How about we just have a majority vote to set the matter to rest? I think we can’t satisfy the few who want to nerf JP, but at least lets show what the majority feels about the matter so there is some closure for everyone on the matter. Everyone post +1 for those who want to leave portal alone, and -1 if they want it nerfed. Some numbers might clarify what real feelings are. Please no double-posting, we know who you are
I have some points about portal I wanted to make here. Firstly, portal is not simply a utility skill, its also a combat skill, used to manipulate the mesmer’s footing on the field, as seen in the promo video after mesmer was announced(the one showing him killing an Aatxe with it). It seems obnoxious to me to remove a skill to aid in both movement and combat inside a JP many of which have enemies that you have to fight to proceed, thus precluding portals use in combating them, which is unfair to a certain extent against mesmers. Secondly, there are other ways to handle JP’s, for example have a timer when a player enters a JP. If the player cannot beat the puzzle after say 2 hours then it warps you to the end. That way, people who can’t make the grade but try like crazy can get there, and you could technically prevent portal from working there. This is not my position, but is a possible method. Another method would be to limit portal use to only the mesmer inside jumping puzzles. It still offers some tangible benefits, but only to mesmer. Personally, I don’t favor the timer because if your going to give a pass after X amount of time you might as well have a community member, i.e. the mesmer offer this so people are helping each other. For those who feel this equates to some people getting something for nothing, I point out that the average few silver a JP gets as a reward is next to meaningless. For those complaining about achievements, I say: you only get the point once. After that, your pretty much getting nothing in the bigger picture, so why do you care honestly? WHat about people who can’t do it on their own for disadvantaged reasons, should we say those points are forever out of reach because a few people feel “cheapened” by them finally getting their what, one achievement point there? Out of the whole batch, its a miniscule amount so from a practical perspective I don’t see it being a difference to those going for the leaderboards.
I partially agree with NinjaEd, in the sense that Anet may have overwhelmed themselves in some ways. But why not a compromise? Its not fair for players who missed events to never get to go back. So why not a compromise? Create a separate shard that has splash to the past content that players who didn’t do the event can go back to visit. Maybe the shard is seasonal, i.e. once a year for 3 weeks someone gets to relive the karka event in a special southsun cove instance who didn’t get to do it? Or maybe everyone gets to do it who wants to but the one-time rewards like Karka chest remain one-time for the getters from before. Heck, I wouldn’t care if you could re-acquire those rewards, I would love to have a backpack set of karka backpacks just for the kick of it. Giving the ones who miss out opportunity to go back in time is nice, I suggest a portal in Divinity’s Reach, next to the carnival….
Personally after reading what others have said, I feel it boils down to this: temporary content is ok if the rewards are obtainable already in game. Also, if I know it comes around again one a year, I am ok with that too like Mad King for instance. What I am less ok with is items that can never be recovered again. Take Mystic Forge Conduit, or the Sentinels insignia from Living Story. Once gone, you don’t get it back again. When the supply runs out only the lucky saps who got it now get to enjoy that forge combination anywhere in the game, or that armor with unique stats that can’t be duplicated. That’s why I think temporary content should only include cosmetics, like the transmutable skins, not items that offer real tangible benefits. Or else the content must have a ‘come back’ effect once a year. I don’t mind unique costume masks that look cool; people are entitled to be unique, not advantaged.
One other question I have as well; stats usually scale with the size of the armor, with chest getting the largest buffs. Why wouldn’t boon duration scale as well? Its already minimized at 1%, so what was the reason for doing so?
Kojiden, I feel I need to second your opinion. I really wanted to make a strong boon support build that maybe focused on might stacks with retribution to try and think ‘outside the box’. The problem is what you pointed to: your paying for an exotic set whose damage output is horrific. I can’t justify this, its not good enough. I look at boon duration and see first, that the 1% adding up to maybe 6%? What benefit is a 6% boon buff by itself? Only naturally long boons like might benefit even slightly (1 second maybe?) from this while shorter duration boons would get 0 benefit. And your giving up a lot to get it. I think no one has commented here because everyone has written off this armor is irrelevant. I have a set, but I am holding off wearing it because its terrible to have no offense and the one stat it was made for being worthless. I was excited to go with the Giver’s support buffs…but not anymore. I am just saddened by it, and I hope someone with the ability to give it 2% or the option to have power or precision as a stat for instance will read this and take pity on the players who really like support, like to use boons, and give them a chance to make a build that does that.
I will agree to this if phantasms drop 1 silver every time they are killed in pve. Also warriors must have their shields explode after 3 hits and necromancers should be able to have at least 20 minions. Engineers should be allowed to build forts and elementalists should have a spontaneous combustion power.
/sarcasm
As a sub-note, I feel that guild influence through representation is unfair, as many guilds kick you for not representing. It makes it difficult in some instances to be part of several guilds, and creates a sense of exclusivity that I feel is hurtful to the gameplay. Please remove guild influence gained through representation so that players do not feel stifled for that reason, and free to join multiple guilds. Every guild is challenged to keep high influence; lets let everyone in the roster count and not penalize whichever guild is not represented by a particular character at the time.
Vayne, I agree with you very much. Khai, I really feel your frustration. Personally I wish the dungeon system rewards were done differently to encourage switching dungeons, I just don’t know how that could be achieved. Fractals is a brilliant idea and I like it, although its not perfect either. Me, I envision epic guild halls the size of your home worlds keep in WvW which is why I don’t want it in my home instance; there is not enough room there. I do like the idea of the house there though. For me, I see halls as a place where players get together, could do an epic battle against another guild hall, and maybe even have npc’s and map objectives on the guild map, so there are other things to do there. And I hope we get to have equipment in the hall too, like build towers and customize the hall to some extent. Of course that’s a lot of work from the developers, and at this point my one wish: a timeframe. Some hint of when we can see this so I can know when to get really excited for this much awaited feature. After all, Guild Wars without a guild hall is like a Norn without a homestead, or an Asura without a lab….
There is one thing myself that I would like to know: can we expect guild halls/housing by 2013? I want this expectation laid out for me because I have always considered guild halls to be vital parts of Guild Wars. Ever since GW1 I have loved the hall, and not having it leaves a feeling of emptiness in the game for me. At the very least I feel there should be a set expectation of when this vital feature can be set. Seeing the post from Regina left a bad feeling for me, like it was just some distant goal or dream rather than this is important to us, and I think the community would like to know that this feature is actively being worked on. As cool as the living story is, I would trade it and all the gem store goodies for just one available guild hall without a backward glance…btw nothing personal Regina. Just how much I was looking forward to epic Guild Halls.
Grevender, I get your feelings might be hurt in an aggressive topic if someone shoots down your reply. But your “orange” complaining portal affects more than 5 people is nearly as bad as destroying the skill completely. What class do you play Grevender? Maybe you can tell us so I can complain about xyz overpowered skill and hurt your feelings too. So don’t say apples hurt when its ok to throw oranges.
I agree for once with NinjaEd about people simply inviting and leaving party to get portaled. Its not a reasonable resolution. I also agree with limiting chests to once a week. Ultimately I just don’t feel the complaining is deserved. At this point, I think the only satisfying thing would be a developer to come in and say, “we don’t see portal as abusing Jumping Puzzles.” End the speculation for us. But hey, how about this: a JP-exclusive skill! Whenever someone enters a JP they can use an exclusive skill to mimic portal! Then everyone else can complain about Ranger portals for a change….
Iruwen, there have been discussions about using the mists warp as an inappropriate way out of paying the fee to warp to LA or elsewhere. I can’t remember the discussion, but fairly certain it exists.
Grevender, stop mixing apples and oranges. AOE “attack” is not the same as aoe “buff”. If all your enemies were clumped in the aoe field it would obviously hit all of them. Furthermore, there is no limit to the number of allies you can buff within a certain range and portal has a 19-man limit, so its not unlimited either. Limiting it to 5 uses is total BS its already way nerfed just with the 19-man limit and radar range.
I agree with the issue of swiftness on mesmer, I HATE being forced to use focus all the time for that one reason. Please give us something better, PLEASE. Also, Ninja, you keep talking about getting to LA for free. Did you know using Mists to port for free is supposedly an exploit from the view of the developers? Oops, I guess cheating works one way but not another for you. Also it doesn’t consider the cost of warping OUT of LA as opposed to back to it, something you don’t need to do if you have conduit. That 3 silver 5 a day on average adds up buddy. But never mind that. Dodforer, gate glitching/etc. is not an issue of the mesmer abusing portal, its abusing the games ability to keep you out of an area appropriately. Fix the glitch, not nerf the mesmer and people can’t do that so your point is invalid. Portal is not line of sight because it is not ground targetable, its simply a marker set at point a and warps to point b once you get there. It makes little sense to nerf it that way. As for the statment, “Until such time as the glitching is removed, the use of portaling needs to be limited.” Fix the glitch instead, sounds a hell of a lot more reasonable. In the meantime, why not focus on something more constructive like not whining about it? Its better to have these features than scream nerf every time someone feels its unfair. Every class has something beneficial that is supposedly unfair, why not accept credit where its due and be fair about it?
It costs silver to warp to LA after getting your stuff instead of using conduit to save that money. It adds up long-haul Ninja, so yes it gives an actual economic advantage over others. Molten is even worse because yes, its insanely expensive to get INITIALLY (mostly because gem prices have skyrocketed) but later on after you have mined like crazy, you start seeing lots of savings in picks. I look at it short and long-term, not just single-use. Don’t tell me those items don’t benefit their owners cost-effectively over others, they are certainly able to do so if you consider how their used versus those who can’t use them. A comparison for the conduit is like buying a Tesla; its a great electric car. So expensive to get it off the line, but hey: its pennies to recharge a vehicle overnight compared to pushing the pump. Short-term cost, long-term savings.
You don’t like me using mystic forge and chest rewards as examples together? Well, fine, although they both provide marginal over time benefits in the example, I don’t mind. Others can judge if my example was fair or not.
Smudger, I agree with you on both the joke, and the sour grapes article. I remember a fun old game, shining forces 1 and 2. The leveling system is what stood out between them: I used to grit my teeth whenever I leveled in SF1 because you could get horrible stat buffs, or amazing ones, every levelup made the game fun. By contrast, leveling in SF2 was outright boring. No character got outstanding levelup bonuses in that game, everything was kind of flat-lined so all the characters stayed “even” no one stood out after a while like in SF1. I see people complaining about overpowered class A or B as destroying the joy of what those classes can do just because of a skill or trait or pet, why not just accept it? It won’t hurt to see a portal, and everyone else can just enjoy it.
NinjaEd, you have lied about my statement. I never stated anywhere anything about removing the portal skill, so your first sentence is patently false. Second, you have totally misconstrued my example of the Ferrari. My example of a thief stealing it and driving it resembles a material advantage for the thief, he gained it through illicit taking to give himself a lift up. A mesmer’s portal is a latent power he possesses and is a utility/combat skill, to be used in combat as part of his misdirection arsenal. By changing that skill in JP you are implying they cannot use this skill to defend or fight with, something no other class is saddled with. Your example of the thief riding around in the stolen ferrari to give his friends a lift is erroneous. The mesmer did not steal portal to begin with, so he is more like the original owner, justifiably driving his friends to work because he was in the right place to offer them a lift at the time. Complaining they didn’t spend gas money to get there like you did is just sour grapes and sounds like nothing more than it is: whining. Funnily enough, you could have used the car too if you wanted, you just thought it was more “fair” that you should get there on your own merits. Next time read what people are stating and understand the point before shoving words down their throat. The reason I state conduit is an advantage is it can be used in any city, or out in the field for instant combining/recipe creation. This time-saving convenience IS an advantage, because they don’t waste time jumping to wvw home server or LA. That is the definition of advantage: an item that empowers the user to do something in a place that another cannot for significant gain. This does not apply to the mesmer because he does not benefit, only someone he chooses to show a kindness to. Also, your statement that the other person who is supposedly “lazy” as opposed to time-strapped/busy/something else, your way of making them look worse than they are, is no less advantaged than you are. Not fair? Use the portal. Then your even aren’t you? To be fair to you Ninjaed, I agree on the idea of making it weekly and in exchange we get a rare that way its actually worthwhile to do it in the first place since the rewards are already not worth the effort over normal farming.
Hard to master? yes.
But,
Promotes lazy players? HECK YES.
Only place I’ve used the portal is in ebg jp. Otherwise I just do it myself, they arn’t that hard and in future jp (take halloween clocktower for example and sab) where skills arn’t allowed, the practice goes a long way. Maybe if they put a block where players cannot use a portal to bypass a jp until they have completed it themselve’s once then w/e. But atleast try to do them… really not that difficult but everyone seems to make it out to be the hardest part of the game.
Portaling over walls in wvw however I think is cheating to an extent, the walls are there for a reason. No one should be able to jump over them, especially if the skill is exclusive to one profession.
Come on people. A person portalling is not jumping over the wall. He is teleporting through it. To do that he had to somehow get inside first, and hide sufficiently well that a sweep didn’t find him. Thats significant, and if you didn’t check, thats your fault, not the mesmer’s. Don’t blame his skills he decided to make a back door because the game doesn’t let players open gates from the INSIDE! As for JP, consider: aren’t we free to choose? Isn’t the game a better place with cool portal abilities in it? Why is everyone whining about one good skill mesmer’s have? Does this skill give them an advantage completing the puzzle themselves? No. How about capturing forts alone? No. Its best use is as a team skill. Not one of you has the right to complain about it being abused because the mesmer NEVER abuses it, only the player that accepts it. If someone steals a Ferrari and drives around in it, he cheated to acquire it. In the game, no one actually cares about getting the JP achievement, there is zero material advantage gained from having it. So if someone cheapens their experience by taking it, they aren’t hurting you, or the mesmer either. Just themselves. Maybe they don’t care. That’s cool, why do you care if they don’t? It was never your business to worry about them or the mesmer portalling them to begin with. Your free to take it or leave it. But saying they shouldn’t have it…if they can’t have it, warriors need less armor to be tanky. Rangers should be pet nerfed. Thieves should be inviso nerfed. Each possesses a mechanic that adds DEPTH to this game. Complaining about a skill that offers the caster himself no advantage is a straw man. Its not a real argument. Nerfing it only cheapens the game, and I so tired of listening to players complain about what the other guy is doing. Not your business, go do the puzzle yourself and if someone portals up, just remember that was their choice, not yours, and stop complaining for the sake of cheapening the experience. I didn’t know about mystic forge conduits until after they were removed, is that fair for me? I think everyone who has one should be banned because I can’t get one, because the recipe’s gone, and that IS a material advantage to the person who got lucky or noticed it in time. But banning them because of their advantage cheapens the game. That’s why I will NEVER stare up at someone else’s advantage and say we need to take it away, redistribute the wealth so to speak so no one has what I don’t. Because its still better for someone to have it than no one. I didn’t sign up to play GW2 to listen to trolls complain this way.
I want to second something in this thread: The Summon Power Suit. The other summons are at least useful for dps/burst, or else defense in a hard fight, but the summon power suit is little better than a bad joke. You will NEVER see an Asura use one, which indicates how absurdly bad it is.I agree with the poster: Give it a separate health pool. That way we can at least wade in with the suit and not feel bad as we are getting hosed in the process. This skill more than any I know of needs to be buffed out of the elites.
I was hoping to get more than 2 replies. Updating so others can have a chance to post thoughts
Yet I see everyone complain how mesmers in pve suck, how they can’t do events because other classes out-dps them all the time, and btw confusion sucks in pve because mobs don’t use skills often enough so we have poor damage, phantasms get one-shot, and we can’t fight worth a dang in pve so we are forced to go with support builds much of the time. You hate mesmer’s in pvp, but don’t mention the crap they put up with everywhere else, that’s very one-sided of you. So we get one place where we shine as a class, thanks for trying to ruin us completely.
I thought ANET was about team players helping each other out? Why are we so concerned about trivializing content? You don’t like mesmers making a task easier because their friendly? Garbage. Go make your own mesmer and find out where the real fun of playing a game is. Mesmer’s have great support skills, and supporting others is a big part of mesmer play. The mesmer already went through the pain of the JP, why care some guy in Lions Arch is getting a leg up? As the phrase goes, you don’t climb any higher up the mountain of life, by chopping out the ladder under your neighbor.
This reminds me of my idea to make Transmutation Gems for additionally picking which of the stats on your armor you wish to transfer over instead of one of the two as a set. But I digress, I agree wholeheartedly with your suggestion to upgrade them in a recipe, I have far too many I can’t use already!
I don’t understand your point cmpwall Breacker. If the armor is already hard to acquire how is making a two full sets of armor to transmute using incredibly rare transmutation item supposed to make that process easier than it already is? I know of no set of stats that would be broken, and I challenge anyone to identify a set with stats based on my description that would in fact be OP that you can’t already get? Emphasis here on OP.
And to clarify, the reason I think it shouldn’t scale up is because I think that’s cheating. When you make an exotic you are effectively paying a premium for the highest possible stats that the item provides. If you want to change those stats, then pay an additional premium for the value of them like they are worth, instead of making a fine or even common item as a cheap-o to modify them for nothing more than the cost of the Transmutation Gem only. I believe players deserve options, deserve to have better armor, stuff that really shouts “ME!” written all over that armor, right down to the points you wanted it to have, but I don’t see any reason to make that statement cheaper. I see this as a fabulous way to generate renewed interest in the crafting system, since people will totally want to craft new gear to make their current gear have the stats they REALLY wanted, and better yet, in a way that isn’t going to break the game. Most people already have the stats they desired anyways, its just the creative fun folks who wanted that funky build others think is different but cool that deserve such options. What do others say? Any naysayers to the Transmutation Gem or do people think its a cool idea?
You bring up a great point Kal! Personally, my preference is that this item would be limited to the same level and rarity when transmuting. Normally when you transmute, you select the stats you wish from one or the other item, the skin, and so on. Honestly though, I don’t think it matters too much. This Transmutation Gem I imagine to be very expensive, maybe even gem store or black lion chest only. That way only people seriously intent on using these bother to collect them and presumably know what they are doing. Most people would make an exotic and then a second exotic, and take the stats they would prefer to keep and ditch the ones they don’t want. That’s how I envision most people using them. But then, whats wrong with taking a lvl 80 masterwork instead? Nothing, just don’t complain the stats aren’t as high as you wanted after taking them from a masterwork…or else just get a new gem and use its effect again to fix and/or improve the stats you wanted from last time. Like anything in the game, if your not smart how you use the item you may be disappointed, but that’s no reason not to use it.
One of the biggest frustrations I have with armor stats is not being able to pick the three stats I want. Don’t get me wrong, I am not about power+power+power by any means, but lets take Giver’s armor as a good example; it has no offensive stats whatsoever. No power, precision, condition duration, just health buffs, increased boon duration and magic find. Aside from the woefully insufficient 1% boon duration it gives us, do I really want magic find? What if I wanted boon duration buff with power and precision to make a quirky and fun build, that while less offensive than rabid or less defensive than knights, is more fun to play? So my suggestion is to make a new transmutation item called a Transmutation Gem. This would be like a rare transmutation stone that allows a player to pick which stats they want carried over of the 3 available except only one max stat one can exist, and you can’t pick duplicates. I don’t know if a thread exists to cover this already but have not seen one yet. So what say you people? Thoughts?
I like the responses given so far, everyone’s had a good comment. Kispera, I think I would like to check out your build setup. Currently I have two full exotic armor sets: giver’s, and knights. Will see if I can run the knights setup for now until I get over my disappointment about how low the boost from Giver’s is(1% for a full set of 6 armor is absolutely not worth the point investment, I don’t care how Anet feels about boon duration, that is just too much wasted. Coupling it with magic find doesn’t make me feel better either, terrible stats no matter which way you send the dice).
Well, I like to start with the word dungeon and branch out from there. Really though, I am mostly looking for something that fits all situations, maybe not exceptionally, but a kind of one style fit all build. Maybe its not perfect, but I like survivability and utility, so I am always looking for those things in a good build. I actually considered a retaliation setup with large might stacks helping out with condition damage, synergizing the trait that gives retaliation on F2, with the trait that gives might on shatter and sigil of battle to see if the long duration might stacks would quickly add up to 25 and then see what sharing those might stacks with my clones/phantasms would do. But that’s really experimental, not sure how 25 might on say a clone would affect their damage much or not.
I have a question for the guru’s of creativity out there. I have long wanted to make a build that has high boon duration (like in the 90% range) but still has high damage output. I wanted to know what builds people know of or come up with that seem like they can work this? I would at least like to see a variation on power/boon duration and one for condition damage, anyone have any thoughts or idea’s about this? Maybe make a phantasm build that focuses on passing buffs to clones/phantasms, really would like to get some idea’s.
It looks like both Giver’s armor and Snowflake equipment is now usable to increase boon duration. So what does that push our maximum up to now without using cooking consumables? I see at least 90% boon duration increase, so say signet of domination +10, 30 from chaos, 40 from runes, and another 6 for giver’s armor, plus a good 8-10 more from the snowflake jewelry, so about 94-96% possible? Add a consumable for 20% more with omnomberry, and you get a possible 116% boon duration. For skills, I have been toying with different idea’s, like using signet of inspiration, illusion, and domination together with the trait IX instead of bountiful interruption for a powerful condition removal, while using II from illusions to give retaliation every time you hit F2. That could give close to a minute of retaliation, combo that with chaos storm and then signet of inspiration and give your whole party a minutes worth of retaliation. Also with the might on shatter for 3 stacks, combo this with Sigil of Battle and you could give yourself incredibly long-duration might stacks, maybe up to the max of 25 and then hand this off to the team for major damage buffing. Just some thoughts there, trying to take advantage of how the boons can help you deal damage in battle. Its likely a slower killing build that way, but I think the buffs in a drawn out fight would add up quickly for the whole team. Another possibility is near-perma stability: use the trait to give an extra mantra and then activate mantra of concentration with power break 3 times consecutively to give something like 16-18 seconds of stability and pass it to the team.
I would also like to know why the 2nd buff for the Superior Rune of Sanctuary is incorrect, showing a 20% extended frozen duration instead of the 15% boon duration buff that would match the minor and major runes out of the set? It would be nice to just go 15/15/15 and be good that way, instead of settling for the two major runes at 10% accepting lesser buffs because of an incorrect setting in the superior rune. Anyone else think this is intended, or just a glitch as I do?
Your right, the Giver’s is bugged. However, I am sure there will come a point soon where they fix it, and I personally think they will buff the boon duration to 2% as I think an exotic armor buff should offer more than a tiny 1% for the large stat buffs your giving up otherwise for it. Then it should be worth it. I like to think with the end result in mind, not some bugs that are temporary we can still plan for that extra 16% anyways. Btw, if you compare the Masterworks version of the jewel you create for upgrading your accessories against the Exotic variant, its only a difference of about +6 in healing power. Anyone think its worth an additional ecto and orichalcum ingots for such a small increase!?
I agree with what others have said about MF and RNG. I fail also to see how playing with lottery odds for a goal is supposed to be fun or fair. I agree that there should be a big challenge to obtain the precursor, or some other method to obtain that shows real effort. I don’t believe a legendary item in a game should be obtained through luck or exploits, but by real skill and effort put in to obtain it. To put it how some have said, a legendary weapon should be gained from legendary effort. A lottery doesn’t cut it, and never has. Prices are outrageous, and the odds are almost zero of getting lucky. I think we need to start some kind of poll or post where people sign their names up to let developers know how bad we want another method for obtaining legendaries, one that rewards effort, not luck or exploits, for obtaining them. They said guild wars should be fun, and their paradigm was to ask themselves if they were having fun while doing it. Obviously no one took the time to try and see if players would have fun getting precursors, so we should more loudly let our voice be heard about this fundamental game aspect.
I don’t know what people’s thoughts are about Giver’s armor and giver’s accessories, but it should be possible using things like Giver’s Orichalcum rings, earrings, and amulet to give another 10% boon duration on top of what has been discussed. Also another 6% is possible with the Giver’s exotic armor. Its total defensive set, but this is a support build and I like to see how absolute defense pans out in a fight. Also, I personally wish the pistol had a main-hand variant…I don’t think its quite fair to force mesmer’s to choose between a melee weapon and a slow-firing clone scepter when I may not want to run that way….would be nice to go pistol/focus or even pistol/pistol like the promo video’s promised us :P