Guild Wars 2

As far as I recall, you could still see rarity before identifying or salvaging in GW1. There’re blue unindentified objects, purple and gold unidentified.

There’s been lots of rants about the clutter of bags, due to useless blue and green items, so I’m for that idea of making everything stack that way.

I endorse the idea of having blue, green, yellow and orange unidentified items though.

At first, I thought it was a bad thing a raptor couldn’t strafe, but I came to get used to it. Raptor is a runner, so it makes sense it’s clumsy and clunky when it’s not running.

Moreover, eventhough raptor can’t strafe, nothing tells that the other mounts will have the exact same behaviour. I’d rather tend to think that they’ll be quite different to drive.

I’m honestly doubting this.

Consider the Mawdrey backpack, which was released during LS2, and has selectable stats : they don’t include new HoT and further stats.
Orders ascended backpack from HoT, as well as the Luminate’s one don’t include new HoT and further stats either, which is a pity, given you require to finish HoT to get them.

My guess is LW3 trinkets will remain the same, but I may be wrong ; and I hope I am !

OriOri.8724:

Mesmer still suffers from a mechanic that is self defeating. Looking here, we can hit close to 30k DPS if optimized with a power build https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6siame/power_mes_post_patch_285k/

But notice that to do that we can never use our shatters. Why is it that 1/2 of our mechanic is ignored? Its because its a self defeating mechanic Anet. Using our shatters should never hurt our DPS by so much and for such a long period of time compared to other classes, it just shouldn’t. Why is it that this is never addressed by you? Why do we just have to ignore our F skills to have any chance at a decent DPS build?

Actually, mesmers’ mechanics are built with an intrinsic contradiction : illusions (mostly phantasms) are desired for their effect yet you need to shatter them too. You can have both sides of the coin shine at the same time unless you go : summon phantasm, let it attack once, then shatter it.

Currently, with the chrono bomber trend, I don’t think lots of mesmers care the slightest about what they summon, given the core of the strategy is to shatter them. Now, that kind of build (and I think mirage will also have this flavour) focuses more on fighting alongside the phantasms, which prevents from shattering them.

From what I’ve seen, the count recharge starts the moment you uses the first charge.

For example, if you have 2 ammos with 30s CD : you fire the 1st one, and the 30s CD begins immediatly in the background.
If you fire the 2nd one, you’ll see the CD animation with the remaining time to get the 1st ammo back.

Cash out options have often been suggested, but a dev (McKenna, I think) stated that even if they considered it, they dismissed the idea. The point is : if you consider it takes, say, 30 minutes to decay down to zero, you can’t forsee things like outmanned buff, or skirmish rank, and therefore, you can’t anticipate the amount of pips you’d get.

And just before that answer pops again : no, you can’t wait in obsidian sanctum, there’s no participation in OS.

On the same topic…

Thank you a lot for making the legends talk when a rev is idle ! I was away eating some breakfast when Mallyx promised he’s devour me, I totally freaked out. It’s a really nice addition.

Sorry for the thread derailing… Let’s try and set it back in its tracks !

Who ?

More or less random players, familiar names, friends, each one running its way, sometimes gathering for a fight or organizing for a tower, or even a keep when the map is quiet.

What ?

• Small scale capture : sentries, camps, monuments (DBL), towers with some help.
• Dolyak management (escort, kills, giving pats, cleaning stable…)
• Random enemies encounters
• Scouting when noone’s in a structure, roamers passing by do the check and first information.

Why ?

From my personal taste, I don’t like zerging. I’m fonder of the tactical side of WvW, and the associated micromanagement. Even if I acknowledge a good zerg has roles and an organization, I still have this feeling that it’s mostly full of brainded lootstick guardians spamming 1.

Moreover, I don’t like to rely on a guild or a group to have fun. I’m more of the independant kind.

How ?

Good map awareness. Know the place, every nuance, every twist, know where the enemies are and where they’re going. Also know how to avoid fights…

Turn on :

• Nice people
• Feeling useful
• The last dolyak uplevelling the keep to T2 while under attack.

Turn off :

• Cheesy insta-kill builds
• When a competitive game mode turns people to jerks. People forgetting it’s supposed to be a game, supposed to be fun, and not some kind of full-time job, or world championship training
• When noone comes defend a structure “because it’s T0”. Geez… How do you nitwits want it to level up if you don’t defend when it’s paper ?

Well, at this point, the topic should be moved in the lore section of the forum.

I’m guessing things wouldn’t be that easy for Big B. After all, he was needing Taimi’s machine for Jormag/Primordius. It may just have been to have 2 dragons with one stone, but it may also help him harvest the magic… Not sure.
Anyway, he may also need to kill the dragon himself to get the energy. Like, if it’s spread across the whole Tyria, he wouldn’t be able to collect as much as if the whole energy was just standing in front of him.

Just guessing…

The only thing we know about Big B’s whereabouts is : he said “they wanted to kill my light, but know, they’re gonna see me”, or something in that meaning. We have know clue who the they may refer to.

As for know, we know B sucked :

• A whole bloodstone’s power (episode 1, impersonating Lazarus)
• Part of Jormag’s power
• Part of Primordius’ power

He didn’t drain Zhaitan or Mordremoth, and cannot, because those dragon’s magic is now flowing wildly in Tyria as “unbound magic”.

Stalvros.9217:

Sir Alric.5078:

Correction: We never killed (or even seen) Jormag. The World Boss in Frostgorge Sound is the Claw of Jormag, just one of its champions.

That said, yes, we have been killing Elder Dragons up until now, but then we discovered that killing Elder Dragons also actually destroys the world. So now we have to come up with a method of putting them back to sleep without killing them.
However, Balthazar (evil God edition) doesn’t care one bit about the world and wants to kill the Elder Dragons to steal their power for himself. So, afer he failed (thanks to our intervention) to kill both Primordus and Jormag back in episode 5, now he wants to go after Kralkatorrik. Guess who will have to stop him again?

Did we see Jormag back in episode 5?
(I only finished my story up ’till Primordus)
How did we know he failed to kill Jormag?

We don’t see Jormag at all. In episode 6, Taimi states she got a letter from Braham telling there was an issue with Jormag, that happens to be the same that what we saw with Primordius, which was predictable since the machine used in episode 5 was supposed to affect both of them the same way.

As for big B, he’ll probably suck the dragons dry from their powers. In a nutshell : kill them.

You’re misunderstanding some things !

Kill Zhaitan + kill Mordremoth <= ok.

Tequatl is a lesser dragon, Zhaitan’s lieutenant. Same goes for the Shatterer, which is Kralka’s lieutenant. The dragon that is fought in the Shiverpeaks is The claw of Jormag, and not Jormag itself, and it’s also a lieutenant. Those ones don’t count in the six.

Now, we do see Primordius. Big B didn’t kill him, but sucked enough of the dragon’s power to put it back to rest. Same goes for Jormag, as mentionned by Taimi (from Braham) in episode 6.

So, the whole plot is : with 4 dragons out of the field (2 dead, and 2 too weak), only Kralkatorrik and the mysterious sea dragon are left outside. Which means big B will go after one of these, and Kralkatorrik is supposed to dwell in the crystal desert.

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

You guys can put whatever label or justification you want on it, but chasing down players that don’t want a 1v1 because they aren’t speced for it and u get no reward for it seems like bullying to me. It barely helps out your server and then the rest of the time I see roamers standing around in an open field waiting for people to come along. Seems like they want pvp where they stand little chance of losing.

Also saying that everyone has access to the same builds, while true the difference between a 1v1 build (which might it add uses stats and skills that were deemed op and were balanced out of spvp for that exact reason, or were balanced out because the goal is to hold an objective and not reset a fight a million times at your leisure) vs someone speced for zerg vs zerg, is like someone going up against a hand cannon with a knife.

Roamers are simply seeking unfair matchups and little else.

I honestly disagree with what you’re saying, because I feel like you’re labeling any “player that mostly runs alone” as roamer, which is too broad.

That said, I acknowledge that the small scale scene is more and more filled with jaded and lame players that are just looking for easy kills, using a cheesy build and a cheesy more or less macro-ed rotation, mostly consisting in spiking out of the blue, nuking and running their kitten off if it didn’t work (which proves they’re looking for easy kills, instead of challenging fights). Should I also mention the grotesque use of emotes or siege tossing ?

That’s sad because some builds are very appropriate for that be it power spikes, condi spikes, or high stealth/mobility, and they prevent the small scale scene from having maybe slower builds but not so lame fight-wise, or fun to play. Overall, I think that brings undesirable toxicity in a game mode that truly doesn’t need it, and it kills the thing.

These players unfortunately exist, they should have left the game ages ago, but the last string keeping them on may be related to a “bully” (or just troll) behaviour. I wouldn’t name them “roamers” though.

The biggest figure I saw on video was around 6500 HP and it began decaying (really fast pace) after 1 or 2 seconds. And it was a single skill. You’ll need quite a bunch of barrier-giving zerglings with a nice team coordination to keep things up. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it won’t be that easy.

Honestly, I have no clue how that’ll eventually work, what the figures will be, decay rate etc. But I’m trying to be a bit optimistic… Maybe I’m wrong though.

From what I understand, it’s an additional health bar that’ll eat damage (condi or direct) but it has a really fast decay rate ! Seemingly, you’ll have to raise barrier just before the nuke for full effectiveness. You can’t just stack it at spawn.

I think it’s biggest use will be against typical PvE mobs with an endless amount of HP, and a huge insta-kill attack with a nice readable animation so that players know they have to use their barrier. I don’t think it’ll be that useful against a thief burst, for example.

It’s not only the spellbreaker. The scourge has some boon stripping ability, and even currently, necromancers and revs can strip boons to a certain extent.

What bugs me more is, from what I saw, there isn’t that much access to stability or stunbreakers with the new elite specs, which means stunlock will be quite hard to counter.

That said, I’m all for either :

• Stab reverts back to a total CC immunity like it used to be, and like resistance is ;
• Breakbar system.

Gosh… Only a handful players could put their hands on the new elite, and everyone is losing their minds that it’s so OP !?

Just chill down please… We’ll see how it balances when it’s out, and see even clearer 6 months later, after 2 “balance updates” what remains of it.

Hello,

I’d love some more rewards track micromanagement. Namely :

• A queue system that’d allow you to select what will be the next reward track after you’re done with the current one ;
• A “repeat indefinitely” option ;
• A “default set” on a given track.

On another hand, we don’t have that much detail about how the territories will work, and what it’ll imply beyond the gliding topic.

For example, I’m really curious to see if the map will just be “cut” with lines going roughly admist between two objectives, or will each objective have its own frontier, with possible no man’s land inbetween…

Anyway, as Arimas said, the purpose of this topic is to let the devs know that now territories will be enforced, some players are suggesting things to make the best out of it.

I like the idea of a spider mount and the climbing walls ability. Or the mount using draconis’ mastery with silk !

There’re a lot of those. I’m thinking here about lots of staircases near to wind palace in DBL. Blinks don’t work, as well as some projectile skills (true shot comes in mind) that are canceled upon activation. Also lots of LoS issues that make me feel like if you are not perfectly facing your opponent on a flat ground, then the outcome of a skill is just random.

That doesn’t make fights easy and smooth…

Hello !

I’m opening this thread to share some suggestions about the territories system. I had one thread with that idea one year ago and as it wouldn’t be a good idea to dig it, I’m just putting here the main suggestions :

• The tier an objective has reached should influence the corresponding territory’s area. A T3 camp should have a bigger territory than a T0, for example.
• Connectivity bonus : a PPT bonus should be awarded to the team owning the biggest contiguous territory, map-wise. Like, double the income of the corresponding objective.
• Safe paths : if a tower and one of its supply camps have their territores connected, the dolyaks get a speed bonus (like +20%)

I’m sure that territories system opens a lot of possibilities for such fine tweaks, bonuses and overall a richer game system, so I’m really looking forward the whole functionnality !

Turk.5460:

ThomasC.1056:

Considering any warrior (or whatever) running dire or soldier would have the same HP and same armor, then soldier gives “all the tankines in the game”, doesn’t it ? So soldier should be the zero risk and low reward ? I’m more into thinking that the risk exists because the damage output may not be enough, so we’re back to “power is underperforming”.

No, Soldier should be low-risk, low-reward. Which is its current state.

Dire should also be low-risk, low-reward. Which is not its current state. It is currently low-risk, high reward.

We can’t make this any simpler.

Indeed ! That’s a very simple way to prove that the issue is not with Dire/TB, but with the game mechanics below power damage and condi damage.

I just hope that now it has been put that simple, people will cease to jump “Nurf Dire !” whenever the topic arises…

DeceiverX.8361:

Longer fights isn’t a good thing, mate. Frankly, tankier kits are almost always more efficient in the context of PvP in this game. Have you forgotten the defensive amulets were all removed from sPvP because the game was too boring when literally every profession became unkillable because everyone was running a tank spec? Dire has been deemed so overpowered that even during the tank meta in sPvP ANet wouldn’t release its amulet there for the literal reason that the kit was too mathematically OP for the format.

I’m happy we agree on the fact that one of the issue’s root is fights are boring. I didn’t dare state it that plainly, but I’m sure that it’s one of a biggest factor making players not want to linger in a fight.
Now, about sPvP, even if I’m positive of what you’re saying, I don’t think it’d apply to WvW. sPvP is currently about holding points, which means that exceedingly tanky builds are undesirable. That’s why Dire and TB have been removed, alongside lots of others, like apothecary, just to quote one that isn’t talked about in WvW topics. Really tanky builds don’t have such a critical effect in WvW, because of the variety of roles there is.

DeceiverX.8361:

For one, the “killing fast and easy” derivation/claim you’ve made is BS. Not many people are here demanding everyone play full DPS. People usually enjoy that frame of mind more, but that’s really not the claim at large.

That statement also applies to condi users, but it was more aimed at glassy builds.

DeceiverX.8361:

Dire/TB condi tanks aren’t actually killable by full tank builds, though, and full tank sustain kits aside from a very select few against a very select few opposing builds can’t out-sustain the dire players which they can do to power ones.

I agree with that, but I think it’s more remote of stats than game mechanics. The main issue is power builds need to land their strikes to make damage. It’s not always easy because of damage mitigation, and engine issues like LoS, skills randomly failing etc. So, in the whole duration of a fight, the “damage time” is really diluted, which is why people try to do as much as possible, given it’s really harder to hit “as often as possible”.
Now, condition damage, in the opposite, ticks as long as the condition is here and not cleanse, which expands the damage time. This is why condition builds need to be tankier.
Now, as it has often been underlined, cleanses, food, some traits, and the usual dodges/blocks/invulns etc. are a good way to prevent conditions application. I recognize condi spam is really easy though.

Turk.5460:

ThomasC.1056:

So you’re quoting a post saying that soldier is not working and it leads you to the conclusion that condis needs to be fixed ?

To me, if soldier is not working, then soldier needs a fixing.

So rather than have Dire gear removed or condi damage reworked into 3 offensive stats, you would instead have Soldier gear do the same as berserker currently does? I don’t think this game needs more power creep.

I’m not saying that. For now, I’m only stating that power damage may be underperforming compared to conditions damage. But you’re raising an interesting point : suppose for one moment that baseline power was strongly buffed, would players switch from berserker/marauder to soldier ? My guess is no, because power creep isn’t only a stats and figure issue ; it’s also an issue of players wanting fights not to last.

Ragnarox.9601:

Yes toughness needs fixing, it should give more dmg mitigation especially vs condies.

I understand the idea, but I’d honestly rather have healing mitigate condition damage.

Vova.2640:

Those are DEFENSIVE sets. Soldiers does what it should, You have little dmg output with no crits/low crit dmg but high hp and armor.
Meanwhile in dire you have EVERYTHING, all the dmg you ever need AND all the tankiness in the game. Thats literally ZERO risk with high rewards and should NEVER exist.
The two sets are supposed to be relatively equal but are NOT even close to that.

Considering any warrior (or whatever) running dire or soldier would have the same HP and same armor, then soldier gives “all the tankines in the game”, doesn’t it ? So soldier should be the zero risk and low reward ? I’m more into thinking that the risk exists because the damage output may not be enough, so we’re back to “power is underperforming”.

Hexalot.8194:

offence.4726:

ThomasC.1056:

offence.4726:

Im playing Guild wars since vanilla and let me tell you WvW has never been in a more unbalanced state as it is now , talking about small fights and 1v1 ofc.

It’s a nightmare you only run into one trick pony’s every way you turn , broken REVs , Burn Guardians , s/d thieves who just don’t die no matter how much you chase, don’t even let me start about the condi builds.

Back in the day it was a real joy going to WvW to have duel competitions and just all around 1v2 FUN that’s a thing of the past and im pretty sure the balance is going to be even worse with more added classes to the game with the next expansion.

I read what you’re telling, and that reminds me of a very fun fight I once had. It was during HoT beta : that weekend when Druid was released. At this time, I didn’t even have a ranger and I gave it a try, so I ran a druid, and I stumbled upon a druid that probably was in the same situation.
So we were mostly doing… anything, spamming skills without being sure what the outcome would be, on toons we didn’t know, running suboptimal builds. I don’t even remember who won, but I do remember we had fun !

If you think about it, the previous traits system was trickier to use than this one, and in the beginning of GW2, I think there were less min/maxing, mostly because classes and builds were not known as good.

My impression on that is lots of players in the roaming scene run top notch min/maxed builds with perfect rotation execution, to finish fights as quick as possible. It gets obvious when you see the very same player 1 – Nuke you out of the blue when you cross him 2 – Is heavily nuked when you catch him after a fight, even a camp one, and the rotation can’t be done because of CD.

I think it’s sad, because it gives the impression that most players don’t want to bother doing a fight, and it also removes a lot of spontaneity.

^ Exactly this I mean what is the point of joining a WvW/PvP enviroment if you don’t want to actual counter-play and engage your opponents and run 2 shot builds that require literally not more then one hand on the keyboard , forget about having a mouse!

Everyone is min-maxing nowdays and every top roamer seems to be decked in full Ascended / legendaries to simply put it it’s a turn off and no wonder only the zergs/blobs still play WvW.

Thank god for the edge of the mists , the only balance left is there.

I would have thought it obvious by now why most roamers run nuke builds. It’s to down you as quickly as possible before 4 or 5 of your buddies arrive to “save the day”. In the old days one could afford to run dueling builds because chances are you could have fairly lengthy uninterrupted fights. That’s obviously no longer the case and hasn’t been for a while.

That’s a possible explanation, even if it’s not the most obvious one in my experience…

From what I’m seeing, I’d rather say that most players want to secure a quick stomp because they find it funnier to gank, and don’t want to bother fighting, either that they’re too lazy (or jaded) or that GW2’s combat system is just lame.

This explanation also explain the thing about mobility builds : if it turns out fight becomes boring, or odds become more uncertain, you just let things down, and go elsewhere for an easier gank.

Hello,

Don’t worry, you can use runes and all such for seraph stats.
Upgrade is here the object you slot in !

For example, an “orb of ruby” is an upgrade component bearing berserker stats. Yet, there’s no orb (or whatever of that kind) that has seraph stats.

SWI.4127:

ThomasC.1056:

Vova.2640:

Turk.5460:

I don’t understand how people can justify arguing this:

Can you be effective in all Soldier’s stats? Realistically: no.

Can you be effective in all Dire stats? Proven and common knowledge: yes.

Is someone in Dire stats effective as someone in Berserker stats?
-In zergs: Yes, more effective than Berserker.
-In small scale: Yes, equally as effective, and in some situations, more effective.

So where is the justification that one person who is just as effective as another, gets to have ~10k more HP and ~1000 more toughness?

Best post in this thread.
Condis need rework/heavy nerfs, there can be no argument against that.

So you’re quoting a post saying that soldier is not working and it leads you to the conclusion that condis needs to be fixed ?

To me, if soldier is not working, then soldier needs a fixing.

Soldier’s and Dire are both “defensive” stat combos 2/3rds vit and toughness and 1 stat dedicated to power or condition damage. So why does 1 do so much more damage than the other? Because the power and condition damage builds are inherently unbalanced in the sense that power needs 3 stats where condition really only needs 1, maybe 2. The problem isn’t with soldier’s, it’s with condition damage. The only way to “fix” soldier’s to be on-par with Dire is adding a ton of precision and ferocity. Then it would be pretty OP and almost a no-brainer for many classes. Doesn’t that tell you something? It’s not soldier’s that’s the problem.

Then why would that need that much precision and ferocity ? What would honestly change in the “power dmg scene” if suddenly all the marauder/zerk gear was turned into soldier ? (WvW talking here, not PvE wells of HP)

Answer is : longer fights. And that’s all. No possibility to kill an enemy in one single well done burst.

Theoretically, crits (and thus, ferocity stat) should be more the icing on the cake than the regular average way for power damage. I can only see two reasons why maximizing those three stats has become compulsory :

1. Baseline power is underperforming.
2. Players are too lazy and jaded to bother managing a long fight.

I won’t go here into the “best survivability = short fights” topic, because it’s more relevant in PvE than in WvW.

I don’t need to go to the “conditions” topic to talk about power damage underperforming. Yet I’m really bothered because, even if I’m positive there could be an issue, all that I read here reduces down to :

• I want to melt an enemy in a matter of a few seconds = I don’t want to fight, I just want to win fast and easy
• My toy doesn’t work well while my neighbour’s does, so please destroy his so that we both could be unhappy.

offence.4726:

Im playing Guild wars since vanilla and let me tell you WvW has never been in a more unbalanced state as it is now , talking about small fights and 1v1 ofc.

It’s a nightmare you only run into one trick pony’s every way you turn , broken REVs , Burn Guardians , s/d thieves who just don’t die no matter how much you chase, don’t even let me start about the condi builds.

Back in the day it was a real joy going to WvW to have duel competitions and just all around 1v2 FUN that’s a thing of the past and im pretty sure the balance is going to be even worse with more added classes to the game with the next expansion.

I read what you’re telling, and that reminds me of a very fun fight I once had. It was during HoT beta : that weekend when Druid was released. At this time, I didn’t even have a ranger and I gave it a try, so I ran a druid, and I stumbled upon a druid that probably was in the same situation.
So we were mostly doing… anything, spamming skills without being sure what the outcome would be, on toons we didn’t know, running suboptimal builds. I don’t even remember who won, but I do remember we had fun !

If you think about it, the previous traits system was trickier to use than this one, and in the beginning of GW2, I think there were less min/maxing, mostly because classes and builds were not known as good.

My impression on that is lots of players in the roaming scene run top notch min/maxed builds with perfect rotation execution, to finish fights as quick as possible. It gets obvious when you see the very same player 1 – Nuke you out of the blue when you cross him 2 – Is heavily nuked when you catch him after a fight, even a camp one, and the rotation can’t be done because of CD.

I think it’s sad, because it gives the impression that most players don’t want to bother doing a fight, and it also removes a lot of spontaneity.

Vova.2640:

Turk.5460:

I don’t understand how people can justify arguing this:

Can you be effective in all Soldier’s stats? Realistically: no.

Can you be effective in all Dire stats? Proven and common knowledge: yes.

Is someone in Dire stats effective as someone in Berserker stats?
-In zergs: Yes, more effective than Berserker.
-In small scale: Yes, equally as effective, and in some situations, more effective.

So where is the justification that one person who is just as effective as another, gets to have ~10k more HP and ~1000 more toughness?

Best post in this thread.
Condis need rework/heavy nerfs, there can be no argument against that.

So you’re quoting a post saying that soldier is not working and it leads you to the conclusion that condis needs to be fixed ?

To me, if soldier is not working, then soldier needs a fixing.

I understand the most bunker stats were removed from sPvP given it’s a “hold the point” game mode, and turtle builds are undesirable there.

I’m all for more stats in WvW because there’re more fashions to play, more roles, and thus, it requires more build possibilities. And that’s the reason why I think sPvP stats that don’t exist in PvE/WvW should be obtainable in WvW too.

I’m also all for an easy swap stats system in WvW, for each individual piece of gear. Also, as was previously suggested (I don’t remember where, nevermind) : a possibility to unlock gear stats using inscriptions/insignas would be a fair middle ground.

Now that LS3 is over, there’s so much to say ! Sorry for wall, I’ll keep things clear.

Siren’s land
This map did overall make a good impression.

• Art and layout nice. Clean map, enjoyable to navigate ;
• Reknown hearts not so interesting but less tedious than before : good point ;
• Wyvern at Dwayna’s reliquary : boring fight with too much CC ;
• Wurm at Balthazar’s reliquary : impossible to melee, and that’s a big pity ;
• Again, too many mobs with insane skills, insane confusion and burn stacks. Are you designing things for your enjoyement, or for the players’ ?

Episode’s instances and story
This episode probably was one of the worse episodes in the season, story and game-wise.

• First instance : mostly good. I enjoyed the puzzles : they were a good change.
• Second instance : that one is a huge shame for whoever designed this. Namely :
  • That oath part is an absolute nonsense for all non-human races
  • As the commander of the pact, I’m fed up with being treated as a noisy brat, because 1 – I’m not Braham 2 – I took an active part in slaying two dragons. That stupid shining blade is not happy I’m willing to take part ? Well, I’ll decorate her head with my hammer !
  • I fought Mordremoth who tried to use my doubts against me too ! And I won. And I still have so much doubt that a puny human mesmer can use it against me ? I’m the commander of the pact, and with my background, I should have been able to snap out of this mess in a shrug.
  • And all this for what ? What kind of secret and intricate plot is the Shining Blade hiding against such big oath mumbo jumbo ? They want to kill Lazarus. NO WAY ! Is that all you've got ?
    Moreover :
  • Friends can’t take part in the fight
  • Grenades are ridiculous : they don’t deal any damage
  • You can’t hit the ground where White Mantle comes from the balcony because of LoS issues. Are you actually testing your stuff before release ? It clearly seems not !
  • Fight with the doubt is boring and tedious, and the achievement seems even more tedious.
• Third instance : Mostly fine. Lore and storytelling are terrific :
  • How did this aspect end up here ? Wasn’t the White Mantle supposed to have gathered them all ? Wait... Livia did ! _Deus ex Machina_
  • Lazarus and Livia are nice to meet again. Yet, for players who didn't enjoy GW1, it must have been messy.
  • Are we supposed to understand we’re heading to Crystal Desert ? I didn’t…

LS3 story :
Overall, it’s messy, confusing and disjointed.

• Episodes 1-4-6+5 = White Mantle’s arc. That should have felt more like the spine of the story because that’s what it’s supposed to be. The plot twist came too late (ep.5), and so it felt hurried, while episodes 1 and 4 work very well together.
• Episodes 2-3 = The usual dragon hunting and slaying things. Considering the turn taken with the story, those eventually feel useless.
• Episodes 3-6 = Braham’s drama. A too long cutscene, and one single line of dialog of Taimi’s are almost worth slaying an Elder dragon... ? Better not should have talked about this at all.
• Episodes 5-6 = Balthazar’s whereabouts. And what do we actually know ? Nothing. The whole episode 6 was about chasing big B, for what ? Where did he go ? We’re not sure. What did he want ? We don’t know. Why did he go in Abaddon’s reliquary ? We don’t know. A whole episode chasing ghosts.

Miscelleanous

• What about Aurene ? What about the Pale Tree ?
• What about Rytlock ? What about Zojja ?
• Our own guild is now… Taimi ! That said, I’m happy with how she’s now.
• The new mastery is a pleasant nod to players asking for a bard profession. It’s mostly useless though.

I’m also using a Mallyx/Ventari rev ! In PvE, it works wonders in DS for example, both as damage than sustain.
In WvW, it truly depends, but using Ventari, I’m really hard to kill ! I just don’t deal enough damage

As far as I’m concerned, what I read here is people complaining that raw power is underperforming. Not that conditions are overperforming.

Example :

Please, go ahead and tell us that this requires same skill as playing glassy power builds.

Why is it needed to “play a glassy build” ? Of course, not for the pleasure of bragging or being put in a hazardeous situation… Mainly because raw power needs really high stats to do big bursts.
Yet this is not where tweaks are needed, because if damage efficiency is raised, players will keep on using these stats and not invest in survivability, because :

1. The best survivability tactic is end the fight as quick as possible ;
2. Players don’t want to bother with a long fight because the game is boring.

So, it needs skill first because you’re going naked to a fight. The second reason is related to the complains about AoE. I play power with my warriors and guardians, and they’re mostly melee. It requires far more skill than condi necro, because you need to stick to your opponent (melee) and because of the huge LoS, targetting, “no valid path” and all those.

In a nutshell : when you play melee power, you’re playing against GW2’s engine.

Conditions are fine. Perfectly fine. They’re at their place, and work as intended. Maybe there’re just too many spam possibilities. The reason why they’re so much better than raw power is constant ticks and easier targetting removes the issues with the engine.

I love my power DH, I truly love him, but I hate seeing “no valid path” when I’m trying to port using judge intervention. I hate using F1 to pull and have the enemy fall on his feet and not in my taps. I hate using true shot and have it fail because I’m one step higher in a staircase. I hate re-targetting issues while I’ve disabled all of those options. And I truly believe these are the reasons why I don’t deal as much damage as I should.

It’d be great if all the people playing power would cease to say : “Hey ! My toys are broken and his work ! Please destroy his so that we both could be unhappy !” and ask for real improvements for everyone.

anduriell.6280:

I stopped reading there. There is no amount of condition cleanse which can keep up with the actual conditions spamming from some builds.

To me, this seems to be more the central issue than condis as themselves. I saw an interesting theory that the spamming was the result of high cleansing possibilities. A fewer yet more significant cleanse would be better I think.

anduriell.6280:

Heck the other day i was fighting a warrior which could apply even confusion.

They can on interrupt, or with a perplexity rune. Condi berserker is one of the worse build I ever saw.

anduriell.6280:

The only thing that work now is permanent resistance uptime and that boon is very limited to some very broken builds. So right now condi spamming is a problem.

If you take back things from a theoretical point of view (the spamming issue put aside). Conditions are supposed to deal their total damage over time. As resistance and cleanses exist, placing a condition somehow is a bet, because the total damage output may not be dealt. So, what can a condi user do in the meanwhile ? What should a condi user do while resistance is up, or while cleanses aren’t on CD. Answer is : survive. That’s why condi builds should have high survivability (stats, evades, decoys, stealth…).

Now, I agree, spamming and bursts are also an issue, and it’s the biggest issue to me. Not that survivability dolyakdung.

anduriell.6280:

The rest of the players can just hate the actual balance this game has with instant oneshot kill builds, permanent evasion and stealth builds, condi spamming builds, permanent stun build.

That’s pretty much sums up the small scale scene

Gop.8713:

I suspect the decreased decay timers will actually result in an increase in this sort of activity. If ppl can’t maintain participation by playing the game, they will find other ways . . .

Words of wisdom…

It’s really sad to read that players are twisting the system in such a way. The thing is : while rewards are grind gated, WvW is unfortunately not appealing enough as itself for some players. These could do little tasks to keep their participation, but the change to decay timer punishes hardly those who don’t commit enough in the game mode.

This is a brilliant demonstration of how pushing a behaviour the wrong way can lead to total opposite results.

Dawdler.8521:

Sviel.7493:

To summarize:
-Offensive siege is too plentiful.
-Shield interactions are unintuitive.
-Defensive options are limited.

Defensive options arent limited. Defensive options are already faaaaaaaaaar too strong, to the point where a lousy tower requires a 50 man zerg to dump a dozen catas to get in fast before its completely impossible due to manned defensive siege.

This issue isnt an offensive one. Its a defensive one forcing massive zerging and using overwhelming force over actually besieging objectives or using smaller groups. HoT brought this to extremes.

I’d be perfectly fine with only being able to build like 2 catas max near a tower… if the tower had half the wall hp, could only build 1 shield gen and maybe 2 ACs.

But hey its not like WvW is about taking objectives or players fighting players inside these objectives, right?

Nah, its all about zergs dumping siege and avoiding fights. We clearly need more and bigger zergs. Lets make defenses better so we get it. Tripling tower hp should do the trick, right? Also double AC damage. Thats worked great so far.

#MakeWvWGreatAgain

I understand your point, and I’d tend to agree if WvW was a rational place, but it isn’t. It’s more a “the lazier the better” place.

It has come to a point when a full zerg can pack up on a single red point in the mini map, insta drop a dozen of siege and switch a fortified tower in a matter of seconds. I even saw such a zerg not even bother dropping siege, but opening the gate auto-attacking it.

In that case, it’s indeed a defensive issue : what can you do against that ? Spoiler : answer is nothing. Because of AoE cap, lag, bombing and simple number effect, the zerg will do whatever it wants, unless you put another zerg in front of him, but then, the tower gets irrelevant, so it’s not an appropriate solution.

Yet, allowing a tower to be taken by a small group wouldn’t solve this : the tower would sometimes be attacked by small groups as you say, but if a zerg comes, it’ll just be faster than it actually is. For the lazy player in a zerg, things will just get easier, safer and lazier.

Unfortunately, ANet will never do anything against zerg-play.

The market set its price ! Hallelujah !

That reminds me of a feature existing in another game.
Excerpt in that game, the daily delivery system was locked behind a craft skill
Still, that game aired it at its very beginning…
Obscene price I read, I’ll stick to that.

Justine.6351:

I picked up reaper cold and still only have a couple hundred hours. I’d play my reaper every night if STRM didn’t need something to answer power gankers. Reaper is quite seriously the easiest thing to play in wvw atm when considering it’s difficulty level of landing skills and the effect it has on a fight as a whole.

You can find half a dozen regular Condi/hybrid reapers posting vids on the forums. Show me even 1 pro hammer rev that posts vids. There are none because they are playing berserkers, dragon hunters, daredevils and chronomancers.

I believe you, but then : why ask for a nerf ?

I understand that there’re situations where it’s really powerufl, and lands huge amounts of damage. ok. I don’t like that either, because I not-so-secretly hope that fights would last longer ; I’m therefore against anything that lands too much damage.

Yet at the same time, you’re stating here that it’s not so easy to play : so it sounds like high rewards/high risk, and you even quote an example of an easier build with the reaper part. Where’s the logic in it ?

If you kill a player using a treb, it resets you to 10 minutes I guess.

Those 10 minutes are fine. To me, issue is that small things (like dollies, sentries, monuments/ruins…) may not always provide enough time to find a bigger thing to do. The sad part is those “small thing” aren’t useless, so why not doing them ? and there’re plenty of situations when you only have those to do at hand.

Skolops.2604:

ThomasC.1056:

Hello !

Thanks for the thread and brainstorming. One question about your build : why sinister armor ? I’m not sure I understood what you wrote… Is it just because you only had that available ? Are you aiming for a full trailblazer build ?

ThomasC,

Its because the build is already maxed out on condition duration for burning and bleeding, the two most important conditions in the build (the poison and torment and confusion the build applies pare out at only a percent or two of the damage and their real purpose is not to do damage as much as to eat condition removals).

Adding more Trailblazer or Viper is a waste because the expertise from them will do nothing while the other three stats are lower than on 3 stat gear, so you fill those slots with Sinister (for full offense), Carrion or Rabid (for middle ground between offense and defense), or Dire (for full defense).

By the way, if you’re curious the build is almost exactly the same as the one in this video, except that this guy is running Perplexity runes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAQC583WeqQ

Thanks for your answer. I’d go with sinister or rabid. Do you think the additional power is impactful ?

Hello !

Thanks for the thread and brainstorming. One question about your build : why sinister armor ? I’m not sure I understood what you wrote… Is it just because you only had that available ? Are you aiming for a full trailblazer build ?

I’m not really sure what to think about this thread, when I just finished your video in a previous thread

I’m just being ironic, don’t worry. Lots of things need to be nerfed in the actual game state. Get ready for the next elite specs !!

reddie.5861:

i barely have any time to play nowadays and i easily hit mithril chest that being said i have new born i get to play maybe 1 hour in evening if i want during work weeks and 2/3 hours in weekend that being said if i do these full hours i blow all my free time on PC which i dont and i still rack up to mithril ? chest w/e chest it was 1 before daimond

im not a high rank also cus i was for years on very very dead server where “blobs” was as big as a roam squad in top servers. top of that i played thief non stop all day so getting tons of wxp wasnt really going to happen also.

im rank 800 or so? so with your hours etc blabala u should have far higher rank then me cus i have ~1200 hour on gw2 so u tell me how u cant do it while i can.

Interesting point. There’s something I wish you tell me. You’re rank 800, which means you are silver. Which means that you score a maximum 5 pips at each tick without any specific buff.

Now, you say you play 1 hour a day, and (let’s say) 3 hours a day during weekend. One hour = 12 times 5 minutes, so you do 12 ticks a hour. Considering you’re playing 1*5 + 3*2 = 11 hours a week, it means you’re getting 131 ticks and therefore 655 pips.

You need 1120 pips to finish mithril… Even with the loyalty and the commander buff, it’s only 792, and I’m not even counting the time needed to reach Participation T3, or the possibility your server doesn’t go first place.

So it bothers me a bit…

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

No updates to the game mode other then scoring.

No class balance or skills that are altered for wvw specifically.

Rewards gated behind ridiculous rank requirements.

Skirmish tickets weekly cap is extremely low.

Too grindy for new players to hit weekly ticket cap or get rank hi enough so it is easier.

No other way to earn tickets other then grinding participation and maintaining it with mindless activities.

New participation system eliminates even more ways of playing wvw and makes maintaining participation a chore.

No tournaments or anything exciting planned for the near future.

Roughly, the list of things in the OP’s post goes into 2 categories : rewards/participation, and game updates. I agree with most of these critics, but something really bothers me more. Is it all there is to expect from WvW ? Rewards, and some new things ?

I mean, it’s supposed to be about fights (small and large scale), tactics, strategies, objectives, scoring points… That balance thing is the most related to fight, i.e. game content. Has WvW become that boring, stale and empty that the only critics concern what’s actually oustide of it ?

maddoctor.2738:

ThomasC.1056:

Maybe some day, they’ll learn and code significant henchmen (or remember how they did in GW1). Maybe for GW3 ?

The henchmen in GW1 didn’t have to dodge attacks, nor did they have so many skills to use. It was just a simple 8-skill skillbar. The AI in GW1 wouldn’t work at all in GW2

Sure it only was a simple 8-skills skillbar, but you could adjust it to your needs. It’s not even a question of chosing what skills any henchmen should have. Of course, GW1 system wouldn’t work with GW2. Yet, in GW1, when I called a target (Ctrl+T), my henchmen went and attacked it ! In GW2, you may have the whole crew of NPC’s, itzels, edge of destiny, dragon’s watch, a tin cauldron and a platypus, none of them will move a toe eventhough you’re attacking.

I’d love a hero system. I truly would. But current NPC AI is just dreadful.

Hello !

I had a thread about this some months ago. It’s a popular idea, and I wish it was possible to hire henchmens for dungeons or whatever instancied content.

Yet, I’m really afraid about it. I’m playing story currently, and in most fight cases, all my allies are standing idle while I fight alone. The AI is frightening, and my companions unfortunately are deadweights. Maybe some day, they’ll learn and code significant henchmen (or remember how they did in GW1). Maybe for GW3 ?

Considering there already are some tridents sharing their skin with staves, it’d make sense to allow a wider share of it.

Why not ? Skins are here, it may not be that much of a hassle to bring that diversity.

Hello !

I raised the idea in another topic, but I think it’s worth opening a little thread on its own. My idea is : allow a 5-7 minutes participation timer reset when fighting an enemy player. Fighting = dealing or getting damage, direct, condi or siege.

The 10 minutes participation timer reset for the winner would be kept. Considering how the current system works, that’d mean : the loser gets 5-7 minutes, and the winner gets a bonus. Of course, losing wouldn’t give any additionnal participation. It’d just prevent the timer from decaying.

All of this is not a “git gud” or L2P issue. It’s a fight : there necessarily is a losing player. The losing part may not be a total moron deserving shame and punishement. He may just have had bad luck, or was outnumbered, or whatever reason. Losing is already frustrating, and having to run back to what you were doing is punishing enough. In the current context of participation decay “tension” (true or only felt, doesn’t matter), losing a fight implies a significant threat on participation timer. Moreover it’d be a little incentive to engage in a fight, because there’d be less to lose in the process.

Once again, I’m positive the game mode should be pure and played for itself yadda yadda yadda. Yet I’m also positive lots of newcomers stepped into WvW because of the promised rewards. It’d be a really bad idea to drive them out, considering the population issues that have been echoed here for months.

I also wish to underline that the reset should occur on damage, and not on kill. I really want to avoid gangs of trolls that only down lone players in order to make them waste time.