Guild Wars 2

Depends on you gear, game mode, and playstyle? I play WvW so I use heal as one to offset damage spikes. I can also time heal as one to use it while I’m not poisoned whereas you may get poisoned while Troll Ungent is up.

Skyrim was a gem. Sneaking, lock picking, stealing was part of what made it so fun. I won’t discuss ESO anymore other than to say without things like sneaking past guards to steal items and pick locks and assassinate guards/senstries it just isn’t ES. And it probably draws resources from ES6.

I will say that in my opinion guilds wars 2 and future mmos should be built around the idea of ‘for the republic and to the benefit of the individual’.

Has your putting improved or are you still trying to siege up spiritholm to take our citadel?

I bet ESO is going to be a generic mmo with the ES franchise title slapped on it and will be done conservatively so as not to comprimise the ES legacy. In other words I couldn’t imagine it being better than GW2. One of the best parts of ES was lockpicking and stealing. How do you integrate that into an mmo? It predict it will be another SWTOR. If they made it more like teamfortress 2 it might fly. But to make it like everquest with leveling and doing what everyone else is doing it will be blah.

None of the ascended items are knights equivalent for some reason and none of them has precision as their primary stat.

My gear and stats:

6x rabids armor, 3x rune of lyssa, 3x beryl orbs, giver’s short bow with +5% crit sigil, giver’s longbow with +5% damage sigil, all emerald jewelry except karka shell, berserkers back, 6x exquisite ruby jewels.

1669 base power
1971 base precision(54% chance to crit)
58% crit damage bonus
50% condition duration(it only shows 40%. Must be a bug)
390 condition damage
2594 armor
17302 hp

food: omnomberry pie for life leech crit proc on shortbow
precision oil for more crit chance

This is my wvw build. Very robust. Supports pretty much every kind of build to fit any situation. But doesn’t work well with the ascended gear. Every piece of gear I wear has precision on it. If I substitute my necklace and two rings for one ascended berserker amulet and two ascended soldiers rings my damage remains almost exactly the same(goes down by 0.08%), my toughness goes down 88 points. I gain a modest 136 vitality. All that costs 105 wreaths for something that is pretty marginal. Dodging attacks and reviving seems like a circus act to get these wreaths. There should be petition for knight/berserker ascended items. Or Power/Precison/Vitality.

Take root works pretty much everytime from me. The conditions you have still tick away so using the condition removal signet before hand followed by the 6 second invulnerability signet is a good idea.

How much hp does entangle have? I think I’d still rather use take root over entangle. 3 second invulnerability and 4 seed turrets are too good to pass up. 3 seconds where your pet is still attacking your target and your active conditions are still eating away at them.

It has always showed +1 per point but it gives +10 to each of you pets stats if you check their stats. Unless of course it doesn’t but I don’t understand why that would change.

A more precise algorithm for optimizing damage for anyone who cares.

D=0;
d=0;
for i=0:1000
for j=0:1000
x = 3800 %maximum projected stats
a = 3.8*i; %power
b = 3.8*j; %precision
c = x – a – b; % crit damage
if c/11.26 > 92
D = D;
elseif a > 2500 %maximum projected power
D = D;
else
d = (1080*(916+a)) * (1.04 + (b/2100) * (0.5 + c/1000));
end
if d > D
D = d;
A = a;
B = b;
C = c/10;
end
end
end
end
A
B
C
D

This works better because it is more precise and doesn’t require integer values to satisfy a condition. The first algorithm I just threw together to get my first set of armor optimized. I wasn’t doing it for the sake of good science. I don’t have visual studio and haven’t taken a java or C course in years so can’t turn it into an application that accepts two inputs without reading a bunch of stuff.

Condition damage is relatively easy and can be combined with direct damage by defining a damage velocity. dD/dt. However bleeds compound so it would be second order differential equation.

d^2D/dt^2 + dD/dt = v

And you would probably have to fit a curve or define a generalized fitted curve much like the gamma function to the factorial for the second order term since the compounding is discreet and eventually you would simply stop caring and wear a full berserker set and do as much damage as possible while drinking scotch and eating blueberry waffles.

Retaliation counters aoe. So a retalation spirit would do the same. Would be useful to tuck behind a tower or keep wall. Would also be useful to tuck near a cap point is sPvP where there might be lots of aoe going down.

Call the retaliation spirit the barbed spirit.

On the topic of support rangers. They should bring the nature spirits in line with warrior banners. Or in line with the nature spirits from GW1. The only one worth using in the one that causes burn. The +10% damage one is too inconsistent. It should be +10% ranged damage every 10 seconds pulsed from the spirit. The swiftness one is ??? The protection one is pretty inconsistent and most likely buffs ranged over melee since you don’t put your protection spirit right up front with your melee!?!? How about a retaliation spirit and one that exclusively acts on pets and minions 100% of the time instead of a swiftness and protection one. Something that makes your enemy want to go around the corner to kill it.

In PvP:

Dogs if you are speced in beastmastery

Dogs or Devourers if you are not depending on how many enemies and your intent

Maybe birds for swiftness if you run some kind of sword/dagger + shortbow hybrid

Buff pets if there are lots of enemies and there is no way your pet can engage without being disintegrated

Or a bear moving him back and forth over the tab target/auto target line to screw up enemy targeting making them continuously target something out of range.

Match is over keypress mizers. Nothing left to be said. Go practice your putting until next week.

Kelthos Doombringer.9032:

Saweth You Him.9047:

Mesmer, Guardian, or Necromancer.

Necromancer staff owns. Their abilities own. Espically the ones that remove boons off the enemy teams hero. They don’t really have a spike but they can set one up with spectral grasp. Or they can fill space with minions.

What is this. I. do not even.

Necromancer staff doesn’t have an ability that removes boons from enemies. The one you’re referring to is Putrid Mark and it transfers conditions from allies to enemies. On a 20 seconds CD and seems to be quite inconsistent.

Spectral Grasp pulls and chill 1 target on a 30 second CD. Minions have a terrible AI and should never be used.

Necromancer is probably the weakest profession in WvW at the moment.. Hopefully we get some buffs.

OT: I’d say Guardians are the strongest at the moment. A lot of build diversity, huge amount of support, can also be very bursty if built correctly.

My english was bad. It should read: Necromancer staff owns. Their slot skills own.

As an example corrupt boon. Blood is power. Spectral wall. Spectral grasp. The bleed from blood is power lasts forever and keeps a person in combat. And their staff does own. As does the offhand dagger and focus. Sometimes I switch from my ranger in exotics to my necro in greens because their staff abilities are so much better than traps plus they get three free skill slots that would otherwise be filled with traps. Wells are great too. And spectral grasp works well in conjunction with dagger immobilize and flash golem knock down. So like I said they don’t have very spikey damage like the other classes but they do what they do well. Attrition.

Mesmer, Guardian, or Necromancer.

Necromancer staff owns. Their abilities own. Espically the ones that remove boons off the enemy teams hero. They don’t really have a spike but they can set one up with spectral grasp. Or they can fill space with minions.

Guardian can be speced many ways so you don’t get bored. GS spin in circles spam. Bane signet/immobolize signet greifing. Their stability/retalation shout. Their support abilities. They have a trait that gives 315 precision if you wield a one handed weapon so works well with scepter smite. They can sword/sheild and teleport to a target with sword then push them all aside with bubble.

Mesmer has all the op tricks. Portals. A pull ability on their focus which doesn’t require line of sight and can pull people off of walls. Aoe stealth. Aoe 5 second quickness elite. Their only downside is their illusions are tethered to a single player. An upside is their illusion I believe will trigger traps and marks effectively clearing minefields of player abilities without any friendly players being affected and they are expendable.

I don’t have an ele but they seem to be the going trend even though I have no problems with them. Their focus ability that protects siege wins treb wars so they are probably the most valuable class just for that.

Bad night for FA it seems. All borderlands and eb are full and no progress is being made. Interborderland liquidity is locked. People must be loitering or bag farming or something. Without direction old protocols will be followed. Ebb and flow that won’t be relieved in a full borderland. I think one of the other servers people is running a long term strategy rather than just being in the moment. Or maybe the match-up and destiny made the future undesirable and inescapable. Usually our best time because of the times it would seem is our worse time and the future times will hopefully be a time of rallying and tempo for FA.

The long bow shoots further and its #1 seems to have a higher chance to hit than short bow. In a skirmish you would use shortbow. Longbow’s long range #1 hits glass cannons reasonably hard. It’s #5 dominates an area. #1 shoots slow so retalation and confusion do little. It’s range is probably only of benefit in WvW however. In dungeons and sPvP shortbow with omnomberry pies and piercing shots would probably trump all. In WvW I probably use long bow 80%+ of the time and shortbow when I’m chasing down a kill or in the middle of a skirmish or when I want to do a burst with pet swap quickness.

Numerical solution using analytical solution

D = 0;
d = 0;
x = #;
for i = 1:100
a = i*34;
b = -(0.5+x)/2 + [(0.5+x)^2 – 4(a^2 – 0.5a – a*x + 2184)]^(1/2)/2;
c = x – a – b;
d = (1080*(916+a)) * (1.04 + (b/2100) * (0.5 + c/1000));
if d > D
D = d;
A = a;
B = b;
C = c;
end
end
A
B
C
D

e.g. x = 4000
maximum power for i = 100 is a = 3400

a = 2686
b = 743.8
c = 57

This is wrong. Actual answer is

a = 2120
b = 1200
c = 68

which gives 1.8% more damage.

I’ll give a shot at an analytical solution.

a = Power
b = Precision
c = crit%*10

a + b + c = x where x is the sum of stats

you set a to projected highest power

b + c = x – a

One independant on dependant variable.

dD/dr = dD/da[ a ] + dD/db[ b ] + dD/dc[ c ]

for optimal value dD/da = dD/db

1.04 + (b/2100) * (0.5 + c) = a/2100 * (0.5 + c)

you have set a maximum value for ‘a’ so

1.04 + (b/2100) * (0.5 + x – a – b) = a/2100 * (0.5 + x – a – b)

-b^2/2100 +b(0.5 + x)/2100 +(a^2-0.5a -a*x)/2100 +1.04 = 0

b^2 + b(0.5+x) + (a^2 – 0.5a – a*x + 2184) = 0

b = -(0.5+x)/2 +/- [(0.5+x)^2 – 4(a^2 – 0.5a – a*x + 2184)]^(1/2)/2

(this only works for x^2 + x + 0.25 > 4a^2 – 2a – 4ax + 8736

or x^2 + x + 0.25 – 4a^2 + 2a + 4ax > 8736

x^2 – 4a^2 + 4ax > 8736 for x>2000

x = -4a/2 +/- [(4a)^2 -4(-4a^2)]^(1/2)/2

(x + 4.8a)(x – 0.8a) > 8736

x =a + b + c; a + b + c > 0.8a

for x = 2000, a = 1500

7.36 * 10^6 > 8736

thus it works)

then

c = x – a – b

It is actually quite complicated optimizing your stats. Not as simple as stacking power even though comparing one axis to another suggests so. Gear constraints actually muck things up. The math suggests you need over 3450 power before it’s worth putting a point into precision. At which point power drops to around 2145, precision goes up to 1131 from 192, and crit damage maxes out. But I have found that with even just 1669 power 75 precision can increase my damage more than 140 power. Not only that but I get more damage than if I had 2268 power with an equal distribution of stats. e.g. Power + Precision + crit%*10 = constant.

Optimization Algorithm setting an offensive point and power cap based on gear constraints.

D=0;
d=0;
for i=0:100
for j=0:100
for k=0:100
a = 36*i; %power
b = 36*j; %precision
c = 36*k; %crit
if a+b+c==3600
if c/11.26 > 92
D = D;
elseif a > 2684
D = D;
else
d = (1080*(916+a)) * (1.04 + (b/2100) * (0.5 + c/1000));
end
if d > D
D = d;
A = a;
B = b;
C = c/10;
end
end
end
end
end
A
B
C
D

The best you can probably do is the above algorithm setting your projected stat total
(Base power + power + precision(not base precision) + crit%*10) for the a+b+c and then setting the a,b,c with the for loops so that you array indexes match up then setting a projected max power for the elseif a > x condition. Functions of one dependant and 3 independant variables can do that. The crit damage cap is 92% in exotics.

Ranger has a 50% endurance regeneration trait so you should be able to dodge any stuns which aren’t instant to begin with. Their shortbow and shortsword has a built it dodge. Their dogs have built in knockdowns. 2 knockdowns within 40 seconds to make your enemy burn two of their stun breaks. I don’t know if you can switch pets while stunned but if you can switching to a fresh dog who will knockdown whomever stunned you negates that stun. The rangers weakness is their lack of stability. They can only keep it up 1/6 of the time with their elite and can be easily removed with a boon removal sigil or ability. Whereas your opponent might have more on demand stability to negate the dogs knockdown. Rangers have 0 boon removal except for sigil.

What about a longbow warrior? They have 4 second immobilize on #5 + 4 second immobilize with bolas. #3 big aoe. #2 reasonable burn. Their adrenal skill is really big aoe burn or you can weapon swap to rifle for kill shot(and weapon swap sigil buffs) while target is immobilized. Their number 1 also depends less on condition damage. The only thing a ranger has which immobilizes is muddy terrain which has 900 range and lasts 2 seconds and drakehound which has 500 range and lasts 2 seconds. Entangle on a 150 seconds cooldown is a big woopty do.

Double post because I incured an infraction which disabled my ability to edit my own posts and make them more accurate. Hopefully that will fade away with time and less forum space is used.

Never mind fixed. Just weird forum bugs or something.

I would actually rate Fort Aspenwood up their with classics such as Warpath from Team Fortress and…well I can’t think of anything else comparable. It was so unique and fun.

Fort Aspenwood was one of the best pvp maps ever. It’s why I joined the server. The luxons had their necromancers and a million minions and turtles that were unkillable by anything except mesmer phantasm. The Kurzicks had their monks and bonds to make the gatekeepers tough to kill but not invincible. The ranger inbetween gates stunned the turtles siege to hold them in place between gates and waste the hammer guys reinforcements. But the gatekeeper was killable and the balcony flooded and the turtles moved on the juggernaught and the final gate. If they died new turtles with fresh hammer guys that would wreck the juggernaught marched on the last gate and bye bye Kurzick priest or whatever the guy you had to kill was.

In the meantime however:

I have been recalled to life in Fort Aspenwood! It is not what it once was however. So many gypsy emigrants. The days of Gods, Pros, and Hope forming the core fist of Aspenwood has passed and now there is a mishmash of this that and everything else all for the sake of winning with total abandon and to no end. I hope the future doesn’t bring us que times and perpetual money blitzes which overshadows the uphill struggles of the past and the glory of overcoming them. I welcome the transfers from IOJ which protect our holdings against night caps and the cost of re-upgrading. Once server transfers are closed and a month has passed I hope we are once again fighting marginal battles with final scores that have maybe at most a 20000 point spread. Blowouts are just not that fun and competitive, whether you be on the winning or losing side. Fighting servers like Maguma which appear to be enforcing a strict doctrine and almost cultifying its base doesn’t look like much fun either.

Remeber that time KH threatened to kick us out of the tier? Almost wish they had. Such an influx of gypsies.

Fort Aspenwood Server Status – Full

Now look what you went on and did. I have never see Fort Aspenwood full. All paper emigrants get sent to La Force.

People use culling to cheat the game. The irony is there is culling so people can’t cheat the game. Otherwise output from server would not have to be refined as much. e.g. See through wall hacks. I don’t understand why there would be culling in an open field engagement. The server should just send everything in a relevant processing field to each client and let the players engine render the incoming flood. If people use hacks to see through other people then woopty doo. Make invisible players pre-rendered so if people use a hack to see them they still can’t target them but can only aoe them. Or simply make stealth an untargetable state and give everyone spidey senses.

I see the issue. You cut down someones flank and you might kill a few with single target spikes but then those out of position move to reinforce the flank and create a ball which effectively has no flanks. Not only that but they can better focus fire. But, the two seperate groups have two seperate ebbs and flows which pulls the single group apart. The ball can choose to pursue one group but their stragglers will get knocked out by the second group. Hence the ball will have ranged dps which are more vulnerable to single target attacks.

How would large sovereign guilds be alloted to these servers in a discrete way and what would be the measure which makes the 15 servers equal? You give a guild a success index? Or a player?

Hockey fight! Empty the benches!

Unstackable aoe fields would be a headache for people who use fast cast ground targeting. I bet half the people who play WvW would quit over that. Fighting to get your necro mark in over someone else. Fighting with your own team over space and cursing them for their gimpy aoe. Nevermind blast finishers.

For number 2 one can simply make the trash mob immune to player damage as soon as the player enters pvp and the trash mob turns neutral. Elite mobs and WvW npcs would obviously not follow this rule.

Number 1 should be left alone. The game has been out for almost five months now. The revive system works fine. The game has a meta score of 93 or something like that. Almost all mmos are gradually ruined over time because the game didn’t play the way some player wanted it to play. But the game plays great. 1 vs 3 is such a specific case amongst all the possible scenarios. What about 50 vs 50 vs 50 in SMC throne room. What about 10 vs 10. 10 people can spam the spot with aoe where the person would be revived and they won’t be revived. In the group of 10 there is likely to be a class that can remove boons. They remove stability off the reviver and kill both the reviver and revivee.

Snoxx.7943:

I think both downstate-haters and downstate-lovers might agree the following two suggestions/changes:

1. reduce the amount of hitpoints in downstate
(it was done in sPvP already, needs to be done in WvW as well)

2. don’t allow rally on trashmobs in WvW
(when a player downed you, it should require a player to rally on, not some cheap trash mob you barely scratched before he died to some AoE nearby)

pls discuss

Hit points in downstate are fine. Imagine a group trying to sustain an operation far from their waypoint against a tower or keep if downed = dead.

If you are fighting a trash mob and some theif does his instagib spike on you out of nowhere you should be able to rally on the trash mob you were working on if it is still attacking you. Not being able to rally on trash mobs means all trash mobs would have to be made neutral in any PvP combat. Once they are a combatant they are fair game like any other.

The downed state was the compromise for not having a healing class. If you were fighting two warriors and a kiting healer you would have had no success. Counter-strike has no resing, in combat heals, or out of combat regen. That might suit your fancy.

Either way the deer got involved and it didn’t die. So I guess the deer downed me and both the ele and deer killed me and the ele rallied.

I had a good fight with an ele once. I down the ele, was finishing it off when I got killed by a deer. This caused the ele to rally and finish me. I have no problem with reviving. It’s an extra bar of hp the player gets and they can be healed by other players in that state. Might be a pain if the person reviving is a warrior with stability but you can burn the warrior down while he’s occupied. The revived person will have little health as will the warrior. They both have to use their heal. Of course there are people with you because you’re expectations aren’t such that you can take X and a warrior on at the same time. If one of the two of you get downed you can do the same.

Or spam the revival area with aoe. The elementist one that makes a blob of lava come out of the ground comes to mind.

I disagree with the op. Trebs from the southwest camp can hit both the inner and outer walls of bay and it’s a relatively easily defensible position with ballistas and arrowcarts. I think the bay was designed so the primary battle was to be over the inner wall where there is very little room for the attacker to move due to the moat.

I am on CD atm for map completion but I will transfer back to my homeworld, FA, where my 5 lvl 80s grew up and prospered.

I think FA gunning for first might be a mistake. Would we want an influx of guilds to dilute the core guilds on our server. I’ve seen some of the guilds on CD and they are made of paper. I would hate to see ques on FA locking out some of the surgical strike teams I’ve seen in action. If we do get an influx of paper guilds we need a server website with optimal gear specs listed. Let CD have their Fractal farming players who mosey into WvW and let FA have it’s WvW players Mosey into WvW.

I’ll continue to say the only three aoes I mentioned are the only ones which need to be nerfed. You need aoe to destroy enemy arrow carts. You need aoe to disturb the enemy front line enough for your melee to close in(Otherwise they get tab targeted and focused down). You need aoe to suppress your flanks. In my opinion aoe in WvW shouldn’t be nerfed because it can be used to dominate a capping circle in sPvP or ai in dungoens, both of which I could care less about. Maybe it’s time to partition abilities amongst the different areas of the game to preserve the fun in each one: Dungeons, sPvP, WvW, mindless farming. I have probably taken more damage from cannons/catapults/arrowcarts than any player aoe. The only aoe that has ever completely dominated me from a player is the theifs dagger spin. And group retaliation counters most channeled aoe.

So while an aoe nerf is being discussed armies of 20 golems are still being portaled to reinforced gates and destroying them in 3 seconds with time warp and capping a tower or keep much faster than the waypoint resets so no oppurtunity for resistance can be made. And then the golems are waypointed to safety. 2000 supply worth of siege portaled to a gate then waypointed away.

covenn.7165:

Saweth You Him.9047:

Damage of aoe probably needs to be reduced for elementist meteor shower, theifs dagger spin, elementists stone aoe.

Nah, you need to read up on those elementalist ablities.

Meteor shower has a long cool down, cast, and isn’t reliable damage because who it hits and when inside the area is random.

If the stone aoe you are referring to is churning earth. Yeah it hits hard, but the cast time is prohibitive on the channel. You can literally walk out of the AoE before it fires even if you are crippled. Not only that, it telegraphs itself so obviously that all you have to do is wait a couple of seconds after the animation and dodge. You take 0 damage and 0 bleed stacks. In fact, most elementalists have to resort to using the lightning flash cantrip to even hit someone with it because it is so easy to avoid (and can still be easily dodged with the lightning flash)

I’ve seen two beserker elementists completely dominate walls with meteor shower hitting for 5k a pop. They are easy to kill but it was bay keep inner and even if you did kill them they’d use their run while dead ability into the water and heal back to life there. The stone ability I am refering to is the same one when gargoyles fly upwards. Don’t know what it’s called but I’ve seen half my hp dissapear because of it. I’ve seen most my hp disappear to the theifs spinning dagger attack. I run a balanced build so 5k a hit on meteor shower seems like a lot for something that covers such a large area. Those are the only 3 aoes I find overpowered. Most other aoes can probably be countered with retaliation. You know every guardian is going to spam “Stand Your Ground”.

I’m not actually CD. I’m FA loitering in CD lionsarch until the 1 week transfer time is up. Map completion and all.

I don’t think CD is the first place server anymore <.<.

Every CD borderland and eb has a que and they are on the bottom in points talley <.<.

In other games large scale battles are fought with single target bursts and tab targeting. There is no area denial. It’s a tab target fest because the closest person to your group is the one that can be targeted by the most people in your group. Area denial shuts that down in this game.