Guild Wars 2

Gratz to the team that worked on the update, I honestly didn’t think it’d be this close. I honestly thought there was imbalance in the race (and it appears as though there is a very slight one) but this is much closer than I was expecting. Nice work guys.

People probably forgot that Tyria doesn’t just revolve around Kiel. If you played the Living Story since the Secret of Southsun I wouldn’t blame you for forgetting that Tyria is so much bigger than what Kiel is doing this month.

In GW1 event items never replaced normal loot in the tables, they dropped in addition to normal loot. I suspect it’s the same as the support tokens.

Electro.4173:

Its funny how before the announcement of the weapon skins people were complaining that it Gnashblade’s key discount was pointless and that Kiel’s bonus was so much better. So they try to do something to make the key discount more meaningful and now its “OMG they favor Evon to win its so unfair!”.

They’ve written Kiel as the good guy and Evon as the bad guy. That’s all they needed to do to appeal the majority of players to vote for Kiel (in addition to her being a known character while Evon was just introduced). Evon winning is going to rely on a passionate minority because Kiel was given the majority simply because of how the two characters were written. The good guy archetype appeals to the lowest common denominator.

Tom Gore.4035:

Shiren.9532:

For $50 someone should be able to get a full set of weapon skins.

Says who?

Nobody’s putting a gun to your head and forcing you to get the weapon skins, you know?

Anyone with a fair sense of value for money.

No-one is claiming there is a gun at their head. Why would you even say something as absurd as that?

Brother Grimm.5176:

If everyone was able to get a full set of skins for $50, they wouldn’t be very exclusive. That is exactly why skins like this are only available for a limited time and require effort to obtain. I’m not saying the method for obtaining these skins isn’t questionable, but ANet is being very up front about the odds and that they are going to cost you (not crazy that it’s not a set price, but that’s the price for some exclusiveness).

They aren’t exclusive. I can any one of these skins today if I wanted to. They will be on the TP for a long time after this event. ArenaNet isn’t being upfront by saying rare. Telling people the exact drop rate would be upfront. Using the word “rare” is not. Some people might consider finding a blue shiverpeak bow in Wayfairer Foothills rare. I don’t even care about whether or not they are being upfront, if people have been around for a few months, they should know that the RNG chests are an incredibly unfair system which disregards customer satisfaction. What I do care about is that ArenaNet is still using that system instead of opting for one which is more respectful of their supporters.

I’m confident there is a bug in there. I ran tiers1-4 in reverse order and for some reason some of my runs didn’t count. It didn’t help that names of the tiers that the NPC uses are different from the achievement panel, but I’m confident I ran tier 4,3,2,1 and didn’t get the second half of my achievement. I got kitten ed off with it (it wasn’t even hard, just tedious because I had done the Evon ones just before) and walked away.

Leablo.2651:

Gmr Leon.1846:

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but aren’t they a tad randomized in terms of how you encounter them? In that case, wouldn’t it be incredibly silly of them to put anything of lore significance in any of them?

I’m sure if we try really hard, we’ll be able to think of a type of game that is heavily focused on storytelling, yet the outcome of nearly every action is randomized. Where could GW2 have gotten this idea from? Hmm… what type of game could an online role-playing game possibly be trying to emulate? I’m stumped.

Fractals aren’t heavily focused on storytelling. They are cool moments in Tyria. They are primarily a way to experience events which don’t fit into the world as we know it today. Most of their design is in creating a compelling gameplay experience that is able to scale in difficulty after repetition, not in delivering a story.

There is almost no story in any of the fractals. They aren’t much different from pictures. The simple fact that they aren’t even real events prevents them from having much story telling potential. You may as well be playing a dream.

Tom Gore.4035:

Umm… what? With those you can get 2 skins which will net you somewhere around 150 gold. That’s more than you would have got by converting those gems directly into gold, which is a lot better than what you usually get from the chests.

For $50 someone should be able to get a full set of weapon skins. You can buy the game for $50.

It’s scary that they cost so much yet they are so bloody ugly. Imagine how much they’d cost if they actually looked good.

The Aetherised weapons are like terrible versions of the steam weapons, and that’s one of the most common skins in the game. Pay 55 gold on the TP or 5-10 badges at the WvW vendor?

Actinotus.6410:

Chris.3290:

SoS, Mag, CD – and I’d have to leave the forums for the week LOL

Agree next week for SoS I want any combination of Mag CD and Ebay.

Nah, SoS needs to fight TC. I can’t remember the last time SoS faced off against TC, it seems like so long ago. It just doesn’t happen often enough.

Aurust.8961:

CHIPS.6018:

JQ/TC/DB. I really want to see who deserve that 3rd seat in tier 1.

TC and DB will be destroyed….. did you guys not learn what it means to fight a tier 1 server? That was SOR going kiddie gloves on TC because it was a joke of a match… im sure JQ will fight at full strength….

TC is a very strong tier 2 server, no where even close to a tier 1 server.

TC likes to think of itself as a “tier 1.5” server when in reality its “tier 1.8”.

What a difference three weeks makes. JQ is barely scraping in with a win over TC this week.

cesmode.4257:

Thank you very much, very informative.

Story still lacks cohesion. It is not your abbreviation of it, but it just seems like it lacks cohesion..a fluidity from one arc to the next. Things just “happen”.

I think they just aren’t showing the links, they are trying to create a mystery by simply withholding information. A lot of the connections seem to be happening behind the scenes so I’ll point out the obvious connections but focus on the things that don’t amount to anything yet.

Unanswered Questions

To sum it up, here are the main unanswered questions which will probably link all the Living Story plots together when ArenaNet decides to reveal what’s been going on behind the curtains:

Flame and Frost
Who is the silver tongued person behind the Molten Alliance?
Is there more to Braham’s father’s death or the mine collapse that killed Rox’s warband?
The Secret of Southsun
What was Kasmeer doing on Southsun Cove? She said it was more than just a holiday but we never found out.
Is there more to the story behind why Canach had Molten Gauntlets?
Dragon Bash
Who is Mister E?
Why was Kasmeer involved again? Why is she working with Marjory? Is it just for money or is there some other reason?
What is behind the mysterious disappearances in Divinty’s Reach?
What happened to Kasmeer’s father?
Sky Pirates
Who is Scarlet?
Bazaar of the Four Winds
Everything about the Zephyrites and their connection to Glint.
Are are the Zephyrites hiding something?
Cutthroat Politics
What’s going on at the Great Collapse?

Prominent Allies from the Living Story
These are the primary allies we work with or are featured in the Living Story.

Flame and Frost
Rox: a female charr ranger who lost her warband in a mining accident. She is performing missions for Rytlock Brimstone to prove her worth to him in hopes of joining his warband. She has unique albino devourer as her pet.
Braham: a norn guardian and estranged son of Eir. He was raised by his father and worked on his own to help rescue his fellow villagers who were taken by the Molten Alliance. Worked with Rox.
The Secret of Southsun
Ellen Kiel: a female human Lion Guard warrior. Was stationed on Southsun last year to fight the karka invasion. Cleaned up the Consortium/Settler mess, captured Canache, solved the Dragon Bash murder, defeated the Aetherblades, acquired their airship, fighting for a trade contract with the Zephyrites and running in the election against Evon. She also probably cured cancer, won the most gold medals ever in a single Olympic Games, is a former super model and spend her free time volunteering at a puppy orphanage.
Kasmeer Meade: a female human. She is a noble who fell on hard times. Her father disappeared and she has been up to something, but we don’t know what. Wears light armour (my guess is elementalist based off of her armour’s appearance and it’s name as “Phoenix Armour”).
Dragon Bash
Marjory Delaqua: a female human necromancer. She is a private detective working with Kasmeer and a former Ministry Guard. She knows Mister E. Logan hired her to go to Lion’s Arch to solve the murder.
Bazaar of the Four Winds
Evon Gnashblade: is a male charr. He runs the Black Lion Trading Company and is competing for a seat on the Captain’s Council. He wears light armour.

Edgar Doiron.2804:

http://i.imgur.com/HptYUJW.png
The Charr on the right, is ROX… probably drawn by a different artist
http://i.imgur.com/TxnF8wo.jpg

I don’t understand how it’s not incredibly obvious to people that this is Rox. Has it been that long since Flame and Frost?

The unusual shaped horns, the gold rings at the base of the horns, the red braids, the skull on her left shoulder. I understand she looks like a centaur there, but she is also clearly Rox.

Zylonite.5913:

Did you forget about the jumping puzzles? there has been a flood of jumping puzzles in the past contents….

I don’t think many of us purchased an active combat MMO to play jumping puzzles either.

Lysander Freeman.4186:

I’d rather have full expansions that are completely thought out and finished than have a weak Living Story. The Molten Alliance was well done and then the ball got dropped.

I think the Molten Alliance flopped in the end because the threat ended up not being very threatening and the consequences seem non-existent. The parts of the world it took place in are unchanged, it was simply used as an unnecessary tool to send people to Southsun. As a faction I was never convinced they were a big threat (partly because I don’t think there was a single named character that gave them much a story or reason for being, they had no leader and no set goals, they were just baddies attacking people) and it’s really disappointing that they seem to have neatly dissolved when the new RNG box was ready.

I don’t think the ball got dropped so much as they have too many irons in the fire and they aren’t pulling any of them out. The story is trickling out but so far it’s all just set-up, nothing that’s truly compelling has happened. They keep introducing characters and what’s most frustrating, they seem to be setting up all new stories (which takes time) instead of utilising existing ones (which makes existing lore feel like it doesn’t matter).

The story is definitely going somewhere, I just think the drive to get there doesn’t have enough pit stops. The pacing with the story really feels off.

marnick.4305:

Because Kiel is mostly a good character with best interests at heart. Evon Gnashblade simply is not a likeable person. The instance where they talk to the Zephyrites and Evon refers to her as his assistant is just insulting. That is enough for me not to like someone.

Is being a good (that which is morally right; righteousness) character all it takes to be likeable? All you need to do is do the right thing and people like you? Wouldn’t you rather a character that wasn’t always good, but they had flaws or secrets or complexities to them that helped explore the world and actually tell a story?

Do you really want to play through a story where the main character is never wrong, always does the predictable right thing, always saves the day and doesn’t seem to have any thoughts of their own? They just do the right thing because it’s the right thing. Is that a compelling story to you?

Living Story has been very weak when it comes to traditional gameplay. Most of the Living Story content has been grind achievements, repetition of existing content or mini-games. Lots and lots of mini-games (July is the worst offender with Sanctum Sprint, Southsun Survival and Aspect Arena). It’s not very often the Living Story gives us a new content which allows us to swing our sword again, usually it’s recycling old content or at best, adding another generic dynamic event in a zone we’ve already explored with nothing to make it stand out (the Secret of Southsun breaks this mould a little bit). The actual dungeons are awesome, but they are probably too big to expect more frequently. Looking at the content added in July I can’t help but wonder, why aren’t they adding a mini-dungeons to the game to tie into the Living Story and give us something fun and maybe challenging to do that utilises traditional gameplay mechanics instead of constantly giving us mini-game skills and jumping puzzles?

It really feels like traditional combat and world exploration are the weakest elements of the Living Story and I believe that mini-dungeons are the perfect middle ground to allow them create more traditional content with their releases to satisfy that part of their player base. Jumping puzzles and mini-games are great for people who enjoy those things but it seems like too much of the new content is focusing on those two elements and the expectation is that grind achievements in existing open world areas are expected to satisfy open world players. If we can’t have new maps and zones or big expansive dungeons added to the game, why can’t we have more mini-dungeons added to the open world to help deliver the story to players and satisfy the desire for more open world content?

Cowrex.9564:

Because Ellen’s name is awesome plus her personality is very intriguing (All the way back from Secrets of Southsun)

I’d really like you to explain this because I don’t find her intriguing. Marjory is intriguing because of her background, her unique skill set, her job and allies, and an air of mystery around her. Kasmeer is intriguing because there is so much unknown about her yet she seems to be important. She’s a noble who is constantly found in places you wouldn’t expect her to be found in and she’s been involved in a lot of the story so far. Kiel is easily explained away as “it’s her job” so there’s no mystery there, we know why she’s there and who she works for. Kasmeer and Marjory are very different. They are intriguing. I can’t fault someone for finding something interesting that I don’t, but I don’t understand what it is you think is interesting about Kiel.

I don’t like Kiel because she is written as a perfect soldier type and drags the story down by acting as nothing more than a mechanical soldier devoid of personality. In Winds of Change from GW1 there was a character called Zei Ri who was much more compelling. He represented one of the moral centres of the Winds of Change story, the struggle of the Canthan people and how a militia fighting back the afflicted turned into a dangerous force. He created depth in the story because we weren’t just fighting obvious bad guys, we were fighting good people. The Ministry started out as good guys, as allies and Zei Ri reflected that, but later became the enemy, which made his character and our relationship with him more rewarding. The depth of the moral conflict in that story was very satisfying (compared to the way Kiel is written) and Zei Ri evolved throughout it to help explore who the Ministry of Purity were.

Kiel is just another soldier who does what you expect soldiers to do. She’s written as a perfect character, a Mary Sue (works hard, fights to protect the people, is a “war hero”, doesn’t look for her own interests first and they even threw in a token "she’s clever and solved the Consortium contract issue in a “shocking” way", the kind of stuff you expect from Mary Sue characters). Then look at Logan, who on paper looked a lot like Kiel, but then you remember he blew Tyria’s first chance at taking down an elder dragon resulting in the death of one of our most powerful allies (Glint) and Snaff. Suddenly he’s a lot less vanilla. As far as I know, I don’t even think Kiel was given a back story. Note I said she’s written as a perfect character, not that she’s perfectly written. Flaws are what make characters interesting, not writing flaws but character flaws. Kiel has been in the spotlight longer than any other Living Story character and has had the most opportunities to gives us something interesting and she’s done nothing with it. She’s wasting our time, even if she evolves from here, we had several Living Story chapters where she did nothing interesting. That’s story resources that could have been giving to someone with a personality.

I’m also no a fan of the way GW2 handles female characters. I actually really enjoy female heroines in fiction but Kiel just seems like another “woman can be strong too” character. It often seems like the writers strip away femininity from a character as a way of making them look tough and Guild Wars in general is especially bad at this (it didn’t stop them from making Kiel an attractive human female). It’s just another part of her personality that doesn’t exist.

I suspect the reason Kiel is liked by people is because she is a human female, was the most prominent Living Story character this year and she’s written as a perfect character which usually appeals to the lowest common denominator. The writers are using a lot of clichés in the story (Evon is just as guilty with his cartoon villain portrayal) but Kiel is probably the worst offender because she’s so bland yet so prominent. They give her a lot of the attributes that modern society raises us to respect and admire. Kiel is written as ‘good’ the noun, which makes her ‘good’ the adjective.

good
/go?od/
Adjective
To be desired or approved of.
Noun
That which is morally right; righteousness.

She is not written to be interesting.

Mattargul.9235:

Ok, here is the TL;DR :

Ele mist form use = 0 WXP

You’re welcome!

Yeah, this seems like an oversight. I hope they change that.

I don’t think so. Unless you want to gamble with the Mystic Forge the only progression towards a legendary from badges that I’m aware of is the Gift of Battle.

The rest of your badges can be spent skins (one of the best uses of badges), armour and siege (but it’s so cheap on the TP now).

Yeah, I didn’t see anyone mocking it, but at 1 point each it was an easy experiment. The ability to avoid the clunky design of dumping 15 supply alone is worth it. The increased speed of building anything is awesome. It’s my first two points on every character now.

Commanders also cop a lot of crap. They tend to carry a heavier burden than everyone else so when things don’t go well, a lot of people blame them. One of the more frustrating things for commanders is when the enemy is using a really simple and easy to counter strategy and the commander is trying to get people to rally up and execute it but people are running around panicking and generally not helping. It’s especially frustrating when a commander works hard for several hours (most of the good commanders I know will pull daily 4+ shifts) to accomplish a lot, but loses it because people don’t listen. Bonus points if the commander dropped gold on upgrades. It’s not always the case, but if a commander is going negative, look to what you and your allies are doing (or not doing) to contribute to how he feels.

People get upset with negative commanders, but quite often the same people won’t build siege, won’t defend upgraded towers or camps and won’t drop their own money to upgrade.

The best/most successful commanders I’ve seen always had the backing of their guild. A great commander has guildies who are disciplined and build siege (carry supply), move quickly, follow orders and help create a centre of gravity around the commander to control the zerg. The most successful commanders I’ve seen who accomplish the most and are the most threatening only run when their guild is online. You never see them commanding pugs without a strong backing from their guild, and that’s because commanding is frustrating as hell without reliable followers.

The average pug commander’s day looks like this:

Some commanders lose it and are just negative kittens that probably need to take a break, but a lot of negative commanders are justifiably frustrated with the co-operation they get from people (especially when the alternative is no commander and getting pushed off of the map).

Jinks.2057:

Funny thread since thief is s very weak class 1v1 when both players are skilled.

If you are dying to solo thieves its a lack of skill on your part

Are you saying you can take any zerg build and 1v1 a dedicating and skilled roaming thief and win?

Some builds are just not designed to 1v1. Half of the roaming videos out there show roamers with optimised duelling builds fighting players with full zerg builds, designed for party support and siege tactics.

Leo Paul.1659:

I kinda feel like the whole button system is a weak design. We get so much buttons that last for an hour each, they just take up unnecessary space and serve no real purpose.

I dunno, they need to make the buttons easy to acquire because they are core to the achievements. Making them consumable ensures that people will go and vote. Achievements aren’t really achievements, more like hand holding quests to get you to do the content. They really should have given them a different name, because achievements is misleading.

The design of the buttons is intended to tie into the achievements thus ensuring players vote.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Gasoline.2570:

Just ditch the gameplay that we have in open-world, wvw and pvp and just pump in more minigames! PLEASE!

hmmm but we can’t have that!

those are the core game play.

mini games are … mini games!

I think he’s using sarcasm as a commentary tool on how the Living Story has delivered more mini-games than actual MMO content.

I’ve gotten to the point where I have to check wikis/forums and guides to ensure I don’t miss things in the game. Playing the game isn’t enough any more, you have to research each update to ensure you don’t miss out on things. It’s worse when you consider that the content is temporary and some achievements are time gates (charge the crystals, do x dailies while repping etc). I think it’s a huge mistake to put in dozens of check list mechanics instead of real content which promotes the original goals of the game – exploration and interaction with the world, but even if you accept the check list game design, it’s incredibly difficult to follow sometimes. I might not spend much time looking at my UI in GW2 during combat, but I spend a hell of a lot of time staring at the achievement panel figuring out dailies and whatever the new Living Story check lists are telling me how to play for the month.

There’s a whole lot of bias in your “case study” but I’ll just pick one.

How is Evon extorting money from the players? I don’t like RNG and the pakitteno boxes but the reality is, that’s Crysten Cox not Evon and it’s not extortion, it’s a gamble.

In the real world I think most people would prefer the “good guy” candidate, but in the game, the way ArenaNet writes these white knight Mary Sue characters, it makes me want to barf (Salma from GW1 was just as bad, if not worse and the War in Kryta had the same cartoon villain portrayal of the White Mantle and the Peace Keepers in its writing to contrast with the good Queen Salma). I wanted to uninstall the game at the beginning of Kiel’s candidate trial listening to her Mary Sue dialogue.

Onshidesigns.1069:

aspirine.6852:

Better suggestion is to start buying Gnash support and join the winning team.

Gnash is a vote for more boring Living Stories based on merchants.

Arms dealers are merchants, are you saying arms dealers are boring? Technically Evon is selling weapons to the players every month.

naphack.9346:

So basically, you want to make rangers overpowered.
Hunters shot doesn’t mess with the pet in any way and the pet doesn’t mess with hunters shot either.

What breaks stealth is:
1) autoattack: Don’t use it, if you want to stealth, there will be arrows in the air when you gain stealth and when they hit, you will be visible again.
2) barrage: stealth gained while a barrage rains down typically won’t last long.
3) traps: flame trap, venom trap and spike trap will reveal you.
4) axe bounces, whatever: If you just swapped in, while projectiles of any other weapon are still in the air, they might break your stealth, too.

And why you want axe auto attack to be some glitchy leap, which can not be dodged out of is beyond me.

I think he wants it to be melee, not a glitchy leap.

It does seem bizarre that an attack that took place before stealth would trigger reveal, especially traps. I was aware of it from playing a thief, I just didn’t think about it until now.

Setun.4368:

Conan.8046:

swiftpaw.6397:

To those who want damage- Try melee.

Enjoy.

Rotation = 1111111111111111111111111111111111111

You mean like how shortbow users play? Got it.

At least shortbow users constantly had to strafe to maintain flanking. In PvE the shortbow was actually quite a lot of positioning to flank and line up all your targets so you got multiple hits out of piercing arrows. You may have been spamming Crossfire (not entirely true, but it was the only DPS skill) but there was a great deal of precision positioning built into making the weapon truly effective. This meant that while you didn’t have an interesting skill rotation, you had much more challenge in positioning (something which was very dynamic and had a lot of considerations when you factor in the risk of moving around the battle field too much). This is much worse now due to the limited range, which means you have to be closer to your closest target to be in range of your furthest target. Sometimes that means being in melee range of your targets.

The sword build wants you to maintain flanking for the 10% bonus, but in melee in a fight that lasts less than 20 seconds, that’s not really a big deal.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The Royal Terrace will be a thing, but it’s not the thing you think it is.

Sounds like a gem store/promotional convenience item intended to be used similair to how people currently use WvW. Go there to do all your banking, trading, travelling etc.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

Shiren.9532:

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

Grimwolf.7163:

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

well with so many people seeming to lean evon right now, maybe not. From what i’ve heard in game and on the forums, evon has the lead because of his fractal. People think it’ll be more epic to see the fall of abaddon as opposed to the many possibilities of the thaumanova reactor. They’ve convinced themselves that the thaumanova fractal will suck, even though the people that came up with the ideas for the fractals are more excited about the thaumanova fractal.

If that’s the case then they need to stop being such kittens and tell us why it’s awesome, ‘cause it sounds like crap. They can’t honestly expect many people to vote for it with nothing more to go on than “An Asuran lab blew up!”.

Exactly what i’ve said, you don’t have any frame of reference and have already decided the thaumanova fractal will suck.

The thaumanova reactor is warping the fabric of reality around it, pulling in creatures across space, time, and even other realities. What is powerful enough to do that? Why did it explode? Did it explode? There is no trace of whatever it was. Maybe it just went away and destroyed the lab and whatever it is is still out there.

As a historic event these questions aren’t that interesting. As a progression of the world as it currently exists they are. Solving mysteries of the past doesn’t mean much when we know how it turns out in the end. The weakness of the reactor is that it’s a recent event that doesn’t really have a tangible impact on most of the world – and we can already explore it today. Aside from creatures in random places, it’s fairly irrelevant in the bigger picture. Fractals are limited to replaying past events, they don’t progress the story, they are just cool things that happened and their primary value is visual and gameplay. They are actually poor delivery mechanisms for story, with minimal to no dialogue or story.

The fact that they don’t plan on implementing them both means they have no plans to advance either plot outside of fractals. The primary pull of the reactor isn’t the event itself, it’s the consequences of the event, and that’s not what’s on the table.

The same thing could be said about the abaddon fractal. The event has already taken place and we know the outcome.

From what some anet employees have said on the forums, I assume each fractal will have some effect on the world at large. If we choose the fall of abaddon fractal, we open the gate to a fallen god. If we choose the thaumanova reactor fractal, we open a link to whatever created that energy to every event in the past, present, and future.

I think the thaumanova reactor fractal will have a much longer lasting effect on the world at large.

What I’m saying is an encounter with a god and a war between gods is a guarantee for an awesome visual and gameplay experience. Visually the reactor exists in the game, we’ve seen it so a lot of its appeal is lost on that fact alone. I’m sure they have some cool mobs or partical effects or events that will happen during the fractal, but we have no idea what they are and they are still competing with an actual war between gods. Creatures coming through portals, how can that beat a war between gods on a visual scale?

Yes both fractals are past events, but the primary interest of the reactor is in its story relevance to today’s world. Having it as a fractal does nothing to take advantage of that. The strength of the Abaddon fractal is a visual and epic battle.

Where are you getting that either fractal will have changes in the world today? The gate to Abaddon’s realm is already open, it’s in the Crystal Desert. We opened it and went through it in GW1 (assuming it didn’t close since then). I haven’t read anything from devs saying that we will get anything more than just the fractal itself.

Electro.4173:

So this is a game that’s possible to solo if you abuse the spawns, but next to impossible if you actually try to do it the way its intended (the fact that your award is based on aetherblades killed and not just on gold remaining is a clear indicator that they want you to fight the enemies that spawn, not just the pludnerer’s).

Yah, sounds like a good design to me…

This sums up almost all of GW2 “challenging” content. The best dungeon groups are full melee berzerker builds that kill bosses before they get a chance to be threatening. The healing/tanking side of the game has been nerfed so badly and the dodge mechanic is central to design that the risk vs reward when it comes to berserker builds in PvE is dramatically unbalanced.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

Grimwolf.7163:

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

well with so many people seeming to lean evon right now, maybe not. From what i’ve heard in game and on the forums, evon has the lead because of his fractal. People think it’ll be more epic to see the fall of abaddon as opposed to the many possibilities of the thaumanova reactor. They’ve convinced themselves that the thaumanova fractal will suck, even though the people that came up with the ideas for the fractals are more excited about the thaumanova fractal.

If that’s the case then they need to stop being such kittens and tell us why it’s awesome, ‘cause it sounds like crap. They can’t honestly expect many people to vote for it with nothing more to go on than “An Asuran lab blew up!”.

Exactly what i’ve said, you don’t have any frame of reference and have already decided the thaumanova fractal will suck.

The thaumanova reactor is warping the fabric of reality around it, pulling in creatures across space, time, and even other realities. What is powerful enough to do that? Why did it explode? Did it explode? There is no trace of whatever it was. Maybe it just went away and destroyed the lab and whatever it is is still out there.

As a historic event these questions aren’t that interesting. As a progression of the world as it currently exists they are. Solving mysteries of the past doesn’t mean much when we know how it turns out in the end. The weakness of the reactor is that it’s a recent event that doesn’t really have a tangible impact on most of the world – and we can already explore it today. Aside from creatures in random places, it’s fairly irrelevant in the bigger picture. Fractals are limited to replaying past events, they don’t progress the story, they are just cool things that happened and their primary value is visual and gameplay. They are actually poor delivery mechanisms for story, with minimal to no dialogue or story.

The fact that they don’t plan on implementing them both means they have no plans to advance either plot outside of fractals. The primary pull of the reactor isn’t the event itself, it’s the consequences of the event, and that’s not what’s on the table.

If you are having trouble surviving because you are being stalked by ghosts, swim. They can’t use ground target skills or traps in the water, so aside from having to come back to land occasionally to eat, you are fairly safe if you swim.

So are events completed while under the supporter buff counted towards anything? That’s the most confusing part to me. It seems to track events completed when you have the buff, but as far as I can tell only depositing tokens into the box is a vote.

Vyniea.2054:

I don’t see the problem here.

I… just… how…. what?

Gold out of the economy is gold out of the economy I guess.

This election is all over the place, Kiel is a human female (most popular race/gender combo) that was prominently featured in recent content and has also been portrayed as your typical hero (the path of least resistance favour her). Evon is seen to represent RNG in the store and is portrayed as a shady cartoon villain. He had minimal involvement in the game until the election so he’s unfamiliar and he’s a male charr (probably more popular than a female charr but less popular than a female human). Superficially, Kiel wins this one.

The Abaddon fractal seems to have pulled more passionate support from vocal players, the appeal of a clash between gods seems to be greater than an asuran experiment gone wrong. Abaddon has nostalgia value and plays to lore that GW1 players are familair with. Asura in general are less popular and the Thaumanova Reactor has less mystery because many of us visit it every day. Superficially this probably goes to Evon, but it’s the most subjective one.

Waypoints are a core part of the game and an unknown discount is better than no discount. Black Lion Keys cater to a niche group (although recent changes make them prominent in every patch in the future, they are still a gem item and future value of cheaper keys is probably considerable). We don’t know how much the cheaper keys will save us both in terms of how much individuals may spend in the store to gamble on weapons and in terms of how much increasing the pool of keys increases the pool of weapon skins on the TP. Even if the reality was the majority of players would save between 20-40g by having cheaper keys over cheaper waypoints, there is no way to establish that now, it requires speculation (even if it is strongly supported) and the value of cheaper WPs is certain. You might not ever buy a key, everyone who plays in the four weeks after the election will use a WP. The total amount you spend on WPs in a month is likely minimal. The total amount of money, time and effort you spend attempting to acquire monthly skins is probably far greater. Most players won’t make this connection and this one will likely go to Kiel.

Then it gets even messier when we factor in multiple votes. Who will the grind happy people vote for? Who will the TP flipping people buy votes for? Who will the CoF farmers vote for? The richest people in the game (and the ones who may choose to try and buy the election) will likely vote for Evon. Turning gold into gems and then selling popular skins from tickets could be a viable medium-high end market, especially with a key discount. A gold investment over the next two weeks could pay off big for them in the future. Grinders will probably also choose to vote for Evon. Skin acquisition appeals to these people and reduction in key costs lessens the grind they have to do to acquire more keys and more chances for chests.

The average “Alliance” mentality (Alliance was by far the most popular faction in WoW) probably means the majority of casual players will be voting for Kiel. She’s “attractive”, familair and portrayed as a hero. It all comes down to how many people will take the path of least resistance and how much will they play to do so. Take note that the Living Story achievements for this event were designed in a way which herds players into doing some kind of voting activity, essentially designing it so that players doing the Living Story achievements will be voting multiple times. Rather than allowing the mass of casuals to vote once or twice until they are bored and letting apathy take over, the majority of people will be attempting multiple activities and acquiring multiple votes for whichever side they represent. This creates a situation where the casuals will vote a lot and the competition to buy the election is much harder.

It’s impossible to predict the election, there are too many variables. In that sense ArenaNet has created a very successful in game election. Players care about the results as both sides have offered things that appeal to players in some way or another. It’s probably the most involving Living Story event so far, so it’s been fairly successful on that level (although it’s appeal is not story content, but rather the rewards and influence on fractal design rather than the majority of people caring about the characters and what’s good for Lion’s Arch and the story itself). The election isn’t balanced, I doubt the end result will be close to 50/50, the candidates appeal to wideley different demographics. What we don’t know yet is which of these demographics represents the most votes.

Conan.8046:

Kick the guy with the longbow and keep the guy using auto attacks…this game is screwed lol.

But they are melee auto attacks. Everyone knows melee weapons are harder to use when bosses die in 16 seconds while ranged weapon have to avoid range-hate exclusive mechanics and bosses usually longer than 16 seconds to kill.

The hilarious part about this is a lot of cult of players praising the ranger in CoF right now are doing so on the heels of someone who claims that the longbow has only slightly inferior DPS than the sword (this probably doesn’t factor in the might stacks from sword auto boosting pet DPS slightly). So the guy who claims sword DPS is good is right about that, but in the same thread you guys are going to say longbow builds are garbage?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Player Character.9467:

Zenith.7301:

I know the ranger build, but can anyone link the build the thieves were using? I’ve been having the itch to use my thief but whereas I’ve never been immediately kicked upon joining as a warrior or guardian, joining a speed group as a thief is just winning the lottery with the amount of ignorance surrounding the class’s effectiveness.

I mean, there are tons of people still kittened enough that claim thieves are weak in PvE, when I consider them not only a class rivaling warriors, but with even better utility for the purposes of speed runs and skipping content. I know my 48 dailies on dredge go a lot smoother with a thief, in fact most fractals do.

Playing my thief is just so much more fun than playing a warrior ;*(.

I’d also kill to get a build for berserker ranger that can be used in speed runs/fractal 48 as well.

I mostly play warrior or mesmer or ranger.

Thief requires people smart enough to use fields and blast finishers AKA not most pug speed runs.

Stop trying to speedrun with pugs.

When these threads stop trying to change the pug meta with Build Wars set ups that might happen. For as long as people are heralding highly optimised party builds as meta changing examples of what the classes can do, people will try to speed run with pugs.

If you want to tear down general dungeon running pug builds, do it in a pug. If you want to demonstrate to the speed clearing subset of the community, be clear about the difference.

Miflett.3472:

Everyone is clueless when it comes to why people are upset about longbow. IT’S BECAUSE PvE POWER RANGERS AND WvW RANGERS HAVE TO SHARE THE SAME BOW, AND WANT DIFFERENT THINGS OUT OF IT.

The argument about one being more correct over the other is bullkitten.

Yea let’s make a game where we kitten on PvE builds for the sake of our terrible class design in which the “skill” should have been on how effectively you can control the pet.

This sums up why discussions on the ranger subforum atm are a waste of time. People are talking about two different things as though they are the same thing. Then we have people like the OP and his supports who are generalising all the criticism as senseless because stealth is powerful in PvP despite a large amount of the criticism coming from a PvE platform.

Astral Projections.7320:

Absolutionis.9427:

Shiren.9532:

This is disappointing. Why can’t we just have a guaranteed scrap from the chest?

When the Aetherized Weapons from BLTC reward was first explained, many people thought that you get a super-rare chance at a whole ticket and otherwise a guaranteed scrap. “Finally, Anet got rid of RNG!” we thought after the Kite Fortune system was well-received.

It seems they made it worse in that you get a rare chance at a tenth of a part of the new weapon skins from an item you get with gems.

The question is, how many people actually bought the kite fortune scraps? If very few did as compared to the numbers who buy keys then ANet will go back to the RNG because I bet it makes them more money.

In one of the recent interviews one of the devs said they got a more positive feedback over the Kite thing. It’s not a fair comparison because the only thing the kite scraps give you (as far as I can tell) is one of those ugly helmets. The back items are more easily obtained through the TP. If the kite scrap thing was designed around an exclusive weapon set I could see that getting more favourable feedback.

I think at the end of the day the devs like RNG in the boxes because it promotes more sales beyond the ones you are happy to buy. Dropped 20 bucks and didn’t get what you wanted? Try again. Dropped 10 bucks and got what you wanted? You’re done. At the end of the day, the monetisation team isn’t willing give a guaranteed gem to item progression system. The increased revenue from the RNG system is too appealing for them to abandon it to satisfy player demand.

The monetisation team is drawing the line. Unfortunately they aren’t willing to abandon RNG with that line.

JesseyFranz.8362:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

I’m just making assumptions here, but if we did return to Cantha I suspect it would be a really big deal, way too big to fit under the even largest of tents, or even in an existing city at all.

This sounds very interesting

“We’re losing them! The crowd is turning!”

“Quick, throw out some random reference to the possibility of Canthan content to appease them despite no plans to ever implement it!”

“But we aren’t working on any Canthan stuff…”

“It doesn’t matter, just saying that we haven’t said we won’t is enough.”

Cappy.2786:

Darkmorphos.1530:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

But what you’ll be finding under that tent (very soon) is not Canthan.

When he said ‘very soon’ he might have meant the next update ^^

That looks like a centaur and….are those seraph?

It’s Rox, not a centaur…

The gold plates at the base of the horns, the unusual shape of the horns, the red braids and the skull on the left shoulder. It’s Rox.

Cheaper BLC keys means that every weapon set added to the chest will be cheaper to obtain. If you want to acquire rare weapon skins added to the store, from a financial perspective, Evon is vastly superior.

Either the keys you buy/stockpile under his discount will help you get a skin, or keys purchased by other players will result in skins added to the TP increasing the supply.

If you want an in game argument, Evon might be taking the money, but he’s passing the savings onto the players by reducing the price of his keys and allowing easier access to all the new weapon sets.

It’s not a time machine, it’s a recreation. We won’t see the real gods, just recreations of whatever happened.

What makes any of this different from the average asuran personal story (I haven’t played it, but I heard the steam creatures have something to do with the Infinity Ball)? At no point in the human personal story did we interact with the gods. The Abaddon fractal sounds like it will be as big as the final battle of an epic blockbuster move. A divine disagreement is huge in the world of Tyria. Yet another asuran experiment gone wrong is an every day occurrence.

The fall of Abaddon was a significant event in Tyrian history. We know that because we’ve played through many of the consequences in GW1. If the Thaumanova Reactor is an important event in Tyria history, wouldn’t it make sense that the story would go there at some point? In a world with a Living Story, more personal story on the horizon and some kind of expansion level content, if the Reactor is truly important, they wouldn’t be able to ignore it.

Ursan.7846:

Conan.8046:

I find it funny your all in awe when hes spamming 11111111111111111111. If you find that fun….fair enough.

I feel like you’re completely missing the point here.

This is a proof of concept. That Rangers can contribute to overall team dps competitively to other classes. That the actual mechanical action for most of it involves 1111 is irrelevant.

I don’t want to bump this thread because it’s propaganda and wants to blindly scream “rangers are awesome look at their big numbers” when the reality of the claims doesn’t match up with the theory but I will respond to this.

This proves that rangers can do good DPS in a dungeon path that has been thoroughly documented as being brain dead easy for optimal builds in speed clear groups.

There are three variables that the build used requires:
1) Ranger stays alive while using main hand sword.
2) Pets stay alive during the fights.
3) Spirits are in range of their party to give the buff and they live long enough to give their buff.

There are two foundations the video demonstrates:
1) The content is so easy that the bosses die in seconds and barely put up a fight.
2) The party composition maximises DPS.
Bonus points if:
3) You have a mesmer with feedback for content that has high damage projectiles.

The issues with main hand sword and pet/spirit survivability are well documented. The issue is nonexistent when the bosses melt in seconds and either don’t have any/many dangerous attacks or they die before they get to use them (when you play cheese content). The first factor is present in this video because it’s CoF, this is not a hard dungeon. The second factor is present because it’s an organised group and everyone is running optimal glass builds which break content by brute forcing DPS to kill mobs, so a ranger in a gear check group doing this easy mode path might work but a ranger in a random pug will likely be forced into greatsword or random other weapon or will take a dirt nap. The level of play shown in this video by the rangers is about the same as someone taking on a random veteran giant in Orr to demonstrate DPS (or even a golem in Heart of the Mists seeing as there is very little active combat going on, just auto-attack spam for more DPS on the ranger’s part).

What is the concept here? That under optimal conditions a sword ranger can maximise DPS? I don’t think I’ve seen people complaining about sword DPS before. The concept they aren’t proving is that the sword (and this build) is viable in content that hits back, that the sword (and this build) is viable in a pug (for CoF, it is). Their “concept” is built on the foundation of one of the easiest combat dungeons in the game and with the support of party that is doing enough DPS to kill things before it gets hard. Take away that foundation, and unlike a lot of builds, this build begins to fall apart.

This video is preaching to the speed clear optimised groups that have so far shown the build beating content that hasn’t required much in the way of a dodge. This propaganda machine is getting old. When people start reading the details, the sensationalised thread titles (like this one) don’t match up with their expectations. These guys are good at what they do, but what they don’t do is play the ranger in pugs. If you want to teach people about how awesome the ranger is in pugs, especially if you want to do it with more challenging content, you need to play in pugs in more challenging content. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but there is a big difference between CoF and high level fractals or many other explorable paths.

Zenith.7301:

Shiren.9532:

Zenith.7301:

Valkyrie is plenty viable. My DD ele runs it just fine and so can my guardian.

Toughness isn’t what saves you in a zerg. Blocks/immunities/evades/reflects and water fields do.

Whether you have 1.2 or 2k toughness doesn’t matter, I’ve tested my BM ranger and glass cannon ranger, and if you get rooted/stunned in a zerg and they turn their attention to you you’re dead in seconds regardless.

But you can’t block/evade/reflect and outheal everything in a zerg. You are going to take damage, that’s how it works. Looking at the builds some of the most successful open field combat guilds use in WvW, most of them (at least at what I perceive to be the top tier of play) are running P/V/T gear in addition to blocks/evades/reflects and precision use of water fields and boons.

PVT does no damage whatsoever. The ones usually running PVT are the guardians, but the backline and harassers usually run valkyrie.

Zergs primarily do their damage through might stacking, retaliation and near constantly have fury so the loss from no precision. During open field combat, the backline gets mowed through very quickly when zergs clash and run through each other.

I’ll admit the first time I used it I was confused about the three stacks. I thought I did something wrong. Maybe they tested more stacks and decided that more than three was OP?

Honestly I still don’t like bleeds on the skill so I don’t feel like it was a huge loss, but I’m curious on how powerful the vulnerability is. Does it help keep 25 stacks on a target in a noticeable way?

Chrispy.5641:

Just got to say, Hunter’s Call has pretty much always been that powerful with its ability to apply lots of bleeds if you have the right traits (Sharpened Edges), gear (I recommend Rampager’s or Rabid though there are strengths and weaknesses in both sets of stats), and sigils (Earth). You should also use consumables that extend the duration of your condition damage. There is absolutely nothing new about this.

Also, Other useful skills with a sigil of Earth and Sharpened Edges is Rapid Fire, Barrage, or Whirling Defense. Barrage is by far the best skill to use with it….but Whirling Defense might be better now with the update though because of that Retaliation.

The blast finisher really is that big of a deal. It alone gives you AoE might, Frost Armour or Healing. That plays well in trap builds to give them more tools as well as party support. It’s not that the bleeds are anything new (it’s one of the first PvP builds a lot of players saw) it’s that bringing a warhorn to access Hunter’s Call is now an easier choice because of all the other ways the warhorn interacts with the rest of your build via the blast finisher. Alone the bleeds from Hunter’s Call were fine, it’s the blast finisher and multiple combo fields that take it to a new level.

Leablo.2651:

Well, my Inbox was at 9/10 and thanks to the extra mail bug, I only have one of the letters from the candidates as the second one was permanently lost to the aether when I zoned. Guess which letter I still have?

It’s Evon’s! Well played Anet.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Seriously, fix that bug or stop sending these types of mail that jump the queue and then get auto-deleted. Sooner or later it’s going to start costing people more than a support token. Why play with fire?

I had that bug (and reported it) during the Sky Pirates stuff. I hope they are working on it, because the reliance on mail to tell Living Story is too heavy to allow mail to get lost.

Banquetto.9521:

Letifer.4360:

Your post is really offensive, it’s like saying that people are dumb because they don’t agree with you, I’m voting Evon because of the fractal, couldn’t care less for WP costs or BL Keys.

I didn’t say people who voted for Evon were dumb – I said that people who bought Black Lion Keys were dumb, and that those dumb people would vote for Evon.

Surely you know the old saying – “gambling: a tax on people too dumb to do math” ?

Thing is, it’s not a tax. It’s one of the primary sources of new weapons now. The interesting thing with the BLC changes is that it’s in the best interest of anyone who ever wants a future weapon from the chest to vote for Evon. Even if you don’t personally buy keys, others will buy lots. This will throw a lot more keys into the economy and result in a large boost of the number of new weapon skins going into the economy (because they can be traded). The gamblers will supply the entire game with access to weapon skins, the cheaper the keys are, the more chests will be opened and the greater the supply of new weapon skins.

It’s hard to argue against the practical value of Evon over Kiel once you are informed on everything they offer. Even if you don’t care about the subjective value of two fractals, the financial benefit of Kiel is very likely to be dramatically less than the financial value of Evon. You can stockpile a lifetime of keys in four weeks and utilise them to create a much greater supply of weapon skins in the future (and sell them to players) but you only have four weeks to make use of the reduced WPs. Evon’s long term pay off is very likely to be substantially more valuable to anyone who ever wants to acquire a new weapon skin compared to the amount of money you save from WPs because the average player probably spends less than two or three gold a month on WP costs. I spent over 40 gold last month trying and failing to acquire an RNG item. Now that others can acquire it for me and sell it on the TP (for less money if they have cheaper keys) I can get cheaper guaranteed access to future weapon skins I want. I suspect it’s in the vast majority of player’s best interests to vote in Evon now.