Guild Wars 2

The solution really is: don’t use attacks that deal damage with multiple quick hits against people with lots of retaliation.

Like someone else said, you have more than one weapon set. It sounds like you’re basically angry because you can’t use the same exact tactic against every enemy.

Ah, then the search for these forums is just terrible because not a single thread came up for “refinement.”

I didn’t realize this worked differently before. How did it used to work?

I’m surprised I couldn’t find a thread about this trait. It’s useless. A lot of traits are, that’s not my issue with it. My issue is that it could be amazing (whereas a lot of useless traits simply couldn’t be amazing no matter what you do).

On paper, it sounds a lot like the Elementalist trait that casts a spell whenever you dodge (or even the one that casts a buff whenever you switch attunements). But the whole 20 second global cooldown destroys its usefulness. For instance, the Elixir Gun spell that leaves a trail of glue would be great as an escape tool except you would never be able to time it right without simply never using a kit until you need one of these spells. In that case, though, your kits stop being kits and start simply being the single spells that this trait causes them to cast. If you have more than one kit, this becomes doubly useless because now, to make use of the trait, you have multiple utility slots that can’t be used for their kit purposes because of they share a cooldown. We don’t even have to get into the fact that so many Engineers use Speedy Kits and would have to choose between swiftness and making use of one spell every 20 seconds.

Why not remove the cooldown? Or make the cooldown significantly shorter? Or give each kit its own (also shorter) cooldown? Could this really be overpowered? Maybe the Magnetic Bomb or the 2 auras would be a bit overpowered with no cooldown at all, but there must be a happy medium, because a 20 second global cooldown completely breaks this trait.

There are only two reasons I would support this:

1) Having to switch in and out of kits every 10 seconds gives me tendonitis.
2) My engineer is a Charr and I much prefer his 4-legged running animation, which is impossible to see with the Speedy Kits solution.

Honestly, I’d still go with Speedy Kits, though. I mostly play a Necro and, even though he has access to a 25% speed signet, I still prefer using a utility slot (Spectral Walk), a crappy offhand weapon (Warhorn), and boon duration just to have 100% uptime at 33% speed instead. I wouldn’t care if I was just running with zergs but if you want to run around solo, it’s nice knowing you can choose which fights to engage in when you see your enemies ahead of time. (You can still be caught with 25%.)

I’m just gonna say I do not care one iota for having a raid UI. I like Anet’s decision to keep the UI clear and simple and I like their decision to not allow modifications. Nothing is more annoying than being forced to install 10 addons to keep up with other players and being forced to have your screen covered with messages and icons. It’s fine the way it is.

As far as functionality, who needs a group anyway? I have never once joined a group in WvW, ever. Because it doesn’t matter. It may have been useful to have these things in games like WAR because you had targeted healing and whatnot. That doesn’t exist in this game. There’s practically no need to join a group unless you’re roaming with a couple people and need to work very tightly together.

As far as organizing across the map and being able to see people, I still don’t see the need. So you can’t spot people on the other side of the map with a glance, that just means you have to talk. I’d much prefer having to communicate over just automated organization because the former creates a skill ceiling where the latter doesn’t. The need for good communication is probably a big reason why some worlds do really well and others flop and it also keeps the game somewhat social.

That was more than I wanted to say actually. You don’t have to agree, but there’s definitely another side to this argument.

Ok, that makes more sense. I tried maxing out condition damage and traiting to make fear last as long as possible. I saw ~3 ticks at ~1000-1100. Still not very exciting but a lot better than 185. Alternatively, it seems like you’d get similar results just using Life Blast for burst or, hell, even my auto attack on staff was critting for ~700 without being traited for that at all. Not that anyone needs to defend their choice to focus on Fear, but I’m certainly not convinced that Terror is worth a dime. It seems like you have to create a build entirely focused on that one thing and then you get ~3000 damage over 3 seconds or so. (Without focusing on increasing the duration of Fear, I only saw 1 tick.) Do many people actually use this type of build?

So it ticks damage that you can’t actually see unless you pick it out of the flurry of numbers jumping out of your enemy? How do we have any idea how much damage it’s doing?

I also noticed it gives damage for Doom (~64) which doesn’t normally have a damage component at all. Is that how much it’s ticking for? Is that just a direct damage component that’s also added on top of a ticking damage component that I can’t see?

I know I’m displaying my ignorance but I have no idea why people like Terror. It gets mentioned constantly on these forums as some sort of burst damage for condition necros but I don’t understand how. I’ve tried out all sorts of things in the mists to figure out how to get damage out of this thing but the results are pathetic. At best, with a plethora of conditions on the heavy golem, I get ~185 damage out of Reaper’s Mark. I’ve checked the wiki and it suggests the damage should be something like 1,200 at level 80 with 1,600 condition damage, so why on Earth do I get 185 damage?

I kind of agree with most people here in that wells seem just fine. Granted, my experience is not extensive, but I have a lot of trouble putting together builds that aren’t just full of wells as they’re so useful. My only real complaint is that I can’t use them underwater. Seriously, what the hell do I choose instead? I end up putting spectral skills or signets in their place and feeling seriously kitten every time I dive in.

Maybe I’m confused about the purpose of wells, though. A lot is being said about support. I can see that for PvE. I basically stack up on wells and trait them whenever I go into a dungeon with people I’m not sure about. That said, it seems to keep everyone alive as is even when they’re playing foolishly.

But I look at them more from a roaming WvW perspective. In particular, Well of Corruption almost strikes me as a form of burst damage. I’ve dropped this on top of heavily buffed people and they’ve gone down incredibly fast.

Also, between Well of Power, Consume Conditions, and Death Shroud, I feel practically invulnerable to conditions. Again, my experience is not extensive and maybe my fondness is because I view wells as situational tools for my own purposes (rather than for supporting others), but they seem beyond fine. Maybe shorter cooldowns? I dunno.

Pizz.3698:

And who in his right mind would waste rune slots for a 6/6 centaur set!?

This is what I was thinking. Admittedly, I haven’t done much WvW, but when I have I’ve noticed many Mesmers just running at normal speed. I asked about speed in the WvW forums when I was choosing a class because I wanted something I could solo with and pretty much everyone listed the lack of speed for Mesmers as a huge problem. Even in when the centaur runes idea is brought up in the Mesmer forums, people immediately jump on it as a huge waste. Sure, every class has some way to gain swiftness but there seems to be a big difference between having to completely base your build off just having the ability to move fast and being able to just pick a trait or two for the same effect (as with Necros or Engineers).

FASTCAR.7831:

Played 20 years of MMOs starting with UO, Everquest and DAOC…and all the rest.
Played a necro on any game that let me.By far, this is the worst necro in any game…ever.

A bit of hyperbole in your title, perhaps? Did you seriously play a necro in DAoC specifically for RvR and then come to the conclusion that they’re “by far” better than necros in GW2? That, well, I don’t even know what to say… seriously? Necros were powerleveling bots in that game. Almost everything about them was broke for RvR. You couldn’t even ride in boats when NF came out for kitten’s sake!

Nightpath.7415:

Pathing? Wow…all pets in this game are bad. It’s a give and take situation…either they follow you down the hill, or decide to run around the walls on a sight-seeing tour de force while I’m having my anus stomped by some Norn warrior. I really love when the pets run ahead of me and aggro mobs. What in the hell is that?

I almost feel like it’s inappropriate to complain about pathing in MMOs at this point. Seriously, who here has ever played a pet class in any MMO ever that didn’t have glaring pathing issues that never get fixed no matter how long the game has been running? It’s to where I just assume that this particular mechanic is literally impossible to program effectively. I don’t know why; I’m not a programmer; that’s just how it is.

But I kinda liked your rant. I haven’t played my Necro enough to say I agree or disagree but at least your creative use of metaphors made it entertaining as opposed to the usual 12 year old whining style rants.

Nekroseth.5186:

I kind of summarized all the skills and realized, Mesmer has a lot more : Blink-teleport and get araund.

Opposed by Necromancer, who 100% lacks all mobility, besides spectral walk.

Necros actually have a lot more mobility. Spectral Walk combined with the Warhorn (and 2 traits) gives you permanent 33% swiftness. Otherwise, you can just use Signet of the Locust and have permanent 25% swiftness. True, Necros don’t have Blink or Portal, but Spectral Walk has a 2nd use that sends you back to the spot where you cast it from, which I’ve personally used to confuse the hell out of other players (although it might be limited for PvE). There are also traits that increase your movement speed while wielding daggers or while in Death Shroud. Mesmers have a similar trait for increased movement while illusions are out so I suppose that’s a bit of wash. But if you check the Mesmer forums, their lack of general movement speed is a big complaint, especially for WvW.

You kinda answered yourself with your other points. Sure, Mesmers have a lot of useful skills but so do Necros. Mesmers tend to complain about their lack of performance in PvE, too, if that’s telling of anything. They also don’t have very much in the way of survivability which Necros excel at. That’s not to say Necros are automatically better for you personally, though.

Does this stat do anything in Death Shroud? I had assumed power and precision had the same effects in Death Shroud as they did at any other time but then was told by someone that “all of the damage while in DS is power-based damage.” This seems… unlikely? That would mean it’s not possible to crit while in Death Shroud, wouldn’t it?

XiL.4318:

Vilar.2680:

Let me show some reason here:

NECROMANCERS DO NOT EXIST! neither does zombies and demons and all this kiten, this is just a fiction game and as such the authors have the liberty to create a world the way they kitten please!

So, if they create a class that play songs and talk to small animals and decide to call it “the hulk” its ok because this is what their hulk do!

This game is not suposed to have any correlation with the bible or any other game whatsoever (except GW1 of course).

If they post features in any advertisement (let alone as the bio on the main page of their website) they must provide those features else they are liable for civil penalties under United States Law.

And even Hulk has lawyers to smash yer bank accounts cause Hulk smash.

I truly hope you’re a troll and not just incredibly insane. Take a walk or something, I have a feeling you haven’t experienced fresh air in a while.

Orissa.1872:

I did some researches in 3 different dungeons:

Citadel of Flame:
Path 1 – average aggro
Path 2 – aggro from the final boss the most of time
Path 3 – aggro from the final boss a bit more often than other party members
I had rampager/weapon armor (all CoF runes) and cleric trinkets, using dual pistols (piercing shots), traits 0/30/30/10/0

Sorrow’s Embrace:
Path 1 – grabbing aggro from singularities almost all the time, golems in minefield are always pulling me first, final boss is focusing me all the time, unless I’m not attacking anymore
Path 2 – grabbing aggro from trash mobs the most of time, minor bosses tend to focus me a little more than the others, final golem bosses are targeting me over everyone else until I’m dying
Path 3 – same as above, on final boss stage the most of destroyers are chasing me, hard to take their aggro off me
I had rampager armor (3 CoF runes/3 SE runes) and cleric trinkets, dual pistols (piercing shots) and flamethrower, traits 0/30/30/10/0

Crucible of Eternity:
Path 2 – average aggro on trash mobs, subject alpha tends to imprison me in crystal more often than the others. The final boss (not counting 3rd subject fight) is poisoning and bleeding me much more than anyone else
I had rampager armor (3 CoF runes/3 SE runes) and cleric trinkets, dual pistols (piercing shots) and flamethrower through the first half of dungeon, traits 0/30/30/10/0

At least you’re being pretty specific here but this isn’t helpful if you guys really wanna figure out the aggro system. This might work a bit better:

Have a player, one that isn’t even involved in the dungeon, grab a couple stop watches. That player just watches the fights and starts and stops the stop watches whenever someone has aggro. They have to record how much time for each mob, not for whole encounters or whole dungeons, because we don’t know if the mechanics are the same for every mob. Then you run through the same exact dungeon in the same way again, recording the times again. Do this maybe 10-20 times (the more the better). At this point you probably have enough data to determine which class in the group pulls aggro on which mobs the most. But, this will not tell you anything about why.

The next step would be to go through the same exact process changing one variable (and only one) with whoever is getting the most aggro. The easiest would be a skill being used or a stat. This might also include changing general placement of that player (which would be difficult to be consistent with). Afterward, you’d have enough data to figure out if that particular variable made any difference in the level of aggro and on which mobs.

This is how you’d really get to the bottom of what’s going on. Until one of you decides to go through this, all you’re doing is tossing around subjective perceptions of what you think is going on. Even if you go into encounters with the idea of doing “research,” meaning you’re gonna pay extra attention to how much aggro you get, you have no measurements. It’s still a subjective impression from a test subject which is highly likely to be misleading.

Even at that, the only way you can label your discoveries as a problem is if you went through every single variable in this test (probably through hundreds of meticulously observed dungeon runs) and found that none of them changed the aggro level and that the engineer was always getting more aggro. Your conclusion at that point could be: “Engineers receive an inappropriate amount of aggro from all mobs based solely on the profession.” [Edit: Come to think of it. You still wouldn’t know if it’s the profession or the race at this point.] For all we know, some mobs might actually target particular professions more due to design even, so this has to happen across all mobs.

If no one is willing to do this, then all you can do is send in a bug report and let ANet figure out if you’re crazy or there’s something wrong with the code. A thread that tries to get consensus on subjective perceptions is not gonna help.

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Thanks for the input, but I am neither delusional, nor a bad gamer. I have been playing MMORPGs for over ten years now and I know over-aggro when I see it. Others are reporting the same thing and I doubt we are all delusional.

How about we do this… If you are NOT experiencing these things then kindly go back to playing the game and please just let the rest of us try to figure out what is going on. If you are not seeing what is being reported by others, then it is not affecting you and you can go happily and merrily on your way. There is no need to tell us that what we are experiencing is not real and is only in our minds, no matter how kindly you attempt to put it.

What I have experienced, others have. My wife has seen it. My friends have watched it. I have grouped with strangers and had them send me tells to ask me how I have been holding aggro so well. Something is amiss and as none of us players know the aggro mechanics in this game, only the developers will be able to figure it out.

Thanks again for the reply and for your “opinion” on how aggro works in the game and for your “pro” tips about dodging. Now please let the rest of us try to work this issue out with the developers.

Thanks.

You may be taking this way too personally.

I’ve been noticing what Kriaser just said and actually wish kits were more visible.

Ramethzero.3785:

Eh… I dont buy entirely what josh is saying. They have gotten rid of the idea of having a trinity setup for MMO’s? Yes. Does it stop the mobs from behaving certain ways? In many ways they do act and respond according to standard aggro. There might be some detailed criteria in their behaviour we are just not privy to, but that doesn’t mean there is no such thing as consistancy at all. Pay attention to the mobs and you will see many that the species does matter. This is especially true with labeled mobs (for example, centaur blahtyblah and Hylek Blahtyblah) where they have the same skillsets. The AI of some of these mobs do behave similarly, like when people are trying to pick up fallen players. The problem with it also being totally random is in the concept itself. If its totally random what they do, then how can you experience consistancy in their behaviour? This is why its kinda a mystery to me.

The only close to point observation is that there could be varying sets of aggro mechanics, which is also not unheard of in your other standard mmo genre’s.

This is something only the technical side of things can answer. But, the only problem with that is they’d be making a mistake to leak aggro mechanics out, or else they’d risk players catching on.

I’m positive there are agg mechanics, but they must be pretty detailed to the point where you’d spend too long trying to figure it out and not enough time actually playing.

I wasn’t claiming that it’s completely random, I was only claiming that it’s complicated and probably taking into account way more variables than what a player would be able to figure out just from personal experience. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s mob specific too, adding to the confusion.

I seem to recall reading that Guild Wars 2 does not treat aggro in a way even remotely similar to other MMOs. I’m glad some people eventually mentioned this fact.

My guess is that a number of different factors combined determine who ends up getting aggro. It can’t be just damage and healing because the game goes to lengths to get rid of the whole trinity thing. It wouldn’t make sense to make it any single factor really because that would always allow a focal point for fights (ie. a “tank” of some sort), again creating the trinity scenario. It has to be a combination of factors and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was even very mob specific.

If the AI is as smart as I’m assuming, what you’re all doing is trying to create simple patterns where there really aren’t any. It might seem like there are simple patterns of behavior but it’s just your head playing tricks on you.

Otherwise, I guess ANet failed and accidentally put an attack-only-engineers line somewhere in there when programming the AI.

Is the engineer one of those professions that starts out kinda slow and weak and awkward but comes into its own after like 60 levels? I’ve played one to 20 now and, compared to other classes I’ve tried, it just feels incredibly weak. I’ve heard people say the mesmer is like this but I felt pretty powerful up to 20 as a mesmer. I mean, my damage seems lowsy, regardless of using kits, rifle, or whatever, and I seem to die considerably faster than I did as a mesmer or a ranger. I know it shouldn’t have the survivability of a guardian but it’s such a struggle to survive against single mobs even 1 or 2 levels above me that I end up fighting lower level mobs half the time. Meanwhile, my ranger would regularly kill mobs up to 3 levels above me.

I like the idea of the engineer and I’m willing to drudge through level after level but not if there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. I’d be kinda annoyed if I got up to 65-70 and still couldn’t find a reasonably effective way to play. So how is the progression curve?

Same problem, of course. I gotta say, I notice more bugs in the forums than the game. I know that should feel relieving but it’s more baffling.

To the “you’re not contributing or getting rewards” people, who cares? I don’t play games to fulfill my duty to my fellow man, I play to have fun. Fun for me is seeing what I can accomplish relying simply on my own skill; fun for you may be collecting rewards and being part of a team. To each his own.

Otherwise, this information is a bit eye opening. For instance, I wanted to play an engineer since beta because they seemed like a profession that would be underutilized (I like underdogs) yet very versatile. I played one up to 20 and was on the fence then I read the engineer forums and it sounded like they were severely broken (beyond underdogs) and only useful as support. This thread seems to draw a much different picture.

I’ve also been playing a mesmer which is really fun but all the suggestions in the forums that they’re omnipresent and nearly as difficult to deal with as thieves made it seem like I’d just be playing an overpowered FOTM profession (which I’d find unrewarding, personally). You people are making it sound like they’re only overpowered against weak players, though.

I generally dislike mechanics that kill the persistence of persistent PvP. Warhammer did something like this where everything would just reset after one side “won” even though it was supposed to be persistent. The result was people would just take turns winning different areas instead of actually fighting each other. I’m pretty sure this was a reaction to a problem from DAoC where one realm’s dominance was multiplied by the fact that they always had all the bonuses plus enough numbers (or skill) to get them in the first place. There was no reset mechanic so they could just hold them forever. I’d prefer to have that problem than what you’re suggesting, especially since you can only have that problem for a week in this game.

I’ve actually seen both that mesmer video and the engineer video. I’ve seen one other video of a solo mesmer, one of a necro, and one of a guardian (which I haven’t been able to find again). I’ve seen probably 12-15 thief videos.

I’m glad the consensus so far is that this has to do with their mobility, though.

I haven’t even started playing WvW yet because I’m still in the process of deciding exactly which profession I wanna level up and stick to but I already have the impression that thieves are way overpowered. I’ve been looking up videos for each profession playing solo in WvW as that’s what I’d like to do and I figured I could get an idea of which profession fits my playstyle by watching others. What I’ve found is a bagillion thief videos interspersed with roughly one video from three or four other professions. I’ve literally seen about a dozen thief videos for each video from another profession.

Now, there are videos of people playing sPvP or zerging it up with other professions but team play is a whole different ball game. I had the impression that you should, given enough skill, be able to successfully solo with any profession in this game. They all seem to have the tools required to be set up for whichever type of play one would want to do, including soloing. Was my impression wrong? Are thieves really the only viable soloers? Are they simply that overpowered that it’s easy for people to look l33t while playing them or does every skilled soloer just happen to also play a thief?

On a related note, if I’m simply overlooking a treasure trove of videos, please post your non-thief solo WvW footage. I’d love to see it.

For instance, if I go to one of the “show us your toon” threads and click on one of the posted images to view it full size, I can’t use the back button my browser to get back to the thread. If I do, I end up on the last page of the thread even though the first page is the only one I’ve viewed so far. What’s more, if I try to use the back button from there, I simply refreshes the page I’m already on. I’ve noticed this at other times too. I was just reading a thread that had a link to a YouTube video (not embedded, just linked) and consisted of 1 page total. I tried to hit back after finishing reading it and it just refreshed the thread instead of actually going back to the list of threads.

I’ve never used an internet forum that disallowed use of the back button so I can only assume this is not working as intended.

EDIT: I just tested both of the actions I mentioned in Internet Explorer and everything worked correctly. This is definitely an issue between the forum and Firefox.

I just wanna go on record saying I abhor listening to Vent chat in people’s videos. I’d actually prefer crappy music.