Im hoping many of the reward suggestions made in the fractal CDI get implemented with HoT. We mentioned rings, trading in rewards we have no use for and extra stuff. Good value rewards for time (make fractals better gold per hour than dungeons). And scaling rewards for each individual shard.
The zerker meta has no blame to take in this part as crit damage is useless for that particular boss.
Maybe if players weren’t so used to corner stacking then criticing everything to death, TA F/U may not have been considered so bad? Measured against most other boss fights, TA F/U was crazy hard, but generally speaking it was doable.
Most players want a boss they can stack and auto-attack to death with minimal mechanics or dodging. This is the result of running the same dungeons for over two years – you just want to finish it quickly for gold. Any hiccups or speed bumps makes a path less likely to be run (I suspect TA Aether is ironically run less than TA F/U was).
The saddest thing about TA F/U is that there was a patch that changed the final boss and the spider spawns to become significantly harder than it originally was. Auto-attacking at max range in complete safety was bad, but the fix literally killed the entire path. It’s sad, because F/A had one of the harder sylvari fights of the three paths (Vevina) and the water spouts were a truly unique dungeon challenge.
TAFU was before corner stacking went majorly public (in fact i believe it was when people were still mostly stacking warriors and fgs wasnt widely used although it was known about). TAFU was back when most groups did not care for efficiency. It was only hard because it got bugged and became unforgiving if you failed the first attempt. And anet never chose to fix it. People had no problem afk ranging it before they changed the aggro. It was never a hard encounter it just required a bit more knowledge than the others (reflects AND blinds). It was just unforgiving if you wiped because the spiders never despawned.
Im actually very surprised we got our own specialist. But im very happy its you Rising. Good luck!
Also theres an interesting thread going on in general. Its a bit one sided with a huge amount of anti instanced players and pro purely open world. But it might be worth looking at as it does concern us.
I really dont want to see map crosses on records. That was such a dull and uninteresting thing people tried back on the old GWSCR site. Jumping puzzles and guild missions i dont mind so much. But i dont really see much demand for them.
People are divided about GW2 having raids.
Most people want more challenging content.
Most people don’t want the elitism and grind that goes with a traditional raid’s gear treadmill.
So make raids (or whatever you want to call it) with GW2 style rewards. Problem solved?
The question is ‘instanced or not’ when you get down to it.
The best compromise I can come up with is making a guild hall danger room that spawns private instances of world bosses.
That really shouldnt be the question. I and many players absolutely detest the fact that we are forced to play with strangers for most of our content (key word is forced). I dont mind playing with strangers for some things or on some occasions. But sometimes i dont want them influencing my gameplay and potentially ruining any fun i can have with my friends. If we are getting challenging content we should be able to control who we play with.
There really does need to be both open world and instanced content in an MMO. Its needed to keep both groups happy and prevent excessive collisions of interest. If you flat out removed dungeons and fractals from the game right now i guarantee the game would take a huge hit in popularity. People say instanced content lovers are the minority. There may be some truth to that in this game. But its certainly not a small enough minority to simply ignore. And you can bring back a huge amount of old players with new instanced content. Along with many new players.
Also GW1 was a fully instanced game. Its kind of disheartening to me for anet to go completely in the opposite direction and stop supporting instanced content rather than just branching out into both directions. After all GW1 was hugely successful especially with its elite missions and zones.
Yeah except GW2 is the only game with such a superior combat system in an MMO. Not to mention it has great cosmetics and deep lore. Instanced content was a thing at release. I dont see why everyone suddenly thinks its not part of the game anymore. I really dont have any alernatives games i want to play. Believe me ive tried. HoT looks like it might bring in some new fractal stuff so thats atleast something.
About the ‘exclusive rewards thing’, I think this hits to the core of the issue when we get down to it.
If we wanted to change it, we could say “People want special recognition for their achievements”. This is traditionally due to special rewards, unique skins, and titles.
That in and of itself is fine, but there are a few side-effects of this.
1) We’ve seen, excuses aside, that people won’t do content that doesn’t reward enough. If ‘harder’ means more time consuming, and it often does, there’s complaints that the special rewards aren’t worth the time.
2) People want their recognition to be exclusive. This also makes a lot of sense on one level, but it puts the dev in a hard spot. How do you get relatively exclusive rewards and recognition without creating content that inaccessible to the vast majority of the players? For Arenanet their primary solution is token/collection schemes. What unique boss skins they do have are recolors, because again, they want to give that recognition without throwing away too many resources.
~~~
I get why people deny the exclusivity/props motivation, it sounds selfish, and the exclusivity ends up changing it into a haves/have nots situation pitting the raiders against the non-raiders (and kidding aside, we know how those numbers go down, even in ‘raid’ games). Still, I think most of us know that without that exclusivity/props (and titles aren’t enough) those raids would be empty as hell.
~~~
Oh also, about the ‘poll’, theres multiple levels of self-selection that make it even more meaningless than usual. We’re selecting by people who both go to the official forums and care enough about raids to have an opinion on them. Most people simply don’t care and ignore it either way.
The same arguement can be made for Triple Trouble, Tequatl and Silver Wastes. I forced myself to play those just to get a few achieves and exclusive rewards. I will never touch them again now that im done because they are just completely unfun and not worth the time. There is already exclusivity and inaccessibility in the game. I dont see why a new part which satisfies a rather neglected part of the community is suddenly so outrageous.
As ropechef said, ascended is long term gear. Its expensive but definitely a manageable price if you take your time. Anyone that plays with me regularly knows i barely have any gold ever. This isnt because i spend it constantly. Its because i dont earn gold very fast, dont play enough and i do spend every now and again. On a good day i will do arah and a few other dungeons and can make about 25+ gold. Most other days i barely make more than 10g.
Despite this i have full ascended on warrior, guardian, ele and on the necro i have 3 full sets and huge amount of weapons all full ascended. Assassin, sinister and berserker and a brand new greatsword ready for HoT. And this is on a class that i rarely play anymore due to how poor it is in dungeons and fractals. x)
If i can manage this much with my perpetually poor income and reduced activity. Im sure you can manage one full set for one class.
What I understood is that when you “level up” after level 80 you’ll get mastery point instead of skill point, so yes in the end Writs of Experience will give mastery points imo.
Based on the article about the mastery system, I don’t think there will be level ups after 80 anymore. XP gained goes exclusively towards progressing your currently selected mastery track.
Mastery points are earned through other means.
Source:
Because the Mastery training bar completely replaces the experience bar, players who’ve reached level 80 will no longer gain levels but will instead train Masteries.
It becomes a mastery experience bar. Id expect writs of experience to work towards mastery points. Otherwise people with no low lvl toons have no use for them.
Id actually like it to stay as a light field at this point. Light fields can be used for cleanses. Obviously blasting a water field for extra heals is nice aswell. But i dunno i feel a group cleanse on a group heal is better.
This thread doesnt make sense. Almost everyone who is saying no do not want raids full stop. If you dont do raids or dont want raids its an irrelevant discussion. And i think its rather selfish to vote against a type of content just because you personally wouldnt play it. I dont like or play pvp but i dont vote against new pvp maps and gametypes. And i really dislike open world zergable content but i also dont vote against that.
The better question would be. If we get raids what party size would you prefer?
For me personally i think 10 is the absolute maximum size. And then i would hope the raid encourages splitting. I like the 5 man instanced stuff, it doesnt clutter the fights with skill effects (too much) and it doesnt devalue the individual as much as a 10 man would. But then if they stayed kitten i guess people wouldnt consider them raids. They would just be new dungeons or something. So i guess overall id say yes for 10 man raids.
And just regarding the OP’s suggestion. I doubt existing dungeons provide the best place to implement raids. Would be better to create brand new stuff.
@Bernie
Noone said anything about 3 hour long raids. Or raid gear. We are just talking about more challenging instanced content. If its more challenging it should be more rewarding. I dont think thats unreasonable. You are trying to translate other MMO raids directly to GW2 rather than thinking of raids in terms of GW2.
Calculating DPS is a lot of work. You have to calculate average coefficient per second and take into account aftercasts, buffs etc. Or work out the rotation and add up the total coefficients used and divide by time taken to complete repeatable rotation. Then calculate damage (The best way). But even those doesnt account for dodging or fights that last less than a full rotation.
The dulfy guide is a bit out of date. But the builds have remained unchanged. The rotations have been perfected are shown in these videos. I will be adding to it and clarifying some gear choice stuff when HoT comes out. Ill also add in new stuff for the specialisation.
The power gain from the signet equates to way more sustained dps than WoS. However WoS is very strong burst. You will very rarely be in a situation where casting Signet of Spite is worth it. Most of those condis should already be on the target. So its wasted.
Most of those conditions should already be on the target. You only miss maybe poison and blind. But poison could be applied by a thief. Same with blind. So its almost never worth it. Also in downscaled dungeons where there is a stat cap. Signets ignore the stat cap. So they are worth keeping a lot of the time.
They need to completely rework the vote kick UI and system. The confirm/deny is such a joke of a system for a multi player party. Im not even sure why they designed it like that in the first place.
Using those runes aswell. Just get a full set of ranger runes and use a mini pet would give you way more damage. Or better yet go full scholar. The build looks like something you would throw together and use for PvP or WvW. But its not even good for those. :P
Optimal gear for dagger build is currently assassin armour. Berserker everything else. And if you want expensive infusions then 8 mighty infusions and 6 precise infusions is best. This is assuming you arent running with a spotter ranger. Didnt bother to calculate for that seeing as hardly anyone takes a ranger. And for food you want seaweed salad. Truffle steaks for alternative/budget.
When they said instanced on that stream they meant the objects are only affected on the local client. So if another player does the event at the same time they do not burn the same vines as you. Its like gathering nodes. If someone else mines a node you can still mine it yourself. Its localised and not server side. “Instanced to you”. Its not really the correct term. But thats what they meant.
Don’t forget, Triple Headed Wurm has never been completed by a PuG map. As far as I know, it has never come close. That is the closest thing that this game has to a hardcore raid.
You might be thinking, “But it gets completed almost daily in open world.” It does but it gets completed by dedicated guilds and groups who hop maps in order to organize. While there is no such thing as official instanced raids, that’s essentially how it’s being done.
I think instanced raids are the way to go. It’s a great way to let like minded players to play together.
The key difference is that random pug players get into those organized groups, it’s essentially impossible to stop. This is the thing, they get a chance to do it under the aegis of organized groups, there’s always a trickle. If the instances are closed off that chance goes down to effectively 0.
It’s a good compromise in that way, the encounters are hard enough and require enough organization that they can’t just be zerged, but at the same time, with a bit of luck or a bit of asking around there’s always a chance for anyone to get in on it… and as time goes on (as tequatl shows) that knowledge and those skills leak out and it becomes more and more puggable as more and more people edge into the encounter through these organized, yet still public groups.
Im not sure you know how they taxi people into Wurm. Or atleast how GW2community does it. They get everyone to wp at the same time to find an empty map. Then everyone gets taxi invited on teamspeak. If you arent on teamspeak. You arent getting in. And even then half the people on teamspeak dont get in because it gets filled so quickly (and theres more people on ts than the map can hold). Its hardly the best implementation when people are forced to go through such lengths to complete open world stuff. Especially something that really should be a private instanced raid.
Sigil difference is because you need energy sigils for solos like lupi. Obviously if not doing solos (dont recommend condi for groups though) you can use strength + battle. However battle was nerfed. So its not as far ahead of strength anymore. I would still recommend battle + energy for solos if you can swap on cooldown. If not then strength will give more might. And obviously use strength + battle if you dont need energy.
The dagger mastery is actually a nice idea. Im unsure if its superior to tainted shackles cooldown which benefits a lot from your power when going sinister. You also get dark path cooldown which gives 3 bleeds. So its really tough to say which is better. Go with whatever you feel is best. They are probably quite close.Just tested. You maintain more bleeds by going path of midnight simply because of dark path. And then you also have tainted shackles off cooldown faster.
You should definitely use chill of death instead of training of the master. But you could also use reapers might for the single lifeblasts which apply burn. I would not recommend using close to death in most situations. Scepter dagger has very poor direct damage. Close to death really doesnt do much for you. However the burn from dhuumfire is pretty strong if you use it every 10 seconds. If managing dhuumfire is too difficult then yeah you should go close to death. Or if you need sustain go parasitic contagion.
Also you should now go locust signet instead of plague signet as locust has a lower cooldown.
@Cerbeius
Get givers weapons. The condition duration is really helpful. You can only get them as exotics. So if you absolutely want ascended then go for sinister weapons instead.
Its more like theres 30 people here and all of them are doing almost nothing to contribute to the progress of the event. A single person is doing 10% of the entire zergs damage. And you wonder why we get frustrated with open world? Harder events fail because of the overwhelming amount of players who scale up events and contribute almost nothing. Do you know how frustrating it is to see bosses like gold and silver fail when i know i can duo them faster than a zerg? Unfortunately the zerg wont allow it and scales it up, making it much more likely to fail. The pains of open world and the efficient players. >.<
Its not bragging. Its just pointing out how much of a joke the majority of players are. Ironically they could contribute atleast half of what that 1 decent player was doing if they just learnt a bit more about the game. They dont even need to switch gear or traits. Just use decent weapons, stack might and use semi decent rotations. But thats obviously too hard for many people. Especially when its a group effort. Is it really so much to ask to expect people to try and contribute in a group event? I really hope for more really unforgiving event timers in HoT. If we cant get decent instanced content maybe we can atleast teach players to contribute more by giving them such a high failure rate that they are forced to make an effort.
If people actually used reflects then those poison bolts wouldnt be an issue. But yeah you cant maintain good dps on that boss. But you should definitely try to burst as much as possible with AOE.
The aoe heals really dont amount to much. And once you kill a few with aoes its a while before more are in range. You can completely ignore the mechanic. Same for copper. The smoothest/fastest coppers i saw was before everyone started safespotting. Where everyone just ran around and aoe’d the kitten out of everything.
You can totally ignore the heals with sufficient dps. All the casuals are afraid of the heals and do even worse dps than usual though. Which completely contradicts what they are trying to do.
It looks more likely that when you CC the bar drops to 0 and then gradually builds up to max. So you can only CC when its full. Otherwise i dont see why they would use a bar for the UI and i dont see why it would be full when hes not been CC’d.
In my group, we have a code: I take even and my bro take odd. Warrior is allowed to take the first defiance. If it’s a pug, we tell them not to use mace 5.
We dont even organise it lol. I literally just link icebow 5 or say strip defiant. And the group does it. Only very rarely do people overdo it. I guess thats the benefit of playing with the same core people every time.
We had a pug mesmer in fractal 50 the other day. I set up my own icebow 5 and then just before i finished channeling the mesmer gs 5’d bjarl across the room. >.>
Also looks like they might have listened to all the defiant complaints in that thread and opted for a dumbed down version which locks out the option to coordinate CC to strip stacks for chained stuns.
I still maintain that defiant is fine. They just need to teach players to use it properly. If this is an open world only version of defiant then im fine with the change. Because yeah its terrible implementation when it scales up to 50 stacks on open world stuff.
They did say that was purely a basic one to showcase the idea. But yeah i dont expect any of the open world stuff to be challenging. If its fun then im ok with it. Lets just hope we get something in addition to a fractal update.
I dont know if its just me lagging. But i cant log in to the interface at the moment. It says welcome but nothing happens when i click login. Also i cant see the rulesets even when hard refreshing.
