Guild Wars 2

Hello,

So from the recent patch to necros and the community outcry, I thought I’d shed some light on why I believe it has turned out this way and why I don’t think Anet should do anything about necromancers. First we need to understand the general meta of the game.

There are two parts of the meta, Offensive and Defensive utility.

1. Defensive Utility- This is currently dominated by defensive damage negators. One of the main reasons for this is because of their lack of direct counter players. The current list of Defensive Damage Negators is as follows
A. Blocks(Including Aegis)- Currently we’re in the process of getting more counters to blocks, but they are still very strong.
B. Stealthing- No direct counterplay, currently countered by prediction and choke points.
C. Invurnability- No Direct Counterplay
D. Evading- Some direct counterplays. IF your character has some kind of CC on hit such as the engineer shield.
E. Gap Makers- These put distance between you and your enemy. Leaps, teleports, etc. These can somewhat be countered by CC.
F. Boons that help negate damage- These include protection, regen, etc.
Most current meta builds on the very popular classes include these. The defensive utility meta has been dominated by these defensive damage negators since release.

Offensive Utility- This is current dominated by physical damage and physical burst damage. Most classes will take down a target by dealing straight damage to them. They will not be taking down a target with conditions. Currently two classes have condition as their primary source of damage in the meta. Engineers and Necromancers.

Now this meta has been like this since released. We have had very little changes to it. While people still do other builds, most of the ones I personally see in high ranking tpvp and such includes this meta. Now onto necromancers.

Necromancers- I think Anet should do nothing right now. Why? This whole class, the buff’s it has received, all of it, it goes against everything the current meta is about. Here is what the necromancer specializes in. Condition damage and bursting through high condition damage, CC, and that is it. While some think that death shroud is a defensive damage negator it is not.

-First a necromancers defense. A necromancer’s defense depends on offensive damage negators. Blinds, CC (Fear), conditions that CC, all of that. He has two dodges. He has no vigor, no aegis, no gap makers, no stealth, no invurnability, none of that. He utilizes death shroud which requires you to use offensive abilities most of the time (aside from some spectral skills that aren’t widley used in the meta, though do provide some defensive damage negators) in order to use this. This one thing causes it to become a offensive damage negator. Now some may be thinking that an extra HP bar is helpful, in the current offensive meta it is not as viable as you may think. While one on one it is powerful (cause this game is balanced in that way), in teamfights it may buy him some time, but if he is being focused it wont do a whole lot.

-Second a necromancers offensive capabilities. A necromancer does damage with conditions. He his currently the master at doing conditions (taking the reigns from the engineer prenerf). As many necros will tell you, before they got dhuumfire the amount of necros in tpvp was not high. Many people concentrate on dhuumfire and forget the nerfs to staff and corrupt boon. Both were huge part of our metas.

With those things in mind, take a look at that meta up above. Notice something? Everything a necromancer does is not in the meta. He doesn’t not do insanely high fast acting burst damage in the physical form. He does it with conditions! Conditions must be cleansed to be countered, and widespread multiple condi cleansing is not in the current meta. If not cleansed conditions will do damage when you’re in stealth, will do damage while you’re blocking, will do damage while you’re teleporting, they will do damage no matter what defensive damage negator you use. Many condi cleansers are attached to the defensive utilities in some way (though many heals will do it). A necromancer’s defensive meta is not the popular meta. He has to be very offensive in a battle to survive. He needs to CC you a lot, he needs to blind you, he needs to do all that if he has a chance to survive that damage. Many necros will tell you that once the get 2 players or more who have the smallest idea of what they’re doing on them, it becomes a lot more challenging.

I love the new necromancer changes. Sure I’d love to see them have that defensive damage negators that every other class does, but I want to see what you did with the necro and do it to other classes. I love that in the first time in the past year, the changes you did to necro had a significant impact on the meta as a whole.

In 13 mins at 6 server time I will be doing a Southsun Chest run, followed by Modniir, then depending on how many people we have we may do some random events that not too many do.

Sorry but I highly doubt that will happen. This is what we know. 1, the sky pirates are still operational and attacking with Mai in prison, so most likely scarlet is still leading them. We’re supposed to watch the skies when our main enemy are sky pirates. The next LS seems to have a lot of things going on in DR. Most likely the big event will be in kryta somewhere and it will involve skypirates invading/attacking.

Hello,

So my guild and I love to run open world events. Especially the ones that never get done or the ones that aren’t on timers. Things such as queen, flame temple tombs, catacombs, and more. This thread I will update when we are going to run an event. We are on Yaks Bend.

If you’d like a certain event done, you can request it here. However we will not guest, you must guest to our server.

At 9:35 AM on 7/28/2013 we will start with Flame Temple Tombs Mini dungeon, then with catacombs, and finally finishing it off with Ogre Wars. I hope to see you all there!

Uvatha.5476:

This LS has the community more immersed than any content thus far. In the forums there are heated debates over which candidate players prefer, their concerns on the impact of the electoral choices, people actually role playing debating sides on the forum and in game, people concerned with lore past and present, and even some joking posts that just have fun with the political atmosphere (references to Anthony Weiner, candidate slam posts, speculation). We’ve even seen more devs reply to posts concerning this LS than we’ve seen with most content which also shows they’re excited about what’s happening and just as into it as we are.

Immersion is being vested in the game you’re playing emotionally, being concerned with it’s future, and caring about your character and events. I feel this time around they’ve nailed it on the head and got a great player response.

LS since F&F has been nothing but improving. I think you’re looking at Flame and Frost with rose colored glasses cause the way I remember it there was a sign fixing quest that was finished in 20 minutes in January and then no more until February. At that time people liked the idea of the LS but they gave us too little to do with enormous gaps of time between the release of more things to do in said living story. It was a hurry up and wait situation and these days it’s a lot better than Flame and Frost was.

Maybe, but the forums is the vocal minority. While it may be intense on here, most players in game I find that don’t visit the forums are not immersed at all. They simple see achievements>quest>ignore everything else.

Hello,

Right now I feel the endgame is situated around Achievements (Quest/Repeatable Quest), Getting A legendary (usually involves farming of some kid, typically CoF), and then WvW. The Living Story seems like a side thing to do for the endgame, not the focus. I feel that we should expand on the current endgame to be more competitive, similar to Gw1. Now I know that Anet has said they wanted to create a different game, I hope that this isn’t heading towards the typical Themepark MMO endgame. I loved gw1 endgame. It was unique and different. I feel like the themepark MMO bubble is getting ready to pop and I don’t want to see Gw2 caught up in it. Hard mode version of Story line or Meta events that you can only do if you do the personal story. Alliance battles to bridge the gap between WvW and s/tPvP, GvG, Competitive missions. Those were great and I think would be great if they were brought over in some way.

Hello,

So I’ve been playing the living story since release and it is really going down hill.

You guys really need to work on immersing the players in the story and rewarding them for doing the story.

What I’m finding is most of the people I talk to have no idea what is going on in the story or simply don’t care. They see a new set of achievements and start going for the meta reward.

I love what you did in flame and frost where every few days something new would happen in game. The living story would progress in some way. While I do wish the idea would be expanded upon (it was simply adding in more refugees to the camp) it is a great idea. Progressing the story every 3-4 days but keeping the previous quest for the 2 week time. For exampe the Baazar. Here is what I would have done. Keep in mind that these portions of the game are instanced and can be repeated so that players who come in later can do them. After 2 weeks is up they all go away. 1. Help Kiel gather supplies for the trip to the Baazar- Go around the open world into these story missions where you raid enemies or help towns and they give you various supplies. 2. Kiel and the crew of the ship have stopped in Southsun to restock on a few supplies- Players can go there and see the ship/her crew walking around the camp doing usual stuff. They can enter a instance mission where you have to defend the camp against waves of pirates then barely escape on the ship. 3. The Current part of the living story. Reward players for doing the story. ALWAYS add in a guaranteed reward to the game and make it useful. Don’t give us a already in the game skin with stats that are already in the game. To a game without a gear grind this is useless to most players. You’ve been giving us the guaranteed rewards through the meta achievements, but that isn’t immersive at all and very boring. Take this months LS. I’m finding players just grinding out the achievements and getting bored/annoyed.

You’re turning the achievement system into a quest giver system. Don’t do that, please. Achievements should be a nice reward for players on the side, they should NOT be the main focus of the endgame/living story.

Finally the living story needs to have more of an impact on the world in general. So far I feel like have done nothing. Every living story introduces something new, usually with a new character that I have little to no attachment too. This entire year seems like every LS arc has just been more and more blocks on the base foundation of the LS that you guys are planning on building on. You’ve given us enough characters at this point now, it is time to start getting us attached to these characters. Make these characters interactable outside of the living story. Make them like the Modus Sceleris where they wonder around the world and you can find them and do events with them. Keep in mind that these events need to be rewarding to all players, not just the typical karma+gold+ exp reward. 80s would have no desire to do them. Finally use characters, enemies, and locations already in the game. So far we went to wayfarer, disseau, southsun, and LA. Start spreading these out in these maps and make them over multiple maps. Players are attached to stuff already in the game, when you introduce new locations, characters, enemies, and other things we have no attachment to them which causes the living story to have less of an effect on us.

tl;dr: LS needs to be more immersive. Achievements are too much of the focus and feel way too much like quest givers telling players what to do. We need to start getting attached to characters. Please no more new characters and new enemies. Guild wars 2 open world has so much depth in terms of the story and you guys haven’t utilized it at all.

Thing that scares me is they’ll add on to this nerf. I suspect a larger ICD or no longer 100% chance to proc.

Yeah, I still don’t like it at all. Now they’re going to nerf it and the meta will go back to the way it was. Necromancers will be worst off than before we got buffed thanks to the last patch changes. Can’t wait for all those people who whinned about necromancers being “op” to go back to telling other people to l2p when someone says their class is op.

Bhawb.7408:

ANet, please don’t listen to people who have never played Necro past FotM builds in tournaments. They have no idea about the class as a whole, they jumped on board after we became too strong, and now are acting like they have half an idea about the class, and it is idiotic. I know you know and talk with the high tier actual necromancers, ones who really know and play the class, listen to them.

This. I think people have just been so used to riding the same meta since release (it hasn’t changed at all) that now a class arises that brings something new to the able (fast condi pressure) they’re freaking out. If you nerf this class for whatever reason, you better take a look at the other classes that you’ve been ignoring since release because of the amount of people that play them.

Engels.8537:

Before my grammar horror party starts i’d want to say

a) I’m not a necro fan boy, but the necro is my main

b) I play Spvp (In fact i’m champion hunter (yeah, champion hunter) and i played a lot of tournaments with my necro too) In fact i stopped playing due the hilarious matchmaking system, and because it becomes monotonous

c) I have a guardian // mesmer in full ascended

d) I got a thief // ranger in full exotics

I got no problems to post my pics here

What i’m trying to say is that i’m not fully biased, I played all the games modes, I played almost all classes and in my opinion necromancers are #########

I’m using the same terror build since months, seems that .5 seconds more on doom (when the enemy is way too close to me) and a glowing wall that even a 5 years old child could avoid made me overpowered

When you claim that a backstab damage is way too high people respond “l2p roll a thief and learn how to counter”, so i did

But when people bounce against this glowing wall the response is “okay we’ll nerf it”

You gave me burning when nobody ask for it

You gave me a new DoT condition when nobody ask for it

Now corrupt boon, DS, staff marks and terror damage has been nerfed

Yes, terror damage… do you guys have any idea of how much damage can other classes do?

You didn’t gave us tools to survive

You didn’t gave us tools to avoid enemies be able to escape

Our trait tree still is a mess, is awful, is horrible, is painful, it makes me cry

Our cast times still are atrocious

Some of our skills // traits are useless, some are senseless

Why don’t you nerf the backstab damage? Why don’t you nerf the D/P stealth abuse? Why don’t you nerf the enginner // guardian atrocious survivavility? Why don’t you nerf the elementalist ridiculous damage?

Wanna know why? Because you are lacking courage, but you can do whatever you want to us because the necromancer’s community is small, a patch like this for thieves would result in a hell in earth

Anybody here remember when thieves’s stealth were nerfed? It lasted a week and it was reverted

Soon we’ll see less and less variety, soon WvW will become a “stealth wars” when everybody is able to hide // run //burst others

Wake up, nobody plays Spvp… 70% do PvE, 29% do WvW and 1% plays Spvp

[u]YOU ARE BALANCING THE GAME TOWARDS THE 0,01% OF THE COMUNITY, END GAME FOR MOST PEOPLE IS A LEGENDARY WEAPON OR WvW, DON’T YOU SEE IT?![/u]

You are ruining the game experience for the 99.99% remaining, please wake up Anet

[u]This is the best game i ever played, but it’s not an Esport[/u]

Wanna do a Esport, do it but BALANCE SPVP APART FROM THE REST OF THE GAME

/Rage quit

I agree with you. I said in another post that people have complained about thieves, guards, and mesmers since release and they hardly do anything to them because so many people play those classes. Yet the least played classes get some of the biggest changes. Mostly nerfs, everyonce in a while we get buffs.

I agree, i never wanted dhuumfire. I dont think any necromancer wanted it or was expecting it.

Necromancers have a lot of counters that people basically ignore. From what the meta was before, condition damage wasn’t that goo.d The only class that applied condition damage a lot was engineer, and they were very very easy to focus down and all their AOE condi applications was Skill shot, slow moving projectiles. They were easy to dodge and negate the damage and weren’t fast application.

Now the meta changes and the class that was supposed to be about conditions is actually good at condition damage and people actually have to worry about condition damage are freaking out because they’re not sure how to counter it. Engineers have some of the best condi removal in the game. Elixir gun + healing turret and you can make necromancers useless. Then you have guardians with save yourselves and more.

The best way to counter a necromancer is either someone on your team change up their build to have some condi removal. Necromancers are very very susceptible to CC. We don’t have a whole lot of stunbreakers. When I play with friends on my engineer and we see a necro, we focus them right away. They know with my CC and their burst damage, we can take down the necro by stunlocking.

I’d be mad if they nerf us again. Since release people have kittened and moaned about mesmers, guardians, and thieves. The response to those who did that was always “learn to play newb” or some variation. Now they buffed another class that brings a whole new aspect to the meta, and those who told people to “learn to play” are now the ones kittening and moaning; and what happens? They nerf necromancers next patch. If they nerf us again I’d be very upset because our counters are so dam obvious.

It goes amazing with most medium’s. Which armor set are you with? Keep in mind that this thing is supposed to be a bit on the comical size, so there isn’t going to be a huge amount of armors that look amazing with it.

I thought the same thing of you OP. When I first played this, I remembered a similar game mode that was top down in WC3 (custom arena). It was a blast. I’d love to see similar depth added to southsun.

Hello everyone!

In this thread I’m going to try something different. No suggestions, no saying why a person is wrong. Simply find skills and traits that you never use then say you never use them.

Ill start it out.

Personal Battling Ram- I never use this because there isn’t much utility in teamfights, Its funny/fun in 1v1. When I’m in a team fight, once I use it that is it. No utility and it is also single target. It’s toolbelt skill isn’t that good either.

Mines- This one seems really weird. It is a gadget, yet it has some traits in the explosive line. The problem is that this doesn’t have much synergy to the explosive things, hence why I never use it. It also doesn’t offer a whole lot of utility. It does explode, but I usually have to manual detonate it. It doesn’t do an insane amount of damage, and can easily be countered. The other choices for CC are much better. It’s toolbelt skill is eh too.

Turrets- They die very quickly in teamfights, susceptible to AoE, some have a small range, long Cooldowns, and somewhat useless toolbelt skills. In PvE/WvW those turrets are going to be destroyed/on CD a lot. This means I will be relying on my toolbelt skills. The toolbelt skills simply don’t offer enough utility compared to my other choices to warrant using them. They are some that are very specilized too (thumper, net, flame, etc).

Explosives:

Empowering Adrenaline- The other traits at my choice are just too good to waste this slot for a small damage increase.

Exploit Weakness- The required HP the target needs and the cooldown on it cause this not to be worth the slot compared to my other choices.

Inventions:

Energized Armor- The small power increase doesn’t convince me enough to waste a slot on it compared to what else I can get.

Power Shoes- The speed increase doesn’t warrant traiting for this. If I want speed, i always go for speedkits + vigor in alchemy. It is a lot more viable.

Elite Supplies- The elites just aren’t that good to warrant getting this trait. Supply Drop is already good without it while the other elites each have their own problems.

Alchemy:

Blood Injection- Again, the small increase doesn’t make me want to waste a trait slot on it. The other traits just outclass it.

Tools:

Scope- The damage increase isn’t very high to warrant wasting a trait slot on this. Plus with the insane amount of gap closers, stability, and things of that nature keeping someone beyond 600 is hard to do.

Packaged Stimulants- Medkits are great for single target healing. Throwing them is a bit useless since they’re pretty hard to spot in the middle of a match and the increase in healing doesn’t warrant getting this treat.

Leg Mods- My condi removal is already great so that I don’t need this trait. I usually run healing turret.

Armor Mods- the inner cooldown is just too high to convince me to get it. The speed that burst is pumped out by other classes, wasting the trait on points this isn’t very viable

Adrenal Implant- This just isn’t a great grandmaster trait. It doesn’t stack and it is much more to get the speedykits + invigorating speed.

Elites:

Elixir X- With the randomness, lack of utility for in teamfights while in the transformation, and the cooldown causes this skill to not be as viable compared to Supply Crate

Mortar- A very specalized turret. IF a target closes the gap this becomes useless. It’s damage is very high, the range isn’t that big, and its HP is low causing it to be destroyed rather easily. In a game where you’re constantly mobile it just isn’t that viable compared to what we have.

Ok engineer forum, what do you guys not use and why?

Geff.1930:

Yeah, not only is it unblockable but it interrupts your block skill. It’s incredibly annoying. With the Guardian pull skill atleast you can avoid the sword anchor that pulls.

QQ

Eh, it’s a very very easy animation to spot, on top of seeing a line going towards you. I can understand in WvW, but then again there is so much going on in there it is hard to ready any of that stuff. You can dodge it, it is not undodgeable.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

This was an intentional change. The previous behavior where the pull succeeded regardless of facing, was inconsistent with other pull skills like Scorpion Wire and Spectral Grasp, as well as most other ranged targeted attacks. It’s still a useful skill. Yes it has a longer cast time than other pull skills, but it’s unblockable and brings all of the other tool kit skills along with it.

It’s unblockable? Man you guys need put that in the tooltip. This whole time i thought it wasn’t, so I would wait for people to not be blocking to cast it! Has it been like this since release?

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

But we do have a lot of power. My concern is that this power may be working against us. The devs have stated multiple times that they are not giving a necromancer the tools other classes have for survival (stealth, disengage, vigor, invulerability, etc), so to compensate in a world where active defense is the only defense, they give necros a lot of passive defense and a crap ton of damage to boot.

Do we have too much damage? I’m not so sure. We have good AoE conditions, but the fact is that necros apply bleeds slowly, only 2 every 1.5 seconds or so with the scepter, and 3 every 4.75 seconds with the staff. To get bursts of conditions as a necro, I have to do some complicated maneuvers (spectral grasp + Weakening Shroud + Dark Path + Chillblains + Mark of blood into scepter/dagger for grasping dead and enfeebling blood, coming to 13 bleeds after blowing all my cooldowns), and our ace move Epidemic is hard to use, since if they cleanse before use it does nothing and if their partner cleanses after use it does nothing.

It just doesn’t have “Oh crap I’m at the cap!” feel that Condi rangers give, or the “My cleanses, they do NOTHING!” feel that Condi mesmers give, or that “OMG I’M ON FIRE!!!” effect that engineers have. The Mes and the Ranger are tricky and hard to fight, whereas the engineer is oppressive with either direct damage or high controls. The one gimmick we have to lay on the hurt as a conditionmancer is to stagger our fears to maximize terror damage. Against classes with low HP and if we’re lucky enough to have dhuumire proc, this can be quite dangerous. However, a stun breaker and/or stability ruins the chain.

It is rare for me to run a power necro other than a tanky minion master in PVP (which dies to AoEs and becomes helpless very quickly), but Power Necros suffer from a lack of reliable AoE and also have issues at range. Without any cleave, the necro relies on wells for AoE damage, but wells have the bitter flaw that players can simply choose not to stand in them, making them hard to use to that effect. Our ranged power weapon, the Axe, has incredibly short range and does so-so damage at best. Instead, we often rely on Life Blast for our ranged attack, which eats up our defense as we are using it.

Condi necros are slow to start and not in control of their own damage, power necros have tunnel vision and highly delayed AoE, minion masters are vulnerable to AoEs. Our offensive options, for all of their statistical clout, are quite limiting and have their own weaknesses. There are countless times as a Condi Necro where, despite spamming all of my AoEs, I can’t make a dent in an enemy player’s HP because they have dodged/blocked/cleansed literally everything I have done. Instead, my HP is plummeting for their constant attacks, and I have absolutely no way to defend against them.

While the Engineer suffers from the problem that the Devs have no idea what they want the class to do, the Necro suffers from the problem where the Devs have a clear idea what they want to do, and it just doesn’t work too well.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Also on a side note some necromancers ask for more mobility simply because it is hard for us to run from out numbered fights. With only one condi cleanse for us in the meta (our heal), we usually have to fight in any given situation because it is very hard for us to escape. Classes usually have at least one leap where as the necromancer has a leap if there is a target to hit. Try roaming with a necro in WvW and you’ll see this. In spvp it is a lot better because we can utilize choke points in the maps with spectral wall or our fears. Sadly outside of that it is hard.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that not killing someone right after grace is smart, but I can’t control everyone

What I see happening with the spirits is that they aren’t punishing hiders at all. They simple die, get karkas/warning traps and chase people that are actually playing and running around. If i want to win, i go and get passiflora, head west, and hide with 8+ rations. I win every time. Sometimes ill get a vantage point and just watch survivors running from camp to camp scavenging get kitten d by 4+ karkas, or get 6+ stacks of torment on them . What basically is happening is the game is rewarding players for dieing wayyy to much. Heck the guides online say the best way to get points is to kill yourself right away after grace ends. That alone should really be enough to warrant a change in the system of spirits.

My advice is putting in these “markers” on the map that are sections of the map. Spirits can then contribute revenge emotes to these markers and it can only be done 1 min after grace ends. The ground will rumble and make noticeable animations to signal to players that that ground is about to become bad. When ti goes off anyone inside of it dies.

Spirits should contribute to leading players into each other. THEY SHOULD NOT contribute to killing by spamming alarms, to just decimating groups of players with karkas, and shutting down entire camps. Players are being punished way tooo hard for not hiding and actually scavenging.

vicious.5683:

mustache Ironman?

Of course! A norn has to have the norn stash. Stops enemies in their tracks with its sexyness

Yaker here, Yak’s Bend is one of the best PvE servers. We may not be amazing in WvW, but we make it up with out PvE players. We had some of the first people to get to level 40+ fractals when they were released, we have many other popular players that are heavy in the PvE (Ill let you get in game and see if you can find them ).

We have a lot of “PvE Commanders”. I am actually one of them. Us commanders specialize in organizing open world bosses for players who dont have accesss to a ton of people. Need a temple done? Message more or another PvE commander you might know. Need Karka queen or Hydra queen? We’re your man. I also love roaming the open world. Every once in a while ill go on my list of favorite events, form a gorup with my guildies, and we’ll spend the next hour or two going from map to map completing then and sending our messages in map chat.

Like I said we are one of the best PvE servers, but not the best. Our temples aren’t open 24/7, but if you need them open there are people in there that will help.

Hello,

So if you watch the Guild Wars 2 blog post about the months ahead, you’ll remember they talked about giving Champoins special reward chest that award things such as unique skins. I heavily support this manuever, the unique skins rewarded from certain bosses in Gw1 was a great system, especially for getting players to go to a variety of areas. I’d love to start a discussion thread talking about Champions that should reward unique skins, enemies that should be champions, and what the unique skins should look like. I’m really trying to find events that are unique i how they are started. Some battles, enemies, and things like that have awesome ways of starting the event.
Of course I believe that every meta event that ends in some kind of boss fight should reward a special skin/champion reward.

Ill start the list…
1. Queensdale- Deathroot Shack. At this location you can read a book that opens a portal behind you to summon a demon. This is such a cool mechanic. He should be made a champion and have his own unique skin. Possibly a blade/axe.

2. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defeat_Aquabase_Terror-Seven%27s_massive_pet,_Fluffy Defeat Aquabase Terror-Seven’s massive pet Fluffy This could be something water themed, possibly another land item that has similar water themes. Like the krait or orrian weapons.

3. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defeat_Lord_Ignius_the_EternalDefeat Lord Ignius the Eternal Another very fun one. Perhaps a dwarven themed item with flame touches

4. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defeat_the_disturbed_shade_of_Grazden_the_Protector Defeat the disturbed shade of Grazden the Protector Another great one. It not only referrences Gw1, but it also has a pretty cool start mechanic. Possible a ghost themed caster weapon could be rewarded

5. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defeat_the_mysterious_fire_creature Defeat the mysterious fire creature This one has an awesome start mechanic and it’s a fun fight. I know the people I show this too when I run around doing events love doing it.

6. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defeat_the_Risen_pirate_Captain_Rotbeard Defeat the Risen pirate Captain Rotbeard Another great one. Cool start mechanic.

7. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defeat_Victurus_and_his_Branded_army Defeat Victurus and his Branded Army another event that I just find fun to do.

8. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Destroy_the_champion_Risen_lich Destroy the Champion Risen Lich. This is a very cool chain with some cool animations when you first engage the lich.

9. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Draw_out_and_destroy_the_Demagogue%27s_spirit
Draw out and destroy the Demagogue spirit. Another great event with referrences to previous storylines in Guild Wars 1. This guy needs to be a bit harder to take down, but it’s still a very fun event.

10. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Force_the_ancient_creature_back_into_its_prison
One of my favorites. The animation and start mechanics are great.

11. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Help_Aria_Venom_slay_Draithor_the_Drill

12. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Help_Shining_Blade_Kimber_defeat_Kol_Skullsmasher

13. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kill_the_jotun_abomination_destroying_the_Priory_camp

14. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kill_Gargantula,_the_spider_broodmother

15. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defeat_Karas_the_Undying

16. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kill_the_krait_witch

17. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Locate_and_kill_the_transformed_krait_witch

BobbyStein.2315:

The stories are connected. You’ll find out more later this year.

The anticipation, it’s too much. Are we perhaps going to see a progression of the main over arcing storyline this time around? There is still the question about Mr. E and Scarlet and who they are, are they going to be involved heavily in this story arc in some way? I’ve been trying to see if they have any plans in this, best I can see is they attack zeyphyrites, but I’m not sure if this story is timegated and will progress later this week or next week before it officially ends.

Also check out my polls if you haven’t already for the living story.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Living-Story-Polls-Show-us-your-Feedback/first#post2469820

I’ve been trying hard to gather feedback in a somewhat organized manner to help you guys out in future storylines

JonathanSharp.7094:

Sheslat.6750:

JonathanSharp.7094:

We get to see how Ridley Scott made Blade Runner with a companion DVD special, but in video games, no one talks about all the complex processes that go into making and balancing a game as complex as GW2 (which is basically 3 games in 1, all using the same balance #’s).

Hope this makes sense.

With all my respect but it make no sense to me, if you guys are trying to balance the 3 parts of the game using the same balance, it’s seems crazy to me.

Even in some games like lol, they balance around a classic game type but the characters which are considered top tier in 5vs5 are totally diferent from characters which are considered top tier in 3vs3.

I remember some of the last SoTG you mention that you want to new players in spvp from pve or wvsw to know what their characters do, but I want you to know that everyday that I see new players on the mist i just listen the same question. where are the rings and other accesories apart from the amulet?

You guys split the game to make spvp competitive , I dont understand why you dont divide balance to the same reason.

As I’ve said, if we split EVERYTHING and maintained 3 versions of every skill in the game (PvE/WvW/PvP), we’d be adding a LOT of work for the balance team. As it is, we try to keep most things consistent, and only split where we feel it is needed.

It’s a work flow issue, hope this makes sense. It would also mean that players would have to learn 3 different versions of every skill, which is not good for new players.

This post is great, really quick question. With the LS setup you have 4 different teams working on balance changes, have you guys thought about doing 3 seperate teams of people? Right now people think theres only 2 people balancing the game (who knows how many it actually is, that was just a rumor that started and people always reference it). I have no idea how the gaming industry works, so what if you split it into 3 teams of like 2 or 3 people. Is that way outside of Anet’s budget? I can’t help but feel you guys shot yourselves in the foot by making these aspects of the game wildly different.

Also keep doing what you do with the SotG. Those are great. I feel like every time you’re gonna nerf a profession or make a big buff to a profession, maybe make a post talking about where you’re going with the class and what you’d like to see it do. So far all we know about necromancers is that you want to make life force more easy to gain or more diverse.

grayskull.2367:

This game was great fun until they stealth patch the amount of food you could find from ever passion fruit or from supple chest now its near impossible to survive because of lack of food every time i die it because of hunger, which is not fun.

Before i was winning every game with me hiding jumping out kill player coming to close to my hide spot and hiding again, now you cant hide you have to run around like headless chicken before you stave to death. You may as well stay in the camp you spawn in now what the point of a massive map if leave it kill you from hunger.

TLDR was fun before the food stealth nurf now it not!

Didn’t even know they had more food before. Honestly spirits shouldn’t be able to deal damage to players at all or summon karka, It should be able to notify other players of locations, manipulate their inventory with that trap, maybe put fake salvage stuff or passions that when you salvage them nothing happens. Things like that. Not summoning one hit behemoths and applying torment by stackign 30 traps on a single person.

Imo do that, cut the player amount in half, then you’ll be good.

Doggie.3184:

imo Magitech should be Heavy and Braham should be Medium. magitech loosk 100x heavier than it… idc if Braham is a Guardian.

As a Norn Engineer, Magitech is everything I could ask for and more.

Stinson.5972:

In the Hunger Games at least, the point of having clusters of supplies was to get participants to attack each and encourage conflict. I think it’s a legit way to keep the matches at a manageable length.

Karka ganking is seriously annoying though.

As to the points, I think you can get the meta without survival if you run fractals and dungeons and go over and do 20 events in Diessa plateau.

Yea I guess with the supplies, I’d still like to have more camps for us. At least 2. I just despise the karka and the spirits ability to just summon them anywhere. Game would be ten times as more fun without them. I hope they patch them out soon, at this point I’m just sticking with aspect arena if I want to have fun.

First let me say this game is awesome, there are just three small things…

1. Karka/enemy NPC’s kill this game heavily. They one shot way too easily, just what this game needed more was to hate karka with more passion

2. Supplies. Supplies only being found in 3 camps causes players to cluster in them and it just isn’t fun. People just swing away. There is way too many people for only 3 camps. Either make supplies more accessiable outside of the camps or reduce player count

3. Spirits are outrageously overpowered.

Conncept.7638:

Just previewed it for females

Light armor corset that can actually use gloves with, I approve very much.

Medium armor still stuck in a trench coat… but! It comes with a really cool wrap-around skirt, which you can see… if you are using the single non-cultural armor that isn’t a trench coat…

Heavy armor looks like medium armor, leather with fur and all, except that it isn’t a trench coat… so it couldn’t be medium armor…

That is great to hear, I know the light reminds me of a few Gw1 armors for necromancer so that brought a glint to my eye

Konig Des Todes.2086:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

So, I’m not going to spoil anything but I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you guys that according to game lore, there was never a Canthan district. If you’ve done your research, you’ll know that the great collapse was formally an arts district.

According to Ree it was a Canthan district…

Unless she was stating the design history and the lore history in the same sentence.

Sir, I have done my research. And there is evidence to say it was an Arts AND a Canthan district. _

Aside from Ree’s statement, in the Order of Whispers personal story step Suspicious Activity you are able to ask Valenze and the others about the person you’re going to investigate, and she says:

“He was born and raised in the Canthan areas of Divinity’s Reach. He worked in the gladitorial arena until he was injured. "

So tell me Mr. “There Was Never A Canthan District” – where was/is this “Canthan areas of Divinity’s Reach.” Eh? Ehhhh? The gladiatorial area could only be the training grounds looking spots next to the Plaza of Balthazar (no other place fits a “gladiatorial area” description), which is right on the edge of The Great Collapse!

I think we can all agree that a Canthan DIstrict was in the game before release, but they took it out for whatever reason. The fact that theres a huge thread about them taking it out and what not speaks volumes that the community really wants Cantha in the game. However, they can’t go back on the great collapse so they’re trying to make do. I’m sure we’ll eventually see Cantha in the future, lets not bust their balls over this.

Hello guys, I’m here to answer some of the confusion in this game. Since there was never any in game lore saying that the Canthan District was here (despite the pre release screenshots), they finally put some in to explain it.

The Great Collapse was The Arts District before. It contained something known as The Great Sympathy Hall.

Things you should note:

1. Citizens suggest that it may have been caused by sewer drakes, rumors of a giant drake living in the sewers is still active.

2. Minister Caedecus is attempting to send his Ministry Guards into the area to inspect it, they are confronted by Shinning Blade guards telling them to turn back. After an exchange of words filled with tension, the Ministry Guards go back. This could signal the rising tensions and split in the DR government.

Hello everyone, take a look at these awesome armors in the PvP locker!

http://imgur.com/a/y85vl

From top to bottom: heavy, light, medium.

Looks awesome, I’m loving the medium.

Also take a bit of time to answer a few questions about the last living story arc.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1totIebX5FebfELWWIs6JDMYgLPS5XEDV2dCIEro6Oes/viewform

IF you have suggestions for the poll or would like to see the past ones, go here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Living-Story-Polls-Show-us-your-Feedback/first#post2469820

Thank you!

Edit: Here are the codes from a reply in this thread

StinVec.3621:

---

Braham’s Armor (heavy)
[&AgGfqAAA] Helm
[&AgGjqAAA] Shoulders
[&AgGbqAAA] Chest
[&AgGdqAAA] Gloves
[&AgGhqAAA] Leggings
[&AgGZqAAA] Boots
[&AgGVqAAA] Full Set

---

Magitech Armor (medium)
[&AgG3qAAA] Helm
[&AgG7qAAA] Shoulders
[&AgGzqAAA] Chest
[&AgG1qAAA] Gloves
[&AgG5qAAA] Leggings
[&AgGxqAAA] Boots
[&AgGWqAAA] Full Set

---

Phoenix Armor (light)
[&AgGrqAAA] Helm
[&AgGvqAAA] Shoulders
[&AgGnqAAA] Chest
[&AgGpqAAA] Gloves
[&AgGtqAAA] Leggings
[&AgGlqAAA] Boots
[&AgGXqAAA] Full Set

---

Oh god, everything you said in this thread OP. Yes yes yes and more yes!

Here are my ideas for this whole concept of necromancers, quite frankly Anets defensive perception for this class is so flawed.

Blood Thirst- Replace Blood is Power (25 in the blood magic trait line)- Player gains benefits in Tiers from the total amount of HP is stolen. 5 second CD between each of the tiers, 10 sec CD after Tier 3 before it resets and starts at Tier 1 again
Tier 1 Steal X amount of HP- Player Gains Vigor
Tier 2 Steal Y amount of HP- Player gains Vigor and 10% Life Force
Tier 3 Steal Z amount of HP- Player gains vigor and Apply two stacks of torment to the last player you stole HP From.

Something along those lings. HP stealing is something that many builds can do and buffing this while giving us surviveability could great help diversify builds. My suggestion is probably bad, but I would love something along those lines.

Here is another. Something in the Spectral trait line. I’m not too sure on what it would replace

Vengeful Shadow- If you take 10% or more of your HP pool as damage, you gain 5% of your life force.

I agree with OP. I play a necromancer alt and they don’t seem to be talking about or acknowleding this classes core problems. I don’t think we needed burning. We need mobility and surviveability. In a game that the burst that it does, DS is only a bit viable in tPvP and nothing else. I was in WvW the other day roaming with friends (necros roaming is like seeing a yetti in this game) and we go into a 3v4. 2 thieves, mesmer, and ele. They of course focus me, I pop my 2 dodges to negate some damage, luckily i had killed a few things and had about 90% LF so I went into that and lasted…2 seconds. Popped out, had no dodges, died immediately. Look in the combat log and got hit with 4 7k heart seekers, a 5k backstab, 2 fire skills from the ele that did 7k, the a shatter from the mesmer that did about 5k.

Have a classes defense mechanic in this game being he absorbs hits is so bad. Every other classes gets one or more of the following. Vigor, teleports, invurnabilities, blocks, stealths, evades, and aegis.

I know Necromancers are a hell of a lot better in tpvp, but in every other aspect I get focused and get hit with so much burst damage it’s insane.

Anet, we don’t want more damage. We don’t want more conditions. We just want to have some kind of defensive mechanic other than DS. A defense mechanic that requires us to kill stuff first before we can even take advantage of it (so after using it or at a start of the game we have 2 dodges as our defense).

I’m really happy about the new ticket system. This could mean we could get weapon skins year around with these tickets. I would love a chance to get the jade or fused weapon skins again.

Also I put up a new poll for the Bazaar of the Four Winds feedback. Would love if you contribute.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1totIebX5FebfELWWIs6JDMYgLPS5XEDV2dCIEro6Oes/viewform

If you have any suggestions please post them here
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Living-Story-Polls-Show-us-your-Feedback/first#post2469231

Thank you. I get so many more replies when I post something outside of the LS Forum about it.

Ok guys new poll for Bazaar of the Four Winds is up and running. I took your feedback and tried to put in some 1 to 5 rating questions on those that it seemed it would fit. If you wish to expand on any responses say it in this thread. If you have an suggestions please do say in this thread or toss me a PM.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1totIebX5FebfELWWIs6JDMYgLPS5XEDV2dCIEro6Oes/viewform

Blissified.8369:

Deified.7520:

I see. The problem that may arise with offering gear from PvE to sPvP, they also need to account for the existing PvP players. I know a few aren’t too happy about the achievement boxes and I’m sure letting PvErs bring in culture gear wouldn’t excite them. So if they do that they should offer gear from sPvP to PvE too, to be fair.

I don’t know if using pvp gear in pve is fair, as it seems the rewards are off, i do know being able to bring pve skins into pvp wouldn’t though, because it seems pve gear takes a lot more time / resources then vice versa.

As in if someone has ran arah enough times to get full arah gear, compared to someone who just recieved it from doing pvp, as armor in pvp doesn’t have harder dungeons to do or not to to recieve said skins.

example: Teir 1 human gear in pvp vs arah gear in pvp, arn’t they almost the same reward – wise? i may be wrong as much as im a pvp player, i just hate how pvp is divided from the rest of the game, and with wvw their i have no reason to go to pvp.

(Except when i cant find any non zerg v zerg battles in wvw, as about half the time i prefer smaller skrimishes like 20 v 20 )

Yeah that is true. Some of the armors are insanely easy to get, like the ones from ranked chest (I got a full set of inquest gear after a few days). However gear like culture gear is very high in rank. So the armors would probably be adjusted, though they still would need to find a way to make winning a ranked match important in some way. Maybe something less cosmetic for PvE, such as exp books, boosters, etc.

I see. The problem that may arise with offering gear from PvE to sPvP, they also need to account for the existing PvP players. I know a few aren’t too happy about the achievement boxes and I’m sure letting PvErs bring in culture gear wouldn’t excite them. So if they do that they should offer gear from sPvP to PvE too, to be fair.

I’m rather curious about this because I want to get into it, but playing with friends and people I know is something I try to do because I just have so much more fun. The only PvP i can get my friends and any guildies of a guild that has 200 people is WvW roaming. They give me some of the worst excuses I can find to not do spvp. I always give them solutions but they just make up another excuse. Maybe I’m unlucky, but the other guilds and people I interact with seldom do sPvP. I’ve only met 1 person who is a avid s/tpvper in this game and he goes offline for long periods of time.

So tell me forum, why do you guys not play sPvP? I really wish more people would play it, it is saddening that I am in contact with 200+ people and I hardly see any of them want to do spvp.

Hey guys,

Anet finished their live stream for the patch tomorrow, have a look!

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/434331639

It’s a bit slow for me personally (the buffering), wouldn’t be surprised if its because a lot of people are watching it.

That was funny, good video.

So something I love about this game is the open world and the NPC interaction with not only themselves, but the players. What is your favorite NPCs or NPC interaction in the game?

Mine is Miss Mipp and Tholaun at Almuten Estates in Gendarren. So sweet. Another one I like is in snowden drifts with the lionguard area with a whisper base under it. Theres a norn mother and her daughter who is ill traveling to hoelbrak. It really tugs on your feels.

Pic related

What is ya’lls?

So I looked around the places you talked about. While it seems like it is creating portals for teleportation through space, but not time. There is no evidence that is concrete enough to suggest they’re teleporting through time (steam creatures are in lornars pass). My best guess is that if they do a reactor fractal, it will involve enemies and npcs teleporting from different parts of time for the mist energy would probably combine with the chaos to form portals through space and time. Possible seeing some canthan enemies (maybe infected from factions), interacting with previous NPCs.

Other than that I can see no way of this being insanely interesting. If they do make the reactor fractal and don’t bother to really answer anything or expand on the lore and just confirm the theory that some random inquest scientist messed up, Ill be disappointed.

Hello,

So with cutthroat politics being previewed, I’m trying to figure out why this reactor is interesting at all. I went through the area, looking for any sort of lore clues or anything to make it interesting. It all seems like a generic asuran mad scientist working with inquest messed up and a bad thing happened. I honestly though the developers just made it as sort of a reference to Chernobyl and never thought anything special about it. The main reason I’m voting for Evon is because of the Fall of Abbadon and I feel like that has some awesome lore behind it.

So why is the Thaumanova Reactor interesting. What lore/theories do you have that may get me interested in it?

Redfeather.6401:

Unfortunately I feel you are right, Deified. The area just doesn’t entice. I have an idea of what they were doing underground, but most people wouldn’t as the incident is presented in a way that makes it feel… generic.

What did you find/what are your theories? Most I can get out of it was the inquest were messing with what seems is dragon energies (surprised there), probably made a mis calculation and boom. So you’ve got people teleporting in and out, alright but nothing I find hints towards any type of specific research or topic that could cause this.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

It matters, but we all pretty much know exactly what happened at the Mouth of Torment.

Nobody knows what happened at Thaumanova…yet.

Main reason I don’t care too much about Thaumanova is because nothing in the game really entices me to ask why. I’ve done some exploring of the place, you have elemental chambers and people trying to fix it. The problem is that the whole “Asuran(s) scientist messed up, something bad happened” is used soooo oftennn (seems like theres at least one event per map where this happens) that I don’t care much for it. There is nothing in that place that I found that really makes me want to know what happened, nothing that tugs on my lore strings. I mean I’m a guy that went and translated in game books to try to find Final Rest. Lore is something I love, but I find the reactor not lore interesting at all. Maybe if there were hints to…I dont know the history of the ruins in which the Asurans stay. Perhaps link to another dragon. Anything like that. The whole thing surrounding the reactor at it’s current state doesn’t seem like an important issue with the world of Tyria at all. The way it is presented it feels like a side quest rather than something important. The creation of an entire desert/desolation and the fall of a god is very important to the world.

They talked about putting books in game that players would read to find out lore about stuff.

Anet should totally put that in.

You do raise some fine points OP, but I’d say lets hold back our decisions till tomorrow. Tomorrow they’re supposed to detailing the months ahead. On the topic of expansions, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re seeing how the game does with the LS and gem store. A big thing about games is they need money to support them. Gw1 survived on 3 expansions and barely made it before Gw2 was released. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re looking at the playerbase size, profits, and other things to see if the LS is good enough to attract players and to have them support the game or releasing an expansion is. I also believe one of the reasons they’re being careful with the new zones is they dont want a southsun. They’re asking themselves what can they offer that makes a zone worth going back to. Right now people go back to Orr only because of temples and farming locations for the most part. They tried adding a meta event in southsun but it was too hard for the rewards you got and made the zone more dead than it was before. I’m sure they are analyzing what they can do to prevent a zone that they will probably work months on go dead upon release.

Quite honestly, I’d love for them just to release more endgame content. I love the LS, but there needs to be more things for players to do b/w the two weeks. I find my self roaming around or messing around in WvW till the next LS. I’d love to see some guild wars, a AB style of PvP, raids (which are confirmed to be in the works), more mini games with actual useful rewards besides titles (next mini games seem to be offering this), and current combat changes in pvp/WvW.

Every area in the forums post this. Professions, spvp, pve, etc. Don’t forget the developers work regular hours like regular people and are also working on other projects dealing with the game. Raids, WvW, etc. I’d rather have them working on those projects while releasing these stream videos every so often to tell us whats up.

On the topic of WvW, the developers will be doing a live stream this saturday to talk about WvW and the future with it. Hopefully that will appease you somewhat.