Guild Wars 2

TheFool.4589:

So my point is, let’s do something with it. It’s empty.

I was about to shoot down the notion because pve and pvp just don’t mix but an idea just occurred to me. If players had to guard a golem going through the puzzle instead of doing it themselves while trying to destroy other server golems, it might work. To keep it fair, player skills are replaced with controls for the golems so they can’t directly fight one another. Also traps only work on golems. Have it so golems are constantly moving and players get teleported back to the beginning if they are out of range with their golem for too long. This way gankers can’t camp.

It’s just a rough idea and the area would need to be redesigned so players could more around easily but maybe it could work.

Zax pretty much nailed it. Those that wanted to do the jumping puzzle often get tired of getting ganked so they stopped. With no one to gank, the grievers have no reason to be there either. I’m shocked it took this long to empty out.

As an amateur programmer, I’ve had my fair share of weird bugs but this is one that I have to stand back and stare in awe at how epic it is.

I vote for dragoon but I’m still trying to figure out how to make the mechanics unique. My latest iteration has them using only 2-handed weapons and being highly mobile. As for their profession mechanic, imagine them having a meter similar to Necromancer’s Life Force. It charges from using skills normally and from being attacked, much like a fighting game. To use the “Dragon Force,” the player has to hold down the button for a skill. The longer they hold, the more of the force bar is used and the most powerful the skill will be.

Storywise (which is also a work in progress) Dragoons are related to elder dragons but not the ones we know. My idea is that the Zephyrites know of more dragons and have made peaceful contact with 3 of them, which is where they get their aspects from. They’re hiding this information from us because Dragon Bash showed we are openly hostile towards them, not to mention we managed to kill one. However, the situation with Mordy, not to mention the sabotage and constant threat of Inquest, has some of them seeking to take a more active role in the world. This faction would introduce the Dragoon profession to us.

The story is actually a lot more complex than that. I’ve come up with an reasons behind the dragons’ actions and how some can be friendly while others are hostile but that’s a post for another day.

I would have to object based on a clearly subjective viewpoint. The reason I like condition damage more than physical damage is because I have a sadistic streak. I like seeing small numbers tick away on my opponents, mostly ignored until they realize those small numbers are going to kill them and they start to panic. It’s even more fun when they run out of condition clears and try to run, as if they can outrun damage that’s already inflicted on them.

Yes, I’m a sick puppy. That’s why I main a mesmer.

Objectively, the biggest issue is the amount of calculations that the server has to do for each stack of each condition that each person uses. Using the present system, any improvement to conditions would have to lower that amount of calculations. Your idea actually add a condition which will add more calculations. It might work if the condition cap was lowered more and Fester was strong enough to make up for it but that just adds complexity and confusion. I don’t see it being viable solution.

sinject.4607:

it’s just obnoxious. it’s overeffective passive gameplay that has literally no counterplay other than “don’t hit your opponent”. you can react to the effects, but you can’t actually react to the proc. if runes of the mesmer got a 2.5-3.5 second stun on the 6th that rewarded you for just getting hit you’d see people up in arms.

either reduce the duration, add a broadcast that tells you the runes have been proc’d and gives you some time to react, make the fear have a pbaoe range, or lower the proc chances.

Two seconds of fear every 90 seconds (and that’s being generous as there is RNG involved) is over-effective? I can Blink out of that within a second of it being casted on me and I’m no where near pro level. Even then, I wouldn’t blink until my opponent was about to use something powerful against me so I could dodge that and break fear. That level of gameplay interaction is what this game needs. Also, I do hope you carry at least one stunbreak into fights for such occasions of you’re really just screwing yourself over.

And if the mesmer runes dazed an attacking opponent every 90 seconds or so, I’d actually consider using them.

Seera.5916:

I did WvW maps 99.9% solo. It was not 100% because I saw map chat pop up that they were headed to take a place I needed. I never once asked for help. It’s possible to do solo. It just takes a lot more patience to do so.

Unless you took down all the gates, defeated all the champions and capped the locations all on your own, I would argue that you didn’t do it solo. Your path had to be cleared by other players. I’m fine with that from a pvp perspective but, again, map completion is a personal reward. You shouldn’t need others to gain a personal reward.

bradldz.3728:

Well, tbh, a lot of map completionists dont understand this one thing, wvw is not a solo game. Join a group/commander and take objectives, and you will get most of the things you need in a couple of days, maybe in a server that doesnt do well you have to wait for colours to rotate… But wvw map completion isn’t supposed to be like regular map completion, so removing other borderlands or eb makes no sense, where is the challenge if you just visit places you own? Objective of wvw is to take objectives.

The problem I have with your reasoning is that map completion is a personal achievement. What sense does it make to need a group in order to obtain a personal achievement? That’s like gathering 30 people to help you pick out a new car.

I use Cleansing Inscriptions with a signet, (Midnight for my power build, Domination for condi) then Arcane Thievery or Null Field. If anyone is able to condi me to death after I use both, I deem them to be the better fighter.

I’m the same as Omar. I only bought the tag because the price was about to go up and there’s a chance I may decide to become a commander later. I rarely ever use it and, when I do I will admit that it’s only for vanity’s sake but it’s also only for 5 minutes or so. If I’m doing something that’s highly organized, like Tequatl, and I’m not in charge, my tag is definitely off.

I like the idea of collections but I have three major problems with it. The first is, as stated before, they rarely give anything unique. So far spirit backpack is the only unique skin I’ve seen. If all of them gave useful items with unique skins that shared the theme of the collection, I’d be all over it.

The second problem is that many of the collected items serve no other purpose. Tequatl’s spoon should be an accessory or at least part of a mystic forge recipe that gives a unique accessory. Even if it was just an exotic that i could choose the stats for, that would give me a reason to keep it after gaining the achievement points. I would also be able to sell any extras that I receive on the trading posts.

The third problem is that many of the collections are skins bought with black lion tickets or rely heavily on RNG. There’s no way to earn these in game. You have to have the cash to buy them off the trading post or get lucky. I don’t understand why anet keeps insisting on doing things this way. RNG keeps me from buying black lion keys because I’m far more likely to get something I consider junk than something I want. It keeps me from running fractals even though I want the fractal skins because there’s no guaranteed way to get any of the them, much less the ones that I want. It keeps me from making a legendary because I refuse to pay another player thousands of gold for a precursor just because he happens to be luckier than I am. I am more than willing to work for my skins. Just give me a set path, like the Mawdrey II backpiece, and I will gladly play the game to get it.

I’m still laughing at everyone that thought torment on scepter auto was going to be the OP mesmer condi build. I realized very early that Illusionary Elasticity would wreck it. It’s good to see that others are finally starting to notice.

I have not tested it on another player but I have tested it on various NPCs. With Krait runes, Earth and Agony sigils and Sharper Images, you can stack insane amounts of bleeds on targets. The small amounts of burning and vulnerability help to shield the bleed stacks too. Also, since I have full Rabid gear, Chaotic Transference gives the staff nearly the same condition boost as Malicious sorcery does for the scepter.

What I found surprising is that the bounces make it somewhat viable for fighting more than one person. By the time I kill the target I was focusing on, the others are at half health.

I’m still tinkering with it but I can already sustain 17 stacks of bleed and easily get up to 21. I’ve noticed about 3k dps per tick on vets and champions. Even the veteran Risen Giant and all his worms just melt before me and they barely took me below half my health.

There are down sides though. It is a very passive playstyle. You basically dance around your target and auto-attack with the occasional usages of other skills to tip things in your favor. This appeals to my sadistic side but I doubt anyone that prefers twitch-reaction counterplay will like it. It’s one glaring weakness is AoEs. Because you have to use clones instead of phantasms to get high stacks, one well-placed aoe will wipe you clean and anyone with a sustainable damage field will wreck you. I was able to hold my own against the champion Karka but couldn’t handle the Toxic Alliance events in Queensdale.

I imagine it will be worthless against a zerg with all the aoe and cleanses but you may be able to flip depots solo. When I feel I’m ready, I’ll take it into pvp to see how they handle it.

Just to let you guys know, closing empty maps doesn’t save Anet money. Think about it. That nearly empty map is running on a server that will still be running even after that map closes. It’ll still be running even after 5, 10 or 20 maps close. If somehow they do have it programmed where certain servers shut off when no longer needed, the most it will save is electricity. Do you have any idea how little energy computers use? It would be more cost conscious to shut off the lights in the server room than all the servers. On top of that a shutdown server takes a while to boot back up, which is not something you want for an action mmo.

What closes maps does do is exactly what anet said it would. It opens up server space to do things that more players would be involved in. That could be a pvp map, dungeon instance, story instance, more bank space or simply allocate more resources to computational-intense situations like Tequatl. Even if they don’t do any of that, all computers naturally run smoother when there is more memory available! This is a GOOD thing!

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Anyhow the main point of this topic is to split the game in two modes for new players, not discuss metrics, it was merely an introduction to how this opinion found it’s existance.

I say no. You do not want to divide the playerbase. The last thing we need is a system that would give a false measure of elitism. Plus, the changes that were made affected the maps as well as the characters. Your idea would at least need the 5 starting maps to have separate instances for vets and newbies which is more work for upkeep and more room for errors. To add onto this, if a newbie asked a question in map-chat, the only one people that could respond are other newbies. At best, they likely wouldn’t know the answer. At worst, they would give bad advise and that player would later on have to be retaught something that may be ingrained in them by then.

Any solution has to be one that benefits all players or at least doesn’t alienate those that it wasn’t designed to help.

They are starting it after the wvw tournament and the Halloween event. Also the Halloween event has nothing to do with the living story, as some people have requested. Because the living story can be done at any time now instead of just the two weeks when it was released, I consider this a major improvement.

This is from a guy that would prefer an expansion to the living story.

Ohoni.6057:

I have my issues with the new TP, but this is not one of them. While I would personally prefer it gone, I would also prefer to watch TV without commercials, but I understand that they fund the shows I like, so I tolerate them. Same thing here.

Now, as to those saying this game isn’t “pay to win,” that’s a bit silly, of course it is. Most of the high value objects in the game can be bought with gold, anything that can be bought with gold can be bought with US Dollars, and while you can’t do everything with money alone, someone faucetting cash into the exchange can get a massive leg up on those that don’t, which is pretty much the definition of “pay to win” in MMOs. Make peace with that, or not, but don’t make fools of yourselves by trying to deny it.

I would disagree because the opposite is true. Anything that can be bought with gems can also be bought with gold. This means that the playing field is level for everyone playing. The only difference is if players perceive their time or money being more valuable. Sure someone could convert $800 worth of gems into gold and get a lot of shinies instantly but that won’t make them better at pvp, wvw or pve. In my opinion, the most controversial item they could buy is a legendary and the only true advantage it has is being able to switch stats outside of combat.

Plus you have to understand where the items they are buying are coming from. Any weapon, armor, accessory or food buff that you buy off of the trading post was placed there by a player that used an in-game means of acquiring or creating it. Boiled down to its essence, anyone paying real money for these things are paying the player they bought them from and Anet just takes their cut, first from the money conversion and then from the trading post fees.

Skins don’t give an advantage either. The ones bought directly from the gem store fall into the same category as anything bought from the TP. As for the ones in black lion chests, that’s an RNG issue. Buying keys in bulk as opposed to farming them will not increase your chances of getting a ticket. In fact, I feel the chances of getting a ticket, ticket scrap or anything I personally want are so low that it’s foolish to spend real money on them. The TP value of black lion’s chest shows how much “value” the collective player base gives them and it certainly doesn’t match the value Anet assigns to keys.

Now if you want to rage about RNG, just tell me when and where. I’ll gladly join you.

Getting back on topic, the only “advantage” that’s limited almost exclusively to the gem store are boosters. I just went down the list of them and found that any that would give you a distinct (or really any) advantage over other players gets disabled if you enter pvp. In wvw, food buffs will do the same, if not better, than the boosters and they cost a lot less. Even the primers aren’t worth their costs because simply consuming the same food buffs to match the same duration, and even allowing a few minutes of overlap, is still cheaper in the long run. The only thing it truly gives is a “set it and forget it” convenience, which I feel is the perfect quality for a gemstore item to have.

All that being said, if you can actually name something in the gemstore that gives a distinct advantage over other players AND is more reasonable to buy with real money than gold farm for, I would love to hear it. I’m being completely honest. I prefer to lose an insightful debate than win a flame war.

I also feel that it’s not very noticeable. In fact, I never notice it unless I want to check the exchange rate.

I have one point to make on this thread. What you’re saying is these changes, which are supposed to make things easier to understand for newcomers, are confusing the hell out of veterans. As a veteran player, how am I suppose to teach a level 2 newbie about the game systems when they are no longer consistent for all levels? Even worse, how am I suppose to show them where to go and what to do in Queensdale when their game’s client won’t show all the icons? In essence, how do I help the blossoming community when the game no longer cooperates with me?

They stated that the recent changes were, in fact, a reaction to all the threads on these forums. Personally there is a lot about this whole mess that I don’t agree with but I do applaud the devs for taking action as quickly as they have. I still feel they needed more direct communication with the players, particularly the mesmers in this case, but this shows that they are listening and reacting faster.

Personally, I want to know how the OP defines “solo pve”. Do you mean farming? Living story missions? Solo champions? Solo dungeons? Something well-rounded enough to do all of the above? Each of these situations has a different answer.

The mere fact that you’re asking to revert the iLeap bugfix before even testing how effective it is tells me you are not thinking clearly. How about we let the patch drop and do some testing before we ask for changes?

You are doing it wrong. You make make as much gold as fast if you don’t do dungeon but you can make a lot of money in open world. You have to know where to be and what to go for.

For starters, every evening around 7:15pm est, pros and regulars start organizing to take down Tequatl. Because of how megaservers work, this is the best group to be in to take him down so had best be there before 7:30. Once there, just ask and you’ll be told where to go and what to do while you’re there. He spawns shortly after 8pm and I have yet to see this group fail to defeat him.

Because he spawns past the daily server reset time, you will get a daily boss chest from him as well as 4 chests for defeating him. You are guaranteed to have several rares and a LOT of trash loot. All green cloth armor sells for about 3 silver each. Put it on the matching the lowest seller so you’re not competing with everyone else doing this. Let it sit for at least 7 days. It’s likely to be sold after 2. The rest of the loot you can do with as you wish. Some sell well, some don’t and I have yet to find another reliable pattern so I just salvage them all if I can’t be bothered.

Another thing to note is, because Tequatl happens after server reset, you are likely to get at least one of your dailies off of him. The meta event is actually several events combined so you will meet your daily event quota within 15 minutes. It’s possible you’ll get your kill quota too if you’re part of a defense team. If you get a champion daily, sure sure to kill one (which is likely to spawn at the battery being hit the hardest). Tequatl himself doesn’t count because he’s a legendary monster. I also salvage because that daily easily gets taken care of too.

From then on, you just follow the world meta train until you feel like getting off. Dulfy’s site not only has the times listed but will show you which one is presently active, which is coming next and some of the rewards for defeating them. Each will guarantee you a rare and some, like the Karka Queen, guarantee more. My advice is to learn each event chain and do them instead of just standing where the boss spawns. This will make the boss spawn faster and get you more loot. This group is also organized enough that you will get breaks to clean out your bags.

I’d say this could earn you about 5 gold a day, if you count the value of all the drops too. And yes, magic find does work. Personally I think people misunderstand what it does. It doesn’t increase the amount of drops you get. It increases the chance that they will be of a higher rarity. I have about 125 and I get far more greens than blues with yellows dropping a lot more often then at the game’s launch. I still don’t get many exotics but I actually am getting some. That’s a huge step from when I never got any.

KStudios.2850:

Liewec.2896:

tera armour, coming next summer!

Seems you may know more about this than I do. Got any details or links?

I’m sure he means the game, Tera Online, which could be considered the runway of mmorpg fashion design.

I’ve had similar concerns. While I do like the idea as it makes a lot of sense, I hope that it stops once the character hits 80. If not, Adventurer classes will see a significant drop in the value of their drops while scholars will have a dramatic increase. Even though I main a mesmer and that would benefit me, it’s not fair.

Personally I find it strange that people are up in arms about torment on scepter instead of this. Torment runes and sigils are stupidly expensive and will only increase in price dramatically after the patch. Only the most dedicated will be able to get them. Even then, scepter attacks are slow and can be side-stepped because they aren’t homing.

On the other hand, Illusionary Elasticity can easily be taken with Sharper Images, Cleansing Inscriptions (to get even more use out of the Signet of Domination) and Chaotic Transference. Krait runes and agony sigils are dirt cheap. Winds of Chaos are homing attacks so you won’t have to worry about hitting. Burning and vulnerability will interfere with cleansing the bleeds. The little tastes of Might and Fury are just icing on the cake.

Personally, I have my alt mesmer already specced and ready to go.

Personally I would be okay with 15 to 20 seconds as long as other applications of swiftness stacked with it.

Or they could hardcap swiftness at 60 seconds.

Personally, one of my biggest problems with the scepter is that the auto-attack generates clones and those clones do nothing except tickle and and wait to die. We already have so many other and far more effective ways of making clones that the scepter is easily regarded as the red-headed stepchild of our kitten nal. Not to mention, the 3 illusion limit can cause the AA clone to overwrite a phantasm. For me, this is so much of a problem that I constantly shy away from the scepter.

On the other hand, giving the scepter torment gives me a reason to use it. It’s still a rare condition so I don’t have to worry as much about competing with other condition users. It also stacks and does consistent damage, something that’s rare for mesmers. If that gets replaced with weakness, vulnerability or some random list of short-lived conditions that I can’t control, I’m just going to stuff the scepter in my bag again and focus on other weapons.

The scepter is supposed to be a condition weapon but I can’t see as viable since confusion’s nerf often makes the condition ignored in pvp settings and nearly useless in pve. It’s obvious to me that Anet will not undo that nerf but giving scepter a second condition gives it a chance to be a effective condition weapon in all game modes. That’s something it desperately needs.

To address one of the concerns of the naysayers, I do agree that Prismatic Understanding build needs a way to keep it in check but this isn’t the way. Holding the scepter back out of fear of it being misused is basically treating the symptom, not the disease. The problem with Prismatic Understanding is Prismatic Understanding. Even if the scepter is denied torment, Prismatic Understanding will continue to be a problem while the scepter would remain a subpar weapon. That fixes nothing.

I also agree that there shouldn’t be any “brain-dead” condition builds but I feel the root of that problem not with conditions. It’s how ineffective condition clears are. As I have stated elsewhere, we should be able to pop them preemptively to avoid all conditions for about 4 seconds. If done after we gain a condition, it should clear it as normal but prevent that same condition from affecting us for 8 seconds. This will make condi-bomb builds think harder about when to, “drop the bomb,” and that leads to more thoughtful and engaging combat.

So yes, keep torment on scepter and fix the real issues.

Dei Veien.2456:

Even though they didn’t physically show us that Iwarden is fixed. I believe them whole heartedly and look forward to giving up my days as a interrupt mesmer to becoming the best condi pu clone spamming beast that I can possibly be.
Now, can anyone point out a pretty scepter skin for me?

Princess Wand, Immobulus, Lovestruck Scepter, Nightmare Scepter, Peacemaker’s Scepter, Tormented Scepter and Wupwup Wand. This is, of course, assuming you have a color scheme between pink and purple.

While the OP doesn’t make a very convincing argument, I do agree that the last thing mesmers need is another nerf. If you want skillful play, then you should be seeking solutions elsewhere. In my opinion, the real issue isn’t torment or any condition on auto-attacks. It’s how condition clears work. You can’t pop them pre-emptively to shield yourself from a condi-bomb and they don’t have a lingering effect to protect you from any condition you just cleared less than a second ago.

So that is my solution. Have condition clears give 4 seconds of immunity to all conditions if they are activated while the player has no conditions on them. If they do, they provide 8 seconds of immunity to the conditions they cleared but don’t protect against others. Naturally these numbers are arbitrary and condition clear traits will have to be altered for balance this but the idea is to get players to make deep and meaningful decisions.

I say at least try it first before you judge it. Give it a good week of testing in various situations before you decide if it’s over-powered or not.

Do you really want to know why people whine? Because it has the best chance of working. Think about all the posts that have been well-written and thoughtfully conveyed an issue that is hindering this game. How many of those were answered by devs?

Now think about how many changes were made because of players effectively throwing internet tantrums. Here’s a few from a mesmer main’s perspective. Confusion is a joke. I can’t think of any skill that has been nerfed more than portal. Into the Void’s 1-second delay makes it too obvious to work as a proper interrupt. By far the worst is when Pyro had his account banned for inciting mesmer forum-goers to whine incessantly about a particular change that I won’t get into. I will say, however, that the change he instigated was made and rather quickly at that.

That’s the sad state of communication between the devs and players. If they responded to the more intellectual posts and ignored all the whining, people would be more inclined to make intellectual posts simply on the basis that it works. In all honestly, they wouldn’t even have to do much but enter the discussion. It doesn’t even have to be a dev. Just have a mod whose job is to interact with forum goers and consolidate concerns. Even if said person had one thread on every subforum that he (or she) actively engaged in, I guarantee you that thread would ALWAYS be the longest and most popular!

tl;dr – More communication would lead to less whining.

Oh, and I want my mounts.

Fay.2357:

You’re thinking too hard about it.

Phantasms are invulnerable for the first second of their existence when taking that trait.

That’s what I meant. You get a kill and summon a phantasm, then you summon another. Do both get distortion or just one?

Upon further reflection, it still seems useless. I don’t know of any phantasm that does its first attack within one second of being spawned. The closest may be the swordsman. Granted, I haven’t used it in forever but last I remembered, it has a fraction of warm-up time before it attacked. It’s still possible that all of them will get killed during their first attack. I also don’t see fit to using phantasms kittenter fodder so what’s the point of them being invincible for one second?

Fay.2357:

Ok folks, please pay just a liiitle bit of attention to what they actually said, and if OP could edit the post to be not incredibly misleading, it would be great.

PHANTASMS WILL RECEIVE 1 SECOND OF DISTORTION ON SUMMON, NOT WHEN SOMETHING DIES

I wasn’t following the OP. I actually watched the podcast and wrote that post afterwards so I didn’t see all the post before mine. I can see what he meant now but the way he said it was VERY misleading!

I still don’t feel it’ll make much of a difference and I’m not even sure how it would work. Once you get a kill, does it apply the distortion to all phantasms or just the next one summoned? How long do we have before the buff wears off and we have to get a kill again?

Illusionary Warden – Supposed to be fixed but I’ll believe it when I see it. I was hoping it would go back to being stationary most phantasm summons would be ground targeted. I’m thinking press and hold for ground targeting or double-tap to auto-lock on target. Considering the delay between keypress and summon, this could work.

Illusionary Elasticity – This was supposed to be fixed before so, again, I’ll have to see it to believe it. It has a lot of potential. If it works with Sharper Images, we just might have a decent condi build. I’m actually looking forward to this.

Scepter – Not the best durations but a that’s a lot of application. Has potential with the scepter trait, torment runes and the sigil. I’m certainly going to make a build off of this. Now we just need a trait that boosts torment duration or adversely one that turns confusion into torment.

Illusionary Leap – This is be going broken record about seeing to believing. If it works, hallelujah! I’m kittened because this change should have been done before the game even launched or, at most, three months after launch but I’m glad that it’s finally done! On a side note, if it is fixed, can we have a promise from Anet to NEVER touch our illusions’ movement abilities again? Every time they do, they end up broken so let’s not mes with what isn’t broken anymore.

Mind Stab – It’s… okay, I guess. I prefer to have the daze back or kill the damage and make all targets it hits stunned for a second. That would make the greatsword the go-to weapon for interrupt builds.

Offensive Mantras – Dare I say we actually have aoe attacks now? I hate that they are on mantras because those are still clunky as hell but this is somewhat similar to the change I had in mind. If nothing else, I would list mantras as shouts so Trooper runes would work on them and give mesmers another condition clear option.

Triumphant Distortion – facepalms The fact that this change was even considered baffling. Now if illusions had 2 seconds of distortion when commanded to shatter, I would sing Anet’s praises. Phantasm distortion on death doesn’t matter because the phantasm is likely to shatter immediately after the enemy dies! This change is pointless!

Mimic – I’m of two minds. The change still seems pointless because of Arcane Thievery, however, if you combo this Mimic with Arcane Thievery and then hit Signet of Inspiration, that’s one hell of a support build!

Now the things I have issue with.

Clones – They are supposed to fool our opponents but they only fool newbies. I suggest having them mimic the exact actions of the mesmer that spawned them. They should run, jump, dodge and use skills when we do and have a fake copy of every boon that is on us but only have their auto-attacks actually do anything. This would be a lot more likely to fool enemy players, especially when we can swap with our clones.

Wastrel’s Punishment – I can’t tell when this trait is working or even if it has any effect so it needs to be changed. What I would like for it to do is put all of an interrupted opponent’s skills on a 1-second global cooldown. That’s just long enough to cause a bit of frustration while not being over-powered.

Power Block – Undo some of the nerfs. It should work on thieves because any thief thoughtlessly spamming skills just because they can SHOULD be punished! I do agree that it shouldn’t work on auto-attacks because players should always be assured they they can do something. I also feel it shouldn’t work on revivals because it would be too powerful. It should work on stomps though, because enemies still have the option of attacking a downed opponent. Being able to stop them from doing it instantly adds depth to the downed system and gives mesmers a distinct supportive role. It also creates a tense moment with the mesmer trying to save an ally and an enemy trying to kill them. If Anet is serious about pvp, they will want these moments!

Disruptor’s Sustainment – Why is this still a thing? Personally I would rename it to Quantum Entanglement and it would give any buff that illusions receive to the mesmer that spawned them. That’s a trait that players can build around.

Blinding Befuddlement – The cooldown is killing Glamour builds. Considering that confusion has been nerfed to hell, get rid of it so mesmers can do their job.

Out-of-combat speed – Where is it? We were told this would be addressed with the next skill patch. Here we are but there’s no word about it.

I got it but I use an Asuran Peacekeeper greatsword for my mesmer as it matches the color scheme and almost no one else uses it. My other mesmer has a pink/fushia palette so she uses Lovestruck weapony. I wish they had underwater skins.

Wyrden.4713:

how about using the thiefs weap skill mechanic for our mainhand pistol?

for example: pistol + torch : fiery shot, burns target etc
pistol + pistol : smth like unload maybe? like pistol phantasm
pistol+sword, smth like block , if it blocks u blink away from enemy and fire a shot from ur pistol wich dmges or does smth special to ur enemy, whatever

focus idk yet

As much as I would love to have this, I have to be against it because it’s part of what makes thieves unique. I’m all for new weapons though or even proliferation. The game now has a stale taste so it definitely needs something big to feel fresh again.

I have no hope in Arenanet whatsoever. Even if we ignore all the bugs that have been in since beta, they nerfed the Glamour build right after they said they were going to create more build variety. They nerfed portal to the point where I don’t know of anyone that uses it in combat. They nerfed confusion in the only game modes where it actually did something. Every profession but ours got buff to balance the nerf to quickness. Basically they’ve done so much nerfing that I can’t remember the last time they did something that actually helped us significantly. I want to say Power Block but they nerfed everything that made it worthwhile within days of release. Speaking of which, the fact that Disruptor’s Sustainment even made it off the drawing board is insulting.

However, they absolute worst offense is the lack of communication with their own profession forums. Even if you don’t want to put in the time, energy and effort to respond to at least the best written port listing the problems that our professions faces, how hard is it to respond to posts where the players have cataloged all the problems they are having AND have listed several solutions for each one?! That’s half the hard work done for free! I work retail and I WISH my customers would come to me with all the problems they are having in a tidy, little list. Do you have any idea how easy that would make my job? And if they gave solutions too, I’d be doing cartwheels down the aisles!

I know skill balancing for an MMO is hard but these guys are supposed to be professionals. I, as an amateur, should never feel like I could do a better job but I get that feeling with almost every update they made. To make matters worse, the fact that I know any idea I come up with will be ignored is why I have several half-written fixes that will never see the light of these forums. Every single time start one, I spend at least a day and a half putting my thoughts into words before I realize that Anet just doesn’t care. They’ll just do whatever they want and claim that it’s what the players want when they own forums show an entirely different story.

I still say the best way to solve ele build diversity is to allow in-combat weapon swapping. It can be done very easily too. Signet of Attunement. Passive allows weapon swapping but locks the inactive attunements. Active allows attunement swapping but blocks weapon swapping while on cooldown.

This is what’s called, “the lesser of two evils.” I too would love to show Phlunt the business end of my greatsword, however, he was the only member of the Asuran council willing to go to the summit. If we don’t play ball with him, we don’t get any Asuran support.

I don’t believe for second that he will give Taimi her device back. In fact, I’m quite sure he’ll even go as far as taking credit for creating it. Even with that bitter thought rattling around in my head, his involvement means we get to most technologically advanced race in our corner when we face off against the next elder dragon. Sometimes you just have to make sacrifices for the greater good. Taimi, as young as she is, came to understand that. Why do you guys have such a hard time grasping it?

I will say this though. If I had my way, I would stand exactly 1200 units away when Phlunt tells the council about the device. If he even tried so little as to claim he influenced Taimi to create her little toy, I’d shove a Spatial Surge down his throat so hard, he’d be farting ethereal butterflies for weeks!

On a more realistic side, I actually applaud Anet for putting this situation in the game instead of giving it a more rosy conclusion. It’s more realistic and fits with what we know about the Asura. It also shows that we can’t win every battle, some things can’t be solved by force and player characters aren’t god-like. Even we will enter realistic situations where the right choice isn’t the most glamorous one and we have to live with that.

That was some of the best dialogue I’ve seen in ages! The way they play off of one another is priceless! I have a feeling Anet intends Canach to join the Bionics but I would rather he stay by Anise’s side. Putting their wit aside, they make an interesting dynamic. Even with the best intentions at heart, Anise is more devious than most, if not all, the villains in Guild Wars 2. Canach obviously has a good heart but a sinister ways of thinking and isn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty. These two have a lot of potential together. I’d hate to see that go to waste just so the leading cast can fulfill the status quo of having representation of the main 5 races.

I too wish we had dialogue choices when talking to Canach, even if it was just flavor text. Since he did the wrong thing for the right reason and has accepted his punishment, I would have preferred to encourage him to do better than constantly threatening him.

I’m wondering what grind you guys are talking about. I’m a day away from making the first back piece and I found it rather easy. I parked a few characters at the a ring of elder saplings that grows around a god statue and just farm them once every hour. With 7 characters, it takes about 3 to 5 minutes each cycle and I usually gain 3 to 5 foxfire per cycle. The rest of the time, I do whatever I want.

I too must admit that this tugged at my heartstrings too and I don’t even have any sylvari characters.

I gave a few enemies love taps, ran off to another event and still got the achievement.

My only problem is what happened a few days ago. There were about 50 people in the volcano, waiting for someone else to do the pre-events for the megadestroyer. Instead of breaking up and taking them on, they all sat there with some and complaining because 5 minutes passed and nothing had been done. out of all of those people, only 5 at most was with me, struggling to get things done within the time limit.

I say have meta-event bosses nuke the area as they spawn so people are less likely to stand there doing nothing and give those that do the pre-events a buff against the boss or better loot at the end of the event.

There’s nothing to speculate about. It will be rebuilt. My only issue is, in a world where a single elementalist can literally reshape a mountain, why is it taking so long?

I certainly don’t have anything against your way of thinking but I see things differently. I have two axes, two pickaxes and one sickle. I don’t plan on buying anymore unless they come out with an extremely cool skin that fits the character concept of one of my mains or does something extra like the watchwork pickaxe. Now, if they cost 300 gems a piece, I’d probably have a full set for every toon I have.

There’s something I forgot to add. During a cutscene, the npc traveling with the players should mention drop a few hints about how to handle Turmaine. She could say that weakness works well on him but, once he enters spectral form, direct damage is useless. Let the players figure out the rest.