Guild Wars 2

I will try it this way:

Q: Topic: Why do people use Greatsword?

A: People prefer the greatsword as they do not have to know all telegraphs of boss fights in dungeons to succeed without constantly dying.
As more experienced players that can actually play melee leave the game out of boredom, you more frequently see new players with greatword learning the dungeons until they can melee the bosses, get bored and leave themselves.

On topic, clear as a mountain lake.

It did.

People who play a game in a hardcore manner play min-max builds. So for dungeon mesmers in GW2 this would mean s/s + s/f.
New players prefer the GS for its range and flexibility. They do not need to know all encounters, they can fall back if insecure.

Hardcore players get bored and leave, because there is no new content. New players pug dugeons with GS. Players that have been around a longer time but not hardcore enough to challenge new games with harder content get upset by the newbies in easy dungeons, just because they have nothing else to do.

Newbies get better and bored and leave. New newbies pug dungeons with GS, Same old same players get upset, because hey, how else would you feel superior in a game that has nothing left for hardcore players.

This is like an endless cycle, fueled by the same few people who think that min-maxing has still any value.

The one thing I don’t get:

Monthes later, the same old dungeons. The same old content. The same old strategies. The same old discussion.
There has been NOTHING new. By now, what is the point of this discussion?

Any PvE hardcore player I know has left this game out of boredom decades ago. Well all people I know have left the game but well.

I would say, run the dungeons with scepter/torch for some laughs. But dear lord, min-maxing the same kitten for forever is beyond my capability of managing boredom.

Here is the point:
If you are a hardcore PvE player and still playing GW2, you are not hardcore. Hardcore PvE players thirst for new challenges frequently, GW2 just does not offer this.
Therefore, if you are playing GW2, you are not a hardcore player, so play the way you want and let others play the way they want.

Shifu.4321:

Just a pinata. No loot involved, unless you count couple of rares and some greens.

Yeah. Just imagine, having a pinata at a party for kids and all that comes out is stuff kids do not want.

That is pretty much how loot works in GW2. Calling any boss in GW2 a loot pinata is an insult for any real pinata.

Vesuvius.9874:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Vesuvius.9874:

Make it 10 times as hard to get legendary armor than it is to get ascended.

The only thing that is hard in getting ascended items is to motivate yourself to do ridiculously easy tasks over and over and over again.

How would you make farming ressources ten times harder? If it means ten times more ressources, it would be just ten time grindier. Impressive! That sounds like a real achievement. You should also get titles like:

Legendary Lumberjack, Nemesis of the Ancient Wood Log
Legendary Miner, Destroyer of Ores
etc.

What in your opinion constitutes as being legendary then? What in your opinion would make something legendary?

I don’t know, content that is challenging, entertaining and exciting. Content that is hard, and takes time to master. Content that make you feel like you make a difference. Mind blown.

Just kidding, mindlessly grinding is really the most legendary thing I can come up with.

Vesuvius.9874:

Make it 10 times as hard to get legendary armor than it is to get ascended.

The only thing that is hard in getting ascended items is to motivate yourself to do ridiculously easy tasks over and over and over again.

How would you make farming ressources ten times harder? If it means ten times more ressources, it would be just ten time grindier. Impressive! That sounds like a real achievement. You should also get titles like:

Legendary Lumberjack, Nemesis of the Ancient Wood Log
Legendary Miner, Destroyer of Ores
etc.

Adding some more grind? Sounds perfectly logical as progression in this game seems to be all about grinding.

I’d say yes, one more reason to not log in anymore. At least then I will not regret to spend my time with something utterly boring for the sake of doing something in a game.

On the other hand, I could become a legendary tailor, master of the needle, the hero of the yarn. That is the most heroic thing I could have ever done in a game ever.

“Take this you dragons, I stab you with my needles so that in a hundred years you will die from an infection.” See, I also use conditions in PvE, down with the zerker mantra.

The only thing legendary about legendary items is the grind. And the boredom that is the grind itself. How anyone would not love this is beyond me.

Imagine a new player defeating a champion for the first time and then get a reward that is actually useful. All the joy and the excitement. That is what these bags are for.

Now look at how you play and ask yourself: “Why would I do that?”
And then ask yourself: “Why would I expect to get rewarded for what I am doing here?”

How?

Weapons on the back – how will you handle this with a cape?
Weapons on he side – how will you handle this with a cape?

Coding working collision physics? Just let it all clip like noone cares?

ANet has other priorities than fixing something that is not broken (as long as they avoid introducing capes).

The engine GW2 runs on has enough clipping problems as it is.

Capes would just be a horrible clipping nightmare. That is why we do not have them.

It is objectively the best weapon if you do not want to play melee.

Some people just like to play a caster class as a ranged character. While I personally don’t mind (I like to optimize my build depending on what I am doing), I know people that only play ranged.

In the end, only few players ever come to the forums and fewer care about any meta or “best dps” builds.
They play because it is fun, and if they have fun playing ranged, they a) either continue playing ranged or if ranged is no longer viable b) stop playing.

As far as I know this game wasn’t sold as MMMORPG (the extra M is for melee). Min-maxers gonna min-max, haters gonna hate, most people don’t give a kitten on what other people think as long as they enjoy what they do.

There is really not any more to that topic. People will do what they enjoy.

Question: “How do you casual?”

Answer: “You play a game for some hours, you get bored by the repetative content, you log out. You never log back into the game. You just move on, for something new and exciting.
Casuals play what they like, not what some may think they might like in the future.”

Guild Wars 300

Because this will be the average sized zerg you will need to finish the bi-weekly content in the future LS and it still sounds heroic!

Players: “This is madness!”
Devs: “THIS IS GUILD WARS!”

Best. Content. Ever.

It requires individual skill, makes a character feel heroic and unique. It really matters how you built-up your character and what skills/weapon sets you use.

And the challenge is awesome. Every fight feels unique and fresh. We need more of this.
I think it would be a great idea, if the next LS season had a bit more of it, as I think we did not have enough of it in LS1.

Two thumbs up!

Look up what WoW added between release and the first expansion. Just google it. There is a wiki.

Compare it to GW2, than you might understand why people are upset.

Best:

1. No monthly fee. At least people can have a second look at the game from time to time.
2. Art Style
3. Shared ressources
4. As nothing you do really matters in the game or for your character, you can just log in and out whenever you want.
5. No reputations to grind.

Worst:

1. Currency inflation: Both the quantity of different currencies and the amount of each currency needed to get anything (→ grindy as kitten)
2. The story: Started weak with Trahearne and got abysmally bad with the LS and Scarlet.
3. Vertical progression: Ascended weapon/armor is a horrible grind, and crafting your stuff after farming the ressources does feel very little heroic.
4. Horizontal progression: Nearly no horizontal progression available. One new trait for each trait line in 18 monthes and one new healing skills per profession and one for all (that is useless).
5. Balancing: There is none.

The OP is sort of right though.

If you are a new player or someone who has been taking a break for a fairly long time, you are borked. The economy in GW2 is so inflated that the only way to get along with the prices is to either farm and grind your fingers off, flip the AH or buy gems to buy gold.

Pretty much F2P standard I know, but at one point, GW2 wanted to be different…

GW2 is not the grindiest game ever.

But for a game, that has been heavily advertised as being not gindy, as noone at ANet likes grinding because it is not fun, it is for sure the grindiest non-grindy game on this planet.

GW2 is a grindfest for everything nowadays, be it BiS items, AP for metas, event items etc. The fact, that it is not as grindy as some asian grinders out there is not really making this fact any better.

Conclusion: For a non-grindy game, this game is grindy as kitten.

Still better than what we got in Season 1.

Every single one you try with a norn.

So few mesmers actually take this skill. It is good for trolling, but it won’t win you a fight against someone who actually know what skills 1 to 5 do.

It is a noob catcher. Otherwise it is just for trolling. God forbid, an elite skill on a long cooldown, that can be blocked or dodged and won’t hit while blinded or out of LoS would help the mesmer to actually kill someone who is clueless or outplayed with additional rooting. Get moa’d? Dodge twice and use your escape skills. Or keep picking on the mesmer. Or run around like a headless chicken, the choice is yours.

It is worthless in WvW and PvE. Noone would ever use is over the other elites there if he/she knows what he/she is doing.

In regards of mesmers being overpowered. How many mesmers played in top end teams before the feature patch (we will have to wait for the meta (which the mesmer was not part of) to shift right now). How many of them (if you find more than one) used moa morph as elite?

All I see here is people moaning that they can not see the real mesmer between all the obvious clones or that they have no clue how moa morph actually works. Or that they lost in a 2vs1 situation while outnumbered and think that is unfair.

Updated the Leveling Guide to the new trait system. Still facepalming on ANets design decisions on traits and leveling…

I think I am fairly done with the mesmer profession for now and probably with GW2 too. So I see this as my farewell present as you can not have my stuff.

Best regards -

Kaiyanwan

Builds in my signature.

With the new trait system, leveling a mesmer will be a pain. Don’t get me wrong, it was always a tougher class to level, but with master traits locked until 60, most of the leveling will be tedious and slow, even slower than before.

Leveling a necro is a breeze compared. Put on two daggers and auto-attack everything dead in a few hits. Or go minion master and watch tv while the game is more or less leveling for you.

You can have more than one character, so my advice would be, try the necro for some levels and see if you like the playstyle.

I have both at 80 and I think they are fairly interesting classes at cap.

Too bad the leveling guide in my signature is outdated, otherwise I would have offered you my help on leveling a mesmer.

PvP tab. Open it.

For a game that wanted to be awesome for people who do not like MMOs, it has pretty much become something that is similar to every other MMO. And I for one thought, the other MMOs might adapt to be more like GW2 at start.

But in fact, GW2 adapted to be more like every other MMO out there. Vertical progression, grind for best gear, raids with high difficulty (not managable for casuals or random groups).

So as a result:

If you do like MMOs, you might enjoy GW2. But people that do not enjoy playing MMOs seem no longer be the target group of ANet.

dekou.6012:

“Casual” and “hardcore” are stupid terms that don’t mean anything anymore. GW2 used to be a game for skilled people without much spare time. Now it’s a game for unskilled people with lots of spare time. That’s the big shift and TBH I don’t like it.

Well the game was advertised as a non-grindy game where everyone would have the same gear level and content was open for everyone, without raids or raid timers.

Didn’t work out. ANet adapted to:

A game that is grindy where only the people with tons of time have the best gear and giant raids on fixed timers.

Looks like every other MMO to me now. So this game is for everyone who loves classic style MMOs like WoW or similar.

Are you complaining about complaining?

Please follow your own advice. Stop complaining about the complainers. At least they might have a point, this thread does not.

I do not think one should leave 6/4/0/0/4 mantra out of the equation. It is just so that phantasms tend to die. A dead phantasm with a long cooldown will do less damage than a faster attacking one that can be recasted faster too…

I have been roaming the open world with a pelthora of possible builds after the patch. Put a superior sigil of stamina into the second GS spot and nothing will keep your killspeed up as fast as the Lazy Kai build in open. Switch to Lazy Kai PP for harder mobs if you want.

Both Go Go Power Ranger builds work perfectly fine and have been adjusted to the new mantra trait setup. But I simply miss my utility too much to run them constantly.

Edit: Slightly adjusted Go Go Power Ranger Build to be more DD (Illusions X to VII for shatter).

Updated both, Lazy Kai build and Go Go Power Ranger build, and the Phantastic Phantasm variants.

Still work in progress though.

No wonder this game feels so stale, it is old as…

Wait, if this game is so good, why didn’t he/she play in 136 years?

I can fix the builds easily with changing the trait values and adapt the Go Go Power Ranger build from 25/30/0/0/15 to 6/4/0/0/4 for the mantra trait and adding a superior sigil of stamina to the GS.

What I can not fix is the stupidity of ANet in regards of their new trait system. Leveling a mesmer will be a pain in the lower back even more now than ever before. It is like ANet had this pointy stick left and didn’t know where to put it until they saw the mesmer profession.

For a start, I recommend to just avoid leveling a mesmer by playing the regular content. Wait for some new LS zerg events to brainlessly push trough most levels, craft your way or get your hands on tomes. Just try somehow to reach at least 60.

I am so sorry for everyone who will start a mesmer now, with all what happened in this great feature patch, those poor souls will have a hard time.

If the right direction is straight over the edge of the abyss we have been one step away from till the patch, we just made a giant step forward!

Adjusting my GGPR build from 25/30/0/0/15 to 6/4/0/0/4.

I play a mesmer. This is reason enough to not like the new patch.

Well I have said the same things many times before.

The game has not been moving anywhere since release. Unfortunately I might have said it too often though, as nowadays I can only post once every 10 mins as a restriction to pointing out obvious flaws too often.

I would like to praise ANet with every post I can write every 10 mins, but with this patch? I do not know where to start, but praising is not part of it.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Juba.8406:

i mean come on, Axe auto attack does more damage than 100b and you don’t need to root yourself for it.

Lol? If your 100b is weaker than your axe AA, you’re doing something terribly wrong.

He is probably talking about raw damage per second. For some reason it seems to be a hard concept to grasp that there are different ways to deal damage.

Sustained vs burst for example. You will deal more burst with 100b than with axe auto for the duration of one 100b. Wow, that is genious!

Different weapons for different situations? Madness!

When I’m using 100b, I’ll easily break the 15k damage if I’m alone and get 10 stacks might. I fail to see how this skill should be bad by any means.

That is because it is a really great burst skill. I would trait mesmer GS3 for 100b faster than people press 1 in Living Story zergs.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Juba.8406:

i mean come on, Axe auto attack does more damage than 100b and you don’t need to root yourself for it.

Lol? If your 100b is weaker than your axe AA, you’re doing something terribly wrong.

He is probably talking about raw damage per second. For some reason it seems to be a hard concept to grasp that there are different ways to deal damage.

Sustained vs burst for example. You will deal more burst with 100b than with axe auto for the duration of one 100b. Wow, that is genious!

Different weapons for different situations? Madness!

After we managed to bring up the seven other professions on par with the warrior, we can talk about buffing the warrior profession.

Until then, asking for buffs on a weapon of the warrior profession, which is better than most weapons of other classes is just not a good point to start.

Right now, the game has very little to offer.

No LS, quality aside, at least it gave a reason to lock in and play a bit.
No new content at all, like zones, dungeons, professions or whatever.
No rewards.

Right now you only have the same old same as you had forever. I see very little motivation to play what I have seen before, multiple times, for monthes and monthes.

Taygus.4571:

Hannelore.8153:

or how they should be.

That would depend on what people like.
but imo, people spend enough time working they dont come to a game…just to work some more.

It is not work, it is playing a game with a challenge to give you satisfaction when you actually achieve a goal. For some people it is why they play games. That is what keeps other MMOs with vertical progression alive. An ever new challenge you can succeed.
Getting everything on a silver plate is boring as kitten, why would I play a game, that virtually plays itself? If I do not get punished for bad play, why would I try to get better? If I wanted a point-and-click adventure I would have better options out there.

If you do not want any challenge when playing GW2, just go to all other zones besides Orr or Southsun. Everything there is a cakewalk.

Astralporing.1957:

Fortunately for them, they won’t.

Is is sort of funny. They won’t get most of the content of the last 14 monthes, and it doesn’t even matter.

Tells you stories about the value of the stuff of the LS.

The problem is, that GW2 give you no feeling of progression.

1. We have an item grind for ascended stuff, but these items feel fairly useless, as they are not needed outside of high end fractals. So the vertical item progression actual feels like a time sink gated by ridiculous amounts of mats hidden after a time gate.

2. The LS offered very little story over a very long time. The story is not really connected to the personal story, so it felt out of place most of the time, or even worse, just a cover up for the same old same zerg content every now and then. Where are we now at the end of LS season 1? There has been another dragon, that has been slumbering and was awoken. That’s pretty much it, after 14 monthes of LS.

3. There has been very little content added to explore. The “territorial progression” in this game is abysmal. New dungeons? New zones? Forget about talking in plural, after over 18 monthes, we have had so little non-temporary MMO essentials added for people to stay entertained, it is fairly frustrating.
Instead ANet tries to force players back into old zones with their LS. I understand that the creaters of those zones must have been sad to see all those people burn through them, but hey, it was a design decision to go with 80 levels and split up the world, so this is not the players fault.

4. Character progression since the release? What did we get? Two new healing skills per profession, one which is the same for all. And now we get one new trait per traitline. Am I the only one who thinks that this is not very GWish? If you want to look differently, you have to buy most stuff with gems. No feeling of progression, just a cash grab.

I could write more, but I think you get the picture.

I miss old Orr. It was brutal and you had to pay attention to your surroundings.

The Orr we have right now is a watered down version already, if it get’s any easier it will feel like a starter zone all over again.

The megaserver thingy will fix the zone for you. All those people on one map will make it doable even if there is no skill involved.

Why does everything that is not doable with just clicking 1, 1 and 1 again gotta be nerfed. When did this mindset, that everything has to be super easy to be enjoyable became the norm in MMOs.

Pretty much gave up hope on what we get next week. The game is pretty stale since forever and unless they give us some real content, I am playing something else.

The new traits look less than promising for PvE, combined with the vigor nerf, Mesmers will be even worse in open world (at least for shatter specs).

The China release has just caused real content to be pushed back, and yeah, old stuff is boring (and don’t start with the LS crap)…

I do not think there is too much more challenging content in dungeons either.

I have no idea what “high end” or “raiding” guilds would do in GW2 anyway. Those old dungeons can’t be the challenge you are looking for. Running the same old fractals?
Speed clearing dungeons is just a symptom for PvEers being bored.

But yeah, Mesmer + Dugeon = Sword/Sword + Sword/x.

I think this game has long ago reached the point where everything is ok though.

hendo.1940:

< does not own a greatsword
< has never felt the need to use a greatsword
< does not intend on purchasing a greatsword
< has never been asked to use a greatsword by guildies

Besides the fact, that GS has no use in a dungeon group with people who know what they are doing, I think your approach towards the GS is not very representative for someone who is in a high level guild.

Unless you are doing nothing but dungeons, not owning a GS will limit you and make you less efficient in other aspects of the game. For me that sounds narrow minded.

Nothing personal, but I would rather play my other classes than running around with my mesmer in the open world only using swords…

Imbune.5497:

-Jumping puzzles (I can’t do them and generally stay away but I appreciate that they are there in the game immensely)
-Norn

You should never mention “Norn” and “jumping puzzles” in one and the same post…