Guild Wars 2

I don’t like keg brawl, or crab toss, but I loved Aspect Arena, Sanctum Spring and Dragon Bash. If they were permanent and had achievements related to them, I would achieve them eventually as I would play several times a week, for weeks.

But they were/are temporal, and have achievements required for the meta, so I played in the optimal way specifically for achievements (in Sactum Sprint that’s easy, you just run to win, Aspect Arena I capped as much as I could, and only targeted crystal bearers).

IF the mini-games where not part of the meta achievement AND they were not temporary content, I bet we would see a lot less of “fixed games”. ANet want E-Sports? they are right there: Keg brawl, Dragon Bash, Aspect Arena, Sanctum Sprint. They can even organize an Olimpic event across servers!

I don’t mind that they don’t put WvW-related achievements in the Living Story (actually, i prefer they don’t). What I would like is they put something to compensate WvWers from not doin the LS achievements. I imagine sPvPers have more or less the same complain.
Now that the achievement are worth something, it shows.The latests LS have 195 achievement points (If I counted correctly). There is no equivalent in WvW.

But a simple fix would be to make the WxP chest have more or less the same value as the achievement chests (weapon/armor skins, account bonus, etc).

I never used SB in WvW, I run either LB/Axe+Horn while roaming or GS/Axe+Horn while zerging.

Now I finally dropped the SB in PvE (and I was a big fan) because when we go to dungeons my party can easily put 25 stacks of bleed on any mob, plus poison and poison is kind of always on . Given the range, I prefer to use Axe+Horn and use LB #3 to disengage.

I was kind of mad at this, then I realized that there are two separate achievements for tiers 1 &2 and 3&4. That is exactly how it should be: everybody can do 1 & 2, but it requires more effort/dedication to get 3 & 4. One for casuals, one for less-casuals/hardcore.

Now, having finished the achievements for the Kiel mini without getting tiers 3 & 4 I think this is perfect.

what if we flip the op? Something like this:

“I was trying to kill a Thief in the open with my friend (2 dps warrior/guardian/ele/necro) and we tried 4 times but we cant cuz his stealth and speed are so OP. He appears and disappear all the time, stands far from us and /laugh. We tried to AoE him but he was so quick… WTF anet? Why we cant sense stealth chars? How to burst him down if he can cure himself while stealthing at the same time? 2 dps warrior/guardian/ele/necro do not have enough dmg for kill a thief in the open… Its so stupid.”

There… that was fun

Thieves are a a powerful annoyance outside the water , we’re a powerful annoyance inside the water. Learn to live with it.

For me is the chain knockback/pull spam. It is possible to go from full HP to dead without being able to do a single thing about it. For example the first boss in Caudecus with the shotgun: you’re hit once, you’re dead unless somebody saves you. Or the drakes in southsun with their pull.

My days as a Ranger are a little different:
1) Check the map for yaks.
2) run to the yaks.
3) Run from the pair of thief that tried to gank you, and kill them underwater if they follow.
4) get to the yaks, kill the yaks.
5) if there are 2 minutes until click, flip the camp. Else, back to 2
6) repeat.

or, if there is a known commander, follow lead.

Nice and fun

Killing Dolyaks gives points to the server?! And here I was, killing them for fun and attrition

Ranger is a pretty easy class to play, until you start doing dungeons, fractals, WvW, sPvP or you get to 65+ zones. Then the sky falls on you.

At that point you need to adapt, learn you class, find your play style, know your pets. It becomes one of the most complex/difficult classes to play effectively.

And then you have the shortcomings and continuous unjustified PvE/WvW impacting nerfs (They nerfed the Moa, for god sake).

As I said in other threads, Ranger is the class when you need skill to overcome the shortcomings, instead of gaining an edge.

But fear a well-played Ranger in a non-zerg situation in WvW, count on your well-played Ranger to prevent a wipe in a dungeon/fractal boss, to help keep the aggro away from the party in several trash encounters, to stand in a circle of fire to revive a fellow player and survive.

Rangers can be awesome, but we do feel underpowered, nerfed and neglected.

I see these chests as the freebies you get in the shows and conventions: Keep what it is useful for you, throw away the rest.

What PlayerOne said I have 3 active atls, but use only my main for WvW, the way to play is completely different.

The time a pincer attack makes sense, will be the time that zerging will die.

I have 380 hours of play and 2600 achievement points. I haven’t “farmed” achievement, I just play and have fun. My guess is that in two or three months I’ll get to 5000 at my pace of playing.

I only do the 5 dailies and 4 monthlies, no JP, very few fractals, no sPvP, just starting to complete all the dungeons and I skip the LS that I don’t like (pirates, I’m looking at you). I bet I could get a lot more achievements if I farmed for them.

fuzzypanda.9365:

… I’ve never seen anyone just camp and troll people in any of the WvW JPs untill this point. ….

But that is one of the favorite sport in WvW for relaxing after a day of sieges! Free bags! </joke>

Seriously, this has happen a lot before. It is the same as killing someone that is getting a view or a PI. It is worse in the JP because the siege rewards at the end: you want them, and you don’t want the enemy to have them.

Amadan.9451:

…
your presence alone doesn’t make any difference, you cannot run alone unless you are a thief, you spend effort, time and money on keeping towers and 10 minutes later are gone.

I beg to differ, being a solo-roaming Ranger (not a BM, btw) that nearly single-handely forced a server to patrol their dolyaks, as they were “disappearing” from the map quite fast (ie, no single dolyak reached its destination in more than an hour, even after they upgraded their camps) while being outmanned. Even then, some dolyaks didn’t make it.

And then a warrior joined.. and camps started flipping.

It was quite fun

I’m sure my story is not unique. Even a small group of player doing a suicide attack on a keep or garrison with a WP so it becomes contested can help their server preventing the enemy from regrouping effectively.

I would have liked to beat NULL, or to beat the pirates dungeon. I agree that it requires skills, L2P, look for a good group, etc. I just didn’t have the time to do it.

In our group we have more or less the same pattern: The first time we do a dungeon we spend more than an hour if it is easy or close to three if it’s difficult. Then we “optimize”.

We’re all “2 hours a day, a lot more when possible” gamers. We rage-quit in frustration the first two times in NULL, we regrouped and some of us got the achievement. We got wiped several times on fritzz untill we decided to call it and come back later… only one of us got the achievement via PUGs after spending the whole sunday on it.

Point is.. if these where permanent content we would keep repeating it until we get it, “master” it, and move along if it’s not rewarding enough.

So I agree: difficult permanent content, and “not-so-difficult-and-frustrating” temporal content should be the norm.

I guess I will wait until/if they are converted to fractals.

Daendur.2357:

Shademehr.1397:

This is World vs. World warfare in which, sorta like real life, siege warfare is common.

Siege is here to stay and I welcome it and all the abilities that come along with it.

LONG LIVE SIEGE!

Also, Lifewaster and Haltair both make excellent points.

real life comparisons… soooo appropriate

Regardless, given that the vast majority of points to capture are towers, keeps and castle, I would say that yes, WvW is all about sieges.

shh.. don’t say that LB is hitting 300 more than it should even if the indicator say that you’re out of range! They would fix it!

In PvP/WvW, with the proper pets (like Canines for the knockback) Rangers are a pain to stomp… but most likely to get stomped anyway unless it rally.

In PvE… my guildies don’t even try to heal me anymore during dungeons and fractals: either I’ll rez by myself (while keeping the aggro) or I will die from massive damage anyway. I usually joke that Rangers are never downed, we just tank from the floor.

And don’t get me started on 1v1 underwater fighting while downed.

So yes, this skill is quite good.

TL;DR: Rangers are not doomed nor useless, but there is no situation in the game where a group would say “I prefer to have a Ranger instead of an X”, pet mechanic is very broken, some traits are useless or completely misplaced (more pet damage in the marksmanship line?) and some weapons needs an urgent revision (people use LB 4 because LB damage is laughable at medium-to-short range). AND they are nerfed on each and every patch.

Don’t mess with a Ranger underwater, though.

Rangers are an awesome class to play: I have killed many 1v1 and 1v2 in WvW, flipped suply camps by myself, killed so many dolyaks in a day that the server started to escort them, outlasted a guardian in a dungeon fight (I got a lot better at dodge, damage control and awareness of the surrounding than him), kept my party alive (jump in, rez, jump out), consistently keep aggro on bosses (they just fell in love with me and my pet) and solo champions just for fun. I have seen people in heavy armor run after a burst of my LB when they saw me flying to them with my GS (some of them didn’t, some of them died as the song goes). All in all, I had and still have fun with it (plus the Norn dancing has its charm).

But you can’t say that the class is “Ok”. As I mentioned in another thread, we need to get skilled to overcome our limitations, instead of getting skilled to have an edge.

A perfect example of the kind of thins that happens to a Ranger happened in our last dungeon run. A guildy had a brand new Guardian spec’ed for support, but I had to choose between remain close to him to receive the buffs or flank the boss to get enough DPS from my SB to be useful in the fight. LB in dungeons are a joke.

Currently I’m leveling a Warrior because we want to speed run some dungeons and fractals. it is just not possible to speed run with the Ranger.

But I would love to have an all-ranger party in dungeons and WvW. I just can think the havoc we could create

The “multiple traits/ equip slot” is useful even outside WvW. I use a different set of traits/skills/pets for Dungeons, Fractals, general PvE, WvW Roaming and WvW zerging. I even use different skills for different Dungeons (ie, I use a different mitigator depending on if there is a lot of condition damage, or more straight damage ).

• Rangers get kicked out of Dungeon and medium-high level Fractal parties, just by being Rangers (and not just speed-runners parties). And with a reason…
  * Rangers have no support build that is even close to what other classes can offer, except perhaps for the rezzes.
  * Rangers are outdamaged (in single shot, burst, AoE and over-time condition) by all other classes unless the pet is involved, but then.
  * Pets cannot dodge AoE, and most of them are to squishy for melee, so unless somebody else is tanking a boss, they are fried. OR
  * Pets just don’t know how to hit moving targets. A target moving from their original position will cause the pet to stop for more than a sec. PLUS
  * Pets got severely nerfed in damage. Only 2 pets were really OP (Scale Fish and Jelly Fish), the others… (they nerfed the MOAS).
  * Rangers in a zerg in WvW? I hope you really know how to play it.
  * Even balance devs acknoledge that Rangers need some attention.

All in all, outside sPvP (the root of all nerfing), I think the Rangers are the most downtrodden profession. It is the only class where you need skill to overcome all the limitations. Instead of “this combination will give me an edge”, Ranger say “this will compensate my lack of…”.

Bring Siege Times to GW2. Keeps and Castles can only be attacked during a specific window of time (2-5 hours). Make it so Keeps in the same position in all borderlands are in window at the same time, same for castles, so the server has to choose between attacking or defending. Make the siege on SM happen every other day or with a smaller window. Make all the windows overlap during prime time.

This makes siege wars a thing of numbers and not a thing of coverage (ie, you won’t lose your keep because your server was sleeping). It will eventually match servers with equal population, because the amount of territory you can cover during siege time is directly determine by the amount of people that you can pull at the same time (ie, if you can pull 250 people, you can have 50 people defending your castle, 150 attacking the other servers and 50 attacking SM).

Does this promote zerging the sieges? Yes, and that is not a bad thing: Sieges are about zergs.

Towers and Camps can be flipped at any time, to keep something to do for people that play “off-hours” and/or like to roam.

That they release every 2 weeks does not means that they will be working on the content only two weeks.

They have 4 separate teams, each 2 weeks one of the team will release but the other 3 will continue their work. So it is possible for all the teams to be working on content for a month or more, but their work is syncronized so there is release every two weeks.

We do exactly that where I work (no, sadly I don’t work for A-Net)

calankh.3248:

Today’s announcements have blown all of that away. Instead of less temporary content, we have 2 week releases now?

Releases every 2 weeks does not equate to “more temporary content”. They will be adding temporary and permanent content, bug fixes, balancing fixes, PvP maps, etc,etc. We just will get them faster.

I only hope they strengthened their QA Team, too.. 3 patches the day of the release sounds more like “beta” than “production quality”.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Soronthar.7236:

It is impossible to “balance” classes for PvE unless you made them all the same.
…

That is like saying, ArenaNet is constantly doing something that is doomed to fail so they should just fail constantly and make the game worse and worse until it dies.
…

Let me clarify what I mean by “balancing”: they cannot make any random group be able to farm CoF 1 in 8 minutes. They cannot make any party where chars have same profession have exactly the same DPS and damage mitigation. They cannot make any class “solo” any Champ or dung (for the record, my hobby is to solo champs with my Ranger.. ofc there are some that I just can’t beat).

What they can do in PvE is to have content that is easier if you have a specific class or combination in your party, and doable with any other combination. And they should have content for different classes and combination (ie: some fractals are easier with a guardian, some easier with a mesmer, some easier with a thief,etc). It all boils down to content design. The Molten Facility is a prime example of that: easier with some classes, and PUGable if everybody in the party knows the dungeon and the boss mechanic. For some combinations it was a slow progression, but doable.

Anyway, ANet is “balancing” for sPvP, not PvE. There is no other reason for the pet nerf: “We want a Ranger with a jaguar/eagle/moa”.. said no dungeon/FotM/farming party ever.

As a Ranger I managed to keep my pet alive in the Fritzz battle up until the third stage where jumping over a crate is a must. I can understand that my reef drake cannot climb a box, but why my eagle cannot just fly to my elbow or something?

The dungeon is not “Too Hard”, it is “Too Annoying”. After a couple of wipes (yes, it IS Hard, and that is good) we figured out the laser room, we manage to get into the third stage without much effort .. and every single time we get wiped because we don’t all have perma-stability. We even got a name for the attack: “The Pull of Doom”… the golem pulls you, you’re likely to get into a wall, and then power-punched to death.. all in a single, fluid motion that you cannot prevent (the tell is too short to react to it) or respond (you get knocked down then stunned, then killed) .

Just removing the pull from the third stage would be enough to keep the difficulty high but doable after you learn the ropes, just like the Molten Facility (now THAT was a beautifully crafted dungeon).

It is impossible to “balance” classes for PvE unless you made them all the same. There is no way to make a group of necros and rangers speed-farm CoF 1 with the same effectiveness as the guardian/warrior/mesmer unless you give them the same DPS and portinh… which means that all professions are the same thing with different skins.

The fact that the most optimal group is more or less the same for all for dungeons is a content design flaw, not a balancing issue. There are other MMOs where different dungeons/quest/events have different optimal party configurations, and where Raids/Champs/whatever need different kind of groups and strategies.

That’s what we’re missing here.

(and that pet dodge when we dodge… it is really that difficult? Give them 1s invincibility when we dodge, and we’re set).

And it doesn’t help that you need 500 BoH for the legendaries. I have some friends that go to WvW just for the badges, so for they it is logical to join a Zerg or pick on the weakest.

On the other hand, I have friends that check http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/map/786/blue?lang=en during office hours and send me “crap, we lost Stonemist” via IM

My main grip with the tickets is that they spent resources building skins that very, very, very few players will use, instead of spending those resources on things that more people would enjoy. Even more when people are willing to pay for those skins with real money and they still refuse to put them in the gem store.

I did the 300 achievement while doing the daily yesterday in Caledon. Granted, I found some nice people that actually waited to activate the holos if someone was still running, which makes it easier, but still…

Taran Redleaf.7912:

The ranger sends in the pet to run up to boss and starts firing a bow. The pet is running (no dps is being done by the pet yet) so the Ranger is only putting out 2/3rds his/her dps. The fight continues. The pet gets in trouble, so the Ranger recalls the pet. Now the pet is running away from the boss (no dps is being done by the pet now). Lets say the Ranger swaps pets and sends in a new pet (no dps is being done by the pet until it reaches the target). The point of the example here is that pets hinder Ranger damage output when they are swapped or running to/from the target. With so many damage points invested in pets (by ArenaNet), the Ranger is actually handicapped whenever the pet is not attacking (especially when dead).

And that’s why any Ranger worth their salt knows which pets to use according to the situation: Pets with High Vit running passive for “Protect Me” and rez purposes, Moas for their shriek and healing, Birds for Swiftness, Spiders for venom and bind, Dogs for knock backs, etc,etc. Not every one of us use a tanky Bear every time. I rarely ends a dungeon with the same set of pets I had at the beginning.

If captured points gave their XP/WXP at the end of each tick, the same as the points given to the servers, perhaps there will be more incentives to capture and keep strategic points, thus forcing commanders to split forces (like, you know, real warfare).

And it would open new strategies and opportunities…

When I ran Karka Queen (the one, only and last time) a lot of karkas and at least one veteran Karka got into the fight. At least 10 players went down. “Luckily” the zerg was so big that it mattered little at the end (all karkas and the vet where down in a minute or so).

You can guess the lag.

if you don’t want to pay for repairs, find a border when your forces are outmatched. You’ll receive a nice boon that, among other things, prevents your armor from being damage.
And then prepare to die, a lot

it makes sense.. At the begining there where only a couple of entusiasts, now that the general population has come to the game this community is no different to other MMO communities. There are the helpful people, the people that bring their pet peeves to every thread, oldtimers that say that the game is degrading, people spelling “DOOM” at every patch, etc, etc, etc.

But as I say, half the fun in an MMO is reading the Forums, with all the drama

As the number of people grow, the drama will grow.

A friend of mine has an explanation for the pick animation: When the sickle gets dull, you just beat the plant until it yields you the fruits XD

And here I was, thinking that we where there for the eggs.. sorry, for the crates.

I have but one concern about an API to buy and sell in the TP: Security. I bet that as soon as an API to trade in the TP is released, someone will find an exploit to “steal” things from other users (placing a buy order of 1c with his char, and fulfilling it with another person char).

So, for me, a TP API for trading should be a big NO.

Two weeks of temporary content may be too little, because people on holydays may not get back in time.

That said, Southsun is quite friendly to those that can only play and hour or two every two weeks. If you want the backpieces and you see me ingame, send me a whisper and I will take you to a free of charge, hour long “easy achievements collection tour” which guarantee one of the backpieces now and you can get the another another after May 28. I hang out in Sorrows Furnace.

I’m really enjoying this island now. I’ll miss all the fun.

Crafting (besides Chef, perhaps) seems close to useless until you get to lvl 80, and then only if you have level your craft to 400.

I found out that there is just no profit to be done unless you farm tons and tons of materials, and by the time you have the material for the gear you want, you have already outleveled it.

The only things I found useful to craft before lvl 80 were Boxes, Jewerly (and then, only lvl 65 jewerly) and Food.

I think that if they let us craft lvl 400 stuff at any level, and remove every recipe that is not needed for the lvl 400 recipes, no one would notice, and no one would miss them (with a very few exceptions)

I hope this new instance is like the ones in F&F: one that you can solo or bring a friend.

I don’t see any problem with that.

It WILL end in a dungeon:

“Join Kiel for a mission to capture the deadly, desperate Canach! In this all-new story dungeon, you’ll enter Canch’s Lair on a subterranean solo mission under the island. If you defeat the elusive sylvari you’ll unlock a challenging all-new group adventure! "

(from https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/may-28-2013/ )

So.. it is a dungeon that you can solo.. and will unlock an adventure that requires a group. Whatever that means.

So.. it is a dungeon that you can solo.. and will unlock an adventure that requires a group. Whatever that means.Luckily for those who don’t like to PUG all this is completely optional, as you can get your rewards without doing any of this.

There are many other games out there using the same gating mechanism (you know who you are!) which has the same amount of irate comments in the forums (grab bags from one of them are called “scam bags” in the forums), and that hasn’t stop them from adding more and more content using that mechanism. All the games from a specific gaming company uses this very same mechanism, and they get tons of money.

So, vent off… RNG boxes are here to stay. As long as they only have one or two uber-rare items in them, I’m ok. If they start putting uber-powerful items in there, then I’ll complain.

My most memorable moment in this game was when I was touring some guildies to get the samples. Everywhere we went, there was a riot, or mobs where attacking the settlement, 3 Veteran Karkas decided to aggro on us at the same time (we ended up killing about 7-8 of them, one after the other, non-stop), Jungle wurms appeared just on our feets, we cried in frustration at the JP, and killed those pesky insties (Several times).

I’ll miss this island when the event is over. Well.. I will miss the MF buff and the insti farming too

There is a way, which is how I got my backpack: try to get the crabtacular! achievement. for that you have two options:

- Tell everyone at the arena that you want the achievement, so the last guy will toss you the crab just before the time ends. (didn’t work for me, though, but worth a try).
– Watch the timer and try to grab the crab in the last few seconds (that’s how I did it, took me 4 tries).

or, wait until May 28.

I have ran this dungeon thrice now with my lvl 80 Ranger with lvl 65 gear(I know, I know..). First run was with guildies, we kind of breezed the dungeon, but where wiped a lot (more than 6 times) in the boss fight, until we realized what was going on. Second time was with a PUG, I changed some traits, skills and pets specifically for the dungeon. We suffered in the first tunnel, then proceeded slowly until the bosses (mostly because we were not focusing on a single target), and got wiped twice.

The third time was with some guildies and two strangers (that never ran the content before). It was the easiest of the three runs for me, and it seemed at times that I was riding the shockwaves rezzing downed players (I got very, very good at evading).

Some tips that helped me/us:
* When fighting the slimes, kill the silver first and then the champion.
* When in doubt, kill the gunner first, then the smoke shaman or the brawler.
* Always try to knock the protector out of his ring.
* Lightning Reflexes will save you many, many times.
* “Heal Spring on Defeat” is a very useful trait to bring.
* SB/LB configuration is quite useful in this fight: Use SB most of the time, switch, send a barrage with the LB, switch, repeat.
* When the zerk starts creating two or three shockwaves each time, evade towards him. This will make you evade two of them with a single roll. Or you can just go as far as possible.
* I used lakittenail and drake. When the zerk start to create shockwaves, call them so they won’t be one-shoted. The drake had a high survivability while meleeing the zerk.
* Sometimes the zerk will pounce you twice in a row, into a pool of fire. Prepare to die, there is no escape to that. It can only be prevented by evading the zerk just as it appears behind you.

I have rarely spent more than an hour doing dailies, and have rarely adventured outside Metrica, Queensdale or Wayfarers for them. I don’t even know if PvP are really easier than the PvE ones.

And I must qualify as a “casual player”, as I play 1-2 hours a day, took me a month to reach lvl 80, and I’m still using lvl 50-60 gear. I do play every day, though.