Guild Wars 2

chemiclord.3978:

was absolutely hilarious to see one Warrior raging when four Rangers jumped into his party all at once

Oh that’d be awesome to see! lol

The lack of guild instances to keep out the griefers (teq / worms).

edit: oups, read the title and understood the contrary .. I blame insomnia.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Nabuko Darayon.9645:

Our Blasts should be able to prioritize our own Combo Field, right?

No, the whole point of having the combo system in the game is for team synergy.

I don’t see how this breaks team synergy. You want to blast someone else’s field? Don’t lay yours on top of it. Want to blast your own field? Lay it and blast without any worries.

No.

I’ve ran on my ele, mesmer and thief.

Wow.. This thread.. really.. Its like a course in political correctness.

The unfortunate fact is this: GW2 has an entitled and lazy community that wants to play solo in a multiplayer game. They don’t care about strategy and fight mechanics; they just want to zerg.

So bravo to Anet trying to raise the skill cap of the community with the marionette fight. And bravo to Anet for giving us some strong content in the form of the worms and tequila. Now just implement instanced versions so we can keep the ramble who don’t want to learn from ruining our gaming experience. Especially those griefers who sit on turrets just to fail the event.

You can buy them directly off the TP for gold.. so yeah.. legendary?

juno.1840:

I don’t want to run Arah nine times to get Bifrost — can someone code me a work-around?

People are selling runs you know. You can also buy rank with laurels.. so this change doesn’t force you to have mastery of the game at all.. only more time.

If legendaries are to require mastery it should require WvW rank, PvP rank and certain PvE achievements to even equip it.

Elbegast.6970:

Then why do the mechanics, in an event designed for 100+ players, allow for a single player to foil the attempt? Answer me that.

Players like myself aren’t the problem. The mechanics that give players like myself the power to do what we do are what needs to be addressed.

So the mechanics that allow you to open the fridge and steal your co-workers lunch is all the justification you need to do it? Its rather sad you feel so self righteous in your attempts to grief others.

As for the marionette. Its a fun fight. I’ve beaten it a few times, but best be in the map a dozen minutes before it starts. Even if the draw is unlucky (players with less skill and understanding all on the same platform) it doesn’t fail the entire event; its resistant enough. But if too many people don’t know the basics (and refuse to learn), the event is toast.

The masses need to learn basic skills. Kiting mobs into items, attacking from the rear, avoiding mines, when to range and when to melee. The devs can’t make interesting content until they do. The existing world bosses were too easy.

While we’re on the subject of easy.. when will anet improve ennemy AI and reduce their health? They should dodge out of AoE fields, they should line of sight range players and range melee players. They should use more control and support abilities too.. and maybe then defiance can be removed from the game. But that’s another subject.

Suddenflame.2601:

This would work but is it not easily done. AI is one of the hardest things to program and are extremely CPU heavy (on their servers).

Most things worth doing aren’t easy. But yes, its much harder to do than say, nerfing crit by 10% ~_~

Mob AI has to react more like a player.. that would remove the need for defiance and make support and control builds more viable, like in WvW and PvP.

Mobs need to dodge, walk out of AoE fields and line of sight range players and kite melee players. Also add minions to support bosses and/or add more control to the fight. The key is having more challenging encounters with smaller health pools. Any scripted fight with single large attacks can be learned easily and mitigated with dodges or defensive abilities in the zerker meta builds. Unscripted fights with more pressure (read other sources of damage harder to avoid) would require more support and control.

Yes I love this open world zerg content. But I’d like to see more instanced content as well.. maybe larger instance groups with fights like tequal but harder with different kinds of rewards (like titles). I’d also love to see the queen’s gauntlet style 1 vs 1 fights again too.

Never-mind, found out about a small cliff to the left you can jump off from to avoid the turret completely. The fact the waypoint was removed after most of the Arah videos I watched didn’t help >_>

Without the waypoint there are so many spiders that if you wipe, they are impossible to cross. They have a range ability it seems, and they kill you before you’re within 600 range to insta-gib them with the gun.

Essentially we do the golem event, pass the turret and instead of killing the spiders they just huddle around it.. and the waypoint doesn’t spawn either. The spiders around the turrent then become an impassible barrier; the spider attacks kill anyone who goes near it.

Anyone else seen this bug? Is there a work around? We restarted the run three times but hit it each time.

Khisanth.2948:

The TP doesn’t actually handle gold and items separately. It treats everything as transactions. If you have too many items that needs to be picked up any gold from other transactions “after” the items won’t show up until you pick up the items.

This here exactly. Just process the gear in the queue and eventually the gold will appear.

haviz.1340:

Oh, so you say it isn’t the fault of the gear itself?

Its nice to know you’re replying without reading. I’m done here.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

If you don’t have enough skill to wear the gear to do it in 15 minutes and all you would do is die over and over and over…. I would take the hour run in tankier gear.

Here again, don’t misunderstand that I want to lower the skill cap to clear content. Skill being equal you’ll always choose zerker, always. And with current encounter mechanics, boss AI and boss health pool, rightly so.

… boss AI.. that’s what needs to change. Can you wear full zerker in a WvW zerg? Sure, if you want to rally a large number of enemy combatants when you go down, and you will go down. Can you solo roam in WvW in zerker, yes, absolutely and quite efficiently. There should be a trade-off. Two ways of contributing that are on equal terms, or close to.

But with random boss AoE, scripted fights and lacklustre AI in PVE content.. well.. that can’t exist right now in current PvE content, and that’s the problem.

haviz.1340:

Ever watched how zerker parties kill high level fotm bosses like shaman, mossman and archdiviner? Because I’m pretty sure most zerker party take their time to kill them.

Its nice of you to find the exception of the rule. But in high level of fotm, VT stats yield no benefit either so the point is moot.

I’m more concerned with the other dungeons really, where the zerker meta is causing a lot of friction in the player base.. and limiting options. I’m fine with very high end fractals requiring key specs and composition. Its a problem when heavy zerker only is “required” for other dungeons.

But then, between choosing a 15 minute run or an hour one, which would you choose? That’s what needs to be addressed. There should be more than one way to skin a cat.

haviz.1340:

Really? Because I’ve seen a movie where people didn’t dodge a single time in 30 minutes of various boss fights.

There are a few fights I don’t dodge either. The crushers in Arah p3 being the most obvious. Lets see.. dodge or Illusionary Riposte? dodge or Blurred Frenzy? Its obvious which is better no?

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

They do already. Try speed running a dungeon with no CC, no reflects, no group buffing, no group debuffing. It wouldn’t work exceptionally well. Sounds like you don’t understand the concept.

And all this support and control is acquired by certain key classes with no DPS cost at all. Its not for nothing I see most groups being mesmer, guardian and warriors. The fact there is no gear to buff control is also a problem.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

That really isn’t true. There are many, many encounters where you have to dodge properly or else your full zerker party wipes. I would say most boss encounters are like that, actually.

Not saying running five zerkers requires no skill. But it is easier. PvT goes so far, the boss will still kill you if you can’t evade certain key abilities. With five zerkers, the fight is much shorter, so those abilities are triggered less often.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

I thought bad zerkers were everywhere and dead dps is no dps? The stereotypical “bad zerker” is the evidence that there IS a risk/reward function happening. The difference is all the “good zerkers” are collecting the reward, and people don’t see to like that.

Actually, anyone who’s used to running in zerker groups who pugs with random builds will suddenly face a much more difficult encounter. So you die blaming the PVT for not playing ball and killing the boss fast enough, which is true. The PVT players see you downed all the time and draw different conclusions. Right now, zerker is the optimal option. Some PVT gear while learning, but berserker gear and meta specs are the only way really.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

If you didn’t care about control and support, you would use Sword/Sword, Sword/Pistol, you would run 20/30/0/0/20 with 4 Mantras and you would do substantially more dps. You realize you just put your foot in your mouth, right?

Don’t underestimate the extra damage I deal from those reflections. (or I’m blinded by large numbers.. for things like this I wish I hate a meter.)

Look I understand what you’re saying. But seriously, there is very little choice while running any class right now. And some classes, engineer, necro.. are shunned from parties, and rightly so. That’s bad game design. I don’t blame the players, I blame the system.

somsom.5201:

Exactly. If you choose to afk tank, then your reward will be a longer run. People ranting for equal completion times while afking are delusional.

Is that what the OP is asking for? Is that what I’m asking for? How many in this thread want easy rewards and AFK gameplay?

Nice hyperbole BTW. Wanting more build diversity and better gameplay isn’t asking for an easier game, quite the contrary actually.

I want the rewards of running full zerker to be the same as now. I just want the risks to increase, instead of decreasing like it is now. 5 zerker runs? Makes the game EZ mode.

fadeaway.2807:

You play a sword focus reflect mesmer and don’t already consider yourself bringing the control and support you want so badly? To me that’s precisely what control and support is. You control the mobs into a corner/wall using focus, and you support your team with reflections. Why do you feel you need tank stats to be viable to accomplish this?

Of course I bring some control, with practically no DPS cost for my class. Can we say the same of other classes? Can I even run a non-reflect mesmer in a group without getting frowned upon?

Like I said before. Its all about risk vs reward. Right now there is less risk in berserker gear and meta specs and more rewards. You want to run with five zerkers only. If anyone in the group is support or PVT, the fights are longer and people die. Why? Because passive stats like toughness and vitality have little value compared to boss damage. The longer it lives, the more of it’s script it plays and you eventually run out of active counters.

I’d like to see more risk overall. I’d like to see intelligent AI that isn’t so easy to manipulate. I’d like to see smaller and smarter attacks from the boss. No random AoE on the ground.. let it do combos like a snare or stun then an AoE on your face. It should single out players, it should block or reflect range attacks. It should know when to retreat and heal, hide behind cover, how to knock players off ledges. It would make a more interesting game, where boons and healing builds/gear could have some value to the group instead of being only detrimental.

Hell, I wish PvE was more like WvW.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

What you, and the other zerkernerfers want is a trinity system where any class can fulfill any of the trinity roles but that is not the game that Anet promise and not the game Anet delivered.

Actually we want a PvE system where control and support have some value. Right now there is no reason to spec into more support or control, or gear for support or control. If you go full zerker, and all party members are full zerker, everything melts before it can pose a threat. That is not interesting gameplay.

I don’t want the berserker gearset to be nerfed. I want the mob AI to be less dumb and know how to counter, cleanse and walk out of AoE fields.

Being a glass cannon should be a risk vs rewards decision. Right now being in a group of glass cannons yields more rewards (faster runs) and less risk (boss dies before it can kill). That’s the only problem with the zerker meta.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

I consider this post of mine to have effectively put this debate to bed. Mods can feel free to sticky my post and close the thread.

Funny guy. At least understand the rationale before you dismiss it.

P.S. I always run full zerker mesmer. Sw/Fo Sw/Sw with reflection .. its the only real way to play in PvE and that’s a kitten shame.

Ahlen.7591:

The problem is that the other members of the group probably don’t have as efficient or powerful conditions, and eat up your valuable stacks.

The problem is the global stack count.. should be individual per attacking player (but that’s a technical limitation apparently).

Faux.1937:

1) Condition builds in group play and against Objects
2) CC/support against bosses (there almost isnt any)
3) Some parts of the Game (high level fractals, some dungeon paths etc..) things hit so hard so fast, its BETTER to be full DPS than tank.
4) Heals and Conditions cant Crit and also they have no stat synergy to make them more desirable like Zerk does (The combo of Power/Prec/Crit damage all helps each other and multiplies), Toughness and Heal power do have some synergy, but no multipliers.
5) Longer fights doesnt make them more fun.

If they fix boss AI to be less kitten and deterministic perhaps they could do away with defiance as well. I’d be nice to see a boss retreat behind a post to cleanse conditions.

Their damage output and health should be scaled down too. If they didn’t fire off predictable and easily dodged mega attacks (or random ground targeting) they wouldn’t need to hit so hard to be challenging. Nor would they need large health pools to increase the chance one of their rng dumb attacks downs a player.

It would be nice if heals could crit, but healing power should be in other forms of gear.. I’d love to see a Power/Precision/Healing power build. I’d also like to see it more viable than it is now. I understand they don’t want to force players into the holy trinity, but they should make support and healing more viable. I believe smarter bosses that hit less hard but in smarter ways would help in that regard.. more “ouch I’m hurt and snared help!” and less “got one shot, don’t know what killed me can’t see”.

Do I make any sense?

Love the thread OP.

Here’s to hoping PvE AI gets a major rework to behave more like WvW, where build diversity actually means something. If the AI enemies actually fought smart and used active defences of their own, the game would be much more enjoyable and challenging. Berserker would still be viable like in WvW, but support and control builds would suddenly be viable too. (And if we’re lucky, condition damage builds too.. boo 2 u 25 stack limit)

Anet promised a loose trinity of damage, control and support. I’d love to see it.

The gem store in GW2 isn’t a problem. The lack of new armor sets outside the gem store is the problem.

Is this still going on? If so invite please

Aeonblade.8709:

Don’t joke about bringing the trinity and team strategy that goes with it back into the game. It’s a wet dream I have from time to time

You don’t need the trinity for strategy. You do need better AI and a reworking of the combat mechanics.. “Defiant” is not a good mechanic.

They promised damage, support and control. I’d like to see it.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Just because it hasn’t been on par, or hasn’t included what a traditional expac would, doesn’t mean it can’t.

Over time yes, the LS may add up enough content to be equivalent to an expansion. But the LS will never feel like an expansion and that’s the problem. Gradual content is easy to overlook and its taken for granted. Pure psychology here. People remember WoW expansions, but they forget the WoW patches that brought each new raid tier.

LS is forgettable.. GW2 will need an actual expansion to attract more players and old players who left.

Enn Ooo

No

We don’t need a vertical gear treadmill. You don’t deserve higher stats because you forged a rare skin. If you want the higher stats, transmute it to an ascended weapon.

Ayrilana.1396:

Xia.3485:

Anyone starting a light armor wearing toon will feel pain now. Forget about leveling tailoring, all cloth prices have risen sharply. The economy (for armor crafting) is grade A fubared.

Nope. Leather is still incredibly cheap. Orichalcum ore can easily be farmed (over 250 per day). Gossamer scraps are very cheap. Not all gear comes from crafting.

Cheap leather has very little impact on the cost of tailoring.

Elonian Leather Square : 0.94 g
Deldrimor Steel Ingot : 4.2g
Bolt of Damask : 15 g

Wool scrap (2s 25c) vs Thin Leather Section (12c) vs Iron ore (1s 35c)
Cotton Scrap (2s 88c) vs Coarse Leather Section (41c) vs Iron ore (1s 35c)
Linen Scrap (6s 9c) vs Rugged Leather Section (97c) vs Platinum Ore (1s 67c)
Silk Scrap (2s 13c) vs Thick Leather Section (9c) vs Mithril Ore (53c)

You’re right, the above prices make perfect sense. Especially when it takes 3 silk to make a bolt and at least 2-5 bolts to craft a piece of armor (not counting the insignia).

/sarcasm

Honestly, compared to other classes the ele is over-complicated. For good damage you’re pigeon holed into Sc/D or Sc/F with LH with a predefined rotation. Compare that to my Sw/Sw Sw/F reflection mesmer… its obvious which is more enjoyable to play.

Two major changes I would love to see is less discrepancy between range and melee DPS and less +10% dmg traits, which are boring….

Elonian Leather Square : 0.94 g
Deldrimor Steel Ingot : 4.2g
Bolt of Damask : 15 g

Fubared

Anyone starting a light armor wearing toon will feel pain now. Forget about leveling tailoring, all cloth prices have risen sharply. The economy (for armor crafting) is grade A fubared.

Belenwyn.8674:

The horizontal progression could go in many directions.

• More trophies from LW or world bosses for your home instance
• Methods to pimp up your gear with cosmetic effects like glowing or spikes etc.
• More exploration
• more story to read and more lore to learn
• new skills (here we could fall into vertical progression very easily if the new skills are too powerful or effective)
• new traits
• new weapons unlocked for the classes
• customisation of the home instance
• more skins via crafting or dungeons

Absolutely more armor sets and weapon skins.. and these should be rewards for completing dungeons, (living) story instances and achievements. And hopefully not via meta achievements we grind. And certainly not gemstore skins we simply farm gold for. But some achievements like weapon master, that require a lot of time to acquire, could have a weapon skin as reward. Especially the WvW and PvP ones should grant rewards that can be worn in PvE as well.

I’m not against ascended gear and items, but I believe the acquisition of new skills and new game mechanics makes for a more worthwhile progression in any game; even if the new skills and mechanics aren’t more powerful. They offer more diversity and change the way you play. Ascended gear is just meh.. same old same old and I’ll get it eventually.

I’d also like to see guild instances of world bosses. We do something similar now by finding an overflow and inviting guildies to it, but instanced versions for organised groups would be great.. and these instances can be more difficult and offer different rewards like tittles, leaderboard ranking, minis, influence and toys like banners and trophies. Rewards don’t have to be currency and gear.

I don’t know if I’m the only one, but I find too many good looking skins are tied directly to the acquisition of wealth. So instead of getting these rewards by playing different aspects of the game, the easiest path is to grind champions in queensdale for gold and somply buy them off the TP… Not sure how that can be solved though..

I very much dislike this undocumented and non-previewed change.

I’m not going to boycott but I have switched to my mesmer for dungeon runs and fractals. Its a pain getting a second set of ascended gear but whatever.

Cyninja.2954:

- be sure to keep following weapons on hand:
MINIMUM: Sword, Focus, GS, Pistol
IDEAL: 2xSword, Focus, GS, Pistol, Staff, Torch
ALL OUT: 3xSword, Focus, GS, Pistol, Staff, Scepter, Torch

Why 3xSword? If you equip S/S and <nothing>/F you get S/S and S/F when swapping. Or is it something else I’m not aware of?

Time to switch to my mesmer…..

Oh GOD I hate this change…. WHY!? Why didn’t they even preview this.. WHY!?

Skritt. They bring home the Shinies.

I would also like to see a video of that Axelifus..

Reading all these proposed changes.. I can’t help but wish there was a public test server.

Seems to me we need more sources of gear that aren’t tied into gold. Right now all the nice looking skins require amazing luck or lots of gold (aka farming).

I believe there should be more bound to account drops in the game. Especially from dungeons and world bosses. Some skins should be skilled based.. or achievement based like hard jumping puzzles, hard encounters (queen’s gauntlet), or bonus objectives in dungeons.. not meta achievement you grind. I’m not saying all loot should be skill based, but a fair portion of it should be.

Right now I find tab targeting rather useless… but there are a few tweaks that can make it work.

1. Prioritize targets in front of the player, not in front of the camera. This is very annoying in a 3rd perspective game. Right now I have to zoom in all the way not to target that moa standing behind me instead of the fifty something pirates in front of me.

2. Prioritize event objectives above all other targets. The first tab hit should target the boss in front of me, or that champion aetherblade captain we need to kill for the event.

3. Prioritize Champions then lieutenants. Or maybe even prioritize targets with the largest base HP. There’s nothing worst than targeting a mob that will die before you can attack it.

4. Don’t ever target yellow mobs (or static items)

I find tab targeting very frustrating in GW2. Am I the only one?

Yeah I just copied the files over from my previous build (gw2.dat & gw2.exe), worked like a charm. Had to redo my gfx settings though, not that it matters.

All the config, screenshots and what nots are in Documents\Guild Wars 2 if you want to save your config.

Conner.4702:

Crafting should be a viable way to make money. Honestly crafting should be the backbone of the ingame economy and not random drops as it is now.

I haven’t seen a game where crafting was profitable at max level. Everyone can learn any crafting discipline. Everyone can learn every recipe. Everyone can use crafting as a way to level alts. Therefore items that are crafted have less value than the materials used to craft. (Think about it, if the finished product is sold for more than the materials, why not just buy the materials and craft it yourself?)

What I would like is weapons and armors that are crafted in the mystic forge to use different base materials than the legendaries. Right now everything good uses corrupted lodestones… and so everything that uses them is expensive.

I’d also like to see some nice items drop for challenging encounters. Make the dungeons relevant.. add optional bosses that are difficult and they have a high chance to either drop an item like this or a good deal of crafting materials (corrupted lodestones for example).

Star Ace.5207:

It is optimal to you, but not to many players. I don’t mind if you use it, as long as you don’t think any less of anyone else who doesn’t. And as you said, since the developer’s didn’t intend for that to be the case (DPS above all) I’ll stick to their plan of all stats being viable, even if they aren’t for you (this is OK, no offense intended.)

Personally I don’t care what people run in my groups, as long as they aren’t downed half the time. I’m also not saying that zerker is more fun or anything subjective of that sort.

What I am saying is that, due to balancing and the current game mechanics, zerker is mathematically the best stats to wear.. and dps specs are the best stats to use. I would very much wish support specs and gearsets were more potent than they are now. I also wish the condition builds wouldn’t suffer so badly due to the 25 stack limit.

I’m not saying the game should adopt the holy trinity, but I don’t see why someone shouldn’t be able to go full healer or tank if he chose too. Everything is skewed towards DPS unfortunately.

As such I’m using zerker gear and DPS specs on my mains. In well organized groups using similar gear and specs we down content very quickly. Its efficient. Its not more fun though. I do get demolished in WvW though, so there’s hope

Star Ace.5207:

All stats are viable for certain players, playstyles, and Profession/build combinations. DPS is good, but contrary to popular opinion (and I am sure developer’s must agree 100% on this) GW2 is not about “who DPS the most, wins”. That’s a player conclusion that has become popular, not something that was ever intended.

Unfortunately, the shorter the fight is the less chance there is of someone getting downed (or dead) by mistake. This favors berserker for most professions. Add in the condition cap of 25 and the rather bad healing power scaling and you get what you get. Its even more true in high level fractals where defensive stats become less and less relevant.

No one is saying you have to play zerker. What we are saying is the optimal build right now is zerker by design; even though the dev team obviously intended otherwise.

PearlGore.7419:

Practice more Because I prefer different stats? It’s clear you Don’t run these dungeons. You would be kicked.

Find a playstyle that works for you. But despite that, the most effective for most classes right now is pure berserker gear and DPS spec. Once I learned the content, I switched both my elementalist and thief to pure zerker.

Not sure if this applies to guardians though.

PearlGore.7419:

It would be nice if we did not have liars in here, would help the discussion on gear.

Don’t call those that disagree with you liars.. it makes you look.. well.. not very mature.

clay.7849:

Dang Xia, where you been? Agreed 100%.

Bioshock infinite, and soon borderlands 2.. on the steam page right now looking for the best deal

Still getting my dailys done, but GW2 is on the back burner for a little while. (Or at least until the April patch).

PearlGore.7419:

And GL with high lvl Fractals or Arah EXP in beserker Gear lol.

When everything one shots you you’re best defense is playing smart, not toughness and vitality stats.