Guild Wars 2

K comments.

They mention ferocity and a % increased in damage probably because the trait gives you enough ferocity for a 4% increase in crit damage. So each stack gives you 60 ferocity. Which also means it gives your phantasms 60 ferocity. This is a buff over the old trait.

Second lets take a look at what spamming mantra of pain produces.
qs stands for a quickened second.

0s,1 stack,
1s, 2stacks,
2s, 3stacks,
3s, 3 stacks, cooldown

5.75s, 4stacks, or 4.375qs, 4stacks
6.75s, 5stacks, or 5.375s, 5 stacks
7.75s, 5stacks, or 6.375s, 5 stacks
8.75s, 4 stacks, or 7.375s, 5 stacks, cooldown

11.5s, 3stacks, or 8.75qs, 5 stacks
12.5s, 4 stacks, or 9.75s, 5 stacks
13.5s, 5 stacks, or 10.75s 5 stacks
14.5s 4 stacks, or 11.75s, 5 stacks, cooldown

17.25s, 3stacks, or 13.125qs, 5 stacks
18.25s, 4 stacks, or 14.125s, 5 stacks
19.25, 5 stacks, or 15.125, 5 stacks
20.25, 4stacks, or 16.125, 5 stacks cooldown

You have three second cast windows for whatever stuff you want to do. And with quickness you can easily maintain a perma 20% boost to your crit damage. Which means a 20% boost to your phantasms crit damage as well.

Really don’t want to do the math for what this looks like under alacrity.

Regardless, unless my math is wrong, this looks like a pretty good trait.

Tuebor.3864:

What about axe? Either offhand or mainhand…

Everyone forgot that axe existed.

Bhawb.7408:

SoU + VP still has you losing 4% LF every 3 seconds. And still, never leaving DS isn’t exactly meaningful, the only build that would want to do that is glass zerker necro, which wouldn’t want to take SoU, and would be easy to burst out.

Your correct. I don’t use it enough I forgot about the 3 second wait >.<

Then I guess the only negative is you could be in DS so long you forget what weapon you have equipped.

Softspoken.2410:

I wondered if necros would react to the heal per condition cleanse. It’s similar to Consume Conditions, but there’s enough gameplay differences that they don’t compare 1:1.

spoj.9672:

Yeah except ventari legend forces you into a full set of other skills you probably dont want. Honestly now that we have seen more and more rev. Im not really considering the class anything special. Its got a lot of cool stuff and some nice utility. But it seems like its going to be a weak jack of all trades class. Kind of like engi/ele but with a wider range of options and more durable/defensive feel closer to guardian.

Honestly it looks like Revenant will be Jack of Exactly Two Trades. Each legend has a very narrow & deep focus, and they can only choose two.

Its like Ele and Engie had a baby that combined the jack of all trades that was Ele, with the possible limitations of Engie’s toolbox profession.

Edit: however they did mention that the next Legend pairs extremely well with Ventari.

Jermoe Morrow.9501:

Mawdry started as a mordy seed, and the player is able to “Tame” it to the point it appears to actually love you…and this is while you are actively battling mordy minions.

I imagine ranger pet fern hounds will be kept in line by the force of will/love of their master as well. It doesn’t seem far fetched to suggest then that npc fern hounds well be protected by a similar situation assuming the owner themselves doesn’t succumb.

One final thing worth noting is that even when sprayed from kind Sylvari, still takes a good amount of time and beatings for the nightmare court to turn a hound, and that one heart in caeldon forest where you infiltrate the nightmare court camp implies that playing once with an unturned fern hound is enough to undo/protect against the work of corruption.

We didn’t tame it. We selectively bred it over 3 generations. With a huge amount of alchemical gear.

I will again tell you that this is not a completed story. The second they made Nightfall, and you played it, it became canon. Not all things in Magic The Gathering have stayed as they are. Some things have been retconned.

We better tell people that the new Klingon look is not because of a canon lore shift but because of a change in the writers. All the cosplayers have it so wrong heaven help us all.

Very very confused by comments saying that phantasms are not affected.

Obsidian.1328:

Daniel Handler.4816:

but unless you can prove ANET lost all of its writers between Gw1 and Gw2, your appeal to original authorship doesn’t work.

Not all, but one…who happened to solo write Proph, and wrote Factions as well but had some help with that one. He left after that.

Yeah I am gonna need a name.

“I spoke to a guy at ANET who said you were wrong. But I am not going to show any official crediting to prove who this guy was, or what his position at ANET was.”

…

The Signet of Undeath + Vital Persistence would mean you no longer lost any life force over time. Coupled with other utilities and traits you would never have to leave death shroud in a 1v1.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

When Anet made Prophecies, they had the full intent to create subsequent campaigns every 6 months. This didn’t pan out, as Factions took a year to make, but they had the full intention of making more stories.

Furthermore, they intended to tell stories in 3-piece arcs. So when they made Prophecies, they intended to close it with Nightfall. The question was the form it would take and the story. When writing Prophecies, they only created threads – like the Ghostly Hero (aka Turai Ossa) having a one sentence passing on defeating Palawa Joko. Such threads existed for both lore on Cantha and Elona, but they were minimal – there only to present a “hey, yeah, there’s more out there”. When Nightfall was written, Anet even seeded in hints to Utopia – though since Utopia got scrapped, we can’t really be certain what said hints were.

The belief that “Prophecies was written as a completed story” is false.

Thank you. I compare this game more to soap opera television than novels. Yes it’s unfortunate that one writer killed off Banjo Joe. And another writer resurrected Banjo Joe by claiming he faked his death. But as long as the television show is ongoing we will treat Banjo Joe as if he is alive. It sucks, but unless you can prove ANET lost all of its writers between Gw1 and Gw2, your appeal to original authorship doesn’t work.

Obsidian.1328:

Daniel Handler.4816:

You must understand the difference between lore in a finished story like Lord of the Rings, and lore in an evolving story like Magic the Gathering. The story is not completed yet. Who are we to argue with later chapters?

The problem with that is that Proph was written as a completed story, they had no idea if it would be successful enough to make another campaign. It was conceived, written, and presented as a complete whole. That they added on to it later is irrelevant for your point.

Who is they? You keep mentioning authors who apparently wrote all of gw lore with no collaborative oversight from superiors. Newspapers can post redactions. And Lucas when he wrote Star Wars 4-6 had no idea 1-3 were a thing. The movies even say Padme died in childbirth which we now know was a lie. It’s like saying that the last season of a television show is a lie because a lot of the writers had changed by then. Feel free to rewrite the ending to How I Met Your Mother or Scrubs as you see fit.

Please show me your reasoning that the story was finished and identity the sole creators.

Ritt.3069:

Phantom Master.9582:

Donut.6914:

snip

Being honest here… you sound like a pretty mean dude. What’s the point of this post?

Just let it go man. Personal merits and skill aside, this guy is obviously a super strong contender and the rest of us bads just don’t compare.

With a name like Donut, you know he is the voice of reason.

Their trait improvisation was altered though. So now they can use stolen items twice. So two ectos in a row.

Can you explain how your condi phantasm one works? I think you used the wrong traits? Recheck the link you gave, I don’t think it is the one you intended to use.

edit: you gave the link for your double ranged shatter build three times.

ASP.8093:

It’s a mistake to think pulling more and more formalism out of thin air is actually going to bring clarity to this discussion.

This is true. Too much of the discussion is based in emotion. There is no formal structure for expressing anger or annoyance. It was my hope we could reduce the amount of people feeling misunderstood but whatever. People will feel there point was misunderstood regardless of what syntax they use.

The CD of Moa and Lich are equal. The skills should then technically be equal in strength. Is there anything about them that is unequal to you TyPin?

Lurinna.4306:

Daniel Handler.4816:

But Gw1 and 2 and not novels. They are lore written by staff for Arena Net. This isn’t a book. And despite the eekiness of the metaphor, if God appeared before us all and said the new testament was the way to go, then that would be the way to go. No single author has control over any of the works. Nor did any single author write any single work without ANETs approval and probably editing.

These are video games. It would be like saying that Portal 2 is a dream because we don’t see Chell being readmitted to the facility until they added new footage later. Nooooooo. Valve owns Chell . You cannot use lore from a later game, and then argue it is incorrect because of lore in a previous game. Jigglypuff is now a Fairy Type, any Pokemon discussion we have now will not use data that refers to Jigglypuff as a Normal type.

I don’t really agree with the notion that simply because someone holds the rights to a property that they have absolute retroactive control over it, especially if they’re not the ones who actually produced the original work to begin with.

And writing is writing, however it’s dressed up. Obviously I can’t pick and choose bits of GW2 and say they’re incorrect (I mean, I could, since all of this is a bunch of made up fluff to begin with, but it wouldn’t be very useful) since it’s all one cohesive work. But if someone wants to reject the entire of GW2 as a legitimate continuation of GW1, that’s entirely their right as a reader.

I have no issue with that point at all. The problem I had with the argument was the person rejecting ANET’s revision because the idea that the entirety of the events of Gw1 were written from human perspective, didn’t fit with them.

Pyro.4765:

Daniel Handler.4816:

I don’t see any part of centaur history that points to villainism.

I doubt you would, because they’re standing on much firmer moral ground than the Charr were (the centaur keep slaves, the Charr ate slaves). However, in the game we’re trying to thwart the evil centaur hordes and lead to believe they’re savage monsters while the Charr are the good guys. It’s a massive inconsistency, but ultimately the story of this game isn’t about consistency. Like Tachenon aptly said, the lore is just a big collage of wouldn’t it be cool if…

Very true. However only the humans are led to believe that. Not the other races. It still remains that most of the lore was written in the perspective of humans. I think this racial war debate is too messed up to process. The basic facts are all there, but the he said she said has been lost in history. A thousand arguments could be written on the very little slim of lore ANET has graced us with.

What parts of the lore annoy me?

There isn’t enough of it.

And I understand the concept of not letting a wrong ripen into evil or sorrow, but there should be some in game Asura-Sylvari dialogue. Torturing a firstborn does not get unnoticed in a culture with a semi collective consciousnesses.

Aenesthesia.1697:

A specific skill cannot be considered a hard counter. A whole proffesion is.

I think we dont hard counter anything, though we give thieves and mesmers a run for their money. Our ability to hit multiple targets at once, hit stealth targets, and endure quite a kot of damage means they should die to our aoe alone. Of course they can disengage, and come back to kill us with our main tricks on cd.

This is true. Although one could argue that Black Powder is a hard counter to melee. We also have things that pulse blind. And we have marks that announce the presence of stealthed targets.

I think I am looking for things that make you immune to damage of a certain type for a duration.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

@Pyro
I hope I speak for everyone when I tell you Pyro you need to stop using colloquial phrases. Not everyone here is a native English speaker.

That’s ok, I’m not honestly going to get tied up about 100% clarity for everyone reading everything I post here.

Daniel Handler.4816:

It also includes cliche’s into the writing.

…what?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Second, you not explaining yourself or correcting me was to the detriment of the entire conversation.

Eh, I let it stand because your interpretation at that point was essentially the same as what I meant. It was only at this later point that the interpretation started to lose the original meaning.

Daniel Handler.4816:

In what body of science do they allow colloquial slang to permeate their writing.

Last time I checked, and correct me if I’m wrong, I was writing replies on an online informal forum about a video game. If I were writing an article for a peer reviewed journal, a formal mission statement, a proposal for funding, a results and analysis document of a test, or any other sort of official document, you can safely bet that I would be demonstrating a substantially different writing style.

None of those apply here. Trying to state that my writing style is inappropriate for a video game forum because it wouldn’t be appropriate for an official document is equal parts absurd, amusing, and foolish.

Trying to state that using colloquial slang makes your writing unclear in parts. For Native and Non-Native English speakers.

“Why is he talking about damage control, that refers to public image?”

“IDK Bob he is saying ‘damage’ and that only means one thing in the context of Gw2.”

And if you aren’t going to get tied up on clarity then why even write things? Especially given how often you have responded negatively to unclear comments.

Lurinna.4306:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Its the entire thing behind Christianity. ANET is God, and though s/he inspired people to write stuff earlier, the people s/he inspired later to write stuff trump the earlier material. Its the same Universe, anything in the New Testament is suppose to trump the Old Testament. Anything in Gw2 trumps on the truth scale anything in Gw1.

This… Seems like kind of a weird example to use, since there is an entire world-spanning religion based on explicitly rejecting the canonicity of the New Testament.

Daniel Handler.4816:

To treat works like Christianity or ANET lore like simple imaginations of authors rips the fantasy from everything.

I can’t agree with this. Despite being part of a larger piece of entertainment, the story of Guild Wars is just that – A story. No story transcends authorship. They are born and die in the minds of the writer and the reader.

Two authors can certainly create works based on the same ideas (Though the only real difference as to if this is “legitimate” or fanfiction are based on fairly arbitrary ideas of copyright and abstract ownership that have only really come into existance in the last 200 years with the advent of corporatism) but that doesn’t make them the same. For instance, there are many people who do not accept the Wheel of Time novels that were written after Robert Jordans death as a legitimate continuation of the story, and it’s perfectly fair for them to do so, since many of the ideas that would comprise the original conclusion are lost forever.

Guild Wars 1 and 2 are largely different works, created by different people. Choosing if you enjoy/accept both, just one, or even neither is entirely up to the reader.

But Gw1 and 2 and not novels. They are lore written by staff for Arena Net. This isn’t a book. And despite the eekiness of the metaphor, if God appeared before us all and said the new testament was the way to go, then that would be the way to go. No single author has control over any of the works. Nor did any single author write any single work without ANETs approval and probably editing.

These are video games. It would be like saying that Portal 2 is a dream because we don’t see Chell being readmitted to the facility until they added new footage later. Nooooooo. Valve owns Chell . You cannot use lore from a later game, and then argue it is incorrect because of lore in a previous game. Jigglypuff is now a Fairy Type, any Pokemon discussion we have now will not use data that refers to Jigglypuff as a Normal type.

Pyro.4765:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Metaphors aside. There are no moral high grounds. But I see zero instances where the humans behaved with any less “barbarism” than the Charr.

Maybe when they were just defending the land that they were born on, their fathers were born on, their grandfathers, their great-grandfathers etc. from an enemy with 0 interest in diplomacy?

You’re talking like the humans of the Ascalon that got Seared inherited the sins of long dead men from almost a millennium previous.

Anyways, this entire argument is kind of silly. The centaur use human aggression from hundreds of years ago to justify their war for territory and are pure black villains, the Charr used human aggression from almost a thousand years ago to justify their scorched-earth use of weapons of mass destruction and are heroic. Guild Wars lore simply is not a consistent thing, and in hindsight it doesn’t make a lot of sense to care about it that much.

I don’t see any part of centaur history that points to villainism.

In the past, the centaurs were spread throughout the world. They were first displaced by humans in around 300 AE when the human kingdom of Kryta grew, and humans began settling the slopes of the Shiverpeak Mountains, home of the Modniir. In 1072 AE, two centaur tribes, the Harathi and Modniir, convened in the then-Maguuma Jungle and attempted an alliance, but human intervention prevented it. In 1075 AE, the Kournans decimated the Veldrunner by driving their prides westward, away from their territory, ancestry, and spirituality. General Bayel’s pacification campaigns allowed the province of Kourna to recruit many of them as slave laborers. Exiled and refugee centaurs raided human villages to survive, and most developed a fierce hatred for humanity. In 1078 AE, the Modniir were wiped out by a band of Ebon Vanguard and norn, on the steps of the Eye of the North, sparking the current conflict.

Later, in 1165 AE, the Modniir were pushed further south by the rise of Jormag, where they were put into further conflict with the humans and norn, as the recently displaced races competed for territory.³. In 1219 AE, the Rising of Orr set fleeing humans against centaurs, and the Harathi of the Maguuma joined the battle. Today, the Modniir-led centaur tribes wage war on humans to reclaim Kryta for themselves. The centaurs have struck a deal with the Lionguard and are not openly hostile to them (or anyone else paying a visit to their havens, for example), and some individuals seek a life away from centaur society and their vicious war (centaurs who openly speak against the war or the “War King,” Ulgoth, are exiled).

Not all centaurs in Tyria are part of the Modniir-led war. The Maguuma are a tribe of peaceful centaurs living in the Maguuma Wastes, who had splintered from the Harathi sometime in the past. This tribe is currently found in Dry Top, as the tribe in The Silverwastes was wiped out due to the actions of Caithe and Faolain in the past.

There was no agreed upon world order. Both cultures are barbaric. If the Native Americans rose up and retook the US from us would I be sad? Yes. Would I fault them? No. An aggression that happened a millennium ago still exists if the descendants are being actively disadvantaged. The only thing we do in the modern era is try to stabilize the borders in the name of world peace. Which is what apparently happened in Tyria. Truces formed.

Tachenon.5270:

When the writers would rather change the old lore to make it fit with the new lore than take reasonable care to ensure that the new lore develops from the old lore, when what happened only happened until such time as it becomes more convenient for something else to have happened, there’s no point even discussing it, because there is no lore. It’s just a mishmash of hey, wouldn’t it be cool if…

I prefer to think of GW2 as an alternate universe. Or a dream within a dream. An undigested bit of beef. A blot of mustard. So on and so forth.

The cows and their insatiable desire for entertainment have ruined it for us all.

You must understand the difference between lore in a finished story like Lord of the Rings, and lore in an evolving story like Magic the Gathering. The story is not completed yet. Who are we to argue with later chapters?

Lostwingman.5034:

Daniel Handler.4816:

You first paragraph makes no sense as it contributes to my argument. Forcing charr to BL would primarily be bad if they had a large population. When I said “this” I was referring to your theories. The very fact they started to push outward probably meant they were getting crowded.

My point was simply that wherever they went they had the resources to create a large population pool. Aside from that we don’t know anything besides not going on the offensive again until they were united. Which presumably means the lack of Charr invasions had more to do with internal divisions than negative population pressures.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your second paragraph was you not understanding the comparison. The louisiana purchase is the bloodland homelands, the area seized after the F&I war was not that land. The area of New France had most of its eastern land taken. There were only left with Louisiana and they were pressed on all sides by foreign kingdoms. Sound similar?

No because that’s not the situation the Charr were in and vice versa. Additionally, I did not say that the region of the Louisiana purchase is what was lost in the F&I war. Nowhere did I say that, I have no idea where you are drawing that. Again the situations are completely different, one is just a land claim with a few outposts and the other is a well populated ancestral heartland.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your correction on manifest destiny is utterly wrong. And can easily be found wrong by researching the term. The social and national superiority was granted by Providence.

Fine, whatever, it still doesn’t give the Charr the moral high ground they think they have.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Last two paragraphs. They were both secondary settlers, and then a tertiary settlement took place. It would be like if we invaded Canada.

And I didn’t say otherwise.

" It depends on the topic and the frame and here it is relevant since the argument “the Charr were there first” and “it’s rightfully the Charr’s by way of earlier settlement” falls on it’s face when Grawl cultures (and has been mentioned, dwarves) lived there. "

That was you explaining why secondary settlement apparently doesn’t matter.

Here let me make it even simpler.
The Charr owned the area of New France. Then Humans who had originally had stuck to the coast push forward and ended up taking their land pushing them back to an area known as Louisiana. Only in this instance of history instead of leaving all their land, the Charr decided to try to take all of the US. This failed, but they at least got back the land they owned when they had New France. Years latter, mean men on something called the Foh-rums decides to appeal to concepts of barbarism. Because it was easier than 3-dimensional people.

Why didn’t the Charr just leave Louisiana and take land from Canada if they needed more land? Didn’t the Grawl own New France first? How many structures were in the areas of New France that were taken? Shouldn’t foreign cultures be able to share?

Metaphors aside. There are no moral high grounds. But I see zero instances where the humans behaved with any less “barbarism” than the Charr.

Seyiwaji.4082:

About the change in Signet Blurred inscription. You are invulnerable, remove boon and have 20% cooldown decrease all 1 trait. Even now it is easy to chain 2 phantasm without being interrupted, you can use decoy, you can use mass Invisibility. There are Plenty of ways.

I don’t think a Chronomancer using a great sword need to be in close range to pull it off.
It may be hard to understand on Paper, but it is easily done. Even more if you get quickness from Sigil of rage something like that.

Easily explained:
You just need to cast 2 phantasm and shatter them after using f5.
I think every Mesmer can do this….. can’t they?

First, none of this works if they interrupt your use of the signet heal. And they are saying they will make the reborn phantasms a little stupid so they don’t immediately start attacking on rebirth. Not only that but you cant summon phantasms without a target or if you are blinded.
Also remember that signet is the heal. And there is no way a Memser in PvP would give up their heal that early in combat. This would strickly be for PvE.

Second, blurred inscriptions works after the signet has finished being cast so again, they can just interrupt you. Thieves interrupt heals all the time.

Finally, we don’t use stealth just for summoning phantasms. This would be considered a huge waste of cooldowns to kill 1 person.

Can Revenant be possessed?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It’s possible that they’re as talkative as the Echo of Turai Ossa, however.

But it does seem that the legends are just spirits being channeled. Which makes Revenants full out ritualists in heavy armor and with martial arts mixed in. Which is far less interesting to me.

Revenants are dervish + ritualist. Instead of becoming avatars of the Gods you channel powerful spirits.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Daniel Handler.4816:

The only thing you have slightly explained is that magic enters the planet through the Leylines and is then emanated out into the rest of the planet.

Which doesn’t seem to be true because all evidence points to the following:

• Magic cannot be destroyed, just change in shape and location.
• Magic is consumed – and then exuded – by the Elder Dragons – respectively to being awake (consume), and while asleep (exude).
• The ley lines are simply the “paths of least resistance” that magic flows. Given point 2, the origin of ley lines would be the Elder Dragons while they sleep.
• While there’s implication that the Mists have ley lines, this is neither confirmed nor likely related to the ley lines of Tyria (the latter, given points 1 and 2).

If magic were to be flowing into Tyria from the Mists, then there must be a means to remove it. But all evidence says that the only reason why magic may reduce in the world is because Elder Dragons (and lesser dragons) consume it. However, it is also known that they do not destroy magic but store it – and that when they sleep (or die) it returns to the world.

thunderfall.8095:

The Rift is the middle of the Mists. It says so in the wiki. It does not connect to everything, I think…

It does connect to everything:

“This place is known as the Rift, and there is nothing to which it does not connect, nothing that cannot be reached from inside it.”

From the Prophecies manual.

Well heat enters and leaves our planet. If exit and entry are always in equilibrium, then the dragons would be part of that equilibrium. Remember they say the dragons balance the amount of magic in the world.

Say each year:
-> 100 magics
-> 6 magics from pooping dragons
<- 50 magics, the remaining 56 is absorbed into stuff

After a few years. We have say 1000 more magics then we are suppose to.

Dragon wakes up.
-> 100 magics
<- Dragon eats 300 magics, this includes 200 of the excess
-> 5 magics from pooping dragons
<- 50 magics, we take 56 from excess

We now have only 9756 excess magics.

Dragon goes to sleep at 0 excess magics.

Its the entire thing behind Christianity. ANET is God, and though s/he inspired people to write stuff earlier, the people s/he inspired later to write stuff trump the earlier material. Its the same Universe, anything in the New Testament is suppose to trump the Old Testament. Anything in Gw2 trumps on the truth scale anything in Gw1.

To treat works like Christianity or ANET lore like simple imaginations of authors rips the fantasy from everything.

There is a reason its called a Living Story. It still hasn’t ended yet. You can’t imagine away that there are now 6 going on 7 Star Wars movies which are all cannon. These aren’t adaptions. This IS the original work.

@Pyro
I hope I speak for everyone when I tell you Pyro you need to stop using colloquial phrases. Not everyone here is a native English speaker. It also includes cliche’s into the writing. Second, you not explaining yourself or correcting me was to the detriment of the entire conversation. In what body of science do they allow colloquial slang to permeate their writing. Either write to be understood or don’t get surprised when people misunderstand you. Proofread your kitten kitten.

@TyPin
Your ability to make selective inferences, and then criticizes others selective inferences is interesting.

Either way the conversation is at a standstill.

Foefaller.1082:

MattyP.6954:

Foefaller.1082:

I get that, I’m just saying the way they worded it sounds like there are no choices within each legend itself. I think most of us here were hoping for there to at least be a set of utilities within each legend to chose from, but it looks like every Revenant channeling Ventari will have the same exact 6-0 skills as every other Ventari-channeling Revenant with the only possible difference being the order they are in the skillbar.

Yeah, the customization would come mainly from weapons, stats, traits, and what stance they choose to pair with Ventari. A Glint/Ventari Revenant would play differently than a Jarlis/Ventari Revenant would play differently than any of the other legends.

…but a Jalis/Ventari Revenant with a Hammer will have the same skills as every other Jalis/Ventari Revenant with a Hammer, with no additional options within each legend.

I’m not talking about a meta build either. If I pick those two as my Revenants legends, I have no other way to customise the skills I use beyond their order in my skillbar, no other options within those legends, and no way, beyond traits and a single weapon set, to differentiate my playstyle from other Revenants who picked those legends. Are you okay with that?

That is how it has worked since the beginning. You also can’t customize the order in the skill bar. When you swap a legend, your 6-0 skills are set.

Elementalists can conjure water for crops.

Rangers it seems have some talent with medicine and healing.

I think because Asura are so scientific their concept of food has evolved beyond simpler qualifications.You stray into complicated ground if they are eating synthetic foods.

Obsidian.1328:

Daniel Handler.4816:

We are bound to ANET’s writing. I won’t hear any argument that discusses retcons as they aren’t canon arguments. Absolutely nothing is silly because it was written 8 years later, @see improved medical textbooks.

You may be bound to it, I’m certainly not. I’m bound to a writer’s writing. Citing medical textbooks is silly because those textbooks are based on science and new science comes out everyday to challenge old claims. Fictional writing has nothing to do with scientific facts. Its “truth” is completely in the mind of the writer, not the company or anyone else.

Tell me, which X-men narrative is canon? The original comic series, or the latest fad movie out in theatres? Companies retcon all the time in order to make a buck, ANet is no different.

This makes no sense. Marvel operates under a multiverse concept, both are canon. But when we make claims about a Universe we only use the Universe we are talking about. Which I why I can’t claim that Havok and Cycylops are related in the MovieVerse. And just like a medical textbook new “facts” come out to challenge old claims.

You sound like the people who don’t take lore from the letters of Tolkien as canon because he didn’t put them in the books.

Also you are bound to a writers writing. And as ANET are the writers you are bound to any and all changes they make. Your comment on writers switching is a silly as a Christian saying they didn’t believe in anything that wasn’t in the book of Matthew.

Fear doesnt exactly hard counter things. And blinds as the Necro can give only really counter melee. So while thieves get stealth and blackpowder, we get DS and that one well everyone uses? I guess you could consider boon corruption a counter? Am I missing anything?

Edit: A better explanation is do we have ways to avoid damage beyond blind, DS and Dodge? Fixed title to be clearer.

A reminder to everyone who does not play Necro. Moa is part of a widestream of things that show the developers do not care about Necro, and probably never have. The reasoning behind this being a problem is that necro does not have enough hard counters to other classes.

So moving the discussion forward. Lets buff the Necro. I think the intent of OP was to suggest reducing one of the counters on Necro. When in reality they should just buff Necro counters on other classes.

XsWalrus.4371:

Pyro, want to know something interesting?

Apparently, for dogs (who are not omnivores), back in older days – people put little bits of meat inside of baked potatoes so they’d eat the potatoes and get full.

Dogs can eat potatoes, despite being a carnivorous species.

Might hold true for Asura – and, well, the potato thing does make sense. How many experiments do we have today involving potato alarm clocks and such?

But it most certainty is not good for them. I doubt if Asura were carnivores, considering their intelligence, they would even consider eating potatos. I also imagine that asura approach culinary science with as much rigor as the other sciences. So I don’t even know if their food falls within our normal conception of “food.”

Yes. Which is why when things are pure speculation. It’s best not to make sweeping definite statements, and is why I like the word probably. I see you used it recently, do that more often.

Semi nomadic does not matter in any context. Unless you want to say Native Americans didn’t settle America.

We are bound to ANET’s writing. I won’t hear any argument that discusses retcons as they aren’t canon arguments. Absolutely nothing is silly because it was written 8 years later, @see improved medical textbooks.

I know. This is in reference to both posts. You are confusing Rift and Mists again. Leylines don’t connect every universe, the rift does. The spaces between all those connections are the mists. At best you could say Leylines draws magic from the Mists through the rift.

The only thing you have slightly explained is that magic enters the planet through the Leylines and is then emanated out into the rest of the planet.

Lostwingman.5034:

Daniel Handler.4816:

This whole theory requires the lands east of the blood-legion homelands to be arable, and not already inhabitated. It also assumes the Charr birthrate is low enough they could survive being contained to the BL homelands.

Given that they had enough to overrun a dug in Ascalon over the course of decades (the wall largely held for a few years after the Searing it just had holed in places), send a force capable of threatening Kryta to the point that the King abandons the country in fear, and yet another force of similar size to Orr, we are all but outright told that the Charr were just fine creating a large population pool.

I can also make historical parallels here..

When the French lost the French and Indian war their control over the US was limited to the area known as Louisiana. This area ran down the center of the country. Years later the land was purchased from them in the Louisiana Purchase. However what would the life of the French be like if they stayed? Just like the BL homelands, their access to coastline was still there, but severely reduced from its previous amount. All lands that bordered theirs were owned. Picture the middle of the US a country right now. And who knows that the then US would even have allowed it. The US was operating under manifest destiny, they felt they had the rights by Divine Providence to expand, sound familiar?

Erm, what? This parallel absolutely does not work. For one, the Charr originated from and never left where the Ascalonians drove them back towards. This would only work if the French had originated in the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, had moved into Quebec, then been pushed back out shortly later by the newly arriving British.

Also I don’t think you understand Manifest Destiny. It was not a religiously motivated or faith formed idea. It was a belief in the national and social superiority of the American nation to rule the rest of the continent. For note, the term historically really came to the forefront from the tensions of the Mexican-American war as justification and propaganda.

Daniel Handler.4816:

PS. The argument of who killed Grawl is irrelevant.

It depends on the topic and the frame and here it is relevant since the argument “the Charr were there first” and “it’s rightfully the Charr’s by way of earlier settlement” falls on it’s face when Grawl cultures (and has been mentioned, dwarves) lived there.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The humans in settling the southern coast of Elonan, and east coast of the US, displaced whatever natives were there. The British hadn’t originally settled New France, and the Elonians hadn’t originally settled Ascalon, but both felt their right to displace secondary settlers.

Which misses the fallacies of “these Charr were different!” and “they were totally justified!” arguments.

You first paragraph makes no sense as it contributes to my argument. Forcing charr to BL would primarily be bad if they had a large population. When I said “this” I was referring to your theories. The very fact they started to push outward probably meant they were getting crowded.

Your second paragraph was you not understanding the comparison. The louisiana purchase is the bloodland homelands, the area seized after the F&I war was not that land. The area of New France had most of its eastern land taken. There were only left with Louisiana and they were pressed on all sides by foreign kingdoms. Sound similar?

Your correction on manifest destiny is utterly wrong. And can easily be found wrong by researching the term. The social and national superiority was granted by Providence.

Last two paragraphs. They were both secondary settlers, and then a tertiary settlement took place. It would be like if we invaded Canada.

Fay.2357:

StickerHappy.8052:

You still don’t get the point, Moa makes Transformation elites useless.

This one line is the very crux of your entire argument. Unfortunately, it has no basis in either logic or reality, and is completely false. I’ve actually already addressed this in a previous post in this thread, but I’ll do it again here.

Your logic is as follows: Because a hardcounter exists to a given skill, that skill is useless.

This might not be what you intended to say, but it is in fact the basis of your argument. Moa is a hardcounter to lich, and because of the existence of moa, you have decided that lich useless.

Now that we’ve boiled your argument down to a single general statement, let’s start applying other situations to it, just to see if it even flirts with reality.

Example 1: Basilisk Venom
Basilisk venom is a stun. There are 2 hardcounters to stuns: stability and stun breaks. Almost every single pvp build in the game runs one or both of those. Does this fact make basi venom useless?
No.

Example 2: Any projectile attack
All reflectable projectile attacks are hard countered by reflects. Does the existence and possibility of reflects mean that projectile attacks are useless?
No.

Example 3: Warbanner
Warbanner is intended to revive people that are downed. However, poison affects the amount of health that it provides, causing it to fail to revive them unless they’re already very close to reviving anyway. This makes poison a hardcounter to the intended purpose of Warbanner. Does this make Warbanner useless?
No.

I could go on like this for almost every skill and skill type in the game. Phantasms and blinds, conditions and condition immunities, boons and boon strips or corruptions, any cc heavy skills and stability, but I think the point I’m getting at should become obvious.

The existence of a hardcounter does not cause the countered skill to become useless unless it completely and totally removed the ability to make use of the countered skill.

Is this the case with lich? No, obviously not. Lich is on a lower cooldown than moa, immediately meaning that you can use it when moa is on cooldown. Additionally, you can use it when the Mesmer is either not present in the fight, or not in a position to cast moa. Your team, knowing that lich will single-handedly win a teamfight for them, will manouver themselves to protect the lich, allowing for safe free casting (contrary to the arguments that you and typin have been making that seem to assume the lich’s team all go afk for those 20 seconds).

There are a multitude of ways in which lich can be successfully used even against a team with a moa Mesmer. The very existence of that hardcounter only provides the optional possibility of lich being countered, one that is conspicuously absent without moa. It does not, in any way, guarantee the countering of lich.

This is also mostly correct except for the comment on cooldowns.

Lostwingman.5034:

There are so many parallels with the way the meta-story for the Charr has gone with certain actual instances of historical revisionism about barbarity it is almost comical. It’s really for that reason that I primarily find myself in distaste with the Charr as they’ve been made.

Obsidian.1328:

3. The Charr back then were just as much human-haters as the Flame Legion. This idea that the Flame Legion “forced” the other Charr to attack humans is silly. They wrote that in because the Charr are a playable race now and it would be narrative suicide to have any former apex antagonist simply become the good guys overnight. The Flame Legion became one of the fall guys for the new world order of multi-raced Tyria.

The parallels really are uncanny.

This whole theory requires the lands east of the blood-legion homelands to be arable, and not already inhabitated. It also assumes the Charr birthrate is low enough they could survive being contained to the BL homelands.

I can also make historical parallels here..

When the French lost the French and Indian war their control over the US was limited to the area known as Louisiana. This area ran down the center of the country. Years later the land was purchased from them in the Louisiana Purchase. However what would the life of the French be like if they stayed? Just like the BL homelands, their access to coastline was still there, but severely reduced from its previous amount. All lands that bordered theirs were owned. Picture the middle of the US a country right now. And who knows that the then US would even have allowed it. The US was operating under manifest destiny, they felt they had the rights by Divine Providence to expand, sound familiar?

PS. The argument of who killed Grawl is irrelevant. The humans in settling the southern coast of Elonan, and east coast of the US, displaced whatever natives were there. The British hadn’t originally settled New France, and the Elonians hadn’t originally settled Ascalon, but both felt their right to displace secondary settlers.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. blind with scepter 2, 2 stacks confusion
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 7 stacks of confusion
4. scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 7 stacks of confusion

This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.

Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.

Or, you take maim instead.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. Proc scepter block, 5 stacks of torment
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear torment, bleed, and confusion with pistol 5, 5 stacks of confusion
4. Shatter and scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, another 5 stacks of confusion and 11 total stacks of torment.

Ultimately, maim is just better. You get far more pressure from your play. Even if you’re not a shatter focused build, you’ll still get more mileage out of maim because it’s just so easy to proc it all the time, whereas another 2 stacks of confusion now and then on blind, when your primary access to blind is shattering…it’s not good.

It’s a confusion based build and the normal version has you interrupting, thus immobilizing, the enemy with CI. In that instance torment isn’t super amazing. Also I need to fix the chain because I forgot you put confusing on crit as well. Your version includes shatters which, unless you assume I am using chronophantasma, reduces phantasm uptime. And the phantasm you are shattering are at 1200 range.

I realize that it’s a phantasm build without close range setup for shatters. That doesn’t change how useless BB is though.

How are you blinding? Well, you’ve got an easily avoided blind on a not low cooldown on scepter 2. That’s it. All other good blind access is through shatters, and if you’re shattering for blinds…you could be shattering for torment instead, and get far more out of it.

BB isn’t only about the blind; it’s also about the duration increase for confusion. Also very confused with you calling scepter 2 not low cooldown. I wasn’t under the impression it had to be. I can easily get the block to five seconds which is the ICD of BB. Perhaps you should stop focusing on the blinding aspect, obviously the devs designed it to be complementary and not central. But that is another matter entirely when a grandmaster is not strong enough to called so.

If you’re saying that a duration increase on confusion is the central quality of that trait, then you’ve made my argument for me. There is not even a remote possibility of that being more useful than maim in any possible or conceivable build, especially with the recent focus on pushing more builds towards shatter.

In builds where you absolutely do not shatter. Maim is not helpful.

Perhaps its better if I said they are good in theory. But they need to be balanced correctly. That doesnt inherently make them lousy. Like spectral wall is a good skill, It should destroy projectiles though.

MSFone.3026:

This thread is just horrible. This is how MMO’s die, these little things like moa on a lich that people complain about are really a key part of the spice of the game. Things slowly get dulled into blandness, all the weird annoying things that make the game unique get removed, and all the classes start to get the abilities of others.

Oh no my ability has a counter! Dude if you play mesmer at all just go make a thread asking for thieves attacks to not work on us because that class hard counters our entire class.

Lich form is a big dumb i-win button and when you press it you should have some chance of getting turned into a big dumb bird. All abilities that read “hit this and turn into a big super monster with boring abilities and high dmg!” are stupid and each should have an annoying counter.

And before anyone calls moa and I-win button, getting moa’ed gives you a free super escape. I never die when moa, ever, just turn around and hit the sprint and keep running. Congrats, you have just countered moa. moa is a cc, that’s it and the only people who die to it are clueless.

People spank it over counter play so hard in this game, and yet that one principle seemingly so important is constantly violated, ignored or desired to have another special exemption added to it.

What I read from this beyond the outburst of feelings is that skills should only be balanced against all other skills. If a skill is unnecessarily harsh for one class who cares, that class has skills that are also necessarily harsh. Moa cancels transforms, who cares, it can cancel more then that. Things can get cancelled that’s how this game works.

I’ll add my own part. I do not know of a skill in PvP that Moa can cancel that has a higher cooldown than Moa. You cannot kill enough minions with Moa so that their added CD is greater than Moa. All of these suggestions to help Lich are a nerf on Moa.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. blind with scepter 2, 2 stacks confusion
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 7 stacks of confusion
4. scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 7 stacks of confusion

This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.

Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.

Or, you take maim instead.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. Proc scepter block, 5 stacks of torment
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear torment, bleed, and confusion with pistol 5, 5 stacks of confusion
4. Shatter and scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, another 5 stacks of confusion and 11 total stacks of torment.

Ultimately, maim is just better. You get far more pressure from your play. Even if you’re not a shatter focused build, you’ll still get more mileage out of maim because it’s just so easy to proc it all the time, whereas another 2 stacks of confusion now and then on blind, when your primary access to blind is shattering…it’s not good.

It’s a confusion based build and the normal version has you interrupting, thus immobilizing, the enemy with CI. In that instance torment isn’t super amazing. Also I need to fix the chain because I forgot you put confusing on crit as well. Your version includes shatters which, unless you assume I am using chronophantasma, reduces phantasm uptime. And the phantasm you are shattering are at 1200 range.

I realize that it’s a phantasm build without close range setup for shatters. That doesn’t change how useless BB is though.

How are you blinding? Well, you’ve got an easily avoided blind on a not low cooldown on scepter 2. That’s it. All other good blind access is through shatters, and if you’re shattering for blinds…you could be shattering for torment instead, and get far more out of it.

BB isn’t only about the blind; it’s also about the duration increase for confusion. Also very confused with you calling scepter 2 not low cooldown. I wasn’t under the impression it had to be. I can easily get the block to five seconds which is the ICD of BB. Perhaps you should stop focusing on the blinding aspect, obviously the devs designed it to be complementary and not central. But that is another matter entirely when a grandmaster is not strong enough to called so.

MonkeyButtFace.4862:

Funfact!

Necromancer has it’s own hilariously, stupidly awesome counter to Lich.

Immobilize -> Well of Corruption.

Pulsing stability? I call that pulsing FEAR.

Lichs cannot be immobilized, their five skill removes all conditions the have on themselves. And they can target the area of the skill so that they lose all conditions a second time.

Tealots.6095:

When I play on my ranger (RTW/SotF), my counter to Lich Form is popping Signet of Stone and Rapid Firing their face off. The killer isn’t the stability, it’s the damage.

They dodge twice then Chilling Blast you. Preventing ~80% of the damage you would be doing to them. And giving them 14 seconds to kill you.

Blossom you need to redesign your build using Chronomancer as the third line. The burst is so much more and sustain is better.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. blind with scepter 2, 2 stacks confusion
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 7 stacks of confusion
4. scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 7 stacks of confusion

This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.

Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.

Or, you take maim instead.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. Proc scepter block, 5 stacks of torment
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear torment, bleed, and confusion with pistol 5, 5 stacks of confusion
4. Shatter and scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, another 5 stacks of confusion and 11 total stacks of torment.

Ultimately, maim is just better. You get far more pressure from your play. Even if you’re not a shatter focused build, you’ll still get more mileage out of maim because it’s just so easy to proc it all the time, whereas another 2 stacks of confusion now and then on blind, when your primary access to blind is shattering…it’s not good.

It’s a confusion based build and the normal version has you interrupting, thus immobilizing, the enemy with CI. In that instance torment isn’t super amazing. Also I need to fix the chain because I forgot you put confusing on crit as well. Your version includes shatters which, unless you assume I am using chronophantasma, reduces phantasm uptime. And the phantasm you are shattering are at 1200 range.