Guild Wars 2

Yay, Ascended weapons revealed to also be a massive vertical progression bullkitten time and money sink…

This thread is now more relevant than ever. What happened to “we don’t make grindy games”?

There is so much stupid in this thread I just ignored it entirely last night… Too much…

I’m just gonna bullet point a few important issues to whomever cares and let you all mud wrestle after that to your heart’s content.

- Warrior’s gap closers are fine, learn to play. If anything a couple weapons (Hammers/Axes) could use gap closers or some defensive options to help defense, because right now they have nothing going for them.
—- Before you say it: “whaawhaawahaa hammer op!uhuhunmhhwahaa!” Learn to play. Hammer is the poor unloved step sibling of the mace right now, because not only does the Mace have better defensive capacities on its own (perma-weakness on auto attack and one extra block), but lets you couple an offhand weapon with it (usually a shield), which lets you manage its weaknesses far better. If you’re having issues with Hammer warriors learn to dodge and kite.

- Will Warrior get nerfed? Possibly. Do they need to? Not really. Unfortunately most of the players in this game are beyond trash, and ANet can be quite sketchy on their balance, sometimes succumbing to whack-a-mole balance when faced with peer pressure (see Rangers).

- Does a bunker warrior have better sustain than bunker spirit ranger? Passively: yes. Actively: no. Ultimately it’s not as big a difference as all that. Ranger has dodges, Warrior has blocks. Warrior has more passive healing, Ranger has more active (since warrior effectively sacrifices having an active healing skill). Warrior has more stuns, which indirectly gives you survivability since you’re not taking damage, Rangers have protection and can ressurect themselves. Warriors can have more mobility, at the cost of range. Warriors have a little more condition removal, but also more conditional compared to ranger’s more passive condi removal.

The difference is more about style of play than anything.

PvE and PvP are different monsters entirely.

In PvE, you should shatter clones whenever you can, since they otherwise do no damage (or no noticeable damage at least). Phantasms, on the other hand, should stay alive as long as possible, seeing as they deliver more DPS alive than you can get out of them dead.

So, usually, for PvE you spam phantasms and only shatter either when they’re about to die anyways, or after they attack, if you have everything off cooldown again so you can, essentially, reset their attack timer and get a slight damage spike bonus.

For PvP Phantasms and clones don’t last long anyways, so ideally you want to let them deliver their full attack and maybe shatter them after for additional burst… Then again they do meatshield, and if your enemies are ignoring them entirely, feel free to put 3 phantasms up and let them be. They really hurt.

And then you have specific situations where you want to shatter or not, but that you’ll have to learn as you play.

bestestnoob.3856:

Some of the warrior skills… I mean how many blocks do you need? It really bothers me that warriors have more than 4 blocks. One with maces, sword, spear, and shield. I understand the shield block i mean its whakittens used for. But the fact we have 3 more its dumb because we could have gotten a more useful or nicer skills.

The fact that you so easily dismiss blocks as not that useful says much more about your skill than it does about Arena Net’s design.

(2/2)

Together, we’re talking about allowing you to stun your target more often, and getting 50% more crits whenever they’re stunned. And all of this for 20 more trait points….. 20 points he dumped in the Strength tree for relatively no benefit. Waste. Complete waste.

Signet warrior without Signet Mastery, instead taking the useless waste of a trait Destruction of the Empowered? Check.

I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. Destruction of the Empowered is a crap trait, since it gives a measly 3% damage per boon. It’s a really insignificant bonus given that most builds don’t walk around with a ton of boons. The ones that do generally carry protection, which further dwarves the use of this trait. It’s just not worth it.

Comparatively, his build is running 4 signets! All of them with good passives that you might want to use… Why wouldn’t you cut down cooldowns by 20%? That trait means that the downtime on Fury, Swiftness and 5 might stacks from Signet of Rage is only 18 seconds, instead of 30 (60s cooldown > 48s)! It means your Signet of the Dolyak stunbreaker and 8 seconds of stability runs on a 48 second cooldown instead of 60! The full condition removal from Signet of Stamina on a 36 second cooldown instead of 48! That’s 4 less seconds of cooldown on your Healing Signet if you have to use the active.

…Why wouldn’t you…? Why give that up for a wooping 3 to 6% damage on most characters?

For Great Justice outside of PvE? Check.

FGJ is one of the best skills in PvE due to extra might and the high upkeep of Fury – for your entire party. PvE is mostly about damage output, so FGJ is a godsend….

In PvP, you simply have more important tools. Almost all stances are a better option. You can have an extra stunbreaker that gives you temporary immunity to damage with Endure Pain, you can have extra stability with swiftness with Balanced Stance, you can get temporary immunity to conditions with berserker stance… Or you can get Bull’s Charge, which can be so important extra movement and CC on a build that lacks mobility. Or Stomp as an extra “get off me” AoE knockback that also doubles as a stun breaker…. etc, etc, etc. FGJ is simply not worth what you lose.

Another thing I just realized: He’s running 2 “on critical” sigils on the same weapon set (both maces), which is a major no-no. On critical sigils share cooldown, meaning that if one triggers they both go on cooldown, which causes a very undesirable scenario of both sigils competing with each other and nullifying each other. 1 on critical sigil per weapon set. Fill the other sigil with something else, depending on build.

I hope that made it clearer, but feel free to ask if there’s anything you don’t understand (or disagree with).

Cheers.

Corian.4068:

Instead of tearing the guy down, can you explain for those of us that aren’t as well-versed as you are with the mechanics why each of the things on your checklist is bad, what could be done to improve them, and finally a build that does not result in sarcastic checklist replies?

I’m serious, btw. It’s so hard trying to find information anywhere. If you have some, please provide it. Trying to learn all I can.

Ok, let’s try this another way:

Longbow + dual mace – No mobility whatsoever? Partial check – At least you have range. Could be worse.

In GW2 mobility is gold. Mobility means being able to walk out of a sticky situation, or prevent someone else from doing the same. It’s the difference between being kited to death and killing that guy at 5% HP before they get away.

Since this is sPvP, mobility is a little less important than, say, WvW, since the focus is on holding points. That said, being kited to death or being able to make a getaway are still issues, as is getting to points as soon as you can.

In GW2, mobility starts with 25% movement modifiers and swiftness, but the “make or break” points are movement skills.

Greatsword is an amazing weapon for mobility, with both Rush and WW giving you two quick movement skills.

Sword is a good weapon for mobility, with a low cooldown leap and ability to wield an offhand weapon.

Mace is not. Mace (main or offhand) is a weapon set that seriously lacks mobility. When I run mace on my warrior I run it with a shield off hand for that priceless 3 second block to absorb as much damage as I can, and extra stun (with a little range) from shield bash… And that’s far from enough. I almost invariably run Greatsword for the added mobility, at the sacrifice of range.

Now, he is running longbow, which does come with a juicy 3 second ranged immobilize, and offhand mace does have the nice 1.2k range 2 second knockdown, which significantly minimizes the issue. That said, and since this is sPvP and not WvW, it’s a “personally I wouldn’t do it, but it’s not too bad” issue. He does have range from longbow if he needs it, so, all in all, not terrible, just a weakness he needs to keep in mind.

20 points in power for Distracting strikes / Waste of 20 points in a useless trait? Check.

I’ve written lengthy posts on this before. Distracting Strikes is a kittening waste of a trait, end of. Confusion without condition damage does kitten all, the trait relies entirely on the very unreliable interruption mechanic, and not just landing your CC, and the warrior weapons that can cause interruption are power weapons that have no condition damage scaling, while the condition damage weapons can’t do interruptions. all in all, it’s a complete waste of a trait and, with it, at least 5 trait points, potentially more (as none of the other traits in that line are particularly relevant or impressive), that could have gone to far better use… Which leads us to:

No Unsuspecting Foe or Burst Mastery, 2 of the 3 most important traits on a mace build? Double check.

The holy grail of the mace, the one thing that really makes the weapon shine, comes in the form of its burst skill: A brutal 3 second stun that is almost the same animation as an auto-attack, on a 10 second cooldown (by default).

Burst Mastery and Unsuspecting Foe, coupled with Cleansing Ire (which he does have, which is why I didn’t mention it) are a Mace’s best friends forever and ever.

First, Burst Mastery reduces the adrenaline needed to use your Burst to it’s full potential (the full 3 seconds) by a ludicrous 33%! Additionally, by spending 30 points in the Discipline Mastery you also get it’s cooldown to under 8 seconds! Together this gives you a much higher “uptime” on that savage stun.

Second, Unsuspecting Foe gives you 50% free critical chance on stunned targets. Given that the main purpose of the mace is stunning people for 3+ seconds at the time, this means that every time you stun someone, for the whole duration of their stun, you have 50% free critical hit chance! 50%!! Fury only gives you 20%! With just that and fury from Signet of Rage you’re hitting for 70% critical chance on a stunned target without any critical chance of your own. On a Soldier’s Mace build this trait is more than mandatory.

(1/2 – it’s a big one….posting the second part bellow)

Heartseeker spammers are usually absolutely no threat whatsoever. To any build.

That said, the counter depends entirely on your build, so you gotta tell us what you run first.

In my build’s case (shatter/phantasm with GS and sword/focus or pistol) Just make sure you have one stunbreaker in case they load basilisk venom, then dodge and proceed to chain-combo them with knockbacks, stuns, immobilizes and the ridiculous mesmer burst!

Bonus points if you happen to have Moa Morph just for the overkill.

Good thiefs are usually a dance to see who overcommits first. Moa Morph pretty much guarantees a kill unless they counter with Thieve’s Guild and get lucky with the NPC’s attacks (can buy enough time to wear down Moa).

….

Do you want to be a Commander?

If yes → yes.
If no → no.

… Difficult right…?

JorneMormel.9850:

While it is not apparent at first, the Ranger’s downed skills are actually one of the best (if not the best) for one reason only; while the pet UI is hidden in downed state, it does not disappear. You can still micromanage your pet in downed state so instead of pushing back nearby foes, you could send your wolf after them to use his F2 howl ability and fear them off your corpse. That is just an example but it is the most common one around. It is a shame the pet is so unresponsive most of the time, though.

This is only true for PvE.

For PvP rangers are pretty much middle of the road when it comes to downed state, nowhere near the top 3 of downed state (Ele, Mesmer and Thief).

Simply because in PvP the only value of downed state is delaying your death as much as possible so a team mate can rez/rally you, or just to be a nuisance and remain alive as much time as possible, buying your team a little extra time.

In that regard, the top 3 are the only ones that can prevent any form of stomping, with elementalist being the strongest (can’t even take damage while in Mist form) actually immortal when within a certain distance of a fortification they own (Mist form right in). After that Rangers and Guardians can prevent stomps once in an AoE if it’s not covered with stability (or better, like invincibility), and finally the classes that can prevent a single no-invisibility or better stomp (single target, requires targeting) – Warrior, Engineer and Necro.

Phaseshift.5912:

I play mostly PvE, very little PvP,

Yes. Berserker everything is the “be all end all” of PvE (unfortunately). There’s no reason to use any other status gear for PvE . PvP / WvW is a whole different issue.

You might die a bit as you are new to the game, but it doesn’t take much to learn PvE, after which it’s Berserker all the way. Anything else is just dragging you and your team down.

SuddenlyDonkey.1764:

He has chosen to level a Warrior. I prefer to play support classes.

From this alone I’d say Guardian fits your description perfectly… Particularly because you’d both be heavy classes.

That said, any class can do support really, so if Guardian doesn’t fit your bill, take whatever you want really.

Longbow + dual mace – No mobility whatsoever? Partial check – At least you have range. Could be worse.

20 points in power for Distracting strikes / Waste of 20 points in a useless trait? Check.

No Unsuspecting Foe or Burst Mastery, 2 of the 3 most important traits on a mace build? Double check.

Signet warrior without Signet Mastery, instead taking the useless waste of a trait Destruction of the Empowered? Check.

For Great Justice outside of PvE? Check.

You get an E, for effort. But it needs work. You’re carrying a lot of deadweight that’s costing you important things.

Hjorje.9453:

No for all of you that have a disagreement on the ascended stuff. How many of you own an ascended item? We knew back in November they were going to keep adding ascended to the game, if you was against it, then you shouldn’t have gotten any in the time frame because it is against your playing style, correct?

Incorrect, very.

See, the reason I have Ascended stuff is the same reason I hate it: It offers an objective and significant advantage over exotic.

I’m forced to have it to keep up, or I’m at a disadvantage. That’s the problem with ascended. If they were simply exotic stats with an infusion slot most people wouldn’t give a kitten: Get them for fractals, don’t get them if you don’t wanna do fractals.

As is, they offer a significant advantage over exotic, forcing anyone that wishes to remain competitive to go for them. Remove that and I’d happily ignore them.

Personally the reason I rolled a Ranger first is because they promised to be the masters of ranged combat. Which is a lie, obviously. Nowadays I play Warrior and Guardian more, though I have one of everything at level 80.

Surprised Guardians aren’t more popular though. They’re good at everything.

Would love to see races by gender though. I swear female char are rarer than any legendary…

Paulytnz.7619:

Ummmm bacon burgers or any bacon food for that matter might upset rangers…..

Why? It’s the circle of life!

Unreliable ball and chain today, delicious meal tomorrow!

Bright.9160:

It’s not random, we simply do not understand the causes.

marnick.4305:

Quite the contrary. There’s a whole lot of things that are inherently random.

You’re currently claiming that every random number is pseudo-random, which is patently false. You’re logic only holds merit with mathematically generated pseudo-random numbers. Even if that were the case, for a game on the scale of GW2, pseudo-random is as good as random for all intents and purposes.

No, I’m saying there is no random, at all. Ever. Even outside of “mathematically generated” numbers.

Random is just what we call events the cause of which we do not know or comprehend.

The first line needs a huge correction. In offline games, random numbers do not exist. It’s perfectly possible to control all variables and generate the wanted item on any “random” drop. GW2 is an online game, therefor this part is not applicable to this game.

Incorrect. There is still no such a thing as random in any computer system ever made.

marnick.4305:

Which is exactly the same as saying: it’s entirely random for all intents and purposes.

Except for the fact that it’s not random at all. For the most common practical purposes, yes, it’s random, but it’s really not.

marnick.4305:

So you’re making a huge wall of text, merely to claim that true random numbers don’t exist (they do) and GW2 does have random numbers but they’re not truly random yet for all intents and purposes they’re as random as it gets.

I was merely rambling because I felt like it. Still 100% correct, and any claim otherwise is merely ignorance. There is no random. Everything is the effect of a very definite cause. If you repeat the cause you produce the same effect. If I ask you to say the first word that comes into your head you’ll claim that word was produced “randomly”, but actually it was merely an extremely complex result of recollections and associations. Nothing is truly arbitrary.

marnick.4305:

It is blatantly obvious that the RNG is GW2 is random enough. And that’s what counts in the real world, not long texts about the philosophical implications of having pseudo-random numbers vs true random numbers.

And yet you felt compelled to reply. Why? I know why, but I’ll let you find out on your own. It’s sweeter that way.

Eh… Too hard to tell from just that. RNG is RNG. Etc.

First of all, there is no such a thing as true “random”. The concept of “random” is ultimately a human construct to define things for which the causes are unknown or too complex to understand.

In games this remains very much true. There is no such a thing as true “random”. The formula behind any “Random Number Generator” is always a “ghetto hack” including several variables that are almost impossible for a human being to control. However, in order to manage probabilities (e.g..: creating loot tables where different things have specific chances of dropping), you always have to make the random a little less random, otherwise you lose control of how often things like exotics or trakittenems drop from a mob.

There are many ways to do this, and some arguably more effective than others, but ultimately, it’s never really truly “random”, and you can simply get lucky and hit the right window.

For example, and using completely random numbers, one way to do it is to control a mob’s drop table on a global scenario, and make it so it drops 5 rares every 100 drops. It would seem like that would be way too straight forward, but given that this table would be shared between all versions of that mob through potentially every server in the same region, and you realize that it’s incredibly uncontrollable by the players.

Another similar scenario would have the same mob instead drop 1 rare every 20 drops – ultimately sharing the same “odds”, but with a different system.

Either system is incredibly uncontrollable by the player, and both systems can result in the same player getting the exact same drop of they so happen to be lucky enough to hit the same window.

And of course, that’s just 2 very basic systems. I have no idea what system GW2 uses.

Ultimately, random is random, but it’s never really truly random.

/gibberish

can only be made once per day in order to help give high-level crafters their own economy of items to build and sell that retain their value and rarity.

This is such a bullkitten argument… A lot prettier than saying “virtually inflating content duration” though.

tolunart.2095:

Nope.

Well, you know the way out then.

tolunart.2095:

The overwhelming outrage consists of a couple dozen individuals who rage against any change made to the game no matter how small.

Got any evidence to support that?

I’m the first to say I don’t have absolute numbers, but all of the evidence I’ve found points towards you being wrong. I provided some. Care to do the same?

Most likely both.

I’m guessing that without sigil slots they’ll simply be redundant. Unless they offer massive stat boosts (which would be ridiculous), the benefits of sigils greatly outweigh a small stat bonus.

This is all speculation but, given the trend, they will most definitely not be tradable or sellable (account bound by default, soulbound on use), they might be available for laurels, but at obscene prices compared to the “main” forms of acquiring them (such as crafting for weapons, it would seem).

(2/2)

And before you say “it doesn’t matter”: it does. The current difference between Exotic and Ascended is calculated at roughly 10% – And this is before factoring in weapons, which may or may not increase this gap. 10% is not nothing. If you think 10% is nothing take off your Amulet next time you play and then say it’s nothing. 10% is what the strongest traits give you. 10% is the difference between wearing a weapon and not. In a game like this, 1% can be the difference between winning a fight by the skin of your teeth and losing. 10% is the world.

Additionally, for an uneven distribution stat such as Critical Damage, and in a game where min-maxing exists, ascended can be the difference between an item slot being a waste of stats or being the best use of them.

For example, Exotic Rings are, statistically, a waste of stats for Critical Damage: Each 1% of critical damage costs a whooping 16 stat points! That’s some of the most expensive critical damage you can get, and absolutely not worth it. However, if you turn that into an ascended ring then each 1% of critical damage only costs 8.5 stat points! Suddenly, that’s some of the cheapest critical damage you can get!

Backpieces suffer from the same issue, going from a terrible 1:16 ratio to 1:7, effectively the cheapest crit damage you can ever get.

These might seem minor, but when you’re min-maxing a build it means the world. It means having to redo an entire gear set based on one piece suddenly throwing the whole equation off.

The Fix:

So Ascended gear is a problem… But how do we fix it? We started this thread by establishing that, for whatever reason, Ascended is here to stay. Removing it outright is not an option. So what is?

Simple, I propose something that not only makes Ascended more attractive to any player (and more worthy of the time investment instead of just being another arbitrary piece of vertical progression), but also greatly mitigates the issue of build diversity being essentially shot in the head, using a mechanic already programmed:

Simply make Ascended able to change stats outside of battle, like the new Legendary weapons can.

By allowing this you give people a reason to go for and invest in Ascended gear other than simply inflated stats, you promote build variety and experimentation, and even mitigate the aggravating and artificially inflated vertical progression, by adding a very convenient factor to it.

The other option is to simply make them exotic stats with infusion slots, but not only do I seriously doubt you’d even seriously consider that, but I can also foresee potential customer issues, such as “I invested time/money (gems) into an item because it was stronger and now it isn’t anymore!”. By simply making it more convenient, you refrain from angering anyone (…anymore at least) and instead just make everybody happier.

As is, Ascended gear is a very hefty investment. It also feels like a mandatory one for anyone even mildly serious about this game (particularly the WvW component). This change could be the difference between Ascended being received as yet another arbitrary treadmill (…which is what it is right now…) or something that’s actually welcome, a minor inconvenience that, nonetheless, comes with relevant benefits.

My 2 cents. Whatever they’re worth.

Fun is subjective. You can’t rank stuff like “fun”, “pretty”, “nice”, “bad”, etc… because it’s always a personal list that’s ultimately objectively arbitrary for everyone else.

Try everything, stick to what you like, delete what you don’t.

/thread.

Molch.2078:

Dualwield? You are concerned about dualwield? My warrior alone has over 12 different weapons and I use all of them frequently.
12.
Just my warrior.

Waht teh KITTEN!

Ascended in general is a massive kick in the genitals for anyone that enjoys build or character variety.

I got into GW2 because it promised to remove most of the treadmill associated with the generic kitten MMOs (i.e.: basically all of them). It’s slowly seeping this kitten back in, and with it my interest in this game is vanishing quickly.

I want a game, not a job. I expect to get paid for working, not the other way around.

Dear ANet: You gave me some free kitten. But the free kitten you gave me wasn’t enough. I wanted more. What’s up with that?

Signed: this thread.

Steelo.4597:

lol uncheck fast-cast ground targeting.

Now, why would you do that?

Simply aim the mouse where you want to go.

Budchgon.2108:

Is this possible? I mean mainly for PvE/Fractals etc…?

I was thinking 30/20/0/0/20

For PvE? Yes. Just about anything is possible. Even naked runs… That said you’re full berserker and using a greatsword so that’s already good to go, really. The rifle helps in places you might need to range.

Daecollo.9578:

This would make a lot of since, since if you did it would be used for a lot of builds.

Would make a lot of “since” indeed. I for one would like my Mending to do 100% extra damage! And who wouldn’t, really?

Oh man… These threads are always funny…

On a serious note, Mending just needs a slight heal boost, or cooldown reduction – One not tied to a stupid arbitrary trait, of course, whatever tier it might be.

a t s e.9614:

Did you guys read my post i know some weapons offer a better mobility but i dont use them .

You clearly didn’t read ours.

You’re using a knife and a fork to eat soup with, then complaining it’s not working. When we tell you to use a spoon you tell us that you don’t want to use spoons, cause “e’rrybody doin’ that!”. Well, then… you’re kittened buddy.

Warrior has some of the best mobility options in the game outside of a Thief. If you’re not using them that’s your fault.

i.e.: The problem is you.

IIRC it’s simply part of the guild set, of which only the armour is available outside of PvP. The closest you get is devout.

Lol…

1 – Thieves are not the kings of melee in any way shape or form… At least I think that’s what you were trying to say, in the midst of that garbled mess.

2- Hammer is a piece of overrated junk. It has no mobility. If you see a hammer warrior proceed to kite to death. Or break their combo and kill.

Stability/stun breakers nullify the hammer completely. It’s a weapon that relies on stun-locking you to land it’s full combo, otherwise it does roughly nothing. Break the combo and the warrior is suddenly left going “OHGOD! OH GEESH! OH NO OH NO OH NO!”.

3 – Also, you mentioned Foods…? If you’re complaining about HAMMER warriors in WvW (outside of Zergs, at which point, it doesn’t matter, you get chain stunned from multiple warriors, not from 1) I’m just gonna walk out while laughing. Hammer has no mobility, it’ll never catch anyone that isn’t utterly clueless.

And foods work both ways son. You can use foods that counter their foods. Of course that involves thinking instead of just sticking to a flowchart…

The problem isn’t kiting, it’s your build.

Both Hammer and Axe are currently the bottom feeders of the weapon’s list in PvP. The problem here is that you have 2 weapon sets, but you chose to fill them with weapons that both share the same exact problems – Mobility and range. Together they suffer horribly. What can you do against someone at range? Nothing. Hammer has no way of closing distance or even any relevant amount of defense to use while closing the gap. Axe has 1 ranged very mediocre cripple and that’s it. Of course you’re going to get kited to death.

On top of that both weapons are competing for the same resource – Adrenaline. The only reason to use either lies in their burst skills (AoE stun from hammer and single target burst from axe), but you can’t use them together. So when you land that juicy Eartshaker stun you’d want to follow up with some big damage, but you lack the adrenaline for Eviscerate… Without Eviscerate there are far better options for damage in PvP (like Sword). Meanwhile, if you land an Eviscerate first (for…some reason) that also temporarily denies the hammer its only reason to be…

The whole point of having 2 weapon sets is to have complementary sets. In this case both weapon sets are fighting each other over the same flaws and strengths, resulting in a dysfunctional build akittens core.

So the problem here is not the Warrior class, or kiting, but your build. You need better mobility or ranged capacity.

So…. A Thief, playing quite poorly, nearly kills an “unkillable, too op” build, and the only reason he didn’t was because he blew every single chance he had over and over…. and then complains that build is OP?

Oh dear…

Crovax.7854:

°beebeepbeep° My sarcasm detector is going crazy over here. I wonder what might have caused that :/

No, it’s not sarcasm. I used to think he was trolling but, sadly, no. He really IS a terrible player. His PvP warrior build till recently was hammer and dual axes. Don’t take him seriously… Take it as random comedy. That’s what I do.

alamore.1974:

Signet of might

This.

Other than that, lolno…. are you crazy? Unblockable burst skills, by default, with no extra investment necessary, would be ridiculously overpowered.

YES? PLEASE? PLEASE?

Super Adventure Box was one of my favorite updates ever. Loved it to death and hated to see it go. Can’t wait to have it back (hopefully for good this time).

You get a commander tag you can turn on and off, and the ability to see some squad information . That’s all.

The Baws.5164:

Thief being the worst support is a load of rubbish.

No, it isn’t.

The Baws.5164:

They have AoE Stealth which heals,

Not that much. At most, if someone sits on the entire Shadow’s Refuge that’s 5.3k over 4 seconds, which is a pretty mediocre heal for a 60 seconds cooldown. It’s not terrible, but it’s not fantastic either.

The Baws.5164:

and the stealth is far longer than any of the stealth that Mesmers or Engineers can provide.

It is longer, I said so. It is one of their advantages. That said, most of the “skipping” you can do with a Thief can be done with either of the others, just not as easily.

The Baws.5164:

They can also almost permanently blind mobs,

Trash mobs, which aren’t the issue, even in high level fractals. Champions ignore 90% of blinds.

The Baws.5164:

as well as reflect projectiles.

So can Guardians and Mesmers, with a higher uptime I believe.

Don’t get me wrong, they work as support, but they’re hardly the most… impressive when it comes to support builds. They’re generally better as DPS characters that also bring some innate support.

Weindrasi.3805:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Tribio.8531:

Please keep brainfarts contained in a Notepad window on your computer.. :p

This.

If you want to make the character make it. If you don’t, don’t.

But. But. But. What if I do, and I don’t, AT THE SAME TIME?? ):

Then you need a professional therapist, not an online forum.

Tribio.8531:

Please keep brainfarts contained in a Notepad window on your computer.. :p

This.

If you want to make the character make it. If you don’t, don’t.

PS: To the guy saying “it’s just one or two servers!”

Aurora Glade’s Lion’s Arch right now, at 10:51 AM GMT on a Thursday, 22nd August (School time in many places, like here in Norway). Pardon the graphics, but on a very low end machine right now.

“PC gaming is dying!” – Lots of people. In 1985.

There will always be people saying everything is dying or dead, even when the numbers go the other way. We can’t let something like evidence get in the way of a good scaremongering can we?

Honestly, any class can do support. It’s down to what kind of support you wanna be. What kind of support do you want to be?

Engineer’s can possibly “burst heal” the most out of any class by themselves, due to several water fields (healing turret + toolbelt kit) and blast finishers (a ton of them). The other 2 classes with water fields (ranger and staff ele) have much longer lasting fields, but with greater cooldowns and have much lower access to blast finishers.

On top of that engies can remove conditions and grant boons (with limits) with elixir tosses.

Guardians are generally considered the quintessential support class, since they’re the most “obvious” one – most of their builds will come with some form of party healing and/or party-wide boon generating and condition removal, not to mention their virtues’ actives, which are naturally AoE. A full cleric support-speced build can give a lot of constant party wide passive healing, extra active healing and condition removal.

Necromancers can make a well build, with some moderate party healing, AoE protection, and condition removal/conversion on top of pretty good AoE damage.

Rangers have a water field and spirit builds can provide several party wide benefits, including instant revival.

Elementalists, as you’ve experienced, have staff, which is almost exclusively designed for artillery and support, including the strongest water field in the game.

Warriors can do support shout builds or banner builds (which also include an instant-rez option), both benefiting team mates.

Mesmers can do a lot of boon generation and sharing, on top of their party wide stealth, quickness and even portals and blinks, which can help a lot even in PvE.

Out of all, Thieves are probably the worst supporters on their own. Their party-sharing venoms are lackluster, and all they really bring to the table is the long lasting AoE stealth, which mesmers and engies (smoke fields with blast finishers) can also do (although at a greater cost). However, give any shortbow Thief some combo fields to play with (such as a buddy staff ele) and they become the best healers/might stackers/etc in the game, due to their ability to really spam blast finishers.

All in all, it’s less about “who can support” and more about what type of support you personally wanna do.

Barabbas.8715:

Instead of coming across like a jerk, why not share tips and strategies on how to beat harder content like this? Why not be supportive of your fellow players?

Let me reverse that for you: Instead of coming across like a jerk, why not ask for tips and strategies on how to beat harder content like this? Why not help your fellow players help you?

To put it in more direct terms, because some people have a harder time catching on, I don’t feel particularly inclined to facilitate an answer when you’re not asking a question.

This is the age of information. It is available and plentiful. Dulfy, for example, publishes guides on how to beat just about everything roughly as soon as it comes out. If you browse youtube you’ll find dozens of people completing just about every part of the game. There were many threads in many different GW2 related places (including these forums) with people posting how they beat Liandri (for example). If you want the information, it’s available. And if you’re having difficulties, it’s ok to ask.

What’s not ok is to whine and complain, kitten and moan, and cry for nerfs and free rides because you can’t figure it out. Get over your kitten. Deal with it. Almost every single “L2P” and “You don’t deserve” type answer I’ve seen anywhere (and typed myself in some cases) were never directed at people who were asking for help. They were directed at people who complained they couldn’t do it so ANet should do something about it. Those ARE “L2P” cases.

Barabbas.8715:

And why not understand the frustration they’re experiencing?

Because I can’t relate to them in any way imaginable. Trying and failing I can understand. I mean, I hardly thought it was unwinnable, but not everyone has been playing these games as long, or as much, as I have. I can respect people who just didn’t feel like trying any harder – not their thing. What I can’t respect or understand in the least are the people who couldn’t do it, gave up, then complained about it demanding something should be done because they couldn’t do it. Entitled whiny losers the whole lot, and they deserve every “L2P”, every verbal and otherwise emotional slap across the face they get.

The Queen’s Gauntlet, and Liandri specifically, was not for everyone. It was a test. It wasn’t a particularly hard test in my view, but it was a test nonetheless. It was hardly unfair (unless you were colour blind – those were right to complain) or unbeatable. If someone wasn’t good enough to earn it, tough, get better. If they want help getting better I’m sure plenty of people will gladly give them pointers… But most don’t, and that’s the problem. Their problem.

conflict.6539:

So I get on 1 minute after the 10 minute timer, and now I miss the entire event? seems pretty stupid.

“Man, I get to the place 1 minute after the closing time, and now I don’t get service???”

No. Deal with it. Don’t be late next time.

The events run every hour on the dot. 10 minutes is plenty.

Sorry but it’s been done, and it’s terrible. It’s never going to be good unless ANet makes drastic changes.

Simply put, the access to confusion on a warrior is terrible.

First of all, it’s too circumstantial – you only get it on interrupts. Not even on disables, but on interrupts. Any CC you land has to interrupt something to land 4 stacks of confusion for 8 seconds. Too reliable and low access to be meaningful, even before the confusion nerf.

Second of all, warrior interrupts are on weapons that benefit nothing from condition damage – Hammer and mace are power weapons through and through. They benefit nothing from conditions. Shield is an “everything” weapon, but it’s a single interrupt that sacrifices the use of off hand sword, which is terribly powerful for condition builds – far more powerful than the far more conditional full potential 4 stacks of confusion every 25 seconds, assuming you land it as an interrupt every time.

In the end, if you’re doing a condition build, there are far better options for weapons and traits. It’s a trap trait.

Cygnus.6903:

There isn’t a single racial skill worthy of being on your bar. So, as others have said, make your choice based on looks.

Very much this. For every profession.

For PvE 30/25 seems like the way to go. You really want that GS trait.

For PvP just LOLNO. If you’re burning 30 points in the power tree you’re doing it wrong.