Guild Wars 2

Conncept.7638:

I didn’t even bring that issue up? Are you just a naturally antagonistic person?

But in either case, you are incorrect, with how PvE currently is, yes, but with the proper changes to PvE, one could make the same skills and scaling which are effectual against players have the same level of efficacy in PvE. And it would make PvE significantly more skilled, deep, and enjoyable to boot.

My post wasn’t meant as an attack, rather as an extension. However, if those changes to PvE, which you have in mind, follow the direction I expect from the wording, they would most likely lead to one of the biggest kittenstorms in the history of MMOs.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

I used to raid very frequently in WoW before there ever was a Raid Finder, in Rift I stopped being hardcore so much and basically just did Raid Rifts since quite frankly the real world responsibilities from work and being married kind of makes being part of a static raid group something for 20 something year olds. single people, or frankly people that don’t like their families and put raiding first.

Question: With regard to time requirements, commitment etc.., how exactly are raids different from other hobbies, e.g. being part of some sports team? Thinking of such stuff, I don’t find your rant convincing in any way.

Conncept.7638:

We’ve seen how many balance passes now? Has the games balance ever become more balanced, has build diversity ever gone up? The answer is no, to both. Clearly there is a problem with the system that adjusting numbers cannot fix.

I don’t necessarily think the OPs idea will do thie trick, but something needs to be done besides the same old ineffectual balance passes.

You ignore the elephant in the room: balancing for the three game modes must finally be separated. Completely. As long as most stuff applies to all of PvP, WvW and PvE, there will always be massive issues.

Orpheal.8263:

What do you guys think of GW2s outdated Health System?

While it may be outdated, it certainly sucks a lot less than your idea.

Seera.5916:

There’s room for everyone in raids.

What needs to happen is following:

The players that prefer meta only members need to respect the groups that say “any welcome” and not try to force them to go meta or get upset when things don’t go smoothly if they’re PUGing with a “any welcome” group.

The players who don’t want to follow the meta for whatever reason need to respect the groups that say meta only and not join them and lie about it.

And since “any welcome” would accept meta builds, if there’s any confusion assume meta only and ask if you’re not if it’s alright if you run X.

Both groups need to respect each other.

That would be the reasonable (and utopian?) approach, but I’d like to expand it with one aspect. People in both groups should be very aware of which group they belong to. In my experience from other games, there are too many people who think they’re the greatest raiders when in reality they just suck. Similar problems occur when people with a (hidden) hardcore mentality join more casual groups.

Odin the exiled.5764:

I feel to balance out the modes, they should just increase the actual gold amount of the pvp one. They don’t have to go crazy and raise it 60g or anything though, afterall you have to wait months for the season to start, just to get 5 pieces.

I agree, rebalancing the costs would probably have been a better idea. Not sure why it has to be bound to crafting. In that case, you can simply … well, just craft it.

zealex.9410:

ahh ok but still thwy could reduce the number these things after all are supposed to be bought from the gemstore with the other stuff

I don’t mind handed gemstore stuff for free, so please keep the black lion box. Tomes of knowledge, on the other hand …

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

So, no class is really secure.

Not true.

Ele, Warrior, and Mesmer have been a staple part of every meta and likely wont go anywhere anytime soon.

Druid too, probably. I don’t see them handing out equivalents to GotL and spotter any time soon. The biggest possible shake-up to warr, mes and druid (without a new expansion) would probably an increase of the buff cap to 10 targets, thereby reducing requirements for each class to one per raid.

NumenorLord.6539:

How does it not make sense? It’s the definition and it’s what each of those stats do, you’re pretty wrong.

You still fail to get the actual context of what those stats do. Slavishly sticking to the wiki definitions doesn’t cut it.

A typical full berserker guardian will have (all values rounded) roughly 13,000 HP and 2250 armor. Armor scales in a way that doubling it reduces direct damage taken by 50%. Hence, to increase your survivability against direct damage by 100%, you can either double your HP or double your armor. Doing so requires 1300 vitality or 2250 toughness, respectively. Observation: vitality is much cheaper for this purpose, because guardian is a low-HP class.

Now toughness has one innate advantage in case of direct damage: it simply reduces damage taken, therefore lowering the amount of healing needed to get back to full health. Since condition damage usually does not put up that much pressure in fractals, the weakness of toughness is less relevant there. That would, in theory, probably balance out the “cheaper” price tag of vitality if you are healing-restricted.

However, for toughness to become superior, you actually need to be restricted by the amount of healing which is available over a long period of time. In my fractal experience, that happens rather rarely and most nasty situations could also be overcome by a larger health pool. As long as you can heal the damage taken, it doesn’t matter whether you take less damage or have a higher buffer to take it. That is why vitality a) does help against direct damage in content like fractals and is b) surprisingly efficient.

Additionally, there is one very practical reason for marauder stats, if berserker is too squishy for someone: there simply is no equivalent with toughness instead of vitality. All toughness-based stat combinations will either yield substantially reduced offensive stats for the same defense or vice versa.

Rednik.3809:

WoW […] still easily keeps title of the best raiding game in MMO market?

Now that’s little more than a rumour.

Adrenalin.5719:

A lot of suggestions here are terrible. What is correct is that GS needs buffs. It has to be once again the meta pve weapon for short fights and aoe. What GS therefore needs is more damage, especially on #2 and #4. Furthermore, remove the useless retaliation and give quickness on #4 and make it a fire field. Make the third autohit an explo-finisher. Increase range and projectile speed on #5. Up tether damage of #5. Decrease cd of #3 by 7 seconds and slightly increase range.

Mostly interesting suggestions, though I think an explo finisher on third auto would be ridiculous. That simply doesn’t fit with the GS theme. Something else is needed to bring the AA chain up to speed. As for the symbol getting changed to a fire field, that should be done in a more general way, not just for this one weapon. Maybe a trait in Zeal or radiance that converts all symbols to fire fields.

That suggestion of pseudo gear progression was pointless anyway. The difference between exotics and ascended is minimal, apart from the weapon. Most of it would likely be lost in the noise.

Also, I do not think that ever increasing difficulty by entire wings instead of bosses is a good idea. That works (to an extent) in MMOs which have gear progression, since you can balance part of the difficulty on new gear, but that’s not possible in GW2. However, new wings probably shouldn’t be easier than old ones.

Pretty nice LS episode so far. I haven’t explored all of the map, but the story, with a few exceptions, was pretty good. Especially after the disaster that episode 3 was.

NumenorLord.6539:

From the wiki:
[…]

Before you quote something from the wiki, please think about whether it makes sense. In this case, it doesn’t.

Except that in other games everything is already set up properly, so new players can start their raiding without relying heavily on community training runs. Like, you know, proper learning curve trough all encounters, after which player can actually handle normal raiding by himself, and because of that, raiding groups are asking only for basic experience (aka achievement) and decent gear.

Bullkitten. In other MMOs, new players usually learn nothing from their first steps into raids, because they’re either designed to be so easy that a trained monkey can do them or because a bunch of veteran players will be there and trivialise stuff to the aforementioned level by virtue of being massively overgeared. The good, old learning curve has long died. You should actually talk to proper raiders in other games before claiming this nonsense.

PS: Yes, I know, a brick wall would be more receptive to logic than Rednik.

I recommend having hammer, sword, scepter and the appropriate offhand weapons available. That allows you to switch to what is needed – some groups will profit a lot from hammer, some won’t. Anything else, including GS, is either useless or an absolute niche weapon.

With regard to gear, zerker or marauder, but not some condi crap. Iirc, marauder was something like -5% damage traded for +30% HP, which isn’t that bad if you are new and/or rather insecure. Btw, vitality is not just for negating condi damage. It is effective against anything until you get to the point where sustained incoming damage is substantially bigger than anything you can heal.

Aquatic raid encounters are about the worst idea that’s possible in this game.

A good mesmer is a boon to any group with alacrity, quickness and all the utility they have. There’s just one problem, I rarely see good mesmers in fractals. Most are people who don’t seem to know at all what wells, focus #4 and quickness are about. And of course, quite often they camp GS in addition to the aforementioned issues.

thrag.9740:

Also, the fractal meta absolutely includes:
[…]
1 druid who is actually good because he waited 3 years to finally get to be healer
[…]

Are you sure about that? I always thought it was a bear bow turned druid, but still at the same level of usefulness.

Nah. If you get one ring per day just from T1 chests, you must have been pretty lucky.

Whatever the reason, those necro-drood groups often have to wait for quite some time before they fill up. At least that’s what I see when checking the LFG.

There are more than enough groups out there that don’t care for some (wannabe) “meta” composition, so I don’t really understand the issue. It’s especially funny when a group is looking for some “meta” classes and takes 5-10 minutes to fill up. A reasonable group is close to finishing the first fractal by then.

As to rewards, the OP needs to pray more to RNGsus. ANet could fix the overabundance of gloves/boots/shoulder boxes compared to head/leg/chest boxes, but that’s more or less a minor issue.

Arcaedus.7290:

(it’s great for general pve, dungeons, some fractals and cleaving downs in pvp/wvw).

What did I miss in PvE? GS has exactly one tiny niche in there, pulling stuff together for cleaving, if those enemies are properly positioned at all. If you don’t have a mesmer around, of course, since mesmer’s focus #4 is much more reliable. For anything else, GS unfortunately just sucks.

Cygnus.6903:

Would also say thief. Although squishy, Staff has insane damage to melt thrash quickly, and vault/bounding dodge both evade while dealing high dmg. Shortbow for extremely fast travelling.

I agree. Thief is probably close to optimal for anything related to exploration. Mesmer certainly is better for JPs due to portal, but absolutely horrible when it comes to any way of killing mobs.

onevstheworld.2419:

Buran.3796:

Even better in sinister or viper due HoT monsters usually have high thoughness.

I think you’re specifically referring to the husks. Most other mobs have normal levels of toughness and power builds are fine there.

I’d almost guarantee that power builds are not just fine, but superior against any standard mob but husks, which are not that common anyway.

Berserker gear is fine for HoT, but hammer does not play to its strength when faced with open world trash mobs that die quickly. It just takes way too long to put down the symbol of protection. You might want to try sword+x or possibly greatsword.

Guardian performs great in fractals if you’re flexible and have the right weapons available (hammer, sword+x, scepter+x, sometimes greatsword).

Always hated Underground and Ascalon. Swamp, on the other hand, is one of the best now.

Reminds me a bit of the people who cried that Bloomy was harder than raid bosses.

Stat combinations like marauder, commander, viper, etc.

In the LS3 areas (at least Bloodstone Fen and Ember Bay, haven’t bothered to check in the icy stuff), you can also buy rings, accessories, amulets and backpacks with selectable stat combos including the HoT ones.

Celestial offers little, especially when compared to the 4-stat items from HoT. Just go for marauder if you want to use it both in dungeons/fractals and WvW. Anything more defensive is useless in instanced PvE content.

Anything is “viable”, but neither greatsword nor longbow are anywhere near good. Unfortunately. The alternatives (hammer, sword+x, scepter+x) have both better damage and stronger utility, so there’s little reason to take GS (or bow).

Don’t know one, but then I don’t have enough time to play a ton off MMOs. However, imho it hardly matters if the basic balance is crap like in GW2.

Galespark.7835:

I agree that would be nice. Just out of curiosity, since GW2 is the first game where I dabble a bit in raids: is it the case in other games that there is no real preference for specific professions/classes that were designed for a certain role to take a certain spot in a raid, assuming adequate experience and gear? If so, why do you think the preference is so strong in this game and not in other ones?

maddoc has already named the biggest offender, buffs. I wouldn’t even mind them being as strong as they currently are, since that can be properly balanced, but the buff cap (5 people) kittens up the entire system. Other games like WoW (though that’s a while ago for me) or Wildstar simply apply them raid-wide, so if each class is represented with just one character, pretty much all buffs are available. If we had the same system here, we’d have just three fixed slots instead of six out of ten.

Besides, although in GW2 every class is essentially a DPS class, ANet does an extraordinarily bad job at balancing the DPS classes bring. Judging from the QT ranking, we have a spread from 24k dps at the weakest class (necro, all buffs) to 36k (thief, all buffs; I’ll ignore large hitboxes because those look even more depressing). Taking Wildstar as an example (https://www.wildstarlogs.com/statistics/6#boss=3062&dataset=95), the spread is much smaller. Before anyone asks, Skeledroid is a Patchwerk-style encounter and therefore the perfect dummy.

I’m not saying such a build cannot be useful somewhere. It’s just the game’s combat system that makes me pretty confident it will never be competitive to a druid in raids. Unfortunately, offensive buffs are king in GW2.

Don’t think anyone will take such a healer guardian for “boons that can increase damage”, since they’re pretty pathetic. Defensive stuff (hammer prot and aegis) can equally be brought by a dps guard.

Don’t think raw healing will ever be the problem if a guard wants to be raid healer. Stuff like GotL will be, however.

What’s the point of such a change? With the current system, only an upgrade to a heavier armor class would be beneficial, making it utterly pointless for the current heavy classes.

Kuya.6495:

Going sword/shield, scepter/focus creates a more even distribution of defensive skills between both weapon swaps.

Scepter already has massively increased defense by being a ranged weapon, which allows you to virtually shut down most melee only mobs. Against ranged mobs, shield comes to help then. On the other hand, focus defensive utility comes handy in melee range, when there’s more pressure on you anyway. Plus, it doesn’t actively counteract your sword like shield does with #5.

coso.9173:

By antagonizing some characters to the player himself, we get more immersed into the story, that is a good thing.

I have no problem with some antagonism in the story, but I do have a problem with the PC hardly reacting to Braham’s impertinence at all. That lack of spine kills any potential immersion.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

maddoctor.2738:

Make them compete with the buffers because there is plenty of room there instead of the DPS that has less room.

Only druid is “replaceable”.

Not if they duplicated the unique buffs, although that won’t happen. ANet admitting that they’ve totally kittened up balance? Never.

Kuya.6495:

You can use sword/focus scepter/torch for dps. You can go sword/shield scepter/focus if you wana go more defenmore.

I’d rather change the offhands. Shield (especially #5) doesn’t harmonise that well with sword, but it’s fine with scepter.

Just finished the current episode and I’m pretty amazed. Always thought ANet had fired the guy writing LS1, but it seems he is back. Once again, everyone around the PC (Taimi being the only exception) appears like a mindless kitten and the Commander doesn’t have the spine to whip the bunch of idiots into order. Way to go if you want to kill a bunch of Elder Dragons.

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

Mechanically and story wise it is almost nothing like the original. You will get tinges of nostalgia but we very much wanted this to be a completely unique experience for both players who played the original and new players. The prime focus is on the encounters and the combat, so expect some fun challenges

That’s at least something. I remember almost nothing of the original tower, which means that it must have been pretty boring.

UnbentMars.9126:

A potential alternate idea: Guilds can already use an ability to activate a specific world boss, and we have been wanting more Guild Missions for awhile. Why not create an instanced version of the harder world bosses for guilds, and tweak it to add an extra layer of difficulty to make it more hardcore with Mission-specific rewards?

This would be an interesting concept, indeed. Might be worth it. Pure open world is, imho, a horrible idea. Either it’s faceroll easy or you need proper organisation for it anyway, and then it can be instanced as well.

There’s no point in bringing a minstrel/nomad guardian to PvE group content. Offensive support is virtually absent, defensive support (minus healing) can be brought by any offensive guardian and heals are borderline useless because you either won’t need them or won’t be able to get them to everyone in need due to short range. Such a build may be more effective than an empty group slot, but that’s it.

JotGeh.8047:

The leap attacks from every wolf are deadly. CoE runners can confirm this.

This. Icebrood wolves have been deadly since release of vanilla GW2. Hardly breaking news.

Rising Dusk.2408:

• The Fractal vendor is more expensive in every possible way than just crafting your ascended gear.

Mostly true. Last time I did some napkin math, fractal vendor was about double the price of crafting. I’d pretty much always craft unless I only need one or two items from that armor class (and don’t have that one at 500).

Those evil raids, which already consumed all the resources for 5-man instances long before HoT was even announced …

skarpak.8594:

Listen, I only pug daily t4 fractals and it takes like 30-40 min same as every1 else.. I suggest one small change to my ideal team comp (like taking rev over war) and everyone just loses it. It’s quite hilarious actually

everyday it takes 15 – 20 mins, depending on the fractals. but even if u get the longest fracs it only takes 20 mins if you and your group knows what to do.
30 – 40 mins is nearly double the time, i could run 2 dailys in the timeframe.

You should have read what he actually wrote. Let me emphasise it: “I only pug daily t4 fractals”. With pugs, you simply don’t run full T4 in 15-20 mins unless there’s a top secret reservoir of highly competent pugs somewhere out there. In pugs, I’m usually happy when everyone has reaction times slightly faster than those of a brick (that’s not a given).