Guild Wars 2

Rickster.8752:

Obsidia.5127:

Rickster.8752:

Well obviously thieves

I hope you don’t actually think that.

Conquest is a game mode which rewards mobility over everything else. Literally there is no way to stop a thief getting decaps other than with another thief. Everything on top of that is gravy

That’s hardly the case since you don’t need an ounce of mobility if you can just bunker a point like so many people do.

Azawrath.7304:

I don’t know if you are joking but I agree. Thieves really only have one way of dealing damage and one of defense which is stealth.

…I think you mean stealth and evades and blinds and teleports, lol.

Azawrath.7304:

The problem with this reliance on stealth is it makes thief builds very one dimensional which leads to a weak class. Thieves don’t have any inactive defense such as blocks, protection, or agesis. We rely on stealth and dogging which are both active defense and active defense isn’t as effective as inactive defense. The thief will become a strong class when it is no longer dependent on stealth.

I understand that there are builds that do not use stealth but they are not very strong and they don’t hold up against good players.

An active defense isn’t inherently inferior. It’s only weak when the player doesn’t know how to use it and/or tries to tank damage instead of shutting it down/avoiding it. The great thing about an active defense is that it allows players who do know how to utilize their abilities to shine much brighter than your average player.

Oh, and you don’t need stealth to have a strong defense. S/D builds are probably one of the best examples of this.

Awesome vid guys! That was really cool. =D

Solid vid. It’s definitely nice to see people using S/D outside of acro builds. I think I’ve overlooked doing something like this for a while and may have to give it a shot.

Do this and I guarantee you’ll see people find a way to abuse the system just for the title.

Until leaderboards can be changed so that people need to play a decent number of games to get on the top 500/1000, you’ll also see a bunch of random people who get a lucky streak with their first handful of games get this title without ever really trying.

Welcome to GW2! Of course, a lot of this will depend on the person playing, but here’s what I would generally recommend:

- Sylvari is one of the more unique races of GW2, particularly with their story, so I would generally recommend them for the most interesting personal story. Profession has no bearing on the story.

- Thief is my favorite profession, but that’s mostly because I love high mobility professions that rely on an active defense (i.e. avoiding damage by player action instead of just absorbing it through high armor/HP).

- Charr, in general, seem to be one of the least represented races. Female charr are, unfortunately, very rare.

- Humans are the most abundant races, as in most MMOs.

- Warriors and Guardians are probably the most prevalent professions. Necromancers Rangers and Engineers are a lot less common (at least, outside of sPvP).

- A good ele that knows how to blast fire fields for might and utilize conjure weapons to maximize DPS is probably what I would like to see more of in dungeon/events, but there’s not really a huge need for certain professions in GW2 the same way as in other MMOs.

One thing I would warn new players on, however, is that there are some professions that are generally not wanted for a lot of dungeons/events. Necromancers, engineers and Rangers often fall in this category, although if the Ranger uses the right build (Spotter/Frost Spirit Sw/W build), they can be highly desired by some groups who are very picky about their composition.

Eh, I don’t find WvW fun, but not for the reasons above.

WvW just feels pointless. It honestly feels like when you step in WvW, it doesn’t really matter what you do since the outcome has so much to do with how many people from your server decide to login to jump in a game and how many of those people that jump in WvW decide that they actually want to do things that make a difference in the actual outcome of the competition.

If they took WvW and toned it down to be an instanced match with a set team, then I would probably be all over it. However, it would have to be a lot more like GvG/HotM from GW1 than WvW as it is now to be anything really enjoyable to me.

Until then, WvW is something I jump in for some random open PvP or as just another achievement checklist to grind through for a skin I want.

Whether you need to or not, there’s no point in saving it. Hell, even if there wasn’t an official announcement that it’s going away, you’d want to spend it before the next patch anyways since ANet is notorious for deleting currency/currency items unexpectedly after patches.

Ramiel.4931:

They haven’t said absolutely anything about it all this time.

From that I gather that even if they were to add guild halls, it won’t be this year.

No real use talking/crying over it.

Of course there’s use talking over it! ANet responds to the direction of the community, even if they don’t always do so perfectly or as quickly as people would like.

It seems pretty clear that this is a major feature the community wants. I seriously hope they really start devoting resources to making this happen. There’s a lot of great stuff happening in the Feature patch, but guild halls is something this game sorely needs.

Really? We’re getting upset at the NPCs over cultural armor now?

@ Fluffball: I totally agree and it’ll be more important than ever to have people explore new builds after the next balance changes since not only do changes to Ranger skills open new possibilities, but the changing to the strengths/weaknesses of other professions’ builds will also have a big impact. However, in this particular case, the build the OP has been using has been extensively tested in the current environment and is simply outperformed by the meta spirit build.

@ Akallou: A ranger isn’t ‘forced’ to do anything, but the situation is simply what it is. The particular strengths and weaknesses that a spirit build bring are just better suited for fighting the builds you encounter in the Conquest mode which sPvP is built around right now. Yes, it sucks that such a 1-dimensional build is the most effective option open to rangers in sPvP, but wishful thinking doesn’t change that fact.

If you’re using it for WvW with a build that has Hidden Killer, then yes, Valk is still a solid option. I don’t think the Tues changes will really change what gear is viable for you unless you’re using either Assassin’s or Celestial gear.

akallou.9704:

I understand your point, although i’m able to take down any class 1 on 1…

I wish I had a dollar for everytime I saw a post like this defending a build that’s generally accepted as inferior to the meta. =P

No offense to you, but just because something is functioning for you doesn’t mean that there’s not something else that functions better.

Are you talking PvE, sPvP, WvW?

Seems pretty straight forward to me. The thief attacks with an attack that would be a critical hit, except that Stone Hearth prevents the hit from being a critical when it hits the ele.

I.e. Stone Heart negating all criticals, including ‘guaranteed’ crits seems to make the most sense.

viralthefrog.6130:

I have a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell.

I think there was a missed opportunity to make a cowbell drop on April 1st. It would have buttons for all 8 skills, just like the flute/horn/bell/etc., but they would all play the same cowbell sound.

Sarrs.4831:

The Primary.6371:

Gw2 gvg can still work without dedicated healers, all you need is strong team support mixed into two or three players setup. Will also require everyone watching each other and the enemy aswell, which should always happen.

I kinda think at the moment that the best thing that can happen to GW2 is getting more game modes in, and a lot of them.

Conquest, conquest, conquest, conquest with bosses, conquest with a flag, conquest on toast with a glass of conquest, augh.

Need something different than the 5v5 conquest model because at the moment it seems incredibly hard to actually fit a dedicated support into your team.

Yea, I think the timing is a good point. ANet did right by focusing on Conquest/WvW only at the start and making sure that they polished those as well as possible with their resources. However, I think we’ve gotten to a point where that doesn’t give the same returns as it did before and expanding game types, even if it comes at the expense of conquest is a healthy move for PvP overall.

Shademehr.1397:

I just wish it was slightly louder.

You can adjust the volume of player musical instruments in the game settings.

Decap engis aren’t going anywhere, but you are. #knockback

=P

Name.9625:

Northern Shiverpeaks

How much i miss these snowy mountains

Dwarves

Cuz I kinda miss them.

Charak.9761:

Instead of trying to do 150v150v150 that isn’t even possible for some servers

bring it down to maybe 40 to 60 and bring down the size of the map, then add overflow mechanic like eotm. This way outnumbered won’t be a problem, its a good guild size, and zergballing isn’t so aggressive.

Yea, there’s 2 primary reasons behind why I don’t enjoy WvW even though I love PvP:

1) The maps are so huge that most of your time is spent running to objectives where you outnumber your enemy or running from areas where your enemy outnumbers you.

2) Since there’s no time limitations, there’s no real sense of winning or losing. Ultimately, it feels very pointless.

I would love to see a PvP mode larger than sPvP with multiple objectives, but sadly WvW is such a far extreme of that, it completely misses the mark.

Kazuto.2798:

Hermes.7014:

Kazuto.2798:

Classes that can shadowstep stomp don’t have easy access to stability/invulnerability. If you want shadowstep stomps out, then remove stability stomps or invulnerability stomps. Which I think would be a stupid change if it were to come out.

Stability/Invulnerability stomps can be countered using a downed movement skill. Same goes for Stealth stomps.
However, shadowstep stomps leave no room for counterplay, like TheDaiBish said.

You can’t interrupt a stability or invulnerability stomp. The only thing you can do is either invis or teleport away, which you could still do for a shadowstep stomp. And even then, the shadowstep stomper is still susceptible to CC from other players while stabilty and invulnerability stompers are immune. If you are complaining about not being able to save yourself from a stomp in a 1v1, you were already dead the second you went down.

You can certainly interrupt a stability or invulnerability stomp.

Stability can be stripped and both are countered by either stealth or teleporting away. A trickery thief can strip the stability and stun at the same time in a single steal.

For a good, full list of how to counter stomps or being stomped by a variety of classes, check out Killchained’s video playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAhX2Vt8fhBZclmnw3k8GvNBZx-zWW8cH

Hermes.7014:

I honestly don’t know why this has never been brought up (or has it?), but let’s face it, we all know about those little tricks with shadowsteps to finish people the easy way (start the finisher animation -> hop away with shadowstep -> get back to opponent with another right when the animation is about to finish).
Arenanet, I ask you to make it so that all shadowstep type abilities break finisher casting. This is something that should have been fixed since the beginning.

I am 100% against this. Tactics like shadowstepping, blinding, stability, etc. all add another layer to the skill involved in landing a stomp. Take this away and you have a situation where every stomp is incredibly predictable and one dimensional.

Sorry, but I can’t agree. I’ve tried the other instruments, but I haven’t enjoyed any of them nearly as much as the drums.

The lag with the instruments makes creating a decent-sounding song really difficult, even for people that have been practicing for a while. If you’re one of the very very few that can actually play something good on one of the many instruments with traditional controls, then kudos to you.

However, the drums lets you pick up and play something that sounds good quickly and easily. Maybe you’re too pro for that, but for people who don’t have the same musical talent and/or don’t want to dedicate the amount of time it takes to make something decent from the current instruments, it’s a great option.

Yes, you are a bit more limited in what songs you can play compared to other instruments, but the ease of use and quality of sound for improv songs easily outweighs that con for me.

Best $10 I’ve spent on the gemstore so far.

Katran.9186:

It seems you were sleeping for some time.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1r8prs/new_game_mode_prototypes_from_livestream/

And we’ll get sort of mode (little map for TDM only for CA) with the next update, if I’m not mistaken.
Yet, I agree with the topic. PVP variety should be top priority.

The OP isn’t saying that ANet hasn’t made considerations about new game modes, he/she is saying that they haven’t actually released enough game modes.

And adding a single death match map that is only available for custom arenas hardly counts for much of anything, especially compared to GW1.

I’ll take OP staff eles over OP warriors any day.

Staff ele is a much more complex class to play than pretty much any warrior build (especially one that never needs to hit the heal button).

I expect that if there is an imbalance with eles, that it will hit the upper tier players much harder than the lower tier players.

The drum is easily the best item ever offered on the gemstore. Thank you ANet for the awesome design of this item!

Sensotix.4106:

With the upcoming ele buffs and nerfs of other classes diamond skin could actually play a big role in pvp vs condi classes like ranger or necro (especially necro)…

since a 100% condition immunity to a specific sort of damage is a very bad mechanic without counterplay for some classes it should not be in the game

having automated response changed that conditions can be applied but only last 50% as long is a very good idea and is really good for the game

Now let’s check some other traits or skills in the game which have that

Bersercer’s stance: imo it should be changed the same way decrease the cooldown but make it so conditions can be applied with only 50% the duration
Diamond Skin: same thing basically as ar: change it so that it lasts till 75% or 80% of the ele’s hp but only reduce the condi duration by 50%

With these changes and the rest of the upcoming changes i am quite optimistic when it comes to the next months of gw2

+1 to this idea.

This would definitely be a fair change.

Phaeton.9582:

I’ve 100-0 them on a glass ranger before.

That stuffs all pretty niche though..

Yea, a ranger using a bow can generally counter most engis pretty well in my experience, but doing so often involves standing off point a good bit to avoid AoEs.

Maybe the buff to power rangers will help tone down decaps a bit when the new meta establishes. I’m not holding my breath on this though. =P

The only reliable answer to fighting a decap engi is really team support. I’ve played a bunk guard for a good while and even with high stability uptime, you’ll eventually get decapped by any engi that knows to wait for your stability to use their knockback cooldowns.

Since it takes so much longer to re-capture a point vs the time it takes to decap, even if you knock a decap engi off more than they knock you off, they can still decap your point.

dylan.5409:

Was hoping that power builds would be interesting. 30/0/10/30/0. But then I remembered that longbow cd is in skirmishing…….
This proff badly needs some trait compression.
If they were serious about build diversity, then they would move empathic bond to a 20 or even 10 point trait as Rivebise pointed out
On the positive side, they may have allowed for a bunker build that is pretty much immune to conditions……cough cough

Yea, the longbow has some great potential for PvP, but so much of its effectiveness is tied to traits.

Want to get long range? You’ll need at least 20 in Marks for Eagle Eye.
Want arrows to pierce? You’ll need at least 20 in Marks for Piercing Arrows.
Want your arrows to actually hit their target? You’ll need 30 points in marks and will have to sacrifice piercing or long range (on top of several other good marks traits).
Want to get a lower cd on the weapon skills? You’ll need another 20 in marks.

And now congrats…you’ve spent 50 of your 70 talent points in pure DPS trees, leaving you almost no traits to keep you alive in PvP. Meanwhile, a mesmer will be able to do all of the above (aside from the 1500 range) on their greatsword with only 20 points. If they skip the cd reduction, they don’t have to trait a single talent point to get piercing and instant hits (that can’t be reflected).

Erebos.6741:

Justin ODell.9517:

I really like this idea! Just sent an email to the team about it.

So… what’d they say?

It’s been 5 months and nothing has come of it. I think that’s pretty obvious.

Silentshoes.1805:

Doesn’t poison prevent 33% of healing? That affects total damage.

I.e., health bar drop.

Yes, but you don’t need a grandmaster trait for that. There are many ways to keep up 100% or near 100% poison duration on your target without such a high cost, such as using shortbow #2 at point blank range.

The 50% damage increase from the trait also has no affect on the heal reduction aspect of poison.

Prysin.8542:

Dahkeus.8243:

Prysin.8542:

More damage is always better then less damage. No need to discuss that. It is what it is.

What? You…do realize this is the sPvP forums and not the Dungeon forums, right?

Tell that to a bunker, lol. Even if you are building a damage-focused build, the poison trait is still weaker than taking Empathetic Bond.

I generally stay away from dungeons, they consume too much time, for too low a reward.
Anyway, the way i build my char, i go for max tank first, then look at how i can optimize damage without sacrificing defense. the BM builds may be a bad example, but a trapper running sigil of purity on both weapon sets + lyssa/melandru should do well enough to manage.

Poison is strong. Just because it cannot do 2500 damage/tick like bleeding does, does not mean it is weak. When you have permanent uptime, any boost to that “permanent” part is a direct DPS increase.

Yes, 50% increased damage poison is better than regular poison, but 50% increased damage poison is not better than 3 conditions removed every 10 seconds.

And even if you do keep up poison permanently, you’re still only getting the damage of a stack or two of bleeding permanently, which is very low compared to the DPS increase of other traits that often require much less than a grandmaster investment.

JonPeters.5630:

Pro Tip: Crit Damage (aka Ferocity) can now be a primary stat if that opens up some suggestions.

Jon

Unless having that as a primary stat will make a set that’s higher DPS than berserker, I don’t see it changing much.

…and if it does perform better than berserker, then that just means everyone will need to replace their armor.

Before we get into needing new stat combos, we need game balance that promotes using something other than berserker gear.

No one is really sure, but wait a month or so after the patch and there will be all sorts of rage-filled posts from people claiming how obvious it is that the meta builds are overpowered and how ArenaNet should have know better.

It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. =P

Prysin.8542:

More damage is always better then less damage. No need to discuss that. It is what it is.

What? You…do realize this is the sPvP forums and not the Dungeon forums, right?

Tell that to a bunker, lol. Even if you are building a damage-focused build, the poison trait is still weaker than taking Empathetic Bond.

Irene Jane.9605:

I’m excited about the poison master, honestly it might be abused a little too… perma poisons no joke.

It sounds a lot better than it is. Poison does incredibly low damage, even in full condition damage builds.

The increased application may sound nice, but poison is already very easy to maintain.

I don’t have very high hopes for what this patch will do for rangers in sPvP, but I think the degree of improvement with pets will really be the deciding factor in whether a non-spirit build will make it into the meta.

You really gotta take off your rosy-colored glasses if you think that the good players who have quit are somehow inherently better than the good players who are around now. =P

Kingkiller.9645:

Elementalists will be HUGE, for sooo many reasons. They’re squishy, but they have SO MANY HEALS! Elementalists can also play crit chance, crit damage (arcane skills always crit), condition, power, boons, or basically any build and be amazing at it.
Also, they can summon the best weapons ever. Fiery Greatsword has the strongest damage in the game, and frost bow is no laughing matter either. Glyph of storms provides huges dps or constant blind…

Guardians will also be highly sought after, for reasons I don’t need to explain.
Warriors and engineers will kinda be neutral.
Everyone else will kinda take a backseat.

Time Warp will keep mesmers in a spot well above rangers/necros.

Esmee.1067:

More organized attempts and more chance for a guild to have every will-able guildie included. I see this as a positive update. And as a time to consider bigger guilds

Yea, I don’t think that these groups will be as exclusive as dungeon groups since you often have to be more flexible to bring enough people, but I can still see serious groups stacking certain classes as much as they can. I mean, they may allow people to come if they play a ranger, but I certainly expect them to ask those players to play their ele/guard/mesmer alts if they have them. =P

Guardians will be one of the most desired and Rangers/Necros will be least desired. That much I can say for sure. The rest is relatively debatable.

Mesmers and warriors will probably have a good place too. Thieves will be on the lower end of usefulness.

Yea, I agree. The community here is one of the big reasons I switched from Tera to GW2.

Yea, I definitely think the Radiant looks better on most gear sets, but if you want to see a good armor mix that works with the Hellfire stuff, check out the set that Killchained has:

I hope it’s not a high priority. I have no interest in mini-pet mini-games.

I’m fortunate enough to be married to someone with the skills to make animated gifs, lol.

That’s my husband Aidyn’s character (Rowyn, the sylvari) taking center stage with the dancing next to my thief, Dahkeus.

The second one is Dahkeus sharing showing off his flower power.

Chaith.8256:

Zirith.6429:

Chaith.8256:

Mesmer downed state 2 is like, the best downed state 2 attack there is, after elementalist.

It’s easy to see why stealthing and moving a random 400 distance is harder to stomp than preventing a stomp by shooting a measly interrupt projectile (Warrior, Ranger, Necro, Engineer, Guardian).

• Your stealth cannot miss. Therefore, you can’t be countered by: Blind, Aegis, Stability, Invulnerability, a dodge roll.

• You often port right out of the downed cleave on you, in teamfights, and are in stealth for ez-mode revives. It angers me when I’m cleaving where the Mesmer went down and suddenly I see 2 enemies start reviving their invisible ally .. right behind me, and then it’s too late.

A superior downed state 2 skill, if anything. Get some perspective.

I’ve probably stomped 5000 mesmers and more often than not if i reset the stomp before they hit 2 the stomp will still land on them, it’s more like a 25% chance that they will port out of stomp range. Still a strong skill since they are guaranteed to last the longest while downed.

You don’t know when the Mesmer is going to use Deception. It could be an early deception, or right as you go to stomp. If you get the right read, then yes, there’s – I would say about a 50/50 chance that Mesmer is dead. This stomping method depends on player skill and has an element of RNG attached.

Remember, that even if you start stomping, and .5 seconds before finishing, you get a perfect pre-cast on the Mesmer’s deception, he already is going to live until that second stomp finishes. That’s a guaranteed stay of execution for 5.5 seconds after going down. Around the same as if you ate the interrupt from Warrior/Ranger/Guardian/Necro/Engineer. Don’t you see? Deception isn’t even worse than other downed state #2 skills, even if your enemy reads the Mesmer, and perfectly pre-cast stomps the Mesmer 25% of the time.

Yup, mesmers are probably the second hardest class to stomp, next to eles (depending on your access to stability/teleports).

AngelMouse.7345:

“The Guild Wars are the three wars among different guilds in the three human kingdoms of Ascalon, Kryta, and Orr. "

Source: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars

This is why the game is called Guild Wars.

A lot of people have been asking for GvG, but it should not be open world PvP.

Yup, sadly the name of the game is based around obscure lore that has pretty almost nothing to do with anything actually going on in the game.

If I were dev for a day, I’d make guilds mean something in the game and tie them into the living story somehow.

Invictus.1503:

Chillin.4503:

if we have guild hall there might be a lot of people being afk in there and will result in less population in general maps

Not sure how you meant this, but that would be a good thing for the general maps. AFK in the guild hall doesn’t hurt anything, AFK in general maps (the logical alternative if this statement is true) hurts others by taking up a slot if that map goes to overflow. Granted, overflow will be a thing of the past soon, but the AFKer still takes up a potentially needed slot in heavily populated servers.

Yup. Also, the new ‘megaserver’ change will be balancing population anyways, so even if you did have a ton of people sitting in their guild halls, you would still have full, active towns.

It’s definitely over 100. I can’t say if there’s a cap, but I have over 100 now and haven’t been capped.