Guild Wars 2

While I can understand why people who switch their looks very often would prefer a charge to unlock model, I think they are overlooking 2 aspects when they try to argue why the charge to unlock would give a larger revenue for the company:

1) Long term investment. The charge to unlock would most likely give them a massive spike in their revenue after the release of the feature. But once everyone is done with their unlocks? Apart from new players or the occasionally added new skin to hunt down their revenue from this aspect would flatline.
The system they chose to go with allows for a long term revenue. Sure we can’t predict the exact lifetime of the game, but I dare predict that this long term revenue will exceed any possible spike the charge to unlock system will generate.

2) Inhibition threshold. Anyone who just wants to alter their look less often will be hard pressed to go for the increased charge to unlock because it would require the equivalent of let’s say 30 trasnmutation just to change your look once. (The example uses 5 charges to unlock and is for a full set of 6 armour pieces. In case it is unclear how I got to the 30 transmutations.)
That is a considerably larger amount of gold/money to invest than 6 charges. So someone who has found a new look and isn’t into changing it very often will certainly be much happier with the charge to change system up to the point where someone like that might decide “It’s not worth all that.” and keep their current looks. Thus making zero revenue compared to the smaller revenue they will get if he has the option to just go with 6 charges.

The additional problem we have is that none of us have numbers on the mindset of the larger playerbase. Both sides argue that “everyone they have spoken to” likes their version better. Both sides argue that the other side might be just a “vocal minority”. But neither of us has actual numbers to back that up especially compared to the number of actually existing players and what their behaviour might entail.
Because how large o a portion of the playerbase have you actually spoken to? And in addition: Isn’t it likely that most people you talk about this will agree with you because you are most likely to discuss something like this with the people you usually play with? People with an alike mindset to yours? So of course in your gaming circle you will find mostly people who agree to your particular point of view.
Those two aspects somewhat diminish the actual value of those statements.

Might be that you get the smallest common denominator for the group. And maybe your warrior with zero gain was guesting somewhere when he entered the instance. If I remember correctly if you guest (or are in an overflow shard) you don’t get any WvW boni.

They said they would be removed from loottables. Does this include gathering plants? Otherwise that might be the best future source for unidentified dyes.
However if the change includes the gathering being removed as a source for unidentified dyes, I sincerely hope they at least add a new mystic forge recipe.

Oh well then, no need to feel sorry I guess. At least on your behalf.

Happy is always better anyway.

dlonie.6547:

lmao. If there’s one thing I hate about rezzing, it’s dodging out of it. I have yet to figure out how to reliably break the rez and GTFO when Bad Things are coming my way.

“Oh, Lupi kitten slapped you across the room, I’ll get you back up!”

“Upps, here come the AoEs. No prob, I got full endurance, I’ll just dodge before it hits.”

“kitten.”

“Mind if I join you on the floor here?”

I had something like this during my last fractal run. I was reviving a dead comrade, when mossman decided to come by for a quick double axe swing. I barely managed to abort and dodge, but our guardian who had joined me half a second earlier to help with the revive took the hit.
After he was back on his feet he graciously decided to leave the reviving to the little thief and keep moosi off my back instead.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

… (as long as it retroactively adds our armors and skins to the wardrobe which I’m still confused about) […]

Tonight, I’m going to buy a few transmutation crystals. I have 135 of them already, but I want to make sure I have enough so that if charges are really expensive, that I have backups.
[…]

As far as I have understood that blog, anything that you have in your inventory that is soulbound or accountbound will be automatically added to your wardrobe. Which means any skins you now posses will be added.
I think the paragraph about the fact that even the original skins from transmuted items will be added [Edit: (within certain limitations)] cleared that up for me.

As for the future cost, I hope they keep the price for the transmutation charges in line with the current trasmutation crystal price.

I was about to post this in the general discussion thread because the wardrobe came up there, but I decided it might be more fitting here.

How do you feel about the wardrobe? While I think it is an incredibly nice feature, there is a sore point about it for me.

Because honestly, the wardrobe makes me feel sorry for Lilith and everyone who bought multiple copies of skins for a large amount of gold and gems. With the new system, that is an incredible loss of recources.
I have multiple copies of gemshop skins and other expensive skins like C3 like I guess most of us here. but I’m fairly certain I’m at the bottom of the “multiple skins” leaderboard. So I’m not that much annoyed by it speaking for myself alone. But I do feel sorry for others.

The only thing about the new wardrobe that bugs me: I’m one of many people who bought multiple copies of the same gemshop skin for different characters/sets. For example my thief owns two statwise different sets of viper armour.
Since transmutation crystals are by far less expensive than a full set of armour skins, the question is, will there be compensation for people who bought multiple copies of gemshop skins?

Edit: Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the addition of the new wardrobe system and the new accountbound dye system.
But this one point still bugs me.

Another (maybe minor) thing: If unidentified dyes are removed from loottables, won’t that make crafting the Bifrost incredibly pricey?
Or will we see the addition of a new reipe for the Mystic forge to create unidentified dyes? The only one I currently know of is with PvP materials, a PvE variant might be needed/much appreciated.

kyubi.3620:

id say it depends on the team you catch… ive never been kicked even once for playing ranger and god knows i use an axe and a warhorn. sometime even my shortbow (slingshot)

Slingshot? As in “ploink ploink ploink”? That would drive me crazy.

I honestly think I might leave agroup with a slingshot user just to keep my sanity intact.

I would so love to get a sentinel or shaman ascended weapon box. I need more blue weapon skins for my guardian.

I still have a magi box on my bank trying to decide which of my twinks needs a white skin the most.

Truth be told, we have little positive to share at this time as well. Though fractal business has been a bit slow on our end the past few weeks and we have only done 5 runs since the update.
We got a couple of infused and uninfused rings, 2 fractal skins and that’s it. Since we can only come up with a total of 25 individual fractal completions, we didn’t think too much of the results in terms of being an adequate sample.

Maybe they are inversed.
So you geht the ascended stuff on the lower levels where you still have to collect gear so you can advance through the tiers.
While this would make halfway sense considering making it easier to gear up for higher levels, it would be completely bonkers to make he higher more difficult tiers less rewarding.

On a more serious note: in the overall picture even, counting all the runs postulated so far in this thread, our sample size still is kinda small-ish speaking from a scientific point of view. Plus all those who are happy with their new fantastic shinies are less likely to post here, because for some reason people seem to be less vocal with praise than with complaints.
Without more samples including positives it’s tricky to deduce anything really conclusive yet.

Grene Jello.4651:

Regarding the daily reward chest are we still getting that pop up window at the end that contains the ascended rewards, similar to the window we get at the end of a normal dungeon run?

I ask as its been months since I ran any fractals, and wondering if the reward screen/window has changed.

I’m was level 33 when before my first run today, I completed a level 49, then completed a level 38. I’m now at level 35. Both runs today I didn’t get that window pop up after the end of the last boss. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get the 1 gold or so reward as well.

I’m wondering this is a bug, am I not getting my daily rewards, or did Anet just remove that old screen?

Anyone else experiencing the same thing?

Nothing on both runs seems off. You should have gotten one daily chest at the end of your 49 run.
And to answer your question more precisely: You still get the daily little popup chest that opens into a small yellow underlayed window where it gives you your relics, fragments and possibly fractal skins, rings weapon/armour chests (if you’re lucky).

Of course you would only get one end chest due to the fact that the 49 exceeded your maximum personal reward tier and thus it was counted as another 31-40 for you.
Are you certain that you didn’t finish another 31+ fractal the same day? Maybe shortly after reset or something similar?

Try playing drunk, like they suggested in another thread.
The impediment to reaction time and the fact that you start considering things funny even if they are not might help.

On “not matching” underwear colours: They seem to have a tendency to be linked to the second colour of an item when counting the colour squares from top left to bottom right.

And if you’re asking “why the hell does anyone try and figure out something like that?”:
I stumbled across that little nugget the first time when I tried to figure out what the hell I’m colouring with the bottom left (second) colour choice of the Norn C2 heavy on a female character. FYI it is the slip. And only the slip in that particular case.

deSade.9437:

That’s surely a polite way of saying I’m dumb O.o
The damage loss increases dramatically if you take into account the buffs that a decent zerker player with a full zerk party will have. There’s a thread about this on the general discussion… I’ll have to redo the entire reasoning from the beginning to check if he kitten ed somewhere but too lazy to do it atm.

Um, not really, no. More like a way of saying that I didn’t read that particular thread and that I forgot to consider scaling when you take buffs into consideration. And expressing general curiosity at what I might have overlooked.
I could blame the amount of alcohol I consumed yesterday for overlooking that (or general stupidity on my behalf). I do however blame it on the alcohol that my choice of words was probably a bit unclear as to what I actually meant.

I apologize if I offended you. That was never my intention.

I am constantly amazed and impressed how calm and reasonable DigitalKirin can stay at times that simply have to feel like talking to a wall (and more often than not a wall that displays insulting graffiti).

Edit: I just read a certain thread in the general discussion forum, that’s why I felt the need to mention this.

I fail to see the problem with legit path selling as well. It’s a rendition of services like any other.
If you don’t feel the need for that particular service, don’t buy. Problem solved.

The 10% is, if I read it right, soley from the loss of some critical damage modifier.
The fact that you lose more damge because you can’t stack bloodlust and then switch weapons reduces damage further. I guess that is partially what deSade referred to. Although that alone won’t make an additional 10% difference I believe (though admittedly I don’t have any numbers to confirm this presumption). But maybe we overlooked something else he has noticed.

An interesting question might be, wether they will make the retraiting for different encounters “mandatory” opposed to simple “optimisation”.
Although I stated this overly simplistic it still opens up room for thought. Will we for example see more things like the husks in the three-headed wurm encounter?
Small note for those unfamiliar with the encounter: The husks are highly resistant to any form of direct damage which gives conditions room to work their magic.

As I said “mandatory” is actually a too strong word maybe, but I think you get the idea.
The only problem then might be that retraiting alone won’t be that effective without the proper gear. And that could open a whole new can of worms like in “lf 1 necro must be able to respec/gear for condi for boss x” or similar nuggets.

Those are incredible xsquared. I had tears in my eyes from laughing.

I don’t think Vethrfonir is that much off with his opinion. In a pug, even if you try to advertise properly, you usually have little to no idea what you will end up with in regards to team composition and individual gear/build/skill.
So if you pug a lot I can understand to opt for more sustain and a smoother run at the expense of some speed.
Plus, if you have a group that can’t pull off the meta tactics and some of the skips because they lack in the knowledge/skill/build/gear-whatever department, you are quite often actually faster with a sub-optimal setup (compared to a full meta/speedrun setup) because you have less wipes and/or waiting until everyone has made the skips. Or if you have to wait for your group to fill up with people that actually meet your requirements. (Granted, I have little comparison in that regard since I usually only do nondescript free for all pugs if I pug. So I might be wrong about the wait.)

It is of course an entirely different matter if you are usually running with an organized crowd that runs the meta.

Edit: Corrected a Typo in the wrong way wich gave a sentence the entirely wrong meaning. Corrected again.

Edit 2: I felt the need to elaborate a bit what I meant about sub-optimal setup. What I’m talking about is something like using obals fractal hammer build in a normal dungeon in the 15/15/0/20/20 variant. Usually the defensive parameters are overkill for a normal dungeon in an organized group. But in a pug they can carry the day if necessary. Another (though more “selfish”) example would be running the 25/30/0/15/0 variant for a thief. I’ve lost count how often the endurance return has saved my sorry behind.

Well, strictly speaking, to me “zerker only” means exactly that. Full berserker equipment (meaning armour, weapons and trinkets), but nothing more. Maybe with a slight exception for the back-slot item given that this is the most “complicated” when it comes to obtaining exotic+ grade berserker stats. (Although you can get a green one from your personal story, if I remember correctly.)
Anything else like scholar runes or meta traiting could be considered “implied”, but that’s basically it. It is, at best, implied, but not asked for. Add in scholar and meta requirements and you could expect the whole package. Could expect. As was already stated, people don’t seem to read the lfg tags that well… or at all.

If we factor in communication, then someone joining and asking if ruby orbs, some parts knight equpment or anything similar is acceptable in a reasonable way because they’re still learning the ropes or something like that, I don’t think I would mind that much.
I can however understand if someone doesn’t want that person in their group if they are aiming for a speedrun instead of a semi-educational one. So it basically would come down to wether “speedrun” was advocated and personal preference/ available time/mood at the moment, I guess.

Small note: I mostly wrote for normal dungeons and maybe low level fractals. Given the time high level fractals require I think any kinks should be worked out via communication before the start. But I think most of the above would still apply.

Honestly, I would take slight offense at your choice of words. Implying something is not done “normally” by someone usually does little to endear themselves to you or your proposals. Because it can easily be interpreted as condescending.
Either way of doing it is “normal” in the sense that they are both viable approaches with different pros and cons.
I wouldn’t have minded giving it a shot even with your choice of words, but I’d still feel some slight amount of resentment.

Other than that – as I said already – I see what you did as a viable try to make things work better. If stacking does not work for whatever reasons trying a different approach is totally feasible in my book and trying to force something that doesn’t seem to work is either being stubborn or stupid.
There’s one exception however. Basically if you’re trying to learn a specific tactic some stubborness is mandatory. But something like that shouldn’t be forced upon someone who joined a pug unless it is agreed upon before the run starts and preferably already advertised in the lfg tag.

Edit: Typos

I actually liked where dutchiez and timmyf where going.
Their idea to keep the lower levels for those who just want to have seen everything experienced all lore and similar, and the higher levels for those who actually want content that taxes their gaming skills.
And that the scaling should not just include higher damage and HP on the mob’s side but new abilities and encounter mechanics to actually increase difficulty in an interesting way.

DigitalKirin.9714:

Totally offtopic, but dun report meh! I just feel more comfy posting for my fellow dungeon subforumers than the general discussion. >.>;

http://youtu.be/TPDQS61189w

My guild playing QuagganBALL.

This reminds me of the Asura ball videos (loved those as well). Though in your case it’s much easier to organize because you don’t need a “friendly” Asura from an opposing server to be the ball in WvW.
Very nice to watch. I especially like your “intelligent ball”-idea where the ball tries to get back to the centre of the playing field.

I really liked Lilith’s idea about player controlled siege engines for the urban battlegrounds fractal. Could even replace the charr npc warband if implemented right and eliminate the AI dependency in that case.

Does anyone have a nice idea for shoes that go well with the phoenix leg skin on a human female? Pretty please?
The phoenix shoes come out too bulky for my taste.
I tried the temple slippers but since the stockings of the phoenix leg armour don’t cover the feet, the small gap looks a bit off. Same with the human C2 boots. I rather like them, but they still do look a bit off with the armour because they come up slightly too high.

As I said, the burrows are only a problem for an entire team of newbies. In that case you can have the problem of 5 people without a single power build (including gear choice in build here). Or what resembles a power build at the lower levels.
In such a case however, they an be a nightmare.
How likely that is to happen is another thing, I agree. I don’t know how many beginners only group venture there these days.

The lightning bars stay unfriendly as far as I can tell from the burn holes in my back. It might be due to the detonation aspect if they connect.
Either that or I dodged the wrong lightning bar because I got confused in the mass of shiny things. And this was not the first time this happend to me.
Anyway we had a good laugh, the entire group including me. Next time maybe I can have my revenge if I’m on my guardian.

Edit: Typos.

I don’t pug fractals either, but we tend to have rather weird character combinations due to AR limitations, personal preferences professionwise and a limited playerpool in general.
Even so, relogging for the bomb part is not an issue, but people still hate dredge because of the tedious aspects and timesink it represents.
We don’t have had that much luck with drops yet but we usually start a cmpetition about who get’s the most mist shards and/or miner’s bags.
So far I hold the record for shards in my group with a whooping 7 from a single dredge fractal.
Our miner’s bags record is held by a guardian with 86.

Don’t you just love it if a mesmer places a temporal curtain at the bottom of the lighning stairs in the uncategorized fractal forgetting they have focus traited? While you are already halfway up?
Challenge mode initiated.

I’d like to chime in one point. I think most of us can agree that a heavy hitting attack requires some sort of telegraph. In most cases it doesn’t have to be a giant blinking neon sign above the enemy and it doesn’t have to be 3+ seconds long. In the latter case dodging actually can be tricky because you might dodge to early because anticipation gets the better (or worse) of you, but still.

Anyway, to give 2 similar examples: the pull on Kohler and Alphard.
Kohler has a clear tell that is the equivalent of someone screaming in your face. And I actually think this is good because Kohler is in the very first explorable mode we visit when we are new to the game. So the tell has to be a little more obvious. I mean he’s standing there blinking like a christmas tree no longer attacking. If that isn’t a sign that whatever follows up will hurt if it connects I don’t know what is.

Alphard’s tell is nowhere near as obvious as Kohler’s but it is still clearly there. And again, I think this is a good thing. Alphard resides in the very last exploration mode we get to visit (not counting that it’s path 2 instead of 4, but it’s Arah either way).
By that point you can expect people to have gaine the experience ingame to deal with a shorter less prominent tell.

The main problem I have with these animated tells is, that they can be drowned in an effect storm. Even Kohler can be moderately tricky to see if a guardian set him on fire. If I could reduce the particle density of all the shiny lights, that would help immensely. The other option is to create a telegraph that isn’t affected by the effect storm.
Other than the giant neon sign however, the only other idea I can come up with is an auditive signal, maybe even a line of text that is displayed in the chat.
They did something like that for the soft enrage on the molten duo, so I guess the idea is not too farfetched.

@ Kirin: I’d go with the left one.
The right one looks too clothlike/skimpy compared to the rest which looks heavily armoured.

Honestly, I was 80 already with my thief as well when I realized that 5 duration ticks is the max for stealth.
I had talked my group into a weird experiment in CoE1 to do the console not 1-1-3 or 1-4 but all 5 at once. Thought I could get enough stealth together to last us long enough to pull this off. wondered why the duration seemed to be capped. Well live and learn.
At least I can use the excuse that thief wasn’t my main. I hope.

As for underground: haven’t had that one in a while (yay!). But it’s always the same in the TS. You can always hear someone recite the mantra during the loading screen: Not dredge! Not dredge! Not dredge!

I think he refers to the player audience, not to the characters.

Also: mixed salad is yummy.

Edit: To clarify what I’m adressing:

[…]

AC is easy, even clerics can take out the burrows. If a pug is doing badly at the burrows because of dps its because they are either condition builds (as in bad) or a set that is somehow not condition and not power (also known at grade A suck). That right there means the encounter is a good training for players: Conditions suck and you should have power in your build.

Which honestly is a reason for me to keep advocating a rework of the condition system not only in regard to general problems it has but in regard to objects as well.
I’m aware this would require a ton of balancing, but for the love of god at least let them affect objects. Give those oojects a resistance to condition damage maybe like AR works against agony for all I care, but make them do something.

AC is flagged as a lvl 35 zone. Someone new to the game hitting a brick wall because he uses level appropriate condition (or whatever) gear because he has no notion about the direct damage problem yet is not a good variant of a training ground. It’s disheartening in the extreme in some cases.
I remember my first AC explorable experience a few weeks after launch. We had 2 condi-thieves, a healing power guardian, a dual bow spider/bear ranger and a twin dagger elementalist. Our levels ranged from 35 to mid fifties. Defending Hodgins was a nightmare. Granted the obstructed bug the burrows had at the time did its part, but back then we knew little to nothing about how useless healing power or conditions in many cases in pve were.
We beat the encounter after a lot of attempts but at least one of our thieves was like “never again”.
I don’t mind a steep learning curve or having to learn an encounter in order to beat it. But if the problem is hidden inside game mechanics opposed as to encounter mechanics, the learning can be a mite tricky.
That’s why I liked Kohler much better. Once you get the hang of the pull mechanic, you can beat him. It is an encounter mechanic. Not a game mechanic.

Sorry, my bad. I usually call southsun survival hunger games because it reminds me so much of that.
I thought the joke would be more prominent. Back to the drawing board it is.

Don’t you mean southsun survival?

deSade.9437:

[…]
I never play my warrior, should I “transfer” her fractal axe on my ranger?

Why not if you really don’t ever use her.
For the same reason my cute little asura necro is almost entirely in acceptable placeholders instead some of the skins I’d like to use for her. Since she soley exists in a parking orbit around a jp chest, I can’t get myself to spend a lot of gold on skins for her. (Never got the hang of playing necro, that’s why she’s retired.)

I’d love to get a second axe or a mace skin. Then I’d actually use them on my warrior. But until then I’ll refrain from even using the one I got because I have nothing fitting as a counterpart.
Guildmate of mine got his fourth or fith longbow recently. He’s still waiting for even a single sword though if I remember correctly. The entire system ist just too… randomized.
I still hope they introduce fractal skins for pristine relics or a way to trade unwanted skins for those you’re actually trying to get. Even with a two to one ratio or something like that. anyway, lots and lots of topics adressing that problem around already.

Also, I won’t tell you how many fractal sword skins I have out of fear of being lynched.

I considered the quiver for my norn rangerette as well but in the end decided to go with the ascended.
Now I only have to justify to myself having a rather expensive quiver on her back when most of the time she doesn’t even use a bow.

And the fashion police strikes again with advertisement for… is that a devourer you’re selling there?
Is selling livestock permitted here? Do you have a licence for that?

The quiver is nice, but a bit too bulky for my taste. And the devourer bow is weird. Funny, but weird.
But then I’m known for my boring taste in armor and weapon styles, so that’s just my personal opinion.

That is something I really like about sylvari cultural armor. A lot of it looks like it is a grown extension fo the body instead of a worn piece of clothing.

It intrigues me that given how this thread started it has evolved into an actual civilised discussion that I like to follow.
Does this mean any thread about this topic will always end up the opposite of the spirit in which it was originally posted? If so, then maybe we need more threads that start out as the equivalent of a barrel of kerosene and a box of matches.

I like the one about the firstborn son actually. In a humorous kind of way.
And how there is a thief in a group that says no thieves.

The rest of said wall of text.

It might be of interest that I fall into the “play how you want” group of players. But to me that includes acknowledging that if others don’t wish to play the way I do, I shouldn’t group with them.
If i’m not in the mood to go speedrunning, I don’t join a group that is flagged as such. If I am in the mood, I make sure I fullfill their requirements.
In addition, I recognize that the meta playstyle is the most efficient and that going there to see how far you can push yourself, your character and your group can be a fun experience.
It isn’t for everyone though and it isn’t always for me either. In any case, I look for what I want to do with my spare time at the moment and go from there. That in no way however will entitle me to try and dictate how someone else should play or what they should consider fun.
But before someone interprets this paragraph wrong: If someone creates a group and clearly states what they want to do with said group – be it meta speed or rp or explore every nook and cranny because new to the dungeon or simply because people like the feel of it – it is well in their right to dictate how that particular group will play. But as it is tagged properly if I’m not interested in that, I simply won’t join. Problem solved.

I would like if some builds and weapon choices became more feasible in PVE especially in regard to conditions. But since we almost entirely use the same skills in any of the three game modes – pve, pvp and wvw – it will always mean that some gear options and builds will excel in certain game modes and be subpar in others.

As a last point: If more challenging small group content aka dungeons were implemented I firmly belief there will be people able to do those in meta/zerker setups once they’ve gained enough axperience at that content. And they should be. The game has a setup with a lot of active defense in a non dynamic environment as PVE (non dynamic compared to pvp for example, because no matter how good an AI, it currently can’t compete with an actual human when it comes to adaption and improvisation). And that setup should always, always allow players with the necessary skill and knowledge about the encounter to eliminate stats that do only one thing in this case: provide room for error.

Sorry for the length. Went way overboard there. but couldn’t find anything where I wanted to cut corners. Inserted a warning at the top.
Can’t really find a short tl; dr either without leaving something out. My bad.

Edit: Where did the post about the Ls zerk thing go I reffered to? Should have quoted.

Edit: Killed the first paragraph because the post I referred to is… gone. And I stupidly didn’t quote.

Anyway back to the actual problem at hand. Warning: Wall of text incoming. Also: Couldn’t think of a good tl; dr so feel free to skip. You were warned.

One thing that always intrigues me, is that a lot of people still seem to think support equals healing.
It doesn’t. Especially not in a game where the personal healing a character has from healing skills far surpasses whatever healing a character can provide to his teammates.
Damage negation is a much more feasible defensive support option in a setup like this and aside from protection most of those damage negation options in the game are from active skill use. Yes, protection usually requires active skill use as well to acivate, but it usually requires less accurate timing than a dodge, or block for example.
Having said that, there is a ton of effensive support as well. Support isn’t always defensive in nature. Utlimately it might be considered defensive again, because the more offensive support the shorter the fight will be, which in return is sort of defensive because you can end the fight before you run out of other defensive options.

It’s been said a ton of times already but defensive stats in the pve-gaming mode are a way to negate a mistake in active defense to some degree. With some attacks even that won’t help you but there are enough attacks out there where toughness and vitality might keep you on your feet after a botched dodge. And healing power might get you faster back to the point when you can botch another dodge.
But isn’t actually getting the dodge right more rewarding and interesting? For me it is, but maybe there are different schools of thought.

An example from personal experience. If you’re not interested, skip the next paragraph.
I happen to posses a full zerker meta build thief. But when I pug or do high level fractals I usually opt for more hybridized equipment and traits. Why?
In the case of a normal dungeon pug I susually go with nondescript parties, meaning I can get any and all builds/professions/skill levels (which I’m fine with btw. as long as the lfg tag didn’t state specific requirements). That means I have no way to tell how fast any given encounter will resolved or on how much active defense I can count from my fellow players. So I opt for more room of error and greater sustain.
High level fractals is a bit different. In that case I don’t pug those, but I divert from an all out damage build because I’m simply not good enough with my thief to pull it off in a full zerker/max dps build-setup.
As I get better, I will progressively replace the hybrid parts with more offense. Until I’m there, I will go with more hybrid equipment and traits because until I am good enough I’m more of a liability to my team than helping then if I faceplant every five steps (slightly exaggerating here).

Another point is: People very often equalise “zerk equipment” with an offensive build. While in a lot of cases this may be true, it shouldn’t be used synonymously. You can gear with berserker and still trait for support. A good example is Obal’s fractal hammer build for guardians. There are damage elements in there, but the 20 points in honor are purely for defensive/support measures. Still the build works mighty fine in full berserker equipment (not discussing here that for guardians assassin might be more viable), but it nevertheless is a support build using defensive and offensive support traits for maximum group benefit at the expense of personal dmg maximisation.

Continued below because, well, wall of text…

The immersion problem I can relate to. For some reason or another I had turned my back to Scarlett just as the cutscene started. Spent the entire scene facing away from here.
At some point I gave up hope of me being realigned and started to believe my character was punishing Scarlett with indifference. Of course then I had to ask myself, why I went there in the first place.

That aside, I have to admit I liked the scene.However I’m still waiting for Rox to realize that she already has a warband, sort of. Ableit one with a curious lack of Charr.

Honestly? Her not being accepted into the warband is actually better for her because she already has a warband. It just doesn’t consist of Charr.
I admit it’s a bit cliché but it’s fitting for her. And to pile on more cliché: she actually might realize what I said in the first paragraph and actually decline Rytlock’s offer when it comes.