Guild Wars 2

You guys are so cynical. Looks like you’re getting instancing of fights to me.

I’m more prone now to think its ‘private server’ versions of Triple Trouble, et al.

You’re not gonna guilt them into changing the price y’know.

I’d imagine there’ll be a playable demo at their booth tho’, who knows what build of course.

Yargesh.4965:

only reason I use a spirit is with unbound, can’t see the point without it moving with me in combat.

In dungeons there’s not much reason to have them follow either, compared to what you give up.

Unbound is super deep in a mostly dead tree.

Knighthonor.4061:

Windsagio.1340:

I like the downsell on the spirit of nature active ability.

It’s not the best skll in the world, but a mass rez is still pretty handy.

You can’t target warbanner either and nobody counts that as a disadvantage :p

Cant compare warbanners to spirits.

For starters, Spirits have only one active. Banners have 5. One of them are for placing it in new location. We dont have any way to relocate spirits.
if we are forced to bring an additional skill for that single task, then that’s a huge nerf because we would no longer be able to run full 5 spirit build.

Spirits are more like Signets than anything. They have a passive and a active. Their main problem been the delay in the spirit movement and the fact they can be killed.

making them immobile is a huge nerf. Spirits arent Turrets or Banners people!!!

The point is less to compare the two than to point out the aggressive framing of an actually quite powerful ability as terrible.

Spirits aren’t great, but lets not get crazy.

I like the downsell on the spirit of nature active ability.

It’s not the best skll in the world, but a mass rez is still pretty handy.

You can’t target warbanner either and nobody counts that as a disadvantage :p

Are Daniels hard to handle?

Does it pay well?

For the record, I feel the problems with necro and ranger are also insignificant, but that’s just a tougher stereotype to crack.

At least it only really impacts you if you’re trying to start a group yourself (usually, there are still a few kittens out there still posting “NO CLASS X”)

There’s pressure against gear diversity on the forums and to a lesser degree in the LFG tool.

The funny thing is, that as far as actual impact it’s faded greatly. FAR fewer lfg ads require zerk now, you can get into most things pretty quickly as anyone (as I’ve mentioned elsewhere there are some exceptions to that. Try starting a LFG for Arah or a high fractal as a Necro or Ranger and you might be waiting there a while watching your toenails grow).

The problem is fixing itself as people realize that it simply doesn’t matter that much whether you’re zerk or not. The problem seems to be that the forum never forgets a grievance, so they’re still worked up over it.

~~~~

This is sad to me, because there’s a lot of interesting discussion to have over the current game balance and encounter style, and how it might change.

always 3 sides to this;

1) Pvp, how would this change effect things?
2) Wvw, ditto?
3) If they increased health pressure in general (which is one of those ideas floating around a LOT in these threads) would that make regen being different by duraiton stacking be more useful?

kind of coming back to the difficulty issue. Full-offense melee works because there’s very rarely anything that puts sufficient strain on the available active defenses and control.

Arantheal.7396:

And then there is taunt, the ultimate tank-tool…
And the new break-bars, making cc-spammers viable options in boss-fights…

Smells like raids.
C’mon a-net, it this point we all know that we’re getting instanced content for 10 players or more. Just announce it already.

Ok:

Taunt isn’t quite the tanking tool you seem to think, why does this always have to be repeated?

Also, the break bar MASSIVELY weakens coordinated CC application for several reasons. And we already know that some bosses are going to just be unbreakable.

the other thing to consider with tablet is that it still has to use the horrible pet pathing. Depending on the map expecting it to move in a preferable way will be a pretty big challenge.

There is aggro and threat, it’s just not wholly reliable (although it can get relatively close, the sacrifices to get really good threat control make it often not worth it).

There are also casesw here you actually do body block tank (or have a pet do it), altho there aren’t too many (old tom is the obvious one that comes to mind <>)

wtb pistol for warrior elite spec!

One of them will likely be an enhancement to your AR (I think one of them was called agony channeling?) possibly with a positive side effect.

One or more will likely connect to collections similar to the legendary ones.

Otherwise, dunno there coudl be a few.

MarkoNS.3261:

Can we just stop all this nerf zerk talk, dont punish old players because new ones are “forced” to go zerk if they want to join a party that doesnt suck and can clear dungeons fast.

The proper discussion isn’t about punishing anyone, it’s about making the game mechanics as well-balanced as possible.

~~~

As I’ve said before, there are a large number of things on the HOT horizon that could strongly effect the preferred playstyle.

Neox.3497:

Windsagio.1340:

Neox.3497:

Windsagio.1340:

“Probably” is a word with meanings man :p

It doesn’t look likely we’ll get raids as traditionally envisioned, or even close to htat.

Well I still would say “nobody knows”. And they never asked for “raids like in WoW” just for instanced content with multiple groups.

Well whats your reason for thinking it likely beyond hopeful thinking?

I can think of some reasons it’s unlikely (cost vs. player engagement, dividing the player base, accessibility questions, etc), but I haven’t seen any real arguments that it’s likely beyond a few people wanting it.

-Add difficulties so even the worst players can “play it”
-Make maps/bosses once open world AND once instanced

2 ‘easy’ ways to fix that. They could even do both. And the cost to make some bosses “harder” or “easier” shouldn’t be that high.

Well to be fair, I didn’t ask how problems could be minimized, but rather if there was any evidence or reasoning that it was likely.

Neox.3497:

Windsagio.1340:

“Probably” is a word with meanings man :p

It doesn’t look likely we’ll get raids as traditionally envisioned, or even close to htat.

Well I still would say “nobody knows”. And they never asked for “raids like in WoW” just for instanced content with multiple groups.

Well whats your reason for thinking it likely beyond hopeful thinking?

I can think of some reasons it’s unlikely (cost vs. player engagement, dividing the player base, accessibility questions, etc), but I haven’t seen any real arguments that it’s likely beyond a few people wanting it.

That’s part of the reason I think the break bar is going to matter a lot; between ‘usually unbreakable’ bosses, the lack of a free CC at the start, and the uneven value of control skills for depletion will be a big deal.

spoj.9672:

Windsagio.1340:

Black Box.9312:

spoj.9672:

Black Box.9312:

spoj.9672:

Black Box.9312:

spoj.9672:

And both of those choices are bad. :P

The complaint that it “does it all” is completely unjustified. Anet intended for players to be able to do everything regardless of how they built their characters.

The real reason for the complaint is that people dont like the idea of a single optimum and because they cant turn a blind eye to it because of LFG descriptions. But news flash there is always a single optimum in any game. And thats something you are just going to have to accept and ignore if you dont like it.

Obviously there will always be some sort of meta, but the current problem we face with GW2 is that the efficiency gap between zerker builds and less damage-oriented builds is enormous. It’s rather evident that there’s a balancing fault when having 1 person bringing defensive gear to a zerker party actually makes a run take longer to complete and makes it more difficult at the same time. If anything, it should be a purely linear tradeoff.

This is completely false. The difference between a fully optimised group of experienced players utilising all buffs, portals and stealth and a pug group that has a mismatch of builds and doesnt utilise all tools at their disposal is enormous. The difference between a fully optimised group of experienced players utilising all buffs, portals and stealth and the same group using defensive gear but all the same buffs and strategies is very small.

We have proof of this. My guild did a no dodge fully defensive arah p2 a year back and we were deliberately very slow. Yes the entire run still only took 30 minutes. Which was faster than most pugs at the time. And we were certainly using worse builds for the run. We werent even stacking might and we werent using any remotely valid strategies yet we were faster than a pug.

Its the players that make the difference. The builds and gear are completely overshadowed by proper strategies and group buffing.

Obviously in-depth knowledge of the dungeon layout and structure of each encounter provides an advantage, but your example doesn’t really provide a counterpoint to what I said about using “easier” gear actually making things more difficult for a group that is primarily centered around DPS-oriented builds.

In a way, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot with this argument, because saying that strategy and expertise triumphs over builds and gear just makes the elitist mentality that many carry behind the zerker meta all the more unjustified. Which one is it?

Yeah i admit that was a poor example. However I can expand on that example. That was basically the worst possible composition and builds yet it wasnt that bad for time. If we had actually used proper strategies and stacked buffs with those terrible builds we would have saved 15 minutes easily.

The gap between berserker and other builds is not enormous. Its trivial. Its all the other factors that make the gap.

If that’s the case, then I still don’t get why people make such a big deal about zerker/meta setups. If the build and gear aren’t that great of a factor, then why are so many people so snobbish about it? Most pug groups don’t go trying to shatter time records, so how come people emphasize having zerker gear/meta build groups, over simply asking for people with adequate dungeon knowledge? The two aren’t necessarily directly related to each other.

Because to go back to a beloved theme (not really beloved), the zerk meta problem is people not gameplay.

Never thought id be quoting and agreeing with Windsagio.

But yes this is basically what the problem is. Pugs are ignorant. You can try your best to fix ignorance and intolerance. But you probably wont get far in the grand scheme of things.

No side had a monopoly on rationality in this case tho’ ><

“Probably” is a word with meanings man :p

It doesn’t look likely we’ll get raids as traditionally envisioned, or even close to htat.

Also, ele water staff should be their highest dps!

Black Box.9312:

spoj.9672:

Black Box.9312:

spoj.9672:

Black Box.9312:

spoj.9672:

And both of those choices are bad. :P

The complaint that it “does it all” is completely unjustified. Anet intended for players to be able to do everything regardless of how they built their characters.

The real reason for the complaint is that people dont like the idea of a single optimum and because they cant turn a blind eye to it because of LFG descriptions. But news flash there is always a single optimum in any game. And thats something you are just going to have to accept and ignore if you dont like it.

Obviously there will always be some sort of meta, but the current problem we face with GW2 is that the efficiency gap between zerker builds and less damage-oriented builds is enormous. It’s rather evident that there’s a balancing fault when having 1 person bringing defensive gear to a zerker party actually makes a run take longer to complete and makes it more difficult at the same time. If anything, it should be a purely linear tradeoff.

This is completely false. The difference between a fully optimised group of experienced players utilising all buffs, portals and stealth and a pug group that has a mismatch of builds and doesnt utilise all tools at their disposal is enormous. The difference between a fully optimised group of experienced players utilising all buffs, portals and stealth and the same group using defensive gear but all the same buffs and strategies is very small.

We have proof of this. My guild did a no dodge fully defensive arah p2 a year back and we were deliberately very slow. Yes the entire run still only took 30 minutes. Which was faster than most pugs at the time. And we were certainly using worse builds for the run. We werent even stacking might and we werent using any remotely valid strategies yet we were faster than a pug.

Its the players that make the difference. The builds and gear are completely overshadowed by proper strategies and group buffing.

Obviously in-depth knowledge of the dungeon layout and structure of each encounter provides an advantage, but your example doesn’t really provide a counterpoint to what I said about using “easier” gear actually making things more difficult for a group that is primarily centered around DPS-oriented builds.

In a way, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot with this argument, because saying that strategy and expertise triumphs over builds and gear just makes the elitist mentality that many carry behind the zerker meta all the more unjustified. Which one is it?

Yeah i admit that was a poor example. However I can expand on that example. That was basically the worst possible composition and builds yet it wasnt that bad for time. If we had actually used proper strategies and stacked buffs with those terrible builds we would have saved 15 minutes easily.

The gap between berserker and other builds is not enormous. Its trivial. Its all the other factors that make the gap.

If that’s the case, then I still don’t get why people make such a big deal about zerker/meta setups. If the build and gear aren’t that great of a factor, then why are so many people so snobbish about it? Most pug groups don’t go trying to shatter time records, so how come people emphasize having zerker gear/meta build groups, over simply asking for people with adequate dungeon knowledge? The two aren’t necessarily directly related to each other.

Because to go back to a beloved theme (not really beloved), the zerk meta problem is people not gameplay.

well really the question of ‘could they’ is silly.

The safe question is “Will they” (probably not)

The less safe question is “Should they” (which is most of the argument in the thread)

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

Jerus.4350:

The problem is getting the details right. Having those jabs take off 25% of your health, well, suddenly they’re not really jabs, they’re on the level that you want to avoid them if at all possible. So it’d take some math to figure out how hard they want them to be based on mitigation available, heals available and the amount of damage over time that the jabs will do. Make it so much pressure that I’m just gonna back out to range and take the potential damage loss because in the end having to heal and do all that stuff is pushing me below ranging would be bad, it’s complicated, takes some figuring out.

This is where gear can become an interesting question again though.

If say taking a 2+1 stat set makes it so that you can take a few more jabs while staying in your preferred damage range, it makes it a viable choice vs an all-offense stat set.

The balance on this is very tight, as you say, but the model really solves a very large number of problems.

2+1 stat set, or ranged combat? which is better?

Depends on the encounter, class and build, yes? That’s where the potential for more varied party comps/strategies comes in.

Ranged might be better for a ranger (no pun intended) but a PS warrior would probably want 2+1 to get the benefit of forceful greatsword for the party.

This does have the effect of “forcing” true optimizers to carry multiple gear sets, but a lot of people won’t (need to) bother.

Jerus.4350:

The problem is getting the details right. Having those jabs take off 25% of your health, well, suddenly they’re not really jabs, they’re on the level that you want to avoid them if at all possible. So it’d take some math to figure out how hard they want them to be based on mitigation available, heals available and the amount of damage over time that the jabs will do. Make it so much pressure that I’m just gonna back out to range and take the potential damage loss because in the end having to heal and do all that stuff is pushing me below ranging would be bad, it’s complicated, takes some figuring out.

This is where gear can become an interesting question again though.

If say taking a 2+1 stat set makes it so that you can take a few more jabs while staying in your preferred damage range, it makes it a viable choice vs an all-offense stat set.

The balance on this is very tight, as you say, but the model really solves a very large number of problems.

Jerus.4350:

I actually enjoy longer fights >.<, Lupi Solo/Duo for instance is far more fun than in a group because you get to experience all the mechanics multiple times rather than maybe once.

I enjoy actively defending more than just bursting.

Trolls are fun, they keep you on your toes but you still have to actively defend yourself, and I like the charging teragriffs with the whole movement counter (don’t like the other kind), and the lifeleach thrashers are fun, but the other kind isn’t with their constant movement and stale attack pattern.

I like the roots teragryphs, especially since you don’t know if you’re getting charge or shout or roots, means players have to react on the fly and adjust their tactics.

The root guys should probably have a bit more cooldown on their root attack, especially if we’re talking champ level.

Jerus.4350:

Attrition fights are annoying as well. I’m all for pushing for more active defense, like solo lupi or even Amber Troll. Needing more than the bare minimum is good, needing most of what you have available I find even more fun.

See yeah. It should be about keeping the players offbalance and restricting ‘perfect’ play… attrition is annoying. We all like fast encounters, I think even though they cause balance issues ><

Mordrem trolls, tetragryph roots, thresher roots, these are all things that really push players to react and deal with them.

Nobody likes uncrittable enemies. It’s annoying for so many reasons.

The answer (I think I might have said it in this thread) is to simply put much more pressure on the active defenses.

Full offense is the preferred party comp (I hate the misuse of the word ‘meta’ still) primarily because it’s possible to entirely or near-entirely negate incoming damage via CC, speed-of-kill, and active defenses.

CC they’re dealing with, speed is really tricky to balance properly, and active defenses we’re seeing variations on now (many mordrem have sustained attacks).

The pieces are being put into place for HOT, and in a way that will make the “hardcore” happy because zerk survival becomes more of the skill check it’s meant to be.

cranos.5913:

Windsagio.1340:

cranos.5913:

Windsagio.1340:

Unless you run with a group (and somewhat depending on your class) it can be really hard to get a full pickup group for a high fractal or Arah now (although in fractals I honestly think that’s one of the advantages of swamp-rolling, anything in there can be started easily with a not-full group),

Now, you have to fill 9 slots to pug that hard new content instead of filling 4. This doesnt’ impact people in organized dungeoneering guilds, but it’s a HUGE barrier of entry to people that are pugging — just getting the group going will be a pain then. That’s part of the logistical challenge I was trying to get at with point 2.

I think this is both a positive and a negative point though. PvE guilds have been complaining there’s nothing in game you need a guild for, that it’s hard to keep members because there’s no focus as opposed to WvW oriented guilds. So finally, there would be something a guild is useful for in pve aside from chatting and getting a mf buff.

Considering the CDI was called guild raids, there’s even a good chance these raids would use the guild mission system. If that’s the case, only guilds could complete them in the first place.

I mght’ve said it, I think that’s the way you might get raids, through the enhanced guild system, and guild-specific. I go back and forth on that one though, exclusive content seems to be against their base precepts.

IDK, I wouldn’t be opposed to it. After all ppl have 5 guild slots and if they ever add some type of alliances they could make it accessible to mixed guild parties that way. Who knows? I doubt any of this will happen, but one can dream.

I do agree it seems a tad too exclusive for Anet’s style.

My actual guess (if anything) is something someone else came up with:

Guild generated private instances of world fights; maybe even buffed world fights where the numbers are mean. Put them on aggressive timers so it doesn’t kill the world versions of the fights.

This alleviates the cost of development of the encounters, lets people fight excluding people if they want, but makes the experience still available to everyone.

Man you really really really want to argue about this nike.

If so make a thread, if I notice it you can trust I’ll comment.

cranos.5913:

Windsagio.1340:

Unless you run with a group (and somewhat depending on your class) it can be really hard to get a full pickup group for a high fractal or Arah now (although in fractals I honestly think that’s one of the advantages of swamp-rolling, anything in there can be started easily with a not-full group),

Now, you have to fill 9 slots to pug that hard new content instead of filling 4. This doesnt’ impact people in organized dungeoneering guilds, but it’s a HUGE barrier of entry to people that are pugging — just getting the group going will be a pain then. That’s part of the logistical challenge I was trying to get at with point 2.

I think this is both a positive and a negative point though. PvE guilds have been complaining there’s nothing in game you need a guild for, that it’s hard to keep members because there’s no focus as opposed to WvW oriented guilds. So finally, there would be something a guild is useful for in pve aside from chatting and getting a mf buff.

Considering the CDI was called guild raids, there’s even a good chance these raids would use the guild mission system. If that’s the case, only guilds could complete them in the first place.

I mght’ve said it, I think that’s the way you might get raids, through the enhanced guild system, and guild-specific. I go back and forth on that one though, exclusive content seems to be against their base precepts.

NikeEU.7690:

Windsagio.1340:

you guys keep overselling the no more stacking thing. It’s not like using LOS to control an enemy’s position isn’t a thing.

“You guys” keep bringing up stacking as though it was some EZ mode exploit. Whenever someone says stacking and exploit in the same breath forgive us for being compelled to correct their ignorance.

I didn’t click back, didn’t it come up out of the blue this time?

A countermeme that’s just as inaccurate as the base meme isn’t a great selling point, I don’t think. Saying stacking is EZ MODE REQUIRED PLAY is not much more silly than saying “NOBODY STACKS EVER”. They’re both inaccurate.

I think it bugs me (enough for the OT diversion) because it’s symptomatic of the problem. Defining the narrative in the way you find most flattering (you being in this case either side) feels like a much more important goal to folks than discussing the issue.

FISKING TIME!

Jerus.4350:

ignoring split mechanics is ignoring a major part of it.

Fact is it’s tough to promote a diverse set of builds and types of content. Splitting makes that easy. Condi’s go to A, Power to B, Defence to C. Simple.

And splitting in a 5 man would hardly be fair to call group content.

As for the need of multigroup, maybe not, but what I said needs splitting, and with that is far more resonable with multigroup because of the above. If you just had those bosses in sequence it’d be people just swapping builds between them, not really the diversity I’d call exciting to see.
~~~
I have a tough time agreeing with your second point as I don’t think there will be any difficulty or really any logistical problems and I doubt the organization would be all that intricate either, but surely moreso than currently.

My point is that the difficulty that’s added is logistical. The difficulty in raids, traditionally, was in getting a big enough group together that could both play at least well enough to stay out of the circles and show up regularly, and having at least someone with enough area awareness to manage the chaos. There’s nothing encounter-wise more difficult in raids inherently except for these largely artifical logistical issues.

As for the third point, there would most definitely be a meta, but it would loosen, a lot of stuff woudl shift simply because of the number 10 vs 5. Instantly any personal dps choice is only half as important to the group on any individual encounter (split mechanics would be different). As 50% on one person in 5 man is about 10% loss, in a 10 man it’d be a 5% loss. That’s an interesting change when you consider support/control/utility strengths against it. Also, the multigroup thing wouldn’t be in a vacuum, I think it’d be a great time to introduce new mechanics to more pinpoint and punish the meta and promote less utilized stuff. Rapid hits of low-moderate damage from enemies strengthening retal and maybe confusion while nearly nullifying blind. Spike and consistent boon application on enemies to promote different types of boon stripping. Lots of stuff could be expanded upon, and while not limited to multi group it’d be a good place to unleash it.

I have a few problems with this. First of all, 1 subpar dps being less of a loss will do nothing to stall the obsession with optimization. Unless you’re doing record runs now, the dps loss isn’t terribly meaningful to success, but we still get these pushes to a tight ‘meta’. There are things that Arenanet will do to impact the current preferred party comps, but I’m just not convinced that raids alone will solve the problem.

—Gimmick fights will sometimes, but that’s a pretty sledgehammery solution.
—Raising the buff cap (so you need fewer players for party support) would help, and would really help only for raids. If 1 PS warrior could support 2 groups in the final fight, and 1 ranger could provide frost spirit and spotter for both groups, then we’d have some improved class variety that only multi-group encounters could add.

Your fourth point certainly rings true with the general difficulty. But that would be true of any challenging content, something that we’ve been told we’re getting already. Not all content is built for everyone, and that’s not a problem.

My issue is that raids – by being raids – are an additional barrier beyond the difficulty of the content.

Unless you run with a group (and somewhat depending on your class) it can be really hard to get a full pickup group for a high fractal or Arah now (although in fractals I honestly think that’s one of the advantages of swamp-rolling, anything in there can be started easily with a not-full group),

Now, you have to fill 9 slots to pug that hard new content instead of filling 4. This doesnt’ impact people in organized dungeoneering guilds, but it’s a HUGE barrier of entry to people that are pugging — just getting the group going will be a pain then. That’s part of the logistical challenge I was trying to get at with point 2.

Jerus.4350:

Why does this thread keep derailing to the same topics that have been discussed over and over in which no side will budge regardless of information provided? Seems pretty futile to me.

I think this thread has brought up a good point with raids, and I think they could be an answer to the issues people have right now with dungeons and other content. It could be better than anything before. Something that uses all that stuff and learns from it to create content that has more build and role diversity, having more room and promoting the use of more professions. Something that has interesting mechanics to nullify some of the old tricks or penalize us for using them.

The possibilities are endless, but we continue to squabble about stacking or zerk gear… gah.. I’m starting to understand why the ANet staff rarely talks, and that scares me.

The concern would be that what multi-group content legitimately adds is more logistics and planning.

Traditionally they’re linked to longer encounters, but I’d agree that’s not a requirement, and GW has been good about bucking that kind of tradition.

~~~

And I read your ideas — they’re good, but almost none of them (the exception being team splitting) need multigroup to function.

This leaves us with the ’what’s it add?’ question, and the answer seems to be:

1) The ability to run with more of your friends at once
2) “Difficulty” via higher organizational and logistical requirements
3) A possible loosening of the ‘meta’ group limitations (although I would strongly argue about this last one)
4) Exclusive content through the organizational limitations and possible general difficulty.

you guys keep overselling the no more stacking thing. It’s not like using LOS to control an enemy’s position isn’t a thing.

Ardid.7203:

Miyani’s goods, eh?
So, nothing useful to me, with the occasional exception of augur’s stone.
Argh… that sound so… useless. So I will have tons of a currency I hardly use, in exchange for losing a lot of the skills I do use most of the time?

It’s not really a new feature, it’s to make it so no functionality is (or resources are) lost when they take out skill points.

If they didn’t do this conversion, or something related you wouldn’t be able to buy those items at all.

Ardid.7203:

Hello gals and guys.

Can somebody please explain to me what the purpose of these new “Mystic Forge” currency will be?

I’m asking because aside from Mystic salvage kits, I simply don’t unse the MF at all.

(In fact throwing things down the toilet is one of the aspects of the game I despise the most…)

Everyething that miyami (sp) sells for skill points right now.

nexxe.7081:

The majority doesn’t want challenging content. You really think coders can’t code challenging A.I.? It’s really not that hard. If Anet wanted to, they could make every boss as difficult as Liadri, or even harder.

(bold mine)

I love it when people not working on the project who likely don’t have even the beginnings of the knowledge to script ‘smart’ enemies say things like “It’s really not that hard”

I’m not in a state to respond well right now, I’ll read your example raid idea nad give it a shot in the morning. Now isn’ta good teim ><

spoj.9672:

Yeah except you are ignoring utility classes from that analysis. Use of stealth and portals is what saves the most time.

So the way i see it is:
1 war for might + banners
1 Ele for fury + dps
1 engi for vuln + perma immob
1 ranger for spotter + frost spirit
1 thief for stealth
1 guard for aegis/stab/reflect
1 mes for portal + extra reflects
Extra slots filled with eles for DPS.

That just leaves out necro. The rest of the slots would be filled with eles for dps (maybe sacrifice a utility class for more eles) or extra utility classes. So double mesmer for back to back portals etc. Or to allow split compositions.

But the thing is with the elite specs and new content. They can very easily incentivise other less popular classes. For example create encounters which make epidemic almost compulsory in the meta. Or incentivise control conditions or unpopular combo fields. Then every class can be in a favourable position for at least something.

The 5 target buff cap means you need a boon source per group right? Similarly it means that spotter+frost won’t support the whole raid but just 5 players.

Also, that’s assuming that they design the skippable content knowing what they know now. That might be the case, but it very much might not

(I’m sloppy sloppy drunk: this post looks okay, but if it’s offensive in some way I hope you forgive me)

spoj.9672:

Well look at this way. With 5 man instances theres only ever going to be 4-5 meta classes. With more slots it opens up greater possibilities. It still depends on class balance and the content. But at least its possible rather than impossible.

Currently there are 6 classes that can comfortably fit in the meta. But with only 5 slots the engi gets shafted most of the time. And we dont have the space to take both a mesmer and a guard at the same time. Its restrictions like that which disappear when group sizes increase.

True, but my thinking is this:

Right now you will need certain things for group coverage (actual makeup might be wrong, I’m not up to date on the bleeding edge comps):

1 PS per party for might
1 Ele per party for fury (and you want a lot of frostbows anyawys, depending on how much they nerf them)
(possibly) 1 guard per party to assure protection uptime
1) engineer (total in raid) for maximum vuln.

With buff caps, we’re left in a similar situation for Rangers, if 1 could give frost spirit & spotter to the whole raid, it’d be a good slot, but likely they can’t.

Once you have your fury/might/protection/vuln, barring gimmick fights, it seems like it’d be back to the ’whatever’s max DPS after HOT comes out’.

The essential problem is that the core of the meta is ‘boon/condition coverage + max DPS’. Some classes simply don’t fit well in that setup, and they won’t in the future for the same reason they don’t now.

~~~

I admit they could get around it by doing the dreaded “ONLY CONDITIONS” or “ONLY RANGED ATTACK” fights, but at best that leads to char swapping (especially with the ease of gearing up a character in GW2) by fight.

I admire your confidence that it will fix the class issues, but especially considering your general attitude I find it absurdly (and out of character-ish) optimistic.

We know how this goes with other games. Even in 40+ groups what’s considered acceptable and useful doesn’t change much, and if the content is actually hard the dichotomy is even greater.

What would making it 8man solve?

People are treating multi-group content like a magic bullet to — something?

Palindrome.8904:

Windsagio.1340:

Note that you can also look in the game completion stats for a character to see how many skill challenges you’ve gotten completed. I’ve made a point to make sure that all my characters have at least the 65 for all the base specs.

Or, you know, open the map and see the count :P

That’s what I meant, I phrased it exceptionally poorly

Palindrome.8904:

Syione.3046:

I don’t mean to hijack the thread I just want to know if I have this correct.
I have 4 characters that are lvl 80. (I know I’m a slacker) Once HoT is live all of them will have 400 hero pts just for being 80. My ranger Jandu has 351 slot skill pts which means he will have the 65 extra pts so he can become a Druid. Ringil my Mesmer only has 31 which means if I do nothing with him he will have to earn 34 pts to become a Chronomancer. My first question is do I have to have all the traits and for the two characters will low slot skill points can I use the skill scrolls to make up the difference?

Your 80s will have 400 from leveling, yes. However, beyond that, they will only have points based on the number of currently-named Skill Challenges completed (commune spots, for example). Any skill points earned from leveling up after hitting 80 won’t net you hero points. If of the 351 points on your ranger, only 20 are from skill challenges, you would still need to get more.

Also, the 65 beyond 400 is the estimate for unlocking every base part of a class (skills, core specializations). We don’t yet know what it will take to unlock an elite spec.

Note that you can also look in the game completion stats for a character to see how many skill challenges you’ve gotten completed. I’ve made a point to make sure that all my characters have at least the 65 for all the base specs.

Xillllix.3485:

It won’t ever happen. The entire point of coming up with new systems is to force people to re-gear so that they will buy more gems to convert to gold.

Remember when they made divinity runes worthless? Most likely thousand of people didn’t have the patience to farm 60g for strength runes so they bought gems to convert them.

No it’s not, that’s a really absurd position to take.

@the OP, think of it this way: If you ever get any benefit from straight buying the traits (which you are in this case) you’re not getting that gold back. The new system doesn’t negate all the things you’ve done using the traits you obtained.

Jerus.4350:

I can agree with everything you say up until the last paragraph. Sorry but when you promote “challenging content” as much as they have when announcing this expansion it’s nothing but a play to try to entice players like me.

I can’t help but feel they’re being deceptive for that purpose.

Argue the numbers issue, sure, that’s fine, as a business if you can capture the majority of your audience with kitten content that’s cheaper to make, well that simply makes sense.

But, when you try to coat that in some form of “no no, this is high end content, see we’re doing something cool,” nope, actions speak louder than words, ANet is simply being deceptive to try and grasp an audience they don’t really care about but are willing to lie to in hopes of grabbing a little extra cash.

Really as simple as that from where I stand.

Colin’s recent comments do nothing but enforce my beliefs. “no we haven’t talked about it yet, we’ll get to it,” sure, cause all the talk about it hasn’t been enough to prompt a little bit of discussion from the devs? Ok, yeah, kitten that. It’s not as if I expect full disclosure, I just expect a little bit of hinting towards what their ideas are. Do they see “challenge” as Triple Trouble type herding cats… Well I can’t help but feel that’s what we’ll get, and again, kitten that.

We talk enough that they know their audience, if they had challenging content they could shut us up quite easily, but they refuse to do so, and that’s just enforcing the belief that they’re a shady company not worth trusting.

There’s been lots of talk between us dungeon type folks about Wildstar, when you look at their forum you see constant correspondence about dungeons. Bugs don’t get left for months on end, at least not without some sort of action taken, and that’s not mentioning a near instant reaction to their acceptance of existence. We look at Lupi’s Necrid Bolt hitting in Melee, or the SNAFU “object hitbox” issue, and well, it really doesn’t feel like ANet cares at all. They’re too busy putting out stuff to rake in our money to upkeep their game in a meaningful way.

In the end, well, I see ANet as no better than that shady pusher trying to get people hooked to rake in some money and they really don’t care about their customers at all. As a business it makes sense to a degree, but they shouldn’t be surprised when their customers have attitudes like mine full if distrust and disgust.

This is our essential disagreement I think.

You see a brazen moneygrab and I see them making stuff for people that want different things than you, and honestly ones with easier needs to meet.

And wildstar is a dangerous example to bring up in this discussion, humans have pattern-forming minds.

I would agree with you that they’ve largely abandoned dungeons, and I can speculate why. (From Anets pov they’re probably a failure). The “OMG THEY’RE EVIL” thing is silly to me. They’re a game comany like other game companies. THey want to make a good game, they want to make things that people play, they want to make money.

I think it’s safe to say that amongst those three things dungeons haven’t worked out for them, so I wouldn’t expect too much more on that line. ‘Pleasantly surprised’ is a better risk than “let down and dissapointed”.

spoj.9672:

Windsagio.1340:

I think the end answer, if I’m perfectly frank is “This game just isn’t for really hardcore dungeon types”.

Except the potential of their combat system suggests otherwise. So its no wonder so many of us dont want to leave and want them utilise that potential.

Also to add to that statement many of the systems within the combat system are unused by casual players. They may as well scrap half their combat system if they dont intend to develop hardcore content. Because its being unused and creates extra balance issues. But im sure noone wants that. :P

They made a great combat system we all agree, that still doesn’t mean they’re going to narrowcast content against their demos.