Guild Wars 2

Cerise.9045:

They are both long term goals which exist to make you play the game longer so you keep paying a subscription fee or so they can keep making you buy things in the cash store. So yes they serve the same purpose in the game.

Unless you are one of those people who sits around in lions arch all day trying to troll map chat, you are participating in this as well.

Actually your original statement was that they were just as “non-optional”, which is demonstrably wrong. “Gear grind” in GW2 is completely optional. Whereas in WoW (and clones) you absolutely need to grind for your gear in order to have any realistic chance of competing with those who do.

In GW2 you only have to grind to acquire certain cosmetics, certain looks, which is optional.

Cerise.9045:

Grinding isn’t any less “optional” than it is on WoW, Lineage, Aion, FFXI, or Runescape.

You can play all those game without ever grinding, you just won’t get anywhere. GW2 set out to be different, but it’s not.

Yeah, you’re right. Cosmetics are totally the same as core stats.

Oh wait…

And for a little while, Orr was alive and fun to play in again.

Revolution.6301:

1. Legendary weapon grind

Cosmetic. Completely optional in every way. I for once can’t be kittened with the grind, so I don’t do them. Remember kids: It’s not a real problem if you can fix it by simply doing nothing about it.

Revolution.6301:

2. Gold Grind – you need atleast 100 gold for the ideal build and armor you want.

Where the kitten are you buying your kitten? Are you buying your gear by going to the trading post then immediately listing by top price? You can equip a character in full level 80 exotics anywhere from 20 to 50 gold, depending on what gear you’re getting. If you have maxed the right crafting professions (or have a friend who did and will craft stuff for you) you can halve that price. The only exceptions are a handful of specific and ridiculously expensive runes and sigils.

Specific cosmetic looks can be quite expensive (full cultural tier 3 sets go for about 119 gold is it? and that’s cosmetics alone), but those are, again, optional.

Revolution.6301:

What I don’t understand and what the community in general is confused about is why this game was marked towards people who don’t like grind.

What I don’t understand and what you are confused about [sic] is that the grind is entirely optional. If you decide to go for it, why are you complaining about it?

Dastor.3546:

@ProxyDamage: the dailies are just as generic and boring as before.

Oh are they? How exactly are the new task “as generic and boring” as repeating the exact 4 kittening tasks every single day? Saying you don’t like the new ones is an opinion. Saying they’re equally generic and boring to the old ones is simply factually and demonstrably wrong.

Dastor.3546:

I don’t get how you’re so easily fooled, but:

-revive 15 allies < BORING
-kill 5 veterans < same as killing 60 mobs, boring!
-kill 13 different kinds of creatures < wow, 2 less than usual? BORING!
-gather 20 things < they didn’t even bother to change this one
-craft 10 useless items < sure, it’s quick, but still: BORING!
-kill 25 underwater creatures < OMGSOF’INGBORING! I hate underwater combat in this game
-complete 5 events, every day < well, I kinda like it, but because it’s just the same as pre-patch: BORING!

These are not the dailies we were promised!

As opposed to doing the same 4 kittening tasks every single day? Was that somehow better and more enjoyable for you? Was it better when they only rewarded Karma, and Karma was a kittening useless currency? Did they also issue a statement saying “Welp, that’s it! That’s all we’re doing with daily quests!”? I must have missed it.

Get off your kitten people.

Kiriakulos.1690:

But still, this patch was a bunch of nothing for us

This patch was a bunch of nothing for every class (except guardians who got an entire build dicked). This wasn’t a “kitten the Necros!” issue. It just wasn’t a balancing patch. No big deal.

Sure, legitimate complaint, I agree and whatnot, just… Why would you click the skill button…?

Reaper’s Precision isn’t very useful. It’s essentially a “well… If you’re not using this slot for any other reason, why not…?”. It’s still marginally useful.

Reanimator actually punishes you for having it.

Solesaver.8764:

There is no reason that the adept minor trait of the Death Magic line shouldn’t be inherently linked to, you know, Death Magic (you know, summoning minions).

I’ll say it again, in simpler terms so you can understand it:

Minor traits, such as Reanimator, should be at least a little relevant to any build who’d want to put points into that tree.

Contrary to what you think, Death Magic is focused on minions, not exclusive to minion builds. It’s actually absolutely necessary to any build that uses staves. It can also be important for most generally defensive builds.

Also contrary to what you think, Reanimator isn’t just useless. “Protection of the Horde” is simply useless to non minion-using builds: It simply does not give you anything. Reanimator is an actual liability:

Serves little to no purpose while it is alive if you’re not a minion-based build

• Adds an uncontrollable element to your attacks.

• Pathing choices are not controllable. Can cause random aggro-pulling by running up to a target to attack.

• Removes the ability to manage aggro (how far you want to pull them) by getting in the way – potentially forcing a fight in the wrong place.

• Is an additional, poorly controllable, hitbox for the purposes of forcing you into combat.

• Once you attack something you can’t just tell it to stop attacking it.

• Can give you away when you’re trying to sneak around or hide.

Is this simple enough for you or should I whip out MS Paint?

OH NO, I HAVE TO DEVIATE FROM MY FORMULA! BOO-kittenING-HOO!

You’re seriously complaining about the crafting achievement? Refine 10 of the most basic, worthless, materials you have around. There. Done. How long did that take you? A whole 12 seconds? Bloody hell, it must have ruined your day!

Yes, you were right (to some degree at least) to complain about the combo-field daily. It wasn’t working properly. They’ve removed it. There. You can stop panicking now, you won’t have to put 5 to 15 minutes of work with one friend (or, gasp, making passing conversation with a stranger) to complete that specific daily task…

Are the new dailies perfect and flawless? No. But they’re sure as hell better than they used to be. Not only do they offer better rewards (directly through laurels, and indirectly because karma is now useful), but they’re more varied than the same 4 kittening things over and over and over the kitten again: Kill mobs. Kill different mobs. Gather kitten. Complete events. Grind this every day for little to not benefit.

I don’t agree with everything this patch has done (the complete removal of the Rich Orichalcum Vein for one), but by god it has been a massive improvement overall. Yet all I hear is incessant and ungrateful whining, over the most inconsequential kitten… “Oh I have to recognize the existence of crafting in this game for at least 10 seconds now? Well now, that just rustles my jimmies!”. Seriously people…

Disappointing… I expected the follow up post to the title to be: “…That you paid around 10 to 15 gold more for an almost imperceptible change in tone.”

Solesaver.8764:

I think people need to stop whining about Reanimator. Not every minor trait is useful to every build.

That’s the point. They should be. Minor traits are traits that are supposed to be even marginally useful to anyone who’d trait into that tree. Reanimator is currently the single worst trait in the game. Not only is it only marginally useful to minion-based builds, but it’s actually detrimental to everyone else.

Solesaver.8764:

It doesn’t hurt.

Actually, it does.

Even if the minions are less aggressive they’re still not controllable. They’re still pulling unnecessary aggro, or freezing aggro where I don’t want it. On top of that I get absolutely 0 benefit for even having the bloody thing in the first place.

Just turn the stupid useless kittening thing into an optional trait. Substitute it for pretty much anything.

Peetee.9406:

Phantax.1369:

Bored with them… NO

Hell, Im not even interested in them. Havent seen one yet that I would consider wasting all that time, gold and effort for !
Other people want them great, Its nice we have that diversity, myself… nah !

This post is indirectly an answer to your problem.

The people that are willing to farm the components to build a legendary are the people that have the alpha ‘melee’ mindset, warrior, guardians, thiefs. That’s why you see the greatswords and incinerators everywhere.

Meanwhile the players that play the support ‘ranged’ roles get their game enjoyment from helping others and are not going to take the time to farm a legendary for themselves. That’s why you don’t see Meteorlogicus, The Minstrel, or Howler anywhere.

That’s quite bullkitten. The reasons you see more Twilights/Sunrises and Incinerators are because: a) Greatsword and dagger and some of the most used weapons in the game after accounting for class popularity AND how many viable classes/builds use them, and b) because some of the very few legendary weapons that actually look good. The three you mentioned are god awful garbled messes.

I thought of entering the quest for a legendary longbow or shortbow at some point, but both The Dreamer and The Kudzu are kittening ugly as kitten. I wouldn’t buy them as exotics let alone put in the time and effort to make them as legendaries. Of the other weapons my other level 80 uses: I’m not fond of The Legendary (there are prettier exotic staves), and both Metereologicus and The Minstrel look ugly as kitten.

That leaves Dagger. Or greatsword/axe once my warrior gets there… Of those the Greatswords are definitely the prettiest.

Ice? At the Ice Steppes?? Ludicrous!

I can’t say about two necros specifically, but Necro + Guardian = godlike.

Me and my friend roam in WvW often, and anything short of a small army just gets steamrolled. Thieves especially. They stand roughly 0% chance of killing us.

For reference, I’m running a tanky-ish, condition damage+power hybrid, focusing on using wells and marks, with scepter+dagger on the switch. Not entirely sure what my friend is running on his Guardian, though.

Bas.7406:

Correction: None of this is factually true. They are very strong. Combined they are as powerful anything not named Lich Form. They respond very well with a few minor glitches that can be worked around which is still better than some of the other utilities we have. They are very resistant if specced correctly.

I just tested to make sure I wasn’t just being biased from my previous attempt at using the bloody things. The minions are very slow at reacting, and so very much not “powerful”. In the same time it takes them to kill one target my usual build has already killed an entire group of people, to say nothing of single target builds. Casting the entire entourage takes ages, so for any casualty your tiny army suffers you hurt a lot. And they are not resistant enough given that they have 0 survival instincts.

Bas.7406:

Every single class and utility that doesn’t say bunker has the option of getting wrecked.

The major difference being that you don’t just go “kitten it” and ignore a thief’s burst (unless you’re a bunker build, obviously). You can’t just ignore conditions on a condition build necro. You can cleanse them, but they’ll be reapplied. There are very few “all conditions” cleaning skills in the game, and the necro can reapply them faster than you can “re-clean” all of them. A warrior can easily cleanse a single confusion, or break hundred blades and wait it out, since you can’t perma-confuse him.

Bas.7406:

Minions are easily controlled with their utility buttons, and I have yet to have one randomly attack something I didn’t want to attack or that wouldn’t have aggro’d to me anyways.

I’d like to see you force a minion through a specific path with their utility buttons. No, please, go on. I’ll wait.

Or make them break away from a target they’ve already acquired.

Or prevent them from attacking a target you’re attacking.

Go on.

Bas.7406:

To top it all off, It’s better for minion masters when your pets are ignored. The good players destroy the minions and then kill me. The bad players who think minions are horrible leave the minions up and get farm killed by Minionmasters. I guess we know which category you fit in.

Times I’ve been killed by a minion master: 0

Seen very few of them and they’re always laughable. The only pet that’s a menace at all is Flesh Golem, and that’s because of his brutal charge move, which has a hefty enough cooldown. Meanwhile you have very little defense yourself. Your life syphoning simply mitigates some of the damage you take, but you have 0 condition clearing against condition damage or even CC.

And this is where you start to see the obvious core flaw in this build: you’re burning every single utility skill for your normal, single-target, output. You have no notable defense or general utility, and your damage is pretty “meh”. Pretty much any other damage-oriented build (not just Necro ones) will outperform it. You’re also extremely vulnerable to any form of condition (damaging, debuffing, or CC) or having your “army” slowly whittled down or AoE nuked since they don’t regen (aside from the golem) and are quite uncontrollable. Yes, yes, I know you think being able to choose a target is enough. It really isn’t.

In PvE MM builds fail because they lack either single target DPS or AoE, while being a pain to manage (low health minions need to be constantly noted, euthanized and re-summoned lest you end up forced to summon at a bad time) and impossible to control properly (to prevent accidental agro pulling, for once).

In PvP, they’re unreliable and extremely vulnerable, while also not having fantastic DPS or survivability. What exactly is the MM build bringing to the table that isn’t outperformed by roughly any other build with the same orientation from any other class? This isn’t an issue of “other Necro builds being better”, but when there isn’t anything the build does better than anyone else, then the build itself is bad. This isn’t to say that you can’t complete story mode or get a couple of WvW/PvP kills with it. You can, but they won’t perform on the same level of everything else. Fun? Maybe. Solid? No.

This actually brings out a question I have regarding your build: You claim to be a power-oriented build, if I read it correctly, and yet you have so little attack… 2.1k attack was it? That’s… nothing. A power build should boast over 3.5k attack at least. I have way more than 2.1k on my necro, and I’m paying a ridiculous premium for ~1.4k condition damage and nearly 30k health. So, what’s up with those stats? Not accounting for gear or something? If so, can you provide some numbers WITH gear? I’d be interested to see what kind of numbers you’re working with for damage and survivability. Who knows, maybe I am wrong about something. Very unlikely, but it has happened before.

Mirta.5029:

Kandrick.8054:

Mirta.5029:

Kandrick.8054:

Go read – Confessions of a Magic Find Leech – further down the page. Will tell you everything you need to know.

Gimping yourself in a group with MF is leeching from the group, it’s totally and utterly selfish.

you can use MF gear and not gimp the team. It’s also about your skills and build.

No, No you can’t.

yes you can. This isn’t even an argument.

No, you can’t. And THIS isn’t an argument.

Whatever MF items you take, the MF stat takes the spot of a useful stat. There is no build in the game that can use MF gear and not be gimped by it. You’re sacrificing damage, or survivability, or utility… Or something. Always. No exceptions. The stat difference in one item is significant enough, let alone in an entire set!

When you’re running around the map on your own, that’s your problem. You’re just crippling yourself. When you’re in a party that’s everyone’s problem. Cause when you cripple yourself you cripple your team. They’re losing DPS, or you’re becoming a bigger liability, or you’re losing tanking potential….whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing, you’ll be doing it worse with MF gear.

Now, you can say that “so what, we can still finish it!” or “it doesn’t slow the run THAT much!”. You’re right. In as far as MF gear isn’t completely useless. Yet, you’re still crippling the party for your personal gain. Sure, you can complete the run, but it’ll be slower. Maybe not 200% slower, but likely 20% slower. Or more dangerous. Compared to someone similar to you not running MF, your party would always pick the other guy, because your mf is crippling them. Yet, the game rewards you personally for it. Sure, you’re slowing everyone else’s run time (and therefore profit time) by 20%, but you’re personally earning about 40% more so, kitten’em!

And that’s why MF needs to disappear. Or they need to let us see people’s gear. Then MF people can get together and run dungeons and kitten with other MF people. See how much MF gear “doesn’t slow you down”.

Staff probably.

Staff is extremely lackluster without Greater Marks, but Scepter is a medium-range condition based weapon that benefits almost nothing from power and requires good condition damage to be worth using.

You already got melee/close range covered with dagger/focus, and a non-condition build scepter will offer you very little there, so might as well go for a long range weapon, to just use when needed. Staff will be very lackluster compared to a Greater Marks + Condition damage one, but still brings a lot of utility to the table. The Auto-attack is crap at hitting moving targets, but it’ll let you snipe stationary ones (important for sieges and such), and you get a nice chill+poison, regen, fear and condition removal tools. Necro doesn’t really have any other long range options, to be fair…

You could maybe consider Axe + Warhorn…? For retaliation + swiftness and cripple from from warhorn…. Would let you fight somewhat at midrange, then trigger the swiftness + cripple and switch to dagger set.

There’s no reason for them to.

Then again, there’s no reason for them to nerf AoE in general either… So, who knows…

Bas.7406:

Currently in pve or pvp the Minion mancer is rarely seen in dungeons, spvp, tPvP, and questing. Occasionally we will pass a Necromancer who has 1 or even two minions, but the minion mancer has slowly fallen out of favor due to the strength of the necromancers condition damage, and the dagger power/lich form builds.

Correction. “Minion” based builds didn’t fall out of favor because other builds were stronger, they fell out of favor because they were pretty bad. You’re relying on AI, which is rarely a good thing, and the minions themselves are rather lackluster. They’re not that strong, not that resistant, their abilities are meh at best, you can’t control them properly (even less so than Ranger pets), extremely long cast times and cooldowns, and most of the bloody things don’t even regen at all.

In PvE the minions are unreliable since you can’t control them properly, and summoning a new one is extremely unresponsive because of cooldowns and cast times. In PvP the whole concept is laughable since, again, the impossibility to properly control the minions together with slow cast times and long cooldowns makes them unreliable “meat walls”, and mostly everyone will simply ignore the minions and go directly for you, since you’ll be extremely weak.

It’s not that every other build is way better than them, although they generally are, it’s that the build itself is, currently, extremely flawed. I question whether it’s viable at all, really.

pmargeti.7680:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Softspoken.2410:

ProxyDamage.9826:

pmargeti.7680:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

Isn’t that just adorable?

pmargeti.7680:

TheWalkingDead.7298:

-snip-

And for guardians, corrupt boon. That is all.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_soldier
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

There appears to be an infinite loop here.

Except Necros have two “conversion” options, both with less cooldown. I.e.: Not an issue for Necros.

True. One of which is a dark pulsing aoe field with a red circle border. It converts boons at a rate of one per second.

You, sir, are an evil genius.

You’re right. Now if only Necros had anything to force people inside their “red circles”… And if only that was only the secondary, AoE-oriented, option that also damages… If only… If only both of them had less cooldown than the Guardian’s skill…

Oh wait…

Ruufio.1496:

It isn’t ridiculous. It should be classed as a signet or a spectral skill simply as that. Every other healing skill is like that.

Every other skill isn’t 25 second cooldown heal that removes all of your conditions and heals you extra for it.

Consume Conditions is fine.

Softspoken.2410:

ProxyDamage.9826:

pmargeti.7680:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

Isn’t that just adorable?

pmargeti.7680:

TheWalkingDead.7298:

-snip-

And for guardians, corrupt boon. That is all.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_soldier
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

There appears to be an infinite loop here.

Except Necros have two “conversion” options, both with less cooldown. I.e.: Not an issue for Necros.

pmargeti.7680:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_soldier

So…? Just reapply them. The build I’m running has a fast enough rotation that it’s not a big issue for them to clean ONE condition at the time.

pmargeti.7680:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contemplation_of_Purity

That is all.

Isn’t that just adorable?

Honestly, I have two level 80s now (Ranger and Necromancer), and on my way to the third (Warrior), with two more characters around level 20 waiting, and haven’t had an issue soloing anything that isn’t a [Group Event].

While I haven’t done every single quest in the game, I’ve completed a good amount of them, especially in the lower level areas, and I have yet to meet these illusive “impossible to solo” non-group events. Warrior particularly has been laughably easy…

PS: Don’t try to play this as a typical “stand there trading blows” MMO. If you do that then yes, this game will be hard.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Hello, I’m here to crush your dreams.

There will be no mounts coming with the Flame and Frost story arc.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

kittenen’ love you!

Scared me for a moment there.

Conncept.7638:

Okay am I the only one who read the title as ‘Confirmed: Horse Sexists!’?

Yes.

I sincerely hope so at least.

sostronk.8167:

I use it in WvW on a daily basis. I find it to be one of the most overpowered abilities in the game, especially from a zerg vs zerg perspective.

Consider the following: Maybe you’re just terrible at using it yourself.

I think people expect Plague to make them completely immortal for 20 seconds, while all it does is make you almost completely immortal for 20 seconds. As someone who loves their Necro and realizes that Necros do have significant flaws that should be looked into (no cleave? really?), and considering that it’s a 20 second duration. 180 second cooldown elite, I think immortality would be a bit much.

As it is right now you can barrel through crowds and survive things no other class (save for maybe a full-bunker guardian) can even dream of surviving. You are not, of course, completely immortal. Yes, an organized 10 men team can kill you relatively fast. This is true for any class in the game, except you’re more likely to survive the focus fire considerably longer (even if not for very long in absolute terms).

Plague is my default elite on the necro in WvW, with Lichform being a prefered option when I’m expecting “open terrain” skirmishes, when I can best control my spacing and can use the temporary damage boost. Plague has let me not only tank, but actually considerably injure (through constant cripples, weakness, poison, bleed and blinds) entire mobs, often turning the tide of a fight. It makes me completely immortal against single targets or small groups. What it doesn’t do is make me untouchable by any means. I’m ok with that.

Neishi.5309:

I highly doubt they’ll be available for purchase at the crown token merchant. That would create another grind.

…hubbawha?

Since when is adding a different way to acquire something “creating another grind”? If anything it’s detracting from grind by giving you a sure way to acquire it, instead of relying entirely on grinding probabilities through the RNG of loot drops. And if you hate that you can always use the old method just the same. So I’m quite lost on HOW exactly does this add grind to the game.

The only “unfair” thing about thieves are the culling issues, and those aren’t a game design thing, it’s a technical “glitch” (if you will) that needs fixing.

Seriously, for a Thief to really put out that face melting damage they need to be glass cannons. Which means that they’ll be made of wet napkins. Their burst isn’t “insta-gib” for most characters unless they’re pure glass cannons themselves. And that’s the problem… Most people build pure glass cannon, because it works well in PvE and brings in those high damage numbers.

Ranger is currently one of the weakest classes in the game, and I have no bigger issues with thieves than I have with any other class. I’ve had actually killed my fair share of glass cannons by simply surviving their front load, dodging and CCing them, then unloading everything on them. My Necromancer just laughs at them. A decent Guardian should never, ever, ever, ever die to one. And then there’s the additional problem (for them) of WvW generally implying multiple people standing around. Usually that means someone other than the person you’re attacking will turn around to ask you a few questions with the sharp end of their weapon.

The glass cannong thief is a character that lives and dies on being able to insta-gib you then running away. The reason most of them work (culling bugs aside, mind you) is because most of you are glass cannons that take a trillion damage per hit. Stop building glass cannons, and/or running around on your own. I haven’t had issues myself.

Paulytnz.7619:

“What is the point of specializing if you are not limited in some way for doing it?”

In reply to this question I can give a small example. Specializing at the moment for some things requires you to have 2 complete full trait lines to do so effectively. An example is for an Engineer who wants to specilize for the flamethrower. You want Juggernaught for the extra defence you also want the extra 15% damage for the weapon. Having those I’m pretty sure you need 2 trait lines maxed at 30.

Also going for the extra 15% damage you then lose the chance to build up the toughness trait line. So in effect you really are not getting the full benefit from the extra defence from the juggernaught trait. In the end you are still -100 toughness than you would be if you went with toughness instead.

Perhaps they just need to alter a few trait lines for some classes to better suit certain weapons, kits, builds etc…….

Think about that one for a second.

You need to make choices. I.e.: You need to make a build.

Tada. You can’t have a build that has everything.

Right now the game is balanced towards letting you have up to 6 minor and major traits active at any one time, plus forcing a certain distribution of statistics. e.g.: You can go full offence at the cost of survivability, or you can get yourself some extra defense at the cost of the high glass-cannon damage.

You can change this easily enough, but you can’t simply have every trait and stat available. If you could, there would be no reason to have a build (let alone minor traits), as every build would simply have everything.

And, personal opinions aside, that would be fine if that was the way the game was built and balanced around, but it isn’t. Right now the game is designed with the consideration that you can’t have 3 grandmaster traits in mind. Or even 2 grandmaster and 1 master from another tree. You get 2 grandmaster and 1 basic traits, or 1 grandmaster and 2 masters, at most. Letting everyone have everything would require a significant, not rebalancing, but redesign of how the entire character building works.

Come on people, think these things through for a minute.

Yeah, no.

Most of your suggestions would actually be pretty funny for about an hour or two. After the 500th time you try to use a gate and get stuck watching an animation/event/minigame/random condition you’d be less amused and more in the state of mind that puts fists through computer screens.

Asura gates are fast and convenient travelling. That’s it.

Maveric.8369:

For those who say PVE is a breeze, I would suggest to solo Cathedral of Eternal Radiance event in Malchor’s Leap (where you need to kill princess).

Priestess, actually.

Also, do correct me if I’m wrong but does it not read [Group Content] on the event info? That probably means it’s designed to be done by a group. Probably.

Er… No. It’s just you. There are very, very, very, very few, if any, unavoidable (without trial-and-error or precogniscence) death situations. I think I only came across one or two, and only on completely optional jumping puzzles (kitten Griffon’s Rook Run… Not even joking…). Every other death is exclusively your own fault.

All of the game’s content is easy enough to solo, except for group-specific events, which are designed to be, as the game quickly points out, done with a group. Seriously, you can’t miss them, they have a tag with [Group Event] on them. Even then I’ve been quite successful at doing those with 2 or 3 man parties only, and I’ve even soloed a few.

I’ve leveled a Ranger to 80 by complete accident (I was trying to stay at the same general level as a couple of friend’s characters, but ended up getting to 80 by simple exploration), and I’m now taking my Necro down the same road (currently at 64). I’m actually soloing content several levels above my Necro’s level, including veterans and skill-point-veterans 3 and 4 levels above me (sometimes more, just try to stick bellow 7 levels of difference due to constant “glancing”) without much problem.

Really, if your issue is “the whole game is too tough” I have bad news for you mate… It’s honestly not the game…

Xavori.3768:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Thereon.3495:

3) Making me look up at my Blu Ray collection to see Sweeney Todd is up there. Not sure I want to watch it again though…

…That music is from Les Miserables, not Sweeney Todd…? And I don’t see much relation between both except that they’re both musicals… I guess.

Helena Bonham Carter was in both

Ah, the new one, fair enough. So was Sasha Baron Cohen. Haven’t seen it yet. Seems interesting though.

Thereon.3495:

3) Making me look up at my Blu Ray collection to see Sweeney Todd is up there. Not sure I want to watch it again though…

…That music is from Les Miserables, not Sweeney Todd…? And I don’t see much relation between both except that they’re both musicals… I guess.

Jammypack.3018:

Actually, I can believe it. My decked-out Mesmer is currently at the story point that takes place at Cathedral of Silence, which is of course, forever contested. Unfortunately so is Anchorage always contested, so in order to get to the story point you basically have to storm the f!@#$ing beaches of Normandy and Sparta and Satan’s Butthole all at once, with poopy cannons bouncing you everywhere. Fighting your way there as a clothie is hardly an option, and last night i tried again, only to end up trying to run past hordes of kitten slowing/stunning/freezing/pulling/throwing me as i used every trick in the book to evade/sprint/stealth/de-condition/blink my way to the glowing green spit-dangle.

I could at least see it when i died.

So sadly enough, it is not worth my time to continue to attempt to complete my story. At least until some other people free up the Cathedral waypoint, because [bold]if you have to stand in a zone and shout to the general population for an hour or two to get barely enough people (if you’re lucky) to attempt to clear an event-strangled waypoint that you need for A F@#$%3%NG SOLO QUEST [/bold] there are serious issues with the solo content being in said zone.

Yeah, I don’t get that… My first character was an offense oriented double-bow (long and short bow) ranger. I can’t think of any class with less options of survival in an environment like Orr than that. I can still run around fine in all 3 maps of Orr. And I have a pet I can’t get rid of (at least so long as anything touches me) with an irritating tendency for poor aggro-pulling pathing. The only thing is that, while I’m offense oriented, I’m not a pure glass cannon. I expect my Necromancer, whom I expect to gather in excess of 30k health and 2/3k toughness at least, and AoE-based damage, will simply laugh in the face of the risen.

While Mesmers are not the fastest characters out there, they do not lack in survivability options, so I’m forced to conclude that you’re doing something wrong.

Again, I don’t think Orr is terribly lethal outside of the group-oriented content, just boring and unrewarding.

Melchior.2135:

I agree completely with Jammypack. Orr is a work of art that it’s impossible to appreciate because of how miserable it is to navigate. My Elementalist died enough times to start getting equipment breaking entirely yesterday, just trying to move to the entrance to a story mission. I gave up and left him dead in the water.

Next time I try for that story entrance, I’ll be depositing all his money in my bank first (Respawning at Waypoints is free if you’re dead broke), and taking off all of his equipment. Then I’ll just rush the mission entrance over and over until I get lucky. It’ll be a while before I can stomach that solution though. I prefer not to engage in that kind of aberrant behavior, clearly contrary to the intended design, no matter how much frustration it saves me.

Yeah… That one is on you mate…

Don’t get me wrong, Orr can be tough, but if you’re dying that much… Something is wrong on your end. Maybe suffering from extreme glass-cannonitis?

Orr isn’t that deadly to navigate. It’s just extremely annoying , boring and unrewarding. Not that you can’t get killed there a few times, but hardly to gear-breaking levels unless you’re trying to solo group content.

And that’s the problem with Orr as far as I’m concerned. It’s too much effort for too little reward. Why go there? No zone in the game should be annoying to begin with… Tough? Yes. Annoying? No. Karkas are tougher than any Risen and, nuisance as they can be, are far from the same level of “oh for kitten’s sake…” irritation you get just navigating Orr…

If you’re dying more than once in a bluemoon, in a “woops..my bad” kinda situation, in PvE as a guardian or warrior, you’re doing something horribly wrong…

Josh P.1296:

Half of your reply didn’t make any sense.
And seeing as you did ask.. I do lift

Let me make it simpler for you: Show us a thread that asks for support for a stronger 1 vs. 1 mode and we’ll sign it. I’m all for it.

WvW, on the other hand, is not 1 vs 1. If someone wants to 1 vs 1, that’s fine and dandy and their business. But you can’t expect others to play along just because you want to.

@Amini: I do believe you can set up an sPvP room for 2…? I was told this was possible, but to be honest I’ve never tried it. And a Jedi Academy style “challenge this player for a duel” thing would be acceptable as well – if both players accept they’re stuck in an “aether” form that can’t affect or be affected by others (including structures) till one player dies.

Adaneshade.2409:

Coldviper.6794:

World vs World, not 1 Player vs 1 Player. I see red, it dies.

Once again, I welcome the chance to prove to you why you should leave duelers alone. A non-dueler doesn’t stand a chance vs someone who practices hours a day in 1v1 combat vs a variety of classes/builds.

You will quickly find yourself outmatched and in a 1v1, because no dueler will assist someone who just added in on their fight.

TL:DR- Please, by all means, add in. ^.^

Hasn’t been an issue so far. You all go down just the same.

That said, if you’re strong enough to turn it around, then good! I certainly won’t complain if I go in and lose. More power to you. But you (and by “you” I mean duelers in general and not you specifically) don’t get to complain that other people are choosing to play by the game’s rules instead of your own twisted version.

How can your server always be outnumbered? Wouldn’t your server inevitably drop in “rating” till it reached enemies that were of a similar “number”? Or do you just not know how/when/where to join in and, as such, tend to end up on the proverbial short end of the stick?

Darx.9842:

Maybe they are having fun, maybe they don’t want to be disturbed.

Maybe I don’t care?

If you want to 1 vs 1 go to SPvP…. in 1 vs 1. This is an all out war. If I see an enemy (whether that’s you or the person you’re “dueling”) I’m doing everything I can to kill them. And if that hurts your feelings you can craft yourself a nice juicy lemon to suck on.

Aberrant.6749:

Eng has one of the worst downed state in the game…

Auto attack does nearly no damage, the #2 is a pull… it will stop a single stomp, but do you ever want some one to closer to you when you’re downed??? #3 has a very long cooldown… to the point where it’s like… yea right i’ll be getting to use that… should be down with necro’s and rangers.

Well, usually the pull just counts as a disable. You’re toast after anyways.

But yeah, seems like Engineers have it even worse than I thought.

I know you’re all busy people, but I’m wondering if there’s any ETA on fixing the Rune of the Pack glitch that gives you +50 healing power instead of +50 power as the third bonus?

As in, this patch? The next? Not currently being worked on? Etc.

Xsorus.2507:

Tynee.9427:

No other class using a range weapon has to switch thier traits to be able to fully use their dps on a keep wall. Why should I give up qz, sharpening stone or another ability to have the same dps every other class has? Does a warrior carrying a rifle have to go out of combat and switch traits to make his F1 abitlity work? If my pet has 900 range and the enemy is in range he should attack every time. Guard should be an option to put melee pets on wall but not the only option to use my pets. It’s not about knowing the class but class mechanics working correctly.

No other class has like 3k Range and the ability to stand outside of LoS to do damage either.

Either you know something most rangers don’t and really would love to, or you just made your own ignorance very clear.

But please, how do we get 3k range again? Personally I can only get 1.5k. I’d love to have the same range as a Balista! Go on.

Here’s the issue: Necromancers have pets too… But I’m not forced to make a summoning build or halve my necro’s power. Why is the ranger being shoehorned into this one build, which isn’t even good because even full BM-built pets suck at anything other than PvE (and are only marginally good there) at the risk of losing half of his effective power?

I have a simple suggestion for it too: make “non-BM” traits (minor and major) stronger, and make the BM trait tree way stronger. That way people can spec into a Beast Master build, at the cost of keeping the individual ranger gimped, or they can spec into a “solo ranger” build, at the cost of the pet being less reliable.

Keep in mind, this isn’t a “Class A is OP, Class B is UP” thread. My point is that there is a massive disparity between what the difference classes can do while downed, which is ridiculous given that everything else about downed state is similar. The game seems a bit schizophrenic about where it wants downed state to be, from “easy to recover from” to “you’re basically dead”.

All I want is for A-Net to decide WHERE they want downed state to be and even it out between the classes. Whether that’s at high or low survivability, it should be fairly even among the classes.

First of all, this thread is not about whether or not downed state should be in the game. That’s a different matter for a different topic.

However, since downed state IS in the game, it would seem absolutely necessary to, at least, normalize them across classes. Right now downed states across classes are so ludicrously disparate that I can’t come across any reasonable justification for them. This isn’t just valid for WvW, but for sPvP as well. You can actually “tier” the downstates:

S tier: Elementalist.

The single greatest “offender” of downstate disparity. Not content with having no less than 2 invulnerable states while alive, Vapor Form adds a get out of jail free card. No damage. No risk. No nothing. Elementalist goes down, if they aren’t insta-gibbed they just turn to vapor and run back to their team/structure to revive. This allows a class with innately high AoE damage/range and mobility to become impossible to kill so long as they stay within a certain distance of their front line/structure. Best case scenario, if the Ele makes some gross mistake or is caught out alone, they can postpone certain death for a ridiculous amount of time comparatively to any other class, forcing at least one player away from the fight for the whole duration.

The worst part is that you can’t even burn CC them to stop them from running away. You just gotta follow them if you don’t want them reviving.

A Tier: Thief, Mesmer

Thief has no less than 2 ways to break targeting (and consequently executions). One of them allowing for displacement, which is very useful, and another allowing for temporary stealth. Between the two finishing a downed Thief can be quite time consuming, allowing them to buy a lot of time.

Mesmer only has one way to break targetting and executions: her clone. However, it’s quite a good one, which in the middle of a battle can often lead to additional erroneous executions, letting the Mesmer also buy quite a lot of time. On top of that Mesmer is one of the most dangerous targets while grounded due to her constant confusion spam and Phantasms, which also give her a good chance of a Rally in the middle of a fight, where some people will inevitably go low on health.

Essentially these two are very time consuming to kill, letting them buy a significant amount of time before you can finally end them. This can let them postpone their death long enough to secure a rally or for reinforcements to arrive.

B Tier: Warrior, Guardian, Engineer

Warrior can knock down a single target, and he can “rally”. However, unlike an Elementalist, he’ll take normal damage and CC, and if he doesn’t spec specifically into it AND get a kill while he’s alive, he’ll be killed at the end of it.

Guardian has an AoE knockdown, he can stop one “wave” of executions, but then is completely vulnerable.

Engineer have 2 ways to prevent executions, however I rarely get stopped more than once while executing them (and I know every little about them), which leads me to think that they’re not all that reliable. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here.

They can reliably stop one execution at least, and might have a trick up their sleeves, but really they’re just postponning the inevitable. They rarely survive once downed.

C Tier: Necromancer, Ranger

Necros have 1 fear, on a single target, after a couple of seconds of being downed, if they survive that long. They have no way to fight or recover unless their enemy is extremely weak.

Rangers have no way to stop an execution at all, unless someone just happens to stand near them and not executing them, for a very brief daze. Their only defence is against medium/low DPS, by reviving the pet to revive them after several seconds of being downed, assuming either can survive that long.

Essentially, being downed for these classes is the same as being dead unless the enemy simply ignores you. 0 chance of survival otherwise.

It seems ludicrous to have downed states be so ridiculously uneven, when downed state is, otherwise, a fairly “even” state. Everyone gets insta-killed by an execution. Everyone has, roughly, the same amount of health, everyone has bandage, and most classes attack 1 is, more or less, the same level of threat. It seems ridiculous then that different classes have so utterly different levels of viability in their downed states.

And don’t give me the “classes are different” malarkey. Squishier classes generally make up for it through things like damage, range, mobility, “get away potential”… etc. They don’t get downed inherently more than other classes, they just survive through different means.

Honestly, A-Net needs to draw the line of how much should a downstate survive, and then even it out across the board. Should downstates be able to survive an execution or not? If they should, then how much should they be able to survive or post pone their own demise?

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

I happily abide the rules of conduct in this game. There is no sense in using profanity. Swearing is definitely not needed to get a point across. The amount of negativity that comes with profanity is significant and can turn away proper players.

This has nothing to do with being a prude or anything, it has to do with good community etiquette. If a commander or guild member is mouthing off to others in the same server it can ruin morale.

I don’t care how much another player next to you is messing up it is senseless to cuss him/her out. It is more helpful to calmly tell them what they are doing wrong.

If profanity and verbal harassment keeps up in Guild Wars 2 it could turn into another League of Legends or any DotA style game for that matter where mouthing off at your own teammates is common.

Guild Wars 2 is a game and games are there for fun. If you are swearing your head off you couldn’t possibly be having fun IMO. By all means play to win.

Your assumptions are as baseless as they are ignorant and misguided. All very common traits for the kind of people who seem to carry this incomprehensible fear of words.

You see, contrary to what other, equally uneducated, people might have told you before as you were growing up there is no inherent “danger” to a word. For some insane reason, seemingly originally related to religion and religious teachings, as these things usually are, we, as a society, started attributing this exceedingly negative connotation to certain words. Not even to meanings, but to words specifically, which is utterly ridiculous. It’s absolutely baffling that you can have two different words, with the exact same meaning, where one of them is a “bad word” that offends people just for being spoken, and the other is perfectly fine and acceptable. But we have them. In fact, just about every single “bad word” has a “socially acceptable” counterpart. Because people, by and large, are remarkably stupid, prioritizing form over function. In fact I’m far more capable of insulting or demeaning you without using a single “curse” word. If you think about it all of these “bad words” are remarkably “light weight”, or even benign, as far as insults go. Take the ever-green “go kitten [synonym of sexual intercourse] yourself”. How is this an insult at all? Sex is something everyone loves. Even those who are ashamed of it and try their entire lives to repress it. We’re genetically programmed to love it! Often one of our favorite things. How is it that wishing something desirable upon someone has become a form of insult? It’s complete nonsense, associated with cultural religious influences where sex, or in fact most desirable things, were attributed a shameful significance in an attempt to control the masses… But that’s another story. For another time.

It’s also well documented that the popular belief that only the ignorant, poorly read or those of limited eloquence “curse”, is complete bollocks. Often the most eloquent people “curse” freely. In fact being eloquent implies the ability to fully utilize and manipulate words. All words. Ask Stephen Fry.

So, you see, your personal vendetta not withstanding, there is no logical reason for certain words to be globally banned because you don’t personally like them. If you don’t like them ANet has been kind enough to provide a complete, full-proof and individually tailored, solution: You may turn on your personal word filter, at varying degrees of intensity even, on the in-game options menu.

Enjoy.