Guild Wars 2

People are not used to listen to other players. If there is more content which requires coordination players will start to listen.
You can see it in Aether: people are usually paying more attention after having trouble at the ooze part.

bladex.9502:

I have played for 230 days, over 1000 hours of ingame time, been in multiple high end speedclearing guilds, and over the course of that time i have accumulated roughly 2000ap, because I simply can’t be kitten d to grind dailies/story/whatever gives ap.

You’re not the average player. Most players will start playing story, explore the world, maybe even try wvw and pvp. Its hard to avoid getting AP.
Ofc there are good low AP Players. But the average low AP player has less experience. Maybe is not even full equipped.
AP requirements improve your chance to get a player with more experience.
Most low AP players are beginners. Not speedrun guild members.

They changed borderlands map in WvW and added Wxp giving you new skills/stronger effects.

In PVE they added new fractals and two new maps (drytop and silverwaste).
They added the living story 2 but you have to buy it in the gemstore.
You can explore the new LA, which was added ~ two weeks ago.
And there are two new world bosses: tequatl and triple worm.
I think thats it.

Two guys blaming the thief for not using pistol to stealth. For the whole run, even after he started using pistol.
It was a CM fullrun. Many PUGs are bad at blasting fields and he even told them he’s new to playing thief.
We did everything on spot, pathed enemies, were fast for a PUG blabla. So I don’t see a reason to flame the thief for using smoke screen.
It’s was PUG, not a coordinated team. They could have asked instead of flaming him.

bearbear.1903:

No sure why you’d want no boons, unless it’s a self imposed “hard mode”.

I’m sure the lfg asks for “no noobs”, not no “enchantments”.

Stars.2179:

Even if you count unscathed contender as only a 25% upkeep, it would be 1.1×1.1×1.05 = 1.2705 which is a 27.05% damage reduction.

WoR is not always needed. And if it is, the trait is not always needed.
So guards are not totally loosing unscathed contender.
You’re not always fighting with your sword, you might want to use your GS too.
To get the total amount of lost damage you have to take the actual damage and subtract the amount of damage before.
So your formula should be “dmg mod*dmg mod – old dmg mod*old dmg mod”.
Lets say you got a 50% uptime on retaliation (i think 100% could be possible), 4% for symbol dmg trait, 5% for sword: 1,05*1,04-1,1*1,05*1,05= ~ -12%

Lets say you get a 40% symbol uptime with a GS+mace: 1,05*1,08-1,1*1,05*1,05=~ -8%. Great.
You still get a 10% crit chance, an option to use unscathed, you can have more than 50% retaliation uptime, get more burn, etc.

Stars.2179:

Retaliation damage = 198 + (0.075 * Condition Damage)

Wiki says the formula for Radiant Retaliation is:
198 + (0.15 * Condition Damage)
twice the amount of the power formula. Makes a bit sense.
But only if you want to do dmg via retaliation. And if you want to run a condiguard at the same time, without using the burn trait. Well…Anet…

Stars.2179:

It is more like a 20%-25% damage nerf relative to all other classes had they not buff the other classes.

25% lost damage?

Yes, you lose vuln spam vs trashmobs if you stay at GS trait. But you get reduced GS skills which should increase your dmg vs. everything, not only trashmobs.
You get a 20% (?) dmg buff in symbols. A GS only Guard can keep his symbol up for 20% of the time, so its roughly a 4% dmg buff.
You lose a 10% dmg buff on sword. But most guards seems to camp GS anyway and nobody cares. Lets say the sword dmg buff decreases your total dmg by 5%. Its nearly the same as the new gained dmg buff in zeal with its 4%. Radiance loses its 10% dmg buff against condis. But you could still go for the 10% dmg buff under retaliation. Virtues offer retaliation so there should be some uptime. GS-Symbol does so, too.
You still get +10% crit chance.

Hammer, already a strong build, loses its blind spam and a 10% dmg mod. If you go for zeal, honor, virtues: it gains a 20% dmg mod, burning and heal on larger symbols, increased symbol dmg, might on crit, +1% dmg per boon, access to more stabi and condi remove. So an already strong guard build got a huge buff.

I don’t like the reduced range of virtues. In bad PUGs I often need the huge range to reach those rangers…
In good groups its no difference.

The other changes seems ok. Radiance is less attractive. It loses a 10% dmg mod, a 10% dmg mod for swords. I’m not sure if you really need the increased crit chance it offers, you should reach the cap with it.
If the new symbol trait is giving a 20% dmg mod: get a mace instead of a sword and thats it.

Whats 2. for you? Wildstar?

It would be very sad if Anet has to choose. Anet had years to develop content, there should better be some amount of content coming.
Dunno how many centuries it took them to develop all those GW2 basic dungeons and areas…

If HoT really consists of only three open world maps (as some speculate)…well….look at drytop or SW. I don’t think this will keep GW2 alive on the long term.

Jerus.4350:

GW2 is pretty true to form in that they intended to not have strict roles but flexible ones. You can get through a fight without full upkeep of reflects or blinds, but they do have a noticeable impact.

In a coordinated group: yes.
In a PUG of fullsoldiers many effects become less noticeable. Especially “avoid one hit” stuff like blinds/aegis. A fullsoldier fighting “open field 1vs1” might prefer regeneration because it has more impact on him.

Jerus.4350:

Yes you can run 5X warrior groups, in fact you can run 5X anything groups if you prepare properly.

I was refering to 5 warrior groups to point out:
you have to play on a “advanced level” to get access to those different playstyles/roles in GW2.
Many players are playing more casual, are not doing fast dungeon runs. A group without might has no “might stacking role”. Those 5 warrior groups got no blindspam, WoR etc. They got only one role: dps.
To be fast you have to interact, bring more support, play “soft” roles. But many low-dps PUGs will never experience this part of the game.
For example: if enemies die slowly guardians F1 spam is way weaker. Fullsoldiers are able to survive way more hits. So a guardians spamming F1 won’t have a huge impact. If you’re running in a group with more damge and less tanky: it has impact.

Timewarp had/has some very visible effect. See those “4 Warriors lf mesmer”. Imho Ane needs to bring roles more into casual play, make them more useful/easy to use in casual groups. PS – for example – does so. Should be less effective (imho), but i think it has brought might stacking into PUGs.
(PS big advantage: it doesn’t interfere with other fields. Mightstacking in PUGs usually ends in stacking retalation. Fields interfering with each other is imho a design flaw.)

Jerus.4350:

And, I’d actually say PS war is in a bad spot in that it’s very inactive play relative to the alternatives. Faceroll your keyboard with GS equipped is quite boring. The role is certainly good, but it is better on an Ele as far as gameplay goes as it’s far more intricate and requires better coordination.

/agree

Anet implemented a very mobile combat with dodging, tons of aoe circles – and combined it for some reason with some very static effects like fields, very short ranged group buffs, aoe-autoattacks, which leads to stacking/staying close to each other.
I don’t think Anet planned stacking. Because it doesn’t work well with many of their skills. Active defence like cripple/chill/speedbuffs becomes less powerful, fear gets useless, knockback gets useless – some “core-effects” of many weapons.

Jerus.4350:

You do have various roles in GW2.

Yes, but most of them are very similar. Compared to classic roles like tank, healer, dps.
Some blinds and stuff won’t change your role completly. Running a dps ele with blinds is the same than running it without. Not a different “game experience”.
Many players even don’t get to this point: you have to play a bit more coordinated in instanced teamcontent to experience it. Those “5 metazerk warrior” groups will not experience it – and open world is usually even worse.

Adding some support doesn’t turn a dps build into a supporter. GW2 supportbuilds are usually very close to “dps”, so they feel very similar.

Anet could sharpen those support roles to cause a more “support-feeling”. They just need to make effects more noticeable. Big numbers, stuff like this. Or Skills like timewarp. Visible effects. A “woha, nice buff” feeling. I don’t notice a placed banner – but I notice 25 stacks of might.
PS War is in a good spot – maybe Anet could change other effects to increase the “supportfeeling”. Fixing condidmg would also be a good thing.

deSade.9437:

Sure, it guts the damage NOW. It won’t when you’ll be able to go 6/6/6… Huh. What then?

Boonduration gets reduced for PS Wars, could have some impact, dunno.
On the other hand: Guards will bring more lightfields, LH Eles will suffer.

Removing might stacking or make it less useful would reduce teamplay. It’s one of a few elements which forces you to interact a bit with each other.

Everyone standing in one spot? This won’t go away entirely, but without the dependence on might stacking the number of places where this is required/expected would definitely go down.

There are several reasons why stacking is good:
-your aoe hits all enemies at the same time, so pulling enemies together increases your dmg
-teambuffs are often on a small range, without your team stacking many effects would miss teammates
-fields are stationary, you want to fight in fields giving you protection, healing, might, condiremoval, etc.
-projectile defense is stationary. A WoR can protect the whole team – if it stacks.
-to rezz a downed you have to stay close to him, rallying works better when stacking.
-…

uhohhotdog.3598:

I didn’t say it has no open world. You’re twisting my words.

My point was:

You should not take every advertisement as truth. They will always exaggerate.
When Anet tells you about “super innovative Events” you will get some kind of events. When Anet tells us about super challenging dungeons we get some dungeon stuff.
I showed you a dungeon interview. So if you want Anet to keep their promises (which is understandable) you should understand, that other players want Anet to keep their promises too. So where’s the underworld like content? There is none. But you don’t care, but you’re using not kept promises as an argument? …………

Anet has exaggerated. For all players. For open world players, for instance players – well…look at “esports PVP”. Should Anet now stop developing open world content until their pvp is good at esports? Should they stop developing open world content until their dungeons are “UW like”? No. No one wants that. But you, you ask Anet to stop developing everything and just develop open world content?

And this is why i twisted your words. To show you: there is open world content. Maybe Anet exagerated a bit, but there is an open world. There are event chains. There is pvp, there are dungeons. So maybe not as good as expected, but all modi are fine.
And all modi should be developed, improved. I’m not asking Anet to stop open world content. Many players like it, so ofc they should add open world content.
So why are you asking for “no instances”? Anet has broken other promises, too.

uhohhotdog.3598:

When a game sells you on the point that it would be filled with event chains that have a lasting affect on the world, they should try that. I don’t want “one time” events. I want event CHAINS.

Chains have no lasting effects on the world. Their effect will be gone in 2 minutes or so. Only one-time events can provide a lasting effect.
SW is a huge eventchain – if you fail to defend you have to invade the camp again, when defending phase is over bosses will spawn, then vinewrath starts.
Orr is full of eventchains. Fireelemental? Eventchain. Centaur events in harathi? Event chain. The game has tons of eventchains. You want improved eventchains? I can understand it. But thats no reason to block instanced content. HoT seems to become SW like, so its very likely Anet will improve their event system. It might not become perfekt, but Anet will try to offer some “better event chains”.
Image I would say “dungeons are not challenging enoug, stop all open world content until Anet brings challenging dungeons of my taste. They promised us challenging content.”. Well…I don’t ask for that. But you do.

uhohhotdog.3598:

The game was originally sold as open world. They made much about dynamic events and made huge promises that never happened. I want them to fulfill that promise before attempting more instanced crap.

So this game has no open world?

It was clear that their dynamic events would not be so special. It was advertising. C’mon…I also can’t fly, but the redbull guy in TV-Spots can. MC donalds might tell me about their lucky cows and blabla – but I’m sure mcdonalds bends the truth a bit.

Anet tried “one time” events with the karka-event after release – and it didn’t worked well. Atm we’re having some decent open world dynamic events. I don’t want one time events “karka style” back. Adds no content to the game, if you miss it you can’t play it later, all players have to do the same at the same time – hello lags.
So: no, ty. SW/Drytop Eventchains are fine.

btw: Anet promised also a dungeon rework. Not every promise gets fullfilled. Or have a look at this 2011 interview: dungeon interview

And when you finish the story version of a dungeon you unlock the explorable version of that dungeon.

Those are intended to be the super hard, very coordinated group style content like Slaver’s Exile, or Fissure of Woe, or the Underworld.

FoW, Slayer’s Exile or Underworld? Well…maybe an arah fullrun can be compared to them. Those were elite-areas which took “common” groups hours to finish. When everything went “okayish” you could easily spend 4-6 hours in them.
One wipe = kicked out of the instance. Ok, if i remember correct at those time there was no reward for finishing it, enemy loot was rewarding enough. So it did’t matter too much if you wiped (and many groups didn’t even try to finish)
But look at the dungeons we got: 10-30 min content. Only little teamwork required in most paths. Maybe a comparision with GW1 story, not those elite areas, would’ve been the better choice.
Should I now do the same as you do?
“I want them to fulfill those promises before attempting more open world crap.”
Well…no…dungeons are quite popular in GW2. There are many lfgs, there are many dungeon guilds. So dungeons seem to be ok, no need to change too much here (fix some bugs, exploits etc., ofc). But add some new ones. No one forces you to play dungeons.

Imho there has to be content for different type of players: open world content for singleplayers. Challenging open world content like tequatl for open world organized groups (i think there were tequatl and worm guilds). Easy instanced content like story for teamplayers, medium instanced content like AC etc. – and “hard dungeons” arah style. Ofc you could add more easy content or some harder content – but this should cover most interests.
But atm HoT seems to get a handful – 3-5? – open world maps. And thats it. Seems a bit disappointing to me.

Afaik: consecrations will now always be ground targeted – so “they fixed” double usage.
Traits can be found here: http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgIBqAKoBag

Edit: too slow

No thanks to open world content.
We can now all find a compromise.
Either no content for everyone. Or a bit content for everyone.

DeWolfe.2174:

I highlighted the keyword for you, community. Instanced content for 5 players doesn’t build a community, large scale open world content does.

Umm…no?
I don’t care about other players staying next to me spamming autoattack at tequatl.
Maybe half of them are bots. You don’t need a guild in Guild Wars 2. Maybe for Dungeons, WvW, SPVP or Guildmissions. But not for open World zergfests.
My whole friendlist consists of either dungeon people or GW1 players – GW1 had only instanced content, it is a teamgame. GW2 is mainly a singleplayer.

It doesn’t matter which people are standing next to you in open world content. If it would, people would ask for options to kick bad players, because one or two bad players would be able to cause a fail. See marionette – and the amount of insults in chat.
So there’s only supereasy faceroll stuff. Fireelemental isn’t the content which keeps me playing. It gets boring. SW is a nice income, but boring. If another area gives more gold/hour SW will die.

Good thing about some open World Bosses is: you can start your autoattack, go into the cellar to get a drink, come back, collect your loot – and you “played” better than most of the other players, because your autoattack does more dmg than those of fullclerics.

It doesn’t matter if instanced content is called “dungeons” “fractals” “raids” or whatever. All the same: you play with some other players, interact with them – talk with them. Teamplay. Instanced content can be more difficult or less – but everyone is responsible. You can’t just tag a boss and go afk.

If Anet would add an option to solo tequatl with bots: my game experience won’t change. I wouldn’t even realize those “players” are bots. So no, open world content isn’t good in building a community.

Colins Post is intersting, but I’m a bit sceptic. Afaik HoT will get some fractal stuff so he might be refering to this…
According to the FAQ:

Q: When is the next big feature reveal for what’s coming in this expansion?

A: We wanted to reveal Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns when we were ready to talk about every major feature we’re planning. That’s why right now, every major feature planned for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is there for you to check out at http://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com. That said, there are so many details left to uncover and share with you, to show you, and to eventually let you play as we take you on the journey from now through launch.

I don’t think dungeons are a “detail left to uncover”.

In 2014 Ramon Domke answered a intersting question at the foostival. Its in german, but to give you a very rough translation (my english is bad, so its not an accurate translation):
“are you planning teamcontent in the future? Many players think only dungeons and guildmissions are really requiring a team”
“definitely, but it depends on the definition of teamcontent. If the questioner means 5 player instances or instanced raids. GW2 tries to realize much in the open world while other games put those things into instances. Yes, we are trying to place there (open world) teamcontent without getting zergy. We had 7 hotfixes for the assault knights (battle for LA) to make them less zergy, more rewarding and team interactive. We are definitly interested in making content for groups.”
…..
german interview 2014
So when Anet talks about teamcontent this could also be open world content. Because he dodged the question some thought this means “no real teamcontent” like dungeons etc. Since it’s a year ago they were right. Maybe Anet brings “real teamcontent” in the future, the interview is outdated. But it gives an impression of Anets interpretation of teamcontent. So when talking about challenging teamcontent it could be everything. Even rezzing a dead player in open world while running to a mining spot.

IF Anet has decided to bring instanced challenging stuff: decision is made, they could tell us they are planning to bring instanced stuff.

Harper.4173:

Also what does upscaling have to do with different balancing across game modes? What does upscaling have to do with a the introduction of a rune that would break the game? I still don’t get it.

If Anet adds a handful runes which are PVE only and not available in PVP it won’t change too much. There are already runes which are PVE only, a few more won’t make much difference.
If Anet decides to “scale players down” or change stats a bit when entering WvW because a rune adds too much stats: it won’t make much difference. Atm Anet changes stats of players entering WvW. So it is already existing and nobody cares.
I see no problems with a set of runes changing your stats, since everything it needs to keep WvW or PVP balanced exists already in game.
When running a level 20 char and I’m switching to WvW my build feels the same. When entering a dungeon and I’m getting downscaled: my build feels the same.
So I don’t share your opinion: GW2 has everything to handle such a rune without causing imbalance or changing the feeling of your build.

Harper.4173:

They want the same build to feel the same across PvP, PvE and WvW. The idea of scaling and different runes completely invalidates this core design of the game.

Ummm…have you ever been in PVP or WvW?

If you enter PVP you will realize it already has its separate build. Your PVP build will stay the same even if you change your build in PVE. PVP has already sperate runes, sigils etc. Some PVE runes/stats are not available in PVP. For example nomads is not available afaik. Rune of Perplexity is also not available.

If you enter WvW you will realize that your low level char gets higher stats. You get upscaled to level 80. You might be weaker since upscaling won’t work very well, but you got way higher stats than in PVE.

So you’re saying that these, already ingame existing mechanics, are completely invalidating the core design of the game? I don’t think so.

Beldin.5498:

Whats so challenging when as a DD i only have to stay behind a mob and do
my rotation .. and if i ever get aggro i blame it on the tank ??

Only true in games with a really bad combat system without any active defense and with tank/aggro control.
Add blinds to DDs and if they get aggro they can protect each other.

In a more trinity like game DDs can be part of the defense through active defense. Bad groups might blame the healer for letting them wipe – but its their fault if they get too much dmg.
Trinity can be a chain of events: enemy is trying to attack someone: is someone in reach? Is he able to hit more than one player – one player did a mistake. Is he able to place his hard hitting attacks? DDs made a mistake and didn’t stop him from doing so (blinds, interrupts). Did the attacks hit? Protection guy made a mistake and didn’t saw the enemy placing his attacks (aegis, stabi, WoR). Is the target getting healed? If no: healer made a mistake and lets him die.
Healer is only the last instance, everybody is responsible for dmg taken. You cannot avoid all dmg, but the serious one should be avoided. Your healers will run out of mana if you do too much mistakes and your party will wipe. But if you do some mistakes (and fail the dodges for example) you won’t die, because another player could help you and fixes your mistakes.
This is imho good teamplay. If your just standing there as a DD and do your dmg stuff without caring about using active defence: in some Games (for example: GW1) your failing to do your job and someone else has to hop in and repair your mistakes. If its the healer this could cause a wipe on the long term, since he is running out of ressources.

Cyninja.2954:

So you get your elementalist for group protection and might (and reflects, and water fields, etce.tc), then you get your guardian for group aegis, reflects and on demand group support, then maybe a warrior or thief for good damage and stealth or a mesmer for portals, timewarp and reflects (I’m only mentioning some of the utilities, let’s keep it simple).

Many players seem to hate this kind of teamplay.
Not everbody wants to rely on a healer – or a guard dropping his wall/stabi. Thats a classic trinity moment “does he heal me or do i die?” “does he drops the wall or am I in trouble?”.
I’d like to see more of this stuff, I prefer having a guard being responsible for WoR/stabi, an Warrior for might etc. But making this roles more important would lead to a more trinity like game.

EcoRI.9273:

too bad twitch/reddit and youtube weren’t as popular back then.

I’m not sure if this is the reason. I can remember watching videos about how to boonprot. I still got one boonprot vid here which was made by iQ before 04.2006.
Farmvideos were quite popular since farming required some knowledge about build, skillusage, running route to pull all 40 enemies at the same time, etc.
There were no streams, so this might be a huge difference.
But I remember watching lots of tutorial or those frosty mass-sync-dancing videos.

Maybe its because Anet had another schedule back in these days.
Guild Wars was released in April 2005, Factions in April 2006, Nightfall in Oktober 2006, EoTN in August 2007.
If I remember correct there were ~ monthly updates which changed many skills dramatically. So maybe this kept players busy and they weren’t developing SCs so fast. Or they didnt get known so fast since nearly nobody was doing his 100. dungeonrun.
Imagine GW2 would have 4 expansions now which each would’ve the same amount of content basic GW2 has. Or regular skill/trait reworks which would change many builds.
Don’t think “speedruns” or meta/stack discussions would be such a thing. Its a bit a sign of boredom.
Even terribad players like me start to improve equip, playstyle, build and are doing “fast” dungeonruns.

Some famous Jack McDaniels videos seems to be from ~2006.
2007 club elona (his third video?):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki-lNeK9xnk&list=PL16FAAA4C36831040&index=6
(to end the retro:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWCTlxEp6Ds).

Harper.4173:

You’re asking to make a game that is already on the casual-easy side of the spectrum even easier and more accessible to players. On paper that might be fine but the problem is if you make the content too easy nothing will force players to improve.

You could bring harder content in the future. Atm there is not much room. Anet could add more onehits, harder to predicts onehits, thats it. Would kill casual groups – even aether already does so. Mainstreamdungeons are AC, COF, TA, SE. I don’t think Anet would add difficult content, would be better to aim for the masses and add content on this level. Or add no instanced content at all, since most players seem to farm SW instead of going for instances.

No – Healers are bad in GW2 because you do not need someone healing.

Not every game out there has a trinity.
There are games in which healer are very helpful, welcome – but not mandatory. Those games did a better job by adding roles which are “nice to have” but no must-have.
Some of these games are really old.
There are hack’n slays which you can play solo or in a team. Without a healer or with a healer. It doesn’t matter. You can use your potion to heal yourself – or have a healer healing you. A healer is sometimes very helpful – for example in games where potions are only giving a strong health regeneration and don’t insta heal you up (now look at warriors healing signet: a insta heal is sometimes helpful for a warrior using this skill). In these hack’n slay games the healer is often more or less a strong melee class with some healingskills, not a trinity fullhealer.

Harper.4173:

The rune idea you propose won’t work – it would be murder in WvW / PvP.

It would not. PVP has seperate runes, WvW could use scaling. When entering as a low level char i also get different stats than in PVE….

The reason for “berserker meta is not fixable via stats” is?

Asking for WvW/PVP Stats is a bit unfair, so I dodged it. Ofc I’m not able to offer a suggestion fixing all balancing problems. If I would I would sell this idea to Anet instead of posting it here.
To give you an easy answer: PVP has it own runes, so no problem here. WvW has scaling, so just scale players stats down.

I don’t think Anet will change anything. They are focussing on open world content, so a build or equip doesn’t really matter. Open World seems to attract more players. Wildstar has some good instaced content afaik but is not successful. So I don’t think we will see many (if any!) instances in the near future. I might be wrong (I hope so), but I’m not optimistic.

WvW/PVP is a another story and needs a seperate balancing. Doing dmg for two is a bit too strong. It results in a zerk party doing dmg like 10 cleric players – Anet can’t balance dungeons for such a wide dps variety and produce content challenging for both side – see current dungeons.
It’s not only about time: Kholer can use his whirl maybe once – or 20 times. Alpha can use his aoes more often etc. Those attacks are not triggered by lost HP. Even your defence like WoR or stabi is stronger when you’re able to kill fast. A low dps group needs maybe a second WoR. Your skills won’t recharge faster when having more vitality.
When you’re downed: good group dps can help you up.
There are many aspects of better dps.

Dmg reduction is often less important than dmg. If you are able to avoid dmg (by dodging or skills) defence stats become more and more useless. Some stats are better than others. You can dodge to avoid dmg, so you need no dmg reduction. But you have to do dmg, you cannot dodge instead of doing dmg.

Most suggestions tend to destroy the current gameplay, this is why i don’t like them. For example there was a suggestion coupling endurance regeneration to defensive stats: fullzerk= nearly no endurance regeneration. Really bad idea.
Or removing the downed system so zerk gets more risky. Also a bad idea.
On the other hand: why having vita or toughness if you can stay alive without them? Power triggers with every attack. Toughness only when you get hit. Anets wants us to avoid hits, even fullsoldiers get heavy hit by some attacks.
Vitality often does nothing. Healers in other games say “every hp about 1 is luxus”. It gives you a bit more time, but you only profit from having more HP if you would’ve died without the extra hp. Shouldn’t happen every fight. Power helps you in each fight killing stuff faster.
So: its very difficult to compare stats. They do different stuff. Some are always needed (power) and stronger, some not. For example: afaik you cannot crit tequatl. So berserk is suboptimal against him. Conditions are not affected by toughness, so knight gear is suboptimal against them. This is why I think there are “main stats”: power, precision, ferocity. And “help stats” which are not needed, only helpful: toughness, vita, healing power. The “main stats” are better than the “help stats”. Not always, but most of the time. Ofc Anet could add many enemies which are immune to crits to make it fair. Also a bad idea….oh wait…condis…those Mordrem Husks….maybe next instanced content is full of direct dmg immune enemies…

Thaddeus.4891:

Is this a joke? Ok let’s roll with it, how will you increase the damage of cleric exactly.

In addition to my post above:
I think healing is not needed in GW2 which is good. You need dmg in GW2. So if healing has to compete with dmg players will go for dmg. You don’t want to sacrifice too much dmg for something only good but not needed.
So my solution is to take healing out of the competition. I don’t want to change the whole game, so I’m not suggesting thinks like removing healing power, nerf zerk or adding a 4th “help stat” etc.

main stats: power, precision, ferocity
helpful stats: vita, toughness, healing power
You need those main stats. You don’t need helpful stats.
I think you cannot compare those stats directly, as you do. There was magic find as a stat, some time ago. Summing up those stats to compare equip is no indicator for a good or balanced equip. You have to wight those stats. Some are more useful than others. I think power, precision and ferocity are way more needed than healing power.
So how much power would you sacrifice to get 1000 healing power?
Thats the question. I would’t sacrifice 1000 Power. Not even 500. Ofc it depends on your group, in some you didn’t want to sacrifice any dmg, in some a cleric might already be helpful.

- You boost the power to 2300? So cleric have 2300 power, 1087 healing power and 745 toughness? While Zerker stay the same?

Yes. Ofc it needs balancing. Because high Power would be very strong against objects. Or there’s equip with power, precision, healing power. So my suggestion is a very raw one, needs a lot of rework. I don’t think adding precision or ferocity would be a good idea. Clerics got an “active” stat: healing power. Precision triggers traits and sigils which is something a cleric should have to sacrifice since he can do the healing power stuff.
Zerk could get runes too, to make it more tanky.

Thaddeus.4891:

- A rune with 90% of healing power converted into power WHAT. These kind of rune work in the 7% not 90%.

This is why healing power is still bad.

I tried to do some math, i’m sure i’ve done several mistakes (got no idea what im doing). Don’t want to make this post longer than necessary, its just to give a rough impression:
fullcleric ends at 1704 effective power, fullbersi at 2798. To get to 90% dmg of fullbersi I used 0,75*healingpower, cleric would end at 2536 EP.

Adding the same build, dmg mods etc. to both equips I ended at:
cleric 2753 EP,
fullbersi at 4572.
cleric with hp-rune: 4213 EP.
Would be better if cleric would get to 10% difference, so my idea is a bad idea.
Adding might, fury,vuln, potion, banner,buffood:
fullcleric: 6736EP
fullbersi: 13662
fullcleric +hp = 9107.
Even turning 90% into power wouldnt make a huge difference.
I’m not sure why this happens (I hope its not my fault…), maybe because at this low crit dmg precision is less effective. If this is the case it would be perfect for balancing. Advantage of zerk would be: it profits from crit chance increasing stuff (when not capped), from crit dmg stuff etc. A PS-War needs a crit chance, so he won’t go for fullcleric.

If my ~4k EP difference is roughly correct fullberserk would still be the choice No. 1 for coordinated groups. In less cordinated groups (PUGs etc.) which are not using all of those buffs a fullcleric would be nearly as good as a fullzerk. Which is imho good.

My suggestion is not good. Cleric would get too close to fullzerk when running without buffs.
I think someone who knows what hes doing (I’ve got no idea if my math is even close to correct…) should be able to find a formula which would bring a cleric to a – lets say – 500 power difference with build, 4000 power difference with group buffs. So there would be equip for more casual groups – a wide variety, equip doesnt matter too much. Which is good, since most people tend to start on a low level and don’t want to buy perfect equip before even starting dungeons etc.
And there would be still zerk-meta for speed oriented groups. If this works it could add more equip variety on less coordinated groups and keeps zerk-meta at the same time. Might even be able to bring a bit more options into coordinated groups (looking at zealots), when not going for records. “Downside”: “semi-fast-runs” in cleric gear as an easymode would be possible. Ok for me. Ofc, its a question of balancing. I’m not saying that any of my numbers is correct or it “has to be 90% of a fullzerk”. I’m just saying the dmg gap is atm too big to make tanky equip/healing power really useful.
It has it niches, but zerk is standard – I think zerk should be the choice for “exp people” not for “five warrior groups”.

Harper.4173:

So basically make it easier for people because if the damage of let’s say healy/tanky gear is increased you’re basically dealing a lot more damage while still having the benefit of a lot more healing and tankiness than a berserker player.

Basically yes, but its a matter of balancing. I’m not lucky with this suggestion, but imho its at least a step into the right direction.
Atm many bosses are more or less melting away making it very easy to kill them – you are even able to skip bossmechanics or reduce them significantly.
As an example: most groups get into trouble when pulling holos to clockwork in aether (final boss).
A low dps group has atm to pull those holos like 20 times, while a good group has to pull them 0-2 times. That’s bad gamedesign and makes this boss often more difficult running a low dps setup.
Imho berserk gear should be for really good players an option, not “the best equipment for everyone”. If berserk gives a less signifikant dps advantage, other equipment could compete with berserkers equip. If you’re good at dodging you’re still going for berserk, since it is still top dps.
I’m not asking for a facetank bringing 99% of a glascanons dps.

I’m just saying: look at hack’n slays. Healers are usefull in hack’n slays because they are still doing good dmg. Healers are bad in GW2 because the do too few dmg. Same goes for tanky equip. Thats my point. I know no good solution for this. But thats why healing/tanking is so bad at GW2.

Anet is obviously not able to balance bosses for low dps setups, high dps setups – or low armour and high armour. So it might be a good idea to bring stats closer together.
Since I know many players like running risky and fast runs (i also prefer a smoth run instead of half an hour AC single path run): runes. Anet could add runes turning healing power into dmg, toughnes/vita into dmg – and precision or fero into defence. There still should be a difference to a glascanon. But how much difference? I think 10% is good. In a full buffed group it is still a huge difference (this is why im talking about %, not “500 power difference”). You still get advantage of skillfull coordinated playing: use your skills properly, stack might, bring the correct buffs/defence. This is also part of active gameplay, not only dodging.

(berserk stats summ up: if your running 25 stacks might etc. your berserk gear influences dps you gain via might. If you’re running a fullsoldier instead your dps will be increased less since your crit chance is bad. I’m not sure how many misstakes I’ve done (some, but my point should still be valid), but afaik you end at ~14k effective power as a buffed fullzerk. And 7k as a fullcleric. If 90% healing power would be turned into power, a fullcleric would get to ~10k effective power. Still a huge difference. 4k Power more? I’d still go for fullzerk. But in less coordinated groups the difference would melt – clerics would become an option for those groups.)

Harper.4173:

Also another mistake you make is thinking GW2 has or should have a healer.
It does not and should not – each person has his own healing skill so a healing archetype is not needed.

I’m not asking for a classic fullhealer. I’m asking for a char doing dps and being able to heal. Thats a difference. Trinity has fullhealers which only heal. No trinity games like hack’n slays got classes like clerics which do dmg – and are able to heal. They do both. A fullhealer doesn’t work well in no-trinity games.
Healing is helpful in GW2. Blasting waterfields, using F2 as a guard etc. is clearly an intended healing mechanic – and useful. So its not that healing is too bad in GW2. Its just less important than dmg. Nobody wants to sacrifice dmg to bring healing. If Anet wants to make healing viable: healing without losing (too much) dps.

Many players enjoy running fullzerk. And many want to run a condibuild, want to support their team in a stronger way than possible in GW2 etc. I think both groups can get what they like. Since hack’n slays are able to do so, too. Healing is not needed, you got potions – but its helpful. GW2 Potions are its selfheals.

Thaddeus.4891:

Now explain me how because I don’t see it. How can Soldier gear give roughly the same results???

Increase soldiers gears dmg. I suggested that a few pages ago.

I think people want to play different roles. So its not just about gear.
A healer is no option since dmg is more important than healing. If a fullcleric would do – let say – 90% dmg of a fullzerk, fullcleric would be an option. Healing is atm very helpful in GW2 – but the lost dmg is usually not worth it.

If I did no misstakes a fullberserk got roughly twice the effective power of a fullcleric. Thats a huge difference. To bring an example: a rune which turns 90% of healing power into power would reduce the dmg gap. If I did no misstakes it would result in ~85% dmg of a fullzerk. So healingbuilds or tanky equip would become better and are more welcome. Most PUGs don’t care about 10% dmg – potions, buffood which nobody uses;)

GW2 should be compared to hack’n slays, they got a similar gameplay.
Hack’n Slay healers do dmg, there is no trinity or fullhealer in (most?) hack’n slays since everyone needs to bring dmg. GW2 is the same, you don’t want to sacrifice huge amounts of dmg for being a bit more tanky or get better heals. Most bad groups got not enough dmg which causes trouble.

Imho there are huge differences in game experience which lead to different opinions about roles in GW2. There are roles in GW2. Mightstacking, Stealth, blinds etc.
Experienced groups got those roles and experience some teamplay. PS-Warr is a role.

There are games with a tank, healer, dps – fixed roles. But Games like GW (1) got no fixed roles (ritu, ele, necro, derwish could heal, too) and a lot of active defence – and no tanks. GW2 roles are a bit weaker – and imho Anet should improve these roles – make a PS-Warrior stronger in increasing team-dps for example.

A huge difference between GW2 and GW is: you can’t heal yourself without having to “trait” your selfheal. You can heal yourself, but you have to sacrifice a lot of personal dmg to get a mediocre selfheal. So its more effective to concentrate on a task: heal or do dmg. Of course some classes/builds did both. So maybe an option to give up your selfheal and do more dmg would be good in GW2, too.

Roles add diversity and complexity to the gameplay. Playing as a healer is a complete different feeling then beeing dps. GW2 roles feel very similar, if a dungeon bores me, I can’t switch to another class and play the same dungeon again since it feels the same.

Roles are also helping bad players. You let them run a simple role (usually dps). If they do a misstake another player is able to compensate it. In GW1: when the ele was standing in AOE and didn’t move out a healer could save him. These interactions help to bring good and bad players together. An Ele could blind a Ranger to avoid dmg and help the healer. GW2 has very limited options to help others players out. There are skills like aegis – but they are only good on a high level. If your running with a low dps group and are not able to use your aegis properly it might only avoid like 100 dmg.
So some stronger easy to use supportskills would be helpfull, too.
Blindspam is imho in a good spot, or WoR and condiremove. Maybe buff guardians “aegis spam” traitline? Those new guardian eliteskills might also go into the right direction.

Imho Zerk is a problem. Not because its the best equip or everything gets easy. But because of a huge dmg gap. Most skills, attacks of enemies will work over time. Boss XY is attacking every X seconds. Not every X dmg dealt. So Zerk reduces enemies to only a few attacks or can break whole game mechaniks. Which is bad gamedesign. You can kill clockwork in aether without pulling a holo or by maybe one or two only. So you can skip the “difficult” part by doing enough dmg. Solution could be to add special attacks/mechaniks to health status so a low dps group has to pull the holo not like 500 times. But I’d prefer to reduce the dmg gap by adding more dmg to defensive builds. Zerk should be, ofc, dps king.

Healing is not good in GW2 because you need dmg. Dmg is more important than everything else. Healing is helpfull, ok. But you don’t want to sacrifice too much dmg for something only helpfull.

Imho:
GW2 won’t change. But I’ve read many suggestions which would work in the current system without turning a “no trinity” system into a trinity.
I don’t care about balancing, this are only some thoughts I’ve read somewhere. They are no final solution, they need balancing, some might be bad ideas:
-add a healsignet which increases your dmg by 33% but won’t heal you. So a healer would be helpfull: you could increase group dps with 4 guys running this signet and a healer.
-add runes which turns healing power/toughness into dmg. So a fullcleric ends at – for example – 80-90% dmg of a fullberserk. Such a healer would be good instead of one low-dps healer. Same goes for tanky equipment like soldier: close the dmg gap. Sideeffect: bosses are easier to balance when everyone got a more similar amount of dmg.
-sharpen roles. Remove “small amount mightstacking” and add special traits to bring might. An good example for such an actual existing role is PS-Warr. Do the same for conditions (no conditions if not traited for condis, maybe even vuln!). Increase the effects of those roles. For example increase power which might gives. Increase those passive buffs (atm +150 power/toughness etc. – maybe 500? dunno). Reduce “health spam” like lifeleechbuffood and add shouts etc. triggering similar effects.
-fix condidmg, add object dmg to condi-dmg. Add skills removing condis from enemies and doing dmg for removed condis. Add Skills to powerbuilds/lines doing more dmg when target has more conditions. Reduce “accidental” conditionspam when not running a condibuild.
—>you got some “soft” roles in GW2 which feel different. You can support each other better. But a good group would still go for 5 fullzerk. Or maybe 4 fullzerk and a healer. Or 3 fullzerk, a healer and a condispam whatever. Gameplay would still be actionoriented, still dodge>> all, no tank&spank and stuff.

Afaik resident evil transformed from a survival horror to a third person shooter/action game. Fans were/are not lucky about this too.
You can change your game, but you have to live with “unpleased” fans.

GW2 is more a hack’n slay then a teamgame. Like in every hack’n slay: you need dmg to kill stuff. You’re not playing a fullhealer in a solo-hack’n slay.
If you look at – for example – champions of norrath: same gameplay as GW2 but more teamplay when running it with friends. It’s a good 2004 PS2 hack’n slay.
“No trinity” stuff was only marketing. It’s nothing new, basically an very old type of gameplay before roles were invented to add more complexity and diversity. No trinity is simplified gameplay with the goal to reduce player interactions, so no one is forced to join a team.

Many players want to do a lot/everything solo. Funny for a MMO Player, but …if customers ask for solocontent you can sell it. Even in a “hardcore teamgame” like GW1 many players did most of the content solo whith heros instead of playing with other players. I was excited when I was playing for the first time with other players and I know there are players that still are even scared of others.
Even in this thread someone asked why he is not able to beat mobs solo in GW1.
(for those who don’t know GW1: you always fought in groups. Enemies were groups, often with healers, eles, warriors, rangers – mixed groups. So it was always a group vs group fight. Nothing to do solo. Except when running spezialised farmbuilds for one location/type of enemy and pulling like 40 mobs to kill them all at the same time.)

GW2 is a very casual- and solofriendly game. You don’t need to interact with other players, you don’t need a guild or even a build or equip etc. If you’re going for dungeons this changes, but dungeons are a very small and nearly not supported aspect of GW2, most of its content is open world and has no requirements.
GW2s teamplay is weak.

You’ll see many threads around these topics: “fullzerk”: no trinity, only dps is important so you want to max it. If you don’t like zerkmeta buy another game.
“trinity/support/healer”: no trinity, no trinity, only dps is important so you want to max it. If you want to play a healer buy another game.
In open world you can run every build and it will work. Even a fullnomand bearbow ranger. It’s a strength of GW2: everything works somehow. Maybe not good enough for dungeons, but thats only a small part of GW2 – for most stuff everything will work fine. In dungeons you got some soft roles (might stacking, stealth, defence like WoR, condiremoval, stabi).

Thuggernaut.1250:

After the big failures of SWTOR and ESO, GW2 really can romp freely in the "non-WoW " market.

Maybe more players are playing MMOs in 2015 then 2006.
Afaik SWTOR has a big playerbase (I think I’ve read estimations which were around 1 Mio.), but it was a really expensive game. Maybe SWTOR has more players than GW2. So it might be a financial failure, but successfull MMOs like Eve got less players.

Your mesmer seems to afk because of the impolite guy.

You could put all “bad” players on your blockinglist to improve your matchmaking.

On the other hand: I had a conflict with a player and we kept getting into the same matches – like five times in a row. So maybe a capped blocklist at 1000 names to avoid matchmanipulation would be a solution.

Guardian:
I don’t like the changes in radiance. It loses a 10% dmg mod and a 10% dmg mod for swords.
It “only” gets +25% crit chance against burning and +15% crit chance for onehand weapons. Do I need +40% crit chance?
Some burning stuff, ok. Hard to tell if its usefull when burning will stack.
So atm I see some blind/vuln/might spam on the pro side for radiance, which ony works on trashmobs, not on bosses.

Atm I think it would be better to drop F1 spam and run 60066.

Bring a forfeit button, done.

If Anets punishes afkers they will “protect close”. Or “wait for bosses to respawn”. You cannot force players to play and you should not try to do so. Especially if there’s no option to end a match. If you cannot report players for going after lord first while your team wipes outnumbered you should not be allowed to report players for standing on close or “defending the base”.

Allow players to leave those matches instead of trying to force them to play an already lost match. This will only end in players flaming each other – or afking.

GW2 has nearly no “true” teamcontent. There are 8 dungeons and thats it. It should be possible to do all of them on one day. Anyting else can be done solo – and most players do so.
There were like 5 Billion topics about how to improve teamplay (for example: groupprogress for hearts; runes turning healing power into dmg so a healer gets more dmg and closes the gap to fullbersi; more teamcontent (dungeons, instanced stuff)) since release. Nothing has changed. If I remember correctly Ramon domke (community manager) was asked ~ a year ago if more teamcontent will be implemented – and he answered something with worldevent stuff. So: no true teamcontent, only mass-zerg-events. Even for HoT there are no new dungeons etc. confirmed. Anet said something about “challenging teamcontent” which could be dungeons – but also could be another world boss, zerg-event.

If you’re going for “better” dungeonruns players start to interact with each other, one player drops a field and others blast it for example. There are some “soft” roles (might stacking, stealth, stabi/condiremoval).
But basically GW2 is more a hack’n slay then a teamgame. Its made for soloplayers.
A guildie of me told me he is not playing a MMO to play solo – I think he has a point. He’s not playing GW2 anymore (WoW afaik now).

—>Gameplay won’t change much if you reach lvl 80. In dungeons is teamplay needed and GW2 has some “soft roles”. But you want to run dmg first and maybe some support without sacrificing too much dmg.
This game needs no healers and no tanks. If you want to support other players you bring (for example) as a warrior a banner which increases dmg of other players.
Its basically a hack’n slay, you don’t want to bring a “fullhealer” in a hack’n slay. You want to kill enemies. Its nice to be able to heal allys – but not necessary. Dmg is necessary.
(you can play whatever you want in GW2. Everything will work. Somehow. But like in Hack’n slays you need dmg. And you don’t need healing, tanking or so. Can be helpfull, but you dont need it.)

There are like ten topics per day criticising this. Some players obviously want to run healing builds and stuff. But GW2 won’t change.
Many players like to play solo, they don’t want to interact with others. So there will never be healers or anything. Maybe Anet fixes condi-dmg so you could choose between direct dmg and condidmg. But thats it. If you prefer a teambased game GW2s gamemechanics (no roles) won’t really support this. GW2 offers nearly no teamcontent. So it might be better to do it like my guildie: look for another game which offers teamplay.

Zeal seems to be a good choice. It offers vuln/more dmg/burning on symbols which is good for hammer and mace. Combined with symbolic avenger Hammer might be the next metabuild. Fiery Wrath is strong.

Radiance seems to me not worth it anymore. It offers blindspam and vulnspam combined with zeal. But only on trashmobs, not on bosses where vuln would be more helpfull. Radiance loses its dmg mod and gets a lot of crit chance improvements. Atm meta is 45005 without right hand strength. Don’t think it will be needed in the future. With banner, buffood, fury and a ranger you are close to the cap.
Maybe if you’re running a soldiers set, ok. But for bersi I dont think so. On the other hand it might be possible to switch some bersi parts for valkyrie to gain more survivability since you’d hit the 100% anyway.

Valor seems to be a weak pick for group PVE. Maybe for some more aegis and more selfheal via AH, to carry bad groups.

Honor seems okayisch. Vigor on crit is good. No usefull adept trait is not so good.
Empowering might seems ok if you got no long lasting might (PS War), symbols would cover firefields anyway so it should be ok. Pure of Voice is good, writ of persistance is a good choice for hammer/mace.

Virtues are strong. Unscathed Contender and Master of Concecration are both strong. Virtues got a dmg mod, condi removal and extra stabi. If you don’t need the stabi battlepresence is still an option.

Atm I think Hammer has good chances to be the next meta. Maybe hammer/mace, drop mace symbol, switch to hammer and keep autoattacking. Imho 60066 would be a good choice. Would lose blind/vuln spam but other classes can bring vuln/blind too. Symbols also bring some vuln.

If you’re not enyoing GW1 HoM rewards are not worth it.

GW is a different type of game and its a pity that it has no sequel.
It is a more coordinated tactical teamoriented game (but can still be very fast if you’re running interrupt, prot or healbuilds) while GW2 is more actionoriented, hack’n slay/Diablo type of game. Both Games are very good, but they attract other types of gamers. This is imho the reason why so many GW1 players are not lucky with GW2 – but it goes into both directions. GW1 Players might not be lucky with GW2 and GW2 Players might not like GW1.

GW1 lives from playing with other players. Playing it solo is less fun.
When I started playing GW in nearly every outpost groups were looking for players to do simple quests together, now you won’t even find players for missions or dungeons.
I can remember several exciting situations which other players caused, you cannot experience this with heros.
If you’re not willing to spend the effort to understand the choices you have in fight you are not able to see how deep the combat system is.
—>If you’re just playing GW1 for some achievements its not worth it. If you like the game and are willing to invest effort into it its still a very nice game. Even without others players.

Resign worked in RA. GW1 had some troubles because you had roles in PVP and more buildcoordination was required. A team without a healer won’t work well, a team with three healers does the same.

Both sides need to agree on “red resign” – one player not giving up could end this. So it was more common in herobattles which was a 1vs1 pvp fight with heros. Haven’t seen much resigns in RA except because of horrible team compositions (only healer-teams and stuff like that). Might have changed since the playerbase shrinked.

Without forfeit there’s more time for flaming, raging, insulting and it’s just a waste of time. So I’d like to see a resign button. “One side resigns” seems to me not very attractive in GW2. Maybe forfeit won’t even work because one player still wants to fight even when its already a 450-50 match. Seen some “we lost because of afk” when the match was already lost before (except the team holds all 3 points permanently, while not beeing able to hold even one and a half point in the past).

I don’t think tutorials would work. A game should be able to train active players just by playing, not by “studying”.

Usually you improve step by step. GW2 has imho nearly no noticeable steps, which is a problem.
Blasting firefields once won’t increase your dmg a lot. If it would double your dmg you would notice and try to trigger it again.
Blinds, Aegis: they won’t make much difference in a tanky low dps group.

A game should show players when they have done something right, so imho there should be less weak “spam effects” and more targeted strong noticeable effects in GW2.

As a non native speaker I would not have thought of “paedophile”.
Dunno if a name change is necessary, but it might be a good solution since it may be provocative.

btw.: “paedophile” is afaik describing the sexual preference, like hetero- or homosexual. Those words are not standing for any sexual violation.

Onis.2418:

Before my block list just consisted gold sellers and am looking to expand it now and wondering if there’s things to beware of (like will I know if I’ve blocked the person in LFG?)

Afaik:
LFG-Tool won’t show you groups with people from your ignore. So you can’t join their groups via lfg. But they will see your lfgs and can still join your group, you have to votekick them.

After I realized it is usefull to know why someone is on my ignorelist, I recommend making notes. Everyone on my ignore gets a nickname now, for example:
“SPVP “insult quote”"
“WvW teleport cheater”
“Dungeon X Guild Y ragequitter”
If someone got a nickname which is obviously from your ignore you can react (kick him, leave group etc.). Since you don’t see peoples nicknames in PVP you often won’t realize someone is in your/enemy team who is on your ignorelist.

Matchmaking will keep putting you into groups with players from your ignore. So it’s possible to get five matches in a row with someone you already blocked…

Did they changed the reward at the end of Aether?
I’ve just done it with a PUG and got 10 deluxe gear boxes after doing those achievement stuff at the end. Usually I get one or two. (I never understood why its sometimes one and sometimes two)

Jski.6180:

Dodge is the answer to the long hitting cc if you cant then you pay a price of losing stacks. You should never be comply safe and on your tows this is no WoW hit button receive rewards type of game.

GW2 should be a teamplay, not a singleplayer. You can’t help other players to dodge.
(and dodging IS hitting a button…)

What should I do with teammates which get hit by Spur and keep dying?
Should I kick them out of the dungeon? At a 2/3 done dungeon?
That’s not very nice. I never tried to solo Spur and I don’t think I’m able to. I don’t think its enjoyable for players if they lay dead on the ground and have to watch the others defeating the boss. Knowing they were completly useless.

As an example: a former guildmate of me played in GW1 a melee fireele. It was a uncommon build and eles died fast getting too close to enemies. I knew he liked the build, so I used a protective enchanment for him. He could run his favourite build, was a usefull teammember, I helped him which was a good feeling. Win-Win.
In GW2 something like that is not possible. You can help a little bit, but someone who gets hit by everything and is not able to dodge will keep dying. Its not a good idea to rezz such a player, he will die again instantly. So you have to do it with 4 players. Or less. Or replace him.
Stabi is an ench which can help other players out. I hope it is still having this use in the future. I prefer to use stabi to help another player instead of having to replace him with a better player.

Imho new Stabi should still be able to help other players. But it won’t work if you get hit by 5362656 hits per second. So: Anet should check if this happens somewhere and find a solution. For example replace it with something which hits once per second so you get 3-5 seconds to dodge when you got stabi.
Aegis has the same issue – this is why aegis is not a good skill for bad groups, it favours good groups which kill enemies fast and are able to dodge = get less hits in a fight.

I’d like to know if Anet checked all PVE-creatures and bosses.
There are enemies like raptors which hit three times with their stun? Two of them could remove 6 stacks…
In TA-Aetherpath, Spurs whirl attack: stabi can help to avoid getting pulled by it, but it hits very often. Is stabi still usefull there?
Imho: if a player uses stabi to help his teammates its good teamwork. If new stabi is not usefull enough and everyone has to dodge on his own GW2 weakens teamwork and helping out other players. Which is a bad thing imho.
Maybe Anet has to change those “many fast small hits” into fewer bigger hits, so stabi is still usefull. It would also increase the effect of aegis or blind, which is a good thing.
Sure, you can dodge it. But its a good thing to be able to help another player. Maybe because he’s too slow or he’s for the first time there. Teamwork should be able to compensate some personal misstakes – and I hope stabi will still be able to do so in the future.

VocalThought.9835:

What’s the difference with the Mesmer between games?

GW1 mesmer had lots of control. Manadrain, interrupts (you can see which skill the enemy is casting – 5 second cast are easy to interrupt, 0,75 second casts not), disabling skills, skills which cause dmg when enemy casts/attacks (similar to confusion).
Three examples:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Panic
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ineptitude
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Power_Block
Mesmer was not very popular for a long time in PVE, since he got control and only less dmg. He was always strong in PVP, but not in PVE.
Since they changed several skills (panic, ineptitude for example) he got better and became more popular.

I’m from EU. It can take a few minutes to get a group.
Done it today with a PUG, saw a second group searching for players and atm another group is searching.

GW1 is more about teamplay. There is no open world, every “world map” is instanced.
You always enter with a team of 4-8 players. There are 25? storymissions in GW Prophecies which can be compared to dungeon storymodes (cutscenes, a little bit diffcult), hundreds of quests, dungeons, elite missions, … everything is teamcontent.
Without human players GW1 is less attractive (for me), it’s a strong teamplay game, not a strong singleplayer game. Way more fun to play with other players.

GW2 if focussed on solocontent. You don’t need a team to go SW farming. There are a lot of other players, you don’t need to interact with them, they could be replaced with bots/npcs and nobody would realize it. Basically playing “next to each other, not with each other”.

GW1 had stronger roles. You always got a backline (healer, protection) and the rest of the team was usually dmg. But you could support each other, for example the warrior could use a skill which reduces dmg by ~20% for the team (=protection in GW2) or he could interrupt enemy casters. Eles could blind enemies (blind stays permanent for a few seconds, so you could protect other players by keeping dangerous enemies blind).
GW2 has roles, too. Mightstacking, stealth, condi removal, stabi – roles which need to be fullfilled or you will be slower/dead. But those roles are not so important like in GW1, you don’t rely so much on each other. —>less teamplay.

GW2 has better graphics, more fluent gameplay, better movement system, WvW, events… lots of pros., but it’s more mainstream, more a standard MMO.

GW2 has less buildvariety, less “buildcrafting” – GW1 is very complex. Too complex for beginners.
GW2 dungeons or “highend PVE” is hard to do as a beginner. You have to dodge or you will die. No one can help you. GW1: get a build, get other people in voicechat with you and you will be a good teammember.
So: learning curve in GW2 is less forgiving when you enter “endcontent” than in GW, but just playing story is more difficult in GW1 than GW2.

GW1 PVP is better, GW2 pvp is basically the GW1 halloween event minigame “costume brawl”.

Some GW1 quests had an huge impact on the environment. The map could be filled with other enemies, for example. It’s impossible to change the open world, since a beginner doesn’t want to die because of a lvl 80 char doing his quests and fills the map with tough enemies.

GW2 is about stacking. GW1 is about staying away from each other, using your range, to avoid getting all hit by the same AOEs or to make the way longer for enemy melees.

GW1 had skills which worked together. For example a ranger could use an double attack (two arrows instead one), another player could give him a buff which increases his dmg (per attack) and he gets a chance to “stun” the enemie. The buff will trigger twice, one time for each arrow. A necro could set a hex on the enemy causing aoe dmg for every hit – so it will trigger twice too. So more teamplay required.
With some clever choices you could easily increase your dmg. By using skills, not by using berserk gear. Mightstacking is nice teamplay in GW2, but….you only need it for fast dungeonruns. You can do everything by just doing your stuff and ignoring your teammates, feels often like diablo.

TL; DR:
GW2 = better solocontent, great open world, great movement/actionoriented gameplay
GW1 = better teamplay, more tactical gameplay, tons of teamcontent.

Template pings got the disadvantage of everyone telling other people what to play.
Even clueless people will do so.

I never liked the “HB+UA” backline meta wasting an elite skill for a rezz, while you got a ritualist in your group who could easily rezz and an active prot would have been more usefull.

It’s easier to coordinate a team or give some advice with templates. But i’m sure a lot of players will see comments like “metabuild is ..”. Even if they run a good build or it doesn’t make a big difference. It’s way easier to copy a build instead of thinking on your own. I’m sure a lot of players will tend to kick other players even in “not fullzerk-meta” groups because they don’t run metabuilds (or what they think meta is…). But some other builds are still okayish, especially for inexperienced players.
I’d like to see “build pings”, but I also see those disadvantages.

So you need enough AP to tell your group which build is ok.
Ok for me.