Guild Wars 2

stability.

/thread

Kill an NPC and they are dead FOREVER? Nope – can’t be done in a MMO.

— looks at Traherne —

Yes it can, Do It Now ANet

Psybunny.8906:

Arheundel.6451:

plasmacutter.2709:

Void.4239:

I’m expecting 1 of the following to fix the ele class compared to other classes

option 1
- reduction in mobility ( rtl slower/ less range , OR 30-40 sec cooldown like most get out of jail free cards on other classes )

OR
option 2
- reduce the sustained heals ( that aren’t from basic healing skill )
( you should never be able to get more heals out of traits , then from the basic healing skill )

OR
option 3
- reduce outgoing dps by 1% for each point spend into water trait

any of these options would balance out the ele in par with other characters
( maybe reduce the aoe radius a little bit to )

else there’s a very good chance that +-30% of the players will be playing ele in pvp
and i don’t think that’s the intention of the devs

Either of these options requires ele to have more base hp than 10k.

Option 4 – people can L2P, L2 immobilize, L2 boon strip, L2 time their burst for just after ele exits water attunement, L2 focus fire from ranged.

You aren’t going anywhere discussing with these people, just ignore them and let them suffocate in their own rage.

Don’t worry bunker won’t be removed from game, Anet has stated this over and over again that the playstyle will be not be removed therefore RTL will remain on the eles and it will remain free of any “on target” addition, plus…there are other strong traits and combinations which will be discovered as people move away from the tanky builds, watching thieves I learned to be an opportunist..though with an ele you can be an opportunist with much more devastating effects…and you’ll soon see why.

Furthermore there is the staff which remain a very strong support weapon and with enough practice you can hold your own against any profession, trust me, while dishing out some serious dmg..these days people have forgotten the dangers of sitting on a point 24/7

Finally there is scepter/focus, while the set is enough to deal against any mele and ranged opponent on your own, we still need some buff there and there, Jon Peter has already stated duing the SoTG that ele got “quite few weak things”, which I presume include the focus,scepter and glyphs.

I’m pretty sure that no-one here wants to make ele unviable and I’m pretty sure they wont be. A lot of professions need some tweaking here and there in some areas, some lowered, some buffed a bit.

But closing your eyes about the clear imbalances of your fav profession isn’t a objective way to approach either.

I don’t see RtL as that much of a problem, but too big boon upkeep/selfsustain and the ability to “reset” in little time definitely is atm. My personal pet peeve I have with this class is the mistform rezzing/stomping which have no counters.

P.S s/d is in no way a weak combo.

The “clear imbalance” is the lack of trait synergies in other professions.

I have a mesmer shelved due to terrible trait synergy and even worse group play.
I have a guardian which has a trait line for greatsword symbol support which was gutted by a very stupid change to GS symbol of wrath cooldown, which didn’t even come close to fixing the unrelated perm-retal issue.

Then there are necros.. heck pretty much every other profession lacks the kind of trait synergy that went into ele.

The guys from ele should be pulled from what they’re doing and made into a class revision team which can go about reforming the trait lines of every other profession.

I want to see the kind of massive trait synergy I see with eles spread elsewhere, and utilities and builds focused on “countering” those synergies.

The ele should not be nerfed, it should be balanced by buffing everyone else.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

plasmacutter.2709:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

plasmacutter.2709:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

plasmacutter.2709:

The humans may have taken the land first, but they did not use WMD’s on civilian populations to do it.

I present Exhibit B: The Foefire. The Ascalonians definitely did use a magical equivalent of a terror weapon on the charr. It’s so bad the ghosts continue to rise and can’t seem to be permanently destroyed in a broad enough way to achieve a pure victory.

It would not have happened had the charr not “nuked” the area, men, women, children, and elders, with burning crystals, killing millions, burning the crops and rendering the land un-arable, sentencing the unlucky survivors to perpetual famine.

The foefire was a final, desperate act of vengeance by a doomed king and people, and continues to mete justice to this day.

The plight the charr face is the hand of karma.

I suppose you could look at it like that . . . but if we’re going to be completely honest? The Foefire counts as I labeled it, the motivation behind it being used or the fact “the charr did it first” doesn’t excuse it.

Please note, I do like the humans in this game. I just noticed even way back in the ages before it was called “Guild Wars: Prophecies” that King Adelbern was a lil . . . cuckoo for cocoa puffs.

The reality was this:
The land was rendered hostile to human life, the charr were breaking down the doors. The ascalonians were already walking-dead. The question was not whether they would continue and survive, the question was how many of these dirty, honorless scum would they take with them on their way out.

The foefire was a stroke of genius, it reaches out from the grave to insure the charr always know the suffering they inflicted. I suspect it will continue until the consciousness of the entire charr society turns from its arrogance and learns remorse.

I’m not denying it was important, just saying if you look at it objectively, from outside either the charr or the human sides’ perspectives? Terror weapon almost on the order of the Searing Cauldrons. (By the way, since we turned around and used one . . . what does that say about the Pact? . . .)

Actually, an end condition is somewhat known, and it was supposed to involve the twin to King Adelbern’s sword (wielded by Prince Rurik) arriving and somehow it would allow the King to go to his rest knowing his final retribution was not in vain. Only problem is that Rytlock has it, and he’s not giving it up. Also seeing it in the hands of a charr kind of made King Adelbern flip his crown.

My point exactly.

Even today, the charr deserve their fate of perpetual war with the ghosts of those they’ve already tortured and slain.

Since they seem to have no conscience, Adelberne gave them one obstinate enough to keep reminding them until, perhaps another 250 years from now, they get the hint. (that even in war, there are some places you just DON’T go)

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

plasmacutter.2709:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

plasmacutter.2709:

The humans may have taken the land first, but they did not use WMD’s on civilian populations to do it.

I present Exhibit B: The Foefire. The Ascalonians definitely did use a magical equivalent of a terror weapon on the charr. It’s so bad the ghosts continue to rise and can’t seem to be permanently destroyed in a broad enough way to achieve a pure victory.

It would not have happened had the charr not “nuked” the area, men, women, children, and elders, with burning crystals, killing millions, burning the crops and rendering the land un-arable, sentencing the unlucky survivors to perpetual famine.

The foefire was a final, desperate act of vengeance by a doomed king and people, and continues to mete justice to this day.

The plight the charr face is the hand of karma.

I suppose you could look at it like that . . . but if we’re going to be completely honest? The Foefire counts as I labeled it, the motivation behind it being used or the fact “the charr did it first” doesn’t excuse it.

Please note, I do like the humans in this game. I just noticed even way back in the ages before it was called “Guild Wars: Prophecies” that King Adelbern was a lil . . . cuckoo for cocoa puffs.

The reality was this:
The land was rendered hostile to human life, the charr were breaking down the doors. The ascalonians were already walking-dead. The question was not whether they would continue and survive, the question was how many of these dirty, honorless scum would they take with them on their way out.

The foefire was a stroke of genius, it reaches out from the grave to insure the charr always know the suffering they inflicted. I suspect it will continue until the consciousness of the entire charr society turns from its arrogance and learns remorse.

This includes not plundering the graves of the fallen (Rhytlock). You never see humans plunder charr graves.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

plasmacutter.2709:

The humans may have taken the land first, but they did not use WMD’s on civilian populations to do it.

I present Exhibit B: The Foefire. The Ascalonians definitely did use a magical equivalent of a terror weapon on the charr. It’s so bad the ghosts continue to rise and can’t seem to be permanently destroyed in a broad enough way to achieve a pure victory.

It would not have happened had the charr not “nuked” the area, men, women, children, and elders, with burning crystals, killing millions, burning the crops and rendering the land un-arable, sentencing the unlucky survivors to perpetual famine.

The foefire was a final, desperate act of vengeance by a doomed king and people, and continues to mete justice to this day on a race which chose the most dishonorable of combat methods.

The plight the charr face is the hand of karma.

No, use common sense. Look at it. It’s 100% some generic medieval town. Every single generic RPG is set in something like that.

The phantasy star series had nothing like that, nor mass effect, nor swtor… and on and on.

Writetyper.1985:

plasmacutter.2709:

Writetyper.1985:

Isslair.4908:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Humans just aren’t the center of the continent ..

It’s not about center. It’s about the whole attitude.

Ascalonian fractal – we kill humans, cliffside – we kill humans, who is the “failed” member of Destiny’s Edge – human, which race has virtually no presence in story missions – yup humans, etc.

I can understand the wish to stay away from the standard human-centric worlds in fantasy. But anet overdid it. By a lot.

Because humans are generic as kitten. Have you been to queensdale? There is nothing I could describe human zones as with anything less than “extremely generic”.

Besides, I’m really not feeling what you’re saying. Humans are everywhere.

yes, because the asura lowbie zones are so very non-generic.

Well… yeah. Sarcasm is pointless if it’s true.

Please provide a survey of a significant portion of the playerbase which shows metrica is any less generic than queensdale.

The only thing I see are different architecture and more mechanical enemies.

Writetyper.1985:

Isslair.4908:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Humans just aren’t the center of the continent ..

It’s not about center. It’s about the whole attitude.

Ascalonian fractal – we kill humans, cliffside – we kill humans, who is the “failed” member of Destiny’s Edge – human, which race has virtually no presence in story missions – yup humans, etc.

I can understand the wish to stay away from the standard human-centric worlds in fantasy. But anet overdid it. By a lot.

Because humans are generic as kitten. Have you been to queensdale? There is nothing I could describe human zones as with anything less than “extremely generic”.

Besides, I’m really not feeling what you’re saying. Humans are everywhere.

yes, because the asura lowbie zones are so very non-generic.

Red Falcon.8257:

My gf and I got maybe 200 charged lodestones in fractals.
They are pretty common, we usually get at least one every other run.

Nice, you weren’t affected by 11/15, the rest of us were.

AstralDusk.1670:

Because it’s been 250 years, the charr have overthrown their Flame Legion overlords, and the two races now have a peace treaty that have groups on both sides trying to undermine the treaty and re-ignite the war. Yes, you missed pretty much ALL of the story.

As for destroying your home, technically humans destroyed the charrs’ home first, so after hundreds of years of back-and-forth, they’re calling it a draw.

The Japanese might be congenial, but they have not forgotten hiroshima and nagasaki, and I do not forget ascalon.

The humans may have taken the land first, but they did not use WMD’s on civilian populations to do it.

I accept the idea of a peace treaty, but believe the charr fully deserve their perpetual war with the ghosts of the millions they’ve tortured and starved in the searing.

I laugh whenever Rhytlock gets pasted in dungeons, he thieves from the honored dead.

Leamas.5803:

silvermember.8941:

My sig is from years of watching MMO players make that mistake. They get excited about a game, call it the greatest thing since slice bread, once they play it they praise it more then after they play enough of it, they complain how it was disappointing. Now usually, its not a problem until you realize instead of admitting that they dreamed up or hype the game in their minds and move on, they stay and QQ all day long. The worst part is, they don’t learn and will continue the cycle.

I bought the game blindly on a friend’s recommendation. I had no preconceptions about the game, only low expectations knowing it was an MMO. When I got in to the game I was pleasantly surprised and it wasn’t the horrible grind that you always hear about from the the Korean cookie cutter MMOs, Lineage II, D3, and so many others. That all changed in November when loot crashed in to the ground, creating a huge crater of nothingness. Now, THIS is what I expected from the start and why I’ve never bothered with Lineage II, D3, Aion, Shaiya, or anything else. Life is too short to grind away doing the same stuff endlessly pursuing that carrot that you might never get to. Lemmings running of a cliff…

I still play for the social aspect and have even switched to a more active guild, however, I have given up any hope of getting good drops, which is fine, and I think I’m happier now that I don’t care anymore. However, outside the gems I already have, which I’ve been saving for instant repair kits, one of the few non-cosmetic, actually useful items in the gem store, I’ve also committed to not spending a single penny in the gem store. ArenaNet has change the game I bought and made loot a hopeless situation, why should I give them any more money?

Dead on. ANet should listen to this, it’s the general consensus of everyone who does not have a “lucky account” after the 11/15 patch.

easier idea:

Remove crit damage from the game

re-balance all damage around its absence

This will also indirectly nerf bunkers because balanced builds will output more damage.

There are a lot of combinations ANet left out of the game period.

one of the glaring ones is:

pow/condition damage/ toughness

They should add these. It’s not a HARD thing to add these stat combos.

goldi.3129:

Legendaries are a luxury object. And thus prized as a luxury is to be expected.

They were a luxury object.

Ever since lost shores, they are the target “goal” of endgame — Don’t try to dispute this, it’s in the countless dev Q&A sessions.

As such, it is ANet’s duty to make sure average players can gradually work toward one on a timescale which is annual rather than generational

Thomassassinate.9370:

Anyone who dislikes the game in my opinion are the people who aren’t play the full expierence of it.

Killing the same stuff, or doing the same events over and over whether you get loot or not you’ll get bored and soon get a feeling that the whole game is like that.

It’s great to explore, meet new people, and if you truly get bored try a new profession and do something new with it.

I CANT experience the whole game, because I can’t experiment with builds, because since 11/15 my loot has been kitten on a stick, and so it has been with half the game’s population, while the other half rakes in 3-5 ectos an hour and are happy as clams, and this happens consistently and has happend consistently for months on end.

This is not RNG, this is not luck, this is a bug ANet refuses to acknowledge and actively fix, and, for the MANY people with this bug it’s taking the “game experience” out back, beating it with a tire iron, and finishing it behind the ear with a .22 .

AllDryKhaki.4028:

Hi so i entered after a long time not playing guild wars 2 and i went cursed shore farming. i was surprised because i got 6 gold in 1 hour alot of rares and an exotic. its been a week from that 6 gold and i had been playing regularly but i only recieved 2 rares after that day what is going on??

You still received two rares, be glad you did… be glad you did.

foenxz.8564:

plasmacutter.2709:

Inflation performs a very necessary role, when coupled with nominal earnings increases that track that rate, of reducing the wealth gap by reducing the purchasing power of hoarded cash.

Exactly my point. If there is more gold being generated due to more players signing up (thereby increasing the overall earning capacity in the game), that is not as bad as if there is 1 item for every 10,000 players, making said item extremely expensive. Gold sinks are still definitely required to control this inflation (but not so much that they become a veritable handicap), but if someone claims that the prices of ectos/lodestones are rising due to inflation, i call BS to that. They are rising simply because there are fewer and fewer of those available per capita of the total player population out there.

The issue here is all these new players are still coming in under draconian “perma-DR” issues, at least half of them are.

They’re also coming in after all the good sources for “normal” people to make cash are nerfed to hell.

They are leveling and gaming in a MUCH poorer world, and because of that, they’re making less money than the people who are now sitting on 5 and 6 figures of gold did.

We’re seeing the opposite of “cost of living” increases here, we’re seeing decreased real wages as nominal wages fall, supplies stay the same (but supply per person falls due to bad loot), and prices skyrocket.

… some awesome, high-fantasy/steampunk armor skins, dignified, skimpy, or both!
… some awesome weapon skins that reflected modern minimalism without being boring
… some flavor items which would allow me to transform friendly players who are not in combat.
… a keyboard for charr

Ze Dos Cavalos.6132:

I just got one from fractals daily 20 yay.
Sold it for 2 gold 80 silver, and after i sold it i thought to myself:
“man why did i report all those bots? these mats are out of control”

this proves they’ve done something right.

charged lodestones used to be at 4g

they’re coming down in price.

Kincaidia.3192:

If it was actually an actually random RNG, I’d be okay with it. But it isn’t. “Impossible” odds keep happening over and over. Yesterday I salvaged 8 level 80 rares in a row and got zero ectos. 5 guildmates doing speed dungeon runs, and the breakdown of loot was

5 rares, 2 exotics for one person
1 exotic one rare for one person
No rares for 3 people.

(and no one was using MF of any kind)

I know these kinds of “random” things can happen – but they happen all the kitten time.

This has been my point for months, and it’s been my observation since the 11/15 patch.

The devs are NOT listening however, and because of that I’ve stopped playing. I’m now at least 1.5 weeks without any time online besides dusting off my account to fill out someone else’s survey on game play.

There are many things that can’t be mystic forged that have no reason…

look at all the back braces from CoF for instance. uuugh.

This makes no sense, because everyone would be getting these benefits and while you would technically have a higher number of gold, relative to everyone else you would still be just as poor.

Not true. The people who made their money off godskull and are manipulating the TP would become progressively less wealthy as their cash hoard’s purchasing power lowered.

Inflation, in case like this one, where everyone is making more due to vendor price buffs, would most certainly even the playing field.

John Smith.4610:

Tyria is a its own world. The Black Lion Trading Company exists in that world and plays the roll it was meant to play. The TP was intentionally designed to be part of the game and, much more than real life, you may choose to live how you like inside Tyria. It’s your world to live in.

Except if I want to get materials by killing relevant mobs instead of going to my “lending class” masters on the TP for them.

Thanks to the 11/15 patch putting me, and many, MANY of my comrades on perma-DR, I don’t have the option to supply my own materials — the option that prevents “wealth gaps” from ever becoming an issue in other games.

I did not give one whit that some of my buddies in wow had hit the gold cap, because I was there to play the game, and if I needed something to play the game, I could go out and kill for it, and get it dependably, and in a time frame where I did NOT have to account for sending great grand-children to college. Here in gw2, however, I am forced to care, because these (kitten)s manipulating the TP are the only source due to DR!

The impact is staggering on my gaming experience: I have not personally logged more than 10 minutes in game in the past week or so. I’ve also noted a considerable drop in in-game activity over the past month as it’s sunk in that ANet is doing zip about the drop issues. Only the “lucky accounts” and the bots remain.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

I get mostly what you guys get for chest loot. It wasn’t until after the last update that I started seeing improved loot from normal creatures.

All I can suggest is go to places that you haven’t been to often maybe you’ll be surprised like I was here.

The loot system seems to award going off the beaten path as much as exp gain for killing not often killed enemies.

So once I reach 100% world completion my drop rates will plummet again.. Nice.. I get “rewarded” for exploring by every area i “know” becoming a loot purgatory.

foenxz.8564:

2) Rising prices does not necessarily mean inflation…. they can also mean more demand/less supply. With inflation, everyone suffers but with increasing gap between demand/supply, fewer people get more rich, while the greater population suffer even more.

A small supply pool means the market is very easy to manipulate, and make no mistake it IS being manipulated.

Inflation is not a bad thing either. As long as “cost of living increases” cause the nominal “wage” to rise, inflation actually is a massive help to the middle class. It’s the reason you can afford to send your kids to college and save for retirement.. your house payments, which were once pretty burdensome, have become less of an issue due to inflation, and the fact that debt payment does not increase with inflation.

Inflation performs a very necessary role, when coupled with nominal earnings increases that track that rate, of reducing the wealth gap by reducing the purchasing power of hoarded cash.

The problem is the opposite is happening.

They let people accumulate obscene amounts of money through things like godskull and snowflake exploits, or simply farming before 11/15 made it hell for everyone else, then then nerfed the bejesus out of everything normal people use to make gold, thereby magnifying the purchasing power of the super-rich.

The end result:

A “trader class” who made their money before 11/15 and now manipulate the market to get richer at everyone else’s expense, and the underclass who barely make waypoint fees and are on perma-DR

Opinions, or preferences, come in around whether you like vertical progression or not. I prefer horizontal progression in an MMO. I think it carries less baggage. That is my opinion.

It may be your opinion but it’s well supported.

Scaling is a major balance issue in itself. I don’t like nerf patches at the beginning of cycles that cause professions to become irrelevant toward the end due to poor stat scaling interacting with vertical progression.

Kakeru.2873:

Trait synergy and actual “counter-mechanics” in game are really lacking.

This is why I’m so against the D/D nerf. D/D should be the gold standard and everyone else raised TO that standard. D/D should not be dismantled just because they’re too lazy to make other professions have better trait synergy.

At the same time, stun breaks should be made base-line, and more specialized utilities like corrupt boon added to the game.

The thing is what Eles don’t realise is. Other profession simply cannot and will not ever beable to perform on a level of the D/D because they do not have the tools to do so. You realise an Ele at any given time has 2x more kills to pop then a guardian or ranger or necro. Having attunements allowed you to constantly spawn skill slots allowing 0 downtime and the ablitly to instantly deal damage or heal while others are skill waiting on there skill recharges.

IT isn’t a gold standard it’s a standard that can only be reached by 2 proffesions in the game Engi and Ele. You realise not every class has 3+ types of combos fields and has the ablity to blasy,leap,whirl there own fields?

Warriors have 1 combo field available a fire field as a burst skill that need adrenaline on the longbow their worst and most useless weapon.
Guardians have 2 combo fields light and fire, allows them to stack might and cure conditions they will never be able to have as much ulitlity as a Ele who has Water,fire,Ice,Lighting fields and every type of finisher.

Right now there are ele builds which give them the ablitly to have perma swiftness, that alone needs to be looked at.

Every skill an ele has is on a cooldown easily double to 4 times as high as everyone else’s skills. About 1/3 of those skills are “junk skills” that are simply not used. The APM of an ele is no higher than a necro, and as bunkers all those abilities add up to all the damage of ONE stack of bleeding.

Ele has 10k hp base, and only 17k at full HP in full tank gear. That’s about as much as some other classes in valks, knigths, and even berserkers.

Without the boons as compensation (particularly swiftness, protection, fury and regen), they better be upping ele HP by about 100% and giving them heavy armor.

Right now they can’t stack zerker’s like everyone else, and the devs have flat out said it on some of their streams from early BWE’s.

I repeat, they have no higher APM, they do no more damage than a single bleed stack, and they have the lowest HP and armor in the game. The best they can do is harass you. If you die to them you are BAD

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

There is nothing wrong with drops.

Look here:
Same cave spider in the same spawn location twice dropped two yellows and the whole map so far dropped 8 greens. I got lots of tier 4 materials more than I ever gotten on a tier 4 map before.

I almost have 4 g here (had only about 1g 80 ish) from just selling blues and whites i don’t salvage and all the junk items. Also had about 4-5 unid dyes.

I don’t see why people complain… Maybe you all need to get to these unpopular maps more.

Congratulations, YOU do not have permanent-dr like half the populations.

Count your lucky starts that you do not have permanent DR.

Those of us who do consider posts like this trolling.

Those of us who do have permanent DR were so frustrated that we, independently and en-masse, have bee continually compelled to close our game clients, come to the forums, and keep so many threads alive the ANet posters now sigh in resignation whenever this issue is brought up.

We are not some “entitled” rare-rain wannabes here, we want to have the same loot chances you do, but that we are denied, usually to the tune of 4 whites and 2 blues from a boss chest!

Iruwen.3164:

Aren’t you doing exactly the same? You generalize from your limited perspective and try to attest a global problem when there may be none. Or maybe there is. His/her opinion and observations are in no way less relevant though.

I’d say there’s a global problem when threads like this come up at such a high frequency that they have to sticky a thread and keep sweeping everyone into it, and despite this there are still at least 3 active on the front page of general at any one time.

I’ve played a few other games and NEVER run into this as an issue. (maybe D3 had this issue?)

I have noted that there’s a “great divide”, the people who are not perma-DR’d have a blast and get 3 ectos an hour. The people like me do DO have perma-DR have rewards so pitiful the waypoint costs are not even covered.

I have spent less than 10 minutes in game the past week or so because it’s just THAT BAD.

It’s bad enough and causes enough complaints that whenever it comes up in the presence of a red poster, you will, at least 30% of the time, see a post saying “not this again,”

Generally when complaints get this pervasive, there’s a good and concrete reason for them. Most people would probably play the game rather than complain about it if it were not so dry of loot as to evoke despair rather than fun.

Avatar.1923:

the game tries to make it “difficult” for farmers and grinders to break the economy.

and personally, i’m very happy with that.

the amulet after 30days, thats a reward for your time played, not a grind.
and by all means, really not “necessary”.

Except it does the exact OPPOSITE of that.

now ONLY people who:
a – are rich already (from farming pre-11/15) and control the TP
b – have no life, or
c – have extreme luck,
get to experience the full game because they’re the only ones who make enough gold.

If you want to just craft or work slowly toward a goal, you can’t go out and get your own mats. Because you can’t go out and get your own mats, you are at the mercy of the TP manipulators who think it’s fun in a dragon-slayer game to bean-count and play wall-street at everyone else’s expense.

A full set of exotics is too expensive at about 30g for anyone with this perma-dr bs to experiment with new builds or gear.

so you have the people with the “lucky accounts”, the people who made thousands of gold via godskull, and the people who play 24/7 from their parents’ basement actually able to experience the whole game, while the rest of us have a terrible experience.

This game isn’t like WoW, you don’t pick a weapon, shoot for it, and use it and only it. Your abilities depend on your weapons, you need a full set. You also don’t get one or two viable builds all based on the same stats, you need multiple sets of armor for build experimentation.

You can’t get that when you’re being kitten-blocked to one amulet a month, and a single legendary is perpetually out of reach due to 30% inflation of precursors month-after-month.

phys.7689:

Calae.1738:

Ethics.4519:

Calae.1738:

Ethics.4519:

Use fire breath #2 before using #5 if you want the extra damage.

Combos are a sequence of abilities that players must execute with timing and accuracy. Timing and accuracy are skills that players can sharpen with practice. With enough practice, you can execute the combo faster, giving your opponent less time to react.

Fire 2 is a channeled ability, similar to a flame thrower. This ability would have to be interrupted midway through to land the combo quickly. Even though your solution works, I would’ve built Fire 2 differently. Instead of channeled, it would’ve been a 1 hit attack that applies burning.

However, if Fire 3 had burning, Fire 2 would be redundant. Fire 2 could be retooled to work in a combo with Fire 4. Fire 4 is a Ring of Fire on the ground. Fire 2 could be a flaming fist ground slam that caused AoE damage but; also causes an AoE knockback stun when used inside the Ring of Fire.

The combo then would be, Air 4, Air 5, switch to Fire, Fire 3, Fire 5, Fire 4, Fire 2.

A more complex version would be, Air 4, Air 5, switch to Fire, Fire 3, Fire 5, Fire 4, Fire 2, switch to Earth, Earth 3 (magnetic grasp to bridge the gap), Earth 4 (Earthquake knockdown), Earth 5 (Churning Earth), Lightning Flash teleport if target gets out of range.

You seem to contradict yourself a little. In your original post, from what I understand, you’re saying that you want the #3 to have longer last burning, to allow you to hit #5, but then you say my idea wouldn’t work because you wanted the combo to be fast, and you want skill to come into play so you have to pull it off quickly, counter to your original complaint.

My combo is similar to yours, except I use the #2 and interrupt it halfway through (sometimes) which I think is worth it. Then I switch to earth, hit #3 to share fire aura, hit arcana blast for the finisher, then hopefully pop in #5 to get an extra 3 stacks of might, maybe popping my cantrip to gain stability, depending on the mob I’m fighting.

All your combo ideas are good and interesting, but what I just said is interesting enough as well. The issue is that it eventually becomes button mashing. It no longer becomes “zoom in, knock down, surge ahead, burn, hit big damage, combo field, share aura, share might” after awhile it turns into “f3, 4, 5, f1, 3, 2, 5, f4, 3, r, 5, e” (with my keybindings)

That’s what a combo is.

A sequence of attacks that if executed correctly and precisely would reward you with additional damage. You can choose to not execute any combo but, you would not be rewarded for spamming auto attacks.

In the current meta, some professions deal more damage just standing there hitting auto attack. Hitting ANY other button would be a DPS LOSS. Think about it.

i think overall your choice in design is too specifically combo heavy, which would lead to very few good builds and what not.
However i agree that for many classes there isnt enough ways to synergize that are advantageous.

also spamming one button is the best way to play for many classes, that should probably stop.

So yeah i think they need more synergy, and even combos, but i think your combo style is too static and leads to less options for fighting.

Trait synergy and actual “counter-mechanics” in game are really lacking.

This is why I’m so against the D/D nerf. D/D should be the gold standard and everyone else raised TO that standard. D/D should not be dismantled just because they’re too lazy to make other professions have better trait synergy.

At the same time, stun breaks should be made base-line, and more specialized utilities like corrupt boon added to the game.

D/D Elementalists and Thieves reign supreme and make sPVP

D/D elementalists do the same damage over time as a single stack of bleed, especially if you combo-break their flame grab and walk out of their churning earth. They’re more like a permanent condition that occasionally knocks down.

If you consider them overpowered you are doing it wrong.

Try immobilizing them, stripping their boons, and unloading burst after they leave water.

shedim.8504:

plasmacutter.2709:

nakoda.4213:

here is my problem with the problem you all have with the kits,

the engineer is designed around the kits. the whole class revoles around the kits. the kits, in essense are a form of stance dancing. you dance between the kits that fit your groove, and supplement with your weapons and your devices.

If that’s true then our kits should be F1-F4 and we should have our utility slots free.

I’m not seeing that.

the fact that we CAN slot all elixirs or non-kit utils means we are NOT based around kits, and if the devs are treating us as such it’s unfair discrimination. (we get to be the only class which has to sacrifice utility slots for our “core mechanic”?)

our weapons should hold their own in terms of damage unless and until kits become our F1-F4 and we have utility slots free.

They didn’t do this because they felt like the Engineer would be too similar to the Elementalist, then. I still don’t get how they felt like it was a good idea to restrict Engineer weapon and kit damage, because of the possibility to equip kits. Why did they design elixirs and turrets separately, then? They could as well have designed an elixir-kit, gadget-kit and a turret kit in order to force us to use kits. Instead, they gave us the possibilty to not equip any kit at all, but still nerfed the damage massively. It doesn’t make sense to me.

It makes even less sense when you include the utility slot penalty for the kits.

so let me get the logic here:

we LOSE utility slots.

so..

as a penalty for LOSING utility slots, our weapons also do LESS damage.

they must have some really really REALLY good ganja at the ANet headquarters.

NaturalPortman.9562:

Ayestes.1273:

Goloith.6349:

If you die alot, I’d say sigil of earth and sigil of battle.

These don’t work together very well. When any sigil is on a cooldown, any other sigil with a cooldown will not function. That means when you trigger the Sigil of Battle then the Sigil of Earth will not function for 9s. It also means when you trigger Sigil of Earth then the Sigil of Battle will not function for 2s, which could very well be when you swapped.

That’s not true. That only applies to the same type of sigil, you cannot use 2 swap sigils etc.

Actually it is, the ele community has done extensive testing for tweaking their D/D builds and proc sigils will prevent sigil of battle from going off, and vice versa.

nakoda.4213:

here is my problem with the problem you all have with the kits,

the engineer is designed around the kits. the whole class revoles around the kits. the kits, in essense are a form of stance dancing. you dance between the kits that fit your groove, and supplement with your weapons and your devices.

If that’s true then our kits should be F1-F4 and we should have our utility slots free.

I’m not seeing that.

the fact that we CAN slot all elixirs or non-kit utils means we are NOT based around kits, and if the devs are treating us as such it’s unfair discrimination. (we get to be the only class which has to sacrifice utility slots for our “core mechanic”?)

our weapons should hold their own in terms of damage unless and until kits become our F1-F4 and we have utility slots free.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how ‘perfect’ one must be to land a massive 1hko burst.

1hko burst should simply not be in the game.

a perfect glass cannon fight should still last at least 10 seconds so both sides have the opportunity to react and introduce just a modicum of strategy.

Void.4239:

I’m expecting 1 of the following to fix the ele class compared to other classes

option 1
- reduction in mobility ( rtl slower/ less range , OR 30-40 sec cooldown like most get out of jail free cards on other classes )

OR
option 2
- reduce the sustained heals ( that aren’t from basic healing skill )
( you should never be able to get more heals out of traits , then from the basic healing skill )

OR
option 3
- reduce outgoing dps by 1% for each point spend into water trait

any of these options would balance out the ele in par with other characters
( maybe reduce the aoe radius a little bit to )

else there’s a very good chance that +-30% of the players will be playing ele in pvp
and i don’t think that’s the intention of the devs

Either of these options requires ele to have more base hp than 10k.

Option 4 – people can L2P, L2 immobilize, L2 boon strip, L2 time their burst for just after ele exits water attunement, L2 focus fire from ranged.

I’m disappointed in these reactions.

Think mesmer great sword, people.

Engineer proves pistol doesn’t have to mean shooting.

happyjedi.1372:

John Smith.4610:

That UI is for US Tax, VAT is added into the price. We pay 20% on all transactions from Europe.

Understood, but this does not justify a 50 cents price different.

How about the fact that the US median wage is now well behind many EU nations?

You should be happy you’re charged so much more, it’s just more proof the US is turning into a banana republic.

Syeria.4812:

The burden of proof continues to fall upon those who claim that the current economy is harming the game. No matter how many fancy, selfish, silly ways people want to try phrase things “I’m unhappy” is still not an argument. The people who have defended the economy have defended it against the claims that have been made against it. As no one has provided an actual argument (besides the “I want a legendary but it’s hard” one that is constantly put down) as to the economy detracting from the game, no one has felt obligated to defend it.

I’ll reiterate again:

If you or anyone else believes that the economy of the game is causing things to be “unfun” feel free to make that argument. However, you must be prepared to present evidence or logic to support that claim. The burden of proof is upon you.

“Harming The Game” is an arbitrary criteria, but you don’t see many people on wow, for example, complaining about the economy.

You most certainly don’t have massive, recurring threads in the GENERAL forums on the inaccessibility of end-game progression being gated behind the TP, and you don’t have massive threads on how unrewarding the game feels for the half of the populace with bugged DR.

The average of at least two threads on the front page of general bemoaning these two points, despite continual mod action to move or delete them, and the massive sticky which is actually a smaller, younger brother of a much larger locked one, seem to demonstrate an “objective” measure of this.

People were so annoyed they were motivated to log OUT of the game and come here to complain. I’d call that a ruined game experience.

Mourningcry.9428:

plasmacutter.2709:

Let me get this straight, please.

Fallacy #1 – argumentum ad verecundiam
You seem to ignore the continuous shift between steel and aluminum casting of parts in the auto industry (easily proven by talking to any experienced auto mechanic), and produce a very verbose but substance-free “rebuttal” consisting of “it.. it’s not analogous because I said so”.

Do you even undestand what “argumentum ad verecundiam” is? Obviously not, or you wouldn’t suggest your assumptions are fact just by “talking to any experienced auto mechanic”. The assumption that the expertise of just “any” expericed auto mechanic upon any and all auto part manufacturing decisions being conclusive is just absurd.

Further, the concept of a substitute is something that you brought up but failed to use properly with the Steel-Aluminum analogy. What you failed to acknowledge is that these are not legitimate substitutes. You claim “real-world” examples, but fail in that “aluminum to steel” is a shift, not a substitute. One model of the same car, from the same production line, from the same model year doesn’t arbitrarily have steel or aluminum depending upon a whim. The engineering and manufacturing changes needed to accommodate this shift is not trivial, nor arbitrary.

You use the excuse of “startup costs” to refute the idea that a healthy economy will see a “resource rush” as a counter-force to a price that skyrockets out of control. I’m sorry, it doesn’t fly. Modern gold and diamond mining operations, as well as the proliferation of oil rigs, knocks this feeble argument clean out of the water.

The key concept to understand is that of barrier of entry, in this case, being the start-up cost. The proliferation you site, is no doubt, a proliferation within the industry itself, is more of an expansion by existing participants, rather than an increase in the number of the participants in the industry itself. Simply put, the startup costs are a significant barrier of entry for every Tom, Dick, and Harry, from going out and plopping down an oil rig. The proliferation is a factor of the marginal cost for the Exons, BPs, and Mobiles to plop down another rig.

With respect to GW2, and in the example I gave, the barrier of entry is the initial acquisition of the pre-cursor. Further, this is in direct response to your assertion of lack of contribution to the precursor market.

Fallacy #2 – the straw man.
You then set up this straw man idea that farming raw materials and ONLY raw materials will produce prsperity for everyone, then knock it over, as if that has anything to do with the point I was making.

Are you trying to pull a straw man? My response was in direct response to your analogy or “reaping what you sow”, which is ridiculous at best. Obviously, my sarcasm was lost on you. If crop production was as stable and only affected by “a horrific disaster” then it would stand to reason, that everyone would be a producer because of the guaranteed return.

In summary, you claim “real world” examples as analogies to in game mechanics. But all your “real world” examples are flawed, and are sandboxed with set conditions which ignore other “real world” factors (i.e. natural disasters being the only factor in crop prices, or engineering and manufacturing limitations). My initial response to your post was meant to refute these unsubstantiated and flawed real-world analogies.

It’s like talking to a diningroom table.

The engineering shifts ARE arbitrary because they happen with every design revision, and if a component material becomes too costly there will be another design revision.

The barriers to entry in the real world are not hard-coded in natural law, like they are in this game, and are obviously not high enough to deter entry in my examples.

Your response was a straw man consisting of a market with all producers and no consumers, and you STILL have not addressed my original point! (beyond, of course, your standard, overly-verbose “because I said so”)

Now do continue to employ “gish gallop” rather than actually address what was being said.

Your english teacher may be perfectly happy with waffling paragraphs full of sound and fury but signifying nothing, but I am not.

Uzzwick.8457:

So I was playing with my friend the other day. I play as a necro and he plays as a mesmer.
We tried to 1v1 a couple of times and I managed to win every single one.
He claimed this was because the necromancer is OP. I haven’t played as a mesmer, so I would like your opinion on this – is the necro OP? Which one of necro and mesmer is the best for 1v1:ing people with?

a properly played condition build will melt face in the current meta 1v1 because very few builds have enough reliable removal to handle them.

the moment it expands to group v group, though, this gets turned on its head, which is why most go power.

Mesmers in particular are very condition-vulnerable, as their “wholesale removal” in their healing tree requires shatters to connect, which they often do not.

daphoenix.4283:

I believe the nerf to D/D elementalists will be reasonable, and in compensation they will buff skills from the focus weapon set.

After watching what they did to guardian greatsword, I have about as much faith in this as I do in the dysfunctional US congress doing anything for its people, but I hope you are correct, sir.

daphoenix.4283:

The mesmer nerf that you are talking about was actually needed,

Wow, this comment really betrays a complete lack of understanding of what was actually going on, so I’ll try to educate you on this.

The shatter burst was due to 200% mind wrack damage from a bug that had absolutely nothing to do with the presence of might, was there since the game began, and was distorting the metagame for mesmers by massively magnifying their mind wrack damage at melee range, meaning the entire class received nerf after nerf which broke the PVE experience for the vast majority who did NOT exploit this bug.

The capacity to stack might to 25 was a very needed buff to the otherwise boring mesmer playstyle, lacking power in every other aspect of the game outside of a sword-3 immob lock, and lacking support build options for mesmer.

I repeat, they could have balanced mesmer by instituting the gcd to shatters only and “waited to see”, but they didn’t, and it betrays a lack of consideration for the playerbase.

Archaon.6245:

Funny how someone keeps trying to defend eles just because he can’t probably play anything else except his cheesy bunker/roamer ele, as others said before we all know nerf are coming already no matter what, we just want to know when…just for you to know we’re not actually suggesting anet to nerf eles (They are already going to do so, no reason to ask for it) we’re just trying to figure out what are they going to balance while doing that..so maybe an answer from our beloved JS would be really appreciated..

the 0/10/0/30/30 d/d bunker has 17k hp in full tank gear, still wears only cloth, zero ranged abilities, does about the same damage over time as a single stack of bleed, and has two “bursts” which are on 45+ second cooldowns, CRIT for 4k with might stacks around 20, and must be “set up”.

If you die to these or consider them overpowered, you are pathetic and deserve the death.

Blakey.5670:

The thiefs and mesmers is what im worried about, you just dont get a fair fight with them. They’re just easy cheesy.
Bunker eles might be hard to bring down, but their damage isn’t that great.

QFT.

if you are calling it “overpowered” for something which reaches only 17k hp in FULL TANK GEAR to tickle you for less than a single stack of bleed, you are part of “the skillless many” and deserve your rightful death against a build whose only “bursts” are 4k minus, on 45 second plus cool downs, and must be “set up”.

Syeria.4812:

I AM UNHAPPY WITH THIS PRODUCT AND EVEN THOUGH NONE OF YOU KNOW ME, I FEEL OBLIGATED TO TELL EVERYONE I AM UNHAPPY.

I’m going to spend a bunch of time explaining what I think will happen to this thread, but I’m not going to say why I am unhappy with this game. But it’s critically important that everyone know that I am, in fact, unhappy.

Isn’t this the very basis of yelp’s business model?

I feel like “Sir Cadogan” when I point a flame thrower at a set of boxes and see

while (true){
miss
}

clearly I have “the right stuff” when it takes me 15 seconds to smash a rickety rack of centaur weapons.

John Smith.4610:

Couple of problems though:
1. Players control that market
2. If we were to step in and do that, we would inflate the economy and the extra value you were getting in real terms would be negligible

This sounds like the same garbage I hear about minimum wage.

The minimum wage is much higher where I live, approaching 40% higher. The prices are NOT 40% higher.

The wealth gap is simply lower, and fewer people are absolutely desperate.

if you peg quest rewards to some % of the price of a charged lodestone, I guarantee the misery index WILL decrease, no matter where the prices go.

Now if you want inflation to stop, you need to put in higher drop rates for in-demand goods, and gold sinks which do not include “the key materials for the vast majority of visually striking skins in this game”

Asthalon.6875:

If gold is really getting harder to earn (I don’t think it is, but let’s run with it), then eventually there will be less gold in the game, and prices will drop naturally.

So your problem, by your own criteria, will solve itself.

This is assuming rational actors and healthy competition.

There is no competing substitute for a dusk.

Because rewards for common tasks, dailies, dungeons, and hearts are so low compared with drops, the gap between the “lucky” and the “rest” is rising rapidly, especially because drops are a function of time spent in the game.

The no-lifers in their basement who don’t have to hold a job are driving these prices, they are the equivalent of oppressed chinese workers who receive your job when it’s offshored.

Wealth gap is a serious enough problem in real life. It should be mitigated with all due haste in a fantasy game, because nobody likes to RP the beggar in the street.

Ursan.7846:

Ohoni.6057:

You don’t have to run that dungeon.

There’s a difference between “you can’t” and “you choose not to.”

How players want to play is their own choice. Some people want to WvW, some people like to dungeon, etc. What players choose to do is their own choice. However, content can’t be gated too severely, or you’re severely limiting a player’s choice on how to play.

This is why exotics in GW2 have max stats, and are relatively easy to get. It allows people to not worry about content being gated from them because of gear.

“Looking pretty with a sword” is not gameplay. No content/gameplay is denied from them. Which is why pretty swords are classified as luxury items.

Though I probably will never persuade you otherwise, this is Anet’s philosophy. They completely endorse grind for cosmetic gear. This has been their mantra in GW1, and now GW2. It’s a system that worked for them in GW1.

Grind is not the issue so long as the goal, no matter how distant, has a guarantee that you will attain it.

This is where their economy is “bad”.

Prices are inflating faster than real, normal players can make money, and whenever normal players find a way, they nerf it, so only exploiters, manipulators, and no-life basement dwellers have access to anything beyond the most basic of basic visual upgrades.

WoW provided a much higher supply for in-demand end-game items, resulting in prices which were high, but still stable, and thus attainable by people who slowly but surely worked toward that goal.

This is especially true for crafting and DR on loot.

In other games, if the price of something on the TP is too high, you can get it yourself. The end result will certainly not net you a profit if you use them to craft, but you will slowly reach your goal of crafting that weapon skin.

Try doing it in this game, try farming a stack of lodestones I dare you!

Mourningcry.9428:

plasmacutter.2709:

…
I graduated from a top 10 econ program, understood the subject better in my sleep than most of the people nosing the grindstone, and I say this game has a bad economy.

….

here are some examples from a real economy:

So much wrong here…

when aluminum becomes too expensive, auto manufacturers can swap to steel.
Try swapping a crystalline lodestone for a charged one and see how far that gets you.

Horrid example of a substitute, and a profound ignorance of manufacturing.. not even mentioning resourcing, contractual, operational, or even the regulatory costs of “just switching”. With resepct to GW2, one of the main price factors of legendaries (and hence all the subsequent components required to acheive one) is intangible – all exotics of the same stat and item type are legitamate substitues with resepct to performance, only in that the skins are the intangible which commands the degree of price variance between them. And even then, being able to transmute them makes skins an even more universal commodity.

When the price of oil skyrockets, everyone goes out drilling for more. The price of precursors is rocketing out of control, but the horrific drop rate makes volunteering to add to that supply a ludicrous option.

Again, the start up cost is a significant barrier of entry for “everyone” going out and drilling for more" which inhernetly allows for the preclusion of the majority. Fruther the incremental cost of adding a new drill site for an established oil company is vastly different between even established participants much less then the start up cost for a new drilling company.

Likewise, if you have already have a precursor, and are willing to sell it, acquiring the next precursor and repeating the process is much less then someone who doesn’t have one to start with. The barrier of entry to getting that first precursor is the same for everyone.

When you plant crops, you will, barring a horrific natural disaster or outright negligence, be able to reap what you sow. If you go to farm in GW2 you get a backpack full of porous bones.

Wow… And therefore there’s absolutely no need for a commodities market…. by the same logic, eveyone should be a farmer because reaping what you sow would always be profitable, regardless of any methods of production, costs, prices, etc.

This, is a bad economy. So bad it, along with ANet’s insistence on swinging and missing wildly with the nerf club before even making the trait lines of half the professions in the game have the novel concept of “synergy”, discourages me from logging on.

Perhaps the time may be better spent on another degree?

Let me get this straight, please.

Fallacy #1 – argumentum ad verecundiam
You seem to ignore the continuous shift between steel and aluminum casting of parts in the auto industry (easily proven by talking to any experienced auto mechanic), and produce a very verbose but substance-free “rebuttal” consisting of “it.. it’s not analogous because I said so”.

You use the excuse of “startup costs” to refute the idea that a healthy economy will see a “resource rush” as a counter-force to a price that skyrockets out of control. I’m sorry, it doesn’t fly. Modern gold and diamond mining operations, as well as the proliferation of oil rigs, knocks this feeble argument clean out of the water.

Fallacy #2 – the straw man.
You then set up this straw man idea that farming raw materials and ONLY raw materials will produce prsperity for everyone, then knock it over, as if that has anything to do with the point I was making.

Please return to your 7th grade logic class and get a passing grade this time, or go to Fox News where you will most certainly have a promising career.