Guild Wars 2

Tagging sucks for crowded Dynamic Events (Orr). I think this undermines the “friendly” nature of GW2 and turns it back into a stressful competition.

I’m cross posting this discussion here for visibility. Over on /r/GuildWars2 we have been having a large discussion about the “Orr zerg” and how it promotes classes and specs/weapons that can tag as many mobs as possible rather than what’s FUN. Also the overall tagging system requiring you to do a percentage of the mob’s HP really punishes support oriented players who may not do enough damage to get credit even when present for the entire fight.

Here’s the reddit discussion (179 comments as of this post): http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/ztxos/tagging_sucks_for_crowded_dynamic_events_orr_one/

Here’s the original post in the DE forums: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/events/I-think-the-tagging-system-ruins-Dynamic-Events/first

OP (fiction8) original post:

Right now the HP on enemies in DEs doesn’t scale up enough, making every event in the “Orr zerg” that we’re all becoming familiar with stressful and not fun. Because you have to do a certain percentage of a mob’s HP to get credit, only a certain number of people will get credit (and therefore loot).

This really limits you in the large groups because more waves =/= harder. It’s not like we’re running out of resources here. What is suggested instead is to make HP on mobs scale up more severely when many people are participating in an event.

This allows mobs more time to live, and if you tweak the threshold for credit properly, can allow hundreds of people to get credit for every mob.

In fact, I’d go one step further. What if when a ton of people are doing the same event, enemy waves become waves of all veterans? This could be explained by Zhaitan seeing how badly his forces are getting owned and sending a more elite force to try to defeat us. In turn it makes a trivial and mundane event become awesome and more epic.

These are the topvoted comments on reddit:

Submarinecanswim: I agree 100%, and this is just the beginning. It won’t be fewer people in Orr in the coming weeks and months. I would love for the events to get scaled up, right now there’s not even any challenge. The only challenge is to be the class with most aoe, so you can tag stuff quickest.

omniblue: We need solutions for this. This is so frustrating, most frustrating aspect of GW2 for me currently, even considering Jade Quarry 5 hour WvWvW queues.

Those ORR events need to scale higher. Mobs die before they even load on the screen. People are not even fighting the events, they camp the spawns where the mobs load in. Watching it happen is so disgusting in how awfully tuned it is.

morpai: Yes, I feel im forced to tag mobs if I want any gear progression, and so I can’t focus on the actual fight anymore.

And that’s just the beginning…. we have overwhelming agreement here that this is a big issue, and I hope that you can adequately resolve it, ArenaNet.

Downed is really awful.

What they need to do is greatly reduce the HP that you have while downed. You shouldn’t need a melee only finishing move to kill someone, they should be easily killable through a few normal attacks.

Also they need to remove EVERY #2 and EVERY #3 ability from downed state. And #1 too probably. This is in PVP only.

Adding a kitten minigame to kill someone once they hit 0 HP is NOT a good way to create an esport.

Zish.9817:

She specifically mentions a young sylvari, and recently. All Sylvari characters were given Caladbolg to use in an important story mission.

So, by that, I gathered she meant me. I don’t think I’m wrong on that.

All Sylvari are 25 years old or less, though.

bluejay.6739:

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“As soon as you arrive on Claw Island, you meet Trahearne. For the first time. Even though he’s been a big part in your story since the very beginning. The dialog points out that we have never met before.”

Yeah, this has been commented on in several other posts. ANet completely ignored the starting race and everything that came before it when writing the story of the Order of Whispers from level 40+. Basically after you join the Order the story is the same regardless of your starting race.

…Talk about the death of immersion. This is an almost unforgivable mess up on ANet’s part. And you know they knew about it and just decided to ignore it.

Even as bad as some of the voice acting in GW1 was, the story line in GW1 was much better than what I have seen from GW2.

And after Claw Island it’s the same regardless of even the ORDER that you chose…

It’s pretty bad. I really see the PS as a chore now and can barely finish it.

It was definitely really disappointing.

The characters that you meet earlier on don’t even stay in the story! They just disappear! Even if they were just by your side as another NPC that would be better than introducing them and then throwing them away.

That’s a great idea, and I think it really hits the nail on the head for why I really HATE joining the Orr zerg.

It becomes a chore to do damage. Imagine if instead of the waves of normal mobs, waves of all veterans or even champions started spawning. You would feel a lot more epic being part of a giant zerg because you’d be taking down ALL veterans or even champions.

And it would be so much easier to tag and get credit for a kill, rather than just adding more waves of normal mobs that are simply additional sources of stress (kitten gotta drop my AOE before everyone else… kitten I only got a quarter of those mobs tagged).

Stomp is hilarious. But I find it actually kind of annoying to use 1v1, because it knocks you back so far that you have to use another cooldown to get back on top of them before they get up. What I want to pair it with is the guardian’s AOE pull, but I haven’t had a chance to play with my guardian bro since speccing stomp.

“450 blowback” means 450 knockback! That’s like double the distance of kick, and it’s AOE. Also it does double kick’s damage. If you put 30 points into Power (for damage), you can trait for 20% lower cooldown on the physical spells (aka the CC) and it also adds 100% more damage. The damage becomes pretty significant at that point.

But overall I know what you mean about the cooldowns. I think that I am going to keep playing around with it and figure out a “halfway” build. Probably going to replace the Mace/Shield side of things with a more offensive weapon.

And yea I think it might end up being a more of a PVP style build. But it’s going to be a powerful one.

What do you think about the stat distribution? I think it goes pretty well with knight gear, though my crit chance is probably the lowest it’s been since level 10. What I’m currently running is 30 power/30 toughness/10 whatver and pow/precision/toughness gear.

Guardians are the most difficult to kill of anyone. They are strong 1v1 because of that.

They give up a significant amount of damage compared to glass cannon warriors/thieves, but but get back even more survivability.

TurtleofPower.5641:

I don’t really like it. My hammer builds in GW1 were mostly KD based. They were fun, but in GW2 you will only ever be allowed to have 1 hammer knockdown? Feels like they killed hammer to me but of course I can’t look at it without it having been one of my favorite GW1 weps.

Hammer #4 knocks back, #5 knocks down, burst ability stuns. You can take another knockdown (+charge), knockback, and AOE knockback as your utility skills. You can also add more CC on your alternate weapon by using mace or shield.

I leveled the vast majority of 1->80 with Longbow/Rifle.

Give up on Rifle, it’s useful for single target fights but most of the time you will be using the AOE damage of the Longbow in PVE. Rifle can definitely be your offweapon though.

For ranged leveling, use 5 signets and go full glass cannon (precision tree into power tree and power/precision gear into berserker gear). 20 points into the last tree is also incredibly good for leveling. Take the VII trait and /lol at anything that downs you (you will rally 100% of the time if you use #3 when downed and then get a kill before it runs out).

For dungeons, eh I’m not so sure about full ranged. I think Warriors are much better wading into melee with some CC and defensive stats. Your alternate weapon can be ranged though, that’s fine.

If you did go full ranged at 80 though, I would definitely stick with Berserker (power/prec/crit dmg) and just switch up some of the utility. Add a banner or two, maybe a shout (like the quickness one).

But again, I don’t like them for full level 80 players with max stats because you can’t focus on either direct damage or condition damage. Your #1 on the rifle is heavily bleed based, and the burst ability of the Longbow is all condition damage (#2 as well). These are both really significant portions of your damage on each weapon, but the #3 on each weapon is a good DD nuke that you want to focus on as well. But you have to give up either crit damage or condition damage at level 80, and that just makes you “meh” because you’re not focused.

GroundZero.8037:

Like Guardian is kind off overpowered, I think Necro is kinda underpowered ><

You know that the Guardians are all supporting, right? They aren’t 4 shotting anyone and they’re mostly just being annoying and protecting allies, not getting kills.

Exactly the same playstyle that you seem to hate on Necromancer. So why are you jealous of them?

Shelledfade.6435:

Skliros.1058:

Each stack of bleed behaves as a separate damage source. 10 stacks of bleed? 10 ticks of your bleed damage each second. I think we’re all sort of saying the same thing, but to put it succinctly, the damage from bleed comes from putting out large stacks of it. Math time. I get 120 damage ticks from my bleeds as my default conditionmancer build in sPvP. using BiP and scepter/dagger, it is by no means difficult to get 13 stacks of bleed on a target in a few moments. That is 13 ticks of 120 damage each second. 1560 damage every second, after their damage reduction, before any other source of damage is applied, and if I’m running epidemic, I can cause that in a large AoE as well. Pretty darn respectable.

This would probably be true, if each bleed acted alone which I’m assuming it does, unless there’s some kind of cap. But yeah, 10 bleeds, for 100 damage each, would be 1000 damage per second assuming there is no further bleed cap on damage ticks that we don’t know about.

Getting that many is rather difficult though in s-pvp. You’re normally in the 7-8 range.

so according to that, you could do 7000 damage in 7 seconds. That’s still nowhere near the amount of damage that a warrior can dish out in the same amount of time given. You also have to factor in the fact that other necros consume conditions, and that guardians can remove conditions as well, which shuts your build down.

Also, if you go power (condition duration) and precision, you’re basically a glass cannon. If someone targets you, you will die incredibly fast.

Are you not using the Cond Damage/Toughness/Precision gear? Why the hell not?

My necro was incredibly powerful in BWE3, I played a ton of hours of sPVP and was always topping charts. Though I haven’t had a chance to play one on live, so I’m not going to claim perfect expertise.

I loved the condition damage build that I ran and didn’t find him underpowered at all. If necros get a significant buff to Scepter/OH + Staff builds I think that I will be FORCED to play one, because it’s going to be overpowered as kitten.

Remember that you are in the highest base HP category, and your gear should be adding toughness.

Sneakier.9460:

Dallas.2536:

Dreadspectre.3456:

We have a pro team? All I know is Anvil Rock get’s stomped on in WvWvW.

yah we suck at WvW but thats because all the pvpers are doing tourneys all day and have level 2’s outside of the mists lol

Yeah, sure why not.

I found out a scalled lvl 5 with full best gear they can get(pretty easy) is better then a just reached 80

Gear doesn’t scale in WvW.

Dreadspectre.3456:

I don’t know why people come here and post their super awesome counters to these builds in ideal controlled 1v1 setups. You act like I haven’t already had to use my 2 rolls and my stability to stop something else. There are 4/7 other players to deal with at any given time.

Not everyone is running a build with CC weapons/utility either.

Wait, so you think that you shouldn’t be dying 2+v1 when you’ve already used your defensive cooldowns?? Lolwut.

That’s just stupid. Removing activated cooldowns to reduce burst damage is a terrible idea. All that does is make people stand around autoattacking each other to death, which is boring and the worst possible outcome for competitive PVP.

In RPG/MMO PvP, players should constantly be using cooldowns or “twitch” abilities to counter what their opponents are doing or to take advantage of mistakes. They should not be just sitting their whacking each other for half a minute just to break down the enemy’s health + heals.

Low TTK is perfectly fine, and I actually enjoy it a whole lot more than the long drawn out bore that was BWE1 (and Catacylsm on the WoW side of things).

I’m not sure if you’ve ever actually done high level competitive PVP in GW1 even. “3…2…1…spike” was everywhere in that game and I fully expect coordinated damage spikes to be how PvP in GW2 will sort itself out as well. It’s the same as WoW’s PVP as well (well, how it was when WoW had good PvP). That’s just how things work in good PVP games.

If you’re dying in 1-2 seconds then you’re doing something wrong and you need to learn how to avoid that burst. I’m not against balance changes (like Heartseeker) or reducing the base damage of other attacks, but the idea that we should be removing burst cooldowns from this game is absurd. We should be giving MORE classes access to that type of play actually.

I don’t agree with your time to kill issue.

PVP is not fun when it takes 10 years to kill someone 1v1. It should be rapid fire and fast paced and you should be punished for making a mistake.

Compare TBC 2v2 arenas to a competitive FPS. No one wants to watch 45 minutes of blue bar battles, and tons of people like to watch 1-2 shot kill headshots.

Examples like this are everywhere. It’s not fun to whack someone for 30 seconds to kill them, like it was in BWE1. Instant/fast kills are simply a better design for PVP in video games. How long does a pitched battle in Starcraft 2 take? Maybe 10 seconds if both players engage? And you can have hundreds of units die in those seconds. How long does a round in a fighting game take? Not very long, especially if a good player gets a combo chain off. You see attacks that can take off half a health bar everywhere in fighting games (like Nightmare in Soul Caliber).

Low TTK is only an issue if a death is completely unavoidable. And despite the whining that you often hear, a fast death is rarely, RARELY unavoidable. Even in something like Wotlk WoW arena, the fast kills in 3v3 were often avoidable and the better team generally won.

I am not against balance changes (like Heartseeker), but I think doing something like removing quickness would be a huge mistake. Actually I think the game needs MORE quickness. It should be spread out more equally to everyone so that they can use it tactically.

The PVP was much worse before people started building glass cannon.

Holy kitten was BWE1 painful, I never want to go back to 2 people hitting each other for 30 seconds just to dent the other guy.

Rapid fire PVP is far better than slow, turtle play. It’s more fun and requires better reflexes and more game knowledge.

As an example, I would compare 3v3 in TBC and Wrath to 2v2 in TBC and all PVP in Cata. If you die instantly, it’s honestly your fault, you should be reacting faster, preparing better, and killing them faster than they can kill you.

No one would play an FPS competitively that takes 10 headshots to kill someone or an RTS with “no rush 20” on. Player vs. Player combat should be fast, we’re not playing chess here.

Nothing in this game reflects projectiles for more than a few seconds. Just run away or drop some ground AOE (not a projectile, Longbow has plenty of it).

I leveled with Longbow/Rifle for about 90% of the game. It was incredibly powerful, mostly the Longbow.

Traits, utilities, and gear don’t change, I went full Power/Precision (Crit Damage tree if you need a 3rd), used the 5 signet build, and went all offensive on my gear.

You can be incredibly glass cannon as a ranged and not really have to worry about veterans or big mob packs.

Also make sure to ACTUALLY USE YOUR SIGNETS. The only ones that are pretty worthless to activate are the Power one and the Heal (in a tight spot you should activate it, but the regen is pretty powerful by itself). The adrenaline one is STUPID GOOD, you should use it ALL THE TIME while leveling to throw down a Longbow burst AOE.

The condition removal one will save yourkitten all the time, and the ultimate is perfect for fighting veterans/bosses.

Other than that, it’s pretty simple. Gather up however much kitten you want, use the blind if you need time, drop the burst circle, use the explosion (3) for free might and tons of damage, watch stuff die.

Swap in rifle when all the longbow stuff is on cooldown, use a few spells, go back. Rifle is only really useful on a single target, Longbow should be your main weapon.

It’s very powerful for leveling, but I would recommend branching out into other weapons at 80, the Warrior has a LOT of useful weapons.

(Pro tip: the 2nd best leveling trait after +40 precision/signet is the VII major in the Discipline aka Crit Damage tree. Put 20 points into that tree, take VII and never die again. It lets you use #3 without worry and rally 100% of the time when something dies and you’re in “zombie mode” as I call it.)

Maybe it’s because I did AC story in the BWE, but I absolutely do not understand how anyone has trouble with this dungeon.

I did it at level 30 on live and we never wiped once (with a half pug half friend group – didn’t use voice chat). I died several times, but I was always able to rally or run back, and I don’t really consider that a problem in the current implementation.

Hell, we weren’t even any good at focusing the marked targets and I don’t think anyone was ever defeated on trash (a few downed, but that’s it).

The twins aren’t that hard because the moment they’re separated they do like no damage. The only issue I had was that I was using 2 ranged weapons and I took the job of holding the guy’s attention. Little did I know that they added (or I missed it in the beta) reflect projectiles to his skill list. It wasn’t an issue for damage, but it made it difficult for me to keep his attention.

Just so long as you know that you should focus one trash mob at a time (hard concept I know), rangers won’t actually kill you. The other mobs are all pretty pathetic and should go down in a few seconds (rangers go down fast too).

I recorded it and the video is just 45 minutes long (sound is messed up as hell though or I’d post it). It could definitely be more like 30 minutes for people with experience, since were running with pugs and it was the first week of the game.

Really I just don’t understand the hate for AC story. It’s a fairly easy dungeon and if I had to do it again I would probably nod off from boredom.

I haven’t played nearly as much as you, but I agree with a ton of your points.

Funnily enough, I too have recently switched from Berserker to Knight. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to test out the build, but overall I would say that toughness is definitely the way to go.

Have you tried any “max cc” builds? Bull Rush, Stomp, Adrenaline on Use signet, Hammer weapon. Even up to the point of Mace/Shield alt set maybe. I’m currently experimenting with this type of build because I feel like knockdowns and stuns are really powerful, especially if you have a buddy to whack on a target that you just knocked down.

In PVE defiant kind of screws you over on bosses, but it’s better than nothing (maybe?). CCing trash mobs can let you wade into the fight a lot more than before though, wouldn’t you think?

As for traits, I ended up maxing Power and Toughness (which you have 20 points each in) because 1) the last tier of Toughness major traits are kitten amazing and 2) Precision seems kind of bad without Crit Damage (this is assuming a Knight set loadout). Going 30 into Power lets you pick 3 great majors as well, and gives you a lot of base damage.

The last 10 points are a total toss up, I couldn’t decide between any of the trees. I think for a PVP/WVW focus I would go Discipline for 10% run speed, Arms for pure damage, and tactics for full defensive/some PVP utility.

Odin.8691:

Boulderbolg.3460:

I agree with the ranged specs. Personally I go with rifle/warhorn for the warhorn buffs. I am experienced in playing a front line tank in world PvP (Warhammer/daoc/aion), but in this game there is no healing class that can keep a melee player alive when it comes to zerg vs zerg fights. Small skirmishes are another story, but I find that the majority of the fighting style in GW2 is zerg vs zerg. If anyone is having any luck staying alive and useful to some degree as a melee warrior I would like to hear your strategy.

same here, i came to this forum for advice on how to survive melee in WvW. im 52 now and im not noticing any increase in my ability to live long enough to kill someone in WvW. its ranged ranged and more ranged… i dont like it.

In an unorganized zerg, that’s just how it’s going to be.

In small group fights, melee is invaluable imo.

In coordinated groups (together on a VOIP chat), melee is godly.