Guild Wars 2

Yunjii Sun.3512:

Don’t forget that the game is FreeToPlay, so a smaller audience means less money for ArenaNet at the end..

No, it’s BuyToPlay… I, and everyone else, had to pay to download GW2… or pay to keep playing after the free trial weekends were over. There’s just no PayToPlay as I’m sure that’s what you meant.

Roundabout.1752:

Nice, hit me up in game and I’ll ping it for you, unless I’m misunderstanding what ppl mean by a Fractal Skin I got one. I got a Tribal Warhorn on lvl 1 Fractal now if I’m wrong I am sorry Fractals are still unknown territory for me, I wish I could say the same about hateful players/posters.

Ah. Yes.. That is different. My sincerest apologies as I thought you were intentionally trolling. The fractal skins are a specific set of weapon skins that you can only get as a reward at the end of the fractal from the “wiggley chest” (above the mini map). They do not drop.

No, Bearbows are useless in 99.999% of content. I can’t think of one situation where it is actually useful in dungeons/fractals… Solo open world PVE… If you need something to hold aggro, I guess.

TakaYama.5394:

Well I just went and watched the matt Visual interview with Colin, and he said that they will be going back and taking a look and changing some of the current professions. So That gives me hope that they will fix the ranger. And hopefully add new pets. I know that hoping for dire pets is out of the question really, but hoping for something new isn’t. They could even tie it into the mastery system maybe. I just really want a pet i can feel close too.

Given the resources needed (as that has been the excuse in the past) to fix the Ranger I wouldn’t count on it. Best one can reasonably hope for is that one of the new Ranger Specializations profession specs replaces the pet… because they said they’d have to rebalance the Ranger if they did anything with the pet it just makes sense they’d do it with a Specialization vs. the Ranger it self. Which I think would be better anyway because then those who want to continue to play the Ranger as it, with the constant pet, can and if you want to Specialize to a new profession mechanic that doesn’t have the pet, you can. It’s really a win-win. That being said I’m not holding out hope that the Druid is going to be petless, but I am hoping that a future Specialization (perhaps in another expansion) will be petless so as to satisfy a good portion of the Ranger population that doesn’t want the pet.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

… and keep the hype train going.

This is the one reason. Their marketing department has decided it’s best to drip-drip the information out to keep the “hype” train going but it’s run out of fuel as far as I am concerned. I’m not all down for this type of marketing. It’s extremely annoying. I knew the second they announced the expansion if I was going to purchasing two copies or not so the fact they are intentionally delaying information to string along the fans is extremely irritating.

I think the price will be $0-$100. Somewhere in there. Really likely to be in the $10-$90 range.

Perhaps, Holan, you’re playing the wrong class then? I find fights much more interesting and fun using sword ranger or sword/dagger or d/d thief than I do other classes+weapons.

I’m interested in getting more people on the friends list of who can run 50s so PuGging/LFG is not so much needed. and I don’t see a list here on the forum (and if there is a thread about it that search sure didn’t find it). Only a small handful of people in my guild can run lvl 50s and they aren’t always available…

So, if you can run 50s and looking for more experienced players to run it with, post up!

If you wanted a technobabble build you’d go asuran.

Outside of that, it doesn’t matter.

Happyfool.8951:

this issue was raised before, if you’re not going to spam sword AA, won’t that hurt your overall dps? what makes it better than GS AA with the evade on the chain?

The GS does a whole lot less damage than sword even when not AA with the sword. It’s extremely noticeable to me.

Zenith.7301:

Search and rescue used to rez defeated players. That;s when people ever used it. Then they murderered the skill for no reason — oh, wait, we know the reason. Usual spvp whine most likely.

spvp ruins this game for class balance. It’s also why mesmers and necromancers have been constantly kitten.

In the specific case of the S&R nerf, they said specifically the reason they did it was it was never intended to res the dead regardless of the game mode it was used in, just the downed… of course, that was just the official line of why it got the nerf bat.

reapex.8546:

Jasher.6580:

Allow individual applications of conditions per player on mobs.

Change the way low value conditions work against enemy NPC’s. eg. Confusion and Torment.

Thank you.

Conditions are becoming way more viable, look at SW and upcoming HoT Expansion. Confusion damage got a buff in January as well.

They are only slightly more viable in new content. In old content they are still crap.

Vincent.7452:

Back when I used to do fractals before the fractal update months ago (before they added the newer fractals), I’d regularly do fractals scale 28, 38 and 48. There was a period of time where I’d run all 3 on a daily basis and I think I averaged a fractal skin every other day at the time. Scale 48 and even 38 seemed to have a fairly decent drop rate from what I remember. I don’t know if the update changed the drop rates though, I haven’t done fractals since then.

I’m missing: GS, warhorn, torch, harpoon gun. I have all the other fractal skins and I’ve gotten just about all of the Fractal skins from lvls 19, 29, 38. I get my ascended chests from 38 or 49/50.

Roundabout.1752:

Fractal level 8 and just got a Fractal Warhorn last week doing a 1st lvl Fractal.

Impossible. You don’t get skins for the 1-9. Go away, troll.

14.3p94%

Because, you know, numbers pulled from a dark region mean something.

And I feel you on losing control of your toon. I absolutely hate it. It’s part of the reason I hate PVP.

Doesn’t seem weird to me. I’ve never known the GS to be anything other than a defensive weapon, not offensive. Just makes S+A/LB better than GS/LB or S+A/GS.

There will be new skills like taunt where you lose control of your character and it runs towards the creature/player that put taunt on you and to automatically start attacking…. There will be new boons like resistance too.

evilunderling.9265:

thefantasticg.3984:

Were you not referring to the zerker meta in dungeon/fractals? Which is what I’ve been speaking to this whole time.

I’m talking about future content being harder in general, part of which is introducing conflict. Not about making future content harder on zerk players specifically.

Dungeons and fractals are where the existing zerk meta can be found, but this thread is mainly about how the zerk meta will apply to the upcoming raid content.

No… Go back and read the OP. He brought up blinds… nothing about raids. We don’t even know if raids are going to be IN this expansion or not. We do know will be in this expansion is the new boss Wyvern fights which, apparently, is all about getting the CC timing right then bursting down during triple damage phase which makes the zerker and DPS in general all the more important.

Well, no offense, but I hope you end up being wrong :P

Wait.. So PAX South was big enough to announce stuff but PAX East isn’t? Usually fly over country isn’t where big announcements are made for any industry… except the Auto industry for the annual detroit auto show.

99.999% of suggestion horrid. Terrible. Do right just terribad. That’s why they got rid of the suggestion forum (or at least thats the REAL reason they did).

But, yes, some ideas from the community have made it to the game. Unfortunately, good ones like perma-stowing pets or keyinds for pet stowing or active/passive still have yet to make it into the game.

Jasher.6580:

The solution of having all conditions applied over the cap hit as direct damage would not be affected by the so called condition cap.

Wasn’t there a really well thought out thread about this some 3 months or so ago? Seems like there was anyway. Yeah, so, I fully like/support this idea. Although I have no idea if the same hardware/tech limits that are limiting the condi stacking would limit this as well? Would be nice to get some real developer input on this.

Caeledh.5437:

.. but rangers can already choose to not have a pet. They have a “Stow Pet” button. I’m sure druids will have it too

Oh… ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…. That does not work while in combat… Or take fall damage… We’ve been asking for perma-stow for so long! Maybe that’s what Druids will get! In which case, as long as I don’t lose the traits and utilities I use now I’ll be going to Druid and never going back to Ranger!

Were you not referring to the zerker meta in dungeon/fractals? Which is what I’ve been speaking to this whole time. If you were referring to specifically Open World PVE then we were, indeed, talking about two different subjects because there is no zerker meta there to even discuss… But, to your strawman acusation… “making content hard in general” (pssst, that includes the dungeons and fractals) is exactly what I was speaking to. That is literally asking the Devs to make content more difficult for me to run my zerker gear specifically because I run zerker gear and not clerics. You think it’ll be more difficult for cleric guards LOLOLOL. No.

In the end it doesn’t matter about Open World PVE. It really doesn’t. It’s silly to me to speak of zerker meta outside of dungeons/fractals because in open world pve everything just gets zerged down regardless of builds. Yes, either big zergs or little zergs, either way it doesn’t matter because in open world PVE so very very few one-shot mechanics exist to make what gear/build you run irrelevant. As long as you’re beating whatever timer is in the upper left hand corner what does it matter?

Caeledh.5437:

thefantasticg.3984:

Caeledh.5437:

Bad news for you on the pet front though, watch the promo. We see a staff wielding druid fire off a thorny attack…. with a white wolf pet at his side. Doesn’t look like any major changes in that department.

And judging a book by it’s cover is a bad idea. We saw all of, what, 3 seconds of the Druid… Kind of hard to call it a fact that the Druid profession mechanic is exactly like the Ranger. Then again that’s the optimist in me speaking.

First we’ll deal with the reading comprehension failure. See bolded quotes for the major differences between what I said and what you said I said. Hope it doesn’t need explaining. Please don’t do it again. It’s super rude.

Second, this is not judging a book by its cover – which is making a judgement based purely on appearance rather than substance. Presently the only information we have about this specialisation is it’s name, a comment to the effect they’ll have more plant based attacks and this brief bit of video.

This brief bit of video includes the very thing you say you’d rather not have. Given they’ve said prof mechanics might only change slightly and we can see an animal pet right there on our screens it is in fact reasonable to believe that druids will probably continue to have animal pets.

You’re of course perfectly free to hope or believe otherwise, or anything else you like.

Uh, hate to break it to you but you did judge it by the 3 seconds of video… Just like judging a book by it’s cover. There was no info released about the Druid class mechanic. You are assuming (Doesn’t look like any changes = The Same thing), by 3 seconds of video, that there aren’t any changes… purely based on looks… which means it’s exactly like the Ranger profession mechanic.. but ok. So, since that’s settled… Just because the pet is in the video… doesn’t mean that it isn’t utility based now ala GW1… There’s just no way to know until Beta or Anet releases info about Druid. Everything, literally, is speculation until confirmed 100%.

There’s a reason they got rid of the balance profession subforum…

Caeledh.5437:

Bad news for you on the pet front though, watch the promo. We see a staff wielding druid fire off a thorny attack…. with a white wolf pet at his side. Doesn’t look like any major changes in that department.

And judging a book by it’s cover is a bad idea. We saw all of, what, 3 seconds of the Druid… Kind of hard to call it a fact that the Druid profession mechanic is exactly like the Ranger. Then again that’s the optimist in me speaking.

Nice jumping to conclusions there. Since, you know, you didn’t ask for a time frame on when I ran all those COF p1s… Because I’m a nice guy I’ll let you know that I farmed COF p1 long ago… when it was profitable.. Stopped when they nerfed alts. At 6-8 minutes a run it’s not hard to rack them runs up.

Not seeing how the part you quoted was a strawman argument, but you’re free to think as you wish. Doesn’t hurt me in the slightest.

Regardless, instead of punishing zerker meta in dungeons/fractals (which is the only place the meta actually exists) let’s have a discussion on bringing condis up to the direct damage standard… Of course, going to be hard to do with that pesky 25 stack cap in place.

Lian, you’re not going to get you cake and eat it too. It’s gonna be either/or. You can literally play the game now and a soft tank or soft healer. You should find those of like minds and play the content with them. You’ll have a good time, I’m pretty sure about that. Just stay away from the LFG ZERKER posts and everyone will have a good time… But of course, you can play how you want and that’s the trade off. DPS = Less Time. Don’t like it? Tough cookies.

If they leave their current model that Lazaar has pointed out and go to a traditional trinity game I’ll be taking my money and self to other games…

evilunderling.9265:

thefantasticg.3984:

Let me put it this way: you are telling the Dev to FORCE ME to run things differently by changing the encounter than I do now because you don’t like that I can do it in zerker gear/build and you can’t.

What either of us can or can’t do is completely irrelevant to this discussion. As is your CoF p1 farming.

kitten are you talking about? COF p1 farming? That died long ago when they nerfed alts in dungeons. Just for your information, cause I’m a nice guy, I run through the quick paths and then do my fractal reward tiers… But hey, you can assume whatever you want and be wrong if that’s what you want to do… but…. Guess what a lot of what I said just went right over your head. Either you don’t understand the concept of not forcing other players to play a certain way through lobbying the Devs to take action against them through making content specifically more difficult for a gear/build or something… I don’t know. Regardless, HOT won’t stop me from running zerker gear unless another set comes along that does more DPS in the things I like to do.

Don’t care. As long as it has a healthbar and we can all heal ourselves I’ll be “GLF DPS”.

Like I said, in open world PVE there is no zerker meta. Sure, you have a timer on world bosses but I highly doubt everyone in the WBT is wearing full zerker gear/builds. The only zerker meta that exists is in dungeons and fractals. So in dungeons and fractals, yeah, the goal is to kill things as far as possible. The goal is to get through the dungeon/fractal as fast as possible and since we have a hard limit on how fast we move (33% hard cap) where we can pick up ground at is how fast we kill things. So, when someone says “I don’t like zerker meta. We need to make it harder for them. Devs! NERF THEM!” They are literally hating on a small subset of players because they can complete content faster. Let me put it this way: you are telling the Dev to FORCE ME to run things differently by changing the encounter than I do now because you don’t like that I can do it in zerker gear/build and you can’t.

Here, let me bold it for you: “And NO, I don’t worry about the cap in PVP because I don’t PVP. Why? Capture point is boring as H__l.” Which, if I recall, there’s only ONE friggin deathmatch map where I would, in that case, worry about hitting cap if there was more than one necro in party (or soon to be Revenant). Regardless, we’re talking PVE, not PVP. If I wanted to play against other players I’d go PVP. So, back to PVE and condis being useful…

ImTasty.2163:

think that because a few slyvari go mad they think all of them are going to be mad and that we will have to defeat Traherne because he’s gone mad. It’s just like how there’s a thread about a tengu in a WvW screencap and people are going mad because they think tengus will be a playable race in HoT even though the devs said no new races right now.

I’m hoping for that bolded part… Only bit of story I’d actually be interested in.

I was going to post something here … but then I saw your example and came to the conlusion that what I was going to post was already posted.

Well, what they, Anet, said is that the hardware literally can’t handle 25 stacks per player per creature. If the search engine on the forum wasn’t so horrid I’d use it to go find the post about it from the Anet dev. Regardless, if their hardware could handle 25 stacks per player per creature, wouldn’t they be using that already to get rid of all the condi QQ? Seems illogical that they would have the capabilities to do it but just simply don’t. I mean anything’s possible but… wait… are you saying we need to break out the tinfoil hat because there is some Anet conspiracy to keep condis as 2nd class DPS to direct damage???

Windsagio.1340:

My argument is that to get your stated goals, the status quo has got to (and is) shift(ing). The way the game currently works, the style in question is so optimal that it trivializes most content.

Problem is your argument is seriously flawed. It’s not the “style” a.ka. zerker that traivializes content. It’s the human ability to LEARN that trivializes content. If we didnt’ have the ability to LEARN the content we wouldn’t be able to LEARN to optmize the best gear/build to defeat it quickly. I’m sorry… wait, no, I’m not… you aren’t going to be able to change/nerf the ability to LEARN content. Because we have this ability there will always be a best gear/build to run if you want to get through content quickly.

Like I’ve said: other gear/builds are completely viable. They’re just not optimal.

THERE IS NO CONTENT THAT YOU HAVE TO RUN A CERTAIN GEAR/BUILD TO COMPLETE.

I hope that caps lock got the point across that you don’t have to run zerker if you don’t want to. You don’t have to run cleric if you don’t want to. If you have the ability you can complete content either way…. Why not live-and-let-live? Why not form your own non-zerk lfg post to run dungeons/fractals on? The concept of forcing my way of playing on others is so alien to me. I couldn’t possibly ask the Dev’s to make content specifically make it harder to run clerics or nomads gear. That’s just insane. Who am I to ask the Dev’s to add more difficult for those people running cleric and nomads? Why? What gives me the right to demand such a selfish thing? Maybe those people anti-zerker people should be asking themselves those questions.

And, what I said earlier, Winds, you agreed with when I said the “zerker meta” was created and enforced by Player A onto Player B because Player B doesn’t want to run zerker meta and gets kicked from group goes and cries to Dev A… Well, you can scroll up and reread it.

spoj.9672:

Making us change traits, utilities and weapons and encouraging us to use defensive stats is fine. But forcing is not. I really dont understand why people dont understand this..

I’m confused as well to why it’s a hard concept to grasp for some.

It’s not defending. It’s learning to use it within it’s current state and maximizing DPS with it. I can’t help you if you cannot see the distinction between the two.

LB/A+T ranger.

/15charmessagebodylengthmustatleastbe15

“Of course no-one who played the demo said anything about the druid because specializations were not playable.” <— And that was the point. I wasn’t being dense… I was making a point that nothing is 100% confirmed. People are assuming from seeing the video. It’s still not confirmed that the Reverant is going to be using the sword either (as far as I know).

“We know the druid has a changed mechanic but that is not the same as an entirely different mechanic.” <— No… What we know is that we saw some game footage that may or may not be in the Beta or full release versions on what the Druid class mechanic may or may not be. Until it’s 100% confirmed it’s just speculation.

Following your logic in the first really long sentence, we’ll go back to Guild Wars ala GW1.

1) “End game” PvE content, as in, if the game will have more dungeons/fractals
2) ????
3) Profit.

Uh… There’s no trinity right now steamrolling through dungeons… It’s DPS and active defenses combined.

I don’t remember anyone that got to play the Demo’s said that Druid has the pet as the class mechanic still.. If they did can you kindly post a link to that article

Here’s the problem: if the difficulty goes up too much, people would just stop doing the content. That happened in Orr before the mob nerf. I remember how much more difficult it was before the nerf.

I still don’t understand why you want to change the way people play. Why does it hurt your play that other people play zerker? Why must you insist that they not play zerker? Why do you insist that the Devs make it more difficult for people that want to play zerker?

Would it be fair for people playing zerker demand that people playing clerics have it so easy? Would it be fair for people player zerker demand that enemies be more difficult so it takes people in clerics LONGER to defeat the same bosses? Would it be fair for people playing zerker demand more ONE SHOT mechanics that insta-down clerics forcing them to change their playstyle? Short answer: no.

I honestly do not understand stand this line of thinking that it’s ok to demand from Devs to change the way the game operates to INTENTIONALLY make the game more difficult for a subset of people simply because… well, reasons.

My example in my last paragraph is from in game experience…

“Some players would switch over to other gear sets simply because to keep going in Zerker would be too difficult for them. Some others would temporarily switch to other gear sets to learn the increased difficulty before eventually returning.” <— this just reinforces my point that those who can run zerker will and those who can’t won’t.

“Overall, how many continue to run Zerker successfully would decrease, though exact numbers vary with what changes are made. " <— completely unfounded assumption. If they can’t run zerker now they probably won’t be able to run zerker later… this is again talking dungeon/fractals because in open world PVE, people are running whatever they want right now anyway which is no way verifiable because we don’t have gear/build checking capabilities.

“Even just introducing Retaliation on mobs in a dungeon path would be a significant step up in difficulty for most groups.” <—- no, it won’t. Most effective/fastest way would be just to avoid them altogether. Mobs in dungeons/fractals have HORRID loot tables. Don’t understand why anyone WANTS to kill more mobs than they have to… unless wasting as much time as possible for as little reward possible is there goal, but then I won’t be running in those groups.

Sadly without a gear check your words about “some players” switching and mine that say majority (i.e. more than 50%) run non-zerk build/gears in open PVE is unverifyable … and I doubt Anet would release stastics on what gear/builds people are running. That being said, it’s easy to tell if the group is bringing enough DPS or not… I know when my Wife and I are running dungeons/fractals we can see when the DPS isn’t there and it’s taking longer than usual to take a particular boss/mob down.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

thefantasticg.3984:

You’re not getting it. You can’t apply WVW and PVP challenges to PVE. Why? PVE goals have healthbars and because of this the only goal will be to drain that healthbar as fast as possible regardless of what the “challenge” is.

So does PvP/WvW. Notice that Courtyard, which literally has no goal but “kill things” still doesn’t have a Zerker meta.

You can’t introduce build/gear diversity without changing the goal of PVE, which literally means changing the goal from killing things to not killing things because as long as there is a healthbar the ultimate goal will be to kill it as fast as possible. This literally means you have to make PVE exactly like WVW or PVP with the same goals as WVW and PVP.

No, it doesn’t. It just means diversity in how encounters are set up. Players use a number of abilities that NPC’s just don’t, such as condition cleansing, boon rip, stun breaks, dodges, and Retaliation. There is quite a bit more to this list, but you get the jist of it.

Is courtyard that deathmatch PVP map? That was the one map I liked but didn’t get it enough either through rng map choice or being veto’d that it wasn’t worth going back to PVP for after I got my glorious armor I was after.

Even if they did program the AI to use all the tools that are at the disposal of the player and make them attack as fast as the player, those who can would still use zerker and those who can’t still wouldn’t use zerker… Just like it is now. Build diversity is already there. There’s nothing that says anyone HAS to run zerker or you can’t do this content. The zerker meta is player A imposed on other player B because player A wants to get content finished as fast as possible. Player B doesn’t like this because he is kicked from party for not running zerker meta and whines to Dev A to change it so player A cannot run zerker meta. That to me is fundamentally wrong. There’s no rules in this game that says that player B can’t cleric guard his way through content, just like there’s no rules that player A has to have player B in his dungeon/fractal team. To me, this whole “kill the zerker meta” is flawed from the start because I don’t see anyone chomping at the bit to “kill the no-dodge cleric” meta. It really boils down to: Play how I want you to play so I can play with you whether you like it or not… which that parentalism needs to die.

Dawdler.8521:

Keep in mind that GW2 also has some pretty heavy handed and sneaky DR that can hit you at any time..

I haven’t experienced DR during even the heaviest of my farming during the LS Scarlet Invasion or 1st Queen Jubilee. Where are you getting this that DR is heavy handed and sneaky? Because it is as heavy handed as you say it should be clearly visible to all of us when we are hit by it.

Test.8734:

Mor The Thief.9135:

Will conditions finally be viable in PvE?

Nope, of course not.

Next question?

What ArenaNet appears to be trying to do is make enemies with very high armor, so condition damage would in theory work better than direct damage against them (see the copper boss at the Silverwastes as an example, or the hushs). The thing is, this is hastily and lazily done, because the real issues with condition damage (the things you mentioned in your post) haven’t been fixed, and probably won’t be fixed any time soon. The result is that people still try to use direct damage to kill the enemies and succeeding that were meant to be killed through condition damage.

FTFY

Oh man… Before the S&R nerf I use to use it in dungeons a lot… I couldn’t tell you the last time I used those terrible shouts.