Guild Wars 2

I wonder how many self-righteous vigilantes are angry at the fact that they cannot vote kick people selling raids since Commanders have full control over who goes in their squad?

Mortifer.2946:

Requiring 700 gold investment in armor to just start playing raid is just against everything arenanet based their game on.

You don’t need ascended armor. Ascended armor is only 50 stats over exotic gear total, and this is not going to make or break any of the fights. The Ascended trinkets and weapon are important to get though.

You can also use a Warrior using Berserker Stance to be immune to the conditions. I have used a Guardian to strike it too by using Shield of Courage while running in and then Wings of Resolve to escape.

thrag.9740:

A lot of players seem to like to claim that an enrage timer is ‘artificial difficulty’. I disagree. If the only thing I had to do was slap on some zerker gear but play exactly the same, then sure. But that’s not the case. The timer fundamentally changes how you fight in a good way.

This guy gets it.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

But how well do they scale when it’s only a difference between 10 and 19 players ?

More importantly, do you prefer excluding guild members or that scaling problem ?

From your example, that means that there are many more players that can potentially revive one another. That alone would significantly impact balance. This is because the maximum amount of players to revive is a fixed amount. This is just one of many logistical issues that would come up with a scaling raid.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Is there any reason why raid groups all have to be exactly x players ?
Is there anything wrong with raids designed to scale between x and 2x-1 players ?

For balance purposes. We’ve all seen how balanced events and bosses are when they are scaled either up or down. One particular raid size would be the easiest (Let’s say 23 players) and therefore all PUG raid groups would fill to that size and nothing else.

The timers were never there to be the primary challenge anyways.

Werdx.2059:

You are not firs nor last WoW player here,and no one care about WoW experience,because this is completely different game.It may be mmo,but its nothing like cartoon looking game,made for 2.5 years old kids,who brag 24/7 im better player than you.

Is World of Warcraft your trigger word or something? He didn’t say anything to provoke the angry stream of consciousness that you vomited onto your keyboard.

You’re using a legacy ring from before the Fractured update. Those rings are bugged and don’t work in the forge.

The floor has different symbols on it where the Seekers spawn. One symbol has one line (1), another has two (2), and the last has three (3). When I noticed this, I thought that it must have been a consideration towards color-blind people. Each section is also always in the same cardinal direction. South is red, north-west is green, and north-east is blue.

Each division is named: Red Guardian, Blue Guardian, and Green Guardian.

I think the cap just needs to be higher.

Elrey.5472:

For example, right now if you miss the green area in vale guardian it won’t kill everyone, it just downed some and you can heal them anyway. It’s a bad design. It should kill everyone and punish you for not completing the mechanic.

It’s not bad design because it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. It’s punishing you for failing, but it gives a small chance to recover. The enrage timer is there to ensure constant bad play will result in failure, but an occasional error is fine. It’s the first boss, so it has some room for mistakes.

Just because you disagree with it does not make it bad. The designers are fully aware that a mechanic which downs you is more forgiving than a mechanic which defeats you. That’s why Gorseval has mechanics like that, and Vale Guardian does not. One is meant to be easier than the other.

The fact of the matter is this: The timer is there to punish you for dealing poor damage, because dealing damage is a major aspect of this game. It isn’t there to make you deal amazing damage. As far as the enrage goes, it isn’t an instant-wiper either; it’s 200% more damage, not an instant wipe. You’re able to still kill him while he’s enraged.

I am curious about how many people who are so opposed to the enrage timer on Vale Guardian are getting constantly teleported away because of Unstable Energy Spike, then cry foul when they see they’re not on track to defeat the boss. Unstable Energy Spike is a marvelous skill because it doesn’t always kill you, but you always lose damage on the boss whenever you fail it. The enrage timer is one of the reasons this matters, and without it Unstable Energy Spike would need to deal way more damage or kill you outright.

How many players complaining about the enrage timer are actually playing the mechanics of Vale Guardian well. By this I mean, using only 4 players maximum in the Distributed Magic to increase damage uptime on the boss; never getting teleported by Unstable Energy spike; splitting their damage evenly during the transition; etc.

I also wonder how many players are merely presuming they will die to the enrage, instead of actually dying to it.

Making balance changes in the middle of progression seems beyond careless when you have broken things like Slick Shoes to fix still. Might want to get to fixing that one of these years and not let it fester like Fiery Rush.

Zetsumei.4975:

Lol it’s not about the playerbase, its about the bad publicity from becoming a laughingstock if everyone heard their hyped up raid content got speed cleared in 15 mins on release day and the only thing stopping it from becoming a pseudo-farmable dungeon was the weekly reward cap.

Spoiler Alert: They didn’t actually clear it in 15 minutes.

IIvIIozzie.9250:

I’m not seeing what they did as problematic or that they were being ‘elitist jerks’. I didn’t take their comments on twitter to be a serious jab at Arenanet, the players or the game, hence my comment you people need to lighten up. The hypersensitivity surrounding this community is astounding.

It’s not about hypersensitivity, it’s the fact that what the person on Twitter did was potentially harming the actual game, or at least players’ opinion of it. This tweet is being referenced as to how much of a “joke” Guild Wars 2 raids are, and it’s really disingenuous considering the fact that they only cleared it quickly because ArenaNet trusted them with access to their testing server. Most people don’t know this, especially those who might have otherwise been hooked into this content.

If you don’t understand why it’s a problem for a group to be using that trust to harm the game, then you’ll never understand.

Grim.3487:

as it was VERY clear from their point of view that everyone knew that they were in fact invited as testers for the raids.

No where in any of their earlier Tweets did they mention anything about them being testers. From any normal point of view, taking it at face value, it was simply this: A guild cleared GW2’s anticipated raid content in a few hours. Rest assured, those tweets were forwarded everywhere. I even read comments from friends from other games (Like World of Warcraft) laughing about how the raid was cleared instantly.

Just because you “get it” doesn’t mean most won’t. Nike, or whoever was trolling their Twitter, should have had more respect for the content and the work that went into it. They never would have been able to do or say those things without being trusted as raid testers, and yet they did this anyways, even harming the image of the raid itself since it was touted as challenging content.

If you don’t understand this, then there’s really nothing to convince you otherwise.

Yeah man, this was just a misunderstanding…

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/211994/22.jpg

Zenith.7301:

Don’t see how this announcement is fruitful

It’s making an example out of them to show what will happen to any other guilds who are invited to test raids will and what they will be subject to if they choose to behave the same way. All they had to do was remain quiet and let the community enjoy the content naturally, not troll people using their insider knowledge.

Stay classy, [DnT]

In Cliffside, Shield of Courage really shines with Last Laugh, in addition to Well of Precognition. You can also use Stability and damage reduction skills.

Obviously you can dodge it too, but it’s interesting to see what you can do to help your party who might be a bit slow on the dodge.

Keitaro Dragonheart.9047:

cough- Smiter’s Boon -cough-

-Waits patiently for infraction for telling the truth-

Smiter’s Boon was nerfed 7 years ago, in a different video game. I think it’s time you get over it.

Is anything being done to the “No pain, no gain” Instability? That one makes 40-50 very unfun.

Dragonhunter has some interesting utility outside of their Boons. They have a 1,200 pull (Spear of Justice) and the nice thing is that they don’t need to sacrifice a Utility skill to get it like Thieves or Necromancers do. So with Binding Blade and that, a Guardian is a good choice when you need to pull in creatures. Shield of Courage is basically AoE Shelter in front of the Guardian, which is really useful. Wings of Resolve with Leap of Faith has improved Guardian mobility pretty substantially, and the 3,800 heal on the leap can be nice. (Although I suspect any Druid will render the healing redundant)

I think the system they set up for Fractals is good, but they desperately need to do more balancing with the creature scaling. Rewards also need to be looked at.

morrolan.9608:

I would actually like to see a definitive response from anet because I have heard feedback from testers that ley line gliding is required which has never been mooted.

Where did you hear that?

NikeEU.7690:

LOL “what if we have a DC”

The answer to that question is: you wipe.

Technically someone can DC at 1% and you probably won’t wipe.

Sola.7250:

I’ve spent hundreds in Gold and the time to get my characters the way I want them. I don’t want to do have to this for each game mode.

You spent hundreds of gold on Sigil of Grawl Slaying? I’m sorry to be the first to tell you this my friend, but you were ripped off.

Lord Kuru.3685:

And if you DC?

Then kill it again.

Why shouldn’t there be damage checks when one of the three pillars of the game is damage? (Damage, support, control)

slamfunction.7462:

Balance? Who needs it? Just ban the things you couldn’t test! BRILLIANT! sigh…

Can you name just one redeemable quality of a Slaying potion and Sigil which only increases the red numbers you see when you hit a monster? What exactly are you so attached to about these things?

Elomite.2396:

Bloomhunger has a fake breakbar for some reason

Lupicus has a breakbar

I think there is a legacy buff on these creatures making the immune to certain crowd control effects. Slow will deplete their defiance, but vanilla skill don’t work. Same thing with Old Tom.

Map: Verdant Brink

This jumping mushroom in a cave underneath Mellaggan’s Valor Waypoint is not there. You can see the small wind trail, but the mushroom is not there.

Zone: Tangled Depths
Outpost: SCAR Bivouac
Event: Protect the cannon until the Mordrem migration is stopped.

• This event was stalled indefinitely when the cannon needed repairs. Terril Tinkerclaw kept trying to repair it, but it remained at 100%,

If it’s +5 / +7 then sure, but not +7 / +7.

Zone: Verdant Brink
Outpost: Pale Reaver Rally
Event: Keep enemies away from Skybreaker while she plants explosives.

• The boulder debris intended to block the path during this event has no collision. Players can just walk through it. I don’t know if it’s bugged all the time, or only upon repeated play-throughs of the zone because I remember it having collision at some point.

Zone: Auric Basin
Adventure: The Floor is Lava?

• All of the Bouncing Mushrooms in this event have no collision, so players attempting to jump on them fall into the poison instead. While the mushrooms still work, players have to jump inside them to trigger them.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Makes me Wonder.

Raid Bosses prioritize targets with Highest Toughness
Bear Pet Tanking, anyone?
Immortal Bear pet Tanking, anyone?

He said if the pet has aggro the damage they take isn’t reduced.

To do that, we made it so that unless a minion is specifically targeted by a creature, they will be dealt drastically reduced damage and condition duration from attacks.

Zenith.7301:

Twister was not bugged. At all. They nerfed it because only one guild was able to kill it, after many months. It was a nerf to difficulty.

Not bugged at all. Yup. (Link)

Twister strategy: Run in a circle when it’s casting and hope you get lucky.

Here’s the original reddit thread. (Link)

They figured out how to minimize the bug, but saying “it wasn’t bugged, it was nerfed” is the most obtuse thing ever, and clearly the thought of a forum warrior, not an actual player that attempted to progress on that fight.

Distaste.4801:

If you think that 5 hours and 10+ tries is considered hard then you might want to try another game. FFXIV mechanics absolutely destroy this stuff and the savage stuff is insane. The last 2 bosses in Alexanders savage the top guilds spent 8+ hour days for WEEKS trying to get the bosses down. Heck I remember WoW vanilla MC the first boss taking more than 5 hours and more than 10+ attempts…

The only reason fights take weeks to defeat in games like FFXIV and WoW is very simple: They force you fight them undergeared. I’m not saying the fights aren’t engaging, but the fact of the matter is that this is exactly how they’re tuned and how games with gear progression work. You step into a raid undergeared, and fight it at a disadvantage for a few weeks. The more you succeed or the more time goes on, your raid gradually grows in strength due to better damage, healing etc. This allows things to be easier.

What separates the best guilds from the mediocre in those games is simply how well they optimize and form strategies under the circumstances of being at a big disadvantage. This is not to discredit them, but to show that such a system would not work in this game.

Also, there’s many other reasons why a boss might not die. It could be simply bugged, making it harder than inended. In FFXIV, I remember Twintania was not killed for weeks simply because Twister was bugged. Once it was fixed, it died on the day of that patch. Sure it was “hard” but it also wasn’t enjoyable to lose due to things like that.

Josh Davis.6015:

As a note (and to address concerns), we won’t be adding dire stats or perplexity runes to sPvP. We’re vetting and discussing each and every rune/sigil/stat combo as a group before adding them in, with the main goal being improving build diversity.

Is the Dire stat combination not being added because the balance team is afraid it is too powerful? In my opinion, this is a rather “weak” answer to the problem that this stat combination represents, since it is an issue in World vs. World PvP balance.

Nayatha.6349:

Do you want this to be WOW as that is a WoW thing and Gaile already said that Anet does not Track or reward World First.

Blizzard does not (and to my knowledge has never) acknowledge World Firsts either. That’s all done through the community.

Ayrilana.1396:

If 10 people from TTS were invited, should all of the TTS guilds be eliminated from claiming world first?

Yes.

Taku.6352:

There’s nothing wrong with the “healer” also providing dps boost. For example in Tera which is a clear cut trinity MMO both healer classes provide ample party dps boosts in addition to healing.

From what I remember (and it’s been a few years) in Tera the healers could not provide their DPS boost while healing. Healing would interrupt the uptime of these buffs. Basically, healers could boost the damage of their party when they all took minimal damage. I like that model personally.

Well, I don’t really know where to begin to respond to what you said because that was quite a mouthful. The only thing I wanted to be clear of is that I’m not “freaking out” because the Druid is bringing something unique, because Rangers always brought something unique. (Spotter, Spirits) I’m just rolling my eyes at the thought of another group damage multiplier being added to the game, especially one without any restrictions on the group the Druid is actually in, and the fact it is on the “first healer specialization.”

deSade.9437:

What games have you been playing

Mostly because in this game when you specialize into healing, you give up damage. Bringing a Druid used to mean that your raid would deal less damage, but you gained the Druid’s healing; you had to weigh your options. But a trait like this just makes it a no-brainer because you get both now. (Or at least it can make up enough of its damage loss)

Welp, Druids now provide both healing and damage! (Link)

Grace of the Land: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, allies affected by your celestial avatar abilities gain 3% damage and condition damage increase for 8 seconds. This buff stacks 5 times.

I thought the whole point of pushing for dedicated healing was for the healing, not for some healer that also boosts damage. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but it just feels really gross.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

• Grace of the Land: This trait has been re-worked. Instead of its former behavior, allies affected by your celestial avatar abilities gain 3% damage and condition damage increase for 8 seconds. This buff stacks 5 times.

I think this has the potential to be way too powerful. Before, Druids in raids seemed like a luxury item, providing lots of healing but at the cost of damage. They could be very useful in progression, as they allow players to make mistakes that could be healed up. The Druid feels good about healing because they were saving people, but there was an understanding that there was an intrinsic loss in damage as the trade-off for this benefit. Because of how much healing they provided, it was pretty debatable if Druids were or were not useful since Rangers could still potentially provide damage through Spotter, Spirits, etc. However, through this trait, the Druid can perhaps now both provide lots of healing and lots of damage.

Compare the Celestial Avatar form with the Ventari Legend: The Revenant gives up lots of damage since it is expending energy to heal players, and instead provides support and healing. The Druid might give up damage at the cost of support in healing, but it also provides powerful bonus to damage to actual damage dealers.

Why are you adding more unique group-based damage modifiers to the game? Would it not make more sense to just make this thing provide something that already exists, like Might? I am assuming that this buff can be stacked using Cosmic Ray, which has a half second cast. Not only can the trait can provide this buff to people outside of the Druid’s party, but it also can potentially provided to more than five players if the group is positioned well enough.

Players going to be so strong with the new elite specializations that I imagine that the dungeon paths which have minimal time gates will be blazed through twice as quickly.

I kind of wish that they would have a Daily Dungeon again that would reward the current amount of gold, or maybe they could have guaranteed item drops instead like load stones and such thematic to the dungeon.

Blaeys.3102:

Super tight enrage mechanics force people down set traitline paths, armor setups and playstyles – discouraging diversity and any semblance of real strategy. They limit fight design possibilities. If “kill super fast” is always the most important part of raiding, then the same builds, setups and strategies will be the most optimal on every single fight – which will get boring really fast.

First of all, the enrage that we experienced was not supertight.

Second, any complaints you have about suboptimal weapons or traits is not a raids complaint. That a skilled and balance issue. Thank god we’re getting raids before they decide to balance the game though because that’s literally never going to happen.