Guild Wars 2

No you don’t need a warrior or Mesmer for pve. Even for CoF it is not hard to get into teams without playing a warrior or Mesmer but yes, having a war, guard and/or mes certainly increases your chances of getting into any dungeon team dramatically, guardians aren’t sought after for cof speedruns but for difficult content like Arah, high level fractals and so on they’re more popular than warriors and Mesmer and generally guards are always good to have. I need to beat arah p1 and p2 for my Dungeon Master title but I can’t seem to ever find a party which is why I’m leveling my guardian right now. While I don’t think you need certain professions to beat regular pve or even most of the group-based pve I think having a guard, mes and war-guard in particular, will dramatically increase the chances of a solo player to get into high level pve teams. If you’re not a solo player and have friends/a large guild to play with then your class doesn’t really matter.

They really need to balance the professions better. Guards, wars and mesmers are just too good. Eles and thieves are okay but necro, ranger and engi are so weak compared to the others.

I’ve often heard that as successful as GW1 was critically it didn’t really do well financially which is why they did a lot of things differently in GW2 to hopefully make it appeal to a wider audience

What I dislike most about GW2 is that it was sold as a game that would do away with the trinity (tank, healer, nuker) but the professions are so horribly balanced in PvE at least that it feels like they’ve just replaced that trinity with a different one. Guardians, warriors and mesmers are just way better than everyone else to the point where it feels like taking anyone else is just hurting your team. A dungeon team full of heavy armor professions for example can clear pretty much any content with ease whereas a team full of light or medium armor professions would struggle in many areas. In GW1 this wasn’t as much an issue because you had secondary professions and heroes which allowed you to build around the weaknesses of your profession.

Apart from that there are a few more things such as a lack of ability to post URL’s to webpages using the in-game chat which in GW1 was a good way to hang out with friends and the lack of a guild alliance system. Low level dungeons like AC and CM being so hard is also disappointing, they should be made easier to encourage people to do them more, CoF p2 has the best difficulty balance in my opinion.

Another reason why people do CoF is because CoF armor is pretty good looking with all the flame effects and also offers a Berserker set which is very popular in PvE.

I doubt a team of 4w1m would really be much faster than a random mix of experienced players. What’s the point in doing so many runs quickly anyway? Wouldn’t DR kick in after a few runs?

I don’t see any problem with this at all. I do have a level 80 zerker Mesmer and warrior but I’ve never joined an elitist group like that personally because I think groups like that would kick me out if I made even a single mistake or dc’d, it’s not hard at all to find a PUG group for CoF p1 and even p2 on gw2lfg.com, especially if you have a Mesmer or warrior yourself. CoF p1 and p2 are the only dungeons I enjoy doing nowadays, they’ve made all the other dungeons so hard and long that it takes way too long to find a team to begin with and they’re all frustrating to play with a team of inexperienced players. In my opinion they should make AC much easier for low level players because most groups only seem to take level 80 players which is just wrong in my opinion considering it is the first dungeon in the game.

The real problem is that guardians, warriors and mesmers are far superior to all the other classes in general. They’re just as good, if not better than other classes for soloplay but when it comes to teamplay they unarguably outshine the other classes in every possible way. They just bring so much more to the table than other classes, sure there are niche areas where the thief’s invisibility(Dredge fractal door bomb) or the ele’s frost bow(ac p1 burrows) can be very handy but overall guardians, warriors and mesmers are way more useful than the others. I can’t remember the last time I pugged with an engineer and as a player who mains necros I can tell you that I often get told by teammates that they hate playing with necros because they’re useless, most of the time I end up in a team with more than 1 necro the group either struggles to beat the content or takes ages to beat it. Class balance is the problem.

Bottom line is that they need to balance the classes better, CoF is fine. If anything they should lower the difficulty of dungeons like AC, CM, SE and CoF p3. If they’re going to make CoF p1 longer and/or harder then they’ll have to make p3 easier. I personally wish they’d lower Arah’s difficulty as well so I can finally do p1 and p2 and get my Dungeon Master title but I understand that as the final dungeon in the game Arah deserves to be as hard as it is.

My first 80 was my Charr Necromancer who I got to 80 about 2 weeks after the game was released (played him in headstart as well), I made a lot of the xp for him from Dolyak escorts in WvW and skipped levels 61-71 by using the cooking guide on guru. My second 80 is my Asura Elementalist and my third will be my Asura Mesmer.

As much as I love the fact that the xp rate is pretty much the same for all levels, I think they could do more to make leveling alts more fun. For example, I’ve already finished world completion on my Necromancer so I don’t want to have to explore maps again to level my alts, of course I could do Crafting but that’s so expensive to the point of not being viable for me. Still it isn’t too bad because just by doing hearts alone the xp rate is pretty good and with the occasional sp and vista I run into along the way I suppose it isn’t all that tedious. What I would like to see them do is to give people more reason to visit the mid-level maps, at least on the servers I’ve been on many of the mid-level maps like Fields of Ruin, Iron March, Brisban Wildlands have been ghost towns and it becomes a drag to not have people to do events with.

I’ve learned that dungeons are a good way to level alts provided you can get into teams, particularly AC because it has the lowest level requirement, doesn’t get contested and is very popular due to the amount of gold you could make. In addition to that you also get Dungeon Tokens from every run which, by the time you reach level 80 can be used to get yourself exotic armor and weapons. My problem with dungeons is twofold, firstly many parties refuse to take people who are just the right level to do the dungeon, they always want people who are either level 80 or close to it or at least way higher than the minimum level requirement for the dungeon. Another issue I have with dungeons is the fact that some classes, particularly Guardians and Warriors (and mesmers in some niche areas like the Wisp fractal and CoF p1 boulder area) are so good in parties compared to others that people try to get as many players of those classes as possible. Having a Heavy armored class or 2 in a team makes runs significantly whereas not having a Light armored class for example doesn’t seem to make a difference, at least not to the extent that not having a heavy armored character does. I often get told I play the worst class in the game when I join PUG’s with my Necromancer and to a lesser extent, Mesmer. What I would like to see them do is make the lower level dungeons like AC and CM more forgiving for people who barely meet the level requirement and make them more challenging for a team with mostly level 80 players in them so it doesn’t become too easy. I also hope they balance the professions in such a way that they’re all useful in teams in their own way and people actually have reason to not stack as many Guardians and/or Warriors as they can. Neither of these issues matter for people who are in large guilds and/or play with lots of friends of course but for players who play mostly solo I believe this would help make the game a lot more fun.

I’m in a small guild with a group of friends who are all casual players and I’d really like to do dungeons and other content with them but I find that without at least one Guardian or Warrior in the team, dungeons are quite difficult (apart from the occasional PUGs who are experienced) so what I’d really like to know is what in your opinion is the best necro build to do dungeons keeping in mind that we don’t have heavy armored classes and most of us are casual players?

Press F11 and click the third tab, this brings up your sound options. I’m pretty sure there must be an option there to mute voices only.

I second Bartock, I believe the guy who voiced Tolfdir, Calcelmo and possibly a few more old male NPC’s in Skyrim voiced some of these Dredge you refer to as well. His name is George Coe and he’s credited with voice acting Tolfdir and Calcelmo in the Unofficial Elder Scrolls wiki but while Skyrim is mentioned in the list of games he provided voice for, Guild Wars 2 isn’t. I’m still convinced it’s the same guy though.

http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Voice_Actors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Coe

Personally I find the Sylvaris’ British accents annoying and as a result I almost always skip cutscenes involving them, Trahearne in particular.

Maps do have unique themes, for example areas in the Shiverpeaks have their own unique set of songs which you will not hear anywhere else, and so on for other areas. Some of the tracks will play in many areas, not just in one type of terrain. I admit there could have been more unique tracks but what’s there is really good, also liked how they retained a lot of songs from GW1 which is great. There is also a custom soundtracks feature which I hope they will eventually improve to the point where it no longer replaces the default soundtrack and give you more control over which areas you want your custom tracks to play.

WHAT? Jeremy Soule isn’t doing music for GW2 anymore? Can someone please tell me why? He did a fantastic job.

Absolutely, Jeremy Soule is my favorite videogame music composer. I often play games he makes soundtracks for just to hear his beautiful music, even if the game is bad his music is so atmospheric it sucks me in to that world.

My favorite tracks from GW2 so far are:

The Shiverpeaks – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT5_g8ZvceE
The Seraph – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT5_g8ZvceE

The first track plays in any Shiverpeaks area (including HoTW) and in LA during Wintersday while not in combat.
The second one plays during the bossfight with the Supreme Eye of Zhaitan.

I also like how they still kept a lot of the GW1 songs in the game although I miss some of them like Crystal Oasis. These are my favorite tracks from GW1.

Crystal Oasis – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oFGagjD18o
Tasca’s Demise – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUQFBzUoQxY
Ashford Abbey – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mc0OSVrhoE
Temple of Tolerance – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIt6Ko5djrY
Nightfall Theme – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vihVoxiqMg
Festival of Lyss – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7SlEEPhEWA
March Through Norrhart – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyM5Pn_UkIk

• First Light – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FBuxs6oxZ4

• First Light is a bonus track which plays in Pre-Searing near Fort Ranik and is only available if you have a specific version of Prophecies.

Since you mentioned Skyrim here are some of my favorite Elder Scrolls tracks as well ;p

The Streets of Whiterun – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo3VAltxlr8
Under an Ancient Sun – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP1V9jDDQt0
Minstrel’s Lament – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5gqkPYWMZs
Auriel’s Ascension – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i68-mIovB8
Morrowind Explore 7 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geZcwEo6wik

Finally some of his music from Harry Potter games, which went largely unnoticed because the games themselves weren’t that good.

Happy Hogwarts – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oelDCr3P7yk
Wander Rain – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9gYSBWDNRU
Wander Snow – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mudm4YgdHk4
Follow Rain – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViTq_CbXQqY
Spell Atmos – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnw7pRmF3YU

I hope Anet improve the custom soundtracks feature so we can retain the default GW2 music while adding more music to the game and having more control over what plays where and when, I’d like to add all of these tracks to GW2

My main is a Necromancer as well and personally I don’t find Toughness very useful, at least in PvE. Most of the time I die it is due to the health degeneration effects of conditions such as Burning, Bleeding and Poison against which Toughness does not help at all whereas the extra hp offered by Vitality does help you survive longer against both direct damage as well as condition damage, especially if you find yourself using Plague Signet often in dungeons I figure Vitality would be way more useful.

Most of the time I die to direct damage it is in dungeons or to event bosses who use powerful attacks which are capable of 1 or 2 hitting you regardless of your toughness, so tanking those attacks is not an option, they have to be dodged/kited. Also for all caster professions, the trait which increase Vitality also increases Healing Power so this makes your heals stronger to compensate for the lower armor although yes, Toughness is better at protecting you from direct damage.

Overall I think Vitality is a more reliable way of increasing your survivability whereas Toughness is more situational. Toughness would probably be more useful to you if you farm in an area full of mobs who never inflict degenerative conditions. Higher Toughness would allow you to group more of them together and aoe them for farming.

I prefer Vitality over Toughness because I find that I often die due to degen from conditions like Burning, Bleeding or Poison which Toughness doesn’t seem to help against whereas the extra health from Vitality certainly increases your survivability against both types of damage.

I know Toughness doesn’t mitigate falling damage either but I’m not sure if falling damage is fixed or based on a percentage of your health, if it’s the former that means Vitality also increases your survivability in jumps.

Also most of the time I die to direct damage the source of that damage is a very powerful attack which unless dodged, will 1-hit or 2 -hit anyone anyways, which leads me to believe Toughness, while it certainly makes a difference, is somewhat overrated. This is based on my PvE experience mind you, I’m not much of PvPer but I imagine Toughness is more useful there by comparison.

Does Anet even read this forum at all? Just curious because this thread has got like 68k views now and by the looks of it this particular skill point has been bugged ever since the game came out. I am also starting to think they’re ignoring it on purpose to prevent too many people from reaching 100% world completion and getting legendary weapons so they wouldn’t run out of things to do and lose interest in the game.

One of the best aspects about Guild Wars 1 was that you could PvP and sell your Zaishen Keys and Strongboxes for gold which could subsequently be used to buy PvE items. This is how I got many titles for my GWAMM and also my 50 HoM, Chaos Gloves and so on and none of it felt like a grind to me because I never farmed PvE, I just PvP’d and sold my rewards, so ANet if you truly want GW2 to not feel grindy I think you should implement something like this for GW2. I know WvW can yield a substantial amount of PvE rewards but hardcore PvPers don’t really consider to be true PvP.

1. Totally agree with you about guilds, halls and alliances as I miss them dearly too. They unnecessarily fixed a good system that wasn’t broken by introducing this whole multiple guild thing and removing alliances.

2. At level 80 the map travel price is pretty high and considering how they nerfed farming gold is not easy to make so this discourages me from map traveling to low level areas to help friends, unless I do events frequently to make up for it. I don’t mind the Trading Post tax but the fact that it’s down as often as it is is annoying.

3. I have no problems with mobs dropping loot appropriate for that zone’s level rather than the player level because this allows players to get lower level equipment and mats somewhat more efficiently for their alts or friends rather than dedicate a separate character for it. If I want level loot appropriate to my level I can just go to a high level map or WvW, problem solved. This also prevents players from farming high level stuff in easier areas rather than doing high level maps.

4. My biggest mistake after hitting level 80 was spending about 10g on making a rare set and accessories with magic find. I seldom get rares from drops and overall I haven’t noticed significant increase in income since I started using it so I’m with you on this. Until there is enough information on Magic Find on the wiki I think it’s a waste to make a MF set unless you already have your endgame set(s) and can afford a MF set.

5. The diminishing returns does suck and I find it harder to make gold to buy stuff I want now but I guess it’s good for the economy since if this wasn’t done people who had enough time to play would have just done CoF all day and become so wealthy and caused severe inflation. High level Karma items and Cultural items are overpriced indeed but the thing is, Guild Wars 1 was marketed as a CORPG whereas Guild Wars 2 is a regular MMORPG and by nature MMORPG’s just have to be grindy, otherwise people just lose interest and run out of things to do. Compared to other MMO’s this game isn’t very grind intensive.

6. There are cultural armors and dungeon armors with unique appearances and are fairly expensive. I suspect they will add legendary armors at some point in the future. All these sets are presumably the equivalent of Prestige Armors I guess.

7, 8. Not sure if they will add PvE skills but I preferred GW1’s skill system as well. You had more freedom in making a build whereas here 5 of your skills are determined by the weapon you wield and the 6th skill has to be a healing skill. In GW1 despite having only 8 skill slots you were free to go full dps without any healing or take a tanking build and so on, I guess this was intentional. I also dislike how you have to spend money to reset your trait points. One of the things I liked about GW1 was how you could change builds easily depend on what mission or area you were going to do, this type of flexibility is discouraged in GW2 because of how difficult it is to make gold and how much it costs to retrait.

9,10,11. I have to go now so I haven’t read them yet ;p

Does anyone know when the next maintenance or server reset will be?

At least in WvW there are team and map chats for people to work together. The thing is, lower level PvE maps are very active and have lots of players to talk to on map chat but mid and higher level maps there aren’t many players and the game feels so lonely in general unless you join a large guild.

Totally agree with Munrock here, they should have had the guesting feature ready before placing any restriction on server transfer. I wouldn’t mind not being able to WvW or have WvW buffs for the next 24 hours after switching but being able to switch just once a day is just too restrictive. Also there are quite a number of bugged skillpoints and events I couldn’t finish on the server I was initially on which I could after switching to 2 or 3 different servers by trial and error, they really should have addressed these issues first in my opinion. Anyways, I hope guesting will be added soon.

Nah this would not work. Race and Profession are pretty much what make your character what he/she is. Apart from the possibility of players picking certain races/professions initially for easier lower level progress and then switching to something else this is a roleplaying game, being able to change your race would totally kill immersion even if you do not use that feature. Being able to change your character’s appearance and/or gender is a feature they will probably add in the future, even changing your profession is not outside the realm of possibility because it wouldn’t affect lore/immersion as much and in GW1 a few NPC’s actually changed their primary professions in the course of the game but changing race would feel so odd and I am certain it will never be implemented, rightly so.

Agreed. I’ve been wanting to show off my HoM minipets to friends I made in GW2 who haven’t played GW1 and it’s so tedious to have to open inventory and click my mini to activate it over and over after each rezone considering how many short instances there are in the personal story (the ones that involve just talking to an NPC and leaving the instance and then teleporting somewhere else to continue) and how often it sends me to overflow servers in cities and low level areas. I don’t even feel like using minis anymore because it becomes a chore to take them out everytime.

Lead.5069:

Joining multiple guilds is dumb, you’re really only in the one you represent. I doubt they will go back and change this one. Not to rant, but many unbroken elements of Guild Wars 1 got “fixed”.

Exactly my thoughts.

You forgot to mention the Mistfire Wolf elite skill which you get with the Digital Deluxe and Collector’s editions, which I heard can be used prior to level 30 (need confirmation). If that’s the case I imagine leveling would be somewhat faster and easier from levels 1-30. I agree with you that $20 for an elite skill and a mini is underwhelming but that is why I didn’t buy that edition, you knew the deal when you spent the extra $20 and it was your decision to go for it.

While the ability to join multiple guilds is interesting, the fact that you cannot join more than 4 guilds feels very restrictive. I have friends who are spread across different servers and have their own “main” guilds which they represent most of the time. They refuse to merge guilds because they all want to have their own guilds with their own fancy names. Having 10 guilds sharing an alliance chat made Guild Wars 1 a lot more lively, social and funner to play. Increasing the cap on the number of guilds a player can join would be nice but an alliance system would be the best solution in my opinion, please consider this Anet.

Yes please, I want to be able to add Jeremy Soule’s music from his other games WITHOUT replacing the beautiful soundtrack he made for this game. Like others have mentioned, having more control over what would play in which area would be nice as well. I understand you have more pressing issues such as fixing bugs right now but please consider this, it’s amazing how little features like these can go a long way in making the game a lot more enjoyable for so many people

This thread has got about 63k views so far which is way more than any of the other threads on this page, including the ones which have been stickied. Can we please at least get an acknowledgment?