Guild Wars 2

They’re in Hoelbrak, in the Great Lodge.
Armor skins can be applied to any armor, but only once. After that, you’ll have to use Tranmutation Stones.
People tend to like Duelist Armor. Unfortunately for you, most medium armor is quite plain, although combining pants that usually come with a trenchcoat with upper body armor that isn’t a trenchcoat can lead to hilarious results. For example, Norn T1 cultural pants are mini shorts with thigh boots. Who knew the warrior race was into that.

Wow, thanks for the compliments. I’m actually a bit surprised how little my opinion on the matter has changed. Mesmers have some really nice utility skills, but most professions are very lacking in that respect.

Defiant is one of the worst things about GW2’s boss fights. It also prevents interrupts, making GW2 very unlike GW1 during boss battles. I wrote a long-ish post about it some time ago:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Support-in-GW2-PvE/first

There are different kinds of AA. Morphological filtering is supposedly pretty good, but it affects everything you see, including UI, so I wouldn’t recommend it. Guild Wars 2 uses FXAA by default. Unfortunately, FXAA is pretty bad and blurry. It’s so common only because it’s relatively fast. You can use another form of AA by using a shader injector like SweetFX. For example, I use SweetFX just for its SMAA.

In general, I’d advise not to use any Catalyst Control settings, if you don’t know what they do.

DarksunG.9537:

JustTrogdor.7892:

People often tend to ignore the fact that everything in the game can be bought with in game gold and technically costs you nothing but time playing a game.

People also often forget that SOMEONE has to buy the gems for you to trade for gold. You don’t BUY the gems from Anet with your gold. you trade with other players.
The game isn’t free & neither are the gems.

Actually, that’s not how it works. People buying gems with real money makes buying gems with gold cheaper and vice versa, but it’s not a direct exchange like EVE has. That’s why GW2 can’t run out of gems to buy with gold. So yes, you do buy gems from ANet with your gold.

DeWolfe.2174:

Before anyone say’s anything, there was only one gimmick as a Norn Ranger I could have tried. That is if my Elite wasn’t on cool down from using it in Pride Point.

FYI, Ranger’s Whirling Defense is great against karka.

Forestnator.6298:

Everyone can dodge last time I checked. For necro, he has multiple ways to blind enemies …

Blind makes a single attack miss. Guess how well it works with a barrage. As for dodging, you don’t always have the stamina for two dodges and dodging only once will get you killed when you’re facing several upscaled Young Karka.

The point isn’t that necros have no way whatsoever to beat Young Karka. It’s that the “challenge” these enemies pose is very gimmicky. It’s better than no challenge at all, but still not great.

The problem is that some classes can’t defend themselves against Young Karka well enough. A Warrior can use a shield or Endure Pain. A Mesmer can use a focus, Feedback or (GASP!) Mimic. What can a Necromancer use? He can’t reflect projectiles, can’t turn invincible, can’t block… His best bet is probably Wail of Doom, but it can be impossible to aim right if the enemies are too spread out.

If you make enemies that can only be countered by blocking all damage, make sure everyone can block all damage. Right now the classes that can’t deal with the Young Karka barrage are screwed.

Yes, it’s a shame. I was looking forward to a Cthulhu meta event, but we just got normal karka.

I think it’s a good idea, but they should rework the way difficulty scales. For example, instead of numeric scaling we could get a couple of difficulty levels, each with their own mechanics and hand-made adjustments. The main reason for this is that the game gets very gimmicky at high Fractal levels, with mobs doing so much damage they make many stats meaningless.

So, instead of simple and boring adjustements like “more hp” and “more damage” we could get more mobs, new special attacks, added conditions to old attacks, etc. It would require more work, but would make higher difficulties more fun and balanced.

That camp defense event seems bugged. I’ve encountered a horde of mobs while soloing it, too.

GuzziHero.2467:

And now I have mobs randomly appearing, making 2 attacks and disappearing…

Now this is something I’ve never seen.

I display Golden on my Mesmer, because it makes her a bit more fabulous. Other than that, I don’t really care enough to choose a title. Most of them don’t sound particularly cool, anyway.

If I had GWAMM, I’d display it, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) I only got to 30/50 in GW1.

Trans stones are one of the items you can easily buy with gold. 5 of them only cost 200 gems. They’re cheap enough and you won’t need that many.

So, one of the things ANet said back in the day is that they want you to play the game (watch your enemy’s moves, etc.) instead of playing the UI (watching your enemy’s HP bar, etc.). Right now, the way GW2 displays Conditions is directly against that philosophy. I think the whole system needs an overhaul.

First of all, the icons of conditions are really small and well, awful. Black on dark red is not a good combination, guys. I can barely see what’s what and have to constantly hover my mouse over those tiny icons just to see what Conditions my enemy has. In GW1, Conditions had much better icons and visual indicators not only next to your health bar, but also on it.

In addition to that, Conditions are centered under your enemy’s health bar. This is bad, because they’re constantly moving around. If they had fixed positions, figuring out if your enemy is on fire or not would be much easier. Theoretically, there are visual indicators like the “icy” effect of Frozen, but it’s hard to see them when you can barely see the enemy.

This is just one of the issues that plague condition builds. It’s really annoying and has to be fixed ASAP, especially because fixing it shouldn’t be that difficult. To a lesser degree, this is also a Boon-related issue, but you tend to know which boons you have and when.

Amurond.4590:

dekou.6012:

Some GW2 players are always at work. So what? If you missed something pretty insignificant because of your schedule, is it really worth complaining about? I’d rather have them spend time fixing real issues.

I missed it because I wasn’t born in America.

So did I. Do you really think devs should worry about every little detail when they do a patch like this? Should they spend time refunding laurels? It’s as ridiculous as the TP refunds you just mentioned. It’s a tiny issue and really not worth worrying about.

Missing a monthly would be a bigger issue, which is why they took it into consideration.

Some GW2 players are always at work. So what? If you missed something pretty insignificant because of your schedule, is it really worth complaining about? I’d rather have them spend time fixing real issues.

NO

I don’t want to get the best lvl 80 items only to realize they’re not the best anymore and get the best lvl 90 items, only to realize they’re not the best anymore and get the best lvl 100 items, etc.

Besides, bigger numbers don’t make a game more fun.

guala.3086:

I would say it will end fatal if you remove re-rushing waypoints.

They already removed them.

I haven’t done any dungeons post-patch yet, but maybe you simply can’t waypoint res while a party member is in combat?

The entire game seems to be going in a more “normal” direction. First we get gear that’s harder to get, now we get gimmicky achievements that are more like minigames or challenges. I suppose it’s nice we don’t have to carry garden gnomes around… yet.

To be fair, ANet did say GW2 will be more gear-focused than GW1, but making different builds and testing them was pretty much the whole point of GW1’s PvE and it’s gone down the drain in GW2.

I’m not even sure I’d buy an expansion pack at this point. This stuff is probably only going to get worse, until making a lvl 100 char with ful Godlike gear will take a year and winning a lottery.

D W.5179:

dekou.6012:

Having a set patching time would be the most “professional” and “clean” solution, but I don’t have a problem with the way things work right now.

The other side to a professional timeline includes setting proper expectations. They want to leave a window for themselves, which I support.
Just look at all the people complaining about the patch already and they haven’t even broken the expectations they set.. imagine now if they stated noon PST Jan 28th and then didn’t get to release the content until an hour later due to CDN issues or any number of last minute gotchas.

Exactly, which is why I used quotation marks. Any professional software developer knows that things are always late. Especially complicated things, like a patch of GW2.

Having a set patching time would be the most “professional” and “clean” solution, but I don’t have a problem with the way things work right now.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Astralporing.1957:

Now now, if you are trying to troll, do it better. There are some classes that just don’t work good with glass cannon builds.
I do agree that the divinity type stat sets are in general inferior to specialized ones, of course, but Berserker really is NOT the only valid approach.

I’m not trolling. I kick all non-Warriors from my party. Anyone not wearing full zerkers gear gets kicked. Greatsword or dual-axe only, or kick.

It’s the harsh truth, but any profession/build except for Berserker Warrior is inferior and therefore not viable.

Well, I guess it shows how little you know. Off-hand axe is the gimp of Warrior weapons. Its DPS is lower than that of MH axe’s auto-attack.

No, it’s not possible, unless you’re next to an obstacle and dodge towards it. However, you can dodge through your enemy if you want to stay in melee range.

I don’t think it would be game-breaking. Most of the time, moving somewhere is better, anyway.

xiv.7136:

The fact remains that D/D ele is much, much stronger than warriors or thieves.

If there is a nerf, which is very uncertain, it will most likely cover the boons. Perhaps attunement switching itself getting a longer cooldown.

The trait line reducing attunement cooldown closely resembles the warrior burst damage trait line.

Warriors used to get +30% burst damage on that line, now it’s 3% at max.

Maybe attunement switching will go from 60% cd reduction to 6%.

That would also nerf every other ele build.

Yep, the main idea is to make speed runs not the only desirable option, although I do think this sort of thing is fun otherwise, too.

Background info:

I’m a pretty big fan of Devil May Cry. In DMC, every time you complete a mission, your performance is evaluated and you’re given a letter grade from D (lowest) to S (highest). This grade is based on many things, including the number of monsters you killed, how much damage you took, how fast and “stylish” you were, etc. The higher your rank, the more XP you get for that mission.

Afterwards, I’ve seen similar systems used in many games, ranging from shooters to RPGs. I – and many others, it seems – like them because they reward good play both with a pat on the back and with more practical rewards.

How would a system like this benefit GW2?

Right now, the only thing that matters is that you get through a dungeon. Yes, you lose money by dieing, but other than that running through the place as fast as possible is the best idea. I don’t like that.

A ranking system similar to the one used in DMC would encourage good tactics and clearing trash while discouraging waypoint zerging and skipping trash. At the same time, it wouldn’t affect speed runs at all, because speed running would still get you the same stuff. On the other hand, completing the mission “properly” and exploring the dungeon would also reward you with a higher rank and, as a result, better reward. You’d still have to complete the dungeon, so players wouldn’t be able to farm this system.

Also, players like ranks, medals and achievements. Completing all explorable modes of a dungeon with X rank or better could give an achievement and you could even give players that achieved the best possible rank in all dungeon paths a special reward, like a title or maybe even a unique item. Of course, getting that best rank should be very, very hard.

So, how exactly would this system work?

GW2 isn’t an action game and has a more social focus, so I’d go for something like this:

1) Mobs killed
2) Optional objectives (like Kholer) completed
3) Times downed or dead
4) Final boss killed in less than n seconds

It’s a pretty traditional system, but gives people time to socialize as much as they want outside of the final fight.

Note that, while typically these systems involve huge C-C-COMBO!!! messages and colorful letters, something more subtle could be used in GW2.

So, what would you think if GW2 gave your group a rank based on how “well” you played through a dungeon?

Oops, I tried deleting the topic and moving it to Suggestions, but apparently you can only delete the OP?

In pre-release interviews they said they want to increase the level cap in expansion packs.

IMO the most notable problem is that conditions don’t damage structures. ANet should

1) make respecs easier or
2) allow conditions to damage structures or
3) modify structure-focused areas so that they stop being structure-focused

A good example of this problem is AC and its burrows. One path is full of them and a condition character is useless there, especially because those parts focus on bursting the burrows down. Being a bit less powerful in some spots of a dungeon is ok, but not to this degree. Similarly, any “quest” that includes destroying structures is outright painful on my condition necro.

Also, wooden carts don’t burn.

I’d bet on a random MW/Rare/Exotic/Ascended item. The whole thing is subject to change, of course, but because the box couldn’t contain several good items for that price, it must be a single item. A single item must be random. So, it must be a lottery. Or the dyes are overpriced.

I’ve seen well-done lotteries, too. In Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer for example. However, the thing with ME3’s multiplayer is that you always get an item of certain quality from the box (like “this box contains one rare item and four other items”), so it feels like a random reward generator instead of a lottery.

And yes, if we’re right, the boxes will suck.

cesmode.4257:

WvW:
2. Does guesting cost anything?

Assuming guesting is still the same feature they hyped pre-release, it’s just a free way to visit another server’s PvE areas and play with your friends. The difference between guesting on a server and transferring there is that a guest has to go back to his own server for WvW.

Assuming those tokens are based on achievement points and not specific achievements, compensating people for the ones they already have shouldn’t be that hard.

It’s a nice blog and promises a lot of good stuff, although those promises are mostly the same we got before launch, so… well, let’s hope we’ll not get another set of Fractals-like improvements.

My main gripe with Ascended gear is that the grind required to get one piece will pretty much make sure you’ll never play around with builds. Want to turn your maxed Power warrior into a maxed Condition Damage warrior? Sure, just get 300 ectos and 1500 t6 mats!

GW1 was all about build-making and experimentation, but now it looks like you’ll be locked into a single build type in GW2. I don’t see a way out of this situation without a radical change to the way gear works in PvE.

Confusion deals damage each time a mob attacks, so if they attacked three times faster it would be three times as damaging. Adjusting the attack speed of all mobs is probably a very time-consuming operation, though.

What I don’t understand is why they were made to attack this slow in the first place. To buff Aegis and dodging? Using those on auto-attacks is a bad idea, anyway.

3. Aurora Glade
2. Gate of Madness
1. Assault of the Stronghold

Assault on the Stronghold could be awesome with GW2’s improved siege mechanics. It’s also quite important story wise.

Depends on how fast your Internet connection is.

It already does more damage in PvE. Right now, the problem is that WvW uses PvE versions of skills, so making Confusion powerful enough to be competitive as a build’s main focus in PvE would make it OP in WvW.

Simply making it so mobs auto-attack faster and lowering their damage per strike would be a good solution. Their current attack speed makes no sense.

All stackable conditions are capped at 25 stacks. In some cases, that works quite well, but in Bleeding’s case it doesn’t.

IIRC, the devs said Orr would be a bit like WvW in PvE, but we all know what happened to that.

If Orr was like this, it would be a unique and fun endgame experience.

You only need one Sigil of Bloodlust. They’re expensive, yes, but not out of reach.

Runes of Divinity can be very expensive, but they’re not really required for any build to work.

I don’t think it’s a problem.

First question: no idea.

Second question: A

Third question: B

At least that’s how I think it works.

IMO there should be an option to center the cursor after rotating the camera. That way, you’d always know where it is.

Toxyn.9608:

1. No
2. Yes

A combination of 3. and 4. seem to be the issue. Boss fights are more interesting when major abilities can, or must, be countered with the use of CC interrupts. With Defiant, however, it is difficult to plan for this. Not impossible, especially with a built group using voice chat, but difficult. Difficult to the point that as long as Defiant exists, most pick-up groups would not be able to handle these abilities. That is where the issue lies, in my opinion.

It’s also annoying because many professions have Defiant-causing abilities in their DPS “rotation”. For example, my Warrior uses Shield Bash quite often to combo. If our group is trying to keep a boss clean from Defiant, I can’t use that ability while the boss is targeted.

However, I think these issue are more annoying in the open world content. I honestly can’t remember a single open world boss that wasn’t about avoiding red circles and smacking as hard as possible. They’re the ones who could really use a casting progress bar, because noticing their tells is impossible in the middle of a highly populated DE.

In this thread, I’ll be making lots of comparisons between GW1 and GW2. This isn’t because I want GW2 to be like GW1 (we all know that’s impossible), but because I think GW2 took some concepts from GW1 without putting them to good use. What I want to talk about is GW2’s lack of interesting support/crowd control skills.

GW1 players are familiar with skills like

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ward_Against_Foes
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Clumsiness
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ineptitude
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Weapon_of_Warding
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Cry_of_Frustration
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blackout
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Broad_Head_Arrow

or even

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Animate_Bone_Minions

GW1 didn’t have real tanks, either. Some groups put a tanky character in front and hoped for enemies to target him, but generally you avoided damage by using a mix of crowd control skills and protective buffs. GW2 has some protective buffs, too, such as Aegis and Protection, but they are… well, boring, somehow. Aegis can be a life-saver sometimes, but those times are few and far between, especially because many special abilities flurry.

The Defiant effect is one of the problems. I know why it’s there, but there should be a better way to handle CC skills. Bosses should be able to survive CC spikes because they’re badpuppies and have a nasty team of minions, not because of an arbitrary immunity. Give them blocking skills, dodges, companions with CC, etc. Let them be smart instead of stupid AoE spammers.

Removal of interrupts as a skill type is a problem when combined with Defiant. GW2 clearly has some interrupt-like skills (such as Magic Bullet, Diversion and Headshot), but they’re technically dazes and stuns. As such, they’re affected by Defiant and practically useless against bosses. In GW1, a good interrupter could keep a boss from using its most powerful abilities quite well. That was fun and unique. In GW2, the only reliable way to interact with a boss is bashing its skull in, especially in open world events, where Defiant stays off for a whole second if you’re lucky. It feels like a step backwards.

Moving on, auto-attacking and spammable skills are too important in GW2 IMO. Well-timed, unique utility skills like Clumsiness should play a bigger role. Mobs should have “casting bars” or vastly improved tells for the players to identify those skills easily and be able to prevent them. I know you can dodge, but you can only dodge offensive skills (unless you’re fighting a Mesmer), so it’s not a good enough solution to everything.

In comparison, GW1 was too reactive. In end-game PvE, you just had to put some hexes on a mob and watch it kill itself. GW2 is too proactive. The only notable form of punishment (Confusion) sucks, you can’t effectively prevent bosses from doing their thing and PvE feels like a game of “whack it until it dies”.

It’s a whole bunch of issues that make GW2 a bit lacking when it comes to tactics and variety. Not because it’s not a Trinity game, but because it has too few interesting utility skills for both players and monsters. Skills like Feedback. Skills that have unique consequences instead of simply applying condition X for Y seconds with a Y*10s recharge. Of course, “normal” skills are needed, too, but having too many of them makes combat boring and simplistic.

So, in your opinion…
….am I just having a L2P issue and don’t understand PvE well enough?
…are GW2’s crowd control and support skills varied enough?
…does Defiant work well?
…should unique monster skills and interrupting them play a bigger role in PvE?

Vendris.4201:

Running a simple greatsword build with healing signet,

That’s the “problem”. Healing Signet is a bit OP in the beginning, as I don’t think its regen scales properly. When my warrior was lvl 20 or so, she could kill a veteran mob without dodging or taking noticeable damage due to how much her signet regened. At lvl 80, that regen is barely noticeable, at least without heavy Healing Power investment.

In general, I don’t think my lvl 80 warrior is more powerful than my lvl 80 mesmer. Warrior has better AoE damage, but is much worse escape wise. If you screw up as a mesmer, you’ve got a thousand ways to escape, while a warrior who screwed up can just dash away and hope for the best.

The one thing builds like this are missing compared to GS builds is mobility. Of course, you don’t need as much mobility when you’ve got dazes and KDs, but still, sometimes KDs don’t help.

That’s why I use axe+mace instead of hammer. At least with those weapons, only one of your skills is poor when your opponent is immune to KDs and stuns.

Zaxares.5419:

Actually, on a related note, there was one occasion where somebody suddenly appeared in the LA Bank and immediately died. Out of instinct I started ressing them (as did a few other players), but then the player vanished (unsure whether they waypointed or just logged out). I sometimes see other players just mysteriously appear dead near me, but I always thought it was a combination of people falling to their deaths from above and culling. The death in the Bank though, I can’t figure out how it happened.

Somebody said in chat that the person who died in the Bank and then vanished had to be a bot using a teleport hack, and not to res people who died in similar manners, but I’d like to gather more information about it if I can.

It’s not a hacker. If you die in WvW and relog, you reappear as a corpse in LA.

We really need more sound options for things like this. I’m hesitant to make a shouts warrior just because I’d want to kill myself after hearing FGJ 50 times in a row.

I’m pretty sure their health reset normally last time I wiped on them. That was a very long time ago, probably less than a week after this game came out.

Seraiea.1298:

math

Oh no, I meant a failure on my part. I know how percentages work. I’m actually quite amazed I could even make that mistake. You’d think that a guy who can solve nonlinear differential equations wouldn’t fail at math that badly. So, uh, you didn’t have to write all that