Guild Wars 2

Things to slow the bandwagon and increase participation…

Devote the equivalent amount of development to upgrading wvw like the devs would do for an xpac.

I think that making a 3 faction wvw experience in one persistent, massive, open-world style environment (or more maps than we have currently in play), with engine upgrades capable of delivering large-scale, real-time battles with up to 500 players fighting up close and personal with less lag…. would be good.

Reducing lag. Improved server-based physics. Reducing lag. Have huge draw distances. Reducing lag. Better skill fx… All this cool stuff while procedurally generating terrain on the fly.

Professions 2.0. Combat 2.0. Better support roles to play. Skills that work better for movement based combat, not all these reticles we need to chase a herd of cats with. Condition revamps. Stealth revamps.

Far better rewards. Unique looking wvw legendary weapons and armors and back pieces to craft. Legendary trinket and rune and sigil and infusion crafting for players with wvw rank 500.

Announce these improvements to the gaming community and let players know that gw2 now has the best classes and combat and rvr experience out of all mmos…

Enjoy the flood of players to the game and in wvw!

:)

Eval.2371:

Supreme.3164:

Fighting against well played chrono power shatter and equilibrium revs that hit like trucks..can seriously test your resolve to learn to this class…plenty of deaths kitten but that feeling of accomplishment after you pull off that victory…after hundreds of timed dodge to avoid getting bursted down instantly.

The OP should try ranger against real players..but not matter what, people will cry for nerfs because they lack the humility to recognize their shortcomings

Just an aside, today I finally caved and gave hammer rev a go. I’ve been playing meta staff/sword for a while now and my mind was literally blown.

Just comparing weapon damage between rev hammer and ranger long bow with the exact same amount of power(2.5K) and (240%) crit dmg, the damage gap is so large, at times 3x higher. With amount of buff support(but for the party not just my self) and similar mobility, I cannot see my self going back to ranger/druid any time soon.

but but but… rangers have amazing pets that bite things for 10k and the druid can easily handle 2-4 players at a time with their godly skills!

Walder.6524:

OK, thanks! I looked at my account and it appears I do have Heart of Thorns. How hard would it be for someone with my issues to get to level 80 on Engi? Someone asked for more specifics on my limitations. Basically, I have slow reaction times which limits dodging, and I have trouble moving and attacking at the same time. I understand that I will be limited in what PvE content I can do. I don’t PvP at all.

Well, you should have an instant level 80 boost in your inventory bag.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Level-80_Boost

But first you should…

“Try before Committing — Try playing your profession at max level in the Silverwastes before committing to make the boost permanent for this character or to use it on another character”

Edit- I completely forgot about this 80 boost and profession trial thing before otherwise I would have mentioned it sooner.

Justine.6351:

Swagger.1459:

Justine.6351:

Swagger.1459:

Justine.6351:

staff 4 and ca 1 are the only ones I could agree with,
the rest are any thing but amazing.

You seem to think/want every druid to face tank in celestial gear with your pbaoe healing. Ground targeting is a good mechanic not one to remove for no brains pbaoe spam.

Let’s start with a quote from you…

Justine.6351:

I love my ranger but I know its garbage in zerging. Now I just pewpew with my hammer rev. Try rev, you might like it.

We were told that Druid would be able to “sustain zerg trains of 20-30 players”, but obviously the design is “garbage in zerging”…

None of these suggestions make this “face tank”, the suggestions provide good support capabilities that match up well with combat in modes.

Staff still remains low end damage, but with better utilities.

CA provides much needed stability to combat “knock back wars” (which shouldn’t happen anyway in pvp modes). The form remains low damage output. Skills can be dropped in place currently, but the purpose for removal of the reticle was to make it an up front build.

The CA “stance” allows for dependable support, but still carries a risk and reward component to it.

The radius increases are there to account for movement and there is a 5 player cap anyway.

CA 1 removes the ability for Druid to self heal and CA 5 only heals other payers, not the Druid.

CA 2, 3, 4 are basically the same except for radius.

None of these suggestions turn this build into some kind of immortal, they make Druid a more sensible support role so they are not “garbage in zerging”, and we don’t have to tell players to go “pewpew with hammer rev” instead…

That’s kind of funny, though, you actively encourage mindless ranged damage spam while hiding in the zerg, but you can’t support an active team support role that stands in the front lines leading the charge… You’re probably running around with a hybrid damage/tank rev passing out those passive “no brain pbaoe” boons while effortlessly spamming 5 target attacks at 1200 range… and you think this is “face tank” and “no brains”?

You quote me telling a guy, who is frustrated because of being kicked for pewpewing with a longbow ranger, to pickup hammer rev. It’s unlikely the person will be kicked for being a rev and they will enjoy it far more as hammer is much more effective at bringing downs.

As for rev 600 range passive boons vs not wanting druid to be mindless pbaoe healer,
I’ve played 5 different healers in wvw and the most effective and the most boring was indeed a pbaoe 600 radius spamming warhorn, healing Shout warrior with a regen banner stacked with healing power and healing to other allies. If thats what people want from druid then this game truely has found its point of no return.

Ranger/Druids aren’t good in zerging anyway lol

I love how you consider playing an active support role on the front line as “mindless” only because of click to use pbaoe skills… We can pbaoe now, or did you somehow miss that because you’ve become too enchanted with the passive boons and 1200 ranged pewpew rev design that you encourage others to play?

Again with the rev? I do have a druid in case that fact is lost apon you.

After looking through your history I now understand why you want this type of play to be for druid,
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Sugg-Another-Ground-Targeting-Option/first#post6271726

You want all CA skills to support untargeted skill clicking. Do you even want to actually play the game or just let it play itself?

I’m aware that you play ranger.

Are you failing to see that the CA skills already function like pbaoe if you just click it without the mouse on the screen?

Are you aware there are other pbaoe skills already in game?

Are you aware this game lacks player targeted skills?

Interesting for you to think that having to use reticle skills makes the difference between playing and not playing a game… Your comments seem to display a lack of experience with mmo combat and skill designs.

Edit- I have a really great idea since you have a ranger.. Make a heal spec druid and record yourself healing while running with the zerg… Then post an unedited video of your gameplay session and let’s see just how much of a skillful design the druid healing is in the hands of a skillful player… Show us all that the ranger is only “garbage in zergs” with regard to ranged dps and these reticle skills are a super design…

Edit 2- Since you are a fan of the reticle aiming support skill design, I think we should take all those herald facets and changed them from passive pbaoe skills to reticle aiming skills on timers. Let’s also change the current 600 radius of these skills to vary in number between 120, 180, 240 and 360 instead… I also think a root when consuming facets would be a good idea too because it would encourage more skillful positioning…

I’m sure none of these changes to facet support skills would be a problem considering it falls in line with “playing the game” type skill you prefer, not just the “let it play itself” type of skills right?

There is also no reason why ALL those elixir tossing engineers you see running around should have all the fun spreading support boons right?

Malediktus.9250:

I think the gift of battle reward track should give 3x 3 random superior blue prints (instead of the molten lodestone splinters) like the hero reward track. Then the pve heroes could at least donate something to their commander for carrying them.

The devs are adding in legendary crafting mats and I’d much prefer stuff like that over blueprints.

That’s a rude second sentence, you should be grateful players are there in the first place with all things considered.

Justine.6351:

Swagger.1459:

Justine.6351:

staff 4 and ca 1 are the only ones I could agree with,
the rest are any thing but amazing.

You seem to think/want every druid to face tank in celestial gear with your pbaoe healing. Ground targeting is a good mechanic not one to remove for no brains pbaoe spam.

Let’s start with a quote from you…

Justine.6351:

I love my ranger but I know its garbage in zerging. Now I just pewpew with my hammer rev. Try rev, you might like it.

We were told that Druid would be able to “sustain zerg trains of 20-30 players”, but obviously the design is “garbage in zerging”…

None of these suggestions make this “face tank”, the suggestions provide good support capabilities that match up well with combat in modes.

Staff still remains low end damage, but with better utilities.

CA provides much needed stability to combat “knock back wars” (which shouldn’t happen anyway in pvp modes). The form remains low damage output. Skills can be dropped in place currently, but the purpose for removal of the reticle was to make it an up front build.

The CA “stance” allows for dependable support, but still carries a risk and reward component to it.

The radius increases are there to account for movement and there is a 5 player cap anyway.

CA 1 removes the ability for Druid to self heal and CA 5 only heals other payers, not the Druid.

CA 2, 3, 4 are basically the same except for radius.

None of these suggestions turn this build into some kind of immortal, they make Druid a more sensible support role so they are not “garbage in zerging”, and we don’t have to tell players to go “pewpew with hammer rev” instead…

That’s kind of funny, though, you actively encourage mindless ranged damage spam while hiding in the zerg, but you can’t support an active team support role that stands in the front lines leading the charge… You’re probably running around with a hybrid damage/tank rev passing out those passive “no brain pbaoe” boons while effortlessly spamming 5 target attacks at 1200 range… and you think this is “face tank” and “no brains”?

You quote me telling a guy, who is frustrated because of being kicked for pewpewing with a longbow ranger, to pickup hammer rev. It’s unlikely the person will be kicked for being a rev and they will enjoy it far more as hammer is much more effective at bringing downs.

As for rev 600 range passive boons vs not wanting druid to be mindless pbaoe healer,
I’ve played 5 different healers in wvw and the most effective and the most boring was indeed a pbaoe 600 radius spamming warhorn, healing Shout warrior with a regen banner stacked with healing power and healing to other allies. If thats what people want from druid then this game truely has found its point of no return.

Ranger/Druids aren’t good in zerging anyway lol

I love how you consider playing an active support role on the front line as “mindless” only because of click to use pbaoe skills… We can pbaoe now, or did you somehow miss that because you’ve become too enchanted with the passive boons and 1200 ranged pewpew rev design that you encourage others to play?

Wondrouswall.7169:

Swagger.1459:

We were told that Druid would be able to “sustain zerg trains of 20-30 players”, but obviously the design is “garbage in zerging”…

Technically, Druids were able to sustain zerg trains. Then, Lingering Light’s design was changed, and then ICD heavily increased.

I wouldn’t quote Anet for anything they said in the past in terms of balance and profession design. They shift, nerf, and alter things every-so-often because they can’t decide on what they want a profession to be or which PVP complaint to cater to.

Other than that, Cosmic Ray resigned to be like Guardian Staff would be nice.

No way my friend, nothing about the Druid/CA design matched or matches with movement based combat healing support… Combining player movement, AF gating mechanics, CA pressure timer plus skill timers, clunky aiming reticles, knock back and cc spam… It’s not good…

It’s problematic when I go support in wvw on my Druid and not a care by players, but I goof off out of boredom with guardian and ele and am asked if I’m support specced… then get guild invites…

The Druid heal support is not quality outside of high level fractals and raids (those close quarter and stationary combat modes), and that needs to change.

Eval.2371:

Some of these ideas are good some of them I do not agree with.

I do agree with some of the staff changes, some condi/hybrid damage would be good for the weapon. Honestly, I think poisons or bleeding is a better route to go than burning because we have various amounts of trait support for it. However thematically burning does work.

I do think that PBAOE lowers the skill floor as some other state, but in any intelligent group, they would already realize that were functionally a PBAOE heal/buff bot already. Our glyphs effects are all small area affects as well as the seeds that provide GoTL. Our main heal is already a PBAOE. I don’t see why people are against solidifying that. The only skill that should remain targeted is lunar impact.

Swagger.1459:

AF- Make CA a stance that is maintained until downed or killed. Once downed or killed you have to build up Astral Force again to activate and reenter form.

This can never come to fruition. There are so many reasons why. CA is fine in it’s state of being able to enter and exit it. To be permanently in it would require so much reductions both on bases and scaling. It would literally break various types of content including WvW. It would also lock us into being able to do nothing else. This is not a healthy direction for the elite spec.

I’ll disagree with this. It’s not fine to put players in a position where they need to apologize to teammates for not having heals ready, or explain to them… “if you want these heals you need to stand in my beam or stand still and turtle up”. This healing support form was designed for close quarter and stationary encounters, it was not put through the rigors of zerg or movement based play and adjusted accordingly.

This design suggestion is so the Druid could be dependable support and front line capable in zergs. There is a megaton of damage being blasted on the front lines and there are risks to being downed quickly, I see it all the time. Even the improved HoT encounters have some heavy damage being pumped out by npc and see players wipe constantly.

With the exception on CA 1, all skills are on timers so there are limitations to use.

Swagger.1459:

Provides natural stability to the Druid and pulses stability to 5 allies within a 360 radius.

Again, this would be straight up power creep. It would render the druid invincible while in CA. It’s just too much. That’s not even including the fact that it’s aoe. Combined with the above, you might as well remove cc from the game. Because it won’t be going off any more.

Being immune to knock back does not make any player immortal to damage and other CCs. Players are carrying a plethora of interrupts, dazes, movement impairing conditions, skills that block movement… and this would go a long way to improving combat in wvw and spvp.

For pve this could be modified to “stability when casting skills 2-5” or something, but I still feel some stability is needed and could be given creatively.

I played city of heroes and you could build to prevent knock back, knock down and knock up, and never was there an issue with that making any player or group invincible.

Swagger.1459:

CA 5- Remove the root and make this skill mobile. Add a 5 player, excluding the Druid, healing component that coincides with the pulse and final damage. Same 360 radius.

CA5 is currently a really good skill. It has so many uses, Even though it roots you. The only thing that could be better about it is it’s stability uptime. We don’t need to be mobile with this skill.

It’s almost useless in movement based combat. I rarely ever touch this skill in wvw during pvp or zerg combat because it puts me in a very vulnerable position for very little to no gain.

edit forgot to delete block quote.

Numbers can always be tweaked to make all things sensible and work together, but I’m feeling that the general ideas are on target for gw2 combat.

Thanks for the responses!

So far I have… “fix me plz”, “perma stow plz”, “stand still plz”…

Never knew this existed until Tiilimon brought it up…

Tiilimon.6094:

You might want to look into Voice Attack or something similar, so you can set voice commands as hotkeys.

http://voiceattack.com/

Would love to get an official statement on the use of this type of program here.

Tiilimon.6094:

You might want to look into Voice Attack or something similar, so you can set voice commands as hotkeys.

That Voice Attack is pretty awesome!

Think we need to ask about that one and get an official statement.

Justine.6351:

staff 4 and ca 1 are the only ones I could agree with,
the rest are any thing but amazing.

You seem to think/want every druid to face tank in celestial gear with your pbaoe healing. Ground targeting is a good mechanic not one to remove for no brains pbaoe spam.

Let’s start with a quote from you…

Justine.6351:

I love my ranger but I know its garbage in zerging. Now I just pewpew with my hammer rev. Try rev, you might like it.

We were told that Druid would be able to “sustain zerg trains of 20-30 players”, but obviously the design is “garbage in zerging”…

None of these suggestions make this “face tank”, the suggestions provide good support capabilities that match up well with combat in modes.

Staff still remains low end damage, but with better utilities.

CA provides much needed stability to combat “knock back wars” (which shouldn’t happen anyway in pvp modes). The form remains low damage output. Skills can be dropped in place currently, but the purpose for removal of the reticle was to make it an up front build.

The CA “stance” allows for dependable support, but still carries a risk and reward component to it.

The radius increases are there to account for movement and there is a 5 player cap anyway.

CA 1 removes the ability for Druid to self heal and CA 5 only heals other payers, not the Druid.

CA 2, 3, 4 are basically the same except for radius.

None of these suggestions turn this build into some kind of immortal, they make Druid a more sensible support role so they are not “garbage in zerging”, and we don’t have to tell players to go “pewpew with hammer rev” instead…

That’s kind of funny, though, you actively encourage mindless ranged damage spam while hiding in the zerg, but you can’t support an active team support role that stands in the front lines leading the charge… You’re probably running around with a hybrid damage/tank rev passing out those passive “no brain pbaoe” boons while effortlessly spamming 5 target attacks at 1200 range… and you think this is “face tank” and “no brains”?

Got this for you Walder…

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNEQNAT3XnUqA9rg9CCOsAUtgBCh6/ipdA8YfG66dHCgqOlXriJnA-TBiFwAmU/pmyvL6GecRAA8EAgv/wWzfBUCSGA9FA-e

This build focuses more on doing damage from range while your pet supports you. You should not have any problems at all running this build solo in pve.

As other have said, see if you can get a good mouse and set key binds that are good for you so dodging is easier.

I will mess with this build, while being stationary, to see if there are any changes needed.

I’ll post a condition based build as well with shortbow and axe main hand/torch off hand, but the above build is best to start with.

Edit- Add me in game and I’ll help get you started when ready.

Walder.6524:

Swagger.1459:

Walder.6524:

Hey guys,

I got advice on this before, but it was a while ago, and I’m not sure how much things have changed. Basically, I am looking for an easy-to-play, mostly stationary class/spec, mainly for solo PvE. I am terrible at dodge rolling. Does that leave me with a ranger with a tank pet? Or is there something else that might fit for me?

Thanks!

What would you like to play?

I’m open to almost anything! I prefer DPS over tanking and healing, but I guess that doesn’t really apply in GW2.

What is a Druid Ranger? Is that new?

Maybe we can come up with some builds for you to play and see if it works for you.

Ok cool, I’ll think about it and post some builds from different professions and see if you like them.

The Druid Ranger is new as of last year and requires the Heart of Thorns expansion to access, and you will have to get additional Hero Points to unlock the use of the Druid, or any elite specialization.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Specialization#Elite_specialization

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hero_point

I have all professions and elite specializations unlocked, but am most familiar with the Ranger profession. I will post a Ranger and also a Druid build at some point soon for you to think about and explain how to use it. I’ll go through some other profession options as well, but just give me a bit of time to review and post something.

Walder.6524:

Hey guys,

I got advice on this before, but it was a while ago, and I’m not sure how much things have changed. Basically, I am looking for an easy-to-play, mostly stationary class/spec, mainly for solo PvE. I am terrible at dodge rolling. Does that leave me with a ranger with a tank pet? Or is there something else that might fit for me?

Thanks!

What would you like to play?

Maybe we can come up with some builds for you to play and see if it works for you.

We found the chosen one!

Hurry, take over the matrix and hook us up with all sorts of stuff before Agent John Smith stops you!

Manimarco Devil.1790:

@ LughLongArm.5460

Why don’t you check out your own reading skills, druid should not be running into teamfights headfirst to begin with and in general ranked play, a necro/dh/mesmer is always going to be a higher priority that a druid simply because they are easier to burn down. Also I clearly ended my statement with a suggestion that druids get more offensive capabilities. Contrary to popular belief DH WAS played in high tiers, they were just rare because of the aforementioned focus fire.

@Swagger.1459
Unless you can actually contribute why comment?

@EnderzShadow.2506
I was mistaken when I typed long-term. On demand would be a more apt way to describe it. Nonetheless it the the accumulation of the defensive tools what I find overwhelming. Druid are perfectly fine in popularity: case in point today’s qualifiers. “Not very popular” was thieves and DH’s.

This subforum appears to suffer from the same biases that all class forums seem to have. I am glad Anet does not read them for any suggestions. I’ll figure it out on my own, thanks.

I would like to start with a quote from you…

Manimarco Devil.1790:

Gw2 pvp is fine. The problem lies in the fact that currently there are little to no resources that tell you how to actually pvp well. On top of being decent at your class you need to understand rotations and (to be really good) know the cooldowns of skills/traits of other classes.

As of now the tutorial doesnt teach anything outside of stomping and capping. Id also argue the general playerbase is rather noob and this is lazy playstyle is encouraged when pve mobs will literally stand in place so newcomers dont learn any reaction skills.

Ok, so, my advice for you was to play this profession because you do not understand it fully, which is not dissimilar to the spirit of your bolded advice.

My contribution was to help you with a rational suggestion instead of labeling you a general playerbase type person, like in your quote, and dismissing your comments with insults…

Play this profession so you can improve your skill set and level of understanding ok?

Manimarco Devil.1790:

Swagger.1459:

I personally think you should keep learning from every fight with every profession and improve your skills and builds first.

You should play other professions too, like ranger, so you can understand how they function.

Probably good advice but does not address the question asked.

Lazze.9870:

Because it got access to tons of heals without using the heal skill.. I mean, it isn’t that much too it. The devs almost made it out to sound like that was the only point of the spec. To me it is more ridiculous how forgiving and how much sustain a revenant can have without really speccing into defensive traits, while also bringing an utility weapon like their staff that still hits hard. And if they do spec into something defensive, like retribution, what they get is just an absurd amount of passive stuff that imo is more damaging to the game than most other things.

I may have over-emphasized the heal part but the point is that with the evades, stone signet, long term stability, stealth it becomes a bit much. I agree scrapper and rev are currently carried by passives.

LughLongArm.5460:

On last seasons in high leve pvp, druid was known to be the healer that can be focused down and get killed fast, unlike the cleric Ele that was able to survive on point much longer compared to the druid(and i’m talking mender meta druid ithSoS, staff-S/D)

This is blatantly false. The first to be focused were necros and DHs. Rangers in all seasons have been fantastic bruisers on side points and that is where they shine. Even mesmer and thief is easier to kill so don’t just make stuff up. Also how is a comparison to ele supposed to be sound logic when they just nerfed ele for the exact reason that they were too bunkery?

Swagger.1459:

Druids are still far from meta competitive, they don’t need any nerfs just because the average and lower skilled player have a tougher time with a more experienced player on Druid.

Is this a joke? Druids have seen play in high tier pvp in all seasons as well as in Pro leagues the past 2 seasons. If you even bothered to read I did mention how some compensation to damage would be ok.

You “do not main/play druid” so why don’t you try that first for a while then come back and chat?

Fluffball.8307:

Druids can effortlessly defeat a zerg of whatever class OP mains, I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Shhhhush up you! Druid secrets stay among Druids!

Ragnarox.9601:

When are you going to adress Druid survivability, heal and dmg in WvW? Class is absolutely broken right now, they can 1 vs 3,4 easily. Theres a massive influx of Druids in wvw right now cause of this imbalance.

Buffing something in pvp makes that class way broken in wvw.

I think you should try to improve your skills and build first.

LughLongArm.5460:

Swagger.1459:

LughLongArm.5460:

On last seasons in high leve pvp, druid was known to be the healer that can be focused down and get killed fast, unlike the cleric Ele that was able to survive on point much longer compared to the druid(and i’m talking mender meta druid ithSoS, staff-S/D)
Druid togather with necro, were almost always the first to be targeted and killed, beacuse both classes while sustainble and dangerous, having a very hard time vs CC chains and big chnks of dmage coming in short time. +1 good theif can kill a druid very fast.

It is true that lower level players seem to have a problem dealing with druids, the meta druid build is very forgiving, for mistakes.

Druid surviveblity is coming mstly from 2 traits – Druidic clarity and celectrial shadow,
I would loved if A.net would nerf thouse 2 traits(remove stun break on DC and CS is 2 sec stealth only and on super speed) but bring us back some undesorved nerfs like the moment of clarity nerf, seed of life(VE) nerf, beastly warden(can anyone explain this nerf) and deal with some of problems with have with damage glassy builds(no answer to reflect/blocks, MM and skrimishing need some love, etc…)

I just wanted to point this out…

Skilled Druid player can still be shut down by skilled players on other professions.

You want nerfs to 2 traits that add to survivability, but those do not stop skilled players on other professions from shutting us down.

…

Druids are still far from meta competitive, they don’t need any nerfs just because the average and lower skilled player have a tougher time with a more experienced player on Druid. Our skills and traits are partly in place because the damage and burst output of ranger and Druid sucks. They are not designed to stand toe to toe, but if you really want to ask for nerfs then you better expect players fighting for some crazy burst skills to hold their own in close quarter melee…

In wvw I get blasted all the time with these major burst numbers and condi floods, so let’s not go the nerf Druid route. Start giving ranger/Druid skills similar to double 10k vaults and super condition builds that eat players alive then we can talk nerfs…

I think we say exacly the same thing, I’m jsut tierd of getiing nerfs in all the wrong places instad of nerfing us exacly where it can make a big difference. I also did say that as a trade-off we need some buffs to our offensive capabilities.

You have to avoid using nerf and ranger/druid in the same sentence my friend. Think buff then we go from there…

LughLongArm.5460:

On last seasons in high leve pvp, druid was known to be the healer that can be focused down and get killed fast, unlike the cleric Ele that was able to survive on point much longer compared to the druid(and i’m talking mender meta druid ithSoS, staff-S/D)
Druid togather with necro, were almost always the first to be targeted and killed, beacuse both classes while sustainble and dangerous, having a very hard time vs CC chains and big chnks of dmage coming in short time. +1 good theif can kill a druid very fast.

It is true that lower level players seem to have a problem dealing with druids, the meta druid build is very forgiving, for mistakes.

Druid surviveblity is coming mstly from 2 traits – Druidic clarity and celectrial shadow,
I would loved if A.net would nerf thouse 2 traits(remove stun break on DC and CS is 2 sec stealth only and on super speed) but bring us back some undesorved nerfs like the moment of clarity nerf, seed of life(VE) nerf, beastly warden(can anyone explain this nerf) and deal with some of problems with have with damage glassy builds(no answer to reflect/blocks, MM and skrimishing need some love, etc…)

I just wanted to point this out…

Skilled Druid player can still be shut down by skilled players on other professions.

You want nerfs to 2 traits that add to survivability, but those do not stop skilled players on other professions from shutting us down.

…

Druids are still far from meta competitive, they don’t need any nerfs just because the average and lower skilled player have a tougher time with a more experienced player on Druid. Our skills and traits are partly in place because the damage and burst output of ranger and Druid sucks. They are not designed to stand toe to toe, but if you really want to ask for nerfs then you better expect players fighting for some crazy burst skills to hold their own in close quarter melee…

In wvw I get blasted all the time with these major burst numbers and condi floods, so let’s not go the nerf Druid route. Start giving ranger/Druid skills similar to double 10k vaults and super condition builds that eat players alive then we can talk nerfs…

Druid was supposed to be capable of supporting “zerg trains” as well, so I’d like to share some of the greatest ideas that will make playing Druid more viable in mass combat situations and more desired by players in any part of the game.

Supporting these suggestions absolutely guarantees to make your Druid super popular across Tyria! All the cool kids will invite you to their parties! You’ll get tons of friend and guild requests! Players will even email you gold and legendaries to buy your favor! You will undoubtedly become the envy of all professions!

Additionally, these changes will be so great for the devs because we will have to buy second accounts and roll non Rangers to get a break from it all.

Read on and be amazed!

Seeds of Life

These need to pop instantly and have their radius increased to 360. 5 targets as normal.

Staff

We need this weapon to be a better ranged support weapon with useful skills.

Staff 1- Add 1 burning condition to the 3rd attack tick. The low damage and low healing make adding conditions to this skill ok.

Staff 2- Add 1 burning condition and increase radius to 300. All effects hit 5 enemies and allies within the radius. The current 130 radius is not enough to support allies so the increased radius would help. This change would also be a useful for helping to contribute to breaking up the tight zergs.

Staff 4- Make this a circular patch, like all those other aoe patches, and add bleeding. The current cone design is awful to use in any movement based combat, so the aoe design allows this skill to be useful. This would also make the skill useful for zerg breaking and sieging structures in wvw.

Staff 5- Make this skill an aoe dome. The current small rectangle design is as useless as vine surge. This change allows us to support better during mass combat situations.

Celestial Avatar

This form is not dependable, it is clunky to heal with and very easy to interrupt and shut down currently, so I’d like to turn it into a dependable, smooth and more sturdy form that is front line support capable.

CA Form- Provides natural stability to the Druid and pulses stability to 5 allies within a 360 radius.

AF- Make CA a stance that is maintained until downed or killed or manually exited. Once downed or killed or exited, you have to build up Astral Force again to activate and reenter CA form.

CA 1- Make this skill function like Guardian staff 1. Wide 600 range “astral” cone attack that hits 5 enemies and heals up to 5 allies within the effect.

CA 2- Remove the reticle aiming function and make it a point blank aoe that pops a seed instantly. 360 radius. 5 targets.

CA 3- Remove the reticle aiming function and make it a point blank aoe with the same 360 radius.

CA 4- 360 radius.

CA 5- Remove the root and make this skill mobile. Add a 5 player, excluding the Druid, healing component that coincides with the pulse and final damage. Same 360 radius.

Glyphs

Make each glyph independent and an individual selectable choice. This would add more slot skill options and build diversity.

What these changes do

First, these changes fit thematically with the duality design of Druid. You have your ranged support role with staff and your melee support role with CA.

Second, all skills become useful, dependable and smooth to use in any movement based combat and zerg play.

Third, this makes bringing a Druid to any team, in any mode, more desirable.

Fourth, the Druid support role actually becomes user friendly and fun to play.

Edit- You devs are witty. Posted this originally in the general section stupidly, and upon deletion this awesome message popped up… “Swagger has turned into a quantum object. They both exist and do not exist at the same time.”.

Manimarco Devil.1790:

Or is this another situation where what the class currently has is justified because there are no alternative “viable” builds?

Full disclosure: I do not main/play druid.

Druid and scrapper both feel over tuned to me. Anet has slowly brought down bunkery specs and these are the last two remaining ones where they simply beat you by having their defenses on shorter cooldowns. Druid seems to just rotate between signet of stone, celestial avatar into stealth and superspeed, kiting with short cooldown evade/dash. Perhaps there are some tips that I simply am unaware of but it seems ridiculous how easily they can full heal without using ACTUAL heal.

I understand that the spec is based off of healing but some portion of it needs to go. My choice would be to remove the stealth OR superspeed from the celestial avatar ending trait and compensate with w.e you guys feel some damage should be added.

I personally think you should keep learning from every fight with every profession and improve your skills and builds first.

You should play other professions too, like ranger, so you can understand how they function.

I’m hoping that someday that we are given the option to move around UI elements, but before that someday happens, I would like to suggest an option to hide tool tips.

It gets very frustrating to use any skills with the mouse, particularly all those reticle aiming skills… I’m trying to focus on combat and positioning and here comes these huge text boxes that cover the character and ground. In addition to being obstructive, it’s also visually distracting and it draws my attention away everything else.

If y’all want to make an easy access tool tip function on the combat bar instead of just a “click off” option…

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/The_Players%27_Guide_to_the_Cities/User_Interface/Powers_Window

aandiarie.7195:

It is time for a WVW tournament. =) agree or disagree pm the post and maybe they can make it happen

Just wondering, have you not seen all the complaints about unbalanced match ups?

FYI… there were permanent losses to the wvw playerbase after each tournament before… tournamnets are not coming back for a long time, and probably not in those formats.

Justine.6351:

Morlock.7542:

Sure u wont have any problems with this but u wont be as useful as other builds. Axe/dagger is a condi focused weaponset and with the bounce-nerf on axe (only 1 bounce now) it isnt useful on a power build. The gear will give u a lot of tankyness but i dont need it. With this gear u r a tanky ranger who deals no dmg and have a little bit of heal. Not useful. Totally uneffective. Only viable if u are the tank of the group.

Must not play ranger. It is top build for ranger.

You poor thing, I’m so sorry.

I think we need a Tragic Positive intervention here.

I think this is the perfect time to give Gaile her frogs back from GW as compensation.

Josh Davis.6015:

Hey folks,

Just a quick reminder: the PvP team is not responsible for profession balance. The PvP team, along with all of the other major feature teams, provides feedback to the skills team, but the PvP team itself is not directly involved in making balance changes.

What we do have control over – however – is the build panel (sigils, amulets, runes). It’s one of the knobs we can use to push gameplay in whichever direction we feel it needs to go for that particular season. For this release, we wanted to take support down a notch and increase the pace of combat.

It’s not our intent to completely remove professions from the meta – but things do fluctuate and I think we need to give the change a bit more time to see how it plays out. Elemental Bastion being bugged since Tuesday certainly has not helped the Tempest situation, but that should be resolved fairly soon and we’ll be able to properly see how ele will fare.

I know many of you fundamentally disagree with the removal of build items – and that’s fine. I understand where you’re coming from, but I hope you understand why we use this as a tool for balancing PvP specifically.

-Grouch

Thanks for the response.

Honestly, lots of players are looking for major profession improvements, better roles to play, more viable skills to increase build diversity, condi reworks, stealth reworks… not really amulet removals to see how things work out. Also, I think players would like to determine the direction of gameplay through improved and new profession skills and builds, not to have periods of forced meta.

I played city of heroes for a very long time, and prior to update issue 13 updates to pvp mechanics (that were well intentioned, but mostly had the unfortunate negative side effect of killing build diversity), there were more viable roles and builds to play. Players and teams were more creative and varied, but that was killed off by the devs basically pushing gameplay in a certain direction.

Y’all have some great elements to professions and combat, but I feel it would be best to eventually give us professions v2.0 and combat systems that have evolved.

Please don’t shove players in a box anymore, give them the tools to build their own boxes and counter boxes and balance as we go. There are a lot of cool things you can do with profession to boost pvp and wvw participation and interest, and that starts with improving the characters we play and making pvp combat more “fun”, not off putting and frustrating.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Silk Scrap is at ~70 copper, which is not worthless — that’s just not worth nearly as much as it used to. There’s no set price that is “too high” or “too low” — just because we got used to high prices in silk, leather, ecto, whatever, doesn’t mean those values are the “right” prices.

The economy is a complex organism; it doesn’t live or die because one or more of us finds the old prices too high or the new ones too low.

While the economy may be a complex orgasm, people need to look beyond just a few things. It’s not about Precursors still being expensive. It’s the massive influx of loot. The loot that players are getting are then either being sold, or salvaged and selling the mats.

The problem is that you need to look beyond the market.

Either the loot faucet needs to be turned down, or Anet needs to put in more sinks. Now regarding sinks, the bad thing about this is that once items balance out, the sink usually remains. Then there’s the problem of the sink being too effective, thus leading to too much of an increase in values. So of the two options, adjusting the faucet (AB multi-map meta) would be the safe pick.

I’m all for gold sinks if that means players can buy cool “stuff” with game currency and gold, but all you want is higher market prices which nickles and dimes the average player.

MO and the team made a conscious change to value player time and reward those time efforts. The highly desirable items in game are expensive enough when you put all those materials together.

Funny how you say you’re “business educated” and tie that into the virtual economy and reward structure, but are completely oblivious to the fact that hot sales didn’t meet expectations, conversions from “play for free” to box purchasers wasn’t great and that Anet was pulling not so great quarterly financial numbers…. MO and those devs implemented ways to increase player retention, friend referrals and general box sales, all of which helps to boost bottom line sales and gives the devs more money to develop the game… but your “business educated” mind seems to miss the big pictures.

You fail to see what everyone’s favorite radio station is.

Bolded

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Silk Scrap is at ~70 copper, which is not worthless — that’s just not worth nearly as much as it used to. There’s no set price that is “too high” or “too low” — just because we got used to high prices in silk, leather, ecto, whatever, doesn’t mean those values are the “right” prices.

The economy is a complex organism; it doesn’t live or die because one or more of us finds the old prices too high or the new ones too low.

I agree with Illconceived Was Na. Well said.

I would like to suggest that we give engineers optional access to 2 standard weapons in their build while still keeping “things” unique. “Optional”, as in, these would be optional choices that provide benefits and limitations depending on the use of 1 or 2 weapons in the build

Here are my suggestions…

1- As is with 1 weapon equipped.

2- 2 weapon option that blocks the use of weapon kits in exchange for having 2 standard weapons equipped.

I would like to suggest that we give elementalists optional access to 2 standard weapons in their build while still keeping “things” unique. “Optional”, as in, these would be an optional choice that provide benefits and limitations depending on the use of 1 or 2 weapons in the build

Here are my suggestions…

1- As is with 1 weapon equipped.

2- 2 weapon option with each weapon tied to 2 attunements. Player can change attunement access on weapons out of combat.

Ideally I’d like to see most ground target skills turned into targeted aoe skills with a projectile, but I doubt that would happen so this is what I’m thinking… I would like to have an option that is just “ground targeting”. I know we have “snap ground targeting” , but I’m talking about…

Target enemy—Press or click skill key—Skill hits target

I would also like to see aimed cone targeting skills, like druid staff 4 and dragon hunter longbow 3, included in this tartgeting option as well.

This would remove the need to use the mouse for any reason other than to click a skill.

Thank you for reading!

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Since Colin left, MO has been working hard to make players happy. He sacrificed new Legendary weapons for more content. He buffed rewards so players felt love. Gave PvP a new map. And revamped WvW to make it more alive. We love Mike for all these things.

But now, months later, I need to bring up a serious question. When will the lucrative rewards end? There’s just too many ways to get loot these days. Auric Basin multi-map groups guarantee at least 20 rare drops per run. Silver Wastes runs still exist. Meta events in HoT happen all the time. Rewards are raining from the heavens. A little is good. A lot is bad.

A lot of people will not understand why I’m so against the current reward structure. On an individual level, lots of loot makes one feel really good. On a macro level, lots of loot reduces values in the economy. I personally think that in the long term, maintaining the current loot drops will be do more bad than good. Over time, the feelings of individual rewards that MO wanted players to experience will disappear. In Marketing, we call this saturation. There’s an excessive supply being generated, and the economy can’t keep up with the mats they provide when salvaged. The only way to reverse this is to increase the active player population to soak up the excess loot, or to scale back rewards.

We’ve all heard the term “Too much of a good thing”. For example, a bowl of ice cream is nice. A gallon of ice cream will send you to the hospital. Going further, water is essential for life. Drink too little, and you die. The opposite is true, where if you drink too much, you die. Rewards are water, my friends. A small trickle is all we need. A steady flow keeps us happy. A torrential flood will kill the game.

How much money have you spent on the game to date?

Jayne.9251:

We have a ton of smart folks on this forum. Let’s open it up for discussion, since without a resolution to bandwaggoning, we are stuck perpetually in Dante’s first circle (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_ ).

I think it’s reasonable to say that most avid fans of WvW would prefer a close matchup each week vs a steamroll. It leads to greater attachment of the game, a sports-esque feeling of contributing to your “team,” win or lose, and engagement that even when you’re not playing, you’re checking the score while at work.

What then do you think will fix the issue of bandwaggoning. No remake of factions, server reset, mergers or linking will resolve issues with this much-beloved game mode until we find a solution.

So how do we do it?

My thoughts are you raise the cost of transfers to $50 real money, not gems, and then hard cap all servers at X. Once X is reached, a server is closed until someone transfers off. No exceptions (yes, even if only half your guild managed to transfer). Those over the X amount are removed from the server and given the choice of other servers. Account history/seniority determines the cut off.

Want to be in Tier 1 (not that that matters anymore, but perhaps this will show others)? Recruit and power your way up. Of course the glicko will have to be made more responsive, so that a strong push yields rewards.

Any other ideas?

Because this is the core of the problem.

Sure, let’s use financial “punishment” on those looking for a better wvw experience…

The players are not responsible for the shaky state wvw is in… or the low development investment over the years that drove away players… or the lack of decent reward incentives to drive up interest and retention… but your first thought is to “charge the players” who already support the game?

I’m going to make a larger post running down the list of movement unfriendly skills across professions that are not good for combat encounters requiring movement… Ya, know, like the way combat was designed in most parts of the game? Yes, so warhorn skills? Why?

I ran through wvw for a short time getting the dust off my ele, again, and wow, I’m sincerely surprised that the skills on this elite weapon passed inspection… Warhorn skills are soooooooooooo slooooooooow and do not match the freedom of movement combat design this game was built on…

How are players supposed to support their team with these skills while zipping around? They can’t.

We really want to hit stuff in front and around us, not leave whatever effect in the dust behind, so can we please speed these skills up like 10x faster? Can we have effects project in front and around better? Please?

Edit- These skills are even worse than a bunch of other ele skills. It’s really not good. It doesn’t feel good. It’s not fun….

I have a really super awesome great idea! Speed up skills (on lots of weapons across professions) and reduce damage in exchange for having sped up skills, but please speed up skills!

Thank you!

Edit 2- Oh, and the “flatus being expelled” sound… Transmuted into Howler thinking it may have been the horn I was using… nope.

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

And raids have flaws that still need to be addressed. You are fighting for raids to be exclusive, which happens to alienate much of the playerbase.

Difficulty settings in no way impacts your enjoyment of raids at all, but you fail to see that there are average players out there that are turned off by the raid design and lack of features such as difficulty settings.

You either look out for the average and casual players throughout the game or you don’t, and raids are part of the game so those average and casual players should be looked out for too right?

Raids are far from exclusive and the only people making this out to be an issue are those that are constantly excluding themselves.

As far as looking out for a playerbase, the game already does that and there is no need to create an easy mode content of raids to do so. You have open world and dungeons (easy), You have Fractals (mid tier), and you have Raids (hard).

They cover the gambit of available difficulties, and even within each subset there are varying difficulties. So please stop the strawman, Stop the out of context quotes, and sincerely stop trying to character assassinate me to validate yourself.

Sure they are, the current designed to be meant to be exclusive, but thankfully the devs are looking into being more inclusive.

Again, thankfully the devs are looking for ways to look out for the playerbase.

You “fought” to be fair and more inclusive for the average and casual players, so I’m sure it’s no problem to extend that mentality for raids instead of being negative and insulting to certain posters here… Do you want to build a stronger raid community or do you want to contribute to the unnecessary divide among paying customers?

Again i love your out of context, completely off base, absurd rationale being used. AG’s were the context of all of those quotes and yet you still haven’t seen that that problem was addressed because as i stated several times it created an unnecessary element of grind in a system that was aimed at everyone. In a system aimed at everyone the supply of said items was so finite that they faced becoming a real long term problem.

I dont see how you can remotely, even remotely link the two topic and yet here to you are completely and utterly failing to realize that they are not related.

I’m done with your badgering. Go validate yourself somewhere else.

You just choose not to be objective about difficulty settings because you’re being defensive.

And for the record, those legendary insights, which are tied to boss kills, are part of the “new legendary crafting system” that you wanted fixed. The grind is extensive regardless of difficulty settings, so additional qol difficulty settings would be welcome by players to help them achieve their own legendary armor.

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

And raids have flaws that still need to be addressed. You are fighting for raids to be exclusive, which happens to alienate much of the playerbase.

Difficulty settings in no way impacts your enjoyment of raids at all, but you fail to see that there are average players out there that are turned off by the raid design and lack of features such as difficulty settings.

You either look out for the average and casual players throughout the game or you don’t, and raids are part of the game so those average and casual players should be looked out for too right?

Raids are far from exclusive and the only people making this out to be an issue are those that are constantly excluding themselves.

As far as looking out for a playerbase, the game already does that and there is no need to create an easy mode content of raids to do so. You have open world and dungeons (easy), You have Fractals (mid tier), and you have Raids (hard).

They cover the gambit of available difficulties, and even within each subset there are varying difficulties. So please stop the strawman, Stop the out of context quotes, and sincerely stop trying to character assassinate me to validate yourself.

Sure they are, the current design is meant to be very exclusive, but thankfully the devs are looking into being more inclusive.

Again, thankfully the devs are looking for ways to “look out” for the playerbase.

You “fought” to be fair and more inclusive for the average and casual players, so I’m sure it’s no problem to extend that mentality for raids instead of being negative and insulting to certain posters here… Do you want to build a stronger raid community or do you want to contribute to the unnecessary divide among paying customers?

Absurdo.8309:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

And raids have flaws that still need to be addressed. You are fighting for raids to be exclusive, which happens to alienate much of the playerbase.

Difficulty settings in no way impacts your enjoyment of raids at all, but you fail to see that there are average players out there that are turned off by the raid design and lack of features such as difficulty settings.

You either look out for the average and casual players throughout the game or you don’t, and raids are part of the game so those average and casual players should be looked out for too right?

Among other reasons, difficulty settings split the player base and slow development on new content.

There is tons of easy and medium tier content in the last patch, what’s wrong with that?

And, personally, I enjoy bloodstone fen when I’m in the mood for easy content. However, I would not enjoy an easy mode raid, because it would be content I’ve already done that week.

Never had such “splitting” issues with difficulty settings in another game… Players played just fine in game without controversy.

The players are split atm, so shouldn’t that be a concern you’d want to fix?

TexZero.7910:

Again, quote context is about AG’s and the New Legendary Crafting system which had flaws which have been addressed. If you still want to harp on this you can send me a PM or I’ll just PM a mod as this is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and frankly disturbing that you think you need to pull off topic quotes out of context to somehow validate yourself.

And raids have flaws that still need to be addressed. You are fighting for raids to be exclusive, which happens to alienate much of the playerbase.

Difficulty settings in no way impacts your enjoyment of raids at all, but you fail to see that there are average players out there that are turned off by the raid design and lack of features such as difficulty settings.

You either look out for the average and casual players throughout the game or you don’t, and raids are part of the game so those average and casual players should be looked out for too right?

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Blaeys.3102:

TexZero.7910:

the I don’t raid crowd

I do raid – every week. As, I’m sure, others who are critical of raids do as well.

This isn’t pro versus anti-raiding. It never has been (except in some very rare cases).

This is about wanting to see certain improvements to the system (which I respect you and many others do not see as improvements).

But, again, it isn’t about being for or against raiding. You can like something but still see a need for change.

Sure you can want improvements, but it helps to have a very real grounded perception of what the issue is. Several of the complaints are drastically overblown or are so far from reality that they aren’t issues except for those that willingly make them issues for themselves.

Are there changes i’d still like to see for raids, absolutely. I’d love an end of encounter recap that gives all players the respective information of what they did/didn’t do. I’d love to see an overhaul to the guild system to allow for an actual guild charter to describe what the function of the guild is as well as a constantly updated guild table for players looking for active guilds to pick through. Both of these are healthy things for raids, but are such a programming and logistically hassle that i doubt we’d see them for quite some time as they aren’t quite fully supported through the backend yet.

Those few things imo would solve the not being able to raid (as proper guild finding is made easier) and Being unable to learn from your mistakes is made easier through basically error reporting.

Those are logical steps to take as opposed to the outcry to nerf/created nerfed versions of content. Instead they should be spending time creating tools that help players elevate their gameplay and become better. That is what end-game content is about, not appealing to everyone.

Theses “tools”, or settings, open up more end game options for more players to approach and play… That also improves retention and participation rates, and in turn it makes the devs more likely to put more effort and resources into end game raiding… All players benefit.

Difficulty setting wouldn’t disrupt your gameplay personally… You and your buddies would be running the hardcore versions and having a good old time, while others are doing their thing.

Much like your complaints about economy related stuff (that you have brought up a number of times), that you feel favors only a small percentage of players, so do some players feel about raids. You want the economy designed for the average player to “get by”, so players want raids to have options so they can “get by”… See how that works out?

In your anti-difficulty settings argument, you are also forgetting that it would not be an easy feat for casuals to defeat 150 bosses over the course of many months and gather all the required materials for crafting these armor sets. It’s still a big and long term accomplishment and goal.

Time for you to start thinking more objectively about raids and more about the players as a whole, just like you do for economy related stuff.

The economy related rant you’re bringing up was one about AG’s which were a real long term problem that needed to be adjusted. They just so happened to be adjusted go figure. This isn’t the same sort of issue.

The problem here is very much a problem created by a few short sighted individuals who for whatever reason want to create barriers for themselves then blame Anet.

It doesn’t fly. Thanks, have a nice day.

Nope, there are general comments made by you about the state of “things” that are parallel to the pro difficulty settings crowd.

You want a part of the game to be inclusive to all, but here you are wanting raids to be as exclusive as possible, not thinking about the average players. You do so to suit your personal want, not what’s good for the average players and the game as a whole…

Some players feel this way about raids as you do other things…

So instead of starting with difficulty settings from the ground up and making the process something achievable by the average player, the devs pushed raids into niche crowd and grind centric territory.

“Instead of starting from the ground up and making the entire process something achievable by even the casual crowd, they’ve actually gone and pushed it into a very niche grind centric crowd.”

The exclusive mentally is what prevents progress from being made for all players and the game from being fun for everyone, and not just for the minority….

“It’s that sorta mentality that prevents progress from actually being made and the game from being fun for everyone and not the minority that hoard gold like skirtts hoard junk.”

And since you recognize that it’s a game that people play for fun, speed clears, rewards…, you should have no problem wanting to open the raid doors, with difficulty settings, to all these types of players to play “it’s a game”…

“It’s a game; some people play for fun, others play for speed clear, while some play for the rewards.”

So while raids have reached their target goal of providing difficult content, this lack of difficulty settings has alienated some and failed many average players as well… I’m saying this as a player who looks at the playerbase as a whole, just like you do with the economy “stuff”, and the same sentiments can be see on these forums and reddit.

“Yes it met it’s target goals, but in doing so it failed the average player base drastically and turns people away from actively playing the game. I’m saying this as a player who is a part of several large guilds and the same sentiments can be heard from a vast majority of anyone who is not new to the game.”

And just remember…

“At the end of the day, this is a game not a 2nd job to invest in.”

TexZero.7910:

Blaeys.3102:

TexZero.7910:

the I don’t raid crowd

I do raid – every week. As, I’m sure, others who are critical of raids do as well.

This isn’t pro versus anti-raiding. It never has been (except in some very rare cases).

This is about wanting to see certain improvements to the system (which I respect you and many others do not see as improvements).

But, again, it isn’t about being for or against raiding. You can like something but still see a need for change.

Sure you can want improvements, but it helps to have a very real grounded perception of what the issue is. Several of the complaints are drastically overblown or are so far from reality that they aren’t issues except for those that willingly make them issues for themselves.

Are there changes i’d still like to see for raids, absolutely. I’d love an end of encounter recap that gives all players the respective information of what they did/didn’t do. I’d love to see an overhaul to the guild system to allow for an actual guild charter to describe what the function of the guild is as well as a constantly updated guild table for players looking for active guilds to pick through. Both of these are healthy things for raids, but are such a programming and logistically hassle that i doubt we’d see them for quite some time as they aren’t quite fully supported through the backend yet.

Those few things imo would solve the not being able to raid (as proper guild finding is made easier) and Being unable to learn from your mistakes is made easier through basically error reporting.

Those are logical steps to take as opposed to the outcry to nerf/created nerfed versions of content. Instead they should be spending time creating tools that help players elevate their gameplay and become better. That is what end-game content is about, not appealing to everyone.

Theses “tools”, or settings, open up more end game options for more players to approach and play… That also improves retention and participation rates, and in turn it makes the devs more likely to put more effort and resources into end game raiding… All players benefit.

Difficulty setting wouldn’t disrupt your gameplay personally… You and your buddies would be running the hardcore versions and having a good old time, while others are doing their thing.

Much like your complaints about economy related stuff (that you have brought up a number of times), that you feel favors only a small percentage of players, so do some players feel about raids. You want the economy designed for the average player to “get by”, so players want raids to have options so they can “get by”… See how that works out?

In your anti-difficulty settings argument, you are also forgetting that it would not be an easy feat for casuals to defeat 150 bosses over the course of many months and gather all the required materials for crafting these armor sets. It’s still a big and long term accomplishment and goal.

Time for you to start thinking more objectively about raids and more about the players as a whole, just like you do for economy related stuff.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Swagger.1459:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Swagger.1459:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Sorry – there are no factions in GW2 and it doesn’t follow lore. Now if we were in Cantha, that would be different.

The OP makes no sense, other than pushing Tier 1 to be even more unrepresentative of the other servers in this game.

Well that lore breaking eotm seems to not have all the issues that wvw can’t shake off…

I’m looking at wvw as a whole.

Wait EotM doesn’t have the unbalanced matches now? When did they change that? From my admittedly limited play time in that mode the only issue that it doesn’t have is off hours scoring.

Let’s talk about the suggestion…

“Put more maps in play.

Divide out the servers into 3 sides.

Adjust individual servers weekly as needed to balance faster.

Reevaluate things after a trial period."

Put more maps in play – why? It seems to me that most WvW players like to zerg so more maps means less scouts to cover things which will just lead to more PvD karma trainaroonie.

because in an 8v8v8 scenario you would need more than 4 maps in play.

Divide out the servers into 3 sides – We have this already and it doesn’t work because players game the system. For reasons that escape me players want to stack for easy wins instead of good fights.

eotm works better comparatively

Adjust individual servers weekly as needed to balance faster – If you mean forcibly moving players or guilds how do you think that’s going to go over with the player base? People already complain that they can’t join their friends on over stacked servers, imagine the kitten storm when Joe zergling gets moved from his friends.

this current version of linking is messier long term because it’s ever changing. It would be easier to balance for 3 sides as opposed to 4 different changing 2 month match ups. More of the population would reach a state of settlement after a period of time because you are not shuffling all servers on a mass scale, you are limiting it to fewer individual server relinkings. You can also relink more frequently to reach a better state of balance faster

I’m of the opinion that a majority of the problems with WvW stem from the player base itself and there is little to nothing Anet can do about it that wouldn’t cause a mass exodus. In fact it seems like since WvW has gotten more attention that things are actually more unstable.

Well there are too many match ups and not enough players. Closing servers in not an option because this population problem is only a wvw problem. Anet needs to up their game to be competitive before the predecessor to DAoC hits the market. If any of you think wvw is unbalanced now, just wait until the pure pvp game with 3 factions, no queues, a diverse amount of characters and roles that are built for pvp, a custom built engine that can handle up to 500 players duking it out in a small area… hits the scene and guilds from here start bailing out by the truckload to get their pvp fix elsewhere

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Malediktus.9250:

Story is like the least important part of the game, it does not provide any longevity or replayability to a MMO at all. So I do not understand why some people are obsessed with story.

I’m not a huge story fan myself, but it’s not least important to everyone…

Jim Hunter.6821:

DeWolfe.2174:

OP, you won’t get an honest answer about the Druid being out of balance from the peanut gallery. They don’t want their shiny taken away from them. Are there a couple of Druid builds that are bad for WvW, absolutely.

A couple huh? Which ones?

The ones that can run away

There are 2 major issues with going the “just close some servers” route.

1. This “population problem” is only a wvw problem.

2. It creates the public perception that the entire game is dying.

I personally feel that going a 3 sided route, when you zone into wvw, would look and be the best option. This keeps individual servers preserved for the rest of the game and allows the devs to use individual server linking to combat wvw population imbalances.

Another option would be to rebrand the game to 3 “faction” servers, but that is tricker to balance populations for wvw.

Edit- Just some thoughts and basic maths to think about…

In October of last year the monthly concurrency rates jumped to 3,000,000 players, and I’m assuming only US and EU were counted for that figure.

There are 51 servers combined from US and EU, so that would be roughly 59,000 players per server in the wonderful world of averages.

If you think about the above numbers and then look at the wvw population, you’ll see just how poor participation rates are for wvw as a whole… So the devs either need to condense populations in wvw only and/or put some major reward carrots on sticks like paths to legendary weapons, legendary armors, legendary trinkets, legendary runes and sigils and infusions… to make wvw extremely attractive to everyone and to keep them playing.

Wondrouswall.7169:

The ground-target control is top-notch, but the radius needs to be enlarged. Currently, its radius is a mere 90 radius while similar skills such as Revenant’s Envoy and Elementalist’s Phoenix has a 240 radius (though, these skills have an explosion effect).

An increase anywhere between 120 to 150 would make it perfect.

I’m thinking player targeted skills, targeted AoE skills and targeted AoE skills with after effects would serve this movement based game much better.

Axe main hand is an example of a good weapon for movement based combat. Axe off hand is not.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Not sure. I don’t really like the change, ground targeting in general sucks.

Don’t like the change either.

Yes, ground targeting is not great for this movement heavy game, and there are way too many skills designed this way.

Just wondering if we are getting a bloodstone accessory as well?