Guild Wars 2

Zid.4196:

Centaur runes + Mirror heal.

You just blew my mind. Thank you.

I have to say, I’m really liking this build concept. Thanks for bringing it up! Unfortunately, gw2skills.net is down and I can’t check your trait and utility distribution, but I think I have the general idea from the implications in your guide. Now I have to figure out how best to balance traits, though, which is surprisingly tough; there’s a lot of great ones for phantasms.

“can’t use real tactics”.

What in the blazes do you think coordianting 40 people to jump into a keep after hiding a mesmer inside the walls is? Tactics! Sheesh XD

Long as the clipping issue gets fixed, I’m okay with any creative use of portals. That’s what they’re there for.

Alright, so here’s what I’m getting out of this: you don’t like Thief. That’s plenty fine; maybe try another profession.

Thief is really pretty versatile. They’ve got a strong, spammable AoE for sieges which is more than most can boast, but for anything else they’re also one of the most mobile, burstiest professions with a substantial number of escape buttons available to them.

If you have a good idea of how you want to play, I’m sure folks can come up with some good suggestions for a different profession for you.

Niim.9260:

Arius.7031:

I think SF is getting a bit demoralized by the night capping tbh. I disagree that it’s an issue in this specific war, but I do understand how it could be really annoying. SoR is a very resilient server though, so it looks like this one will be DH vs SR. I hope SF can get back in the game though, we actually were ahead of them for a lot of primetime today.

I do not think folks are demoralized, so much as taking a week off. It takes a lot of effort to fight SoR all prime time and try and keep your points ahead far enough that it wont be erased by DH farming our guards all night. Lot of folks put in a hard effort last week and now they are attending to other things or just having fun killing folks.

That’s part of it, but we also don’t really have a significant server-wide alliance. That’s what really kills us is the lack of coordination. When our BL has a queue yet the largest group of players we can muster is 20 strong, that’s a problem.

I’ve experienced this bug since early access. I haven’t even tried a dungeon since the official launch date. I’m truly shocked that it’s still around.

This is very, very annoying. I hope it gets fixed.

I have a pretty remarkable time in WvW. The score at the top of the screen seems pretty trivial compared to the fun of a good bout.

It’s been a great match-up this week. I hope we get similarly tight action for the next week.

Your Regeneration boon will always heal you for a certain amount every ‘tick’ (second). That amount is based on your level and Healing Power. By extending the duration of the boon, you’re increasing the number of ticks you receive. So yeah, 1200 over 12.

You guys took a keep? Good going, Kaineng.

I’m playing my Guardian more and more now in WvW. Necro was a fun leveling experience, but remains a frustrating endgame. Can they be strong in certain situations? Could someone master necro and do very well for themselves? Sure, but choosing the necromancer as your profession for gameplay is simply choosing to play at a disadvantage.

Hmm… if retaliation does (Power/13.4)+267 DMG, in a 2000 power build you would be doing 416 damage per proc. Now image that hundred blades warrior charging you and popping haste, and you popping into DS to eat the burst. That’s 3.3k damage you’re doing to him during his burst. Or 3.7k to a Pistol Whip rogue. That’s really not so bad.

Smallpoxx.6935:

Nope people will just sit way back in their own territory and farm them again…

If we’re being honest, that’s not a terrible thing. With organized guild groups making tactical strikes and less action-oriented PUGs guarding the supply lines, it could create a good balance in the roles people play in WvW.

Besides, while guarding the ’yaks there really is little other reward of any sorts except what you get from the few NPCs that spawn on each route. If the issue is that it was too rewarding… just lower it based on the length of the route and the reward/time you feel appropriate, right?

Hello! I’m a player in a small guild which is not oriented towards WvW, but I’m a very active WvW player myself. I would love to just have a Vent server to hop on with a larger group of players for strategy and group tactics.

It feels like our server is ripe for some leadership and organization, having the players and the spirit but not a ton of discipline or experience playing specific roles in a squad.

There are actual exploits related to server transfer and WvW; recruiting off-peak players for your server is not one of them.

WvW is not about ‘keeping it even’. The team with the best strategy, organization, diplomacy, and tenacity should win, and it should be an inspiration for others to do improve.

Ironically, the FA-SF-SoR matchup has been one of the closest ones during prime times this week. I’ve had some exciting times both on SF as an independent and on FA last night as part of a guild group checking out the server. It’s just FA nightcapping that skews the scores.

As long as it’s account-wide currency, sounds decent.

zerospin.8604:

Makes sense, the algorithm should be adjusted to take into account the activity curves during 24 hour periods, and attempt to find servers that have similar looking curves, and player numbers online.

Agreed. Until you match server activity, not just overall score, you’re going to end up with servers yo-yo-ing around between brackets they don’t really belong in because of the score disparity you get from fielding crews at various times.

MasterofKhaos.8903:

As far as us zerging, we have defeated the PTX/FIST zergs two nights in a row at Garrison on Devonas Borderlands, most of the time we are outnumbered and use siege equipment at the lord room to our advantage. Trust me, this group is better than the groups we’ve played with on some other servers. They listen and actually try to be constructive in WvW.

Anyway, I’ll keep looking for Kaineng, hopefully you guys put up some more fight.

Good Luck!!!!

We took Garrison from you in the end! It was a hell of a tactical fight on both sides, though.

To the OP, could it just be a Thief or Mesmer doing their stealth-teleport-stuff while downed?

The culling is certainly the problem, but the particular case of, “they were all standing on top of each other; why would they do that?” can be easily answered by saying, "because there was a Mesmer [on the cliff above them|inside the keep near them|behind the nearby enemy siege weapons] that was about to portal the team to a strategic position.

When teams use Memser portals, it seems to really exacerbate the problem because all 30+ people are instantly moved right next to you instead of running in at a distance.

Karandor.4201:

A guy in my guild rolled a necro from a ranger because of what he saw me do in WvW.

We have problems (tons of bad/bugged traits and condition builds are a trap because they suck with DS) but necromancers are very powerful when played well.

That’s really strange, because I rerolled from a level 80 Necro to try out a level 5 Ranger and can bag just as many kills in WvW as with my Necro.

The only thing Necro has going for it that Ranger does not is the 45-second massive AoE dump you can do with wells. However, I’m even seeing that Ranger AoE is just as effective simply because it’s not as blatantly obvious as wells.

Also, in between the AoE dump, Ranger is substantially more effective than Necro. Being caught between the battle lines is a death sentence with any class, but a Ranger actually has meaningful abilities at 1200 (traited 1500) range as where a Necro has a really, really terrible staff primary that has a slower attack rate, a slower travel speed, and lower damage.

Tony.2150:

Dont fear until he fears.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself?

Yes, the way Fear and Steal work is a brilliant metaphor for the Necromancer in general.

Yeah, it’s pretty common for organized WvW guilds to all, for example, group up and have a Mesmer drop a portal so he can get them through the lines into a besieged keep. That’s just good tactics.

If there are culling issues related to that, it’s unfortunate and I do hope they fix that soon.

Lightvision.9357:

farm your materials > Craft items > sell items

i have done the math on this and if you buy all the mats of the TP then craft the item then sell, your gonna be loosing coin than making it.

What this should really be telling you is: farm your material > sell materials. If the item is worth less than the materials, then it’s more profitable to just sell the materials to meet demand.

Right now, material prices are so high because everyone and their mother wants to be a max-level crafted and everyone started at 0 crafting when they rolled.

This situation will continue until either: people stop wanting to be max crafters, or most people become max crafters. Then material prices will go down because fewer people are actively using them to level crafting, and you can buy/farm materials to craft for profit instead.

It doesn’t mean the market is a failure or completely screwed up; it just means that the resources (scarce raw materials) are in higher demand than almost all of the products right now. Make a profit by meeting that demand.

Dimok.6187:

Video games will probably never be as flexible as real life, and if they are, we would all just sit in VR helms all day and never actually live our lives.

I’m still waiting for my ‘Matrix’ capsule. The tech industry is not keeping up with my expectations.

Honestly, I think we’ve got enough options for siege right now; defenders are largely there to delay you until a counter-force can arrive to drive off the attackers.

I suggest chocolate fudge.

Really, though, you get enough decent stuff from drops just by participating right now, and don’t underestimate the cumulative effects of those passive bonuses from points. I wish they would auto-loot rewards in WvW, though; it’s just a distracting nuisance having to hit [F] in the middle of fight right now so I can afford by repair bills later.

There are already penalties for using them:

• Acquiring the siege weapon costs (money/time).
• Building the siege weapon takes supply.
• The siege weapon is immobile.
• The player using the siege weapon is immobile.
• The siege weapon is quite vulnerable and can’t defend itself.

I get what you’re trying to say, but there is a PvP solution to this: hunt down the siege weapon and destroy it. There’s almost nowhere on the map that can’t be reached with your own siege weapon or players to counter it (with some possible exploitative exceptions that we think are being addressed).

On SF, I’ve been chased half the map away into my own zerg by packs of FA players as well. Then there’s your huge Norn warrior that gets off on Frenzy > 100B ganks before running back and hiding behind his lines for the next 60 seconds.

People just do all sorts of stuff in WvW, from running around mining or organizing small-group operations against supply lines to attacking giant grub or suiciding against the SM gates for 6 hours straight (>.>;). I doubt there’s a server-wide culture of WvW trolling on Rall or anything.

My biggest gripe is using this guy in a place like Orr. I mean, it’s got little rivers you have to cross all over the map, and he disappears and goes on cooldown for 60 seconds after the 2-second crossing each time. That’s just lame.

I’m pretty sure that if:

• Our general list of bugs was addressed
• Our Blood traited Life Siphons scaled to the same order of magnitude as other passive health-over-time mechanics (Healing Signet, Virtue of Justice, Adrenal Health, etc)
• Axe was made a little more viable (i.e. #1 chained to provided some extra buff/debuff/utility, #2 channel time was compressed to 2 seconds)

we’d be pretty well off.

BaconSoda.3976:

The Thief can realistically only do this two, three, or four times in a short period as Cloak and Dagger has a 6 initiative cost while the utility skills have a pretty long cooldown.

10 points into Shadow Arts makes all stealth skills give you two initiative, so CnD costs a net 4 initiative.
15 points into Trickery increases the initiative cap by 3.
20 points into Shadow Arts increases the initiative regen by 1/3 seconds while in stealth.
20 points into Acrobatics increases initiative regen by 2/10 seconds.
20 points into Critical Strikes grants 2 initiative on signet use.
‘Roll for Initiative’ grants 6 initiative on use.
’Infiltrator’s Signet’ increases initiative regen by 1/10 seconds.

I’m not saying a Thief will have all of these, that all of them are practical, or that it makes it impossible to fight a thief, but they certainly won’t lack enough initiative to chain CnD/Backstab on you ’til the cows come home.

Based on the numbers in that screenshot, those two skills alone only need to hit twice to eat through 28k, and it’s a lot easier for a thief to regain initiative than it is for you to refill your Life Force after sacrificing it to eat the first combo.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that ticks for multi-hit abilities are just showing you the total damage done. So in this case, the whole Life Transfer did 5.2k damage.

It’s a little sad that, for our profession, “burst” means “steady but unremarkable pressure consisting of auto-attacks”.

Maybe the female lich could also be normal-sized. You know, like 6 feet tall at max, instead of the 20-Foot Towering Monstrosity of Darn.

E-hehehehe. Hehe. He.

I think you just gave me a new goal in life.

Holy kitten, batman!

Using the formulas we’re familiar with, you should be getting 2.5% experience towards your character’s next level each time you gain a level in your crafting.

Hmm… over the weekend I went from 1 – 386 Jewler on my Thief, which corresponded to high level 10 to low level 20 worth of experience. I expect if I had gone the full 1 – 400 I would have gained exactly 10 levels, because the proportions work out right.

If it’s a change then it must be a very recent one. I’ll go home and level one of my current characters’ professions (maybe huntsman on my ranger, starting with level 1) and see how much it gives me.

On Sorrow’s Furnace we actually have a really good match-up this week. It’s clear we’re losing, but every evening when I play the split has been something like 60-20-20 all week, with one group or the other nudging the lines around. Hopefully we keep that kind of healthy balance where no one side owns 98% of the map and is farming spawn points.

I have to imagine that what we’re experiencing is close to what they envisioned for WvW.

The only thing I can think here is that they need to add increased resistance the further you capture points into what is initially enemy territory. Whether that’s a tactical factor like terrain, NPCs, or supply is increasingly weighted against you, or a strategic factor such as a buff when attacking/debuff when defending further into someone else’s ‘home’ territory. I know the spawn locations do give some advantage, but clearly it isn’t enough at this point.

I wonder if ANet’s intentions behind this week’s match-ups were to place one marginally stronger server with two slightly weaker servers so inspire a makeshift alliance between the weaker servers, or if we just got (un)lucky with the server WvW scores on Friday and wound up with some bogus matchmaking where the stronger servers out of three got bumped up a rank while the weaker servers got bumped down a rank, putting them into the wrong brackets.

It’s a good observation that WvW is about PvP, but bear in mind that meaningless slaughter at the exit of your starting waypoint is pretty unsatisfying. If the underdog in a match-up could, with enough effort, at least have a prayer of holding a single tower and a trading a couple of nearby supply camps it would give a lot more purpose and tactical options to that PvP.

I agree with the OP.

I ground the heck out of NM modes during the first two months after TSW’s launch. I halfway did it for the reward, but halfway because they were stellar boss fights (except the shield mechanics in Hell Fallen – those were a cop-out).

I couldn’t stand to try more than a couple of the dungeons in here. On top of the bug where you couldn’t get into dungeons with a full party (very frustrating, and turned me off of dungeons early), the experience was more annoying than rewarding for the very same reasons as the OP listed: mobs have gratuitous amounts of health, often no real strategy, and non-telegraphed one-shot mechanics.

baptiste.8367:

why are you laughing if you want the end game gear you need to grind them … if you want to look like a mediocre casual with your crafted armor go ahead.

This is the funniest thing I’ve read in a while.

Granted, I think the change to the reward was extreme, I don’t agree with it, and I think it should be reversed. Not that I ever ran more than two of the dungeons in the game, but now that there’s basically zero reward I have zero desire to do them.

alanis.6094:

Lucubration.8361:

alanis.6094:

Lucubration.8361:

Ramza Wyvernjack.6895:

@ Tilron – Yeah, same bout gw1.
This character I can reliably kill 7 enemies at once without breaking a sweat.

Mesmer clones don’t count.

It’s pretty easy to kill 7 melee 80s in Orr with Wells, Conditions, and Epidemic. However, I don’t really have much to base on how other professions would handle this.

I can solo the Champion Giant that throws out tons of grubs, and I’ve seen others die to the encounter when in a group, so that should say something.

Oh… he was talking about PvE. I see.

Nobody is winning anything close to a 7v1 in PvP vs anyone that isn’t afk.

He didn’t specify 7v1. I had this impression he was going to share an anecdote about how every time he unloads his cooldowns he can kill 7 people in a WvW zerg with wells/staff or epidemic AoE. They can offer some decent pressure in that scenario, but it even then it ain’t that good lol.

alanis.6094:

Lucubration.8361:

Ramza Wyvernjack.6895:

@ Tilron – Yeah, same bout gw1.
This character I can reliably kill 7 enemies at once without breaking a sweat.

Mesmer clones don’t count.

It’s pretty easy to kill 7 melee 80s in Orr with Wells, Conditions, and Epidemic. However, I don’t really have much to base on how other professions would handle this.

I can solo the Champion Giant that throws out tons of grubs, and I’ve seen others die to the encounter when in a group, so that should say something.

Oh… he was talking about PvE. I see.

Halo.8976:

Thief. I hate thieves, so I’m going to make a really good one and abuse it as much as I can. Who knows, maybe I’ll help to bring the glorious day of thieves nerfing a little bit sooner.

I like your style, Halo. I’m also primarily focusing on Thief as my next main profession. So far I’m enjoying their niche as an agile scout and skirmisher.

I have a Ranger, Warrior, Guardian, and Mesmer all slowly coming along as well just in case the Thief gets nerfed; however, experience seems to show that Guild Wars 2 favors the strong and neglects the weak.

Ramza Wyvernjack.6895:

@ Tilron – Yeah, same bout gw1.
This character I can reliably kill 7 enemies at once without breaking a sweat.

Mesmer clones don’t count.

The stat inconsistencies between sPvP and all other gear (and even between weapons/armor/jewelry of the same sets) drove me up a wall for the first week.

Now I just throw together stuff which has the primary stat I want and secondary stats that either, “provide a bit of bonus damage” or “provide a bit of survivability” in whatever form I can get, because I’m resigned to the idea that it won’t be in the form I want -.-

Yes, I require human ponytails.

antimatter.2579:

Lucubration.8361:

Kayotik.5790:

I also like how the staff turns into a shadow-scythe when you cast/attack.

TBH that is very cool. I also like the angry shadowy ball you turn into when you go into Death Shroud.

Try Reaper Of Grenth + DS.

I’m a plant Q.Q

The only cap I’m aware of for condition damage is that bleed stacks cap at 25. I think the stats in this game are designed around the maximum number of stat points you could possibly allocate based on available gear rather than putting a cap on the attributes themselves.