Guild Wars 2

I tend to leave smokescreen on the bar. But really you should take the init gain signet if you can.

Jerus.4350:

dlonie.6547:

Dyes? Don’t be ridiculous, that’s not part of your build.

Dat stale blonde human female meta doe. Something needs to be done to shake that up (Sexier charr maybe? Grow the GW2 furry playerbase?)

Human Female meta is 2013, Asura are supreme, male or female, cause you know, they look pretty much the same.

Let me get the rat poison.

Its good to have both written and video versions of guides. So nicely done.

dlonie.6547:

Dyes? Don’t be ridiculous, that’s not part of your build.

Dat stale blonde human female meta doe. Something needs to be done to shake that up (Sexier charr maybe? Grow the GW2 furry playerbase?)

Such blasphemy! Calling the human female meta stale. I hope you are ashamed of yourself.

Words are used to communicate. If using a particular word is getting the message across, despite it not being exactly correct according to a different contextual definition, then we can assume everything is fine. After all we are still getting our meaning across and communicating effectively.

Language is a tool of communication, not a sacrosanct entity – the purity of which has to be defended at all costs.

I really like this quote.

Just had a dreadful thought.

What if the pax announcement has nothing to do with an expansion. What if it is an announcement to destroy those berserker cheaters and to redesign the game into a classic trinity game.

Yeah i miss the minion mechanics of gw1. Full bar of minions doesnt have quite the same feel as having 11 duplicate minions created from fresh corpses.

Heck id even support allowing duplicate utility selections for minions so we can have 6 bone minions or 3 flesh wurms. >.>

Id hope anet can grasp the simple concept that no matter what they do they wont solve elitism and group exclusion. So its better to keep their current system where everything works. I think we just have to put continued faith in anet on this subject. DIfficult I know.

zengara.8301:

Yeah, giving the other a role would help, but wouldn’t that just instantly return to the trinity problem? where there is a healer/tank/dps since the others also need a role, I cant see a way out of this beside giving healing a significant boost and tank/bunker more agro + armor? (which will in the end just make this game into WoW with better graphics o.o…)

But if they could somehow fix it, without making it a trinity problem, or that they need a certain role for each dungeon, then it would be awesome, especially if no matter the combination, the fast runs would end at around the same time.

You are completely correct. If they make other roles required then it shifts to a trinity and people are forced to wait for other roles. Elitism remains. If they dont buff other roles enough then people will stay berserker. You cant really fix it. It really just comes down to the people complaining need to understand what they are asking for and learn to deal with it by finding their own groups.

X T D.6458:

for pve, power is best for any profession, aside from a few situations like copper boss in silverwastes for example. Condition damage is weak and you need to spam several of them to degen enemies. Whereas power/zerker based builds, you can auto attack targets to death in less time then a condi build would take. For WvW zerker necro is great because of its very high damage, but condition builds are good for wvw/pvp as well.

Its not even good for the Copper boss. Theres too many people fighting it so the cap is maxed. You should be going power for any boss/mob you fight with a group. Conditions only really work as a solo PvE build.

Didnt take a screenshot but i saw an AC group with 2 warriors and 1 guard and it said zerk warriors and guards only 5k+ AP. I guess they wanted 4 warriors and 1 guard or maybe even the amazing 2 guard 3 warrior meta.

I also joined a group which was asking for a warrior and didnt have one. I was on ele. I said as i joined you dont need a warrior, ele is better. Got kicked instantly. :>

You can always compare classes if you want. But not being able to split by class will mean solo records will be dominated by eles and warriors.

Laulajatar.4253:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Was this on purpose?

Someone in party felt trollish.
“On a scale from 1-10, how mad would you be if I popped all the eggs?”

We started new, though.
12 stonetouch spiders.
12.
._.

Pretty casual. We had 50+ when we were messing around after doing TA Up record months back.

Fyrebrand.4859:

“Meta” can also refer to game mechanics and gaining a competitive advantage, as well. But it goes beyond just recognizing good trait combinations and taking the game at face-value. Often it involves taking advantage of the interface in some way, thinking ahead and considering how other players will behave, or using technical aspects of the game’s infrastructure to maximize efficiency. It’s behaviour that — while operating inside the bounds of the rules — may be unintended.

Doesnt this paragraph describe exactly how it is currently being used in GW2? Completely contradicts the thread title aswell.

Allelya.6830:

Spoj The Second.7680:

It really depresses me how people expect games to cater to bad/lazy players these days. In the past that was never the case. You either kept trying and learnt to overcome the challenge or you stopped.

Sorry, I actually really like the support I’m getting from many in this thread and am also surprised and grateful. This isn’t WoW. You don’t get to be in the “best of the best” guild and try to “look down” upon others as if you were some kind of Elitist Jerk.

So you’re better at it than others, so fricken what! Stop being a “holier than thou” and follow the lead of your fellow players and offer to help others.

Nice of you to twist what i said as a personal attack. I have no problem with less skilled players asking for help and i understand not everyone is naturally talented at games. But many players have what i think is unjust entitlement for easy content as a result of the shift in game difficulty over the years. Which is what i was pointing out.

Halvorn.9831:

Spoj The Second.7680:

It really depresses me how people expect games to cater to bad/lazy players these days. In the past that was never the case. You either kept trying and learnt to overcome the challenge or you stopped.

And the word made round that the game was difficult, so it attracted a few new players and distracted everyone else. Which makes you lose more money than you win.

I am against rising the overall difficulty level of the game. For one, there are too many problems with the platform itself that may make the game unplayable for a lot of players if the difficulty is raised (network lags, still broken camera etc.). Additionally there are players like me who have a job. When I get home in the evening I’d like to enjoy my time, not bite into my keyboard because of stupidly tough content. I may enjoy challenges every now and then, but the days when I masochistically wanted to conquer a game are over.

I am all for an option to switch content to a “hard mode” (for instanced content) should a player or a group of players feel the desire to do so, of course with improved rewards. I would be interested in what percentage of the player would ever really use this. Without any real prove for this I have the idea that it will be done by a negligible minority only.

Im not saying change it for this game. Im just commenting on how the difficulty of games in general has dropped considerably over the years and its considered the norm now. Games used to be about challenge. People didnt complain about games being too difficult back then as it was normal to force players to improve.

It really depresses me how people expect games to cater to bad/lazy players these days. In the past that was never the case. You either kept trying and learnt to overcome the challenge or you stopped.

It does look nice. But i think thats mostly just because its different. There are some things that really make more sense in their current implementation. The good things are the extra features you have added. But those arent UI changes.

For instance I like the new Hero Panel having all those features on it. But the problem is it has become very cluttered. Also the repositioning of the trinkets and weapon sets is worse than the original in my opinion. Its like they were changed just for the sake of appealing to change.

Also having an overly complex LFG is never good. I really dont fancy the idea of shifting through those dungeon tabs just to see what dungeons have a decent group going. The current LFG has its problems but the simple UI isnt one of them.

Overall i think you have focused a bit too much on making it visually appealing and not enough on ease of usability.

Well yeah it hurts the build. But its still the best solo condi build.

You are just seeing it as destructive because you are on the other side. You should be a bit more open minded. There are a lot of positives to the meta. You are just refusing to acknowledge them because you cant accept the negatives. Although the negatives can be worked around as has been demonstrated. :P

Windsagio.1340:

1) It discourages people from playing the content. This is pretty straightforward, I think. In the past when the ‘meta’ was demanded more than it is now this was more of a problem, but the core cause is still there. If you make people think they have to play a particular way to do content (and to people that play other styles of game, the ‘meta’ has a lot of force), some of them just won’t do it.

This does hurt serious dungeon people too, if more people did 5m content, Anet would still be developing for it.

2) Some dungeons it takes a long time to get a group for anyways, and because people filter via meta, it makes them self-exclude from the other side. This actually ties into point 1. A fragmented, mutually-exclusive community isn’t a healthy one.

These arent even examples I would use.

For the first one you could say the same of the opposite. Currently the only people discouraged from playing are those who dont put the effort in to find groups which suit them. If they dont put the effort in then we can assume that they dont really want to play the content all that much. On the other hand without the meta people who like to just follow guides or predetermined strategies would not play dungeons. They dont want to learn them for themselves so they follow the meta. You could argue that this stops some people from learning. But at the same time people who already have no interest in learning for themselves will just avoid the content if they cant follow a guide.

If people really want to play dungeons they will find a way. Having a meta or not makes no difference. If they are discouraged by petty things then we can assume that they dont really want to play.

If anything the meta provides more good than it does bad. It gives people choice. It teaches people. And it creates extra levels of enjoyment for those who value speed and competition. If people dont want to learn from the meta or dont want to follow it then they have that choice. Its better to have choice than to not have choice.

The second point is pretty misguided. You can find groups of almost any kind very quickly as long as you arent too restrictive. If people dont divide into sub communities then hostility and toxiciy becomes a major problem when players of different ideals meet. This happens currently when people ignore LFG descriptions. But when people do follow LFG descriptions its not an issue. So having sub communities is healthy as it prevents extra hostility between different types of players.

I always find people who try to show off their education as arrogant and ignorant. I always think “Are you overcompensating for something?”. You can be well educated but stupid. So drawing attention to yourself to make yourself look smart often has the opposite effect to people who can see through it.

ps. This isnt anything personal. But its more directed at Raine as he is the one who seems to enjoy flaunting his education even when uncalled for.

If you are referring to “I took all my gear.” Then yes “gears” would be incorrect in both american and standard english. But if you are referring to the mechanism then gears is correct. Ive never heard anyone refer to equipment as “gears”. Deers sounds a little strange to me aswell. I believe i used to say that when i was a child.

Isnt “gears” correct even in american english (assuming you are talking about gears/cogs)? I can understand your perspective with deer and maths. But saying “gear” for the plural form sounds completely messed up. I do say deer instead of deers and im english.

Its completely random and you can get any weapon on any class. That patch note was for standard loot. I doubt it effects daily fractal rewards. It would be pretty hard to test seeing that fractal skins are already incredibly rare and everyone seems to get the same skins they dont need over and over again.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

insanemaniac.2456:

…do 95% of your cm runs not have a thief for stealths?…

When did CM become difficult enough that this was a requirement for a smooth run? Speed I can see but not just to complete the content easily

Its not. But many pugs will do it even in non meta pugs. Its something that has become quite the norm thanks to the meta. Even your non meta pugs use a lot of strategies that have been learnt and passed down from speedruns. So to say the meta is destructive is kind of stupid. Without it your average player would be forced to discover everything themselves. This could be seen as a good thing. But not everyone likes to do that. Some people just like to follow. With the meta people have the choice to follow or ignore it. Without it they have no choice.

Yay. Never thought id see anyone try this. Shame you couldnt show off your supreme male mesmer fashion.

Raine.1394:

I, as an American English speaker have the same problem with ‘maths’ as I have with ‘gears’. To my ears it sounds the same as discussing how many deers were in the road. Maths may be allowed in the UK but I will reserve my right to state my preference.

I don’t know why but I found this pretty funny considering how many words have simplified spelling in american english. And how saying gas instead of petrol is considered correct in America. Not to mention american english came from english.

I have to say that speedruns with double mesmers and plenty of portal spots are a lot more interesting to watch. Its a shame some paths have doors right by the bosses and then long runs after. Making portals kind of pointless.

Nice run.

I would just use the results up till now tbh.

You need double energy at the bare minimum unless you dont mind healing him every time he life drinks. You can get out of aoe life drink with 2 well timed dodges. You dont need swiftness or locust signet to do this either. Although you will probably take 1 tick most times without swiftness. So double dodge and go DS then cast dark path to get back to lupi quickly. Chill from dark path and chill of death actually help a bit aswell. The rest is easy, just manage your energy sigils. Endurance food can help when you are first learning. But its not necessary.

You will most likely have to wall him. Getting hit by a barrage will seriously wreck your endurance management and eat your lifeforce. And if you get hit by bad RNG its difficult to recover.

Having a dig instead of countering his arguement. Lol.

I know people are stubborn and will never admit when they are proven wrong. But if you cant respond then you should just stop posting instead of taking jabs at people when you cant counter their arguements.

Ah sorry I missed the cap of casters maximum health. So i guess potentially the max damage would be around 40k. Which is pretty average considering frostbow burst.

If you dont mind losing to decent players then you can ignore it. You can simply win against other players and still feel successful. Dont underestimate the power of ignorance.

Your whole arguement is based on your own opinion. Thats all im saying. I believe PvE can be defined as having a meta. You believe it cant. But your posts imply that what you are saying is a fact.

Exclusivity is not necessary for the metagame. Its that simple.

Windsagio.1340:

hybrid.5027:

Windsagio.1340:

Spoj The Second.7680:

The last point is just your opinion. There is a competative element. Its just not direct.

It also applies to a fairly small component of the population. Is there any place beyond the dungeon speedrun community where there’s a significant competitve element in PvE?

(Appearances aside, I’m always willing to be wrong)

The competitive speed clear scene is probably about the same size as the competitive pvp scene. and by “competitive pvp scene” i mean the guilds/teams who have a realistic shot at winning tournaments. Just like lowly hotjoiners adopt the builds of TCG or Abjured, pug zerkers adopt the builds of SC and DnT in pve.

I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison, in PvP, even if it’s hotjoin, the competitive aspect is always front-and-center, and someone coming in meta is going to most likely demolish you (if they know how to play it)^1.

Most people don’t even know that people compete in speed clears, and no competitive element is immediately visible in PvE.

^1 That’s actually another interesting tidbit that I didn’t really hit in the OP. Meta is pushed harder by it’s nature in head-to-head competition, because the person playing a properly tuned meta is going to just wreck the player that’s unaware of the meta, and likely make it impossible for that player to succeed at all. This simply isn’t the case in PvE. Me doing the dungeon faster than you or taking less damage or (insert any criteria here) won’t keep you from completing the dungeon.

I think you are being closed minded on what competition can mean. You can compete against yourself to constantly improve. You can compete against the clock to get your dungeons done before you run out of time. You can compete against others to see who can run it faster. You can compete to see if you can get a flawless and smooth run. You dont necessarily need a direct opponent to have competition.

But what hybrid said is a pretty good comparison. Most people just adopt the builds and strategies demonstrated in speed clears by the top guilds. And thats what forms the pug preferences. Call it the pug meta if you will. Its just the same as how your casual PvP player adopts builds and strategies from the top PvP teams. They are the top so it makes sense to learn and copy from them.

The last point is just your opinion. There is a competative element. Its just not direct.

Rym.1469:

Give us Grenth’s Balance Elite from GW1 and make it work on bosses.

Here, Necromancer required in every single PvE encounter.

;)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Grenth%27s_Balance

Would be pretty funny to do 600k with one skill. Let it crit and be affected by buffs and modifiers and do even more.

Necro 1 shot meta.

WoW is subscription based so people are less inclined to stop playing so suddenly. LoL was very small at the start and its completely f2p so its a bit different. Plus its not an MMO. MMO’s these days tend to have huge numbers right after release and then a large portion drop off after a couple of weeks/months. It happened in GW2 when people got to 80 and didnt know what to do. And it happened on a huge scale for Archeage recently.

Archeage actually made a big mistake with their release. There was not enough servers so they had to open up several later on (It was packed full on early access, actual release was a joke). And they took too long to do so. When they finally added some servers many players had already given up due to 3 hour queues or being left behind. Its better too have more than enough on release than to have too little.

The problem is you cant teach logic.

You can either grasp it from what has already been said or you cant. Weths posts are pretty clear and concise. So i dont think i can do a better job at rephrasing.

Also rune of strength doesnt give might on heal. So you wouldnt get 6 stacks of might with vamp signet. Also locust signet doesnt give 6 stacks with aristocracy runes. Just tested it to be sure. Aristocracy runes only work with the heal slot.

Silly Rope.

Raine.1394:

Wethospu.6437:

So by your logic if I say that a car is a car then it can’t be red?

Being a correct solution and the best solution aren’t mutually exclusive. A solution can be both correct and the best.

The funny thing about math is that you can actually define what is the reality. And that’s what you and others are doing when talking about optimal solutions.

Now, why don’t you let me do the same?

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Wethospu.6437:

That’s exactly the restrictive mindset I was talking about.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Wethospu.6437:

Raine.1394:

Wethospu.6437:

I thought we talked about solutions, not meaning of expressions. So far your arguments seem to consist of “you are wrong” and “I’m right”. If you know maths as good as you claim, I’m sure you can do better.

The set set {2, -2} is not the best solution set for the equation x^2 = 4.. It is either a correct or incorrect solution.
--

So an incorrect solution is as good as a correct solution?

How on earth did you go from one statement, to the other? I’m not seeing how you came to interpret that in that way.

A solution can be correct or incorrect.

If a correct solution is not the best then that means it’s not better than an incorrect solution.

That leaves two options.

1) An incorrect solution is better than a correct solution.

2) A correct solution is as good as an incorrect solution.

bolded key sentence.
This looks like an incorrect assumption resulting in a failure of logic to me..

edit: I suspect failure of logic causes the incorrect assumption initially mind you.

I’m not really following you.

If there are two options and one is better than the other then that option is the best.

If there are two options and one is worse than the other then that option is not the best.

So if it’s not the best then it can’t be better than the other.

A correct solution can only be best if you view that as valuable. If, on the other hand, you realize that a false result can be just as valuable to understanding as a true one, then?

Correct and incorrect have only to do with correct and incorrect. That’s the key to understanding this. You need to have a mathematical mind. Value judgments about state are just that, something you’ve added to the overall evaluation. There is no best in terms of correct or incorrect only correct and incorrect. Both are equally valuable results as both will lead yo,u to the truth.

Even though in research people say both correct and incorrect results are equally valuable. That is technically not true. There is definately value in incorrect results. But to say all results are exactly equal is absurd. Incorrect results only confirm what you did wrong. That is argueably less valuable than proving you did something right.

Wow the logic deficiency of some people in the meta thread. >.>

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Wethospu.6437:

That’s exactly the restrictive mindset I was talking about.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Wethospu.6437:

Raine.1394:

Wethospu.6437:

I thought we talked about solutions, not meaning of expressions. So far your arguments seem to consist of “you are wrong” and “I’m right”. If you know maths as good as you claim, I’m sure you can do better.

The set set {2, -2} is not the best solution set for the equation x^2 = 4.. It is either a correct or incorrect solution.
--

So an incorrect solution is as good as a correct solution?

How on earth did you go from one statement, to the other? I’m not seeing how you came to interpret that in that way.

A solution can be correct or incorrect.

If a correct solution is not the best then that means it’s not better than an incorrect solution.

That leaves two options.

1) An incorrect solution is better than a correct solution.

2) A correct solution is as good as an incorrect solution.

bolded key sentence.
This looks like an incorrect assumption resulting in a failure of logic to me..

edit: I suspect failure of logic causes the incorrect assumption initially mind you.

I think you should keep re-reading that until you understand it. It makes perfect sense.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

I understand what you’re getting at, and I agree that in a complex game like this with trade-offs there is an optimal way to do things. But, and this is more aimed at the conversation Spoj was having, I don’t think there HAS to be an optimal way.

Perhaps a better example demonstrative of more tradeoffs:

Same situation as before, Class X can do 2 dps with fire or water and the Boss has 4 health and you get 2 party members. But now, what if Class Y can use a skill that causes Class X to do 2x dps?

So now you can bring 2x Class X to do 2 dps each for a total of 4, OR you can bring Class X and Class Y, and use Class Y’s support skill to allow Class X to do 4 dps.

In both scenarios the situation is the same: 4 dps, and yet the mechanism by which this was accomplished varies. So here there would be no optimal solution, but rather a variety of equally good solutions.

Using unrealistic examples doesnt help the arguement. As someone said earlier good design is about tradeoffs. So if you change the composition/builds slightly then they should amount to be slightly different. If they arent different then they are technically the same on a macro level. Which means that you have the same solution but with different cosmetics.

To put your example in perspective. You have demonstrated 2 different compositions which output the same damage. In game with the current system this would still be 2 berserker builds. The meta hasnt changed from being maximising damage. Its like selecting an ele and a warrior or just 2 eles. Your overall objective is still the same, you are maximising damage. However in reality only one of these solutions would be optimal.

From a realism point of view. There are far too many variables for a complex game to have 2 different solutions which are exactly the same. So the example can be completely discounted. Ill repeat, if they do amount to the same then they are most likely the same solution but with different cosmetics. So you end up still having a single optimal solution.

Lighting was poor so the pics didnt come out so great.

http://imgur.com/a/as9VA#0

And then heres my old gallery. Ele and engi have stayed roughly the same.

http://imgur.com/a/PUOxv

Problem with power necros is that you have to trade off your spite passive and well of suffering if you want to do a might rotation with signet mastery. You could just go condi though. Im not sure about wraithlords armour but i wouldnt be surprised if condi was faster for necro even on low armour targets.

Nice QoL update. I have a huge amount of minis i never use because its too much effort to take them out the bank and click them everytime i change instance. Sadly it wont keep me playing the game. :P

Was expecting pistol whip spam. Did not disappoint.

Interesting. Something id like to point out. From my testing the dagger chain takes much closer to 2 seconds to repeat including aftercasts. And I dont know how much of an aftercast lich form has, but the repeatable damage should be more than 0.75 seconds.

If we assume 2 seconds and 1 second then the values are much closer. 1440 DPS against 1544 DPS. Thats just guessing Lich auto aftercast though. If we assume your numbers are correct then the gap is definately more than i expected. But im wondering how it compares in real fight situations with using the dagger offhand skills.

I havent really been playing recently. But i probably will look into this in a bit more detail after the feature patch. Dont have much motivation to do anything now. Especially when its going to change and make it easier to calculate dps after the patch. It definately seems safe to use in 80 dungeons for now though.