Guild Wars 2

Darthaemos.6370:

OP (right after killing the Effigy): “Wow! Take down a boss in melee with thief…that never happens…”

I’m not gonna lie, I cringed…

I’m not gonna lie, I LOL~~ This is actually the only funny part.

But honestly OP, this is by no means a bad first blind run.

If you are not use to dodging, in PvE at least, you can try a sword main hand instead of dagger main hand. You can Shadow Step to attack and Shadow Return when you are done attacking or when you get hit. That way you can explore melee with a little bit of extra insurance.

Once you get comfy with melee & dodges, you can switch back to dagger for rapid damage. Shortbow has bounce attack >.< I hate it in PvE

Random FPS drop has gotten worse. I took a leave from GW2 for a couple of months and when I got back, I notice a serious FPS drop when ever I walk into “Smoke Effect” like smoke from Catapult Explosion, and “Steam Effect” mainly in the Black Citadel.

I do recall FPS drop in Black Citadel before but I never encounter FPS drop from catapult explosions before.

Also, all I need to do to get rid of the FPS drop is to “minimize and then maximize” the GW2 client and everything will be back to 60fps. (cant safely do that in the heat of combat though)

My video card is a Nvidia GTX 560 Ti. The game runs at 60fps 90% of the time. I may not have the best video card but from 60fps to 10fps and more importantly minimizing and maximizing the client gets rid of the FPS drop… I seriously doubt that it is a video card problem.

The “Thief” balance issue is really a simple one.

In general, nearly all other skill in this game can be countered directly by another skill. There is no counter/protection against Shadow Step and Stealth.

Now, give Engineers a Glue Turret and a Paint Spray Turret that will outline all stealth rogues and glue them to a spot that does not allow the use of Shadow Return, I think that would make most players happy.

More specifically, GW2 balance is “broken” in the sense that this game is mostly about if not all about damage. Berserker Gear is simply better than everything. The Healing/Toughness/Vitality stats are useless because they offer next to nothing. Our best bet will always be to kill before being killed.

Thief is capable of planning an escape route before engaging a target, maximize damage and if something goes wrong, run away and try again. AND THERE IS NOTHING TO STOP ME (aside from Lag =P). Rogue skill basically gives us all the defense we need and it is more reliable than anything.

So, the problem is not with Thief being overpowered, it is ArenaNet promoting damage, damage and more damage. Thief is simply the best class to deal them rapidly and escape. Since there is no stats, skill or equipment to stop the Thief… well >:)

Books like those found in Elder Scroll games would be a great addition to the game. I have not played Guild Wars 1, so when I play Guild Wars 2, I am very interested in the history and lore of Tyria. I remember finding a “Book Cart” in Divinity’s Reach and I was excited for a second, then I find that the book cart is actually empty…

With the living story and all, I think it would be great for Arena-Net to create virtual books. This way, new players can read about past events. These books do not even have to be accurate and different races can have different accounts of the same events past.

Since the writers are already writing stories for Guild Wars, why not make them available in game as virtual books? They can even offer skill points or clues/instruction to well hidden locations and treasures.

If ANet ever add books into the game, I would also like to buy special inventory lots (cash shop item) to store all the books I may find. It is a cheap and easy way to enrich the world and make things interesting.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I have absolutely no problem taking my level 80s into lower level zones. They are many, many times stronger than any level-appropriate character. I can’t believe you have trouble, we must be playing different games. It’s pretty much a face-roll, and I have very little exotic armor, mostly rares, and even some blues, still. I remember trying to do the Fire Elemental when I started….what a disaster….now all the down-leveled 80s take it on, and it lasts a minute or two. Same with every other low-level boss. If anything, we as 80s are TOO strong for low levels.

We are strong but I do not think we are TOO strong. =P If we were too strong, we would be able to face-roll everything but that is not the case.

However I would agree that a LV80 can go to low level areas without much trouble. ANet should not change that =P Many of us are fully equipped and we should get to enjoy it.

I’d say current setting is done very well.

Might have something to do with latency. I think that the wave is actually not one single attack because sometimes when I dodge into the wave, I see 3 Evade message and sometimes, 2 Evade message and some damage figure.

When I jump on the other hand, I usually only see one damage figure, no knockdown.

Some in my guild was so bored that we once took level 18-44 toons into FOTM 1~4 (cant remember which). It is not that bad and it can definitely be done.

It would simply take longer because my Thief at level 18 only has 2 utility skill and I forgot about traits

2 Points are true:

1. NPC gets stuck… yeah. I remember my 30 minutes trying to die, get her kill, etc to have her reset. This is a BUG and it needs to be fixed.

2. Game mechanics not conveyed clearly – that is simply laziness on Anet’s part.

Overall though, ACP2 is not that bad.

O.O"

Let’s see… you do not need ascended, you do not like fractals, you do not do fractals… ascended simply takes too long.

Why bother with Ascended if you are not planning on doing fractals? You are right, you can craft exotics that are just a little bit weaker than ascended and you probably will not notice the small difference.

By the way, Fractals will only give you the Back Item and the Rings. So, I do not think anyone is getting ALL their ascended by doing fractals.

There are more than one way to get Ascended. 3 ways really: Laurels, FoTM Personal Reward Level 10 and Guild Missions.

Since you do not like Fractals, you dont have to worry about Agony and hence you do not need Ascended.

While you are complaining that Ascended are too tough to get, you want Legendary to be harder to get??

You entire post simply make no sense whatsoever to me… .

DiogoSilva.7089:

Generally, this new boon hate trait is only meaningful when you have a lot of boons up. Which, well, yes, it’s true, guardians do usually have many boons up. However, protect can pretty much “nullify” the purpose of anti-boon warriors, and guardians still have aegis/ blocks against big attacks.

What guardians should be truly aware, however, is the warrior’s new signet of might. 3 unblockable attacks is a big deal, and guardians DO rely a lot on blocking. :P

True that. Boon Hate is a trait, not all warriors will have them. The new Signet of Might on the other hand is now very powerful, 180 passive power and when popped gives you 3 unblockable attack means warrior can now probably bypass block and kick/slam/rush guardians to the ground through Aegis…

This is a major pain really. Was just in a FoTM run and the moment Jade Maw went down, the dungeon starter left party.

I do not know if he did it on purpose or if he thought that the dungeon was over and left before collecting the reward. The rest of us are all kicked out of fotm and we have to re-run it if we wanted the reward.

This is…. madness >.<"

Umm… I use gw2lfg a lot. Okay, I lie, 99% of my dungeon runs are gw2lfg. My experience is very different from what OP is describing…

When I join a group, doing some dungeon for the first time, I would usually say:
Hi guys, I have never done this before. Do you guys mind?

And thus far, the responses I have had are:
Neh, tis cool.
Just follow closely.

Even when I have done the dungeon before but I am using a new toon/class that I am not familiar with, I too will declare and usually they will give me some suggestion as to what role should I be playing and some even offer really helpful tips.

Of course, I have never join a group that has announce that they are looking for experience players only or if they are looking for a certain type of class.

Also, I understand that in MMOs, dungeons skipping is part of the dungeon experience, hence I will always try to have swiftness/stability/stun breaker ready when I am running a dungeon for the 1st time. Yes, I will not be optimizing my dps but hey, tis my first run. If they do not start to attack, I wont attack either, I’ll just run with them.

I have seen one player leave in fotm because there were a couple new players who arent familiar with the fractal.

I have seen 1 player who rage quit our party because we were…. skipping, not waiting for him. He was level 80, a Warrior, running AC and he never told any of us he doesnt know the dungeon… he quit in front of the last boss after giving us a piece of his mind… that… is not our fault right… we were willing to share our experience but the new player has to announce that they are new and not initiate anything but follow closely right? No?

FourthVariety.5463:

Legendary Ice Shaman Lornar, the guy in the Snowstorm Fractal. You can perfectly circlestrafe his icy breath, take no damage while the rest of the group dies and still be the worst player.

It is not important where a player dies, it is more important where he goes down.

So true.

LOL – LOL

It brings back memories (bad ones) Instead of backing off from the ice breath, some people like to run circle around him while cutting him with their daggers or axe and let him spray his bad breath onto the entire party.

Edit: Hey, lets do COE P2, I can make sure I am the last person standing by sending exploding robots to my team mates! I am awesome!!

The combat mechanics of this game is very one-dimensional/shallow.

Yes, they have removed the tank/healer/dps trinity. They want to replace it with damage/control/support. Unfortunately due to over simplified mechanics, they have actually eliminated only tank and healer, making dps the primary (if not the only) role of GW2.

Control and Support. Now, our skills last for such a short window of time and usually has a very long cooldown, we can only “contain” the enemy for a very brief period of time. Some other old traditional MMO I have played does a far better job in terms of implementing control and support.

For Example:
In some old traditional MMO, when you actually interrupt a bosses massive attack, your entire party gets to live. Fail and you die. A well timed shield or defensive buff will nullify a bosses mega attack, Success and you live, fail and you die. Bosses/Enemies will usually not troll players by spam those massive mega skills like freebies. DPS will shorten the time frame the enemy survives to do those things which greatly reduces the chance of an error. This looks like damage/control/support to me.

In GW2, if I put up a reflection shield to shield my party from an insane amount of crazy range attacks, it is ineffective/useless unless my party has enough dps to take them down in that small window. Many enemies keep stacking conditions / stuns / knockdowns on you that will always overwhelm any skills you have to negate them after the first 10 seconds. Hence, the solution is again dps them to hell before your window runs out. So, dodge + dps is mostly the only way to play gw2.

Thus, there is no trinity of any sort in GW2. There is only DPS. Control and Support is nice to have BUT they are pretty useless when you do not have DPS to take them down in time. The damage/control/support concept GW2 is promoting seems to be better implemented in some old traditional MMO imo.

I would say FOTM 1. It is actually easier (and more well design) than the other dungeons. If you go there at low level, your get scaled to level 80 and the scaling favors scaling up.

CoF path 1 is easy for a decent dps group but when fights get drag out, things can turn ugly quickly.

CM is actually not easy for an unprepared group. Going in there without Reflection skills can be hazardous to your health.

TA is not easy as well. Many will fall to the poisonous blossom if unprepared.

Ayrilana.1396:

ParnAshwind.4823:

CoF, CoE are too DPS checks to a great extend but the 1st Dungeon a DPS check??

There’s nothing in CoE that is a DPS check. The only thing that could be considered that is for the security console in path 1 but that’s only if you choose to have most of your team use it at once.

I think some people need to look up as to what a DPS check really is. The only things that I could see being a DPS check is when you have to defend Hodges on path 1 (very minor dps check) and again on path 3 with the mounds. This is because you are limited by time and if you don’t kill them quick enough then you lose. TIME is a major factor in determining whether something is a DPS check.

Hodges is not a minor DPS check – not everyone can break structure easily. Conditional Damage heavy,/Necros team and dont have an Ice Bow, it becomes the definition of DPS Check itself.

Yes, my mistake. CoE is not really a DPS check, High DPS just makes it easy as hell. Boss dies faster, less dodging, less mistake.

Milennin.4825:

A group that couldn’t even handle 4 enemies at a time? Wow.=s
There isn’t an infinite spawn of enemies in that part. It’s just kill a group. Revive the NPC to continue repair trap. Kill the next group. Move on to the next trap.

By the way, I always PUG my dungeons, with none of my characters being in DPS focused gear, so thanks for the advice, but it’s something I do pretty much every day I log in on the game. Like I said, only very rarely does a group fail on the ghosts part in path 2. I’m surprised a group that fails there was able to get past the Spider Queen at all.

Yeah, the group I was in cant handle that 4 enemy because they cant kill either one before they all went down. I am not saying it is a norm, I am saying the odds are highly against certain builds and when they come together as a group – it is disastrous.

PuG groups on LFG arent are bad usually, you get at least 2 or 3 experience players on the team. I am speaking about a group of new players. A group of players who would die and rise for god knows how long trying.

And what has infinite spawn got to do with anything? If you do not take them down fast enough, they will take you down because all your skills are on cooldown.

For the Spider Queen, I never complain about the spider queen because she is just fine. Why? Because no matter how long you take to kill her, the difficulty remains constant. Dont stand in green circle, keep circling her so her web does not get you and have one conditional remover ready – that’s it. If you mess up, run circles around the statue and get your skills off CD. In this case, it is not a DPS check.

Try running with a dozen of conditions and warriors that bash you every few sec. These spawns simply do not give you a second chance if you fail to kill them while your skills are not in CD.

This is the difference between these clowns and the spider queen. The difference between a DPS check and a Challenging Fight.

Milennin.4825:

ParnAshwind.4823:

That to me is sort of a dps check. Necros do drain health to heal themselves after spamming every known condition on you by the way.

Then by that logic any and all mobs in the game could be seen as a DPS check. If you or your party fails to kill a single mob in a group then it’s going to reset. Well, that’s just all mobs in the game described right there. Obviously you need enough DPS to kill a mob. If you somehow lack the DPS, you must have sacrificed it for defensive stats. If you are fully defensive spec’d how do you even wipe as a party?

If Necromancers are a problem because they drain health, why not take out one of the mobs that don’t heal themselves? Take out the light armour Elementalists first for example. Don’t stay so stuck in the mindset that you must do things in 1 specific order. If it doesn’t work for your party you gotta find another way to make it work.

Defensive stats? I am talking about a group of new players who has probably mixed gears that are neither dps/defend/etc.

DPS check means – kill them fast enough or you are in for it. Cant take the 1st Necro down in time? 2nd one spawns and wipe you out.

When was the last time you try leading a ragtag group of new players into a dungeon? If you dont do that, obviously you have no idea what people are experiencing. Elementalist? In the 4 enemies left, did I mention Elementalist? If I didnt, why would you assume they are alive?

Get of the forums and find yourself a ragtag group of new players and experience the agony others are experiencing.

Umm… all you need is a Greatsword…. ya… conditional damage build sux big time against structure only but.. a warrior shouldnt have that much problem because…

Arms = 20% Faster 100 Blade, Whirlwind…

Even without a GreatSword…

Defense = 25% longer Stance Duration , Auto Balance Stance, Active Balance Stance, Dolyak Signet Activation Stability, Auto Endure Pain, Active Endure Pain.

“Shake It Off” Gets you back on ur feet…

Shield as offhand lets u activate block and run around with 3s block…

EDIT: p/s I agree it is unfair to some classes but not warrior imo.

Milennin.4825:

It’s really not a DPS check, because the enemies don’t heal or resurrect themselves unless your group’s so bad that it wipes without killing a single enemy. Even by making just 1 kill, the next try at it is going to be easier.
If the ranger knockback’s a problem, then tell your party to use more projectile reflects or use skills that grant stability.

That to me is sort of a dps check. Necros do drain health to heal themselves after spamming every known condition on you by the way.

Skill that grants stability – yes. 8 seconds of stability on a zerker, it is more than enough time to tear them apart. 8 seconds on a weak dps character means you get to hurt them before they smash you.

If enemies have normal cooldown like us, using certain skill at the right time becomes tactical play. When my skill only provides a small window for me to kill them before they kill me (because I wont last through the cooldown) – that enforces my point – it is a dps check.

Milennin.4825:

I’ll agree with condition damage on structures, but the part with the ghosts on path 2 is really not bad. I’ve very rarely seen a party fail on this. And only once seen a party break on this part (which was months ago when people were still kinda new to dungeons).

I have just spent 1 hour guiding a group of new players through that part.

4 of them against a Necro, a Warrior, a Ranger and a Monk. 4 vs 4 fight, all of them targeted the Necro and they wiped because they fail to take down the necro. I was down so I had a pretty good view of what is going on.

The ranger will knock you back without fail, maybe a second of cooldown on animation if you get close to it.

Hence, unwillingly, I switch to my warrior and cut those pesky necromancers down… and things were far smoother there on. So… if that aint a DPS check… I dunno what is.

p/s: I never notice this until now myself… usually there will be enough zerks to make quick work of them.

A minor note regarding Spiderlings: If you see a guardian put up reflection in front of them, dont go in front of the reflection, hit them with melee if they are close enough or switch to range a little – stay behind the wall of reflection =P

AC is not “hard” provided you know the mechanics BUT there are parts of the dungeon that is flat out unfair to some toons and pug groups.

Rapid Spawning burrows in AC path 1. To a group of Conditional Damage build characters (Guardian), breaking all those burrows and keeping that brainless NPC alive is a nightmare to say the least. Yes, with an Elementalist, things are easy but without the Ice Bow, it all boils down to DPS checking. CoF, CoE are too DPS checks to a great extend but the 1st Dungeon a DPS check?? No wonder everyone is a zerk.

If there exists some game mechanics that can help us deal with burrows and the spawns of knockdown Gravelings, please do tell.

AC Path 2, the spawns of Ascalonian Ghost Army is in many way a DPS check as well. Why? If you cannot bring down those Necromancers in time, your are so done for. And dont forget those Rangers that has infinite no cooldown pushback(Yes, switch to range weapon and get cut down by Warrior Ghosts). Yeah, a group of zerk can kill em all while stability last but others are suffering greatly for this.

It is unfair, it is lazy and it is flat out bad game design.

Is DPS Challenge the only thing the game designers can think of? Have enemies use infinite conditional damage and control skills that players have no defense against the only thing to make things challenging? Dont even bring up dodges, I am not the best at dodging but I think I can dodge decent enough. When DPS is low, I just do not have the endurance to keep up with cheating enemies that has endless charge and knock backs.

Cant you make certain enemies vulnerable to one form of damage but strong against another? Like say super high armor and weak against conditional damage? Because your 1st Dungeon already tell us that GW2 PvE is about 1 thing and 1 thing only – DPS check. This game offers close to nothing but DPS checks. No wonder everyone is a zerk. Wanna play a conditional damage warrior? Want to hold a sword instead of a Greatsword, well, good luck looking for group. Players have bad attitude? Elitism? Well, not their fault really, they are just products of one-dimensional game design.

-Rant-

Vargamonth.2047:

ParnAshwind.4823:

After that experience, players simply say, I wont touch another dungeon until I am level 80.

I do not think this is a bad thing at all.

I didn’t run any explorable dungeon until I was lvl80 on crafted exotics.
I just thought that those explorables were there more for skins than anything else, and that dungeons with level below 80 existed only for organized groups (in fact, I always expected explorables to be designed for organized groups) that could prefer a really challenging content over the open world PvE in order to level up and enjoy the game.

Average new player will generally reach level 80 by simply exploring and doing events by the time they reach level 60-65 maps.

Crafted Exotics is not easily accessible by “new” players. They are not “cheap” to buy (end product/mats). Besides, it is not so much about the gear in the case of AC, the Traits and Slot Skills plays a huge part.

Denying new players or should I say making their live so hellish in the 1st dungeon is simply wrong. Many games suffer after veteran players leave and new players shy away from dungeons in general. It makes grouping up infinitely harder and the game dies with it.

AC Path 2 and Path 3 has better mechanics. Path 1 is brutally chaotic – get knocked down, pick yourself up and run towards a fire patch that will burn and probably kill you is cheap mechanics. The class I notice suffer most in my pug are lower level Elementalist who gets thorn into bits at the slightest error.

Why should new players get themselves to level 80 to enjoy a level 35 dungeon?

I mean, it is a far better experience for low level characters to do FOTM 1-9 than navigate AC. Why, because I believe FOTM has better game mechanics.

I too hold the opinion that AC is a little too brutal for new players. It is after all the “first dungeon”.

It is not exactly difficult but it is extremely brutal, lazy and CHEAP. I usually pug with my level 80 and I really feel sorry for the new level 40ish players as they keep dying to CHEAP game design. Path 1 especially is CHEAP beyond description.

I would like to ask the devs what were they thinking when they design the last boss. The fire patches that are suppose to kill the adds are not always there and once you get knocked down, it is nearly impossible to get back on your feet.

This is NOT about skill or game mechanics. It is simply a matter of DPS and LUCK. Ah – 4 fire patches(that burns you too btw), adds die fast. Darn, no fire patches and an army of adds, you are so dead (I have run around avoiding an army of adds and the stupid NPC is either not placing enough fire patches OR placing them in the dumbest locations). To the developers, Stability Skill is a RARE resource especially for low level characters.

After that experience, players simply say, I wont touch another dungeon until I am level 80.

Cosmetic is everything to me and you only have access to all gears at level 80… well maybe not all; culture armor.

For the pass 10 years I have been asking game developers, why am I force to wear those “ugly” equipment because if I need the stats, I need to be UGLY.

I am fairly new to the game. Have only played 3 classes – Warrior/Guardian/Thief. I was totally clueless going into this game, I refuse to watch youtube or read forums. I just went along.

*We are not talking about which class has the easiest leveling time right? Just the experience.

My experience is that even with my Warrior/Guardian; there is no “consistant experience” because I have to change their skills/weapons/traits etc multiple times. My Guardian recently hit 80 and I am still changing my setup/playstyle. My impression of my Warrior and Guardian changed much during my journey to level 80.

Coming from traditional MMOs where class improvement are mostly linear, I welcome this experience.

Side note: Use the Trading Post. I always use the TP to keep my gear up to date; low level gear is dirt cheap. My thief at level 16 standing in a level 10-15 area kills enemies (1 vs 1) very fast. Okay, so I cannot charge a group of enemies like my warrior could nor can I facetank like my guardian but hey I can take down single monsters very fast if I empty my initiative on them.

Squishy, devastating and tactical is my 1st impression of a Thief. Have to think, analyze the situation, know when to run and when to strike.

Login an hour before Daily Reset. Lag seems to have gone away. Still attaching the log file for your reference.

Server is [Crystal Desert]

Same problem here.

Was happily raiding dungeons until minutes before maintenance and when it went back up, combat lag is so bad!! Heck even /whisper is lag!!

I was happily raiding dungeons until the very last couple of minutes before the maintenance.

After the maintenance… I am experiencing very very bad lag. I am fighting mobs as if I were in a middle of a Dragon Event (cannot see my attack etc.)

Since I purchase GW2, I have experienced 2 of such LAG.

1. Right after the 1st World Boss Chest update.
2. The maintenance couple hours ago.

>.<"

Tachenon.5270:

What am I missing?

Due to the fact that these chest will drop a piece of rare minimum.

1. Many who do not camp for bosses before the update do now.

2. Most who do not hunt every boss everyday due to timing do now.

So, boss areas are now full of people all the time (during my playtime).

Agreed. Why do people farm every boss everyday and some with every character is beyond me.

GW2 is designed to be a somewhat different MMO – you mostly only need to farm skins and not equipment stats. It is not 99.99% of the farming MMO out there.

I second Chest only available in home server!

Other solutions I am willing to accept: 1 chest per boss per account.

My latency+ping remains the same but for the pass 2 days, after around 8-9pm server time, I am lagging to the extend of being unplayable – when resmon.exe and ping both shows that my latency+ping remains the same prior to the sudden lag.

True. A day after the update, I am experiencing very bad lag starting around 8pm (server time) and the lag will continue for the rest of my gaming time.

I have checked my ping and latency, they remain largely (90%) the same before the lag occurs and after the lag occurs.

During World Boss events, I cannot see myself attacking nor taking damage… but I am lucky enough to be able to see the chest afterwards unlike some unlucky friends of mine.

I also notice an influx of players in my home server and today I found out that people are guesting to hunt world bosses and they would stand there, hundreds of them just standing there for an hour in boss areas.

I do not mind missing a chest; I miss them quite a lot. But I do mind the very bad lag that renders the game nearly unplayable for me. After all, there is no “best items” in game and I do not “need” the loot.

Why would people “farm” bosses and with all their characters even is beyond my understanding; one boss specific chest per character per day… .. .

I hope ANet would do something about guesting… maybe you can only loot boss chest in your home world?

And for those who would shout: If I cannot loot all the boss chest with all my characters every single day, I would quit.

Well… I dont care. Loots are not “as important” in GW2. The environment, the gameplay, the dynamic world/event is what draws me to GW2 and GW2 is the only game like this that I am aware off. For “mindless farmers”, you can basically play any other MMO for that experience.

Hope something can be done soon…

You are not alone. I am experiencing strange lag after the patch as well. Lag that I am unfamiliar with.

It is definitely not server lag and it is unlikely that my ISP is to be blamed since well… everything else works as usual and SpeedTest.Net basically tells me that my connection to their Texas server performs as usual.

Character animations are skipped at times and at times my character speeds up and perform combat actions that she was suppose to be doing a few seconds ago but she does them all in a second.

Very… unique experience, dont recall seeing this in any other game.

24 hours ago, I was happily zerking around….

>.<"

p/s: Not my computer/video card issue either. Running GW2 on Max setting, my average FPS is 45-50. Most of the time, it sits aroud 60.