Also, in the video clones look smart enough to run to and attack two different targets.
Duckduck is right there is clearly a cast time on mirror and the shatter in the video.
IIRC Mirror Images usually spawn to the side of you and shift you a bit.
inb4 mesmer and F5 gets nerfed to the ground because OMG SO OP IN PVP QQ.
There’s a fix scheduled for this but it is too early for a “soon”… Need another week before another round of “soon” starts going out.
Is this the treatment we can expect in HoT for challenging group content? Please let us know, so we can give you feedback with our wallets!
I already voted by stopping doing daily fractals – the last thing that felt CHALLENGING and fulfilling in GW2 – and ignoring the endless SW/DT zerg grind, now for beta keys. Now I have more reasons not to play the game.
Are you kidding me? As someone who mains a Mesmer in PvE, I’d take Fragility over Empowered Illusions any day of the kitten week. A flat 10% increase in damage is galaxies and universes beyond a 15% increase in Phantasm damage in PvE.
What’s the point of taking +10% to 40% of your damage (you) rather than +15% to 60% of your damage? “Deal more damage” stuff never applied to illusions.
The phantasm recharge on shatter trait is something like -5 or -10 seconds, not -2%. Throughout that part of the livestream, it’s pretty clear that ‘2%’ is either some sort of text error or placeholder text.
Or it is indeed as useful as +1000 healing power despite the developers being so excited about it.
But why go Illusions to begin with? Right now, it would be fore Illusionists Celerity and Phantasmal Haste. But there is no Phantasm related gm trait in Illusions. I’d rather see some traits rearranged there.
So here’s a place to put that +15% trait.
I suggest redesigning the trait lines so that they allow players to choose adept/master traits in higher tiers instead of the GM/master traits which are still subpar in certain scenarios.
Here’s a concept of the UI. The minor traits have all been moved to the side since there’s no point in maintaining their “tiers” apart from making it look pretty (and having more linear unlocks?).
Interesting, I just posted a similar suggestion in the mesmer subforum XD
Empowered Illusions is totally out of place in the Domination line.
Please consider moving it to Illusions or Inspiration lines.
- Can be merged with Illusionary Inspiration in Inspiration. It’s fine since you either shatter and get shatter buffs, or do not shatter and get the phantasm buff. It may even be something like “Illusions deal more damage while Mind Wrack is not on CD” to separate the playstyles.
- Can be merged with Compounding Power – damage modifiers for both sides, mesmer and illsuions. You might say “OP”, but really, how OP are phantasm builds now? =_=
- Can be merged with Persistence of Memory since no one is going to ever take this trait to get that WHOPPING OP -2% DECREASE IN CD on shatter anyway.
- Can be merged with Mind Wrack. Same as Illusionary Inspiration – it’s fine since you either shatter and get the bonus, or do not shatter and get the phantasm buff.
That way, PvE mesmers will be able to happily trait into Dueling, Illusions and Inspiration for better phantasm (+reflect) builds. This can also open options for PvP phantasm builds (which can’t be worse than turret engies, right?).
Empowered Illusions is totally out of place in the Domination line.
Please consider moving it to Illusions or Inspiration lines.
- Can be merged with Illusionary Inspiration in Inspiration. It’s fine since you either shatter and get shatter buffs, or do not shatter and get the phantasm buff. It may even be something like “Illusions deal more damage while Mind Wrack is not on CD” to separate the playstyles.
- Can be merged with Compounding Power – damage modifiers for both sides, mesmer and illsuions. You might say “OP”, but really, how OP are phantasm builds now? =_=
- Can be merged with Persistence of Memory since no one is going to ever take this trait to get that WHOPPING OP -2% DECREASE IN CD on shatter anyway.
- Can be merged with Mind Wrack. Same as Illusionary Inspiration – it’s fine since you either shatter and get the bonus, or do not shatter and get the phantasm buff.
That way, PvE mesmers will be able to happily trait into Dueling, Illusions and Inspiration for better phantasm (+reflect) builds. This can also open options for PvP phantasm builds (which can’t be worse than turret engies, right?).
(edited by Lishtenbird.2814)
NO because:
PvE
- Reason 1: a decent mesmer in PvE starts with phantasm – weapon swap – phantasm – healing signet – phantasm. Here you go, 3 phantasms. Any dodge will now remove a valuable phantasm, while you still need dodges overwriting illusions (including phantasms) in PvP builds.
- Reason 2: aggro management. Stray illusions are awful in PvE – it is really annoying to play in a party with a DE mesmer when mobs suddenly get interested in that shiny butterfly clone (and my guild does have bad mesmers so I can tell).
If anything, Illusionary Invigoration could be baseline (instead of getting removed).
Definitely this subforum never steps into PvE. DE should never be baseline because it’s awful for PvE – both destroys phantasms and leaves stray illusion which mess up with aggro management. It is really annoying to play in a party with a DE mesmer (oh, my guild does have bad mesmers…).
If anything, Illusionary Invigoration could be baseline.
The new system is MUCH different from the current system and we haven’t gotten a chance to feel it out and see how it will end up.
All the OP’s examples are centered around the way the current system and traits work, but the new systems function and trait details are getting totally overhauled.
You can’t make a valid arguement against apples by complaining about oranges.
You can, however, compare good fresh apples to overbaked cinnamon apples.
(Veteran) Players have this idea that more options, in videogames, makes them intrinsically better. Well, that’s not exactly how it works. Games have proved once and once again that offering a massive amount of “customisation options” only leads to a graveyard/ pile of filler. It makes any game a lot less user-friendly, and it adds a lot of clutter, for no meaningful gain.
It’s not by chance that game design has been evolving out of this. It’s not because players are “stupid”. It’s because focusing on quality over quantity pays off.
A highly customisation system that only allows for 1-2 virtually optimal builds gives the illusion of something that is not, and has a high barrier of entry for the sake of something that does not happens (diversity).
A lesser customisation system that, in theory, can allow for as many virtually optiomal builds, if not more thanks to easier balancing, only gets to gain by being naturally more elegant, user friendly and clearly focused.
Yes, if we were to stirp all options from gaming, we would be left with interactive movies. But the opposing extreme does not leads to anywhere either. There must exist some sort of balance, between enough meaningful options to make players happy with customisation, while at the same time not overloading the game with those options so devs can have an easier time to maintain the quality of those options. It’s a win-win scenario if/ when done right.
And the new specialization system will still offer that balance. With 3 different traits per tier, and a selection of 3 tiers out of 6, players will still be able to adapt their characters to the style they most like. It won’t be a highly detailed level of customisation anymore, but the meaningful number of builds that will exist out of it will not be any less. Probably, we’ll get more optimal builds because trait stats are no longer an obstacle, trait replacement will no longer be so arbitrary, and the gap between better and worse traits will be a lot shortened.
On a final note, many of the examples the OP has given are flawed by themselves. One such example is the one given for the staff elementalist. The fact that the build itself is already based on “camping Fire attunement after the initial rotation” does not helps, but if we disregard that, the reason why a staff elementalist goes 6-2-2-2-2 is to collect as many damage modifiers as possible. There’s no diversity in here, just maximizing. With the new trait system, a staff elementalist will be able to, for example, get two damage modifiers from water magic spec alone.
I can say what you said much more forum friendly: “games are getting more stupid so lazy new players don’t have to learn them so we can sell more boxes; p.s. who cares about veterans, they’ve already paid”
see? I said the same without wall of text
You just converted that omnipresent management/PR talk into what they actually think when making those dumbing down decisions. Thanks.
Although metabattle is not the only place to get builds it’s a good way to count builds before and after the trait change. There are now 16 meta/great/good Dungeon builds on metabattle, will there be more or less after the trait revamp? If there are more, then although we got less traits to choose from, the trait change actually helped with variety. If there are less, then there was indeed a reduction in viable choices.
Meta build before: get the maximum amount of optimal traits from 5 lines – and as little as possible of the useless stuff you’re forced to take in lower points.
Meta build soon: get the maximum amount of optimal traits from 3 lines (or 2 lines) – and as little as possible of the useless stuff you’re forced to take in lower and higher points.
Regardless, the non-meta builds will suffer way more. Like those designed for specific challenging encounters, for enjoyable PvE roaming, for map completion etc.
So you are basically saying that to get things done faster and more easily than intended you exploit the flaws and loopholes in balance, things that should have never been possible in the first place but ArenaNet completely overlooked, and now that they are making changes may or may not get rid of some of them, you have no intentions to adapt to the new system, or even give it a chance to see if you can work with it, without even seeing the full list of changes.
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub
For all you know all the ‘damage traits’ you are complaining about could have been rolled into the same line.
Well… how do you expect me to sympathize with that?
For one, try reading my initial post where I talk about anything but damage traits.
For those who think that the number of possible builds is low:
You get to chose 3 out of 6 (5 old + 1 new spec) trait lines. This gives you:
6!/((6-3)!*3!)) = 20 possible ways to select trait lines. each line has 3 points of 3 choices so: 3*3*3 = 3^3 per line or (3^3)^3 = 19683 in total. This results in 19683 * 20 = 393 660 different builds by traits alone.
Yes this is lower than the current number of possible different trait setups (only calculated the number of builds with 2 lines with 6 points and already got ~250k different builds), but i believe that is enough so that people can be different if they want to. Optimal builds will always only be a handfull or less, no matter if it’s the old or the new system. That some current builds will not be possible is also not surprising, every trait change destroys some old build but also allows some new ones.
You can either take 3 core lines or 2 core lines and 1 elite line, not always 3 lines.
You choose to depend your entire build on having an engie, or a specific skill, or having a team mate (a Guardian) with a specific build so they can carry you and your “stack all damage modifiers” Elementalist? And you see no problem with it?
Welcome to the well-known endgame of the veteran players of GW2: clearing group content in the most efficient way.
Even so, here is a newsflash since you didn’t even read the build. The 6/6/6 build does exactly what the 6/2/2/2/2 build does in terms of DPS, if not MORE…
Doesn’t it sound hilarious to you that a build with 4 more trait points does exactly the same or maybe even more?
Question: What is the point of minor traits if they’re “always included” in the trait line? They should just be removed from the tree and converted to trait line effects.
Current Staff Elementalist dps build:
6/2/2/2/2, getting all damage modifers and in general doing only damage.
V/VII/XI, VI, VI, VI, V total damage modifiers: 40%
With the new trait system I can get
6/6/6/0/0, get more survivability (GM Earth traits for “free” without affecting your DPS), have the same damage modifiers. It’s 40% with Enduring Damage over Vital Striking
So I will be losing Blasting Staff but gain access to many new abilities, will apply more vulnerability, get Access to GM Air trait, for example Tempest Defense for an extra damage modifier with a Frost Bow while I can choose between Diamond Skin and Stone Heart, based on the encounter for extra defense. All while keeping the same, if not MORE DPS than the old build. It’s a boost (can be a big one too) for a Staff Elementalist
I’m sure if you try you can modify any build to be better with the new system.
Go on, stack more than 25 vuln done by engie or Lightning storm, and never reach the defensive utility with a good guardian.
“Getting what you do not need for free” is what feels so cheap. You’re not getting it for free, you’re sacrificing what you need. You might need larger staff AoE which I find extremely useful, or longer blinks, or vigor on crit, or weapon CD reduction, or illusion CD reduction, but instead you get nearly useless stuff for free.
It’s posts like these that make anet devs not want to update us on what they’re working on.
ANet: Guys, here’s what we’re going to do.
Players: This is a bad idea, we do not want it that way.
ANet: Okay, next time we’ll just roll out that bad idea without asking you.
Players: ?!
You’re not the first one to suffer from that recent “improvement”: Rare Staff for 70g
And not the last one…
I looked at your post history and you’re not a new player, so I’m wondering if your post is serious or for “fun”.
Beside Dungeons, there are not really reasons to play in a group in PvE.
There is. You need a party to get back into the same map and get your loot after a disconnect/crash.
“Be careful what you wish for, ANet may give it to you,” they said.
We wished for build templates.
We got build templates… predefined build templates.
— Oh, so it’s Imbued Shaman now. Lemme slot in Medic’s Feedback, Glamour Mastery and Warden’s Feedback so that I can safely rez those wannabe zerkers at level 50. Too bad I do not have enough slots for Mender’s Purity as well…
- Eeeehp! No, you are not allowed. You can no longer slot in Adept/Master traits in other tiers. Allowing it will make you overpowered and hard to balance.
— I’m way too sleepy and it’s Mai Trin. Lemme trait a bit into Chaos for a safe net, then into Inspiration for reflects, then into Dueling for extra fury or maybe longer blinks or lower CD on Blurred frenzy, and finally into Domination for more phantasm damage and lower CD on GS… Or should I go for Illusions for more illusion spam?
- Eeeehp! No, you are not allowed. You can no longer choose more than 3 trait lines at once. Instead, you will have to take 6-6-6 points into each line, even if everything else is utterly useless (or can even hurt your teammates like clones on dodge in PvE). Allowing it will render content too easy for the build you carefully tailored for this encounter.
— Wow, this 6-2-2-2-2 staff ele build is great! So much power, but great utility and versatility! I love it!
- Eeeehp! Say goodbye to being versatile. For one, the Vital Striking trait has been moved – sorry, merged! – from Adept to Master. And please remember you cannot trait into more than 3 lines anymore, yes. So if you want to get that damage trait, please fully take the healing line.
— Nice, this one small trait in Water will give me a necessary damage boost! It’s nice I don’t have to take extra useless stuff along with it!
- Eeeehp! Traits have been forcefully merged. For example, that offensive Vital Striking trait (Deal extra damage when your health is above the threshold) has been merged with a defensive Aquamancer’s Alacrity trait (Reduces recharge on all water weapon skills). Makes a lot of sense for a staff elementalist camping Fire attunement after the initial rotation, right?
— Ok, so there’s my new character. What this stuff does? Teleport? Good, I’ll take it, I want to travel faster. And this one? Passive effect speed signet? Nice, I’ll take it, lemme just get some skill challenges. Oh, that’s a nice AoE – I can tag more mobs and get more XP! The other skills look kinda useless now – no need to waste time on them at the moment.
- Eeeehp! No, you are not allowed. You can no longer choose what utility skills to unlock first. You will have to grind all through the linear reward track to unlock that one signet, that one teleport and that one AoE – three times until you get to the ones you need. Because reading tooltips and choosing is too confusing for new players, and because full passive signet builds are fun.
Doesn’t it all remind us of something? Oh, right!
The new build system is now “outfits”: there’s no mix-and-match, there’s no variety, there’s no tailoring, you’re just playing what has been defined as “good” by developers.
By locking traits to tiers and reducing the overall number of traits, we’ve made each choice much more compelling.
That’s what they’re saying. But with just a couple of viable options which will be left alive (as always, since “balance” patches happen at best 2 times a year), the new build system won’t be fundamentally different from a Korean MMO grinder of ~15 classes where each does exactly one thing. It is effectively dumbing down the game, taking 90% of the choice which could be too confusing away and replacing it with predefined builds. That way, it is hard to be a bad player when all “choices” are so evident and lackluster.
Why do it? The answer is simple: creating virtual “build presets” means easier (= cheaper in terms of costs) balancing, since the developers can now define what the meta is, and not smart players exploiting the full potential of the class by min-maxing within the system.
Now the question is: is not having a choice “fun”? Is “balance” worth taking stuff away from players, shoehorning them into cloned builds and making buildcrafting boring and bland?
My answer is NO. Honestly, I’ve been disheartened by many decisions over the past year, but this one has a very large chance to actually break the game for me. If I wanted to play a no-customization game, I would’ve chosen one of those free MMOs with preset race-class bindings, preset character body types, preset full-body dresses, 111 skill bars (and cute graphics on top). If I chose GW2 and stayed here, it’s because there are so many options that it keeps me busy for a long time (despite a desperate lack of content) – and once you take all of it away in favour of “streamlining” and making “less confusing” and “more compelling”, I’m out.
I wish the celestial issue got the same sensible treatment. Honestly, was already expecting a “let’s nerf all CC across all game modes” type of solution.
Looks like ears got bunned from the Gemstore.
/badumtss
Might be as well a software problem; “brand new” computers tend to have a lot of bloatware with dubious functionality, and I won’t be surprised if some of it “improved” your keyboard experience.
Weapon skills and utilities do use the same keybinds for both weapons. Sounds like a problem from outside GW2. Check your mouse settings and weapon swap key – maybe the weapon swap key changes your mouse profile?
Last chance on ears in 2 hours 30 minutes from now. They did do 1-day sales.
Unless ANet is for some reason aiming for the other Easter date, the one on April 12…
Dodge mechanic makes Zerker builds viable
“Zerker” is not a build, it’s a gear type. Gear =/= build.
/thread
first you have the normal full orchestration, then when you enter the game the music goes a bit tinny for a minute or so – really giving the vibe of an old gramophone playing it.
Interestingly, the effect goes off when you turn off postprocessing in the graphics options. It’s either the implementation for sub-UI effects is clunky, or they went the extra mile and made it easily turnoffable.
Who revives you if you are solo?
That’s phenomenal, but as said on one of the PoIs, “if you happen to die, there’s always a lot of players suddenly rushing from all the sides to rezz you”.
No reason not to work that way. Stuff like this works as a template, not as a fixed text stored somewhere. So whenever you open the panel, it does something like “Pull out of the database and print StoryVar1, pull out of the database and print CharacterName, pull out of the database and print StoryVar2…”
You might not have done level 50 fractals enough if you consider it a good change. Or solo exploring with the closest unlocked WP being miles away.
That said, group events that require coordination might indeed require changes like porting fully dead away after a time-out.
I did post a little guide earlier, but it got buried underneath all the angry threads. You can add it in with yours.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/If-April-Fools-annoys-you
Ah good, I quote-added the other 2 tricks.
I guess the title looked ambiguous, like a click-bait, and not like a real solution.
The old “I took the day off to play this game” meme.
Well… Taking a day off on April 1 to for the game which is known to have been playing pranks on this day for years… /shrug
Why is the guy above talking about DOG ears and tails? We all know CATS are superior to dogs. Why do we have sylvan hounds and not sylvan kittens? Cat ears and tails are a must.
If you do not feel like playing with the “airplane mode” on for the whole day, here’s how you can disable most of it.
- How to remove sepia effect: go to Settings, Graphic Options, set Postprocessing to None.
- How to remove character noises: go to Settings, Sound Options, drag Dialog Volume all the way to the left.
- How to remove the helmet: use a tonic and leave, the helmet is removed.
If you want to go further:
4. Other PC (player character) Models
- Options > Graphic Options > Character Model Quality > Lowest
5. Airplane Hand Position
Combat transformation changes your character look, including hands position.
When April 1 is officially over, put those settings back to where they were.
(edited by Lishtenbird.2814)
The question is: where are the datamined Owl and Crow carriers?
Yes please.
And while we’re at it, also animal ears (and probably tails as backpacks). The ears can actually be made universal to match most animals, like this:
That’s the kind of communication that I (and I’m sure, many other players) really appreciate. Comprehensive, preliminary, to the point – and not “Here, we just changed some stuff, go figure out why!”
- My daily lvl 50 fractal with the usual group with a zerker guardian takes about 30-40 minutes.
- My occasional lvl 50 fractal with another group with a healing guardian takes about 40-50 minutes.
- My random lvl 1-10 fractal with Play-How-I-Wants takes 1 hour+.
Go figure.
Wondering: how viable is the concept of conditions being able to crit (and scaling with precision+ferocity [after being rebalanced not to break the game]) from the server performance point of view?
(Offtopic: am I the only one who can never find a thread that gets stickied? 0o)
(edited by Lishtenbird.2814)
I hope 2 Llamas is enough to at least get a partially dapper Llama!
While I have 0 llamas, I like the idea of gradually upgrading llama’s gear instead of requiring several at once to forge that Llama Von Snuffles.
NO.
I’ve seen enough PvP/WvW players boasting about how easy and predictable PvE is, and then suddenly QQing on the forums when Mawdrey required 5 (!) Pristine Relics.
Want the reward? Go do the content for as long as others have done. Or do the equally challenging content… but hey, the only content in this game which is equal to Fractals 50 is Fractals 50.
The penguin should have a top hat and an umbrella.
Like this? (Sorry, no top hat, and their alternative headdress is not appropriate for this forum.)
This topic has been discussed to death.
I was thinking, a new player using the LFG tool is really supposed to know this stuff just in order to not be kicked instantly from a group just because it failed to skip the whole dungeon?
A new player has to open LFG and type “I’m a new player, I want to do this dungeon!” – and that’s it. If he failed to read “80 only, experienced, zerker, speedrun”, that’s not the group’s fault.
I think the possibility of these paths being skippable by running through mobs only leads to bad gameplay and puts a very bad impression on new players.
Confirmed to be working as intended by a Dev:
It’s one of those human things to do something with the path of least resistance and danger, especially when there is a reward at the end. I could make enemies never drop their aggro on players and force them to fight every single mob, but I don’t see that as a viable solution right now.
I think the better solution is to look at why people are skipping things, and approach from a different angle. Trash mobs have too much HP, and can’t be counted on for lucrative drops from a Risk/Time vs Reward, so people interested in making money (most groups) aren’t incentivized to do it, whereas the end chest/boss are more guaranteed and accountable returns on time and risk. I also think there is something to be said about interesting trash mob mechanics making them more enjoyable of a fight.
I can’t make the rewards from trash mobs so lucrative though that people just farm the first couple trash mobs/boss in a dungeon and then rinse/repeat. We encountered this when people just farmed the first boss in an instance and then restarted it (earlier around launch time), and we had to adjust the content as a result. It’s a fine line you have to walk to encourage players to get to the end, but make the process of getting there rewarding enough as well.I don’t imagine this next update will resolve all the skipping behavior. The path of least resistance is engrained in people, and even if I do everything I could to incentivize people, there will still be those who skip stuff. I have been fixing exploits that will require players to complete more of the events in dungeons, but I am sure people will still skip what they can to get to their end goal.
For now I would encourage those not looking to skip to find some folks who don’t like skipping and make a guild with them… or maybe look for guilds that are dedicated to not skipping, and tag along with them. I’m in a couple of them (anonymously), and it really is an effective solution to playing the game the way you want to play it: Find other people with similar interests and band together with them.
If the item is desirable enough to sell in the gem store, why on EARTH would Anet make it obtainable for Karma? The request might as well be for them to flush some potential revenue down the Mystic Toilet.
Because happy loyal players are worth more in the long run than today’s cash grab.
Yes, it’s actually kind of fun – exploring the stuff you were never going to hear, ahah. For the Imperator Pale Tree!
There are a bunch of karma unique skins to buy.
…which you easily get from Fractals anyway.
Then there is the Balthazaar mini.
If only the Balthazar outfit was sold for karma…
- 3-man party kick: check!
- FP camera: check!
- persistent guild chat: check!
- end to useless full CD blink fails: more or less check.
Now how could I have forgotten…
- skippable unskippable cutscenes and
- auto-skip for dungeon cutscenes?