Guild Wars 2

I do not know that I can say I have been in a situation with formidable defense that was ineffective because of Players being able to auto attack doors. Overall my opinions on defending revolve around a few major issues.

1. This was mentioned but upping the AE hit cap for skills would be nice.
2. Aside from on a siege weapon there is not a situation in which I have the upper hand because I am in a fortification.
This is a tricky thing because people in the keep/tower should have certain benefits that those outside no not. I think that the doors having the arrow-slits around them is an awesome idea but there is no benefit to them. These should be much more functional and the wall should eliminate some of the AE coming through. I think there are ways this could be utilized more but with the massive AE hitting through the wall it is hard to know.
3. Being on the wall is more harmful than helpful. There are certain expectation with being on a castle wall that are not met in this game. I should not have to stand on the edge of the wall to shoot someone in the area in front of the door. Likewise if I am not on the edge or lip of the wall I should not be pulled over it and down to the ground. This is something that kitten es me off daily. Yes there are situations in which I get pulled and deserve it because I was being kitteny/dumb but if I am in the middle of the wall getting pulled down should not be a reasonable fear.
Attackers benefit more from AE circles than defenders. This is one that is a by design issue. Here is the the example. It is possible to be hit on a wall by someone that you cannot hit. This is to be expected in some situations but not at the level it is currently experienced. You can place AE all along a wall and hit people on that wall blindly because you can see the side of the wall. But from the wall I cannot AE people that I can see because I have no line of site to the target area. This is crap. I can see courtyard below me but cannot attack it because the shortest distance between me and that exact spot has one thing in the way, the lip of the wall. The same one that provides me no security from being pulled off of the wall creates the problem that I cannot effectively kill attackers.

You should post scouts this is true but the game mechanics should not force players to have good habits. I guess I am missing something here because I have been on both the attacking and defending end of very large zergs and never been in a situation where Auto-Attacking a door was an issue. Putting up siege is always a more effective way to siege. I do not understand how you think that these same idiots putting up siege and taking the tower/keep faster than they currently are would help your chances of defending. There is no possible way that a zerg no matter how many people can take a door down faster with auto-attack than the same zerg could with Rams, Catas and Ballistas. Just not logical to think they could. Like I said the game should not force good habits. If a bunch of people want to stand there and auto attack a door good for them. If the same number of people attack and most have to stand around while a few use rams to take the door down you have the same result. Even with no one else attacking you can take a door down with a few rams in no time.

Taking away this would also mean that small groups of players could not tag keeps/towers and force the enemy to send scouts and ultimately decide whether to continue attacking or go back to defend.

This is really something for another post but defending in this game is not nearly beneficial enough that is the real problem. Therefore if I am in a zerg and we are on a tower taking spree it is more beneficial to continue taking towers than to go back and defend. Zerging works because there is no benefit to not doing it. For example if upgrades built faster per person in the objective (this would have a maximum rate obviously otherwise zergs could just stand in a keep and finish upgrading walls in a second.)

If defensive contribution worked I think you would see a lot of the headache go away. I have repaired doors, revived allies, and killed enemies all in one tower defense and ended up with a Bronze medal in defending. That is garbage. I can just go auto-attack a door or not attack a door and as long as I stand in the circle for the capture I will end up with a Gold Medal for Securing the Objective.

I do agree there needs to be something that benefits more strategical decisions than massive zerging but I do not think that player skills not damaging doors is the answer. The idea makes sense on paper but functionally it is awful for everyone. It does not give you any higher chance of defending or them any lower chance of capturing. It does not force them to make more strategic decisions either. It makes them more effective at doing the same thing they are already doing. Therefore they again would only benefit from zerging.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

I make the following suggestion as a means of countering the current WvWvW zerg meta:

2) “This won’t stop zergs. They’ll just switch to building siege to replace spamming auto-attack at the gate. With their overwhelming numbers they’ll still have the advantage due to all the supply they can carry.”

True, it won’t stop zergs from forming. It will stop zergs from steamrolling the map doing nothing more than spamming auto-attack. Auto-attack can be thought of as a resource that is infinite. There is no cost or penalty associated with using it and it does not become depleted over time.

This is definitely true. This will not stop zergs it will just ruin sieging. Warhammer did this same thing and it turned out terribly. Really all this would do is make it impossible for defenders to get into a keep. People would not build more siege seeing as usually more siege is not a necessity. Also you do not get contribution from hitting doors so you are suggesting that instead of encouraging players to face the door and spam auto-attack the game should be encouraging them to turn around and watch for people trying to get into the keep.
Instead of no damage from abilities I think that a better option is that abilities have a chance to cause 0 damage. Also this may already be a thing but, doors negating critical damage would be a good. That is not to say that you cannot critically hit a door there are good procs on critical hits that should still be made available to players attacking doors.

These are the ideas I have come up with. They are not meant to be taken as a package more like a series of possibilities.

1. Add “Secondary” Stat bonuses as a passive to the spirits buffs. Here is what I came up with.

Stone – Malice – Condition Damage
Fire – Compassion – Healing
Ice – Expertise – Condition Duration
Wind – Prowess – Critical Damage
Nature – Concentration – Boon Duration
Note: I decided to put Fire and +Healing together far a couple reasons. I was torn between using the Elementalist setup for these Stats and this setup. I do really like the idea of Fire being in this way. It keeps the Benefits from directly affecting the proc chances that are attached. Either way the setup ends up I think it would be a positive thing.

2. Spirit Base Stats Increased – This is not an uncommon thing people have been requesting higher Toughness and Vitality for spirits. Whether it is based on your the players stats or just a generic one stat for everyone it is a necessity. I do not know that it would be good for spirits to invulnerable it would make them overpowered I believe.

3. Better Trait choices for speccing into Spirits. Currently The Following Traits are available:
Nature Magic:
IV – Vigorous Spirits – Spirits have twice as much health.
VII – Nature’s Vengeance – Activated skill of spirits last twice as
long and are triggered when spirit is killed.
VII – Spiritual Knowledge – Spirit bonuses have 15% better chance
of providing benefits.
XI – Spirits Unbound – Spirits can move and follow you.
Now this is all nothing new but the major problem I have with this that all four of these traits fall in the same line. This is not something we see in other classes. Therefore I am not fond of the idea that you cannot somehow arrange having all of these. Even if it was cost ineffective for some specs putting one of them into a different tree makes the most sense sense. That is not saying the traits themselves could not use a little touch up but I feel that finding a better synergy for them would create more possibilities.

4. Add a secondary Benefit that has a proc on hit giving each spirit an offensive and defensive chance. Whatever the internal cool down is could be shared or just a small one added to prevent this being overpowered. Here is what I think would work well:
Stone – The Obvious it a chance to bleed, I really like the idea of applying
vulnerability as well though. I think both are good possibilities.
Fire – Clear a condition – I again really like the “Cleansing Flames” theory.
Ice – This is the hardest one. The obvious answer is Grant Regen on hit
but that seems like it could be easily overpowered. I think a better
option would be chance on hit to Heal for a small amount. This
amount would not be fixed but would not get great benefits from
healing power.
Wind – Evasion for 1 sec/Evade next attack
Nature – Nature does not currently have a chance to but I feel a chance
to root on hit would be nice or a chance to poison.
Note: This could be something that is in a trait. After writing it up it felt like a good trait idea.

5. Spirit Activated Abilities should create Combo Fields.
This is a simple one. I think it is very obvious how this would work and it would not create any sort of overpowering issues.

I am a firm believer in a couple things, spirits should always provide passive effects and be used in a role of support, they should never directly attack enemies. Spirits should never be invincible. They can have a small window of invulnerability when initially summoned but should not remain that way.

Those are the functional changes I thought would be cool. As a side note though, I like the way that spirits look but, adding some diversity to them would be nice. I feel that making them better represent the elements that they are drawn from would be nice. If moving spirits left footprints even that would be better than what we have now.

Razor.6392:

air should blind and inflict weakness
earth should bleed and cripple
fire should burn and do way more base damage
water should chill and inflict vulnerability

Why should the Water Ice Storm be any different than the one on the Frost Bow 4? Although I do like the chill a bleed is nice on that too. The Fire Storm is already very near the Fiery Greatsword number 5. The Sandstorm is I think the best. It The animation and the Conditions make sense together. There is really no reason to change that, I would say. The Lightning Storm Definitely needs some help. It is very near the Lightning Hammer number four ability just prolonged. Overall I say the damage output needs balanced. I run this a lot because I like the Water and Earth storms enough to condone it.

Okay thank you

I have not been online to check recently. . .Is there any update on this? What is happening in the world?

The only other place in the world we see steam vents like this is in Southsun Cove. The jump puzzle does have the same style of steam erupting from the ground. Yet the weather is not bizarre. The weather there is not changing or bizarre in any way. Anyone know what the cause of the vents in Southsun?

There are a few events scattered throughout the world in which you have to destroy Dredge Storm Generators. Potentially a very large one is being activated. This would account for both the Ground Shaking (a massive dredge machine would not be the most stable of things thus as it rattles as does the ground above below and around it) and The Sky Falling (the big storm is forming still but smaller storms would show up as a consequence).
The vents are easy to find a purpose for in this. A cooling system. The Dredge have had to create these vents to keep everything from blowing up.
Also the use of sonic weapons to kill the merchant is would lead to dredge. The key needs to be in the placement of the Dead Merchant. Unless he was put there after he was killed he was too close to something. The closest thing to him is the Warm Spring Grotto but I do not know how that would be involved other than being an entrance/exit point.

I doubt, however, that the dredge would do this on their own as they have more personal matters to attend to, such as a civil war therefore if it is Dredge related we can most likely count on the inquest also being involved.

After doing getting a lot of the Preview event done and looking at the map of the area it seems that at the center of everything there are three Points of Interest. Sadly I do not know as much lore myself so I was wondering what people do know about these POI’s and what potential clues can they give to the direction of the story.

Diessa Plateau – Silex Castrum

Wayfarer Foothills – The Frozen Maw

Wayfarer Foothills – Heart of Corruption

I understand these are not the only POI’s you see in the Event but they seem to be where the source lies. Let me know what you think

This is not a female only issue.

My Elementalist has no shoulders. The t2 Sylvari Racial has the same problem just FYI