I’ve only ever had this problem when I slip up and hit C&D twice on accident (as it ques up the second one to fire immediately after the first)
One problem that I do have with C&D however is that it doesn’t seem to like applying stealth when used inside a thrown goo field in PvE or WvW. This isn’t a big issue against players in WvW as you don’t often have good from a steal, and when you do (from stealing from a mob) players are not exactly prone to standing in combo fields.
Of course it doesnt apply stealth after gunk… gunk not only applies conditions, it also ticks dmg… any stealth skill (except shadow refuge, coz it ticks stealth 4 times) will fail if u use gunk…
Edit: blinding powder, now that we speak of stealth, is somewhat imune to stun/daze, as if it was a stunbreaker, im often dazed in melee by wars, and blinding powder keeps usable…just a crumb of my observations; also, a couple of days ago was testing the exact amount of armor the golems have in the mists, whilst also figuring out the exact skill multiplier for backstab, and i realized that the next attack after being stealthed by blinding powder has increased dmg.Not sure whats going on here, if its hidden/ninja patch, or bug, but… those were my observations. For the curious out there, the golems armor is 2598/2320/2182, with backstab Skill Multiplier being 2.39xxx.
See, that’s the thing though, right after release and for a while there, it did stealth inside the gunk field. Then, one day, it stopped. It’s bothered me ever since seeing as how I can’t ground target that crap, and if I want to combo with it I nearly always find myself needing to waste a dodge just to get a full sneak attack through the field before it vanishes.
I’ve only ever had this problem when I slip up and hit C&D twice on accident (as it ques up the second one to fire immediately after the first)
One problem that I do have with C&D however is that it doesn’t seem to like applying stealth when used inside a thrown goo field in PvE or WvW. This isn’t a big issue against players in WvW as you don’t often have good from a steal, and when you do (from stealing from a mob) players are not exactly prone to standing in combo fields.
Even so, pistol is comically bad as a ranged weapon; if you aren’t specced for at least some condition damage I wouldn’t even bother looking at it, and even if you are you get so much more from the bow that it’s hardly a contest.
Shortbow is simply incapable of outdamaging P/D on a single target over time in a condition spec. Shortbow has a wonderful burst, even specced for condition it’s a stupidly good burst of 25 stacks of 3s bleed(if you use it as a melee weapon), but that burst doesn’t last the entire length of a boss fight, uses all of your initiative, takes for bloody ever in melee range, and the time spent recovering initiative actually results in less overall damage than using P/D sustainable bleed chains. The auto has no attached condition, and thus that makes its damage extremely sub-par in a longterm fight like a dungeon boss for such builds.
Basically, what shortbow offers to a condition spec is the bleeds from cluster bomb, and a poison field. This is great assuming you can land those bleeds, but due to the way cluster bomb functions you have to be in pretty much melee range for several seconds straight to stack them high enough to compete with the stacking P/D can output with a lot less risk, and while not running out of initiative.
That said, shortbow is very good at trash clears, and my aformentioned P/D/M build basically runs shortbow whenever there are two mobs close enough to both take a nice little spam of cluster bombs. Heck, that’s a given for pretty much any thief build. However, when I need to bring the pain on a single target, or the mobs are just too spread out for shortbow cluster spam to work (which is pretty often in some instances) P/D solidly outperforms the shortbow every time.
“So do you think I should really use P/D/Malice in dungeons and fractals?”
Well I like it, obviously, but your experiences may vary. I’ll say that P/D/M is very good at rewarding skillful play, and allows one to pull off some seriously crazy stunts when played well. For instance, we finished the traps portion of AC explorable 2 with a four man party, where three players ran the front and mid traps, and all I did was tank gravelings. I also like the end boss of the grawl fractal because the add spawn timing pretty much always allow me to reflect-tank for one or another salf-healing downed teammate while simultaneously clearing most of the wave and healing myself to full. Oh, and then I go drop shadow refuge on anyone else who manages to get themselves horribly burned in the process and res them as well, like any other thief.
However, P/D/M is also very good at punishing mistakes. For instance, missing a caltrops drop is a massive amount of wasted damage, and more importantly is often totally screwing over your team’s CC and in the case of some melee bosses, your very ability to survive parts of the encounter while still dealing damage. Improperly timing a CnD is missed damage, AND you just took a massive chunk of damage, AND you’re not very good at recovering massive chunks of HP quickly, and therefore you lose even more DPS while recovering from that damage.
Its a double edged sword. When played well, and in the right circumstances it’s stupidly, laughably, awesomely effective. When played poorly, and in the wrong circumstances, it’s painfully, awfully, horribly unable to fix any mistakes you’re making.
I actually use my main P/D setup for all single target encounters, bosses included. In this manner I get to utilize the same synergies between CnD>Sneak attack with signet of malice and my condition damage setup.
Obviously, I run dungeons groups that aren’t already loaded to the hilt with bleed users so this keeps that damage, and the damage from my caltrops viable.
“but PopeUrban, is it safe?”
Well I’ll be honest with you. Its not AS safe as going P/P for white damage and crit because you do need to be in melee range to CnD. However, you only need to be in melee range for a split second to land it, and only need to land it every 3 seconds. I like to further safen it up because I also AoE blind on hit, and despite all reductions (including dredge immunity) that blind when timed correctly will make the enemy whiff one hit. That one whiff is usually all I end up needing to pull off the CnD and be back out of melee range stacking bleeds and collecting 600hp with sneak attack.
“but PopeUrban, isn’t the rest of pistol trash?”
Subjective. The only “trash” skill in terms of group PvE boss fights on the bar is body shot, and even then, its only a “trash” skill if I’m trying to use it to increase my own DPS. There do in fact arise situations where it is simply not same to approach a boss in melee at all. In those situations I use body shot to stack 25 vulns on the target in order to multiplicatively increase the DPS of my party to compensate for the bleeds I’m not stacking. The P/D double attack is a nice (cheap) little gap opener that’s perfect for fleeing PBAoE charge up abilities, and 1 is used from stealth as my primary source of bleeds and thus DPS. The other two skills on the bar are from dagger, and both are still pretty stong in most situations. Dancing dagger is a reliable multitarget cripple (that, again, syngergizes strongly with signet of malice) and 5 is the infamous CnD. Any ability that grants stealth is a good ability in a boss fight. it means you can control your own aggro, and in my case its integral to my DPS.
“Actually, this P/D/Malice build for PvE sounds pretty hard.”
Well I don’t think it’s HARD really. Going full on melee thief or glass cannon warrior against bosses is hard. It’s definately harder than pure ranged damage I guess.
“Well what’s the catch?”
P/D’s only functional means of DPS (and it is a lot of it) is bleeds. This means that it doesn’t synergize well with several similar bleed-reliant builds, as once you hit the stack limit of 25 the oldest bleeds are getting pushed out of the bottom of the stack as new bleeds are being put on the top. Usually this means that 2x heavy bleeders are all a party can support, as adding more will effectively lower the damage output of all three bleeders. In addition, despite SoM’s ability to do fun stuff like using caltrops, cluster bomb, and dagger storm to turn add waves in to free 100% heals, you are still a thief, and your build still requires you to get pretty close to some pretty big sources of damage. This means your small HP pool can often cause you to spend long periods of a fight at sub-par dps if you screw up and take a big hit as it’s simply not safe to approach for a CnD when you’re down to a sliver of health, and due to the way signet of malice operates, you have no really solid on demand healing. This can be compensated for somewhat by tossing a sneak attack out of a shadow refuge to double up on the heal (SoM+Lifeleech combo), and then popping the active from SoM, but you’re effectively using two cooldowns and needing to actually hit a target to get the same healing as popping Hide in Shadows would have given you at the push of a single button, and you’re effectively losing your sustain for 15 seconds.
You’ve likely come across items tied to a specific event. If a grey item’s description reads “Event item” This means that the items was collected as part of an event or heart task and has no other use. its best to simply throw these away unless you’re planning on doing the event it’s connected with again soon. In the case of event items connected with heart tasks just trash them, as once you’ve completed the heart you can’t do it again on that character, and all event items are soulbound.
Speaking honestly about races, the zones and personal stories for all of them paint a pretty accurate picture lore-wise of that race. Therefore, keep in mind that your profession will have no impact on your story as delivered by the game, and that the majority of your personal story will be narrated based upon your character as a typical member of that race and any upbringing/subfaction of that race you select.
If you’re roleplaying its just a matter of personal preference, but from the content end of things I’d say that they all have a pretty killer amount of lore-based content in the early levels. So the question is really whether you’re looking to be unique, or typical. If you’re looking to be unique, off-theme characters are things you don’t see a lot. Stuff like Charr/norn spellcasters, sylvari engineers, or Asura Warriors give you a lot of room to memorably roleplay with other players.
If you want a personal story experience that accurately fits the character you’ve envisioned then you’ll be looking at your starting questions from the perspective of the race’s most defining characteristics, and then answering the creating questions accordingly.
Also, it should go without saying that playing a male light/cloth character, or a female in armor that actually covers the majority of your skin helps you stand out from the crowd a lot.
Do you often return to merchants and DEMAND a refund every time something you could have purchased goes on sale?
That’s essentially what you’re doing here.
You bought a new TV in August for $3000. You could have bought a slightly larger one for $4000, but you decided to but the $3000 one.
Then, like every year, in november the $4000 TV goes on sale and now costs $3000 for a limited time.
Are you known for marching in to the electronics store and DEMANDING the television you chose not to buy?
Dolyaks should have the option to turn into a siege asset by having explosives strapped to it’s body and detonate it’s payload on a wall or gate.
This. So much this. It should be a T1 upgrade for those quick turnover camps. Clear camp, empty supply, release exploding dolyaks on incoming zerg. Hilarious.
Currently fractals don’t contribute to influence at all. We’ve made a few threads about it but there has been no response. Seems like a development oversight or bug TBH.
“I feel like there are plans for these kinds of things in the works. Ever notice how the order bases have these locked and unusable asura gates already set up?”
Those get unlocked as you progress through your personal story.
On topic, I like this idea. Choosing an order never seemed to have much of an impact on my experience.
You’re correct actually! I must have missed the memo after the fort trinity mission. That, according to the wiki, unlocks it. Still, it would be a logical place to start such events.
My map just says “World Completion” not “PVE World Completion.”
Quoted for Truth.
Legendary Weapons are supposed to indicate, among other things, you really HAVE done it all, got the T-Shirt, and a metric crapton of other loot and karma. Once a large portion of the luck is worked out of precursor acquisition, all that will be left for legendaries to live up to their namesakes is the feats of the character who crafted them, and things like overall world completion and karma are good indicators of a character who has done a great many things in order to earn something “legendary”
That said, I don’t see an issue with a separate achievement specifically for PvE world completion, with an accompanying title.
Steal
Steal IS good when traited for the build, but it pales in comparison to every other profession mechanic in terms of usability. I don’t have a problem with it being pseudo-random. That’s actually part of the fun, and part of what allows stolen skills to be as powerful as they are. Simply allowing it to be used slightly more frequently by lowering the base cooldown would match it in power with other profession mechanics, and further incentivize currently unliked Trickery focused builds. In addition, I believe that due to a lack of a 1200 range weapon option, steal should have an inherant range of 1200, and the range increasing trait should be moved to another function.
(edited by PopeUrban.2578)
There are many issues on a vast multitude of thief issues, but since this is the “official” thread, I’ll try to bullet point it. I highly reccommend you look over other high post count threads in this particular forum as well, as the thief forum tends to have the most reasoned counterarguments to complaints against the class, as they are written from the perspective of thief players. I’m sure you’re taking all this with a grain of salt in any case.
Stealth
I know you’re working on it, but the rendering delay problem more negatively effects the perception of thieves (and to a smaller extent mesmers) than any other single issue. People are literally fighting us without ever seeing us between stealths in a lot of cases. Although the overall solution to this has widespread effects, it is a large problem for the perceptions players have of the thief profession, as we have so many stealths avaliable to us, and rely on them in many builds for damage and survivability. If some interim solution could be implemented specifically to raise stealth-reveal priority to the top of the stack for whatever algorithm selects what order entities are loaded, or simply leaving stealthers cached somehow it would do a lot to improving gameplay in pvp versus stealthers, and thus allow for more reasoned discussions on the subject.
Burst Damage & Mug
While we are getting closer to something that’s still rewarding for the thief, but not blatantly unfair to play against, potential burst damage could still stand to be spread out slightly. The change to cloak and dagger was a warranted one, as the ability was simply too good for its cost. However, this was not a significant adjustment in terms of burst damage for the thief. The real culprit here, more so than anything else, is mug and its interaction with whatever ability is qued to interact with it. The problems with mug are twofold. Firstly, it enables an emergent mechanic that allows a simultaneous large damage spike to coincide with any skill, which makes it very difficult to fairly balance other damage dealing skills. Secondly, used outside of this emergent mechanic, it is not a very useful ability. Moving mug to another function, such as a modest stack of long-duration vulnerability (AKA the assassin’s signet treatment), granting the thief reactive damage, applying as a non-removable DoT, or any other way to keep the total damage it adds to a burst while simultaneously spreading that damage out over time would allow the thief to keep the burst-retreat style builds, but allow for slightly more fair counterplay. If applied as a debuff this would also make it much more versatile trait.
Underwater skills
Thieves have zero viable DPS methods for condition-based builds, and no reliable underwater stealths. If we’re intended to be evasion-tanks in melee so be it, but give us some solid bleed stacking options in ranged, and open a few more utilities for underwater use. Shadow refuge could easily be a PBAoE bubble for instance. Traps could be mines.
Traps
Our traps are largely sub-par for their cast timers. I’m not asking to have the equivalent of ranger traps, as I believe ranger traps and thief traps should be functionally different, and I like the idea of thief traps being more focused on instant effects wheras ranger traps are more persistant. The traps themselves aren’t half bad, but they’re not worth using in most cases because we only get one use on a relatively long cooldown. Severely reducing the cooldown on them, or giving us something like multiple applications with a cooldown based on the first use would go a long way toward making them effective.
Venoms
Venoms suffer the same fate as traps. While their benefits are useful, many of them have either too few charges, too short condition durations, or both to be attractive when compared to solid skills like shadow refuge, shadowstep, or blinding powder. The traits for a debuff-focused venom build are there, but the venoms themselves can’t live up to the build. In addition, venoms are a very hit and miss prospect, as simply attacking uses a venom charge, whether the attack connects or, indeed, is even aimed at anything. I think it would be feasible to increase the power of venoms if they worked a bit more like mesmer mantras. Require a substantial rooted channel time to “mix” the venom for use, and then make the application instant for a single charge per press until the charges are depleted. This would allow us much finer control of venoms like ice drake, where we would really like to space out the applications, and would instantly make them much more attractive choices when combined with the venom-related traits.
Yes, but that’s the problem, when you’re playing solo, then that’s a fair tradeoff. When you’re playing in a group, however, all MF gear means is that you’re dropping the ball by X amount relative to the rest of the team, while getting X amount better rewards for your selfishness. In solo, MF makes perfect sense, in groups it is completely contrary to just effort-> reward.
This is a common misconception. You’re not automatically dropping the ball in MF gear if your build is designed around your MF gear. My point on MF gear is that while it may technically be sub-optimal, running in anything but a team of 5 lolbubblestomp guardians with perfect food and potions is sub-optimal for most content in terms of run efficiency. There’s a line to draw here I think, and that line is “Does every character need to be 100% optimal to meaningfully contribute to success?”
I don’t believe that’s the case, as all content can be completed successfully and with little to no additional effort or skill by a full on MF party. It simply takes a little longer. The idea that MF gear creates leeching group members is just not true. The idea that leechers gravitate toward MF gear is however true, but that is to be expected. Removing MF wouldn’t remove leechers. I can not honestly say I’ve ever been personally effected solely by another player running MF in stead of pure stat gear. The statistical difference in ability damage, ability to stay alive, or other player actions is already easily offset by the already non-predictable DPS inherant in the high-mobility combat system of GW2. A player in stat gear playing only slightly less well than the same build in MF gear is very easily falling behind with the way combat works in this game, which is in contrast to a more traditional linear stream dps trinity model.
The Junundu Queen!
Worm Fight, only Myst-ified with jumping platforms over the instadeath sand. The Queen should function a lot like zelda worms, with full on jumping attacks to get in melee range, and long-telegraphed junundu siege that temporarily breaks several platforms, but gives players a solid 4 seconds to clear targeted platforms. I always wanted to see those Junundu pull a “free willy” Adds include lesser melee junundu that reach up on the sides of the platforms.
Zombie Rurik
Zombie Rurik now literally summons a hundred blades as aoes that drop from a cieling filled with swords. This battle is a mixture of the zombie rurik fight and a sort of surreal Ascalonian version of “The Pit” from Mortal Kombat. This battle takes place on a large platform with no rails on the outsides. The floor below is instant death and filled with… a hundred more swords.
Rurik does a mixture of reactive block attacks (riposte-blocking stance, gains riposte counters when struck, at end does an aoe whirl that gains damage for each counter.) and telegraphed full-ledge charges across the platform which knock players back. In addition, any players struck by a falling sword will remain pinned until the sword is destroyed (functionally, like grasping vines) Rurik has no adds in this fight, as the swords and his reactive and positional abilities apply all the pressure.
Tangle Root
The infamous GW1 zone, full of trolls, suprise popup mob groups, and a maze-like z- axis path. This path should randomize heavily each run. Midboss events may include timed jumping bits, collecting marking webs, or “holdout” events versus massive groups of weak mobs. End boss is Carlotta, a Massive spider, because the mists don’t remember everything exactly the way it was! Carlotta uses the standard spider boss bag of tricks, but will also cocoon downed players and carry them up to her web. In order to retrieve downed players, teammates must attack the web. Players who self-revive in the web may attack and use abilities but can not move.
I feel like there are plans for these kinds of things in the works. Ever notice how the order bases have these locked and unusable asura gates already set up?
What would be really neat would be Mad King’s Labyrinth-Like “raid” events that spawn an instance, and players all enter with different objectives/events depending on what faction they’re in.
For example:
“A Champion of Primordius threatens to break through to the surface! The pact urgently requests your assistance!”
Vigil – Battle the minions of Primordius at the hazard site! Allow none to escape!
*Superheated destroyers escaped [bar] starts full, lowers on escape, full escape fails, summons champions/veterans. Champs/vets do not drop remains.
*Veteran/champion [bar] killing resets escape bar.
Whispers – Collect remains of Primordius’ minions, and deliver them to the priory camp through a dredge-base battling the destroyers! You may bribe the dredge with the remains in stead for assistance and equipment!
*Supply chain efficiency [bar] Lowers over time, raises when remains are delivered, event failure if depleted. If failed, All bribed dredge lose faith in your abilities and return to hostile status, and the bar resets after 20 seconds.
*Bribe dredge – Dredge mobs and devices become neutral after X bribes, then friendly after X more. Remains are consumed when bribing!
*Kill Destroyers!
Priory – Priory researchers are designing a powerful ice weapon, but require destroyer remains to keep it from imploding! Assist with construction and operate containment turrets for the Vigil!
*Install heating elements! (Priory players may pick up remains dropped by whispers and use them on the weapon to hold off implosion.)
*Defend the research site! (Kill destroyers to defend the site and other players)
*Weapon Integrity [ bar] automatically drains over time, drains more when hit with attacks. Raises when priory players install heating with remains.
*Operate containment turrets [interactable device] simple simon says minigame that changes your 1/5 to a series of 5 symbols. The console displays symbols. Inputting the correct one fires a knockback pulse from the corresponding knockback turret at the vigil fight, inputting the wrong one causes the console to short out for 2 seconds with an aoe knockback, and gives the user the “Frustrated” debuff, preventing them from using consoles for 10 seconds.
All orders
*Weapon completion [bar] starts empty. Raises over time. Lowers when weapon takes damage.
Overall Design
So here you have an integrated pact operation with three orders interdependant on three objectives. The centerpiece of the event is the priory weapon. If successfully constructed it will freeze the hazard site, ending the invasion and rewarding a large chest. If it is allowed to implode, the event will end and reward no chest. Each order must complete their objectives efficiently to succeed. The priory has to help defend and keep up the weapon, which it can not do if whisper’s can’t deliver enough remains. Whispers can’t deliver enough remains if vigil can’t contain escaping superheated destroyers and ends up in the champion phase, where no remains are generated. The vigil can’t fully contain all of the superheated destroyers if the priory doesn’t successfully operate the containment turrets.
(edited by PopeUrban.2578)
Harmless and useful addition. I support this.
If it is in fact bots, screenshot them and report it later. Screens are captured on the frame you press the button so their character name will be fully visible in the screenshot, and thus they lose the advantage of teleporting off before you can target and click report.
Reporting in this manner also allows you to get a lot of names and then easily and quickly make a list later on without disrupting your play session. In my case this ends up with me reporting more suspected bots, and still fully enjoying all my avaliable play time.
How does someone other than yourself having better magic find impact your gear drops though?
ANet takes into account the ability to boost magic find, and nerfs the base rate by X% to compensate.
So, what you’re saying is that magic find, in stead of being a tradeoff for core stats just shouldn’t exist? MF is a tradeoff for core stats specifically to reward the ability to perform well without them, and to be completely honest, it is really not that difficult to acquire the gear you need in this game compared to most others.
I better understand your point now but I can’t say that I agree with it.
How does someone other than yourself having better magic find impact your gear drops though?
IIRC condition/prec/toughness gear exists in exotic tier, you can get it from the orr god statue merchants, one piece at each.
Actually, given the effort required to obtain them, dungeon and WvW top tier exotics should just be adjusted to ascended. I mean its just as much effort as that required to put together one ascended back or nab a single ring as it is to get one piece of that gear, sometimes more.
Additionally, it rewards people who cripple their effectiveness for their parties in dungeons and dynamic events, making them harder to down.
You won’t cripple your effectiveness, because gear stats only comprise 21% of the stats affecting your character’s performance. Most of it comes from your level and traits. Not to mention skills and how you deploy them.
I’m not buying the 21% effectiveness thing.
I have a pretty standard GS build on my mesmer and all rares on it.
People in exotics hit spatial surge for 1.5k
I hit it for 900.
Gear matters more than 21%
Even if it is 21% 10% 5%… the fact is that you are performing LESS than you could in exchange for personal gain all within a team setting. There is no I in team… but I guess there is an M and an E after all.
Do you also complain that every PUG isn’t a team full of DPS guardians that can bubble their way to near AFK runs in half the time?
I mean talking “run efficiency” is a slippery slope when you really get down to it. Do you complain people aren’t eating food AND potions with perfect stats for their build at all times? Do you complain when someone goes AFK?
In all of these situations you are performing at “less than optimal” yet somehow I never hear anyone making threads about them.
You know, I always see threads complaining about the cost of TP items going up, but never threads about how much more money people are making off of the TP by selling the same stuff they were selling before.
Well, this is a post about the latter.
Due to recent trending in supply and demand my trash and unused mats are selling for almost 50% increased profit across the board compared to when I first finished my exotics and started selling them.
Market price increases go both ways I guess. The reward for acquisition increases with the price. When stuff goes up your best bet is to start liquidating all your unnecessary assets!
All of your controls are relative to your camera, not where your character is facing. if you’re turned all the way around, target something behind you, and use an attack, you’ll attack exactly as quickly and in exactly the same direction as if your character had been facing with your camera.
In short, your controls function exactly as if they were locked behind you no matter which mouse button you use to turn.
Yeah I figured that out after a while but still the fact remains that my character not moving with my camera, this creates a optical illusion of clunky, broken game movement mechanics.
You may want to update your post then, as it seems your problem is with the visuals, not the actual controls.
Generally speaking I really do like GW2 as the game it is, but a few GW1 concepts I’d like to see make a return are:
Meaningful Multiclassing
In GW2 multiclassing was removed because of racial skills, but racial skills were made vastly underpowered compared to class skills in order to prevent super-advantageous, and thus pigeonholing class/race combos. Overall I feel like that was a good idea, but I feel like we could bring back some of the “feel” of GW1 multiclassing if we used a racial skills system similar to EoTN, but limited players to choosing one racial discipline of learned racial skills.
Basically, think of it as a set of “Affinity” racial skills, learned with skillpoints, and unlocked by family like a crafting discipline. Thus, you could only have “affinity” with one race at a time. You’d get your starting race affinity for free, and unlocking the other four affinities would require a little personal story chain wherein you gain the respect of some of that race’s most influential members. You could respec cheaply in the same manner as traits, and would remember all skills learned in all affinities in the same manner as “forgetting” a crafting discipline. In this manner you’ve got a meaningful choice that adds a lot of build diversity to the game, but doesn’t affect the aesthetic freedom of fairly balanced race/class combinations. Heck, you could even give players a bonus trait line to go with their affinity.
Skills, Skills, Skills
I’m not suggesting 200+ skills per class, as that excessive number was a contributor to the massive number of just plain useless and frustrating builds in GW1. I understand the idea here was to streamline the skillbar, making it much harder to put together a “trash build” and in that respect, GW2 is fairly successful. Sure, there are several utilities and elites that players don’t favor already, but equipping them doesn’t just make you plain unable to function as it did in GW1.
The weapon bars are a big part of this, and the concept of 1-5 being tied to whats in the hands is one I think we should keep, but if there were some way (crafting?) to customize the 1-5 on any given weapon from a pool of maybe 2 possible options per slot it would seriously enhance build options without leading to overcomplication.
Capturing
Capping elites was fun. It was a very individual thing for every build, and was an optional thing that people did for extra content. I don’t think elite capping would mesh well with the way GW2 is set up, but some type of replacement mechanic that keeps the incentive to buy something slightly expensive, and use it to trap some part of specific powerful monsters for a unique benefit is a mechanic that should definately return. Perhaps it could be part of the crafting system, using a trapped “essence” of the fallen foe to scribe a plan for a unique skin or rune set or something?
Challenge Missions
I’m a sucker for high scores. Challenge missions may not have been the most popular type of content in the first game, but I really enjoyed them. Granted, fractals have a sort of neat high score mechanic, but its not mechanically the same as what drove challenge missions. Scoreboards, rewards for setting the daily/monthly/all time high, and heck, why not a title granted only to the current reigning champion of the challenge mission?
All of your controls are relative to your camera, not where your character is facing. if you’re turned all the way around, target something behind you, and use an attack, you’ll attack exactly as quickly and in exactly the same direction as if your character had been facing with your camera.
In short, your controls function exactly as if they were locked behind you no matter which mouse button you use to turn.
Personally, I find that people that complain about magic find are typically the same people that will complain about any number of insignificant things in order to shield themselves from scrutiny. Often, the guy complaining about MF is the guy doing the least for his team, and blaming his misfortune on “ALL THE DANG [Edit] LEECHERS!”
If you moved MF to consumables only people would start complaining about their pugs eating non-stat foods.
There are two ways to profit from dungeons, MF and quick runs. The thing is, MF runs tend to have a much more reliable turnout in terms of gain due to the vastly higher numbers of greens-exotics found. Quick runs tend to have a higher turnout in terms of end rewards, but honestly, changing gear alone typically still only adds a little time to the run.
Also keep in mind not everyone runs back to back dungeons. Some people run one a day, or one a week, or whatever. Point is every dungeon can be done perfectly well in a team with full on MF gear, and if my group wants to run it in MF gear why shouldn’t we be able to?
MF gear won’t make or break a run when played by competant players. Players that can do the run effectively in full on stat gear usually have no problem doing it in MF gear as well. In fact, MF gear is what you swap to when you “have it on farm” becuase that’s what MF gear is for. Farming. What MF gear changes is the time it takes those players to complete the run. If your group is running the dungeon purely for fast tokens, then yeah, MF doesn’t make a ton of sense. If your group is running dungeons to make gold in addition to tokens, then MF gear makes a ton of sense.
If You’re THAT serious about teetotalling your run times, then start to find other players with a similar speedrun mentality and build a friends list of those types of players.
Don’t try to spoil it for people who actually like to do full MF runs, as ingame people generally don’t care what gear you have on as long as you do your job effectively. Its like requiring all guardians to run a buffbot build, or all warriors to run crit. MF is a build decision, and if its effecting you it’s entirely possible that it wasn’t the MF gear that caused it as much as it was the bad player who badly designed his build to work with the MF gear.
[Edited by CC: This short might be considered as an insult in this context]
(edited by Moderator)
Siege IS cheap, but when you get it from the JP its free. That means the cheap siege they woulda had plus, when accumulated by an entire server’s worth of players, a great deal more siege.
Many players won’t even bother buying siege, but will happily deploy it if they got it from a JP.
Not only that, for a server that’s losing badly it can just plain feel nice to camp the JP on a map you’re losing and actually kill a few people, because the winning team will rarely send an entire zerg to the place.
At the very least they should unlock the ability to MF 4 of them for a reroll to speed up getting the exact rings you want for people that grind it a lot. Wouldn’t have to have a proc chance for a better item, just pop out a random ring of the same tier so people who get unlucky with duplicate or off-stat rings have something useful to do with them that mitigates their un-luck somewhat.
You know, it probably is people running Fractals and not events. I did a couple dungeons and events with a couple guildmates in a party over the week so far, and we got a pretty good chunk of Influence for it. I’ll get the numbers if people are interested.
And it kind of makes a sort of sense? If you want Influence gain, get out in the world and show your guild presence.
That would make sense, but because the release dungeons give influence, I look at it as a matter of consistancy. Fractals are essentially a dungeon, so the reward should be consistent with other group instances. It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to effectively punish guilds for running fractals together, which the entire multiplicative influence system would normally reward better than pugging them solo.
Honestly, I would blame it on the fractals alone. Fractals should reward guild influence, and that influence should be relative to the difficulty of the fractal, and rewarded per fractal chest opened.
It just seems to be a huge oversight that the intended “endgame” content doesn’t add influence.
Even if plinx hadn’t been nerfed (And I’m glad it was. We were never intended to farm the same world event or three over and over. World events are supposed to encourage moving all around a zone.) You would have seen the drop as fractals are new and shiny and have great loot, so everyone wants to be in them.
I thnk we need some “sub race” armor sets to buy with karma. Quaggan armor! Skritt armor! Centaur Armor! Something with exotic to ascended stats that’s a nice alternative to crafted or dungeon stuff.
I think the point of Anet Chris’ post needs to be considered.
They are intending to completely re-work all dungeons. To me that feels like Ascended may begin to play a bigger role. I could be wrong, but I rarely am.
You are not wrong. They know the statistical advantage of the complete Ascendant Gear set they plan to release over time.
They need to adjust all mobs to rebalance the game for the new gear tier. Remember, until the change, they said the Exotics were the Max Stat gear. They spent months, maybe even years trying to balance the game on that tier. They cannot have us feeling too overpowered or underpowered.
With that said, I wonder what having Ascended Gear will do to downleveling. Will we start to be able to one-shot mobs? If so, that will also undermine their statements about the purpose of downleveling and their expected outcomes if we play with our lower lvl friends?
Or, you know, dungeon gear could be moving to a more appropriate ascended level reward system for its difficulty and time consumption. At least that’s what I would be doing with it. Dungeon armor? vetted to ascended.
The real problem people have with fractals is not the fractals, its the ascended gear “treadmill”
That treadmill is the point of the fractals. Its a scaling difficulty with scaling rewards that encourages constant statistical upgrades to progress through difficulty.
The problem is, quite simply, people are convincing themselves they need ascended items when they don’t.
You just made the argument that some of us who hate the change have been saying for days.
1. You said it is a treadmill. That is what we have been saying.
2. You said “people are convincing themselves they ‘need’ ascended items when they don’t.”We have been saying that the vertical progression group has “convinced” themselves that they need “gear stat tier progression” in order to have character progression. We have been saying that GW2 was not designed or launched for that.
The GW2 horizontal progression model was based on “choice” and fun. Do what you want because you are enjoying it.
Linsey Murdock said about the introduction of Ascendant Gear/Lost Shores:
“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.”Why did the “most dedicated players” feel that they “needed” the introduction of gear stat progression to advance their characters?
Because, in the content that is designed to be repeated at increasing challenge levels there would otherwise be a hard ceiling on the “endless challenge” which is the entire point of fractals. Ascended gear did not breed fractals, fractals bred ascended gear. Quite simply it is a type of content (optional content for the types of players that enjoy it, like jumping puzzles or dungeons) that would have just been a bad implementation without vertical progression to compensate for the vertical progression of the fractals.
I get what you are saying now. But why not just add an Infusion slot to the Max Stat Exotics? For those that need stat progression, they could have gone after the better infusion items they plan to release (fine, masterwork, rare, exotic, etc). Per the patch, the Infusion items has the agony resistance plus stats.
Even use the event to promote the existence of “hard to get” Exotics that have cooler looks. I really don’t think that a lot people know there are better looking Exotics that require a lot of time or grind if you want them fast.
In fact, pursuit of these Exotics were the intermediate step before going after a Legendary. There was no need for Ascendant to bridge an “effort time” gap unless they always intended to introduce “gear stat” progression post launch.
I tend to disagree. Full exotics? About a week, maybe two. A single legendary weapon? Months to years depending on how lucky you are. Now, multiply that by an entire suit of legendary armor and accessories.
In between? Grinding for your legendary with no payoff.
Honestly I wouldn’t have cared if ascended stuff had the same stats as exotic stuff, and all the bonus stats were in the infusions. It is what it is at this point, and for the most part I’m just happy to get a little more payoff in terms of stuff for my character. Yes, it could have been cosmetic, and I still would have gone for it.
The fact that it’s a small incremental boost in stats with a reasonable but not trivial amount of effort to acquire feels good. Unlike that legendary, ascended items actually feel, to me, like something that’s within my grasp. When I was in rares, exotics felt within my grasp.
I think the idea was that by the time you’ve grasped all your ascended items, then legendaries should feel similarly within your grasp. And once you’ve got your legendaries… well… Daaaang. You’re shiny and awesome looking and have reached the top of the mountain.
Also any gear check of any kind is bad.
If there is gear, there are gear checks. Walk in to Orr in your starter gear. You’ll get gear checked pretty hard. Gear with stats and level requirements is, by nature, a gated difficulty and linearly progressive system. The only question then is whether this progression stops.
For gear in GW2, yes, this progression stops. It has been plainly stated that legendary is “top tier” and ascended was implemented as a “mid tier” between exotic and legendary because there was too big of a gap. it has also been plainly stated that the ‘treadmill’ progression on ascended gear comes in the form of inusions, and infusions are only useful at all inside higher difficulty fractals. This “Gear check” exists because otherwise it would be literally impossible to have an “increasing endless difficulty” inside that area.
As for the emptying of other zones, this is nothing new. New content is released and people flock to it. The designer’s challenge is to create tangible reasons for people to experience a broad range of content. Arenanet’s strategy for this seems to be in the form of unique skins and found crafting materials per area.
Orr, in general, was extremely overpopulated until recently and the same people that are all flocking to fractals. people that don’t care what content they do, and are primarily motivated by bank and character sheet numbers. Group events in orr are still completely doable with only five people (a group) I’ve personally done the entire cursed shore chain all the way to Arah with a group of five. is it harder? Yes, but only because borken event scaling previously made that zone extremely trivial compared to the massive numbers of people at any given event.
(edited by PopeUrban.2578)
The real problem people have with fractals is not the fractals, its the ascended gear “treadmill”
That treadmill is the point of the fractals. Its a scaling difficulty with scaling rewards that encourages constant statistical upgrades to progress through difficulty.
The problem is, quite simply, people are convincing themselves they need ascended items when they don’t.
You just made the argument that some of us who hate the change have been saying for days.
1. You said it is a treadmill. That is what we have been saying.
2. You said “people are convincing themselves they ‘need’ ascended items when they don’t.”We have been saying that the vertical progression group has “convinced” themselves that they need “gear stat tier progression” in order to have character progression. We have been saying that GW2 was not designed or launched for that.
The GW2 horizontal progression model was based on “choice” and fun. Do what you want because you are enjoying it.
Linsey Murdock said about the introduction of Ascendant Gear/Lost Shores:
“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.”Why did the “most dedicated players” feel that they “needed” the introduction of gear stat progression to advance their characters?
Because, in the content that is designed to be repeated at increasing challenge levels there would otherwise be a hard ceiling on the “endless challenge” which is the entire point of fractals. Ascended gear did not breed fractals, fractals bred ascended gear. Quite simply it is a type of content (optional content for the types of players that enjoy it, like jumping puzzles or dungeons) that would have just been a bad implementation without vertical progression to compensate for the vertical progression of the fractals.
I would have been fine with exotics being the be all and end all of gear, and for content that isn’t specifically designed around vertical progression (everything else in the game) that vertial progession is still, and will remain, entirely optional.
When you need high tier ascended gear to adventure outside of fractals, at that point it’s a mandatory grind, and a gear treadmill that forces players to do content they don’t like. That isn’t happenning. Fractals are, quite literally, a little segregated pocket universe for people who like and want a sense of linear statistical progression.
For everyone else, when the time comes that you too actually need the ascended gear to complete (complete, not trivialize) content then it will be available to you, as has been stated multiple times by multiple developers. For those people, ascended gear is a want, like legendary weapons or dungeon skins.
I never cared about legendary weapons, because I didn’t need them, and I didn’t like the skins. I care about ascended gear because I need it to do something I find very enjoyable: progressing fractal difficulty. I wasn’t pawing at the door or petitioning that the game needed vertical progression, but in this instance the vertical progression is the only logical answer. If that sense of vertical progression bleeds in to the non-vertical content in the game, then yes, that is a large problem. Currently, that isn’t heppenning, and people are making a big deal about being “required” to grind content they hate in order to grind content they hate. I find it baffling.
Honestly, I feel like the influence system does plenty to encourage guild loyalty. Sure, you can crate a guild for next to nothing, but that guild isn’t capable of doing anything but display a tag.
I think you’re under the impression that there is some sort of “proper” size to a guild. my guild, for years and through multiple games has only ever had between 5-20 people. We don’t want more people. We don’t want less people. There is absolutely nothing wrong with guilds made of 1-5 people.
I see you’re a guild leader. I feel like this post is born out of frustration in some way. Perhaps you have an ideal player count in mind and are having trouble recruiting? That indicates to me that the people in current guilds are quite loyal to them. People in small guilds work much harder to get the things their guild has, and that created a lot of loyalty. People in superzerg guilds go there simply because its just easy to earn things, and they tend to receive a lot of benefit from them. That also creates a lot of loyalty.
There’s nothing wrong with the guild system.
What I am saying is:
This is a game, games should be fun.My argument is also you should not be pigeonholed into one option for play for the best gear in the game. Lengendaries were for instance legendary. I was fine with the grind they required even if they had amazing stats because there were multiple ways to get them, they also were not really a mandatory part of gear progression.
Ascended gear (the topic of this post, and I apologize if I’ve been off topic) is also not a mandatory part of gear progression. Unless you’re looking to climb in to higher level fractals.
The funny thing is people who are doing fractals in the hope to get ascended items are going to be sorely disappointed when they find out they’ll need hundreds and hundreds of gold to craft them.
Also false.
250 T6 fine mats is the bulk of the cost, and is pretty easy to get once you know which one you want. Just sell the T6 mats you don’t need. I had all of 40 silver in my bank when I got my vial. A quick liquidation of the stuff I didn’t actually need paid for the remaining T6 mats. Its really not that hard. I’d wager most people have a lot of valuable mats just gathering dust in the bank.
Also remember you can use the MF to upgrade T5 mats to T6 mats, and the drop rates of T5 mats are extremely generous in any L80 zone.
50 ectos? That’s extremely easy to come by with the rebalancing to loot. Just salvage rares you can pick up pretty easily anywhere and you’ll have it in less than a week.
Philosopher’s stones/crystals?
That’s just skill points. You can do literally anything to pay for these, and it won’t cost you a single copper.
I completely agree. The lack of certain stat configurations in certain slots is baffling, as is the inability to get rare or better back slot items through the same means as every other slot.
Certain back slot stats? You need a guild armorer or a specific (random) dungeon drop.
Breathers? Just statistically inferior to helms due to their acquisition. Why?
Ascended backs? Why don’t they have the full range of stat combinations?
It doesn’t make a lot of sense.
why does it take 1300 Fractal tokens for a back piece? can’t i just buy one from the armor merchant (not counting the merchant that has them, already)? i would pay up to 5 gold for one, just saying… i currently have 20 tokens, and was super excited, until i looked at the selection of items i could get.
Thanks to all the groups i had that were so patient with me!
I am aware of this. I was simply pointing out that it was a flawed statement to lump all of those materials together in one number for shock value.
Those are just the exotic ones, which have no bearing on the Ascended ones. For the Ascended, you need 300 globs of Ectoplasm, 6 Vials of mist essence, 250 of a t6 material, and some other assorted skill-point items.False. You need ONE vial of mist essence and FIFTY Ectos.
You can then UPGRADE that ascended item to and infused ascended item with more ectos/vials.
And 250 tier 6 mats.
You can then upgrade that item to an (infused) item with:
Glob of Coagulated Mists Essence
250 Globs of Ectoplasm
Gift of Ascension
why does it take 1300 Fractal tokens for a back piece? can’t i just buy one from the armor merchant (not counting the merchant that has them, already)? i would pay up to 5 gold for one, just saying… i currently have 20 tokens, and was super excited, until i looked at the selection of items i could get.
Thanks to all the groups i had that were so patient with me!
Those are just the exotic ones, which have no bearing on the Ascended ones. For the Ascended, you need 300 globs of Ectoplasm, 6 Vials of mist essence, 250 of a t6 material, and some other assorted skill-point items.
False. You need ONE vial of mist essence and FIFTY Ectos.
You can then UPGRADE that ascended item to and infused ascended item with more ectos/vials.
The difference is that dungeons don’t pay anything of tangible value.
Its not a job that pays you and a job that puts you in debt. its the difference between a job that pays you enough to live off of comfortably, and a job that pays you more money than you actually need.
Strangely enough I’ve already made this decision. I was offered a job I didn’t like, which paid more, and chose to keep the job I liked, that I could live off of comfortably, because it made me happier.
The real problem people have with fractals is not the fractals, its the ascended gear “treadmill”
That treadmill is the point of the fractals. Its a scaling difficulty with scaling rewards that encourages constant statistical upgrades to progress through difficulty.
That is also the only treadmill in the game, and the only one you need that gear for. Like the old dungeons? Guess what? They got loot upgrades in the last patch too. Hate dungeons? Several world boss events got tweaked, and the loot from all champions and veterans was upgraded last patch as well.
The problem is, quite simply, people are convincing themselves they need ascended items when they don’t. It’s like complaining that you need the +1 stat points on a legendary weapon. You don’t. While its possible to numbers and theorycraft all you want, I’ve got some ascended upgrades from the pool avaliable now. What they added to my stats is only tangible when viewing the numbers. They don’t make any other content in the game remarkably easier. Orr and southsun are still just as hard as ever. WvW is just as challenging.
The point I’m making is that everyone complaining about ascended gear “grind” and the rewards fails to understand the simple fact that, much like cosmetic rewards, this is an upgrade they don’t actually need. They want it. They want it because they think it will trivialize content they can already do in the gear they have. They want it because it’s pink, or they want it because someone told them it’s “the best”
What they fail to realize is that they don’t actually need it. They don’t actually need exotics for that matter. You can do every dungeon and event just fine in greens, with a party in greens.
I like fractals. I like scaling difficulty things, I’ve always loved games with ‘endless dungeons’ and I’m a sucker for “high score” mechanics. I’m one of the people fractals were designed for. its like walking in to EVE and complaining that its too difficult to own a successful 0.0 mining corp and make 20 billion ISK per week. You actually don’t need 20 billion ISK per week, and the vast majorit of players complaining about the current ascended items don’t actually need them. When they do need them they’ll be able to get them without “grinding a single type of content”
TLDR: If you hate fractals, or PUGS then why are you doing them? Go do something else.
(edited by PopeUrban.2578)
The content isn’t in question. The ‘required’ status of ascended gear is.
Fact: You don’t need the agony stats on ascended gear until fractal difficulty 10.
Fact: by the time you reach difficulty 10, you have seen all of the content.
Fact: You can do difficulties 1-9 just fine in exotics.
Fact: You don’t need ascended gear to do anything else in the game other than grind a dungeon you already seem to not want to grind.
I’m sprry that some rude person made your wife cry. People on the internet are often jerks. However, when people point at content and say “PUGS are a PROBLEM” its just not true. Your crappy group and that rude guy were a problem. Your inability to laugh at his too-serious mentality is the problem. Your inability to make all of three friends is the problem.
You’re blaming the game for the simple fact that people are rude. They would have been rude in the release dungons, and if it were at all possible for a mega-zerg event to go seriously wrong they would have been rude the moment that happened.
You’ve already been told that fractals are not intended to be the only way to acquire ascended gear, and for the moment the only thing you need ascended for is fractals. Just go do something else, bank some gold and karma, and be prepared for when you can acquire that gear without doing content you dislike.
[cut]and is just as optional as legendaries ever were in all content aside from high level fractals.[cut]
why is it so hard to understand that there is a difference between a SKIN and a STATS IMPROVEMENT?
Why not to put ascended items with same exotics stats + infusion?
Because sadly GW2 took players from WoW base.
So “I play more I deserve more”.
Too much attention and effort in useless unrequired events and still a ton of bug in the game. yeah yeah i know … different teams and blablabla … reduce developement team and add ppl to the fixing team.
We CAN’T play because of that culling issue!
Legendaries were technically a statistical improvement as well, before this change, yet many people were completely willing to say ‘well it isn’t much gain, and I don’t want to grind because I can still do the content without it’
My point is that this is true of ascended items as well. You can still easily complete the content without them if you don’t want to grind, UNLESS you’re looking to do high difficulty fractals, in which case you’re already grinding the same content to grind the same content at a tougher difficulty. Some people like this style of play, some people don’t.
The fact is that for all the complaining about best in slot, required tier gear, etc. the only “treadmill” that ascended items bring to the game is increasing difficulty level of the fractals eventually requiring ascended-only agony related stats. Past that, guess what? You can still kill people win WvW wearing exotics. You can still do full on explorable runs wearing exotics.
You, the player have decided that you need the new tier, despite the game being designed in such a manner that you don’t need it for anything but 10+ fractals.
People never felt they had a need for legendaries to do the current content despite the statistical advantage, but suddenly, people feel they have a need to acquire ascended gear for purposes other than the only place were you actually do need the gear.
I just plain don’t get it. it isn’t as if open world zones or explorable mode dungeons are being made somehow harder, or that future non-fractal content is being balanced around them before they’re available outside of fractals.
TLDR: You don’t need ascended items unless you’re doing the content you seem to hate having to do to acquire them.
if thats what you want, then you unchek “show other peoples titles over their head” option.
like in every other game.
See, the thing is, if that option is there and nearly unanimously used in pretty much every other game… then what’s the point of displaying them overhead in the first place?
If I can turn it off, sure, I wouldn’t mind the option being there for people that want it, but I honestly don’t see any need to do it in the first place in. This, like the OP is an opinion. My opinion is that overhead titles are just useless clutter not worth implementing.
is it such a crime to make titles visible over players heads like every other game?
Yes. Titles are usually much longer and much larger than character names. One or two players with titles is no problem, but in MMOs the visual clutter of 20-200 players worth of titles actually does get in the way.
Titles are a vanity feature, we need more titles, but the current system is fine. I don’t really want to know or CARE what title the 200 people on my screen have. I only want to know what titles people have when I’m personally interacting with them, and the click-to-view does a good job of cutting visual clutter while keeping the fun of titles.
Whiteside: “We’re not making a gear treadmill.”
Forum users: “YOU LIE AND YES YOU ARE”
Whiteside: "We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.”
Forum users: “WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU. YOU ARE WRONG.”
Chill out guys. I think the concerns about ascended gear are pretty much covered. Ascended is the “mid-term goal” and is just as optional as legendaries ever were in all content aside from high level fractals. Which, let’s get real here, aren’t gated content. They’re a harder version of the same content you can do just fine in exotics.
As for WvW balance in terms of ascended gear… Which is a larger benefit to your team. 100g on ascended items, or 100g on siege weapons bps and cap upgrades?
The only effect Ascended gear, implemented as it is, will have on WvW is to change the excuses people use when they die. In stead of “outnumbered” or “cheese tactics” they’ll now blame ascended gear. Once the ascended gear moves over to WvW acquisition and becomes more common they’ll find something else to blame.
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