Guild Wars 2

Thats useful information, thanks mate!

Quickness remains to be the most pressing issue in combat. Please adress it sooner than later.

If you’d add credit to the data I gathered I’d be very happy

This is the build you are looking for http://tinyurl.com/d9r7e34
I won’t tell too much though, you have to figure out how to use it yourself. Its insanely powerful.

You can apply burning through runes http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_Balthazar and use http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Putrid_Mark or http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plague_Signet or http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deathly_Swarm to move Burning from yourself to enemies. Note that all conditions transfered by yourself will use your condition damage instead of whatever their value was before.

Incredible! New content is shiny and new in this thread!

Holymoly batman. This thread got updated!

And also our most powerful one, with the potential of more than 7k healing without any healing power.

If you were to attack a helpless dummy with a power build, yes, dagger would be the best choice. Thats a huge IF though.
Its less a competetion between Axe and Dagger but rather Axe and Staff. Staff vastly outperforms Axe in all regards but vulnerability application and Life Force generation.

No safe stomping = fail build

You can fix that by clicking on the small triangel above the minion symbol and choose a skill that works…

Olba.5376:

Fiesbert.9816:

Ye shall not use a calculator for all machinery is evil.
I agree to disagree. It improves involvment with the game and people do that anyway but its a lot more cumbersome than it has to be.
Btw there are already builds in the game.

Calculators are mostly useless anyway.

The thing is, with UI additions and options to check for DPS, you run at a risk of alienating quite a bit of people. I don’t play WoW, so I am not quite familiar with how they work, but the picture I got is that there’s ridiculous competition for DPS going on there and that Blizzard “had to” change certain things because of a widespread UI addon.

As for builds, there are builds, but they’re all voluntary. Since there’s no way to know the DPS, you cannot alienate someone because they prefer using a weapon or armorset that is less than optimally efficient. In fact, I was originally not going to buy GW2 at all out of fear of being alienated from group content due to preference for certain weapon combinations that might not necessarily be “optimal”.

So from your second hand experience we are suppose to go back itno caves hutning mammoth?

Ill update this thread tomorrow

Olba.5376:

There’s quite a few things that I am against.

For example, minmaxing characters and UI addons. Minmaxing causes there to be “builds”, and I am pretty sure not having those is one of the big parts of GW2.

UI addons bring elitism in guilds and dungeons. You’ll be told to get this and that add-on. And a lot of those add-ons trivialize parts of the content, which is bad.

Striving for perfection that is completely aided by machinery isn’t really what this game needs.

Ye shall not use a calculator for all machinery is evil.
I agree to disagree. It improves involvment with the game and people do that anyway but its a lot more cumbersome than it has to be.
Btw there are already builds in the game.

Oozo.7856:

The trait by itself is not enough to guarantee a full stomp. Not everyone is going to have +% boon duration. In fact, many won’t since Reanimator sucks so much. If they remove that trait, I’d definitely be tempted to go Death Magic to further secure the stomps.

As it is, very few people time it well enough to stop the stomp but it does happen and when it does I do cry inside a little bit.

Edit: Currently looking at gear options.

Monk and Water runes are options. Interesting actually, it would make necro a really strong stomper and reviver. Not sure if it would be worth the hit to damage output though.

It is worth the hit to damage output. Downing an enemy doesn’t do much for you if you can’t finish him. Especiall

Oozo.7856:

It’s not quite long enough to cover a full stomp. They can catch you on the way down.

And stability is incredible. You can use deathshroud to immune yourself from INC CC. Although, there is a skill requirement to get the most out of that. The stability is also excellent for covering your life transfer damage. Good players will interrupt your life transfer.

It’s only worth it if you are running a power build, however.

Not at all. A mere +10% boon duration suffices to stomp safely.

Come on… I spend a good 3 hours on this :/

I’m amazed, this thread is still not stickied or mentioned… o.O

Inventory

• no option for salvaging all white items
• no option for salvaging items beneath a certain quality
• no option to salvage all items of an armor type
• no equipment manager. I use different items for solo PvE, group PvE and WvW and swaping between them is a pain in the kitten /li>

PvP bank

• could have more tabs instead of one huge scrolldown-window
• needs filters to remove unuseable items from being displayed

• Stuff that would ascend the UI from AAA to legendary
• Allow sharing and joining of external VOIP servers through the chat. I always wanted to just send other players my Teamspeak Server adress through the chat. Please DO NOT implement your own VOIP, its a lot smarter to allow players easier access to existing infrastructure than adding a new one
• Allow sharing from sPvP build, including equipment, sigils, runes, traits, slot skills and so on through the chat
• Implement a possibility to invite players to watching what is happening on your games screen. For easier discussion of strategy, builds and so on
• Implement an automated system that picks up lonewolves in WvWvW and PvE that organizes them to become able to do group content. (For example all lonwolves get the suggestion by the game itself to capture a supply depot, which will add extra rewards if they succeed, while opposing servers lonwolves will be suggested to defend said point)

to be continued

I hear you, I’m red green colorblind aswell.

My suggestion: adress all issues listed below and bring GW2s interface from ancient MMO history to todays standards

Existing elements that need improvement

• Positioning of enemy health bar (should be beneath center screen)
• lack of conditions/boons on nameplates
• no option for highlighting buffs/debuffs on oneself
• no option for highlighting buffs/debuffs on others
• no option for highlighting availability of cooldown skills
• no option for increasing visibility of combo fields
• no colorblind option (10% of all males are red-green colorblind, hence red and green are bad choices for highlighting stuff)
• no option for highlighting low health/endurance
• no option for custom audio clues (for example a loud sound if one is blinded). The commenting audio clues are unreliable, they don’t always happen and your voice depens on your race rather than on if its you or an ally. Hence it being more confusing than helpful sometimes)

Information that isn’t displayed at all

• no option for displaying type of combo field
• internal cooldowns (for example cooldown of http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Grove 4-set-bonus)
• no displaying cooldowns of the secondary weapon set
• no displaying cooldowns from underwater skills
• no changing underwater slot skills without diving
• no display of chain attacks in the hero menu
• incorrect display of condition length (some modifiers aren’t applied in the tooltip for example http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Master_of_Terror
• incomplete combat log (healing for example is missing)
• insufficient time stamps in combat log
• no cast bars
• no analysis tools for damage/healing (very important for minmaxing your character and improving in PvE)
• complete lack of customization options. Customization of any parts of the game greatly increase customer loyalty through the phenomenon of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_customization
• no display of locked skills due to transformation
• no display of normal weapon sets while wielding an item
• many tooltips are incomplete or plain wrong. For example condition duration is almost always displayed wrong. It is very important for decision making to know how a skill/trait work and what it does exactly. “Improving your damage for every boon on you” is like “Haha… dumb player! Go find this kitten out yourself, we don’t give a kitten about other games properly explaining themselves. We are more elite and yesterdayish than that!”
• expected queue time for tPvP
• different nameplates for minions and players (note illusions should have player color, phantasms shouldn’t)

missing UI elements

• macros. As a developer you can not decide if a player uses macros but rather how accessible macros are. With todays hardware and several programs it is quite possible to create macros for any software. Since hardware macros are programmed onto the device itself they are basically undetectable. Hence your choice to not support macros is rather… interesting. In addition the whole social aspect of macros goes missing (taunts/chat lines/…)
• Interface Addons. Addons are important for mass customization, improve and strenghten your community and enables you to be lazy with UI developement yourself. Think World of Warcraft which still has a worse standard UI than what AddOns provide. WoW is basically unplayable without AddOns (Guild Wars 2 plays worse due to the lack of AddOns than it could as well)
• dungeon finder (its a standard feature for MMOs and GW2 needs it, never done a dungeon because I can’t be arsed to search for a group. Searching for groups oneself should belong to ancient MMO history…)
• queueing for 8vs8 and 5vs5 outsite the Heart of the Mists
• no general/system that helps solo players in WvWvW to join up and do something useful (many players don’t like to commit to groups/join voice channels, for those players WvWvW is just terrible)
• incorrect display of cast times. While skills actually cast as long as stated there is a hidden pause after each skill. Best example is plague blast of underwater Death Shroud
• confusing display of damage that is dealt throughout several hits. 5×250 reads 5 times 250 and not 5 attacks that sum up to 250 damage
• no hint to defense values. Is 2600 defense high or low?! (I know it but the paper doll didn’t help at all…)
• aciton bars for consumables. I don’t want to search for my consumables in my UI, ancient MMO history yet again…
• No Default Chat Channel. Channel defaults to the last channel typed in.
• Alt/Mouseclick spams whatever you’re clicking into your default chat channel.

The reason I’m shifting into DS is not for taking no damage to my real life bar but rather because I need stability to get the stomp through.

Andele.1306:

Hope that you know that you cant stomp via DS unless you wanna get stuck post the cast…

I just pop into DS for a fraciton of a second to gain the stability buff. The stomping happens outside of DS.

I finally identified my issue with the necro. It was being unable to stomp enemies. There is only one reliable option for stomping enemies as a necro:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Foot_in_the_Grave
Its a must have. Just switch in and out of Death Shroud before finishing an enemy and you’ll be able to due to stability.
You could also try to use blind but its a lot less reliable since you’ll have to time it perfectly.
I’m having fun, with a necromancer!!!

Being downe is not balanced AoE defense (Guardian, Elementalist, Ranger, Mesmer, Thief) vs single target defense (warrior, necromancer, engineer).
The chances of killing a downed enemy isn’t handed out equally either. Some can stomp enemies whie invul (mesmer, thief, guardian, warrior), some can stomp with quickness, some can stomp with stability, some can stomp while invisible and there is the necromancer which can just stomp.
In addition some classes can not be stopped from reviving an ally.
Its a mess….
GW2 plays like an unnecessary complicated shooter with a second chance mechanic :/

Kousetsu.1627:

2vs1 impossible because of downed state? you play a class/build/weaponcombo that has no cc whatsoever or stability? lol

same goes for stunbreakers, i see so many ppl die in cc when you can have 3 stunbreakers in total in GW2 lol. thief can have like 5 if he wants

You obviously did not play all professions. Otherwise you’d know that stunkbreaker, invis, invul and stability availability isn’t handed out remotely fair.
I’m guessing you play one of the burst setups, probably thief or warrior, where you don’t even need stability for stomping due to quickness (the most broken thing in the game right now).
But you aren’t even trying to discuss my points you are just happy with playing one of the professions with a rifle…

I wish it would be a first impression, its rather after 585 games and 165 tournaments. Also tried all classes.
Since Anet talks a lot about eSports and competetive play I did expect deep gameplay rather than shooter gameplay. The low TTK doesn’t allow for strategic combat, its twitchy not thinky :/

TTK is plain silly right now.
2vs1 is impossible unless your enemies are asleep leading to attrition not being viable, which makes burst the way to go.
Why would I want to play an MMO paced as fast as a shooter with all that unnecessary MMO complexity attached to it?
In addition not every profession gets a rifle, some get a pistol (necro).
Have to admit, I’m quite disappointed.

Just noticed my Flesh Golem regenrating health out of combat like players do.
Unfortunately the AI still idles and other minions still don’t regenerate health :/

Still… Stealth buff, yay!

The funny part is that they do have a working AI in their code. Mesmer clones and ranger pets don’t have this idling problem.

I hate 8vs8. Its plain bad. Burst is almost OP in 5vs5 already in 8vs8 it becomes silly.
One of the best improvements for sPvP would be to change 8vs8 to 5vs5.
Being up early most of the time and playing before work I HAVE to play this horrible horrible format if I want to PvP at all, because tPvP won’t open up early in the day (in Europe that is).
8vs8 is almost as horrible as quickness designwise.

JonPeters.5630:

It does not give a free res. These guys can’t rally you. Also they die in about 11 seconds, not 2 seconds. I would like them to have a bit more survivable, but the real problem is obviously them aggroing. Necro minions are supposed to aggro based on what you attack only, so if this particular minion is not following that rule that is the real problem. We are currently investigating it and will make any changes we think are necessary.

I’d rather have all minions aggro random mobs than them being idle like they are now!
The funny thing is ranger pets and elementals not having those issues. Its a Necormancer exclusive.
Also they need to be able to jump down cliffs and stop taking a huge detour like they are doing now.

It provides an opportunity to rally for our opponents while wasting a trait slot and aggroing unwanted enemies for us.

I don’t care about bots at all. Its a strange sight for sure but bots don’t affect me in the least.
Using a bad server community as an example for a game being bad is just moronic. Maybe the customer support is slow to deal with bots and racist idiots in the USA, thats an issue with customer support not the game itself. In addition I can’t share his experience playing on a european server at all.
Germany being one of the few nations worldwide banning racism and deeming it unacceptable, there isn’t much racism either. So far, in my online gaming time, the most racist people were from other contintens than europe and especially not other germans.
Although I don’t understand why ArenaNet won’t utilize datamining to spot such unusal behavioer. It should be the simplest thing to write a software pointing towards the pattern of behavior botted gameplay has. Once pointed towards a dedicated CSR could ban the account.
In fact this article is so biased and lacking in logic, one might think hey was paid to write it by companies fearing ArenaNets quality product.

Like night and day! Awesome, thanks!

Nice writeup. You forgot attacks per second of minions though. You can find them here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Autoattack-DPS-and-cast-times/first#post258301

sPvP and WvWvW
That most of the rest turned out awesome as well was a nice surprise.

Behold the bane of all bunkers: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Superior_Nullification
Also worth noting: conditions don’t trigger retaliation

Or maybe, just maybe, you weren’t that good in 1vs1 situations while playing non tournament sPvP. Just maybe you had a little help or dueled wounded players that didn’t have their cooldowns up

@Kuroi
Finally someone who gets me!

I don’t feel cheated of content by not doing dungeons. In fact, there is so much different stuff I want and like to do in Guild Wars 2, its sometimes hard to decide for me how to play the game.

Typically I spend my time playing Guild Wars 2 with:

• trying out builds in the Heart of the Mists
• playing sPvP tournaments
• making heaps of money at the Tradingpost
• leveling one of my 8 chars a little
• goofing around with my level 80 Necro somewhere in Tyria

Sometimes I feel the itch to jump into a dungeon, its just an itch though. If starting the dungeon is more work than playing another round of sPvP or logging onto an alt, I’d rather scratch that itch away with said instantfun.

So again, I’m having fun in Guild Wars 2. For me its a complete experience. Being the “killer type”-player PvP is almost all I want from a game, especially without power progression. However I know that the majority of the theme park mmo crowd are PvE guys. I’ve seen many players complain and eventually leave because they got too frustrated by the lack of an LFG tool. That is what bothers me, the game is incomplete PvEwise and its going to hamper its success, which I consider very very sad.

Yes its a lazy attitude, yes its spoiled, it may even be elitist but its like saying “Sorry guys but you can’t sell a car without a satnav anymore”, its lazy and spoiled but also true. Its not the point if satnavs are necessary or if they are a sign towards a lifestyle bursting from unnecessary luxuaries, its about if the competetion has satnavs and about that customers expect satnavs. Theme park MMOs players expect an LFG tool and arenaNet unfortunately didn’t deliver. Any LFG tool that requires more work than it requires to join sPvP doesn’t suffice.

@the people worrying about the social aspect of dungeons (or rather group finding). Just a little tweak is neccessary to prevent what happened in World of Warcraft (server communities becoming meaningless): priorize players from your server over players from a different server for forming a dungeon group. There goes the big con of LFG tools being antisocial. Friendslist and grouping doesn’t respect servers anyway in Guild Wars 2, just FYI.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just wanted to pop in and say thanks to everyone for all the nice comments about Gw2 in this thread. We’re thrilled to see such an overwhelming majority of you feel like you got more than your moneys worth out of Gw2!

And while that is all well and good, we’d like to think we can give you even more for that initial $60 investment. The Shadow of the Mad King release on 10/22 is just the start of what will be a series of high quality regular releases expanding on all parts of the Gw2 world, from special events and holidays, to new content and features.

Our hope is by the end of the year, you look back on those $60 and feel like you not only got a great game, you also got a massive amount of live additions as part of that one-time purchase.

We’d love to have you all come back to this thread on January 1st 2013 and let us know how we’re doing

Thanks again everyone, and see you in game!

After the downfall of Bioware and Blizzard, ArenaNet is one of the few quality studios left.
You are on par with Rocksteady Studios (Batman Arkham City), CD Project Red (Witcher), Firaxis (Civilization) and DICE (Battlefield).
I salute you for being developers and artists!

No, its a great decision. One of the most outstanding features of Guild Wars 2 is how it allows to customize a Profession towards your playstyle.

Can’t say I care about sound and graphics that much. Thiefs almost always do their woofy shadowy move sound on skill use.

I don’t know if its difficult to find a group now.
Though I know what its like in other games. Eventually there won’t be enough lower level players to start a lowlevel dungeon on your server. People working in shifts will not find enough players to do a dungeon on their servers during non-primetime hours.
Players on low population servers, which exist in every MMO successful or not, will have a hard time finding people for dungeons anytime during the day.
I don’t mind not having an LFG tool, I play GW2 for its PvP. I love this game though and want it to be as successful as humanly possible. The lack of an LFG tool will and probably already does lead to loss of customers, whom otherwise would’ve supported and played the game.
So guys, drop your pitchforks. There is no need for a witchhunt and building stakes for the heretic. I love this game as much as you do. However it does lack an LFG tool and it is a flaw.
The majority of players expect convenient, instant fun, which can’t be delivered without an LFG tool, at least for PvE.
The whole rest of the game delivers convenient, instant fun. Porting wherever you want, UI mailing system, PvP from everywhere, up- and downscaling, events, rewards for about everything, sending collectibles to your bank from everywhere,…
So I assume its been a conscious decision to not have an LFG tool. All I want to do here is pointing out “Sorry guys, thats not a design or artistic decision but rather leaving out a standard feature, a necessety!”

This game needs a LFG tool exactly like the one WoW has.

Not exactly like WoW. I’d prefer if the system would priorize players from your server over the rest, so you can get to know other players from your server while doing dungeons.

Maybe now you’ll believe me that there is a demand for LFG tools. I even dare to say its a necessety if you want players of the PvE crowd.

I’d like that too. Being used to fully equiped and skilled charcs by sPvP I feel crippled when playing the same Profession at low levels and lose interest quickly.

Fighting over objectives is definetly more motivating than pure deathmatch.
Although I think an 1vs1 deathmatch mode would add to the game. Team deathmatch on the other hand would suck players out of tournaments, why I’d consider it a bad addition.

I disagree
Guild Wars 2 combat is fastpaced, classes play differently and it has a lot of depth.
The average human can hold 5 items in his working memory and compare them simultaneously. At a point in time you have 10 abilities + Profession mechanic at your disposal. That offers more than enough depth.
Ever played Arkham City? Its combat has even more depth with less buttons.

Nope. Its the exact right amount of Waypoints. The game world is still meaningful without much downtime by walking distances.
One of the things I absolutely love about Guild Wars 2 is the travel system.

Having no automated LFG tool is bad, very bad. SWTOR lost a lot of PvE people due to not having one.
Its an MMO requirement and I was really suprised to find out that GW2 doesn’t have one. Considering that the rest of the game (except WvWvW) is tailored towards accessibility and convience.
After playing years of WoW I’m not that interested into instanced dungeons anymore, seen it all, though I still would’ve taken a look at GW2 dungeons but not without a LFG tool.
No LFG tool and no UI customization are the worst two things about GW2.

Totally worth it. One of the best games this year.