Guild Wars 2

No one grinds specifically for those reward chests, they’re just a nice bonus.

Food and utility buffs

There have been responses. The responses were no, there is no intention of ever introducing an easy mode for raids.

Also everyone can participate in raids, it’s just that many aren’t willing to.

zealex.9410:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

We’re almost at a year and a half since the release of Spirit Vale and still no legendary armor, if they tried to make a separate set for fractals and pvp it would take 6 years.

id apreciate it if you could provide us with the nath that lead you to this.

6 years was a (minor) exaggeration.

However:

First wing was released on November 17th 2015. However this means that they had been working on the legendary armor since before then, and it was announced a couple months prior. So we’re just a bit shy of a year and a half since release. Now with the last release just happening we’ll get it at the earliest with episode 5 of the living story. So May/June for legendary armor at the earliest. Given that legendary armor was at least planned as early as August/September 2015 (when it was announced) we’re looking at just shy of 2 years for it. So lets say they finish the legendary armor in May and announce fractal legendary armor. Going from announcement to the beginning stages of implementation to release, you’re looking at early 2018 to actually get it and that’s with a very conservative estimate. Most likely mid to late 2018 or early 2019.

One of the biggest issues is Glint. It does everything and at at the same time, it does nothing. Gives a good amount of might! Only PS warriors will keep everyone at max might. Gives fury! But unfortunately druids with a tiger can maintain perma-fury. Swiftness is kind of irrelevant in a boss fight and protection isn’t enough to justify a raid spot going to a Revenant.

Not sure about PvP or WvW as I don’t really play them.

In PvE, at least in terms of high level group content, they are not. Everything they do is either done by other classes or unnecessary. Chronos can cap boon duration without facet of nature, berserkers are gonna have the group capped on might 24/7, druids have perma-fury.

Revenants bring nothing that is essential or unique to a party, and their damage is too low to be brought as a general DPS. And some alacrity in ventari certainly doesn’t change that.

We’re almost at a year and a half since the release of Spirit Vale and still no legendary armor, if they tried to make a separate set for fractals and pvp it would take 6 years.

Only issue is Boss 3 CM, and that’s because of the ridiculous number of bugs.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Mossy Gargoyle.3274:

Honestly, this looks more like a thinly-veiled gripe about not being able to raid with necromancer than a sincere suggestion. So many of the OP’s posts trend that direction.

Raids are terrific as is, and the rewards are appropriate to the skill and coordination required to complete them. If you want LIs, raid. If you have trouble finding a group that accepts you, start your own (or join a raiding guild).

Don’t blame me for the Meta, if I were going to exclude whole classes it sure wouldn’t be Necro.

I’m not blaming you for the meta. I’m blaming you for being a crybaby about it simply because your preferred class isn’t good. You got 7 character slots you can easily use a couple of them for “meta” builds and use the rest on all the power greatsword necros you want.

Stop whining about not being able to raid and instead focus on what you can do to get into raids.

So what to do as a casual player, who isn’t into raids, fractals. pvp and wvw?

So what do if you’re not into 80% of the content in the game?

I dunno, play another game I suppose.

Oh Snapalope.1378:

I think GS still suffers because it just doesn’t have much utility. It’s not like scepter and sword symbol that offers decent boons. Condi reaper got buffed and the GS buffs actually benefit condi reaper a lot. Condi reaper is still very good and situational depending on boss. In terms of DH, current DPS symbol and hammer still reign supreme.

> and the GS buffs actually benefit condi reaper a lot

What

2 chronos, 1 of every other class 99.9% of the time.

1 chronotank. 1 glint/jalis berserker’s revenant. 1 PS warrior (condi). 1 condi engi. 1 condi necro. 1 berserker’s thief. 1 berserker’s ele. 1 berserker’s gaurdian. 1 druid. 1 boon-share nontank chrono.

We have 9 classes and 10 spots so enforcing a 1 of every class rule just means the only thing to “see how it turns out” is which class people bring 2 of, which will almost certainly be chrono.

No. Stupid rule.

It sounds to me like you joined a group that wasn’t a training group without any idea of how to do the fight, very likely without a good build, and got kicked when it became immediately obvious that you couldn’t pull your own weight.

I believe this is for both the fractal and PvP vendor as well. The second one on the list is titled “Grandmaster Hunstman’s Mark” with the description saying that it’s for Medium armor (which would be made with leatherworker and not hunstman). The 5th one is titled “Grandmaster Leatherworker’s Mark” with the description saying that it’s for hunstman weapons.

A revenant can replace one of the PS warriors now.

What are your plans moving forward for Revenant?

I feel like the alacrity change in this patch is irrelevant to Revenant in a raid setting. The DPS loss from taking that traitline and Ventari in general just isn’t worth the small amount of Alacrity you get. I feel like the real change for Revenant in this patch is the buff to Vengeful hammers and banners going from 5 targets to 10, this will allow groups to sub out a PS warrior for a Revenant in some cases.

I feel like the real issues facing Revenant right now is a lack of options and not having a clear identity. For the lack of options we don’t have many possible weapon setups (staff, hammer, sword/sword, sword/axe, mace/sword, mace/axe, sword/shield, mace/shield) and of all of those only 3 of them aren’t terrible in PvE (Sword/Sword, Sword/Axe, Staff). For the lack of a clear identity right now Revenant feels like a jack of all trades, but master of none. Revenant can do a little bit of everything, we’ve got healing, some damage, some condi damage, and some buffs. But at the same time, Revenant doesn’t feel exceptional at any of those roles.

Do you plan to look at any of the very weak and rarely used weapons like shield/mace/hammer or legends such as Mallyx/Shiro?

Also, what do you think about healing builds in general, and how they compete with druids?

As it is right now, no matter what, if you want to bring any sort of healing class whether it be a healing ele or a ventari revenant, you have to stop and ask “can this compete with a Druid?” And then when the answer is no (because it always is) you drop it and pick up a Druid instead.

How can you make room for healing builds in a high level party composition when none of them can compete with a Druid? Changing the heals and grace to impact 10 targets instead of 5 is nice. But I feel all that would lead to is people either still taking 2 druids and getting more healing from it, or taking just one and then using that spot for an additional general DPS. The problem with builds like healing ele or ventari revenant is just that they require sacrificing everything in order to heal, and don’t provide much else. Alacrity is a step in the right direction, but it’s just not enough.

Shards were never intended as a means of acquiring drops. Drops were intended as the primary means of getting raid rewards, with shards being useful in situations where an item you wanted just won’t drop.

thrag.9740:

-epi: clearing mobs is real. Half the time someone downs at xera it is because mobs are not being cleared enough. Useful at sloth too, and gorse if doing updrafts.

Or you can just have a mesmer pull mobs, and then have eles use lava font, meteor storm, overloads, ice bow 4, fgs 5, etc.

thrag.9740:

-transfusion: save your whole raid from wiping at sloth by pulling them out of green poison.

If you have an issue with people going down in poison then you have options like search and rescue, druid elite spirit, and warrior banner elite.

thrag.9740:

-flesh golem: probably the strongest ranged cc possible, can be done further than 1200 range.

Not sure if it competes with electric wyvern against large targets, but any competent group should have no issue with breakbars. Warriors have head butt, druids have wyvern/moa, eles have ice bow 4 or lightning hammer 3, mesmers have, things I think I actually don’t know much about mesmer.

thrag.9740:

-projectile protection: CPC has good uptime (better than feedback), and unlike feedback/WOR, it destroys projectiles, which means it even works against elite slubblings.

Not sure of any fight where projectile destruction is important enough to justify bringing a necro. Even against sloth the slublings are easily grouped and killed. If projectile destruction is really any issue you could have eles switch to dagger/focus like some groups did when wing 2 first came out, but that should be unnecessary.

thrag.9740:

-Plague signet: Ever try raiding while perma chilled?

No and I’m not sure why that would be an issue.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Tarasicodissa.7084:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

…
Why can’t this be a viable raid tank?
…

The proper question to ask yourself here is who do you replace and what do you get
compared to the “standard meta”.
If you replace one of the chronomancers, you gain a bit of DPS (necro indeed has better personal DPS than mesmer), but you’ll lose way more because half of the group will be missing quickness and alacrity, not to mention occasional distort for safe casting. Not worth it.
If you replace one of the DPS classes, you’ll straight up lose DPS, because power necro doesn’t do quite as well as tempests and other standard DPSers. You gain nothing because having the chrono free from tanking doesn’t increase the group performance in any way.

The reason chronos are always tanking is because they can do so without sacrificing anything. If you take anything else as a tank, you will always have to give something up, resulting in worse overall performance.

It is possible to kill a boss with MM GS reaper tank? Yes.
It is better than a chronotank? No.

This is what I don’t understand, when I do a raid in WoW I expect to be there for the duration, the balance is so good that I can take it for granted that I can tank on my Warrior, Death Knight, or hell even my Demon Hunter. Pfft DPS, no one gives a crap on anything out side of Mythic raiding just show up and not die. It just seems so cliqueish that in this game perhaps you get thrown a bone in a balance patch and all of a sudden it’s like WOW now I can do 2 whole Boss fights!

That’s because WoW raiding outside of the hardest mythic raids is a joke. Anyone can do it with minimal effort. A WoW raid is comparable to doing tier 3 fractals or something in GW2, just show up, don’t die, and you’ll clear.

Because chrono can still do it better.

Before the changes that lead to mirror comp, most parties ran 1 chrono and 1 revenant and the chrono would do the tanking for the group still.

Tanking in raids isn’t about being able to take a bunch of damage. It’s about having enough toughness to hold aggro, and positioning the boss properly while putting out utility for your team still. If for whatever reason we moved away chrono tanks and druid wasn’t a viable option, we would probably just use guardians or scrappers again like we did when the raid first came out.

Mitch.4781:

Necro is very popular , especially in wing 2. Epi’s remain their best utility.

lol, let’s try being serious here.

Necro is the worst class to bring to a raid. Even Revenant is better. Their damage is near the bottom and they offer no utility. The only thing they can do well is clear adds but, there isn’t a single fight where clearing adds is important enough or difficult enough to justify bringing a necro. Every fight that has adds all you do is have the chrono use focus 4 to group them up, and then your eles aoe them down.

Had eggs and bacon for breakfast.

Discuss.

Motoko.2361:

How many players in gw2 have MAXIMUM skill in all crafting skills?

I did an informal survey and I have found the following.

1 or 2 people say they have max skill.

Everybody else says absolutely NOTHING.

This is amazing research, you should consider publishing this.

Hopefully this time they’ll release it when they have a good amount of content ready and it’s 100% complete, and not when it’s half done like HoT was.

Substance E.4852:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

You can go condi druid, power druid, healer druid, or condi ranger.

That’s only two builds. No matter what method you use on your druid to charge up AF, it’s still there for heals and GotL buffs.

You’re either running heal buff bot druid or condition DPS ranger. You aren’t getting into raid groups running zerk ranger.

I don’t think you understand what a build actually is.

Don’t like it? Don’t join. Simple stuff.

anduriell.6280:

Guys relax, although is nice to see such a passion we are brothers in arms here.

Let be honest here, Druid not ranger, is asked for because of the buff bot. GotL and Empowerment were utilities designed specifically with that in mind, using the only reason why rangers were tolerated in groups in the first place: frost spirit.

that together with the burst heal the Druid has is like the saviour of weak\noobs groups. That together with a good (not the best thou) condi damage to big hit boxes static bosses (mostly raid) make them perfect for raids.

However the same that is right the druid has only one use and one build it is needed for the ranger has none. Nobody would choose a ranger over any other class in game unless is for personal taste.

Ok I’m just gonna assume you don’t really raid at a high level or really any level at all. That’s fine, but it’s incredibly incorrect to say that ranger has only one viable build, and especially wrong to say that heal druid is the only one.

Ranger right now probably has the most build variety. You can go condi druid, power druid, healer druid, or condi ranger. If druid was simply the savior of bad groups, why does every top raid guild use 2 of them (or more) on every raid clear? And to say that it’s bad that people only bring druid for heals and buffs (and damage), which by the way, isn’t true; is like saying that Elementalist is weak because people only bring it for the damage.

Maybe you should try looking around at what raid groups, especially the better ones, are doing before you try to act like the class that is probably in the best place right now PvE wise, is bad.

I love how everyone acts like leveling crafting is this massive herculean task that requires hours upon hours upon hours.

Really you can go from 0 to 500 in less than an hour.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Fancypants.9705:

You say you have raided before in other games so I’m sure you are aware that gear is important. You want to make sure all your armor is at least exotic and make sure your weapons, accessories and trinkets are all ascended.

Once of the most annoying things to do in a raid is having to carry someone. A lot of raid squads run DPS check programs so they know whos falling short.

You can get your full beserker set for COF, and farm the new hot areas to grab the ascended accessories. The weapons you will likely need to craft, most important being the GS if you are going warrior. Honestly probably dont need an ascended shield or mace.

Thats my advise.

Heh maybe I ought to finish leveling my Warrior then since I’ve got Ascended GS/Trinks; can you sub a Hammer in though I have an Ascended Hammer?

Honestly you can probably get away with an ascended Greatsword and exotic versions of the other weapons provided you have ascended trinkets and the proper runes/sigils since you’ll be using greatsword the most. Really for a PS warrior though people don’t care about your dps as much as they do your might generation so having the proper rotations and knowledge of mechanics to avoid going down is more important than anything else.

So basically my only job is to spam F2, 100 Blades, and be a Banner jockey, while not standing in kitten?

Well you’ll also have to help with breakbars and the rotation is a bit more complex, but that can do the job.

Keep in mind that would be playing PS warrior at the most basic level and ideally you would get a bit more complicated and try things like condi PS, but that’s not a bad place to start.

I would make sure you watch videos from a warrior’s perspective before you do any raid though.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Fancypants.9705:

You say you have raided before in other games so I’m sure you are aware that gear is important. You want to make sure all your armor is at least exotic and make sure your weapons, accessories and trinkets are all ascended.

Once of the most annoying things to do in a raid is having to carry someone. A lot of raid squads run DPS check programs so they know whos falling short.

You can get your full beserker set for COF, and farm the new hot areas to grab the ascended accessories. The weapons you will likely need to craft, most important being the GS if you are going warrior. Honestly probably dont need an ascended shield or mace.

Thats my advise.

Heh maybe I ought to finish leveling my Warrior then since I’ve got Ascended GS/Trinks; can you sub a Hammer in though I have an Ascended Hammer?

Honestly you can probably get away with an ascended Greatsword and exotic versions of the other weapons provided you have ascended trinkets and the proper runes/sigils since you’ll be using greatsword the most. Really for a PS warrior though people don’t care about your dps as much as they do your might generation so having the proper rotations and knowledge of mechanics to avoid going down is more important than anything else.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glob_of_Ectoplasm#Salvaging

Kit quality: A controlled test¹ reports that Master’s and Mystic Salvage Kits yield about 0.875 ecto/rare, and Black Lion Salvage Kits are anecdotally reported to give about 1.25 ecto/rare

They give more ectos over a mystic salvage kit. If you have a surplus just use them to salvage rares.

You’re actually trolling aren’t you?

Elementalist is a better healer? What the kitten are you smoking man? Ele is a kitten healer compared to druid. Ele healer doesn’t put out solid dps like a power/condi druid does. Ele doesn’t give grace of the land. Ele doesn’t have spotter, glyph of empowerment, or spirits.

And full on condi ranger is one of the best condi classes at the moment, if not the best.

The fact that you think they’re not the best choice for any role in raids tells me that you’re either trolling, or that you’ve never actually cleared a raid wing and you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Any sneak peaks or vague hints that we can wildly speculate over?

Are you serious right now? Ranger is one of the top classes in the game right now. In PvE they’re practically mandatory for almost all high-level content. In raids a condi druid can put out solid damage, keep the group healed, and offers buffs like grace of the land, spotter, glyph of empowerment, sun spirit, and frost spirit.

In PvP they’re a solid class as well and can have a massive impact on any team.

Probably not. People have been asking for it ever since release, it’s clear at this point that it’s not a technical issue, the devs just don’t want to put it into the game.

I just love how this turned into a statistics debate.

The one to Rule.2593:

As a regular raider, I also think vale Guardian is a more advanced boss. Sure it’s the one that we all banged our heads against when we started, but escort, and wing 4 Are so much better as introductory raids. When I killed VG finally, it had taken me three weeks to get that first kill. And another month or so for gorseval. Now I can one shot almost all raid encounters. The thing people don’t understand about raids, is that you have to take time to learn bosses, and you have to be willing to fail. With each failure you get better, you learn what not to do. So don’t expect to go in and get it in a few hours, or even a few days, but stick with it and you’ll get there.

I think VG is a great starter. It requires decent DPS but not as much as some other bosses so there’s room for not having perfect rotations or to make a few mistakes while still not letting you clear it with carrion longbow warriors or rabid greatsword necros. It teaches you the importance of positioning in the second and third phase since bad positioning can lead to a green circle spawning in a charged section. And it teaches you to deal with multiple mechanics at the same time as you have to deal with greens spawning, dodging blues, controlling seekers, and breaking his breakbar. Sometimes all at once. And the best part is, unless you’re running with a very good group that is capable of 6 manning it or something, everyone has to do their part. No one can just sit back, put out mediocre dps, fail mechanics and get carried. No one gets a carry, no one gets a free pass, everyone has to do their part.

But at the same time it’s also forgiving. Missing a green doesn’t necessarily mean everyone dies, you take a lot of damage sure, but people in down state can be brought up and the druid can heal you up. Getting caught in a blue is bad but you can heal yourself and run back to the group. Usually if you fail it’s because of multiple missed mechanics, and not just one.

I think if you have a group capable of killing VG, you have a group that can kill any raid boss with enough refinement in their execution of the things you learn at VG.

The thing about relying on defensive gear is that it can lead to you not learning important lessons about your class, and gw2 combat in general. Things like dodging important attacks, stacking with your group for heals/boons, and utilizing your damage mitigation tools.

I would take some time to look over all your weapon skills, utility skills, and traits and just pay attention to the damage mitigation tools you have available. A huge one that can sometimes be overlooked is elemental storm. If you’re in earth attunement when you use it, it drops a large sandstorm that continuously applies blind. So if you’re stacking and pull a large group of mobs, if you drop that on top of the group they won’t be able to deal any damage to you or your group.

bearshaman.3421:

I haven’t missed having those pets. I would like to get the lightning wyvern, but since it’s locked behind a map event in DS (which no one is running anymore… ;-;) I don’t think I have a prayer of getting it.

What.

Necro is definitely worse than Engineer and Revenant. If you were to rank just the classes and not individual builds by tiers it would probably look like:

Tier 1: Mesmer, Druid, Ele, Warrior
Tier 2: Thief, Guardian, Engineer
Tier 3: Revenant
Tier 4: Necro

Could argue for putting Engi down to tier 3 since playing something like condi Ranger is comparable dps with a much simpler rotation, but a well played Engi still offers some of the best condi dps, while having a decent amount of utility (surprising amount of healing)

Necro is by far the worst. It sucks but for 4 years anet was on a crusade against ever splitting PvE and PvP balance, one unfortunate side of this is that Necro has, with a few exceptions, always been terrible in group content, and right now is not an exception. Maybe things will get better now that Anet has shown they’re willing to split PvE and PvP balance, but we’ll have to see. Even on fights like the ones in Wing 4 where condi necro is passable, things like condi Ranger are just flat out better.

All of them except Necro and Revenant.

Think those are guild names, except for VG which is Vale Guardian (first boss of Wing 1)

People are just used to putting no effort into their builds, pressing Y, joining an open group for w/e content they wanted to do, and then going in and bashing their head into their keyboard until they eventually made it through.

When they aren’t able to do that for raids they just throw their hands up and say “well raiding is too hard to get into because I can’t just join a random pug” and they complain about it on forums and reddit.

Raiding guilds already create multiple windows of opportunity for new players to get into raiding.

Usually if you’re inexperienced then it’s immediately obvious 1 minute into the fight.

It works in normal mode. Not sure if it’s worth doing as the boss drops fast enough that in the time to res someone you can probably just finish the boss.

Astralporing.1957:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Nike’s right, most barriers to raiding are self-imposed.

Social exclusion is still exclusion. In fact, it’s the worst kind, because it cannot be overcome by, say, farming a better set of gear.

But it’s still self-inflicted.

reikken.4961:

staff is more mobile than d/w
The real problem with pve staff is that you don’t do much damage outside of fire, so if you need to access swiftness or defensive tools, you lock yourself out of your primary damage tools for 10 seconds. Working around that is the biggest challenge

You don’t need to keep mobs at 1200 range for staff to be good. It does just as much dps as d/w in close range. But you do have to manage your cooldowns more carefully

That’s not true though. Fresh Air staff is a viable build and some of the top raid groups have started using Fresh Air staff in place of normal staff build for all/most encounters.