Guild Wars 2

Stealth is possibly the strongest anti-AI tool in the game.
You can safely rez players that would otherwise die, even self-rez, and remove aggro from people who would otherwise die.

Of course it comes with the downside that stealthing all the team leads to boss reset.
If you could just stealth your whole group and heal it up while the boss won’t reset it would be even more OP.

Seriously don’t even try saying this. We’re already lucky that stealth makes PvE a joke, we don’t want Anet to make it too OP and then nerf it to the ground don’t we?

Forzani.2584:

Some great stuff so far.

I can’t believe I forgot this in my opening post. Pretty much right near the top of the must have list is ……..must be able to kill Thiefs…or at least have a better than even chance of beating them.

My build is very capable of that, against direct damage Thieves just hit EP and 3-shot them.

The only issue I have is with permastealth P/D thieves.
They just sit in stealth all the time and come out only to sneak shot, you can’t find/hit them and condition removal is not enough.
They simply outlast me.
I don’t think there is any specific counter for that sadly.

Neither. Dolyak is garbage, Soldier is useless unless you go support Warrior with shouts.
I use boon duration runes for SoR uptime (2x monk 2x sancturary 2x water), and I’m very happy with them.
I just cannot stand to not have permanent +20% crit +175 power.
Ruby Orbs are also a good choice if you don’t care for SoR.
Or you could get Lyssa runes for both condition removal and protection.

I smell troll.

Cannot get me to even take into consideration the OP could be posting that in a serious manner.

PS:; Not that those changes would be bad, but they would make the Warrior too deep by Anet standards.
Apparently our skills need to be simple-minded, predictable and buggy.

Oh and btw 600 range is a lot. Seriously, it would be OP.
450 is good, like heartseeker.

I believe rampage is possibly the most useless elite in the game.
I can’t think of any use of it, even in places where you need stability a lot you can just slot Dolyak+BStance and get the same result without trading in your damage.

None in this game, but in another game there was a guy named “thelongestnameicouldgetawaywith”.
Funniest name ever.

Me and 4 other men coordinated on TS taking a keep from 40 people.
Skill-wise they weren’t far from us, but coordinated flanking spikes/denial, proper disengaging and massive amounts of AoE 3k/s DoTs along with a ballista gave us the day.
Goes to show how little “zergs” matter in WvW when you got properly coordinated players.

Sadly I heard later that keep was lost by PuGs because they were unable to use one freakin’ cart to keep people away. Oh well.

I so wish there was a “Jumping Toolbelt” we could equip and it would give us JP-related skills.
It would lead to a lot more depth to JP’ing imo.

Example:
1. Hyper Jump – Your next jump is 33% higher and longer.
2. Grab my hand! – Shout. All allies gain stability for 5s (so they can add things that knock you off which you can counter with this)
3. Acrobatic Leap – Jump and evade attacks.
4. Cat Landing – Damage from falling damage is halved for 5s
5. Rocket jump – Use rocket boots to jump.

maddoctor.2738:

There is no self rally in mist form…

It’s too late for intellectual dishonesty and think skins, the OPness of D/D is so blatant that Anet already spotted it and declared incoming nerfs.
Also everyone has seen Eles self-rallying during downed even in 1vs1 scenarios where no other death could have caused it, so denying it is pretty useless.

I’m actually on your side guys and wish you for healing/rally-only nerfs.
High damage+control+protection+mobility is already a lot more than other classes can get into one build, having OP healing/rallying on it just made it easier to spot.

1) S/W secondary set, GS primary. Plenty of movement.
Also boon duration runes for permanent SoR.
2) Rifle for field fights, switch to Bow for walls.
3) Sword leap/rush should be enough for gap closing.
4) I found defensive stats won’t really give you any kind of tide-turning benefit.
I played WvW with both a 3500 armor build, and my current 2.2k armor build with yet greatly increased damage is much better.
Any situation that will have you die with the second setup will also most likely have you die with the first too. What saves your life is running away with leap/rush.
5) No idea about that, but if it means sacrificing SoR (aka no fury/no 5might) then I would avoid it.

I personally run this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBhYDbkzJ2tGyFiJSAYUUEQHFUxkShdtlKIGA;TkAKxMdJ6y6lTMpXrPGFsZA
I’m pretty successful with it, it has a lot of potential (sometimes I down 3-5 people at once which can turn the tides), I get a lot of kills and most times I manage to escape death.

As for the build the video shows nothing that lets us see the efficiency of the build.
It’s all beating on zergs that dont even target you, any build or weapon works for that.

[Edited by Moderator: Quote removed]

The only way I could agree with inspect is if it was a 2-ways system.
You /inspect a player and he gets a pop-up where he can accept or decline the request.
Should also come with an auto-decline feature for those who never want to be inspected.

I agree with every change in the OP but not the Mug nerf and here is why.

I play Warrior, Guard and Thief.
All of them have a way to jump in, down a person or more, and back away.
A Thief without Mug is not able to down any sentient being without being killed in the process.
It would give too much time to the other person to heal up, while now the other person should instead blow an anti-burst cooldown.

I.e. if a Thief charges my Warrior while unexpected and from behind with Mug chances are he’s getting the kill.
Without Mug I only get 4-5k from CnD, nullify BS with EP, and heal up to full with heal.
This leaves the Thief with no tools against a Warrior with full health.

I’d say that a 8-10k up-front damage is mandatory, especially since no person with decent skills will get hit by BS.

Heartseeker on the other hand needs init cost raised because I’m tired of seeing fellow thieves spamming 2. This would force them to l2p.

I hope Anet understands that D/D Ele is overpowered not due to damage/control/mobility, but due to the OP healing (can get from 20% to full in seconds) and ability to self-rally through downed mist form.

I don’t want to see you guys overnerfed, just removed the fact I need to plow throw 2 healthbars to get a kill on you.
It’s kind of frustrating when I down a D/D Ele, he rezzes up, heals to full and then he kills me as I’m out of cooldowns.
If I got you down, I should win, just like against any other class.

Mostly balanced, beside D/D Eles who can now insta-self-rez, have the protection of a Guardian and heal up huge amounts.
Even instagib thieves has their counters and weaknesses, this gimmick has none.

1) There is no such thing as “hardcore PvE”.

2) PvP ranks show who’s the most experienced PvPer. Go ahead and show you’re better if you think you’re so “hardcore”.
I agree that WvW could use ranks tho. Not everyone likes the cheap, limited gimmick that sPvP currently is.

nethykins.7986:

If they were going to break their manifesto all along (they would have been planned well in advance) then why did they put a manifesto up or keep churning out the “not like other MMO’s” philosophy at all?

Isn’t it the issue that they said one thing but did another?

I would be fine if they said what would actually be viable to deliver and work from there and I personally think they didn’t have to tote around the status of being “revolutionary” in the MMO genre. Even if they didn’t outright say it, they sure did imply it.

I agree with this.

But it isn’t just that really, it’s more the fact they changed direction on 3-4 things without yet commenting on it.
Like “we did this because…”, instead it was just “release update and hit Endure Flames”.

If Anet went in this direction they must have had reasons, reasons many would like to know.
Also many would like to know what is the future direction. We’re getting a lot of unrelated updates with seemingly no clear destination.

Still best MMO on the market, just not the “revolution of the genre” we were promised.
GW2 is currently a traditional MMO with action combat like Tera (albeit better of course).

Bad guilds, leave them both.
A good guild can’t realistically “focus” on everything (those that say so are the worst guilds in the game imo) so you need multiple guilds that each focus on one aspect.
Never let a guild tell you how to play your game.

Ooshi.8607:

Wouldn’t the other people in group had to pass the “gear check” and be in full agreement with the conditions? If they were in disagreement they could simply reform the group with the odd geared person. Why should the right of one person to play the way they want be more important that the same right of 4 other people?

As said above you can already ask people to ping their gear so inspect isn’t needed.
Inspect achieves nothing that can’t be done already on this aspect, all it adds is the ability to spy gear of people without their consent.

Lately we’ve gotten so many features from WoW that I think we’re fine with not picking anymore from that game in a good while, including things like gear spying.

What I believe has happened is that the original playerbase (aka those who bought all the manifesto copypasta) weren’t enough for Anet so they made the game more traditional MMO-esque to get more people. Of course this means gear treadmills and the like.

But I’m not sure it is a working strategy to try to please everyone, because you likely end up with no one feeling that they are being catered to.
Everyone finds something they like, and a lot they don’t, so everyone is most likely going to jump to a MMO that offers a lot they like and something they don’t.

I for one can adapt to things I’d just like more communication.
It’s been a lot since we heard about their plans and directions, all updates seem to be unrelated to each other if not uncalled for… It’s all pretty dark and I believe people likes to walk in the light so they know where they are going.

What I hear is “we want esport but not really, we want cosmetic progre- no wait we want gear tread- no wait a mix of bo- no wait we’ll just make that daily-based through fetch quests… oh hey and we’re coding keg brawl while some skills have been bugged for 5 months”…
I feel like I have 25 stacks of Confusion on me and no condition removal. :/

I wish Anet could just pick one direction and follow it.
It worked with GW1.

Precursors are the biggest problem, but mats are too.
Back in GW1 you were required to do FoW/UW to get your FoW armor, now it’s all a big money grind.
In an attempt to not “force” people to do certain hard content they just made it into a gigantic grind (or gem shop purchase).

Imo legendaries are not legendary because they don’t require any legendary task.
If they put a requirement of say soulbound mats that only drop on lvl 50 fractal or at least 15k WvW kills it would have been different because having a legendary would show you’re either a very good PvEer or a very good WvWer.

Currently they just show you are a good grinder.

Durand.5369:

Despite the post above, I run with dual axes. Most people play with a 2 hander, which is typical of most pvp games. If you are using a horn for your off-hand, you get a 7 second sprint which is all but worthless unless you are doing supply runs only. If you use a sword in the off-hand you might as well hold up a sign and ask the enemy zerg to CC you and burn you down. Sword would be my choice based on looks, but the additional skills are not effective for WvW.

With the dual axe build, it adds a high dps skill that is useful for 2 situations. First, it is much faster to burn down enemy siege. Second, I use it to break the push of an enemy zerg.

That said, I lucked out on an exotic axe drop from a skill challenge which is partly why I’m built around axes.

I’m sorry but Whirling Axe is not an high DPS skill by any means, it’s actually one of the lowest DPS skills we have.
The damage: is comparable to the third part of the Axe mainhand autoattack (aka the last 3 hits alone), but it’s spread on a much longer channel so the _DPS would be about half as much.
The only good thing about WA is that you build adrenaline faster (due to 15 hits) and it’s 360 degrees so you can tag/deal some minor damage to a lot of things.

Sadly most Warriors who run dual axes use it for damage even in 1vs1 situations and are basically gimping their own DPS.
Now, if WA had a projectile-reflection or blocking factor it would be another story (which I still hope will happen if we’re not getting a damage buff to that poor skill) but currently there are so much better options.

Not saying he should not use it, just making sure the facts are down right then OP is free to choose what he feels is best.

Veritas.6071:

Red Falcon.8257:

If you think one of the two is worse then you can’t properly play that one.

Or they can play it just fine but have different views of what works best. Not everything is a L2P issue.

Moldran, the Team Paradigm member who pioneered the basic idea behind so many GS builds seen today released a statement criticizing 100b which is where the GS gets its big dps. Maybe he can’t properly play GS either? Doubt it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll0FsjDlDko

It’s generally a bad habit to base your opinion upon mere words from a player, especially one that is mostly a sPvP player.
As a matter of fact WvW works very differently, to the point some things that are extremely good in sPvP are not so in WvW and vice versa, so being a sPvP expert gives you zero say on WvW.
If we were to go by bragging rights and opinions, I have 15k WvW kills with this bloody GS but that doesn’t make a point either, I know plenty of Warrior who got the same amount with Longbow (which for the record isn’t a good weapon outside specific situations).

So ultimately what makes the point here is the fact that GS can down 1 to 5 players in 2 seconds.
Needless to say this is one of the most powerful tools you can bring in WvW.
Just two Warriors flanking on a 20-man team successfully with a GS can halve their numbers and turn the tides of a whole battle.

It all comes down to the situation you use a weapon in.
Even Sword is OP when you use it to give 4.5s root to 5 people and allow your team to mow them down.
I can guarantee that no weapon Warriors have are bad in WvW, including Warhorn and Shield, it all comes down to what use you make of them.

Neither, full zerker.
I wasted so much gold on Tou/Vit gear just to find out stats won’t protect you in this game.
Warrior is all about evading damage and dealing extreme DPS; anything else is gimping yourself.

“AoE capped”? DS is not an AoE.
It throws daggers that bounce once to a nearby target.

I think currently the only unbalanced thing is D/D Eles.
It has high damage, mobility, tankiness, control, healing with zero weaknesses and self-rally, probably the most OP thing GW2 has ever seen so far.
Killing a single D/D Ele is pretty much like killing 2 Guardians with the damage of Thieves and control of Warriors.

Everything else has some counters, and every class is viable in PvP… it’s just the Ele anomaly that needs fix.

If the team lacks DPS, then Warrior is better.
If the team lacks a Mesmer then, duh, Mesmer it is.

From the support ticket responses I doubt they’re banning fractal kickers btw.
All I got after multiple times of pushing them to hand punishment all I got was “we’re trying to implement some ways to improve dungeons yadda yadda” but no words on the punishments even after I clearly asked about just that.

The fact fractal kicking is common now creates a really bad atmosphere in fractal teams.
Everyone is afraid that they will get kicked and there is always tension.

This issue won’t be solved in any other way than increasing the kick requirement.
If one needs to be kicked I’m pretty sure everyone in the team will press Yes, so just make that requirement 4 people (or # of team members -1).

This is the most content a sub-free MMO ever released in such a short time span.

I actually want Anet to slow down releasing “new” content and fix/balance what we already have.
I have no use for Keg Brawl when my skills are bugged.
I don’t need housing when Invincimentalists with instant self-rez ruin my WvW balance.

Rocklin.4106:

if everyone should be able to play the game the way he wants. Then everyone should have the right to open a dungeon group and picking only the best dps geared players for it, if thats the way HE wants to play this game.

beeing able to play the game the way you want, doesnt mean others have to take you into every dungeon with that attitude, because they can play it how and with whoever they want as well. If someone asks strictly for exotic geared glasscannons and you run a bunkerbuild and ask for an invite, you are nothing more than a liar, just go find another group that accepts you “the way you want to play”, anet has done nothing wrong there, everyone IS able to play the game he wants.

i have nothing against a gearcheck, id even wish for a dps meter, because the way I WANT to play, is always maximizing, optimizing and getting the best out of my character and my build, instead of purely theorycrafting in the forums with haters and whiners (ranger forum, who almost never even take the pet into “dmg calculations” … ).

It’s different, you want others to play the way you want.
You want to check their gear/spec to see if they are playing your way, and GW2 does not support that kind of mentality.

You know what? Just ask people to ping their gear.
Inspect is already in, it’s just a 2-way thing now as it should be.

Yes the skill has been bugged for 5 months now.
No words on the fix, just keep reporting it in the Game Bugs forums until they eventually fix it.

Axe is not better nor worse than GS, they are equally good.

GS is about jumping in, down 5 people in 2 seconds and jumping out, which is more useful than Axe’s single target spike when in group fights.
Also GS has more mobility which is fundamental in WvW.

Axe is a different story, it’s more about sustained DPS and Evis single-target spike.

If you think one of the two is worse then you can’t properly play that one.

In GW2 pvp outcome is 99% skill 1% gear.
Especially because there are diminishing returns (especially on power).
Check your character sheet while in WvW.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBhYDbkzp1tGSGiJSAYUUEQHFJxkShdtlKIGA

Full Berserker armor with either Boon duration runes or Ruby orbs.
Full Berserker weapons with either Sigil of Accuracy/Force/Hydromancy/Ice.

Two ways to apply burst:
1) (bait dodges if frontal attack) → Bolas → Frenzy+HB+WA.
2) (bait dodges if frontal attack) → Savage Leap → Frenzy+Flurry → HB+WA.

Note that Flurry is AoE so you can oneshot up to 5 people with the second burst.
Note also that Frenzy is not actually needed as both Immobs last more than 4s, but people with a brain will trinket out of it before the HB channel ends, and since the big damage of HB is on the ending hits you dont want this.

Warrior needs:
- Brawn un-nerfed. 5/10/15 or 3/6/9.
- AoE rupt when downed.
- Fixed gap closers.
- Fixed adren skills to be worth using.
- Fixed Endure Pain tooltip and duration.

I think Warriors are so tired to repeat for 5 months straight that off-hand axe is a joke that you won’t get a lot of replies here.
Nub Warriors run around with 2x axes because “it looks cool” but I doubt you’re getting any support for that here unless some other “^_^” Warrior happens to stumble on this thread.

Nah.
I still haven’t seen a thread asking 0/20 daily fetch quests, yet we got exactly that.

I wouldn’t be disappointed in these changes if they bothered to give any explanation for them.

Let’s make a real comparison.
You buy an internet connection package from a company that touted it as free of content locking, high MB/s connection and easy port forwarding.
After you buy it they change the download/upload rates down, they block sites they said they wouldn’t block, and don’t offer port-forwarding methods.
You call their call center and they refuse to give any explanation.

When you do a major design change, especially one that goes against what you previously claimed, you need to explain it to your customers.
If you care about their trust in your company that is.

I don’t want it because it leads to a lot more negative consequences than positive ones.
Examples:
1) Many people hate certain setups such as glass cannon or tanky and will lock you out of their team if they see you with them.
2) Many people expect 10-20 AR for a lvl 10 fractal run.
3) People would be able to steal ideas and builds one might want to keep secret.
4) My gear stats, sigils, runes etc are none of your business, and you’re nobody to check and dictate how I should play.
5) You can still politely ask a player to show his gear. What you ask for is spying, which is different.

But seeing how Anet is moving toward traditional MMO mechanics these days I wouldn’t lose hope to see this one day if I were you OP.
We got tredmills, fetch quests and soon rated team arenas, so I’m really not sure Anet still cares for what we want or what they said they won’t do.

How are you going to drop HB if none of your CC lasts more than 2s?
Sorry but that build seems like a joke to me.

I use this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBhYDbkzp1tGyFiJSAYUUEQHFJxkShdtlKIGA

Two ways to immobilize for HB, either Leap→Flurry→Frenzy+HB or Bolas→Frenzy+HB.
Sure it works without frenzy too as the Immobs last 4.5s, but players with a brain are most likely going to trinket out of it or CC you.

Also, melandru runes are a waste in PvP, if you’re so scared of conditions grab SoS.
Warhorn will remove all the movement impairing anyways.

Thief nerfs don’t apply to WvW so CnD hit still has hard as before the nerf.
WvW isn’t supposed to be balanced anyways.

I don’t think changing 0/10 to “10 left” would change in any way the fact they are fetch quests like wow that we were told would have never been included in GW2.

We play GW2 because it’s about quality content, if we wanted cheap, quickly-coded updates we would be playing cheap MMOs like wow.

Warriors have been overnerfed during BWEs because they were as strong as current Ele/Thief/Guard/Mes but other classes were still underdeveloped so they came off as OP.
Now that every class is fixed, Warrior should be un-castrated as well.

1) The adrenaline system needs a long look, so far the only adren skills that you really want to use are Combustive Shot and Killshot, everything else is a waste. Evis needs 400 range on gap closer, currently the leap is an impairment as people can outrun it.
2) Brawn needs to give at least 5/10/15% damage, 1/2/3% was clearly knee-jerk overnerfing.
3) Bolas needs faster projectile speed as currently people can out-walk it.
4) Rush/Bull need to connect more reliably.
5) Endure Pain needs a fix. You state a duration of 5 seconds in the tooltip, but it lasts 3 seconds. Again overnerfing.

Warriors are barely represented in sPvP, this should ring a bell Anet.

Currently, the Adrenaline system needs a lot of rework.
Most Warriors do not bother using Adrenaline since it is detrimental to do so; but the idea is that using Adrenaline should be very important.

We’re getting a ton of benefits for not using it, and using it offers no real reward.
Arcing slice is a joke, Eviscerate is overnerfed and not worth 3 bars of adren loss, Killshot may be somewhat valuable in some situations but meh…

And we get to the point of why Zerk Stance is underused.
I personally only ever slot it when I’m using longbow and focus on spamming Combustive Shot.
Because Combustive Shot is the only adren skill that is actually implemented in a way that you want and need to use it.

I believe 90% is enough.
No fight is going to last long enough for a 10% non-crit to be of any serious mathematical value.
Also, we have a trait that gives burst skills an increased 10% crit chance so I think 90% is the key number.

On my current build I’m sitting on an 80% crit rate but that’s because I use runes (boon duration+45%) instead of Orbs.

I don’t think I’m getting the point of editing the title of “uncomfortable” threads adding in “in my opinion” or “I think that”…
Isn’t every single post an opinion?
If I say “GW2 is great” it isn’t edited in “GW2 is great, in my opinion”, so if someone says “GW2 forces players to complete dungeons” it should stay as it is.

Not that I think players are forced to complete dungeon that is.
Players are not forced to do anything at all.
The only thing a human being is forced to is having a heartbeat, because heart is indipendent than our willpower and cannot be stopped manually.

The above is my opinion btw (except the heart part, that is a fact which you can check yourself… if you can’t check your heartbeat then you most likely aren’t reading this post).

Vayne.8563:

Funny, I know a lot of really good WvWers who don’t think they need those stats to remain competitive. One of you is obviously wrong.

My money is on you.

I’m actually one of those too and agree that stats dont matter a lot.
Infact in WvW there are some diminishing returns on stats, i.e. your attack stats is scaled down (I have 4000 attack in PvE but only 3600 in WvW).

Still does not change the fact that gear treadmills affect WvW overall performance, nor the fact this game was touted as treadmill-free.
The game is great but this does not prevent me from being objective and noticing when the game is being turned into a wow clone (treadmills, fetch quests dailies, and soon to come wow-esque rated arenas).

MiLkZz.4789:

Interesting concept, never thought of staking boons on a warrior. I have run around with a permanent SOR build which was strong and these runes would have synerchized well.

With a little bit of extra tweaking this could be pretty good

I’m currently running a build that is close to what you just said:

http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/2633-empowered-knight

My opinion is that as long as treadmills effect PvE only they are not an issue.
PvE-only people need their time sinks, let them.

I just dont want +stats.
+stats affects WvW and forces WvW players like me to go grind PvE.

Maylojager.1307:

Dear OP, would you be so kind to define terms: “Extreme”, “Very high”, “Maxed”?

With this build, even in the worst possible conditions you get higher DPS than any other non-boon based build.
The dmg multiplier goes from +38% (only 4 boons), to 48% (when OMM is active) to 58% (when 9 boons).
The average damage bonus is 48%, about 25% more than a normal full glass cannon.

It’s also worth nothing that a Warrior with protection has very high survivability.

You realize that those people might had other classes already and thus only missed a Warrior/Thief/Mes in their team?

Some people like to have say 1 guard 1 mes 1 war 1 rang 1 nec, to have a team of unique classes that won’t “overwrite” each other’s things, i.e. two necros is redundant.