Guild Wars 2

Caedmon.6798:

You have no business checking out what gear i wear if im not willing to tell you this myself.I dont like people copying styles from other people,nor do i like people copying builds from other people.

It’s actually a very benign method of learning from others, especially in PvP, but also for PvE. Grouping aside, that’s a beneficial result.

LotRO uses a feature called “anonymous”. When you turn that feature on, nobody can inspect your gear/build in PvP. That’s an alternative to the “ping only” proposal.

Dustfinger.9510:

juno.1840:

Dustfinger.9510:

juno.1840:

@Dustfinger — and why doesn’t GW2 need vanilla PuGs? (nice taking only part of a single sentence from my entire post btw — it’s really out of context tbh).

The attitude towrds it isn’t needed. I singled it out because that is the main part of the post I had an issue with becasue it exemplifies the problem with this suggestion. so nothing was taken out of context because it’s the same attitude within or without the rest of the post. Though, I addressed the rest of your post with my second sentence.

The full sentence was:

If you don’t want to join a team that requires players to fulfill a very specific roles then find a vanilla PuG and have fun elsewhere.

In addition your “second sentence” was a later add from an Edit operation.

Regardless, there will always be teams of varying skill and organization. Some teams are very well organized with very defined roles. Those teams require an inspect button if they are trying to fill a position with an unknown player (this is a legitimate scenario).

There’s nothing wrong with an organized team being selective. There’s also nothing wrong with a Player wanting to join a team without such well defined roles and organization.

I had a number of other points as well regarding the need in GW2 for such teams (currently there is little content required well defined roles, or any roles other than DPS). However that should change over time and if you want to have organized PuGs, then you’ll need a feature like “inspect”.

Check the time stamp. The second sentence was there the entire time I responded to your post. Now you’re intentianlly lieing in order to try to discredit me.

I have no problem with teams of varying skills and organization. Different types of guilds account for that. What I have a problem with is those guilds arbitrarily imposing their personal views on how teams should run on other players who aren’t as dedicated as them. The entire history of mmo players who have the inspect option is self evident of how this allows them to do it. right now, they can find their own very specific teams with their own very specific standards in the form of guilds dedicated to it. So no additional change is needed.

You were editing your post while I was typing mine in — I’m not a liar. Stick on point.

Guilds can’t impose their personal views on your play style. However a guild has a right to impose their requirements on a team they create.

If a team want’s a player with a 30/30/0/0/10 build in all Zerk’s gear, that’s their choice. Without an inspect feature they can’t assure a PuG player will meet that requirement. If you lie and slip into the team, they’ll find out, everyone will waste their time, and in the end all involved are dissatisfied.

Nobody is making you join an organized team. The Inspect feature is a tool, nothing more.

Dustfinger.9510:

juno.1840:

@Dustfinger — and why doesn’t GW2 need vanilla PuGs? (nice taking only part of a single sentence from my entire post btw — it’s really out of context tbh).

The attitude towrds it isn’t needed. I singled it out because that is the main part of the post I had an issue with becasue it exemplifies the problem with this suggestion. so nothing was taken out of context because it’s the same attitude within or without the rest of the post. Though, I addressed the rest of your post with my second sentence.

The full sentence was:

If you don’t want to join a team that requires players to fulfill a very specific roles then find a vanilla PuG and have fun elsewhere.

In addition your “second sentence” was a later add from an Edit operation.

Regardless, there will always be teams of varying skill and organization. Some teams are very well organized with very defined roles. Those teams require an inspect button if they are trying to fill a position with an unknown player (this is a legitimate scenario).

There’s nothing wrong with an organized team being selective. There’s also nothing wrong with a Player wanting to join a team without such well defined roles and organization.

I had a number of other points as well regarding the need in GW2 for such teams (currently there is little content required well defined roles, or any roles other than DPS). However that should change over time and if you want to have organized PuGs, then you’ll need a feature like “inspect”.

@Dustfinger — and why doesn’t GW2 need vanilla PuGs? (nice taking only part of a single sentence from my entire post btw — it’s really out of context tbh).

Sitkaz.5463:

How is a specific controllable situation also random? I don’t understand that.

There’s nothing “controllable” about drops — it’s all RNG. You can try to sway the odds for better drops in your favor by using MF gear and not behaving in a way which triggers the DR filter.

Adding an bonus for old-age mobs is simply the same as giving +MF a player when fighting those mobs. The drops are still drops subject to the RNG.

My point is don’t keep building on the same RNG system thinking there’s some magic bullet which makes it incredibly awesome. The system doesn’t really reward anything except luck.

If GW2 wants to reward players for actually playing, then they need to implement a deterministic reward system for the “best” gear. In many ways ANet already does this with dungeon tokens, WvW badges, Laurels, etc. Those are all good reward systems. Put in a known amount of effort, get a known reward.

The pink elephant in the room is the Legendary Weapon rewards. Those are not deterministic right now. Two different players can have vastly different experiences working towards those rewards. That in itself is not rewarding.

Cameirus.8407:

juno.1840:

+1 for an inspect button — but for traits as well as gear.

If you’re worried that you won’t get on a team because people will think you suck — then don’t suck so bad

If I’m going to invest 2hrs of my evening into a challenging dungeon/instance/(fill in the blank), shouldn’t I be able to flush out my team with players that won’t waste my time? If I want to play “my way” and that’s bringing a specific team/build combination, then I should be able to do that with confidence. (Note that “confidence” means more than simply going on somebody’s word).

then before you join my group I want you to record a vid of you moving out of fire or the equivalent on every fight in the instance and write an essay on the tactics. As gear/spec matter nothing at all compared to player skill and an inspect button shows you nothing about that.

If you want to be elitist (and misguided at that) then just ask people for their gear/spec. If you wont take someone’s word, that says more about your insecurities than it does their gear/spec.

This isn’t a discussion about inspecting “player skill” — although if there was any easy and accurate metric for it, that would be pretty awesome don’t you think?

It’s a discussion about builds and finding the players that fit a specific role on your team. GW2 is very forgiving for team roles right now because all you need is DPS. However if that were to change, then teams may need a very specific build from each player on the team.

A build is defined as a players gear (all of it), trait selection, and slot skills. Slot skills are not a problem because you can change them on the fly. That leaves gear and traits.

If you don’t want to join a team that requires players to fulfill a very specific roles than find a vanilla PuG and have fun elsewhere. However it can be very satisfying to get into a well organized team, play a specific role, and play it well.

BlazeLongblade.9201:

I am getting really fed up of people saying “my gear is none of your business”. If you are in my team, your gear is my business, if you don’t want me to know what gear you have play on your own, where no-one needs to know. I don’t care who runs what gear. What I need from knowing peoples gear, is how I need to play. 5 people geared for toughness with no power is not gonna complete a dungeon in any less than 3 times the normal amount of time. The worst part is, if no-one will tell you what gear or traits they have, you are going in blind, with no idea of how your team-mates are gonna play. Anyone that doesn’t want you to know what gear they have is either being awkward, or doesn’t want their gear to stop them getting a team. Both of those are bad for team play.

+1 — exactly.

It’s not elitist to ask for someone’s gear and build. It’s part of flushing out the roles on an optimized team.

Elitism only comes into play when team gate players on gear quality, NOT gear type. This is pretty important and I think many people in the forums are confused on exactly what “elitism” is when it comes to the Inspection feature.

It’s still RNG — just another layer of complexity on top of it.

All it does (if anything) is promote farming outside of optimum farming areas.

Pushed another 100 ectos into the forge today with the single-clover recipe. The result was 27 clovers (27%).

So far I’m at a total of:

270 ectos, coins, shards —> 65 clovers

Return: 24.1 %

If you need to flush out the last slot in your team with a DPS role, then an inspect button is critical so you don’t get a support or control role on your team.

Note that “play your way” doesn’t mean you can jumble up a team with whatever you want. It means that you can play one of the defined roles on any profession. If a team needs a DPS role, then that’s what they need (period).

An inspect button helps verify the needs of the team are met.

That being said, most things can be accomplished with a jumbled-up team of whatever. The defined roles in this game aren’t really critical, and rarely necessary in the current end-game (with the exception of high-level fractals).

marnick.4305:

Healer is arguably the least team-oriented role because they play an entirely different minigame. The minigame is boring since the mechanics didn’t improve over whack-a-mole in an eighties arcade. To add insult to injury, this role gets the blame for everything that goes wrong, while mostly having no real influence on the battle (since whack-a-mole is so easy).

People wanted other players to clean up their own garbage, because healers are a shoddy excuse for teamplay.

I disagree with you here. The healer in GW1 could play “reactive” (healing) or “proactive” (protection). It was a fairly sophisticated role compared to healing in other MMOs. Yeah the healer can bail a team out when they play sloppy, but right now everyone can play sloppy in GW2 without much consequence. So to an extent the healer in GW1 was a higher degree of team play (at least on the healer’s part).

The whack-a-mole analogy is good because that’s essentially what you have in GW2 right now. In fact the team doesn’t even need to whack the same mole to succeed.

While you may not enjoy the healing meta, it doesn’t mean others do not. You can play “your way” and go with a Tank or DPS role instead.

+1 for an inspect button — but for traits as well as gear.

If you’re worried that you won’t get on a team because people will think you suck — then don’t suck so bad

If I’m going to invest 2hrs of my evening into a challenging dungeon/instance/(fill in the blank), shouldn’t I be able to flush out my team with players that won’t waste my time? If I want to play “my way” and that’s bringing a specific team/build combination, then I should be able to do that with confidence. (Note that “confidence” means more than simply going on somebody’s word).

marnick.4305:

juno.1840:

This is the big thing I miss from the holy trinity — defined roles. This isn’t required in GW2 and as a result I see far less team work than in other MMOs. The video was spot on with regards to DPS is king in this game.

The funny thing is bunker seems king in PvP — sorta opposite which may explain the reliance on the defiance buff.

Implies that games like basketball, cycling and doubles tennis don’t have teamwork, because the same rules apply to all players, because the players have loosely defined and mostly fluid roles.

Less roles and more interacting is necessary for proper teamwork. Putting people in shackled roles is only an illusion of teamwork. A real life example is the goalie in soccer, who arguably requires the least teamwork while having the most defined role.

Not accurate at all — there are very defined roles in those sports you mentioned. Following the same rule book doesn’t eliminate player roles.

What Players wanted: No more “GLF monk” from GW1
What Players received: No monks

Players didn’t want healing to go away, they only wanted the “monk monopoly” on healing to go away. I like the defined roles in the game, what I wanted was for every profession to be capable of playing a healer role (not just monks).

The current GW2 design is fun, but there’s not much skill involved, and very little teamwork. There are some teamwork examples here and there (like in AC where the team has to split to protect an NPC while beating down the Skelk burrows that appear). By-and-large it’s just a DPS fest. Maybe that’s what’s required to satisfy the majority of the player base. Otherwise we’d have lots of “this is too hard” topics instead, but who knows (I don’t).

So on top of DR (diminishing returns) and MF (magic find), now I would have to bother with lifespan of the mob? No thanks.

I’d rather see the incredible loot added through deterministic methods rather than more RNG garbage.

Before you say “this makes RNG better…” it’s still RNG and therefor not a fair reward for time invested. RNG is nice for the awesome gear ONLY if it’s a secondary avenue to a deterministic method.

After reading all this I’m not sure if I should try MF for Zap or not. Then I’m not sure if I should use rares or exotics.

I’ve been screwed over on clovers enough that I’m leaning towards just saving my gold and buying the precursor (or continuing to wait for the scavenger hunt, or other precursor acquisition mechanism).

It would be nice to hear about non-RNG methods for precursors. I made a suggestion a week or so ago to add them to laurel vendor (cost TBD). Anyway, something deterministic is probably too much to wish for.

Maybe stealth used for non-offensive purposes should be put on a 2x cooldown…

Please folks, don’t kid yourselves. Badge acquisition in WvW is a LOT slower than for PvE Dungeon Badges… period.

You can quote “well this one time I got 100 badges in 30 minutes…” crap all you want, it’s not a normal occurence, and it is NOT a sustainable rate.

If you like WvW, the badges are no big deal, because you are having fun. If you hate WvW I can see where the badges would be a pill.

I’m not a big dungeon fan, so getting my dungeon badges will be a pill for me — even though I can get 180 a day (if I remember my numbers correctly) just by doing the three paths.

Anyway, don’t belittle the OP, his concerns are valid. On the flip side, ANet can’t pass out badges with a RNG scheme in a way that favors both casual and hard core WvW players.

And there ya go:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2013-05-30

the extra 2x is because the BLSK is dropping 2 and 3 ectos more often then the Master salvage kit drops 2 and 3 ectos — when both drop ecto.

The chance (25 or 50) should be the chance of getting any ectos. The BLSK should drop ectos twice as often as MSK. That is not the same as dropping 2x as many ectos when ectos actually do drop.

I suspect the point you’re trying to make is that given 12 salvages with both MSK and BLSK, ectos will fall the same number of times out of the 12, but the BLSK will drop 2x as many ectos for those same number of drops.

It’s 25% vs 50% salvage chance for rares. That doesn’t imply that actually getting the rares would result in different quantities.

It looks to me like the BLSK are 4x better than Master because you have 2x the chance for rares and when you get the rares you get 2x as many. Sorry but that sounds broken or bugged.

So I notice my Master’s salvage kit rarely gives me more than one ecto when salvaging. However the BLSK often gives me two or three ectos.

I mentioned this in guild chat and someone said “yeah it’s a known issue…”, but I cannot find anything about it in these forums.

Is it a known issue?

If the answer is ‘yes’ then I’m going to be pretty bent because I’ve been salvaging away trying to get ectos for clovers. I don’t like wasting my time and the RNG is already making a good go of that. Maybe add a wiki page of “known issues” for GW2 so I don’t have to find out I’m screwed after the fact.

Funny story:

This happened when Nightfall was released. The introductory instance rewarded a few gold (the equivalent of today’s silver pieces). Anyway, players were creating toons, running the intro, banking the proceeds, deleting the toons, repeating.

It’s not like this is a new farming idea — there should be a checklist of “how can players abuse this system” that should be completed before ANet releases content. That would help maybe.

This applies to RNG as a whole. That’s why other MMOs use a token based system which creates a ceiling on your efforts. This was recognized after fractals was released and now there’s a daily token you can get — this caps the maximum time expenditure on a player’s part to 10 days for an ascended ring.

The example was off topic, but the rest is relevant. Eliminate RNG and implement deterministic reward and crafting systems.

Kasama.8941:

“Zoomed in, the range of the compass is 2500 units, representing 63 meters/208 feet.” http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Compass#Compass

You learn by doing. That’s the fun part.

Shouldn’t have to read a community supported wiki to learn how to use the User Interface in a game that supposedly best-in-class for accessbility and easy learning curves.

That being said, the compass is still a square and not a circle and you cannot see your “entre” portal on it. So basically you’re saying kitten and learn to live it with.

Obtena.7952:

I can’t wait to see the thread complaining they are using the 10 recipe to get T6 mats and all they get is clovers …

Oh wait ..

Exactly — you support the argument for deterministic recipes. Decouple T6 recipes from clovers. Make the clovers require 3 ecto, 3 coins, 3 shards, 3 crystals. make T6 require 1 ecto, 1 coin, 1 TBD, 1crystal/6stones. Boom done everyone is happy, the the cash sink is still inplace.

It’s rather odd to design a crafting system with no determinism.

Kasama.8941:

“The distance between two portals is restricted to radar range, approximately 5000 units.” http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Portal_Entre

Giving a range indicator on Portal removes the only learning curve there is to the skill, and makes it too easy to use at max range. It’s already a really powerful skill as it is.

Except that the radar has a “zoom” feature and can be “reshaped” to an arbitrary rectangle. There is no radar circle like the GW1 compass.

So how can you tell your compass/radar is sized for 5000 units?

In addition, the “entre” portal is not visible on the compass/radar so it’s not easy to measure using that method (even if you could tell 5000 units accurately).

Pushed 22 ectos in using only the single recipe, got 5 clovers for 22.7% return.

This is the big thing I miss from the holy trinity — defined roles. This isn’t required in GW2 and as a result I see far less team work than in other MMOs. The video was spot on with regards to DPS is king in this game.

The funny thing is bunker seems king in PvP — sorta opposite which may explain the reliance on the defiance buff.

Stooperdale.3560:

Again, this post is about entitlement. Everyone feels entitled to a legendary weapon and if you log on often enough you should have one. Unfortunately this sort of entitlement makes legendary weapons effectively worthless and not at all legendary.

Completely untrue and bigoted.

Nobody asked for anything for “free”, nor for simply “logging on”. This is a discussion on how to obtain a precursor in a deterministic way (if you don’t understand deterministic then crack open a dictionary — check out bigoted as well).

Precursor != Legendary
Deterministic != Free
RNG != “I earned it”

(Legend: “!=” is “not equals”)

LilMcGinley.3890:

371 globs for my 77 clovers, 10x til 70, 1x til 77 (35 tries @ 10x and 21 tries @ 1x), globs were 32s for the most of this, they are 18s now…

Farm Southsun, farm meta events, farm CoFP1 (3 runs a day).. globs are quickly becoming the easiest part of a Legendary.

I got 20 ectos in 2 hours farming Southsun last night with 420% MF.

Your rate was 20.7% which is pretty close to the results from my small sample.

Thanks for the tips on ectos! I suspect the Southsun farm will go away after the living story evaporates. How exactly are you farming there? The group events?

Sirendor.1394:

Laurels are considered a burden by most of the players, and dailies are a farm that only rewards people who play daily. I don’t think that’s fair towards people who have work or school in weeks.

Keep in mind this doesn’t replace the current RNG method of obtaining a precursor. It simply provides a deterministic “fail-safe” method as a backup. If you like the current system in place then you are not impacted (other than possible reduction in TP costs from increase supply, or reduced demand — depending if the laurel precursors are account bound or not).

Given your situation, is there an acceptable, deterministic method to obtaining a precursor that would be fair (in your eyes)?

On a side note, I don’t think your statement “Laurels are considered a burden by most of the players” is accurate. I think it applies to you, but definitely not to me. I doubt you could back up “most” factually.

Sirendor.1394:

Only 5-10% of the gamers have more than 5k achievement points. I think 5k would be enough to buy a precursor.

I’m not interested in talking about “costs” as that’s not the point. The point is a deterministic method of obtaining a precursor.

I suspect that Skill Points won’t fly as an acceptable alternative to Laurels. First, you have the concerns already noted regarding some players who “played the system” before the system was coded properly by the developers. Laurels is a newer mechanic and hasn’t had abusive loopholes (that we’re aware of).

In addition, the upper limit on the rate of acquisition is not known. This could favor gold farmers as they could switch to 24hr skill point farming as a mechanism to farm gold. We know that laurels are capped at 38-41 per month (depending upon the specific month). This is also a useful metric in determining price (again which we aren’t discussing).

I broke Olba’s post into the separate points for formatting purposes… not to take anything out of context:

Olba.5376:

1. Not sure whether time gating the Precursors is the best possible thing

Not sure why it would be harmful as you can still obtain the precursor through the RNG. The goal is a deterministic method in addition to the RNG method. Similar to what happened with fractals — play 10 times you can get a ring. It’s the backup for folks who have a bad RNG week.

Olba.5376:

2. Regardless of how much it would cost, I am against people getting something as pricy as a Precursor for doing essentially nothing

I disagree with this point more than any of your others — if you consider playing the game as “something” and not “nothing”, then laurels is a very legitimate approach to obtaining a precursor. Conversely, someone who was extremely fortunate and obtained a precursor in a few hours of play didn’t really do much at all — agreed? Finally consider that any player can spend RL money and simply buy one off the TP — obviously not really playing the game for this method either.

Olba.5376:

3. The pricing on the Laurels might/could/should (pick your preference) affect the price of the Precursors already on the TP

Maybe, but I’m not sure that’s necessary. Even if it was, then this is really just an implementation detail. Current TP prices are based upon demand. If nobody wants “Venom” then nobody will buy it using Laurel’s either. A cheap precursor doesn’t mean legendaries will magically come afterwards. Significant cost is still involved in the various Gifts which this suggestion doesn’t eliminate.

Olba.5376:

4. Even if they’re Accountbound on Acquire, it would still kitten off people if they put in something like Venom at the same price as Dusk

I like the idea of Account Bount for Laurel purchased precursors — nice addition, thx! This would reduce (but not eliminate) the impact on the TP precursor market.

Suggestion: Add a “precursor” page to the laurel vendors. Similar to amulets, you can have the precursors require laurels and additional mats (if necessary).

Rationale: Make precursors available through a non-RNG mechanism. A similar ‘fix’ was added for ascended rings in fractals using the super-relics.

NOTE: I didn’t specify costs in laurels or materials — that’s not the point. I don’t want to lose the forest in the trees.

+1

15 characters

I’d pull the 5 points out of toughness line and put it into the mesmer line for the +3% dmg per illusion trait. I think you’ll be better off with that instead of the additional 5% of toughness for condition damage. Keep in mind you get +50 condition damage for the 5 pts in the mesmer line.

Your toughness is very low anyway so +5% condition damage is actually less than 50pts for you. Yeah you lose out on 50 toughness, but like I said you are already very low on that stat.

Arvid.3829:

Not sure what you’re complaining about… As said by Alex, they give you 2 options: one with a high uncertainty (this can swing both ways) and one with a low uncertainty. You deliberately chose the first one and now you’re kitten ed off that the second one isn’t completely deterministic…

Just saying the obvious here but you shouldn’t be mad at the options you’re given, you should be mad at the choice you made. But obviously, taking responsibility for your actions is harder than blaming it on someone else.

Your response is a bit silly in some regards. I already called myself out as stupid for ignoring the previously provided advice of the 1-per recipe. Maybe you should take responsibility for your actions and learn to read rather than pass around meaningless blame.

That being said, it is very reasonable to question the options provided (all two of them). It’s a game and we are players in it. The boundaries are set by the developers with the only limitations being imagination and business case.

Complaining about RNG is old, worn-out, tiresome, etc — but perfectly reasonable. If the developers don’t change it, then expect ceaseless rants.

They should give you some advantage in the 10-per recipe — maybe a higher return on T6 materials for the failures to get clovers — or better yet eliminate the RNG so the result is deterministic.

The wiki says on average a clover requires 3 coins, 3 shards, 3 ectos, and 2 skill points. SO MAKE THE FORGE USE THAT MATERIAL COMBINATION FOR A CLOVER! How hard is that ANet?

Make some other RNG formula for T6 mats — or better yet, a non-RNG recipe for those as well.

Yeah I read this somewhere and for some stupid reason chose to ignore it. I got myself confused on the skill-point math and thought it was fewer skill points to use crystals (5 for 3sp) instead of philosopher’s stones (10 for 1sp). I recalculated and it’s the same (60 stones = 6sp, 10 crystals = 6sp).

GAH this system makes me so mad.

I’m out of ectos now so I need to grind out yellows or gold to continue (which I knew I would have to since 110 ectos is not nearly enough, although I was hoping it would get me half way there).

I think it’ll be quicker to farm coin and then buy my remaining ectos. The pile of 110 that I had was from months of playing and use of Black Lion Salvage Kits. I refuse to buy anything else from the gem shop to make this happen.

My money is staying in my wallet.

Pushed 110 ectos into the toilet in batches of 10, with a yield of 20 clovers. This is a drop rate of 18.1%. Granted it’s a small sample size (11 tries), but at this rate I’ll need 423 ectos, 423 shards, 252 skill points, and 423 mystic coins.

Rather disappointed with the RNG this morning.

I’ve already resigned myself to buying the precursor — there’s no way I’m going to push a pile of exotics into that toilet. I’ll lose it mentally.

Sorry for quoting a small excerpt, but the original post was rather large.

TheGuy.3568:

First revert rtl’s cool down it was silly to do what they did in the first pace. Second, lower base healing and increase the healing power scaling. Third, improve auto attack DPS across all weapon sets save Air 1 scepter. Fourth, do a completely overhaul of lines 1 and 2 in traits.

I agree with this… RTL nerf does nothing to balance D/D bunker. IMHO, the real problem with D/D bunker is the healing. You can pop back up in health rather quickly when cycling through water. I think ANet should have focused on the healing aspect instead.

Your idea about lowering base healing and increasing the effects of healing power is interesting. It would force bunkers into the healing stat if they want to have the same healing as before — resulting in lower DPS (from loss of another stat).

Another possibility is change Dagger-2 so it doesn’t not self heal, instead just healing players in the AoE cone. Also the water 15pt trait could be changed to something other than a heal. There are more changes around water and healing that could be examined as well.

Kaleban.9834:

The marginal utility of being able to swap from Greatsword to Rifle is much greater than switching from Earth to Fire. Just the range difference alone is a huge benefit.

Ele’s really don’t have four weapon sets, what we actually have is one set of skills that is divided damage wise into fourths, and each fourth is a palette shifted copy of the others, with a few differences here and there for flavor.

I agree with your statements, however the discussion was around the desire of having weapon-set based cooldowns for attunements. Whether or not switching between four attunements is as valuable as switching between two weapons was not really relevant.

My point is there are advantages to attunement switching that are not present on weapon swapping. Having the attunements switch faster may be OP when it comes to the frequency of:

- boon application (aracana 10pt trait)
- retained effects (aracana 15pt trait)
- healing (water 15 pt trait)
- condition removal (water 10pt trait)

Attunement switching is much more than just changing to a new set of five skills — which everyone knows, but it shouldn’t be overlooked when discussing the switching times. It’s a system problem and this is one important aspect of the system.

In WvW I run a hybrid shatter with GS and Staff. I can do this because I have runes of the centaur for swiftness (otherwise I would need to run with the crappy swiftness from focus).

The GS is great for range DPS and is much quicker at tagging mobs with the auto-attack and with iZerker.

The Staff is great for defense — hands down the best for that. You are not going to beat someone down with the staff like you can with a GS. However it’s great to switch to and get yourself some chaos armor (best aura buff in game).

As someone posted, we can already swap through four attunements pretty quickly. I have 20 in arcana and I can pretty much rip through all four attunements and have my first one available immediately afterwards. Technically it works with three of the four, having my first ready after I’m done with my third.

This is not the same as swapping back and forth between two attunements of course, but consider that we effectively have four weapon sets. If you could switch back and forth between any two as fast as a spec’d out warrior can on his weapon sets, that would be a little much wouldn’t you agree?

Also as mentioned, that’s boon overload from the 10 point arcana trait. As it is I feel I can apply more boons than my guardian with less effort (and no slot skills required).

I’m loving my D/D ele so far in PvE (currently lvl 72). I find the management of 20 weapons skills rather complex compared to the other professions and that’s appealing.

I totally agree with a previous poster who said “Mesmers require more skill to fight against than to play”. This is so true. My lvl 80 memser is a breeze to play, it really is easy mode. However the mechanics of clones make it incredibly difficult to play against (and I have an advantage in that I can easily see the real mesmer, but it’s still a lot of work).

One major problem with this approach is it actually discourages attunement switching. Why switch out of Fire in a fight with lots of trash mobs? Why switch out of air in a boss fight?

One of the more enjoyable aspects of ele to me is that I really have 20 weapon skills instead of 5 and it’s super cool to switch attunements every 3 seconds.

Your proposal takes some (not all) of the motivation away from that play style.

Raestloz.7134:

juno.1840:

Think of them as utilities, and not pets.

wrt the net turret, think of equivalent skills in other professions. The guardian has an immobilize signet-active. You get 2s of immobilize and that’s it. The net turret does an immobilize and then hangs around to suck up some damage, or possibly immobilize again.

Agreed there are issues where the turrets die easy, pick a target that you wouldn’t have picked, etc. Some of those issues will be fixed over time, others maybe not.

Compared to other “non-turret” utility skills from other professions, turrets are not bad.

They will never be some uber-tanking-DPS-dealing-super-pets. If that’s what it’ll take to make you happy, then you’ll will be perpetually sad.

If they can be moved, then yes they are good utilities. Imagine yourself putting up a Rifle Turret hoping to damage Champion Troll, and suddenly the thing shoots a Glowing Grub, which proceeds to attack you. At that point, the thing ceases to be a utility and becomes a burden.

You cannot move them, you cannot direct them, you cannot do anything but pray to the Six Gods and Abaddon that they’ll actually do something useful if there’s more than one viable targets around. There is literally no way to justify them. Zhaitan frolics in any justification to Turrets

And you can direct pets to attack your target. Imagine that.

This is no different than Spirits for the Ritualist in GW1.

Although you can’t move them, you can certainly pick them up and place them down again (with a reduced c/d because you picked them up instead of letting them die).

It’s not as hapless as you make it sound. Yeah you have to work it a bit because it’s not completely easy-mode — but it’s not horrific either.

My original point was these will never be pets — they are utilities.

Pizz.3698:

juno.1840:

Speedy Kits is significantly better because:

1. It provides +33% instead of +25%
2. It works in combat (whereas the signet passive does not)
3. It does not consume a utility slot on a signet with a horrible active ability

It does come with the down-side of 10 points in the class trait line but that seems an acceptable trade off for the advantages listed above.

Combine it with the vitality trait for “Get vigor when you get swiftess” and now you have perma-vigor. Pretty awesome.

Engineers have very little to complain about here — we may have the best swiftness option of any profession.

A lot classes get vigor on crit (guard, mes and ele come to mind) whereas engis need to trait for either swiftness on crit or speedy kits and then trait for vigor on swiftness to keep swiftness up. I wouldnt count that as an advantage.

Also, with something like 20-30% boon duration you can keep perma swiftness with Drop Stimulant and Elixir B.

This made me laugh — the engineer has a huge advantage here. If I want to dodge through a pile of mobs, I don’t have to try and tag one to get a “crit vigor” boon. I can simply flip a kit and whammo — swiftness AND vigor.

We seriously have it good with this mobility option. It’s only 10 points into the Engineer Trait line which is pretty low — and gives the bonus of +10% crit dmg.

You called it a “kit build” — does that mean a +25% passive signet would be a “signet build”?

I’d hate to lose optional perma swiftness (and optional perma vigor) for a crappy passive movement signet.

Think of them as utilities, and not pets.

wrt the net turret, think of equivalent skills in other professions. The guardian has an immobilize signet-active. You get 2s of immobilize and that’s it. The net turret does an immobilize and then hangs around to suck up some damage, or possibly immobilize again.

Agreed there are issues where the turrets die easy, pick a target that you wouldn’t have picked, etc. Some of those issues will be fixed over time, others maybe not.

Compared to other “non-turret” utility skills from other professions, turrets are not bad.

They will never be some uber-tanking-DPS-dealing-super-pets. If that’s what it’ll take to make you happy, then you’ll will be perpetually sad.