Guild Wars 2

This thread has done quite well so far in generating ideas. I ask that people look at other players ideas in comparison with there own. And attempt to compare the too. If you see another players idea that interests you. Please speak up. And well see if we cant find one or three we can begin refining.

Id vote to have one for each of the following categories.

One: Overhauling the condition mechanic itself. (reworking how condition damage itself is calculated in some way shape or form)

Two: Changing the nature of conditions (creating a new condition in an attempt to seperate accidental bleeds from the bleeds of a condition player. Or creating a mechanic to allow (excess) bleeds to do some damage (I do not like that last part I will be honest. I fear that any such mechanic would be inherently weaker in most situations that applying a “true” bleed)

Three: Reworking the existing number of conditions (this is the brute force method. Force bleeds and the like to be something you need to CHOOSE to bring. Not something you do accidentally)

I still plan to go back and make that post I mentioned earlier. However i just got home and read over these posts and wanted to adress a few.

Firstly. My purpose for making this post was to deal with the chocking of an entire play style in the PvE game mode.

Secondly. My goal is to find a method that does not require a massive overhaul to nearly every boss that exists today. So heavy handed methods like removing the base cap does not fit my original goal as that would produce an incredibly high amount of “extra” dps.

Thirdly: My goal is NOT to make condition builds stronger in any way shape or form. Mearly to allow them to actually make use of the strength they already have. In example my original suggestion while involving the creation of “new” conditions in relation to there condition power did not infact improve there current theoretical dps. Mearly gave them a…different sandbox to play in that was currently being over used by there power focused brethren. In essence Condi focused players would damage in one location. And power focused builds and there accidental bleeds would damage in the other. After all competition between dpsers isn’t something I want to get rid of entirely.

Moving on from there: I saw several ideas that could theoretically work. I also saw several that would require the massive overhaul I want to avoid.

One of the biggest issues ive seen is that many people simply dont realize just how many bleeds are pumped out in a boss fight. Even something as small as a 5 man boss will probably have permanent 25 stacks of bleed with 5 power users in the group.

There are so many bleeds in this game that I fear a cap of some kind is absolutely necessary unless A-Net is willing to go the heavy handed route and remove accidental bleeds as a mechanic that is available to.

On that note and continuing the conversation forward. I did see someone post on the idea of scaling chance for conditions being applied that got me thinking. So I ask this. (What if traits, effects that applied ACCIDENTAL damaging conditions scaled with condition damage? Leaving them quite low chances of happening (less than 10%) for non condition users. But very for high condition based people.) <— I received this idea after reading Perilisks posts.

Alright. Heading to sleep at this point. When Im back ill try to edit this post in order to create a list of what ideas we could come up with before this point.

Marignano.4861:

Don’t you mean 6-7k that cannot be blocked,blinded,reflected,destroyed while feared of stunned

One. The lich form itself can not fear or stun. And a fear from a power necro will not last long enough to prevent you from dodging.

Two. Necros do not have access to stuns.

Three. I have no idea why you did not have a CC breaker to deal with a necro in 1v1.

Four. If it was NOT 1v1 and you were feared or stunned by say a warrior. Then again. Use a stun break and GTFO. I have to assume you were 1v2ing in this situation. Which means you died due to the coordination of your enemies and your failure to bring something to stop it. That and you were probably distracted by something and failed to notice the giant green thing pointing menacingly at you.

Five. If you were in the middle of a team fight and this happened. Then the enemy team in that engagement did the right thing. And your team did not. No one attempting to peel for you. No one attempted to interfere with the necro in any way. As it takes very little to shut one down. Hell simply putting weakness on it is enough to make its damage MUCH less concerning. Meaning your team got outplayed.

Edit: I will not say that lich form isn’t strong. It deserves to be. it is after all an elite that puts a HEAVY risk on the user. Giving up all resistance to soft CC except for LF #5. Making you a giant target. Preventing you from using your heal. And if the enemy has a boon stripper turning you into a giant glowing pinata. It DESERVES the sheer amount of damage it does. As does the necro that uses it as it has probably invested HEAVILY into the damage its doing to you.

the leash range would kill nearly any chance of them using htere auto attacks effectively.

I would be fine with defensive spirits (bow and shield) having short leashes. HOWEVER only if there still able to cast there autos while moving with you.

Even the return of the immunity status would completely fail to return even a tenth of the effectiveness the offensive spirits would lose.

The only alternative would be to buff there actives to the point of stupidity. Like making them TELEPORT to enemies up to 1200 range away and have there attack unblockable. Or having them do absolutely massive amounts of damage. I can tell you niether of those will happen.

Spirit weapons as there currently designed would be rendered largerly useless. And would most likely be crippled by pathing and targeting issues thanks to being slaved to your immediate vicinity.

6-7k that can be blocked,blinded,reflected,destroyed. That leaves the caster open to literally anything and everything you can throw at him.. Popping lich form is like saying (SOMEBODY CRATE ME)…it better hit hard.

Also its best not to confuse a condi build with an attrition build. There not necessarily the same. Many condi dps builds involve back loading damage. Layering multiple effects to eventually create something even higher than a physical damage dealers damage. A condi damage dealer focuses on raising and maintaining a specific amount of damage.

Where it differs from a physical damage dealer is usually in terms of “burst” A condi build typically builds up to one sustained “burst” losing damage only as they make mistakes or are forced to adjust to the flow of battle.

A physical damage dealers “burst” is usually front loaded. The popping of cooldowns that increase your raw damage. Or improve your crit rate. Leading up to the use of your highest immediatly damaging ability.

The two playstyles are actually much more similar to eachother than to an attrition build. Which can come in power OR condi variants. (A defensive or control focused build that provides a steady stream of damage to work through an enemies defenses one by one. The idea is to continue doing damage while keeping yourself safe through active means. The Minion Mancer is a good example. The Necro himself acts as a control bot. Slowing nad weakening the opponents ability to hurt him. While the minions deal a low but steady stream of damage.)

Simply raising the cap by x amount I fear wouldnt change much. And completely uncapping it would require an overhaul of nearly every champion in the game. I think alot of people underestimate just how many bleeds there are. Its to the point where a condi player might see there bleed tick ONCE in a boss fight before it dissapears swollowed by there team mates less than 100 tick bleed. Im attempting to find a method that doesn’t involve revamping nearly every single known boss to compensate.

Oh oh and can we have turret stealth themselves when there not firing? Set em up right and there be no way to know there there until your on point and its too late. Imagine the screams of horror from thieves trying to back cap.

I…good god man…Just think about that… Tripple kit engis with one of them being turrets?…

you would single handedly create the most devistating build this game has probably ever seen.

perilisk.1874:

Aidan Savage.2078:

No offense perilisk, but that’s about the most bookah idea I’ve ever seen to solve the condition problem.

Could you be more specific as to the cons, since they’re apparently very… apparent?

In reading your post I can’t quite see how what your suggesting would deal with the core issue of power builds incidental condis interfering with the condis that are hte core of a condi builds playstyle

Edit: Are you suggesting that every single bleed in the game be active and applied as a separate entity?

Aidan Savage.2078:

No offense perilisk, but that’s about the most bookah idea I’ve ever seen to solve the condition problem.

An easier solution is to allow players to choose minor traits as well as the Major traits. Biggest difference being that the minor traits has only 5 choices, and those 5 choices are the Adept/Master/Grandmaster minors from each skill tree. This means a power necro can drop Barbed Precision (because they’ve got crap for condi damage this way), and replace it with Gluttony, increasing their life force gain. On the other hand, a Hybrid necro could swap Furious Demise for Vampiric.

The only other solution I can see is the forceful disablement of minor, and major, traits that inflict conditions, or affect the duration of conditions (necro’s Hemophilia) if you’re character does not have at least 850 condition damage (minimum amount achieved with exotic gear that has condition damage as a minor attribute) at level 80 before food and nourishments, scaled down at lower levels appropriately. At that amount, you’re running either pure condi (with an kitten of on crit condis like a necro) or a hybrid build (like a necro can). Any less and you’re locked out.

The idea of being able to select minor traits appeals to me. It would also encourage balancing the minor traits themselves to make sure that none of them were game changing powerful in the right builds. The idea of forceful disabling however…bothers me. Although it isn’t as though a power necro gains much from bleeding on crit.

Ive heard it discussed before about making it so that a bleed COULD NOT under any circumstances be over ridden by a lower level bleed. But a high level bleed would always over ride a lower level one before over riding one of similar strength. Regardless of how much duration is left.

Does that sound like it could work?

I would actually like to seem them put forth a truly “impossible” fight when mordremoth first wakes up. Having him exist int he game as a periodic world boss that is truly impossible to beat. Sort of a “there is such a difference in scale between him and us as to be ants fighting a mountain”

We all know this issue. We have all seen and we all know how it tends to choke out condition players in this game as far as PvE content goes.

When theres that one condition necro stacking bleeds but his bleeds get over ridden by the bleeds of 15-20 power builds that all stack bleeds as well. Despite the heavy investment he put into his build in order to make it work.

I dont want to turn this into a collection of rant posts. But instead into a grouping of ideas. I ask that any replies be used to discuss not who to blame for what but instead discuss actual solutions. I ask that you start by responding to anothers post before pushing forth your own opinion on the matter. I also ask that the response in question be constructive in nature.

The biggest issue I have seen: ALOT of builds apply bleed. Many apply bleeds accidentaly through interaction with minor traits. Many people bring traits that apply bleeds just because they think they don’t have anything better to bring. But in most cases the power builds that bring bleeds dont even really recognize there bleeds as a damage source. It is just “something that happens to be there”.

The most common solutions to the problem that I have seen discussed.

Method 1: The creation of new versions of conditions to account for the investment of a player in his bleed/confusion/torment.

Namely. If someone has over X amount of condition damage at the time of the attack. Instead of becoming a "bleed’ it becomes a “Gash” effect. Which is basically a much stronger bleed. Bleeding and Gashes would be affected by the same condition cleanse. If a mob or a player drops one. he drops the other as well. This prevents conditions from being more difficult to be cleansed as a whole while still preventing insignificant bleed damage from choking out the REAL bleeds.

Finisher effects would only apply the maxed out first stage of the condition the field is relevant to. (same you pass an arrow through a confusion field. It would only ever be “confusion at its max level” even if your a max condi shortbow ranger. You could never get “Disorientation” or whatever the second level of confusion could be. This would help address some of the issues where a memser may being loading (confusion 2.0) on a mob and some other mesmer throws up an ethereal field. Suddenly every arrow and bullet in the area is applying confusion hitting that 25 stack limit almost instantly. If theres a shortbow ranger or a P/P condi thief in the area suddenly you have ALOT of high condi ticking confusion. It would choke out the mesmers confusion 2.0 if it was allowed to transition fully.

As such. Creating a second tier for conditions tied to the first when it comes to condition cleanses and Limiting finishers to the first stage of the condition would help separate those invested in conditions and those who are not. Helping insulate condition players from the otherwise stifling effects of power builds that just happen to apply damaging condis.

Now. I refer mostly to bleed and confusion here as they have the highest potential of being capped in a fight. Torments applications are rare enough that only condi builds truly bring enough to cap a monster reliably. Bleeds are caused alot accidentally by power builds. And confusion through field projectile finishers.

Method 2: The removal of “accidental bleeds” from power builds and alter the effect of field finishers.

This is one im hesitant on. But it is perhaps the simplest solution. Remove traits and effects that apply bleeding passively to power focused builds. And tie them to traits that only condition focused play styles will take. Similar to the way that jagged horrors on necromancers were tied to death nova. A trait that ONLY minion mancer necromancers will bring.

This runs the risk of harming “hybrid” builds though. Forcing them to invest deaper into condition focused trait lines to round out there condi applications where otherwise they may have had 2 points left over to increase there own survivability.

Hmm if the druid mechanic itself just becomes (get rid of the pet) ill be pretty disappointed. What im hoping we “lose” with the druid is the marksmanship line. I love having a ranged power based weapon for many situations but the longbow itself requires so many traits for it to be a viable weapon that it kills build diversity for me. Ive even taken to running a full melee power build in my prefered trait setup. I really enjoy using BM based builds. The number of really wierd combinations you can make. (Causing three heals to go off at the same time, Chaining stuns with knockdowns, repeated and dispersed soft CC application through intimidation training+ weapon skills.) have been far more entertaining to me than any other playstyle this game has offered me so far.

What id been hoping from the druid really is the ability to sacrifice pet swapping as a mechanic and grant a pet I can actually keep active…invest in…and rely on. Whether the druid gives me support abilities to keep it alive. Frees up trait points while still giving me a ranged option in the form of the staff. Maybe the ability for heal as one to actually revive a downed pet….<——— big issue for me.

It largely seems like you should organize this with your guild or outside WvW. Advertise for anyone looking for map completing in WvW on your server. Take turns going after specfiic POIs your interested in. Be ready to FIGHT. If you have any heavy PvPers in your circle of fellow players ask them for help. On small scale fighting such as T8 they will be perfect for what you need. Listen to there advice. Make sure you have atleast one experienced WvWlder with you if you dont know where the cata spots are on specific towers you dont want to risk ramming. (for example the southern towers can be hit from the ruins, and hte northern towers can be each be hit in “safe” spots where they will be immune to ACs).

Other than that. Its mostly going to be you needing to be ready to fight for what you want. It’s no different than doing the gates of arah achievement because you want the waypoint on the city of arah portal.

Or as others have said. Continue to be patient and hope the colors change.

@ Israel Hmm. I will admit that I hadn’t realised how judgemental the last half of that post sounded. For that I will apologize. It wasn’t my intention upon writing it but then…hindsight is 20/20 after all.

So your right. I did state far more that just my opinion in that post. Again. my fault there. It was not my intention.

Its also true that your you have not once stated that your opinions are universal. However you have very much implied that things should be the way YOU feel they should. For little more reason than that you personally disagree with the base concept of premade vs solo quers. I will say that you have the right to that opinion.

But I wish you would back it up with more than moral based reasons and more opinions. Should you wish to continue. I will endeavor to keep my future posts from being influenced by my personal feelings on the matter as much as possible.

Edit: I deleted the TLDR potion of the mentioned post. Because as you said it was most definetly NOT just my opinion on the matter. And frankly contributed nothing to the discussion.

Israel.7056:

Shadelang.3012:

TL:DR ; As a pvper I cant see how your not looking FORWARD to fighting opponents stronger than you with a better team composition than you. Theres more opportunity to learn against a well built grp. Even if they have only played together for a day. Instead of blaming the matchmaking and crying about how its somehow morally wrong. Why not actually act like a PvPer and use it to get better.

I expect that kind of “BUT ITS NOT FAIR” from PvErs that get one shotted by a mechanic that is actually difficult to deal with for once. Not someone supposedly looking for a challenge.

So now we get the No True PvPer argument.

Its not a no true PvPer argument. Its simply a case of not understanding why you are upset. I just cant grasp it. I guess theres a fundamental difference in how we approach games what we we want in them. All I did was state my opinion on the matter. Although I admit it was a bit long winded. I wont judge as I don’t have the right to judge how another person plays a video game.

Im mostly trying to make you realize that your view is only one way of looking at it. And that there are MANY that view it in a completely different light.

I will say this though. Id rather lose because the enemy team was a premade that played well than because they had one more build specifically designed to abusing the old solo que system than we did.

aye….Feel like you just ran your face into over and over again and expected it to magically transition back into a kill phase.

Every mechanic here has parallels throughout gaming.

First "add phase’ where you have to kill a set of adds to draw out the boss.

Second “mechanic” phase where you have have to focus on a way of weakening the boss so you can damage it (using divine fire to create a cage for it)

third “burn phase” Heavy dps on the now weakened monster while evading its desperate attempts to kill you

Fourth (Second add phase) Similar to the first with an additional danger

fifth (Mechanic phase with countermeasure) You have to create the cage again but now he knows your going to do it and sends something to try to stop it. Splitting your attention.

Sixth (Execution phase) Boss is going full on to kill you now that you have caged in for good. Lots of red circles. Kill him as fast as you can while dodging. Either by bursting him down or holding back and “playing it safe”.

This was definetly an up on difficulty but no where near as much as your making it out to be. Your exaggerating to the point that it sounds fake. And some of the things you have said simply are not true (the bit of about divine fire appearing OUTSIDE the arena?….what?) But im making myself take you seriously for the sake of the forums. Im sorry but the content will probably be atleast at this level in HOT if the trailer and the way they have talked about combat and level design in there announcment are any indication. After all. One of the biggest complaints about PvE was that it was simply too easy. It didn’t encourage players to grow at all. It simply taught people to rely on the others around them to carry them forward through sheer numbers. Be it raw damage in dungeon runs to quickly kill bosses before they can hurt you.. or numbers of people in a zerg overwhelming events designed for half those numbers.

I feel that if your serious you should really brush up on boss mechanics in general. Expansions usually add another level of challenge in most games. Because thats what most gamers desire in my experience. I hope your ready for it by the time it releases.

I have to agree with what others have tried to say.

The new matchmaking is pretty kitten awesome. Id like to think that while im not a continuous player I am above average. Every few games I may run into a premade. Sure..those premades usually have the composition advantage. But that doesnt mean that they have the skill advantage to back it up.

Theres a big difference between fighting a premade and fighting a TEAM.

My only issue is if someone like me who is MAYBE above average gets partnered against a TEAM of top players. Players that have been fighting and winning against other people for a long time together.

Partner me up against a premade all you want. In most cases that just means ill get to fight a well built party with complementing builds. Im okay with that. Thats more practice for me. And when I can reliably beat them I wont be suprised to see im getting partnered against newer TEAMS. There I will probably be bouncing up and down the leaderboard ALOT which is what I want because it means I have found where I should be.

Hell with the preferred build I play I have no illusions ill ever top the leader board. I just want to max out my skill in my preferred play style. And the current matchmaking is giving me more opportunities for that with being set up against fights that are stacked against me even a little than at any time before. Its just one more way for me to get better as a PvPer.

Hmm marjory already seems to be enroute to changing. And the others have all been thrown into an EXTREMELY dangerous situation…assuming destinies edge 1 survived the crash. Taimi has been learning from a charr engineer hasn’t she? Maybe her golem will come out with a really big explosive hammer soon. Or shel start using drones to support it.

So far the 6 I see most likely of changing is 1: Rytlock (obviously)

2: Marjory (id say this is also pretty obvious)

3: Loghain (as weird as this may sound. his overall character doesn’t seem to have undergone any radical shifts. I could see him changing heavily due to his time in the jungle…becoming more desperate…more brutal. Mayhap him being in immediate and life ending peril with no word from him from awhile will make the queen actually accept him..provided she actually has feelings for him and shes not just using him like a 20 copper dock maiden.

4: taimi: This one I wouldn’t be surprised on. Shes actively learning from a new teacher. Shes been forced out of her golem and held helpless recently. That kinda situation can radically change your view of the world. Especially as a child.

5: Caithe: Despite the reveal shes a big unknown. Shes already an incredibly powerful thief. So much so I could see her being something else entirely. She is VERY determined..even willing to be seen as a traitor to accomplish her goals which we still aren’t 100% sure on. And now she may be heading to the heart of the one being that seems to show absolute dominance of her entire race? Even if somehow the dream AND the egg shield her. I dont see her getting out of that unscathed. The psychological shock of being attacked mentally by mordremoth (even if somehow in a lesser fashion) could be enough to drive her away form being (just a thief)

6: Eir: As a norn shes closer to the “spriitual” side of rangers than rox by a long shot. Shes also incredibly determined to protect and hold together her team. I could see this driving her to learn a new path.

“calmly invites friendly spinach heads into hoelbrak…calmly dusts of avenging wrath trait for the rest”

Had that issue on a guild I used to run with. There response was have every guardian in there hammer train run JI. if the cmdr got yanked htere entire hammer train smashed immediatly into the enemy gank squad. Worked most of the time. Scary as hell to watch.

HotHit.6783:

The druids had a “caretaker of maguuma” feel at times. So I’m hoping that suggests party support and not another control weapon, exactly what I want to get for my ranger. I might just be misremembering the druids for the benefit of my hopes for Heart of Thorns.

I wouldnt say your misremembering. But druids in most games have three roles. First is Selfless buffer: Precast long duration buffs outside of combat and use really strong short duration buffs on other players DURING combat.

SelfISH buffer: Precast buffs on yourself and use active buffs on yourself to cause extremely high single target damage for a short time. In many games fighting a druid with all of his buffs on was considered an incredibly stupid thing to do.

Edit: Example. In neverwinter nights 2 there is a prestige class called a storm caller. Most storm callers were druids. They had the ability to give themselves EXTREMELY powerful buffs which made them almost impossible to fight at clonse range. Having someone who could strip buffs or perform illusion based skills were almost mandatory to countering them.

Control Supporter: Using a mixture of defensive cooldowns and control skills druids in other games have some of the BEST crowd control in the game. Being able to effectively hold multiple targets for short times on short cooldowns. Skilled druids could hold down multiple key targets in pvp (sleeping the healer. rooting the peeler. And slowing the dpsers.) all while being tanky/sneaky enough to get away with it.

Im not saying this games druid will be like ANY of them. Thats just what ive seen them used as in most fantasy games that had the archetype.

My "personal list’

Field spell that continuously reduces enemies movement speed while there inside it (cant be cleansed. Requires you to actually leave or wait out the skill)

A delayed plant based healing spell. (requires you to precast it. non destroyable. Heals for quite a bit in an aoe. Heavily telegraphed though so enables counterplay in attempts to pull/push you away form the heal. Instant cast deployment. ground targeted up to 800 range) edit: Potentially cleanse conditions in an aoe in 3 pulses before the heal kicks in.

A “ground spike” vine spell utility. Target enemy has roots shoot from the ground and impales them. Doing steadily greater damage the longer there on it for 5 seconds. can be destroyed by other players. Target is stunned unless they have a stun break or teleport ability to get off of it)

A “blade grass” type spell which causes steel like plants to sprout from the ground. Dealing raw damage (non condi) as they move through it. But dealing no damage if they stand still. Sort of like a physical field effect form of torment based on power.

For an elite id definetly want something that either has the potential to completely lock down a location or have wide area support ability.

I think id prefer "vine prison: Lock the target area in a ring of vines. Targets inside must destroy the vines themselves before being able to escape or engage and enemy outside the ring. Vines count as physical objects and cannot be run through with stability (it IS a kitten elite after all. as well as being killable)

Perfect for duo play. If your fighting something you cant quite crack. Lock them inside and have your elementalist friend drop an icebow 4 inside the ring with them…welcome to hell..plant style.

I feel like maybe the group to really support the sylvari when time passes are gonna be the norn. After all..what greater hunt can there be than to kill your own maker.

alright. Replacing a myth here. When it comes to burning only the highest ticking burning will tick. When that burns duration runs out. Then the next ticking burning will tick. In a burn guardians build though this should never matter.

A burn guardian can only be out burned by another burn guardian provided equal might stacks.

I run a soldiers/sinister burn build on my guard and it usually ticks for around 800 damage with 2-4 stacks of might. If I went full condi I could probably get it to over 1000.

Atm The only way someone could out burn me is if they were running a full condi build with max condi damage stats. AND high might stacks while I had almost no might. And if there doing that I welcome them to the damage. They earned it. Im a hybrid after all so burn guardians shouldnt worry too much if they lose burning for a couple seconds. Were still doing pretty decent damage.

Next: Even if it was true that the most recent application did the damage (this is only true in the case of bleeds, confusion, torment where the most recent application over rides the previous applications once it reaches cap….which is bullkitten. Lower applications should not be able to override higher applications! A power builds bleeds shouldnt over ride a condi builds -.- ever… but thats for another thread) The burn guardian would still be doing most of the burning. We have more ways to apply burning on shorter cooldowns than even the engineer. The previous burn gods. (since dhuumfire got nuked). We apply it so OFTEN that we can reach the burning cap on a PvE mob without the help of our team mates.

TL;DR

So. If your noticing that your burns get over ridden as a burn specced guardian (meaning you at the VERY LEAST have avenging wrath and a method of applying permanent burning) is if you have 0 condi damage to back it up (meaning your primarily power and it shouldnt bother you too much) or if you DO have the condi damage to back it up (sinister accessories do a reaaaally good job of this) then there is another burn guardian on the field who is more invested than you are in burning. Meaning he gave up more of his power damage than you did in order to make sure that his burning (which is probably ticking for over a thousand) is ALWAYS on and active.

People tend to get kittened off at rangers because rangers were the easiest kill in the game for an extremely long time. Now the same builds that hard countered us before STILL hard counter us. But the builds that we were supposed to actually be able to fight we can actually damage now.

As for our range. People LOOOVE to kitten about the arrows. When ANY class capable of movement skills can cross the distance. Hell. The S/D thief build can cover our distance and then some in less than a few seconds. They have the mobility and evasions to do so safely.

Most deaths from the rangers longbow are caused by people not paying attention to what else is going on in the match. There only looking right infront of them so when a ranger unleashes from off there screen they immediately start screaming how OP it is when they could have simply looked up every few seconds and realised someone was moving up that ledge.

Longbow Rangers are good at +1ning fights for the same reason thieves are. Becuase if you arent paying attention they hurt really quickly before you have a chance to react. When simply paying attention to more than what the bunker guard infront of you is doing would give you more than enough time to move yourself behind cover to soak the initial burst (where the ranger will probably have blow half his damage cooldowns in an attempt to spike you.)

akaCryptic.2389:

I didnt actually try condi in pve. As you said the bleeds have a cap. But bosses dont perform skills fastly enough for confusion to be worth it do they? Also most bosses dont even move making torment inferior to bleeds or burns. Also you need time to set up and apply condis where standard powers just dps right away. Again i havent tested their effectiveness but this is my view so far.

If you look at the new bosses most of them are actually quite mobile. Champion Teragriffs, Thrashers (the ones that spin away leaving toxin behind), Mordrem Wolves, and even the husk boss (something that needs to CONSTANTLY be kited) are all almost continuous movement fights.

Mordrem wolves are also quite susceptible to confusion in relation to there counterparts. With a fairly high auto attack speed compared to most mobs.

OLD content is bad for conditions such as confusion and torment thats definetly true.

But the newer content anet has put out has actually been receiving condition users alot more openly than those before. I think thats partly why they released the sinister set. its there way of saying (hey we made situations where these builds are actually useful…come try them out if you can realize there here)

Id be willing to bet CASH that HOT will have alot of fights where specialized condition builds can shine. Bosses with high movement for torment. Mobs with high attack speeds for confusion. Aoe fights for burning guardians. And even mobs with rapid fire area effect skills for condi guards specced into retaliation (provided the bug gets fixed of course :P),

Anet has been learning from there mistakes. The issue is people continue to judge condition builds on old content. Where the newer style of fighting thats been put forth is alot more friendly. In the open field fights with numerous targets you dont have to worry about some power twit pushing 20 per stack bleeds over your 150+ per stack bleeds like an idiot. And the boss fights themselves are becoming more accepting of specialized builds like torment mesmer (champ teragriffs and champ husks MELT to torment mesmers with kiting)

as long as this is the stlye future content gets released. The biggest issue is gonna be our power focused brethren applying worthless bleeds than honest competition between condi players.

Honestly I feel bleeds should work like burning. With lower damaging ticks being unable to over ride higher damaging ones. Meaning that its normal application until you hit 25 stacks. But if you have 5 stacks for 200 damage and 20 stacks for 50 damage the next bleed for 80 damage should over ride one of the 50s and not the 200s. Letting the stacks for 200 do there full damage before dissapearing unless someone applied enough 200+ stacks to over ride THOSE.

In the newer content having condition builds is very much becoming worth it. The issue is not atm the damage potential of a condi class. Its the issue of interference by other players.

Namely. When a power build starts applying large stacks of bleeds.

Confusion and torement focused builds run little chance of being over ridden by other players. As the only people applying massive amounts of these two conditions will be people specced into them. So in combat styles the new content has promoted tis often well worth investing in them. I was in a group with three torment mesmers in my last silverwaste run on husk while I was on my burn guardian (testing out a sinister armor set)

My burn was ALWAYS ticking (since in non stacking conditions the highest ticker will ALWAYS have priority and guardians have the highest burn in the game now) and the mesmers with me said they had absolutely no issue with people over riding there torment. (probably because its rare for builds to appear that could produce massive amounts of it)

As for necros. Here we start to have an issue. Necros dont have anything like a mesmers high torment application or a burn guardians guaranteed high tick.

We do however have one of the highest spread of conditions in the game. But most of our damage comes from (correct me if im wrong) bleeding with bursts of burning.

The issue with condi necro there is that our bleeding which makes up a CHUNK of our damage is easily applied by an absolutely stupid number of POWER builds in the game.

Meaning alot of people are stupidly putting on numerous bleed stacks without even thinking about how much that screws over the necros. Because frankly they dont care.

I honestly find it more annoying than rangers longbow fouring mobs away from me when im meleeing. Even though its pretty much the same thing.

What id like to see is ANET put damaging condition applications in areas that only builds that USE condition damage will find them. So we atleast know as condi necros that when we see our ticks drop momentarrily that were STILL doing our part in making sure the boss is bleeding for a massive amount. Thats the part where we can start organizing and seeing just how many condi necromancers we have.

TLDR: Condi builds are actually very good in the silverwastes as long as idiotic power build users dont go around spamming condition applications. Power necros shouldnt be spamming staff 2 for example unless they need to put regen on themselves. Its actually a better dps method to use staff one again to get your life force up faster so you can reenter deathshroud when you need it. If a solution could be made to seperate conditions/power/hybrid builds when it comes to bleeding and making sure each condi build has its own sure fire “tick” I think alot more condi personnel will appear in PvE

Holy crap guys haha speculation like this is only gonna stress ya out. The information will come. We will know for sure what the druid is when it shows up.

Tom Gore.4035:

Shadelang.3012:

Tom Gore.4035:

Shadelang.3012:

Tom Gore.4035:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Tom Gore.4035:

Of course if this was just PvE and WvW I couldn’t care less, but history has shown most of the sigils and runes find their way to sPvP sooner or later.

History has also shown that the entire huge PvE is balanced around a single PvP game mode, which rendered some of the so called “one man army” classes almost useless and frustrating to play (hint: mesmer, necro). Why should my class have been slaughtered in the first place if I, like hundreds of thousands of other players, couldn’t care less about PvP?

Because in PvE there is hardly anything to balance. The mobs don’t whine if you crush them with your OP build. There isn’t even a DPS meter so the jealous other players could see your OP damage and whine about it.

And last time I checked, pet builds are still quite viable for solo PvE. They have never been viable for dungeons or mass open world events, because you’ve got the other players there to handle the pet’s jobs. Necros and Mesmers still have plenty of viable PvE builds.

In any case, from the pet build nerfs it seems Anet agrees with me in that “zoo” builds are not the thing they want to buff.

Pet nerfs huh? Anet hates minion/control builds huh? “looks up SW changes…Looks up Turret changes” hmmm……Seems to me that anet doesnt agree with you. They want to keep these playstyles viable infact and make sure that they have there place in the game. They have also worked VERY hard to make sure that the builds don’t end up truly overpowered.

So there keeping the builds balanced. But making sure that the people that enjoy that playstyle can infact play it effectively. Isn’t that what we want with EVERY build? Now I just hope they fix necro minions pathing issues with HOT.

Where did I say they hate them? I said they are not buffing them and in fact have in the past nerfed them a lot (especially spirit ranger). Hate has nothing to do with it, making them balanced is what it’s about.

I’m also all for active pet gameplay (vs. passive where you just pop out your pets and hide), which I think is also the way Anet wants to take the pet classes to. What I don’t want is more tools that promote passive pet play (for example sigils/runes that give passive boosts to pets).

If thats what you meant then you should be against ALL runes and sigils that give passive benefits…Which happens to be nearly all of them. Nearly all of the runes and sigils do things that the player does not have 100% control over. At most you can shimmy the odds a bit. (pumping up your crit chance right before you engage to try and get both fire and air to proc for a heavy burst) but even then whether they happen or not is completely up to the system itself.

All the above would do is give an option for Pet focused builds that non pet builds already have.

The difference is, you don’t do anything with those passive buffs on your character unless you use your skills, even if it was just spamming autoattack (which also has it’s time and place). Again, popping out your pets and hiding behind a pillar is not what I consider as “playing a game”.

Mate. I have to say that giving up 3-5 utility slots most of your traits counts as an active choice. Giving up a burst sigil slot is also a choice the player has to make. But I assume your only talking about ones in combat.

Lets look at that shal we? say I use it on a minion mancer. The only minion that this would have a significant increase to is the bone minion. Which happens to die the second its used I should remind you. The onlything passive this bone minion does is run at the enemy. I cant even count its auto attack as damage since it never hits….ever.

The bone minion…the ONLY burst damage available to a minion mancer necro. ONLY does anything when its activated causing it to DIE. Meaning for it to do ANYTHING.

The player has to Push the skill. Slow down the enemy enough for the minion to catch it. (debilitation is the core of the MMancers playstyle). Immobilize the target so it cant dodge out of it. And then detonate them…twice.

Thats 1.2.3.FOUR button presses to the one required to make use of your sigils of air and fire. Not even counting the “keeping it alive long enough to make use of it” part. Seems a bit more active to me. (and thats ONTOP of all the normal things combat requires)

Edit: thats not even counting the fact that the additional damage generated by a ten percent increase would be absolutely pathetic compared to a air or fire proc.

Teutos.8620:

No – I don’t want more things improving AI damage.
You should play the game, and not afk next to your minions.

Mate if you had any actual experience in the the game youd know that NO minion playstyle can afk next to there minions as they put it against an active opponent. All of the minions in the game are WORTHLESS without direct player interaction.

Ranger spirits : Litteraly require you to be active to do ANYTHING…at all….period.<——

Guardian Spirit Weapons; These while theoretically dangerous are NOT permanent. They have long cast times Long cooldowns Very low toughness and vitality.
Primarily used as methods of ACTIVE control and defense and damage. There worthless on there own without the guardian supporting them through virtues,blinds,blocks.

Necromancer Minions: There damage without heavy investment is laughable. Most of them die in two or three melee swings. The ONLY reputable damage from the build comes from bone minions. Which require you to constantly observe them in order to make sure they run in range so you can detonate them. Minions themselves do pitiful damage and control on there own. They require the necromancer to load an enemy up with disabling skills such as Chill,Poison,Weakness,Cripple, and immobilize in order for them to be even slightly dangerous. Youd have to be pretty much afk to die by them on there own. What makes them dangerous is when the necro is covering for them.

Warrior Banners: Possibly the most passive summon in the game. They literally sit there and give there full effects without you doing….anything. And yet everyones happy to see them. Nerf these all you want.

Mesmer Phantasms and Clones: ….are we really going to try to point fingers at mesmers? Feel free? Ill sit back and watch the mesmer community eat you alive.

Turret engineers: These are the only one your argument holds even the slightest water too. And even then its part of there concept. Turrets are meant to be TURRETS. Meaning the entire concept behind them is to put pressure on a point. They do that well. But lets look at what the engineer gives up.

A. Alot of there reliable condi clear. Making them extremely succeptible to ANY condi/hybrid player.

B. Heavy reliance on boons. Making them extremely succeptible to any boon steal.

C. Extremely vulnerable to ranged players.

D. Heavy reliant on CC and dodging to stay alive. So anything immune to CC for short periods of time is a nightmare.

Against any of the above I DARE you to play passively and expect to win against an opponent thats even slightly competent ..I effing dare you. The only way to win against the above is doing some pretty heavy maneuvering in some cases and leaving the safety of your point defense to engage. Good luck doing THAT passively.

Tom Gore.4035:

Shadelang.3012:

Tom Gore.4035:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Tom Gore.4035:

Of course if this was just PvE and WvW I couldn’t care less, but history has shown most of the sigils and runes find their way to sPvP sooner or later.

History has also shown that the entire huge PvE is balanced around a single PvP game mode, which rendered some of the so called “one man army” classes almost useless and frustrating to play (hint: mesmer, necro). Why should my class have been slaughtered in the first place if I, like hundreds of thousands of other players, couldn’t care less about PvP?

Because in PvE there is hardly anything to balance. The mobs don’t whine if you crush them with your OP build. There isn’t even a DPS meter so the jealous other players could see your OP damage and whine about it.

And last time I checked, pet builds are still quite viable for solo PvE. They have never been viable for dungeons or mass open world events, because you’ve got the other players there to handle the pet’s jobs. Necros and Mesmers still have plenty of viable PvE builds.

In any case, from the pet build nerfs it seems Anet agrees with me in that “zoo” builds are not the thing they want to buff.

Pet nerfs huh? Anet hates minion/control builds huh? “looks up SW changes…Looks up Turret changes” hmmm……Seems to me that anet doesnt agree with you. They want to keep these playstyles viable infact and make sure that they have there place in the game. They have also worked VERY hard to make sure that the builds don’t end up truly overpowered.

So there keeping the builds balanced. But making sure that the people that enjoy that playstyle can infact play it effectively. Isn’t that what we want with EVERY build? Now I just hope they fix necro minions pathing issues with HOT.

Where did I say they hate them? I said they are not buffing them and in fact have in the past nerfed them a lot (especially spirit ranger). Hate has nothing to do with it, making them balanced is what it’s about.

I’m also all for active pet gameplay (vs. passive where you just pop out your pets and hide), which I think is also the way Anet wants to take the pet classes to. What I don’t want is more tools that promote passive pet play (for example sigils/runes that give passive boosts to pets).

If thats what you meant then you should be against ALL runes and sigils that give passive benefits…Which happens to be nearly all of them. Nearly all of the runes and sigils do things that the player does not have 100% control over. At most you can shimmy the odds a bit. (pumping up your crit chance right before you engage to try and get both fire and air to proc for a heavy burst) but even then whether they happen or not is completely up to the system itself.

All the above would do is give an option for Pet focused builds that non pet builds already have.

Tom Gore.4035:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Tom Gore.4035:

Of course if this was just PvE and WvW I couldn’t care less, but history has shown most of the sigils and runes find their way to sPvP sooner or later.

History has also shown that the entire huge PvE is balanced around a single PvP game mode, which rendered some of the so called “one man army” classes almost useless and frustrating to play (hint: mesmer, necro). Why should my class have been slaughtered in the first place if I, like hundreds of thousands of other players, couldn’t care less about PvP?

Because in PvE there is hardly anything to balance. The mobs don’t whine if you crush them with your OP build. There isn’t even a DPS meter so the jealous other players could see your OP damage and whine about it.

And last time I checked, pet builds are still quite viable for solo PvE. They have never been viable for dungeons or mass open world events, because you’ve got the other players there to handle the pet’s jobs. Necros and Mesmers still have plenty of viable PvE builds.

In any case, from the pet build nerfs it seems Anet agrees with me in that “zoo” builds are not the thing they want to buff.

Pet nerfs huh? Anet hates minion/control builds huh? “looks up SW changes…Looks up Turret changes” hmmm……Seems to me that anet doesnt agree with you. They want to keep these playstyles viable infact and make sure that they have there place in the game. They have also worked VERY hard to make sure that the builds don’t end up truly overpowered.

So there keeping the builds balanced. But making sure that the people that enjoy that playstyle can infact play it effectively. Isn’t that what we want with EVERY build? Now I just hope they fix necro minions pathing issues with HOT.

Tom Gore.4035:

No. Anything that further promotes NPC gameplay should NOT be implemented. We have enough stupid “one man armies” in PvP already.

Of course if this was just PvE and WvW I couldn’t care less, but history has shown most of the sigils and runes find their way to sPvP sooner or later.

On behalf of all the control playstyle characters in the game. “It’s okay..we have as little respect for you as you do for us”.

ElfBoy its up to your playstyle. As far as dungeon content goes bezerker is considered the easiest way to complete the dungeon. Youl kill most bosses before they even have a chance of killing you. Goes a long way to negating the risk involved.

As far as the newer content goes. And thats probably what you want to plan on. Its gonna depend on your playstyle. New mobs have shown that anet is spreading the requirments a bit.

Alot of new mobs have CCs and knockdowns htat prevent you from dodging heavy attacks. So if your using a build that doesnt have a method of getting away once your caught in that you may want to balance some defense in.

I spend alot of time in WvW and in the SW (where the new mobs are which are a good indication of what well be facing in HOT)

I found in alot of situations going full zerk is a really stupid risk. As theres alot of cases where the choice of taking hte “safe” approach is taken away from you by the situation. A glass bow on a wall fight in WvW is already a corpse. A glass bow that gets immobilized by a husk and hit by two charges is probably dead if they dont have a cooldown ready. And no matter WHAT people say outside of dungeons its impossible to get everything right 100% of the time.

So for dungeons go full zerk

For the rest of the game make sure you experience it yourself. See what its REALLY like for you and not what other people tell you it is. And pick an appropriate gear.

If you find yourself getting into some trouble now and then I would recommend getting a few knights pieces to mix with you beserker pieces (knights being power minor precision minor toughness high)

(a good start is looking at what stats your trait setup itself has and pick a set that comploments it. I use a full zealots (power precision healing power) setup in a 62006 build. It allows me to make good use of my longbows burst damage while also giving my some insane burst healing)

Something interesting. SWs benefit from your virtues. Meaning you can use virtues to help protect them in combat.

Part of what makes SW so good at 1v1s is that you get multiple procs off of things like VOJ despite only having one player in the area.

The same applies to the other two virtues as well as the protection from sheild 4 the heal from shield 5. Also the normal blind rotations you do on an enemy will protect your SW just as much as they do you. There not meant to fight on there own but WITH the guardian.

Morfedel I gotta agree with Siobhan. Your way of phrasing doesnt make us want to help you….at all..

In response though. It depends on how you set it up. If your using SW for htere utility youl prob be looking at something NOT focused on damage. Meaning that youl be running tanky sets. (probably a cleric variant with Hammer Shield Bow and Mace/Shield Scepter/Focus)

If your using htem for the burst potential. You have atleast 6 in zeal for the damage increase. and probably 4 in radiance.

Youl want to pick something that allows decent damage without being squishy since you dont have defensives from traits. Youl probably go soldiers.

If you want to go the condi variant youl STILL have 6 in zeal and 4 in radiance. But youl have amplified wrath instead. With this youl probably go carrion or celestial.

The issue isn’t so much the PPT..its the rewards. EOTM is FLOODED with people only interested in farming mats or leveling up there alts. Only a small portion of people actualy go there in an attempt for a WvW like experience. If there was a way to swap maps while keeping the farmers seperated from the WvWlders for a week id be more than okay with trying it as a test.

However if EOTM became the center map for a week. Im almost certain the majority of WvWlders would NOT be able to enter the zone at all due to ques ramped up by uplevelds and farmers trying to make money.

Atherakhia.4086:

Scoobaniec.9561:

And dont forget to suggest that stealth should break if you hit someone during invul/evade/block

And you should be revealed when you take damage. Can’t forget that one.

Right? im sorry but if I hit someone with greatsword im pretty im going to know where they are at that point. Its not like my characters just gonna stand htere going “whelp I know I hit something but I still cant see it kitten”

Just a heads up a post like this is massive troll bait. Assuming its not on purpose for the sake of conversation.

Short awnser. I think so.

Longer awnser: The game is developing. The upcoming expansion seems to be pretty big. Id wait to see what the expac has to offer and see if your interested.

From what we know so far its gonna be a largely vertical setup. So expect each "area’ to actually be multiple areas seperated by height.

the combat has been fairly well developed in the last few PvE releases. The mobs are getting smarter and a bit tougher. Aparently there turning that up to 11 in the expac content. Im assumign whats now the silverwastes (the newest zone) was an area where they were testing ideas to see where the playerbase was at.

If WvW is your thing were gonna have a new borderland and apparently an extensive rework of WvW as a whole.

If PvP is your thing the next official competitive game mode “Stronghold” is coming out. You can read up on that as more details are released over the coming weeks/months.

If what you said was true than you left hte game very shortly after its release. Meaning you did not like what the game had to offer you at the time.

Read up on the expac (there will be more info coming out on the future) and make your decision AFTER you have all the facts.

I imagine the druid mechanics themselves will involve CC or Self Buffing in some way. Thats more due to the nature of druids in other games however so id love for A-Net to come up with a COMPLETELY new playstyle for the druid archetype.

As far as how it interacts with the pet. Im looking forward to the reveal on the druid mechanic itself but im not gonna think to kitten that until they give us more information. Largely because its a pain in the kitten due to it causing us to want to play the class MORE so we can experience it ourself. Good for raising hype. Bad for just trying to enjoy the game on a daily basis. (Every time I play my ranger im always distracted by the fact that ill one day be playing a druid)

serow.6524:

I would prefer they just make pets take less damage from AOE in PVE environments.

haha we need htat in ALL environments atm. Not just pve

I feel like all this would do is cause a rash amount of “Be this specialization or be kicked and ridiculed from every form of content its possible to be kicked from” Id still much rather the core problem be fixed.

Hell if we could get avoidance (pets recieve 70% less damage from any attack they aren’t the specific target of) it would go a long way to improving ranger pets in most content especially WvW. Other than that a method of reviving or reliably clearing conditions from my pet and id be fairly happy. (heal as one REALLY should revive a downed pet. Would work well with masters bond if it was changed not to reset on pet down)

Other than that. Basing future choices on old content isn’t something I can agree with.

Most content thats been released lately has all taken the pet into account (even the shard buffs in the LS chapters apply to the pet as well when you grab em). And even with the silverwaste bosses only ONE of them has a mechanic thats truly lethal to pets. And thats the teragriff boss of the vinewrath encounter (boss 3).

On the other hand. I can see why you would want a specialization focusing on the ranger itself. Im sure in the future that will be the case. I doubt the druid will be the one however from what I have seen.

But basing a future change on something like fractals or dungeon runs? Niether of those are the future of the game from what ive seen and read.

Reliable methods of helping the pet survive aoe. Reliable methods of reviving the pet when it does down. And a method of clearing conditions from the pet instead of GIVING conditions to the pet. Id like to get those before trying to abandon the pet entirely simply due to its performance in old content.

@ OP Rangers are (concept wise) supposed to take the best tool for the job. But when it comes to gameplay in dungeons specifically. Meh your group will only care about overall damage because the encounters simply arent risky if you melee. Downed state alone takes alot of the risk out of the dungeon content.

In dungeons that often involves the stack and dodge into a wall method. Because its simply the safest option that provides the highest damage possible (two things that shouldnt be together) since thanks to dodging, boon sharing, and the downed state most of the risk in what would otherwise be part of a high risk high reward play style disapears in an experienced group turning it into a faceroll easy dungeon run.

So in dungeons melee is your best bet. It sucks because it means that the dungeons are way easier than they need to be. But there it is.

In the newer open world content its slowly starting to be a different story.

The mordrem have done a pretty good job of increasing build diversity through necessity. And I hope to see more of it in HOT.

What that means is in OPEN world its better to find a build that matches your playstyle. As someone whos playing a build that doesn’t match there play style tends to occasionaly have rough time (the thief that is used to easy dungeon runs gets immobilized by a husk and caught between three teragriff charges back to back, the warrior that eats a slingers 10k damage rock throw because he thought hed be as relatively strong as he was in COF P2 and didnt realize that red was bad, The guardian that didnt take stability and gets fear chained by a enfeebler while mordrem wolves hit him with continuous crits in the back.)

Find what works best for you that you enjoy and use it. Im using a 02066 zealot/assassins ranger build to VERY good success in both WvW and open world PvE.

Just make sure you have something in your bag for dungeons. Not that its that big of a deal. Dungeons aren’t and have never been difficult in this game with the possible exception of aetherpath(and even that was just that it had a learning curve involved) so anyone that really gets onto you in a dungeon for not using the right weapons is probably someone more worried with gold farming than actually playing the game.

Honestly? I doubt it. For one just as many rangers would be dissapointed if the druid was advertised as having a pet and didnt than would be excited. Its a kitten storm waiting to happen. And I REALLY doubt A-Net would take that kind of risk.

I think its far more likely that the druid mechanics interact with the pet in a different way than the ranger mechanics. Some people have suggested that the druid may get ONE pet but be able to influence it with druid magic (making it very hard to kill, giving it advance mobility, causing its attacks to do things it normally couldn’t do)

In most games where a druid class is used druids usually act as buffers. People that layer on a large number of support abilities ahead of time before combat starts. There crucial to there team in that druids are some of the best supporters in the fantasy universes. They also have some of the best CCs in nearly any game they exist in.

All in all though. I’d have to suggest not speculating on this kinda stuff until they’v told us what there gonna tell us. Cause it probably is just gonna lead to all of us stressing out over things that have most likely already been decided.

Edit: As far as the stage of development. Remember that the expac is supposedly nearing a playable state. I meen they did say that there will be a playable demo within six weeks most likely. Thats not a small feet for something as massive as an MMO. It also means that alot of the core concepts for what they want have already been made and decided on.

I think beserker style will always be the “theoretical” best. But I think the recent content shows that there able to start balancing it so that running zerk is actually high risk high reward. Where as now the sheer dps it offers cuts out most of the relevant risk. A zerker player caught between three charging teragriffs when a husk immobilizes them tends to have a bad time.

Fair enough then. I assumed you were just one more of the “AI OP” crowd that cries when they rush moronically into a swarm of semi stationary mobs and wonder why there dieing because tehy cant pay attention to the explosive bone minion they literally WALKED into.