Guild Wars 2

Some weapons don’t get the CD reduction, because their cooldowns are already pretty short. Ranger main-hand Axe is another one. But they do get an offhand CD trait, which includes their longer offhand-Axe cooldowns.

Basically, those skills are already balanced (-ish?) with their cooldowns in mind.

While I see posts out there addressing (aka whining about) the changes to hammer, I don’t see many ideas on how to improve or support it.

I’ll concede the Earthshaker changes, for the most part. While I enjoyed getting good damage with an AoE stun, the nerf hasn’t hit me all that hard. (A roughly 20% nerf on something that happens every 7.5-10 seconds isn’t that rough, peeps.)

What gets to me more is how ill-supported hammer is in the trait tree. For example, Axe gets loads of stuff, littered all over the trait lines. Most others get some nifty tricks as well.

Hammer gets two things, maybe.

I’ll lead with Distracting Strikes, since Hammer can produce some consistent interrupts. It takes some skill and timing, but it yields the most painful damage condition. (And if the wiki is right, it’s been buffed rather nicely since I last used it. o_O)

And then there’s Merciless Hammer. The CD reduction is nice, yes. The problem occurs on the damage boost. While hammer does get plenty of CC skills (knockback, knockdown, and stun), none of those effects last long enough to benefit from the 25% damage bonus. You’ll get one swing, maybe, if you’re lucky.

Point is, the synergy just isn’t there.

So, I’d recommend some other options:
1. A smaller damage boost (5%) against targets with Weakness, a condition hammer can also inflict.
2. Higher damage when a target is immune to CC. Similarly, granting Might and/or Fury when a hammer skill is blocked/condition-immune. This would really, really help with champions and dungeon bosses, and would still be fair for PvP/WvW.

Hammer was what brought me into Warrior as a class, and I’m still really fond of it for its AoE handling, but it needs some actual love, ANet. Anyone else out there got some ideas?

I get by just fine with Healing Signet. That might be because I’m spec’d for survival (Signet, Defense talent for regen, and Healing Banner), so my boost to healing power and several sources of regen help me keep up.
While I’d like the active effect to be a bit better in a pinch, I take it more as a challenge to play defensively while the Signet does its work. Considering my warrior laughs off a good quarter to half of damage mechanics, I’d say it’s working pretty well.

Apparently, some emails coming from ANet to Yahoo aren’t making it. After nearly a week of frustration, I finally got a note from one of the help staff that there is an unresolved issue with Yahoo.

I can hope ANet is working on it, but really, if that issue had been at all known, some notice would have eased some minds (like mine!) about it.

The damage nerf to hammer hurts quite a bit, especially since Hammer isn’t well supported at all in the trait lines. Merciless Hammer is almost pointless, since the disabling effects don’t last nearly long enough to get a single hit in, even if the damage bonus is +25%.
Add on that most PvE bosses are halfway immune to hammer effects (and really unrewarding when finally cleaving through Defiance), and it just makes hammer depressing.
I’d be more enthused if Merciless Hammer gained a damage bonus for any time a target is immune/blocks its effects. Perhaps stacks of might and/or fury for 5 seconds (on an internal 10-15 second cooldown?) each time a CC effect is nullified.

I did two fractal runs yesterday, and I never did get my achievement for the daily. Those buggers aren’t easy, so WTF, ANet?

To touch on ideas from a few other players:

“CC/Condi Spam: This is mainly directed towards aetherblades but some other mobs fall into this category (Mummies). I enjoy mitigating CC and Conditions (preferably through dodging) but some of the aetherblades for example are in my opinion over the top when it comes to CC/conds. I would like the attacks to be diversified a bit more; the cc/condition ones to be put on cooldown in between other well-telegraphed attacks.”

I love that Lamir said this. One of my major gripes about the gameplay overall is that enemies rely WAY too much on taking control away from the player. I understand that dodging attacks and avoiding punishment is important, but when the penality is my character laid out on his back for five (5) seconds while getting beat on, it’s just not fun. Or when having my character on lockdown because some enemies spam their daze/stun/KD/blind effects on much faster cooldowns than I have available, I feel the monsters break the rules. Refer to Aetherblade Thumpers, Zojja in Twilight Arbor, Flame Legion Smoke Shamans, or any enemy with a longbow.
It’s bad enough I feel the game and its content consistently disrespect melee characters, but it seems like the only way the designers can “challenge” us is to take away our own control. Again, not fun.

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“Skins earned from the living world also need to be ‘living’. By that I mean much more user friendly. Like the zenith and hellfire/radiant skins.”

Xar, great point. I love, absolutely love, that the GW2 team is focused on updating conveniences for the MMO experience. Deposit All Collectables, I still bow down to you for that. Merged character bank, fabulous. Adding bank slots for the seasonal items, glorious. And most recently, adding reward slots for the earned achievement skins.

…So, why then are we still having to use the teleport orb to get old skins from Guild Wars 1 achievements, and why aren’t these back slot items added to the list of skins that we can grab whenever we want? It would really make the “limited time only” pain less painful if we could always have our achievements available.

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Someone else pointed this out a bit ago as well, and forgive the all caps but.. AHEM: STOP MAKING THINGS THAT REQUIRE 10,000 ITEMS THAT WE GET ONLY 3 AT A TIME! Also, YOUR TREASURE RNG IS TERRIBLE, PLEASE STOP WITH THE RANDOM BOXES, PLZKTHX

Sorry, but I had to get that out of the way.

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I also join the legion of folks who think the two-week rotation on content isn’t doing you any favors. It’s stressful, not fun, and full of bugs. Please re-assign some of your team to fixing the more critical, more generalized flaws.

Like the camera during jumping puzzles.
Or Charr jumping.
…Or Charr costumes. (Small rant: No way in the Mists would a creature that runs on all fours would ever, ever wear a dress or anything that hangs down the front. On top of that, any ‘dress’ cloth gear gets pixel-stretched something fierce. It’s terrible.)

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Back to Living World, please focus on refinement and pacing, so that the content actually works, is fine-tuned for 5-man dungeons (or open world content), and isn’t so much of a hassle. I love that dailies can count toward the meta, another fine stroke of genius, but seeing the Blood and Madness content time-gated because of it was just infuriating.

The content is shallow and full of gimmicks. Unleashing a huge 6-month storyline (paced once per month instead of 2 weeks) that leads to a new permanent dungeon would be fantastic. Bonus points if those dungeons have some of the ‘new’ stat items that can’t be gotten elsewhere (looking at you Sentinel and Dire).

Main point is, we’re tired of jumping into content, only to have it taken away. And some of us will totally buy a legit expansion box to get a hold of new character types and zones. (Tengu and Kodan please!)

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From Jheryn: “9. Personal story progression.”

Oh gods, yes. Look, a lot of us understand that, by end-game, the story needs to come together to a central point. But where’s the consequences of my decisions? Other point, where the kitten in my warband?!? Or my Vigil brothers? Perhaps the biggest sin is having Trahern kidnap our importance from us. Give us more personal story content where the NPC isn’t the star, and let’s start finding out why Zhaitan’s minions are still around after we’ve killed him.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cavalier%27s_Orichalcum_Imbued_Inscription

Now, maybe the wiki just needs updating. Or maybe, someone didn’t think this through.

To sum up:
Acquisition
Salvaging exotic Cavalier’s weapons.

You get Cavalier inscriptions (maybe) by breaking… Cavalier weapons. …Excuse me?

Bad enough I spent a lot of effort and cash grabbing exotics to break for Dark Matter, and all I got, after 3 uses of a Black Lion salvage kit was… 3 elder wood and some 2-silver sigils.

Can we get some quality control around here, seriously?

My only concern is what are they going to change MF into on gear? There’s already Crit Damage, Toughness, and Condition Damage on other gear, so what would the Explorer’s set become?
…+Vit?
Ohgod, not +Healing Power…

As it is, this is a great chance to give the devs some ideas of what to do with it, like…
+Condition Duration?

susieqrj.1829:

I almost beat him. We were both to die. But game decided him to be the winner.

I had this happen! I FINALLY got him down to 0%, not a sliver of green in his HP bar, a clear victory, but he didn’t quit.
Nevermind that the NPCs don’t follow any rules similar to the player, but to finally “beat” him on a lucky draw after 10-20 matches, and then I still lose? That’s just beyond aggravating.
And now that ANet is pushing content out every two weeks, we can expect more buggy situations like this.

He has not been fixed.
Also, ANet kids, go here: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/when-difficult-is-fun
When the opposition has an obvious and repeated advantage over the player because they don’t follow the same rules (charr guy drinks every 2nd turn, all of the drinking NPCs use their specials constantly), it’s not a challenge, it’s just cheating.

Note to all, for those later in the Fixing the Blame quest, there’s a spot where you have to “Investigate the Pact camp” and there is a star point that looks off-kilter. There’s a Vigil Crusader standing on it. You have to walk into her space to get past the “Greet” message.
I hope this saves some people the irritation.

Neferteri, Morrigan, you two are life savers!

I’ve seen another thread address banners, specifically the Powerful Banners trait skill, but I’m hoping to address more issues here.

Quick thought on Powerful Banners: Instead of damage, perhaps give it a knockback or cripple when summoned? I saw another suggestion for low AoE damage that gets done periodically. That idea is kinda nifty, but it starts to run into my main problem with banners…

They only affect 5 people at a time. While this isn’t a critical issue in dungeons, since I can use the augmented banner range to cover most entire battlefields for my dungeon group, in a larger group (vs Champions, during events) I don’t even get to have my own buffs, and that eats into my survivability.
I have 30 in Tactics, 20 in Defense, floating a primary hammer build, so I don’t actually get downed that much, but in large fights, I end up missing out on my own regen, which is vital to stay in the fight.

I realize the 5-man limit is probably done as a PvP balance or simply computer resource-saver, but when I’m knee-deep in a huge event ( Karka, I’m looking at you. >_< ) I put a lot of faith in being able to support my group.
If the Tier 1 Tactics trait skill that expands range could also add, say, another 5 people to the banner’s limit, I’d actually be okay with that. It’s still shooting low on what I’d really like to see for it, honestly, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Regarding Cooking, my friend had this to say: “For a game that does so much else in the name of convinence, cooking is a pain in the [butt].”

And this is true. While I can deal with cooking taking massive cash and bag-space to pull off, my biggest gripe is going to be this:

I have to travel all over the world to find my materials.

On one end, it’s kind of cool, and it encourages exploration. Kudos. It also means I don’t get some materials until I’ve delved deeper into the game’s content.
On the other, I’m never going remember where I bought kidney beans, limes, or cumin. This is actually a huge problem.

I’m not saying that I should be given the stuff as an easy out, but let’s try something less annoying. So, a few suggestions:

After opening up a heart vendor or buying the spice/ingredient, it them becomes available at the in-town karma-spice vendors. It’s currently a joke and a nuisance that they only have three (3) items in their inventories.

Similarly, have a spice trader that lives near the cooking station. You surrender a pack of 25 materials, and he makes it available for Karma or silver (depending on whether it’s account bound or not). The accounting is a tad more certain at that point, over the previous idea.

A wonderful idea for an expansion or the gem store: Access to a farm via instance.
It’d be awesome to have our own little slice of Lion’s Arch that we can go to and plant things to get more of them. Refresh them when the daily quests reset, and you’d have people coming every day to get more materials for their cooking. If you wanted to be extra mean about it, make it still require a gathering tool.

Quick tip: Charr, /surprised
Absolutely adorable.

I’ve been saving the Master Mining Pick items that I’ve been getting , hoping to use them late game. Funny thing is, in trying to use them on a platinum node, it RUINED it.
Has anyone noted a mining limit on the Master Mining Pick?

I ran into the same problem with my warrior; weapon and armor smithing. Oy.
I finally got caught up about level 50. Use discovery to make up the really big leaps, and if you luck out on getting a Crafting Booster from a Black Lion chest drop, save a good amount of material before you go on a huge crafting binge.
Unfortunately, the opening 1-15 stretch is too easy to breeze through, and the next 15-25 zone just doesn’t have the materials in the quantities that you need. >_>

I got an error 42 this morning when I tried to log in. It alleges security/port/firewall issues, but I already checked all that.

Yeah, I’ve been getting the same feeling. I got an error 42 this morning, but the explanation has little to nothing to do with my computer. My AVG doesn’t have a firewall, and I turn off my Windows firewall, so it’s not like I have anything to do with ports and forwarding.
When I got errors accusing my connection during betas and head start, it was actually on ArenaNet’s side, not mine.