Guild Wars 2

I am a little worried about how these changes will affect Warrior in PvP (and I don’t play Warrior…ever, really). I think Warriors are due for some small buffs in compensation, but I’m willing to wait to see how these changes alter the balance. It may turn out that with Celemenatlists and celestial Engies being brought down, they may not be in as bad of a position.

Overall, good changes. Nightmare Rune gets lower uptime, but more useful cooldown (despite what people are saying, many fights take longer than 1 minute).

Locust Swarm… I won’t complain, but I don’t think this is the skill they really need to buff. Having a bit higher DPS is nice, but again, I don’t think the skill needs it.

Corrosive Poison Cloud might actually see some use now. It could still use a bit more, but cast time and cooldown changes make it actually useable.

Signet of the Locust having a shorter cooldown is exactly what it needed. The healing portion getting a buff is also nice, but their notes on the increased scaling are kinda funky. Improtant to note, though, is that if it steals from 5 targets, it will scale at 2* healing power untraited. I may teach myself to use it as a second heal skill. Between this buff and the recent buff to Life Siphon, Bloodthirst may become a good trait.

Signet of Undeath is still worthless. I give ANet an A for recognizing the fact it needed a buff…and a D- for actually changing that.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Would it actually see use anywhere if it had an AOE heal on hit, though? I can’t think of any time I’d actually use it, especially since it’s not like you can heal yourself with it by standing in melee with your target.

Consider that Renewing Blast is the highest HP/second healing ability in the game. No other ability (and very few combinations of abilities) can reach 1k healing/second with ease.

Thing is, Dragonbrand has never done much recruiting, so even if there is another fairweather implosion, the core guilds don’t really mind. At worst, such an implosion would take us to tier 4 briefly before bouncing back and forth between 3 and 4 until another wave of transfers comes through, restarting the entire “four tier 2” thing again.

I think it would be the third time it’s happened with Dragonbrand, so I’m fairly confident on my prediction. The end result depends on the other current tier 2 servers staying about where they are, though.

Interestingly, the word “Racism” makes more sense to be used in-game than in real life. Why? Because all of humanity is one race. African, Aisian, European, doesn’t matter. it’s the same race; kitten sapiens.

Charr, Asura, Sylvari, Norn, Human, Hylek, etc.? Those are different races.

So “racisim” is more accurate when talking about discrimination in this case.

As for the original topic, I agree that merchants (at least a basic one) should probably be in each home instance.

EDIT: And the filter kicks in on a species name. I should have expected that, but I won’t be changing it.

Thing is, the condition caps can be reached by 2 or 3 people. Anyone beyond that is wasted, so you do want AoE. If nothing else, to burn down the offshoots to prevent them from going nuts.

At least one additional weapon per profession. I’d say a new utility type as well and a new elite (so new elite, 4 more utilities with a shared type, and new weapon per profession). More traits would also be welcome.

You do not, sadly. An annoyance, to be sure.

The problems that could come then are spammers with commander tags having no method of limiting them. Commanders should have a higher limit than non-commanders, but unlimited…probably not.

Necros should have Spectral Wall equipped for that fight. AI is dumb enough to not walk around, so it’s a very effective delay tactic. Likewise, staff eles should swap into Earth every so often for Unsteady Ground and staff Guardians (actually useful here!) should drop Line of Warding.

I do want it to be an expansion. I do not want it to be traditional. I’m genuinely curious to see what ANet is going to announce at PAX South.

I would have let you know over Skype if the Necro CDI did start, Bhawb.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Evon would have fixed LA in 7 days. Look at how quickly he built the Pavilion in DR.

For that matter, Evon would have had proper AA batteries in place for Scarlet’s invasion. We wouldn’t have to be wondering how long it would take the city to be rebuilt if it wasn’t destroyed in the first place.

Forget the captian’s council on that front. Evon has connections in the Black Citadel!

I think if you re-watch the video, when it shows Rytlock, he’s cutting down Mordrem Husks. Nothing we haven’t seen a lot of already.

spoj.9672:

Condi mesmers should be camping staff most of the time for bleeds and burn. Plus offhand phantasms do a lot of bleeds aswell. So thats not true. Maybe if you are talking about PvP style condi mesmers you would be correct. But as we all know confusion and torment isnt all that great in PvE.

Agreed, but they at least have the option to avoid the overwriting, which means you have the option to run two condition builds without them stepping on toes. Only other pair is condition guardian and theif/necro.

spoj.9672:

Why two if one is a mesmer?

Most of a Mesmer’s condition damage comes from Torment and Confusion, two conditions that everyone else has difficulty stacking. There’s still overlap, sure, but not nearly as much as two condition builds of any other profession.

Guardian would probably be wasting the #6 with their Virtue of Courage passive, since it does have a 30 second cooldown. I imagine it triggers with your passive Aegis when you happen to be at full health, then is unavailable for another 30 seconds, so you don’t notice it in most PvE fights.

Perhaps I should restate (not rephrase, restate) in the OP: spec for group support wherever possible." Because during the lane phase, your DPS is not your primary concern. Keeping everyone (especially the siege carriers) alive is. Yes, you still need DPS, but if you lose some personal DPS for group support, that is better.

Hence what I said in the first place: Your personal DPS does not matter.

Edited the OP with some more of the hints people gave in the thread. Thank you.

Conditions are fine in PvE, but there can only be one (two if one is a Mesmer)

Rising Dusk.2408:

I disagree with your last tip. Every bit of damage helps and it’s very easy to sustain yourself simply by dodging and playing smart. Standard PvE rules apply: if you can’t avoid damage because you’re not that great of a player, only then do you add bulk until you can be effective. Good players have no need for bulk in this encounter.

Normally true, but not here. The siege carriers staying alive is what matters. Until you’re in facing the champions, your personal DPS doesn’t really matter at all. You need the siege carriers to damage the walls.

I guess it still is true that normal “dodge stuff and you’re k” is in effect here for personal durability.

So, this thread is just to help people out in making this fight go a bit more smoothly. Anyone is welcome to post hints or clarify things as they desire. I’ve only beaten the Vinewrath once, so I don’t have a huge list personally.

Tips:

• Build siege! Especially the arrow carts. Unlike the Marionette fight, all of the mobs here (not just champs) do scale with the event. The Vetrans have champion-level health, for example. The arrow carts are extremely effective at tearing through the mordrem. The cripples can stop Teragriffs from using their strongest attack, the bleeds are good against husks, and anything from them will paralyze Menders entirely. North lane has them positioned in a very strong location to cover most of the path as well as the ammo area.

• Don’t neglect your condition clear! Lots of poison and torment can make these really rough without it.

• Spec for group support wherever possible. This isn’t usual for open world PvE, but your personal DPS does not matter. Best to make sure everyone is alive and doing damage instead. More specifically, best to make sure the siege carriers are alive and moving freely.

• White areas = good. Stand in them for protection against certain attacks. Orange areas = bad. Likewise, flowers are helpful to stand on during the third champion. They let you avoid a massive damage attack that hits everyone on the ground.

• Make sure all lanes are well staffed! About 20 people per lane is sufficient, but make sure all lanes have at least that before joining the first one you come to.

Caladbolg may have helped shield Trahearne from Mordremoth. He did have the sword on his person during the failed attack.

Actually, his job is going to be spying for Evon Gnashblade. Evon noticed the serial number while installing the combat chassis and traced it to Consortium.

And no, I’m not making this up. There’s a conversation in Fort Mariner between them that states this.

No, Signet of Vampirism’s passive does not cause any damage. Why do people keep talking about it like it does?

Vayne.8563:

IIvIIozzie.9250:

Caithe’s actions are a pretty absurd thing to defend. She makes no real attempt to save the life of an innocent from this psychopath, and instead decides to murder with the approval of the murdered. Does the fact that Wynne tell’s her to do it make the act acceptable? That Wynne decides on the spot that this is the best option instead of the two of them defending themselves from the incoming attack is flat out bizarre.

Those that are defending Caithe’s decision let me ask, would you do the same? Would you really choose to kill your friend/relative instead of defending them? Is that what you think love is?

Except that’s human morality. Sylvari don’t really have the same idea about death, and more importantly, she was fulfilling Wynne’s Wilde Hunt by Winne’s request, which is important to a Sylavri.

But put this another way. Suppose she decides to protect Wynne instead and Faolin defeats her. She tortures Wynne, gets the secret and the secret gets out.

The only way to protect her race at that point, the only failsafe way, is to kill Wynne.

It’s entirely possible in Caithe’s mind that Faolin could beat her if it came to it.

Another alternative: Caithe helps Wynne escape.

This first looks to be a good compromise, but it’s really the worst possible solution. Faolain would continue to hunt down Wynne, but is now also angry and mistrustful with Caithe.

Anything shy of killing either Faolain or Wynne would not have solved the problem, just delayed it. This is because Faolain was relentless in seeking that knowledge. The only way to stop the hunt was to end it herself.

Highly, highly doubt a new profession is coming. Everything else? Very possible.

perilisk.1874:

So, the last thing our team said before the video was that we needed to check in with DE to find out where Caithe went. And now they’re all… MIA, at best. Convenient.

Strange when Rytlock, who’s in another dimension, might actually be the easiest to reach…

Still no idea where in The Mists he is, or what he’s been doing, but apparently he’ll be able to annihilate Mordrem when we next see him.

Doesn’t that require like 500k condition damage to kill a husk in a single bleed tick? Even Necros will be scared of that.

Overthinking it. In the case of Logan, his absence meant Snaff could not be properly defended when Rytlock went to deliver the killing blow to Kralkatorrik. In the case of the player, your absence meant one fewer person was on the airship that got torn apart.

Roe.3679:

spoj.9672:

Or a re-box of season 1 & 2.

Season 1 and 2 won’t give them the financial boost they expect in quarter 3 of this year.

ANet hasn’t said anything at all regarding a spike in profits. That’s from professional speculators.

And funny, those speculations came after learning ANet had a major event coming at PAX. Not a coincidence, but also not actually a precursor to anything. These professionals, who have no connection to ANet, see a big announcement, then predict a spike in profits 6 months later. They don’t know any better than we do regarding the nature of Heart of Thorns.

My Liadri was looking rather ominous, being all shadowy and revealed as the camera panned back, blocking my view of Caithe entirely.

Zoso.8279:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lingering Curse, in comparison, is terrible. Terrormancers are rather lackluster if their enemy has lots of Stability, which Path of Corruption is very helpful in limiting.

Dark Path is very easy to land on stomping or ressing enemies, for example, and while it is easy to dodge, there are a lot of times when that doesn’t happen. Most hilarious when people try to block or reflect it, though, since it ignores both. Also, using it point blank range means it virtually always hits. Yes, Terrormancers are a ranged build, but they can readily get in someone’s face if need be.

Basically, since Path of Corruption came out, Lingering Curse became a PvE only trait.

Interesting that Lingering Curse is considered a PvE only trait when it works so well with blood stacking of terrormancers. I do agree the boon to condition for PoC Is extremely useful and a capable player under certain situations can increase the odds of landing a hit but personally I don’t see it being used to its full potential. Just the fact that the build itself doesn’t really focus on LF generation or DS sustain. Path of Midnight helps but LF can be lost fast in a fight.

First off, I can already tell you’re playing the build wrong. Condition necro spends as little time as possible in death shroud, both to conserve life force and because sitting in death shroud kills your pressure. You are never going to sit in death shroud for the full cooldown of Dark Path.

What does Lingering Curse actually do in PvP? Make your bleeds last longer, when they will inevitably be cleansed before you hit your personal cap anyway? Keep poison up longer when it’s already easy to keep it up nearly 100% of the time? Compare to Path of Corruption which, at minimum, is removing Protection from your target, and may even be nabbing Might, Stability and/or Retaliation?

Also, Focus is terrible in PvP because of Spinal Shiver’s monstrous cast time.

Sigil of Blight: 60% chance on critical to deal AoE poison. 2 second duration, 8 second cooldown.

Rune of the Defender isn’t on the wiki yet.

EDIT: Rune of the Defender.

1,3, and 5 are Healing Power.
2 grants 1 second of Regeneration when you block an attack (no cooldown listed).
4 grants 5 seconds of Aegis when you use your heal skill (10 second cooldown).
6 heals you when you block an attack, 30 second cooldown.

Decent guardian tanking set. Maybe for Engineers, too. Nobody else really has enough blocks to make it worthwhile.

ANet’s customer service is top notch in the industry. During 2012, my sound had mysteriously gone away in game. Only for GW2, mind you. Customer Service determined within 24 hours that I needed to get my sound drivers installed (new computer, apparently had temporary drivers) and then went through the trouble of finding the correct ones for me, sending me the links.

Still have to play through the personal story the second time to hear what I couldn’t the first time, but hey.

I also had issues in GW1 with my card not processing correctly when I wanted to buy a character slot. Turns out, my card had been charged like 5 or 6 times, but ANet cancelled all but one transaction when I called.

xDudisx.5914:

And why should someone be able to remove all the boons if the enemy is investing traits+runes+sigils+skill combo to get their boon?

Because counterplay is necessary.

There is only one skill in the game that is a total boon wipe, and it has a 3 minute (practical) cooldown. Otherwise, you frequently need multiple skills to remove a stack of boons.

DragonflyDusk.6582:

Mo Mo.1947:

Rytlock is currently running around as a 600HP Spirit Bond Monk farming Ectos.

The blindfold makes me think he went the SOS Rit route, but I guess the Charr did introduce us to a non-Ritualist blindfold.

Clearly, he found where they stashed the Super Adventure Box.

Nah, the SAB is sitting right there in Rata Sum. Not exactly a secret.

He’s testing out the third difficulty level of his Critter Rampage. The player has a black screen to look at with only a score.

Lingering Curse, in comparison, is terrible. Terrormancers are rather lackluster if their enemy has lots of Stability, which Path of Corruption is very helpful in limiting.

Dark Path is very easy to land on stomping or ressing enemies, for example, and while it is easy to dodge, there are a lot of times when that doesn’t happen. Most hilarious when people try to block or reflect it, though, since it ignores both. Also, using it point blank range means it virtually always hits. Yes, Terrormancers are a ranged build, but they can readily get in someone’s face if need be.

Basically, since Path of Corruption came out, Lingering Curse became a PvE only trait.

Gulesave.5073:

Anchoku.8142:

SoV does damage with its siphons.

Only if you get hit. You would need to take a lot of (preferably small) hits for the passive to pay off.

Ironically, your best chance to use this optimally is against another vampiric necro, since they’re built to deliver the constant flurry of small hits you need to make SoV work.

The passive isn’t a siphon at all. That, plus the 1 second ICD means that to get the most benefit, you need to take infrequent, small hits. Which is virtually never.

Favorite: Necro. I really like the “you suck now” playstyle. I’m keenly aware of the flaws the profession has, especially it’s lack of use in most PvE, but the “you suck now” is pretty well done.

Least favorite: Thief. Polar opposite in playstyle to Necro. Hyper-mobile, dodging all over the place squishy that focuses on in-and-out and burst. I have no issues with the design of the class, but when you heavily main Necro, it’s almost impossible to play at anything resembling competence.

Blockhead Magee.3092:

Sorann Peace.9056:

What do you think?

What do I think? I think we haven’t gotten any new classes, very little new explorable area (though I do like what we were able to get) and no new weapon skills or even alternate usable weapons for the classes we have.

To be fair, there aren’t too many themes a new profession could occupy that isn’t already covered by one or more existing professions mechanically. Even fewer that are broad enough to create a GW2 profession, since they all have to be versatile.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Just wondering why nobody uses lightning fields

Because nobody but Elementalists have any, and those are only on one underwater skill, one staff skill, and a terrible elite.

You do see people blasting Static Field for swiftness, but the incredible scarcity of lightning fields is why you don’t see it often.

On the contrary, Dark Path was used in Terrormancer rotations before Path of Corruption was even introduced. The trait just makes it even better to use.

No, boon removal is not the primary focus of Terrormancer builds. It is, however, a secondary focus. Condition pressure is the primary, but boon stripping, especially removing Stability, is why you use a Necro over a condition Engineer.

Zoso.8279:

Roe.3679:

Zoso.8279:

actually i have a boon removal build that is very effective in PvP. Ive made a post about it in the necromancer sub-forum. IDK why u went for wells. In my build all my utilities are more for survivability and focus/Chill of Death/CB/Path of corruption are what I use to remove boons. traits are 4/6/0/0/4.

Im speaking about necromancers idk about mesmer boon removal builds.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Review-Build-Debuff-Necromancer/first#post4663096 Read my last post to see the final state of the build. Note I changed axe to dagger for DPS.

Define “effective in pvp.” I have some fun, niche boon removal builds but they are in no way viable in serious pvp.

IDK about tournaments I haven’t really seen any real boon removal builds yet in tournament play (even though I haven’t seen a lot of build seems people always just try and copy the team that wins the most so don’t really experiment with comps) but I’m ranked 750 atm and I’ve only used the build I posted. My W/L is 46% but thats because I’ve been on a losing streak for 2 days but normally my w/l is around 50%.

Typical tournament boon removal build runs Path of Corruption and Corrupt Boon as boon removal. That’s about it. Sometimes Chill of Death is also included.

Theme. Elemetnalists, Rangers, and Thieves are all supposed to be mobile, hence the 25% movement speed signet. Necromancers are supposed to be extremely difficult to escape, hence the same thing.

Randulf.7614:

Personally I can’t convince anyone to play (new or returning) anymore, despite my attempts. Not because I have nothing to recommend because there’s plenty I can say positively about the game, but I can’t explain the Living Story to people that makes them want to pay the 200gem an episode catch up fee.

You can start the instances yourself and bring them along for story and such. All that’s really locked off is achievements.

dicrim.8913:

also how come i got feared/rooted/knockbacked while in plague form? is there something wrong with game mechanics? and btw there is no lich form in pvp

A couple things can do this. Boon corruption turns your Stability into Fear. Engineer’s Throw Mine strips a boon (Stability is likely the only boon you have in Plague Form) and knocks back as well. Once your Stability is removed via any boon removal, any sort of CC works normally. Also, nothing about Plague prevents Immobilize.

And there very much is Lich Form in PvP.

The biggest problem with that idea is that signet passives really need to function on their own. Mesmers get a pass on those that interact with illusions because literally every weapon set has a clone and a phantasm on it, so they can’t have a build that doesn’t have illusions. But say a Necro is running a typical terrormancer build. Signet of Vampirism now has no passive in that case.

I think this is, what, the tenth time someone has posted this?

The answer is always the same: No. “Flashing” Death Shroud for entry/exit effects is actually something many players do intentionally. Adding a 1 second cooldown because you fat-finger the key kills the playstyle. This is actually a L2P issue.

Such a cooldown got added on transform elites because those have, at minimum, a 3 minute recharge. None of them have entry/exit benefits either (unless you count the Stability that vanishes when you end it).

rivurivurivurivu.3041:

the active effect is terrible. It should only heal the necro, not every singel player hitting your target.

More players means more of the stacks get consumed, meaning more damage.

The active is fine now.

Nah, worst skill in the game goes to Artillery Barrage (Charr elite). No doubt about a lower damage Meteor Shower with melee cast range and eight times the cooldown.

Signet of Vampirism’s passive is terrible, but the active is decent. The only real downside to the skill is that there isn’t really a reason to use it. Want sustained healing? Blood Fiend. Damage from a healing skill? Also Blood Fiend. Party healing? Well of Blood. Self-healing? Consume Conditions.

The active of the skill isn’t bad (anymore), it just has issues beating out the competition.