Guild Wars 2

I think the examples the OP gives are long-winded, but I agree with the principle.

Time-gated content is bad for the player, but good for the game. It makes you feel compelled to log on every day and keep those server population values high, which is good for the game. 2 commendations per week, 1 laurel per day (daily), 10 laurels per month (monthly) are all examples of time gates. This means that no matter how good you are at the game, no matter how skilled, you will always be time gated and cannot expedite the process any. That’s bad for the player.

So, naturally this frustrates players, but naturally it’s what ANet implemented because they don’t care about the player, they care about the game. That’s what ascended is for, carrots on sticks to keep the hardcore logging on every day and give the game longevity.

Flesh Wurm is such a clunky blast finisher, though. It has a massive cooldown once blown up, and has a huge cast time of you summoning the minion and then wasting half the skill’s potential by blowing it up for the finisher and not the stunbreak/teleport. It’s much less convenient than most blast finishers on other classes, and that is a major part of the problem. The finishers we do have are largely impractical and don’t frequently ever get the opportunity to be used appropriately as finishers.

Beorn Saxon.4762:

@OP, I found three! Bonus prize for me? And yes, include aquatic weapons

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Option 1: Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer.
Option 2: Warrior, Thief, Mesmer.
Option 3: Warrior, Ranger, Necromancer.

Warrior, Ranger, Necromancer cannot work because no one uses a Pistol.

I didn’t see that requirement. ALRIGHT then, last try:

Right, right..

My answer.

ragas.1843:

arena net let’s fix this since 75% off necromancer’s are assuras thanks for reading

I agree that this should be fixed, but the quoted assertion is definitely off-base.

In general I agree with this. I think we can hardly take advantage of combo fields, and having more finishers would help a lot in making us more useful for the team.

Also note that the bone minion explosion is a blast finisher, but since minion AI is so bad and we lack control, it is difficult to aim and time, and thus largely useless. If it had an aoe indicator that told the minion where to blow up, that’d change a lot and make the skill more valuable.

Colin specifically mentioned in a recent interview that culling is prevalent in WvW and the fix will definitely appear there, but that certain world events also suffer from it, and that any fixes they make for WvW will be analyzed and applied, if appropriate, to PvE and other large events. He made no mention that it would happen at the same time, but it is definitely something they are aware of.

How I figure this will work is that they will turn off automatic culling altogether, and give the control over culling to the player. Crappy systems will be utterly unable to render everything, so of course it is system-dependent. However, I anticipate that they will have some slider or some such in user preferences that you can slide from “culls lots of stuff” to “no culling, but be warned that this might lag crappy computers”.

No, you are wrong.

I have several-run streaks where I get 1-2 runs per chest every chest, and then some several-run streaks where the outcome looks more like yours. That is RNG at work, and it has not been nerfed.

I ran up to personal level 26 without any AR, and only got AR because at that point I had enough relics to make a back piece. Honestly, your party was out of line, and I find it pretty amusing and satisfied that they got kicked by removing the group leader.

Well, you’ve already got a few hits from others, but reading your post makes me feel like you might be a really good fit for [VZ] given your maturity, style, and so forth.

VZ is a casual guild on the NA SBI server with 45-55 players, and despite being very casual, we do top-end PvE and WvW every night and are darned good at it. We’re a tight-knit community, and while many other guilds might just want you only to be another member, we are looking for cool people who are looking for friends. We want to get to know you, and to have fun as friends. Maybe that sounds cheesy, but maybe that’s exactly what you’re looking for too. We’re a few days out from our guild bounties, and we’re excited to get those started. It’s also convenient that you’re on the EST timezone, because lots of us are there too. We have a TS server, but using it isn’t required. I just have it because I think some people prefer it, and I think if they do, more power to them.

Anyway, if you’re interested, you can PM me here or in-game. For more information, the link to the guild’s recruitment thread is in my signature below. I’d be more than happy to chat with you and work out any sort of concerns you might have, but I don’t want to harass you, so if you’re interested, just let me know and we can go from there.

Either way, good luck in finding what you’re looking for.

There was no change, it’s just a string of RNG not in your favor. I’ve gotten skins and rings since patch no problem.

GWBuildCraft is my current favorite. It’s newer, but man does it help with build development for both PvE and PvP. It’s only missing utilities currently, but the developer is implementing them over the next couple of days, so no worries.

At that range it is very easy to avoid, it has a slow attack speed (giving them ample time to close the gap), and it is decidedly weak once they do inevitably close the gap.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Rangers are able to do it. Just equip a long bow, throw down a spike trap, and be mindful of your barrage and you’re going to make a big difference. A well placed barrage from 2 or 3 rangers will make rushing forward a lot less appealing to an attacking army, and when they finally do come charging in switch to axes or some other close quarters weapon and micro your pet.
I just don’t like the big battles and tend to avoid them – but longbows are pretty strong in WvW.

LB is really bad as a primary weapon because its 1 is so terrible. It is stellar as a weapon switch that you unload the other skills with, though, because by the time you finish the other skills your weapon swap has reloaded and you can swap back to something with better sustained dps.

Bumping this up for some more visibility!

Yes, this is bad and ANet has reported that they will fix it. I only hope they fix it sooner rather than later.

This thread is terrible, and it makes me really sad.

I don’t think posts showing +600 PPT are necessarily in good taste, but at some level it is meaningful to have score updates. I have a few friends who can’t visit the millenium site at work because it’s blocked, but for whatever reason can visit the GW2 forums. So long as PPT updates aren’t rife with bragging or snide suggestions for the opponents, they should be acceptable. Likewise, I think saying things that allude to how poorly your opponents played when you beat them 10 vs 20 are also said in poor taste. It doesn’t help anyone when your opponent brags about something, all you should do is thank people for the fights, and move on. Yesterday and the day before reading this thread I was quite frustrated and nearly posted some stupid things here myself in response to some stupid things said by other people.

Some things people need to realize:
- That some people cheat on all servers and abuse exploits does not make every member of that server a cheater. Report the exploiters and be done with it; we don’t want them on our server any more than you want them on yours.
- You should not post anything that suggests your opponent is bad. This is a highly competitive game form and people are very proud, so don’t ruin the atmosphere of these threads by prodding them.
- Retorting in kind to someone who prods you in these threads makes you no better than they are. Report the post and move on.

Anyway, really, let’s just get back on the field and off of the forums. I typically only post in these threads to thank the opponents for the matches, but these past few threads have been particularly grueling. I don’t think anyone here genuinely wants these threads to be this bad, and I’d like for us (SBI) to leave this match-up with at least the respect of the opposing servers.

I see this as a good thing.

Why? Well, consider the following. You level up multiple alts to level 80. Why is it that when you level up one character to level 80 (and specialize it), it doesn’t level up all of your characters to level 80? The reason is to let you progress and grow each character on your own, and then specialize your character as it grows. I think that this situation is analogous to WvW progression. You play a character in WvW, and it gets better in WvW. You can then progress your character and specialize it however you best think you’d like to.

The stipulations for my liking it come as the following, though:

You need to be able to change your WvW abilities after you’ve chosen them.
Just like traits on a class that you level up, you need to be able to change these WvW abilities you get for WvW. If you can’t, then we’ve devolved back to the days of D2 where “Oh I misplaced a skill point, TIME TO REMAKE MY CHARACTER”. That is horrible, and should absolutely be avoided. Make it cost like 3.5s to retrait your WvW abilities or something if you have to, but absolutely make it possible to retrait them or this will end horribly.

You need to be able to make significant progress in a small amount of time.
Just like leveling up, you need to be able to make significant progress on this progression in a relatively short time span. This is different from sPvP, where your progress is account bound and can thus take longer. It must not take weeks upon weeks to ‘max’ a character for WvW. I emphasize that particularly because this is so critical. If it takes 4 months of dedicated playing to max one character, then I agree that this is alt-unfriendly and is a bad implementation for the game. However, if it takes about the same time to max a character in WvW as it does to max a character to level 80, then that’s totally acceptable.

You need to be able to make progress by helping the team, not just killing/capping.
People who scout are important, and so are people who refresh siege, or who upgrade bases, or who escort dolyaks. These roles are critical to WvW, and with progression being added, these roles must be rewarded with progression experience. If not, then people will forgo these critical roles in favor of things that earn them progression, and we will lose out on important parts of our strategy and the game will devolve further into zerg-smash-wall mentality.

If these three factors are appropriately handled in the March release, then I am confident that this release will be a good one. If not, then this will probably be one of the worst things to happen to WvW ever. Please, ANet, I don’t mind character-based progression so long as you get it right.

Maladon.5760:

It’s hard to say. Currently TC seems to be wrecking Maguuma.

This is interesting, because we held our own fairly well against TC when we were T2. The real killer for us at that point in our drop was that SoR was a simply supermassive server that we couldn’t compete against. I’m not quite sure how we’ll fare against Maguuma, but either way it’ll be a good opportunity to see what we’re really made of and whether we can convince our numbers to stick with it.

Yes, you will get one.

titanlectro.5029:

I agree with slamz here. If you are a recognized commander, in a recognized guild, then all you have to do is remind people who your main is. Your guild tag will be the same, your guild will back it, and everything will be good. Also the account name stays the same, just in case someone challenges it.

If people read chat then you don’t have a problem. If people don’t read chat, then they are probably mindlessly following tags around the map anyways.

I understand the counter-argument, and it’s indeed valid. Still, I think that having to be backed up, or having to be supported or verified makes it difficult for newer players. I know on my server, lots of players recognize a CDR by their character name because that’s what it shows when you type in /m or /t or /squad. It’s also what shows on the map, over your head, and everything. People who aren’t the best-of-the-best recognize that character name and that character name earns reputation and then players know what to expect from that character name. I think this is the thought process ANet followed when deciding to make it character bound, and to me it makes sense.

I do think it’d be sweet if I could CDR on some of my other characters without shelling out another 100g, but I think that it benefits the server and the players more if I continue to use my one Commander and they continue to learn my style and so on. It’s a tough argument for sure, and I’m really not sure if there is a “correct answer” to the discussion.

Habib Loew.6239:

WvW ranks & abilities are character based. The best way to think of this system is as alternative/extended character progression.

I had the feeling it’d be this way. I just hope it doesn’t take months/years to level up and earn useful abilities. If I can level up very quickly, much like how I can going from level 1 to level 80, then it won’t be such a burden and will still be rather alt-friendly.

I also think it’d be nice to have different abilities on different characters based on their roles and class specifications and builds, so to me this seems reasonable.

I recommend Toughness because we already have high Vitality as a class, and so you see a greater return on effective health investing into Toughness. There also isn’t really a +Vit armor set that benefits condition builds without boosting a wasted stat (Carrion is Pow/CndDmg/Vit, but you’re really not using the Power). I recommend Rabid armor 9 times out of 10 for condition builds, and this also benefits us further through Undead runes. I don’t think your build is really suited for running wells; you’d be better served by things like Epidemic.

Also, DS benefits from both Vitality and Toughness, so I wouldn’t worry too much there.

Terror is great in WvW skirmishing and PvP, but ineffective in PvE and dungeons compared to the alternative builds. You just sacrifice too much for the fear duration in PvE that barely benefits you (and doesn’t even CC bosses most of the time due to Defiant stacks).

In general, I find the reduced cooldown on Dagger 4 really useful both as a spot blind but as a condition cleanse. Dagger 5 is also pretty boss. I sometimes run Ritual of Life as a trait over Life Transfusion; both are good. The well of blood on reviving really helps in certain situations where your team is turtling and not moving a lot (Cliffside seals, for instance). Otherwise I tend to prefer Transfusion.

CPC is a pretty good skill if you think about why you’re using it, which is really the weakness. It benefits from the cooldown reduction you trait for Epidemic, which brings its CD to 32s and makes it much more attractive (better than 1/3 uptime). The other nice thing about it is that you can combo finish it Staff 4 for more AOE weakness, you can switch weapon sets and layer on Dagger 5, and then Epidemic. You can pretty much lock an entire enemy squad in permanent weakness using that rotation (or even only some parts of it), and that mitigates significant damage. This is even more relevant in fractals because you cannot use blind to mitigate damage against the Dredge, and so weakness becomes that much more clutch.

And yes, if I wanted to run a ‘serious’ food, I’d use Rare Veggie Pizzas. Even in high fractals, however, I haven’t found the need. I can maintain perma of the conditions that matter regardless, and I hover around the bleed cap depending on my team at any given time, so increased bleed duration beyond Hemophilia wouldn’t help much.

I have done every JP in-game as max size Charr, which has feet that don’t even rest on most JP platforms due to their standing stance. Seriously, quit complaining and either get better, or don’t do them. The alternative is to get a friend who has a Mesmer and is a better JP runner than you to portal you to the chest.

Also, try investing in the 50% fall damage reduction trait. You won’t die if you fall, saving a lot of silver on WP travel.

Fractals can easily be run in MF armor up to about level 30, at which point you really need to buckle down and not gimp your team. You will cause wipes by running MF gear at that point (MF consumable is still acceptable up to level 49).

I run the following in Fractals 49:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/necromancer/?5|b.1b.h16.8.1b.h1|6.1b.h5|1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.1b.719.1b.719|4w.d1e.2w.d1e.3w.d1e.2w.d1e.3w.d1e.2w.d1e|0.u27b.k25.k16.0|h.d|e

Please note I have assumed ascended accessories, though exotic rabid gear is also acceptable in the meantime until you’ve gotten your ascended trinkets. Also please note that I run the following utilities:
- Corrosive Poison Cloud
- Epidemic
- Signet of the Locust / Blood is Power (You can use Blood is Power in this slot once you actually get into battle, but being fast moving helps a lot inbetween events)
- Plague Form

I find that this contributes the most to my teams.

Hey Rob, I think you missed my post in the dungeon forums after yours, so I’ll quote it here where it might be more relevant:

Rising Dusk.2408:

To be honest, open world PvE is very easy for all classes. I don’t think what the ranger needs is a large buff, but they need a buff. The SB is fine, and the Sword/Torch combo is pretty darned good too. I can’t believe Rob uses a dagger, because the torch is way better if you’re running a condition build, but the cripple is sort of useful. It’s no wonder you don’t experience the problems with the class, though, because you don’t use the weapons that really suffer.

The Ranger still has numerous problems, and in particular against stronger mobs the likes of which you see in dungeons. I’ve enumerated a few key ones to fix first below.

====
- LB auto attack is awful and makes it an absolutely bad weapon to main. You currently have to use 3>2>5 and 4 if needed, then you switch to something that doesn’t suck as a weapon. The LB 1 desperately needs work, and this weapon should honestly be the bread-and-butter of Ranger ranged power dps, but currently isn’t. It either needs to attack about 33% faster or do way more damage per hit.

- Sword 1’s chain locks your character’s movements and doesn’t allow you to break the chain to dodge. This means that auto-attacking with sword puts you at risk of getting faceblasted by any number of positionally varying mob and boss skills in dungeons. This is not a big deal in open world PvE where your pet can facetank most things.

- Greatsword is a bad weapon. Please save this.

- We desperately need AR on pets, but you said you’re actively looking for solutions to that, so yay.
====

That’s about it. The class is fine otherwise in high-end PvE.

I also agree with whoever suggested that Vigor on pets be converted into something actually useful.

If you alternate characters you can avoid DR and get 20 tokens per run +9 possible from 3 bags. That’s 32 runs a day at best (2 runs get you 69 at best), which, depending on your group, could take anywhere from 3 to 5 hours of dedicated time.

Maxtofunator.5976:

So, as a commander, do most of you guys run something more support oriented so that you aren’t glass cannons that are on the floor or do you run a more balanced style of build, or just stay glass cannons and hope you don’t die.

I run a bulkier Warrior as my Commander. I’m not full PVT, but I’m also not full glass, and this helps a lot both with being threatening but also with not dying. As a commander, thieves and others tend to seek you out to put you down. The reason is simple, because a dead commander can’t effectively lead a group, and if he has to WP, the zerg gets disoriented and is more liable to wipe. If you’re glass, you need utility skills that will keep you alive, but you also want to be a threat when you fight back. For me, I think a balanced build is important for that with some defensive skills that you can invoke to save your life if things are really going badly. For a Warrior, this means things like Shield 5 or Endure Pain. You could also work around a more ranged build with a rifle and not get up front and personal with your foes; I know a great Warrior Commander on my server who runs a Rifle for just these situations (running range also helps with inspiring randoms to shoot cannons and mortars and oil).

Also, how do you guys try to figure out what to do next, as in take camps/keeps/towers or what, and when to defend and when to just let towers and stuff go, and when to try to rally more bodies to your cause, and do you guys ask other commanders to pop/depop their tags to get things done or do you let it be?

There are so many questions here that more often than not are driven by intuition and strategic planning. I can’t tell you something like “Always take Bravost” or “Always defend your camps above all else” or something, but I will tell you this: Defend the holdings that you have most invested into. Defend keeps if at all possible, but know when you’re in a protracted battle and need to extract yourself and your group. You do not want your groups getting deadlocked while another server has free reign over your territories. Pay attention to white swords and check your map frequently. If you use voice chat, listen to them, and watch map and team and squad chat for tells of enemy troop movements. Learn to anticipate where they might go based on where they are, learn to distract the enemy with small groups and well placed siege so that your larger force can move and take points, learn ground-troop combat tactics like pincers, flanking, and splitting, and above all else learn to respect your groups and they will respect you.

Good luck.

The Eternal Grace.3157:

I see a rare item as being rare…hence the name rare…and I see exotic as something beyond that. I don’t think they should be this easy.

And I see the Ascended gear as the answer to your prayers. Seriously, gear your 8 characters in full Ascended. Hop to it!

Exotics are “easy” to get by MMO standards, but that is how they were designed, and is how ANet has always felt it should be. However, they soon realized that people like you really like grinding for years to get BiS items for all your characters, and added Ascended gear to give you something to work towards in the long term. Ectos dropping in price is exactly what the game needed to keep exotics from being prohibitively expensive for players.

To be honest, open world PvE is very easy for all classes. I don’t think what the ranger needs is a large buff, but they need a buff. The SB is fine, and the Sword/Torch combo is pretty darned good too. I can’t believe Rob uses a dagger, because the torch is way better if you’re running a condition build, but the cripple is sort of useful. It’s no wonder you don’t experience the problems with the class, though, because you don’t use the weapons that really suffer.

The Ranger still has numerous problems, and in particular against stronger mobs the likes of which you see in dungeons. I’ve enumerated a few key ones to fix first below.

====
- LB auto attack is awful and makes it an absolutely bad weapon to main. You currently have to use 3>2>5 and 4 if needed, then you switch to something that doesn’t suck as a weapon. The LB 1 desperately needs work, and this weapon should honestly be the bread-and-butter of Ranger ranged power dps, but currently isn’t. It either needs to attack about 33% faster or do way more damage per hit.

- Sword 1’s chain locks your character’s movements and doesn’t allow you to break the chain to dodge. This means that auto-attacking with sword puts you at risk of getting faceblasted by any number of positionally varying mob and boss skills in dungeons. This is not a big deal in open world PvE where your pet can facetank most things.

- Greatsword is a bad weapon. Please save this.

- We desperately need AR on pets, but you said you’re actively looking for solutions to that, so yay.
====

That’s about it. The class is fine otherwise in high-end PvE.

Ursan.7846:

What about the ones that don’t have a cooldown, like Force?

They stack with other, different sigils, but not with themselves. For instance, two sigils of force do not stack, but one sigil of force and one sigil of accuracy will. Note that the bonuses do not show in the hero panel, but that the benefits are working. (Tooltip glitch)

Taugosz.3761:

What kind of sigils would u recommend for dual wielding axes on warrior? i’m not sure which is compatible

Probably a sigil of force/accuracy on one and a sigil of strength (or some other on-proc effect) on the other. It depends very heavily on your build. Maybe a sigil of energy would be better, or a sigil of fire. Try things out in the Heart of the Mists and then decide for yourself. You’ll also probably want a sigil of bloodlust somewhere in your weapon swap routine.

It was from the update to Orr that made all Risen drop the venom sacs, not just the spiders.

They share an internal cooldown, so no. Whichever one activates first will start its cooldown and block the other until its cooldown ends.

Oh, come on Rob, we all know you would post from home if you really loved us.

I didn’t mean to spur the discussion in the direction of WvW. Please remember that this is a dungeons thread!

You won’t get an answer here. Send any exploits you find like this to ‘exploits@arena.net’ without the quotes.

Having played all of them max level, I’d rather play an Engineer than a Ranger or Necromancer in PvE; those two classes are abysmal in dungeons and high end fractals. The Engineer is versatile enough to serve a very useful role. In PvP/WvW, however, each serves very important purposes in a zerg or skirmish group and have distinct roles, and I think the Engineer fits in really well as-is.

Now I know the OP also talks about open world events, but that is a topic for the Dynamic Events forum, not the Dungeons forum. Because of that, I will address only the dungeons here.

I have done every dungeon in the game on a glass cannon Ranger, and nothing in the game can one-shot that setup bar Agony from a tier of FotM you’re undergeared for (your fault). Two-shot, yes, but not one-shot. If you happen to get hit twice in quick succession, I would blame the player for not paying attention. And, to be honest, if an attack is that threatening in a dungeon, it is well telegraphed as well even in the face of super special effects (Guardian blue fire for instance). I think that level of threat makes the dungeons more fun because it makes every action more valuable, and means that your dodges are that much more valuable. It becomes a battle of conscious skill and resource management, and that is what makes me come back to dungeons after the fact.

Giganticus Lupicus is the best boss in-game hands down because of how threatening he is, how interactive fighting him is, and how careful you have to play. I don’t care if you’re the best player ever and can beat him without ever going down, you pay attention when you fight GL or he kills you. That is what a boss should be, and if every boss in-game were like that, this game would be king in my eyes.

I think Willywho’s suspicions are correct, as I, too, have had that experience with the 2 guild missions I’ve personally done. I understand that with more “chances” at exotics from the world boss chests and the guild missions there are bound to be more precursors generated, but I don’t think it will be enough to gouge supply and drop price by any noticeable margin.

The prices might go down marginally, but they could also go up. More ecto more readily available might result in more people pursuing a legendary, and thus an increase in demand comparable (or exceeding) the increase in supply (greater prices). It’s tough to say right now, but I lean towards prices maintaining themselves and steadily but slowly increasing as they have been.

Can I get a link to that, Vol? I saw a dev mention that precursors could drop from the guild missions, not that everyone would absolutely get one. I think it is the common case of “if you get a rare, it has a chance to be an exotic, and if it is an exotic, it has a chance to be a precursor”.

Yes, you can use it on a male or female character.

More importantly for me personally, I’m hoping this drops the prices of the respective T6 materials as well because it will cheapen the upgrade process.

They went to WvW, the true GW2 endgame.

Linchpin.8095:

I don’t know, I feel like the whole point of monthlies is to get you to do a bit of everything, like I hate crafting but I need to do it for the monthly this month. If I don’t do it all I miss out is 10 laurels, which is no big deal in my book.

Bingo. Monthlies aren’t required. If you want the laurels because you feel ‘compelled’ or whatever to get ascended gear, then you need to be prepared to work outside of your comfort zone. Do what needs to be done to get the reward you’ve decided that you want.

They are designed to get you to do stuff. And as crazy as it sounds, that is meant to encourage you to do things you otherwise might not do. I tried keg brawl for the first time the other day. Why? It was a daily achievement, and I figured I’d break out of my comfort zone and try something new. It was amusing. I’m sure the same will be true of you doing dungeons if you decide to play to improve your skills and find better teams (or a good guild). A few bad experiences should not discourage you from an entire type of end game content.

Level 48 Grawl boss is one of the most entertaining fights in the game. It totally epitomizes team composition, team skill, and just about everything else related to skill in this game, and I love it. Just make sure you’re planning for it when you build your group, or this fractal will stop you flat. It’s beatable, you just need to have everyone on the same page and be good players.

I am posting here to note that this is also affecting me. Moving this to a higher priority and getting it out sooner rather than with the March content patch is highly preferable. Thanks!