Guild Wars 2

+1 great analysis. Spoilers were spot on. I even laughed a bit at the first few sentences of “I’m a knight,bang,bang”. This is exactly why having a game that HAS to be balanced around a certain game mode, yet the majority of thoughtful players’ communication attempts seem ignored, will have eternal struggles. Though you didn’t state it outright, I think this (obvious?) philosophy would go a long way to relieve some of our current problems, in PvP and other modes.

Fivedawgs.4267:

Lol, this has got to be a joke. You won’t survive a tf or let alone a 1 vs 1 with this build. But A for the effort Op. Lmao

‘5 sec Yolo’ builds aren’t legit anymore? :/

I’d assume it’s prolly start with the patch like every update ever. That’s usually between 10 and 11 pacific

*then there’s the Anet standard 24 hrs of hotfixes and bug patches so we should be back to PvP Wednesday morning

Dreaminspace.2638:

Going to build off a few amazing ideas from above.

well of abyss: Target area pulses, players caught within the area are enveloped in a watery grave. Downed Players are finished.

-Unblockable
-Dark Field
-Duration: 3 seconds
-Number of Targets: 5
-Cast Time: 2s (Huge Tell, Caster leaps and stabs the ground)
-Radius: 350
-Cooldown: 120sec

Watery Grave: Debuff
Targets: 5
Duration:10/sec

You carry an enemy-based Water Field that clears an enemy condi every 3 seconds. (Pulsing but does not stack. Max condi clear per enemy per 3sec: 1.) Debuffed player can’t interact with Combo Fields. O.o

Anet, we must has!!

That might be too much. Condi clear changed to 5 sec. (Also, no dark field on well. Only a pulsing finisher.)

Locuz.2651:

I dont care about metabattle. I want an explanation, why do ppl use mercs over wanderers. The damage output difference is absurd. Defense wise the 100% weakness u get from the enfeeble trait easily outdoes the extra 4000 hp when u get trained.

B/c it’s not demonstrably better in every single condi build. I can think of at least 5 ‘how to build’ reasons that would make merc better. Bursting thresholds was one that was already mentioned. Taking Spite instead of Curses was also mentioned. Enemy comp was also mentioned. I’ve still got a few more if it’s still not clicking.

This probably has something to do with “movement and cast time effects (swiftness, quickness, etc) no longer affect ‘mobility skills’”. As the launch pads have their own animation, the game probably sees them as ‘skills’ and has normalized the launch effect after this change a while ago. Just a thought, but it seems most plausible and working as intended.

That Guy.5704:

Khisanth.2948:

Jahroots.6791:

Laurels are the best choice, in theory. Ascended crafting materials are better if you need gold, imo (you’ve mixed up the Legendary and Ascended chest contents, btw.)

The other stuff is basically worthless.

Not entirely. At current prices the 7 clovers is worth around 15g.

because of what the prices on mystic coins have done because you need a flat 250 for each new legendary making mystic coins little more than a 9+ month tradeable timegate, the higher the mystic coin prices go, the more those clovers will be worth to someone who doesnt pvp. I use to say always laurels, but those clovers are getting more and more attractive as the mystic coin prices inflate.

The funny thing about “clovers being worth more to people that don’t PvP” is that PvPers get a couple Clovers after quite a few of the Reward Tracks and they end up just sitting around. I wish they weren’t bound and I’d give them away, as I’m partway through a second stack. Same thing happens with the ToKs. Already have 17 geared 80s and still sitting on over 900.

I’m sorry but this is balanced and customer controlled already. If the skins didn’t have the value they do, ppl wouldn’t get keys to get them, supply would go down, and prices would go up. I don’t see this changing. I, also, don’t see skins, apart from those that are discontinued right now, averaging 100g. HoT tanked a lot of those items as ppl moved on to spending their gold on Ascended powercreep (ie. 4 stats etc).

*Scribe/GHs has also sucked tons of gold out along with farm nerfs and players moving from farms to do new things.

How could nobody mention the Sclerite Gs skin!? Nothing else comes close…

If you have some toons coming up on Third Birthday, you’ll get a ton of TtF stones. I’m approaching 60+ now. Good for WB and Guild Hunt waypoints if nothing else.

I don’t see them selling 30%ish map completion for gems though.

There are also quite a few traits that can reduce or outright nullify some conditions.
There is also a boon called Resistance. Anet wanted condition defense to be more active and dynamic. A semi-passive condi build vs a mostly/entirely passive condi defense build sounds boring. A stat that could render an entire category of builds useless would be bad for the game. That’s why Diamond Skin was recently changed. Also, Vitality is a stat that works how you’re asking and then some, against damaging condis anyway.

I agree that 1/4 sec, spammable Stuns and Dazes are lame and should be removed.

What if the algorithm was pushed a bit further to not stack professions, but any sort of team (duo-vs5) are ‘locked in’? From my understanding, this would make queues a bit longer based on the ‘no stacking rule’ for sub-5man comps, but maybe include an mmr leeway (team queues already have a base mmr increase right?).

I’m, admittedly not a programmer. Rather a 31-yo farmboy/butcher from the Midwest, so the ‘yes/no’ may escape me.

*Also, this post only regards matchmaking. ‘I have no idea what I’m doing, but the rewards aren’t good enough in HJs’ is hardly a reason for huge changes…

Yashuoa.9527:

Tman.6349:

Crinn.7864:

MAN.9046:

By buying the elite specs of HoT you have a significant advantage over core class users, which you obtain by paying $50. If paying money to have an advantage over someone who didn’t(whether it’s an f2p nub or a 3 year sceptical veteran) is not pay2win then what is it?

By the literal definition of pay2win HoT is pay2win.
By the spirit of the term pay2win HoT is not pay2win.

Honestly if you go by the literal definition of pay2win every expansion released by every mmorpg to date (or at least that I know of) is pay2win. However that’s not the spirit of the term pay2win, since expansions/sequels are expected to have new stuff that is pretty much always going to be stronger than the old stuff. (power creep haunts all perpetual games)

*this not really directed at you. Just quoted as a bit of context.

Very true but we’re not comparing GW2 to other games. Other games have nothing to do with GW2 balance. I don’t even know what MAN and Yashuo are on about as both of them try to make silly arguments that are literally self-contradictory. The issue here is the ‘spirit’ of GW2 PvP which was/is supposed to be/has always been about easy entry/access and a level, balanced playing field. That is the OP’s concern and many others have expressed this. I think many people take this statement -“PvP is now P2W”- as some kind of attack on their character like they’re being called cheaters or something.

The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter what in the hell any other MMO does or has ever done and Anet selling the expansion as a form of needed income has nothing to do with anything either. The Revenant and the new trait lines should sell on their own merit and PvP should always remain balanced, fair, and easy to access.

I even recently made the suggestion that Anet should allow players to purchase the new traitltraitlines, for PvP only, in HotM for a gold cost (50-100g is fair I think) as we do with amulets and other PvP build components. I also suggested instead, in order to minimize the idea, they could sell a ‘PvP Elite Spec Pack’ in the Game Upgrade category for a fair price (1200 gems or $15-mainly for PvP only players really), but I think this would more defeat the purpose of the idea. Revenant should remain an HoT feature for sure but PvP should be balanced. The term ‘Elite Spec’ should have never even been mentioned b/c of what they imply to traditional MMO players (instead of what GW1/2 veterans would think.

*Also…Yashuo

“It’s not P2W, it is an expansion………do you really think you should be able to download the core game [it was actually sold at one point to a lot of players in case you forgot] for free and still be competitive with people who paid!?”

Do you even realize how ridiculous this statement is? It is literally the very definition of contradiction.

I didnt make contradictions, nor silly arguments.
Its just you who thinks so, because you dont understand the post I made and what pay to win actually is.

Expansion is not paid to win. Pay to win is a different paying concept than buying an expansion. The game without the expansion is not the full game anymore.

You know what would be fair too?
As mentioned, a lot of other games have a higher lvl cap in the expansion.

It wouldnt be weird at all if with HoT the lvl cap went to 85 with new spells and would only be reachable with the expansion and that Anet completely ignored how pvp went at 80 for those without the expansion, because the game moved on to HoT.
That is what usually happens in mmorpgs

But Anet is even gonna try to tune down the elite specs a bit and buff the normal specs. Buff up less traits in the non-elite specs and such. Which people without hot will benifit from too. So they are doing their best.

Dont take everything literally.

Its just ungrateful and unrealistic if you can download for free, no monthly fee, no expansion purchased and than expecting that they treat it as the full gw2 game, which it is not anymore.

Also Anet income and such are not silly points either (nor are comparisons with other similar games).

Aparently you want Anet to run everything for free at no income and still expect the game to be in a healthy state and balanced (mmorpgs wont be fully balanced anyway, because of the huge differences between classes and amount of builds and classes. It wasnt balanced before HoT either).

Lets rephrase a few points.
You want balance and the game to run well right?
Yet you can download the non-HoT GW2 for free now (used to be purchased) and you can play at max lvl with it. It costs money to keep the game running, even without an expansion
Creating expansions cost money.
How is it weird that you pay for those services?
WHICH IS NOT the same as pay to win.
That has been explained by many in this thread.
Not their fault that you cant or dont want to grasp it.

Do you rather see a monthly fee of 15$ a month and a free expansion/no expansion?
They could do that too and get there income that way.
Than you cant take it literally and call it pay to win.
It would cost a lot more though than a one time expansion.
I bet you would prefer no montly fee and a one time purchable expansion/no expansion.

I have said enough. If you still cant understand it from others and me, than I dont know how to get it through or maybe you are just trolling.

Combat Log:

All your Strawmen crit +9000 using Every Fallacy Ever!

Crinn.7864:

MAN.9046:

By buying the elite specs of HoT you have a significant advantage over core class users, which you obtain by paying $50. If paying money to have an advantage over someone who didn’t(whether it’s an f2p nub or a 3 year sceptical veteran) is not pay2win then what is it?

By the literal definition of pay2win HoT is pay2win.
By the spirit of the term pay2win HoT is not pay2win.

Honestly if you go by the literal definition of pay2win every expansion released by every mmorpg to date (or at least that I know of) is pay2win. However that’s not the spirit of the term pay2win, since expansions/sequels are expected to have new stuff that is pretty much always going to be stronger than the old stuff. (power creep haunts all perpetual games)

*this not really directed at you. Just quoted as a bit of context.

Very true but we’re not comparing GW2 to other games. Other games have nothing to do with GW2 balance. I don’t even know what MAN and Yashuo are on about as both of them try to make silly arguments that are literally self-contradictory. The issue here is the ‘spirit’ of GW2 PvP which was/is supposed to be/has always been about easy entry/access and a level, balanced playing field. That is the OP’s concern and many others have expressed this. I think many people take this statement -“PvP is now P2W”- as some kind of attack on their character like they’re being called cheaters or something.

The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter what in the hell any other MMO does or has ever done and Anet selling the expansion as a form of needed income has nothing to do with anything either. The Revenant and the new trait lines should sell on their own merit and PvP should always remain balanced, fair, and easy to access.

I even recently made the suggestion that Anet should allow players to purchase the new traitltraitlines, for PvP only, in HotM for a gold cost (50-100g is fair I think) as we do with amulets and other PvP build components. I also suggested instead, in order to minimize the idea, they could sell a ‘PvP Elite Spec Pack’ in the Game Upgrade category for a fair price (1200 gems or $15-mainly for PvP only players really), but I think this would more defeat the purpose of the idea. Revenant should remain an HoT feature for sure but PvP should be balanced. The term ‘Elite Spec’ should have never even been mentioned b/c of what they imply to traditional MMO players (instead of what GW1/2 veterans would think.

*Also…Yashuo

“It’s not P2W, it is an expansion………do you really think you should be able to download the core game [it was actually sold at one point to a lot of players in case you forgot] for free and still be competitive with people who paid!?”

Do you even realize how ridiculous this statement is? It is literally the very definition of contradiction.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Sandrox.9524:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Sandrox.9524:

Kodama.6453:

Morgan.5170:

All self-targeted aoes should be immune to blind. The stronger ones (with or without enemy components) still have a cast time which makes them vulnerable to interrupts. There’s your counter-play. Ranged aoe’s I can let slide.

Missing a cast centered on yourself makes little sense. Blinding a guardian doesn’t make his Retreat! go on cooldown with no swiftness to himself. There’s a double standard here if you can’t even receive the boons.

It is no double standard, these 2 shouts just work differently. “Retreat!” gives aegis and swiftness to allies in range. CTTB is a damaging shout, which also stuns and chills and will give stability for each enemy hit by it. If you get blinded, you didn’t hit anyone and so you get stability * 0 = 0

They are just different. You can’t blind a druids heal, because this is an effect for his allies. CTTB is no effect for allies, it is an offensive effect.

Only necros got offensive shouts…

“On my Mark” warrior shout still hit when you are blinded…. so tell me why not CTTB stab on use? I understand the dmg portion of it but the stab should be there. And the chill for that matter.

“Feel the Burn,” “Flash Freeze,” and “Aftershock” would all like to have a word with you.

The fact is, yes, Blind is counterplay to Chilled to the Bone. But you also have options to counterplay that counterplay. It’s hardly wasting a skill if it ensures your Elite lands.

Yeah totally forgot about tempests shouts.but none high risk for blind or long cd.

You just using 2 skills for one. I’d say that somthing wrong.and even if you use it nothing would say it will not be up again since it is somtimes spammable.

If you don’t want to do anything to make sure your elite skill lands and expect it to land anyway, that is completely on you. Elite skills are powerful, but none can be used without thought and be effective. You have four skill options to clear Blind mid-cast on CttB (Rise, Suffer, You are All Weaklings, Plague Signet). They can each be used at the very end of the cast time to clear Blind off and ensure it doesn’t spoil your elite. Locust Swarm is a strong option to clear Blind as well, albeit less precise. Most pulsing Blinds in PvP are 1 Blind/2 seconds (Black Powder and Nightfall), which means Locust Swarm is usually more than enough to clear Blind.

Chilled to the Bone needs no changes in relation to Blind. Your own play does.

Not only this ^^, but, from everything else above, it sounds like you (OP) are mostly trying to use CttB as a def3nsive skill in a team fight. That is not really where it excels in these ‘high tier’ teamfights you’re referring. It is, however, absolutely excellent at turning the tides in a teamfight with any kind of communication ‘leet play’, for a total lack of better words. These "blinds at the ‘last second’ (still time to clear) aren’t a top tier tactic for canceling long cast skills. Granted a pro with great cooldown/initiative management (yeah right, we know it’s not Thieves right now :/) could render this skill useless every time, I’m more prone to think it’s your unwillingness to burn Plague Signet to make sure CttB lands. The funny thing is, it’s not even about the transfer. It’s more about picking up random conditions (with a random clear mostly) from up to 1200 units. Yes this burns one of your stunbreak which are so important to a Necro, but it also increases your chance of landing CttB (depending on the enemy comp) multiple times over. Can ANYONE in the Meta claim they’d prefer not to clear a couple condis themselves vs. a 2 sec AoE stun/chil/vuln+dodge/stunbreak burn? I think you’re underestimating how strong this skill can be in a teamfight. In fact, sometimes, in a teamfight where the outcome is dire, I’ll prefer to burn Plague and Locust b/c of how strong it can be. Team rezzes’? Sorry bro…etc.

Ithilwen.1529:

I paid in (buying HoT for two accounts ) to have a competitive Mesmer.

ANET just arbitrarily ended that. Apparently, they did it at the behest of the Pro players. On the stream today, both “sunfish” and “rom” complained about Mesmer. Sunfish even went so far as to say he was glad mesmer was gone.

I feel anet disrespected me by selling me HoT then arbitrarily gimping my class into the ground. To add insult to injury it was done to please pro players.

There is no skill whatever in sneaking behind someone and hammering the buttons with your face to do your burst combo. This is precisely what we’re going to see. I predict that Rangers will come out of this very well… I wish them the nerf hammer 100 times over.

All the above in mind…

This post only makes it seem like you purchased HoT after the fact (once the bunker Meta had settled out and you felt confident buying into a completely broken spec). I can’t prove this, but your overbearing sense of entitlement because “I payed to be able to play an OP spec” in your proceeding posts points heavily in that direction. You then go further to claim you ‘deserve’ a refund because your ‘right’ to be broken OP is being toned down quite a bit. Is this all satire or are you actually this selfimportant?

Axialbloom.8109:

Shatter Mesmer uses the Chronomancer tree. The other builds are nowhere close to the elites, except maybe the necro.

Notice that, so far, nerfs are directed at ‘elite specs’ and almost every single buff is relegated to the 5 core lines. This isn’t an accident. Personally, I don’t think ‘Elite’ spec should have ever been mentioned or considered, b/c of obvious P2W implications (right now with only one per profession)., but, with a bit of foresight, they have left themselves wildly open to the idea of ‘sub-classes’. Colin seemed to embrace this idea about two years ago (just hit up Orpheal if you’d like a 78 page explanation on his ideas of GW2 ‘sub-classes’).

The point is, right now, with only one released per profession, these ‘elite specs’ have no other option than to be OP. Idk how they didn’t see this coming tbh. We need either, new BALANCED specs OR ‘Elite Specs’ should have been/need to be cranked out in rapid succession. This should have been obvious from the beginning imo, but here we are, nerfing OP ‘elite specs’ before the next wave comes out. It’s stupid really.

Quintoozla.7893:

Ithilwen.1529:

Welcome back to the zerker meta that anet allegedly wanted to change. There will no longer be skilled gameplay. Just land your combo first and be the winner.

Skill is dead, all hail the mighty faceroll.

So playing a chronobunker snoozefest is skillful? “Oh you got the chrono down. NP mate second chronocrap to the rescue. 3 guys cleaving NP. Thanks for the ress bro.”
But i do give props for the multitasking. I find it hard to play, eat a sandwhich and watch Friends at the same time.

I thought they preferred mystery/thrillers so they have something to pay attention to? ;p

Stand The Wall.6987:

Its because the person you are trying to stomp has horrible latency. When this happens you gotta move in the direction they were moving before you downed them and try again. If youre in doubt as to where they are, use a projectile or auto attack without moving to “ping” their direction.

This isn’t an issue of latency as, after you fail the stomp, you can still cleave the body lying right in front of you. You can even get the stomp on a second or third try after quickness/slow have dissipated. Server desync is much easier to detect client side just by cleaving or dropping AoE in the general area.

I’m of the impression it has something to do with the coding of ’interactions’’ and this cause some sort of desync. PvE communes come to mind at first. This thought process has been even more cemented, imo, b/c the Devs would rather go through and recode which ‘skills+stomps/rezzes’ can even be affected by quickness/slow. I’m no programmer, but it seems like logic and experience support this case.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Yes for the fine upstanding members of the community, this would be a nice addition.
However…
For all the Griefers in the game who click on you and say “I’m coming to help you!”, then run the other way giggling, knowing you are just sitting there waiting for them.

I like to run over to them and drop a Box ’o Fun or Bobblehead table on their corpse.

Mwahaha! J/k

Shirlias.8104:

Game costs 30$ which are 2400 gems.
It’s a new way to troll or what?

Also, with HoT they ll have revenant class and 5 more slots… you are both out of mind
Instead trying to have more players and a better spvp ( maybe ) your are just arguing with impossible solutions ( 8100 gems ._. ) cause you don’t want that others have elite specs ( and i m gonna say it again, just into SPVP ) cause you paid the game?.

Literally two minutes before you made your above idea, I posted, imo, a fairly reasonable solution. We were literally thinking the exact same thing and posting very similar solutions. Give it a look.

*Also, no I don’t think they should get access to Rev w/o the purchase of HoT. However, I do feel the powercreep brought into PvP with the elite specs for the core professions flies in the face of the ‘fair playing field’ that was supposed to be a staple of GW2 PvP. This is unhealthy for PvP I think, especially for soloQers as it gives on team or the other obvious handicaps (and surely is discouraging for F2P/‘core game players’ trying to get into, or even be competitive in, PvP).

*I don’t think you meant me with the ‘you both are out of your mind’ comment, BTW. I’m interested in fairness.

Jacob.4280:

Shirlias.8104:

pvp players don’t have access to gold farming:

-Max income per day is 5g
-Income per win, 30s
-Income per loss, 15s

It’s going to take too much time ( and f2p players could drop the game meanwhile ).

I would prefer at last a F2P specific “track”, which allow the player to unlock the elite class as last reward ( 9 tracks to unlock all specializzation ). Still a bit of farm, but not slow as “making gold into spvp”.

@jacob: Even f2p account can reach both diamond and legend ( and meanwhile, bring down other players ).

Its safe till ruby, and its not impossible to reach both diamond and legend if some1 play time by time.

Ye thats something Id suggest as well, for gem prices I was thinking something around 900 gems per profession. Which with that 5g income a day is just ~30 days. Not counting all the materials you get from caches that can be sold on TP as well, which could cut it to I think about 25 days. Thats not that much for something others have to pay money for.

So 8100 gems is fair to unlock elite specs for PvP only?

PvP has always been about hitting the ground running and, for the most part, easy accessibility. I think it would, at least, be fair to be able to purchase the elite specs in the HotM as we do with other PvP ‘upgrades’ (ammy/runes/Sigils/heroes). Say 50-100g maybe? They could even introduce a ‘PvP Elite Specs’ package in the Account Upgrades section of the Gemstore for a reasonable price (maybe 1200 gems or about $15). It seems reasonable to me and perfectly in line. Gold would be simpler and give them a goal, and be more fair to players who prefer one or two professions. It could also encourage these players to go ahead and purchase HoT. I could understand Anet taking the route of preferring to monetize it, but I think that would look more like so kind of extortion or P2W. PvP definitely shouldn’t have this sort of paywall for new players getting into PvP. I would have no problem donating 50-100g to a F2P guildie or friend so they could have a better chance to be competitive. That is(was) supposed to be the foundation of GW2 PvP after all.

Do either of these seem like fair ideas/alternatives?

Yeah that’ll suck when you can’t depend on ridiculous uptime of the three strongest boons in the game. :/

Also, ppl don’t complete multiple scepter chains as often as you think.

Ayrilana.1396:

TexZero.7910:

Obtena.7952:

Anyone that thinks PVE balance over 9 classes with hundreds of different skills is achievable, especially when those same skills and classes are used in PVE and WvW, has clearly not enough experience playing MMO’s.

Therefore, Anet doesn’t specifically balance for PVE because it’s not possible with how the game is designed. Easy.

Guild Wars 1 says hello.

It’s living proof that balance can be split across skills and be done well. It was working just fine for GW2 until for some reason they decided to tear down that barrier. Probably thought it would harm some small demographic somewhere.

GW2 is not as simplistic as GW1.

What is even the ‘PvE balance problem’ that this thread is referring to? The only thing I can gather so far is some PHIW, utopian ideology. Is there anything of substance to add at all?

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

KaporHabakuk.6219:

I was trying few matches i met these bunker druid abomination to kill it,on my zerker necro,i couldnt get past 70% hp of it.Not that a druid cant swap pet or heal it,buff it.So the poor argument of “squishie” pet is again just a myth.

You weren’t able to kill a bristleback in PvP with zerker necro. Wow, I am absolutely astonished. Bristlebacks only have 16k Hp. If you couldn’t kill it with zerker, you either weren’t acrtually cleaving it out, or you’re actually just bad.

Zerker Necro staff AAs are not as strong as we thought! :/

KaporHabakuk.6219:

MadVisions.4529:

there is no full balance patch jet!
i hope it gonna include:
BBack f2: duration is half’d-> dmg is half + does not require 2 evades to negate
SScale Smoke assault: hope they handle this like Unrelenting Assault

even thisway they gonna be broken.
BBack’s projectiles are homing missles this mean you can’t range sidestep them, not to mention they hit 1k dmg on marauder specs.
SScale knockdown animation is too fast && is unblockable if i remember correct.

What full balance patch,the pet is out for some time,dont tell me noone noticed this.Why is everything taking such a kitten long time to fix,unless it was intended to one shot peeps with pets on tankie druids for the sake of “funn”

This brings up a VERY interesting idea suddenly. Since pets are considered ‘30% of Ranger’s output’, what if each family of pet received it’s stats based on a co-efficient of the Ranger’s current stats?

*granted this would have the opportunity to be broken as all hell, I still think it’s interesting

MadVisions.4529:

there is no full balance patch jet!
i hope it gonna include:
BBack f2: duration is half’d-> dmg is half + does not require 2 evades to negate
SScale Smoke assault: hope they handle this like Unrelenting Assault

even thisway they gonna be broken.
BBack’s projectiles are homing missles this mean you can’t range sidestep them, not to mention they hit 1k dmg on marauder specs.
SScale knockdown animation is too fast && is unblockable if i remember correct.

They don’t hit ‘1k on marauder specs’. They hit hard on Beastmastery/boonshare specs.

LordOtto.2650:

Yes, Druid new pets are broken! They do insane dmg very fast, what would happen if a druid decides that runs a marauder/bersereker amulet, the kitten animal would one bit you?

They are Ranger Pets and have zero benefit from the Ranger’s stats.

*apart from allied healing or Boon duration

SlayerSixx.5763:

Pacman isn’t dead because pacman actually makes sense. Avoid ghosts. Use the lanes at the sides to avoid getting cornered by ghosts. Plan your route and eat one of those ghost killing fruits if you get cornered. If you get cornered again and don’t have a fruit, RIP you.

If pacman was made by ANet:

Passively gain more move speed the more bits you eat. Passively regenerate ghost killing fruits. Passively have the ability to walk through walls if two ghosts corner you off with a 1s ICD. Passively vacuum dots every few seconds to make the game end sooner.

*and buy stuff from the Gemstore as if you ‘passively make money IRL’….I had to

Where can I find/see this preview for upcoming skill/trait changes?

Nvm. Found them.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Tman.6349:

Are all the ppl up in arms about these changes oblivious to the fact that these are base changes to the core of PvP and that huge profession balance (which we have no clue of so far)

But we already know 100% of the balance changes from the “preview”. Remember, 100% of the time when Anet previews stuff, those were 100% of the changes.

So they’ve already given us a 100% thorough preview to all the upcoming skill balance changes, trait changes, and ‘profession identity’ changes (the ones they mentioned in the blogpost’)?

Sorry for the confusion. I guess I missed that. Where can I find this comprehensive list of these Jan. 26th changes? I’d love to do a bit of early theory crafting with these new amulets and all the revamped skills, traits, and profession changes.

I guess I missed it. I found what I’m looking for.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

1) do stop
2) don’t put on make up, brush your teeth, read a magazine/book/newspaper, sit there texting people, go to sleep, rummage around in your glove compartment/purse, read a map
3) don’t honk at the car in front of you and make guestures at the driver
4) do look both ways before driving on
5) don’t get into an argument with a passenger and start hitting each other
6) don’t get on a phone and start chatting with whoever

That’s a start. I’m sure there is more.

Great points! And now, OP is 25% of the way there.

Male Sylvari- Leaft for Dedd -emo/punk look

Are all the ppl up in arms about these changes oblivious to the fact that these are base changes to the core of PvP and that huge profession balance (which we have no clue of so far) are, most likely, being taken into account with these changes. They want to get back to exciting gameplay and ‘purity of purpose’ among the professions, builds, and roles.

I think some sneak peaks into their plans of, as recently stated in blog post, ‘changes to professions to have a more unique feel and play style among them’, would alleviate a lot of this. This was obviously eluded to when they referred to there idea of Thief returning to that high damage assassin that should always be in the back of your mind as you play. Surely this will apply to other professions too.

These changes all seem reasonable, with the understanding that this is only half of their strategy moving forward with balance (and I repeat this thread is to change the foundation of PvP as a whole) and there is still another half to their balance ideas moving forward (ie. prefession/trait/skill balance.)

So these ‘X profession is now useless’ and ‘this ruins so many builds’ comments are kneejerk and hold no merit. If anything, I see this opening up more builds if anything as now we won’t have so many homoginized/generalized builds and team comps could be more varied than ever.

Just trying to stay positive here really, but let’s wait to see the other half before freaking out folks.

They’ve outright stated that this will never happen and is a dead issue.

Orpheal.8263:

Best example are the faction weapons and armros that you have to buy for alot of gold. the spent gold is all wasted, because its just stupid rare stuff that is useless for you if you have already much better equipment, and you cant sell the items, you cant salvage them, you cant put them into the mystic toilet ..

the game is full with many of these kind of thigns and in my honest opinion, this is somethign that needs to get changed.

All items in this game need to be at least salvageable!!! This includes also all kinds of items that you buy with karma…
Just with the different, that items bought from karmas should give you material, when salvaging, them ,they should give you jugs of karma, so that you get back some of the spent karma – problem solved.

for the items of the factions, when you salvage them, you should get back some bags of money or valuable sellable trophy loot, so that you can get a small part of the invested money back, so that it isnt at least such a huge waste of money for practically 0 usage for you.

All character bonded items, should be turned into accountbound items.. I see absoletely no reason in it, why in a game like this does exiost even at all characterbound. All what we need only is accountbound. Theres is absolutely no difference between characterbound and accountbound, just that little diference, that a silyl character bound limitates you in the way how you can use an item with only 1 fixaded character, not allowing you to share the weapon with any of your other characters, what is somethign that should become possible.

If i have a sword with character A and want to give that weapon to one of my other characters that can wield a sword and have the appropiate level for it to be able to wield it, then it should be simply possible to share that weapon with said other character. Why force us to destroy a weapon for that Character A has no use anymore, where there could be a Character B on our account, for which that weapon would be a significant improvement!!

Its just pointless game design to make somethign like this not possible to do

This was done with much foresight for the games economy. It’s not hard to work out. Having collections that cost 50+ gold that then all have to be one-by-one deleted is a different argument imo though.

Did you know: that a plead of ignorance about the rules , laws, and operations of things you take part in has a 100% fail rate in courts?

Deleena.3406:

Pft tin foil hat is for elderberries. styrofoam hat=best hat!

You’ve, apparently, never been privy to my gorilla glue/paper mache skullcap. It’s always ‘on’ and won’t rot your brain like those cheaper imitations.

Sure it sucks if you’re wanting to min/max w/o doing math… :p

It’s not the ‘simple calculator’ you’re suggesting. It could never be accurate for more than one calculation at a time is the problem. Outside of combat it would be mostly useless and in combat it would look like a RNG cycling.

Serious Thought.5394:

I’d be really happy if the pvp team (or even just some random text editor?) would take the time to update runes and sigils changing abilities and traits and stats. Its kind of annoying to put Berserker runes on and see….nothing. Sigil of Paralyzation and Mesmer Runes to see … nothing. I know some of this is just odd and random, but it’d be really nice. Doubt I will get even a standard player response.

They don’t do this with many % modifiers for tooltips. Apart from modifiers that change actual stats (Sigil of Bursting etc). It’s a simple shave to save tons of calculations. Damage % modifiers have always been like this too.

Go to options. Unchecked ‘show player names’. Now you don’t have to see the PvP tags that cause you so much anguish.

Everyone complained that Damask was out of line, compared to the other Asc. mats, and that it should be balanced. Anet in their genius balanced them by increasing the usage of the other mats by 500ish % and thus, everything is much more expensive but they’re all around the same price now. I had well over 100 of each mat from when they all cost 1-2.5g to craft. hehe

Pretty sure it was in the gemstore for maybe two weeks, 5/2000 gems. It was quickly removed and added to BL chests. Later it became part of the third birthday present.

lynspottery.6529:

Chrury, does that mean only one of the explorable lines? Or all of them? That question is not answered.

Just the one. As an alternative, you can post in the Arah lfg ‘story run, need opener plz’. The opener can even leave the group once you’re inside the instance. Hit me up ingame for help if you’d like.

*also, HoT forums is a bad place to post this for anyone that would be inclined to help you…generally speaking

Crimson Clouds.4853:

Human: most easy to relate to, considering I’m sure almost all of us are human in real life

Female: because a large portion of the player base is straight and male, and there’s a thing where guys prefer to play as females. I’m not entirely sure why (apart from feeling more comfortable with staring at the opposite sex), but I am sure that there are a ton of articles online writing about it.

I think that the human race is a go-to first character in most games, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the lore. Humans are usually portrayed in the same way across games. If you’re a new player, you might not want to pick an unfamiliar race for the chance of giving it a name and identity that is totally non-cannon.

Most RPG/MMO regulars will know that almost always, females have better armour design and variety.

Tl;dr: It’s a safe option. There’s not much to go wrong with a human female.

Solid answer really. I’d also like to add, most players will start the game with a human character for their first play through, by default (especially players new to the series with no knowledge of the lore as implied above). This will become the toon they will learn the game with and be most familiar with, and thus become their ‘main’. They will also feel attached to this character due to the time and gold they’ve invested into it.

Also, most armors in the game are based on the human model conceptually. This is partly because they see the most play according to metrics, but I sense there’s a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy going on here for that very reason.

Females tend to look more ‘appropriate’ in the bright colors and flashy effects associated with fantasy genres imo. Even among humans, look at a male Ele in Seafoam Green and Teal T3 armor with a Glittering Staff skin and then look at a female version of the same character.

Damage has never ever been a problem with Thieves. Their borderline useless traits in VERY distinguished specialization/trait trees, in the scope of things, is though.

This isn’t a matter of Thieves not having the tools, but that those tools are locked behind VERY clearcut off/def sacrifices. Look at any Meta specs and see why this shoehorning is such a problem for Thieves. Warriors suffer the same, apart from their high armor/HP and team synergy. The problem with sacrifices in build trees is certainly there though.

“Will my $3k desktop run a 50 dollar game?” :/