Guild Wars 2

Khisanth.2948:

Tuomir.1830:

I carry around a shield on my engi with a sigil of nullification. I don’t see what’s the big deal in carrying an extra weapon for situations that need it. I use bombs and FT, I deal a lot of hits, retaliation is death to me – and I LOVE IT when enemies use it, because it means I’ll have to deal with it.

So you hit the wolves until it procs, hopefully before it kills you.

No, I interrupt them when they buff themselves, and if I can’t do that, I cautiously deliver hits until the sigil procs, keeping a close eye on my health. Change of pace, not blind spamming.

I carry around a shield on my engi with a sigil of nullification. I don’t see what’s the big deal in carrying an extra weapon for situations that need it. I use bombs and FT, I deal a lot of hits, retaliation is death to me – and I LOVE IT when enemies use it, because it means I’ll have to deal with it.

“Come out! You know it’s futile trying to hide!”

He knew. As the charr ran between rocks and tree stumps, visages of the man shouting chased after him. As long as he was aware of the mesmer, the illusions could track him through that awareness, and if he’d shut him out of his mind, the mesmer would be as good as invisible. The charr swung his staff at one of the illusions, scoffing as it dissipated into distorted light. Hide? Run away? Such wasn’t his intent to begin with. He continued making his way up the slope.

The human was growing impatient. His foe was getting away from him – he couldn’t see the charr, but he could feel his illusions chasing his quarry, moving further and further away. He shut his eyes and pointed his sword forwards. Relaxing his arm, he could feel his consciousness point the sword in the direction where the splintered copies of himself were. Today would be the day the charr would die by his hand, he thought as he started striding onwards. No more games. No more challenges. Only one of them would walk out this time. And by Lyssa’s hind, it wouldn’t be the charr.

The charr remembered the first time he had met the human. He had been young. Ambitious. Brash. Hated charr from the bottom of his heart. It had been clear they’d never get along, but still, they had studied magic side by side. But all things come to an end sometime, and now was that time. He woke from his reminisce as he arrived at his destination. He turned around and with a surge of chaos magic, broke the illusionary clones following him. He had much to prepare, and little time.

As the human approached the place where his clones had dispersed, he knew the charr had chosen the battlefield for their confrontation. It was crevasse, wide enough for five men to walk shoulder to shoulder, and curved around the end out of sight. Most noticeably, a barrier of fire cut across the ground, from wall to wall and equally deep, the flames rising up high. He put his hand forwards, and felt not a tinge of heat.

“Illusionary flames? Really? That’s the best you can do?”

The man laughed and stepped into the flames.

“You think just the sight of fire will keep me away? You think I’d trust my eyes, fighting another mesmer? I don’t understand what you were hoping to achieve…”

He was cut off by the charr stepping into sight, laughing.

“Your mistake was to trust your senses at all.”

The man looked furious, but before he could shout, the charr snapped his fingers, dispelling a veil of invisibility, revealing a phantasmal replica of himself, writhing in pain, twisting and turning on the ground. The human’s face turned to terror, his lips forming a voiceless “no”, as the charr snapped his fingers again, shattering the phantasm. The charr gave the human one final glance.

“You can have your senses back now. Enjoy them while you can.”

Thanks for reading!

Wondering how to make the most of your time at Dragon Bash? We’ve created a small guide to help keep you on the right track for this year’s festival.

From the release page.

That sounds a lot like an annual festival, does it not?

Stooperdale.3560:

My point would be that you cannot ‘misunderstand’ the purpose of the Wyld Hunt in that fashion. Wyld Hunts are meant to be a reason for living and not some quest to pick up 12 helmets from dead orcs. When Caithe says that both Wyld Hunts are finished then the player character should know, absolutely, within the heart, that is true. Trahearne has just told the player what his completed Wyld Hunt feels like too so there should be no doubt.

Anyway that’s my personal opinion and it may be that I’m going to be disappointed. Lets get back on topic.

Trahearne: It is the same one. You helped to destroy Zhaitan, but that did not complete your wyld hunt. The next phase is beginning.

The World Summit

The Wild Hunt of the sylvari PC didn’t complete on killing Zhaitan – it was Mordremoth all along. It was simply a big misunderstanding.

The first effect of the Juggernaut trait doesn’t seem to be functioning – “You gain toughness while wielding a flamethrower”, except I don’t – least, it’s not listed on my stat panel, unlike with all the other stat boosting traits that I can think of.

For those struggling with getting the fragility in the barrier phase, the boss throws it towards you, and the damage field follows after. So, you need to move around the boss and grab the fragility before the boss throws the damage field on top of it.

I’m afraid of squirrels and I want a squirrel pet for my ranger.

The player character is actually referred to as “First commander of the pact” in Reunion of the Pact.

Range doesn’t matter. When the boss is at the barrier phase, you need to

1. kill the little guy to get the colored light,
2. grab fragility,
3. go to the vortex crystal (this is why you need the light, without it, you’ll get knocked away) and let it steal the fragility, and
4. smash the vortex crystal. Do this, and the barrier phase ends and you can continue doing what you were doing before the barrier phase.

You’re welcome.

“Okay. I won’t pry. Changing the subject. You had any word about Rytlock?”

Rox: “No. I plan to head out to the Black Citadel to see if they’ve had anything yet, or if they’re planning on doing anything.”

“That seems like a good idea. Let me know what you find out, okay?”

Rox: “I definitely will.”

“Okay. I’d better go.”

Logan: “You had any word from Rytlock? You were with him when he went into that portal, right?”

“I was there. There was no stopping him.”

Logan: “From what I hear, he went in after Sohotlin. Is that right? Was he really trying to perform a ritual to break the Foefire curse?”

“Crazy as it sounds, yes, he was. He had King Adelbern’s crown.”

Logan: “What? He found it? Where?”

“Actually, I found it for him. It was scattered, in pieces.”

Logan: “So he had Sohotlin and the crown of the Ascalonian king who set the curse in the first place. I see why he thought it might actually work. But he’s not human. The legend says only an heir…”

(the dialogue branches out that this point)

Seraph: “Looks like we’re being joined by squads from other home cities, too.”
Seraph: “Yeah, you heard about the Grove Summit, right? That’s going in the history books.”

Wild Hunt Valiant: “If Mordremoth could attack Mother Tree in the Grove, it could attack anywhere”

Trahearne: “Have you heard anything from our mother? Is she recovering? I’ve been so worried.”

“I believe she’s still in danger. Her mind…was damaged.”

Trahearne: “Mordremoth. The Elder Dragon that spreads mental corruption. Our poor mother. This feeds my desire to stop this Elder Dragon in it’s tracks. It will know the burn of my wrath.”

“Do not leave caution behind in your hurry to take revenge.”

Trahearne: “No. No, of course, you’re right. I have too many lives in my hands. Thank you for being the voice of reason. I occasionally fall victim to my rage.”

“I understand. I’m angry too and just as determined to destroy Mordremoth.”

Trahearne: “I’ll confess. This particular dragon inspires a dread in my heart that none other has. I’ve never felt so personally attacked. That it would go after her… It’s unforgivable.”

“That’s what fuels my strength. Let it also fuel yours. We’ll be victorious.”

Trahearne: “Yes, thank you. We’ve perhaps not seen worse than this, but we have come through much together. I beg you to be careful out there. Our Mother Tree needs you. We all need you.”

“I’ll be careful. You’ll have my report soon. Good-bye, Marshal.”

All from Reunion of the Pact instance, and that’s not even all of it. Would say that’s more than a single line of conversation, wouldn’t you?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

What’s interesting to note, however, is this:

• Primordus is opposite to Kralkatorrik – Primordus liquifies; Kralktorrik crystallizes (solidifies)
• DSD corrupts water, a liquid; Jormag corrupts ice, the solid form of water

Though this connection ceases at Mordremoth and Zhaitan, really, but then again, the circle designs also differ from those two and the other four.

• Zhaitan has decay, Mordremoth has growth.

And as I theorized in another thread, the horizontally opposing dragons also have a similar thing going on.

*DSD, liquid, Kralkatorrik, solid – form
*Zhaitan, decay, Mordremoth, growth – time
*Primordus, hot, Jormag, cold – temperature

Am I the only one who reads Bella Kim’s posts as poetry?

Duke Blackrose.4981:

munkiman.3068:

You know, we could get “capes” like Destiny has, it goes around the waist. Could be a good alternative.

So, literal buttcapes? I support this.

So, you could have butt cape on your butt cape? Sounds good to me.

So, let me get this straight – you think covering up details on beautifully designed armor with particle effects is creative, and that such armor would be something to feel proud about?

No thanks. I’d rather not be a walking matchstick.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Tuomir.1830:

One specific minion is not “all his minions”. And amuse me, give me a credible source for your claim that “the Eye was able to see through Sylvari”. If you claim something like that, you need to back it up.

In the noise of a large scale war with none of his champions present, picking out the loss of the lighthouse would have been like finding a needle in a haystack, pardon the cliché. However, every soldier of the Pact knows about the Commander, and a great many Pact soldiers died in Orr. Zhaitan was very much aware of the Commander, so why would it be strange for it to dig information specific to the Commander to use against him or her at one of the most important battles of the war?

And as has been said before, you can tell the Sovereign Eye is lying when it claims Zhaitan has corrupted a sylvari if you fight it with a priory character.

Because she said it, and never denied it after she recovered.

No, the lighthouse directed where its navy go, which is why it was heavily guarded, I don’t think it’s a small needle, but a very important piece since Zhaitan greatly rely on its navy and was trying to stop us from landing. But Zhaitan never used our mentor’s loss against our character, nor did its minions mentioned it before this last encounter ever. It’s also just a taunt.

And how does she know? A sylvari, once awoken, does not see the dream. She saw the eye stare at her, and was reasonably terrified, and came to a wrong conclusion. Do you think she did scholarly research on the eye to deduct that it had stared into the dream? I don’t think so. And do you expect her to go “Oh, by the way, that stuff I said when I was raving and scared out of my mind? I didn’t really know what I was saying, soz!”? I don’t.

There were other major battles going on at the same time in Orr, looking after it’s own logistics probably wasn’t Zhaitan’s highest personal priority. In fact, it had Vigil tanks to keep it’s eyes on. A few dead risen were just drops in an ocean of warfare. And Zhaitan did use that knowledge against the Commander, in the very fight we are talking about. In the manner of the Sovereign Eye taunting the Commander. This was one battle where 1: Zhaitan was sure the Commander would be present, and 2: a minion capable of utilizing that knowledge was present.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Tuomir.1830:

First of all, I’ll have no part in this argument if you keep spouting fallacies and deny basic logic. Take a deep breath, read your post and think if it makes any sense at all before you post.

Moving on.

“Avatar of the Tree: Those who have been corrupted reveal everything to Zhaitan. Nothing is secret, least of all those places where his enemies hide.”

You are placing the words of a liar and an insane sylvari above that of the Pale Tree.

As for why the lighthouse plan worked – Zhaitan wasn’t omniscient. It couldn’t exactly take note every time a risen died somewhere. However, finding specific information is a different story. Compare it to keeping track of all the news feeds on internet as opposed to doing a google search on a specific topic.

The Tree said Zhaitan, not all his minions. Did she say that Zhaitan could not see through mind? Actually the Eye was able to see through Sylvari , who could not be turned into Risen.

Zhaitan wasn’t omniscient, so it ignored the lighthouse being taken, ships misdirected and let us attack the shore but took a look at our relationship with the mentor but used it against us, then suddenly remembered it when we entered the source and just let the Eye taunt us?

One specific minion is not “all his minions”. And amuse me, give me a credible source for your claim that “the Eye was able to see through Sylvari”. If you claim something like that, you need to back it up.

In the noise of a large scale war with none of his champions present, picking out the loss of the lighthouse would have been like finding a needle in a haystack, pardon the cliché. However, every soldier of the Pact knows about the Commander, and a great many Pact soldiers died in Orr. Zhaitan was very much aware of the Commander, so why would it be strange for it to dig information specific to the Commander to use against him or her at one of the most important battles of the war?

And as has been said before, you can tell the Sovereign Eye is lying when it claims Zhaitan has corrupted a sylvari if you fight it with a priory character.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Tuomir.1830:

You are not gaining any credibility by claiming absence of proof to be proof of absence. On the contrary.

Also, Zhaitan’s minions are known to be liars and to use psychological attacks to shake their foes. Considering Zhaitan knew everything those it corrupted knew, and that the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan was one of it’s most valuable pawns, it isn’t very difficult to imagine Zhaitan giving specific information to the Eye to be used against Zhaitan’s most prominent enemy.

Simply put, Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan is the last being you should believe.

If we don’t have any evidence then it’s given by Zhaitan. Also the princes proved that the Orr royal families weren’t all mesmers.

Zhaitan doesn’t know everything unless they reveal it to him. And its minions were not connected themselves.

Whiting was an example, he didn’t even know Cobiah was brought to him, that were seen by his own crew.

In the personal quest we took the lighthouse and misdirect the light, but the Dead Ships still follow it, why didn’t Zhaitan alert them? We took the ships and went to the shore, Zhaitan didn’t know until its eye saw us.

Another Eye also showed the ability to see through the scholar’s mind and dream.

First of all, I’ll have no part in this argument if you keep spouting fallacies and deny basic logic. Take a deep breath, read your post and think if it makes any sense at all before you post.

Moving on.

“Avatar of the Tree: Those who have been corrupted reveal everything to Zhaitan. Nothing is secret, least of all those places where his enemies hide.”

You are placing the words of a liar and an insane sylvari above that of the Pale Tree.

As for why the lighthouse plan worked – Zhaitan wasn’t omniscient. It couldn’t exactly take note every time a risen died somewhere. However, finding specific information is a different story. Compare it to keeping track of all the news feeds on internet as opposed to doing a google search on a specific topic.

Slowpokeking.8720:

It’s unique ability to Zhaitan’s minions, we don’t see other minions have such ability. It’s also the common ability of the Eyes of Zhaitan. Do you have a proof that King Reza was a mesmer? If no then it’s obviously granted by Zhaitan.

You are not gaining any credibility by claiming absence of proof to be proof of absence. On the contrary.

Also, Zhaitan’s minions are known to be liars and to use psychological attacks to shake their foes. Considering Zhaitan knew everything those it corrupted knew, and that the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan was one of it’s most valuable pawns, it isn’t very difficult to imagine Zhaitan giving specific information to the Eye to be used against Zhaitan’s most prominent enemy.

Simply put, Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan is the last being you should believe.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Randulf.7614:

Another thread said the symbol on the blindfold is the symbol of the Six Gods

One would usually think that by following up a previous post of mine saying “when Thalador puts histheo ry, I have a half joke” followed by said Thalador’s theory of Rytlock meeting the Six Gods, followed by the statement with a :P

One would think people would realize that he statement was a joke.

To be frank, I wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not…

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Tuomir.1830:

And while I don’t know what exactly he is, I’m pretty confident that Menzies is not a human.

We have very little information on Menzies. All we see of him, is his army. So I’m not ready to claim that either way. But what ever he is, Balthazar being his brother must be too.

Consider timeline. If they have the same father, that would make Menzies at least over 1800 years old by the time of GW1, as Balthazar is said to have entered Tyria with the head of his father, and a beheaded father hardly makes more children, and if they share mother and Menzies was of normal human age by the time of GW1, then that mother must have lived for thousands of years (or, well, at least over ~1800 years + whatever the age for fertility for immortal beings is). So, Menzies cannot be fully human. There is the possibility of Balthazar being born from human parents, one of which would also conceive Menzies with a being such as a god, but I don’t really buy that idea.

Could be Balthazar and Menzies were demigods like Grenth was, but human? I find that exceedingly unlikely.

Depends on what you mean by demigod.

Born between a god and a mortal in this case.

EDIT: Forgot to answer the last part…

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The human gods must have been partially human, since Grenth is the child of a mortal sculptor and Dwayna (they have to be compatible to mate). And we are told that Grenth rose to godhood with the help of 7 heroes, who would become his reapers.
I have difficulty believing that Grenth is an exception, and that the other gods are simply gods. I think they were all lesser beings once, and I think Gadd is right to some extend. Arrogance aside. There’s a pattern here, or at least it seems to me that there is one. If one or even two gods ascended to godhood, is it such a leap to assume that perhaps they all did?

May have been, not must have been. I wouldn’t expect beings such as gods to follow normal biological rules on conceiving offspring. And while I don’t know what exactly he is, I’m pretty confident that Menzies is not a human. Could be Balthazar and Menzies were demigods like Grenth was, but human? I find that exceedingly unlikely.

Not before engineers can choose to display back items instead of hobo sacks. Not before.

Then again, I don’t particularly like capes, they’re impractical and generally look like bed sheets sewn on your back. To make truly epic capes, you’d have to attach them to shoulder armor.

Gieniusz Krab.8259:

Hello,

So, as in title, expansion is coming… because how wouldn’t it when AN posted that photo with blinded Rytlock? I saw also one speculation which says it will come in 2015, but…

Blindfolded Rytlock means expansion? That’s… an impressive leap.

Warden Illyra: I have learned that the last time the Elder Dragons came, the Forgotten worked with Glint, who hid the old races from the dragons’ power.

Warden Illyra: This is the altar. It was here, before the human gods came, that Glint was freed of the Elder Dragons.

It’s also not particularly new information, it’s been in Arah explorable p4 since launch, as has been the status of Forgotten as one of the elder races.

Well, for Jormag, we have its tooth - that gives some clue for the scale. It’s big. Really big.

We’ve only seen the forms of two of the gods, Abaddon and Dhuum (and Dhuum wasn’t one of the six at the time), the rest is all Malchor’s interpretation … and he went blind from looking at them. I wouldn’t put too much weight on how the statues depict them.

I drew the priory map of the Antikytheria, picked out the lines and started finding meanings.

Horizontal lines – opposing lines?
“S” (dsd) —-—Kralkatorrik

Zhaitan —-—-Mordremoth

Primordus —-Jormag

So, that would be something like…

Fluid?———Solid?
Decay———Growth?
Hot————-Cold

Then there are the diagonal lines. “S” connects to Jormag and Primordus to Kralkatorrik. Zhaitan’s and Mordremoth’s diagonal lines connect to each other on empty lots of the outer ring, forming a square. Lines of common themes, perhaps?

“S”———————-Jormag – water?

Primordus——Kralkatorrik – earth?

Zhaitan upper———-Mordremoth upper – Death-Life-Birth (Mordremoth creates jungle, no?)

Zhaitan lower———-Mordremoth lower – would hazard a guess it’s to do with their secondary spheres, but right now I can’t think of a suitable connection.

At the beginning, the Elder Dragons were presented to us as alien and enigmatic beings, their thinking something that we couldn’t comprehend. However, over the course of many run ins with them, forming a picture of their individual personalities has become feasible. And that, my dear friends, is what this thread is about.

I’ll start with Zhaitan, as it’s the one we have the most experience in dealing with. Zhaitan was a conqueror. It took Orr as it was, and substituted itself for the highest being. Its armies were organized as an army of humans would have been, it even had logistics set up for bringing in more corpses. One could say that this level of detailed organization wasn’t set up by Zhaitan but by those it corrupted, but it let them. Either it was the king of micromanagement, or it allowed its minions a high level of freedom on how to act, just as long as their actions lined with the goals the dragon had.

Primordus we know surprisingly little about. It drove out the underground races from the depths of Tyria (well, dwarves didn’t quite comply, but that’s irrelevant here), makes its exclusively or almost exclusively out of fire and stone, and has been tunneling through the depths for some two centuries now. It could be just because it is busy munching on asuran cities, but to me, it seems like it holds little interest in sentient races, preferring to build his own realm in his image. Destroyers seen on the surface generally appear where lava pushes out from fissures, and they very rarely seem to have any sort of intent or plan beyond killing anything that comes close. So, my conclusion, Primordus is a withdrawn, territorial, self-interested dragon. That’s not to say it won’t want to expand its area of influence, though…

About Kralkatorrik, there’s even less known activity. Most of what there is comes from EoD, and since I haven’t read that, someone else may be able to cover Kralky better. However, it’s not as if I’ve got nothing… The first thing it did after waking up was go after Glint. Why? Because Glint had betrayed it. Seems obvious, right? But to be betrayed, at least some level of trust has to be placed. Kralkatorrik had expectations on how Glint should have acted, and was furious when she didn’t follow through. Would other elder dragons have chased down a rogue champion like that? I do not know. But Kralkatorrik did.

Jormag seems to be somewhat vain in a sense. Its minions don’t seem to mind Sons of Svanir much, implying Jormag doesn’t mind having uncorrupted followers who effectively venerate it as their sole god. Its corruption also seems to take over the mind rather slowly, allowing the recently corrupted to praise Jormag out of their own free will. Compare how Icebrood Norn that are still very much Norn in appearance act to those who have become completely ice. While all dragon minions are fanatic, it seems as if Jormag is fond of individuals fanatic to him before corruption. Even if he does corrupt them at a later point…

I won’t go into Mordremoth and DSD now – Mordremoth just woke up, so it would be too much to assume it’s behavior to remain consistent. I would hazard a guess it’s current aggressiveness is due to the sudden awakening. And DSD is a complete mystery still, so nothing to go on from there.

What if you’d have, say, 2 greatswords equipped, for whatever reason? Or hammer and a greatsword? There’s only so much rigging that can be used.

As a side note, I strongly disagree with your sense of style.

Regarding book UI, GW1 eventually had it, with nifty page flipping animations and all. While it was for books in your inventory as opposed to those found out in the world, and GW2 is a whole different game, I do believe it would be entirely possible to implement it here.

The library. Just… the library. I spent a long time just reading all the books and staring at the map. Though that wasn’t so much about narrative, so as for narrative moment, reunion of the Pact. The music, the dialog, meeting old friends, it was pretty great. It was just how it should be, Pact on the move again.

Also, I liked all the foreboding elements, I feel like we are in a house of cards on many fronts, and I can’t wait to see what falls first.

SpinDie.9105:

I just dont think its very realistic or lore friendly

The entire purpose of leveling is to become triumphant. Higher level players have earned the right to be able to walk though beginner zones like their sh** don’t stink as the noobs watch in envy..

Would Michael Jordans years of basketball training just vanish because he decided to play a street game with a bunch of amateurs?

You’re absolutely right, it would be so much more lore friendly and realistic to not have level scaling!

“Valiant Gwenthyleddy was a seasoned adventurer, but after traveling for weeks in Orr, she was attacked by risen, was caught off her guard and was seriously wounded. Fortunately, she survived, and headed back to the Grove to rest and to heal her wounds. After some time, she headed out to Caledon forest to pick up beautiful flowers. Suddenly, a host of risen shuffled from the sea! Gwenthyleddy was unarmed, and considered running away, when she remembered she was experienced and strong! So, she stared at the hammer of the risen norn towering above him, and laughed as the hammerhead bounced off her forehead harmlessly. A dozen risen asura gnawed at her feet, but it was merely a tickling sensation because of Gwenthyleddy’s overbearing experience. She found herself to be bored, and poked her pinky finger at the risen assaulting her. The vile undead exploded into a gory shower from the force of her mastery and experience, and Gwenthyleddy was able to walk back home safely. The end. "

Can I laugh at you now?

1. Cooperation
2. Coordination
3. Challenge

Yes, alliterative appeal is nice.

Dalanor.5387:

Why not? The player gets the agro with the least amount of damage dealt. How is it not an issue? Or am i wrong with following your idea?
Bolded part is already true.

I don’t see why damage should be the only priority for aggro. I don’t think you think that way either, but that’s what you are essentially saying here. Actively attempting to hold aggro should have high aggro priority. I am suggesting intuitive ways of doing just that. However, I would say ceaseless melee max DPS should cause the highest amounts of aggro, for balance reasons.

Concerning second, I never said this would be about bosses specifically. If you lay a good framework of combat roles, you can design much more elaborate and interesting encounters. And since you mention bosses, an additional mechanic I thought of would be for a boss to switch to single-target attacks and the like if one player had an overbearing amount of aggro when compared to the rest. This situation would never happen spontaneously, but if an organized group were to need a break from AoE attacks for any reason, they could attempt that, at the cost of halting damage. It could even offer a viable tactic of coordinated bursts with pauses to let the aggro manager grab the attention again inbetween.

TL;DR, Aggro management holds potential for interesting gameplay and encounter design.

Trash bosses even if though ones shouldn’t be an issue that you need to count with agro management. Period.
Mai Trin on the other hand is a great example in this. When you stand far away from her you can literally bait out her pistol shot and block it thus defend the party. No threat mechanics, no taunt, no stupid math in the back ground just proximity based attacks and proper gameplay. And with the whole fight you need to watch who is getting agroed and act accordingly to lure her into the electric fields. Agro management from the first second til the end.

I don’t really see your point. Your example with Mai Trinn isn’t about managing aggro, it’s about reacting to it. That’s the same difference as active defense to healing. And no encounters in a good raid should be trivial, and while I don’t think every one of them should require proactive aggro management, it would be good if a considerable portion of the game would encourage it by design.

Why did Orr sink?

Vizier Khilbron put his trust in Abaddonware.

Dalanor.5387:

Tuomir.1830:

Dalanor.5387:

Tuomir.1830:

I would like to point out, with improved aggro management with some small changes to the aggro mechanics, “tanking” can be a role that’s not passive, and would be supported by defensive stats in the same manner as DPS is supported by offensive stats. Defensive stats would provide passive damage mitigation to some level, for sure, but to hold the aggro would be the part requiring player skill.

Tanking works fine, just not as dumb as in others game with artificial threat mechanics.
Archy and Mossman are great examples how can you make an advantage of the situation when the boss sticks to you. Thats why guardians often use Knights gear there so while they grab the agro and rotating blocks or simply backpedaling while the boss is slowed down, the rest of the party can damage the boss at free will. Of course when the kitten hits the fan and the boss suddenly turns around to rip off that poor ele’s face than you should react and hope the guard dude get the agro back soon.

It just requires more situational awareness. Watch the game, not the UI.

I think you missed my proposed aggro changes from earlier the same page. Situational awareness is exactly what I am driving. With enhanced aggro mechanics, raid encounters can be designed with aggro management role in mind.

I read that. The problem with the idea (more or less with the current one as well) that often the one would get agro who is the least threat for the enemy.
“Hey that dude poke me with 500 damage per hit but let the ele melt my left arm with a gazillion of damage.” You get it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we would have more area and / or room wide effects to force everyone in the raid to defend itself somehow instad of getting hit one by one. And if you think about it why would it good if 1 player gets the boss attention while 9, 14, 24 or whatever number of other players just slice it into little pieces?

tl;dr: Agro management is currently acceptable in 5 man dungeon content while in raid environment it’s an encounter design issue.

On the first paragraph, I don’t really see that being an issue. Damage would still cause aggro, and with my proposed changes, only the amount of control over aggro would increase, they wouldn’t make the enemies automatically stick to one player, it would just make it more practicable to manage the aggro with active playing and situational awareness.

Concerning second, I never said this would be about bosses specifically. If you lay a good framework of combat roles, you can design much more elaborate and interesting encounters. And since you mention bosses, an additional mechanic I thought of would be for a boss to switch to single-target attacks and the like if one player had an overbearing amount of aggro when compared to the rest. This situation would never happen spontaneously, but if an organized group were to need a break from AoE attacks for any reason, they could attempt that, at the cost of halting damage. It could even offer a viable tactic of coordinated bursts with pauses to let the aggro manager grab the attention again inbetween.

TL;DR, Aggro management holds potential for interesting gameplay and encounter design.

Dalanor.5387:

Tuomir.1830:

I would like to point out, with improved aggro management with some small changes to the aggro mechanics, “tanking” can be a role that’s not passive, and would be supported by defensive stats in the same manner as DPS is supported by offensive stats. Defensive stats would provide passive damage mitigation to some level, for sure, but to hold the aggro would be the part requiring player skill.

Tanking works fine, just not as dumb as in others game with artificial threat mechanics.
Archy and Mossman are great examples how can you make an advantage of the situation when the boss sticks to you. Thats why guardians often use Knights gear there so while they grab the agro and rotating blocks or simply backpedaling while the boss is slowed down, the rest of the party can damage the boss at free will. Of course when the kitten hits the fan and the boss suddenly turns around to rip off that poor ele’s face than you should react and hope the guard dude get the agro back soon.

It just requires more situational awareness. Watch the game, not the UI.

I think you missed my proposed aggro changes from earlier the same page. Situational awareness is exactly what I am driving. With enhanced aggro mechanics, raid encounters can be designed with aggro management role in mind.

In the breach boss Troll, adds that use mender abilities spawn, and they are named some variance of troll. Menders also tend to spawn with trolls in the defense events. I’d say there’s enough merit in the connection.

This is actually a pretty sound concept, and sounds fun to play. Far above the usual profession suggestions. I loved dervish in GW1, but always figured they would be conceptually impossible in GW2. But this… this actually sounds like something Anet could potentially do. Wouldn’t get my hopes too high, though.

Yep, loud and clear.

You have been warned.

NoTrigger.8396:

Gilgalas.7860:

2/ I think that encounter design should mainly decide on this point, and the design can make requirements vary from one encounter to another. Let’s take two examples:
- just as NoTriggers insists on, some encounters can have an enrage timer with high HP ennemies, thus setting high dps targets for the raid. Such encounters will naturally favour zerker builds
- contratry to what NoTriggers says, it is perfectly possible to design on the other hand encounters where waterfields, dodging and a choice of base group healings will not be enough. To do this, you just need to calculate how much a perfectly optimized and played pure zerker raid can heal per second/minute/whatever, and set the encounter up so as to have it inflict more damages than this maximum to the players.
Such encounters will force a stronger focus on support skills and support oriented stats.

i dont insist on enrage timers, i would like to see some enrage timers, but i am completely fine without them (i said that in one of my posts). and i agree its perfectly possible to design encounters where you are forced to wear more defensive gear (i never said its not).
but this raises one question (and thats basically what im talking about all the time but people get it wrong):

what is the advantage of an encounter that is intentionally forcing players to use passive damage mitigation instead of designing the encounter in such a way that mainly player skill and knowledge makes the difference?

I would like to point out, with improved aggro management with some small changes to the aggro mechanics, “tanking” can be a role that’s not passive, and would be supported by defensive stats in the same manner as DPS is supported by offensive stats. Defensive stats would provide passive damage mitigation to some level, for sure, but to hold the aggro would be the part requiring player skill.

kitten .9460:

Aggro is impossible to control but this was manageable in GW1 by body blocking, something that doesn’t work in GW2.

Does it have to be? With all this discussion about skill based playing and impossibility of tanking, I got to thinking, could “tanking” be skill based playing equal to DPS in fragile gear setup?

Allow me to present you…
Aggro Management

Now, to start off, make no mistake, I’m not suggesting adding taunt skills or aggro-affecting effects to specific skills – we already have built-in aggro mechanics that could be improved to provide the means of aggro management gameplay.

Because everyone loves lists, that’s how I’ll present the proposed changes.

1. Taking damage increases aggro. You may think this encourages facetanking and passive play – you would be wrong. Facetanking isn’t possible, it gets you killed. So what would this change do? Introduce a tactical choice where taking hits allows you to keep an enemy on you, so if your job is to handle aggro, you’ll have to balance avoiding and taking hits to both keep the aggro on you, and to stay alive.
2. On the other side, make successful dodges and blocks reduce aggro. Not only does it make sense (most people would rather strike targets that are easy to hit first), it would support the first change.
3. Make aggro decay faster – this would both encourage active aggro management, and bring value to burst gameplay in PvE.
4. Make conditions such as blinds, cripple and chilled, weakness and immobilize, and hard CC cause a lot of aggro. You mitigate the damage the enemy deals, but the enemy won’t ignore you for it.

To compliment these, I’d point to my earlier post in this thread, where I discussed mob AI changes.

The biggest thing I gleamed from between the lines, is that the Thyria + 6 realms arrangement doesn’t encompass everything, that the multiverse is truly vast, if not boundless, as I have suspected for some time.

Aside from that, this compliments (and alters) my old theory about the Elder Dragons being inherent to Tyria, embodiment of it’s magic. Now it seems it’s their “mantles” that are the embodiment of Tyria’s magic. If souls = spirits = magic, then the souls of humans are foreign magic to the elder dragons. If the rest of Tyrian modern life (as opposed to dragons) also came from outside Thyria arrangement (I know, kittenumption, bear with me), that would mean that in the eyes of the dragons, their world was full of invaders and alien magic. This would explain the destructive impulses of Aerin, and possibly the destructiveness of Primordus.

My assumption not enough to convince you to consider modern life to be alien to Tyria? Think of Spirits of the Wild. Spiritual embodiments of different animals. Now, enter Kodan creation myth… (yeah, yeah, myths aren’t exactly the most credible sources…)

“Long ago, Koda, the Ancient One, Founder of the Earth, Keeper of the Sky, formed the world. In the beginning, the spirits of the world were wild and untamed. In time, many took physical form: spirits of stone, spirits of water, spirits of wind, spirits of soil, spirits of plants and birds and creeping things. All things with form have spirits… as do many formless things.

But one day the bear stood up and looked around him and saw that the spirits of the world were restless and chaotic. He could not understand the endless cycles of creation and destruction. And so bear was the first creature to speak, and with his first words he asked Koda, “Why is this so?” And Koda was pleased and made this offer to the bear: “If you would watch and learn, then watch and learn, and you shall protect and guide the spirits of this world.” And those who praised Koda and accepted this offer became the kodan. And those who were not ready and did not wish to change remained as bears."

My take on the bolded part? Life spontaneously forms from magic – similar to how demons form from the mist. For a very long time, the native magic of Thyria, dragon magic, shall we call it, was sealed away. However, wildlife was born into the world during that period, too – I would assume that directly after the last dragonrise, the world was rather desolate and devoid of life. So, that life formed from magic that entered the world while the dragon magic was mostly sealed away. I presume when a dragon consumes magic, it converts it to it’s own kind – or corrupts it. We have known precedence of magic being extracted, changed and re-injected to dragon minions – what if this is exactly how the corruption happens?

And if Kodan are bears changed by Koda, I could see Norn being humans changed by the Spirits of the Wilds. Curious how that would place Norn rather low in spiritual hierarchy…

Let’s compromise and say “Presumed to be hinted to have been the place it would have been in had the campaign gone through”, shall we?

Agreed – one of them is on a continent in the direction where Utopia would have been in. On that note, I managed to make out “Howling” on the eastern part of that continent, though the lower word eludes me. Starts with “p”, but that’s as far as I got.

EDIT: on further inspection, I believe the word below “howling” to be “peninsula”, so, that part of the continent would be Howling Peninsula.

It’s not fanmade – the map is found on the floor of the balcony in the Priory library. The dirt layer is of a different color, though.