Guild Wars 2

As was said, it is an objective game.

Just yesterday I ran into a roaming EB ranger who interrupted me from taking out a DB camp. We had a good, hard, long and extremely fun fight, but in the end he conceded defeat, left the camp and gave a salute. I claimed the objective, I won the fight. Killing him and grabbing that 9001 Wxp (or whatever he had built up) would not help my server any more than simply taking the objective (which I did).

The bonus Wxp for killing someone who doesn’t die is just the reward you get for being the one to be able to defeat that player… but the real reward is taking the objectives. There are already enough incentives for not helping out your teammates in this game, we don’t need more.

cafard.8953:

Don’t blame Anet, blame the players. There was a system balancing servers before, doing its job, and the players called it ‘stale’ and ‘boring’.

Face it, players don’t want balance, they want to roflstomp every other week. This is precisely what this new system achieves.

It is Anet’s fault for listening to forum whiners. If I never checked the official forums, I would never have known that there was a vocal group of people who dedicate their time to whining about “stale matchups” or having their glass cannon build destroyed by a glass cannon of a different class.

Much Ado about Nothing: GW2 Thread Edition

DanH.5879:

zerk 4 ever ! , screw the condition builds !

Yes. If you are serious about PvE, zerkzerkzerk is the only way to do it. Screw conditions, control, rangers, necros, etc. That’s just how the game is. Its a shame, I rather enjoy condition and control builds.

Thieves are OK as they bring utility that may be needed or wanted in some dungeons. However for the most part, if you want an optimum party its going to be 1 Zerker Mes, 1 Knights+Zerker Guardian and 3 Zerker Warriors. Some super easy dungeons like CoF P1 you can replace the Knight+Zerker Guardian for a Zerker Warrior.

Anet hates condition damage builds, gimping them severely (especially multiple condition characters in the same party) , and multiplies the effectiveness of Zerkers. Big slow dumb enemies who have easy to dodge attacks mean that you don’t need a whole lot of survivability as the bulk of incoming damage can simply be avoided by a dodge. Anet also hates control classes, with Defiant shutting down those builds.

That’s just how GW2 PvE works. Sure you can have a fun build, or a fun class, but that’s not optimal and therefore that’s not what the rest of the party wants to see.

Zerk, zerk, zerk.

I like a little more plausibility in my screenshots. A bit of hanging on the edge here.

Extra gold find, more unwitting promotion of CoF P1 farming? Get ready for a bunch of inflation.

The only thing I really think is anti-alt is the ascended gear. It takes forever to gear your alts for ascended gear, due to the back pieces being extremely expensive, and laurels/guild commendations having such a slow rate of accumulation. Also if you don’t enjoy fractals, then tough luck with those rings if you can’t simply buy them for 10 pristine relics a piece.

Evilek.5690:

Charr in medium armor looks good

I don’t think you can make a statement as broad as that, and simply be wearing the same armour that everyone else wears. The cultural T3 chest is pretty much the only good medium chest piece for charr, hence why that’s the one that everyone uses.

Wow this is a very similar build to my own, I was beginning to think that I was the only one.

A lot of the traits I use with 10/0/0/30/30 are the same. However I’ve been using a Shaman’s Amulet (Tough/Heal/Cond) with Carrion jewel, combining this with Assassin’s Reward (gain health when using initiative), and sometimes I even use Signet of Malice rather than Withdraw if I want to have a bit more staying power.

In the Trickery line I use Thrill of the Crime, (give Might/Fury/Swiftness to allies) and Slight of Hand (Steal dazes and c/d is 21 sec). This actually allows for some decent uptime on buffs for nearby allies (and yourself), and turns Steal into an interupt. Interupting an enemy’s healing skill with Steal is great fun, puts you right where you want to be when they are feeling most vulnerable.

For utilities I prefer using Shadowstep and Roll for initiative, swapping out Caltrops/Scorpion Wire depending on the situation. Caltrops being better for fighting a larger group, or when fighting on a point, whereas Scorpion Wire is great for smaller scale fights, and fights where the enemy can easily just walk away from them (not defending a point). Scorpion Wire gives another interrupt on a 20 second c/d… and again, its a great for interrupting heal skills, as it puts your enemy right beside you when instead they wanted to heal.

I’ve actually been playing around with Sigil of Paralyzation to turn that daze on Steal into a 2 second daze.

For sigils I’ve just been using Sigil of Undead to boost my condition damage, it synergizes with the high toughness from the Shaman’s amulet.

The main difference I see between my build and the OP’s build, is that mine has more HP sustainability, and more focused on interrupts, whereas the OP is more focused on having what would seem like unlimited evades, gaining his sustainability that way.

folly dragon.4126:

So, since its already in the lore, where are the thieves offhand axes.

Who said it wasn’t “in the lore” before? He’s just a thief we picked up an axe. Do you think the NPC actually fights that well with the axe?.. maybe there’s a reason for that.

TheGuy.3568:

And simply put their are a lot who aren’t. Whenever I see a necro say anything about beating thieves I know 2 things. The situation wasn’t 1v1 roaming and the thief they fought sucked. I honestly don’t understand how its hard to see the gaps between thief and other classes in WvW. I mean kitten half of you act like we do not have level 80 thieves with hundreds of hours of play fully geared. Cut the BS some things are simply OP don’t get so kitten over it. DP is OP plain and simple most other things are not. No thief should get killed if they do not over extend. Only thieves who over extend get killed by any class end of story.

Exactly. The “good thieves” have to run away, forfeiting the fight. And yes, it is terribly easy to best a thief… and yes, they either flee because they can do nothing, or they die. All you have to do is L2P, which includes not running around in crappy zerker gear like its PvE or something… then lone thieves are generally fairly easy to beat.

Cassiel.9431:

Lotus Strike: Increased the poison duration from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.

RIP Lotus Strike. You used to be a great trait for a tankier, support thief… but now you are nearly worthless. Who cares about 4 seconds on a single target every 20 seconds?… where did my 100% uptime on Weakness go? Yes the buff to Weakness itself was nice, so that it was actually more useful against high crit builds… but they really went overboard on nerfing its application for Thieves.

Oh well, at least we can still get massive AoE Weakness uptime on Necromancers so that style of play hasn’t been completely removed from the game.

TheGuy.3568:

However, no bs a good thief is not going to get killed by you and at best vs some one who has played for the class for a while you going to push a draw.

If by “good thief” you mean one that is going to run away and never bother you again, then yes they aren’t going to die. I eat thieves for breakfast on my necro, with enough immobilizes, chills, cripple, pull, fears that if they aren’t the least bit skittish and frightened then they are as good as dead in most cases.

Basically the answer to any “thieves are OP” statement is “L2P and get some better gear you zerker noob”.

Rissou.7213:

Any skill that does fast hits in a short time suffers, for me as a thief its sneak attack on pistol/dagger and pistolwhip in sword/pistol and tbh, its a problem with retaliation, if it had a 0.5 second cooldown there would be no difference against all other people, but a huge difference for fast hitting skills.

Yes, that is how retaliation works… it is great at countering lots of small attacks. What’s next, aegis is over powered because it blocks big hits like backstab? That’s how things work, deal with it. You’ve already shown that you know which skills not to use against someone when they have retaliation up, you’re halfway there.

Rissou.7213:

because a fact is you dont lose to a thief with pistol/pistol, its a broken weapon set.

Then restrict the whining to asking for a p/p buff/redesign, rather than whining about how it is hard to fight something when it is designed to hard counter you’re particular strategy.

The thing that a lot of people are hearing from this thread is “rock is imba, nerf rock and buff paper!”.

Lord Kuru.3685:

For example if you increase a 10 second bleed by 40% then you’re applying a 14 second bleeds. However, if your opponent has a -40% condition decrease, then he reduces the 14 seconds by 40%, getting only 8.4 seconds of bleed. So +40% then -40% gives less than 0% then -0%.

Another example: you increase a 10 second bleed by 100% so that you’re applying a 20 second bleed. If your opponent has a -50% condition decrease, then that 20 seconds gets reduced back down to 10 seconds. So a +100% condition is completely countered by -50% condition.

For those of you bad at math: multiplication happens simultaneously. Thus, (x)(y)(z) = (x)(z)(y). It doesn’t matter which “order” the condition duration increase and decrease is applied, which was what was incorrectly being implied in the quoted post.

So why can’t the Thief simply run away?… you know, like they always do when they are losing a fight? This is assuming that people are going to be spending all these resources on trying to trap a single thief in the first place.

The other suggestions for profession specific traps is rather BS, as those other professions cannot simply disengage like a Thief can.

How about rather than make the Orbs give a stat boost (giving the winning team more of an advantage), or a MF/XP/etc boost (tactically and strategically worthless and not worth the effort), just make the Orbs give points. Maybe make holding an Orb equivalent to holding a keep as far as point accumulation goes. That way they are still highly desired, but won’t simply strengthen the already strongest team.

Of course making the Orbs worth anything will encourage hacking and exploiting… but if Anet is able to stop the hackers/exploiters (I have my doubts though), then all would be good.

What they need to do is give everyone a free transfer, once a year or so. This would help encourage people who have dropped the game to pick it back up again if they have friends on a different server back when they used to play. Currently I have friends that have stopped playing the game months ago, and while they are not necessarily thinking about coming back anytime soon, being stuck alone on their old server would pretty much be the nail in the coffin for the idea of them ever coming back to the game.

tl;dr: This idea of one free transfer would really make it easier for people to return to the game after a period of not playing.

There are already enough lotteries in the game. We don’t need more RNG determining who gets to win the cool skins.

Axxo.7430:

Nice animation on the sickle now with today’s update. T.Q!!

Is there any video of this new updated animation? I was planning to hold my gems until I see a decent animation, or just wait for their next unlimited sickle whenever that would be.

Edit: I found a youtube video. Looks much better. Still a little forceful, but not a simple pick axe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcJxP0CS_ec

I vendor the top tier salvageable loot for cloth and leather. The lower level stuff can sometimes be worth it to salvage, but not the top tier stuff anymore.

Also, don’t bother with anything other than a crude salvage kit if you aren’t trying to get ectos or sigils/runes from something.

So someone gave the game a “10/10” then later doesn’t like it? Sounds like a typical person who hypes stuff up then is later disappointed by the expectations they made from their own hype.

Regardless, the GW2 guild stuff should be at least as good as the original Guild Wars guild stuff.

ChuckUFarley.1637:

Cultural Tier 3 is the Shiz!

I’m actually not a fan of T3 cultural charr heavy armour, the helm and shoulders are good, but I’m not that fussy on the rest of it. However T2 chest and pants look
amazing IMO.

Llyren.3904:

Some people at a different spot on the min/maxer spectrum then you have fun by playing a more “math based” build, and playing with others close to the same spot in that spectrum. If you don’t like to play that way then don’t.

Telling a min/maxer they can’t have a parser or inspect or other math tools is like telling a roleplayer they can’t make their character look different from everyone else.

That isn’t a fair comparison. I’m one of those math heavy players, and prefer no inspect function. That is because it is mostly going to be used by people who basically don’t like math, but love cookie cutters… and then they will generally force many other people to use there cookie cutters. Again, you should be able to kitten someone’s build by watching them in action if you are actually one of those math heavy players.

Simply saying, “well keep doing what you’re doing and don’t care about the cookie cutters” isn’t enough, because that is not going to stop the majority from adopting these cookie cutters. I like seeing variety of builds, its boring having to pick up the same berserker build off the ground every dungeon, and even kind of boring stomping the same berserker build in WvW every day (or having the same annoying bunker/run away build pestering you in WvW).

Edit: I always get a bit of a chuckle when word-filters for “bad language” censor “normal” words.

Dust is even used in a lot more then just those uses stated in the OP. Pretty much every potion or similar item that gives that sort of buff requires dust as well. I’ve drastically scaled back my potion production (for personal use as well as selling on the TP) due to this.

How about instead of whining about it, just deal with it? As it is now, retaliation’s purpose is to punish fast attacks. If you are attacking someone with retaliation with a skill that hits multiple times a second, then maybe you should change tactics… maybe even build for a bit more survivability.

I generally always like hybrid and balanced builds in whichever game I’m playing. As others have said, if your build can make use of most of those stats, then it very well may be what you’re looking for. My Guardian has full celestial ascended jewellery and I am very confident in that specific build.

When I am able to get ascended jewellery for my Mesmer it will most likely be a fair amount of celestial stats as well, as my Mesmer’s build also uses a lot of the stats (currently using a lot of Rampager stuff on the Mesmer now, and a bit more survivability is nice to have).

As for the arguments that generalists are always worse than specialists, in some cases the bunker build is not going to do much with his toy sword, and the all out damage build can be caught off guard, or miss their burst and their paper armour is not going to save them. I don’t know about you guys, but I look at damage builds as my lunch (unless they are thieves and they just run away).

But ummm, yes.. clearly celestial stats are so bad, so very bad, they obviously need to be buffed. Yes that’s it! Buff celestial stats.

I was planning to buy all the unlimited gathering tools when as soon as they were released. I bought two Molten pick axes because I thought they were so great… but this sickle?… I’m considering just skipping the unlimited sickle.. maybe pick one up at a later date when they make a different unlimited sickle…. the animation and all that makes it easy to wait it out an indeterminate amount of time like that…

I am tempted to wait until the next unlimited sickle comes around…

ArchonWing.9480:

And if you were really that determined to grind out legendaries, then I would think in all that time they’d you’d find some time to run an organized group to run with at most times.

You know the funny thing about this is (grind for legendarily in CoF)? The CoF farmers are basically the unproductive leeches of the GW2 economy. The only thing that they produce is gold (inflation) and Molten Cores/Lodestones, and they use the gold they introduce to simply purchase the actual mats from those other players who actually are the ones producing the mats that they need.

Sovta.4719:

You don’t have to be elite to tell that some build is bad, you just need brain.

This issue has already been addressed:

iFocus.3781:

/inspect would be used by people who suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect (incompetent people that not only fail to realize their own incompetence, but consider themselves much more competent than everyone else) more so than anyone else.

Basically, there are many people that are actually bad at the game, don’t know it, but insist on trying to force others to do it their way (since they are self appointed experts). If it is not some cookie cutter build from some random internet guide, several of this vocal minority that want an inspect function are basically too incompetent and rude to give it a second glance.

There is already enough cookie cutters running around, do we really need more incentives for forcing people into cookie cutter builds? Additionally as was also mentioned earlier ITT, some people like to keep their exact builds a bit of a secret. Also, if you are good enough at the game, you can basically tell what someone’s build is simply by observing them in action.

AH is the short-hand for the Grandmaster level trait in the Valor trait-line “Altruistic Healing”. It heals you for a small amount for each boon you give to yourself or an ally. If you have this trait and use the Staff4 Empower skill, you will give out 12 stacks of might to yourself and (5?) nearby allies, plus the AoE heal at the end, which should basically be a full heal for any Guardian with a bit a healing power. Personally I’ve found that 500 healing power is enough for my purposes using altruistic healing.

Also I would avoid the Water weapon sigils. Not only does it not proc very often (especially in a low crit-chance build such as yours", but the heal that it does give is almost negligible.

Why do we need giant hammers? These current ones are already fairly massive if you are going for more of a realistic look.

Pic related, a real warhammer.

RNG is RNG.

I got 80 clovers from like 20 attempts at the 10x recipe, might have been 18 or 19 though (~40-50%), as it was a while ago and I didn’t really commit this rate to memory.

Well there is a new build right now… perhaps they fixed it.

I generally don’t care what level a person is for the dungeon, as I feel confident enough with my skill/build and at least one other choice party member that it doesn’t really matter. Hell, I’ve even had underleveled characters join explorable dungeon runs with my party, personally I looked at it as a bit of a challenge in those cases… which at times can be welcome.

The other day while doing a dungeon, the berserker Elementalist was constantly bragging about their massive crits… however accounting for all the time they spent on the ground, and all the time the party spent helping him up (then having to recover/mitigate the free hits from enemies while reviving the downed ele) they were probably a net loss in efficiency for the group.

There should probably be more penalties for going down, this would further disincentive all these poorly skilled, berserker cookie cutter builds. The berserkers are going to hate me for this suggestion, but maybe gear should be damaged when you are downed in addition to getting damaged when you are killed… at least for non-WvW (as there is already enough disincentives for dying/going downed in WvW).

We aren’t muggles, so we don’t need guns. Although Guardians with rifles do look pretty awesome, I love using rifle environmental-weapons.

What’s your gear like? I have a 0/10/30/30/0 build as well, and sometimes I don’t even feel I need a dedicated heal skill at all. Hammer or GS, it doesn’t matter, I’m still a beast.

Altruistic Healing + high crit rate + Empowering Might + symbols for allies to stand on. Add to that shouts and the full heal Empower on the staff, and a bit of toughness (or protection/block/invuln) to mitigate the incoming damage in the first place… I’m actually looking at adding more Berserker gear into my current build because I feel I have too much survivability.

I haven’t seen too many charr looking like mine. Mesmer and Guardian.

I’m also wondering about this for the special exotics. You know how they made an easy upgrade for the Triforge Pendent (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Triforge_Pendant_%28ascended%29) ? Well I’m wondering if they’ll do the same for things like Volcanus, Firebringer, Cragestone, Whisperblade, etc. I’ve been investing heavily into these non-legendary skins, and plan to keep working on more.

The problem is the same with this legendary transmutation issue, if they made ascended weapons, will these non-legendary weapons all have easy upgrade recipes?… (weapon+1 coin+1fractal relic+ 1 ecto), and if so will a transmuted version of these weapons not be a viable input for this recipe (and therefore having to go through a million hoops and hurtles to get ascended stats for these beautiful weapons)?

There are so many reasons why I hate gear treadmills, and this one of my biggest gear treadmill related concern atm.

Vayne.8563:

Because builds don’t equal skill. And in PVe, even if my build isn’t a “standard” build, it works quite well for me.

Funny anecdote. Yesterday I’m doing a leisurely Ori Orr run in Malchor’s Leap, and happen by someone about to die to that Inquest Golum champion. I help them up onto their feet multiple times, and basically solo the champion by myself (accounting for all the time that other person was laying on the ground, and myself needing to help them up). After defeating the champion, I take a bow, and run off for more ori.

A minute or so later that person is trying to get my attention on /map asking me for what build/gear I was using, as they were apparently shocked at the performance. I briefly explain the build, ping my celestial stat Ascended slots, and suddenly /map breaks out into a bunch of people expressing their kitten over how celestial stats are so bad, and how no one should ever use them, and that you will never be a valued party member with any celestial gear, blah blah blah.

I like not having any sort of inspect. That way unless you yourself say what gear stats you are using, then the only thing people have to judge your build is by seeing you in action. Personally idgaf what some guy’s internet guide says is the best build, or which build are terrible, nor do I care about the opinions of people who blindly follow some random build guide.

Also, I find it fine assessing what build someone is using simply by seeing them in action for a it. Additionally its a bit more social to actually discuss builds, rather than simply inspect and judge in silence. The other week myself and another Guardian had a somewhat lengthy discussion about Guardian builds while going through one dungeon… its more social, and much more informative than a simple inspect option.

tl;dr: The lack of an inspect function is better for the game.

Obviously you need to look like a bad kitten. Using fire magic is a big plus as well.

Edit, better pic added.

I’ve had this problem for the past several days as well. My inventory of stuff I want to sell on the BLT has been building up…

If we could get Charr armour that looks like the concept art that would be just great.

Clean up some of the existing clipping issues, give more options than ill fitting robs and trenchcoats for the light and medium armour, some full face masks for heavy.

That would be cool.

Venom sharing with 2 applications is a great deal more powerful. Yes that is two 30 point traits, but having 10 applications of Basilisk Venom is impressive. Then if you mix that with other Venom related support traits, at the very least it is another Venom you can use for all that other fun stuff like handing out Might, heals and the venom itself to allies.

But yeah on its own it is only useful for big burst builds.

Galrukh.6532:

but in the big WvW fights or when my opponent dont see me coming its more like 90% of my mug-backstab combos that land, even without basilisk venom.

So basically it works like every burst damage focused build ever? Burst a distracted/outnumbered enemy and they die.

Yes it is annoying when that happens, but that burst player’s entire build is focused around doing that job well (killing afk, noob, or distracted players). That’d be like complaining that a tanky build can survive being attacked by multiple people… and yes people do whine about how “OP” well played survivability builds are survivable.

Ohoni.6057:

but unfortunately ANet has seen fit to tie numerous PvE activities into the zones, including needing to enter them for World Completion, Monthly Completion, and for Legendaries, so plenty of 99% PvE players are forced kicking and screaming into WvW zones, be prepared for them to complain about it.

Those are PvP rewards. Legendary weapons are about showing that you have at least participated in the whole game. World completion on PvP maps is supposed to show that you have at least participated in WvW. Monthly Completion WvW goals are there to show that you at least participate in WvW.

Their are plenty of actual PvP objectives to complete that don’t need WvW. The problem is non-PvPers that feel entitled to PvP-related rewards.

WvW-ers have to do dungeons for their monthlies, they have to do PvE World Completion for their Legendaries, and they need a whole lot more funds that are much more easily available from PvE to even gear themselves. Do these WvWers endlessly complain about their entitlement issues?… I haven’t seen it.

It is not immature at all to PvP in a PvP zone, even if random PvE-ers just want to farm in peace… this is not the place to farm in peace. Farming trains are already have a bad enough impact on WvW, and if I heard correctly this was a huge problem in Warhammer Online where PvE minded people would take over PvP zones with massive numbers to farm, PvPers having no hope for PvP due to large PvE groups on both factions cooperating in these schemes.

tl;dr: If an objective is inside a PvP zone, then it is a PvP objective. Expect PvP. If you don’t want PvP then buzz off and pursue goals that are purely PvE.

zortek.9607”

[there may be times when 30 people taking a camp is worth it]

Ok perhaps the example might not have been the most sound, but yes you understand the argument I was making.

Having 30 people lock down the JP is a great miss allocation of a server’s forces, and the server doing this will be punished for it. Perhaps I should have specified that the camp in my previous example could be an out of the way camp with no more than two defenders. That would make it a similar waste of time as locking down a JP with those same 30 people.

And yes there is no point scoring for JP’s, but maybe their should be. If there are suggestions to remove JP’s entirely from WvW, then suggesting that they should be scoring objectives is very much along the same lines.