In fact, with zero condition damage, the scepter out DPS’s the Axe regularly.
This is completely false.
They do have CC NOW mechanics. Fractal boss Ice Elemental, Dredge Powersuit, and that Dragon Shaman Svanir guy (not sure about this last one) have heals that need to be interrupted. These heals also disable Defiant.
Interesting. As a Necromancer, I never had to pay attention to Defiant until this patch, so I wasn’t aware it worked like that.
I don’t really see the problem with them. I think the mechanic is fine.
Could be! It could be the case that it bugs sometimes. I could have just gotten unlucky with a bug for two bubbles in a row.
Good thing Necromancers have Death Shroud. I wonder how squishier classes and builds are supposed to deal with the bubble if it’s not supposed to be possible to roll out of it.
I am kind of worried that the Defiant mechanic will make a “CC now!” mechanic too difficult to implement, but, then again, they could just make any “CC now!” mechanics temporarily disable Defiant.
I couldn’t just now in four roll attempts. Really weird because I swear I did it yesterday, and I know I did it for all my runs to get my full set.
It could sometimes bug, I suppose. In that case, I got pretty unlucky.
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I was wrong. I just got hit by the bubble for the first time since the latest patch, and I could not roll out of it. I actually got hit on it by purpose to see if it was still possible. Either they changed something last patch or my husband and I were getting really lucky rolling out of it for all the runs it took us to get our Arah sets.
Sorry if I misled anyone. I’m taking down my graph to make sure no one else is misled.
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I was wrong. I just got hit by the bubble for the first time since the latest patch, and I could not roll out of it. I actually got hit on it by purpose to see if it was still possible. Either they changed something last patch or my husband and I were getting really lucky rolling out of it for all the runs it took us to get our Arah sets.
Sorry if I misled anyone. I’m taking down my graph to make sure no one else is misled.
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How many people have tried and failed to get tokens out of Arah since the last update?
And how many people still think it isn’t hard enough? Seriously, it’s not good enough to have max gears, and can’t blame it all on player skill or the lack thereof.Was with a group that failed Giaganticus battle. One hit from his AOE’s downs me and i probably won’t be able to get back up. Pretty hard to dodge those red circles he spawns so much of it all at once! Can’t say that we were really doing anything wrong, never even got close to the half-way point, just reset after reset!
If you’re getting hit by the AOE, you are, by definition, doing something wrong. I never die to his AOE, and my groups usually do the entire fight without getting hit.
I have no traits related to dodge. My husband and I do it. Collectively, our classes are Elementalist, Guardian, Mesmer, and Necromancer.
The Reddit thread on the topic also had Norns of multiple classes saying it works for them.
It has nothing to do with roll traits and everything to do with positioning.
EDIT: No longer applies.
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By the way, my graph applies to all walls in the game. It’s how I thought players are supposed to counter Guardian walls.
EDIT: No longer applies.
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EDIT: No longer applies.
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Idolicious, pretty much all of those are outside of Rob’s realm of influence. All he can really do is flail his arms about in a maddened dance at the people who can do something about it, and the bugs are already reported, so I doubt that’d do much. The only bug that Rob’s investigating is the nature of GL’s bubble wall being penetrated by Reckless Dodge and other on-dodge traits.
Again, I don’t have an on-dodge trait, and I roll out of every single bubble.
But if this bug is that outside his realm of influence, then encounter design needs to be tuned until the bug is fixed. Until I turned off auto-attack, I died to the dodge bug constantly.
With Reckless Dodge I have never failed dodging forwards and I always get out even if I fail initial dodge (too early). Without Reckless Dodge all my ~5 attempts failed, no matter how close I was to wall. On my screen my dodge ends up outside bubble then I suddenly get pulled in.
Not to sound like a kitten, but I really doubt it. At this point, I’ve rolled out of the bubble at least 30 to 40 times. My husband is probably in the same range. You have to be doing something wrong.
The dodge bug is a huge problem in the game, but that’s not really related to Lupicus or this warrior’s solid play.
Plus, it’s possible to avoid the dodge bug by turning off auto-attack because the bug is only caused when auto-attack and dodge trigger at nearly the exact same time.
This is false. I did a write-up in this thread regarding the bug, where it occurs and how it occurs.
Turning off autoattack does not fix it, although it does make it less likely to happen.
What I said is still accurate. With auto-attack off, players should be able to time their dodges so they don’t use them at the same time an attack goes off. If someone bugs his/her own roll, that’s something that could have been avoided with knowledge of how the bug works.
But I agree what I said was a little misleading.
But there is no difference with Reckless Dodge. The bubble does not “pull” you back inside. If the roll is done too far away or too close to the edge of the bubble, your character will hit the wall and gets knocked down on his/her butt (that might be what some people are confusing for a “pull”).
The mechanic works exactly like rolling through every single wall does. Position yourself so the roll will cross the wall during the immunity period, and you’ll get out of the bubble every single time.
I roll out of the bubble 100 percent of the time as a Necromancer. I have my full Arah set, so this is as someone who has done Lupicus dozens of time. Honestly, I would be embarrassed if I ever actually failed at rolling out of the bubble because it’s so easy now that I know the trick.
By the way, my husband, who plays Guardian, Mesmer, and Elementalist, is the same way. He never fails at rolling out of it on any of his classes.
It’s kind of worrying developers are implying this isn’t intended because the bubble would be ludicrously over-tuned if it was impossible to roll out of it. If the fight was designed around the bubble being unavoidable, its damage is currently way too high.
Could you do a short clip showing us how it’s done?
I’ll try to see if I can put something together. I might not be able to make a video (crappy hard drive bogs down Fraps), but I should be able to at least make an graph showing how it’s done.
But there is no difference with Reckless Dodge. The bubble does not “pull” you back inside. If the roll is done too far away or too close to the edge of the bubble, your character will hit the wall and gets knocked down on his/her butt (that might be what some people are confusing for a “pull”).
The mechanic works exactly like rolling through every other wall does. Position yourself so the roll will cross the wall during the immunity period, and you’ll get out of the bubble every time.
I roll out of the bubble 100 percent of the time as a Necromancer. I have my full Arah set, so this is as someone who has done Lupicus dozens of time. Honestly, I would be frustrated if I ever actually failed at rolling out of the bubble because it’s so easy now that I know the trick.
By the way, my husband, who plays Guardian, Mesmer, and Elementalist, is the same way. He never fails at rolling out of the bubble on any of his classes.
It’s kind of worrying developers are implying this isn’t intended because the bubble would be ludicrously over-tuned if it was impossible to roll out of it. If the fight was designed around the bubble being unavoidable, its damage is currently way too high.
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The dodge bug is a huge problem in the game, but that’s not really related to Lupicus or this warrior’s solid play.
Plus, it’s possible to avoid the dodge bug by turning off auto-attack because the bug is only caused when auto-attack and dodge trigger at nearly the exact same time.
As a Necromancer, I can roll out of Lupicus’ bubble — with and without my roll trait — 100 percent of the time. The problem for most people is they try to roll out when they’re standing in the middle. Like every single wall ability in the game, they should be standing close to the edge before rolling. That way the roll’s immunity period lasts while their characters are crossing the wall, not bumping into it as the roll begins or ends.
This has worked every single time as a Necromancer for me. Again, that’s with and without my roll trait.
I think Lupicus is the best designed fight in the game because everything about it is difficult but not impossible. It’s brilliant.
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I know the discussion has been covered in the past, but with the release of fractals, I think it’s necessary to cover this ground again. My thoughts from my blog (so no one thinks I’m stealing anything):
Nearly three months after Guild Wars 2 launch, the game is still facing one major problem: bugs. By now, players have become accustomed to NPC escorts stopping in their tracks, events mysteriously malfunctioning, and dozens of dungeon exploits, but the unsettling trend shows ArenaNet is biting off more than it can chew. It begs the question: Could a public testing server solve these problems?
To be clear, I don’t mean to insult ArenaNet. I think the developers have shown time and time again that they are extremely talented, and I’m sure ArenaNet’s quality assurance team is no exception. The problem is that MMO content requires MMO-sized testing, and a relatively small QA team is proving to be inadequate in comparison to a much larger public test server.
The worst aspect of bugs and technical issues isn’t some content not working. That’s a major problem, but the effects of bugs go much deeper. Instead, the problem is bugs reach into the Guild Wars 2 community and, in a very real sense, corrupt it.
Take Fractals of the Mist. The dozen bugs or so in fractals have opened up a dozen or so exploits. I’m not going to list any specifics, but I will say that the norm in level 30 and higher fractals is to abuse absolutely every mechanic possible to progress as quickly as possible. If a boss can be killed without actually engaging, it will be done. If a wall can be jumped through or over, it’s expected.
Even beyond progression content, the expectation of exploits is prevalent. It’s impossible to join an explorable mode Arah group without someone asking if the group is going to take advantage of the “shortcut.” And players always expect the first bosses of the third explorable mode path will be engaged in a way that nullifies the bosses’ major mechanics.
And if a player has the audacity to say he doesn’t want to exploit and do the dungeon how it’s intended, he better prepare for a kick.
In other words, the biggest problem is all the exploits breed a culture that is more interested in breaking the game than playing it. To a degree, it makes sense. After all, most players are doing dungeons and fractals for the rewards, so why should they waste time and take the hard path? Why should someone add 30 minutes to a dungeon run when all that’s necessary to shave time is a clever portal or specific positioning on certain terrain?
Of course, some of the blame does fall on the community. In an ideal world, players would push back against exploits and any other cheating. But in reality, that’s not what’s happening, so maybe the better solution is to deal with the problem head-on instead of keeping a system that ultimately benefits cheaters and exploiters and leaves everyone else behind.
It’s really an ever-present problem in MMORPGs: Players are clever — almost too clever. If they can find a way to get through something more easily and more quickly, they will do it. Even if it shaves only one minute off a dungeon run, it’s going to be expected.
So why not use that cleverness in a public test server? Why not give players a medium to make their exploitations productive?
It might not solve every problem, but it’s a start. Some players are going to refuse to give away their secrets, and many are never going to log on to a public test server. But adding the option at least makes it more likely problems will be caught before they ever make it on live.
The downside, ArenaNet would likely argue, is testing spoils the content. By letting players opt into a public test server, content could be ruined for some players before it actually hits live. But is that really the case? Other MMORPGs have public test realms, and players from those games still anxiously await the next patch. Even Guild Wars 2 had a large public beta, and I have yet to see anyone say that the beta spoiled the game. In fact, the people who played the beta, in my experience, are much more likely to stick around in the long term.
Besides, nothing spoils content more than bugs and exploits. If the choice is malfunctioning dungeons or spoiled dungeons, the latter is a much better choice.
I’m okay with helping ArenaNet test their game, but I don’t want to keep doing it on live servers.
http://vidyagame.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/bug-woes-in-guild-wars-2/
I noted this in my feedback thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/audio/Feedback-for-custom-playlists/first#post961497
Trying to concentrate all custom playlist feedback on there.
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I know it’s probably not a huge priority, but I figured I’d give some feedback on custom playlists now that I’m using them!
Feel free to add more feedback, and I’ll try to update this thread.
1. “Ambient” doesn’t work in Orr, Fireheart Rise, or dungeons, except in underwater sections.
2. Speaking of dungeons, a “dungeon” playlist would be nice. “Ambient” doesn’t always mesh with dungeon.
3. “Defeated” and “crafting” don’t seem to work at all.
4. “City” isn’t prioritized over “ambient” in cities.
5. “Boss battle” doesn’t work on dungeon bosses or open-world bosses, excluding the dragon events. Also, when they do work, the playlists aren’t random; the songs always go in order.
6. Death Shroud’s sound effect currently overrides and disables all custom playlists for Death Shroud’s duration.
7. Playlists sometimes pause for long periods of time.
8. In structured PvP, “battle” is always active. I actually like this, but there’s a problem with it where the playlist will sometimes stop playing or change songs.
9. Playlists sometimes stop working after death.
10. Playlists sometimes have songs go in order instead of randomly. This might be related to zone, but I haven’t tested it enough to know for sure.
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Another problem: After a wipe, mobs need to despawn and the boss’s health needs to reset. Having dozens of mobs out and the boss in his second phase at the start of the fight is a very unpleasant experience.
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Bump. This is so annoying as a Necromancer who uses Scepter because my auto-attack is a 0.5-second cast. Playing with auto-attack on is practically impossible.
I don’t think the Holy Trinity has much to do with it. There are plenty of interesting bosses in single-player games and other multiplayer games that don’t require a tank or healer. There are plenty of untapped ideas out there.
I posted this on my blog, but I want to hear some thoughts and discussion on this:
A week and a half in, I’m at difficulty level 31 in Fractals of the Mists. Truth be told, I’m feeling a bit of burnout at this point, so this will probably be the highest I push for some time. But now that I have a solid amount of experience in my belt, I’m a bit more interested in looking at what the new feature in Guild Wars 2 did right and what it did wrong. Specifically, I’m interested in looking at boss mechanics.
Boss design in Guild Wars 2 has definitely not been the strong point of the game. Anyone who has done the other dungeons knows progression is bizarre and a lot of bosses are nothing more than dodge-and-kill fights akin to the simplest boss fights in other MMORPGs. So fractals were ArenaNet’s chance to show some improvement.
At level 31, I feel I have a good enough grasp of the content to gauge if ArenaNet succeeded or failed. To give the too-long-didn’t-read summary, my verdict is ArenaNet succeeded at improving, but failed at going far enough.
To give my verdict some context, I think good boss fights exemplify one or both of two key elements: variety in mechanics and phases. Both keep bosses fresh as they keep going, and both can provide twists in challenge. The two ingredients provide logical progression throughout a boss fight, which keeps players feeling like they’re accomplishing more and more as the fight goes on. If there’s a variety of mechanics, players typically feel like they’re conquering more and more odds as the boss gets lower and lower in health. With phases, clear mid-fight progression is added as players transition from one act of the boss to the next.
The problem is that, as the game stands, too many boss fights lack either of these elements. Take the Jellyfish Beast in the underwater fractal. What makes players say that the fight is too long, even with the electric cage mechanic? It’s not that the fight takes an extraordinary amount of time; it clocks in at three to four minutes, which is standard in fractal encounters. It’s that the boss has few mechanics — electric cells that can be used to shock it, an AOE pull that applies agony, and jellyfish adds — and the mechanics remain static throughout the fight. That makes players feel like they’re doing the same thing over and over for much too long.
Same thing applies to the final bosses in the dredge fractal. When I first started fractals, these two fights seemed fun. They assigned one player to a unique role — pour lava — and involved coordinated kiting from the group. The problem is the mechanic is repeated almost mindlessly for three to four minutes. It’s pretty much the only mechanic in the fight, barring some dodging and AOEing here and there. There’s no progression or twists.
In contrast, there’s the colossus fractal. Ignoring any exploits, the entire fractal is essentially a multi-phase boss fight centered around seals: Kill a legendary mob, which drops a hammer. Use the hammer to break two seals while handling adds. Destroy another seal while dealing with more mobs. Break two more seals while managing mobs that heal them. Finally, eliminate the last seal while fighting a legendary mob and adds.
Some might complain the colossus fractal takes too long relative to the other fractals, but I think it’s the perfect build-up. Mechanics get more and more complex, players change roles as the hammer is traded off, and it all culminates with a big fight at the end.
In between the colossus fractal and the dredge and underwater fractals, there is some middle ground. Among these, the Legendary Imbued Shaman in the grawl fractal gets to be one of the more interesting fights at higher levels as the transition between fighting the boss itself and dealing with its bubble shield and adds becomes harder to deal with. However, the fight ultimately remains static. The encounter makes players repeat the same task over and over, and there’s no notable mechanics except the high difficulty of dealing with transitions.
That’s the big problem with boss design in Guild Wars 2. Too often the boss fights feel like an unchanging dodge-and-kill. Too much of the time a boss is difficult because of numbers, not mechanics. In the end, too many of the bosses don’t feel like bosses; they feel like mobs with greater health pools and damage.
Moving forward, it’s definitely something ArenaNet can fix, especially with the promised dungeon revamp. For now, I appreciate Fractals of the Mists as a wonderful medium of content and progression, but some parts leave a bit to be desired.
Like stated in this thread, conditions are actually fine, comparable DPS until the bleed cap. So it’s not condition specs that are the problem; it’s the bleed cap.
What’s funny is this forces people to actually be picky about specs, which is something that is not supposed to happen in this game. Since I’m a condition spec, I can invite maybe one other person specced for conditions. Beyond that, nope. Never taking another.
However, condition builds are absolutely viable in structured PvP. A lot of people run them.
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This is so annoying.
Yeah, it’s a great site. I hope the community picks it up. I’ve used it with awesome results!
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For the next few days, this event will be considered the final nail to the coffin for Guild Wars 2 until the herd find something new to complain about.
Was it a failure? Depends on what ANET were trying to accomplish, but I think most people on here just wanted phat new loot.
The event actually gave a lot of loot. People are upset about how the quality of the event was greatly brought down by mostly client and server problems.
This game is a failure, of course the events are
That’s completely over-the-top. This game is great. The one-time event just had too many issues to ignore.
I believe I am allowed to think like that too, this game has to many issues to simply ignore. Seeing as that its your definition of failure applied to this event, I shall apply the same definition to the rest of the game. A failure.
Nah. You’re misreading what I said or twisting it. Either way, it’s over-the-top. Not worth discussing further.
The weekend was a terrible idea gone wrong. Add a great deal of content to a game with lists and lists of compiled bugs. Add it on a weekend when you introduce a free trial. Add it during peak server times and make it one time only events. Recipe for disaster.
This certainly didn’t help. In the future, ArenaNet needs to be more aware of server and client limitations.
This game is a failure, of course the events are
That’s completely over-the-top. This game is great. The one-time event just had too many issues to ignore.
the 56-60% increase in stats over exotic
LOL. No exaggeration there.
First phase was extremely lagged and bugged.
Second phase was basically nothing.
Third phase was plagued with lag and culling issues, and reinforcement portions go on for way, way too long.
It’s kind of a bummer because it seems like the basics of the idea were amazing, so I hope this let’s ArenaNet know how important culling and server-side issues are in the future. They really should have been a No. 1 priority even before new content.
Huge deal. I’d love a response on this.
This is a pretty big deal. An entire archetype is being left behind.
Currently WvW uses the same skills as PvE, so PvP balance changes do not have an impact on WvW.
Please change course on this. Why would PvP balance work any different in WvW in comparison to sPvP? Small-scale fights work the same except for gear and level scaling.
I regularly farm Arah in a condition build as a Necromancer. I have no idea what you’re talking about.
The rest of Cursed Shore and dungeons.
They said they will use infusion slots to push progress in the future. So even if they don’t add new tiers in the future, expect stronger infusion slots.
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Here you go:
I just wanted to write a quick post to address our overall balance philosophy. I see threads inside every single profession sub forum talking about how that profession is either overpowered, underpowered, or both. In the past we made balance updates fairly frequently. While we will continue to be responsive to serious issues, we also want to make sure that we let the basic meta-game stabilize before making too many changes.
If you see something that is really strong please try and find counters to it before assuming it is overpowered. We have put a lot of hours into the game already and there are still many things we are learning about the depth of the combat and the balance. There are also finally enough players consistently playing that we can actually gather metrics on skills and make some more informed decisions about what is too weak/strong.
Please don’t hesitate to point out builds that look like they could use some balance work. We are constantly striving to make Guild Wars 2 the most balanced game it can be and appreciate all of your feedback. Try to keep your feedback focused and specific so we can know the context of your issues. PvE, WvW, and sPvP balance are all equally important and we will address them all with the same amount of weight and thought. Remember, as well that when we want to make a change it takes time for us to decide what to do, how to do it, and then to test it and make sure that it isn’t going to create any unwanted results. Our hope is that our turnaround can be quick, but implore you to be patient, as well thought out changes will be better for the health of the game than knee-jerk reactions.
Thanks again for your feedback, your time, and your passion.
Jon
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Balancing-Guild-Wars-2/first#post92064
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Cut them some slack. They have two people working on class changes.
That’s wrong. WvW has small-scale battles. Balance matters there.
The big battles are so big that balance doesn’t really matter.
Also, they specifically said WvW balance matters, so I have no idea why you keep saying that.
I honestly don’t get why he even admitted that.
I forgot about this because I was so underwhelmed with the rest of the patch notes.
My god. Did this patch change anything they promised? Next to no class balance changes, no bleed cap adjustment, and no fix to culling.
It’s actually about 16 percent now, yes.
So in the future, when they nerf something that turns out to be massively overpowered in PvP but not PvE, WvW will be unaffected? Seems like really awful design.
It’s always been like this.
You can’t use SPvP rewards in World PvP.
SPvP is totally separate from the rest of the game. I think it sucks but it;’s always been this way.
That doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the “PvP” label in patch notes.
It just makes no sense. If I’m 1v1ing a class in structured PvP and he kills me really fast, and ArenaNet believes that’s overpowered, why would that not apply in WvW?