Guild Wars 2

554 hours worth (so far) of gameplay for $60. Can’t ever complain about that.

Afraid I have to agree with the others on this one. I love the fact that they are not removed, because when people disconnect due to internet issues, they’re back in a flash anyway, and no problem

So your “should” is not really a should.

@WasAGuest, agreed.

I remember stumbling upon the pirates in Gendarren fields for the first time and getting rofl-stomped by one… I learned to fear the “Fights Dirty” informational text.

Dead.7385:

Zones – WoW was bigger, but as the dungeon pointed out until acheezements were added for it I didn’t know many that wanted to 100% all quests in most zones. It was too much work for too little reward. It is commonplace here for people to want to do it (even with bugged SP’s etc). But I give it to WoW since it DOES have more in it.

Whilst Wow zones may have been bigger, but bigger is not necessarily better. There really wasn’t much going on in Wow Zones. The barrens was huge, but mostly forgettable. I’ve found more going on, and more interesting things in a small corner of one of GW2’s zones, than in an entire wow zone.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

Essentially, what this achievement needs is simple ~ they need to go. Otherwise, I will tell you and Anet one simple thing, a threat or simple truth actually ~ people will quit the game over it once they realize that this achievement is all-but impossible for them to get it.

You have no evidence but your own personal feelings to back it up. And if you quit a game because you can’t get an achievement then, yeah…

I don’t think there is any imbalance here. You’re getting hit hard by a mob that is tougher than other kinds of mobs. That doesn’t suggest imbalance that says that this mob is tougher and more difficult to deal with. Know how to counter!!

… when I am laying with my partner and suddenly hit diminishing returns.

@LoneWolfie (sorry would quote, but forum won’t let me)

When I’ve not wanted to bother with Orr, I’ve farmed Harathi, Sparkfly and even Queensdale, event after event after event for hours and still not hit any DRs.

I am not saying this is the same for everyone, but I’ve yet to see a drop in karma – and since the introduction of DR I’ve been specifically looking for it.

Karma isn’t worthless… I love the Arcon armour set.

Also, I’ve never managed to hit the DR on Dynamic Events. Maybe I am doing it wrong?

I’ve tried the +toughness +vitality builds and seen little effect. Now I have settled on “glass cannon” and make sure I use all my evasion skills. Working out well so far.

This is a beautiful thread and I approve of it.

This was intended to open a discussion rather than actually say “Hey, you need to do this” and wanted to throw it out there.

The idea consists of a new kind of currency, a dungeon coin. They would have a % rate to drop from dungeon trash mobs and perhaps a guaranteed drop from a dungeon boss.

But what are they for?

I thought perhaps that one could opt to pay for dungeon repairs (only at anvils within a dungeon) using a certain amount of dungeon coins. And also, perhaps there could be a vendor which allowed one to convert dungeon coins in to tokens for a particular dungeon. The drop-rates would be so that it is easier to directly get a dungeon token by completing the run, then trying to farm the coins.

Any other suggestions on their use? Constructive criticism is more than welcome

I really don’t think there’s an issue here. The monthly achivement is supposed to be a cross-section of the whole game… dynamic events, kills, player kills, etc. Now, I primarily PvE – but spare a thought for the people who mostly WvW and the stuff they have to do to get the same achievement.

Sounds like it could be a nightmare, when you were supposed to click on a boss for example – and in the heat of the moment, click the ground next to him and run forwards, Leroy Jenkin style and get rofl-stomped.

Oh, this again.

I don’t really do much WvW. But you know what? I did it to get my 50 kills to get my achievement. I feel like I achieved it. you just want it removed to make your life easier.

Please. Just get off your butt and go kill 50 world invaders. Shouldn’t take you long!

Mikki.5370:

DusK.3849:

WoW had innumerable bugs after each expansion that didn’t get fixed for months. Months.

People keep saying “Oh WoW has sooo many bugs”, but I’ve played it since release and I’ve had no problems with any bugs. Not saying there has not been any but they haven’t affected me enough to care.

Conversely I can say the same thing. I’ve hardly come across any in GW2… But I’m not silly enough to think there are none.

Hajduk.5041:

well if you have a problem, you have a team which is working on this for over a month, the problem should be solved. I know it takes tame, but this problems appeared in early beta and are still here. I am not saying that they are not doing anything, but if the progress is not seen then you have to increase the effort. I do not see increase in effort, I just see that once a day, admin an-bugs the skill point-event or what ever, and then in couple of hours we are back at the start, again BUG. This is something what I wold expect form some amateur company, whit just 5 people in the office.

You really have no idea what you are talking about. “That problem should be solved” assumes that they have been focusing on that particular problem. And as for “an amateur company”, you don’t realise how huge an MMO is. No MMO has launched without problems, and believe me – there are bugs in Wow that have been there since vanilla.

Do some research before you begin making assertions that are baseless.

Believe me, they will have a team of people working on bugs. Just because you do not see progress in the ones that you’ve “mostly” come across, does not mean that nothing is happening. Your post is terribly misinformed if you truly believe things are not being worked on. It’s frustrating to see bugs that one has reported some time ago, not being fixed… but, other things are being fixed. It takes time.

I too noticed the similarities between the Dredges and the Soviet Union. That said, it seems to be more of a correlation between cold-war era Soviet Union than the current USSR. This is more telling in the Sorrows Embrace instance.

I am not Russian, so it probably seems odd that I may say “I really don’t see a problem”, because I don’t see the parallel being drawn to present-day Soviet Union. Ergo, I think that ArenaNet is not “attacking” or painting your country in a bad light, and that you should be able to continue to feel proud about your heritage.

Tonight, will be cloudy, high humidity with a 100% chance of DAAAAAGGEER STOOOOOORRRRRRRRM!!!!

lothefallen.7081:

Take heed, ArenaNet. The innovations are not as good as you percieve them to be.

Take heed, losthefallen… this is purely opinion, not fact. In fact, I think some of the boss dungeon fights should be upped in difficulty so they cannot be zerged, but I can hear the river of tears that would cause already.

Soulwatcher.2604:

I read the sticky and are you telling me that in the last 4 days they have been too busy to ban these bots? There are at least 20 of them now!

The bots in question that you are referring to, are probably in a line of investigation. I know they are annoying you but there are other bots in other zones on other servers also. These are just ones you have noticed. They can’t just banhammer in a few minutes – these things have to be investigated, lest they start banning someone that is actually a real player doing some farming.

You’re not looking at the big picture, you can only focus your anger on these particular bots and the 4 days they’ve been there.

FarFarAway.6579:

Porky.5021:

Hi. I want a burger. I’m tired of Burger Barn, so I’m going to go to Wong’s House Of Super Chinese Food. Then I’m going to tell Wong how great burgers are and how burgers are essential to running a restaurant.

Let me fix your analogy:

Don’t claim to fix his analogy, when in fact you over-complicated it and moved away from his original intent. Sheesh.

I guess you didn’t read the sticky at the top. And if you’re going to give up because of the bots… well, that says a lot about the fact you didn’t read the sticky now, doesn’t it?

I suggested this as part of another post in the General Discussion forum, and thought it might be good here. The idea is to improve communications between players of a specific event, thereby perhaps pathing the way for more complex world events in the future.

1) Perhaps track players success during events. The game could randomly nominate a commander for that event (based on how many times the player has successfully completed the event), and which the player can refuse (in which case the game picks another). The player then gets a symbol over his or her head and an icon by his name, when in….

2) An event chat. When an event kicks of, it has it’s own chat. It’s accessible via the /event command. Event is unique to the zone of a particular event, and lasts for a certain number of minutes after the event has finished (say, 2 or 3? I dunno). It is within this event chat that the “Event Commander” gets his little commander icon/colour.

The trouble with putting together a complicate world encounter that can’t simply be solved with a zerg is the way of getting everyone to be doing the right thing. Successful WvW groups are generally on voice-comms together and can co-ordinate over large groups of players. Thanks to the commander role, even those out of comms has an idea where people are headed and what they are doing.

Now, it is not impossible to do this in a world-event (people have yelled out what should be happening), but it’s less cohesive as there’s no central leadership roll. However, I don’t think this is the crux of the problem. One could argue that nobody needs to try and communicate well because the event really doesn’t require it. When one is going up against the shatterer or the dragon in Sparkfly, one just needs to avoid AoE and pound the dragon… and yet even on the latter I’ve seen people caught at the back with the adds because there wasn’t enough people there to take them down. And yet, nobody cried out “Help on adds!” and were promptly swarmed.

Putting more complex events in the game would be good. Events that required certain things to happen, and a zerg would simply wipe. Perhaps ANet should add in one or two of these as a bit of a litmus test to see how long it takes groups of people to start synergizing their actions using the map chat.

Some ideas:

1) Perhaps track players success during events. The game could randomly nominate a commander for that event (based on how many times the player has successfully completed the event), and which the player can refuse (in which case the game picks another). The player then gets a symbol over his or her head and an icon by his name, when in….

2) An event chat. When an event kicks of, it has it’s own chat. It’s accessible via the /event command. Event is unique to the zone of a particular event, and lasts for a certain number of minutes after the event has finished (say, 2 or 3? I dunno). It is within this event chat that the “Event Commander” gets his little commander icon/colour.

I’d definitely like to see more interesting world events, but then the game needs to provide easy ways for event communication. /map is not enough given multiple events in the same zone.

I don’t see p/p has a “build” as such (as odd as that may sound). for me, it’s more of a secondary set with support abilities. I never use it as my primary attack… more the one I use “in addition”.

@Tulisin,

Absolutely agree with your points. Dungeon communication is everything, not just in respect to builds but also being able to tell people how best to do an encounter – be it trash or a boss. Too many run in as a zerg and get wiped, and that is where we get these arguments that the trinity shouldn’t have been killed.

But you’re right, condition builds are viable – I personally don’t choose them because during PvE and group-event play, I find the burst damage to be the preferred option, and falling back to my pistols for CC/range.

I appreciate what you say, but if I am just out for Karma, Orr isn’t worth it. Yes, there’s more XP, Gold and Loot to be had. But as my original post states, if you’re after karma it’s not really worth the hassle.

Granted, this game IS about mixing and matching activities (I do it all the time!), but the karma rewards versus effort in Orr just seem, off to me.

KyrianEleison.5064:

That’s a load of texts that I just read and definitely, worth my time. Very insightful!
But just on a side note, have you tried the S/P build for Pistol Whip? Personally, i find it a very good burst of damage.
Just wondering what your take on the S/P build is.

Thanks!

I used to have a S/P build, but wasn’t overly happy with the Pistol-Whip. Yes, the damage is pretty darn good. However, I felt (perhaps more mentally than mechanically) that I was rooted to the spot. In some situations this isn’t an issue and you can hurt a good deal of enemies around you with that burst. Especially if you’ve combined it with a shadow-step to the target. (gap closers + damage are our most effective strategy, I feel).

In the end, I preferred the movement of d/d versus s/p… but I think that was more of a personal choice than a strategic one.

Disclaimer: I love this game.

I’m grinding karma for an armour set at the moment, and I just don’t see why Orr is necessary to do this. Of course the XP is better, and the loot is better, but if I want to grind for karma, I just don’t see Orr as a viable time investment.

I can hang out in Queensdale and do 4 or 5 events (for an admittedly lesser karma reward), in around the same time as 1 or 2 Orr events. Or even better, I could head over to Sparkly Fens and do even better.

What do you guys think? Given that Orr is supposed to be the end-game area for 80s, should the karma rewards be higher or is it working as intended?

Not interested in a thieves-only guild, but I like your style. I made a post some weeks ago about doing dungeons as “all-thief” to prove the “bring the player not the class” axiom. A guild of thieves definitely seems like an organised way to do this.

FYI, we obliterated CM as a 5-thief party

For AoE, I have to love “Dancing Dagger”. It does a decent amount of damage and you could drain the health of up to 4 enemies before they’ve even gotten a chance to get to you. It’s great in group events if you’re after loot and “participation” because spamming that is going to hit a lot of mobs. It sounds selfish, but given many other classes are spamming AoEs and getting the loot, there’s no reason that you as a thief should miss out.

I admit I have not done much WvW, but in the confines of sPvP I have done well, and I haven’t really needed to respect my traits that much (though this a personal decision – I am sure that you thieves that play sPvP in a far less casual manner than I would disagree, and you are welcome to!). With the combinations listed above, I’ve found myself being able to go against many different classes and win the day, even if I did not have the element of surprise.

Our burst damage is great and by utilising the skills and combinations mentioned, we are a very viable class for PvP. That Scorpion Wire for example, can act as an instant counter to that pesky ranger that is trying to put distance between themselves and you so he can longbow you down whilst his pet mauls you. You can put a stop to this.

I don’t recommend condition builds for PvE, but in PvP this is a bit of a game changer when you combine the above information with venoms and poisons. The burst-build I spoke about earlier where i heard about the CnD + Steal gap-closer talks extensively about readying venoms prior to doing this. That’s even more damage, and in PvP your opponent is going to wonder what hit them, and how fast it hit them. Note, you might want to run away though whilst you wait for cool-downs on the venoms. Personally I don’t use them for that reason, and prefer to trait to try and get maximum manoeuvrability and initiative.

Disclaimer: All of the information provided below is based on my build of d/d & p/p. I fully understand that there are plenty of other builds and playstyles.

The reason I make this post is because I see many posts saying the Thief is lacklustre in ways, cannot melee, and cannot compare to other classes. I believe this is factually incorrect, but also from my personal experience – I believe it to be incorrect from an observational stand point.

Levelling my thief was hard, at first. I didn’t want to stack vitality. I wanted to stack precision, power and crit. I still do, however I have learned to play my thief around those stacks. There are those who may think it insane to enter dungeons as a thief without vitality on your gear and there is some truth to that. But it’s not impossible. Whilst the phrase “you’re doing no damage when you’re dead” is very true – so is the collorary, “the more damage you do, the quicker it’s dead”. Survivability is not all about stacking vitality, it’s also about using your skills effectively. Believe me, many of the boss “one shots” will still take you down, even if you stack vitality.

As a d/d p/p thief, I have a lot of tools at my disposal. There are many champions and bosses we can melee as a thief. Speccing correctly we can get 4 dodges for the price of 2. That’s a lot of evasion right there, and that’s not including the fact that some moves (steal, leaping death blossom to name but 2), also put us in an evasion stance (when it doesn’t bug out, or we miss-time it lol!). That’s a lot of evasion and enough for a melee thief to get in there on tough opponents.

Sometimes of course, it really is to dangerous to be toe-to-toe with a boss/champion and/or the game doesn’t choreograph their moves as readily as we’d want. So perhaps ranged is better there. The p/p may seem lacklustre on big targets (at least, that’s what I feel), however in support of your fellow players, your 2 (Body Shot) and 4 (Head Shot) abilities are very important. Body Shot is going to stack vulnerability (everyone is going to do more damage), and Head Shot is going to interrupt. Note that champion/boss mobs – you have to do like, 4 interrupt moves for each actual interrupt (you can see the icon under his tag). Worked out right in your party, the thief can make an excellent CC support here when he or she can’t get up close and personal. I personally have interrupted veteran adds in order in dungeons, whilst the rest focused down other targets. Oh, and the odd-unload can’t hurt either.

Melee-wise, at first glance, we have 5 d/d abilities. Some more powerful than others (as with all skill bars, I guess!). What becomes fun, is when we start combining them.

For example Cloak and Dagger does a nice high burst of damage, and gives us stealth. In PvE that means our target is going to (usually) just drop aggro right after you do it and turn it’s back to you. Given that we can trait (and rune) to do more damage from behind, that alone is a great thing. However, we can improve. Unfortunately it is the only one of our 5 d/d/ skills that has a cast time. No matter! Why not use a gap-closer in combination, because it doesn’t break the cast?

Steal is an obvious one (and can be traited to do extra damage). I first learned this tactic when reading a post about a burst-thief build. Effectively, you cast cloak-and-dagger (which starts the cast), and then hit steal. Steal is pretty much an instant gap closer. What this means is that you’ve hit your target (+ whatever steal traits you’ve lined up), and if you’ve timed it right – you’ve also hit them for a very high % of damage AND dropped aggro all at the same time. Putting you in a perfect position to stab them from behind. Something us thieves are supposed to be good at!!

We also have another gap-closer. Scorpion Wire. Whilst this is a great PvP skill, I use it in PvE also. However, given that it is not an instant gap-closer, when combining it with Clock-and-Dagger, I cast Scorpion-Wire first and then move to the CnD. Once again, it’s a great opener. I have had some issues with this, some mobs can evade it and I’ve had the odd miss… but in general it works well and does a bit of damage on contact.

The great thing, is that these can be combined together. Wire them in, cloak and dagger, stab from behind… dodge back, cast Clock and Dagger again, immediately hit steal, apply the steal effect… That’s a crap load of damage in a few seconds, and many vet mobs are going to be feeling the effects of that even when you solo.

Personally, condition-builds may well work great for soloing, but in group events and dungeons – given the potential nature of high burst damage for the thief, and the fact that the stacks are capped, I’d avoid a condition build.

Just personal opinion of course.

Rukia.4802:

What makes trinity suck is looking for tanks and healers, not trinity itself. Some people enjoy DPS, some enjoy tanking, and some enjoy healing. We should have that choice. Remember “play your way” ? Yeah… didn’t happen. I can’t even play melee on my thief or I get wtfpwned in 1 shot by bosses that aren’t dodged (I know, kitten dodge, just an example, and dodge isn’t unlimited), FORCING me to go ranged to survive.. again, playing MY way? I think not.

I rarely ever say this, but as a thief myself… I think you’re not playing it well. Now, before you jump on me and say I am trolling or just going “L2P”… hear me out.

Ranged is definitely easier. We’re actually good at CC thanks to 2 of the pistol skills. We can keep up conditions that increase everyone’s overall damage – and also, with some co-ordination with other players, interrupt those nasty abilities that champions use (note the stacks to 4).

But your main complaint was melee. Yeah, it can get pretty hairy. But I’ve gone balls in and gone up against mobs as melee. Looking for attacking animations is key to know when to dodge. Sometimes it’s not ground AoE visible. And then you see that lovely “Evade” crop up. Specced right, you can be doing up to 4 dodges in the same space that others only have 2.

A thief is a combination of high DPS at melee when save, and evadable, falling back to ranged to CC and/or kite. Wait for some cooldowns, then go back in for a high burst of damage.

481 hours in, and I am still having a blast.

Corey.8760:

At level 80, i care very little about the kitten xp i get from rezing and don’t feel like its a proper reward. Plus, after i get my title what incentive besides that do i have?

A fair point, but remember XP at 80 = skill points, which at the end of the day.. could equal a legendary, if that’s what you want.

Perhaps increase in XP for an 80 when they revive someone. Not enough to make it an alternative to regular activities, but enough to nump it a lot.

Depends, is it on or off a pizza?

lookitsandrea.8531:

Fiennes.9568:

lookitsandrea.8531:

I don’t think anybody was suggesting that we punish those who don’t help. Are you suggesting it?

If you read his post, he’s not suggesting it at all. Just mentioning the collorary.

I try and rez where I go, but I try not to get myself killed in the process. If there’s some one dead next to a champion boss that will stomp my face if I go near… yeah, maybe if there’s help coming – otherwise sorry mate… But I will do my best, if possible. If I do die unexpectantly due to judging the situation badly, that’s my fault.

I did read his post. That was just how I interpreted it. Incorrectly, I assume?

And I had mentioned what you said previously as well, and I agree. I will rez anybody I can, but most of the time the player is in a place where a mob is surrounding them, or some super strong enemy that I’m just not cut out to kill at the time. I wish that there was some way to work around this. Maybe give some kind of bubble defense buff for those who are Resurrection, that’s removed when they stop? They can still get damaged, but not as badly.

I may have been a little brash in saying “did you read his post?”, and for that my apologies – it was just clear to me that he wasn’t suggesting it.

Personally I think the system is fine the way it is. There should be a risk to rezzing if there are mobs around, and you do get a reward (XP + eventual Title). It’s a judgement call really as to whether it is safe to do so.

lookitsandrea.8531:

I don’t think anybody was suggesting that we punish those who don’t help. Are you suggesting it?

If you read his post, he’s not suggesting it at all. Just mentioning the collorary.

I try and rez where I go, but I try not to get myself killed in the process. If there’s some one dead next to a champion boss that will stomp my face if I go near… yeah, maybe if there’s help coming – otherwise sorry mate… But I will do my best, if possible. If I do die unexpectantly due to judging the situation badly, that’s my fault.

I think it is far better for them to find out the cause of the bugged skill points/events than to “restart” just to make the problem go away. I know, it’s frustrating – but it’ll be sorted.

Right clicking colours “adds to favourite” as it is

Came here from the breast-thread.

/salute

I’m surprised at the number of negative responses in this thread.

1) Yes, everybody is aware that there are multiple kinds of cancer, be it lung, breast, testicular, prostrate, or any and all others. Cancer research is cancer research, and if “breasts” are a fashionable way to raise awareness, then so be it. I do not think it detracts from the other forms in any way, shape or form.

2) It’s entirely optional and just a suggestion! If you don’t want to, don’t do it! Your world is not being changed by others doing it. Your world is not going to collapse, nothing changes.

3) If just one person asks “Hey, why is everyone in pink?”, and then they learn about the dangers of breast cancer, then it’s been worth it really, hasn’t it?

Mastermind.3169:

Yes, it would be more fun if gw was made openworld instead. Maybe in gw3?

This method has some advantages over the traditional open world model. In WoW for example, if I am correct, when the server is full, you’re queued. In the GW2 model, as each zone is separate, it can “balance” between all those zones, so although you may get punted to an overflow, it will be brief and you’ll be back playing with people in no time.

Ah. Sorry if I came across too harsh. I should have just asked if you’d seen it

Did you not bother to read the sticky at the top?

Leiloni.7951:

Fiennes.9568:

What happened to you, was frickin’ awful.

Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do… in a “pug”. That is the price you pay for running with strangers who, for whatever reason, have you in their sights. People can be horrid.

I’ve had great pugs, and I’ve had terrible pugs.

If I were you, I’d chalk it down to the latter and do you best to run with people you know, as much as you can. Even if you have to pug a 5th.

In my opinion, chalking it up to “some pugs are just terrible” is completely unacceptable. WoW had a kitteny community and created that behavior, but other games don’t need to follow in their footsteps. ArenaNet should strive to make this as good a gaming community as possible and not tolerate behavior like that. Further, they need to implement features in the grouping system to make booting someone mid-combat impossible, as well as taking measures to avoid groups of friends being able to boot anyone they don’t like simply because they’re all friends. People try to do all sorts of bad things in real life, that doesn’t mean we let them get away with it.

Oh, I agree with you with the “unacceptable behaviour” comment. I really do. But the issue I see is, a company trying to find that “line”… I sure as hell wish (as you do), that they would hand out suspensions for crap like this..

What happened to you, was frickin’ awful.

Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do… in a “pug”. That is the price you pay for running with strangers who, for whatever reason, have you in their sights. People can be horrid.

I’ve had great pugs, and I’ve had terrible pugs.

If I were you, I’d chalk it down to the latter and do you best to run with people you know, as much as you can. Even if you have to pug a 5th.

Ouroboros.5076:

Strongback.6420:

The way I’ve seen it over 80% of the criticism is valid, if often poorly articulated, 15% is apologist stuff like this and 5% is the trolls and moronic posts.

And 32% of the numbers found on the Internet are made up.

Honestly there are too many people that have at least tried this game, we’re talking about millions here. That will give us thousands of people who won’t like this game for various reasons. And that will give us hundreds of trolls who like to whine on official forums of games they don’t even play anymore. Not even including people that like the game but like to whine even more, and complain about small things like if this was the end of the world.

So yes, the official forums are full of negativity, but hopefully Anet knows how to filter all that laughable crap to get the interesting feedback (which is really a very, very small fraction of what is said here).

Well said, I am not sure that I could have summed it up so succinctly as you have, Oro.