Guild Wars 2

A clear difference of opinion here, obviously, it just seems, to me, that bundling all of the dodge related stuff in to a single build defining trait line with supporting utilities and weapon seems much better in terms of the longevity of balance.

Either way you slice it, if acro was re-buffed and DD has its endurance stuff nerfed, the capstone ability of DD is the dodges and larger END bar, meaning if you’re making an evasion focused sustain build, you end up without the option of picking one or the other line. You have to take both.

That’s a critical flaw in the system, as you end up with either DD or acro being sub-par lines. DD would simply be bad without the END stuff, and acro is bad without the level of END that DD adds to it. No matter where you shift that focus the fact reamins that, if you’re doing a dodge-as-sustain build you’re forced to take both or you’re shooting youself in the foot.

DD isn’t going to change at a focal level, nor should it. The major draw for DD is the dodge replacements, and those dodge replacements can’t be utilized properly without additional sources of END. Trickery has a little vigor, but in the end trickery works like the base mechanic line from every other class. It primarily buffs the core mechanic of the class, by adding stuff that is all-around useful to any given build on top of it.

Acro is in the position it’s in specifically because of DD, and DD is in the position it’s in specifically because of acro. It’s just a bad design to have those two lines so closely associated. At best, one is simply an upgrade to the other. At worst they’re required picks together, leaving the thief with only one line to use to define the rest of their build.

Either way you slice it, I feel that situation is bad for build diversity, and bad for the thief as a class.

alchemyst.2165:

Not really a fan of the GM’s but I love this.

Any suggestions for different style GMs?

I was going for sort of really high concept craziness since shadowstep is a mechanic thieves CAN use often, but generally don’t HAVE to, the idea was adding big effects to shadowstep, since unlike dodge or stealth the thief has a lot more control of shadowstep as an optional mechanic.

Like, it’s difficult to “hold off” on a dodge, and for any sneak attack style build it’s similarly difficult to “hold off” on a stealth since you often need to for damage.

However, you can always “hold off” of a shadowstep without getting murdered for it in most cases (unless you’re SB5 disengaging, in which case you don’t care what your traits do anyway)

The other thing I did was with path of least resistance, specifically an option for ranged builds. The idea is that it’s often better when using it to use steal as a ranged mobility tool, as you don’t get the stlen item, but you seriously reduce steal’s cooldown. I don’t want to go in to exact numbers just yet, but aline it should result in a similar cooldown as taking trickery, and it should stack with trickery to lower the CD even further, so if you were going for something like a non-stealth P/P build, or a shortbow DPS build with the new shortbow trait in the line, you’d have a solid combat mobility tool in stead of being stuck with a melee range shadowstep.

The thing is, DD ate acro’s cake.

having a main line that does exactly the same thing, only worse, is just as stupid as making an elite spec that adds a bunch of features to stealth.

It’s redundant.

If you want to play full on dodge monkey, they’ve decided that that stuff is now in DD. no other elite spec has that kind of overlap. They’re not enhancements to existing lines. They’re new lines.

DD is, currently, an enhancement to acro. Acro is useless without it. If Acro was reverted back to its olf power… DD would be overpowered WITH it.

Again, this is the entire reason they nerfed acro, and made the elite spec “Acro, but better because you can’t combine it with other elite specs now.”

Base thief needs a line that doesn’t suck. By way of DD existing that line can’t be acro. If it is, it’s going to continue to suck because of its potential combination with DD. They’re far less likely to redesign DD than they are acro at this point because DD has a clear identity as well as a lot of unique art assets, while acro has no unique art assets. It’s much easier to replace acro than DD, and those considerations are actually important real life things when you’re sitting down and altering a live MMO with budget constraints.

We were told that taking an elite spec should be a sidegrade, not an upgrade.

Leaving acro as a “dodge line” makes DD a straight upgrade no matter how you slice it. If they were going to buff acro, it would come with a nerf to DD. If Acro is replaced with something that’s competitive with SA, on the base thief, without being just a worse version of an elite spec, then taking the elite becomes an actual option.

I think it can be totally shadowstep based. Thieves actually have more access to shadowstep than they have access to stealth! Realizing that was what gave me the idea for the line in the first place. Basically, in stead of just rehashing acro, what if you didn’t actually need the endurance stuff in acro and could still be viable without SA? At that point your could combine it with DD or SA for much better overall sustain, or just run it with two non-sustain lines and have a good build.

As for nerfs/reworks, a lot of these traits would need ICDs, obviously, but the intent was that they could be largely extremely short ICD traits to allow builds like P/D and D/P access to a stealthless playstyle if they picked it up, as they have the ability to spam shadowsteps pretty efficiently. Again, I purposely didn’t list the ICDs as the initial concept here was much more about flavor and utility.

Now, on to your traits!

Init on shadowstep – I considered a similar baseline but quickly came to the conclusion that ICD traits with minimal effects just don’t feel all that impactful or fun. I moved the init to a GM choice so you still have this option, but added the missing HP mechanic. The general idea here is that you see the same basic init gain as you would with an ICD minor, but on top of that you have this great ability to load up on init as your HP drops, which is noticable, fight altering, and IMO a lot more fun.

SB trait This I like. I like it way better than my confuse trait. I like it so much that I’m replacing mine

Shadowstep swap trait The basic idea of a swap mechanic is, IMO, extremely problematic for GW2 combat. It allows a lot of WvW trolling applications and the nature of shadowstepping itself as a potentially instant effect would make it too powerful, as there would be no way to counterplay that swap like you can counter most pulls and launches.

AoE ally Shadowstep This seems too powerful for a master, and is a support trait in a non-support line. I think base thief already has a support build in the form of venomshare, and further support builds should probably be handled like the druid, on an elite spec built around support mechanics. Also, the ability to shadowstep allies is even more problematic than shadowstepping enemies as you could easily use this to troll the crap out of people even in PvE zones.

Assassin’s reward This trait is functionally the same trait as invigorating precision from critical strikes. IMO a better way to handle it would be to merge it in to invigorating precision. Having two traits on two separate lines that do almost the exact same thing isn’t impactful or even particularly fun. I know Assassin’s reward was around first, but a health-on-attack trait really seems more suited to a highly offensive like like CS, and Invigorating precision needs a buff anyway.

Burn after shadowstep This is another case where it just didn’t seem like a gm level choice to have another “aoe on shadowstep” trait, since much of the line is built around adding small effects to shadowstep. Burn would be a good add though, so in stead I think I’m going to attach burn to the Way of Deception clones, as they explode and it’s a bit thematic.

Traps There’s already a traps trait, and generally traits that specifically modify one type of utilities only have one trait specifically related to them. Other modifications to traps would IMO be better handled by changing/adding to deadly trapper.

Shadowstep range increase This doesn’t seem worthy of a trait pick, as it’s highly situational. In cases where you want to use shadowsteps offensively, you’ll barely ever get use out of it. In cases where you want to use it defensively, it’s a bit overpowered. A big point of the spec was increasining sustain to a point a base thief wouldn’t need SA or Acro, and this trait doesn’t meaningfully add sustain.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAV4Yn8MB9OhFmCePB0PhlWCzrM0GiCzlwV4LULAcAWAA-TFyHABCq+zY7PA9BBwgnAQZ6GKS5HAXAgnUCGA4AY+5T+yHM/8zP/8z38zP/8zPfpAgZaE-w

This is my version of the build, same gear I’ve been using in live, but updated for HoT and the recent poison buff. I originally ran it (in the live game, before HoT) and had many of the same issues. Here is my version of the build after playing it for years, having addressed many of the issues you have.

Important differences:

Mad King Runes – These are a must have for any build using Signet of Malice. The bird summons proc SoM, letting you turn any elite in to a solid burst heal. You can activate these on CD if you need to get in to solo fights where Daggerstorm is less good, but they extend the stream of healing you get from DS.

Poison – With the recent buff to potent poison, deadly arts with a blight sigil and dagger training is significant damage, it allows you much better auto damage, the ability to proc weakness while deathblossoming, and in general helps to up your damage output even though the mad king runes don’t support it much. The build originally used a flame sigil to proc aoe heals from signet of malice, but I quickly swapped it to blight when SW came out.

Defenses – This prioritizes endurance differently, losing endurance for more resilience against conditions in the form of proc sigils (which have a high activation rate due to the multi-hit nature of the build) and having steal do double duty as an end source and interrupt. Bandit’s defense is taken for again more defense, as the block/cc nature and low CD makes it a very good “filler” skill.

Intelligent sustain – I never liked using swap sigils as a resource pool, as it removes my option to go ranged to refill HP. In Signet of Malice builds you sometimes find yourself in a position where your burst heal (elite) is down and you need HP. Shortbow is your go-to for this as you can proc heal up while still spreading bleeds by bursting SB2 at range, and the init you gain while doing so given you the emergency option if you can’t keep range after a pit of either GTFO with SB5, dropping Shadow refuge and stealthing out, or dropping shadow refuge and quick spamming dancing dagger through it for the lifesteal combo on top of a bunch of SOM procs for a big burst.

Middle of the Road you’ll notice I only take enough prec to get about a 10% crit. This is because my only real need for crit is a sigil with an 8s ICD. Combined with the high hit volume of the build and lots of testing, I determined that 10% was just the right amount to keep the sigil running just about on colldown. Carrion was selected because the vit that it provides gives me a nice buffer against conditions, and the power it provides makes the overall damage hit a nicer spot, and takes most of the glaring weaknesses (like condition immunities and heavy cleanse) out of the equation. The toughness, again, was done to increase the total EHP without seriously gimping the build. Most of my build decisions were made as a result of playing all the content in the game, and building something that could adapt to whatever situation I threw at it, and tested/tweaked each patch. As a result I lost some of the damage, but gained a lot more sustain and utility than I lost in damage.

Variants The only important variations I ever need to do are swapping bandit’s defense out for caltrops when I don’t need the extra CC (packs of trash places like graveling zergs, etc.) and swapping daggerstorm for BV when I need to fight solo players or bosses (for the heals and because daggerstorm sucks against single targets)

Shifu.4321:

Maybe in a human-centric expac, they could make a cameo. But their time is over (like they said) and the world is no longer just humans. Might as well traverse the eternal alchemy or encounter the animal gods of Norn lore.

Anyway, at the rate of 1 expac every 3 years, and with 4 dragons still unaccounted for, that’s 12 more years of dragonbusting — just enough for GW3 lol.

Well, the release game was the human-centric expansion.

Also, we are not sure if those gods are even still alive.

My thinking is that they decided they were absent to remove plot holes (“why can’t we contact these powerful beings that we’ve always been able to contact pretty easily, and why aren’t they helping?”) but the lore team hasn’t really decided what their fate or continuing place in the story is.

There are no dyable backpacks in GW2. I suppose you can always hope, but if you thought they were dyable in error you might be able to get a refund.

Leveling any class in GW2 is pretty easy, as most of the leveling revolves around story completion and map exploration with a healthy does of public events.

It doesn’t cost anything to change up your spec, and gear is not at all important while leveling as long as it’s near your intended level. You’ll eventually have every skill and spec line unlocked so don’t be afraid of making a “wrong” build decision. Just pick what looks cool, and if you end up not liking it swap it out later for free.

You can get all the gear you’ll really need to level with from the new level up rewards and karma merchants, so just make sure to check the heart merchants as you complete them and look carefully when you have a choice of leveling rewards and you won’t really need to buy gear until you’re 80 and have a good idea of what playstyle you like, and thus what stats to buy/craft.

The only thief-specific reccommendation for leveling is to pack a shortbow. Virtually all thieves alt-swap to shortbow because of the mobility afforded to you by shortbow 5. This has kind of messed with our balancing in PvP, but in general, if you’re leveling, shortbow will get it done faster since it’s the quickest way to get from place to place along side your move signet.

Sagat.3285:

Not sure if it’s enough to create a line around it but good effort not great because you are turning it into steal (bunch of effects same move), some traits could stay don’t completely rework it merge and/or solidify it. Also it’s weird but a wrongly relief that no utilities are attached to Acro anymore.

My thinking was that, since all thieves have Steal at the very least, it would have potential use for all builds, but unlike trickery affect all shadowsteps to make it a line you could actually build around with weapon sets and utilities. I approached the concept by thinking “okay, if i were looking at this as an alternative to SA with two offensive lines” as well as “could this be a compelling alternative for sword builds to DD if it lost swindler’s equilibrium”

I also thought about it in terms of future elite specs. Would this be viable in an elite spec that replaced steal with a non-shadowstep mechanic? I came to the conclusion that since d/p, p/d, sword/X, and shortbow all have weapon shadowsteps, and there are enough core utilities that shadowstep that it was in a pretty good place for the future.

Any suggestions for changes?

Daredevil has thematically usurped acrobatics. Where once acrobatics was the core thief trait line thematically tied to endurance gain and movement speed, Daredevil is now that trait line.

Now, we can all sit around bemoaning the nerfs to acro, complaining that we got a straight upgrade, etc. but I think we can all agree that what daredevil does, it does well, and for reasons likely related to further elite spec balance that power was deemed reserved for an elite spec.

This does however leave the base thief, who is supposed to remain both competitive with elite specced thieves and have interesting options while leveling in a uniquely bad place.

This got me thinking. What mechanics typify the thief, and which of those mechanics would make sense both thematically and mechanically as a replacement defensive trait line.

Thieves are unique for their stealth, initiative, steal skill, and shadowstepping.

Stealth has its own trait line. Initiative is a base system that wouldn’t be appropriate to base a line around. Steal has a trait line in the form of trickery as well as being a base system appropriate for all lines to interact with it, which left me with the only logical option.

Acrobatics, a trait line about dodging, should be replaced with mobility arts, a trait line about shadowstepping.

This leaves the two lines with no high concept overlap, maintains the concept of a defensive trait line with unique mechanics to the class, and gives thieves a competitive and fun option for playing non-elite builds, and a viable specialization option while leveling.

The current thief abilities that utilize the shadowstep mechanic are:

• Infiltrator’s Arrow
• Infiltrator’s Signet
• Infiltrator’s Strike
• Shadow Shot
• Shadow Strike
• Shadow Trap
• Shadowstep
• Steal

(and ink Shot, but underwater balance is a whole other thread)

As you can see, virtually all thieves have at least one, and often two or more shadowsteps on their bar. This makes it prime real estate for a core defensive line.

So, here’s my crack at replacing Acrobatics with a Shadowstep focused trait line. This is high concept, without exact numbers, just to communicate the concept. Some of these would need and ICD, some would not, durations and stack amounts are not listed, again, for the purpose of remaining high concept

The terminaology “before” and “after” refer to the starting and ending location of a shadowstep. So a “before” effect would fire at your original location as you shadowstepped, and an “after” effect would fire once you arrived at your destination.

Minor Adept

• Assassin’s Remedy – Remove a condition when you shadowstep

Major Adepts

• Momentum – Gain superspeed after you shadowstep
• Determination – Gain protection after you shadowstep
• Cold and Clinical – Shortbow attacks have increased damage, increased speed, and have a chance to chill foes.

Minor Master

• Dark Escape – Blind nearby foes before you shadowstep

Major Masters

• Death’s Charge – Gain health after you shadowstep
• Hard to Catch – Same as acro version. Solid trait that is still thematic.
• Shroud of Distress – Gain protection, aegis, and stability when your health drops lower than 30%

Minor Grandmaster

• Way of the Fox – Your base movement speed is increased.

Major Grandmasters

• Path of Least Resistance – Steal Becomes ground targeted, stealing from a random neaby enemy. If nothing is stolen, the cooldown of steal is reduced.

• Path of Deception – Leave a Clone before you shadowstep. The clone detonates after a short delay, dealing damage, burning, and crippling nearby foes.

• Path of Scars – After you shadowstep, gain initiative. Gain additional initiative proportional to the amount of health you are missing.

People who helped with this
Sagat, for the great idea of a shortbow trait and some tweaks

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

A thought occurs to me.

IF: Chronomancers are going to be meta…
THEN: Alacrity needs to affect initiative gain.

I’m not sure if anyone has tested this yet, but it needs to be the case. The optimal PVE group will always contain a chronomancer for quickness and alacrity. For alacrity to be fair, it needs to affect Initiative.

This.

Glad to hear the animations are still rolling along!

Daredevil has an overall much better feel now, and in a bubble I have nothing bad to say about it other than the art we don’t need to give feedback on.

However, moving from a D/D build with acrobatics in live to rolling a fresh daredevil, it was no contest. No other elite spec has such glaring overlaps. Daredevil is a straight upgrade to the acrobatics line so much that I didn’t even have to consider my other two trait lines.

Daredevil does, in a practical sense, everything Acrobatics does with the only exception being a passive stunbreak. It’s a straight upgrade. That’s bad, and that’s not what Elite Specs are supposed to be.

I’m FINE with the mobility and dodging stuff being exclusive to daredevil, but acrobatics needs a clear role or daredevil is simply power creep rather than a valuable choice. Why not build it around passive reflexive effects completely, and have it be the holding pen for pistol and shortbow traits? At that point it would have a clear identity. You get burst sustain from acro through ICD reflexive traits, which are most valuable on ranged builds that generally take fewer total hit.

You haven’t responded to acrobatics concerns yet. Why? They may not be “part of daredevil” but they are concerns directly related to daredevil being added to the game. I’d think as a game designer you would agree that this falls under your domain of concerns when developing the new spec for the expansion.

Jana.6831:

PopeUrban.2578:

Not all knockbacks are launches dude. Launch is a stun. Several mob abilities are simply knockbacks with no CC component.

All knockbacks in game are interrupts, honey. (I hate it when people call me dude, honestly).

Edit: Chain of interrupts = permastun = free kill. If you meant something else then don’t use in game skills which mean something differently than you to describe it.

Call it pushback or make something up that sounds nicer if you like.

The intent was a purely positional effect, not an interrupt. Sorry if the terminology was confusing.

Oh right. Confuse.

I apologize if the terminology was made difficult to understand by the words I chose to use.

SkyShroud.2865:

With the new HOT coming.

Do anyone know the transition process between the current guild upgrades and the new guild system? Do we have to upgrade everything all over again? If so, what will happen to the existing guild banks and the items?

They said on the stream that storage upgrades will stay intact, and banners will remain usable if you build them now.

Guild merits will be useless after HoT, and influence can be turned in to time based NPCs for the new favor, but they also said it is far less efficient to do that than to just stockpile banners.

All other upgrades will be gone, but guilds that have made upgrade progress will be given a special guild hall decoration to commemorate their past achievements, and this will be the only way ever to get that decoration.

Ohoni.6057:

It was quite literally about personal gear progression being meaningful, not a filler for content.

Never confuse PR speak for literal fact. There is always a little massaging in the messaging.

Never confuse subjective interpretation of events for literal fact either.

Astralporing.1957:

PopeUrban.2578:

If I remeber correctly, the fact that shortly after launch that you and all of us had several top tier sets for every conceivable situation was why they added ascended in the first place though, right?

Wrong. They added it, because people were asking for more content, and Anet at that time was unable to deliver. Gear grind (yes, they fully intended going hamster wheel with gear then, which is clear if you look at their posts from that time) was just a cheap substitute for introducing new zones, events, boss fights and dungeons. It was also a kneejerk panic reaction to the content locust leaving the game, that was most likely done without much of a forethought (because at the time they made it game was still fresh, and they didn’t have any meaningful data they could base it on yet).

“We designed the process of getting Legendary gear to be a long term goal, but players were ready to start on that path much sooner than we expected and were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression. Our desire is to create a game that is more inclusive for hardcore and casual players alike, but we don’t want to overlook the basic need for players to feel like they are progressing and growing even after hitting max level. Adding item progression is a delicate process normally undertaken in an expansion, but we feel it’s important to strive to satisfy the basic needs of our players sooner rather than later.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

It was quite literally about personal gear progression being meaningful, not a filler for content.

I like that they went out of their way to model him a loincloth in stead of his fancy panties.

Also, that bongo now actually has an eye patch.

I hope we’re never really headed for any “serious” development of Faren. I mean he’s basically comic relief/deliberate inversion of the damsel in distress trope. I think he’s great in small doses doing exactly that and hope he never changes.

Ashen.2907:

PopeUrban.2578:

I just like that people are touting “equipment elitism” in a game that introduced the top tier of gear ever in its first year of release.

I also like that those same people are mad that “better gear” drops in a raid they think they can’t do… because they don’t care about their gear in the first place?

It isn’t the game’s fault that certain people saw that there was more powerful gear in the game and wen “nah, I don’t need that. Not like it’ll make me better at insert whatever activity you do is by 5%.”

It is literally mind boggling that in a game where virtually all of your stats come from gear, the gear is trivial to obtain given a long enough stretch of time, and the primary content is combat that utilized those stats people saw better armor for years and went “I don’t want that”.

It wasn’t like they locked ascended stuff behind a raid, or dungeon, or even doing anything remotely difficult. They literally give you half the set for logging in at this point. How much easier to acquire could it get?

How the heck is this even an issue?

They said you don’t need it so you were like “K, I don’t want it”

How do you not want better gear? How can you not want better gear for years and then suddenly be mad that “better gear” is rewarded by a challenging piece of content?

This method of thinking makes no sense to me. it’s not that you’re wrong or anything. It just… does not compute.

I do want better weapons and armor. Have been trying to get BiS since launch.

What I do not want is to craft.

Currently, after 3+ years, I have one ascended weapon and two pieces of armor.

Shortly after launch, when exotics were BiS, I had multiple sets of armor and weapons for different builds/playstyles. Do I dislike the fact that BiS was taken away from me and that 3 years of play later I still dont have it back? Absolutely.

If I remeber correctly, the fact that shortly after launch that you and all of us had several top tier sets for every conceivable situation was why they added ascended in the first place though, right?

Like, Colin basically said “we want top tier stats to be a more meaningful and long term achievement.”

Now, I agree that the time gates built in to ascended crafting combined with making it all account bound was a bad idea.

We know that the economy is crafting centric, but given the investment required to go from 400-500 I don’t think it would have hurt much to simply let people craft and sell ascended gear to people.

I somewhat agree with you there. Even though crafting takes literally zero effort and is not challenging in any way, it seems arbitrary to require every player to level it just to maintain the economic status quo in a resource based economy.

I mean, the crafted pieces all have the same skin (with different colors) They’re not particularly rare, just expensive to make (which is fine)

I fail to see the difference in grind between trading currency to another player (with an AH fee tacked on) or gathering all the doodads to craft a piece.

I get having to earn prestige skins through special effort, and maybe there should be some kind of special untradable skin like the backpacks for people that craft their own stuff, but I kind of agree with you. Why can’t I just sell you some ascended gear and make a profit? Seems like a win/win. Crafters have a reason to learn even more ascended recipies, and a motivation to keep crafting. Non-crafters don’t have to level it. Keep the time gates in place to stimulate trade and still give incentive to level crafting.

Leave the infusion slots/infusions the way they are now, as either 100 artificer or dumping stuff in the MF are easy to do, and the amount of time you have to spend in a menu doing it is almost nonexistant compared to the time spent gathering the stuff to make them. That way players would still have to do some personal work to get that last little stat bump but wouldn’t have to level 2+ toons worth of crafting to 500?

Not all knockbacks are launches dude. Launch is a stun. Several mob abilities are simply knockbacks with no CC component.

Kocoff.7582:

First of all, this is not how you do a graph and it’s been bothering me lol. But then it’s a video games so…

I’ve got this.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Amante.8109:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Unfortunately, that will give P/D 2 skills that evade back, not an ideal solution.

Indeed. Any change to Pistol #2 affects not just P/P but P/D, and a second “move back” skill would be redundant for P/D in particular.

Personally, I’d like to see Pistol #2 remade into some kind of short-range shotgun blast type ability that could be used for kiting or as a panic button for when someone gets in your face. Off the top of my head, it could look a little something like this:

Shrapnel Blast
4 Initiative, 1/4s Cast
Overload your pistol, discharging a blast of steam and shrapnel that does X damage and Cripples your primary target. Briefly Blind up to 5 enemies in the area around you.

Honestly, Unload should immobilize your target, I mean, think about it, if someone is unloading 2 pistols at you and would you just keep on running towards the shooter? Either you’re getting hit by the bullets or hiding behind a rock, you’re pinned down.

At the very least, make Ankle Shot base line for Unload.

Better: Each shot has a small amount of knockback. Just enough to halt someone with no move buffs from advancing.

Then add additional knockback in a replacement for ankle shots.

I just like that people are touting “equipment elitism” in a game that introduced the top tier of gear ever in its first year of release.

I also like that those same people are mad that “better gear” drops in a raid they think they can’t do… because they don’t care about their gear in the first place?

It isn’t the game’s fault that certain people saw that there was more powerful gear in the game and wen “nah, I don’t need that. Not like it’ll make me better at insert whatever activity you do is by 5%.”

It is literally mind boggling that in a game where virtually all of your stats come from gear, the gear is trivial to obtain given a long enough stretch of time, and the primary content is combat that utilized those stats people saw better armor for years and went “I don’t want that”.

It wasn’t like they locked ascended stuff behind a raid, or dungeon, or even doing anything remotely difficult. They literally give you half the set for logging in at this point. How much easier to acquire could it get?

How the heck is this even an issue?

They said you don’t need it so you were like “K, I don’t want it”

How do you not want better gear? How can you not want better gear for years and then suddenly be mad that “better gear” is rewarded by a challenging piece of content?

This method of thinking makes no sense to me. it’s not that you’re wrong or anything. It just… does not compute.

Torolan.5816:

PopeUrban.2578:

Torolan.5816:

SNIEVES.3964:

making it a requirement to have assendd gear/celestial would not be fair to all players because not everyone has kitten armor , it sextremly expensive and takes long to gather, and would not be fair that a small percentage of the gaming community can do raids where a larger portions can not enjoy raiding

It is not, at least not in my opinion, fair. Of course that does not stop other players from demanding it to be that way.

Even before this whole thing with ascended came up, people upright demanded that not everyone should be able to complete the raid. Which better way of excluding people that are not entirely commited to the exclusive content could there be than to make a commitment, aka a grind barrier? Working as intended for the hardcore raiders I guess, mission accomplished by Anet.

If there is any challenge whatsoever in a video game, it will by its very nature exclude some part of the population through virtue of player ability, free time, or patience.

Queen’s gauntlet excluded a bunch of people. So do dungeons. So do fractals. SO does grinding out the massive pile of stuff required to get silverwastes armor. So do WvW seasonal skins. So the the PvP balthazar pack. So do the world champion finishers.

The only way to be sure that a given piece of content excludes no one is to simply not make them play content in the first place. There are varying levels of exclusion in video games, commonly based on a simply risk/reward metric. Raids are a small part of HoT intended for a portion of the player base that wanted higher risks for higher rewards.

How is the statement that Raids are intended for a small portion of players negating the opinion that it is unfair by default to exclude all the other players who want higher rewards too but are not good or connected enough to get them? Just because you consider it challenging does not negate it, neither does that other content has barriers of entry too.

This is actually the first time Anet sets their highest rewards behind a really exclusive wall. Every moron can farm his way through low level fractals until he has enough relicts to buy stuff to rise in level and stay competitive with agony. The same with wvw and pvp, if you are willing to eat dirt over and over again because you suck at GW2, you still will get everything Hardcore Hans has too over time.
If you don´t cut it with raids, legendary armor for example stays exclusive and unbuyable, you´re screwed for life or at least have to wait until someone begins to sell raids.

So why are not only skins to obtain from raids? Because the number of players willing to do them then would probably in a really low % range then, and Anet probably does not want their raids to be seen only by a handful of people like Aetherpath before it.

• Fractal weapons
• World Champion Finishers
• Queen’s Gambit

Legendaries are not more powerful than ascended. You don’t have to be hardcore Hans to acquire ascended. You also don’t need Ascended gear to attempt raids.

• Mesmerized: Enemies randomly generate phantasmal copies of themselves with 20% of their HP and damage. These phantasmal foes shatter when killed, dazing nearby foes for 2s.

• Guarded: Enemies grant Aegis to allies within 400 units when struck once every 4 seconds.

• Loudmouthed: Enemies use a random shout once every 10 seconds.

• Best Friends: all enemies spawn with a random animal pet.

• Mistlock Blindfold: Enemies have 50% of their normal HP and are blinded. Enemies summon a random enemy with 120% of its normal HP when killed. These summons do not summon additional summons. (it would be hilarious if they actually wore blindfolds)

I’d also like to note that the guild initiative was designed as a fully functional guild hall for people without guild halls.

It is literally a 5 player cap mini – guild hall, with a smaller selection of services gained with gold.

Torolan.5816:

SNIEVES.3964:

making it a requirement to have assendd gear/celestial would not be fair to all players because not everyone has kitten armor , it sextremly expensive and takes long to gather, and would not be fair that a small percentage of the gaming community can do raids where a larger portions can not enjoy raiding

It is not, at least not in my opinion, fair. Of course that does not stop other players from demanding it to be that way.

Even before this whole thing with ascended came up, people upright demanded that not everyone should be able to complete the raid. Which better way of excluding people that are not entirely commited to the exclusive content could there be than to make a commitment, aka a grind barrier? Working as intended for the hardcore raiders I guess, mission accomplished by Anet.

If there is any challenge whatsoever in a video game, it will by its very nature exclude some part of the population through virtue of player ability, free time, or patience.

Queen’s gauntlet excluded a bunch of people. So do dungeons. So do fractals. SO does grinding out the massive pile of stuff required to get silverwastes armor. So do WvW seasonal skins. So the the PvP balthazar pack. So do the world champion finishers.

The only way to be sure that a given piece of content excludes no one is to simply not make them play content in the first place. There are varying levels of exclusion in video games, commonly based on a simply risk/reward metric. Raids are a small part of HoT intended for a portion of the player base that wanted higher risks for higher rewards.

JediYoda.1275:

Teutos.8620

This is a thread purely for the Guild Hall (and everything concerning it e.g. the Scribe) , please keep it that way.[/b]

No its for anything Guild related not for just guild halls since its Guild Week after all. Look at tittle of thread!

None of those questions were guild related.

Cinea Spring.6058:

Question 1:
Are you going to refund the influence spent on the old guild improvements, allowing us to spend it for resonance etc.?
Question 2:
How are we going to access our gold and items that are currently in our guild banks?

1: No, but guilds with ranks and advancement in the old system get a unique trophy for display in the new guild halls which can not be acquired ever again in any other way.

2: You talk to the guild bank NPC in the Guild Initiative (still unclear if existing guild bankers will remain in the world)

@Subversion (avoiding passive quote pyramid)

I wasn’t out to attack you personally, but your entire post did a lot more to enforce this idea that it wasn’t the thief/mesmer relationship that motivated the change. My opinion is that it was most certainly the thief/mesmer relationship.

The core design of mesmer is and always has been a class primarily designed around the creation, maintainence, and utilization of clones and phantasms. Mesmers were granted limited invisibility in order to aid their intended primary defensive mechanism, target obfuscation.

Stealth on mesmers exists to help them use clones as target obfuscation rather than, as the thief, to rely solely on the act of being invisible. The idea that mesmers should compete with thieves for stealth utility is just as preposterous as suggesting thieves should compete with mesmers for NPC spawning utility.

Mesmers have mass invisibility, thieves have thieve’s guild. Both are supplements to the core mechanisms of the class, not replacements

Mesmers are not and never were intended to rely on stealth as a core defensive mechanism at a basic design level, because their core mechanisms involve using external sources for damage. Mesmers have stealth for the same reason they gave rangers limited stealth: it helps you utilize pets.

In contrast, thieves have limited pets to help them utilize stealth

The two classes are two sides of a coin, but they are not both either heads nor tails.

Mesmers may acquire the ability to become a “stealth class” with future elite specs that drastically reduce their pet utility, but as of now mesmers are not intended to perform as a ‘stealth class’ any more than a thief is intended to perform as a ‘pet class’

Stealth doesn’t need adjusted up and down. It simply needs to stay at a reasonable level for its specific role on the mesmer: enhancing the primary mechanisms of the class. The problems mesmer have are problems that do not need to be addressed with the addition of more stealth reliance any more than the problems that thief has need to be addressed with more pets.

GW2’s problem, I think, is that there simply isn’t enough of subjective value that drops anywhere so any given solution is still going to feel less satisfactory.

I mean think about it. How many cool skins just drop ? Not all that many. In stead of squishing the distribution to fix meager loot tables, you could simply add more loot to the tables. Gear drops in a wide variety of stats, but unlike more stat-centric games, the stats on your drops in GW2 are not compelling variance in the loot.

Add on top of that the crafting-centric economy of the game which enables players to easily obtain the exact stats and rarity levels they need with no real struggle aside from time spent acquiring currency, and you realize that it isn’t RNG that’s the problem. It’s the meager loot tables that don’t reflect the primary reward mechanism of the game.

Your loot table may have 70 items in it, the only variance that players actually care about are the skins they don’t need the stats, and they don’t need the rarity.

On top of that, the vast majority of variance is in weapon skins, which account for a very small portion of a given player’s cosmetic appearance, and are, again, in competition with BLC skins that are often designed specifically to be more desirable.

On top of that, due to the extremely large array of weapons in GW2, and the way the game ties them mechanically to weapon skills, players generally have very little use or desire for more than three weapon types on a given character, compared to armor skins which players have use for six slots, and there are only three cosmetic weights.

The problem is that the primary reward mechanism of the game is cosmetics, and the loot tables are primarily populated with statistical variants and an overabundance or weapons that people can’t use because of the 1-5 slot system.

I’ll repeat my original point:

The loot tables are the problem, not the RNG. They are loaded with loot that is not cosmetically compelling in a game built around cosmetics as the primary reward driver.

Attempting to “fix RNG” isn’t really addressing the primary problem with loot in GW2. Your tables have so little of use or interest to players that all of the variation in drops is meaningless in the first place. Designing more dropped armor skins would go a long way toward fixing the perception of loot, as armor is the most universally desired reward when viewed from the vantage point of “players are looting to acquire skins”

I realize it’s harder to add armor than weapons due to the difference in races, but it’s worth the payoff. It’s a crying shame that the only drop I’ve been genuinely excited about since I started playing the game was a silverwastes box.

Triangulator.2867:

“We have the friendliest community EVER.” – Queen Jennah

The funny thing is, we actually do, which is why people are far more likely to get bent out of shape when someone is being particularly abusive in text in GW2, because it’s actually quite rare.

That’s why they’re called historical achievements. They denote things characters did in a bygone era.

AP is a system specifically designed to reward players for playing more, longer, and doing a wide array of content. It’s not really supposed to be “fair” it’s supposed to be a nice reward for sticking around and doing different stuff. It’s basically a veteran system.

They are indirectly nerfing the chest train by making shovels a component in mine upgrades in the guild hall.

I like this approach better. people can choose to chest train, or choose to have guild upgrades. That’s more fun than straight up nerfing loot.

As of right now SW is the only open world zone that’s actually rewarding to play as intended. They aren’t nerfing SW. If you haven’t noticed they’re actually buffing loot everywhere else with the map reward system.

Palador.2170:

Bob.7189:

Do I have to empty my vaults since no one will have a guild hall?

It’s been stated that guilds that already have access to something like the guild vault/bank can access it through the guild building in Eastern Lion’s Arch, if they don’t have a guild hall.

They already clarified that on twitch. All existing storage is grandfathered in. You can access it from the guild initiative, like other guild buffs, if you don’t have a guild hall yet. No word as to what new guilds will have to do for storage exactly, but if you have fully upgraded storage now, you can still use it after the HoT release.

I want to know why that guy’s weapons vanish when he drops them.

And also where I can get a boomerang that makes that noise.

So, what you’re saying is you want things purposely designed as extremely long term goals to be made shorter term goals because you feel like you deserve them.

Everybody likes AP and would like to have all the AP skins, which is why Anet ensures that there will always be more AP.

If you’re not up there with the top earners you simply haven’t earned the rewards they are so close to obtaining. It’s really that simple.

My advice? Tell your friends that they left the guild, and you’ve been maintaining your community ever since, and you don’t think it’s fair that they can just barge back in like they own the joint.

If they’re really your friends, they will understand.

If they’re more interested in being guild leaders than being your friend, encourage them to go start one of their own, then get sick of that one and hand it off to someone else.

IMO it sounds like you put in the work. Unless you don’t want the job any more you should keep the job.

With this logic, you’d think people would be demanding to be able to pull off raids in white gear.

They’re balancing what’s supposed to be the most challenging content in the game around the absolute highest obtainable mechanical power in the game. If they did not do so then the balance of that content would be off from day 1.

You don’t NEED ascended, just like you don’t NEED exotics to do HoT open world stuff. However, the content is designed around that tier of gear. It would be irresponsible from a design standpoint to say “this is your challenging end game content” and simultaneously release it with an untested 5% mechanical margin of error that automatically impacts its intended challenge, possibly trivializing the content on the day of release

My guild has run cities/towns in games in the past. I see some large wall sections, but are there any “housing” style decorations so we can utilize the impressive amount of map area to build tiny villages/shanty towns/shady districts?

How granular are decoration editing areas? While it’s probably not applicable for a 200 person guild, I’d like to be able to assign “building plots” for individual players or small family groups throughout the map so they have an incentive to keep me busy scribing stuff.

How about personal storage? I know you said you don’t want guild halls to compete with banks, but would it be possible to build maybe a 10-20 slot chest with individual inventory (all such chests would redirect to the same storage space) so people could keep a little something in their “home” without resorting to making bank guilds, but without competing with towns for access to the “main bank”?

Any thought to perhaps an automated reward system for arenas similar to the JP chest idea? Just a box you put items/currency in that is awarded to the winners of a match automatically (if your match uses metrics the game can measure)

How about kicking people? Is it possible to boot troublemakers from the instance once they’ve been ferried in if they’re being disruptive?

Also, I echo the question about guild missions. The system was designed quite some time ago and we haven’t seen any new missions added to it since. With the new focus on guilds, are there plans to utilize the guild hall for new missions, perhaps some only accessible by the guild portal?

Trinkets first, because they’re the easiest to obtain (you can get them just by logging in) After your trinkets, invest your laurels in to acsended recipies, and then +4 infusions while you work on the other stuff.

Weapons second, because you deal damage a lot more often than you take damage in GW2.

Armor third, because it’s a bigger stat boost than infusions.

Infusions last, because the cost for one additional stat point from a +5 infusion is so astronomical, and you could literally use the +4 stuff from laurels and not even notice, but… more stats is more stats, even if it’s just +12

Finally, be happy because you maxed out your gear, and you’ll never have to worry about grinding out stats again!

I don’t care really.

I do think it’s funny when they complain about patches impacting their “business” as if the developers actually design content with a single though given to how easy it will be to sell runs.

If Anet doesn’t care, then I don’t care.

Hearts aren’t really “core” content. They were added to the game quite late in development because Anet saw a problem with relying on just DEs for players that were still leveling. They invented hearts to easy people in to the DE system.

According to Anet, no new maps will have hearts as they consider hearts more of a “new player training” mechanic that gets you used to the idea of exploration = advancement.

In GW2, server selection could easily be renamed “WvW team selection”

In practice that is now the only place it actually matters.

In PvP and PvE you’ll be matched with and on maps with people from every server in your region due to the matchmaking/megaserver mechanics.

Subversion.2580:

PopeUrban.2578:

Here’s the deal.

PU mesmer was a better thief than thief. That was the primary problem. When the “class with some stealth” became better at both utilizing and providing stealth than “the stealth class”

You’ve discussed thief in your video without also recognizing the fact that thieves have zero sustain, zero ability to actually deal damage while stealthed, and are completely shut down defensively when revealed in the case of most stealth builds.

Mesmers are still relevant. You’ve still got stellar burst, good CC, and sustain the thief would literally give up a weapon set for.

Take it from a thief, they don’t care how much you complain when they hit something that hard. It has happenned to thieves over and over since launch. It’s 50%, and it’s probably going to stay at 50%

I find this quote very telling. It provides a good cross-section of belief among the players but I would also say that it outlines all the misconceptions: It states the expected comments but many of those comments are also clearly incorrect assumptions once you put them to the test.

Yes, the summer’s change was to bring about a better balance between thieves and mesmers as stealthing classes. In hindsight it would have been better to bring them closer together in other ways than just pushing the mesmer up only to bring it back down again.

The assumption the quote rides on would be that thieves are more dependent upon their stealth than mesmers (similar to comments a mesmer would lunge at engineers or rangers). The problem is that the summer-fling mesmer never had more stealth than thieves, better burst, more CC or better sustain. All of that incorrect.

Classes have one build at a time:

Very much like the thief, the mesmer can pick some dimensions of that based on builds – but while the power builds do not have more sustain, the condition builds does not have better burst or CC. In fact, the power builds generally have low sustain and any measure you can take to balance that out (through other weapon combinations etc., can also be done on thieves where S/D offer a more sustained style than D/P, even though it is never a tanky character same as how power mesmers always remain somewhat glassy).

The condi builds never had any particular burst or CC, that has been the balancing point of condi mesmer since forever (even if it admittedly isn’t a very good balancing point). The sustain there comes from the statbase and that is afforded to any condi-player, where even thieves can go a tanky full condi build with a fair amount of stealth-and-tick. The same goes for rangers and engineers even if they may have less stealth and more escapes or immunities. At least, that’s how mesmers perceive them.

Classes rather than builds or stats:

That’s a funny thing with all the complaints about various classes in the summer patch and the reactions afterwards, since almost all classes gained some build that exceeds into the extraordinary. It almost feels as most of the complaints come from players who have not updated their builds to capitalize on the changes (possibly because they don’t want to “cheese” it) yet the complaints often center around classes rather than stats or builds.

They also center around classes while some classes seem to spend more time pointing the fingers at others or being unhappy with their position. Like the thief talking about how nerfed the thieves are or the warrior and necro communities talking about how their damage have dropped – even though evisc and KS builds easily capitalize just as much on the stat changes as any other bursty builds, while the same can be said about any shroud-burst build whether it’s power or hybrid. That goes to show how they were in better positions before, rather than worse positions now.

Why the common class objections are odd:

In light of that, most of this feels more like a case of who yells the loudest than any sensible discussion about actual balance. Everyone has more burst, less defense (at least in offensive gear) and quicker condition application. That’s not a mesmer issue even if the class became trendy in that setting.

So while the summer’s mesmer stealth certainly became an issue, that had to be dealt with, and we began to see alot of mesmers while the situation undoubtedly became salty: it wasn’t because there is some favourable burst, sustain or control in the class and it is quite baffling that we should accept it on thieves (or other classes) because that has been the norm before. It’s easily as cancerous there, and maybe the way forward is not to stack more reveals but to snag 25% general uptime off the thieves as well and cap refuge at 7.5s too. At least that’s a point to consider in the discussion even if it isn’t a sincere suggestion.

Edit: I just watched the video :s

I want you to tell me, with a straight face, than any thief build other than D/P is actually competitive in a given role in PvP.

Thieves are literally relegated to back capping, killing bad players, and +1 detail.

The only things thieves can do better than any other class are providing stealth to allies, and moving between points. In every other measurable metrikittenerally every class now has a leg up in terms of passive sustain, burst damage, or support utility.

Common misconceptions:

Thieves deal tons of burst damage!

False. Thief burst damage is no better than similarly geared and traited burst builds from any other class. Warriors have better burst while maintaining better sustain. So do guardians. So do necros. So do mesmers. The only difference is that thieves can more often initiate a burst from stealth, increasing the odds that the target does not respond appropriately, or allowing the thief to exploit targets in weak situations.

Thieves have sustain builds!

Everyone has sustain builds. Not all of them actually work. Due to a combination of the lowest HP pool, lack of boons, and lack of condition cleansing, all of the thief’s sustain is built around evasion. Playing a thief “sustain” build well enough to simply stay alive is analagous to playing any other sustain build in the game perfectly

Until HoT (and unless some stuff changes, possibly after HoT) you’re severely deluded if you think a non-stealth thief is in any way mechanically viable in PvP. It is not. There is not a single thief sustain build that actually performs against a skilled opponent well enough to kill that opponent.

Mesmers can’t kill thieves though!

Mesmers are more than capable of taking your average thief. You just chose not to build for it. Play a condition mesmer, you just killed a thief, or at the very least forced him off your point. We literally do not have the option to clear enough conditions, even if we take every single avaliable cleanse (which kills our damage)

Our only reliable passive condi cleanse requires us to remain in stealth and wait. We do not have a single universal cleanse. Our passive cleanses, with only a few long ICD exceptions, work on debilitating, but not damaging conditions.

100% PU was not OP, because thieves can stealth all over the place

Pre-nerf PU mesmer wasn’t equal to thieves. It was strictly better. I’m talking loads better. I’m talking generating clones and stacking boons that actually stick around when you leave stealth, and suffering no ill effects from being forcibly revealed better.

Contrast that with thieves. Every thief stealth trait only has any effect when in stealth. In order to benefit from stealth we have to actually be in stealth We can not deal direct damage while stealthed. We can not deal indirect damage while stealthed. We can throw our entire build at traps and be useless trolls, but other than that we can’t actually threaten anyone. We do not rack up sustain that persists after we leave stealth. When we are revealed every benefit we gain from stealth vanishes with only two notable exceptions.

The first is Revealed Training, a static, non-stacking +200 power buff which is equivalent to about 6.6 stacks of might, and can not be extended beyond 4 seconds in any way.

The second is, of course, stealth attacks. Do the math and you’ll find that the only thing that makes stealth attacks worth using is that they don’t cost initiative, and can be made through a trait to auto-crit. A single backstab is no more lethal than any number of high damage abilities in the game, many of which also confer debuffs to the target and are used from a range of 1200 units

The way the 100% PU mesmer utilized stealth was more effective, more efficient, more tanky, output more damage, and just plain better than a class with an entire trait line dedicated to stealth

So yes, they were in fact better thieves than theives.

Narrrz.7532:

Sylvari don’t get an accessory for their, er, ‘hair’, do they? all other races can config the colour of some other aspect of their hair, but sylvari just get to choose their foliage colour.

While it does affect the entire body, you still wouldn’t be able to re-select the pattern of the glow, just its colour, so it would be more like allowing a hairstyle kit to change tattoo/fur/skin marking colour (which would also be a fine addition, imo)

Sylvari don’t select a glow pattern. They select a glow color and stength, the pattern is identical for all of them on the body, and is baked in to the face and hair textures.

Honestly it’s a pretty good system that seems mostly set up already, I wonder if it could be effectively forked to in stead be used as the test bed for future balance changes.

I know in the past they’ve said they don’t like the idea of a test server, but if they can run two stubs for balance changes this way, why not use it for balance testing as well?

Torolan.5816:

lordkrall.7241:

Torolan.5816:

Maybe because it is a game and not the olympics?
Maybe because Anet needs many people to play GW2 and buy items in their shop, not a wasteland with a few really skilled people?
Maybe because it is fair?
Maybe because second class players are first unhappy and then former players?

But just go on with that arguments please. It argues much better for my points than I ever could.

So because about 1% of the game is too hard for some people to do the game suddenly turns from a game to the olympics?

Raids is a single VERY minor part of the game. The vast majority of the content will still be fully possible to do for everyone.

Fair? So someone that plays for 10 minutes a day should have the exact same things as someone that plays 10 hours a day? Why should anyone bother playing any more than 10 minutes a day if everything could just be done and accessed with that time?

Well, basically yes? I can run, shoot a bow, ride a bike and swim, but will never be called into the olympics or even the national respective championship team, so I have not made a career out of either. So why should I continue to play GW2 at all if it is already set in stone that I will never reach the best stuff and content if my time schedule does not change and I personally change from average sportsman to world class athlete?

As you see, this is your argument turned around. Both views are possibly right from a certain angle. The important part is probably how raids will sell, as it is the case with almost everything that is produced by a company.

You, on the other hand, seem to expect that by shooting a bow you should also be admitted to world class archery tournaments, because if you can’t be admitted to those tournaments… then there isn’t any point just shooting targets out back.

So, I mean really, are you shooting that bow because it’s fun, or because you want a gold medal? Sounds to me you’re more worried about the medal than just having fun shooting the bow.

I can ride a horse. I enjoy riding a horse. I also don’t need to ride a horse in the flippin’ kentucky derby to enjoy riding my horse.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

Terra.8571:

Turamarth.3248:

Nike.2631:

They’re increasing the spread between Exotic and Ascended stats to 10% with HoT. Anyone who thought “Challenging Content” meant it would be designed so you can do it comfortably while missing the top 10% of available effectiveness was fooling themselves.

Source?

There is no source (and that Nike isn’t the DnT Nike just incase you got confused). Last official word was stat difference is staying at 5%.

Anyways, I can’t see why so many people are surprised. They said the hardest endgame content in PvE will be raids. The explicitly said it will be harder than fractals and dungeons. We all know fractals 100 is coming and so this was going to be harder.

Even though fractals require agony, the encounter’s are all based off players having ascended stats. Also, probably only 10% of the player base have actually done fractal 50’s. These raids to me, and AN as well, always seemed the next step up.

Whether or not ascended is mandatory (i.e. there will be masteries which increase damage/ decrease damage), we’ll have to see. But simply basing the encounter’s so that the bosses/ mobs do damage against players assuming they had the BiS gear available, for the hardest content in game, seems logical.

Harder doesn’t automatically mean it should require another tier of gear, that’s a cheap freaking cop-out method of making content harder.
It’s entirely possible to balance the content around exotics and still make it good challenging content.

By using a lame, but standard wow-fare, gear check instead of using actual mechanics they significantly undermine the actual challenge of the content.
Just hearing them say that I’ve lost most of my hope for what the raids could have been.

Can’t say I’m terribly surprised, we’ve seen for years the only way they know how to make stuff “harder” is giving mobs more HP and making them hit harder (i.e. artificial difficulty).

You’re really overreacting. There is no artificial gear check. You can attempt the content in exotics. You can probably even succeed if you’re good enough. Ascended isn’t becoming more powerful. They’re simply saying “this stuff is hard, you might want to bring the best possible stuff”

Thaddeus.4891:

Donari.5237:

Thaddeus, I think you misunderstood. Or I’m misunderstanding your request. Because the multiple guild chat does just what you seem to be asking, it lets you see all your guild chats even if you aren’t repping. So long as you are a member of the guild, you will see all the messages even if you are in your bank guild or your speed run guild.

You won’t see messages from a guild you’re not in, of course. So if you are in guilds A, B, C, D, and E, and your friend is in guilds C, D, E, F, and G, you will be able to share messages only in guilds C, D, and E.

Are you sure? Because I was sure that the next chat was sending your text into the guild chat of all your guild. So if for exemple, i’m in guild A which is the guild that I represent. Another person is in guild B which he represent. I’m not in guild A and he’s not in guild A.

But we both love to do duo/trio dungeon/fractal so we are in a guild for that named C. If I type in the all guild chat then everybody representing Guild A and C will see it. But the guy representing guild B won’t see it.

Maybe I wrong, they didn’t specified it in their post. Do the next channel allow you to talk to everybody in all your guild or it’s simply guild chat of all your guild merge together.

You can read or filter individual guild chats to their own chat boxes however you want to, the same way you filter /say /party and /map now.

Like any other channel you have to to swap to the channel you want to broadcast on.

You can’t say:
/Guild HI ALL THE GUILDS I AM IN

You can however say:
/g1 Hello guild 1
/g2 hello guild 2

and read all messages from those channels in the same box if you want to set it up that way.

Torolan.5816:

lordkrall.7241:

Torolan.5816:

After reading stuff like this: Are you still excited about raids, casual player community? Ready to add work after coming from actual work? Exciting times!^^

Why does everything have to be doable by everyone?

Maybe because it is a game and not the olympics?
Maybe because Anet needs many people to play GW2 and buy items in their shop, not a wasteland with a few really skilled people?
Maybe because it is fair?
Maybe because second class players are first unhappy and then former players?

But just go on with that arguments please. It argues much better for my points than I ever could.

Did you miss the part where they said raids are highly unlikely to be PUG content?

The vast majority of content current and future is highly accessible, and soloable!

Adding raids is literally there to retain players that want just a little bit of challenge in an otherwise narratively interesting but mostly easy game.

Unlike games where raids pay out a constant snowball of mechanically superior gear, not raiding in GW2 doesn’t make you a second class citizen. Your character will be just as good without raiding.

It is literally a “best of both worlds” situation.

irrumatio.4893:

PopeUrban.2578:

Going above and beyond for omni infusions is a bit of a grind, but the payoff is minimal to the point I don’t even notice it (after swapping my offensive slots for omni toughness)

Compared to other purchases that increase your attributes in the game, gold per stat point Omni infusions are orders of magnitude less efficient, and on top of that the net gain for adding a full set of them vs. cheaper infusions is <0.1% to your overall DPS. Ouch.

Yeah, stupidly expensive for little practical benefit. I just… somehow… had to have ALL THE NUMBERS.

Didn’t need them, or really notice once I had them.

BUT I HAD TO HAVE THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE NUMBERS.

And I like that my numbers aren’t going to be invalidated by another tier of gear in the future so my maxed out gear remains maxed out. Felt like a solid investment.