Guild Wars 2

So basically, you want to play how you want, and since your way is The One True Way™, existing game systems should be re-designed around your One True Way™ of playing the game?

You’re literally the textbook case of what some might call a “scrub”: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

Have fun playing your unique blend of Guild Wars 2 which consists of the actual game, with your bizarre mental rules overlayed on top of it. You’re welcome to play this version of the game all you want, but when you insist that I be forced to play your ‘special’ version of the game too or that the game otherwise be warped to better fit your special brand of playstyle preference, I might politely tell you to kitten off if it weren’t probably against the forum rules. So instead, I’ll just suggest that perhaps, before talking about things you evidently have near-zero understanding of, you gain a bit of knowledge on the topic before you make the kind of statements that you’re making.

For example, in your first post, you mention how everyone always skips the cutscenes. Did you know you can make your own “watching cutscenes” group on the LFG? And if you don’t like skipping, or stacking, or whatever else, you can add that into your LFG description. And since you seem pretty clueless, most of the people doing the dungeon with you have probably run it over 100 times by now. Guild Wars 2 cutscenes are pretty low quality compared to a lot of other games, and in those other games, you start skipping the cutscenes after a few playthroughs. No one wants to watch a below average quality cutscene 100 times; few ever want to watch them a second time (and a fair amount have learned they find every cutscene to have near-zero value to them, and have never watched another skippable cutscene after having personally determined this). This is why people are skipping them.

My entire long post was a response to your statement of:

“Zui you are speaking of fractal bosses. Something I have already said before I hold seperate from dungeons. As many fractal’s are designed to be just as punishing to melee as they are to ranged. Some (specifically the ones you mentioned) are designed to be VERY punishing to zerker melees.”

Instead of you saying that range is a joke and you barely need to engage with the mechanics when you range stuff (and you even supposedly agree with that last point), you decided to essentially just say that range is ‘different’ and ‘safer’, but not ‘easier’. And then you decided to try and artificially separate dungeons and fractals, when the exact same pattern exists across all content (even world bosses). So I decided to show that the exact same pattern exists across dungeon content, too.

The supposedly unique challenges you present as facing ranged players cannot be serious. Especially that argument about how if you get downed while ranging, you’ll likely go defeated. And then of course, someone will probably resurrect you at (temporary) greater DPS loss, because the DPS loss of ressing you is better than you not contributing for the rest of the fight, and everyone being up is even safer still. Your objection to range trading DPS for safety basically boils down to “yeah, but range also trades DPS for safety so you’re just not getting it!”

And then your objection to equating safety with ease. Of course something that requires you to engage with less mechanics, factor in less variables (…not buying the argument that ranged players need to account for more variables, increasing difficult enough that the added safety is balanced out by the extra variables so it’s just as difficult…), and where the mechanics you have to engage with are virtually always less punishing than they would be in melee (or at worst, merely equally punishing) is going to be easier. If you have x time to react to a projectile attack at melee, and 3x time to react when you’re sitting at 1000 range, of course it’s going to be easier to react. If you have less variables to manage, and less mechanics to manage in addition to that, of course it’s going to be easier. Every single factor you can identify as providing difficulty in this game provides less difficulty when you’ve got to react to a reduced set of mechanics, with more time to react, and only need to react about 20% of the time anyway. Ranging is objectively and demonstrably easier than meleeing in virtually every encounter (except maybe pre-fix spider queen… but that’s not true anymore), especially any encounter than anyone would deem difficult.

So hey, let’s look at Honor of the Waves next!

Path 1:

Icebrood Troll – it gets ranged, because it has very punishing (albeit trivially easy to deal with) melee attacks. Range is much easier than melee; it also takes a lot longer, but people still do it.

Aldus Stormbringer – Extremely easy to range, just don’t attack when he’s reflecting projectiles. His ranged attacks are reflectable (at any distance), but also very easy to avoid at high range. His PBAoE only affects melee players, and can wreck them if they’re clueless. For the HotW1 PUGs I’ve been in, a pretty good number range despite how insanely easy (and how much faster) this guy is to melee.

Ginva the Butcher – Nearly every group ranges. It takes forever and he reflects projectiles for part of the fight, but his melee attacks are fast and very punishing, especially his whirling defense.

Path 2:

Torn Fur – Much more punishing at melee than range. About 50% of groups/players still range this guy, because melee is “hard”.

Jaddeor Icefist – Optional boss everyone skips except especially clueless parties. A complete joke to range. Medium (on the low end of medium) difficulty to melee.

Balgrenn Creedbreaker – Ranged attacks are even easier to avoid when you’re ranging. You can totally ignore the fear when you’re ranging. Much easier to range than melee. A lot of groups range.

Andal the Thug + Quaggans – If you pug this, expect to see everyone using a ranged weapon to make it easymode. Ranged is a joke, but very long. Melee is harder and also longish because this is HotW and all bosses must have massive amounts of HP.

Wollam the Plunderer – Decent damage melee autoattack, a throw mine attack that you can nearly totally ignore if you’re ranging, and an rush attack that will wreck you if you’re in melee, but is trivial to dodge if you’re ranging. Pretty much everyone is ranging here, despite it taking longer, because it’s easymode.

Path 3:

Icebrood Goliath – A joke to range. Mild difficulty to melee. If you pug it, expect practically everyone to range because it’s very easy.

Svanigandr – Not hard at all to range. Extremely punishing to melee. People range.

Fimbul – Much easier to range, again. Expect lots of ranging to occur.

Sorge the Zealot – Easy to range. More difficult to melee. Expect everyone to range.

In Honor of the Waves, the difficulty difference between ranging and meleeing is often very large. Ranging is a joke, and meleeing is moderately difficult to hard, or at least quite punishing of mistakes. And nearly everyone in your party is going to range absolutely everything, because it’s easy

What can we conclude from this? I’d say we can conclude that the odds of meleeing something only improve when it’s not much harder than ranging it, and when there few punishing melee mechanics you have to worry about.

The exact same pattern we see in fractals applies to dungeons. People generally range difficult to melee encounters even though it’s slower, and generally melee easy to melee encounters just because it’s faster. Difficulty seems to be the main factor. Virtually every encounter is eaier at range than melee, except for a handful which are effectively equally easy.

End final part of this post.

Ok, fine, I’ll do it for some dungeons too, since you want to arbitrarily separate fractals and dungeons. How about CM?

Path 1:

Gunpowder Morgan – One melee attack, two very slow ranged attacks that hit both melee and ranged players. People melee because the melee attack isn’t that threatening and anti-projectile skills exist. It’s even easier to range behind anti-projectile skills, just slower.

Bloody Victoria – All melee attacks. People melee only because it’s faster, and not that much harder. It’s even easier to range, just slower.

Frost – Easy to AFK-range from a safe spot, but slowish. Easy to range without a safespot, but also slow. Moderately difficult to melee, but really not rocket science (if you have ~half or better of your party in meta-ish specs and no one is totally clueless, it’ll be fine), and pretty fast to do. People melee because it’s faster, despite being comparatively much harder than ranging (even though melee isn’t that hard)

Path 2:

Taylor – Only ranged attacks. Does nothing if you have anti-projectile skills. Because of this, it doesn’t matter if you range or melee. Only difference is that melee is faster. Oh, and you don’t actually even need anti-projectile skills if you’re moderately clever (versus an immobile boss) and plan to range. Ranging is still easier, but not by much, and it takes a lot longer. So people melee.

Turmaine – Punishing to melee. Can AFK range in a couple of different ways. Pretty easy to range normally without AFK-mode exploits. Nearly everyone ranges this boss.

Path 3:

Sure Shot Seamus – His shotgun doesn’t even hit you if you’re at high enough range. It’s even more trivial to sidestep at high range. He knocks you out of his range if you do get hit. You can’t be a total liability and get virtually your entire team hit. The reason people melee here is because it’s an extremely basic encounter and if you’re not completely clueless as to mechanics and pay attention (and/or just have a Guardian who drops Hallowed Ground) you can successfully melee and kill him pretty easily, with it also being fast; ranging from a very high distance is still easier.

Wahlen – Easy to range with (duh) or without (try it… it’s a joke) anti-projectile skills. Does have a melee-only attack, which hurts a decent amount. Because everything else is a projectile, you can just melee and use anti-projectile skills. Easier to range than melee, but melee is much faster and not very hard. So people melee.

Vallog – Hop attack fairly punishing and melee only. Fireball affects both ranged and melee, but is trivial to sidestep at range; but antiprojectile skills and/or block/evades exist. Reflects projectiles for portions of the fight. Much easier to range than melee, but range is also a lot slower. Melee isn’t really hard, because the boss has a low enough health pool and damage output that you can kill it behind some antiprojectile skills and totally fail to dodge the hop every single time and have it not matter at all.

So what pattern do we see here? Ranged against bosses is still invariably easier than melee. It’s just that for nearly every boss, melee is extremely easy, and the sole exception to that (Turmaine) is basically always ranged except by a small fraction of players who can melee him (…and it’s not even that hard, TBH). And the partial exception of Frost is often exploit-ranged, especially if the group dies after trying and failing to melee

Basically, the only reason people melee is because the encounters are simple in terms of mechanics, not very punishing in terms of mechanics, and melee is a lot faster with little added difficulty here.

End Part 1 of this post.

Shadelang, no one here is denying that regardless of what you mean by strike zone (Mesmer GS auto attack damage zone, or say Guardian Scepter #2 on stationary targets, whatever), ranged groups are trading DPS for safety. That’s entirely the point. It seems like you’re just emphasizing the point (as what you’re saying is that compared to a situation where the boss is stationary with respect to the ranged player, the ranged player will get a bit less DPS when the boss is moving) while somehow trying to disagree with it.

Of course ranged groups are going to be behind in DPS compared to melee groups, providing the melee groups are actually alive and actively doing DPS to the boss. This is specifically the tradeoff being made by the group. Ranged groups do their DPS much more safely, because they don’t need to engage with anywhere near the amount of mechanics, and generally, when they do have to engage with mechanics it’s often just one or two people in the party at a time who need to engage with them, while everyone else is pretty safe (whereas in a full melee group, everyone is in equal danger).

When people die in melee groups, you also have a proportional DPS loss. People in melee groups, controlling for level of skill and experience, are much more likely to die because they have to engage with the mechanics to a much greater degree. If you take a struggling ranged group and make them melee, they’ll just die very fast. If you take a successful melee group and make them range, they’ll still successfully kill the boss, they’ll just take a lot longer. If you take a nearly successful melee group and make them range, they’re almost certainly going to successfully kill the boss too, just in a longer amount of time.

Range is slower, but it’s also easier. It’s easier for good groups, and it’s easier for bad groups. The reason that the better a group is, the more likely they are to melee, is because if you still have a high probability of success when meleeing and you’re going to save a lot of time, of course you’re going to want to save a lot of time (on average) and melee. Plus, when you’re able to successfully engage with the mechanics, you’re likely to find doing so fun, and thus find playstyles that both speed things up (getting you to the reward faster, which is fun) AND let you engage with the mechanics (also increasing the fun level) to be preferable to ones that slow things down and are comparatively boring.

Shadelang.3012:

The ONLY time ranged is prefered in this game by the majority of players is in fact during “glitch” spot encounters.

Dredge Powersuit? Rampaging Ice Elemental? Both Archdiviner fights? Jade Maw (tentacles)?

To even suggest that the first two can be meleed in a PUG group will either get people to suggest that you’re an idiot, that melee isn’t a thing for those bosses, immediately kicked from the group, or a group that tries it, wipes almost immediately, and concludes it melee is virtually impossible to pull off.

Oh, and note how none of them have any “glitch” spots.

Let’s assume a 5 ranged party, and also assume this party isn’t full of idiots who can’t keep a boss crippled/chilled and kite said crippled/chilled boss or otherwise use movement intelligently. How about we just take all of the (land) fractal bosses as an example.

Boss (Fractal) – Percent of attacks nullified by ranging

Champion Grawl Shaman (Volcanic) – 66%

Legendary Imbued Shaman (Volcanic) – 50%. Of the remaining 50%, 25% become threatening only to a single player instead of 5 players, and 25% go from “hard to avoid” to “very easy to avoid, although not always avoidable”. I’m still going to call this 50%, despite how misleading calling it 50% happens to be.

Dulfy (Urban Battlegrounds) – 50%

Captain Ashym (Urban Battlegrounds) – 66% on Sword (Practically 100%… Fiery block really shouldn’t count), 33% on Staff (rest made much less threatening to whole party), 20% on FGS (rest made much less threatening to whole party). I’m going to call this 40% (the average of the above 3 phases) even though melee is moderately difficult and range is a complete and utter joke of a snoozefest by comparison.

Rabsovich (Dredge) – 50%

Rampaging Ice Elemental (Dredge) – 100%

Dredge Powersuit (Dredge) – 80%. With the remaining 20% never killing anyone who is ranging, isn’t completely kittened, and has proper AR; really should just use 100% but I’m only using 80%.

Rabbit (Harpy) – 100%

Bandit (Harpy) – 100%

Fire Shaman (Harpy) – 33%. Should really be 66% because the leap is enough of a joke that you can just run away (something you’re doing practically 100% of the time you’re ranging) and avoid it.

Ettin (Harpy) – 75%. This feels extremely wrong to not just say 100%, because the single ranged attack can be sidestepped 100% of the time at moderate range, dodged 100% of the time with even greater ease than sidestepping, and it has a 33 second cooldown.

Old Tom (Harpy) – 100% (not a joke…). But I’ll go with a mere 50%, with the remaining 50% being much less threatening at range.

Snuggles (Harpy) – 50%

Mr. Mittens (Harpy) – 66%

Professor Mew (Harpy) – 100%

Baron Von Scrufflebutt (Harpy) – 33%. Remaining 66% pretty easy to avoid at range, and much less threatening.

Raving Asura (Harpy) – 0%

Subject 6 (Reactor) – 66%

Anomaly (Reactor) – 0% (But hey, ranging is still a lot easier)

Mossman (Swamp) – ???. A bit hard to reliably determine. Obviously much less threatening when not in melee.

Bloomhunger (Swamp) – 0%. A complete joke, so I won’t be including him in my average.

Shamann Lornarr Dragonseeker (Snowblind) – 100%

Molten Effigy (Molten Duo) – 33%. Firestorm much less threatening at range. Fireball also much less threatening. A joke to range.

Molten Berserker (Molten Duo) – ???. A bit hard to reliably determine. Obviously much less threatening when not in melee.

Molten Firestorm (Molten Duo) – 0%. Kind of a joke, so I won’t be including in the average.

Mai Trin (Mai Trin) – 66%. 16% trivial to avoid at range.

Weapons Test Engineer (Molten Furnace) – 40%. Another 40% almost totally trivialized at range; remaining 20% totally trivial at any range.

Archdiviner – First (Cliffside) – 60% (wells are such a joke when everyone is spread out and ranging I’m including them here). Remaining attacks pretty trivial to deal with while at range.

Archdiviner – Second, Phase 1 (Cliffside) – 100%
Archdiviner – Second, Phase 1 (Cliffside) – 50%. I’d personally go as high as 75%, because if you do get pulled it’s pretty obvious what’s coming next and that you need to evade, and if you’re ranging and don’t get pulled you can just keep ranging, but hey, I’ll use 50%.

Frizz (Atherblade) – I’ll go with 33%. One attack is melee only. Of the other two attacks, one is irreverent at range but relevant at melee, and the other is irrelevant at melee but relevant (and extremely easy to dodge) at range.

So the average I get (and remember, I’m being pretty conservative here… I even counted shield blocks that apply trivial burning if you attack through them, which are super telegraphed, an ‘attack’ that hits both melee and ranged players) is 61% of all attacks are nullified just by ranging. That’s pretty huge.

If I am less conservative (and IMO a bit more accurate) and look just at attacks that are going to be threatening enough to cause death to someone who’s ranging, is capable of using movement, isn’t too dumb to use antiprojectile skills, and can dodge obvious projectiles/other attacks, I get 86%.

I’d say Wethospu’s estimates were pretty accurate. I was going to do this for every dungeon boss too, but I imagine I’d find a similar pattern, and honestly this took way more time than I anticipated it would.

Lazaar.9123:

Wait… do you want it fixed or don’t you?

I think he’s trying reverse psychology.

I’ll try some too… I hope we don’t get any more dungeons in this game. I want more Living Story!

And no, I don’t think this was intended. Probably just a giant design/QA oversight.

I’d especially second this for Sinister armor, too. Some people want Sinister armor, but can’t stand annoying braindead open world grinding, and would love to pay the people that like that stuff some gold in exchange of just being able to dungeon.

Been suggested since the betas (enter, spacebar, an assignable key, WHATEVER). ANET’s response? Silence. ANET’s apparent actions on this front? Nothing.

Expect no change.

shion.2084:

So basically as a binge player, I could play a couple of hard days and get my monthly. Then go on my business trips and login a few times later on. This is actually worse for “casual players” like me, because you have to login daily, and they’ve essentially time gated montly rewards now?

It depends on exactly what the structure of the system is; perhaps they’ve considerably altered reward levels such that for the same amount of play, you’ll get the same or more amount of laurels (and mystic coins, etc.) through the new daily/monthly system.

However, since every kind of change like this they’ve ever done has only served to slow down progression, your assumption is probably right (in fact, any reasonable person ought to find my above suggestion pretty laughable based on ANET’s track record).

After all, if players have continuous pressure to log in more frequently and spend more time in the game, they’re more likely to buy gems (either because they’re playing more, or because they’re using the gems to help bypass the “improvements” that slow [I tried to use a word that starts with “re”, has a “t” in it, and ends with “ard” here… but the filter won’t allow it even… Filtering an appropriate use of the word, FTW.] progression…). It’s cynical to look at changes like this as being entirely motivated by the gem store, but so many past changes and various models the game uses for content are very transparently about maximizing gem store revenue (LS content model, the ‘improvement’ to the currency exchange before they fixed it, most new skins being Black Lion Chest / Claim Ticket gated, etc.).

Joined a level 19 fractal advertised as being the last fractal. It was the 3rd, and they were stuck at the legendary imbued shaman (side note: this encounter is such a joke at level 19, how does ANYONE get stuck there?). So they got carried through that encounter. Then we get Molten Duo, and the carrying continues (Annonymous dude, a thief, doesn’t even know to manage the champ effigy’s defiance and/or interrupt the firestorm). Except before the Duo, this lovely dialog starts:

Anonymous dude: “yall wanna pay me for the 1st 3 fractals? lol”
Anonymous dude: “kitten”
Me: “lol”
Anonymous dude: “is that a no?”
Me: “ofc it’s a no”

And then, obviously, I get kicked right before the Berserker is dead (after also carrying hard; and getting that guy up from being downed).

What are the odds ANET decides to actually review the report for LFG abuse (i.e. right click, report, lfg abuse, no other information given) and actually take action? Of course they claim they will, but this is the same ANET that apparently can’t read support tickets regarding instances being stolen, and sends some generic crap about devs looking at WvW in response.

Oh right, approximately zero. Thanks for your wonderful abuse-prone LFG system and sub-par reporting options, as always, ANET.

Mo Mo.1947:

Every “veteran” still talking like they speak for ALL veterans I see. I’ve been playing in the lands of Tyria since 1 month into the release of GW1.

I think some things about the current game should be improved, but I like the direction this game is going. I love the Living Story and enjoy what they’ve done to make it memorable.

Other than finishing LS Season 2, what direction is this game headed in? You can speculate all you want, and you can be happy with where you perceive it to be going, but no one actually knows where the game is heading (and not heading). We’d like some communication from ANET on this front; unfortunately, their communication policy in this respect is “do not communicate”. That is what this thread is actually about, the communication policy that prevents them from actually communicating with us in a way that’s meaningful and valuable to the players.

It seems like this thread may have outlived its usefulness on the actual topic, but that’s no reason to try and meaninglessly drag it off topic.

Yes, it exists. You’re mostly only going to find it inside of dungeons and fractals. This kind of thing is most noticeable (and relevant) when you’re low manning or soloing the content, however the tactical aspect is also pretty important for (coordinated) group play (it’s just possibly a bit less noticeable, since when everyone does what they’re supposed to do you breeze through the content, and you don’t need to actually engage with the mechanics of an encounter nearly as much as you do when low manning due to increased ability to use use-and-forget active defense and more DPS).

Unfortunately, this is also the kind of content that we apparently won’t be seeing any more of for the immediate future, and probably ever. Would sure be nice though…

Five warrior imbued shaman: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2oppsp/5_warriors_vs_legendary_imbued_shaman_at_level_49/

spoj.9672:

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Another 49, another reward of a PFR and Empyreal Fragments. Nothing else.

Yeah, I think they fixed all of Arah p4.

They made it so end reward is only awarded when all bosses are killed?

I think that’s unlikely. By fixed, I think he means that it’s (apparently) no longer possible to bug out Farnaz or Simin.

Before the other regulars chime in about the reasons behind skipping and stacking, as well as the fact stacking is no longer optimal in nearly every instance, tell us exactly what you’d like to see and why it would promote skillful and compelling gameplay?

Since line casting was discussed awhile back and a regular here asked how, I made a video on it that might be useful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJncPGDJ9Ho

Torsailr.8456:

Not everyone agrees that an expansion is win-win. It is possible to give us everything you’d normally see in an expansion through the LS. At this rate it’ll take another 2 years to have it, but we’ll get it.

Will we get it? How do you know? Has ANET communicated something to you that they haven’t communicated to the rest of us, or did they communicate it and everyone missed it but you? If not, what evidence are you basing your statement on, and what reasoning did you use from there to determine your statement was correct enough to not just be mere random worthless speculation that merits no weight at all?

As I see it, there is no evidence to conclude we will get anything other than the following from LS:
1. Story “content”. With most of that being pure story, and small amounts being playable content.
2. Achievement Points to hunt.
3. Open world zones for maximum level players to farm in.

This is an extremely small portion of the content we’d normally see in an expansion. So small, that saying it’s anything like what we’d see in an actual expansion is pretty disingenuous. It’s also not the kind of content that has compelling repeated replay value for many players, which is a primary reason a lot of people want to see expansion-like content.

The only way we can know what we’ll be getting is if ANET tells us. They don’t need to tell us specifics. They can tell us very generally. But their communication policy in this respect is “do not communicate”. This is why this thread exists. What direction is this game actually headed? No one really knows. We’d like to know. We’d like some communication.

This may be a bug. It may be a bug fix or a design adjustment. We don’t know, because ANET does not communicate what they change regarding dungeons and fractals in their update notes, much less communicate why they change what they do.

My best guess is they didn’t like people getting back into the room by character selecting then having Ellen res them, so they designed a fix. Being teleported back into the room some other way is probably just a bug.

Of course, you can (apparently) still leave someone out of the room and have the 4 people inside just repeatedly die and respawn inside the room, achieving the same effect as the thing they supposedly fixed. Maybe they’re perfectly fine with this, and not what they might have possibly intentionally fixed? Maybe they’re not fine with this but totally oblivious to it? Maybe they’re not fine with it but don’t know how to fix it?

Really, your guess is as good as mine. We’ll never know, because ANET does not communicate effectively. Not even about basic changes to the game in their patch notes. In GW1, when I wanted to know what changed in a patch, I read the patch notes. If only if it were that simple in GW2.

phoenix.3465:

Besides, what you don’t realize is that ranged can be more rewarding than melee if the gameplay demands it.

Can you give (preferably GW2-related) examples, along with a coherent explanation of why this would be consistent with good design principles?

Lifestealer.4910:

run pistol off hand on thief, put paralysation sigil on it and use headshot when lupi is about to aoe.

You can thank me later.

Wait, the Sigil works on Dazes too? Interesting…

We want to know where this game is headed, and we’d like some communication on this front from ANET. At the very least, we’d like to discuss the silence policy (communication policy) that prevents said meaningful communication. That is what this thread is about.

It’s not about how many people in your guild actively play, or even how many people actively play the game.

It would be nice to keep this thread on topic.

ShadowRX.9024:

frifox.5283:

ShadowRX.9024:

Would be nice if the wall behind lupi becomes untargetable by ground target abilities

1. Look on the ground
2. Use Feedback
3. …
4. Profit

I guess but that means feedback is on ground not on top of the wall? If you can place feedback on top of the wall then when he is in the wall make him reset to middle so no more wall pushing.

You can. Sometimes Locust Swarms will spawn on top of the wall. It’s trivial to Feedback one of them. Temporal Curtain can also be used to 1-shot Lupi, just like WoR, it’s just that the placement is more difficult.

Start around 00:58:30 http://www.twitch.tv/zuistreams/c/5466177

Should give you a decent idea of what to do. Three spark runners (IMO) are better than two, although it can be done very quickly with two as well. Fight the boss right where it spawns. Mesmers should save Time Warp until after the boss is respawned. Try to use stability to negate the need to throw tears during DPS phases (where EVERYONE should be DPSing), but have a designated tear thrower or two otherwise so that everyone is able to DPS for most of the phase.

I am entirely certain that a full team of players in non-damage gear with mostly non-damage traits and non-damage skills using suboptimal DPS weapons can still defeat this boss (and definitely in under an hour… I’d say 30 minutes TOPS, as a pretty big time overestimate). And everyone can pretty easily change their traits and skills to provide more damage; there’s no reason not to do so for this encounter. The only useful support (other than antiprojectile skills to make sure people keep their scholar bonus if they’re running scholar runes) for the whole thing is stability.

It bothers me too.

If you’re on a Warrior, you should definitely invest in a mace with a superior sigil of paralyzation (main hand mace on lupi… so good!). If you’re on an Ele, apparently a well-placed/timed swirling winds can also prevent the 1-shot. I am unaware of any other classes that can prevent the 1-shot. Should you succeed, expect all of your pugs to promptly die, or start ranging and thus get him off the wall for you.

We hear ANET saying they have a direction for the game, but we really don’t know what that direction is, and you’re simply not communicating it to us. It seems the fundamental issue here is your communication policy, which is to limit communication.

You say the policy is about not stringing us along, but we feel strung along due to the communication we’re getting. You say you have a direction for the game, but we just don’t see it. Is ti small chunks of moderate quality extremely low replayability story content? Is is that plus some open world content areas that appeal primarily to open world farmers? Seemingly so, but this can’t be all you’re working on. You even claim it’s not all you’re working on. So, very generally, what else are you working on? Seriously, where is this game headed?

Of course, you can’t tell us. So, under the assumption (and surely you would agree this is a good assumption) that ANET is benevolent, we (as in we the playerbase) hope. And every time that direction that supposedly exists other than LS has a chance to show its self, we don’t see it, because seemingly there’s nothing for us to see. So every patch, our hope sours a little bit more. It’s almost like this whole thing is a carefully crafted strategy to get players to stick around long after they’d otherwise quit, but that’d be crazy, because all it results in is a lot of bad PR for GW2 from dissatisfied but continuing players (the people most likely to spread bad PR about your game), and I’m doubting that those players buy gems. I can’t think of a single reason to not just answer those players simple question. What direction is this game headed? Maybe they’ll like it and keep playing because of it. Maybe they’ll even buy gems or resume gem purchases because of it. Maybe they won’t like it, and finally quit. But it’s good for ANET either way, and it’d be in the spirit of the current policy if the spirit of that policy is indeed not to string players along. Because your communication right now is stringing players along (even if it’s not intentional, this is the clear and obvious result of the basic nature of your players coupled with what communication we have gotten), and telling us what direction the game is headed in would fix that issue.

In a random system is it expected to get strings of repeats that humans who don’t know anything about statistics or human cognitive biases might think are somehow significant when in fact they are not. You’re evidently a human who doesn’t know anything about statistics or human cognitive biases. You think getting Volcanic-Mai 4 times in a row is significant, when it is not.

You’re thinking the random system isn’t random, because it doesn’t meet your incorrect definition of what a random system actually is. It turns out that reality does not always conform to your expectations of it, but it is much more likely to do so when you form your expectations of reality from studying reality its self, instead of just making stuff up mentally and assuming reality will conform to your made up assumptions which are almost certainly wrong.

May I suggest: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-05-introduction-to-probability-and-statistics-spring-2005/

Watch the first Ice Bow #4 versus the champion, with dodging away at the right time so that the ice bow damage hits a much smaller area than it otherwise would. You basically want to move backwards after the AoE has been queued.

…It’s random.

Hey look, another QoL feature request that people have been going on about since literally day 1 the game was released (actually… before then even)!

I’m sure that ANET is going to get right on this. Any day now. Hope your sarcasm detectors aren’t broken.

dlonie.6547:

Dooooo tell?

Line casting. You can see it done twice in this video, although it’s not well-explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrbS-HK6_YA

oxtred.7658:

Anet don’t want people to leave, and they don’t want to improve. That’s why difficult content won’t come. Most, if not all special snowflakes with their bad builds are also bad players and don’t understand how pve works. No matter how tanky they are they will still die in arah or fractals. And since anet main revenue is gem store, they don’t want the casuals ( who need gold via gems/ like buying small bonuses) to leave.

I feel like with good, non-linear design they could accomplish this.

Imagine an Arah-style dungeon where you can fight a Lupi-equivalent boss, OR go through some overly long timegates of respawning mobs that don’t drop loot and a trivial HP-sponge of a boss in order to progress. The casuals would spend 30+ minutes on the timegate(s)+boss, and good players would spend a few minutes (or so) at a fun, difficult boss; both would get the “same” end reward for whatever segment of the path they chose.

You could do the same with puzzles. Design good puzzles where they can be completed extremely quickly, but only with excellent teamwork. But also allow a solution that’s extremely easy and “anyone” can do, that takes much longer.

You can ensure that everyone can complete certain content, while also ensuring that skill is appropriately rewarded in the content, and it provides challenge for those who seek it (or who just seek efficient rewards per time). The casuals might not repeat the content a lot, but it’s not like they do that anyway. They largely just repeat content where you get the maximum rewards for near-zero effort near-zero skill gameplay, if open world farms are any indication.

Neko.9021:

He’s the same troll in HOTW and in that one you kill him pretty fast. Given, due to stat scaling, I suspect the AC one is actually harder. >.>

As it is my understanding, with the way stat scaling works, the AC troll is actually much easier than the HotW troll. And the HotW troll isn’t really bad (to melee) at all.

Davey.7029:

One of the funniest moment I had in fractals was when my group was in the LFG in the Old Tom fractal, and people were leaving one after another after they asked which fractal it was and we answered ‘2nd’.

Apparently for some players, starting from the 2nd fractal is not good enough, maybe they want to join a group already at the last boss…

People are strange.

Harpy fractal is PUG killer. It’s probably why they left.

The harpies are ‘hard’ to kill without coordinated reflects, and ‘hard’ to stealth past when you have a thief because people think they drop worthwhile loot, because people are very bad at jumping, and because people in PUGs generally have no idea what a blast finisher is.

The champions are difficult, because people don’t know how to kite the Ettin or use reflects for the fire shaman, much less CC the bandit.

Old tom is ‘difficult’. People don’t know how to tank behind a guardian or an earth elemental, most people can’t find the sweet spot inside of Old Tom either (should doing so be needed). Plus most people in a PUG do very little damage, due to lack of might stacking, lack of proper skill rotations/weapon selection, lack of proper traits, and not being properly geared for PvE content. Did I mention most PUGs don’t even have the coordination to actually operate the fan properly?

The veteran golems are extremely ‘difficult’. Coordinated reflects on the Asura? LOL. Dodge projectiles when reflects down? LOL. Kill the golems quickly? LOL. Group them together? LOL. CC Baron von Scrufflebutt and/or dodge his unblockable unreflectable projectiles? Double LOL (once for kittenty projectile mechanics, once for how woefully your average PUG will perform here).

ANET’s actual (not explicitly stated) macro policy: If we can detect it, and we want to ban you, we will. Otherwise, we won’t. The determination of whether or not we want to ban you is solely at our own discretion.

Could they come up with a clear, and relatively unambiguous macro policy? Of course. But it’d require a pretty serious amount of careful deliberation, and probably hiring a technical writer.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Does bug effect esports and/or gem store sales:

if yes -> fix

if no-> throw away bug report

There you go.

You have it wrong. It’s possible to spawn “stuck” inside the spawn points on some maps in sPvP. It happened to me once right after the game was released, and again a few months ago. I’m sure I reported it both times.

Fumble dodges are still in the game. Bugs with fundamental class functions are still in the game (most notably, see Mesmer. Also see any and all teleport skills in the entire game.).

Obviously, they might have tried (or be trying) to fix these bugs, but are having issues for whatever reason. We don’t know. There is no communication on this front. All we do know is (many) bugs relating to crashes get fixed, bugs related to the gem store get fixed, and bugs related to the living story get fixed. All other bugs seem to be very rarely fixed, and mostly just completely ignored as if ANET doesn’t care. Given the lack of communication, and the lack of bug fixes that relate to fundamental issues with actual game play along with rapid bug fixes to things that might affect their revenue from the gem store, it’s certainly a plausible explanation that ANET simply does not care.

Ascalonian Monks have their heal area skill do a ton of damage, in two damage packets.

Bugs involving improper triggering of falling damage have existed in this game since the betas.

The reason things feel like they’re doing more damage is likely because you’re either inexperienced at higher levels, or because you and/or your team mates were not doing their jobs to appropriately support the group. CC, blinds, weakness, reflects, aegis, etc. Additionally, the more you’re traited/geared for “survivability”, the longer things live, and the more opportunity they have to wreck you and your party.

The Legendary Imbued Shaman does a ton of damage with his arrows. Don’t get hit by them. Keep moving to avoid burning. Don’t stand in the firestorm because it does even more damage than the arrows. Lava pits also do insane damage. This is generally a “PUG killer” type fractal. It requires a decent amount of coordination and player skill to pull it off cleanly at higher levels (as opposed to how faceroll it is at lower levels), and the right party composition can greatly help you (just as the wrong one can greatly hurt you).

How about the Champion Krait Hypnoss SW of the Brooloonu Waypoint in Sparkfly Fen?

If you watch the video, you’ll notice I hit the “5” button, and while the game registered the button was pressed, the skill did not activate. I had to press the “5” button a second time after I realized the skill was not going to activate. Based on past experience with this bug, if I didn’t hit the “5” button a second time, the skill would not have activated at all.

I’ll try a few solos later tonight to see if I can stand completely still after dodging, wait for the block to definitely start, and then run out without taking damage, and if so, if doing this (apparently) prevents the bug from occurring. This would be fantastic

I’ll try some solos later tonight with holding the #5 key down instead of pressing it once. Hopefully this works, and doesn’t create a second issue where sometimes the game activates the second ‘stop blocking and gain adrenaline’ skill that’s on #5.

From my (limited) playtime on Engi, I haven’t had it happen. Friends who play Engineer much more haven’t had it happen that they can recall. I also tested a bit with shield block on Warrior, and wasn’t able to get this bug to occur with the shield block. From what I can tell, the only skill in the game that suffers from this issue is Warrior Sword #5.

If anyone is aware of how to reliably reproduce (or just avoid) the warrior sword block bug, please post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Warrior-Sword-Block-Bug/

Sometimes when attempting to use Riposte to block (Sword #5), the skill fails to activate despite the game giving indication that it has registered your button press. I am not able to reliably reproduce this bug.

It happened to me on stream today. Here’s a video of the bug: http://www.twitch.tv/zuistreams/c/5466626

This bug is quite annoying, and common enough that most people that I know who play Warrior (in Arah) also sometimes experience it. If anyone knows how to reliably reproduce this bug, please post both so ANET might be able to pin down the bug easier to fix it, and so that if there’s way of reliably avoiding it, people who suffer from the bug can presumably avoid it in the unfortunately likely event this bug is never fixed.

It seems very unlikely that this problem is due to latency or similar, as Warrior Sword #5 is the only skill this has ever occurred with for me, and also for everyone else I have talked to.

Here’s a video for each path, if you didn’t catch the stream and weren’t able to participate in the tour. The times for each path are very significantly longer than it actually takes to run the path, so don’t let the length scare you off of Arah.

p1: http://www.twitch.tv/zuistreams/c/5466193
p2: http://www.twitch.tv/zuistreams/c/5466189
p3: http://www.twitch.tv/zuistreams/c/5466185
p4: http://www.twitch.tv/zuistreams/c/5466177

Tour starting in the next 5-10 minutes. It will be streamed at www.twitch.tv/zuistreams.

Tentonhammr.7849:

First, nice solo

Second, just started doing Lupi solos on thief for a change of pace. It’s fun learning how to do it on different classes. Tried it for the first time yesterday and it went fine. Today, no fewer than 3 times he reset on me (once p1, twice in p2) after stealth from CnD… and I can’t figure out why. I was backstabbing immediately too. Is this just kittenty luck or is there something I’m missing?

He will not reset if you CnD+Backstab while he is doing an attack or in the short ‘aftercast’ after an attack, so just make sure you’ve landed your backstab by the time that aftercast is over. In Phase 1, that ideally means during the scream and ‘after’ the kick (providing you can evade through Lupi early enough). In Phase 2, that ideally means after you’ve avoided the swipe, or after his phase 2 frenzied blast.

Purple Miku.7032:

…do you mean just blinking up from the bottom?

Correct. Blinking up from the bottom is apparently an awful “exploit” worthy of rage and blocking.

Had a pug rage from a fractal 29 today. It was on the Reactor fractal. We portaled to the center switch at the start. Their final two lines of chat were:

“ah, you mean stupid exploit instead of running the instance correctly”
“gl”

After that, they apparently blocked us.

Sagittario.8102:

That sounds really cool and I’d love to come, but I am not available this Sunday. Are you planning to run this the next Sunday as well?

If there’s a good turnout, definitely. Even if I don’t, feel free to whisper me in game or send a mail message and we can definitely work out a time to do some Arah!

InfernoHero.5687:

The problem is that ALL you care about is DPS. You should care about Control, healing/support, and DPS equally.

Support comes from traits and skills. Useful support is stuff that prevents your team from taking damage or suffering from control effects. The best ways to prevent your team from taking damage is active defense, and another good way is killing things faster. Notice how non-DPS gear is no more effective here, except it takes longer to kill things, meaning you have less support per time. DPS gear is better at support than other gear.

Control effects do not scale with gear. Again, we’re talking traits and skills. If you reduce the fight time, control effects can be maintained on foes for a longer percentage of the fight. DPS gear leads to stronger control than non-DPS gear.

Healing (other than the mandatory heal skill on your bar) is rather useless in PvE outside a few specific instances where your group might dip below 90% health due to conditions, losing the scholar bonus. If you kill things quickly, you don’t need to waste time healing that could be spent killing. And of course, most healing scales very poorly with healing power, and all healing cannot come CLOSE to compensating for unmitigated damage that mobs put out. It’s much more effective to just not take damage because you’re using control/support/damage to end encounters quickly while taking practically zero damage.

If your goal in this game is to play efficiently, DPS is your primary concern. In this game, and every other game, even those with the trinity, your goal is to complete things as quickly as possible. In other games, you bring healers and such only because they are needed to complete the content; you bring the minimum amount of healers you need, and you don’t bring any healers if you don’t need them. Support, control, and healing are only useful in as much as they allow you to efficiently complete content. They support your DPS, which is why they’re good in this game, and every other game, including those that have the trinity system.

Your problem here is that you apparently don’t understand how this game works, or even how every other game with dedicated tanks/support/healers/dps works.