Guild Wars 2

At the moment, Ascended gear isn’t significantly better than Exotic. As Falunel’s said, it’s a few digits difference for each piece. Although a full set of Ascended gear is likely to have more impact on your stats, I’d wait to see what options there are to actually get them before you start worrying too much about it. We don’t even currently know how quickly these pieces will be released, in what order, etc, so while there’s no harm in planning, you’ll tie yourself in knots trying to plan for every possible eventuality. And remember that it can always be transmuted if you fall in love with the appearance of a set currently in the game.

If you’re only interested in stats, you probably already know what stats you want to focus on for your build. As Falunel’s said, find armour sets that match your needs and aim for those – some stat combinations are only available (or more easily available) through certain paths, such as dungeons or crafting. The GW2 wiki is a good resource for this. Naturally if your desired combination of stats is most easily gained through crafting, there’s no real point in running dungeons.

If it’s looks you’re after, this is kinda subjective. gw2armor.com is a pretty good resource for seeing how sets look before you put the time into chasing them. These sets are also very specific and can only be gained through certain routes – identify what you want and go from there.

And, if you want both stats and looks, you can get away with getting a set of armour with good stats and use transmutation stones if you don’t like how it looks. Keep in mind that Rare and Exotic armours from dungeons look the same, so you can get away with getting a set of Rare armour and transmuting that if you want the looks but not the stats.

Rin – Well, each tab has a series of check boxes you can use to display certain information, so technically you could have the default ‘Combat’ tab display only map chat and the ‘Main’ tab display only combat information. This is unless you feel that these gathering emotes should be tied to combat info (via the combat check box)? I rarely use that option as it is, so I think I’d rather it be tied to something that people don’t use as often in areas with gathering nodes (emotes) or for it to be its own check box. I do appreciate that no-one would want any sort of unavoidable spam added to their chats though.

A gathering cooldown is also an interesting idea, though it could hurt legitimate solo farmers in places like Orr, where efficiency and mobility can be important. It’s preferable to simply making gathering take longer, however, as at least players are free to move in-between nodes. More ideas to add to the pot are always good :]

Flopjack – I feel that ANet is concentrating on gathering data on bots before banning them in waves, hence why people often see the same bots for days (or maybe weeks) and then a large number are removed at once. Banning them on an individual basis actually hurts the effort to learn about their methods and behaviour in order to set up defences against them for the future, and employing someone per server to check zones for bots might be considered inefficient in the long-run. There’s also the issue that many bots run on hacked accounts with legitimate-sounding names, which complicates the issue. I understand it can be frustrating to not see an individual directly intervening with bot behaviour, but ANet seems to be going about this is a way I think is pretty sensible. Prevention is better than cure, etc, and you can’t prevent a disease unless you learn about it.

Thanks for the feedback, all!

Hello!

With the current line of bots largely relying on teleporting and nonsense names, they’re kinda tricky to pin down and report – making a note of intrepid adventurer ‘nnmknmjkas’ in time to report them can be tough when most of the time I can’t see them or I only spot them when it’s too late.

This suggestion is simple enough, I suppose; at the moment, we have the option to show emotes in Chat, presumably only in an immediate vicinity (otherwise I would be inundated in LA every time I wander in). If the act of mining, chopping or harvesting also came with an emote or something similar, it could give players a record to refer to via Chat in case they stumble across a bot but aren’t able to report them before they blink away.

Naturally, I hope that the underlying teleportation issue could be cleared up, and this is only really a minor suggestion to promote and otherwise encourage player involvement in reporting botters and those using teleportation hacks. False positives will always be an issue while players are involved in reporting bots, but I’d presume that a higher volume of reporting would generally involve a proportionate signal-to-noise ratio. Making gathering ‘emotes’ a separate channel to regular emotes could also stop players being inundated with messages that they might not wish to see.

I’d be curious to know what other people thought about this. Maybe there’s something I haven’t thought of?

Cina Reas.6938:

(p.s, I have enjoyed this event, but I cannot shake the fear of abuse next time)

I’m not sure that you know what abuse is.

I don’t really understand how you have an issue with there being too much reading.

Are you actually playing the game or are you on the forums, thinking that you are playing the game?

This is an important distinction.

This is a great thread and I’m sure you’re all wonderful people.

OP: If having the cash lying around to buy a virtual sword is ‘winning’ to you, then we just don’t share the same definition. As a result, I sympathise. Perhaps it would help if you try and stop considering your own successes besides those of other people (ie; ‘He did it easier than me, therefore my own struggle and victory are less valuable’), and you might be able to take more satisfaction from overcoming things that are difficult.

Why would someone else having a difficult-to-get thing reduce your own enjoyment in having a difficult-to-get thing if you were actually pursuing it under your own methods?

Getting a Legendary should be about you succeeding in the task, not you comparing it to what other people have and how they went about getting theirs. If Steve bought his with $200, why should anyone who earned it their own way care? You got the thing under your own steam. Heck, it should mean more to you, because it’s a sign of how hard you’ve worked and how much you’ve invested. If you’re concerned about Legendaries becoming ‘devalued’ by this, I’d suggest you seriously consider just what it is that you value and how much value you derive from other people not having the same thing as you.

Siphaed.9235:

You know what’s sad/funny? During the first day of this holiday event the sweaters and boxes ran between 5-7s each, and I was able to yield 2 gold an hour in the first 2 hours doing it. That’s when it was worth farming, but not now.

I find it more sad/funny that one of the reasons that the boxes and sweaters decreased in value was because people like you farmed them :P

I caught what I recognise now to be a bot a few nights ago – same guy kept wandering out of the large empty present that you enter the chest area from with a new gift to trade, but in my naivety I didn’t really understand that the turnover was too high for him to be re-doing the puzzle over and over.

Hey, let’s all do a thing in order to gather our own opinions about doing that thing.

That’d be neat.

As long as I have a trait that lets me survive half my falling damage and cause explosions all around me whenever it kicks in, I’d say there’s certainly a possibility for traits to be fun, depending on what you’re doing.

However, half of all trait slots in a single line are not only modular (ie; can be expanded at a later date by ANet with ease), but can also be swapped for something else on the fly. In that respect, I greatly appreciate that I can fiddle with my build with ease – and that ability alone is fun for me. Swapping around those traits that can’t be changed in the above manner is easy and relatively cheap as well.

Could traits be more ‘fun’? That’s too subjective a question to ask to actually get a meaningful response for. Everyone’s going to have a different answer and everyone is simultaneously right in their eyes and wrong in the eyes of others. Could traits be more varied? Sure. Could traits be added that provide more than just damage buffs? Yeah. Could traits be added that are more universally ‘fun’? Well, no.

Probability is not the same as chance.

Regardless as to whether or not ANet’s changed the drop rates or they’ve been/become bugged, if an event has a 25% probability to occur, that does not mean that it will actually occur 1 in 4 times.

It’s just bad luck! ._. I’ve managed to get a decent amount of ectos from my salvage attempts, both Rare and Exotic, and that just boils down to good luck (though watch my score plummet now that I’ve said that).

Considering that the Lost Shores event was pretty much all crabs, explosions and sweet loot (or the potential for sweet loot), I’m actually fairly comfortable with the idea that Wintersday has been pretty much all about cosmetics. I hope it’s also managed to appease some of the players upset with the prospect of ANet concentrating on Ascended gear and potentially ruining the idea of horizontal progression, and while the event hasn’t been perfectly run in my opinion (and that’s me being critical), I’ve still had a lot of fun just focusing on picking up neat things with little actual impact on my fighting time. But then I’m easy to please – I’m probably going to make a shortbow alt purely to use the slingshot skin I plan to pick up.

With that said, it might have been nice to offer folks the opportunity to treat Cogs as tokens that they can trade for gear, but they can’t really do that now because that’s bound to upset the players who have already used up theirs. I’ve managed to make money this event through selling gear picked up in the Infinirarium and selling a few snowflake-based items (hopefully avoiding the salvage exploit in doing so, as they were high enough in value on the Trading Post that anyone attempting to take advantage would only find themselves making money if they managed to get 5 Ectos from a single piece), and hunting for presents to sell can be a reasonable way to earn a few extra silver.

I don’t think that big rewards should be a part of the event, though. Wintersday has always seemed like an excuse for fun and frivolity, and I’m happy with that – I don’t personally feel that every event needs to come with financial gain, and I’m fairly happy with encouraging different players to enjoy themselves during different events rather than try to please them all at once.

I play as an Engineer, and I spend most of my time in a fight splitting my attentions between the enemy and my skillbar, waiting for things to cool down.

I am not that good at this game.

However, I always rez someone if I think I can get away with it (two men down is worse than one!). It’s free experience and fuzzy warm feelings! I’ve always thought about using map chat to tell down folks that I’m heading over to pick them up, but by the time I think about it, start jogging over there while avoiding mobs and type up my message, they’ve used a Waypoint.

I am not that good at this game.

If you like costumes and such, OP, I’d get back into the game over the next few weeks – the Wintersday events come with a few unique costume pieces that might vanish after the season’s over (Jan 3rd). You might have to put down some real cash for them, though, as a few are only available in the game’s Gem Store. Some Wintersday-based weapons skins are found by playing the game and you’ll get three for free if you visit ToymakerTixx in Lion’s Arch. You can also get up to two minipets by playing the short Wintersday-based dungeon (which is short and straightforward enough that it’s pretty friendly to people playing in random groups), and you could have a go at crafting Everlasting Wintersday-themed tonics in the Mystic Forge in Lion’s Arch that let you turn into a specific Wintersday-themed toy for giggles.

If you’ve not already, take a look at the GW2 Wiki Wintersday page to have an idea of the new content. It’s largely for fun and most of the stuff you’ll earn is purely cosmetic.

Doctor Proctor.2460:

It might have been a solution to help those who got hit with the diminishing rewards issue when running the toy events. 200 isn’t enough to let someone make 3 mini pets, but it is enough to make up for someone that was, say, 100 short.

I’m fine with ‘only’ getting 700 cogs in total. It’s fairly clear that ANet intended players to be able to craft a maximum of two minis and buy the rest from the Gem Store if they wanted them. Considering that the only way (as far as I know) to get a whole bunch of minis is through the Gem Store, I’m just happy that I can potentially get two ‘for free’.

Doctor Proctor’s right in that I’d hope this is enough to compensate those players hit by the DR bug without allowing some folks to get three minis instead of two. The remaining 200 cogs will stay in my bank, just in case, until the end of the event.

‘Red circles heal, right?’

I love Quaggans, I love baby Quaggans and I love Coddler’s Cove.

Meret.5943:

been waiting 4 years for this game lol.

Yeah, you have. Awful quick for anyone to give up just yet, if you ask me.

Alipius.4783:

Some are still here, trying to share how they feel about the game.
But gw1 community got screwed up, Gw2 is a full new game (and does not take everything we loved about Gw1, best joke ever), I don’t feel I owe anything anymore, I’m waiting to see what’s coming next before I trust them again.
And people they got buying the game, coming from other well known games… Meh, it can’t be the same spirit anyway, their vision is different.

And maybe I will address some prayer to the green frog.

You don’t owe anyone anything – that’s true. But if any of those who really love GW1 want GW2 to be a similar experience – not the same, because it can’t be, but provide you with similar good feelings – then refusing to support these shaky first few months is the worst thing you could do. I see complaints about the negative feedback threads and sometimes I agree, sometimes not (largely it’s the way the feedback is being given that’s the issue with me) but that you apparently believed in GW1 as much as you did is a testament to the quality of the game – a game that was shaped over the years by its players. GW2 will never be able to mature like that without contributions and ANet will never make changes that you’re happy with if you don’t support them while they do. It’s counter-productive. From an emotional standpoint, it makes pretty good sense that you’d want to leave after being let down. But not if you actually want things to change.

Chuo.4238:

Stuff like that is just not possible in GW2. Of course GW2 isn’t GW1. I didn’t expect it to be. However, I DID expect it to be better

I’m fine with this sentiment. I understand where it’s coming from. You spend years of your life investing time and money into a game, enjoying it for at least enough time to give you a good impression of it after the fact. It’s part of your development. Many of us grew up and matured with GW1 – it’s like a friendly old family dog who’s getting a bit old. GW2, by comparison, is a new puppy – it might be fun on occasion, but it’s not the same and it never will be. It’s too different – too needy, too noisy and it’s not house-trained yet.

But some of the expectations heaped on GW2 seem unreasonable to me. I wouldn’t deny that ANet had the potential of changing up the MMO market with the game, and I wouldn’t deny that many seem to be basing their feelings towards the game on the pre-release communications which spoke pretty highly of the game they were working on (and understandably, both from a business perspective but also because the Devs probably believed a lot in the game themselves and I’d hope still do). But expecting GW2 to be better than GW1, after years of build-up and only a few months of release is asking a lot – perhaps too much, considering your potential emotional investment in the whole thing.

For every person I see say that they’re leaving, I think it’s a shame. Instead of contributing to and shaping a new community and experience, they’re cutting loose – I understand why, but I just don’t feel the same as them.

alcopaul.2156:

if that will be so, then ill be vindicated. then this thread is right all along.

I wouldn’t really blame them at this point – it sounds as though you’d rather this be the truth than your own imagination, and it’d be a shame to disappoint you.

KirinDave.6451:

These are not unfair standards. Why would you hold them to any other standards? What other standards could you possibly hold them to? I submit it’s possible to have fun with every class, race, and gender choice.

I’m not saying that they are unfair standards. I’m not telling you to do anything other than what you’re currently doing. I’m not even saying that I disagree with your assessment of the class as it is. What I am saying is that it’s possible for someone to enjoy something for what it is, regardless of effectiveness. But if you don’t and you feel that things need to change, that’s fine.

KirinDave.6451:

The only time it bothers me (in PvE) is when I go into explores with my guildmates or go into WvW. For explores, I’m just a wee bit tired of how pigeonholed I am. The Engineer class has a ton of diversity but most of what actually helps is grenades and light fields and if you’re lucky (or doing lower level content), CCing some trash.

I don’t really know how I can help you here. I don’t even know if you actually want my input into any of this, or you just want to say what you feel. All I know is that it’s not impossible to enjoy the class for what it is at the moment, because I do. There are an awful lot of people trying to tell folks that they should be enjoying X for Y reasons, or that they should hate A because of B. But there’s nothing wrong with accepting something’s faults and finding something enjoyable in there regardless – and I fully accept that sometimes other people can’t do that, or they don’t appreciate the things I see (or that I don’t appreciate the things they see). That’s all I’m trying to say.

I’d quite like gaining a Legendary to be tied to the storyline. If a chosen Precursor could somehow be earned after completion of your character’s story (or completion would initiate a subsequent storyline/series of missions during which your character works towards a Precursor), I’d think that would be pretty nice.

I’d support many ideas that took Precursors (and Legendaries as a result) out of the RNG and into the hands of players to actively pursue in a more engaging fashion than shopping on the TP or random chance.

KirinDave.6451:

This “I am better than you” mentality is not great, because it gets in the way of discussing what and how the Engineer needs upwards tweaking. It’s a class that can’t interact important stuff like sigils (so excited to see this on Wintersday) and who’s abilities by and large do not scale with gear, and everyone knows that has to change.

Maybe you’re way more awesome than the OP. Maybe not. But no one in this thread is saying, “Engineer is too many APM.” We’re saying, “Even if I do what the engineer asks me to do, the class is still lackluster.”

I’m legitimately confused as to where you thought I was boasting O.o I’m terrible at this game. You seem to be fine with the concept of the class being less effective in situations than others, but that doesn’t precluded me from enjoying it regardless.

I accept that Engineer might not be living up to the current standards of other classes, but it’s by no means impossible to succeed. By holding it to the standards of other classes as it currently is, you’re likely to end up being disappointed – which is what the OP appeared to be doing. Broken/incomplete things can still be fun, but if you don’t get along with them then that’s fine.

What I was attempting (and apparently failing) to get at is that you can get along with the class if you accept that you’re just not going to be as tooled-up as others and, perhaps, if you enjoy any associated difficulty there might be when comparing it to a Warrior. The idea that the class needs to be ‘competitive’ isn’t something I’m personally bothered about – it succeeds in being engaging for me. If that’s good for others – great. If not and it’s being looked at – super.

tigirius.9014:

Nope not doing a thing wrong, the rest of us who are experienced engineers in pve know exactly what you are talking about. When it takes 25-30 bullets from pistols, 30 grenades to kill individual mobs while being specced for those weapons, and having appropriate gear there’s definitely something wrong. Nerfs to cond dmg aside when you’re pistol fires as slowly as your rifle does and does half the damage there’s definitely something fishy going on.

Pistols are geared towards causing Conditional damage, regardless of the nerfs. Higher Pistol base damage actually has a negative impact on the amount of Conditional damage caused over time, and the ability to wield two weapons opens up additional options in terms of stat spreads and sigils, etc. Comparing Pistol and Rifle damage/firing speed isn’t advisable, as they’re suited to different things.

I love my Engineer. I have to actually pay attention to things to play effectively and the skills are thematically interesting. However, if you don’t feel comfortable playing one or you get class envy, then it might not be the best class for you. If feeling like an Ultimate Superman is important to you, then maybe a class that contains options to fire such a powerful shot that you fall on your butt or hit people with wrenches isn’t the best class for you either.

Chase your dreams, OP. Get that Warrior toon, that giant suit of armour and a big honking sword, and never look back. Or accept that playing as an Engineer isn’t Easy Street and that you’ve got to be on the ball to actually succeed.

I love this form and I love you.

As far as I’m aware, the game doesn’t scale difficulty in order to accommodate single player play compared to group play, which essentially means that solo play is Hard Mode. I’ve come across a fair few areas – skill points, vistas, etc – that have been tougher to get because I play solo a lot, but I’ve managed to get around them with some thought. However, this is where guilds and a social/friendship group come in handy and, frankly, is the easiest way to overcome any of the difficulty spikes that are probably necessary in order to keep group players engaged.

Treeline.3865:

More precursors being handed out?
Consider me butthurt.

The more precursors there are, the less valuable they become!

Always a silver lining.

LastDay.3524:

This reminds me of what I learned from Valve’s dev commentaries.
Many people strive to do things in the absolute best way.
If the best way to win is terribly boring many people will do it anyway and then complain.
Because of this the best way to win should also be the most fun!

This is pretty good advice!

Regardless of the changes over the past few months, there were still a lot of repetitive actions that needed to be performed in the game to achieve certain milestones. Whether you consider that as a negative grind or not is down to you – I’d hardy consider it universal – but I don’t really think that the act of gathering materials for things is particularly ‘fun’. Heading through dungeons is probably the most engaging way of getting the stuff you need for other stuff, but even that is bound to get boring after a time.

I’d love to see ANet implement alternative major means of gathering materials besides farming/salvaging/trade post. Allowing more people the opportunity to get a few rarer materials each day to act as a support could help immensely, as these things would both a) Add up over time, and b) Reduce the cost of these materials in the trading post due to availability. It could also promote people spending more cash money in the TP in order to get those few more materials they need when they’re just a little way from their goal. Scavenging hunts are a fairly popular idea, and making jumping puzzles hand out a few rare materials upon completion could work.

As far as I’m concerned, the game is fun, but the repetition less so – and I can appreciate why people might consider it a full-on grind. Patience is one thing, and player entitlement another, but if the game doesn’t really offer alternatives then it’s kinda tricky to defend these design choices too much.

I’m trying to gather a consensus about whether this game is too hard or too easy, and it’s been pretty tough!

I’ve heard that Elementalist is one of the harder classes to play. I know that GW2 supports single-person play pretty well, but it sounds as though you’ll need to buddy up to get over your rut.

Malvagite.3254:

well, it doesnt take sherlock holmes to see that the population has greatly decreased in the last few weeks.

to say otherwise is not being objective or just being oblivious to your surroundings.

even lions arch can only maintain overflow during peak hours. there isnt an overflow in any other zone at any point of the day. WvW never has a wait to get in except for a few hours when a new pairing begins. sPvP is a ghost town. Even during peak hours, the majority of games i hot join are 1 v1….

There are too many reasons as to why someone might stop playing a potentially very time-consuming video game than the addition of any form of vertical progression. Correlation does not mean causation. The X-Fire data that people like to refer to only shows that there is a continual decrease in player hours over the past month, and that could be down to all sorts of things.

Did Ascended gear/Lost Shores contribute to this decline? Maybe. But we don’t know that without taking an adequate, unbiased sample of the entire player population. And the forums may provide a sample of the playerbase, but it is not unbiased.

Look at this thread

Strikes me as a situation where people think if they’re not causing crazy damage, they feel that they’re playing the game wrong. My main’s an Engineer, and my fingers have got to dance in order to make sure I’m pulling my weight (and I’m not great at the game, in all honesty). DPS might be sweet for regular PvE, but Dungeons are as much about survivability as anything – and not just of yourself, but everyone in your group. Glass cannons are fine when you’re the only one suffering if you run into a wall, but they can be a liability if others are expecting teamwork and mutual support, particularly if there isn’t an equally-focused healing person to balance out your ’zerker fragility.

But yeah, it’s not the gear, its the player – and not even the skill of the player, but just what they’re choosing to bother themselves with. GW2’s pretty generous to generalists, and a lot of classes can fill different roles reasonably.

Maybe we should all just get a chest every month without an event? Just for being swell people and such good sports and all that.

JULIASAURUS.5198:

proxy.7963:

I kinda feel that the current view of Legendaries is a little skewed in terms of perspective. To me, if an item takes a hundred hours of pure work to achieve, I wouldn’t sit down and pour that time into the game without ensuring that I’m also enjoying myself in doing so. If I felt that need, I wouldn’t play, or I’d dilute the work by taking breaks or taking part in other things happening in the game. I’d rather spend two hundred hours on a one hundred hour goal if this route was more enjoyable.

In that sense, I’m not even considering the effort I’d need to go to in order to get a Legendary at the moment. I don’t need one to enjoy the game and encouraging that sort of mindset is kinda toxic – there are plenty of concerns around the forums that the community of MMOs has a tendency towards elitism. I’d suggest people just play the game and, if they’re in the position to get a Legendary before they’re satisfied with what they’ve gained from playing, then grab one. Or maybe put a few more (dozen?) hours into getting one if you really want one. But if the journey is too hard and unappealing, then perhaps the goal isn’t enough?

Thats the thing, that most people will argue. I’ve have a 1000 hours played and I have been working for my legendary every single day. And I still don’t have it. I refuse to use a credit card. Like most people do. lol. But I want to feel the time I spent into the game was worth all that trouble. Ever since release.. And I’m not going to leech materials off other players because that isn’t fair. With the fact that I did farm day in and day out. Repeating dungeons. Throwing things in the mystic forge.. I’ve really tried hard to get it. At this point I just given up on trying to get it. Since it seems to be not going any where. So I’m just going to have to wait.

If that’s the case – if after 1000 hours of play, you still haven’t managed to reach your goal – then I’m more comfortable in accepting that the time vs. reward in gaining a Legendary might not be particularly balanced, provided that ANet doesn’t want folks relying on their credit cards and/or heavy use of the Trading Post (and they probably do, because that’s where they get their income from established players).

Granted that you might not be going about things in the most efficient way (and I have little doubt that everyone who currently has a Legendary has been incredibly efficient about things), if Legendaries are so tied to cash investment, I might go as far as to suggest that they should just have been purchasable skins and do away with the middle-man. But as I’ve said, getting one isn’t high on my list of things to do, and perhaps the satisfaction in getting one is all about overcoming the slog involved. I can’t help but wonder how long that satisfaction will last, though.

I’m patient but I’m no fan of grind and the rewards of the grind are largely not worth it for me. I’m cool with those who are just fine with the requirements of a Legendary, but I do get kinda anxious that they might regret it in the long run unless they’re actually enjoying the day-to-day experience and can treat the weapon as a long-term reward for that experience – more a bonus than anything. But as it stands, I’m not certain the system is set up to really allow that. Hopefully as the game matures, there will be more incentive for me to chase that goal and remain entertained throughout.

I kinda feel that the current view of Legendaries is a little skewed in terms of perspective. To me, if an item takes a hundred hours of pure work to achieve, I wouldn’t sit down and pour that time into the game without ensuring that I’m also enjoying myself in doing so. If I felt that need, I wouldn’t play, or I’d dilute the work by taking breaks or taking part in other things happening in the game. I’d rather spend two hundred hours on a one hundred hour goal if this route was more enjoyable.

In that sense, I’m not even considering the effort I’d need to go to in order to get a Legendary at the moment. I don’t need one to enjoy the game and encouraging that sort of mindset is kinda toxic – there are plenty of concerns around the forums that the community of MMOs has a tendency towards elitism. I’d suggest people just play the game and, if they’re in the position to get a Legendary before they’re satisfied with what they’ve gained from playing, then grab one. Or maybe put a few more (dozen?) hours into getting one if you really want one. But if the journey is too hard and unappealing, then perhaps the goal isn’t enough?

Vasham.2408:

Here’s how to properly use Healing Turret:

• Drop Turret
• Wait for split second Water field to spawn from turret activation
• Detonate Turret for AOE healing blast finisher

Doing this it makes Healing Turret our best heal, equal to Elixir H with Fast Acting Elixirs in terms of both cooldown and healing done and it has actual group utility from the AOE heal and regen it gives everyone. There’s really no excuse to use anything else.

I’ve switched from Elixir H to Healing Turret recently based largely on this tactic. It helps that I largely run Pistols(/Flamethrower when I fancy it) in PvE, so I tend to stick to medium range for the FT and Blowtorch. Using Detonate either when I get mobbed or as an aggressive maneuver has saved me plenty of times. Sprinting ahead a second to plant a Healing Turret next to anyone in melee range with anything squishy and then immediately blowing it up gives everything in the area either a decent heal or a swift clout of damage. Then hop back into medium range and wait for the cooldown, which is shorter than Elixir H. It’s not a lot of damage in the long run, but being able to heal and hurt in the same move is pretty handy.

Also, planting it as I’m running away from something (due to poor decisions on my part!) and detonating it immediately again can often give me an extra boost of health I need to scamper away and possibly take out a few of whatever it is that’s chasing me.

Healing Turret’s condition removal is hampered for me because it isn’t immediate. I often find that by the time I’ve waited for the Cleansing Burst to kick in, I’m in a much worse position. So generally-speaking, I find the Turret better almost as an aggressive heal that keeps me mobile. I rely on Cleaning Formula 409 more for condition removal.

I’ve not actually tried the Bomb Kit + Elixir-Infused Bombs before, but I’d imagine they’d work pretty well with the above for maximum AoE healing.

Alright, I’ve just realised that the difference between the linked-to Yakkington’s vs Exotic is +5 per stat, not +15. Serves me right trying this while eating – I’m an idiot. This further decreases the gap between the two pieces of gear significantly:

- 63 Power/Precision to 68 – increase of ~8% each, 16% in total, 32% for two rings;
- Stick two rings on 916 base stats: 979 to 984 × 2: 1% increase;
- Stick two rings on 1216 base stats: 1279 to 1284 × 2: 0.8% increase.

stof.9341:

proxy.7963:

It is in the grand scheme of things.

Comparing the now pretty well-known Yakkington’s Ring vs Some Other Exotic Ring

This ring is a bad example. The major stat is kind of meaningless and the power is a minor stat. This choice softens the visible stat increase. Can we say ANet choose this in particular for that or is that an honest “mistake” ?

If you do some more meaningful comparison, you have http://www.gw2db.com/items/71366-red-ring-of-death vs Ruby Orichalcum ring.

The first got 104 total Power, the second got 92. That’s more than 12% increase in power for a ring. A more careful analysis of each stat weight per item type should be able to predict exactly how much power will increase in full ascended but it’s a lot more than what you say.

Alright, let’s break that down in the manner I did above.

104 total power, compared to the yellow Exotic pointed out above (let’s ignore, for the time being, that apparently people are fine with different items within the same Tier having fluctuating stats and that the comparison between Yakkington’s and Red Ring of Death shows that apparently there can even be Vertical Progression within a single Tier):

63 Power vs 104. That’s quite a lot, right? A 60% increase and 41 points in a single stat. And Precision is 63 vs 69 – a 9% increase. And we can argue that increasing Power has more direct benefit than increasing Precision, as Power helps everyone who hits things and Precision only really helps certain builds and when luck smiles on you. It’s worth keeping that in mind.

Putting that into my above character build, with 916 base stats in Power and Precision gives me relative increases of 979 vs 1020 for Power (4%) and 979 vs 985 for Precision (0.62%). Overall that’s an increase in character stats, from Exotic to Ascended, of 4.6%, times 2 for two rings, equals 9.2%. With 1216 base stats (as my previous post), those become 1279 vs 1320 Power (please note my previous total for the former was off by 10 points – always check your math!) with an increase of 3.2% and 1279 vs 1285 for Precision with an increase of 0.5%. In total, for two rings, that’s 7.4% increase based purely on the stats given by two rings. Heck, let’s remove Precision because it functions in a different way to Power, now that I’ve looked up that formulae – 6.4% for two Red Rings of Death.

As for the second statistic, whether you personally find Magic Find useful or not is really down to your play style. It’s too subjective to measure without some pretty intense breakdowns of player time vs item reward.

This is intended to put these apparently drastic differences into perspective. If people believe that a 6.4% increase is worth getting upset over, it’s their choice. But the sooner the community acknowledge that spending dozens of hours chasing after such a small stat increase is only worth it to those who care, the better we’ll all be. And that goes for those for, against and those who are neutral in the whole thing.

If you feel my math is inaccurate, please check it for errors. I’d happily adjust as necessary.

[Edit: It’s also worth pointing out that according to the formulae, the difference between the Exotics’s Precision bonus (63) and Yakkington’s (68 – choosing this for the higher Precision bonus) is negligible]

mjharrison.3209:

Anet got greedy and now they are paying the price:
http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

There’s no doubts about which direction this game is heading.

Ah, good. Something to work with. Prior warning – this is long.

- Provided that X-Fire is a trustworthy source – I’m not familiar, and for the sake of the following we’ll say the answer is ‘yes’ – there are a wide variety of reasons as to why the playerbase has apparently decreased over the past month. I’ll also presume, for sake of simplicity, that player hours directly correlate to the number of players in the game (as the playerbase could remain fairly stable but simply be playing less, or a smaller number of players playing more. I’d suggest the former, as it is more likely presuming the point below);

- GW2 does not provide everyone with limitless play. In fact, considering those who have likely left the game (not necessarily permanently) due to simply accomplishing that which they set out to do is likely to be a significant reason as to why the apparent playerbase has shrunk. 3 months is plenty of time to get a character to Level 80 and achieve additional goals. It’s also considered natural that, over the span of time following a game’s release, the initial figures for players in-game will decrease. Content is completed, people are distracted, the time set aside for a new game eaten up by responsibilities;

- Judging by the obvious pattern, we are currently in a mid-week lull. Based again on this pattern, this weekend is likely to see a spike of players – a ~25% increase has been fairly common throughout the past month, except for during the Lost Shores event. The average player number could therefore be considered partway between the base and the spike, but closer to the base. We are also in a week following the US Thanksgiving holiday, which could possibly mean that people are playing the game less and working harder to make up for work time lost (and coming up to the holiday season);

- The most interesting thing is that, according to this data, a fairly small number of players began to play less when Ascended gear was announced during the week preceding the Lost Shores event. There was a dip of about 1.5k, but that recovered by Thursday and into the next week. The weekend spike following the event was ~2k lower than the weekend preceding it, but that could be down to player fatigue or real-life issues following investment of time into the event itself;

- I can’t quite see this nice graph beyond a month’s worth of data, but from this alone, we can surmise that the number of hours people are putting into the game has decreased by ~40% over the past month. But, crucially, we don’t know why. The hypothesis that Ascended gear and Lost Shores caused this is not fully supported by the data – Ascended gear was announced on the 13th November, by which point ~5k of the ~8k player hours decrease had already happened;

- Importantly, however, much of this is conjecture based on the statistics provided. We still do not know why the player hours have decreased because we haven’t taken an adequate sampling. We may have the data, but not the reasons, and in this case it is the reasons that matter. It is not surprising that people are playing less. It is valuable, however, to know why.

I don’t know if there are records of this data available on the website beyond the past month, or whether records of this current data will also be accessible. It may be worthwhile tracking things over time and drawing your own conclusions.

But presuming that correlation equals causation likely won’t get you very far.

mrstealth.6701:

The wiki already has what appears to be some accurate attack timings listed for ele skills. I’ll post my own rough estimates, which are consistent with the data on the skill pages.
As before, results are based on a 30 second clock. The number of attacks and amount of damage dealt in this time.

Scepter
Fire skill 1 – 19-20 attacks – 14383 damage
Earth skill 1 – 15-16 attacks – 13590 damage

Staff
Fire skill 1 – 21-22 attacks – 5966 damage
Earth skill 1 – 21-22 attacks – 3885

The gap between staff and scepter auto-attack damage is huge. The majority of scepter damage is from burning and bleeding, while the staff attacks are relying on direct damage only. I don’t really know how to compare condition damge to direct damage. If the target remains alive and suffers the full duration of the condition, it’s pretty straight-forward. This is likely to happen with the fire scepter’s burning, as its duration is short (2 seconds).

What I wasn’t expecting to see was how slow the earth scepter is, and how fast the staff attacks are for both elements. I was expecting staff to be the slower weapon in both cases. The animations make it feel slower, but that’s certainly not the reality of the numbers.

Generally speaking and based on the above, I’m not surprised that damage caused by the sceptre is more direct and the staff less so, or for the sceptre to provide additional utility and support options. That duality is fairly common route to follow in order to clearly give alternative options for both choices, but the more subjective defensive/options make weapon vs weapon comparison kinda tricky – a ‘weaker’ weapon may be worthwhile to a player if given a particular defensive option that is useless to another. And really, attack speed is all about damage over time. My main is an Engineer and the difference between a two-handed weapon (rifle) and dual-wielding weapons (pistols) is very similar – one clearly focuses on direct damage, while the other on conditional damage over time that is actually made more considerable because its base damage is less and kills things by itself, without relying on conditional damage, less often.

That the staff is also two-handed, while the sceptre allows the user to hold a dagger or focus also gives the sceptre a little more variability, adding options to split and differentiate stats rather than lump all bonuses into fewer areas.

Primal.9513:

lordkrall.7241:

The “statistical evidences” you have can be statistically debunked by simply looking at the amount of accounts vs the amount of accounts complaining about Ascended gear.

Not even 1% of those accounts are complaining about it.

Here is one for you then:

1) there are more people complaining than praising on the forums.
2) even less than the “not even 1% of those accounts” are praising it
3) I have statistically proved there are more people against than for ascended gear.

See? That distorted logic of yours can be used for anything! We also just proved that over 98% of these people do not think!

And you know what? Bots do not think either! That must mean 98% of all GW2 accounts have actually been played by bots!

I may have taken it a bit too far, but hopefully you get the idea: if you take one ball out of a bag of 10 colored balls, and observe it’s green, you can’t conclude the 9 other balls are all red.

The thing about good statistical evidence is that it’s difficult to debunk. So far, I’ve yet to see any statistics that really support either side of the ‘Ascended/FotM made people leave’ debate, largely because actually gathering meaningful statistics related to the issue is more complex than just looking at the numbers of players in the game/in a server/on the forum. It’s a lot of warm air and important-sounding words with little evidence – all testimony and no proof.

Helping people is fun! I do it for free, even at a cost to myself, because I think it’s nice to engender that sort of community spirit. Just a ‘thanks’ is enough for me.

I guess there’s a danger that if we start paying folks for their assistance, people will come to expect it and that’s not the spirit of the thing at all. If someone wants to give me some extra silver for helping out with an Event they’re having trouble with, no worries – but it wouldn’t be great for people to start feeling put out if they don’t receive extra money.

Shlamorel.8714:

On the most recent AMA post on reddit, someone posed this question to a developer and they asked the poster to contact him (the developer) privately to share data/info about this issue and to discuss it further.

I found this to be extremely out of character with the rest of the fairly-useful dialogue where the dev was responding to questions openly.

Would like to know what came of the conversation, if one took place…

I would never suggest publicly posting anything too statistical for fear of the community just nit-picking over everything in an attempt to find relevance. It just invites every person and their dog the chance to say that they know the best for the game and ’Here’s what the devs should do …’ and subsequent upset when their suggestions for the mechanical systems aren’t implemented, likely due to all manner of things. I’m surprised that privately talking about stats and such and the reasoning behind them was even suggested.

Saying that, I’m even more surprised that the mathematical reasoning behind the firing speed of weapons hasn’t already been figured out by some intrepid analyst considering the wealth of similar information on GW2’s systems out there.

illgot.1056:

if I remember the increase in stats without the infusions was about 7%, magic find about 40-60%.

With stones I can’t say, but over all that is not a “little” bump in stats.

It is in the grand scheme of things.

<The following math is incorrect because I’m an idiot: Please see this post. Point still stands, though>

[Comparing the now pretty well-known Yakkington’s Ring vs Some Other Exotic Ring gives us base increases in three stats: +15 for Power and Precision from Exotic to Ascended and +3% Magic Find from Exotic to Ascended. That’s a 28% increase for the first two stats and a 48% increase for the second. I don’t personally consider Magic Find to be comparable to Power and Precision increases, because it’s not a stat that directly affects a character’s ability in battle, but a secondary thing with a different kind of value.

However, a level 80 Engineer (my class) has a base Power and Precision of 916. Let’s presume I’m wearing nothing but one of these the relevant rings – that’s an increase from 969 to 984: 1.54%. Presuming that both stats support your playstyle and that you’ve gone all out and are wearing two of them, that’s an increase of 6.16% comparing the Exotic ring above to Yakkington’s. Magic Find is tougher to measure, as I’ve mentioned, and doesn’t directly correlate to a character’s longevity in battles beside in a fairly nebulous way based on additional factors.

Adding in actually ensuring that my character has a viable build gives me a base Power and Precision of 1216 each. A +15 increase from Exotic to Ascended – 1269 vs 1284 for each stat – that’s an increase of 1.18%. Presuming both stats support the build and that I have two of them – that’s an increase of 4.72%.]

Actually giving my guy some equipment besides the above two rings further decreases the impact that having Yakkington’s over the Exotic has.

And so, as far as these rough numbers show us (and I’m willing to accept that I may not be considering the most accurate or representative calculations if someone can show me their own), the actual impact that having Yakkington’s over the above Exotic is fairly negligible based on raw stats alone. Infusions might be significant and I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the most efficient builds, items available, etc, but I doubt they could add more to the weight than another few percentage points.

Otherwise, and presuming that these calculations are accurate and representative, I’m not going to tear my hair out over a <5% increase in the statistics of a single character. I’d rather save the time I’d need to get that increase and do something else.

[Edit: And while this increase will naturally become more weighty as more pieces of armour are added to the Tier, the time investment likely needed to acquire them will mean I just won’t bother]

LordByron.8369:

You are free to PROVE that current proof are not aceptable…

Feel free to post NUMBERS and FACTS….your word is not representative alone you know?

In the meantime they are not speculation…but a LOT of statistical evidences…

I’d quite like to see this statistical evidence, if that’s alright.

mischwoof.9785:

If you get bullrushed first, you’ll elixir S and prybar them in the face WHILE TINY. HOW DEGRADING. If they don’t, you will save elixir S for when they go down, so you can stomp them WHILE TINY. HOW DEGRADING.

You’re great.

Have yet to consider a tanky build, but TANKCAT will be the first I try.

The Real Manifesto couldn’t actually be published because all it consisted of was ’Can’t make everyone happy’ scrawled on a cigarette packet in ketchup.

I’ve never been hit by a magical elf fireball.

I expect it really hurts. Because of the fire. And the magic.

And because it’s been shaped into a ball via the application of eldritch techniques.

Sure I’d recommend it to a friend. I’d probably enjoy my time even more with a friend.

Also, blaming the concept of ‘gear grind’ or ‘vertical progression’ on addiction-related player deaths is pretty extreme. People don’t buy into (and become addicted to) gear grinding because gear grind exists, they buy into it because they feel the need to. It’s a more complicated issue than basic game design, and one that is certainly not helped by a community that apparently places so much weight upon ultimately pointless tasks performed for some desperate measure of acceptance or a sense of accomplishment. Is it immoral to promote addiction? Sure. But many banal things in life can be addictive and are made less so by the support and grounding provided by peers. Having the sensible ones leave, due to something that they are well-aware of existing, and allowing the community to descend into addiction without their passive input strikes me as somewhat like jumping a sinking ship when it could be saved if all hands got to the buckets.

I’d even argue that the forums talking so much about the hate they had for Ascended gear/gear grind actually promoted the idea that we need to buy into the idea of Ascended gear/gear grind to effectively enjoy the game, because here was a thing that was apparently so much of an impact that some people were leaving over it rather than risk feeling forced to take part. That’s both weird and interesting to me, as someone who feels pretty neutral about the whole thing. I know that there were other reasons that folks were dropping out, but it was when people gave these explanations that I was particularly curious.

I find it a strange concept to give a games development company a ‘second chance’ when I’ve already given them my money, received more hours of entertainment for the trade than I would have guessed and only plan on giving them any more money should they release content that I particularly want and need to pay for. I’m not paying in mind of content to come, I’m paying in mind of content I receive now and for a price I’m comfortable in paying. Maybe that’s a little mercenary?

If I was paying a subscription or if I’d gotten more emotionally involved in the development of the game, I’d likely be thinking about this situation differently. But as it stands, I’m perfectly fine with my enjoyment of the game and the extent that ANet has created a game that I’m currently enjoying. They don’t need to make any apologies to me.

Volomon.9147:

Why am I playing this game? Most often I don’t just assume something is going to suck before I play it. I don’t know about you. I wasn’t born psychic. I often have to play something nearly three times or do something before I know about it.

Edited for accuracy.

It’s not a criticism, but my mind boggles at the idea that some people seem to expect GW2 to provide endless entertainment for ever. Sinking hundreds of hours into a video game and then bemoaning the lack of things to do seems bizarre to me. You’ve done the things! All the things you want to do! If you’ve done all the things you want to do, there’s not really any reason you should keep playing until new things are introduced or you want to replay the old things.

In a way, I suppose it’s a compliment that folks want more to do, because it suggests that the stuff they have been doing has been enjoyable (or just compulsive). I’d rather think that than if the complaints were being based on hundreds of hours of apparent entertainment for $60.