Guild Wars 2

You do not get any other “reward” for having an existing account, than a character slot, which is ~$10. You do not get a refund for the original purchase, not sure why you would think that you should.

I own HoT, and I felt it was worth the purchase price. Do some research, read reviews, use your Google-foo, and decide if it is worth it to you.

I’m curious if the main concern is the over the top healing and LF gain. If that is along the lines of thinking, I’d happily sacrifice getting LF from ally boons, to just self boons, and keep the healing from ally boons while in shroud. The healing while in shroud is the most useful benefit as it allowed us to have more interaction with our allies. That or allow healing while in Shroud.

shadowshark.7056:

I forgot about chilling victory, since its usefulness is inexistent towards the buff capability of decimate defense. They should honestly swap the spots of chilling victory with shivers of dread. Oh and kinda curious. why don’t they have any shout that generate life force? I would seriously love a shout that just added life force per mob hit. But currently I generate a decent amount just with the sigil of might+Blighters Boon

Actually make the trait Augury of Death useful and make it grant life force as well as or instead of life siphon

Your Soul is Mine! grants Life Force on use and per target hit. You are all Weaklings! (if you have Blighter’s Boon) will grant Life Force per hit and on use. If you are using Chilling Victory, Suffer alone could proc it five times, if it doesn’t then using another shout after would. A full set of Superior runes of the Reaper will grant Chill on Shout usage, further allowing procc’ing of Chilling Victory.

I am not saying it’s fully great as is, but we have tools, just have to mix em up a bit.

shadowshark.7056:

…Why not make a trait that does something like "if attacking someone with ice on them gain life force. Could also put a cool down on it and I’d still be happy. That way ppl will get their life force inside shroud and also have quicker life force out of it….

You just described a trait that we already do have, called Chilling Victory.

gavyne.6847:

… necros have to hit things.

To be fair on this point, you don’t actually have to hit things to generate boons, at least with Spite. Reaper’s Might procs on Should Skill 1 usage. Even with just auto attacking in Shroud, you are building Might and Healing yourself.

Outside of Shroud, we have many ways to generate life force. Are all of them viable or useful, no, but that is another issue that would need to be addressed. Personally, so long as they fulfill a niche role, I am OK with that.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I’m now wondering if there are any plans in motion to provide the Necro with more robust team support reception, since people really seemed to like that about BB.

Seconding
/15char

Ask in map chat, put up an lfg, ask friends, ask guild, idk there is a few options, you could explore them. It’s not impossible, you are making it impossible for yourself.

Bandit.8279:

Fatalyz.7168:

You have to unlock all core specs before you can start unlocking an elite one….

I think most of us already know this;)

It was in response to a couple of people posting about only unlocking the specs that they wanted and saving points for the elite

You have to unlock all core specs before you can start unlocking an elite one….

I’ll just quote John Smith’s reply when asked about reducing the amount of silk required:

Swagger.1459:

Swagger.1459:

Howdy John! Any plans to reduce the amount of bolts of silk required for crafting spools of silk weaving thread?

Nope

I’ll just quote John Smith’s reply when asked about reducing the amount of silk required:

John Smith.4610:

Swagger.1459:

Howdy John! Any plans to reduce the amount of bolts of silk required for crafting spools of silk weaving thread?

Nope

There is also a Necro/Reaper shout that grants a base unblockable effect that scales in duration based on the number of targets your shout hits, up to 5. Base Necro also has access to a lot of skills that are unblockable.

hackks.3687:

flow.6043:

hackks.3687:

Show us where this efficient might stacking is mirrored in other classes with only using a single or pair of traits and nothing else.

Please elaborate on how camping Shroud and doing nothing but 111111111 for 20 sec while draining all your life force is efficient.

That’s NOT a practical use, nor is it what I’m suggesting. Stop bringing this up, please.

I like how you asked for a similar trait where someone can easily stack might on themselves, and he mentioned Forceful Greatsword, which you completely ignored, classy. You obviously do not want counter proof, and are purposely ignoring any logical counter argument.

Forceful Greatsword – Gain might on a critical hit with a greatsword or spear. Greatsword and spear skills deal more damage and recharge faster.

Not only does this not have an ICD, but when paired with Phalanx Strength allows for 25 might stacks to be shared up to 5 allies in a 600 radius. It also is less restrictive than Reaper’s Might. As any critical hit with a greatsword will give Might, regardless of skill used, Reaper’s Might only stacks based on using shroud skill 1.

So as I said, you are clearly only interested in nerfing Reaper/Necromancer, and do not care about counter arguments. You have also become hostile and raged at people because you disagree with them.

This is all I will say in this thread.

Quarktastic.1027:

I haven’t seen this brought up yet, but even if it has, I’m bringing it up again.

[Decimate Defenses] needs more info. How long does the buff last? Is there a cap? What is the duration of each stack?

Currently there is no indicator whatsoever that this trait works, other than noticing more critical hits in combat, which is anecdotal at best.

The “buff”, if you would call it that, lasts as long as a target has vulnerability on it. No vulnerability on the target you are hitting? You won’t get the extra crit chance. Seems pretty simple the way it’s written now. You have extra crit chance (2%) per stack of vulnerability on a target.

While it is disappointing, I can see the point. I don’t think the intent is for all buffs to be available all the time. It allows other professions to play a different role, with out always having to play the same one. For example warriors won’t always have to be banner bots, their banner buffs could be replaced by a ranger and revenant. It also allows classes that are good at self buffing, like necros and warriors, to break away from the group, or be in groups that don’t need aoe might ir buffing. Just a couple of examples, but I believe this was also an intent.

As Inculpatus mentioned, you will not be unable to spend those points, but do not fret! You will have enough Hero Points to unlock everything, just by leveling the character to 80. Completing Hero Point challenges in the open world, will allow you to have more Hero Points than what you’ll need.

Razeor.6271:

I’m a returning player who has been away from the game since 2013.
In the past, to challenge ourselves, me and some friends got our personal reward levels to 80.
Today I logged into my account and saw that that my reward level, in addition to those of my 2 other characters who were both >48, has been reverted back to 30.

I would like to know:
1. If there has been a fractal progression reset in the last 2 years and whether that reset applied to everyone
2. The reasoning behind such a move

I mean, it’s rather frustrating to see the results of my efforts taken away like this.

Side note: humblebragging with a sort-of proof of my progression

While it did suck to have the personal reward levels reset, some good did come of it at least (not saying that one had to include the other, just that they coincided at the same time). That is that your personal reward level is account based now, instead of character based. No need to grind reward levels on multiple toons anymore

I was playing around with a DM, SR, Reaping set up, using Cavalier stats, shouts, GS and axe/focus (yes, I know these suck, but you won’t use them much. This build is built around staying in shroud as much as possible, and as many bonus’ while being in shroud. It is very tanky, and can have good base damage and survivibility, but you will miss out on the Might stacking from Spite, but it can be made up if playing in a group. Was not able to test it out in a group that I felt comfortable with.

spoj.9672:

<snip>
Chilling Force
—-
The ICD per target totally destroys this traits use in a lot of PvE content. Boss fights are mostly one target. Which means the might gain is really poor for anything other than large groups of mobs. Our chill uptime is better so its not as bad as before. But it’s outclassed by decimate defences both when solo and when in a group. Only way to fix this is to remove the ICD per target.
<snip>

Interesting thought. I too am underwhelmed by this trait. However, I was thinking that it should allow might procced by this trait to give might to allies, making in the inverse of the Guardian Empowering Might trait. The might given could probably last a bit longer as well. It would also mean that Blighter’s Boon wouldn’t have to be changed.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Fatalyz.7168:

On topic: Revenant already looks to have strong support abilities, Projectile block, condi clears, aoe damage reduction, and that is just with what we know so far.

And might stacking, dat 3x blast finisher on 8cd.

Granted that is on mace, and doubt that it will be meta in pve, but if used for pre-stacking before weapon swapping, it could be useful.

Knighthonor.4061:

For the Revenant, how would you like to see the support role handled?

Want strong support like a guardian, or weak support like a thief?

thoughts?

Thief weak support? They have more blast finishers (granted same skill) than most classes do, perma blind, and group stealth. That is not even accounting for a Venomshare build. That is a lot more support than most classes, there is a reason Necro’s are not wanted in groups, they do not provide any group utility or support.

On topic: Revenant already looks to have strong support abilities, Projectile block, condi clears, aoe damage reduction, and that is just with what we know so far.

feight.2704:

Kal Spiro.9745:

So, regardless of what anyone wants, there are two things they said they weren’t doing. They said they’re not introducing new weapons, so no one handed spears of any kind. They said they’re not swapping water weapons to land weapons, so no two handed polearms either.

I’ve already stated that I would love to have a spear for my Ranger. I even came up with a group of skills I think would work for it. Polearms, which are spears, also are among the few weapons that they could introduce without having to worry about art, since they already have all the skins for them.

But it doesn’t matter because they said they weren’t going to.

Allow us to Dream!!
or at least show the documentation of when they said they wouldnt port underwater weapon to land

I don’t have any documentation that says that they won’t, but I do have something for you to think about, that I posted earlier.

I’ll quote it here for your easy reading convenience:

Maybe it’s just me, but the problem with using the existing underwater spear models in the game or even just unlocking them for land, is because the legendary weapon itself has a “water” theme to it. Bubbles and scales around the wielder, burst of bubbles when drawn, shark animations on critical hit. How would all of this look on land? Ridiculous is my first thought, unless they just exclude that weapon from being used on land, but then that doesn’t really seem fair to the weapon.

Maybe it’s just me, but the problem with using the existing underwater spear models in the game or even just unlocking them for land, is because the legendary weapon itself has a “water” theme to it. Bubbles and scales around the wielder, burst of bubbles when drawn, shark animations on critical hit. How would all of this look on land? Ridiculous is my first thought, unless they just exclude that weapon from being used on land, but then that doesn’t really seem fair to the weapon.

Not yet. You can view the announcements at the official page, https://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/en

Hopefully never, unless it is more difficult and time consuming than it is to earn the gold.

Asmodeus.5782:

Fatalyz.7168:

Because of the extra ectos that it would also introduce into the economy. I get what you are saying about trashing a rune. Perhaps a better solution would be to just allow you to remove the rune, and receive nothing else?

Has been suggested dozens of times.

I know. I was just trying not to completely dismiss his sentiment. Besides, it never hurts to restate a good idea

Because of the extra ectos that it would also introduce into the economy. I get what you are saying about trashing a rune. Perhaps a better solution would be to just allow you to remove the rune, and receive nothing else?

FrostSpectre.4198:

“Play how I want” means that you can play any build and win, also means that every build will create results EQUALLY and can affect the end results.
You’re not forced to play specific builds on specific content, you can play any build and win.

So you are saying someone that has full Nomad’s gear should be able to kill a mob just as quickly as someone that is wearing full berserk gear? Because that is what you just suggested by saying that they should create results equally. In that case get rid of stats entirely as they would be pointless. Even getting rid of stats like that, it would still be bring enough utility to survive and then as much damage as you can after that.

Play how I want is already in the game because you can play any build and complete content, can affect end results, and can “win”. Play how I want does not mean that every build or gear set should produce identical results, otherwise you might as well get rid of the stats, utilities, weapon skills that do more than just damage, elites, etc. But then that would be a really boring game to play.

Either you want all stat choices to have meaningful game play, which they already do. Someone wearing Soldier’s gear will never do as much damage as someone in Zerk or even Rampager’s gear, just like they will never survive as long as a soldier or even nomad, so what’s your point here? All of them can complete the content.

Or you want interdependence, meaning that I’m spamming LFG looking for a support or control oriented player, because I have to have them to complete the content. Or maybe you are just supporting the idea to have different gear sets by changing the mobs around, they could do that, but then LFG would go from looking for berserk geared players to insert required gear choice here. Or you could intermingle mobs so that different gear sets are required, in which case people will just start carrying multiple gear sets, which some already do, and change to the set required to complete the content, then just change back after. Which will do nothing to change current gameplay at all, because pretty much every type of control or support that you would need for any encounter can be had with the exact same results, regardless of stat distribution.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again Frostspectre, you are looking for interdependence in a group setting in a game that was not designed for that. Every class was designed to be independent (PVE-wise). Granted interdependence can make things faster with might stacking, vun stacking, etc., but it is not needed.

No matter what you do PVE-wise it will always be bring enough survivability and then the rest is damage, even with the newer mobs that you refer to. Unless you are suggesting that it be made that to complete content you need people built a specific way, in which case myself and others will vehemently fight you every step of the way.

FrostSpectre.4198:

Hopefully ANet keeps their direction with the new mobs, so that we cannot blindly dominate them with full berserker and allow other builds to create results that match each other equally.

You can dominate even the new mobs in full zerk gear, not sure what your point is. There are a few exceptions with the husks for example where conditions are better damage sources, but you get enough condi spammers on one, and my zerk build is still doing more damage. So again your point here is moot.

FrostSpectre.4198:

That’s not support or control, it’s just DPS but with some skills from there and here.

Essentially, when you aim for DPS build, you take what ever you think works with it.
You focus your resources on damage out put, thus it’s DPS build. You might take some other skills to provide control and support, but your character will not be able to make full use out of them, since you focused your resources on damage output…

Interesting, so you are saying that my zerk Guardian isn’t making full use out of Wall of Reflection, Purging Flames, Smite Conditions, Warding line, etc? Or that a zerk Mesmer isn’t getting full use out of Time Warp, Feedback, Portal, Null Field, or Mass Invisibility because they aren’t specializing in support? I could go on for probably every class there is, but hopefully you got the point that I made.

FrostSpectre.4198:

LostBalloon.6423:

It comes from bad mob design, for instance will you ever see a hammer warrior in a dungeon, no, bcz dps sucks and mobs are stupid enough to come stack right into your dps.

Look at the new beetle mob design (dry top), it forces you to either stand in front or cc it to flip so that your team can dps.
Soloing those mobs (specially an elite can cost a zerker’s life since to attack, you have to withstand an attack too).
You will have to be smart and take out your hammer, swap to something else to dps. Hopefully they do something interesting with (hopefully) future dungeons, game needs new stuff and not reworked old stuff.

Well, hammer has pitiful damage, since 99% of mobs use universal design that makes them vulnerable to Direct dmg DPS builds with Berserker.

Why use hammer, when GS does better, why use conditions, since 99% of mobs have no resistance against Direct Dmg?

If the mobs would have more stat variety, it won’t be a problem with Hammer, you can still smash the foe with it and deal good damage and Control the mob in the same time, without being overshadowed by Direct Dmg DPS…

But no, mobs have to melt in 1-3 seconds with direct dmg berserker, this doesn’t create situation where Control and Support truly matter: Long duration combat scenario.

The Giant beetles are example of good design, that should have been there since the beginning, one cannot go full berserker and kill them by just standing infront of them and spam skills. Control skills actually have targets, instead of being all saved for the 1% of all mobs in GW2, although the Beetles do fall into the 1% when looking at rest of GW2 mobs…

Instead, we have these mobs that just melt 1-3 seconds, are just trash mobs, and the only mobs that truly are a threat and thus best targets for Hammer attacks, are the 1%.
This goes for other builds that are not Direct Dmg DPS, which are all good for long duration combat scenarios, which don’t exist, since you can melt mobs with Direct Dmg DPS builds.

We don’t have that, 2/3 builds are pretty much useless for 99% of PvE, limited to the 1% of PvE content, since Direct Dmg DPS builds will othervise melt mobs in 1-3 seconds in 100% of PvE content…

Problem would be fixed, if there weren’t mobs that consist 99% of PvE, which melt in 1-3 seconds against Direct Dmg DPS builds…

Or how about because you can still have support and control while in a full dps set? I still think you want certain builds or gear sets to be required, which would be bad for the game. You consistently refuse to accept that zerk geared players can provide all the support, control, and DPS for all PVE fights in the game. The current game type is the only one in which nearly all PVE content can be completed by every build/gear set without requiring the need for one specific set.

Edit: Perhaps you are looking for interdependence within a group, whereas this game is promoting independence. I know myself, I joined this game because of the fact of the independence that your character has on it’s own.

Jahroots.6791:

Fatalyz.7168:

You were intended to do at level 80, what you were doing the whole time that you leveled, with the exception of leveling another character, doing something all together different, or achievement hunting. If you did not enjoy the leveling process, and only played to get to max level to start getting to the “good” stuff, you had the wrong expectations for this game.

That doesn’t make a lot of sense. 1-80 is basically just exploring and doing events as you run into them. Maybe some WvW and PvP if you’re that way inclined. Level 80 content is more along the lines of dungeons, fractals and cosmetic progression.

I don’t like the way the word ‘intended’ is used in these forums. kitten what anyone thought was a good idea at the time of development, as players we get to suggest otherwise if it’s not to our liking.

If that was how you wanted to level, that was your choice. I was doing fractals on a level 30 thief, I didn’t have to wait for 80 to do that. As you also mentioned, you can do WvW and sPvP. You can also do dungeons as you level, you don’t have to wait until you are 80, that you do, is your choice.

And to your comment about suggesting otherwise if it’s not to your liking, why would you start playing a game that advertises all of this, and then want to change it because you didn’t like it? Especially when there are plenty of other games out there that place more of an emphasis on max level content. That’s like going to Subway and telling them that they should be selling hamburgers, when you could just go to a burger joint that you like.

If there is precursor crafting, I would expect that it would be something similar to my idea. A way to help remove bloodstone dust, and empyreal fragments, increase supply of T6 materials, spend excess karma, while increasing the cost of ectos and t6 materials. Hopefully with increasing the supply of t6 materials, the prices of them won’t go up too much, but they still will. The way to increase the supply of t6 materials to help meet the demand that will increase as precursors become less cost prohibitive, would be to require Mystic Clovers as a part of the recipe to craft the precursor.

No matter what, if they introduce precursor crafting, the cost that you have spent on the precursor will be redistributed to other markets, primarily ectos and t6 materials. So in the end, you are still going to spend the same amount of money, either on the precursor or on other components.

Combatter.5123:

Why not? They’ve improved the appearance of legendary weapons in the past so why will they not improve the appearance of ascended armour (currently the best armour in the game)?

Because you get the legendary for the skin, not the stats. You get ascended for the stats, not the skins, well some people may like the skins, but the general idea was that they were for stats, not skins.

Romek.4201:

<snip>
ENDGAME is what people can do after they lvled to max level without getting bored. And an important tool for this is PROGRESS
<snip>

You were intended to do at level 80, what you were doing the whole time that you leveled, with the exception of leveling another character, doing something all together different, or achievement hunting. If you did not enjoy the leveling process, and only played to get to max level to start getting to the “good” stuff, you had the wrong expectations for this game.

This game has very little in the way of the “carrot on a stick” approach, as most everything in this game is easily attainable by almost everyone. The things to do in this game are to do because you want to, or because you enjoy them. When you don’t anymore, you stop playing.

Also to add, that this game is intended to be inclusive, not exclusive. It tries to include as many people as possible into as many features and functions of the game, and exclude from as few as possible.

Again, you keep saying there is no reason to not bring support. How is Wall of Reflection not support? How is Feedback not support? How is stealth not support? How protection not support? Tell me how those are not support and how they scale off of stats? The only stat that scales is healing power, and poorly, with reason. Because Anet did not want a trinity or pvp players sitting back and getting massive amounts of heals. You can bring all the toughness in the world, but you have no taunt that makes sure that the mob stays on you, and even if you are taking the hits, it doesn’t matter because there isn’t enough sustain. You are trying to force a trinity into a game that was NOT designed for one. You want to play a healer and keep your allies alive, or a tank that protects your allies, I get that. You want to feel needed by your group, and because of that, this is not the game for you. And to say that other stats are not used, you must not wvw or pvp.

Tell you what, I challenge you to come up with an encounter that does what you want, without having to require parties to have to have a specific build, class, or anything. I promise you, if you start having mobs hit harder or more often, you switch from a berserker meta, to a PVT meta, or what have you. This games group support is through the usage of boons and utility skills.

Edit: You keep saying exploits, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Edit 2: You also keep saying no need for conditions. How are blinds, vulnerability, weakness, chilled. crippled, and immobilized not conditions? That is the majority of your conditions right there, and they don’t scale off of anything but condition duration.

He just wants groups to have to have people heal specc’d or tanky specc’d. That is what he means by support. He doesn’t give two flips about blind fields, might stacking, fury, vulnerability, time warp, empower allies, Phalanyx Strength, spotter, wall of reflection, feedback. According to him that isn’t support at all. While harder and new content would be nice, he is wanting to force a trinity based system in where it doesn’t belong.

Every class provides support, CC, and conditions, through their use of utility skills. Those utility skills work the same regardless of the stat combo you are wearing. Think a Guardian’s WoR will reflect any better if he is wearing Soldier’s stats? No it won’t. The thing is that there is no reason to use any gear other than berserker. No one forces you to use any gear type. Yes, if you try to join a speed run group wearing Nomad’s, ur going to get kicked. Start your own group. It seems your answer to your perceived notion of people forcing you to play how they want, is to force them to play how you want. That is not a good solution to anything. I think that this game doesn’t offer what you want/need in a game, so instead of finding a game that does that for you, you want to change this game into what you want, for what ever reason.

Edit: oxtred and I both provided constructive feedback based on your question, and you attack us because it’s not the answer you want to hear. What, are you 12?

I love the unfair practices part, like he thinks it’s unfair practices that groups don’t want anything besides berserker. How about requiring groups to now have specific roles being an unfair practice? The current set up that we have is the only one that allows for every group comp to be able to complete content. It’s just a matter of how fast you can clear it. Also, as oxtred stated, every class has support, cc, and control options, these are defined through traits, weapons, and utility skills.

Oh I know, or do you mean you want to be a nomad wearing guardian, wanting to feel needed by the group because you are there to absorb damage for your team while healing them? Or do you want to be a water camping ele wearing clerics gear, and feel needed by your group because you are providing a needed part of the group?

FrostSpectre.4198:

…….

ANet should update old GROUP content, so that full-berserker-teams, corner-exploiting and other unfair practices becomes impossible to abuse.

You seem to think that a full zerk team should not be allowed and against game design, what happened to play how I want?

Not sure what corner-exploiting you are referring to. If you are referring to an actual exploit, it will be fixed as soon as possible. If you are just referring to stacking in a corner in general, that is not an exploit..

On the unfair practices, again not sure what you are referring too on this one and have no point of reference, perhaps you could state something that would frame that thought better.

I have to wonder if the people that are so opposed to the zerk meta, are opposed to it because they want to stack full defense or healing, and still feel like they are an integral part of their group, that they are needed and wanted. How about instead of trying to drastically change the pve in this game so that classes, builds, or whatever is required to complete content, you run what you want to run, and let those of us run what we want to run. If you have to feel needed by your group with going in a healing or tanking build, perhaps this isn’t the game for you? This was a game that was made so that any class/build can be used to complete content, and it accomplishes that. If you can think of a better way to do group based content so that anyone can do it regardless of their build or group comp, then please share. But the thing is that any content that can be completed by any group, regardless of build or comp, can be done faster by full glass cannon builds.

Edit: To OP, they have stated that they are not going to be separating pvp, wvw, or pve. They have said that they might separate a few skills, but their general goal is to have all classes feel the same across the board regardless of game mode

As people earn more gold by farm, bringing more gold into the system, they have more to throw at precursors, causing prices to go up. Working as intended.

Kiba.9701:

….
The problem are the mobs, and the design behind them. If they could attack faster, increase the melee AoE damage, or change the mechanics in some AoE skills would change the meta in PvE really fast, and “stack” gameplay would be reduced a lot.

Still wouldn’t change it all that much, as someone else already stated, it still becomes a matter of kill it before it kills you, whether by attrition or not. Edit: forgot to add another reason why it wouldn’t help much, esp on trash, simply for the fact that if your group has proper boon share, you can pretty much almost instantly wipe any group of trash. Not to mention you can spike rez anyone that gets downed. Oh you have more aoe’s and faster ones too, learn to dodge them, learn positioning, unless you make the aoe’s 360, then you are forcing people to have to back off and range it down or have to bring someone with a specific spec, which takes away from the play how I want design.

Whether people like it or not “stack” gameplay was intended by design. All you have to do is look at how combo fields and boon sharing works. It requires you to be within about 600 of each other, and the best way to accomplish this so that everyone gets the boons, is to stack. Or maybe you are against stacking in a corner to move the mobs to you and make sure that they don’t move out of range of the aoe’s that are being dropped by your group. The simple fact remains, you don’t want to stack or don’t like it, don’t do it, don’t force a game play change on people that are ok with the current design. The current design is the only one that lets everyone play how they want to play. You want to wear nomad’s on your guardian and be a “tank”, go right ahead, but don’t request a change that makes a build that is “needed” Again, the system that we have right now, allows for everyone to play how they want to play.

The bottom 2 might be closer to what could actually happen, as the gold that would have been spent on precursors will then spread to other markets, causing a cost increase in those markets. The question then becomes, is the cost increase in those markets acceptable. This could also give value to karma again, as a lot of us have millions of karma that we are just sitting on with nothing much to spend it on. There is also the karma cost of being able to craft the bloodstone bricks and empyrean stars, so you would need about another 420,000 karma to account for that, plus the cost of the therma reagents.

The barrier for this route would depend on the amount of people that chose to go this route. The hope is that it is high enough that not everyone goes this route, as some will prefer the forge, or to just outright buy it. For people that are just sitting on 4 million karma, this would essentially make getting one legendary fairly quickly. But being that you can spend karma this way a lot faster than you can make it, once that first wave passes, that barrier should go much higher and take a lot longer. I would think that there could be more of a price spike in ectos and t6 materials with that first wave, but after that, it could settle back down to maybe a little more than what it currently is, just purely due to the amount of time that it would take to accrue the karma again to attempt another one. I would love for John Smith to run some projects to see what he thinks the impact would be, and actually share those but that might be asking too much.

Edit: Forgot to mention that crafting the clovers could potentially yield ectos, very slightly reducing the amount that would have to be bought.

You’re number 2 also mentioned being able to swap out weapon skills. If you want to refine it down to just utility skills, then I agree, more utility skills would be nice. I personally don’t believe that this was a game that was intended to overwhelm a new player with a massive amount of skills to use. Also another thing to remember, is that quality of skills should be more important that quantity. It doesn’t matter if you have 200+ skills to choose from, if you are only ever going to use 5-6 (remember, you can only have 3 utility skills at any given time). I also came from Aion (played since beta til 4.5), but I found keeping up with all of the different skills that you had at your immediate disposal, as well as what your opponent had, it just became exhausting. That is one of the things that I like about gw2, that there is a limited amount of skills that each profession can choose from and equip, as well as knowing that seeing what weapons they have equipped tells me what they can or can’t do.

Dual-professions does not seem to be a good way to go with the current set up of the game. For one, how would it work? You have the class mechanic to think about. If you were a Thief/ele for example, how would you change attunement to get the desired effect? You could add it as F2-F5 skills, but then what good would being able to change attunements do when, let’s say you are using daggers as a thief, you already have dagger skills. They could allow you choose what weapon skills you have based on attunement, but then that could allow you to completely remove any disadvantage that a d/d thief would have as well as a d/d ele. It would make balancing a complete nightmare. You could just do it where you get access to the utility skills of the other profession, but those would be really situational in use as you wouldn’t have the trait options to get bonus affects or cool down reduction on some of those skills.

You mentioned having ride the lightning as a thief being able to save your butt. As a thief you have plenty of stealths and blinds to get you out of trouble. Failing that, swap to short bow, and 5 away from your enemy and run for the hills.

For things to suggest on adding, Utility skills would be nice, but imo, they should fit thematically with the class. Even Elite skills.

There was a Ready UP not too long ago where they went over each class and what their intent of the class was vs. what the players thought the design intent behind each class was. Was a pretty good episode and I would recommend watching it, if you haven’t seen it.

Edit: That was why I made the comment about it sounding like you wanted Guild Wars 2.0. There is nothing wrong with wanting that, it’s an observation on my end.

Good point.

Although if fewer precursors are being bought off of the trading post, that gold that would have been spent there would have to shift to a different market. The most likely ones affected are T6 and Ecto.

If they wait to do precursor crafting with new legendaries, I would think that they would have to have completely different recipes, or it potentially affect those markets as well.

It’s something where it doesn’t really seem like there is a feasible fix at this stage of the game. This was mostly to toss an idea out there and see if it could be refined to something that might be viable. Never known, Anet might actually like the idea lol.

Could maybe try increasing the amount of require bloodstone bricks and empyrean stars to 250, this might make this look less attractive to hopefully dissuade people from going this path, but still a way to progressively work towards one, without saving up gold.

I could see the ecto prices doubling because of this. Depending on the amount of people that prefer to go this route instead of trying the MF, it is possible that less exotics get crafted to throw into the forge, possibly reducing a need for some ectos. The biggest impact increasing ecto prices would have, that I can see, would be the Forge recipes (weapons, back pieces, infusing back pieces).

Let me preface this by saying that I don’t care one way or another whether precursor crafting ever comes out or not. If I want another legendary, I will do whatever is required to get one.

I posted this in another thread and wanted to see what people think. as a possible solution, as there are many people unhappy with the current method of obtaining a precursor.

How about something like, 250 Mystic Clovers, 100 Bloodstone Bricks, 100 Empyrean Stars, and a Gift of <Precursor> (new item that is craftable, recipe bought from Miyani and similar to the other Gifts of recipes). This will all be thrown into the Mystic Forge to receive the Precursor that you were working on.

This could help give something else to do with the excess bloodstone, and empyrean in the game. It would also help to create more Tier 6 mats to help prevent the costs of those mats from skyrocketing. It could, however, cause the price of ectos to go up. As well as whatever mats would be needed to create the gift of precursor, which I think should be similar to crafting an ascended weapon already.

Of course you can still obtain by random drop, from the Mystic Forge, or by buying from the TP. Crafted Precursors come account/soulbound to keep from flooding the market.

I get that, I really do. But I would suggest for customizability, suggest things that make sense in the current game. For example new Utility skills. Think of any class that you play regularly, and think of utility that could provide a niche for that class, or maybe help shift a niche from another class. I can’t really think of any examples off the top of my head as I currently enjoy the classes I play, I just swap between them when I get bored of one for a bit.

The customizability in this game is supposed to come from the healing, utility, and elite skills being used, along with the trait lines and traits. Weapon skills were designed to be static.

I’m all for changes or additions to the game that can add customization, but I don’t think changing the core design of the game is the route to go. If Anet feels different about it, then of course they can change it when ever they want.

Btw, I think Guild Halls would be a great idea. I doubt I’ll ever be in a guild big enough to have a really nice one, but the idea itself could be a lot of fun.

Waikd.4632:

You guys are absolutely right, looking at my post a few hours later made me realize that my idea was probably not quite as brilliant as I thought it was at the time.

Fatalyz, thank you for the constructive reply.

No problem. I understand that people want build diversity. And you have it, it’s just a matter of if it is the best possible solution or not. The way that PVE works in this game, anything done to remove the zerk meta will only create a new meta, for example a PVT meta.

They have created some encounters where certain things are needed, for example the husks on Triple Trouble are hurt by condis. But if you put that in a dungeon, then you start getting LFG’s, LF Condi <Insert Class here>. If you are making a group, and you don’t want to play a specific way, then you are stuck waiting for that one or two people that play a spec that is needed, instead of just picking up whoever wants to go, and going.

Quite frankly, I enjoy the fact that I don’t have to change a build that I like playing to fill something like doing condi damage, or having to wait for someone that can. Four days a week, I have at most 2 hours to play, and if I have to spend 30 min waiting for someone to fill a role, I don’t feel that that would be a change that would be beneficial to the game. If I have to change my role to fill that one, well what happened to play how I want?

We all have ways that we want to play and enjoy playing, the current system allows for everyone to play how they want to play. If someone can suggest a system that allows everyone to play how they want to play without having to require certain builds, classes, or anything restricting like that, I’m all ears.