Guild Wars 2

If enemies didn’t have so much HP, then the high burst done by 100B wouldn’t be so noticeable.

Why do you want to hurt one profession while ignoring the issue affecting ALL professions?

One thing I miss from how GW1 did story, was that it tended to be a lot more political. In Prophecies, the main bad guy seemed like an ally until the very end. Kaineng is an enormous city where millions live in utter squalor, allowing a magical plague to easily take root. Elona wasn’t just Elona, but comprised of the culturally distinct Istan, Kourna, and Vabbi, each with their own societies.

Here, it seems like you have the Dragons, who aren’t interesting antagonist. They’re insane, godlike monsters that want to corrupt the world, transform it in their image, blah blah blah. Might as well be Arthas or Sargeras or Deathwing, I’ve seen it all before. Other factions don’t even matter, Bandits, Flame Legion, Nightmare Court, Svanir, Inquest etc, are all mooks ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mooks ), unable to even deal with moronic, obnoxious dilettantes like Zojja and Eir. No one here has an actual human motivation.

In GW1, you could relate the problems you were solving to these world-scale events and political situations. A farmer who wants me to gather apples and kill bandits doesn’t relate to anything, and I have no more capacity to solve his problems on a permanent basis than I do to reunite Mankrik with his wife.

Killermandude.4382:

Thanks for all the tips guys! Awesome.

Between Guardian and staff Elementalist – are they both accepted? (Will I get a group with both? WvW/PvE/Bosses?)

Can a healing Ele solo heal? (if that even exists in this game, I don’t know anything about GW2) Or is a healing elementalist a support that requires someone else to also heal?

I’m leaning towards elementalist at the moment…

There are no targeted heals in the game, except for your self-heal. Elementalist’s notable healing comes from the “Water” attunement of their staff, which can create two separate AoE effects which heal players, a geyser, and a rain. In addition, these fields can create “combos”. A “blast” finisher in a water field does a burst heal on nearby players, projectiles will cleanse conditions off those standing in the field, and a “whirl” will send bolts of cleansing water flying everywhere.

Part of the gimmick of Elementalists as well is that, if healing is not needed, you can switch to other roles. Air will allow you to increase the mobility of yourself allies, Earth will give you crowd control and debuffing, and Fire will give you juicy AoE damage and buffing abilities. If you’re constantly swapping, you’ll almost always have a powerful ability off cooldown.

Self-healing, if you’re into that, is also a big part of the Guardian’s wheelhouse. Their mace self-heals on the third hit of the attack chain, and has a short cooldown ability for creating regeneration fields. At level 60, you can also make the hammer into a powerful self-healing tool, by proccing heals off the symbols and boons that it spams.

Stooperdale.3560:

The developers are stupid if they argue with players on message boards. It’s bad if they’re right and worse if they’re wrong. Even if the developers only post neutral comments there will still be posters who try to disagree.

Arguing may be a lost cause, but some transparency on why they do certain things or what their vision is would be nice.

I acknowledged that Luxon vs Kurzicks were not the eponymous Guild Wars.

It still benefitted you to commit to the one your guild committed to.

I think one thing that’s been glossed over is that Berserker’s is not just popular because it makes CoF go faster. It’s because Power and Precision scale so well compared to some other stats. Healing Power, for the most part, aids your self heal. It does much, much less for abilities traited to proc a heal, or Regeneration, and so on. Condition Damage suffers from problems like the bleed cap. Toughness, well… if toughness let you face tank as you hundred bladed, Knight’s would beat Berserker’s easily. Magic Find is completely messed up, in that an item with a 0.05% drop rate and 1% MF doesn’t become 1.05%, but rather 0.0505%.

digiowl.9620:

RebelYell.7132:

I’ve played plenty of action games with dodge/roll buttons, and they almost never give you invulnerability frames or proccing an “Evaded”, they’re for not being there when an attack lands. It would be helpful if the only thing you were expected to use it for here was moving out of red circles.

Yea, the whole “evaded” thing seems tacked on. It seems to not even kick in until after the first complete roll or so. Someone else on the forum mentioned getting their toon stuck in half rolls from Subject Alpha’s crystal cocoon attack, for instance.

As for the continued example of Dark Soul, never played it. And from what i gather, i should never attempt to play it or i will end up smashing my keyboard into a fine powder.

Dark Souls isn’t really that hard. If it was, it wouldn’t be popular. They remind me of what’s good about a game like Nethack or Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup, except with the good graphics you need to make a game mass marketable. (And I recommend those games if you want some hardcore dungeon action that doesn’t test your reflexes).

I’d say try both Guardian, and a staff Elementalist. Guardians have great boon output, while staff elementalists can consistently put out green numbers while also providing a wide variety of useful ground fields for other players to utilize.

I’ve played plenty of action games with dodge/roll buttons, and they almost never give you invulnerability frames or proccing an “Evaded”, they’re for not being there when an attack lands. It would be helpful if the only thing you were expected to use it for here was moving out of red circles.

Daecollo.9578:

They should nerf Hundred Blades to do half its current damage and cast twice as fast and be usable while moving.

Hundred Blades is holding back the class more then its helping because of our high burst DPS we have nothing else.

Also nerf COF Path 1 and make it harder.

Nothing else? For Great Justice! and Banner of Discipline are wonderful support tools. You wanna talk one trick pony, go ask the Engineer forum for a dungeon build that doesn’t use HGH.

Jski.6180:

Ppl asked for dungeons to be easy so they made them easier and it makes DPS the main thing to speed though dungeons. Its all truly the forum community fault at the end of the day. Now we are going to have an overreaction to some ppl blocking out others to run with them and we will see dungeons become a great deal harder or a major War nerf when it comes to crit dmg or an across the board for crit dmg for all classes. Enjoy the messes you guys put yourself into.

What exactly would Necromancers and Engineers provide to the party in hard dungeons that they don’t now? How is it the forum’s fault that those professions can’t quantify their outputs in boon or condition control? Guardians and Mesmers don’t bring raw DPS, yet they’re desired.

When people asked for “easier” content, they mean they want an RPG, not a crappy Bayonetta knockoff.

The Guild Wars were over in Guild Wars 1 too, but that didn’t stop it from having GvG, AB, and, arguably, Jade Quarry and Fort Aspenwood representing a clan war your guild could take a side in.

These are a fun feature I believe I’ve seen in City of Heroes, Vanguard, and EQ2. Basically, two characters agree that earned XP is pooled between them, and distributed so that the two are always at or near equal level. This can help if you have two people who like to play together, but don’t have equal amounts of free time.

I never knew before why people put down static fields amidst the symbol of swiftness and temporal curtain spam. This thread has been very helpful in that regard.

Envy.1679:

ive made 4 different characters and each time the story was different.

thats as good as it gets in any mmo and people are still complaining?

My starter quests change in WoW when I roll a different race there too. The game we were sold involved a lot more “personal” in the personal story. Reread the OP.

The mechanics of defense need to be improved in general. At level 2, I’m not going to be defending much of anything. And unless I give NPCs buffs like RI by my mere presence, I’m not going to be defending much of anything as an 80 in ascended, either.

Daywolf.2630:

RebelYell.7132:

WvW could have easily used a different currency for blueprints and upgrades, though.

There is, it’s called… free? Costs a little time is all. I sometimes drop them just because I need more bag space for loot drops.

Those parts from my post that you deleted, they’re called “context”. Free blueprints have nothing to do with it.

In the game of GW2, if I want to do Warrior things, I specialize as Warrior, if I want to do Engineer things, I specialize as Engineer. There is no such way to distinguish yourself in WvWvW. You either follow the zerg, or you roam around ganking people for the lulz. Your ability to build siege machinery or upgrade keeps is a function of your wallet size.

WvWvW traits should have solved this, yet they’re even more laughable. A couple of barely noticeable DPS increases against various target types, and… one actual specialist ability, the capacity to carry more supply. Rank 1 of this trait costs 20 points while every other rank 1 trait costs 1 point long, slow, sarcastic clapping

Vayne.8563:

I can’t wait for the warrior nerf. It’s going to be entertaining as hell.

Why should Warriors be nerfed? The feel of the mechanics was nailed perfectly with them. its the other professions that should be brought up to par.

Vayne.8563:

ScottBroChill.3254:

Even if you are just playing to have fun, the game should still be balanced. It’s no excuse to have things imbalanced because they assume everyone will play casually even though it’s their aim.

The problem is balance is next to impossible. This game is a lot more balanced than some other games out there. People don’t want to see or believe it, but there have been games famous for imbalance.

I think balance could be easy or hard, depending on the road Arenanet goes down in the future, such as:

• Every profession is DPS, with varying capabilities for providing/stripping boons and conditions. Therefore, we will make the DPS equal.
• Every profession is a unique role. An Engineer is an Engineer, not a ranged damage dealer, not Heimerdinger, not anything else but Engineer. In fact, every profession/weapon/trait combo is a unique role. Therefore, we will make all changes using myopic criteria unknowable to the player base.

Since auto-autoloot always brings on a bout of disagreement (see above), I’d be happy with just the mechanic for the badges of honor changing, since its not intended design that the enemy be able to deny me those once I’ve earned them.

WvW could have easily used a different currency for blueprints and upgrades, though.

For example, Planetside 2 uses separate currencies for land vehicles, air vehicles, and munitions. The regeneration rate is determined by what facilities your faction holds.

And this is a shameless cash grab F2P game. B2P games shouldn’t be hungrier for a currency with a cash value.

I think Tengu content might be problematic, since the Tengu of Kryta are Canthan exiles, and GW2 has been moving away from that direction ever since the Cantha District became a scorched crater.

Vayne.8563:

And there we have it. The loot guys and the immersion/world guys.

I think my immersion would be improved if one of Dhuum’s greatest minions wasn’t such a pushover.

100 Blades isn’t the only thing Warriors bring to the table.

Look at Banner of Discipline vs Rifle Turret: you can move it without destroying it. It has more uptime. It contributes more DPS when affecting five players. It doesn’t rely on GW2’s godawful pet AI.

How this disparity made it past BWE, I have no idea.

Vayne.8563:

I have a ranger in my guild who I’d rather have in my dungeon party than any warrior I know. He’s real good. In addition to being real good, he brings the skill search and revive, so if someone goes down his pet can rez while we keep fighting. Prevented a couple of big problems in hard areas.

That’s an important point in regards to what the OP asked, that I hadn’t thought of – strangers cannot know how good he is when recruiting for a PUG. You know how good your guildmates are. Perhaps a small, dungeon-focused guild is just what he needs.

It used to be that you could level up cooking completely, having used very few ingredients that come from gathering, thanks to all the karma ingredient vendors in cities. Many people hit 80 far ahead of the crowd shortly after launch thanks to these. They were changed so that some ingredients now come from loot bags, and others come from karma vendors out in the middle of nowhere.

I wish I could sell the keys on the TP. I have no interest in the fused skins, and the only other thing I would want are fine transmutation stones or guild influence items, and I’m as likely to get a moa tonic as those.

1. No trinity makes it hard to balance professions. There are no roles, so professions cannot be buffed to better perform their roles.

2. No attrition. With nothing like mana, ammunition, scrap, etc, no profession can compensate for a lack in one area by being longer lasting. Everyone gets a self-heal of around 30-45 seconds, everyone gets 3 utilities and one elite.

3. Without those factors, only one really remains: who can make the fight end soonest. Warriors, Mesmers, and Guardians are the most proven in that department.

DreamyAbaddon is it necessary to copy/paste that post into a thread where “Guardian” is a very concise and correct answer?

They were very important in GW1 due to abilities like interrupts, Death Nova, etc. You could completely shut down a mob pack with the right builds.

Here, there’s so much emphasis on properly placed AoE, timed dodges, LoSing, and so little on reactive abilities like healing, that I’m not sure what you could do with AI (and if this game had good AI, more people would be playing Rangers). Perhaps you could take four longbow Rangers with ranged pets to pelt your target with sustained damage, but I don’t think you could solo a dungeon with those.

I did +1 the OP, however, as anything that might let you solo Arah is worth considering.

It is a lot cheaper to buy gear off the TP, than from NPCs. If you buy blue gear, you can even sell it back to the TP once its obsolete, and if it only sells for 1 copper over the vendor price, you can vendor it with minimal losses.

Karma gear is often badly itemized, so much so that I hardly even look at what renown vendors sell these days.

Ezeriel.9574:

If any of you rich guys would like to log into FA, we got 10 guys defending overlook and there looks to be 50-150 TC players outside. The two commanders on the map are both broke, and we need ele’s to do the air shield thing ‘cause the wall’s at 10%….

…but you can bet your backside that we’re gonna use every last ounce of supply to build ballistas, and hold them off till the last man stands.

If you stopped turtling and joined the fray, maybe we could get our monthly done and go back to roleplaying.

I enjoy a lot of encounter in this game that are, for the most part, “easy” and “boring” due to the BossBattle playlist. I’d probably be a lot more bored if I was listening to Jeremy Soule, instead of stuff from Sonic Generations or The Touhou Project.

I’m with you, as long as there are also options faster than “Normal” as well, for us altoholics. Yes, there are XP boosters, food, and potions, but they affect kill XP, not your lump sums like events, exploration, renown hearts, end of dungeon, and personal story completion.

The Maw shaman would often down people during BWE. Incentivizing 80s in zerker gear to do these events is directly responsible for their trivial difficulty.

Chrispytoast.3698:

RebelYell.7132:

MeveM.7913:

We should in fact get to choose what gear we want in the character customization screen and then we can just all log off and not actually do anything because I only enjoy the goal, not the journey.

I did that in City of Heroes, except after customizing my character, I played the game, because it was fun.

How’s City of Heroes working out for you now?

Well I’m here now, so point taken, though let it be known, it was a profitable game when NC Soft (the parent company of Arenanet as well) laid off Paragon Studios.

To be clear, I think dungeon skins SHOULD require clearing dungeon content. I don’t really agree with the OP at all. So I apologize for making tangential points in this thread.

I’d like something like this, or possibly an auto-eat slot you can equip food and potions into (a la EQ2). Either way, +1

digiowl.9620:

RebelYell.7132:

digiowl.9620:

As so many things with GW2, the core idea of the combo system is interesting. But its implementation seems overly focused around a small group of players coordinating over voip. Trying to find, never mind identify, a combo field in the middle of the particle storm that is your average battle is virtually impossible.

I’ve never had that much trouble with it when playing as a duo. Me a Mesmer and my GF a Guardian, it was as simple as telling her, “Hey, if you equip a hammer, you can spread around Chaos Armor if you blast the purple stuff.”

That would fit squarely within the exception i gave.

My apologies. I have reach your post more closely, and I do agree, once you have too many fields in play, it can be a mess.

MeveM.7913:

We should in fact get to choose what gear we want in the character customization screen and then we can just all log off and not actually do anything because I only enjoy the goal, not the journey.

I did that in City of Heroes, except after customizing my character, I played the game, because it was fun.

Chrispytoast.3698:

RebelYell.7132:

My problem with dungeon arrmor is that its priced as it is because it has stats. Just sell me the skin appliers for a “token” fee. Making me run them once, I understand. Making me farm tokens, I do not.

Runs dungeon once to get skin appliers, puts them on exotic gear, walks around in “dungeon” gear

I fail to see the problem here. It’s the same dungeon no matter how many times you clear it, excluding Fractals of course. And we’re not talking about something like Thunderfury, where generally its the MVP of the group that’s most likely to get it.

I don’t have to grind more HoM points every time I want more Heritage skin appliers.

My problem with dungeon arrmor is that its priced as it is because it has stats. Just sell me the skin appliers for a “token” fee. Making me run them once, I understand. Making me farm tokens, I do not.

I’m not asocial, but I’m not talkative. That’s why this is a more ideal game for me than, say, WoW. I can play with others at events, follow around the WvWvW commanders, and yes, I do seek out the hangouts on Tarnished Coast, even if I don’t speak out a lot at them.

I too am waiting on fun stuff like Brawling that was promised in the pre-launch PR, but I have to admit, I haven’t felt a part of the world in PvE like this since Final Fantasy 11.

While I think that defense is in a bad place right now compared to offense, I’m not sure giving high ground such a huge benefit is the answer. You’d still have zergs running around flipping keeps, the only difference being that you’d have berzerker rifle warriors sniping > level 80 players for a few free kills.

digiowl.9620:

As so many things with GW2, the core idea of the combo system is interesting. But its implementation seems overly focused around a small group of players coordinating over voip. Trying to find, never mind identify, a combo field in the middle of the particle storm that is your average battle is virtually impossible.

I’ve never had that much trouble with it when playing as a duo. Me a Mesmer and my GF a Guardian, it was as simple as telling her, “Hey, if you equip a hammer, you can spread around Chaos Armor if you blast the purple stuff.”

I think it’s a tad bit more innovative than that, as it creates some entertaininly unpredictable profession syergies.

When I think Chrono Trigger combos, I think more of “Fastball Specials”, IE Colossus throwing Wolverine. Not that it wouldn’t be awesome if a Norn threw an Asura warrior and he did a Whirlwind as he landed in a mob of enemies.

raenen.5807:

Vol.5241:

WvW is not a money sink unless you are a commander or you waste siege.

I guess you have never done an upgrade then.

Most likely a good idea, if there’s any chance the point will be flipped while you sleep, work, or get up to go to the bathroom.

I think you might really like Guardian, if you’re a paladin fan. Notable features include

• Symbols: Like consecrations, these deal AoE damage to all enemies standing upon them. They also give out various boons (buffs). They can be traited to be larger, or heal friendlies standing upon them.
• Virtues: Passive benefits that can be temporarily sacrificed (think “stripping” from GW1 Dervishes, if you’ve tried that) to give out buffs to nearby allies. Or keep them to yourself, if playing solo.
• Altruistic Healing: A self-heal that procs every time you buff an ally. A trait that makes Guardian one of the “tankiest” professions in the game.

For a warrior parallel, GW2’s warrior is pretty keen. Greatsword has one of the biggest burst damage abilities in the game, but you can’t turn while channeling it, creating a fun risk/reward factor.

Warlock parallels, however, are subpar in my opinion. Necromancers, the most “warlocky” class, can’t spend their HP as a resource, and their pets are awful. Conditions, the DoT of GW2, suffer from a lot of problems as well, including the bleed cap, and how condition damage is itemized separately from Power, the damage increasing stat for most skills.
——
I’d say make a Warrior your first character. They are very easy to play, and you will feel pretty powerful. If you want to try other professions afterwards, you can do so at anytime.

I want pistols for Guardies

#1: Ricochet – bouncing attack like ele staff (air) or thief shortbow
#2: Hot Shot – sets target on fire. Hard to evade
#3: Executioner – channeled, high damage attack. The less HP the target has, the faster it channels

One with the passive boon spreading and stats of a guardian in exotic knight’s.

Astral Projections.7320:

Once you get your set of exotic armor and weapons, what else do you need? Everything past that is want, and many would put the exotics on the want list as well. So if it’s want vs. need, what you want is always expensive, in life or in game.

“I meant to talk about how a fellow with my record in the game has so little spending power because everything has been jacked up irrationally.”
I doubt that “your record” is so astonishing that you get a free pass on what you want. Everyone thinks that they are above average. ^^ You want money, you need to grind for it like everyone else.

What I “want” is to be able to look at myself or others, and admire their fashion sense, or the achievements that went into their visual appearance, not the size of their wallet, nor the amount of free time they have available to grind CoF P1.