Guild Wars 2

It’s hidden a bit, since you must find right page, then click link from there, but here it is:

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/94582027?_ga=1.224442138.1077602967.1412031213

All i’m asking is Collectors edition. I can be even quite simple. What would make me happy is following:

- Making off book, with concept art of HoT. I’m sure this wouldnt take up much work. Don’t have to be the 200 pages of original book.
- Soundtrack of living story 2+Hearth of thorns (with maybe some bonus songs form orignal if possible).
- Those small paintings that you could switch in and out of a cardboard were amazing, just repeat that
- If possible Caithe statue, but I can live without it, still would be missed

Digital bonus content is nice, but I have no need at all for it.

In the FAQ Regina Beunaberba (sorry if written wrong), says with confidance ‘there won’t be a physical collector’s edition of the game’. Wich basically means, only digitally you can get ‘better version’. Superior dissapointing as a Physical copy CE owner of original game. I don’t need empty games. I don’t need rytlock stupid mini, original game has it already do something new, will you, thanks. And bring that Caithe statue, we deserve it. As do we deserve soundtrack. This is just Arenanet needing the money fast, and efficient, so they made everything digital. It’s really tempting to wait it out, and not pre-order nowadays, just in the hope collector’s edition comes later.

Pack runes are a good investment. They serve well on lot of professions (like on necro they make spectral walk a permanent swiftness skill). On top of that you get triple boon incombat, power (never useless), and a whopping 100 precision extra. With the gear boost coming soon (eliminating traits forced stats), this run might become very good, even better then scholar maybe. Cause the crit damage you loose you can just put in extra gear now

Pack runes are by far the best ‘swiftness boosting’ runes, and with the inc swiftness nerf, this might indeed be an important upgrade for engies to keep speedy kits viable, almost to fully permanent up again.

Grenades work now in pirate ship wvw meta. I’m not sure mortar will. 900 range nades will DEFINITELY NOT fill pirate ship meta role. At best it will be a downed finisher, or skirmish weapon. So I really hope they don’t make damage of mortar lackluster.

I really hope the damage will do/almost do, the damage grenades do now with Grenadier trait. If not, huge nerf to wvw engineer. I also hope the travel speed isn’t super slow. Grenades were slow, but to my feel, mortar shots are even slower (current iteration). Lets hope that won’t hold up. Engineer needs good long range weapon, period.

To me the vigor nerf is a massive warrior buff. (and necromancer etc, but i wanna talk warrior).

Hammer has 3 stuns. Now you can dodge two, and how you can connect the third dodge. Vigor gives you most of time enough time to breath a bit. With vigor nerf, you will definitely have to eat one of the stuns, giving warrior a free burst lock. What’s more you will have to get past warrior Signet of stamina (wich is NOT nerfed), heavy armor, most hitpoints of game (apart maybe from necro with ds), invulnerable/resistance skills, etc. Doenst look fair to me. Especially to a class that’s been leading the meta so hard (just look at Rom for what the class can do, and how hard it it’s to counter).

Unless the so called boosts (we still have to see how they play out) of other profession really buff them enough, i’m afraid boring warrior will still be leading pvp (conquest) with banners, shouts, condi removal, and all the not so fun stuff connected with it.

As for wich professions will be leading:

I see room for thief to grow (but not get overpowered as some say) in pvp. Though the engie trait lock on, might negate that completely.
Ele has some very nice specs now especially for wvw, for pvp i’m not sure, especially with celestial nerf.
Ranger has some really nice grandmaster traits now with 3-5 effects. This gives ranger more room to breath for minor/adept/master traits. Maybe some super combo’s appear. I especially see the 66% cooldown on next swap used skill as a potential dangerous pvp skills.
Engineer is getting mobility nerfed quite a bit (speedy kits). Some of the traits are real improvements. Purely traits talking though I feel it lacking as in, it used to be 100% freedom on a very flexible class on how you combined traits. Now this will be gone mostly since ‘if you have X playstyle you choose II + IV + XII’. But if you have playstyle Z you choose I + V + XI. I hope this is not true but for engineer it really seems true and a nerf of flexibility. Weapons seems like mostly an improvements, (faster bomb explosions), explosions boosting traits, etc). Grenades range (as a wvw player, where pirate ship meta makes 900 range really underpowered)is really bad, though good for spvp. To bad i don’t like spvp that much. The mortar kit seems like a huge nerfed down grenade kit, written over the slow, clunky mortar kit. I really hope it’s better then this, cause this is the only weapon engineers mostly can rely on in pirate ship wvw. Though the combo fields are very nice. (this last part might get engies into GvG meta).

Not to excited about necro’s. To much predictable changes, that dont help them to much. Like the lich form 15 sec duration now, ouch. This skill is quickly becoming a bad skill, they might as well make the animations faster, cause nr 2-5 animate to slow to justify a 15 sec duration.

Of all the healing skills in game that got boosted cooldown, i think Consume condition is the least justified one. The skill is easy to interrupt and vital for non Spectral focused builds to survive (like scepter builds). Adding longer cooldown to it is no-go, even with compensating trait. The support they get is nice though (Transfusion and blood is power).

Warriors are overpowered by this vigor nerf. They got the best vigor replica (signet of stamina), highest hp, highest armor, highest amount of stuns on one weapon (3 on hammer) wich in return means that a warrior can spam at least 1 stun on you that you cannot dodge, no matter what, only weapon evades can no do this and weapon evades are really hard to use (their before and aftercast windows do not dodge, and fully get hit during those). This means in essence warrior will be even more overpowered in conquest pvp, so sad. And if Anet doesn’t realize this, then they are doing no good.

The steal buff is because they removed the trait long reach wich made steal range 1500. For people like me at the moment using it for map completion, this is a nerf from 1500 range to 1200 range.

For corrupting stability this is indeed a good case, especially for Necro skills. I remember Corrupt boon, 29/30 times not converting Stability if enemy had more then 5 boons. Not really nice i’d say. Of course if for instance you hate protection, and priority was high and past and isn’t now, that might be a slight nerf. Overall, I wanna play with this update first before i dislike it.

One problem though is there will be more boons in future. 9 will become at least 11. (Quickness and resistance). That means less chance to corrupt stability (or any specific boon) with same skill. That might be problem. Maybe some skill (to be viable) will need cool down reduction or 1 more corruption in the same skill.

The first priority in making this item is the ascended backpack (wich isn’t all that expensive, all things considered). Maydrey II is bonus. Basically it turns a completley useless item into loot. It usually gives 3-5 items per bag pretty nice.

For instance, often gives light armor = silk, who doesnt like silk these days. I can give loads of scraps of sorts, some of wich give high value mats (like linen, whool etc). It can give Vision crystal!!! I got 2 lesser vision crystal so far, wich is huge, considering it cost 20 skill point, and lots of refined t7 mats. (bloodstone etc). It quite often gives a rare. That is, if you expect rares to drop you will be dissapointed. If you just do it daily and are open for surprises, it will surprise you. Like with a Pepper material wich is 33 silver.

Mawdrey II is good, but if you expect to much, well then it wont be good. But considering since the time i had it and now, i think a lot of money i put in it, broke even + lesser vision crystal was really nice for making ascended armor. It’s also good, that my bloodstone dust doesnt oversupply this way. I like it.

There’s only two ways to get this content MinerBob. Log in while it lasted for each seperated two week content patch, or buy it in gemstore. There is no ‘all in one’ package at the moment offering this + the game. So yes you will have to pay those gems (or farm them ingame, aprox 220g i think).

So no you don’t have this content already, unless you logged on during that time. You can see it in your hero panel. You either select living story OR personal story (living story gives purple markers. It’s the ‘Story Journal’ star like icon. You should have personal story in there, and normally nothing like ‘living story seaon two’. If that’s the case, you should buy the package.

In wvw perma retaliation guards are overpowered against profesisons like engineer. Any buff, even small one, would devastate this already ovepowered state of guardians over engies.

I can live with that, if mastery ‘progression’, is affected by everything that currently rewards bonus exp. Aka you have total of 35% experience bonus at the moment? That means you are farming your mastery 35% faster (mobs only). They will not only take away experience after level 80, they will take the passive bonus system away (wich some people like to work on, and is a progression on it’s own).

What I want is a integration of old and new. Shouldn’t be that hard, I gave enough examples of how to do that.

And you think that people will find they have a feeling they progress if they farm a hylek language? don’t think so. Lore geeks (fans that go very deeply in lore, not just global story telling) are also few. Yet Anet focusses this patch on them (wich btw i’m happy for them – and you, i know you like Lore Vayne – come). But why does it have to be You or me story? So many solution to combine both.

Ok lets put it to numbers. I’m a number geek (i’m good at math and remembering numbers, hence probably why this is important to me in first place).

if i farm a plant i get 1340 experience. Wich is about 0,5% of a level part, but can add quite fast if you have 10 plants around you.

If i kill a mob in level 80 area with full exploration bonus i get 800+1400 experience. If i use food and oil = that’s even more. Say 2500 experience. 1% of a level bar just by one mob.

Silverwaistes events? Do 13 of them and you get full level. GARANTEED. keyword. Hence what i like about it. Sure skill point ‘may be worthless ’ (they aren’t, you can upgrade items, make skil point requiring weapons, make legendary etc), but i like the fact that i know this goes up so much.

5 Wvw keeps? Full level up. Same for 10 tower or 20 supply camps. Garanteed. Keyword again. I have 18 million Karma now. I like it. Nobody can see it, so nothing to brag with it, and that’s how i like it. When it yesterday went from 17,99m to 18m I liked it. I’m sure you all don’t care about it, and that’s fine, but it’s different for me. Wxp, experience and karma used to be neverending quests, to fullfill and keep going. Now one gets completely removed into a temporary and finite mastery system wich is just bad.

Or personal story instance after level 80? Sorry will reward you nothing even if it used to go up to 67000 experience!

I made a lot of omnomberry ghosts cause they give 15% exp and not the usual 10%. Why if this update screws it? Sure again I know you guys don’t care. And i can live with that. The solution I propose is best of both worlds. It keeps the permanent skill point reward system intact, but also promotes mastery system. It gives you a fully fledged choice.

A lot of stuff will become useless, and Anet should take note of that:

Experience banner
Outmanned buff
Volunteer ‘this map is empty, I go to next one’ buff
Food
Oils
Achievement experience bonus
Killstreak booster
Experience booster
Guild experience buff
etc.

Static rewards removed:

Completing dungeon (75% level or 182000 experience).
Completing an event
Farming ore, wood, plants
Finding Vista, new area, point of interest, waypoint.
Heart quest completion reward
Map completion reward
Reviving people and npc’s
Building siege and repairing structures (using supply)

This update to come is good for any casuals around. But for people that like to do some permanent personal quest stuff (like me gathering a high amount of skill points, craft weapons with it etc), this update is bad. It’s not the first time, Anet does a ‘casual only’ solution, while there is an easy way to merge casual + veteran solution.

Another reason this worries me so much, is the shards are to much focussed into one thing that already has a lot of other things: mobs. With experience, you have a massive amount of freedom in wich way you want to acquire it. Huge amount of flexibility. That’s what makes gw2 great. If person B likes to farm monsters and explore: he gets his experience mostly from that. IF person A like to farm materials to get experience, he gets it that way. If third person likes to do events, he gets it that way. If person D likes to do dungeons he gets his exerpience that way. If person E likes to do personal story he gets it that way, etc. Now all this options are forced into one option: B: kill monsters.

Removing options is not good. Especially when another (simple) other way to implement the feature, is right around the corner.

By having mastery track (tthat can be activated/disactivated any time), linked to skill points, you keep the flexitility intact and you also keep the current (wich are quite nicely worked out) experience bonus rewards system intact. Why break something that doesn’t need fixing?

Again the first month or two after HoT. I know i will be farming masterieS. But after that? I probably got 500 skill points at least in wvw. And i like it. It doesn’t matter that it doesnt matter for you, for some, especially long playing veterans it’s nice to still see some reward, to content that otherwise may feel empty. And when that time comes when all masteries are max (they will be made around casual play level, so i’m sure I won’t need much time to max them), then any single world activity I do, will give 0 experience/skill point progress forever. Not the way I want it to end up.

Again a level 80 now gets Wxp and Exp. Both, at same time. Two rewards simultaneously, giving it a high ‘reward’ appeal. Update would basically 100% destroy the exp part. They would have to buff Wxp tremendous wich they won’t.

Masteries are finite, and single map limited. Even if they would keep you a month busy to get them maxed (wich they won’t!), you cannot get anything anymore once the masteries for that area are full.

This is worst for silverwaistes and Especially wvw. Capture two keeps in a row? Sorry your ‘omg i progress half a level’ feeling is gone. Yes at first their may (or may not be) a mastery in wvw to max, but that will be fast complete, and from then on, everything in wvw, will feel more empty then ever. Not good. But it’s same in pve.

I’ve been worried since they said they would change it, i was even thinking about writing down about it, but now it’s confirmed by the news section: Doing every day stuff that rewards experience, will no longer reward experience.

Farm a Ore node? Some wood? Plant? It won’t give a thing anymore in future. Capture a keep/tower in wvw without being able to kill somethign (stand in circle)? Your 28000/56000 experience just got completely removed by Anet with nothing replacing it.

Event reward after level 80? Sorry, you no longer get 18000 experience per event in Orr/Silverwaistes. Found a point of interest? no more experience. Complete a map? Scrap that 25000 experience!!!

Doing all of this to RNG Based loot (drops from mobs, shards) is a complete mistake. This garanteed part of progression past level 80, gave a sense of garanteed loot. Yes skill points could feel useless after a while, but not for everyone. When I killed a Doe that is yellow and I know people didnt kill for a while, it gives me joy to get 500+1200 experience from it.

Also one of the reasons i farm quite a lot of achievement points is for the experience bonus. It felt as a progression to speed up later progression, and being quite worth it. Now the 28% experience bonus i accumulated is completely useless, unless i’m not level 80.

Overall, everything will now feel like personal story: mobs barely give loot, have more rng then ever (shards = rng now too), and things that used to give garanteed skill point progression are taken away.

This is a step back from ‘do what you want, where you want, and always be at least a bit rewarded for it’. Mark my words, people will feel faster bored then they do now. People might not realize it, but killing mob after mob, that even when it doesn’t yield loot, even doesn’t give experience wich it used to? Bad.

Second problem: hiding skill points behind RNG. Rng no matter how well intended, can screw things over. Experience, Karma and small coins gains from events used to be a steady, always 100% certain, income. You knew if you take the sentry you get some karma, wxp etc. It’s garanteed, even if it’s relatively small. And if you keep doing event you will get skill point. That gave a feeling of safety. Now some people will get 50 spirit shards a day (Zerg farming guilds, but only the lucky people with good rng in that guild). Other people will get almost no skill points. For something as crucial as skill points this should not be the case. It also doesn’t make sense. Every time you kill something, you practise ‘combat’. That yields experience cause your character gets smarter. Making now one mob give you experience (and progress), and a lot of others, not give you experience, and mixing this into a random mix, is not good.

Solution: Make a Skill point Mastery track. This track can be activated anywhere, and will never be complete. Instead this track will copy the old experience system after level 80, and reward Spirit shards, when a Tier is complete and reset. If you want to farm masteries like the hylek language masteries, then you choose that, and (temporary) won’t get skill points from doing stuff. But in wvw, you used to get craploads of skill points just by playing ppt. Some people like to roam, get sentries, defend etc. These people will get a massively huge/big nerf to skill point continuum. The new meta: farm enemy zerg a lot, or you won’t get Spirit shards. Roam? Blah you don’t get them.

Please overhaul it, so that spirit shards and old Exp system can ‘coindide together’. I don’t want Diablo, or free to play (but pay to win) mmorpg playstyle where everything is RNG related, making the game feel chore and grind after a while.

When i’m in wvw, and i get a level up, it makes me happy, cause i got something usefull (even though a bit to much of it), that I can always use later (siege) etc.

Like why should I do event at all? I often did them just to grab the experience. Now that will be gone, same with mobs. The game will feel empty, and purely loot based wich is NOT good. Old exp system was perfect, don’t fix what ain’t broke. merge both system so they live happy together please, thanks.

I know some will say ‘you really care that much about experience’? You may not but i do. Even in gw1 i had way to much skill points, but those 641 skill points on my ritualist feel like an achievement, and i could always buy stuff with it (buff stones). Same in guild wars 2. Now the urge, need, or feel of reward to do events is gone. And so it will hasten boredom, will hasten quitting game. The experience system was good, in that while repetive, always garanteed you get something (meaningfull, if you think about superior siege, and all the pve skill point applicaitons) usefull. That garanteed loot/progression is gone now, wich is not good.

Doesn’t matter even with all the updates, more modern graphics etc, it’s still way to cartoonish (or indi-ish) for me to like it. So my statement remains, just you nitpicking on what i meant with it.

For the confused Europeans among here: It’s 2 AM for most of EU (+1 gmt) give or take an hour depending on timezone.

I love jumping puzzles, they are unique to guild wars 2, give a bigger sense of exploration secret stuff then anything, and most of time yield amazing views around your character. I used to totally incredible suck at jumping puzzles. Mad kings Clocktower ‘must have this achievement but totally suck at this’-time fixed that for me Now i’m actually very good at them, and enjoy them even more.

Sorry op you didn’t like them, but if Anet listens to you, and remove them, they removal an integral part of gw2, that a lot of player like (or grow to like). Don’t like them, don’t do them. You are not forced to do them. If you want purely achievement, there are plenty mesmers selling a portal upstairs (or ask a friendly guildie of yours if he can help you with it).

Baldrick.8967:

I get that some people enjoy them, but there are quite enough Super Mario clones around already, play those to your hearts content if you like jumping.

No thanks. Mario is an indie game, wich i don’t like. Often a lot of other ‘puzzle’ games are more focussed on ‘finding the right path’ then the actually jumping part of it. And jump only focussed games like mario, tend to be indie games.

Gw2 has a unique combination of beautiful character, beautifull grahpics, in wich you can take place in jumping puzzles if you like to, to have a whole new level of entertainment , for those who like it. You can completely look anywhere around you, even during a jump, tell me a mario game that’s like that. Even skyrim exploration (wich is great), has nothing that compares to the best jumping puzzles of guild wars 2 (like the one in Mount Maelstrom, the one you take via the portals).

Gw2 has managed a very good balance of exploration, challenge, fun, sense of accomplishment, group activities (jp’s are often done to help one another, wich is great thing to do together). Almost no game compares to it. Removing the feature just because a few people like you don’t like them (and aren’t even forced to do them mostly to begin with), is wrong.

I would expect 27-30gb from Gw2 and 40g in future when more expansion have been loaded into the game.

I worry a little bit about it, since pre-purchase (headstart including) collector’s edition was only 1-2 per shop in belgium (and only in one shop called Gamemania). Needless to say i was to late. I had to order via UK to get mine.

I wanna be certain that I get the best version, no matter how limited it is Moment they announced heart of thorns i went to shop to put my name on the list (even though they have no real product yet). I hope that list won’t be removed

mercury ranique.2170:

Pre-order is available only at third party vendors, using a placeholder price. The pre-order directly at Arenanet is no available at this moment and is likely a better offer. GW2 pre-order came with access to beta weekend events, 3 day headstart (thirdparty preorders had no beta weekend events and only a 1 day headstart) and the Arenanet preorder had some extra goodies. So my advice… Patience my friend…Patience..

Some physical copies gave 3 day headstart like mine. They were called ‘pre-purchase version’. As long as it has that name, you (even if it’s physical) you got your 3-day headstart.

For every single daily, there is a reward straight attached to them, that you get apon completion. If you complete any combination of 3, you will also get the 10 achievement points for that day (Daily completionist). There is no extra reward for doing them all (on top of the singular rewards).

It used to be different, as in, that you got a laurel for doing 10 (and later 5) of the 10 achievements. In the past you didnt get rewards (other then 1 achievement point) for doing singular tasks, so the current system is more dynamic (you do what you want/ are interested in).

Laurel, mystical coins and black lion chest item (random wich it is, like merchant express), are transferred to login rewards (used to be in the daily completionist reward, now it’s only the achievements.)

I (and another person asking me if i had that bug too, since he was my ‘The Dreamer’) have this bug too. Quite annoying. Second time they bug sound for The Dreamer. Hope they fix it again.

Update: sometimes this animation still works like old. The skill now has different animations (sound). Normal arrow is worst iteration, then a halfbaked unicorn shout (like old one, but broken in the middle of it’s cheer), then a very vague to fast shot that only has the pre unicorn shot sound (the divine arrow sound for lack of better term). Worst is the normal arrow sound like longbow.

They all 4 happens randomly. I’m not sure, but lag (amount of people near you) seem to impact the grade of the animation, though sometimes it’s also opposite (zerging gives you better animations) but overall hard to say how the bug happens.

Zhonnika if possible try to get an impression of EU also. I’ve been on NA, and it has a different spirit somehow. More balanced, and slightly more organized imo (could have changed ofc over the year). This was SoR (when at their best)and FA. However EU doesnt compare, especially with the downfall of t1 competition (Vizunah square downfall etc). It is my feeling Anet knows to few about EU state of matchups/server populations/differences), and I hope you guys can change that. It would satisfy me a lot if even thoug limited to NA only Forum specialists, that some insights of EU state of gameplay (mostly matchups and balance ofc) could be written to them.

NA seems to like ppt a bit more then EU also. PPT battles where very hot (and still seem so with the continuous pretty close BG/TC/JQ matchups), and exciting back then. EU seems more fight focussed. Often, people don’t care about loosing stuff (even waypointed keeps), because Gvg or big random open field fights interests them a little more. This give another dimension to matchups, and in a lesser way balance. Since 90% (just a guess) of Anet plays NA servers, and forum specialist is also NA, this is my biggest concern (that EU playstyle/balance/matchups will get almost no attention and won’t be used as feedback for future changes).

I love it, the way it is. Some small tweaks are welcome, but some of the huge overhauls some people request here, would again make Conquest for me boring (while it may for those people posting make it fun).

I love stronghold. A lot more player builds work, where they would be total ineffective in Conquest. Conquest is build discriminating (be tanky, but optimal damage or bye bye, mostly with a few exceptions, and be superior teamsupport, or useless, if you heals are self only and not aoe, no thanks in conquest.) Stronghold? Almost anything can work. That’s the beauty of it. And that alone (much more build variety in pvp) is what makes stronghold less boring then Conquest for me.

Ehecatl.9172:

I disagree with you.

This.

It is a reselling attempt. It happened on at least 9 other items in the 200-300g range.

Gaile, if you are in Belgium come visit me But probably to late. Enjoy the stay in EU.

Still play with sound on, would be boring without for me.

Agree, CE would be best imo, cause that would make it accessable for EU people (the site of Soule isn’t friendly for EU people, especially shipping costs). I’d buy it in a heartbeat (especially if every single song from Diemer is also on it).

Even though copyright stuff tends to be very sticky, Fear not This night is a way to good song, to just be in trimmed down version on Grove vista’s (no voice, climax part taken out), or just at end credits (wich you wouldnt access all that often). It should instead be in more parts of the game, and sold as a soundtrack.

That option is here: Rune of traveller. Since everyone hear clearly doenst wanna give up runes or utility slow, well, you simply are asking to much. Judge intervention + monks focus + perma 25% swiftness, + easy permanent retaliation + lots of control effects (ring of waring, line of warding etc), sorry to much, as much as i’d want my guardian to feel less clunky, it would be op. In fact i think warrior swiftness/25% effects need to be looked at and toned down. Also Revanent won’t have easy permanent buff as far as i’ve seen (sure they got spammable lightning field + blast finisher, but in the beta, in wich i tested it, this combo is hard to pull off on the move as the air field is very slow moving forward in it’s creation, meaning if you don’t stand still to get the swiftness, you will fail it, wich removes the reason to get swiftness. So heavy classes should be punished, period. Perhaps not a crazy lot, but rune of pack + the swiftness shout (retreat) = great way. Same for rune of traveller, but you all don’t wanna give up anything. Do you think I feel good with my ranger running signet? No i don’t. I sacrafice a viable utility slot (like with traps etc). But the Runes give virtual 400 power boost, so taking traveller is not option.

Basically guardian got almost everything (and some things ranger don’t) except for 25% movement speed. Also, swiftness is better then 25% boost, especially in combat and with leap skills you see this. With leap of faith spaming (+ cooldown trait on gs), that swiftness (over speed signet) also is a nice advantage.

It is what it is. Ranger, even engineer sacrafice also 20 trait points just for this, ranger a full rune slot of utility slot (wich for ranger imo is bigger sacrafice then guardian). Or Necromancer. Taking 3 wells is nice, sometimes almost necessary for fluid build. They got swiftness skill and signet, but it eats up valuable space (more so then guardian imo).

One complete round of Silverwaiste events (mainly, the breach – 5 underground bosses) then vinewrath (3 end bosses), gives about 200 crests. That’s only 4 runs. Honestly not that hard. Just look in ‘LFG’ for ‘50% SW’ (means you skip the first and slower part of it).

Ps If you sometimes pvp (can even be hotjoin) and especially if you the daily pvp’s every day, then you can get pretty fast up in the reward tracks, in wich there is one for Caudecus manner. Ultimate reward is armor part, wich in return can be (use Black lion salvage kit) salvaged to get the Rune for sure.

If enemy must trigger the trap, it’s way to easy for enemies to work around it, denying you the cleanse you need. If i’m immobalized now, healing spring is almost an instant cleanse (unless i got other condies also, but still). Making it a trap makes it massively to easy for enemy to predict. Only way to make Healing spring viable then is to increase the base healing (5k is nothing, almost all meta heals do 6-9k, or do 5k but in 12-15 seconds cooldown). Healing spring falls short in this because the waterfield/cleanse. But because it’s fast, one leap/blast is enough to make it up with the best heals there are. Remove this part, or make the enemy able to ‘outsmart it’, and it’s a big nerf, wich is cannot agree onto. Also remember it’s one of our few reliable condition removal skills outside of traits. It gives diversity. Nerfing it, will nerf that diversity.

Chokolata.1870:

Barrage should just do more damage, WAY more damage.

It used to do more damage. To be exact: 100% more damage then now (the ‘old’ damage was nerfed 50% resulting in todays existing Barrage damagE. While the old (with super damage almost 3000 per hit in extreme situations) was a bit op, current version is to weak. a 10-20% boost is deserved, as we don’t have static field, line of warding, ring of warding, lava font, Wells, etc.

Agree old animations was good, new one looks bad. Dps’s nerf on an already bad dps weapon, is shamefull. You don’t nerf something, that is underpowered, period, not even for bandaid. You take more time to fix it, and voila. Hopefully Anet revert this mistakes (but ofc with still a exploit fix).

While I approve part of the ‘automatic upgrades’, I hate the passive part this brings, boost to nightcapping (and thus bandwagon servers, as if it isnt bad enough). It also brings dolyak killing a huge strike. Sometimes i’m all alone on map. So what to do then? I roam and kill all dolyak, even if i die from gankers, killing dolly with my last down strike. Now however? useless imo. The biggest risk is stonemist castle. If you siege is up like a madman (Vizunah square and others had a good go in this) it’s hard to take. Especially if both enemies also fight each other while in sm (making it easier to defend with AC’s.) What will happen now? SFR (and the lead server fighting Blacktide in bottom bracket), will cap SM the last time before one side goes to bed and the cappings stop. Upgrades will automaticly commence. Right now, getting supply in SM is hard, paying those 10g on upgrade is also hard, preventing a cap in wooden state is also very hard. Result? Stonemist remains a very open target for all servers, wich weaknesses. But in future not attending stonemist for an hour might give the server a lot of problems. Failing to nightcap it will result in fully sieged, waypointed, fortified stonemist. and this will repeat every day. This will make EB very stale against servers like SFR, it will prevent the cappings of close towers like Wildcreek, Anza, Durios, Quentin etc, because SM can be ‘treb sieged’ up to the sky so to speak, to attack/defend these structures. This means offence, against anything that server owns is quite hard. Then let alone the waypoint they can use to use way more offence to get your stuff. I hope when this escalates, because of this ‘at the moment’ oversight of Arenanet, that they suddenly will have to make solutions to imbalance, even though it clearly seems they don’t want to do that atm. It’s like breaking the meta in pvp, they can’t sit back and do nothing, they have to fix it. Hopefully in wvw this has similar effect. Cause right now, even on T1 EU if you kick about 30 more commander (veterans) into boredom/stagnations/break etc the snowball effect will be uncounterable, and wvw wil have very hard time to recover. This is not doomstalk, I want wvw to succeed. I hope it. I wish it. But playing there, day in, day out, (wich Anet doesn’t do almost at all in EU t1), gives a broad perception of what is going on, how much activity is there still in the gamemode etc. Since HoT is at least 5 months out (we can’t pre-order yet, we all know we would be able to if the launch was close), the Wvw update maps (and specializations meta overhaul) will take huge time to set, and by then players will be used to ‘not playing gw2, their expectations will be higher then ever for HoT to succeed. (simple way it is), if HoT is not ’super good’ (I repeat their expectations went up by not playing the game, it’s weird but this is the psychology of gaming world) they will not come back, leaving wvw in a problematic place.

Also before Anet starts to think (maybe they already do), enough new casuals come, we have no fear: Some people are not made to command. While I tried sometimes, and didn’t fail epicly, I miss the skills of a super leader to really bring the best out of a Raid. Other people have this trait however. You cannot replace that trait, it’s either something you have or not. I have tons of experience, am a very good scout, but even then, this is sometimes not perfect for commanding. I also play the medium armor profession a lot lately, wich are a problem to command with for Zerg vs zerg. This problem is big also for casuals. They are behind in experience in wvw, when to defend/offend, when to go ‘balls deep’, or when to retreat in fights etc. This will not just suddenly come out, and even less so if wvw gets more stagnant. So this is a crucial part of wvw: keep the veterans in. In pve/pvp this is not so much a necessity, but because of the crucial role of commanding, and the unique traits required to become a ‘teamspeak’ commander, this is a problem for wvw. Time to start brainstorming Anet. I know HoT is your priority, and looking at what you posted two days ago (changes to wvw blog), this were some quick decisions made. It’s time to sit together for weeks coming up with solutions to the posted problems. Yes sorry you lost that time to HoT, but wvw needs it. I play PvX btw, so i’m not biased when I say wvw needs most attention. This is a veteran knowing it has to be done (9000 hours playtime) unlike the Anet staff. (sorry but playtime is important when it comes to feeling the community as a whole and what is important for community and what is not. Metrics, nor short playtime can immitate that).

While I approve part of the ‘automatic upgrades’, I hate the passive part this brings, boost to nightcapping (and thus bandwagon servers, as if it isnt bad enough). It also brings dolyak killing a huge strike. Sometimes i’m all alone on map. So what to do then? I roam and kill all dolyak, even if i die from gankers, killing dolly with my last down strike. Now however? useless imo. The biggest risk is stonemist castle. If you siege is up like a madman (Vizunah square and others had a good go in this) it’s hard to take. Especially if both enemies also fight each other while in sm (making it easier to defend with AC’s.) What will happen now? SFR (and the lead server fighting Blacktide in bottom bracket), will cap SM the last time before one side goes to bed and the cappings stop. Upgrades will automaticly commence. Right now, getting supply in SM is hard, paying those 10g on upgrade is also hard, preventing a cap in wooden state is also very hard. Result? Stonemist remains a very open target for all servers, wich weaknesses. But in future not attending stonemist for an hour might give the server a lot of problems. Failing to nightcap it will result in fully sieged, waypointed, fortified stonemist. and this will repeat every day. This will make EB very stale against servers like SFR, it will prevent the cappings of close towers like Wildcreek, Anza, Durios, Quentin etc, because SM can be ‘treb sieged’ up to the sky so to speak, to attack/defend these structures. This means offence, against anything that server owns is quite hard. Then let alone the waypoint they can use to use way more offence to get your stuff. I hope when this escalates, because of this ‘at the moment’ oversight of Arenanet, that they suddenly will have to make solutions to imbalance, even though it clearly seems they don’t want to do that atm. It’s like breaking the meta in pvp, they can’t sit back and do nothing, they have to fix it. Hopefully in wvw this has similar effect. Cause right now, even on T1 EU if you kick about 30 more commander (veterans) into boredom/stagnations/break etc the snowball effect will be uncounterable, and wvw wil have very hard time to recover. This is not doomstalk, I want wvw to succeed. I hope it. I wish it. But playing there, day in, day out, (wich Anet doesn’t do almost at all in EU t1), gives a broad perception of what is going on, how much activity is there still in the gamemode etc. Since HoT is at least 5 months out (we can’t pre-order yet, we all know we would be able to if the launch was close), the Wvw update maps (and specializations meta overhaul) will take huge time to set, and by then players will be used to ‘not playing gw2, their expectations will be higher then ever for HoT to succeed. (simple way it is), if HoT is not ’super good’ (I repeat their expectations went up by not playing the game, it’s weird but this is the psychology of gaming world) they will not come back, leaving wvw in a problematic place.

Also before Anet starts to think (maybe they already do), enough new casuals come, we have no fear: Some people are not made to command. While I tried sometimes, and didn’t fail epicly, I miss the skills of a super leader to really bring the best out of a Raid. Other people have this trait however. You cannot replace that trait, it’s either something you have or not. I have tons of experience, am a very good scout, but even then, this is sometimes not perfect for commanding. This problem is big also for casuals. They are behind in experience in wvw, when to defend/offend, when to go ‘balls deep’, or when to retreat in fights etc. This will not just suddenly come out, and even less so if wvw gets more stagnant. So this is a crucial part of wvw: keep the veterans in. In pve/pvp this is not so much a necessity, but because of the crucial role of commanding, and the unique traits required to become a ‘teamspeak’ commander, this is a problem for wvw. Time to start brainstorming Anet. I know HoT is your priority, and looking at what you posted two days ago (changes to wvw blog), this were some quick decisions made. It’s time to sit together for weeks coming up with solutions to the posted problems. Yes sorry you lost that time to HoT, but wvw needs it. I play PvX btw, so i’m not biased when I say wvw needs most attention. This is a veteran knowing it has to be done (9000 hours playtime) unlike the Anet staff. (sorry but playtime is important when it comes to feeling the community as a whole and what is important for community and what is not. Metrics, nor short playtime can immitate that).

Wall of text, but who knows, maybe Anet finally reads it Ignore if you are short on time: TL:DR agree with op.

I agree OP. ATM being t2-4 server, we keep losing and losing people. Some to boredom, some to cute new releases (Hello Witcher 3 and Final fantasy 15 expansion), but mostly the stagnation gets people away. And people taking a break (especially commanders), make a snowball effect. Eotm is good example. Commanding as red is a challenge these days. Green is super rampaging, and if you get killed by them to often, demoralize will settle in to fast. So you gotta avoid them. On top of that, you gotta cap fast enough or people won’t be satisfied. Every time someone commands, and tags down, it incredible often happens, nobody tags up and everyone sits at spawn 1-5 min and then just leaves, leaving a completely deserted map.

Wvw has this also but in lesser sense due to the ‘duty’-feel it has to fight for your world. But lately stagnation, bandwagons growing stronger, with fewer opposition then ever, no new content at all, not even wvw tournement, no wvw trait etc, makes people bored. Even the revision of basic profession traits, wich is announced to go live before HoT could be enough ‘content’ (not really, but hey it’s something tangible) could make people excited enough to try other builds.

I remember being wxp rank 100 on two chars (i like char hopping). Anet said, no WXP REMAINS SOULBOUND. right, so i farmed my kitten off to get ranger and necro 150+. Me happy that i did it, but also dissapointed that I didnt have like some others both buffs on one char. Then they said ‘we gonna merge it anyway’ me woooot! I played wvw and had fun, wxp was a nice progression but not my focus then so much. I became a bit bored. I sometimes came in wvw, then realized how nice it would be to have all wxp maxed and have all those abilities. Seeing all those early ‘cow damages supplies’-traited people i was like, I can’t stay behind now Can I? New goal emerged: farm wxp. The last 150 points were less exciting (mortar and Canon) but still, It was something that kept me in the game then. In the hope for new traits, and just to get decent titles (Gold, platinum) I started resuming the Wxp goal a bit (secondary ofc to having fun in wvw). Now i hear this, i will have even more left over trait points, ouch. Nothing against casuals, but this is again a ‘while you have kept the game very close, and are the most loyal to us, technically you earn us to few money, we need more players, and at this point, only casual players are a broad enoug public to get the sale going good enough’. Same with NPE. Have not leveled a single char the normal way ever since that update, haven’t even done story mode, because of how it works now.

Not paying for upgrades is lovely, I often would love to upgrade keep, but ouch 50-200 silver. I sometimes did it, but sometimes said, ‘no way, enemy who is stronger then us take it next hour probably, why spend this’? At camps it was a lesser problem (5 silver is truly nothing), but still, good it’s removed there also.

Anzalia (tower, red side of map, just north of Stonemist castle) was owned by desolation (me) but Enemy npc’s spawned still (this happened right after a contest, about 2 min timer left).

You can add Briar Far shiverpeeks borderland to the list (npc fighting each other).

I doubt it’s gonna cost 20, especiall on initial release. As you see some ppl are willing to pay more, and Anet is barely getting money in from the normal game anymore (10 euro per account on discount days). Also I think you may see 1,5-2 full year with the full team (no living story proves that imo) work on this campaign. It’s more likely 30 or 40 (but then with a quick discount later on). 50 is indeed high almost as much as normal campaign so quite expensive.

Also remember some shops sell heavely under MSRP. I remember gw2 being 60$ but you could get it kitten in certain online shops.

Anet is both scared and undermanned.

With balancing that gives following: If they boost something, it might become right what they don’t want: overpowered, to then nerf again would lower their credibility (weither righteous, or not so).

Secondly look at how they already are ‘to undermanned’ (to keep it friendly) to commit to wvw/pvp/pve split to balancing skills approach. So they only nerf pvp related stuff. Conclusion? Pve builds suffer quite often because of it.

I asked this question many times and 8 months after release, (if i remember correct) Jonathan sharp gave an answer like this: “We definitely do not want to blindly nerf everything, but we must be carefull when approaching with buffs. Buffs might give a domino effect the once you buff on thing, all other things come underpowered and also want a buff till there’s no end. That’s not what we want. Lowering the strongest skillsets is the easiest and most efficient way to follow the path of balance.”

A bit dissapointing to me, but what can you do against it?

The later the better (means they have more time to improve the wow factor of staff, like what DH bow is now (wich is wow on first sight).

Hahahah those pictures, epic.

Smirgel.9460:

Should be changed to: “restore 10 endurance and gain 1s vigor on successful evade.” So best of both versions: more skillful and potentially just as powerful as before.

+1

In wvw dragonhunter is op hands down. Not a question about it. Once DH is released, you will see almost no rangers anymore in wvw.

I made a long post here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dragonhunter-revealed-meh/page/8#post5047794 about why DH is op.

Even if they nerf all the shown skills damage by 50% i’d still think it’s op for wvw zerg warfare wich should say something about how op it currently is.

To bad GWEN will be fortified in wvw and not thorn apart.

Magic find is not worth paying for, especially if you are above 120MF. Do I feel the effect? yes. Is it worth paying 15g (about the loss of salvaging an ecto stack and reselling) per 25000 luck (averaging my results), No. Just no. Salvaging all drops you have and then using the luck from that is cheaper, and is more intuitive. Though I recommend not salvaging leather armor (you get like 3-7x price from npc’s the armor rather then salvage Tick Leather section).

MF improvements are subtle, and require a good amount of playtime imo to feel. If you play 1 hour a day, forget it imo, not worth it for sure then. 3 hours a day, then yes. USe events to increase MF. Wintersday, halloween, dragon china new year event, all had option to farm ‘free luck’ (and battle of LA also). Join that when it occurs again.

For instance farming silverwaistses gives a lot of loot bags that in return give many blues. While blues arent the best source for luck it’ sstill there. A day of SW bags/champ bags salvaging blue + green light armor (silk is valuable to salvaging those as greens is absolutely no prob and even yields some money most of time) = quite a bit if luck. Just use that for free magic find.

Only way to create free luck atm (althoug even this has a slight loss, but really small) = if you need t6 dust by any chance, don’t have them already, and buy ecto (or have ecto that you don’t need), salvage ecto (with master/mystic salvage kit), then use the salvaged t6 dust. Because you don’t resell here (you need the dust after all), the 15% trade post fee is no longer there, wich is in effect about the loss you have on ecto salvaging + reselling. For instance for Bifrost this is good. Needs 750 t6 dust. Just salvage ecto to get them.