Guild Wars 2

Taldren.7523:

No one element dominates conjuered weapons, so Arcane is a good place for Conjurer.

The same can be said for Signets (Earth), Glyphs (Air), and Cantrips (Water) in the form of -recharge traits. Moving Conjurer would give Arcana two skill-type specific traits (Arcane Mastery is adept arcana trait). Unless there is a specific reason for Conjurer to be in Arcana, it doesn’t make sense to move it. In addition, it would require a trait from arcana to be removed. Why do that when fire already has useless master traits that can be removed (like One with Fire)?

Taldren.7523:

2. Move Conjurer to Adept in Arcane (there is nothing to that ability that makes me think fire anyway).

The Elite Conjure is a fire sword and Fire/Water are the only trait lines that do anything with Conjures anyway. Also, if you want boost Conjures damage, there aren’t many methods beyond increasing attack or the % damage boost traits. Fire has both while other lines have one. Arcana has none offhand.

Besides, they can just toss One with Fire if they wanted to move Persisting Flames down to master to free up a grandmaster slot.

Continued from previous post

Blood and Madness – By and large, I think I hate it more than I like it. The Labrynth does not pay attention to the number of players. As such, it doesn’t matter if your level 80 with ultimate gears or lv4 (found a new player in there yesterday), you will die. You will not be able to anything. All in all, it’s been getting worse and worse as time passes.

The story instance wasn’t all that great. Having to only get the mini candy elemental once was good, but Magister Tassi’s candy goop was very clunky in execution. She aims it randomly, and I didn’t really have room to work with. Beyond that, I took one failed run through Clock Tower and decided I wasn’t going to put up with gw2 jumping physics with a time limit. Lunatic Inquisition was one of the most dull things I’ve ever done. I also refuse to do the Upset Stomach achievement.

Tower of Nightmares – Kasmeer is the best part of this update so far. I like her; she’s cool. The toxic trippy drug effect is nice too. Good sound effects with that. That’s about it. I can’t really do my own thing if I want to try for spore samples. I can’t even reliably get them on the minor plants scattered everywhere!

The instance itself wasn’t fun. Kasmeer at the end was it’s only saving grace. First off, for me, the starting event is harder than the instance boss. Four enemies with strong effects are greater than one enemy with similar effects + alot of health. In addition, killing them proper was a pain. They would start out with like 90% of their downed hp, and revive before I could finish them. Especially since I have to stand still and let 3 other enemies slaughter me while I attempt this. My allies quickly died after the first enemy dropped.

I also do not like the trope where a weak ally becomes a major threat when hostile. The first time I saw that was almost 2 decades ago. It’s rather unoriginal at this point. I’d rather have to fight off all 4 weak allies then that. Also, their ai’s broke the second time I died. That caused them to follow me around while they were suppose to be resting. They were still useless.

The whole “champs become marked by waiting” mechanic needs to be looked at. It was causing headaches with people either oblivious to it or not caring and killing it too fast anyway.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Continuation of discussions in regard to the Dynamic Event evolution discussions.

And secondarily continuation of discussion around the communities favorite and least favorite LW Events.

Dynamic Events
Variety is one of the bigger problems. I don’t know how many times that one boy has bothered me because his Mom was kidnapped. In addition, “dynamic” events are largely static scripts. Once you’ve done one patrol with Lionguard Morris, you don’t need to do it again because it never changes. For larger meta events, this still holds. It’s almost always the same sequence of events repeated over and over again.

Beyond variety, almost all of the ally npcs are insanely weak. They rarely have the ability to handle things on their own, and often, they will not revive anyone nearby, including players. I assume the idea is that the events are content for players so the players should do them. It’s good in theory, but in practice, events have gotten locked up as a result. For example, the Nageling Waypoint always seems contested because few people bother to clear out that champion giant.

Maybe npcs could bring in heavy support to deal with events players don’t bother with. Doing so would lead to different content and events than if the players took care of things on their own. Alternatively, the Iron Legion could build heavy guns the players could use to solo the Nageling Giant. Stuff like that.

For meta events, I would suggest giving both sides 3 strategies. These strategies would form a rock-paper-scissors dynamic. If allies choose correctly, they could win, ignoring bad luck, and change their events accordingly. If they choose poorly, they would need the players to survive. The strategies themselves can have events: “help Seraph build auto-turrets,” “protect against saboteurs,” “scout the area for intel,” etc. In a sense, have multiple events that affect each other’s outcomes, but in a way where 100 people aren’t always needed. 100 people would be able to turn any tide instead.

Living Story
Queen’s Jubilee – My first experience with the Living Story. Almost missed it as I was participating via the trial. Never actually completed it either for the same reason (Lv11 vs lv25 area? Eh heh, no). I only tried it because a friend pulled me along. I wouldn’t have bothered otherwise as I wanted to figure out which class I would have as a main.

For obvious reasons, I may never get experience the end of it. It’ll always be a lingering plot thread.

Clockwork Chaos – Missed. Didn’t own gw2 yet.

Super Adventure Box: Back to School – I got in during the later end of this. The platforming is good in theory, but it felt awkward. I don’t know if it was lack of gw2 jumping experience or something else. Got frustrated with it at the end when I realized the skins I wanted weren’t available on top of everything else.

Tequatl Rising – I was pretty underleveled then so I didn’t bother. I may never bother. I prefer major rpg boss battles be more about reacting to the boss and countering. Tequatl sounded like giving the player a difficult script to perform.

Twilight Assault – Again, underleveled (I don’t like rushing to max). I’m not sure I’ll ever really bother. When I think dungeons, I tend to think more puzzle or exploration-like. Provernic Crypt and Jumping Puzzles are examples. Going in an instance with a bunch of randoms… I only do that if I’m bringing a friend or two along.

As an aside, I wouldn’t mind seeing more Legend of Zelda-like dungeons filled with mini or normal events.

Continued next post

Evilgamer.3964:

Getting hit is just about the last thing an Ele wants to do in combat, which is also why the Flame Barrier Minor and One with Fire trait are so poor.

In addition to this, if I’m in fire attunement, there are very good odds that the enemy is already on fire. Randomly adding more burn isn’t going to help.

If Flame Barrier was a defensive buff(s) on getting hit, it could easily be useful. But that would require a high success rate (at least 50%, likely higher) for people to like it.

Glenstorm.4059:

JonPeters.5630:

I do agree that the 5 point minors need looking at. I think the Earth and Water ones are in an ok place right now but Fire and Air need work.

Jon

Can I just say, thank you so much for the consistent communication! It’s a huge relief to see frequent red posts in the Ele forum.

Thank you!

Seconded. Flame Barrier sucks.

Leuca.5732:

You have two fire fields and a leap finisher.

Let me rephrase that then. Without relying Fire’s Embrace or frequent attunement switching.

Raven.9603:

Fire Aura is something you could improve that would make 20+ fire really appealing, if having Fire Aura up was actually a reason for players to regret hitting the ele. Improvements to Flame Barrier/Zephyr’s Speed at high trait levels is another thought too.

I disagree about using Fire Aura for defense. I’d rather have Sunspot (Fire 15) replaced as it’s borderline useless. Alternatively, have defensive traits at grandmaster. Since I use d/d, I cannot access Fire Aura directly. I do not want to be forced to focus on Fire’s Embrace (which can already trigger Elemental Shielding anyway).

cesmode.4257:

For example:
-If the players control 25% of the world, they receive 2 gold at the turn of the hour
-If the players control 50% of the world, they receive 5 gold at the turn of the hour
-If the players control 75% of the world, they recieve 10 gold at the turn of the hour
-If the players control 100% of the world, they recieve 20 gold at the turn of the hour + some small additional reward.

I don’t like ideas where players get benefits out of content they didn’t do. I’m also worried this will add to inflation as everyone would be getting the reward. 2g per hour doesn’t sound like much, but how many people are online per server? Hundreds? Thousands? The gold generated could easily spiral out of control.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?

Personally? No. I’m not interested in being a nanny to an entire area. It also makes me worried it’d turn into the horror stories of past sandboxes. Entire maps filled with player-made buildings. All of them abandoned. The original beauty of the land had been lost.

My problem with events is variety. It’s rather annoying to know that the mother I rescued 15 minutes ago has gotten caught again.

Metroidvania aspects I can see being enjoyable. The whole “look around the map to find events, vistas and other interesting things” is similar to what metroidvania games are known to do. Maybe finding new paths to content with abilities from previous areas or class abilities gained from skill points. (There is an altar here… I got glyphs, cantrips, and conjurations. How can I use these with the altar to beat that boss?) Alternatively, finding lost relics and getting rewarded with lore for getting a certain amount of them.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any time lost due to tvtropes.

Is it ok to mention some thoughts on personal story here? Or should I save those thoughts for another thread/CD Phase?

I haven’t been playing for long, but here’s my thoughts so far.

I have a friend that wants to get the game. I pointed her towards the game during a trial, and now she’s just waiting for real life to be more favorable towards getting it. I’m dreading the moment I have to explain the Living Story to her. There are a couple of reasons behind this. The first is that if she wants to do the Halloween events (say for the mini candy corn elemental), I have to tell her she can’t succeed at them. Mad King’s Labyrinth is in horrendous shape because it doesn’t realize there are only a few people there. People frequently leave after horror destroys groups at fairly minor doors. Lich and Viscount are also unbeatable as is.

The second reason is she has 0 knowledge of Kessex. The game does not properly support this:

“When entering Kessex Hills, players with an actual level higher than 25 will automatically be redirected to a story instance.”

It’s completely possible to get beyond level 25 in queensdale champ train or through following the story of another race. It’s really easy to be over the area level. GW2 keeps track of % area completion. That should have been used instead of level. In addition to that, a lot of the natural content in the map acts weird. Bandits fall from the sky without warning (the trees were cut down), one heart had it’s area cut by over half to make room for the toxic enemies.

In addition, my first encounter the kessex toxic instance by making a mistake and taking the wrong portal. It’s frustrating to be forced into an instance I wasn’t wanting to do then. Next time, ask first. It’s ok to ask before the game takes the person into Kessex, “Something has changed! Do you want to proceed?”

I dislike the pacing of updates, but hammering on that won’t do any good. Instead, I suggest mixing up how you handle the Living Story updates. I pay attention to Magic: the Gathering. One thing they do is they have two types of expansions: major and minor. Instead of having every Living Story update be about the same amount of changes/story, break updates up similarly. Have smaller Living Story updates to either build up to big changes or to follow up on those changes. By doing this, your teams have more time to work on the important content, and players have some room to breathe. For example, Tower of Nightmares under this:

Minor – Unknown monsters, with events, appear in Kessex (Hallucinations). A mysterious black energy swirls in the lake. Strange seeds are all over the place, and a small handful of obelisks are found. When fighting these monsters, strange cat noises are heard. (I like the sound effects on that effect.) (Edit: Krait, via events, could also focus on cutting down trees.)

Major – The tower has been revealed. The Toxic Alliance attacks! More obelisks are found, and perfect spore samples are now available. Instances are now available to explain what’s up. Achievements are now available. The toxin is in full force.

It flows a lot better this way. A lot more people can see something is going on in Kessex and get excited about it. In addition, people don’t have to rush to finish the halloween content. It also gives time to the developers to work on instances and cutsceens. In both updates, there is new content.

One final thing on major/minor updates. Magic the Gathering does not strictly follow it’s own update schedule. If they want to do Major/Major/Minor or Major/Minor/Major/Minor, they will do it.

There’s more I want to say, but I’ll hold off for a bit. I want to gather my thoughts.

JonPeters.5630:

I still believe there is work to be done at the grandmaster tier in Fire at the very minimum

As someone who wants to have a Fire ele, I can only say this, “YES!” It feels wrong that, even with the dec 10 changes, Pyromancer’s Puissance has strong competition from Internal Fire.

JonPeters.5630:

instead of moving Soothing Wave (which is only moving because it is better to have a 100% worthless trait at adept tier rather than master tier) we would redesign Soothing Wave into something worthy of master level.

In the dec 10 preview, Burning Fire gained a new effect and got pushed up a tier. If Soothing Wave gets knocked down, I would expect that to happen again. As such, I think this is preferable to moving Cleansing Wave.

My build concept actually touches upon both skills (Signet of Water and Frost Bow). I’d prefer to have a good master-level Soothing Wave to compliment that.

JonPeters.5630:

• Fire II – Burning Fire – This trait has a new effect. Use Cleansing Fire automatically when you have a number of conditions on you. 3 conditions. 40 second cooldown. Moved to Master tier.

Is this in addition to it’s current effect or in replace of it’s current effect?

All in all, this and Diamond Skin are interesting. The Burning Rage change helps my experimental d/d build as well.

Just speaking as someone relative new compared to others in this thread. I would like to see more cross-attunement stuff, especially for Fire. Stuff like a Fire Grandmaster trait: “Get X buff, based on attunement, when you attack a monster that’s burning. Recharge Y.” I don’t understand why Fire can’t help the other three in it’s own way (new Diamond Skin as described, being an example of Earth doing that).

Clark Skinner.4902:

I’ve said it a couple of times. Acquiring mats isn’t the topic here.

The topic is that crafting something with mats you didn’t buy doesn’t mean you got a free item. Free would be an item mailed to you. This gives you the item but takes mats that had value. Thus not free.

You say it’s not about that. But truthfully, if I were to say that it was free to make because I gathered the materials, I would be making an explicit statement about how much it cost me to obtain the materials. After all, if I did not gather them, I would have to have gotten them from someone else and likely with a larger price tag on it than the cost of the tools.

If you want to say that it’s not free because I had to buy the tools, go right ahead. Personally, I consider those separate things, but it’s not a big deal.

Mats gathered are free. In this case, free means “I do not owe nor pay another player money for this item.” It is about the lack of actual costs; not what could have been.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

One thing I don’t get. In wvw PASSIVE effects NEVER LAG. They are always there, and always work. (Healing signet warrior for instance). Why is that so? Why do active skill lag while passive ones don’t. Honeslty at the moment this makes stonemist fights a bit unfair (passive heal so much strong then active heal, cause they won’t activate).

Draygo is sorta right, but the explaination doesn’t really explain what you’re describing.

The closest explanation I have is that the thread, or daemon or code, that handles passives is not getting bogged down while the thread that handles cooldowns or skill activations is getting bogged down. Since the code for passives isn’t getting delayed or slowed, they always work.

Imagine it like a couple of people in an office. The person that handles active skills has a lot of work to do. The person that handles passives has little work to do. The passives person would naturally get done faster.

I would suggest trying Glyph of Lesser Elemental. It’ll summon an elemental to help for a minute and which elemental is based on your attunement. Pretty much any of them can help distract enemies with the earth elemental being the most durable. Just don’t expect it to win fights for you.

I have to repeat what others are saying. Make sure you learn to avoid attacks. There are quite a few enemies that can knock you down, immobilize you, or otherwise disable your actions. Avoiding these can be critical when dealing with multiple enemies.

As a last resort, there are npc weapon and armor sellers. Their gear is pretty weak, but it’s better than nothing.

The flower one is a bit odd. It appears to clip like crazy in the preview like you show, but it clips a lot less ingame. It seems to clip the most in the dual-wielding stance, and even then, it’s better than other longer hair styles.

It’s not the first hairstyle to have differences between ingame and the preview…