Guild Wars 2

LetoII.3782:

Terravos.4059:

I hate to be a stick in the mud, But you’re never going to balance the servers to be even like this…Having a Ranking system in a gameplay mode with uneven numbers is always going to lead to higher population servers generally being higher rank..Esp in games where Numbers are often given the largest advantage with little cons to having them.

Someone did state though what will probably happen in the future, I posted it 3 month’s ago… They’re gearing up to combine servers into “teams” for matchups to try and solve some of the issues you guys are talking about, This is why Edge of the Mists had to be made…Not the whole China Excuse.

They’re going to Merge the servers for WvW purposes, Why this isn’t evident to everyone i don’t know.

As in 1 eb for the entire game? Surely you jest.
I think it isn’t evident because it’s improbable. People pay gems to transfer, that’s much more valuable to Anet and NCsoft than a few people whining about scores.

I think if anything they might reduce map populations to the point they don’t have server lag.. Which would also help stacking issues.

What Terravos is talking about would be something like this:

1) The WvW maps are just (Color) Borderlands, EB and OS, which will spawn overflows like EotM does now.
2) Servers are assigned colors on a rotating basis each week (to allow Map Completion to still be viable).

No need for Glicko or ranking anymore. Just have all the servers on that ‘color’ which win, earn the expected number of bonus chests.

There are still plenty of ways for the devs to ‘create’ gem payments in this format, they just need to be harsher about transfer costs/availability (I have some ideas there, but not interested in giving the Devs those).

This also causes issues with GvG matchups, which I consider a major problem (despite not being interested in it). Perhaps add the Guild Halls thing that I hear just about everyone talking about? From what I’ve heard of it (the GW1 variant), would make a great 4th game mode…

yayuuu.9420:

I don’t like regular WvW, but EoTM looks fun. What’s the difference if I don’t play WvW at all and if I play EoTM only?

Points gained in EotM do not count toward the WvW server ranking.

Its only effect on the actual WvW servers is at the end of each ‘match’ – a ‘supply drop’ occurs on all the winning ‘color’ server’s home borderland (so if Green won, the Green server in every tier gets the supply drop).

+1 in supporting this, its one of my more esoteric gripes about Engi. ;-)

Sylvari Cultural Tiers 2/3 work in a pinch, those are patterned after tailcoats. But I know that doesn’t work for everyone.

Doing something similar with the other Cultural sets, or perhaps offering unique Pact armors (using the Arah Story token) would have been reasonable alternatives to allow this variety as well. Heck, the latter would give me (and others) some incentive to run Arah Story more…

Guardian – Like most (all?) here, I think Litany of Wrath is at odds with other meditations; it should be instant. If that seems too powerful, just tone it down a bit, say enough to make up with the GS healing trait.

Engineer – AED has similar problems; It is classified as a Gadget and yet there are almost no traits that affect this ‘skill’ group (plus the mechanics are wonky, even for a Gadget). The lack of traits alone can discourage many from taking this skill, when HT/MK/EH all have reasonable heals and are traitable (to various degrees). If there’s no possibility for a deep-look at Turrets this pass (hint!), then please consider re-working some of their traits to affect Gadgets instead.

General – I think it is extremely important that you release a new statement regarding where you intend to take the various classes’ roles. And not as some followup post in the patch notes, like last time: Please release a Dev Blog or schedule a series of vids that clearly define what the the roles will be for the classes (and, perhaps, the three game modes too!) after the upcoming changes. This will give us a much better ‘100 ft view’ of the situation, while still giving you the opportunity to keep specific plans close to your chest.

Would this elite work better if they just replaced it with the ‘Sniper Rifle’ turret you see in some Charr areas? That thing hits like a truck, works well at the 1500-1800 range, and looks like it will point-blank as well (need to test this).

As an added bonus, we get the sniper rifle a lot of us have been pining for.

Another alternative would be to make the turret into an ‘elite kit’ of sorts, kinda like Horrik’s hand (shoulder?) cannon. I suspect this would be a lot harder to make and balance, but it would be extremely cool.

If you want a look that does not involve trench coats or long coats, then Sylvari (Tier 2/3 Cultural) is the way to go. Even then, its a tailcoat, but not as noticeable.

I’d put an honorable mention on Charr, as Call Warband makes for an interesting alternate elite (especially in personal story).

There are certainly good reasons for a 21-22K HP Guardian in WvW. But it usually involves being in specialized groups of similar builds, acting as a ‘distraction’ for an enemy zerg (while the main force flanks them and gets the bags). Certainly not for the faint of heart (or older PC hardware, for that matter) but I’ve found it very interesting.

Anyway, for the OP: Check the Healway thread as a start, its one way to be survivable, and is easily ‘twistable’ to your needs (I used it with Zerk trinkets and weapons for balanced damage/heal).

Since you’re going to mostly stay in PvE, you’ll be fine acquiring just Rare or Exotic equipment to test with (the latter should be held until L80). Most dungeons (bar Fractals and one specific TA path) were designed with Rare gearing in mind. Play around some of the builds here until you’ve found something you’re comfortable with, and if needed make your own tweaks. Testing in S/TPvP is not always possible (and may get worse soon), but you’ll still be able to get some hints by tackling the Class Bots at the lobby.

My current build is the ‘distraction’ setup as I mention above, for temporary dedicated WvW (and shaking myself out of a rut, trying different things again after a several week break). I’ll probably settle on something between that and Obal’s build, despite the inevitable objections.

Since this thread is still going…

How viable would it be to buff the stat increases from traits, but in turn reduce those stats from (all related) gear?

The idea is to give you the same build numbers for Zerk, at the expense of going 30/30/x/x/x. Or PVT at 20/x/20/20/x (or something like that). This would probably require/force some fixing and tweaking of trait lines – not a bad thing IMO.

Egorum.9506:

Engineer pistol AA. 2s bleed on a condi weapon with next to no power scaling? kitten that

You’ve reminded me of my very first experience in GW2, which was on an Engi.

They start with Pistol in the first PS instance (aka the tutorial dungeon), which seemed OK but the skills were just odd (I did not understand Condition synergy at the time – heck even now it feels a bit arcane).

About midway through a rifle dropped, and I suddenly fell in love with the class – warts and all. Its been an extremely rocky romance since then, but I still have the character, and intend to World Complete on him first (WvW is proving to be tricky, but mostly because I’m on a Tier 1 server).

Back on topic – any chance you’ll give Kits another look when you do this? I can’t Grenade (bad wrists) but I do support those who can. Making kits overall scale to Ascended damage, would be a reasonable move now as well.

I also have to agree that fixing the turret bugs would be the better priority. Anymras’ list is a good layout of the problems, and (by themselves) would go a long way toward their own balancing. (Thank you, btw)

One possible good news toward this, was something I read (or perhaps had implied) that the turret code was separate from other minions/pets. If that’s the case we may be in luck, as (apparently) the normal pet AI is tied to some world monsters, making them very difficult to tweak.

Adding a generic +1 on the Charr-related lore questions. More information regarding Ash Legion in particular.

I will also add support for the ‘critical heals’ idea, for the non-standard ones. It may breathe a bit more life into guardian staff (and similar), though I doubt it. ;-) Not sure how MedKit skills would classify though…

I also like the idea of adding additional mechanics and AI onto bosses and other mobs. I know the ‘stomp’ mechanic for some of the Nightmare Court has had a mixed reception (even within our group), but that and some other changes (like some mobs dodging at times) would make for a more dynamic fight.

I am torn on just flat nerfing Zerk itself; That seems counter-productive (this from a long-time Clerics guardian – though even I have some Zerk stuff in play). Perhaps the first thing that needs to be done is move Warrior’s 100Blades to the Burst skill (and thereby giving a more active choice of DPS at the expense of Adrenalin – which is needed to sustain some of the passive heals). Changing the base HP pools of classes – so they are a little closer together – could also help with diversity in builds.

Hi all,

For those who know my post history, I have bad wrists (due to a bus accident). So atm I’m forced into bunker-form builds (mostly Healway variants), simply because they allow me to react slower (and prevent RL Agony :p ).

But after the ‘correction’ to PoV (and the new heal skill), I’ve finally become interested in DPS builds.

Would it be possible to stay permanently in Knights armor (currently in Cleric), keep my existing Zerk Ascended trinkets, and adjust traits? If so, which GS layout would work as a ‘base’ to build from?

Note I prefer to use one build in both PvE and WvW (with the ability to just swap weapons or individual major traits), so I’ll be making some adjustments of my own to suit. I fully understand that I’m gimping myself in both by doing this, but in the end I’m more concerned about preventing my RL ‘gimping’ from getting any worse (plus my guild puts fun above all, so they’ve been fine with my current setup – it’s just that I’m not fine with it any more).

Thanks Kristen. The plan sounds good, and eases most of my fears (in particular since I cannot find any other Medium armors that aren’t longcoats – any suggestions there?).

If you need details or better screenshots of my T2 Medium dye selection (to get a better example on those) you’re welcome to poke me. I can also supply PC specs etc if that helps as well, since I do know that shader support et al can get freaky as you expand into a larger pool of video cards.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Randulf.7614:

I empathise with the immersion breaking comment earlier on. It just doesn’t feel right and fit right with the game in pve. Unlike in pvp, the mob is still dead – it isn’t going to get rezzed by anything nearby so it serves no purpose. If the mobs could rez down allies…then we could have something more interesting.

Actually I did see them ressing each other. And I’ve seen them crawl back up when they didn’t get finished.

I’ve only seen it mentioned once in this thread, but they are dodging too. Not a lot, but enough to surprise me – nearly got ganked the first time I saw that, was too shocked. ;-)

The strategy of adding unique PvP/Character-type skills in certain PvE mobs (Enemy and perhaps Ally) seems to be a sound one. With any luck it will mitigate the ever increasing ‘trash mob / huge HP mob’ problem seen in dungeons and replace it with smaller, more integrated groups to fight.

Here we go, one medium T2 tailcoat. The second pic is the new format – and that is the same light blue dye being used in the top and bottom halves. Everyone keeps thinking its a four-color coat – which I’m flattered to hear, but would still prefer the highlights be as subdued as the original.

While I can live with this layout (pending a new color schema that will blend better on the bottom half – I’m thinking of trying the Spikeroot Fruit’s colors out of spite), I’m now considering a new coat source that’s still not a long coat or trench coat. Preferably sleeveless.

Katreyn.4218:

Now I don’t doubt that the new change looks great on some armors. Medium seems to have benefited from it. Just want to express what I feel maybe should be looked into in terms of the light armor.

No it has not, at least on the T2 tailcoat anyway (leggings worked out OK after some dye swaps, same with boots to match it).

But the coat has one dye region that very actively changes hue as it meanders from the top to the bottom. So if you pick a medium shaded color there, it will be much lighter at the waist and tails (to the point of contrasting very sharply). IIRC it used to be near-uniform the entire run down; I’m still tracking down a ‘before’ screenshot.

I can probably fix this with a darker dye (and make my other dye lighter), but the point of that dye layer (to me) was to have some contrast. Just not this much… I still think I can work through this (and started to have a little fun doing that), but one of the main reasons I had reached for medium cultural armor was because they weren’t trenchcoats. I’m all ears for other suggestions in that department. :-) I’ve also previewed the T3 version, and though the colorations are rockin’ now, the lack of depth seems to deaden the effect too much.

One thing I have not tried yet is raised video settings (per other posts here); I normally have things rather low due to WvW and other large-scale fights. Will try that today, but I do not consider that a working solution atm.

I do find it ironic that I’m still slowly becoming part of the ‘revert’ group, as I appreciate the effort but it seems to have too many drawbacks.

Hmm, took yesterday off from the game so a bit surprised here.

I’m looking all over for anyone posting male Medium T2 (to compare my Engi), but not found one yet. I’ll have to wait until I get home then before making a final comment.

On initial looks, however, the Tier 3’s loss of specular maps certainly has made me even more wary of going near it (didn’t like the original ‘slickness,’ but like the loss of depth even less). Thankfully the cost is what really put me off, since I figured any major changes (like this one actually) would have me as annoyed as the others here…

Also, while I do see an effort in some of the screenshots to counteract this (by adding additional dye regions), in some of the cases its not working, or has completely changed the final look in the process.

As for my Engi, however, I will cope. I only display chest, leggings, and boots on him, so its not going to be completely breaking. I hope.

1) Risk/Reward, aka Zerg vs Dungeon / World Boss. Related to grind and RNG issues stated throughout the thread.

2) Class balance in PvE. If possible it should not be tied to PvP systems. This is also related to issues concerning the Conditions system. Also consider modifying traits/skills scaling to be affected by stat sets other than Berserker.

3) Ways to encourage server balance outside of WvW rankings. The two are tied together – People want to gather with other people, but more and more people jump to higher WvW tiers (even the PvE folks) because the PvE maps are more populated by default. Very Bad cycle here. This is tied to better QoL changes for Guilds (i.e. offer guild leader to transfer guild infrastructure including bonuses/bank).

As a possible aside, consider either creating a Volunteers group (who help new players) or encourage/promote such guilds. I hung out a lot with the Guild of Greeters in Uru Live (aka Myst Online) and that group worked well because Cyan promoted and accepted them (plus they stayed neutral in divisive discussions). Eve Online does similar promoting for helper groups like the Ivy League (Eve Uni) and Red Vs Blue.

Correct Chaialyna. I have one of these and it works as described.

Thankfully I started building mine after settling on the current server. But I had begun to fiddle with upgrades on the previous server (mostly as an experiment), and those got reset too with the transfer.

I’d like to add that those NPCs are also an interesting way to try out different builds for your favored classes, or learning the styles of a new class.

While not 100% translatable, it can give enough of a taste to determine if you want to slog it through to 80 on a specific class. In my case I determined that at least one class was not very playable to me (RSI wanted to hurt me too much), and another I was having difficulties making the combos work due to slow reaction time (again gated by said RSI). I still find the latter amusing as one of my two ‘main’ characters is an Engi, but I opted not to use grenades or bombs (which mitigates the problem quite a bit).

Actually, there was one item I was always looking forward to in the chest: more Black Lion Keys. I could usually open 7-8 chests with 5 Keys to start.

Would have been better to just adjust its droprate way down, instead of removing it totally. I find myself buying less keys due to this.

Most useful item (for me) has been the salvage kit. Other stuff:

Transmute Crystals (the old ‘fine’ version) – though these used to drop a lot more often than they do now.

Dye Packs have been a nice drop at times. I normally sell the regular unidentifieds, but since these show the rarity I unwrap all of them (and use about 80% of them on various characters).

I think I picked up a minis pack the one time. Don’t really have any interest in these, so don’t remember. I should check sometime if any of them in my collection are sellable.

Oh, and a related question from OP: ‘Worst’ drop? KillStreak Booster, followed by these odd ‘generic’ tonics. Would be nice if that booster were swapped with the WXP one.

Evening Chris,

Regarding surveys and immersion etc, I really don’t think that’s really a factor here when you have notification mechanisms that already break it. Current example is the Scarlet Invasion notifications, which are using the system you originally designed to give Patch and Restart notices. So, why not leverage that? “We have a new survey about the current patch, it can be accessed from [insert method here].”

And keep that mixed in with an in-game mail at much lower frequencies (say once a month) – or, have a more ‘static’ MOTD on your login program (though that really needs to be larger to accommodate what I have in mind).

As for access, a /survey command sounds like the easiest way to do it, and would re-direct to the actual survey in a relatively ‘safe’ manner. Accessing it from the same screen as Bug Reports (again, just kicking off your browser) would work very well too.

Now, one point not mentioned yet: Please make sure to publish results – no matter how bad that may end up for either your group or us players – and your planned response/changes in light of that. This continues the give-take of communication and encourages more and more players to participate (they’ll see there is an impact).

Shorah b’shemtee (peace be with you) and good luck,
—S_A

Shockwave.1230:

Servers without vertical progression would be extremely interesting. Clearly ANet has a fractured community. Perhaps having separate servers that meet a lot of the expectations of these conflicting game ideologies is a viable solution. The challenge would be with WvW. PvE would be taken care of by each respective server type, and PvP is separate from many of issues people are expressing.

I can think of a couple ways to do this without going completely insane from a programming perspective.

1) Remove WvW access completely for those servers (reuse the last tier rank for this). They could then also mark them as RP servers as well. Dealing with the Mist War portals in LA could be interesting, but not insurmountable.

2) Use the League system to advantage. Lowest League is setup in this new format, these servers can only climb back and forth within them (basically there would be an ‘extra’ T1/2/3 in this format).

In both cases, though, we have the problem of transfers. Will someone with VP items be able to cross to/from these new servers, and if so what happens? Will those extra tiers of items in the player’s account go away, or be unusable for the duration, or just downgraded? These are all tough decisions to consider.

Quick edit – these are if they want to re-tool existing servers. If building brand new servers I’d say take option 2 and only allow new accounts on them. Transfers would still be an issue, but not as much as before. Maybe.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Sungak Alkandenes.1369:

The Lost Witch.7601:

So, would it be possible to make an extra tumbs up (a star?) for the Arenanet team? To let us know what kind of feedback has been read and appreciated?

I know that responding to all the threads that come up on these forums everyday is too much to ask, but a star or other sign of approval could really make a big difference. Not only could it inspire people to write better feedback, it also gives us an incentive to write more of the good stuff if we know that our previous posts have been appreciated.

There is, occasionally, a red line under the ‘thumbs up’ symbol. It would not surprise me if that’s a notification that an ArenaNet employee hit the +1. If not, it should be.

Nope, I believe this has something to do with wether it got a thumbs up from people within the thread, or people across the forum. (I’m guessing through other parts of the forum like the dev tracker?)

At least, that’s what I’ve been able to discover about this mysterious red line through browsing the ‘forums’ section of the forum.

OK, so that sounds like a ‘trackback/pingback’ indicator like you’d see in a weblog. Interesting.

If that’s the case, the color should be changed to black (to indicate an automated part of the forum system) and not red (that – on this forum anyway – tends to indicate Dev activity to most people). That’s (usually) a 30-second fix in a CSS file someplace.

Surprising number of posts going missing. I keep trying to reply to them. :-(

While they’re at it, it’d be awesome if those people who contributed got a little shout out (not everyone, but ya know…highlighting the MAIN reddit post that caused the shift or gave the most valuable feedback) and saying “This -Link- was asked of us XX months ago. We kept an eye on it and thought we’d share our progress”

I do agree with this, a lot. There are two good examples from my personal experience.

1) During Second Life’s early years, when you participated in testing new features on the test server (and submitted results per their format), the avatar names involved were placed in the ‘About’ page for that release. IIRC I’m in the release notes for 1.5 and 1.6 (circa 2005-2007), and maybe 1.7.

2) Participating in FOSS projects tend to have devs place your name in the release notes, in particular if you submitted a patch or did other work toward helping the project. From the projects I follow, I think Icinga has been a great example of that.

If an overt way is not possible, perhaps a semi-covert one? Note the users that supplied the best feedback for a particular release and send them a little something extra – perhaps a crafting/speed booster or a BL Key – as a thank you. I doubt that’s going to break the gem store any by handing out the cheaper items as a thank you once in a while (at least for now).

The Lost Witch.7601:

So, would it be possible to make an extra tumbs up (a star?) for the Arenanet team? To let us know what kind of feedback has been read and appreciated?

I know that responding to all the threads that come up on these forums everyday is too much to ask, but a star or other sign of approval could really make a big difference. Not only could it inspire people to write better feedback, it also gives us an incentive to write more of the good stuff if we know that our previous posts have been appreciated.

There is, occasionally, a red line under the ‘thumbs up’ symbol. It would not surprise me if that’s a notification that an ArenaNet employee hit the +1. If not, it should be.

I have no interest in them, for many of the reasons already cited. Adding my own comments to them though.

1) Very ‘anachronistic’ looks (which in turn also paints a ‘hello, primary target!’ sign in WvW). Then again, I’m also amused how many of the Guild Weapons look like something out of the LARP scene (tone down the gloss a bit and they’d look MUCH better).

2) They are not Kit Engineer friendly. /thread right there for those of us who still like the class and care about it.

3) Water-based Legendaries require the same amount of ‘gating’ as the normal weapons, but are maybe seen/used 10% of the time. These should be toned down in material amounts a tiny bit if possible – maybe 10-20% – and then I’d consider getting one for my guardian. (I do love the water combat here, being a former Eve player ;-).

4) My natural RL luck tends to go against getting such things. That being said, if I did get a Precursor I’d likely sell it ASAP – even if I had to farm gold to list it! Then I’d be set for ‘life’ and not worry so much about the grind/gearing/etc.

As for crafting a Precursor, I wonder if they’ll become account-bound once that’s possible (same as Ascended is). It seems pretty likely.

Also, I am doing map completion (on my engi no less), but only for the APs and exploration fun, since I’ve never done it on a character yet. I doubt I’d try it again on another character, but never can tell.

Would it be unfair to sell Account Bound versions of the gathering tools for a minimum of 1500-1600 gems each? When the Copper-fed Salvager came out, I got one pretty quickly, and am considering a second one, because they are Account Bound and allow me to flip it between characters as I run in varying situations. But $10 equivalent for something Soulbound ($30 for the set)? No thanks.

And partially related to Gemstore: would it be possible to replace the KillStreak booster in BL chests with the 15-min WXP one? Or perhaps add WXP/Swim boost options to the bonfire.

Personal Story, to some extent. Mostly because I’m interested in seeing all possible discussions (which I’m still working on). I love to help others with this btw, as I’m still poking at every class mechanic, then will poke at every racial story branch, then (maybe) complete PS on another character or two.

Games that our guild made up (our own form of ‘emergent gameplay’). Karka Rodeo, Quaggan Survivor (our version of the Rush, on a different map), 3D Racing (basically a JP race). Last night we had a ‘Help us with JPs’ event, finally got Dark Reverie done, and was introduced to two puzzles in Maelstrom that I didn’t know about. We actually had a similar, ad-hoc event for Obsidian Sanctum a few months ago, when the Kite got stuck in there. :p

Similar events at a community level, like the Yak Parade that TC holds in a borderlands (finally got to see one, thanks guys). It’s making me consider looking up any of my friends from Uru still in this game, and organizing our own form of the ‘St Pats Parade’ in March (this would be done on a City map though – perhaps Black Citadel).

I still poke at map completion, JP completion, dungeons, etc, and just about anything not LS related atm (though I have done LS metas from time to time). But as my sig implies, I look beyond the game and have fun with the friends I have been playing with here.

I actually did do that (also because playing an Asura kept giving me giggle fits – too cute for its own good ;-) ).

But I do understand the concern and issues, so support this kind of change.

Gabby.3205:

Adine.2184:

This is kind of like asking them to remove clones from a mesmer or kits from an engineer . Its a primary function of the class that cant simply be removed . You always have the LB warrior or SB thief if you want to use a bow but not a pet .

Actually, nobody is asking them to remove pets, just to make them optional like clones and minions.

This. Anyone who’s tried to do some of the trickier jumping puzzles (that usually knock you off, or has combat involved i.e. Not so Secret) will understand why its important to have an option to force-stow a pet until commanded back. In particular for an Asuran Ranger – most pets will probably envelop you!

I’m fine with the possible reduction in damage when stowed like that. 99% of the time its for getting from A to B while being able to see where I’m going. :p

I’ve been fine with FT and EG in zerg clashes, though I don’t do that often (we prefer smaller fights); Opening with FT #3 is good if a group comes up to you. However I’ll tend to play further out with him when doing that anyway, and falling back on my Rifle if needed. Or pull up toolkit as well depending on situation. Note I run a mix of Soldier and Zerker, to balance out the two (and so that I can dodge out if FT is hitting a Retal target).

Also consider runes of Melandru, which is reduced stun duration for this case, and I believe there are also stun/condition duration foods. I will probably go that route when I’m ready to finish map completion on my engi (I’ve not completed it yet on any character, and he’s the closest).

Editing to add: I am finding that its very important to keep track of the situation around you when running FT, in particular when you’re in a 1v2+ situation. A good way to practice avoiding stunlocks/knockdowns is by soloing a Veteran Dredge (preferably the ones that do that ‘gong’ thing). I did it recently to get a map completed – difficult but still possible, all in FT/EG/Rifle.

Hmm. Had not realized Stability will be on B. I normally use that underwater with Grenade Kit (only time I use the kit). How well does tossing an elixir work underwater?

Stealth on S though sounds interesting. Need to see the duration before I’m willing to consider it in my ‘misc’ utility slot.

BTW, would love turrets to scale with some kind of sanity. I had not realized they’re only scaling to traits, wow.

violentlycar.5267:

Nick.6972:

Im no game developer, but how hard could it possibly to make an open field arena for GvG? No gimmicky mechanics needed, just Coliseum.

A lot. You need the mappers to create the map, you need the programmers to program the systems that allow the players to get in, and you need a system to prevent abuse (people who enter the map with no intention of fighting properly). You also have to consider opportunity cost – time spent working on these features is time spent not working on other ones that may be more important. It’s actually a fairly complex issue.

While I generally agree with this, as mentioned early in the thread we do have access to the Obsidian Sanctum (aka the JP). In its current state its not going to work too well for this, but a couple relatively (I hope) simple changes may go a long way toward bridging the gap to a long-term solution.

1) Bloodlust removed in OS (if its not already disabled there). This map already has other restrictions placed on it (i.e. no siege) so adding one more should not be too bad.

2) Either a) move the entrances to each ‘Home Borderland’ Citadel or b) allow direct access to it from the WvW UI. Maybe even both. As its a separate map now, this may be a good idea to implement anyway.

It’s generally the ‘meta’ these days that (barring some AP event item placed in there) the OS map is usually running as a ‘neutral ground’ of sorts anyway. I’ve still spiked an opponent or two over there though, and the same to me as well. I’m fine with that (moreso since I get to keep my stuff).

If this does not sound completely crazy I’ll be happy to clean-up and repost it to Suggestions.

(And thanks for the update Chris.)

Fuzzion.2504:

Thanks for making the Worlds First SEA timezone YAK run fun. loved it!

/salute and cya all at reset

It was fun, thanks. I tried very hard not to hit anyone, including keeping clear when the rocket boots kick off. :-) Unfortunately those guards at the borderland keeps have insane reach (not the first time I’ve stumbled over to one by accident, heh).

Good luck in the League everyone. This has been a very good week for me here, I think I’ve broken my current survivability records in the larger fights (despite my RSI nagging at me by end of last night).

—S_A (tagged as DHG [D’ni Honor Guard] for the event)

Adamantium.3682:

Westwood.1043:

Fighting a giant ice guy that we pour lava on. All my stuff is broke and I’ve been dead for an episode and a half of Archer now. If this is 80, I’ll just start another character. This is brutal.

Sounds like you have the wrong strategy, and rerolling won’t help at all. I’m sure there are fractal guides all over the place, on the one you’re on you need to keep the debuff on him from the fire at all times. 1 person runs switch to switch, will the rest just kite him to each burn spot while ranged DPSing him. It’s not that tough of a fight once you know the mechanics.

Agreed to the above – you’ve hit a bit of bad luck, being introduced to Fractals via that one (arguably one of the more tedious of the bunch). I went through a few Repair Canisters on my first Fractal runs (mostly due to that one and Jade Maw), but once you get the hang of them its not as bad – just keep up with the Agony Resist at L10 and above (see wiki).

Also, are you in a guild? IMO, Fractals (like WvW) seem to work best when in a group that has worked together in them, preferably with Voice Comms support. I understand that’s not for everyone, but some of my smoothest Fractal and other dungeon runs have been under Voice coordination. It’s very good at quickly explaining mechanics for the first time too.

I can certainly understand the frustration – most of my recent time in WvW has been with my guardian, and the condition ‘issue’ has been problematic from time to time. Though in our case, we’re more frustrated in trying to find a quiet spot to cap something and not get zerged. :-p

I have been considering going back to my first character – an engineer – and giving him another shot in WvW. That class, though lower in max damage, has slowly begun to have its role expanded beyond grenades (which I cannot do for RSI reasons). Plus he’s more of a ‘back-line’ role, which I’m a lot more comfortable doing in larger groups.

Certainly not shelving the guardian though – he’s my main go-to for Fractals and Dungeons (including three Arah paths so far). Also fun to use in certain boss fights like Jormag – one of the few times I pull out the hammer and just go wild with it. If anything I’d like to see more situations (in all cases) that make Shield better than Focus, so I could carry one again regularly. I have even considered getting Commander on him, to use as an extra tag during Guild Missions (but the Soulbound nature of it, for that cost, makes me hesitate).

The question then becomes what happens to him later on; Will he specialize toward PvE, like I prefer to do with certain characters? Time will tell. I played Eve Online for three years, and know that the Meta will flow and ebb as time passes. I’m fine with that (and utterly happy that I get to keep my stuff on death!).

Note for the others here, Today’s Daily does allow other bosses again – just did Shatterer for a point toward the ’meta. So it will probably alternate.

I do thank ArenaNet for giving us some options toward completing the meta achievements in other ways. As an exploration and general story nut (something I picked up from my time in Uru), I find this new format a lot more forgiving than the earlier versions.

Natomi.9427:

Well, I’ve taken part in the Teq fight and a successful Claw of Jormag fight, and still haven’t been awarded the ‘here be dragons’ daily. What am I doing wrong

Yesterday’s Daily was specific in fighting ‘Teq, so yes the other bosses would not count. First one (Wed) allowed other bosses. I’ve not had a chance to see the current one yet, as I was in WvW before going to work this evening.

Read each daily carefully and see if you can dodge Teq in other ways to complete the ‘meta. Personally I’m having a much more fun time trying out the other bosses after their own revamp. Taidha was a particularly nasty surprise – who swapped her out for the WvW Veteran Supervisor??!? Owch!

As for LS itself, I’ve been kinda meh about it recently. Other then the Clockwork meta event, I’ve been taking time off for other things I’ve not done yet, like map completion and exploring the other classes (finally finishing that last with a new mesmer yesterday).

Sylvari cultural armor is done in ‘tailcoat’ format instead of trenchcoat, plus it tends to blend in almost seamlessly. T2 seems to work well, not overly shiny/flashy and not insanely expensive.

The Asuran look above is a good change, yes, but almost losing the coat completely is better (to me anyway).

(Will grab a pic when I get home from work.)

RyuDragnier.9476:

Just do what I do…run a trap build. Your conditions do the majority of your damage, with the pet just serving some extra oomph. I’ve never really needed to micromanage my pet because I just treat it as some extra DPS that’s unreliable…other than the devourer and spider pets, which actually seem to do their jobs.

I’ll think about it, but I’m not a true Altaholic and already have four characters I’m comfortable with (the two now in my sig, plus a Warrior-80 and Necro{leveling}). I like to keep the 5th slot open to both experiment with other classes (still need to try Mesmer, just gave up on Elementalist as my RSI wrists cannot keep up the pace) and view all Racial Personal Story steps.

I also like to explore more than most (JPs/SPs/Vistas in particular), and the pet is a hindrance there; Perma-Store would help a lot with that.

Burnfall.9573:

Fletch.3572:

I was super hoping for the perma store ranger pet option. This just isn’t going to happen is it lol.

Other than that all looks good, warriors have amazing dps, and now will be buffed up to amazing support, wondering why I should log on to anything else =D

I was hoping the same for our suicidal pet mechanics.

+1 for both of you. Both the Pet AI and the lack of a Perma-Store made me eventually decide to delete the Ranger I was working on (despite the humor/fun in having an Asura Ranger, with just about every pet larger than he was). Watching the Risen one-shot my pets in ‘A Light in the Darkness’ sealed his fate pretty fast after that.

I have a ton of respect for the Ranger players though; I found it way too restrictive to micro-manage a buggy follower (I wasn’t a big Drones fan in Eve either, for the same reason). We’ve have/had a few running around in guild though, and its still fun watching the class work; just not my ’cuppa.

RyuDragnier.9476:

That may have been the Shrapnel Mine toolbelt version known as Booby Trap, if he’s an Engineer. Puts an explosive on yourself that goes off when you get hit by melee. The Battle Roar toolkit version, Invigorating Roar, is quite nice too, removing vulnerability and weakness while giving a 10 second vigor. Even Hidden Pistol’s toolkit version, Hidden Pistols is pretty awesome, as it’s the Charr Engineer’s version of the Thief’s Unload (albeit less powerful).

It’s rather odd how the regular Charr racial skills suck, but their toolkit versions are amazing.

Very interesting. I’ll have to review what my Sylvari Engi has access to. Unfortunately it’d be rather situational anyway as I already run FT/RBoot and either EG or recently ToolKit.

Racial toolbelt skills would probably not sway me out of using Sylvari for anything Medium Armor though, unless that race had cultural armor that didn’t look like a full trenchcoat. :p Tailcoats (like Sylvari T2 and T3) are fine and blend in to the character model anyway.

PlayerX.5307:

I vote Anet makes a cannon for grenades that we can “shoot”, rather than throwing grenades from our invisible grenade bag in our belly button. It would be like shooting potato guns all over again! But with grenades…. heh

Well, if they buffed Mortar to something more Engis would take, then we’d have something close to that. I don’t think I even have Mortar trained (took Take Root first, it works a lot better in lower-level DEs).

Fikston.5296:

Nothing about hobosacks so far but I’ll stay hopeful. Come on Anet fix em

(engineer kit backpacks must go, basically)

I gave up on that ages ago, though I posted support since the thread came up again.

My personal gripe with Engi appearance stems more from Medium Armor’s fetish with trench coats. SO glad mine is Sylvari, their cultural armor helps with that immensely.

Thank you for adding Stability to the Engi, it is a huge addition for some of us. Added to the Stealth change, I can now see the possibility of a ‘scout’ build that does nothing but run ahead in WvW and checks on status of the other roaming groups/zergs. (Similar to one my favorite Eve ship classes, the Covert Ops frigate.)

I agree though that turrets still need some looking at in larger engagements. If possible, they should inherit and scale Toughness and Power from the player (so we have other options with builds). This relates to an interesting question – when you discuss ‘pet’ balancing, why aren’t Turrets part of this? Is the code really that different between Pet/Minon and Turret?

Also, please consider scaling Kit Power off the weapon wielded – really, give us a better reason for considering Legendary and/or Ascended weapons. Or post on the subforum why you cannot do that, followed with an ETA for when the Kit max will become Ascended.

Since this has been bumped recently, I’ll also add my +1 to just toggling off the Kit for now.

My Sylvari engineer recently moved to T2 cultural armor (mostly to get away from the ‘trenchcoat’ look most Medium armors have), and its made this problem even more jarring than before.

Morning all,
Just wanted to thank those who were on JQ-BL last night. Had a great time, even if I could only be on for two hours (before heading to work).

I don’t normally post over here, but the number of smaller scale fights (1v1, 2v2) was refreshing. And it made a nice counterpoint for once vs the occasional ‘Benny Hill’ type chase that occurs when a mob tries to take me out. ;-) Currently it’s about a 50-60% success rate for escaping, which is better than it was when I started using the current character as the WvW ’main. ’

Again, thanks all. Fun night. <3