Guild Wars 2

Just want to chime in to say thanks BG for the welcome. Got a chance to join in on some of the action today and had a fun time. It certainly alleviated some of the frustration we all felt at reset. I’m sure we’ll adapt as things settle down. Looking forward to fighting with you all. Go Black Terrace!

Our small ET community had gathered up to see if we could play in WvW. We expected queues, but figured at least some of us could make it to one of the borderlands. After a few hours we just gave up. How can a small server feel like it’s contributing if none of them can enter WvW?
Sure, it’s no fun when the servers are empty, but in my opinion, the top 6 servers should not have been linked with anyone. Their populations were large enough to sustain good fights and didn’t a small group added to them. Instead, the lower tiers should have been linked together. If you want huge fights but potentially long queues, go to T1 and T2, if you want smaller fights with more small-group/solo roaming go to the other tiers.

A potential alternative I can think of: have each server use their own separate queue (and maybe tweak map caps to account for it). This way, the lower servers can always join and support the bigger ones and this can encourage distribution the population (if that is an end-goal ANet is working towards). I would worry that it would lead to over-stacking servers, making the problem even worse though.

I haven’t been able to read through all the posts, but here’s my suggestion:
- Look at what are the busiest days in terms of player presence in WvW.
- Set the reset time to be before those days.

While it can vary server by server, I expect that Friday – Sunday are the times when WvW is most populated. Having the reset slice right through that is very inconvenient. It de-incentivizes gameplay on Saturday during the day, interrupts gameplay in the evening, and it can also take a bit of time for the reset to actually take place. If the reset can’t happen on Friday evening for whatever reason, then perhaps the next best thing is to have it earlier in the day or on Thursday. That’ll allow for an enjoyable experience all weekend long with no interruptions.

Just thought to give a quick impression of the Desert Borderlands from the stress test of the past few days and share some videos I took. You can find them all in this Youtube playlist (a few have yet to be uploaded).

The maps are beautiful; it’s refreshing to be in a whole new environment and explore all of it. The map also feels a lot larger, but that is a double-edged sword as it takes longer to respond to events.

I think it’s great that we can see enemy numbers and positions from sentries, keeps, etc. Pretty useful to figure out if it’s a tap or a full assault. The reverse is that when we assault the element of surprise can easily be lost. I also think the new guild claim upgrades are really cool now. I tried the banners and I can image them being heavily used, especially the turtle banner.

The towers and keeps, especially when T3, take a very long time to take down. With 3-4 omegas and no rams, it took us about 5-6 minutes to break down the T3 outer gates at Earth keep. Those indestructible auto-turrets are also incredibly annoying. The gate guards are also much stronger and use a variety of attacks and CC. All in all, it encourages teams to aim for breaking walls rather than gates. The keep lords are also very strong and challenging to take down, which I actually think is rather fun.

Overall, the new Desert Borderland seems stacked heavily in favor of defense. Perhaps the gate/wall HP was accidentally set too high? I understand they’re supposed to be defensible, but right now it’s a little too much. I never got the chance to see the Oasis event, so I don’t know how effective that will be.

I got a chance to try out the turtle, centaur, and dragon banners for a bit during the stress test. In general, I like them, especially the turtle banner. However, I realized there is one aspect that none of the banners really addresses and that is conditions and debuffing. I propose there should be another banner that focuses on these aspects.

The new condi banner would readily apply some random conditions, perhaps among the list of weakness, poison, confusion, torment; nothing too OP (ie, not burning). It should also have a moderately long cooldown skill that can strip 1-3 boons to 10 enemy targets, perfect for softening up a group or countering turtle banners. For the allies, this banner should apply some boons, such as might, swiftness, regeneration, and resistance. While turtle banner can give resistance, this new banner should do so more readily. Finally, this new banner should also provide some AoE condi cleanse, perhaps 3 condis to 10 allies nearby on a relatively short cooldown. In terms of CC, maybe it can give some AoE slow or taunt.

Teams that rely on condition damage would want to take this to boost up their condi application and weaken their foes. Teams that expect to encounter heavy condi pressure will want to take this to have more active cleanses and resistance.

Just something to consider

I frequently use the Look Behind option and have it as one of my mouse buttons. When going up/down stairs in the Air Keep, this tended to pan all the way up to the sky rather than showing what’s behind you. Probably a result of the strong verticality in the area. Could also be something to do with my settings, so I’m not sure how much of an issue it really is.

To be fair, it’s probably not that easy to constantly get 3 turtle banners. You’ll need three separate guilds owning 3 towers/keeps, have banners upgrades ready (I think the guild needs to craft these?), and queue up the tactics at the same time. Remember that they only last 15 minutes so on longer engagements (like taking T3 keeps), they’ll disappear before you are done. (Though, yes a longer cooldown on that damage immunity skill may be needed)

Just as an FYI, putting the .exe file in the directory: /Applications/Guild Wars 2.app/Contents/Resources/transgaming/c_drive/GW2/ (if you have GW2 installed in /Applications) and renaming it to gw2.exe does indeed work.
You’ll have to rename the original gw2.exe and remember to change it back to go back to the normal client.

The highest crit I’ve seen so far: 40k with gravedigger. Absolutely awesome.
I’m sure I had 25 might + 25 vuln + food and extra buffs from the surrounding players.
Outside this occasions, I’m seeing 9-13k crits. The main problem with GS is the lifeforce generation.

I got the invitation (hooray!), but I’m on a Mac (oh no!).
I’m guessing the easiest way to try out the stress test is to rename the file as gw2.exe and place it in the same directory. Did anyone try that on the last stress test and can confirm if that works? It did open the login screen for me and started downloading some files…

I completely forgot to check the reaper shroud skills underwater.
Did anyone do this? Are they the same as above ground?

Overall, I like the aesthetics of the reaper a lot, though some improvements are needed.
It seems like ANet had a clear design perspective for the class and it’s traits (an unstoppable, cleaving, melee heavy-hitter), but was very afraid of giving it too much.

The greatsword could attack faster, deal more damage, or both. It’s especially slow at generating life force unless multiple foes are around. The animations look great, but the numbers and just aren’t there yet.
As has been mentioned before, all users of (melee) greatsword have a gap closer (Leap of Faith, Swoop, Whirlwind/Rush) but reaper does not. It does have a pull, but this isn’t unique (eg, Blinding Blade-Pull) and is unreliable. The reaper pull is actually quite limited and difficult to aim & land. Considering the limited range and slow speed of the GS, a small gap closer would be useful.

The shouts are a bit meh. I’ve been using them, but rarely do I see them make an impact in (PvE) fights. The cast times, especially on the elite, are a bit too long, and the effects lackluster.

Reaper shroud is the best thing the reaper brings. The autoattack is at a good speed, though the damage could be upped slightly. I love the source of stability on RS#3. I wish RS#2 would travel up to the target selected rather than past it. Since RS#1 cleaves by default, I think DS#1 should pierce by default. Otherwise the Soul Reaping trait Unyielding Blast behaves differently depending on the specialization (ie, it gives base necros piercing but not reapers).

Trait-wise, some are excellent like Decimate Defenses and Blighter’s Boon, but others could use improvements like Soul Eater and Augury of Death. I was very excited for Reaper’s Onslaught, but as others have noted, this one is bugged.

I agree with the velocity increase and homing suggestions. Those alone would be a good improvement without being considered ‘too OP’ for us necros…

I run with my WvW guild group as a power-well backline necro and was wondering what the consensus here is about using Lich or Plague as the elite. I’ve used Plague for a long time and love it for the bit of survivability we get. Lich seems like a liability as you’re so easily spotted, focused, and killed, but it does offer much higher damage for a short time.

So, what do you all run in WvW when in a small/big groups?

I’ve switched to using WoB, particularly since I always grab the well trait. I’m not convinced SoV is better than CoCo, but I keep seeing it in WvW these days…

+1
All on-dodge traits should be combat only.

I personally like how Spite has been reworked. For WvW, where I can tag multiple people at once, I’m pretty much guaranteed to be reaping the benefits when they’re off cooldown. Much better than the old Spite minors.

nekretaal.6485:

I would prefer vulnerability + projectile finisher on the trait., with piercing baseline.

This would be an excellent rework for Life Blast and the trait.

As the title says.

Looking through the changes for the necromancer, I was surprised to see that Unyielding Blast still grants vuln and piercing. I always take this trait either for vuln stacking on a single target or for hitting multiple foes. However, I think the piercing should be baseline for DS-1 on necromancers, particularly given the upcoming elite spec. Reapers get cleave on their DS-1. If they take this trait, will they have both cleave and pierce? That sounds ridiculous. In my opinion, DS-1 should pierce for necros and cleave for reapers instead of being a trait you select.

I have the same problem as norman. The latest hotfix changed something and the launcher fails to download the last file. I see it go up to 26MB, then it drops to 0KB/sec and then no information is shown except for the 0%.

So nice to see all the ET love! I mainly PvE, but I’ll certainly be joining the fight!