Guild Wars 2

I don’t farm nearly enough to make the price of this worth it. I can get 25 Orichalcum Mining Picks for 1 gold, that’s 2,500 uses. More then enough to last me a long time. Also, drawing more attention to yourself in WvW while you’re gathering a node, is a bad idea.

danbuter.2314:

How are you guys getting the load screen shots without all of the other chars, etc showing up?

ctrl+shift+H

I wouldn’t say there’s minimal build diversity. It’s just that most of the builds we can make, aren’t really viable, at least in sPvP. In PvE, and partly WvW, you can make quite a few builds. Obviously, Guild Wars 1 wasn’t perfect, or ells there would be no reason for ArenaNet to change it.

It’s quite easy to make gold in Guild Wars 2, as long as you play the right content. Armor can be acquired for free with tokens, by playing dungeons, or bought with karma from vendors in Orr. But unless you need to change your build between direct damage, condition damage, or bunker, there’s really no reason to get new stats. A lot can be done simply by changing your skills or traits, which only costs 3s50c.

Just look at Guild Wars 1? What’s the point of that if the games aren’t the same? Some professions have less health, to make up for the skills and abilities that helps them survive. The Guardian, Thief, and Elementalist are the easiest professions to survive with, despite them having the lowest base health.

PvE is too easy, that’s no real secret. But in PvP, it it does very much matter how you use your skills. Also, I use combos all the time.

I wouldn’t say it’s totally gear depended. If your build is just a random combination of skills and stats, without any real structure, and you don’t know what other professions are capable of, you are going to lose. Just because WvW is a casual type of PvP, it doesn’t mean that’s how everyone is going to play it. Players are going to find the most optimal ways to kill you, and gang up on you whenever they get the chance. It’s a bit ignorant to think that WvW requires no skill or knowledge.

From wiki:
“Everytime you kill a monster you roll on a number of tables, inside these tables are different rarity categories. Magic find increases the chances you will get higher categories. For example, if there is a 1 in 10 category, and you have 200% magic find you will have 3/10 chances to get that category. This improves not just the rarity of the items you get, but can also improve your chances at getting trophies and rare crafting materials like lodestones.”

It sounds like a really bad way of balancing the game. It could be fun as a separate game-mode, though.

Primernova.5791:

There is nothing wrong with keeping almost everything the same. Some chars can be made more damaging, some can be made more tanky or healy. All should still have to avoid fire, obviously. That makes it really fun.

But tank and healer types, deserve their place. It brings order and we just love to help.

This is already how the game is..

All professions are able to deal burst damage in one way or another. Tanks are known as bunker builds. And the Elementalist, Guardian, and Engineer makes for fine healers. There are even runes and sigils that heals allies.

I think Sunrise looks the best, simply because the drawn image of the blade looks great. I don’t like the handle, though.

But overall the weapons are a bit too “asian MMO” looking for my taste. I would like to see more weapons on the line with The Flameseeker Prophecies, Kudzu, and Meteorlogicus, as they have some really nice detail, without being too flashy.

No one ells is interested in getting this set?

Rising Dusk.2408:

As I recall, the last patch made that armor set fully available from WvW, including the hat.

It’s not in WvW. You’re probably thinking about the Conquest Armor?

Well that’s just funny, I just made a similar topic. Great minds think alike :P

On the background of the Final Rest topic, I thought I’d bring up the question about the commando set. I’m mainly talking about the medium set. I remember after release, a lot of players where interested in getting it, especially the hat, but the full set still hasn’t showed up in PvE. At least, I’ve never seen anyone wear it. It has always been possible to get the coat and leggings of the commando armor in PvE, through the personal story. And in WvW, I’ve noticed that some lords also wear the hat. So why isn’t this full set available to PvE/WvW players yet?

Edit: Attached a picture of a lord with the Commando Hat.

I think you pretty much nailed it with your three key points. It very much feels like ArenaNet are working on a separate game, to what players are playing. Quickness is a great example, as it is something players complained about since launch, but it has only just been changed now. At this rate, stealth should be fixed sometime in october..

As for solutions:

1. Have a little more faith in your community, and let us take part in solving problems with balancing. Tell us what you’ve tried, and whether or not it worked. Just because the community doesn’t work at ArenaNet, it doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of thinking up solutions. A hundred ideas are better then ten.
2. Make various pillars to balance after. Having each profession play by its own rules, makes it very hard to balance them side by side. You need a system that allows you to separately measure the damage, control, support, or survivability of each profession, according to each professions capability. So for instance, in the survivability pillar, you include everything from base armor and blocks, to boons and condition removal, that gives a profession more survivability. This would allow you to effectively measure which profession needs more or less damage, control, support, or survivability, based on how you want that profession to play.
3. Grow a little courage to take bigger steps in your development, instead of being so cautious about making a single mistake. Experiment more, anticipate less.

Vayne.8563:

I agree with the first two, but there are so many people who solo MMOs it’s not funny. Well, maybe it is funny…but it’s true. A lot of people play MMOs without ever joining a guild or grouping with anyone.

I find that hard to believe. I’m not saying that you have to like talking to other players, just that you have to like playing alongside others. It’s pretty hard to avoid, especially in Guild Wars 2.

I would say you have to like three things, to like MMOs in general. Guild Wars 2 being no different:

1. The combat has to be fun to you, because that’s what you do in the game for 80% of the time. So that really has to be the drive.
2. You have to like progression. MMOs have always been about progression, whether that means getting one character the best stats gear, or leveling multiple characters and making them look cool.
3. Playing with other players has to be enjoyable to you. Not only because you’re just playing with other players, but also because you need them to complete some of the content in the game. After all, MMOs are multiplayer games.

But it sounds to me like you’re just giving up on the game, before you’ve even fully tried it. Also, if you’re having problems, then http://wiki.guildwars2.com/ is your friend.

I don’t understand why people go for legendaries, when some of the weapons that takes half the time to get, look just as good. Like; Wings of Dwayna, Mjolnir, The Anomaly, Jormag’s Breath, Mirage, and so on..

It’s a little oversimplified right now. I would love to see the top3 most played professions, for each player. Guild name would also be nice to see, so players don’t have to include it in their character names. WvW rankings need to be more interesting as well.

My sylvari Ranger, charr Mesmer, and soon to be sylvari Thief (with mixed culture armor):

The Rangers damage is balanced according to the pets damage. Also, the shortbow has very low direct damage, since it’s basically a condition weapon. Swoop on the greatsword has the highest direct damage, so try and see what kind of numbers you get with that.

As long as you have a choice I don’t see a problem. There’s nothing you can buy with laurels that you need to have.

The Secret World should had been a comic book series, with links to the internet for alternate reality games, because the only thing that’s good about it, are the stories. I followed the ARGs on the forums from the beginning, and it was a great way to advertise the game. But at the end of the day, Funcom just weren’t up to the challenge of making an MMO in 2012. The combat system is horribly boring, and the animations look outdated. If TSW had been released around 2008, it would probably have been huge, though.

Just like you have different movies, you have different games. If I want to be engaged in a game, I play a single player story driven game, like The Walking Dead. If I want to play a fun game, I might play a game like Portal 2 or Botanicula. But when I just want to relax, I play Guild Wars 2. It sounds to me like you just need a break.

MeveM.7913:

That’s all fine and dandy and I bet it works, but we’re playing Guild Wars 2, not “Swap Around Pets and Abilities Between Every Fight 2” If this is necessary for our class to work then they really need to implant easy sets to swap around to, such as the “`” key for weapon swapping. I don’t want to spend my dungeon swapping skills around, and that can only be done in a guild group, try finding a PuG that sits and lets you swap skills and pets around all the time. If what you say is necessary for our class to work, or as you say, “you’re doing it wrong” then no, we’re not doing it wrong, they designed the class wrong.

The Ranger works, the pet doesn’t always though. But my point is; there’s a way to be more or less efficient with what you got. You’re going to be traveling from one place to another anyway, so it’s not like you don’t have the time to switch. It takes less then 2 seconds, once you know the dungeon, and the tools you need. Playing inefficiently, isn’t going to change anything.

Vayne.8563:

I disagree. The fact is, what you’re hearing, that conversation IS the background. We know he’s a warrior dude. We know he’s Eir’s son. We know nothing about his history with romance or women (but nothing would surprise me about a Norn). His comments is the writer’s way of introducing that side of him. We haven’t been exposed to that side of him before because, understandably, he’s preoccupied with getting help and fighting. Only after the imminent danger is past does he return to this other matter. Also, perhaps trusting the character more now that we’ve fought beside him.

When authors are taught to write, they always say show, don’t tell. In this case, his dialogue shows us who he is, since we haven’t really seen him in any kind of normal situation.

You had another view of him in your mind, but what’s been done here isn’t unreasonable.

Everything that a character goes through, is a representation of who he or she is. Braham is not just a warrior. He is depicted as someone who isn’t afraid of facing other people. He talks to both Rytlock, Knut, and Eir, while standing up to them. At this point, he is presented as being somewhat over-confident, and not afraid to say, or follow through with, what’s on his mind. This isn’t something I’ve come up with, this is the tone of the conversations we have witnessed. That’s not to say he couldn’t be insecure about love, but he defiantly doesn’t come of as a shy character. Even something like this would had sounded a lot better:

-So who’s Ottilia?
-Ottilia? She’s…just a girl I grew up with. I’ve always looked after her, but she’s never really noticed me.
-Sounds like she means a lot to you.

This could also represent a sense of insecurity, but without going against what we’ve already been presented with.

Vadrillan.9185:

Very clever…
There is a longsword, it’s just shortened to “sword”; just as the Greatsword could be referred to as a two-handed sword.

That depends on which skin you pick :/

Your power and condition damage is pretty low, and you have no way of snaring your foes, meaning your pets won’t be hitting anything most of the time. Also, Sigil of Superior Accuracy doesn’t stack. But other then that, it looks good.

Vayne.8563:

Except that people who are good at one thing, or even great at one thing aren’t always good at other things.

I can make a great argument for a great warrior, who is emotionally not really experience, who’s shy around women, or who just has no experience. Hell, I know people like this in real life. They just never got the opposite sex. Experience didn’t favor them.

It’s really not that implausible. Not to me anyway.

I understand that. But you have to write in relation to the story. In the words of Tom Clancy; The difference between fiction and reality, is that fiction has to make sense. So when you got this great warrior who’s the son of Eir, and who has slain a ton of monsters, this awkward conversation comes off as being out of character. Because there is no background depicted for Braham, that leads us to think, that this sudden shyness is normal for him. Everything up to that moment has lead us to think, that this is a strong character, who doesn’t fear anything.

I have no problem playing dungeons. You just have to be aware of pet control, plus proper pet and skill switching. If you’re running the same skills and pets, all they way through a fractals run, you’re doing it wrong.

This is what I normally run with: Bear/Bear – Healing Spring, Signet of Stone, “Search and Rescue”, Quickening Zephyr, Spirit of Nature – Spotter, Nature’s Bounty, Trapper’s Defense.

Playing against a boss that drops a lot of AoE, I switch to Devourer pets. Playing against a lot of condition damage, I switch to Signet of the Wild, Signet of Renewal, and Brown Bear. Playing against multiple mobs, I switch to Flame Trap, Entangle, and Carrion Devourer/River Drake. Playing against a boss that isn’t a threat, I switch to Frost Spirit, “Sick ’Em”, Rampage As One, and River Drake/Jungle Stalker. Playing against a moving boss, I switch to Signet of the Hunt, Frost Trap, and Polar Bear/Snow Leopard. And so on…

However, the best thing about a Ranger, is that your pet can function as a sixth player. So if two or more allies are downed, you send your pet to attack the boss (using “Guard” or activating Signet of Stone). This gives your team a window of opportunity, in which you can revive the downed allies. Or, if one ally is downed, you an use “Search and Rescue” to send the pet over to revive him, and then follow up with Quickening Zephyr for a faster revive. And if both you and your pet are reviving, while you activate Quickening Zephyr, you become the fastest reviver in your party. This is the best part about having a Ranger on your team.

Emmet.2943:

You liked the teen drama story of who can act the least mature in a situation that needs maturity, thought, and the ability to not waste time on stupid arguments(excluding Eir and Caithe the only 2 that actually had a level head and tried to get things done making them believable as leaders of their society). High school and middle school must of been a blast for you. Eir and Caithe were like the teachers trying to get the students to shut up and listen so they might actually get things done.

Are you trying to say that grownups can’t be stubborn or ignorant? Because you are greatly mistaken then. Destiny’s Edge aren’t exactly mad at each other over “who gets to go to the prom”. Someone died that shouldn’t had died. People in the real world get separated over less then that..

On topic: I was actually really starting to like the Flame & Frost story. Braham is pictured to be this tough norn, who’s the son of Eir, which fits for most of his story. But then at the end of his story, when you talk to Braham, he suddenly acts like a 10 year old boy, when he gets asked about a girl:

-So…who’s Ottilia?
-Ottilia? Who’s Ottilia? Well, she lives in Cragstead, and she’s… kind of beautiful. I mean sweet. She’s nice. Okay?
-Sounds like you’re sweet on her. Talk to you later.

I really don’t understand who the writers have in mind, when they write this? There was a topic a while back, where players could write their age, and the majority of people who wrote in that topic were over 25 years old. This sentence sounds like it was written to an audience of 8-12 year olds. Why couldn’t they have written something on the lines of this:

-Who’s Ottilia?
-Ottilia? She’s the girl I grew up with. We’ve always been close. I asked her father permission to marry her, but…he said I wasn’t worthy yet. Maybe now I can prove to him, that I am. If they are still alive..
-I am sure they are. We will find them.

The term Ranger, as is known in fantasy books and games, was first created in the French and Indian War, by a man named Robert Rogers. He created a company that came to be known as the Rogers Rangers; “a rapidly deployable light infantry force tasked mainly with reconnaissance, as well as conducting special operations, against distant targets”. Robert Rogers was inspired by indian warfare, and used his knowledge of nature to survive, while traveling across long distances. Unlike other soldiers at that time, he change his company’s uniform to dark green and browns, to better blend in with the forest. He also used a musket with a cut down barrel, to allow for better movement in between trees.

You can read more about Robert Rogers and his company here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rogers_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers'_Rangers

Or just watch this 6 part video (it really starts of at part 3): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvspXmia6bQ

Khrysaor, the Golden Sword is my favorite greatsword skin. But Kymswarden and Skybringer also look really good.

If you hit with your River Drakes F2 skill and Rapid Fire, at the same time, your damage is godly, yes. However, if your opponent is running around, avoiding your pets damage, and he just dodged most of your Rapid Fire attack, your dps becomes ridiculously low.

Eir’s wolf is giant, I’m not sure how you think that’s a normal size wolf? The bears are really off, though. Polar and brown bears are almost twice as big as black bears.

They could also increase the range of the throw, so it has a higher chance of hitting. Or just remove the activation time, so it’s an instant cast.

The sword is the Rangers best weapon, because it has cripple on auto attack, which allows your pet to hit consistently. If you use any of the other weapons, you have to rely on pet, survival, or traps skills, to snare your foe. Unless you only play PvE, in which case you can pretty much do whatever you want.

Wow, nicely done. It would have been perfect if you also had a River Drake using it’s F2 skill. I will remember this move.

Arekai.5698:

You forget that people who defend ranger are the ones who post into those kinda threads, so the 100 other people who would actually tell you to not do it just ignore this thread.

You will regret it after you get your exotic gear that you wasted those many hours for leveling and grinding dungeons.
Switch to a real class. Ranger is something you keep for farming ori nodes or something like that.

No one here is “defending” the Ranger, people are simply just expressing there experience with the profession.

If you enjoyed the hours you spend, it was not wasted. Just because something stops being fun, it doesn’t mean that you were somehow deluded, before you came to that conclusion.

Burnfall.9573:

Delusion- which defines as belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary. The Superiority Evidence is obviously the recent patch we received on March 26, 2013.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-March-26-2013/first#post1709376

If you want to Delude yourself into thinking this class is Worthy, than all Reality to you.

It’s just a game, relax. I could understand your frustration if you were preparing for an upcoming eSport tournament. But at this point, the game can only be played for fun. The Ranger has its problems, yes, but it’s not like there’s a huge gap between the Ranger and the other professions. People play the Ranger in tPvP and high level fractals, and do just fine.

Don’t worry so much about what others say, make your own judgment. If you enjoy something, it can never really be a waste of your time.

It’s not that the Ranger is ridiculously underpowered, it just feels a bit “off” when you play, compared to other professions. Damage output feels a bit lower, your utility skills and traits seem like they could do more, and your pet can feel slow and unresponsive. But it’s not like you can’t kill anything. I like to say that the Ranger is viable, but not reliable.

I find the aesthetic of the Ranger a lot more appealing then the other professions, and for that reason alone, I will keep coming back to the Ranger. The Ranger is not that bad, it’s just that it centers around a profession ability that relies a lot on AI, and that the majority of traits are bad.

Also; the Thief can be very strong in groups, with the right build. You can share your venoms with allies, revive allies in stealth while regenerating their health, give fury, might, vigor and swiftness to allies when you steal, and set up poison and smoke combo fields.

It seems a bit silly that you spend all that time just dodging (allowing your foe’s healing skill to recharge), when you would get much better results by simply using Entangle or traps, to hold your foe in place. It’s also a bit of a shame that you don’t use your sword to lock down your foe, when they try to escape. Also, since you either only use the sword to run away, or the shortbow to chase, the warhorns swiftness would help you a lot more then a dagger.

I totally disagree with Mesmer having bad condition removal, people need to look at their mantras.

The only thing the Mesmer can’t do, is traveling and having pets. Burst, bunker, support, boon control, crowd control, underwater combat, stealth/deception, invulnerability, interrupts, healing, the Mesmer is capable of doing it all.

Assuming you’re playing WvW, you need snare skills for your pet to hit, there’s really no way around it. Just equip Muddy Terrain and Entangle, and get Agility Training (pets move 30% faster). That should pretty much do it. If you’re playing a sylvari, then get Grasping Roots instead of Muddy Terrain.

Ragnar.4257:

The whole point of the abilities is that they should be under-whelming. If they actually made a significant difference to your efficiency, then people would be forced into grinding out max rank on a single character asap, and players coming late to WvW would be completely kitten
As it is, they’re a nice little boost, but not neccesary. Which means if you want to play alts, don’t want to zerg-ride for 8 hours a day to keep up, or are simply new, then you can still play without feeling useless.

Please stop applying grind to everything. Just because something is desirable to get, it doesn’t mean that it automatically becomes a grind. If you make a new feature that has no impact on the game, it means that it’s not worth considering when you’re playing. And if you’re just mostly ignoring the new feature, then what’s the value in adding it to the game in the first place?

I’m not asking for a skill that gives you 50% more damage. Just give us the ability to carry 10 more supply, with each 1 supply costing 15 WXP. Add a skill that give players the ability to cast Swirling Winds (with a 60 seconds recharge) on siege weapons, costing 50 WXP. Add a skill that increases swiftness duration on allies by 10%, costing 25 WXP. And so on.. 300 points for the ability to carry 5 more supply? It’s just silly.

http://tinyurl.com/d4aowt7 This is the build I’m currently playing. Basically; snare foes with vines, activate Signet of the Wild, switch to greatsword for boons, and use the F2 skill from the River Drake. The build shares my boons with the pet, so it will get all my regeneration, might, and fury. The Forest Spider is just for ranged attacks, with the poison helping to prevent foes from healing.

The build works because a lot of players don’t realize they have vines on them, until they are downed. It works especially well on professions that doesn’t have any real condition removal, like other Rangers..

I really don’t like the Ranger in PvP that much, though. It makes it feel like a very limited profession, as we are pretty much forced to use snare skills, so our pets can hit.

Gibson.4036:

Started reading this thread, ready to post a link to the Super Staff when I got to the end.

Only to find Kasama beat me to it.

The image is fine, but you have to preview it wielded in game to really see it.

Sorry xD. But yes, it has to be seen in the game. The only downside to it, is if you’re a charr. Because charr holds their staffs down to the ground, when they stand still, instead of upright as everyone ells. So the bird will have it’s head down in the ground, whenever you stand still. I really hate that standing animation.. -.-

In addition to what Hjorje said, it’s also not possible to stack “stat bonus” sigils. So adding Sigil of Accuracy to both your main and off-hand weapon, will still only give you +5% critical chance. You can read more about sigil rules here; http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil

Mesmer has the best staff skills in the game, so I wouldn’t change it just because the skins aren’t that exciting. The new Super staff skin is awesome, though; http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/gw2-pvp-super-staff-2.jpg (the bird actually moves!)

Unfortunately, it also comes with some downsides. There is now much more lag, when a lot of players are running together. And because it is now possible to see all players, it’s a lot more effective to run in one or two large zergs, instead of small groups. Before, it wasn’t always possible to see if you outnumbered your foes, so there was a certain risk to attacking a group. But now that risk is gone.

I understand that the skills need to be balanced for a large group of people, but I still feel like all the skill effects are underwhelming. I mean, 300 points for the ability to carry only 5 more supplies, and 200 points for the ability to carry only 4 more? It makes the skill system completely forgettable. I was hoping to get something that had a bigger impact on the game. This whole “we don’t want to take too big balancing steps” idea, is getting old. You’re going to make mistakes ArenaNet, and that is a good thing! It’s the only way we can learn, and grow to become better. So stop being so scared of making an impact on the game!

Yes, it should had been done sooner. The rate of which things get changed in this game, is what really worries me. It feels like ArenaNet are 3 months behind the community, when it comes to balancing.