guard to boon thieves fractals. It’s horrible design and I wish someone at FailNet would find one or two brain cells enabling him to correct it, but I doubt that will happen in the foreseeable future.

Yeah, adaptation as a guard to boon thieves is a pretty simple thing: play another class which doesn’t get wrecked by this kind of stupid design -.-

But it’s pretty fascinating that this issue is much older than I thought (recently got back into the game after a long break). Clearly the devs haven’t changed a bit during the last three years.

Blaeys.3102:

Raiding as it is now is not well received by the majority of players (that is my opinion, btw, but it is based on what I see in game talking to people) – and, even if they don’t post here, there is a good bit of animosity toward them.

I see quite the opposite, especially considering the rather strict limitations created by the combat system of GW2.

Dominik.5162:

Gonna add Boon Thieves in its current iteration to it, because it completely butcheres the Guardian by design.
“Let’s make enemies steal boons from players”, while completely forgetting that the guardian applys the 2 most dangerous boons a enemy can have: Retaliation & Protection.
Like how did they think this was a good idea, i could understand removing boons + doing something with them.
For example: When the enemy removes boon X do Y, but not apply it to the boss.

I agree. Wouldn’t rank protection very high on the list of “dangerous” boons, but the combination of retaliation and boon thieves is horrible design. I know there are so-called “workarounds” when you have a guard in your group, like boon strip or not using light fields. But let’s face it: the, by far, most simple solution is just not to bring one of the nine classes, the guardian. Other classes may not be “meta” because they don’t bring a lot to the group, but guardian is worse, as it’s directly dangerous.

To me, it’s pretty fascinating how the devs could a) have such an incredibly stupid idea in the first place and b) then don’t do anything to correct it. Another proof Einstein was right.

Dumb change, as usual with ANet. Strength wasn’t overpowered, the other might runes just suck. At least for some classes/builds, strength was a decent alternative to scholar.

Then work directly on the core problem, mobility. This game is the perfect example that band-aid solutions ignoring core problems just create new problems instead of fixing anything.

But in the end, no matter what you suggest, nothing will happen anyway. The devs are to dumb and/or lazy to address the myriad issues which plague this game.

EM’s ICD is fine, otherwise it would become ridiculous in conjunction with GS #2. However, the range should be increased to 600 and the duration to something like 10-15 seconds. Right now, it’s a bad joke compared to what a warrior can do with the phalanx strength trait.

Tank characters are completely useless in the type of content the OP is talking about.

For PvE dungeons and fractals, it’s almost always easier to survive on a warrior, as long as both play a good (= DPS-oriented) build. 18-21k health vs. 11-13k make the warrior forgive a lot more mistakes than the guard.

Charak.9761:

PvE = 4/5/0/0/5

Of course, going full meta is a great idea for a starter when he could have a lot more survivability at the cost of very little damage …

Put the 4 points from Valor into something else, that line is nearly useless for PvE. The PUG variant of the meta, 2/5/0/2/5, should fit quite well for you.

Fascinating, it appears as if some devs finally found some brain, just about a year too late. Now they just need to write a halfway intelligent story and add some real content to the game and Unliving Story S2 might be a bit more than a total failure like S1.

Rhego.6590:

If all boss fights require is stacking and burning, why run anything other than berserker? For example.. Lupicus is a pretty interesting fight in terms of mechanics… however the fact that 5 players can melee him down in 18 seconds is absolutely ridiculous.

I recommend thinking for just a few seconds before bringing such a stupid example. Have you ever killed Lupi in anything even close to 20 seconds? Let me guess the answer: No. Because even five experienced people with good builds will usually take about a minute unless they try to do some kind of record kill, as maha already mentioned.

And now let me tell you something: That was five experienced people. Try to brainlessly stack and burn Lupi with a bunch of people who have little experience on him and you will fail miserably, since he’ll wipe the floor with them in phase 2 at the latest. So if you want to make bosses last longer against the record groups, you’ll turn them into a pure nightmare for the standard GW2 player. Is that what you want?

Because those are utilities and shouts are much more awesome. Don’t forget, they have sound effects!

Unfortunately, you will have that problem with any non-trivial open world zerg content, from Grenth via Teq and Marionette to the worm …

Blinds do work, as well as invuln and probably also block. I’ve done the event this morning.

There actually is some highly effective counterplay against the shades and their stacks: blinds. A competent thief can take three or probably five (never bothered to look at Black Powder’s target limit) shades out of the fight forever and a good guardian or elementalist can also severely slow down the corruption stacking of up to three shades.

The problem with the Grenth temple priest fight is something else: 90 % of the people participating are completely incompetent. They don’t bother to get the buff and kill the shades, so the few players who know what to do simply get overrun by shades. And out of the people fighting the shades, I’d bet that a large part runs builds which are completely useless for PvE, complicating the fight even further.

In the end, the fight is fine. There’s no need to change it and reward stupidity.

Guard? Scholar. Cheaper and more effective, especially since you lack the might stacking capacity of an ele or warrior.

Iluth.6875:

If the GW2 forum wasn’t full of clueless people, there wouldn’t be threads like this.

Fixed it for you.

Aidan Savage.2078:

On top of all that, I’m built to be the one to take the inevitable hits in dungeons and fractals while everyone else in my party can freely deal damage without worrying over the need to mitigate damage.

Must have missed that ANet introduced taunt skills and removed cleave from enemy attacks. Where do I find the taunts?

Wolfwood.7608:

Ow That’s a shame because the guardians looks so much like a tank… Is it viable building it more like a support, for buffing the party??

Any meaningful support of a guardian is independent of gear, at least in PvE where healing is useless.

Apart from that, there are no tanks at all in this game, as there are no means for reliable control of a mob’s aggro. Bunkering is possible, especially in WvW and PvP, but you’ll be absolutely useless 90 % of the time in a dungeon.

Mesmers actually have better damage evasion. You fail. Besides, aegis = block. All the rest is completely irrelevant for the question of dodges in PvE.

Guardians out-DPSing warriors is old knowledge, about a year old or so.

mPascoal.4258:

Just remove 10 point from there and add somewhere else or add some signet to the utility and use a signet trait

There may be no good major trait at the master level for such a build, but going below 25 Radiance would be even more stupid than taking whatever suboptimal trait in the master.

Maybe, but the only obvious exception to the projectile stuff, which comes to my mind, is the ice crystal thing of the elementals at the beginning of CoE.

That suggestion is as dumb as all the other ones in this thread, as it disregards any kind of balance we have in the game. How exactly is a guardian with 11k HP (compared to a warrior with 20k HP) supposed to soak up anything meaningful? And don’t even try to start with blocks, because the guard does not have significantly more than a warrior.

How exactly is a projectile reflection supposed to work against a flamethrower?

Passive stats instead of active gameplay are so exciting … not.

Ele has 100 % vigor uptime for mere 10 points, in contrast to a guard’s 50 % uptime for 5 points. Fair deal, and both of them are in rather weak lines. Besides, the ele can either have more distance to the enemy (staff or DD) or has regular blinds, too (LH).

Carighan.6758:

Terrahero.9358:

Suppose you balance it, then what? You have light armor classes that require timing and skill to not die and heavy armor classes that just brainlessly facetanks it.
Bad idea.

That is… how it is right now, no?

If we ignore the fact that warr is indeed slightly overpowered due to high base health and the ridiculous healing signet (neither of which is related to dodging), I’d like you to show us how heavies, especially guards, “brainlessly facetank” PvE stuff that other classes can’t.

Oh by the way, the most brainless facetank I’ve seen in this game was actually done by an ele, not a heavy. Spider queen AFK-solo.

maha.7902:

or how about we keep things exactly the way they are

That’s too easy and people couldn’t suggest so many stupid ideas. Rejected!

Bread.7516:

Friendly fire!

might want to read his statement again.

Somehow I wonder whether I’ll manage not to forget the small word “anti” once …

Nonsense, total nonsense. The effect of the different armor classes is too tiny to justify any change of that kind. Besides, how exactly does the thief fit into your scheme, since it has infinite blinds (guardian doesn’t) and a kittenload of evade skills?

It’s not the dungeons that need to be fixed, but rather the lacking capacity to think displayed by all the stacking/skipping/berserker/whatever whiners.

It’s not hard to ask for, but you won’t get it as ANet doesn’t care for dungeons. Besides, any class is viable unless you want to do some kind of record run.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Still, the part about an expansion’s worth of content sitting ready to go is promising. =)

Yeah, they already talked about this back in 2012. Somehow I must have missed it since then, as all the “content” that has been added to GW2 in the meantime would barely have been enough for a single content patch in WoW, not to mention an entire expansion.