Guild Wars 2

aelfwe.4239:

Do you want to buff shatter? move ip from trait to base class mechanics like it should be

Nah, this way you would buff all mesmers again. So this won’t happen.

Once again, my outlines point is not to destroy shatter speccs but to unbind them from all mesmers to allow shatter to be buffed accordingly for those who want to play that way.

All weapon skills will be unrelated to illusions, which means that you could probably build a mesmer without focusing on AI, using your clones and phantasms more like a defense mechanism (PU) or shatter fodder.
You could also build for an AI phantasm build by using different traits, but you will probably not use shatter utility in this case.

In the current meta, shatter as a main specc in its current incarnation is weak (especially in PvE, but also in PvP and WvW). Shatter skills are used mostly as utility anyways.

I want shatter to be a strong specialisation, not a weak utility for most mesmers and a mediocre mechanism for those who try hard.

I actually am a shatter mesmer. Always have been and always will be.

The point is, as long as the shatter skills are always available to every mesmer, ANet has a hard time to buff the shatter playstyle.

If there was a sacrifice involved, like shatter skills taking up a utility slot, it would be reasonable to buff those skills and create synergies (like with mantras), as they are not on everyones list and not usable for every playstyle.

Shatter right now is so far below phantasm builds (at least in PvE) that there actually needs something to be done to keep this playstyle alive.

So here is my opinion: You need so sacrifice the shatters for all, to make shatter competitive for those who want to play this way.

Anet messed up the leveling for mesmers greatly with their new feature patch lately. As a result, most of the older guides won’t work anymore.

I adapted my leveling guide (in my signature) as good as possible to the mess that is the result of the new trait system, but to be honest, leveling a mesmer now is even more of a pain than in the past.

Give it a try and, on a side note, follow the zerk!

Menaka.5092:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

… I obviously try to avoid a big redesign of the class …

• proceeds to change all class mechanics and requires changes to all weaponsets *

I would rather see an option to change the effects of F1-F4 skills based on your playstyle (trait selection/utility selection/gear or whatever anet can think of).

Traits can mostly stay the same. Just that a shatter utilizing mesmer would be more like a mantra utilizing mesmer, or a signet one.
Weapon skills? Just leave the clone generators the way they are, without generating a clone and make Illusionary Leap a direct teleport to the target).
The only skills that would have to be replaced by something new would be the phantasm generators.

Class mechanics: still all part of the mesmer
Weapons: Seven new skills overall (including unterwater weapons)

Clones and phantasms will be easier to manage, all skills would be freed from limiting constrains in regards to gameplay.

skcamow.3527:

I guess I don’t fully understand what’s being recommended in step 1. Could you elaborate?

I don’t agree with step 3. Many builds/styles utilize combos off weapon generated illusions and removing that would have a signficant impact.

You will still have all phantasms and clones, the illusions spawned by F1 to F4 would be directly related to the weapon setup you actively use at the moment.
The F1 to F4 shatter skills we have right now, would become regular skills to put into your utility bar (like Signet of Midnight or Mantra of Pain).

Remember the Manifesto?

The mesmer as a profession has evolved over the last two years. Many things have changed, some of them so drastically that, at least for me, the profession feels like it needs to be adjusted to our current state of the game.

The question to ask is: What makes a mesmer special, how is this implemented and how can it be improved.

The answer for me at least is: Mesmer have illusions, target bound pets with a very short life expectation. They can be used in different ways, as damaging pets, distractions or as a ressource.

Our current class mechanic (shattering illusions) only covers one of the possible ways to use our pets. Which is very disappointing as many mesmers have four skills they hardly ever use.

So how to fix this? I obviously try to avoid a big redesign of the class. The idea is to implement (relative) simple changes for maximum profit. And as I like “three steps solutions” for profit, here we go:

Solution:

Step 1: Make the current F1 to F4 skills utility skills. If someone wants to play shatter, he/she will equip the skills accordingly. Of course the new skills will need some buffs, you are sacrificing an utility slot after all.
The idea: Supporting shatter playstyle without touching the balance of other playstyles.

But wait, what will we get as class mechanic?

Step 2: The class skills will be as following: F1 and F2: Summon phantasm (20sec cooldown each) F3 and F4: Summon clone (10 sec cooldown each).
The illusions are our special ressource. The change reflects the amount of illusions we can cast with a weapon swap. The difference would be, that you can now cast more of them at once at the start, giving the mesmer the option for some burst. The clones and illusions spawned would be related to the current weapon set.
Idea: Normalizing the illusion generation, easy access and better overview. Cooldown of illusions would go down by 30% while fully Illusions traited, with another 20% from IC for a max cooldown reduction of 50%. Overall spawn rate stays the same as before changes, with the option for more burst at short fights.

But hey, we spawn illusions with weapon skills.

Step 3: Remove illusion mechanics from (most) mesmer skills.
Idea: Tired of destroying a phantasm because you spawed a clone with your other weapon skill (I look at you GS2)? Illusionary Leap drives you crazy? Always asked yourself why we have to sacrifice one of our weapon skills for a phantasm?
Ever asked yourself how it will be with new weapons for the mesmer? Two out of five skills will always be blocked for the core mechanic of the game. This problem would be solved with a combination of step 2 and 3. Clone generations on block skills may stay the way they are.

Conclusion:

Three easy fixes and you would adjust all playstyles of the mesmer profession in one go and preparing it for the future. There will be the need for balancing, numbers want to be crunched, traits reworked and skills redesigned/added (as replacement for the phantasm generator), but overall I think this would work.

Feel free to comment/agree/disagree.

Azo.5860:

Weakness […] sustainability if illusions are countered

Our kitten illusions are countered by our godkitten class mechanic, you know, those shatter skills on F1 to F4.

So by using our class mechanic, we are countering our illusions ourselves and lose sustainability.

Reading/listening to ANet Dev’s is just comedy. The strengths/weaknesses philosophy they pulled out of their back probably some days before the times of the manifesto (and we all know how that went) is just not working.

Tell me, what was the design philosophy for warriors? Reading the weaknesses of the profession is like:
“You are so strong that you do not need evades. Your weakness is that you can take those hits by just standing in the fire and dealing great amounts of damage and survive!” Wut?

What we got with this oh so great philosophy is:

- Mesmers in PvE no longer using their class mechanic.
- Mesmers in PvP no longer using their class mechanic.
- Mesmers in WvW, wait, no mesmers in WvW.

Could we replace F1 to F4 maybe for something that works with the professions design philosophy?

Group was not looking for a ranger and specifically said so.
You joined as a ranger.
Group kicked you, because you know, they didn’t look for a ranger.
You come here and complain on the forums about being kicked for being a ranger trying to join a group not looking for one at all.

Wut?

Guild Wars 2 now ist more or less just Guild Wars 2 at release.

That is OK, if you buy the game now, it is still a fun little game. This would be OK for any single player title. And that is how I see GW2. A title, I can log back in, like in other single player RPGs, after I finished the story, doing a side quest here and there and log out.

The LS and the temporary events have hardly been worth the time, in regards to their quality compared to the original game. Some sub-par content “updates”, mostly fire and forget.

In the end, GW2 is a MMO, that tries so hard not being one, that it feels as stale as a single player RPG, after you have finished the main story. Just without all the cool stuff, single player games have, like things actually get destroyed while you are on a mission, and not you just arriving after things are destroyed (like LS in LA).

Potential? Yes. But after close to two years not using this potential, hope is on diminishing returns.

Honestly I do not play PvP. But if I ever feel the urge to go there I will use this guide.

So I am here to make a statement. For Pyro. The mesmer community needs him.

To show my respect to what he has done for us, I will bump his guide, may it never leave the first page, as long as he is not with us.

WasAGuest.4973:

I’m guessing here of course, but I don’t see Anet ever using a PTS for the simply reason they focus too much on the “Economy” of the game. A PTS would show changes that may/may not effect that economy and those in the PTS would be able to exploit the market against those that do not.

While the situation can be applied in any other game with a PTS, most do not generally protect their economy as zealously as Anet does this one.

Again, that’s just a guess of mine.

The economy is so terribly broken in GW2, I do not understand why they would even try to protect it. GW2’s economy is like a computer animation to demonstrate hyper inflation.
The reason we have no PTS is that with people knowing what will come as release soon, the hype for the new content would die the second the PTS were up.
The updates have so little content, that people would actually burn down the forums before we get the stuff, unlike now, when people do it when they get it on live.

Sounds counterproductive for ANet to me.

crazy.9083:

Maxite.6102:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Ayrilana.1396:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

You must be kidding…

After they introduced the grindiest grinds ever in a western AAA MMO (noone likes to grind they said), vertical progression (even casuals should have BiS they said), most of the events are watered down to press 1, 1 and 1 again (boring they said), you still think they would give a kitten about what they said in the past?

That is a lot of faith you got there.

Perhaps you should gain some experience/knowledge by playing other MMO’s than just this one. You would see that all of them have a grind and GW2’s pales in comparison to some of them.

Asheron’s Call 2
Anarchy Online
Horizons
WoW
LotRO
DCU
Aion
STO
Defiance
AoC
.
.
.

Just to name some of the more well known ones I played to max level (besides Anarchy online). Most of them AAA at start, and the only one that comes even close to the ascended grind is Aion at release.

For everyone on the same power level at eighty and advertised as non grindy game, just this combination is a sarcastic statement since ascended items were introduced.

I don’t know why people would call it a misinterpration of the manifesto though, as ANet themselves have stated that they stopped following it…

Played some of these too, and you are full of it. Ascended, for one thing, isn’t even required. But try doing a T10 WoW raid in T2 armor and see how well it goes. We’ll wait. But if you actually played these games then you know what you’re spewing and doing it anyway. Can’t really reason when its pouting.

This. Asheron’s Call wasn’t a grind? You are freaking kidding me..

Yeah, it was crazy to be honest, but farming “the beach” with two tacticans made you level like crazy and endgame before hero patch was for sure no grind for items… ^^
Was not expecting anyone to have a clue though, so I am impressed that there are still players of this game around… xD

On the matter of who ever said something about no grind for BiS, I quote:

Eurogamer: How are you handling endgame loot – will we be farming bosses?

Colin Johanson: Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game[…]

The funny thing is, that people start to defend the grind in GW2 with games they think that are even grindier.

This game was heavily advertised for not being grindy and casuals having BiS items.

But to get anything nice in this game, including BiS, you have to mindlessly grind the same content to death.

Other games give you a new grind from time to time, and at the end of the grind you get a reward, a carrot on the stick as motivation, they don’t even hide it.

GW2 wanted to be different, now we have the same ol’ same grind as in all other games, with worse rewards. Impressive.

viralthefrog.6130:

If you think this game is the grindiest in western AAA MMO’s, you have probably not played many western AAA MMO’s.

Edit: Just saw your second post.
I see your previous experience and raise you two years in EVE Online.
Two years down and nowhere near the skills I needed to play how I wanted.

You mean you found a game that is grindier than GW2, and think that I am impressed?

EVE Online is a sandbox game, with a fully player controlled economy and universe. And it is surely not designed around one player being the hero.
Comparing this to the GW2 theme park, where everyone is second in command after Trahearne is a bit of out of place.

And please show me, where EVE Online was ever advertised as not being grindy, thx.

Maxite.6102:

Played some of these too, and you are full of it. Ascended, for one thing, isn’t even required. But try doing a T10 WoW raid in T2 armor and see how well it goes. We’ll wait. But if you actually played these games then you know what you’re spewing and doing it anyway. Can’t really reason when its pouting.

Sure, T10 armor was also introduced in the first year of the other game. And any crap item at cap is better than T2 by now (actually since the first expansion), by alot. Your point?

Ayrilana.1396:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

You must be kidding…

After they introduced the grindiest grinds ever in a western AAA MMO (noone likes to grind they said), vertical progression (even casuals should have BiS they said), most of the events are watered down to press 1, 1 and 1 again (boring they said), you still think they would give a kitten about what they said in the past?

That is a lot of faith you got there.

Perhaps you should gain some experience/knowledge by playing other MMO’s than just this one. You would see that all of them have a grind and GW2’s pales in comparison to some of them.

Asheron’s Call 2
Anarchy Online
Horizons
WoW
LotRO
DCU
Aion
STO
Defiance
AoC
Planetside
.
.
.

Just to name some of the more well known ones I played to max level (besides Anarchy online). Most of them AAA at start, and the only one that comes even close to the ascended grind is Aion at release.

For everyone on the same power level at eighty and advertised as non grindy game, just this combination is a sarcastic statement since ascended items were introduced.

I don’t know why people would call it a misinterpration of the manifesto though, as ANet themselves have stated that they stopped following it…

timmyf.1490:

Hey guys, I get that lots of people want raids, but I was really hoping to just leave that out of this particular thread. There’s a million other places where you can continue to ask for raids.

The only other solution to raids is that ANet goes back to mindless zerk events. If that is the better solution for you, well, good.

The way it is right now, it just kittens off everyone. A perfect lose/lose situation.

bri.2359:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

The only solution would be to artificially select people for the events, aka known as instances for raids. This is the solution, the only one.

Is this not what guilds currently do??
I am in TxS, and we do our best to get all 100+ guildies on the same map to do Teq and Wurm.

How about we just make those events encounters you can simply go into an instance with your 100 people, so you do not need an hour to coordinate and artificially find an instance where you can swarm in? Also know as raids.

Why make it the hard way, if there is an easy, accepted, fun, working possibility?

timmyf.1490:

I’m more curious if players have any suggestions for how ArenaNet can better communicate how events work to players and whether properly-aligned incentives will work to drive people to the right goal.

I don’t really want this to be a discussion of whether GW2 should have raids. We’ve had that one before.

If we just accept that ArenaNet wants large open world challenging content, what can they do differently to make that content less painful for people who actually want to complete it?

But the answer is, that you can’t make it less painfull for people who actually want to complete it, as there is no option to filter those players from the others. You get a new random bunch every day, with people with random ideas what to do, if they do anything and are not afk.

The only solution would be to artificially select people for the events, aka known as instances for raids. This is the solution, the only one.

You just don’t design coordinated encounters for big groups of random people.

The day, ANet accepts this, will be the day they put these abomination of events in raid instances.

I love open world and stuff, but as soon as things get difficult, it will simply not work.
ANet throws these events at the playerbase, because they do not understand how resilient players can be against teamplay, if they do not decide to do so by themselves.

If you join a raid, you go for the kill. You try to kill the bosses to get the rewards, this is motivation enough in most cases.
If you join an event, you go there out of curiosity. Maybe you need some achievements if you even care, but the least thing you care about are the 100 other people around you.
You don’t know them, you don’t mind them, why would someone give a kitten.

Getting a bigger box with the same crappy loot for trying, why would it even be worth it?

I think the problem is the following:

You play the game and there is no event running, you realize, how much potential there is.

Then you log in to an event, and suddenly realize that what we get as updates is just not even close to the quality of the original world.
This can be disheartening.

And we got two recycled events that were actually popular…

The time of regular MMOs is as good as over. People enjoy a good story, and it just cannot be told with 1000 others jumping around in circles.

In a good single player version of GW2, we would have been in Lion’s Arch, when the attack started. We would have seen the devastation taking place and the panic and suffering of the people. We would have seen stuff collaps, airships attack, an invasion taking place. We would have started a futile attempt to defend the city, and we would have failed.

What did we get instead, a suddenly ruined place with more mobs to kill. A farm train, and 1000s of blade shards to loot.

I pretty much think, the future of the genre is found in hybrid games like Destiny which have a strong single player and an additional multiplayer layer as option.

So they need a whole team to create a grind that is worth called legendary.

“OK, so we have new ressources, skill points, new super rare drops from low level zones, silk, more silk, a whole mountain of silk, what else could we put in there, to make the grind legendary?”

“How about time gating?”

“Time gating is good, next?”

“Farming old content?”

“Nice one, good good, keep it coming!”

“How about you need more items, than you can ever carry arround in your bags?

“Wow, now we are getting to something!”

“Make it challenging!”

“Grea-… Wait, who put this clown in my team, get out of here!”

The worth of a company is calculated on their future potential.

So 4000 store gems might be pretty accurate as long as they do not announce an expansion or something.

haviz.1340:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

But don’t you see that melee stacking, zerker gear meta, the uselessness of toughness and vitality, the etablishment of one shot mechanics, and many more flaws are the direct result of the ablility of every single class no matter of specialisation to avoid all incoming damage very frequently?

I have been playing MMO’s as melee DD (HoX in AoC, Bounty Hunter in AC2), and still every encounter had a benefit of variation.

The problem of GW2 PvE is that you have 8 classes, but in the end, it feels like every class plays the same with a bit of gimmicky utility.

So what is the point? Stacking is not the problem, it is the result of the combat system in GW2, that narrows down the gameplay to the most simplistic approach to group content I have ever seen in a MMO.

On the other hand, I like the fast paced combat why soloing or doing open world stuff (yeah I know, that’s for noobs and stuff), it is just that I really prefer a multiplayer game to not feel like every dungeon is made for a group and not for a bunch of individuals that are just doing their own stuff till the boss is dead.

I would have agreed partially with you if you hadn’t used that many hyperboles.

Are my posts over the top some times (well probably most of the time)? Sure.
It doesn’t change the problematic topics I try to approach with a QA point of view.
Being clear what is wrong in my opinion. Giving examples. If possible giving ideas how to fix it.

You “would have partially agreed” with what I said, if I just expressed myself differently tells me, that in the end, you have partially agreed.

Otherwise you would have not written this answer.

haviz.1340:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Dodging in this game is probably the biggest flaw of them all. Nothing funny about that.
A free way to neglect any kind of damage every few seconds at any place no matter of character build? Good luck designing any engaging content with this mechanic in game…

I’m not surprised you hate mechanics that allow squishy characters to avoid most of the damage.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

And while I am a tank at heart and used to hug walls for over 15 years, it is still different in GW2. It is just terribad game design.

But don’t you see that melee stacking, zerker gear meta, the uselessness of toughness and vitality, the etablishment of one shot mechanics, and many more flaws are the direct result of the ablility of every single class no matter of specialisation to avoid all incoming damage very frequently?

I have been playing MMO’s as melee DD (HoX in AoC, Bounty Hunter in AC2), and still every encounter had a benefit of variation.

The problem of GW2 PvE is that you have 8 classes, but in the end, it feels like every class plays the same with a bit of gimmicky utility.

So what is the point? Stacking is not the problem, it is the result of the combat system in GW2, that narrows down the gameplay to the most simplistic approach to group content I have ever seen in a MMO.

On the other hand, I like the fast paced combat while soloing or doing open world stuff (yeah I know, that’s for noobs and stuff), it is just that I really prefer a multiplayer game to feel like every dungeon is made for a group and not for a bunch of individuals that are just doing their own stuff till the boss is dead.

Raeysa Penrose.8450:

Personally, I’ve found that GW2 has less of a problem with elitism than any other MMO I’ve tried. Not that elitism isn’t there, of course, but you can never completely get rid of these problems.

What would be there for elitist behaviour?

Ascended items just show that you are very good in mindless farmin which does not even require skill.

The dungeons are old and stale, and running old and stale content faster than others is just not very impressive.

Fractals just proof that you are willing to run the same mini instances a hundred times, which is like being a hamster in a wheel. And they are old and stale too.

The good thing about this game is that it is so casual friendly, that noone has to worry about not being skillful enough to succeed.

You know, whe have killed Zhaitan because he was necroing stuff…

Dusty Moon.4382:

You have received 2 years of GW2 for 60 USD – that is a bargain.

But for a company, that wants more money from you by convincing you from their product, they do a hell of a bad job.

The game price was a bargain, no doubt, but that was not neccesarily what was calculated as potential income.

Noone likes to pay for broken stuff.

StriderShinryu.6923:

Well, that does pretty much explain a lot of what went wrong with the last patch then. If there is an assumption that things don’t really need to be tested from the perspective of the player then it’s obvious why the end player experience is not always where it should be.

Are you talking about the total disaster known as final of the LS1? It took them a week to get the most critical bugs fixed.

Yeah, good, that they think they do not really have to properly test their encounters before putting them on the live servers…

Bread.7516:

[cutting the useless parts in matter of this discussion]

Look, you have to read what I write to actually understand what I say.

In rogue likes you get a second, a third and a billion more chances. I was talking about never touching the game again after dying once. Yeah sure, there are sooo many games around like that (RotMG can be some fun though, if I want more challenging content than GW2).

It is obviously my lacking knowledge of computer games that makes me feel like stacking on a spot DPSing down bosses is boring.

Tanks are still tanks in military interventions, otherwise why would they use all the armor plating on them, just makes them slow and less flexible. Sure.

But yeah, maybe I have just seen it all on my long way from my c64 I bought 30 years ago and 15 years of MMOs (some of them you might have not even heard of). Maybe after everything has been there, DEVs go back to what there was in the beginning.

Standing in one spot, pushing one button. Such a success that we get a new dungeon every few monthes – NOT.

So tanks tank, when they are needed to do so? Sounds like a tank to me.

Good luck poking an eye with those big boxing gloves on.

Reality and games, how about you have to uninstall the game after dying once. GW2 is not touching reality in any context. Be it gameplay, physics, nutrition, or crafting.

RL arguements won’t work, most people play games because they are sort of tired of reality at the very moment.

Fireballs, clones you can blow up, fiery greatswords, lightning whip, giant dragons, leveling, etc = not reality

Paying taxes, work, love, war, family, death, etc. = reality

And I still do not understand why you think your argument makes stacking in a corner any better for the gameplay experience.

Bread.7516:

“support” in this game (meta) is not about stats or being a dedicated healer/support, it’s about utility. That’s pretty much the point.

Check action games, check how real combat works whether military team compositions or even just as minor as martial arts. no one “tanks”

How about tanks? You know the real ones that can take a hit.

Have you ever seen a football game?

Martial arts? Nothing is more important than to have a good guard.
Or Boxing? Yeah, being tanky is not important at all I guess in the heavier tiers.

But yeah, this is a real life comparsion, which is ridiculous in regards that we are discussing a fantasy game where you can shoot lasers out of a greatsword the size of a tree…

Bread.7516:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

- snip -

Funny, real combat medics carry guns and they’re just as effective!
Surgeons stay in camp

That literally made no sense at all. In no context to what I said or on the topic.

Did I say that people who like to play healers should not be allowed to do damage? Or use a weapon?
Or do you want to tell me, that it would be a good idea if you take critical damage, to visit a player that plays a healer in a virtual hospital, so that he can fix you for several hours so that you can play again, but only if you have insurance or mighty amounts of gold?

Or do you want to make comparsions from reality to a fantasy video game with fireballs, dragons and instant healing.

I have no idea…

Probably not enough in-house testers to actually test the encounter on live conditions.
No PTR to test the encounter.

Releasing content untested.

ANet should hide in shame for the worst QA if this is true.

Kaiyanwan explains small group content in GW2:

In this RPG, the dungeon meta is melee stacking as a result of flawed game mechanics.
This literally tells people that like small group content and like to play the following roles (RPG normally means Role Playing Game):

- ranged melee characters (archers) to kitten off
- ranged caster characters (like most casters) to kitten off
- support classes to kitten off
- healers to kitten off
- tanks to kitten off
- mobility centric characters to kitten off

- rogue like melee characters (melee dps hurr durr): Welcome to a game made only for you, as all classes play this way in small group content (unless you rolled a necro, then – you get the picture – kitten off)!

What we now have left in the game are those countless WoW rogues who could never find a tank and a healer to carry them through the content, telling everyone, that noone likes to play a healer or a tank anyway (which is a lie), just because they don’t like to do so. They are super happy, that now they can solo the group content they could not get into in other games, because the content was actually designed for a group (yeah I know, mind blown).

So unless you like to play a rogue like melee character, you will have a hard time to enjoy GW2 small group content.

But if you like to play a rogue like melee character, it will be heaven and you might have a hard time to understand, that this is not fun for everyone. RPG stands for Rogue Playing Game after all.

I hope this helped to clarify the fronts on this topic.

You are welcome.

As long as there is no reward for the risk, nothing will change. Players will farm the easy pathes for the gold or tokens and that’s it.

Without a motivation, people will just ignore more challenging content. But that is a different discussion.

maha.7902:

- dodging (100% dmg avoidance + immunity)

dodging a flaw? top lel m8

Dodging in this game is probably the biggest flaw of them all. Nothing funny about that.
A free way to neglect any kind of damage every few seconds at any place no matter of character build? Good luck designing any engaging content with this mechanic in game…

Everyone who thinks what we got as dungeons in GW2 is fun and exciting must be new to the world of MMO dungeoneering.

Many games have flaws, but the combination of:

- buff stacking in a limited area
- no aggro mechanic for encounters
- no dedicated healing needed
- self-sufficient healing for classes
- zero mob AI
- bugging out mobs in corners
- abusive skills (fgs)
- easy combat rezzing for everyone (esp. down state)
- no collision
- reflecting full mob damage
- dodging (100% dmg avoidance + immunity)
- etc

just makes the dungeon experience in this game abysmally bad. It is the worst teamplay I have ever seen in a MMO in all my many years. It is why this area of GW2 is so disappointing.

If you like dungeons in GW2, you are not a player looking for challenges. You are looking for repetition, a one trick pony for everything.

Boooooring.

IMO, stacking is the reason why the DEVs don’t ever give us new dungeon content.

It trivializes all dungeon content. It also makes fights incredibly boring. Stack in that corner, burn down the boss.
The DEVs seem to not be able to work around it, so they just don’t introduce more dungeons. Seriously, one path replacing an older one in what, 19 monthes now?

And while I am a tank at heart and used to hug walls for over 15 years, it is still different in GW2. It is just terribad game design.

Pyroathiest.4168:

frifox.5283:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Everything that comes after that is just beating the dead horse.

So, by that logic after having your first intercourse you should… stop? After that it’s just beating a dead horse, right?

No, no, you should practice to do it faster.

Haha, ain’t nobody got time for that.

It really depends on how many new “dungeons” you try to raid for the first time.
As I am married, I normaly just go for the “daily achievement” though.

On the topic of who cares:

GW2: Crucible of Eternity P1 6:24 [World Record]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXl24NYr9Mc
1688 views (P3 was too new and had only like 780 views)

vs

Blood Legion vs The Lich King (10) – World First (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlxcNMltpU8
2.060.835 views

So seriously who cares?

Look, I bet my account, that every single dungeon and fractal has been completed first by a group that has not just been using a group of full melee.

So probably every world first in GW2 has been accomplished by a “mixed” group.

Everything that comes after that is just beating the dead horse. DnT was once a progression raiding guild (and maybe still is), so I would think you might understand that concept.

Doing things faster, that have already been done a million times before does not impress anyone.

As Pyroathiest said, it might make the tedious content less tedious as you spend less time with it, but wow, this won’t give most players the kick.

maha.7902:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2ksxsHN7ew

mmmmm?

Seriously? This video does not even show the clockheart fight.

Search for full videos of TA Aetherpath shortly after release. Watch clockheart fight. Be surprised.
The argument that parts of the dungeons have been done in melee at release is amusingly arbitrary.
At this time, melee was not the best option, for progression and getting stuff done, a combination with ranged weapons was the better option.

The conflict I see is that people confuse getting used to content equals getting better at the game.
The game just avoids to give enough content to proof this wrong.
When a raidboss is on farm, and you farm him faster, that does not mean you are getting better at the game. You are just getting better at repeating the same stuff (memorizing) of an encounter. People who have never done progression raiding might not understand this though.
The same counts for pure melee in GW2 on well known encounters. You are just memorizing every (possible) move and just repeat the same old same. This won’t help you on a new encounter (which we are lacking in GW2 most of the time).

And btw, I do not think you know what a hipster is or means, or you are just using it wrong.

So for progression in new content (which we are lacking most of the time) having a GS is a good thing.

The things you might not get are the following:

- I like the game, I am just sad that it is not going anywhere. TA Aetherpath was added 8(!) monthes ago. That was the last true dungeon addition (besides some recycled mini instances 6(!) monthes ago for FotM.

- Noone melee stacked TA Aetherpath at release (you have said earlier on you have never been there, so missing that knowledge is not your fault). Because when dungeons are new, they are hard and exciting by just being dungeons.

- I do not care, what weapon players are using in dungeons, I just say that it is ok to use the weapon you feel the most comfortable with.

- The whole melee stacking thing is a result of bored players running the same old content a billion times. New content would solve this (as long as players actually try the new dungeons), which would be a win/win situation for everyone.

Why is this so hard to grasp?

Compounding power would be better than precise wrack imo.

When I am back at home, I will look at the other stuff.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Krispera.5087:

Foosnark.1784:

People enjoy using a greatsword. They have said so, here, in this thread asking about why people use it. They have said why they think it works — and you’ve made it your mission to tell them they’re wrong. That sure is some optimal behavior!

It’s an attitude I see in many GS haters. I guess hating GS is just hipster as he said, it’s cool to hate GS because it’s efficient in what it does.

But, hey, I’m not going to make a thread about how X weapon is bad in X situations. I believe all weapons are good at what they are supposed to do. That’s it.

Don’t tell me that a scepter is better at bursting than a GS, just because you have blinded hate (because it’s cool to) for GS. Seriously, I’m starting to believe there’s a GS hating lobby group on the mesmer forum. You know guys, it’s making the forum very toxic. Can you let it drop !?

If you don’t like GS, you don’t need to go in every thread and tell everyone how you hate GS.

Something that should be clarified when discussing greatsword is whether you’re using it in PvP/WvW or in PvE.

In PvP/WvW, the greatsword is an amazing long range sustained damage weapon with our best chasing skill (iZerker) in the game. It also has fantastic burst potential with close range mirror blades in shatter builds.

In PvE, the greatsword is a substandard damage weapon with a not particularly great phantasm.

It makes a big difference where you’re using it.

Than again, in PvE it doesn’t really matter unless you want to speedrun dungeons. If you go into a dungeon with a full group and people have half a clue, the group will succeed with any weapon setup.
It is just how the game is designed. People use the GS because they can get along with it just fine. No need for min-maxing, this is not vanilla WoW raiding.

Of course you can min-max for speed clears or try to solo dungeons and stuff to make things artificially hard, but PvE in GW2 is just designed to be simple (I blame the lack of a trinity for this, especially in dungeons).

And about the dungeoneering elitism that we see, well, if anyone can do the dungeons, they have to find something else that separates them from the crowd.

So in the end, there is no right or wrong in PvE. It is just the lack of new challenges that makes the people getting creative.
If there was a new dungeon every few weeks like in other games, that would actually challenge the playerbase, I doubt that melee stacking against a wall would be the meta. If there was any learning required for an encounter, zerker gear would probably not be meta either.
But hey, other games actually design the trash pulls and stuff like that, to be a challenge too, GW2 just has a lot of trashy trash.

Dungeon design and progression (like new more challenging dungeons frequently) are the biggest disappointments in GW2. It feels like the designers pretty much gave up on this topic.

But, if you want to run the same dungeon path a hundred times over and over and over again, it is of course less tedious, if you run it as fast as possible. That sounds like an awefully little amount of fun to me, but to each their own…

maha.7902:

Foosnark.1784:

If you read the OP, it doesn’t specify dungeons only — in fact there is a paragraph specifically about WvW, and the last paragraph mentions its use in PvP. And nowhere does that post ask for objective reasons only.

There were a bunch of reasonable posts, before the “everything = dungeon zerk melee deeps lawlz” people chimed in, anyway.

Thank you for adding absolutely nothing to the thread.

How is commenting with something that is adding absolutely nothing to the thread on comments that are adding absolutely nothing to the thread adding anything to the thread?

This is like people moaning about people moaning on the board.
If I count your Thank you for adding absolutely nothing to the thread. comments together, you have probably added the most “nothing” to the thread.

Seriously, trolling will add nothing to this thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Lyssa-s-Grimoire-The-Mesmer-Handbook/first#post2916477

Colesy’s Guide is slightly outdated, but I am sure, that the basics didn’t change too much.
So I wouldn’t say we do not have a guide dedicated to dungeons.

But some new insights might help to dust off some of the details… ^^
I am fairly curious.

Carighan.6758:

As Kaiyanwan says, the only problematic part is that people who are too angry or too bored with the game can still post on the forums.

xD

ANet forces me fairly often to take a few days off the forums… But for the very moment, I am allowed to post something every ten minutes. ^^

But, I am not entirely sure if the message you got out of my posts is exactly what I had on my mind…