Guild Wars 2

Food/utility buffs aren’t absolutely necessary, but it’s useful and helpful to have them.

I sure as hell would pay $60 for an expansion. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of tyria’s map expanded since there are so many areas on the map that is left unexplored E.G: Isles of Janthir, Ring of Fire, Deldrimor Front, Blood Legion Homelands, etc. I would love to explore those areas and find the lore related to it. Of course, that’s assuming that a lot of the lore relating to the first game is touched upon first. Right now, the whole focus is on Scarlet with the Living World updates.

To be honest, I’d rather go through content as frustrating as Liadri for a single piece of armor rather than craft my way through. At least with Liadri, there’s an element of skill rather than money.

Considering Anet has 4 living world teams and a multitude of feature teams, it would make sense that they would have little time to answer every single thing. This post seems to be aimed at people who troll and prefer to start argument posts every single time an update is released.

Knote.2904:

An option I’d really like to see is smart ground targeting when targeting areas that are out of range.

Like if I use a 900 range teleport, but I cast it at 1000 range, then it still casts at it’s maximum 900 range in the direction of where I tried to cast it. Instead, right now it just fails until you target within range, which usually means you’ll waste like 100 range.

This would be a huge QOL change.

Yes please. This change would make ground targeting that much more use friendly. Especially when you’re in the heat of battle.

If there’s a single use consumable that turns you into a quaggan, where’s the infinite use variant?

Is this supposed to happen? It seems that running into the broken generators causes you to randomly teleport elsewhere.

Getting a title for completing the personal story would be nice. Hell, getting a title for withstanding certain… Sylvari NPCs that somehow become crucial to the narrative would be very nice.

The hair braid buns on the asura are pretty clever! As for the human hairstyles, I’m pretty sure fans of kasmeer will cry out in agony of not having that style.

There does seem to be some more people complaining lately. However, at least it’s not the diablo forums. There’s doom and gloom (while fan rage goes boom) whenever I take a look at them (be it official or unofficial).

You mean the live-stream preview about it next week?

Please invite me.

Captain Australia.9617:

Hoser.8361:

My server’s dead, so I guest around in the overflows. I’ve never just walked into a big server, in fact, I get the prompt to go into the server and it sends me to another overflow. I assumed I was being passed over due to natives, which doesn’t matter to me since I’ve just been looking for the overflow where everyone was fighting well.

l0L. An overflow will never do well.

Correction, almost never do well. There’s a topic floating around with pics of an overflow succeeding.

More tequatl, less overflows.

Congratulations on a second victory! That was by far, the most tense and nerve wracking fight I have ever been in. Beating Tequatl with 0 seconds left trumps beating Liadri any day!

Solid Gold.9310:

Brilliant post by the OP here, take note ArenaNet (Of course you won’t).

They do read our posts, but they’ll probably check their numbers first to decide if something needs to be done.

Going afk for long periods of time to fight the boss known as Overflow isn’t getting me pumped.

An area I would consider dark would be the Langmar Estate guild puzzle. I absolutely LOVE the lighting found at the giant fan area and towards the exit.

Invite please. Just in case I can’t make it to SBI, I’d like to at least have a slightly better chance than other overflows.

OP, have you just recently started visiting Orr? If so, I understand your pain. All the 5-6 second immobilizes, spider pulls, squire stuns, and teleporting nobles have basically made me annoyed at those effects too.

Has anyone been able to get into their main servers lately to face tequatl? It seems that even when going to sparkfly fen 2 hours before the event starts leads me to an overflow. Are people afk’ing the whole (down) time there??

Isn’t there supposed to be a way to fire the laser to stun tequatl? During the last two encounters I had with tequatl, I noticed nothing happened with it.

Vince Ste Marie.2081:

Allow me to clear this up.

1. The meta will be available for 2 weeks.
2. The Tequat’l fight is permanent content; Rox and the dragon clue hunts will go away after 2 weeks.
3. “Boss Week” is a Shark Week joke.

Sharks with laser beams attached to their heads. Yes, or yes?

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’m still not getting one until I can get an ascended one or at least an exotic one. Rare is garbage by comparison.

While it’s true that rare isn’t much of a boost, it’s a step towards exotic and possibly ascended breathers. While I’m not going to go out of my way to outfit any of my characters with a rare breather asap, I do plan on keeping them if I got one from a drop.

People are talking left and right about the new encounters, increased health on bosses, etc. What I noticed is that no one is mentioning that we finally have breather masks higher than masterwork quality in the game.

Sure, there’s going to be naysayers who say that underwater combat is crap and therefore not worth being mentioned. Despite their opinions, I’m glad a step has been taken to add more breather masks. I’m tired of having a karma merchant’s breather mask.

I don’t know the best way to farm, but I know about a way to do so via fractals, however, it’s a very time consuming since you have to have a very high personal level and then run lower levels (I believe it was around 10 levels lower than your current level). Some guy did the calculations and said that with all the karma boosts possible, you could potentially get 8-20k karma in a single fractal run when setup properly.

If I remember correctly, a post somewhere mentioned something about levels 8, 18, 28, 38, etc being the best levels to run.

At the moment, the only buff I would love to see is an auto attack for the grenade kit. More health for turrets or being able to have the turrets rocket themselves to you would be cool too, but I think that goes against Anet’s views of what the turrets should do.

Avatara.1042:

Engineer Grenade kit 1 attack having an auto-attack toggle would make me play the profession. As it stands now, I actually want to use my left hand in the future.

This. A thousand times this. PLEASE, add an auto attack for the grenade kit. Make the kit throw one large grenade that deals the damage of 2.5 grenades for all I care. Currently, I feel that the lack of an auto-attack is the only flaw of the grenade kit and nothing else.

For the record, I know it’s “uncategorized” but harpies are the most immediate and noticeable thing about this fractal.

Since early summer, it seems that the height difference for the harpies to become invulnerable have been reduced considerably.

Is this supposed to be intended? Because I’ve been in groups with and without guardians, thieves, mesmers, and engineers (yes, them too) and it feels like it’s almost a requirement to bring them for reflection and nullification because you can’t kill the harpies from 2-3 platforms away.

It has also gotten to the point where the last several groups I’ve been a part of had to skip them. Normally, this particular fractal isn’t much of a problem, but once a harpy becomes invulnerable, it means players will have to stand on the same platform and risk getting knocked off, be downed, or skip that particular harpy.

Power cleanse on a mantra mesmer would mean the potential for 4 conditions removed (6 when traited)… That, in my opinion, is pretty beastly and it seems like it might get toned down.

BlackBeard.2873:

Dante, thanks for the very well structured response.
1. I don’t think arcana should be useless (far from it), but I think we can all agree that it shouldn’t be absolutely necessary to play the class without stinking.

Absolutely, arcana should be able to boost or augment what our elements and utility skills do as a whole but with the way the current arcana traits are spread out and how it’s tied to our attunement recharge rates, arcana just doesn’t seem optional as other classes’ utility trait lines.

BlackBeard.2873:

2. I don’t think staff should be great at aoe, but it should have the ability to at least survive pretty well. Potential changes to earth 4 might help. I really just want to see air 2/3 fixed (especially 3).

Air 3’s projectile is too slow, air 2’s cast time is too long, and earth 4 is just plain terra-bad.

BlackBeard.2873:

4. Cantrips do bring survival, but they do it worse than every other class. Compare mistform to elixir s. Elixir s has a shorter cooldown, and comes with a utility to give stealth. That is 2 get out of jail free cards on one ability: 100% better than mistform. Compare armor of earth to any other stability skill (like warrior dolyak signet) and you will see it is terrible. Arcane shield is fine. Cleansing fire’s cooldown is absurd: its long enough that you can only use it 1x per fight, but loses out on other effects. Compare this to Contemplation of Purity on a Guard (full condi clear + stunbreak on a 60s cooldown), which can also only be used 1x per fight.

The thing about mist form is that pre-nerf, it allowed you to do many important things such as rez someone, and use healing/utility skills (heavy emphasis on the healing) without taking damage. This skill basically allowed 3 seconds of support with near invulnerability making it something of a must-have on skill bars.

Combine that with ether renewal, and you have the ability to remove a massive amount of conditions and have a really powerful heal that is almost uninterruptible (it all depended on what order you activated the skills and how long it would take for you to activate the second skill). This created a very potent combination of survivability and was, as I said before, something of a must-have.

As much as I hate to say it, mist form had to get hit, but with the way it got hit, it’s nothing more than a living version of our downed 3 skill that lasts 1 second longer (or as some view it, a 50% longer duration). Mist form needs attention in my opinion.

As for the other cantrips, I agree, they are in need of some attention too. Even though armor of earth is useful with the prot and stability, it’s hampered by its cooldown. Cleansing fire is a decent skill, but like armor of earth, it too is held back by a long cooldown with little to no benefit for anything else (now that the stunbreak was removed). If anything, I would love to see a small healing effect be applied for each condition removed or have the condition removal be AoE.

On the subject of arcane shield, I personally am not a fan of this skill because of its long cooldown (75 seconds) and the fact that it lasts 3 attacks. I’m not denying that it’s really useful, I just feel that it would be better if the cooldown wasn’t so long.

Looking at the cantrips individually, you can say that they are poor compared to the other options that other classes have. However, if I remember correctly, there has been a recent developer blog/post that state their intentions and views of balancing a class and granting access to certain skills to fulfill a specific role. The elementalist’s cantrips might be our answer to the engineer’s elixer s, and the warrior’s dolyak signet in one handy skill type, but we, just like them, must have our drawbacks. This may be a point that the devs keep in mind when looking at our skills.

BlackBeard.2873:

7. Elementalists are “fine” in that they have one stupid gimmick build (S/D burst) that can do o.k. if carried, but still does its job worse than a thief/mesmer. They are buffing staff, and I can see it becoming a viable support/control bunker perhaps. D/D is or non-burst S/D is dead, and other specs are weighed down by the primary inherent flaws.

We’ll have to see just what exactly will be buffed aside from possible AoE increases to the staff water line and a change to the staff earth 4 skill on Oct. 15th. Personally, I wouldn’t mind Anet taking a close examination of the player’s perceived issues with the entire staff and making some adjustments here and there… Fire 1 and 2 are too slow, and meteor shower’s tooltip doesn’t show the increase to the individual meteor’s AoE (also, it’s random, as many will have seen in older posts, I like consistency). In fact, other than one of the patches stating that meteor shower’s meteor AoE was increased, I don’t even know by how much.

Reiizm.5871:

They join the vigil.

Boo-boo wheeze calculator.

Ok, deleted my post so hopefully, your posts will all be one after the other.

Here’s my original statement:

“Very nice summary of the issues that we players perceive and experience! Now if only some developers saw the issues that we see and face…”

Here’s my new thoughts after pondering your posts for a longer amount of time:

1. Being forced into a 5th trait line is nothing new to veteran elementalists dating back to GW1. Back then, we had the attribute lines for all 4 elements and the 5th attribute, “energy storage,” which increased the amount of resources we had and thus, the amount of spells we could cast. However, having to devote 20-30 points in arcane for GW2 does seem a bit too much since we have to use all 4 elements in conflicts.
2. With the sheer amount of AoE skills, it seems pretty obvious that the staff was meant to be an AoE heavy weapon. The chances that Anet would buff single target damage for the staff seems to be really low (from my viewpoint). Also, Anet would probably have to change or redo some skills which means taking more time and resources out of their staff. Pun intended? Maybe.
3. Focus definitely needs a buff or rework. If an offhand dagger is meant to be used an offensive weapon and the focus was meant to be a defensive option, where are the party benefits? Air attunement’s focus 4 skill cancels out projectiles and protects the party without the need to be traited. How come fire, earth, and water skills don’t have skills that benefit multiple people like air?
4. Cantrips were meant to be important survival skills, but since we have such low health and armor, it makes incredibly good sense to bring one or two for the bad “oh crap” situations. I don’t even know how I could live without armor of earth and lighting flash because they are that useful.
5. Arcane skills are pretty bad due to their long cooldowns and limited use. The fact that it doesn’t bring anything to add much to the elementalist’s utility makes me wonder why even bother devoting traits to these underused skills.
6. As for ride the lighting, well, I think it could have been handled better than just decreasing cooldown if it hit something. I’d rather have a 25 second cooldown with doubled the traveling range if you’re targeting someone (though, I think that would be hard to do from a technical perspective).
7. Some developers have stated that they believe elementalists are “fine” where they currently stand… Ok, so… why do these issues keep on getting brought back up? Why do many recurring issues with engineers and rangers keep getting brought back up? If we don’t know or see from your point of view, why not elaborate to us?

I tried using the search function in the general discussion forums and it seems that nothing happens. Has anyone been able to get it working?

Beorn Saxon.4762:

My guess is that karma is currently being evaluated and more changes are pending.

There was without a doubt an over abundance of karma in the game, making karma bought items to common and easy to get.

Anet appears to be adjusting the excess volume by making it all account bound and tightening down the reigns on how quickly it can be acquired. They most likely pulled the reigns back way to far on purpose so that they could evaluate it and slowly allow more back in until they reach the optimal speed at which they want players to gain it.

They might also be planning more karma based rewards since karma’s current uses feel rather sparse (leveling equipment, common cooking mats, exotic level gear, crafting inscriptions and weapon plans).

To be honest, I wouldn’t mind paying karma for some of the NPC armor and hairstyles that are out with karma. I suppose time will tell.

What worries me about the revamped Tequatl fight is that it could end up like temple of Balthazar or Lyssa.

For the temple of Lyssa, there three events you need to complete and if one of the events pops back up, a group will have to willingly break off the fight against the priestess and complete the recurring event. If the recurring event fails, then the priestess will go back to being invulnerable and heal up.

As for temple of Balthazar, completing the events that lead up to it can be a nightmare if there aren’t enough people in the zone running the north, south, and central events which can lead to difficulty completing the temple event and opening up the waypoint.

Ele -> thief -> mes -> guard -> engi -> ranger -> necro

I used to have a warrior but I couldn’t stand leveling it and the playstyle of no magic was just boring for me.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

DanteZero.9736:

Tornado’s usefulness has been an issue for a while now. In fact, many elite skills just don’t have the “moment of power” that makes them elite. While this interview is really dated, this is what elite skills were described as:

http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-12-04/arenanet_talks_about_skill_system_especially_elite_skills_in_guild_wars_2,2.shtml

What I want to know is, where are these elite skills that they are talking about?

There are a lot of game changing Elites IMO and the ones on the top of my head are:

Spirit Nature
Supply Crate
Plague
Mass Invisibility

The ones that has the looks to be a terrifying and strong elite but turned out to be some sort of kamikaze joke are:

Tornado
Lich Form

These two are the worst offenders IMO. Transforming into a vicious entity, locking yourself out of weapon skills, healing, and utility to supposedly bring something stronger to the table however you just become a large priority punching bag with no real threat whatsoever.

When I see tornado or Lich right beside me, I just pop stability, kite, and bleed him to death since I know he has no way of cleansing them while transformed. He’ll basically go down even before the end of the transform duration which I think is reaaaaalllly long. Ten seconds tops is more than enough as long as your transformation made an impact. And this is talking PVP, WvW stuff.

I don’t really remember the last time I had seen tornado used in PVE so..

It’s funny, the elites that you view as game changing are what I view as underwhelming. I’m not trying to talk down about your views, but to me, I have issues with these elites (having played with all the classes except warrior, I can’t stand their typical playstyle):

1. Mass Invisibility affects 10 people (though, it’s understandable since any more and wvw zergs will be more ridiculous) and lasts 5 seconds. For me, that feels 5 seconds too short.
2. Supply crate grants 3 more turrets and 6 bandages (4 turrets and 9 bandages when traited), but you can’t overcharge them and when large groups or strong enemies target the turrets, good luck with turning the tide.
3. Spirit of Nature: I can’t say anything because I rarely use this enough to know the applications in pve/wvw/pvp.
4. Plague is lacking somewhat. I guess when it was mentioned in the previews, I envisioned it as an elite transformation that applied ALL the conditions (for 2 seconds) each second that the player stands near enemies. I guess that’s what having an imagination and high expectations will do to you :/

As for tornado and lich form, they absolutely need to be buffed. Tornado is rarely used because it’s too easy to take down an ele (lowest base HP and armor) and doesn’t have any concrete danger factor (unless you’re standing on a high and narrow bridge with no stability). Lich Form, on the other hand, just doesn’t have any real impact as opposed to its visual impact.

Taco Grande!

Or Ta-quat-till.

Tornado’s usefulness has been an issue for a while now. In fact, many elite skills just don’t have the “moment of power” that makes them elite. While this interview is really dated, this is what elite skills were described as:

http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-12-04/arenanet_talks_about_skill_system_especially_elite_skills_in_guild_wars_2,2.shtml

What I want to know is, where are these elite skills that they are talking about?

Regardless of the alternatives that you had, that was a pretty creative way to solve a problem! Now if only I didn’t destroy my boxes…

Ele, ranger, and engineer are nowhere near okay. In fact, these three classes are seemingly underwhelming and are in need of buffs or changes (from what I’ve observed). Staff eles need work, ele focus skills need a little bit more attention, and of course, the traits.

Seriously, why allow a minor grandmaster trait deal 5% more damage to burning enemies when there is another minor trait that does the EXACT SAME THING??

I asked this question yesterday and got no response. I remember that last year, sometime around August or September, wood planks needed 2 logs, but then it got increased to 3 logs because it was too easy to max out compared to other crafting professions. I still don’t know why soft wood planks need 4 logs though.

When I went to refine my softwood logs into planks, I noticed it needed 4 logs to make 1 plank. Why is softwood the only wood type that requires 4 logs while every other wood type needs 3?

Nice, I’m excited that we finally get the LFG tool so soon! On another note, I don’t suppose we could suggest making a reference to the creator of gw2lfg in honor of the release of the official LFG tool, could we? I mean, Fohtoh (reddit name) did the game an incredible service in the first year and made finding groups that much more bearable.

Lokheit.7943:

Ok I didn’t see those patch notes. It makes sense and this the easier solution.

So… then the 200 gems gift idea from the dat files was scrapped? (I would gladly give 10 mini jennahs and boosters for that :P).

Or it could have been added in there to throw people off. I wouldn’t be surprised that Anet wised up to the dataminers and planted false info to throw people off.

Changing builds can be a hassle. While a developer has stated that this is on purpose, perhaps it would be a better idea to implement it as a gold sink by offering consumables that do the job.

The first thing that comes to my mind is a consumable item that allows players in explorable areas to repec their traits while outside of combat and at a waypoint.

Since convenience has a price, the consumable itself should cost a lot more than the standard 3.50 silver rate when speaking to a trainer.

Another possibility is to make an item that functions similar to the “copper-fed salvage-o-matic.”

This item could save a player’s trait builds and allow the player to switch between them for a price (example: 2 silver per respec).

BlackBeard.2873:

ARM.3912:

RTL should be 1550 range with a 15 second cooldown and no conditional. All healing should work in mist form. Every cantrip should be a stunbreaker.

I agree that cleansing fire needs to a stun-break. Healing in mist-form isn’t necessary, as I believe it was the thing that mostly made us too hard to kill. RtL 1550 range on 15s is too strong, although it is enjoyable. While we are in a bad place, we don’t have to go back to where we were to be good again. Just a few tweaks along with nerfs to other classes.

Or, cleansing fire could have a small healing component tied to it-something like 600-800 hp healed per condition removed. Just saying, there’s more than one way to make something useful aside from making them stunbreakers.

I think that would fall in the realm of new explorable areas. We’re definitely going to get them in the future (what developer in their right mind wouldn’t release new areas?), but regarding the type of secret areas that you described, I guess it depends if the developers have the time that they need to add them.

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. Elementalists (and medium armor classes) need pants. Not frilly short skirts with thigh high boots, not a tutu, not a trenchcoat, but we seriously need pants. I’m not talking about the poofy pants that can be crafted, but yes, medium and light armor classes need a pair of pants.