Legendary armor is going to be for aesthetics only just like the weapons. Let’s not start a debate about that. It’s not a new tier because it’s horizontal progression only.
Also there’s plenty to do “end game”. Fractals, pvp, wvw, open world meta events…..
Yes, the ability to change stats at any time to suit any encounter is purely an aesthetic feature and totally doesn’t’ affect gameplay at all…
(P.S. I apologize for my sarcasm but I’m just kinda tired of this argument being thrown around without thought)
As for the other end game content you mentioned, we’ve done it all already and we’re becoming bored of them after doing the same stuff for three years. Raids are it as far as new end-game content goes. If ANet wants people to enjoy other end game content, then they need to pay attention to that content and update it, not abandon it.
Without thought…… Right. You can change your ascended armor stats whenever you like with a simple trip to the tp and forge. Of course that is expensive. But so would be changing all your runes when you are switching between something like berserker runes for condi builds and strength runes for zerker builds. Nobody is switching the stats unless they use crappy runes or orbs they don’t mind changing out constantly.
Taking a trip to the MF every time I want to change gear stats is not a good alternative. It’s not even remotely viable. Not only would it cost a fortune, but it also takes a lot of time and you’d lose your runes or sigils every time you do it (very bad for people using expensive runes like Runes of the Scholar or Runes of Strength).
Keep in mind that switching builds can help an encounter even if you don’t change runes (for example, fighting husks champs in silverwastes is done much more easily with condition gear, because of their super high toughness. Even moderate condition damage will be more effective than fully maxed out physical damage).
That’s a very specific circumstance that it could be helpful in. Granted you still have to change your trinkets, weapons, traits and plus selecting stats on each legendary gear piece. I would never take the time to do that for something like a husk in SW. If there is content I’m going to do that needs condi damage specifically so that it would make me want to change my gear to condi damage, I’m going to also want to have the right runes. So it’s super marginally appealing.
Well, if you have full legendary gear (including weapons, trinkets and armor), then you don’t have to carry much aside from maybe some rings and amulets (unless they add legendary versions of those as well). It’s kinda like limitless gathering tools. It’s not super necessary, but for some people the convenience of not having to carry more stuff is worth the cost.
How appealing it is or how many will use it is debatable. But that doesn’t change the fact that legendaries do have features beyond simple aesthetics. I think legendary armor should be attainable in other forms of content, even if there are different versions (with different looks) kinda like how they’ve done it with legendary back items. At the very least, I see no good or logical reason this should not be the case.
Legendary armor is going to be for aesthetics only just like the weapons. Let’s not start a debate about that. It’s not a new tier because it’s horizontal progression only.
Also there’s plenty to do “end game”. Fractals, pvp, wvw, open world meta events…..
Yes, the ability to change stats at any time to suit any encounter is purely an aesthetic feature and totally doesn’t’ affect gameplay at all…
(P.S. I apologize for my sarcasm but I’m just kinda tired of this argument being thrown around without thought)
As for the other end game content you mentioned, we’ve done it all already and we’re becoming bored of them after doing the same stuff for three years. Raids are it as far as new end-game content goes. If ANet wants people to enjoy other end game content, then they need to pay attention to that content and update it, not abandon it.
Without thought…… Right. You can change your ascended armor stats whenever you like with a simple trip to the tp and forge. Of course that is expensive. But so would be changing all your runes when you are switching between something like berserker runes for condi builds and strength runes for zerker builds. Nobody is switching the stats unless they use crappy runes or orbs they don’t mind changing out constantly.
Taking a trip to the MF every time I want to change gear stats is not a good alternative. It’s not even remotely viable. Not only would it cost a fortune, but it also takes a lot of time and you’d lose your runes or sigils every time you do it (very bad for people using expensive runes like Runes of the Scholar or Runes of Strength).
Keep in mind that switching builds can help an encounter even if you don’t change runes (for example, fighting husks champs in silverwastes is done much more easily with condition gear, because of their super high toughness. Even moderate condition damage will be more effective than fully maxed out physical damage).
Legendary armor is going to be for aesthetics only just like the weapons. Let’s not start a debate about that. It’s not a new tier because it’s horizontal progression only.
Also there’s plenty to do “end game”. Fractals, pvp, wvw, open world meta events…..
Yes, the ability to change stats at any time to suit any encounter is purely an aesthetic feature and totally doesn’t’ affect gameplay at all…
(P.S. I apologize for my sarcasm but I’m just kinda tired of this argument being thrown around without thought)
As for the other end game content you mentioned, we’ve done it all already and we’re becoming bored of them after doing the same stuff for three years. Raids are it as far as new end-game content goes. If ANet wants people to enjoy other end game content, then they need to pay attention to that content and update it, not abandon it.
Raiding’s difficulty is perfectly acceptable in an environment where there’s plenty of other content to do in the game. From where I’m standing the question isn’t how to neuter raiding to make it more accessible to drooling idiots, but instead how to make depreciated content- dungeons especially- relevant again. It is both plausible and good for an MMORPG to have content that people just are not going to do, and not suffer any meaningful punishment for. The only thing the ghost town that is dungeons does to the game is give people a largely vacant list of achievements.
The problem therein is that…
1: Other forms of end game content have been either put aside or worse, abandoned completely (dungeons) in favor of a focus on raids and…
2: You are punished for not doing Raids in the sense that you’re cut off from an entire armor tier (legendary armor).
If Raids are going to be the primary form of end game content from here on out, then they DO need to be accessible to a majority of the playerbase. If they are not, all it means is that the majority will get bored and move on thanks to a lack of new content, while only a small minority remains happy.
The simple solution is to either:
1: Have difficulty tiers in raids like you do in Fractals, with certain skins only becoming available as you move up to higher tiers (like how in fractals, fractal weapon skins and ascended gear only start dropping from level 10+ with a higher chance as you get to higher levels). This will give less experienced players an entry point to learn the encounters, while still giving advanced players their desired challenge at higher levels.
Or…
2: Focus on improving other forms of content to give players an alternative to Raids. Also allow for legendary armor to be earned in other content besides Raids.
Personally, I think both options should be implemented. Ultimately, accessibility is key if you don’t want a game mode to become abandoned. Raids may seem fine now, but what if 2 months down the line, you find yourself struggling to find Raid groups because of how few people play them? Inaccessibility doesn’t just hurt less skilled players, it also hurts advanced players by artificially diminishing the player pool doing a particular form of content and thus, unnecessarily increasing the time it takes to form groups for said content.
He’s just another casual gw2 pve’er making the typical “its too hard for me so it should be easier for everyone else” childish argument we’ve heard a hundred times.
I’m not sure if you are the SkylightMoon I know, but if you are, you disappoint me. Can’t you seperate the actual difficulty of the raid, which is fine by the OP and the accessibility of that said raid?
The OP never said it’s too hard for me to do the content. He’s complaining that Anet dropped the ball when it come to the accessibility of the raid. I don’t agree 100% with the OP, but overall he is right.
To be clear. I have 5 characters in full ascended, I have my own Squad for raids and we are doing pretty ok for ourself in raid. For me raid are ok, but I can see that it missing key feature for a lot of people.
I said that a lot of times but, a Raid section in LFG, you should be able to use the LFG with a Squad instead leaving the Squad to find people and then invite them in the Squad. You should also be able so join or invite someone in a squad via the chat or the guild panel just like you can with a party. That’s pretty basic stuff that should be in the game since day one of the raids.
The other big point is that raid difficulty can’t be good for everybody. I find the difficulty perfect for my group, but it’s already in farm mode for some guild like DNT and it will be for a lot of other guild pretty soon. At the same time, a lot of players just can’t experience the raid and we should all stop saying that if you can’t experience the raid you are automatically a bad casual player because that’s not the case. Some of them are in a family/friend guild since day 1 with only 4-5 people. That doesn’t make them bad players. Some of them play thief with success since day one and now can’t get a place in pug raid, that doesn’t mean they are bad players. Some of them have ascended trinkets and weapons, but exotic armors (which is MORE than fine for the 1st Raid boss). He have a hard time getting a place in pugs raid, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad players.
The point is a content can’t sustain itself if it’s only for a small portion of it’s community. It’s just not economically viable and I want raid to last. I want to get new raid on a regular basis and it’s not in putting our head in the sand and screaming CASUAL each time someone said something that we gonna get more and more raids. And easy mode with less rewards would be a good thing for everybody. It would give players that can’t complete the raid a way to at least experience the content, it would allow some of those players to learn the fight and become better at it so they will be able to pull their weight in normal raids. These same players would gain a new way to slowly acquire the ascended gear they need. It would give a bigger pool of players for pugs to form Raid Squad, which will be easier to form. More people able to experience and enjoy the content will mean more financial reason for Anet to keep that content alive. Win-Win for everybody. The difficulty of the raids stay intact, but it’s accessibility increase.
Thank you Thaddeus. Even though you don’t agree with me on all points, I appreciate that you took the time to at least understand what I was trying to say and do I respect your opinion as well.
I know a lot of my points may not necessarily be correct (it’s just my personal opinion after all), and perhaps some of them are built more on the frustration of my personal experiences in Raids, but if people give helpful, constructive suggestions where they feel I am off the mark (as many have been gracious enough to do), or can improve on my own suggestions where they might have been less than ideal, I’m more than willing to read what they have to say and further discuss it with them. I just get frustrated when people simply resort to insults like “he must be a dirty casual” the moment someone says something that doesn’t align with their beliefs or personal views. It adds nothing constructive and simply makes the thread more toxic.
I also apologize if – in my frustration – I have at any point unknowingly offended anyone in turn. That isn’t my intention, though I have been feeling somewhat annoyed with the direction the discussion took.
Ultimately, I do agree on the position of making Raids more accessible, especially if they are going to be the primary focus as far as end game content is concerned going forward. There are a lot of ways to do that, but I think adding a difficulty curve for newer players and fixing the squad UI and group finding functionalities would go a long way towards helping the situation.
Sorry OP but you’re points are pretty stupid and I stopped reading after the first one when you said its too challenging.
“Your POINTS are stupid and i stopped reading AFTER THE FIRST ONE….”
Find the error!
You are saying:
I dont know what your opinion is, i dont even care about your arguments, i just wanna hate without any sense, cause i dislike your thread title.He’s just another casual gw2 pve’er making the typical “its too hard for me so it should be easier for everyone else” childish argument we’ve heard a hundred times.
Lol. Please point out one instance where I said the content was too hard for me.
If you aren’t going to add anything constructive or relevant to the discussion, and are only interested in resorting to baseless insults, all you’ll end up doing is discrediting yourself and no-one else.
Raids were not intended for casual players like yourself. Raids are optional content, get off your rocker and either become competent enough in the raid setting or don’t do them, it’s really simple.
I’m not casual, and apparently you can’t read. sigh >_>
If you can’t take the heat stay out of the kitchen.
It’s not our problem that everything isn’t just handed to you, heaven forbid for once you have to be a decently skilled player and work for something.
Stop trying to get content nerfed because you’re not good enough to figure it out or you’re not willing to work hard enough to do it. 99% of everything in this game has been handed to us whether you’re a fantastic player, or mediocre.
Great coordination and play should be rewarded, getting rewarded because you “tried” shouldn’t cut it in end game raid content.
Welcome to exclusivity where the men are separated from the boys. There is nothing wrong with how difficult this raid is nor what it requires out of players. This is what raiding is and should be.
Lol. It’s amazing how people completely misconstrued the point I was trying to make.
As I said quite clearly in my original post (very clearly in fact), I like challenging content. My issue is not with the challenge itself, but rather with how inaccessible that content is, to the point where success is hindered by a lot of factors besides personal player skill.
- Finding a group and keeping it together is incredibly hard.
- The margin of error is so small that one bad player on the team can cause a failure (so the other nine good players get messed up).
- There’s no difficulty curve to ease people into the content, which results in a smaller pool of players doing the content, which in turn contributes to longer than necessary time spent trying to find a group.
- And lastly, the tools for managing Raid groups are borderline broken.
All of these factors contribute to a situation where running a Raid is simply more hassle than fun.
If you can’t understand these simple concepts, and take it as some sort of admission of personal laziness, then I feel sorry for you, because it means you cannot comprehend what others are trying to say, even though they’re laying it out quite clearly for you. You are one of those kinds of players who mistake broken content for challenging content. You assume difficulty is separating the “men” from the "boys’ when really it’s just a mess of poorly implemented features that is creating a wall between those who can take the time to bother working around that mess, and those who don’t actually have the time to wait an hour to get things rolling.
Asking for content to be FIXED does not = asking for it to be nerfed. Asking for a proper difficulty curve does not = asking for easier content. Asking for a situation where I don’t get kitten because I’m in a less than 100% perfect group composition does not = saying that my personal skill is low or that I don’t want challenge (I just don’t want a forced trinity situation where I have to play a build I don’t like because it’s the only one that works).
Lastly, remember that this is just a game. Try to have fun and stop thinking of how others can be screwed over. I find your demeanor to be very sad, because you seem to believe that it’s actually better that a majority of people should be alienated from what could become the primary form of end game content (separating the men from the boys, as you call it).
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
Interesting how the opinion of “multiplayer” of some of you completely differ from my opinion.
To me “multiplayer” means: objects, that move while I run around in game might be other players. That’s it. It is “multiplayer”, not “social”. That would be MSORPG.
However, it is a “role” playing game. Don’t you think that “lone wolf” is a perfectly suitable role for a role playing game? So, why can’t group sizes for instances etc. not be variable? Why can’t the game adjust the difficulty of those encounters to number and skill level of players? That wouldre solve a lot of irritations.
Lol. This is a good point actually. Just because a game is an MMO, that doesn’t mean it HAS to be cooperative. That being said, I don’t think anyone is actually arguing against the existence of group content.
People just take what is said out of context. More variables would be nice though. As they say, variety is the spice of life.
I found it funny how there were a few people talking about how the game shouldn’t be reliant on a group of people, but individual skill, and yet the game is called “Guild Wars 2”. Funny that.
Funny how the game is called Guild Wars 2, but there’s no wars between guilds, and guilds are playing an increasingly less important role in the game.
So, what does the name have to do with it again?
P.S. no-one is arguing against group content or playing with groups. My main concern is that the margin of error for raids is just too small, to a point where it feels like individual skill no longer matters if one or two people in your group aren’t up to scratch, and thus causing the whole group to fail.
I quote:
“The room for error in Raids is so minuscule that having even one mediocre player on your team can mean the difference between success and failure, and this is a sad situation because usually I like helping new or inexperienced players in dungeons or fractals, but raids do not allow for this friendly community behavior because of how extreme the difficulty curve is and how toxic it can cause your raid group to become.”
You’ll notice in my comment I mentioned that I usually like helping other players in content. I actually LIKE playing with other people regardless of their skill level. The issue is that poorly implemented difficult content with no proper difficulty curve can create a toxic, elitist mindset community and destroy the spirit and fun of group play. It is counter productive in many regards.
By promoting more accessibility, I’m actually also promoting the idea of more groups playing Raids and having fun. Is that not uplifting community aspects of the game? X___x
Or do you perhaps believe segregating the community and creating content that only caters to a minority to be more in line with the spirit of the name ‘Guild Wars 2?’
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
To OP:
Your argument for #1 is downright silly. It’s group content. It’s designed as group content. It’s not meant to be solo content.
If you want Anet to produce more challenging solo content, then ask for more challenge motes in the story instances.
I half-agree half-disagree with #2. I can agree that forming squads is rather tedious, but Anet never said raids were a “go in and have fun” gameplay. If anything, they said it wasn’t such. They always said it would be the most challenging content in the game, and would need some serious considerations to build composition and the like.
Regarding #3: Exclusive content was always around. Unfortunately, ArenaNet reduced such for the original set of legendary weapons but originally you had to do WvW and dungeons to get them. There was no other ways. Slowly Anet changed that, and I kind of wish that they’d revoke such changes or change the recipes a bit. But you get what you get.
Legendary gear is meant to be hard to get and require playing a specific piece of content.
They kind of screwed the pooch with the original legendary weapons, especially the collections, in how they’ve so distanced from dungeons, but I’d say they did good with the legendary backpieces and the armor – I’ve not looked much into the second legendary weapon set so I won’t comment there.
Strange, I don’t recall ever making an argument against there being group content. My argument in that regard was that the creation of difficult content is not taken to unreasonable extremes, to the point of alienating a majority of your player base. I’m promoting making content accessible to more people, not less.
The main point I made that you’ve mistaken as an argument against group content, is that your legendary journey should be personal. I never said Raids or whatnot should be soloable, but that legendary content should not necessarily be hidden behind group content where failure is based on the performance of others. It’s almost like saying that others have to win your prestige for you.
Please don’t confuse those two vastly different points.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
I disagree with most of the complain from the OP, but I agree with most of his solution…
1: I consider myself to be quite a good player all things considered, but how good I am personally doesn’t matter if the group isn’t functioning well as a whole. People quitting half way through a boss attempt, causing anything between minutes to hours being lost trying to replace them and ensure good group composition is not an acceptable extreme to me. I’m not sure why it would be for anyone.
2: We agree on this point, but it’s also this particular issue that also perpetuates issue number 1, in that it’s hard to get a good enough group together to do challenging content when you don’t have the correct tools to do so. It means you’re usually left with a hashed-together group of whoever you could find, which is typically not optimal enough to achieve anything worthwhile. Increasing accessibility in any form will help out a load.
3: I don’t mind exclusive skins being tied to different content, but you definitely shouldn’t lock an entire gear category behind only one game mode – in this case, legendary armor. There should always be alternative ways to get different tiers of gear. Like with ascended, you can craft it, get it from certain world bosses or events, or even from fractals. Yes, there are unique skins tied to specific events (like sunless weapons), but it’s not like the entire ascended tier is locked behind only one game mode. With Legendary armor, so far as we know, Raids are the only means to acquiring it, which I believe is less than ideal. That is, unless they come out with alternate versions in other game modes, in which case I think that would be great, because it gives players who don’t want to do Raids an alternative means of acquiring legendary gear (even if it looks different).
Keep in mind though that legendary gear is not just about flashy skins. It brings a huge amount of functionality and quality of life improvements to players because it allows them to change builds between encounters to suit whatever they need. I don’t think that kind of functionality should only be offered to raid players. Flashy skins and vanity items are one thing, but this is gameplay functionality we’re talking about here.
I agree with your solution points. It’s really just about making it more accessible. It doesn’t mean taking away the challenge for those who want it, but rather just making the journey into more difficult content more of an upward slope and less of a sheer wall. Ideally though, I’m hoping Raids are not the only end game content ANet plans to focus on going forward. I’m hoping to see more development in other areas as well, because Raids are not everyone’s cup of tea.
i did not buy raiding game …
Yes you did. You bought such a game with HoT. They announced long before release that raids would be added and that said raids would have unique rewards that are unobtainable anywhere else.
So why are you whining now? Did you just preorder HoT before any content was known? That’s your fault. You could preorder as late as some hours before release.
You don’t go to any car dealer, “pre-order” next years convertible without getting any information on it and then rage around like “I thought it would get from 0 to 200mp/h in 2 seconds, you betrayed me…”
Seriously, do you guys even read what you write?
the raiding with full info announced last, few weeks before the lunch…not including data mining and speculations.
wait a minute you are saying you do not know when Anet constantly advertising non traditional mmo.
interesting how fanboy defending this at least ask anet to give you some money or something because if you defend them on your own then get life.
they lied they added traditional stuff to the game.
you read what you write before defending a company that advertised their game as non raiding non traditional game for 3 years and few weeks before the lunch suddenly announce raiding is coming.Please never edit your post. It’s hilarious.
i wont because anet said there will be challenging content never directly and officially said it is raiding with legendary armor.
as matter of fact people who were asking is expansion worth the price they were asking what is this challenging stuff exactly even wooden potato had video about it just soon after pre order announcement and asking what is this challenging content..rest was speculation and no official announcement.
now that person saying anet announced raiding months before with detail..where is the source??The source? Here:
http://dulfy.net/2015/08/29/gw2-pax-prime-challenging-content-livestream-notes/
Announced on the same day they announced the F2P-Model, at Pax. So where exactly is your point?That post was on the 29th of August. HoTS was released just under two months later on the 23rd of October. Leaving out such an important detail until just two months before launch, after having the game on Prepurchase for quite a while is not really what I’d consider giving players much notice, especially for a game that never had raids for 3 years.
Again, if you pre-order without having all the informations, than that’s your fault, and nobody elses. Sure, you could pre-order way before they announced raids, but then again, you could still “pre-order” just some hours before release. So if you bought a package without knowing what’s inside and end up don’t liking it, don’t blame the one who sold it to you, blame yourself for not checking the contents.
And yes, it is as simple as that.
That wasn’t the point I was getting at. The issue is not just pre-orders (which can be cancelled and refunded), but also the fact that so little time was left for player feedback on Raids or any kind of meaningful, constructive development therein.
Had they announced it sooner, they could have had more time to test it, get feedback and then balance the game mode out more. Or, alternatively, learn whether people were interested in Raids and get a nice indication on what general percentage of the player-base was looking forward to playing them. In turn that could have helped ANet form contingencies in the case of players not wanting to do Raids (like adding other alternative forms of content), or ensuring that Raids were accessible enough to be enjoyed by a larger portion of the overall playerbase.
Proper testing could have also helped alleviate issues, such as the difficulties of finding groups for Raids. The Squad system could have been refined more before launch, rather than being released half broken and potentially only fixed months after release.
To me, it’s pointless to focus all your energy in one new form of end game content if there’s the possibility that only 10% of your playerbase will actually end up playing it. What happens to the other 90% who have already played existing content to the point of boredom and who were hoping for something new, but who are excluded because of how inaccessible that new content is? Do you risk them leaving the game, just so you can cater to a minority? Not only does that not make sense from a “fun” point of view, it doesn’t make sense from a business point of view.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
i did not buy raiding game …
Yes you did. You bought such a game with HoT. They announced long before release that raids would be added and that said raids would have unique rewards that are unobtainable anywhere else.
So why are you whining now? Did you just preorder HoT before any content was known? That’s your fault. You could preorder as late as some hours before release.
You don’t go to any car dealer, “pre-order” next years convertible without getting any information on it and then rage around like “I thought it would get from 0 to 200mp/h in 2 seconds, you betrayed me…”
Seriously, do you guys even read what you write?
the raiding with full info announced last, few weeks before the lunch…not including data mining and speculations.
wait a minute you are saying you do not know when Anet constantly advertising non traditional mmo.
interesting how fanboy defending this at least ask anet to give you some money or something because if you defend them on your own then get life.
they lied they added traditional stuff to the game.
you read what you write before defending a company that advertised their game as non raiding non traditional game for 3 years and few weeks before the lunch suddenly announce raiding is coming.Please never edit your post. It’s hilarious.
i wont because anet said there will be challenging content never directly and officially said it is raiding with legendary armor.
as matter of fact people who were asking is expansion worth the price they were asking what is this challenging stuff exactly even wooden potato had video about it just soon after pre order announcement and asking what is this challenging content..rest was speculation and no official announcement.
now that person saying anet announced raiding months before with detail..where is the source??The source? Here:
http://dulfy.net/2015/08/29/gw2-pax-prime-challenging-content-livestream-notes/
Announced on the same day they announced the F2P-Model, at Pax. So where exactly is your point?
That post was on the 29th of August. HoTS was released just under two months later on the 23rd of October. Leaving out such an important detail until just two months before launch, after having the game on Prepurchase for quite a while is not really what I’d consider giving players much notice, especially for a game that never had raids for 3 years.
Hey all.
1: The creation of ‘Challenging Content’ should not be taken to unreasonable extremes.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not challenging content in itself that I do not like. In fact, I love challenging content. But what I don’t like is when the completion of challenging content is not dependent on my own skills, but rather the skills of 9 other players who I have to hope are incredibly competent… ~snip~
This is pretty much where I stopped reading. Last time I checked, this game was still labled as MMORPG – Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. I stress the 2nd word: multiplayer, as in multiple players. More than one.. Raids are not for Solo-Players. They have never been and will never be aimed at this group of players.
So if you’re a solo-player – get over it. If you aren’t, get a good guild.
Yes, this is an MMO, which is why it’s even more strange that ANet seems to be ignoring the “Massive” aspect of their own game in favor of catering to a small minority. Perhaps if you read further and understood the context of my point, rather than cherry picking and applying your own meaning, you would have understood what I was trying to say.
1. So basically you want a single player game? I cant see any possibility for creating challenging group content that basically requires only one player to be competent. I also cant see how the new raids prevent you from teaching the mechanics to a new player. If you think the challenge makes everyone toxic…well guess again and get some friendly and reliable people to play it with. However I see your point regarding dungeons, although raids were never meant to replace them. The reward nerf feels kittenty even if I am partially happy for the fact that dumb zerk-corner-stacking does not yield the highest non-TP gold gain any more.
2. Yes, its horrible. Why they did not even think of an extra category is beyond me.
3. Sorry but this reads like you are just salty that you cant get the shinies because of raid, your statement is simply not true. Things like ascended armor or legendary weapons were basically unattainable for ppl primarily playing WvW or sPvP. While it is technically correct that one could obtain a legendary just by playing WvW, the abysmal rewards (depending on what you did in WvW before the remake you were sometimes lucky to get even and on rare occasions even lost gold – compare that to silverwastes) make this basically impossible for everyone but a tiny fraction of players with enough time and will.
A lot of skins and gear is locked behind specific content. Fractal skins and the Legendary Backpack are a “fractal only affair”. The new legendaries are a “HoT only affair”. Mawdrey is a “LS only affair”. Tons of stuff is event only and cant be obtained after the event is finished. The game is full of this – whether you like it or not, anet did with legendary armor what they always do with certain prestige items. How come it is suddenly unfair as soon as its associated with raids? Makes no sense.4. – You can learn the mechanics in normal mode and still get currency for failing. The vast majority of drops can be attained (over a long period of time ofc) without ever defeating a single boss.
- Time to befriend some competent PvE players then or find a new guild/a guild just for raids (you have 5 slots) or join forces with another small guild or invite pugs or …
- Yes.
- “Play how you want, you will win anyway” and “Challenging content” do not mix, as shown in every instanced 5 man PvE content they ever released.
5. Be glad that you are not a WvW player.
1: No, I just don’t want my legendary journey to be dictated by other players. If there are exclusive rewards behind a high difficulty wall, they should be based on individual player skill (like Liadri). If you want to promote more group content, then don’t alienate most of the players who might want to take part in it and make it more accessible. By making it less accessible, you are simply making the act of finding groups unnecessarily difficult, by artificially diminishing the pool or possible Raiders that one would draw from. If I spend an hour or more trying to find a group for raids, then there is clearly something wrong. I should never spend that much time in a GAME waiting in sheer boredom.
3: I’ve gotten plenty of shinies just fine, including full ascended gear for all my mains, legendaries I wanted and even fractal weapons I wanted. If legendary armor gets added exclusively to raids I’d probably still get it anyway if it was something I really wanted as well. My concern is that a large majority of players will not be able to get rewards simply because of the nature of raids in their current iteration. It’s a legitimate concern because I actually care for the wellbeing of the entire playerbase, not just my own.
Some people act as though it’s a good thing for rewards to be exclusive to a very tiny minority of players, but they’re forgetting that this is just a game at the end of the day and a game should be fun for everyone, not just for a minority. Why not allow people to get what they want and enjoy it, even if it just means taking a bit of a longer or alternative route? To appease some players who need to feel like they’re special snowflakes in a game?
4: I’ve befriended a lot of players. Mind you, that doesn’t make it any easier to get them all on at the same time, ready to run a Raid on my personal whim. Getting a five man group together is okay. Getting a ideal ten man group together with a specific group composition and the right balance is far, far more difficult. What if the friends that are actually online don’t have condition gear and I need more condition damage, as an example?
""Play how you want, you will win anyway" and “Challenging content” do not mix, as shown in every instanced 5 man PvE content they ever released." Tell that to Fractals, the one place where ANet managed to strike a nice balance between reward and challenge, and catered to all players at the same time.
5: I feel bad for WvW players honestly, but that’s another discussion entirely.
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Don’t like ‘em? Then don’t do ‘em. Simples.
I’ve never been in a dungeon, a fractal or a raid, and my time in HoT was very short-lived but I’m enjoying the rest of the game just fine.
You don’t need those rewards to enjoy yourself. You do, um, play for enjoyment, don’t you?Indeed, I do. But tell me, how many times can you do the same fractals, dungeons or PvE events before getting bored? If they don’t add new content for existing game modes, then where is the fun?
If the only new end game content takes the form of a game mode I don’t like, while the game modes I do like are ignored or worse, intentionally abandoned, then how am I meant to have fun? X__x
This is exactly why so many people, who clearly aren’t the target audience of raids, are attempting them (or attempting to join LFGs). There’s simply nothing for people to do outside of grinding for this or that.
And they have a miserable experience — after they’re not the target audience.
This is exactly it. I’m also trying to do Raids simply because there was no new content in other end game modes and I’ve already run the meta events in the new areas enough times to be tired. I’m not finding the experience enjoyable at all but what else is there?
Don’t like ‘em? Then don’t do ‘em. Simples.
I’ve never been in a dungeon, a fractal or a raid, and my time in HoT was very short-lived but I’m enjoying the rest of the game just fine.
You don’t need those rewards to enjoy yourself. You do, um, play for enjoyment, don’t you?
Indeed, I do. But tell me, how many times can you do the same fractals, dungeons or PvE events before getting bored? If they don’t add new content for existing game modes, then where is the fun?
If the only new end game content takes the form of a game mode I don’t like, while the game modes I do like are ignored or worse, intentionally abandoned, then how am I meant to have fun? X__x
3: Gating exclusive rewards behind challenging content further alienates your playerbase
This is another worry I have with Raids, and that is that exclusive rewards like legendary armor will be unattainable by a vast majority of players because of the difficulty of Raids and the inconvenience of forming Raid groups.
Unlike legendary weapons, which can be acquired regardless of what game modes you play, legendary armor will seemingly be a Raid only affair. Not only do I feel this is unfair for players who might not enjoy Raids, but I also believe it hurts the “play how you want” policy that ANet has been punting for years and yet have somehow completely ignored as they’ve further developed the game.
Before I respond, I’d like to point out that I haven’t beaten the Raids yet.
Now then, gating exclusive content behind challenging content is perfectly fine. Legendary armor was meant to be hard to get. Meaning, a vast majority of the player population will never get it, and that’s working as intended. That’s not to speak negative on the skill levels of an individual, but rather how hard the challenge ahead is.
As for your little dig at “play how you want”, Raids don’t prevent you from playing the game. You can play Raids any way you like. Doesn’t mean you’ll be successful. If you want the exclusive rewards at the end of a successful Raid, you need to earn it.
Finally, don’t count out Anet just yet. I’m sure there’ll be more challenging solo content in the future. Liadri was a good challenge when the Queen’s Gauntlet is around. I’m hopeful there’ll be more like that.
Gating exclusive rewards behind challenging content might be fine if that content is based on personal skill, but in my opinion it’s not fine when it’s reliant on the coordination of a lot of players. All it does is punish an individual for how others play, as opposed to catering to their personal skill level. It also punishes players who might be in small guilds, or who have less access to other players of similar skill levels to their own. If I get a legendary, shouldn’t it be based on my own efforts and my own journey?
I also find it odd because very few physical rewards in GW2 have ever been gated exclusively behind difficult content. Not even legendary rewards. Dungeons have easier and harder paths, and dungeon gear can even be gotten from PvP. Mats can be farmed in various ways. Fractal weapons can be gotten even at lower level fractals (though with less drop chance). Ascended can be crafted or found as drops. Etc. Why now change that suddenly and introduce such strict parameters for end game gear that have never really been there before?
As for the “play how you want” argument, my concern is that ANet will abandon other end game content in an effort to concentrate more exclusively on Raids. The fact that they nerfed dungeons and didn’t add any new fractals is already a bad sign. I don’t mind if they add new content to other game modes, because then I can at least play what I want without feeling kitten, but if Raids will be their primary focus form now on, then I do have a cause to be iffy.
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Your final diss of WOW shows your ignorance .. in WOW raids are open to pretty much everyone because of the fact Blizzard have implemented several difficulties. As a result of LFR raid participation rocketed from a mere 15% back in ‘vanilla’ (with only 5% every actually clearing raid content) to over 40%.
The elitist jerks get their phat lewt in the top tier while the majority of players are able if they wish to actually get to play the lower tiers and maybe then learn and want to play higher tier.
All Anet have done is to create a single tier aimed at the elitist jerks who are now on the forums here sneering at the ‘scrubs’ as several of them call the rest of the playerbase.
I’m not dissing WoW actually. Perhaps I shouldn’t have included the elitist mindset part in my closing notes (because the elitist part was not specifically aimed at WoW players, nor was it meant to be a reflection on what I thought of WoW plaeyrs), but my overall point is that GW2 and WoW cater to different kinds of players. The selling point for me in GW2 was the fact that it was different from other MMO’s like WoW and offered a variable amount of freedom when it came to build choices, party compositions or game modes.
To now try make it more like WoW or to remove what made GW2 unique simply puts it in the same category and while that might be great for people who already liked games like WoW, it’s not great for people like me who were looking for something different.
To give another example, it’s kinda like how Dead Space went from being a survival horror in the first game, to more of a generic third person shooter by the third game. It’s fine for people who like third person shooters, but it ends up alienating the original playerbase, who loved the game more for it’s “survival horror” aspect.
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Hey all.
From the moment raids were first announced for GW2, I could already see problems on the horizon. Just the way they tried to sell the idea of Raids gave me the impression that things were not going to work out well. When ANet starts to mention things like how it will be the most difficult content in the game and, in their own words, cause players to shed tears (e.g. "And if you fail to fill these roles? You’re going to have a bad time. But don’t worry, as we’re leaving you a repair anvil at the entrance. You know—to collect your tears on. ") then you just know things are going to be a mess.
Here’s a breakdown on why I don’t like Raids as they are.
1: The creation of ‘Challenging Content’ should not be taken to unreasonable extremes.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not challenging content in itself that I do not like. In fact, I love challenging content. But what I don’t like is when the completion of challenging content is not dependent on my own skills, but rather the skills of 9 other players who I have to hope are incredibly competent. The room for error in Raids is so minuscule that having even one mediocre player on your team can mean the difference between success and failure, and this is a sad situation because usually I like helping new or inexperienced players in dungeons or fractals, but raids do not allow for this friendly community behavior because of how extreme the difficulty curve is and how toxic it can cause your raid group to become.
This, unfortunately, not only makes finding good raid groups incredibly frustrating, but it also alienates a large portion of the player-base from what is meant to be the primary new, permanent form of end game content. I don’t see how you can quite literally alienate a vast majority of your playerbase by nerfing other end game modes like dungeons, only to replace it with a ludicrously challenging game mode that pretty much gives any player that is even remotely casual or less skilled a big middle finger.
2: Functionality for forming and maintaining Raid groups is incredibly lackluster
To put it plainly, putting a group together for raids is a very painful process. Despite ANet’s attempts to sell it as a no wait, jump in and go game mode that results in instant fun, the reality is far from that idealistic vision. Because Raid groups rely on the squad UI, using the looking for group tool to form parties becomes near impossible. What’s worse is that if anyone leaves your party post entering the raid, getting a new one to join becomes an even more difficult affair thanks to the lack of functionality with squads.
This needs to be streamlined more to make finding groups for Raids less frustrating.
3: Gating exclusive rewards behind challenging content further alienates your playerbase
This is another worry I have with Raids, and that is that exclusive rewards like legendary armor will be unattainable by a vast majority of players because of the difficulty of Raids and the inconvenience of forming Raid groups.
Unlike legendary weapons, which can be acquired regardless of what game modes you play, legendary armor will seemingly be a Raid only affair. Not only do I feel this is unfair for players who might not enjoy Raids, but I also believe it hurts the “play how you want” policy that ANet has been punting for years and yet have somehow completely ignored as they’ve further developed the game.
4: My suggestions for solutions
- Firstly, I think Raids should have a scale-able difficulty curve, like fractals, with higher difficulty levels offering more rewards. Not only does this give less experienced players an opportunity to learn the mechanics in a lower difficulty scale, thus preparing them adequately for the higher levels, but it also allows players looking for a true challenge to still find it. This will also allow lower-skill players to earn the same rewards as high-end players, albiet at a slower rate, which helps mitigate the impact of alienating your playerbase.
- Raids should be split up into five and ten player archetypes. Not everyone is part of a large guild that can more easily put together a group for raids. I think new raids should be added that specifically cater to and are balanced around five player groups to allow for more leeway for those facing limitations, whether they are related to time or manpower.
- Squad functionality should be improved to make forming groups for Raids easier and more streamlined.
- At the moment, Raids force certain builds or group compositions, which once again go against the “play how you want” policy. I think ANet should allow for a bit more leeway (perhaps by removing time limitations on bosses) to allow for less than ideal group compositions to still succeed, even if at a slower rate.
5: Closing notes
As things are right now, I really don’t have the time or energy to spend on raids. It can take up to an hour or more just to find a ideal group and I’d much rather spend that precious time having fun in other game modes.
If it comes to a point where Raids are the primary end game content and the main focal point for updates going forward, while other end game content is abandoned or ignored, then I can honestly see myself quitting this game unless some improvements are made to Raid functionality overall. I didn’t buy GW2 for Raids or for forced play styles, or the promotion of toxic group behavior through elitist mindsets. If I wanted all that I would have bought another MMO like WoW.
Why change it? We already have weapons to fill other roles, why must they conflict? I love Wave of Wrath as it is, and besides, what would you change it to that won’t be similar to what we already have from other weapons?
Make it melee and its role simply conflicts with hammer, mace, sword or GS. Make it a ranged bounce attack and it conflicts with longbow. Make it ranged single target and it conflicts with scepter. Right now it is unique and has a defined role at least.
I don’t get this “ranged dps has to be less than melee dps” mentality, especially when the reality of the situation in GW2 for quite some time now has not reflected this mentality.
Ranger longbow has been their highest dps weapon for a while. Staff is the highest dps weapon for elemetalists and frost bows offered the highest burst dps out of any conjured weapon (though it has been nerfed). Guardian scepter has always done more damage than guardian’s other 1-handed melee options (sword or mace) and Engineer’s highest dps weapon is also range as far as I know (grenades).
I just don’t get it, why is everyone so freaked out about the precursor crafting?
I mean, it’s called a Legendary weapon, because it’s hard to get, and the timegate makes it more rewarding.
If you want everyone running around with twilight and stuff, making your weapon skin feel common then fine.
But i’m noticing the same issue with the difficulty of the monsters on the jungle, and people crying about it being hard or everything being grindy…
To be honest, I never had a Legendary, and I’m slowly working towards mine. Even the mastery system, which I never grinded it but I’m suddenly lvl 87 or something like that.
I believe the greatest issue in the gw2 community, is the fact that it developed a weirdly childish personality where a bunch of people see something different or something they wanna get yet it’s kinda hard for them to, and they start a tantrum because the can’t get it NOW.Welcome to the age of entitled gamers.
To answer your question directly:
Many people expected the precursor crafting to be vastly cheaper than the old system. These people are now very frustrated since they did not receive their precursor for free with the launch of HoT and are still waiting on completing their legendary.
Let’s not resort to sensationalism. All it does is discredit your post.
I think people were expecting precursor crafting to be an alternative means to acquiring precursors. Not necessarily a cheaper alternative, but just an alternative to praying to the RNG gods or spending a large sum of gold in one go.
The issue is that in a lot of cases, not only is the precursor crafting more expensive than than the base precursors, but it is also time gated. It doesn’t make sense to spend 1000 gold crafting a precursor that costs 200 gold on the TP, for example.
If a system is horrendously unbalanced, then naturally people will criticize it. It doesn’t mean they’re asking for freebies, it just means they’re asking for balance.
(That being said, some people do go to extremes in their complaints).
I think the issue is that rather than people making items at their own pace, they’re forced to make them at an artificial pace set by ANet. It’s not a case of entitlement. It just seems silly for someone who could make an item in two days, to be instead forced to wait 60 days to craft that item because of an artificial time gate.
I had this issue when I was crafting ascended armor. It took me a month to complete a set despite having the resources to complete it in far less time. In this case it was celestial gear so I couldn’t circumvent the time gate by buying items on the TP, because charged quartz is account bound.
It is somewhat of a nuisance, because I’ve already put the time and effort into acquiring the resources needed. Why must I now spend more time waiting unnecessarily?
In any case, while you are entitled to your opinion, could you perhaps list what you feel are the benefits to time gating? For me personally, I can’t see any benefits. It does nothing to enhance the gameplay experience. Even old legendaries could be crafted without any time gating so I don’t see why new legendaries should be.
Well, considering Anet has already mentioned adding more elite specs, I see no reason why it would need to be pay for content
I’m 99% certain they meant that for future expansion packs.
I’m not sure personally, but I’d like to think they’d add more without us having to wait 3 years for another expansion.
Their words on it were quite vague though:
Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-two-reward-tracks-and-elite-specializations/
“Will There Be More?
When Heart of Thorns goes live, each profession will receive one elite specialization to supplement its five core specializations. We like to describe builds using the new system in two ways:
1. I am a(n) {profession name} specializing in {Spec #1}, {Spec #2}, and {Spec #3}. i.e., I am a ranger specializing in Marksmanship, Wilderness Survival, and Beastmastery.
2. I am a(n) {elite spec} specializing in {Spec #2}, and {Spec #3}. i.e., I am a druid specializing in Nature Magic and Skirmishing.
For now, characters will only be able to equip a single elite specialization. Doing so will be as easy as it currently is to swap trait points; simply exit combat and select your new elite specialization, or do it in Heart of the Mists for PvP. We made this system to build upon it, so let the speculation about future specializations begin before we’ve even revealed the first full set!"
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For me I’d like to see a new longbow legendary more than anything else. I enjoy my dragon hunter but I’m struggling to find a nice, themed bow that suits it while still looking epic. Kudzu is out of the question.
Aside from that, I’d definitely like to see a new focus legendary, because The Minstrel is sorely underwhelming. I’d also like to see a shortbow because my thief isn’t interested in shooting noisy rainbow ponies.
As for a timeline? Hopefully soon, but with ANet’s track record, I’m not particularly enthusiastic. After all, precursor crafting only came almost two years after they first announced wanting to add it.
From what you say, burn guardian is only doing big damage against multiple enemies. Does he do enough damage for let’s say, Vale Guardian?
I never said “only”. I just said the effects of VoJ are perpetuated greatly against more targets. Guardian single target burn is still good, but obviously the more enemies there are, the more hits you can get and the more VoJ will proc.
As for Vale Guardian, the red orbs spawned by it can also be hit to proc VoJ. So in that fight in particular you won’t necessarily be lacking in burning stacks.
Whether it’s “enough” damage depends on how you look at things. I’d say right off the bat that while guardians have some of the highest burn damage available, other classes like engineer can probably do consistently more condition damage overall. If you’re only interested in pure dps, then you’d be better off going somewhere else.
What makes a guardian useful in a group, however, is not just pure dps though. It’s the utility they offer as well, like group stability, reflects, blocks and blinds and their group dps buffing skills like feel my wrath. Guardians are not the highest dps class on their own, that much is certain, but the idea is to synergise well with your group and increase overall group dps while offering useful utility skills.
This particular discussion was about guardian dps though, and in that respect burn builds are indeed competitive to other guardian builds.
Could you perhaps elaborate a bit more on your point and give examples as to why you feel the way you do? Like specific class examples where the elite spec has completely thrown out old builds, etc.
Giving exceptionally vague feedback with no specific details comes across as little more than a flame. If you want Anet or anyone else to take your feedback seriously, then give examples, detail issues more thoroughly or make clear, thought-out suggestions for improvement.
I posted almost the same idea so I upvote yours.
I would really love something along the lines of racial specs to expand the lore, add variety and most of all give some identity back to our races.To prevent from content exclusion, this specs could simply be pve only and not available in raids/fractals.
I would gladly pay for something like this, like a dlc. Because it adds variety without being forced to have it to play challenging content.
(we even thought of the same spec names for some races…)
Well, considering Anet has already mentioned adding more elite specs, I see no reason why it would need to be pay for content (unless all new Elite Specs were planned gem store items from the start). Anyone who already paid for the expansion should be getting new elite specs as part of the package.
I personally don’t like the idea of having content that can affect gameplay (like new skills or traits) being limited to acquisition through micro-transactions though, because it will begin to segregate the playerbase further down the line based on who is the wealthiest.
I might build wrong, but never see those high burn ticks thqt ppl claims to real. My highest with torch oh was 5k. And then I popped everything.
Taking virtues with the Supreme Justice trait (Virtue of Justice causes burning more frequently) And Permeating Wrath trait (Virtue of Justice’s passive effect no longer only burns your target, but also burns the area around your target each time it activates) is practically a requirement for guardian burn builds.
They key is to use skills that hit enemies multiple times like whirling wrath and procession of blades in order to proc virtue of justice as many times as possible. Whirling wrath says it hits 7 times but it can actually hit a target up to 14 times, including the projectiles. Procession of blades can hit up to 10 times. Just with those two skills alone you can get 8 stacks of burning which, at 400 damage per tick (achievable with the right traits and gear) would do 3200 damage per tick. That’s just against single targets and doesn’t include easy to apply, long duration burns like purging flames, symbol of energy or zealot’s flame.
Against 3 targets the result is enhanced exponentially thanks to the aoe nature of virtue of justice traited. Against five targets you’ll be seeing insane burn tick numbers. To experiment, just trait for burning – including the two traits I listed above – go into the PvP lobby and pop a whirling wrath and a procession of blades in the middle of the group of training golems and see how much burn damage you get proc-ing from those two skills alone.
There are, of course, other little factors that can help get burning stacks higher against single targets or groups. Skill rotation does matter, and little things like popping purging flames first and then using whirling wrath in the fire field (which shoots out burning bolts for additional burn stacks) can make a difference in how quickly you apply stacks.
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1) I’d say DH has great burst dps, but sustain is not as good as some other classes. Burn builds are a good alternative to just pure zerker builds.
2) If you’re going for pure physical dps, then zerker is the obvious choice. Otherwise, you could go sinister’s or vipers for a burning build (it’s not uncommon to see 10k+ burn ticks).
3) Even if you’re a pure dps build, you’ll still be bringing support to the table. The two are not mutually exclusive. Change skills as the situation dictates. If you’re against lots of enemies with strong projectiles, pop walls of reflect or shield of vengeance. If your group needs stability, stand your ground or hallowed ground. If you want more burst dps for mobs or pulls to get them all packed together nicely, then procession of blades, feel my wrath and dragon’s maw all work wonders.
Would you say pure physical dps is better, or a condi dragonhunter? In terms of raiding. Thanks for the reply!
In all honesty, conditions are sorely needed in raids, but a lot of people have yet to jump ship from the previous zerker build meta, so finding players with pure condition builds can be quite hard (in my experience at least). In that regard, it might be better to go for a condition build.
But, most importantly, choose what’s fun for you. Conditions aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but if you find them fun, that’s great. Burn guards can work in any game mode so you won’t be left wanting. It’s just a matter of choosing your own personal preference.
This suggestion would be impossible to implement for various reasons. Ele has too many traits and effects based around swapping attunements, to the point where reducing the cooldown to zero would literally make them godlike and overpowered to an extent of becoming ludicrous.
Keep in mind that they get boons when swapping elements, or healing when attuning to water, or aoe blinds or super speed when attuning to air, or aoe damage when attuning to fire, etc. Now imagine all that without cooldowns. You’d be able to heal to full health without cooldowns, permanently blind enemies, spam aoe’s, get endless boons like protect or might with no effort, endless condition removal spam or even endless super speed in combat.
You’d quite literally have to redesign the elementalist from the ground up to make this suggestion even remotely feasible. Elementalists are fine as they are. Even with said cooldowns they remain one of the strongest, most versatile classes in the game. You just need to learn how to play with them.
1) I’d say DH has great burst dps, but sustain is not as good as some other classes. Burn builds are a good alternative to just pure zerker builds.
2) If you’re going for pure physical dps, then zerker is the obvious choice. Otherwise, you could go sinister’s or vipers for a burning build (it’s not uncommon to see 10k+ burn ticks).
3) Even if you’re a pure dps build, you’ll still be bringing support to the table. The two are not mutually exclusive. Change skills as the situation dictates. If you’re against lots of enemies with strong projectiles, pop walls of reflect or shield of vengeance. If your group needs stability, stand your ground or hallowed ground. If you want more burst dps for mobs or pulls to get them all packed together nicely, then procession of blades, feel my wrath and dragon’s maw all work wonders.
Maybe this is completely out there, but would it help to have sword 3’s projectiles pierce targets? While it wouldn’t add much damage-wise to a single target, it could allow for some interesting synergy with the Justice passive (more hits = more procs). Or maybe have the projectiles explode and hit adjacent targets on impact?
Just throwing ideas other than just “more damage” that might add some more depth to the weapon.
I definitely like the idea of it triggering a Block for projectiles instead of just destroying them outright.
I agree that it would be nice if we got alterations that didn’t simply involve damage buffs and rather focused around the overall utility of the skill and its subsequent synergy with other skills or traits.
What would be cool is if projectiles destroyed by zealot’s defense added to the amount of projectiles cast by the attack itself (so if you absorb 3 projectiles, you fire 3 more blades).
Bring on the rapid fire!
Love the idea, but there’s a reason why racial skills are underpowered.
A-net didn’t want race to be a limiting factor for game-play. If race played a large roll in build-crafting, people would get restricted to playing a certain race because one race would be better in particular areas of the game than others.
The current racial skills are purely for flavour/aesthetic and are deliberately underpowered so they don’t compete with class skills.
Yeah, I do understand that, but making the skills practically useless renders them irrelevant to the point that they might as well have not been added to begin with. At the very least, I think adding racial elite specs would make race choice far more interesting and add even more flavor, so to speak.
One point in particular that has bugged me since the beginning of GW2 (and this largely contributed to the idea of racial elites for me) was the fact that when you play as an Asura, every other major Asura you know seems to have their own personal golem companion. It’s very much a part of their culture and when I looked at the likes of Zojja and Taimi, with Mr. Sparkles and Scruffy at their sides, it always struck me as odd that I, as their fellow Asura, didn’t also get to have my own golem that I could name and customize as my own. That’s where the golemancer idea came from.
I also thought it would be nice to give more meaning to character creation choices, like god choices for Humans or legion choices for Charr, which have basically zero impact on the game outside of the very early story missions (in fact, choosing a human god has zero impact at all from what I’ve seen). Those choices seemed rather pointless to me, and I always felt that the decision between human gods, or an Asuran colleges, etc, should have at least some potential impact outside of the story, in terms of how you play. It would also enhance role playing or build themes.
As for the build balance argument, I think it would be nice if racial elite specs were designed in such a way as to compliment existing builds without feeling too mandatory. As it is, current elite specs already run the risk of feeling mandatory for some classes. That’s a risk that will continue to be prevalent with all elite specs going forward, whether they be racial or not. It would be up to Anet to ensure things remain balanced.
Hello all.
I’m not sure if this idea has been put forward yet (and I couldn’t check because the search function in the GW2 forums is really bad), but I think it would be pretty cool if Anet, over the course of adding new elite specs, also included racial elite specs that are exclusive to each specific race.
The idea stems from the fact that we do, in fact, have racial skills for each race already, including elite skills, but they are rarely used because there is little to no synergy for them as far as traits go. Adding an elite spec that focuses on adding traits that benefit racial skills, as well as reworking the racial skills as a whole, I think, would be really helpful in promoting their use.
Also, because racial elite specs will be available based on race and not class, it will create a lot of new and interesting build combinations, and will make the impact of race choices for classes stem beyond simple aesthetics.
Possible racial elite specs could include:
Golemancer – Asura elite spec. Gives you a permanent golem companion that can be customized by changing the body, arms and legs individually (parts can be found throughout the world, much like how rangers can find pets). Racial skills allow you to assign special actions to your golem. Elite skill overcharges your golem with special properties based on your chosen college (Statics, Synergetics or Dynamics).
Dreamwalker – Sylvari elite spec. Skills are influenced by ‘The Dream’. Focused around illusions and debuffs like sleep, etc. Elite skill is influenced by the time of day cycle you chose for your Sylvari.
Char – Legionnaire. Allows you to summon reinforcements from your chosen legion and grants aoe buff skills. Elite skill summons your chosen companion from the character creation screen to fight beside you.
Human – Dervish. Gain skills based on the six gods (extension or rework of existing human racial skills). Elite skill allows you to temporarily assume the form of the god you chose to follow in the character select screen, granting unique skills.
Norn – Shaman. Skills based on different animal aspects (raven, wolf, bear, etc). Elite skill allows you to assume a more powerful wereform based on your chosen spirit (like current elite skill, but more refined).
These are just basic ideas that could be changed or elaborated on. Obviously racial elites wouldn’t add new weapons because they’d conflict with existing weapon choices or skills for classes. They’d make up for this by offering unique mechanics, in addition to their ability to be used with any existing class.
Litany of Wrath is certainly more competitive than it used to be, and that’s mostly thanks to the sheer amount of synergy it has in meditation builds.
However, shelter is certainly not lacking in synergy either, because there are a lot of guardian traits that are activated on block, which include Communal defenses, Hunter’s Fortification, Defender’s Dogma, Invigorated bulwark, Retributive Armor, Might of the Protector and Amplified Wrath. It’s quite a hard healing skill to beat, thanks to its 2 second block and its great synergy with on block traits.
I’d say which healing skill you choose would depend greatly on your trait setup. You’d have to weigh the pro’s and cons and see which benefits you the most overall. If you have a lot of on block traits equipped, then naturally shelter might be helping you out a lot more than you realize at a first glance. There is a reason it’s been considered meta for so long.
If you don’t find yourself needing the block, either because you don’t have many on block traits or are surviving fine without the extra defense, then the utility and dps offered by LoR is certainly useful. In terms of PvP though, where enemies will more actively avoid your attacks, I think LoR is less useful. The 2 second block from Shelter, on the other hand, is incredibly useful in PvP.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
DH is a lot better than a lot of haters would have had everyone believe. To this day I still can’t believe some people would have actually suggested that it was not competitive in sPvP, when clearly it’s quite a strong class in that game mode.
Even in PvE, traps are a lot more useful than even I would have originally though. Not only are they great for burst damage and some nice extra boons, but they’re also good at taking down an enemy’s break bar thanks to daze on trap trigger + Dragon’s Maw.
All in all, they tick all the boxes that an elite spec should tick. They give the core class (in this case, guardian) new ways to play, which are still competitive with current builds, but that don’t completely render core builds irrelevant.
I personally prefer sword/focus to greatsword. It’s not as much of a pure dps set as the greatsword, but the extra defense provided by the blinds, blocks and condition removal from focus make up for it in my opinion. It allows you to soak up some hits while your traps do the dirty work.
True shot isn’t strong enough to need toning down. It comes with a lot of drawbacks that more than balance out its damage.
Aside from that, if we’re talking PvP here, then we can also add the fact that it is one of the most highly televised attacks in the game, and thus that much easier to avoid (if you see a guardian kneel down and pull back their bow, you know you need to pop a block or dodge).
It really depends on how you look at it. If you’re looking to farm gold directly, the easy answer is no. But if you’re interested in fractal weapon skins, an easy ascended back item or ascended weapons/armor, then the answer is yes.
I’ve basically fully equipped two characters with ascended armor purely attained from doing fractals (which saved hundreds of gold worth of crafting). I’ve also gotten the fractal skins I wanted and gotten multiple ascended weapon chests. So for me personally they have been worthwhile and I typically do them more regularly than dungeons. I think they’ll only get better with the upcoming changes.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)
This is why I never craft legendary components until I am 100% sure of the legendary I’m going to craft. And even then, I still don’t craft the gifts until I have what I need to finish the legendary.
The reason for this is because:
1: Gifts take up bank space, while mats can just sit happily in your collection, out of the way until they need to be used…
…and…
2: I might change my mind further down the line before I complete the legendary. I can’t sell gifts if that’s the case, but I can sell the mats.
Frankly though, even if you made the mistake of crafting the gift of might and fortune already, I have no idea why you’d be impulsive enough to sell them for a few silvers (we’re talking gifts worth a few hundred gold here). That just seems overboard to me, and, to some extent, unbelievable, especially when you could have just as easily bought a cheap precursor, made a legendary and sold it to recover the cost.
sPvP certainly.
What’s really funny is how many players become toxic in hot-join matches. I mean, they’ll complain about the smallest things, or rage about being ganked, yet they’re the ones who decided to play in the most unbalanced game mode of all, where you’re lucky if both teams even have five players at any given time. XD
Once you have done lvl 50 fractals, raids, ESL pvp, played the class for a few years and posted allot of insightful ideas then played the spec and compared it to other options then will respect your opinion.
Till then however I’m going to assume that your one of the people who either doesn’t really play a guard that much or just tried it out in open world PVE where you can literally run around nakid without traits and still do ok.
PS: All those people that I mentioned above, you know the people who play ESL, high lvl fractals & raids are saying that the DH was crap with the exception of the longbow & a couple traits.=
I played the dragonhunter in both fractals and the raid and had absolutely no problem with it. And I certainly am not gonna let people tell me to enjoy things less because they play their ridiculous kitten competitions
Oh enjoy it all you want.
But when compared to other options it just doesn’t compete in any game mode.
This is due to the problems with traits & trap design.
If they would simply clean up/merge & modify existing traits then give the traps some utility then the spec could be great competitively speaking for any game mode.
I personally disagree with you. I found DH was competitive in WvW and PvP. As for trap utility in PvE, Both Fragments of Faith and Light of Judgment offer pretty good utility. One gives your party members aegis on a relatively low cooldown (active defenses like blocks are always useful in higher level fractals or dungeons), and the other can pretty much stack up to 25 stacks of vulnurability on enemies in an area, which is basically an instant 25% damage boost for the entire party. The other two non-elite traps are mostly damage dealers, so I guess you could use them against trash mobs if you don’t need reflects, etc.
Of course, any good player is going to rotate between skills an choose the most appropriate for each situation. Traps aren’t going to be useful for every single encounter, but then the same can be said for any guardian utility skill (for example, you’re not going to use wall of reflect against enemies that don’t use projectiles, or stability where there’s no threat of knockdowns, etc). There are some instances, however, where they would be very useful.
The spec could use some improvements sure, but I don’t think it’s as useless or non-competitive as I you believe.
Once you have done lvl 50 fractals, raids, ESL pvp, played the class for a few years and posted allot of insightful ideas then played the spec and compared it to other options then will respect your opinion.
Till then however I’m going to assume that your one of the people who either doesn’t really play a guard that much or just tried it out in open world PVE where you can literally run around nakid without traits and still do ok.
PS: All those people that I mentioned above, you know the people who play ESL, high lvl fractals & raids are saying that the DH was crap with the exception of the longbow & a couple traits.=
I feel you, and I dislike all those ppl defending DH because it is “fun”. Fun is not equal competitive. If you want fun go play spirit weapons or full sigil build. They will eventually come back to competitive builds.
But fun is an important factor, really speaking, because this is a game in the end. Balance is something that can be tweaked and refined still, but refining the “fun” factor of a class is more difficult to do without a complete overhaul of its play style. I say this, of course, with the full understanding that fun is a subjective matter.
That being said, I do wish ANet would be a bit more active when it came to balance changes. Sometimes we have to wait months or years for fixes to under-performing skills and usually the trade-off is that other skills are nerfed to the point of becoming non-viable. Your point regarding spirit weapons is rather pertinent (and the sad part is they used to be more viable before they became killable).
It sucks in spvp you are allowed to disagree of course but I will never play it in rated in it’s current form and I would bet anyone it ends up one of the least played elites in spvp once things shake out a few weeks after the expansion goes live. It’s pretty simple a lot of the damage is easily avoidable and the bow skills are lack luster. The elite also does not synergise all that well with other guardian trait lines and not at all with the strongest pvp Guardian build support bunker. I am not even saying you can’t make it work in pve or WvWvW but spvp is a totally different animal. There are no zergs or buildings to shoot from or doorways people have to cross or highly scripted AI encounters in spvp. People will avoid traps and bow skills 2,4, and 5 easily in spvp.
I don’t know, I actually found it worked quite well in spvp. I’m mean, obviously we haven’t had weeks or months to play it and test to the limits, or see how people adapt to it in the long run, but I found traps in particular worked perfectly well against other players.
You talk about players avoiding them, but it’s hard for them to avoid what they can’t see. Traps aren’t visible to enemies players all, and thanks to their reasonably large trigger radius, I find they’re quite good at catching people. Layer traps down on a capture point and it becomes that much easier to hold, because if another player runs in to try and contest the point, they walk into a bit of hell and downing them becomes quite easy.
That being said, it is certainly more effective vs melee classes than ranged. And also, against mesmers and rangers traps are not as useful because they can be triggered prematurely by clones or pets. Part of me believes that they should make it so only players can trigger traps in PvP or WvW.
Once you have done lvl 50 fractals, raids, ESL pvp, played the class for a few years and posted allot of insightful ideas then played the spec and compared it to other options then will respect your opinion.
Till then however I’m going to assume that your one of the people who either doesn’t really play a guard that much or just tried it out in open world PVE where you can literally run around nakid without traits and still do ok.
PS: All those people that I mentioned above, you know the people who play ESL, high lvl fractals & raids are saying that the DH was crap with the exception of the longbow & a couple traits.=
I’m assuming you’re one of those kinds of people that don’t actually take the proper time to read other people’s posts. Because if you did read my post properly, you’d know that:
1: Guard is one of my most played classes, with the other being thief. In fact, I’ve played the class for thousands of hours.
2: I already mentioned that I used the Dragon Hunter in WvW and PvP, not just PvE.
As for your point about fractals and such, I never said the dragon hunter traits were going to be useful in all game modes and in all situations. I think it’s a given that traps will likely find more use in PvP and WvW than they necessarily would in high level fractals where things like active defenses and reflects, etc, are very important.
But tell me, what would you suggest as an alternative to those already useful skills? More active defenses and reflects, whose roles simply overlap what we already have? No, that would be rather useless. I think we should respect the fact that different skills will be useful in different situations or content. Traps may not be the first go to skills in fractals, but they’re certainly great in other aspects of the game.
Anyway, I don’t see why people always have to adopt such a condescending tone when they respond to the feelings of others on a particular point of discussion. Learn to use a bit more tact (tact: the art of making a point without making an enemy). XD
Usually, when people say “I’m the only sane one in the crazy world”, likely you just miss things the majority saw, you know, the obvious. You keep comparing “ours” against “theirs” to draw conclusions. No, learn to also compare “ours” against “ours”, and learn to make analysis of how new skills/things blend with existing things. DH are one of the better elite classes? given you admitted you didn’t spend much time with other classes, I suggest you hold all these texts before you spend as much time with other classes. Given you did not even rebut any particular criticism against the DH, which render you to ask “what’s the fuss about”, maybe you should have read what the fuss are first.
Woah. I said I spent more time with some than others. I never said I didn’t spend any time with the others. Perhaps you should read too far into what others are saying, to the point where you start to take what they say out of context. XD
Also, I did read about what all the fuss is about, and I even mentioned some of those points in my post, but I honestly don’t agree with a lot of the fuss. I know the problems people have bought up, but rather than beating a dead horse by bringing them all up again and then trying to rebut them, I decided to focus on what I thought were positive aspects of the elite spec. If you took notice though, my post was not without its criticisms either, and I did make some suggestions as to where I thought the DH could be improved. For example being able to switch between different virtue types addresses some of the complains people made about dragon hunter essentially forcing a change to the functionality of virtues that not everyone wanted.
I also didn’t make out like I was the only one who liked the DH. I just believe it might be getting an overly excessive amount of hate. There’s a big difference.
(edited by Tenrai Senshi.2017)