Guild Wars 2

the limit of making ONE charged quartz per day per account baffles me, especially since it’s account bound. and so is the celestial gear we make from the charged quartz. this is EXOTIC gear we’re making, not ascended. it shouldn’t take 4 months of logging in every day just to make charged quartz, in order to make a full set (armour plus trinkets plus weapons) of exotic gear.

edit: math fail…

for jewelry, one jewel needs 3 charged quartz, one piece of jewelry needs 5 jewels… so that’s 15 days per piece of jewelry, 5 pieces of jewelry makes 75 days.

the armour recipes need a total of 6 insignia (1 insignia per armour piece), at 5 charged quartz each, for 30 days.

so, minimum 105 days to gear up ONE toon in celestial exotic gear, not counting weapons.

i have the same problem… every time i get in a TTS teq run or AARM teq run. the game’s audio crashes, followed a minute or so later by the client crashing. ONLY happens during full map teq fights. on two different PCs with different specs and up to date drivers.

PC1: i7-4930k, Rampage IV BE, GTX 670 (2x) SLI, on board Realtek audio 7.1 surround sound, win 8.1

PC2: AMD Phenom 2 x4 965 black edition, GTX 480, Win 7, X-Fi audio 2.1 sound.

also running teamspeak and hwmonitor besides GW2.

warrior is considered a “burst” class… and (to my disagreement) no other class is, except maybe thief. i was basing my “problem 2” from Anet’s perspective, not mine. i would personally love a default 2.25 second channel, and a 1.125 second channel under quickness. but of course… warriors will probably complain about how unfair it is that another class is as powerful as them…

disclaimer: the warrior comment is intended for entertainment purposes only. no actual harm to warriors of any race was inflicted.

it depends how close to 65% cap you are… if you have 58% crit chance or lower, then spotter will earn you the full 7%… if you’re at 62%… you’ll only gain 3%, and then eagle eye would be better. i typically run with eagle eye + piercing arrows for the range + AoE. i also have 62% crit chance unbuffed. also, running solo, you can use a sigil of accuracy for that 7% if you’re so inclined, and still have room for force or bloodlust or strength sigil. or air or torment or fire… whatever you prefer.

and yes, i know a lot of people want you to build to buff the zerg, but in my experience, there’s always someone in the zerg with spotter. and if every ranger runs spotter, it ends up being a waste unless they coordinate with each other exactly where to stand spread out… which would still be a waste considering how everybody uses the melee stack tactic everywhere.

my offer for improving longbow #2:

problem 1: 4.5 second channel to obtain less damage than letting off 4 auto attacks.
problem 2: can’t reduce the channel time to 2.25 seconds without making the skill OP when quickness is applied

solution: apply 2.25 seconds of quickness to the ranger at the beginning of the channel, thereby increasing DPS without being OP. default. (or at worst, added to eagle eye trait)

right now… my opinion is that staff elementalist is too much like the original GW1 mesmer was in PvE: it’s defense is totally managed around denying your attacker.

the GW1 mesmer was about denying your attacker through interrupts, hexes that punished the attacker for attacking, draining the attacker’s energy to prevent them from casting spells or attacks. but in PvE, all the mesmer could do was stop one or two foes from attacking. while the rest of the foes still ran free doing all the damage they wanted.

the staff elementalist is designed pretty much the same way: keep the attacker at range using pushbacks to prevent melee attacks (yeah right! gap closers are far more effective than gust) chill or immobilize the attacker to slow down their assault, blind the attacker, stun the attacker. but the problem is… blindning / stunning / chilling / immobilizing the attacker isn’t killing the attacker. it’s only temporarily preventing the attacker from killing the staff elementalist. and that’s not a fun way to play.

of all the conditions out there, staff elementalist has too many “anti-mobility” conditions that don’t damage the other characters’ HP.

my opinion again: (and my apologies for repeating myself)

add some poison to staff earth 1, poision field to staff earth 4, make staff earth 5 piercing. earth 2 should have the damage spread out among 3 pulses with the blast finisher (and bleeding) at the end.

add vulnerability to staff air 1, 2, and 3.

both earth 3 and air 4 should give retaliation in addition to their current effects

water 2 should be a blast finisher

edit: actually, i take back offering vulnerability to Gust… i think torment would be a better fit as anti-mobility condition on an anti-mobility skill.

6 earth can gain you: +10% damage within 600 range, +10% damage when endurance is full, +5% damage against bleeding targets, and 100% uptime of signet passive effects, even when you activate them.

i guess you’re right… not power friendly at all… nobody wants to do +25% damage with good positioning. pshaw!

Retsuko.2035:

Sigil of water is actually pretty good…..

Restoration isn’t reliable enough. It depends on if the people you can tag, will die or not. Surely nice if it kicks in at the right time, but overall not too reliable.

Also wondering what your first sigil is. Renewal is on weapon/attunement swap. Take in mind that two sigils with the same mechanic/type don’t work together. Like sigil of battle and sigil of energy won’t work with renewal.

Eitherway, sigil of water procs a lot because it’s ON HIT, not on crit. With a bit healing power you could heal up to 500+ per time it procs, and in a zerg you heal multiple people per time.

replying to the bolded part…. that was explicity mentioned in BLOGS and READYUP that was changed.

http://dulfy.net/2014/03/21/gw2-ready-up-episode-8-developer-livestream/

Sigil internal cooldowns are now specific to each sigil, meaning you can use two sigils of the same type on the same weapon set (example: battle and energy) but you can’t use a superior sigil of fire with a major sigil of fire for example.

back to the OP. sigil of renewal is good for you if you feel like you lack self-support / sustain, since you are always guaranteed to get the heal. only a 9 second cooldown.

that sigil of restoration suggestion doesn’t sound bad either, offers a lot of sustain when you have a steady stream of kills in a big battle, but again, needs that steady stream of kills to be effective.

interesting ideas, ThiBash.

for sake of discussion / collection of staff ideas:

Forgotten Legend.9281:

a little bit of a dream sheet of mine for staff skills:

staff earth skills:

1: make this piercing so it can hit multiple targets, also add 1 stack vulnerability 4s
2: reduce the time between the cast and the blast finisher, or add a channel that when complete, buffs the bleed by another few stacks and/or increase the initial blast damage by 2x EDIT: spreading the damage out during over a few seconds would be good too, like how ThiBash mentions
3: add retaliation for 5s
4: add poison field for 3s
5: enable piercing to allow for multiple targets. “shockwave.” sounds like it should be AoE

staff air skills:

1: add 4s vulnerability, and add swiftness (4s) to allies it touches
2: blast finisher 20% chance (or more)
3: projectile finisher
4: add quickness (3s) to allies

staff water:

2: blast finisher 20% chance (or more)

staff fire:

1: blast finisher 20% chance

i can’t really offer any suggestions to D /D or S /C as my ele only uses staff (RP reasons)

as for cantrips, since they have the longest cooldowns of similiar skills among all the classes:

~armour of earth: grant nearby allies stability and protection
~arcane shield: change to function like guardian shield 5 skill. allowing the elementalist to detonate the shield early for damage on command via skill press.
~mist form: increase duration to 5 seconds, allow the elementalist to cancel early and gain retaliation (or regeneration) for 5 seconds

i, too, miss wards. they brought so much better group support to the class than conjures could ever hope to bring.

actually, i think conjures should be redone….

1) taken out of the utility skill pool
2) in PvE, the 4 non elite conjures become the elemental weapon swaps.

what i mean by 2, is this. the lava axe would be the new skill bar if you hit the weapon swap button while in fire, frost bow would be the new skill bar if in water, earth shield in earth, and lightning hammer if in air.

i don’t think it could be balanced for PvP, but in PvE, it would allow elementalists to at least change roles while in combat, and make the class a little easier for beginners, since fire is the first element you have as a level 1, and lava axe is focused around damage and mobility. it’s a good first step. water is the second attunement we learn, and frost bow begins to teach control and support. then air, (lightning hammer) with more tactical offense, and then earth (earth shield) teaching more about defense.

it could even go so far as to make the current conjures the default skills within the element, and then after whatever level that weapon swaps are unlocked, then elementalist would be able to equip weapons for their role change. ie, staff / scepter + focus / dagger + dagger would be the secondary weapon set.

/sigh. i know. keep dreaming. cure your bacon deficiency before posting, Forgotten Legend.

my favorite note about megaservers:

+225% players on a single map copy. so 125 (i base this on marionette fight because i forgot the actual population limit per map copy) times 2.25 = 281 + 125 = 406 players per map copy now. sure, the number could be bigger, but 400 + players per map is awesome! TEQ and the WURM might finally be accessable to the average and / or casual player now.

EDIT: i really hope i understand that note correctly… :/

my problems with TEQ and Wurms isn’t so much that they are difficult.

my first problem with them is that bosses like them should be in level 80 zones only, since they were designed to challenge max level characters.

my second problem with them is that they should be instanced, so that a commander can open the instance (personal story style) and then coordinate the “raid boss” properly, WITHOUT inconveniencing everyone else on the server in that zone that doesn’t give a flying finger about that one stupid hard event. instancing the “raid boss” would also cut down on “AFK-greifing” since normal players going AFK in the zone on their home server or in an overflow wouldn’t affect the 120 players trying to beat the “raid boss.”

also, if the “raid boss” is instanced, a watered down version of the world boss could be added as a regular dynamic world event for everyone else.

EDIT: PS. if they’re instanced, then they can be in any zone and it wouldn’t matter.

Axelwarrior.9084:

You mean sword 2.

you’re absolutely right. i really have to do something about my bacon deficiency. edited and corrected. thanks.

i caught a little of the CDI while i was on the road (truck driver here, and i didn’t read the forums while i was driving, but when i stopped for lunchbreaks and such)

i recall the community basically wanted to swap the functionality of sword 2 to leap INTO combat, and then the second skill in the chain jump out of combat. i don’t like this suggestion, mainly because the second skill in the chain resets so quickly. there wouldn’t be time enough to use the escape before it resets. there wouldn’t be enough time for 1 full autoattack chain to complete before the escape skill resets back to the leap skill.

personally, i like the current functionality of 1st: evade out of combat, then leap back into combat. on demand escape is why i use the weapon to begin with. and the autoattack chain already has a leap.

i would suggest, since the auto attack chain already has a leap as the third attack in the chain, simply move that attack to the front of the chain instead of the end. the second attack would be the damaging attack, and the third would be the interrupt.

i suggest moving the interrupt to the end of the chain due to it’s synergy with Moment of Clarity. the interrupt seems like it would be a better payoff for sticking with a target til the end of the autoattack chain, and the GM trait would payoff granting extra damage on the leap, just as it does now, since the chain, when rotating 1-2-3-1-2-3, the leap still follows after the interrupt as it does now.

i agree that fire’s embrace should be dropped to adept tier. fire aura’s are the same as the adept minor, and frankly in my opinion are TOO melee defensive oriented (and too weak) for the power line. i’d rather gain retaliation instead of burning, because at least retaliation affects ranged attackers as well, and scales with power. retaliation has much better synergy.

also consider that elementalists traited heavily in fire can so easily cause burning that anyone attacking the ele in melee is probably already burning. since burning stacks in duration and not intensity (unless you’re using a torch offhand on OTHER classes for the 8-stack burning) it’s still practically worthless.

but i definitely see how these suggestions would add to signet and aura synergy. and maybe finally make them fun to play.

correction:

242.3/2.84 = 85%, therefore 15% decrease in final critical damage completely buffed
242.3 * 0.94 + 100 * 0.06 = 233.76
284 * 0.94 + 100 * 0.06 = 272.96

233.76/2.7296 = (85.63) 14.4% dps loss from ferocity change alone + 2.5 % from sigil change

RESULT: you can expect dungeon speedrun groups (top organised ones) to lose about 17% of their damage output.

/sigh… i don’t know if “read the wind” will be worth splitting up “eagle eye + piercing arrows” combo in PvE. i’d personally rather have spotter as a minor trait instead of alpha training, and piercing arrows as a minor instead of whatever the trait is called that gives auto-crit to opening strike.

but yeah, the anytime trait resets are gonna be nice!

oZii.2864:

They are balanced especially using your examples because your list is all ranged weapons. Range shouldn’t be pumping out damage like a sword auto attack. Everyone knows ranged is weaker then melee by design. If it wasn’t players would go range all day long because it has a automatic advantage vs melee in that it can force the use of important defensive abilities OR start doing damage before melee gets close.

what’s the point of a ranged weapon if it can’t do damage at range? especially when melee gap closers negate the advantage of ranged damaged almost immediately. sorry, but this argument sounds like “melee characters should ALWAYS trump ranged” and “melee characters should be immune to ranged damaged by default”

IF melee weapons DIDN"T have gap closers, i’d agree with you, but the truth is that gap closers give melee weapons the distinct advantage here, without risk to the melee user. the melee user SHOULD have to burn defensive cooldowns if surprise-attacked by a ranged weapon. it wouldn’t be fair if melee attackers jumped in and used their entire autoattack chain to find they did no damage to a target that was just standing there… so why is it fair that ranged characters can’t damage melee?

oZii.2864:

Ranged auto attacks should be weaker then Melee that might not have been your point but that is what your list consists of so I can’t help to think that you believe range should have damage comparable to melee or that it should even come close to melee damage.

i understand the mentallity behind the design choice for melee weapons (especially autoattack chain) being stringer than ranged weapon autoattacks. however, right now, ranged damage is still too weak. BECAUSE there is no threat to melee characters that a simple gap closer can’t overcome.

where is the risk / reward in a ranged vs melee fight?
ranged user: great risk, little to no reward
melee user: great reward, little to no risk
that’s not balanced. the scale is heavily weighted in favor of melee, all because of the gap closer.

EDIT: Einlanzer also suggested that ranger shortbow (a ranged weapon) is too strong #1 skill…. so appears to not be biased, to me.

an example of pay to win would be that you have to buy your elite skill SLOT for 10$. or you pay 50$ to unlock Fiery Greatsword as a permanent equip-able weapon for your mesmer in sPvP. or 100$ to buy a Atlas 100-ton mech (from battletech universe) to be able to three-shot Tequatl.

John Smith.4610:

Pie Flavor.1647:

And why do they have more disposable income? I thought the entire concept of First World meant that people on the First World would have more disposable income, yet again, a “statistic” not backed by any source

Economic Sidebar: While I don’t know about “First World” as a concept, there are several official ways in which economic development is measured.

continue on.

from the wikipedia:

During the Cold War, the First World was the United States and its allies, the Second World was the Soviet Union and its allies, and the Third World was the neutral and nonaligned countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cold_War_alliances_mid-1975.svg

after the Cold War ended (basically when the Berlin Wall fell) the terms could almost only refer to their economic connotations. and third World basicly took on the meaning of “poor” or “underdeveloped” nations, since they weren’t the world’s “superpowers.”

if i may offer / repeat a suggestion for the skirmishing – traps -marksmanship feedback summary. it seems to me that marksmanship (due to the name implying accuracy) should have precision and crit damage stats, (possibly even swap the minor traits, too) and then skirmishing would become the power and condition damage line. traps would make more sense in skirmishing then, and a few more traits could be swapped to fit the stat swap if needed.

just before the evening patch (which fixed the prime holo bug) i got 2/3 on overflow… after the patch 0/6 on TC.

i think what Tyler is saying is that the on swap sigils will retain their current cooldowns after the update. which means if you use a sigil of strength, it will retain its non cooldown, meaning it will still proc everytime you swap attunements. if you’re using sigil of torment, however, it will retain it’s internal cooldown of 7 seconds. so it totally depends on WHICH sigils you slot on how beneficial they’ll be considering how often you can swap…

condition ele would need to apply more stacks of vulnerability, ability to stack intensity for burning, (there are a few torch skills out there that apply 8 stacks of burning for massive “burst” damage, according to their tooltips) and probably applying poison / poison fields in earth, to become viable conditionalist

a little bit of a dream sheet of mine for staff skills:

staff earth skills:

1: make this piercing so it can hit multiple targets, also add 1 stack vulnerability 4s
2: reduce the time between the cast and the blast finisher, or add a channel that when complete, buffs the bleed by another few stacks and/or increase the initial blast damage by 2x
3: add retaliation for 5s
4: add poison field for 3s
5: enable piercing to allow for multiple targets. “shockwave.” sounds like it should be AoE

staff air skills:

1: add 4s vulnerability, and add swiftness (4s) to allies it touches
2: blast finisher 20% chance (or more)
3: projectile finisher
4: add quickness (3s) to allies

staff water:

2: blast finisher 20% chance (or more)

staff fire:

1: blast finisher 20% chance

i can’t really offer any suggestions to D /D or S /C as my ele only uses staff (RP reasons)

as for cantrips, since they have the longest cooldowns of similiar skills among all the classes:

armour of earth: grant nearby allies stability and protection
arcane shield: change to function like guardian shield 5 skill. allowing the elementalist to detonate the shield early for damage on command via skill press.
mist form: increase duration to 5 seconds, allow the elementalist to cancel early and gain retaliation (or regeneration) for 5 seconds

i’m running 30/30/10/0/0 on my ranger. longbow, axe / axe.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAT3XjEVV21VuVo2Bg1j96LwWBOZPMkxHP5ShAC-jQyAYfAsVkxXJjyEIiAcyrIasthioxqrxUuER1yAoPGA-e

i take two traps, (usually fire and poison, for the short cooldowns, but for WvW i take frost and spike for the chill / cripple). the 10 in wilderness survival is specifically for reducing the cooldown on lightning reflexes and entangle. and i always save lightning reflexes for the stun break, unless i ran out of stamina for a much needed dodge.

as far as pets, i change them alot. currently is the salamander drake for melee when i melee and dps, and black widow (same as jungle spider) for the poison and immobilize. i’ve been thinking about taking white moa for chill and heal support, too. murellow seems to be another of my favorites for the tanky nature with poison fields.

i run full zerker gear, too… but i’m mostly staying in PvE. i like to have a set of soldier’s armour on all my toons to swap out when i head to WvW for that extra durability.

personally, i’d rather have 4 separate normal elemental summons. (one skill for earth elemental, 1 different skill for fire elemental, 1 different skill for water, etc…) with on-command skills, and traits that can buff them. at worst, these on-command skills would provide effects, such as conditions or combo-fields or blast finishers, so they could be affected by the existing traits.

and then an elite arcane elemental that the on-command skill changes when the player switches attunements. the arcane elemental that was summoned would not change however.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

sorry, but with the 60 second limit, the only thing that would make this skill Elite worthy is to make it an arcane elemental whose spells change based on player attunement. and give a “on-command” skill that changes with player attunement. and then drop the 60 second timer.

flesh golem has a 60 second cooldown for an elite summons that stays until it dies, and has “on command” skill. guardian summons (spectral weapons) at least give a “on-command” skill as well. and of course mesmers get their “on command” shatters and rangers get their “on command” f2s.

i forgot engineers with their summoned turrets + on-command skills, and warriors with their banners, that are better than conjures because they don’t dissolve when other players drop them after picking them up. and thanks to those above who also mentioned ranger spirits. and of course the rest of necro minions.

it seems to me that a design philosophy exists that was discarded for elementalist class (and apparently some elite skills, too). this needs to be remedied in my opinion. the design philosophy that ALL summons give an on-command skill to the player skill bar while the summon is active.

this game (GW2) is built around the philosophy that each and every player character should be built around self-sufficency. the problem, is that too many people still want some sort of babysitter. the new babysitter isn’t a healer per se, but someone else to drop combo-fields, someone else to drop blast finishers, someone else to remove group conditions, someone else to bubble the group… the list goes on and on.

i can understand building a toon around a team build in structured team PvP. but in PvE? i am confused. is PvE faceroll easy? then why does everyone still want a babysitter? oh yeah, so they can focus solely on DPS, and not worry about CC or healing themselves or dodging well telegraphed attacks…

since two handed weapons will now have 2 sigil slots, meaning that everyone always has 2 sigil slots available in every weapon set (except of course in the starter instances) … are there any plans for sigil sets, with set bonuses? these could be class specific set bonuses even.

and also…

superior sigil of demon summoning.

how i expect it to work:
a) gain a stack when killing a foe
b) when gaining the 26th stack, lose all stacks and summon a fleshreaver
c) gain more stacks when killing subsequent foes
d) when gaining the new 26th stack, same as b)
e) repeat

how it works for me:
a) gain a stack when killing a foe
b) when gaining the 26th stack, lose all stacks and summon a fleshreaver
c) no longer gain stacks

what i hope the update does:
a) make the sigil act like how i expect it to act

P.S. sorry about harping on sigils and runes so much… i’m just really excited about the changes to them!

i think blast finisher would be best on the stealth or knockback skills. mainly to allow for area might when a ranger could benefit from it, when the target is close enough that the blast would buff the ranger. after all, those two skills are the ones you would use in melee in a defensive manor. blast finisher would also add an offensive effect as well. could possibly even synergize with Moment of Clarity grandmaster skirmish trait (gain attack of opportunity upon interrupting a foe), but that would mean it would be on the shorter cooldown stealth, which would slow DPS. i suppose the blast would make up for the momentary pause though.

only trouble though, could be OP with piercing arrows if it triggered on every foe it passed through…

i prefer the black widow (and/or jungle spider) for immobilize + poisons, and
usually red salamander for the burn and AoEs (plus self heal), if i need something a little tankier, the murellow gives a nice poison field, too. but if i know melee pets will die too quickly in a particular fight, i take both spiders i mentioned above

hi,

another kinda sigil question. since the “on-crit” sigils are getting buffed to 100% chance,

a) are they going to keep their current cooldowns? or get higher cooldowns (preferably keep their current or shorter cooldowns /wink wink nudge nudge)

b) are “on-crit” traits also going to get 100% chance procs? or are there other plans for the traits. (basicly, the on-crit sigils will render the on-crit traits totally weak, considering that the traits are in the 30% range mostly, some 10% some 60% chance)

c) how will the on crit sigils stack with the on crit traits, such as the bleed sigil plus the bleed trait for ranger?

P.S. where’s the spoiler forums? ;-)

Josh Foreman.8250:

…The other question that I hope is answered in the positive is this: Can the average player skill be raised by challenging content like this? We know that X% of players don’t know about traits. We know Y% never swap out their 7-0 skills to accommodate specific challenges. And there are probably dozens of other systems that go unused by some portion of the player-base. If even 10% of that group hits a challenge like the Marionette and the subsequent tension causes them to look into these systems and they learn a new depth to the game they otherwise never would have, I think that’s a win for everybody. The average skill level rises, and in turn, we devs can make more interesting events that utilize the depth of the systems we have.

Having said all that, if after a week the Marionette is still only being beaten 1 out of 10 times, then I would say we may have tuned it a bit too difficult. On the other hand, we don’t know how long it takes for the aggregate skill level of the player-base to grow. I don’t know how long it takes for information about traits and builds to disseminate to those who had previously never looked into them. As with all our content, we are closely watching and noting these things so that every future project can learn from it…

i see where you’re coming from as far as trying to get people to look more at their traits. but in all honesty, i think that sort of design direction should take into consideration the difficulties in swapping skills/ builds on the fly.

first… many people choose the weapon, then they choose their utility / elite skills, then they choose their traits to buff their weapon and utility / elite skills. (granted, as you mention, many other don’t even know about traits.) basicly, what i’m saying is, swapping out several utilities / elite generally means that the current trait setup ALSO needs to be altered, and sometimes that means simply swapping out II and swapping in IV, but sometimes that means switching from 30/30/10/0/0 to 0/20/0/20/30 (for example). that can be a problem for certain large scale fights with population issues (like teq, triple trouble, marionette).

currently, swapping a single trait requires opening the trait panel, and swapping II for IV. but swapping builds requires going back to town, oftentimes leaving the zone, which is problematic with the current number of participants in triple trouble, tequatl, and the marionette. and then porting back to the zone to find out you’re in a different overflow than you started in, and in some cases, impossible to get back into the home server to be able to play with your friends, guild, or organized group event. (such as AARM or TTS Teq runs)

a partial fix for this issue, is simply add in class trainers near these large scale mega events, to allow us to switch builds more easily. (i say “partial” in hopes that “trait sets” will eventually be added into the game, and i’m looking forward to that CDI topic, even if it’s part of a broader CDI topic thread)

secondly… please be careful of falling into the rock-paper-scissors trap. to clarify my metaphor: designing a world boss so that certain skills trivialize the content, while LACK of those certain skills makes the content nigh impossible. that design totally removes the challenge by essentially programming a required exploit. we don’t want design like that. we want it to be challenging because it FEELS challenging, not because its a puzzle we have to learn, and then once we figure out the puzzle, we simply change all our skills and it becomes EZ mode.

that’s part of why the marionette feels so well designed. is that there is no required “i win” skills to trivialize the fight. it would be nice if it scaled downward a little bit though, say, for example, that 3 platforms would be required per lane to sever a chain if only 75 players showed up for the fight, (15 per lane, would still split up 5 people per platform) while it still would need 4 platforms for 100, and 5 platforms for 125 participants. maybe there could be another algorithm to split participants up evenly into the lanes. (a thought for future encounters derived from the marionette design)

sorry, but with the 60 second limit, the only thing that would make this skill Elite worthy is to make it an arcane elemental whose spells change based on player attunement. and give a “on-command” skill that changes with player attunement. and then drop the 60 second timer.

flesh golem has a 60 second cooldown for a summons that stays until it dies, and has “on command” skill. guardian summons (spectral weapons) at least give a “on-command” skill as well. and of course mesmers get their “on command” shatters and rangers get their “on command” f2s.

i agree the balance of Marienette is good. and i would honestly rather make THIS fight the new perma boss instead of the wurm fight.

i still say that the ultra hardcore fights should be instanced (they’re basically raid bosses anyway)
a) to allow for better organization of groups by allowing them to enter the instance together
b) so everyone ELSE is not inconvenienced by the myriad of overflows that constantly pop up preventing us from playing on our own server.
c) open world bosses should never require more than half the population limit of the server for the zone, because of b). perhaps the servers containing the regions of the ultra hardcore world bosses (so far teq and triple trouble) should be upgraded to allow for double population. WvWvW maps can handle what, 4x the number of players as a PvE map? convert that tech for the PvE zones with ultra hardcore bosses
d) there would be a second version of the ultra hardcore boss watered down for the open world event… basically, so the hardcore version would need to be triggered by a commander. (see below)

perhaps a new feature should be added to commander tags… the ability to start an overflow instance, and then squad members can join that overflow instance. the commander would also have to be able to invite more commanders to the instance. however, additional programming would be needed to make it non-owned overflow. so that if the commander who started it D/Cs everyone else doesn’t get kicked from the instanced overflow shutting down. this could solve part a)

i’d love to see a AoE elite that caused 20 seconds of burning and increased damage with every pulse… kind of like combining searing heat and savannah heat from GW1 into one skill. [of course everyone would want attunement based condition… chill (water), bleeding(earth), vulnerability(air)] or better yet, a 20-30 second storm that applies all four of those conditions on every impact. base it off of how meteor shower works, except make the “meteors” meaner looking, like frozen rocks, with a 400 storm radius, 180 impact radius. (okay maybe i’m dreaming now, but with assumed typically long elite 180 second cooldown, it better be kittening awesome.) and yes, i actually spelled out k i t t e n i n g.

and i would love a trait giving ele’s a 1500 range.

the OTHER main question about the sigil / rune update… since on-crit sigils are getting 100% proc…. how about all the class traits that proc on crit? will those traits ALSO be boosted to 100% proc chance?

when i look at the traits for MM, 20/0/30/20/0…. death 25 gives a boost to power from toughness, and spite 15 gives a bonus to healing based on power. that’s the reason i personally chose soldier’s armour and weapons. i chose Carrion trinketts to help a little with the condition damage from marks (obviously staff) and sceptre / focus (i like chill and bouncing regen). as for all the vitality? well, i just wanted ONE character of mine to have near 30k HPs. (since my other 3 80s are elementalist, ranger, and guardian) coming from a PvE only perspective here.

in largescale group events, like scarlett invasions, i swap major traits to boost wells, marks, and life-transfer heal. then immediately switch back once scarlett runs away again…

i try to build my toons so that the trait points i spent will offer two basic builds, or primarily one build with a hybridized secondary build… just cause i’m lazy and don’t like to run back to town for every group event i come across…

boon durations…

as for sigils, they’re changing sigils to encourage us to use a full set of six instead of using 2/2/2…

example:

Runes changes

Big pass on all runes, making them all consistent with each other. (i.e. What % something proc, What % health trigger etc). Every single rune set pretty much changed. If you want to speculate on the runes on the TP, it is recommended to buy all sets.

Superior Rune of the ranger – 6 pt bonus didn’t do anything. It will be changed.

We moved stat weights to later bonuses (i.e. 4, 5, 6) so people don’t use mix-match rune bonuses.

Example: Superior rune of strength changed to 1) +25 power, 2) 10% might duration, 3) 50 power, 4) 15% might duration and 25% chance when struck to gain might for 10s with 10s cooldown 5) 100 power, 6) 20% might duration, +5% damage under might.

taken from http://dulfy.net/2014/01/17/gw2-ready-up-skill-and-balance-developer-livestream-notes/

compare the “new” sigil of strength to the “old” sigil of strength. the old sigil set gave a total of 20% might duration in a full set of 6… the new sigil gives 45% might for a full set.

so sure, going 2/2/2 won’t be as good anymore, but going full 6 gives you more stats and more benefit (such as more damage while might stacked) i hope a similiar 6 set bonus will show on the 6 set bonuses for the boon duration sigils. (maybe higher healing while under a boon)

so, while still a nerf to duration, it may balance out with higher potency

KITTEN!

Dreamy, you did it again. this guide gets better every time i see it. not only does it explain what all you can do in game, it doesn’t give away any spoilers. mini-games everywhere, open world dungeons. teasers to encourage new players to explore the world and look for them. i wonder how many players don’t even know about open world dungeons after casually strolling through Tyria for 3 months or more without ever accidentally stumbling upon them…

+1

EDIT: sticky! /signed

and it has SHARP, POINTY TEETH!

please forgive me for being so late into the discussion, and for possibly retreading old ground. i’d like to comment on the following:

horizontal progression (additional skills) in relation to
a) the personal story and
b) the order you join during the personal story
though to be honest, i’m not so sure this wouldn’t count as vertical progression…

a) there are some choices in the personal story whereas the character has to make a choice on how to proceed within a 10 level arc. for example, in the norn storyline involving the Jotun, you make a choice whether to obtain Wolf’s blessing, or to slay a beast in order to forge a better weapon, before you face the Jotun.

whichever choice you make, the result is that when you face the Jotun, you either are transformed into a wolf with a new skill bar, or you are equipped with the improved weapon and its unique skill bar. what’s to say that at some point, whichever of those options you chose, becomes a F5 skill for your character (which would be a PvE only skill of course) with say, a 30 minute cooldown.

b) with respect to your order, you have to recruit a “lesser” race to the “kill Zhaitan” cause. why not add a F6 skill (say with a 60 minute cooldown) allowing us to summon the hero or two that we interacted with, from the race we recruited, for say, 5 minutes.

c) further along in the personal story, once the pact is formed and we invade Orr, there are additional weapons, such as the searing cauldron and the golem, that could become F7 skills with say, a 3 hour cooldown (maybe 24 hours due to their power)

d) basically, these skills earned through the personal story could fill additional skill slots for buttons F5-F8 (we already use F1-F4 for class mechanics, why not F5-F8 for skills earned from personal story / order-related missions?)

e) speaking of “subclasses,” they could offer additional skills specifically for use by the F5-F8 locations

EDIT: oh, and the proposal looks good! /signed

thanks Dreamy! both for the links and for the 1-on-1 training. without it i’d still be saying things like: “elementalist is way too weak compared to other classes” or “elementalist just can’t survive” and other erroneous hyperbole.

and i’m also updating original post to include the link!

we’ve “heard” many times on the forums that Elementalists are harder to play than other classes. that other classes are easy-mode. that elementalists need a higher degree of skill in order to accomplish the same tasks. i will attempt to explain some of the “why” here, now that i’ve played a few other classes up to cap (or near cap).

edit: and by “higher degree of skill,” we obviously mean: player has to press more buttons in order to accomplish the same tasks as another class.

So we’re on the same page: please read DreamyAbaddon’s excellent guide on combat where he discusses the three combat roles: damage / control / support, found here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/GW2-Combat-system-101-Guide/first

i will reference the four classes i’ve played to higher levels (ele:80, ranger:80, necro:80, guardian:70) feel free to add examples from the other 4 classes

A: it’s harder to self-combo (i.e. other classes don’t have to swap weapons / attunement to start and complete a combo)

~1) other classes have combo field utility skills, allowing weapon skills to be the finishers

~~a) ranger traps / heal
~~b) guardian heal / consecrations
~~c) necromancer wells
~~d) elementalist has one blast finisher utility, no fields.

~2) other classes have fields and finishers on the same weapon set (for purposes of this discussion, attunement swap is the same as a weapon set: you have to switch from one to another to access the skills, creating an extra step)

~~a) guardian greatsword has light field, two whirls and a leap
~~b) ranger axe / torch set has fire field and projectile finishers (although this probably rarely used weapon set)
~~c) necro staff, projectile finisher and poison field
~~d) admittedly elementalist has ONE, scepter / focus: create a fire field with flamewall, and finish with the blast of pheonix. however, this is a more difficult combo to time and use effectively, since blast finisher in fire field grants AoE might, it must be timed so that the enemy is in the field at the same location of allies, and must be at the point where the pheonix turns around to go back to the elementalist

~3) most elementalist fields and finishers are ground-targetted, while other classes are simply targetted to the current selected target or targetted to self.

~~a) further, if another class (say necro) traits for fields (say wells) to be ground targeted, there are still finishers available that are not ground targetted (staff 1 skill)
~~b) ranger traps can be traited for ground targetting, but projectile and leap finishers only require a single selected target, and auto-targetting means no extra step to aquire the target.

in summary: elementalist have to push more buttons to make it’s own combos.

B: it’s harder to control

~1) other classes’ control is based on mobility (moving your character to the enemy) while elementalist control is designed around denial (keeping the enemy away from you)

~~a) for example, many classes have leap skills, to leap to the target, or teleport skills, to get to the target.
~~b) elementalist control is based around keeping the target away from you, or getting away from the target, like gust, unsteady ground, static field, applying chill, burning retreat

~2) a lot of elementalist control is ground targeted, while other classes’ control / mobility is targetted to an enemy

~~a) it’s harder to cast ground-targetted skills at range, especially for mouse-clickers (someone who selects skills by clicking on them with the mouse, instead of by pressing the 1-0 keys)

~~b) there is no ranged fast cast option to “cast on current selected target,” only to cast on self, or to cast on the mouse cursor. if the mouse cursor is on pointed on the skill to be cast, there’s no place to cast the skill, and therefore the skill doesn’t cast.

in summary: elementalist have to push more buttons to control the enemy.

C: other classes have group support utilities, enough to fill up all three utility slots

~1) guardians: consecrations, shouts,
~2) necro: wells
~3) ranger: spirits
~4) elementalist has no group support utilities
~~a) someone might say that conjures are support, since they offer teammates buffed stats while wielding the conjured weapons. but seriously, that supports one teammate at a time compared to 5 at a time that other classes offer with their utilities.

in summary, elementalists cannot build their utility skills around supporting the group, meaning all their support skills are buried within the attunements, which require more button presses to find the right attunement for the appropriate support skill.

remember that ANET designed the downed state to be used as a tactic in this game. and since the downed state does not count as a death, (e.i. the other team doesn’t get points for simply downing a player), some people are going to use “on-downed” traits to their advantage and turn the tide of a fight. especially when the “on-downed” player’s team-mates are actually paying attention and re-position themselves accordingly. granted, if the team sucks at awareness and positioning, i can see how they would constantly ridicule someone for using the trait.

the way i see it… with as many times as i’ve joined PUGs and overflows and even guild coordinated Teq fights… if i ever actually DO beat him, i better get a full set of Ascended gear (all 6 armour pieces, 5 trinketts, backpiece, and two ascended weapons) of my choice. otherwise i’ve wasted all those failed attempts.

seriously now… give us back the old Teq for world encounter… put the new Teq into the fractals… and new idea… make a world zone for the fractals for “hard mode” bosses like the new Teq. i mean… isn’t that what fractals is for? giving the people who want bang-your-head-against-the-wall challenges? so put all the bang-your-head-against-the-wall challenges like the new teq in fractals. problem solved.

the world boss encounters don’t have to be total cakewalks… but to require Navy Seal level coordination amongst civilians in general PvE is insulting. especially with such junk rewards.

i have absolutely ZERO incentive to try to learn the fight… chance for a rare quality aqua breather with zero choice of stats is a slap in the face. i’d rather get laurels because they’re at least useful for my class.

the only way i would accept actual Cantha showing up in GW2… is that i could swim there with my character on the current maps. one of the most HATED things about GW1 was “taking the boat” to switch maps, and then go to wherever you wanted to go on the new continent.

personally, i’d much rather we find out that Cantha was outright wiped off the face of Tyria, and that the fleeing Canthans made a new home in Janthir Isles or Sanctum Cay or somewhere already labeled on the map. every zone needs to be accessible easily, without that extremely inconvenient type of system (taking the boat) introduced in GW1.

well, sounds to me like “laugh at me” is the more appropriate thread title… perhaps my bacon deficiency is affecting my play in game. i was running a bow ranger, and the problem i was having, now that i think about it, is that i wasn’t paying attention to the perimeter spores, and i was running right into them , killing myself in the process. i’ll try again later.

thanks all!

so according to the patch notes:

Once inside the Tower of Nightmares, players will need to make their way up the tower, scaling three floors of horrifying dangers to reach the heart of the tower—a massive, noxious bloom pulsing with malevolent power. At the apex of the tower, players can enter the chamber protecting the tower’s heart and begin a story instance that can be completed solo or with a group of up to five players.

Upon defeating the challenges of the story instance, players can finish what the scouting team could not: inject Marjory’s antitoxin directly into the heart of the tower!
The story instance also has a repeatable mode so players can confront the challenges as many times as they like for additional rewards and accolades. Upon each completion, players will be able to inject another dose of antitoxin, weakening the tower that much more.

i was under the impression that the repeatable version would also have a solo version, but apparently, the solo instance is only available for the initial story mode, unless i’m bugged. i’ve noticed no difference between entering solo, or entering with a full group. the impact of course is mainly fighting the champ toxin jabba the hutt at the end.

i guess i’m either bacon deficient, or i need to learn better how to solo champs with adds and spores… :-/ yeah, i’m still learning how to play…

BobbyStein.2315:

Direksone.3867:

My comments about the Living Story.

I totally understand what ANet is trying to accomplish: create a living world. To some extend it does happen. My ‘issue’ is with the story we have been presented. The story has gotten better and better over the course of the year, Scarlet is a decent villain, but not every time was the story written properly. This is no new feedback however. Personally I think having story arcs like this are fine from time to time, but I personally would like to see new regions be added and the current story continued. There’s so much to work with: the Norn and their quest to reclaim their homeland and defeat Jormag and the Sons of Svanir. The Charr and their ongoing battle with both the Flame Legion and the Ghosts of Ascalon, also a bit of a political drama going on. The cleansing of Orr?

There’s a lot of existing lore to work with and expand upon and I personally would like to see that happen, perhaps with some filler arcs here and there like Scarlet.

When you say, “current story continued” do you mean “extend your personal story” or something else?

based on what he said immediately after “current story continued”, i would think he meant, “tie up the loose ends of the story opportunities presented within the personal story and within the quests of the zones themselves, and also of the general lore of the game and the races.” the several examples he gave i think clarify that.

the cleansing of Orr would be a direct sequel to the personal story, as would the political drama (treaty between ascalon and kryta, presented in the vigil order story parts, or even Caudecus (sp) who was part of the human noble story, CM story, and order of whispers story) he also referred to overall story arcs mentioned by ANET before GW2 went into beta: lore of the norn fighting the dredge and Jormag (definately part of the personal story of the norn) and the charr fighting for their homelands against the shatterer and the chosts of ascalon.

there are PLENTY of loose ends to be explored.

“current story continued” referring to the overall story of guild wars, started in guild wars 1, continued through the books, and then into guild wars 2. the story of the humans, charr, norn, asura, sylvari and their struggles to survive. the story of Tyria.

BobbyStein.2315:

Half Tooth.1867:

My experience of the LS can be summed up with: Everything feels random and meaningless. Events and villains come out of nowhere and then vanish into the ether. You don’t get time to get to know a character before they turn up so I literally don’t care about them, their life or their story.
They don’t linger either after the update so I feel no inclination to involve myself emotionally with the LS.

Part of the reason we’ve been including Scarlet in multiple releases is so we can build on her character. It’s kind of funny that we routinely get two types of feedback on the Living World story. From some people it’s, “Stuff feels random. I don’t know these characters.” From others it’s, “Stop using X character. I don’t like them.” So we’re presented with two competing bits of feedback (usually from different people but it’s hard to track opinions on a forum).

I do think we can do a better job at connecting the releases by having some characters stick around who have conversations, scenes, and maybe some tasks on them, kind of like what we’re trying with Marjory and Kasmeer at the camp this month. It’s something that we’ve been working to improve lately. Part of the issue here is that content that bleeds from one release to another doesn’t automatically have an “owner” in terms of which team builds it and/or maintains due to where it falls in the build schedule. That stated, Steven Waller, Angel, and I have been working with folks to bridge releases with this sort of lore-building stuff.

Expect more of that in the next few releases, and by all means I would encourage you and others to let us know how you feel about it.

responding to the bolded part specifically…

the reason i feel no connection to characters in the living story, and why it feels so random… is that i’ve missed at least every other LS update. mostly because i’m not interested in holiday stuff, and i’ve misinterpreted updates in the past, thinking they were mainly holiday festivity like. and i wasn’t playing for about 5-6 months due to other endeavers. other reasons i missed LS updates was because i was levelling, and it didn’t feel right to do living story content before completing my personal story, and before i reached level 80. especially considering that southsun cove was level 80 content. (uplevelling characters still broke the immersion… my character wasn’t level 80 yet)

i came back and didn’t know what was going on. because all the story instances from the previous LS updates had been deleted. imagine playing your personal story, and the level 40-50 personal story instances were deleted before you could play them. so you ended up playing 1-40, and then skipped ahead to 50-60, and then 60-70 were deleted, and then you picked p again at 70-80. the story wouldn’t make any sense!

that’s the problem i have with the living story. there are instanced story segments that should be permanent, so we can follow the story. i know scarlett interrupted the queen’s jubilee, but if i missed that update, i wouldn’t have a clue about it.

speaking of Queen’s Jubilee…. the events down in the pit could have been permanent. the tournament content could have been permanent, as the next instance in the story after scarlett crashed the party.

right now… i don’t know who Marjory is. i don’t know her connection with scarlett. i really don’t know if she was introduced in a prior LS update, or if this is her first appearance. because all the previous LS content (except Southsun Cove) has been deleted.

i do appreciate that Marjory and Kasmeer are visible on landscape. it gives me a chance to get to know them a little better. so far all i know of Scarlett is that she’s a rather condescending tease.