Guild Wars 2

Potential issues include overheating, loose cables, failing PSU or driver problems.

Open up your case and dust everything off, best using canned air. Reattach all cables and connections – gently but firmly.
How old is your rig? Is there any possibility that your thermal paste has dried up or something fried due to overheating on the way? What are your system specs?

Your PSU might be not enough or dying.

Have you recently installed any updates to system or graphics?

Basically… not enough data.

I had a similar issue – please try things i did first, then fiddle a bit with your router settings. It’s unlikely the issue is server-side.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Continuous-connection-errors/first#post4705064

RAM is most likely the issue – or perhaps even the PSU if it’s not delivering enough power.
It does sound like overheating, too, though – double-check temperatures using more means if possible.

I had similar issues and managed to resolve them on my own some time ago. Please refer to https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Continuous-connection-errors/
Other than that, ensure your connection is ok – it’s highly unlikely the issue is on server side alone. It might be your router settings, ports being blocked, your computer hardware/software malfunctioning or just ISP having a bad period.
Despite doing everything as linked, i still couldn’t play reliably and had to move my router much closer to the PC – seems to have helped tremendously.

If the launcher works under safe mode as detailed by Healix, ask your friend to drop by a HijackThis! or similar log file with running processes.

While it’s most likely a Mac-related issue, have you tried opening TP-related ports on your router or even adding your machine to DMZ to test it out?

1. Deleted local.dat;
2. Run -repair;
3. Added -clientport 80 to the shortcut;
4. Flushed DNS;
5. Changed the internal static IP of my PC and forwarded all ports to that IP again.

Some(thing) of those seems to have worked.

Here’re my details using -diag command:
http://pastebin.com/EytL6sV0

Hi there.

I am able to log in once every five-six attempts. All the other times i am getting either a 7:1000:7006:462 error code or one starting with 42: (i will edit this bit once i catch the exact number).
Even if i manage to log into the game, my toon is lagging and the game is unplayable. The chat works fine, the Hero panel works fine, but any skill i click and any interaction takes about 15 seconds to activate.
It goes on for two-three minutes and then i get 7:11:3:191:101 error – the game disconnects back to the login screen or crashes completely.

I’ve been having this issue for the past two months, but i haven’t been playing actively; i wanted to log in tonight, buy a new character slot and introduce my better half to the game before we discuss getting her her own account, but the game won’t let us.

The game worked fine four months ago on this exact same configuration.

I am also unable to log into the forums on Chrome – when i enter my credentials, all i get is a blank page that can’t be reloaded.

My connection is not the best, but still decent enough – around 10Mb/s download, 2Mb/s upload. It happens to have some hiccups, but in general it works fine – i can play other online games and browse the web just fine, including streaming stuff both ways.
The machine is a 64-bit Win 7 on a fairly good rig and i’m pretty sure it’s not a hardware issue, especially that i haven’t changed anything in the configuration since late September and it worked fine until mid November.

Can you please investigate and advise a solution?

I’ve tried adding my machine to the DMZ but to no avail.
Also – can’t log into the forums via Chrome – getting white blank page after logging in, works fine under Waterfox.

Final week of the season.

Gunnar’s Hold is a server with a considerably turbulent history.

It started with a pre-release hand-picked PvX community of around 25 guilds, which decided they want to roll together on the same server come release. Besides that group, there were also guilds on GH that simply picked it without getting in touch with others from the get-go.
With a numerous and strong community, we quickly went to tier 2 and were really competitive on the top level of the early WvW. Those days did not last long, tho, as a number of guilds left the server, transfering to places with better morning coverage – the Achilles’ heel of GH.
Since then, we had been on a freefall from t2 to t8, almost falling into the t9 hell; had that happened, we would probably have never climbed back up.

It has taken a lot of work, coordination, discussion, and just your regular sweat and red eye to get Gunnar’s Hold to the place it is in now. The good thing about our history is that it made the stalwart GH regulars more bound together.
Even with a strong community based on die-hard GH homies, we are always welcoming friendly newcomers – be it guilds or individuals – so don’t be shy and say hi

PvE
GH has a strongly developed PvE side as well.
We are organising weekly Tequatl and Wurm runs. There are daily world boss farms at different hours, most prominent of which takes place right after the daily reset.
Irregular, open to everyone events are also seen around often, spanning thematically from long marches across PvE maps, to organising ourselves around the current Living Story update, to social get-togethers.

.
.
.
In conclusion – if you feel like joining GH, leave your past assumptions and problems behind and feel welcome to enter our community with a clean slate. Join our site to say hi to everyone. Don’t hesitate to contact me in case you had any more questions.
Gunnar’s Hold is a place many call home, and there is still plenty of room – for the moment.

I will do my best to keep the queue screenshots possibly up-to-date, but i do not expect them to change much.

style.6173:

Lord Kuru.3685:

PvP-wise, EoTM is an epic failure. I predict Anet will continues pushing in that direction anyway for WvW.

We need to stop referring to EotM as a WvW map. It is a PvE karma train map where you can kill players.

You, sir, described all of WvW right there, tho.

A better solution would be server consolidation.

Here’s a riddle about EU:
There are 7 German servers.
There are 5 French servers.
There is 1 Spanish server.
There are 14 international servers.
What way of server consolidation would make even remote sense?

Max – even if it is as you said, i can only applaud them, but also ask couldn’t have it been sneakily done earlier.

That actually would be a way to somewhat balance FGS – make fiery rush consume more charges if nothing is targeted. Wondering if what you described is a bug or something that accidentally leaked from test servers.

dual daggers, because cool

The game setting tends to differ whether we’re seeing it story-wise or gameplay-wise.
What we see in-game is what you described. But in the universum as it is, i suppose there are dozens of trained Lionsguard, the orders keep an eye on any threats to big towns, the asura gate system would allow the race capitals to reinforce LA – its existence helps maintain the status quo and is important to everyone, especially Jennah.
I’m actually surprised Scarlett seemingly hasn’t tried to hijack the asura gate system…

I refuse to enumerate ‘notable guilds’ as i will inevitably omit one or two and i don’t like any limited lists of that kind. I can invite you to take a look at http://www.gunnars-hold.eu/forums/13-Guilds-and-Recruitment to find that info.
RAGE and TEO, as functional guild tags, are gone though.

MM founder and leader here.

Dylan – if you tell me what does it mean to ‘take over a server’, i might actually consider it. Right now i’m afraid i have no idea what are you talking about, unless you’re simply seeing things in some MM folks providing some service to the community (be it maintaining the forums/TS, helping around Wurm attempts, providing tags for PvE and WvW stuff alike, and that kind of very shady evil plotting stuff).

The back story is that Dylan is an ex-MM member who was pointed out that arriving late to daily WvW raids because he’s busy in a dungeon is wrong and counterproductive to raid team building our raid leader is trying to achieve. He got kittenhurt over it, left, and has been attempting to troll at any opportunity (including putting a screenshot with a private whispered convo in his GH forum sig, and the like, which obviously isn’t right by any regular standards).
I would gladly kick from the guild and ban from the forums any of my guild members who’d be acting like him, be sure of that.

On the topic at hand
It’s worth noting that a number of GH guilds have disbanded or left recently, making some room even for primetime raiding guilds. Because of that, this thread is outdated – for now – and imho can be closed. It is, of course, disputable, but i heard rumours of no queues on last reset…

edit: Dylan’s post is gone – no idea if he deleted it himself or a moderator have; i was replying to a guy accusing my guild of ‘taking over the server’, and putting the whole issue in a wider perspective, but his original post ain’t no longer here. Nothing to see here, keep moving.

How to counter gigantic melee trains?

Spread out, wait out the initial stability and drop CC.
Don’t let them cleave / aoe you down.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

if WXP is obtained purely by time investment.. what in this game doesn’t also qualify as a purely a time investment?

getting to level 80? time investment
making/testing a build? time investment
attaining gear? time investment

tPvP.
Unless you consider ‘experience’, ‘battlefield awareness’, ‘understanding’ and all that just a ‘time investment’.

Depending on the machine and luck, you may get sucked into the loading screen right upon exiting the cinematic. Cheering before it even goes up is safer.

While there is a team fighting Warden V, the final warden, prepare /cheer in your chat.
As soon as you see big announcement across your screen that the fight was successful and a chain has been severed, hit enter and cheer.

Generally speaking, it has to be done between severing of the final chain and the victory cinematic. The window is short, but if you prepare it beforehand or can type it in a second, it’s easily doable.

Conversely, Liadri was faceroll easy with a condimancer prepared for some extra dodging and with nigh-maxed condi damage :p

As much potential as the marionette fight has, it is ruined by being poorly tuned for the game in which it resides. If they want to get people used to more difficult content, it should be done gradually, not by throwing people into the deep end and then watching as the few who know best how to swim hurl insults at the ones who are drowning.

I might be more on the hardcore side of the spectrum (as in – i do care about the mechanics and encounters, try to understand them, and try to manage my assets rather than just spam 1 and wait for stuff to die), but i do not consider the Marionette encounter to be ‘the deep end’. It’s fairly simple unless you’re trying to get the dodge achievements, which is absolutely optional. The fights in general and the lane defences are easy, are not dps races except for the fifth Warden, and do not rely on instagib mechanics except for the easily-visible bombs of the third Warden.

If someone is new and it’s their first time, just say so on /m. I would be more than happy to whisper someone or even party up and explain the bits, suggest which Warden to tackle, and provide tips on how to do it. I even ask people who’s new and would use a tip or two, but i never got a reply to that yet, be it on my home GH, on an overflow, or while guesting to three servers.

Please don’t get the criticism from this thread wrong.
It’s OK to make a mistake. It’s OK to get into trouble by some instagib mechanic you see for the first time – even if you read about it before attempting, it’s a whole different thing for some to read and actually experience stuff.
But it isn’t ok to just port in, click your skills, and think you’re gold. It’s not Farmville. It’s not ok to treat this encounter as your usual run-of-the-mill open map PvE thing. It’s not ok to simply ignore your dodges, bring no survival means, and wipe the floor with your fancy outfit all the time.

Yes, reviving when it’s safe is essential in this encounter.
Sometimes it’s not possible to revive without dying yourself, though.
And even if it is, remember that each time you go down you are keeping two – or more – people out of fight until you’re up again. It’s not only yourself that isn’t contributing for that time, as someone has to revive you, too.

Dead mage deals no damage.
If you can’t survive the warden fights with your melee full glass warrior, simply alter your build, even only as far as changing traits, getting a green rifle, and slotting more survival oriented utilities. Watch your dodge. It’s that simple.

e:
I never blame people for failing, or berate anyone, or flame on /m. People who do so and are being generally rude are actually often kicked from my guild, by my own hands, because it’s not the way and it serves nothing.
I have a handy copypasta prepared, briefly describing each Warden fight and giving tips what to do, always shouting it on /m before the respective Warden fight.

But it’s down to others to carry all that out. Some don’t even read. Some read but don’t understand, as it’s their first time – it’s OK. Then again, some simply roll melee into Warden 3, drop 100b or backstab or whatever melee they have, and go down in no time, because omg much dps.
In the end, at the most basic level, it’s all about the execution of the fight by a number of individuals. Teamplay is very limited, especially across platforms, and thus team responsibility is uncalled for. If you screw up, you go down – if you do it once throughout the fight and understand that if you’re about to go down, it’s best to figure a somewhat safe spot where others can easily revive you, it’s OK. But if you get downed three times in a row and make it impossible to revive you without dying in the process, it does become a clear issue on your side.

Keep in mind it’s really all theorising here. I am sure there are many people who simply made a mistake, and then six more people who made a mistake roughly at the same time, this way or another. But there also are completely clueless people who do not feel like they should put anything into the encounter from their end – people who simply join it and expect to facetank it, or get carried over, not paying attention to the chat, not using ranged weapons or slotting condition cleansing when /m states so, and so on.
Been there, seen that.

I can’t agree about the difficulty of the fights. I was asked by a guildie to complete the meta achievement for her on her behalf, as she’s recently moved and has no internet connection. Her best geared and prepared toon is a full glass mesmer. I don’t play mesmer, it’s the profession i am least familiar with even in theory, and being a full zerk didn’t help either. I still managed to complete the whole event multiple times to get some of the achievements, all without going down even once – after all, dodging is the same across all professions, and it’s the single resource and mechanic you need for pretty much anything PvE to survive.

Also, sometimes reviving people is a bad idea. Getting yourself killed while reviving eventually leads to two deaths. It’s a matter of careful estimation whether it’s safe(ish) to revive or not. I’ve seen three people rush to revive someone at the third Warden, only to wipe to a single bomb nearby, because ‘we must revive asap no matter what’. That attitude doesn’t work either.

Be reactive. Stay focused. Use your brain rather than ingrained schemata.
I do not mind the ‘all or none’ clause for succeeding the whole fight and getting the loot; i am strictly against only tying my personal achievements to other people’s performance, as they should be related to my own abilities and input (whether it’s ‘skill’, ‘grind’, or anything else).

The no-downed rule actually does make sense, is just poorly described.
Tying our achievements to the success of people on other platforms we can’t help is the design flaw here.

That said, i got my 1~4 achievements with no issues except for repeating them over and over until my lane succeeded to sever the respective chain. Mechanically, they’re really easy if you understand the fight and can dodge when needed rather than blindly spam it.

zenleto.6179:

leman.7682:

I had a bearbow who died in first 5 seconds after getting on platform.
The rest of the group rushed to rez him in a bomb and wiped in no time.

I was literally fighting a boss alone with 4 noobs on the ground.

The amount of kittenstorm I unleashed on them after the event was of biblical proportions.

So yeah, they get good, I get nice. This or Anet makes better events.

Warden 3? Its not hard to load into a bomb if it takes too long. Not much excuse for the ones that didn’t wait for the bombs to clear though. I bet they don’t do it again. Or hope, at least.

Every time i enter the portal, i do what i can to enter it prepared. On guardian, i pop aegis before hitting F to port. On other toons – if i can, i pop protection; whether i do or not, i frantically spam my dodge key while loading so that i have a chance to dodge something i couldn’t prepare myself for, be it some sort of AoE from the Marionette, a Warden’s attack, or a bomb.
It really isn’t that hard and it actually saved me two times.

Death is the ultimate state of negating any incoming damage, and eles are most privileged to it out of all professions.

…that is not dead which can eternal lie…
…and within strange seconds, eles quickly die…

Sorry to hear that, Heez. It might have been your typical bug, or you might have been downed throughout the fight – as experience shows, this also denies getting achievements, but it’s at least something on our end, even if not stated in the achievement descriptions.
Common bugs aside, what bugs me is the intended design behind those particular achievements, tying us to pretty much random people around (and i do not use that term derogatorily here).

I even have short descriptions of Warden fights along with tips how to approach them prepared for quick copypasta all the time. It still is a gamble – sometimes people read and react, sometimes they don’t; it still isn’t fair that your achievement depends on people whose outcome you can’t influence yourself.

The good:
I absolutely love the design of the fights and all the mechanics. The split is cool and becomes intuitive after the first run; the duration of ~25 min fits the encounter really well. There is enough margin for error to make some mistakes and still pull it through; it’s not a ‘run nigh perfectly or gtfo’ kind of fight. This actually boosts the morale and the sense of community – well done on balancing that out.
The fights are generally easy but each has a twist which makes you stay focused rather than just zerk your way through. Coincidentally, most people i’ve seen going down or just wiping during the warden fights are zerkers (and not just warriors) who are used to stacking in a corner and then dropping all dps on mobs to see them melt. It does not work against wardens. And it’s really nice – more content requiring focus and reactive gameplay with proper micro-management of player assets is what i hope to see over time.

The bad:
Tying dodge-related achievements to all platforms being successful is a huge miss. I can perform perfectly each time, avoid all attacks, never get downed; my platform may kill our warden in the alloted time – so myself and my team, aka everything i can influence, can do it just fine, meet all the requirements… and yet i am denied my achievement because people i cannot influence or help didn’t pull their weight.
I am not pointing fingers at players who die during the warden fights, nor am i blaming them for not getting my achievements. It is a matter of faulty design. My achievements should focus on my performance, along with some being rewarded for overall success or some kind of teamplay (even if in a zerg – at least something i’m a direct part of). The Gauntlet did it right.
As it is right now, if i’m unlucky enough, i may never get some of the dodge-related achievements, even if i master this piece of content and perform perfectly. This is inherently wrong, especially that i can neither form the team for my platform nor for other platforms (as i can for anything instanced), and i cannot influence the outcome of others platforms’ fights.
I would not suggest to make the fight instanced – being in the open world adds to it, and a lot. I would suggest to make this achievement dependant only on the performance of your platform instead of the whole lane. If you manage to avoid all Marionette hits and your platform team manages to destroy the regulator, you should get the achievement regardless of other platforms’ success or failure.

The ugly:
Precisely because of the above, people tend to point fingers and blame others for them denying their achievements. This is somewhat true only there, on the spot, but it’s the achievements’ design that is faulty, tying you to the performance of, well, random people around.
Some wrong design choices in an otherwise really entertaining and gripping encounter make the community show its ugly face. Even the loot rewards do not propel that much hate, for lack of a better word, as this bit; actually, the loot is pretty well balanced for the content’s difficulty and duration.

Manuhell.2759:

Well, now you know how people that bought the old digital deluxe upgrade felt when they added heroic edition items to new purchases of the digital deluxe upgrade.

Except i received the heroic stuff upon that update, myself being a digital deluxe pre-purchaser. A chest with shiny set of profane armour along with some boosters and bags arrived to me via in-game mail.

Most aoe works through walls. And floors.
What i’m saying is that perhaps turrets simply have bigger hitboxes than you’d expect (maybe even extending beyond their visible model – which is an oversight as well, if so), but i never noticed they reacted differently to aoe and melee.

Are you sure it works like that?
I’ve always thought the hitbox is the same, but melee attacks have cleaving, making them hit stuff in an arch in front of them, in about 150 range (rather than the indicated 130), whereas aoe skills usually show precise areas. But the hitboxes are the same.

Remember that any buff to aura is also an indirect buff to everyone else around who can get auras via combos. All those leaping warriors getting fire aura…

All that said though… it’s very important you actually try playing a Warrior and see what happens when you don’t run with Healing Signet, or you don’t run with 20 in Defense at a minimum, etc etc.

Same goes to people maining warriors – play all the other classes enough to have proper view of how it all is balanced within the whole system.
http://imgur.com/a/tIQL0
This war is pretty much only dungeons + PvP; i ‘main’ a guardian for FotM, i have Champion Genius and enough PvP experience with all toons (nearing 100 tourney wins on ele – yes, with the current meta), and play ele or necro in WvW.
Please drop the ‘play warrior and see it’s not OP’ argument. It is OP as kitten if you have enough experience with the game and all professions across the board to see it.

Damage mitigation is MUCH EASIER to pull off and allows you to keep up dps more consistently than ANY form of active defence. Simply because in the latter case, you need to DO something instead of dishing out damage, just to survive; in warrior’s case, all you need is banner up and kite around, while still dpsing this way or another, and if you’re about to die, you have the means to run away with most weapon sets.

Dodge is all you need for PvE, on any toon, as long as you can facetank a hit from time to time, aka don’t die to any stray hit from mobs/boss when your endurance is regenerating. It is often problematic to zerker eles who stack with their parties (and they need to stack as opposed to shooting at 1200 range, because boons and buffs), but a zerker warrior can facetank a hit once in a while and regen it up in no time, with no extra means of survival but just the signet and dodging/evading/blocking.

Increasing the necessity to spend adrenaline in all builds would also help making warriors more complex, introducing more micro play and careful resource management.

I’ve only recently started using the healing sig (couldn’t swap from mentality of actually using my healing skill, so went on with the adrenal one for a time), and i used to run some content naked just for the lulz (lv20something fotm, ac, cof, se, arah3).
Thing is – all you need is dodge, and dodge is all you need.
Wars get a free dodge on gs3 which can also be used while being immobilised; removing evasion effect from that skill would already be a major nerf and a properly balancing one. Regen and passive defences are only some extra boosters if you fail to manage your endurance properly; they extend the safe margin for errors, but they’re not really needed if you know the encounters.

Tone down warrior – kill synergy between dps+support+tankiness and/or buff other classes; buff mobs in PvE, just not by adding them more hp.

I would suggest buffing other professions AND monsters in PvE to balance it out, but it’s the longer and more complicated path. The quicker warrior nerfing is only a bandaid solution, as power creep is something unavoidable in MMOs; thing is, it should affect everything somewhat the same – all professions and the scripted content alike, to lead to the Diablo syndrome.
The banner condibunker warrior wrecks nearly anything 1v1 in PvP now, with barely any input on the warrior’s side, and is capable of surviving long enough in most 1v3 scenarios for allies to reinforce you or win elsewhere, yourself stalling enemies long enough to make it effective. The zerker war can dish out most consistent dps in long PvE boss fights, having not only strong bursts (not the strongest, still really nice) but also insane sustain, in terms of raw dps and survivability alike. The irony lies in that while doing either of those things, they also bring really strong party support, allowing others to dish out even more total damage or getting extra survivability for the whole team around the warrior.

Somehow forcing warriors to truly specialize into damage or survivability or support would be a good start, instead of allowing them run everything on a single build; buffing everything else to this level would also be ok, but only if coupled with serious improvements to AI and mob composition, aka pretty much full PvE rework.

I’ve been maining a war in pve and pvp for a while now. Having twelve lv80 toons and clocked several k hours total across all of them, i can quite reliably say wars are the most reliable and strongest from party perspective in anything PvE, and they have ridiculous builds available in PvP right now. A nerf is what warriors need.
In the meantime, though, i intend to make best use of the currently op class.

Damage of skills (effect) is tied to power, crit chance, crit damage (stats). Damage from conditions (effect) is tied to, well, condition damage (stat).
Boon/condition duration (effect) is directly derived from the skill (source) and the boon/condition duration statistic (stat).

There is a whole lot of effects not tied to anything but the source.

When you apply aegis, only the skill is taken into consideration (and, perhaps, some traits which enhance the effect, but they work as secondary source with a secondary effect that trigger on the skill usage). When you shout “Retreat!”, the duration of swiftness and aegis is based on your boon duration (stat), but the boon effects are static; it’s always 33% extra speed and one guaranteed block.
What if swiftness, in its flat form, increased speed by 10%, and then more after meeting certain stat criteria – with 30% boon duration, it would become 20%, with 50% boon duration – 33%? What if aegis wouldn’t provide a guaranteed block but a 50%-chance block without meeting a certain level of toughness?

Considering it further – what if chill power was based on condition damage? It would still stack in duration – do not misinterpret that part. But it currently reduces the speed and skill recharge by 66% regardless of your stats, based solely on the skill you use to apply chill; what if with base condition damage it was only 15%, then increasing as condition damage increases?

What if stuns and dazes in their duration and/or chance of landing were tied to a defensive stat? Or even to both vitality and toughness.

What if cc used by high-toughness toons removed more than one stack of defiance a time?

What if protection from someone running pure zerker build wasn’t 33% damage reduction, but 10% at most?

If blinds weren’t a sure cc unless you have some level of condition damage and/or toughness and/or vitality – but then, consequently, with high enough stats, they landed with up to 50% success on bosses with defiance?

This is mainly for PvE, but if carefully balanced – perhaps with reworking some stats and/or introducing a new one – it might be viable in both other formats as well.

I am not sure how good an idea it is myself, truth be told. It would allow zerkers to keep their high dps output but nerf their cc and buff potential, thus nerfing their survivability and boon uptime; it wouldn’t make tanky setups faster than well-played zerker groups, but considerably more useful. Free mixing of condition/toughness/zerker players would be more encouraged, albeit it would not be necessary to achieve any goal – full zerker teams would still be able to do stuff, as full tanky parties, and full condi parties, with all their respective (dis)advantages.
The meta would shift, favouring bringing one or two non-zerker people into the team, as the min/maxing would move from pure damage that can sustain itself via defensive and cc effects (not tied to anything, thus working with its full potential on zerker now) towards a kind of trinity – but it still would not be required, just as running 5man zerker is not required now to complete content (from the design perspective, that is).

On the other hand, it might make cc/boon-stacking teams even more effective than zerkers currently are. It certainly would require careful balancing within a big overhaul of the game mechanics, but if introduced in bits rather than one big update, it shouldn’t be that felt by the players and it would be monitored quite easily.
The planning and testing workload would be huge, though, and even then i am not sure if the final effect would be worth it, especially compared to other options of balancing things out.

Consider it just food for thought.
The effect-stat ties, like swiftness with boon duration at the beginning, are only raw examples to illustrate the idea, in no way suggested as be the way to go.

thefantasticg.3984:

icewyrm.5038:

True balance would require that every class has the same tools as the others, at best with a different animation, model, sound or particle effect..

Thats what I was everything. To have it 100% balanced every class would be exactly the same as the others.

I am aware of the obvious differences, but take a look at Starcraft – it was the first RTS to have very distinctive playable races, with a whole variety of different units, unit skills, mechanics, and all of that. Instead of just being a different flavour copied over and over (Dune 2, Warcraft 2, to vast degree C&C and its RA spin-offs), SC introduced true diversity in available playable options. It continued so in SC2.
It also happens to be one of the most balanced RTS games out there and one of the most – if not the most – important e-sport games.
As i said, i am aware of the differences in scale, game format, mechanics, projected goals, and all of that. But the SC example clearly shows that balance is achievable without going back into making everything the same or very similar.

Keep in mind, though, it does take some time to bring upon that balance. GW2 is still very young for an MMO, and a lot of its resources have been spent on living story and expanding the content rather than only balancing.

For the moment, my approach has been to slowly level up and prepare a character of every profession, getting some practice with several builds available for them (or, instead of having a zerker and a condi set on a necro, i have two necros, one serving as power, one as condition). As an effect, i do not have any legendary weapon despite having clocked over 3k hours since the headstart, i do not have WvW achis maxed out, nor rank 50 in PvP, but i had my share of fun learning all professions, with several of their playstyles; my current versatility also means i will welcome all and any balance news and metagame changes, and any status quo upsetting won’t upset me – if zerker is nerfed into the ground and conditions reign supreme in PvE, i will reroll onto my condimancer for dungeons; if a profession is made marginally useless in any format, i will set it for hibernation until it’s buffed in one patch or another.

I would certainly not like to see professions being ‘balanced’ so as to be virtually the same, with just minor flavour differences. It’s neither necessary nor healthy for the game, killing any diversity.

There’s one more mistake with those recipes, i think the endless Ventari tonic adds as endless Toy Soldier one, or vice versa.

infantrydiv.1620:

No one wants it. Yet they haven’t removed it.

It’s a hotjoin map.

Stick to speaking for yourself, kind sir.

There’s a whole lot of people who like that map – they simply have no reason to come to the forums creating dozens of threads ‘we love skyhammer’. It’s those who can’t adjust to the map who are creating threads upon threads how skyhammer sucks and should be removed.
Being more vocal entitles that ‘side’ to nothing.
The map is really nice, different than others, and plays out well if at least 2 people on your team understand splitting and can pull it.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just about spamming the hammer or fears/cc, either. People doing it are people who would spam whatever they are given on any other map, and who i am happy to drop with my d/d ele.

I would like ANet to introduce an Eternal Rallybot title.
For whatever.
I would grind for weeks just to get it and display across all my toons for the lulz.

On topic – chill a bit, master gamer, or you shall burn out. Some people would keep dying and being bad, and letting enemies get stacks off them or whatever, even without rally. Keep calm and carry on.