Guild Wars 2

I am having the same issue.

Well, here on Gandara we like smaller scale fights, defending towers with siege and that sort of thing. The only problem is that we’ve been getting paired up with servers like Elona’s Reach and Desolution lately (in other words, higher tier) who like to run the blob. Also, we’re not very high in numbers right now due to the PVE farming. But mentality-wise, I think you would like it here.

It’s pointless to spend the gold upgrading keeps when the only difference between T3 and T1 is that it takes the blob 2 minutes longer to melt the gates. And if you don’t have a reason to defend them, you don’t really have much reason to bother escorting dolyaks. The quaggans are utterly useless now.

I had no interest whatsoever in WvW for months after I started the game, because I thought it was as dull as PVP. But then a guild mate took me to visit the borderlands and showed me how to “sneakily” cata a tower wall and take the tower. I thought it was so cool, the way you could use siege weapons, plan your attack, and the human component added a nice touch of randomness into how things played out. In fact, it was WvW that kept me playing… I’ve even ignored the recent Living Farmville updates, because, while lucrative, the content seems so repetitive and static. My guild doesn’t understand why I “waste time” in WvW, where there are no rewards… But it was so much fun.

I fully realize that many people enjoy zergs and the wxp rankwank, but it’s not for me. It’s disappointing that this part of WvW which lured me into it is dissipating, leaving just the zerg mentality. You could replace the borderlands with a flat empty map with two spawn points, and let the zergs duke it out, respawn, rinse, repeat. No difference. No strategy, no execution, no thrill. Just a large red ball of boredom. But WvW won’t miss people like me; after all, Devon said its popularity and the WvW population in general are constantly rising. Have at it, I guess.

The massive blob and their party of golems that melted GG before we could even reach it really drove in what the week will be about. Not criticizing it as I’m sure in the higher tiers where you can actually get some guys together it’s possible to get some nice blob v. blob fights going on, if you’re into that. And, after all, this is how ANet wants it. But on Gandara we enjoy smaller skirmishes, strategic play, and siege. Unfortunately, there’s no point whatsoever in wasting gold on upgrades or time on trying to defend anything from these red land masses. As one commander so succinctly put it, “don’t try to defend, just leave it, we’ll flip it later for wxp.” Happy PvD, maybe next week we’ll draw servers of actual opponents.

I “tried” Healway but it wasn’t for me. By trying it, I mean that I couldn’t afford/get the awesome gear in the guide, so I used the closest cheapo alternatives. Yeah the heals were big but I felt like I was paper and had to keep spamming them to stay alive. I am sure it was just something I was doing wrong, though. I’ve been using/coming back to AH pretty much throughout my 10-month Guardian career, but recently have been checking out a variation of Boonway and so far I really love it.

I don’t use any special strategy beyond what I usually do. Usually I have GS/Staff for mobility and replace Staff with Scepter & Focus for encounters. I’m sure there are choices that are better, but I’ve found this combo to suit me the best. My build in general is fairly cookie-cutter defensive AH. Most Guardians I encounter use some form of zerk build. I think I’ve met an obvious bunker only once.

Because the basis of my build is survivability, I don’t do much in terms of burst damage. Therefore I really have to save my more offensive moves for when I can stack them. After weathering their burst with retaliation, blocks and heals, I tend to use Scepter 3 and 2, GS 3, Signet of Wrath, GS 4 and 2, and 5. A more defensive build would break free of any conditions, but generally they stick well to zerkers. They don’t seem to dodge much either.

With a bunker, it’s just a merry-go-round until one of us gets a friend.

I didn’t know anyone else who played the game when I bought it, and I don’t make friends easily which is I always played GW1 alone and subsequently quit it. I knew, therefore, that I would be spending a lot of time soloing PVE content, so I wanted to play a job that would enable me to do it without endlessly dying. I tried Ranger and some other job, but it was Guardian that worked best for me. I have tried other jobs on alts and now that I am more experienced I die less on them, but when I am not playing my Guardian I tend to miss it. It’s just the job for me.

Contiguous.1345:

I only play WvW.
I don’t give a kitten about Legendaries, the Magic Toilet or Transmutation.

I’ve got over 250 gold in my wallet right now and there’s nothing I need/want to buy with it.
In the end, it’s just the same as karma. It’s worth nothing.

If you need nothing and want nothing, and it is worth nothing, then give it to me. I’ll use it.

No? Didn’t think so.

That was awesome.

Mmmno, that wasn’t Elona-style gloating. I edited it now to include sig to show I’m from Gandara. That’s just the view I woke up to this morning & thought it’d be amusing to show fellow Gandalfs that we’ve got our work cut out for us…

Good morning, Gandara. Here’s Mr. Bubbles with the weather report.

Excellent advice, thanks guys!

I’m not particularly “pro” at WvW but I get better the more I play. Against most, 1v1, I feel like I have a fair chance, and those fights are usually engaging and fun whether I win or not. However, Thieves and Mesmers are never fun encounters for me. I know they can be tricky opponents for any job, but as a Guardian I was wondering if y’all could tell me how you deal with these jobs.

Basically, what usually happens with a Thief is that they vanish, appear for what seems like 1-2 seconds, my HP drops 75%, and by the time I’ve hit a skill to recover they’re gone again. I spend most of my time trying to stay alive. I’ve been advised to put up Retaliation a bit after they vanish so that whatever move they try to get off behind me will end up damaging them, but it doesn’t seem to hurt them to any noticeable degree. Eventually all my tools are down and RF used, and they finish me off. Even when a I ran a full turtle they’d eventually just vanish and not come back. Some comments I’ve read suggest that I shouldn’t even bother fighting them, just try to outrun them or stand and wait. I guess…

Mesmers obviously give me trouble because I can’t tell which one is the player. I’ve read that unchecking “Show all NPC names” helps because you supposedly don’t see the clones’ names, only the player’s, but it doesn’t work. I can usually withstand the Mesmer’s damage for a while, but since I’m always killing clones, it’s pretty hopeless.

I’m not complaining, it’s not like these jobs are the only ones I ever encounter. Maybe it is true that it’s better to just cut my losses and run, but if there’s a way to at least try to beat them, I’d like to learn about it. So, how do you deal with them?

He’s not a PR puppet, he’s a content designer and the head of the WvW team at ArenaNet.

It’s not just the Living Farmville updates; the ranking system is kitten.

Rookni.2469:

Hahaha I love your videos. Learned so much

DRUCKEN DRUCKEN DRUCKEN!!!!

Uuuuund drei zwei einz gooo .. Alles sammen zum Commander und das combo felde explosivie finisher BAAAM BAAAM BAAAM!

That video should have had the theme from Das Boot playing in the background. (A majestic and beautiful theme, actually.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snnwjoToN-8

I hesitate to offer my opinion since people who do so seem to get shot down as “not ever happy with anything.” But at the same time, if concerns are not expressed, how will anything change?

I didn’t follow the development of GW2 at all, so it may be my own fault for not reading enough about the game beforehand. My previous MMO was pre-Abyssea FFXI, and after a game where just reaching the max level took me about 2 years, I thought the sound of a casual, no-grind MMO was good. I could pop in, do stuff, and still feel like I was getting somewhere, developing a character. Instead of an expansion each year at the price of a new game, there would be smaller, but constant updates.

What I failed to realize was that their idea of grinding was different from mine to begin with. In FFXI’s CoP Dynamis, from 18 to 64 guildies got together every weekend at the same time for several hours to farm an instance. For each run you attended, you were awarded a point. A certain number of points were required to cast a lot (with anyone else who had enough points) on a drop you wanted, if and when it actually dropped off a mob. At best, you were looking at least a year’s commitment to complete a set of armor. That was my idea of grinding; that your opportunities to gain the gear you wanted were not in your own hands, because nothing useful aside from leveling could be done in a PUG.

What ANet really meant by the non-grind was that instead of farming the gold painstakingly, you could swipe your credit card. Yes, you can play a profession “how you like” (more or less), but any build will have you buying the expensive gear over again, since everything is soulbound once you stick a rune on it. You can get a piece with P/V/T… If you want to try a HP Guardian build, you can buy new gear with HP in it, but you can’t sell the old stuff, oh no. But you don’t have to grind, you can just buy gems.

As for the living story, I’ve participated in each since the refugee one, and have not finished any of them. With the first one, I had trouble remembering what went on before by the time the second installment of it came out. Then, because I didn’t have enough time in-game to complete it all, the event was over. The same thing happened with the Superwhateverbox. I had fun with it, but had nowhere near enough time to dedicate to it every night, so I didn’t get a single gear piece out of it. The same thing with Southsun.

The real problem for me began with the Dragon Bash story, however. I did not buy a single rich coffer from the Gem Store. A friend of mine bought several, and got nothing at all to show for it. I know this has been beaten to death, but hear me out… A lot of guild mates wanted skins and have not gotten any at all. I popped open coffers as I killed minions and regular mobs, and I, a casual player, walked away with five skins. I would love to have been able to share them with guild mates. But no, so I’ve been spending them on weapons I don’t even use. The problem is, I feel like kitten when I wear them. I feel like a total kitten when I whip out that shield near guildies, knowing they wanted one so badly, they farmed their kitten off, bought coffers, to get nothing but candy that makes your character – ironically enough – vomit.

At least when you buy an expansion for any MMO, the contant is more or less permanent. You don’t have to get it done in six weeks or lose the chance altogether. This makes me feel uninterested in any new Living Story, because I feel like the “story” is written around whatever new skins or armor the gfx department came up with. Here’s new armor relating to the Pirates event, but sorry, it’s gems only. You can buy it for 800 gems, which is around 28 gold. Don’t have the time to grind? No matter, it’s just €10.

It really kills the immersion for me when each addition is a ruse to pump enthusiasm for Gem Story items, which are of course limited-time editions. You know a lot of casual, non-pro gamers who can farm 28 gold within whatever short time period the “event” is available?

Maybe if there was a subscription fee, the devs could focus on fixing existing content and balance issues, and adding the stuff that was promised ages ago, instead of trying to come up a story to somehow connect to the Gem Store Special of the Month.

Jonwar.9205:

/bow is not courteous now?

Maybe it is, but that’s not how I’ve interpreted it. I may have been wrong all along, but it’s probably also very situational. I always thought it was a kind of passive-aggressive, self-congratulatory thing.

Got a pt invitation from one of a pair of enemies I was battling. It was on my screen for only about 2-3 seconds, so it was probably a fluke and he meant to invite the other guy.

Frankly, I must have been living under a rock because I’ve never received an enemy invite and did not know it was even possible, game mechanics-wise.

I have two questions. 1) Does an enemy invitation have any social indication? Like calling a cease fire or something. I’m asking because a /bow usually isn’t courteous coming from an enemy in WvW, so that makes me wonder if an invitation has some specific motive behind it. And 2) if you accept a party invite from an enemy mid-battle, do you still continue to do damage to them, or is it harmless friendly fire from there on?

Nice Guardian v. Guardian yesterday outside Greenlake. It’s always interesting to fight same prof diff build, you learn a lot from that perspective.

Also a great duel this morning outside Stargrove with a tough Ele. Seemed to go on forever, but sadly your friends showed up and dug a grave for me.

Had a blast. Seems like RoF has a lot of solo or small pt roamers, makes for more interesting encounters than the standard zergfare.

The thief was an example, not an accusation. Get over it.

He has a valid point. I’ve seen teleporting in action and it’s not specific to one profession, just to individual kittens. Catching and banning those individuals is an endless and toothless hunt, what they need to do is render their hack tools non-functional. Those tools are easy to find online, there are whole forums dedicated to them, and if you read them a bit you’ll see that there are rarely any real consequences to using them. The irony is, if you call any of those tools out on these forums, you get an infraction.

This thread will soon be locked down or deleted, mark my words, since as far as ANet is concerned, hacking doesn’t happen. Meanwhile, here, buy some RNG chests from the Gem Store.

Maybe it’s downloading the patch they just released?

Replace Writ of Exaltation with Superior Aria, Writ of the Merciful with either Pure of Voice or Battle Presence. You get more mileage out of 20% reduction in shout recast time & the BP regen than slapping on symbols – especially in WvW. Unscathed Contender -> Vengeful, and use Stand Your Ground in place of Retreat (situational).

I’m not saying it sucks or anything, but I’d understand the symbols better if you were using a Hammer.

From the perspective that you switched offhand from Shield to Focus, you don’t have to change any traits unless you were using Honorable Shield. What traits you select depends on where and what you’re fighting, what skills you use, to some extent your gear choices, and ultimately personal preference.

As for hard time surviving, you shouldn’t be relying on Signet of Resolve as your sole source of healing…

Vague OP is vague, man.

I like to roam solo or attach myself to small roaming groups; don’t much care for big zergs. My pvp skills are limited, so I need to lean towards the tanky side in order to not die instantly. I have tried a few builds (within fiduciary reason), but never felt quite comfortable. I tried a defensive vit/hpwr build, and a sword dps build, both effective in the right hands I am sure, but those hands aren’t mine.

I mostly use GS and Scepter/Focus for skirmishes and swap GS for Staff for swiftness. I’m one of those annoying people who run from opponents they know they cannot beat, so I pop Shield of Wrath, slap Chains of Light on them, then Retreat and Save Yourselves, and later switch to Staff if need be to keep up swiftness through my escape.

I am not committed enough to have a different set of gear for WvW or to reset my traits for it, so I’ve tried to adapt my PVE gear to my WvW needs. Basically Knight’s armor with offensive stats from the trinkets. My food choices vary a bit, but I always use food.

Basically what I am saying is, a hybrid build is certainly feasible in the jack-of-all-trades-yet-master-of-none kind of way, so long as you accept your limitations, enhance what you do well, and adapt those to what you like doing best in WvW. You need to be comfortable and familiar with your setup.

Always nice to see another Guardian build. Interesting ideas, thank you.

Danicco’s reply is comprehensive and echos my sentiments.

I don’t play wvw often and am by no means “good” at it, but when I do play it I mostly roam solo, or latch onto a small group. I don’t particularly enjoy the craziness of zergs.

Most of my encounters end up with me face down… But once in a while I get into a 1-on-1 with another Guardian, and it is a real battle of wits and wills, and drags on and on. It’s great, and makes up for all the times I just died in four seconds in a sea of conditions.

I would like to add my thanks. I had kind of been burned out lately, and for the first time had actually skipped doing dailies because I just wasn’t “feeling it”. I hopped on today and thought I’d wander over to Rata Sum to see what the deal was with the new content, and boy was I engaged, surprised, entertained, and rejuvinated. This box of awesome is, well, awesome. Thank you for all involved for all your hard work in making this.

I don’t think I’ve ever had as much fun in WvW as this afternoon in that epic tug-o-war with FS at Bluebriar. You guys were awesome. No mindless zerg, but actual strategies! I don’t come to WvW often, but maybe this week I ought to…

I thought I’d lighten up the mood here with a recent anecdote, I think it was from reset day. If you have any of your own, please share.

I was in the enemy borderlands (blue) when I see one of my own waltzing down the road from our spawn in a golem, all by his lonesome. I don’t know where he is going, but I know golems need to get there quickly, so I spam staff 3 and Retreat to try, albeit ineffectively, to get him there faster. Pretty soon we are joined by a growing crowd of my allys, speeding him up and scouting ahead. It’s not until he turns towards the bridge leading to Champion’s Orchard that someone asks him: “Where the hell are you going?” To which he replies, “I don’t know.” He is promptly then told to take the golem back to spawn, which is where he had found it.

Guess what we had there was failure to communicate.

Just reminds me how often we end up following someone simply because we assume they know where they’re going.

I guess everyone plays (and does the dailies) for their own reasons.

When I played FFXI, back in the day, I played a job that was never particularly hip or must-have, and so I spent a lot of time looking for a party or trying to put one together. Aside from not getting any levels, logging off feeling like I had not accomplished anything really bothered me. I enjoy feeling like I got something done, even if I had little time to actually play. “Little time” never got you very far in the old, pre-Abyssea FFXI.

What I like best about the dailies, even post-patch, is that I can get them done very quickly, and even if I have time for nothing else, I can log off feeling like I accomplished something, got something done.

It doesn’t really give me an incentive to play, really, just helps me not ever feel like I logged in, logged out, and nothing happened in-between, even on slower days.

Since it doesn’t cost anything to leave the alts as they are and simply not play them, I don’t understand the point in going out of your way to delete them, unless it was just for shock value for the thread title.

Or am I missing some hidden benefit?

1.) The linkshell I switched to the server for.
2.) My generic WvW experience goes something like this: I spawn in the zone, try to make my way to wherever we’re contested to join my troops. Before I know what has happened, five invisible people stomp me to the ground in a matter of seconds, and give me a /bow and a /wave as a nice big kitten-you before moving on. So I return to waypoint and run another 5-10 minutes through the map, get to the battle, and here come 40 people razing everything to the ground. No strategy, no tactic, no epic battle, just a mindless zerg and it’s back to the waypoint for me. What can you do? Get rid of /emotes, get rid of zergs. That’s a start.
3.) In theory, yes. I guess I should be spending the limited time I have to play doing something I don’t enjoy, because I get buffs from you doing something you do enjoy.
4.) The repair bill doesn’t bother me. The boredom does.
5.) Since I’m not the least bit impressed by legendaries, I have a hard time answering your question. Keep pondering, perhaps the answer will come to you in a dream.
6.) Yes, I can imagine it would make a big difference. Try to imagine why they are not.
7.) If that’s all it takes to get the respect of other people, then it’s a sad state of affairs indeed.

Search for “The Great Marshal Trahearne” on Youtube, the cow clip pretty much sums it up.

Warrior, I guess. I was going to suggest Guardian, but its ranged is restricted to scepter, and I don’t know anything about using it in PVP.

Also on Gandara, and the disconnects are fairly frequent for me, whereas before the patch I never had any.

Well, admittedly, I like the new system better than I like the options that they came up with. Each day I look through those choices and check the boxes next to the ones I like or find least annoying. I wish I could say I can find five that are truly fun. If there were even more options to choose from, that would be cool. I just don’t want them to force people into dungeons like they did with February’s monthly.

Alternatively, you can perform the Last Gripe here in the forums…

I don’t think anyone anywhere has ever declined an invitation to a guild event in WvW or a dungeon because they “have to do the daily”, unless they don’t enjoy those activities to begin with.

The great thing about the dailies is that you don’t need your guild to get them knocked out. I do them every day, it’s the first thing I do when I log on, I’ve never done them with my guild nor would I ask my guild to waste their time doing them with me.

I want to understand where you are coming from, but I’m just not seeing the issue. I’d rather have the option of going to kill 40 things in Kryta than have to kill stuff underwater, and I’d rather have the option to help with a personal story or do a dungeon instead of harvesting or crafting if I in fact do want to do something in a group.

It just seems as if there is less freedom because there are now more options that you don’t like, while I don’t think they took any of the old ones out.

They’ve lost a bit of their appeal to me now, since I see so many of them out there. Seems like everyone and their mother has one. The skin is alright, but I’d prefer something that looks more like a real greatsword. Also, it would nice if ANet added the ability to sheathe the legendaries, since it’s apparently missing.

I think they should be soulbound without exception so they would not be sold on the TP like they are now. If they truly are legendary, their price should perhaps be measured in the sweat and blood needed to craft them, and not in terms of paying gems for gold and just buying one off the trading post.

No. Just no. And here’s why:

Samhayn.2385:

Sovta.4719:

Samhayn.2385:

Sovta.4719:

YES!!! We need this! If you think we don’t then you are noob. If someone took his time to learn to play and wants EFFICIENCY in dungeon he should not suffer by playing with noobs.

And here is the reason it should not be Implamented. Thanks for summing it up for everyone.

Thank you by showing how good are you.

Umm what?

Here is the thing, I have played a game with gear checking and gear scores and dps meters and people wanting you to have cookie cutter specs. The whole time I played it I was able to use non standerd gear (pvp gear) and a pvp spec and still out dps, not stand in fire and learn the bosses script as fast or faster then the hardcore pve expert. All this was fine in guild where people know me and how I play and accepted the fact that I did not need to be carried. The problem comes in when you want to put becuase either not enough guild members are on or they are doing something different at the time. So if I feel like running a dungeon I can but if they implement gear check I’m going to have to justify my gear and build to some guy/gal who read on some website that since I play “x” class I should have “y” build and “z” spec? kitten all that noise. The best part is I could with my non cookie spec be the one carrying the “expert” thru the dungeon becuase skill, knowledge of your class and proper timing mean way more then what spec you run.

Sorry for the wall of text but pve elitism is a hot butting issue with me.

I had enough of that elitist bullkitten in FFXI. The “why do you wear X when Y would be better?”-type discussions were never in a friendly tone. I think this game is better than that.

Here’s my wall-o-text, feel free to skip it. I’m a casual player, in terms of the content I enjoy, if not in terms of hours spent in the game. Sometimes I want to be challenged a bit, but for the most part I like to roam various maps and explore, finding odd little places and enjoying the gorgeous landscape.

I’ve had a daily routine which, in its repetition, might not be “challenging” to all, but which I have found relaxing. Part of this routine was climbing the ship at Nonmoa Lake, killing the krait witch and popping the chest for the admittedly poor loot. I would then hang around for a bit and help hapless wanderers climb the ship to get the vista there, before venturing on. Another part of my routine was the Frozen Maw event series which I used to knock out the daily events quota. This is all done with now, pre-patch.

I don’t know what they did to Maw, but its participation numbers have gone through the roof. Yesterday, the boss was under 50% by the time I got from the destroyed portals to the boss. The only challenge was trying to get hits in within the 10 seconds it took for it to die. The drops were always crap, pre-patch, but at least it was fun to do, sometimes even a bit challenging. It’s a joke now.

The krait witch at Nonmoa Lake went from Gilligan to Ultron. It now spawns a bunch of friends. It truly is a group event now, and I would like to see a group of genuine level 60’s tackle her. Or even get to her, since the regular krait now spam a nice aoe poison. I can handle two at a time, but it’s no cakewalk, and anything beyond that tends to spell death. They seem to be just as ferocious underwater: the other day I saw someone try to duo the witch, they fell down poisoned into the lake and started to rally; I went down there to help them, only to escape the krait infestation very narrowly. The underwater skills are kitten now. So much for hanging out at Nonmoa, helping new players.

I originally started a Ranger, but went with Guardian instead when I realized I needed a job which could help me survive my, shall we say, less than 1337 playing style. I knew that many features, such as PVP, are more suited to more skilled and far more competitive individuals, and that is how it should be. I understand that things like dungeons are for the committed and quick who want great gear, and guild missions for the organized, big guilds. That is all cool.

As is also cool that there should be occasional bosses in the open world which take more than a slap to tackle. But I don’t think regular mobs should go, in regular open world maps, from yawn-inducing bunnies to these insanely buffed krait in the blink of an eye, much less in a pre-80 map. Having to take your life in your hands every six feet on the map isn’t challenging, it’s just annoying. I find jumping puzzles to provide a lot more actual challenge in terms of skill and coordination. You should swap gear and skills for boss encounters, but you shouldn’t have to do that just to survive random open world encounters that don’t even drop anything worthwhile most of the time.

I’m not saying ruin someone else’s fun so that I can have mine, but surely no one is now going, “hey, let’s go kill some krait at Nonmoa Lake, you know the ones that drop absolutely nothing while beating you to an inch of your life; that will be so challenging!”.

Experiencing the same, and it started with the patch – before then, no such issues. Almost every time I switch maps, it just loads and loads and then disconnects with some varying message about not reaching the server. No, it’s not my Internet connection.

Sometimes it happens even without a map change, I finish a jump puzzle and run off to do something else, disconnect, and I come back to still being in the puzzle. Map change just seems to really trigger it pretty much “on demand”.

Also noticeable lag at times getting off skills, sometimes even taking a step forward is delayed or nothing happens. This is intolerable.

I play on Gandara (EU) and connect from Finland.

I’ve been playing for a couple of weeks, but this isn’t my first MMO. I’ve always preferred supportive roles, so I decided to be a Guardian, and have enjoyed the soloable content a lot.

The trouble begins when I get in a group and do dungeons and stuff like that. As long as everything is going smoothly, it’s all good, but if the situation takes a turn for the worse and things get chaotic, I become completely useless. It’s like I dropped my bag of marbles & am trying to get them all back in my hands. Essentially, I panic. Within a matter of seconds I’ve blown through all my abilities in a random order because I feel like I have to do something, and my HB fails to hit an ally because I’m facing wherever.

I don’t have this issue as much when I am soloing or participating in a dynamic event where I don’t feel like I am responsible for keeping everyone alive. In the very few dungeon instances I have done, no one has ever said I was there to keep health bars up, but in the absence of a dedicated healer I feel somewhat pigeonholed into that position as if by some unspoken assumption.

Is there anything I can do to keep it together when things go haywire?