Guild Wars 2

Nice use of 100blades in that first clip.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Jerus.4350:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Jerus.4350:

Apolo.5942:

Jerus.4350:

Apolo.5942:

Windsagio.1340:

Apolo.5942:

Windsagio.1340:

So you can do it, but you have to make sacrifices?

Or you can use one of the many many other weapon combinations, some of which are exceptionally strong in PvP?

~~~~

The idea that a class with as many strong options as warrior is complaining about 1 skill that’s hard to use when compared to some of the other things out there is kind of nutty to me.

Thats because you should go back to reading comprehension 101. The title says Self Rooting Melee skills. NOT “One Hundred Blades”.

This applies to every other skills like this in the game, not just HB.

And yet, title aside the talk is mostly about 100B. As a few have mentioned, there’s a legitimate case to be made about the ranger 1h LS, but that’s not the focus of the complaints.

It’s also very different than 100B, in that it’s like a real root.

Still, I’m happy to go with what others said: There’s a valid complaint about ranger LS1. Warriors need to qwittheirkittenin’

No HB is the most obvious offender, but they all have the same problem.

And it’s an intended problem… so… yeah…

Yeah an Anet has never made mistakes in regards to GW2 and pvp, right?, the state of warrior in pvp at launch comes to mind…

Who said every weapon has to be perfectly suited for pvp though?

And you still have some very hard hitting abilities, great traveling speed, an evade, and 100blades still does an awesome job on a downed opponant if that’s something you need/want(rock someone while they’re attempting to pick them up, or finish them quickly when a stomp may not be as well suited for the job)

You certainly have better options in PVP but GS has it’s niche too. Just like some things are pretty /meh in PVE some things are the same in PVP.

Thx to Simon for the vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYVD0VfwF74

^Pure zerk as you can see in subtitles, yet it failed at your “awesome job on a downed opponent” so what is really hb good at? Yeah, at nothing. It cant even cleave dead bodies and punish anyone who rez. And what about ppl that doesnt run full zerk build? Yeah..5k hb? 4k? Thats a joke. Where is that “reward”?

Hb is nothing else but a trash skill that should be deleted long time ago already. Wake up, its not 2012 nor 2013 anymore. I bet many of you still think that warrior has higher dps in pve as well?

Attacking 2 enemies with protection and curious if that engi had any healing power gear on. 10k damage is nothing to scoff at, but that doesn’t mean it’ll down everyone

Youre basically saying right now “its ok i have some cc skill which wont cc everytime but its nothing to worry about” either something work or doesnt. In current meta everyone can facetank hb. If hb is olny supposed to do like many of forum user says – cleaving bodies and yet it fails, then whats the point of this skill? Leave number 2 blank, noone will notice any difference anyway.

So if you use a CC and they have stability do you come complain that the CC doesn’t work too?

@ moiraine
1) yup.
2) Umm, no thanks, 30 min lockout because you got kicked? So the whims of others should not only get you dropped from the group but also prevent cooperative play for 30 mins? yeah kitten no
3) Again, KITTEN NO, punishing me for leaving if I’m not having fun? that’s horse kitten
4) So when you have to kick 5 lvl 30s when asking for 80s that 6th one gets in without any possible repercussions?
5) Ok, this one I can support, no reason you should be kicking if you joined at the end.
6) I’m not against this idea, though I fear the implimentation, I like that you actually seem to have a longer afk window in dungeons, it lets me do things like go out and get something to eat in the middle of an Arah run. Though there are easy ways to get around the games afk checks.
7) Why not just have that window from the start?

Keep practicing, try getting together with better players and learn from them. Arah shouldn’t be grueling because it’s actually very soloable (except Tar). If your party fails, well pick up the slack and put it on your back. Same with Mai Trin.

That’s the beauty of this game, that usually you can be awesome and pull even the worst players through content. It’s nice. No deep reliance on each other. You can help each other, but you don’t have to rely on them.

Many.8419:

This is a charm of open world zergfests. You cant organise almost 100 of ppl.

You very much can, thing is they have to all want to be organized, the fact taht you’re thrown randomly in with a group of 100 strangers, well… thats the problem IMO.

Rainmaker.7594:

I think SW needs a debuff similar to the hot-foot debuff from the volcanic fractal (applies burning if you stop moving), but with a few changes – make it a combination of poison and burning so healing is less effective and change it so it is a longer delay before the debuff is applied (maybe 5 seconds of not moving). This debuff should apply when events are active and only within the area of the events (including anywhere a npc might revive you).

I like this idea, though the big problem in SW is that the NPCs will pick you up. I have to say I was very surprised when I woke up one morning when SW first came out and saw myself alive in the middle of the fort with fully broken armor and a ton of rewards…

danielrjones.8759:

going to the toilet appears to be the main reason people defend the afk’ers. why is it, no one evey has to go to the toilet when it comes time to get the end chest or rewards? Let the chest spawn after vw and eveyone and their min pet is there picking it up. afkers must be really good at pinching it off.

It’s not defending the afkers who sit and leach, it’s a reason they have to be careful on how they impliment protection against that action. Like another poster said, look at DRM, it’s a system that has punished the legitimate users while basically doing nothing to the pirates as they have found ways around it. That’s the same situation we’re talking here, your person who afks for 5 minutes to take care of something might get punished, while the abuser has a system in place to register himself as not being afk.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Jerus.4350:

Apolo.5942:

Jerus.4350:

Apolo.5942:

Windsagio.1340:

Apolo.5942:

Windsagio.1340:

So you can do it, but you have to make sacrifices?

Or you can use one of the many many other weapon combinations, some of which are exceptionally strong in PvP?

~~~~

The idea that a class with as many strong options as warrior is complaining about 1 skill that’s hard to use when compared to some of the other things out there is kind of nutty to me.

Thats because you should go back to reading comprehension 101. The title says Self Rooting Melee skills. NOT “One Hundred Blades”.

This applies to every other skills like this in the game, not just HB.

And yet, title aside the talk is mostly about 100B. As a few have mentioned, there’s a legitimate case to be made about the ranger 1h LS, but that’s not the focus of the complaints.

It’s also very different than 100B, in that it’s like a real root.

Still, I’m happy to go with what others said: There’s a valid complaint about ranger LS1. Warriors need to qwittheirkittenin’

No HB is the most obvious offender, but they all have the same problem.

And it’s an intended problem… so… yeah…

Yeah an Anet has never made mistakes in regards to GW2 and pvp, right?, the state of warrior in pvp at launch comes to mind…

Who said every weapon has to be perfectly suited for pvp though?

And you still have some very hard hitting abilities, great traveling speed, an evade, and 100blades still does an awesome job on a downed opponant if that’s something you need/want(rock someone while they’re attempting to pick them up, or finish them quickly when a stomp may not be as well suited for the job)

You certainly have better options in PVP but GS has it’s niche too. Just like some things are pretty /meh in PVE some things are the same in PVP.

Thx to Simon for the vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYVD0VfwF74

^Pure zerk as you can see in subtitles, yet it failed at your “awesome job on a downed opponent” so what is really hb good at? Yeah, at nothing. It cant even cleave dead bodies and punish anyone who rez. And what about ppl that doesnt run full zerk build? Yeah..5k hb? 4k? Thats a joke. Where is that “reward”?

Hb is nothing else but a trash skill that should be deleted long time ago already. Wake up, its not 2012 nor 2013 anymore. I bet many of you still think that warrior has higher dps in pve as well?

Attacking 2 enemies with protection and curious if that engi had any healing power gear on. 10k damage is nothing to scoff at, but that doesn’t mean it’ll down everyone

Wethospu.6437:

Double all health and reduce cooldowns.

^^ This would do nicely for most stuff honestly. Though I’d hold off on the health addition in HoTW

lordkrall.7241:

rotten.9753:

Let me rephrase, which gear should I pick instead of berserker’s?

For getting optimal at support and control?

Giver’s.

So you think sacrificing an entire stat selection is worth 6% boon duration for support?

Weapons, yeah they aren’t terrible, but the only control they help is things like cripple/chill/immob by a total of 20%, not a terrible idea, but on say a 6s chill we’re talking an extra 1.2s, or a 2s immob all the way up a whole .4s!

Basically the only stat set that helps support/control in any way is quite lackluster as far as overall effectiveness.

abbetd.5912:

phys.7689:

abbetd.5912:

oxtred.7658:

RoseofGilead.8907:

How one would do that, I have no idea. Like the first room in Arah Story, I think you need an actual body on those areas to continue.

Send a ranger pet.
You can also low man the cof p1 console using barely moral strategies (read: exploits) as far as I know, but I don’t know it precisely. Ranger pet is still easy when 4 manning.

oh, and before I forget: Dungeon selling is obviously an exploit because I’m not good enough to do it myself and successful people should be punished and taken back to my level of gameplay so I don’t feel bad for being less competent.

Nah. It’s an exploit because it’s a way for someone to get the reward without doing the work. Props to the guys that can solo/duo these dungeons (I sure can’t), but it does exploit the way completion bonuses are handled. The intent was to reward players for participating in the completion of a dungeon/path with gold and tokens. Path selling allows players to get the completion reward without actually participating.

I’m not really against path selling, I just find it odd that so many people are so eager to pay someone else to play the game for them.

they basically want dungeon tokens. Mostly for legendaries, and dont feel like spending the time doing the content.

Right, the reward without the effort . Just speaking for myself here, but I would feel the accomplishment of getting a legendary would feel somewhat diminished if I paid someone else to do the work for me. I may as well spend the gold to buy one outright from the trading post.

Do you buy your precursor/t6 mats? Why is it any different?

Photonman.6241:

I think its hilarious that almost universally people don’t what the holy trinity, and yet almost as universally people say the pve in this game is boring. Running nothing but zerk limits your builds way more than the holy trinity would. I find this frustrating. I don’t see why roles can’t be a thing in the game, even if it’s not holy trinity. Condi, bunker (not tank), control (things like fears). I don’t see why things like this can’t be built into the mechanics of a dungeon, instead of just “everyone has to do the exact same thing to survive the fight” which leads to people just wanting to run zerk to get it done faster. Maybe toss out optional bosses like Viscidus from Temple of Ahn’Qiraj in WoW. He required frost damage to beat him. One of the more unique bosses.

Edit: And combo fields! One of the most awesome feature in this game and almost no one uses it. kitten shame.

Have you done fractals or Arah?

Stacking in a corner doesn’t solve things very well

Support is VERY strong in this game, arguably stronger than most trinity games. The fact that you can COMPLETELY negate bosses like Alphard with proper reflect rotations.

Control could use a little help, it’s effective but not enough for most PUGs to really learn to utilize it, I think the new defiant changes should help that hopefully as it will require less organization and just everyone being on the same page of “hit your CCs when he does X”.

Purple Miku.7032:

Jerus.4350:

Lupi is one of those. I think anyone who’s done a solo would agree that the Kicks really are the most challenging part of the fight,

Nuh uh, it’s definitely surviving the phase 2>3 transition. RNG such challenge much skill.

Jerus.4350:

however we know that it’s generally (like 99% true) not going to kick twice in a row, and there’s a timer on attacks so they come every about 3-4 count.

SO MANY LIES

I not only have him double kick very very often, but I’ve even seen triple kick 3 times total. It’s a lot more common than you think… :p

P.S. if you chill him, it’s almost guaranteed double kick.

:D

Honestly, maybe I just have very good luck but I think I could count my double kicks on one hand and I’ve never seen the infamous triple kick.

And yeah… Phase3 transition… much hate. Nothing worse than getting that then instant Lift, using withdraw( Or burning retreat, i’ve had both of these do this) thinking “muahaha easy time” and rolling all the way back into a stray projectile only to get downed… SMH

Zenith.7301:

The best part is the reward…. three +1 infusions, when at 50 you already wasted hundreds of gold on AR infusions and ascended.

“wasted” Interesting word choice. Personally I find it to be very worthwhile as it opens content that I very much enjoy. Hell Personally I’ve gone to 100 AR on my main, just so I can swap trinkets to alts and jump them to 60AR anytime I want, toss on a couple other things and boom any alt can run a 50!

Totally true Saint. All my favorite raids of the past were eventually put on farm status, even mastered to the point that we would demolish it in what seemed like relative ease.

Perhaps my favorite (it’s tough to decide) was Paradox Wave in DCUO, it had 4 side bosses and a main boss, however you could fight the main boss strait up and periodically he’d release the side bosses to join in. However, if you brought the main boss down to 35% health he’d release whatever was left and trash mobs in place of any fallen bosses and periodic trash from then on (trash could still kill pretty easily of course). Before I quit that game we were able to do a 6 minute run of that and had ever plan and possibility of doing it in 5 mins by utilizing that mechanic and burning everything to the ground.

So while this was a fight that the metrics said only 2% of the players beat in the first about 5 months it was out, and one that was about as tough as the game ever saw, we were not only able to trivialize it but push it to the point that we utterly crushed it to the point that we pushed it to the brink of what it could give us for challenge and still came out on top, and it was pretty easy doing so.

Eventually everything falls to good planning and practice. No matter the challenge people will be able to conquer it.

However, that’s where good AI and randomness comes in. The more random and the greater the deviation from the standard is the less likely it is for you to master it. Take Battle Toads for example, regarded as one of the hardest games ever, in the end it became a game of memorization, the people able to complete it could do so blindfolded because it wasn’t about reaction but about knowing what was coming. That’s why good variation and AI allows for a greater level of difficulty. Lupi is one of those. I think anyone who’s done a solo would agree that the Kicks really are the most challenging part of the fight, however we know that it’s generally (like 99% true) not going to kick twice in a row, and there’s a timer on attacks so they come every about 3-4 count. So we can anticipate it and personally I often dodge out before the kick even begins to happen as a safety precaution. If they made that timing more variable it’d greatly increase the difficulty of that encounter.

I guess I’m kinda rambling now. But TL; DR I completely agree with what you said Saint but, I think variation can maintain difficulty even after heavy practice as it’d lower the ease of anticipation. Overall I just ask that they at least give me .4s reaction time tells as .3 would simple push me out of being able to do it

^^ What nevets said, though to add, take a look at your combat log, It should open your eyes to what is really happening.

Apolo.5942:

Jerus.4350:

Apolo.5942:

Windsagio.1340:

Apolo.5942:

Windsagio.1340:

So you can do it, but you have to make sacrifices?

Or you can use one of the many many other weapon combinations, some of which are exceptionally strong in PvP?

~~~~

The idea that a class with as many strong options as warrior is complaining about 1 skill that’s hard to use when compared to some of the other things out there is kind of nutty to me.

Thats because you should go back to reading comprehension 101. The title says Self Rooting Melee skills. NOT “One Hundred Blades”.

This applies to every other skills like this in the game, not just HB.

And yet, title aside the talk is mostly about 100B. As a few have mentioned, there’s a legitimate case to be made about the ranger 1h LS, but that’s not the focus of the complaints.

It’s also very different than 100B, in that it’s like a real root.

Still, I’m happy to go with what others said: There’s a valid complaint about ranger LS1. Warriors need to qwittheirkittenin’

No HB is the most obvious offender, but they all have the same problem.

And it’s an intended problem… so… yeah…

Yeah an Anet has never made mistakes in regards to GW2 and pvp, right?, the state of warrior in pvp at launch comes to mind…

Who said every weapon has to be perfectly suited for pvp though?

And you still have some very hard hitting abilities, great traveling speed, an evade, and 100blades still does an awesome job on a downed opponant if that’s something you need/want(rock someone while they’re attempting to pick them up, or finish them quickly when a stomp may not be as well suited for the job)

You certainly have better options in PVP but GS has it’s niche too. Just like some things are pretty /meh in PVE some things are the same in PVP.

Apolo.5942:

Windsagio.1340:

Apolo.5942:

Windsagio.1340:

So you can do it, but you have to make sacrifices?

Or you can use one of the many many other weapon combinations, some of which are exceptionally strong in PvP?

~~~~

The idea that a class with as many strong options as warrior is complaining about 1 skill that’s hard to use when compared to some of the other things out there is kind of nutty to me.

Thats because you should go back to reading comprehension 101. The title says Self Rooting Melee skills. NOT “One Hundred Blades”.

This applies to every other skills like this in the game, not just HB.

And yet, title aside the talk is mostly about 100B. As a few have mentioned, there’s a legitimate case to be made about the ranger 1h LS, but that’s not the focus of the complaints.

It’s also very different than 100B, in that it’s like a real root.

Still, I’m happy to go with what others said: There’s a valid complaint about ranger LS1. Warriors need to qwittheirkittenin’

No HB is the most obvious offender, but they all have the same problem.

And it’s an intended problem… so… yeah…

runeblade.7514:

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

This is why i love GS on my guardian. The ultimate in mobility.. I started guardian right after hitting 80 on my warrior and never looked back.

Sometimes I wonder if each skill’s mobility is related to which ANet staffer created the animation cycles.

The mobility is a huge part of what makes combat so special when compared to other MMO’s.

Guardian gs is more mobile than warrior gs? LOL!

Confirmed, You did not even touched warrior at all.

There are different forms of mobility. Not everything is about running away

fireflyry.7023:

Dude your totally missing my point and going off on some weird AP vs AP and reward vs reward tangent while being fixated on 10 AP’s. I never mentioned AP’s or any reward given…at all.

I mentioned daily completion, not 10AP……..5/5…several times, and ease of attainment, rewards irrelevant.

Old system: Just play around having fun for a few hours, 9/10 times get the daily.

New system: Win a PvP match on a Necro.

Hang on…I don’t have a Necro….

New system: Go to a zone I have zero access or desire to go to and chop down trees.

But I’m busy having fun…do I have too?

I’m discussing the change of the mechanic in terms of ease of use and impact on the player and the requirements to attain the daily while your throwing up reward comparisons as rebuttal….

If you’re talking ease of use, well, there’s nothing hard about finding a tree and pressing activate…

And, no one is forcing you to do the daily, if it doesn’t line up with your fun for the day, don’t worry about it. That is unless you’re concerned with AP, but then the rewards discussion comes into play.

I don’t usually do the dailies because I simply don’t give a kitten about AP but I do love that log in reward, no need to kitten around for 5-10 mins to get my laurels. I love the option to avoid the daily and still get the reward items that I kinda need.

runeblade.7514:

Jerus.4350:

I really don’t want PVE in this game to become like the PVP, some people may enjoy it but I don’t. I like how PVE is designed for this game, I think there’s plenty of room to ramp up the difficulty without making it like PVP.

What parts of PvP do you not like?

Otherwise, I assume that you don’t like moving around.

I don’t like the “passive damage”, now it’s not really passive but there’s so much going on you can’t possibly avoid it all, and avoiding some auto attacks would leave you without your tools to avoid the big hitters or nasty effects.

I quite enjoy that once you master most fights in PVE you can go through unscathed. I’m all for making that harder, but I don’t want everything to be an attrition based fight.

I guess that’s the best way I can put it. I’m not against some content like that but I don’t want it to become the new norm is all.

PS. I very much do like moving around, in fact you’ll often find me jumping side to side while waiting around sitting still is boring!

Red Queen.7915:

Many.8419:

I don’t want any dungeon to be made instead of whatever you find funny in this game.
We are being disregarded for a long time now and nothing says it’s going to change.

I am a customer to arena net and noone to you. So Im voicing my concerns on official forums.

The difference between you and me is I want new dungeons and I don’t want to take sth from you. You want me not have those new dungeons… why exactly? because you dont like them? I dont really get this logic.

The logic is that, if one thing is the main focus, other things will “suffer” for it. I don’t want you to not have new dungeons, I don’t want a bunch of new dungeons getting preference over open world content.
By your logic, you don’t want me to not have that open world content.

By actual logic, nobody should want anyone to not have something, but rather voice an opinion on what they want to be given preference when there are limited resources to create content.

That’s all most dungeon people are asking for though. That we don’t get completely ignored. ANet has made open world PVE their main focus and all other areas have suffered for it. I’d like to see that change. I’m not huge on the PVP in this game but I was sure happy to see them get some love with the expansion, nice to see ANet get out of their one dimensional groove they’ve been stuck in for so long.

They’re not there because ANet hates dungeons. Really as simple as that.

I really don’t want PVE in this game to become like the PVP, some people may enjoy it but I don’t. I like how PVE is designed for this game, I think there’s plenty of room to ramp up the difficulty without making it like PVP.

kuben.9826:

mage.3570:

I played both GW1 and GW2 – I prefer the Holy Trinity since it lead to:
1. Better cooperative play

This. There’s a lot of content in GW2 which is easier solo (You are no-life, know every animation and u can safely bet you’ll win, in longer time though) than with a group (riddiculous for MMO), cuz someone didnt dodge and were thrown through the length of room and boss shadowwalked to him. <cough>lupi<cough>.
And the PvE system which allows ppl to solo every dungeon with exceptions like arah p4 or cof p1 which is impossible.

I believe that’s good design. Mastery of content lets you truly master it rather than having requirement held over your head. While it’s easier to solo lupi than play with a baddy it’s surely much easier to play with a group who are at least all decent at it. I mean look at the people properly using refelcts (not wall trick but normal usage), ice bows, and other tools to blow him out of the water, compare that to the 4-5 min solos that are the best possible (personally I’m quite a bit over that on mine ) .

phokus.8934:

tigirius.9014:

If non-trinity was so awesomesauce why did all those people leave?

I think you’re misinterpreting the reason why people leave the game. The trinity setup is nothing more than how a class is played. People (PvErs) left the game because there is a severe lack of end-game content to keep them busy and something to work towards.

And then you have people potentially leaving the game because PvP has no arena style mode, match making is a complete joke, and the leaderboards doesn’t show skill but rather time played.

None of this has to do with how the class design is in GW2 but rather the lack of expanding on PvE and PvP.

Don’t forget WvW which has been past the point of stale and boring for quite a while.

Engi hammer sounds cool, hope it’s like that. AA blast would be pretty sweet.

Fight 2 Lupi’s at once! :b

kuben.9826:

As a WoW “fanboy” I realy miss role of healer. I don’t know how people can get bored with a healer role which was the most demanded probably in every “trinity” MMO. Still, for no reason, I enjoy GW2.
But according to topic: think what would happen if dodge was removed. Zerks wouldnt be so popular. Probably there is a solution for PvE other than removing dodge, but i’m thinking about it for ages, and it’s the easiest thing to do which comes to my mind to remove zerk meta, stacking, and meleeing every content.

So the answer is to change the game’s core design…

This is an action game, built on actively defending yourself. The sooner people accept that and learn to dodge the sooner they can enjoy the game for what it is, which is quite a beautiful game design and honestly much tougher than the majority of gameplay in other MMOs.

I’m ashamed but I admit, I remember doing the same thing when I was like 9/10 in EQ. I mean my brother started doing it, we made bank, I couldn’t help but try it, bringing in more money than I ever could just playing the game, how could I pass it up!

That said, god I felt awful, I stopped after about a month of doing it, got some starter stuff on a new server over there, it was nice, but again… ugh… I still feel bad even remembering myself doing that. Integrity is something I hold in high regard now, and I did back then too, though I threw it all away for some quick gains… god I was awful.

My admitting it here makes me feel better though, at least I admit at one time I was scum

Personally, you’re saving a bit of time on an easy fractal, I hardly feel bad when people use it. I haven’t done it myself, but I actually just set up a weapon for it today.

My thought is that an exploit is bad if you’re using it to bypass a challenge. This simply doesn’t fall into that category.

Panites.6798:

Jerus.4350:

Casual gameplay doesn’t mean that everything has to be easy, it just means that the time investment either has to be incremental or limited.

You can’t have 4 hour sagas where you can’t stop mid way and call it casual, You can have intense challenging 15-30 minute battles where you’re pushed to your limit.

I wouldn’t call myself hardcore compared to my old days in MMOs, I simply don’t ahve the ability or desire to do 4 hours raids anymore, but, I very much desire a 15-30 minute battle that has me failing consistently where I may take the full 2 weeks of trying to finally succeed.

Again, Casual means you don’t invest everything into the game, it does not mean that you can’t handle a challenge.

I fully agree with you, but as a human being we always look for the easiest and best rewarding road to go down. Sure there are outliers but most of the population works with way.
CoF 1 was farmed because it was easy, fast and rewarded well for the time dedicated. CoF3 I don’t think has ever been farmed, sure once you know the mechanics and how it works but its so challenging in a pug group that people just don’t do it.

This is why a holy trinity or hard content will never properly work in GW2, and I don’t mind. I enjoy GW2 for what it has, meanwhile there’s a monumental amount of other games to play if I want challenging PvE content.

True, people want to be rewarded for their time and effort. That however doesn’t mean there isn’t room for challenging. Properly reward the challenge (it doesn’t have to be gold) and people will do it. Look at fractals, people regularly do fractal 50’s even though the rewards simply aren’t up to par. They do have a special reward though, and that’s enough to get people doing them. I really hope they expand on that type of gameplay.

Casual gameplay doesn’t mean that everything has to be easy, it just means that the time investment either has to be incremental or limited.

You can’t have 4 hour sagas where you can’t stop mid way and call it casual, You can have intense challenging 15-30 minute battles where you’re pushed to your limit.

I wouldn’t call myself hardcore compared to my old days in MMOs, I simply don’t ahve the ability or desire to do 4 hours raids anymore, but, I very much desire a 15-30 minute battle that has me failing consistently where I may take the full 2 weeks of trying to finally succeed.

Again, Casual means you don’t invest everything into the game, it does not mean that you can’t handle a challenge.

Csele.1647:

I hope they give up with the living story.. and make something fun to PLAY , cause there are a lot of series and movies we can watch if we wanted to read or see storys

That’s the thing, the only problem with living story is that it was very dumbed down and one dimentional.

There’s no reason it shoulnd’t have PVP addition aspects, or WvW, or Fractal/dungeon (which it did have first season).

Having storyline adds immersion, that doesn’t mean it needs to abandon the idea of replay value and diverse content.

I really hope they do better in season 3 and give us more diverse opportunities as well as more challenging content.

I would not call the living story(world) up till this point bad, it is just a little lacking, I know they can do better, I just hope they know too. It’s a good idea to have a consistent addition to content, they just need to get away from keeping it all about open world and solo instances.

Knighthonor.4061:

KngGilgamesh.3481:

Knighthonor.4061:

I never said there was no AI manipulation in trinity games, i said that the AI in trinity games are far more challenging than Non-Trinity mmos. EQ being the first Trinity mmo proves my point as well.

The argument i seen has been that AI in trinity mmos are just dumb. But i have shown that the Trinity Mob AI is more advanced than we see in Non-Trinity mmos. People used the argument of predictability, which is proven that in GW2 the mobs are more predictable.

Also somebody argued that trinity mmos are easier, but this is disproven by the fact that Trinity PvE in mmos like WoW and Rift, is far more challenging than anything we have in Non-Trinity mmos like GW2. No argument there.

i will repeat. Trinity/Non-Trinity, they both have mobs that are not Terminator smart, but trinity AI is still the lesser of the dumb two.

If that is so then why do you think that is? What makes Trinity AI better and how?

Because all mmo games have Aggro tables. In trinity games the Aggro table is used by the designers to improve group roles. So the AI is built for the Roles that we play.

In non trinity games the NPC have to be balanced in a way that makes it so they are predictable due to the random variable which is the Class/Spec that is attacking it/on its aggro chart. So that mob has to be balanced to fight a Warrior the same as they would that glassy mage.
In trinity the AI, being built around a system, can be designed to categorize groups of players on the fly and address a group of players with some kind of organization built for challenge.

Care to elaborate on how enemies are designed for Eles rather than Warriors?

The general game play of GW2 focuses more on hard hitting attacks that are meant to be avoided. In other games they had these but at a frequency of maybe 1-3 a minute, where we have them every couple seconds on some bosses. We ahve to rotate our active defenses to maintain.

A tanks biggest challenge in other games is quickly grabbing agro before anyone else is hit, taht’s really not much different than getting things blinded, tossing a reflect or hitting the team with an Aegis, that or everyone being ready to defend themselves with a dodge/block/invuln.

All the aspects that make trinity games challenging are here, the only difference is we don’t have tank/healer checks. That’s really all the general attacks are in trinity games. There’s nothing more challenging about running agro rotations and healing rotations. In fact I’d argue that in many ways having a tank makes things easier, it’s far more controlled, once it’s set you don’t have to worry about anything but specifically designed attacks that are meant to hit the rest of the team, which again, come in far slower and less often than they do in GW2.

The reason I gave up on EQ after 15 years was simply that it got too easy. It got to the point that I’d have to pay attention to avoid some mechanic maybe a couple times a minute if there even were those. The rest of the time I actually had a macro (legal there) set up such that I could top raid DPS charts by pressing a button and walking away from the computer. Hardly difficult or active play that GW2 provides. Not saying all trinity games are that simple (DCUO surely wasn’t) but the fact that a trinity game exists like that is pretty much proof that it’s not the trinity system that creates challenges, it’s the game itself and how it’s designed.

Are there more challenging games than GW2, absolutely, but only because the devs wanted to create a higher level of challenge, not because they were trinity.

And I still disagree because I’m using the same tools I learned in my trinity games to manipulate the same limited AI. GW2 has even made attempts to strengthen their AI but we still learn tricks to break it. Like enmies still tracking you through stealth, you can break it by letting them tag you. Or enemies that will evade when targetted, well… you just don’t target them.

No matter what they do we’ll find ways to manipulate it.

If you see less of it in trinity games I’d argue that it’s because it may just not be worth it. For example in EQ while we used a lot of the same tricks often we’d just pull a bunch of things and AE them down or mez them off because we could easily handle it and it wasn’t worth the effort to be disciplined in our manipulation. GW2 you’re rewarded far more for things like LoSing because you don’t have the same tools. We don’t have the agro mechanics to let one person take all the damage, our weak Ele needs the blinds to survive on say cliffside in a fractal 50. We don’t have the healers to counter our lazy play.

I just simply can’t agree with what you’re saying.

Zenith.7301:

Windsagio.1340:

Zenith: You’re focusing on only pve which largely misses my point, the mesmer skills are useful in general. They’re exceptionally useful in pvp and wvw which is where the channeling limitation on 100B actually matters

I mean I get downplaying, but c’mon now :p

Useful in general my kitten , if you’re a person who only pve’s it’s pretty crappy design to have a class so useless in the one format you play. Warriors and guardians aren’t only useful in some formats and useless in others.

But people still bring mesmers…

I am quite sure most record runs bring mesmers exclusively for their utility, mainly portal but also stealth, condi clears, control effects and reflects.

WvW they’re wanted as veil and portal bots as well, is it boring as all hell, yes IMO, but it’s a very tactical addition.

PVP, well /shrug I’m not high end there by any means but I do see a lot of them there so they seem pretty decent, I know they have the potential to screw me up sometimes with all those clones.

I agree their design isn’t really what I would have done (I’d have put a lot less of the damage on the illusions) but the profession is still quite effective thanks to their utility.

Knighthonor.4061:

Jerus.4350:

Knighthonor.4061:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The absence of the traditional trinity doesn’t limit GW2 any more than the inclusion of that trinity limits WoW and other games. Content that has to be designed around the traditional trinity means working out ways to avoid ‘cheese’ tanking, cheese healing, and offer enough health that stuff can’t die quickly. In contrast, GW2 allows the potential for all sorts of teams to play, without depending on the traditional roles.

The issues with GW2’s dungeons is that players quickly figured out how to beat the AI easily, so all of the speedy runs boil down to figuring out how to stack might, vulnerability, and thus make most foe mechanics moot. ANet has started to address this in open world content, but largely has left dungeons and fractals untouched.

Thus, the real issue isn’t the trinity (or lack thereof). It’s that players are evolving faster than ANet is changing the content.

(Incidentally: DPs/Control/Support is present in the speed-clearing, although somewhat dull. Support is primarily might stacking + stealthing through disliked-mechanics. Control is primarily about using LoS to draw foes into a corner and sometimes about pulling them; only occasionally do people use skills to pull beyond that first aggro. And, of course, DPS is king, as it is in all games ultimately.)

Well if thats the case, than which AI is less dumb, the Trinity AI or the Non-Trinity AI?

Considering the tricks I used to do in my old trinity games, I’d say the Non-Trinity, though it has nothing to do with trinity/no trinity but simply the games design quality.

well going off the statements some of you all made in this thread, some of you have said that GW2 Dungeon mob AI gets exploited all the time. But i have never seen that degree of AI explotation in a Trinity game like WoW or Rift… so it would seem that the Trinity AI although not Terminator smart, is still superior to the the Non-Trinity Mob AI found in GW2.

You know LoS pulling? Yeah we were doing it in ‘99 in EQ. Gather things up, hide behind a corner to prevent casters from falling behind, also getting them in a blob to be either AE’d down, stunlocked, or AE mezzed.

We actually took that kind of cleave/blob killing to a whole new level. We did variations of AE kiting, some involved killing 100s of things at once… solo! In Kunark we did this in a top tier zone with a group permanently locking down 100+ creatures with stuns while others AE’d damage.

Likewise, newer game, DCUO we LOS pulled as well.

With tanks we also had a lot of positioning tricks. Many enemies would want to move away or would get pushed away, so we shoved them in corners. If the tank was shrunk or small enough he could be still infront of the boss but also in the corner keeping the boss faced away from us, immobile, and just generally fully controlled and tamed.

DCUO we had collision with enemies, this allowed us to body block enemies attacks. We’d have tanks prevent the deadly attacks from even happening which is something the devs admitted they did not anticipate and was not designed to be done.

Again EQ way way way back, original Feign Death. It was never meant to be a pulling tool, however people learned quickly that it could be used as one, you’d simply agro fake death and hope the enemies split apart and could be pulled separately exploiting the randomness of their wait to walk back. Initially called an exploit later given the OK, and that is pretty much the reason “pulling” isn’t a thing in any new MMO the way it was in EQ, it made things too easy. This being relevant because it also lead to the change in the way mobs agro. Instead of following you anywhere they have relatively short tether radii, this prevents the exploitation of pulling things into better locations that may be quite a distance away, something that allowed us to pull and kill dungeon bosses at the entrance back in EQ, with a good puller we could complete dungeons in a couple minutes with the puller doing the majority of the work.

Another old EQ one was healing through walls. Many attacks would not hit you behind a wall, but heals didn’t need LoS, so… we’d put healers behind a wall, they’d heal the tank from complete safety… neat huh?

So, yeah, naw these kinds of AI manipulation and positioning tricks go all the way back to original games and still exist in newer ones. The trinity has nothing to do with their use, it’s simply that games allow the player to be smarter than the game.

Ezra.5049:

The PvE combat system is very flawed. Boss fights are very straight forward and require very little strategies. I want to see DPS, Support and Control (Like we were promised) and the dungeons need to be designed in the way that a support/control class is needed. I hope they fix this next expansion.

There’s really no point to repeating it because if you haven’t understood yet you probably just don’t want to, but support is huge, and control is even quite effective though not as important as support. Support simply isn’t healing, and the only “support” stat we ahve is healing power, so yeah… gear for support/control doesn’t matter really.

I suggest you watch this though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0HNyu0Pw8Q

Knighthonor.4061:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The absence of the traditional trinity doesn’t limit GW2 any more than the inclusion of that trinity limits WoW and other games. Content that has to be designed around the traditional trinity means working out ways to avoid ‘cheese’ tanking, cheese healing, and offer enough health that stuff can’t die quickly. In contrast, GW2 allows the potential for all sorts of teams to play, without depending on the traditional roles.

The issues with GW2’s dungeons is that players quickly figured out how to beat the AI easily, so all of the speedy runs boil down to figuring out how to stack might, vulnerability, and thus make most foe mechanics moot. ANet has started to address this in open world content, but largely has left dungeons and fractals untouched.

Thus, the real issue isn’t the trinity (or lack thereof). It’s that players are evolving faster than ANet is changing the content.

(Incidentally: DPs/Control/Support is present in the speed-clearing, although somewhat dull. Support is primarily might stacking + stealthing through disliked-mechanics. Control is primarily about using LoS to draw foes into a corner and sometimes about pulling them; only occasionally do people use skills to pull beyond that first aggro. And, of course, DPS is king, as it is in all games ultimately.)

Well if thats the case, than which AI is less dumb, the Trinity AI or the Non-Trinity AI?

Considering the tricks I used to do in my old trinity games, I’d say the Non-Trinity, though it has nothing to do with trinity/no trinity but simply the games design quality.

Zenith.7301:

As if landing a mace burst stun into a 100b is hard…Before any loser says stunbreaks, the cd’s on stunbreaks are magnitudes longer than the relative short cd’s on mace burst stun and 100b so you just bait the stunbreak and within the next 10 seconds you can successfully land a stun into a 7-8k 100b.

Windsagio.1340:

Also, again look at the classes holistically. Mesmers also have some of the most useful utilities and elites in the game across all game modes.

And yes portal/veil/mass haste/mass invis/null field/whateverthehellthereflectiscalled are all a part of the overall calculation of the class. Of course they are.

In the case of 100B, it’s very high damage on a very low cooldown with a disadvantage that you lose damage on mobile enemies — BUT THE OP IS INCORRECT in that it is not self-rooting. It’s a channel that’s broken by movement. There’s really very low risk to 100B compared to melee aside from the temptation to stay in getting more hits when you should move out of the way.

Oh, please, not this crap again. Warriors bring banners, powerful utility EXCLUSIVE to them (while reflects guardians can achieve with higher uptime, so the only exclusive utility a mesmer has is the niche portal use), on top of might and fury stacking, and being able to load up 25 vulnerability stacks easy.

Eles bring projectiles deflection, boon stacking with fire fields, aoe condi clear and CC on top of group healing, on TOP of the highest damage ingame with conjures.

Thieves bring stealth for easy skipping and rez, a spammable blind field to make trash pulls in fractal 50 a joke, on top of being top single target damage.

Guardians, I need not say more. Better reflect uptime than mesmer, better burst and sustained damage, better group defense with aegis and protection, better CC as well.

So let’s not pretend like mesmer has this huge amount of utility relative to the other classes that justifies its pathetic damage, because it simply is not true. Mesmer utility is one of the most redundant utilities since outside portal and illusionary disenchanter/null field, all his other utilities are outshined by either guardian (longer projectile protection) or thief (longer stealth).

That’s incorrect on the projectile protection from mesmer/guard. I still like mesmers plenty even if they are only there for utility and it often overlaps with guardian.

Zenith.7301:

Jerus.4350:

Zenith.7301:

Nike.2631:

Sure, self-rooting can go… but the skill’s damage will drop to about 1/3 of what it is now.

ArenaNet attaches a HUGE effectiveness co-efficient to self-rooting skills. Modest risk nets monumental rewards…

Like Blurred Frenzy? Which has a longer cd than 100b and does less than 1/2 of its damage? Less than Pistol Whip (which also has evasion frames)?

Is this one of those threads? Where we downplay or even ignore class mechanics and compare skills side by side to further our own agendas?

You know full well why blurred frenzy is less damage I would hope.

Your auto attack is poor damage as well

In fact all mesmer weapon damage is pretty pitiful compared to alternatives, why? Because their class mechanics are built that way, your illusions and shattering them is what you’re supposed to use to make up the difference, but you know that right? Please say yes.

What a pitifully deluded response. Shatters hit for next to no meaningful damage in pve, each clone crits for at best 3k used on all clones it’s a pathetic 9k that happens to destroy your phantasms, which are your only source of sustained damage (and who are still deficient because you need 2-3 active to reach the sustained damage levels of other classes).

But by all means make the pvp noob argument that mesmers are balanced around their illusions and shatters when both illusions and shatters do pathetic damage and die almost immediately as they spawn in PvE scenarios. It is straight off the rationalization playbook most pvp’ers make when they justify the pathetic state the mesmer is in where people only use them for time warp, veil, portal and feedback. That’s right, a gimmick class.

A Burning Speed achieves virtually the same outcome as a blurred frenzy, evading damage, but happens to hit for nearly double the amount of damage, creates a fire field for might stacking, and serves as a gap closer to boot.

First, burning speed is a very small evade while blurred frenzy is iirc 1.5s, quite useful.

Second, Phantasm builds have the potential to do very competitive damage.

Third, You’re right. The practical application of damage with mesmers is pretty iffy at best. Shatter builds are just burst with no sustain. Phantasm Builds have a high potential but you rarely achieve it because of their inability to stay alive very long against many PVE bosses, combine that with the slow ramp up time and the completely impractical use on trash mobs, well, you’re just left with a profession that lacks damage when you actually play it in most situations.

However, things were done for a reason. The potential is still there. You can’t really double the damage of mesmers weapons without addressing the potential they do have in their illusions. Not saying mesmers are designed well, but they are what they are.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

So…

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2yoyjo/chris_whiteside_leaving_arenanet/

Another big loss for Anet at this stage..

A dev that actually communicated with people, clearly didn’t fit in with ANet. Good luck to him wherever he goes.

lighter.2708:

Galespark.7835:

lighter.2708:

spoj.9672:

lighter.2708:

spoj.9672:

The bad player arguement doesnt really hold up.

Say you take 40 hours to level to 80 the hard way. You have 40 hours of revenant experience where you didnt have access to all skills and traits.

Whereas i instant level to 80 and play 40 hours of revenant gameplay on a full equipped character.

Who do you think will have a better grasp of the class?

The one who did the hard way ofc..
it’s way too obvious..the hard way really improves you with basic core class mechanics and improve your understand of the class.
then the ones who get all the fancy stuff from the beginning.

I really dont see how you came to that conclusion. The time spent on the class is the same. So the player who has been able to use everything right from the beginning should know more. Assuming they do actually pay a minimum amount of attention to skills and traits they use.

And lets be honest. Players who dont read skills or pay attention to what they are doing wont learn anything even if they level the hard way…..

if you don’t practice in PvE for some time, and go directly to PvP with all skills available, it will be way harder to learn the class, because too many things are happening.

In PvE you have way more downtime and you can more easily pick your fights to account for your experience, so I don’t think the comparison is valid. Even so, I am pretty sure the person who spends 20 hours in PvE and then 20 hours in PvP would have been more experienced if they had just spent 40 hours in PvP. It’s just that the first matches will be very painful.

Basically, you start your class, go PvE for some early level gameplay, get a hand of your core class mechanics and the general feel of your class, then you can go PvP.
If you just go Q tpvp directly like that, you will have a harder time learning your class, because too many things happening and randomly as well, so less time focusing learning how your class works. so it takes longer generally.

also if you just get all the fancy stuff from the start, you can’t focus on each skill much..

How so?

We’re talking spending the same amount of time. If I see something I don’t instantly understand or functions in a way I didn’t expect then I test it out and play with it. If I’m forced to level through I may understand my new skill/trait/whatever within 5 minutes oif playing with it, but then I gotta spend the next half our grinding away till I can grab another skill.

I have no doubt that I could get a better understanding of my tools by having them available to start and working my way through them at my own pace rather than being slowed down by a leveling process.

Hell, even if we had to level I’d probably bring it to the mists to unlock everything and play around with it there to test how skills work the best I can there so that I know what I want to get as I level up.

I really hope they don’t lock out tomes, I’ve heard rumors that they said they were, but i truly hope not. Flood me with Tomes when I alraedy have 1 or 2 of every current profession, but then make them unusable on the one character I’d want to use them on… that’s such a good idea…

I’ve had games on either side, surely liked it when they did hold instances for you if you crashed, however it wasn’t perfect.

Imagine you’re practicing a dungeon, or bug it and need to restart, or just chaining SE1, whatever reason that you’re starting the same dungeon up right after you get out.

Well, then you’d keep re-entering the same dungeon.

So while I don’t think anyone would argue that it would be a bad idea to allow us to jump back in after crashing. But, other issues could arise from making that happen.

Zenith.7301:

Nike.2631:

Sure, self-rooting can go… but the skill’s damage will drop to about 1/3 of what it is now.

ArenaNet attaches a HUGE effectiveness co-efficient to self-rooting skills. Modest risk nets monumental rewards…

Like Blurred Frenzy? Which has a longer cd than 100b and does less than 1/2 of its damage? Less than Pistol Whip (which also has evasion frames)?

Is this one of those threads? Where we downplay or even ignore class mechanics and compare skills side by side to further our own agendas?

You know full well why blurred frenzy is less damage I would hope.

Your auto attack is poor damage as well

In fact all mesmer weapon damage is pretty pitiful compared to alternatives, why? Because their class mechanics are built that way, your illusions and shattering them is what you’re supposed to use to make up the difference, but you know that right? Please say yes.

serenke.4806:

That is exactly the thing. If you know it could take between “X” and “Y” and you know for sure you don’t have “Y” time then don’t simply don’t start doing it.

It’s not like you cannot estimate it before (unless you pug, but then you cannot estimate anything).

No, fractals aren’t too long. If you can’t stomach them, maybe you should do other content instead.

So your answer is “if you dont’ have the upward bound fo time you shouldnt’ do fractals” that seems like a terrible answer to me. It’s fun content, I enjoy it. I just hate that sometimes my late night fractals consist of the worst possible rolls.

serenke.4806:

If you have done fractals before and know the “worst case scenario” of how long it could take, how hard is it to simply decide not to go into the place?

You know that it could take over an hour, so if you don’t have that time, don’t start it. We have threads such as these and people are still upset that NPE treats them like babies…

That’s the thing, it COULD take over an hour, but it could also be done in 30 mins, the variable length is too large of a range thanks to RNG. It’s one thing to just suck and take forever, it’s another to get a bad roll and take a long time.

See, I actually really enjoy Mai, grawl and cliffside, thing is when I get them late at night… ugh, i do need to sleep…

I don’t want to avoid them, I just want to do them when I want to do them.

Suziana.3759:

Who thought it was a good idea to have a one day window to buy these? I would love to spend real money on Black Feathered Wings, but I can’t because ArenaNet isn’t selling them any more. What’s even the point of introducing a new item if you’re not going to make it available for everyone to have a chance to purchase it?

It was a sneak peak sale, they’re coming back later.

Yup, one of the many ways ANet has dropped the ball on things. There really should be at least a 5 minute grace period before the zones shut down, but alas, that’d be something beneficial to dungeons and they can’t have that!

Had the same thing happen a couple times recently in fractals