Guild Wars 2

I would recommend not doing a condition build. It works well against WvW scrubs but once you face decent players, it just isn’t any good. In PvE it can be good against bosses but with one necro nearby, you will be rendered almost useless. Against trash mobs it’s even worse because power is instant damage whereas condition takes time to build. The necro can do a lot of AoE conditions which sort of makes up for how easy it is to remove conditions in this game but even then, my necro is more successful with power/toughness/vitality. I find the same three attributes are actually superior for every profession I’ve played except possibly the thief. But my thief is not 80 yet, so who knows?

Fiorrello.8126:

when a glass cannon engineer (power/precision/crit damage) can achieve the same single or aoe damage potential as a meat shield warrior can (power/toughness/vitality) then i’ll be happy

Agreed. It doesn’t have to be as good as the guardians, thieves or mesmers which apparently everybody at ANet plays. Or even as good as warriors at anything. It just has to be able to do something without sacrificing everything else to do it.

Colin is off his kittening gord if he thinks the engineer is fine. This is not the first time I’ve felt like they were completely blindfolded to the profession imbalances in their game. Put down the kittening statistical analysis reports and start paying attention to the people posting complaints on this forum. (At least to the complaints that are repeated ad infinitum.)

Kalan.9705:

Engineer is so bad that alts feel like Godmode.

My Engineer is so bad that my Necromancer feels like Godmode.

My Engineer is so bad that my Ranger feels like Godmode.

Engineers are the weakest profession in the game in terms of their skill synergy, viable builds and comparative usefulness to other professions. That is, they sacrifice effectiveness for versatility and achieve neither in the end.

Engineers do everything but nothing well. To do anything well they have to spec for a role. They have to use every skill to succeed at that one thing, rendering their supposed versatility mostly nonexistant. Once specced into a role, they are still inferior to almost any other profession in that role. Certainly, you can run a four kit engineer if you like and you will be able to do a lot of things. But sucking at four things is not at all useful.

Compare that to elementalists which can spec into a role, and excel at it, while maintaining extreme versatility through their four attunements.

Necromancers are misunderstood. They do need some buffs and useful minions but I don’t think they need a complete revision.

As the title says. I don’t know how to do this. There is no in-game mechanism for reporting exploits, just botting, verbal abuse, gold selling and scamming.

My engineer is so bad that bosses run past four other players and a half a mile to the spawn point where he one-hit kills him… six times in a row, once per dungeon every dungeon.

I think the necro is more subtle than other professions because it doesn’t have as many big numbers. And people just pick it up expecting a minion master. Then they never look back once they find out that the minions are worthless. What really matters with the necro is that I can kill things fast and survive well. I’d say it’s every bit as good as the elementalist or warrior for PvP or PvE. It just doeasn’t have any overpowered builds and a lot of bugs/problems. And yeah, thieves laugh at everything in the game because they are ridiculous.

If condition removal were not so stinking easy and if minions were even semi-useful it would be a great profession.

Iyeru.5240:

You’re going to have to have a good high-end mobile FX processor (probably the highest end) for a laptop if you go AMD on a processor.

Zonzai.2341:

Alienware M17xR4
i7-3610QM CPU @ 2.3GHZ (8 CPUs)
32768MB RAM
AMD Radeon HD 7970M
2x OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSDs in Raid 0
Windows 7 Ultimate 64

“8 CPUs” Nope, totally wrong:

http://ark.intel.com/products/64899/Intel-Core-i7-3610QM-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_30-GHz

4 Processor cores, 8 threads. Only the cores count as physical CPU parts.

You may be right. That’s just what it shows up as in DXdiag.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

Now going back to the topic

Browsing at the Alienware/Dell site I can get the following:

- Core i7- 3840QM (8M Cache, 2.8Ghz with turbo boost to 3.8 GHz)
- 32 GB Ram
- 512GB SSD + 1TB (5400RPM) HDD
- 2GB DDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M
- Windows 7 Pro

All for $5800 AUS lol. I could always save about $1500 and opt for the cheapesd HDD configuration and instead install an SSD and extra 16GB RAM myself. All in all prepare to fork out $4000-5000 for this top end beast.

I built mine for under $3000. I just had to shop around for the most stripped down M17xR4 with a 7970M I could find ($1700 on Amazon) and then installed my own hard drives, RAM and operating system. And that includes a 2TB HDD that I put in my disk drive bay.

You just have to be willing to learn how to upgrade a laptop. There’s plenty of youtube videos and other tutorials online. People just get scared because they think it’s too hard when it really isn’t.

marnick.4305:

Impossible to have a laptop for WvW on decent framerates. On the other hand, anything with a modern intel CPU with integrated GPU will at least have you play the game on lowest.

Laptops aren’t meant for gaming. Most laptop videocards are a scam. Nvidia and Ati will overheat, you can bet on that. The only ones that I found work at least half of the time, are modern intel videocards, as stupid as that may sound.

In normal play I have over 60FPS and in WvW it drops down to about 45 FPS. I run Skyrim max settings, heavily modded, with the high rez texture pack above 30 FPS at all times. I put my laptop on a coolermaster cooler and it never overheats. Also, the new Alienwware laptops have the best internal laptop cooling I’ve ever seen. Still, I would never recommend anybody but the most tech savvy and wealthy buyer get an SLI laptop. That’s asking for trouble.

In terms of performance, the 7970M is comparable to an upper mid range desktop card. Also, the 680M costs twice as much as the 7970M while the difference in performance is negligible. Here are the best of the best by rank.

GeForce GTX 590 (desktop)
GeForce GTX 680 (desktop)
Radeon HD 7970 (desktop)
GeForce GTX 660 Ti (desktop)
GeForce GTX 680MX
Radeon HD 7870 (desktop)
GeForce GTX 580 (desktop)
Radeon HD 6970 (desktop)
GeForce GTX 680M
Radeon HD 7970M
Quadro K5000M
GeForce GTX 570 (desktop)
GeForce GTX 480 (desktop)
GeForce GTX 675MX
Radeon HD 7950M *
GeForce GTX 560 Ti (desktop)
Radeon HD 6870 (desktop)
GeForce GTX 470 (desktop)
Quadro K4000M
Radeon HD 5850 (desktop)
GeForce GTX 675M
GeForce GTX 580M
Radeon HD 6990M
Radeon HD 7770 (desktop)

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-7970M.72675.0.html

OP

I’ve been using laptops for gaming for 15 years. I’ve always gotten a better price to performance ratio out of AMDs. Both processors and graphics cards. Right now I run an i7 but that’s only because I was willing to pay the extra cash for it. It is better.

But you want to get the most out of your budget, and you will get that from an AMD CPU and GPU. If you do decide to go intel, get the slowest i7 because the actual performance boost from upgrading is nominal considering the cost. You’re much better off spending extra money somewhere else. Another great way to save money is, to upgrade your own RAM using the lowest speed memory you can get. Usually it will cost half as much and the difference in RAM speeds is negligible. (I got 32GB of RAM for Photoshop for the same price as 8GB of slightly higher speed RAM.) My other suggestion is, if you can afford it, shoot for a solid state drive.

Right now, I feel like my build is way overkill for GW2 and most other games but here it is as a reference. I run GW2 maxxed out at all times including WvW with zero performance hit.

Alienware M17xR4
i7-3610QM CPU @ 2.3GHZ (8 CPUs)
32768MB RAM (note 8GB is plenty for gaming)
AMD Radeon HD 7970M
2x OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSDs in Raid 0
Windows 7 Ultimate 64

Windows experience index
Processor speed — 7.6
RAM speed — 7.6
Graphics (Aero) — 7.9
Gaming graphics — 7.9
Primary hard disk speed — 7.9

A 7.9 is currently a perfect score on the Windows experience index. A 5.0 is probably good enough.

Yeah, I can’t help much because I think that the dungeons are kind of crappy right now and I don’t do them. But I do want to add something. ANet has said that one of their big priorities is going back through and “fixing” the dungeons and making the boss encounters “more varied”.

Also, upgrade your gear you cheapo!

Yes it’s 45%. I tried this on my necro once.

Heart’s and events grant very fast XP. The fastest way to level is to find a constantly repeating event chain and just keep repeating it until you level out of the zone. Then move on to the next zone and find another. Throw in food and XP boosters and you will be 80 in under 80 hours of play time.

They said that in November I think. LOL

Agreed Emmet. I think there is a lot of healthy discussion on the forums. Not everything here is productive because you still have a lot of dissatisfied customers posting complaints as well. But to discredit everything posted here because one doesn’t agree with it, or doesn’t believe that the proverbial “most players” don’t agree, is not a the response of a critical thinker.

ANet knows the importance of paying attention to the posts here. So really this entire “your opinion doesn’t count because it is a minority” conversation is a moot point. I think people would be surprised by the number of people who come to these forums and post. Historically, MMO forum attendees are actually a large portion of the population. Not that, that should be confused with we regular posters.

TLDR: There is healthy discussion here. ANet knows the importance of the forums.

Schixeno.8596:

Heroin is a depressant

Because heroin suppresses the central nervous system, the user experiences “cloudy” mental function.

Kronosfear.7548:

My engineer is so bad he pulls foes to let them insta-STOMP him for absolutely free!

That was great!

My engineer is so bad that even his own skills try to get him killed.

If only it were true! Then we could carry all of the gear everybody else gets from dungeons while we’re eating dirt because the boss ran past three other people and a half a kilometer to the spawn point where he one-shot us six times in a row. We’d finally be able to bring something to the group!

JackWest.8974:

Pros:
- by far most fun class in the game

Cons:
- by far most bugged class in the game
- not by far, but still weakest class in the game due to lowest skills and traits synergy in the game

hope this helps

Good post. It’s not that you can’t play an engineer. It’s just that you will work harder than any other profession and still be inferior to every other profession in whatever you do. That’s the core of what most of the complaints are about.

Gilosean.3805:

TLDR: Forums are one important piece of feedback. No one has ever said it should be the only way to talk with ANet, only that they felt like ANet was ignoring some serious concerns.

I think most of the people that come here, come because they either need information or they have a complaint. Those who need information generally don’t post as much as those who have a complaint. As you say, it’s absolutely true that there is a bias in the forum community. I don’t know why anybody thinks this is news to ANet or anybody else. It’s not even a question of if this true – it is true.

That said, customer complaints are an excellent way to find the biggest problems with any product. And ignoring them is never beneficial to your company. Especially when a similar complaint keeps being repeated. Complaints are a valuable part of feedback even if the do not represent all players.

leman.7682:

Story:
Charr have the best (I heard so, only played one human and stopped playing)
In higher levels all racial stories converge into one which is, as everyone knows, rather superbad.

No, it’s Asura. I asure ya. LOL

Really, Charr is second. But a distant second and Asura is still the best.

Toolbox.9375:

Ohmigoshohmigoshohmigosh! Squeee, I’ve been mentioned by someone! XD Neat surprise to open a thread and see your name suddenly pop up!

ROFL The Squeee was a nice touch.

Pcharky.6954:

Zonzai.2341:

Way to sell it? I don’t think this is a very positive post. We all agree that the engineer is fun. We all agree that the engineer is in sad shape right now. This entire post just makes me think you are AMPED up on way too much caffeine or possibly heroine. You didn’t say one good thing about the engineer except that it is fun and it is the best class.

Obviously you’ve not done much heroin.

Hey, he could be snorting women? Excuse the typo.

Shoyoko.7309:

Lol I come to the forums for the company =D plus ever since the nerf, trolling my engie has never been so much fun XD.

Agreed. I find that most of the people trolling the engineer forum do so in a lighthearted manner. It’s more the general forums that lack a sense of humor about things. Joking about how bad your favorite profession is, is certainly a better way to handle the agony of sucktardedness than flaming ANet for it. Are threads like Famous Quotes for the Engineer really offensive? I don’t think so. They’re hilarious but sometimes sadly true.

In reply to your edit, agreed. Complaints over the AoE nerf are out of hand. Complaints over the lack of condition influence in the meta, complaints over the necessity of bunker builds, complaints over the disparity between profession balance (engineer vs. guardian for example) and many other complaints are being ignored. I don’t give a kitten about the AoE nerf. These other things, which have been brought up time and time again by thousands of different posters are all being ignored in favor of nerfs to things that (almost) nobody but ArenaNet sees as a problem. That is bad for them and bad for the game because it means less happy customers.

I’m not sure what your point is then. ANet knows it’s biased. As do all of the other people who ignore complaints. It’s still bad for their company. People complain when they are unhappy with something. This is exactly the same thing that happens with every other MMO. Which one is still the biggest kid on the block today? The one that listened to their customer’s complaints.

Causic.3798:

I think this is spot on. In Statistics you learn you have to use random sampling to get accurate data (random posts from forums doesn’t count since its still not random enough, they would have to include everyone who plays to get legit information), using solely information from one source is inaccurate as we may (and do) have certain bias that people not posting on forums do not have (sorry this was strangely phrased). They should work on problems as they see fit, since they are the ones who know more than we do (since they created the cooldowns, cast times, etc.)

And what about the massive threads asking for changes to be made that get ignored? You’re suggesting that because you took a statistics class, this form of feedback is not part of the consumer feedback equation? Analysis shows very clearly that when voluntary customer feedback is ignored it is detrimental to the product.

Here’s What Happens When You Don’t Listen To Your Customers’ Complaints
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-01-19/strategy/30641945_1_customer-service-negatives-complaints

The complaint is a signal that should not be ignored. When customers complain, they are giving your company an opportunity to fix what is wrong and improve your business. Why? Customers act in their own self-interest, and they are in a unique position to tell your company the unvarnished truth…

Online: The danger of ignoring customer complaints
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/edde4a1c-264b-11e1-9ed3-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2IT5BQUb9

“The message to companies from their customers is clear: if you want us to use social media to talk to you, you had better be ready to talk back,” says Josh March, chief executive of Conversocial.

He warns that retailers who do not treat social media complaints seriously “risk losing not just their current customers, but vast numbers of potential customers, who now have a window to see how you respond to – or ignore – your customers in full public view.”

Why Ignoring Social Media Complaints Is a Huge Mistake
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerdooley/2012/09/18/complaints/

In his book, The End of Business as Usual, social media thought leader Brian Solis displays a social media word cloud for a major (but unnamed) airline. The dominant references (fail, worst, sucks, hate, wtf, etc.) are emblematic of what happens when unhappy customers dominate a one-sided conversation.

Hawkmoon.5849:

Zonzai.2341:

Right now forum feedback has primarily been ignored by ANet. (Even though they keep saying otherwise.) The only people they really pay any heed to are the “e-sport” PvP people. And even then, it’s not much.

^
This.

Case in point: drop rate/DR issue thread(s). Players make a thread, thread gets 1200 responses, thread gets locked. “Official” thread gets started, and it takes nearly 2 months to get a Dev reply, which basically said, “we’re still looking into it, it takes time”.

I could list other examples, but this one is fairly prominent.

As for paying attention to the PvP’ers… this is clearly not the case, either, as is evident by the decline of sPvP and the clear intent to ignore requests for different game modes besides something conquest-based that relies so heavily on bunker builds.

Agreed. They are adding new game modes, though I think that has nothing to do with the feedback. Like I said, they give very little heed to sPvP players. They know how to ruin their game best, that’s for sure.

I snipped the OP for the main points of the post…

Maullus.1273:

He mentioned the forum selection bias: happy engineers have little reason to come here…

…the Engineer has some very frustrating bugs that have been around longer than some people. (I don’t mean adults that just started playing. Children have gestated in the amount of time these bugs have existed.)…

…Also, most Engineers can agree that we could use a tweak here and there, either in the interest of balance or in the name of fun….

…Because 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 is not fun, people…

…my Engineer(s) is/are awesome…

…But, perhaps, a mod will see some positive stuff and pass it along to the devs…

…2) Engi class is best class…

Way to sell it? I don’t think this is a very positive post. We all agree that the engineer is fun. We all agree that the engineer is in sad shape right now. This entire post just makes me think you are amped up on way too much caffeine or possibly heroin. You didn’t say one good thing about the engineer except that it is fun and it is the best class.

I agree, the best class is the one that’s the most fun (even though they’re professions). :P Too bad the most fun profession sucks so much. :P

kanikani.2430:

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that people are posting on forums talking about how bad forum posters are? In fact they go into great detail how horrible they are and poorly articulated and should never be listened to…while doing it themselves…

Well put. Nobody could accuse you of not clearly articulating your point.

DancingPenguins.9875:

DevilLordLaser.8619:

There’s a well-known quote from Valve I’m going to butcher here to help describe my views on this issue.

Ahem: “Players are great at finding problems. If your players are telling you that there’s a problem, you want to look into it. Players are terrible at coming up with solutions for the problems they find, and most anything they propose should generally be ignored.”

This is a pretty good adage. Clients are the best at finding problems because they use the service the most. Clients are not good at providing the solution because they know nothing about building the service.

I have to say that is very true. We are not good at providing suggestions to fix things because we don’t see the metrics, but when we say things like, “conditions are too easily removed,” “thieves kill too fast too easily” or “engineers are a mess” and ANet perpetually ignores us, it is to everybody’s detriment.

Ursan.7846:

But both are important.

I think the OP is saying the same thing. Right now forum feedback has primarily been ignored by ANet. (Even though they keep saying otherwise.) The only people they really pay any heed to are the “e-sport” PvP people. And even then, it’s not much.

Vorch.2985:

Is it their DPS that makes them boring? Haven’t seen a suggestion here.

What would you liked to see buffed for necros? Condition damage? Speed? Survivability?

The first priority for the profession should be changes to condition damage. I think the most balanced fix to that would be adding more condition-stacking. That way, even when people remove (which is constantly) it we can put it back on them.

Bug fixes for minions should be the second priority for this profession. Making minions viable with proper traits should be third.

If all of those things were added the Necro would be competitive with anything out there.

The Asura have the best racial stories for sure. They are hilarious and very well-written. Unfortunately, after you get done with your racial stories, none of the stories are very good. I found the order of whispers storyline to be the most fun to play through though.

As far as professions go this is the general trend…

The more simplistic (and boring) your profession, the less likely ANet is to nerf it.

The more complicated (and exciting) your profession, the more likely ANet is to nerf it.

Engineer, necro, elementalist, mesmer have all received major nerfs. (Though necro is only really complicated in the late game.)

Warrior, thief, guardian, ranger have all either had no significant nerfs despite their valuable presence or have had significant buffs. Either way, with each patch their value goes up.

Your boring ranger is about to become even more valuable with the upcoming AoE damage nerf (which they are very unlikely to receive). Complicated professions like engineer, elementalist and necro are going to suffer from it though.

Honestly, if you want an exciting or semi-exciting experience and don’t want to risk getting nerfed hard any time soon I would suggest the thief or mesmer. Both of them can be quite complicated. Even though the mesmer has had nerfs (and will have more) they are still very strong in the meta. The thief isn’t nearly as complicated but if you avoid DD it can get pretty interesting.

Hope that helps a little bit. Honestly, whatever profession you choose it doesn’t matter that much just be sure to play an Asura and join the order of whispers. There’s no better storyline in GW2.

I play and post.

I probably average 15 hours a week playing. That’s a steady decrease from 25 a week. I’m probably going to pick up a copy of Secret World next week. For me how the next GW2 patch unfolds and/or how much I like tSW will determine whether or not I keep playing.

At first I came to the forums to get help with my engineer. Then I found out that it wasn’t me that sucked it was the profession. So then I lingered around in the many hilarious engineer subforum threads (predict the next nerf, famous engineer quotes, etc.). Then I started trying to post informative stuff in the general threads – which quickly got ignored. People don’t seem to like actual information. Then I started getting into the actual discussions a bit. Now my sarcastic sense of humor is getting me in trouble with the moderators. I need to post more smily faces I guess.

Now I’m getting less and less interested in playing every day and spending more time on the forums. Most of the time I’m not complaining. But I do that sometimes too. I’d prefer it if there were more useful conversations and less flaming but I get the general sense that the imbalanced state of the PvE game is fueling those fires.

Guardian will not be nerfed. This nerf will benefit them.

Ouroboros.5076:

This game’s mechanics are much, much deeper than GW1, so complex in fact that it’s hard to really understand them all.

I’m not sure I agree with the OP much but this is simply not at all true. GW1 is still the most deep combat system ever conceived for an MMO. GW2 is certainly deeper than most MMO’s but that’s not saying much. Moreover, GW1 worked. GW2 has nothing on it considering that roughly 30-40% of the traits and skills are in some small or large way bugged (or improperly described). At some point they may be fixed, but even then GW1 will remain king of the strategic MMO’s.

He’s right, they are the holy trinity of PvP. A lot of people just don’t play enough sPvP to know that.

Conditions are good in small groups against difficult PvE enemies if they can either be spammed or used at appropriate times (like blindness). Otherwise they are mostly useless. For WvW, they are almost completely useless and for PvP they are far inferior to power damage builds in terms of DPS because conditions are way to easy to remove.

Are they balanced? No. They are inferior to power damage. Will they be looked at? Yes. But probably not for several months at the earliest.

All those people telling you to learn to play, what they mean is learn when to use your skills and don’t just spam them. Technically he’s right, that’s strategic but it doesn’t really matter what you call it as long as you understand how to do it.

plasmacutter.2709:

Zonzai.2341:

Oldbugga.7029:

This is what I am saying…it seems AoE is being singled out as the prime issue where it is not….and certainly not the only issue that warrants it being targeted.

I agree completely. Unfortunately, they see all AoE as preventing reviving.

As it should.

The only thing more unimaginative in pvp than zerging is IMMORTAL zerging. How else do you stop 4 people from ressing their buddy than aoe them?

I don’t disagree. But ANet sees it as a problem for some reason.

digiowl.9620:

Zonzai.2341:

I think the problem is that ANet has stripped gameplay down to two things – survive long enough to kill or kill fast enough to survive. The professions that excel at those things do well in the meta (mesmer, thief, guardian, warrior for pve) but those that don’t do either well are muddled with confused design concepts and lack significant roles.

And the gave favors kill fast over survive, as ANet constantly hound bunker builds in SPVP.

Yes, they should be building up other builds making them good, not nerfing existing builds.

I think the problem is that ANet has stripped gameplay down to two things – survive long enough to kill or kill fast enough to survive. The professions that excel at those things do well in the meta (mesmer, thief, guardian, warrior for pve) but those that don’t do either well are muddled with confused design concepts and lack significant roles.

Oldbugga.7029:

This is what I am saying…it seems AoE is being singled out as the prime issue where it is not….and certainly not the only issue that warrants it being targeted.

I agree completely. Unfortunately, they see all AoE as preventing reviving.

The problem with AoE damage is that ANet has placed to much importance on damage and survivability. The first thing they ought to do is improve the things that are drastically inferior to it – group support, CC, conditions. This isn’t the same team that made GW1. It can’t possibly be.

We go play a different game. If they nerf my necromancer’s AoE and don’t buff either the necromancer or the engineer significantly. I am gone.

This one really happened…

Group Leader: LF1M AC Story Mode
Me: I’m up for AC story, level 35 engineer

the entire group proceeds to throw toilet paper and rotten eggs at me

Me: WTF? Halloween is over…
Group Leader: So are engineers.

I think that part of what made GW1 work was that professions had clear roles. Elementalist did AoE damage. Assassins did single target damage. Warriors did attrition and survival. Necromancers had conditions. Monks had healing. And they all had a few roles they could perform.

Sure, not having entirely predefined roles is cool but you made a mistake. By taking away all roles, you brought it down to the core of what every game is – damage and survival. And whoever does those two things best will be the chosen professions.

All professions now do only two things – survive long enough to kill or kill fast enough to survive. So we have this problem. Thieves kill very well. Mesmers kill very well. Guardians and bunker eles survive very well. These are the only two significant roles available to players. CC is insignificant, conditions are insignificant and group support is mostly insignificant. This is why people play mesmers, thieves and guardians so often.

And part of the problem (as I see it) is that people don’t get what the expect when they play certain professions. The ranger, the necromancer and the engineer specifically don’t even remotely fill the described or expected roles.

So the other professions that you have designed, iterated, redesigned and reiterated (pun intended) don’t do either of the only two things that can be done in gW2 as efficiently as the professions that excel specifically at them. I think you’ve iterated yourself out of the usefulness of any other roles, you’ve iterated yourself far from the current profession descriptions and that you guys are just as confused as we are about what roles these muddily-described professions should be playing. And now, with this AoE nerf, you want to take away another potential role.

I don’t know what all the potential solutions are but any good post includes some suggestions (not that this is a good post). Make CC viable? Make constant condition removal less easy to achieve? Make combos more important? Improve single target damage for these professions that aren’t good at it? Add in support roles? Obviously, balance will take time.

Whatever you do, ANet, please explain to us what you expect of us – not what you are going to do but how you want us to play the game. In sPvP, in WvW, in PvE: all of them. Explain what roles you want the professions to perform (and versatility is not a role). Stick to whatever you finally decide (which i think is another part of the problem, it seems to constantly change). Then go change the meta to better allow for those roles; change the professions to perform those roles.

I can adjust how I play the game. I can adjust my character to perform in a role if you will but define and support the potential roles before me. And I’m willing to do those things. But for the life of me I can not read your collective mind nor anticipate what you are going to change next. You may not know it yet, but this constant iteration confusion is a serious problem.

Ever since the livestream I’ve been wondering something. And maybe this is just me here, but I am confused. I enjoy PvE, WvW and even sPvP quite a bit. I was really into GvG in GW1 but haven’t had a lot of time to participate in high end PvP in GW2 (yet).

So I can understand the importance of balancing the game around sPvP. It makes sense to me. However, I really feel like my PvE experience in GW2 has suffered for the changes that have already been made. PvE content in GW2 is not easy. And these constant – sometimes drastic – changes to the PvE game are not helping me figure out what your expectations of each profession are in PvE.

And I believe that many of the comments (and QQ) on this forum are related to that confusion. Think of those posts like this; AoE isn’t supposed to do good damage? Condition damage is supposed to be easy to remove? Pets/minions/turrets are supposed to do almost zero damage and die in one or two hits?

Partly, I feel like ANet doesn’t properly communicate what they expect from players – especially in regards to their expectations of each profession. Their game design is devoid of the holy trinity and constantly “evolving” sure. And both of those things are fine. But I have some rather large unanswered questions which have caused me to reroll too many times.

When I pick up an engineer what am I going to be playing? What roles are there? Attrition, group support, survivability? An engineer does none of them reliably. What do you want from my engineer? You haven’t defined them well enough and they don’t do anything well enough. They can not be versatile if they have to specialize specifically to perform each role competitively. And the small number of engineer players will tell you the same thing – they simply are not competitive.

When I pick up an elementalist what am I going to be playing? I thought it was AoE damage and area denial. Clearly, that isn’t the case. So what does an elementalist do? Heal? Snipe at range like a um.. an archer? You tell me. I will play it the way you tell me to.

When I play a necro, what am I going to be playing? Condition spam? Not minions, not rez denying wells, not AoE damage, not single target damage. What is my role as a necromancer? Survival alone? I don’t get it.

When I play a ranger what is my role? I am not a competitive tank or ranged DPS dealer and I don’t do enough AoE damage or support to provide that.

YojimboJones.6243:

These threads move so fast, I ponder the usefullness of even posting in them. But has anyone considered that the problem with AoE is the conquest format? You need to be on a point to defend it, that point is about the same size as most AoE effects.

Bingo. I think that’s the issue right there. If anything, add more conquest points to the map. Necro can’t take an AoE damage nerf in PvE. Without minions, appropriately powerful (for PvE) conditions or AoE they’ll be mostly useless outside of PvP. Unless of course Anet wants to cut the HP pool of nearly every mob in half. I don’t see that happening though. I don’t think they really know what they want for the PvE game at this point.

Northlander.4619:

Zonzai.2341:

<snip> But nerfing AoE to five targets won’t effect bunker elementalists. </snip>

AoE is already capped to five targets.

Also FYI: Regular melee “autoattacks” are capped to three. Daggers for thieves and necros seem to be the exception. They still affect only one target.

I see, thanks for clearing that up.

killcannon.2576:

Zonzai.2341:

But Killcannon, what does that have to do with AoE damage? They’re nerfing AoE becase of AoE damage specifically. Bunker eles, need some kind of a nerf no doubt. But nerfing AoE to five targets won’t effect bunker elementalists.

Screw this, I’m just going to roll a thief like everybody else…

The nerf to aoe damage come from the fact that since the ele’s cannot be effectively controlled with current tactics, they have a constant dps output that is always in your face in tourneys. It upsets the current builds who are used to seeing an ele and just rolling over them. So now they can’t and the complaints commence.

So the problem with bunker eles is that they do too much AoE damage? That blows my mind because they don’t seem to do much damage. In my (limited) experience the problem with them is that they are hard to kill. Help me understand this because I don’t get it at all.

killcannon.2576:

And with the seeming focus on spvp and “esports” for whatever reason the devs have, this becomes a priority for them. Seriously though…esports? That term makes me laugh.

I completely agree, this is clearly their number one priority and only consideration for game “balance” at present. It was the one thing that I can actually say I hated about GW1 and it will suck for GW2 too. Not because they shouldn’t balance around it but because they totally abandon balancing the professions and other content while they spend the first year of the game balancing sPvP. (At least that is seemingly what happened in GW1.)

Mirta.5029:

nerva.7940:

Marvingy.6327:

Could you please state the preliminary findings?
Which AoE’s are pinging your radar?

well necros
d/d eles
mind wrack

in that order. id be surprised if findings are different.

Necro staff build is useless. All abilities are slow and don’t do a lot of damage. If going for circles and condition build that uses AoE your primary attack gets reduced to about 200 damage a hit, one hit a second. Essentially you’re pretty underpowered as a necro. You do have survivability though.

Yeah, I don’t think wells are overpowered in the slightest. What makes you think this Nerva?

Supposedly they are balancing the game for the sPvP meta right now. What I don’t get is why they would make a change that makes thieves even better. How in the fkitten can they think that’s good for the meta?

But Killcannon, what does that have to do with AoE damage? They’re nerfing AoE becase of AoE damage specifically. Bunker eles, need some kind of a nerf no doubt. But nerfing AoE to five targets won’t effect bunker elementalists.

Screw this, I’m just going to roll a thief like everybody else…

Just for fun…

Professions that benefit from reduced AoE effectiveness:

1. Thief (Already the most over-played PvP profession)
2. Mesmer (Their AoE isn’t going to hit many targets anyway)
3. Warrior (Melee becomes more important for single target damage)
4. Guardian (Melee becomes more important for single target damage)
5. DD eles (They’ll be even more FotM because other elementalists will be weakened)

Professions that are weakened from reduced AoE:

1. Non-DD Elementalists (they’ll be the hardest hit with four attunements designed for ranged AOE)
2. Necromancer (their AoE is mostly condition damage which is already weak in PvP)
3. Ranger (Maybe or maybe not, their AoE is already kind of weak though)
4. Engineers (They have many AoE abilities and are easily the weakest profession in the game)

I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate but it’s my assessment.

The big picture…

Basically, this is just further affirmation that ANet is going to do the same thing they did with GW1. If that holds true, this is how ANet will proceed:

1. Balance sPvP for tournaments (6 months)
2. Balance decent professions to all be competitive (6-12 months)
3. Begin experimenting with the weak professions (1 year)
4. Redesign the weak professions (18 months or later)

For the first six months to a year ANet basically won’t balance the professions but will balance the meta instead. They’ll only address the less often played professions (ranger, warrior, engineer currently) when it affects sPvP drastically. Then they’ll spend the next year making unsuccessful changes to the abandoned professions (looks like engineer is the only one for certain right now) before giving them a major overhaul. It’s exactly how it went down during GW1.

What I don’t get though – and it really baffles me – is why ANet would do anything to improve thieves in sPvP. It’s mind-boggling. I’m beginning to wonder if they really do all play thieves because it is so contrary to achieving real balance in sPvP. <O_o>

Necros are always needed in paid tournaments.

FiftyTwoBears.5482:

binidj.5734:

Please stop trying to have a serious conversation, you’re distracting me from making up outrageous nerfs. =)

I’ve been completely serious haha.

But have you guys watched the Livestream? They were talking about “balancing” aoe abilities more to make single target damage stand out more…..

Which mean’s more “balance” to Grenades and Bombs for us.

YES MORE “BALANCING” FOR US.

Yeah, I saw that. :/

Unless engineer gets a major overhaul I’m going to delete mine and roll an elementalist alt. I’m too cheap to buy more character slots and the elementalist seems to be everything that the engineer was supposed to be anyway.