Guild Wars 2

AoE.

Then again, Final Thrust cleaves.

For a signet ele, I use 00626, Celestial, Strength runes. Scepter/Dagger, Doom/Battle.

Skills: Resto, Fire, Air, Earth. Elite of your choice.
Signet Mastery/Rock Solid/Written in Stone. These are all fairly straightforward.
Shard of Ice. Again, straightforward. Protects your conditions. Never hurts.
Final Shielding/Arcane Energy/Evasive Arcana. Shielding is always a nice trait to have. Arcane Energy means you have a potential 100 extra endurance sitting on your bars for you to use when you want. Evasive Arcana is always good, particularly as it helps you eke out that little bit of condition clearing to help keep you alive.

Scepter/Dagger is good because of what Earth Signet gives you. The Earth Signet allows you to apply a lot of effects that would otherwise be easily dodged; You can use it with Dragon Tooth, Flame Grab, Phoenix, Churning Earth.

Celestial because you can benefit heavily from every effect. Huge Burning uptime from FireSig, good Bleeding uptime from EarthSig. Constant healing from RestoSig which you don’t have to be afraid to use for spot healing.

Strength runes because you have easy fire field blasts, Sigil of Battle always proccing, high boon duration, and Strength always goes well with Celestial. Always a fantastic rune to have. I’m considering looking into Rune of Resistance because you can and will be using signets on cooldown.

Sigils are because they are always fantastic for an Ele. Also might be worth considering trading one of the sigils for Generosity because your crit chance is nothing to sneeze at and it will make conditions even more of a non-issue.

Is this the tempo we can expect for living world releases- 2 months on, 3 months off?

I’m just playing PvE atm and the adren decay rate is really high. I didn’t expect them to set the rate so high, I just thought they were going to make it so that it begins sooner after leaving combat.

Seth.1308:

The game at the beginning is reduced down to spamming “1”.

Anyone remember that quote

“I swung a sword. I swung my sword again. Hey, I swung it again, that’s great.”?

I’m just glad I have enough characters, and enough birthday presents, that I can realistically give every single one I make an instant 20.

The new system needs revisions, really soon. This is not good enough.

Rath.6248:

And to all the people saying “Looks like I wont be playing a new character”. Well shut up than cause it doesn’t affect you anymore.

TIL anet should not encourage people to play their game and spend money on extra character slots

mtpelion.4562:

I take it you have never worked in customer service then…
:p

IT.

/fifteencharacters

mtpelion.4562:

Silver Lining: Your inconvenience means you are better at this game than the average person who needs all the handholding.

i do not believe any human being requires this level of handholding

imma go wake my cat up and see what she can do with it

The only reason I can think of that they would nerf it would be because of the Light Field’s new effect on leaps, because necromancers just have TOO MANY leap finishers

More seriously, standardizing well duration, slightly buffing HP/S for the short duration, maybe expect more well changes to put it into context soon, not getting hopes up though.

Personally I have no issue with ANet using runes as crafting components etc. to increase their value but I hope that they consider putting them towards gearing rather than achievements. New insignias/inscriptions, for example, or ascended upgrade items.

They also made it strike five targets?

If you want Eviscerate, take Eviscerate.

I am reservedly excited. I do not think that we got very much, but of what we did get, it seems to be of quite some interest.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

How can someone do this consistantly?

You merely adopted the wahoo. VeeWee was born in it, molded by it. By the time he saw the forums, he was already a man.

Shockwave.1230:

The way I interpreted that was WoW does expansions when they’re losing big numbers of subscribers.

COuld be wrong

No; WoW loses subscribers during the gap because they’re putting those dev resources towards the new expansion pack rather than to making new content.

BlueZone.4236:

That still doesn’t make sense since the first two expansion were announced where it showed no sign of losing subscribers.

Raiding wasn’t as ‘formalized’ as it is now, I don’t think- You still had to progress through several raids before reaching endgame. Because of that, a lot of players still had content to chew on. The reason people unsubbed was because of a lack of relevant ‘new’ content, the new patching cycle which does see this problem has ‘catchup’ mechanics which trivialize the old content.

This is amaaaaazing.

Out of curiosity; does poisonshare give its poisons to turrets?

I don’t think that either of these changes need to happen.

Blood is Power is a fairly well-balanced utility as it is.
SoV needs minor adjustments, but more importantly, necros need a way to focus on a ‘lifedrain’ build. The signet does not have the supporting elements which it needs to prop it up. Water Spirit without Spirit Ranger would be just as bad.

Thanks a bunch for the rewrite, XyAltAcc.

Conclusion:

Anet should find stuff that sells well and put lots of it on the gem store.
such business acumen
many genius
wow

More seriously, I don’t know what their bread and butter is. I don’t know how the gemstore purchased items break down. It’s really hard to make a conclusion as to where their profits come from without that. I’m gonna take a wild stab and say that ANet needs to focus on delivering more of their bread-and-butter items, which I’m guessing are new character customizations and armor skins. I’d love to see how well the new outfits have done compared to armor skins.

One thing I find interesting; keyfarming will be dead and that may be an avenue for them to encourage people to spend money in the gemstore.

Also @Vayne interesting points. GW2 definitely does need to be viewed in a wider lens than yearly income and per-product income, as it’s one feature of NCsoft’s lineup, not the whole thing.

Southern.8973:

As there’s currently only 12 hours left for this sale, could someone run down the benefits — if any — of buying GW1 strictly to unlock benefits within GW2 (such as the Hall of Monuments)?

And do you need Eye of the North in order to access the hall (and thus, earn achievements) from within GW1?

Rationale – I would buy GW1 (and perhaps EotN) if it gave me access to specific items or achievements within GW2, but I’m not looking for another game to sink thousands of hours into.

Thanks for your insight.

You’ll have access to all of the rewards on the HOM calculator
, with time and effort. The more you do, the more rewards you’ll get.

Yes, you do need EOTM to be able to access the HOM. You don’t need to buy it right now, but you will need it at some point.

I really would not recommend getting the game if you just want it for the sake of HoM stuff. You will be playing the game for hours upon hours, and if you legitimately do not enjoy it, you will be wasting your time.

Dirame.8521:

I’ll give you that but, this doesn’t mean every other trait, skill or debuff that gives you a damage boost should be scrapped from the game does it?

No, it doesn’t mean that.

Dirame.8521:

How is Rejuvenation and Unholy Sanctuary not identical to Regeneration? Each of them regenerates health at the same rate as regen does but just have caveats that are exactly the same as my idea for Tainted Shackles, it only functions for 4s whilst TS is up.

For starters, Rejuvenation restores a different value from Regeneration, and Regeneration doesn’t work while in Death Shroud while Unholy Sanctuary does.

Your idea doesn’t really have any caveats. It’d be functionally identical to “Apply 10/4s stacks of vulnerability to enemies hit by the initial strike of Tainted Shackles”- And this implementation would be far better because it interacts with every other system revolving around conditions in the game.

Dirame.8521:

This just sounds like a whole load of cop out to me.

This sounds like a non-answer.

There is no player debuff which is applied which functions like Vulnerability.

Dirame.8521:

I understand that but this hasn’t stopped Anet from putting in; Rejuvenation, Tainted shackles (This skill is new in case you don’t remember), Stabilized Armour, Backpack regenerator, Unholy Sanctuary, Super Elixir. All functionally similar to something else.

I did not say ‘similar’. I said ‘identical’.

Dirame.8521:

If I was to interpret what you’re saying, it would come off as this; “Every skill that is functionally identical to Vulnerability existing in the game should be removed because it’s leading to disaster”.

And how many effects which are functionally identical to Vulnerability exist in the game? I’m not inclined to say any; at least, any which are available to players.

There are really good reason why boons and conditions are consolidated systems in the game; it makes the game simpler to read and makes condition removal less of an arcane art. As I understand, it’s a problem they expressly wanted to avoid because of their experiences in GW1.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

So my question, why should these classes carry around something that enhances the DPS of a party that is not tied to a Boon or Condition, but Necromancers should not, while it thematically fits them looking back at GW1?

For starters, that’s not the issue I raised.
Things which aren’t boons and conditions are fine, but they shouldn’t be completely identical to things which are covered by boons and conditions already in the game.

me am fix stances

- Stances will now put your other stances on a cooldown equal to the duration of the stance you are using.

Why?
1. You can’t faceroll and become immune to ALL THE THINGS simultaneously. While it is horrible play to actually do this, it makes individual stance use more of a choice- you’ll pick one mechanic to become immune to rather than becoming immune to everything simultaneously. The other guy will go “right, he’s popped his Endure Pain, load him up on conditions” or “right, he’s popped Zerk’s, lay on the physical damage”.
2. Endure Pain + Frenzy. Haste effect penalties probably shouldn’t be negated by other skills, especially ones that use the same traits.
3. It’s silly. I would hardly call someone who is in a Berserker’s Stance capable of also being in a Balanced Stance at the same time!

GoogleBrandon.5073:

I actually have to disagree with you turning a damage modifier as situational as this into Vulnerability… Almost all the Hexes from GW1 that were meant to be damage modifiers have been unified into this one condition called Vulnerability, and this has cause a really dumbed down version of combat…

It might seem like it’s ‘dumbing down’ the combat but introducing elements which are functionally identical to systems existing in the game which are unrelated to them is a fast way to end up with a rules disaster.

KarlaGrey.5903:

I just want a GW2 blog/novella written by VeeWee.
Pretty please?

They should have a living story chapter written by him.

Just keep producing armors and weapons that PvPers want.

the alternative is that we just not get ready up. gift horse, mouth

…I’m not sure what the problem is.

I don’t mean that to mean “there’s nothing wrong with blood, what are you talking about”, because there definitely are problems with blood magic. But what are the problems with blood magic? As far as I can tell, there are three common complaints about blood magic:

1. The traits aren’t particularly good.
Yeah fair enough. It could get some of the dud traits removed; it has something like 5 or 6 of them. Bloodthirst, the two dagger traits, Vampiric Wells, Vampiric Precision. Fairly easy to start fixing; squeeze some of these crappy traits together.

2. Lifedrains aren’t particularly strong.
I’m kinda ehhhh on this? Maybe if we had more than a grand total of one lifedrain weapon skill, we might have a fairer point of comparison. Well, two; our best weapon (spear) has Vampiric Swarm.

3. Regen and leeches directly counteract our class mechanic.
Yeah true. Maybe put in some stuff that makes Death Shroud suck less to use. I dunno about leeches through Death Shroud, but regen through death shroud should be doable.

My actual suggestions to toss into the ring:

Vampiric Rituals and Ritual Mastery combined to form:
Vampiric Rituals (Blood Master Major):
Your wells will now drain life from enemies within them, and have a shorter cooldown.

New GM trait:
Order of the Vampire (Blood Grandmaster Major):
Whenever your lifedraining effects benefit you, you also grant the healing to nearby allies.

Lishtenbird.2814:

What I find disturbing is that “projected profit” got removed and replaced by two fees. I am afraid that this was done on purpose, to make people do all the math themselves. The main complaint about “projected profit” (as stated in the post) was not that we wanted to see the fees… the complaint was that it didn’t calculate all the fees.

…Why would they do that on purpose?

“Aha! Lishtenbird made a mistake on his maths, and now a couple more silver are going to be removed from the economy! Mwahaha!”
“Good job, Evil Developer! Your devious UI design has fooled another of our witless players into losing a marginal amount of money!”

Olvendred.3027:

Haha. An unambiguously good and useful change, and already the thread is full of negativity.

Honestly, it’s kinda hard to tell how functional the new trading post will be without taking it for a spin.

It is also fun to complain.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I think you’re missing the point. That’s for normal healing skills. This is not a normal healing skill. You ONLY heal if you take damage from enemies. So if you want to be healed, you have to make sure you get hit. And if the return from that is less health than the damage you are taking, then it’s not a heal.

erm.

it has an active use =/

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

A healing skill that basically requires you to get hit by enemies, and returns less health than the health that is lost in the process.

errr

i’m an amateur at math, so forgive me for my inept ministrations, but

surely if you get an equal amount, or more health than you lost, you would become indestructible?

i mean, healing signet DOES exist, but that seems like it might be a bit too powerful

Norn Female monk is just so cuuuuuute. I want it!

azurrei.5691:

Who needs data – do you see dozens and dozens of people running around the same “path” in queensdale 24/7? are you always in a different instance every time you zone in and out of Queensdale because there are so many people farming creating dozens of instances? Like I said, if it was a problem they could of done something about it very easily long ago.

Signet of the Beastmaster was apparently a problem but they’re only fixing it with this coming balance patch.
Not being able to stomp in Death Shroud was apparently a problem but they’re only fixing it with this coming balance patch.

Saying that “well, why are they only fixing it now?” is nonsensical when they’re constantly making changes from the base game. You might think that because these anecdotes are gameplay components rather than the economy that the argument isn’t sound, but the economy gets just as much attention in the balancing department as any aspect of the content.

And yeah, I do fairly consistently see people with their funny keyfarming names farming keys. People do farm keys; enough so that everyone on these forums knows what it is.

azurrei.5691:

Do you realize the ridiculously small % of the player base that farms keys regularly? vs buying keys? Trust me, if key farming was truly an issue Anet would of done something about it a very long time ago.

Please provide your data.

Honestly I feel that BLTC keys need to become less prevalent as an in-game reward. I think keyfarming has done serious damage to its ability to offer consistent rewards.

Consider the following:
Story missions nerfed. Keys now granted at 31, 50 and 80.
Keys will now always provide a scrap, with a modest (10-20%) chance for a full ticket.
3 random item slots.
1 random booster slot.

Rym.1469:

That Unholy Sanctuary change. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

The unholy sanctuary change, to me, seems to actually be fairly solid, just because it works with SO many other traits. Stuff like “gain health when leaving death shroud” and “gain stability when entering death shroud” put a lot of meat on its bones.

I’m fairly happy with these changes. Well… I would be, if it were a 1-2 month wait rather than a 5 month one.

The change to Unholy Sanctuary in particular gives me a few ideas for boosting longevity.

Well, we didn’t need to have much time to tell them that any of their changes were blatantly horrible, because there are very few changes at all.

More seriously, it’s a pretty lean set of changes.
Last Gasp and Spectral Armor- CD reductions are interesting. I’m not sure what to think of them. On the one hand, lower CD stunbreaks are always nice, but I think I would have preferred it if more unused traits and abilities got some love too, like most of the other classes.
Unholy Sanctuary- Oh cool! This trait actually does something now.
Death Shroud revives/stomps- This seems like the meatiest change that’s being made. It could be fallout from the Unholy Sanctuary change, but I don’t care, it looks good.
Corrupt Boon- fine
Sig of Vamp- this is actually somewhat interesting because you can squeeze a spot more healing out of it. The ICD’s the limiting factor, not the duration.
Axe changes- cool. this thing might actually deal some damage now
dagger changes- fine
Locust Swarm- fine
Lich Form- expected.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Tell them to add that to the Ranger’s Frost Trap too, that trap could seriously use a starting damage to make it actually worth using in trap builds.

I think chill might be overcosted across the board. I mean, look at Ice Drake Venom.

When they buffed dungeon gold rewards, did people go “I’ve run CoF a thousand times! You should give me a thousand gold!”?

If you want new rewards from old content, do it again. If you want a new reward from an old dungeon, do it again. If you want a new reward from levelling, do it again.

I’m hoping that the changes announced next week will include a change to BLTC chests; particularly, making the chests more valuable and more worth spending real money to open. Who would buy a BLTC key right now?

My expectations:
Cloths will slightly rise in price. There are three classes which use it for armor, but nobody uses it for weapons.
Leathers will rise in price. There are three classes which use it for armor, and only two weapons which use it.
Woods will stay steady. There’ll be very little difference from how the material works right now. It’s only available on weapons, but it was already only available from weapons, and every class uses it.
Ores will go down in price or stay steady. It’s used in a lot of weapons and used for 2 class’s armors.

The Leatherworking backpiece will be mega cool, to encourage people to help drain the market of Thick Leather.

Clearly Mordremoth has Parasite researched.

That might depend on whether he can apply torment of his own? Which would probably only be a problem for non-condi Necros, but still a problem.

poorly designed trait unlock

Kill the Overgrown Grub in Eternal Battlegrounds.

delete plz anet
delete
(more seriously, give it a cave in Obsidian Sanctum. it’ll be like a mini-raid!)

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

Do it!
If you made every map have distinct skins/bonuses/etc which are earned in the same way as you do stuff in Dry Top, that’d be fantastic.

As a lazy suggestion, we could start with Kessex Hills; build a new tower (though a substantially less impressive and plot relevant one), and make that zone the “toxic spore” zone. We’ve already got a ton of toxic spore rewards, patterns, and Tower of Nightmare skins.

If you want to copy Dry Top perfectly, have new Kessex Hills have a ‘calm before the storm’ in which you build up fortifications and do the zone’s regular stuff in preparation for ‘germination’, when the new tower starts shooting out spores across the zone.

uri.6521:

As a side note, i think there shoud be not a single instant skill on this game, they should reduce the cooldown and increase the power of some skills like multiple mesmer and scepter elementalist skills or thief steal ad instant shadowsteps like shadowstep for example, but instead, those skills should be stronger by themselves.

Those skills are explicitly designed to be servicable while you’re Arcing, at least for the Elementalist skills.

Some skills, particularly stunbreakers, simply need to be instant cast. There’s nothing wrong with an instant cast skill so long as they can’t be rolled together to create a huge amount of insurmountable pressure.

BrunoBRS.5178:

from where i’m standing, the CDI was a success to everyone but the people that wanted to outright get rid of pets.

Maybe we should have a thief CDI.

To be pretty honest I think that’ll be a tall order, as I think other classes are probably higher on the priority list, but if the CDI did well for Rangers then they must be doing something right.

McWolfy.5924:

Do you want to backstab somebody with a GS?

Yes. Yes I do. :O

More seriously, I don’t see why it’d be impossible to make a from-stealth attack with a greatsword. You can attack from stealth with everything, if you’re looking at it from a simulationist standpoint- It’s just an extra sneaky hit.

Why not a low sweep with the sword that cripples from the front and knocks down from behind? Nobody’d see that coming.