Guild Wars 2

Prometheus in his custom set.

My new edit of an earlier look. Uses very cheap skin parts and weapons in combination to provide a simple, coherent Assassin-esque look. My biggest issue with the old set was that the Priory coat didn’t look good from the back, but the Winged shoulders do a lot to alleviate that; the only other shoulder that can do the job as well would be AC shoulders.

^He also has permanent “Retreat!”

Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

Yep. The sooner these guys get bored or get busted, the better it will be for… well, everyone.

This is a bad time to be a Guild Wars 2, League of Legends, or World of Warcraft player.

And…. again. No punishment is too great for these kids.

At the moment, it’s solid option for roaming and well-rounded builds.

When the critical damage changes come (in March?) Celestial is going to be a lot worse in that regard, though they announced that they would be buffing the stat spread to compensate. Basically, we don’t know if the set is going to be viable or competitive in its upcoming state. Save your mats until that change goes through.

Hopefully something that involves genital mutilation for the hackers.

This is getting very old, very fast.

chemiclord.3978:

What I have learned is that there are quite a few people on this forum REALLY desperate to see GW2 fail…

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

spoj.9672:

If you want to experience the content as intended. Then you should solo/duo. Purposely handicapping yourself in a group just doesnt make sense.

It’s not handicapping if the intended difficulty target is the standard difficulty of the game. It’s removing some cheat codes (for lack of a better comparison – not to call stacking a form of cheating).

These even sound fake. Especially the Necromancer one – as if they would make an underwater-only version of an existing elite while giving all other professions a new elite.

Tarsius.3170:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Instant cast, unfortunately, probably won’t happen. Anet doesn’t want a heal that can’t be interrupted, and the next patch looks to be reducing the cast by 1/4 of a second – implying that they realize that the casting time is too much, but that they don’t want to remove it entirely.

But it can definitely be interrupted with immobalize, evade, block, invuln, knockdown, pull, fear, stun and simply being run away from – if you do no damage you get no healing – that is its counter. IMHO it doesn’t need to be interruptible during cast as well. ( I’m ignoring the Monk’s Focus effect since it does require a grandmaster trait and the heal itself is relatively small )

Don’t get me wrong – I agree. The question is – does Anet?

DigitalKirin.9714:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Seems like things have taken a more reasonable turn. Anyway, I started organizing a few runs so far. Found some more interested players. Also started up a secondary guild (as in one that is not meant to be anyone’s main guild and which does not have representation requirements). It’s basically a specialized extra list of friends and contacts. Anyone who is interested is welcome.

Hey just curious Duke, what’s your stance on people using non Meta builds? You cool with people using cleric guard, shout heal war, etc.?

Completely. While these things aren’t “competitive” or even particularly good, they still function well enough for most content. I’m not going to kick someone out of easy content for running something like that… now in something like Frac50…. well, that might be another story. But then again, such elite content is best done with coordinated groups of players you are used to playing with anyway – it shouldn’t be an issue at that point.

Seems like things have taken a more reasonable turn. Anyway, I started organizing a few runs so far. Found some more interested players. Also started up a secondary guild (as in one that is not meant to be anyone’s main guild and which does not have representation requirements). It’s basically a specialized extra list of friends and contacts. Anyone who is interested is welcome.

Devils.3679:

I think it should just be instant like all other meditation skills. Also maybe an extra 2 seconds on it? As you stated it would be useless scaling with healing power on the most part as you would just do less and less dmg.

So yeah Instant cast time and 8-9 seconds

The healing power scaling is a form of compensation for the low damage of most healing power gear. It’s meant to bring the healing amount on the skill from useless to reasonable on non-glass builds.

Instant cast, unfortunately, probably won’t happen. Anet doesn’t want a heal that can’t be interrupted, and the next patch looks to be reducing the cast by 1/4 of a second – implying that they realize that the casting time is too much, but that they don’t want to remove it entirely.

8-9 seconds sounds good, though I think the skill should be tweaked a little at a time. Slow balance changes are good balance changes.

[PASS] isn’t a traditional guild. It’s a secondary guild – or, perhaps more adequately – a social group or extra friend’s list with one common goal: to run dungeons without stacking. All other rules (such as no skipping, limited skipping, and all other playstyle choices) will be up for individual groups to decide on.

We don’t discriminate based on any real life factors (race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc.) or any in game factors (server, class, level, activity, etc).

No representation requirements. As mentioned before, this is a secondary guild.

So, if you’re interested, feel free to join. Bring a good attitude and have fun.

Note – the guild was just made, and so will be small for some time. With support, this initiative should grow.

It seems to be doing remarkably well. It won’t beat Lineage, but that’s understandable. For some reason, the Korean market has a real kitten for that game.

Dual.8953:

Damage roles won’t be deminished until they increase the pressure on glass cannons, the harder it is to glass, the more useful support becomes, and if support becomes important enough, support and sustain stats will start to become important. As for control, it’s in a funny place because it’s the only role with no stats directly tied to it, the only thing that’s keeping it out of the sun is defiant, which acts as a hard counter to the hard control which would trivalize encounters if left unchecked. Anet has been experimenting with ways to make mob resilient to Control, without make them immune to it. If made enemies start to move and kite so that parties simply stand in thier faces dpsing them, then control would become very useful. As an added effect I forgot to mention, the harder it is to dps, the more ranged and defense oriented weapons become useful.

(And I just wrote half an essay on my phone on the bus ;; )

Defiant could probably be reworked into a cooldown system – such as by making the boss immune to cc for a short duration (5-10s) after they are struck by a hard cc effect. Or by somehow making Defiant work by player (in small stacks) rather than by group in large stacks.

It’s no secret that Litany of Wrath is one of our least used heals – particularly in pvp formats. That doesn’t make it entirely useless, but it’s certainly no Shelter.

One change I would like to see would be an increase in the skill’s synergy with healing power. It only scales on the initial low burst heal (and at a low ratio), while the passive component encourages full dps setups. Nerfing this component’s base functionality from a zerker focus to a healing power focus would obviously be a bad move – it would change the entire functionality of the skill.

My suggestion is simple. Add an extra scaling to the skill. The new description would be something along the lines of this:

Litany of Wrath
Heal yourself. For a brief time, heal yourself based on a percentage of damage dealt to enemies.
Healing – 1,640 (0.25)
Litany of Wrath (6s): 20% (+1% per 100 healing power) of damage dealt is returned as healing.

The new scale number might need tweaking. Obviously, the 1% per 100 is just a simple, convenient estimation. It may need to be higher or lower, though I think it’s something close to appropriate. Let’s just say you’re running a full cleric’s build with max Honor. That’s 1387 Healing Power before runes, food, sigils, or infusions. The new scaling would now give you 33% of your dealt damage as healing power rather than 20% (though, as a Cleric, your damage is going to be fairly low).

Obviously, this would be optimized for the new Zealot nomenclature – which is perhaps an added benefit of the suggestion – it encourages build diversity by promoting a new stat set.

Jaxom.7310:

Depends on the skills and traits you pick up, but generally its not going to be worth it. If you look at the coefficients for most heal skills, the additional healing from healing power is super small.

Well, yeah, but any Guardian build that would use Zealot’s would combine many sources of healing. Selfless daring, Monk’s Focus or AH, VoR (possibly traited), regeneration, possibly a mace, various other healing traits, and, of course, a slot heal.

Chaosky.5276:

The game was designed with stacking in mind. That said, it is a stupid design.

That’s a bit of a stretch.

If the game was designed with stacking in mind, then why was the ability to move while performing almost every skill in the game such an advertised feature?

If the game was designed with stacking in mind, why does the camera freak out in many popular stacking scenarios?

If the game was designed with stacking in mind, why do most encounters lack mechanics that could threaten the stackers?

If the game was designed with stacking in mind, why did it take months for stacking to become popular and longer for it to become the meta?

If the game was designed in mind, why would they bother restricting support skill ranges for shouts and other mechanics to 600 units or less, when the restriction was just going to be made meaningless by stacking anyway?

I’m sure I could come up with more arguments than that, but that should suffice. The developers definitely didn’t set a goal for stacking to become the dominant gameplay (and if they did, I would have to question their tastes and intelligence); it’s more like the situation is a sort of happy convenience for stacking groups, as enemy and terrain mechanics just happened to work together to make their playstyle not only possible, but (with only a few exceptions) easy.

~Ascended gear.
~ Lackluster pvp mode compared to GW1.
~ Stacking.
~ Lack of weapons, traits, skills, and build diversity.
~ Open world rewards feel lacking, outside of zerg content.

Mesmer. High damage. Easy to get into, but with a high skill cap. Valuable support when you need it and valuable selfish utility when you don’t. Builds are highly flexible, often with no set utilities or elite and you will be in high demand in every game mode. Every. Game. Mode.

Substance E.4852:

The real LA is a algae covered ruin under 50 feet of water.

I’m glad Pirateboatville is getting burned to the ground. The “yarr!” nautical theme got old really fast…

Perhaps, but, as someone who thoroughly enjoyed the last Guild Wars 2 novel, it’s disappointing to see Cobiah’s work be destroyed so quickly and meaninglessly. There was something to it – simple, quaint, interesting, and endearing. Brave characters gave their lives to make sure that this multi-racial city would stay standing.

Despite the terrible odds that the founders faced in rebuilding the city and in defending it, now it seems like that might all be taken away – and for nothing. I can only hope I’m wrong.

Illveran.3514:

Ive recently invited bunch of new players into the game and it was some kind of embarassing to show them how 90% of the playerbase are doing dungeons, and how they should behave when grouping with pugs. While we play together we are able to do every fight the normal way but when we invite even one player from the lfg tool hes just confused wtf are we doing and i must tell that majority of them do not know how to play the right way.
Stacking is pathetic and anet should adress this exploit way back when it started becoming the pve mindset.

Yep. If nothing else, stacking is an embarrassing blemish on Guild Wars 2’s face in the eyes of the outside community, new players, and anyone who is on-the-fence about purchasing the game.

J Eberle.9312:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Tired of not actually playing the game when you run dungeons with pugs? Tired of skipping half of the dungeon? Tired of exploits? Tired of gameplay that has been dumbed down to dodge rolling into walls and spamming 1? Honestly, it seems that, as a result of all of the efficiency-oriented dungeon metagames and champ zerging, most of the community has forgotten how to actually play.

Leave your elitism at the door; everyone is welcome.

You come in hostile, you can expect hostility.

And I say that you, and others, read too far into it. Not one comment in the original OP was explicitly intended to insult or enrage anyone. They were bitter insults at the state of the game but not at those who played it that way.

There were (and are) exploits. That can’t be denied. There were (and are) frequently-used dungeon exploits that Arenanet has acknowledged, fixed, and even banned people for. I was not calling stacking one of them, though it often tends to be used in the same overall playstyle. Arah exploit skips ringing any bells? What about the (historic) final boss stack in the Cliffside fractal or the one in the first boss of the Grawl/Volcano fractal? The CoF2 barrier skips? These exploits can and do become tiresome – even if experienced infrequently – by the players who don’t enjoy performing them and don’t see them as healthy gameplay.

Yes, stacking is dumbed-down gameplay. That is not an insult to the stackers nor was it intended to be one. It’s a fact – gameplay has been diminished in some way, mainly in the diminished importance of positioning players and combo fields, as these are already conveniently placed in a stack, the removal of kiting, the removal of melee to ranged (or vice versa) decision making, and other crucial components of Guild Wars 2 combat. There are some who enjoy this. There are people who would enjoy anything. But that doesn’t serve as a counterargument to the diminished quality of gameplay associated with stacking. Hell, even the game itself hates stacking, as evidenced by the berserk personality the camera takes on in many popular stack spots.

Okay, the “forgot how to play” comment may have been a bit much. I’ll admit that. But it wasn’t intended to be received as “Oh, you’re so bad. Learn to play, scrub.” It wasn’t an intended form of elitism. It was simply an observation of fact – a large percentage of the community has forgotten (or has never known) how to play encounters normally – as in with no stacking involved. And yes, that does detract from the overall game experience. It reduces content variety and makes content feel stale. Oh sure, it’s fast and rewarding, but that doesn’t make it good or fun.

And the elitism comment stands. Not as a general insult to those who disagree with me, mind you, but as a conditional (and matter of fact) label for much of the common behavior exhibited by the Guild Wars 2 dungeon community. Restricting others based on their profession or gear nomenclature is elitism. Kicking someone because they have less than (insert amount here) achievement points is elitism (and pointless elitism at that, as achievement points are a kitten-poor measurement of player skill or dungeon knowledge). It’s all arbitrary, pointless, and toxic. How do you think the Rangers, Necromancers, and other commonly excluded professions feel towards the community in general because of the common rejection they face for no reason other than that their preferred character class is less than optimal in the eyes of the masses? Even as a Guardian player, I could tell you that they aren’t happy. And in a game like this, which was intended to be friendly and designed to be “played your way,” that’s particularly disappointing.

The reactions to this thread are quite frankly ridiculous. This is a post for those seeking to join and play fun, traditional runs of the dungeon – and nothing else.

It’s not an attack on your precious lifestyle. You’re reading too far into it. I’m not trying to destroy your precious little stacking game – the developers are the only ones who can decide on when, how, or even if this is going to happen. I’m not even trying to insult you. I’m not calling you bad players. The playstyle is unskillful, mindless, and boring – that’s not a personal insult and it’s not subjective. That doesn’t reflect on you. It certainly doesn’t make you unskilled – all it means is that you’ve done everything in your power to chase carrots as efficiently and quickly as possible, and there’s nothing innately wrong with that. It’s just that you aren’t utilizing the mechanics of the game to their full extent, because you don’t have to. The game doesn’t require it, after all, so why make things harder on yourself other than for the enjoyment of doing so; that enjoyment is the entire reason for the thread.

I am an intensely bored player looking to enjoy himself and play the game the way it was played before stacking became the norm. No, it doesn’t bother me that you have your all zerk speed runs or other explicitly special runs. What disgusts me is that stacking is the assumed meta – that, in order to play otherwise, one has to make threads like these and find likeminded people and explicitly post LFG messages JUST to get a group that wants to play. So yes, I’m a little bit angry that my favorite game has devolved to that point. And I’m more than a little bit angry that, in seeing my attempt to salvage the game for myself and a few others, the first reaction of the community is to derail my thread and get into hostile arguments for no good reason.

Basically, I ask you to express your opinion in a reasonable fashion, enjoy the game your way, and allow me to enjoy it in mine. If you’re not interested in participating or in reasonable discussion, the thread is not for you and has never been for you. God knows you have a billion others. I have to work a LOT harder for it than you do – all you have to do is spend 30 seconds in the LFG system, whereas I have to come in here and deal with this.

I’m not going to bother arguing any longer. And I haven’t bothered in several days. It’s pointless. There’s no need to. It’s not my intention nor my point to participate in pointless hostility.

But, because I was disillusioned and bitter at the time of making the thread, I will clean up the original post. God knows it wasn’t helping things, and it probably came off worse than it needed to, but the direction this thread has gone really sheds light on how far the Guild Wars community has fallen. And that’s the saddest thing. In a purely cooperative game with remarkably friendly design, the community is this prone to hostility. Think on that.

When we reach Cantha, sure. This weapon would be lore fitting and fun at that point. Before that, it would just be strange, if not outright immersion breaking (though I suppose that doesn’t matter, what with the rainbow unicorns and confetti flying around).

Kashrlyyk.5364:

Kalarchis.8635:

….
We defended (and I wouldn’t say easily) LA against a dragon champion, and a mindless monster of one at that. Not to mention the army that time was undead; not exactly overachievers. Scarlet is intelligent and resourceful and has an army made up of multiple factions of civilized races who have pooled their tech together into a very advanced and potent force. She is considerably better prepared and better equipped to take the city than Zhaitan ever was.

She also has failed at every invasion attempt she made. Zhaitan owns three entire maps which are NEVER conquered by the players or the pact. There is no ingame reason for why she should succeed at something that Zhaitan failed at. That is bad writing for me.

This is simply false. In every “invasion” or alliance scenario, Scarlet obtained what she wanted. With the Molten Alliance, her goal was to obtain the specific sonic technology used in the thumpers. With the Aetherblades, the goal of the invasion was to kill a member of the Captain’s Council and install one of her own on the seat – the first part (the actual invasion + assassination) succeeded, while the player thwarted her attempt to put Mai Trin on the council. With the Toxic Alliance, her goal was to obtain a poison and modify it to be immune to any antidote that the races could concoct – the tower itself was arbitrary, though, if it had been left unchecked, things would have been worse. In the Queen’s Jubilee event, her goal was to obtain the clockwork army – everything else was secondary. The Marionette wasn’t an invasion – it was a weapon’s test.

So what, exactly has she failed at?

Peetee.9406:

First thought that popped into my mind after watching the video:

ArenaNet is destroying the most convenient hub in the game to craft and congregate so they can push more royal terrace passes and tradesman packages in the gem store.

FYI, Rata Sum is the most convenient hub in the game to craft and congregate. The crafting stations, banks, and trading posts are all on the same floor – and separated by very short walks. Lion’s Arch doesn’t even come close, especially if you are trying to level Tailoring or any other craft that has its station far from the trading post.

Djinn, if we ever get into Elona or tap into a city of unknown Tyrian Djinn.

Think about it:
The race is humanoid – and should therefore be easy to make armor for.
The race has been shown to be intelligent through individuals in Nightfall.
The race is visually distinct from other ones in the game.
The race exhibits large visual diversity (we already know of Ruby Djinn, Sapphire Djinn, Diamond Djinn, and others – and there may be more unknown types).
They are the only Elona-native race (other than Centaurs) that meet all of the criteria for a playable race.
They can be bound to any city or location, lore-wise. Ashdashim(sp?) would be a natural choice of racial city.

It’s for lore reasons. The game’s human population is largely Krytan (who are usually tan-skinned) with a sizable number of Ascalonians (typically white skinned) and a very small number of Canthans (Asiatic) and Elonians (African) mixed in. Contact with Cantha and Elona has been cut off for many years because of an elder dragon, meaning that the limited racial diversity in Kryta is ancestral – and even that much has probably been watered down through intermarriage.

chemiclord.3978:

You’re projecting behavior that may or may not be always true.

Guess what? If I’m in a group and a champion appears… where that zone’s zerg is currently is the least of my concerns. And someone in map chat screaming at me to “Wait for the zerg, f****r!” is going to be met with “No.”

Don’t like it? Too bad. You can’t claim a champ by kittening on me.

We’re talking about two different things here.

If I’m not mistaken, you’re referring to simply being in a group and killing a champion because you want to do that content. Go ahead. Nothing wrong with that. You’ve kittened some people off, but that wasn’t your intention or your goal. You’ve got that right and don’t deserve any hate for it – though, unfortunately, you’ll probably get it from a few bad apples in the champ train.

If, on the other hand, you were camping that champion just to kitten the zerg off, then well… you suck. There’s no moral grayness to that. You’d just be terrible.

chemiclord.3978:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Is it just the zerg train that turns vile? If the zerg started issuing death threats at random people who just killed a champ to kill it, that’s one thing – a really bad, vile thing. But quite a few of those who receive insults do, in fact, deserve them. Those who camp champions just to grief the zerg are worse than the zerg could ever be.

Well… personally… grief away. The champions don’t exist for the zerg. If they are active, they are free for all. If a party of 5-6 is killing champs before the zerg gets there, too kitten bad. They have just as much right to it as you. The zerg has no right to start hurling abuse.

This strikes me as weak logic. These aren’t players who are simply enjoying the game or playing it their way. These are players who are fully aware that there is a large subset of the community who farms these mobs – many of whom, in the case of Queensdale, are simply sick of leveling their alts – and decided to intentionally hinder their playing experience for no other reason than for kicks or to draw out reactions from a few players in the zerg (the toxic minority of the zerg). It is objectively griefing and objectively toxic. They aren’t playing their way – they are simply ruining the experience of other players.

It’s not a matter of who has the right to the mobs. It’s a matter of who is being a bad person.

chemiclord.3978:

They are a problem only if the behavior of those zergs turns completely vile and comes to represent an association to the player base as a whole. THEN maybe you can say the train in Queensdale might not be a good thing.

But I honestly see no reason that is a prevalent thought.

Is it just the zerg train that turns vile? If the zerg started issuing death threats at random people who just killed a champ to kill it, that’s one thing – a really bad, vile thing. But quite a few of those who receive insults do, in fact, deserve them. Those who camp champions just to grief the zerg are worse than the zerg could ever be.

The champ train isn’t a disease – it’s a symptom. The problem is a major deficiency in the entire rewards-distribution system.

Sarrs.4831:

Dee Jay.2460:

The changes to Crit-Damage imply that the scaling of stats is a concern. So this may indicate an increase in level-cap, possibly tied to a new expansion.

Raising the level cap would do far more harm than good.

Indeed. Unless they scaled up current ascended and legendary items to the new cap, they would quickly enrage and lose a large chunk of their playerbase.

To be clear, the elitist comment was never intended to be applied to anything other than “those who discriminate based on class or gear (or the unstated but common Achievement Point discrimination).” I edited the paragraph break there to make that more clear.

I want to see Caithe make out with a thundershrimp, but you don’t see me making an all caps thread about it.

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

Nat.4029:

The Merchant uses superior bartering skills to quickly bankrupt his enemies.

Should be an exciting class.

His Elite skill is “All Sales Final!”

No, it’s ‘By Ogden’s Hammer, what savings!"

Sublimatio.6981:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Don’t forget to kill the champ troll in AC.

Eh. Why not? Or Kholer, for that matter. They’re both easy. Hell, I’ll even forgive the exploit where you make them fight each other.

You are wrong, ghosts see everyone as invaders, trolls included. It’s not exploit

Okay, you earned a laugh while making a valid point all at once. It’s rare that you see something like this be effectively justified through lore.

Bagel.4598:

Delivering
Not shown – Braham’s helm, boots, chest.

That’s rather interesting. So it basically turns you into a one color silver statue.

Thanks.

Shufflepants.9785:

Taunt (Condition Suggestion)

There, fixed that for you.

Taunt is what the one inflicting the condition does, not the receiver. :p

Taunted could work though.

MastaNeenja.1537:

That would be ironic if they formed a guild tagged PASS
Players against stacking skipping.

I find it hard to believe with the amount of players who make threads about skipping and stacking that it’s just too hard to find a group to play with. There’s clearly enough people to form a guild. I read through the topic and as someone pointed out this was attempted. Maybe they didn’t have good promoters?

Seriously give it a try make a guild and make friends and parties, I hope it all goes well.

This is the correct way to approach this subject; you have the support of this dirty slacker/stacker.

I think it has a lot to do with the nature of an MMO that has been released for this time span. Recruiting is the most difficult aspect of running a guild until the size of the guild is appealing enough to speak for itself. During the early weeks of a game’s release, there is a larger percentage of the community that is looking for a guild. It’s easy to grab sufficient members at this point. Months down the road, however, most members are either going to be: new players (much less common), those who lost their guild or became dissatisfied with it, or multi-guilders. Of course, once in a while, new game content will be appealing enough to inspire a new guild with wide appeal (see Tequatl rework and TTS). This is an exception to the rule, but it does demonstrate that new guilds generally only explode into popularity when they are managed well and the game itself radically changes.

I could very much see why an anti-stack guild failed like it did: the players who would be interested in it are fragmented and divided not only by server but also between those who would be willing to join and those who are simply too attached to their current guild. To make an initiative like that successful, an aspiring guild leader is going to need to be very competent, lucky, and dedicated to the cause, though it would certainly be awesome if an initiative like this were to flourish. I don’t know. I might try it. It’s a tempting prospect, to be sure, but I’m not sure I’m up to the task. I’ve already failed the role of guild leader multiple times due to a lack of recruiting power – though they were, admittedly, attempts at general PvX guilds.

As a Guardian, I would love to have a Longbow, Shortbow, or Rifle at my disposal.

I was hoping for an image example from someone who has the Juggernaut and Braham’s armor.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Okay, next question: Do you dislike the CoE Alpha stacking/dodging? Do you want everyone to range him instead?

Dislike it? Yes. Understand it? Ironically also yes. Alpha is one of those few bosses where I understand why the stack is performed and see why pubs often feel the need to do so. It’s still boring – but a large part of that is that Alpha is a boring boss design. Count to three. Dodge. Win. It’s like Sesame Street in boss form. Then again, the lack of thought put into pug stacking play is readily apparent when the stack fails. If the boss moves or someone is out of place, half of the party will often wipe very quickly because they often lack the ability to adapt to the (very simple) encounter.

And CoE, more than almost any other dungeon, could use a renovation. It’s just a bad dungeon. Paths 2 and 3 are practically redundant with only very minute differences, Alpha is dull, and bosses like the Mark T-B34RC3 are so boring and easy – regardless of the strategy used to defeat them – that it is baffling that they made it past the test staff.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Silberfisch.3046:

The only thing I disagree about is the “forgot how to play” notion. The same goes for phrases like “how it was meant to be played”.
The mere fact that there are different philosophies of how to play and that all of them can be translated into a working playstyle shows that there is more than one way to play the game.

“How it was meant to be played” could indeed be taken as a subjective statement because players are out for different things.

What is not subjective, however, is the literal interpretation of the phrase. What was the intention of the development team when they designed the content or rather how was the game designed to be played? The answer should be obvious; they explicitly developed Guild Wars 2 to have truly mobile combat as one of its defining features. Even dodging is a form of mobility. The stack style contradicts intended game design by taking advantage of minute, unintended flaws in the system to turn mobile combat into stationary and typically easier combat.

Are you saying that when people stack, they don’t dodge?

If you are, I’m not sure you actually know what is meant by stacking.

No, no, no. I’m not implying that at all. God knows I’ve run enough CoE to make that apparent.

When people stack, part of their goal is often to remove the movement portion of the dodge by aiming it at a wall, as said movement would have often otherwise detracted from dps and upset the stack.