Guild Wars 2

Fiontar.4695:

We really, really need a public test server. It’s pretty obvious the Arenanet Devs doing profession balance are so over-whelmed that they just aren’t able to approach balance in a proper manner. Adding a Public Test Server will help crowdsource the tuning process and provide real feedback on the effects of nerfs/buffs on viability, playability and enjoyability.

From what I’ve read on the forums, the “balancers” are only 2 people, who play Thief and Warrior. We’re getting about what one would expect from that.

I, I’ve got nothing. Mostly, I swear, it’s because everyone wants to run the same glass cannon GS builds in pvp they run in pve, and get all hissy when it doesn’t work.

Besides, give it 2 days. On the 30th, ele’s are losing all their mobility, and most of their healing. Rangers only have bunker as something useful, and mesmers…. well, they’ll still be mesmers, and either be a free kill, or a complete PITA.

You are aware that on any other class, using zerker is called glass cannon, right? It’s because, if any other class rolls zerker gear, they die when we sneeze.

And you want regen. Sigh.

Look, I play both guardian and warrior – the boon hate is an incredible nerf. guardians cannot help but use boons, more than 80% of their skills give them.

Guardians also have the HP of ele’s, and the dps of a wet noodle. So long as you’re not trying to tank them down with a GS, you should always either a) beat them through raw DPS and burst advantage, or b) have them trying to flee with no mobility, catch up to them and kill them.

Seriously, we have the highest base HP, and the second best burst in the game, and we’re crying? Have you seen the new signet of might we’re getting? 3 unblockable attacks. Unblockable – no more aegis, or block skills, or anything except evade.

I’ll admit, I don’t do any pvp other than wvw, so I’m blind in that venue, but that venue is a minute part of the game. In every other aspect, we’re walking tall. PvE? We’re easy mode. Dungeons? 4 warriors and mes, pls. WvW? Grab a hammer and focus on the legs, rawr.

Honestly, you’d think we were rangers or ele’s. Rangers are stuck with a stupid AI, ele’s only have 1 build, and Anet is about to kill that.

We’re warriors, and we’re better than them.

EDIT: I only count us as second best burst, because there’s never a reason for someone to get poked with hundred blades. If they stand there, they deserve to die.

Also, speaking as someone who first mained a ranger, then swapped to warrior and guardian, I would commit an animal sacrifice on Anet’s front lawn to get half the damage from a longbow ranger as I get from my rifle.

Pistolwhip – going from my own experience, having just logged on and run about in wvw for a few minutes. I can still choose my fights, escape any bad situation, and deal truly large numbers with my thief – and i’m not at max lvl or in max gear yet.

If you don’t get Revealed stupidly, you can pop in and out and nail the poor sucker for 6-8k a hit, circle for 2 seconds, restealth, back off and repeat.

Actually, having said that, I’m amazed I manage to beat thieves as often as I do on my other chars. Must be some really, really bad thieves out there.

The intended playstyle of D/D ele is to log into the forums and cry that the most OP spec in the game is getting nerfed.

The AI from GW1 was, in every possible aspect, better than GW2. I have no clue why they changed it, but they should (if possible) recycle the code from GW1.

Pets hit, pretty much anything you aimed at, they would get to and connect. Minions would hit, almost without fail.

I would sacrifice a goat on Anet’s front lawn to get the flag system and AI from GW1 for this game. Heck, I’d go as high as two goats and a bull.

Just giggling, because everyone else wants what the warriors have, but their forum is even more full of QQ than the rest of the professions. Highest base damage, highest base hp, ditto armour. Better ranged ability than the Ranger. Banners being immeasurably better than spirits, and warriors are convinced that they’ve been over nerfed into uselessness.

No constructive input, other than for the OP – trust me, you’ll drop the LB as soon as you try any wvwvw. If you can’t connect, your DPS is 0. (only way to hit with LB in wvwvw is the same as hitting with ele staff in wvwvw – you hope the opponent is AFK.)

This is (or should be) common knowledge. Our weapon damage is kitten, because of our horribly broken class mechanic. Of course, a non broken weapon will do more damage.

PistolWhip.2697:

@Blackbeard

Take this from an experienced player with a thief…. Prepare to be dominated by good guardians. Unless you play very smart and patiently, any guardian you meet worth his salt that’s anti-melee will demolish you. So many blocks/blinds/CC…eugh… Good luck though.

With culling gone, this should be true – when I rolled my thief to figure out the mechanics, I could effectively be stealthed forever. This is no longer true. Sadly, they can still be stealthed right up till they drop 18k damage on you, which sucks.

(IMO thieves need greater variety of builds, but I’d prefer they do something to make Ele staff a viable damage weapon first.)

Camman.2984:

LoW is useful only in PvE. In WvW, you just run around it or wait half a second for it to disappear. Most times you can’t even get it to face the direction you want.

We NEED a ranged WvW weapon. All other classes have one. For some reason, Elementalists, Necromancers, and Rangers have more melee skills than we have ranged.

Guardians are useless as an offensive profession as the game currently stands.
It needs to be changed.

Just read this, and realised, dude doesn’t know how to play. If you’re not playing offensively on the guardian, you’re doing something incredibly wrong.

GS for melee, staff for mid-range. If you’re at max range, you’re either about to die, or retreating. Either way, “fixing” the staff won’t change it.

Minion of Vey.4398:

stale.9785:

Folks – if you play D/D, you have no reason to complain. it was too good. for the rest of us, who are getting thumped because every unskilled freak ran D/D, and now we find that our staff or S/D builds are getting nailed, yeah, we have a reasonable beef.

And, as always, be glad you don’t main a ranger.

I’d like to main a ranger right now. I’d certainly be getting around faster.

Also, many of the better bunker eles run S/D, not D/D in tpvp. Not because it’s harder to use (it isn’t), because it’s better at being a bunker. It’s just that D/D is repeated so much on the forums, people have accepted that it must be true.

Go for it, just accept that your damage will be 40% less than any other classes, for 45 seconds out of every minute. Also accept that your iconic weapon (longbow) is so useless it’s a joke.

Then again, we ele’s have staff, which is in the same boat. At least ele can be fixed though. Until the option to roll a ranger without a pet happens, rangers are still perma-broke.

EDIT: I personally would prefer to run staff on my ele, but run S/D because staff damage is so pathetic. But all ele’s are getting nailed – it’s just that D/D is getting nailed less than the rest of us.

And yes, ele’s are still in a far better place than rangers (outside of organised PvP, which I don’t do. If I wanted to play call of teabag, i’d buy an xbox.)

EDIT: question? The common thought is that you can’t hit anyone in PvP with scepter attacks. If more are running this, that can’t be true, eh?

As an ele, who doesn’t play D/D, I hope they actually buff staff. Also, I’ve no problem believing MIrra is playing thief – I just believe they’re more honest about it than most.

D/D deserved the nerf (I hate that they’re hitting cantrips, instead of dagger mainhand, but, whatever.) Thief needs something other than glass cannon insta-gib builds. Honest thieves will admit it.

Note: I admit that mesmer and thief have been my WvW bane. Mesmer, because you’re never quite sure what they’re running till the battle is in progress. Thief, because damage you didn’t see coming till you’re already dead doesn’t belong in the game. (I rolled a thief long enough to figure out what was killing me, and devised a response – pray it’s not me that gets targetted, and if it is, drop all my AoE at once and hope. This is not strategy, this is desperate response to a broken mechanic.)

As I keep saying, in all these threads;

A) the patch isn’t out yet. wait and see what else happens.

B) if you’re playing D/D, suck it up. it’s the most OP ele spec available. those of us playing S/D or staff are eating one hell of a bigger nerf than D/D is.

TheGuy.3568:

Iavra.8510:

It does make sense if you add to the math the insane amount of healing the current FOTM ele build can pull off. Being able to pop out of the fight, heal up and pop in again multiple times is a big part of what makes the build OP.

After the patch you will have to actually think about if you really want to use RtL to kite your opponent because it’s not so easy anymore to just reset the fight whenever and how often you want.

It’ not like they are destroying the build like they are doing with Condi-Mesmer.

You see it get that but this why I asked for logical responses. This has 0 to do with the weapon set or math for that matter.

What about bunker rangers? Healing is on Par or exceeds ele with more mobility and access to fear through the terrifying howl. A ranger doesn’t have to build bunker though and neither does ele. Healing arguments are pointless as the only class that can’t build for sustained healing is warrior.

None of the healing matters because all that matters is the weapon set. If an ele isn’t speced for healing how can you possibly justify this nerf?

Stick with the math, please.

only part worth responding to. never use ranger as a comparison. until the day that all other classes lose 40% of their DPS for 45 seconds out of every minute, you’re ALL better off than rangers.

Also, D/D deserved a nerf. Be glad they didn’t Smiter’s Boon it.

Folks – if you play D/D, you have no reason to complain. it was too good. for the rest of us, who are getting thumped because every unskilled freak ran D/D, and now we find that our staff or S/D builds are getting nailed, yeah, we have a reasonable beef.

And, as always, be glad you don’t main a ranger.

the only fix that guardian staff needs is on skill 1, so it can deal with elevation. otherwise, it’s the best setup staff in the game. don’t fix what’s not broken. (try ele staff sometime, for something outright broken.)

skill 1 – cleaves, 5 targets, large area.
skill 2 – massive damage, which hits EVERYTHING it passes through – throw it into a zerg and refresh.
skill 3 – swiftness on demand – if traited, eternal swiftness. if you’re not proccing when you pass through it, learn to play. that’s a problem with you, not the skill.
skill 4 – might for yourself and allies – in an AH build, a complete heal on yourself.
skill 5 – block pinchpoints, and provide condition removal for your team.

seriously, if you don’t know how to use it, don’t comment on it.

If they make the staff viable, they can smack the D/D ele’s into the earth for all I care. Everyone knows the spec has too much going for it. (Yes, I think gutting RtL is the wrong way to go, but, whatever.)

Didn’t bother reading most of the replies, so someone else probably said it already. It’s because warriors are easy-mode for 90% of the game.

High base health, ditto armour, ditto damage. Better ranged damage than the ranger, better melee damage than any other class.

There’s tonnes of room to make mistakes, and still not fail. Compared to the other classes, that’s a luxury.

lordkrall.7241:

So.. why not do it with friends? That would solve the issue.
People keep bringing up PUGs but one would think that they would at least have made some friends during their time in GW2?
Or if you don’t have friends go with a PUG that makes it clear that they won’t skip cutscenes. Based on the amount of people here complaining about being unable to do it for the story it is quite likely that it will be rather easy to find groups doing it for the story.

You know, I’d love to believe the second chunk of this is true, but let’s be honest; forum goers, regardless of our opinions on something, are a vanishingly small segment of any gaming community.

One possibility would be making a guild from people on the forums who are willing to do dungeon content, sit through cutscenes, and (dare I wish?) actually complete the content instead of skipping 90% of everything.

But that, there, would be something like effort, and crying on the forums is so much easier, eh? (yes, i’m picking on my own position. sue me. i’ll pick on yours too – i’m pretty equal opportunity that way.)

There was a suggestion earlier, about making it scale, so that one person could do it, and have the difficulty increase with the larger party size. That, to me, is the ideal solution. (Make it fun for everybody, as it were. I want to have fun, I want YOU to have fun, I just don’t want to be forced to have fun the way that you do, if for me it isn’t, if you follow…)

darkace.8925:

MatthewMedina.5419:

a 5-man instance was really the thing that made the most sense for us to pursue, as it enabled us to best tell the conclusion to this story arc in the way that we wanted.

That sounds all well and good, but it kinda falls apart the first time someone joins a PUG with that guy who votes to kick someone because they actually want to watch the cutscenes.

This, a million times, this.

Byron, let’s be honest – if you’re playing S/D in W3, and you manage to connect with any of the hard hitting skills, you’re either in a zergball (where what you personally are doing doesn’t matter one bit) or your opponent is AFK. Hard hitting would be Fire 2, 3, or 5 on a burning target. earth 5. Of those, the only one’s that should connect are fire 5. Whoohoo. Anything else can be walked away from, even if you’re crippled. If you’ve got an immobilise on someone, you can hope to connect with 1 of them. That’s not “a little less effective”, it’s embarrassing.

If you’re using staff, you’ll tag people, sure, and get credit. You’re doing virtually no damage, mind you, but you will tag people.

CC, with a 5 person cap, and the way our fields pulse, is almost not worth using against a zerg – the guardian’s consecrations, and the mesemer’s glamours are better. Muddy terrain, with it’s duration, is better. Stopping 5-10 people out of 200 is, technically, helpful. So’s bailing a sinking ship with a teaspoon.

There is no way you’ll outperform a D/D bunker in the context of W3 with the other weapon sets. Hence it’s popularity.

I’m unconcerned with what’s considered OP in PvP, since it generally boils down to “Someone slightly better than me beat me! Nerf them into the ground plz!” I’ve heard people complaining that rangers (arguably the worst of class in the whole game) are OP in PvP. Being good, or even viable, in one truly minute cross section of the available content, isn’t a selling point.

Like the personal story – I finished it, once. Not doing it again. Forced dungeons shouldn’t be part of something that had been primarily solo content.

Don’t get me wrong, I love online play – but forced grouping isn’t my thing. Joining a WvW battle is epic, ditto for dragons. Co-operating for a DE is a wonderful thing.

Grouping with 4 randoms, to “gogogogogo” through content? Nope.

Wish they’d have told us this sooner, so I could have just given the F&F content a miss.

Hint for ANet folks – the majority of people posting seem to be of the opinion that had it been group content from the start it wouldn’t have been an issue, and I fully agree with that. Changing the format for the finale of something is beyond lame. It approaches EA levels of game production.

It’s simple – D/D is the only truly effective spec we have if we want to be more than a free kill.

A staff ele in W3 is either a) full support and providing nothing of use for his team (an AH guardian, necro, or even a freaking ranger tossing healing spring and muddy terrain all offer better support), or b) running full glass, and at the WP every few seconds, whenever someone sneezes at him. Also, full glass on staff does less damage than any of the classes except for ranger.

a S/D ele in W3 isn’t hitting anything, regardless of build, so there’s no point.

D/D offers mobility and survivability, at the expense of DPS. That’s why anyone who’s not utterly kitten runs it.

I truly wish this wasn’t so – I’ve advocated for staff buffs, but as it is, the ele is joining my ranger on the shelf, till Anet pays attention to making the staff viable.

Note: none of what I wrote applies to the organised PvP. If I wanted to play that way, I’d play call of teabag, not guildwars.

They’re gutting the already kittened staff. Surprise? Not at all. Message from the Dev’s is quite clear – Roll a warrior, guardian or mesmer. If you’re into W3, rock the thief. Staff ele, already far and away the lowest damage in the game, is catching it again. Whee! (We’re still better off than rangers though – suppose there’s always something to be happy about…)

Longbow:

Decrease Long Range Shot cast time to 1/2 second, set to max damage regardless of range.
Increase all longbow projectile speed by 50%.
Decrease Rapid Fire channel time to 3 seconds.
Decrease Barrage channel time to 1 1/2 seconds.

Shortbow:

Fix Crossfire animation “fix”.

Axe:

Remove rooting effect of Whirling Defense.

Pets:

Pet commands (F1-F3) now work instantly, interrupting the pets’ current action.
Melee pets no longer stop moving to attack.
Ranged pets range set to 1200, AI change to have them stay at max range.

Traits:

Signet of the Beastmaster – Make this the default state of signets, change trait to “Brutal Arrows” – Apply cripple on critical hit with Longbow or Shortbow – 50% chance, 5 second recharge.

Trapper’s Expertise and Trap Potency swap with Primal Reflexes and Martial Mastery, respectively. This puts weapons traits into Skirmishing (which makes sense) and traps into the condition damage line (where they should have been.)

Vigorous Spirits changed to Invulnerable Spirits: Change being Spirits are invulnerable.

Skills:

Signet of Renewal – change active to “Cure 3 conditions. You and your pet are healed for X for each condition on you.”

Quickening Zephyr shorten recharge time to 30 seconds.

Lick Wounds – change to “Companion’s Sacrifice”. Functionality being “Sacrifice your animal companion – Rally at Animal Companion’s location.”

Sure – I personally hated, HATED DoA, but the rest of the elite areas were fun, so why not?

Bumping again, to keep on front page – more feedback (even, you suck, kitten off and die) is always welcome!

+1, agreed, and also, 15 characters. Yes, yes yes.

We had saved build templates in gw1 – no reason at all to not have them here. Even allow it to automatically take the 3 silver that it costs to retrain them out of your inventory automatically.

This was how it was originally supposed to be. The deciding factor in how it is now? $$$$.

I would love to see this change, though people who’ve bought some of the more ludicrously expensive dyes would be (justifiably) upset.

You want to stop zergs as they are now? Remove the 5 target AoE cap. If clumping up = death, people will stop.

Saying that, I +1 your idea. (I do likeit! Lots)

Am I the only one sitting in pure disbelief? Not in amazed disbelief either – simply acknowledging the fact that we’re being lied to again?

We’ve heard this before, and our underwater skills got a buff, and pretty much everything else got nerfed.

Call me a skeptic, but I’ll believe it a month after it happens (to allow them time to “fix” the fixes.)

Remember the shortbow animation “fix”. Also remember the last time JP told us Rangers were getting love.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|6.1g.h4|0.0.0.0.0.0|1h.bm.1h.bm.1h.bm.1h.bm.1h.b2.1h.b2|0.0.1h.62.1h.62.1c.9c.1c.9c.1q.65|p67.0.a3.a5.p54|0.0|1m.1r.1s.1o.29|e

that’s your build – using the far superior (for anything but pvp) gw2buildcraft.

Suggestion one would be getting yourself an amulet (assume you’ve got one, but it’s not listed in the post)

Suggestion two is replace the major runes with superior ones.

Now, personally, if I’ve got a staff, I’m running this:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|6.1g.h4|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.8c.67|0.p36.0.p59.k58|0.0|1m.23.1s.1t.0|e

Mine focuses far more on outright damage, with decent critical. I’ve ignored condition damage other than the incidental bit from the Divinity runes.

Not sure if that’s any help (simply telling you what I run isn’t a huge boon) but at least you’ve got a working URL now.

Also worth noting for anyone who’s been watching the thread, I’ve edited the OP a bunch since I first posted. Making Fire more AoE, Water more support/heal, Earth less all around lousy, and Air single target damage. More feedback is always welcome.

Also hoping for a red post. (In the ele forum. Yeah, I’m delusional.)

Scrambles.2604:

Chaosky.5276:

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t a shorter delay on Eruption be better for combo fields as well? I mean, it’s not like you can use a blast finisher on more than one field, so wouldn’t it be better to cast the combo field and then switch to the earth attunement for Eruption and Evasive Arcana’s blast finisher? After all, that way I could cast Lava Font and then switch to earth for an Eruption/Evasive Arcana (Churning Earth) combo, which I can’t do currently.

IMO, it’s better set up the finisher first. What is important is the attunement you end up in after you get your boons.

For instance, if your setting up might for dps, you could drop fire 2 and switch to earth 2 and trigger might, but then you’re locked out of fire for at least 8 secs.

The way it currently is, you start with earth 2, switch to fire 2, gain might, and continue fire dps (meteor shower). By the time you’ve used up your fire cds, you can go back to earth and set up another finisher.

edit; I think the ramp up time is perfect. I have JUST enough time to cast Earth 2>Earth 5> Fire 2 and still get might. Being able to squeeze in the cc to lock them in your AoE is crucial.

I get where you’re coming from – it’s how anyone plays staff right now. However, to set that combo up, you’re either not getting might on yourself, or you’re in the thick of battle, setting combos at your feet.

All the changes I’ve suggested for staff are based on making us dangerous from a distance. If you’re specced for damage (which nobody does right now, water and arcane attunement being what they are) you should be extraordinarily dangerous from a distance, and a pushover up close.

The way you’ve described your combos, you’re playing something along the lines of 0/10/0/30/30 and setting them off at your feet, or supporting your team.

What I’d like to see is some viability for staff as ranged damage. Say, 20/20/0/10/20, with PVT gear, zerker trinkets, and runes of the elementalist on. Which should result in big damage numbers, some team combo buffing, and minimal melee range defense. What we get instead with a spec like that is below mediocre damage, and a free kill for anyone who sneezes on us.

My goal is to make ranged nuking viable without breaking the support role. (Yeah, yeah, I’m a broken record.)

Um, scrambles? was there supposed to be more than a quote in that?

Almost 8 months since this was noticed, and we have nothing? C’mon Anet. Stop making silly added content, (SAB, I’m looking at you) and address functionality bugs.

Ronah.2869:

So, what do you do with people with 10+ alts who want to be in the same guild with all of them/ Whisper someone every time to add your new character in? And then a guild with 100 names will only have only 10 people?

This is more annoying then just putting your self offline if you don’t want them to see you not representing

Simple – if a person has more than one alt in a guild, they occupy the same spot, as it is now. I see no problem with letting a guild know that two different chars on an account are the same player – what people are asking for is to not have everyone immediately know the identity of all your alts without your express permission.

Too many changes for a weapon that doesn’t need it. The two skills that need attention are Shatterstone and dragon’s tooth. Dragon’s Tooth needs the speed boost, but not ground target.

Bumping this, ‘cause I’d like it on the first page where maybe a Dev will see it, and where it can collect more feedback.

Catering to a TP players greed shouldn’t enter into game balancing, ever. So what if ecto price is dropping? If it fell to the base merch value, it would matter to nobody, outside of the few who want to play “Wall Street Wars” while standing in town at the TP.

-1. heck, -1000. OP is asking for a “fix” to something that’s not broken.

+1. If I could do that more than once, I would. Add F1 and F3 working instantly (along with F2) so that it interrupts whatever the pet is doing, and you’ve reduced a great deal of the headaches for a Ranger.

I would say that all the longbow projectiles need their speed increased greatly – 30-50%. Add my changes to the OP’s, and you might see rangers being something other than a handicap on a team.

Ok, being the “other OP” Scrambles is talking about, I’ll chime in. Covenn has part of the answer, but not enough of it. It is flat out not possible to kill anything before it’s at your feet with a staff. (Every other class, aside from the engineer, has gap closers that render the “battle at range” a moot thing.)

That is a problem. The simple truth is that our CC times are far too low, the projectile speed is laughable, our escapes aren’t worth using at all. For the iconic mage weapon, there’s something wrong.

When I play staff (which i’ll admit, isn’t often any more – might stacking on S/D or D/D bunker being far superior in every possible sense) I want the ability to kill things before they’re at my feet. If they make it up to me, I should be a free kill. What I want is it to be kittening hard to make it to me in the first place.

Let our single target attacks do damage worth noting. Let our escapes give us 1200 range to play with. For all that’s holy, remove the stupid 5 person AoE cap.

note: I don’t play PvP. I don’t see myself ever playing PvP. WvWvW and PvE is where I play. As things stand now, if I want to roll an ele with a staff, my only truly viable option is to go full support – which is silly.

Also, for the combo field argument, that was covered previously. By the nature of our combo fields (on staff) they’re team buffs. Overall, it’s a boon to the team, yes. In terms of my own personal damage? They’re nothing, and less than nothing. If I’m comboing at my feet, something’s wrong. The battle, barring disaster, shouldn’t be at my feet. I’m low health, in a frigging bathrobe.

If our combos lead to offensive things, like poison, weakness, crippled or chilled? That’d be cool. As it is it’s team buffing, and what it seems everyone calling staff “fine” on the forums is missing is that a staff ele shouldn’t have to be support.

I’ll grant, with all that said, the OP has suggested far too extreme a set of changes to the staff – number tweaking would do the job. Outright changing the skills is too far, imho. (example, my thread from earlier: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/staff-fixes-improvements/first#post1801715)

Peace, eh?

Stale

I’ve already posted the changes I would like to have for staff. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/staff-fixes-improvements/first#post1755082

I feel it should be more offensive than it is. Right now, if you’re playing staff as anything but support, you’re basically doing it wrong.

The recharge rates, escape mechanisms (laugh) and AoE cap are all hindrances to playing it as an offensive weapon.

Ronah, for me at least, it’s not about the account name. (If you can infer anything about me as an individual from “Stale” that’s particularly accurate, I’d be surprised.)

It’s about an option that SHOULD have been in the game in the first place. Also, note that GW1 had the ability to select your status on the log-in screen. (This did come and go a few times throughout the history of the game, and I’ve not got GW1 installed on this box, so I can’t tell you if it’s there now.)

If you want all your alts to be part of the same guild, and share friends – have a check box for that. If you want to play each character separately from all your other’s, and the ties upon them (guilds/friend lists) let there be a checkbox for that.

Also, I understand the folks who want to have to validate a friend request. Personally, I don’t care – I’ve no clue who my “Followers” are, and if they want to group up with me, they can ask. Doesn’t mean other’s shouldn’t have that option.

Logging on invisibly, I would love to have as an option – but for it’s own sake, as an option that should exist, for those who want it.

I’d say not eliminate, but reduce them drastically, to maybe 4 seconds.

Change the Arcane line to Boon duration and non-channeled weapon skill recharge, with the skill recharge maxing out at 30% (so it’s nice if you can spare the points, and not too consequential if you can’t.) This would also give some help to the abysmally slow recharge rates on staff/focus.

My thinking is that staff user’s generally want about 20 in arcane anyway, for blasting staff – if that allowed for 20% reduction on your non-channeled skills, it’s a bonus all around.

Individual characters being separate, up to and including guild and friends’ lists? What’s not to like? Also, completely invisible log-in as an option. Yes.

It’s something obvious that should be in-game. GW1 had the ability to save your build templates – there should be the same in GW2. Even with the silver cost (let the cash be removed from your inv. each time you change traits.)

I’ll grant, in GW1 you could only change builds in town, but if they broadened that to allow for changing any time you were out-of-combat, life would be good.

Einlanzer.1627:

The very obvious solution is to skew the ranger:pet damage/effect ratio more toward the ranger side and less toward the pet side. This would simultaneously make them less strong in open world PvE while making them stronger in PvP and dungeons.

Without the pet, the Ranger should be able to function at at least 80% the threshold of other classes. The pet should only function as a persistent tactical tool and a modest supplement to the Ranger’s damage capabilities. There’s a reason why every other MMO has it set up this way.

Having just re-read this whole thread, I’m in agreement with Einlanzer. The only other changes I would ask for would be:

- Let melee pet attack while moving, even when it truly breaks the animation.

- Make ranged pets AI force them to maintain range.

- Have all the function skills be instant. As in, interrupt whatever action the pet is currently doing, no animation delays.