Guild Wars 2

Einlanzer.1627:

I mean no offense

i am very offended

i demand an apology this instant

Einlanzer.1627:

but you don’t actually seem to be getting why this is an issue.

it’s an issue because PP sux

Einlanzer.1627:

It’s not simply a matter of needing to weave in Unloads to maximize your DPS. It’s a matter of having to perpetually spam Unload to even do reasonable damage.

there’s nothing wrong with this. by going PP you accept certain responsibilities and certain boons. not having to stand in someone’s face is a boon. having to very closely manage your initiative spending is a responsibility. this is an integral part of class/build diversity

Einlanzer.1627:

Not only does it mean the set has poor mobility (since Unload is a channel skill)

this is subjective. yeah, you need to channel your unloads and you can’t dodge without interrupting them, but you can stand on the other side of the planet and shoot the other guy. depending on where you are, this can be huge, and an opportunity you won’t otherwise get

Einlanzer.1627:

and poor sustained DPS (since Initiative is highly limited)

i like unload as an initiative-babysitting spec

Einlanzer.1627:

but it also renders utility impotent by indirectly making every other skill useless in comparison, since they all share a resource and continuing to damage your opponent is a lot more important than any momentary utility 90% of the time

that’s how utility works. you don’t always need it

Einlanzer.1627:

This is unique to both the Thief profession and the P/P weapon set.

come again?

Einlanzer.1627:

All reducing Unload’s Initiative cost will do is give P/P an overall DPS increase without doing anything to fix the actual problems discussed above.

i think you’re really understating how much changing the initiative cost of an ability can do

Einlanzer.1627:

Vital Shot probably does an average of 60% of the damage Unload does when it should be more like 80-90%

on what basis do you make this comparison
compared to other classes’ 1 skills? that’s completely unfair, other classes have a completely different ability system
compared to the other thief 1 skills? compared to sword 1, sure, but i’m inclined to say sword 1 is the outlier, not vital shot
pushing up vital shot’s damage by 50% would make PD way better than it is at the moment. sure, maybe that’s something that it needs, but we’re just discussing the balance state of unload at the moment

Einlanzer.1627:

(and Unload itself is probably a little weaker than it should be as well)

maybe, i wouldn’t object to a 5% or so buff

Einlanzer.1627:

This single fact results in all of the problems with the set that are routinely discussed by Thief players, even if they don’t realize what the actual cause is.

this line makes me think that you’ve built a mountain out of a molehill; that there’s a huge, underlying problem with PP (that only you can see) when really it’s just that unload is a bit too expensive and body shot is a bit crappy. even this analysis is unfair because body shot’s pretty nice to have as PD

Sizer.5632:

Every time i go to bed at night I shed a few more tears for all those poor warriors and their attempts to beat those OP eles with all of their useless utilities. Perhaps someday this injustice will be fixed, but we can only hope.

like dis if you cry errytime

@OP if you genuinely think that Balanced Stance is a ‘joke’ just because Stability can be stripped you’re being dangerously silly.

Einlanzer.1627:

No, thieves are supposed to use their initiative strategically based on tactical need in a given moment. That doesn’t work for P/P because you need all your Initiative for Unload spamming. That is primarily because Vital Shot is too weak to rely on and Unload has to compensate for it.

In theory, I don’t believe any thief specs should be able to rely exclusively on their 1 for damage. All thief specs should need to mix in another ability, whether that’s a raw damage ability like Pistol Whip or Unload, or a stealth-entering ability like CnD or Blackpowder→Heartseeker, to get their highest possible damage output. Initiative should be used to fill tactical needs, yes, but Murdering Your Enemies is a tactical need; probably the most important one.

If PP needs to be ‘fixed’, try reducing Unload’s cost by 1 and see what happens. The skill is just not very impressive, and isn’t doing much damage for how much it costs, so reduce how much it costs.

Zero Day.2594:

Sarrs.4831:

aren’t thieves supposed to use their initiative skills to max damage output

Too OP, people complain about 22222222222222222222 (on d/x)
:D using our init to max our damage OP silly….

i have no idea what you just said

1. Check the necro forums for builds/ask there. They’re friendly folk over there and they’re happy to help out.

If you don’t like DS, it sounds like you might be better off with a different class. You have to deal with DS whether you like it or not as a Necro.

2. The loot from the reward chests does scale with level.

You can repeat each line of rewards except for the Balthazar line.

If you complete them, no. If you open the boxes, yes. However, you’re better off opening the boxes between certain level ranges (20-65); the materials you get from salvaging the loot outweighs the chance for exotic, when it comes to income.
The exception to this rule is the boxes which reward specific weapons/armors, particularly the ones in dungeon lines. For example, the boxes you get from level 10-20-30-40 from the Arah line which I’m fairly sure is currently open will always be level 80.

3. Sadly, no. You’ll want to play a medium class if you want to wear that armor set.

aren’t thieves supposed to use their initiative skills to max damage output

I don’t think Trahearne will get killed. He’ll probably retire as Grand Marshal, because his Wyld Hunt isn’t to kill dragons, it’s to cleanse Orr.

Why not just raise the CD on Might-when-struck to like.

20 seconds or something.

this thread deserves 1000 healthy points

I’m not 100% sure but aren’t utility goggles a thing that static discharge engis use? This could hypothetically remove a thief’s only defense against them.

I think more abilities do need to get the sic’em treatment but I think which ones should be very carefully selected.

Jeknar.6184:

They don’t want you to be rewarded because you “cheated” to win the ranking you’ll have at the end of the season. That’s actually the only thing Anet can do without stepping in a even bigger mess…

Now I ask: Will this make JQ/TC stop 2v1ing BG?

The answer: No

If this ruckus on the forums DOES actually elicit a response like this from ANet, I have very little doubt that BG will be 2v1ed for as long as it remains in T1.

Radmage.3741:

You don’t seem to understand what the argument is, necro has no range for weapons on a power spec, 600 range is the shortest range in a range weapon, every other range weapon does a better job at range dps while being at a safe distance.

Personally I think that’s a case of Different Classes Are Different. While it would be cool if Necromancers had a strong ranged Power-based weapon, I think that the class would be better having a completely new weapon filling the role, rather than a rejiggered Axe. I’m inclined to say Axe 2 would need to be neutered if it were pushed up to a 900/1200 range.

Mickk.6875:

If there is something to be said about Axe range it’s that at the least 600 or so range weapons are unusual in general, and may be underdesigned. A brief recap:

I think I’m inclined to agree, though I’m also inclined to say that there isn’t really a need for a 600 range weapon in the game.

Back when I played WoW (terrible way to start a story, I know) there was a neat strategy you’d use as a Rogue against a Warrior called 5-8ing. Warriors have Charge which sends them to their target and stuns, but it had a minimum range of 8 yards; warriors couldn’t Charge you if you were in that range. The strategy was to poke at them with attacks when your energy was full before retreating out of 5 yards, but still within 8 yards so they couldn’t close.

At the moment, I don’t think there’s really that threat in GW2. There’s an obvious motive for staying out of immediate melee range with most enemies, but there aren’t many incentives for staying within that range. There are things like Mesmer GS1 and Ranger LB1, but that’s about it.

I wonder if maybe ranged play in general is underdeveloped, and I also wonder whether it’s because of Conquest’s nodes.

Zaxares.5419:

I’m not going to get into the whole debate about whether 2v1 is right or wrong, but my personal feeling is that ANet is not going to outright block it from happening.

Something I’m wondering; the people calling foul on TC and JQ. What do they expect to happen? Mass bans?

Radmage.3741:

Bhawb.7408:

Axe’s issue is not its range.

It certainly is one of them.

It isn’t. While it’s not a strength, it isn’t a weakness.

Axe’s main weakness is a useless 1. 2 is solid burst + LF regen, and 3 is solid cripple+retal. They’re not stand-out amazing, but they’re not supposed to be.

Zietlogik.6208:

Sarrs.4831:

I kinda want to write up a compilation thread of all the stuff in the reward tracks that needs to be fixed, one way or another. So far I’ve got:

- No in-game notification of hotjoin progress limit
- Incorrect labelling of chest at end of reward track
- Unique “skins” are actually unique SKINS when they would be better off as actual exotic weapons

Make sure you include the fact that the item chests can actually contain whites and greys (trophy items in spvp? really?!)

dat vendor value

White gear is actually modestly valuable if you open the box in certain level ranges. For example, a level 50-65 light chestpiece can be worth up to 60s for its salvage value.

I kinda want to write up a compilation thread of all the stuff in the reward tracks that needs to be fixed, one way or another. So far I’ve got:

- No in-game notification of hotjoin progress limit
- Incorrect labelling of chest at end of reward track
- Unique “skins” are actually unique SKINS when they would be better off as actual exotic weapons

Locuz.2651:

Sarrs.4831:

An explicit, 5-10 game calibration period might be nice.

You really think that new players can go from 0 to hero in 5-10 games? With the exception of smurf accounts its impossible.

That’s not what calibration means.

Locuz.2651:

1] The system currently prioritizes a short queue time over a good matchup. You will get games with evenly matched people if and only if they are all in the queue at the same time. If there isnt anyone available…the system will pick the next best thing.

Personally, I have no problem with this. SoloQ is YoloQ. It shouldn’t be a place for absolute best matchups; it should be a place for reasonably quick games with some, but not all matchmaking.

TeamQ should be a perfect competitive environment.

2] The system pushes the MMR of new players up really fast during their first 20ish games. Getting 2 lucky wins in a row can mean youre top 20 in europe all of a sudden as new player. Its that absurd.

There are two problems here; new players, and lucky wins.

Yeah, new players don’t seem to have any inertia in the matchmaking system, and that’s one of its weaknesses. An explicit, 5-10 game calibration period might be nice.

Lucky wins; to fix this problem, you’d need to have a system that tracks individual contribution to a game to measure how much MMR should be raised or lowered. This is a potentially very expensive system- I won’t say whether it’s a good or bad idea, but it would need a lot of resources invested in it to become good.

define: experience

Seriously though, experience is not really that relevant. Skill is a product of experience, and that’s already modeled with MMR.

Personally I think that red/green/blue unique borderlands would be more practical.

How peculiar. I have seen it before- A map which is completely controlled by one color, particularly green- But I never bothered to stick around to try to see if there were any enemies or friendlies on the map.

I’m going to take a wild guess and say this isn’t a glitch, this is the game creating a second EOTM server to allow new players to join EOTM, but the other servers don’t have enough players to fill their other zones.

Fairly straightforward; I’ve been trying to farm out these bonus chests, but I’m wondering whether I should be opening them as soon as I get them so I don’t lose them to a cap, or whether I can keep them in reserve until I can salvage/vendor the insides?

Personally, I think it’s really worthwhile to try to learn the Flesh Wurm over the Shadow Fiend. Shadow Fiend is really bizarre in how it works, or rather, doesn’t work- The active ability isn’t that useful, and its damage doesn’t seem to be all that hot. On the other hand, Flesh Wurm gives you survival options that are otherwise completely absent, and lets you put a turret in an inaccessible location. A cleverly placed teleport can save your life.

runeblade.7514:

Brawler’s recovery:

Burst skill is immune to blindness.

+1. This is what I’d go with; it seems like it’d make a few bursts in particular much more reliable, like Eviscerate and Kill Shot.

On Melandru runes losing value if this were to change; there’s nothing wrong with a game change affecting the value of an item. Melandru runes are really popular runes; I don’t see how the game could be hurt too much if there were a flood of them.

I really don’t see much of an issue with making a change along these lines. Get good karma→gold and badge→gold arcs and that’ll fix most of the problem.

Sekhmet.6153:

To be honest, it still leads to quicker responses to in-game issues for the most part. For all the issues Blizzard gets for being a royal pain to deal with via subscriptions, there aren’t too many in game issues that WoW gets that don’t get rectified rather quickly. GW2 sometimes has problems and glitches persist for months and months before even being looked at.

Not really. Vanish was bugged from release up until the start of Cata. Arcane missiles got all through vanilla.

Why are these things skins and not just regular weapons?

Lopez.7369:

Rune of the Necromancer is worse than Nightmare. And Sigil of Agony is worse than Generosity.

Is Carrion Condi still a thing for necros? I could see Generosity not being very valuable as a Carrion necro.

Just did COE story exclusively for the reward track. Guess what the party leader does?

Really, really not happy.

So apparently, if the party leader leaves the group/instance (destroying it) before you can finish or click out of the cinematic, you don’t get credit for reward tracks or completion. What a fantastic waste of an hour and a half.

Lopez.7369:

Sarrs.4831:

Yep, you need to complete the track 18 times to get all the skins, assuming you don’t spend the token rewards you get along the way.

I don’t get it either. I’d rather they flip the weapons and the armors around.

There are way more weapons than armor pieces, so it makes sense to give more weapons. And with the token rewards, you only need to run the track three times to get a full set.

There aren’t; there’s actually a fairly close amount, as pointed out by Hugh. There are 19 weapons and 18 armor pieces.

Yeah each character only needs 6 armor skins but you don’t need all 19 weapons for every class either. You need anywhere from 1 (rifle engi in pvp) to 11 (pve warrior) to fill your range of possibilities.

Also, shouldn’t the more expensive items be the end-of-line rewards, and the cheaper items fill the lower ranks? 2h weapons are the most expensive pieces per-token at 390 each, while chestpieces are 330. There are also more 2h weapon skins per class (1(engi rifle pvp) to 5 (pve ranger)) than there are chestpieces (1) so the end chest retains its value for longer.

Withering Precision is sadly just not good at all.

And yeah, Path of Corruption is a pretty dang nice trait. If they have Might, it’ll flip it to Weakness, which is obviously good- but it can also eat any Vigor that they might have.

Dreaminspace.2638:

I don’t know if this has been said or not.

But it would be nice if they gave Necros the ability to control their minions much like a ranger can control his pet. (Too make it simple the commands would work on all minions as one – much like a hive mind) Pretty Much – Attack and Return to Me

Might sound a bit bizarre, but I wouldn’t mind seeing minion skills which don’t actually summon minions, but buff them or change how they act- A bit like a ranger’s shouts.

I’m fairly sure that the only new runeset they added was Traveler’s?

Seabreeze.8437:

Holy….. Does Anet realize the sheer amount of time one would have to invest just to get a full set of armor in each weight class, not even including all the stat spreads? That’s completely insane! Who seriously has that kind of time?!

Yep, you need to complete the track 18 times to get all the skins, assuming you don’t spend the token rewards you get along the way.

I don’t get it either. I’d rather they flip the weapons and the armors around.

Celtic Lady.3729:

This capping thing doesn’t make sense. Someone told me I can only do 2 tracks per day but that isn’t true because I completed 6 tracks of one reward and 2 of another and 2 of a third. Then it stopped, so what is the real cap here?

By “track” he meant a segment of the bigger line in the PvP window, not a segment of the line in the scoreboard, I’m guessing.

The cap is 2 segments in the bigger line, or 10 segments in the scoreboard line.

Seabreeze.8437:

Do we get a choice about which piece of armor we accept, or is it random which piece we get?

Yes, you can choose any one of 54 items (18 skins, 3 stat spreads).

Swagg.9236:

My skill changes use mechanics that already exist in the game.The changes that I’ve proposed here use mechanics that already exist in the game.
My upcoming trait changes also use mechanics that already exist in the game.

You’ve made quite a bit of guesswork and justification with your Stonesoul Strike. Sorry, I have to quite plainly disagree; there’s plenty of room for this skill to cause problems. Not balance or skill problems, just plain desync problems.

Swagg.9236:

The Combat Mod (which is a potential solution for making ranged abilities more skillful and natural) literally had a toggle on-off button that a player could use while playing GW2.

Foisting a third-party method of playing the game onto everyone in the game is something that I don’t think would make many people happy- If they like playing it with Combat Mod, they already would be. Remind me how well it turned out for SWG when they decided to revamp their combat system (twice)?

Swagg.9236:

Moreover, it’s not like your button commands wouldn’t require additional coding themselves: a way to internally save “last target selected” for any given player; a separate code for “this is my personal selected target”;

They might require additional coding, but I don’t think it’d require them to go back and rip up too much of their former stuff. I’m not a coder, let alone an ANet coder, so I can’t say for sure.

Swagg.9236:

a complete updating of the code that determines target priority (because every AI unit and all players all share the same priority it seems) so as to implement a button that attempts to only select enemy players."

The game already does this. Players (and clones) already take preference over NPCs and minions.

Swagg.9236:

You’re trying to take the easy way out and it’s not even the easy way out. Use your imagination and knowledge of the game. It’s very possible to improve GW2. You’re simply not working hard enough.

I’m not really that knowledgeable; I am neither a programmer nor a progamer. Half of the questions I direct to you aren’t GW2 related; most of the time I’m just asking you to actually post what the problem is, which is the most important thing to know when trying to create a solution.

Also, I don’t work for ANet. When I’m on payroll, I’ll work hard to fix the game. Until then, I’ll have fun with the game and offer feedback when I can. I am, like you, arguing in my spare time.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Hey everyone,

This is a wording bug not a content issue. The design behind the dungeon tracks was that players would need to run the track multiple times to get the entire set of weapons and armor.

19 – weapons
18 – pieces of armor (6 light, 6 medium, and 6 heavy)

Upon completing a track you will get 3 weapons and 1 piece of armor all your choice including stat combo. Upon running the track multiple times you are able to either save tokens for legendary or use tokens to speed the process up of getting the full weapons/armor set you are working towards.

The fact the text says “set” is a mistake that we are going to update soon. Any other questions just let me know.

I think it’s kind of weird that weapons, which are pretty much always more expensive than armor, occur three times in the track, while armor appears 1 time in the track. It may be worth swapping those around; someone might be able to have every weapon variety available to their class before they have a full set of dungeon gear, including spending the line’s token rewards on armor pieces.

Thanks for dropping in, too.

Swagg.9236:

And your “solution” preserves the skill-filter that is the GW2 targeting system. It’s an additional step that a player must complete before dealing most ranged damage instead of simply being able to judge distances, timing and player movement, and then using a skill accordingly.

Yeah, that’s the goal. Make suggestions that are feasible to implement.

To implement your assortment of suggestions that you’ve stacked atop of one another, the game would have to have nearly every aspect redesigned, including camera behavior, hit detection, netcode, etc… At that point, you may as well just make an entirely new game.

Pollution.8703:

I just realized that I can’t create new characters anymore without paying for this kitten all over again. You guys just removed half why I enjoyed pvp so much.

You’ll only have to pay for the traits again. It would actually be super nice if traits were permanent unlocks for sPvP, too.

Of those items, the only one that seems particularly valuable is Generosity. Traveler runes are nice, but they’re far from a necessity, and Renewal is neat, but overlaps with Leeching.

The list of traits that are actually useful is pretty short. Each class might have one trait that’s solid.

Apparently the Krytan box just gives a Ceremonial skin. Not even a weapon- Just the skin.

Hunter.4783:

You are rolling together in wvw with a zerg in which case build and gear don’t really matter.

Get out of your bubble and actually play some organised WvW. Don’t pretend you know what you’re talking about without actually trying it.

Sergoros.4398:

Algreg.3629:

rebalancing is common and most of all necessary in mmorpg. Get used to it or look for another type of game. this will always happen and only warrant for a compensation in the most extreme cases.

So is it fine, if anet would decide to rebalance pvt set and make it into rampage instead? I understand rebalancing, when hey tweak numbers and change skills. Its fine. But when they totally change purpose of a hard-to-craft gear > it is not normal.

Rebalance =/= repurpose.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Megaserver-Rollout-Update/first#post3911271

Megaservers are already active in 18 zones, including every city except DR.

Swagg.9236:

Selecting a target amidst AI clutter is clumsy. Juggling targets in mid-combat is clumsy. Detargeting an enemy just to use a skill as a movement ability and then being forced to quickly retarget should to want to reengage is clumsy.

We’ve found three problems here which contribute to the problem which you describe. These problems are not exclusive to leap skills, and the health of the entire game would be improved if they were addressed. With this in mind, I can solve the problem you describe with two or three additions, without 5 posts worth of skill changes.

1. A detarget/retarget keybind. Alternatively, a “suppress targeting” option which causes your skills to ignore targeting while it’s active and instead causes them to aim forward.
2. A change target keybind which completely ignores minions.
3. Individual focus targets. We already have group focus targets in Ctrl T, but not individual focus targets.

Your solution is cumbersome and does not address any of the above problems at their root. I’ve told you before:

Include problem identification in the preamble. It should be in the very first post and is absolutely vital (and I’m not watching a 15 minute video just to try to find out if you do identify the problem).
Do not tie suggestions in with your previous suggestions. Nobody wants to read your 50 million pages of justification for said suggestions, and they do not directly address the problem.

AtlasSi.9130:

It’s either a bug or bad wording. :/
Should I wait to open it or just deal with the faulty wording?

There’s no good reason for them not to reimburse you if you open it now, I don’t think. It tracks how many times you’ve done the track at the moment- If they make a change, they’ll just give you that many chests.

Up to you whether you risk it, though.

Rage.9723:

I would also really like to know how many mystic clovers you received for completing the Arah path!

The rewards are really lackluster and if even the mystic clovers are low then PVP sucks for rewards. Remember we are losing out on glory now due to the new rewards.

You get no Legendary or Ascended materials except for Dust from the Arah path.

I don’t mind Spirit Watch. Skyhammer is just blerrh.