Guild Wars 2

Crnicelad.5924:

I have been searching for 3 days now for a group for Citadel of Flame path 1 and no results. How can a newbie ever start doing dungeons if there are only fractals of high levels that ppl farm. I am playing on Gandara and even my guildies dont seem to be interested in doing CoF1 …

I wonder where can I even start learning how to do dungeons if there is no opportunity for me whatsoever?

Really the easiest thing to do is:

1) go to this site: http://www.gw2lfg.com/

2) filter on CoF1

3) Copy the person’s name who started the post <CTL+C>

4) Go back to GW2 and: /join <CTL+V>

I like Trahearne, I just don’t trust the guy. Smarmy little eggplant necromancer, spends his entire life in/around Orr, handed a sword of immense power, cures the corruption of Orr and walks away unscathed?

I don’t think so!

Here’s to hoping he gets turned into the next big baddie we get to chop down!

critickitten.1498:

They need to let you store character builds like you could in GW1.

But making it a gem-based thing would be absolutely ridiculous when many of GW2’s closest competitors allow you to re-spec for in-game currency.

I disagree. GW2’s closest competitors are pay to play. Besides, you can use gold to buy gems, so it is available for in-game currency.

I’ve played GW2 now for a while, and what I really miss in GW2 that is very common in other MMO’s: multiple specs.

For large MMOs with many different sub-types of gameplay, it’s common for a game to offer players the ability to swap between class/profession specifications. World of Warcraft gives players the ability to have 2 specifications at the cost of in-game gold.

Rift gave players up to 6 different specs to swap between, all of which were available for in-game gold.

In GW2 we have 2: 1 for sPvP, and 1 for everything else.

The demands are for WvW, world PVE and dungeons are quite varied. Even within those areas of gameplay there are sometimes the need for different playstles (group support, solo/roaming, tanking, grinding, power builds, condition builds, etc.).

It would be really beneficial for ANet to offer players the ability to buy a second trait spec they can swap from.

I, for one would be very excited if I could purchase a second (or more) trait spec for my characters, and I’d be more than willing to pay gems for this capability. I see it as a boon to the game that would increase player enjoyment and also be a solid source of revenue for ANet.

Why has this not happened already?

I think changing the charge to a fast leap would be a solid idea. In terms of balancing, I think the most prudent course of action would be to test it out first. Then, if it is truly overpowered, let them determine which adjustment is best (reduced elevation range, increased cooldown, reduced hp, reduced damage, etc.).

Stealth definitely needs a nerf. The only ‘counter’ in the game to stealth is random AoE damage. Every other mechanic / playstyle has a solid counter: burst damage, conditions, boon stripping, etc. etc. With the upcoming reduction to aoe damage, thief stealth is getting an indirect buff.

When specced properly, thief stealth can grant a speed boost, condition stripping, regeneration and vigor.

Either the traits need to be adjusted around the mechanic, the mechanic needs to be adjusted around the traits, or the profession’s base statistics & abilities need to be adjusted around both. The second option may be simpler, but not necessarily better.

In short, ArenaNet created a game mechanic that has no reasonable counter, and that needs to be fixed.

1) Are you going to change thief stealth so that players cannot do things like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACOxV5CA52w&t=13s

Because this is not fun for anyone other than the thief.

2) What are your thoughts on sites like: http://www.gw2lfg.com/ that are all but necessary nowadays to get dungeon groups together?

ahuba.6430:

posts like yours have been answered so many times, but i will bother answering again:
1st: WvW (not spvp), wich implies:
-Culling.
-Armor differences.
-Non 80 people.
-Unaware enemies.
2nd: Skill of other players he is facing:
-Notice how he isnt stunned a single time.
-Notice how no one bothers to ress downed players.
3rd: Perma stealth:
-first, there is no perma stealth. The thief in the video has 3 means of stealthing: Heal (wich is the only that is really reliable), AoE stealth (a field where the thief has to stand in = free hits on thief), Cloak and dagger (dodge it = gg for thief).
-i can see how this is a problem in wvw, with culling it takes a second longer for thieves to appear, but this sotg is about spvp, where that doesnt appliy and thieves cant restealth over and over without beeing seen.

Please keep thief QQ out of sotg.

PS: i see you mention wow, vanish is a long cd (there was a spell to refresh its cd though) spell because that is perma stealth, when a thief stealthed you would completely loose track of him, it was even easier fleeing from though fights in wow and resetting than in gw (thats why runspeed is reduced in wow). Rogue had access to even more powerfull spells while stealthed, i dont even understand what you mean.

Then which other profession can accomplish this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACOxV5CA52w (I’ll give you a hint – the answer is: none)

P.S. Your statements about WoW rogues are untrue. It was harder to escape than in GW2 (any damage would break stealth). WoW had reduced runspeed in stealth because that has been one of the tradeoffs for stealth since the early days of pen and paper games – and with good reason. There was a spell that would reset the cooldown on vanish, but you had to spec for it and it had a very long cooldown. That was it. You could stealth, at most, 3 times. Otherwise you had to run away and get out of combat.

JonathanSharp.7094:

xehn.3420:

Hugs.1856:

Monitor the speech time, 20 minutes for each player and 20 minutes for Anet (the 2 devs). Notify people by private messages when their speech time is running out rather than aloud as it breaks the pace of discussion though.

This is especially true for J Sharp. If you’re reading this, please keep it concise.

Noted.

And how about discussing the current state of thief stealth. Giving thieves the ability to hop in and out of stealth repeatedly, without penalty, cure conditions, self-heal, etc is simply not fun for anyone other than a thief.

Imagine giving warriors the ability to become immune to everything but AoE damage at will, as often as they like. While immune, they can heal and remove conditions from themselves. How broken is that!

You may point to the meta and show that thieves aren’t as broken as elementalists, but surely you cannot deny that they are completely broken in other parts of the game (WvW, hotjoin, etc.).

If you think thief stealth is fine, then please tell me what other profession can do this:

Even Warcraft knew how to balance stealth:
– any damage brought rogues out of stealth
– vanish was on a long cooldown
– runspeed was reduced while stealthed
– rogues had access to a very small number of abilities while stealthed
– rogues could not cure conditions in stealth or by going into stealth
– rogues could not heal in stealth or by going into stealth

Dagger/Dagger elementalist

5 elementals is the meta for SW

It’s insanely overpowered. Thieves can literally start and stop a fight 10 times in a row. You give them condition removals, increased run speed, initiative regeneration and healing while stealthed.

It’s absolutely insane. We’ve seen videos of thieves fighting 10 people at once in wvw. There’s absolutely 0 opportunity cost for going into and out of stealth. Thieves can deal damage while still invisible to the player. If they start losing they can immediately restealth and reset the fight. And there is no way to force a thief out of stealth.
It’s a blatantly overpowered mechanic.

In other MMO’s stealth is counterbalanced by reducing runspeed, restricted ability use (i.e. no healing), a long cooldown (not 3 seconds). In no other MMO can you hop in and out of stealth with reckless abandon and not incur any penalty for it.

AmateurGod.5403:

For God’s sake how long does it the devs to even try skills on maps to realize they’re clearly not working as intended?

If you’re baning teleport skills from taking the orb on Spirit Watch why the hell is Ride the Lightning an exception? How many more speed bunker eles on spirit watch is it gonna take for you to fix that incredibly easy to spot exploit?

Also, take a look at the speed movement traits and skills, btw. Speed while carrying the orb should be fixed and the same for everyone.

As if ele’s weren’t overpowered enough already in conquer maps for all the aoe.

/rant

(PS: Love the map, thanks <3)

OP: I have no idea what the developers were thinking, but it was obvious this was going to be a big problem even before the map was released.

linky: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/New-map-question-is-orb-a-bundle-or-a-buff/page/2#post1446764

There isn’t any ranged nuke spec that I know of. The best ranged build for this would be something like a power/crit build using axe/warhorn + staff, along with ‘Blood is Power’ and ‘Well of Suffering’. 10 stacks of might (perhaps more) and 12-15 stacks of vulnerability can make axe #2 and death shroud hit really hard.

I am suspicious about this necro being able to successfully tank another player while doing this, however.

Skilzkilz.5207:

Hi this is my first post so please be gentle.

I received a 72 hour suspension for a naming violation but i don’t Know why, i have never had a ban/suspension ever in any game.

Skilzkilz Megroin-i have had since beta

That’s definitely the offender. Just change it to ‘skilkilz pogmothoin’ and you’re all set!

Robert Hrouda.1327:

We had them in story before launch, but what we found is that we couldn’t strike a balance between the amount we give for completing story mode, and the difficult difference. Our feedback was that rather than face the challenge of Explorable dungeons, high skill groups would just afk faceroll the much easier story mode content for the guaranteed smaller token amount. We tried several things, but couldn’t strike the balance, so we removed tokens from story mode as a reward and put them into explorable mode only as a reward.

I’m sure you agree that, if you could find additional means to encourage higher level players to help lower level players run through story mode dungeons, it would be better for the game overall.

You may have not revisited this in some time, but there are alternatives.
– small number of tokens + large XP boost at the end
– small number of tokens + bag of crafting gear at the end
– small number of tokens + guild xp at the end
– small number of tokens + level-appropriate rare (or chance of rarer) at the end

Or:
– small number of tokens + your choice of :
– large XP boost
– bag of crafting gear
– guild xp
– rare (or chance of better) item

I challenge the designers to spec out a group of 5 level 35 characters with random world blues and greens and complete these paths without an excessive number of wipes.

Explorable mode most certainly is not dialed in to level 35 players.

Did it yesterday on my necro. I can’t remember what level I was, but I think I was under the recommended level at the time.

I died a few times, then I resorted to taking advantage of pathing to drop them. I just applied cripple + bleeds, then kite them up the stairs by the gate. When they get to the top, jump down and continue to bleed + cripple. When they get on top of you, dodge roll through and back up the stairs.

Rinse + repeat.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

That doesn’t solve the problem though. It’s an interesting reward mechanic, but the problem persists that players wouldn’t have to learn the content or how to play it – they could just ruin their armor res rushing and having a miserable time of it in order to complete it. By forcing players to learn how to do things and cooperate as a group, we’re encouraging them to get better and as a result die less. If players are getting better and dying less, there will be less prejudice towards PuGs, since the general skill level of the dungeon running population has increased.

That logic makes sense if the dungeons, and dungeon progression, were actually designed well. However, they are not.

There’s little rhyme or reason that I can find in the dungeon design.

There should be a progression of the dungeon difficulty and the mechanics introduced. The fist dungeon players encounter should be the easiest, and provide the means by which players become familiar with PVE dungeon mechanics. Subsequent dungeons should progressively increase in difficulty and/or introduce new mechanics. One of the hardest dungeons is the first, Ascalonian Catacombs. This makes no sense.

Trash mobs should be used as a means to help the players learn how to work as a team and prepare them for dungeon bosses. In many occasions, the ‘trash’ mobs are far more difficult than the ‘boss’ mobs.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

As well, we have people throughout the company of varying player skill testing these things before they get pushed out/patched in. After all that, it has to be signed off by design leads who also play it… so there is plenty of balancing and work done on a boss prior to its release into the wild.

I assume that they also playtested the dungeons that were available at release, as well as the dynamic events. Those were also grossly imbalanced and often simply broken. So, I won’t put much stock in the sign-off process as a means of ensuring things are working well.

I don’t want sound like I’m ‘beating up’ on the Anet development team. I think they’ve done something really neat and innovating by breaking up the ‘holy trinity’ configuration of dungeons. However, I think that removing ‘rez zerging’ is a mistake. ‘Rez zerging’ right now isn’t a problem – it’s a symptom.

The developers have hinted that another class will be getting a portal. Given that the Flesh Wurm is already somewhat similar, I wonder if the developers are considering substituting/augmenting this talent to become a portal ability instead of simply a self-teleport.

Clearly only the developers really know what class is slated to receive a ‘portal’ ability.

However, if they did augment Flesh Wurm to provide a portal ability, how do you think this would impact the necromancer in both playstyle and group dynamics?

+ThePlayboy – the problem, however, is that the pressure that a condition spec can apply is applied more easily and more quickly by a direct damage build, but without the ability to remove the pressure via a talent.

I know I won’t receive an answer for this, but I feel compelled to ask it anyway.

When the game was going through design and test, it was realized at some point that, due to technical constraints, the game would have a ‘soft cap’ on condition (DoT) damage and no cap on burst damage.

At that point in time, why was it decided to NOT re-balance the professions and traits around this limitation? I see professions such as necromancer being effectively designed for condition damage as its primary source of damage output. I see armor/weapon stats that effectively are geared toward dealing condition damage. This would suggest to anyone that the expectation was that condition damage builds would be very viable, if not as viable, as direct damage builds.

However, that’s not the case. The game has been out for about 6 months now and I suspect the developers at ArenaNet have known about this limitation for much longer (9 months? 12 months?). However, only now the issue is being looked into.

Something simply doesn’t make sense here.

Heck, I’d throw a few more bucks at the game if I knew this was going to get fixed.

How about you guys put a special vanity item in the gem shop where the proceeds will go toward fixing this issue? Might I suggest a new Quaggan Backpack that continually coughs poison smoke and bleeds profusely.

Brassnautilus.2941:

Login.5102:

I don’t main a thief, I find guards, eles, and messers much more powerful than thiefs when played by good players.

Thiefs excel at killing baddies. Baddies excel at crying on forums. Explains this 50 page thread.

this

^this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u55vHURPQSw&t=2m11s

I’d suggest a renaming of this map:

Instead of Spirit Watch, name it ‘Elemental Watch’.

If you know apriori that a profession was going to dominate sPvP, you certainly wouldn’t ship the game. Why would you do differently for a new secondary objective?

Arheundel.6451:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Arheundel.6451:

@Thedenofsin.7340
I run a 20/20/0/0/30 shatter spam build using sword + focus

Another glass cannon mesmer whining that he can’t win against bunkers on his own?
Try to play something else other than glass cannon if you can’t play the build, yours is simply a l2p issue that you don’t want to address and rather prefer to come whining on the forums in the hope whatever you can’t beat..get nerfed, to a more manageable level for you current skills.

Mesmer using your build and beating the “invincible ele” with 80% HP ( TO NOTICE THE EXTREME LOW DMG DONE BY THE ELE AT 1.05 A 1.7k BURNING SPEED -15S CD, ONE OF THE BIG HIT SKILLS ON D/D)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjUtDw8e8kI

Another failed forum poster that knows less than he thinks. FYI I’ve been running a bunker mesmer build recently. I think you need to learn to play if you think bunker ele is fine atm. They have as much tankiness (if not more) as any other bunker, but have far greater damage output and far greater mobility.

So let me get this straight…where a glass cannon mesmer receive max 1.7k dmg from a bunker ele , you find a bunker mesmer complaining about dmg from a bunker ele?!
Do pls show us this amazing dmg you receive from these bunker eles and how it surpass the dmg from a bunker mes.

Of course you’ve got no screenshot or video as proof of your words therefore for the moment you win the following prizes:

For the level of intelligence displayed in this thread:
http://i.imgur.com/t9nxsbS.jpg

And for the failed troll attempt with the same thread
http://i.imgur.com/Nye3tuZ.jpg

Congratulations I only give these prizes to the most hardcore elites on this forum

Wow, I’m honored. Those must be prizes from your personal collection. I think it’s best you keep them. It’s clear that you’ve earned them and I wouldn’t want to take the only prizes you’ve ever won.

Back on topic, ignoring the above troll.

No other tank spec has so much mobility + damage output. That’s the fundamental problem, and it completely imbalances the gameplay.

Arheundel.6451:

@Thedenofsin.7340
I run a 20/20/0/0/30 shatter spam build using sword + focus

Another glass cannon mesmer whining that he can’t win against bunkers on his own?
Try to play something else other than glass cannon if you can’t play the build, yours is simply a l2p issue that you don’t want to address and rather prefer to come whining on the forums in the hope whatever you can’t beat..get nerfed, to a more manageable level for you current skills.

Mesmer using your build and beating the “invincible ele” with 80% HP ( TO NOTICE THE EXTREME LOW DMG DONE BY THE ELE AT 1.05 A 1.7k BURNING SPEED -15S CD, ONE OF THE BIG HIT SKILLS ON D/D)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjUtDw8e8kI

Another failed forum poster that knows less than he thinks. FYI I ran bunker mesmer builds on day 1 when they were insanely OP, and they pale compared to ele bunkers today.
I think you need to learn to play if you think bunker ele is fine atm. They have as much tankiness (if not more) as any other bunker, but have far greater damage output and far greater mobility.

They are way over the top and long overdue for a nerf. No profession comes close with regards to mobility+damage+tankiness.

It’s making skillseeker thieves look well-designed in comparison.

20/20/0/0/30 works better, in my opinion.
Start with GS 3,2,4 then weapon swap to sword 3 leap/swap, sword 2 and shatter. That usually kills any mob and only takes about 8 seconds.

Some more fiddling around with abilities and sigils yielded me this burst build for hotjoin:
http://tinyurl.com/awe3bra

Basically you do:
Bullet, leap, dodge, swap, Blurred Frenzy+Shatter,
Swap (which will freeze), Mirror Blade, Signet of Illusions, Mirror Image+Shatter
If they are still alive, then Berserker+Knockback.
If they stun break during this, pop Signet of Domination.

I used to be a hardcore bunker build lover until the protection nerf. My build used to have 100% uptime for regen and protection, which was insane.

Of the specs mentioned above, I tried the countless spec, and I really love it. For pick-up it’s still somewhat “meh” (then again, everything is meh in pick-up unless you are a thief).

It really starts to shine in small-group PvP. What I love most is the 6 piece runes of Lyssa basically give me a free slot to use for whatever I want.

The hot-join meta now has shifted so that you have 2 options:
bunker
thief

That’s pretty much it, since anything that isn’t a bunker gets 2-shot by thieves.

Maybe if anet actually fixed the thief problem we’d see more diversity.

Sword OH provides the best spike damage. Swordsman immediately followed by a successful block can deal northward of 7k damage within the span of 2 seconds.

100% free?

100% bad

1500 dynamic events

25 working in any given week.

Not as well as others, and I’m not too sure about in massive groups. However, in groups of up to ~15-20 players I’ve done ok.

Edit: By “ok”, I mean just that. OK. Not good, not bad. Very middle of the pack.

I run a 20/20/0/0/30 shatter spam build using sword + focus. For DE mobs I don’t switch out. The sword can hit 3 mobs and the shatters can hit several. Spawn clones, run in, shatter and start hitting sword 2 + sword 1.

By the way, this build does just fine solo and in dungeons.

Something Wicked This Way Comes…

Great little reference to the Halloween-ish Ray Bradbury story/movie.

Nerf thieves
/15char

JonathanSharp.7094:

Sezu.8564:

Games used to be about having fun, at least that’s why I play them. PvP is just a more competitive twist on the game.

Also people who say there is “no point” to do something are absolutely right. There’s really no point to anything at all. Do what you like to do, it’s your existence.

20 minutes later, I’m still chuckling. The existentialist in me salutes you good sir.

My inner Crowley salutes you as well.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Confessor.8957:

I haven’t tested, but would taking Superior Rune of Lyssa (6) and popping elite stack on the others to spread just for lulz?

This was actually the build I tried out about a month ago. It’s awesome on paper, but not terribly practical in practice.

Ridley.3691:

Just don’t make a Mesmer and you should be fine.

Yeah, a little late (like 80 levels or so late) for that. Hence why I was asking about a DE farming toon.

As a mesmer, I’ve found SW+Focus with a 20/20/0/0/30 shatter spam build to be the most effective build for mesmers in DE’s, though it pales compared to what I see other professions do.

If warriors could chain knockdowns back to back and kill you without getting back up, you’d be crying for nerfs. Thieves can do it in a 2 second stun.

Ridley.3691:

You really shouldn’t choose your profession based solely on farming DEs, it should be based on what class you find the most fun. However, in my experience the best classes with strong, instant AoE attacks are Warrior, Guardian and Elementalist.

Unless ANet plans on making all classes equally viable for DE farming, I’m going to need a toon for farming.

I’ll give warrior a shot – thanks.

Which Profession is best suited for DE farming when there is a mass zerg (i.e. which is best for AoE spamming)?

What would be great is if the boss mobs’s first ‘one shot’ attack dealt 50% of its intended damage, then 75%, then 100%. This would allow players to adjust their timing, as some bosses have a long wind-up and others have a short wind-up. Unless you have it completely memorized, you are likely to pull a kitten the first time.

Fun – definitely.

Viable – meh.

You are definitely helpful in dungeon runs and provide decent DPS and utility.

You are mediocre at grinding and poor at AoE for Dynamic Events. Run 20/20/0/0/30 for shatter-spam builds for dynamic events.

Read the post – there’s very little real content to the post that’s actually new. So much so that, given how long it took to turn this out, I’d strongly recommend ArenaNet avoid putting together blog posts in the future and stick to releasing this information via posts on the forums.

It’s literally 2 minutes worth of information that took weeks to be released due to proofreading and editing. Not efficient.

Additionally, I’m surprised by the lack of content mentioned for the near future. Then again the last MMO I played used to pump out new content every couple of months.

Carighan.6758:

But usually the dev (as in, balance/content changes) and debugging (as in bugfixes) teams are separate.

Untrue. Usually they are separated by the part of the code base they work on: profession, crafting, art, word mechanics/dynamic events, infrastructure, etc.

EdwinLi.1284:

You do know Zhiatan is actually bugged? Anet is still trying to get him to work the way he was meant to fight us. Along with the end Story weapons we can only get 1 per character for completing personal story.

I did not know this. If this is true, I would question what producer / developer would be willing to ship the game with full knowledge the final encounter in the game, the culmination of the entire “personal” story, is horribly bugged.

In my mind, a bug like that would be a complete show-stopper. This is not a massive raid boss and does not have all the complexities of one. No other MMO would release a bugged raid boss that runs out, does nothing and lets you nuke him down. Silly.

Basically ArenaNet took a look at Mesmers and made adjustments to make them easier to counter. The fundamental principle with countering a mesmer is to take away his Phantasms quickly.

By increasing the summoning time, it is easier to take down a Mesmer as you can spend more time working on the Mesmer and not his Phantasms.

Chaos Storm is a very powerful area control effect. It was changed for similar reasons.

The unfortunate consequence of this is that it makes it even more difficult to level a Mesmer. They were subpar in PvE prior to this change – they are moreso now.

Maybe ANet can throw us a bone in PvE. Take away Moa and give us some kind of elite ability that gives us some kind of sustained AoE. Like an Illusory Scattergun that does AoE damage but replaces our Main|Off hand weapon, lasts 60 seconds, 75 second cooldown.

My sentiments exactly. Horrible ending to the story. Absolutely terrible.

This is how you finish a story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDpayS4UNVE (WoW Lich King ending)

The Zhaitan story falls a great deal short