Question to new players about your experience

[Tekoneiric.6817]

If you new to Guild Wars 2 I'm curious about what you think of the experience of coming into a mature MMOG game and the community around it. Has it been enjoyable, overwhelming, frustrating?

I think most of us long term players know the game so well that the view of new players often times get overlooked. I think the devs and the long term players would benefit from fresh perspectives and feedback of new players.

[Tarlonniel.6534]

How new is "new"?

[Tekoneiric.6817]

@"Tarlonniel.6534" said:How new is "new"?

Since the expansions released but probably more so after PoF since there was so much content that preceded PoF.

[Tarlonniel.6534]

I guess I qualify, then, since I started playing about two weeks after PoF released. And though it has occasionally been frustrating, for the most part it's been enjoyable - or I wouldn't still be here ;) This is one of the few MMORPGs I've stuck with for more than a few months.

I don't think I'm very representative of new players, though. In fact, according to the guy who recommended the game to me, I don't even play it! I don't do raids, fractals, dungeons, WvW, or PvP. Very rarely do I even participate in a meta. But believe it or not, I've done way more group content in this game than in any other MMO I've played. That's because of the nature of GW2's map events. I don't need to find and join a group; I can just pop in as I'm meandering across the map, heal a little, rez a little, maybe do some damage (but man, I suck at combat), and then drift away after a few minutes when I get bored or real life interferes. It's perfect for my playstyle.

Most of the cool, shiny, legendary-type stuff is out of my reach, but whatever. There are enough pretty things available to keep me happy, and lots to explore, and some decent stories. That's all I need.

[Xanadrine.4352]

Well its a bit overwhelming, like any mature game that has been around a while. Thing is when we buy the expansions to catch up many dont know that the story parts dont come with it. That was disappointing, im used to games having the content in them when you buy them or the expansions. Not knowing you have to purchase the stories on the side. I will have to buy them all cept this last one and the opening pof one. The game is pretty but there are glaring issues also, class balance for one, the way wvw works is another, i like the game alright. I will just have to see how far it takes me.

Oh yeah i forgot to mention, i think all the regular players assume everyone has been playing gw2 for a long time like them. So when a new player is lost and ask something in map chat they get shocked like..what are you new or something? Yeah i am i dont know anything about a lot of this game, esp when it comes to hot and pof stuff. I think people could be a bit more patient, we dont know all the stuff thats why we ask. The game world is pretty big and has a lot of things in it that will take a long time to figure out.

[Josiah.2967]

I am a few months in. I was really enjoying the progression. I enjoyed the leveling experience. I am now getting super irritated with the unnecessarily irritating collections. Griffon was harder for us then old players. We got it done. Skyscale we are so behind it's not funny.... We joined the game for horizontal progression. This was touted as the "casual friendly" mmo. The Skyscale mount is making me bitter. Once it's done it's done, but it's not worth helping anyone else do it. Which goes to my next point.

The newer content makes Guild Wars 2 players appear selfish. It's selfish in design. We went form a coop and helpful to selfish kill heart objectives as quick as possible right in front of other players because my mount is more important then theirs mentality. We went from shared resources/helpful community to a selfish kill it first game. Things die to fast to tag while everyone is completing hearts. Did I mention it is not fun being forced to repeat this over and over again.

The latest collections have turned the feeling of the game to a selfish in it for yourself steal kills/objective mentality. It's not the cooperative help others I enjoyed while leveling. It's weird to explain, but things are looking bad for the future of this game if this is the direction we are going. It won't keep new players end game.

[mauried.5608]

The game seems to have a mindset of kill everything as quickly as possible , and the addition of mounts has just made this worse.I cant see any solution.

[Vision.7265]

It is kind of sad knowing that much of these difficulties are a result of the expansions in some form. The core tyria world and community BEFORE the expansions was much better overall. A handful of my friends left as a result of the need for grinding in some form brought only by newer content. There is just a handful of us left from my very first guild which was carved out during a purely Core Tyria, pre-expac experience.

I'd like to thank OP for starting this thread because things HAVE changed for new players that are irrevocably different than the pre-expansion GW2 that nurtured my experience in this game. To new players, we're like monstrous bullies on huge mounts in their starter maps whenever the dailies bring us older Tyrians into their level specific maps. We melt things so fast, how do they even tag something for an event?

One point that someone brought up is that the game now is structured to be selfish, and I couldn't agree more. These map specific currencies are untradeable (Dungeon currencies are too but at least you actually needed others back then to complete a dungeon). I guess they don't want us taking advantage of people through the trading post but hey I get that. How about giving me the shot to mail it to my buddy who's disabled so that she doesn't have to grind these things out? I can't be charitable out of choice because I have no choice.

I tell you all: if I had the chance to farm something for someone else who couldn't do it on their own, I would. I most certainly have the alts, willpower, beetle delivery experience, and Eurobeat playlists to fuel it.

[Vision.7265]

@Tarlonniel.6534 said:I guess I qualify, then, since I started playing about two weeks after PoF released. And though it has occasionally been frustrating, for the most part it's been enjoyable - or I wouldn't still be here ;) This is one of the few MMORPGs I've stuck with for more than a few months.

I don't think I'm very representative of new players, though. In fact, according to the guy who recommended the game to me, I don't even play it! I don't do raids, fractals, dungeons, WvW, or PvP. Very rarely do I even participate in a meta. But believe it or not, I've done way more group content in this game than in any other MMO I've played. That's because of the nature of GW2's map events. I don't need to find and join a group; I can just pop in as I'm meandering across the map, heal a little, rez a little, maybe do some damage (but man, I suck at combat), and then drift away after a few minutes when I get bored or real life interferes. It's perfect for my playstyle.

Most of the cool, shiny, legendary-type stuff is out of my reach, but whatever. There are enough pretty things available to keep me happy, and lots to explore, and some decent stories. That's all I need.

I have a similar playstyle, been at it for years now. Don't let these hardcore types force you out of your way. I would add shenanigans and AFKing in Divinity's Reach at Minister's waypoint. Lol.

After a long day of real life challenges and accomplishments, I use this game to wind down, not shift into work mode part two.

[Urud.4925]

@"Zuldari.3940" said:Oh yeah i forgot to mention, i think all the regular players assume everyone has been playing gw2 for a long time like them. So when a new player is lost and ask something in map chat they get shocked like..what are you new or something? Yeah i am i dont know anything about a lot of this game, esp when it comes to hot and pof stuff. I think people could be a bit more patient, we dont know all the stuff thats why we ask.I've also noticed it and I don't like it either. I'm not a veteran player (started with HoT) but I remember that when I asked something in map chat, people kindly replied if they knew the asnwer. Now it's always "/wiki" or "yt", or "giyf" (this one not anymore). I mean, sure the wiki has almost always the answer, but I assume that if someone is asking, it's because he/she didn't find the info. If you're too lazy to reply, just don't reply at all.

@Josiah.2967 said:The newer content makes Guild Wars 2 players appear selfish. It's selfish in design. We went form a coop and helpful to selfish kill heart objectives as quick as possible right in front of other players because my mount is more important then theirs mentality. We went from shared resources/helpful community to a selfish kill it first game. Things die to fast to tag while everyone is completing hearts. Did I mention it is not fun being forced to repeat this over and over again.That's also true. If you're a bit slower, you're left behind, and with the mounts is even worse. Take the quests like the 1k kills, or the farming during Halloween, or in general the hearts: everyone must stay in front of the others, to tag first. No one cares if there is a blue circle to protect, all ahead. Veteran players can use a suitable class for these purposes, but I imagine that the impression on new players is much worse. Yesterday one of our new/returning players in guild, complained about this indeed, that he wasn't able to follow the group.Unfortunately Idk how it couldn't be solved. The XYLO's idea to share our progress/farming with the others is interesting. But I think that everyone would like to complete contents on their own. That's why we play, after all: to have fun for few hours.It's still a great game, don't get me wrong. But ANet gave us too much power... blame on us.

[Ygdrasill.9135]

I started this year having not played any MMORPG since getting tired of the crap story and grind in WoW. My girlfriend actually talked me into giving it a try and I've mostly really enjoyed it. Being able to mostly decide the activities I want to do and when while still going through the storyline has made it a lot of fun since I can do something then go back and pick up some previous content. I actually did some things a new player probably shouldn't do. I picked up Path of Fire and level boosted a character in order to go after the mounts and picked one of the worst classes to do that with (Elementalist). I've sence learned to play him, but it was a lot of frustration. Had I done it with a Warrior, I'd likely have been fine. I've since gone back and completed most of the basic Central Tyria story and part of Heart of Thorns. For some keeping the timeline straight doing that might be difficult. I haven't had an issue with it.

The story has proven very engaging. With WW, there were a few aspects I kind of got into, but so much of the history was based on previoius games that I never really felt all that immersed. With GW2, I feel like I know who I'm dealing with and a lot of their story because most of it is actually part of the game as you progress.

I appreciate that I can be competative with gear that's readily available. At some point I may craft a set of ascended gear, but not doing so doesn't mean I couldn't enjoy any aspect of the game. I really wish there was a way other than crafting to get Ascended gear. Crafting as part of games in general isn't something I enjoy very much as a rule, but at least it's there as a reward for doing it even if that's all I'd ever use it for.

I mostly play solo or with one or two other people. I've done a few fractals and will be starting on dungeons soon. I may even try a raid eventually since it's a lot easier to get into a group doing one from what I've seen than it was in WoW. I have zero interest in PVP or WvW.

I really like the fact that there isn't just one min/max build for each class that everyone uses. There are certainly some that are more effective than others, but I've tried some strange ones that actually work well for me insofar as mobs die and I don't.

A few observations on things that maybe could stand improvement. If mounts are going to be allowed on the older maps and be part of the game, they really should have been made available as part of the leveling process to cut down on the feeling that one almost has to jump into PoF content to at least get a Raptor and Springer. Second, if a major event in the game is going to hit a given outcome regardless of your actions, there should be a way to skip it after the first run through just like with cinematics which is basically what they are. A few more race choices would be nice. There are certainly some in game races that we get to hear a fair amount about and interact with regularly. Why not let us play as Skritt or Hylek, or even Ogres? Racial bonuses don't mean much and there are already areas in the game that could serve well as home areas without a huge issue. Yes I know that would mean a lot of work adding more cinematics and such. Finally, I'm going to be curious what the next expansion will entail. We've killed 3 dragons and a god. I'm sort of hoping for something going in a little different direction.

[Westenev.5289]

@Urud.4925 said:

@"Zuldari.3940" said:Oh yeah i forgot to mention, i think all the regular players assume everyone has been playing gw2 for a long time like them. So when a new player is lost and ask something in map chat they get shocked like..what are you new or something? Yeah i am i dont know anything about a lot of this game, esp when it comes to hot and pof stuff. I think people could be a bit more patient, we dont know all the stuff thats why we ask.I've also noticed it and I don't like it either. I'm not a veteran player (started with HoT) but I remember that when I asked something in map chat, people kindly replied if they knew the asnwer. Now it's always "/wiki" or "yt", or "giyf" (this one not anymore). I mean, sure the wiki has almost always the answer, but I assume that if someone is asking, it's because he/she didn't find the info. If you're too lazy to reply, just don't reply at all.

I think telling people how to use the "/wiki" function is the kindest thing a person can say or do in most situations. Why would people suggest something that they wouldn't be willing to do themselves? The wiki editors do great work, and anyone can access it anytime with an in-game chat command... so long as you can spell what you're looking for.

[Raizel.8175]

Been playing the game for 2 years now and it still mostly feels like a single player with very optional multiplayer.

[Tekoneiric.6817]

My reason for starting this thread is that I recently started an alt account and purchased the expansions for it. It made me curious at what the new player experience is like for the game. As a veteran player I know how to and where to skip through the story to quickly unlock features.

From posts in other forums I've wondered if new players feel obligated to play the content straight through from personal story? I know many will either discover shortcuts or have help at navigating through shortcuts but in that process there is much lore to the game they won't absorb skipping around which may keep them from skipping forward.

Plus part of the experience of GW2 is with major releases of new content and how the community participates at it. New players jumping in really won't be able to participate in the new content release experience until they are caught up.

It's gotten me to thinking about a couple of things that might improve things for the long run for new players. One is that ANet could occasionally have people new to the game do experience testing and give direct feedback to them behind the scenes. That might help them shape the experience to bring more people into the game.

Another idea is that they could create a non-commander personal (PACT researcher maybe) story track that allows new and old players alike to create a non-commander character that is strictly a character that exists in the current time frame. It's story wouldn't have anything that locks it down to a specific time frame starting out. Acquisition of things like mounts could take a different path without all that skipping around to try to catch up with the current happenings. Players could still create commander characters but a non-commander would be an express route to get caught up to enjoy new content in the moment of release without having to skip their commanders around.

Of course they would need a second path to acquire things like mounts to go along with it.

[GodDogz.2175]

I have only been playing a couple of months. I found some very nice and helpful players and some very mean and nasty players.I was playing with some random people and another player asked me what weapon I was using. I showed him the green weapon I had and the next thing I know he mailed me this orange weapon that was so much better then what I had. He told me to keep it and have fun.

I was trying to do a puzzle, and not doing very well. This very nice player offered to use a portal to get me to the end. I told them I wanted to actually do the puzzle so they took the time to take me through it jump by jump! That was so much fun!

The opposite, I was doing an event with a couple of random players and we where almost done, when this group showed up and started yelling and threatening us because the map was supposed to be a "fail" map and we where not supposed to do the event we where supposed to let it fail? The abuse they piled on us was unbelievable. If I had been exposed to that the first week I started playing I would probably not hung around and found out how much fun this game really is. I asked a friend who has been playing since the beginning and he told be to just ignore that because it's common with the way some parts of the game have been setup.

[Tinker.6924]

I played back in 2013 for a couple of months and found it fairly frustrating. The big issue was having the all skills and movement done by 1 hand. That was something I solved while playing another game by using a MMO mouse.

I've come back in 2019 and while not super new I find the game very enjoyable.

I like how mounts workThe grind lengths are laughably short compared to another game I played for 3 years.I really like the build/talents/mastery systemI like how crafting works and how important it is in game.

My 3 main beefs

1. Can't always see my mouse during combat and selecting a specific target is sometimes difficult (yolomouse didn't really work well for me).
2. Using the mouse to turn and move isn't as fluid as it is in similar games.
3. The heads up display is awful in combat. CD time remaining, boon, cond durations are all very small and difficult to read and are too far away from the center of the screen requiring your eyes to spend significant time not looking at actually combat and trying to read these.

[Segrrock.8041]

I started after PoF. I came in after having played and burned out on SWTOR. GW2 was really a step up in things I was looking for.

I really liked that NPCs do things on occasion instead of being fixed features. Events can happen with or without players here and there, and that is fun to see. There is so much to just stumble across and small stories to discover.

I loved that you could just see a group event going on, and join in. Optional group content without having to navigate a completely toxic sea of elites. Sure, every online game has some loathsome individuals, but there are far fewer in this community then the last game.

The ability to be "geared up" with not much effort is a relief. Having skill and strategy play more of a factor in being able to survive rather than required end game gear being hidden behind special currency like other games is great.

Not competing for resource nodes is huge.

The variety of things to do is almost overwhelming (in a good way).

That said, there were some jarring things that took some getting used to.

One was the terrible popup after hitting level 80. I wanted to play through the story without jumping ahead, but after hitting 80 it caused a popup every single time I got XP telling me to start HoT to unlock mastery. That was untenable.

Another was the realization that the expansions were only part of the story. When I did start HoT, I felt like I had missed a ton of story and was very lost - and I had missed a bunch. Even after getting the available seasons from the store, not being able to get season 1 still left a lot of questions and blanks.

That reminds me - the main story as some jarring cut scenes. My first time I had a story cut scene in Lions Arch, I had to wonder where the heck I was. There is no good warning that the Lions Arch I normally walk around in is the new one, while the one in the cut scenes was destroyed along the way. Googling helps and all, but it does make a disconnect.

Finally, there was the HoT learning curve. After all is said and done, I am glad it is there because it made me better at the game in a way core Tyria does not. It was initially pretty humbling, though. Core Tyria is largely solo content maps with some group content sprinkled in. Once I looked at HoT as group content maps you can navigate solo, adjustments to my play style improved the experience immensely.

[Vision.7265]

@Tekoneiric.6817 said:My reason for starting this thread is that I recently started an alt account and purchased the expansions for it. It made me curious at what the new player experience is like for the game. As a veteran player I know how to and where to skip through the story to quickly unlock features.

From posts in other forums I've wondered if new players feel obligated to play the content straight through from personal story? I know many will either discover shortcuts or have help at navigating through shortcuts but in that process there is much lore to the game they won't absorb skipping around which may keep them from skipping forward.

Plus part of the experience of GW2 is with major releases of new content and how the community participates at it. New players jumping in really won't be able to participate in the new content release experience until they are caught up.

It's gotten me to thinking about a couple of things that might improve things for the long run for new players. One is that ANet could occasionally have people new to the game do experience testing and give direct feedback to them behind the scenes. That might help them shape the experience to bring more people into the game.

Another idea is that they could create a non-commander personal (PACT researcher maybe) story track that allows new and old players alike to create a non-commander character that is strictly a character that exists in the current time frame. It's story wouldn't have anything that locks it down to a specific time frame starting out. Acquisition of things like mounts could take a different path without all that skipping around to try to catch up with the current happenings. Players could still create commander characters but a non-commander would be an express route to get caught up to enjoy new content in the moment of release without having to skip their commanders around.

Of course they would need a second path to acquire things like mounts to go along with it.

This is an interesting idea because we do things in the world that a Commander shouldn't have time to do at all. The serious tone of the storyline puts the Commander in save the world mode 24/7 so things like exploration do not fit the Commander's role save for the times danger strikes an unexplored area.

An Explorer or Adventurer or even a Pirate going after booty makes more sense to have an actual excuse to find all these POIs, Vistas, and the like.

[Sigela.6352]

I've been playing the game for a year and some few months.

I'd say that the biggest shock as a new player was that there was so much that I didn't know about the game. Many things were things that could have helped me if I had known them early--getting more value from buys at the BLTC with preferences on armor and weapons, not realizing that some of the things I was receiving as loot were a currency or a material so that I would know to keep them, that a hammer can be both a melee weapon on one class and a ranged weapon on another class, etc.--because I would have played smarter earlier. I would probably still be sitting on two character boost tokens if I had known that boosting a character without true knowledge of a profession has a lot of drawbacks.

Even now, my guildmates still hear me say "My biggest problem in becoming the player I want to be is that I have no idea how much I don't know."

[Tekoneiric.6817]

@XYLO.7031 said:

This is an interesting idea because we do things in the world that a Commander shouldn't have time to do at all. The serious tone of the storyline puts the Commander in save the world mode 24/7 so things like exploration do not fit the Commander's role save for the times danger strikes an unexplored area.

An Explorer or Adventurer or even a Pirate going after booty makes more sense to have an actual excuse to find all these POIs, Vistas, and the like.

My thought is more of a member of the PACT. The early story could be a streamlined initiation into the game along with rapid acquisition of mounts for the new player and afterwards the story track for the non-commander character would be a support PACT member taking part of the most current story. That character would see ANets placeholder commander as center while they deal with action on the side. They could give current event missions for the non-commander in between main story releases that involve history of the game.

[Tarlonniel.6534]

I tried to follow a pretty linear path through the story (Personal story -> LWS2 -> HoT -> LWS3 -> PoF -> LWS4) and the only major roadblock I hit, besides being very confused for most of LWS2, was the difficulty spike when starting HoT. I had to give up and skip ahead at that point. After finishing PoF and getting the mounts plus some better equipment, I went back to finish the first expansion.

[Vision.7265]

@Tekoneiric.6817 said:

@XYLO.7031 said:

This is an interesting idea because we do things in the world that a Commander shouldn't have time to do at all. The serious tone of the storyline puts the Commander in save the world mode 24/7 so things like exploration do not fit the Commander's role save for the times danger strikes an unexplored area.

An Explorer or Adventurer or even a Pirate going after booty makes more sense to have an actual excuse to find all these POIs, Vistas, and the like.

My thought is more of a member of the PACT. The early story could be a streamlined initiation into the game along with rapid acquisition of mounts for the new player and afterwards the story track for the non-commander character would be a support PACT member taking part of the most current story. That character would see ANets placeholder commander as center while they deal with action on the side. They could give current event missions for the non-commander in between main story releases that involve history of the game.

I like that idea. If you're just a member of the PACT, then there would be more opportunities. I envision something like Final Fantasy 8 where you're a member of SEED and receive incremental pay and missions here and there but can do your own thing in-between missions like become a Triple Triad Card master lol.

[ChillyKoti.1928]

@"mauried.5608" said:The game seems to have a mindset of kill everything as quickly as possible , and the addition of mounts has just made this worse.I cant see any solution.

This is the results of what happens when you remove roles.

I like to do dammage but also beeing quite resilient. This is an extremely unpopular opinion and everyone call me "subpar" and "inneffective" but meh...

To be honest though, the other stats are not very effective compared to Power, Precision, Ferocity. Those 3 have too much synergy between each other.

Toughness doesn't scale well and having 2k or 3k toughness don't make a lot of difference against mobs (still getting hit for 5k dammage frome some mobs sometimes)

Healing Power don't scale well with healing skills (passing from a skill that heals you from 2k to 3,5k with tons of healing power? Why?)

Condition Dammage, this needs a total rework. It's really only great against ennemies that have huge health bar. Dammage like this could apply some "instant" dammage when you hit, and not a measly 200 burn dammage per second. Having precision to be useful with condition dammage would be very nice too.

Ferocity needs to be greatly buffed but at the cost of having Precision significantly decreased in efficiency. Why? Well, why is it possible to have 100% critical chance? Of course this will be meta! In my opinion, only full Assassin stat with precision runes can someone have at least 80% critical chance (to make fury have some value).

[Cristalyan.5728]

@"Josiah.2967" said:I am a few months in. I was really enjoying the progression. I enjoyed the leveling experience. I am now getting super irritated with the unnecessarily irritating collections. Griffon was harder for us then old players. We got it done. Skyscale we are so behind it's not funny.... We joined the game for horizontal progression. This was touted as the "casual friendly" mmo. The Skyscale mount is making me bitter. Once it's done it's done, but it's not worth helping anyone else do it. Which goes to my next point.

The newer content makes Guild Wars 2 players appear selfish. It's selfish in design. We went form a coop and helpful to selfish kill heart objectives as quick as possible right in front of other players because my mount is more important then theirs mentality. We went from shared resources/helpful community to a selfish kill it first game. Things die to fast to tag while everyone is completing hearts. Did I mention it is not fun being forced to repeat this over and over again.

The latest collections have turned the feeling of the game to a selfish in it for yourself steal kills/objective mentality. It's not the cooperative help others I enjoyed while leveling. It's weird to explain, but things are looking bad for the future of this game if this is the direction we are going. It won't keep new players end game.

I completely agree. I think GW2 started to change in the sense of "adopting" the things considered as not desirable by the Manifesto. Strangely enough, I don't think this detail affects the new players too much. A new player in GW2 most probably tried other MMO's as well. And they will find the grinding less demanding than in that MMO's, the community (still) amiable, the content (actual content, after two XPac's and LS) truly rich. They will like the lack of competition on the harvesting nodes and the lack of KS.

In my opinion the most affected by the actual aspect of the game are the veteran players. They can compare what we have now with the GW2 from the past. And they can see that the game is more grindy now than in the past, the community is not as friendly as before - yes, that selfish design. They can compare the "play how you want" from the beginning with the "play how we (ANet) want, if you want" we have now.

The missing thing to turn GW2 into a common MMO as the dozens we already have on the market is to increase the competition in the Open World (on the nodes / on the kills etc). With the actual dev. team I think this is not impossible. They already show us that they know how to make a game but nobody tried to teach them how GW2 is different from an ordinary MMO and to ask them to respect the original ideas. They should learn that making a (common) game is different from making GW2.

Note: I'm not a new player. I play for almost 5 years. But I can see how GW2 is now. And I'm affected by this change too.

[Ygdrasill.9135]

@Edge.8724 said:

@"mauried.5608" said:The game seems to have a mindset of kill everything as quickly as possible , and the addition of mounts has just made this worse.I cant see any solution.

This is the results of what happens when you remove roles.

I like to do dammage but also beeing quite resilient. This is an extremely unpopular opinion and everyone call me "subpar" and "inneffective" but meh...

To be honest though, the other stats are not very effective compared to Power, Precision, Ferocity. Those 3 have too much synergy between each other.

Toughness doesn't scale well and having 2k or 3k toughness don't make a lot of difference against mobs (still getting hit for 5k dammage frome some mobs sometimes)

Healing Power don't scale well with healing skills (passing from a skill that heals you from 2k to 3,5k with tons of healing power? Why?)

Condition Dammage, this needs a total rework. It's really only great against ennemies that have huge health bar. Dammage like this could apply some "instant" dammage when you hit, and not a measly 200 burn dammage per second. Having precision to be useful with condition dammage would be very nice too.

Ferocity needs to be greatly buffed but at the cost of having Precision significantly decreased in efficiency. Why? Well, why is it possible to have 100% critical chance? Of course this will be meta! In my opinion, only full Assassin stat with precision runes can someone have at least 80% critical chance (to make fury have some value).

I actually have a build for my Elementalist that is pure condition damage and toughness. When using it I have over 20k health. It's not fast, but I can make pretty much anything bleed/burn down well before they manage to kill me. There are builds for all the classes that don't revolve around Power/Precision/Ferocity. I've enjoyed trying some of them out since there's far less pressure to min/max in this game than the others I've played in the past and generally top level epic gear is still fairly inexpensive if you don't really care about it's appearance.