Guild Wars 2

tobascodagama.2961:

Methal.9045:

Depends on your class. I find all encounters like this to be 9,000x easier when doing them with my Ranger than with my Warrior, and 9,000x easier on the warrior than they are on the Thief.

Yes, some classes are inherently disadvantaged in certain PvE encounters, and it kind of sucks. Many of the same complaints were leveled at Living World Season 2, for that matter, where a lot of fights that were trivial on classes with a ton of inherent defenses were almost impossible to solo for classes without those advantages. While I’m fine with the open world content being difficult and requiring a group (even the Champion hero challenges), story content absolutely should be soloable on any class.

Everything is soloable on every class for story content. The amount of unavoidable damage is low enough that even a zerker thief/mesmer can easily survive if they actually utilize the rest of their kit and don’t expect to steamroll the content. source: me

It’s interesting that you say that, considering I was able to kill it in the first attempt in probably 30 minutes.

Maybe the issue is that you’e grown accustomed to mobs falling over at your feet the moment you try to swing your sword. I guess Mordremoth just isn’t into that whole idea.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

You people are telling me that you finished the whole kitten story in just 3 days?

Ugh

Would have been in 24 without the mastery gating. Play how you want, not how some condescending forum poster thinks you should.

The fight was a good fight when considered separately from the plot. The overall instance was very disappointing though. It wasn’t an epic conclusion at all. It’s an exact reverse of the Zhaitan situation, where the fight was kittened but the atmosphere was incredible. Also, apparently Zhaitan’s “weakness” is fairy dust? It would be nice to preserve some continuity and elaborate on that.

Also, the ending itself was super sudden and rushed. There was no closure for anyone, and it just abruptly ended. Like, gratz you win, here’s a 5 second cutscene and you’re back at the entrance of the zone. What happened to Logan and Zojja? What were everyone’s thoughts of killing Mordremoth? Trahearne? Glints egg? Anything? We should have really had some sort of cooldown instance like with Zhaitan.

The maps have a lot of depth to them, so each one is equivalent to probably two medium-large vanilla maps. The two smaller maps are Guild Halls.

Funny, I one shot it as zerker.

Not really. The boss fight is in its own contained area and the way the plot is structured it’s kind of impossible to spoil it in the zone.

Berserker is a cheap gimmick, really.

Reflects the quality of the trait line.

No one plays Berserker anyway, shouldn’t be an issue long term once all the 1% of warriors who swapped go back.

Kalan.9705:

Having Zero elites and instead 2-3 entirely new character classes would have been massively superior.

The gw2 community ladies and gentlemen. Advocating 2-3 additional classes as a viable expansion feature.

Caithe confirmed dead in HoT.

SpookyPoo.8135:

The other elephant-in-the-room is adrenaline loss.

Currently adrenaline seems designed as a “use-it-or-lose-it” resource.
In a way, the warrior gets punished for smart play, eg kiting.

If the adrenaline loss was reverted to what it used to be, it would allow more tactical play and make the warrior a bit less one-dimensional.

It would be nice if baseline adrenaline was 1 bar, and over time any loss or gain gravitates to that.
This way, a baseline one bar adrenaline, allows use of F1 off the bat – bringing the Warrior special ability in line with the other professions (even IP is baseline now).

Adrenaline loss is a big issue for Berserker viability in open world PvE. Mobs die too fast to even get a full 3 bars of adrenaline, so you normally need to use your burst at ~2 bars, and you completely waste all the benefits you might get from Berserk mode.

People need to stop basing trait balance off of “it’s too OP for an adept/master trait” or “it’s too UP for a gm trait.” Those distinctions literally do not exist anymore.

Valento.9852:

kReign.3518:

You don’t need to only do one role. I have felt pretty good about a berserker/cleric mix and throwing out heals while also doing boons and damage. Plus the control with most of our weapon sets.

Shh… don’t tell people you can mix ‘n match stats, they’re grab their torches and pitchforks! :0

The issue is that mixing and matching stats is pointless and inefficient. People have the mistaken belief that if you play anything except for full damage, you should run a different stat type. They are wrong.

Celtic.1962:

The enrage timer doesn’t bother me. What would bother is if my group got a boss down to 2%, and enrage killed us because we couldn’t crank out x amount of dps in time. So I really think the timer should be doubled? tripled? Then get gold, silver ,bronze depending on the time you killed the boss, and the loot is then scaled up or down.

To me, the “raid experience” should be about conquering these challenges, overcoming the mechanics as a group, not doing it on a timer.

In other words, you’re mad that you might wipe and you want ArenaNet to overhaul their raid system to accommodate for your lack of skill and stubborn refusal to adapt. Got it.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Malthurius.6870:

All that matters is that the raid itself knows what’s going on; raiding isn’t meant to be a spectator sport. My group fighting the vale guardian had no problem recognizing mechanics and AE during the fight.

That’s the problem. Watching the videos, the effects were so bright and huge that I couldn’t see the circles many times. I’m hoping that it is because the players didn’t turn down LoD and post processing, but if that is what it looks like even after reductions, then I am not looking forward to raids.

No, that’s not a problem. He literally said that you can’t judge a raid’s mechanical clarity based on a video or viewing it alone. Raids are chaotic and a clusterkitten if you’re not familiar with the mechanics or not actually involved in the fight, so the only real conclusions you can make are those you reach after actually playing the content.

Blood Reckoning is the reason you’re not slotting 5 rage skills? Not the worthless reflect or knockback?

Celestial gear doesn’t do nearly enough damage from what we’ve seen so far. You’re better off going full damage or some double damage+defensive hybrid like Zealot or Valkyrie if you want to contribute the most possible. Haven’t seen any evidence of full Nomad/Sentinel or even Soldier (assuming you have heals/support) either yet, but obviously all of my conclusions are based from literally only a few attempts at one fight.

Only in GW2 is this even a discussion.

Quarktastic.1027:

Sykper.6583:

Couple thoughts:

- An NPC that you need to support/heal that provides a certain buff to your raid or debuff to the encounter boss to make the fight successful. No. Placing the fate of your group in the hands of an NPC which you have no direct control over is a stupid idea. (See, AC path 3)

- The bomb mechanic from the first boss (where you have to damage split by standing in it, or everyone takes a nuke lol) is a solid way, it can also be blocked too so that’s a really nice mechanic.

- Retaliation on a mob that also negates (or more menacingly, reflects condition damage) during a few phases in the fight is another method, that can be controlled by players simply waiting for self-healing, but Enrage Timers do exist in raids and they might have to keep doing damage to make it.

It’s kind of hard creating mechanics for healing, we should make a thread dedicated to ideas around it. Maybe even put ideas on mechanics on Crowd Control and Damage Soak.

I’ve always hated traditional MMO raid mechanics, and I’m sad to see them weaseling their way into GW2. There has to be a way to create truly challenging PvE content without including things like enrage timers and unavoidable damage.

There are plenty of ways to do that, like with a soft enrage or damage requirements for phase shifting. The only problem is that they probably would make the content even more exclusive (see: harder) and have even stricter build requirements.

Sorry but your little unicorn doesn’t exist so long as ArenaNet panders to their typical demographic.

Ahratan.1098:

I think the new class icons for the new specs add unnecessary confusion. I

That’s cool. I think it adds much needed build clarity from a glance.

Testudo.4620:

Larynx.2453:

It is removing skill play

Yeah, as we all know the old meta was very skillful and deep.

rip learning to dodge?

rip trivial content

It is removing skill play

Yeah, as we all know the old meta was very skillful and deep.

Windsagio.1340:

Now I’m gonna have to derail again some.

This isn’t a legitimate “meta”. It’s one of the worst misusages of a term in MMO discussion.

It’s not competitive
It’s not required to be successful

It’s a preferred style for optimization.

These things are very different!

(Yes I will man the walls of linguistic purity until the last brick is torn away)

See also: Viability

Cleric mace/axe warrior is viable for 5-man dungeons.

Kill.3458:

Tuomir.1830:

Don’t forget the Berserker.

That actually sounds like a Tank like use of taunt xD

Zerker tanks confirmed for HoT. Survivability will be addressed in the form of beating your foe senselessly until it submits.

Shoe.5821:

1.) the devs have heavily implied that dodging all damage wont be possible

2.) toughness synergizes with healing, particularly healing by a healer build

It’s also worth mentioning that since we live in a zero-sum world, vitality scales very well with healing, assuming we start seeing very large healing output like what would be present WoW.

online.1278:

choovanski.5462:

it’s an old wvw build. nice too see it getting use. still prefer sw/sh hammer, but whatever’s floats your boat.

Radioactive Crysis brought this build into sPvP. 100% sure.

GS+Axe/Shield was literally the first viable meta build for warrior in sPvP. It’s as old as BWE1.

I don’t know about now, but in in the past it did literally less DPS than the axe autoattack below some large threshold of targets (I think 5?), so it wasn’t ever worth casting, not to mention even bringing in the first place. Offhand sword offers better damage, Shield offers better defensives. I think they buffed it by 50% a while ago, so people probably just don’t bring it now because axe has fallen out of the meta (haven’t played for a while, just assuming), and similarly because the other options are just as good or better anyways.

You still need to buy the expansion for xpac content. Core game accounts without the xpac are in a weird limbo right now with HoT, since they have access to all paid features, but not expansion content. New accounts are upgraded straight up HoT for buying the game.

Muchacho.2390:

Larynx.2453:

All professions use magic, even warrior. Warrior’s magic used to just have less flair and be more about self-augmentation. Now we shoot fireballs and conjure rocks like the rest.

No engies dont use magic. It is true for the rest though.

Elixirs are typically magical in nature. They use magic as a core part of their progression, even if they aren’t infusing their potions or casting spells themselves.

But that’s a technicality. You’re right.

Astralporing.1957:

Larynx.2453:

The only reason zerker is meta is because ArenaNet is inclusive and not enforcing any requirements.

If they will be enforcing any requirements, it will be towards zerker, not away from it. They have said many times already that they don’t consider zerker meta a problem, quite the opposite, they think it’s a gear for more skilled players (you know, the “greater risk, greater reward” case). And you know what kind of players the raids are made for? Hint: not the unskilled ones.

That’s neat speculation.

Cameirus.8407:

EverythingXen.1835:

.

Keep. Them. Out.
(so much for inclusive raiding)

Yeah.
I have to ask did any of the devs actually see that manifesto video?

This seams to go totally against what GW2 was supposed to be.

Anet hasn’t stuck to the manifesto since beta anyways.

The number one thing that would determine if raids necessitate zerker gear are the mechanics of the bosses. As we know nothing about the bosses, nothing can therefore be said about the gear requirements either.

The only reason zerker is meta is because ArenaNet is inclusive and not enforcing any requirements. When the content can be completed by anything and there’s no sense of progression or performance, the only difference between Group A and Group B is that Group A killed the boss 20 seconds quicker. That’s the logical conclusion. If ArenaNet actually implements raiding and not ArenaNet brand raiding, a berserker exclusive metagame is unlikely. More simply, for dungeons and fractals the question isn’t if the content will be completed, it’s when. For proper raids, it’s an if. That’s why no one cares about encounter times on most bosses in other MMOs. Literally killing the boss before other people do is the achievement, and for some, it’s just literally killing the boss at all.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

I think you have Raid and Wing down pretty well.

My reasoning is that the first raid is going to launch with one Wing, and then get another 2(?) down the road at some point.

It’s not uncommon to how Blizzard handles raid releases. Many raids are intentionally gated, and most multi-raid tiers are done this way as well. This is not very different from the industry norm, actually. I don’t think much can be taken from it.

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/wowwiki/images/d/d0/InstanceMap-Naxxramas5.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090325214029

This is a picture of a raid from WoW called Naxxramas. Raids are larger scale, difficult instanced areas. They’re usually not meant to be completed in one session, and can take months to progress through. Each boss acts as a check point and measure of this progression, each boss fight lasts anywhere from 5-15 minutes (and in the past, boss fights could go on for far longer than that) and can individually take hours, to days, to weeks to ultimately kill. To kill all the bosses in the raid means to clear the raid.

A wing of a raid is simply a quartered off section of a raid. In WoW, this simply means you have a non-linear progression to the ultimate end boss. In this image, you have four literal quarters. Each shaded area is a boss. Here is a zoomed in image of one of the wings from Naxxramas:
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/wowwiki/images/e/eb/InstanceMap-Naxxramas4.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090225194055

Killing all the bosses in the wings in Naxxramas unlocks the final two bosses, which are located from a teleporter at the center of the raid. Your path to the final two bosses, however, is mostly nonlinear. You have four progression paths to take, and can stop any path at any time to begin a different one. Usually, each quarter has a final mini-end boss that has better loot and is more difficult than the previous bosses. The difficulty/loot curve therefore looks something like:

Standard Bosses -> Penultimate/Final quarter bosses -> Last boss

In other words, the further into a raid you get, the harder it becomes. Many bosses can also be further categorized, but I doubt this is relevant for GW2.

Attunements are a process of accessing a raid. Typically, this involves completing previous content (such as the previous raid) or current, lower difficulty content (such as a dungeon added at the same time as that raid). To be attuned to a raid means to be able to enter it. It’s usually a one time quest or process that does not need to be repeated.

Nephrite.6954:

Balsco.3682:

Warriors in GW2 have always used magic, the typical Orrian citizen used magic (to a much higher degree since their proximity to the gods granted them immense magical power) for self-augmentation, fishermen would carry cargo that would break bulls for example, merchants would levitate their goods to put them on display, every single class in the game uses magic.

Still doesn’t explain how he summons a rock.

With magic. Amazing.

All professions use magic, even warrior. Warrior’s magic used to just have less flair and be more about self-augmentation. Now we shoot fireballs and conjure rocks like the rest.

YOUNGaz.5690:

Yeah i heard about this mysterious man they hired. Supposedly he’s like one of the best in the business for that sort of thing. I’m not expecting it to be complete garbage or anything but yeah, I’m guessing that the 2nd and 3rd ones will be a lot better than the first.

Let’s hope it’s up to Molten Core’s triple A standard of quality then.

This will be how they’ll sneak in a culinary application for Bloodstone dust into GW2.

Introduce agony gating to raids.
Bloodstone dust + cooking = agony resist food

“But guys, there’s no gear requirement!”

Distaste.4801:

Zalladi.4652:

They had hired a new raid designer for creating this content (I presume the position was filled), and I don’t think we have seen what their new employee is capable of producing just yet. So I wouldn’t compare it to content created by other developers.

The problem is that their base systems limit them immensely. The lack of tank and healers reduces what they can do with a raid. The huge variance in health limits it as well, you can’t have a boss putting out a 20k hit if some classes struggle to get 18k hp. Gear level limits them, are they designing for ascended gear because that sort of ruins the whole “ascended isn’t required”. The horrible class balance will mean that certain builds will find it easy and others will find it absolutely impossible.

I really hope they can do something challenging and unique, but I’m afraid it will just be full of gimmicks(Swap weapon or die, dodge the raid wipe or die) and the beserker meta will reign supreme. I certainly don’t expect any of this to be a real challenge like FFXIV savage stuff, ArenaNet just does not have the balance team to tune things that tightly.

Another issue I see limiting raid mechanics is ArenaNet’s all-inclusive philosophy with their game. GW2 can have different health pools, etc like you said, but unless they specifically design a mechanic around a certain class or set of classes (warrior/necro to soak etc) or buckle down a bit and actually straight up change how they balance classes I don’t see the raid design to even remotely approach the industry standard, and it’ll end up being yet more half-baked promises and potential.

A lack of healers/tanks doesn’t preclude the possibility of having interesting and difficult content; it just makes it harder to design and diversify that content. You can actually take a note from a few WoW bosses for mechanics that could be ported directly into GW2 with no complications (eg. Garrosh’s phase 4), but sadly I don’t really see any evidence that ArenaNet will be able to pull it off. The #1 issue ArenaNet have with PvE is making the group synergy matter over the individual, and that’s kind of the hallmark of most raid bosses. Their two world bosses are okay first attempts, but fundamentally they’re still world bosses and balanced so that anyone can join in, low leveled, bad, organized, or otherwise, so they’re not really comparable to true raid bosses. Most of those mechanics would be really contrived or just not work very well outside the 100+ man format they have.

So, to put it simply ArenaNet has a terrible track record when it comes to small scale PvE in GW2.

Let’s hope we get less of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OamhniesRfg
And more of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSeVCw3hVgQ

Dreggon.6598:

Larynx.2453:

Dreggon.6598:

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

There is an lfg tool to fill the gaps. Problem solved.

No, if i have 11 people they can’t all play together.

Then act like adults and rotate people out?

Why should we do that?

I’m actually having a hard time understanding this question. Maybe the content just isn’t made for your playstyle, and you shouldn’t play it.

Party bound support works for WvW, and it worked for WoW. It can work for raids in GW2 too.

Dreggon.6598:

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

There is an lfg tool to fill the gaps. Problem solved.

No, if i have 11 people they can’t all play together.

Then act like adults and rotate people out?

Gw2 is the candy crush of MMOs. The only constraints in PvE are those you arbitrarily set for yourself. Everything is viable, because there’s no basis to compare each class against in the first place.

Some classes just do content more efficiently or quicker than others, same with builds. There’s nothing preventing mr. cleric axe necro from completing content, the game is too easy for that.

Mesmer is viable in open world outside mob tagging as long as you play Shatter+Zerker. Mirror Blade+Mind Wrack combos are AoE and will outright kill most packs of mobs instantly.

Mesmer is bad when it comes to high AoE damage, sustained fights because their PvE dps is reliant on phantasms, and those phantasms will die very frequently. Other than that, mesmer is perfectly fine and equivalent or better than some other alternatives. The only issue is that it’s much less forgiving to play compared to professions like warrior or guardian, and it requires better execution and skill than a profession like ranger (1+2 spam at 2k range) or ele (1+2+5 spam at 1.2k range). If you don’t care about actually playing optimally cause this is GW2 after all, you could just semi-afk autoattack at 1.2k range with a GS, but you get a lot less out of that than others.

To more directly answer your question:
“Is it just me, or is mesmer still not as strong as other classes when it comes to open world pve? "

Mesmer is as strong as other classes, it’s just harder to play than some of them. If you dislike this, then I recommend you swap to something different.

krixis.9538:

heres my warrior. never been a fan of the legendary GS so use volcanus as its a very fitting weapon for this armour set

This is the set+weapon combo I and every other warrior will be using from now on for Berserker.

For PvE?

Strength/Arms/Berserker probably. Defense is useless in PvE, and Discipline has mostly PvP benefits (Warriors Sprint, DotE/BR, and the adapt+GM minors). The only thing you get out of Discipline is 5s weapon swap and Heightened Focus.

For a more generic build that doesn’t focus on DPS, I’d swap Arms -> Discipline purely for the utility. 25% movement speed+immunity to immobs and the very low risk, on demand condi clear is very nice for world content. Defense is complete overkill, no mobs apply that much damage or condis to necessitate things like Defy Pain or CI.

edit: For PvP and WvW I’m still undecided. Def/Disc are so good and required. Not taking Strength is around a 35-40% damage decrease though. I could see some glass builds without Def work for WvW, but sPvP I’m not sure.

Berserker would lose a massive amount of its value if primal skills shared CDs with themselves or with normal burst skills.