Guild Wars 2

Vol.7601:

Remember, you just need to farm lots and lots of mobs to have lots and lots of chances.

Unfortunately,with the megaservers hitting on April 15th this will not be possible anymore.

I.. wha.. That doesn’t make any sense.

Grats on your precursor, but if anything, megaservers and new boss timing are going to up your chances of getting into an active zone, which means more chances at boss loot drops, and large numbers of mobs during events so you can get that .000000001% chance of a precursor drop. (Or .000000004% if you have max magic find :P)

Celtic Lady.3729:

Or they could add new ascended crafting components that are specific to cooking.

Maybe something like Boss Hearts!
…Sorry, but I’ve been playing a little too much Dragon’s Crown lately, and the sheer vengeance of devouring a chunk of some kittenhat that ticked me off is such delicious, delicious schadenfreude.

Y’know, they could just add a temp status after you port that protects you from getting ganked by mobs at contested points. Could be something like:

Phasing: combination of Daze (no skills) and Stealth (mobs won’t see you)

Applying something like that after the first few seconds of a port gives a player time to at least get in position to fight or beat feet to somewhere safe(ish).

But, but.. if you remove auto-targeting of ambients, how are my bounce-damage skills going to hit you twice?

Er.. >.>

1. Totally valid concern. A champ train grazed past my party, and even after they were gone, I was looking at two blank models of my friends. Mounts would probably make that worse.

2. History. People find ways to ride animals. Does that mean there are suitable animals in this part of Tyria? Nope. Does that mean GW2 needs mounts? Nope.

3 & 4. Pretty sure any “combat” action would throw you off a mount, if they did execute it. Which means a fly-by past a bunch of Svanir isn’t worth having the mount anyway.

Not totally against mounts in this, but I really don’t see a need for them.

I could see using some of the stuff from Ascended crafting for it.
Dragonite Ore to make “platters” that stick around or maybe even much larger stacks than most foods. (Maybe even infinite use?)

Bloodstone Dust with some salt and pepper to make a magically infused dish?

…Not sure what I’d do with Empyrean Shards though. :P

There was an item in the Feature Pack notes about waypoints that can be contested will be contested if you are not on that particular map.

While I don’t consider it a case for mounts, having a half-cost, guaranteed waypoint on each map would alleviate that somewhat. Though, more than likely, they’ll accept the greater gold-drain as a bonus so it can siphon money out of the community. (Which isn’t a bad thing, because of inflation.)

Fext.3614:

The problem we may have here is that the enemies are still very much trinity like. Trinity typicaly works with a big and mighty boss which the tanks keeps busy while the dps kills it and healers keeps tank alive.
A no trinity game should rather support something like a numerous enemies of rather normal strength against a warband of players.

So glad you said this. It’s okay to have a central figure (boss), but in a GW2 setting, a singular boss just doesn’t make for interesting combat. We need minions (trash mobs) that add complexity to the fights or some other reason to allow more CC (like the Lovers fight).

Speckly.3729:

I would just like to point out that many of the people saying ‘you need x rank to buy the gift of battle’ are mistaken, despite what the wiki says. I was able to purchase it on a rank 6 character, with badges I didn’t even earn doing WvW, but from achievement chests gained almost exclusively from PvE. (At the time rank 6 was also the highest I had.)

That said, POI/WPs being able to be earned without having to go inside towers/etc. would be very nice. I enjoy WvW now and then but I certainly don’t have the patience to try and map complete it twice.

Echo this, so hard. I don’t necessarily want to just rip WvW out of map completion (that’s the easy answer), but having to be on at just the right time when there simply isn’t one for many servers means that getting map completion on one character (much less all of them) is practically impossible.

Algreg.3629:

It´s about time the word “mount” gets the kitten-treatment in here I say!

It’d be hilarious to see topics of “Can We Get Kittens?” or “Kittens PLZ”
I want a kitten. I’ll have to settle for my arctic fox though.

I outlined a few possibilities in another post, here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-Improving-champ-mechanics/first#post3851698

If we get enough good minds on it, maybe we can give the devs something new to work with.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Also, vertical progression is awesome. Just because that, in most MMORPGs, it sucks and is a massive grindfest, it does not means that the concept itself is bad. Just look at every single-player rpg out there: it is driven by vertical progression, and no one is complaining about that.

People don’t hate vertical progression. They hate grind-driven vertical progression.

There’s a lot of truth to this. I maxed on Diablo 3 some days ago, looked at my character and went “Well, he’s done, no need to grind for gear anymore,” because the odds of me finding something better were really, really slim.

At least with GW2, I have the horizontal growth of lots of alts and crafting and plenty to zip around and do.

Xae Isareth.1364:

This is actually the main problem I had on FF14. They have dynamic event ‘bosses’ as well (although their dynamic events are a bit of a joke compared to GW2’s).

At the start of the game, it was okay because people are everywhere and you’ll always find a tank and a healer. But after a while, you get a lot of events where there’s just no tanks or no healers around, meaning that if the event has a boss, it’ll just be impossible.

Or an Arcanist. :P I’ve solo’d boss events before, but not always had enough DPS to finish it.

As for all the logical fallacies above where “allow build diversity for tank/heal/support” translates to “MUST HAVE TRINITY OR I’M GOING HOME”… Some of us just want to see the game improve and be more inclusive to diverse build roles. It’s not about “zomg Trinity is a deal breaker qqqq!”

I don’t overly care for the Trinity. I’ve done the DPS-wait with my thumb up my kitten. It’s really unfun (though occasionally profitable when farming mats). I love being able to grab any 5 or 25 people to lob myself at content. (Especially with the new boss rotation schedule~)

But we’re running into the issue of many boss/champs get auto-attacked, not because the players are dim, but because, in many cases, boss defenses invalidate almost everything on their weapon bar. Or they’re waiting for the right time to use their defensive/support abilities.

The meta for PvE is very in favor of Berserker and PVT builds, so it’s much more of a mercenary approach. I can’t even call it DPS, since the best damage builds that include crit are blunted against world bosses.

OmaiGodman.2098:

My main has been stuck at 99% world completion for a month now because I need two vistas in the red borderland (both in the keep just south of the red spawn). Over the past weeks we’ve been green three times, and now we’re blue.

Boo

Yeah, same here. I need some “red” spots on two maps, but I’ll never get to them at this rate. I keep scanning WvW for them, but they’re never in my favor. I’ve got Eternal Battlegrounds and one borderland, but these other spots just elude me because my server gave up after Blackgate stayed at #1 for so long. :\

I’d be okay with WvW completion, if the realms were balanced with each other. But maybe that’s something the April 15th patch will fix. As I understand it, maps will be balanced by activity instead of ranking, so hopefully I will get into those last few POI fortresses and vistas.

It’s not all equipment drops. It’s a chance of equipment drops. Granted, I’ve gotten Lv 80 exotics by beating up the parade of Flame Legion junkyard losers, but that’s the exception, and I was quite amused by it.

And, I’ll be honest here, I’d rather get Mighty level 1 blues from low-level mobs, because they sell for 5-6 silver on the Trading Post, for some odd reason. :P

It might be a good idea to wait until the April patch and see how it affects the WvW meta. Right now, the ubertop servers are going to stay on top, while servers that stopped giving two kittens (looking at you, SoR…) might actually get involved with smaller server groups and those that are better related to their activity.

Please, PLEASE, let this patch finally let me finish some exploration. >.>

If the chests had a guaranteed ticket scrap, I’m sure they’d get a lot more sales on keys. But this silliness of 1 booster, 1 tonic, 1 wtf just doesn’t do anything for me.

Something like 11-(?[1,100]) would give a rare chance at a full ticket but give plenty of progress toward getting enough scraps to buy skins off the BL vendors.

Draknar.5748:

And probably why the DPS:tank:healer ratio in trinity games is always terrible, causing groups to wait around forever just to get a group together.

It’s usually terrible because DPS level faster when away from dungeons. Quick fights, quick quest completion, and overall general autonomy.

But, more importantly, tanking and healing are jobs. Jobs dependent on (usually) four other people, and you catch a lot of flak for them if the group fails. DPS are generally free of responsibility.
Healing just gets frustrating, because you spend most of your time spamming your low heal so the tank doesn’t die, praying the DPS don’t stand in the fire, then having to waste time and mana scraping them off the floor when they do. But mostly, healers end up babysitting and playing reverse-whack-a-mole with HP bars. Some people like it because they feel “supportive”, and others are really into the resource management.
I personally get those same jollies from my water-Ele, but maybe that’s just me.

GW2 doesn’t need the Trinity. It needs fights that make use of ALL of the class roles. Because if I ever see Reflects Conditions again, I might have to choke a kitten.

It’s already hard to justify bringing heavy-CC, condition, or high-crit builds into world boss fights against monoliths (one giant boss). Giving the players more things to hit during a fight would give other builds plenty to do. Tri-Wurm is actually not a terrible fight in that respect. (It is in others, but I think that’s just the mob scaling…)

The way it implemented in open-world, large scale content is to prevent the chain CC. Nothing more. In that kind of content it’s an unavoidable mechanic, while on a smaler scale it can work, like Queens gauntlet.

Ayup. And it’s not to say that CC isn’t useful. I still get a lot of glee with burst hammer into a group of enemies. And I think we’re beginning to see more monoliths that have adds rather than just a single rampaging monster. That needs to happen more. Honestly, a consistent design change like that fits the GW2 fighting style, gives CC and condition builds something to do, and adds variability to a fight.

Just as an example (which may be in the game already??), Boss (A) can do the occasional hard hit and otherwise harasses the players with CC, Minions (b) are actually the bulk of the damaging force, coming out frequently and threatening to overrun the players. Each minion provides a buff to the ones around it (taking a moment to cast Regen or Might or whatever, something that can be removed). PVT and Zerk can focus fire the boss, CC and conditions can tackle the adds, and support has plenty of heal/buff on the field.

Or, a fight already in game, the Destiny’s Edge fight. They’re all CC’able but all dangerous. Eir’s damage needs to be toned down a bit and Zojja’s blindbomb needs more than an 1 second cooldown, but that fight was complex with available spots for any role.

I guess what I’m actually asking for is less champs, more minions. Not even necessarily more loot from the minions attached to a champ. Tank their drop rates for all I care, just give me more interesting fights. :P

Dalanor.5387:

• Don’t want to derail the topic, but brainstorming on an ingame communication system would be a good step forward. Personally i don’t like the use of a third party program for better coordination.

So much yes. Problem is, if the system can’t handle more than 25 condition stacks, I think adding a robust communication system would kill it. :P

Yeah same here, sometimes it’s annoyingly unpredicatble.

If I knew more about the aggro system, I could offer conjecture, but in WoW, some bosses are known to occasionally throw out attacks at the second (usually ranged) on their aggro meter or just dump aggro altogether and force the group to reestablish it.
Perhaps some bosses in GW2 do that? Or maybe their measure of aggro time is longer or shorter than we’d like?

The introduction of elite mobs or packs of elites and veterans are also nice, but yeah, the scaling is sometimes over the top.

Is it sad that I fear Elites more than I fear Champions? And the champs have the better loot!
Where I see the problem in Elite tuning is that they tend to hit excessively hard. While this is intended to occupy 3-5 players, you threaten that many people by spreading damage rather than increasing it. Well, up it a little, to account for regen/protection.

I’m hoping that this is a “phase 1” of their huge overhaul, and that perhaps the tonics will become ‘skins’ that can be added to the wardrobe on a second pass.

Perhaps too hopeful? :\

I’m personally glad for the downtime! Call it “bored” if you will, but I’d rather be casually doing dailies than so frustrated and burnt out that I get tempted to quit.

Remember when you got kittened at your teachers in school for giving you so much homework, and you always wanted to scream “But I have other things to do!” at them? Yeah, the constant update cycle was doing that to me.

I’d rather relax for a while in between Living Story bumps and get excited for them, rather than annoyed that they never, ever end.

I always wanted to make a Hylek myself.

Obvious troll is obvious? >.>
I always considered it such a tragedy that they put some cool Mesoamerican flair on such a facepalm-worthy race of do-nothings. :\ It’s really rare to see Incan/Mayan naming schemes in games, but it’s such a waste on the Hylek.

One of the reasons my friend bailed from GW2 before even hitting 80 was that he couldn’t move things around. Meh. :|

Though, I wouldn’t mind being able to move the charge bar to under my feet instead of slicing me in half. It’s mildly distracting.

Tengu are so ripe for the picking, though. They’re just at the border of consciousness for the players, their “zone” is under guard but in an obvious hole in the map, and they’re actually intelligent.

(As much as I would love to see a racial Signet of the Skritt that gives stats based on how many players are around…)

Problem is the Tengu culture is likely to be some faux-Asia rip. Exotic, but it’s been done to death in other places.

Kodan have an interesting belief system, but I have to wonder if it’s best left at arm’s length and not have us mucking around personal story into it.

GW2 has released trials in the past, though they probably won’t until after the big China push comes down.

At that point, they should just cap levels at 29. nodnod Yup.

Equipment slot bags work wonders.

It’s probably not going to be as bad as you might think. Beyond friend/party/guild association, it also takes your home world into account.

The benefit is, if you want to meet new people, go a less popular zone, since it will likely be populated with people from other home worlds.

I see a lot of comments about harassment. I generally handle such things as I handle them in WoW.

/ignore

Am I oversimplifying the issue? Of course. If anything, I’m kinda irritated that /ignore only blocks some of the bilge that comes out of other players I no longer have an interest in. ( Emotes. Seriously. ;_; )

I think it’s not such a bad thing, so long as there are basic player options to prevent duel spamming.:
Players can choose what level of dueling they want (all challenges, friends only, guild members, etc)
Blocking a player automatically ignores duel requests.
Apply a cooldown on duel requests, whether or not they are accepted. Once per minute should keep most spammers in check from the wait.

I honestly wouldn’t mind the practice and helping friends test out their builds for WvW and PvP, so it’s not a terrible idea, just one that has to be carefully considered.

<— This guy is totally guilty of range-AFK’ing Shadow Behemoth during an encounter. That was a tasty sammich, lemme tell you.
}]:3~

Out of curiosity, wouldn’t RPers be for dueling? Especially for Charr, there’s no better way to settle an in-character argument.

Short answer: Some people go a little deeper into the notion of the “character”, going as far as to have conversations about their character’s lives and backgrounds.

It’s echoed in a lot of books for tabletop play: the White Wolf books, Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun, et. al.

It’s just a matter of time and money.

Fair consideration, but it’s probably a really easy fix. Possibly as easy as change one or two specific variables (bleedarray.size() or whatever) and then test to make sure the dynamic memory allocation works consistently. Two people taking a day to three days, tops.

That’s a learn to play issue. Most players don’t even realize that they need coordination and spams all the CC’s and come to the forum to complaining that control is non-existent, so +1 to you for realize this.

It’s not so much a complaint on my end as much as a realization that the system, while working as intended, isn’t matching the play style of what happens most frequently. Defiant works better in small settings, in my opinion. Granted, I’m also usually the one chipping away at Defiant with hammer skills.

Player skill is a factor, and that’s a great thing about the game overall. It starts to fall apart on high-coordination things like boss CC where there isn’t enough time to communicate. (Yes, you could have Vent/TeamSpeak, but all it takes is one person out of the loop to hinder a team’s plans.)

World bosses actually easier alone or with small groups.

I feel your pain, man. I did a Mark II run with 5-6 people in under 2 minutes. And all I have to do for that fight is range it with a rifle. The same run with the zerg takes over 5 minutes.

Remove rewards or big chunk of player base from the server?

Eeeh. :\ I will admit that rewards need to be balanced around coaxing out the participation the devs actually want. Champ bags? Kinda bad, but something needs to be done to incentivize the time invested. (A forum topic in its own right.) Invasion of Lion’s Arch bag drops? Freakin’ awesome. I didn’t know what would come out of them, but I wanted them, and farming a bunch while tackling event points really helped me stay involved.

So you are again one of the “i hate zerker, i’m not zerker, but i join zerker groups and complain” type of guy? Hope not. Look the vids above, every other gear is viable without the need of dodge, which is the most efficient damage mitigation ingame and available for all classes.

Complain? Nah. I show up, I participate, other people get the benefit. The show up, they bring some damage, and I pick them up when they fall over. It’s symbiotic like that.
I still remember one of my best dungeon runs was with a Guardian who just tanked the everlovin’ mess out of the climax battle and managed to scrape us off the floor in a huge effort. (Thanks, Chiggit!)
Then again, I also remember tipping a 10k hit with my thief. Oh, but that felt good.
Point is, it takes all kinds, and that’s the beauty of the game. It just needs a little touching up to add some more value to other builds.

Btw whats your exact problem with agro? … If you want agro management, it’s tanking, thus pointless, because it’s against the current design of the game. Threat and artificial agro management (Taunts) are imo stupid. Just a personal opinion.

I agree with this. I’ve never been a fan of taunt-only skills or high threat for the sake of high threat. That’s a waste of design space, honestly. With the Trinity, you always, always have to plan for Tank, Healer, and DPS. There’s a freedom in the come-one-come-all design, so long as damage mechanics are balanced a little more carefully.
Still, a very good question, and I need some thought on it. Between Ranger and Mesmer who don’t want that kind of threat, I sometimes find that mobs will, for no predictable reason, stay aggro’d on my character instead of the HP dolls I put in the way. For my warrior, I usually want the threat, so my team members can focus fire while I HP-sponge/CC/dodge at it. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
I’ll have to analyze that more in depth as I play over the next few weeks. No sense in telling the devs to change something if I can’t articulate what specificially that I want, right?

I’m don’t afraid of future content. With the introduction of aetherblades and new factions, pve mobs got wide variety of options and mechanics. Or if you remember to the Queens gauntlet, it was a really fun and engaging content and those bosses weren’t even champions!

Truth. I must acknowledge the wealth of monster design changes that are expanding gameplay over time. The addition of elites reduced event-champ farms in large scale battles (though I have my issues with their scaling), the devs are really working to split up the zerg and create objectives that must be done before the zerg-damage rush can happen. So it’s improving! And I still log onto GW2 every day, so there’s obviously something of interest enough to do so. I’m even thankful for the downtime before the patch.

Zaxares.5419:

They capped it so they don’t have to keep pumping out new AP rewards ad infinitum.

Hrm, true enough. And the 10k chest is already pretty far away, unless players also grind PvP and WvW achievements. I haven’t, so I’m still a good clip away.

Honestly, with my [I]total[/I] AP not being at 10k yet, I really shouldn’t worry so much about the daily/monthly caps, just yet. :P

Is that a big hint hint to the devs? I think it is.

Also, I LOL’d pretty hard at the part in bold. Your a funny person.

I think it’s a preemptive compliment? I personally would like to see less need for 5 different game builds every two weeks. And a wee bit more time to coast in between story bits. Three weeks would be just about right for keeping things fresh and giving players time to continue exploring what else is out there.

Good questions about poison and burn. Those have the potential to go very long, even without raising the cap, since they’re also easy to apply.

Vulnerability can stay capped at 25, as far as I’m concerned. No need to open a boss up like a tin can.

Defiant can be chipped away, but the problem is, in zergland, there’s no strategy in it. A highly coordinated guild can certainly take advantage, but then many bosses are just flat immune to stun/KD anyway. I mean, sure, there’s also the notion of don’t bring a hammer to a gun fight (which I don’t, I’ve got a bow and rifle prepped for those situations), but it marginalizes gameplay options.

Ooh, I get it now. I thought that number seemed weird. Yegh, we stop earning points after the cap? That’s going to kill my daily play.

Even if Anet change up the EHP value of champs, there is the 25 condi cap which can be undone for a while due to performance issues.

I assume “can’t” be undone, because the processing to manage 50-100 stacks would be more strain on the server. Which is a legit concern, yes. The condition cap is build-limiting to anything but PVT, though, so the alternative bears examination.

Defiant scales up, to prevent chain CC from players. If you give Stability to a champ, players will just strip it off or simply corrupt it for Fear, which means additional CC.

I realize why Defiant is in place. I’m seeking alternatives that make it less restrictive. It’s a status that works okay in highly coordinated groups, but fails elsewhere. Also, my friend thought of the condition-nicking and that’s a valid point. Of course, making it a boss-only buff that can’t be removed as a boon solves that problem.

Champs are soloable anyway.

Yup, some are. I do it. Frequently. I’m referring to more than champs, but also world bosses and the like.

It’s just a perception and learn to play issue.

• Champ uses projectiles = absorb, reflect
• Conditions = cleanse
• CC = stability and stunbreaks
• Melee boss = soft cc and max melee range it
• Unstoppable = if you struggle range it

Yup, all valid points on gameplay. Be prepared is a good motto, but unrelated to design improvements.

But all of the above doesn’t matter in the open world, due to players zerg content.

Which is something some us are trying to improve. Hence the post.

Don’t even try to make a WoW clone from this game, thanks. If you can’t react to a sudden agro change …

I’m not advocating a strict WoW clone. Gods no. I like not having dungeon queues. (I’d say not having elitist players, but.. full zerk or go home. Yay…) It’s about presenting options instead of gear/PVT/faceroll/zerg bashing the content.

Trying to keep the snark down, but.. In this case, I have to point out you didn’t pay attention. It’s just a perception and learn to read issue.
But moving on…

You still can facetank everything in PVT / clerics with the right builds, i don’t see the problem. Don’t gear in zerker and expect to not die from every hit.
Educate yourself. Welcome.

I’m not even PVT/cleric on my warrior, and I can ignore a fair portion of damage mechanics, or at least survive them. That is not my short-sighted point. If I gear high damage on my thief (which I do), I expect to dodge like crazy or be dead on the floor. It’s usually the former over the latter.

My point with this is to promote diversity, instead of the PVT/zerk/l2p attitude that’s hurting the game and limiting a fair number of future content design decisions.

Glad someone’s thinking about options. I outlined a bunch of thoughts on a separate post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-Improving-champ-mechanics/

Right now, boss-level mechanics are very limiting on character builds, so I’m hoping to get some good ideas to reach the devs.

Making Support More Interesting
For all “roles” in the game, damage is a component of their play, and there’s not denying that. But some players get a big kick out of support roles like healing or tanking. Being that kitten that holds off a boss from your friends or dropping that last-second heal when someone else has theirs on cooldown is a thrill. This is by no means a demand for the Trinity, but those roles could stand to be better supported.

Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy status/condition related fix, but more in boss/dungeon design and AI control. I’ve seen a couple of ideas around the forums and thought to outline them here:

A: Better aggro control.
I don’t mean complete aggro control, and I certainly don’t advocate a taunt-only skill, but there might be a few skills that draw more emnity than others, especially stuns and hard CC. This would make those big weapons (hammers, greatswords) proper “tank” weapons without having to add other skills or mechanics. I’d like to see an entire forum post on this, because it’s an expansive topic that includes how bosses treat ranged classes, how to adjust their AI so that they keep everyone active, and disproving the stacking-as-tanking tactic.

B: Better damage spreads.
It feels as if bosses rely more on one-hit KO mechanics than any sort of fast, intense combat. Most of their attacks come slowly, especially compared to player combo attacks. Dividing up monster attacks to be more frequent but less individually punishing would lead to players having to choose the right moments to manage the incoming damage and gives them time to apply healing skills, including those support builds that focus on healing. In conjunction with better aggro AI, it can also have characters swap out on who happens to be the monster’s main target.

I know it’s a huge order for one post, but I really hope to see some changes made that would improve combat for the players.

Summary (tl;dr)

A: Raise the stack cap on condition damage or give damage for stacks unapplied/removed stacks.

B: Remove Defiant in favor of short boss-specific conditions that debuff attack speed/damage.

C: Change Defiant to give Stability for a short time after a hard CC ability is used.

D: Improve threat mechanics for more dynamic combat options.

E: Build/rebuild monsters/bosses to attack more frequently with less damage, to spread their DPS and allow for more reactive damage management.

As it stands, a majority of the bosses in game lend themselves to the “PVT/Zerk” mentality of character design. That’s really unfortunate, since the trait system is so wonderfully diverse. I’ve been at the game a long time, and I started to come up with some ways that might help expand what people can bring to a fight and still be potent in their roles.

Improving Condition Damage
Considering most bosses are huge HP sponges that are worn down the most by Power-specialized builds, we need something to give other builds more potency.

Perhaps the most notable in this case is the 25 stack cap on bleeds. I’ve mentioned in other posts that most bleed-oriented builds can easily tip 10 stacks from one source, which means in a group of 20 (reasonable for many world bosses), if two people are built for condition damage, they can max out stacks easily. Some quick math to demonstrate:

For a 20 person fight:
Anticipate 1/3 being condition focused. (estimate, and I’m sure the devs have more accurate metrics) This gives roughly 7 people.
7 people x 10 stacks per person = 70 stacks. It’s easy to see how much DPS is lost, in this case, and how clearly unfair it is to condition builds.

Raising the cap to 50 would help significantly, though 100 would probably be the most fair.

Or raise the cap based on the number of people making contact with the boss. If we start with a 25-stack cap, add 1 or 2 per person, that could easily accommodate 50-70 stacks.

Alternately, if a stack is capped for intensity or duration, the incoming stacks should yield immediate damage at a smaller exchange rate, probably half to a quarter. This way, the damage isn’t completely lost. Or, if the stack flow follows a first-in first-out approach, stacks that are replaced disperse the rest of their damage at a reduced rate.

Improving for Crowd Control
Defiant started off as an interesting idea, but in real practice, it falls flat under mob rule. Trying to accommodate 20-50 people using different tactics and keep the Defiant stack clear to wait for that one time where it might be useful for an interrupt sadly doesn’t work.

Rather than have Defiant completely ignore crowd control until the countdown is reached, we could include alternatives, possibly even mixing one or several ideas in between different bosses. When a boss takes a hard CC skill like stun/daze/KD:

A: Replace the status with Unbalanced, stacks duration: Slows attack speed/cooldown recovery. My thoughts on this are to either make it a 10% reduction (opposite of Haste), for the duration of the CC, or a 25% reduction for a fraction (half?) of the CC duration. This gives control builds the option to aid the player base by reducing potential damage output without marginalizing the boss.

B: The boss gains Stability for a specific duration, possibly depending on the number of players in combat. (5-10 seconds, leaning toward 10 seconds)

C: Grant bonus damage (3%~5%?) to the attack when the boss negates the hard CC.

eye floater.7140:

Lot’s of people like the trinity, not just a small percentage.

I certainly support the option to have roles. I just don’t want them required.

As a long-time ranged dps in other games, the wait for a tank was beyond discouraging, and when those tanks do show up, half the time they were kitten tastic, only tanking so they can get the short queue.

My favorite characters in GW2 so far have been the high-defense support builds anyway, a spot that fits rather well in dungeon running.

I do half of this already, to be honest, but I see some other very useful ideas, especially regarding CC.

The biggest problem to generating a “trinity” mechanic is the terrible, terrible aggro AI and control. Most times I get lucky enough to have my warrior hammer-tank in group events and dungeons, using his own banner heals as support for the group. (He’s gotten compliments for that, by the way.) But I can’t, for the life me of (literally?) shake a mob that’s hellbent on killing me, even if I reduce dps.

As it is, I’ve had a lot of fun proving people wrong that there aren’t healers and tanks in the game. Water-staff ele is fantastic support. Banner-warrior shrugs off what most people die from. I just can’t convince enemies to do what I want, seemingly ever. :\

The only consistent thing I’ve noticed is, if you really want a mob to hate you, go rez someone. They HATE that. And, honestly, rightfully so. :P

Might not have this desire to unbind them if there were a way to “downgrade” them via the Forge.

10 Dragonite Ore + 1 Ori/Mithril Ore + 5 Philosopher Stones + 5 Crystalline Dust → 20-30 Ori/Mithril
10 Bloodstone Dust + 1 Crystalline Dust + 5 Philosopher Stones + 1 Glob of Ectocplasm → 10-15 Crystalline Dust
10 Empyrean Shards + 5 Philosopher Stones + 1 Silk/Gossamer Bolt + 5 Crystalline Dust → 10-15 Bolts of Silk/Gossamer

Just throwing the ideas out there.

Is there a way I can turn my legion of useless Mini Queen Jennas into these new moas? If so, I would gladly approve. :P

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Badge_of_honor

>.> Sarcasm respectfully withdrawn. Sorry about the crossed wires.

So, my fallback position: Entitlement! I shouldn’t have to do WvW when I have to FINISH HIM! in PvE. …yup. That’s my stance. Because spinning around in attack formation with a greatsword is totally “evading”. And more Badges in every achievement chest! And.. and..

I’ll stop being silly now. Enjoy the game!

For a long, long while, Shrapnel Mine became a primary skill for me. (Then I l2p’d a little more and don’t need the cripple so much.) My Asura still use Radiation Field.

…My Norn are 100% devotees of their class, as Norn racials are junk. Which is sad, because Wolf form has a decent attack/heal and some great buffs, but it doesn’t last long enough and it can’t attack while moving. All terrible.

As it is, I don’t use most of the skills in my classes, either. Most are too corner-case with long cooldowns, so I end up with lots of condition-removal for end-game anyway.

Truthbearer.9708:

What are these PvP tokens you’re talking about?

Badges of Honor (the fiddlybits required for some of the Legendary crafts), Not Glory or the PvP craft mats from the salvage kits.