Guild Wars 2

Fara venator.3908:

i’m not talking about a gear treadmill/stats grind but almost everything at 80 is a massive grind. Legendaries? I don’t think i even need to say anything, pvp rank? it take hundreds if not thousands of hours to max out, ascendant gear? i can’t tell since i stoped playing 1-1.5 months ago but i was told it take an insane ammount of that new instance run. Even getting gold is a huge grind and take forever.

Excuse my naivety, but “farming PvP maps”?? The concept of “farming” PvP is somewhat alien to me. If you are not participating in PvP simply because you like the PvP… then why the hell are you there?

And to be fair, if Legendaries were made to be easier to aquire, then they need a name change (and then they would need to have a replacement to fill the spot of long term goal). There are already plenty of people with Legendaries already. There would be nothing “Legendary” about them if they were easily attainable.

As for other cool weapon skins that require a bit of an effort? There are plenty of those, some easily crafted, and some that can rival Ledgendary components.

Should their be more skins, and more titles? Yes. But that doesn’t mean that Legendaries should be reduced to something everyone can get. As for titles, yeah, they need a whole lot more.

There’s nothing to look foward to unless you give up your life and play 24/7 if you want anything in a reasonable ammount of time

Bollocks! Even though many people eagerly await more skins, there are plenty available with varying amounts of commitment required. If you don’t want to shoot for the stars, then aim your sights lower.

Thorasine.8659:

Who the hell thought that would be a good match-up???

The match making algorithm thought it was a good match up. Too bad no one informed the match maker that free transfers are STILL available.

Strang.8170:

If they seriously can´t think of a way to monetizie wvw, i say they need to fire people responsible for that and start looking for competent workers.

This. The people/person in charge of the Gem store has done a terrible job. Random forum goers have provided a wealth of ideas that completely outclass the money making potential that the current gem store has.

Nidhogg.2950:

Best let WvW settle a bit, THEN introduce new content. I dont agree with your post about either the stealing or the fact that there wont be any new WvW stuff till February. Considering Guildwars 2 is free to play as was Guild Wars 1 Im happy to see that they release any updates at all, in fact, Anet usually delivers very good upgrades to their game.

It is impossible for WvW to settle with free, near no strings attached server transfers still availible. Gear treadmills are only going to make it worse.

Also, GW1&2 aren’t even free to play games.

Mirta.5029:

Since when extra content is getting spat in the face? “If you buy a bread loaf you get a bread loaf free” “I don’t need the extra bread loaf, that is equal to punching me, I’m really insulted sir!”

A better analogy is that you purchased a particular artisanal style of bread, the baker leads you to believe that this new style of bread is going to be a regular item in his shop. After a little while, the baker not only discontinues that style of bread, opting for a more bland mass produced unhealthy style of bread, but he takes the loaf of bread that you’ve already purchased and replaces it with his new mass produced crap and tells you that that’s the way it has always been.

4. “While engaging in manipulating the market place, making it more difficult on casual players” I have not seen any market manipulation from Anet’s side. Except for ecto drops. Ecto should drop more often. Tier 6 mats drop nearly all the time in high level zones though, so I would not say that drop rate right now is bad.

Anet has not only held a recent precursor lottery to vastly increase supply of precursors, but they have also added huge sinks for T6 mats, which have helped drive the prices up exponentially. Also by increasing gold rewards in comparison to loot rewards, and by placing incentives in the game that drive players away from farming mats. This all had an enormous effect on the in game market. I had thought that they had an economist working on their staff, how could they drastically change so many incentives like this?

Slamz.5376:

(I’m a huge Charr. Jumping puzzles aren’t that easy when you can’t see your own feet.)

You must be one with the Charr and the jumping puzzle. Only then, when you don’t need to see your character, or the jumping puzzle itself, will you be a Charr master of the jumping puzzle. But yeah, it is kind of difficult and makes you require a lot more practice on the puzzles to get better at them. But yeah, its not for everyone.

Please give:

• More cash inside player loot bags
• Bonus cash for tower flips based on how many enemies were recently killed there (bigger battles = bigger cash drops)
• Siege vendor that sells siege for karma points (I have gobs of karma from all this WvW but nothing else to spend it on)
• Quartermaster (Upgrade) vendors that sell upgrades for karma points+supply rather than gold+supply.

I really like all your suggestions except for number 3. I absolutely despise the idea of buffing the incentives for zergging even more than it already is. Small scale WvW combat is already lacking in the incentives compared to zergging in WvW… and it shouldn’t be, small scale WvW is where the most fun is in WvW.

Ascii.9726:

p.s. Someone apparently got the Zap Precursor sword from WvW not so long ago, 150 gold right there.

The fact that participation in WvW gives us a single ticket in the precursor lottery doesn’t help. Besides, PvE-ers get a great deal more of those lottery tickets, while they are gaining lots of money (so if they don’t win the lottery, they could just buy whichever precursor they wanted).

gabal.4520:

Well, maybe if they offered a chest for capturing a tower.

This would give even worse incentives for support roles. Even now there are plenty of people that jump off their siege weapons once their team breaks open the door they are sieging, because they are afraid of not getting their silver reward for taking the tower/keep. Too often I have seen these abandoned siege weapons easily destroyed by the defenders, who then push the attackers out of the keep/tower… then the attackers no longer have their siege.

This would also hurt those running supply, and those cutting reinforcements. Basically this introduces incentives that make everyone want to zerg even more.

Boedavildje.4927:

I don’t really see a problem with the gold gain in WvW. I dont que that much upgrades on keeps so that might be why i make good gold in WvW. In good hours i can easily make 5 gold an hour from events, loot bags and other drops. Even in bad hours i make 2 gold an hour. Since mats are so much more expensive now gold gain shouldnt be a problem for anyone in WvW.

Yes. There are profitable PvE events in WvW. Killing Centaurs doesn’t help your team though. And yes, there are plenty of incentives to promote running with the zerg, and disincentives to actually putting resources into upgrades or even running supply. Add in a good farming/zerg commander and you can simply trade towers/keeps with the other server for lots of rewards. It is possible to farm in WvW, however that’s not what we PvPers want to do, we want to be productive for our team through PvP and PvP related objectives.

Defending against discussion of a Elementalist Downed skill, justifying it by saying that the rest of the class is under powered (not commenting on this), is like saying that the resent Mesmer illusion summoning bugs implemented is fine because Portal is such a good skill.

Besides, if you really think the downed state abilities need to be better to compensate for other abilities… then you’re just crazy. Personally I would prefer abilities that would prevent me from going down, not making my Downed state powerful.

As for those saying that you can’t do hit and runs and just vapor form through the door due to the downed penalty prevents you from doing this constantly, that is a strawman and you know it.

And as for saying that anyone with half a brain knows how to deal with Vapor form, what a big ego you have. Mist Form makes the user invulnerable, therefore most non-Elementalist players would assume that Vapor Form also makes the user invulnerable (therefore not a valid target for CC).

The Elementalist downed2 is obviously one of the most powerful downed abilities in the game. No one else can use a downed skill to go through doors, or jump into the Drowning state (where they can then swim away). Personally I wouldn’t care if my class had the worst downed state, because once your downed you are supposed to be basically dead most of the time (I main a Mesmer, so yeah that probably is the worst Downed state right there). If they nerfed or buffed the Mesmer Downed state I wouldn’t really care, because I don’t intend to spend much time in that state anyways, and neither should you.

Ravion Hawk.4736:

when they are simply trying to finish something that ANet spread into a PvP zone.

They are trying to complete PvP related achievements, and whining about finding PvP in a PvP area while they are pursuing PvP related goals. Many people think that they deserve to be ridiculed for their crazy logic.

Aberrant.6749:

Ryuujin.8236:

Mechanically they behave more like ranged attacks, and if you treat them as such your play-style will benefit greatly from it instead of trying to herd phantys around like a minion master.

Attacks can’t be killed. Summons can. Our phantoms are temporary summons, just like the guardians weapon summons (which also can be destroyed for an effect). The only difference is we need a target to create them and they die when our target dies (again… attacks don’t die).

At the most you can consider them as a peculiar form of conditions.

Ryoki Hokishami.2756:

Care to elaborate? At least for medium armor, like me, I think the only way to obtain the Mist Walker set is through WvW. I may be wrong though.

At least for the Heavy Armour, it is the Karma armour that you can buy off the renown quests/karma vendors in Mount Maelstorm. I believe it is also available at similar level zones as karma armour.

sazaw.1347:

Sorry for noobish question as I never care about world completion and jp.
My understanding is you need to complete all hearts, poi, vista, way point and skill points to get world completion achievement right? Isn’t JP in WvW maps are repeatable with 24hr reset? Are they needed for World Completion as well?

That’s not a noobish question. That guy was just whining for the sake of whining.

Basically he is complaining that he has to go into a PvP area to get PvP area related achievements. Similar to the people who complain about having to do PvP in order to get PvP rewards.

Pay no attention to these whiners. With the exception of Ascended gear (for now) everyone can pick out of many different ways to acquire gear, wealth and aesthetics. These whiners just want credit for completing the entire game without actually having to complete the entire game.

Ryoki Hokishami.2756:

And honestly, it’s one of the ONLY prestige armors, next to maybe the WvW armor.

Pssst! The WvW armour has lookalikes that sell for a couple hundred karma.

I still purchased some WvW armour and transmuted for the skin/name to round out my look anyways (I already had the cheap lookalikes before I knew the WvW armour had the same look). When people will buy hugely expensive items, transmute them (even though they were already exotics), that have cheap lookalikes, just for the name, then you know that prestige is definitely a factor in which armour someone chooses to wear.

Note, this was for an alt…

Farstufjollan.2530:

If you are one of these naked pacifists a better idea would be to keep your clothes on, run away, use stealth/protect skills and if you still get downed use the hidden escape skill activated with the ALT+F4 button combination. I bet most people would eventually get sick of ganking if it just wasted their time and got them a big fat zero as a reward.

Are you kidding? Alt-f4-ing someone is just going to make them want to kill you even more. I don’t get a reward for killing you???… your butthurt is my reward and the knowledge that I can make you squirm like a little pathetic baby. If I was able to consistently find you, then that is worth at least 200 badges to me to be able to farm your emotions.

This coming from someone who generally doesn’t wait around to camp enemies in jumping puzzles (although I love the JP PvP).

LegoTechnic.5910:

And the PvP lends a sense of tension that you otherwise don’t get.

And that is why the Jumping Puzzles I truely did enjoy are the WvW Jumping puzzles, and the Mad King’s Cloaktower. All the other JP’s are things you do once and that’s it… but when you add some tension into the equations, I could do it all day.

oney.5067:

thousands of people played the same gw1 content for 4 years and its audience barely diminished untill the day gw2 came out. it did not have a shelf life it needed an update or xpac.

Big Warcraft III fan here. Tough luck, it is never coming. ;_;

Yeah, the way Anet does has handled balance I am nervous about going for a legendary for a character I am going to be PvPing with a lot. I was initially going for Volcanus for my Mesmer (while still considering which Legendary to go for the looks), but luckily for me they implemented the big Phantasm/GS nerf before I actually put anything together or soul/account bound anything.

Chasing after other exotic skins has come to a halt as well as my work towards a Legendary, since the exotics won’t even be max stats on an arbitrary date. At least Legendary weapons are likely immune to the treadmill…..

How about Anet makes a 9th class, call it “Portal kitten”. It’s only ability is a 4 minute cool down Portal. Take Portal away from the Mesmer.

Now can we Mesmers have balance? The Portal kitten class has a Portal, so it is automatically over powered, but that won’t hurt our balance.

Tolmos.8395:

Mercucial.6759:

I completely understand where you’re coming from, but like I said if I ever got to the point where I felt like the “gear treadmill” was hindering my experience, and it’s something I did not enjoy participating in, I would just stop playing. Sure it would suck to stop playing a game after devoting so much time to it, but I wouldn’t spend my free time doing something I didn’t enjoy.

This I agree with. Which is, unfortunately, why I have stopped playing. And from the looks of the forums, I’m not alone.

We’re still here because we loved what the game was, not what it is now, and we have some desperate hope that maybe this was all just some huge mistake and a middle ground compromise can be found by Arenanet that makes this game once more GW2… and not the themepark clones #5,812 that it is trying to become.

I don’t know about you guys, but my guild’s daily influence gain went from between one and two thousand per day before Nov15 (oftentimes over 2000), to double digits nowadays…. it goes to over one hundred influence per day when a lot of guildies poke their heads into the game (to see that they are the only one online), as then the “x number of members logged in” bonus influence is added to the tally.

Quite frankly it is shocking.

Tolmos.8395:

If they released a GW1 expansion, I’d be all over it in a heartbeat.

As someone who hasn’t played GW1, but has loved GW2 from the betas until November 15th, I would be actually be highly interested in this as well. Assuming they don’t decide to implement a gear treadmill into the game that is.

Vendor price 5s28c.

Not bad. I’d take that over the salvage for a non-max gem ankittenhral or Ori ore.

Edit: why am I having to fight the censor to say the t5 metal name?

Stop crying about PvP in a PvP zone. If you don’t like them killing you, then stop running into their kill zone they have created.

And before you cry about it being impossible to stop them, STOP. Use the tools given to you, and kill them in PvP.

I have personally bypassed campers in every part of the WvW jumping puzzles, and have killed the campers that were trying to kill me at every one of those kill zones. Jumping puzzle PvP happens to be the thing about this game that I love the most.

If you really want to farm jumping puzzles, there are plenty of non-PvP jumping puzzles… in fact there are only really two jumping puzzles that are for us PvPers. And no, you can’t have these two puzzles as well you greedy kittens.

And if you want to complain that you can’t get PvP rewards from your PvE Jumping puzzles, then tough luck, maybe you’ll have to PvP for those PvP rewards. Alternatively you can just wait for your server to clear everything and then just leech off their hard work.

Jumping puzzle PvP gives something unique to the game. It gives an actual death penalty. This gives the fights a lot higher stakes. Makes killing your foe, or getting killed by your foe a lot more exciting. Also it allows you to work your fancy JP footwork into your PvP. The most exciting 1v1 fight I’ve ever had was against a Guardian while scaling up the cliff to the Lower Key on a borderland JP, we both ended up grabbing the little chest, and the fight was concluded by a little misstep by my opponent (he had burned his defensive cool downs and I had burned his HP pool, and I evaded his knockbacks, so he was losing the fight anyways). The most fun group fights I have ever had in this game was in the Eternal Battlegrounds puzzle, where the enemy was camping the top of the arena with copious amounts of siege. After sneaking by the campers and portaling in our smaller group, we charged the campers and murdered them all.

One thing I’ve found about campers, is that they are almost always pretty bad at PvP. So you PvEers probably still stand a good chance at killing them if you are able to sneak up on them.

Edit: There is one place I wasn’t able to bypass the siege assisted kill zone. That was when the enemy server set up a big kill zone right at the very start of the puzzle, giving you no way of bypassing or surprising the campers.

Well if you are playing gear catch up like everyone else you will have those fractals done in no time…

Mercucial.6759:

Not really sure what you mean because I haven’t stepped foot in a single fotm dungeon and I’m still enjoying the game. I really don’t care what other people have or don’t have. I’m enjoying playing the game the way I’m playing it and once that stops I’ll stop playing, simple as that.

Ok then. Basically, competitive players want to have competitive stats. More casual players don’t want to play catch up for gear the entire time. A gear treadmill forces both these groups of players to change what they are currently doing and play catch up at arbitrary times (when the max stat gear is changed to an arbitrarily higher number). This is especially bad for those that are both competitive while having a more casual amount of game time to devote to the game.

You’re particular play style might not be effected by a gear treadmill, but many, many people have a play style that is drastically effected by it.

Usually I would be against this, but seeing as how buggy LoS can be in this game I think it is a must, unless LoS is fixed.

Mercucial.6759:

This is what I don’t understand about all the people complaining. Why do you want to achieve those goals? If you don’t want to do fractals then don’t. There’s still plenty of content for you to do. Find a like minded group or guild and do what you want. The guild I’m currently in has everything going on. Some of us do fractals and some of us run around completing zones or doing explorable dungeons or whatever. The option for you to do whatever you want is there, but most of you guys would rather just complain.

How do you not understand that you having arbitrarily higher numbers than someone else does not make that person happy? What if the roles were reversed and YOU are the one to be forced to have arbitrarily lower numbers? And then what if people exclaim how they don’t understand you, since you can keep playing the game with lower numbers?

This is not a difficult concept. If you are trolling then just please stop.

I never actually thought of it this way, but actually that is almost exactly what my issue was on this topic.

The immersion of your own personal skill being the deciding factor whether you succeed or fail, rather than arbitrary numbers on your gear. Yes those arbitrary numbers are important, you need to figure out your build, but after you have your build, then the game is all about you meeting your challenges, not your gear meeting your challenges. And the loot of course… awesome looking loot, because you don’t need arbitrarily higher numbers to be awesome, because you already are awesome and you just need the looks to match.

I, like many others, was eagerly leveling up alts, picking out weapon and armour skins (farming for those very expensive ones), and coming up with new builds (and getting new gear for those alternate builds).

Now with arbitrary numbers increasing arbitrarily, the game is less about making yourself look awesome, and more about re-gearing yourself. My main alt?.. doesn’t look like he’ll be getting Ascended gear anytime soon. My other three alts?… why even bother level and gear them up when I don’t even feel comfortable about finishing my main’s third set of jewellery (because the non-existent third set of jewellery is already outdated for the gear treadmill). As for my other alts that haven’t even been started yet?…. I don’t think I am ever going to unlock those extra character slots anymore, since even my main character is falling behind in gear.

When before the grind was for just being awesome, and showing everyone that I am awesome… now the grind is for arbitrarily numbers. Not as if Lion’s Arch being Overflow City since Fractals was immersion breaking enough.

I also might be a little sour about 90% of my guild suddenly moving back to their previous treadmill MMO’s less than two weeks after the GW2 treadmill started…. especially so since they had agreed that “we’re never going back to ____ again” after they experienced a couple weeks on top of the GW2 gear plateau.

tkalamba.2541:

Without this sort of pushing a character along a particular path, how would a player experience growth? How can you push the right buttons and make players feel more powerful over time? Even just unlocking skills is a form of vertical progression, you get more as you get further along.

If the skills are balanced, ie: no power creep then adding additional skills and abilities, or even traits is not vertical “progression”. Adding these new skills/traits allow the player to feel more powerful, as they are able to customize their characters more. Additionally a player will feel much more powerful by learning the game more, understanding their class and the game, and by increasing their overall skill level.

I use Planetside 2 as the best example of an actual Horizontal Progression game, and even then, it still has plenty of vertical progression.

You play the game, with any class, any vehicle right from install. You can be competitive, and don’t need to level. Not like in an RPG atleast. Any experience you get awards certifications, which allow for weapon purchases, which are just serving a different purpose, but aren’t any better than what you start with. The difference with this game is it’s a Sandbox combat game.

Planetside 2 on the other hand isn’t an RPG, it’s an action oriented FPS game. A Sandbox with no end goal, no real story progression, and no real character progression. Your character name, and class doesn’t matter in this game, he is just one of many grunts. The entire content was designed around the chaotic nature of a sandbox.

In my opinion, Planetside 2 is probably one of the worst examples you can pick for “horizontal progression”. That game requires a great deal of game time simply to unlock basics (I will mostly use examples for an interceptor pilot role), like ATA missiles on a jet, C4 on infantry. That can be reasoned away with “well all MMO’s have a bit of grind”. Then comes the strictly superior upgrades, like receiving 20% less damage from flake guns on your aircraft, larger magazines, faster reload rates, greater zoom on your sights, faster movement, tighter turns, enemies taking longer to lock on to your aircraft with anti-air missiles, and many more advantages. That game would take what?… maybe a year of playing it to unlock your one chosen build to its fullest?

I’m not playing Planetside 2 precisely because it has quite literally years of “grinding” to allow you to play optimal builds. And all of this is restricted to a single character, on a single faction, on a single server. Need to change your faction and/or server to meet up with a group playing on a different server/faction??.. too bad looks like you are going to be grinding for another year to fully unlock your build again.

GW2… is not. Hasn’t been from level 1. We have more of a themepark game, where story and character progression is more deeply intertwined with the enviroment and world. As you level, you push further along into Tyria. It does however have some elements of Horizontal progression, but this game at its core, wasn’t built around it. Really, this was evident from the Beta, Even if you leveled in WvW, you were still forced along the same path as everyone else, by doing the personal story.

This is ignoring the point raised that you can level up and gear up (excluding Ascended) however you wish. The only ways that the environments force progression, is by demanding a higher level of skill, as well as their geographic positioning (you literally cannot walk from your starting zone to Orr, because there are other zones in the way). Someone who levels/gears up in WvW, dungeons or crafting, when they go out to explore the zones, will be met with more challenging content the higher the arbitrary zone level goes, as there will be less scaling down. There is no necessary gear “progression” involved in exploring the open world. I myself am one of those people that leveled and gear up almost entirely with a combination of WvW and dungeons.

Kantharr.2308:

Melee staff for rangers? That would be awesome!

No no no! Druid staff for rangers!

cesmode.4257:

i have yet to see a tank specced guardian or warrior maintain hate

It would be nice to discuss the enemy/boss hate a little more. It is very apparent in several where a skilled “tanky” character is able to maintain hate. This mechanic isn’t necessarily popular knowledge, but it definitely exists and knowledge of it seems to be fairly broken up. I know that my small guild makes use of this mechanic, or at least has seen this mechanic in action and has then had to deal with it/take advantage of it.

In another thread I mentioned how in Twilight Arbour, the Vine boss (and Vine adds) will give what seems like 100% of their full attention to a high toughness staff Guardian (who then “tanks” by avoiding the AoE attacks). Then after that, the Spider boss in the same dungeon will give what seems like 100% of it’s attention to that same Guardian (this time wielding a hammer). Both of these bosses appear to give this particular Guardian 100% of their attacks, until the Guardian is either dead on the ground or has left the area and ran off the boss (a tactic that my guild uses in those fights when all the Guardian’s defensive cool downs and endurance has been depleted). Note: in the case of the Vine, the Guardian is doing near zero damage, but still has 100% of the boss’s hate.

I’ve heard theories that the amount of toughness can be a factor into boss hate, as well as whether or not they are ranged or not, or even if they are giving out lots of boons/conditions or dealing damage.

Boss hate is definitely not “GW2 Combat 101”, more so GW2 Combat 201. But it would be nice to at the very least acknowledge this mechanic, and at best explain this mechanic in detail.

After a couple months, even with a bit of a language barrier, people on my server are much better at not robbing towers/keeps of supply.

We’ve have a whole lot of “do not take supply from towers and keeps, take it from supply” spamming in /team, as well as advice to take supplies from camps, as well as public shaming/harsh language to people who would rob supplies from a tower/keep. I find it entertaining the odd time I see someone called out by character name AND guildname, with their offence clearly stated when they take from a tower/keep.

HtFde.3856:

[Mimic is only useful for farming Karka]

I already said that in this thread. And having a single utility only really useful for farming one kind of enemy, that only spawns in one certain area, is not how the skill should be balanced.

Besides, the old version of Mimic would have done the exact same for Karka farming, only you wouldn’t be hit by the first hit…. therefore making it a much better skill PvP-wise. I would actually prefer the beta version of the skill that only absorbed the first attack (no reflection, after the first attack you get hit by all subsequent attacks).. at least then it could be used for avoid one particular attack you didn’t want to get hit by (like a Kill Shot, or other big attack). Now it is just a leaky Feedback on a short cool down that only protects yourself.

Illusions are also the class based resource that Mesmers have. Many of our traits, and our Profession abilities depend on Illusions.

Perhaps a balance change if blinded Mesmers are to remain, would be that Thieves don’t regen Initiative while Blinded, nor Necromancers gather Lifeforce, Elementalists’ Attunement cooldowns should freeze, and the like.

How does this sound for balancing out non-Mesmers with how Mesmer is effected by Blind? Yes it sounds ridiculous, exactly how ridiculous we Mesmers thought this change was when it happened to us

Robbyx.1284:

The thread is about “no holy trinity”, which i responded to…and there is no hate mechanic other than how much DPS you can pump out, that is a fact, there is no need to elaborate further, Anet made it very simple….DPS.

Then I suggest you counter the posts ITT that claim otherwise. You may provide anecdotes in your argument against those claiming that dungeon bosses and some other monsters do not entirely select their targets at random. There have already been strong anecdotes raised in this thread supporting this hypothesis.

Phzt.9864:

zastari.1730:

Why do people think that the only thing to do at a tower / keep siege is AoE walls?

You know the answer – most players are not good at this game and are very unimaginative. Playing wall wars is one of the most useless things to do at sieges, but 90% of players are happy to sit there and do it.

Your statement is implying that keeping enemy siege from countering your own siege is useless. I suggest you rephrase that statement, as I believe that is not what you meant.

Robbyx.1284:

They did indeed remove the “holy trinity”, trouble is they replaced it with just one class….DPS…..anything else and you are just fooling yourself….healing ele’s are a waste of a slot, “tanks” are absolutely worthless as they cannot hold aggro.

This game is solely about DPS and how much you can inflict that DPS on mobs.

Nice to see that you read the thread, and have a clue about what you are talking about.

I liked your insights into the hate mechanic, and optimal strategies for dealing with the mechanic. Perhaps you should elaborate further on this topic?

Wizardauz.3761:

Is it really inconveniencing people this much too see a little blue arrow on their map?….

I mean, come on. I just dgaf. Its a little blue arrow that pops up. Who cares? Really blocking your mini-map so bad that its actually preventing you from playing.

Or is it really just people who are jealous and have prejudices against commanders for reasons that have no relevance on other individuals despite your experiences with previous commanders? hmm….

God this is so stupid, thats like saying “OMG I HATE WALKING AROUND LA AND SEEING PEOPLE DANCE, SOO ANNOYING GOSSSH”

Srsly people. Grow up. Get over it. Play your game. Im pretty sure that guy in LA who might of forgotten to turn it off or even just has it on for laughs isnt a horrible person worthy of being called out and scrutinized for.

A better analogy is a whole bunch of rich people dressing up as police officers and directing traffic, while 90% of them have no idea what they are doing, but that is not going to stop them.

When people see a new person in a police uniform they don’t recognize, they immediately think this is one of these rich buffoons and attention seekers… to which they harass because they know from experience that harassing these pretenders is a good way of making some of them fess up and change their ways.

I’ve actually seen mean words thrown around on /map in Lions Arch and /team in WvW get some of the bad commanders to stop using their commander tags.

Even stopping one bad commander from clogging up chat with their stupid orders, and whisking away the mindless zerglings into useless positions is enough of a benefit that people acting mean to a commander is a good thing for the game.

Sure it sucks for the “nobody” commanders that don’t have recognition in the server’s WvW community, but that is arguably a small price to pay for putting a stop to the shenanigans of bad commanders and vanity commanders. Unfortunately, the good commanders, and the PvE commanders are completely outnumbered by the hordes of kitten and vanity commanders… and the only real way of avoiding that is to become recognized as a good commander in WvW.

What would be perfect is if Anet made it so that you could use the functionality of your commander buff, but limiting it to squad/party/guild members only. That way you don’t get mistaken for a vanity commander and you don’t everyone on the map (except those that are following you).

Nashaan.3160:

I’d like a melee staff if they made some sort of martial class to wield it

You are incorrectly using the term “martial”. There are already more than enough martial classes (Warrior, Guardian, Ranger, Thieve, arguably Mesmer and Engineer).

Perhaps you meant a class that would more be stereotyped as unarmed (a kind of peasant/secret agent/monk) or something more “oriental”?

Suddenflame.2601:

[hate mechanics]

Yes this is what I was referring to. Never actually knew the terms or anything because I primarily just run dungeons with guildies and we figure them out for ourselves for the most part.

But yes, in TA the Vine prioritizes a Staff Guardian (healing, ranged, high armour/tough?) and the Spider prioritizes a Hammer Guardian (healing, melee, high armour/tough?).

Also we had found that a Shield wielding Engineer also got a lot of hate from those bosses, especially the Vine (high toughness ranged).

Maybe I should take a peak into the dungeon mechanic forums and actually compare my guild’s findings with other people’s findings.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

There are NO BABYSITTERS to Heal you, or Take Hits for you. You have to be on the MOVE+DODGE and contribute in Control/Support and Damage!!

I always found it pretty hilarious when guildies would say that the Vine boss in TA was a joke. The moment I screw up and my Guardian goes down for the count, or I need to step out of combat for some out of combat healing (due to all defensive cool downs being off), all the glass cannons in the party instantly die mere moments after I do.

To be fair, after seeing that happen a couple times, my party would listen to me whenever I said I was in trouble in that fight, and the spider boss.

Also, without body-blocking projectiles heading for our ranged glass cannons, some sections of the dungeons can also be a bit more of a pain rallying party members more often than should be required.

cesmode.4257:

Sorry, but I highly doubt that you take most of the hits from the spider boss. Aggro management is nearly impossible in this game since there arent any aggro modifiers or aggro specific abilities. Not to mention, I dont think its a matter of highest dps = aggro. I remember an Anet post saying the system takes into account dps, armor type, and range.

The spider boss moves all over. Ive never seen someone keep him still for more than a few seconds.

Many bosses and other dungeon enemies prioritize Guardians, or people wielding shields. The only time that Spider boss was not directing all attacks my way (when on my Guardian) was when a Shield wielding warrior guildie was in the party, then the boss seemed to randomly switch between us.

This is very evident when you position yourself on the opposite side of the Spider that your party is attacking from. They don’t receive any of the AoE attacks from the boss.

Servanin.5021:

Guild wars didn’t have threat values like traditional MMOs either, but it still had tanks and healers. Its the same deal here; You may not have a taunt, or a 500% threat modifier on your attacks, but you can still force enemies to attack you if you do it properly.

DotA from back on Warcraft III and its imitators, are also games that don’t have threat mechanics (since you are playing against actual players, and you cannot control their minds with a press of a button), but tanky builds are still very important in those games.

Just because there is no Holy Trinity doesn’t mean that specialized roles are useless.

As for tanking… have you ever been in Twilight Arbour Explorable? When I go in there with my Guardian I pretty much take all the attacks from the Vine and the Spider boss, and if I go down, and don’t rally quickly, there is a very real risk of a wipe that otherwise did not exist.

Also, as a Hammer/Staff Guardian using Altruistic Healing (poorly named trait, as it encourages you to be greedy with your buffs), there is a great amount of damage mitigation provided, especially when I am able to keep the attention of enemies, or body-block projectiles that are heading to my allies.

Note: my Guardian build also puts out a lot of damage, so its not like I am just a one dimensional Guardian.

The staves in GW2 are more so delicate looking magic weapons. Basically big Sceptres.

Personally I’d love to see the Ranger get to use a Staff and act more like a spell casting druid. If that happened I would immediately make a Ranger, even if it was purely for flavour and it was the worst balanced class ever.

Spears, Halberds and Polearms would be great though.

AzureNightmare.3914:

Well I’ve never touched WoW before in my life so i’m not even trying to make that arguement (I enjoy not spending 15 dollars a month for a game). I’m not bringing this arguement up out of some kind of shame or some BS like that, I’m bringing it up because it’s a fact.

I’m saying this because the fact is, GW1 was a very different game than GW2 is, and always will be. One I believe could get away with it’s low level cap and never increasing, while GW2, being that different game had a harder time avoiding it.

And that’s how I feel. I don’t, and probably never will play WoW even if it became free, so if you’re gonna reply to this and you wanna bring that arguement up, keep it in mind. I know kitten about it for the most part, really.

It doesn’t matter that you haven’t played WoW or not, because you are still being incredibly vague and not communicating anything other than basically “WoW did it so GW2 should do it too”.

Blueshield.6291:

It adds up over time?

When you finally got your maths sorted you should have released that we’re talking about around 60 silver per month. The amount of “leakage” we’re talking about here is easily rectified by, for example, running at least 0.4 dungeons per month.

Yes, you’re correct that small losses will add up over time. Extending your scenario, in a decade you will have leaked 73 gold. So as long as you sell at least 0.33 legendary weapons per 10 years, you’ll be okay.

If the conversation is going to remain on this little math error, then at discuss the issue raised and not an ever further tangent. If someone is undercutting their Ori sales by 0.5-1 silver, they are giving up 15%-50% of their profits on those Ori sales.

The penalty for death in this game is so incredibly lax. Preventing your death is more about personal pride than about being avoiding the punishment for dying.

AzureNightmare.3914:

Again, please remember- GW1 was a very, VERY differnet kind of game. It was mostly single-player with multiplayer fucntions and interaction. It could get away with the Level 20 cap, and it’s part of the reason for GW2, they could never have gotten away with a level 20 cap.

Every time this argument is brought up, it is shrouded in ambiguity, because there is no actual argument besides “WoW did it”, and you are all too ashamed of actually stating that argument.

Staff is a great close ranged weapon. Not quite a melee weapon, but it does benefit from being closer to your enemy.

Daggers tend to be single target weapons, which forgoes the AoE advantage most melee weapons come with.

Although yes, more melee weapons would be nice. Kind of unfortunate that the Greatsword wasn’t a melee weapon, the Axe or Hammer just doesn’t seem like anything a Mesmer would wield.

More options would be great.

SteepledHat.1345:

This is unbalanced, and if guardians are in fact as useless in a siege as mes then they need a fix too. It’s ridiculous.

My Guardian alt kicks the kitten out of my Mesmer in a siege, all that support. Guardians are even better at sitting on siege weapons since they don’t rely on active defences to keep them alive.

Not to say that Guardians are awesome in a siege, but they are way more useful than a Mesmer (unless the Mesmer is on portal duty).

ShadowSoljer.6524:

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Lets use an example with you using your aoe skills on a zerg. You use your first aoe and it hits 4 people, but guess what, the zerg was spread out. You use your second aoe, it hits 3 people. Those 2 aoe skills you used were on a spread out zerg.

Now its time for you to use aoe on a zerg thats standing on top of each other. You use aoe #1, it hits 5 people. Then aoe #2 hits 5 people.

Its the same…wait a second…

“Those zergs that get wiped by AoE aren’t properly abusing the mechanics. If they would simply stand on top of each other (thereby taking advantage of the AoE cap) they would be much safer”

….yep you are right, standing on top of each other sure does make it safer (thats what you wanted me to say right?)

So in reality, a zerg that stands on top of each other is much easier to kill even with the much needed 5 player cap on aoe.

You are missing a key part of the equation. When you are hitting lone players and small groups, every single attack you hit them with does its damage to that one player. The power behind turtling is that every single attack that hits a player, has a random chance to actually effect that player. If there are 50 players and they get hit by a 5-target skill, then each player has a 10% chance of taking damage, and a 1% chance of taking damage from two attacks in a row.

Taking only 10% of the damage/effects from attacks, and being basically immune from focus fire (0.001% chance to be effected by 5 attacks in a row) is where the turtling strategy gets its power… and what makes it so stupid and contrary to common sense.

Also, while most supportive abilities may be capped to 5 targets, combo fields are not capped to who can and cannot use them. A big ball of 50 players just needs a couple people to put down water/light fields and everyone else just using combo finishers to cleanse all conditions and heal up the big boring ball of players.

ajm.2931:

A few mesmers and their bounce back bubble would destroy an army of AoEers.

I see that you don’t play a Mesmer. I would kindly ask you to refrain from spreading this misinformation, I see it all too often (especially in “nerf Mesmer” posts).

Lucky for me I preferred small scale combat even before Anet decided to make Mesmer’s useless in a siege… and when I do participate in sieges I prefer to be the operator of a siege weapon. Otherwise LOL too bad portal kitten.

Also, if you are using a Chaos Storm to attack people on a wall then you are doing it wrong. Save the Chaos Storm for enemies that are fighting in close so your allies can also benefit from it.

styx.7294:

Might be alright that not every class can cover the walls with crazy AoE. Keeps the walls clear of too many crazy AoEs.

The Mesmer complaints aren’t about not being able to throw out crazy AoEs, its about being able to do something/anything. The old Illusionary Berserker allowed us to chip away at unattended siege weapons and kill incredibly bad players.

Personally I wish that T2 cultural armour was crazy expensive too. Even though I like a lot of the T2 (or even T1) armour more, it just feels like I am slumming it… even though I like the looks of it more.

Oh well, that’s what expensive weapons are for I guess…

Torch4, The Prestige, is our only blast finisher. The blast occurs when the Mesmer turns invisible. Very subtle…