Guild Wars 2

Atherakhia.4086:

Again, it really seems you guys haven’t played games with loose AE rules and found out just how poorly things work out when not implemented well. Just removing the AE limit on this game would be absolutely disastrous.

In the other thread someone mentioned DAoC as an example of a game without an AE limit and mentioned how that game worked out perfectly. I have no idea what server he played on, but DAoC had one of the worst PvP mechanics known to man and is the originator of the zerg and train mentality. DAoC had nothing but suicidal AE trains ripping through the frontiers. The only time they were stopped was when you could lock them down from range and attack them from range. You can’t do that in this game due to no real ranged lockdown but you most certainly would adopt the suicidal AE trains given how Ele’s work.

Next up was WoW. When that game first came out, AE was uncapped and the whole game was completely dominated by Arcane Mages with Arcane Explosion (you had to trait into at the time to make it instant). They would run through all of Azeroth both PvE and PvP alike killing everything in their path. It took a year before the cap was put in and it took a year before anyone bothered trying to do Alterac Valley because of how out of whack things were.

The one MMO that I’ve played that actually did AE right was Shadowbane. It had a cap (10 I believe), almost every class had some form of AE option, it was all high damage, and it most of it was easy to use. The way they offset it was one of the greatest spell resist systems ever used in an MMO. Something this game doesn’t have.

The way this game is right now, there is absolutely no way removing the AE limit could ever work. The WvW maps are designed horribly removing the ability to ever counter AE bombs. The siege system here doesn’t provide enough benefit to defenders so even trying to defend a keep isn’t going to stop the AE zerg. Classes are horribly designed so you wouldn’t see anything but Eles in a weeks time. And there’s no effective way to shut down AE other than not standing on it (which we know won’t matter if 2 out of every 5 players in WvW is an ele as each tick of lava font will hit for 2-3k, trigger after a second, have large circles due to blasting staff, x10 because no one will have fewer than 10 eles in a ball).

All removing the AE cap will do is replace mixed zergs of today into suicidal Ele balls tomorrow. If people here had more MMO experience than WoW, or they could actually remember the state WoW was in at launch, they’d know how difficult changing the AE system in this game is going to be.

I dont agree with you how you think the www will turn out to if the cap was removed.
You think it will be a Elle zerg train, whilst I see the opposite due to retaliation.
AoE cap removal will help the defenders, not the attackers IMO.
Ellies that will be AoE spamming will melt them self of the retaliaiton dmg, and this will probably lead to a smarter way of using AoE attacks to try and funnel enemies into your melee attackers.

Since the majority of players stack power in www, retaliation will be a nightmare for AoE users if the cap is taken away.., retaliation formula is 198.45 + (0.075 * Power)
so an ellie that hits 20 players will probably take around 8500dmg as soon as they throw their spell, if the deffenders stay for a second tick the ellies are dead, the ellies cant defend them self with condition removal or dodge.

so the scenario where a few ellies kills of an entire zerg will never happen in this game from already existing mechanics.

Ungood.3054:

Zorion.7504:

What do you guys think of this.

Really.. really.. really.. bad idea. If Anet wanted to make WvW a mindless kill fest, they would have, they put a lot of effort into making it so that it was about battles, not head counts.

Interesting, for me today, its not even about battles, its about avoiding battle to ninja cap a tower before point tick, how would you stand in this an addition to current Victory point system?
So still have it as it is now, and have the pvp kill VPs as an addition?
So that roamers feel they can contribute to the war effort, as well as scouts etc.

I understand that there are many different kind of players that wants to enjoy www, but IMO todays system only encourage zerging, you hurt other players by taking a keep before the big commander zerg, they lose the claim tick, leading to a mentality to just run with the commander zerg.

If the current system was kept and this added in as well, not my choice but I can see how it would work, then defending a keep VS a much larger zerg, ie you know you will lose it, could still be useful, since you would get VPs for killing the attackers with bonus points as defender.

What do you guys think of this.

Today: Keeps/towers/camps rewards your server a fixed number of points every (15min, cant remember the exact number atm =P)

The future: Every time you kill a player your server gets 1 victory point.
Every time you kill a player in proximity to your servers tower you get 2 VPs, keep 3 VPs.

Does this sounds like fun?
Imagine how this will change how we play WWW.
Attacking an uppgraded keep with a zerg would be a risk, your deaths will reward the defender. You need to really siege them out before charging in, area denial, attack players heading towards the keep.

But the biggest thing it would change is, killing players would reward your server with victory points.
Everyone helps, roamers, zergers, keep protectors, gankers.., every PvPer will be important, not just the PvDoor players.

And it wouldnt be a big change either, since all towers/keeps have a area of effect already, for its buffs, just make it include a buff that gives you the extra VPs for a kill.

Sounds interesting?
How do you see WWW chaning if this was in effect?
Is it doable, or is it to hard for ANet to put in/change?

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I would rather make a case for unlimiting only damage AoEs. Boons allow a mindless group of people to become mindlessly too powerful without a check. My concern with letting damage AoEs run amok is Necromancers, where only a few are needed to unload epidemic onto a target to cause a massive zerg to melt away. Epidemic has a 1200 casting range and a radius of 600 with no red circle and no obvious activation, and since multiple epidemics multiply conditions, a VERY large area will suddenly be poisoned and have 25 bleed stacks, ticking away 3000 damage per second.

But all that said, I am willing to give unlimited AoEs a shot. Just maybe, people aren’t competent enough to get 5 thieves together in a group. Just maybe…

Well thought-out analysis and I agree with your conclusion of un-limiting only the direct damage AoEs.

Even before we go that far, though, maybe we need to ask whether zerging is a symptom or a cause. I’d argue it’s a symptom of a larger problem. Namely there is no incentive given to players to do anything other than zerg. It’s currently the most effective method for farming karma, experience, and WXP. Seen in this light, zerging is merely a symptom of an unbalanced and ill-conceived rewards system.

If we could find ways to de-incentivize zerging, then perhaps the problem will self-resolve. One suggestion that has been made is to divide the WXP between all the players involved in tagging an enemy who is defeated. This leads to smaller groups being awarded more WXP for their efforts when compared to the players who are part of a zerg. It doesn’t eliminate zerging because there are other benefits to blobbing up than just the WXP; safety in numbers, for example.

All the same, it might be worth ArenaNet giving some consideration to methods for rewarding players who don’t zerg a greater amount when compared to those who do. Then there wouldn’t be a need to remove the AoE cap.

This I agree to!
Zerging is the effect of having static objects giving the highest reward.
If you took away static objects point and reward factor, people would not zerg just because of that.
for exampel.
If a keep/tower didnt not reward a victory point tick but instead increased the amount of points a player gets for killing another player I think many many things would change.

you get 1 victory point for your server any time you kill a player, you get 2 victory points every time you kill a player in proximity to your servers owned static object, keep/tower.

This means that yes zerging will still happen, cause you need big numbers to claim static objects, but it would also mean that players will get be rewarded for roaming in smaller grps, covering a larger area killing players.

This also means that attacking a well deffened keep can backfire, ie if you die to much you will acctually help the deffenders side, giving them victory points for your deaths.
And this opens up a whole new area of possible server wide tactis and the use of multi targeted attacks, ie splitt up your forces to attack more towers, cover reinforcment routes etc etc.

This change would change alot in terms of www.

It seems that many players actually dont mind the AOE cap to be removed just ´cause of dmg AoE skills becoming to powerful, but rather some defensive buff skills, like shadow refuge etc.

Well this is easy to counter, just make thouse skills party buffs.
Shadow refuge, can stealth your party members.
Feed back, can protect your party members etc etc.

If the AOE cap would to be removed it dosnt mean that every skill automatically will be OP, it just means that AOE skills will not be limited to 5 players a time in that area, everything else can be modified by buffing/nerfing individual skills.

Phoenix.3416:

I’m sick of these posts now, common sense says that if they remove the 5 target limit they either nerf AOE into oblivion after 5 targets or have to buff single target damage to be worth it which would mean one hit kill single target damage.

Remove the cap in wvw and you could get instantly killed by a group of elementalists who use firestorm at the same time, dodging wont save you and you will die over and over.

Come on man, think about this before posting this kind of thread, if they buff something they have to buff everything else to match.
If i can use a spell that does 500 damage on 30 players at the same time I need to be able to do 15,000 damage to a single target per attack to balance it out for single target to be the same DPS.

But this is just stupid reply, why would you need to buff the single target dmg to match the AOE numbers?
If you do 500 dmg to 30 players you do jack kitten in dmg terms, 500 dmg is a regeneration tick, if you do 15000 dmg to a single target you kill that target.

You cant compare numbers like that, its just stupid, there are no dmg lists wich rewards players for most dished out dmg a certain time.
you get rewarded for killing players.
For AOE to be usefull for anything else then just tagging people for drops they need to remove the cap, not buff the dmg.

again who cares if 1 ellementalist can do 50.000 dmg to 100 players? it dosnt mean anything, he is not gonna kill anything faster then 1 thief targeting 1 player.

Stop throwing AOE dmg numbers VS Single target dmg numbers around like that.

If the AOE cap is removed AOE spells could finaly be used as many wants to use them as, area denial.
Single target specced players will always be more usefull when it comes to killing players.

I fully support the removal of AOE cap, its stupid and lazy design.

For the ones who thinks its possible for a few elles to kill an entire zerg I have 1 Word, retaliation!

Do you realize that with the removal of the AOE cap, a zerg would have retaliation up as well, from 1 source.

If a elle cast a AOE on a stacked zerg at a keep door he would be a oneshot.

If the AOE cap for ALL skills would be removed I think everything would be more interesting, boons/conditions would be so fun to use, a zerg would have almost perma swiftness/protection/retaliation/regeneration due to duration stacking, and that would mean boon corruption gets more important.

Zerg vs Zerg fights would require more tactic then today, since you can protect your zerg by just bloobing up, preventing more then 5 people getting hurt from each aoe skill.

Feed back, necro AOE fear, epedemic.., I say even zerg VS zerg would be awsome fun with the AOE cap removed!

I think, that with the AOE cap removed, individual fighting in zerg vs zerg will be stronger, you will be able to see players fighting players instead of spamming auto attack and running through.

Let them stack conditions on you, use staff 4, use blind (weapon or well) to counter their burst attack, jump into DS to fear them when they want to heal (faster then staff 5)

I run scepter/focus and staff, so rangers that wants to kite is no problem, condition rangers needs some better concentration, but staff 4 works marvelous on them, never use your heal to cure conditions vs a ranger, send them right back to them.
and save your fears as vs everyone, to interrupt their heals.

Rangers shouldn’t be a problem for a necro, remember to change utility skills if you have the chance before the battle starts, necros are very Dependant of doing this.
No need for corrupt boon vs a ranger for exampel.

fear needs to be changed from condition to crowd controll skill, like daze, stun etc etc.
That is the reason why fear is hard to balance, to have it be affected by condition duration is just wrong.

If you change it do a CC skill, only necros could change the duration by trait choice, and then you could change independent fears duration.

Base fear could be, 1,25 sec duration.
Necro trait +50% duration, 1.875 sec fear.
Do a rune combo like the mesmers set, ie fear duration is increased 33%
Necro fear with runes, 2,288 sec fear.
Others fear with runes, 1.663 sec fear

I think this i balanced.

…´cause Killing players dosnt count as helping your server in terms of “points” only static objectives gives points, and this is why zerging will always be the way to go in gw2.

kill vs death raitio point system around every static objective, with bonus points to the side who owns the objective would change WWW to the better IMO.

I really really do not understand the reason to put in PVE mobs in WWW.
Is it to make the world more alive?
Is it to give players many diff things to do in the www zone, jumping puzzels, pve killing and pvp?

I understand, but dont agree, of the reason to have NPCs in the keeps/towers/camps.
But random PVE mobs.., why?

I dont know about the rest of you, but I roam alot, not a thief Im a necro, and Its sooooo irritating to find a few players to engage, fight em, down them only to have them rally on some random bloody deer.

I use it as well, if Im in a 1vs 3 fight Ill tagg a couple of deers and put down an bleed epidemic on them, giving me some nice instant rally batteries.., but its just such a lame tactic.

Do you, other players, really want PVE mobs in the www zone, or do you feel them just in the way as I do?

I would hope that someday all non player characters will vanish from WWW, its just lazy game design putting “guards” at the objectives.

aaaaaaaah there are two bloody armour vendors for badges!
sorry again, but why keep 1 vendor with the old prices and 1 with the new =P

so to clarify for anyone else as blond as I am
There is an old armor vendor who have only soldiers invader gear for the old prices, then on the opposite side of him there is a new vendor that has the new armor, tabs for all the different prefix, and the new prices.

I must be totally blind… Im ingame now, I see the new weapons,skins and the new exotics I can see the new fine/masterwork/rare armors for karma, but I can not find the new exotic armors.., where are they?
all I see is the normal invader, soldier, armor…

to clarify, yes I know the vendors have different things, I was in full invader the first month.
On my armor vendor Im talking to now, armor for badges, there is 1 tab wich contains exotic armor with soldiers prefix, nothing more, is mine bugged, can all you who said it exists really see them or have u all guessed?

IMO
/team should be a global chat being used for all the WWW maps, ie an universal chat.
add a prefix [MapName_playername] input text message.
/map should be chat being used on the map presently at.

alternative, add a chat option, like hero chat from lineage2, for commanders.
The text should be Blue and visible on all the www maps with this prefix;
[MapName_Cmd_NAME] input text message.

Also let commanders be able to create squads without having to turn on the commander Icon, /squad is very much used by guild groups in WWW but is prevented now due to it´s not always a good thing to have commander Icon active, confusing the PUGs on who are currently leading on the WWW map.

artfish.6854:

You can buy armor as well as weapons with all the common stat sets available (berserker, carrion, knights ..) and that is a really great addition to the game and the usefulness of badges in my opinion.

In addition you can buy 4 different armor skin sets for only a few badges, to be applied to your armor (heavy and medium skins are pretty decent, lights are abysmal though, well, just my personal view).

A question that remains is, why the kitten were the trinkets omitted? .. and I’m not talking about ascended items but plain simple exotic (well, the name is not deserved imo, since it IS “plain simple” max armor) pieces.

Then I bow my head and accept humiliations for my error sad panda
I must have looked at the wrong vendor, cause I only saw the normal exotic invader gear from the armor badges vendor when I looked this morning, might have bin to tired to look properly due to spoon feeding my daughter with water for 6 hours this night…

again my apologize to arena net!

If Im wrong then Im sorry for the rant, and a happy puppy for the patch.
Now Im at work so I cant login and double check.

But I do believe I looked at the armor merchant for badges, ie exotics, didnt check the karma vendor, and there were no other stats then soldier on them.

Can someone pls loggin and check the badge armor vendor for me?

So, this patch would give us new stats on invader gear finally.

Im sorry but I really do not understand how a dev team can come up with the idea that for the big WWW patch! we will release.., just weapons.., armor might follow later.

or am I missing a vendor somewhere?

The weapon vendors sells all the normal stat combos, zerker, rabid etc etc but the armor vendor sells only the normal invader.

I know I know be happy we got anything at all…, but no! I cant for the love of me understand how its possible to come up with the idea to give us weapons but not armor.., what were you smoking and can I have some?

The idea most have bin to release it all, and somehow you forgott, or did you honestly never thought of the idea to do armor aswell?

well rant of, back to doing idotic dungeons for the right stat combos =P

Its the exact same size, it´s just a UI graphical bug, the actual area of effect is the same.

Harbinger.8637:

Seems interesting enough. Only thing I don’t understand is your trait choices in SR. You’re using Fear of Death and Decaying Swarm. Wouldn’t it be better to use a traits to benefit DS?

You can use any traits you want in SR, part from the last one wich is somewhat the core of the build 50% shorter DS cooldown.

The good thing with fear on death is if you want to you can run with fear does dmg and 50% longer fear, eat some pizzas for 40% longer conditions and you are a fearfull thing to down ^^

But mostly you dont benefit so much from the other traits in SR.., since you are just jumping in and out of DS you dont gain much from life force trait or blast traits.

Locust is basically a free automatic cripple that is very very handy in pvp.
If you miss hiting DS when getting jumped by a thief, he will get crippled giving you a good chance of resseting the fight.

Antoher really nice skill to run with if you are an asura is the racial, pain inverter giving you another retaliation and confusion!

Hi all, I have played my ´mancer since the beta and I love the class, yes it´s full of buggs and other classes can do a specific thing better, BUT I dont care, I love my necro ´cause when I spank someone I can really enjoy the moment

Anyhow, this is a build Ive run from time to time and I thought I might share it with fellow spankomancers.

The Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQQQRBHbhG2IjWle6m8G9mCY+g3QF2N+wxUPUvd0B;T8A5TCnkOpeS5ElSGlEKZVypkUpFGjM2EMLA

One good thing with this build is that it´s not utility depended at all, meaning you can bring any utilities/heal/elits you feel most comfortable with.
Its not actually that gear/rune/sigil dependent either, you can actually strengthen and tune this build to better suite you by changing the armor prefix as well.

The Concept: The basic idea with this build is to jump in and out from death shroud every 5th sec. and in doing so buff you with fury and retaliation and also applying enfeebling blood to your enemies.
If you run “rage” runes as I do on my berserker armor you hit for alot, and you basically always crit.
This goes very nice in hand with the vampiric part of this build giving you some health back every time you swing your dagger, on hit and on crit.
But the really wonderful part of the build is the retaliation part.., you have nearly constant retaliation up during your fights, making it very very easy to counter high burst builds from thiefs etc.

The gear: Dagger is the main hand weapon of choice due to its fast attack speed, giving you more life leech and more crit procs. The offhand for the dagger is optional, I use warhorn cause of its daze that interrupts heals and the speed is nice to have if you need to reset the fight.

The second weapon set is optional as well, the axe is a good thing to bring due to it´s potential high burst, skill 2, and its fun to jump dowkittenerg and hit retaliation, skill 3, and go into DS 4 =P
I almost always bring the focus just because the boon striping part.
Before I picked up the axe I used the scepter, start from range and kite applying poison before entering melee and spamming fury/retaliation.
So the scepter is a safer weapon then the axe, but the axe can be more fun.

For armor you can either bring a zerker set for that nice extra dmg, or this builds acctuly works very very well with invaders, you do dmg by letting them hit you, so more health/tougness just makes the fight more fun and easier for you to controll.

All you have to do in full invader gear is.., run around hiting DS every 5th sec. and wagg your dagger around for some leeching procs.., and pick up bags of course ^^

So anyhow.., have fun and happy hunting!

Only a WWW player has About Face and Look Behind binded on easy accessible keys.

This is from the wiki on magic find

“Everytime you kill a monster you roll on a number of tables, inside these tables are different rarity categories. Magic find increases the chances you will get higher categories. For example if there is a 1 in 10 category, and you have 200% magic find you will have 3/10 chances to get that category. This improves not just the rarity of the items you get but can also improve your chances at getting trophies and rare crafting materials like lodestones.”

and this on loot

Each player who participates in killing a monster will have the opportunity to loot the body. Each monster has a damage table and a threshold value of damage done to it by the player before it will give full credit for the kill. This value is about 5% to 10% of the monster’s health.¹ The loot dropped is unique to the player, and loot received by one player does not affect what another player receives. One monster may drop the same rare item for multiple players.

If this is correct, then you have indeed first do enough dmg to qualify for a specific loot and also magic find can help you get a higher value, and if badges of honor is “trophies” then it should effect them.

How ever…, in my experience I get a badge of honor more often when my dmg is shared then if I kill someone solo, and that leads to think that the dmg threshold to qualify for a badge of honor is very low, and its more a RNG game if you get it, and that would make MF good to have if you are farming for badges.

Chickenshoes.6250:

Loot is determined at the time the enemy is killed.

Badges are independent of the normal loot on enemies.

Getting spikes or a precursor from an enemy should have no effect on whether or not you got badges. The amount of damage you do to an enemy before they die helps determine the droprate of the badges. You’ll never get a badge from an enemy you just auto’d twice in downstate before someone else finished them even if you got credit for the kill.

This sounds like alot of good information.
Is this any kind of official drop information or is it your own guesses/personal tests?

These are the Item quality´s in gw2, taken from the wiki.
So if MF promote a possible loot to be from a rarity higher then normal it would let you have a chance of changing a “white” loot roll to a higher?
And if badges are of a “white” rarity MF would make my chance of getting one less then without?

Junk Gray
Basic White
Fine Blue
Masterwork Green
Rare Yellow
Exotic Orange
Ascended Pink
Legendary Purple

Nice to see this thread picking up some speed =)

Chickenshoes.6250:

MF does not affect dungeon tokens because you cannot ever loot tokens from mobs. They are all in chests or in bags.

“bags and chests” that you find on the ground are just loot from mobs that were placed in there. Magic Find does work on them.

I was under the impression that it was changed a while back, that dungeon tokens can in fact drop from trash mobs, am I wrong?

But it seems that badges should have a “rarer” tag then lets say spikes.
So in that case MF should work, BUT if it only changes the chance to get “rare and higher” drops then badges are not affected, actually they are nerfed if you have MF.
Lets say its like this;
1/10 rare drop
9/10 normal drop inc badges
Would 100% MF change it to 2/10 rare and 8/10 normal?

I honestly have no idea how the game calculate loot other then it is calculated when the “target” dies and not when you open it, that was to make it so it didnt affect chests, and we have a developer clearly stating that fact.

Isnt siege blueprints also “white” items? and they cant possible be on the same loot value as white armour/weapon drops?

Chickenshoes.6250:

Badges of honor have white text names, so if we are to assume the color of the text is an indication of its rarity, and since MF only helps with getting rarer items, the initial conclusion would be that MF could not help with getting badges any more than it could help with getting loot bags off mobs, which is not at all.

Hmm this might be something, might be a design miss, since it should count the same as dungeon tokens, which in fact are rare.
The problem with WWW drops is that badges can be had in both opening a bag and as a direct drop, and when ever you get a rare or higher drop as a direct drop it spawns a wooden chest instead.
That should mean that badges are not considered rare drop and magic find would actually lower your chances of getting them, so out manned buff is bad if you want badges but good if you want gold.

Wonder if this is working as intended or a bugg.

IMO
Badges should be the same as dungeon tokens.

Would be really nice to hear from a developer on how the loot table for badges looks like.

yep thats my question.
Since magic find only effect drops from “mobs/players” not from chests etc.
So does it increase the chance of getting a bag drop when a target dies, is bags considered a rare drop?
It shouldnt effect when opening bags, since that should be the same as chests.
Or will having a magic find set in www only trigger the chance of getting a wooden chest instead of a bag.., and then magic find will actualy be worse if you are farming badges, since your chance of getting a badge in a bag dissapear if it gets “promoted” to a chest drop instead, and are the loot tables from getting a badge as a direct drop different from the loot table of getting a bag/chest?
seems like this should be things players are curios of?

Does noone have any info on this?

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Wiki has stated for the last months that the cooldown is 50 seconds, and my tests in ‘the mists’ confirm this. Unless the latest patches have changed it. I havent tried it on necromancer yet though.

I must be blind but I cant find it on the wiki
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_rune_of_lyssa

now we have 50, 60, and 70 sec as to what the cooldown “might” be, anyone have any kind of source for your info?

Im not saying it dosnt have a cooldown, Im just looking to what it is, and a source for that info.

I can of course, and will, test this my self after work, summon the fleshie and use the charge on diff. times and write down on what time it procs.

But it would be nice to have the official timer on it, for the wiki. ^^

Does weapon/Armour sigil and rune effects that procs on a % work whilst in a transformation?

1. Can I, as a necromancer, have a leeching sigil and jump into plague form and have a %chance for it to proc on everything I touch?

2. Does any/all item stats carry over into transformation, or is it only your characters “base” stats that are afffected=

and where did you get the cooldown information, all I can find is this from a patchnote

“Superior Rune of Lyssa: This item now applies 5 seconds of Protection and Retaliation while on a competitive PvP map. The item’s internal cooldown has been fixed to allow rune effects to occur every 10 seconds.”

dec. 14th patch notes.

I havnt tested the internal cooldown, but I have used the summon for buff, and then the charge close after for more buffs.
I can test the cooldown tonight.

Dont know if this is common knowledge, but necros can use Superior Rune of Lyssa “(6): When you use an elite skill, lose all conditions and gain all boons for 5 seconds.” twice if slotting flesh golem.

It triggers both on the summon and on the charge skill.

Just wanted to share this.

Happy hunting ya all!

How about making the town clothes work as other games mounts, ie when equip they give a huge speed bonus.

For GW2 lets say 66% speed bonus, and I would also put in, if taking any kind of dmg whilst in town clothes you lose 99% of your HP bar.
This to prevent abuse in WWW or speed running cloaked in dungeons.

This sounds cool?

When a developer makes a MMO with massive PvP elements in it they normally encounter the same problem, zerging. This is in a way human nature, to blob up for a better chance of survival, but it is also a design flaw.

By having static objects that are the highest rewarding things on the map forces people into zerging. They go to where the profit are.
And when the static objects also gives the highest rewards on taking them it also encourage “flipping” ie you get a better reward losing one to reclaim it later.

So a very quick change into some of the “point” mechanic in WWW could make a huge change in how players zerg up.

1. Keep all the things that are now with keeps and supply camps etc. but take away that they give Victory Point ticks or any reward on taking them, and take away the NPC´s.
Instead have it so they give a BIG bonus reward to the owning player when they are making a kill in that area. Something in the line of 500% xp/karma/gold bonus on enemy kills ikittenone.

The rewards should NEVER be stat bonuses, but drop, xp, karma, gold and drop bonuses.

add a zone of control to every static object that a server can cap, that will be visibly on the map/radar.

2. make it so when ever a server kills a player from the other server they give their server a victory point, as keeps and towers do today.

3. put back orbs of power.
When a server has its own orb they get victory point on every tick, if they own another servers orb they get additional victory points every tick, NO BONUSES TO STATS.
Important! When a player has the enemies or of power he should always be “in combat” running abit slower then a player not in combat.
It should also apply poison, forcing a solo player to drop it once in a while and a larger group of players to change the orb carrier.

What will these “small” changes do?
It will make it so the most profitable way to earn anything in WWW is PvP.
It will create more PvP, it will still encourage zerging but not to the same extent as static objects that gives the biggest rewards.
It encourage players to defend its servers static objects rather then to let them fall and retake them for a higher reward, and creates a more of proper invasion force to claim new land to get higher rewards.
It gives players a “reward” reason to roam in smaller groups or solo more, you can kill enemy players and help your server get victory points.
And as a side note, this will in a way kill night capping, no players on line equals no players to kill for victory points, you can how ever still ninja another servers Orb of power, so night capping is not useless.

The only problem with this system is that it in someway encourage defending by not fighting, ie if a server is very much behind in victory points, and they dont have an organized group fighting they actually lose more points in entering the PvP zone and dying leaving the other server with no players to kill.
In GW2 this will not be much of a problem since we have a three way war, and the tiers are some what balanced now.

So what does the community think?
Would you like these changes, do you think they will make a posetive change in how we WWW today?
Will it affect zerging at all?

When a developer makes a MMO with massive PvP elements in it they normally encounter the same problem, zerging. This is in a way human nature, to blob up for a better chance of survival, but it is also a design flaw.

By having static objects that are the highest rewarding things on the map forces people into zerging. They go to where the profit are.
And when the static objects also gives the highest rewards on taking them it also encourage “flipping” ie you get a better reward losing one to reclaim it later.

So a very quick change into some of the “point” mechanic in WWW could make a huge change in how players zerg up.

1. Keep all the things that are now with keeps and supply camps etc. but take away that they give Victory Point ticks or any reward on taking them, and take away the NPC´s.
Instead have it so they give a BIG bonus reward to the owning player when they are making a kill in that area. Something in the line of 500% xp/karma/gold bonus on enemy kills ikittenone.

The rewards should NEVER be stat bonuses, but drop, xp, karma, gold and drop bonuses.

add a zone of control to every static object that a server can cap, that will be visibly on the map/radar.

2. make it so when ever a server kills a player from the other server they give their server a victory point, as keeps and towers do today.

3. put back orbs of power.
When a server has its own orb they get victory point on every tick, if they own another servers orb they get additional victory points every tick, NO BONUSES TO STATS.
Important! When a player has the enemies or of power he should always be “in combat” running abit slower then a player not in combat.
It should also apply poison, forcing a solo player to drop it once in a while and a larger group of players to change the orb carrier.

What will these “small” changes do?
It will make it so the most profitable way to earn anything in WWW is PvP.
It will create more PvP, it will still encourage zerging but not to the same extent as static objects that gives the biggest rewards.
It encourage players to defend its servers static objects rather then to let them fall and retake them for a higher reward, and creates a more of proper invasion force to claim new land to get higher rewards.
It gives players a “reward” reason to roam in smaller groups or solo more, you can kill enemy players and help your server get victory points.
And as a side note, this will in a way kill night capping, no players on line equals no players to kill for victory points, you can how ever still ninja another servers Orb of power, so night capping is not useless.

The only problem with this system is that it in someway encourage defending by not fighting, ie if a server is very much behind in victory points, and they dont have an organized group fighting they actually lose more points in entering the PvP zone and dying leaving the other server with no players to kill.
In GW2 this will not be much of a problem since we have a three way war, and the tiers are some what balanced now.

So what does the community think?
Would you like these changes, do you think they will make a posetive change in how we WWW today?
Will it affect zerging at all?

Would love to hear your feedback on this.

// Zorion

Does magic find affect the drop table on badges of honor?

When I first started my necro and looked over my trait lines I was very surprised on how the bonus stats where divided.
First I thought that this A-Nets way of getting people to do more builds, but now I am feeling like it has the opposite effect, the way it is now forces players to do certain combos instead of letting them choose from many possibility.

Take the necro;

power/con. dur.
prec/con. dmg.
toug/boon dur.
Vit/healing
Crit.dmg./class specific

the way the stats are scatter across forces you to do only one or maybe 2 builds if you want to play a certain way, if you want to play cond. spec. you need 1st and second trait line, and if you whish to play power you want to have three diff. lines in power/prec/crit. dmg.

I belive that it will actually open up for more builds and more fun for players to match the bonus stats better, example.
power/class specific
con. dur./con. dmg.
healing/boon dur.
Vit/toug
Crit.dmg./prec

My motivation,
power is an alround stat that most builds benefits from, to group it with the class specific stat is the volvo of builds, to it safe.
condition stats is just logical.
Healing and boon duration is two “defensive/support” stats, put them together makes it easier to play a support character without having to sacrifice to much in doing dmg builds.
Vit/Toug is the survivability stats, you should be able to specc for survivability in what ever roll you want to play, power/cond.dmg./support
Crit.dmg/prec also pretty logical.

doing it this way for all classes instead as it is now, classes have the bonus stats scattered differently, would IMO make it much more fun doing builds, and I think it would make life so much easier for the developers thinking where to put the minor/major trait bonuses.., because honestly now.., I feel like I dont have any choice at all, the minor/major traits in a diff. stat bonus line from what it affect limits my build options instead of increasing them.

So what do you guys think, will having the stats bonuses grouped up more logical and matched with the correct minor/major traits increase your ways of doing builds?

http://dulfy.net
choose your weapon type and pick particle effect.

one idea could be to change regenaration from duration to stacks in the same ways bleeds and its likes works?

Then you could still scale up healing power to affect the direct heals more without making regeneration imbalanced.

I do understand that direct healing cant be made to strong ´cause we already have 3 100% dmg migration skills, dodge/blind/block.
But wouldnt it be more interesting in PvP to atleast have regeneration on par with cond dmg?
And as long as you can stack conditions to do more dmg but only stack healing to have a longer effect it will always be more usefull to do dmg then to heal.
You would “heal” by killing the dmg source instead.

I know that arena net dosnt want the holy trinity, and have it so that every member of a group will do little of everything, dps/tanking/healing.

I love to play support, espec. in pvp, so I did a healing build for my necromancer, just to try it out and I was really surprised how little I could direct heal with full healing spec.

(If interested I can post the build, but I didnt make the thread for that.)

I did it so when I jump in and out of DS I do an AOE heal, and the numbers went just to around 500… so its basicly useless in fighting, since its better to use a cooldown on a skill like blind or weakness.
My regeneration heals is ok, I dont have much to say about that, but its the direct heals that surprised me so much.

Could it be that its not acctually possible to make direct heals viable without make it overpowered?
A direct heal should be able to migrate 25% of a burst attack to be able to be usefull in a game IMO, but as it is today direct heals are the absolut worst option to use when it comes to migrate dmg on allies.
How I see Healing VS Dmg is Regenteration spells is to counter DOTs whilst direct healing is to counter Burst dmg.
GW2 have other skills to migrate the burst dmg in CC skills, blind/daze/aegis/etc…
Is that the reason why healing power dosnt affect direct heals in any notable way?

What do you guys think, can arena net buff healing power for it to be usefull, or would be an impossible task to ballance?

edit*
some numbers.
A Necros AOE Regeneration will at lvl 80 and 1000 in healing power heal for 255/sec
A Necros Bleeds will at lvl 80 and 1000 condition dmg. tick for 92.5/sec for every stack (ie. just 6 stacks is 555dmg/sec.)
The necros DS AOE heal will at lvl 80 and 1000 healingpower heal for 552.

So an exampel fight 5 sec., 1 Necro do 6 bleeds and epidemic hitting a total of 6 players for 2775dmg/target (16650 dmg total)
1 Necro do regeneration on 6 players for 1275/target ( 7650 healing total) and uses Deathly Invigoration 552/target ( 3312 healing total)
Dmg done 16650
Dmg migrated 10962
Dmg left 5688

This is how big a diff. dmg vs healing is.

The reason why I use cond. dmg in the exampel instead of direct dmg is because you cant migrate cond. dmg with outher means of inderect healing such as blind/weakness/aegis etc etc
source
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleeding
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Regeneration
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deathly_Invigoration

Cool to see this topic now, as I just did a healing build!
My build is more for guild WWW but could work with some tweaks for dungeon play aswell, the lack of dmg output in my build makes it not to good in anything other then guild PvP.

My build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQQQNAW4dlQaq02czbD/2Egkin/dSR3bT9Q90RH;T4AZTCmkMpaSxElXGvEeZ9y5l0rlHjN2NA

Break down.
The major part of this build is to dubbel tap DS every 5th sec. to aply healing and vulnerbility.
Then its a choice depending on the situation, since you are always running in melee range with this build one option is to just keep staff 2 up for an awsome regen, and with the AOE heal from DS dubbeltap you migrate most dmg done.
Or you can swap to the dagger/X to try and do some power based dmg, thou staff 2s regain is more important and you have loner regeneration on it then cooldown even untraited.

Well of suffering is taken to give deathblossom thiefs another heal aswell as to do some indirect dmg with the extra vurnibility pulses, this char do dmg by boosting the guildmembers dmg.

Spectrall wall is the same, to boost the start burst dmg and let other normal conditionmancers spread the carnage with epedemic, and to give another awsome combo field in etheral, leaping thiefs with chaos armour is good kitten!

The radiation field is to aply another source of healing by migrating dmged done.

The monk runes makes it so when I jump into plauge, i dont have to just spam blind as normal but can acctually aply more weakness and or bleeds instead, since all my guildes now have aegis.

And I choose to take greater marks just to have an unblockable AoE fear for if you meet an organized zerg who buffs aegis on the charge I can break that charge with the normal staff fear, unblockable and HUGE aoe range.

Again my build is not to good for dungeon play, I would skip the SoulReaping trait line completly to investe more into an healer hybrid, going power or cond.dmg instead.

But its cool to see that more players are looking into the suport roll, it makes www so much more fun.

I as many others are trying to get a legendery.
I´ve read many threads and ideas on how to change getting The Precursor´s and while I agree that it´s today to random, ie to expensive to buy for gold and to little chance to farm, I find it really hard to come up with an idea on how to get it without destroying the economy.

One idea I liked was that you get one for completing your personal story, but it should in that case be Bind on aqquire IMO.

Another idea I had was this, when you get 100% map completion you get 2 Gifts of exploration, what if we let The Precursor´s be craftable in the mystic forge?
Recipe could be 1 gifts of exploration (changing the recipie for the original to also contain 1 GoE) 1 gift of battle, 250*weaponpart1, 250*weaponpart2.

This would mean that every character would be garantied a Precursor´s but it would be a one time thing, since you cant complete the map more then once.

What do you guys think?
The basic idea is to let The Precursor´s be craftable in the mystic forge, but using components that are once in a life time for each character, limiting the impact on the economy.

Edit
The resons for using a gift of exploration and a gift of battle isnt just to limit The Precursor´s that can be created, I tried to think of the lore aswell, a Legendery weapon should use components that require both a warriors heart “gift of battle” and a adventures heart “gift of exploration”.

I know that these ingrediants are already in the recipy for the legendery, But I belive they would function better in the recipe for The Precursor´s.., Dont mind if the dont change the original recipe, since to craft The Precursor´s is ONE way to get it, you dont need to run 100% map completion on two characters to get one, BUT it is an OPTION.

Camera movement on down.

Please take away the cameras movement and constantly zooming in effect when downed.
It´s a thing kept from old games to show your epic death and leave you to pounder on what went wrong.., in GW2 its just in the way.

you should be able to zoom out when downed as when alive.

Im sorry but I really dosnt understand the “no end game” debate.
I for instance have as my “Ultimate” goal to own all named items in the game, a huuuuuge goal, and not one I even expect to finish.., but its a goal.

So how is my end game different from for instance WoW´s?
I never played WoW, L2 player here, but I hear many end game debates using WoWs raids as exampel of end game.

If I understand right you have to do Dungeon Raids to be able to have chance on loot drops for a set armour that when complet lets you advance to the next dungeon raid, and hope fully never be “done”, is this correct?

Now look at my goal.
Its the same, BUT! I can choose exactly how I whish to advance towards my goal, and do it differently every day I logg in.
One day I might run acouple of dungeons for tokens to be able to salvage and get ectos to sell to by an item for BLTP.
Antoher day I might do some jumping puzzels to have a chance on an item in a grand chest.
If I have my daughter in my lap I might just go out farm some materials to craft a mystic forge named weapon.

So again, is “end game” only end game if the developers tells people it is and force them to play it a certain way?

Why the hate on, invent your own end game, why do you need to have someone tell you what and how to “grind”?

I dont even go for my “end game” everytime, its just one goal. Sometimes I just feel like playing PvP, and I do that, or help a guildie and I do that…

Is it any more out there that feels like this, or am I just the only very sattisfied customer of this game as a MMO?

I Love the freedome of choice, maybe this game isnt for religios people, Ive heard that they kind of need to be told what to do and belive

/peace out and happy hunting!

yea shrouded removal is acctually one of the alternatives ive been looking at.
its always good to have some extra cc removal, and since I normaly only “tap” into DS for the fury Im used to that mechanic.

thx for all the answears!

I acctually think that when in plauge form your weapon stats still counts, including your sigil.
Try and swap to plauge or DS and do a weapon swap, in the hero tab you will see that your stats will change.., but if they acctually do that in dmg calculation is another thing, could only be a UI thing.

The reason why I am looking into this now is that Im trying to do a build that works for me without having to respecc the trait points when swapping between solo/group pvp and dungeon runs, and only chaning major traits and gear.
And the first major trait in death magic kind of force you to have the staff.., and I want an alternativ to that, hence why Im looking into dark armour.

Will try some DS attacks tonight, I have fury when in DS so I think it can be a nice attack combo, BiP, epedemic, DS4 and just crit like crazy whilst boosting all the conditions numbers aswell.

Hi, does anyone know if the trait: Dark Armour´s +400 toughness whilst channeling works in conjunction with any tougness into condition dmg boosts?

for exampel, if I wear a full set of “of the undead” armour would any conditions Ive aplied before channeling get a dmg boost when triggering a channeled spell, like dagger 2?

It would be a really sweat combo attack to be able to target someone with alot of conditions on them, use Blood is Power and epedemic and then just do a channeling spell on a close by target to boost all those conditions aplied.

If this work it would be a huge impact on condition necros in www, since we dont need to aply our own condiotions to benefit from this, just use epedemic to “tagg” them as our own and buff might and a channel spell.

Best regards
//Zorion

yes I would, for the same reason I still play tetris.

I play for the fun of doing something atm not tomorrow, and to improve myself, learning more, honing my skills.

This is what I really dont get with all the, there is no end game etc etc yapping, whats the diff. between endgame in doing a certain “raid” to get loot to do another raid to get loot to be able to do the next one…. and just.., well do what you think is fun and not for the reward to let you do the next thing you think is fun.

I logg in, do what I want to do for that moment, then when Im satisfied I logg out.

I guess players who are whining about gear grind, no end game etc dont really like games like tetris or why not starcraft.., cause starcraft is pretty big and you know what.., you dont get jack rewards for “playing” the game.., but its still fun.., hmm magic ^^

So yes, I would play this game if they took away every loot possible, but then I would wish for possibility for an totally open pvp world.

happy hunting ya all!