Its probably a free expansion.
And those people that asked for a paid expansion for the last year and a half will be disappointed anyways because they didnt get what they wanted.
To a lot of people, price and delivery mode of new content aren’t nearly as important as quality and quantity.
It has to be free, though, otherwise ANet runs a risk of losing substantial profits.
Its probably a free expansion.
And those people that asked for a paid expansion for the last year and a half will be disappointed anyways because they didnt get what they wanted.
Just chiming in, I would actually be disappointed if it were not a paid expansion. I know a lot of people jumped on the Guild Wars 2 bandwagon because of the lack of subscription fee, but I really don’t see how ArenaNet can create meaningful, complete, well-written, polished, and worthwhile content without charging a fee for their major content updates. Coming from Guild Wars 1 to Guild Wars 2 I was expecting, and more than happy, to pay additional costs down the line for expansion packs. If anything, these Living Story updates prove that an intervention of some sort is needed. I do not believe the quality of these content updates is going to go up until we are ‘forced’ to pay for these updates.
GW2 in its two years has made more money than most of its competitors which have been producing content for their other major titles for over a decade. GW2’s pay-once-and-done methodology was genius in that players needed to buy the game before they really delved into it, causing a lower price point to work since many who purchased the title would be expected to churn and thus allow for the game to still be funded well.
It’s like saying that a AAA console game studio doesn’t have enough money to make another game despite having one of the best sales records in recent history.
ANet has made hundred of millions from just the vanilla game sales. Now contemplate average gem store earnings per week and it’s likely somewhere near the billion mark – if not higher – in total earnings in a mere two years. Now compare that with its huge investment base, assistance from a HUGE company in gaming (NCSoft), and limited staff size for what its profits likely are. Even if every staff member took a 100k/year salary, which is beyond belief and totally obscene, the game would still be well over a $300m profit. I’m gonna go out and say that was probably lower than the actual development cost of the entire game.
They also know well that a free expansion and major changes will bring back a lot of retired veterans, generating more hype and advertisement for free if they stay for a while, and should a percentage of those players also stay permanently, further raise gem sales to the point where a paid boxed expansion may in fact be cost-prohibitive. It seems silly to gamble on something when the gains are marginal at best and the likely outcome of doing so would lose money, not even considering the negative criticism of the studio and game that would come along with a paid expansion for a game released on the premise that the initial starting fee would be the only thing necessary to enjoy all of the game’s features. That’s a PR nightmare and would probably further affect the bottom line or push many fair-weather players to not purchase the mandatory expansion, causing further player loss, lower advertising possibilities, possible fewer gem store purchases, etc.
From current trends, I’d argue releasing a paid expansion would almost guarantee more severe sustained losses than just releasing the content for free.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
I consider ToK’s some of the best rewards given by the daily chests.
Many reasons why those classes are even part of the meta is because of their mobility.
Just give S/F on mesmer the ability to stack on other swiftness, and problem solved.
Except they’re clearly not in a lot of regards when it comes to splitting PvE from WvW.
And again, simply buffing conditions does nothing to actually solve the problem since one option will always be the most favorable. Even if the numbers are similar – the option with the highest DPS will reign as what is demanded for speed clears and that’s just a fact.
I stated this before, Considering people saying condition damage is 1 stat only and rabid or dire are comparable to zerk makes me wonder…
(post trimmed for length)
There are a few problems with this from a PvP standpoint, though.
Again, people fail to recognize condition damage IGNORES ALL FORMS OF DEFENSE. Your condition damage = your tick. Period. There is nothing your opponent can do, actively or passively, to reduce this once it has been applied unless very specific abilities are used. If the tick happens, it will always deal its maximum damage, no matter what. This is why in my previous post I stated condition damage should never in any environment perhaps outside of sinister come even remotely close to berserker gear – PvE mobs have low toughness and thus very little mitigation against direct damage. Claiming conditions should do equal damage to low-defense targets just makes no sense as then it means it will deal far superior damage to high-defense targets, which only reverses the roles and makes conditions always more preferable.
And such, like I said in another post, if the content is designed to split the time, a meta will be established which will likely be based on the faster of the two possible extremes, further either moving the problem or accomplishing nothing.
Let’s examine some numbers shall we? Well, my WvW data on my thief, which btw, is the highest-bursting build in the entire game on a given attack, has hit a maximum of a 26k backstab on a glassy target.
But a friend of mine had a duel recently. He’s using a zerg-based full tank guardian.
Do you know what I stabbed him for?
4k.
We couldn’t kill each other, although he came close on me many times.
Do you know how much health he has?
29k.
You know what happened when we fought again and I used my S/S bleed warrior?
He died in around a minute and couldn’t even come close to touching my health bar due to the innate high defense of condition builds.
Sinister gear hits HARD. In fact, it can closely match berserker, and depending on the weapon sets and classes, it actually can beat it out. Condition duration isn’t equivocal to ferocity; its power scales entirely on the number and effectiveness of cleansing the opponent has. If the opponent has limited cleansing, condition duration is MUCH more powerful than any amount of ferocity available in the game. The fact that food exists which boosts effective condition damage by 40% is unreal. In fact, it’s so potent, that despite WvW blobs have ample cleanses and water fields, condition duration reduction food is the primary choice above all else due to just how off the charts % modifiers are to DoT bombs and control conditions.
Remember that conditions encompass more than just DoT. Condition users which use % modifiers on durations also get extended utility and control conditions over their physical damage counterparts.
Cleansing potency depends entirely on the builds used. My thief build has one cleanse which can only remove burning, poison, and bleeding, once every 20 seconds. My warrior build on the other hand, can shed them very easily every few seconds. Even if I run maximum condition cleansing potential on my thief, the warrior with little investment has a much easier time. And don’t even try to compare these to guards and eles as these classes have amazing cleansing potential.
Like I said, conditions need a huge rework to be balanced properly between the formats. Anything done to currently improve conditions across the board would basically break the game harder and create more strict metagame strategies than just removing DoT conditions altogether. You can’t bring in cleanses into the mix, either, as I’ve also previously iterated that condition builds actually in most cases get more damage per hit than berserker builds. Healing negates physical damage, and as such, should probably also shorten currently-applied condition durations generally speaking for it to be balanced in relation. Again, more reasons why condition builds are pretty much unanimously agreed upon as better damage dealers in PvP environments outside of WvW blobs; the reward per hit is better than berserker and forces opponents to make deep sacrifices to their builds. Berserker speedrun PvE builds often only do such substantial numbers due to a lack of condition cleansing in their builds by trying to optimize traits and skills for raw DPS. PvE greatsword warrior does not even run Cleansing Ire or Sigil of Stamina, two of the best cleanses in the game on the basis that while almost necessary in PvE, are just not useful for PvE content. If you look at a berserker PvP build it’ll be traited to deal drastically less damage and have much better access to condition cleansing. This holds true for all classes and builds focused on DPS.
Why don’t mesmers have swiftness though? We have one skill on our focus that gives 10 secs of swiftness that can’t stack (very annoying). We also have a signet that may randomly give us 10 secs of swiftness. Both of these are very unreliable.
We have one trait that increases our movement speed depending on how many illusions we have available, granted this can make us very mobile in-combat but it is also easy to lose it. So what does lack of movement speed out-of-combat accomplish for mesmers? It can’t be balance since the weakness becomes lessened in combat.
Why do elementalists and thieves who both have great mobility and active defenses in combat get out-of-combat speed boost but mesmers do not?
Because mesmers with high/permanent swiftness access would be totally broken in PvP/WvW environments? It would actually likely remove the thief as a class from sPvP.
Also, GS/S War has a higher out of combat landspeed than the thief unless the thief uses S/x + Shortbow + Shadowstep + Withdraw backwards + Infil signet + ambient steals. Unless four of those are used, rifle engi also has better in-combat mobility than the thief due to the leap spamming from low cooldowns.
@OP: Swiftness and 25% signets/traveler runes are absolutely not the same. It might sound pretty minuscule, but that 8% adds up very quickly.
This is greatly dependent on the game mode you’re playing in.
D/D burst DOES NOT WORK in sPvP. Period. It might kill a few really bad players running really ineffective builds, but otherwise the damage overall is too low and your durability is far from what is necessary within the format. You’re better honestly running soldier’s + Hoelbrak on 2/6/6/0/0 in sPvP than anything aggressive like that.
If you’re looking for WvW burst, however, something like this is optimized for damage/assassinations, but will not be an effective skirmisher.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
As such, no build exists. That becomes entirely based upon class-skill match-up and your own abilities.
I would probably say P/D conditions because it’s the cheesiest, least-skill-intensive, most difficult to counter, and most durable build on the thief class, and one of the overall strongest builds in the game with one of the lowest required skill levels.
Granted I don’t recommend playing it because it’ll tarnish your rep by being classified as a P/D thief player due to how easy and cheesy the build is. But I guess if you don’t care about executing skilled plays/don’t care about being a scrub, go for it.
Otherwise the build I think you’re looking for doesn’t exist.
8k backstabs, 6k+ HSs – yeah, so underpowered class, buff them Anet please! Thieves needs in 20k backstabs and 15k heartseekers!
Spoken like someone who went from post 1 straight to the comment field.
Spoken like someone, who meet thieves everyday at the WvW maps and laughing from reading threads like this.
This is about sPvP, not WvW.
Did you read the discussion at all about the huge gap in effectiveness of the thief in WvW and sPvP?
Also, thieves built for it already deal 20k stabs in WvW, like me.
But even then, it’s harder to play than anything else and only works in specific encounters, so should it not be rewarded for what it does well?P/D dire perplex is MUCH stronger in WvW than any DPS build on a thief, too. Ask almost any well-established thief which is better at roaming.
Any ideas hwo they can increase thieves effectivness in the cPvP, but not affect it in WvW?
They could start by reverting some of the sPvP-exclusive nerfs like those to Cloak and Dagger, however beyond that point, there is little out there seeing as most of the potential comes from high critical damage/ferocity, which is also substantially lower as a stat generally speaking in sPvP and toughness/armor values generally higher than WvW.
Win or survive? Those are two very different things. Eventual mastery of a given setup will let you win. No such build exists which allows for an easier time while fighting multiple foes. If it existed, we’d just see WvW blobs as all thieves.
If you’re just trying to stay alive in say, a 1v2 for a period of time for reinforcements to come, a P/P blinding evasion tank works remarkably well in terms of durability.
Not kidding, using a build like 5/6/0/0/3 P/P is extremely good in fractals since you can maintain range/avoid damage while being squishy and mobs will not dodge against unload spam.
There really isn’t much out there which can maintain good damage and durability. Try 0/6/6/0/0/2 D/D. You’ll still hit hard.
Take the advice about going in solo and learning animations, where your stats lie, boss attack cycles, etc. Sometimes more people just makes things harder, though, with aggro constantly changing. CoE p1 Alpha still gives me a lot of trouble in parties despite the fact I can solo him without any problems.
Offhand pistol 5 and stealth is about as safe as it gets to be honest.
I haven’t played the build myself but knew someone at one point who did. If I can get into contact with him I’ll ask if he has any video footage/what his build actually was. I usually play periph in T2; which after much wiping last night, I can safely say the enemy blob was approaching the 100 number in EBG (ours was a measly 35). Being inside the blob is often safer than outside depending on how good your group is. Even on my glassy periph build I sometimes move into the fray to heal and cleanse conditions due to the constant called-waters and subsequent blasting + projectiles through symbols for the cleanses. Only on nights we’re hugely outnumbered like last night or not playing well will being inside be considerably more risky.
I believe the build was something like Nomad’s + Melandru, Water/Generosity sigils, 0/0/6/6/2 or 0/0/6/4/4 traits with I think antitoxin heal IIRC, up with pretty much entirely supportive traits in the SA line. I can’t recall the latter two lines, as he either ran uncatchable or MA for the shadow arts procs for stealth. All I recall is that he was surprisingly tanky and took a lot of hate from the enemies which left the front-liners and back line DPS happier. Far from something necessary or optimal, but it fit his crappy internet/PC well enough :P
With some experimenting and practice something along these lines would probably replicate close enough to what he was doing.
8k backstabs, 6k+ HSs – yeah, so underpowered class, buff them Anet please! Thieves needs in 20k backstabs and 15k heartseekers!
Spoken like someone who went from post 1 straight to the comment field.
Spoken like someone, who meet thieves everyday at the WvW maps and laughing from reading threads like this.
This is about sPvP, not WvW.
Did you read the discussion at all about the huge gap in effectiveness of the thief in WvW and sPvP?
Also, thieves built for it already deal 20k stabs in WvW, like me.
But even then, it’s harder to play than anything else and only works in specific encounters, so should it not be rewarded for what it does well?
P/D dire perplex is MUCH stronger in WvW than any DPS build on a thief, too. Ask almost any well-established thief which is better at roaming.
Wow, I didn’t expect this thread to get (mini) necro’d.
I’m just unsure whether to pick signet of shadows or signet of infiltrator. Getting pack runes now for wvw. Oh and do you think that I should go with p/d off set,p/p or short bow? All of it seems to work nice with d/d.
Never signet of shadows. Infiltrator’s signet will help land CnD’s and protect against stunlocks. Your swap weapon will depend on what you intend to do. In PvP, I’d highly recommend SB for the mobility, poison, and cleave. In WvW, it’s really down to personal preference.
I can’t live without sleight of hand anymore. 6 trickery is required in all of my builds now. I personally run dd with 30056. Weakness on poison, 10% damage when endurance isn’t full(when’s that?), I take vigor on heal and might on dodge sometimes change it for quick recovery.
Between withdraw steal inf signet and step I’m all over the place. It sustains well enough and the damage is nice as long as you land your cnds and pace yourself.I like it more than shadow arts, and I used to run x66x0. Shadow arts is a much slower gameplay, I prefer how much more alive trickery builds feel.
Completely agree here. Once you taste trickery, it’s hard to go back. And I’ve also considered a similar acro build, but I find conditions a bit more kitten ing and CnD’s a bit more risky. My personal preference is 20246 so I can take either shadow’s embrace or cloaked in shadow, but losing the damage modifier/weakness does make me sad.
It genuinely does upset me that so many builds gain so much more extra damage on the sheer principle that Air/Fire is too good as a sigil set.
Well, I think thieves benefit a lot from fire/air simply because most thieves maintain high crit chance and have fast autoattacks. That said, I don’t think fire/air are much stronger than other sigils used in meta builds. Geomancy/doom, battle/intelligence, etc. are all equally powerful, if not more powerful.
I’m really gonna have to disagree with that statement. Geomancy and doom are on the weaker end due to their cooldowns and cleansing/prevention ability with strictly lower activation potential, and while battle is good, at least one can see the might stacks/know how much damage they’ll be taking if they get hit. Intelligence doesn’t really do much for a lot of builds, and most traits will cover its need otherwise. Fire/Air are totally random; you can have 10k health and know your opponent only has a move that can hit you for 5-6k, but air/fire procs and kills you.
Or it doesn’t because they didn’t crit, and so you dodge out of the way after being hit, and a tiny little ranged skill they use which does no damage procs both and kills you instead.
I actively dislike huge chunks of burst damage coming from RNG with no way to tell of a counter. It also promotes building more defensively and allows for fury to be overly-useful even for builds not focusing on damage through physical damage.
I’d be happier if they just added a 10% critical damage sigil and removed fire/air altogether. Fire/Air really de-value power and ferocity as stats.
If you’re up for a real challenge with absolutely absurd damage output, here’s what I run (when I’m feeling a little skillful than normal, as otherwise I’ll just use HK/Force/Accuracy).
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Post-Your-Build-Thread/page/4#post4647153
It genuinely does upset me that so many builds gain so much more extra damage on the sheer principle that Air/Fire is too good as a sigil set.
I don’t run any points in SA for this reason alone.
Sword mainhand and spamming IS/IR with no target for one cleanse at a time is at least more reliable and detracts less from proper play.
I firmly believe all crutch traits (procs when HP is below x%) should be outright removed as a concept because of how binary they are in terms of their effectiveness. Either they’re wildly strong or completely terrible.
I’ll weigh in. I play a DD Cele Ele as my main.
In the current meta of celestial professions, the idea of a profession built on bursting an enemy down quickly just doesn’t make sense. On my ele, I can usually survive a Thief’s burst rotation and turn the fight by simply using lightning shield into an updraft/blazing speed/lightning flash/fire grab/drake’s breath combo. It’s just too easy to still be tanky while tossing out bits of damage here and there on a lot of other professions for a Thief to handle for too long.
The longer the fight lasts, the higher the chance is the Thief will lose.
Very much so. Actually, the only reason I believe thieves are even remotely viable in sPvP currently is because of the boon-based meta; they have very good ways to steal boons at very precise moments fairly frequently. With boon builds out of the equation, I do believe it would be seen nowhere in more competitive sPvP matches, except maybe perhaps P/D conditions. sPvP damage values for the other thief builds are too low, and defenses are too high compared to say, WvW, where the damage across the board is ramped way up and defenses are substantially lower on all classes unless they build for it, and thieves when played well can and will kill other players in one strike – if they build with no defense outside of say, cloak and dagger and HiS. I say this because I have done it and continue to do it.
I want to state now that of all of my thief games, P/P + S/D Clerics/Dwayna bunker does the best job. Damage builds just do not work.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
Vshare is the most notable, however ninja nurse and the tankblinder are also things to consider.
There are vShare builds out there, and this is targeted almost exclusively for roaming parties.
Ninja Nurse is just Basically something like 0/0/6/6/2 built on durability and stealth spamming and interrupting to get people revived/stealth to prevent stomps. Would recommend S/D and P/P for Infil Strike to get in and out easier + cleansing and boon stealing/evasion, headshot to interrupt stomps, etc.
The tankblinder is a P/P/Sb build that runs similarly to ninja nurse, but utilizes poison fields in the middle of a blob for heal cuts and blasting them, as well as constantly applying smoke fields for blinds via the pistol and whirling those blinds with Dagger storm or a stolen warrior’s whirling axe. It can also tank by whirling a Shadow Refuge for the leeching bolts. It’s meant for trying to disrupt major bombs and take damage in wake of others due to the thief being associated with glassy periphery.
Not much really in the lines of direct support like in most games. VShare is probably the most useful solution and can hold its own reasonably as well.
Well, in hindsight, I guess it would explain why they are giving out tomes of knowledge like candy. But what depth does that bring to any new race if there is no story? Living story is.. feasible I guess.
Ah well, I fold.
8 NEW RACES COMING BY EASTER!
sigh
I am actually saving them. I wouldn’t be surprised that should an expansion actually be coming, they add either a new race or class to the mix.
Fantastic.
We had to move this idea to another table, but you should be happy to know that it is still on a table.
I couldn’t stop laughing at this one, and all of the table-themed statements.
(All of what I’m going to say is in context of PvE)
To repeat this: direct damage builds that go full damage (glass cannon) are forced to invest in power, precision, ferocity, and have no further stats to take without losing damage. By comparison a condition-exclusive build needs only condition damage and (usually) precision. Because all equipment pieces worth talking about have 3 or more stat types on them, Condition builds are either forced to have hybrid damage (eg Rampager) or gain defensive stats (eg Rabid).
With that in mind, a build that is exclusively conditions (not hybrid) cannot be allowed to have a greater damage potential than a full glass-cannon build, since it does not sacrifice defensive stats.
This is why I think ArenaNet will never buff a pure condition build to match a pure direct-damage build.
Honestly I just wish it had been clearer from the start that condition damage is not an alternative to direct damage: it’s just an add-on. At most they’re an alternative to big critical hits.
And that’s exactly it; a lot of condition users, face it, do not use sinister gear, and make their comparisons in DPS via things like Rabid vs Berserker. Fact of the matter is that Rabid – and every other condition set except for sinister – should ALWAYS deal less DPS than berserker gear because all other condition damage sets provide a defensive stat bonus while berserker does not. It’s why I stated what I did before. Berserker is in the PvE meta because it provides optimal DPS. That’s a fact. It has nothing to do with anything else being overpowered or underpowered as much as it is a combination that:
- Condition users should have always been dealing lower DPS in PvE against non-tank mobs to begin with because of their lack of three offensive stat modifiers.
- Condition users against these mobs are facing the stack cap in PvE due to an absolute necessity of having it in PvP environments.
And subsequently I believe you are correct in that condition damage will not be buffed in its current state unless a massive rework is done to conditions and everything around them which would allow better balance and fewer discrepancies between the game modes.
Condition damage can and was designed to be a means of primary damage. Do recall that all condition ticks totally ignore all forms of damage mitigation, including armor and protection. That can allow for conditions to frequently out-damage berserker-geared players against enemies with high toughness values and/or constant protection. With ramping damage that takes a bit to get moving, that is why condition gear combinations were originally all designed with at least one defensive stat; it needed a bit more durability to get past the initial frequent burst/survive a bombardment of physical damage hits to retaliate, and then eventually overwhelm the opponent.
Which is why it’s currently too strong in PvP environments, notably WvW. Access to dire gear which provides some of the best damage mitigation in the game still allows for condition users to fully-optimize their tick damage while remaining extremely durable. Additionally, with condition damage’s original implementations, condition damage modifier traits were placed heavily in the defensive lines for most builds, further emphasizing more durability which has made the play style so difficult to deal with, and sPvP which promotes small group play helps prevent stack capping problems between multiple condition users.
Hence my position in that I firmly do not believe conditions need a buff in any way, shape or form, or any rework attempting to bolster damage outputs of condition builds. They are and will remain a weaker source of damage in PvE due to the necessity of keeping them in check in PvP environments (and even now that’s arguable), sorry to say, but that comes from more issues with dungeon design than anything.
I will, however, support any kind of implementation which would allow for condition users to see a more balanced style of play across the formats than their heavy dominance in PvP modes and relative weakness in PvE. That said, it would require extensive work and more complex systems tied to conditions and how they scale and deal damage; critical conditions, alternative application techniques, a re-evaluation of gear, a rework of healing skills and cleansing abilities and the likes are things that would probably need to be evaluated and done to help improve the state of the game.
But simple buffs under any circumstance absolutely will not suffice and would destroy the rest of the game.
the only time a macro (or macro-esque technique) is acceptable is when it’s offering no in game advantage.
If you are using software allowing you to do something you normally could not, it’s against the rules (ie, an autoclicker that clicks faster than you can or clicks while you are away from keyboard).
for my luck/bag opening, I just have an autohotkey that I activate to click 10 times a second (well within what I can manage on my own) and disable it once all my stuff is consumed/opened
It’s not open ended or open to interpretation, just because you feel it is.
Technically speaking, this action is ban-able.
The rules are one button must correspond to one in-game action.
I’d take 12 degrees right about now.
It was -22 earlier today. Tough rolling out of bed ._.
Wow.
“Please, please, please give us a status update, even if it’s only, “We’re still actively thinking about this issue and will give details when we can.”
Such a post is made. Reactions?.
“That’s not good enough.”
I still think the Mike O’Brien Gag Policy is a mistake. But, it’s moments like this that makes me think twice.
Thing is, a lot of people aren’t asking for the former like that. Pretty much everyone is aware it’s on their minds. In one of my previous posts I even said I don’t care about a status update because in the end it only matters when we hear about the specifics of it changing before a proper reaction can be made.
What I am happy about is that a time frame was given. This means that while they can still be actively thinking about the problem, the solution is actually well into its development phase and we can expect and look forward to something. I can think of a way – or many – to fix this problem, and so can many people, for that’s what the past ~70 pages has largely consisted of. I can’t go in and actually develop a solution and just send it to the developers, though. That fact we’re there/almost there is what’s appreciated.
Glad to see people recognizing Gaile and other mods aren’t responsible for the untimely resolution. She’s great and has certainly delivered what really needed to be said with the previous set of posts made earlier today.
Snip
Again, blind suggestions like these would totally break WvW as a format as people seem to disregard the fact that condition damage is actually the most effective source of PvP damage in the entire game, in both PvP and WvW. It is ONLY ineffective in WvW blobbing because of the frequency of light fields used by guardians. Actually, half of the reason guardians are even in the GWEN WvW meta to begin with is explicitly for this capability due to the extreme power of conditions in PvP environments. In fact, despite all of the mass cleansing occurring in WvW blobs, condition reduction food is still a primary choice on the sheer basis that one player with an AOE condition applicator through the form of control conditions and confusion can single-handedly decide a fight with even sub-par targeting and timing.
Further, there are more high-damage condition applicators in the game which have no casting animation or cast time than physical damage attacks without such. Most of these applications are also rather ruthless with what they offer.
Balancing condition damage is not possible without an overhaul of the system, for damage solely from condition application in terms of DPS should provide strictly equivalent damage as Soldier’s gear (PTV). In its current state, it provides much more damage excluding the instances of stack capping and subsequently inhibits build diversity within a variety of classes and builds due to the sheer dependence of utilizing condition-cleansing utility effects and/or traits. Some classes also have imbalanced or blatantly sub-par means of cleansing conditions, especially over short periods of time.
Also your assessment of poison and torment is unbelievably flawed from a PvP/WvW perspective to the point where I am not even sure you have ever even tried these formats, for torment is the single strongest condition in the entire game by design, one of the most difficult to cleanse due to many builds or in some cases entire classes having no access to remove it without either traiting explicitly for torment removal or running Antitoxin Spray due to its late implementation, which is a terrible healing skill. Torment also poses a higher DPT than bleeding in PvP/WvW due to constant, necessary mobility, and suffers minimal losses of damage even against stationary targets compared to bleeding. Poison was designed for the healing cut, not as a source of DoT. That’s why the durations are long, the scaling is bad, and why on multiple occasions, AoE poison skills and effects have been explicitly nerfed solely because of their incredible and devastating impact in WvW. This was the excuse as explained by the developers for BOTH nerfs to choking gas, as well as a massive number of community complaints regarding the unbelievable potency of the skill’s previous effects and applications.
What people fail to understand is that the lack of viability of conditions in PvE is not because of an inherently-weaker design but because of the older PvE content design which does not do an adequate job of keeping condition users’ damage outputs comparable.
The problem lies in the content, not conditions. If anything, conditions in PvP and WvW across a variety of builds and classes need a town downwards paired with several other system changes due to their simplistic playstyles, obscene damage throughputs, extra utility over DPS builds, and inherently higher durability and resistance effects over physical damage builds.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
I believe the FPS issues are stemming from driver updates with some newer nVidia chips. So far, almost all FPS complaints I’ve seen recently have stemmed from 900-series users after a recent driver update.
I assume that problem will be fixed within the near future, though.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
As an aside…. and sorry for not being up-to-date with forum-speak but:
1) “white knight” is the new “fanboi”?
2) What does QQ mean?Thanks.
QQ. The old game Warcraft II, to exit you hit alt+q+q. So, If someone is rage quitting a PvP match because they are losing, that how they leave the game. People started making jokes about that, “oh, he qq’d” (he raged quit). Then the meaning spread from rage quit to being angry and complaining then to complaining and whining.
Dang, beat me to it. A lot of people think it’s about some crying emoticon but it really isn’t.
Conditions should never out-damage regular damage on PvE trash mobs due to the fact a lot of people fail to recognize condition damage totally ignores all toughness values, and condition damage builds can be optimized for DPT throughputs while building into one of the most durable stat combinations in the game and supporting directly by durability-focused traits/stats.
Conditions, without absolutely massive overhauls, will never see extended viability in the dungeon speed running scene unless encounters are created in which the mobs have excessively high toughness. The problem is that someone will do the math and the dungeon will remain figured out – if the time advantage gained via conditions is worthwhile, then conditions become the new meta, etc.
In the sPvP format, they’re by far stronger and more effective than regular damage in most cases. I can get my durable P/D thief or S/S war ticking for 2k/s bleeds, whereas my full signet stab thief (which is the second-highest-bursting build possible in the game) will stab for maybe 10k. The other builds are by far more durable and also thus have access to utility skills, which signet stab does not. The low removal access, lower physical damage, nerfed skill damage coefficients for many classes, and inherently higher toughness in PvP makes conditions all the more potent.
For WVW, condition builds are the best builds for small groups and roaming/havoc. I’ve recently had a lot of new people ask me for help with the thief class and assistance with learning my D/D build. Most of them came from playing P/D conditions, and most of them have had extensive difficulty either re-learning combat or learning it truly for the first time. A lot of condition builds are overly-easy to play, and as one of my most recent tutees stated, “Dire conditions really is easy mode and I guess I get why people called me cheese :\” The only reason you don’t see conditions used so heavily in WvW blobs is because of the massive healing and cleansing created by many guardians laying down light fields, eles’ AOE cleansing on water, etc., and a lot of this is done on the sheer basis that blobs are inherently weak to conditions without being set up in a way that hard-counters them.
Does anyone know how to rework conditions to be more balanced across game types? Not as far as I know. That’s why they’re not currently. Uncapping would break PvP and possibly WvW (definitely on the small scale), and also as stated by ANet, overly-strenuous on the game servers.
Conditions aren’t “bad” in PvE, though, as many people seem to want to claim. They’re just sub-optimal. Unless you’re trying to break world-record speed runs, most parties will not even notice. I ran dungeons constantly on my S/S bleed war, and had no troubles finding groups or with people who complained about me using conditions. Actually, in some of the runs, I was out-damaging the other berserker-geared players.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
I would like to add, since no one else has pointed this out, that the jade block that the biconics are looking at, has a tarp over it
Our current version (or at least from the instance) does not have a tarp, so it seems like this is actually being moved? transported? something…..why would they change this one little detail…
“Find out in Season 3!”
The megaservers will not affect performance on your end regarding FPS. The only possible instances of lag via megaservers would be from latency problems server-side, though frankly I’ve noticed none.
There have been a lot of complaints lately about the Teq fight, so I do wonder if it is something unique to that area. I’ve never done it, so I can’t personally verify, though.
Sorry to hear about the abuse. Glad something was done about it.
Report your chat filter case on this thread.
Point of No Return.
So essentially, if we leave GW2 after this patch, we will not be able to return?
-Any account that has not been logged in for the past 60days gets banned.
-Any character that has not been played in 30days gets deleted.
-Any character that has not been played in 15days gets their level halved.
-Any character that has not been played in 7days lose all of their skill points.
-Any character that has not been played in 24hours loses all 13 traits of a line chosen by RNG.
-Any character that has not stored anything in a specific bank tab in 24hours gets that bank tab deleted and loses everything in it.
-Any character that has not used a specific skill in 24hours has to relearn that skill.
-Any character that has not used a specific waypoint in 24hours has to pay double the cost for each 24hours they have not used that waypoint.
-Any character that has broken armor now loses that piece of armor permanently.
-Any character that has not swung a sword again cannot enter PvP.
-Finally, Any character that dies becomes the closest person’s mini, and is forced to follow and watch that person play while doing nothing, until someone else dies and takes their place.wtf did I just read
I genuinely do not know. I think a very failed attempt at humor, maybe?
I think the intent of the OP was to get cheap legendaries.
Kind of silly if you ask me.
Also, legendary skins are freaking ugly and are already way too common. More people respect and ask about non-legendary skins used well.
Part of me wonders if the issues lie in compatibility with newer nVidia cards or corresponding architecture differences between nVidia and AMD.
I recall nVidia implementing driver updates for the late 600 and 700 series cards for GW2, but do not recall any updates released for 800 and 900 series cards.
I’d like to direct you to This monster thread regarding trait concerns.
You’re not alone.
Chrispy’s post at that point was made before the OP edited their post to add in a clarification.
The post did not originally state that context would be used and some people inferred that a post would be ignored simply because one of the words was used.
Chrispy’s point about Folks was that the word is only offensive if used inappropriately and that several words in Guhracie’s post were not words that are always offensive (Chrispy did say in a later post that some of the words were always offensive).
Chrispy wasn’t saying that the word Folks is offensive and shouldn’t be used. It was just an example used to make a point.
Definitely makes a lot more sense. I recall Chrispy posting with more… subtlety in the past, so it would certainly explain the obscenity of the post in regards to what the OP has now.
When you get into a downed state fight with a warrior, whose vengeance fails when he spikes you, giving you the loot and not him despite losing.
You should add Folks to the list. That slur refers to people in general. I am not a person in general. I am a unique person and not in any general sense, and I consider it an offensive personal attack against me that you would use the word Folks, as if to group all of us together.
Can’t tell if serious or trolling here, in all honesty. If the latter, then you may ignore the next few statements I will make regarding this post.
Merriam-Webster Definition:
folks : people in general
—used to talk to a group of people in a friendly and informal way
: a certain kind of people
I use this word frequently. I refer to my family often as “my folks,”, large groups of people, generally speaking as “folks” (as per the definition of the word), or people associated with a certain group or collective mindset. ALL of these uses are per the dictionary definition of it.
And I’m sorry, but if you really think that it is derogatory to refer to someone as a member of an associated group, you may as well also consider any inclusive but broad reference to you as an entity aside from explicit referencing by preferred name and title – insulting, because that’s precisely what these words were created and defined to be used for; it is impossible to name every individual entity – and requires far too much effort if all are indeed known – associated or included in a collection.
To make such a ludicrous claim that you may not be generalized among other people is contrary to exactly what you’re preaching regarding a a polite society, for it implies you are to be treated as separate from all others on the basis that a word’s interpreted meaning of assertions of affiliation with others because you consider that affiliation as degrading; I.E., directly imposing that all others are beneath you.
I absolutely condemn this thread, for it demonstrates and enforces the ideals of a limited number of individuals upon the rest of many, and immediately assumes that anyone who may use these terms is doing so incorrectly or using them as a means of insult.
In fact, I would go as far as stating that this thread – by design – is toxic (yes, I went as far as to use the term); it not only promotes the removal of the liberty of promoting free speech of using terms which in it of themselves are not insulting and attempts to spread such ideology for no apparent reason, but also goes as far as trying to unite a mere portion of players to rebel against their use for what is really an undetermined reason while also indicating an air of superiority and status to those which support the cause. The intent I believe is good, but it is not satisfying the desired condition to be met.
I promote using words as they are intended to be used, and detest slurs, but none of the these are part of a real vocabulary, and as such, all of them are synonymous with otherwise-unoffensive terms which even when used in their place would not breach the forum use agreement, and frankly if to be enforced, would indicate that people are taking actual offense to the term due to association with historical events which re-raise psychological trauma and reverberate those associated feelings. Simply, the aforementioned words at this point in history due to their generic use towards no particular group of individuals, do no qualify for such enforcement.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
“…we’re setting up a new framework for how an MMO can grow its universe.”
ArenaNet: perpetually planning to prepare to iterate big things that may or may not make it into the game.
This, two plus years of this, is anyone really surprised that so many people are jaded, apathetic or flat out cynical? I wish I could attend Pax just to see how this will all go down.
Right? Anet made this bed and has to sleep in it. Upon hearing the news of the announcement I was hopeful and excited. But now? Hesitant.
Now if the announcement was, “Join Colin and Mike as they unveil GW2’s first expansion, and find out which continent players will have a chance to revisit 250 years after the defeat of the Great Destroyer.” That alone is enough to get me back on board.
I still predict marketing of content-deliver via LS and absolutely no releases or updates scheduled for 2015 outside of the LS’s and QoL “improvements” should anyone prefer to call what we’ve gotten in two and a half years as “improvements.”
I’d love for this prediction to be way off the mark upon announcement.
But I’m not getting my hopes up at all.
(edited by DeceiverX.8361)
I dunno, I like the fact it’s awfully representative of alcohol consumption.
A large money sink for no apparent reason with absolutely no reward that may leave some with regrets.
It’s driven by folks passionate about the game.
Literally the same thing where I started out on another game. Player positions for gathering feedback, unpaid, with no reward, and no moderation tools.
For me, it slowly developed into more and more work and trust, others resigned because of the lack of privilege and reward (as I believe was their intent), and eventually turned into me being a volunteer forum administrator, lead of communications, a paid GM job that I could drop in and out of, and more.
Can that be promised here? Likely not. But one’s will to care genuinely about a game and its community can get one places.
If you’re looking for a reward, this isn’t the position for you. And you’re not gonna get anything done. If you care, maybe it will, maybe it wont; but you’ll be happy doing the work regardless.
It absolutely does paint a target on your back, however; where I started, the forums had no chat filter and “anything goes” attitude unless covered by discrimination, harassment, and excessive bullying. Day 1 for the CC’s (our title) was pretty brutal and the GM’s had to get involved in a number of incidents flagged as harassment which went unreported. Doing a good job and caring will gain you respect in the long-term. If you’re doing it for any other reason, expect absolutely nothing good to become of it.
The problem, DeceiverX, is that your example hinges on the idea that someone cannot beat a piece of content. I’m sorry, but my dad recently picked up this game and has never dodged once. He clicks his skills with his mouse, slowly (he had multiple strokes last year).
He doesn’t block.
He doesn’t dodge.
He doesn’t do anything reactive.And he has only ever run into issues in a dungeon, and only because he was kicked, party never even remotely wiped.
There is no “stuck on X” in GW2’s PvE. That’s by design, it is extremely easy so as to never exclude someone.
That’s great your father is playing alongside you and I hope that he stays in the best shape possible. Sorry to hear about what was probably a dreadful experience for your entire family.
I don’t know what class or build he is playing, but it is certainly possible to get stuck trying to do things like unlocking an important trait, trying to do an event, etc. I get that they can move to other content, but like I said in my previous post, not everyone enjoys that other content – some to the point of downright despising it. While okay, my post was exaggerating the truth a bit, I don’t see any grounds for disagreeing with the prospect that some classes are near-dependent on these traits for basic functionality in the leveling process.
Consider the thief, where general cleansing only comes from one utility skill’s active effect with a 60 second cooldown, and a trait within Shadow Arts. If you get bumped into a condition-heavy area, such as the Toxic Alliance areas of Kryta, you are pretty much not allowed to go there – or most other condition-heavy areas of the game – until you get your first trait point, put it in Shadow Arts, AND have the trait itself unlocked or purchased. Not to mention that said map is also below the level acquired before you even get your first trait point.
I’d be interested as that’s where I started out in my journey with R:BF, but the experience here has been pretty jading regarding what we get and overall transparency, and notably, I do not lack a particular area of notable expertise in a broad sense of say, an entire class within the scope of all formats of the game, or all of the classes and builds and uses in one particular format of the game. Gaile is well-aware of what people want; and I believe as such so are the developers and designers.
The reality though is that there is a gross lack of transparency between ANet and its playerbase as a whole, as well as too much development fluidity. It feels like because of the “nothing’s off the table” attitude, there’s merely a massive clustercat of things on the table; so much so that nobody can seem to find any kind of direction as to what to prioritize or make first that won’t interact badly with the rest. And perhaps if someone does eventually figure out how to do it all, more ideas just get thrown on top again and the process needs to be restarted.
The thread is about instruments, the previous discussion which I responded to, was not.
My post also again responds to various other things that were mentioned which were not related to instruments but macro use in general, and the ability to catch abusers. You were the one to actually mention that such an argument about using a flute to try and cover macro use over another activity and that it was difficult to prove/observe at the time. I responded by saying there are logs, and if a player sees someone botting, then they will get reported, and the excuse of “I was playing the flute” will not hold to those working in support. Look at your previous posts before claiming mine as off-topic, please.
I don’t recall the game having any noticeable memory leaks. I feel like more people would have made posts about the subject if it did, especially since there are people out there playing with substantially less RAM than what the OP probably has.
As someone mentioned, do a client repair, check your DX and drivers (though if it’s driver-based it should happen in more programs than GW2 unless the problem is some very, very odd fluke).
DS is intended to remove weapons. If anything, allowing for the appearance of weapons by sheathing them is what’s bugged :P
I had this problem for a few days, and as soon as I mentioned having it to a friend (who didn’t have the problem), I found myself magically able to gain access ._.
It’s certainly a problem and is really inconsistent. My best advice is to just keep trying and eventually it might work. And it seems that once it gets unstuck, it runs into no further problems.
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