Guild Wars 2

I see a lot of players complaining that the alpine BL will be replaced with no date given for a future comeback. I really like this map, so I really hope it will come back soon after the release, but then I asked myself: why would I have done in Anet’s shoes?

1) Adding three new BL to the existing four maps. No what would certainly happen? Almost no one would play on the alpine BL, because everyone would want to try out the new one. You think your coverage issues are bad? Now think about what it would be if three of your maps were empty almost all day long.

2) Adding, say, two new BL and keep one alpine BL. We have no idea on how different and asymmetrical the new BL is, but we do now that the alpine BL is VERY asymmetrical: the server with the Citadel has a huge advantage. In addition to that, here again, most players will be playing in the new BL, making the alpine a dead map and causing huge queues on the desert maps (to be fair, there will be queues anyway, even if they add three maps).

3) Have a week-by-week or month-by-month rotation between BL: one time alpine, one time desert. For all we now, that’s what they have in mind. It just seems logical that when HoT goes live the new BL are live as well.

4) Add a third BL. While this would be awesome, I am CERTAIN that Anet doesn’t have a third BL magically hidden on their server somewhere, so if they really want to follow this path, we might not see the alpine BL for a while.

The way I see it, replacing the old BL by the new ones at least for a few weeks after the release of HoT is the best move they could do, since most players will want to play on this map anyway. When the hype goes down a bit, I hope they find a good way to rotate between alpine and desert BL (they obviously didn’t figure a way to do that yet, that’s why they are so mysterious about it). Thematically and gameplay-wise, the alpine BL is very, very similar to EB, so the players who would want to play the old WvW game style will still be able to go there. My only concern is that there will be to many players willing to play WvW, resulting in insane queue times. What about you? How would you have done it?

The game is now almost three year old, and players have had plenty of time to explore the existing eight professions. I open this thread to discuss about a possible rework to some profession mechanics. I know it’s only a “what if?” game, but it’s always good to keep the debate open, especially with HoT and a lot of balance changes coming soon.

I’ve been thinking about additional mechanics that could be added to some existing professions, with the main focuses being, in no specific order:
- profession thematics
- balance
- quality of life (QoL)
- build diversity promotion
I don’t play guardian or necro yet, so I won’t talk about these two professions.

Engineer and elementalist
For me, these two professions already have some of the best designed mechanics in the game. I can’t think of anything to add. Most engineers run speedy kits, but I can’t see it being added as a class mechanics, it doesn’t really fit the theme. Same goes for the boons on switching attunements

Thief
Thief already received a great quality of life buff to initiative, by giving more regen and less dependance on traits, so I think regarding its mechanics, it’s fine as it is. Most thieves in PvP take a lot of Steal-related traits to make it a devastating skill, but imo Steal is still very good non-traited, so no need for a rework here.

Warrior
I started playing warrior just after the adrenaline nerf, and I think this nerf, especially the out-of-combat decay, really fits the profession (getting stronger as the fight gets longer). The profession is nowhere as strong as it once was, which is why I can safely suggest some QoL improvements:

- Untraited 5s weapon-swap. It’s now on a minor trait in a good trait-line, so not much of a buff, but it really fits the theme of the class, while favoring build diversity and helping players in the leveling process.

- Cleansing Ire no longer gives an adrenaline boost: this boost is incorporated to the core mechanic, just like it was done with the thief’s initiative. The condition cleanse stay on the trait. I think it would be good for build diversity.

Mesmer
Mesmer is not a very strong profession in the current meta, so the improvements I suggest are meant to be buffs. If it’s too much, something would have to be changed elsewhere.

- Deceptive Evasion becomes a core mechanic. The clone on dodge is used by every build except phantasms builds, and even then a clone cannot overwrite a phantasm, so no issue there. It suits the profession very well, and this trait is a major impeachment to build diversity.

- Diversion becomes an AoE. 3 to 5 targets. There is a trait for that, I know, but the non-traited skill already FEELS like an AoE: it looks like an explosion. I played mesmer for an entire week before I noticed this skill was single targeted. The other shatters are AoE, it just feels wrong this one isn’t.

Ranger
I don’t like playing ranger, for many reasons. One of those is that a profession who is supposed to be an adventurer roaming in the woods is SO SLOW: only a few leaps, and almost no access to swiftness. Rangers are in a weird place in the current meta, because why would you take a condi ranger to be your close holder while you could take a cele elementalist that can support the team at mid and nevertheless never be decapped because of his great mobility? Solution:

- Give rangers a flat 25% speed bonus, at level one, without traits, without the Signet of the Hunt.

I already hear you cry: “Why give that to rangers and not mesmers? Mesmers have no way to get a 25% movement speed increase without Traveler’s runes!”. I hear you, but it just fits the ranger theme a lot more. I’m all in favor of a speed increase for mesmer, preferably not relying on the specialization, but I can’t see it being a class mechanic.

There you go, that was my input on the matter. What do you think? I’m interested in hearing about guardians and necromancers on the issue.

I’m sorry you get so many bad sports on your team. All you can hope for is for you to get better. In higher tiers, you don’t see as many engis (I assume your team has problems with turreters). Try playing a condi build: you’ll be able to kill them 1v1 every time. It won’t necessarily make you win, but you’ll feel better.

Ballads.2509:

Im all cool with them adding new stuff but why remove old content. Its ripping a preferred game mode away from players.
Expansions should not kill off the game i bought.
How mad Would Spvp players be if to add their map they got rid of Battle of Khylo? Tell them they can go play in the other 2 conquest maps and maybe they will put Khylo back in later.
RIP WvW

Since your thread on the pvp forum will likely get deleted because it’s WvW related, I’ll post here:

The comparison is absurd. No issues can emerge from having an increasing number of pvp maps. WvW is designed around playing on multiple maps at the same time, so balance issues emerge when you add a map.

WvW maps will come back. Obviously, when HoT goes live, everyone will be playing on the new BL. So, if they replaced say one BL by the new one, there would be one HUUUUUUUUGE queue on said map (there will be for sure, anyway, even on three maps), so I’m thinking that could be a reason. Once everything settles down, they said the maps would be back in a rotation. They probably aren’t sure of the system they’ll use to rotate the maps anyway, so they are buying themselves time that way.

The problem they would have having both the new maps and the old at the release would be the probable imbalance in PPT: nobody would play the old one, causing some serious coverage issues. A long term solution would be or them to add a THIRD borderland, and rotate the servers every week similarly to what’s done in EB.

Finally, the alpine BL is really close to EB both visually and gameplay-wise: open fields, surroundable objectives, very few side mechanics. So you will still be able to play the way you want on EB.

RolandMode.2749:

Anet should make one plain EB size meadow, 3 spawns, a large hollow middle field for zerg v zergs without objectives, wildlife(npc’s), PPT or “interesting” mechanics. Low budget, lot of fun.

When I want to just press one and watch stuff die, I slay golems in HotM. You should try that sometimes.

SkyShroud.2865:

Sorel.4870:

SkyShroud.2865:

From the preview, it is great to know that tower finally has more strategic meanings.
But, the new tower and keep design seems to favour defender extremely. I fear that the unbalanced WvW population will undermine the fun aspect of the map.

That can also be a good thing. In a very unbalanced matchup, you could probably let go of your side objectives, and just hold on to your keep and one last tower, and the choke points could make it easier to defend with less people.

If you lost the keep then, how are you gonna get it back? :O

Same as the old maps: don’t loose the keep mate.

jportell.2197:

Ring of warding is less a problem than slick shoes. Slick shoes all the engi has to do is throw nades at his feet and the only way out is teleports or stab. If you only have a stunbreak but it doesn’t give stab or a teleport you’re still shafted. Ring of warding is less of a problem because there is more risk involved, usually guards have to couple judges intervention with ring of warding for it to actually trap someone in it.

You can CC the engi or better yet immobilize him. Or you can pay better attention while fighting an engi so you can kite when he uses slick shoes, or just hold still and block/evade/invuln/CC if he uses slick shoes after an immobilize. Frankly, if Slick Shoes was that broken, you wouldn’t see so many engis with Elixir S/EG. Ring of Warding and Entangle are fine as well. I think players don’t like these skills because only a few professions really care about their positioning, so some who don’t play these are too lazy to adapt.

I would be interested if you did a study on the subject. I’d like to know as well. Personally, I tend to keep them for holiday rewards. If we get a reward track that’s anything like Wintersdays was, I want to be able to complete it A LOT of times.

SkyShroud.2865:

From the preview, it is great to know that tower finally has more strategic meanings.
But, the new tower and keep design seems to favour defender extremely. I fear that the unbalanced WvW population will undermine the fun aspect of the map.

That can also be a good thing. In a very unbalanced matchup, you could probably let go of your side objectives, and just hold on to your keep and one last tower, and the choke points could make it easier to defend with less people.

jaimy.4108:

Congrats Anet, you succesfully managed to ignore the WvW/GvG community and do precisely the opposite.

How to kitten up your game even more

Why don’t you play GvG on EB or the alpine BL? These maps are perfect for that: plain, with big open fields. Why do you want another map that is strictly the same? Some of us would like to try a different WvW experience, let us please.

This new BL looks amazing. GvG aficionados and karma trainers already have the very open, plain BL and EB to have huge fights and flip objectives rapidly. This new map looks like a lot of fun for roamers/small groups.

- Extremely powerful, easy to take objectives. The shrines will probably be a constant battleground between small skilled groups, since zergs can’t pass every five minutes to make sure the shrine is still in their favor. Plus these bonuses: perma stealth to impact the queue of a zerg and disappear in the mist, jumping off cliffs, etc.

- Choke points and smaller accessible area. Since towers will block access to other points on the map, you’ll have to run less to find foes.

- The big event in the middle. Granted, this event seems a bit overpowered. Still, to complete it, if Anet is correct, the zerg strategy will not hold. It will force players to actually fight! And since these power cores look like bundles, it maybe the end of the cheesiness of just running away with your GS leaps when you’re engaged, since you would have to drop your power core.

I really can’t wait to try this out. And if I’m wrong and this map turns out to be yet another zerg fest, well, I’ll just go back to EB and the alpine BL. They are just adding stuff: if we don’t like it, we’re just not gonna play it.

I don’t like this idea since I liked the ORIGINAL idea behind the legendaries: to have one, you have to play the three different game modes. This is a MMO, so of course legendaries are now 100% PvE (Gift of Battle can be farmed in no time in EotM). I really, REALLY hope the precursor collection will require you to do massive amounts of pvp and WvW, but I doubt it. But I’m all in favor of WvW exclusive rewards, naturally.

What do you want us to say? You’re right obviously. High MMR players complained under the old system that casual players were on the LB, and now it’s grinders. I preferred casuals.

Gentlemen, Ladies, that could very well be the end of the SD thief. Now the ranger just has to move away from my Infiltrator’s return point, and make sure I have to WALK to him under nourished fire. It’s sad, I liked this build. Back to engineer I guess.

PolishTank.3156:

Its absolutely not a realistic expectation. If it was a realistic expectation, people would already be doing it. However as you know, nobody does. Which creates the disorganized “ebb and flow” issue that needs to be addressed.

I’m not saying that there should be no activities for a loaner or small group in WvW. Heck they could do the “fortifying” events that I mentioned, hit supply caravans, and so on. Remember I said to make them high rewards based so they’re not left out. What I’m saying is that five players definitely should not be able to take keeps.

Solo players and small groups defend supply camps all the time. WvW is supposed to be a PvP environment: the NPCs are there to be an objective and a tool to use, not dungeon bosses. Of course I can take a keep solo with an alpha golem and a lot of time, but the objective is for you to try and stop me. Nobody likes fighting AI in WvW. We like fighting other players.

Shiyo.3578:

HOT not adding templates is so dumb.

Was this confirmed?

pdavis.8031:

nevertrending.5632:

I’m one of the Officers in Ultimate Dominator Day [ULTD], ask me anything

Aside from farming bags and rank, what purpose does this serve?
Do you often get people raging or trying to troll for “not playing the right way”?
What caused you to start doing this?

And for those who don’t like this practice:
Why not?
Does it cause harm to the game?
Does it interfere with the normal WvW?

I have nothing against it. People’s fun works in mysterious ways.

Ahmira, it sounds like you don’t play WvW, and so you will be able to play with your fiancé by adding him to your friends list via his in-game name, and then inviting him in your party. Have a nice time together in GW2.

That being said, this story ended well, but what if Ahmira did play a lot of WvW? She would have been separated from her loved one! In most european countries, we have a mechanism called “family reunification” that ensures that you can most of the time join a family member that legally resides in the country. It doesn’t exist in GW2. Anet, you’re in direct violation of the UNHCR rules!^^

Kill them, it looks like they like it! More seriously, I’m always amazed how in MMOs, some players will always try to grind their way into achievements instead of doing fun content. It’s even worst in pvp: you have rank farm servers, while you can go a lot faster by just playing normally! That’s crazy, these guys are dead inside.

Cynz.9437:

you forgot turrets buffs
you forgot celestial buffs
and yes nerfs to other classes usually result in indirect buffs to engis

You can’t possibly say that turret buffs made engi meta! You don’t loose to turret engis do you? Cause that’s another issue. Accelerant Packed Turret was even nerfed, and that’s the only turret trait that the meta cele build uses.

Celestial Amulet was buffed a long time ago, but engineers sticked to rabid until very recently. At the time, the profession that benefitted from that buff a lot was warrior, with the eviscerate build. Engineer, apart from bomb and HGH builds has limited access to might, that’s why celestial wasn’t really in use. Celestial buffs can’t alone explain the success of the rifle engineer: try to run a condi engineer, you’ll wreck every rifle engineer you see.

Everything changed with the warrior nerf, true. Rifle was now a viable weapon, since warriors had no more stab and bunker guards were chased off the meta by cele elementalists.

Engineer was not buffed. Guardian was not nerfed. The meta just shifted from stab-providing bunkers to hybrid squirmishers. Engineer is better now because the role it fits is more appropriate in the new way we play the game. That’s all. GW2 is not a 1v1 game, the most popular builds are not always crazily OP: they just need to fit the play style.

Guys, he specifically asked for a comp without two/three celestial builds. You can run a composition that’s a bit different and still be competitive. Saying otherwise is silly: one of the best EU team (55HP Monks) runs a comp with one cele engi, one thief, one shatter mesmer, one cleric guard and one cleric ele (or two cleric ele). In your case, since you play condi ranger, I’d say you need:
- 1 altruistic support bunker. Guardian or elementalist
- 2 damage dealers. One thief/mesmer team (I love those) or two medi guards, or possibly one thief and one medi guard.
- 1 semi-bunker. Here my pick would be one of the three cele builds depending on your needs.

Darkness.9732:

I don’ t care at all. I could count only 1 or 2 rangers there.
Anet hasn’ t fixed rangers after nearly 3 years…and for this I’ m loosing interest in anything related to gw2.
I hardly log in anymore. Reason? Couse i love Ranger but Anet doesn’t. It’ s still broken and everyone knows.

Ps: l2p issue? No It’ s a broken class issue

There were more rangers in the WTS than necromancers (1) and mesmers (0). There were as many rangers as warriors and guardians. In addition to that, the two rangers ran two very different builds. It’s the only profession apart from thief that used two viable builds in the biggest tournament of the game. It a l2p issue alright.

I don’t know what the problem with build templates is. I mean, in WvW, I can understand: it can be exploited. But in PvP in makes so much sense, and could offer so many possibilities in solo queue! Rangers, warriors and necromancers would get a needed buff from it, since they are very versatile. There have been countless threads on this matter for years! In one of these, a dev seemed actually interested by the idea and asked for advice! Is there some technical difficulty we don’t know of? I’m not sure, but it would be a safe improvement for Anet to make, since for the only time ever on this forum I haven’t seen ANYONE opposed to the idea. Anet if you’re reading: go for it! You can’t do wrong on that one.

Cynz.9437:

Engi: least played class in gw2 if you consider all aspects of the game.

Anet: well let’s buff the crap out of them, nerf other classes and put them on daily every second day to improve statistics.

Anet doesn’t realize one thing: engis are not popular because they are thematically boring and they look like crap. Would they have so cool looking spells, epic turrets with lazors (asura cannons look cool for example), awesome looking backpack and not that hobo sack and actually had high burst/sustain in pve for speed runs, more people would play them.

Buffing them to the point where it is just play engi or don’t play game will just cause players that don’t want to switch quit the game/migrate to other games….

Look at thieves: i am sure that despite all nerfs that been handled out in almost EVERY SINGLE PATCH so far a lot of people still play them. Why? I think of 2 reasons:
- Assassine/ninja/killer/hitman and co. games (there are countless Ezios in gw2 lol)
- high risk/fps like gameplay
- maybe not sparkly spells but they often involve cool acrobatic movements, sound effects and are just stylish …

bottom line this game is a RPG = role playing game…. not many want to play some nerdy guy with tools looking like rusty tin cans…

@Anet: stop buffing engis, make them visually/thematically appealing :|

That’s your opinion. Maybe their looks the reason you don’t see many engi, or also because leveling on an engi when you have no experience with the game is difficult. I personally like it and so do many others.

Now, you have to realize that engi actually received very little buffs in the past year. I only remember Slick Shoes (half the engineer still use Elixir S) and shield #4. IP was even nerfed. It has always be strong. In fact before the cele meta, I played a condi engi and often wondered why there were so few of them, since it was already strong. Celestial engineer is now extremely strong for a series of reasons:
1) You don’t see many necromancers
2) Hambow is dead (main reason imo)
3) Warriors are rare and don’t run stability anymore
4) Staff guardian with Stand Your Ground are now rare

Engi was not buffed: the meta shifted to less stability, less hammer warriors and less condition necromancers, and therefore they thrive.

ronpierce.2760:

You started off on the right track, then you lost me. It is an exploit. Its very easy to tell that it is. Is it very touchy as to where you can vertical teleport? Yes? Thats because its not intended. You can call it what you want, but its a bug and exploit no matter how you want to cut it, otherwise there’d be no issue v-teleporting anywhere at any point on ledges like that. If it requires sneaky positioning you can be pretty sure that it’s not intended.

What I am going to say will probably improve your teleport game by a great deal: you can teleport to any place you can walk to, within a reasonable walking distance. This distance is the one you would have to walk to get from the bottom of the stairs of the keep on Niflhel to the ledge above the capture point if you had to walk in front of Svanir/the Chieftain. It’s not an exploit, it’s designed to work that way. Now, some areas on certain ledges you can walk to don’t work, but that’s the bug imo.

Drennon.7190:

Mesmer dominance? Tell me how many were in the WTS again?

Out of the three best teams in EU at the moment (55HP Monks, oRNG and TCG), two have a mesmer, just not the one that went to WTS (congrats btw). It just seems to be a european thing, and always have been, with the noticeable exception of Supcutie.

But yeah, speaking of dominance is way out of line. As Helseth would put it “Mesmer is not viable, I am”.

Rangers are bad, and therefore spend most of their time in downstate, that’s why it’s so good. (dodges the volley of arrows coming his way)

This whole wing trend is getting out of hands…

Greyhound.2058:

cool icebow

Literally.

Wolfield.9812:

Leaked info, jewel crafting to 500. It has something to do with the new precursors, and are getting it in place early. They didn’t want a massive market shift so its been kept hush hush.

TP speculator spotted. Nice try bro^^.

Echoes.8032:

No no no. Please GOD no. This sounds a lot like a certain feature in “that other mmo”, and is the single biggest contributing factor to me being here now. I just bought GW2 this past Saturday and so far I love it. Fortunately, another company got to own that disaster, but I think GW2 is just fine without it.

Welcome! Hope you’ll stay with us for a while. See you in game.

I bought GW1 prophecies a few months ago (better late than never, right?), and while I overall enjoy it, I don’t like the henchmen mechanism. It feels so wrong: why don’t you just do it with friends? I find the GW2 way of handling instanced content a lot better: for some (dungeons) you have to find a complete party to complete (well, if you’re a total PvE scrub like me), and in others (personal story, living world) you can choose to complete from 1 to 5 players, while the events scale (sometimes better than others) accordingly. I wouldn’t want to go back to this system.

Ok, first of all, if you REALLY don’t like map completion, then don’t do it. It’s not worth it, there are other good-looking weapons in the game.

Like you, I mostly play pvp (and WvW), have leveled my first character in WvW (pre-EotM) and the next six with tomes of knowledge. However, sometimes, once every two weeks or so, when I feel like it, I do map completion on my main. After a year, I’m now at 84%, and map completion has never felt like a burden. You could probably do it a lot faster, if you enjoy it for longer periods of time.

I really enjoy my small expeditions in PvE, especially because of the dialogs and sceneries you have there. Usually, I play the burstiest build I can find (SP thief) because I don’t like fighting AI, turn off the UI, and enjoy the view. When the FP camera patch hits tonight, I plan to spend more time in PvE playing with it.

tldr: Find something you like in PvE (the scenery, the NPC dialogs), don’t overcommit to map completion and if you stop having fun, take a break immediately.

glorius.1235:

allowing the ranger pet to fully heal the ranger (btw what other downed skill allowes you to do that? – it’s utter garbage).

Rangers are bad, and therefore spend most of their time in downstate, that’s why they get the best skills.

Ok some real advice now:

Elementalist: you’re right, don’t duel them. You probably won’t win, and it will certainly take too much time before you do.

Ranger: You’re probably doing something wrong. Condi rangers can be tricky, but in general power rangers are easy opponents for a SD thief. Here are some tips:
- Sword #2 does not require LoS. Hide behind pillars, rocks, on a ledge, etc.
- Once he switches to GS or sword, use the stolen ability and spam SB #2 in it. It’s a healing combo, and if the ranger tries to melee you he’ll get hit.
- Your healing skill breaks immobilization.
- If you failed to dodge entangle, spam SB #3 in it if you don’t have a better mean to mitigate damage. If your Infiltrator’s return is up, use that instead.
- Keep extreme pressure at all time. Don’t be overly careful with your health pool.

ima kongkittenninja.3052:

I’m confused what you mean? I win 1vs3’s on my Thief who runs D/D and SB . . . . Thieves are really amazing. You just need to learn how to use your dodges, when to push and when to stay stealthed. etc.

Spot the EotM player…

Tao.5096:

Don’t compare WTS Finals to current PvP arena and it’s matchmaking.
Current matchmaking system backfires heavily and makes people frustrated.
Most of the time, losing team end up with score below 200, and it’s not an issue of, oh you just got outplayed.
Nope.
You can’t outplay a team that doesn’t even know what it’s doing.
It’s a hard Rekt.
And it appears that that for quite some time, matchmaking simply likes to group newbies in one single team and group experienced players in another one.

It’s like fighting uplevels in WvW in full ascended gear.

That’s ridiculous. You can dislike the match making for subjective reasons, but you won’t convince anyone that the score difference is a sure way to recognize an unbalanced match. Of course you can compare our experience with top players! In EU, three teams are approximately on the same lvl (55HP Monks, oRNG and TCG), and even if their skill lvl is comparable, it regularly happens that one team beat the other 500-200 or 500-100. Conquest is a mode that promotes snowballing, especially if you are not in a team and do not take the time to regroup. So in soloq, you can expect snowball effects and wide score gap, even if the match-making did its job.

Slininstien.7546:

Overall I enjoy mesmer/thief/guardian myself but i like to do the damage and canceling out metas are fun… well i guess guardian will be meta soon since oRNG won with one.

Hammer meditation guardian is considered meta by metabattle for a few weeks now. In EU, you see a lot of them in the Go4GW2 weekly cup.

Have you tried GvG in WvW? Or dueling, 2v2 or 3v3 in custom arenas/ Obsidian Sanctum?

Sorry, we can’t tell by the score alone. Surely, when oRNG beat the Abjured by 500-117, it’s not due to bad match up or player skill. Were you queuing solo? It happens often that my opponents are of my skill level, yet they get stomped 500-100 because of bad rotations. It’s even more common in soloq because while some players will instantly behave like a team together, some others will have trouble rotating correctly. Finally, there are players, especially in unranked, who will loose hope as soon as the first team fight is lost, causing artificially wide score difference.

I don’t really understand this concern. Why is this a problem if there if less open fields on the new maps? The old maps are basically vast open maps, so there’s no need to add new borderlands with exactly the same topology. I’m pleased that something new will be added to WvW, and I can’t wait to see how it will play out!

You really should play the profession whose gameplay you prefer. Due to the nature of GW2 combat system, every profession is viable in pvp. Sure, some professions tend to be favored in the current meta (elementalist, engineer, thief, guardian), while some are considered a bit less effective (ranger), but the meta often shifts: last year, elementalists where considered useless in pvp.

If you like melee and 1v2ing people, you could consider engineer in addition of the professions you named. In WvW, a well played engineer can quite easily win 1v2s or even 1v3s against melee professions. In the three professions you named, I wouldn’t choose elementalist if I were you, because d/d is their only melee option, and you would probably like to try out different weapon sets. Thief and warrior have very good melee sets, and some of their animations are great. I hope this was helpful.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Depends how you define “meta”
That term is tossed around too lightly nowadays

Examples:

Cele/Rifle Engi or D/D Ele are true metas, unquestionably dominant for their class type
Then Power Rangers are considered meta but not the only viable option for Rangers

I don’t think you’re right about that since your example is bad. Condi engineer is way more effective right now than power ranger. It’s almost on par with cele rifle, while power ranger is nowhere as strong as condi survival ranger, which is considered “meta”. So meta does not mean that’s the only viable option the profession has, it just means that said builds are popular.

Also, at which point does my build become non-meta? If I play a celestial engineer with bomb kit, bomb traits and EG, am I still meta? If I play a meditation guardian without the hammer, am I still meta? If I play an Executioner d/p thief, am I still meta? The line is thin.

Alteros.3019:

Perhaps, but small scale combat as it is currently is in WvW is totally unplayable on most servers. Havoc squads have no chance of doing squatola against the never ending blob(s) running around. And, if I may be so impudent as to say to those who enjoy roaming in WvW: If one is looking to do solely small scale combat (I think generally defined as being in groups of 5 or less) in WvW and nothing else…perhaps they’re playing the wrong aspect of the game. They’d be better served playing PvP or the new stronghold mechanic they’re coming out with which at least at face value looks like a balanced experience.

Most players play different aspects of the game. Roaming solo in WvW is very different from structured pvp: you have no team for a start, so you can really relax and play however you want. The thing is, WvW is the most sandbox-ish game mode in this game: you can roam, havoc, zerg, scout, even craft there! You’re already complaining about population imbalance, it wouldn’t be a good idea to encourage certain players to play other game modes. I’m sure there is a solution that won’t make an important percentage of the player base quit the Mists.

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

How about 50% increase to health, damage, speed, casting…
Siege cannot deteriorate…
Your waypoints cannot be contested…
Outnumbering force doesn’t have downed state…
Increase healing or rezzing speed…

You’d make small scale combat absolutely unplayable.

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

50+ man zergs are not enough so lets add 50 turrets to the mix… THAT will make it fun for sure.

Sorry, I have to say no thank you.

They don’t attack. They put little markers on the enemies so you can see them on the map.

It makes no sense! If you really, really don’t like your race, why don’t you just delete your character and make another one of the race you like? You’ll keep:
- Every AP and title you got
- Your McM rank and mastery points
- Your PvP rank and finishers
- Your legendary and ascended items
- Your crafting materials, gold, karma, dungeon tokens, etc.

You’ll loose:
- Your exotic and lower should bound items
- Your PvE level
- Your Personal Story and Living World completion. You’d still keep the rewards and the achievements unlocked (including the order flag on the log in screen)

Getting exotic gear and getting to lvl 80 is SO FAST in this game that you really have nothing to lose. The only problem you might have is if you have an exotic celestial armor set you really like, but you can replace it in 30 days, so no big deal. Don’t you think it’s easier than changing your entire background and personal story?

I can’t play till tomorrow I’m afraid. How bad is the wings situation in DR and LA? Can you still walk around without eating feathers every step you take?

A lot of MOBAs have macros with audio effects like this. Examples I could see in GW2, without being specific to one game mode of course:

- Defend!
- Retreat!
- Enemy incoming!
- Hold still!
- Fire!
- Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarge! (this one is just for the fun)

My warrior and his space marine-ish look:

edit: I can also show you my engineer. The only problem being that the kit backpacks don’t look very good with this armor.