Guild Wars 2

(TL;DR at the bottom)

With the Expansion on the way, the Jungle Dragon revealed and its – possible climatic – demise at hand there a few things I never really understood about this particular dragon.

First in line would be how the Dragons got their specific names. Risen and Icebrood speak about their respective masters and even though no destroyer states Primordus name I assume the dwarves know it from its last awakening.

Which leaves us with Kralkatorrik (I never read the Edge of Destiny), Mordremoth and “Bubbles” the unknown and – considering the whole retcon during season 2 of the Living World – I have a hard time following the history of Mordremoth outside of the Living World installments.

Subject Alpha refered to Mordremoth even before we even knew about Scarlet but the name was never mentioned anywhere and suddenly Kasmeer and Marjory know him? (Don’t get me started on the contents of the priory book in DR about the “Five Dragons” and the lecture in Arcana Obscura)

Next would be the thread title: What exactly IS a Mordrem besides the spawn of the Elder Dragon Mordremoth? Each and every other known miniongroup tells you something about said group and the Dragon:

Risen = Reanimated Dead/Zhaitan
Destroyer = Enemies of the Dwarves and resposible for the surfacing of the Asura/Primordus
Branded = Path of destruction left behind by/Kralkatorrik
Ice-Brood = Use Ice in combat/Jormag
Mordrem = ???/Mordremoth

We don’t refer to Primordus minions as “Primordi” or Kralkatorriks as “Kralka” but why are Mordremoth’s minions called Mordrem?

Finally, now that 5/6 dragons are revealed I cannot help but think that every race has its own dragon nemesis. Naturally, the dragons a dangerous for all five races but every race seems to have a deeper connection to a certain dragon.

Asura vs Primordus – He almost wiped them out, destroyed multiple laboratories and now resides in their former “home” (i.E. the underground). He also drove out the Skritt, the Dredge and currently fights the Dwarves. What we know about his minions suggests that they are artificial and not corrupted. Asura forces mostly consists of their golems – artificial constructs.

Norn vs Jormag – Since Jormag is responsible for the death of three Spirits, considered a Spirit by the Sons of Svanir and led to the demise of Svanir I think this match-up is quite clear. Jormag promises power and strength – important aspects in Norn society.

Charr vs Kralkatorrik – This one is a bit more complicated as Ascalon belonged to both the Charr and the Humans. The High-Legions lead assaults against the Branded and conduct research about the Brands proporties.

Human vs Zhaitan – As a deminishing race and with Zhaitan influence over Orr this is somewhat of a classic match i.E. the living against the dead. Zhaitans army mostly consists of reanimated humans with the orrian royalty as leaders (Eyes of Zhaitan, various royals). Furthermore, Orr is also the place of origin of the human religion.

Sylvari vs Mordremoth – Since the Sylvari are Mordremoths minions this match is clear. Scarlet and Aerin are two major examples of “corrupted” Sylvari and the Nightmare Court will have quite the identity crisis (Absolute freedom vs permanent control by Mordremoth)

With this out of the way, all we know about Bubbles is that he drove the Krait, the Karka, the Quaggan and possible the Largos too from their original homes. Following my aforementioned nemesis theory: Would that mean that the possible sixth race might be from the bottom of the sea?

TL;DR:

-Who is responsible for Elder Dragons names, Mordremoths in particular?
-What does the term Mordrem stand for besides being a minion of Mordremoth?
- Would you agree that every race has its own Elder Dragon nemesis? (Human vs Zhaitan, Sylvari vs Mordremoth, etc)
- If the former is true, will we receive a sixth race consisting of underwater dwellers once we take the fight to Bubbles? (Quaggan for Everyone!)

And what is the intended purpose of mortars if not killing mordrem? You can easily set and turn them around for whatever reason you need them. They are, in my opinion, the most important siege engine to have around.

The mortar can make a huge difference between succeeding at a boss and failing it.
Fiery Incendiary shells can easily deal up to 25.000 dmg per grenade fired and therefore greatly outdmg most players I see attending the event.

Furthermore, mortars are the only siege engine usable to assist in destroying the vinewrath champions once the blockade has been breached.

So you basically want an existing and quite tactical feature removed because players who are actually contributing to the general success of the event gain some more mordrem parts whose only purpose is to be conversed into another currency?

I belong to the crowd of people who absolutely despise timegating content in a way that “forces” players to log in everyday to do some more or less meaningless task which eventually might become important in the future.

Let me get to the point:

Like the dailies, if you miss out to enhance your ore/wood/leather for the day you are pretty much one day behind everyone else.

Why not change the system in a way that still only enables you to craft one piece of those things a day but stacks wasted days?

For example, since patch player A logged in every day for 10 days straight and has now 10 of each item. In the same time, player B could no log in for three days so on the fourth day he can craft a maximal amount of four of each item.
In the end, both of them have 10 but by vastly different means!

The most positive aspect, however, that this could be chained to servertime in a way. Doing this would allow the active population to advance at at pace of A-Nets gusto, allow players which play less frequently to keep up and would help new players to catch up.
As it is right now, any new player is already 20 days behind in crafting. Changing the system the way I imagined would allow them to craft 20 pieces of ore/wood/leather immediatly and additional pieces one day at a time.

Thoughts? I know that doing this would probably require changes in the GW2 code but if I remember correctly last years Halloween worked in a similar way.

No invite yet

Count me in for glorious German accent! (If Voice is used)

Nick.6972:

Grogba.6204:

I claim .

Your subjective opinion. Don’t generalize.

That being said, could you please create an example of a content that counts difficult and not “fake difficult”?

Honest answer? Liadri has nice difficulty. It’s just the stuff happening around her that makes the fight frustrating and unfair. Clocktower JP was difficult but fair. That droid boss from the lost Island update in SWTOR was very difficult but fair.

Unless said orb is obtructed.

Vortex spawn is the same, the orb pulling you to your demise is not. And since the orb sometimes is obstructed and sometimes not makes the whole ordeal random.

Before I get jumped for saying that Liadri is actually kinda easy please read the rest of my post.

I defeated her on my guard on the second day of Queen’s Jubilee and made enough progress on my warrior for other achievement that I will eventually beat her.

However, many players are upset about her for multiple reasons and almost all of them can be summarized with help of tvtropes:

Fake Difficulty

I will approach the problem from the outside.

The first two major complains have nothing to do with Liadri herself ironically but have their strongest impact in her fight.

The Arena
First you have a glassdome arena that does not allow you to change your camera in a way that enables you to see the whole battlefield. Not only will the camera zoom in when you are near the edges but thanks to the rather limited space above your character a top-down view will actually decrease your sight. Additionally, the constant shifting is kitten my eyes and makes me nauseous.

The Floor
The nice orange grid floor not only makes for a nice cagefight experience but also makes any fight with -AoE-circles unnecessary harder. Fights become increasingly more difficult thanks to this if you have other aspects to look out for. It should also be noted that colorblind players are at a disadvantage because they cannot see the circle.

Both are problems before you face Liadri but there they are whole other story! With all the things the player has to pay attention to (Liadri, Illusions, pulling orbs, light crystals and the red-circles) he not only has to deal with his opponent but with the game itself too!
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Next on my list are the mechanics which again make any fight unnecessary more difficult than it should have been.

Time-Limit
While I agree that you should be punished for cheesing your way to victory the current time limit is just bad. Not only does it promote “moar DEEPS” without any strategy (the faster you kill the better) but a time limit also forces the player to engage in dangerous situations instead of waiting for an opening. However, the latter is most prominent in the Liadri fight.

Randomness
When skill is not important. This applies to Suriel, Salazan, Strugar and Chomper and of course Liadri. Sure, you can challenge them again and again but sometimes it is not about your skill but more about RNG. When Suriel refuses to move or Strugar throws meat everywhere like right beneath his pet there is no skill involved. Losing to Liadri not because you missed a dodge but because the orb appeared just somewhere (hello camera)- or her illusions sometimes explode on touch while othertimes they take like 1-2 seconds to do so – is not my definition of fun.

Time Limit on Shards
This one I do not understand. Why do the shards have to despawn after 20 seconds? Again, this makes the fight needlessly harder in unnecessary ways. Sometimes it is impossible to pick them up and when you want to throw them they disappear from your hands. What was the design decision behind this?

In conclusion we have five problems with the Queens Gauntlet and only one adressing Liadri directly. Of course, there a more problems than just these five but I will only name them:

- Some fights more difficult for certain classes than others.
- The random lagspikes thanks to the zerg beneath the arena.
- Post processing effects like the random blind on Liadri allowing you to cheat the fight by disabling them. Then again, why would you want to make any fight needlessly harder. ‘nudge, nudge’
- Bugs like mobs lingering around in the arena, multiple bosses, multiple players, random gambits, fights beginning with the time limit of the fight before…

Td;dr: I claim that Liadri is actually pretty easy but the design of Queens Gauntlet make the fight needlessly complicated.

edit: Somehow got her name wrong.

Silently sneaks into the thread

coughs

Vigil, lvl 48 Story Instance

“Forewarned is Forearmed”

Rats

Thank me later

Never felt that way. Guards may have received the biggest slice when it came to distribution of reflect/absorb but almost all other professions got some way of dealing with ranged attacks, too. Except Necro (I do not know theirs), Ranger (needs axe in offhand) and Warrior (traited shield). The other five have at least one utility.

Some PvE changes regarding puddles and area effects would be nice since the pet cannot dodge. I can keep my pet alive most of the time… except alpha and nightmare veins but maybe switching to another, sturdier pet would be preferred during these fights, not sure.

I wonder, why do you think it should be nerfed?

Almost all spirit weapons are – in my view – next to useless in PvE anyway thanks to bad AI as Althalos stated and only the shield is of some use because it offers protection.

However, I agree with CptAurellian that our anti-projectile skills are excellen but getting hit in uncategorized or seeing allies go down because the shield trolls us by deactivating or dying to puddles/Area Effects is very annoying.

I agree, however the constant deactivating while the skill is active needs a fix regardless which approach a-net might choose.

Link to skill Shield of the Avenger

I’m sure everyone is aware of this abilitiy and I’m sure every Guardian in higher fractal levels or specific dungeon paths uses this skill. A spirit shield which – untraited – is active for 20 seconds and periodically creates a projectile absorbing bubble. After that, it has a 60 second cooldown.

Until the patch in January I could life with this utility because it did its job well. However, January struck and Shield of the Avenger became susceptible to attacks.

I understand, that the spirit weapons were annoying in sPvP, especially traited versions. The Hammer was like the flesh golem but better since unlike the Necromancer’s skill it was not an elite and could not be destroyed.

But in PvE, the change was quite devastating for spirit weapons builds and users.
I can only write for myself but I use different utilities for different encounters and I guess most Guardians do this aswell but even before the Patch I did not use any spirit weapon besides the Shield of the Avenger as their effects are rather weak and other utilities are just plain better (mainly Shouts, Consecrations and Meditations).
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Enough backstory: What is the deal, Grogba?

While the skill description says, the Shield is active for 20 seconds in reality it is closer to 15-16 as Shield of the Avenger needs a second to register if its summoner is in combat. Then, and this is my main concern, the skill periodically deactivates for 1-2 seconds.

This means that, unlike Wall of Reflection, I, the Guardian, have no control over the Shields absorbtion. Especially the Uncategorized Fractal becomes a major pain in the beginning because the plattforms do not offer enough room for dodging and I cannot maintain stability for more than 6-7 seconds every 24 seconds with “Stand your ground!”.

The next major problem – since spirit weapons became attackable – is that the Shield will rarely survive for 20 seconds: Either dmg spikes destroy the Shield while “off” or thanks to its pathing it just kills itself. Last one happens frequently in Volcanic Fractal and the Worm-Boss in Twillight Arbor.

tl;dr

I would propose four changes to Shield of the Avenger and Shield of the Avenger alone:

• Make Shield of the Avenger immune to all damage again
• Shield of the Avenger should maintain its projectile absorbing bubble for the whole duration. Only when its summoner moves away it should deactivate and relocate
• The shielding effect should begin immediately after summoning not after attacking or getting hit
• To balance the changes, increase the cooldown of the skill to 80 seconds but starting on summoning, not on destroying. This way, using the whole duration wouldn’t really change anything

As such changes would make the Shield quite overpowered in sPvP, either make it a PvE/WvW only change or make it invulnerable in PvE but not in sPvP.

discuss

Lahm.7056:

- Wrath skill: Now strikes enemies that it passes through.

Finally! Now I only need that one major from Zeal!

Deathlaz0r Build!

I purchased the ascenced ring druid’s circle to exchange one of my current rings. As it turns out, I’m unable to infuse the ring like one would infuse any other.

This annoys me in so far as I dislike to carry more stuff around than I have to and changing rings just for fractal bosses ist not solving the problem.

Bug? Forgotten Feature? I do not believe this is WAI because I can infuse other rings just normally but not this one.