Guild Wars 2

What leaderboards?

March 18th anet increases rank points gained in all of the gametypes, basically a scale changes. Do we expect any reset? Because it would be perfectly fair.

I think it’s easier to understand that if you want to do maximum amount of damage you should invest in maximum-amount-of-damage gear than to tweak your gear all the time because of meta changes or simple retrait like in case of guardian builds (fotm, dungs). Do you really want to constantly farm ascended gear? That’s lame.

Lalangamena.3694:

also: I am aware that 10 seconds frozen will be OP for PVP. so lets just split skills for PVE because 2 seconds effect on 40 seconds cooldown is a SAD joke.

It already is 10 seconds, 5 pulses applying 2s chill each.

ThiBash.5634:

There’s a few combinations that could result in massive chill spam. GoEP, arcane builds and of course Frost Bow come to mind.

ArcanePower+FieryGreatSword+GoEP=potential for disaster?

Can’t make pvp meta any worse anyway.

Goes on the pvp forums, complains about cc spam, bunker meta and condies spam.
Goes on the pve forums, complains about a lack of cc spam, a lack of bunker meta and a lack of condies spam.

Dual.8953:

Two reasons.
1) We’re aiming to make a variety of specs desirable, as power is already highly valued, it doesn’t need anything extra.
2) If you read the control page on the wiki, it states that control was born of breaking the tank role down to it’s most fundamental elements. The ability to divert enemies from attacking the rest of the party.

Toughness is already too strong, obligatory in 2/3 of game modes. It doesn’t need to increase one more thing. And even if so, why not vitality? Or maybe let new ferocity increase endurance regeneration (of course after decreasing base level)? Precision increase moving speed?

Plus, controls do not divert enemies, they stop them.

Dual.8953:

Like change healing power to boon power, and make is so base boon effects signicantly weaker, and make control duration scale with something like toughness?
Of course depending on this is handled, it could outright nuke the current dungeon meta, but in a meta where only one spec stands far beyond the others in terms of potential, is it really a bad thing to enforce the concept of giving up something to specialize in something?

Why toughness? It’s completely irrational, it should be power instead. After all, if you are stronger, you should launch your enemies further or stun/daze them for longer amount of time. If you are increase your toughness and hit like a wet noodle your controls should suck.

Romo.3709:

Nobody would bother a chance of getting fractals they dislike for extra 20-30 silvers.

So is it better to force people to play content they dislike for nothing more? I mean, I hate being forced to play content like world bosses with those fluffy zergs. There are bad fractals as well.

Romo.3709:

Because you’re forcing speedclearing on everyone. What I’m trying to do is give an ability to speed clearers to do their level by possibly giving us an option to choose 1st fractal, while rest remain the same with Tier system being scrapped away. That way you can have your challenge vs time, without completely destroying randomness.

What you’re suggesting is we choose every fractal or have an option to do it randomly. Who would want to do it randomly? If given an option, I’d never do certain levels again. Because why? For fun? Fractals were random for way over a year now. Why destroy it? For sake of that 10% of players that want to do speed clearing? I’m trying to have an option for you along with fractals remaining the same.

If given an option, you’ll always go for easier path. Unless you want to challenge yourself. Random nature of fractals is how we learned to play them. It was the big thing about fractals. Because frankly I can make more gold doing dungeons over and over again. But I want to have that excitement and unknown in the mix.

Taking down the tier system and allowing us to choose first fractal would keep fractals fresh by never knowing what’s next and at the same time give an ability to speed clearers to do their thing on any level they please. It would also benefit younger fractalers to learn each and every level with a guide.

Try not to force a certain way to do things, but create a way for both parties to be happy with the outcome.

Casual players like you and me will play fun and new randomized fotm and after few runs or maybe a bit more, we’ll get bored and only those speedrunners stay. You said it yourself, players after some time play strictly for reward so why forcing randomization on that?

What stops you from running utility centered specs? Random pugs?

Enokitake.1742:

Not in fast clears they’re not.

People from speed clearing guilds like rT and DnT tells you otherwise right in this thread.

Enokitake.1742:

Edea liae says hi.

Control builds aren’t useful due to “IMMUNE”/defiance, which is terrible and has needed a redesign since forever. To quote someone else, “The only really viable CC in GW2 dungeons is death”, aka zerker.

Non-zerker Support builds (Basically support builds that are not: zerker reflect aegis guardians, zerker blind field stealth theifs, zerk banner+offensive shout warriors, zerk timewarp reflect glamour mantra mesmers, etc) aren’t useful, you kill too slow, and mobs do too much damage. Or, defensive supports don’t scale enough in PVE from traits or base stats to be useful.

Tank builds aren’t viable since aggro swaps often , and toughness is super unreliable for aggro draws. Plus, bosses do so much damage in dungeons like arah, CoE, aether path, and fractals 50, they’d just 2 shot instead of 1 shot if you were wearing that gear anyway. Plus, Dodge and a party that’s not terrible makes bunker tanks unneeded. Plus, zerker gaurdians/warriors are such great DPS there’s no reason to bring them on full support/bunker in dungeons.

This leaves straight DPS, aka zerker.

Anet needs to make Control/Defensive Support viable in tough PVE if you want build diversity.

They are already viable and being used.

Did anyone read prelaunch blogs from anet? Anet doesn’t like reactive damage reduction and we’re thankful for it. Please read the following quotes (or even better, whole articles/interviews)

http://amd-icbm.com/icbm/eric-flannum-talks-about-death-and-healing/

gamona: There is no dedicated healing class in Guild Wars 2 which makes combat unlike other MMORPGs where you have a tank, a healer and damage dealer. Maybe you can tell us how a combat situation will/can work out in Guild Wars 2?

Eric Flannum: I can give you an example of an epic boss battle we had just a few nights ago. We were testing a dungeon which is normally supposed to be challenging for a full party of five. Well, we had an odd number of people testing and were left with only three people. Two warriors and an as yet unnamed ranged profession. I was one of the warriors and was specced out for ranged damage and was carrying a longbow and rifle. The other warrior was more of a traditional warrior with lots of health and specced for mace and shield. Our ranged companion was specced for ranged damage with a little bit of control.

We fought our way into the dungeon fairly well until we got into a fight with 5 boss golems each of whom uses a different type of elemental beam weapon. We were clearly overmatched but pressed on, determined to take some of them with us. Our more tankish warrior would call out targets and our ranged friend would immobilize them while I inflicted as much aoe damage as possible. If one of the warrior went down we’d use the downed skill “Retreat!” to give a speed buff to the others which would further enable them to kite the golems away so we could revive our fallen companion. A few times during the fight the other warrior would also use a downed skill called Vengeance which allows the warrior to get up and act normally for a short period of time before going straight to “defeated.” He’d use this skill to rez a friend or lead the golems away for a short period of time while the others healed. We defeated this encounter with no healer and nobody even playing one of the more support oriented professions in the game. We subsisted solely on self heals, solid tactics, and a little bit of luck.

http://amd-icbm.com/icbm/anet-blog-whats-your-style-jon-peters-talks-about-combat/

Healing Skill slot
“Everyone has a dedicated slot on their skill bar where they must place a healing skill. These vary greatly and are an intimate part of the Guild Wars 2 build-making process, but ultimately they are your most efficient and reliable way to sustain yourself in battle. Why did we do this? Because we think it is a more interesting way to create sustained encounters for solo players AND groups while keeping players focused on themselves and their surroundings.”

No allied targeting
“This is one of the big ones. There are no skills that specifically target allies. Everything must be done using positioning, ground targeting or other unconventional methods. This keeps every profession focused on their allies in the world, which adds a tactical complexity to the combat. Instead of watching red bars, we want you to watch your allies in the world. Making sure you are dropping ground-targeted spells effectively and moving into position to block attacks on allies is how we want players to defend each other.”

Summary
“We’ve said this a few times in a few places but I can’t reiterate it enough: We built this game so that they professions act as play styles, not as roles. Each profession can support, control, and do damage. We believe that this creates more dynamic combat and more distinct professions because there are more play styles than roles.”

“One of the best ways to explain this is with an analogy. In a first person shooter there can be a variety of weapons, from sniper rifles to rocket launchers to machine guns and shotguns. No one looks at these weapons and says, “They’re all the same, they all just do DPS.” Why should an MMO be any different?”

Hopefully, that should help you understand the difference between gw2 and other mmos.

Dee Jay.2460:

Hardcore dungeon runners typically run full Beserker Guardians as well, with the odd support skill and Aegis to give a little wiggle-room for errors to occur.

And Berserker Guardians deal some impressive damage and Binding Blade is great for bunching up mobs and cleaving them down.

There is no such thing as a hardcore gamer in gw2, there are only casuals.

Dual.8953:

1) Glass Cannoning is supposed to be high risk, high reward. The fact that most parties run full zerk, to the point that you’re seen as a burden for not following suit, suggests that the risk factor isn’t there. Increasing the difficulty will do wonders, it’ll increase the importance of support, in increasing the difficulty they could rework control’s effectiveness, and if they make it harder to melee burn mobs down, ranged will become valuable again. To make things more clear, Zerker parties would still be possible, it’d just require much more skill to run one without wiping. Ideally most parties will consist of 1-3 dps and 2 other specs to support them

That’s the current situation, players support each others. There is no dedicated support aka healing bot you seem to want.

Dee Jay.2460:

It wasn’t until maybe 6-8 months ago that people realized DPS is all that matters and the meta evolved.

Except it’s not what they realized. If it was true, why would anyone ever take a guardian? There are better offensive professions.

Unintended mechanics are for instance blast finishers with evasive arcana, devs don’t design the content with one or two intended solutions, they design the content and give players choice while fixing unintended solutions like laying dead in the dredge cage. Obviously, there are much more unintended tactics that they would have wanted.

LoneWolfie.1852:

And empirical evidence from “common opinions” isn’t any better. Unless someone pulls numerical facts about how the thief has an overall mathematical advantage, I can only write L2P statements, because tourneys right now are not thief meta, but warriors winning tPvP.

I could say the same thing but I will indulge you. Bringing up tourneys is pointless in this game because it’s casual and anet balance dev said once that they had to balance the whole game based on all tiers of skill level.

Also, people complaining about thieves are better than you and me and they actually play those tourneys.

Pvp is not about duels. Check pvp forums to see common opinions on thieves.

LoneWolfie.1852:

Mainly because some guy stated “thieves glassy builds are the best in glass builds”, which is just as silly as saying “Bunker guardians are the best in bunking, better than other professions.”.

Thieves have good survivability only if the player is very skilled. The profession probably has one of the highest skill cap, and most players aren’t able to react properly to thieves burst damage + counter that skill cap, that is why you have so much complaints and gnashing of teeth.

At the highest competitive level, thieves aren’t really OP.

/end

PW is such a skillful build to play.

Conditions should be rather nerfed.

Several, not one.

Cleanses have recharge, toughness not.

Is there a food that increases power damage by 40% then?

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Can I get wrong answers for $500, Alex?

Dire gear is quite durable, yes, but it is lower damage than Soldier’s, which is the power equivalent. Condition builds need Precision badly to proc sigils and on-crit traits.

Even without Precision or Crit damage, Power has a multiplicative effect on damage due to the damage calculations ((weapon damage*power)+(power* skill coefficient)) Condition damage…doesn’t.

It’s (weapon strength) * power * (skill coefficient) / (defense+toughness) so I could say power damage is reduced by armour while condition damage is not.

Nike.2631:

When a system is designed with multiple currencies to require play in multiple areas/modes, rearranging things so one activity can net you all the currencies is pretty much defeating the point. It’d be easier to make everything drop Bloodstone Dust and set Vision Crystals to take 15 Bricks, eliminating Empyreal Shards and Dragonite ore entirely.

5-man instances (Dungeons & Fractals) give Empyreal Shards. I wouldn’t expect it to change. Large group activities give Dragonite. Maybe we’ll get Dragonite Ore if the 5+ player version of Fractals materializes .

“Playing” is a bit overrated word when it comes to getting dragonite. You could call it “leeching”, “autoattacking while being afk” or just “being afk while using an ember”. It’s trivial to get but it’s dull.

Nike.2631:

If you’re dead certain, that Berserker is not the best way to roll in high level fractals, then having leader boards based on speed clearing will NOT make it a strictly Berserker-based activity.

That was the argument raised against speed clearing as a metric. And I believe (like you) that Berserker WON’T be the singular solution to best-time runs.

I’m certain berserker is the best way for any pve content, it’s the highest dps set. But it’s more risky than others. The thing that should not and is not the singular solution is a team composition. Different fractals require different team compositions to be optimal.

Razor.6392:

Please link me to the part where they’re nerfing ele’s vigor. Unlike guardians and mesmers, eles have it on an adept trait and not a minor one (I actually wanna see if it’s true).

Anyways, can’t believe you compare me to the awful pvt noobs because I choose a healthy mix of damage and utility as opposed to 100% damage and 0 utility. I’ll remain versatile while you’ll just be a full dps guy. Why is that so wrong? Do you think that 4000-4200 attack (with might stacks) and 100% crit damage is perhaps low?

I’ve been against pvt and other people who refused to build berserker for the longest time, it’s kinda funny how the tables turn now… but whatever. Like I’ve said I always liked to bring utility even in moba games so if I had to choose between 8/10 damage and 6/10 utility or 10/10 damage and 3/10 utility… yup, the choice is simple.

Preview of december 10th update said that renewing stamina together with elemental attunement became master trait. Only because elementalist is in a bad spot in pvp that change was postponed and instead they moved arcane ressurection (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/December-10th-Elementalist-changes/first).

It doesn’t matter if they are minor or major, you cannot compare traits between classes. There are traits like incendiary powder and dhuumfire and guess which ones is going to be nerfed in the nearest balance patch. I can give you a hint, the one that’s already weaker in pvp and is a grandmaster one.

Typical guardians go deep into valor to get altruistic healing and use staff to give might stacks while healing people. They also bring up their attack value (which does absolutely nothing) and their critical damage. Exactly what you do, so I’m not sure why you were offended by that.

Gear is not the only part of your build, you could run full zerker gear with 0/0/30/30/10 as a guardian, claim you have more critical damage than meta zerker build, just 100-200 raw power less but much more utility and survivability. And all of that would be true or at least partially true.

Razor.6392:

I’m still waiting for 2 good traits, not minor ones. I don’t think the chance to trigger flame barrier or sunspot are better than lingering and arcane precision respectively, as mediocre as those can be.

The only conjures I use are FGS and ice bow. So there go the extra conjure charges.

Are eles also getting hit in the vigor dept? So far I’ve only read about guardians and mesmers. They have vigor on minor traits unlike ele.

So far no conclusive evidence as to why the infamous fire trait line is so superior. Even if it’s better I don’t think it would be more than a slight advantage. You can’t compare spell slinger, internal fire or any master trait to elemental attunement. Fire gets better at 25 points and higher but in my opinion it still doesn’t justify the lackluster adept and master traits, the worthless condition duration and the lack of everything in other trait lines.

Bottom line is, I prefer more survivability, group support and versatility than simply being a 1/2 hit damage bot with fury combo fields. I’m not gonna lie, I’d probably not be able to survive as a full glass cannon (I already run full zerk) with 0 healing, garbage condition removal, terrible attunement swap rate and very low boon duration.

Burning rage and sunspot are much better than lingering elements and arcane precision, there should be no discussion.

Elementalist will get hit by vigour nerfs, anet has already wanted to move vigour trait to master but because players said their survivability is already low anet abandoned that idea. Once they increase ele’s sustain it’s certain the vigour on crit trait will be nerfed. It’s the only class that still hasn’t been hit by recent nerfs to vigour.

I’m not sure where do you need condition removal in fractals, magnetic wave is more than enough. When I play it, it’s mostly about damage negation, not conditions. Besides, if you can’t survive with glass builds, maybe it’s time to go back to soldier’s, knight’s, or valkyrie’s gear.

Razor.6392:

I’ve read that already, and I facepalmed several times throughout. No one is denying that of course 30 in fire will do more damage in the long run, but to say the following:

" Offensive defense via the use of defensive conditions (chill, cripple, etc)" Yep, 1 extra second on conditions will save the day.
“Much greater group effect” TIL party fury > elemental attunement / healing ripple / diverse effects through EA / might stacks with huge uptime.
“Synergy everywhere” ok
“If we disregard unnecessary boons” …

That last statement proves that the guy is only in for the damage (and of course most of those are just placeholder reasons). And while that is fine it certainly isn’t my approach.

If I had to choose between superb damage / limited utility and great damage / great utility, I’d go for the latter.

Eles are the jack of all trades after all~

Anyway, different playstyles. I’d like to think that I bring more to the table than just extreme raw damage and some occasional fury fields. It’s not like I hit like a wet noodle with 100% crit dmg either…

Chill, cripple and immobilize actually save the day if you melee at max range which is trivial with daggers since they have increased range over other melee sets.

Nike.2631:

Which mobs? Because I know we’re not talking about the Krait, the cultists, the Sons of Svanir, jade shards, the Dredge…

I guess Bloomhunger has a pretty quick tempo.

Could be my baseline for players is skewed since I don’t roll Hammer or Greatsword all that often .

Make a video how you dodge all of the autoattacks of cultists, ascalonians, dredges, mossman, archdiviner and aetherblades. I’m not sure you are aware of that but you have 2 dodges every 20 seconds and you fight more than 1 of those mobs at the same time.

I really like to see you dodging those highly telegraphed 0.5 seconds autoattacks with easiness. After all, there’s no risk in going full glass cannon. Only thing you achieve with increasing attacks rate without vastly decreasing their damage is even less variety of professions. I have one simple rule, if the content is too hard for you, grab more guardians. Always works since guardians bring too much defense while having a lot of offense potential.

I’m not sure why do you want defensive stats to matter more. They already are strong enough and if you make them obligatory in pve how would that be different from playing classical trinity games?

Substantiate your claims with some kind of proof like a video.

I’ve always assumed 30 points in fire and I’m sure they’re better than lingering elements and arcane precision but to be sure check 2 of the 3 stickies. There, you should find a long explanation why they are so amazing.

One final note, when anet nerfs vigour on crit by 50% and you no longer be able to dodge just to trigger ea, what will you do?

Nike.2631:

Speed Running for recognition doesn’t make people wear Berserker.

The absence of danger that can’t be negated by rolling makes people wear Berserker.

Defensive stats in these game are rendered completely irrelevant by the ‘action gameplay’. Specifically, NPCs having an attack tempo that’s a fraction of the players’ tempo and having the majority of their threat presented as infrequent, wildly telegraphed gigantic hits that rarely ever land. Who needs Toughness when the hit will kill you outright if it connects? Who needs Vitality if it won’t give you margin for error when you miss a key dodge? Too often the only meaningful defense is dodge well and the only way to improve your chances of success doing that is to make the fight as short as possible, to reduce the number of times your dodging skills are checked. Over reliance on Dodge by the content designers has made Berserker the best defensive stat combo in the game.

Plenty of skilled delvers would tell you that they could ignore Agony Resistance too (another defensive stat…) if it weren’t for the occasions where you can’t dodge Agony.

Are you complaining about attack speed of mobs in Fractals CDI? Are you aware that majority of mobs in fractals attack almost as fast or just as fast as players?

I’m not sure how berserker’s gear is a defensive gear during fights with mossman or archdiviner when you go down after every single autoattack of them, unlike players with more tanky setups. Fights also don’t take 20 seconds but more like 2 minutes or more.

Saying toughness and vitality are worthless is a huge hyperbole. People are not machines and none of us can dodge with 100% reliability. I’m all for increasing difficulty level in dungeons but fractals mobs attack fast enough and this entire thread is dedicated strictly to fractals.

Yes, it’s 7k when you stack. In intended situations, when people don’t stack, it’s much less. Plus, you don’t go deep in fire for power stats, that’s just a bonus.

This conversation reminds of me conversations with people using ptv + ah + staff as guardians. It works but there’s absolutely no reason to use it, especially on scales below 40.

But you don’t have to dodge because of the distance.

Healing in pve is pretty much pointless unless you have some additional toughness. What does ~1400 heal give you?

Secondly, fresh air is very strong with dagger as its air autoattack is simply way above anything else (maybe except fireball but it’s just clunky to use in melee). Of course, with 30 arcana, attunement recharge is low enough to ignore fresh air but that’s actually fresh air advantage, that you don’t have to go deep in arcana. The benefit of fresh air in pve isn’t scepter single attacks but cleaving of autoattack.

Also, if you are a fan of EA, why won’t you play 0/30/0/10/30? I’m not sure why do you need 20 points in water. Condition removal?

If you want to run similar builds to pvp ones, consider this: do warriors use cleansing ire in pve? I played some pvp and I’m well aware of the differences of those modes.

Keyz, there’s no need to stack immobilize with magnetic grasp before the bubble phase as it is an unblockable attack.

Fire line offers much more than arcana. You don’t really need lingering elements, arcane precision and elemental attunement. 10 points in arcana should be the most you’d ever need.

I’m not sure why would you. This trait after removal of unintended blast finishers is quite weak in pve.

laokoko.7403:

I hope they can have unique fractal for each level bracket. For example remove dredge fractal from 1-40 bracket, and put it in the 40-49 bracket. And make dredge always the 4th fractal in that bracket.

When people reach the 50-59 bracket. Make a new fractal for the 4th fractal. And make it challenging.

It’ll give people a sense of progression. And people will have incentive to keep going up the bracket.

Also give unique token for each bracket. The higher level token can be trade in for unique skins, ascended armor etc.

Getting 10 more silvers for a guaranteed dredge shard instead of maw or molten duo? I don’t think anyone would ever do this tier without a severe revamp of rewards (2-3 better rewards than previous tiers) and the shard itself (clown car).

If you use a necro and he’s a typical condition damage dealer, tell him to chill (or even cripple) grubs near the shaman and then use epidemic. It should chill the shaman as well.

You can also spread conditions from shaman himself to the nearest grubs since epidemic is unblockable.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

MokahTGS.7850:

I also would like Fractals (and to a lesser extent, Dungeons) to evolve to allow for 2-5 player scaling. I know they are currently designed for 5 people, but I’d like to see the balance code reworked in such a way that 2 people could run through a fractal and be rewarded for that level scale. Obviously 5-man fractals would reward more, but I personally just want to run through them with my wife…currently that isn’t possible.

Call it “Casual-mode” for Fractals.

Personally I would like to see Fractals be able to be 5+ as well with associated risk/reward mechanics.

Chris

In guildwars, the more people you have, the easier the game becomes. Aoe cap for example severely limits content for 5+.

Dodge roll into fire trail? I didn’t think people still used evasive arcana. After all, blast finishers were unintended.

LordByron.8369:

I d want to see you pugging with a D/F ele would be so fun….but i ll never see you pugging at all..

I’d gladly pug. Getting heals from other party members always pleases me.

Engi + necro are scary. Seriously.

Glad to hear that. I’m always happy to help people, especially when it includes CC.

Anyway, I have done fractals numerous times at scale 80 without guardians and mesmers, instead I had a necro. I’m not sure how pugging at lower scales could ever be harder. At that scale grubs did 9k damage with their autoattacks (non crits) and had much more hp. Let’s not forget about more frequent glancing blows.

I can go melee without any non personal reflects. If you are unable to dodge arrows, stay in water attunement and attack from 600 range. You will do more damage than longbow warrior while having more utility.

Actually, grubs are the highest priority. A single mesmer can remove stacks by himself while slowing down the shaman considerably and using all of his reflects at the same time.

Lenor.8197:

Bow is amazing since the boss has a huge hitbox so almost all Ice Storm particles hit.

The boss has very small hitbox, human sized.

LordByron.8369:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hurl
Single target skill you are wrong…

It will remove 1 stack, you’re better off with autoattacking in water or spamming air skills (cancel autoattack after triggering one stack and start again). Besides, scepter is simply bad for that encounter, worse than staff and d/f.

The only thing anet admitted to is that this shard is too long, not that it is badly designed.

AoEs never removed a single stack and they do not now. Stacks are being removed upon skill activation while having the shaman targetted (even healing skills work).

That means scepter #2 in earth attunement is basically a waste of time.