Guild Wars 2

This does seem like a series of unfortunate events. But I doubt ANet will act as it would be a poor precedent for future cases.

Once you start reimbursing players for one thing, people are going to expect it for all kinds of things.

ANet seem to love littering the world with all kind of mobs.

sPvP has plenty of mobs (sharks, chieftains, Lords)
PvE has SOOOO many mobs in certain zones you can’t move without adding.

WvW has a pretty crazy mob-density in some areas.

I think it’s fine to have the odd pack of mobs in some places since they can make for some cool PvP moments. But as usual, ANet went a little overboard in some places.

Direct Damage should interrupt a rezz. That would fix many problems I have with the system. It would also make it possible to actually decimate a zerg as defenders.

Vixena.3821:

@Sky (reply isn’t showing up)

If ArenaNet stated that these maps are as big as they can be… I can’t really believe them at all. The RvR world in DAoC was HUGE. They were far larger than one of the maps and contained a ton of people. I don’t understand how there could be technical limitations if a game that released in 2001 could “technically” have a far larger map.

Yes, “technical limitations” there may be, but that isn’t a free pass.

There is so much that could be done. I’m sure it wasn’t ANets original plan to copy + paste 3 Borderlands maps. They probably did it out of necessity. But that doesn’t mean it can’t change.

Look at DAOC for example, those RvR maps were HUGE (a lot less detailed of course, but still).

WoW can display an entire continent at once without load-screens.

SWTOR on the other hand struggled with even 20 vs. 20 battles in ugly and low-detail environments (Ilum).

It really depends on the engine and how well it is optimized for certain things. Looking at the load-screens between zones and their relatively similar size, maybe the engine does have a strict limitation on how much it can load. But then ANet will have to overcome that limitation.

Yes, in theory balance is more than your 1v1 capabilities. That is why an Elementalist is actually quite popular in high-ranking games.

However in practice this isn’t how players evaluate balance. They tend to regard 1v1 capabilities as an indicator of power. And that has quite some merit. Nobody expects to constantly win 1v2s unless they are really confident in their abilities.

And logically, a game that is balanced in 1v1, will also by extension be relatively balanced around 2v2 and 3v3 situations. Especially without dedicated support roles like Healers etc.

Ultimately people will always assess balance based on 1v1 performances and developers would be wise to accept that. It’s much easier to balance out a handful of support skills around group situations than it is to balance entire classes around various situations.

Not really, I’m not sure what you;re looking for if everything is going fine.

I will however point out, because this is something I didn’t realize until someone pointed it out, is that your Primary Dagger attack turns into “Backstab” when you’re in Stealth. That is by far the biggest hitter in game. Use it frequently.

PS: Backstab is also what makes Cloak And Dagger a good skill just incase you’re wondering.

I’d be all for some 3v3 arenas. I’m not sold on 2v2 however even without dedicated healers.

GW2 lacks sufficient abilities to make 2v2 an interesting bracket. 3v3 offers enough room for skillful play on a personal level while leaving room for cross-profession combos and assists.

I imagine 3v3 could work quite well however.

Obviously these death-matches would have to take part in some kind of arena and not the current sPvP maps.

Is there a more direct way to leave a PvP match than opening you character screen and going back to the mists? I might have missed it somewhere.

If they added a standard “leave game” option that pops up at the end of each match then I could live with a short duration “Deserter” debuff for 2-3 minutes.

I’m for bigger maps too, or better…..a single big map for the entire WvW scenario.

As for the practical size. Well there must be a healthy middle between GW2s “30 seconds from one keep to another” vs. DAOCs “5 minute travel time”.

The distance between one factions main keep and Stormmist Castle is about 1 minute on foot if you could take the direct route.

Having this as the standard distance between 2 towers rather than the current 30 seconds would be ideal, imo. It would make position a little more important and emphasize strategy a little more over zerging.

It would also limit the potential exploits from abusing Trebuchet range.

Hands down, Mesmer.

Best class in the entire game in my book.

-Strongest 1v1 class.
-Illusion can draw boss aggro (mainly PvE, but still useful).
-Illusions don’t follow standard player pathing (they can attack below while the Mesmer is on the Wall)
-High damage in some specs while retaining good survivability thanks to Illusions.
-Lowest target priority of most players since they’re such a pain to kill.
-Overpowered “downed state”
-Insane utility thanks to portals. Opens entirely new realms of strategy.
-Be everyone’s best friend by posting people through jumping puzzles (and sometimes make money of it) or simply use the inbuilt fail-safe for yourself.
-Buff entire Zergs with Quickness and Haste, including Golems.

None of these elements really have anything to do with numbers (except damage ofc).

It’s just the way the class has been designed gives it WAAAAYYY more potential than any other class in game.

It seems I can melee people through and up a Wall near the Docks in Capricorn.

SS attached for proof. This may be intentional for some reason but it’s kind of wonky.

Occasionally my character won’t render as invisible on my Thief, despite having used a Stealth ability and having the Stealth buff up as seen on the screenshot.

This isn’t about the “Stealth blocker” buff. I know how it works and this isn’t directly related. This rendering bug can happen anytime it seems.

5 Rangers may rule.

In the Forest maybe…

Forcing the 5 different races seems like a wise decision considering all the visual “noise” GW2 spams on your screen.

I must admit I’ve been struggling with my Backstab build these past few days.

Maybe it was pure chance but it seemed like everyone and their mother was running some kind of defensive build and were constantly dodging just as I Stole. And once that window is closed, the Venoms blown…then all it takes is 2 stuns and you’re out.

Again, it might have been bad luck or maybe people have started to adapt. Then again, so have I. I’ve switched to a Pistol/Dagger – D/D Bleed build using lots of Stealth. And it’s really lots of fun. No big Crits, but lots of constant Bleeds and you die a lot less, you can actually join in Brawls and even pull off one or the other 2v1s without too much hassle.

So to those avid Backstabbers out there. As fun as it can be, Backstabbing isn’t the only viable build out there.. Give others a try and see if you can’t enjoy them.

The Thief is currently my only character. I like the general play-style, stealth etc. but I find the class a bit lacking in depth and support.

This is partially due to Initiative, although the builds I use don’t evolve around spaming a single ability and partially due to the lack of weapon diversity and damage skills diversity.

We don’t have the skill-ceiling of an Elementalist, the great utility of a Mesmer, the awesome support of a Guardian or the vast diversity of a Warrior.

Pariah.1457:

I created a separate chat tab that shows combat information, it shows pretty handily what’s hitting you with what and for how much.

We have the same in PvP yet we still have the feature. Look, Combat Logs are terribly cluttered and finding what killed you takes ages.

Since the feature already exists in game, it can’t be a huge deal to implement.

In fact the “you died to….” feature is really somewhat standard in MMOs nowadays.

I think ANet is a little concerned that certain combinations like Power/Precision/Vitality might become too popular.

They want you to mix and match gear-sets, to crunch numbers, test stuff and then conclude your optimal results.

That said, I’m not opposed to the idea. I’m also agree that Magic Find could be found on other gear as well.

Add a suicide button to that and sign me up.

Aside from glass-cannon build in sPvP I’d never recommend using more than half Berserker gear.

Both PvE and WvW require a decent amount of survivability unless you’re so well organized (in some guild groups) that you’re in full control of your environment.

My rule of thumb for a D/D – Crit build is to use Berserker Accessoires coupled with a Power/Toughness/Vitality set or anything that offers similar survivability.

As for Runes, I must admit I had to look up the Runes of the Eagle. They do seem like a good choice for a Backstab build. I’ve currently got Runes of Lyssa that offer a significant amount of added protection during Daggerstorm making it a lot safer to use, especially in WvW.

However the Runes of Lyssa don’t procc reliably for some reason, so there’s that.

Hammerheart.1426:

Nerf the damage? Maybe its not neccessary, just nerf how kitten easy it is to achieve it.

I must say I agree. The Backstab “instant gib” combo is one of the few elements of Thief damage dealing that requires skill and timing to pull off. Most other elements are really just “press the button and observe results”.

I think this is due to a number of issues, namingly the lack of weapon choices for Thieves, the fact that a ranged weapon is almost compulsory for all types of content, further limiting the choice and that even these few weapon sets include some really lackluster abilities.

Just comparing the various weapon skills of each class, the weapon skills of Thieves come off as very simplistic and one-dimensional in design.

This is further exaggerated by the Initiative system that encourages Thieves to spam their most efficient moves.

Why not have a hidden system that, the faster you completed a run of Arah explorable (currently the only reasonably challenging dungeon in game), the higher the chance is you’ll loot an exotic weapon, including a Precursor.

That way you have an element of skill, while retaining an element of RNG.

LoneWolfie.1852:

fellyn.5083:

How about just make a system to get them that doesn’t rely on RNG that is actually fun for more than 1% of the games population? Problem solved.

How about no.

Yet funny how “craft a Legendary weapon” is part of the Achievement on your character panel and thus is something almost everybody is pursuing.

This isn’t WoW, Legendaries are not supposed to be rare. It’s GW2s form of endgame. It’s something people pursue once they hit level 80.

Everyone wants one, everyone expects to get one if they work for it.

Deal with it.

Apparently there’s a roughly 20% chance to upgrade to the next “tier” of quality.

So 4 rares have a 20% chance to become an exotic.

4 Mastercrafts have a chance to become a rare.

4 Fine have a chance to become a Mastercraft.

You get the gist.

Just like pretty much everything else, this is best achieved by farming Orr like a Bot.

It’s not Heartseeker per say people have a problem with.

It’s the fact that they get spammed to death by a single ability. It just looks very cheesy.

ANet isn’t going to add cooldowns to Thieves…that goes against the entire Initiative system (flawed as it is).

I think they should just change the ability, not making it “seeking”. It could probably work the same way but it would feel less cheesy, which is really where all the Heartseeker hate comes from.

You can defend downed state as much as you like it still doesn’t change how incredibly stupid it is that you cannot stop someone from rezzing without an interrupt ability, something not every class has.

And that you can heal someone faster than someone can deal damage to them, especially if you account for the self-healing.

Someone goes down: Time to finish: 3 second animation Time to rezz by ally: 2 second with self-healing.

Yeah…sounds fine.

There’s only a dozen or so different skills to be stolen. It took me a few days but it wasn’t hard to memorize them all once you’d seen all the pictures.

I’d recommend you Steal as lot, but don’t actually use the ability in combat until you’ve read it. Then you can use it on the next mob, rise and repeat.

We’re all familiar with the screenshot that tells you what you died to in sPvP.

Could be please have that same feature in PvE (and possibly WvW) as well?

There is never “enough” content. There can only be “sufficient” amounts.

I’m not bored out of content yet as much as I am by the fact that we’re pigeon-holed into the same areas to grind out out Legendary.

Chesire.9043:

The downed state is fine in sPvP. People just hate it because they think downing someone is automatic win in every situation and need to get over this mentality.

No, it’s because even if you do kill someone in a 2v1, it’s worthless because he’ll just rally once you go down.

It’s because no amount of skillful play allows you to overcome a number disparity.

It’s because of the unbalanced downed abilities.

It’s because it’s a tactical advantage in tPvP to leave someone downed, rather than finish them off.

It’s bad because it really limits tactical choices. Either completely wipe out an enemy force or it’ll be waste. No point in wearing down a zerg in WvW when everyone can rezz you in a matter of seconds.

It’s because for a game that prides itself with not having any targeted healing, rezzing is just that.

I haven’t had much luck finding exotics.

In fact, the only ones I can ever recall getting were the ones rewarded for area exploration.

A few clipping errors aside they are pretty cool.

Reminded me a lot of SWTOR datacrons, just without the tedious waiting.

Reginvalt.4518:

First build been I’ve built in calculator… plz point what is wrong.

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3c32g00000000000000kpaf8n8n969ijcjk

The link for starters.

The downed state is by far the worst feature I have ever seen implemented into an PvP MMO. It just shows an utter disregard for so many established concepts for no gain whatsoever.

Anyway, I don’t want to continue ranting about the downed state, terrible as it is, but rather request a specific feature.

Currently, another player can rezz someone from downed state quicker than it takes to execute the finishing move, especially if you consider all the interrupts. In some cases they can even outrezz a character DPSing the downed one.

This makes it virtually impossible to achieve anything. Not everyone has a 3 second interrrupt availble all the time. Some classes don’t even have any interrrupts.

Why can’t direct damage simply interrupt friendly rezzing for a few seconds, similar to what it does with the self-rezz?

Sounds entirely reasonable and would make downed state just an ounce less annoying.

Well your post is a really constructive addition.

BE the change you want to see in this world (or these forums).

My first Death was during an early Story Mission when the game suddenly decided to drop a Veteran +4 adds on you at once.

Something about infiltrating a lab with Zoja.

I’m not sure if they’ve fixed it because that was just stupid as hell.

After that, about half of my Deaths were due to Death Blossoming off a cliff.

The entire Guild Wars 2 endgame goes against pretty much everything they set out to achieve in this game.

That’s because 80% of the Legendary requirements come down to “farm Orr like a Bot”.

LOL I think Dagins just sold me on traps.

Looks like there is huge potential for Shenanigans.

Could also be super handy for farming events in Orr.

We’ve all already bowed down to our Canadian overlords. Why haven’t you?

Anet think players vs. doors should be more rewarding than Players vs. Players.

That’s what you get.

Yes, my current build works well in WvW. Enough burst to hunt people with Backstab as long as you don’t expect 5 digit-crits while having enough HP and Dodges to not die to enemy Siege weapons every few seconds.

I change my traits around obviously before going into WvW, but the spec works.

Mesmers seem to have an excessive and disproportionate amount of utility and tools compared to other classes. Their Portal especially, but also their Clones, Invisibility and teleports just give the class so much more potential than others.

Nothing comes close.

Guardians are a support based class and thus are very beneficial in PvE. In PvP they’re just OP because somehow every designers seems to muck up the Paladin class. Then again I guess you could say the same about the “Rogue” class.

It should be easy to test, but I don’t see any reason why they would not stack.

Dual skills are always skill slot 3,

Death Blossom is a Dagger skill.

Would seem odd to not have them stack.

I’m on the same page as Nefarious here. For PvE you want to stack a decent amount of survivability. Not excessive because you will still die a lot no matter what, but enough to survive some of the bigger hitters. You should aim for at least 16.000 HP for most explorable modes.

Since a lot of Encounters require extensive dodging I find it hard to pass on the Acrobatics tree. There’s just too much useful stuff in there, up until 20 at least.

My current build is 15/30/0/25/0 because I like to keep Weakness up on all my targets. Lotus Poison ensures that every mob you fight will have the Weakness Condition, reducing most of it’s hits by 50%. That’s huge in any content although it doesn’t apply to spells.

As for gear, I’d recommend having one part of your gear-set be damage focused, while the other is focused on a balanced approach.

For example, you may go all out Berserker with your Accessories but then you should balance this out with a more rounded choice of set-pieces.

The wiki and gw2db.com are a good place to explore your different gear options.

Nef also makes a fair point about Bleed builds. The 25 Bleed limit really inhibits Bleed builds in PvE. One Necromancer is enough to consume a lion share of those Bleed stacks. And then it becomes a contest. This will probably change eventually, but until then Burst > Bleeds in PvE.

Well let’s think for a moment about what we got.

1. Auto-Attacks can Crit, but don’t have any Condition Damage component.
2. Cluster bomb has both Crit-able damage (up front) and a Bleed component.
3. Disabling Shot only has Crit-able up-front damage.
4. Choking Gas is exclusively Condition Damage. However it’s a Poison and thus not stackable.
5. Infiltrator’s Arrow is utility.

In PvP AoE damage is rarely as useful as single-target damage. Even in WvW I’m having a hard time imagining a scenario where a Condition build would be more beneficial than Crit/Power.

I see a certain pattern here which is what I assumed happened:

1. Artist comes up with some really fancy designs for some cool Greatswords. He calls them Dusk and Dawn.

2. Development team is impressed and thinks they deserve to be more than just another weapon skin.

3. Game Designers conceive Legendaries.

4. Art team is tasked with creating additional Legendaries so every class and weapon is covered.
_________________________________________________

The clue is that you can tell the Greatswords were born from Inspiration while the others were not. Instead someone was tasked with designing them and hence they look and feel less original.

According to map chat in Orr, about 90% of players expect to get a Legendary at some point.

This is what ANet is selling as endgame, like it or not, and this is what people are grinding for by the hundreds for hours each day.

I don’t want to predict the kittentorm that will come down when these people are denied their Legendaries because of some arbitrary “only 5% of people should have one” stance.

I was a little surprised yesterday while doing the usual grind of the Cursed Shore by just how quickly crafting materials are respawning.

This obviously excludes the rare ones since they’re on a roughly 12h timer.

However Mithril and all the other common Materials seem to spawn in an hour or so.

I don’t recall this always being the case. In fact I’m pretty sure it used to take longer. This makes crafting materials very abundant. I’m not sure how I feel about this.

alanis.6094:

Pawstruck.9708:

Tongue-in-cheek trolling aside, I think the OP does kind of have a point. PVP gear is only aesthetic and can ONLY BE WORN IN PVP, so it doesn’t really feel all that special.

I mean, sure you play for fun. Duh. But an MMORPG is supposed to give unique feelings of progression, and you know it.

You progress into cooler looking gear.

Which we can’t tell apart because of the krass colour coding in sPvP.

You counter this by dodging towards the Thief as soon as he gets close to the 900 Steal Range.

Since Steal is an instant Shadowstep this will teleport him right to you but looking in the wrong direction. This will also negate the Mug damage which is a big part of the burst combo. This may not even trigger Thrill of the Crime , not sure.

This might even waste his Basilisk Venom, which would be crucial.

Without his Steal he can’t close a gap and can’t use C&D. His only Stealth will be Hide in the Shadows and potentially Shadow Refuge if he has it. Then you just kite him about blasting him with damage which shouldn’t take long considering their HP.

It’s not easy to see a Thief coming in the heat of battle, but in a 1v1 just chaining those Dodges just before the Steal will almost completely break his burst.

I’m currently looking for a way to optimize the stats on my gear.

I was wondering if someone, somewhere had a spreadsheet with all the available exotic gear that would allow you to add you own stat weights and see the best possible gear combo.

For example, if I valued Power with a 1.0, Precision and Vitality with an 0.8, Crit-Damage and Toughness with 0.6, Healing with an 0.4 and Condition Damage with an 0.2, what is the ideal combination of gear?