Guild Wars 2

That’s an interesting read. I’m skeptical of the relatively small sample size but it brings up some good points that my personal experiences can support.

I realize that raids are the only thing that really necessitates these types of tools, which is why I think it’d be fine if they were only available in raids.

So it’s really a choice of picking your poison. Without meters, runs that have negative outcomes like excessive slowness or wipes incur harassment from the very people who most likely cause the problem in the first place. With meters, a run that is successful might very well still see harassment, just because one player thinks another player is not living up to an arbitrary standard.

I guess I personally prefer the second scenario to the first. In group play I’d rather have too much accountability than not enough.

Step 1: Ditch the Dragonhunter.

It’s not that they are necessarily bad but there are very few people who will take an unproven Dragonhunter. They are basically the lowest tier right now as far as raids are concerned.

It’s possible the next balance patch will solve some of this but we’ll have to see.

As it stands now, cooperation and teamwork rely on knowing the mechanics more than anything else (for group content). Knowing when to dodge, when the right time to use an interrupt is, watching for certain animations, etc.
If one knows and understands such mechanics, nearly all content can be completed without incident, regardless of the builds being used.

Except this isn’t true. You can do all of those things perfectly and still not be able to complete raids. Which is where these tools are needed the most.

In games where damage meters are a thing people generally have an understanding of how much DPS or HPS are needed at certain levels. Sure there are outliers that demand ridiculous things but for the most part but they are the exception (They just get a lot of attention because of how ridiculous they often are). I’ve run many many many PUGs in other MMO’s and I’ve rarely seen someone get kicked for damage when things are going well. If everything goes well people usually don’t care about anything except continuing what they are doing.

When things go wrong though is when meters are usually brought up. Yes there can be some toxicity but it’s because raids are a team effort and when you are busting your kitten to accomplish something and you see your teammate slacking there needs to be some accountability. This is generally how things happen in other games when things “go wrong”:

Leader – “Okay, tonight was a little rough, we need everyone to be at least at 10k DPS by next raid or we’ll have to start replacing people with those that can do it”

—next night—

Leader – “Okay Jonny and Sarah you are both sitting at 5k DPS unfortunately that doesn’t cut it for this type of content, we are going to have to replace you tonight. We can talk after the raid to see if we can get your damage up to where it needs to be”

Now lets look at a very real example of what happens in GW2 when things aren’t going right:

Leader – “Guys last attempt we were at 5:45 when the Vale Guardian split. We need to have much better damage if we are going to hit the enrage timer. Make sure you are using the best gear, food and utilities possible and optimizing your rotation.”

4-5 attempts later

Leader – “We are still consistently below the 6 minute mark when the Guardian splits. What’s going on? Why is our DPS not where it should be?”

crickets

No one knows. No one has any idea who’s pulling their weight and who’s not. It’s a complete crap shoot.

There’s a couple things the RL could do at this point:

1. Have everyone link him their gear. This would require some extensive knowledge of almost every profession and what their best build is (Or even viable builds, many professions have multiple raid viable builds). It would require them to start discriminating based on gear. They may end up dropping their most valuable player simply because he has a few less than optimal pieces of gear. It’d also take hours to figure out where the problems are.

2. Continue attempting without really changing anything and hope people magically get better (generally they won’t). If things don’t improve people will stop having fun and stop showing up, usually the first ones to go are the ones who are actually the best players.

Neither of these are good options. It’s unlikely you’ll find the problem with either and it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get past this hurdle either because you simply don’t have the information available to make an informed decision. Damage meter would make this a fairly simple decision. Sure, one maybe two people might get their feelings a little hurt, but you won’t have 10 people frustrated and getting burnt out.

TL;DR – Part of teamwork and cooperation is accountability and without tools like damage meters leaders can only make guesses at who’s doing their job and who’s not.

Cyninja.2954:

On the idea of damage meters allowing for build variety: No.

Build diversity would eventually settle down until a balance patch, that’s how games work, but it would initially open up a whole lot of builds that are currently considered “bad” to the public’s eyes. Right now it’s really really difficult to get a build socially acceptable, it’s basically a huge PR effort on the communities part because the average joe can’t see the effect of a build.

Bad players will start demanding people run these builds and everything else will get omited. It’s already happening without damage meters and metabattle where players just copy bad builds without customizing them.

You are right. Players are demanding people run certain builds (Bad or good) and it will continue to happen at the exact same rate with or with out damage meters. The thing is with damage meters at least you will be able to filter players based on actual performance and not theoretical performance. Players with a slightly “cheaper” build might be taken more often if it’s proven that they can reliably do the damage needed. On the flip side those that are under performers won’t be able to hide behind their good gear and meta build as easily.

For example: My brother got rejected from a raid I was already in because he had Ruby Orbs in his gear, despite the fact that I know his performance in the raid would have been more than adequate and probably far better than most of the players there. If we had damage meters I could have used the argument “Give him one or two attempts to show you the damage he can do and if it’s not up to par you can kick him”. This probably would have flown because the fear of loss threshold is pretty low on that request, as it was I had no good argument other than my word against their’s.

Adding damage meters would essentially be a small conveniance addition for already engaged, intelligent and optimizing players, while at the same time a huge addition for more bullying, hostility and discrimination in the player base.

It’s unlikely the degree of bullying, hostility and discrimination would change at all simply redirected and at least semi informed. It’d largely remain the same, but it’d change form from “You don’t have full ascended?” or “You aren’t running scholar runes?” to “You did 3k DPS over a 8 minute fight that’s not good enough”. It’s not a “small convenience” either to those who are engaged already it would literally be one of the biggest assets to raiders especially if, as we go forward, enrage timers only get tighter.

This is the “meta” build right now, dependent on the boss you are fighting.

http://sickestguild.com/forum/m/31644179/viewthread/25151391-spirit-vale-condition-reaper-guide

You do realize that only those who really care about having a DPS meter are the meta try-hards and the min/maxers right?

This is SO not true.

Playing with my dad the other day (Who’s 65 and terrible at video games but likes MMORPG’s) he said “I wish this game had some way of telling how well you are doing”. He’s absolutely awful at these games and the furthest thing from a min-maxer you could get. But he still desires some feedback on how he’s doing in relation to others. He just sits there and spams all his abilities without really knowing what he should be doing because the game only gives him these random white and green numbers that often are hard to correlate to exactly what you are doing.

People get enough flak for not running the almighty zerker gear.

When you make content that is challenging to a large portion of the player base AND have that content be reliant on a group of people to complete you will have people who discriminate. The problem with not having damage meters is people will use scape goats to discriminate which are only based on popular opinion. You don’t have “X” runes or sigils? Nope not taking you. Not full ascended? Nope. People make huge deals out of things that are minor because the game hasn’t given them the feedback to see how small some of these things actually are and the only way they know is because someone else has done the math.

Damage meters let your average joe understand the game and their characters a little better. They can go in one day and do X-Y-Z rotation and see the results and then go another and do Z-X-Y rotation and see the results. You don’t have to have a math degree and complex spreadsheets to swap out runes and run a DPS test for yourself with a damage meter.

An in-game DPS meter will only serve to stoke the ego’s of those who live by such things, and do nothing to promote cooperation, teamwork, or build diversity.

It would ABSOLUTELY create build diversity. People would be able to give validity to their builds which they cannot do right now. This game takes an incredible amount of math to weigh all the options and it’s only really possible to do so for completely optimal situations, which only exist in a vacuum. Just look at Condi Engineer, when HoT launched it was widely considered the king of condition damage, but it’s fallen out of favor because people have begun to realize how hard it is to actually achieve the spreadsheet results and are looking to easier options. Damage meters would probably rock the meta hard because people would realize who’s doing good ACTUAL damage rather than theoretical damage.

TL;DR: Damage meters would be a huge asset to the average player because it would provide real time feedback for their actions and they would be able to understand the game on a level that’s only accessible by very difficult mathematics currently.

BloodyNine.7504:

I would think a meter that simply tells you how much damage is being done wont give you a leg up on anyone you are playing with.

It’s in the ToS of the game that you cannot use combat log data or something to that effect.

It’s not really about an unfair advantage for Anet it’s more about the type of non-competitive environment they wanted to create originally in their game. Since then they’ve added a lot of competitive elements to the game and a damage meter and the ability to log boss attempts would really help.

There is a vocal portion of the player base that is against it though because of their experiences with a damage meter being used to discriminate.

If you are pugging raids the best way to get in with a decent group is having one of two things:

1. Chronomancer, and hopefully be able to tank. These are highly sought after because of alacrity is so strong.
2. Have a condi class with appropriate gear (Warrior, Necro or Engineer in general). These are always needed and you need multiples. There are still so many people who only have zerk gear so you are setting yourself apart by having a condi option.

Otherwise you’ll probably be sitting in LFG for a long time just waiting because there are so many people doing exactly the same thing you are with the exact same offering.

This is the life of pugging, it’s the same in every single game. If you differentiate your offering you have a much better chance of getting in.

Condi has a really good niche right now. Epidemic and certain boss mechanics make it very strong. It has a simple rotation, 900 range and very little interruption if the boss moves (In fact often better damage because of torment).

Power is pretty lack luster in what it brings to the party. It’s less flexible (Melee) and there are other classes that do it much better. When there’s the choice between a Warrior, Revenant or Power Necro groups will always pick a Warrior or Revenant.

It is expensive but well worth it. I’ve switched over completely. While I miss wielding my Dark Harvest I feel like I am actually contributing to raid instead of being tag along.

This discussion highlights the dire need for real damage meters >.<.

PLS ANET WE WANT TO TALK ABOUT REAL NUMBERS.

Ikrekot.8357:

VG and Gors (something can kill you )are both like normal and Sabetha (nothing can kill you) is like LFR
LFR < Normal < Heroic < Mythic (Mythic is hardest)

>.< yeah no… Stop trying to trivialize the content. It’s not that faceroll.

Normal raids in Wow can be pugged about 1-2 weeks after they drop, except for maybe the last boss which is usually a step up in difficulty. VG wasn’t being regularly pugged for a few weeks after launch. Which solidly puts it somewhere in Heroic difficulty.

Goreseval and Sab are still not regularly pugged. Often attempted and occasionally done successfully but it’s generally the exception. This is much like late Heroic and early Mythic tier. Even after people get gear it’s hard to get a pug group together to successfully clear late Heroic bosses.

Threat of dying isn’t the only thing that makes bosses difficult either. Down state makes that much less of a mechanic than in other games where if your health is 0 your done. Vale Guardian would be very very hard if down state wasn’t a thing.

So what does it truly matter if one specific build using very specific runes etc does more overall damage on very specific bosses with multiple hit boxes?

It’s really really unhealthy for the game and a poor player experience.

IMO the amount of damage you do should never change based on how big the enemy hit box is. It’s a completely trival mechanic that has nothing to do with the player. Otherwise we will always have this weird dynamic where certain classes are ridiculously good on a few bosses and just okay on others or need completely different gear on different bosses to do the same role.

Some variance is healthy, but 40% difference is not.

Currently I’d place VG firmly in the middle of WoW’s Heroic difficulty.

Goreseval is probably near the end of Heroic difficulty. I haven’t tried Sab yet but I think it’s probably close to Mythic level raiding.

I’m hoping for more bosses to be around the same level as Gore and Sab.

21-50 3xDaily chest has about a 1% chance to drop an armor chest (I have gotten one before).

51-100 3xDaily Chest has about a 12% chance to drop an armor chest and about a 3% chance to drop a weapon chest.

Tspatula.9086:

Uhh.. except it’s content. Everything in the game is CONTENT that we PAID for. There is nothing in the game that you “are required to do”, you can make a toon and just stand around in the first map. Last I looked, GW2 was an MMO right? “Not easy” and “Undoable” are not the same thing. The adventures are garbage content thrown at us because making REAL MMO content is harder than Mario Bros. It has nothing to do with the difficulty of attaining a collection.

There are few games that just give you all the content upfront just because you paid for it. Those that do are generally not much fun.

Adventures are garbage is an opinion. One that I disagree with but you are welcome to. I also think dungeons are garbage content but I’m sure tons of people disagree with that too.

You are welcome to your opinion about but trying to make out that you deserve this item that you cannot obtain because of extraneous circumstances just because you paid for the expansion is unreasonable.

jim.5041:

I have seen lots of people claiming that condi reaper have pretty good DPS compared to condi engineer or druid. But, when I try to run my condi reaper in Vale Guardian, I only get about 12k dps in green circle duties. And about 15k dps in Gorseval(including epidemic to clean adds).
As you can see above, an ele can do about 18k dps and it’s 20% more dps than reaper.

Where are you getting numbers like this? From what I understand the only “legit” dps meter (Which screenshots your combat log) doesn’t work well with condition damage because there’s too many small numbers.

I’m just curious if this is theoretical or if you have some hard proof that these numbers are accurate for the fight.

Tspatula.9086:

It would be insanity to gate content through types of gameplay that a significant portion of your playerbase either can’t do because of physical or latency problems, or that they find incredibly frustrating.

Uhh except it’s not required, it’s a collection. It’s not supposed to be easy… There are a LOT of collections that require you to do jumping puzzles (Just did parts of Mawdrey that requires you do multiple jumping puzzles and mini dungeons).

Crazy.6029:

This is because the options get reset every time you log out or at least they do for me since the patch, disable auto target, it worked for me.

Ohhh… Nice I get really frustrated when my Death charge randomly targets a mob that’s to the left or right of me and I’m trying to go forward towards nothing. Hope this fixes that.

Uhh no. They are a great source of liquid gold. Free daily keys are pure liquid gold similar to how dungeons were. Plus straight up buying keys at the 20-25 price point is profit. It’s to your advantage to open as many boxes as possible now.

I used to considered this the best MMO ever and infact prior to HoT I rarely said a bad word about it….well that’s changed with this expansion; I can’t say one positive thing about the HoT.

I could say almost the exact opposite. GW2 was a MMO with some good ideas with mediocre execution and a very shallow end game. HoT has revitalized the game for me by expanding that end game to something that actually tests me somewhat. I do have my own issues with some of the content but overall I’m ecstatic about HoT and the direction they are going in.

The casuals, loved this game because it was casual, we could accomplish things at our own pace while juggling work, family and other real life commitments.

Still doing this to this day. Play 1 maybe 2 hours a day and about 3-4 hours over the on the weekends. Have completed my Dark Harvest for my Reaper, crafted 4-5 ascended weapons across my characters, killed the first raid boss with a PUG, have around 60 mastery levels (Never done any CoF farming either) and am climbing my way up fractals. That’s all since HoT launched.

This game is still very casual.

There are some things that are frustrating as a player with little time (Map metas all tied to timers). But things like event skins being huge resource sinks are the least of my worries. People that play this game a lot more than I do need something to work towards and I’m glad they have that now.

Phy.2913:

I like them. Yes, I’m serious.

This. It’s a shame that they are rough on people with latency but so are raids and I think they are some of the best content ever put in this game. There could also be some things that would improve them (Instancing) but overall they are a welcome distraction.

There are other ways to get ascended gear so this isn’t forced on you at all. It’s entirely optional.

And honestly this adventure isn’t that hard. I watched someone get gold and they still made quite a number of mistakes that probably cost them anywhere from 5-10 seconds of time. Getting silver even with latency shouldn’t be a huge issue.

Turning off vsync does fix the issue. The other problem is all of my settings are being reset every time I log in >.<.

Having the same issue. Alt+Tab works but I have to do it EVERY TIME I LOAD A MAP. It’s really really annoying and basically unplayable at this point.

Wintermute.5408:

So which one is more fit for his raid spot – power or condi reaper?

I’m not close to raiding yet, but I consider starting to learn and gear condi, becouse I suck horribly at melee range. Yet my guild keeps saying me that condi reaper isn’t that good.

For me it’s a point of no-return, becouse no way I’m making second set of weapons and gear any time soon. So, which one would you advice?

On paper Condi reaper is probably about equal to Power but Condi reaper is much more flexible and has higher DPS uptime because of the 900 range on 90% of abilities. Also fewer classes can go Condi with good results so it’s in high demand right now.

Core for PVE power builds. Pretty bad in everything else.

softblackcarbon.1537:

Can you beat it with 2-3 condi reapers instead of engis? Of course. Should a brand new group that’s trying to make getting a kill as easy as possible for themselves bring 3 condi engis? I think so. That’s all I’m saying.

I’d argue that unless the Condi engineers have near perfect rotations then Reaper’s will be a better choice. This is coming from watching a lot of people play Condi engineer and seeing the huge difference a good Condi engineer can be in damage. Average ones will probably do less damage than an average Reaper simply because the complexity of the rotation.

People need to realize that rotation complexity factors into actual damage. Few people can actually pull off a engineer’s rotation properly and add in boss mechanics and that percentage dips even lower.

Haha… drama. I highly doubt anyone would quit a game over something as trivial as this. Either you weren’t happy about the game to begin with or you are just trying to stir the pot.

Darwec.3784:

Its only at condi cap because you take malice. If you switch malice with bursting, and take nightmare/black diamond over berzerker, The bursting is a little better than berzerker, is it not?

Also, lingering curses applies condi duration to BASE. So the skill it self changes, then you can still stack 100% condi duration on top of that from food, traits, runes, etc.

Geomancy and Earth are really strong in this build. You can put scepter in one slot and dagger in the other and you have a reliable proc of Geomancy every 9 seconds on weapon swap and Earth can add a bleed every 2-3 seconds because you are essentially crit capped. I haven’t done the hard math on it but I think 3-10 stacks of Bleed roughly every 10 seconds is worth more than 6% condition damage.

Darwec.3784:

So…a few questions about this build: Why berzerker runes instead of 5 nightmare and a black diamond?

It’s because the build is at condi cap. The best way to get more damage is from the Zerker runes. 5 nightmare + BD can be better if you are still trying to hit condi cap.

I currently use 4 Nightmare and 2 Trapper to get 25% condi duration because it’s much cheaper than making full vipers. Viper’s gear is incredibly expensive right now. I’d say the build I’m running is like 95% of the one in that post which is more than fine for the raid.

http://sickestguild.com/forum/m/31644179/viewthread/25151391-spirit-vale-condition-reaper-guide

Pretty much everything you need to know.

softblackcarbon.1537:

tl;dr – engis are better because of the utility they provide, rather than their dps. They’re not the only class that can be successful though.

Transfusion is godly for the VG fight. Shroud 4 in a water field if people are low on the green circle can almost instantly top everyone off. Also people going down out of position is a huge problem on that fight and Transfusion helps get them back into the group so they can be revived quickly.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I think they’re both very good for different reasons. Necromancer can definitely sustain higher ranged DPS numbers while in the green circle group, but offers little in the way of valuable CC to keep seekers away from the green circle. Engineer, however, brings Air Blast, Big Ol’ Bomb, and Glue Shot which are incredible in that role.

Necro can pretty much solo most of the breakbars in the fight though. With Golem + Shroud 5. Something to keep in mind.

Tanking is a bit awkward. It doesn’t really do a whole lot right now. My hope is for future bosses to do more direct damage to the tank that they have to deal with in some way.

Passive mitigation is too easily accessible in this game and needs to be toned down or damage needs to be increased.

I’m a bit confused as to what game people are all flocking to that has more content? I’m just not seeing it out there and I would like to know what GW2 is being compared to these days…

Amethyst Lure.5624:

Lethal Stranger.5093:

Sadly it’ll be a matter of time until pug-culture gets obsessed with using ‘optimal’ builds exlusively.

Dreading the idea of an addition of a dps meter for this reason. Useful sure, but 1% difference would become “go this build or go home” mentality that happens in every MMO with raids ever, instead of actually trying out what works well with your own raid group.

This already is the case and we don’t have DPS meters. DPS meters will help form the meta though and give us numbers that can help good raid leaders make informed decisions.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Condi reaper is actually a lot weaker than Warrior and Engineer, it’s suprising how much of a gap there actually is.

No it’s really not. People need to stop thinking this. Condi Reaper is far easier to execute at a high level while doing boss mechanics. Warriors are obviously insane on Goreseval simply because of his huge hit box but barring that one instance I’d say Reaper is on par with Warrior and only slightly behind Engineer. In fact on Sab Reapers with specific builds can do damage on par with Warrior on Goreseval.

Please stop spreading misinformed information.

Proof: http://sickestguild.com/forum/m/31644179/viewthread/25151391-spirit-vale-condition-reaper

OP is absolutely correct. Having spent hours on 2/3 bosses they are not that mind bogglingly hard that casual players cannot complete them.

BUT there is a perception that Ascended, or at least 2/3 ascended is required. It’s not a completely unjustified perception either as the 2nd boss is a pretty hard DPS check and having certain Ascended gear will really really help you. Sure it can probably be done with everyone in full exotics but the level of play needed to do that is pretty high and not many can execute on that level so people putting groups together are safer in making the requirement that Ascended gear is required.

The problem with this is that Ascended costs SO kitten MUCH. It’s a huge barrier to entry for new players. It takes months for a new player to get to the level they need to be to even start raids.

This is the biggest problem with raids right now. Difficulty is fine, but so many are being locked out of content simply because of the huge gold sink Ascended is right now.

Raids are fine the difficulty they are, honestly the first boss is pretty kitten easy. It’s the barrier to entry (Or perceived barrier) that is the problem. A new player has such a huge barrier to entry through needing to acquire ascended gear through crafting which will cost them hundreds of gold (Probably at least a couple months of farming and crafting time gated mats). That’s just to get a baseline set. If you want to experiment you are sinking even more gold into it.

The gearing nature of the game is currently the most messed up process I’ve ever see in a game.

No god no. Full flight would suck all the enjoyment out of the system. We’ve seen what full flight does in other MMO’s, it just makes everyone sit around on their “flyer” and skip over tons of content.

Crystal Reid.2481:

It doesn’t have anything to do with allowing you to play the way you want and so I’d like to share some insight into why we made the change.

We’re actually perfectly okay with players not interrupting a break bar. However what we’re not okay with is having all the deadly mechanics of the encounter removed during this period. Honestly that’s really just an oversight on my part in how I built the encounter. This was the most simple change we could make that was relatively low impact.

Thank you for being transparent about this. I’m glad you are setting a precedent for fixing unintended gameplay as we know what happens to mechanics when players are allowed to cheese them for extended periods of time (Looks at dungeons).

Prophet.1584:

Why has carrion fallen out of favor with these hybrid builds? is it just that viper is the new FOTM? with Viper you’re getting more power damage than condi, with how low the coefficients are for power damage why not emphasize condi. this would include sinister>viper as well since it also emphasizes condition damage.

Duration is the strongest stat a condition build can get until you hit 100%.

LFG needs a revamp. It’s woefully out of date since HoT released and theres a dozen different things to group up for that don’t fall under any of the categories. They need Meta event categories and Raid categories for sure.

Condi is a lot easier to survive. Being in melee is a great way to get chain stunned or not be able to see a Sniper AOE.

Zerker is just so much fun though.

rogerwilko.6895:

Could someone explain or direct me to an in-depth explanation of why Condi Reaper is a good choice?
I fail to understand why the Chill is so good (is the DoT high or?).

Two things that make it staple are:

1. Soul Spiral (Shroud 4). Huge amount of Poison damage and can combo with Fire or Poison fields for even more condition damage.

2. Chill becoming a condition. It’s about 1-1.5k DPS which isn’t small. You can’t stack it like you can with other conditions but it’s strong enough that it trumps what a lot of other specialization lines offer.

Decimate Defense also gets you pretty much to Crit cap so you can get rid of as much precision as possible in favor of Condi Duration capping.

Other specialization lines offer very little to a condi build (Other than Curses obviously) so Reaper becomes somewhat default.

And here we have evidence that sometimes it’s NOT a good idea to listen to the players…

I’m looking for a guild that starts raiding between 12-4 PM PST on Saturdays and Sundays. My brother and I would like to raid together and this time slot seems to be the only time we both commit to reliably. We are fairly hardcore players but don’t have a lot of excess time to commit to raiding during the weekdays. We were Mythic level raiders when we were playing WoW and we’d like to push our GW2 play to the next level.

If you think you know of a good fit please let me know.

Torolan.5816:

Pandabro.8743:

People on the forum are usually more negative than the average gamer. HoT is a lot of fun, especially for the first 20-30 hours (It get’s a little tedious after you start going trying to gear up to raid and do harder content, but still fun). It’s well worth the $50.

Just be warned. The jungle is confusing and challenging, if you are into that you’ll have a blast, but if you’re expecting difficulty on the same level as central Tyria you will be frustrated.

I would have put that the other way. HoT is a really bad and boring salad of multilayered, confusing deathtrap maps at first, but it gets step by step better if you gain masteries.

That’s your opinion. You’re welcome to it but I know plenty of people who enjoy it throughly.

People on the forum are usually more negative than the average gamer. HoT is a lot of fun, especially for the first 20-30 hours (It get’s a little tedious after you start going trying to gear up to raid and do harder content, but still fun). It’s well worth the $50.

Just be warned. The jungle is confusing and challenging, if you are into that you’ll have a blast, but if you’re expecting difficulty on the same level as central Tyria you will be frustrated.

Sigh again… Enrage timers =/= All DPS. A lack of sufficient damage pressure to players is what causes people to take all glass DPS.

Enrage timers or mechanics discourage an opposite meta which is worse than an all DPS meta. Enrage timers or mechanics are essential for adding complexity to an encounter which forces players to make decisions based on damage or survivability and min/max to get the best of both. You don’t want mechanic overload, it makes bosses confusing and not very much fun, so a simpler approach is to make fun mechanics that you have to deal with WHILE trying to do as much damage as possible.

That said, I think there are better ways of doing enrage “timers” than are currently in the encounters we’ve seen. Soft enrages are much better, encounters where pressure is slowly (or quickly) tuned up until you cannot possibly survive any longer. For example AoE fields that progressively cover the area you have to move around in or boss damage ramping up in a final phase until no one can survive.