Guild Wars 2

Frozen Peace.4930:

Therefore, I hope Anet can change the trait system to be more open and free. Give players freedom to choose traits and make all sorts of different builds.

This is not how games work. More open system would lead to more potential builds, but less viable ones. In the end they won’t make all sorts of different builds, they’ll stick with the viable ones, just like now. Only there’d be less of them.

Let me wedge in on the “engi vs ele” point. Good engi can’t outdps a good ele on a large, static hitbox. The number of these in the game is fairly small, even more so the number of these where dps actually matters. Also, the “piano rotation” has simpler variants which yield a not-that-bad dps for a lot less effort. Try playing “simple” an ele and you’ll end up with 10k buffed dps.

For fractals and raids, I’d argue Pinpoint Distribution has greater value than anything an ele has to offer. Sure, Gale Song is pretty handy at Slothasor, but that’s like the only place it has any effect. And it can be replaced by an manual stunbreak. It’s not like you don’t know the exact moment you’ll be needing it.

Jski.6180:

Only true for 1/3 (maybe less due to raids only being part of pve) of the game

You’re assuming equal distribution of players among PvE, PvP and WvW. It isn’t. PvE has by far the largest playerbase. So what is true for PvE is mostly true for the game in general.

Carighan.6758:

Feanor.2358:

I don’t think ANet want to push the game in the direction “kill 1 dragon, exp: kill 1 more dragon, exp 2: kill 2 more dragons, …”.

And what hints at that?

Mainly, it would be a poor story. It would be predictable and because of that – boring. “It worked for a while” doesn’t mean “it will work forever”. I’m confident ANet writers are aware of that. Just look from a storytelling perspective.

Lahmia.2193:

Best thing to do is make a new sink for HoT account bound materials (ley-line sparks/airship oil/auric dust etc). I’d start doing HoT meta again if they had more value.

So much this.

I’ve been sitting on full bank of these for months.

What makes you think there’ll be another LW season before xpac?

Sartharina.3542:

In order for us to have any dragon that isn’t Primordus and Jormag, we have to resolve P+J first.

I disagree. I don’t think ANet want to push the game in the direction “kill 1 dragon, exp: kill 1 more dragon, exp 2: kill 2 more dragons, …”. There are hints enough the Elder Dragons aren’t just a random destructive force and killing them will have unforeseen consequences. I think the intended direction for the game is to build a crisis involving all the Elder Dragons and resolving it in a different manner once and for all.

DPS loss.

Also, 15 characters.

Malice.8439:

If you’re on your elementalist, and a champion hits you, you’re going to die – no matter if you have 10 or 20 K HP.

Stick to zerker, and practice dodging. It’s frustrating, I know. Especially those freaking frogs.

But it is satisfying to face them in full glass mode and kill them without a scratch.

CptAurellian.9537:

zoomborg.9462:

Not to mention social awkwardness is your biggest enemy….

At least a power PS is standing still while doing 100B, in contrast to all those wannabe bouncing balls out there. I’ll never understand why some people constantly run around in SA fractals, especially when they don’t even use that stupid food.

It’s called SSS – Seaweed Salad Syndrome. After a while it becomes a habit.

Unlikely. I don’t see either staff or OH dagger becoming meta because of Obsi Flesh and Comet, respectively.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Given she is likley Cadecus pet cat, that means he was bribed, by the white mantle to do just that. Consider Faren’s attire colour, red, white he has the apt look of a mantle agent in disguise.

That’s pretty thin, but even if we accept it, there’s this – we know E had some interaction with the White Mantle, precisely with Caudecus as we know from “Master of Puppets” achievement. The “bribe” could have been the information provided and the outcome of the contest could have been E’s reply.

Personally, I like the “Faren theory”, because it makes a great story. Sure, Faren could be just a comic relief character. But I’d see this as a wasted potential.

TheQuickFox.3826:

Unlink the skills from the weapons, allowing free choice of skill combinations like GW1 had.

This would just lock us into a specific set of skills which happen to be best for the intended application. Also it makes different weapon types totally irrelevant.

Here’s a new one from WorldOfEnders with similar numbers.

You get the strongest defensive skill the ele has on an offensive weapon, in attunement you never want to be in.

Additionally, auramancer builds are forced into Focus, losing the option of the much more fun Warhorn, simply for the higher number of auras available, thus reducing build diversity.

Additionally, Dagger loses a fast and reliable blast in Water in favor of slower and less reliable one, thus reducing the efficiency of the great water combos with Warhorn.

So we’ll basically be attached to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis.

Yobculture.5786:

zealex.9410:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Ramoth.9064:

Astralporing.1957:

CptAurellian.9537:

Bloomy is one of the best encounters in all fractals.

That’s debatable.

Is it really? He said it is one of the best, which is as far reaching a comment as you can get. What’s there to debate about that? He isn’t saying it is the definitive best.

Of course it’s debatable. Someone debated it

More seriously, some people hate the new version of Swamp; for them, there’s no chance it’s “the best” or even in the top 20 (inb4: yes, I’m aware that there are only 16 atm).

ppl that hate it hate it for a very particular reason and that the fact that its no loger that free loot fractal they were used to run.

I would say it’s largely in part to that, but I feel like it’s also because it’s an absolute pain in the ass to run in PUGs. It (in my opinion) is a complete nightmare to do it with people who constantly die or won’t CC Bloomy.

It used to be PITA for a short while right after the release. Then it got tweaked and people in general learned what they are supposed to do there. There are still horrible PUGs – they’ll always be there haunting you, no escaping that – but recently I haven’t encountered any issues on this particular fight. More groups wipe at arms seals on Cliffside than on Bloomhunger.

Mostly you don’t get hit. Heavy-hitting attacks in general are pretty slow and you learn to recognize and avoid them with practice. In the open world specifically, you can ignore and take some, knowing you’ll kill the target before it downs you and you’ll heal with the out-of-combat regen. Lastly, if you get swarmed, or you’re in a new location and haven’t yet learned the attacks of the new mobs, there are always Persisting Flames and Signet of Agony.

What’s interesting about the Signet is it seems to apply to all your attacks while in downed state, not just your downed state abilities. Meaning if you have normal abilities dealing ongoing damage like Lava Font, Overload Air and so forth, and they hit, the hit will proc lifesteal. Apparently, without an ICD either.

I don’t have solid data to support this, but it’s the only explanation that comes to mind as to why sometimes you can rally almost instantly after getting downed. As an ele you just have a LOT of these going on and hitting all the time.

vesica tempestas.1563:

its because in PVE you can play any build, everything is viable

This is so 2015. We have raids now.

pointman.3472:

Just a thought considering I’ve spent the last two weeks attempting to get this last part of the Glint’s Bastion collection done. Can we not make collection items something in a Side event that is quite hard and rarely done? Either people just don’t bother or the event fails because to little people actually do it… Maybe make the Vine Tooth fang drop-able from the veteran ones that spawn around the map as well at a chance? Sorry just annoyed it’s taken me so long to finish this up considering i have to rely on other people to get it done. >.>

Tag up, get people to do the outpost and by the end of it you’ll have enough to kill the vinetooth even if people don’t cc it, which they most likely won’t. Despite you telling them to and doing your best.

Astralporing.1957:

yann.1946:

I think the gamemode should be changed to be more enjoyablefor the target audience not for someone Else.

First you’d want that audience be big enough to support the gamemode. That is why Anet is messing so much with sPvP lately, even sometimes against wishes of pvp veterans. A gamemode that depends completely on a small number of veterans and lack a steady influx of new players is a gamemode that will either be changed eventually, or get abandoned completely.

The thing is, a hypothetical easy mode for raids would do very little at best to draw or keep players in the game. Because the game already has this type of content and it does that already. It’s just a lot of effort (you basically have to rebalance every single encounter, not to mention you might need to redesign some completely) for a dubious effect. Hence, I don’t expect ANet to actually do that.

If you’re in a squad – like you should be, really – it’s just a matter of joining the proper instance. Yes, it can get full before you join it. BUT, most often you can still join it by just keep trying to join. My guess is there are always people whose connection drops, or something IRL makes them leave, or join their own squads in a different instance, or whatever. The point is, you can usually end up where your squad is.

If you’re not in a squad, then it’s just your own fault, sorry.

Jayjaydee.3827:

In the past I"ve read comments from people saying an ele outheals a druid. I suppose for individuals or in any given fight anything is possible, but is this true in general? I raid a lot, and almost always as a magi druid. I run bgdm, and the only time i’ve ever noticed i was outhealed was by another druid. Whats the consensus?

It is possible for a magi auramancer ele to outheal a druid. The sustain is great and can come with free 100% prot. But. No Spotter. No GotL. No Glyph of Empowerment. And you don’t really need more healing OR prot. So in the end it’s just going to lose you the fantastic group buffs from the druid.

I’m not on youtube and I’ve played Fresh Air back in vanilla, so I know how it used to play. However, OA is just that strong. In PvE. You seem to be talking only about the PvP aspect of the game. That’s fine. But please indicate it in the title or somehow. Otherwise, to a PvE player (and these are the majority of players btw) it seems like you’re debating some changes which are utterly irrelevant. Cleansing Wave? S/F? Final Shielding? Bah, nobody cares about this.

Crustydog.9825:

In short – I believe that shooting gallery and scrap rifle adventures are looking for elite players, leaving 99.99% of the rest of us just staring at the mastery point. The only reason I personally completed gold on scrap rifle, I hit that perfect, flawless run – even a blind squirrel finds a nut. :-)

Pretty much this. I gave up on both adventures, way too annoying.

BTW I’d rate Sanctum Scramble way lower, at about 5. It is longer to learn, simply because it is a long run. But it’s fairly simple, at least if you have any experience with JP.

Indeed. I’ve used the exact same argument before. I even had a period where I changed gear between Marauder/zerk mix and full Berserker, depending on the activity. But I ended up with running full zerk everywhere, because Marauder no longer gave me any benefit. Yeah, I had more hp, but I didn’t need to any more.

You can always stat-swap your ascended armor to Berserker though, so there’s no harm in going Marauder for the moment. It will only cost you some gold for insignias and runes.

Conqueror.3682:

ok, but what you mean with find it unnecessary? right now i have full berserker, so should i stick with it?

I mean in the end you’ll want to get back to your Berserker gear. Switching to Marauder until you get comfortable enough with the class to play it in full glass mode could be useful, but keep in mind it will be temporary.

I used to run Marauder armor + weapons with zerk trinkets, the damage loss in solo scenario was something like 2%, as you benefit from the extra precision. But you WILL find it unnecessary at some point. Same for the Earth line btw.

Staff was fine before the they introduced ICD on MS (even more so before cooldowns nerf). Now, it is kind of niche, though it is still usable.

Scepter is pretty decent.

I’d love for these builds to have a real advantage to offer for their higher complexity, but I’m not moving away from ele to a class I don’t enjoy simply because I can get better dps on it. The fact is, I can get enough on ele.

Jski.6180:

Feanor.2358:

This thread needs [PvP] tag in the title.

This is ele over all pve wvw and spvp and realty ele falls behind all of the classes for dmg in all 3 types.

Yes, but in PvE dps is the only role an ele can fill, because nothing else we can offer is even remotely relevant. Auramancer ele can heal, but can’t offer Spotter/GotL at the same time, hence it is strictly worse healer than a Druid. Ele can tank because of high sustain, but can’t give a subsquad quickness and alacrity at the same time. Hence nobody ever will take an ele for a tank. It’s dps or bust. No amount of extra sustian/toughness is going to change that.

Auralae.7482:

Less emphasis on mega guilds and group content. More content for solo and groups under 5.

It’s a MMO bro. Sounds like you’re seeking content typically found in single-player RPGs.

If you want T4, put some effort. Be active and communicate. Tagging along can work, if there are other people doing this. But if there aren’t you don’t step in, you complain about the event. Geez.

All HoT maps are designed for organized groups of people. It encourages communication, which makes a MMO an actual multiplayer instead of multi-instanced single player game in a shared environment. These are by far the best maps and events in the game, in both design and execution.

First of all, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Metas are played all the time, in all 4 maps.

Second, they are all cakewalk. The only thing I see people fail is Nunoch lane in TD. If only they could, I dunno, look at the UI and follow the directions? It wouldn’t fail nearly as much.

It would also be nice if people knew to not port in scores to Patriarch because this scales its shield ridiculously and makes the fight last almost as much as all the other bosses combined. But that’s more of an QoL issue.

SirDrygan.1823:

“Breaking Captain Ashym in the Urban Battleground Fractal will now cancel his Meteor Shower ability.”

The Meteor Shower for Captain OP here should stay even if we break his break bar.

Why must it be cancel?

So that novice players learn what the blue bar below the target hp is for.

It does make it easier for the veteran players, but let’s be real, it’s not relevant at all. Captain Ashym is not a challenge for us no matter how you look at it. There’s no difference if he gets easier or not, we’ll still clear it with the same amount of (no) effort.

Stop. Stealing. My. Icebows.

I don’t give a kitten about PvP, but PvE damage nerfs really triggered me. Yea, risk/reward is totally ruined. Grab a Thief, do “1-1-1-1-1-1…” and deal more damage than most eles. Sounds fair, right?

It’s not “all that’s left”. Virtually nobody plays support in PvE. Ele still has pretty decent damage output and mediocre at best support in this mode. The problem in PvP is all the damage is so kitten high you can’t really run damage build on ele, because you die in an instant without going for defence and sustain at the same time. And when you do, yeah, you’ll be doing crap damage. No surprises there.

The problem, however, isn’t ele itself. It’s the silly environment they put it in. That’s what happens when you design a PvE game and strap PvP on it.

This thread needs [PvP] tag in the title.

New race is unlikely. It’s vastly more work than, say, a new profession.

Rework on the sigils/runes so I don’t have sets of ascended armor locked forever with Leadership or something of equally ridiculous price.

Tempest tanky, lol… Overload Air is the biggest damage contributor in any Fresh Air build, by a fair margin. Even after the 7% damage nerf.

Grim West.3194:

HoT was a disaster. Personally, I didn’t have any issues with soloing and the flying is cool. But the overall design and the grind sucks. GW2 before HoT was a much better game.

Meh. HoT got me back into the game. Also, the new maps are actually brilliant. Yes, a lot of stuff is locked behind mastery unlocks and it takes some time to get them. After you do, however, they are really easy to navigate and a lot of fun to play.

If you’re tasked with something, prioritize it over your personal target dps. The boss will go down and there’s no need for you to top the dps chart while also doing something else. If the commander wants you to kill the statues you go and kill them, simple as that. If you fail because of low dps, then you suggest someone else takes care of that so you can be more efficient at dpsing.

Button speed is primarily a matter of practice. Keep doing it until your fingers learn the sequences and timings on their own.

I never used the silly 4N comp. I look for standard power meta comp and it has become increasingly difficult to assemble one. I know I technically don’t need this comp, but I prefer to run it, as it generally makes the runs much smoother. Kind of filters out bad pugs, though not always.

The remark about statistical significance is there exactly because it’s anecdotal evidence. It doesn’t change the facts, though. Something has changed, I’ve seen it. It’s a fact. It might be just a random fluctuation – although the reasons for it are pretty obvious and it obviously isn’t – but even being a random fluctuation results it still is a fact.

TheDemon.4705:

I left the game a month or so before the expansion came out and am wondering if it’s easy to get back into it or has too much stuff changed making it difficult?

I was always fairly casual. I have one legendary and never got into crafting ascended items.

Just debating getting back into it.

I got back to the game after HoT launch after pretty much only levelling to 80 and playing some dungeons (mostly story) with friends back on vanilla. I had a friend to tutor me on some basics, but I’d still say it was very easy to get back to the game.

lucadiro.4519:

A 10k DPS ele player has never learned nor tried the rotation at the golem.

And most of them never will.

lucadiro.4519:

But even a condi ranger that never trained his rotation, is not able to get more than 10k dps.

Condi ranger probably not. Power engi or a thief might get considerably more. And it’s the same issue.

Also, something being my experience makes it a fact, doesn’t it? You might argue about it being/not being statistically significant, but you can’t argue about its validity, unless you call me a liar.

The fact remains that only recently I started having trouble finding a group to do daily fractals. 4N1D has existed since before, but before it was fast and easy to assemble a proper group. Now it isn’t. At the very least, it proves a problem now exist which didn’t before.

I also doubt very much that the people who did 10k on staff pre-patch would ever hit 28k on Sc/W.

lucadiro.4519:

Feanor.2358:

Because who wouldn’t want 4 eles doing 10k dps each in their raid, right?

There must be an incentive to use a harder/more complex build. Otherwise people will always go for the easy one, because it gives consistent results. Meaning, no, you don’t have 3 builds to choose from, you have one. Of course, you can always be a special snowflake like me and insist on playing scepter, but it doesn’t change the big picture.

But go ahead, praise a balance which defies basic game design logic.

First of all if you do 10k DPS in your ele you should think about what are you doing, because even if you never tried ele rotation you Just can’t do such poor DPS.

And I still Can see tons of elementalist playing in raid, (and doing well) but finally also other classes are viable and wellcome.

And Yes I also play scepter warhorn, but i don’t cry because OMG I HAD A SUCH DIFFICULT ROTaTION I SHOULD DO 50k!1!1

First of all, I’m not the only ele out there. The average ele, back on the 4 ele meta, was simply terrible. We just had no means to tell that. Now, however, we do. So the meta was going to die anyway and the terrible eles would shift to easier and more reliable dps options. Like they did.

The point is, if the complex rotations had a larger advantage in potential output, we’d see players trying to master these. Now we’re seeing players flocking to condi rangers, thieves and mostly d/w eles. ‘Cause, you know, it’s easy. And there’s no real point in doing much more for the same deeps.

You might think it’s not a problem, but it actually is. Fractal LFG is full of looking for condis. Sure, that’s just because of dumb people, but “why” hardly matters for me, does it? I gave up on doing fractals last night after 15 mins in LFG and not being able to assemble a proper group. So yeah, great balance and great diversity.

Bitterfrost Frontier?