Guild Wars 2

Excellent Name.9574:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Excellent Name.9574:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Djinn.9245:

…this will not be true for people who don’t have good Magic Find which is most of the players.

In which case they can salvage the unid directly for more materials than they would get from regular drops or sell them on the TP to those with high MF to make more gold profit. Where’s the issue?

The issue is that You are using drop and salvage rates from the demo, which are significantly higher than in the rest of Tyria at face value.

Your information tells us that Rares will now occupy 20% of the drops instead of less than 3% and less than 1% for exotics, You are also counting that he salvage rate will differ to that of Tyria at double the rate. This would completely break the game and the economy which has been pretty stable for over a year now.

Man, do you actually believe they intentionally pumped up the drop rate for the demo for whatever purpose and when PoF launches, they will have lowered it? Like, not because the amount of mats are too much currently (which they may be, it’s a bloody lot) but because it was just a ploy to get ppl to buy it? Really?

The economy is stable, but that doesn’t make it good. New players cannot get into crafting because of the cost of low tier materials, this will help dramatically with that. All those low tier mats are crazy expensive atm.

This is completely false. I never bought a piece of material as it wasn’t needed off of TP while I was leveling up my crafting while completing the game. Drop rate of low tier materials never changed after the loot table has been differentiated for higher level characters on lower level maps and that happened in 2013. The prices on TP are relatively high not because of drop rate but because of the lack of new players and freshly started characters.

Do You even realize what chaos would ensue if the loot table and drop rate in PoF were left that high in the final release? You can’t see further than Your own interest in this case.

Please describe this “chaos”. All I see is lower cost materials so people can craft ascended and other gear more easily. Do you even realise that the supply of low tier materials is far lower than high tier due to the limited amount of people playing at low levels or in low level areas, or opening bags on low level characters? This is another benefit, no need to have a lvl 35 or 53 character because you can get all tiers on your level 80 char.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Djinn.9245:

…this will not be true for people who don’t have good Magic Find which is most of the players.

In which case they can salvage the unid directly for more materials than they would get from regular drops or sell them on the TP to those with high MF to make more gold profit. Where’s the issue?

As far as I can tell, salvaging unidentifieds gives no luck essences, so low magic find people will stay in the low magic find ghetto longer because they’re discouraged by the system to pick the option that will increase their magic find.

You are right, salvaging unid does not provide luck. But that is not a negative either, they will still proft more than usual since they will be able to salvage more materials than usual or sell the unids for more gold than usual, if they so choose they can ID the items, get the luck and comparable (after ID cost) loot.

Edit: as well as that, they can sell the unid trophies for more than blue/green items cost, buy those and salvage for luck and loot.

This has everything you want to know in one place.

“Consume all” is no good since you may not want to consume them all, it’s far better to make a stack of ToK ask how many you want to consume, or if you are under level 80 to ask if you just want to boost to 80. Being able to specify an amount to use is a far better QoL upgrade since you can then boost to 35 or 53 for mule/bag opener characters easily.

babazhook.6805:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Barrier is just additional health, so it may favor power builds against condi builds if there is a different toughness/armor scaling for that portion of health, otherwise it is exactly the same and does not bias condi at all.

I agree protection and weakness should affect condition builds too.

Weakness and Protection already affect condition builds, and in addition to that there cleanse. and resistance .

Virtually all Condition applications have a direct damage component. On some builds this less a factor but on other Condition builds this a significant portion of overall damage. As example Pistol mainhand thief has a very low power damage component compared to say dagger. It takes about 3 stacks of bleeds on a typical P/d condition build to generate the same amount of damage as a single shot of power damage on the same Condition build. With protection running that means only about 2 bleed stacks needed yet bleed is not putting out more overall damage. With weakness on the physical component would be surpassed by just one stack of bleed. In other words you are going to have to get around three more bleeds to do the same damage.

With other weapon sets having a higher physical damage component, this more pronounced.

Sure, it has some effect, but nowhere near the same effect it has on power only builds. If someone builds a trailblazer necro, then the protection and weakness only affects the 1000 power the build has by default. A power build loses 33% of its damage due to Protection and around 25% due to Weakness. As well as that the Power build needs to invest in 3 stats to maximise damage whereas the condi build only need invest in 2.

Barrier is just additional health, so it may favor power builds against condi builds if there is a different toughness/armor scaling for that portion of health, otherwise it is exactly the same and does not bias condi at all.

I agree protection and weakness should affect condition builds too.

Excellent Name.9574:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Djinn.9245:

…this will not be true for people who don’t have good Magic Find which is most of the players.

In which case they can salvage the unid directly for more materials than they would get from regular drops or sell them on the TP to those with high MF to make more gold profit. Where’s the issue?

The issue is that You are using drop and salvage rates from the demo, which are significantly higher than in the rest of Tyria at face value.

Your information tells us that Rares will now occupy 20% of the drops instead of less than 3% and less than 1% for exotics, You are also counting that he salvage rate will differ to that of Tyria at double the rate. This would completely break the game and the economy which has been pretty stable for over a year now.

Man, do you actually believe they intentionally pumped up the drop rate for the demo for whatever purpose and when PoF launches, they will have lowered it? Like, not because the amount of mats are too much currently (which they may be, it’s a bloody lot) but because it was just a ploy to get ppl to buy it? Really?

The economy is stable, but that doesn’t make it good. New players cannot get into crafting because of the cost of low tier materials, this will help dramatically with that. All those low tier mats are crazy expensive atm.

There’s like 200 different sets in the game atm, they are adding 5 at least with PoF. When you think about that, it’s actually more like 75 sets, 3 armor classes and 5 races make it a lot harder than you think to make this stuff. They have said it takes 9 months to do armor sets.

Well, this is part of the reason for adding the unid items to the game.

I’ve done world completion 5 times and it only takes a couple of play sessions if you setup for it. The rest of the time, when I want a WP, I just pick the nearest one, equip mobility skills and traits and run there, it takes a couple minutes at absolute max.

Djinn.9245:

…this will not be true for people who don’t have good Magic Find which is most of the players.

In which case they can salvage the unid directly for more materials than they would get from regular drops or sell them on the TP to those with high MF to make more gold profit. Where’s the issue?

Erzian.5218:

Megas.4980:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Hmm, someone claimed 22k previously. I can’t test for myself currently, but I will when I can.

For the GS to be a viable DPS weapon in PvE, all the skills would need to be split from PvP and WvW because it is quite powerful already when played well in those aspects of the game.

Wow, 22k actually sounds impressive. I did my tests with 1 or 2 exotics, but it can’t be that much of a difference. I’d be really interested in your results.

I tried some builds post patch and got around 18k with all of the following:
S/a+wh (quickdraw)
S/a+lb (quickdraw)
S/a+gs (vicious quarry)
I used nature magic with 6 boons for a 6% damage modifier.

Can surely be improved by an air sigil (I had water sgil on axe and intelligence on gs in addition to force) and less errors (canceling aa) in the rotation. Perhaps beast mastery is more dps, I did not try it.

Either way 18-22k is still only ~60% of what you should bring to raids. Against big hitboxes, you are half a guadian or ele.

BM would be more DPS, but not enough to make much of a difference if it is that low. Will be months before I can test for myself, but I will do detailed ones to post up if anyone doesn’t do it prior to me getting home.

Djinn.9245:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Djinn.9245:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

You’re just thinking about this from the wrong end. It’s just a different system. Rares and exotics are not mixed into the bunch, they do not exist until you ID the trophies. Imagine they are a chest that has a random item inside and a better chance at getting a rare than you do from drops and that it costs you 1.68s to open them. The beauty is that if you just want materials, you can salvage them directly and get a lot more materials than you do usually, like a LOT more.

This is not how people think. People want to know what is in the bag. And if there is a chance that what is in the bag is something good, even if the chance is small, people will want to know even more. That is why gamble chests and grab bags in stores work.

The developers are counting on this very thing for BL chests and the new gamble boxes. So they obviously understand exactly how this new UnID Gear will work. So a large number of, if not most, people will want to ID the gear. New players will not have good Magic Find and so will probably not even break even from the cost of ID. So as I said the new players lose. Just what GW2 needs…

No, they will still end up with luck to increase their MF as well as comparable loot drops to just playing normally.

It’s interesting that you are consistently presenting your ideas as fact. Do you work for Anet and you’re just hoping they don’t figure out that you’re answering questions? If you don’t work for Anet you actually have no idea.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

They already have low MF so don’t get a lot of rares regardless. The 1.68s cost will be more than equalled out by material rewards, that’s how these gold sinks work, its not trying to steal anything from you, it is you exchanging some silver for more materials and skins. That’s it.

Yes, they have to PAY 1.68s to get the “comparable loot drops to just playing normally”. So they ARE stealing from us if you are correct about the “comparable loot drops to just playing normally”. We have to pay $ and time, as Whitworth and others have pointed out, to get the “comparable loot drops to just playing normally”.

I meant comparable drops and value after you take out the cost to ID. They want to remove gold from the economy, not materials.

Tanner Blackfeather.6509:

Did the Unid’ed stuff ever drop rares/exotics that was not PoF-specific?

Because if not, that completely removes the continually mentioned “it might be a precursor/really expensive exotic”. The value of identifying will then be entirely depending on the price of the new PoF skins (impossible to know yet), and ectos.

They can drop any rares, but much more frequently the PoF unique skins.

Djinn.9245:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Excellent Name.9574:

…I think You are missing a large portion of the information. Unidentified gear is not an add-on to normal loot, but rather a partial replacement of the standard loot. From my weekend approx calc, around 50% of the loot is replaced with unidentified gear. that means, roughly, You are getting 50% less rares, 50% fewer exotics, 50% fewer greens, and 50% fewer blues, unless und gear RNG loot table is different to normal drop. In essence You are losing money, either way, do the identification or don’t. You are talking about the needed Gold sink to keep the price in check, but completely ignoring the surefire outcome of the materials price hike that will come out of this. UND is no-win no-win mechanic.

Sigh. Look at this example.

You are getting 200% or more materials from salvaging the unids.

Also, if you can show me another place I can get a 20% chance for rares at a cost of 1.68s, I’ll be playing there all day.

You keep pointing to an example of 85 as though a number that small has any statistical relevance whatsoever!

It is enough to draw somewhat accurate conclusions from, even -50%, it’s still better loot than usual. And it’s 85 of each method, so 170. What do you want, someone to farm 50,000 unids before you think it’s relevant? People are thinking ANet is stealing their loot, well it’s just absurd. Do any of you actually think for 1 second that ANet wants to make getting loot more difficult? Loot in this game is ridiculous, you get it for doing anything! This is yet another way to get even more.

Sure, it’s a gold sink but it is completely needed and is also more than making up for that with material rewards.

This is like trying to explain to flat earthers how they have got it all wrong. Even when you present evidence to the contrary, they just invalidate it because ’It’s part of the conspiracy!’ or calling it faked.

Djinn.9245:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

You’re just thinking about this from the wrong end. It’s just a different system. Rares and exotics are not mixed into the bunch, they do not exist until you ID the trophies. Imagine they are a chest that has a random item inside and a better chance at getting a rare than you do from drops and that it costs you 1.68s to open them. The beauty is that if you just want materials, you can salvage them directly and get a lot more materials than you do usually, like a LOT more.

This is not how people think. People want to know what is in the bag. And if there is a chance that what is in the bag is something good, even if the chance is small, people will want to know even more. That is why gamble chests and grab bags in stores work.

The developers are counting on this very thing for BL chests and the new gamble boxes. So they obviously understand exactly how this new UnID Gear will work. So a large number of, if not most, people will want to ID the gear. New players will not have good Magic Find and so will probably not even break even from the cost of ID. So as I said the new players lose. Just what GW2 needs…

No, they will still end up with luck to increase their MF as well as comparable loot drops to just playing normally. They already have low MF so don’t get a lot of rares regardless. The 1.68s cost will be more than equalled out by material rewards, that’s how these gold sinks work, its not trying to steal anything from you, it is you exchanging some silver for more materials and skins. That’s it.

Excellent Name.9574:

Galactic.6453:

Excellent Name.9574:

Mystic or Master Kits to salvage Blue or Green gear

Yeah that’s why I said it makes no difference because you get the same basic mats either way.
Green sigils could gain to rise a bit in price because they’re worth jacks- at the moment. And it’s not like PoF will be the only content ever to exist now, plenty of people will still be doing the HoT map metas and world bosses and whatnot. Regular greens and blues will still be abundant.

If Anet planned this to solve the inventory problem, which I seriously doubt as it does not, it will go live in the entire game, not just PoF otherwise what would be the point? Not only green sigils and rune will rise, all of the materials that I mentioned will escalate. UND gear is just blue until identified.

It’s the “best of both worlds” because it solves inventory issues while out playing the game, meaning you only need to deal with your loot once per play session. Green sigils and runes are worthless atm, none of the materials will go up in cost since the supply is going to increase dramatically. Unid gear is NOTHING at all, until you id it, the loot does not exist until you get it ID’d which is essentially trading in your green unid tickets for loot.

Excellent Name.9574:

…The entire mechanic is wrong, even if mat drop rate stays at 200% people will want to identify gear, and it is a loss not gain. either way something will go sky-high if people decide not to identify, exotics, rares, ectos, sigils, runes…will cost a fortune. If they decide to identify the mats will go up and who knows how high.

It’s not a loss, how can getting 16 rares from 85 drops at a cost of 1.4g to ID be a loss? That’s a straight 4g profit right there without including anything else. Who knows what the eyes of Kormir will be worth, there was 90+ of those.

Nothing is going to go sky high because both methods, IDing and then salvaging or just salvaging the unids, gives better loot than we currently get, if anything all the prices will come down significantly.

Excellent Name.9574:

…I think You are missing a large portion of the information. Unidentified gear is not an add-on to normal loot, but rather a partial replacement of the standard loot. From my weekend approx calc, around 50% of the loot is replaced with unidentified gear. that means, roughly, You are getting 50% less rares, 50% fewer exotics, 50% fewer greens, and 50% fewer blues, unless und gear RNG loot table is different to normal drop. In essence You are losing money, either way, do the identification or don’t. You are talking about the needed Gold sink to keep the price in check, but completely ignoring the surefire outcome of the materials price hike that will come out of this. UND is no-win no-win mechanic.

Sigh. Look at this example.

You are getting 200% or more materials from salvaging the unids.

Also, if you can show me another place I can get a 20% chance for rares at a cost of 1.68s, I’ll be playing there all day.

They could just change the tome so that when you double click on a stack, a box appears asking how many you want to use. Probably less work.

Rashagar.8349:

Daddicus.6128:

Rashagar.8349:

Because within days of release the drop rates etc will be understood by those that want to know and there will be people who buy them en masse for their massed coppers of profit after prices normalise, amd especially if the price of something fluctuates enough to make it massed tens of coppers or even massed silvers.

Not if the TP price is lower than the minimum sale price, which seems extremely likely. (I can’t imagine anybody actually paying for the things.)

If the perceived value (TP price) of these unidentified whatevers is lower than the minimum sale price there will still be a stack of 200,000 or something similarly ridiculously large for 1c above the minimum sale price on the TP, and there will still be people who buy them (just not as many as people who sell them).
Eg. people who like to gamble, people who what’s it called, invest with an eye for future changes to loot tables, people who aren’t in the mood for actually playing the game to earn their own unidentified gear but still want to try their luck at making a profit or unlocking skins.

Just because you can’t imagine who’d buy them doesn’t mean no one will. I can’t imagine anyone buying green runes/sigils but by your own example there are people who do. I’ve had random terrible level 10 food sell on the TP within the last few days for the coppers they were “worth”. People buy potions of x slaying. People buy tiny snowflakes!!!

But I’m quite sick of explaining my original joke at this stage so it really doesn’t matter.
I’m just going to brace myself for the inevitable person who comes along and decides to explain exactly why buying tiny snowflakes is a great idea and hence somehow my whole post must be invalid.

They will sell like hotcakes because they salvage into a lot more material than ordinary green weapons, people who don’t understand are going to list them and those tho do understand are going to buy them and salvage. Or, those that have high MF will buy them, get tons of rares and then salvage into ectos.

Ferelwing.8463:

…snip…

You’re just thinking about this from the wrong end. It’s just a different system. Rares and exotics are not mixed into the bunch, they do not exist until you ID the trophies that you get as a drop. Imagine they are a chest that has a random item inside and a better chance at getting a rare than you do from drops and that it costs you 1.68s to open them. The beauty is that if you just want materials, you can salvage them directly and get a lot more materials than you do usually, like a LOT more.

Yes, it’s a gold sink, which is required.

If you like keeping your materials for crafting, this is going to be a lot better system as you well get a lot more materials by salvaging the unid.

The RNG happens with your knowledge here too, and you have a far better chance at rares, even with low MF when you ID these unid trophies.’

It absolutely is a “best of both worlds” because now you can make even more materials from salvage, or more gold than previously from selling the unid or salvage them for more rares than you would have gotten from drops too.

You can’t really fix inflation, you can only slow it, this will help somewhat.

It is a call-back to GW1 where people made lots of money selling unid items and others liked them because they could get them cheaper, get decent skins and sometimes make bank with good upgrades. I think however they should have just called them something else so people who don’t understand how they work wouldn’t think they are missing out on anything.

Look at this example.

Ghertu.7096:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

GS is not a DPS weapon. It’s a utility weapon with powerful defense and CC. Sword is semi-DPS with evasion. Dagger on SoulB is looking to be straight up DPS if built right.

I consider GS defensive abilities as backup for close combat glass cannon wearing medium armor.

That’s exactly what they are.

Axl.8924:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Megas.4980:

Posted an idea of a power ranger rework on reddit couple of days ago. Its aim is to make power build viable in raids. Check it out and share your thoughts about the matter if you’re interested.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6tb65z/rework_idea_make_power_rangers_great_again/

Have you tested Power ranger for DPS since the trait changes?

Henrik.7560:

A lot of valid points there.

The number 1 problem I find with ranger is that most of it’s autos are trash DPS. Take greatsword, so slow clunky and deals horrendous damage. Sword isn’t much better, its just slightly faster. Axe auto is ew. Longbow is powerful at range, but not so much in raids. However its auto at melee range still hits harder than a greatsword.

Mesmer also has this issue but at less they have phantaams.

GS is not a DPS weapon. It’s a utility weapon with powerful defense and CC. Sword is semi-DPS with evasion. Dagger on SoulB is looking to be straight up DPS if built right.

Move number

2https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Maul_(ranger_greatsword_skill) Is a aoe dmg attack that adds vulnerabilities, but depending on your positioning its possible to hit nothing.

Number 5

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hilt_Bash is kinda a gap closer, or could be used to interrupt skills.

More than a couple of skills are more or less dps skills.We even have a gap closer skill to literally jump on top of enemies.

I’m not exactly sure what you are getting at mate. Those skills are not really DPS oriented, they are great for burst and mobility, but that does not correlate to high DPS numbers. Where burst/mobility excels is in PvP/WvW.

Viable means able to be successful, so it is. It is, however, not the most efficient build to play.

You can duel in the custom arenas/duelling servers in PvP or in your Guild Hall.

That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing an instanced arena placed in one of the cities for duelling. Like an actual arena where it’s tiered and you can watch, like in the Black Citadel there is the one down the bottom iirc.

Djinn.9245:

The cost of materials doesn’t matter. What will ultimately happen is less rare & exotic (including precursors?) because a certain percentage of them are hidden behind Unidentified Gear. Only those with high Magic Find have a good chance of getting rares & exotics, so screw the new players. The new players get to either just salvage their UnID or pay exorbitantly in both $ and time to ID it for a not-good chance at better stuff.

Sounds great for the old players with high Magic Find. Too bad for everyone else.

They’ll make even more money than they would by salvaging the rares they rarely get by either selling the unid directly or salvaging and selling the materials, allowing them to just buy ecto.

This system is the best of both worlds since it allows new players with little MF to turn an even better profit (since they will still be getting fewer rares from drops because of their low MF) or generate a lot more materials for themselves. And it also gives Magic Find more value, for those that do have high MF, buying the unids on the TP, IDing them is likely to result in greater numbers of ecto being available as well as exotics and rares. The drop rate of rares from these ID’d with high MF is orders of magnitude better than mob drops.

Not only that, but the gold sink in IDing the items is needed and the increased use of the TP to sell the unids is also another gold sink. Gold sinks are needed to prevent hyper-inflation.

LadyKitty.6120:

This year the sales started earlier than ever before and this far they’ve always lasted at least to august 29th (which would be end of 3rd week this year). They’ve also usually started with skins and visual stuff and brought the useful stuffs to sale towards the end of sales. Kitty knows that “Everything. Here. Now.” is quite common attitude these days, but she’d advice patience in this case. Rant after sales are over. <.<

Yeah, they have started earlier, I just don’t see the point in these sorts of marketing ploys. I’m not going to buy any of this crap so I’ll have to wait another 3 weeks to see if ANet gets my money. That’s all. It’s just a shame to me they don’t go “For 3 weeks, 20% of everything in the gem store” and be done with it, I’d probably blow a lot more coin then as it’s spaced out over several pay cheques.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There have already been some popular skins plus the controversial (and nearly-lucrative) watchwork mining pick.

Given how many items there are available in the gem shop, if they discount only 3/day, there still isn’t enough time in the month for everything that someone might want to go on sale.

See that’s what I don’t get, why not just go blanket -20% for the whole shop for the month?

Because then only the most impatient would buy stuff the rest of the year — the rest of us would gladly wait 11 months or less to get 20% off.

It’s not like stores don’t sell anything before the christmas sales once per year. Most chains have sales all the time.

What stores discount everything by 20% during the holidays? What stores discount everything at any point in time? Only those trying to clear all their inventory because sales have been bad and they need the cash now.

Every major chain here in Australia has sales like you are talking about every year, Boxing Day in particular. And you are right, they want to clear inventory. So they can get new stock, not necessarily because sales have been bad.

The gem store doesn’t have inventory and the stock never gets old, it’s never outdated and there is no cost to storing it.

Like I mentioned above, it’s just marketing and that’s what annoys me.

It makes a lot of sense to swap them, thematically.

Losing 25% movement speed to immobilize makes sense as does losing 12% crit damage to ensure you can land your attacks against a blocking foe.

And some stab on Brutish Seals would be much appreciated,

+1

StickerHappy.8052:

+1

Off topic. Didn’t wanna open another topic

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Call_Lightning_

Is this skill really only 3/4 cast time for 5 pulses and non chanelled? wow.

When you compare it to Lightning Storm Glyph with 1.5s cast and 36 impacts, it seems a bit long

Megas.4980:

Eponet.4829:

Megas.4980:

And Soulbeast trait line is so-so for power.

Well, we don’t really know how soulbeast is for power until we find out all the details on how Elevated Bond affects other traits.

“Traits that affect your pet may affect you differently while in beastmode.”

Hm, true, didn’t know this little detail about the beastmode, thanks for the info!

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Hmm, someone claimed 22k previously. I can’t test for myself currently, but I will when I can.

For the GS to be a viable DPS weapon in PvE, all the skills would need to be split from PvP and WvW because it is quite powerful already when played well in those aspects of the game.

Wow, 22k actually sounds impressive. I did my tests with 1 or 2 exotics, but it can’t be that much of a difference. I’d be really interested in your results.

Concerning the skills – true, most likely. I tried to kinda make Maul viable in both PvP and PvE through the 2-charges system with an inner cd, but that’d require a lot of testing. But I’m pretty sure that even splitting the damage numbers of all GS skills shouldn’t be a problem, as many skills already do more/less damage in PvP.

That 22k was referring to max DPS possible, with likely S/A and LB, not the GS.

Although, I’d like to see the DPS from something like this. If a cruelty sigil was added, we could hit 292% crit damage. Scholar would be better if you can keep above 90%. That would be self buffed dps, if the raid buffs were used, you’d swap out the might traits for clarion and resounding and if you can get your health below 75%, Remorseless may be worth a try over Predators Onslaught, especially if you need vuln and then the Rage runes instead of Scholar.

rpfohr.7048:

I stand by what i said many years ago. we need a mace or hammer weapon akin to bunny Thumper build that allows us to cc enemy so pets can consistently hit.

Only way it works.

Aaawwww Yisssss! Next eSpec.

Neural.1824:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Neural.1824:

I stopped after the class specific cats came out.

Ever since that point the “harmless fun” aspect of it completely died, as people who only have the 5 basic characters couldn’t join in on the fun without buying character slots.

Sad that everything popular has to be turned into a monetization method.

It isn’t a “monetization method” — it’s just fluff. There are many, easier and more effective ways to get people to buy gems.

No. They took something that was a low level scavenger hunt that just about anyone could do for fun, and locked it behind gold walls and skill.
And yeah, there are many easier and more effective ways to get people to buy gems. That was my point. But they have to do this to everything.

You know, you don’t actually have to get them all. It’s not compulsory for you to buy character slots to collect cats for your home instance. Anecdotally, I’d say most people have more than the 5 character slots anyway.

Why do people have to assume this of everything? This game is absolutely free and you do not have to spend a cent on it until the servers close whenever that may be in a decade or whenever. Not a single cent. And people complain constantly of “monetisation”. That a portion of a scavenger hunt, or whatever (which serves no purpose whatsoever in-game except to give cat lovers and scavengers something to do), is locked behind a paywall because class specific cats are made. Seriously, are you for reals about this stuff or what?

Even if you are right and ANet added class specific cats in order to encourage character slot sales, who cares? This is a business afterall. It’s not pay to win, it’s not compulsory or a subscription.

Smiggles.6823:

…Anet seems to want to inflate the prices of materials and skins on the TP by making access to mats from gear salvaging more expensive in PoF areas. I definitely don’t want this system made universal…

Have you seen how many more materials are created when you salvage the unid gear? it’s significantly more (over double) than salvaging weapons/armor and all tiers are created, meaning the supply of the lower tiers will be increased significantly. I’d say they want to reduce the cost of materials because that’s exactly what salvaging the unid gear will do.

JaddynnStarr.5201:

I think this is how it happened…..

(Anet employee): Guys guys guys! I got it (snicker)! Our fans are sooooo stupid…. (snicker)
(Group of Anet employes together): How stupid are they??!?!?!?
(Anet employee): Our fans are sooooooo stupid….(snicker laugh) they will pay “US” for the mats they loot in game now!!!
(Group of Anet employees): AHAHAHAHAHAH!!! YAS!!!!
(Anet employee): (tears in his eyes from laughing so hard) AND…AND… AAAAAND… wait for it…. Get this…. We will give them a gem store item that will identify this gear for them at more cost then the mats are worth!!!! AND AND AND…. (snicker) Itll cost them 1000 GEMS!
(all Anet employees Rolling on the ground with laughter): AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!

You know what’s going to be even better? When I make thousands of gold because of all the people who hate this new system and do not understand it.

kurfu.5623:

Despite the mental gymnastics by some people trying to justify this system, having to pay to get loot you have earned is a terrible idea.

You aren’t paying for the loot you earned, that is sitting in your inventory in the form of trophies, waiting to be salvaged into lots of materials. If you so wish, you can also trade those trophies with some coin for a chance at better loot than you already have also and unique skins.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Unimaginative is fine, as long as there’s synergy and functionality. Both traits you draw attention to lack both, so almost anything is better.

I’d like to have Twice as Vicious similar to Always Angry. “Gain Twice as Vicious (10s: +5% damage and condition damage) when exiting or entering Beastmode.”

I find the trait layout bad. While other specs have minor traits revolving around their new functions or thematics, our minor traits have nothing to do with entering, exiting, or remaining in Beastmode.

Instead, Soulbeast has a bonus with Fury which is found more on core Ranger, and another minor that procs on disabling foes, which is found on power/defensive/Druid setups. No one else finds that the least bit odd?

I like the “Always Angry” treatment of “Twice as Vicious” and agree the trait layout is bad, they don’t seem to have any rhyme or reason for their existence or position, no…. theme?

Hey guys, can’t play currently so thought I’d ask since I’ve seen something interesting to do with our pet pathing.

Previously I noticed the interval for the pet checking it’s position/directions for pathing was a whole second and figured that was a limitation of the game, but then recently Vulture Stance and One Wolf Pack were introduced that have a 0.5 second interval, I wonder if this could be used for pet pathing to make them more ‘navigationally sound’.

Thornwolf.9721:

We dont need Overpowered pets, just thematically better ones and ones who actually feel like a threat. Sending a Deer to fight a god sounds just utterly ridiculous, and the new pets look like crap.

Anything fighting a god is utterly ridiculous. What exactly do you think is not ridiculous to send to fight against a god? A Balrog perhaps? A Junundu?

And if it’s powerful enough to fight a god, why would it allow you to ‘tame’ it and tell it what to do?

Durzlla.6295:

Garb Cost.3718:

Durzlla.6295:

Garb Cost.3718:

Also, why do we have a ‘Swine’ family. Has there ever been a functional use for the piggies? If there is and I’ve missed it, I’d love to discover it. If not, maybe they could be removed/reworked?

Very easy to imagine an aggressive skill/use for a boar. A farmyard pig, less so.

EDIT: just thought about hyenas – just pep them up a bit to make them more useful in a burst damage scenario…

The pigs are actually probably my favorite pet family, they’ve got decent damage for being a tanky pet, and they have the knockdown to end all knockdowns (3s knock down that cleaves), and their F2 gives an insane amount of utility, I mean who doesn’t like an AoE fear, a 3s invuln, 2s stun, chaos storm lite, or every boon in the game?

The problem with the pigs are, 1) their F2 is very clunky since you have to run up and pick up the item, or call them back to you so the item is nearby, and even worse enemy players can pick up the item (they never do, but they have the ability to do so). And 2) their godly knockdown has a very large windup and it hasn’t “homed in” since beta weekend event 2 (the pig would literally chase after its target until the pig was interrupted or the channel ended), which makes it very hard for the pig to land it.

I think the clunky F2 skill kills it a bit for me… purely because other pets are a lot easier to use. I would love to have a big, bristly, violent toilet brush of a Boar as a pet charging into things and knocking them down. Make that the F2 skill perhaps and you immediately have a viable option IMO!

I think the AoE knockdown being on all the pigs is fitting, and as much as i absolutely love the thematic and idea of forage, it just doesn’t work well, it’s clunky, and it feels very bad to use.

If they completely reworked the pigs F2s into something else, I think that they would probably be used as pets because they’re not that bad otherwise. If they changed their charge to work how it used to i can 100% guarantee they’d be used again in PvP if nothing else.

The could make Forage become the skill from the item it creates. Like Steal on thief but the F2 just beomes the item so you do not have to pick it up and Forage goes on CD in the background.

Ranys.4028:

https://youtu.be/UzLppqBnt4g

Reading the main post I just couldn’t resist making this video. Maybe it will even give good perspective. Dunno.
Anyway, thinking that we should stay in soulbeast mode all the time is quite unimaginative. I think there will be good builds where we will swap in and out of it all the time. Also yes, especially in PvP and WvW we will get HUGE builddiversity.

I already found a build where we would have 18 seconds invuln + tanky stats and we could trait to survive lethal at least once, maybe add the new rune of rebirth. If we’re lucky only one of the 2 will trigger at a time and we’ll have 2 ways to avoid lethal damage every 90 seconds.

And that’s just one stupidly funny thing I theorized.

If running something like remorseless valkyrie or just high vitality, the rune of the scourge looks pretty interesting too. Gain barrier at 50% health.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Scourge
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Rebirth

Zenith.7301:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Zenith.7301:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Zenith.7301:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Zenith.7301:

Fluffball.8307:

The condi ultra-high DPS benchmark is mostly about sitting in one place basking in your own bonfire. For literally every other piece of content in the game, power druid is better (and although I’m not a raider, I hear condi druid sucks when the boss is moving). Sword and GS and LB are much better in open world, dungeons, PvP, and WvW.

I usually find myself on here defending people who say condi is utterly useless outside of raids. Both can do anything to a very decent degree.

Not for fractals they aren’t, and even with moving bosses condi ranger is far ahead of power. Bonfire is wide enough movement shouldn’t be an issue, and a lot of the dps comes from bleeds and poison as well.

Have you tested power ranger for DPS since the trait changes?

Yes, it’s still kitten. It needs a whole lot more than what it got, and greatsword in particular is still garbage.

The autoattacks need to be buffed by 20-30%+, period. Maul could also use a buff in PvE.

Um, it was buffed by 45% crit damage with ability to hit 100% crit chance in zerk/scholar with realistic buffs…..

What DPS numbers did you come up with?

Edit: I never expect Ranger to be a DPS class because that is not what it is. Straight up DPS is mindless garbage play tbh and if Ranger has to take some nerfs to it’s survivability or utility just to gain some larger numbers, I’d be pretty kittened, because you can’t combine massive survivability with massive DPS.

You just told me all I need to know. Massive survivability is irrelevant in raids when everything in PvE resorts to dodging at the right time and barring that a mesmer/guardian will block further damage to you.

Hell, warrior is more survivable and still puts out better damage in power builds.

Raids and PvE are irrelevant to the utility of a Ranger. Do you want homogenous classes?

Use a Warrior then.

Edit: Now I’m doubting you did any actual testing because you didn’t provide the numbers.

I prefer homogenous classes if it means I can play whatever kitten class I want efficiently. I’m not going to record a video for you.

It suffices to say that the latest qT benchmarks didn’t even mention power ranger.

I didn’t want you to record a video man, but you did make the claim of having done testing to see the results of the balance patch, all I expected was “1 million HP golem, XX,XXX DPS average.”

Does it suffice to say that? Did they even test it? Don’t just rely on others and regurgitate what they claim.

I really wish I could log on atm and test this, because it would take 10 mins to have a clear answer.

Wulf.5431:

…I was thinking of this too, but I feel there’s too little protection available for ranger to really focus on it. Remember you can’t take Essence of Speed and Second Skin together, which is a bit of a bummer. So you just have 2 seconds of prot on dodge and protective ward.

Don’t forgetBlue Moa, Moa Stance, Stone Spirit and various rune effects.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There have already been some popular skins plus the controversial (and nearly-lucrative) watchwork mining pick.

Given how many items there are available in the gem shop, if they discount only 3/day, there still isn’t enough time in the month for everything that someone might want to go on sale.

See that’s what I don’t get, why not just go blanket -20% for the whole shop for the month?

Because then only the most impatient would buy stuff the rest of the year — the rest of us would gladly wait 11 months or less to get 20% off.

It’s not like stores don’t sell anything before the christmas sales once per year. Most chains have sales all the time.

Was just talking about this earlier and thought of pets not sharing player food buffs, but you can get them to use this one (as I’m sure a lot of you know), just leaving it here for those who don’t.

Cheers!

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Birthday_Blaster

Completely free.
Nourishment(10m): +40 to All Attributes
+10% Karma
+15% Magic Find
+15% Experience from Kills

vs

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragon%27s_Revelry_Starcake

2.3g to craft
Nourishment(30 m): +45 All Attributes
+20% Magic Find
+10% Experience from Kills

Just sayin.

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

I don’t know about you guys but I’m getting super hyped for soulbeasts. I’ve just been sitting at work day dreaming of how insanely fun it looks.

I was thinking, for PVP, do you all think a full melee build could work? I would like to run GS and D/A with Remorseless and Two-Handed Training, but as I’m building on gw2skills, it seems like its lacking in survivability, particularly condi clear. There aren’t many survivability options in the MM and BM trait lines. What do you think/how would you build it?

2HT I think is a bit redundant for remorseless now, where previously it was compulsory. Since we have Vicious Quarry that can give it every 2s, Brutish Seals that gives fury, Vigorous Training gives Fury, lesser call of the wild/zephyr, WK combined with the survivial skills and soften the fall for condi removal and fury, Live Fast for fury and swiftness, then pet skills and WH, we have enough sources.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There have already been some popular skins plus the controversial (and nearly-lucrative) watchwork mining pick.

Given how many items there are available in the gem shop, if they discount only 3/day, there still isn’t enough time in the month for everything that someone might want to go on sale.

See that’s what I don’t get, why not just go blanket -20% for the whole shop for the month?

Use the Birthday Blaster instead

The best thing you can do is purchase the expansion.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gem_Store/Anniversary_Sales

That has up to the 22nd in it.

And yeah I get personal preference and all that, but these are not actual physical items, they do not exist until you purchase them and even then they are only 1’s and 0’s stored on ANets server somewhere. They lose nothing by having a sale that includes more items.

AEFA.9035:

While it does look good on paper and looks cool aesthetic wise, you won’t be running SB with D/D. Any condition that Dagger off hand gives (besides cripple) Dagger main can dish out in seconds. Power builds would be running D/A while Condi/hybrid would probably run Torch with rotations faster than current A/torch, SB build.

As for me, Im more excited about traits like Live Fast, Essence of Speed, Second Skin, and the newly introduced Rugged Growth thanks to recent patch. Protection with healing and reduced condition damage, depending on your choice. Pair with 10sec CD Beast skills like Swoop, Bear Bite, or Crippling leap from Canines thats almost perma protection if you take Nature Magic on the line too. You can be either condi or power. Lots of choices coming up looking forward to it.

I think D/D-SB will work very well for a duelist role as is specified in the OP. The dagger OH is not taken for the conditions, it is taken for the evasion, the ranged condition application is merely a bonus.

Seriously, who decides what goes on sale? Other than the storage expanders, which I’ll buy two of, it’s all rubbish.

Compared to the 2016 sale it’s pretty…..

I was intending on buying max shared inventory slots and since due to work I have a lot of additional expendable coin, buying a bunch of keys for some fun and because kitten it, but none of it is on sale!

No Bank tabs, no bag slots, no keys, no shared inventory slots, no copper/silver fed, not a lot for account stuff on offer…