Guild Wars 2

Anger is effectively the opposite of Fear. It is a duration based condition that forces the target to chase and attack the one who applied it. In the case of multiple consecutive Anger applications, the angry target will attack the most recent applier until their application runs out and the previous one resumes. Like Fear, it can be stopped through both condition removal and stun breakers. It can’t be used to interrupt foes, which makes for some interesting scenarios. If a Ranger was channeling Rapid Fire on their Longbow, for example, a well placed Anger application would force them to channel the remaining shots on the one who applied the Anger.

It is effectively a taunt in the style that it is used in MOBA/ARTS games like League of Legends or DotA. It’s more of a short term control effect than a traditional aggro mechanic, as the target will gain complete freedom or, in the case of AI, resume their normal behavior after it expires (which would be likely be in the 2-3 second range).

Every profession would have access to the effect through at least one weapon, utility, or elite skill, or possibly even traits, runes, or sigils.

I am thinking about crafting the legendary hammer, but in the case of my particular armor set, I’m unsure as to how it would react with my gear. The metal parts should be obvious enough, but how, if it does so at all, would it change the cloth and fur parts that form the longcoat of Braham’s set?

Evalia.7103:

Sigh… Start with celestial and round it up with other pieces.
Don’t try to combine all the freaking stats in-game on gear and then say it’s better than Celestial. It’s not, because celestial simply offers more than what your mesh-up of zealot/knight/magi can offer.

But will this hold true for long? Judging by the ferocity nerf, that statement may very quickly become false.

I’m more than willing to take a custom set that has higher toughness, healing power, and power than a set that brings in higher precision, (borderline useless) condition damage, vitality, and (soon to be nerfed) critical damage.

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.

You could have at least picked good skins to add the particles to.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAS5dnQElGacIuhwHaCJnhBig4HqorHQUE1QA-jUBB4hCylhFRjVNjIqWnEzuDQGA9xA-w

For a build like this (Hammer/Mace+Focus or Hammer/Sword+Focus) with the goal of being a WvW roamer/small group fighter, which armor set would be the ideal complement for the build (must have precision):

Zealot’s – packs good healing power with better offensive stats

Knight’s – beefs up the set’s toughness along with a midline damage rating, but does not carry healing power

Magi’s – rounds out the cleric’s gear and traits with decent vitality, precision, and healing power, but lacks power (build still packs more base power than full Celestial)

Tachii.3506:

Arbitrarily setting the difficulty much higher to complete certain contents in the game could be seen ironically as elitism also, lol.

That’s a matter of perspective. You say “arbitrarily setting it higher,” I say “putting the bar back in the middle.”

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. Why? Because it’s an amusing excuse to break open a bag of popcorn while you play.

DigitalKirin.9714:

I applaud your efforts for creating this thread. This is actually much better than the threads we usually get with people demanding that ANet change the game to ‘fix’ skipping/stacking.

While I will also be _passs_ing on this as Lilith has, I am going to link this thread on any future ‘please fix stacking/skipping’ threads. Best of luck!

To be honest, I WOULD like to see Anet fix the design flaws that result in the ability to stack and the desire to skip… ALONG WITH corresponding rewards buffs to make those dungeons worthy of my time (and the time of others).

On another note, it seems like people are quick to assume that I run dungeons infrequently or only do AC/CoF. That’s simply wrong. I’ll admit that I don’t run Arah frequently, but it is the only dungeon that I do not have much experience with.

Perhaps I should have left skipping out of it. Skipping is not so terrible as everything else – it’s a matter of easily fixable reward allotment or perhaps the result of dungeon sections that speak of bad design that should be removed, rather than skipped, in the first place (unless, of course, the entire design purpose of that dungeon section was to create a section that was meant to be ran past – see guild rush or the Fractals dolphins.)

Stacking, on the other hand, I vehemently oppose on principle. All it does it dumb down the experience and make it mind-numbing by exploiting deficiencies in the AI and/or game mechanics. These days, I have to fight the temptation to browse the forums during most boss fights because the experience is just…. that… bad. And that’s just not fun. It’s efficient, but that efficiency comes at the cost of wanting to bash one’s face in with a textbook just to feel something.

This is a thread for players who are tired of stacking to get together and simply play the game it was meant to be played, designed to be played, and used to be played. It’s not about rewards. It’s not about making a statement. It’s simply a friendly quest for the fun and challenge not provided in the current stack metagame.

No stacking and no bannable exploits (or preferably no exploits at all). Mob skipping and everything else will be up for vote or simply decided by the group members.

So, if you’re interested in playing, add me and I’ll start getting groups together when I have free time and can get a reasonable number of interested players. Feel free to add each other as well, because I can’t be here as often as I’d like to be (which would be all the time).

There will be no restrictions based on class, gear, or achievement points. These runs are simply for fun, so I don’t see how any such elitism is necessary. And no, you don’t need to be experienced either. Anyone who is interested is perfectly welcome to come along.

And I must ask my detractors to STOP derailing the thread. I’m not here to get in kitten-waiving contests or to insult or be insulted by other members of the GW2 community for no discernible reason. If you’ve got something to say, say it reasonably.

And on that note, I should – and do – apologize for any less than admirable conduct I may have shown. I was – and to a degree still am – bitter about the state of the game and, unfortunately, its community.

Edit:

I have started up a secondary guild for those interested. Players Against Stacking Stuff [PASS] is effectively an extra friend’s list with a common goal – no stack dungeon runs. Skipping and all other playstyle choices are up for individual groups to decide. No class, gear, level, server, or representation requirements. Be friendly and have fun.

I would like to see taunts enter the game as either a form of hard cc (stun, daze, knockback, knockdown) or condition (like fear or immobilize). The latter would probably be better as the end result (like fear) would be easier to remove and would go through Defiant. It seems like a natural form of control that would help make alternate (non-Zerk) PvE gear sets more viable, while also adding some extra tactics to PvP.

The way most MMOs tend to handle aggro is by having their tanks generate hate (or one of several various other terms for the same mechanic) which locks the targets onto them unless another character overpowers that hate generation through dps or healing. It’s useless in PvP and boring for PvE – not exactly the kind of mechanic that Guild Wars 2 wants or could benefit from.

I would suggest implementing it as a more MOBA/ARTS-esque Taunt, which simply forces the target(s) to chase and attack the taunter for a short duration (typically 2-3 seconds). After the duration ends, the mob resumes its normal behavior or the taunted player regains full control of their character. Sort of like reverse Fear, if you will.

In keeping with GW2’s principle, I would give every profession access to it through different skills. Guardians, for example, could get a 3 second single-target taunt that also gives them Retaliation while Elementalists get it as a utility skill that changes in effect based on attunement.

It probably wouldn’t take much effort and I really think that the game as a whole could benefit from such a simple system or one like it – if it is implemented properly.

It’s been a while. Bumping it to keep the thread accessible for the next relevant CDI.

Kindled Zeal
Gain Condition Damage based on 10-15% of your Power.
Added effect – Inflict 3 seconds of bleeding when you burn or critical hit a foe.

As good as fixed.

It would be better than it is now, but worse than it could be if it fixed its PvE content to properly complement the no-trinity or soft-trinity that it currently uses.

Sarrs.4831:

There are reasons lots of sets aren’t popular in game, i don’t see you marching on the forums to get shaman’s, magi’s, apothecary’s and settler’s buffed

For the record, none of the unpopular sets that you have mentioned are getting undeserved nerfs. Also, of these, Magi’s is the only set that is objectively underpowered – its stat combination is basically unviable except maybe…. MAYBE on very specific, mixed sets (and probably not even then). Apothecary’s and Settler’s are both respectable options for condi builds (particularly Ranger condi builds); I would go as far as to say that the strength of Apothecary’s and Settler’s are directly tied to the viability of the Ranger profession. Furthermore, both of these sets are getting indirect buffs because of the diminished strength of Power builds through the critical damage nerf. Shaman’s… I don’t know. It could have uses in mix sets with Cleric’s.

But I’ll reassert the point – all, of these, like Celestial, are unpopular and often considered mediocre. The difference is that, unlike Celestial, none of these are getting nerfed. Therefore, their status is not urgent like that of Celestial.

And there can be no justification for the Celestial nerf. It was not overpowered. It was not outperforming other sets. The high critical damage stat that it had was required just to allow the set to inflict tolerable damage with its pittance of a Power stat. It WILL be affected by the critical damage nerf more than any other set, unless it is given some form of compensation. That’s not up for debate; it’s been evidenced several times over through calculations in this and other threads. Without intervention on Anet’s part, it will be the victim of collateral damage – and it will be just as bad as Magi’s.

ThiBash.5634:

+1% boon duration does sound like a good alternative.

On paper, yes, but Boon duration is only useful in considerable increments and it would not make up for the diminished damage of Celestial. An increase to stats would be more effective.

Anthony.7219:

The builds I enjoy most are the ones where your talent points, armour stats, and overall build goal all line up neatly to compliment each other. Guardian seems to be the hardest class for me to accomplish this in. This new stat combo is neat, but I’m still not convinced yet.

Their lack of condi builds, low hp, and reliance on healing do make it rather difficult to make that perfect build.

style.6173:

You are all too funny. You can’t judge success or failure of new content 24 hours in. Yes, it will be popular the first few days. The question is whether it will still be popular 2 weeks from now

Tequatl is still overflowed several times over on major servers – and it could be argued that his rewards may not be worth it.

That indicates a pretty sizable desire on the community’s part to take part in world bosses that are somewhat challenging.

Beldin.5498:

NoxInfernus.2361:

“…only a Minority of the players enjoy this kind of stuff…”

Could you cite the metrics on this observation please?

Just take a look how many Server do Teq on their regular Server and not shuttled to some Overflow .. that should normally be enough.

Yeah. It’s so unpopular that the top servers are overflowed several times over by guesters multiple times per day!

It’s not unpopular. It has simply revealed the weakness of the guesting system. No one guests to low-pop servers to help them gain the numbers to do events; that would be risky.

I would argue your point. No, the players who enjoy this content are not in the minority. Yes, there should be more content like this. BUT, the minimum player requirement should be drastically reduced. If an event requires more than 20 players, it’s not acceptable design in a game where low population servers and a large open world exist.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Amineo.8951:

It would’ve been nice if i knew it before making my ascended stuff, now thanks to ArenaNet, i have to farm again in order to get these stats that i want, for both my Guard and Elem, thanks a lot…

Horizontal progression at its finest.

That’s a vertical progression issue, not a horizontal one. Back when there were only exotics (horizontal), a new nomenclature or a nerfed nomenclature wouldn’t have been an issue: now, with BiS armor that costs upwards of 500g, it very much is.

Sarrs.4831:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

^It does have more than zerker in some locations, but it has far less than zerker where it counts – trinkets. Overall, a full set of Celestial has considerably less crit damage than a full set of zerker – which it shouldn’t.

Why should Celestial have identical crit damage to Zerker? It’s not the ‘crit damage’ set. It’s the ‘little bit of everything’ set.

For balance reasons. The set is already of questionable use at best and you honestly want to give players even less of a reason to use it?

If it’s getting a crit damage nerf, it had best come with a stat spread buff.

^It does have more than zerker in some locations, but it has far less than zerker where it counts – trinkets. Overall, a full set of Celestial has considerably less crit damage than a full set of zerker – which it shouldn’t.

Jski.6180:

The only thing i would not like to see is celestial becoming end all be all gear set. It needs to be weaker then all the armor in the game because it gives you + to every thing. Did you factor into gems upgrades for exotic level? Just do not have it so you can get the same crit dmg as say a zerk set if you use zerk upgrades on the celestial.

Celestial is nowhere near an end-all-be-all gear set right now. Because of the way that stat progression encourages stacking of fewer stats over lower spreads, Celestial is in a weird spot for a jack-of-all-trades nomenclature – rather than being versatile, it’s situational. Generally speaking, it’s used only by Elementalists and Guardians in WvW, and the latter is only just starting to become relatively popular. In PvE, it isn’t even touched, and in PvP, it’s basically limited to a fraction of the Elementalist population.

So I sincerely doubt that even a significant buff to the set would make it an end-all-be-all gear set. A buff would have to be way overblown for that to happen or game mechanics would have to significantly change.

This is not a thread for discussing whether or not the ferocity change will destroy celestial or whether or not the set is good or not. Those are well-discussed and well-established points already; it’s already been made clear that Celestial could, if anything, use a buff and that Celestial gear will be hit harder than other gear sets by the Ferocity change unless it is given very high ferocity numbers or some other buff.

This thread will specifically be for the discussion of how to improve Celestial gear post-Ferocity change. As such, please limit posts to suggestions on how to improve it or feedback on other posters’ suggestions.

Personally, I see two ways for Celestial gear to maintain (or gain, depending on your opinion of the current gear set) viability post-patch.

Option 1 – Ferocity Primary

Berserker gear post patch will have (for a ring)
103 Power
68 Precision
68 Ferocity

Post patch celestial gear would have (for a ring)
43 to all stats
Mystery amount of Ferocity.

Now, in the worst case scenario, that ring will have 43 Ferocity, destroying Celestial gear’s already-questionable viability. In a better case, it’s crit damage would be comparable by becoming a secondary stat at 68 Ferocity. But that’s not good enough. The crit damage nerf is targeted at berserker gear – it does not make sense to nerf an arguably underpowered set like Celestial at all. If anything, it could use a buff.

As such, it makes sense to make Ferocity a primary stat on Celestial gear post-patch. This would give it a form of clear strength that is lacked by other gear options.

Suggested numbers (ring)
43 to all stats
Ferocity numbers equivalent to the CURRENT Berserker critical damage.

Option two – Nerf the crit damage, but improve the spread

Nerfed numbers for ring (let’s just assume the worst)
+43 to all stats (including ferocity)

Suggested numbers for ring
+50 to all stats (including ferocity)
(A buff of approximately 16%).

Applying the same 16% buff to other pieces, we get:
Amulet – 63 to all stats
Ring – 50 to all stats
Earring – 44 to all stats
Backpiece – 25 to all stats
Helm – 24 to all stats
Shoulders – 19 to all stats
Coat – 55 to all stats
Gloves – 19 to all stats
Leggings – 36 to all stats
Boots – 19 to all stats
Weapon (2h) – 96 to all stats
Weapon (1h) – 49 to all stats
Total – 544 to all stats (2H), 546 to all stats (MH/OH)
(Rounding up where appropriate.)

Current totals (for reference)
Amulet – 54
Ring – 43
Earring – 38
Back – 22
Helm – 21
Shoulders – 16
Chest – 47
Gloves – 16
Legs – 31
Boots – 16
Weapon (2H) – 83
Weapon (MH/OH) – 42
Current total – 468 (2H), 469 (MH/OH)

Total increase – 76 to all stats with a 2h weapon (approx 16%)

An increase of 76 over a whole set is fairly significant (in Celestial’s case, it’s somewhere between an extra amulet and an extra two-handed weapon), but with the Ferocity nerf, the new stat spread would help make up for the loss in Ferocity with a fairly considerable total bonus to it and other stats. All of these stats would still be lower than the secondary stat of any other gear nomenclature, but they would (hopefully) be large enough to become comparable.

Knighthonor.4061:

How about actually making the zones meaningful towards your server, the same way capture points are meaningful to your server/team in pvp.

Interesting idea. Care to elaborate?

Probably not viable on its own, but it might very well be useful when mixed with certain other nomenclatures (like Cleric’s or Cavalier’s).

Rednik.3809:

LordByron.8369:

I have a great idea…

Why don t simply reduce the range and double the cooldown on miss?
Can be done with initiative cost also…should cost double and give half back on hit ….

I m sure it would work perfectly leaving untouched the gap closing ability…

You mean “just double cooldown”? Because all warrior gap closers are non-teleports with literally non-existent chance to hit against any opponent who able to press movement button.

So was Ride the Lightning. It was slow enough to be easily observable and loud and obvious enough that only a foe with no brain cells or no dodges/blocks available (or who was cc’d) could be hit by it. A lot of the time, it would miss for no readily observable reason (usually the result nigh-invisible flaws in the terrain). That didn’t stop Arenanet from giving it this nerf.

Why, then, should a profession with higher health, sustain, armor, and damage than the Ele be exempted from a similar change made on similar grounds?

Disruptive.8039:

Yeah I agree with you. I would suggest a possible random reset and variable timer so people couldn’t just let them age and then farm. Best setup would be to have players just take whatever color they see the champion/event with.

Unfortunately, this kind of thing is the exact kind of toxic design that Arenanet sought to avoid with this game. I don’t mean to call it a bad idea on principle. It’s interesting. It has potential in some regards. But it’s very similar to the long-respawn competitive boss camping that plagues many more traditional MMOs.

To highlight why such a thing is impossibly unhealthy, I’ll use an example of my time from Forsaken World. There were mini-bosses that spawned on timers in the open world. Once killed – and they could be quickly solo-killed – they would take hours to respawn, but their rewards (in the form of rare pets) were potentially valuable. Wanting one of these, I went for it, only to find that another, higher level and better geared, player appeared out of nowhere – they had the timers memorized – and scored the last hit while quickly out-damaging me, stealing the mob and its rewards. Obviously, that was a bad experience for everyone. It was a bad experience for me – as I was robbed. It was a bad experience for anyone who would have liked to kill the mob at a later time. It was even a bad experience for the farmer – who was forced to abuse a nonsensical system to effectively grief other players for his own benefit (though he may not have seen it as a bad experience for his own sake). Similar “contested content” has appeared in a number of traditional MMOs, including Everquest, but it’s really hard to defend as good design (because it isn’t).

Despite the wonderful individual loot system of Guild Wars 2, such a mechanic would cause terrible community interactions. Players would once again dread to have other players show up to start their precious champ farm early and would likely go to such extents as sending in wasted reports on players for “griefing” mob spawns.

To be fair, it’s a well-conceived idea. It has good intentions and it certainly would be an interesting way to break champ trains apart and give players rewards for doing underplayed content. I would like to see such a thing work, but it, unfortunately, doesn’t take into account that players are a) often out to optimize their rewards and b) often toxic when said optimization is threatened.

ODB.6891:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Painbow.6059:

I don’t understand why people don’t like dps dominance? More dps = stuff dies quicker = gold quicker am I not right? people want to play healers not needed in gw2 people want to play tank not needed in gw2, defensive gear not needed in gw2, making these specific roles would damage the game as it would mean you need a tank and a healer and dps roles with no mid points, if a group just specs for max dps and brings 1 guard along with them using a 20,25,0,0,25 build that is enough support for anything outside fractals along with good damage

People don’t like dps dominance because it:

Invalidates the majority of gear sets (in PvE).
Reduces team composition variety.
Removes entire professions from the equation in many groups.
Removes the option to play roles other than dps – kills the “play your way” philosophy of the game.

Basically, I bolded every part of your statement that IS in fact, a problem with the current game design. Guild Wars 2 was not intended to not have any roles – it was designed to allow everyone to play every role effectively regardless of their class and for groups to not require any particular combination of roles to function. There’s a pretty distinct difference. The way things are intended to be would allow anyone to (theoretically) make more-or-less comparable contributions while playing the way they wish do. The way that the game currently is – the way which you blindly seem to support – makes every playstyle that isn’t dps entirely redundant (in PvE).

I’m sorry, but you are misreading the pre-release game description. There are not supposed to be any specific roles. Every class is supposed to be able to play all roles, but their description included the word “AND”, not “OR” when talking about what players would be able to do. They mentioned damage, support, and control…not picking one of the three and only doing that one thing.

And you seem to be under the mistaken assumption that gear dictates role. It really doesn’t. Roles are performed through skills – a DPS-geared Guardian with a Hammer is putting out damage through his damaging skills, support through healing, con removal, reflects, and other effects, and control through his Hammer’s knockback, immobilize, and wards. A PVT Guardian does the same thing, but with a different focus – he makes a smaller (but still very much considerable) contribution to his team’s damage while filling the other two roles in the same way.

All gear does is HIGHLIGHT the role(s) a player wishes to play. A Cleric’s Guardian is clearly leaning more towards the support side of the coin; his heals will, indeed, be slightly more effective. He is still, however, playing all of the roles at once; refusing to dps because he isn’t “geared” for it would involve doing nothing for extended periods of time.

And that’s precisely what the game is missing – the ability to (viably) highlight your character’s central role or roles in a way that is helpful (in PvE). There is no tanking, so tank gear is meaningless – you’re just a kitten dps with the same support and control opportunities at the same efficiency as the dps. There is little reason to go with healing power – you’ve just kitten your dps in exchange for a measly increase to healing output. Control doesn’t scale on toughness or vitality (or even on condition duration, with the exception of Immobilize and soft cc), making the control (traditionally “tank”) aspect of the game meaningless – and this is ignoring the fact that Defiant destroys control entirely.

Basically, no one is arguing that you need to be able to pick a role to exclusively play – because that does work against the game’s fundamental design – but part of the play-your-way philosophy that the game has so long advocated must involve utilizing your profession’s unique flavor of dps, support, and control and EMPHASIZING your preferred part of this soft-trinity while still contributing the other two parts (or, in the case of Celestial gear or Shaman’s gear, contributing everything in pretty much equal amounts).

And I must bring up the mere existence of other gear types as a supporting factor in this. Why would other nomenclatures be available if dps was intended to be the sole, central role that dominates the game with the other two soft-trinity roles as mere afterthoughts?

ODB.6891:

Hunter.4783:

fadeaway.2807:

Arenanet has said a lot of things in the past.
Nothing will change. They’ll probably do something stupid like increase mob hp because zerkers burn through it too fast. That or remove everyone’s easy access vigor and call it a day.

Whatever happens, the new meta will be whatever gives the highest dps.

Negative, not if you make encounters around heavy AoE and condi pressure where survival rather than DPS wins the encounter.

So its okay to make zerk players change to pvt style gear, but it wasn’t okay to expect pvt style players to change to zerk style gear? Double standard much?

On the contrary. With his change, the healing power from your Cleric, Shaman, or Celestial teammate would actually mean something in terms of keeping you, as the zerker, alive for that much longer. Failing that, you could always change your tactics, taking more condition removal or defensive utilities – you know, actually adapting your playstyle the way you should have to.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

this is working as intended.
warriors are meant to be fast.
what is the problem?

do you remember that warriors have no direct access to:
- stealth
- illusions
- death shroud
- pets
- minions
- protection, aegis

warriors are balanced and not overpowered, it has been more than a year since launch, please accept that already.

Yep. They’re balanced. They just have:

The highest health class (tied with Necromancers).
The highest armor class (tied with Guardians).
The best standard damage (Guardians supposedly have the best highly-situational damage).
The best cc.
The best mobility.
And….
The best sustain healing.

So balanced.
Much design.
Wow.

I’m more concerned with making dungeons more fun and challenging.

They’re currently quite rewarding (at roughly 1.26g per 15-20 minutes), but they are almost painfully boring because of the prevailing stack + skip meta.

^I’d prefer the first solution. Boon duration and condition duration are, at best, tertiary stats that require large investments to be noticeable. A small increase to more tangible stats would be better for the gear set.

Guardians are getting hit harder. Berserker nerf + Vigor nerf (dodging and dodge roll heals being a large part of the reason that they have low health) + Celestial nerf (Celestial being one of their new popular WvW sets).

Devata.6589:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

~

Edit

Attach region/elite karma vendors to quest chains.
(Tobias Trueflight).

Edit – Expand the rewards system to include WvW and PvP.

Earn Zaishen Keys (for winning) or Zaishen Key Pieces (for losing) sPvP/tPvP matches. Use them to open the Zaishen Chest in the Heart of the Mists.

Earn Garnet, Sapphire, or Emerald Key Pieces at random for killing opposing players in the appropriate borderland. Earn guaranteed Key Pieces for capturing towers or supply camps. Earn a guaranteed full key for capturing a keep.

Earn Obsidian Key Pieces at random for killing opposing players in the EB. Earn guaranteed pieces for towers or supply camps. Earn 1 full key for capturing a keep. Earn 3 full keys for capturing Stonemist.

(Modified from Tobias Trueflight’s suggestions).

All guaranteed key rewards have a 3 hour cooldown (to help prevent cross-server abuse through flipping). May need to be extended or the rewards adjusted.

(My addition to the suggestion).

Thanks for reading.

Does not seem to go far enough. Just make specific rewards for specific stuff. One type of mob in a specific area of cave has the possibility to drop x.
Some champion has the possibility to drop y.
Dungeon x bos 1 can drop Z while bos 2… and so on.

I rather disagree with that on principle. It encourages grinding of specific mobs, which, as evidenced by the champ trains, isn’t exactly healthy for the open world as a whole.

In other words – it’s counter-productive. The game was designed to be “play your way,” not kill 10k Risen in -insert swamp here- for a Sword of Something Special.

Junkpile.7439:

It would be awesome if you could sometimes get some cool loot in this game.

The first game was so full of cool, rare skins that had just as much loot excitement as the vertical progression that has caused so many issues in the game.

And that’s part of the reason why I drafted this up: to simultaneously make loot more exciting while allowing for more ways to earn ascended gear and bringing some life into the open world.

Honestly, I would love to get out of dungeons and champ trains and just earn good money for doing my own thing and exploring the world or playing WvW.

maxinion.8396:

Increasing the power of support would be nice. Increasing the necessity of toughness encourages lazy play. Active defenses, and thereby players skill, should always be superior to passive defense in an action MMO. That’s the beauty of the GW2 combat system: you get rewarded for being good, not just bringing the right amount of toughness to the fight.

But utilizing passive defense as a form of active defense (such as through body-blocking or obstruction) should take precedent over both, as it is the only way to make tank gear skillful and relevant in PvE.

No. Conditions were explicitly designed to be the counter to toughness (and, by extension, bunkers).

Look for a way to nerf conditions that does not consequently buff bunker builds.

Painbow.6059:

I don’t understand why people don’t like dps dominance? More dps = stuff dies quicker = gold quicker am I not right? people want to play healers not needed in gw2 people want to play tank not needed in gw2, defensive gear not needed in gw2, making these specific roles would damage the game as it would mean you need a tank and a healer and dps roles with no mid points, if a group just specs for max dps and brings 1 guard along with them using a 20,25,0,0,25 build that is enough support for anything outside fractals along with good damage

People don’t like dps dominance because it:

Invalidates the majority of gear sets (in PvE).
Reduces team composition variety.
Removes entire professions from the equation in many groups.
Removes the option to play roles other than dps – kills the “play your way” philosophy of the game.

Basically, I bolded every part of your statement that IS in fact, a problem with the current game design. Guild Wars 2 was not intended to not have any roles – it was designed to allow everyone to play every role effectively regardless of their class and for groups to not require any particular combination of roles to function. There’s a pretty distinct difference. The way things are intended to be would allow anyone to (theoretically) make more-or-less comparable contributions while playing the way they wish do. The way that the game currently is – the way which you blindly seem to support – makes every playstyle that isn’t dps entirely redundant (in PvE).

Wharrgarbl.9263:

OMG what will we doooo!!! Oh, right, change the meta, build for new meta, and let the QQ start over.

But i don’t think thats gonna happen, they will just cap the crit damage like in PVP and nothing will ever change. Maybe if bads could l2p instead of crying on forums…

I’m sorry, but no. Right now, you don’t get to toss around the words “bad” and “l2p” in regards to PvE. It’s too mindless. You can practically afk through most encounters.

When and if stacking is removed and players are forced to actually play the game as it was intended – THEN you can throw some measure of “skill” and elitism into PvE.

I put in some edits to incorporate various suggestions throughout the thread (with due credit given).

Thanks for the support. Let’s keep this up.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Maximum Potato.5923:

What if they did something like they did in Southsun Cove, where you’ve got the Karka Queen (Which I’m sure we all know is a popular event) that only appears after you’ve freed the settlements? You could add something like this to the Cursed Shore, and open up the Heart of Orr, where you could get Orrian armor skins. Not sure about the whole ascended gear thing, but certainly adding region-themed armors would be awesome!

You mean the Artesian Waters, where you can earn . . . say, ancient Orrian weapons, which are uncorrupted versions, as bestowed by the King’s ghost himself? I’m sure I could mock up several options but here’s a few extra revisions:

- In zones with a World Boss like Tequatl, Shatterer, Claw of Jormag, these events yield one full key guaranteed out of the Bonus Chest. Ditto for events which also yield a Bonus Chest.

- Open World chests (which aren’t a Skritt Burglar) always yield a random key piece.

- Dynamic Event chains with NPCs at the finish will allow you to trade Karma for one of each key piece for the zone, per day per account.

- Karma vendors in specific locations will offer one randomized key piece which reset on Daily reset. These also available once per day per account. (Note: I mean ones which have a reason to offer them.)

- WvW also get their key pieces. Sapphire keys for Blue Borderlands, Ruby keys for Red Borderlands, Emerald keys for Green Borderlands, Obsidian keys for Eternal Battlegrounds. You win key pieces off loot bags at random, as well as from capturing keeps or Stonemist. Due to the difficulty, Stonemist’s Castle Lord drops a full key.

- PvP get Zaishen Key Fragments during matches, three of which are used from inventory to create a Zaishen Key. The key opens a chest in the Heart of the Mists.

Very nice. You’ve refined the idea to include PvP and WvW in a healthy way.

Bumping.

I mean, I know it will take a lot of work to implement such a system – and it might need tweaks to be plausible (like possibly spreading out the exclusive weapon skins over regions instead of adding a new skin for everything to each map), but I feel that we need something similar to this to really bring people into the open world for content that doesn’t involve mindless champ trains.

It would set a bad precedent. As someone who adores Guild Wars 1, I have to say that hexes were by far the worst mechanic in the game. Sure, they helped Arenanet to add depth and complexity to the game’s debuff system, but this came at the cost of them being a major source of imbalance.

A hex was little more than a much more powerful (and often long duration), SLIGHTLY more difficult to apply condition that was hilariously difficult to remove. And I do mean hilariously. Hex removal options in GW1 were far too scarce, weak, and/or conditional for how effective and widespread hexes were in PvP – particularly in RA, TA, and GvG.

I hope this is the case. That would actually make Scarlet interesting.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Elementalist

Elementalist could benefit from simply having more weapons available. Anything will do, but MH/OH Sword (single target melee burst and mobility), Torch (OH conditions and control), and some form of bow or rifle (2h ranged single target burst) would probably be the most effective additions.

I disagree with this. As it is, elementalists already have the most weapon skills in the game. You need to keep in mind that because of their elemental attunements, one weapon gives them 4x the amount of weapon skills that they’d give any other class so even adding just one new two-handed weapon would effectively give 20 new weapon skills. This is why eles have the fewest weapon options (aside form engineers) and rightly so.

Can we NOT base our opinion on a (false) perceived advantage. Yes, Elementalists get 4x the skills from one weapon set as compared to another profession. No, they do not get 4x weapon skills the skills of another profession – unless they go full Conjures, which would be exceedingly bad. They get twice the weapon skills of other professions in exchange for having roughly twice the average weapon skill cooldowns, weaker, more dedicated weapon cooldown traits, lower average utility per skill, often lower reliable damage output per skill, and for being hard-locked into one weapon set (which keeps them locked into one general range).

So no, they do not deserve to be cheated out of new weapon sets in the future just because their profession mechanic gives them more skills:

The fact that they have “the most weapon skills in the game” is not relevant to their needs. They still have unfilled weapon roles. They still have few build choices. They still have unviable/underpowered weapon options.

Giving them new weapons does not innately increase their power as a profession due to lack of weapon swap.

Giving them new weapon skills does not increase the number of skills in a single build’s reportoire. They would have to drop combat and equip the new weapon set to make use of it.

And, most importantly (and this is an argument for all professions), Elementalist players can, will, and have grown bored of their current weapon selection. If anything, they suffer it even worse because, like Engineers, they have an exceedingly small number of weapon sets available to them. To deny them at least a few new weapons based on your notions of how they should be is selfish.

The only way your argument could be applied to in any form of practicality would be to claim that the increased number of skills per weapon set makes it so that Elementalist weapons take increased time and effort on the part of Arenanet to implement as opposed to those of other professions. And you know what? Unfortunately, you’d be right. It’s sad, but it’s true. At the same time, however, it’s not an excuse for not expanding their selection at all.

(And I’m not even going to bother refuting any of your others. These, like any arguments of taste, are based on subjective, “I feel like this class should/should not have this because it does/does not fit my vision for them.” I will, however, say that a class’s definition is what Anet decides to make of it. And while you may feel that x class cannot plausibly be viewed through the lens of y, does not mean that another player will feel the same way. In a game that has been hyped as “Play your way,” the best solution may well be to allow everyone to wield everything (eventually) and allow the players to decide how they wish to view and play their class.)

Two-Handed Mastery is actually kind of overrated, IMO. You don’t need it on GS, as it’s a high burst, low dps rotation weapon that is meant to be swapped to your other set after you put your skills (mainly Whirling Wrath) on CD. If you’re coupling the GS with a Hammer, the trait becomes useful. If you couple the GS with a Staff, the trait becomes okay, but it’s best with Hammer/Staff, IMO, as both weapons fully benefit from the trait.

A lot of burst rotations use Sword/Focus or Mace/Focus right now, however, which lowers the value of the trait, even though your other weapon set will probably be Hammer, GS, or Staff.

Honestly, I think it should be more like:

Warrior

They already have the largest weapon selection, so they require fewer new options than everyone else. Give them a torch and call it a day.

Guardian

Guardians lack a condition weapon. Give them a bleed-stacking MH Axe (melee). Also add in Warhorn and one or more true ranged 2h weapons (shortbow, longbow, and/or rifle). Dagger could also make for a nice mid-ranged throwing weapon.

Ranger

Most ranger weapons do need an overhaul for PvE/WvW. They’re amazing in more solo-oriented activities (sPvP/tPvP and solo PvE) but profoundly lacking in group or large scale scenarios. They need more support capabilities.

Consider Rifle, MH/OH Pistol, MH Dagger, OH Sword, and (Druidic Support) Staff for new weapons.

Thief

Thieves are lacking in terms of a single-target ranged burst weapon. Rifle would fill this void nicely.

Pushing the magical (shadow arts) part of the Thief forward would also be nice: Staff, Scepter, and Focus could all work as utility, support, and/or manipulation weapons.

Engineer

Hammer is an obvious choice for damage and control. Mace and Torch are also obvious choices. But really – Engineers could plausibly tweak any weapon to meet their needs.

Elementalist

Elementalist could benefit from simply having more weapons available. Anything will do, but MH/OH Sword (single target melee burst and mobility), Torch (OH conditions and control), and some form of bow or rifle (2h ranged single target burst) would probably be the most effective additions.

Necromancer

Necromancers need a mobility option as well as strong non-condition builds. I suggest GS (mobility, single target burst), OH Axe, Rifle (Mobility, cooldown-based non-condition burst), and OH Torch (for the condition lovers).

Mesmer

Mesmer weapons are pretty strong overall. I say that they should prioritize new offhands and two-handed weapons to create new and interesting phantasms. Warhorn, Shield, Rifle, SB and/or LB, and, of course, MH Pistol would all be welcome.

New Weapon Types

I’d like to see:

Greataxe (Land) – Warrior, Guardian, Ranger, Necromancer

Polearm (Land) – Everyone

Orb (“Two-handed focus”) (Land) – Guardian, Mesmer, Necromancer, Elementalist, Engineer, Thief

Whip/Chain (MH/OH) (Land) – Everyone

Crossbow (Land) – Everyone

Javelin (Land) – Everyone

Stand The Wall.6987:

Its good for learning your role in wvw, but its a crutch that needs to be outgrown.

Survivability is only a “crutch” in PvE because of bad content design. It is NOT a crutch in any PvP format – especially WvW.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAS8dnQElGacIuhwHiCJnRBigVFiHcBXPgoIqhA-j0CBYjCyEEQkIBORtIaslhFRjVVjIqWbDzuDwaGzcORG0pWGA9xA-w

If you’re running celestial (especially in solo PvE or WvW), Meditations are your best bet. They give you the highest healing output and the best condition clear and stun breakers out of the utilities while also packing Fury to help make the critical damage on your celestial gear relevant and mobility to keep you in their face.

I swapped the traits around accordingly to (hopefully) maximize the effectiveness of the celestial gear.

Also swapped to Runes of the Traveler because the mobility, boon duration, and small global stat bonuses (especially crit damage) help to complement the gear set and chosen traits.