Guild Wars 2

1848 kills
300 hrs
360 badges
Guardian

My perspective:

- Using a portal to appear in the best location to attack your enemy requires the skill of 1 or 2 people out of 10, 30, or 50.
- Actually getting to that location requires the skill of almost all of the same 10, 30, 50.
1. So, yes it requires skill, but far less skill than doing it traditionally.

Some professions are able to make everyone faster (33%). One profession is able to make people move instantaneously from point A to point B. This happens in such a way that Mesmers are EASILY and by FAR the highest utility profession in WvW.
2. So the success of a server depends on the number and the skill of its Mesmers specifically not the players generally.

I feel that Mesmer traded their ability to do area effect damage for the ability to do area effect support. It doesn’t seem to have been a good idea, but I don’t know if there is an easy way to fix it.

If you’re like me and refusing to grind for a legendary weapon or ascended jewelry I’d like to hear about it.

I have one level 80 and I carefully plotted which type of armor I wanted, got my full exotic set and several exotic weapons (all the ones I use). I’m happy with those stats, and I see significant but not motivating stat increases on the ascended jewelry.

So I’m not doing any PvE except to fuel my WvW, which amounts to about a gold a day of farming various rares and selling them on the TC. The rest of my time is spent in WvW.

I once purchased gems with gold, and I don’t plan on doing that any more. I don’t plan on purchasing gems with real money either. I refuse to grind in a game that said there wouldn’t be grinding. I refuse to enter the treadmill in a game that said there would be no treadmill.

If/when I start having a disadvantage in WvW because someone else was grinding out a legendary or ascended gear in a PVE environment, then I will be searching for an’other’ game.

Great Idea. I currently switch my traits constantly. I would even suggest monetizing this by giving it a gem cost. Let me have as many trait pages as I want as long as I’m willing to pay the gems.

You can loot them if you’re standing on top of them… but that’s rarely easy in wvw.

Hopefully this happens in February.

Badge grind. That’s what I’m calling it. Because it’s fun to WvW, but even if you have fun doing it getting enough badges for exotic armor takes an inordinate amount of time compared to anything else in the game.

There’s only one possible exception, that WvW gear will upgrade to ascended at some point. So I’m saving all my badges.

Staff is amazing in WvW, if you take advantage of it(takes practice) and trait for it.

Scepter is just something I am forced to use in some situations with no other option.

Guardian is a very very poor choice of ranged profession. Thief might be worse though.

Yeah, healing support guardian is gone imo.

Health kinda low in that last pic. I think average is 15-16k, and I’m usually at 20k because I’m more wary of conditions etc.

I’m OK at jumping puzzles, but I don’t Jumping Puzzles are supposed to be the primary way of acquiring badges, since they don’t really contribute to the WvW over supply camps, towers, and keeps.

Called Eternal Battle Grounds for a reason.

To take away the requirement of doing it during war times would cheapen all those who achieved map completion already.

WvW.

Message body length must be at least 15 characters.

Even stranger is that PvE content is mandatory for WvW.

Killing 50 people only takes an hour or two if you’re doing a siege.

On the other hand, getting exotic gear and legendaries takes hundreds of hours of pve.

Is that because… as a guardian I have to choose between helping my team and getting my loot. Doesn’t seem like a decision Anet would want me to make.

Right. If you want to go back later and pick up the items dropped when a player dies (even though it’s not their item), ok.

I’m talking about badges, the reward for killing people in WvW seems like it should be automatic.

I came from Sorrow’s Furnace and love IOJ. Lots of active WvW guilds and still room for more.

Around 8 eastern I’d say that a few times a week ONE of the WvW maps has a queue, which is NBD.

As a guardian I’m always pushing the line, supporting the retreat, and pushing it again. If I try to actively pick up badges during a fight I’ll die AND be useless. I hit ctrl or alt or whatever it is that makes them appear, and I see the bags of loot sometimes but I know if I go 10 feet to the left I’m not going to be doing my job as a guardian.

The drop mechanic is a significant problem, and after it’s fixed then I think we can look at the drop rate. I’m open to the idea that it’s working as intended, but I can’t tell because playing WvW precludes picking up a significant amount of my WvW loot.

Kalemar, you dislike it because you enjoy the risk. Have you ever purchased a piece of wvw armor? I played another MMO and once lost a month’s worth of farming cash, but that’s not a part of this game and is not in line with the philosophy of the game. I don’t miss a couple of bags, I miss a lot of bags. Especially when I started WvW and didn’t know you could get bags from players because when I play my class I’m pushing, and I don’t turn back unless I’m dying. By the time you walk the 5 minutes across the map, it’s not even realistic to go try to find the bag. So it’s always a question of do the selfish thing and get your loot or do the WVW thing and help your team. That’s not a decision that makes sense.

And also, if I wasn’t clear, I know that you don’t compete for bags. That’s the point. You shouldn’t have to compete for your bag. But right now I am competing for my bags because there are people trying to kill me while I get them That’s an interesting part of the game, but I don’t think it’s intended to keep me from getting the rewards available. Right now I can buy a whole set of exotic with gold faster than than I can get one piece with wvw badges. I really doubt that’s intended.

How can we get a dev’s attention on this?

Is anyone opposed to this?

Can the game be changed in some way that I get badges without having to search for them on a battle field?

I understand there is an element of realism to having to look for treasure after a fight, but I don’t feel like we’re looking for treasure. Badges symbolize WvW kills.

The problem as I see it is that the treasure dropping mechanic is designed for PvE, in which you’re not really in a hurry and so you can take a small time out after a fight. In WvW, you are just wasting time because you’re racing against the clock and other players.

I would like to build a consensus that this should basically be easier to get the things you earned for killing a player. Otherwise, I feel like I’m being encouraged to be selfish in a group wide conflict which is something Anet seems to dislike (no competing for material nodes, no competing for loot bags etc).

I don’t care about spelling, thanks for the critiques!

Asmodal,
I really appreciate the question whether it’s worth it or not. I could try to mix in crit, and go for passive burning, which would work well with the defensive nature of the build. I think I’ll work on that.

Nirvash,
I’ve never been hit for 3k in WvW. Who can do that to a guardian? I’m genuinely curious. I probably have about 50 hours of consistent WvW fighting and don’t get hit that hard. When people are bursting me I turn on invulnerability for 3 seconds, which I don’t prefer to do because it turns retaliation off, but it keeps me alive. It makes me wonder though what the average hit size is in GW2. Things like hundred blades and other channeled skills with multiple hits (the ones that list (x4) etc) often end up doing more damage to the attacker than to me.

It’s helpful to understand how this works I guess, if you’ve never seen it before.

Retaliation
- Stacks duration
- Ignores armor (crit based attacks take armor into account)
- Is calculated based on power 267 Damage + x/13.4 where x is your power

25% longer Retaliation duration, from trait
Retaliation from health dropping to 25 percent, from trait
Retaliation from Symbol of Wrath
Retaliation from leaping through light field
Retaliation from activating virtues.
Retaliation 33 percent of the time on average from armor.
Retaliation from Save Yourselves
Retaliation from Stand Your Ground

In short, retaliation never runs out and is doing damage to everyone who hits me with non-condition damage. This has proven effective for WvW, but I want to improve it. How can this build be improved?

The 5 percent chance lasts for 10 seconds with a refresh of 30 seconds. That’s 1/3 of the time, and retaliation stacks duration. I get it from Great Sword as well as from Virtues. In other words it’s up all the time, I’ve tested it.

I’m not sure you read my post. This is a WvW build. Looking forward to WvW criticism.
P.S. Retaliation damage is based entirely on power.

I’m finishing my set of Koda armor.

Superior Sanctuary Runes on Power Toughness Vitality gear from Honor of the Waves . I may skip out on the last piece(I have Grenth PowToughVit shoulders) because I’m not sure about the (6) 5s Stability at 20 percent health (cd 90s).

Traits: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlYgiC33xKEf4ES+hVq6R8wP3DODCMjA;TYAKxMiJEzKmTMpYA
Stats in picture.

I’d like your criticism please. Note that what I’m going for is high power, because retaliation is power based, and it goes well with PTV gear. The idea is to be doing significant damage without crits, and to be doing lots of collateral damage with retaliation. Worth it?

To whom it may concern,
Your simple script to stop gold sellers has been broken.

Now, when someone says the url: www.buygoldforguildwarstwocheaply.com three times in the same message and types the same message repeatedly until the built in spam filter kicks in and stops them, their ability to keep chatting is restored at the same rate as everyone else who talks too much.

I was pleased to know that a the repeated broadcast of the url: www.buygoldforguildwarstwocheaply.com (a bannable offense) was being prevented with this simple script strategy to AUTOBAN THE PEOPLE WHO SAY IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN IN LIONS ARCH. However, the function seems to have been bypassed.

This feature may not have actually been implemented yet, but it should have. Please put one in.

Thrumdi.9216:

Waking.6052:

Empower got majorly nerfed. Went from healing 20-30 people to healing… 5.

Are you sure about this? If so that is a major nerf to Guardian staff support.

“Many skills, items, and traits were applying healing to an infinite amount of targets and have now been limited to 5 targets.”

This is what my build was based on, our heal skills that didn’t say party/group were applying to everyone around.

Only possible way to save staff imo, is if I’ve been using Orb of Light wrong and it passes through multiple opponents in WvW hitting them all.

Empower got majorly nerfed. Went from healing 20-30 people to healing… 5.

This puts an end to my WvW build, with Battle Presence, Empower, and Dodge rolls healing everyone in the back line.

Seriously… build gone. We have no useful ranged builds in WvW.

I did see that, I’m thinking more like… what to do or not do with legendary weapons and stuff, but some of those were new to me too.

I’m level 60 Guardian, and have cooking and armorsmithing to match my level. Please if you have a moment give me 30 seconds of your experience and tell me:

What do you as an 80 with lots of game experience wish you knew when you started, or at 60?