Guild Wars 2

Whats with all the lag lately!? Now we have DC’s to contend with… I hope this isnt an issue that is resolved quickly

Same here – but i will keep writing in order to increase my body length beyond 15.

I find with my mesmer builds that I am often feel I am forced into having to sacrifice something in order to gain either Menders’ Purity or Cleansing Conflagration.

I was wondering if any of our illusions will proc Sigils? Particularly Sigil of Purity, and whether this sigil is even worth it.

On Jade Quarry and I completed Meta achievement, 10/10.

Logged in and out (full log out) 3 times on different characters.

Did not recieve any rewards or first place achievement instead I have a second place achievement. For some reason.

Best moment was when our guild + some pugs were working on a borderlands map towards the end of the season.

Apparently we had caused enough of a fuss that we brought down the wrath of both the other servers. Somehow, at one point we found ourselves pinned between both enemy zergs in an open field. We were the smallest of the three and the furthest from our spawn as well.

We played to our strengths, and continued to hold our ground against both forces. It turned into a big bag farm and in the end our little group was the last man standing.

It felt good to be the “last zerg standing” after the massacre. On paper, there was no way we should have won! A great way to end the night!

To be honest, I think Anet is waiting a few seasons to let this “rush to the winning server” thing fade away.

Some people will always “pay to win” by jumping servers, but most of us will eventually settle somwhere.

Long term I dont think this will be a problem. After all how many rushed to Blackgate this season, but Blackgate didnt win. Those people played a gambit and it didnt pay off.

I’ve been playing a support Ele for a long time now.

I think you’ll find that in PvE your build will be overkill in the healing department. I run runes of Dwayna instead of Monk and no Sigil of Benevalance, and I feel I have too much healing.

Of course, too much is better than not enough, especially if ur PuGing a lot.

In WvW, with healing as ur primary role it would be a lot of fun to play. I feel it still might be overkill, but you would want more healing then in PvE.

At the moment I am trying to find that sweet spot for healing, so I can put more into DPS and Survivability. I hope you keep posting as you find out more.

I haven’t been getting disconnected, but sometimes actions “get lost” between here and the server. Or things just go off a second too late. I wouldnt be surprised if it has something to do with the Megaservers or something, but it definately adds an irritation to the game play. : (

I love Runes of the Pack, they have been underated for a long time by most players,

I hope it stays that way, so they stay cheap, paying upwards of 4g per rune is ridiculous, imo.

So shhhh, stop telling everyone about it… let them spend a fortune on other runes “cos someone on the internet says so.”

A well thought out arguement.

Maybe it should be reclassed to a shout?

What can you change it too?

Lately I’ve noticed my lag going up in this game. Both before the Megaservers and definately after. Don’t know if this kind of post goes here, but since it affects all classes…

GW2 is a very latency dependant game. This was most noticable when playing PVP. I should mention I play GW2 from Sydney, Australia. I get much better at PvP as all the americans start to log off, funnily enough.

Anyway, lately the lag is much more frequent and is starting to affect me in dungeons, which it never used to. I can do Lupi in my sleep, but lately… sometimes… its ridiculous. Don’t know if its just me or if others are getting it, but its been a noticable increase for me over the last few months.

Anyway, if your American, here is a funny vid that shows what its like to play with lag:

Living With Lag

(I remember when one of the devs was playing WVW and on his screen you could see he was playing at 80fps with 3ms! So jealous!! /cry!!!)

Edit: Video now doesnt require facebook to login to view it. Ty Icewyrm

Atherakhia.4086:

They either need to dramatically adjust the initiative regen of the class or they need to overhaul the whole stealth system to resemble WoW. Best of luck to either scenario happening.

Go back to WoW….. That game had the worst stealthing in any game. Stealth = 100% uptime on Invisibility. The reason why GW2 has this stupid stealth system is because they tried to copy the archetype that rogues had. Rogues were incredibly hard for blizzard to balance because of it. Often as a result they were left being OP because the only other option was to nerf the whole class into obilivion.

Currently, thieves are no different, they will either be OP (in the hands of someone that knows how to use them) or they will be nigh on useless. The middle ground for these types of classes is very hard to hit.

Stealth should be useless after the opener. Once you know someone is there, they are there. A possibly cool mechanic might be to link blindness with stealth… but we could just end up back here if its not done properly.

Stealth that can be contiously re-entered into, getting out of combat, and having to fight without a target is what breaks stealth in GW2.

The whole system needs an overhaul (already). I just hope they are onto it now and not waiting for “sometime in the future.”

There is no way i can give up my Runes of Speed. Mesmers are sooooo slow, especially when something puts u in combat.

If feels mandatory to run Speed or Traveler.

So if I get this right, your saying:

• Thieves are OP
• Devs want it this way
• I am a thief player
• I am ok with being OP
• You should too

…. because…. I have to manage a resource and sometimes I don’t get away. (You only get away 80% of the time, according to you.)

Wha…!?

Coming back for Round 10

I think the main problem with Thieves is the “coming back for round 10” bit. You said it cos’ you know its true. This isn’t “skill at playing” anymore, it’s almost in-game harassment.

Other classes can only go for so long before they run out of CDs, but a thief with his initiative management down, can infinitely play it out, making them the ultimate harassing class. (Still wondering why you get a lot of hate!?)

This is directly linked to their ability to maintain an extremely high up-time on invisibility. (Its not stealth, it is 100% invisibility, and thieves don’t even have to get naked first!) You can’t “stealth” in front of someone or once you know they are there. Stealth provides a small window of opportunity to surprise attack someone, after that it’s gone.

Repeatedly turning invisible every three seconds has nothing to do with stealth. And seriously, should be implemented for mages like mesmers, not thieves, if its going to be in the game at all.

Think about it, they move faster (not slower) when they are “sneaking” right in front of you. Oh I could go on… but I won’t…

A House of Cards

The reason why the devs haven’t done anything about it is because it is a very very fine line between thieves being OP and them being utterly useless. They won’t touch it and risk losing players until they are sure they can solve it fairly.

Everything you change on a thief has to be counter-balanced somewhere else, which results in the entire class being overhauled! Thats a big job! Maybe you’re right. Maybe they are happy not to play with this house of cards.

They might be happy… but from the forums most players aren’t. Anet built a game around team-work bringing players together. They took away the silly reasons people fight. But then made the ultimate bullying class!

I don’t think most people would not have a problem with thieves if they had weren’t able to persistently keep trying to assault you… but how do you fix that?

Possible Solution

Stealthing should be directly linked to blinds. If you have the debuff, you can’t see them, otherwise they are the same as everyone else.

Burnfall.9573:

Zero Day.2594:

Burnfall.9573:

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when did i ever mention playing the game?
…

Well guys, the thief became so OP that even people not playing the game are buying accounts on GW2 to QQ about it.

Burnfall.9573:

and yet i am quickly moving away from playing the game.
…

Aside from the standard l2p solutions, yeah that’s another solution.

“Well guys, the thief became so OP that even people not playing the game are buying accounts on GW2 to QQ about it”.

I was being sarcastic.

Although ZeroDay,

I see that you enjoy tormenting those whose Cause differ than yours?

“and yet i am quickly moving away from playing the game”.

This time i wasn’t.

A word of advice to Thief Class:

Embrace Yourselves

" When Justice Is Done, It Brings Joy To The Righteous But Terror To Those Who Commits Injustice "

Lol, I have to laugh at thieves being righteous and that they are somehow are unjustly hard-done-by.

Seroiously, though, maybe you should just say what you mean, rather than being sacrastic and having tell people later on. Tone is notoriously mis-interpreted in text.

I love this game…. everyone talks like they are professionals at the game… “I play to such a high standard, I never have problems with any class. Just learn to play! Y r u QQ?!”

…anyway… heres my “professional” two cents….

Stealth isn’t stealth. Its invisiblity, AND it’s incredibly hard to balance in any game! People who take the time to master it, will always find a way to exploit the crap out of it, then when it gets nerfed, they say “this class is useless, I quit.”

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SPvP and Thieves

Thieves don’t own in sPvP because of nodes. They can not take nodes stealthed so they have to be visible and then eat all the damage of the, usually some kind of bunker, who can eat of thier damage and knock them on thier behinds for trying.

Of course you’ll take one thief, they are excellent roamers and great at bursting people down who are on low health. But why would you take 5!? Variety makes your group more flexible and viable.

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WvW and Thieves

In WvW on the other hand, where fights can be constantly reset, thieves OWN. There is no fight a Thief can not win as long as they don’t push too hard or over extend. They can catch almost any class in the game, or at least follow closely. With an infinite amount of stealth they can make multiple attempts at escaping a fight, whenever they are low on CDs or initiative.

I see almost all roamers to be thieves, at least 60% (and I think I am being generous to other classes here.) I dont know where you see all these Engineers, but maybe people on your server gave up on playing thieves too early?

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Why are Thieves OP? (Potentially)

Thieves have several advantages that no other class has access to:

1.
Thieves control the tempo of the “dance” like no other. They can slow down a fight when they need initiative and thier cool downs to come back, or play hard and fast when they are ready to do so. They do this with distance, stealth and by keeping you in combat, so your health doesn’t regenerate. And if possible, getting out of combat and regening thier own health back. Then they try again, after they swapped some stuff around, cos’ now they know what you can do…

2.
Unlike mesmers who can only stealth so many times before they cannot stealth anymore (due to long cooldowns and a limited number of stealthing abilities), well-practiced thief players can have an exceptionally high stealth uptime by managing thier iniative effetively.

This means they are constantly dropping target. Which means if you come into the fight with the wrong weapons, weapons that cannot cleave for example, there isn’t much you can do about it.

Even with the right weapons, you are still swinging at a target you cannot see and hoping for a hit or two, you could get lucky or not. This genereally works in an experienced thief’s favour since he can see whats going on and you can’t.

3.
This is very important, since one of a thiefs weaknesses is his susceptablity to crowd controls. Almost all CC requires a target. Sure after stealth, a thief cannot go stealth for three seconds, but you have to acquire him as a target (gotta love tab targeting random deers), start the cast time (of which most CC has some kind of cast timer), hope it goes off before he stealths.

Now if you have 300ms, which is normal for anyone outside of america. Then there is a 50/50 chance that your CC got him and the server registered the CC before you dropped target due to stealth. But you can’t tell cos’ he is stealthed now. So either you unload your burst and hope you got him or you let him escape and hope you can last long enough for another attempt.

What this effectively results in is this: You have to build your build around managing thieves. No other class in the game forces you to adapt to them, in the way thieves make every other class adapt to fighting them.

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Conclusion

On builds where I have built them around surviving and dealing with thieves, they are not so bad, (depending on how cheesy thier build is). But if I dont have the build or right gear at the time of the fight. Its not even a competition. At least with other classes there is a chance for winning. But with thieves, what you need to beat them, I find, is generally very specific.

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Thanks for taking the time to listen to my 2 cents.

As of right now this bug is still not fixed for me.

It affects my dungeon rewards. My crafting Cooldowns. My sPvP reward progression. And loot from World bosses.

Seems like I can do something once and after that I wont recieve anymore rewards for the event.

Hoping its fixed soon.

My account is stuffed. Seems like something to do with the way rewards and account daily cooldowns is handled.

I dont get dungeon rewrds anymore. The Daily rewards don’t reset.

My crafting CDs dont reset. They are permanently locked down.

In sPvP none of my wins or loses increase my progression.

Any one know whats going on?

The problem with zerkers has nothing to do with armour. Its got to do with a bad attitude that has set in.

Why is it so hard for people to see that a mixed group is generally better overall? Not eveyone has the same weaknesses. Everyone can contribute something to off-set anothers weaknesses. Everyone gets their time to shine! Some damge here, some toughness there, some ranged, some melee, some healing, some mitigation…

A Broken Mindset

A broken mindset has set in, in the community. It says,

Damage = skilled play. Fast = skilled play

Ever read the tortoise and the hare? Sometimes its simply smarter to spend maybe a total of 3-4mins longer in the dungeon and do it right, rather than wiping and wiping then blaming everyone else for it.

I have been in many many PuGs where the elitist zerker jerk raged quit, and after they left the group, we went on to complete the dungeon without any hiccups.

A Good Player

A good player is someone who understands thier class throughly, is able to adapt to the NEEDS of HIS TEAM and can contribute more than simple DPS. A good player doesn’t expect to be carried, but does what he can to make it easier on others.

If someone understands that they “aren’t a great” player and comes with something more than zerker gear, aren’t they a good player because they recognise thier own weaknesses and adjust account for them?

Good players are quick to learn and slow to judge.

A Bad Player

A bad player is a player who constantly puts down, rages, blames, creates a threatening atmosphere, belittles or “back seat drives” another player. People don’t want to please this type of player, and simply don’t try very hard after being exposed to this players attitude.

A bad player rarely notices or acknowledges his own mistakes and stuff ups. Frequently points out other peoples mishaps. They have an expectation that others should think and play as they do.

They are slow to learn and quick to judge.

Kilger.5490:

We are the pet class of this game. The trick is to figure out a way to make them work for everybody.

I don’t believe there has to be a “pet” class. And in this case, Rangers classically, don’t have to have a pet to be a ranger.

Pets are fine, but they should be optional according to how the player wants to play. GW2 is a game that promoted the fact that you could play the way you wanted to play. You could play as DPS or as support, ranged or melee… But for some reason Rangers are a “have to” class? Why? To fulfill an imaginary void? People like mounts too and Anet (wisely) left them out of the game.

Too me, it feels likeAnet Dev’s didn’t think about what truly makes a ranger. It feels like they just thought, World of Warcraft hunters, people like animals, lets re-make that. Sadly, that’s where much of the creativity for the class stopped.

I’m just trying to push the boundaries for the class a little more, since I don’t think it would be that hard for Anet to take a step like this and it would breath some more life into the class. The Hardest part would be balancing it. Which I assume would just be a matter of playing around with the numbers a bit.

(Forgive my ignorance, if any Anet Devs are reading this and thinking “Oh its not that easy, my friend!”)

Bauli.5398:

This sound awesome. But the tracking would be kinda pointless in PvE. Mobs seldom flee in PvE.

Yeah thats true, but there would be other abilities to choose from for PvE.

You could have an ability that lets you see the aggro range of mobs. Allowing you to lead your group through guantlets or sneaking up close to some monsters to revive someone without setting them off.

There are lots of alternatives if Anet was willing to allow the class to have pets as optional.

Introduction – (TL:DR version)

I have been thinking of rolling a Ranger for a bit now. I keep talking to other players about the class and everytime I make this suggestion I seem to get a resounding “that would be awesome!”

So I thought I’ll throw the idea up here and see if it gains any traction in the community. I dont know if this has already been suggested, but I couldn’t find any posts on it so:

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What if Rangers were petless, and pets had to be traited for?

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The Classic Ranger – (My case for the change)

Most Rangers in the fantasy genres are petless (think LotR not WoW). What normally defines them is there ability to track and survive in hostile conditions, as well as a very keen senses and high combat agility balanced with an ability to use terrain and ingenuity to their advantage.

Rangers in my opinion are like a warrior and a thief rolled together with some unique skills that neither of them have.

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What about Pet Abilities? – (If I lose a pet, what do I get to replace it?)

When running solo, you can choose one of the new abilities listed below that is linked to your Ranger. The Ranger would also get a damage buff to compensate for the lose of DPS suffered by removing your pet.

If you have a pet, then the pet bar replaces it and you get the normal choices for your pet. With re-traiting you can always opt to play with a pet or without as preffered for the situation.

Ranger based abilities might include:

1. Tracking
   When this ability is activated, the Rangers current target leaves red dots on the mini map for the next 30secs. Just like the white dots that the player himself leaves.
   Whether the Ranger loses target or not, once activated the dots continue to appear until the ability expires. The dots fade at the same rate as the players dots (or maybe a bit faster depending on the cool down.)
   This would be an interesting ability against stealth classes, since you can’t see them, but you can see whether they have left the area and in what direction. You could even use it to track people in your own party!
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2. Alertness
   When this ability is used, stealthed creatures within a short to medium range become visible to the Ranger. Just like when an ally is stealthed. He cannot target the creature since it is still stealthed, but he can react AoEing, setting traps or running away.
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3. Bear Grylls
   A ranger using this ability is a master of survival. He can increase the duration of any food or maintainence oils by 50%.
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4. On the Hunt!
   Food and Maintenace Oils have thier durations halved but gain an increase in potency by 20%.
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5. Predatory Reflexes
   The Ranger gains a passive ability to avoid 100% of damage from a single attack on a 60sec cooldown. Like Aegis but it would count as a miss rather than a block.
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6. Roll with Punches
   The Ranger takes 5% less damage due to thier natural inclination to go limp when threatened! Ok that was a joke but you get the point.

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Have a Say

If you like the idea give it a +1, or if you hate it please say so. Throw in any other ideas you might have in.

Seems a lot of Ranger issues stem from thier pets. This isn’t a reason to remove pets, they just need to be refined and worked through. I just think there are other ways to define the Ranger beyond “he is a thief/warrior that cant hide or fight but he has a pet!”

I see a lot of love for this class but I don’t find many people are happy with it.

TGH.7630:

My favourite aspect of SPvP is everyone being on an even playing field in the sense of gear. I’d feel limited to playing my character with a legendary. Right now, I like playing my warrior a lot, but because I use lots of different weapons on my warrior, I’d buy legendaries for my thief, which would stop me playing warrior all together.

Now, you can have a go at me for being an idiot and only playing my thief because it’ll have better weapons, or you can just agree that legendaries are detrimental to a balanced playing field for players.

In every arena season of World of Warcraft, the class with the legendary has been the op class.

Thats true, however, I don’t think Legendaries will have their Ascended stats, just the skin will be carried over. I don’t think the look and feel of Legendaries has a place in sPvP, even though I some might say “But I workded hard for this, even if it is detrimental to the game, I want it!”

My concern is that, a lot of people have Legendaries, they are not exceptionally rare, at worst they are uncommon. Which means their graphics and animations will dominate over gameplay, as more and more players choose to run with those skins in any single game.

I think I Disagree

This is a touchy subject, but I think I disagree.

I disagree because just like someone who has spent the time on a Legendary, times have changed. You had your time at the top, you put in the effort and it shows. It doesn’t mean that you’re better than anyone else (I don’t suspect that your saying that) but others have different circumstances and commitments.

Consider…

Think about it. Given enough time all those players who didn’t keep up with you would still eventually reach your rank. Is it fair to punish them because they aren’t you living in your circumstances?

Everything depreciates, just look at the trading post. 10g used to be so much money. Precusors used to sell for 30g. 30g wont even buy you a Sentinels ring now.

Conclusion

I feel that your time has past and you just haven’t learnt to accept it yet. You’ll have to find new ways to show off your dedication and love for the game. Which, by the looks, Anet is providing those kinds of opportunites for you.

Don’t punish others because you enjoyed playing the game. You made the choice to pursue something and you achieved it. You should feel proud but move on.

So from what I understand, they will be allowing people to have Legendaries in PvP from the latest post I just read.

Unlike most people I find Legendaries goudish and over-powering, like cake that is just far too rich and far too sweet.

Let me explain, have you ever been in a dungeon with 3 people with Twilight? You can not see anything! Now with all the spellfire that goes on sometimes, its hard to see the animations that clue you into when to dodge or generate a “get ready something bad is going to happen!” moment. With three of them going you have 0% chance of seeing anything. None.

Now take this into sPvP. This feels like it will ruin some of the fun and skill required for PvP. Not being able to see poses a problem. What about those Legendaries with annoying sound effects, and the monrous ugly puddle-like foot-steps? Good luck trying to hide when you leave behind flowers when you run!

This worries me alot about where PvP is going, (though at the moment some might say it can only go up.) Does this bother anyone else?

Have to I disagree, at least in regards to thieves.

In WvW I watched a thief and a Warrior 1v1ing each other from a tower. When one would start to lose they would break off and try to reset their hp or kite until CDs came back. This is a typical fight I see in WvW regularly.

Eventually the thief won. The warrior reset the fight 3-4 times, the thief reset it easily over 12 times. The thief had no problem at all escaping when he chose. Thats effectively three times the amount of “in combat” manuverability than the warrior had.

Thief players seem fine with the fact that they can turn invisible on command, reset almost any fight they are losing, have moderate to high control because as people like to point out “thats what thieves are supposed to be like.”

Well, in the same logic, Warriors should be scary and able to get into melee combat and stay close. Apparently no one has a problem with a thief that continually resets a fight until he eventually wins but if a warrior comes a long and puts out tonnes of pressure out and doesn’t relent he’s OP. The only way a warrior can be relentless is for him to have high mobility.

I get that the skill cap is lower for warriors then for thieves but lets be honest, when thieves are fixed (properly) then you can start whine on warriors, I think.

I did find a work around for anyone interested.

- Write down the name of all the Skins that are soul bound.
- Go to Your PvP locker in the heart of the mist.
- Take out all the doubles.
- You can then go back to your real bank and right click on each of the trapped items, and select deposit item.

This puts them back in the locker, and your doubled up skins are safely in a bag on the character of your choice.

PS Thank you Inculpatus cedo, I didn’t actually know where to go for help.

Had a bunch of skins doubled up on a character that I only use in the Heart of the Mists.

I decided to delete the character to use the character slot, so I decided to put all my double skins into the bank. The bank outside the Heart of the Mists.

The skins weren’t soulbound.

However…

After I deleted the character, I made another. I decided to get those skins out to free up some bank space. All the skins that I placed in my bank had become soulbound to the old deleted character. Now I cannot take the skins out to use or even salvage.

What can I do about this to save my skins? Why don’t skins double up so u can dual weapon or use on multiple characters? Why aren’t all PvP skins automatically Account Bound? Can a GM fix this for me?

So I heard it only lasts for 2 weeks is that true?

Wow, hit the nail on the head. That’s exactly how I feel.

To all the ppl that tl;dr, its a shame for you. Hope your attention span gets better in the future.

OrianZeta.1537:

I’ll pick an oddly specific point since it’s rare that I find someone hone in on something I have felt for a long time: the BLTP speculative industry (wonderful way to characterize it, I feel).

Basically massive volume trading and a lack of market regulation contribute to an economy run by investment, opportunity and oppressive speculation. I don’t think anyone envisioned the game to have so many currencies yet be bound and cheapened so greatly by the chase for one that rules them all, to the detriment of players who either have no capacity to or simply don’t play the market (and with a giant world to play in, who can blame them for using the market as a resource rather than a stratagem (or more cynically, as unofficial content)?). In sum I feel this mini-industry illustrates one of the biggest problems of the game, something that’s already been discussed to death, but I just wanted to harp on that because that’s such an underrated point.

That out of the way, just an old GW veteran; bit my lip and grabbed GW2 right away. I could write far more than three full-page posts in emptying my mind of the game, what so many of us on that hype train were on the edges of our seats for, then what we hoped for, then what we hoped would change, and now, well, there’s only hope that something will change.

Because it’s until there are significant changes — I’m talking big, banner features we were told like guild halls, player housing and proper build management — that I just don’t see the point anymore. A worn out tire, even if it continues to drive forward, needs traction.

I agree with this too. Dev’s need to read this stuff and think hard about it. GW2 is a great game with so much potential, but I fear its being easily derailed by the wrong people.

Thats a very WoW way of dealing with stealth.

I liked what the devs had on paper before the game came out, thieves only being stealthed for short amounts of time. But the game quickly went from thieves having stealth to being practically invisible.

I know they kinda nerfed perma-stealth builds, but a well-practiced thief player will never die if he doesn’t want to. Perma-stealth is bad, it makes the game fun for only one person. (The one with Permanent Invisibility.)

The only thing I would change about stealth though would be that if you have a thief is taken as your target before he goes stealth then when he comes out of stealth you should still have him targeted, unless in that time you have taken a new target.

RNG – Anet relies on it FAR TOO MUCH! Its frustrating hey?

Still you can grind crafting and sink a tonne of gold into making one. Of course thats dead boring, but then so is waiting for 2+ hours for Teq to spawn…

Living Story needs a driving and engaging storyline! And it hasn’t been that at all.

Consider Scarlette our diabolical villian of late. Ultimatey she is a 2 dimensional character. Stereotypical and therefore boring. Imagine if you actually found out she was a complicated character kitten d and tortured from her youth. In her mind she is trying to create a happy wonderland where the weak and down trodden could live in a fairy land of peace! What if you could join her? You could take sides and which ever side won would change the face of Tyria forever! – And that’s just off the top of my head…

I gave up following the story because it isn’t anything that interesting. I do have to say I liked the cutscenes, like the destruction of the tower in Kessex.

World events are nice, but it needs to be mixed up with some intimacy that the player can have with the world. Not simply another grind of achievements to get another set of gay looking dragon wings for back pieces that I will probably never use.

I feel its worth pointing out that in this game you do have to work for your gear. There is vertical progression. After you have geared your newly minted 80, you can start on another build for your character. Start another toon, even.

But progressing is not a grind when you can play any part of the game you want to and build up your gear from it. You can do dungeons, craft, farm gold to buy gear etc….

You have to work for it, but you do it your way.

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Ascended brings in the Grind

Ascended does not give you very many options. Its basically all about crafting. Whether you like it or not. And lets be honest, crafting is all about gold unless your rich then you have to farm it yourself. (Its also about daily CDs -YAWN!)

With Ascended Anet brought the “feeling of the grind” into GW2, mashed it up, added no salt or spices and said “Eat it or leave it” and walked out the door slamming it shut behind them.

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Ascended in PvE

In PvE ascended gear is of no consquence, unless your build fails due to some “stat threshhold” that exotic gear can’t reach.

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Ascended and WvW

In WvW, however, if you want to stay competitive, you have to have it. In PvP the small things count. When you have 300ms vs a player who has 30ms, you will miss more often, waste more abilities… every little thing adds up. Throw in another 5% advantage here and there and suddenly a player you could beat becomes quite difficult.

“But Myst, WvW is only about zerging!”

Not true, small skirmishes and 1v1s are common place out there. In fact, recent changes to the Borderland maps are in an effort to encourage scaled down warfare!

Whats true for the individual, however, is also true for the zerg. 5% here, 5% there, one zerg with 12 stacks of might vs a zerg with 24 stacks of might, all those little things add up on the large scale as well as the small!

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Conclusion

You can argue that ascended gear gives a small advantage, but its still an advantage! And its a lot of boring grinding to get that advantage! Add in the fact that you might have several sets of gear per character, multiple characters… Its all getting a bit out of hand.

I think Ascended hasn’t added anything to the game. Its and effort to appease some people who are craving a reward. Rewarding players is something that Anet is very poor at. But I don’t think gear grinding is the answer.

caiomacos.1694:

So, Ive just built a Mjolnir, which on Charged Lodestones only costs almost 600g, way more than the cost of an Ascended, but still its stats are equal to exotic. I think I deserve better stats than Ascended weapons for my effort.

So, I was thinking that we could upgrade those rare weapons (like Mjolnir) stats to a new tier superior than Ascended. And then, Legendaries would be yet another tier, superior than Mjolnir.

Its very unfair that people who dont wanna make the effort to get a Mjolnir, or an Eye of Rodgort, Volcannus, etc have the same stats as we do.

Have fun.

Nah we don’t need more tiers of gear. If you want gear grinding go play WoW. If you haven’t noticed, ascended gear is a real pain to craft and an incredibly boring addition to the game.

Those skins are there for those who want to put the time and effort into getting them for the looks, not the stats.

I think, the only problem is that the community is fine with paying people (in-game currency) to essentially play the game for you. Please consider:

1. Are you really a Dungeon Master just cos you have the title? If a run is very hard for you to do, then maybe you need to re-think the way you play? Maybe you need more practice? Maybe you should gather up some guildies and start polishing up on your teamwork.

2. If you are paying for runs then you are missing out some elements of the game and the fun that is attached when you master them!

3. “A gentleman’s agreement.” There are just too many ways for you to get screwed over. Unless you are prepared to record your dungeon runs, I can’t see much chance of Anet finding enough evidence to prove that you have been wronged if the deal goes bad.

Gain is pain! Don’t take the cheap way out! (Because it costs you more in the long run!)

Looking for more players for Dungeons.

(Australian Eastern Standard time) AEST between 6pm and 10pm on weeknights.

Must have a working mic.

My brothers and I are looking for some players who like to do, and want to do all the dungeons while we level up and gear up our charaters. Looking players who want to enjoy the content, hanging out, having fun and playing well.

If that sounds like fun to you send me a message in-game, or leave a post here and I will get in touch with you ASAP.

Some info about us…
- We are between the ages of 23-35
- We all work and/or study
- We enjoy doing fun random things, things are rarely set in stone for us.
- We enjoy TV shows like Arrested Developement, Game of Thrones, Community, Dexter, Breaking Bad… among many many others.

Well the title says it all, really.

First few days were fun getting the achievements and back items. That lasted 2-3 days. Filled in time farming for rares. The money was much needed but essentially a boring time filler.

Waited very patiently for Canach’s Last Stand. Wow, terribly disappointing. I was expecting a new dungeon, but this was very lame and boring. Now I have to wait till the 5th of June for the next part!? Incredible…

I am having flashbacks to the massive failure of an event that Anet did here once. Are you guys gonna screw non-americans over again? Or provide us with something we can actually take part in but put in such a lame kitten effort that it will be utterly boring.

Sorry, but I really like this game. Everything is so well thought out (at the beginning it was anyway) but what I am seeing lately is a very very apathetic efforts put into the game. I do my fair share, I buy from the gem store to help support the game, but what my money is buying isn’t anything like Anet promised back when all this started.

Hoping things get better quickly.

Wow. Some people have incredible luck. 3-5 crates per hour?! I have got one crate since the whole thing began! And it only had a passionfruit and 5 Karka shells in it. Its so disappointing to open a crate and get basically nothing. I could have collected that stuff in 5mins if I really wanted it. : (

I personally hate the RNG stuff. I just don’t have enough time for it and if I really wanted to mindlessly grind, I’d go play WoW. Wish the RNG gods would bless me sometime… the kittens ;P

Yes that worked.

Thank you very much White Wolf, for taking the time to help me with that! I really appreciate it.

May your soft paws always walk these hallowed halls!

Trying to come back to GW2, only to find I have a forced password reset.

Which apparently isn’t working. It’s like the web page just reloads. I enter the correct Old Password and a good password, according to the comic strip and it fails to reset.
Anyone know why? Cos otherwise i might just go play something else… not really into the hassle of stuffing around with this for days.

Thanks for any replies in advance.

I think GW2 handles stealth better than any other MMO game I have played.

However…

4secs of invisibility in the hands of a good player, can mean a death sentence for you if you can’t predict what they are trying to do. Also stealth time can be added to, so you don’t really know how long they will be cloaked for.

The biggest mistake most games make with stealth is that it is always 100% invisibility (drops your target) and can be used mid-fight. Stealth should only be used for getting an opening assault off by surprise.

Once a fight has started, going invisible and teleporting around isn’t what thieves do. It’s what mages should be doing. I don’t know who started this “ideal” for a thief/rogue but every game mindlessly copies it on.

In WvW stealth should add another strategy to an assault teams arsenal. Instead what stealth has given us are 1-shot Thief Gankers looking for low-health kills to steal. Or duelists looking for lonely noobs to pick on.

So I think “Why Stealth?” is a good question.. Why indeed?

The idea is that you flip traits and utilities over for different situations.

This works great on my guardian. My build is my soloing, WvW and dungeon build.

But for my Elementalist, this is not the case. Playing that way, kittens certain builds a lot. While it is doable, I am not happy with the kittening I get for merely flipping traits.

This wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Bought a top hat with gems for my long-haired toon.

Regretted it immediately…

marianojc.2965:

I remember that one of the reasons argued to reject the “Holly Trinity” was that PUGs had not problems finding players to complete a party, however, it happens that 5 player parties still have problems to fin players to complete them. There is also the problem for casual players that as they may go afk several times during a dungeon, they do not want to play in a PUG. In GW 1 there were Heroes and Henchies so there was no problem to solo a dungeon.

So I suggest to make all dungeons scalable from 1 to 5 players, so that there is neither need to search for a party nor a need to look for more player to fill a 5 players party.

Not a bad idea.

Since Fractals came out I have not been able to get the last 120CM badges I need for my final piece.

No one wants to do it. Not my guildies or PuGs. Very frustrating to be so close to completing my set and not being able to do it.

We have scalable events, why not scalable dungeons?

Yeah the higher the level the more friends you need. It is an MMO.

People join for the game but stay for the friends they make. So in a sense, they do “kinda force” you into making friends. Or at least expect you to be playing with others on a semi-regular basis..

It is a majour reason why guilds exist.

Solefald.8751:

In the latest patch, steeltide got stealth nerf. I have to say good job….you don’t want us to farm, and you keep nerfing every single money/material source. What’s the point for this? t6 materials for a legendary is just insane if you want to buy it from TP. If you continue to do this, I’ll realy consider buying further expansions…..also fix your game don’t do content patches in every month, no point in it.

Nerfs are because a lot of people are gaining gold far too quickly and thereby ruining the economy. Creates a big divide between the people that know the “tricks” and people that don’t. Suddenly, you have 50% of the population not being able to afford things on TP, while the other 50% boast about how easy it is to get money and slander those players who are struggling.

Once you start playing to “pay the bills” it’s the begining of the end. For those that are rich, they will never see the problem. But they are killing the game with a slow death.

Personally, if I play and have fun, but don’t get enough gold to “keep up with the curve” then I will eventually quit. Repeating Steeltide, over and over isn’t fun, it’s grinding. Anet promised that this game would not be like that.

It’s there as a gold dump for people that have too much money. Keeps it rare for people who want to feel “more important” than others.

Anet is just killing 2 birds with one stone.

Its just a shame for the 90% who really like the gear but will never buy it.

For me, when I see people wearing it, I think… loser. So I am left with a disdain for the gear, even though I like it.

Still it might only take a piece or two to make your toon rock. And thats doable, right?

/ agree

Hate that place. My first character was a glass cannon Elementalist. Now you can just imagine how fun that was…

Now I know better, but even with better builds and playing other classes, I still hate the zone. It’s just… irritating. Zombies that run faster than you even with swiftness, hitting you in the back while u kite them. Constantly pulling more because they are so close together. Then they summon more on top of that… sigh.

Let the Zombies have the island for all I care…

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/19343/Otaur_Blackfang2.jpg

First Azura I saw that actually looked cool. Well done.