(edited by Xiahou Mao.9701)
I hope everyone complaining about how OP Engi Moas are is aware that any Engineer packing this will be lacking Supply Crate. You know, the elite skill they currently have that does a longer AoE stun than this Moa effect and puts a bunch of turrets on the field on top of that…
Feline Grace
This is a pretty huge nerf. We no longer get the 15 endurance return on dodge, and instead we get 2 seconds of vigor every 3 seconds. The vigor is pretty strong but considering the fact we had almost 100% vigor uptime from withdraw and steal this nerf hurts.
You didn’t mention the other boost, that Vigour with Acrobatics now restores 20% more endurance than before. That means that with the 100% Vigour uptime you mention, things start looking much more like the old Feline Grace. It just adds some counterplay to it, in that opponents can strip your Vigour to mitigate the dodging a bit.
I wasn’t able to watch it all. So will it be somewhere for me to watch again uninterrupted for the full 4-5 hours?
Twitch broadcasts are always archived, so you should be able to watch it again right now if you go to the GW2 Twitch page and pick to view “Past Broadcasts”.
Fair enough! Thanks for digging that up.
This was never confirmed, they only said that maybe you would be able to work through a mastery line first in order to use exp in addition to mastery points.
You’re right, it hasn’t been confirmed. Someone reported getting a hold of a Tome of Knowledge during the open beta, and that using it filled a portion of their Mastery XP. There’s no guarantee it’ll stay that way, but I wanted to make sure that the original poster didn’t decide to throw out all his Tomes just in case that does stick.
We’ve known there would be no levels above 80 for some time now.
You can use 60 of your tomes to get a Revenant to 80 when the expansion launches. Besides that, they’ll give you some XP towards a Mastery once you’re at 80, though it’s not going to be anywhere near a full level’s worth.
You will be locked to only choosing three trait lines at a time. You will get the full six traits from each trait line.
lol, you’re so optimistic. More than likely that they will release it as is and tweak it after launch. They need to make money first before any more meaningful development happens. NCSoft is probably already breathing down their necks.
You know when saying this that they’re actually going to be releasing these changes before Heart of Thorns comes out, right? So there is no money to be made from these?
It looks like Anet is streamlining in an effort to make things easier for themselves. I can’t help but look at this as lazy. Can anyone give me an example where this would benefit us?
Well, from a PvE perspective.. in general, Deadly Arts traits aren’t really special, but a lot of us take it anyway because the trait line gives +300 Power (and sticks us with +30% Condi Duration). Now, our trait selections are being decoupled from stats, with the boosts they used to give instead being applied to our gear.
That means that now, I don’t need to take Deadly Arts for PvE anymore. I can now go with Trickery instead and get access to all those fun Steal traits without crippling my character’s DPS. Or Acrobatics for plentiful dodges. I mean, I could even go Shadow Arts/Acrobatics/Trickery and come up with some really silly mix of traits, without affecting my base stats at all. If I tried to do that now I’d definitely notice the loss of 300 Power/300 Precision/300 Ferocity. If I do it after this overhaul, the only things I’d be missing are the boosts from the traits themselves, be it Dagger Training or Executioner or Revealed Training.
I’ll need to see when all the details are released just how much I might wind up missing Executioner. But whatever the case, I know I’m going to have more freedom to make a DPS Thief without feeling the need to go Deadly Arts/Critical Strikes all the way like I do now.
What if the shatterer had a quadruple damage spot directly in front of it? Do you even know what his abilities are?
There already is a double damage spot under Shatterer’s mouth that people choose not to use already.
Any Shatterer changes that don’t start with “Make Shatterer immune to Blind” are pointless, though. He could get a move that kills everyone on the map with one shot, and it won’t matter since Blind will just reduce it to “Miss” every time.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/No-XP-Loot-in-large-groups-Reproducible
That’s one of the posts I’ve made in the Bugs forum about it. There’s another back a few months too. So far, no red name has deigned to reply to it, all the responses I’ve been able to get are either people like who you’ve come to the same conclusion themselves, or people who deny there’s a problem and claim it’s just not enough damage being done.
I’m guessing that the issue is pretty deeply coded into the game, such that it wouldn’t be easy to fix, but it would still be nice to hear confirmation of that and whether or not a fix will be in the works or not.
It might be the second Jumping Puzzle in Mount Maelstrom as well, in the northwest corner. It’s easily missable.
Since underwater combat is now ‘unlocked’ at a higher level, that area was drained because it would be a deathtrap for players to go swimming before they actually are able to defend themselves while doing so.
The Skritt finisher is still available, too.. it just never got a preview, for whatever reason.
Zhaitan is currently the only Elder Dragon available to kill in-game. The other dragons will be the focus of expansions/Living Story going forward, with Season One being a setup to Mordremoth’s awakening, Season Two being the start of the battle against Mordremoth, and the upcoming Heart of Thorns being an expansion devoted to taking the battle to it and (presumably) killing it at the end.
In the northern level 80 zone, Frostgorge Sound, players can battle a lieutenant of Jormag, the Claw of Jormag. Jormag itself is in the Far Shiverpeaks much further north than we can do now. Similarly, in Blazeridge Steppes players can battle a lieutenant of Kralkatorrik, the Shatterer, but Kralkatorrik itself is in the inaccessible Crystal Desert.
I’ll just give one bit of advice…
-Every guide I’ve read about Necromancer’s has said that they’re not popular in groups (especially dungeons), since they’re a very self-interested profession. I don’t want to get kicked from groups just because I’m a Necromancer.
With the game evolving as it does, I don’t know that this should be a big concern for you if you’re looking to the long run. There will be patches, there will be updates, there will be changes to the game and its balance. When the game launched, the Elementalist was viewed as being a very weak class. After some balance patches, there were complaints that it was too strong in World vs. World with supreme mobility. After some of those aspects were nerfed, people discovered the effectiveness of wall traps in conjunction with some special skills, and Elementalist became the king of dungeon DPS and highly desirable there. That was nerfed too, but Elementalist still wound up in a good spot overall and is still an important part of high-end dungeon speed runs. That might wind up changing depending on what happens with Ice Bow and Defiance/Break Bars, of course..
Most people will agree that Necromancer is not in a good place right now, in group PvE at least. That means that the class is more likely to be buffed than nerfed going forward. Is that a guarantee that things will get better? It’s not, but it’s likely, even if it might take a while. So if you enjoy playing Necromancer, go for it. Won’t you look like the smart one once the buffs come!
You know when you go to an area that’s a lower level than your own? How does that work?
Obviously, I know your stats get scaled down, but what matters when going through these lower level areas?
I’ve tried Googling this and I got nothing. For the sake of the argument, assume that I’m a level 80 in a level 20 area. I don’t need specific numbers, just some clarification. So here’s a few questions.
When I get scaled downed:
1. Does the quality of my weapon and armor matter?
2. Do my Runes or Sigils matter?
3. If the answer to 2 is yes, does the tier of Runes or Sigils matter? (Would I get the full benefit of the level 39 bloodlust Rune in a level 20 area?)I’m going for 100% World Completion, so these things would be really great to know.
1: The quality of your weapons and armour does matter, yes, and two-fold. If you have exotic weapons at level 80, they will be downscaled to the equivalent of exotic level 20 weapons… which is stronger than actual level 20 characters, who have no exotic equipment available to them. As well, your level 80 exotic weapon boosts three different stats, whereas level 20 weapons only boost one. Your downscaled level 80 exotic will thus be more effective in that respect as well, boosting more different stats while downscaled.
2: Runes and Sigils do matter, though they will be downscaled as well, so it’s not a huge effect. The effects of your “stacks per kill” Sigils will likewise be downscaled, so you won’t get 250 Power from 25 Bloodlust stacks. But you’ll still get some Power.
3: The tier does matter. Your Superior Bloodlust Sigil will give you more Power than a Minor or Major would, even if none of them give you the full value while you’re downscaled.
The other thing that gives high level characters an advantage while downscaled is traits. You’ve got 1400 equivalent stat points from your 14 trait points at level 80. The statistical boosts they give will be downscaled, but even a small amount from the traits is more than the 0 trait points an actual level 20 character will have. And, of course, the extra effects the traits themselves give you (+10% damage with X, etc.) will give their full effect.
3) and why wouldnt you be able to mix and match it??
there definitly are other light armorpieces who can fit with single balthazar pieces
The armour seams for the different armour types are set at different places. Medium armour has very short chest pieces, for example, they only come down to around a character’s belly button. This is usually hidden by the ‘trenchcoat’ part of most pieces, but when you look at a piece that lacks such a coat, such as the Glorious Armour, it’s very noticeable.
So it just wouldn’t work out to make the same skin for all three armour types. This is why the only ‘universal’ skins they’ve released so far are shoulders, helmets, gloves and boots, which all can avoid that ‘how long the pants/tunic are’ issue that varies from armour to armour.
The secondary sources for acquiring earrings are Guild Missions and World vs. World Tournaments. If you belong to a guild of any notable size, you should be able to do Guild Missions with them to earn commendations. As for the WvW Tournaments, you just need to wait for whenever the next one is, but participation in WvW during the tournament can provide you with the earrings pretty painlessly.
If you have the laurels to spare, get the Ascended trinkets from the laurel merchant. They have no upgrade slot, the upgrades are built into the stats.
When you buy an Ascended Amulet, make sure you get the version with a Utility infusion slot, so you can slot in a Magic Find or Karma Infusion (likely MF). The Amulet is the only piece of gear that can have a Utility slot.
Having a thief or two handy to drop Shadow Refuge on him for stealth can be helpful as well. As long as no players are close to him while he’s stealthed, the Inquest will direct their AoEs away from him, leaving him healthy and hale while the players slaughter the enemies.
The game’s screenshot function doesn’t seem to want to work when I have the submenu you’re looking for open..
Anyway, go to your chat window. It’ll say “Main” at the top, assuming you haven’t customized it. There’s a down arrow to the left of “Main”. Click it, and a list of options to display inside that chat will appear. Go down to “Game Messages” near the bottom and turn it on. Now you’ll be notified as people on your friends list log in and out.
Notifications for friend logins/logouts are in the chat options, one of the buttons down on the chat itself. Fiddle around there and you should find it!
Then as I said, you use it to progress XP for your crafting discipline. Runes and Sigils might not be the same thing, but they’re crafted the same way using the same basic components. It just so happens that there is no equivalent to the Superior Rune of the Scholar. Right now, at least.
Silverwastes and Cursed Shore are two different types of loot farms. Silverwastes gives you some guaranteed rares straight-up (three from a successful Breach, another one per day from Vinewrath), and beyond that the rewards tend to be plentiful champ bags, be they from chests or the Labyrinth or wherever else. In Cursed Shore, meanwhile, you get some daily bonus rares from completing Temples/Arah, and the champ bags aren’t quite as plentiful, but you’re getting loot drops from, ideally, the hordes of monsters you’re slaughtering in the various events. If you have a high Magic Find, that can certainly work in your favour, as Magic Find doesn’t apply to most rewards from Silverwastes. It affects the bandit chests, but bandit chests don’t really drop saleable loot besides whatever you get in their champ bags.
As for the skin, it depends on how long you want to sit on it. The price will go up above what it is now, but you might wind up waiting nine months or longer for it to do so. See, you’re not the only person who has the skin, and you’re not the only person who’s thinking about holding onto the skin to sell it for more later. Inevitably, someone scheming to hold onto the skin for profit loses their nerve and puts it up for sale for less, and that keeps the price from jumping like it could otherwise. Once the skittish investors drop out, then you can see the price jump, but it might be a bit of waiting for that to happen.. and you might become skittish yourself in the meantime.
People can craft the Sigils to gain XP in their crafting profession. Discovering the recipe gives a good boost to their skill, and depending on the given Sigil/Rune it might be cheaper than the materials needed to discover an exotic weapon or armour.
It’s all about the usefulness of the Sigil/Rune, though. Look at the Superior Rune of the Scholar. It’s a crafted Rune, but it’s a popular one, so it sells for more on the Trading Post than it costs to make. I bet if there wasn’t a recipe to craft it from a Charged Lodestone, it might cost twice as much as it does. In that case, the ability to craft it yourself winds up keeping the price from growing out of control, though it’s still expensive because the component material involved is expensive.
There’s no need to retune it. Once the Map Rewards come out, Orr should be seeing a good population increase simply by nature of the layout of the zones. If you get special rewards for doing events, the end-game zones with the most events will be frequented, and Orr has many more events than Frostgorge Sound and Southsun Cove.
World completion in all Orr zones can already be done solo, with only a few spots that might cause headaches. Those headaches are typically from Champion enemies, so calling out on map chat for help to kill those Champions should resolve things for you. People still like champ bags.
Only supply from before the change and from black lion chests, afaik.
You can also get dyes in the “Bags of Loot” that you get as rewards from completing various Personal Story instances, along with at least one of the Living Story instances.
The only place where your server really matters is for World vs. World large-scale PvP. In other PvE and PvP game modes, everything is cross server within its region (North America or Europe), so you can join a guild on another server and be perfectly fine except for WvW.
If you want to change servers, deleting all your characters works to let you do it for free. The gem cost is there to keep people from hopping between servers for World vs. World at a whim, which would cause issues with spying and reduce server identity. 1800 gems is $22.50.
Wearing trophies of your conquered enemy is quite common.
There’s a difference between taking a part of your defeated enemy’s gear as a trophy, and mass-manufacturing gear that looks like the enemy’s to sell for a profit. The former is what I did with Scarlet’s helmet when I killed her. The latter is what Evon Gnashblade is doing right now.
He’s glorifying Scarlet’s exploits and thumbing his nose at the people of Lion’s Arch by doing this. But, well, it’s Evon Gnashblade, that’s his whole schtick. Just like he caused hundreds of deaths by shutting off the Asura Gates while fleeing the assaulted city with his merchandise.. he certainly doesn’t care about you, no matter how loudly you might sing his praises. He cares about himself.
Why would that have been posted on the front page, when the Black Lion Trading Company is Evon Gnashblade’s regardless of who won the election? The advertisements on the website are posted in-character by Evon, and it’s not as though Ellen Kiel would have suddenly obtained control over the Trading Company if she’d lost the election.
Now, what we should be doing is questioning why Evon thinks we should celebrate Lion’s Arch by bringing in the gear of those who destroyed it..
We know that with Heart of Thorns upcoming, they’re getting back the character voice actors to record new lines for our PCs. It’s only fitting that in doing so, they’ve gone over and added other lines, like the aforementioned turret deployment line. And with new lines recorded, why not immediately put them to use?
We saw the same thing earlier when they got Trahearne’s voice actor back for his new lines in Season 2. They took advantage of the chance to re-record some old dialogue for him, removing the “This won’t end well” battle cry that everyone made fun of in an attempt to reform his image, and altering some of his dialogue in the Personal Story as well.
Yeah, the best counterplay to the Leeching Thrasher’s vine attack has always been to melee it, or at least to get into melee range. Then, if it does the life leech close-range attack, you back up and use ranged attacks on it.
If they’ve removed the ability to simply run away from the vines, it’s to reinforce that the creature is meant to be done in alternating “melee safe, ranged bad” and “ranged safe, melee bad” phases.
He have proofs form wiki and streams, that is my conclusion as well.
Alright, I’m going to present a hypothetical situation here for you, a chance for you to be put into Arenanet’s shoes.
You have a much hyped expansion being worked on, and are going to give your hungry players a sneak peek at the new class being developed. Do you…
A: Err on the side of caution and use a well-balanced, perhaps even a little underbalanced build of the class, so that no one panics about it being broken, but also no one will be especially excited at the chance to play it.
Or…
B: Go all out and throw out a broken test build to help encourage hype, showing off things like ‘Stability after dodge with no internal cooldown’ and ‘Stunbreak by using Legend swap with no internal cooldown’ and get everyone even more excited about what will come when they spend their money.
You’re going to pick B. It’s the smart business decision. That said, the things I mentioned are almost certainly going to be nerfed by the time the actual release comes, and that’s fine. But it’s no cause to panic. They’re just starting out broken before refining it into balance.
Warrior, Guardian and Ranger would probably be your three best bets. Guardian has many defensive options, Warrior just has innately high defensive stats, and Ranger has a pet that you can use to tank for you.
That said, the dodging doesn’t have to be overly twitchy, most of the attacks that you want to dodge have noticeable animations. This is good, because even as a Warrior, Guardian or Ranger, there’s going to be times when you’ll need to dodge things, even if it’s not as often as if you were playing, say, a Thief or an Elementalist.
If you want more specific tips, letting us know what class(es) you’re playing can help us point out survivability options that exist within those classes, even at low levels.
You can get map completion without finding every area. There are some areas that don’t have any waypoints/points of interest/etc., so you won’t have your Explorer achievements done even though you’re considered to have 100% mapped the given zones.
For your Orr locations, you likely missed the Sea of Elon in the southeast of Straits of Devastation, and Artesian Waters in Cursed Shore accessed by following the path you’d take in the Source of Orr story path, going underwater from near the Temple of Melandru and east/northeast.
For Shiverpeaks and Maguuma, there are many more locations that could be the missing spots, but browsing the Wiki and comparing its maps to your own should help point you in the right direction.
If anything, the process for transmutation is now easier for ‘free’ players.
Previously, completing a map (even a city) would give you three “Transmutation Stones”, which would allow you to transmute the appearance of a different item onto the stats of an item level 79 or lower. “Transmutation Crystals”, which were needed for level 80 items, were from the gem store, or very rarely from completing daily achievements or out of Black Lion Chests. With the wardrobe update, both Transmutation Stones and Crystals were converted into “Transmutation Charges” (stones converting at 3:1, crystals at 1:1), which work on all levels of gear.
In addition, new ways to obtain transmutations were added. You still earn them by completing maps (now one charge per completion, less than you received in stones but it works on level 80 items). You can also earn a lot by playing sPvP matches, roughly earning one each nine wins. And on top of that, there’s a bag of three included in the login rewards now, along with a chance to get one from the “Black Lion rewards” login reward each seven days.
So yeah, they’re more prevalent than they were before. Especially if you PvP occasionally.
Well, if people are still intent on it affecting thief weapon skills, then I’ll go back to what I said earlier. It needs to affect auto-attacks as well, as they’re mechanically identical to thief weapon skills. Why is it fair that using Power Block on someone using Spatial Surge doesn’t add a cooldown? Why do seven out of eight classes have a whole tenth of their skill bar that is immune to Power Block?
Everyone loves the idea of change until it winds up hurting them. Then, suddenly, they backpedal.
I’ll go ahead and say this now: AA’s are not equivalent to Thief skills because thief skills are connected to a CD of some kind[Initiative]
Initiative isn’t a cooldown. If Initiative were a cooldown, Chill would affect how quickly it regenerates. Chill does not affect how quickly Initiative regenerates. This has been mentioned several times in the past by people seeking to foster nerfs upon Thieves, and the dev team has stated that it’s intentional that Chill be less effective against Thieves than other classes.
and are effected by interruptions[sometimes] when AA’s are not[you can go right back to bashing #1 after a rupt].
Thief weapon skills suffer no special effects from interruptions at all. There is never a cooldown attached to them beyond the traditional “you are stunned, all your skills are on cooldown until the stun ends” visual effect. They behave identically to auto-attacks in that respect.
This is not a thread saying the initial PB was the most balanced version of it, however it went from being OP to UP. If you’d like to contribute to the argument of why thief skills shouldn’t be effected by PB, go ahead, but attempt not to say A=Z or attack the topic by arguing there’s a bias behind it. There’s always a bias behind something, but sometimes, despite the bias, the opinion is reasonable. Sometimes not. Discuss with logic to prove or disprove the point, not the person presenting it.
I’m fine with using logic. That’s what I’ve been doing here. Thief weapon skills have no cooldowns. Initiative is not a cooldown, as Chill has never affected it. Initiative is a class mechanic that replaces cooldowns. Mechanically, Thief weapon skills behave identically to auto-attacks on other classes. This was clearly seen with the initial introduction of Power Block. When the change was applied to fix it, it was explicitly stated by the devs that Power Block was not meant to work on either auto-attacks or Thief weapon skills.
If you feel that the trait is worthless because half the skills on the skill bar of one class cannot be affected by it, then chances are the trait is not one that you would pick even if that wasn’t the case. Wouldn’t Hide in Shadows be a better thing to try to interrupt, anyway, with its slow casting time, clear tell and the knowledge that locking a Thief out of his heal/stealth combo is going to mean a dead thief? You can already do that with Power Block as it is.
Lol. You do realize It only does not affect AAs. But it does affect the other 4.
How bout for thieves? It does not affect 5
Hello?
………I assume you’re joking. If you’re not, I’ll explain that all #1, or AA[Autoattacks], aren’t put on CD when interrupted, but again, I’ll assume you’re joking.
Well, you’re right about auto-attacks not going on cooldown when interrupted. But neither are thief weapon skills. You seem to want thief weapon skills to change so that they can go on cooldown when interrupted. So it’s only fair the same be true for things like Spatial Surge if your proposal is to be considered.
I don’t see how that’s any more ridiculous than what you’re talking about. There’s a subset of skills on all classes that aren’t affected by Power Block. This is inconsistent and it should be changed. Or are you just no longer a fan of this idea since it’s now potentially hurting your class?
(as mentioned earlier in this thread, this is how Power Block worked when it initially came out, and it promptly got changed/fixed)
What about when someone uses Power Block on an opponent using Spatial Surge? That doesn’t give it a cooldown either. Maybe we should make Spatial Surge go on a ten second cooldown when it’s interrupted by Power Block. That’s fair, right?
Hello?
Here from what I can see that does not seem the case. from you tube videos to the people around me, sub lvl 80 seems very flat drab all one colour (aside from dyes) similar looking loot.
I’ll just step in to add one thing.
In this game, you do have access to a lot of dyes.
Even at just level 11, the game starts you off with a decent selection of colours to use as many times as you want on whatever armour you obtain. On the auction house you can buy more dyes, and each one purchased is a permanent account-based unlock that you can then use as many times as you want on any armour you have or later get. So while the armour you’re previewing might look drab, you have the ability at your fingertips, even at low levels, to add some flashy colours and give yourself variety that way.
There’s some other armour appearances that are only available via karma vendors, rather than the trading post, so those will be options for you as you level up.
That said, the vast majority of the skins will unlock at level 80. You mention playing through dungeons. Each dungeon has a set of unique level 80 gear for each armour class, for one. The same is true for weapons, if not moreso, with a pile of different weapon skins being available as random drops, on the trading post or via Mystic Forge recipes come level 80. Working on your character’s cosmetic appearances is one of the game’s end-game goals, so don’t get discouraged if much of the gear on the way to 80 looks plain. Head off the beaten path to find the karma gear like Dry Bones armour and other such things, figure out what dungeon gear you want to try to get, and look forward to arriving at max level so you can get a look set up!
If you’re going to kill the beasts in the Forest, you need to be mindful of the potential of others to kill-steal. That’s why most of the time you should leave them be. Try to kill them after you’ve just killed some of the opposing team and thus have free time during their respawns, or when you have several teammates together and thus can focus it down fast. Also, be mindful of where the enemy team is and watch for the icon for the beasts moving around, as that’s a giveaway that the other team is trying to kill it, giving your own thief/ranger/etc. a chance to sneak in and try to steal the kill.
In most tournament play, you’ll see the beasts are almost always ignored on that map. Attempts to kill them are met with counterplay by the other team’s thief, so normally no one will bother at all except in extreme circumstances.
If you’ve done path 3 repeatedly, then chances are you’re missing one of the other paths instead. Maybe even Story Mode.
For a long time now, the game has had an issue with obtaining credit for killing enemies when in very large groups, a problem that became worse with the addition of the Megaserver and scheduled world bosses that come with it. Even so, this bug is not limited to just such events, it can also happen in World vs. World, in Dry Top sandstorms, and any other place where large numbers of players gather and fight the same things.
The problem is that only a limited number of players are capable of receiving experience and loot from each given enemy. The exact number of players, I can’t say, but the limit seems to be around 50, enough to be problematic given that the maximum zone population in most places is 150.
After testing on world boss events, I’ve determined that the trigger that determines which players get loot and which players do not is not tied to damage at all, but rather to speed. The first players to hit a given enemy will be flagged to be able to receive loot from it. Once the maximum number of loot-receiving players has been reached, subsequent players to hit the enemy cannot receive loot or experience from it no matter how much damage they do. The only recourse a late-coming player has to obtain loot is via party mechanics. If the late player is in a group with someone who hit the enemy in time, the loot credit will be shared within the group.
This bug is easy to reproduce in any situation where there are large numbers of players. If you hit an enemy quickly once it appears/becomes vulnerable, you will obtain loot even if you do poor DPS to it. If you are slow in hitting an enemy and are not among the first 50-ish players to do so, you will not obtain loot even if you do tremendous DPS to it. This causes other issues due to the lack of kill credit received. Using the Legendary Karka Queen as an example, it’s a heavily-zerged world boss that, with its Karka Roll attack, is capable of downing players who aren’t aware enough to dodge. If you fight the Legendary Karka Queen and its first health bar is depleted soon after it does a Karka Roll, you’ll be able to see who was slow to hit it among the 100+ players present. The downed players who had hit it soon enough to receive loot/XP will rally when the first health bar is depleted. The downed players who were too late and will not receive any loot or XP from the Karka Queen on its death will not rally, due to the lack of credit, and will remain downed from the Karka Roll.
This loot bug leads to the risk of antisocial behaviour appearing. Using the Great Jungle Wurm in Caledon Forest as an example, there are three pre-events that must be cleared before the “Defeat the Avatars of Blight” event starts. The problem is that players who go and complete those pre-events wind up being too far away to return in time to hit the first Avatar of Blight that the mass of players waiting will jump on, thus causing them to miss out on an Heirloom Seed Pouch (possibly two depending on how fast things go) because they went and did a necessary event to progress the world boss sequence. Similarly, players who go to the “Close the Mist Portals” pre-event in the Frozen Maw event chain wind up being too far away to quickly hit the Champion Svanir Shaman, and thus cannot get the Icy Strongbox he drops on his corpse unless there are either very few players present (unlikely in a Megaserver) or they are partied with someone else who stayed behind to hit the Shaman quickly once he becomes vulnerable. Players should not be punished for completing events, but that is the case in these situations.
This bug goes pretty deep under the hood of the Guild Wars 2 engine, I imagine. It has existed since the start of the game, but even now remains largely unknown, with only the few players who have noticed the strange occasional lacks of loot and have decided to put in time and effort testing that out being able to figure out what exactly causes it, with most people affected by the bug thinking it was their own fault for “not doing enough DPS”. It would certainly be good to hear from a red name on this issue, to see if they’re aware of it and if it’s something that’s feasible to fix. I do worry that the longer it goes unfixed, and the more people who learn the truth of how loot is assigned, the worse certain events will get, with races to try to tag champion enemies being set up and harsh words being tossed around once some people inevitably are left out in the cold without loot.
One of the big selling points of Guild Wars 2 is that you should never be annoyed to see another player present. As things stand, when you see seventy-five (or more) other players present, you know that some of them are going to be slow and thus receive less rewards as a result.
For people who do spring forward an hour, the world boss schedule will indeed be different.
As for why daylight savings time exists, it’s to allow for more sunlight hours in the day during winter, which encourages people to shop more. It actually does have a sizable impact on businesses, particularly in regions further north where the days get noticeably shorter in winter.
World bosses are one reason a lot of people might go to a map, but there’s other things that could potentially cause sudden influxes and departures, such as guild missions.
You might wind up on a map with sixty players, but fifty of them are from the same guild and came to the zone to do a Guild Rush. Once their Guild Rush ends, those sixty players are going to pack up and leave, and suddenly the zone with a middling population that you entered only recently is down to ten players and you get the prompt to go to another instance.