For the most part I agree with the original poster that RNG only items are inherently frustrating for players. A little bit about me as the original poster shared his background bit. I work in the video game industry primarily as an animator. This said any good animator has a fairly good understanding of game design, at least as it relates to animation concerns. One thing I thought should have been introduced (or included) is a way to earn RNG skins.
For example take the old bounty system from GW1 and rework it with the Black Lion trading company. Let players have the option to undertake Black Lion missions a certain number of times per day at various difficulties. Depending upon the difficulty of the mission the player gains a certain amount of “fame” (XP) and at a certain amount of total “fame” the player receives a Black Lion Ticket scrap. This is really a modification of the PVP reward system brought over to PVE that would allow designers to direct players to unpopulated zones, allow them to work towards long term goals more then say a daily, adjust the rate of return, and keep the players logging in.
The downside is the potential loss of revenue and the potential for inflation. I don’t have any information as to how much gold is taken out of the economy via gem conversion but I cant imagine that he compulsive player base that wants the skin now would refrain too much from buying in favor of this system.
Just my two cents that isn’t worth that much on one way to approach the problem in the original post.
Have you looked into the new amberite craftable weapons? They are dark brown and if you are okay with bugs kind of go with the whole reverence for the wild Norns have going.
I use runes of the ranger with ascended zeker gear, they’re viable. And cheap. Mostly cheap. I kid. 7% damage increase is nice and I’ve been told that increase is constant even if your pet is “dead.” I can’t confirm that though as I haven’t tested it personally. Alternatives I’ve heard thrown about are ogres runes and ruby orbs. Scholars I believe still give the best dps although strength runes seem to be all the rage these days.
So basically everything everyone complains about is working as intended? Good to know, won’t expect much in the way of changes then.
For PVE I’d say cats. My kitty isn’t in any real danger of dying with management and they do some nice DPS (the highest I hear) I do like to keep a dog on hand for fear or immobilization. As for wvw where I run a power ranger as well I run a dog main and switch to cat for mop up patrol after I’ve softened the targets or I’m satisfied I’ve cleared out enough aoe or dps that my cat can really do some work. Wolf’s fear is also very handy for stopping stomps or getting some space if you are being single targeted. I have a friend who is REALLY good at using a devourer as kind of a meat shield by keeping it in front of them. I never could get the hang of it though.
Pet : Rock
Skill: Knockdown
Mechanic: immobile, must be carried everywhere
Pet AI: probably better then any other pet. At least it doesn’t draw aggro.
CNB was involved in some fights along side YOLO (Agg) last night with some Rx mixed in.
I think mainly if you’re trying to pick up loot or encumbered during a regroup in wvw and you have nothing that can be deposited you’ll hit the button only to find you can’t get your loot or are still encumbered. It can be a pain when the bags be flowing free.
I didn’t think that you could enter into PVP areas from the tutorial levels?
I’ve been playing with a med build in WvW and was optimistic about this heal. However after seeing it in action I’ll try it but I’m pretty sure its junk. Its a skill that has a lot of counters and as such it will probably be most effective if used early in anticipation of needing the heal. So you’ll either heal over what you need and risk getting obliterated when you actually need a heal or you’ll wait till you need the heal and risk just getting straight up obliterated while trying to land the damage.
I might be able to live without me actively being able to soft CC the target in zerg fights with this heal but it really needs to be instant otherwise not only can you be prevented from landing your damage to get the yeoman’s work out of the heal but you’ll likely evaporate while casting trying to get the base heal. After all you’ll optimally be in the thick of things. Why is it I suddenly think they balanced this while fighting the target golems?
I agree with the revamping of encounters in PVE but that doesn’t address the power creep in WvW. While I understand that the realm battle game mode wont ever be balanced I do think they will have to watch crazy DPS in that mode closely so it doesn’t get too out of hand. Although even if they do adjust the damage it will most likely be a blanket cap on direct damage upon entering the mode.
Well to be fair I think we can blame the company for the mistake because this was a self inflicted wound. The community isn’t at fault on either side. Having had to grind for T3 heavy cultural armor I can see both sides of this argument. However having played the RNG Black Lion chest game on the first Halloween I also can say I have felt cheated from the gem shop (although that was totally my own stupid self) That doesn’t mean we should hold a grudge against Anet. They screwed up, T3 slipped past someone and now they are doing their best to control the damage. If that damage is a loss in potential gem purchases, well, that’s on them I guess. The flip side was the loss of a player base which is a potential loss in gem purchases. It was a train wreck from the get go. Although I do think that when they actually went back on this it had to be more then a vocal minority or it wasn’t approved by the lead designer/ art director or someone higher up.
As to the question of will it happen again? Maybe. You would hope that this would cause a re examination of practices and they would implement internal changes to ensure it wouldn’t. It is not a red letter day for them and as someone who is an animator in the video game field I can tell you that the development team is upset about this. Our games are our babies. So many hundreds of hours go into these things and we really want them to be the best experience they can be for the players. Its upsetting to us on a professional and creative level when these things slip by. Still November must be a cursed month for them. Wasn’t it last year around now the whole kittenarka precursor debacle and the the ascended gear uproar?
I do like the idea of being to work in game towards gain trust with a faction and then being able to craft cultural armor. Much like the Kurz/Luxon system in GW1. It should be a long term accomplishment though and maybe a limit on how many factions you can ally with. I don’t think people would be terribly upset about that as a feature as a player would a. have to grind the faction’s trust and then b. have to actually buy the expensive cultural armor.
Sabyne – When the art team updates the asset and it goes live it will automatically overwrite your current flamekissed armor. Like saving over a file. What the new asset will be is anyone’s guess but I think they will most likely alter the mesh, which if not altered enough may still tick some off or replace the mesh entirely with a different mesh. The skin actually refers to the texture. I do not think they can really get away with another re texture without altering the mesh without starting the outrage up again but I could be wrong. So the skin (or mesh) you have now will one day look different, you won’t have control of it because the item id (or however the engine handles it) will point to a different asset. As to how they will then refund you exactly if you don’t like the new mesh/ skin is most likely being hammered out and sent through legal. If I had to guess I’d say gems with maybe trans stones in mail but I have no idea exactly.
Yep. But the deal breaking issue for many was that the T3 armor was made non exclusive and thus a portion of the player base was unfairly singled out to have their accomplishments diminished. The other meshes were already available to all cultures. If all T3 light armor had been made available we would not be here. (although there would be even more rage over that as then a percentage of all cultures would be miffed I reckon) Still the reaction was so predictable that I wonder how it ever managed to go live. I mean the second I saw it I thought “Awww man this is going to be a train wreck”
The flaming clothes in the Catching Fire trailer were cool and all but at some point an art director or producer should have stepped in and at least say “Hey you can’t use prestige culture locked meshes for gem store re skins. That would be bad. Mkay?”
Well hopefully you’ll be able to be refunded RWM and be made whole. That would be the best solution I think. No harm, no foul sort of scenario. Other then being teased with the half priced T3 mesh that is.
I have to think that if they changed their stance on this it was more then a few people complaining. But yes this is a train wreck. And yes there will be un satisfied customers now regardless. However this problem wasn’t created by any of the community. This is a self inflicted wound by the developer. At no point should exclusive T3 cultural meshes have been considered for sale in the gem store UNLESS all T3 cultural meshes were being made available. The idea shouldn’t have even left the drawing board. So really the only people to blame is Anet. They totally own this snafu.
Or the crafted winged or crafted masquerade would be my guess for the new re skinned mesh. They seem close to the T3 mesh. Now if they simply use the T3 mesh again and try to reskin the… err… reskin then whooo boy. The rage will be mighty indeed.
I don’t think promoting a product is bad in and of itself. However constant discounts and what some might call dubious decisions as of late ( I’m looking at you glowey T3 armor) are what I think are adding to peoples trepidation about the game. Well and that commercial. Painful. Couldn’t even watch it all the way through.
Not worth it for straight PVE for sure. In WvW I suppose that if you ran Signet of Resolve it might make for a nice panic heal. Large HP boost and a block to get out of the fire and back into the frying pan as it where. Maybe. I really doubt it though. That is as things stand now. Shattered Aegis might change that. But I really think there are better options available to us then the new rune.
I think but I’m not 100% sure but the scepter AA hits for the most damage per strike. However that doesn’t include travel time (which is really slow) or the other weapon skills of which only one does damage and its a mild AOE damage but spammable. Overall I think scepters DPS is some what low due to orb travel in PVE and easily dodged in PVP environments. Its not a BAD weapon just not optimal. Of course I could be totally wrong.
Most likely due to the fact that from a PVE perspective its all about DPS and melee weapons always outperform range in DPS terms. However in wvw I kind of agree the guardian could benefit from a ranged alternative if for no other reason that it would allow for some pressure DPS on a reset or regroup.
Hammer has a ring of warding that blocks enemies and can be used to trap an enemy with you or prevent opponents from advancing through a choke point as well as an immobilize on skill 3. The chain looking thingee. Sword has a tether and pull which is good for interrupts. So its not a LOT of CC. Guardians don’t have really good CC in general. But that is a whole other thing.
Either great sword or hammer is fine in the wvw. Great sword is good for getting into the thick of things with an alright leap gap closer and for condi cleanse with symbol + Whirling Wrath. Hammer is good for control and blasting might as well as other things. So whatever works for the group you run with and whatever you feel comfortable with.
I’m on SOS. We are pre determined to get 6th place. I expect my rewards to be a blue and a single pile of glittering dust.
So for the record I think server population balance is an impossible task. It wont happen simply because you cant control human behavior without some measure of force. For example lowering map population to the lowest number fielded by a server in your match up. That would be BAD and just force people out of the game mode. Not good. However here’s a crazy idea. Alliances. It would be interesting at least in terms of season rewards if the end rewards weren’t determined by individual servers performance in a league but an alliances performance across all servers. That way even if your server is getting smashed (cough sos) in their league their overall contribution point wise in, say, red alliance would still be meaningful to an overall goal. It would also allow for the organizers to better distribute matchups in an organic manner while still having them fight for a first place or overall reward. If that makes sense. Maybe. Its kind of a crazy idea. I’m not sure if its even possible. But it would beat logging in to wait around to collect your pre determined 6th place prize.
Empowering might seems an odd choice for this test as it is somewhat out of place for a high healing build. Unlike warriors that have a high passive healing without really investing into healing power Guardians really have to go deep into healing power in order to get a great return from it. So we usually dump crit chance in return for raw power and healing power. Further empowering might has an internal 1 sec cool down in application so I don’t think 5 guardians here would make any difference. So the answer would be it varies on healing power. If you REALLY wanted to go high healing a clerics build with something over a 1000 healing power, 3000 raw power, crap crit, writ of merciful, writ of exaltation, absolute resolution, and battle presence might crank out some impressive healing. That is if battle presence grants the passive multiple times per guardian. That would give 5 275 ish passive regen ticks per sec. Plus regen from symbols and shouts. Or it might not stack and just suck.
I believe that it is the latter. Once the trait removes a boon it goes into cool down. So it will not be an AOE boon removal. Or in other words it will only remove one boon per 20 seconds.
Thank you Substance E. This isn’t the way I thought the dev was explaining it.
“so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game. "
That made it sound as if the shout had be reworked to seek out and “un stealth” hidden characters. Hence my confusion. Might be good, might be meh. Depends on the length of the reveal.
I understand what revealed is. My confusion is more, how does one target something they cannot target to apply reveal?
I’m kind of confused. If sic’em needs a valid target and stealth breaks targeting how will sic em reveal stealthed characters unless it simply stops them from going into stealth and doesn’t actually take them out of it.
I’m… kinda… on the fence about all this? It doesn’t seem to do much if anything from a wvw’ers perspective. More condition removal but without a cool down to condition application that doesn’t mean much. Conditions will still burn through removal at an alarming rate. Coupled with our low health we’ll still fold like cheap lawn chairs without a larger pool to pad out duration. I guess for pvp these changes are… meh. It doesn’t really change the meta that much from what I see. Warriors are kind of making out like bandits though.
I feel as though the current 30 30 10 build is here to stay and these changes aren’t really going to break that up much. Mainly due to healing powers placement in the trait line. UNLESS its not MF that grants fury. Then it could allow for a tiny bit of burst on a defense healway type guardian. I think. Better guardians then I could probably speak to that theory crafting with more authority.
You can trait into virtues or into Pure of Voice for shout condition removal.
I believe that ascended weapons actually give a fairly healthy increase in performance due to the increased base damage. People who are better with math then I likened it to almost 10% I can’t say for certain as I am not clever with math but if power affects weapon damage and the base damage is also increased then the damage would definitely be increased beyond the increase of the base stat. So in short not 3% (the base stat increase)
Yes, but that’s kind of my point. In large numbers the conditions become more and more effective. Thus we see the raise or abuse of things like melandru runes and Lemongrass poultry. Imagine the people not running those things and then dropping even harsher penalties on them. The current WvW meta punishes build diversity and ultimately I’d like to see that change. I just cant see that coming about through buffed CC’s.
From the stand point of someone who works in games I’ve never liked stuns that lock players out of action. (for more then a second and a half which is my default animation time when I do a stun state) It breaks resonance as the game simply plays itself. Once the removed from gameplay the player quickly loses interest. After all they weren’t really defeated; they were cheated. They literally could do nothing but sit and watch themselves die. Its a frustrating experience for most players and I feel that this game already skirts dangerously close to that on occasion.
So I happen to play WvW a lot as well and I am somewhat torn on this. I got into this discussion a bit on the warrior forums where there were complaints or (legitimate) concerns about the hammer’s ability to shut down whole groups of people. While I do agree that hard CC can be irritating I have come to accept the trying to balance around WvW in this respect could do more damage then good. Really on such a large scale with so many iterations of group encounters and relative group sizes the game mode would have to be dumbed down to such a degree in WvW that everyone would end up having the same skills. Or very set predefined builds that allowed no deviation. Much like the old costume brawls. I really wouldn’t want to see that. At least not for WvW.
Also as much as condition removal is abused so is condition application. I cant step outside spawn without contracting 20 hooley booley necro viruses it seems.
Nah. I can clearly see a couple adds run in at around 20 secs. One was kind enough to make himself all glowly and ghostly. Paused at 26 secs in I can see an guildless add and an NSGF tag in the fray. Paused at 35 sec I can read an EV tag. Meh.
Pretty good stuff. Funny thing was I was playing around with the new exuberance runes (I know, poor mans divinity rune) looking for a build to help me out in WvW. My old more dps build just wasn’t cutting it against the condition spam anymore. I eneded up getting almost to this build that you posted.
The difference was that I had around 2000 vitality and 1100 healing power. So about 22000 HP. other then that my attack was SLIGHTY higher with my mace but my crit chance was around 35%. However I’m not done tweaking my build and I noticed you’ve got Magi weapons. I’d like to try these out for my build. Where can I aquire them? Thanks for the great ideas. The new (albeit unfinished) build is already working wonders. I just wish I could get more burst.
I’ve run the VoJ spam blind vunerability AH build a PoV variation and now my own variation of healway (which allows me 22,000 HP 35% crit chance and 40 crit damage at around 2600 power M/S) and I have to say I prefer Healway in WvW in every situation. Healway is somewhat slow in PVE but as long as you don’t run in speed dungeon groups it transitions seamlessly into PVE. One thing I do admit is that Healway was way outside my comfort zone and I really do miss big splooshy red numbers over 2500 (my crits are around 1500 AA) but it is a really fun build. the ability to hang around and turn the tide in a battle is pretty addictive and I found the hardcore frontline DPS type builds really squishy in solo/ roaming encounters.
That said I still did try to work in as much burst as I could into healway…
Oh and my thanks to the originator of the helway build. You sir/madame are the cat’s pjs.
I’m going out on a limb and thinking that the OP is more distressed by a recent trend of hammer trains in wvw. Yep, they can be annoying. If that group is all in some sort of chat and coordinated they can be really annoying. I mean its not hard to all spam f1 on call.
However I think this has less to do with the hammer itself and more to do with the way conditions function. Yes you can stun break but if you instantly get hit by another earthshaker that condition is instantly reapplied and your breaker is gone. Which kind of takes away the strategic use of condi cleanse but I believe they have said there is no intention of adding cooldowns to condition application so meh, what can you do?
I used to run a variation of the build Hatsimulator linked. It does quite well. Only I specced into POV. Honestly, as I’ve learned the class I have found that AH won’t really save me from huge zergs or stupid mistakes. As I’ve become more comfortable away from my training wheels I’ve gone deeper into radiance. I’m running something like 0 25 10 30 5 right now. PVT armor beserker or PVT weapons (depending on matchup etc) and zerkers trinkets. It is working nicely for me right now. I rarely give up a rally and I’m almost always one of the last guys standing before a wipe. You’ve got to be aware of what going on in the field though. The meta is in flux, lots of hammer trains and necros but meh, whatcha going to do?
An interesting video. I don’t play small scale team pvp myself but it is interesting to see the over lap functionally with the builds I’ve been running in WvW for a while now. Good stuff. I agree that the more dps you can get in your build without becoming a rally bot the better your group, regardless of size, is for it.
You never have to abandon a build if you enjoy playing it, simply devise one that fits your play style. Now as for spirit weapons, they used to be pretty popular in the early days of the game but fell out of favor once the weapons themselves became killable. They are really pretty weak to AOE which can melt them in no time flat. However there are some niche builds that revolve around damage against burning foes and spirit weapons causing burning if I recall correctly. You’ll have to go pretty heavy in zeal with maybe 10 in virtues for longer spirit weapon duration and then spread out the remaining points. Maybe radiance as that seem to synergize well with conditions. So maybe something like 20 25 something something 10 with 15 put wherever. Improved spirit weapon duration, recharge, not destroyed on command and causes burning. Spam your first vitue for burns and blinds and maybe take blind exposure. That’s just a quick and dirty place to start
Wall of reflection and Stand your Ground or Hallowed ground (any stability really) and you are already helping out a great deal in zerg combat. Then if you can down players and not die (don’t give up rallies) and your already way ahead of the game
I used to run something very similar. I kind of gave it up though. I think that the 4 skill on torch (the throw) was stealth nerfed to reduce the damage. Not sure though. However I did notice a drop in the damage output of the weapon. Also the 5 skill ticks and doesn’t burn. This isn’t such a problem in PVE but in WvW anyone who is half awake will dodge out of it. With those things in mind there was really no reason for me not to run Mace focus…
One thing though is that mace is indeed a hard hitting weapon ( I’ve seen glassy 6K crits) but for pure DPS I think its slower AA makes it less attractive then great sword for DPS. I don’t run great sword so much as to be an expert on it. Maybe someone could confirm?
Oh my that is quite tanky. I tend to roll more defensive myself but I don’t go so tanky as you. However your build is actually a pretty viable WvW build. My server would most likely prefer your build as they always call for full PVT gear for large group open field combat. So to answer your question does DPS reign supreme? Depends. In a dungeon speed run which you found yourself in, yes. This goes for PVE in general which isn’t really difficult. The objective here is to kill everything as fast a possible to maximize profit.
However ’zerker players are adorable in large open field WvW situations. If your facing me and want to maximize MY profits, by all means run ’zerkers. As I said my server or even guild would prefer your build any day over the typical beserk guardian.
And male dresses for light armor…
Has anyone else noticed Braham’s armor in the PVP equipment lockers? Does this mean it will be available? Most likely for purchase?
Has anyone tried the stealth in game? Does the pet stealth as well or only the ranger?