Guild Wars 2

You could salvage your existing swords to try to get more.

Why do you want sword tokens exactly?

Swagg.9236:

Hardly. If we’re talking about solutions in-game issues, it’s best to take everything holistically.

I agree. Therefore it’s best to make small changes at a time, which don’t fundamentally alter a class’s dynamics, otherwise you’ll trip over something that you didn’t consider.

Swagg.9236:

Yes, but signets are a conscious decision before combat. Once combat starts, nobody can do anything about a player’s signet and sometimes not even the player will do anything with that signet. It’s boring. It’s a -1 to the net skill total

p sure that’s what i just said

Swagg.9236:

You’re making a joke if you think that a flat +180 power is nothing.

And in your last sentence you just asked “Who cares?” with regards to a specific signet’s passive. There’s clearly an issue here.

My apologies. I meant ‘who cares’ in the context of the active signet. When you use Signet of Spite you’re not thinking ‘well i’m going to lose this 180 power, this is a very difficult decision’.

So yeah, you’re right. There is a problem here; Signet of Spite is powerful enough that you don’t care that you’re losing 180 power. I don’t think that deserves 9 pages worth of signet changes.

Swagg.9236:

Common knowledge dictates that (with regards to PvP) the only signet active that a player should never use is [Healing Signet]—and maybe [Signet of Restoration] (especially because that’s going to be buffed now—how awful). Most other signets that players take have active abilities that far outweigh whatever the passive could bring to a battle (even if that passive might be incredibly powerful on its own).

You’ve sticky-taped two problems together here.
1. That some signets should not be used.
2. That some signets’ active abilities should not be used.

You are addressing the second statement, but the first is implicit. This is a problem. Address one problem at a time.

Swagg.9236:

The end of all this is that the decision to not use a signet active or to use a signet active for any given signet is made the second that the player slots it in. It’s an already-made decision. It’s not skillful or even conscious game-play. That’s what I’m trying to change.

You are not succeeding. The new boss is the same as the old boss.

Swagg.9236:

The problem has always been very clear: passive game-play is not fun nor fair. “Bend over backwards” is a funny way of saying that I need to nerf a few things. I’ve gone back and removed/reduced quite a few aspects of the more overpowered signet passives. I completely changed [Signet of the Locust], but only back to what I had in mind for its original change.

“Passive gameplay is not fun or fair” is not clear at all.

1. Define Passive
2. Define Fun
3. What are you comparing “fair” to?
4. Scope

Swagg.9236:

“Bend over backwards” might be a way to describe what I’m doing here with the changes on the whole, but even then the goal is very clear (replace flat passive bonuses with bonuses triggered by active skill use/situational conditions). Moreover, not only do the suggested changes use nothing but already-implemented core game mechanics, but the changes require nothing more than a little creativity. This isn’t difficult and its goal is to make GW2’s combat more legible and rewarding.

When I say that you’re bending over backwards to try to implement your changes, I mean that you’ve made your suggestions- And then the fallout of those changes requires you to change random traits and utilities all over the place.

Swagg.9236:

While it’s true that every Necromancer gets DS, it is effectively a weapon-swap.

That doesn’t change that comparing Death Shroud traits to weapon traits isn’t a reasonable comparison.

Sarrs.4831:

Fair enough. That’s why I nerfed a few of the suggestions. Even so, given that you already admitted to the fact that already committing to a 10-15-0-0-30 trait spread is a bad idea, we’re walking on thin ice with the argument that it’s going to be a broken set-up. Furthermore a reduction to Furious Demise (Curses – 15 point minor) from 5 seconds to 3 seconds of fury would also help reduce the window of powerful bonuses for “turning on DS.”

This is what I mean by “bending over backwards”.

Secondly, I’m not sure whether I said it was a bad idea to play DS boonflip. Even if I did, that shouldn’t be taken as gospel. I’m not an uber leet espawts star.

Swagg.9236:

In the end, when we’re looking at these bonuses, most of them amount to nothing more than party support or self-sustain. There’s no damage boosters here. The game-changing effects come from the actives rather than the passives in this case. Besides, we can probably agree that the Necromancer needs more party-support/self-sustain options. I might add a cool-down to [Signet of Undeath]’s passive, though.

Whether the necromancer needs more party-support/self-sustain is irrelevant. You still haven’t clearly addressed identified the problem, and I doubt you’ve actually even done that internally.

You ‘sneakily’ changing Signet of Spite is exactly the problem I’m talking about. You say that the problem is that “passive play is not fair or fun”. Signet of Spite’s active is just that, a very active ability. Changing it flies in the face of your suggestion that passive play is a, or the, problem.

Fantastic. Thanks, Hugh.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

When you do receive Npc reward box on a reward track you will receive 2 of them and each box counts towards 5 “Npc” kills. So opening the 2 boxes is like killing 10 bears. Also to make sure the boxes feel rewarding you are guaranteed 1 green per box so 2 greens total.

Okay, cool. Would’ve preferred yellows because dem ectos, but that still sounds like it could be pretty good. Would like to know what an entire track of rewards looks like exactly, but I’m guessing we’ll have to wait until patch day for that.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Is the guaranteed item only a green, or can it be any tier starting from green to anything higher? Like, is there any chance that we get a gold or exotic out of the guaranteed green roll?

Also this!

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

I can also confirm that Magic Find will affect the Npc boxes(Example Skelk Reward box, Bear Reward Box) on the reward tracks! Those boxes are there to represent players killing that kind of mob in PvE, but without being in PvE. As loot from killing a monster in PvE is affected my magic find we wanted a similar system in PvP so we came up with these Npc Loot Boxes. So salvage all the things and get ready for April 15th!!!!

How many boxes will you get for completing a notch on the track? JW how it compares to PvE b/c i can kill roughly 50 bears in the time it takes to finish a match

(that’s hyperbole i don’t actually know how leet my bear-killing skills are)

I’m not entirely sure whether we’re visiting the same forums, but nobody asked for Dhuumfire. It came completely out of nowhere.

Also, you need a master trait to get unblockable marks, from a traitline that’s fairly rubbish for anyone who isn’t an MM necro- And MM has better traits to get.

All this said, IMO, I would say to think about moving Dhuumfire down to Master. Maybe weaken it a little, but that’s debatable. Remember it is getting changed p significantly in the coming patch.

sternenstaub.8763:

I realise that DCS was the original idea, but I haven’t seen a way to actually spec for control in traits or skills. Control is more or less equally accessable by all characters in any trait.

This depends on the class. Some classes have traits that make control skills much, much better, like Master of Terror.

From my perspective, a lot of the items which are strong (or in some peoples’ opinions, overpowered) are a combination of cheap control and cheap damage. Pistol Whip, Condimancer, Unsuspecting Foe/Merciless Hammer are good examples. This isn’t necessarily bad but it does need to be watched.

I don’t think that’s the trinity. IIRC, GW2’s trinity is Damage/Support/Control.

When I entered the thread I thought it would be some kind of “pay money for specific changes” thing.

Healing Signet too powerful? Chip in $5 and we’ll knock it down a peg!
Want your PP thief to dominate? Give us $20 and we’ll buff Unload damage by 100%!

Most every day. I’m getting back into the tempo of normal play. Living Story is kind of disruptive to that.

Chaith.8256:

The forum bugged out. Fixed!

Oh, pagecap. I hate that.

You probably already know but you can change the page number in the URL to fix it. PITA though.

You should make a link to the forums which you’re acquiring your data. I wish to register a complaint as well. This parrot which I purchased from the gemstore not half an hour ago is dead.

Personally I prefer fetid consumption for camp whacking. Lets you use the blood bag, and in npc-heavy environments, it’s very likely that NPCs won’t focus on your bloodbag. It can give you a pretty crazy amount of healing when it actually stays alive.

Problem: Healing Signet provides too much healing.
Buffing solution: Improve the healing numbers on every other ability in the game to a corresponding level.
Nerfing solution: Reduce Healing Signet.

100 changes or 1 change?

That’s not an axis. That’s an angle.

1. This doesn’t make any sense.
2. You already have a thread on the same topic.

The zerk meta ‘problem’ is not rooted in the stats. It’s rooted in the encounters and the game design. Full damage gear makes risks more dangerous- But if you can control those risks through means other than gear (dodges, blinds, stacking, reflects, blocks, immunities), Zerks is a no-brainer option, and it won’t stop being a no-brainer option even as it’s nerfed. It gives the best damage and it always will give the best damage; why would you give up damage, even a nerfed amount of damage, for a stat that you have zero use for?

Relentless.7023:

Here is a picture that can explain why this idea is better.

If you look at the landscape you have a whole bunch of people who suck and don’t have any chance of getting into the top tier. They play crappy builds, get made that their crappy builds suck, and their teammates don’t say anything, ping the map, etc.

This triangle is really huge horizontally, but tiny vertically. This game’s entire PvP history is represented by this triangle, where options are many, but upward mobility is very rare.

The second triangle is the proposed method of getting rid of bad options, and replacing it with a more competitive system that pushes people into being more effective. Less horizontal size, but more vertical size.

Please label your axes.

Relentless.7023:

I. Like it or not, every competitive game looks to the people who win the big game or the most as a starting place for their own builds. It’s not really a responsibility that anyone chooses it’s the most economical choice between thinking of a build yourself and starting with a build that has already won.

Be specific here. “every competitive game”? ‘games’ are not conscious entities. Do you mean the players, or the developers?

Relentless.7023:

II. Obviously Anet matchmaking would have to change too. I thought that was implied in my original post, where the current “throw people in a match because we don’t have a way to balance teams in queues” is replaced. Yet another example of why the classes need specific purposes.

How do you fix matchmaking as it is right now? If a Warrior can be a burst, tank, condi tank, condi burst, support, or bruiser how do you define the class? With all the variables how do you narrow it down? Trait choices? Amulet?

Matchmaking will always suck until the classes can be organized and queued for specific roles or a specific range of roles.

You can just stop taking solo queue seriously. Solo queue is yolo queue. People don’t take LoL’s solo queuing seriously either. Is it really unreasonable for cutting-edge competitive players to bring a full team?

Relentless.7023:

III. Counters are vital for a competitive game. Allocation and deployment are the strategies. This has worked for Starcraft competitively for more than a decade. If you go bio on Terran, expect your Zerg opponent to bring Banelings. If you go heavy Muta on Zerg, expect anti-air.

If comps are similar, then whoever uses them better wins. So I’ve already detailed that comps would be 80% similar with a 20% difference of the last member that tilts the team comp in one of the four ways. That’s just enough variety for sustained queueing to not be boring, and little enough customization to ensure that you aren’t bringing a comp that could be dead on arrival.

Apples and oranges. Despite that:

RTS games are different because you can alter your build orders as you proceed through the game to match and counter what your opponent is doing. If I’m playing Zerg and I scout the other dude doing a strategy, I can change my strategy to counter that. If I’m playing a thief and the other dude plays a hunter or whatever, I can’t stop being a thief, and similarly, my team comp as a whole can’t change.

Relentless.7023:

Retreat is not a bad thing. While distasteful to the chest thumping, it can protect your team and redirect resources where they can make a difference.

I’m… Not sure what the point here is. You shouldn’t commit resources to fights which are already lost? That already happens. You’re describing the game as it is.

Relentless.7023:

In the previous example, let’s say the Engi was waiting with their Ranger expecting the push. You, the Warrior, and the Assassin, the Thief, don’t push but instead go to mid, where it’s 3v3. Now it’s 5v3, your side, because they sat on home waiting for the push. The Engi that was waiting shows up but it’s too late and now you have a two cap.

The Warrior breaks off to attack the Ranger, who desperately tried to go far hoping that nobody would send someone to your home fast enough. The Thief, knowing that he has time, comes over to gank the Ranger.

…That just sounds like the game as it is. Some of the names have changed, but that’s more or less how the game runs.

Relentless.7023:

The rest of the game’s community is filled with crappy builds and crappy team comps because there isn’t any matchmaking, there isn’t any class identity, people rage quit once the other team gets a two cap, and spend more time QQing than contributing.

Are you seriously suggesting that build customisation should be deleted because a couple people aren’t very good at the game and cry on the forums over it? April Fools was a week ago.

Relentless.7023:

There has to be some organization to PvP if the higher quality competition at the top is the standard, not the exception. Freedom to build at the expense of the team makes getting to killing PvP at the lower and middle tiers. Delegating the responsibility of balancing teams to the players is the worst decision I’ve ever seen in a PvP game mode.

Why wade through all that crap?

If something is at the top of a structure, it cannot simultaneously be in the middle of a structure. This isn’t game design; it’s basic euclidean geometry.

http://dulfy.net/2014/03/21/gw2-ready-up-episode-8-developer-livestream/

Marksmanship: Read the Wind: Longbow and Harpoon Gun projectile velocity is increased by 100%.
Skirmishing: Strider’s Defense – You have a 15% chance to block ranged attacks while in melee.
Wilderness Survival : Poison Master – Poison you apply deals 50% extra damage. Poison your pet’s first attack when they are swapped to.
Nature Magic: Survival of the fittest – Remove two conditions and gain fury when using a survival skill.
Beast Mastery: Invigorating Bond- Your pet heals in an area when executing command abilities (i.e. your F2 skill now heals in an area)

Swagg.9236:

I can see that as a problem. It’s difficult to come up with solutions, though, seeing that Necromancer has only 1 F-button. Even so, that’s a lot of DS-related traits and skills. Taking full signets (with these changes) and DS-related traits has the potential to make DS very powerful, but it consumes all utility slots as well as things like weapon-skill cool-down traits. It is a shame, though, that Necromancer has only 1 F-skill. It’s the same issue with Thief and Warrior. The Thief F1, for instance, is incredibly overpowered, but mostly because it’s an instant-cast direct-to-target teleport.

Again, you’re approaching the problem in the wrong way. You’ve got an unclear goal from the outset, your solution to this unclear problem is creating very real problems, and those very real problems are causing you to bend over backwards to try to fix them. Go back to the start and accurately identify the problem with signets as it stands.

Swagg.9236:

To speak more on the topics of the traits themselves, taking Foot in the Grave (Soul Reaping — XI) removes the possibility of taking Deathly Perception (Soul Reaping — XII), which is a very DS power-build-defining trait. Furthermore, to achieve the bonuses that you talked about in your post, you’d need to spend 50 trait points. Spending 50 trait points for a single weapon set is a risk in itself--especially when you have to make the decision between “Do I want to wreck everyone with [Life Blast] and run the risk of being CC’ed all the time or do I want to have some stability in order to get a few skills off while in DS?”

Few points here;
1. It’s kitten point spend. 10 in Spite, 15 in Curses, 30 in Soul Reaping.
2. It’s not really a “single weapon set” that benefits from it. You can use pretty much every weapon combination with it. Every necro has Death Shroud, every necro can use the boons that the trait spread gives, and every necro can use the boons that the signets would give.
3. That’s not quite the decision making process that you’d make. From the outset of the build, you’d be saying “do I want to murder people in the face with Life Blast” or “do I want to get a bunch of effects for turning on DS”.

Swagg.9236:

Moreover, I already proposed a nerf to [Doom] that would add a 0.5 post-cast delay to its effect as a means to give the enemy player a way of seeing the fear coming. To that effect, CC’ing someone with [Doom] isn’t necessarily a near freebee anymore.

Basing suggestions on suggestions is, to put it gently, a little silly.

Swagg.9236:

I just dislike repeating myself. I’ve already said a lot in regards to passives being bad and how this game uses a lot of active mechanics that are simply neutered by stacking passives and spamming skills. I guess I could force myself to put something else in the OP.

It still just boggles my mind that people think that loads of passives per player in a game without a dedicated healer is just… fine. Nobody thinks about these things.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a passive effect. This is an RPG; you have stats which have passive effects, but that doesn’t mean that there are no decisions going into those passive effects. When you take a signet- even if you’re planning on leaving it completely unused- you are making a conscious decision.

Signets already have decisions going into them with their use. Sure, some are less impactful than others (180 power on Signet of Spite- Who cares?) but when you activate a signet, you are losing out on something. If you leave your signets unused just to keep their passive effects, you’re losing out on something. Knowing when you can and can’t throw away your signet passive bonuses for their active effects is part of the game. The only way out of this is to get Written in Stone- but that’s already a huge investment that precludes getting another (and soon to be one more) very good traits.

Even this change to signets doesn’t ultimately affect that. It modifies skills that you probably already use- You’re still trading an active skill for a modifier to a different active skill. If you leave that signet unused, you’re still always pressing one less button- You’re just getting the benefits in a different way.

You really should open your threads with what the problem is, rather than what you’re trying to do so it ends up being like.

problem: signets is boring ey
solution: lets tie them into class mechanics
collateral damage: none cos my changes is sick, innit

Onto actual feedback:
Generally speaking, I don’t think this is a good idea.

Signets being deactivated when they’re on cooldown is meaningless when the skill they’re tied to is on cooldown as well. Right off the bat, Signet of Resolve- It doesn’t matter if it gets deactivated because your Resolve cooldown is longer than your Signet cooldown.

Secondarily, this system would let you double up on the effects of your traits. Consider a necromancer who flips Death Shroud to get boons; at the moment, he can get Retaliation, Fury and Stability if he’s specced fully in that direction. After the change, he’ll get this monster list of effects for pressing a single button:

Retaliation: 3s
Fury: 5s
Stability: 3s
Swiftness: 10s
8% Life Force
Pull 3 Conditions
8% Life Force on DS->Fear
(Minus one of these effects, because he only has 3 signet slots)

And when he leaves:
10s 2xMight
Drain HP on next attack
Cure a condition

All on a 7 second cooldown.

And I don’t even know what problem you’re trying to fix by making these changes. You’ve gone on in your previous threads about how everything should be counterable blah blah blah, when overhauling signets like this completely contradicts that idea by making the use of signets a very easy decision.

Personally I’m kind of confused as to why these mats are just plain going away.

Why not convert them into transmutation charges? Dust at 25:1 wouldn’t throw the game out of whack and would still put them to good use.

If I were a wizard and had absolute power over ANet I would probably just knock down the durations on everything but the bleeds to 5 seconds and call it a day. 10 second durations get crazy when you have +condi duration.

Just generally speaking; a skill which applies 6 conditions with that cast time should not demand a condi clear. Should be able to wait them out and not die horribly.

Maybe drop the CD to compensate.

Guardians are fantastic for everything.

- For sPvP, they’ve been the classic midpoint bunker since launch, IIRC
- For WvW, they provide vital walls and blast finishers
- For PvE, they’re not shabby on the DPS, and they have great group support options

Mesmers are good for PvE and vital for WvW, but not so good for sPvP as I understand
Necromancers are nothing special in most gamemodes, probably one of the more middle-of-the-road classes. If you enjoy how they play, though, don’t let that stop you.

Relentless.7023:

“Having the proper utilities & traits alone isn’t going to introduce a role to anyone.”

Obviously this would have to be introduced to people and the general strategy laid out for each class and their options. It wouldn’t just be boom! you can’t run anything but this now good luck.

“Who decides what is useless in PvP and should be off limits to PvPers?”

Uh you guys do. All you players who compete at the highest level. What you decide to play and how you decide to play it establishes the metagame. If you’re concerned about stepping on people’s toes why don’t you run PU Mesmer, S/D Thief, Spirit Weapon Guardian, Axe/Shield GS Warrior, and Fresh Air Ele?

Because those builds suck

So why do we actually need to change anything? People are already deciding what builds are effective and what builds aren’t. The system you describe is already in the game.

On why someone would play those builds? Maybe they’ll play them because they’re fun. Yeah, you don’t rock up to your Uber Leet Espawts Tournament with them, but not very many people play in Uber Leet Espawts Tournaments.

Relentless.7023:

Wouldn’t the game be better off without those builds confusing and frustrating new players? If their choices are better, won’t they be more effective right away? Won’t that make competition more intense?

Why have the circus of noob builds at all? What’s the point? I mean, besides getting an autowin because they are so unprepared for the match.

One by one:
Yes. The game would be better off if it didn’t confuse new players. Yes. The game would be better off if it didn’t frustrate new players. However, that doesn’t necessitate ripping huge chunks out of the game.

Not necessarily. A new player might have better choices, but that doesn’t mean that they know how to use those choices effectively. A simpler build which is easier to handle but less effective in high-end play would be more effective for a new player, compared to a build that relies on the intricacies of mechanics they don’t understand yet. I build good decks for my brother in Hearthstone, for example, but he complains at me because he doesn’t know how to use them- He spends his Arcane Shots on turn 1 to hit the other player in the face.

This depends on what level of play you mean. In solo and team arena, it’s doubtful that it will make any meaningful impact at all. Mandating options would make hotjoin pointless; hotjoin is fun because you can muck around with options that don’t make any sense or which don’t fit into the meta.

Because making builds is fun for the average player. At the high end of play, yeah, it’s obvious that you only take builds that the meta dictates, but the average player doesn’t play at the high end.

Chaith.8256:

High participation is not going to be achieved (I feel) by restructuring the combat roles, but making it feel rewarding, and prestigious. I think once the patch hits, we’ll return to this and re-evaluate. High participation can be achieved by allowing for an experience which is easy to get in to, for new players. Unfortunately, conquest is extremely hard to master effectively – Still waiting on that answer when it’s best for one to leave close, so the map isn’t 4v5! Regarding conquest:

Just gonna poke in here;

I think that getting people to participate in sPvP is largely a matter of rewards. Average GW2 player probably plays more PvE than sPvP because playing sPvP doesn’t buy you a Legendary and it doesn’t really get you any cool skins until you start pushing Shark at the moment. Hopefully upcoming patch helps to address this.

Relentless.7023:

Mobas are not easy to figure out at all for a new player or someone who hasn’t seen them before, but they can be explained pretty effectively in pre-game and during the game.

I’m not 100% certain what this is supposed to mean.

If you mean someone who has never played or watched a MOBA before will have a difficult time understanding what’s happening in the game? That’s basically every sport ever, and there’s not really any way to get around it.

If you mean a new player entering the game won’t understand what’s going on? LoL (which, as far as I can tell, is top dog), does a fairly good job of teaching you the mechanics with its tutorial, and limiting the amount of information you have to digest at any one time with its levelling system and champ rotation system.

With this in mind, your solution is way too big for the problem. If you want the game to be easier to understand, it needs a more streamlined introduction for new players and it needs to trick new players into thinking they’re good, not a complete overhaul of the combat roles and system.

Relentless.7023:

The community has pretty much fallen apart and many have said that it’s irreparable at this point. New players don’t make teams, they just farm gold and their dailies.

So basically;
the old players have left
the new players don’t matter
let’s completely overhaul the game and see if that reanimates it.

I’m not a game historian so I won’t pretend to be an expert, but I’m very skeptical that this has worked ever.

I don’t mind that they’re time gated so much, because Quartz is used almost exclusively for crafting Celestial gear.

What I do mind is that the patterns for this gear (and zealot’s and keeper’s as well) is no longer attainable as a drop in game. It’d be really nice if there were some way to get this gear without having to pay the markups on the TP.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Sarrs.4831:

Quick q, Izzy, are Boon/Condi Duration actually on the table?

I’m just testing the waters so I love to hear ideas.

Oh cool.

With that in mind

Boon Duration
Healing
Precision

For regen/sigils/traits which heal

Condi Duration
Condition Damage
Precision

For being as imbalanced condi glass cannon as possible

HISOST.8932:

Ascended Giver’s weapons. Why aren’t they available in ascended?

Because +Condition Duration is… Kinda crazy good.

Yamsandjams.3267:

The only thing that always confused me was that definant stance gets a 1/4s cast time, whereas litany has a 1s cast time. Even if they buff it to 3/4s, it’ll still be too slow, IMO. Should be at least 1/2s or instant cast like the other meditations.

I’ve used it for awhile in PvP, but I feel like shelter is just much better at getting the job done, especially since it’s on a lower cooldown. That may perhaps be that I usually only fight 1-2 targets at a time though, whereas litany would obviously get better healing output when damaging multiple targets.

I think the difference here is because:
Defiant Stance is a reactive button. When you use it reactively, you need that short cast time; something like a thief comes up and is about to pistol whip you or something? Pop Defiant nice and quick so you get a big bunch of healing from the slashy portion of it. Elementalist running up to prepare his Phoenix Burning Grasp combo, you pop it quick and turn it on his head. It’s useless if you can’t anticipate a burst, or activate it before that burst happens.

Litany of Wrath is a proactive button because you’re the one who controls when and where you burst. You’re probably watching your CDs and checking when they line up so that you can use Litany of Wrath and then dump a bunch of damage on your target. A longer cast time doesn’t completely prevent the ability from being useful, but a cast time that’s too long does make your burst very predictable. If Litany were a 1.5 second cast, for example- You’d cast Litany, and then the other dude would be like “oh hey he’s cast Litany let’s spam some dodges and immunities”, but it does need to have some cast time so that there is some opportunity to identify and counterplay.

TL;DR, reactive vs proactive. Reactive skills need to have short cast times so that you can react properly with them. Proactive skills don’t.

again, pulling-it-out-of-my-kitten disclaimer

cheese.4739:

Sarrs.4831:

Y’know what would be super cool? A GM guardian trait that would allow you to grant minor healing to your allies when you blast a Light field.

Only if we get some kind of field priority system so everyone else doesn’t have to deal with light field spam.
They’re frustratingly common enough even when not being intentionally cast for the field effect – if Guards start putting them down so they can finish in/through the things, I don’t expect anyone will get off a might, heal or other combo off in less-organised group combat ever again.
Something like this would otherwise likely push zergs even farther towards hammertrains everywhere forever.

Yeah the light field spam on a traited hammer guardian is a real pain.

Maybe add traits to turn them into different types of fields (fire/water?)

I dunno.

Weapons (which is where all symbols preside) are balanced with each of the skills already present on them in mind. If a guardian has a greatsword, you know he has Whirling Wrath, Zealous Leap, Symbol of Wrath and Sword Throwy Pully Thing.

Y’know what would be super cool? A GM guardian trait that would allow you to grant minor healing to your allies when you blast a Light field.

Downfall.2671:

Sarrs.4831:

Adding LFR would really undermine the experience of already optional high-coordination fights.

Thats what mega guilds like TTS do, though. You’re essentially teaming up with other like-minded randoms. LFR would streamline this process so the players won’t need to exploit the guild system anymore. Another approach would be to make teq+wurm pug-able

I don’t want to go on too huge of a rant, but there’s a difference between the game finding a group for you, and you finding a group with the game’s help. Experience is more fulfilling when you feel like you’re doing it yourself rather than the game holding your hand.

Orpheal.8263:

Condition, Condition Duration, Vitality (here just the question, why do we have yet nothing, that increases Condition Duration ,but we have Stat Combo with Boon Duration???) -> prefix – Sanguinary

We do- The ’Giver’s’ prefix gives Condi Duration-Precision-Vitality. Only available on weapons, though, and no ascended varieties.

Downfall.2671:

Sarrs.4831:

Well they do have the raid boss summoning upgrade so that might help jab that in the gob.

I agree, but that is just a small step. Anet should look into ways that make mega guilds unnecessary, IMHO. Like LFG but for zergs, where everyone gets ported to an exclusive instance with 30min to prepare the raid or whatever

Adding LFR would really undermine the experience of already optional high-coordination fights.

Being able to create your own private world instance would be cool though.

Hannelore.8153:

Also , the guild cap exists for a reason, to stop guilds from “monopolizing” the player base, which is common in other games. “Superguilds” as we call them. They have very little benefit for the community as they discourage branching out.

IMHO I think that this should be discouraged by way of incentives rather than punishments. Smaller guilds could get bigger benefits out of guild XP/MF/gathering bonuses for example, compared to superguilds.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Some stat combos with 4 stats distributed instead of 3
words

I had a thought here. The stat ratios for gear at the moment are something like 4/3/3; for every 4 of the primary stat, there are 3 of each secondary stat.

What if there were stat spreads which had 4 stats, all of which match the secondaries on a 3-stat piece of gear? So, say, an ascended quality chestpiece might look like:

+76 Power
+76 Condition Damage
+76 Precision
+76 Ferocity

Kind of a halfway point between Celestial and a standard set of gear.

Downfall.2671:

Since guilds like TTS are just a symptom of bad game design (placing a 100+ players raid boss, that needs heavy preparation and coordination, into the uncontrollable open world with variable spawn timers), i’d rather fix the initial problem instead

Well they do have the raid boss summoning upgrade so that might help jab that in the gob.

Definitely agree with the OP in the meantime. I know there’s a 2000 player guild on TC (AARM is their shared tag IIRC) and they’d probably want to all be together. An increase in the guild membership cap would certainly not go unappreciated.

I do have one concern though, and that’s Influence; a guild with that many players in it will be generating millions of Influence. While it is an irrelevant currency at the moment, it’ll become even more irrelevant.

Quick q, Izzy, are Boon/Condi Duration actually on the table?

Uh, hm.
Hm.

Er.

Precision
Healing Power
Toughness!

Relentless.7023:

I. Definitions

Focus
Game balance in GW2 where each class has a defined role that only one other class can do. Each class is sought after based on roles and the competence of the player to accomplish those roles. The roles ought to be easy to learn but difficult to master, so that new players aren’t alienated and veterans aren’t bored of how easy it is.

Customization
The current game balance of throwing an enormous wad of options at each class, of which only a small fraction will be used. The roles are unclear, because they are supposed to be decided upon by the playerbase, not the developers. Build becomes more important than skill, because your ability to pick the best possible options in each slot matters more than your execution of them.

I want to stop right here because these aren’t definitions; they’re observations and assertions. If we’re to take these as definitions, their value is very questionable, as you’ve defined ‘Focus’ to be inherently good and ‘Customization’ to be inherently bad. This puts the rest of what you’re saying on very shaky ground.

Liewec.2896:

it would have fitted guardian so well.
warriors will never use it aslong as healing signet remains godly.

That’s really more of a healing signet problem than anything else, and healing signet’s already on the chopping block. Would be nice to see the other warrior heals get some action as well.

Jelzouki.4128:

Yeah I want a developer to give us an answer for this.

Not some made up logic by forum keyboard warriors.

I agree that the two should switch professions.

Going to have a tough time getting one with that attitude.

Guardians in the current meta aren’t usually devoted towards dealing large amounts of damage, so Litany of Wrath can move their desires towards that. Defiant Stance wouldn’t work so well for them, I don’t think, because they have more of an emphasis on mitigating damage through blocks, Aegis, blinds and dodges than Warriors. It would also fill more or less the same role as Shelter.

Warriors already have very stable heals at their disposal. Healing Signet’s the obvious choice at the moment, but the other two heals don’t exactly take a genius to use effectively; Defiant Stance contrasts this by being a very aggressive, very high-risk heal. Litany of Wrath wouldn’t work so well, in my opinion, because it’s really obvious how to use it, as warriors already have constant burst options regardless of their weapons; you just go “oh i use litany of wrath and then i use my hundred blades combo, fairly straightforward” (i know that 100b is not really popular at the moment, it’s an example). It fits too seamlessly into their toolkit, whereas an option which doesn’t quite fit into their toolkit asks you to think outside of the box to use it effectively.

I should also add a disclaimer here; I am talking out of my kitten.

Zoid.2568:

+225% increase of population in each map is a lot. It’s only low level zones and cities though. lvl 1-15. What if there is 10 players in a map, (100) +225% is 10×3.25which is about 35 players.

The use of ‘average’ there makes it difficult to discern how effective the system will actually be. Is it the average across all zones? If so, certain zones which already achieve population cap, like Divinity’s Reach, are counting towards these statistics and are reducing the results. The number is really nebulous because of this, and that’s only exacerbated by the fact that the tests seem to be simulations rather than numbers in actual practice.

notebene.3190:

Dav.9152:

The release date only serves as a reminder to me…..TO DO MY TAXES :|

And just like the Tax man, they take the clothes right off your back. :|

It’s just a patch, dude. Please keep your pants on.

i would like to proffer my feedback in the form of a smiley face

:D

I’m 99% expecting it to be buggy as hell, as with everything else in the feature patch, but after a week or so all that will be smoothed out. If it’s not buggy, then that’s even better!

Also,

With the launch of the April 2014 Feature Pack, we’ll be activating the megaserver system on our level 1–15 maps, main cities, and the PvP lobby. We’ll monitor and test the system to verify that everything works correctly. Later in 2014, we’ll activate our megaserver technology across the entire world of Tyria.

I hope this “later in 2014” is something like a month later at most, or 5 zones per LS patch or something like that. As I understand, the cities and the 1-15 zones will probably be under the biggest stress.

My 2c; I definitely think that an attack that is blocked, evaded, or blind-missed by a thief in stealth should pull them out of stealth. Two reasons;
1. As an attacker, if your big attack fails for whatever reason, you should have a larger reaction than “lol so what”. That’s not to say that having your attack dodged doesn’t hurt because you are wasting stealth time, but that’s far less of a punishment than what other classes eat.
2. Conversely, as a defender, it doesn’t really feel all that good to dodge a big attack but not feel its benefits. Successfully blocking or dodging a stealth attack should make you think “great, he’s failed his attack, let’s wreck him”. I don’t know much about gameplay because frankly I’m kind of a scrub, but as far as how it feels to fight a thief, it seems like it’d be rewarding to have that opportunity.

Carpboy.7145:

Sarrs.4831:

Carpboy.7145:

Im pretty sure those small changes weve known about for weeks are it

Well, they decided to sneak in some nerfs on SP thief/Hambow/that other one

Other than those 3 as well thats it

Point being that if they feel like adding in nerfs on the second livestream there’s no precedent to keep them from adding more on the third.