Guild Wars 2

Elementalist: More viable build options, focusing on removing the overwhelming reliance on the water and arcana trait lines.

For one change I would make across the board: Equalize the base HP for all eight classes. There is no justification for this game design choice.

mercury ranique.2170:

…Anet decided to put living story content in WvW…

This is the part that directly goes against ANet’s statement about how the WvW seasons would be handled, which the OP aptly quoted. I believe it clearly qualifies as a change to WvW.

Therefore, IF it isn’t a bug, the announcement is either grossly misleading or outright false.

Best thing you can do next time you see something like that is select the player and right click > report. That way ANet knows exactly which player to investigate.

They do have ways to tracking stuff like this, and they have banned people for using third party hack software in the past (according to their own posts).

I would think the reason they don’t publicize it is that they don’t want more of the playerbase to even know those third party programs exist.

I like the idea of helping the other races as lvl 80 personal story quest lines, and it would certainly also help explain why my Asura has a home instance in Hoelbrak, or why my Sylvari has a home instance in the Black Citadel, etc.

It is true, though, that the cultural armors are one of the few things that are unique to the races, especially since so many of the racial skills are lackluster. Not sure how ANet could compensate for opening it up to everyone.

Zelu.1692:

Stop speculating, go play and complete your meta and once you have found out come back here to tell us.

lol +1

Yeah, the supply dolys have been hacking too, teleporting all over the place.

Seriously, though, I think the severe server lag is also part of the problem, compounding the fact that occasionally people do cheat.

Obviously this type of thread is entirely subjective, and not to be contrary, but I like the female version a lot better than the male version.

The male version looks like a random mix of heavy armor pieces from the PvP Locker, not to mention that the leg piece is clipping horribly with the kneecap on the boot in Dulfy’s screenshot. I would never pay 800 gems (what is that now? 8×6.5g, so 52g?) for that set.

Regardless of how much skin is/isn’t showing on the female armor, its textures are better (look at the snakeskin effect on her arms, which is nowhere on the male armor), the overall aesthetic is better put together (although I wish the gloves and shoulders were reversed to offset the asymmetry of the chest piece), and, other than the helmet, it doesn’t look like a blatant reskin. I honestly wish the male version looked more like the female set.

Side note: It’ll be interesting to see what the three sets look like on Charr, and see if they just got stretched out again.

If it truly is bugged that badly, then ANet needs to remove the achievement points associated with it, IMO.

I hope eventually the armors just pull the glow color from the character’s data automatically, but it sounds like this is at least a step in the right direction, and at least Kristen is working on it.

Thanks for the efforts, Kristen! These are some of the best armors in the game.

My biggest issue with Living Story is that it is on a 2-week cycle and feels extremely rushed. So, first suggestion:

1) Living Story content should have some method to be re-visited after its two-week cycle is over. I’ve seen several good suggestions regarding this. My favorite suggestion was just to place instance entrances out in the world where the Living Story has taken place. Upon entry, the player is given a flash-back instance of the Living Story arc. This encourages exploration, and allows players to happen upon story content that they may not have known existed. Another suggestion I saw that seemed viable was using either Marjory’s Journal (or similar item) or the Story Panel to allow entry to the flashback instances. I do think that these instances should allow progress toward as many of the achievements as possible so that players can pursue achievements at their own pace.

Secondary issue is that the Living Story seems totally unconnected to anything lore-wise:

2) For the longer story arcs, the Living Story could have lore discoveries that are interact-able objects, similar to the Marriner plaques, that offer clues as to where the story is headed. These bits of lore could be tracked in a Living Story panel in the Hero window. This would do a lot to quiet concerns that the Living Story is totally unconnected to anything else in-game, and fuel speculation about where it’s going, rather than wondering whether it has a direction at all.

Third issue is that the Living Story’s characters are not very well fleshed out:

3) For each LS release, I think more extensive lore and backstory could be added to the LS panel for each character (maybe major events also), allowing the people who are interested in lore to read more in-depth details. The website posts are fine, but they aren’t enough to satisfy any lore-hound’s desire for details, and honestly, they’re very easy to miss entirely. Each entry could be updated as a character takes part in the various LS arcs.

Fourth issue is that there are far too many ‘activities’ and not enough actual game content added.

4A) The achievements where you have to run around carving pumpkins or smashing 1000 pinatas are not enthusiasm-boosting. These achievements should be kept to a minimum. When these types of achievements ARE used, it would be nice if there was a purpose to them. For example, X# of pumpkins could award a candy corn cob or refined Halloween ingredient usable for the new crafting recipes. This would also have the side benefit of making the new recipes a tad less overwhelming.

4B) Reduce the number of repetitive activities and mini games, and focus on open world content. Honestly, the mini-games have been very hit-and-miss. I don’t know what portion of the player base I’m speaking for, but my understanding is that the activities are supposed to be a break from playing the regular game…not the other way around.

Speaking of time dedicated to activities and mini-games:

5) With the LS achievements, we are expected to play these mini-games a LOT in a relatively short period of time in order to take advantage of temporary achievement points. I have no problem with the achievements that award a loot bag for repetition. They reward people who actually like the mini-game, and that’s fine. However, with Lunatic Inquisition, for example, now we’re given up to 50 achievement points for a game that requires up to 15 minutes per game? That’s the potential of 20 hours spent just in that game in the space of a month. These repetition achievements should not award achievement points at all, IMO. The loot bag is enough.

That’s all I can think of at the moment…I may have to edit later as I think of other things.

StinVec’s post on the first page is right on target.

The suggestion the OP is making in his frustration is that the ignore function should remove the target player from your gaming experience entirely and with no exceptions.

I would like to add that, IMO, the ‘“Player X” is ignoring you.’ message is unnecessary. Just make it look like the person is offline, that way the player being ignored isn’t encouraged to try to find other avenues to harass.

@OP – I sympathize with your position, and I’ve honestly started reporting that kind of behavior far more frequently than I used to. It is truly unfortunate that the vast majority of the people using the phrase “that’s so gay” never think twice about how hurtful and insulting the implications can be, even when it is not directed at a particular person. I’ve personally had to be very intentional about not saying a similar phrase for the very same reasons, as it was far more common when I was a kid, but has the potential to be just as hurtful.

Hmm…I didn’t remember that you could swap while in combat in GW.

I don’t think that’d be balanced for Eles, but the OOC swap would be really nice.

Olba.5376:

Well, the thing is, the classes are already balanced around having different amounts of HP.

I disagree. The intention was there, but the HP difference is not balanced at all.

Olba.5376:

If you change the baseline HP all of a sudden, you’re guaranteed to run into issues. Make it lower than 18,372 and Warriors and Necromancers will lose a lot of their potential.

How are they losing potential? By making their play style more skill-based?

Olba.5376:

Make it higher than 10,805 and you’ll see Thieves and Elementalists emerge as ridiculously tanky.

And what is the problem with a tanky Ele or Thief? If they’re trading DPS for being tanky, they survive, but should be much less effective at DPS. Any class should be able to spec for any role, right?

Olba.5376:

This is because the lower health classes have access to things like Regeneration and Protection, which plays a big part in why their base HP is lower in the first place.

Warriors and Necros have just as much access to methods of self-healing. Just because people choose to ignore them and spec pure DPS doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Olba.5376:

And even if you give everyone the same baseline HP, that will just make Armor the deciding factor in who has the best actual HP…

Again…so what? The classes become tanky in different ways. Honestly, if this game truly wants any class to be able to spec for any role, then it’s going to have to give up on this preconceived notion of built-in roles. You can’t have built-in advantages like higher HP and higher armor determined ahead of time.

The player’s role should be determined entirely through traits and how the player wants to spec their character. If an Ele wants to be tanky, they should be able to trait for toughness, vitality, and cantrips, since that is their class function for survivability. If a Thief wants to play a tank, perhaps they should be able to trait for toughness, vitality, and more frequent evasion. If a Warrior wants to tank, maybe she should be able to spec for toughness, vitality, and direct damage reductions.

This type of build-crafting does not remove the class’s individuality. In fact, I see it as expanding on it, as you are utilizing each class’s unique aspects to create a flavorful interpretation of a play style.

When part of your class is pre-determined, it can totally undermine a trait system that otherwise has huge potential.

I would honestly prefer gradient options over particle effects.

Could create some really neat stuff by fading colors into each other. I know this is part of the appeal of the Sylvari cultural armors for me.

It would be really nice if this could be implemented for all classes.

GW had four weapon setups that could be rotated by pressing F1-F4 while out of combat, provided that the registered weapons were in your inventory, and it would equip the new weps and store the old ones automatically.

So many QoL things in GW that would be really nice brought forward.

I think we need to keep in mind that condition damage is very situational in what parts of the game it is effective. Also, conditions have secondary usefulness not considered when looking only at DPS (example: poison reducing healing effectiveness).

Condition damage builds are currently entirely viable for soloing in PvE, no matter what mob tier you’re fighting. Conditions may or may not do as much DPS as direct damage, but that doesn’t single-handedly determine a build’s viability.

Condition damage is also viable in small groups (such as dungeons). However, team synergy needs to be a consideration (don’t have five condition builds in the group) whereas with direct damage builds, you don’t have to worry about it.

Condition damage builds are not very viable in large groups in PvE, such as world bosses and guild missions. The stack limitations here are extremely restrictive, and need to be reworked. However, a damage increase buff for conditions wouldn’t necessarily be an answer, considering how quickly applied conditions are overwritten. The stack limitations on world bosses simply need to limit each player to 25, not limit the entire group participating to 25.

Condition damage builds are potent in WvW at the moment, as condition removal is nowhere near as easy as applying the conditions to a wide area (have to admit, Epidemic is an awesome skill), and the large-scale group condi removal that used to be available has been nerfed (example: Cleansing Water). I don’t think conditions need a nerf, but I wish condi removal was slightly easier to trait for and/or provide in large group settings.

TL;DR:
1) for world bosses, limit each player to 25 stacks, not 25 stacks for the entire group
2) make condi removal slightly more available for WvW combat

Sure, these ideas could be viable, but only if these “great hammer”-style weapons were implemented so that they are only usable when your group is heavily outnumbered by an enemy group, and so they require strategic use to be effective.

Unfortunately, that is very unlikely, since ANet has stated many times that they don’t want to discourage people from playing together…

…so we end up with zergs, zergs, more zergs, and even more zergs.

If zergs could use them, these new weapons would just make the current ‘numbers-are-all-that-matters’ meta even worse.

It seems as if ANet has reduced the wait time for this; maybe to make it less annoying?

I run into this error quite frequently after doing gathering runs, and recently it seems like I only have to wait 15-20s to continue selling, rather than the 30s-1m it used to be.

The gem system isn’t broken. Its behavior benefits ANet.

Unfortunately, it IS gradually becoming less tolerable for those of us who dislike farming gold or spending RL cash for cool stuff, and just want to play the game.

As players, we just need to accept the fact that playing the game as the buy-to-play game we paid for, and not as a job, and not throwing extra money at it, means that it’s going to take far longer to get your shinies.

I find it unlikely that ANet is going to change how they’re doing things at this point.

Guys…this thread was intended for lighthearted word-crafting around silly alliance names.

Take your argument over lore somewhere else, please.

Last year, we got a Halloween dungeon for the last three days, and Halloween actually ended on Nov 1 (IIRC).

This year, Halloween is confirmed to go until Nov 11, and we have the potential for a huge new tower in Kessex Hills that could easily be a dungeon…

Sounds to me like the two may be connected, but we’ll just have to wait another day to find out.

blurps.2340:

Vick.6805:

I know… sigh still trying to hold out hope that GW2 eventually becomes what everyone hoped for. #foreverdisappointed. Just trying to maintain some semblance of optimism.

I certainly didn’t hope for a PvE instance/raid progression game. There are plenty of titles offering that though, maybe one of those is more to your liking ?

Obviously you’re not familiar with the end-game instances from GW.

Feel free to actually familiarize yourself with them before making assumptions about what I’m talking about.

The instances I mentioned were neither a form of progression, nor were they “raids” in any typical MMO sense (besides Deep and Urgoz having larger parties). They were instanced PvE content similar to dungeons, but with far more interesting mechanics.

If you’re a villager and you’re hiding, make sure that you’re moving often enough to avoid the “Unless you resume active play…” notification.

It seems like ANet has implemented a very harsh anti-AFK policy with this activity, because every time I’ve had that message come up (and I AM playing legitimately, mind you), the achievement does not count that round.

I haven’t seen any official confirmation on this, but it has been my experience so far.

I enjoy GW2 for the most part, especially when compared to other MMOs, but when I think back to the dynamic skill and build system in GW…

GW2 just doesn’t even come close.

No, we don’t need multiple rows of skills to use all at once, but a substantial part of why GW was a great game was the huge selection of skills PLUS the limitation of only being able to use eight at a time.

And, yes, I’m aware of ANet’s “because it’s easier to balance” argument against GW’s system, but they’ve done a far worse job with balancing GW2 (and making its skills engaging) than they ever did with GW.

It’s hilarious, yes, but it would be far funnier if Charr didn’t have so many obviously unintentionally absurd-looking ‘adaptations’ of armor pieces.

I just hope they fix Kessex Hills. They need some serious forest reclamation…

Or perhaps make the Pact Morale event (whatever it’s called) leading to the temple a tad easier to finish.

The overall event chain is long enough that failing that one event (which is very easy to do) is more demoralizing to the players than the Pact.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you need to preview the Mad King costume on a Charr.

If I had to look at that on Charr constantly…I don’t even know…

Charr skins score another win.

People discover lucrative markets and over-supply them.

Unless it’s a market with such a high demand that it consistently outstrips supply, it’s bound to happen eventually.

Or…give people a reason to wear town clothes, as right now there is no purpose to that entire game system other than costume brawl and RP.

Even RP gets almost nothing out of it, because town clothes options are limited to goofy costumes and next to no customization.

Rym.1469:

Vick.6805:

With the minimal difference between ascended and exotic, I can’t imagine how they would make the BiS gear meaningful in a new instance unless it included agony…which will really cause rage if they don’t also add a new way to get the AR infusions.

That said, I would love a GW2 instance comparable to UW, FoW, DoA, Deep, Urgoz, etc. That’d make my year.

No big hopes for that. Everything else than 1-shot-everyone attacks and hundreds of red circles to dodge from seems too complicated to implement in current PvE.
UW, Urgoz, Fissure of Woe? Kidding me, right? If there wouldn’t be any shiny backpiece guaranteed after run and bosses which require you to think or change skills…woah, we’re getting into Dream of Dreams!

I know… sigh still trying to hold out hope that GW2 eventually becomes what everyone hoped for. #foreverdisappointed. Just trying to maintain some semblance of optimism.

With the 1-hit KO mechanics and constant stun-locks, you may as well do the content naked. Oh, and you forgot to mention boss AoE circles that don’t accurately represent the skill’s effect area. Those are ‘fun’, too.

Wurmz N Weedz

/15charr

The Halloween event has been out over a week, and this achievement is still not showing any progress whatsoever, no matter how many times I play the activity.

This is a temporary achievement worth up to 50 points…

I don’t enjoy this activity at all, but I’m trying for the achievement points, so I’d rather not play it more than I absolutely have to.

Please fix it.

Yes, this bug does need to be fixed…

…but then a lot about Elementalists has needed to be fixed for a long time.

The only time I’ve gotten credit for walls my groups have attacked was when I was one of the people using siege.

The conclusion I’ve drawn is that using siege and/or doing a huge amount of damage to the wall is the only way to progress on this particular achievement.

I’ve played several rounds and have received credit for none of them.

With the minimal difference between ascended and exotic, I can’t imagine how they would make the BiS gear meaningful in a new instance unless it included agony…which will really cause rage if they don’t also add a new way to get the AR infusions.

That said, I would love a GW2 instance comparable to UW, FoW, DoA, Deep, Urgoz, etc. That’d make my year.

Sometimes, it seems like if the champ or legendary is associated with an event completion, its dropped loot is buggy. The chests are fine.

There are several examples of this out in the PvE world. The specific one that comes to mind is the champ golem in one of the Asura labs in Brisban Wildlands. I’ve never gotten a single drop off of him, even when solo’ing the entire event.

With the Viscount and Lich, I have occasionally received loot from them, but it’s inconsistent.

GOSU.9574:

Mystic.5934:

because they are easy beginner professions. point-and-click style. most other professions require finesse or are not as straight-forward hack and slash.
As a mesmer main, I often get “sweet, we have a mesmer!” comments.

Portal and Time Warp require great skill. The only reasons anyone says anything like the above. Sad, but true.

That may be how a large chunk of players see it, because they’re the two most visible skills, but a group that also knows the player behind the mesmer is skillful would be even more excited.

It would be like describing a staff Elementalist’s team support as “Static Field and Healing Rain”. It just isn’t a comprehensive representation of what the class brings to the table, assuming the player brings more than a basic understanding of the class.

I’m torn on this one, but I’m leaning toward “no” for nodes on the world map.

I’m all for ease of access, but at the same time, I would prefer that the gathering “sweet spots” remain as a slight reward for people who expend the effort to explore on a regular basis.

This is one of the few things that actually rewards exploration at the moment.

The candy goo doesn’t seem to occur as often as the aoe, although admittedly, much of the problem is that people don’t understand the mechanic.

Since Tuesday’s patch, I’ve been noticing that when I leave a target selected for a long period of time, it will eventually deselect itself.

I am aware that clicking on the terrain auto-deselects targets, so when I noticed this happening, I intentionally did not click anywhere else. The target continued to auto-deselect after an extended period of time (1 min or so).

If specifics are needed: I was playing an up-leveled necro in the Labyrinth, and I was noticing this repeatedly with the Viscount of Candy Corn boss (mostly because it takes a long time to kill), although I believe it happened with the Lich as well.

I can’t imagine it being otherwise, but can one of the devs confirm that the Asian market (once launched) will be in a third WvW lineup separate from NA and EU?

If the Asian guilds beta testing the game are really that large, then that has the potential to cause huge problems if they’re somehow incorporated into the two existing lineups.

EDIT: As far as servers hitting queues, my server is mid-tier and hits queues every weekend.

EverythingEnds.4261:

…this is no legit playstyle in my opinion, as PvP is about being competitive and not about farming each other…

PvP, like any portion of PvE or WvW, is only what its players make it. ANet can set all kinds of rules for how they ‘intend’ for the players to use a given game mode, but the players will still find ways to play that ANet didn’t think up (think of everything that’s happened recently with GvG).

I would argue that “PvP” and “farming each other” is essentially the same thing. Yes, you have a capture point system, but players can choose to ignore that at any time and simply focus on killing each other. It’s just a different take on the same game. The question, then, is whether these players are seeing an undue benefit to their sparring (i.e. is it an exploit?). I doubt they are seeing any undue benefit.

As far as PvP being competitive…who’s to say that players who are sparring for fun in an otherwise empty arena aren’t being competitive in their own way? On top of that, I honestly don’t see what difference it makes if they’re not being competitive at all, and instead they’re just having fun. I wish more people played that way, and I view it as a far more ‘legit playstyle’ than many PvP’ers’ attitudes.

I think people in general take PvP (and WvW sometimes) far too seriously and have eliminated a lot of what I used to find fun about it.

As others have noted, this particular achievement is not necessary to finish the meta-achievement.

BUT, the fastest way to do this is in the Heart of the Mists, and you don’t have to touch PvP or WvW. Just go to the sparring NPCs (it’s marked on the map) and use the finishers on them.

The sparring NPCs are soloable, but you can also take a friend with you and cooperate.

I have to disagree with the “stand in melee” strategy, as all of the times I’ve killed the Viscount, the vast majority of the people I see dead were in melee range.

His AoEs DO hit within melee range, and when the majority of the zerg is stacked on top of him, I’ve seen his candy corn barrage stack all 20-ish red circles in one spot and insta-down the entire mob of people.

While I agree that the candy buff mechanic is not intuitive at all, it is definitely the better way to go than standing in melee range.

It would be really nice if this was fixed, but obviously it’s not an easy fix, or they would’ve done it by now. :/

Valandras.2093:

USING MY AMAZING PSYCHIC POWERS I HAVE DETERMINED WHAT THE NEXT UPDATE WILL ENTAIL:

There shall be a Great Krait Obelisk revealed in the middle of Lake Viathan. Also, there will probably be a Lake Viathan Leviathan, because that name is too stupid to NOT lead to that.

We shall climb this Obelisk, fighting krait as we do, and there shall be a boss fight with Interesting Mechanics at the very top.

There shall be Mini Krait available in the Gem Store, and nobody will buy them because minis are stupid.

There may also be “buffs” that don’t actually buff anything, because Anet are mortally afraid of buffing anything that doesn’t wear Heavy Armor.

OMG…so cynical it made me laugh.

Honestly, no matter what the story is, I really hope underwater combat gets some attention. I think that portion of the game has been overlooked for far too long, and I’m hoping it’s because they’re doing some drastic updates.

/crossfingers

The major problem with having a support character not be able to support themselves equally with their teammates is that they potentially will be unable to defend against the inevitable “KILL THE SUPPORT” mindset in PvP.

If their self-heals and such can’t protect them against being singled out as THE target during a match, then their support is meaningless and inherently not viable.

I killed him twice last night.

The first time, there were two doors right next to each other, so I was trying to tag both the Viscount and the other mobs. I did not get the achievement, but I did get gold credit on both events.

The second time, I just focused on the Viscount, and I got the achievement and gold event credit.

I was leveling an alt in the labyrinth, so I know she doesn’t do as much damage as a geared 80. Maybe this is an issue with the contribution marker being slightly too high? In any case, it doesn’t seem to correlate with the event contribution levels.