Guild Wars 2

Jackums.3496:

No, but in this “X” and “Y” context, it is.

The Mesmer would not even be remotely close to over-powered if iLeap was a teleport. Please enlighten me as to how that would be problematic. The only spec that would benefit significantly from such a change would be shatter, which is mediocre right now in every aspect of the game and could use some buffs, anyway.

Add a half second delay to the spawned clone performing its cripple attack, and do away with the part of the attack that has the most pathing problems(the quick run). Between that and the cast time, people can counter it exactly the same way as they do now.

SlimChance.6593:

Mesmer’s used to be able to instantly cast “Into the Void” after laying down Temporal Curtain, but people complained(about no counterplay) and now there’s a 1 sec delay.

Given the other changes at the time, I was under the impression that that wasn’t about counterplay as much as it was about people always destroying the curtain early due to an accidental extra keypress. If I recall, this was the same update they added a slight delay to using downed skills when entering Downed, and same for a couple other skills. The counterplay was just a bonus.

Oh man, today I experienced a whole new world of this skill being crap.

1. I pressed 3. Clone summoned okay.
2. Clone successfully pathed to the enemy.
3. Pressed 3 again.
4. Clone appeared at my location, but I didn’t move at all, and now I had a clone stuck on the spot where I was standing. The enemy I was fighting then walked over and punched me in the face.

MSFone.3026:

Silence is one thing they aren’t getting regarding mesmers, so that’s not a problem. Do you want them to fix existing bugs and major problems, or screwing up a skill that works decently? I suppose if you want more things of ours broken and messed with, by all means keep complaining about AT. Just saying, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Address real problems first.

No, we raise hell until they sit down and fix EVERYTHING and make this FUN again. It’s our turn.

MSFone.3026:

Look at it this way: Is this skill broken, or just not perfect? I’d say it’s not broken, so let’s not ask Anet to start kittening around with it ok? We all know what the likely outcome of that is, a much more broken skill than the basically decent one we have now.

They will take silence as a sign that everything is okay. No.

In current form, I would be perfectly fine with a cooldown reduction. 30-35s sounds like a decent sweet spot, though I’d prefer it closer to 20s (but I feel like most slot skills should be around there).

If we kept the cooldown, I would like an AoE effect for at LEAST the boons – I never feel like it’s worth taking this without Signet of Inspiration. At an extreme, gained boons AoE + lost conditions AoE(in other words, you still only get one target’s boons, and lose your own conditions, but there’s still an AoE component).

Alternatively, vast change: Make it a mantra, stay single target. Less likely to happen, but I feel like it would be a really interesting offensive choice to take this over the other cleanse mantra(which would still be a party-wide effect).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Hey Grey, I could be missing something due to the build link but… isn’t this a standard shatter build with some glamour utility support?

Odd – he changed from gw2skills to intothemists, but the build is almost exactly the same. I believe this is the previous version; swap Mass Invis for Time Warp and Portal for Veil. There might be some gear differences too, but it mostly looks the same.

Here’s my problem with the build, starting from the top…

1. Halting Strike is the most wasted slot by a mile. Diversion, Chaos Storm(randomly), Illusionary Wave – those are your interrupts. Diversion is traited well enough on its own(shattered concentration), but it still has a long cooldown for the -maybe- 2k damage you’ll be getting from Halting. Chaos Storm won’t work when you need it to, and Illusionary Wave… it certainly works fine, but I feel like the quirks in how you have to use it just make it unreliable at times.

2. “Phase Retreat through Veil for Retaliation” is the worst strategy I’ve ever heard. Think about it for a second; you’re blowing a 90 SECOND COOLDOWN for a 5 SECOND BOON, 2 of those seconds potentially being spent in stealth. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think you’d get more value out of Signet of Inspiration’s passive… or you can go with Decoy to just plain slip away and heal up.

3. Compounding Power is great, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t shake the feeling that you would get more mileage out of picking the two Mind Wrack traits(replacing Halting Strike as per above) for more damage. You’ve got Mind Wrack’s cooldown as low as it will go, and Shattered Concentration.

4. You have almost entirely glassy gear, but insist that using Chaos Armor is the way to go. If I want you dead, you will die regardless of the 30% chance of gaining Protection/Regen/Swiftness.

The core problem, I think, is that you’re trying to do too much at once, with a bit of bad strategy(using Veil for a crap boon) for good measure. You want to abuse all of the fun tricks Mesmer has, but without any specialization – hell, without any reasonable swiftness access - you’re not going to accomplish a great deal.

You can go a couple different ways.

You can skew more towards interrupts; I’m a huge fan of using interrupt traits along with Imbued Diversion(giving up IP in the process), but in group fights you’ll probably want Mirror Images to get more clones out. Also consider the daze mantra, and try to pick off people attempting to heal.

… OR you can go straight up shatter, as I was advocating above.

But either way, you’ll need to drop the bad strats; Chaos Armor is good, Retaliation is alright, but you really need to supplement anything based on taking damage with higher defense, and even if you’re using Veil for your group roaming, you should never pop it just for Retaliation; leave Retaliation to a hammer guardian or something.

emikochan.8504:

@Kadj it’s already in game, just needs to be replicated from its current place over to the party ui.

Sometimes easier said than done. As it is, you remember how we used to not be able to see wvw information in overflows and such? That sounded easy to us too, but apparently it was a huge undertaking. Game programming (especially with the UI) can be pretty messy!

Also, another criticism I thought of with regards to the original suggestion:

Colorblindness exists, and is more common than you might think.

It isn’t a matter of seeing things in black and white, but instead “Those two HP bars look exactly the same to me.” It’s a tricky thing to develop games around.

Darnis.4056:

Small bar or one that swaps colors for necros would be good, but the stuff you’re suggesting is like completely unimportant.
Thanks but no thanks.

It can be less important for some professions(mainly the Engineer suggestion), but for others, it could allow for much better collaboration. Guardians can rotate Virtue of Courage, warriors could feasibly set up burst attacks together(eh, could help somewhere maybe), mesmers could… do… something, I guess. Guardian and Elementalists can set up Virtue of Resolve/Water attunement rotations… And you can heal ranger pets, keeping your ranger’s DPS and utility happy! All without a need for the crutch of teamspeak or unbelievably fast typing.

Again though, I’d stress that I would prefer to have none of the above, but I don’t think the idea is completely unimportant; really, it’s just a matter of utilizing the tech they would have to put in for necros, and therefore justify the dev’s time of doing so.

It’s easier to do a QoL change if it actually benefits the entire playerbase, not just the subsection that plays or plays with necromancers.

I’m actually a little confused as to why the party shows it at all. It makes sense to see it if you’re fighting a necro, but… it is, ultimately, a profession mechanic – not critical information. I don’t see mesmer clones, ranger pet HP, warrior adrenaline, thief initiative, or engineer kits – and I only see ele attunements and guardian attunements in the expanded party UI because they function like buffs.

Why do I have to see death shroud? This is an inconsistency in game design, not just a little quirk.

If you did go the route of adding the the UI rather than subtracting… while I don’t like that idea because the UI is already too busy, I would like to see this display information for ALL professions. Most are straightforward enough, just a gauge(necro/war/thief/ranger) or series of blips (mesmer); for the others:

1. Elementalist/Guardian: Mesmer-like blips; if lighted, attunement/virtue can be used. Dark, it’s on cooldown. (Good for setting up healing cycles.)
2. Engineer: A little harder to pin down, but mini-gauges for turrets might not be bad? I can’t think of anything for the entire class.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Though there are ways to get more information, its confusing. What other ways could capture points be more clear? Maybe giant +1’s in blue or red floating up from the capture pointer in-world?

No numbers, please! We need the screen visibility to watch animations, and damage is bad enough! BUT, here’s a less obstructive variant to kick some more brainstorming off:

The floating ring in-world shows current ownership. Every time the capture point ticks, a second ring pulses/floats up from the first, in the color taking control.

OR, a ring of up/down arrows(not in the UI, but actually textured) to indicate capture state; down for current color regaining tick (blue recovering their own point), up for other color decapping or capping.

Either of these options indicate not just the game state of who owns/has progress, but also can play an animation every time a cap tick actually occurs, so relevant people know “Hey, your team isn’t in the circle! Get to work!”

Furthermore, for the first idea you could set the rings to float high above the point, increasing visibility to people coming around corners/up stairs; this might alter play though, and I’m not sure what the consensus is for whether people prefer obscured capture points to surrender only minimal information.

Honestly, I think what’s going on is a combination of factors:

1. Too much red tape; it really does seem to take close to six months for them to implement just about anything that isn’t a quick fix, and unfortunately they can only do emergency fixes on things that affect an entire playerbase negatively(all AIs in pvp are stronger, 20k fall damage traits, any LS bug).

2. Not enough given to Anet for their budget. For all the money they are definitely making off the game, I understand they’ve had to actually outsource major things like bugtesting and QA; this outsourcing further extends their turnaround time for changes, because now communication has to occur inter-corporation. I’m thinking NCSoft managed to secure a greater cut of the budget for themselves.

3. Trying to do too much at once. It’s not that they can’t do it, but all of the above comes together and turns this into the most problematic symptom/cause; at any given time they’re trying to create new PvE content balanced for a challenge, buff/nerf classes, prepare for WvW and PvP tournaments, AND improve quality of life. This is why it seems like their buff/nerf cycles always seem to focus down a handful of classes at a time, rather than the full picture.

This is all especially evident if you frequent the devtracker; quite often, a dev has asked “Why do you think we should do this feature instead of focus on these other things?” They don’t hate us, just like they don’t hate any other class(and they DO have their bugs) – it sounds more like a cry for help.

This is why we don’t get fixes in due time. This is why we don’t have a proper expansion, and instead have a bi-weekly pseudo-expansion. This is why this update’s ambient voice actors all seem completely disconnected from their lines. Worst of all, this is why the modern patch notes tend towards tooltip changes, compared to the early patches of actual fixes and changes.

We’ve seen a lot of good devs and community people make their final goodbye posts and leave, and while I know employer reviews need to be taken with a grain of salt because negativity is more common on those sites by far, Anet’s reviews are both overwhelmingly negative, and overwhelmingly consistent.

Given the long turnover on the auto attack chain(3.9 seconds), has anyone considered playing with sigil of Generosity/Nullification/Purity for Scepter?

With reuse times of 10 seconds, and assuming favorable crit rates for the first two, a proc is likely about every other chain. This sounds bad compared to the 1 second and 3 second sigils, which certainly still work on this weapon, but I feel like the long chain time only makes the 10 second sigils more valuable. It’s definitely a less offensive choice, but I would reckon on Scepter as a “setup” weapon if not playing PU… used to get through the enemy’s starting rotation and soften them up for a weapon swap→burst.

If not, and putting sigil of energy aside(I always figure that’s a good offhand), what sigils do you guys think really compliments scepter?

Sergoros.4398:

Signet of midnight have quite useful active, but useless passive. Might as well change on granting aegis to clone/phants.

No, it should definitely be a new skill. If we got the exact same signet I kinda rambled out there, Midnight would actually synergize semi-decently by extending the gained boon duration(provided said boons actually got a respectable duration, of course) – but now we’re getting a little further off the point of iLeap.

@Lishtenbird: Any thoughts on pursuing this conversation, about adding additional traits and skills to justify the iLeap change?

Gah— alright I’ll post this again since this thread is a more formal spot for it.

Kadj.6725:

Combine and reverse the skill.

-Create ordinary clone at current location. Teleport/leap to enemy.

On teleport: Cripple enemy.
On leap clone death: Immobilize enemy.

Rationale: We lose our second combo finisher and forced immobilize, but for once we have a clone that actually punishes AoEs… AND we hold on to the mobility, even if slightly reduced.

(Clone death effect is immob because we already have a cripple on death trait, of course.)

Optional: Chained effect to teleport back to original spot. I don’t like this though because that’s pretty much identical to a thief skill.

Other ideas sourced: I would like a trait that grants Aegis to newly spawned clones(not phantasms), if it’s not simply added straight up to select skills like iLeap, and preferably a minor trait in Adept. It would improve our clone longevity, which I think would lessen the pain the iLeap change inflicted.

I don’t think straight invulnerability for new clones is the way to go, because that kills the counterplay to big shatter moves – ignoring that invulnerability gets bugged on AI too often anyway. We can shatter a clone before the invulnerability wears off, and we have plenty of clone generation that can’t in fact be dodged – it’s too powerful. Aegis is the way to go. (If we could split the difference by having an passive clone-Aegis-granting signet, that might be cool too. Maybe with an active that shatters Aegis and other boons that have landed on clones to gain personal Fury/Vigor/other?)

Since my post got absorbed into a bad spot during a thread merge, I’ll put this here:

Kadj.6725:

Combine and reverse the skill.

-Create ordinary clone at current location. Teleport/leap to enemy.

On teleport: Cripple enemy.
On leap clone death: Immobilize enemy.

Rationale: We lose our second combo finisher and forced immobilize, but for once we have a clone that actually punishes AoEs… AND we hold on to the mobility, even if slightly reduced.

(Clone death effect is immob because we already have a cripple on death trait, of course.)

Optional: Chained effect to teleport back to original spot. I don’t like this though because that’s pretty much identical to a thief skill.

I will say I don’t like the “make clone invulnerable” idea, but only because this game has a clear, ongoing history of invulnerability becoming bugged and permanent on AI, especially if it’s tied to animations or other circumstances. I DO think that an Aegis effect would be nice though, perhaps as a trait – I’d bet people would actually take it if that were the actual effect of the illusion HP trait.

Combine and reverse the skill.

-Create ordinary clone at current location. Teleport/leap to enemy.

On teleport: Cripple enemy.
On leap clone death: Immobilize enemy.

Rationale: We lose our second combo finisher and forced immobilize, but for once we have a clone that actually punishes AoEs… AND we hold on to the mobility, even if slightly reduced.

(Clone death effect is immob because we already have a cripple on death trait, of course.)

Optional: Chained effect to teleport back to original spot. I don’t like this though because that’s pretty much identical to a thief skill.

This should be applied to absolutely every class, and I feel used as a starting point before improving any existing traits(but after bug fixes):

REMOVE ALL TRAITS RELATED TO FALL DAMAGE, BEING DOWNED, OR RALLYING.

Fall damage reduction, specifically, should be innate; the ability to reroll traits anywhere makes it more of a needless contrivance. Make it innate for the same reasons Magic Find was removed as a standard gear stat; it gimps trait selection for a fairly obscure advantage.

The others though – the idea of selecting a trait that goes on the assumption that you are specifically failing in a fight is ludicrous – especially considering that the Downed state isn’t supposed to be a combat advantage, but instead a last ditch effort to win.

I feel like freeing up three slots for Mesmer (and different numbers for other classes) could allow for more shuffling around existing traits, and open up some more interesting builds.

As for what I’d like shuffled into those slots… Tough call. I wouldn’t mind seeing some uncommon shatter trait moved into the Chaos line; perhaps move Shattered Conditions somewhere into Chaos(bumping some traits down as needed), allowing room for a -/-/30/30/- super supporty Mesmer with healing and condi-clearing shatters. Maybe bump Disruptor’s Sustainment into there too, so we can get some actual synergy between that and Restorative Illusions.

Karl McLain.5604:

1. Multi-stab! You choose multiple ground targets and stab all of them simultaneously (or one-after the other). We don’t have tech for this yet… but it’s a possibility!

You know, I gave it some thought and I realized… we already have the beginnings of this tech. No need to spend too much dev time on actually coding it:

Make it behave similar to a Mantra. Jam GS in ground to begin, rooting the user to the ground; this applies a couple stacks of a buff that lasts for a couple seconds(maybe 5). Then use a sequential skill that consumes the stacks of the buff to apply the effect.

Honestly, I would like to see this considered to outright be a mantra, even if the mechanics are very slightly different. This gives a boost to mantra builds that I think they really need, an actual weaponized mantra, and fully traitable. It also creates an unusual defensive option on the greatsword, for those who might take the toughness-on-cast trait.

Neurophen.9738:

Mesmers only have 1 blast finisher the prestige and due to the delay that’s hard to use. If not on GS3 where else would you put a blast finisher? (Please don’t say Staff 4)

Anet has said they would at some point look at giving classes more weapons. I could see them giving us a Blast finisher on something we don’t currently have… I think shields and daggers are the best contenders for our next weapon, or possibly a mainhand pistol.

BlackDevil.9268:

@Kadj.6725
The skill is just to remove a boon, but then again the skill is quite strong. At the moment it’s just another ‘’skill that does damage’’. It adds almost nothing to the weapon.

I’m not going to speak for PvE here(as there is certainly a divide between what makes a PvE and a PvP weapon), but I’m thinking in terms of its application in PvP. We’re talking about a weapon that is, by design, not meant to be used up close. Your personal DPS is terrible when toe to toe with your target, the control skill moves your enemy away from you, and the Phantasm does both respectable damage, cripples, and chases your target.

I would give this weapon two classifications:
1. It is a punishment weapon, a non-reflective counter against ranged enemies(a favorable option for dealing with non-projectile ranges attackers).
2. It is also a pursuit weapon, intended to keep the enemy within attacking range.

Putting an extra blast finisher on it, upping the boon removal, and/or expanding the boon removal range is out of scope of this weapon – an attempt to give it a more supportive role in combat. This sounds like a great idea if you cite “build diversity”, but build diversity isn’t about making any weapon work in any situation, it’s about a variety in playstyle and combat roles, period.

Besides, we have one of the most insane sources of boon removal already. It’s currently suffering from bugs to some extent, but our mainhand sword – which has a double leap finisher and a 2 second invulnerability with one of our most beloved damaging skills? Boon removal on auto attack. Which sword clones will use.

By the way, did you know you could just put a boon removal sigil on your greatsword? It has a second sigil slot now, you know.

What I’m really trying to say here is that this line of thought is a dead end. There’s more interesting options available in this game for “reworking” this skill. If we really played with the name of the skill some, here’s what I’d like.

Instead of boon removal, I would like a consistent application of Weakness. Since we’re stabbing the very mind of the enemy here, I feel like a moment of uselessness for the enemy would be fitting. At first I was thinking stun or daze would be great, but a bit overpowered. Weakness, I think, would be a nice addition to the mesmer’s consistently-appliable repertoire. It wouldn’t help with pursuits, but it would be a good counter of sorts for ranged glass cannons, and give the GS, as well as the skill in question, just the bit of uniqueness that I feel it really needs to shine.

Duration doesn’t need to be much; leave that to other classes. 1 or 2 seconds would be plenty.

I like the blast finisher idea, but… it’s a 1200 range boon remover.

1200!

I think this skill is designed as counter to swiftness, not as a major source of boon removal – and with our access to Ethereal fields(one among them also being a boon shredder), I think having insane access to Chaos Armor via a quick and simple blast finisher would be close to overpowered.

Well, I kind of knew it would end up like this, but I am disappointed that I am right!

If anyone wants to repeat these tests, I reccomend using the moving Target Golem – Heavy, scepter clones, no runes, no amulet, no sigils, only 2 points in Illusions and nothing else, Decoy, and Mirror Images.

Traited, three clones – made by scepter, so no vulnerability or might is applied – and no buffer.

Test 1: 273, 266, 258.
Test 2: 283, 275, 267.
Test 3: 406, 263, 256.
Test 4: 275, 268, 260.
Test 5: 284, 276, 268.
Test 6: 261, 253, 246.

Comments: Our control group. I think test 3 was a crit, so I opted for six tests. Before I was all about doing more tests than I for any real scrutiny, but I think our experiment ends with this next volley of tests…

Traited. Three clones. Mind wrack, Mirror Images.

Test 1: 273, 273, 273
Test 2: 291, 291, 291
Test 3: 431, 287, 287
Test 4: 274, 274, 274
Test 5: 273, 273, 273
Test 6: 261, 261, 261

Comments: Well, there you have it. Other than (yet another? wtf) crit on test 3, every single shatter has three of the same exact damage.

THE VERDICT
Compounding Power is HARD CAPPED at 9% damage. You DO get a resulting boost in damage by maintaining that 9% boost with “buffered” illusions, but it will go no higher than 9%.

And with that… HEY WHO LET THESE GUYS IN HERE

Without testing it myself, I would assume there’s a hard cap of 9% on it. This question was raised on the post I found the info in, and, as if to launch a mystery of epic proportions, mysteriously never answered…

So I did a cursory test here; the first question to ask is do buffered clones count at all for the trait? Testing with just a scepter, no runes, sigils, or amulet, using Decoy and Mirror Images where needed.

No trait (our control group), 5 tests yielded a range of 363 to 394.
-Comments: Good start. Someone who isn’t waiting for his pizza to cool off should do more tests.

Trait with ONLY one clone, 5 tests yielded a range of 373 to 398.
-Comments: Less than 3% variance, but of course I don’t know the full range of damage here. The trait has been tested though, so I will assume I just got some poor numbers on one test or the other here.

Trait with one clone, mind wrack, and then mirror images; 5 tests yielded a range of 397 to 422 – noting four of those tests were above 400.
-Comments: Yowza! Again, I didn’t do much testing, but this at least very likely confirms that buffered clones do count for the trait.

I’ll go ahead and throw this post up and do testing with three clones with a buffer as soon as I have my dinner. >_>

As an aside though, do note that I’m doing this without dodge roll trait. I still have a 4% crit rate(oddly enough), but I wanted to avoid crits caused by points into that line as much as possible.

I think more importantly the issue is that we almost cannot function without slotting Blink. It’s a good utility, sure, but a movement speed signet would give us an extra, potentially meaningful utility we can use instead. In the other thread(and frankly, this topic should be merged into that one rather than clutter space up pointlessly), someone suggested they replace Inspiration’s passive with 25% movement speed; I like this idea, because it opens up a full signet build a little more and has a more measurable impact on the class as a whole than “you get a buff you actually want about once a minute”.

When I think about it, I do think the class would require more extensive rebalancing if we got access to a movement speed signet. Between the Phase Retreat chase strategy(target something else to blink forward), traited Blink, Compounding Celerity(illusions increase movement), and Greatsword #4, we’re already very good pursuers – when I think about it, I’ve never failed to catch up to someone who isn’t specifically set up to get away as fast as possible, barring thieves that use their skills in very clever ways.

As for keeping up with the blob – why aren’t you running focus anyway? Not only does Temporal Curtain help catch anyone who’s somehow been missed by swiftness AoEs, but it also yanks unprepared people off of walls and – when it’s not bugged, anyway – can be traited to spread a lot of damage around PvDoor players.
Note: If your zerg is fast, then guardians are probably using staff, and warriors are either forced to use warbanners or warhorns. Which is to say everyone makes sacrifices for the good of the zerg, and your own weapon choice should be no exception if the zerg is your style.

…Back on topic:
Don’t look at the lack of a movement speed passive as a weakness of the class. Look at it as an enforcement of a most basic Mesmer skill: ARRIVE FASHIONABLY LATE.

An additional point: I don’t have the data laying around anymore, but through some earlier searching I had found that someone tested Compounding. It does affect Mind Wrack, BUT. Every hit is calculated on each clone’s shatter.

What this ended up meaning is that the first clone shattered and got the full 9% boost. When the second clone shattered, it had 6% damage, and the third had only 3%.

This also means that, if your clones are shattering one at a time(I presume getting them all to fire at the same time guarantees 9% on all three), damage will be boosted by getting more clones out while the skill is playing out.

I’ve survived fights because of my downed skill moving me into a position where the enemy couldn’t actually find me, leaving me to self-res. Behind walls, up cliffs…

I don’t like RNG the Downed Skill, but I can’t say any other classes’ downed skills have saved them without the help of their team. Besides, it’s a threefold effect:

1. You move. Just because you can’t control where and how far doesn’t negate that it usually gets you out of a stomp.
2. You stealth, causing the enemy to drop target. I think you also gain the effects of Prismatic Understanding here.
3. You spawn a clone that attacks. This creates some screen clutter for the enemy to sort through, confuses your target(which will do damage on stomp attempts, which does occasionally bring them down with you and interrupt a stomp if you also attack and stack confusion), and for less-experienced enemies, can buy another second or two.

On top of that, our downed skill #3 is one of the highest-damaging things we have. Phantasmal Rogue does HUGE damage, and if the enemy doesn’t want to deal with it, they have to spend another second or two to take it down rather than stomp. If they do that… well, then we can just use downed skill #2 again.

Downed #2 can feel worthless on your bad days, and downright OP on your best days. The only thing I want them to “fix” is to not require a target, but stealth stomps can be seen as a counter-play to it, so I doubt that will ever happen.

{Post 2 of 2}
Now, here’s some features and restrictions I would like to come built with a free, open world dueling system.

1. No city duels EXCEPT in established areas, preferably spectator-friendly areas, away from the usual idling/chatting hotspots. The Queen’s Pavilion, the arena at the Bane waypoint in the Citadel, and maybe the lowest floor of Rata Sum comes to mind. Maybe don’t even put one in (New) LA, that city’s laggy enough.

2. As mentioned, a flag for duel permission.

3. I would add that a “team color” would be nice, and interact with same/different guilds in some way. This opens the possibility of having 5v5s to test WvW strategies amongst guild members, but also allows guilds on a single server to fight one another. …Wow, actual Guild Wars in the open world! I bet that would be inspiring for new players to see; right now Guild vs Guild options all seem oddly shuffled off to the side and hidden, like they are Arenanet’s secret shame. Embrace them! Make them known, make them spectatable!

4. Options to wager gold. Bonus: Tax it! This has a double-sided effect of both giving certain player demographics who enjoy betting on themselves something to do, as well as creating a gold-sinking option to bring the economy back down a bit. If possible, make it work with the team flag thing above so that entire groups can pool together a bet. It’s an entirely optional, entirely player-driven goldsink. MAYBE make an option to bet other things like laurels and gems(untaxed, I’d hope), but at a minimum, gold would be nice.

5. Other tweakable duel options where feasible. Maybe in the city duels, allow an option to just go straight to Defeated so the duel ends quicker. Custom timer. Something fun like “number of lives”, where you auto res on downed a limited number of times — actually just look at Super Smash Bros for inspiration here. They’ve had lots of cool gamemodes over the years, and it would be delightful to see the Arenanet take on the idea.
Most of these options would probably be best in a city environment, since the mechanics could feasibly be abused in the open world. Besides, a city makes a lot more sense as a “safe” zone for duels, where medics are onhand to pull swords out of you and the like.

6. Disable dueling in overflows, WvW, and zonewide wherever a Living Story-related event is occurring. In Heart of the Mists, enable it so people can test PvP builds. Make a specific area for this so it doesn’t interfere with the current NPC build testing spots; maybe a small arena where the underwater training dummies are?
As an aside, there’s enough incentive to keep using arenas for this purpose because of the rewards given. HotM duels are strictly to test things, after all.

Implementation: How it looks.

Players with a duel flag on can have a small icon next to their name. I was thinking the guild emblem would be nice, but that might crowd the screen too much, and most people might just turn it on to display their guild proudly.

Players participating in a duel should appear to be non-hostile to spectators. The standard name colors might work, but maybe a new name color would be nice, so that it’s clear that they won’t be recieving healing, boons,condition removal, or combo field effects. A “Currently Dueling” icon would be nice. For 1v1, it could be an icon with the “source” labelled as the opponent, and for team freefights, maybe “Team Duel” with the source being their team’s color. This… might be less logical due to inconsistent application, though.

As a player currently dueling, everything works like in PvP. Bad guys are red, good guys are blue/orange. Direct the painful side of your weapon towards the guys that are red until they stop moving.

That’s all I got. Hope I sparked some brainstorming, at least.

{Post 1 of 2}
I would like to see an option for dueling. I haven’t read the thread in full, but here’s my take on the appeal… you devs like long posts full of ideas, right? ;)

My reasons in support of a duel feature:

1. Players coming from more hostile PvP games or just new to PvP altogether can duel as a way to “get comfortable” with everything. For example, I didn’t step into Heart of the Mists because I felt that the fights there would be so far beyond my skill level I may as well not have bothered; it was only when I joined a large guild group in WvW – many times – that I got comfortable with the idea.

2. It gives us a new way to explore existing content. Some examples:
-Southsun Cove is full of scary monsters, but by now I’m a seasoned veteran of the place. I dodge pretty much every dangerous attack while I’m just casually running through. It’s not even as scary as a morning walk now. So… what if I could duel someone there? As a mesmer, it’d be an interesting situation; I’d have to be more careful with my dodge rolls if I trait to spawn illusions, but there’s potential for me to Mimic and steal the various awesome projectiles the mobs use there.
-Fighting in Malchor’s Leap/Cursed Shore would be interesting for the same reasons, except – in some maps – there’s the added potential of having to deal with the corrupted statues and their painful area effects.
-Really, any less-populated map works for this. I rarely see anyone in all of Ascalon, but there’s a lot of structures there like charr tanks and the like that we don’t even get to run around in WvW.
-There’s all kinds of environmental objects, even siege like the asuran megalaser in Metrica that I feel could spice more spontanious fights up. Same for consumable weapons; I’ve been dying to have a proper use for the Golem-in-a-Box.

3. It would make the roleplayers very happy. Like, ridiculously happy.

4. You can teach less experienced players certain tricks(kit-happy engineers come to mind), or help them come to terms with why a certain build works, either by dueling them or letting them just watch another duel. Or even better, this gives players access to an environment where they can reliably learn how to counter-play certain tactics. I would honestly say that last bit is an excellent way to learn from players how unbalanced something is, or otherwise help stabilize a recently-shifted meta.

5. As mentioned on page 1 or so, it’s an excellent way to test wvw builds on the fly. As more traits become available, build diversity opens up more and more, and – ideally – it’ll be much more about whether someone feels their build matches their playstyle. Dueling creates a safe environment to test builds rapidly, which in turn means there will be much less soured feelings on entering WvW and dying quickly because there’s a group of thieves trolling your keep.

You have to remember, in the eyes of the NPCs in Tyria the people we’re fighting in WvW aren’t “other players.” Instead, they are a nonspecific “evil” that is attacking our realm.

Every kill you get in the Mists is an honorable defense of your world – and failing to kill anyone means you haven’t stopped evil at all.

Kincaidia.3192:

I think this is a wonderful idea, and would make it more consistent with the rest of the game mechanics.

It’s funny you say this and then mention skill points later in your post. You can’t refund skill points, and the only reason people think world points should be refundable is that most of them act more like traits(more range, more damage, etc)… even though you totally get skills from them too. In fact, just like skill points, they’re more expensive the higher tier you buy. “Consistency” is about the least true argument I’ve ever heard about WXP.

(I do agree that there should be a refund option though, but as mentioned, I think it should be a very high cost. It’s either that or let us obtain ability points in other ways like skill points, and that would be very challenging to implement fairly in WvW.)

500 badges sounds more fair. The whole point is to force you to think really carefully about what to slot, and anyone could get 50 badges a week just running in to do the three WvW dailies. More if they spend more time, tackle jumping puzzles, and so on.

We don’t want someone running around with defense against guards or whatever for most of the week, then switching to Siege Bunker/Might whenever a big push for Stonemist is getting made.

Portal bombs are fun, but I like Portal Tactical Strikes.

I don’t think they would work at higher tiers because of the sheer number of people on both sides, but it’s a Portal Bomb with less risk:

First, you need a couple people around you on the wall, with weak enemy siege, or just build sites. This won’t work for any of the higher-defense and HP siege – just the standard ones. Don’t do mass coordination for this – /say your plan and gun for it, because the element of surprise gives the defense the initiative.

1. Drop portal on the wall and use all the cloaking and blinking you need to get to your objective.
2. Blurred Frenzy, illusions, distortion or mind wrack. Bonus points if you have a decent crit build with sigil of fire for that added damage from all the players around the siege.
3. Drop second portal, warp back.
4. Those around you on the wall take the portal, drop their best and fastest spikes, and portal back.

Heal up and wait for recast. This works much better if you’re defending a fortified tower or keep, since this takes time and reapplication to succeed, but it is progress made in sieges that don’t seem to be going anywhere defensively. This is also what I do to break battles at popular choke points like Ogres and some of the supply camps in EB.

As an alternative, for a true portal bomb you could have multiple mesmers “thread” their portals, by dropping them at both ends. The 20-use limit on portals really didn’t change anything except typing a few things in chat to coordinate and work around it, really.

Kododie.3974:

I think that 20-30 minuts is more than enough to complete this jumping puzzle even for new players.

New players that are following a clear guide, maybe. Most new players, no. It took me longer than that my first time through. The area leading up to the dark room is fairly straightforward, but the dark room itself is full of false leads and jumps that don’t look like they should be made. Then you get to the colosseum, where it’s straightforward but takes some incredibly tricky jumps to get through, including a midair turn and a precise running jump. The colosseum alone could take a good 15 minutes even if you’re an experienced player just having a bad day. The final climb is easy.

Mind you, none of that is even taking into account the possibility that you encounter a hostile enemy or two in there. You could be feared off of otherwise safe checkpoints, outright killed, outright camped in the starting area…

You may as well shut off PVP instead of your idea, and I don’t like that.

These are what I think should happen:
1. No gear damage.
2. Sharper “farm code” enforcement, so loot stops dropping after only a couple kills until you leave.
3. No badges of honor. Period. (ETA: No WXP either; after all, this doesn’t even affect the WvW battle in any way.)

This would discourage camping while still allowing for combat, without punishing players for being too slow.

Mesmers have Blink, and Staff #2 when used cleverly is a second short-range blink(which, with its low cooldown, can easily outpace a single Blink). And last I checked, Focus #4 still provides 12 seconds of swiftness at a minimum, I’m not sure where your 6 second figure comes from.

Also, I was bummed out by the changes to Mesmer for a little bit, but when I played with it some more I found that the style I like – Prismatic Understanding(stealth trait) – is so freaking amazing in wvw that I think it’s going to be nerfed back down very soon. The sword #2 cooldown doesn’t even matter because when I’m not invulnerable, I’m cloaked, and if I’m not cloaked or invulnerable, I have Protection(with weakness on the enemy thanks to Chaos Storm and clones dying even quicker). tl;dr: Play with some other builds for a little bit. Since the Confusion nerf made you sad, give it a try again – Scepter has Torment if you’re clever with it.

Sorry about your Necro, I don’t play one so I don’t have anything to offer you there.

Raven.9603:

A commander would’ve added some BS that good leadership leads to victory.

Well, at least someone knows where victory is. I can’t read maps.

I roam. I get more kills roaming than in a zerg. I’ve protected more towers than a zerg via announcing enemy movements. I’ve wasted enemy supply with supply traps, forcing enemies to scratch their heads over why their ram isn’t getting built, and thus stalling while they run back to the camp. I’ve thinned the numbers of the enemy by sniping stragglers.

When a big fight happens, I join the zerg briefly, sometimes organize quick portal strikes to knock down siege and sometimes facilitate movement from the lines to supply camps… but then I go back to roaming and scouting, because big fights are when small groups can do the most damage to unprotected towers.

Ignoring the people skilled enough to flip camps solo and flipping sentries, roamers are very important to the points per tick – if the commanders are using them right. There’s nothing that can be done if a commander looks at someone in /team saying “20 enemies at durios” and dismisses it because LOL STONEMIST, but a smart commander will use announcements from a couple roamers/scouts to not only perform a good defense, but also create the illusion that they are not outmanned when they really are.

Winning is not always about direct contribution. Besides, a zerg will probably get the same points per tick whether I’m contributing or not. After a certain point, additional players added to a zerg’s size is a negligible increase in damage and options.

snowaugar.1823:

Ioj just went kitten this ain’t working time to pvdoor their offtime when they have no presence oh my look an excuse and now dh is picking up againbsp I smell a team up against us its funny we scare them soo though they rightfully should be lowest pop/coverage server in the lead lol

I’m from IoJ, and I, uh… don’t understand most of your post. But no, we don’t team up with Darkhaven. Or anyone, as far as I know. We were matched up against Darkhaven for a good ten weeks or so before the random matchups kicked in – and oh look we’re up against them for this week and last week too.

If there is a team up, it’s unintentional and more along the lines of a mutual “I’m really sick of fighting these guys, I’m gonna go punch someone new.”

That said, it has been a pleasure fighting you NSP bros You have some very refreshing strategies and group makeups after the months and months IoJ did fighting DH and SF. If you ever see a human mesmer with purple ribbons in her hair, that’s probably me!

Force.2841:

I’d say instead of making orbs impact WvW, lets screw over PVE crowd (force them to help us in WvW) and have the Orbs impact the PVE World. If we lose our orb for example, mobs in PVE will gain aggression and hit harder, increased HP, bosses are harder, etc.

It’s bad enough that we have people who enjoy WvW that only want to zerg and win without strategy – forcing people to do something they don’t want to do will just result in less people playing the game period. Furthermore, that would just encourage people to move to the stronger servers, since of course they’ll have the orb more often.

Besides, I’d rather not be fighting a dungeon boss when something happens in an entire world removed from PvE that makes the group wipe.

Wait, I’m confused, am I not allowed to use Portal to help people move around faster? What am I supposed to use 20 charges in 10 seconds (once every 90 seconds) for?

…Backtracking? Even though the second portal we place is clearly labelled “Exuent”/Exit by our skills, and the first one is “Entre”/Entrance?

I don’t know, your implied suggestion seems a bit dodgy.

I would like to throw in my idea, since I was thinking about this recently.

1. Don’t put their resting place in a keep or tower. Make it an undefended area – maybe in one of those bizarre wide open plains that every map has.
2. Don’t make it just an orb with some boring NPCs. Make it an Epic boss defending it, and while you’re at it, make it based on the race’s aesthetics not fully represented in WvW. (Giant Charr tank, for example.)
3. Don’t let it influence the entire map(either make some dead zones or just make it influence the holder’s “section” of the map), and don’t let it influence keeps or Stonemist.

Making it linked to an Epic boss located out in the open, first of all, gives a new clear objective on the map for the other teams. You want more power running around and grabbing towers, so there’s incentive to grab it, especially when you need to make a foothold in a map. However, it does not make a keep easier harder to capture directly; it forces more strategy, as now you’ll want to engage the enemy outside of the keep, before they get in, to utilize your advantage. You will want to provoke them – and that shiny new orb Jormag or whatever is holding in your borderlands will be tempting to get for a counterattack.

And since an epic boss is superglued to the orb, nobody can just hack their character to it. An assault is required, and if the epic boss has at least a slight gimmick to it(invulnerability phases and the like), a massive zerg can’t just snag it immediately. They’ll be required to call attention to their movements.

As for the specific bonus the orbs would provide in this idea, I didn’t play WvW when the orbs were around, so I can’t say with any certainty whether the bonus itself was fair or not.

Confirmed for myself and several guildmates, also exclusively since the 3/26 patch.

OS: Win 7 Professional 64-bit
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1055T, 2.8 GHz
RAM: 8GB DDR3

It seems to be every item that does one or more of the following:

-Recovers HP
-Removes conditions
-Grants boons
-Directly inflicts conditions (Skale Venom works fine)
-Provides any nonstandard effects/effects resembling skills from other classes

…Pretty much the only things you can use besides Skale Venom just do damage. I was able to use a Deployable Mortar Kit, Ascalonian Tome, and Golem in a Box, which do AoE or range damage, but nothing else.

The consumable items disabled in dungeons include the Medical Kit, Healing Seed Pod, and Mortar Seed Turret. If I had to guess, any consumable that heals, grants boons, removes conditions, or inflicts conditions is disabled.

Considering I have several gold tied up in healing seed pods and other consumables, I am extremely disappointed in this update. The day I realized some of these consumables could be useful, I started playing GW2 far more frequently. I was inspired to explore the world, do every event I saw, and play with even the silliest items. When I learned I couldn’t use them in WvW, I was okay with it; the items felt like a reward for playing in PvE, and gave me bonuses for PvE. They would simply make WvW ridiculous.

But now I can’t use them in dungeons or fractals, the place where I feel they were the most useful as we didn’t require specific classes to do specific things. Lots of enemies need to be feared? Why LFG for a necromancer when I could just pop one of my Grawl totems at any moment?

This may seem like an awfully silly thing to be upset over to most players, but in my guild, I was the guy who brought the artillery of freakin’ BATMAN to our runs. And it begins a slippery slope; if the idea is to stop taking uniqueness away from individual classes or races(Mortar Seed), why not go with crafting professions too? Potions are unbalanced because you’re too powerful for knowing what you’ll be facing! Sharpening stones are unfair because you aren’t a precision build! …Etcetera.

I bought more inventory space so I could use and experiment with these consumables without choking my inventory up. I gave Anet money for this – hell, I found hours upon hours of more fun just in my hunt for more toys – and now I have a bunch of garbage I can only use if I’m in the overworld, where I’m usually not with any other players. No fun for them, no fun for me.

Before, it was WvW, PvP, and PvE. Now they went and split PvE up into overworld and dungeons. Four sets of rules for one game!