Guild Wars 2

Recall that you created more than one game mode, ANet. In PvE you’re basically locked into GotL for a GM, while sPvPers seemingly enjoyed a choice between LL and Ancient Seeds. Consider redesigning LL so that it’s potentially appealing to players in any game mode, please.

Wtf, Smoke Assault does not need to be nerfed again.

This is a bug with all abilities, staff 3 also has this issue as does every other ranged placement ability on other classes.

Disappointed this wasn’t just changed back in the patch. Please revert this stupid change.

This is really infuriating. I had already converted a bunch of Proofs into Notarized Mag Heroics to use after I had completed the easier, non-gated Maguuma HPs, but I can’t even click on them because they’re disabled, too! You’ve bizarrely made these items soulbound so it makes no sense for me to continue trying to collect HPs the PvE way on my revenant when the WvW items I’ve already converted will go to waste. This is such a fun situation to be in.

This better not be a Hall of Monuments 2.0 situation where kitten is disabled for months. This needs to be a priority fix and, more importantly, a little communication goes a long kitten way.

It’s not just terrain differences and walls, something else is definitely askew. Sometimes I can’t even maintain them on flat land with nothing else around; sometimes I can maintain them just fine against the griffon tower boss in EotM and sometimes I can’t – even when we fight him in same location, i.e. on flat ground in the center, away from the pillars. In other words, in seemingly identical situations I often get different results.

Anyone else notice that using staff 3 sometimes puts you into combat, even if there’s nothing/no one around you?

Druid isn’t even useable now…

Killyox.3950:

_"Revenants are heroes who’ve learned to commune with the Mists, a magical protoreality that makes up the fabric of space and time within the Guild Wars 2 universe. The Mists remember what came before, and echoes of those who left an especially powerful imprint on the world of Tyria can still be found there. A revenant calls upon these legendary historical figures, bringing them back into action to enhance the revenant’s own abilities and power."

They don’t need to be dead. They have to be figures who left a powerful imprint in the mists and you can do that while alive :P.

That excerpt doesn’t even support your theory? The sentence immediately following the bold text specifically references “historical figures” and “bringing them back into action”, and later in the same blog post the revenant is characterized “as nearly the opposite of the engineer profession; while engineers look to the future to create new technology, revenants turn to the past to reclaim ancient powers.”

Killyox.3950:

It’s not that you siphon directly power from said beings but rather you take power from the Mists which containt imprint (blueprint/copy) of said beings power.

Again, this doesn’t seem to be the case:

“A revenant’s legends are not merely echoes of the past but are fully sentient, with opinions and personalities of their own. What this means for the relationship between revenant and legend varies between individuals, as some legends are considerably more thrilled about being channeled than others.” Revenants don’t seem to simply commune with the Mists, then, but specifically channel certain beings within it.

Your pet theory that you can channel the living might be true, but I don’t think any known material supports it.

Excellent change, thanks! I’m disappointed, though, that I’ll still have my pet on perma passive in WvW. I agree with others that zoo builds in sPvP aren’t particularly fun to fight against, but WvW is a different beast, especially considering you saddle classes like ranger with a mandatory AI. It’d be so nice not to have some useless dead thing limping around following me… I do hope you’re still working on a solution to give pets some functionality and usefulness in large scale WvW combat.

No more puffy male armors either, please. Medium Carapace armor is a major offender here: Human and Sylvari males look like they gain 30-50lbs equipping it. Females get beautiful, detailed, form-fitting wear; surely you can extend that courtesy to males.

Keep reset Friday.

hobotnicax.7918:

Ranger is a WvW superstar, an unsung hero and one of the professions people can still play with pride.

Rofl, it hurts. Stahp.

You basically camped longbow; your pet was always on passive; your utilities were seldom used; and your damage and effectiveness was in no way comparable to a GWEN class. You played a slightly modified backline LB build (like every other ranger) and you think that warrants claims of “zerg superstar”? You’re either new to WvW, clueless, or just trolling.

Post this in the WvW forums and ask to see some GWEN vids.

hobotnicax.7918:

- Lightning reflexes, one of the best skills a ranger has

Most of your claims are too ridiculous to take seriously, but I rarely see people complain about Lightning Reflexes, which I think is one of the least useful utilities you can take for mid- to front-line zerging. For starters, LR often does almost nothing at all. When you find yourself suddenly surrounded by red circles, stunned, you can pop LR, see it start the backwards roll animation, but suddenly find yourself stunned again before the evade ever triggers. This happens frequently when attempting to play front- or mid-line, since you’ll often find yourself surrounded by red circles – overlapping CC.

And of course another major issue with LR is that, even if you get the evade to trigger without being instantly CC’d again, it rolls you backwards, which is often quite lethal. You’re likely to find yourself separated from the bulk of the herd, however momentary, which makes you an easy target.

LR can be exceptionally useful for a backline LB build, where you’re not likely to roll back into an enemy zerg, but for mid- to front-line… no. LR would need to be a forward evade that triggers without fail to be useful in such situations, but base ranger would need a host of other changes to make anything like a front-line build viable. As of now, though, if you’re not at 1500 range, you’re just a liability in large scale encounters.

Lettuce.2945:

Not at all. Wanna duel and I can rekt you to prove my point? Marksmanship is NOT viable. A dumb ranger goes marksmanship. And that’s the truth. You can duel me on your weak marksman build versus my version and bam, the superiority of my build will be clearer to you.

You’re just one of those players incapable of thinking for themselves. Just a meta bandwagon hopper who has no idea that there’s superior builds out there. You sadden me. Your kind saddens me.

…what? You seem hellbent on making a series of bizarre assumptions that can’t be inferred from anything I typed. I responded to your nonsense comment that DPS “is there” regardless of your traits, but now you’re ranting about duels, the MM line, and meta builds, kitten I never even gestured to. My point was just this: there are traits that increase your damage by x% (or increase crit chance, or reduce CDs, etc.), which means they increase your DPS. Thus, your comment was silly and stupid. That was it.

Lettuce.2945:

xev.9476:

Lettuce.2945:

The DPS is always going to be there no matter which traitline you take.

Have you played this game…? This isn’t even remotely defensible.

Yup and I already know I’m 100x better than you ever will be just by that statement alone. There’s a Druid build with marauder amulet that works. Hint, it combines both ws and Druid. Figure it out.

Your trait choices affect your DPS. Are you clueless or trolling?

Lome.8239:

Who said Druid is supposed to be burst and Ventari is supposed to be sustained?

Roy did. You can find his red post somewhere in the revenant section. Against the background of BWE3 it’s an odd comment, though, since druid had massive sustain through burst healing – there wasn’t a division for the druid. Staff recharged CA almost instantly and every 8 seconds you could channel 4, your massive mobile burst heal, while also spamming 1k -3k heals via 1 and 3 in your down time.

Roy’s division of roles, burst and sustain, might be intended design, but the druid very obviously filled both in BWE3.

Lettuce.2945:

The DPS is always going to be there no matter which traitline you take.

Have you played this game…? This isn’t even remotely defensible.

Some of these responses are deliriously optimistic. Longbow rangers are already heavily stigmatized in PvE, and so is being a ranger. Aside from druids who are dedicated to healing (especially with the proposed healing power changes), I sincerely doubt you’ll have pug groups looking for rangers to fill a DPS spot, with or without longbows. Once a few solid builds and strategies are developed for each boss we’ll probably see LFGs/LFMs for specific classes and builds, e.g. LF sinister engi and magi NM druid, etc. Unless there’s some mechanic that somehow requires a 1500 range power build, I suspect no one will be on the lookout for a longbow ranger.

Is “Astray” supposed to some cute nickname, or . . . ? All your posts fastidiously adhere to it that I’m just curious how it arose.

“At no time did I ever feel that I had to consciously choose when to manage my skills – quite the opposite. It took so little thought to keep the heals flowing and my team alive that it instantly made me wonder whether I’d want to do it long term: this is from a player who has, for over a decade, played hybrid healers.”

This is worth emphasizing. For the past decade I’ve also only played healers, and it was only upon witnessing the Druid reveal that I even considered pre-purchasing HoT (I did). I just like to play healers, and GW2’s all-in-one approach has left me unsatisfied for a long while. Although trinity healing is often demonized as a “reactive whack-a-mole spam” mechanic in GW2 quarters, good healers know that healing often requires finesse, adaptability, and excellent split-second thinking: do I have time to cast my big 4 second AoE heal, or do I just keep my group afloat with smaller and individual 1 second heals? etc.

Unfortunately in this past BWE there was practically no need for nail-biting, split-second decisions on a Druid because all you did was spam heals that often weren’t even needed – that was literally all you could do. What I liked about healing in most MMOs was that it didn’t often require a set rotation like DPS builds, which I always found thoughtless and boring. But in raids this past weekend, I definitely had a pretty set rotation – that just removes the excitement of healing for me.

I’m sure everyone has their own idea of what “skillful” means, but for me spamming abilities in a set rotation without need for some foresight is the epitome of unskillful, and I desperately hope that future raid encounters (and Irenio’s changes/updates) allow for skillful Druid healing in PvE.

Kitty.1502:

Issue is that traits don’t have good synergy with condi, if you go druid you will be giving up a lot of dps if you try condi.

Well at the moment if you go druid you aren’t going to be doing much DPS, period – doesn’t matter if you’re condi or power. But Ancient Seeds has some syngergy with condi, although I think it’s too weak currently, since it can only affect one target every 10 seconds. But my suggestion wasn’t meant to be a comprehensive solution, it’s just one that I support.

To be clearer: please make sure staff works with both condi and power builds.

Spirits also didn’t take AoE damage in the raid instance – you can place Frost Spirit anywhere and not worry about it dying.

Please add a short duration burn to staff 1, similar to what was done with warrior’s longbow. As almost everyone has noted, the staff has pitiful damage, but rather than just increasing it’s direct damage, it’d be nice if staff synergized with both condi and power builds since it’s our only group support weapon.

I mentioned this elsewhere, but neither pets nor spirits took AoE damage inside the raid instance. After we noticed this, a guardian also tested spirit weapons, which were similarly immune to AoE. Is this a bug, or should I be thanking someone for a wonderful decision?

So, I hope this isnt’ a bug, but neither spirits nor pets take any damage during the first boss encounter, which gives us a lot of nice support options. Please don’t take this away!

Shadelang.3012:

This would also be a MASSIVE step towards making hte pet useable in wvw for zerg fights. As what usually happens is the pet is crippled/immobd in a field of aoes and it can’t get out.. resistance would enable the pet to actually leave the death zone.

For large scale fights, this isn’t true in the slightest. Pets don’t simply get bogged down in soft cc – they instantly blow up from AoEs, they don’t last long enough to die from condis – and resistance wouldn’t do anything to prevent the pet from being hard cc’d to death, which is exactly what happens to players, let alone pets. To avoid having your pet in the thick of it you can use LB and pick targets that stray too far from the bulk of the herd, but zergs, like a flock of birds, change course quickly, and it’s been my experience that using a melee pet to pick off stragglers will still result in a quick death. Ranged pets have never fared much better; players have to change position quickly to avoid damage – pets, ranged or melee, simply can’t do that.

Some of these shout rework ideas sound nice for sPvP, but I think it’s delusional to think any of this will do much to alter pet survivability in large scale encounters.

I’m puzzled over the “Grace of the Land” GM trait, which grants -33% incoming condition damage while in celestial form. But celestial form already comes equipped with a strong, spam-able group condi cleanse (1/2 second cast, 1 second CD) that you can even stagger and place 1200 units away if you’re on the move (there’s a short delay, thus the usefulness of placing it where you know you’re going to be). Isn’t a spam-able condi cleanse superior to a mere damage reduction grandmaster trait? Further, since Druid is a support specialization it makes sense that it’d see the most play in group settings where there’s already an abundance of AoE cleanses flying around. So in what situation would anyone ever want to take this trait?

Personally, I’d like to see “Grace of the Land” reworked or replaced with something a bit more DPS oriented, or something that synergizes with the pet. As it is, I wouldn’t even take it as an adept trait, let alone a GM.

anduriell.6280:

I do play WvW with healing spring ( a really obvious water field) and the only one blasting those is me.
I would say WvW relies in stacking might and fury more than burst healing. The only times i’ve seen a water ele is to drop the hamme.. i mean the icebow
Sustainable healing is the thing in WvW because usually you are not stacking when fighting another zerg.

I’ve played in NA t1 through t4 and in 3 years I’ve never been in a zerg, raid, or havoc squad where the leader/commander didn’t call for water regroups.

anduriell.6280:

ok, you are thinking the Druid as it is not. For sustain strong healing you have Ventari. Roy stated so. And sustained strong healing is what you need in PvP – WvW.
Druid is Burst healing and that is sporadically being able to heal you for 1000%.

WvW has always relied on burst healing. You know those regroups where everyone blasts a water field? That’s burst healing.

http://dulfy.net/2015/09/26/gw2-twitchcon-skill-balance-update-preview/

“Beastly Warden, the taunt from it can now be evaded or blocked.”

WoW druids have ability names like “Starfire”, and “Moonfire”, and the word “celestial” is even in their official class description. EQ druids similarly had abilities named after celestial occurrences. This is pretty standard for druid classes, really; there’s nothing scandalous or surprising here.

During WoW’s WotLK era it would take you at least a solid week of playing 8+ hours a day to reach max level, another 1-2 weeks of serious commitment to become low tier raid ready, and weeks/months to gear out for the highest raid tier. In GW2 you can play casually and still reach max level in less than a week, and for 50 gold or less you can acquire all the exotic gear you’ll need to play almost any particular build (obviously there are exceptions, stuff like celestial, etc.).

Even if GW2 suddenly makes healers mandatory there’s no comparison between the (alleged) difficulty of finding a healer in trinity MMOs and GW2. In games like WoW you’re looking for someone who has made a months-long commitment to their particular healing class and build; in GW2 you could potentially just be looking for someone who has 50g to spare on a new set of gear. Not a big deal.

Don’t disappoint me, ANet. I’m looking forward to the proliferation of useless dead things at my disposal.

There’s no dismissing the fact that WvW rewards are far behind those of other game modes.

And lol, ESO didn’t fail because it was a sub game (hell, the most popular MMO of all time was/is sub based); it crashed because it had way too many issues (OP vamp dks for starters). GW2 is only as successful as it is because it’s b2p, visually stunning, and there’s relatively little competition, especially for game modes like RvR. CU creators are already beholden to their player base and openly communicate, even with those that haven’t yet pre-purchased. That’s already a massive improvement over what ANet offers, and that’s not to mention all the experience CU devs have in crafting a quality RvR experience (DAoC anyone?).

There’s always a chance that CU could fail, but there’s no evidence that even begins to suggest that it will, yet.

briggah.7910:

And this is the reason why anet never posts in the wvw section.. Bunch of people who just won’t let go of this game constantly hang around the forums and nitpick at everything they ever say.

Thought you said you were leaving the WvW forums to frolic in PvE-land? The rainbows and butterflies are calling you…

Ludwig.4138:

Not every elite spec has to become the new dps meta.

A thousand times this. I mean c’mon, completing PvE content in GW2 is beyond easy; you can have a full group of necros and rangers auto attacking and still complete the content. No class has trouble in PvE, it’s just that not every class has a meta speed run build. Big deal.

lordkrall.7241:

If people get put off by a single week that will have no effects in the long run there is more behind it than just that.

Don’t you have 30 or so posts to write in 20 other threads before noon? I’m sure someone somewhere in the forums wrote another post expressing mild disappointment about something or another – get crackin’.

Junkpile.7439:

After blobbing around and smashing 1111 whole day you might wanna go play some new PvE content where you need to think little bit.

Absolutely. What game would that be?

Well thank goodness the clueless hive mind decided to revitalize the spirits of jaded WvWers with talk of GW2’s engaging PvE and LS content. I’m purchasing all future LS updates with this xpac! Sign me up!

stof.9341:

xev.9476:

Guessing you’re rooted while overloading? I’m deeply skeptical about the viability of 3-5 second root in WvW. The second a group sees you channeling you’re going to eat dirt.

You probably aren’t rooted considering this :

Speedy Conduit – You gain 33% bonus movement speed when overloading an attunement.

Thanks, I missed that.

Guessing you’re rooted while overloading? I’m deeply skeptical about the viability of 3-5 second root in WvW. The second a group sees you channeling you’re going to eat dirt.

TJgalon.5012:

This is why people dislike posting, cause you have to say things like that. Just cause you hate the event does not mean the event is bad, and just because I like the event, does not mean it good. I am allowed to have an opinion, just like you are.

Nearly every thread has someone like you who’s chosen to ignore the numerous reasons presented as to why this event is bad. That’s not a judgement of personal taste, but a considered judgement, meaning specific, detailed reasons have been offered to support a conclusion. You (and others) keep chiming in to say, “Well, I like the event!” or “I don’t understand why you all hate it”, when specific reasons have been detailed on every. fricken. page. and no pro-golem-er has bothered to engage any of them.

Please, stop trolling or start reading (and that’s not just directed at you).

Aerial Melodies.4938:

snip

Look, fighting in golems is boring and chasing ktrains around the map trying to get them to fight is boring, and if you happen to come across a group that actually wants to fight they all have the stupid exploit buff which means both sides just stare at each other and play Pirates of the Caribbean. I only WvW and even then the only thing that keeps me playing are good fights, but I think it’s pointless to stomp your feet and insist that WvW isn’t garbage this week and try it to play it as if nothing is wrong. ANet is obviously at fault for unleashing this nonsense, but at least with an uplevel ktrain I get something out of this stupid week – something that doesn’t involve me chasing another group of ktrainers around the map for 30 minutes to kill maybe 5 of their slowest members.

Aerial Melodies.4938:

No one wants to get whispers all night from people crying that you’re ruining a karma train when all you want to do is fight more than doors.

You can only get rekt by 16k golem-buff-exploit meteors so many times before you start getting irritated at the commanders searching for fights amidst all this inanity; if you find yourself anywhere near a red circle you’re likely to go down instantly. It’s time to log on an uplevel, suit up in a golem, 11111 gates, and stand in green circles (and put on Netflix because holy kitten you’re going to be bored). I’m sooo over the commanders that want to pretend that WvW wasn’t turned upside down for the week. The pirate meta is even worse now, and it’s not fun to stare at people for 20 minutes only to see which side is stupid enough to step into a red circle first.

Why would that post get deleted?

Cerpin.9152:

Golem rush obviously isn’t supposed to be a serious patch for WvW ( duh…), it’s just a fun event – a gift for the players really!

If you don’t like it – fine. But seeing people acting so self-important and ungrateful about this is really sort of … disgusting.
You guys complain that Anet doesn’t listen to you? If this is how you react to a well intended gift, I wouldn’t want to do anything for you either….

Dear Clueless (and like-minded company),

If you bothered to read any of the posts and threads on this forum complaining about this thoughtless and inept event, you’d see that lots of people have offered specific reasons as to why they think it ill-conceived. Among them: it removes any semblance of skillful play and strategy; it erases the usefulness of scouts (although it’s still strange to me that people actually love to do that); it negates any reason to upgrade or defend objectives; it makes roaming more difficult (roamers seem to have jumped ship completely during this event); and it cheapens, or in most cases eliminates, good large scale fights. I’m sure that I missed some.

For those that WvW with any regularity, some or all of the above listed elements are reasons we continue to play the game mode. But then we have this event that takes them all away and instead encourages us all to hop into siege, spam 1 on gates, stand in green circles, and then do it again – repeatedly. And you think people should say thank you for this crap?

Someone had an idea. It’s great that he had an idea, but it was a bad one, and it’s shocking that no one at ArenaNet thought, “Hey, shouldn’t ‘fun’ events enhance the gameplay elements that already draw people to the game mode, rather than remove those elements entirely?” It was crystal clear the moment this event was announced that WvW would turn into a massive, mindless ktrain, so there’s no excuse for delivering content this incompetent, however well-intended.

Not all content is good content, and it sure seems to me that players have presented valid reasons for considering this golem event lazy, boring, and inept, but I look forward to reading all the persuasive, “nuh-uh, it’s fun!” arguments.

Sincerely,

Someone who enjoys quality events and content

16k meteors, cool.

I think the decision to implement this event was incompetent, and anyone who regularly WvWs (and isn’t blinded by novelty for the sake of novelty) would have been able to explain this to you (and DID explain this). That WvW has been stale for so long doesn’t mean that any event is a good event, and just because this event is only a week long doesn’t mean that players should passively accept incredibly poor content. This event effectively negates the need for any sort of forethought, planning, or strategy in WvW – you don’t need to tap someone’s keep, employ misdirection, or even worry about veils and flanking. You suit up in as many golems as possible and steamroll everything – it’s a karma train on steroids.

Some people like the event; that’s fine. Sometimes I enjoy mindlessly ktraining in EotM, too. I just don’t want to do it all the time, and I really dislike it in regular/real WvW. If this is the kind of content ANet has planned for WvW then it’s clear to me that ANet isn’t capable of creating the kind of content I enjoy, and I guess I should move on.

Fuzzion.2504:

Capable of doing a lot of hurt IMO

You’re literally the only person I have seen say anything like this.