Guild Wars 2

I also hate the fact that players think their own experience is the best gauge of balance.
At least use some proofs from higher level plays(like ESL tourney) to back up your claim

Klonko.8341:

You all claim to know your class. You experimented all of their strenght or weakness. Sure. You havent experimented the enemy POV. And that’s the point.

Its like the king looking at his treasure and saying im poor I only have a few thousand gold pieces! While the peasant or artisan might be happy with what they have. But when they change place with the king, they don’t want to go back to the peasant/artisan life.

And that’s precisely what I lived with my mesmer experience this past few months. And this is why I think my claim is funded.

Attack me all you want but you dont have thousands of hours in the eyes of another class fighting the reworked mesmer

You are wrong again here. Mesmer is my main but mesmer games only consist of 40% of my total PvP games. I know how it feels like to play every single class in the meta game except for maybe necromancers.

I play all classes so that I can understand the basics for each of them. I challenge you to do the same on mesmers. Play at least 20-30 rated games(not a high number) before you make any comments.

Setting grinding gate to core game content is just plain bad design.
First mastery system, I can live with that. Then this….sorry can’t take the compromise again.

You already use mastery system to set a exp grinding gate for map exploration. Then you use this map exploration as a gate for just playing elite specs? How many gates do you want to set for players just to enjoy the core content.

Klonko.8341:

Xstein.2187:

cough

Fay.2357:

cough refer to my first post cough

cough

You guys are discussing with bad faith. If you are bringing nothing to the table, I suggest you to leave the discussion.

Your original post clearly shows you know very little about mesmer. So don’t be mad at people bashing at you. Many of us spent hundreds of hours playing this class and know every bit of strength and weakness of the class. Sure we can still be biased but it is hard to have any constructive discussion between two sides with dramatic knowledge difference.

ArchonWing.9480:

Arcadio.6875:

People complaining about how it was too easy to get to level 80 with exotic gear and leaving the game cuz no end game is the reason we are here now. Grindy ascended gear, grindy elite spec, grindy mastery system, grindy guild halls. All in the name of progression. Yet somehow many of us were playing the game for 3 years and spending the vast majority of that time not leveling up something. Just doing what we enjoy.

I definitely agree. Part of what made Gw2 great was that it was getting away from banal and ultimately meaningless grindy progression. Before Gw2, I just accepted it as sort of a norm and realized how archaic these concepts are. An open ended approach was so much better. They even had pvp where they just normalized everything and to hell with gearing. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if they removed levels and strictly used gear just for variety but I understand that could cause issues.

Of course, some people couldn’t handle that and wanted to be special snowflakes yet lacked the imagination to approach open-ended progression thus needing developers to change the game so their hands would be held or otherwise the game exists only as a way to chase shinies. Honestly, Anet was spot on with the Skritt. And even as we speak, there is no end to the threads demanding Anet change the game to cater to their needs while removing other options. “omg people are speedrunning in zerker gear and making more gold than me! Get rid of Zerker!” while completely ignoring the impact it had in other modes. And hey, look a ferocity nerf for pve that gets forced upon WvW! WvW was impacted because some bads were kitten about stuff nobody cares like finishing a dungeon 2 minutes faster beyond a few bruised egos.

I’ll be frank. I think if we took every suggestion that existed, then this would be a much worse game than it is now. We have our progression now; and it’s every bit of what I expected. Amusing to poke at, annoying to live with. Ascended gear was the first step, and it was sorta alright because it was intended to be there anyways, but I don’t think this will see any end.

The problem is it seems like is that any kind of progression is never enough and the demand for treadmills increases, and well… everyone else gets dragged along. That doesn’t mean I won’t follow along, but I just question the point.

That’s just my penny though.

Very well written. Have to quote again to improve its visibility.

Some players are regarding this game the same as diablo3 in which grinding is indeed entirely its journey.

This game is not. The progression here is more about personal skill improvement. I am much better mesmer than I was 10 months ago? Was that from gear grinding? No. Was that from getting more skills and traits? No. Was that from grinding hero point challenges? Hell No. I become better because I have better understanding of the class. I have better mechanical skills of the class. I know how to handle different situations with the class in dungeons, PvP and WvW.

That’s what I call a journey in video game. Grinding hero points is way too shallow for me to call a journey. I know some players truly like grinding as their journey. But we already have it. That is legendary weapons and other rare cosmetics.

I would be even more scared if some of the hero challenges require the highest level of masteries.

e.g. the gliding mastery
Ley Line Gliding Ley Line Gliding: Learn to enter ley-line energy flows while gliding to be moved along with the flow, gaining access to otherwise inaccessible places.

This one would require 16million exp to unlock. To put it into perspective, you need 200k exp to level up for level 80 character. That is equivalent leveling up 800 levels!

If that is the case, I probably won’t fully unlock my elite specs until next year.

hurrado.2346:

400 hero points is outrageous. The specs are hardly worth playing miserable pve for that long.

To be honest, if it is 100 HP to unlock skill/traits and 300 to unlock skins, then I am fine with it.

But more likely they are making it like 350 to unlock skill/traits and 50 to unlock skins which is indeed outrageous.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I’m personally glad that I can enjoy a paced and gradual sense of character progression with elite specs. I want my characters to feel strong because they worked to be strong.

Again, I understand that this may be annoying for players that have a lot of alts. But that’s pretty much it.

Not really. In this game, you character progression is from your own skill improvement. You play more and you get better. It is not by grinding hero challenges which are hardly challenges…

ZenMa.3976:

Exciton.8942:

I can tell you one thing.

As I play DD ele, thief is still the biggest threat to my survival. All other classes might be better than you 1v1ing, but only thief post enough threat that I will consider how to disengage even before he enters the fight.

As I play shatter mesmer, the number one thing I constantly check is where thief is on the map. Because one mistake, you are basically a dead mesmer.

oh, Thief threatens to your survival? cuz thief in stealth, can’t expect attack when and where from, right? So where u standing now? OF COURSE ON POINT ZONE. U RUN OUT THE CLOCK ON CAPTURE POINT ZONE AND U STILL GETTING THE SCORE WHILE THIEF ROAM AROUND U WITHOUT GETTING ANY SCORE POINTS.

SPvP = point zone capture to win.
HOLD POINT ZONE IS THE WIN GAME.

THINK DEEP.

DYING IS ALMOST ALWAYS WORSE THAN LOSING A CAPTURE.
THINK DEEPER.

May I pay another 50 dollars to unlock all the elite specialization?
50 dollars is worth less than the time I would waste on the HP train for my 9 characters

I can tell you one thing.

As I play DD ele, thief is still the biggest threat to my survival. All other classes might be better than you 1v1ing, but only thief post enough threat that I will consider how to disengage even before he enters the fight.

As I play shatter mesmer, the number one thing I constantly check is where thief is on the map. Because one mistake, you are basically a dead mesmer.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Exciton.8942:

Well, if as the OP suggested, the damage goes up as a function of time. There will always be a point that even the tankiest build will not be able to survive. This is essentially requiring a minimum dps.

In terms of how much dps and tankiness you need, it all depends on what that time dependent function is.

Sure, and this manner of creative enrage timer is okay, since it’s still an enrage timer. The one thing I want to make sure is clear, though, is that it cannot be a lenient timer; enrage mechanics cannot be forgiving. Part of what I really like about the hard enrage as we have it now, though, is that everyone gets exactly X minutes to work with, and knowing that number sets the pace for the entire encounter.

Yes. Basically a binary enrage timer makes it a bit easier to figure out the optimal. It is not bad given that there are still plenty of other boss mechanics to worry about. Things won’t get overly complicated this way. You solely focus on the fight itself.

With a increasing damage as a function of time, you will have a larger parameter space to explore. It would be harder to find an optimal. It might promote some variety but could also require much more careful balance to ensure the content is still challenging and fun.

Rising Dusk.2408:

They will not nor should they ever remove the timer; it is important to do a minimum level of DPS to the boss constantly to beat it.

Well, if as the OP suggested, the damage goes up as a function of time. There will always be a point that even the tankiest build will not be able to survive. This is essentially requiring a minimum dps.

In terms of how much dps and tankiness you need, it all depends on what that time dependent function is.

No. You shouldn’t try to check at 3am. It won’t open up for like a few minutes.
It will only be open when it is truly not full.

pmnt.4067:

witcher.3197:

A DD ele dies when a DD ele wants to die. Even if you are winning the duel, he can always disengage and reset. Try not to 1v1 them until the expansion.

“maaan, thieves can disengage and reset the fight at will” —> “pvp is not about kills, if you forced him to disengage, you’ve won the fight. everything is fine, l2p”

“maan, eles can disengage and reset the fight at will” —> “ele is uncounterable, better nerf ele”

Kill is actually a very important part of PvP. Saying pvp is not about kills is just plain false. Many people overlooked it and tunnel vision on that small capture circle.

If you get a chance to kill a dd ele, you really should go for the kill rather than trying to capture a point.

Also something like thief disengaging is much more than the lines ‘you won the fight’. The way thief mechanics works, they can easily reset in 10 seconds in stealth and come right back at you. Or they can use their superior mobility to create outnumbering at other points. You simply don’t win if you don’t follow up correctly.

posthumecaver.6473:

There are 2 hard counters to D/D Ele I think, one is Signet Necro, it will win the war of attrition the other burst shatter mesmer if it can land it burst.

For Ex, when I play my Warrior (without Rampage cheeese) I have bare to none chance to burn down D/Ds sustain.

Neither of these are. I have been playing a lot of DD ele for the past couple of months.
Unless you are facing some necro or mesmer that are much better than you mechanically, there is little chance they can win the 1v1. It is really barely a counter, let alone hard counter.

But after the burn/might got tuned down a bit, it does take more skill/effort for a dd ele to neutralize a point against some marauder class.

Distribute it like 100 HP to unlock all skills/traits and 300HP to unlock the skins, then I might feel okay about it.

Mightybird.6034:

Exciton.8942:

Enough of hearing people saying you have to WORK to just play the basic game content. This is not work, this is a game for fun!.

Sure you need to grind for cosmetics and that’s totally fair. But have to grind for the basic content we already paid 50 dollars for? Hell no.

Except its not basic content. Its an optional spec.

And for all we know with the first 200 points we have access to the full traitline + weaps and the remaining 200 pts is the utilities (who cares right away, just as effective without in almost all cases) and the skins.

Which means its possible people with 200 pts can unlock a fully working elite spec on day one, minute one of logging in.

It is totally fair for people having 200 pts to unlock an elite spec. It is likely those people who did full map completion. It probably take more than 10 hours of them to do so.

Just make the skins unlock cost large amount of hero points. They are non-essential cosmetics. The elite spec is the basic content many players have been excited about. Putting huge HP gate is just to ask players to form HP trains and ignore the actual content itself.

Sytherek.7689:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Unlocking your elite spec is a training line in your training panel that costs hero points. You do need to have trained all the existing training lines before you’re allowed to put hero points into your elite spec.

If you’ve got all the hero points in the existing game you’ll have enough to train about half the elite specialization training line on launch day. The rest you’ll need to earn in the jungle or via the new system Tyler outlined yesterday from WvW. The number of points to fully train your elite spec is higher than other training lines – but hero challenges in the jungle are worth 10 points each, so it’s not actually as big as it appears.

Terribly, awfully, grindy, Colin.

I have a main with 100% everything (accomplished under the old must-do-WvW system), have had for a while. Locking her elite spec behing monumental grind is not good or fun.

I have 2 other characters at about 75% world completion. I’m not about to grind them, and my main, through thousands of hours of repetitive content just to get an elite spec I PAID FOR.

I have a life. Guild Wars 2 is recreation, not my life.

We will not be buying the expansion for two other (wife, daughter) accounts in this house.

I regret buying the expansion for myself.

Nice playing your game while it was fun. Now that it’s “grind wars”, we’re off to brighter pastures. Not a rage quit, a simple anti-grind viewpoint.

Totally agree with you.

Enough of hearing people saying you have to WORK to just play the basic game content. This is not work, this is a game for fun!.

Sure you need to grind for cosmetics and that’s totally fair. But have to grind for the basic content we already paid 50 dollars for? Hell no.

ColinJohanson.2394:

PlatinumMember.5274:

Unless I am mistaken just to unlock half of the training line, we need 212 hero points?

It’s 400 points total to unlock everything in an elite spec training line – I just can’t remember off hand how many points folks have currently if they have done all the existing ones, but it’s right around 200. The rest you’ll need to earn in jungle to unlock the deeper skills/traits/etc. in the training line.

You only need 60 hero points to begin using your elite spec, the points you spend after that continue to unlock more skills, traits, skins, etc.

Again, hero challenges are worth 10 points each in the jungle. So no you don’t need to go do 200-400 jungle challenges.

You can put how many hero points required as you want behind those skins. But plz plz don’t put such a crazy amount of hero challenges required for just to play the elite spec.

Grinding in this game should be all about cosmetics not to just play the basic game! Now you have to grind every single character for the maguuma jungle hero challenges. Map exploration is fun for the first time. But after that is just so boring and grindy. And to do that thing 9 times on each of my characters is just a nightmare.

You are basically bringing back the old trait unlock system. Except for being even worse because the access to hero points is even more limited.

Worst decision ever.

They also didn’t mention two important things about new fractals in the blog.
1. How does AR system adapt to the new fractal setup
2. How will they fit in new fractals into the system in the future

I think on their FOTM advertisement page, the revamp will be in Nov.
Probably the same time as raid and new legendaries roll out.

The only thing I don’t quite understand about this trait is that why this trait has 45 sec CD while ranger’s and mesmers are 60 sec CD.

If anything, the ranger counterpart seems the weakest since it doesn’t CC the opponent.
Mesmer’s is a mirror so its strength depends on the incoming CC.
Revenant’s is a guaranteed 3 sec taunt. I thought taunt is a pretty strong CC but it seems the design team thinks taut is a weak CC. So they give it a pretty long CC duration + a shorter CD.

We will see how things unfold.

Photinous.4628:

Why are people so obsessed with zealot on druid? You are losing a lot of damage for a slight increase in healing. I think sinister or berserker will be the way of the future even on druid.

Because Anet made their stance clear that they want berserker meta to go away.
If after raid gets launched, people still go for full party zerker/sinister, they will probably raise boss damage to force you go for defensive stats.

While in WvW, I can see a mixed up of zealot/zerker/knight being good for both druid and herald, at least for roaming. To make things worse, there are no zealot amulets or rings available. You can use cleric instead but will lose out a lot of crit chance.

Arewn.2368:

I still think Continuem Split should have replaced distortion, rather then being added as a 5th shatter.
I eagerly hope for the day that happens. I don’t care if it’s a nerf, it just makes more sense to me.

This is like one change that looks small but would completely KILL the chronomancer for many PvP players. Worst suggestion ever.

Release your camera and movement control and your character will be able to adjust his/her skill cast direction properly.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Who cares what we’ll be running. I’ll just be glad not to have to wait 4 extra seconds to knock that last lick of life off an already done and dusted target -_-u

Honestly, I just wasted you. What makes you think you deserve to continue breathing?

Godkitten vampires.

So if it just lets player breath for 4 more seconds, it wouldn’t be nerf’ed in the first place.
It actually literally saves players lives!

IAMANDLOVE.3095:

the ultimate grind is Diablo 3 but they can get away with it because it is so Fing FUN!

Diablo 3 for me is like after each patch, I play for 3 weeks and then afk for 3 months…..

It will not be a very popular amulet. Same reason that berserker is not very popular.

Maybe even zealot?

Maybe rune of chronomancers?

This seems even worse than Saturday night reset.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Nier.8741:

Engi.

The reason? Grenades. Why? Because Grenade skills can miss without your opponent pressing the dodge button. And because slick shoes isn’t viable anymore, you can’t say Engi is an easy mode class because that would be ignorant.

Yeah sure Flamethrower isn’t hard to play but at least it has 10 million counterplays compared to Ele, Mesmer, Guard, Ranger, in which those four classes just spam defensive mechanics and reliable damage.

Ele just spams evades while dealing damage, it takes no skill. Thief D/P is just as hard. Non-GS Zerker Warrior is hard as well.

TL;DR Pick Engi.

People think shout warrior is difficult?

I think he is talking about zerker warrior that doesn’t equip GS.
But honestly I found that just unviable rather than being hard-to-play.

Remember what O’Brien said? If you are into anything, then you are really into PvE.
So time to show your love for PvE.

Joke aside. This is actually going to be a problem for both WvW centric players and instance centric players. Neither of these groups of players will like to do a lot of open world grinding.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Exciton.8942:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I’m honestly praying to Melandru that Staff gets a burn on AA. It just needs something. As is, its pretty bad, even with the excellent change to Ancestral Grace.

Sorry I don’t agree about staff 1 getting burn.

Staff 1 actually does pretty decent power damage. It has a damage modifier of 0.3 and pulses 3 times. That is basically a combined modifier of 0.9 of 1.5 seconds…

Ok, great. What if I don’t want to run cleric or zealots armor?

Sadly, it is power/support focused weapon. You don’t use it for burst damage or condie pressure. This is the same as, say, guardian asks why they can’t use staff on a zerker build.

Lord Snow.3257:

Exciton.8942:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I’m honestly praying to Melandru that Staff gets a burn on AA. It just needs something. As is, its pretty bad, even with the excellent change to Ancestral Grace.

Sorry I don’t agree about staff 1 getting burn.

Staff 1 actually does pretty decent power damage. It has a damage modifier of 0.3 and pulses 3 times. That is basically a combined modifier of 0.9 of 1.5 seconds.

To put it into perspective. mesmser gs1, a very similar skill, has a combined modifier of 0.945 at 900+ range, 0.54 at less than 300 range. Channel time is also 1.5 seconds(mesmer can abuse stow though).

The damage really doesn’t look any worse on druid staff. You can also confirm that by looking at that initial druid introduction video at twitchcon. The high damage number confirms it(pretty sure they are using berserker amulet).

Why are you comparing the damage of the staff auto to mesmer GS? The reason the GS is strong is due to its abilities’ insane damage and the utility it offers, you do not run around spamming the autoattack to kill people, it’s damage is laughable, and druid staff is actually a bit weaker, if your numbers are correct. The damage on staff is so laughable, no matter how much power you have, that you cripple yourself by using it over GS/LB. The staff is terrible for anything that isn’t a bunker build, or useless healer for pve if you want (when people figure out raids, staff will most likely not be needed for druid, maybe druid won’t be needed at all).

The staff is a pathetic weapon.

You are so wrong. Mesmers spam GS1 a lot. It does decent damage at long distance and good at triggering on crit sigils. It’s already probably the second strongest long-range autoattack after ranger longbow. Mesmer’s GS is also a damage focused weapon. 4 damage skills and 1 utility skill.

Back to ranger’s staff. It is a utility-heavy weapon. 3 and 5 are among the best utility on any weapon set. 1 and 2 do decent power damage + some healing. I would say this is pretty good already. You can’t blame a weapon just because it is not damage-focused. Guardian’s staff is also damage-lacking. But it is still a very strong weapon due to its utility.

From design point of view, I think weapon skills are not meant to do too many different stuff at the same time. Do we really have a weapon autoattack that can do good power damage, good condie damage and also healing at the same time?

The only skill needs improve on staff is 4.
1 and 2 do pretty decent damage and healing, 3 and 5 are awesome utilities.

4 is trying to a bit too much while not really practical to use.
It should have at least 2 seconds immbo, a larger area of effect and a shorter cast time because the animation of this skill is so obvious and players should still have time to react even if the skill becomes strong.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I’m honestly praying to Melandru that Staff gets a burn on AA. It just needs something. As is, its pretty bad, even with the excellent change to Ancestral Grace.

Sorry I don’t agree about staff 1 getting burn.

Staff 1 actually does pretty decent power damage. It has a damage modifier of 0.3 and pulses 3 times. That is basically a combined modifier of 0.9 of 1.5 seconds.

To put it into perspective. mesmser gs1, a very similar skill, has a combined modifier of 0.945 at 900+ range, 0.54 at less than 300 range. Channel time is also 1.5 seconds(mesmer can abuse stow though).

The damage really doesn’t look any worse on druid staff. You can also confirm that by looking at that initial druid introduction video at twitchcon. The high damage number confirms it(pretty sure they are using berserker amulet).

runeblade.7514:

Exciton.8942:

Plz no. This game already has enough super sustain specs. We don’t need another one.

Zealot is hardly a super sustain spec.

Combining with Druid or scrapper or even maybe revenant. It can easily be one.
It basically only lacks condie damage. Good at everything else.

Plz no. This game already has enough super sustain specs. We don’t need another one.

For me 3xpull is the best version, but many players prefer the visual effect of float.

The functionality is not that big of a difference anyway. So I am fine with the current version.

Also players should get punished for afking.
Basically if a player has no activity(no combat, no cap/decap, no contesting) for more than something like 60 seconds, the players should get dishonor.

Vieux P.1238:

dishonor does not help players that DC’s unintentionally. & DC happens a lot.

Intentional or not. It does hurt your teammates. If you DC that much, it is better to try to improve your connection consistency.

Wow, Ancestral Grace is now so vastly superior compared to ele’s RTL.

gavyne.6847:

Kodiak.3281:

You were looking for a post to reply with a bunch of assumptions, conjecture and overly broad to the point of being inaccurate generalizations? KDR actually represents what really happens. JQ has a lot of round the clock coverage so they win simply because numbers but they lose fights. YB has less coverage and gets wiped all the time in off hours but during prime time has good coverage and teams capable of fighting. BG wins most of it’s fights but lacks the full time coverage of JQ. PPK in this scenario would benefit BG because while it wins most of the time, it simply loses when JQ is able to keep map presence throughout the week which would lower the gap between the two.

Flawed logic, I’ll try to make it simple. The most crowded timezone, I think we can all agree on, is NA. JQ is notoriously lacking in NA coverage, where as BG has the most NA coverage of all T1 servers. The KDR simply means you have the most coverage during the busiest timezone, because you can outblob the other servers when you decide to not blackout (like you have been for the past 2 weeks).

Where as JQ for an example, as you stated, have more coverage all around. While that’s true, but who’s there to kill during OCX & EU when JQ has more coverage? KDR doesn’t go up because during the other timezones there’s a serious lack of opponents to fight and kill. And by seriously lacking, I mean there’s not even a map blob anywhere.

KDR only means you have good presence during the busiest timezone. For NA servers, that’s really the 4 hours during NA where all 3 servers have a lot of players but BG can field 2 or even 3 map blobs if they want to. Where as JQ can field 1 map blob at best, sometimes not even that. YB can field 2 map blobs during early NA.

The reason T2 have a more balanced looking KDR is because T2 is all about NA coverage, and pretty much nothing else. So they’re all exchanging kills and deaths during the 4 hours that is NA, and all T2 servers can field respectable numbers during NA. While rest of the time all 3 T2 servers don’t have enough people to matter.

What I’m saying is it has nothing to do with winning fights or losing fights. One would have to be naive in thinking one server really wins that many more fights than the others. When in reality, KDR is all about which server gets to outblob the others during the busiest NA timezone. And if all 3 servers field similar numbers during NA, then KDR would look fairly similar, like they do in T2. In T1 currently, that’s not the case, and it’s not because of winning or losing fights, it’s because some servers can outblob the others.

I’m not against PPK by the way. I do think PPK is a good thing, it’d definitely trigger more fights initially. But if PPK was made permanent, I think you’ll see more running away and less suicide defense when the score gets tight. People would end up taking less chances if they see an unfavorable match during a given siege or open field combat.

This is the most sensible assessment of K/D ratio.

Try your best to have ele use their cooldowns.
Hope your teammate thief can arrive before you die.

iKeostuKen.2738:

Exciton.8942:

You don’t get shut down just because you are dazed. You can still dodge/move when being dazed.

Never really said that you did. But incase your fighting a mesmer, theres a high chance you will get shut down from that daze.

You won’t.

It is actually very easy to tell if a player is good or bad after being dazed.
Good player tends to dodge after being dazed. Bad players just do nothing.

You don’t get shut down just because you are dazed. You can still dodge/move when being dazed.

Furious interruption is more like an adept level trait. Just like its counterpart interrupt to slow in chronomancy line. I would suggest swap it with confounding suggestions.

Evasive Mirror is good. But reflection is too situational. Same on any class. They are strong but rarely taken.