Guild Wars 2

So, I’ve been playing for almost an year now, pretty much most of my characters are berserkers, the so called meta.
Now, from what I understand, Meta builds like the ones presented on metabattles, or from the guys at DnT are focused around perfect scenarios, organized groups for speedruns.

That is not the reality of a pug life, some times you find good groups, some times you don’t. Nothing is organized when pugging. Sometimes you don’t even want to run meta and are just looking for a fun time.

Ok to the questions then:

META

• How do I calculate my own DPS? I know DnT has all the amazing math calculations from optimal rotations and stuff, but sometimes things don’t work out. (And I’m too dumb to make sense of all those numbers, maybe doing it myself will help that)
• How would I calculate my average DPS during a dungeon path or encounters within that path? Say I want to know what is the difference between playing my thief that can’t afford to being hit, and my guardian that can take 1 or 3 hits with aegis, during CM P1. So in the end I can look at 10 different runs and say that overall my thief still had better dps than my guardian, or vice-versa.
• Can I apply the same calculations to Condition Damage?
• How reliable is a tool like JaxnX? And how can I use it efficiently?
• I ask all this because I want to be able to see how much I’m losing when I change a trait or weapon over something I have more fun with.

PUGS

• If faced with a team that is constantly having problems, do you change builds to support them? Or are the meta builds in the hands of a good player capable of soloing every content?
  For example, one of my friends loves to play a Nomad Guardian, when playing with him we charge forward and he makes sure he’s taking the hits and providing the healing, we rarely, if ever, wipe. The dungeon paths are fast and easy. We won’t break any records though.
• Is there any site that covers these builds focused on players wanting to tank/support?
• How do you deal with people that don’t talk and appear to be new to the dungeon? Do you teach them? Play the quiet observer?
• How can I make sure my groups avoid glitching or stacking? Any LFG description I can use that will get the message across?
  Understand that I’m not exactly against stacking per se. It’s just that, most of the time, it doesn’t even make sense, and forces my thief to ignore backstab.
• What is the average time to complete dungeons?
  I would love to be able to compare the time a full party of lv35 takes to complete AC, against a full party of lv80 meta builds. Or even better a condition team against a Berserker team.
  Gw2Efficiency lists an average of how long your dungeons runs are taking. But the global average doesn’t seem to be updated, or even shows us how much data its taking into account. Although it does have a nice breakdown of some group compositions. I don’t particularly use the system, but Im considering taking the numbers that GW2 PAO gets after finishing a dungeon – would be nice to have these two tools working together -.

Freedom of Choice

• At the end of the day, I want to play with people and allow them to play with their builds. But at the same time, people can come up with builds that do absolutely nothing. So how do you approach them and get them to play something better? How do you help them adapt their builds to what they want to do and still have fun with everyone else?
• I know Berserker/Assasin is meta, is fast, is optimal, but why is it that we don’t have guides for Tank, Conditions, Support builds when the majority of players new to the game will explore so many possibilities before deciding what they actually love to play?
• Let’s assume for a minute that the numbers in gw2efficiency are a reality (I have no idea, but they seem realistic), and that most dungeons paths take 10min give or take. Would that change drastically if everyone was running Condition, or Support, or Tank, or a mixed group with people doing different stuff?

Awesome suggestions popping up here.

While I doubt we will see anything changing on HoT, I hope we can at least get their attention for future updates. Some of these ideas are fantastic.

Title says it all. I just want to see my character up close when applying dyes or looking at a piece of armor.

I will be happy enough if the preview window can show my character just as he is in the loading screen.

Mesmer and necro.

Bumping this because I too can’t register neither of my emails (both gmail).
It doesn’t even go to spam.

Another suggestion since this didnt seem to take interest.

At the very least, make the description tell me if another one of my characters already know the recipes.

I would love to see an option, be it through the mastery system, or a checkbox in the menu, to enable veteran players the ability to avoid the NPE or the limitations imposed to low levels.

I’m talking more especificaly about the unlocking of weapon skills.

I understand the mechanic of unlocking each one as a new player progress through the game, but after we reach 80, there’s no point for such thing.

We have a game that thrives on the idea of people playing multiple characters, and it makes no sense that my second, thrid, tenth characters are being told how to dodge, how to heal, or even unable to use attacks I’m already familiar with.

And @ OP: Before the NPE each of your characters had to unlock each of the weaponskills by using the weapons, so even as a “veteran” you had to do that stuff all over again.

I know that, my point is not how things used to work. Is to improve how things can work.

With the addition of the mastery system, and their talk about account unlocks and progression, it would be briliant to implement a system that allows for an easier time when leveling alts.

Seems like a pretty insignificant complaint. you have all of your weapon skills by what? level 10? That takes a whole hour…

Complaining and suggesting stuff are two different things.

Exaclty Mental, either an option, a mastery, but something where we can move away from the NPE, we are no longer newbies and it makes no sense for the game to keep treating us like such.

Would love to get more people in this thread so it gets more attention.

Title says it all, I already have a max level toon, there’s no reason for me to be forced to “relearn” what each weapon skill does.

If the NPE is so important, that’s fine, but I would love an option for my new alts to be free of it.

With the new mastery system affecting the whole account, I wouldn’t mind a mastery that enables all of my alts to be able to use their weapon skills from lv 1.

Ive planning on a playthrough like that for some time. But I end up spending more time on all my other toons.

Wait, can the lich form dance? mind blown

And no, I dont have any problems with girls becoming dudes, Ive seen enough of the internet and japan, to appreciate it hahaha.

I’m not asking for every race to have their own lich form (that would be AMAZING), but just a female/male counterpart would be really cool to set them apart.

Especially when I plan on getting at least one more necro on my account.

Title says it all.

Im tempted to avoid the elite simple because I dont want my girl becoming a dude in the middle of the fight. I know, its silly. But still, would love to see getting a new model for females characters.

First of all, I’m not talking about discovery recipes. I mean the recipes I can buy with karma, gold, laurels.

Stuff, like ascended weapons and armors, specially insciptions and insignias.

Because of the current system I force all the inscriptions and insignias in my thief, and have to switch characters everytime Im going to craft something else like heavy/light armor.

I know I’m just being lazy, but switching between two different toons to craft a single weapon is getting on my nevers lately .

Loved the story and lore panels.

I think you overdid on the guild and hero panels though.
It’s a cool concept, but you need to clean them a bit, its way too crowded.

Hope Anet sees this and considers potential updates to the UI.

The revealed thing is odd, unless you were in autoattack range, activated the trap return, it was in an improper place, you stayed in spot and it was still swinging your arms as the stealth activated…

I though of that, but there were no hits when I used, even if IT did attacked right after I teleported it should have given me the buffs and then used them all at once.

After finding out I could use shadow trap to instantly return the wisp at the swamp fractal, I’ve been trying to play with it a little more.

The problem is, most of the time I’m not getting any of the effects.

From what little I could test, it seems that whenever I’m in combat and use the trap I just get the revaled debuff when I “teleport”. I’m curious if anyone experienced this, if thieves even bother using this skill.

Also, why is it that skills like shadow trap or the necro wurm that claims to teleport to their starting locations don’t work as intented? I can’t place a shadow trap at the top of a cliff and go back using it.

I heard arguments about having something to do with jumping puzzles, but it doesn’t make sense considering classes like warriors/guards/engies, have utilities to skip jumps, or a necro that can (apparently) use spectral walk to return to a jump.

lol
NO!

that is all.

I guess Anet just doesn’t care about the game anymore.

We get a letter from orphans asking for help.
Our help is to kill someone, and then steal presents.
Followed by destroying said presents in front of them.

I laughed way too much for that, its so stupid that I don’t know what to expect from this game anymore.

i’m going to add another one for my previous list of things I disliked on the current system.

My Ele is at lv60, I went to Harathi for the Kol Skullsmasher event that you need to unlock one of the traits.

Getting there, I discover that some group already killed Kol, but left the NPC to die after it. As a result I now have to go complete this event chain, and then WAIT for it to start again.

Even worst, I’m too much of a bad player to actually kill stuff with my Ele, so I find myself diying for a pack of Oozes because I can’t handle so many mobs at once.

So thanks Anet, for making my experience that much worse.

Behellagh.1468:

Wolfeng.3784:

Oh for the love of god stop whining so much you bunch of kitten.

The dailies before told you exactly what to do, it just so happens that you would complete them no matter what.

All you are doing is complaining that now you have to waste 2min of your life to complete them. Boo hoo, poor little thing.

A daily that’s 4 events in a zone you may not be familiar with as to where and how frequent they occur is a bit more than 2 minutes.

“And that’s why the god’s invented teamwork! "

Honestly map chat is a wonderful feature. Still it is a fair point if I consider the fact you may not have mapped that area, but then you get to explore the world.
And that’s exactly what they want with this daily system.

So, my point remains, you want achievement points? You work for them.

noun
1.
something accomplished, especially by superior ability, special effort, great courage, etc.; a great or heroic deed:

Oh for the love of god stop whining so much you bunch of kitten.

The dailies before told you exactly what to do, it just so happens that you would complete them no matter what.

All you are doing is complaining that now you have to waste 2min of your life to complete them. Boo hoo, poor little thing.

They are expensive but last time i checked sentinel were availiable on the TP also.

But I’m talking about the crafting point of view. Each of those sentinel armors required all that time invested in it, and that alone explains why they are so expensive. But, you are right, at least for that stat we have a option to be extremely rich and buy everything straight.

And crafting ascended celestial takes as long as crafting exotic because you need an exotic insignia/inscription.

True I completely forgot about the insignia still being used in the ascended. Still, its far more likely that you will end up accross an ascended chest containing celestial stats before being able to finish your set. (I got one, and thus started thinking of gearing a toon towards that)

You can have quite a large selection of stats to chose from on an Amulet, just craft a Candy Corn one, not much time savings but hey every little bit helps.

Thanks for the tip. Though, as you said, it doesn’t change much of the fact.

So you have something to do. The sooner you accept that ArenaNet does, in fact, have more wisdom into the mechanics of the game than you, the sooner you will realize that playing the game will get you to your goal faster than stamping your feet in the forums.

What? Did you even bothered reading?

I have so much to do ingame, from dungeons, to fractals, to guild missions, to jumping puzzles, to farming crests, geodes, the list goes on and on.

I specifically said that since I would be playing with another stat, by the time I finished crafting I would already be used to the one I’m using, so there would be little point in changing…. and don’t even get me started on the mechanics of the game when people have to play with the wiki open.

If you can’t even do something so simple as reading, why are you here?

For celestial you will need to farm the charged quartz crystal that Anet in all their infinite wisdom decided to limit by once per day… And hey, guess how many you need to craft a single insignia?

Freaking 5!
So 30 days of absolute nothing while you get the charged quartz for your armor. And that’s just the armor.

If you decide to craft the trinkets as well. Thats 25 days of waiting again, since you will want 5 of them.

And you know what’s even worst? If you have the gold, its faster to craft the ascended version rather than the exotic! How exactly do we reach a point where its “easier” to craft a better version of an armor set?

For sinister you can buy one of the components that require the charged quartz, so people can profit of that, and those that dont want to wait 2 whole months, can craft their stuff. Why isn’t the same applied for celestial?

And I just went to check on sentinel. I need 10 guild commendations just to buy a single insignia, so we are talking about 60 guild commendations just for a set of armor, excluding trinkets and weapons.

And the best part is that guild commendations are limited by week, not even day. So it’s again another 2 to 3 months before you can have the set of gear of your choice.

Now, I understand that an MMO needs time sinks, I perfectly understand that, what is driving me mad is, WHY would I waste 2-3 months with that?

If Im gonna spend 2-3 months to craft it, I will haave to spend those days with another stat set, with so much time you will adapt to it, learn it, play it well. Hell, you could even go Zerker and play the meta that everyone loves/hate.

And since I touched “meta”, its like Anet is forcing players away from any other stat, and just making more clear that its easier to stick with the meta.

At least Sinister armor is easy enough to craft once you have the gold for it .

For celestial you will need to actually farm the charged quartz crystal that Anet in all their infinite wisdom decided to limit by once per day… And hey, guess how many you need to craft a single insignia?

Freaking 5!
So 30 days of absolute nothing while you get the charged quartz for your armor. And that’s just the armor.

If you decide to craft the trinkets as well. Thats 25 days of waiting again, since you will want 5 of them.

And you know what’s even worst? If you have the gold, its faster to craft the ascended version rather than the exotic! How exactly do we reach a point where its “easier” to craft a better version of an armor set?

I know Anet hates to receive support tikets as suggestions, but Im sending this as one, in the hopes that something change. This is ridiculous and just encourages even more people to just play zerker, zerker, zerker. Since it’s so easy to acquire.

Don’t use autoloot on dungeons, so you take as much time as you want picking only the stuff you want?

And why the heck would you delete things if they are worht at least a few copper?

Since I see this topic getting updated everytime I open the forum I decided to share my view on the subject.

I’m a new player, I only started playing AFTER the changes to the traits. So I have no idea what it was like.

I like the concept of having to do content to unlock a trait, no in fact I could say I love this concept. CONCEPT.
Because the current system is a leveling hell:

- I’m forced to do WvW content that I hate (and all the times I tried there was never a zerg to run with).

- Some events are broken like Foulbear.

- Some only happen at especific times. I’ve tried Karka queen, and was never online when it happened, I’ve tried the temples and had to wait on Orr for several minutes before it started, or I got in too late and the mob I needed to kill was already dead.

- Some require me to map an entire region like Lornar’s Pass. It was fun mapping that region with my first toon, but it’s not something I look forward to with the other toons, even though it does provide me with exp to level.

- Some require me to play my personal story until lv80, or rather, ALL OF IT. I don’t want to play the personal story of every single toon I make. Specially not when I have to run Arah Story mode, one of the worst and most disappointing dungeon/boss fights I ever had.

- Some require me to look up the Wiki to know what it is I need. Like killing Lord Ignius, or Rhendak. In my mind, anything that forces me out of the game is not well designed.

Like I said, I love the concept of having to explore Tyria, and participate in events to unlock my traits, but the system needs to be redone in a way that once I reach the point where I can start using traits, I actually have them unlocked.

I think a better system would make use of less events or have a wider range of events.

For example:

Completing any of the temple events in Orr counts as unlocking your trait.
Add to that, instead of unlocking a single trait. You actually unlock a trait for both the Power and Precision trees.

This way, players are still encouraged to travel around Tyria and explore new things, but have more time to enjoy and build their character, rather than spending time doing 65 different things (if I counted right), that they may or may not enjoy/be able to.

Hopefully dev’s actually read this topic.

Definately not a gem store item, But I would love to be able to play my story again, with achievements would be even better.

That grid view is amazing.
Except for the candy corn, since that is also a crafting material.

While I understand the reason why you were so mad.
I dont think RNG is the right title.

You hate farming, not the rng.

I’m the same, I can’t stand the idea of having to wait days, and weeks until I have all the items required for something. I rather work towards having the money and buy that stuff from other people. Call me lazy.

In the end, whether its a party with new characters, or a high level helping out a noob, open world parties are more for convience and socializing then anything else.

Precisely my point. And that’s why im frustated with the current system, being social is fun and all, but I want to complete events together, and not just watch while my friends do their hearts on their own.

I think maybe a better system would be if the hearts worked just like events.
You know those events where we have a bar decreasing with the ammount of mobs killed? Or where everyone needs to go hunt for a certain item and once we reach a certain number the event is over?

If hearts worked the same way, I could still be actively helping a friend while he completes stuff. I know some hearts have events that happen from time to time, but not all of them, and some just take longer to start.

I guess I’m looking for more group content where parties have a meaning beyond being social.

I stand by what I typed.

Kills aren’t shared. I’m not looking into power leveling someone, I’m trying to discuss completing hearts and events together, I dont care about the exp from kills, those are lousy anyway.

Let’s use as an example the dozens of heart that require you to kill certain mobs. If the heart requires you to kill 100 centaurs, I will have to kill 100, and my friend will also have to kill 100.

We can’t work together towards that goal, at best, we can attack the same exact mob together.

Another example:

If a heart requires you to collect 100 harpies feathers, that drop once you kill them. Again, we have to kill the same mob together. I can’t say kill 50 of those harpies and then give him the loot, or even deliver the feathers in his name.

My point is that there’s no difference between us playing on our own, than with a party.

And most mmo’s I played, we needed parties to help achieve the goal of the quest faster. Because when someone killed a centaur in the party, the kill was added to everyone on it.

I can play the game as one of my own characters that I created perfectly fine, none of them are a Thief though. For one simple reason, you try to play as a Thief when you only have the use of one hand. It’s nigh on impossible!

Whatever happened to the ‘Play the way you want to play’ mantra?

You can still play Caithe with one hand. Her number 5 skill will hit everyone around her, and hit it hard. Her number 8 skill, will set conditions and cripple everyone inside the circle. Two skills, thats all I used on Caithe.

For the fools that are complaining about playing Caithe simple because the story, well, for those I will keep saying learn to play, and not just the mechanics, games have us playing different characters all the time. Games have us experiencing different stories all the time. Games are interactive stories, where we the players get to participate in the action. If all you people want is cutscenes, go watch a movie or two.

Anet did a great job with Caithe storyline, by showing us how unbeliavable stupid she is (or was). I applaud Anet for managing to make some people feel sick when they had to kill an entire centaur village. That means the story, emotions, all came accross like they should.

And for those that complain about our character only saying small stuff and not discussing the topic further, it makes sense (at least for me)

If I was in my character place, I would not explain what I saw, I would not discuss those things for others, since I’m seeings things that Caithe possibly don’t want to talk about, I would remain quiet as well.

I think that healing/condition ascended jewelry I’ll never use is an even worse reward than 20 Mawdrey pieces taking space in my bag. So, for all achievements in seven chapters it’s 30 silver total. Such reward, wow.

That’s another reason to have the rewards be reedemable at our own time.
I’m not doing some achievements because I don’t want to play with Nomad gear right now, but I do have plans for making a toon with it. (No matter what everyone else say)

Forcing us into picking stuff up, and filling our bank with stuff that might only be usefull in the future seems to me like they are either forcing us into buying additional bag/bank slots, or just plain bad design.

The same can be said about the geodes and bandit crests added for the living story… 4 slots occupied just so that later you can trade for something.

I know, I know, you need them to enter dungeons as a group. And coordinating groups in WvW, guild missions, etc.

But I’m talking about open world pve content.
If a friend makes a new toon, and I decide I want to help him, we make a party and go to the same map.

Now because of the current system, all I can do is watch while he completes each heart on his own, because I can’t share any of the kills with him, or any of the loot I picked up. The only thing I could probably do is help him kill a mob that might be too dificult alone.

All that talk about being able to join my low level friends because of auto scaling seems like a waste. Actually, even if I decided to make a new toon to play together, we would still be each doing our own things.

So I repeat, what’s the point of parties?

Here’s my beatiful necro, Ivy.

I think the shoulder might be a little over the top. but meh.

WHAT?

The Charged Ambrite is available on TP? I feel so stupid now.
Thank you internet.

I finally got all the ascended trinkets with sinister stats. Currently using them on my necro.

But I want a second character to use sinister stats as well. Problem is, craftint the exotic trinkets is ridiculous. Requiring a bunch of charged quartz that I can only get a single one per day is beyond stupid.

My point is, is there anyway I can get more sinister trinkets? Or will I have to wait a whole month before I have enough charged quartz for all the exotics trinkets?

I will agree that the lack of a mote to reset the fight is disturbing. But the achievement itself was rather easy to do, #8 and #5 skills make that fight exremely easy.

I play Human Warrior with lv0 gear/power runes – greatsword with bloodlust and speed.

- Hearts on queensdale reaching lv7-8
- Go to lion’s arch and then Rata Sum.
- Map Rata Sum.
- Then hearts on Metrica Province.
You could add the Grove and Caledon Forest. But I still can’t navigate the Grove.

This takes about 50min-1h.
————————

I’m trying to raise the money for another character slot right now to go back to keyfarming. You can add me if you want a partner to run you through.

After finally reaching 80, and starting the Living Story, I found myself full of items that had absolutely no use to me at the moment. In this case, the pieces needed to craft Mawdrey.

Don’t get me wrong, I like those items, I like the rewards, I like going around the world collecting stuff. What I don’t like is the fact that all those items were taking precious bank space or bag space for me.

What I would like to see, is a system similar to the one used for skins gained through the achievements points, where we can withdraw items when needed.

This way I can play the living story without any worries, and still get the rewards when I’m ready to play with them.

PS: Will my other toons get the same items used for mawdrey if I play the LS with them?

Playing as Caithe was awesome. MORE OF THIS!
No game EVER should do cutscenes to everything. Learn to play people.

I dont agree with the tools. It makes sense for them to sell multiple copies of convenience items, it preys on the lazyness of people, and I’m fine with that.

The same can be said about this bag shared among toons, it would be the same as having a bank open at all times, you could easily place your tools there and move to another toon. Even if I like the idea of sharing items with different toons, like the bobblehead lab, the broom, flute, etc.

For the bags themselves, I would love to see this happening. One thing is for convenience items to be bought again and again, other is an account upgrade item to be locked to a certain character, for this reason I’m not buying any bag upgrades until a change is made.

I would love to have the recipes unlocked on all my toons. When I first started playing the game I bought a lot of recipes thinking they worked like that, and a bunch of them are for things that toon is not leveled towards.

And Wanze, I also don’t understand how unlocking a recipe makes the materials for it less valuable, care to explain further? I mean, your toon still needs to reach the same level to use the recipe regardless if he knows it or not.

That’s why I went with soldier stats instead of sentinel. The price is absurd, the means to acquiring the gear is absurd, everything is absurd.

Anet clearly doesnt know how to handle the different stat sets they create, some are incomplete, and some like sentinel have things that are not even obtainable anymore.

I suppose you can try going for the ascended version?

I like the way you think. Would love to have a system like that, though I find it hard to believe it would be implemented.

Lowerping fixed for me as well, I haven’t tried extensively yet, but I’m at least able to get into the map. Though it does lag more.

Same problem here, since yesterday I can’t play with my main toon. Stuck at Heart of the mists.

Brazil
Net Virtua

It seems to me that most people with this problem are international players. I sent a support request questioning ANET about this, but it would be best if we could at least have someone from their team replying here on the forum. At least this way we know they are doing something.