I agree ascended gear should not be something that’s easily available, but things like soft wood logs force you too much towards farming.
This isn’t Burger King. You don’t get it your way. You don’t need to farm soft wood logs to make an ascended if you don’t want to.
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Thank YOU so much. Finally a statistical approach to figuring this out. Unfortunately, if people get a clue, information like this is the kind of thing that could potentially affect an increase in price.
I’m not saying it can’t be done (because clearly other games do it), I’m just saying that the direction a game takes determines who it caters to and it’s clear that GW2 direction caters to top-end PVE players the least. Should it cater to everyone? The answer isn’t ‘YES’ just because GW1 did it. It’s a matter if Anet decides it should and it’s a business case decision.
Maybe this is all a little off topic but really, I think background Agony just ensures a necessary progression and a skill matching in players for teaming. Albeit, its based on flawed assumption that players get better as they progress to harder fractals, but likely the best one that can be implemented without actually ranking and testing each individual player. From that perspective, it’s actually helping prevent certain mismatches that would put unnecessary risk on successful completion, but I agree, it’s effectiveness is questionable.
You misunderstood me. PvE being for cosmetics is not relevant to wanting challenging content. Every game should cater to all types of players and challenging content is pretty much mandatory in any game, even the most casual games.
That’s fair because it’s not what I’m saying. There is a recognizable connection to why people play, what kinds of things they want to achieve and what audience GW2 caters too. Don’t you see that ‘average’ players, looks and PVE content everyone can do and enjoy have the highest association and therefore the best market share?
Should GW2 cater to everyone? I don’t know but I do know that it’s business model requires it to cater to the largest audience; that’s the average players, it’s not the players that want to play nothing but the most difficult content.
If they cater to everyone comes down to 1) resources to implement and 2) fitting with the philosophy of the game. They probably have #1, I can only speculate based on the history of the game so far that the highest challenging content doesn’t fit with what GW2 is about. You can argue what it should or shouldn’t be but what is relevant is what Anet want’s GW2 to be.
Personally, I would like to see nightmare mode dungeons added. I agree that the content is a little bit on the ‘my little pony’ side for experienced, skilled gamers. I can’t agree that players know better than Anet what the game should be.
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I have to agree with your first statement because that’s what you like. If you don’t recognize that cosmetics are the reason for PVE, I doubt I’m going to convince you otherwise. What I do know is that the level of challenge from PVE content in this game is relatively low and has been since it started, so it’s a stretch to make generalizations that people PVE in this game for a challenge.
If you have tried SWTOR nightmare mode raids, you know what I’m talking about.
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I’m not disagreeing with who the game caters to because I don’t know Anet’s scheme bit I am basing my opinion on how I see the game work. Why does the game not have challenging content for PVE players? Why is there no rewards scaling with performance. Hey, we know the answer … it caters to casuals. Any content that doesn’t alienates your customer base.
I don’t feel that collecting skins contradicts difficult content but I do feel that skins appeals more to players that do PVE content (which is what appeals more to the LCF) as opposed to PVP stuff (which appeals more to the competitive player). Hence why I think PVE is aimed at allowing all people a way to ‘look pretty’. Generally, IMO, PVP people are less interested in how they look vs. who or how many people they defeat.
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Yes, but haviz’s point was that right now, not a single piece of content caters to us. The people that like truly challenging, skill gated (not time/gear gated) content.
I don’t want you to get the impression I’m trolling here but … after playing the game for the year it’s been out, why would anyone even think the game even attempts to cater to those people? It never has. In fact, I’m convinced it’s the opposite …
When I can team people who have no clue and junk gear in a PUG and complete a dungeon, I’m convinced that the game couldn’t be farther from catering to people that like truly challenging, skill gated content.
Think about it … the whole premise of the game is to collect skins … Sure there is some gear progression but nothing in PVE is rewarded for ‘doing it better/faster’. Don’t be fooled, if you aren’t working on how you look ingame, you better like PVP encounters because there isn’t much for you.
Scripted Agony is a little lazy and feels artificial but I wouldn’t confuse it with ‘dumbing down’ a game that already appeals to some lowest common denominators in MMO gaming.
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I don’t see it. The ONLY BiS gear you can craft is the weapon (so far). No one is being forced.
it would probably be helpful if you were more aware of what major things are being implemented and going on with the game.
sure you can niggle about the ops wording, but the bigger picture is that crafting is the only reliable way to get said “character progression” gear. basically having 1 path (no, not counting .0002% random drop rate) is the current issue. also, it would be foolish to think that the devs won’t eventually design harder content around improved gear, increased character performance, higher profession levels, stronger abilities… so there needs to be multiple methods to achieve this gear much sooner than later. not to mention the gear disparities that will occur in wvw over time when some players are decked out in full ascended and whipping the floor with newbies and those who sat around in exotics telling others that ascended was not needed.
If you can do current content with Masterwork Gear, your speculation about how anyone will NEED ascended to do future content doesn’t hold much merit. The ‘falling behind’ argument is only valid for low population WvW encounters. It’s nonsense for PVE, WvW zerg or sPvP.
Frankly, I laugh a bit when I see this ‘only one way to get gear’ argument. That’s just not an objective assessment. In fact, there is multiple ways to get ALL the ascended gear that’s currently in the game, if you consider that Legendary is an ascended weapon equivalent in terms of stats. The whole complaint by the OP is unfound and based on unsound premise.
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This isn’t new … people had to farm badges in WvW for legendary before achievement rewards came out. NEXT!
It’s fine even in a non-meditation build. It’s on the same scale of our other heals. My disappointment is that it further enhanced builds that don’t need enhancement. I mean, how much healing do we actually need? In a meditation on top? A little silly.
I would need to see the quotation but IIRC, it was not a definite statement of “we are putting in precursor crafting this year”. To their credit, ascended weapons might be part of that crafting scheme for all we know.
I think your view isn’t realistic, even if you are correct about being ‘disadvantaged’. Anet doesn’t force anyone to do things they don’t want but if you impose some arbitrary level of performance on yourself that leads you to the conclusion that only BiS gear will be good enough for you, that’s not Anet forcing you, that’s you subjecting yourself to it.
Unless your talking about 1 vs. 1 in a WvW environment, there isn’t much of an argument for being disadvantaged by your gear in any game content.
Your level doesn’t give you more drops per mob but you can kill faster if you are level 80 in the lower level zones.
I think the concern is moot. You can look already to what has happened with making wood planks for Ascended Weapons to convince yourself of what will (or will not) happen. I think if it does change, they aren’t going to make it easier.
Wood and ore have nodes that are easily farmed. Lower level cloth and leather comes out of bag drops and armor salvage and are reliant on RNG. They are totally different.
I don’t think that really changes my point … look at what happened to wood for Ascended Weapons. Is that the move of a developer that wants to make it easier for people to get their loot? I don’t think it’s even relevant if it’s RNG, etc… I can argue that Mob spawn rates can make up for that.
Even if you don’t do dungeons/fractals/WvW you still will kill things a bit slower, which does affect everything in game.
Slower is just relative. Everything will be slower if your baseline is the fastest. My point is if ‘the fastest’ baseline is actually a valid one … there is nothing that can’t be done in game right now with full exotics so yes, while having ascended gear will affect things you do, it’s not necessary and no one will be forced to have it. Therefore, the concern of the OP isn’t real. Your performance and what you are capable of doing ingame will not be diminished by the existence of higher tier armor and weapons.
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Your level doesn’t give you more drops per mob but you can kill faster if you are level 80 in the lower level zones.
I think the concern is moot. You can look already to what has happened with making wood planks for Ascended Weapons to convince yourself of what will (or will not) happen. I think if it does change, they aren’t going to make it easier.
While I’m not a fan of adding tiers to existing gear lines, I don’t see the problem with Ascended gear allowing you to ‘skip’ everything else, unless you really don’t plan to play that character until it’s outfitted (which already happens for those of us that have alts). I don’t think anyone going form green to Ascended armor is having a realistic look at how much mats you will need to craft it and for some, the time limited parts as well.
The tokens are just as relevant as they were before. They are needed for skins and for some legendaries. They are useful for alts you don’t want to craft ascended armor for. Personally, I think the way you can outfit your alts with gear, etc… with such things as tokens indicates to me that the the whole gearing system is very well thought out.
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I don’t see the relevance … if you can do content in Exotic gear, how does a statement like ‘forcing you to craft for Ascended’ make any sense?
Wow what the hell? So its changed again?
I don’t think it ever was supposed to come out this year.
I don’t see it. The ONLY BiS gear you can craft is the weapon (so far). No one is being forced.
Buying gems with gold is an optional feature that ArenaNet has GRACIOUSLY provided to us. To ever complain about it is incredibly poor form.
I disagree. Buying gems with gold has been a feature of the game since its inception and may have influenced some folks decision to buy the game. How do you distinguish features that are graciously provided, and therefore shouldn’t be complained about, and features that are ok to complain about?
That’s an easy one … it’s distinguished because buying stuff with gems is the only source of revenue to Anet for this game. Giving people the option to get that stuff not using RL money is VERY gracious.
Frankly, I think the ability to buy gems for gold, regardless of the price, is a VERY beneficial feature of this game. If people didn’t buy gems for gold, what kind of prices do you think we would be looking at for stuff on the TP? Guaranteed … ALOT higher than they are now.
It’s really strange … It’s a heal, with a HoT that can be traited to Heal with MF and proc Fury and be given a reduced cooldown. Smells fishy. It seems like the wrong direction for the kind of balance that Mr. Peter indicated Anet want’s to push us in.
Shelter is pretty perfect for me
Check out the spreadsheet. Shelter is one of the weakest heals in terms of health per second, and the only trade off is 2 seconds of block.
That’s a kitten good tradeoff and if you use it at right time, is the best mitigation skill in the game.
EDIT: Oh duuuh …. I found the source
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Amazing for …PVP? PVE?
Personally, I don’t recommend Celestial for PVE anything. Brutality has experimented with Celestial for WvW. I don’t believe he recommends it for that either. I find it’s better suited for:
1) Classes that don’t get heavy armor
2) Classes that can make decent builds with Crits AND Condition damage
3) Classes that are significantly deficient in intrinsic defensive capability
Guardian is none of those
I don’t get the problem … you already told us you aren’t driven to do anything but what you want to do and have fun doing it. The economy shouldn’t concern if that’s the case.
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I don’t care how much damage I do – that’s not my role.
Would you be okay partying with a thief who tells you, “I don’t care about using my heals to keep myself alive – that’s not my role.”?
If they don’t need it, sure.
Even if you get full zerker trinkets (exotic) you won’t hit 3K attack rating. Getting your crit rating isn’t a problem.
A more valuable critique could be made if you tell us what you intend to do with your build.
That doesn’t make sense.
It makes plenty of sense to me. Passive Virtues are certainly not balanced for combat in teams of 1-5. Scaling would be a more than reasonable way to achieve that balance. In fact one of the big issues with Virtues is that the passives are relatively weak compared to the Actives (even solo) and they DON’T get better when you team.
Maybe the Active effects are balanced in combat with a team but Virtues as a whole, are not.
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If Virtues are balanced for combat involving 1-5 players, then I can’t help notice their effect doesn’t scale by the number of players in team.
For example, wouldn’t it be reasonable for the VoJ effect to be stronger if you are solo than if you were in team?
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I find many of the hammer skins to have handles that are too thin. There are some that are really nice though.
Unless there is some increased chance of rare or exotic drops … why wouldn’t you just skip trash in dungeons and spend that saved time farming trash in open world Orr? Less risk, it’s on your pace, etc… I don’t see a compelling reason to clear any dungeon ever.
What you don’t understand is that they have no intention to modify anything as guardian is fine for the dev team.
That’s a presumptuous statement not having any merit. You don’t know what their intention is. Changes have been made, mostly to our benefit.
Of itself, Renewed Focus is pretty awesome. It’s the virtues that need some smoothing out. I think it’s the elite that needs the least attention.
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So to all the Kiel voters who thought there was some compelling Atherblade Steam Creatures plot twist involving the Thaumanova Reactor: Are you happy?
Yes, I love my reduced waypoint costs.
I think each dungeon should have a normal and a challenging level. Challenge level WOULD implement enrage timers with higher rewards for completion. Other games do it and it works.
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My problem with torch is that it doesn’t bring anything new to the table that I can’t already do. It applies burning and removed conditions. The only interesting thing that I think torch does is a single AOE burning application, like VoJ with Permeating Wrath. Not worth the loss of defensive elements from Sheild/focus.
If the symbol lasts longer than the frequency it can be applied … what happens? Do you get double ticks while it’s duration overlaps?
I’m not defending burning in PVE but you would be rather surprised how infrequently people apply burning. Whenever burning first pops on the mob, it’s because it coincides with me doing VoJ. If there is ANY class that most efficiently applies burning, it’s Guardian because they do it for 5 people with no cost and any build. I don’t believe any other class does that.
Caveat: I didn’t read anyone’s post here because i see the typical “OMG this build isn’t DPS so it sucks”. Unfortunately, my own opinion of the build itself isn’t much less negative.
1. I found some statements contradictory within your infographic and to already known assessments. For instance, you say that precision scales the worst for damage compared to power/crit damage (not sure I agree) but then you say zerker is the armor to use because you don’t want Vitality in the secondary spot, even though you push Vitality in your EHP and as a reason to choose Honour. This isn’t the only inconsistency.
Also, I think this might shine some light on the whole damage breakpoints for you and your build:
For this reason, I believe you have made some decisions in your build based on faulty information or logic. I’m just not sure what to think.
2. It’s a ‘good for everything’ build, or you claim. I’m starting to form the opinion that there really isn’t a good reason to not swap builds and reset traits depending on the content you want to do, so for that reason, I’m out.
The infographic is refreshing though. I like that part. (please make your links in the graphic clickable or add them to your original post) My only real suggestion is that people, generally, should be careful about their own opinions about where their builds are good and focus more on what the builds do and where they are applicable. That way you avoid the inevitable arguments about how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ your build is.
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I have to agree with Cat on this one … I wouldn’t consider anything 10/0/X/X/0 a damage build at all. Other than the 10 in Zeal (a no brainer for anything but the most tanky or supportive builds), you avoided the lines that give you the damage you are talking about lacking.
You are already playing more DPS oriented class, now just build it to play DPS.
Maybe, but this isn’t a competition so …. as I said, I don’t like how undependable Unscathed is, I like Vigor and I never claimed it was the best DPS. That’s where my choices and style lead me. I don’t know what kind of player the OP is. Maybe he thinks like me, maybe your suggestion would be more appropriate. Feel free to suggest whatever REAL DPS builds you want to when people ask. They can make their own decisions.
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“I don’t care if you hit it with your car and peeled it off your grill, that buck has a great rack”.
Don’t care where it comes from or if it feels cheap. I’m biased because I love the hammer but … I’m not letting Anet off the hook for conditions and spirit weapons.
Well, if that’s the case, Guardian may not be the profession for you because as Anet has stated, our class trades off some offense for that “ok u hit me, nice hit, watch me heal and give myself 30 boons while I chip away at your health and theres not much you can do bc im a kittenin tank god” ability.
I can’t comment on how the new stuff affects the hierarchy of damage in the professions but I can say that based on what we have been told, we aren’t moving around in that hierarchy a whole lot, if at all.
A guardian needs a lot of group support for dealing optimum DPS, since our own offensive buffs are almost non-existent, but the results are quite nice if you have that support. Not as great as ele or thief, but there is no need to hide from any of the other classes.
A guardian doesn’t need to give any support for dealing optimum DPS since getting offensive buffs from our teammates isn’t dependent on them getting support from us.
If you want DPS, you need to spec for it. Don’t allow yourself to be convinced that if optimum DPS is what you want, stuff like a hammer 15/15/0/20/20 is going to give it to you.
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How about 25 points? I had been thinking of some builds along the lines of:
10.15.25.10.10
0.25.25.10.10I haven’t personally tested these, just some fast ideas.
If you are talking about a damage build, the first step is 10 in Zeal. Then depending on your weapon, at least 15 in Radiance, 30 if you are 1hand (unless you think your team gives you enough fury). From there, I would say you can start thinking about adding to Valour.
Frankly, I find that if you are playing with a good group, Guardian support is actually very overated. For a pure damage build in that case, I would get 10/30/20/5/5 with a S/F. (Yes, I think the vigor on crit and boon procs from Virtues is too good to pass up, Yes I think Unscathed defender is too unreliable.).
And I don’t see a problem with that if they are already happy with where Guardian sits in the grand scheme.
The message is pretty simple: We aren’t going to force Anet into a discussion they aren’t ready to have, no matter how badly we paint ourselves as the ignored victim. This is a big balance patch, they like the balance they see with Guardians. Therefore the discussion is at a minimum.
For your specific build, I would probably limit to 20 Zeal and put the extra 10 into Virtue if Retaliation is playing that big a role in what you are trying to accomplish. Personally, my biggest issue with your build is that it doesn’t seem that focused at what it describes it should be doing. That’s likely just the kind of player I am and nothing wrong with what you have done.
Well, the clues were there for a long time … most of our updates are very superficial and rather shallow. Compared to other classes, we aren’t getting the volume or consideration of game changing fixes they do. That’s not a complaint either. That’s just recognizing that Guardian is in a place they want it, even if players don’t agree with how it’s done or question the level of attention it’s done with.
And the duration of the burning, like I said earlier, is dependent on how many times the target hits you. You ask me to go for supreme justice, isnit a little contradictory to then say that stacking duration is bad? You do remember that SJ gives 25% more burning duration?
No. The intention is to use VoJ passively with this trait, allowing you to apply burning in a timeframe short enough to reduce/eliminate cleansing impact but keep burning applied enough so that it’s consistent, if not constant on a target. Doing that also opens up weapon choices a bit more. It’s even better if you go Virtue 30 and apply it in AOE.
The whole premise of the build I was using is that it did something exceptional in my engineered team … permastealth theifs and bunker builds. Melting a bunker Guardian is very satisfying.
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I have some constructive criticism … and to curb off any doubts, I’ve played my share of condition builds, even on Guardian. I’m going to skip the stuff about ‘bad condition damage’ because there is some truth there so it’s not worth belaboring that point.
To start off, burning is not a competitive build for PVE. Burning is a supplement to your direct damage. Nothing you will be able to do will make condition heavy + direct damage build compare to heavy direct damage + moderate condition, especially with currently available gear and condition damage trait support. If you want to make the most of a burning build for PVE, you must understand very well where that burst of burning benefits you the most. You can figure it out for yourself or you can take my word for it: It’s Orr trash farming.
On to PVP .. again, a burning build only works in a specific situation for me: An specific build (similar to my sig) roaming with an engineered team.
As for your specific build, I find it hard to dissect. You seem to take some traits based on the fact that they inflict burning on specific event triggers. What I don’t get is why you avoid the most obvious, dependable and cheapest path to do this: Virtue 20 (which would also benefit your retal). In addition, the approach is questionable … stacking burning duration is the death of a burning build in PVP, especially in the current meta. Ideally, you want many small, short applications of burning, not a single, long one. This will be why I advise you rework your build to consider getting burns through a more passive VOJ approach.
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At this point, I think we get what we get .. it’s less than 2 weeks to patch. There isn’t any reasonable discussion that is going to happen so close to patching, unless the discussion is: “Hey, this is what you are getting”. Frankly, I think we are rather lucky there was ANY discussion … if Y’all didn’t figure it out from between the lines, Anet is pretty happy with where the profession is in terms of balance.
My only hope is that they don’t kill DPS build diversity by adding 5% more DPS to sword.
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