Guild Wars 2

Gasoline.2570:

Look at the trading post. What is going on? All of them are starting to hover 600g. Hunter went in like 2 weeks 200g and so forth.

Hey anet are you listening? Oh wait you’re monitoring

Aka not doing anything, coz that’s how it really seems like. This is just faaantastic.

What are they supposed to do? I don’t actually see a problem with the market or with precursors in that price range. Don’t get me wrong … I get where you are coming from. You just want to buy cheap precursors. Maybe you have some incorrect assumptions that you need to re-evaluate and align to the expectations set indirectly by Anet through the ability to purchase a precursor.

Is there a place where I can see what stats the armors will have for each dungeon?

Indure.5410:

It actually can be both when you consider there’s a big difference between active and passive defenses.

Well, you aren’t too far off what I’m talking about here. Assuming that generally, players are average skilled, I don’t actually suspect that Guardians getting creamed in 3-4 hits are IN a tanky/bunker build. Those builds take into account all defensive elements. If a Guardian does that, they aren’t dying in 3-4 hits to anyone if they know how to play. That just goes to my point that the general experience of Guardians playing tank builds is not on the extreme edges of “completely suck” or “AFK tanking”. I really don’t believe either of those positions given the response it would have gained.

Mystic.5934:

only 4%, yes, but it’s a high turnover as it’s a popular item, and it compounds.
4% profit every 5 minutes for an hour = 60% profit.

That doesn’t make sense. If I sell powerful blood at 38 S and buy at 31 S, it’s 4% profit, Period. The frequency, volume and duration of selling is irrelevant. It’s always 4% if those are the buy and sell prices.

It’s a fine idea and it works because almost everything I look at swings once in a while. Just make sure it’s gold your willing to lose OR make sure the item you invest in is something you might find a use for later, like consumables.

1. Manipulate item to a net loss position for flipping
2. ???
3. PROFIT!!!

See, easy. Ultimate proof ectos are manipulated.

That flip is pretty worthless if you ask me. I buy at 31 S, I sell for .85*(38 S) = 32.3 S. Your ROI of 1.3/31 = 4%. That’s not as good as you think if you consider the risk and capital needed relative to other items.

jaka.9635:

Everyone should have the same chance of getting it, and atm that is not the case.

Um, no. This is a fallacy. Everyone should not have the same chance to get ‘it’. The chance to get something is generally a function of playtime, effort and yes, luck. On the other hand, it is safe to say that everyone should have the capability to get ‘it’ and in GW2, they do.

It’s nonsense to compare earning potential between farming and playing the market. Two completely different of risk/reward ratio. Vastly different skills needed to succeed in profiting from either.

Just to respond more directly to Mr. Smith who asks:

Here are the assumptions that I’m operating under for this question:
1. You feel that PvE and TP have difference levels of gold earning
2. You feel that PvE and TP should have the same level of gold earning

What would be your plan for implementing a reward system that would achieve what you desire, given the constraint that you may not get rid of the trading post?

Absolutely nothing. The assumption that earning potential between TP and farming should be equivalent is horrible to begin with for many reasons. The initial one being the disparity between the ROI you get from market vs. farming investment. The second one being the potential risks on your market vs. farming investment.

You aren’t crazy. I believe I see a bug in activated VoJ as well. I made a thread about it as well. It didn’t’ garner much attention though. I’m not really sure how it’s supposed to work nor can I make a video of it to see the damage so I can’t follow up with any real evidence.

The tool tip shows VoJ at 5 seconds. If it ticks every second, there should be 5 ticks in there somewhere. A video capture of it would allow you to slow down and see the positions in the burn cycle where the ticks are occurring.

Maybe there is someone adept at making vids willing to prove either way?

While I think all three of those mechanics make us above average staying power, the nature of some of the WvW in the game will always tend to zerg. Many interesting game mechanics break down at that point so Guardian mechanics don’t seem to be well suited for that.

I found in sPVP, there is definitely an increase in staying power if you use the total sum of those mechanics and pick your fights in smart ways. Still, getting zerged there is still certain death for anyone.

I’m not convinced that our niche role is supported by the toolset. There really isn’t anything unique about having a boon and being able to apply that boon to a team; many professions have at least a few ways to apply a few boons. Guardians simply do it more and more frequently. It’s a very simplistic model and a rather weak statement for the devs to claim it’s a defining Guardian element.

I would have expected the Guardian to bring some modification to boons in the team. For instance, a global duration increase. That would REALLY be a unique and supporting boon element for the profession. I’m certain the game isn’t limited to increasing the effectiveness of boons as well. Yet another globally applied possibility for Guardians to bolster teams.

It’s clear my point isn’t understood:

If glass cannons are destroying Bunker Guardians, then there is no way their damage is LAWL on a Guardian. If glass cannons are doing LAWL damage on a Guardian, they aren’t destroying Guardians. I’m not disputing either is right or wrong but it can’t be both. Someone is just not representing Guardians properly with their claims.

The intent of the thread is to get a feeling for the overall performance of Guardians for game content. If there are two extreme and contradicting positions, seems to me that an objective reader would have to dismiss both, resulting in the conclusion that Guardians are in a nice, average position.

Well, then what is everyone talking about? You’re telling me glass cannons hit tank Guardians for LAWL damage, there is another guy telling us he’s going down in 3-4 hits … it’s not both. Someone is exaggerating (or everyone is). Usually when I see two extreme positions on the same topic, the reality is something in the middle of those two.

This is rather ridiculous. The existence of Ascended make exotic jewelry no less useful than the existence of exotic weapons and armor does for rare armor. You NEED exotic jewelry to get ascended gear, unless you have friends that will carry through months worth of content just so you can avoid getting exotic jewelry.

I don’t see much wrong with being hit for alot by a glass cannon. Isn’t that the point? There would be something seriously wrong with balance if a glass cannon build would glance off our defenses. Where would that leave anyone NOT glass cannon hitting us?

Sigil of force is really good if you are getting as much power as you can. Even if you are a crit build, the 5% damage increase works always. The crit effects are based on a chance and they aren’t always the best effect for the situation you are in. It’s also really good fallback if you think your other sigil effects (criting and swapping) are too situational.

I don’t tend to use Sigil of Force for anything except a quick dungeon run with very experienced people. That’s just something you can pound out fast with little risk to failure.

Clearly being controlled. We all know how much profits can be made flipping an item with a 1% price buy/sell gap. OOPS!

I think the devs aren’t being specific enough though I do think from their perspective ‘heavy’ is the appropriate wording. I think we all need to keep in mind that burning is a secondary damage effect; it should be very hard to make it comparable to damage we do with weapons.

That being said, I am disappointed that there isn’t an acknowledgement of the limited usefulness that burning has for a Guardian regarding the content in the game.

I have thought a little about how to improve burning without invalidating the basic ‘non-stacking’ rules. There is a small improvement if burning ticked more often (still maintaining the DPS). Currently, only increments of 20% will give you another tick. If they change it to 1/2 second, then increments of 10% will benefit you. That gives burning damage a little more mileage if your condition duration increases fall on the ‘odd ten’s’. Still, it’s a weak fix.

For burning to be more attractive, there needs to be a way to increase it’s upfront damage. Maybe a strong first tick with diminishing returns on subsequent ones?

Other than the crappy Glacial whatever trait and the dodging RoW, I’m hoping that hammer never changes.

Dynnen.6405:

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Dynnen.6405:

3) GS 5 not affecting players in stealth anymore

What?

It will do damage to the target, but not apply the dot that does damage and allows you to pull them back to you.

In some cases, couldn’t they still be in stealth if you did pull them? If so, how could you see if the pull worked or not?

Overall, I think the state of Guardians is quite good. We have various good builds for any content and there is a consistent desirability for one or more Guardians in a team. Picking particular issues with weapon skills is a narrow assessment for the overall state. I would think that’s probably why we aren’t the focus of many changes for each patch. .

wintermute.4096:

There is indeed a comprehension problem, most notably in your definition of the words “excel” and/or “suck”. Those 650-700dps you list are

1. not even true, or an exaggeration for most cases,
2. not sustained, making the real dps even lower,
3. not aoe,
4. only a slight advantage over the 333 damage ticks a build that doesn’t even give a crap about burning will get out of burning regardless.

That’s an interesting interpretation given from someone who doesn’t use a burning build. Using the build in my sig for PVE solo farming, I get over 600 DPS just from the burning. With food, full corruption stack and full carrion trinkets, it’s over 700. Also, my minimum burning duration is 8 seconds. That’s much longer than the mobs I am fighting live for. That’s all that is necessary for PVE farming. If I really wanted to, it could be 10 with food, but that’s not needed. These aren’t exaggerations. This is my every day burning damage and durations for my PVE farming, depending on how I want to tweak the setup that day. Considering the amount of HP a typical mob you would farm in Orr has, I would say that’sa significant increase from the base burn everyone has access to. I guess that’s just me though.

No it’s not AOE but interestingly enough, it can be if one decides to trait for that.

wintermute.4096:

It really only “excels” in single mob, slow farming pve if you measure it by it’s own standards, which doesn’t change the fact that it still universally sucks, and only sucks slightly less if you compare it to the alternatives.

I’ve already acknowledged that burning builds are limited in their usefulness to solo PVE farming multiple times now.

I’m not sure if there is a comprehension problem here. Unless I’m being too subtle, I believe I have already said that burning builds excel in soloing. I never claimed burning builds are good for grouping. In fact, I agree that they suck in that situation for the reasons you and everyone else have already listed. In solo play, burning isn’t impacted by its restrictions as a condition damage type.

Focusing on a burning build for solo farming is an additional, reliable and consistent damage output for the kinds of mobs you will encounter. I guess if having the equivalent of a second weapon hitting for 650-700 per second ‘sucks’, so be it.

I don’t get the point. You can suggest something but the value is telling us why you think it needs to be changed.

I don’t understand why the original suggestion what made. Signet of Malice works fine the way it is. If you want more healing, just use a heal that gives you more. It’s no sense to me to add a GCD while making SoM stronger.

For posterity it’s good you listed those things but the picture you paint has a bit of your twist that you added to it. For instance, burn doesn’t increase in damage with vulnerability stacks because condition damage already ignores armor. In my book, ignoring armor is a positive aspect, not negative. It’s not entirely true that burning doesn’t benefit from sigils either. I use smoldering to increase my duration 10%. Bleeding benefits from the same type of sigil. Still, these are mostly pedantic points.

The real point I am making is that despite all of the things that people think are bad about burning, burning builds are still very good for soloing. The best? Probably not, but suck? Definitely not. It’s a more than respectable build for anyone that optimizes it for that role and knows how to play it.

Personally, I think hammer is the tankiest weapon and is more flexible for a number of builds but since you mention you already have narrowed down to clerics and traits, then Mace would probably best suit you.

Whatever you do, Don’t go crazy trying to stack your toughness to the highest values. It’s effectiveness lessens as you continue to increase it. I would aim for a minimum of 2800 armor if you want to attempt to tank.

DeathPanel.8362:

Wrong. There are simply builds that are not good in this game and condition guardian currently is a bad build unless they make major changes to how burn works and add more ways for guardians to apply burn.

That’s just too general to be true. What makes it bad? In what situations? Why? Once you answer those, you realize there is actually content in the game where the shortcomings of burning don’t have a negative impact. Burning works extremely well there.

Off hand, I can think of 4 ways Guardians can apply burning and you can access them all with the same build. It does what it’s supposed to … a secondary, parallel damage line. It should never get better because it’s role in the Guardian toolset would change.

DeathPanel.8362:

The same player with the same skills will simply be less effective using a condition build vs AH build.

The effectiveness of builds are relevant to the content they are used in and how well they suit a players style. Your statements are too general to have meaning. For example, AH/shout build is not better than my burning build for solo farming. We have a bit of a conundrum then.

You can argue that anything would be better for whatever scenario you like; I personally don’t see how it’s relevant to a focused discussion on burn builds. I also don’t think anyone here is the authority on what ‘is a good thing to do’ on a Guardian; as long as you know how to play your build, you aren’t at risk of ever being bad.

We aren’t putting a man on the moon here; there is room for variations. There isn’t some rule that everyone needs to play the most optimized build always. I can assure you that the guy who has optimized his burning build is more than capable of holding his own weight and supporting any group activity without being in the top 1% of damage dealing Guardians.

There are nice advantages to burning builds that people like, even if most of them are superficial. If you don’t see that, I don’t understand what you are adding to the conversation. Some people like burning builds and know how to play them better than some people that throw on Knights armor and run a shout/AH build. I’ll team the completely self-aware burner over the fumbling AH/shout guy any day.

snake.6734:

its not a condition build, more rather using burn to weaken foes, but i do have few things i wanna try out before going damage which i don’t mind, i am a offensive guardian, i find it much more fun, i do have alts which i will be trying different roles, but for my main i wanna go offensive. can anyone give me a good build with pvt armor for damage

Not sure I completely understand. Burning is just a separate damage path that runs in parallel with your regular hits. Offhand, I don’t really think there is anything that enhances burning to weaken foes at all. It’s simply more damage. If you aren’t boosting with Condition Damage or it’s duration, it’s just your fundamental burning that every Guardian gets.

wintermute.4096:

So you recommend carrion gear to boost an attribute which only benefits a damage source you yourself see as secondary?

Is there a better option if you want to boost your secondary source of damage on Guardian? I think Carrion is the right recommendation.

wintermute.4096:

Full condition damage gear is in no shape or form “FOR FREE”, it is in fact the biggest investment you can make in your build. In fact, the Guardian is absolutely competitive in dps, just not in a condition build, which is what I was pointing out.

Guardians don’t need condition damage gear to get burning. It’s literally FREE. If you are buck naked with a level 1 weapon, you get burning. CD gear only takes something we get for free and makes it better.

Your claim burning ‘sucks’ is too general to be true. If your point was that Guardian isn’t absolutely competitive in a condition build, I’m not sure that’s relevant to the discussion (or true). It’s certainly not a reason to invalidate burning builds on Guardian.

wintermute.4096:

Asmodal.6489:

1. What are These Builds and classes that specialize in burn?

Nobody does, because burn sucks.

I don’t like to call people out but this is just dog’s bollocks. If you had a clue, you would realize that Guardian gets burning FOR FREE. Regardless of ANY build you want to make, it’s always there supplementing your regular damage. Since burning isn’t meant to be Guardian primary damage source, it actually does ‘work’.

Comparing burning on Guardian (where it’s a secondary damage source) to other extreme condition builds on other profs (using conditions as a primary damage source) is ridiculous to begin with and not even relevant to the discussion. I don’t see why someone playing a guardian should even care that a engi or whatever gets X damage per second with a condition build. So what?

The only thing relevant here is what an Guardian has access to. Everything else is moot. I believe that a Guardian that focuses on condition damage gear and burning traits/runes/sigils can pump out similar damage as a crit Guardian while burning is up. That’s not just spouting off at the mouth either. The big downfall of burning is that it’s duration is a little short.

If you are adamant that you aren’t going to get gear that has condition damage to improve a burning build, then you should at least consider increased burning and condition duration runes to get the most out of effects like Zeal 10 if you want any advantage from burning at all.

Honestly, focusing on burning in any way with the build you presented would weaken it. I wouldn’t advise traiting Zeal 10 at all without Radiance 15 or significant duration increase. The damage increase you would get from that would be very reliant on your situation.

While it is true that you can still take advantage of burning with out increasing condition damage, you would be missing out. As someone already said, getting something worthwhile from burning on Guardian is an all or nothing deal.

Asmodal.6489:

azureai.9764:

I’m dubious about the choice of a mace on a condition damage Guardian build. One of the easiest ways to keep burning for a Guardian is to use Virtue of Justice’s passive, but that mace is too slow to activate VoJ often.

Anyone trying for a CD Guardian (and, admittedly, it is a rough path…but not kitten undoable as others swear), should be focusing on quick strikes. Sword is probably your best weapon of choice as a CD Guardian.

mace symbol ticks provide counts twords VoJ too and with JI and purging flame its enough to keep the fire burning on single target. in general you will activat VoJ a lot anyways because of the recharge on kill. weapon speed is not that important. the pbaoe burn from aegis will give a good headstart on long burns too.

I would say mace is a good choice in this build since it is the main source for surviveability – regen, heal, block + pretty good aoe attack

i seriously dont see why CD should be a rough path. if you do the math dps on carrion wil be higher then knights – given a 100% uptime on burn and you bypass armor and protection boons…

Agreed with this. Mace is a really good approach if you want to take advantage of the 30 Virtue build and not be stuck to 30 Valour if you like playing a more active defense. A 10/15/0/0/30 Mace/focus build has some significant staying power and thump to it. I would use it but unfortunately, the 30 Valour offers more flexibility and maces look crap IMO.

Asmodal.6489:

FlyingK.9720:

The major issue with trying to do burning damage as a guardian is that you are going to be competing with other classes that will very likely do more damage and since only one of you can burn at a time, any time you take away from others is reducing overall dps of the group.

A grand example is my condition Mesmer whom currently sits at 1663 condition damage before consumables. Condition damage is already weak and problematic enough without players trying to step on eachother’s toes.

good point. but in a structured group situation there are also tons of ther things to coordinate. yet i would argue that a true long duration burn is only achievable by guards and eles who spec for arcane burns.

There is no major issue there if you are traiting and gearing accordingly to get the most damage form burning foes, even if the burn isn’t your own. We get 10% damage increase to burning foes in Zeal 10 and another 5% if you rune up to Flame Legion 6. If you know there is another long duration burner in your team, it usually doesn’t matter anyways … your burning will get it’s turn on mobs where grouping is typically advantageous. If it’s just trash mobs, it’s not relevant who’s burning anyways.

Your build is a little all over the place and if the intent is that it is for burning, then why haven’t you focused on condition damage?

If you want to improve and get the most from your burning, you have to use carrion armor and trinkets as a baseline. That will give you the most condition damage stat, lots of vitality to take a beating and enough power to make your hits hurt. You can tweak it for more crit. You have to equip some coral trinkets over chryscola to do it and it will compromise your burning damage a bit. You have to find your sweet spot for damage balance between crit and burning vs. HP depending on your skill and playstyle. Check out my signature for what I consider an optimal burning build for PVE.

Mind you, burning is not good for PVP or dungeons.

tom.7468:

Agree with you there have been dozens of thread like this but devs never read them.

What gives you that impression? You believe they don’t read the forums because they don’t instantly cave to the whims of players that don’t want to deal with the shortcomings of a profession even though it goes against the design of the class? Interesting.

Yes, this isn’t the first or last thread on the topic but I think a new weapon is the last thing we will get IF the devs decide to improve our ranged capability. It’s the most work of all options to address it. More likely they improve Sceptre (didn’t they do something with that recently?) Frankly I don’t see it happening without some kind of nerf to accompany it as well. Things that happen by design aren’t accidental.

Iavra.8510:

Guardian got about the 2nd lowest mobility of all classes in exchange, so your argument is invalid

That’s too general a statement to mean anything. Being mobile isn’t only about how fast you run. In a combat situation, we have a number of tools that make us very mobile. No, they aren’t your traditional ability to run 25% faster. They are condition removal, teleports and gap closers.

I happen to agree that sword doesn’t need much if any attention. Swords three attacks are very comparable in effect and scale to the first three attacks of any other weapon we possess. ZD could be less odd and more appropriate but it’s not useless by any means.

I would personally dump the whole projectile concept from ZD and replace it with something very simple that incorporates more of the Guardian toolset, like a symbol.

I hate the idea. There aren’t sufficient guarantees to the loaner as long as the collateral involves items that change value. People defaulting would definitely be a massive issue. If you don’t have the money, you don’t have the means to pay back that money with interest either. Nothing in this game requires a loan to get, at least nothing any sensible person would give you a loan to buy.

^^ Is waiting for the obligatory “400 isn’t enough” post.

Well, that was a supply issue and yes I can agree that in the case of an in-balance in supply, they would re-evaluate that. I loot just as many dust as I do anything else so it seems they have fixed that. The distribution of T6 mat drop rate seems overall, equivalent. That’s where I would expect it to be. The balancing being asked for in this thread in this case is focused on addressing a demand problem.

Simply put, I don’t think drop rate should be so haphazardly increased to ensure a quantity that fullfills the complete range of Dust’s uses in-game. The balancing provided by the market does that all on it’s own. I want more Omnoms and Truffles too. That demand doesn’t really justify the addition of putting more ingame, no more than it does for Dust.

Geotherma.2395:

some great work

If you can or know how, please post your standard deviation (Yes, I know it’s not a very good statistic in this case)

Leablo.2651:

As pointed out in another of the threads OP made for this, the sample sets appear to be a random assortment of rares. The sample size is moot since it doesn’t appear to be a controlled sample anyway.

I think there is a reasonable balance to be struck here. I think more people are interested in a practical result vs. the scientifically rigorous one. If the more random sample gives more variation in the final result than the controlled one, I think that’s actually more interesting because it’s really what happens ingame when you loot a rare item. Sample size isn’t ever moot … a bigger sample provides you a higher confidence level. With the number of outcomes available for this experiment, you can come to a reasonable conclusion pretty fast.

The people arguing for ‘fixing’ the speculation obviously have no idea how necessary it is to have competitive (i.e. best price) market. If Anet told us that we couldn’t sell our items for what we think it’s worth, I think many people would just not bother selling anything.

I doubt that the intention of his statement was to give you the impression that he watches the markets to control the cost of individual items. That’s just speculation on my part but for me, watching markets is about ensuring nothing particularly odd is happening, which may be the result of unscrupulous activities within the game. The general targets for item prices are probably in very broad ranges and categories. It would be truly insane and worthless for them to assess and control the price of any individual item on the TP.

To answer your question, I don’t think Anet really cares what the price of T6 dust is. Why do you think they care about the price of any particular item on the TP? There are lots of items that are used for multiple recipes so I don’t believe that makes dust particularly unique in that respect.

I personally don’t see a reason to fiddle individual item drop rates in bags and such. In the bigger picture, it doesn’t accomplish much.

Syeria.4812:

You (and others) keep coming up with this completely baseless claim and posting it all over.

It’s not baseless at all. If someone was so inclined and had sufficient background in statistics, they could tell you the level of confidence. Unfortunately, mine is too rusty for that. I can only provide the ‘200 is pretty reasonable’ sample size without actually telling you that level of confidence.

More samples won’t give you a radically different number of average ecto per salvage, it will simply give you a more accuracy and more powerful statistics The information and precision we are after, 200 samples is more than sufficient. For arguments sake, if the number is 0.9 ecto per salvage, then doing more samples will simply give you more decimal places. It won’t move too much from 0.9

You also have to remember that we only have only 4 possible outcomes from a salvage (0, 1, 2 or 3 ectos). That means you build the distribution much faster (approach mean value faster) than you would for an unbound range.

Sorry naysayer’s, 200 is just fine.

Calae.1738:

In the world of finance and economics it is common for people to lie and profit from other people’s ignorance. It happens everyday. You can’t trust anyone but; it doesn’t mean you can’t verify thier claims

Maybe. Good thing we aren’t playing the stock market here. This is a game and there is nothing for Anet to profit on by lying to you. We already paid our $60.

I think that’s the right track … consumable items from all Teirs useful at all levels. Repair kits is a great example. Guild influence and karma consumables would be good too.

Calae.1738:

Obtena.7952:

Telling us information prevents nothing. They can still adjust it and if we ask, they would just tell us the new rate.

Your assuming they don’t change the rate. I bet they change the rate all the time depending on player activity and changes to the game.

I didn’t assume anything, though I don’t take what devs tell me as lying, so I tend to believe them when they say they don’t change the rate.

If they want, they can change the rate and I can’t think of any reason how that would be prevented in any way if they decided to tell us the rate.

Telling us information prevents nothing. They can still adjust it and if we ask, they would just tell us the new rate.

Gasoline.2570:

Obtena.7952:

1. What purpose would it serve if Anet was lying to you? Personally, I don’t see any.

Well isn’t that something. Maybe you ought to think harder next time, it doesn’t take much, I promise you.

What is more impressive is that you dodged the question thinking your response was appropriate. Either you think the answer to it is obvious to bother posting or you have none. I’m willing to guess it’s the latter. I’m being honest. I don’t see any reason for them to lie about it. It’s not a matter of thinking much harder as you seem to suggest.

Honestly, what does Anet have to gain by lying to you about anything related to bots?