Guild Wars 2

Tips for new players:

With Rifle you have access to Immobilize, you can run up shoot that out, toss your Grenade Barrage, equip grenade kit and throw a shrapnel grenade and honestly a lot of stuff will be just about dead, if not follow up with Freeze and Poison grenades, maybe drop kit and follow up with a blunderbuss and jump shot.

Second tip would be to learn to use blinds, with Bomb kit you get smoke bomb, it’s sweet, you get a few seconds where enemies will “miss” you giving you basically invulnerability (note many bosses are basically immune to that tactic), you also have Flash something on Mortar kit for another blind field, great stuff. you have Flash grenades on that kit, the 5 skill on FT, the 3 skill on pistol, just a lot of it available. It’ll take hits away and give you more time to damage without a concern for avoiding that hit.

Probably the two best tips I can give, rest would be more general. But, like said above, use your big hitters as much as possible, use these defensive techniques to give you seconds of safety in order to get those out without concern.

Vox Hollow.2736:

@Jerus
I don’t suppose you’d have any other non-straight-RPG experiences I could build an example around? I actually don’t have any Wildstar experience, so that’s not much good.

I haven’t done Wildstar raiding seen some videos, used it as an example because I know noTrigger plays it. My main ones were EQ and DCUO, dabbled in others but never got to that top tier level in any others.

Can’t really think of any examples of what you’re talking about though. Are there any raids in other things?

NoTrigger.8396:

skill wont matter that much. if you can stay alive and do the mechanics you will do just as well as players who seem to be king to you. there are other things that are far more important in progression raiding or raiding in general.

attitude and atmosphere in your guild is far more important for example than having all of the good players.
you can be pretty sure that some of the people who you probably consider to be better than you will actually be the reason why their guild wont get world first.
many people in gw2 have inflated egos from running ez mode content solo or fast over the years and their egos will be the reason why some guilds are going to be on self destruction, and other guilds that no one knows will be really good.

You don’t have to tell me twice about that I’ve been around and done well over 10 years of raiding in other games. Drama can ruin things fast for sure. But if the personal skill aspect isn’t requiring to be the best you can possibly be, playing to absolute perfection, then it isn’t that theoretical absolute challenge. That’s all I’ve been trying to say. I think there will be wiggle room as every raid I’ve ever done has had it, and after we completed the content and got it mastered we began tweaking for optimization just for fun.

azizul.8469:

lol, this could lead to people listing things at ridiculous price at TP, just so that they can transfer gold from a free2play alt acct. shimering dust for 10g, anyone ?

EDIT : but then again, i don’t remember, does the TP point you to the lowest price first ? can you skip to higher price listed for an item ?

TP forces you to buy lowest price IIRC

They absolutely are different, but I’m not going to sit here and say that people like Abe aren’t simply better players than I really ever could hope to be. I don’t have the reaction time and finger dexterity to keep up. If the raid is made so you have to be that good, well it’ll be quite a while till I beat it if I ever do, and I’m fine with that, but just saying I haven’t seen one like that yet in any game. Even in Wildstar do you think everyone in your raid was equally skilled maximizing absolutely everything?

I’ve been able to beat all content in every MMO I’ve played, but it’s not because I was the best player out there but because the content was designed below the absolute peak of skill and I was above that minimum bar.

If it’s designed such that it’s above my skill level, if it’s still fun, I’ll enjoy every minute of banging my head on it, I just want to be clear that I’m not advocating for easier stuff, I’m just saying I haven’t seen content that requires absolute peak performance such that it never gets easier even when the strats are known (I don’t consider figuring out the strats to be part of the difficulty, it’s the puzzle, eventually it’s figured out, it is a big part of the fun though).

Xyonon.3987:

Oh yea that one is true – 5.4% for everything but pistol skills wich are 8.1%.

So let’s see …

---

Took me some time but here ya go:

Due our already long durations I’d say stick to the 5+1 setup, so you won’t lose too much damage from dying enemies. But overall still totally viable.

It’s late so if you find a mistake, tell me

Yeah the reason I didn’t go with the 2 trapper is because I figure if I ever want to truly min/max I’ll be willing to buy the Toxic Focusing Crystal to do so for whatever I’m doing.

So basically if you never intend to use those things, consistently have longer duration fights, it might be worthwhile as even with leaving condi’s on the boss it will slowly grow an advantage. But again, min/maxing to that extent, use the consumable or use whichever feels more right, I figure burst is more an issue than sustain so I liked that option might not be much advantage at all, but it’s something right?

Vox Hollow.2736:

@ Jerus
Are you saying: ‘lacking a means of adjusting personal difficulty via defense raises concerns about the accessibility of content?’
Am I on the right track, or totally offbase?

If a group from SC or vC or any of those top guilds don’t have room to further optimize from what the bare minimum is then there won’t be many people outside those select few beating it. Not that I have a problem with that, if it’s that challenging cool, I’ll have fun trying to beat it (assuming it doesn’t feel like PVP). But I’ve never done a raid at that level. I’ve done raids darn close, but in trinity games you have that power creep that after a week or two of getting new gear on some easier content that hard raid becomes noticeably easier and that’s where we feel the freedom to optimize and stack more damage for faster runs. Obviously GW2 doesn’t have that level of power creep, so we won’t get that, but then again even in those select few hard raids I’m thinking of they were still possible without it and had wiggle room. So if you wanted to sum me up in one line “I’ve yet to see a raid without wiggle room that allows more accessibility as well as further optimization”.

And as far as personal preference I love when you can come out of a fight unscathed, god it’s sweet. But, I want that to be hard enough that it’s actually out of reach of my personal skill level such that if I ever do accomplish it… ahh yeah.

Vox Hollow.2736:

I’m not sure ‘defense building as difficulty setting’ is really in the spirit of providing a penultimate challenge? Difficulty setting as a concept, full stop, really. The difficulty is set. It’s high.

Isn’t that the whole point?

Do you for a second believe it’ll be there? I don’t, never seen a raid at that level ever. Design it for the top 10% and the top 2% are going to be bored fast. I can tell you right now if they design it to the peak of difficulty I’ll never be beating it. I’m no Sesshi or that level player.

Vox Hollow.2736:

You don’t really spend development time crafting encounters to accommodate for those types, Jerus.

Encounter design doesn’t have to systematically pull it’s punches, that sort of folk doesn’t need the help and even actively resents the idea. In a sufficiently skill-based game, they just sort of…make themselves known.

It’s not about making it for them, I want it because that’s why I love this game, you can play easier and harder just built into the system. I don’t expect it to be easy at all to play it with tankier/more supportive builds, but I want the opportunity to shed it and go all out if you master it to that level. That’s what keeps me loving this game’s PVE.

I expect to ahve to be constantly moving, some moves being insta kills for full glass, I expect to take damage and have to do healing blasts in a water field quickly before that spot becomes a death zone.

I think opening it up to 10 would be a good change. It’d make some of the more powerful effects “less desired” in that you wouldn’t feel the need to stack the professions with that mechanic, while it’d also make some of the lesser ones more desired as you’d have room to slip them into the group and get it. Ranger/War vs 2War for example.

What I’m hoping for is not just 1 attack every 3s, it’s like maybe an attack every second, one being an auto attack that’s a projectile so you need high uptime on reflects. Then a series of other attacks on longer cooldowns, some that are unblockable/evadeable with a focus on CC and low-moderate damage, then stuff that you need to avoid with possibly a mix of stuff you can only evade, block and/or use good positioning to avoid.

Faster is good, but I want the goal to be that if you play perfectly you can go through with far far glassier if not full glass builds. But I want it to be challenging that almost no one runs that because it’s nuts. Quick animation mid damage attacks as part of the skill set could do this as you’d want that healer to help bounce back from a failed dodge if you’re not great on reaction time. I want room mechanics that do have heavy attrition mechanics such that having a tankier person handle that mechanic would be the best idea but then when it comes back to the fight he’s doing less so an optimal group would potentially have to come up with a different strategy or a more optimized composition.

That’s what I want.

Blaeys.3102:

I think they could have done a much better job differentiating raiding from what we see in other games, especially when it comes to making it easier to actually form raids in guilds. As it stands, I see more drama and hurt feelings among friends than fun coming from this model.

That said, I do plan to work within the system they are building to offer raiding in my guild. That will mean running multiple groups a night to ensure – consecutively if we have anything other a multiple of 10 people. I am hoping that each individual raid is fairly short yet very difficult. That way we can cycle people in between wipes to ensure we all get to play together.

That is my only concern with the way they are doing raiding. Notice I said nothing about the difficulty of the raid – it is just the logistics that concern me. I led hardcore progression 10 and 25 player raids for 6 years before growing tired of them (because of the drama that comes from logistics) before coming to GW2.

And note that I am not talking about flexible raid numbers in this post (even though I still believe that would be possible – Im just ready to concede that ANET feels differently). And I am not advocating for a lesser difficulty in any way.

Short and manageable. That is my only hope. I have no problem leading groups for weeks before downing a boss. I just don’t want to have to leave friends out when we form groups. GW2 is about playing with my guild. I want to be able to play large scale difficult content without having to worry about any of them getting left out.

And, I respect that people feel differently about that. It is every bit as important to me as what you are looking for is to you. Please respect that opinions differ and that is what forums are for before making a knee jerk response yelling about how people want to nerf or water down your content. Most do not.

Couldn’t agree more. I think it’s worth mentioning DCUO here, we had exactly what you describe. Raids once on farm mode were generally 10-30 mins long, of course this is after spending a week doing 5 hours a night just to learn them before finally getting wins then like ~1h runs for a while before mastering them. But, the ~30 min run allows you to do it, and not feel like you’re wasting time doing it again with friends to get them their win.

We also had replay tokens in that game, which was cool you could reset your timelocked reward so you could get rewards doing it a second, third… 20th time that week. However, that system was pretty lame in all honesty, I think GW2 would be far better served by just having decent non time locked rewards, leave a solid reward for just doing it, timelock the special stuff.

Having shorter raids certain quelled the drama as we would usually run things multiple times within the timelock so that everyone in the guild got it. It wasn’t nearly as bad as back when I was doing the night long raids where if you had to sit out you just lost out for the week, it was an issue.

squishy squishy squishy (months with no leveling up and I have a flood control again?)

Zenith.7301:

Jerus.4350:

I want a set of fights where playing optimally is far more challenging, I don’t want it forcing people to fight in tanky setups, there’s a big difference. I want to have to actively defend myself more often where things aren’t able to be trivialized by reflects. I want other builds to have more value in that playing at the optimal level is beyond the grasp of most players even if they know the correct tactics.

This does not require adopting the style of play in PVP.

PvP doesn’t involve tanky builds anyways. Mesmer/thief run zerker or marauder, as does warrior.

The only cele users are ele/engi and cele signet necro. Guardian can be both zerk or tanky bunker.

Either way I would not call most of pvp PVT-wearing scenarios.

Didn’t the winners of that last tournament run a PVT Engi, 2 Cele Ele, Cele Necro and some kind of probably offensive thief? Or am I mistaken on that?

Silver, PVP has a lot more smaller hits with some nastier attacks that you actively defend. You can’t defend them all, and if you build with a bit of defense in mind you simply don’t need to. If you play a glassier build you’re looking for a quick kill or you gtfo and go to a place where you can or is an empty node to grab quickly. Or at least as I understand it, I won’t sit here and act like I’m a pro PVP player(was highly ranked in old games though so I’d like to think I’m not completely lost on the concepts).

PVE is more about active defenses, larger hits but at intervals which you can handle avoiding it all. Right now we have more than enough active defense to avoid it all (well except necros) The only thing I’d say is stressing that is a Lupi without reflects. I’d like to see the raids be built more like that. Give me something where it’s at least theoretically possible to actively defend yourself through at least for the most part. Requiring some level of healing is not bad, and tankage would surely be a plus if we can have someone who the adds focus first as they have the toughness for example.

PVP and PVE have a completely different feeling to me, I much prefer the PVE side, I just want it harder and more complex. Making that does not mean it turns into PVP style.

I want a set of fights where playing optimally is far more challenging, I don’t want it forcing people to fight in tanky setups, there’s a big difference. I want to have to actively defend myself more often where things aren’t able to be trivialized by reflects. I want other builds to have more value in that playing at the optimal level is beyond the grasp of most players even if they know the correct tactics.

This does not require adopting the style of play in PVP.

Silverkey.2078:

I will reiterate on this, but I believe when deciding for the first team comps and builds for raids, we should look at PvP builds and not PvE builds. PvP builds are versatile enough to sustain any possible opponent since we cannot switch builds in-fight. They are also generally more focused on surviving hard content than PvE builds.

And this is good, because while far from perfect, PvP class balance is much better than PvE balance.

If the raids play more like PVP than current PVE they might as well not exist to me, I won’t be doing them.

@Nexxe/Astralporing, Again we don’t know how many resources are taken for anything. I know in one of my old games simply creating all the links and zone connections as well as instance creation took apparently half the time when making a new raid (not counting any new artwork, this was just from the developers time). I thought that was pretty interesting and certainly highlighted how ignorant I am about that and how assuming something is easy is quite silly.

And Astralporing it’s not “would it be worth it to create an easier version” it’s “would it be better to create something more fitting of that demographic” If adjusting values and difficulty as well as creating the new links and instance option for the raid took the same time as creating 5 new open world bosses for the next LS release, which would that demographic prefer? I won’t even venture a guess but I think that was the decision making process as well as avoiding the nastiness of creating different rewards for the different difficulty levels (and ohh god I’m sure I’m going to get crucified for even bringing that up).

@Phys, I’m sure everyone would agree a better LFG tool is long due. And back in DCUO we did PUG raids all the time, we didn’t even have different difficulty levels set in. It’s just that thanks to gear treadmill as well as general knowledge advancing players overall power within a couple months the raids were far more accessible, and the higher end guilds were knocking out the achievements(or doing speed runs) for them while the LFGs were just getting them done.

Xyonon.3987:

Neither are 10% more or less condition damage 10% more or less damage with conditions :P

I’ll do the math for you later, kinda busy right now

True, doh, I mean not necessarily what I meant but I also wasn’t thinking about it that way. It’s like 184% vs 194%, so 5.4% increase in duration for bleed/burn (not counting pistol).

nexxe.7081:

Jerus.4350:

nexxe.7081:

Dahkeus.8243:

Good. There’s a reason I left WoW at Cataclysm.

Pug raids are miserable. They’re either an organizational disaster or they’re pitted against content that’s made easy enough for a pug clear.

The latter of those two options is the worst.

Here’s the moment I decided to quit raiding:

I was entering the Deatwing’s Lair raid with a Raid LFG. We breezed through every boss, downing them without a wipe. I defeated Deathwing by doing almost nothing but tab targetting and following the mob of pugs. When the great and legendary Deatwing died to this group…I realized that there was nothing to be proud of.

Deathwing suddenly felt like a pushover schmuck and there was nothing any challenging hard mode could do to fix his ruined reputation.

Please ArenaNet. Please, please, keep this content challenging and don’t ever build out a group finder. Don’t just cater to casual content and don’t just cater to hardcore content. Provide both and embrace a complex and diverse playerbase!

PUG raids work well in GW2. Teq and Wurm, and Vinewrath aren’t “disasters”.

They also aren’t very challenging.

I should’ve clarified. I meant it works well in organizing. As for “challenging”, it works well in WoW, since there’s different difficulty levels: LFR (easiest), Normal (regular guilds), and Mythic (for highly organized and progression guilds). GW2 is only catering to the latter, neglecting the former groups.

Mhm, and having diffrent tiers of difficult is good for this. But it takes more work and it’s not what GW2 has in mind. Not knowing exactly how much work either option takes but do you think your players who would use LFR would in general want a raid or another open world area or open world boss? What is that demographic’s playtime focused? So is it worth building that easy mode raid that you could complete with the LFR tool? Or is it better to spend those resources elsewhere where they would appreciate them more?

http://massivelyop.com/2015/08/31/pax-prime-2015-guild-wars-2-is-never-getting-a-raid-finder/

Because of the large diversity of encounters, I was prompted to ask whether players will be able to swap out abilities between boss fights. Johanson said that currently players are in combat the whole time they are in the raid instance, so swapping out abilities isn’t possible. But he did say that ANet is still “playing around with what [it] will let you change.” However, he was quick to point out that weapon swapping can easily change a character’s role in the group, and that can be done on the fly.

Aye I haven’t done the math but I’d imagine 10% condi duration would beat out 4.81% condi damage loss (using your build and swapping them went from 1995 to 1899)

Wethospu.6437:

I think it’s good that they are exploring that option.

Just want to say I think this is perfectly phrased. I’m not sure if I’ll like the result but I do think it’s good they’re exploring it. I don’t hate the idea just have some concerns.

EcoRI.9273:

Jerus.4350:

And if it’s a set of jumps and “no path” prevents shadow steps and you don’t have a warrior or a guard because no profession will be required…

Not trying to say this is an optimal situation at all, it’s a fringe case at best, but just one of the things concerning me. That gameplay through the entirety of the raid will be less entertaining because of something you should be using for a niche situation.

Ok have the death shroud necro tank over.. If there really is a super niche situation where there is only 1 solution, then the raid sucks. I am sure there are many solutions to niche situations.

I think you’re misunderstanding my concern. It’s not that there’ll be one solution, it’s simply that whatever the solution that fits my group is will be less fun for a large portion of the raid. Maybe my example was a bit too specific.

Edit: Maybe you are right that this idea is unfounded or more so that it won’t be so bad as to become a major hindrance.

Ugh that PVP comment, that’s the thing that actually scares me. Build locking I’m pretty indifferent I see some concerns but some positives. The pvp comment though… there’s a reason I don’t play it much and in general dislike the entire system. If that means less one shots and a ton of quicker few hundred damage hits… ehh not my cup of tea.

nexxe.7081:

Dahkeus.8243:

Good. There’s a reason I left WoW at Cataclysm.

Pug raids are miserable. They’re either an organizational disaster or they’re pitted against content that’s made easy enough for a pug clear.

The latter of those two options is the worst.

Here’s the moment I decided to quit raiding:

I was entering the Deatwing’s Lair raid with a Raid LFG. We breezed through every boss, downing them without a wipe. I defeated Deathwing by doing almost nothing but tab targetting and following the mob of pugs. When the great and legendary Deatwing died to this group…I realized that there was nothing to be proud of.

Deathwing suddenly felt like a pushover schmuck and there was nothing any challenging hard mode could do to fix his ruined reputation.

Please ArenaNet. Please, please, keep this content challenging and don’t ever build out a group finder. Don’t just cater to casual content and don’t just cater to hardcore content. Provide both and embrace a complex and diverse playerbase!

PUG raids work well in GW2. Teq and Wurm, and Vinewrath aren’t “disasters”.

They also aren’t very challenging.

And if it’s a set of jumps and “no path” prevents shadow steps and you don’t have a warrior or a guard because no profession will be required…

Not trying to say this is an optimal situation at all, it’s a fringe case at best, but just one of the things concerning me. That gameplay through the entirety of the raid will be less entertaining because of something you should be using for a niche situation.

Thaddeus.4891:

And then what do you do with the gold on your free accounts? You can’t transfer gold or stuff to your main.

Launder the money through the TP? Throw up some items on your main and quickly buy with your alt? find something with a margin where you still make a profit if some item does exist. Just a thought.

EcoRI.9273:

Jerus.4350:

Dusk and Eco hit what I was going to say. I’m still not sure I like it, but it has it’s merits.

I think Spoj makes some great points that can be concerning, but to add, I don’t want to be stuck throwing just nades on Engi because I have to slot some other utilities for some niche situation where they go unused for the majority of the raid.

Certainly conflicted, more and more the more I think about it.

If you are slotting a utility for a niche situation then your build is just suboptimal. Part of the fun is figuring out which class can spec a util/weapon set that can somewhat deal with a niche situation while still being general purpose. Remember you have 10 classes to work with.

Say there is part of the raid where you have to run through a barrage of damage to flip a switch to stop an AE. Taking Toolkit and Pistol/Shield allows me to run through this easily, esp the superspeed on toolkit. Then taking Slick shoes allows me to free up a few people in the group from having to make adjustments to their builds for CC. So now sure I have prybar to work into the rotation but other than that it’s a pretty mundane rotation. There may be other options but perhaps while you turn that switch you want your guards laying down reflects so they won’t go, you want your warrior staying to give might to the group so they won’t go…etc.

Of course we don’t know specifics but it’s a possible situation that concerns me.

Dusk and Eco hit what I was going to say. I’m still not sure I like it, but it has it’s merits.

I think Spoj makes some great points that can be concerning, but to add, I don’t want to be stuck throwing just nades on Engi because I have to slot some other utilities for some niche situation where they go unused for the majority of the raid.

Certainly conflicted, more and more the more I think about it.

I really think checkpoints is the way to go at this point, and again if they don’t will we just be abusing logging out the same way we do in fractals right now for repairing? “brb changing a utility” LOL

spoj.9672:

Im not sure i like the idea of build lock. That hurts some classes more than others. I think if they are trying to create diverse teams making build locks would be a bad way to do it.

Exact same opinion here. I’ll surely miss all the swapping I can do on engi to prestack might or stealth, and being able to swap on say toolkit for a portion I want it then go back to my damage setup right after.

But, I do like the change. I always felt it was a little off being able to do all that. Where mastering the UI and swapping weapons/traits/utilities quickly was hugely important. Is that really a skill they want this game to be about? Well, apparently not.

The “always in combat” though worries me, locking out of swapping and such, cool, a little conflicted but I’m fine with it. But, that runspeed hit… arg. Engi’s will raise in the ranks of mobility I think with superspeed and I haven’t ever paid attention to it but that superspeed on glamour doesn’t sound bad now.

And… you edited while I was typing, though I don’t disagree with what you said there either Some "break points’ would probably be a good idea, let you change for the upcoming events, /shrug And what about disconnects? can you leave the instance and come back in? If so there you go for build swapping.

Zenith in WvW Necro Meta like 8 or so months ago when I was playing it was full 100% zerk where Ele tanked up a bit, and while Meteor showers packed a huge wallop in one hit the necros were the ones people were crying about for damage I was able to take my necro through heavy arrow cart fire with that gear thanks to DS and Plague mainly.

But that’s WvW stuff…

Rotten you hit a good point, boons are a thing, thing is we can also share them. I imagine if we’re running into unavoidable damage we’re gonna bring a hammer guard wouldn’t we?

But anyways not looking to argue, my point was simply that necro has a very high innate mitigation such that you could still be pumping out the same damage you do right now in say a DS build or at least kitten close while withstanding that stuff, where other professions would have to make adjustments, like going D/F with tankier traits and maybe gear for an Ele. Balancing out that damage difference I’d bet.

Astralporing.1957:

SkiTz.4590:

Unless you are hardcore WvW roamer and a constant build tweaker, its not that big of an advantage….

So, you’d agree that at least WvW players do have a need of it, and should have their own path to obtaining that gear?

I can totally get behind that as long as it’s a different skin. I honestly don’t see much value in “Legendary” PVE armor unless I’m going to take it into WvW. I would have been fine with Skins or Ascended with new skins as rewards for raids but if they want to make legendary /shrug cool purples a fun color.

Zalavaaris.5329:

What i REALLY think needs to happen is that bosses last longer than 40 seconds. These raids should not end up a question of how FAST can we clear it but if we can clear it at all. Bosses should take 6-7 minutes for a perfect run and should NOT be burstable like current “meta” speed clears.

I think this is generally a shared opinion by most people looking forward to this. Anywhere from 5-15 minutes feels right to me, obviously time being variable depending on different variables.

Molch.2078:

So, I am the only one who checked OP’s post history or why has this obvious troll thread 2 pages of replies?

No, but some people seem to go blind and let their fingers just go as soon as these topics come up.

Xyonon.3987:

It’s an option to sacrifice those 89 condition damage for 10% condition duration. But it’s not like you need more duration. +10% condi duration does not equal to +10% condi damage over time. I think on paper it wouldn’t make much of a difference, but less duration and more condition damage has always proven better if you ask me. But yea, still a good idea, didn’t think about it myself!

More around 5% condi damage loss vs the 10% duration gain. I believe it would win out over the long run, but you’d lose some oomph on burst and if you go expensive food stuffs it’d be a waste, so kinda a tricky decision.

Zalavaaris.5329:

Jerus.4350:

Zalavaaris.5329:

Jerus.4350:

Zalavaaris.5329:

StrangerDanger.3496:

I really don’t see how 10 man (raids? seems a bit small for a"raid") dungeon is going to scratch anyones itch for Raids.

Raids typically are the pinnacle of coordinated group efforts where everyone has an exact role to play, and needs to play that role near perfect for the instance to go well.

This game specializes in everyone running around DPS’ing stuff. There are no set healers or agro tanks really…those some can occasionally fill that roll slightly, for a short time.

Really I get why they are doing this, just I don’t think its going to be executed in a manner that will satisfy anyone who takes a break from this game to raid in another game.

They should be piling on content that is coordinated with how this game plays. Make more epic, insane, difficult, world events, designed for masses of people to complete…make some of those even more coordinated ect.

You cant have a proper raid when you lack the trinity. Skyforge did this (little know game that came out recently) and lacks a trinity system (less so than this game) and it was just coordinated DPS targeting…as you cant really do much more than that.

UNLESS…they have special items in the raid that actually allow someone to become a tank and healer (like a healing staff on the ground and a tank shield, that bestow unique skills for whoever equips them) which would be cheesy imo

This is exactly what I’m worried about. This game has proven to be a dps only free for all where the only coordination involves stacking for buffs and stunning the mobs or timing reflects/stealth timing. When I think raiding I think of a mechanic that introduces a debuff that when cleansed takes 50% health from you but if let to expire will one shot you. It’s those kind of mechanics that if not dealt with via coordination and assigned debuff removal that will transcend what gw2 pvers think about when they think pve. That’s just one example of a true raid mechanic and there needs to be multiple of those per fight (some more harsh than others) to make this a real raiding experience.

No reason we can’t get those types of things. But as Colin said I think they want to focus less on UI watching and more on the on screen stuff. So you get an Aura (with a debuff icon just in case) that if not treated will down you on the spot (or kill?) to cleanse you need to go into an area with a caustic fog that damages you while in, make it a decent amount of damage(probably % based honestly) such that your trip in will leave you having to expend your personal heal and still come out low health, this promotes team healing, either through coordination with Ele/Engi’s standing nearby to rotate water fields for people to blast as they come out or maybe just a healing focused guardian or revenent.

The system is much broader and better than what we’ve seen with our current set of content.

Imagine this. Same debuff I suggested. In this scenario someone needs to cleanse the condition. Everyone has their own condition removal but personal skill comes into play when deciding when to cleanse it. If you are bad and cleanse your own condition when you’re at 30% health because you panic…. Guess what… you’re dead. The best way to do this (and in my dreams 2 people get the debuff at the same time) would to be to make sure the two affected players heal up as much as they can, at the same time have an ele drop water, have a necro cleanse both people of their debuffs at once and immediately stack and blast water to heal everyone up. There’s a lot of coordination in that scenario and it will shake up the dps all the time mentality. But you totally get the idea. I see more group synergy in wvw than pve. They coordinate their burst, their healing, their position (it’s not stationary), among other things. For some reason I think wvw players will excel at raids better than meta pvers at least at the start.

Only problem I see with that is how many things have innate cleansing mechanics. Especially healing effects. I mean it sounds fun, but I just worry that would require certain professions not just certain roles as certain professions.

I have my money on one of the European dungeon speed run guilds, like SC, rT, or vC or one of those to get the first win.

You are EXACTLY right. Those innate cleanse mechanics need to be thought about. It will switch up what skills and traits are good for certain boss fights. And the cleanses will still be good but the timing needs to match. That’s where the skill comes into play
Too much of this game is innate like you just said and in order for this raid to feel like a Raid it needs to be taken into consideration.

I hear ya, I’m with you, my worry was that your example might leave certain professions incapable of contributing. That’s something ANet stressed and I agree with, allowing different professions to fill the different roles such as to not need an Ele or need a Warrior or whatever. Certainly though having to have the forethought to not use Healing Turret because of the innate cleanse is the type of intricacy a raid should have.

Kevan.8912:

Healix.5819:

Kevan.8912:

I feel that just “skill, strategy and coordination” is something rarely seen in MMOs.

Basic skill, strategy and coordination is required in all raids. Skill is to not stand in fire, strategy is planning to not stand in fire and coordination is to get everyone to move out of the fire at the same time.

But in most (or all, maybe) MMO’s, a certain good gear is required for endgame content.
And that gears requires hours of farm, grind, craft, etc.

And just to make a refer. to the old-but-still-good argument about manifesto, gear_treadmill and so on…if there is the introduction of any new infusion, it IS a treadmill.
And “mandatory” grind

Aye, I feel they’re a bit disingenuous with the whole “no treadmill” thing. Sure we’re not dropping off our old armor every few weeks but we do have our AR progression system and we’re getting masteries which some already sound like “you must be this tall” barriers to entry. I don’t know, maybe I just misinterpreted the “no treadmill” thing initially but not a big fan of barriers to content that aren’t purely skill based.

Either way I think they’re doing great with not giving new tiers of gear. It’s still FAR better than most other games where if I stop playing for a couple weeks I come back and I’m way behind.

Sarie.1630:

Kevan.8912:

But in most (or all, maybe) MMO’s, a certain good gear is required for endgame content.

If you choose to believe certain people that’s true of GW2 dungeons right now. Most groups gearcheck these days to make sure your gear is ascended with the right stats and the right runes & sigils.

Raids is going to add a Mastery check on top of this.

I pug 3-4 paths of Arah and sometimes Fractal30-50 just about every day. I’ve literally never seen a group expecting Ascended, even fractals if I can show I have the necessary AR (which I do through trinkets/weapons) they’re all good.

Now, expecting zerk or other glass stat sets, yes that often happens, but far from ‘Most’ in my experience at least not gear checking.

Zalavaaris.5329:

Jerus.4350:

Zalavaaris.5329:

StrangerDanger.3496:

I really don’t see how 10 man (raids? seems a bit small for a"raid") dungeon is going to scratch anyones itch for Raids.

Raids typically are the pinnacle of coordinated group efforts where everyone has an exact role to play, and needs to play that role near perfect for the instance to go well.

This game specializes in everyone running around DPS’ing stuff. There are no set healers or agro tanks really…those some can occasionally fill that roll slightly, for a short time.

Really I get why they are doing this, just I don’t think its going to be executed in a manner that will satisfy anyone who takes a break from this game to raid in another game.

They should be piling on content that is coordinated with how this game plays. Make more epic, insane, difficult, world events, designed for masses of people to complete…make some of those even more coordinated ect.

You cant have a proper raid when you lack the trinity. Skyforge did this (little know game that came out recently) and lacks a trinity system (less so than this game) and it was just coordinated DPS targeting…as you cant really do much more than that.

UNLESS…they have special items in the raid that actually allow someone to become a tank and healer (like a healing staff on the ground and a tank shield, that bestow unique skills for whoever equips them) which would be cheesy imo

This is exactly what I’m worried about. This game has proven to be a dps only free for all where the only coordination involves stacking for buffs and stunning the mobs or timing reflects/stealth timing. When I think raiding I think of a mechanic that introduces a debuff that when cleansed takes 50% health from you but if let to expire will one shot you. It’s those kind of mechanics that if not dealt with via coordination and assigned debuff removal that will transcend what gw2 pvers think about when they think pve. That’s just one example of a true raid mechanic and there needs to be multiple of those per fight (some more harsh than others) to make this a real raiding experience.

No reason we can’t get those types of things. But as Colin said I think they want to focus less on UI watching and more on the on screen stuff. So you get an Aura (with a debuff icon just in case) that if not treated will down you on the spot (or kill?) to cleanse you need to go into an area with a caustic fog that damages you while in, make it a decent amount of damage(probably % based honestly) such that your trip in will leave you having to expend your personal heal and still come out low health, this promotes team healing, either through coordination with Ele/Engi’s standing nearby to rotate water fields for people to blast as they come out or maybe just a healing focused guardian or revenent.

The system is much broader and better than what we’ve seen with our current set of content.

Imagine this. Same debuff I suggested. In this scenario someone needs to cleanse the condition. Everyone has their own condition removal but personal skill comes into play when deciding when to cleanse it. If you are bad and cleanse your own condition when you’re at 30% health because you panic…. Guess what… you’re dead. The best way to do this (and in my dreams 2 people get the debuff at the same time) would to be to make sure the two affected players heal up as much as they can, at the same time have an ele drop water, have a necro cleanse both people of their debuffs at once and immediately stack and blast water to heal everyone up. There’s a lot of coordination in that scenario and it will shake up the dps all the time mentality. But you totally get the idea. I see more group synergy in wvw than pve. They coordinate their burst, their healing, their position (it’s not stationary), among other things. For some reason I think wvw players will excel at raids better than meta pvers at least at the start.

Only problem I see with that is how many things have innate cleansing mechanics. Especially healing effects. I mean it sounds fun, but I just worry that would require certain professions not just certain roles as certain professions.

I have my money on one of the European dungeon speed run guilds, like SC, rT, or vC or one of those to get the first win.

Zalavaaris.5329:

StrangerDanger.3496:

I really don’t see how 10 man (raids? seems a bit small for a"raid") dungeon is going to scratch anyones itch for Raids.

Raids typically are the pinnacle of coordinated group efforts where everyone has an exact role to play, and needs to play that role near perfect for the instance to go well.

This game specializes in everyone running around DPS’ing stuff. There are no set healers or agro tanks really…those some can occasionally fill that roll slightly, for a short time.

Really I get why they are doing this, just I don’t think its going to be executed in a manner that will satisfy anyone who takes a break from this game to raid in another game.

They should be piling on content that is coordinated with how this game plays. Make more epic, insane, difficult, world events, designed for masses of people to complete…make some of those even more coordinated ect.

You cant have a proper raid when you lack the trinity. Skyforge did this (little know game that came out recently) and lacks a trinity system (less so than this game) and it was just coordinated DPS targeting…as you cant really do much more than that.

UNLESS…they have special items in the raid that actually allow someone to become a tank and healer (like a healing staff on the ground and a tank shield, that bestow unique skills for whoever equips them) which would be cheesy imo

This is exactly what I’m worried about. This game has proven to be a dps only free for all where the only coordination involves stacking for buffs and stunning the mobs or timing reflects/stealth timing. When I think raiding I think of a mechanic that introduces a debuff that when cleansed takes 50% health from you but if let to expire will one shot you. It’s those kind of mechanics that if not dealt with via coordination and assigned debuff removal that will transcend what gw2 pvers think about when they think pve. That’s just one example of a true raid mechanic and there needs to be multiple of those per fight (some more harsh than others) to make this a real raiding experience.

No reason we can’t get those types of things. But as Colin said I think they want to focus less on UI watching and more on the on screen stuff. So you get an Aura (with a debuff icon just in case) that if not treated will down you on the spot (or kill?) to cleanse you need to go into an area with a caustic fog that damages you while in, make it a decent amount of damage(probably % based honestly) such that your trip in will leave you having to expend your personal heal and still come out low health, this promotes team healing, either through coordination with Ele/Engi’s standing nearby to rotate water fields for people to blast as they come out or maybe just a healing focused guardian or revenent.

The system is much broader and better than what we’ve seen with our current set of content.

StrangerDanger.3496:

I really don’t see how 10 man (raids? seems a bit small for a"raid") dungeon is going to scratch anyones itch for Raids.

Raids typically are the pinnacle of coordinated group efforts where everyone has an exact role to play, and needs to play that role near perfect for the instance to go well.

This game specializes in everyone running around DPS’ing stuff. There are no set healers or agro tanks really…those some can occasionally fill that roll slightly, for a short time.

Really I get why they are doing this, just I don’t think its going to be executed in a manner that will satisfy anyone who takes a break from this game to raid in another game.

They should be piling on content that is coordinated with how this game plays. Make more epic, insane, difficult, world events, designed for masses of people to complete…make some of those even more coordinated ect.

You cant have a proper raid when you lack the trinity. Skyforge did this (little know game that came out recently) and lacks a trinity system (less so than this game) and it was just coordinated DPS targeting…as you cant really do much more than that.

UNLESS…they have special items in the raid that actually allow someone to become a tank and healer (like a healing staff on the ground and a tank shield, that bestow unique skills for whoever equips them) which would be cheesy imo

You don’t need a tank/healer to have roles.

When I form an Arah or fractal party I want at least 1 Mesmer/guard for their high reflect up time. I want 1 Engi/Thief for stealth and blinds. Then I want to cover my Might production which best option is warrior, but an Ele has better fury and can do the might job especially working together with the team.

There’s a reason your general fractal groups have something like that. If you go read in the dungeon forums you’ll see it’s advised to go with a Guard/Thief/War/EleX2 setup in general, it’s because they cover all the roles you’d want in very optimal ways. If it were all about DPS you’d go with either 5X Ele or 4Ele + PS War. But it’s not.

Thor Malen.8291:

I don’t know what a Raid is really. I never played WoW so can somebody explain to me what a Raid is?

Multi group content. Technically you could call open world bosses raids, but they’ve taken on a connotation of instanced multi group content made for a more organized team generally seen as the step up from your typical group instanced content.

Vague Memory.2817:

Interesting how excited everyone seems to be about raids. The reality is raids will be an even smaller community than fractals which in turn is smaller than dungeon runners, then www, pvp and finally pve with the largest community. So in essence raids are being developed for the smallest section of the gw2 community that most people won’t play because it won’t be puggable.

I’m still not convinced that dungeon runners are a smaller number than PVP, and I’d wager that WvW is larger than both. But, with that a lot of people play various facets of the game maybe with a preference for different portions that could even possibly change at times. I know I had my WvW phase but mainly a more instanced PVE guy (I want to but just can’t get into the smaller scale PVP in this game for various reasons).

Kordash.2197:

Jerus.4350:

Element Two.7316:

Rym.1469:

I wouldn’t mind needing healers.

Anyone with a water field or a blast is a healer.

Area Retaliation

Area Retaliation

Area Retaliation

Area Retaliation

kitten you and your staff guard !

So much pain in this post

Hammer Guard, Mace Guard, GS Guard

Point is field management can be a pain in the kitten . We’ll have Chronomancer wells and timewarps. We’ll have Feedback/Wall of Reflect fields. Probably some smoke fields for blinds or maybe a dark field here and there and certainly plenty of Lava Fonts. Landing that water field in range of actually healing the team may not be so easy.

maddoctor.2738:

Torolan.5816:

Seriously curious how you can troll the Melandru, Lyssa or Dwayna event.

You don’t troll those, you afk them. The fact that anyone can attack once then go get a coffee is one of the epic fails of the open world design. Really the main reason many open world events fail is because of sad scaling, when the amount of afkers reach a critical point content certainly becomes more frustrating. Not hard though, having a billion hit points doesn’t make something hard, just badly designed.

Still contesting the idea the open world was not a good concept in general. It made the world come alive, and I would love to see it reappear again sometime. As far as I am concerned, raiders can have their content if they finally bug off from the open world maps then. Everybody should be happy then.

The open world was fine pre-megaservers. Soloing or 5-manning the Fire Elemental in Metrica was an epic battle indeed. After the megaservers the world doesn’t feel “alive”, it feels overcrowded. There are way too many players concentrating on events that make them all look trivial. Safety in numbers. And the main problem with that is because of the horrible scaling system, instead of adding more mobs, giving mobs more abilities, spawning more complex mobs, their scaling just increases the hit points.

Yawn

I don’t think I’d use the word ‘horrible,’ it was certainly a solid attempt. It is more that it’s just ineffective and imperfect. But, I think you’re spot on with all your points, megaservers really killed the fun aspects of doing the open world bosses with lower numbers. Doing Jormag with ~20 was a lot of fun 5 manning Orr temples was great. When you scale up to 50+ it just loses quality.

Element Two.7316:

Rym.1469:

I wouldn’t mind needing healers.

Anyone with a water field or a blast is a healer.

Area Retaliation

Area Retaliation

Area Retaliation

Area Retaliation

Zenith.7301:

Jerus.4350:

I believe they stated explicitly that forming your build would be a key part of the raids. They don’t want to enforce professions, not builds.

Also Necro has more damage Mitigation than most professions if not all, they lack avoidance of the damage though, which could be factored in, but if we use the term mitigation it kind of implies absorbing/reducing not avoiding.

The thing is an ele can achieve more effective hp due to the uptime of protection and if forced to, use of blinding ashes, in addition to all the heals to replenish HP.

In temrs of absorbing one big hit, sure, the necro can initially absorb HP, but what’s the value in that if the boss is gonna do that attack faster than you can replenish your life force and HP while the ele can not only easily and swiftly replenish his HP, but has a much easier time avoiding that damage altogether.

There’s a reason why in spvp eles have made far better bunkers than necromancers. If built for it eles can take a lot more punishment than a necro.

Necro recovery options need to be buffed and regen/water field blasts and allied heals need to work on them while in death shroud, as should their own siphons.

Curious how does Ele DPS compare when they do that?

I believe they stated explicitly that forming your build would be a key part of the raids. They don’t want to enforce professions, not builds.

Also Necro has more damage Mitigation than most professions if not all, they lack avoidance of the damage though, which could be factored in, but if we use the term mitigation it kind of implies absorbing/reducing not avoiding.

Rozbuska.5263:

Dante.1763:

First define casual, please? Like, im a casual player by my definition, i dont play the game everyday, and i dont play for long when i do. But heres the thing, im really good at PVE stuff which is what raids are, beat Liadri after learning it, and trying many times(Which is how raids should be, they should be hard, but they should be doable to those that learn them). I suck at PVP, or any form of competitive fighting or scenarios. So am i casual? What is a casual?

In case of pve its simple do define casual player:
- dont have proper gear
- dont have proper build
- dont know encounters

Basicly everyone who told you stuff like “I play this game as I want” is consider as casual. I dont wanna say its bad thing to be casual its perfectly fine.

That’s certainly what “casual” has come to mean in gaming communities, it’s sad though because it creates a lot of confusion. You can play your games casually and still be good, games have gotten a lot more casual in the sense of not requiring as much time investment, neither of these statements use “casual” in that same sense of “bad” necessarily. Even old games had a lot of easy content for less skilled players to play with, even if they were hardcore and bad at max level there were zones where they could do their thing easily. Bad/good Casual/hardcore, but unfortunately it’s taken on a connotation in gaming (which developed naturally and rightfully so at the time, but it’s still unfortunate looking back).

I do hope raids aren’t the 4-5 hour requirements they were back when I was doing it in old games, I just don’t have that in me anymore but I do want a challenge when I play.

BrooksP.4318:

Jaymee.1560:

Why can’t I just shake the feeling of someone saying “We’re hardcore players, we don’t want PuGs!!!” yet what I really hear is: “We white kids don’t go to school with colored kids!!!”

(I predict my comment is gonna get removed, but ya know, that is what this conversation is leading up to, and it’s pathetic.)

While maybe true for some, it seems that hardcore players don’t want the only non-casual content of the game to be balanced/dumbed down to accommodate casual players.

What the argument reminds me of is participation trophies. Instead of giving trophies to only the winning team, they instead give them to everyone just for showing up.

Have to leave this here, god that man is great in every way : http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/pittsburgh-steelers-james-harrison-back-sons-participation-trophies/story?id=33130650