Guild Wars 2

The answers for me:

1. In effect I do not think it has been worth it, the only benefit has been I now have a small buff to dmg when not using food. Which doesn’rt matter for me as I play PvE, fractals and used to play dungeon and WvW. For PvP it actually could make a difference
2. the rebuild of my hybrids and condition builds is nowhere near completion the cost of changing runes/sigils and re-stat-ing armor has been extreme, mostly due to me not having patience
3. in the end there is no benefit from the change compared to before.
4. a stat reset on armor would have saved me a LOT in cash (couple of hundred gold, I guess. Mostly because I could have reused the runes on the armors, and the sigils on the weapons)
5. I own HoT, so I cannot comment .

As for new stats I really would like:

• a Power/Healing/Precision/Ferocity and
• a Power/Healing/Precision/Boon duration
  stat combination.

I also would appreciate the missing Jewelry and such available at traders NOT behind a mandatory Raid wall… I do not mind dungeons but the Raids pose problems to me.

I have not the physical capability to concentrate 7-10 minutes on a boss without error.
I have epilepsy with seizures rougly causing me 2-5 seconds of unconsiousness every 8-15 minutes. Generally most people do not notice and in dungeons or fractals it’s hardly noticable and thus manageable, but raids ask for a lot of coordination leaving me stranded If I’m in a group for green circles and I miss one I can kill my party, likewise If I’m tanking or in melee I’ll likely be ported. My guild is trying to alleviate the problem and we’ve been close (say about 5 or 6 times around 3-5%) but I haven’t killed the 1st boss yet, not to mention the other 2.

How did you, all other condition and hybrids players, experience:

1. The shift in the condition duration from food to the armor/weapon stat expertise?
2. The following need for stat shifts and re-equipping and/or rebuying sigils and runes?
3. Did this change improve the gameplay orwas it just neccesary to regain your original strength ingame?
4. Do you in retrospect think a stat reset (comparabe with select stats the removal of magic find would have been neccesary?) would have been in order?
5. IF you DO NOT own HoT how do you experience the 10 % ( + ) dmg nerf? (I do not know if the vipers and other HoT stats are available in “vanilla”.

I look forward to your answers. If you have any other comments specifically on the new stats OR if you are missing other stats please add this.

Well if this was the best there is , then ALL the MMORPG’s really, and I mean really are in a sorry state at this time… beyond this, gratz foir the win, but if this is it… pls make LS from now on.

as is guardian…

warrior in unwanted in pvp, and since hot not very usefull in wvw, GWEN in wvw =/= truth.

Thinks…

Well… All classes have been unlocked, I guess, and about 75-80% of my (19) characters
and all except 1 or 2 have all asc trinkets and weapons
(not counting underwater weapons and breather(s) though)

I have 2 ele’s both unlocked
1 being a auramancer tempest (part Asc armor)
1 retaining DPS staff ele build (Full Asc)

I have 3 necro’s, 2, maybe 3 unlocked (unsure)
1 being a hybrid reaper (Full Asc)
1 being a support build, not yet sure over the build
1 being a terrormancer

I have 3 warriors, 2 unlocked
1 being PS warrior (part Asc armor)
1 being hybrid S/T & LB berserker ( Full Asc)
1 being a shout heal hammerstun build.

I have 3 2 rangers, 2 unlocked, 1 being a mule atm
1 being a druid or DPS ranger (Full Asc)
1 being a trapper hybrid
1 being mule, not unlocked… (Full exotic)

I have 3 guardians, 2 unlocked
1 being burning guard
1 being heal tank guard
1 being dps healer DH

I have 2 mesmers, 2 unlocked
1 being DPS chrono
1 being hybrid PU

I have 1 thief, unlocked
1 being daredevil S&P/P&P (part Asc armor)
1 levelling towards daredevil

I have 1 engineer, unlocked
1 being scrapper

I have 1 revenant unlocked
1 being zerk herald. (Full Asc)

I’m considering deleting 1 ranger to make a 2nd thief, likely a viper daredevil

I tried to infuse a red ring and a crystaline band today…

no luck getting them to show…

Answer:
Well as is the best CPU would be an Intel i5( or i7) quad core… You could say why no a Hex or Octacore and my answer would be simple, Gw2 only uses 2-4 threads…

• 1st Remarks:
  Use your PC while CPU OC-ed (if you are capable)
  How much? : To your/the limit for 2 or 3 core performance, and as i5’s generally OC better and cost less if you’d burn ‘m I’d say use an i5. Which generation you buy is mostly depending on your will to spend, not so much on performance… tough some generations had better gains while OC-ing…
  OC-ing voids guarantee and damages components! DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK!
  
  Requirements:
• Cooler:
  A (closed) or other waterblock solution or a high end cooler to facilitate the overclock. If you do want a better solution and never done it, ask a friend or proffesional. OC-ing voids guarantee and damages components! DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK!
• Motherboard: (your X97 is OC-able)
  A good OC capable MB would be usefull…
  OC-ing voids guarantee and damages components! DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK!
• Memory:
  The 64bit client is preferable if you run a 64bit OS,
  it requires preferably 8Gb(+) RAM , 6Gb RAM w-/could work, but I’ve seen 5.8 Gb of memory use before, and even though it’s said to be optimized now, while using 6Gb OutOfMemory errors (running no swap-fle) or heavy swap fileuse could still occur destroying loading and in some cases gaming performance.
  If you choose to OC your CPU make sure you have memory whcih will allow for Overclocking (use better ram with margin,if you have a computer running 10% faster your ram should be able to cope with it so buy higher speed Ram modules if you really want to overclock…. for a base overclock most slightly ram will suffice (I use 1866 instead of 1600’s an get low OC’s stable (in my 3yr old abacus), but for the extreme buy ram with a BIG window…)
  The 32bit OS requiring the 32 bit client for gw2 is limited to maximum 4Gb of memory adress space,and the 32 bit client is considered less stable at this point of time, the 32 bit client will run on 32 bit OS as well as on 64 bit OS (, BUT I’d recommend to download the 64 bit client!)
  OC-ing voids guarantee and damages components! DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK!
• Storage:
  For faster loading kitten would be an obvious choice. most modern MoBo’s have SATA 6 or M2 options availabe, and if this is not over the top enough a PCI-E solotion could be nice as well (though some are only available if you have DEEP pockets)
• Graphics: (still dx9)
  GPU speeds are a lot less relevant for performance, a mid end (gaming) solution would generally be enough… As such Graphics Overclocks are NOT NECCESARY!
  I will not state a preference here, I have Nvidia cards, but AMD would work as well, I’d strongly recommend NOT using an integrated GPU… as your performance will be miserable. SLi/X-fire solotions for performance is not needed. If youwant to run Multiscreens (eg: 3x 1920*1080(1200)=5860*1080(1200) like AMD Eyefinity or 4k’s (3840*2160) you will need a decent solution though. for most players using a standard 1920*1080(1200)screen the mid end gaming will suffice. If you do OC your graphics you do so at your own risk!
• Power Supply
  OC-ed components generally use more power, so make sure your PSU has some spare room in it’s wattage. Overtaxed PSU-s will tend to get hot and even burn, and give unstable voltages corrupting overclocks and cause boot fails, crashes and hangs.

This should be the list, present numbers are mostly irrelevant as prices will shift and DDR4 and 5th and 6th generation i5’ and i7s will be cheaper and a bit more powerfull soon™.
Until this game gets another engine capable of using 4+ threads this will likely be relevant….

(running
an Intel i7 3930K hex core 3.2Ghz @ 3.8Ghz on
Asus Rampage IV Extreme with 32 Gb of 1866Mhz DDR3 @ 1866,
Sli-ed dual Nvidia GTX 780 (3gb, stock, non-oc)
256Gb OCZ vertex 4,
250 GB WD velociraptor 10k rpm),
Raid 0 dual 1Gb WD-reds
(3+ yrs old) and not recommended for GW2)

Well

PS (EA) warrior builds are basic for most dungeon and fractal runs,
Condi warrior builds can be powerfull as well but they will carry less support for the party.

Your account will get the rewards. and so all characters bound to your account. all skins will be free to apply as well.

I would…

Dungeons
-Restore TA FW/UP and balance it (the old 3rd parth)
-Restore rewards… getting paid better for the story mode isn’t fun. even if we would go back to 1 gold for a path and 1.5-2 gold for the arah paths it would be way better then now.
-Improve token drops.

Fractals
-Bring back the random 3 fractals-set
-Restore rewards

Old conrtent
-Festival of the 4 winds
- SAB (even though I personally do not like ik I know at least 50 ppl ingame personally who would be very happy)

WvW
-Not even going to comment on this I’d suggest bringing back the ice borders. as the desert(-ed) ones are not fun.

-PvP
just do what you thinkl is right and then stay away from WvW and PvE with any and all related content (read magic find buffs in PvE whcih only apply to PvP, prize anouncements for stuff I coudln’t care for. I like twitch for some things but I refuse to watch e-sports.

-Old skins/rewards and so on.
I have a lot of skins and some are quite special, due to events I did partake in, still I was in the hospital during Halloween when mad memorie was released, I got some insides removed, and I crept back behind the computer and tried to get the complete edition, but was already to late. I cannot seem to redo it, I’ve sen 3 halloweens since and STILL I do not have the complete edition. glorious armor, after 1-2 years skins mightt be released to the public. same for tribal skins and so on. bunny ears…

-get the economy running again, I cannot buy anything atm as the prices are way too high, no dyes no mats, no nothing. scarcity is nice, not being able to buy anything sucks ballz!

- change the price of black lion tickest to 5 scraps, no make it 3 scraps and in season make 1 skin 1 ticket , out season 2 tickets and out of normal roulation 3 tickets.
I might actually be able to fill some of my collections.

- Oh…, and maybe I do not need a guild hall, just make it a guild room for my bank guild. you know where I can put a bed and a mirror and hang my weapons on a rack. with a fireplace and a kitchinette

Well to decimate means roughly this:

To punish mutineers or any other soldiers/members from a group by executing every 10th person, as not to lose the whole army/group… (as taken from an ancient military handbook 1800’s),

BUT,

In modern times the word has been used in the same way as “to eridicate”, “to thin out” and “to kill off” (modern (Dutch) dictionary)

The modern version seems way more applicable.

As I translate, of course this could cause errors.. but still.. My point should be made. The fact the changes leeding up to this seem more like punishment seems only fitting tbh..

Majic.4801:

Inoki.6048:

Majic.4801:

Inoki.6048:

Dungeons, as I’ve heard, are going to be completely removed, and the team behind them might’ve already been disbanded.

Where did you hear this?

In the game. Everybody’s talking about it. I think it was talked about on Reddit.

For something “everybody” is supposedly talking about, I’m not able to find anything written down via Google, the Dungeon forum or the GW2 reddit.

Got links?

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

As for dungeons: the Dungeon team was disbanded after the introduction of the aetherblade path in TA.
As for fractals: the Devs only reused content to make the newest fractals (these revamps used to be part of the instanced pieces of LS S1, no new content appeard after this. )

I sincerely doubt new dungeon being added ever as it stand now…. and I find raids an unworthy replacement. Though raids are the first new instanced (non-story) content… after the release of fractals and the TA aetherblade horror

twhite.9310:

In b4 thread gets deleted for saying anything that is truthful.

Can your spam…

Swift.1930:

Ashen.2907:

I love the idea.

Discovering new areas and taking in the scenery is one of my favorite aspects of this sort of game. Anet’s art department has demonstrated time and again that they have what it takes to make finding a new bit of scenery a reward in itself.

Ah, yes… did you kneel at Gwen’s grave for a while when you encountered it? I certainly did. Nostalgia and sentiment can be used so powerfully.

(If you didn’t play GW1, you can pretty much ignore the first two sentences.)

Not only did I sat there and thought about a flute, and red irises, I looked around to find sandfords and yakkington’s graves very close, making my stay even more…. well a return to the past. All my characters have meditated and rested at her grave listening to music from the past….

Gwen was the start of my guild wars experience, and was the end as well…
I finshed up attending her marriage and I felt I accomplished something…
I had a hard time understanding mesmers in gw1, but brought her along often….
I actually had negative feelings towards Charr for a while…. though I recovered from it….

I loved the stories of gw1… gw2 migh be more active and mobile and maybe more polished in appearance…. but the story is hollow in comparison… hollow, shallow, unfinished, no direction…

@Yolo…

Yes. It does. I have no time for raiding. I tried it for 2 weeks, spend 3-4 hours on avg a day, so about 40-50 hours and gained nothing.

In this time I could have gotten ~200-250 gold from dungeons in the old system….
Now I lost 350 gold in restats and rebuilds. which I’ll never recover with 4 -12 and later on 2-6 gold a week.

Maybe it’s worth while for you. For me it isn’t. I played 7750 hours before HoT. And atm just logging in seems too much. I played WvW, Dungeons and Fractals. from those only fractals are left and they cost me money to play…

I completed 3 of the maps, for gifts and only stll need dragon’s stand…

I need some more strongboxes, for some more masteries, but they are HoT only so I’m not bothering. I have ley line gliding, can use speed mushrooms and have stealth detection… and can use exalted support… I have most things done, except a few only for achievements I’ll likely never finish.

When looking at HoT:
+ interesting specialisations, some are actually nice
+ interesting mechnics, I like the mastery system to a certain point.
+ a little piece of story… no added comment.
+ beautiful maps you can get lost in… unfortunately getting lost tends to kill me as well….
+ revenant isn’t very epic… herald is a bit better but still not as epic as mot others… still it’s an addition.
- most metaevents are slow to cycle on a timer and require some people to be there, as a consequence we have a lot of taxi-ing….
- some metaevents are… well…, hard to do and need decent scaling, but lack it..
- Raids have destroyed my guild… My WvW/PvX guild has deteriorated in a PvP/Raid mess.
- Guild missions are Out-Of-Order
- Fractals is no longer special
- dungeon income was nerfed
- all other gold ingame was nerfed
- active merchandising to buy gold from Anet
- PvP still seems to be the #1 goal for Anet, even though most play PvE
- WvW is destroyed due to the guilds no longer can afford upgrades
- Guild hall… yes all instances of it… is mostly used to mine.. the fact it’s multiple instances destroys any social benefits and causes problems… Well luckily you do not see this with your personal bank…
- Guild upgrades are now locked behind a HUGE paywall
- Small guilds have been trivialized. you will have problems obtaining and filling your guildhall and eting your upgrades to a point where you can once again benefit wvw/PvE and yourselves..
- New stat introduction allows for boon duration and condition duration in PvE, Problem: it invalidated a lot of players condition gear in WvW or PvE… to reaquire this gear WvW players are forced to play PvE or suffer DoT loss compared to other players… luckily as havoc and roamers no longer are effective this probelm resoved itself by the affected WVW players leaving gw2. in PvE however I noticed I lost my runes from 4 armors ( aristocracy x2, strength x2 and I don’t have the wish to replace those.in effect I lost 156 gold jus deleting those runes by restatting the armor whcih they were on. this doesn’t acccount for money lost by making the needed inscriptions and insignia’s nor the loss of sigils…
- Stacking sigils and raids… well you’ll be killing only a few bosses in the end effectively trivializing and stacking sigils… You’ll do great with force, bursting and malice.. They all are 12+ gold. making reequipping weapons a lot more expensive then expected.

In the end I worry if I’m too pessimistic. But I think this list details my experience with HoT..

As for dungeons: the Dungeon team was disbanded after the introduction of the aetherblade path in TA.
As for fractals: the Devs only reused content to make the newest fractals (these revamps used to be part of the instanced pieces of LS S1, no new content appeard after this. )
As for raids: even if it would be the new way of instanced content how in earth do you think people will react to only getting rewards once every week…. (and we are getting bonus values atm…., rewards will be halved for this wing in 2-3 months)

well…the game is still limited to a fixed number of cores, with a lot of CPU managed code, graphics load is minor tbh… especially noticable in crowded area’s where cpu load stays the same and gpu load drops… as the cpu keeps runnig maxed the fps drops and the gpu’s have lower load…. I have a hex core cpu and I have so much cpu, memory and gpu computing and storage space left i could run a second instance…

If a-net sees any significant amounts of gold move and wonder, they’ll remove it. they will not refund it, the sender will be liable to get banned if it happens frequent, the receiver will get a warning, then (a) short term ban(s) and after multiple instances most likely a long or perma ban.

In any case : in the end you’ll allways end up with a flagged account… and no gold,,,

WvW has been decimated, but luckily there are no more queues and when everything is capped we play on on EBG, as there is no rewards fighting -no-one- on the borders.
The map is beautiful and could have been epic… probelm is guilds do no longer have acces to buffs, or players. Most WvW players feel betrayed, and ignored. as they warned A-net 3 fold at least…. After each wvw-beta!

PvP… I find E-sports commercials all over the web, BE legendary, join GW2 PvP… Problem? It’s very nice you can earn 1000’s of dollars playing an unbalanced game with a clear meta… which has had (balancing) problems since launch… which -no-one- outside the pvp community cares for except for some people on staff at A-net and the people smiling who drag away the cash. No viewers, no interest from the remainder of the worlds populace.. I do not care for PvP. I loved WvW though, I’m still wondering why PvP and WvW were given different rewards… if it would have been the same, some problems wwould have been avoided…

Dungeons… you know the unbalanced stuff still littering the landscape, which had no real support since ~a year after launch, except for a very long unrewarding path with keys you needed to farm throughout the world in PvE….
They were unbalanced and FUN. At least to me, I enjoyed running AC Fulll for 1000 days straight with some COF 1,2 and SE 1,3 added for flavoring, on relaxed days I added TA and CoE to maximize my enjoyment of thisgame and did some Cursed shore or (later) Silverwastes to get nice gear for fractals…..
RIP dungeons 2012-2015

Fractals were nice long duration games with no real guess what would be spawning always causing a decent surprise, somtimes good, sometimes bad… at lvl 50 people got good drops… But…. well getting good drops should be nerfed, and Fractals being a dungeon was striped from rewards, and it’s renowned randomness
The opening to the masses who repeated easy fractals again and again and again to level up faster then the Saturnus V went to the moon trivialized this nice piece of content…
Well they are not dead yet, but the pulse is faint…

So we got more Event maps…
After Hirathi Hinterlands (Centaur battles), Fields of Ruin (Ogre battles) and Orr (Risen battles), Dry Top (mostly battling yourself in the end…) and Silverwastes (Mordrem battles)
We now got Verdant brink (Mordrem battles), Auric Basin (Octovine: Mordrem battles), Tangled Depths (Chak battles? No: Mordrem battles!) and last but not least the epic battlle versus Mordremoths Lieutenant (Wanna guess? Yeah! Mordrem!) in Dragon’s stand… Yes….,yes…, well yeah…, ye, ow… why bother….?
Well…. some are nice, some are okay and some are useless…

As for world bosses: we got …. Nothing really, as the bosses now are behind a huge chain of events, and your activity in these events will determine your reward…. All others, the classics, still respawn on their respective timers day in and day out….
Tequatl might not be more epic then Dragons Stand , it is way more accesible… and still has it’s own armor skin(s), as has the Tri Wurm…
I used to do few World bosses… but Sometimes it was a welcome change of pace..

Luckily: My bank guild with 3 ppl in it has all former WvW players and we cannot even pay the 100 gold (well we might have it available, but why in the name of dwayna would we want to?) to cap it, nor have the influence to start the event…. so…. we will not get a hall.. Come to think of it we will not be able to build anything afterwards either….
I used my bank guild to build banners, guild cata’s, +5 supply and some other bonusses..
Now I cannot…. Why not?… Are so many players not worthy to use upgrades?

SO I play on to find I am now obligated to play PvP to be allowed my next legendaries, and I will certainly get much WXP now in WVW without any players so my legendaries are all in the box … Yes we need everything reworked so it will be better….. or will it? I have seen no real improvement….

And raids… Guild missions are cancelled in our guild, the hard core is raiding leaving us with 8 ppl from 175 to do guild missions and 2 groups of 10 are enjoying their fails on the Vale Guardian… putting in dozens of hours for 4 gold….
Love raids, hate the frustration, and the costs…

Yes It has been a perfect storm, quake, tsunami, vulcanic eruption, meteorstrike, famine, plague and firestorm all rolled into one showing us it will now can only go up from now on….
Might be a bit worse yet…

As all things which were, are now: no more and the remains of the populace are now farming mats, farming events, farming otherwise and Raiding for minimal income saying it is all better now….

And still people say well it’s perfect… I love your determination…., or fanatism…., and is it just my problem?

I’m still wondering : “WTF happened here?” Of the 80 people in our WvW and PvX guild who have bought HoT 50+ are no longer playing….. or just logging in for dailies…. This second group isn’t inactive, but is no longer playing either… most are completely dissillusioned and let down by the events participated in the last weeks…

Most of these players were WvW players the ones remaining are the fanatics, most of these do the raids now and some are fed up with it. some are tryin to do some new events or trying to find new light in unlocking masteries and elites specs,, but I am no longer hearing the shouts of joy or amazement… Just frustration and detachment…

Group play…..
Guild missions are no longer for the guild as people, just for the guild as an object, no longer supporting the guild as group… And as such we no longer run these as a guild…
I as the officer in my guild have seen the problems,, and for the PvP guild missions.. wel doing ’m with 40 ppl at once is a problem, PvE missions are bugged, no rewards= no people and for WvW… well they are truly, and I really mean truly uninteresting.

We will see… HoT is live…. and dying…. at least for me, I find myself in vanilla again… less frequent, very, very shaken by the scale of the multifold disaster, still unfolding.

New stats, food nerfs… no stat selection after invalidation of stats… lists are long….. Frustrations are big…..

No solo play…. at least no outside story or farming HP, or masteries in HoT

No gold =>
no travel,
no food,
no gear,
no mats,
no crafting,
no fun
no reason to play,
no progression,
no reward,
no player(s),
no purchases,
no revenue,
no game,
no A-net,
no jobs,
no money,
no travel,
no food,
…..

I hope you’ll make amends… And I hope you’ll understand who I’m adressing here.

WvW has been decimated, but luckily there are no more queues and when everything is capped we play on on EBG, as there is no rewards fighting -no-one- on the borders.

PvP… I find E-sports commercials all over the web, BE legendary, join GW2 PvP… Problem? It’s very nice you can earn 1000’s of dollars playing an unbalanced game with a clear meta… which has had (balancing) problems since launch… which -no-one- outside the pvp community cares for except for some people on staff at A-net and the people smiling who drag away the cash. No viewers, no interest from the remainder of the worlds populace..

Dungeons… you know the unbalanced stuff still littering the landscape, which had no real support since ~a year after launch, except for a very long unrewarding path with keys you needed to farm throughout the world in PvE….
They were unbalanced and FUN. At least to me, I enjoyed running AC Fulll for 1000 days straight with some COF 1,2 and SE 1,3 added for flavoring, on relaxed days I added TA and CoE to maximize my enjoyment of thisgame and did some Cursed shore or (later) Silverwastes to get nice gear for fractals…..

Fractals were nice long duration games with no real guess what would be spawning always causing a decent surprise, somtimes good, sometimes bad… at lvl 50 people got good drops… But…. well getting good drops should be nerfed, and Fractals being a dungeon was striped from rewards, and it’s renowned randomness
The opening to the masses who repeated easy fractals again and again and again to level up faster then the Saturnus V went to the moon trivialized this nice piece of content…

So we got more Event maps…
After Hirathi Hinterlands (Centaur battles), Fields of Ruin (Ogre battles) and Orr (Risen battles), Dry Top (mostly battling yourself in the end…) and Silverwastes (Mordrem battles)
We now got Verdant brink (Mordrem battles), Auric Basin (Octovine: Mordrem battles), Tangled Depths (Chak battles? No: Mordrem battles!) and last but not least the epic battlle versus Mordremoths Lieutenant (Wanna guess? Yeah! Mordrem!) in Dragon’s stand… Yes….,yes…, well yeah…, ye, ow… why bother….?

As for world bosses: we got …. Nothing really, as the bosses now are behind a huge chain of events, and your activity in these events will determine your reward…. All others, the classics, still respawn on their respective timers day in and day out….
Tequatl might not be more epic then Dragons Stand , it is way more accesible… and still has it’s own armor skin(s), as has the Tri Wurm…

Luckily: My bank guild with 3 ppl in it has all former WvW players and we cannot even pay the 100 gold to cap it, nor have the influence to start the event…. so…. we will not get a hall.. Come to think of it we will not be able to build anything afterwards either….

SO I play on to find I am now obligated to play PvP to be allowed my next legendaries, and I will certainly get much WXP now in WVW without any players so my legendaries are all in the box …

And raids… Guild missions are cancelled in our guild, the hard creis raiding leaving us with 8 ppl from 175 to do guild missions and 2 groups of 10 are enjoying their fails on the Vale Guardian… putting in dozens of hours for 4 gold….

Yes It has been a perfect storm, quake, tsunami, vulcanic eruption, meteorstrike, famine, plague and firestorm all rolled into one showing us it will now can only go up from now on….

As all things which were, are now: no more and the remains of the populace are now farming mats, farming events, farming otherwise and Raiding for minimal income saying it is all better now….

And still people say well it’s perfect… I love your determination…., or fanatism…., and is it just my problem?

I’m still wondering : “WTF happened here?” Of the 80 people in our WvW and PvX guild who have bought HoT 50+ are no longer playing….. or just logging in for dailies…. This second group isn’t inactive, but is no longer playing either… most are completely dissillusioned and let down by the events participated in the last weeks…

Most of these players were WvW players the ones remaining are the fanatics, most of these do the raids now and some are fed up with it. some are tryin to do some new events or trying to find new light in unlocking masteries and elites specs,, but I am no longer hearing the shouts of joy or amazement… Just frustration and detachment…

Guild missions are no longer for the guild as people, just for the guild as an object, no longer supporting the guild as group… And as such we no longer run these as a guild…
I as the officer in my guild have seen the problems,, and for the PvP guild missions.. wel doing ’m with 40 ppl at once is a problem, PvE missions are bugged, no rewards= no people and for WvW… well they are truly, and I really mean truly uninteresting.

We will see… HoT is live…. and dying…. at least for me, I find myself in vanilla again… less frequent, very, very shaken by the scale of the multifold disaster, still unfolding.

Carrion accesoires are available from dungeon reward track, I’m not completely sure but if I’m right CoF and SE? (baelfire’s ember and forgeman’s gear)

Only prereq to receive these if to unlock all skins relateed to the dungeon (part of dungeoneer track.)

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Baelfire%27s_Ember
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forgeman%27s_Gear

as for rings and amulets: Dunno….

I don’t agree…

For some paths they are
condi warriors → condi berzerker
and for some they are not
PU mesmer? -/→ chronomancer

I noticed I have little interest for tempest, daredevil, berzerker on my dps builds

I notice I did make a chronomancer, a reaper, a scrapper, a herald…

On dragonhunter and druid…. well druid wasn’t my favorite and still isnt for ranger, it’s uses are limited… and dragonhunter is said te be very powerfull, problem though is my preferance to play mace guards… either tanky or not….

Maybe I’m outdated but from 19 characters only 10 unlocked elites now and only 5 of those are still specced elite.

After a month….

I’m gone, Bye Bye.

No gold =>

1. no travel,
2. no food,
3. no gear,
4. no mats,
5. no crafting,
6. no fun
7. no reason to play,
8. no progression,
9. no reward,
10. no player(s),
11. no purchases,
12. no revenue,
13. no game,
14. no A-net,
15. no jobs,
16. no travel
17. no food
    …..

I think sinister and viper are closely related.

if you are using conditions odds are you are using runes , food, utility, sigils and traits to lengthen conditions.

food+ utility = +30%
sigil = +10-20% (universal (malice) or dedicated e.g. venom)
runes= +25-45% (universal (nightmare/trapper) or dedicates e.g. balthazar)
traits= 20%-33%

if you are only using 1 condition chances are you have way succeded the cap already
(guardian: (only for burning duration)
food+util (30%)
sigil (20%)
runes (45%)
trait (20%)
this should add 115% burning duration easily passing the cap… leaving no reason to take either the trait and go for 1 vipers piece leaving you with 2 slots for sigils, or a free choice of food. allowing for a different stat for example…

For mesmer (for all conditions)
food +util 30%
runes 25% (nightmare/trapper)
signet +20%
sigil 10%
trait for confusion +33%
giving +85% for most conditions and +118% for confusion (and thus leaves room for viper)

viper tends to be usefull mostly to expand the cap, at a cost of condition dmg. so reatining as much sinister as possible is optimal.

wel… 1 icy , one desert and one EotM…. and Ebg…

personally I find doing the harvesting is working, and honestly it bores me to death.

I made 70+ ascneded weapons with spiritwood being below 5 gold… I have all the gear. I just do not see the point WHY I must condone having people I can play with run around the map chopping down trees instead of playing the game with me and IMHO playing dungeons ,raids, bosses or doing (meta-)events is playing the game.

Or am I wrong here? So you say farming tier 2,3,4,5 maps will make you rich and happy so you can start playing the game afterwards?? By the time you are rich there will be noone left.

Really hate ’m ….

I play to play gw2, not to play a game in a game.
Same problems with SAB as well.

no.

/15 chars……

The deluxe Gw2 edition? you got a pet rytlock, cd with all music and a book with it. and all other stuff form the deluxe digitals, in a nice box. I got a mail with a serial code for 75 euro.

for the 100 euro HoT you get 4000 gems and basicly all other stuff you got from the 75 euro version…. which is a mini and a glider more then the 50 euro version.

BtW

Gw2 Tyria (now F2P)

• dungeons,
• fractals,
• WvW,
• 7 metaevent maps (FoR,HH,SoD,ML,SC,DT,SW),
• all PvP, except 1 map,
• Personal story ~ 40 steps spread on 8 levels
• World bosses
• Living story 2 (8 chapters of 2-4 steps ~25),
• 25 maps and
• 6 cities
• 5 races with
• 8 proffesions holding 5 trait lines each 40 in total.

GW2 HoT (40 -50 euro)

• raids, 1 leg so far. If you do not have max gear, do not bother. ~1000 gold investment to get ready
• 4 metaevent maps on (slow) timers,
• 1 pvp map,
• living story prt 3: 14 story steps
• 2 guild halls which are mosty unaffordable,
• 4 maps
• 0 cities,
• 0 races,
• 1 proffesion and specialisations total of 14 trait lines

You guess what would be the best buy…

1st: I love the community.
2nd: I loved Gw2, the game, the gameplay, the sights & sounds….

I think Guild Wars 2 had an enormous quality and quantity of content.

I enjoyed levelling, story, dungeons, later on fractals, I geared up my characters, I made several of my most played classes even, made condition builds, 1st mostly for laughs and experiments, being laughed at by guildies and now 23rd of june they were unleashed after 3 years, I was happy. finally I could play how I wanted…

I bought HoT looking forward to more content more maps, layered maps for more area… yes seems nice. New group content…. yes raids… Guess I understood it wrong…

Then HoT arrived…

• I have played dungeons fanatically for 3 years. I stopped playing them: no drops, no rewards
• I have played fractals occasionally for the time they were available, I was lvl 40, was downed to 30 after the 1st big change, went up to 40 and I lost interest: no drops, no rewards. People are shouting at me I do not suicide to pass bosses I get kicked by people dying to low AR…
• I played my 18 lvl 80’s but now levelling gives no reward. I can do some masteries or something but I don’t care tbh, there is noone if I want to log in and do something cause at time x you need to be at poing z to do y else you get NOTHING.
• Can’t get the mastery points I need to play mini games…. I do not want to play mini games. I have epilepsy and find it hard to concentrate for a longer period of time.
  I hate repeating stuff, to maximize performance. I’m slow like a slug on a frozen pipe, can’t play FPS, simulators, and racing games due to the risk of seizures and I get racing games, FPS like games and so on… everyting I tried to evade was integrated…
• All my hybrids and condi’s were invalidated, stats were changes and gear needs replacing. I cannot afford it, no cointent pays for it. And I need the mats from salvages to make the gear.
• I do no longer have mats, or cash, and no longer do I have valid characters. Yes my DPS characters, which were mandatory for the meta… to do what? Dungeons? Raids? Fractals?
• I tried raids, went all out didi it since launch of the raid daily and I spend 4-5 hours an evening every evening and I found it… unrewarding. lot of effort 10 ppl, no rewards, no gold… Oh and mandatory ascneded gear… if not now then later on, BUT you do not worry just buy it with gold… it only doubled in price, so it’s more affordable… That’s economical…
• World bosses are stale. People DPS ’m with no effort: no rewards, mostly no gold. never had a tequatl box, or a TT box, though I almost never did TT.
• Meta events… which one?
  - Hirathi Hinterlands,
  - Fields of Ruin,
  - Southsun Cove,
  - Dry Top,
  - SilverWastes,
  - Straits of Devastation/Malchor’s Leap/Cursed Shore,
  - Verdant Brink,
  - Auric Basin,
  - Tangled Depths,
  - Dragon’s stand
  Choose one… the non HoT ones tend to be more guiding and rewarding…

I have considered my probelms and I’ll be frank:

1. reinstate dungeon gold rewards
2. reinstate cash rewards, for meta achievs, raise raid rewards start with 21-35 gold for a succesful raid if it’s repeatable once a week (3-5 gold a day)
3. halve mat costs for ascned gear.
4. reduce all vials of linseed oil needed for recipes by 4 making ony 1 needed.
5. increase drop rates on gear/ mats/ ascnededs in all forms of play.
6. make meta events cycle faster. having to wait for 90 minutes makes stuff stale. I sometimes have only 30 or 40 minutes to play and I really really like to feel like I did something.
7. taxi…. taxi… taxi…. well you should understand. either you have a working map and you are lucky to get an early cab or you can do something else, oh and then no gold anyways, and no rewards if you miss the map…
8. guild missions are wrecked. I do not do anything with my guildies anymore, I ran guild missions for 3 different guilds in the past 2 years. I stopped doing it as it’s broken. No gold, no rewards.
9. revert WvW back to the ice maps. your new maps are definately not more interesting or special. You destroyed WvW IMHO, oh drops couldn’t be lowered anyways so …

Conclusion: Something is economically broken in this game, in a very bad way.

The people are still great
The maps look stunning I love the new critters.

But….
The game has lost it’s (re)playability, it’s feel, the few rewards it had
I am out of cash. I cannot play when I cannot travel. Oh and I sold my mats to repair builds due to stat changes. Losing runes, losing sigils… I still need to repair 5 characters at 200-400 gold per character… but there is no income.

I could start begging. but i do not want to. I played dungeons and fractals. Now I don’t play, cause I just do not see any reason to play anymore. HoT is a fail.

I wish you all good luck.
Get rich, get your legendaries.
Be the best and enjoy the rest.

Oh and for mandatory “can I have your stuff”:
No:
it’s mostly ascneded on my mains,
I have 18 characters with ascneded weapons
I have 18 characters with ascneded trinkets
I have 18 characters with acneded backpacs
I have 6 characters with full asnceded armor. 3 more with parts…
I have 2 legendaries
I have all but 4 dyes unlocked, yes all.
I have 20.5k AP
I have been co-leader in 2 guilds, officer in 5 more…
I have NO gold and no mats, and no gems.

Swagger.1459:

saturn.4810:

If legendary armor is not raid exclusive, what will the pro raiders have left to show off?

They can show off their exclusive “raid only” legendary armor(s).

There can be different armor designs for different parts of the game… Don’t be so short sighted.

if you have your legendary armor and no ppl to show it at? People are getting more and more negative over raiding, and the gating.

It will be nerfed. HF

My depression…

No gold
No income, just stupid raid tries and some fractals… no cash from content. I do not care, no cash is no food, no gear changes no reason to play. I bought some gold for the BLTP for gems and it’s the main reason to quit now.
No gold ingame = not being able to travel or play.
I cannot farm If I’m doing raids, I cannot do all things at once. I do not care anymore.

Gear invalidation
I had 18 nice geared characters, 6 DPS, 4 healers all others condi or hybrids.
All 8 of these characters have been invalidated completely. I cannot use them cause all dmg was nerfed by 15-20%…. (Just go and do your raid in all greens and rares as DPS and come back afterwards and then comment).
I updated 3 now and lost all cash I had, all sigils and gear, my stored mats and I canot see the end. most DPS characters I had used stacking sigils on main weapons, they are no longer usable due to content with no kills (read RAIDS). I have tried to respec armor and lost all runes, I retained some of the infusions though. I calculated it’s about 1000-1200 gold for all character who still need gear. and I cannot make gold. see 1st point

And I still need to do 5 more characters… they will cost me 2000 excluding getting ascendeds (else add 14400, not including legendary wishes… 3 full sets should be around 9000-10000 and I like the staff again 2500 gold at present prices for the account. I say no.)

So I looked on.

guild halls
I had a banking guild, I was looking forward to try to get a guild hall, which is impossible. Okay… it happens… Gold could fix it or wait, no gold.

Guild missions
I used to run Guild Missions They are completely destroyed, people who I ran missions with for 2 years have said they’d no longer bother, so Our 175 man guild has 5 PVp-ers and 8 WvW-ers doing guild missions. Our PvE group has stopped doing them as they always played until everybody had their commendations whcih no longer works
I get nothing in return, no comemndations, no gold= no reason to play.

dungeons
I used to run Dungeons. I am not bothering with it anymore, asking me to run ’m and get 59 silver or 76 silver… I still cannot believe it, it must have been a joke. I stopped doing dungeons, as did the 50+ people I often joined, they seem to have left except for 5 or 6 of them who are doing raids. Dungeons are dead. No gold= no reason to play

fractals
I used to run fractals I was level 40… I was 40 before the 1st biog overhaul and was set back to 30 then, now people who never did fractals till now pass me and kick me cause I do not know the cheats. fractals are way more broken compared to dungeons. And they do not give any interesting rewards either… no gold= no reason to play

Meta events…
Orr… Hirathi hinterlands, Fields of Ruin, Southsun, Dry top, Silverwastes, Verdant brink, Auric Basin, Tangled depths , Dragons basin… yeah… Some alive, some dead, some deserted… not only in vanilla I should add. yes some rewards, but only empty instances and timers = no income= no gold = no reason to play

• World bosses…..*
  Not for me… I liked Tequatl, hated the wurms and generally found the other bosses just the biggest joke made in gw2…. just stand around and they’ll get killed, 3 auto attacks for free chests… Right. Oh and no gold.

Raids… <sigh…>.
I have been invited to raids. I ran builds for years which were ok. Now I need to run , circles, not being able to see stuff due to the bad choice of colors, 100% concentrated… I have immense difficulty not to be hampered by epilepsy….
I had hoped for dungeons in the expansion and the raids are very nice and impossible for a normal guild group unless cheating and cheezing and very, very grindy as a result. I spend 30 hours now trying to kill a boss with 10 ppl with above standard gear who are not bad players at all. Maybe I myself am the black sheep, I try to do it and I cannot, I got Liadri once after 175 tries or so… 4 gold? yes We have been at it for 2 weeks. I spend over 800 gold in gear changes a sigils foods, and so on. I need to do ’m succesfully for 4 years to make up for the cost if I were never to spend 1 copper on them from now on. No gold= no reason to play

“Adventures”
I have epilepsy, I cannot play FPS games, racing games and simulators. Now I need to be an aeroplane and do racing games…. I have suffered 2 seizures already doing this crap. I cannot focus enough or I seize up, well… no 161 for me. No progression

I guess no legendary armor as there is no way to procure it without doing Raids. I can keep my concentration up for 10 minutes, I just cannot keep it up for 10 tries in a row. My guild is annoyed as kitten if I get an absence while meleeing the boss. I prefer a condi slot, problem is I do not play engi. I tried it a few times on warrior. DOT Warrior is melee or LB. LB is considerably less DPS… well I suck, unintentionally… I DC myself, independent from the server and my ISP… hmmm….

not all bad
Granted the game has received a lot of improvements as well. But as is, it is in shambles at this time, only a ghost of its glorious past. just no gold

PvP = lolz…. ROFLMAO
I really am fed up with the “mandatory PvP balancing -for nothing- cause this is the most epic E-sport alive brain fart has corrupted the developers-” (PvE destruction for PvP illusions) I have not seen -anything usefull- from PvP

Casual, open for anybody, play how you want?
Our casual game needs to be playable how you want as long as you accept you’ll be wearing greens and be running with F2P’s as the rest is behind contrent gold and gem walls. I’m seemingly lucky having acces to 2 full heavy ,1 medium and 3 full light ascneded armors… in vipers, vipers, zerk, zerk, zealot and zealot… with matching weapons. Yes… I have it, bought it for a lot of gold.

Cause it’s “we want to play” not “play how we want” and more specifically “how you want us to play in the end” as shown by all nerfs in loot, the shifts in focus. Why did you shift focus? Is it so we play the content? the better part of content doesn’t invite us to be played, in the end I noticed I canot be happy with my purchase. I’ll not ask for a refund. I just hope something good or at least better will appear.

gated
It seems now there is need to make sure everything is gated, preferably behind content others want to be done differently, Grinds, or just endless collections…

I would like to suggest: adding asap:

• Tengu chars
• Dungeons (and a rework of older dungeons, just increase difficulty a bit leave the present dungeons for the children and make a semi hard mode for harcore and fanatic casuals. don’t make HP bags, just increase the dmg by 50% and increase attack rate by 20-25%)
• Completely detach PvP. Make PvP a fully F2P limited environment, keep the starting screen and make the characters separate
• Make some nice area’s to run around, make some nice maze maps like the new ones, make some where we can run in the sky villages of the tengu. return the zephyrite map. Some need to rebuild. They can’t all be dead. open crystal desert and the fire isnlands, give me mursaat in PvE, with agony, get me 10 man or 12 man -dungeons-

wrong attitude
I am fed up with the “Yes, we know you do not like it, so we change it, but we really shift everything cause one little details is not okay! we surely need to remove and corrupt it as a whole”

Discussions can be usefull.

And last some things were developed well, got bugged and got corrupted beyond all repair in process never to be touched again. I ‘m still missing FW/UP from TA and I do not mean the 2 paths I mean the path the aetherblade one replaced. I still find Pistrix the shark dead each time I move past…. I’m sure I fought hiime a couple of times and I saw him swimming above the surface as well… I guess most dungeons would fit the same bill..

Oh and no you cannot have my stuff, I might be back:
I have 8 characters with full or mostly ascneded amor and 16 with ascended weapons, and 18 with full ascneded trinkets and 2 legendaries. Most of my gear is account bound or souldbound. and I do not have any cash anymore or materials.

It was fun. I’m gonna focus on my family a while… Guild wars was the best experience I had when I started, and you have managed to remove all the nice things from it, bit by bit, in 3.5yrs. I was a late arrival at gw1, but played it with a huge passion like I did gw2….

If this is the game I need to be playing I’ll move on to something I feel I can progress, Oh wait the only one I liked in the past 10 years were guild wars 1 and 2, Well I might just quit altogether then.

I give up. Good luck developing nice things for the others I’ll swing by in a year or so and enjoy the sights once more. I learned 1 thing this game is very nice when wanting to run around. maybe in a year people will do all meta events, and I can progress.

I have been there done that paid for it bought some skins and now I’m done.

I loved the game, I still love the people.

1st I’ll try to take arest for a week, and maybe I’ll come back….

If not: Thanks to all in the community for playing with me or against me.
I loved you and I will remember you. Get rich, get your legendaries.
Be the best and enjoy the rest.

tl,dr.

• I cannot find myself in HOT,
• I would like most things reconsidered/reworked.
• I do no longer have a gold income.
• I need 2000 gold to rework my condi’s and hybrids.
• Until changes happen I’m out, It’s a few bridges to far and I cannot find an updraft.

GL and HF!

You have been marvelous. Both A-Net and the players. It’s a shame the game has taken this direction, for what it’s worth: Thanks ALL of you for 7 years of great fun.

Superior Rune of the Krait (Bleeds)

1. +25 Condition Damage
2. +10% Bleeding Duration
3. +50 Condition Damage
4. +15% Bleeding duration; 25% chance when struck to cause Bleeding for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 15s)
5. +100 Condition Damage Condition Damage
6. +20% Bleeding duration; When you use your elite skill you inflict Bleeding,Torment, and Poison for 8 seconds to nearby foes. (Cooldown: 30s)

Rune of Orr (Poison)

1. +25 Condition Damage
2. +10% Poison Duration
3. +50 Condition Damage
4. 25% chance when struck to inflict Poison for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 20 seconds)
5. +100 Condition Damage
6. +20% Poison Duration; when struck below 20% health, gain quickness for 5 seconds. (Cooldown: 90 seconds)

Rune of the Afflicted (Bleeds and Poison)

1. +25 Condition Damage
2. +10% Bleeding Duration
3. +50 Condition Damage
4. +15% Poison Duration
5. +100 Condition Damage
6. +20% Bleeding Duration, When you are downed, you create a death nova. (Cooldown: 30 seconds)

Rune of Nightmare (any conditions)

1. +25 Condition Damage
2. +5% Condition Duration
3. +50 Condition Damage
4. +10% Condition Duration
5. +100 Condition Damage
6. 50% chance when struck to inflict fear for 1 second. (Cooldown: 60 seconds)

-And- (read: often paired with)

Rune of the Trapper

1. +25 Condition Damage
2. The duration of conditions you apply last 10% longer.
3. +50 Condition Damage
4. When you use a trap skill, you gain 2 seconds of super speed.
5. +100 Condition Damage
6. Gain 2 seconds of stealth when using a trap skill.

I have stopped doing guilds missions with the guild altiogether, some people from the officers and the always active do them now, in WvW and PvP, We completely sopped PvE guild mission

We have a guild hall now, but other then the 10 man raid group noone can play together anymore, even if we all travel to the guild hall we end up in multiple overflows. yes… all togetehr in different maps.

Dungeons are history and
Raids are for a very limited group,
Most of the WvW-ers haven’t been online for a week or 2 now,
Guild misisons in PvE are a total mess, illusion or otherwise non existent thing.
Guild hall is mostly useless
Scribe is useless

I need to replace armro on 4 characters still cause my armor was invalidated… I lost all corresponding runes.

I’m having so much fun.

no…

And I was the guy managing guild missions…Well I can only repeat them again and again… only to see most have no chance.
HoT for group play….. Well…. yes the hardcores who are not deterred by HP bags, in maps which NEVER complete….

HoT is a failure, at least gameplay wise.

We are at a point where I’m no longer telling people to buy the game. I warn them they should go and enjoy the F2P and if they like it they could consider an upgrade.

19 lvl 80’s…

3 warriors (2x 100%)
3 rangers (1x 100%)
3 necro’s (2x 100%)
3 guardian (1x 100%)
2 eles (1x 100%)
2 mesmers (1×100%)
1 thief (1x 100%)
1 engineer
1 revenant

Why worry about mains, just make ‘m all. And if you have ’m all make some more.
I have a 100 % map of all character profs, except engineer and revenant Mostly because I was trying to find a melee engineer (well it is done now) and as revenant (at least MY revenant) isn’t very old… well it has no map.

You’ll learn you’ll use some proffesions for certain things and do not use ’m for others.

I only hav 2 of those -infused- rings on 18 characters and 2 full banktab of characters, 9+ characters have 2(+) full sets.. I already replaced them tbh and I understand what you mean they should have been corrected to new specs.,

I have the old explorer (?, if I’m right) stat rings on my ranger
(egg of the crystal dragon, and 2 more) I understand these ring are said not to be upgradable (having zerk stats atm, but used to be power/precision/magic find (comparable to traveler power/condition dmg/magic find?).

I think those rings should be continued AND with selections added for stats now unused/unavailable… (zealots. gives, dire, HoT stats and the like…)

I don’t think gear should be invalidated. the selection boxes exist (they were made stat selectable after the removal of magic find, like (the vicious claw based MF recipe’s for a quiver and book), as well as -ALL- other gear… containing MF…

It would open up room for the newer stats while not needing new icons and work other then expanding the stat lists…. I do not even mind my accesoires and amulet not being reselectable…

Maybe they should fix dungeons…. or reevalute difficulties at least… most people now know mechanics, could stuff just attack more? or weaponswap? or just attack increasingly fast? for alpha for example?

Like with many MF options I’d change the order of putiing them in, 1st do the upgrade thing, then the ring then the other stuff. or do ’m second and third…

I had the same problem as well when I wanted to upgrade my sinister rings and I gotit done without a problem, make sure you buy some extractors first (1 per ring so you can remove the AR thingy) else they are gone! also remember if you wan to upgrade your ring’s agony you have full opportunity to do so, of to change infusions from char to char…

Requests for additional ascneded trinkets have been made since newer stats appeared….

not only missing stats but also strange ommisions like verata’s seared ring and utility infusion amulets for nomands and sinister…

We would like ascneded trinkets for the new (HoT) stats as well.. I haven’t seen them yet tbh…

Laraley.7695:

IAMANDLOVE.3095:

Zero Day.2594:

IAMANDLOVE.3095:

Zero Day.2594:

IAMANDLOVE.3095:

Zero Day.2594:

IAMANDLOVE.3095:

Zero Day.2594:

IAMANDLOVE.3095:

Zero Day.2594:

IAMANDLOVE.3095:

Zero Day.2594:

Nemesis.8593:

…

However without a damage meter i fear we are looking at another 2 years of “meta builds” which work from about 50% less of what they are advertised at via math-in-a-void all… the way to 5% based on the encounter’s mechanics.
…

Essentially this guys.

Unfortunately or fortunately (depending on how you look at it), there will always be a “meta”. A mass amount of people will accept like always, and will doing the normal/expected thing of excluding casuals and whatnot… It’s unavoidable, undeniable, inevitable – get over it.

So, why not have the proper tools to do it right? To actually build a meta on solid data rather than napkin notes. It’s not as harmful as people think. Of course they can make the dps meter just show personal dps, so that dps isn’t the reason someone is kicked (since other’s still can’t see it).

a damage meter is very harmful for the community it will destroy the very fabric of what makes guild war great! Guild war at its current state is a very friendly game. For example I just completely a level 100 fractal after 20 wipes and nobody complained we just kept trying until we succeed! now imagine what a damage meter will do? people will whine complain and boot, it is not the game i want!
plus I think a lot of the fun is not knowing how good your build really is, it is about experimenting and feeling the game and the character!

Couple of things…

The dps meter can be either personal or not-personal (group can see it), it will have different effects. In the event that the group can see your dps, that will be the reason they kick you. In the event that the group can’t see your dps, you will be kicked due to not complying with the “meta” (which WILL exist, regardless of having a meter or not.)

Having a personal dps meter, which will leading to creating a meta based on factual data will lead to better meta builds.

The fact that you wiped 20 times and no one complained, isn’t because a dps meter didn’t exist. It’s because the group allowed it, they weren’t impatient. Perhaps, they didn’t even care for meta builds either.

Having a personal dps meter will lead to no change in community, but will lead to solid meta builds with real numbers as proofs. Since, let me explain it again, since people won’t be able to kick you for dps (since they can’t see it), they will still kick you for not complying to the meta if it’s something they care about (which already happens!). Which again, in your case of wiping 20 times, people perhaps weren’t impatient and maybe didn’t care for the meta…

You’re not afraid of a personal dps meter, you’re afraid of the meta and the people that care too much for it.

---

Hell, it will even help you experiment properly with different builds.

I honestly don’t see any harm from having personal dps meters.

we dont need a dps meter for meta, as I have played many RPG I know all the harm a dps meter can do to a group moral. When I was raid leading in world of warcraft one of the biggest rules is never insult me the raid leader, because as a raid leader I am responsible for group moral. Usually what happens is a tank who thinks he is so valuable to the raid he can say whatever he want and insult anyone he wants, and it usually is a big surprise when I boot his kitten . You see where I am going? if people join raid, get booted, get harassed, get kicked, get insulted, this ripple effect will effect every other part of the game, and over time guild war 2 will become just like wow, and I did not buy guild war 2 because it is like wow, i bought guild war 2 excatly because it is not wow. I also strongly believe the best part of the game is not have a damage meter, this allows me to try different build and to get a feel for different build, that alone is worth the price of admission!

Okay, clearly you’re either not reading or/and or comprehending the things I’ve said.

Thanks for the small argument we had.

i can say the same thing about what u said! you dont seem to understand me clearly either! have you played diablo 3? do you see a damage meter in that game? and does everyone in that game optimize for best build and can everyone run high great rift? i mean very high? you are obviously a noob to mmo!

Yet, meta builds in that game still exist. Groups still don’t take you seriously if you don’t run a certain class and certain build.

Not sure how that’s different or better. It’s the same, and a personal dps meter will not change that.

its fine if a group does not want certain build, see you dont get my point, my point is all about the harm a dps meter will bring to the friendly community which is guild war 2! if you cant see that then you are not very smart!

HOW can a personal dps meter bring more harm.

Personal dps meter meaning, you will only see your own dps, you will not see anyone else.

PLEASE EXPLAIN.

For example before each raid, the raid leader ask each member of the raid to post their best raid dps average on some website or in the chat or through instant messaging! and those who do not qualify are asked to leave immediately!

What?

So the member can’t lie about their numbers? Now, that’s not really an effective way to check, so why would one even check.

Having a dps meter that produces logs that could be uploaded/posted somewhere counter-acts the personal aspect of a personal dps meter. It is also a feature that you’ve made up on the spot, it may not be implemented.

Sure, screen shotting can occur, but it will be more of a hassle of getting that screen shot across to the guy requesting it, and if that guy had set up various means for you to get that screen shot across, that guy would have probably kicked you later down the road for smelling funny (judging by his initial attitude). And of course this would all have to happen relatively fast upon joining a group – else you would join a group and wait 30-40 minutes for everyone to post their screen shots somewhere – Yeah like people will accept that kitten (well, maybe like a very tiny populace will, but, they would be too few). Come up with a simple way of getting a screen shot across for this purpose.

look I will be ok with a DPS meter as long as it will not be used to boot people, harrass people, intimidate people, and get people kicked out of a raid before they even had a shot at raiding! However, I am afraid that will not happen, because the very nature of a dps meter is elitist and it will cause a lot of grief among-est plaeyrs!

I just think it’s funny you assume people won’t be kicked/booted from raids. Ofc they will but it will ba based on guessing rather than real numbers. I also don’t think people should be expected to carry those who can’t use proper builds and know their class. It’s supposed to be endgame content, not content everyone will finish while half afk.

problem is numbers are not very relevant…
reasons for kicks will be being dead and not ressing… when you die you lose huge amounts of dps, about twice the amount compared to what you could deliver: your own dps AND you resser(s) DPS. BUT if someone didn’t res, it’s a reason to kick as well…

Make sure you can do dps/dot, and survive….

I’m not particularly interested in a dmg meter either personal or allround… I do not fear weakness of my builds, only my personal skills… Being an old geezer I think I have seen a lot of games… I’m slower then 30 years ago when I started gaming…. Though I’m not useless….

Most of the problems arise from the fact dmg is not only your doing.
Damage is a collective effort…

If you’re running a condi build and you make a combo on someone else’s field and it added dmg, and vice versa if you lay down combo fields and people trigger it, will it add to your damage or not? Should vulnerability, might and fury and banners be included in your dmg assesment or just the raw dmg?

There is a good chance vulnerability is not the spearhead of your build, or might or fury, and you’re dependant of 1 or more other players to provide those, if so the number of your DPS/DOT only show the effectiveness of group play not the effeciveness of the builds. Also based on these numbers could you make a decent assesment of you need to split up and you’ll lose a good deal of your DPS/DOT if your party is well, not balanced? will you die when split up cause you no longer have acces to certain boons (protection, regen?)

Be sure to know most figures are only valid if you could outright copy all instances exact in movement and cast times not only for yourself but also for others… This was also the main reason for stacking… boon sharing and maximizing effectiveness at all times…. with 10 ppl 1 stack dooesn’t work, most boons are for 5 ppl. so groups should be max 5 ppl.

Shouldn’t your observations be more then DPS alone?

Well the boss is a HP bag and you have “t” seconds to kill it.

So HP/t = required minimal AVERAGE total DPS & DOT

Average total DPS & DOT / players = USELESS

But it should give a nice figure…. or does it?

The function of builds could imply they have a less ideal setup for DPS due to the need of certain weapons/skills, causing the need for High DPS and dedicated (potentially) lower DPS builds co-oping…. of course the HIGH DPS will need to trade safety for DPS and the lower will not function to replace them, in the end requiring all of them to fuction as a team…

Problem is these theoretical values are useless when you need to dodge/ heal/res/use other skills with no DPS cause it will reduce “t” and therefore raise AVERAGE DPS. Down time of players will aggrevate this a LOT….

The numbers are an illusion cause you are not capable of extrapolating data while playing. Yes your DPS can go up and down, but why? cause of might? fury? vulnerability? banners? buff fields?, is the goal you set for DPS still relevant if 1 goes down or 2 go down?

Understand if you have 6 DPS builds doing 66% of the dmg and 4 doing the remaining 34% and 2 DPS-ers go down: all players need to up DPS by 22%… and while ressing if one of the low DPS ppl goes you’ll need 30.5% and if one of the remaining 4 DPS -er goes you’ll need 33% added dmg to maintain the same average DPS you started with to maintain DPS…. for the 1st res and 19.5 and 22% respectively during the second res…or if both go to res you’ll have 41.5% engaged in rubbing people but only half time As these values are mostly impossible to compensate I’d be very mindfull of actual deaths….

Understand a DPS meter is -mostly- a limited tool ( especially when only DPS/s), and I find the most usefull tool should be your own intelligence and I’d say just use your head instead. Your tool can say you are doing our calculated minimum number, but it really doesn’t matter if you lose oversight

I expect a lot more people will die when a DPS meter is added mostly because they aren’t watching the game, making it only usefull when rewatching your fight, in which case a realtime DPS meter would save you trouble in your recording but it would be ueless in the fight.

Making a recording will show you way more then just a statistic… Maybe I feel it’s a bit like driving a car while only looking at the speed-o-meter….. I see this happening and it would be a big reason for fails….

Maybe you should try to work out:

• Did you keep up might, fury, vulnerability, buffs, enough stacks of DOT,
• Could you (get & stay) melee when it was possible/needed,
• Did you help people by buffing,
• Did you help people by healing them,
• Did you help people by cleansing them,
• Did you break the boss when needed,
• Could you fullfill your role? Or were you forced in a role you do not have a build for?
• Did you go down, and why?
• How much time did you explore the wonderous world of ants and daisies,

In the end regarding DPS:
If any time would be left afer completing: it would open up the party to other builds with lower DPS as long as the lower DPS players can provide other benefits, using a less effective weapon for CC or Heals for example, or when a certain boss drops way faster then other bosses, maybe you could use 1 less player on a certain boss so it’s more balanced.

DPS is probably the last and least interesting factor… Most engagements are done with minutes to spare on timers, if this happens: clearly the overal damage was more then enough.

If all were max dps and full glass and you would have 1 or 2 seconds to spare (or short) ,it would imply the engagement with your foe wouldn’t be completable with other builds then max DPS, as you already maximized uptime, buffs, DOT, and so on. It would also mean you cannot finish it on 99% of the available builds… showing it’s time for a nerf hammer. making the DPS meter once again useless.

Lastly:

A personal dmg meter is a brag system: Look at me! I did -fill in numer here- dmg and -fill in other number here- DPS! Leaving the -personal- soon to be forgotten… But it would bypass all other things, ressing somebody would cause a loss of DPS, especially long term (average) DPS would suffer but you did add a player back and it’s corresponding DPS/DOT/CC/Heals/Buffs and so on. The problem being the brag thing… either on screenshots, video’s, Vlogs and so on….

Bragging makes people come out in the open with numbers, removing personal from personal dmg meter, again only showing “polished numbers” again creating hype’s about meta’s and builds and team setups then again needed for fastest completion… Which is exactly what the OP wants to avoid….

Isn’t diarmid the boss in 1 of the DS pahts? and I think you kill him times in the path, final one after the vinewall, and I think I got mine after the vinewall if correct… then again names look all alike

Also the value of mats has shifted a bit… Dunno for the costs now , but light stayed relatively the same and medium and heavy became a bit more expensive I heard…

What is the ultimate goal?

Well this is a game, in the end: you should be having fun.

/endthread

@ Nemesis

Generally speaking a class can have a theoretical and a practical DPS…

You of all people shoul know the theoretical DPS islisted everywhere to boast effectiveness someimes with huge impossible even rotations…. I think I remember somthing abouut a 48 step rotation being used somewhere for maximum use of fields…..

You and I know this to be nice theorycrafting, but useless in combat…. Interupts, dodges and so on will void fields or combo’s reducing the effectiveness of said combo’s very fast. also destorying the rotations….

Now you ask for a personal DPS meter even though you should be aware you are not soloing most content… In effect also destorying the validity of your values. The next time with a different group you CANNOT rework the same rotations and boost as the end result depends on more then your personal rotations….

You also need the rotations and fields of others, and them being in the right place, especially in you’ll need more then 1 player for optimized results, again voiding all measurements… during a large part of the combat if one player dodges left and you dodging right…

Fact is raid content and other content of comparable level will need group effort to maximize results, while retaining effectiveness, this could mean stacking as we used to but if it goes sour you’ll wipe. If not it’s still a useless result due to the fact you’ll be using 2 or 3 groups during encounters (boons have 5 targets so max 5 ppl in a stack) for small scale sub encounters like the 3 small bosses in the 1st leg you’ll need 3 groups of 3 with 1 to spare to optimize the engagement builds need to be optimized for both engagements…

No boon stripping? no conditions? no cc? we’ll need all: each player will have specific tasks while being able to perform these tasks, having a good sustainable DPS is nice, but will we need crusaders, trailblazers/commander or something more glassy like zealot/viper/zerk?

I think we can work out (MINIMUM! requirements) while not using DPS meters….

The only groups really in need of DPS meters are the “speedrunners” , the recordmakers and -breakers. For them it’s a sport, but for the 99.999% of all other people just finishing the content is rewarding enough.

And yes I expect “ping gear” to filter out the nomad/dolyaks CC heal/tanks but I do not think we can say: Well you have assassin, you cannot join as it’s not zerk and because he has sinister he can because his bleed is 10pts per tick higher the the viper guy…

These assumptions without having an overview of avaiable CC’s DOT and DPS, boons, boonstrips and all other possibilities in the group would make this all nearly impossible.
It would also no longer be ineteresting for the masses if it would hang by stats instead of capabilities of players ( ignoring some obvious things like previously mentioned nomads/dolyak heal/CC-er, but who knows maybe it will be a neccesary instrument, for kiting controlling and surviving…)

Meta is a tool, like these mentioned DPS meters. Using the tool could give people an idea which tools they need to combat the event. Problem has been “the Meta locked itself into stats and gear while it should be focussed on minimum requirements to complete content and should give handles about acces to soft and hard CC’s and cleanses/heals/buffs/combo’s with groups”.

Most people only know 2 or 3 combo’s…. There is way more then just firefields.
Having a group with all fields but no finishers or having all acces to chill would be examples of waisted effort… like focussing all groups fully on vulnerability and having over 75 stacks avaialble at any give point, but having lower then 75 could drop your dps fighting 3 mini champions, is this a problem? or should you be content with having only 30 or 60 vulnerbility?

Can you all foretell? Do you have any clue about what is to come after the vale guardian?

Not all people have 3 complete armors or acces to 9 lvl 80’s nor would they want to change it for every quirk.

Could bosses be done with all proffessions instead of being mindless and just using 3 builds cause they are max spec?

3 builds would be easy mode, maybe recordbreaking but cheesy to the point where i say it’s dumbing down the game , but having 1 of every class and maybe 1 double?
You would allow for a lot of additional players….. and maake the theorycrafting usefull…

I am against a DPS meter cause I think players cannot handle it, not because it would be a bad tool; I would like the tool a lot, problem is you need to use it right, and I cannot see the playerbase doing it right…. I’ve seen people kicked in dungeons for myriad of reasons and then some…. I’ll see this happen in raids as well…

For now people giving boosts: ranger, warrior, guardian, revenant could give:
+ 41% crit chance (includes fury)
+ 1000 power (includes might)
+ 10% crit dmg
+ 35% dmg
+ 320 toughness
+ 170 vitality
- 33% dmg received.
to 5 people… not even including boons other then might and fury and not including debuff other then vulnerability..
problem is this requires the group to be in 240 range or so… and this only allows for 2 groups, not 3!

Zero Day.2594:

IAMANDLOVE.3095:

because there are many things a rare view mirrior just like a dps meter cant measure.
quote from paxthegreatone
A DPS meter doesn’t measure:
fraction of DPS not related to personal play (by booning banners, or buffs),
heals or reductions of dmg taken keeping people up or
resses (will it lower DPS due to dead/downstate, or just stop measuring giving a false number
combo’s and comparables
outgoing conditions, and cleans
interrupts keeping you or them from getting killed.
DOT or effective DOT
Average DPS/Time
and thus:
A value easily interpreted wrong when narrowminded

Yes when narrow minded.

“fraction of DPS not related to personal play (by booning banners, or buffs),”
- Hmm my dps was 21k with that warrior, without that warrior it’s at 15k… I wonder…

yes this one is easy but was it the warrior, or was it another player with a firefield, or the revenant, or influence of an elementalist, mesmer, or ranger??

“heals or reductions of dmg taken keeping people up or”
- DPS meters often include a heal meter as well.

And how would you interpret the heal contributing to dps? secondly casting the heal will lower DPS, the fact people receive it (or not) due to persoanl movement could influence values a lot.

“resses (will it lower DPS due to dead/downstate, or just stop measuring giving a false number”
- Get your kitten in order, Ress’ing someone > personal DPS. Since once the person is ress’ed you as a group will produce more DPS than you not ress’ing him and continuing to DPS. BUT if you can’t understand that, or when that’s appropriate to do, it’s on you.

Yes when facerubbing the ground you do not do any dmg, but the speed of ressing (warrior vs others/runes of mercy and so on) could give a big change in DPS uptime and effectiveness…

“combo’s and comparables”
- Hmm I did 21k with that warrior putting down a fire field, but now that warrior isn’t putting down a fire field… I wonder…

luckily you forget water/blast (heals), toxic/blast (weakness), light/blast retaliation, fire/whirl (burning stacks), chaosarmor, firearmor and so on… combo’s are more then just might, yes might will give more DPS, you you haave any idea’s how much damage a firewhirl does when executed well? or when you have fast attacks on you firearmor

“outgoing conditions, and cleans”
- What? you’re saying the DPS meter won’t keep track of conditions? As for the cleans, that was never part of the judgment even in WoW. If damage was to be scarficed in order to keep the group alive, so be it. Hell in WoW it was a whole dedicated role that didn’t do (significant) damage.

conditions could be nice but DOT/DPS through conditions could be very influentual
weakness, vulnerability blind will help your party, but sometimes will not add to damage at all. Even though they might have been influential to your party.

“interrupts keeping you or them from getting killed.”
- Like wise, WoW had mechanics where you need to press a button or something to not cause a wipe, it was accepted that people would do that – and of course the dps numbers would be lower.

Well interupts and the ability to break a breakbar are said to be very important, certain builds do not have much ability for breaking the bar, or only a limited amount…

“DOT or effective DOT”
- Conditions again? Pretty sure it, if implemented properly can keep track of that. Damage over time in general – isn’t that what a dps meter is? Damage per second – or Damage per time unit.

Well DOT is nice, stacking 15 burning and seeing 8k might be nice but if it only ticks 1 or 2 times the effect could be insignificant, either due to low uptime or fast cleansing, also the average duration could be nice and the % interupted/removed

“Average DPS/Time”
- What? Again, once you have the real damage number, you can slice and dice it anyway you like. Damage over seconds, Damage over 10 minutes, damage over 10 years. Average damage of 10 fights… You just need to know the numbers, which the damage meter can provide, given how it’s implemented.

DPS/s = burst spike, DPS/ period = average DPS per segment (during broken bars/or under x conditions/boons (if you can see it, preferably in graph), DPS/engagement overal combined DPS witout indvidual numers…..jut ask all values and you could work our dps/person… if the raid leader would combine this you could get actual values and/or untrue values… only requirement would be the actual hp estimate of the boss…

And at the end of it all, with a personal dps meter – only you will see it and only you will be judging yourself if you will/want to.

And if you would give this value to others your % effectiveness could be calculated, without any relevant other figures… also if you did say 8 or 9% of needed dps in a 10 ppl group would you be willing to tell, would you when you got 12 or 15%?

Understand if 4 ppl brag they did 60% together the other 6 would have been doing 6.667% on average, maybe some did actually do 10% then the values of the remaining players would drop even more….

Just having the numbers will mean some will use it to brag… also showing others are more likely NOT on the positive side….

Nemesis personally said most DPS assesments ingame (and around it, in VLOGS and build sites like Metabattle) are false, with people using spike/burst values instead of sustained DPS. A DPS meter is useless as sustained DPS is DPS/time, not only the spikes and not only the base DPS, and even if implemented I fear the majority of players would be unaware of its actual use and ways of interpretation.

Having an actual DPS meter really wouldn’t be nice, It would result in a fixed meta, cause people would all be scared to be kicked, (both the casuals and the elitists) and why?
Because there would be a need for outperforming others….

A DPS meter doesn’t measure:

• fraction of DPS not related to personal play (by booning banners, or buffs),
• heals or reductions of dmg taken keeping people up or
• numer and time spend on resses (will it lower DPS due to dead/downstate, or just stop measuring giving a false number , would ressing lower dps or stop measuring? also ging false values?
• combo’s and comparables
• outgoing conditions, and cleans
• CC’s and or interrupts keeping you or them from getting killed and or adding to DPS?
• DOT or effective DOT
• Average DPS/Time
• Time spend facerubbing the floor
  *
  and thus:
• A value easily interpreted wrong when narrowminded.

Leaving Max-DPS something like MAX speed of a car on a mountainroad to the top of the mountain full of hairpins with oncoming traffic…. You could reach your max speed, but you’ll likely fly of the road, or kill someone else cause you are focussing something else, and in those (and likely other) cases not achieving your goal of reacing the top….

Lastly it will influence people to try and get cheats/hacks/manipulators ingame to manipulate the meters…. whichs will be 3rd party add-ons and will read memory (breaking TOS and geetting themselves kicked/banned/removed from play) mostly added this as I saw someone admitting he was manipulating DPS meters in WoW….

I personally feel people would go as far aas manipulating the game would be very bad, due to the party no longer knowing what and where problems come from, and if actual dmg was manipulated (other then the meter) I’d suggest all 10 being stipped of gains and the offender insteantly losig his account for manipulating gameplay and getting unfair advantages. I also thing a DPS meter would be an incentive for manipulation of the game… Maybe not for me, but for some it would be….

Well I haven’t. I play games to have fun, not to constantly pressure myself, I have kids and a RL for those things….

At any moment when content is only playable with full communications, only with 3 or 4 builds in this game , the content is destroying itself, and taking part of the long term viability of the game with it.

Content is only worthwhile if people can play it. If 1000 players with all numbers can finish it and 3.5 million others cannot you should be aware the content is

a) going to get nerfed
b) going to be ignored, also discontinuing development

And in this case the content is one of the major selling points of an expansion…. I doubt it will stay unnerfed for long (so I’m just waiting for point a), maybe it will stay “HARD” until the next lane/part is unlocked for double gains, but it will be nerfed eventually mostly to make sure content is avaialble for others, and if this happens, it will mean people will flood the content and possibly still not make it (in which case b will happen) and stuff will be forgotten.

I think there should be an awareness too much focus on the edge will hurt the game due to content being unplayable…. In the end if the playerbase cannot play content cause the difficulty levels are so high, playerbase will shift to other parts of the game or other games. The 1st isn’t a big problem, but the second will mean the financial base of a game is reduced. Often things being unreachable and the feeling it’s mandatory to proceed content will mean people are gone fast… we had a group of people leave due to the introduction of ascneded gear for example. I do understand legendary gear doesn’t raise the cap for armors and so on, but emotionally it does.
And people will react to this.

Already A-Net has stated, mandatory gear requirements, high skill level, long fights, limited options for gear, limited acces, mandatory for improvement of gear…

If players make the skill level so high people cannot participate, tyhe community will deteriorate, due to elitism and fingerpointing, people will rebel and there with destroy your -preferred- hard content. Leaving you with nothing, so try to find ways so ALL (well relevant) builds and ALL proffesions would be able to join, instead of only MAXing DPS, it would be better for the game, the community and the playerbase.

IMHO All classes would need options for a DPS, a CC , a DOT and a support option for as far as it could work within the contents required Damapge/time parameters (you know “being able to finish it”)

With this regard a DPS tool could be viable, but it will -never- be used in this fashion you know why and I know why…

Why would you need a damage meter? It’s useless in most cases anyways.

For DPS you cannot predict dmg due to uncertainty of ability to land hits in melee, and about the same for condition builds, you need to apply they stacks before they start ticking. though this uncertainty is less in 2 and 3 ppl groups groups of 5+ will suffer this probelm more, raids could prove a nice ground for the test of this with 10 characters spamming skills, fields, and finishers

Combo’s need to work, you need to be in the cronomancers fields and wells to have acces to alacrity/timewarp, Same for boons/banners and so on.

Fighting a target dummy isn’t representative for dmg at all…
You do not have any use for a damage meter, as you can NEVER EVER compare fights.

Yes you could say: This one went 5, 10 or 15 seconds faster but… is it due to:

• boon uptime,
• builds,
• acces to target,
• vulnerability of the boss due to his break bar being down.
• food used/not used
• trait mechanics being met or not
• more dodges
• weakness/retaliation and so on up or not?

So in the end you can state a PERFECT rotation based upon a PERFECT group composition, but I’m really really wondering if these builds would hold up in less then ideal circumstances, with only a limited % of alacrity being met, with people needing to res others losing out on fields/combo’s support spells and buffs. and the expected DPS which is reatined in the end with all things going normal as opposed to PERFECT.

Play however you want really is adequate. as people forced into builds generally function less compared to thier personal builds (as long as they meet minimal requirements) due to rotations being off or corrupted, and most therorycrafted rotations will not stay up in combat…. and if poeple strive to maintain them they often lose boons and fields due to chaos… (fire and symbols on the same place, timewarp coming up giving people chaos armor instead of might you were abot to proc. and so on.)

Easy
PvE most classes except thief, elementalist and mesmer
WvW well necro/reaper, guardians/dragonhunter, revenant/herald, scrapper,
PvP welll….. Dunno…. meta shifts a lot…

Most dmg
PvE: elementalist, guardian burning PBAOE, ranger burning PBAOE , engineer burning, well excecuted Berserker….
WvW whatever stays alive

Most cheesy
Anywhere: Thief conditions, PU condi mesmer, (Burning stackers?)

Most technical
Anywhere PU mesmer, thief, elementalists, guardian, engineer and some more…

Ele’s will stay squishy until they have decent traits unlocked (fire/water/lightning or fire/water/arcane) and they’ll be one of the most powerfull classes, play styles vary, with a lot of people preferring Staff (DPS) but D/D is very nice as well, as are celestal builds @lvl 80, unfortunately the celestial armor is very timegated… both exotic and ascneded

In general dying can be very easily avoided by using some toughness in your stats 2 stat(power/ toughness) 3 stat:(power toughness precision)/(power toughness ferocity) as long as you are not confronted with condi builds, move out of circles and make sure you try to learn to dodge….

Potential max dmg from elementalist is about 2-4 (at least) times of the dmg of a ranger and in cases where you think you’ll need a pet you can cast an elemental (or 2) and make use of additional options….

earth elementals are tanky melee DPS is not so high…
fire elementals midrange/melee and provide best DPS (and might (lesser))
lightning elementals are ranged
water elementals are ok for slowing (minor) and healing (large one), but I generally prefer others

In cases where you’d think your DPS would be not enough you could get ogre pet histles and fire elemental powder giving you short duration acces to 4 minions (2 elementals, 1 ember, 1 pet) or 3 in case of ranger (1 ember, 2 pets, 1 controllable))