Guild Wars 2

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

WvW operates on a different balance of rewards than the rest of the game, and also carries unique skins you can only get in that mode.

That wasn’t true until relatively recently. And that change didn’t increase WvW population in any visible way.

Not my point. WvWers never really cared for the reward systems we see in PvE. Very similar to SPvP honestly, there’s more parallels between these two groups.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Plus, it is the fastest method to earn Blood Rubies (ironically imo), which is a great boon for WvWers who need access to specific difficult to earn trinkets.

Are you seriously claiming that people play WvW primarily to farm blood rubies?

Nope, rather what I am saying is that PvEers will likely play WvW for the Blood Ruby Track, or the Gift of Battle.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

And so you agree that instances of great reward for low effort/time are bad? Excellent! We can keep the format where you can get a massive reward like Envoy Legendary Armor, behind a massive effort and time like Raids.

I never advocated getting envoy armor through AB multiloot or any similar content. I rather thought about something comparable to methods of getting legendary weapons.
And those are not low effort/time at all.
So please, stop with the strawmen.

Fair point about the acquistion, ended up mixing your and Ohoni’s stances together. And I don’t necessarily disagree with having Legendary Armor as a whole earned similar to the Weapons. But I also will disagree about them being high effort rewards, they are definitely a large amount of time to get through mostly trivial tasks. Please tell me how spending hours crafting thousands of Elder Wood at a crafting station is “high effort”?

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

There have been far too numerous counterpoints that I know you are ignoring outright.

I do not ignore their existence. I just disagree with you that they actually settled the discussion in any way.

Give me a scenario where players won’t go for the path of least resistance to get their rewards.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

If you believe that content is the main driver behind the content being played, rather than the carrot on the stick at the end, you aren’t paying attention.

Sometimes it is (WvW, for example). Sometimes it isn’t (AB multi). Notice, how the cases where the importance of the carrot significantly overshaded the draw of the content itself usually are a detriment to the game and cause more bad than good.

WvW operates on a different balance of rewards than the rest of the game, and also carries unique skins you can only get in that mode. Plus, it is the fastest method to earn Blood Rubies (ironically imo), which is a great boon for WvWers who need access to specific difficult to earn trinkets.

And so you agree that instances of great reward for low effort/time are bad? Excellent! We can keep the format where you can get a massive reward like Envoy Legendary Armor, behind a massive effort and time like Raids.

Ohoni.6057:

That’s all subjective though…

That’s precisely another reason why your preposition is absolutely impossible to implement. How do you subjectively balance players and their interests across all content? You don’t, you cannot do it, not for a game with as many niche interests as Guild Wars 2.

Your solution would actually be more feasible in a game like WoW where the literal end-game focus on a PvE standpoint is raiding. It’s not feasible and extremely gruesome to balance the horizontal progression paths of GW2 when you factor in all the groups. And let’s not even consider specifying that only certain pieces of PvE get this universal access, or else you would be doing the exact same thing you have been calling out against.

Ohoni.6057:

This is an argument I really have trouble with, because there’s no such thing as “alternative but equal reward.” Rewards are not fungible. You cannot say that Honor of the Waves armor is “alternative but equal to” Ascalon armor, even though they’re mathematically balanced and theoretically on the same tier of content. If someone wants to look like a Viking bear, the Ascalon armor is worthless to them. If someone wants to look like a gala ball performer, then HotW armor is worthless to them. You can’t say one is “equivalent” to the other, since that is an entirely subjective position.

Yet they cope with doing either content, or ignore it all together. Who knows? They might change their minds months down the line to get what they want, choice matters here. There’s a certain freedom when you get to decide what you really want compared to what you have to do for it.

Ohoni.6057:

So you can’t say "well, Raiders will get Envoy armor, and ONLY raiders can get it, but that’s ok, because open world PvE can get the “Sunspear” armor, and it’s just as good. Well Sunspear might be good in its own way, and some people will probably like it even better, but there will also be plenty of people who would still prefer to have one or more pieces of the Envoy armor, and those people won’t feel any better about having the option of Sunspear armor instead.

You need to be able to get the skin that you want, not the skin you’re assigned.

Everyone can get what they want- Please understand that just because a reward is behind something you may not enjoy or want to do, it does not exclude them from the reward. The player makes the choice on whether or not the reward is worth the effort. Their personal feelings are irrelevant on the matter.

Ohoni.6057:

Not to mention that crafting Legendary quality armor for every possible game type would take a lot more work, and a LOT more time, so players would likely end up waiting 5+ years for the first set to be added to their favored gametype at the current rate of production, and it should go without saying that this is unreasonable.

Variety is the spice of life, honestly, they should just toss the next legendary armor into WvW, make it a great investment into certain WvW tasks of different natures and difficulties, have some of it come back into the normal PvE, create a blend.

I too find it unreasonable that there would need to be Legendary Armor put into every facet, but I would not mind Legendary Equipment accessibility found in all content.

And yes I realize we’ve come full circle yet again on this discussion. I suppose it never gets old.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Your system has literally been discussed for over a year why it is not a better system.

And yet after that year we still don’t have any answer on this. Can it be because the assumption made in that question might be untrue?

There have been far too numerous counterpoints that I know you are ignoring outright. Please do your own research.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

It is never a good thing to take away incentives from doing any content by placing them in an easier method to acquire them.

Only if said incentives are not used to push people toward content they do not like.

They can deal with that one way or another, as that is the intent of the incentive / reward… or request an alternative but equal reward elsewhere. If you believe that content is the main driver behind the content being played, rather than the carrot on the stick at the end, you aren’t paying attention.

Ohoni.6057:

It is never a good thing to take away incentives from doing any content by placing them in an easier method to acquire them.

No, it often is a good thing, when those incentives would otherwise lead a player to do something he does not enjoy. You don’t like that, but it does not stop it from being true nonetheless.

Only when the balance of reward = time/effort is achieved. When you have easier content give more reward, new content is invalidated and not played. See ‘AB Multimap’ as an example of this, or even the new Bitterfrost Map when comparing earning berries to wood and rubies.

I already know to what extent you want easy content to earn compared to the normal method from our talk months ago, and it is extremely rewarding for low effort methods that it completely invalidates doing the main method.

Because all MMO players are driven the most by the shiny at the end.

Ohoni.6057:

Then why change the system if you provide a “solution” that is not better than what we currently have ?

You wouldn’t, but instead I present a system that’s better than what we already have, which is why they should implement it.

Your system has literally been discussed for over a year why it is not a better system. It is never a good thing to take away incentives from doing any content by placing them in an easier method to acquire them.

Can you stop bringing up that ridiculous and potentially game-destroying idea?

So beneath each post is the natural ‘Quote’ button (the Arrow).

That’ll pull up a different page, you might notice Brackets around player names followed by a post number. Essentially, when I block up your posts, I copy the bracketed player name, put it at the start of the quote, and the second “/ quote” bracket concludes the quote in question.

I hope you can use this knowledge in all your future posts, it can take some time getting used to but I find it helps break down separate arguments and statements players make constantly.

I’ll also make this quick as well. I’ll agree with your first point, as defending a point constitutes a discussion. It is how disagreements and logic come together, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Second, the sales shows a steady rate since the summer, the massive drop from when HoT launched has been widely discussed. I am willing to consider the perspective that the lack of any other content for months after HoT release, also impacted by the rework of the new zones, wasn’t “Sale-Friendly”. I am also willing to wager the sales might be significantly worse if Raids and harder content hadn’t appeared. But this speculation, and yours, are impossible to prove. We can only speculate, and Arenanet can only decide on which way to move forward.

The next point, it truly doesn’t matter if it is account-bound or not, a player who dedicates himself to farming Silverwastes tokens and events, should have be able to access every other skin in the game, ever. It is a surefire way to kill off all future content unless the new content proves to be the better ‘Universal Currency’ Farm than the old. Because all players are driven by reward, getting rewarded is a large part of ‘fun’ for all players in this game.

…Why do T4s have to be ‘Farmed’? Why keep them farm-able? I never got a response other than that it seemingly makes it impossible for some players who would rather complain than try, I still find it illogical and not to be rude, childish. But I know now I won’t get an answer so I’ll let this one go.

It’s easy enough to emphasize with players who you know, and have played with, about how they will fair in new content. It’s also terribly easy to simply ignore the problem at hand and complain about it instead. I haven’t addressed OriOri, and its very likely I have some differences in opinion with what they want. Hell, there’s a thread in this forum talking about expanding Raid Rewards to include some rewards I find to be very convenient (likely OP) for general play, that I despise such as Unlimited Revive Orb. I take each person’s arguments and their stance/knowledge, and make my own decisions about if I need to address them or not. I suppose I could go take a second look at OriOri now that you have dropped the discourse, and I might actually. But ultimately, I feel much more differently than you about the new fractal, which is why I had to voice my own arguments here.

That all being said, I thank you for this discussion, you were perfectly fine in your discourse, and please use the knowledge about quoting above as you see fit. If you need more help, send me a PM I’ll walk you through it. Thanks!

IndigoSundown.5419:

Aldath.1275:

Well, I do and I can, and as a client I have the right to do so. We paid for a product that we sustain with our money, we’re giving feedback on something that as you might notice is so far one of the most controversial desitions of the company, and they say “everything is fine, and tho we can and would be good to listen to you, we won’t”.

It’s like selling burgers and getting feedback on how a specific one is very tasty but unhealthy, and getting as a response “We thank you for your feedback but it’s supposed to be unhealthy”.

One of the most controversial decisions? Not even close. There are a small number of posters complaining. I see 1-2 new posters other than the same posters who post in all these threads. Ohoni may very well be responsible for half (or more) of the anti raid posts. To compare this subject to the most controversial topics in GW2 history is like comparing Real Madrid’s fan base to the fan base of the middle school team in Podunk, Iowa.

As to burgers, well, a burger made from 99% lean beef is less tasty than one made with, say 80% lean. Some believe fat is unhealthy. That doesn’t mean restaurants t sell 99% lean burgers. So, yeah, burgers are meant to be unhealthy — at least in some peoples’ view.

The burger analogy is absurd anyways.

It’s more like ‘We thank you for your feedback, and we still do offer a vast array of other burgers for all our clients. This new burger much like all our other products is serving a demand from some of our other clients who enjoy it. We are looking out for all our customers.’

But getting back on track and away from food thoughts, I find it highly toxic for the game to be against the diversity of content and challenge.

nanael the angel.2659:

T4 Should just remain as they were for so long, an easy faceroll to casuals and hardcores alike. Anet could add T5 , for harder fractals and even T6 for challenge mote fractals.

I heavily disagree for all the above points made by myself and others. Adding another Tier level seems pointless to me right now, they have plenty of fractal levels at each tier to work with still.

nanael the angel.2659:

All unsellable account bound skins, could be obtainable with a new account bound currency <snip>

I highly oppose this to the greatest effort, for utterly different reasons that are too many to count. There should never be another universal currency like Gold buying all the horizontal progression again, which is precisely the reason why the Magumma Legendary Weapons are account-bound rather than on the TP. They are steering away from this intentionally.

nanael the angel.2659:

Also harder content could generate way more liquid gold, so those opting for it would not say it is unrewarding (despite it being their game choice).

That’s an option on the table, but it entirely depends on the content as well. But let’s not go back to Gold buying everything.

nanael the angel.2659:

It is time more options are added so this gap between playstyles can close as much as possible. Limiting already existing content to certain fractions, so far does not seem as the ideal approach.

And that is a personal opinion you have. You have no idea on any numbers you bring up, and it has been months since they have started going in this direction. If Arenanet found that players were leaving content in droves as you have pointed out, they would be shifting gears by now.

nanael the angel.2659:

@Sykper.6583

First of, I am perfectly able to complete anything in this game <snip>

My apologies for my last paragraph coming off as you weren’t available to do the content, I worded it poorly. I still hold fast that there’s an issue with basic RPG progression standards your friends are trying to keep around.

nanael the angel.2659:

But just because I can manage does not mean I enjoy watching those who can not miss out on things <snip>

I see no reason to ‘Brag’, I was simply pointing out that the only thing holding back your friends was their own willingness.

nanael the angel.2659:

Your last paragraph seems to imply that people should rather try in a game, than voice their opinion. Why is that? why should a game require effort? People should be able to play as they want without missing out on anything, like guild wars 1 would allow with both hard and easy mode.

GW1 had unique items also restricted behind hard mode, and some would consider the vast majority of the end-game GW1 harder than GW2 right now.

But what I find most confounding is your argument that players have a right to complain without even attempting the content first. It’s true they will have an opinion, but they will have an ill-informed opinion. Being ill-informed about something, anything, can lead to non-constructive criticism.

Also funny enough, the new fractal does have multiple difficulty levels, much like the old GW1 style you reference here. I would say it is even MORE flexible.

nanael the angel.2659:

Why do you feel the need to bash or criticize the opinions of those you do not agree with? <snip>

Because this forum is public, and open for discussion. In fact, this particular forum is under ‘Game Discussion’ which means any and all discourse in the subforums is free-game. It’s perfectly acceptable for me, much like yourself, to quote another person and offer a counter-point. As we have been doing here. As you are doing right now.

nanael the angel.2659:

The game started advertizing itself back when it launched as a “play how you want game”. <snip>

Ah yes, that quote yet again. Do I even need to get into the myriads of different subjective interpretations of what the devs meant by that? Do I even need to bring up how the game changes and evolves, like when Dungeons were the hardest PvE endgame?

And then the fall-back point everyone brings up that describes the forum as a minority of players that aren’t representative of the game population. Allow me to point out that the devs do listen to these forums, reddit, and even in-game when players pester them with trying to find out new content secrets. If the new fractal was as bad as you are making it out to be, why aren’t more of the “casual” audience you are describing marching to these forums protesting?

nanael the angel.2659:

Want actual proof? look at the sellings JAFW provided, and the changes in gemstore tactics. <snip>

Can you link whatever it is you are talking about here? And again bear in mind the saying that Correlation =/= Causation. I dislike irrelevant statistics.

nanael the angel.2659:

MO once stated his goal was to entertain players, not argue about their opnions.

Yep and MO has a vision on how to go about it. So far, with the Living Story Episodes delivering fresh new maps, the Story significantly better (overall OK, but that’s my opinion), and consistent patches for other content plus player feedback constantly, overall I would say things are looking pretty good!

(Continued next post)

Look for training runs, they exist out there.

Also look for guilds recruiting for this sort of thing, Raids are difficult end-game content compared to the rest of the game, and making a static group for it would only be beneficial.

Good luck!

nanael the angel.2659:

Oh but it did replace something actually…
The swamp fractal got buffed, hence I have a lot of friends who skip this T4-swamp now.

I fail to see how voluntarily refusing to take part in the revamped Swamp Fractal, which by the way has been out since the Summer, has anything to do with replacement?

nanael the angel.2659:

This new fractal, while new indeed, did actually replace one of the previously existing T4 fractals in the T4 category (check wiki for the categories).

Although I don’t have screenshots of the previous T4 setup (with Chaos included mind you, funny how no one wants to complain about that one), Chaos took over every 25th slot which was Mai Trin, whom seems to be at 73 and 98 respectively at T3/4. This however, does not replace any ‘T4’ fractals, there are 25 levels per tier, there are not 25 different fractals yet.

nanael the angel.2659:

And you know what? If nothing changes and an extra tier is not added, every new fractal will be replacing the ones on the T4 category, that have multiple levels.

That’s likely intentional, and I’m open for discussing having ‘variances’ of the same fractal at a certain tier in some other thread. But there has been no full replacement of a T4 fractal.

nanael the angel.2659:

As it stands now when I see guildies and friends claiming they are missing out on T4 rewards due to a spike in difficulty, and ponder if they’ll slowly end up being pushed out of farming T4 casually as they used to, I can’t help but agree with them.

This here is the main root, and something I want to address. Arenanet has made it explicitly clear for months that they intend on making Fractals their “5 Man Endgame”. T4 fractals or another term, the ‘hardest iterations of the fractals’, were farmed for years, not difficult in the least. They are slowly fixing this issue that you are clearly aware of, yet call implementing challenge back to the T4 iteration ‘problematic’.

You and your “casual” friends might outright reject this turn of events, but it is a direction that isn’t new nor completely unwanted. There has been a cry for years for the kind of content that Nightmare has delivered, and there’s already been a basis in this thread showing overwhelming support for the level of engagement the new fractal has brought.

Have your casual friends tried the T1 iteration just for fun? Have you even suggested to them to maybe try easier tiers first, get those rewards and some experience and see if it helps them develop the skillset needed for T4? There has been a lot of complaints in this forum to say the least from players who frankly would rather talk rather than do, it is absurd to see players raise their pitchforks without trying.

@nanael

This is a NEW Fractal, it didn’t replace any content unlike some other content we’ve had come into play (cough TA Aether cough).

The challenge mote is completely optional as it is not a requirement for 100. It’s an addition to the content that anyone can participate in as long as they have an adequate amount of experience in the current regular version of the fractal.

Fractals are still a place for everyone, everyone can still do them and get rewarded appropriately to the level of the fractal itself. This hasn’t changed in the slightest. You are free to disapprove of opinions, but don’t twist the facts here.

@Nagr, you strictly stated in your first response that all three of the roles Chrono/Druid/PS War are overshadowed, especially by ele.

The current safe raid meta for all the bosses is to double up on these professions, and fill out the rest with what you need for the encounter. This isn’t something that should be discussed based on what the OP asked for.

The OP legitimately wanted to know what is working now, and why. I gave him the most accurate statements, albeit I was careless about Condi Ranger, but ultimately the big sticking point is that the Warrior/Mesmer/Ranger combo in any group is a sure-fire way to cover all your support base needs. There’s no better support combination.

Randulf.7614:

One thing I noticed today was that the Kodan have knowledge of many Worldly events across Tyria despite their isolation. I would normally find it hard to imagine they know of things like Thaumonova, but clearly knowledge is being passed to them, presumably by adventurers, and even into the wild lands beyond Frostgorge.

Aye, and the quaggan chief during one of the story steps beneath that location will reference a quaggan village to the south whom you saved (I can’t remember the name at this moment).

The open world story events and references like this were highlights imo, I liked having new zones have races recognizing my work.

cranos.5913:

Sigfodr.9576:

Sykper.6583:

Condi Ranger takes up a healing slot since the druid nerfs. It is why we don’t see 4 Ranger comps in Raids. Necro Epidemic Bouncing on top of their overall utility with CCs and condition pulling/transferring puts them as the condition profession to stack.

Just to make sure, we are talking condi RANGER, and not condi druid..
You will (generally) always run 2 druids in a comp, for GotL etc, but mainly for wing 1, having a condi ranger as the condi dmg is really good (and alot more dmg then necro).

Notice that the weapons/gear/tinkets are the same for condi druid and condi ranger. And its only the traits theat changes. This however change the class from a off-support build with abit of dmg to a super dmg build with low support. A good ex to show what traits mean ^^

Agreed. Base condi ranger has great dmg. Higher than engi even and much easier to play. Not sure why it would have to take up a druid slot. Support isn’t even that bad on it. Just taking a wyvern/black moa makes it very good CC and in a condi party it can take sun spirit without much personal dmg loss freeing up a slot on the druid for another glyph which means more gotl uptime.

Fair enough, sorry I became a bit confused on the discussion.

Still, I don’t want them to end up making some weird funky raid comp where they aren’t covering the bases, so I wanted to explain the most ‘routine’ group comps they will see.

reikken.4961:

the other person is talking about
gale song
wash the pain away
rebound
water skills
all of which you can have in a max dps build

thief can skelk venom and pop signet of agility though

Going into Water severely cripples your DPS, and the less ‘Wash the Pain Away’ you need to pop the higher your DPS stays.

Thief literally takes a second to channel Basi venom which gives a sum total of 7.5 seconds of stun to the melee if it hits all allied targets. That’s a bit under the full Warrior Wombo-Combo in CC in one skill.

Your other points are valid, but I believe you might be rating Elementalist just a touch too high on the support, because if they are supporting that much, they aren’t DPSing.

joeytan.3865:

Anet please please PLEASE add an enrage timer its not much of a “challenge” if 2 out of the 3 bosses can be cheesed with multiple support builds.

No need, some of the encounters have timed DPS checks for adds before party wiping nukes.

That’s your DPS check.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

Sykper: There’s no way thief brings more party support than ele. With ele (talking about full DPS berserker ele btw.) you get potent heals, condi removal, party-wide stunbreak, skill that saves you from going downed, occasional might generation and some other boss-specific utilities (shake block on sloth with offhand focus, icy patch clearing on mattias). ALL thief can provide is CC. And in decent squad where everyone pays attention, you will never lack CC so badly that you would have to absolutely rely on basilisk venom.
Ele is better than thief in pretty much every possible way, except it’s much harder to pull off. IMO the only reason anyone would bring thief into raids is that he is a bad player, still learning the encounters and needs something very forgiving in terms of mistakes. Otherwise, any competent player will benefit the group much more as an elementalist than he would as a thief.

When you are running the normal DPS ele setup, going for the full damage rotation, elementalist carries with it less utility than thief who always carries Basi Venom in their kit. I specifically didn’t mention any of the alterations to utilities and kits for the DPS Elementalist because that goes into boss specific DPS territory. If we are talking strictly a Tempest running without the supportive utilities and traits, such as on VG, that’s where Thief will have an edge in support in that fight.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

Also, you get the order of condi DPS classes reversed. Best is condi ranger (assuming base ranger max DPS build), next up is condi engi and last is necro. Of course in reality most people will do better dps on necro than engi (especially if you can epi-bounce), because engi has significantly harder rotation. Nevertheless condi ranger is the best DPS and fairly reasonable to play, so it will come out on top most of the time. It might be worth mentioning there are more condi DPS builds (like condi mesmer), but they are usually very situational – e.g. condi mesmer has the most value on mattias, but will perform very badly at encounters where boss is mostly static.

Condi Ranger takes up a healing slot since the druid nerfs. It is why we don’t see 4 Ranger comps in Raids. Necro Epidemic Bouncing on top of their overall utility with CCs and condition pulling/transferring puts them as the condition profession to stack.

And I especially didn’t want to mention Condi Mesmer on Matthias because these guys are coming back into the game and I don’t want them to try bringing Condi Mesmer on Sabetha or some other encounter where their phantasms will have a problem.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

With the rest of the stuff I agree. For support you pretty much always want to have mesmer+ranger+warrior. Depending on the needs of your group, there is a bit of build variance (e.g. minstrel chrono vs. commander chrono, magi druid vs. condi druid), but the classes will always be there in some form or another.

Let’s not dilute them with the variance builds that are meta.

So, in a more concise state, the must-haves (Main Raid Support) are:

Warrior, Mesmer, Ranger.

These three will provide all the support and buffs for a comp to perform at the maximum level. Thus, these are most desired. Obviously you will see raids double up on these professions in each group.

For RAW damage, Elementalist > Thief > Guardian.
From these Raw damage dealers, the support-side which includes CC and protective buffs is reversed: Guardian > Thief > Elementalist, so if you need just a bit more CC and you have plenty of damage, flipping out an ele for a thief would be a good choice. The exception to this is if the elementalist is running a healing build which I won’t go into detail for now.

For DPS Condition, Necro >/=* Engineer > Condi Ranger, where if you can’t stack more than one Necromancer for Epidemic ‘bouncing’, running a Condi Engi instead might be a fair plan. But Necromancer has quite a few benefits and utilities that you will benefit from simply running Necros all the time.

Tank: Mesmer >>>> Guardian, your group could have an inversion where the Guardian can tank. But the overall group DPS will suffer a few thousand DPS for it, running a tank build is nuking your overall potential DPS on a profession. Mesmer, with its low DPS potential, suffers the least for going Tank, and there are several guides for Chronotanking that make it very effective for the job and what it can bring to the table.

The only profession that really suffers is Revenant, everything has fallen into place to push Rev out of the raid meta, while Engi is terribly close to joining. But as I have said before, the encounters can be done with a sub-optimal group, Rev can get the job done. What will matter the most in raid is if you have the roles the encounters require filled out, Vale Guardian ain’t going to be killed by a full Power DPS raid.

OK well, so there’s a lot of things you are asking here, mainly because there’s a pretty massive difference in group play between Fractals and Raids for instance.

I suppose it would be best to go with the simple roles that each profession does, but bear in mind that although you might be asking for the most optimal setups, none of the high end PvE content requires you to run those setups unless you want to speedrun competitively which for what you guys want (coming back to the game fresh), might not be the best thing to start with.

Warrior: Might Generation. Due to Phalanx Strength, Warriors are the top slot for generating Might for the group, they will contribute most of the might without the need of fire fields. And with Might being pretty much a must-have for melting bosses quickly, you will see either the Power Variant or Condition Variant of the PS Warrior in each 5-man group (meaning two for raids). Also Banners.

Mesmer: Quickness/Alacrity Generator. Mesmers have a similar role to Warriors, but Mesmers lose in the damage department, which is why you will see Chronomancers going ‘Tank’ for Raiding, or simply ‘Damage’ for Fractals. Despite the low damage, Chronomancers have the invaluable Quickness and Alacrity buffs that are must-haves for any comps, plus their lack of damage is made of for several utilities for any type of encounter. A good mesmer can carry any group.

Elementalist: Raw Damage, Elementalists are kings of Power DPS. Large Hitbox monsters and swarms of adds crumble under their DPS, but a lot of the elementalists power relies on buffs from the group. A Disclipline Banner + Fury Buff will make an Elementalist very happy to break DPS records, but because they lack a lot of everything else, you want to cover those bases first.

Necromancer: Originally the Kings of Condition DPS, but they have gotten a fairly unjustified nerf, which actually did not hurt their spot in group content. Mainly because although they don’t come close to Elementalist DPS numbers overall, Conditions and Epidemic are their bread and butter for debilitating and destroying monsters. They are especially wanted in Fractals for Epidemic Spam, you will see ‘4 necro 1 druid’ condi groups quite a lot. Still, given their current state, you could get away with in Raids running the much more harder to play Condi Engi if you want a slightly higher condition damage edge in certain encounters, but Necro is a safe bet.

Ranger: Heals? HEALS! Druid is a solid pick for healing, and spirits are a unique buff like Banners to increase the group DPS. To put it into perspective from here, the current raid meta is Two Warriors, Two Mesmers, Two Rangers, but there are variances based on the encounter, you might roll a single Druid for instance!

Guardian: Upper level damage, and a reliable way to have Protection in your group. The group won’t feel any offensive buffs from a Guardian, instead Guardians will help ensure everyone is feeling the heat a lot less. Healers will like Guards, well except for Tempest Healer who can do their own Protection, but that’s a specific build I don’t cover here

Engineer: You have to feel for engineers, they are hell of a lot of fun to play, they have just as much tools as Mesmers do. Yet, despite all of that, the ‘Meta’ has phased them out as they are like a Jack of all Trades without providing group buffs. If Engineers could provide a trait with group buff raising Condition Damage by 180, something like that might be enough to push them more in use. Well, at least you can all watch pro engineers solo hard fractal bosses.

Thief: Close to matching DPS numbers with Ele, and a good supplement to a Raid comp needing a bit more CC with passive Basilisk Venom applying to nearby allies. Not a bad pick if you want a melee instead of a ranged DPS for an encounter, plus you can’t argue with that flip!

Revenant: A recent change to how key offensive boons functioned has utterly decimated this profession from even normal Raid comps. It’s not as if it were a bad idea to take them, but in the slot they took would be some key buff missing from the group in exchange for CC you might not need, Fury you already have, and/or DPS you really want. Mind you, this is the ‘Raid’ mentality here, Fractals are perfectly fine for the profession.

I hope this helps.

Enko.6123:

Cameron didn’t divulge any mechanics and just gave a maniacal laugh whenever we wiped.

Are we talking like, Mr. Burns kind of laugh or what here?

I get the distinct feeling the Fractal devs have someone…a little creative making these amazing new fractals.

Not sure if scared or really happy. :P

Smoochoo.1086:

You really loved it? It was just the same boring stuff they had during the tower of nightmare events in kessex hills. Guess this what you can expect of anet’s staff. Just keep at it not implementing stuff the players would actually enjoy…

Tower of Nightmares during S1 was completely and utterly different than the vast majority of mechanics pushed out in this fractal. The monsters in this fractal might wear the same skins, but they are smarter, and definitely harder to deal with.

Benjamin Arnold.3457:

We have the capacity to make new content that doesn’t use as many old assets, and we will be doing that. We just really liked the idea of ToN as a fractal and had the added bonus of needing less prop + texture support, which meant Jeff had more bandwidth to do new effects and map art as well as work for the next fractal.

Here’s hyping up for a fresh new fractal, but thank you again for bringing back the nostalgia of the Tower of Nightmares!

@nagr,

I am more or less taking the position to find the best possible resolution to this discussion, without having to impact the already slow pace which Raid wings are being delivered. Forcing the raid devs to create any other mode of their raid content is legitimately doubling their work load, which includes everything from creation to bug maintenance. Remember all the bugs that made I believe Salvation Pass inaccessible? That’s on the raid devs to work on, that delays content.

That being said…

Wouldn’t it be better for your suggestion to implement more options in another area, like the Special Forces Training Area? Been thinking on it for a while, that Training Golem has a lot of potential. I know it’s been asked in a different thread, but more options such as ‘CC Training’, or as you put it, ‘Tank Training’ could be put on that AI Golem.

Is that not a better idea?

Aldath.1275:

After looking at the developer response on this forum I can only say: Anet really seems to hire immature people.

The response was pretty much “we can, but we don’t want to”.

If that’s what you actually gleamed from Crystal, I don’t know what to say. That’s so distant from what she actually said and meant that you might be utterly compromised for discussion the subject.

Did you ever think to consider why she wants to keep the content the hardest in the game? Hell, she finally posted and gave us a concrete answer on the intentions for raiding, why it runs separate to the Fractal system, and you took it as something insulting.

Ohoni.6057:

That’s extremely objective, and it should be questioned with inquiries into evidence.

If you have evidence, then sure, but if you don’t have evidence, then there’s nothing you can do. : (

More or less the undertone for all of the raiding threads. No one knows a single thing about the raiding statistics in this game. We can only speculate, and look at other cases where such solutions were applied and make our own logic from them. Even the 3rd party sites have to be taken with a grain of salt.

I think you miss the point. You don’t have to agree with him that “too many guilds” are being harmed by this, but neither can you dispute his claim because it’s purely subjective. The statement is automatically accurate because it stakes out no objective position in the first place.

His position is that there are too many guilds fracturing. That’s extremely objective, and it should be questioned with inquiries into evidence. If however it is something that comes from his subjective opinion like you have said here, it should be ignored as it is not anything up for discussion. It expresses no desire to be proven wrong, and that is a disappointing stance.

Jahroots.6791:

Sykper.6583:

The Living World ala, Main Story of GW2 does not hinge on the Raid. You are welcome to believe it does, that does not make it a true statement.

You are not losing any lore relevant to the Living Story in raids. That’s the hard truth.

That’s false. There’s quite a few odds and ends you can interact with in wing 3 that do give some minor lore and insights into the White Mantle. In truth, most people would consider these inconsequential, but you can’t say that a player isn’t missing out on anything relevant to LS3.

The odds and ends you can investigate in full in a cleared instance?

Furthermore, the prevalence of White Mantle has existed since launch, with a personal story path. Should all characters have access to that human personal story because they might miss out on White Mantle lore?

Let’s go a bit further on this warpath for lore. There are several in-game references to Guild Wars lore in general, in the form of real-life books. Should we start demanding the full lore of these books, put into the game because we don’t want to pay real money for the books themselves?

…Sorry, that was plenty divergent of the point from me. The point I am trying to get at is that the inconsequential tidbits you bring up like the notes, the intractables…all of these things have no impact on what a player interested in lore and continuity would care about.

It is why Bobby went with ‘Side-Story’. The entirety of the events in the Forsaken Thicket could have been a book, because of how absolutely unrelated to how things are playing out in the Living Story when ‘links’ are trying to be made.

Tekey.7946:

The fact that they contain lore related to the White Mantle (+ bandits) shows that they are part of the Living World and not a separate game element.

It doesn’t matter how much it is, raiders experienced more lore than non raiders.

The Living World ala, Main Story of GW2 does not hinge on the Raid. You are welcome to believe it does, that does not make it a true statement.

You are not losing any lore relevant to the Living Story in raids. That’s the hard truth.

Going to make this clear yet again.

The raid story is not relevant to the main story.
The raid story is not required to understand the main story.

Stating that you are missing out on critical lore by not doing the raid encounters, which are irrelevant to lore purposes, is disingenuous at best. If Forsaken Thicket never existed and everything else was still exactly the same, even the notes you pick up in Bloodstone Fen with the references intact, it does not impact the main story whatsoever.

Stop using Lore as your scapegoat.

nagr.1593:

There’s no need to adjust numbers, not like you’re thinking… <snip>

Mkay…what do you got?

nagr.1593:

I proposed what I thot as middle-ground solution in earlier thread that got locked… <snip>

Let’s pretend that Solo Mode exists, that we have to redesign the encounters in a separate instance that make it still very challenging but in this case, players can go in and do the mechanics on their own.

Think about it just a bit, about all the mechanics that will have to be changed in this separate solo instance Forsaken Thicket. I could be a bit overwhelming and list them all, but how about this: Becoming a Slubling on Slothasor to clear mushrooms. Pray tell, how do you think the re-envisioned Solo Slothasor encounter will go? Could it even be done without breaking something?

Point being, the kind of work we would likely see from this is completely different encounters than the original version.

nagr.1593:

I’m not sure why ur using this example, it’s riddled with holes… <snip>

The head stomping into the ground creating the very familiar Shockwaves we first saw from Molten Alliance? Except Mouth of Mordremoth’s does an lethal amount?

Yes, there are multiple ways, you could invuln, get off the platform, etc. When people were learning about the shockwaves years ago, people were jumping over them, especially during the Molten Boss encounter we all can do now in Fractals. In T4 Molten Berserker’s waves are too painful to just tank.

I use the example here because despite players seeing this mechanic all the time, unless it directly will cause them to lose something they won’t try to learn it or even worse, they know of it, they just don’t care enough.

If you want players to care about doing mechanics right, you need to make it so they can’t get the rewards if they fail at the mechanics. …Oh, that’s Raiding.

nagr.1593:

It’s not merely difficulty that’s the problem… <snip>

I know you want there to be a solo option for many things in this game, and by and large a lot of the stuff in this game is soloed. But don’t think that Raids are the only thing that deviates, even WvW and SPvP are two other areas where you will need to have allies for some tasks to succeed. Soloing T4 fractals might be the single hardest thing to do, certain ones especially. Not sure if Aetherpath is even soloed at all…

And I personally think it’s a very good thing that players who have gotten so many kills doing raiding are capable of still wiping to VG, it proves that the bosses in Forsaken Thicket will still be challenging for the rest of the game’s lifespan. In fact I have to go find this reddit thread somewhere where a guy and his friends from WoW Raiding attempted to do some raiding here, they were of course, not aware of the gear checks in place for tanking and after spending a lot of time they killed VG. They didn’t think VG was ‘Mythic’ difficulty, but they saw it as Heroic which if you aren’t aware, is ‘Hard’. But that was also for their first kill without figuring out tanking so…

nagr.1593:

With raids it’s the “every chain in the link must be perfect or near-perfect” mentality… <snip>

I still want to bring up the point that these raids were originally not supposed to be puggable according to the devs. They saw a need from us saying that we should be able to form pug groups to do so, and they delivered in LFG. It’s very natural that there will be ‘Failure’ stories from raiding when the groups Raiding was intended for are the groups that have been working with each other for a long time.

nagr.1593:

Be honest, if u never pug then just say that u don’t understand… <snip>

I have 88 LIs. I have been a part of guild groups, or have lead groups for around 20ish of them, before I felt confident to start pugging the others. I heavily dislike the groups demanding lots of LIs for Vale Guardian, hell a couple of my first kills for VG were groups I made asking ‘No LI required, have TS and appropriate gear plz’ or joining a guild desperately wanting to learn to kill a raid boss. The cheering you hear from a new raiding guild that you help as one of their only two pugs kill VG, is something remarkable you can’t experience anywhere else.

I think the problem relies more on the untapped ‘Raiding’ market that only the EU so far has gotten into. There’s an EU general raiding/training initiative posted on Reddit looking for like-minded new and old raiders for training or group purposes. Right now, none of the major US guilds are actively posting this, but I bet they are always recruiting.

Players are the key to the accessibility.

Ohoni.6057:

If he believes it’s too many, that makes it a true statement.

If we started believing everything people said in their subjective opinions were true, we would be having far more bigger issues than just GW2.

Ohoni.6057:

For every guild that raids were the ‘last straw to break apart’ for, another guild returned or was formed to dedicate to the new content.

I went 1 for 1 intentionally. I had no reason to try to ‘outnumber’ his anecdote.

Ok, fair point, but what I said in my last post would still apply. to make the claim that your number had ANY objective relative value when compared to his, more, less, equal, or even not equal, you would need access to both sides of the figures for your statement to be accurate. That is a different burden of evidence than making a subjective value judgement like “enough,” or “plenty.”

We can make this really simple mainly because it’s utterly irrelevant at this point to the discussion. My anecdote here was not valid as there was no way to substantiate it with evidence of any sort. I used it playfully against his point that ‘too many’ guilds had fractured of which I heavily doubt he has any sort of evidence for either.

That was my intent, to use a flawed point against another flawed point. It was crude at best, are you satisfied or do you want to try defending his point about ‘too many guilds’ fracturing with evidence of your own? If not, we can go back to our regularly scheduled talk.

I never said I had more on my side, I said:

For every guild that raids were the ‘last straw to break apart’ for, another guild returned or was formed to dedicate to the new content.

I went 1 for 1 intentionally. I had no reason to try to ‘outnumber’ his anecdote.

Ohoni.6057:

He said there was too many which is an arbitrary number despite what you think.

“Too many” is purely arbitrary. It could be ten thousand, it could just be one, and either is a fine opinion to hold. You said that “more” went to the positive, which is a quantity, that if ten went bad, at least ten, maybe eleven or more went good. Yours can be evaluated factually if you provide the numbers you used to arrive at that figure, his has no such burden.

But it’s going off the number that he’s implying. Regardless of whether the number is 1 to infinite, stating that ‘too many’ is still anecdotal of which I can respond with an equivalent statement as well.

I am fine with saying my statement can’t be proven as there is no evidence, but that also indicates that his ‘too many’ unknown number is also unproven and it is impossible to find the evidence. That was my point.

sophiewhite.3149:

this is where everyone tells you git gud and how its so ez to dodge and see it coming. just wait. they love to be condescending.

Wolf mobs in this game have similar attack patterns across all of them, but different Dragon Minion wolves do different effects with their leaps.

The Icebrood Wolves in particular have a nasty small AoE nuke on their leap, but it has a very long cooldown and most of the time you can catch them around a corner in melee and they won’t immediately leap. I would recommend that when you get close to have a dodge or to put up a block, as the Icebrood Wolves outside of their leap are relatively harmless compared to say the Mordrem Wolves who prefer to flank.

…Oh crap I didn’t follow the script! Cmon you gotta dodge git gud nub.

MashMash.1645:

Seera.5916:

Gift of Battle requires playing WvW long enough to finish up the required WvW Reward Track for it. There are easier dailies that help with small little items that boost progress, but you still have to play WvW.

lulz. Not really.

Being facetious doesn’t help your case here.

Ohoni.6057:

He brought up the argument first, my response was a retort for this line.

And again, nothing he said involved a quantity.

He said there was too many which is an arbitrary number despite what you think.

I answered his hyperbole with my own, both are flawed arguments in that they are anecdotal which was my point there.

As far as I am concerned, it’s utterly impossible to calculate either number, and you know it as well.

Actually that Blaeys post about implementing the build system from SPvP into raids directly is a different take on accessibility. I don’t really have an argument against it, if I had to guess the only negative aspect, it would be from a game economy standpoint, if you can just get the runes and armor for free, the market will feel it.

But…it does promote bringing the player, there would be more builds and strategies new raiders could try out in their raid to make it work…

I think I am ok with the SPvP gear system for Raiding in place, it removes that excuse from those who say it takes a lot of time to get the build right. Sadly though, even if this were implemented I get the feeling some folks would still complain about it.

Ohoni.6057:

Evidence?

The same place he pulled his anecdotal evidence from.

He said that his guild broke down. He cited his source. You claimed a numerical statistic, that for every guild that broke down, another was created or strengthened by the raids, -1 +1. I’d just like to know where you got that information.

Read his last tidbit:

I like raids and I welcome their part in guildwars, but their implementation was a disaster and one that has dealt far too many guilds and social relationships in this game a deathblow and that damage desperately needs to be undone.

He brought up the argument first, my response was a retort for this line.

Astralporing.1957:

Addressed that in another thread. In short, in my opinion you significantly misread the reasons behind that statement. It’s not really a condemnation of LFR design that you want it to be.

I’ve already responded.

Astralporing.1957:

Surely that’s why they think about increasing accessibility. Because they felt that everything was fine.

You mean the transition from 5 man fractals to 10 man raids? There’s a room for improvement there, absolutely. That’s likely their only focus in terms of accessibility.

Your entire argument hinges on the premise that Ghostcrawler is making a subjective view of his own created system. He’s making a professional opinion about a solution he regrets now, that is what his post is saying.

That alone should trouble anyone wanting to emulate such a ‘Open the floodgates’ solution.

Astralporing.1957:

Notice how he is saying that after a long time of not working on WoW (clearly indicating he doesn’t know about that design’s longtime consequences), he doesn’t actually question whether it was good for the game, and he supports the general idea behind Raid Finder (increasing accessibility). He is merely dissatisfied because he wanted raids to feel more epic.

We must have read two different things. Yes, he does want Raids to be more accessible, but the way Raid Finder did it, in his own development view, killed Raiding.

It doesn’t get much more final than that, the initial release of Raid Finder which did all the automatic grouping, reduced difficulty, etc. All the things you and others have clamored for was a massive mistake from the dev himself.

Astralporing.1957:

So, his regrets about Raid Finder are not tied to any systemic problems of that system, nor to it’s impact on the game, but due to aestethics. Which is highly subjective.

You can’t be subjective if you are the one who created it. Who else knows more about Raid Finder than him? And for the record, although he does comment that he has been away from WoW for a few years, his regret about what the essence of Raid Finder was, is the issue here.

And if the creator himself is dissatisfied with a main aesthetic of Raiding gone, how do you think those ‘Raiders’ before Raid Finder felt when it was released? Pretty sure it was not open arms.

Rebound.3409:

@Skyper no, a lot of people don’t want to just press 1. That’s the first and main major mistake everyone defending this system hides behind and a source for most of the rage between these 2 communities. People want 2 “core” things:

The ‘Press 1’ is a hyperbolic argument, we mean that the general populace wants rewards at the lowest possible effort imaginable. It is precisely why we get the weekly ‘Legendary Weapons should be easier to get!’ threads. But sure, let’s see what you think the two ‘core’ things people want.

Rebound.3409:

1. Not have a system that seems extremely volatile especially from a language pov. (9/10 players don’t even consider raiding because of toxicity, all mmos have that, but this one actually encourages it)

Extremely volatile system? Are you saying that LFG is the problem here? You do realize Arenanet has no say over what groups request in there right? I believe why LFG is working as intended right now is because it gives just enough tools for the playerbase to get groups for what they need. Toxicity is not being generated by Arenanet here, the entire playerbase is responsible for what they create with the LFG platform, and that is an entirely different discussion all together.

Rebound.3409:

2. Have a system that actually has players. I am sorry but as a random, sitting in LFG sometimes for hours to find a group and when u do find a group, disband after 1 whipe or something and then having to invest even MORE dead time is not ok.

I find hyperbole amusing as much as the next guy, but that’s a bit much there. All of your complaints aren’t a ‘Raid’ issue, they are a ‘Player’ issue. I don’t even sit in the queue, or look for the groups for too long each day, my time is precious and if I don’t raid one day, whoopie do, I do something else. I believe that patience is another trait you need to have if you want to raid successfully, I don’t do full clears weekly, yet I am well over halfway to my LIs, knowing full well I have time to get the rest of them before Legendary Armor hits. Why is there so much pressure to get a raid right now?

Rebound.3409:

“Go find a raiding group/guild” is not for everyone and should never come down to that. The system that is now implemented has no where near the number of active raid players necessary to maintain it at a healthy rate.

Raids were originally marketed for coordinated groups, they were not really meant to be puggable. If anything did fail for raids, it was the fact that they were easy enough for pugs to do. But Arenanet right now feels really good about how Forsaken Thicket did, so they will likely keep pugs in mind, making the system work for even the solo raiders.

Rebound.3409:

A dev has come in to basically disregard what more and more people want (not less and less). Anet seems incapable of seeing the problems of people who want those levels of difficulty or just don’t want to accept them. People felt empowered by that dev’s remark and used it as a tool to attack people who want something to change instead of trying to understand why they want that change.

Devs know what the players want. Devs disagree with implementing the changes, they see a problem with what the players suggest here, and other players agree with the devs. What we don’t need to do is double their work load by implementing another difficulty level that will need to be tuned and bug fixed, after all it’s is not something as simple as adjusting a number.

We know exactly why you want the change, and we are telling you that the change you suggest for raiding will shatter it into a million pieces.

Rebound.3409:

It’s a gap that will widen. I was in LA 10 min ago doing my daily..people were already having mapchat """discussions""" about what the dev said..it got ugly for absolutely no reason at all.

It got ugly because it’s controversial. The content isn’t meant for the general populace, and only those who get their act together and go into it expecting to practice and spend a lot of time failing, can eventually succeed.

A lot of people just want to press 1. Hell, people still refuse to jump over Mouth of Mordremoth’s head slam shockwaves, platforms nearly get wiped, but because that’s not a mechanic that will wipe the whole map, they won’t ever try to learn to jump. That’s a mentality Raids do not appreciate.

Rebound.3409:

ANet’s official reluctance to introduce a system that they themselves said WORKED (for fractals) in raids…is questionable on many levels…especially considering other mmos have similar systems that proved it brings players together instead of dividing them.

Fractals were built around the scale, and the infrastructure for Fractals is an entirely different beast. Raids are built for the sole purpose, according to Crystal, of being the hardest content at all times. And as I showed in the link, ‘Similar’ systems implemented in WoW killed Raiding as it existed. There was no community, you didn’t care for the people you dynamically queued with to kill some inconsequential raid boss. Everyone was just another number to you.

‘Similar’ systems brought players together the absolute wrong way.

Rebound.3409:

Besides…even more raids? The abundance of pvp/wvw/normalpve content is so overwhelming that they found resources to throw on even more raids? (but this depends on when they add those raids….even so it concerns me)

When you got a small dedicated team for raids, you can get stuff done. It’s a new territory and they are given enough time and windows between wings to keep to a schedule.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Hey guys I mean it when I say that GW2 is right up there with the current greats for MMOs, you have so much to bring to the table.

However your stance on raiding is incredibly tone deaf, you have many major competitors that bring Tiered Raiding to the table and it does nothing to take prestige away from Mythic in WoW, or Nightmare in SWTOR, or what ever passes for top tier in FF14.

Just throw out a toned down version that us PLEBs can zerg through for fun with just Champ bags like a Champ train, hell put it on a daily timer even so that normal Raiders can still do this for laughs and train newbies on castrated versions of the mechanics.

What’s the big deal folks, you pulled it off for Fractals right?

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/52fxo1/ama_league_design_lead_greg_ghostcrawler_street/d7jwm98/?st=ivocegs2&sh=c80d5a04

There’s a difference.

Just step away Vince, some folks aren’t willing to listen to reason.

They also blatantly want to ignore the ramifications of the ‘success’ stories you hear from other MMOs doing things the ‘right way’ I guess.

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/52fxo1/ama_league_design_lead_greg_ghostcrawler_street/d7jwm98/?st=ivocegs2&sh=c80d5a04

Oh whoops, I dropped something. My bad.

Vinceman.4572:

MashMash.1645:

Oh hey, its the guy who got his guild kicked from raid testing.

Please bless us with your wisdom senpai. Also, any more leaks?

Tbh that thing of stupidity was funny but what is the purpose of your post mentioning that? Or better, what are you contributing to the recent discussion?

I think he’s attempting to demerit the poster’s argument by attacking the person there.

Nike’s kind of a sarcastic kitten, but his point rings true.