Guild Wars 2

Guys relax. There are still more than 11 hours left of the 28th (PST), so don’t set your expectations high between now and then. When it arrives you can kitten about AoE nerfs.

This is interesting. I’m going to use your latest data (600+ entries) to do a simple calculation.

From the first chart it appears about 32% of respondents play PvP to any extent.
Of this population only 11.31+11.53=22.84% play structured PvP to any extent (data from chart 3).

If you report this back to the entire respondent base it appears that only 32 × 0.228 = 7.3% of them play structured PvP.

I will rephrase for clarity: only 7.3% of all survey participants play structured PvP to any extent

Will the devs be so kind as to compare this to their internal data? Would be cool.

In GW1 I had at least 20 different builds saved on my mesmer alone. Some for farming, some for HM, alliance battle, dungeons, etc etc.

GW2 can’t possibly have as many different builds for a profession, but I’d still like to swap between 2 or 3 setups.

I’d like to know if this is being considered for implementation.

Well, as a guild leader of ~35 people, I find it very hard to attract new members en masse. People are very skeptical of why they should join your guild and usually they assume you just want their influence contribution.

I have since given up on inviting new blood. I gave everyone the power to invite and promote up to their tier, but few are recruiting.

At the core, we have a 10+ group of old friends from our bigger GW1 guild (100+) which I led back in the days (many didn’t buy GW2 or have given up on gaming), so i just enjoy the company of my friends. I admit, we do have a few new friends that have stuck with the guild, not because of what we do, but because we get along very well.

Growing the guild has become too much of a hassle because of non-representation, people that go inactive for months, etc.

I wish we had the option to set the guild on “always represent”, so that peeps who don’t want to represent, might as well leave.

PS: I forgot to say it’d be nice to have the ‘Guesting’ feature for guilds, to allow people to have a sense of what the guild is like without having to commit. Or just people who want to join for a few days to do events together. We have a guild forum and a Steam group that are about 5 years old now, so I do provide the means for people to stay in touch outside of GW.

OK. I’ve decided to give rifle another chance once I hit 80. But I will be using a simple rare rifle until I get my bearings. Because testing builds on dummy golems is far from optimal.

If I still don’t like the rifle builds then I’m selling the ‘charrzooka’.

Right now I run a pistol/pistol build that does the job with bomb kit for aoe melee. This build is geared for PvE and it packs a bit of survivability through 2400 armor and the quick reloading F1 heal. I use cripple + blowout to dance around 1-2 mobs and bombkit’s blind + confusion to take out 3-5 melee mobs.
(copy/paste: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcIQJAqal0pCtX8ynF17IxIFkuzgeo38y3PKkbaB;T0AZVCokUpuSZF1UmpETZnyNlcqxCTCA)

So the rifle has to best that combination.

Note that I generally dislike glass cannon builds because they are weak in tight places or dungeons.

I really like how it looks. But I also hate clipping.

@ elitegamerz – I play mostly PvE on engineer. And targets seem to have higher armor there. (in dungeons, at least). Can you balance out some survivability and hit above 1k crit?

@ Medazolam – what utilities do you use? how many points do you have in firearms?

thanks

I went to the mists and tried a build in max exotic gear. Full power, precision (49% crit chance) and I was doing 550 dmg (850 crit) to heavy golems.
I had about 2000 armor which is probably the definition of glass cannon.

But this still seems quite weak compared to other classes.

I don’t know. I’m going to test it some more in the mist. Hope I can find a balance with it, because I don’t like it right now.

Hello fellow engineers.
The reason I made an engie not long ago was to be able to use rifles in this game. I thought it would be a much more interesting profession than a warrior. (plus I already have a guardian to hack and slash in melee).

However, after many attempts of using rifle build strategies during leveling, I was sorely disappointed by their lack of damage and mixed utility (they are not excelling at either range, mid or close combat). Considering the fact that I often swap to a bomb kit to get out of melee fights, the role of the main hand rifle feels even more diminished.

In short, all my attempts at making a decent rifle build have failed because it felt so underpowered (and it’s utility did not make up for the petty damage).

Recently I was lucky to get a “Charrzooka” rifle drop doing fractals (I know, totally unexpected). And now I’m really confused if I should soulbind it to my engineer or sell the rifle (no, I’m not rolling a warrior any time soon).

Is there a rifle build that is good for general PvE + Dungeons? Or should I just sell the ‘charrzooka’ and forget about wasting it on an engineer?

PS: Do you think elixirs make the best combination with rifles? Something like explosives (20)/ firearms (30) / alchemy (20)?

Agrios.1957:

Getting disconnected a lot since yesterday..

I cant complete the mission “Forging the Pact (62)” because of it.

The mish starts fine, then a bit of lag starts…then the lag turns into to rubberbanding..and then…it totally stops responding…and after a few seconds of anxiety and panic…i get kicked.

Plz someone nail this..its getting pretty frustrating.

My server is Stormbluff Isle.

I’m getting the exact same error. I can’t complete ‘Forging the Pact’ mission because it starts lagging and eventually it kicks me. I have tried twice with the same results. Elsewhere in the game it works fine. Even between the two trial missions I played on several other maps and it was fine.

I only have a lvl 42 engie, but I already see some big issues:

In no particular order:
i) The random effect of certain skills has to go. It’s just wrong. (many have explained above)

ii) I’d like to see more condition removal skills, for builds that don’t rely on elixirs

iii) Gadget skills that break stun are very awkward. Rocket boots – can take you out of a mess and land you in another (self inflicted knockdown in aoe). Utility goggles – give fury when you want to escape (usual case for a stun breaker); a better function would be to give swiftness or stability.

iv) the rifle (overcharged shot) self-inflicted knockback is a serious drawback. As a comparison, the ranger has a similar longbow skill that only launches the enemy. It would be much more appropriate for the engie too.

iv) the rifle (jump shot) is confusing as well. For maximum effect the skill is used as a ‘stationary’ jump (i.e. jump and land on the same mob). This probably goes against the intended effect. A more useful effect in my opinion would be to have the skill function like rocket boots (immediate jump back without ground targeting with combo finisher effect).

There are more issues to be addressed but I’ll leave it to others.

I also tried rifle when I started my engie and had great plans for it. But I ran into the same problems you are describing. If you want to stick to the rifle, I found that an explosive kit helps in melee (I like bombs over grenades). However, soon I realized that pistol/pistol has more synergy with explosives and condition damage.

I believe the rifle was made to work better with turrets.

I’m not an expert in engie, but would it be better to use dual pistols with so much condition damage?

As a comparison, my build is using something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcIQJAqal0pCtX8ynF17IxIFkuzgeo38y3PKkbaB;TwAgyyrEWJtSdlyKqpMTJmyOlbK5UA

I tested it on dummy golems as I am still only lvl 33, but it seemed to work well.

I like the bomb kit.
I pull a few melee mobs, then proceed to 4 (blind) -> 3 (confusion) -> 2 (burning) -> 1 1 1 1 1
Works quite well when you get ambushed in tight places.
Skill 5 (glue bomb) is very handy for a getway. Just drop it at your feet and your pursuers get left in the mud).

I combined the bomb kit with dual pistols eventually because they have (almost) mirror skills and are easy to remember and I’m buffing condition damage for both.

However, I found few useful traits for that kit, except the range and recharge traits in ‘explosives’.

EDIT: Bombs are also good if you are overpowered by mobs. Run circles and drop bombs behind you for random hits. Sometimes it works.

@ Sporadicus: – So the engie is the master of all spam? And what is the point of cycling through 3 kits to unload all the skills if they don’t do more damage per second than the warrior autoattack?

You can only get one buff up to 25 stacks. The others get ignored. (if you have multiple buff sigils, first to get activavted takes priority and the other won’t count anymore).
I personally switched from using the rifle to a dual pistol configuration. I’m putting a condition sigil on the main hand pistol and a sigil of accuracy (+5% crit chance) on the offhand pistol because it is a permanent passive stat increase.

@binidj, Phuriocity – thanks for the tips. I meant to ask about ‘Hidden pistol’. Too bad it is not a stun breaker. Even in PvE that becomes very useful when you get knocked down. I’ll try the goggles and the hidden pistol (and drop the throw mine for now because I don’t like the toolbelt skill it has). The third utility will be either a toolkit or bombkit.
Again, thanks all for the suggestions.

@Raideen – that is a sad state of affairs. The reason I made an engineer was for the use of rifles cause they have cool skins.

On a parenthesis to what’s being discussed here, I just want to point out that the engineer is the most difficult class I had to level up so far. (granted, I haven’t tried ele or mesmer).

It is a lot of fun, I’ll give it that, but just compared to other classes I had been struggling in a number of situations (solo vs. some veterans or multiple mob respawns).
However, this is my personal opinion and I’m not the class balance expert.

Good points. The turret works well for up to three targets. However, I found that facing more than 4 targets I need to pull out some more serious melee-range aoe. I will consider bombs and the flamethrower.

@Penguin. – I don’t have much experience with engineer, but just looking at wiki, I think some specialized engie skills are pretty bad unless you trait them heavily. I tried using a turret at low level but it died pretty fast almost every time I used it. (except when I was part of a pve zerg and I wasn’t targetted). I’ll give it a try though, as I still have plenty of skills to unlock.

As a comparison, a necro minion master is also fairly week without a full trait on minions. Then, if used in large quantities they become great.

The tool kit might be a good melee swap weapon, but again, I won’t have traits for it because they’re all invested in gadgets and rifle. However, the flamthrower is traited in the line with the rifle and might be my melee alternative.

Thanks for the suggestions

@Mike.T – thanks for the suggestion but I’d rather not use grenades (ground targeted skills are extra work for me). Spamming them is a nightmare.

@Kimbald – these are some great tips. I will look for medic kit synergies with runes/sigils. I think I will test both the flamethrower and the ‘throw mine’ combos.

I looked over the trait lines and I think I will test a pure rifle build (with high crit. chance) combined with 3 gadgets and maybe a charr racial elite.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcIQFAUl0pqd37ylFq9IyoHc2EuZhUYf3HIF5lfB;T4AA2yrEQJtS9lyLqiMFJKyWkrIZRjSORA (copy-paste link)

The build looks something like this: 0/20/20/0/30; around 3000 attack & 52% crit chance and ~2500 armor with ~ 24000 HP. I’m not sure if the build editor calculates these things correctly. Condition removal is done on critical hit during fights, and with the med kit during retreat.

The build might suck, but I’m willing to give it a try. The motivation is to use the rifle as the main weapon since only engie and warriors can use it (and I’m not making a warrior any time soon).

I wouldn’t step in WvW if not for the monthly achievement. I don’t care for tactics or whatever, I just get my 50 kills with the zerg and beam out.
Oh and I also wonder in WvW for the world completion. I just get my objectives and I’m out. It’s not my fault they included WvW in world completion. I honestly have no interest in this format.

The fact that WvW gives PvE bonus is stupid. I don’t care for that bonus. PvE world events should give PvE-wide bonus.

@Kimbald & Clip: I can’t wait to get my hands on the flamethrower then.
Normally, even in PvE I like to have a good range of utilities such as stun break, an escape skill and an additional regen/heal/condition removal.

Rifle is great for single target so I’d benefit from something AoE. I understand grenades are very popular, but I have the same playstyle on my staff necro (with 4 marks and minion bombs) so I’m looking for something different. I tried the mines and they complement the rifle nicely with the knockback. Plus they don’t change my weapon skills so I can still use my rifle while kiting (btw, kiting with grenades is a lot harder since I play on a laptop).

So from what you guys are telling me I’m going to try out the:
goggles – stun break
rocket boots or slick shoes – escape skill
flamethrower – extra aoe ??

Hi all, I’ve read through the forum and I’m a bit confused about building a decent engineer toon using the rifle as the mail weapon.

I am at level 8 and at this point I noticed:

- potions are the easiest to use, however they don’t fit with the thematic of iron legion charr (I’d be more inclined towards gadgets, etc)

- turrets are ok-ish (too fragile), but I have a minion-master necro which is like mobile turret build => I don’t want to use turrets.

- grenades kit is ok => a little underpowered and in pve the range benefit is null because I’m always in melee range. I wonder if mines would be more appropriate for aoe damage.

- the medic kit if very very confusing and hard to use when on the run/kiting (but I like it for the F1 heal and the speed buff outside combat).

1. So, is it viable to have a build based on rifle (main damage source), spec’ed in precision for additional crit daamge?
2. What would be the utilities for a rifle build? Remember, I’d rather not use potions or turrets.
3. How is the survivability of such a class? And how can I improve it (what should I buff between toughness, vit, healing power?)

Thank you in advance for all the suggestions.

This is the more or less the build I’m aiming for with my minion master. I’m not yet at lvl 80 but the armor/jewels would be distributed between toughness/vitality/power/healing.

EDIT: copy-paste the link in a browser address if the redirect doesn’t work.

Should I understand that ascended gear has fruity flavor?

The game seems to be very stingy with rewards in many instances. For example, champions give weak or NO rewards at all.

EDIT: as a comparison, in GW1, boss creatures with identifiable name, not Champion spider #005, had a chance to drop top-tier green items – sometimes with unique skins – and also had a unique elite skill that could be captured.

The excel file doesn’t work Drop-down menus don’t exist.

@Kissy
I saw this too. Yet I had thought the events would more spread out (not just on 2 maps). Or event randomized.

Thanks for the confirmation. I understand that the skrit is more common, but the other event is more of a mystery to most.
If anyone had an encounter with Modus Sceleris can they share any tips on how to recognize the event. Does it have a DE event icon on the map?

The following updates were introduced in October.

There is a skritt burglar on the loose in Tyria! Adventurers that encounter this thieving rodent are encouraged to confiscate whatever loot they can shake out of her.

Various Maps – Modus Sceleris events now appear in several maps.

Now, I have seen the skrit burglar once about a month ago, but never since.
I have never encountered the Modus Sceleris events.

I am just having bad luck or are the events bugged?

‘Moving forward’ I will be very cautious about my time involvement in this game. I will also not spend money in the gem shop because of this uncertainty.

I do not like the content gating (especially by RNG), ascended gear and the fractals bandwagon (though the dungeon designs are good). I will play a few alt characters to go through the low level content a few more times with different professions/races and then I will see where the power creep stands in this game.

I purchased some games on Steam recently and I will split my time between them. Keeping an eye on where GW2 is heading for now.

PS: What will definitely make me stop playing will be a level cap increase in future expansions where all the gear grinded up to that point will become useless. Unless, they make current max exotic gear go up in level with your character.

PS2: I do appreciate Chris spending time with the community. Very commendable. Thank you.

Great write-up OP. Really wise words. I’m also looking forward for a niche game like that.
@Silentstorm. All I see you do is repeat the same arguments. Give it a rest. You’re just spamming at this point.

In case it matters to anyone:

LA events: Incredibly laggy. Didn’t have any fun, except the mocking jokes made in map chat (i.e., a powerpoint slideshow was more dynamic than the game at that point)

Scavenger hunt events: Two or three NPCs were bugged. I had to dig out information about these problems in various forum posts. Needless to say it was not fun going through with them. (I skipped phase 2 for that reason)

The final one-time event: I couldn’t participate. I can’t comment on that one. I’m not envious on others getting very good rewards. Glad for them (but then again, I don’t care that much for gear).

The fractal dungeon:
- The mini-dungeons are fun and interesting. Well done on them (except, the swamp which was very annoying every time I did it).
- Having so many difficulty scaling levels is not good. Not good at all. It made it a lot harder to get groups going.

The new items introduced in the mystic forge: Like other items before this, I don’t get the whole secrecy behind ‘discovering’ the recipe combinations. Some are available on external resources, but I’d be more content with them being available in-game (either a help menu, or a recipe list at the mystic forge). However, I have yet to make a high-end item in the forge because I probably lack 90% of the mats needed.

Ascended gear, a new item tier: Absolutely a terrible idea. It has the opposite effect on me, it discourages me to play the game. I am not interested in a stats inflation chase. This is a huge deciding factor if I’m going to spend any more time on this game. At this point I plan on leveling up alts and playing the story paths I missed, but once I reach the gear-wall I will quit. Simple as that. There’s no ‘easing’ into this.

Southsun Cove island:
- Very nice design. Congratulations.
- Nice jumping puzzles (the reward for me is the achievement). Congratulations.
- Smaller mobs are likely not balanced for all classes . On my guardian I throw up ‘wall of reflection’ on the karka ranged attack and let them chip away half their health in one move while I take zero damage, then I proceed to finish them off with skills 4-2-3 on the greatsword. Rinse and repeat. Don’t ever aggro more than 2 or 3. The bigger karka, I avoid them if solo, I contribute if in a group.
- Other remarks, I hope more dynamic events are introduced in this new zone.

Communication about the event/patch: A poor showing from Anet. The silence is deafening.

OVERALL FEEDBACK: This patch introduced some neat elements (dungeon design, nice island and harder mobs) but was also a big letdown (bugs, lag, new armor tier, content gating).
The effect it had on me was going from being very enticed and excited about the future of the game to a ‘wait-and-see’ stance. It is a feeling that is hard to describe, but it is close to apathy towards what this game is trying to become (yes, I’m taking about stats inflation, gating the content with gear grind because they are a big deal and they overshadow the good parts).

As a consequence I play less.

We’ll see what the future holds ‘under new management’.

Yes. Everything will become yet even easier in low level maps. It already is extremely easy in exotic gear.

That’s not hard to predict, unless they change the way down-leveling works now (I hope they do)

griffdog.3927:

I have no idea how long it will take to get the Ascended gear either, so I’m going to give this a fair shake.

Well I hope it will take an insane amount of money and time to get the ascended gear with all infusions so that progression junkies can have their field day grinding for their shinnies for a long long time. And then stats inflation will hopefully stay at bay for that time. And I also hope that infusion upgrades are based on very low chance RNG in the mystic forge so that the wow-kids can grind their life away to max out their gear (since that is the only purpose they see in the game).
Fingers crossed.

I lost a lot of interest in the game by reading about the introduction of stats inflation, raising the power-cap (for no good reason, just to have higher numbers because apparently people can only ‘feel’ progression if they did 100k damage).

Not to mention I lost respect and trust for the game designers.

I can’t tell them how to make their game, but they have to make a decision and stick to it. A few years from now, is the game going to be based on horizontal progression or is it going to be a vertical progression?

There is camp for both sides and I understand both arguments, but you can’t have both in the same game.

I personally will not have part in a vertical item progression with stats inflation. It’s not what I play a game for. If this is the path of GW2 I will simply uninstall and move on. There doesn’t have to be any drama. I just need some transparency from the game developers.

I thought the manifesto and pre-release statements were very clear they will stick to horizontal progression like they did in GW1. But they changed their tune now.

So what will it be Anet?
Say it straight up and I will understand and respect your decision. But please don’t lie again.

EDIT: just to be clear, my gripe is only with the increase in item stats. I don’t care about infusion or other mechanics they add (i.e., similar to lightbringer in GW1)

Ah, so you admit how pointless it is to grind for increased stats that balance out against mobs with higher hp?
So you admit new content can be had without the unnecessary power creep.

NO NO NO. No to item progression. And gated content.

MrLee.6892:

Tyr.1965:

Rizla.1023:

They give you something to work towards and you all take a temper tantrum. Nice to see the kinda people i’m playing along with.
What if this was in at launch would any of you complained that there was an extra tier of gear? NO!!!!!!

Actually we would because we don’t like vertical gear progression. Go back to Warcraft if that’s what you want.

Grow up and stop using the “Go back to Warcraft” crap. EVERY MMO uses vertical gear progression. At least I can’t think of one who doesn’t besides Guild Wars 2.

Just because YOU don’t like something doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. What about all the players who DO want it? Don’t you think they should have something they want also?

Maybe YOU shouldn’t play MMO’s?

Well, by your own admission the players who want vertical gear progression have ALL the other MMOs on the market to choose from. Is that not enough?

Naoko.7096:

Shifu.4321:

Surely ArenaNet has people intelligent and creative enough to give people something to strive for that ISN’T gear treadmill?

It’s not gear threadmill. Gear threadmill system is where players have to grind for new gears “to explore new/higher contents”. This game already allows you to explore all 100% of the contents and future X/Y/Z content with the (white to exotic) armors. Ascended is really another option just like whether people choose to wear a fine, masterwork, rare or exotic gear to dungeon. All tiers can do dungeon raids well.

But a stats cap should exist. An equalizer. The current system is fine. Exotic is the final tier people will strive towards.
I don’t see the point of adding yet another tier.
It worked so well in GW1, I can’t believe they don’t see they did it so right there.

Where the heck did the community say they wanted higher stats gear?

Please show me that player feedback.

….

Don’t add a gear grind Anet.
Please don’t even think about raising the player level cap in the future.

Clark Skinner.4902:

terrible fps, invisible opponents, stealth spec’d thieves, bad matchups, guilds hopping servers

that and anet not doing anything to improve it

^ This is it for me. With a BIG emphasis on the first two.
I just avoid WvW like the plague, not because I don’t enjoy the format, it’s because it won’t let me enjoy it.

I think it was in the manifesto they said "We don’t want people to grind’

…. and then they put the bulk of the best rewards in this game behind a "grind wall’
…. but they don’t want us to farm. The irony.

Also in the manifesto (correct me if I’m wrong) they said they don’t want people spending their time ‘getting ready’ to play, but rather just play.

….. and then they add prohibitive waypoint costs to make you go through multiple loadings screens, town hopping, foot running, portal jumping, more loading …. to finally get to the point where you want to play with a friend.

So what is this game lacking?
A lack of accessibility. Make it easier to have fun with other people and get meaningful rewards without having to grind.

How do you do this? Just for the 2 examples I gave above:

- all dungeons have the same tokens (if you do all 8 dungeons with 3 paths for each you should be able to get a dungeon set of choice; instead of doing a single dungeon 20+ times for the same reward – same work involved, less content grind). Also make dungeon chests drop random exotic gear for the added ‘woah’ factor.

- remove waypoint cost completely or make it so small that nobody would have a second guess using the WPs they want. Make it easy to jump from orr to ascalon. Why does it have to be complicated or taxed? Why? There are plenty of gold sinks in this game with the TP tax and the mystic forge RNG.

Adding my 2 cents.
Luring more people in WvW that only look to get an achievement is not helping the WvW crowd or server balance. You can bank on people looking for the path of least resistance to get those kills (I don’t know what that is, probably beefing a bigger zerg or camping a spot/fort), but overall they won’t be involved in the bigger strategy of world conquer.
And I think WvW deserves more special attention from the devs right now. I personally can’t play WvW properly because I get about 7-8 fps in zergs using lowest settings (so any time I want to participate in fort defending or capturing) and most players are invisible on my screen.
So I’ll reluctanty get my 50 kills with a siege weapon or something but I’m not going to be of much use to my server. Ohh… I miss the alliance battles from GW1.

I did all the Halloween content, Labyrinth, 35 runs of MK and farming doors (first time I farmed anything in this game!). I didn’t get anything (rare or exotic gear). In fact I never had an exotic drop in this game (about 355 hours of play). That’s my luck with GW2.

Now, I did get exotics from fixed rewards like story completion and the clock tower, but never from random drops or chests.

Have I enjoyed the Halloween event? I did, mostly the tower and the pvp brawl.

Have I enjoyed the MK dungeon? I did for the first 5 runs, but I regret now doing the extra 30 runs because I could have played pvp brawl instead. But seeing everyone getting exotic drops left and right I was lured to try my luck. But that’s how it goes with luck. Probably next time I won’t do the same thing if I can help it.

@ Luthan. Yes, the slippers are tuned for your character class.

Took me 2 hours to practice run up to the last stairs with good consistency, however I was failing at the broken window (invisible wall or something)
After a patch I made it in from the first jump. And 4 more times after that.
I wonder if the reward resets daily.

So the OP proposes that skills are only balance for PvP and somehow, magically, they will also be balanced for PvE content where the AI is extremely different than real players.

OP is a troll. He doesn’t provide any convincing arguments and resorts to just misinterpret what other people say and cries his own tune over and over. What a tool.

Darmikau was pretty convincing and rational. Unfortunately common sense doesn’t cut it for trolls.

I completely agree with the PvE/PvP split. I wish it was done earlier in GW1 and maybe paragons and mesmers wouldn’t had become the most ignored professions there.

And since splits are needed for two completely different game styles, balance needs to be done for both. Right now, I see only changes for PvP meta.

However, there should be sweeping changes for all professions to bring skills to the same level of usability(utility) in the context of PvE encounters.