Guild Wars 2

Rocketmist.5436:

Also isn’t the shortest heal in the game 15 seconds, why are there even 10s icds on heal skills?

Mesmer has matra of recovery which can be used around every 12.5 seconds and even if there wasn’t such a heal, it is always nice to be prepared for future changes.

Sadly to burst your bubble but defense scaling with the amount of enemies will never be usefull due tot the existance of mesmer, rangers, turrets, elementals and minions and will help not much with PvE at all. What necro’s need is defense scaling with damage output.

I’m also thinking that the bleeding of grasping dead and mark of blood will be restored to 3 stacks.

Bursting increases the stat.

A nice analasys, but I have two remarks:

FirstTrahearne knows Sierran due to an accident with an undead Gorrilla. Sierran let it out of his cage which caused a lot of damage. Trahearne helped the priory in the issue. It is not a stretch that Trahearne would remember her. Here is the dialogue in the mission “The battle of Claw island”:

Magister Sieran: Dear Trahearne. I haven’t seen you since you helped the order with that undead gorilla!
Trahearne: The drowned Orrian one you let out of the cage? Yes, that was a menace. Did everything end up well?
Magister Sieran: I misread the sign language! It was saying “kill” and I thought it was saying “I feel better.”
Magister Sieran: It is wonderful to see you again.
Trahearne: If you don’t mind, I’ll accompany you on your rounds. It’s been a while since I’ve toured the fortress.

Secondly Trahearne made character development(warning this contains spoilers):

When Trahearne received his Wyld Hunt, he believed that he was send on an impossible task. He believed that Orr could not be cleansed more importantly he did not believe in his own capabilities. Nontheless he went to Orr and he began there to study the Orrian culture. During said studies he finds himself in Claw Island just before the invasion. After the battle of claw island he knows something has to be done to save Tyria.

So he went to the Pale Tree for advice. The Pale Tree reënforces her claim that Trahearne must cleanse Orr and this time she added he to defeat Zhaitan as well. Trahearne still believes that he cannot cleanse Orr nor defeat Zhaitan. The Pale Tree sees that Trahearne still doesn’t believes in himself and decided to give him two things. The first thing she gives is the first step to take against Zhaitan: help the orders and unite them against Zhaitan, the second gift was Caladbolg. Out of two gifts the second was most important one, not because of the value of Caladbolg, but because what the gift meant: It was a sign of the Pale Tree’s unwavering trust in Trahearne. While Trahearne still does not believe it, he still went to help the orders.

With the help of the PC he saves an order and unites them. He then lead the assault on Claw island. After the succesfull assault he sees the truth in the Pale Tree’s words and for the first time he start believing in himself, if just a little. With renewed vigor he starts forming the pact and changes from an socially-awkward scholar to an inspiring Marshall. Throughout the victories of the pact he starts seeing that his task was not as impossible as he believed it to be and more importantly he starts believing in himself. In the quest “Against the corruption” he almost relapsed due the failed ritual. Instead with some help he persevered and finally conquered Zhaitan and his self doubts.

Honestly Phlunt had every right to claim the device for testing and documentation.

First the device works on the waypoint system, a very important system of Tyria. It is only normal to study the device to see if there are no unforseen side effects (like attracting Modrem). Also since the waypoint system is very important it is only normal to document it in case they have to make changes/inspect to the system (otherwhise they might have some serious problems that they can’t find because it isn’t documented) or they have to make a new one if the old one is broken.

Secondly, the device attracted modrem during the demonstration. It is unwise to leave such device in the hands of a child. The only reason she didn’t die was because Braham and the PC were there. So unless you want Taimi dead it is best to keep the device away from her.

Thirdly, Taimi is still a child. A child that still needs education not in inteligence but in wisdom. Leaving a device that affects the waypoints in immature hands is just waiting for disaster.

Finally Phlunt is the head of her ‘school’. If something with this device goes wrong then does not only Taimi suffers a lot, but the ‘school’ will suffer a lot as well. So to protect his ‘school’ Phlunt can’t take no risks since the device affect all the waypoints.

The argument that it is for the ‘greater good’ is in my opinion (I don’t know what the writers think) just something the PC has to say since Taimi is very pridefull and stuborn.

I made a legendary for the guarantueed best stats.

This sounds all interesting but I do have some questions:

“Do we have enough room to make this happen”. I mean from what I hear in the forums (I never have played GW1) in GW1 every class had around 200 skills and weapons with swapable skills. GW2 is far more restricting then that in skills and weapon choices. So do we have enough skills/traits/runes to make this happen while maintaining (viable) build diversity and class diversity?

“Does this playstyle depend on a lot of UI visibility?” I believe that for this kind of playstyle we need a lot more focus on our UI and right now UI is already strained in what information it gives. Is it wise to add a lot more focus on the UI while we also have too watch out for the tell of our enemy.

“Does the way CC/conditions interact not hinder this playstyle?” Right now stun/dazes/… overwrite each other and by giving some skills negative effects would it not mean that you can negate a powerfull enemy effect what a weaker of your own? The same applies to conditions and maybe even boons.

The trait is very strangely designed the idea lies that you are hit below 25% health which is unfortunaly not a good place to be as a necro. So it implies that is designed around the idea of being into DS but that doesn’t make sense either because either:
-you are stronger in DS, but why would you want to be hit? It just depletes your life force faster so you become weaker. Hell spamming life blast gives 15 seconds of 1 might traited so you get more might if you don’t get hit.
-you are weaker in DS, why would you want to be in DS? Damage migitation. But when the DS is empty you will still be at 25% health. So you hope to get a heal off cooldown which is better if your DS last longer.

In both cases getting hit is not a good idea, making the trait nearly useless.

Shiren.9532:

Trahearnes Wyld Hunt isn’t to killl Zhaitan, it’s to cleanse Orr. Obviously that hasn’t happened.

Actually he has started the ritual that will cleanse orr. It just takes time.

I know it isn’t usable for every situation but you can take a screenshot without the character by using emotes (I use sleep) before hiding the UI. It limits the angles you can take such pictures and sometimes you have to go naked (since you would see parts of the armor) but the characater is off screen. The attachments show some examples of such pictures.

Bhawb.7408:

Empower is a weapon skill, Transfusion is an adept trait.

I know that but as heals they are quite similar , so I thought they are a good point of comparison. If I were too compare adept traits I would be comparing soothing mist but that one is so different from transfusion that you can barely compare them.

Also Transfusion is base 2628 heal with 1.8 scaling, while Empower is 1500 with 1.0 scaling (according to wiki), so the difference is 192 HP per 40s with 100 healing power, wih empower losing out pretty quickly, having less healing once you have at least 340 healing power (again according to the wiki scaling).

transfusion in 40s: 2628 + 612 = 3240,
empower in 40s : 2*(1500 + 340) = 3640
You do realize that the scaling is also doubled? Therefore becoming 2.0?

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Transfusion is balanced because the necro doesn’t (normally) get healed by it. It’s a huge AoE heal and I’d much rather it didn’t get nerfed.

it’s a huge heal behind a huge cooldown, when you look at the numbers it’s not that great: it’s weaker then empower in every way.

I think for the armor kristof gave you is a good start. For the weapons, gw2 has no realistic weapon with a chain (we do have super mace, but is a holographic mace), so perhaps a normal one like the krytan mace or hero’s mace will suffice. For the shield vigil’s honor shield could be a good choice.

An interesting note about aed, the tooltip only shows poison, bleed , burn and torment. No confusion and no terror.

I think that not only Lion’s arch needs to be a server bound map , I think this needs to be done for all ‘city maps’ (divinity’s reach, Hoelbrak, …). Some guilds like to gather in such maps because sometimes Lion’s Arch is full.

What about the eye of Zhaitan? I thought it could see in a Sylvari’s dream.

Vexander.9850:

… in this Living Story it seems like we’re uniting the 5 Nations against the Elder Dragons now. Compare that to the three Orders, and I’d find the Pact to be woefully inferior.

The pact did unite all 5 nations. They got support from the high legions (Char tanks), created their airships using human, char and asuran technology, received an ancient relic of the Sylvari (Caladbolg) and let’s not even talk about support from various characters of all races who are not tied to orders.

That aside, I like Trahearne (besides his voice actor). He was a character that evolved from an unsure researcher to a confident commander. Agreed he was not the best fighter but his knowledge,spells and rituals have served the pact well. I would love seeing him in LS2.

What about ceremonial sabre? Isn’t that an elegant sword?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ceremonial_Sabre

I don’t mind after all it’s just an achievement and you’re not forced to take it. I would suggest to make it limitless so in the case that they reached a new threshold they don’t have to update the achievement.

I know it isn’t usable for every situation but you can take a screenshot without the character by using emotes (I use sleep) before hiding the UI. It limits the angles you can take such picture and sometimes you have to go naked (since you would see parts of the armor) but the chracater is off screen. The attachment shows an example of such picture.

I thought they were pieces of the wall near the skill point.

@Ohoni why do you think that all those pieces are reserved for engis? I made (in my opinion) some good lookig outfits with the clockwork shoulder piece for my mesmer and for my necromancer I used the spinal blades.

Why not demand that you can change your lvl at anytime like in final fantasy dissdia duodecim? I think this would be far more easier and flexible.

This is my theory on these isues:

Waypoints and ley lines
I think that waypoint needs to be place on ley lines (or close to them) so that the waypoints can drain magic from it to sustain themselves. The balance is very fragile though and can be easily disrupted. This in my opinion makes sense since waypoint are ellusive and therefore can’t be filled with magical power. So a waypoint on a bare spot will try to get magic from a waypoint on a good spot disrupting the balance and causing multiple nodes to fail.

Mordremeth and way points
I believe that Modremeth’s range of influence is limited: he cannot control an/or recognize beings under his command past a certain range. So he uses those leylines to send seeds through them which automatically attach to the first waypoint they pass. He then extends his network by using the grown vines to send the next batch of seeds to the next waypoint(s) in the line.The vines drain magic from the ley line they are sitting on and therefor cause the node to flicker since they drain magic from the ley line. These vines can send messages back to Mordremeth and are identified by the waypoint they are attached to. In this way Mordremeth can send his presence throughout Tyria with no problem. So Mordremoth is not draining the waypoints of magic rather he uses them as an anchor point for his seeds and as a way to locate his vines greographically.

@OP: Look at armageddon armor. It looks quite intimidating to me while being fully covered. Also about having to choose between male and female, I think there might be a problem. I think that they will haveto refit/redesign every armor skin in the game for that since the body types may be to different, which is in my opinion a gigantic task for a “problem” (it’s not that we don’t have options, some are just less frequent) that is rather easily solved (a “few” well chosen designs would do wonders).

The reason why celestial gear was time gated was not because excusivity or the closeness to ascended gear. It was time gated because it had the same critical damage as an exotic berserker piece plus magic find when it was introduced. Meaning it was the best exotic piece stat wise and loot wise (for exotic at least). To protect the markets they added a time gate and made the gear account bound. Due to the removal of magic find from gear and the introduction of ferocity it lost it’s best stat status.

With this in mind I have to say that the time gate for celestial is unnecessairy and should be removed.

I doubt that are two people (the saboteur and the assassin) since engineers tent to have load offensive skills (especially since Aerin uses bombs and greandes) unless he starts wacking people with a prybar or a wrench. So to escape for the soon to be exploding ship he need to be stealthy (or he might be exploded by his own bombs) hence the knife.

Even if there are two people the I doubt is Caithe since Caithe’s secret seems to be tied around the Pale tree and the Sylvari, not the zephyrites.

Make boons without range is not a good idea (balance in pvp, or consistency between pve and pvp). What would be better would be the introduction of more offensive debuffs (not to be mistaken for conditions).

Right now the balance is 9 offensive buffs (might, fury, spotter,frost spirit, empower allies, banners, venoms and quickness) versus 2 offensive debuffs (vulnerability and signet of vampirism).

Debuffs have the advantage of ignoring distance but they come at the price that they are linked to the enemy and not the allies. Perfect for ranged characters to give and receive.

What if thriving waypoints (waypoints that don’t erode) are waypoints that are on ley lines so that they can draw magic from them? Mordremeth then uses those leylines to send seeds through them which automatically attach to the first waypoint they pass. He then extends his network by using the grown vines to send the next batch of seeds to the next waypoint(s) in the line. The vines can send messages back to Mordremeth and are identified by the waypoint they are attached to. In this way Mordremeth can send his presence throughout Tyria with no problem.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Carighan.6758:

Also it’d further promote Toughness as the sole defensive stat and devalue Vitality even more.
Healing Power also but it really doesn’t matter any more whether you make that any weaker.

Well looking at things I could actually see healing power as a mitigation to most conditions… I would like to amend this to the discussion

-Regarding healing power for mitigation of condition dmg. :

It would fit the bill,
healing power vs bleeding, poisoning, burning, confusion, fears, terror, weakness, vunerability and so on… But I think it should be a scaling system based on reduction of damage based on the healing power points, keeping in mind I got my clerics guardian up to 2100 healing power… without sigil of life….

Also should mitigation be besed around duration reduction OR damage reduction.

I have to disagree.

Conditions are meant to be a weak, secure stream of damage. Cleanses and -X% duration stretches that concept already. The only guarantue you have left is that if you have X stacks on your foe then you know you will deal Y damage. Making healing power reduce that damage will kill that idea.

Also making healing power reduce duration is stupid since we can already have -65% in wvw and 25% in pvp from other sources.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

I just don’t understand why conditions have conditions cap at 25, seems awfully arbitrary. Problem is the further they go along without fixing how conditions are handled, the bigger job they have for making sure they’re balanced across the game. Perhaps add some kind of diminishing return past a certain stack number (25?) or nerfed durations vs boss monsters, but just plain hard capping at 25 is obviously the wrong way to do it. It renders condition builds almost useless, if not detrimental to world content.

It’s a technical limit. Most people think that the cap is a balance tool which it is not.

Bombsaway.7198:

Why not. . . .

Any damage that is “negated” on account of condition stack caps is immediately converted to physical damage (with all the reductions possible due to armor)?

This applies to 1 second of the damage (per condition which was negated due to stack limits) versus adding ALL the damage over time.

You can adjust the formula to get the right balance.

That doesn’t solve anything since it will still be a dps decrease. What conditions need is to fully apply their full damage even with multiple sources of the damage.

interesting fact folks elixir C has 40 second cooldown, which makes it the full cleanse with the second shortest cooldown (the first is consume conditions).

RedStar.4218:

“They” is Anet.

but that is interview lore and therefore lower then game lore.

Eluveitie.1290

:What we know about Steam Creatures is that they were invented by the PC in an alternate future, according to the PS. We could’ve based those designs on Scarlet’s remnants or taken as inspiration or imitation when they were found.

I don’t see the contradiction.

Those were stated steam creatures and steam creatures are invented by Scarlet before 1325. The ‘future PC’ stated that steam Creatures weren’t invented yet in 1325. Taken as inspiration would mean that they would have an other name. And improving is also ridicolous because then we invented the dagger because we can make an ascended version.

Eluveitie.1290

Edit: And as RedStar mentioned, it’s based on conjectures and opinions, it’s not a stated fact.

Then we might as well have no lore at all, because any ‘stated fact’ is based on the conjecture that the source is correct.

RedStar.4218:

Allow me : Whoever in the personal story stated that didn’t know the real truth. He thought it was true but in fact it wasn’t. (it’s the excuse they used for nearly every time the game contradicted something).

You main a possible future version of the main character who had already seen a steam minotaur in the year 1325AE? Btw who is this ‘they’ ingame? Ingame lore is supreme after all.

How can ingame lore be supreme when in-game lore contradicts itself? Look at the steam creatures. The asura personal story states that the steam creature technology wasn’t invented yet in 1325 AE but the hologram clearly says so, which is right?

It may be a coincidence but but the camp has a waypoint nearby (meaning right next to it) and on 0:22 you don’t see any other vines in the entire area. So maybe Mordremoth sended vines through the waypoint which makes distance irrelevant.

It may be a coincidence but but the camp has a waypoint nearby (meaning right next to it) and on 0:22 you don’t see any other vines in the entire area. So maybe Mordremoth sended vines through the waypoint which makes distance irrelevant.

I think 3 is the best (duh) but 2 will probably be the most balanced while becoming more usefull.

1 will in my opinion not change much since people would just wait for the stability to leave, you could flash death shroud (DS in, DS out in a ver short frame) for 100% stability uptime but you sacrificed your only migitation tool.

2 on the other hand will allow the necro to use deatshroud far better against stuns since they don’t have to anticipate the stun. It has the theoritically lowest cooldown for stunbreaker but again the necro either extends his cooldown or scrifices it’s only migitation tool.

3 would be a tad too strong, necro are supposed to be weak so maybe just 4 seconds.

Also remember the 6 second cooldown for DS is only due a master trait so even if necromancers take this combo they sacrifice our 50% fear duration.

I don’t get how removing the cap would make it unfair. I mean if two thiefs use backstab on you, you get double damage and that’s it. No damage reduction, no nothing. What would make it different if two condition players starts focussing you? Why do they deserve damage reduction while power builds don’t?

Because toughness/armor reduces power damage? Take a cleanse, or even better take -X% condition duration.

because after a cleanse it wouls be reapplied immediately? So after whatever damage migitation for power you will be attacked again by power builds and receive damage. Still no difference.

I like the idea and I can see how it could help the condition cap problem.

The “0 condition damage problem” can be easily be solved easily by making a hidden condition specific base damage (at lvl 80: bleeding 850, burning 1312, confusion 867, poison 840, torment 850) which is added to the the condition damage before the data is send to server.

Also the table needs to be at least be 120 ticks long ((http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tooth_Stab) Tooth stab combined with 100% bleed duration).

But I do have one question though:
How is event participation going to work? After all the damage is lost in the pool so how do we know if the player participated enough for bronze/silver/gold?

1 pretty much it.
2. there is reliable support as long as it is offensive. Might/fury/empower allies/ frost spirit/spotter/.. are all appreciated.
3. Actually that title is for elementalists. Their 100% party fury uptime, high party might stacking, frost bow and fiery greatsword make them the best class for group content. Warriors are just have best risk/reward ratio.
4. For group content conditions aren’t viable, for solo you can do but you will be slower then zerker which is natural.
5. pretty much so.

Liewec.2896:

that 10k physical becomes far less after armour and defence are taken in to account.
as a bunker that 10k will hit you for around 50% less and thats just from passive toughness.

please show me where I can get around extra 1804 toughness in a build. That’s needed to halve a physical attack in a light armor class from passive toughness.

Liewec.2896:

while the condition damage will always be 10k regardless of what armour, defence, protection and other damage mitigation you have.

Unless the player uses a cleanse and/or equips -condition duration.

plus the condition spam will most likely reduce that 5k heal to a 3350 since there are very few times when poison isn’t mindlessly spammed all over the place.

This has nothing do the with the difference between conditions and power since power builds can easily take up poison as well.

DeceiverX.8361:

The problem is that it isn’t comparable damage. The DoT effects from condis are usually higher than the skills that cast them or comparable skills.

I.E., my condi thief can deal 30k-40k damage from relative safety every few seconds while my stab thief can deal around 20-30k damage on the same rotation, assuming the target is built squishier, meaning those figures can go as low as 15k for the whole combo.

Meanwhile the condi build is running almost four times the effective health, and that damage can’t be mitigated by counterplay or other stats (so you’re consistent and don’t need to get good at picking fights) except from the odd block or removal for the first few hits.

The damage throughput for the amount of removal available is just too high. This is why either ticks need to be affected by a stat (not so good for PvE/would make builds much more linear), or healing skills should affect the DoT ones, and the DoT ones could be slightly buffed per tick to compensate, also appealing to PvE players.

First please show some sort of proof when you claim something, otherwise we can make up anything we want.

Secondly, it does not change a point to the fact that the damage is the same and should be treated a such. The only thing you highlighted was the difference in skills/builds. Then you need to look at the skills/builds and not conditions in general.

DeceiverX.8361:

It’s not. That’s my whole point. What I’m saying is that because application is so easy (in the sense that there is nothing special one has to do to get conditions stacked on his enemy), just healing from the damage taken from the start of combat to when you have healed is not enough, because conditions last through healing unless either those healing skills have a cleanse built into them, or people have traited for cleansing.

So a direct damage character hits you, and you heal off the damage taken and can re-engage the fight without worrying about bomb damage and cooldowns.

A condition damage character hits you, and you not only need to heal from the DoT’s, but also need to cleanse conditions to remove them to prevent taking damage beyond your healing skill.

I don’t see the point. If someone hits you for 10K in power and you heal 5K isn’t that the same as receiving 10K in conditions and heal 5K whalfway and while still receiving 5K from the resting ticks?

RyuDragnier.9476:

Somebody explained the thing that I think could fix this problem. Make it so criticals can work with conditions. There, you’ve added a new layer to this whole thing because then you can see ticks of bleeding, poison, torment, etc have random moments where it does double damage or something like that. It also opens the doors for new builds, and makes it so conditions can be effected by both ferocity and precision.

And what would this fix? The dps would still be lower then zerker while still needing 4 stats (plus whatever defense you need due to DoT) which gear can’t offer. You would be as glassy as zerker, do lower dps in peak performance and lose even more dps due the damage over time nature. It would be a great buff to rabid gear users but it would fix nothing.

Liewec.2896:

remove condi caps (allow multiple people to burn the same target, no 25 bleed cap etc)
but make it effected by damage reduction effects like toughness, protection, armour etc.

this would benefit everyone, people would finally be able to use condis in wvw and pve where the caps have previously made it a bad choice,
and in Spvp we might finally get to see something other than burning, bleeding and poison on the death breakdown!

edit, poison would still need a cap on the healing reduction, but the damage could still stack.

First of all caps are not a balance decision just a technical necaissity.

Also making conditions be reduced by toughness would be a bad idea since not only would vitality lose all meaning as a stat (toughness is better in every way), it would make toughness the best stat in the game. Also it would be logical to assume that damage boosters would affect condition damage (could be fun with traits like close to death and target the weak).

In PvE nothing would change since conditions would still be the lower dps choice, with dot as an extra demotivator. In WvW conditions would still be useless due to the massive amount of aoe cleansing. And in Spvp is it only logical that bleeding , burning and poison be at the top since those are the damage of all condition skills combined are used while the direct damage is spread over different moves.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I think the way to fix this, as I put in another thread, is to just make it so conditions can do critical damage. Say bleeding ticks twice on a target, both times would have a chance of doing critical damage, increasing the amount of damage that tick does. This also changes it so both Power and Condition Damage both require precision and ferocity for full power, and brings up condition builds to the level of power builds.

And what would this fix? The dps would still be lower then zerker while still needing 4 stats (plus whatever defense you need due to DoT) which gear can’t offer. You would be as glassy as zerker, do lower dps in peak performance and lose even more dps due the damage over time nature. It would be a great buff to rabid gear users but it would fix nothing.