Guild Wars 2

Belenwyn.8674:

Most boss encounters are designed in a certain way. This favors certain builds. To change this you have to design encounters that have different goals. If the goal is to keep a key target alive by applying as many and as long-lasting boons to it as possible you need a different build compared to a goal where you have to control a key target as efficient as possible.

The key lies therefore in a much higher variety for the encounters than we have today.

That is a very good description of the current situation in the game.

Harper.4173:

Does it? Regardless of gear you still do the same things in encounters.
You use the same rotation in your weapon skills. You do the same dodges at the same time intervals. You approach the content identically.
You skip the same skips. You LOS the same mobs. It’s basically the same everything except you do less damage and everything takes longer.

Also if you fail to realize that we’re discussing power-based gear here I’m going to point it out.
As far as power-gear is concerned the prefix doesn’t matter -the variety people speak of wouldn’t be there.

As far as conditions go – well – no matter how they make the encounters and how the content works the 25 cap will pretty much shut down any hope of them being serious in PVE.

I don’t really know why you brought them up since we all know they’ll never be a thing until the cap is somehow dealt with.

Is build =/= gear ? The answer is complicated.

Some builds features traits and a choice of weapon/utilities that makes the build sustainable by itself. With these builds, you don’t need a specific gear to make it work and thus gear=/= build.

Classic example : 0/2/0/6/6 elementalist in PvE can be used with literally anything. I’m not saying the build is good! I’m just saying that you do the same things regardless of the armour you are wearing.

Other builds do not have this luxury. Usually these builds are based on the principle of “kill it before it kills you”. With these builds : traits and utilites are taken to maximise the damage dealt with the minimum survivabilily required to escape dangerous situations/counter attacks. They NEED a damage oriented gear otherwise you won’t be able to assassinate your target before your défenses expire.

Classic example : D/P roaming thief in WvW. You just CAN’T use this build with anything but berserker armour (or other very offensive stats sets). In this case build=gear.
This also applies for almost (if not all) Dungeon meta builds that have too little defenses to be efficient with cleric armour. You NEED a minimum of firepower to make it work (knight armour + zerk trinkets in the worst case scenario).

Back on topic :

There is a reason why the actual PvE meta is called the “berserker meta” and not “glass canon meta”. In this meta, builds require specific gear to work correctly and only one stat set allows a player to inflict the maximum dps possible. Why do you think some people impose gearcheck on join ?

Aomine.5012:

VodCom.6924:

Argon.1563:

KngGilgamesh.3481:

elementalist and thief. Warriors are still okay for DPS though. The only professions with low damage are Necro and Mesmer.

Necro has very high damage, if you know how to play it. Mesmer is on the lower end of it, but it can still do a reasonable amount of damage.

In these cases necros are actually awesome. They are one of the few profession that can self stack 25 might, inflict vulnerability and inflict easily 5k dps AT RANGE ON MOBILE TARGETS while being much more survivable than other classes equivalents. Thanks to the upgraded deathshroud build.

Actually as a selfish range dps, ranger still excel necro if it’s just one target.

Nodoubt about this pal, I was casting some light on an aspect of the game this is too much forgotten on these forum : GW2 endgame encompasses much more than just dungeon speed clearing.

It has been proved years ago that necros suck in speed runs, however people tend to forget they excel pretty much everywhere else in PvE.

And since ozzy asked which class has the highest dps without mentionning in what circumstances the answer is much more open ended that what some people claim.

Anchoku.8142:

I agree with Gnat. A hybrid build needs a purpose and some synergy to make sense. We only get 14 points to spend. Necromancers only get a lot of condition damage from scepter, Death Nova, Epidemic, Dhuumfire, and certain weapon sigils or runes.

The scepter with epidemics brings aoe capacity that a regular power necro lacks.

This alone is a good reason to invest in an hybrid in silverwastes or casual dungeon runs, where mobs aren’t los’ed and packed tight to be cleaved to death.

Argon.1563:

KngGilgamesh.3481:

elementalist and thief. Warriors are still okay for DPS though. The only professions with low damage are Necro and Mesmer.

Necro has very high damage, if you know how to play it. Mesmer is on the lower end of it, but it can still do a reasonable amount of damage.

This thread again. -_-

I’ll try to sum it up in a few key points :

• Necromancer is a selfish class. It means they have excellent self buffs and POOR PARTY BUFFS. -> As such necros are of little value in an optimised group
• Necros are master of condition -> Conditions are sub-par in PvE ATM for reasons that infuriate me
• What necros can do for a party (boon removal, condition cleaning, blinds, vulnerability) others can do it better (mesmers’ null field for both corruption and condition cleaning, thieves for blinds)
• Necros are naturally tougher and slower than other caster classes for balance reasons (2nd health bar makes up for these flaws) -> Nobody gives a kitten about it in optimised runs, where you want to be as glassy, speedy and killy as possible.

In the end, the very concept and features of necros makes them subpar for speed clearing.

However, if you step out of speed running and optimised groups you realise that one spend most of its time :

• In situations where there is no fire field/fury/vulnerability cap.
• In situations where ennemies are mobiles and can’t be LoS’ed
• In situations where fights last for more than 30 sec.

In these cases necros are actually awesome. They are one of the few profession that can self stack 25 might, inflict vulnerability and inflict easily 5k dps AT RANGE ON MOBILE TARGETS while being much more survivable than other classes equivalents. Thanks to the upgraded deathshroud build.

TL;DR : Necros are naturally selfish and tough, therefore not desired in optimised groups. However, in non-optimised environments, they are more efficient and survivable than others.

Addendum : Ele have the most dps in speed runs because of lava font + meteor shower doing insane damage. However, if your target is moving because it was not los’ed, then your’re screwed and the necro comes on top. To convince yourself, try to kill inquest assassins as fast as possible in LW S2E1 with both a staff ele and a DS necro.

Roguefire.8174:

If the forge yielded consistent higher profits then it would cause inflation. The forge is a gamble where the house always wins majority. Anyone who thinks the forge is a good way to make profit, will eventually go broke.

I watched my friend invest thousands and thousands of gold in the forge, and sometimes its a roller coaster, but it always ends up at the bottom.

My main point being… can you imagine every time your inventory fills up you have to say “Hold up! Gotta go to the forge”. Then click 4 items at a time until its all cleared that’s just as many clicks as it would be to salvage and destroy the luck.

The force break even on greens. It’s the 15% tax on selling that prevent people from making money out of it. If a window of profit exist, players will likely make it disappear by themselves by investing in the MF.

Classic economic reasonning should tell you that in equilibrium, forging greens should be neutral for you. The high price of the ecto is what makes it viable (and unviable for the blues).

In the end, you asked for a way NOT to get luck when reaching the 300% cap. Forging greens and selling blues is something you CAN do. I’m NOT forcing you to do it. I’m NOT saying that it is more practical or better than just salvaging you loot either.

I’m just saying that you won’t get any essence of luck using this method, which is what was asked for in the OP.

Roguefire.8174:

Selling every single blue and green on tp or forging them would take longer than clicking luck, and even yield less profit. That’s not a solution, that would be an even bigger problem.

Forging blues yields less profit than selling them to the npc. On that I agree.

Forging green however… I’m not so sure. Mix armour and weapons so you have a change to get cloth out of your green weapons on top of an exo.

maddoctor.2738:

VodCom.6924:

And for those who doubt CD is an issue in PvE, I shall remind them that when you create a game with 15 different stats sets, it’s a bit of a shame if only 1 sees the light of the day. Having 2 diferent optimal stat sets (say berserker and sinister) would be much better for everyone (more choices and more replayability).

Well more gear choice is not equal to more build choice, since gear != build. What they should’ve done is remove stats from gear completely

Some builds (not all) require a specific gear in order to run properly. In fact all the meta builds rely on berserker gear especially in difficult content in order to function properly or simply survive.

While some builds can function regardless of what gear you wear (looking at you AH guardian), it is not the case for all of them.

Also, you understood what I said the wrong way : more builds => more gear types see the light of the day and not the other way around. The number of stats sets in the meta is a good indicator of the diversity in said meta.

spoj.9672:

NoTrigger.8396:

spoj.9672:

This bar is more pug friendly now. But it looks like it might be possible for organised groups to completely stunlock bosses with even greater ease (chain icebow 5’s).

And it is essentially the same system. Defiant stacks and defiant bar works the same way in that you have to strip it down to land a CC. The difference is each CC now contributes different amounts to the bar and the bar now regens. So solo players can no longer whittle down defiant stacks ready for an interrupt. So it makes it almost impossible to use effectively in solos but makes it easier for groups. Not really sure how i feel about this.

it isnt essentially the same system. its completely different.
its the wildstar IA system with a few small differences.

its also not easier for groups now. taking off stacks one by one and using deep freeze is easier than coordinating stuns, especially with larger groups.
they can build mechanics around the system like wildstar phageborn convergence hammer:
http://youtu.be/5Q5CiO90mmY?t=7m27s

and good instanced group content should be so hard that it is impossible to solo anything in the instance to begin with.

By the looks of it it is going to require less CC to disable a boss. Which means it will be easier. Not to mention the massive visual queue to give even pugs with no communication a big hint at when to CC. When me and my friends do fractal 50 without ts we often end up using 2 icebow 5’s at the same time mid fight. So we are already doing exactly what this system wants us to do without any communication. There is really nothing remotely complicated about using a few CC’s at the same time. And if the type of stun is predetermined then it makes it even easier. Because you dont have to worry about who’s CC hits last when the bar is low or at zero.

And it is essentially the same system. You are CCing to remove strips/bar so you can CC. Its changing a lot but it still has a lot of similarities. The differences are in the details. Although if even basic champions and bosses get a predetermined stun instead of the choice of players CC then we are getting a very simplified and pointless use of CC in old content. It will be better for openworld stuff i wont deny that. But it looks like its providing less options to organised groups.

I’m sure organised groups will find a way to adapt.

One icebow #5 will probably deplete a large chunk of defiance bar by themselves. Add something like thief pistol #4 spam or the mesmer dazing shatter and you can call it a day. Once the defiance bar is gone, use your remaining icebow #5 and here you go.

Right click → Sell on the trading post →??? → Profit (and inventory emptied)

It’s not like the game showers me with Superior runes/sigils and the major runes and sigils can be sold very easily on the TP.

Conncept.7638:

VodCom.6924:

The only fix I saw was proposed 2 weeks ago in a thread now buried, it was called “overflow damage” :
The principle : Once a mob has reached 25 stacks of bleeding, the next stack of bleed applied would be converted in direct damage instead without removing any of the current bleeding stacks.

Overflow damage has been suggested many times but it still has an unaddressed problem, power damage is just (base+modifier*power), super simple calculation for the servers to do constantly for the hundreds of people in a single map. Condition damage on the other hand is (modifier*condition damage*duration), calculating that from duration to instant with every single hit is nothing to scoff at, especially when the server is required to do it for hundreds of players at once.

I fail to see how this will be harder to compute for servers. The damage formula is different but the number of operation to perform is the same.

I might have mised something though. Care to explain further ?

Caeledh.5437:

I’ll make this point again.

As said in previous POI livestreams, NONE OF THIS IS OFFICIALLY CONFIRMED.

We are arguing over speculation. Nothing is set is stone yet and 3 scenarii are possible :

• Utilities are tied to legends as the ele weapon skills are tied to an affinity, no variation allowed bar the racial skills (this scenario is my least favorite).
• Utilities are not tied to legends and behave like elementalist glyphs. The legend will merely tweak them (unlikely hypothesis)
• Each legend will have a limited pool of utilities to choose from.

silvermember.8941:

VodCom.6924:

My fear : once the players know this “trick” about defiance, they’ll just rolfstomp the boss.

I hope the wyvern will still take flight even after we’ve stunned it and still bombard us. CC the wyvern should make things faster but not easier.

edit: grammar and spelling (don’t post when you’re going to sleep)

There is no trick to it other than to time your Control effects and use it in the appropriate time. And your fear seems stupid since it is natural for players to get better a playing a game. So just like Tequalt players will be able to handle the new system in time but at the very least this new system makes control useful in PvE.

Hey man relax, I’m not saying that the change in defiance is bad.

I’m just hoping it’s not the only element in the wyvern encounter and that a successful CC won’t allow us to skip other interesting mechanics of the fight. Tequatl is now mastered by the majority of the playerbase, that does not mean he’s boring and a simple zergfest. I just hope that the wyvern will still stay interesting even 6 months after.

Brother Grimm.5176:

The “horrific” state of CD in this game is WAY over-hyped and exaggerated by those players that want their CD builds to be as valued as Zerker builds in ALL modes of the game. I don’t recall where Anet ever announced this was a goal they were pursuing (or should pursue). WANTING the game to be as you like does not mean a solution to your perceived issue is being pursued.

That being said, I’ve never had an issue getting in enough damage to obtain WB rewards on my Condi Necro or Mesmer, but then again, I don’t sit there spamming 1 either. I can see where Condi players that want to do dungeons have a valid beef, but in terms of speed running, CD is not really a good choice there (even if stacking were higher).

IIRC Nike stated once that conditions in speed running suffers from two problems, one is natural and expected and one is un-natural and unexpected :

• CD is backloaded, making it less optimal in very short fights (and speed runners want fights as short as possible)
• even in longer fights, CD has a lower DPS cap than direct damage in groups of 5, because of cap on the umber of stacks AND lack of trait that increase condition damage. This is completely broken and crazy.

The only fix I saw was proposed 2 weeks ago in a thread now buried, it was called “overflow damage” :
The principle : Once a mob has reached 25 stacks of bleeding, the next stack of bleed applied would be converted in direct damage instead without removing any of the current bleeding stacks.

And for those who doubt CD is an issue in PvE, I shall remind them that when you create a game with 15 different stats sets, it’s a bit of a shame if only 1 sees the light of the day. Having 2 diferent optimal stat sets (say berserker and sinister) would be much better for everyone (more choices and more replayability).

My fear : once the players know this “trick” about defiance, they’ll just rolfstomp the boss.

I hope the wyvern will still take flight even after we’ve stunned it and still bombard us. CC the wyvern should make things faster but not easier.

edit: grammar and spelling (don’t post when you’re going to sleep)

Olvendred.3027:

VodCom.6924:

#stupidhashtagincoming
#liatelle (only French speaking dudes can understand this one)

Friendly reminder : they removed the capricorn because UW combat was broken. It interacted poorly with traits, weapons were imbalanced, targeting was unreliable and people had trouble understanding how to fight with the Z axis.

Before we get the capricorn back, all the problems above must be fixed.

If you have good suggestions on how to fix this mess, be my guest. Frankly, I’m clueless on how to improve UW combat.

Targeting works fine, as does the Z-axis. Those are merely l2p issues.

The weapons aren’t all that badly imbalanced, but there is some work to be done there.

The main problem is with traits, which needs to be solved by having a separate setting for traits, which would take effect when underwater.

Agreed on the l2p with the Z axis.

Disagree with the targeting : try to hit something consistently with the ele’s trident using the air auto-attack. There is also a problem with hitboxes, though it is more a PvE issue (like, where’s the hitbox of an undead shark precisely?).

As for the traits… the first step to improve UW combat is to make sure ALL the ground skills to have an equivalent underwater. Guidelines:

• Walls (like wall of reflection) and circles (like purging flames) are spheres underwater.
• AoEs are either centered on the caster or centered on the targeted ennemy or appear in front of the caster at a set distance in the direction faced.
• Conjures summons alternative weapons (storm spears/fire harpoon gun/frost trident/fire trident) with the 2nd conjure placed on the caster or the target.
• Red circles telling there is a danger are wireframe spheres. It is important that these AoE indicators are visible at all time.

About traits, ideas that sprung out of my mind :
All traits that modify land weapons damages/skill recharge time should have an UW counterpart. Note : since there is less flexibility for choosing the UW weapons, the trait should modify deeper the UW weapon skills to re-create diversity of builds.

Eg: the basic version of the necro’s trident should have no bleeding on the AA. The minor trait barbed precision should add bleeding to the AA of both weapons. The more you invest in curses, the more efficient the trident and spear become to apply bleed.

I’ll be joining an army of lvl 80 revenant on day one. The create an all revenant party and do some crasy buildcrafting in the citadel of flames or the crucible.

Once the new zones will be less overcrowded, I’ll consider having a tour of the heart of the jungle.

#stupidhashtagincoming
#liatelle (only French speaking dudes can understand this one)

Friendly reminder : they removed the capricorn because UW combat was broken. It interacted poorly with traits, weapons were imbalanced, targeting was unreliable and people had trouble understanding how to fight with the Z axis.

Before we get the capricorn back, all the problems above must be fixed.

If you have good suggestions on how to fix this mess, be my guest. Frankly, I’m clueless on how to improve UW combat.

Dhemize.8649:

What if you start the hunt and then everyone blobs down the target before you get there? You get no credit and wasted a bounty?

You get no credit and the target respawns ‘till the clock says it’s over.

Also, you could ask if you can team up with a large guild to have them help you for your bounties. Not an optimal solution and requires a large amount of trust, yet it can work.

Dump blues and greens in the mystic forge ’till rare items come out ?

You won’t have essences of luck cluttering your inventory then.

Lily.1935:

Naqaj.6219:

Creating a skill disparity between PvE and PvP that Arenanet has repeatedly stated they want to avoid if possible.

I’d rather they stop trying to make ye olde MMO epic boss encounters in a combat system that doesn’t support them, and rather aim for encounters that are more PvP-like in nature, so the balancing makes sense.

Guild wars 1 taught us that what you want is a pipe dream. The ai in GW1 functioned far similar to players then it does in GW2. And it just wasn’t possible there. the Ai and a player in GW2 are as different as night and day.

Bolded sentence was true only several years AFTER the launch of the game, where they started to copy popular builds from PvE/PvP and implemented the optimal uses in the AI. The AI didn’t get smarter, it was taught how to copy the actual meta.

the krytan assassin.9235:

pfff hate to see anet abusing us like this. Getting a reviewer who barely played since the release to comment on the upcoming xpac, this just feels like the interviewer after the Xpac was announced. Not blaming Angry Joe for this, but it just looks like they were trying to seek another market mechanism to promote the Xpac more. If anet really cared about us they would send some expert players of pvp/pve/wvw to interview. There are alot of unsolved problems out there on the field, but this way it’s not beneficial in any way for our community…

My friend, you’re pointing out a problem that is know since the profession of reviewer was created in this world. This is a problem of :

Deep knowledge of something vs outside point of view

Basically, if you’re a critic/reviewer, you want to cover as much games/movies/piece of theater/books as possible while holding up to a certain quality standard of review. This means that one can hardly expect that the most popular and well known reviewers on YouTube to spend as much time on GW2 as the most die hard fans there.

On top of this, the more time you spend on a game the more involved and therefore biased you become. When I personnaly judge GW2 content, I judge it knowing what Anet is capable of producing in a given amount of time, what they will produce regarding their actual audience and what they (and I) enjoy.

An outside reviewer does not has these bias and thus will give an opinion that is sometimes vastly different from the community consensus. Will this opinion be more thruthfull or valid than the ones of the actual players ?

Well… I don’t know. Yet both types of opinions are important if one wants to really kitten wether or not one should buy the game. AJ is not more or less legitimate than any of us to review the game, his opinion matters as well as ours.

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Ask about the Trinity in HoT
so people can finally shut up…

I believe you should change your question to: Will people be forced into roles via a hard trinity? Yours is very vague. (Because Guild Wars 2 already has a soft trinity)

Actually I am talking about the GW2 trinity.
In vanilla everybody knows Zerker rules all. They never held up to the trinity in vanilla.

Zerker is a gear stat, not a role.

Yes and damage rules all. Damage is a role.
The game doesn’t even reward rezers during boss fight, and support/controller. Don’t do enough damage and you won’t get credit no matter how much buffing and healing and Rezing you do. Damage is the one and only true role in vanilla. Simple as that. No point arguing with you back and forth on that. Everybody knows it even if you don’t agree.

snip

Take this sweet discussion to the realm of PM and stop derailing this thread. You’ll thank me later.

Questions for AngryJoe :

1. The PR talked about challenging content. How will it be delivered ? Guild missions, instances, open-world or a mix of the 3 ?
2. What are the names for the specialization of all the existing professions ?
3. Any chance the technologies implemented in HoT will make their way to the base game ?
4. Did you design the druid spec for the ranger with a specific game mode or role in a party in mind ?

Thanks for taking the time AJ.

ckotoc.5421:

zerker isnt optional.Noone will take you to dungeons if u dont play zerk.I dont see any options in game atm.Everyone plays the exact same with the others if they want to play with other ppl and not by themselves.Anet said no holy trinity but also said no expansion too and see what happened.We get full paid expansion and now they add taunt.They want to bring more ppl in game and that will happen only with trinity because ppl want to have the ability to choose a role in game and not play only one that the rest of the players forces you to if you want to be in a group.

My friend you failed 3 times in a row :

• You failed to read the first few posts above yours that give examples that directly contradict your statement → Casuals can play in dungeons.
• You failed to understand that GW2 dungeons are designed such that they can be completed by ANY type of party, not just the meta ones.
• You failed to masquerade what is an obvious troll.

The ONLY place where it is very hard to find a non-meta group is arah. All the other dungeons see some groups that do not have gear requirements.

Also do not forget that casual=/=noob=/=anti-meta.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

VodCom.6924:

snip for readability

It does depend greatly on the team comp and strength of the team. However:
First ele in a party would be better off with 6/6/2. Staff or d/f is almost a personal preference. staff has higher damage and interesting utility. D/F can might stack ( assuming you don’t constantly get area retal/weakness..)
The main reason for this is you’d want the weak spot for the vuln stacks. Unless you have a good ranger/engi in party, there will almost always be room for first ele to add them, and even then there may still be need.

Personally I don’t see any point in a s/f ( s/d) + LH ele unless its the second ele in a group. Its yield is diminished if there isn’t fire fields to blast ( could come from a skilled guardian, but assuming skilled isn’t a good idea unless its guildies).

So assuming you do have fire fields to blast, the next question is fury. Plenty of ways to achieve perma fury via 2-3 party members. Assuming this is the case:
5/4/0/5/0 S/F + LH.

This gives you some crazy awesome utility. It Does assume things like fire fields, vuln, and fury can be covered by other party members ( so strong team needed). However, the utility and dps this packs is superior to a 6/4/2/2 S/D ele under the right conditions. S/D < S/F regardless.

Artemis, what you said is true for groups that care about composition and synergies.

On multiple occasions I ran into crazy groups with weird stuff like 3 thieves and one ranger with my ele (one of the thief was playing dual pistols btw -_- ). 0/6/0/4/4 saved my kitten because I was the only one in the group to have an access to protection and since I didn’t care about dps it worked out.

This sort of situation is really common for those who join groups in AC/CM or CoF that just say “P1” without specifying requirements. People don’t communicate and couldn’t care less about what you are playing and who you are as long as you dont die too much. They don’t pre-stack might, do not correctly place their reflections if they have some do not try to cleanse condition from allies etc…

However when rushing with guildies, I stick to the 6/6/0/0/2 like you said and I have no real preference about weapon sets. This is something that I appreciate a lot about GW2 : I have the possibility to play with noobs and casuals with minimal changes to attributes and without having to change my equipment.

Back on topic : no I don’t think GW2 is turning into a Trinity game whatsoever. I believe however that Anet is getting better at building “hard encounters” meaning that only the very best and most coordinated groups can succeed with a full glass canon meta party. Most of the others players (like me) will be forced to integrate more survivability options in their build/Equipment.

rotten.9753:

No no no, you obviously do not understand these people. They don’t want players to be semi-dps, semi-support and semi-control (non-dedicated roles), they want fully specced dedicated roles. Until that happens, gw2 has no diversity.

It’s simpler for most people to figure out who they are and what they do if they min max.

However I belong to the smaller crowd of players who do not like min-maxing, just to have some room to breathe in harder and non mastered content.

Also do keep in mind that the semi-support approach does work wonders in PUG groups where nobody gives a dman about stacking might or group composition to include stealth for skipping or reflects for projectiles.

In these types of groups, you’re better off bringing an berserker D/F ele with 0/6/0/4/4 attribute repartition instead of the classic 6/4/2/2/0 SD lightning hammer build (unless you can solo the path but this is not the topic of the discussion).

Knighthonor.4061:

PopeUrban.2578:

Taunt is a CC, not an aggro mechanic. Re-read it.

The way its implemented is specifically to bust up the murderball formations that trivialize most of the pve content, and give melee specs additional and interesting cc that synergizes with rather than conflicts with their weapon sets.

For example: if you’re running a melee warrior, and you want some interrupt on your utility bar. Well, you could use fear me, but it’s a giant pain in the kitten , as you’re forced to use a mobility skill just to catch back up with the guy you just interrupted. On the flip side, if you’re running a ranged build, fear me has much better synergy as you’re trying to maintain distance. The addition of taunt (AKA Bizarro-fear), allows more build options and better skill synergy.

On top of that, mobs are going to use it on you, and I’d imagine that’s going to be pretty heavily abused by encounter and monster designs to break up the ‘all DPS IN A CORNER’ boring as heck strategy that pervades most of PvE, and moves general PvE in a more fun direction with real interrupts, timed cc saves, and other such fun stuff.

Aggro mechanics are a form of CC. So it’s not wrong to label Taunts a form of Aggro control.
Tanks in all trinity games do the job of CONTROLLING mobs.

“Taunt” in most (MMO)RPGs is a form of soft crowd control that increases the probability of a mob to attack the caster. When taunted, archers will stand where they are, not move and focus fire the caster.

Currently we have NO confirmation that the condition “taunt” will affect the aggro value of a mob. We only have the confirmation that it "will force the target(s) to run toward the caster. Nothing is preventing the mob to attack an other person once the condition wears out.

You already know the playstyle of an opponent by looking at his weapons and buff bar. It’s not like you’ll cross a ranger running a condition trait setup with a greatsword.

Scientia.8924:

Will there ever be a situation where it’s better to Pull rather than to Taunt?

Reminds me of Daze vs. Stun (which one of those is better anyway?)

Stun > Daze since when stuned you cannot use skills NOR move.

Pull > Taunt since you can resist taunt with the new boon they’ll introduce and you can use a stunbreak more easily to remove taunt.

Palador.2170:

I see it as a good thing.

They can give it to NPCs as a buff, making it much harder to harm them. (Let’s face it, even Berserkers tend to do conditions such as bleeds and cripple.) Even Vulnerability and Weakness will be countered by this, or so it seems to me.

What does that mean? It means that, for fights against things that can do this, a way to remove this boon just became VERY useful. It also means that any enemy NPC that puts this on their allies during battle becomes a VIP to RIP. (Imagine a corrupted sylvari spamming this buff on a bunch of husks.)

IF the devs use it well, this could make fights more interesting, without being an instant “I win” for anyone. If nothing else, it should make boon stripping more important.

While your reasonning is well constructed, I have noticed several weaknesses :

• yes berserker meta builds inflict conditions, mostly to trigger +X% damage bonus. The new boon will prevent the damage from bleeding but not the +X% dps bonus.
• Though it will nullify vulnerability so that’s a good thing I guess ? However, only the very best groups reliably inflict the 25 stacks of vuln to a target. 99% of the playerbase won’t see the difference.
• Good berserker parties tend to have boon revomal tools in the dungeons that require it. Mesmer perform this task faster than a necro btw (null zone).

I fear the days of the “pack in a corner → pre-stack might → win” are not counted for now.

The only thing that I see, is that if we end up in a dungeon with perma slow inflicted on all players, then bringing a condition oriented team might be a sound choice. (Note the emphasis on “might”)

Linken.6345:

I like that you can probabely taunt people off walls in wvw

Mind blown.

Then shudders at the thought of falling from a wall into an angry mob of invader after being taunted.

Thiagugu.9682:

There will be quite a few legends to chose from. Maybe as many as there are ranger pets.

Source ?

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see a large choice of legends available to channel, but I’m not gonna jump on the hype train too quickly. Especially since some details are not set in stones.

Jokubas.4265:

I don’t have a lot to say about the class itself. I really need to play it myself to get a feel for it. Talking about so many new things at a time makes it really hard to gauge.

The new effects, on the other hand…

Resistance: Does this temporarily suspend conditions, or just ignore the damage while Resistance is up?

Taunt: What does Status Effect mean?

You already have the response for these two questions in the blog post :

While resistance is up, you ignore all effects of all conditions applied on you. This includes damage AND forced movement.

Taunt, is the exact opposite of fear with two tweaks :

• you are forced to run towards your opponent instead of running away
• you can still use your auto-attacks whereas you couldn’t with fear. Stun breaks work the same.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

VodCom.6924:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

A class whose primary mechanic is energy management. Huh, go figure.

It’s not so bad. Deep inside me, I kinda regreted the disappearance of mana in GW2, which was a powerful balance tool. Sounds like it’s coming back with the revenant.

I doubt it will be as restricting as normal mana though. If it was then the revenant would be horribly outclassed by the other professions, since they only have to worry about cooldowns, not even that if you play a thief.

Why not ? Just because you have more parameters to Watch for does not mean you will be outclassed.

Look at LoL for example : here you have champions with energy system like the thief (the ninjas and the monkey king) that coexist with champions with only cooldowns (Katarina) or adrenaline (renekton) and chamions with both cooldown and long term mana management. While the balance in this game is not 100% perfect, it’s still solid and playable.

More restrictions on skill use is fine as long as you get something else to compensate.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

A class whose primary mechanic is energy management. Huh, go figure.

It’s not so bad. Deep inside me, I kinda regreted the disappearance of mana in GW2, which was a powerful balance tool. Sounds like it’s coming back with the revenant.

Official stance of Anet :
Any 3rd party program that can give you an “in game advantage” is to be forbidden under the terms of the EULA. This include any marco of any kind.

In reality, there is a tacit acceptance of macros for instruments in GW2. Anet has much more important things to do than run after instrument players. Anet will not support you if your macro breaks your game though.

Rangerdeity.5847:

1:build a male human revenant
2:find nearest bank
3:grab my tomes knowledge scrolls and gear out of that bank
4:80 revenant with full exotic
5:set the preplanned skins for my revenant onto that armor
6:go to eotm and buy every single trait
7:look at my traits and weapon skills
8:pick traits
9:buy every weapon revenant can equip and sigils for each
10: log onto my ele and check out its specializations
11: log onto my alts and check their specializations

any questions?

Am I allowed to do the exact same thing as you at launch ?

ekarat.1085:

So, in the forums, I see cries of “Learn to play” (though not directed at me) and have gotten ranted at by someone for only having “2k+ AP” (when they joined my instance when I asked for help — besides, I was proud that I just hit the 2k AP mark that day).

snip

At least you can’t say I’m not trying, but what’s a bad player to do?

My two cents : Meta builds are constructed to fit in a meta group. If you bring a meta build in a regular PuG group you’re going to struggle unless you can solo the dungeon.

To remedy this : tweak the meta builds. A zerker 6/4/2/2/0 staff ele can become a 6/0/0/4/4 valkyrie staff ele for more survivability. Don’t hesistate to change utilities : bring more stunbreak/blocks and less signets of fire/arcane waves.

A 4/5/0/0/5 GS/S-F guard can be turned in a hammer guardian with minimal tweaks as well.

Some dungeon guides also include a section of “PuG carrier” builds. You should take a look.

A OK.8276:

What I wonder is if anet will have the new specializations better fit the meta and allow the player base to really play what they want. Maybe the necro and ranger specializations will be just as useful in fractals as a guardian or mesmer might be. what else are some of the professions lacking do you think?

Necro lacks the standard tools for speed clears :

• A true cleaving weapon
• Party wide boon support

Other stuff I’m thinking about :
Guardians : Viable condi spec could be nice
Eles : viable condi spec could be nice as well

Is there a master topic where we can dump all the questions that we’d like to ask Anet during the upcoming POI ?

Because this question about XP consumables and mastery points clearly belongs to that kind of topic.

Rincewind.1207:

snip

Just relax, take a deep breath and start eating some muffins.

You feel better ? Good.

Now let’s start discussing :
- The actual guild wars name was chosen because of marketing reasons among many others. At the time it was released, it was one of the few massively multiplayer online game that feature a PvP mode that was specifically tailored to guild fights.
- As time passed, the team realised that PvE was by far the most popular game mode of the franchise. It’s lore rich setting and compelling story for a multiplayer game became the trademark for GW.
- GW Nightfall and GWEN, the lastests and most technically advanced additions to the original game were considered PvE oriented for this very reason.

In the end, Guild Wars turned from a GvG oriented MMO to an MMO telling the story of Tyria after the 2nd (or 3rd ? ) Guild War. This what some people have blissfully ignored since the release of GW2.

Let me tell you again : Guild Wars is not a franchise about GvG anymore. It is a franchise about Tyria after the guild wars. The playerbase of GW first of its name has spoken a long time ago about what its priority was.

Back on topic :
According to the info available about HoT, I firmly believe that Guilds will be able to register teams of players to compete between each other IN ALL DIFFERENT PVP MODES.

That means that Stronghold and Conquest will feature matches between guild indentified teams in the future. And matches between two guild teams that are ranked as guild teams (and not as a collection of individuals) can be considered GvG.

So you’ll have GvG on both conquest and stronghold.

Conclusion of my wall of text : What the hell are you complaining about ?

Aeros.2046:

We get it. Mordremoth bad, he eats waypoints, etc. But seriously, the Fort Mariner waypoint is central for WvW players, particularly on reset night. Its proximity to the mist gates, the guild bank, the guild commendation trader, and the laurel vendor makes it arguably the most used waypoint in the game, right before it was permanently disabled. Its been disabled for months now. Yes, this is probably a whine, but I am so tired of constantly having to run to get to Fort Mariner for whatever it is I need from it. Its not a big issue, but its one of those niggling annoying things. Like a paper cut that never heals. Constantly reminding you of its existence week in and week out.

This WP being the most used of the game is PRECISELY the reason why it was shut down.

That allowed LA’s population to spread out and make the city more “populated”. A good move in my humble opinion. A little running won’t kill you.

Depends on the implementation of the raids.

If raids become the most lucrative activity of the game, I will call it bullkitten and boycott it.

Raids should be a niche content for really masochist players, that yields cosmetics rewards to allow them to show off.

Arkinos.7245:

Lazaar.9123:

You mean back when people thought dungeons were too hard? People learnt the game.

No back when people had fun while figuring out dungeons and werent kicked from groups for not having full zerk builds.

Games are always more fun when they are new, because everything is new and exiting. You can have a lot of fun wiping in dungeons because everybody does.

Right now GW2 is basically in a global farm mode where everything is figured out and optimized to death and people run whatever content they run for the hundredth time.

Same as every other MMO. In the end, everything becomes either a farm or dies. Good news : there are tons and tons of farming methods in GW2.

Gibson.4036:

My problem is that it requires running fractals, which I have no interest in doing.

You just have to do a fractal level 1 once per day for 5 days (less if you take advantage of a daily).

Come on it’s not that difficult! Think about those who grinded fractals to get their ascended capacitors.

If somehow there is a time gated component in the legendary mastery, count on me to master it first.

If not, well…. I guess everyone wants to fly.

Dalanor.5387:

VodCom.6924:

segman.3560:

gear =/= build

learn to play

Gear is an integral part of a build : One does not simply run a frostbow staff build with a cleric armour.

Next time try to be more constructive with your posts.

Trust me, there are more people doing this than you can imagine …

Oh I trust you no worry about that. My point is still valid though : what stat you choose for your gear is an integral part of your build and its efficiency.

Is it just me or…. are we playing the same game ?

I mean, what’s the difference between the regular inquest grunt, the regular centaur grunt and the regular bandit grunt ?

AFAIK they are all monsters that attack at melee range and have some sort of stun/knockdown attack. To me it’s just the same sort of meatshield that is dealt with the same way. The only difference being the outside appearance.

In my eyes, the mordrems have far more variety than any of the other mobs, save for the scralet armies.

OP concerns are exagerrated.

segman.3560:

gear =/= build

learn to play

Gear is an integral part of a build : One does not simply run a frostbow staff build with a cleric armour.

Next time try to be more constructive with your posts.