Guild Wars 2

With runes of the warrior, every profession can activate on-swap sigils on cooldown. Not advocating Rune of the Warrior however.

Yeah that’s what I was eluding to in my ‘exception’ paragraph, but perhaps I worded it poorly. The fact that some people don’t even have some of the higher level zones unlocked yet leads me to believe that they will leave the Collections part active as long as Grawnk Munch has been completed in time. I had a few guild members that were completely oblivious to the quest and the value of the Star of Gratitude (we run a lot of dungeons) that just started the just Friday night so I hope any of them that aren’t able to log in for our JP tour tonight aren’t kept from finishing this. The whole Collections system is designed to be leisurely and in due time anyway so I don’t they’ll break that mold with this one tbh.

The quest itself is labeled in the ‘Festival’ category. Take one look to the bottom of the list and you’ll notice a category called ‘Historical’. Every single seasonal/festival/limited time event is locked away in this category and now unachievable and it was this way since launch. Given these two pieces of information, I think it’s safe to say this isn’t going to be around forever.

*Exception: One thing the did in a recent festival list that surprised me was that they reused a previous list and just added new achievements. This idea might hint that it could be obtainable next year, but I still believe it is only seasonal. (With the addition of LS S1 rewards to the Laurel vendor, as well as a few other examples (Mini Thorn for WAY cheap), it appears that they back peddled a bit on the originally anticipated exclusivity of ‘meta rewards’ and decided that they would still like people to be able to obtain these things in the future somehow. That’s another thing to consider.

Look into the mini-dungeons. Also, you could just do the JP for her instead of Porting with a Mesmer. Since the option was mentioned, I’ll assume pride isn’t an issue. Unless ‘your wife’ really means ‘you’…

If it hasn’t been said already, Soul binding is a gold/material sink. Ascended/Legendary gear can get away with Account bound b/c they are such huge gold/material sinks in and of themselves.

/thread

Solstice.1097:

i have had that happen w/engis before. not eles.

Pretty much the opposite happens all the time in dungeons. If an ally gets downed from conditions in the middle of a movement skill or dodge roll, you will try to rez them to no avail. I would agree with the ‘body tracking’ bug theory.

@OP: Also if you didn’t know already, you can complete the Grawnk quest rather easily and skip Bell Choir completely if you’d like to. So there are options or, at least, an alternative.

TPMN.1483:

For those thinking of running Mesmer staff in dungeons also check out : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Staff-in-dungeons/first#post4634169

The conclusion is that staff is great for open world but there are many better choices when in a dungeon scenario.

The problem is after 2 years many people will understand what is more optimal have a better idea how to get dungeons done quickly and expect similarly ideas of people.

This then becomes a exp run vs a play how I want run.
The longer the content is in place the higher the expectation that people will play as experienced and will lean towards a more optimal setup through trial and error or experience. (You are more likely to remain in groups if you are flexible and try the more optimal setups – even if you’re struggling to understand the build initially).

The runs with low level characters or inexperienced players where it goes fine (eg 15-30 mins) as opposed to (~9mins) is where the difference comes in.

It is really difficult to know which camp people are in (PHIW or EXP or META only) unless you join a guild with a similar style.

If they made their own LFG as an ‘anyone welcome’ group though, that is unacceptable behavior. This is the exact same problem meta-dungeoneers face and detest. S/he shares our same pain. Saying ‘find something more optimal’ really isn’t a good answer if the original intention was to group with like-minded individuals as we have stated MANY times as the solution to LFG problems.

Croc.5129:

oxtred.7658:

A guy in tanky gear doesn’t have to dodge> It’s a dps gain over dodging> your suggestion is already implemented

No it isn’t. If it were, that would be another imbalance entirely. There has to be mechanics put in place to have the player actively take advantage of their sturdier character in order to deal equivelant damage in a scenario where they are expected to go toe to toe with the enemy.

As it is now, enemy attacks on the whole are not dangerous enough to make someone in offensive gear back off for a significant enough amount of time that the extra defense would even things out. Plus, that would be very annoying for the offensively geared person if it were implemented that way.

I would love to make a compilation of every enemy in the game that can one shot a berserker geared player for you, but it would would take too long. Zerkers are already punished plenty for misusing active defenses. It’s hard to notice sometimes b/c they are very powerful and timing is easy once you’ve learned enemy mechanics. To say that enemies don’t do enough damage to is just wrong though. There are even enemies who will one or two shot a fully defensive spec for that matter.

Anet likes their ‘metrics’. If there wasn’t GEAR diversity at all, like is claimed, then perhaps they might make some changes. The fact that there appears to be no shortage of players running around in non-DPS gear sets (just look at all the “die zerker’s!!!”, “boo to the zerker meta!!”, etc threads that appear) would suggest that there is am rather vast community of non-meta players in the game. Perhaps the significant difference is the meta players have learned and taken initiative to group with like-minded players while the anti-meta crowd just kitten and moan and expect Anet to police the game and solve their PERCIEVED ‘problems’ for them. Maybe you guys should all band together and develope consistency among yourselves. Or…you could play a little bit of devil’s advocate and wear nothing but berserker gear, PROVING that NO OTHER gear is useful or desired.

Creating unsubstantiated threads rapid fire on the forums will ‘solve’ nothing though. These threads aren’t some novel, new thing. They’ve been droning on for almost two years now and have yet to make a point that isn’t derived from emotions or anecdotes.

Raine.1394:

Wethospu.6437:

Raine.1394:

—
But, let’s play. Have you caught me being ‘not right’ and therefore ‘dumb’? Let’s discuss this; I think it should be fun. Don’t say it, show it.

If this was a game all your posts would suddenly make sense.

Harper.4173:

You guys do realize you’re so far off mark with the discussion now it’s not even in the same galaxy.

The math doesn’t matter. It’s human nature to find the best way to do something. It’s also human nature to want to find that and use it as much as they can when they do find it.

In order to give some justification for my posts I will claim that I partially tried to remind everyone that “best” a.k.a “optimal solution” is subjective.

i love what you find on webster’s for ‘subjective’: ‘based on feelings or opinions rather than facts.’

Weth, are you saying that you have come to your personal build(s), the one(s) you use for top of the game content, through your feelings and opinions? Have any facts ever intruded themselves?

I think he meant ‘situational’ in this context, but ‘subjective’ would be accurate as well. There are several meta builds that sacrifice pure optimal DPS because the utility they bring to the table ‘feels’ to be a better trade-off regarding their role as the most efficient, general dungeon spec. Although most meta dungeoneers will slightly alter the builds depending on given encounters.

Do you have a brother/sister/wife/son that you can bribe and have them do it for you while you take a nap? That seemed to work for a few others.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Azure.8670:

ascended trinkets are absolutely kittenedly absurd to obtain so yes jeweling needs to happen

Laurels arent hard to get, and you only need to spend 25 for an amulet. Quit being lazy. You only need 10 pristine fractal relics for rings, and most players are lucky enough to drop at least 1 by then. Quit being lazy. Accessories you can get by running guild missions, which takes at most 3 weeks and 1 day. Quit. Being. Lazy. It takes ONE MONTH. To accumulate ascended trinkets. That aint absurd.

And how about if you have 8 lvl 80s? 10 80s? 13 80s? 15 80s? 20 80s? Your assumptions and conclusions are both silly. Telling people to ‘quit being lazy’ when you’re ignorant of what their constraints/intentions are is pretty silly as well. Also note that laurels are spent for things other than just jewelry, ie. Ascended crafting.

Astral Projections.7320:

Black Frog.9274:

I don’t think there are ascended earrings anywhere yet, so that would be one definite thing for Jewelry 500 to do.

For food, I imagine either 3rd minor buffs per food, unusual or coveted stat combinations (similar to the toxic utilities), or extended durations (similar to the Potent Master Maintenance Oil).

Actually there are ascended earrings. For some reason they are called accessories, not earrings. /shrug. They can be bought from a Laurel merchant for 40 laurels and 50 ectos or from a Guild Commendation Trader for 5 gold and 12 Guild Commendations.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_ascended_trinkets#Accessories

They called accessories because that’s what their slot is labeled as and includes things such as books, spoons, frogs in a jar, flowers, and other strange things. Calling it the earring slot wouldn’t really be accurate.

I do really think it’d be awesome to have a legendary amulet that consolidates the stats of all 5 pieces of jewelry and has selectable stats. Seeing that jewelry makes up the bulk of stats, this would be a great step toward easier build swapping and would drastically reduce wasted inventory space just to carry multiple sets. Having a power set and a condi set takes up almost an entire 20 slot bag. It would also make it more useful as an account wide piece of equipment.

Yes. Sigils affect all skills. This also includes utility skills. Transformation Elites have some exceptions though, I believe.

Windsagio.1340:

TPMN.1483:

Once you experience smooth nice runs – you’ll never turn back and realise this is how the game was meant to be played and can really enjoy the content.

Funny thing on this;

Kind of on a whim, last night I joined a level 1 fractal that advertised for novices. I wanted to help (if I could without being overwhelming) and I wanted to try something different off, and used my sinister Necro (Usually for fractals it’s guardian or ele). 32-3 of the players had never done fractals before.

We got;
Uncategorized,
Cliffside,
Volcanic,
Mai trin.

Given the scenario and our weird makeup, the run went shockingly smoothly.

Even on Mai, where at least 1 person had never done the fight before, we had nobody die in the main phase and a total of 2 people go down in the cannon-fire.

The main problem in the entire run was that our guardian had this difficulty learning that he should put down the hammer before the stacks get to 40 (which was more funny than sad).

Maybe they were secretly super skilled players who had just avoided fractals, and maybe fractal 1 is the easiest content in the game when you know the rules, but given that a random run going decidedly non-meta with random pickup players went totally smoothely with no wipes, I dunno it says something.

Probably about specifying others playstyle isn’t required for a smooth run :p

The fact that your smooth, anecdotal run seems to surprise and amaze you may ‘say something’ as well. Guess how often meta dungeon runners are surprised that they had a smooth run? Uhm…never…because that’s the point of the dungeon meta. Mmkay thanx.

Windsagio.1340:

spoj.9672:

Its still more risk than going for passive defence. How do you not see that? o_o

So the risk vs reward is working correctly. But the max risk isnt high enough. Thats true. But thats nothing to do with the meta.

The kill speed discussion is relevant though, if killing faster is less margin for error, killing faster under black powder is even less.

Goes back to the quesiton too, why is it so important that it be harder? Is this some kind of ‘I can do it the hard way’ contest?

If it’s easier it has more reason to be meta :p

No it’s not for bragging rights…

Fast clears=fun+more loot
PHIW clears=/=fastest
PHIW clears=/=fun+most loot
Easy=irrelevant

Try a full dungeon tour with a PHIW PuG someday. The notion that it’s only a 2 min difference is grossly exaggerated.

Archaon.9524:

Tman.6349:

Would the truly skilled playing more matches be an option?

Skill =/= Farming

Not even close

I didn’t say or imply that at all.

Not even close.

Filaha.1678:

Leo G.4501:

Ranael.6423:

Filaha.1678:

They should just remove stats from gear and traits entirely or make everything Celestial.

Then everything comes down to your own skill and what skills you bring along with you.

No more “Must be zerker”! Now it’s “Must be good”!

I understand that you are (at least half) joking but gear stats are meant to be the difficulty level of the game and by putting all celestial you average everyone on the same level which creates difficulty walls for less skilled players and boredom to the best ones.
Also the rewards spectrum would become narrower because time of completion of any content would be normalized around the same value ( outliers would still exist but would be closer to average).

I really dislike this mentality.

In what games do you play where the difficulty setting of the game makes “easy” the “everything dies really slow an so do you” and the “hard” setting “everything dies fast so I’d doesn’t matter if you do or not”?

Back in my days, hard mode meant you could die at the drop of a hat and the enemies took more to kill.

Our maybe people are just relating this to gw2 inappropriately.

Actually, I can’t remember the game right now, but there was at least one RPG I’ve played where setting it to hard meant that both you and monsters did more damage to each other, and setting it to easy meant you did less to each other.

Basically, higher risk for faster fights, or lower risk but longer battles.

That’s every game. That’s the reason games have endgame gear specifically for hard content. Leo seems to be under the impression the zerkers just run up to mobs and press 1 and they all explode. That’s hardly the case. If it was, why wouldn’t everyone just throw on some zerker’s and face roll the whole game and then make threads about how the game is too easy instead of anti-meta threads?

Windsagio.1340:

Tman.6349:

How are you annoyed by feeling excluded from a group that you’re adamantly (by choice) not a part of? Sounds like a strange mishmesh of /feels to me. Put on your big boy pants, choose which play style you prefer and then run out into the world and be a part of that group. What’s stopping you from accomplishing these things? From what I understand, the only positive/new thing to come of this thread is that there is a new PHIW guild in the works that you can join. The last half of your post didn’t quite make any sense though. You say ‘they’ and ‘they’ like you’re in some "super-sekrit’ third group. Like I said earlier, quit being vague and coy, make a decision about what you want out of the game and then pursue whatever it is that you come up with. If you’re looking for happiness outside of yourself, you will fail. If you look outside of yourself to find the root of your unhappiness, you will fail. If you can offer anything tangible regarding my earlier few questions, I’m sure we’d all be delighted to hear.

Well I’m not annoyed per se, I’d hope my posts in this would be clear enough that I think /meta is a waste of time. I’m in this thread for that reason. The ‘meta’ doesn’t need to die, it’s just a silly bit of fluffery, and I’m hoping to spread that message.

Plenty of people DO legitimately get mad though, as the OP shows.

Now if we could just have this same understanding with everyone, then threads like this wouldn’t go on for 16 pages at a time. Too many people confuse their /feels with objective facts though. So here we are on clone #3147 of the exact same thread. O.o

Windsagio.1340:

Tman.6349:

I love the idea of people claiming that they hate the meta zerkers and avoid them at all costs and then turn around and try to speak of their tactics and ability, as if they were experts on the subject, in the same breath. O.o It’s so obviously just some kind of irrational, deep seated hatred that causes them spout off with silly things like stacking in corners for everything and not using reflects outside of karka. I understand being a counter culture hipster and all but what does how other people play have to do with you?

And no, the game wasn’t ‘designed for berserker’. The game was designed independent of gear and then berserker’s rose to the top as the most efficient in tandem with active defenses.

I still haven’t got any answers to my questions earlier about ‘what is the ultimate goal of this thread?’, ‘what would be some practical solutions to achieving that goal?’, and ‘what part of the current system has such a negative impact on your gaming experience and how/why do you not have the power to take control and change these things on your own without Dev intervention?’. Anyone care to honestly answer these simple questions? Insisting that there is a problem that needs drastic attention while being vague and coy about the what’s and how’s of the matter is not a way to have a meaningful exchange.

That’s a convenient position to take, but experience tells. I’m not one to doubt the super-sekrit elite groups, but we have to understand what’s behind the whole conflict on both sides.

The essence comes down to pseudo-elitism on the one side and annoyance at being excluded on the other.

The people doing excluding in pugs are ridiculous, because, seriously in most things you’d want to pug zerk gear doesn’t matter in any meaningful way,

The other people are just as silly though for demanding to be included.

For the latter group: most groups don’t advert zerk these days, and let them isolate themselves. Everyone wins, and them being dumb doesn’t actually hurt you.

~~~

There’s not much reason to get hung up on it conceptually, but also no reason to buy into their position.

How are you annoyed by feeling excluded from a group that you’re adamantly (by choice) not a part of? Sounds like a strange mishmesh of /feels to me. Put on your big boy pants, choose which play style you prefer and then run out into the world and be a part of that group. What’s stopping you from accomplishing these things? From what I understand, the only positive/new thing to come of this thread is that there is a new PHIW guild in the works that you can join. The last half of your post didn’t quite make any sense though. You say ‘they’ and ‘they’ like you’re in some "super-sekrit’ third group. Like I said earlier, quit being vague and coy, make a decision about what you want out of the game and then pursue whatever it is that you come up with. If you’re looking for happiness outside of yourself, you will fail. If you look outside of yourself to find the root of your unhappiness, you will fail. If you can offer anything tangible regarding my earlier few questions, I’m sure we’d all be delighted to hear.

Would the truly skilled playing more matches be an option?

That is a useless response but thank you for taking the time to type sweeping assertions.

I hate having to swap around my entire build every time this map pops up. Death match and point control are entirely different things. One or two quick load outs would be nice if the want to have a mash up of strategies in the map rotation imo.

I love the idea of people claiming that they hate the meta zerkers and avoid them at all costs and then turn around and try to speak of their tactics and ability, as if they were experts on the subject, in the same breath. O.o It’s so obviously just some kind of irrational, deep seated hatred that causes them spout off with silly things like stacking in corners for everything and not using reflects outside of karka. I understand being a counter culture hipster and all but what does how other people play have to do with you?

And no, the game wasn’t ‘designed for berserker’. The game was designed independent of gear and then berserker’s rose to the top as the most efficient in tandem with active defenses.

I still haven’t got any answers to my questions earlier about ‘what is the ultimate goal of this thread?’, ‘what would be some practical solutions to achieving that goal?’, and ‘what part of the current system has such a negative impact on your gaming experience and how/why do you not have the power to take control and change these things on your own without Dev intervention?’. Anyone care to honestly answer these simple questions? Insisting that there is a problem that needs drastic attention while being vague and coy about the what’s and how’s of the matter is not a way to have a meaningful exchange.

-“PHIW dungeon runs are impossible to find an LFG for and it’s all because of these toxic, elitist zekers!!”
-“Wtf? These toxic, elitist zerkers kicked me out of another ‘zerker only’ dungeon run only because I’m running my PHIW build that, apparently, isn’t good enough for these kittens!!”

This is the apitome of circular logic. The fact that dozens of people echo this sentiment is only sad. If 5 of the QQers would just make their own lfg, then the other 20 could join their group and they would accomplish 5 dungeon runs to their liking. Heck, it might even open up the opportunity for the ‘up and coming’ PHIW dungeoneers to get into a group to learn w/o feeling overwhelmed or excluded. You are your own worst enemy. Not us. We resorted to the responsible method of finding like minded players long ago. I don’t know how that didn’t catch on for everyone. Or is that notion considered ‘meta strategy’ and must be adamantly opposed as well?

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

Leo. G. what you propose for reflects is not a good idea. Karka will rip whatever classes that can combat them to shreds even more than already happens now. Reflect AFAIK, isn’t really used that much other than to fight karka and a few other select mobs.

Getting hit by one spit shot out of all its 6-10 hits is like 2000-4000 damage even in most defensive gear. Making reflect like you have it on your post will kill anyone as the karka will only get reflected back one and the rest will go through doing 16000+ damage total killing any player unwary.

Same with dodges, you will get hit at least twice with the two dodges as is if timed poorly. One dodge not enough for that deadly area.

I fight karka. I farm Karka. I know what I’m talking about.

When you say both of these things in the same post, people won’t take you serious.
BTW, Leo is completely oblivious to the fact that there is PvP in this game.

Duke Nukem.6783:

i do every piece of content in this game and i spit fire at any1 asking if we are zerkers and i find i attract the people who feel the same way, just stand up for what you want in life

Nobody in the ‘zerker community’ has stated that you can’t do “every piece of content in this game” with a different gear setup. In fact, we’ve emphatically stated the opposite. We just find it sub par and silly for PvE. That is all. The virulent ‘anti-meta’ hate I find quite interesting though when I hear about how ‘toxic’ these ‘elitist’ players are.

You know what a REBEL without a cause is?

….just a really annoying person….

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Duke Nukem.6783:

i do every piece of content in this game and i spit fire at any1 asking if we are zerkers and i find i attract the people who feel the same way, just stand up for what you want in life

Fight for mediocrity! Hoorah!

“For Narnia!!!”

Why is it so hard for people to understand that Anet designed gear stats to be independent of skill function to support their vision of GW2s active combat system? Gear is not meant to define you within a group. It is a personal, passive offensive/defensive sliding scaler. It is nothing else. Story over. The end.

Substance E.4852:

IndigoSundown.5419:

So, all of you complaining “no tank” and “no healer” and no diversity." What stops you? Why don’t you use Wooden Spuds 21k heal in 15 seconds Ele build? Why not use his tanky warrior build or any number of bunker builds? They’re viable. You could even combine them and get three DPS for a trinity party.

The diversity is there in GW2. It may not be the one clear best approach, but it’s there — just like diversity exists in trinity games — except in the meta, where there’s one build per class per role that’s accepted. Even within the GW2 meta, there’s room for more than one build per profession, which is more than I can say of traditional MMO meta strategies.

Because people want content that requires different builds? Trinity is the meta in games like WoW or FF14 because you absolutely need to have tanks and healers along with your dps or you will fail 100% of the time.

It’s not a case of “oh well lets bring this because we’ll beat the raid the fastest” it’s a case of “oh well lets bring this because we don’t like to wipe over and over and over…”
Any diversity in other MMO’s comes in the form of multiple classes filling a single role. The best games balance well enough that they either perform equally in different ways or bring different benefits to the team. Most just end up failing at balance and you end up with the optimal party comp and the rest fall by the wayside.

People want to bring tanks and healers and feel like they are actually helping, not gimping their team for the sake of “diversity”.

It’s fine that they feel that way. That’s what they’re used to. (Funny they scream “we need diversity”, yet want to completely hijack the ‘same old roles’ they were playing in other games though. O.o) The problem is, GW2 doesn’t cater to those things at all. There is no tank with an aggro system to compliment them and everyone has their own heals and damage mitigation. So, why would they be ‘helping’ in this game design? They might in like minded groups but Anet isn’t going to pander to this crowd. That’d be like me saying, "I want to roleplay a thief who lost his arm in a war and can only wield an offhand and still feel like I’m helping. Nonsense right? Because it’s immediately obvious that I’m not playing to my full potential or for the overall benefit of others. So how is an Ele spamming water fields, while their group has been using active defenses and not taking any damage anyway, OK in this mindset? It isn’t. It’s selfish drivel that forces other people to play in a way that they would rather not. This is the exact same accusation that’s coming from the other side of the fence. The difference is, one of the stubborn sides is willing to accept this and looks for others like them to play content. The other stubborn side insist that they should invoke the almighty ‘I want’ and have their play style forced on others. You seeing the problem yet?

Incoming: 3/3/3/3/2 Celestial meta with a mishmash of runes/sigils/utilities…

The game was not intended to be anything like that. If it was, the would have missed the mark by a mile and, surely, would have completely overhauled the entire system before two years. You described trinity roles/games perfectly.

Stats (passive) affecting the quality/potency of ACTIVE defense mechanics is a silly notion. Why in the world would someone who’s already stacked tons of personal, passive damage mitigation stats need/deserve access to more effective active defenses as well? (Remember, there are no ‘tanks’ with an aggro system to support them.) This idea would only do one of two things a) force people into trinity roles or b)encourage completely homogeneous group/build comps. (Maybe a slight variation in between.)

How would this effect the balance of other game modes, ie. PvP/WvW? It would be an absolute mess to change to a system like this outside of very organized groups.

What is the actual point to this thread? What is the end goal? How do you guys hope to achieve this goal? What are the problems with the current system that are out of your power to control/change about your gaming experiences? How does this ‘problem’ personally effect your experience? Are there any solutions outside of radically changing the foundations of the game that could solve this, ie. Community awareness, mentor ships, tutorials, Dev explanations, etc)?

Enaretos.8079:

Tao.5096:

Point was that a heavy amount of majority does that.
As I understand that Environment given by developer is supposed to be used to your advantage, it still doesn’t change the fact that every boss in every path in every dungeon is done the same way – stack, might, lure, dps, next one -> repeat.
And that should have been changed long time ago.

Bad players will range in random gear with PHIW builds.
Average player will attempt to use meta builds and will LoS, etc… as it’s easier.
Good players are extremely bored atm and will either :
- devise new tactics
- yolo the encounter
- low-man their dungeon tour

How could you forget drunk dungeon tours!?!

I’ve had this same problem, yes. Refreshes about twice per second when it really gets bad. That’s the point I just post my own and try not to have a seizure. :/

B/c people like running other things for point control reasons in pvp I guess would be a reason. The AoE of Daggers and staff would be another reason. The ‘no-target’ nature of dagger’s blast finishers makes it easier to frontload the damage even if it makes less during an extended fight. The high survive and damage from the meta dagger build makes taking a ranged and more defensive oriented option redundant to some. Are these enough or do I need to go further? None of these things make S/x “not ‘viable’”. (Viable=/=optimal for any given situation.)

This is just a thinly veiled ‘Nerf Cel D/D’ thread and makes it hard to take serious tbh. Scepter has MUCH better built in survival with the range and defensive skills that cover two of Ele’s major weaknesses. This is made even more so when paired with a focus. It can also stack Might very well. A well played S/F Ele is truly menacing and can hardly be considered “not ‘viable’”.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I play a ranger (fairly recently) and the problem is, if you are not “allowed” to use skill 4 on LB, well, there’s damage you can’t do AT ALL because it’s a skill you take out and then you’re waiting for other stuff on CD. That’s like saying “well warriors your hundred blades is annoying so don’t use it. Just stand there and wait for skills WE LIKE are off cool down. Hey if you get killed in the meantime, we don’t really care as long as we’re happy”.

Kind of ridiculous no? You can ask ANet to change it, but then, 8 months into the trait system FIASCO and that hasn’t changed, so good luck.

If you’re worried about doing damage AT ALL you should be outside of 900 range anyway where PBS can’t connect and where your auto attack does it’s maximum damage (+1000 units; more damage than PBS anyway). So..uhm..no.

My elegant solution that will (should*exception:those using to troll) involves a redesign of the skill that would a) make more sense thematically, b)be a rather cool animation, c) improve the skill’s value/function while maintaining balance, and d) solve issues with spamming/abuse…

Point Blank Shot <1/2 second cast> <20 second cooldown>

Fire a quick shot toward the ground knocking your foe back and
sending you into an evasive roll backward. The closer to you, the
more powerful the impact/effect.

Effect at less than 300 range: 150 knockback, 500 roll backward. Dmg: 502
Effect between 300-600 range: 100 knockback, 400 roll backward. Dmg: 446
Effect between 600-900 range: 50 knockback, 300 roll backward. Dmg: 391

Evade: 1/2 second
Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
Range: 900

*changed the damage to be the opposite of Long Range Shot’s function made sense

• added an evade frame to improve effectiveness when under melee+ranged pressure
  *added a bit to the cooldown to balance the skill, keep it in line with utility skill cooldowns of other weapons, and promote more active/responsible use
  *slightly altered the gap created at melee and max ranges to better fit the skill’s function
  *made the whole world happy and got high-fives on the forums for my brilliance
  *slightly exaggerated my last point to welcome ideas/suggestions/number tweaks

Anything within melee 600ish range, Necro is very strong against. Outside of that Necros can have a really tough time. This is one of the reasons Necros are great a defending points. The last thing you want to do is ‘step onto their turf. On the other side Necros are in dire shape if getting caught between points, chain CCed, or caught by surprise. Generally, if Necro is not defending a point [a small area to control (Necro’s forte)] then the play from the sidelines (with good positioning) and disrupt the flow of the battle for the enemy with AoE chills, cripples, fears, blinds, and condi clears, as well as boon corruption.

Necro is HARDLY “OP” and has detrimental weaknesses built in, should they be capitalized on. The main reason we’ve seen this surge of Necros is from all the ‘condis OP’ threads scattered about (or they likw braindead AI play, but that’s not new) and so people are giving Necro a go. That’s a very bad reason but it is what it is. At one point I was called crazy, stupid, ‘L2Mesmer’ for running my Champion Illusionist Shatterburst Mesmer (when the titles meant anything) back when ‘OMGOPPHANTOMS’ were all the rage….

I didn’t read any of this, except the title.

+1

BlkPrince.2854:

Tman.6349:

Julischka Bean.7491:

I discovered this pre-Black Friday sale.

I had vowed a mighty vow not to make anymore characters until the trait system got fixed…but…I do know what traits I normally use on my Elementalists…and…I love the male char voice when they change their elements… and the slot was 30% off…

I bought a slot

I am such a sucker

BUT!

On the bright side!

I have my Char Elementalist!

~Lisa-Sheepish but without buyers remorse….or vowers remorse…I need coffee

I here ya on that one. 12 Exo/Asc. geared 80s (2 since 9/9) and here I am working on a 13th b/c of that sale. O.o Granted I had just got my 10k AP chest so it was basically a free slot and, thanx to XP Scrolls and Tomes, it’s a fee 80 too.

Even though your 80 you still gotta grind for the traits xD gl with the grind

And thanks to almost a stack of scrolls and knowledge of traits (13th 80), it’ll really just be a few gold to buy the traits I’ll generally want/need. You almost did a good job of raining on my parade. ;p Better luck next time

Lopez.7369:

You should look up Occam’s razor.

What does an Ascended Dagger have to do with anything?

Julischka Bean.7491:

I discovered this pre-Black Friday sale.

I had vowed a mighty vow not to make anymore characters until the trait system got fixed…but…I do know what traits I normally use on my Elementalists…and…I love the male char voice when they change their elements… and the slot was 30% off…

I bought a slot

I am such a sucker

BUT!

On the bright side!

I have my Char Elementalist!

~Lisa-Sheepish but without buyers remorse….or vowers remorse…I need coffee

I here ya on that one. 12 Exo/Asc. geared 80s (2 since 9/9) and here I am working on a 13th b/c of that sale. O.o Granted I had just got my 10k AP chest so it was basically a free slot and, thanx to XP Scrolls and Tomes, it’s a fee 80 too.

Ken DeBoer.9268:

The firery backpack from PVP lights up.

Yeah the Balthazar back piece is well lit.

Step 1: place a bucket next to your desk.
Step 2: spend all your gold at the forge.
Step 3: be sad after no Pre.
Step 4: use bucket to catch tears.
Step 5: save up more gold to buy a Pre.

Joking aside. This morning I woke up way to early (4 am) and couldn’t go back to sleep.
Decided to start my daily dungeon tour that I’ve done since shortly after launch. I have 12 Exo/Asc. geared 80s with over 5.5k hours and have never got/had/dropped/forged a Pre.
Instead of starting with AC like normal, I see a LFG for TA “need help etc”. So I join my friends are all still sleeping. Halfway through the run, in the room with the Wardens, I hop into a portal and rez a guy downed inside the bubble. I then lay waste to the Warden and…“OMG GUYS!!!!”….there I sit in awe as the proud new owner of The Legend. Totally made my day and was thankful I joined to help this team of squishies (I use my Guardian for TA). My first Pre in over two years and it just so happens to be the Pre for one of only two Legendaries that I like! (Bolt being the other.) Iv’e had all the generic parts for a while in hopes they’d release a new series of Legendaries. Instead, I guess I’ll be the proud owner of Bifrost by the weekend. What a cool way to start the day by helping a random group of strangers for my first path of my tour and first Pre ever.

You have to finish the event without getting hit by any of the whirlwinds. Just range it and pay attention to them. Good luck.

For all these demands of “We need new professions!”, I don’t see much to it other than hollow desires. How about some ideas if you’d like for you or your aspirations to be taken seriously? “Hey, kitten you Anet because we want a new thing!”, is not going to get far.

Yes Gw1 had expansions and added new professions and in quite rapid succession. Each ‘expansion’ was actually a stand alone game with professions added in the context of the new continents. The only true expansion as Eye of the North which added no new professions but, instead, I good number of new skills.

GW1 Prophecies only started with 6 profession. Then Factions added two and Nightfalls another two for grand total of 10 professions provided you had all three campaigns on your account. The amount of content in the first three games really wasn’t that vast. They were story driven with little else in the zones to actually do as you advanced through the campaigns. The only expansion made a huge leap in what was lacking in these aspects a few years down the road though. It was also a ‘standard trinity’ game which imposed it’s own restrictions. Admittedly this was good but still a pseudo form of diversity, but one thing the ’daul profession system did do for diversity, outside the millions of possible party compositions was allow teams to min/max. Even to the point where groups would run full DPS setups with heals and damage mitigation coming from secondary roles of certain people in the group as we learned better synergy and tactics.

Gw2 started with our same 8 professions we have now. The difference is the trinity was removed (hence less professions) BUT LLL of that former DIVERSITY was designed baseline into those 8 professions. It gave us a way to carry on exactly what we were doing toward the end of GW1’s life. IE. Running the highest damage possible while retaining the minimal amount of ‘baggage’ through incredibly clever group synergy and tactics. (Ironic huh?)

That brings us to this thread. The original 8 GW2’s professions are designed to be so versatile through gear, traits, runes, sigils, active/passive defense/offense, group combos, and group synergies that the 8 we have are capable of doing anything that could be done with the 10 from GW1 and then so much more.

Of all of these threads (several dozens), not once have a
Witnessed an actual ‘solution’/suggestion that wouldn’t be completely redundant. Wanting something new to tinker with is a valid opinion and I welcome the idea. BUT, let’s be real, what could/would they add that would not be redundant to the 8 other professions and serve a unique element to the dynamo of the variety of the current 8 professions?

That is such a serious question I have.

I suppose you’re just as upset at BMW for making cars now instead of bomber planes? Your self-established expectations are silly and, very early in GW2’s history, they explicitly stated that they weren’t interested in persuing the typical ‘expansion model’. Your own expectations are a product of your own imagination/desire. Mmkay…

So in a me vs 2 mesmers/minionmancer, suddenly my damage scales by 200% and is unbridled by ‘amount of target’ restrictions? Great idea. Staff ele/necro meta incoming…

Purple Miku.7032:

Not fully invest all of my gold into strength runes before the ferocity patch. That was the dumbest decision ever. ;_;

If it makes you feel any better, I realized how OP they were from the preview and picked up a stack for 80s each.

The really big sales will most likely be around Christmas as many people get gem cards around then. Last year, the Deluxe upgrade was half off as well as some other great deals. We’ve had MANY Gem store releases since the though and they don’t like the Gem store interface being too jump led. I’d imagine, they’ll take the path of staggering items out over the next month with some of the best deals and most wanted item returns (aviators,etc) closer to the end of the year. This is my analysis based on history with a bit of business management knowledge mixed in.