Guild Wars 2

Stacking sigils have an extra rule in place that closed an old loop hole. The game sees your load out as sets, though sets can share specific equipment when doing checks.

Originally, sigil and buff stacks were character bound, and only reset on death or area change. So what people were doing was using gear with stack effects to build them up, and then swapped to gear with flat bonuses to maximize them. For instance, you’d carry 3 weapons; Bloodlust, Force and Lighting. You’d use bloodlust and lighting to build up stacks to 25, then swapped in your Force weapon to have 25 Bloodlust stack + 5% dmg bonus. To close the hole, if you change weapons in the set, it checks the new set and flushes all sigil or buff stacks that aren’t available on your gear set.

But this is where the game’s code falls prey to itself. Swapping to underwater combat changes your Armor set, which automatically forces a check. Since most people don’t invest much in their underwater equipment, stacks tend to get lost frequently unless you put a matching sigil in your underwater set. This is also a pain in the kitten for rune sets, as they never put serious effort in expanding rebreather sets. So you have the Graveborne (which is karma and unsalvageable), Benthetic (which is a rare drop from Teq), and the Pirate exotic one that only appeared during one old Living story event (and was account bound if IIRC). If you use expensive runes, they are not cost effective, if not impossible to recover.

But in a more broad sense, Yes!, its designed to fill time and layer another sense of achievement to something thats not really needed.

Because you can produce items for sale, crafting essentially feeds itself from the economy by being both profit generator and cheap alternative. It originally played a big role in the game due to dungeon and karma armor having a much higher effort cost then they do now. Allowing people to produce long term sets of gear, the rarity of Oric and Ancient wood, and the T6 mats, was considered mostly fair…. after all, at worst you’d want to make a set no more then once every few months.

The remaining high level recipes were considered supremely expensive due to the rarity of T6 Dust (originally drop only, and had the same drop rate as other T6 mats), but used on large amounts in nearly every recipe. We also had an abundance of Ectos due to the consistent rate we could obtain them.

But all of this changed after 2 major changes in crafting. When we could stat salvaging dust from Ectos, that put a lot of forge and unique crafting recipes in reach of the greater population. It also allowed promotion recipes to be cost effect, supplying more T6 mats to fuel crafting. This was huge boon to lodestone linked crafting, since we could cheaply (cheaper anyway) include cores in the production process.

The second was Champ bags, which flooded the economy with T6 mats. This was critical, as a lot of original crafting recipes required 250 of T6 fine mats (like back pieces, weapon skins, legendaries). I have no doubts this was done specifically to help promote crafting collections, as it, along with Ascended crafting, are the only reasons to actively pursue it given how easy dungeons/tokens are now.

The new prefixes are another story. The supplies for those typically come from LS events.

That said…. its become increasingly more cost and time effective to outright buy materials and equipment off TP, unless you expressly need large amounts of them. Its hard to pinpoint why, but I have no doubt the abnormal rarity of certain items, along with mid level materials have few reliable sources farming them (mostly T2/T3 rare mats), has made it enticing enough for certain individuals to work toward supplying them. The increase in price is just normal inflation at work, as our ability to generate gold at level 80 is very high compared to years before.

And for reasons I still don’t understand, promotion gambling is still popular with upgrades.

Guild vs Guild has been on the design schedule since this game started development. And given its importance in Guild Wars 1, there was universal shock and outrage that the mode was not only missing at launch for GW2, but that the majority of guild features were absent for the longest time.

Because of a scheduling problem, they were banking on stronger popularity of WvW…… which ultimately hurt WvW, as a LOT of people wanted a WvW styled map, but geared for 15 vs 15 match ups (or 25 vs 25 for big fights) so guild teams could face off competitively. Its one of several reasons Fight Guilds started surfacing in EB. sPvP is too small, but Boarderlands were too complicated. But EB has symmetrical pathing around the map; making it easy for them to wander around and run into groups to skirmish.

So believe me… this subject has been an infected scab with the community from before Day 1 of the game. Now we’re all waiting to see how it all works in action, so we can decide to breath a sigh of relief, or tear Anet a new skritt hole.

Map clear chests follow the same rules as any other chest when it come to drops…. no DR, and in this case, only claim per character. What you might encounter, but probably won’t, is a decrease in mob drops.

But the Anti-farm protection hasn’t mattered since Champ bags were introduced; As DR behavior focuses on repeated mob kills in an area, but champ bags encourage people to wander around a lot. If you’re in an area like Silverwastes, where the majority of mobs don’t drop loot, DR isn’t even a concern with the pop up chests.

Prior to this, people used to focus on the same tiny area of a map that had mobs with the drop tables you wanted. But even then, the efficiency of K-trains, and their tendency to move around, mostly eliminated any DR interference back in the old days.

FlashGamer.4017:

I don’t think it will happen, because offhand weapons give you less stats than mainhand weapons, therefore to give warrior mainhand shield they had to buff it to bring it in line with the mainhands.

They give the exact the SAME attribute bonuses. The only aspect that to consider is the lower weapon strength…. but that can easily be compensated for through higher damage coefficients on skills. It would be a benefit power scaling, since payout for extra power would be higher.

As for dual shields; I’ve been wanting to see this for a long time.

Believe it or not…. Warriors are Tanks. They are the primary front line class, and made to take a beating. The reason Guard wins (despite being designed as a support class) is that their active defenses and Aeigs sharing are insanely powerful in the game’s meta.

The thing that really hurts the Warrior as a front liner is their weak ability to deal with incoming conditions. Incoming Damage is rarely an issue for them, but the soft CCs wreak havoc on them if too many get stacked.

Specializations are just the “Trait lines reorganized” into groups, in which you pick 3. The biggest change from the update was shifting attributes we used to get from trait lines and putting them on gear instead.

If you do insane burn stacks… then you’re good.

dsslive.8473:

I think a musical mesmer themed specialisation could be fun.

Give her a warhorn, add some conjured weapons in the form of various instruments and spread the joy (and pain) with musical tunes

Would be the perfect way to introduce the Minstrel.

Dont really have any more detail (sorry for that) but thought it was a fun concept to share anyway, even if its not a full one.

Add 2 handed Axe. The rest is self explanatory.

Since Engineer is getting something like a Golemancer, I’m out of ideas.

Drow.2081:

If they added the Tengu race would anyone play it?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tengu

I would. I’ve been saving a War slot to recreate Talon Silverwing…… its a very long wait.

Zev.3407:

Id rather keep weapon swap and they alter/buff the skills . . . o wait thats exactly why vwe have betas and feedback, that IS what is happening.

If there is no weapon swap the class feels very limited, and we would be screwed in situation where we need both range and melee. With elementalist you can switch atunements and have different ranged skills, engi has tons of kit options. Rev felt so predictable before with it’s limited custimization.

That is a problem that still exists, even with the weapon swap. All the Weapon swap did was band-aid the underlying problem of lacking cross-compatibility between weapons and legends.

I know I’m gonna catch flak for it, but comparing to every other class in the game, you have a range of synergy between weapons and traits….. but no class other then the Revanent requires a Specific weapon for an entire trait line to operate correctly. Even Marksmanship (the next closest pigeon hole) is broad enough to be used on an All-melee ranger.

Burning guardian!!!

Minions are classified as “Companions”, which extends to most summoned creatures with AI. As for Nature Spirits and Spirit weapons, its mainly to do with Traits. Because Runes are universal, they call on generic classifications that can be found outside of a given class.

However, because class utilities are designed to work with Traits, they are given unique classifications to isolate them from unintended cross effects from other classes. Also note that most summon skills (the actual slot skill) also match the summon type, except for Eles, which use Glyphs to summon elementals.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Summoned_ally
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Ranger

Rangers have very high survivability for having very inconsistent trait synergy.

What we need is a number of weapon skill reworks, and better trait synergy to utilize them. As is it stands, most of our damage output is frequency based. The traits that add damage are also geared toward one specific skill, with the exception of our ability to get passive bleed stacks.

Thinking about it…. it just dawned on me that Ranger builds rely heavily on rapid rotations to proc effects, but many of our damage boosting effects are geared toward sustained use of a weapon or even singular attack. Its like an unfocused Revanent when it comes to traits.

Some things I think should be paramount?

- Opening Strike Minor traits need to be consolidated, and other minor traits added to open cross trait synergy.

- https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attack_of_Opportunity_%28effect%29 Needs:
-1. One additional source that proc it
-2. A trait that allows it to be Unblockable (given its limitation of only affecting “One Hit”, and our large number of high rate/low damage attacks)

-Signet of the Hunt needs a Trait or Conditional trigger that allows it to reset the cool down, enabling Rangers to proc the effect, and recover the speed bonus by the end of the engagement.

- The other ranger signets need major cool down adjustments.

- Light on your Feet needs a conceptual rework. The effects are at odds with each other, as condi skills are sustain, but the skill procs on dodge. I think the intent was to recover the DPS lost during the dodge, but its not intuitive, and I’m not sure if it does make up the difference.
Empathetic Bond: Could use synergy with Signet of Renewal, and add "Pet gains regeneration (2s) when that pet removes a condition.

Just wanted to point out….. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Protective_Ward is genius.

Pets and Spirit issues have, and pretty much require their own discussion. So I won’t go into it. Shouts as a whole need some examination as well.

Black Box.9312:

starlinvf.1358:

DHawk.2687:

Ghotistyx.6942:

There’s a difference in trying to killshot through a magnetic aura without Unblockable, and firing a killshot only to have a magnetic aura put up before you can cancel or react.

The warrior in your example doesn’t cause damage with his blocks. When burning didn’t stack intensity, this was also fine, because even though you could stack might to 25, burning was only ever one flat amount of damage. It was only once you could stack burning in intensity that Shelter alone was able to get 5k burn ticks on people. It was the sum of the potential parts that forced the change, not cherry picked portions. Shelter still works as it always has, it’s just the synergy with 2 traits that was affected.

that doesn’t change the fact, that the burn tics can be avoided by just canceling your attack, I mean everyone knows how shelter looks like, just stop attacking, as soon as it says block once, if you weren’t able to see he is triggering shelter (since he is low health… duh) just stop attacking after you see the first “Block”
this is not a balancing issue
it’s simply being aware of what your enemy is doing

You’re dodging the real issue. Its not that reactions don’t exist. Its that the trait combination (capable on only one class mind you) can potentially kill all their attackers by activating one skill that also makes them momentarily invulnerable.

If you honestly believe this is balanced, then we NEED this on all other classes, as they are now severely under performing across the board if this is true.

I really don’t get why this is so difficult to understand. It will only kill you if you continue to proc it. It’s essentially an indirect way of killing yourself. If you’re ending up downed from 100% because of a 2 second block, then you just really need to l2p.

I don’t understand why you think its so difficult to understand. Its like performing an an association test where I show you pictures of fruits, and you only response is “stop attacking”.

RevanCorana.8942:

starlinvf.1358:

nekretaal.6485:

Shield is a decent weapon. Other classes would love to have it.

The problem, however, is that shield is decent and all of the other off hands are good. Thus, no reason to use shield. If focus got nerfed and you had to use shield, you wouldn’t lose all that much.

Only if it the War shield. Having a Stun AND an All purpose block is nice. But getting a lightly damaging wave with 5 seconds of protection, and 2 seconds of projectile protection (and maybe a push if they are in close)…. not so much.

Thats the thing. Warriors can use it offensively an defensively, but guardians can only use it defensively, and only in certain situations.

Defensively? It’s more control than survivability focus 4 or 5 are both more defensive than shield 4 and 5 combined, probably because shield 4 is so bad and shield 5 has its uses depending on the terrain and the opponent. Focus always work and is simply better for any build.
The cooldown reduction was nice but shield is still trash, too bad I like the skins

I wouldn’t count it as a strong control, as you’re rooted for the same amount of time their down. The weapon can only really be classified as defensive in design, but no one is denying the other Offhands do their jobs better.

Zepher.7803:

The main thing I don’t understand or what bugs the hell out of me with the Torch is that it doesn’t burn anything #4 sets you on fire, and #5 only does damage not burning damage…makes no sense

Because the burning is intended to come from Justice’s passive effect. Thats 2 burn stacks untraited, 3 if you trait virtues, and even more if you have multiple targets in the line (since the attacks hit up to 3 targets, and VoJ accumulates on “hits” = 5 burn stacks untraited, and if traited thats 9 burn stacks on ALL 3 targets). Thats a lot of burn stacks.

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

I’m wondering what AH guards are doing about healing power? Right now I’m running around with mostly soldiers gear and my healing power is a big fat zero thanks to the new trait system removing trait based increases. Do I need to bother with adding healing power with cleric trinkets as a support guard?

Healing power coefficients on guards are abysmal at best. AH has a 1% coefficent (our old 300 Healing power from traits would only yield +3HP under AH)…. thats not even high enough to have a compound effect.

Here are other examples.

6% http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Virtue_of_Resolve
2% http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zealous_Blade
40% http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Monk%27s_Focus (which isn’t bad, but those skills have fairly long cool downs)
?? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Writ_of_Persistence
40% http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pure_of_Heart (base 640)
18% http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Faithful_Strike

20% http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22Receive_the_Light!%22
70% http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shelter
125% http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Resolve

When you consider our Base health is ~11,000, even the 125% of Sig of resolve @ 300 Hpow is only +375 HP is insulting. .

The numbers they use are tweaked for extremely long fights, where the over time value is allowed to accumulate. With most fights being burst oriented, its not worth sinking the original 300 back into the build- as don’t gain enough from it. And for long fights, the base values are high enough (and in combination) to perform their intended function, while our active defenses and cleanses keep us alive.

The ONLY possible way HePow would gain value for us is putting us in a situation where we steadily lose small amounts of HP, and are deprived of our active defenses. Since that situation can’t exist without completely breaking the combat model (unless you count environmental DOTs like Agony and Grenth’s touch), its unlikely there will be much pressure to stack healing power. In fact, its far more effective to stack healing traits then it is stack healing power.

I wrestled with this after the trait change while rebuilding the Legendary Shout Guard under the new system. My original plan was Zealots armor, Zerks/Soldiers trinkets, Trooper runes, Sword/Focus and GS. But after a guildie introduced me to the early Meta Medi build I could test with my existing gear, and the functional difference was absolutely massive. And after a little practice, the Mace 2/Judges Intervention opener is so incredibly smooth, I’m hard pressed to run mace without it. Oh… and Mace DPS and Survivability in PvE is shockingly high…. I can even beat Karka Vets solo now (something I was never good at before).

The build I run now is more normalized, so I can swap builds without a complete set of gear (in prep for HOT. I can fine tune it later). Taking the opportunity to use some Wurm Ascended armor chests I’d been holding, I converted it into full Zerks armor set, used a mixture of Soldiers and Assassin’s Trinkets, and Strength runes. It was tricky to lift the defensive stats without losing power under the new gear bonus distributions, but I managed it well enough.

I know its sub-optimal, but its tuned well enough to survive a couple big hits in Boss trains and Silverwastes (so I can be a little lazy and still do fine). A couple test fores into WvW went better then expected, but being a horrid front liner, I’m not able to properly battle test it. Would probably be better as second wave, or mid-liner since it wouldn’t survive the AOE bomb, even with Contemplation.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-B;4NFk30G3JGV90;9;4NPn;0148057147;9;1vhrTvhrTc-FQ3-BCr2;1KbK6LbL6MbM603WGN4N0S

nekretaal.6485:

Shield is a decent weapon. Other classes would love to have it.

The problem, however, is that shield is decent and all of the other off hands are good. Thus, no reason to use shield. If focus got nerfed and you had to use shield, you wouldn’t lose all that much.

Only if it the War shield. Having a Stun AND an All purpose block is nice. But getting a lightly damaging wave with 5 seconds of protection, and 2 seconds of projectile protection (and maybe a push if they are in close)…. not so much.

Thats the thing. Warriors can use it offensively an defensively, but guardians can only use it defensively, and only in certain situations.

Since bow adds movement CCs like Cripple and a nice Leap, and Hammer lost some of its closing range with the Leap changes, they can compliment each other nicely. But you lose a lot of Zerg support without the staff.

paintpixie.7398:

I’m partial to norns. I kindof like the human and sylvari storylines, too.

I really try to play on my asura, but…everything they say is too complicated for me. I would never make a good asura.

“If we apply a strong enough kinetic force to over whelm the matrix suspension field emitter, it should destabilize the matrix alignment. Do that enough, and the matrix crystal will fracture from the energy fluctuations. "

blank stares

“……. Hit it until it breaks.”

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I don’t understand why we have to deal with unintuitively-named prefixes in the first place. Why not just allow us to craft gear with the prefixes we want? For example, exotic zerker could require something like 3 power bloods, 1 vicious claw, 1 tbd (for ferocity). Whereas Assassin’s would use 3 claws and only 1 blood.

I don’t think ANet should decide for us ahead of time what stats are useful and what aren’t.

The prefixes were part of the original plan to expand the rewards system, and is used heavily in almost all Living Story arcs for gear expansion. Its the perfect scheme, as releasing them in chunks leads to people “recrafting” entire sets if the stat combo fits better. Sentinels and Zealots are 2 popular sets that would be significantly more common if crafting (supply and recipes) were not bound to a one time event.

If we could craft everything, what could use they use for rewards? We complain about cosmetics…. and theres nothing other then prefixes that are tangible to us.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Barbaric_armor

Barbaric helm might work with that color scheme.

WSG Delen.9203:

starlinvf.1358:

WSG Delen.9203:

IMO Subordinates in general are not broken:-

• Ranger pets work fine (sometimes a greater degree of control would be nice)
• Mesmer illusions seem to work fine
• Elemental elementals work ok but perhaps could do with some buffing perhaps
• Necromancer minions seem to work ok (or at least as well as they did in the original GW)
• Other non-profession specific summons seem to do what they say on the tin but perhaps could do with a bit of buffing

All summons, minions, illusions are notionally primarily time limited attack multipliers and that is their intended purpose AFAIK. Given this, the current level of control of them is probably fine (assuming they only attack what the summoner targets or in self defence – c/f the original GW IIRC).

If specific support skills do not appear to be working as expected then there could be bugs for those specific skills but I have not noted any such problems myself yet.

You only think that because you see them as additive. For Rangers their integral….. and if you ask any class in the game, having something integral to your class being largely unreliable is the fastest way to having it side lined.

The reason Mesmer don’t care is because illusions are disposable, as well as ammo. They only need to survive the few seconds required to proc damage, then activate a shatter.

Eles don’t care because they only add to the already insane damage potential the class has. Their Elite skills are also the least crucial to their builds, giving them free slot for whatever seems useful.

But then you have the Necro, Guardian, and again Rangers. With a set of disposable minions which are designed as anything but, each has a build thats heavily marginalized because they require uptime to be effective, yet the core element of it has no inherent durability, and almost no option to significantly improve it.

I find my Ranger’s pet durability perfectly fine (they are not immortal and I do not expect them to be but they survive well enough for the purposes I use them for in the main)… as for Necros/Guardians there are more ways to play them that do not rely on minions if you find the way that minions are implemented not fit for your particular play style.

If you have a square peg and it won’t fit in the round hole you do not change the hole to fit the peg you either find the right shaped peg or the right shaped hole.

I do not deny that there are at least some cases where minion behaviour/control could perhaps be improved but it is far from broken.

This has gone far beyond “not your style”. There is a fundamental issue with summons in how they are made, and how they are expected to work, that don’t work with how the game actually runs.

Combat in this game is extremely mobile and snappy. We avoid skills with long cast times, or disproportionate uptime, because most PvP engagements last a few seconds, and most PvE combat relies on staggering active defenses and dodging, interfering with sustained damage strategies. PvE Mobs rely on abnormally high power and HP oceans to sustain themselves…. Without it they are even bigger pushovers then they are now.

Now imagine a lowly grawl warrior (not even Vet status) running up and whacking something with a respectable amount of HP…… now add the ability to explode it for a few hundred damage. Thats the Necro bone minion in a nutshell.

genotec.4308:

That is my point, why does it have to be a group event in the first place? It is only a “housing” feature that if easily offered in most MMOs. Why could they not let you buy it with influence(perhaps different tier Hall structures), money, pay rent, etc. ? I know you can shout out in LFG or chat but why make it so gated and restricted for small/solo guilds. I know many enjoy small/solo guilds only. It is like penalizing and discriminating certain players for a feature they fairly paid for.

I don’t know what game gave you the idea that Guild halls are housing, when every game I’ve played, seen, or heard of, uses them as a community Hub. An exclusivity element is usually added via vendor leases for both common and unique merchants, crafting facilities (if the game has it), group storage, and event hosting. They typically offer all the services of a major city hub, along with several things that can only be done as an instance (like GvG matches in GW1).

But the reasoning behind Guild hall requiring a group is simple….. Guilds, by definition, are groups. The game is in need of stronger group oriented combat. And the only type of players that would effectively utilize them ARE large groups that can afford the upkeep costs.

I can’t find any references to it, but I could had sworn GW2 had influence decay at 10% per day. I’ve known other games to have upkeep costs for guild services paid weekly or monthly using gold or points. Big guilds could keep them up constantly, while most small guilds rotate or pick them up on special occasions.

Genoshock.2104:

How would a pot work?

Pots work by using entry fee money (some, or all, and usually in combination with sponsor offered prizes) being put towards the prize packages. The more entrants, the larger the potential prize pool values, and presumably more competition at the event.

This alleviates some of the cost burden for the hosts, but usually acts as a barrier for entrants (for better or worse).

Duke.1973:

I think they based their ranger off of something closer to a Dungeons & Dragons ranger. Those are part fighter, part druid in that they’re a martial fighter with select spells from the druid list and as a class feature they get an animal companion.

That being said, I wish Rangers class mechanic was something related to range and them being “Unparalled archers” as opposed to having a pet. I’m not saying they should do away with pets, but I think it’d be a better solution if pets were optional, like they were in GW1.

Archery doesn’t really define the ranger as much as being a Survivalist. Even in D&D, their iconic class ability is dual wielding weapons, and using objects that normally aren’t weapons into makeshaft weapons.

Honestly the Pets aren’t so much of a problem as it is our ability to control and utilize them. All NPCs in the game have this problem; and ANET doesn’t want to tackle the issue head on. Its taken them this long to even address basic AI…. and we still don’t know HOW they are doing it yet.

Genoshock.2104:

What I meant was that if more people cared and were willing to crowd fund some money for the tournaments it could be way more than 5k$.

How would this go down with you guys??

You don’t understand the purpose of crowdfunding then. If the only problem is prize money, they could implement a pot just as easily rather then expect spectators (why not sponsors again?) to help up the prize money?

Timiok.1048:

The also would work for utilities and traits, so you don’t have to worry about using a skill that would only benefit you for mobility, like all of the 25% movement boosts, and with weapons, for example on guardian, *you can have an out of combat staff equipped and be able to keep up perma swiftness and not worry about losing damage when you engage in a fight. *

That right there. All the benefits of one build, and instantly swapping to another when wanted to. Definitely not an intended part of the gameplay design; but exists because we don’t have staging dedicated staging areas in the game.

WSG Delen.9203:

IMO Subordinates in general are not broken:-

• Ranger pets work fine (sometimes a greater degree of control would be nice)
• Mesmer illusions seem to work fine
• Elemental elementals work ok but perhaps could do with some buffing perhaps
• Necromancer minions seem to work ok (or at least as well as they did in the original GW)
• Other non-profession specific summons seem to do what they say on the tin but perhaps could do with a bit of buffing

All summons, minions, illusions are notionally primarily time limited attack multipliers and that is their intended purpose AFAIK. Given this, the current level of control of them is probably fine (assuming they only attack what the summoner targets or in self defence – c/f the original GW IIRC).

If specific support skills do not appear to be working as expected then there could be bugs for those specific skills but I have not noted any such problems myself yet.

You only think that because you see them as additive. For Rangers their integral….. and if you ask any class in the game, having something integral to your class being largely unreliable is the fastest way to having it side lined.

The reason Mesmer don’t care is because illusions are disposable, as well as ammo. They only need to survive the few seconds required to proc damage, then activate a shatter.

Eles don’t care because they only add to the already insane damage potential the class has. Their Elite skills are also the least crucial to their builds, giving them free slot for whatever seems useful.

But then you have the Necro, Guardian, and again Rangers. With a set of disposable minions which are designed as anything but, each has a build thats heavily marginalized because they require uptime to be effective, yet the core element of it has no inherent durability, and almost no option to significantly improve it.

The back pieces are still missing change recipes that the armor got. Thats really all it would need.

so basically your asking for a runner Hotkey? Whats the point of build restrictions if you aren’t restricted by them?

Defiling Treekiller.1632:

first off I’m old, have 4 kids etc so my ideas are old school. The point of this post is trying to understand this whole notion of ANET needing to instill trust with players or the attitude that people can simply complain endlessly over trivial matters, or that some how the game developers owe the players anything at all besides a few hours of fun. In the real world 50$ is worth 1 hour and 15 minutes of my time as a mason, 7 minutes of time to a lawyer, 30 minutes to an electrician , would pay for half an evening out on a date etc. these forums are filled with abuse and complaints that have very little to do with a balanced state of being when they should be filled with helpful insights for those looking for answers , well thought out suggestions for future content or work arounds for common bugs. The games is decent , our player base for the most part is decent and it is time that these forums reflect this

So whats that in McDoanlds burger flipping wages? And if you think this is bad… google “I want to speak to a Manager haircut”.

I took the time to know what the skins look like, and completely freak out when I see one…….. followed by disappointment when what I thought was a Spark was actually Usoko’s needle

Timiok.1048:

Actually, I understand how the people feel, and I understand their anger about the big problems, it just confuses me when I see such anger towards small problems. I don’t want the community to go all rogue on the game and its devs because I’ve played games where that has happened and it ended badly for both sides.

The devs look at what we say and they respond quite quickly, which is much better than many other games. In fact, perhaps the amount of rage about the WvW problem was an offset of the devs practically ignoring the community, about something that is very prominent and visible, which they haven’t really done before, and I do agree that this is very uncalled for and appalling on behalf on Anet.

I guess I’m just bad at presenting my arguments, but everyone should be aware of the fact that we have it better than we think sometimes, and now definitely isn’t the time, but we could appreciate a dev team that actually pays attention to the game sometimes.

P.S. I am not complaining about those who chose not to pay for the expansion, that is your choice, your money, and I think it is completely rational to not get something if everything is going to be bugged, there is plenty of time to get the expansion anyways.

Focusing on the small problems are something of a double edge sword in game development. It tends to mean you have no huge issues with the core game, and that the game operates intuitively enough that common standards can be established across the entirety of the game. But thats the “frustration” starts.

Its a major problem in the industry at the moment, with more causes then I can cover here on a forum. But one of the more pressing ones is the “80% implementation” syndrome. It results from Devs trying to innovate (with mostly positive results), but then at some point doesn’t want to “innovate too much”, falling back on commonly accepted ideas whether they are compatible with the game or not. Players become upset when they recognize greatness could be achieved if the Devs simply “pushed it a bit more” to get it over the top. They then stumble on the iteration process, by breaking away from their standards in design in order to “innovate” a solution to a problem that often requires refinement.

The Ranger is a prime example of something they’ve had huge trouble getting a handle on. They don’t want to abandon the Pet mechanic; and despite the large number of calls to remove it, most people simply want it to work in a way thats as seamless and utilitarian as the other classes. The potential solutions are many- but the current state of the AI leaves it too unreliable to bring it in line with the other classes, and in PvE is more of a liability then anything else. But the Devs refuse to change it, because they believe it works.

You get this feeling all over the place with the game’s PvE. Moments of greatness stumbled by seemingly amateurish mistakes, poor quality control, questionable design choices, and huge disparity between how players and Devs rank particular issues. HOT exacerbated this issue with Dev claims of fixing QoL and game flow issues (which at times they had denied existed), but not wanting to tackle the most important ones upfront; instead wanting to keep it as a “surprise”. Needless to say, this doesn’t instill much confidence given their past track record. The Rev’s weapon swap (which they didn’t want to consider initially) was actually a quick fix to the underlying issue of Rev Specs being too single threaded. About 3 months down the line, once the current Rev hype train dies down, the limiting nature of its Trait/Legend/Weapon themes, and and the lack of cross Trait synergy will be the long term complaint for the class. The irony here is that I bet the Devs designed the class that way to emphasize non-combat builds as being viable in the game; something that has been a long standing complaint from players.

Summed up, the wavelengths between different parts of the game are completely scattered all over the place. Players recognize usability issues, but sometimes have trouble putting it into solid feedback due to the intricate nature of trait and skill synergy. But even some of the flat mechanical issues (like the durability of summons), it seems like the Devs and the Players are not seeing the same issue at work.

And past claims from the Devs about not being able to implement certain low level fixes due to “it being too hard” or “we can’t change that part of the engine”, only to be doing it now 3 years down the line brought up the question of their competency back then, and what it might be now; considering they are still using the “this is too hard to do” card to skirt issues like Orr’s buggy events, and or changing existing skill mechanics (see Ranger Auto Attack chain).

DHawk.2687:

Ghotistyx.6942:

There’s a difference in trying to killshot through a magnetic aura without Unblockable, and firing a killshot only to have a magnetic aura put up before you can cancel or react.

The warrior in your example doesn’t cause damage with his blocks. When burning didn’t stack intensity, this was also fine, because even though you could stack might to 25, burning was only ever one flat amount of damage. It was only once you could stack burning in intensity that Shelter alone was able to get 5k burn ticks on people. It was the sum of the potential parts that forced the change, not cherry picked portions. Shelter still works as it always has, it’s just the synergy with 2 traits that was affected.

that doesn’t change the fact, that the burn tics can be avoided by just canceling your attack, I mean everyone knows how shelter looks like, just stop attacking, as soon as it says block once, if you weren’t able to see he is triggering shelter (since he is low health… duh) just stop attacking after you see the first “Block”
this is not a balancing issue
it’s simply being aware of what your enemy is doing

You’re dodging the real issue. Its not that reactions don’t exist. Its that the trait combination (capable on only one class mind you) can potentially kill all their attackers by activating one skill that also makes them momentarily invulnerable.

If you honestly believe this is balanced, then we NEED this on all other classes, as they are now severely under performing across the board if this is true.

Thaddeus.4891:

Starlinvg. OP is talking about a PvE build.

Because I don’t blindly follow the meta, and understood the nature of the question? I never said it was a good PvE build, only that its design falls in line with with the functional desire for a sword.

phokus.8934:

Watching the same two teams fight it out is stale, boring, and does nothing for me (and I’m assuming a majority of GW2 players as well).

GW2 will never achieve mainstream eSports popularity with its current model.

But to the OP, I hope you’re right.

Thats not the only thing wrong. The combat is too interactive, and not visually distinct enough for eSports in general. LoL works because Champions have huge levels of distinction in their designs and attack visuals. Those visual queues are the key to popular esport titles, yet very few developers understand this enough to do it right.

Overwatch has a huge amount of eSport potential because its easy on the Spectators. Frankly its the only game I’ve seen that combine MOBA mechanics with TF2’s practically essential visual principles.

But so many so many other games have fallen….. Global Agenda, Planetside 2, Path of Exile, countless arena FPS games. All because they couldn’t understand that you don’t “build” eSport games… just make a good competitive game and everything else grows up around it.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

jheryn.8390:

Most of us get it. You mean out of combat. I still say we don’t need it. There are much better things they can focus their programming time on rather than something that people want for sheer convenience and/or laziness.

Yeah! We don’t want convenience! Who wants QoL improvements?! Thats for the weak. Guild Wars 2 “community” in a nutshell.

Its not QoL when meta tries to include things like “use guard focus 5 for shield just before combat, then swap that weapon with torch for max DPS”. The fact that Eles can might stack like crazy, unless it resets ALL buffs on swap, people would use it game the system for easy might prior to combat.

Randulf.7614:

I loved the circus storyline for humans. The stuff for sylvari seems to be the most memorable and talked about though.

I remember nothing about Norn and Asura do not interest me.

Then you missed out an epic story where the Asura version of this happens.

http://orig14.deviantart.net/5c59/f/2011/275/7/4/megas_xlr_evil_coop_1_by_theflamedude-d4bku9f.png

1. Point less most guilds tend to run their own site anyways.
2. We have the MOTD that no one reads. Guild chat is you need to make it live.
3. Can agree on this
4. G, Ranks.
5. What happened to good old “ask in guild chat”?
6. Because guilds are competitive by nature in this game’s system, they should NOT be sharing benefits. Alliance chat yeah, but definitely not benefits.
6b. If you’re gonna go that route , Alliance management tools would be a better suggestion. Allowing Alliances to participate in potential raid content, or utilizing it for a new type of WvW structure.

RoseofGilead.8907:

The Asura Infinity Ball line is my favorite.

You and every Tick fan in the game. :P

Its too bad all known pictures of the Infinity ball have been wiped from the internet. So I was forced to use a stand in.

Nilkemia.8507:

Is this a joke?

That could work on so many levels.

Dondarrion.2748:

Canach
Anise

Tybalt blows, glad he’s dead…

Oh and the Charr warband you put together has some cool cats

Yet you never hear from them again, despite you being their supposed leader.

I like different stories for different reasons. While I know its intentional, a huge pit fall in the PS is the massive plot holes you encounter on first runs, due to critical information existing in other story paths.

But I will agree, the Sylvari are the only ones that got a PS with proper foreshadowing.

BrooksP.4318:

Adding functionality to player instancing is just another way some is “playing” the game. It also adds in functions for RP groups as well as social interaction by bringing people into your “home”. As cheesy as this may seem to some, it does add more life into a game then people may realize.

In regards to player density, there really is little difference then just idling in LA around a NPC. After awhile it doesn’t really make the game appear more “populated” nor does it necessarily mean more social interaction. Not to mention the megaserver system already handles that issue, even if a majority of players in a major city are in player instances, the remaining will be consolidated and the population will still appear dense.

What the OP is suggesting is nothing like how the current home instances are, currently they are a kitten attempt at it which is why they aren’t used outside of node farming.

Some or most? I’m in the camp that believes all content should support all sub-sets of players as best as possible. But a problem with RP’ers in an under-serviced subset is the belief that they need more RP exclusive content to make up the deficiency.

I don’t think the Home instance is sufficient for RPers, because the whole idea of completely privacy in an MMO seems counter intuitive. But because MMOs tend to be very mechanically driven at all levels, we focus too much on the mechanics itself rather then finding better approaches to the problem of Application in the game.

As for the whole idling in LA…. I don’t find it optimal, nor desirable. But because its a massive side effect of how Menus work, there are very, very few solutions that don’t require large amounts of real estate to establish a proper store front. But with the large amount of things we need to interact with, the simple fact of its streamlined nature make menus heavily outweigh the alternatives.

Since the game doesn’t mechanically require us to return home on a regular basis, there no reason to build out a home system that both Guildhalls and City Hubs could execute much better in practice.

One thing that is universally undervalued is the deceptively large amount of negative exploration space in this game. Its far less then what was in GW1, but there are many empty areas RPs can utilize…. especially in City hubs that focus most activity in 3-4 POIs.

I would recommend rolling this up into the “Saved Build templates” idea we’ve been asking for since launch.

The mace actually higher survivability, but is far less mobile. If thats not incorporated into your strategy, then the mace is really hard to use. I had that problem at first as well…. but then I started developing the habit winding up the symbol on approach (or blink with JI half way through wind up) to have the symbol down and my AA free at the moment of engagement. But the mace gets a huge chunk of its DPS from the 3 skill, so you also need to work in the block timing to double duty defense and DPS in one move. Being full zerks, the margin for error is small, which is probably why the mace’s slow skills don’t mesh with your tendency to dodge over block.

But on your question….

Radiance is for condi and/or DPS maxing for pure offensive builds, so you still see it in meta builds. Zeal is taken almost exclusively for symbol damage bonus, but without symbol uptime it tends to go to waste.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Meditation_DPS_Variant

This build might lend some insight on how to improve your own build. Since sword wave counts as 3 attacks, it synergizes well with Justice passive for burn application. If you want stronger burning, you can use radiance’s Justice recycle for burning uptime, or use Zeal’s “vs burning” bonus extra raw damage. (As a note, Firey Wrath and Symbols work great together as pulses proc Justice passive, and one big reason it made its way into mace meta).
You also didn’t mention what utilities you run on….. so I’m assuming Medi guard.

Right now things are a bit weird due to the recent upscaling of offensive output across the board, defense mix is kind of hard to get right. Even full on tank builds are getting melted by well executed zerks builds just from all the raw burst power.

As for carrion, theres not much reason to mix condi damage into your stats, as fire is pretty strong as is, and if you wanted serious burn damage you’d want to focus on it.

As for the Staff Trait, it only procs if you are wielding the staff. Once its proced, it doesn’t matter. Since staff 3 is pulsed, you’ll want to have the staff active until you’re off the symbol.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

starlinvf.1358:

I believe its because counter productive to have a chunk of your player base not out in the world actually playing the game, doing game play things. For a game that relies heavily on player density to make the world look active, the last thing they want to do is thin the population out, nor wall off player interaction.

That said… we already have Home instances that do everything you’ve mentioned. The problem has always been there being no practical benefit to having these in the game, other then home instance harvesting nodes.

The fact that you don’t even mention this in your post just goes to show how little people think about it.

Player housing would be in their Home Instance. There’s plenty of room to modify the instance to make room for housing. An idea could be to create a garden full of harvesting nodes in front of the player’s house. That would require the ability to move nodes as you see fit.

And just an FYI, people do use their Home Instance to RP or to hang out. Just because you don’t have guildies or friends who do that, doesn’t mean the community doesn’t exist. It’s no different from AFKing in LA or Southsun.

My home instance only represents my failures. On Humans, the Big nose Ted arc leds to the inevitable destruction of either a Hospital or an Orphanage.