Guild Wars 2

That is true toxo. I more meant that kits were the default weapon swap. That as an engie you were expected to use at least one. Probably not fair but the assumption is clearly there.

They are the engies other weapon. And they allow the engie to swap weapons without the effects of the cooldown present to all the other professions. They at three kits allow an engie to have three weapons, again without the cd swaps of things like conjured weapons.

It is a weird thing to balance.

Fay.2357:

Xstein.2187:

Klonko.8341:

But they only half efficient because of the state of ranger currently. For other class i mainly play zerker staff ele in SPVP. I mean, sure both are countered by mesmer, but i feel like any build i play, I just melt (even tank).

Great, its settled. Klonko believes that mesmers should be nerfed because rangers are perhaps under powered at the moment and mesmers are better at countering the zerker classes he likes playing. Meanwhile, he still can’t do well with tankier builds/classes because they are not his mains. Now that we know that none of these arguments are valid, we can happily move on with our lives.

cough refer to my first post cough

Oh the amount of threads that would have simply died if people decided not to post antagonizing statements. Please guys. This thread has be done and redone a thousand times. Stop.

F2 F2 F2

Silverkey.2078:

Daniel Handler.4816:

If veil was only altered to behave like temporal curtain does now, would that be OP?

Something like 2 seconds entry, and .5 every reentry.

With PU and hop hoping that would be 7.5 second the same as MI which it shares a cd with.

Well I’m not an expert in WvW zerg fights, but that actually MAY BE too strong there. If stealth from veil stacked, you could use a couple of mesmers to hide a zerg for 6, 9 or more seconds which would mean complete havoc. You see how efficient portal bombs are there, and the only reason it’s not that common I believe is that it is somewhat difficult to set up. With long zerg-wide stealth, no need for portal bomb, you can just peacefully walk to the enemy backline and destroy them before they realized there was a zerg around.

That is quite easily fixed then.

Have the curtains apply the 2s duration if the parties do not have stealth, and apply the .5 duration of they do.

Boom worst glamour solved.

Temporal enchanter. Move the resistance/superspeed burst to 360 around the mesmer 5 targets.

Boom high potential trait made more awesome.

Keep everything else as is.

Guys give it a rest. Wait till a week after HoT goes live. Please. Anything we decide now might not exist then. For all we know scrapper might be the next OP catcall.

Is the sight of revenants and/or ritualists the same as our own? Is it impeded? Enhanced? Are these senses fooled just as easily by mesmer illusions?

Sorry there is an enormous patch in 5 days. Regretably your question cannot be answered by anyone at this time. Tootles

Agroman.7190:

We’ve had that discussion before, and my answer is still the same. It’s entirely situational. Personally, I tend to look more at thematic display of a skill rather than what it does mechanically. I never said anything about “lore vs mechanics”.

Looking back through comments it seems we have. I am bad at remembering names.

I had another question but the concert is starting.

Edit: If someone is not mechanics, isn’t it then lore?
I suppose some exceptions could be April fools day-esque aspects of the story.

It seems like a very interesting form of analysis.

What do you draw on for your thematic assessment?

For example. Elementalist when using concepts such as lava or magma do so in fire. The Elementalist eruption shakes the ground more akin to an earthquake, it does not produce lava.

We see berserker summoning magma rocks. What are these rocks thematically? What would they tell you about the class?

eldenbri.1059:

Lol – colorblind, old and gullible – seems like a pretty apt description for me

Ironically, with the announcement today that non-targeted creature damage will be greatly reduced, this feature request might actually have some value (at least in PVE)

I’m not worried about having an indicator about how many total illusions I have out. I was just looking for some kind of hint to make the decision between shatter or losing the illusions. The specific cases I’m think about are things like these:

- I have two illusions out and no skill that’s going to give me another one right away and I have all my shatters available. I would probably go ahead and shatter if I saw both were low on health (especially with the free clone on two-illusion shatter)

- Or alternatively, I have three illusions up and one shatter skill available, but I would prefer to use another one. If I can see that all of them have high health, I might wait for the preferred shatter.

Of course, I might spaz out and just shatter somewhat randomly even if I had better information

The difficulty is how the shatter bar depicts illusions.

After you shatter the illusions aren’t dead until they shatter or are destroyed.

So while they are running to your target you can summon even more Illusions. The shatter bar will show the how many non destroyed Illusions you have a number which is between 0 and 3+

Changing the color based on health will show very inaccurate data.

If veil was only altered to behave like temporal curtain does now, would that be OP?

Something like 2 seconds entry, and .5 every reentry.

With PU and hop hoping that would be 7.5 second the same as MI which it shares a cd with.

Agroman.7190:

I’m just saying that could be pure mechanics in the same way rapid fire/endless ammo is.

Also, it should perhaps be noted that in extreme situations, motivational shouting alone can enable people to do things in spite of severe injury that should normally stop them from it. Of course, that doesn’t remove said injury permanently, but you catch my meaning.

I know. I was just asking what you personally look for when you are determining lore vs mechanic.

The one to Rule.2593:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

The one to Rule.2593:

Kitty.1502:

The one to Rule.2593:

Are you seriously complaining? Guardians are getting shafted and rangers are getting the druid as an elite spec meaning they will be wanted in the new meta without a doubt, guardians are getting default ranger as an elite spec… No one is going to take a dragonhunter over druid for raids.

O utside of you know guardian still is the best support class in the game. No one comes close to the amount of projectile hate that guardian can administer. Furthermore, Dragonhunter adds a lot of PvP offensive to the class, will it be PvE amazing? no but guardian already is amazing in PvE as support and will have a place in raids as nothing matches it.

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

I main guardian lol, I know what I’m talking about

Reflects are useless in raids, and revenent can reflect them more often since it has a 12 second cooldown and not 40, plus revenant provides permanent teamwide protection, swiftness, and fury. Plus can generate their own might. Also carries traits that give everyone an extra 150 ferocity.

Revenant support is superior in nearly every way to guardians.

FYI, Herald cannot maintain those boons on a party because of energy regeneration. They get 5 energy regen per second, so maintaining Protection alone will mean they cannot use weapon skills except AA once they get low on energy. Consider that Guard can accomplish this with a Hammer and still be able to use all other utility skills and weapons skills on CD, Herald cannot do that. Herald also needs to camp the Dragon Stance to do it.

Anyway, if you don’t like guard or DH, nobody is forcing you to play it. It’s hardly a “sinking ship” like you keep spouting throughout the forums. DH got love for its traps, something Rangers have been trying to get for 3 years. Many Rangers don’t like Druid either, who cares? Play something else, don’t get emotionally attached.

Actually revenant can have permanant 2 boons at a time and still regenerate energy. you regen at +5 per sec where facets are only -2 this means you can have permanent protection and fury at all times.

Yes but the protection is – 5 which – 2 is – 7, it cannot be infinitely maintained.

Also guardians have reflects revenant does not.

Lastly none of this has anything to do with the topic.

Let’s concentrate on the traps please.

Agroman.7190:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Because by all accounts shouts removing a crippled condition caused by a weapons seems like healing magic.

Or mechanics as well.

This is true. Where do you see the difference if any?

If we are going to tap into additional power as Khilbron did, then the Lich is not the only one capable.

Jenna is not a Lich nor do they seem anything similar to the apotheosis of a mesmer. So let’s raise her talents.

Who is to say Jennah at apotheosis couldn’t lockdown an entire nation? No need for tacit support.

Gaheron is the assumed but not the definitive apotheosis of an elementalist.

Who is to say that an elementalist at apotheosis could not create an infinite army of elementals? Living matter is far outnumbered by inorganic.

The only benefit to a Lich is eternal life, something that a guardian or engineer could possibly replicate.

The tacit support of the people is irrelevant, only a large selection standing army and eternal life.

Kuulpb.5412:

I see what you’re saying, But i’m not saying “casting a spell”, I am saying it is a Hindering spell that can be removed, due to immobilise has the obviously purpley chains tying you down, so it’s some form of spell or magic. and if you can shout to remove the chains then you are breaking the spell of somekind.

I also see what you say by me mentioning game mechanic sin lore, but there are Game mechanics related to lore, such as Waypointing is Lore, Taimi created waypoints using less magic, so, Engineers, warriors etc have some form of magic that allows them to use such strange things with ease, such as again, banners form the sky, endless grenades and kits, an endless ammo. Their form of Magic could be they don’t use “Ammo” in the natural sense, but some form of ammo that can be fired multiple times. From what i recall I don’t see any NPCs claiming about lack of ammo to fire their rifle etc, but I may have missed it.

Please tell me if you find one

The endless ammo is the mechanic aspect. If they had infinite ammo then we would not see rangers with quivers.

A good point you bring up though is what the difference between being crippled by a sword vs hex.

That is I something I would like to know.

Because by all accounts shouts removing a crippled condition caused by a weapons seems like healing magic.

Kulvar.1239:

Daniel Handler.4816:

My assumption is that they have no atoms only ether + magic.

There is two reference to molecules (implying atoms).
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Xapp
Feel that buzzing sensation in your molecular structure?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skritt_IQ_Test_Subject
This, right here, is called an air molecule.

Good catch. The next leap is if they have molecules do they have a system or biological information retention similar to DNA?

Would this mean the abilities of elemtalists actually require preexisting matter?

For instance when Joko forces parts of Elona into drought why didn’t the elementalist just make it rain?

Obsidian.1328:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In your sake of argument example, the author could explain that the sun is green in a high fantasy story due to an ancient god-like being throwing a magical artifact into the sun for protection. Then suddenly during the story the sun turns yellow, and the big bad of the story suddenly has a powerful magical artifact. Because of the change in the sun, and knowing why the sun was green, the hero (and audience) can conclude what the artifact is – the one of the story of the godlike being – and figure out how to counter it.

Why not a third option: the sun is green because the the sun is green. Why does it have to be explained at all? Can’t the world of Bubbles just have a green sun and not have to explain itself to the reader? Can’t the reader just accept that as a fact of the world, and move on with the story?

Because in this instance the story is currently in limbo. Readers reimmerse with literary texts that are between sequels by analyzing previous texts. And when the story is completely finished such analysis is all that is left of the story.

Finding out how magic works is just as engaging as contemplating whether the humans could have bounced back if the foefire hadn’t happened.

Dadnir.5038:

it’s mostly serious for the encounter that we could see . Simply because it give me range sustain damage, self sustain/boon, mobility, enough hard CC and burst sustain for me and allies to recover in the lightning area. Other build may be able to do the same thing but I think it would be one of the most effective for this encounter and this role.

It seems to be a very typical S/D build. What aspects of dagger did you find lacking on warhorn?

Manuhell.2759:

My “whims”. Hah.
The whole design of the class right now is nothing else but a failure.
This is the only class that can’t even use “on swap” sigils by default. Because we have no swap, by default.

Kits and weapons have to be balanced over full-kits build, and the other utilities can’t even stand a comparison with kits for the most part. The only ones that get used are the ones that can do something that kit cannot – like slick shoes. And they even get whined upon because of their strength.

A class that has by default the lowest amount of skills, and yet can have one of the highest ones as well…and yet should be balanced for both of these cases. How can you expect that to work well?

And now we’ve even got elite specializations…that can’t even work properly with how the class is designed. Of course, classes weren’t being designed thinking about elite specializations to begin with.
New weapons and utilities? Useless, they all have to be balanced over kits, thus suffering the same issues.
They can’t even give some decent new mechanic – we already have a ton of F buttons used, and the toolbelt can’t just be replaced with some other mechanic given that some utilities depend on the toolbelt to work (like turrets). So we get leftovers like the function gyro.

And people even want to think everything is well with the class…

Um…… Swap sigils proc on kits.

Kits are your weapon swap. Equipping a single kit gives you 19 skills equipping 5 gives you 35.

Engie is all about customization, you decide how many skills you need to be effective 15 or 35.

Ranger trap not traps. The stun break is on one.

SPNKr.6208:

Lol okay, that was a joke. What Ross meant was that illusions die in one hit anyway.

I’ve never felt something like that was necessary, but I suppose it would be a nice QoL change, like others’ suggestions about different colours for illusions and phantasms.

Yeah but I think OP actually is colorblind. I doubt Anet will change anything, people with low vision still cant read their mantra charges.

OP remember you can have six+ Illusions out at once, when Illusions are shattered they don’t count towards the bar but then three dots will show there are between 3 and 6+ out.

Why do we use Lich as an example when the only Lich that we know the origin of did not use their own power.

Is Shiro Tagachi any less powerful than Joko?

Obsidian.1328:

This subject matter often comes up in fantasy game forums, and I’ve been dying to figure this out for a long time.

My question is: what do subjects like advanced mathematics and scientific theory have to do with “sword and sorcery”-ish fantasy settings? I’ve never understood the need, or wish for that matter, to insert modern scientific thought and theory into a fantasy setting. Isn’t that supposed to be for, you know, the sci-fi genre? One thing Fantasy is, at its core, is a make-believe universe that does not in any way have to try and adhere to the laws of RL science.

Things like the Star Trek ‘verse for instance…of course. It’s Sci-Fi, it’s only natural that something about high-tech space-ships/travel should be relatively highly steeped in science. But high fantasy?? I just don’t see why it should have anything to do with it really. If anything, it’s the one genre where you really don’t need to take a nod to science at all…it’s the power of creative imagination at its purest.

I’m actually not trying to troll here, what’s the deal with marrying science to fantasy? Is this a modern trend or something? Because I never remembered this ever being a “thing” with fantasy in the past. Or maybe I did and simply disregarded it as silly, I don’t know.

Maybe this is why I always thought the Asura never fit in with Tyria??

The only difference between the genres is that Sci fi could happen in our you universe but hasn’t while fantasy hasn’t and can’t.

We want to know how Luke Skywalker performs the force as much as we want to know how an illusion is produced.
Advanced mathematics and scientific theory are both expressions of empiricism. To become invested in a fictional world one usually seeks objective information from the setting. We know that their reality has rules, the information we try to examine is whether their intelligence has grown to the point they can express these rules in math and science/magic. And if they can express their reality in a way similar to our own it makes the immersion process easier.

Eirdyne.9843:

Yes, that’s where I was going! I couldn’t remember enough of my chemistry to set them together. The idea would be that each subjective value, in some super set, is really more accurate than the individualistic qualia and quanta that we prefer to think in for our world. Tyria may have more availability in some aspect of its particle physics than our world.

Example:

for all y, v(y) < d, and
for all y <d, v(x) =0

It’s like water running along the lip of an eavestrough. The water hangs, upside down, but hasn’t yet fallen for a number of reasons.
Similarly, our universe may actually be something like this. The macro structure is really invisible to us because our range of sensory perception is locked into just a few bandwiths by our biology. We’re viewing the universe through the coordination and thus interpretation of trillions of atoms rather than a single lens. That means our interpretations of what that universe is also hinges on this divided interpretation. Continuing, our brain is still another filter system. If female, then colors and body signals are more pronounced. If male, color is reduced, but process and signal filtration is more pronounced.

Perhaps in Tyria the bacteria in the social is more tending toward the production of chemical rings similar to that in Prednisone or there is more DMT present in the plants. Either of these would vastly alter the usual filter system our brains operate under. Also, it may be that Tyrians are experiencing a different state of consciousness than our own simply because everything they are accessing for diet isn’t restricted through processed foods. It’s caught, it’s cooked. There may be a basic idea that dried foods preserve better, but the principles of this haven’t really come up. Combine this with the amount of travel our characters are experiencing it’s a real wonder there hasn’t been a plague yet; especially after Zhaitan showed up. There was mention of Malaria in this coming expansion, so perhaps we’ll see more about the diseases in Tyria now.

Before I wrote this I went all over Tyria looking for something resembling Sacred Geometry. I am happy to say I didn’t find a single piece of it, which suggests Tyria didn’t go there. Further, there is a lot more curved artwork in Tyria than found on Earth. Almost everything on Earth that is art comes out in some form of squared geometry. Whereas in Tyria everything is curved or irregular. That might also allude to the idea that something is slightly different about this world than our own.

In our world it typically requires modern computers to do curved architecture.
Examples:
http://assets.dornob.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/architect-curved-forms.jpg
http://c1038.r38.cf3.rackcdn.com/group5/building45979/media/52641103e8e44ef4c20001d8_rest-hole-in-the-university-of-seoul-utaa_04.jpg

The closest things we see in the ancient world like this are these:
- Sacsayhuam, South America

By contrast there are anomalies:
- Sacsayhuam, regarded more closely
content/uploads/2014/10/4484933008_158bafcd87_z.jpg
- The ruins with the giant head at Arakawabana, Japan
- Pont du gard, France
- Carrieres de Bibemus, France
- Olantaytambo, Peru
- Tiwanaku, Bolivia

Tiwanaku is really interesting as far as Tyria goes since it near identical architecture as that in the Silverwastes. So, Tyrians have, by fortune of living in a less hostile environment, managed to develop themselves more persistently without a lot of interruption until the Dragons emerge. I wrote in a somewhat playful RP letter how the de-evolution of the Ettins may actually the future of all of our current races. It is as though the races that survive the Dragons to any degree are not just passing through a dramatic decline, but are actually altered in some way that permanently shifts them from sentience to something more animalistic.

We know that Gordon Wasson made a pretty good case for all of this in his studies of ethnobotony across the globe. The Siberians traded their herbs with the Tibetans which filtered it down to India and inspiring much of the religions there, while the Indo-European migrations also brought with them those same herbs, eventually to evolve the mystery schools that dominated so much of Greece, Roman, and Egypt.

And this, again, take us back to the Alchemists who used the remnants of these arts to try to contact Elves.

A really good way to understand this, too, is to look into books like The Road to Middle Earth and Defending Middle Earth. Both books clarify what Tolkien was doing that lead to the creation of the Lord of the Rings stories rather than the typical understanding we are told about the books; that he was the father of modern fantasy – alluding the idea he invented something.
Tolkien realized that the Beowolfe, like the Norse Sagas, and Finland’s Kalevala, describe in a story a history of stories. Tolkien realized that the inconsistencies of the Beowolfe epic were actually linguistical inconsistencies. He was able to take these inconsistencies to ground by following the philology (history) of the root words through primary documents back to a clearer basis of the mythologies there present. Thus, the F in Dwarfs has a distinctly different root history than the V in Dwarves. The word Dwarf has French origins of a fairly late data in history, while Dwarves goes all the way back to beyond Indo-European. From this he was also able to separate that Alf and Alv, and finally Alvar are entirely different from dwarve (dwarfs): which is what lead him to catalog Dwarves and Elves as distinctly separate races with distinctly separate motives.

Tyrian magic is probably something like this, where we are at the late period of a slowly being lost kind of magical authority. Tyrians can use it, manipulate it, and make some practical applications from magic, but are actually in the process of losing it altogether. This doesn’t seem to be anything to do with the Elder Dragons, but rather a slow decline in their consciousness as time goes on. It’s almost as though Tyria favors the use of Magic over Technology because Technology imposes neoteny in the development of consciousness which; merely restrictive to the first generation that shifts toward technology, but later begins a process which forces later generations toward an ever amplified divergence from consciousness as the neoteny of that first generation is conserved by habit and confusion.

Trying to parse this again.

Remember that alchemy in game is not like our alchemy in that it doesn’t have to rely on philosophical principles. Also that neoteny is an evolutionary selected for process, it is biological not mimetic. Social darwinism is an example of the perils of applying evolution to sociological.

Are you saying that the development of technology is causing them to develop magic less?

We know that before the stones magic could be used in ways outside their current comprehension. During the bloodstone it was divided into four schools. And after the bloodstones they began mixing disciplines again. Each professions has decided to advance magic as according to these divisions with some overlap. But they aren’t losing magic, they are simply not attempting to reinvent a discipline that existed before their current paradigm. This would only be an issue if the prebloodstone magic that existed without division is somehow superior to the current expression of magic.

We also don’t know if the magical technology in Tyria is interdependent to the advancement of magic.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

See my sig. You don’t find friends with salads, therefor taming salad is impossible (nor would it hold any benefits). Bow to your new overlord: the Bacontamer Ranger

Hmm I was under the interpretation that when people like Caithe go to eat out they prefer salad.

If we don’t know the process of becoming a Lich beyond one. And in that one divine power was used. How can we reasonably assume the other two examples of becoming a Lich were not divine power. Or if even a power source not readily available.

Because if Lich is the pinnacle of necromancers, then Shiro tagachi is among the pinnacle of assassins/maybe thieves.

And the actions of Shiro are every bit as transformative as Joko if we are going to comment on those who reach “apotheosis” not with their own power.

Kasmeer Meade: The legacy of a lunatics.
Marjory Delaqua: Calling her crazy diffuses the blame. This isn’t madness; this is evil. Straight black. Blacker than a moonless night.

The characters of that world dont care and in the end it doesn’t matter . To diagnose her is something exceedingly difficult as she is sylvari. Are the soundless crazy? It is also difficult because you are speaking to the internet, what are the chances you think you will get an accurate diagnosis based on extensive evidence, that also eliminates comorbity (diseases can have similar symptoms using one label to describe two different things is a common error in diagnosing something.

Even with a semi tangible diagnoses it gives very little predictive power. We completely lack the ability of doctors to test their patients in order to determine severity.

Essentially there isn’t enough data to make a statement.

Eirdyne.9843:

The difference between Alchemy and Chemistry is largely that the Alchemists gave consideration to consciousness when attempting their experiments. This is in sharp contrast to our own world where consciousness is to us as the claim that all Galileo saw in his telescope was dust on the lens.

A few fair places to beginning reading about this would be Filtered and Reflections: Perspectives on Reality, a Princeton publication. Brian O’Leary’s The Second Coming of Science is another good source. Frances A. Yates Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, and (ironically) the The Kingkiller Chronicles – as it covers most forms of magic from outside view of it.

A notable difference in the Tyrian world from our own is that they didn’t have to make a major break from their religions to enter the modern age. So, we don’t see any psuedo-sciences that much like Psychology, Behavioral ‘Science’, Sociology, etc trying to be more than a philosophy iterating that people are automatons through jargon babble.
This difference probably evolved because our civilization is based on the Western mode away from religious dogma into proof by experimentation. This effort was driven by the need to seek the idea of divinity that dominated European ideas of the 15th century with a direct access to that divinity through the study of nature itself. Formerly, all access to divinity came through a temple, church, and etc. Ascalon was shaped this way, as well as much of Tyria. Ashford Abby required Monks like Mhenlo to behave as conduits for the divinity. This created the issue of the middle man, the Dark Ages, various forms of tyrannies, the Inquisition, and eventually the split from strict Catholicism into varying religious sects and what would eventually be Alchemy and still later Science.

Alchemy was pretty interesting if you’re reading primary sources. The belief there was that divinity had set about making the universe, but we its progenitors and equal. It celebrated the presence of nature as both a work of divinity and a work of Art. This included the idea that we are ourselves divine and so could shape the world as we so devised because it would inevitably lead to a greater concourse with the divinity. In short, the divinity had made the world, but only began it. It was up to us to finish it. Alchemy collapsed in the late 1500s when it was discovered the Hermetic tradition was not 3000 years old, as had been believed, but rather of late Roman era (though still possibly Egyptian).

At this point the European world was left to decide if it would detract itself back into the model of some Christian dogma or persist on ahead. Newton himself was an alchemist and took the practice quite seriously. Einstein, too, made a lot of use from old Alchemy texts as the trappings of language were less restrictive than modern modalities and so afforded a greater latitude and brevity of inspection than a contemporary dialog might.

Elective Affinities (Die Wahlverwandtschaften) by Johann Goethe is a good (if dry) example of the results. Europe refused to retract its consciousness back into the dogma of religious authority and anyway could not return to it having removed most of the obscurity religion afforded upon the grossly ignorant. The population was too large and traveling too often to hold themselves locked into a view that what terminated at the edge of their farm was ’ god’s country ’ and began the providence of demons and savages: that now had to be demonstrated (joke).

Tyria has avoided most of this by fortune of actually having a few more exotic things than our own world. It’s quite interesting that, if I’m not mistaken, the historian Herodotus actually set out to disprove the existence of Dragons only to return home with claims that had found them.
By contrast our world is mostly undergoing a process of elective extinction. Most of the super fauna are going, wiped out by whatever hit the Earth 12,000 years ago and the changes that brought. Our species has not reached any sort of equilibrium with itself. We have no clue about ourselves and actively attempt to stop any progress toward this despite a wealth of information that has been persistent with us since Eleusis.

Again, by contrast, Tyrians persistently have not suffered on a world of continuous hostility. The races are often challenged by external forces (other races typically), but the planet and its immediate environment itself hasn’t tried to kill them so persistently as Earth has. The Asura have largely stopped internal conflicts and don’t demonstrate any consciousness toward saying “That Asura is from Big Eyes Asura while this is Purple Skin Tribe! Die Big Eyes Asura!” Krytans demonstrate this constantly with the Nobles’ disregards for the Commoners under threat from Centaurs. In short, most of the other races have found a way to withhold themselves from this behavior through isolating it into a kind of eccentricity. For example, the Sons of Svanir of behaving nearly-human as they try to wipe out everyone so as to mimic the behavior of the strongest creature they’ve come across: Jormag. It’s only nearly human though as to be truly human they would have to have arbitrarily determined that everyone else to be an ‘other’ and proceed from there.

“Otherness” doesn’t really show up that much in Tyria today either. In older Tyria we saw that a lot, especially in Nightfall, but we were playing as humans for all of that. Most of the other races were merely trying to survive us in some form.

Civilization necessarily created those structures which eliminated, wherever possible, any cognizance to the idea of ideas having impact on the external world as this could detract from the effort of having

In summary, Tyria really hasn’t gone through the same persistent climate of trauma that Earth puts us through daily. Tyria has been more about trying to reach some sort of equilibrium with the environment than dominance of it. In brevity, Tyria is a world that favors cooperative-consciousness whereas Earth is largely a world favoring a dominator-consciousness. It doesn’t necessarily come out that one is more or less utopian than the other; just radically different in very subtle ways.

Science, therefore, didn’t really need to “take place” on Tyria. I posted a bit on why I think this last night. Essentially Tyrians didn’t have Descartes and John Locke, so they never were forced into the slump we’re climbing out of with regards to our own interpretations and use of consciousness.

Are you saying that Tyrians have access to the noumenon? I fail to see how a culture with objective proof for prayer and alchemy would not use empiricism. But is agree that they probably less separation of religion and science.

Dadnir.5038:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Dadnir.5038:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Tanking on one boss is by highest toughness so ele can’t pull that off. I’ll have to review the raid footage again, but I think the boss moves too much for staff or dagger to be useful, especially if they up the difficulty.

You know that toughness mostly come from gear and trait. Naked (or even in full armor), all profession have the same toughness. Beside, if you look closely at the video made, you’ll see that the tank only nee to move when he got the teleport things under it’s feet. And he don’t need to move much. Overall, you can put your lava font to cover the movement of the kited boss.

You are correct, I was conflating armor and toughness.

What build would you personally fun for a raid?

I’ll probably test a S/D fresh air build on the raid when HoT will go live. (well that’s at least the choice I come up with for the boss we could try in the BWE3). I’m not sure I’ll use tempest in this encounter thought. I’ll probably play something that look like this :

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYnMICdOglNA2NA8RghGAjyBFhBpEIDAfwKLcDTkA-TBBXgAA7PK/C1D0r+zjSQA-e

Note that some of the utilities skill are just place holder.

I accidentally wrote fun instead of run on my phone. I’ll look over the build after class but I just want to check this was your serious and not for fun build.

Eirdyne.9843:

Hmm. I hadn’t thought of it that way. You’re probably right in practice just because qualia leads to precise discussion. I was attempting to distinctly evade coming to precision in my use of metaphysics to leave room for the possibility that Tyrians just aren’t interested in a micro-cosmic view of the universe that slowly builds into a grand unified theory. This bends toward the idea that, sort of like Sulfur, there are states were it is solid and states were is liquid; but this can happen at higher temperature rather than just low and high. There’s a lot plasticity in consciousness, most of which never gets expressed because of the environment.
Again, this doesn’t retract anything of what you’re saying. Perhaps what happens with combo fields is that since those using these things are aware of the qualia of ‘blast’, ‘smoke’, and ‘shoot’ these are like primary attributes: they are like the carrier signal and emergent expression from that source _macro_qualia (the class type and awareness of the entity being that classes to these properties) whereas the “blindness, darkness, field, and steals” could all be related to only what’s possible through physics. “Health” getting affected probably being more complicated.

This doesn’t entirely answer the question, but it sort of alludes to the way in which I’m thinking through this at the moment. I think the idea I’m working toward is that quantitative values wouldn’t have a real hierarchy in Tyria. 1 isn’t really less than 8. Rather, 8 could be less than 1 because 1 is more complete unit of information, while 8 is not. 8, however, demonstrates something being extracted from some more continuous field – ala magic – than 1, which is still a closed (or complete) packet of information.

So, when a person produces the effect of a combo field they are producing something like an 8 variable extraction from this higher continuous reality (the Mists? similar to the Fade in Dragon Age?) whereas in when the effect produces something like a fire wall, and that only, then they’ve used just a 1 packet expression of that higher field.

I was thinking that if the electron is an energy well, then perhaps the near-presence of another mass-body has the capacity to recreate a sympathetic resonance. Once having reached a near

Quantitative values are not hierarchical by definition as hierarchy is a subjective measurement.

The song “one is the loneliest number” is a good example of how how quantitative values can be viewed subjectively.

For 8 to be less than 1 you would have to move into subjective interpretion, beyond base ten, or both.

However your comments have made me think it’s possible that by the synergetic properties of tyria not all quantities that are subjectively better are hierarchically better when viewed at a macro level.

If magic behaves like chemistry then the change between 1 and 8 could be similar to the observable change in atoms that happens between 1 and 8 neutrons being added.

It is then possible that a combo is as simple as creating isotopes that for whatever reason produce might or blindness. But even with that the subjective hierarchy that people apply to quantitative valued (why have billions when you can have millions) would still exist.

Dadnir.5038:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Tanking on one boss is by highest toughness so ele can’t pull that off. I’ll have to review the raid footage again, but I think the boss moves too much for staff or dagger to be useful, especially if they up the difficulty.

You know that toughness mostly come from gear and trait. Naked (or even in full armor), all profession have the same toughness. Beside, if you look closely at the video made, you’ll see that the tank only nee to move when he got the teleport things under it’s feet. And he don’t need to move much. Overall, you can put your lava font to cover the movement of the kited boss.

You are correct, I was conflating armor and toughness.

What build would you personally run for a raid?

I think you are confusing the concept of qualia with that of assumption. Anything that was a subjective quality, still remains a subjective quality as long as there is a definitive threshold in tyria to apply it as based on general anatomy. It would be just as easy to say that magic which is connected to the mind has the ability to bypass qualia and influence the mind.

From what we have seen elementalists cannot create something that is a homogeneous mixture of water and fire, but if they could would this represent a divergence in the limit of human comprehension, or speak to the differences in which physics operated in their world?

A puzzle for you. Why does blasting a smoke field give aoe stealth but shooting through it gives blindness, while blasting a dark field gives blindness while shooting through it steals health?

Sidenti.6035:

Rangers can tame bacon. No other profession can do this.

Therefore, logically, rangers > all other classes.

I’m vegetarian and we have seen that mesmers like Countess Anise can tame salad. I dispute your findings >.<

Burtnik.5218:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I don’t think Jalis is meant for brawling, that would be Glint.

When a revenant calls on the power of Jalis, they’ll be transforming into what Cronacher calls a “dwarf brawler kind of playstyle.” They’ll be a tank in the massively multiplayer sense of being able to take a lot of damage, but they’ll also be incredibly aggressive.

http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/2/18/8061219/guild-wars-2-profession-reveal-revenant-pc-mmo-arenanet

It was stated in every article that Jalis would be a brawler. Right now its far from reality as Glint tanks much better while being also aggresive. Inst something wrong here?

Sorry I confused brawler and bruiser for a second. Bruiser, brawler, bunker.

Bruiser: damage primary, tanking secondary
Brawler: tanking primary, damage secondary
Bunker: tanking primary, support secondary

The same people who said jalis is a brawler also said that reaper and berserker spec are also brawlers. And none of those two specs have the condition removal capacity of a bunker.

Dadnir.5038:

The actual elementalist is not meta for show. There are plenty of tools that make it meta beside it’s DPS. Conjure, ability to blast, usefull combo field, boon provider, mobility… etc. And Tempest only add more to these. What we could see in the raid sample was primarily that healing is secondary and tanking marginal.

There is a lot of elementalist’s build possibilities for raids :
- The classic staff build which will be as effective as it is right now if you got a good agro manager (tank).
- Probably a staff healer with a build mostly focused on healing but in DPS gear.
- A Dagger melee bruiser that could even tank since the boss damage are negligible. Be it tempest or pure elementalist there is plenty of possibilities.
- A mobile scepter damager can be done as well.

Note that for both dagger and scepter there is a still a lot of potential for sustain damage with fresh air. I know that it’s seen as a burst tool for PvP, but it’s also a really good sustain damage tool in PvE. With a pur elementalist, you’ll make full use of your attunment rotation while with a tempest, you’ll take advantage of the air overload shortened cool down.

Tanking on one boss is by highest toughness so ele can’t pull that off. I’ll have to review the raid footage again, but I think the boss moves too much for staff or dagger to be useful, especially if they up the difficulty.

Xyonon.3987:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Xyonon.3987:

I find this one very satisfying:

:)

What do you think the outline will be when you don’t have Chronomancer spec selected?

Also your eyes betrayed you. Look again, the mid dot is centered along the horizontal line drawn from the left edge of f1 to the right edge of f5.

My eyes didn’t betray me… – it’s a suggestion that won’t cause eye cancer when traited or not traited in chronomancer.

Ahh. But your suggestion didn’t line up with the blue squares at all. Better to shift the alignment of the shatter skills rather than the alignment of the dots, when traited or untraited.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Nokaru.7831:

Josh Davis.6015:

As a note (and to address concerns), we won’t be adding dire stats or perplexity runes to sPvP. We’re vetting and discussing each and every rune/sigil/stat combo as a group before adding them in, with the main goal being improving build diversity.

Is the Dire stat combination not being added because the balance team is afraid it is too powerful? In my opinion, this is a rather “weak” answer to the problem that this stat combination represents, since it is an issue in World vs. World PvP balance.

A stat that does particularly well at roaming has no place in PvP . The reason behind it not being as much an issue in wvw is that you aren’t limited to 5 people. There is also food in wvw to combat the problem.

The food to “counteract the problem” only negates bonuses that aren’t present in PvP, namely other food. It doesn’t actually change how Dire would operate in PvP, since it would effectively be the same in WvW.

So, if it’s not much of a problem in WvW due to food, and that food effectively isn’t actually doing anything, that seems like it would translate to not being much of a problem in PvP.

I knew you would say that.

You have to remember that if condis are a problem to the point they require duration reducing food, then any condi build will require duration increasing food to avoid a deficit. However as a side effect of using a condi duration increase they become 40% more vulnerable to conditions because you can’t take both foods.

Ehecatl.9172:

Daniel Handler.4816:

How do you make the difference between ability and perseverance?

A man who graduates college at 18 is not the same as one who takes 30 years to graduate.

By what probability range should we restrain potential?

I don’t understand what you’re asking. It took Joko 60 years to amass the forces needed to take Elona, and that was after having failed a previous time and learning from his mistakes.

I’m saying an elementalist who also has 60 years of time to prepare and similar environmental advantages could conceivably do the same.

Sorry let me clarify. A task that takes a person 60 years is only as impressive as the method to achieve it.

If it takes me 60 years to tie my shoe, it would not be lauded as a sign of human potential, some can tie theirs in 1/2 of a second.

Events that are impressive are usually impressive because they are statistically improbable to occur for whatever reason. And the more statistically improbable the less likely they should be used in ranking, for extremely amazing things don’t happen enough to draw data from them.

In the 60 years we assign to ele or necromancer the other classes could probably achieve something as remarkable.

So how are you deciding whether something like Lichs or the elemental army is just simple perseverance or examples of outstanding ability?

Or even neither, one dude read from a scroll and became a Lich, intervention doesn’t exactly show potential, e.g Shiro got strong not under his merits as an assasin.

Nokaru.7831:

Josh Davis.6015:

As a note (and to address concerns), we won’t be adding dire stats or perplexity runes to sPvP. We’re vetting and discussing each and every rune/sigil/stat combo as a group before adding them in, with the main goal being improving build diversity.

Is the Dire stat combination not being added because the balance team is afraid it is too powerful? In my opinion, this is a rather “weak” answer to the problem that this stat combination represents, since it is an issue in World vs. World PvP balance.

A stat that does particularly well at roaming has no place in PvP . The reason behind it not being as much an issue in wvw is that you aren’t limited to 5 people. There is also food in wvw to combat the problem.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Xyonon.3987:

I find this one very satisfying:

:)

Bah, replace the whole lot with this and we’re much closer to perfection.

I’m just thinking of a day when we get rifle and you pee yourself.

Hooglese.4860:

I really like Jalis, in concept. There’s a lot of issues, very valid ones you guys brought up. Like Rite of the Great Dwarf isnt good enough for 50 energy and a 1.5s CD. It also should not be the stun breaker because that means your energy is soft capped at 50 and there’s no guarantee it will cast, especially if your using it as a stun break. If your going to try a brawler play style your going to need to have a readily accessible stunbreak.

I like the hammers but they need more love. -20% damage over all is sweet but I don’t notice it. The heal is negligible as well.

The heal is also the worst of all. For the tank class it needs to be better. The cast needs to be lower or the heal needs to be stronger, either more hp or more condition removal.

Over all Jalis sucks at condition removal/mitigation, which throws the defence theme out the window. All current bunker builds can manage conditions really well, but revenant can’t outside Mallyx and Glint can manage defence better so why would I ever use Jalis?

Each stance is a role. Jalis role is tanking. There are two types of tanking in this game. Low health high healing and high heath high damage reduction. Technically three if you count necros extremely high health low damage reduction. Jalis is the second.

It had twice as much damage mitigation and twice as less healing and cleanse as a bunker guard. If you want healing and cleanse go ventari. Condi mitigation is health or resistance, both jalis will not give you.

With upcoming changes you will be able to get at 60% condi and 80% physical damage reduction up 50% of the time. The only thing that would bother you is burn and soothing stone deals with that.

I don’t think Jalis is meant for brawling, that would be Glint.

Pompeia.5483:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Yes it. Mace 2 and glints breath give you enough burning to make a noticeable difference.

I manned a sinister mace shield staff build in the melee train and I was tanky as kittening and did a kitten ton of condi damage .

As for pve I believe Roy said he was working on a trait that made torment do the same amount stationary as it did moving.

Yeah, with that trait fix (Hopefully replacing the now pointless Pulsing Pestilence) we should be golden for condi builds. I for one am pure Sinister anyhow… armor, weapons, and trinkets (as much as we can with those ascended ones).

I can see the tears now. It will be as strong a condi mesmer for the same reasons that build is. Still weaker than a burn guard though.

Xyonon.3987:

I find this one very satisfying:

:)

What do you think the outline will be when you don’t have Chronomancer spec selected?

Also your eyes betrayed you. Look again, the mid dot is centered along the horizontal line drawn from the left edge of f1 to the right edge of f5.

Ehecatl.9172:

draxynnic.3719:

@Ehecatl: Yes, it’s entirely possible that an ascended Baelfire would be an elementalist equivalent of Joko. What we saw was certainly impressive… but still (at that point) restricted to the local area. It’s possible that if Baelfire hadn’t been stopped then, though, he might well have had the ability to conjure an army of elementals, invoke Searing-level effects at will, and generally behave like an angry god of flame.

Still, from what we’ve seen, elementalists aren’t capable of raising elemental armies at the level that necromancers (or at least liches) are capable of raising undead armies, though, so when push comes to shove, I’d be inclined to go with what’s been observed rather than hypotheticals. It’s entirely possible that the other professions are capable of reaching the same level in their own way, but at the moment, I think Joko is the one that’s got the furthest based on his own power derived from being a necromancer.

It’s also worth mentioning that Joko failed on his first attempt at conquest. He only succeeded the second time by damming up a river and letting the natural climate of Elona do most of his work for him. He also had a base of operations in an area his enemies couldn’t easily invade because of how dangerous the Desolation was to non-undead.

If he had attempted the same in say, Kryta, he would have failed miserably. It wasn’t just his own power, it was a combination of his power, his experiences from his last defeat, his army’s unique ability to thrive in an inhospitable area (which is more the nature of undeath than a matter of power), access to a vital river, and the land weakening and killing most of his opposition. And of course it took him 60 years to build up his forces to the point he could do this.

I’m not saying it wasn’t impressive because it certainly was, but it wasn’t purely the power of his necromancy.

As for elemental armies, we actually see a decent amount of that. The Flame Legion can summon and bind flame elementals to their control that are persistent in the world. They also create flame effigies which are giant, walking engines of destruction. Coupled with Isgarren’s elemental army in Garenhoff it seems pretty reasonable that an elementalist can make an army of elementals given enough time that won’t dissipate after a set time limit.

In the case of Isgarren I believe it was said that the elementals were at one point wild, and he merely bound them to his control. Even then it seems probable than an elementalist with access to a lot of wild elementals, which aren’t that uncommon in the game at least, and a time comparable to 60 years could be a similarly dangerous threat under the same environmental circumstances.

How do you make the difference between ability and perseverance?

A man who graduates college at 18 is not the same as one who takes 30 years to graduate.

By what probability range should we restrain potential?

Daharahj.1325:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Nox Lucis.8341:

spartan.9421:

If you want a game like that i suggest trying a game called “real life”.

Well played spartan. Well played.

Or you know you could play https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_World
Unfortunately gw2 is rated t.

@spartan the game is not for all ages. It is rated t for teens. The same teens who read books like the hunger games. Grow up.

Also let’s not forget that people of all ages and religions play this game killing a zombie or a peaceful chicken or a bandit is far more acceptable among people than suicide is.

That comment in itself is troubling, but not as much as you taking my suggestion to the extreme there should be mass suicides.

It is far more acceptable, whether you like it or not, and actually not troubling at all, you can’t compare having a close one end their life because of his/her own misery to killing a chicken or a random bandit. Besides like many others said, it doesn’t really add anything meaningful to the story.

People relate much more frequently to the former, others would take it downright offensive, and they’re not gonna risk meddling with traumatic events just so that Daniel Handler can have his realism.

So someone close to you dying is less traumatic than someone random dying?

I’ve had a clasmate who was murdered, and a classmate who committed suicide. They were equally traumatic for the families.

Marjory’s elder sister is killed, please don’t tell me she is somehow less traumatized than if a random stranger killed himself. See how the argument doesn’t work? Sudden death is traumatic regardless of circumstance when it happens to those close to us.

Kasmeer’s father is murdered in prison, he could easily have killed himself in prison, both are equally horrific yet the later is more common to people who are sent to a harsh prison for a crime they didn’t commit. So why didn’t he? Well for one debtor’s prison isn’t a life sentence, we know he loved his children, it wouldn’t make sense for him to do it.

Yet in the history of the guild wars franchise we only learn of malchor doing it. As people pointed out we see Eir come close but then she overcomes it. But suicide and murder aren’t tied to DNA they are tied to human behavior. Suicide is a behavior which can be a symptom of many things, as is homicide, as is any emotion.

So if we apply the same critical eye to the series as we do to kasmeer’s father we have to ask a few questions?

• Why is only murder used to advance the plot?
• Of the countless interactions we have over the personal story and living story why do we constantly see people who are not more combative to their method of death?
• For instance why does the vain Vevina have no response to Fyonna telling her she will be eaten alive by spiders?

I don’t want to make this post longer than it needs to be but if you want more examples I can provide them. But please realize that what I am trying to emphasize is that gw2 has become about as emotionally moving as Scooby-Doo, the lack of suicide is just part of some really bad aspects of the ambient world.

Also this is my opinion, if you think gw2 is dark enough for your tastes that is fine.

Water, more heals and boon duration. With nature magic you have a 40% base duration and even if no NM you want to keep your regeneration uptime going.

Plus the sixth bonus gives you a heal bump for when you cannot access celestial avatar. Celestial avatar form is the only place the heal modifiers matter, you aren’t going to be healing for 15k outside of the form, so you would want that 1.5k additional heal for the clutch times you need to burst heal and are locked out of the form .

Yes it. Mace 2 and glints breath give you enough burning to make a noticeable difference.

I manned a sinister mace shield staff build in the melee train and I was tanky as kittening and did a kitten ton of condi damage .

As for pve I believe Roy said he was working on a trait that made torment do the same amount stationary as it did moving.

StickerHappy.8052:

Is this thread still going on? Oh my Lyssa…

It really is. Perhaps if we shift the topic it will lock faster.

Hey pyro what is your favorite siege weapon in the game, I like the arrow cart.

Staff and daggers dont work because they restrict moment.

You have to be in melee or the enemy has to stand still on your field or you stop moving to cast or you are moved out of alignment or allies have to stand still on your field.

I know you guys hate scepter and hate warhorn, but can we actually theorycraft together a useful build? For what will probably be the sc/w raid meta?

Zenith.7301:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Khalic.3561:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Gokil.2543:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Xillllix.3485:

Would be nice if Warhorn had a RTL equivalent on air skill 4, like if you teleported into the cyclone.

THe ball from the ball lightning (warhorn air 5) should chain into a skill that lets you teleport to it. It does pitiful damage anyway might as well give it some mobility.

This is a super cool idea!

Pitiful damage? You realise that it hits 12 times against single targets? What are you even taking about?

When did you get 12 hits on a target out of that thing? Every enemy easily sidesteps it or the orb itself moves out of range of them after like… 3-4 shots.

Use it with cyclone and use it from 600 range. The orb moves about 300 range per 1.25 seconds. Firing at one projectile per 1/4 of a second you will always get 12 bolts if you keep them lock down. 1 on entering the 300 range, 5 as it moves between 300 and the target, 5 more as it moves between the target and the 300 range away, and 1 as it moves out of range.

If a character is running away on a straight line and you use it from melee range as they begin to flee they will either have to change trajectory (which brings you closer to them) or they have the potential of being hit 20 times.

In PvP when people are in capture points if they don’t leave the point or dodge (which only evades 3 projectiles) they will be hit for the full twelve.

Yeah, this won’t happen in PvE because if you are at 600 range:

1) You only do it when opening up an encounter
2) You won’t do it again because at 600 range you can’t hit with lightning whip, your main source of sustained DPS in PvE on a dagger build.

Virtually most of warhorn skills are eclipsed by what the focus has to offer defensively or the dagger offensively.

It’s this weird mediocre medium spot with gimmicky traveling/cascading abilities that don’t mesh with a melee spec or less mobile targets such as those in PvE. It really excels at nothing and worst of all is a hybrid weapon since it has burning on fire, power damage on air, and the rest are CC skills that don’t even do much against mobs with a breakbar and come on a huge cd.

At this point I don’t ever see the appeal of taking warhorn over focus on a dagger build for PvE team support. The dagger/focus provides 3 projectile defenses (swirling wind, magnetic aura, ring of earth), damage immunity, condition cleanse, aoe daze+blast finisher, ranged knockdown+long chill, fire attunement focus being the weakest but having the plus of being low cd high duration fire fields compared to warhorn.

And if they ever make offhand dagger churning earth behave like dragon tooth so its usable in PvE, offhand dagger will be the offensive option of choice.

What is warhorn for other than a signet of inspiration on a longer cooldown, no mobility, weaker defensives, weaker CC, and weaker damage.

Clearly it finds more use with scepter than with dagger mainhand. As for offhands dagger and focus both behave terribly with enemies that can move. The speciality of tempest is mobile aoe. Yes it needs to be fleshed out, but if fixed it would be objectively better for raids as elementalist tendency is go full damage in PvE.

Ele made itself meta in all three modes because stacking was meta. If there were no capture points, if enemies in PvE moved frequently would ele still be meta?

Ele is not meta in raids and will never be unless the class can work with a build that doesn’t have you stay still all the time, doesn’t force you into melee range.

Xaylin.1860:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Xaylin.1860:

Fay.2357:

Nascull.5842:

…

By reading this post, I have been shuttled along a fast track to enlightenment. Truly, I have now seen the light.

Sure it wasn’t just a seizure?

Commenting on his spelling is poor taste if you …

Maaaaybeeee just read more carefully and re-check who I’m talking to or about. I’m rather surprised that anyone would take my post as making fun of anyone rather than teasing Pyro.

Consider the implication of asking someone if their enlightenment during reading a post was actually because they had a seizure while and/or a result of reading the post. There is no good way to comment on Pyro’s statement without indirectly commenting on who he was replying to.