Guild Wars 2

Nope, won’t happen, The Reaper shroud 1 is a Faster hiting cleave, if that ads vuln on every hit it will already be very good, they won’t improve it.

Rather, base death shroud needs a buff to keep up….

Psychedelia.3568:

Invictus.1503:

Would much prefer they give the Reaper Shroud to F2, and still allow old Death Shroud as F1 when using this elite spec. I can see some builds that would like to take Reaper, but still have the ranged options from original DS. If we want build diversity, don’t see why they should lock into melee Reaper Shroud.

Couldn’t agree more.

Why would you ever NOT take reaper then?

CandymanSpieler.5106:

Why couldn’t they make the shouts somewhat supportive? They theoretically fixed cleave but it still leaves them as a selfish class built around the theme instead of usefulness.

Because hey don’t want to place EVERY necro fix on he specialiation, they want yo to be able to no pick te specialisation and be viable.

They are making blood a cool support tree, i mean, REZZ on our nicest ds AOE skill? sharing lifesteal? it’s unique and fits the necro. MAD props to Anet.

PVE build:

Full on chill/vuln build, yo go for crazy vuln build (with bitter chill and vuln to nearby enemies in DS) then take death perception and the new crit chance on vuln together to not have to take berzerker gear, and then you can just play around with what extra gear stuff you take.

i’m thinking GS and axe/focus for the insane vuln/chill and fast life force and propper use on a slightly longer range.

for skills i’d lean toward wells and chill skills + the lf on heal and the elite shout.

Basicly stay in DS as much as possible, use the non ds time to recharge it quickly. use vuln from focus right b4 ds and throw the wells for the 100% crit chance in DS ( like we do now on DS builds)

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQB6AVoBnw~

Engineers and Elementalists already do that while providing much more to the party. We need a class specific buff/debuff in order to begin to compete on top of that vuln stacking.[/quote]

i’d prefer if that was some shout effects and just mayorly HUGE AMOUNTS of damage!

btw: it just seems they want wells to be a ranged thing (standard aimable) and shouts to be melee aoe damage… hmmm

just saying:

We have lots of skills that do chill, lot’s of cool stuff to build around it, and now a specialisation that focusses on it!

just saying:
bitter chill : 5 vuln for every chill
main hand dagger + OH Focus (vuln stack + chill (= vuln stack))
+ GS ( chills and more chills)
+ fear = chill = vuln stacks
+ chill based gear (sigils)
+ prolly more chills in the new reapers shroud + vuln stacks from skill 1
+ more play around chill in the reapers talents

= one kitten NICE group support under the form of insane vuln appliances (and chill)

OH, and prolly some epic melee play

Good start, now maybe you need to make sure the rest of pve is more balanced…

i’ll keep it short: add toughness (and maybe vit) to all the monsters in PVE.
This would decrease the dps from zerker builds but the condi dmg would stay the same…

Bosses last longer so they can do their mechanics and are more challenging + more even dps across different playstyles

Feedback is welcome!

Q:Will there be big changes to PVE balance? There will probably be, with the new systems and class, but will there be measures to make more builds (condi, healing,…) viable?

Q: if so, how? Will the PVE and PVP balancing finally be done separatelly? Different boss mechanics to discourage stacking and reflecting?

Q: is there a plan in the making to deal with the bleeding cap?

Q:Will there be group content that requires you to change your build on the fly, since you implemented that (awesome) system already?

As you probably noticed, i’m mainly a pve player, and since they will be revealing everything content-wise anyway, might as well ask the less obvious questions

I just posted an idea on these forums, basically I said that they need to make bleed work more like burning and poison, stack in duration. Also the more time is left on the bleed, the more damage it does, still making it “stack” in capacity, all bleeds should have their duration shortened though. So after stacking it you’d have 25 secs of bleeding left on the target, dealing more damage than at the start, where there would be 5 seconds left.

This way, condi builds would start of with medium damage, but the longer they can whack their opponents, the more damage they do, overpowering power builds after a certain time. Making them better at long lasting fights, but less of a ideal build at short fight. Seems to fit the condition “mentality” of outlasting your oponent.

Oh, and this way maybe speedclears would still be ideal with power builds, but world bosses might actually be downed with condi builds, since they would be more ideal for it.

Hello there,

I main a necro and basicly PVE nearly all the time. At the start of gw2, it was awesome, figuring out mechanics and whacking my scepter around as if there was a butload of bugs plaging me.

After a while however, everything in PVE got “figured out” and everyone ran the same gear, Berserker. This is, in itself not a problem, mind me, running gear with no defensive stats requires at least a few months of skill. But it still plagues me that every build is now a power based build. I think there are 2 main reasons for that:

1) Power builds ALWAYS deal more damage then condition builds.

2) Bleeding has a cap. Alone, you can reach it, The moment someone else in a 5 man group also has a condi build, Both of your dps’s are going to fall so low that you’re depressed for the rest of the run. I know gw2 personnel have informed us that this is because of server limitations. This does not fix the meta though.

My idea would be to just redesign bleeding to be more like burning and poison. Those stack over time and mostly don’t have any problems. It would need a twist to keep it interesting as well and provide something that makes a condition build work like this:

A condition build in my eyes should Do medium to low damage at the first few seconds of the fight, over a time of 30 sec to a minute, that dps should ramp up, to heights where berserker players can only get with a burst. Meaning that at world bosses and bosses that need to be damaged consistently (aka dps races) condi builds would have the upper hand. Bosses with breaks in dps and mob packs would still be dominated by the fast and furious power builds. Everybody gets to be special….

How does bleeding come into this?

Bleeding is a condition that inflicts damage over time and stacks in duration. The more time is left for the target to bleed, the more damage this condition does. However, there is a cap at 25 stacks for this condition, meaning that the duration for this condition will only be increased by the first 25 sources that apply it, and all stacks that would normally increase the duration beyond the first 25 stacks will be ignored. Once the duration from the first application of bleeding has run out, another stack can be applied, further increasing the duration of bleeding.

This way, you don’t stack up bleeding stacks, you just stack up time. This would be done by lowering the time of all bleeding mechanics in game so that auto attacks would basically just keep the remaining time of the bleeding stacks where it is (thus not increasing dps, but keeping it where it is) and other weapon skills would provide significantly longer bleeding, but have a cooldown. Bleeding would this intensify the longer the fight lasts, overpowering power builds after a certain time, as long as the player providing the bleeds isn’t stopped.

What do you think? Is this possible, is it just a plain bad idea? Do you like it? How would you change it?

Chris RJ.1843:

the noobiniser.7465:

Gnat.9405:

Fixing it?

Don’t join speed clears.

Ok, done. The problem I have with speed runs is that it scares away new players. That is not what the first dungeon should be like after you reach max level, It really isn’t…

I’m sure some speed runners would agree with my idea of implementing it in the game as one of many modes of doing the dungeon. with new rewards, but it being actually a CHALLEGE. you remember that word?

Well, mate, they should scare away new players. Or at least keep them away until they know the mechanics well enough. I see you’re talking about AC and CoF. Every post I’ve seen complaining about EZ mode stacking clears cites the AC spider queen. Scrubs wipe on her too. It’s not just standing in a corner. A party in Clerics gear can do that anyways. The folks who blaze through this content can do it without the stack as well. The fast times are not a result of stacking but rather a result of well synergized skills and high damage output. Stacking just simplifies it.

Believe me, take a party of scrubs, they will die even if they stack. They will certainly not speed clear a dungeon that way.

Don’t think that I’m knocking you or anything. I agree that there should be harder paths added and new mechanics here and there. Sadly these usually end up boiling down to ‘moar healths’ or ‘moar puzzelz’ everytime they make a change.

hmm, the newer dungeons and fractals are actually really to my taste, and yes bosses need more health. At least some of them, because bosses are supposed to take some time. I consider 5 minutes to be a minimum for a good boss. Some should be a lot longer, such as lupicus.

runeblade.7514:

The main offenders are skipping and stacking.

Stacking should be unviable to impossible for the average pug. If true coordinated groups can stack and win, that is fine. As long as it is difficult and not worth the effort for the average pug. Stacking must require all five players coordinating with each other to survive. Areas that do require true coordination, as the pro-stacking claims, in the current state doesn’t need much tuning, but areas that do not, example AC Queen spider, need fixing. Stacking needs to go beyond Pressing 2, 1,1,1,1, and f to revive. It also needs to go beyond spamming all your utilities. Each member will be required to use their defensive utility coordination

Dungeons need to be redesigned for low risk low efficiency and high risk high efficiency tactics. This way, a diversity of optimal tactics will emerge for pugs to coordinated groups. Both using the open field for dynamic combat will work well. This means the solution to the stacking problem is to reverse the current risk spectrum. Put stacking into the highest risk spectrum and using the open field is in the low risk spectrum. Additionally, not stacking being high risk and low efficiency is why I find stacking to be a big problem.

Stacking will always be the highest efficiency, no matter what. The game is accidentally designed for it, but good thing there is multiple variables. Anet can change another variable instead to balance it out.

To fix skipping, I suggest adding more and more low hp mobs with CC skills that makes it hard to skip. Each mob is balanced around the open world PvE mob. The point is to make skipping in the high risk spectrum while killing mobs will be in the low risk spectrum. Groups can skip if they can achieve it. Sometimes, it isn’t worth the trouble to skip all these easy mobs. Why do people skip? So they can shave an extra minute off their run. By skipping, you risk adding 15 minutes instead of saving one minute. It is true today, but the percentage of failing is very low. This time, the percentage is higher.

tl;dr:

• Stacking becomes high risk high efficiency and not-stacking is low risk low/medium efficiency.
• Skipping is high risk high efficiency and not-skipping is low risk high efficiency.

This sounds interesting to me, it won’t stop people from stacking, but at least it would have disadvantages as well. pugs in rares wouldn’t be able to stack and win, they would probably have to do the “normal” approach.

making mobs harder to skip would feel like forcing people, I think they should reward us from killing all the mobs on the path you chose instead. I believe arenanet already said something along these lines. (not sure though)

Also, the one thing everyone probably agrees on is that there should be something stopping us from skipping parts of the dungeon by jumping on the roof of the dungeon etc. Is there anyone that does NOT agree with this?

notabot.3497:

Error.6290:

dmg > tactic/communcation/teamplay = boring

.

I guess all the stacking, boons and buffs, moving through trash as a group with proper skills ready aren’t tactics, team play, or communication.

I guess I better reroll a GS mesmer or bearbow ranger and learn to play support better. Or perhaps I’ll get a healing staff/mace+sheild guardian up and running so I can be healer when needed. Then I will stand in my spot determined by my class role. If I’m a mesmer, in staff/GS range, if ranger, the next room over. If guardian, standing behind the tank casting heals on cooldown. Better tactics, more skill required… Got to get good at kiting mobs so the tank doesn’t get overwhelmed too, managing the aggro building mechanics is an important thing to learn as well.

Or I could just play GW2 and not WoW.

ok, this is quite the weird argument to make against my thread, have you read the original post? Some people like playing support, I’d play my guardian more if it’d mean my support build would get appreciated. Just so you know I’ve played wow a coupla years. My main was a warlock, but i liked playing a healing paladin on the side, it kept it fresh. The thing with guildwars 2 is that basically any class can be played as a support, tanky, condition damage, direct damage, or hybrid build. that’s what makes gw2 awesome. Ok making all the classes viable in all of those roles in virtually impossible. but what people mainly want(50% put this as required in their lfg) in speed runs these daysis :

3 zerker warriors, a guardian and a mesmer. Be honest the only thing you want in your speed run group ATM is a warrior. done. sure, you can do variations on this. But my point is, this thing is killing their BRILLIANT build system. Players are dropping their favorite proffesion to play a “better” (see why it’s in brackets? They should be considered to be all equal) proffesion. I REFUSE to play a warrior or a mesmer because it’s supposed to be better then my necro. GW2 promoted you could play the way you want to, I’ll play it the way I want to. I won’t pick idiotic builds, I’ll make sure I’m viable, which makes the game more fun, but promoting only the top builds is NOT any different then WoW.

good the disussion is going. This is good. This means people care about this.

Prefferably yes, I’d like for dungeons to be challenging for experienced players once more. That is not what I am aiming for at the moment. I just want dungeons to be played the way they were designed to be played. Can anyone honestly say that dungeons were designed for stacking, skipping, etc…?

If they were played the way they were supposed to be played, they would be good, of course, some bosses are just plain boring. Deal with it. I just want arenanet to make the way they designed to play the content the way YOU should play the content. I think arenanet should implement some of the standards of the forums of the game into the game itself.

The new forum rules cause you to be punished if you do a personal attack on a dev or arenanet itself.

They designed the game, at least respect the rules by which they designed it. boss mechanics aren’t supposed to be ignored. I know quite a few games in which using a bug to make a boss encounter easyer would ban you for a coupla weeks. I’m not talking about using different builds, I’m talking about abusing bugs(no disrispect, there is no perfect) to get faster loot.

Arenanet in my opinion should stand up to this and enforce their views on certain encounters. i wouldn’t mind if they would leave the spider encounter in AC the way it is, but the Giganticus Lupicus should remain as iconic as it was. I don’t mind them using other ways then I suggested. I just want them to save their own game. Make people play the way they were supposed to, this might sound a bit controlling, but it needs to be done to make the encounters better and increase the actual gaming experience. Stop people using bugs, make people experience the dungeon the way they were supposed to. Yes it’ll probably still be easy for the most of us. But it’ll at least be a cool introduction for new players.

People, please notice that I am NOT bashing speed running! I just hate the fact that those things are being done whilst speedrunning! don’t bash this thread because you love speedrunning. I’d like to do it as well, but you can’t deny that people are running the dungeons multiple times in full glass cannon builds without dying. I want arenanet to implement it as a mechanic, an extra thing to do whilst ALSO keeping an eye on the other mechanics of the dungeon, instead of ignoring them with wild CCs

notabot.3497:

Well i figure i will comment before this thread is exiled to the dungeons sub forum:

If you honestly think that the new content is actually good IDK what to tell you. The new stuff is so freaking easy that its good that it usually doesn’t last more than a month because it just sucks and is only good for a run or two.

As for stacking, a quick glance at the proper forum shows that this is a well known issue, and low and behold, bosses will down parties that dont use skills that prevent damage. You might not see those skills used, because you dont know what to look for. Blinds/aegis/protection/weakness. All are often “spammed” in a stack and it negates the bosses slow attacks so the group can keep up their dps rotation. It is a result of the combat system rewarding tight group formations (short range boons)and melee (high risk high reward, melee is much more damage than ranged even in base numbers). Fixing it would require a massive overhaul of enemy AI, how skills and boons work, and how CC and defiant works.

Very true, and I think it is a good mechanic, but I don’t want to do it for every other boss. I don’t want another person to force me to play melee because it’s faster that way. It is a cool way to play, if you know how to cc. I’d love to see it implemented as phases in the newer bosses they will be making. But bursting a boss whilst ignoring it’s mechanics is not supposed to be done. It’s not fun if you do it with almost every boss.

Gnat.9405:

Fixing it?

Don’t join speed clears.

Ok, done. The problem I have with speed runs is that it scares away new players. That is not what the first dungeon should be like after you reach max level, It really isn’t…

I’m sure some speed runners would agree with my idea of implementing it in the game as one of many modes of doing the dungeon. with new rewards, but it being actually a CHALLEGE. you remember that word?

Ralron.8124:

im not gona lie ,

comming from a BUNCH of OTHER MMO’s , when i started playing dungeons in GW2 , the first thing that came to mind ( while being shown how to do them ) was:

W..T..F…. is this BS…. lol ,

specially about the stacking , and RUNNING past Endless groups of MOBS…

i remember thinking: * this cant be right ?! **

Yeah, I was lucky to be here at the start, back when everybody had only rares and exotics were “the kitten” xD Those were the good times, people didn’t abuse these things yet, they worked their way through the dungeons. Getting my first full exotic set was so rewarding and a lot of fun!

So, just to be clear: I’m not hating on speedrunning. It’s a good concept to challenge yourself and I’d love it to be actually inplemented in the game. In a GOOD way. The problem I have with the speedruns is that it isn’t about the challenge, It’s about the loot. People want as much loot as they can get in as few time they can do it in. They will keep abusing it, and they will pull new players into this spiral. I can’t imagine myself as a new player running my first explorable dungeon at lvl 80 and be cool with all these things. I’d probably quit. Lucky for me i’m already geared and I can do fractals, which are very much more awesome, some dungeon problems seep over, but not enough to make me want to quit this game.

I don’t want to see this game die, I really don’t and that’s why I want the dungeons to be the best they can be, so people don’t quit the game because they got bored of doing the same dungeon 20 times in a row, in a couple of hours of play.

Please fellow players, arenanet, take this seriously, I mean the best and I know some players enjoy it. But I don’t, it isn’t how the game is supposed to be played and I can’t allow them to scare away new players, those that are the people that should keep the game alive. Let them see the game as it IS supposed to be played.

Cheers.

skipping mobs:

Actually, there’s not really a problem here, it’s just that it’s weird to run past all those angry mobs because there’s not a single good reason to kill them. It’s been a long time since I did a CoF run that involved killing all the mobs. It’s just not worth it.

solution?

reward us, make us feel special because we raided a dungeon and didn’t leave a single standing upright. give us things that we can’t get when we don’t do that. skins, rares, things that make you seriously consider killing all of the mobs. Maybe put it in the dailies.

Likewise, reward the speedrunners as well, It’s not like charging in and killing all the leaders of the flame legion in 5 minutes isn’t a feat. reward those as well, but with other things, other skins for example. Make us try both ways of crushing an enemy organisation.
Maybe make an instance where every mob has more health and drops more stuff. Condition damage players will love this, and many players could try condition damage in these instances. (if the bleed cap gets removed, I think this is because of programming but I would really like to see it removed so condition dmg players don’t have to worry about their own kin) This would give us something fresh, and the excitement of killing a boss after minutes of throwing attacks at him whilst using luck, skill and your class mechanics to survive the brutal fight.

skipping practicly the whole dungeon to go straight at the lewts:

Oh, this is the one i hate the most. You join a dungeon or the underground fractal only to hear people say you should place your face against the wall and jump repeatedly until you run in places you shouldn’t be and skip all the hard work and fun stuff just to get to the last boss or to skip something that is even remotely challenging. This isn’t deus ex, this isn’t crysis 2. It’s guild wars 2, the only stealth play you’re supposed to get here is by playing a thief! You crash through the door of a dungeon and kill every fool boss that wants to stop you from getting to their boss-boss! You don’t strut in, kill 3 mobs, plant your face against a wall and start running loops until you finally make that jump that let’s you walk past all of those people. you’d think they’d build a wall there after hunderds of people walking through there wouldn’t you? If you want to protect something, you don’t leave a shortcut to that something right in front of the madmen that invade your headquarters.

fixing it?

well, the building a wall thing seems like a good idea, but an invisible wall seems good enough to me.

reflects:

So yeah, bassicly, this reflects projectiles back at the caster. Great mechanic, it really is. The problem comes in when you use it against bosses: the whole huge amount of damage is reflected back. How can a measly see through purple wall do that much damage? how can the giganticus lupicus, the bosses of all bosses, the one that could kill groups so fast, and so much times after eachother, be killed in mere seconds whilst ignoring his (great) mechanics? oh, that’s right, just queue up some reflects and laugh in his face.

fixing it?

Yeah, simple ( well, I dunno, I’m not a dev), make some projectiles ignore reflects. And put a cap on the damage that can be reflected! this is making classes that do not have reflects less viable!

Stacking:

I’m quite sure you’ve all been there. you look at the group finder to do a AC run, but only see a speed run. You’ve heard of those, they skip mobs and do the dungeon as fast as possible. Seems like a challenge right?

Wrong! Speedruns at the moment are a horrifying experience. I entered AC, we were doing path 2 and 3. First boss is the huge spider. Just dodge all the circles and kill her right? nope, you get to stand on top of each other behind a corner and the spider and all her minions join the meatpile. Then you start pressing whatever aoe bursts you have and kill her in a very unsatisfying way. After the spider queen was killed we killed every boss after her in the same way. The only boss not killed this way was the endboss. Not surprisingly, this was the most fun i had in the dungeon run. I wasn’t able to convince myself to roll with this group to also do the third path.

Fixing it?

Perhaps implementing a mechanic in the dungeons that enables to bosses to deal huge amounts of damage when players are stacked on top of him would fix this. he would activate the mechanic when there are 3 or more players within a very short range (closer that a melee normally would go). This would make groups that stack on top of a boss realise quickly that it’s not a good idea to go and have a tea party under the belly of a giant spider. It would also make the mechanics of those bosses have a use again.

Hello readers, I’m a player that was with gw2 since launch and I think this is a game with huge potentional.

The only problem at the moment is actually… the old dungeons… Here are some of the problems I experience in them and ways I would fix them ( suggestions ). Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate on the dungeons, i loved them once.
It’s just that compared to the new content that arenanet is putting out is really showing the flaws in the older content. And worst of all, it is putting new players off. If they see this kind of playstyle when they reach lvl 80 for the first time they just got used to the great combat system this game has, and then it all goes through a grinder and ends up like this:

HAH! All you noobish necromancers don’t even know how a necromancer should look! stop clinging to one set and MIX! the amount of transmutation stones i used for my sets so far is quite huge… I went for that priest of grenth look. so, what did i get?

winged hood: it’s what the priests of grenth wear, and it looks awesome
deathly bull’s mantle: because it’s skulls…
cabalist chest: it’s got a belt with skulls and potions, also it goes very wel with the gloves
CoF gloves: you hide the flames, dye it white, and voila! EPIC BONE HANDS!
and then, to go easy on trans stones, just get exalted gear :p it finishes the furry theme of the set, and also, looks kitten when dyed well.

This is the best idea to improve the axe that i’ve heard yet!
A cone would set it apart from the single target/ life stealing dagger and give the necro a solid power Aoe. Maybe we’d even see pve necromancers use something else then a scepter!

But maybe a target cap should be placed to make sure it’s not op.(We don’t want it to be the next guardian greatsword.)

Oh, one little thing: look at our traits, then look at the axe skills. What do you see? Amazing possibilities! make the axe viable and we’d see a storm of new ways to play the power necro.

Also, people say our traits are all mixed up, but i just think Anet wants us to play hybrid! If the axe would have some viability, We could maybe try to do that.