SponTen.1267

Is there any ETA on a fix for this?

Hey ANet, dunno if you guys read these posts. But I really miss there being a way to target-revive with Siphon 🙁 Would you please look into a way to spec for it again? Perhaps through one of the lesser-used traits, like Shallow Grave? It even works thematically with that trait 😁 From what I've seen, Specter is a tad under-tuned compared to most other defensive supports, and Thief's only revive is Shadow Refuge which is pretty meh (and its description is still missing this part), so I'd imagine a small buff like a targeted revive wouldn't hurt.

Looking good, thanks ANet! Tiny request 😁 - would you please give a similar damage/ferocity bonus to Hidden Killer (Thief) that you gave to Burst Precision (Warrior)? If too strong for WvW/PvP, could it be done for PvE only?

Sorry, but what do you mean by this? I've always heard OW is the most popular content?

Ahhh at least that explains it, thanks! Edit: Oops, yes, it mostly happens around the Mire Sea, Treacherous Depths, and Benthic Kelp Beds.

I know this thread is old, but I think I'm experiencing the same issue; lots of Profile Photos are missing for my account. I also have weird duplicates, like very slightly different Daredevil Spec images. Anyone else found a fix?

Thanks for posting these; they were very interesting. I only started playing in late 2021, so it's hard to understand what the game was like back in Core, HoT, and most of PoF. It's funny, because for me, I really enjoy the boon system. I do think the game overall is becoming a bit too easy in OW, and the increasingly-easy application of boons is a big part of that. But then, ANet probably has data on a lot of players who still really struggle with all content, and they also want to make instanced group content more accessible, so I can see why they're balancing the way they are.

Anyone else having a Mind Stab effect play every few seconds on their character whilst mounted in Mount Maelstrom? Very strange; doesn't seem to do any damage or put me in combat or anything.

I always had it in my head that GW2 was designed with the following philosophies in mind: Old gear, skills, content, etc, all stay similar to how they were on release No, or very minimal powercreep, with everything that's released always staying relevant in terms of power level (horizontal progression) Variety of content, like JPs, Guild Missions, Adventures, Races, etc Less focus on combat rotations, and instead more on interesting ways to play, like environmental weapons, combo fields, and racial skills I can't remember where I read the first two points, but I'm sure I did, as they were big points that got me to start playing in the first place. What's weird though is that I've seen other posts and comments from devs that contradict these philosophies (some of which didn't play out), like increasing the level cap, and releasing Ascended gear. And the variety of content thing just seemed to disappear with EoD. I know this is difficult to do, because how do you keep everything feeling the same yet also give veterans actual content to play? The only option with this would be to release a ton of new content all the time, which ANet doesn't seem to want/be able to do, perhaps because they're wary of thinning the playerbase too much across all the zones. So, it's great we got the more recent Balance Philosophy, even though it's a bit disappointing that it goes against some of the original design philosophies. For me though, it's still really helpful to know why things are the way they are, even if I'm not thrilled with them (though I still absolutely love this game). SO, as per the title, my question is: Is there a list of current Design Philosophies? Or are ANet thinking of writing up some more? I would love to see reasons from the devs as to why there are no new JPs, Guild Missions, Races, etc.

I only started GW2 in late 2021, and my understanding was that the game was initially designed around pure horizontal progression. I can't remember what I watched and read (I wish I saved the links), but I swear they said that no old content will be invalidated, gear stays relevant forever, you don't have grind for new power levels, and there won't be huge swings in power through buffs or nerfs. But of course, now I can't find any info on it. Thank you for posting stuff that ANet have actually said in the past. I would love to read more on this, because I feel like either I was misled, or my brain misunderstood what it was viewing; maybe it misconstrued it into something I actually wanted to hear. I wish ANet would post more design philosophies. I love that they posted their Balance Philosophy, because even if they haven't stuck to it 100% successfully, I can at least go back and see how and why they make the changes that they do.

In this thread, I'm going to stay away from all the contentious stuff, and just ask/suggest a few things. Pretty minor overall, and more for just all of PvE in general, ie. not just instanced group content. I'm not a top-end player, so please be gentle if I miss things or my suggestions don't target your specific gameplay preferences; I've just noticed the below stand out so much that they're really apparent even to someone who mostly does OW, T3 Fractals, Dungeons, and the occasional Raid. I think the below affect everyone though. Thief Is there some way to make good use of Sword? Its auto attack seems to do less damage than Dagger, and both its dual wield skills seem to provide very minimal, or even no dps boost over its auto, despite them being a bit janky. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind forced-movement skills or being rooted in place (I know, I'm weird, I actually like strange skills), but it would be cool to have them actually deal noticeably more damage than the auto. Elementalist Is it just me, or are Air autos really weak? Air is supposed to be "heavy damage and control", and yet its autos seem to just suck. Revenant How long is Hammer going to be so much worse than every other weapon? Or am I missing some way to scale it? It feels like it does about half or even a third as much dps as Sword/Sword. Also its Coalescence of Ruin #2 is still bugged and starts its aoe about 200 range away from the Revenant. Ranger Is it just me, or does most of Ranger's power damage come from Soulbeast or Untamed? I know that the game isn't really balanced around Core, but it means that Core and Druid are just... so bad for power builds. Is that intentional? Similar to... Necro Same kind of thing with Necro; Core and Scourge power damage is so bad. I know focusing on Core or specific Elite build types might seem like nitpicking or just a non-issue, but it means that when we get new weapons to play with, there will be a bunch of builds that will just be sooo much worse for Core Ranger/Necro, and Druid/Scourge. Even Micro_Hard's tests seem to verify this for maxed-out dps. Anyway, that is all. Nothing too crazy, and would love to just be flat out wrong about all these; please let me know if there are ways to build for the above as I really want to try out these playstyles. Something about them being noticeably worse than the alternatives, even for a semi-casual like myself, just seems... odd. I'm never going to hit top tier benchmarks, yet the above builds are still so noticeably weaker than the alternatives that they feel weird and disappointing even in casual OW and story.

That was a completely different era. We still have a "best" healer and "best" dps now; it's just that an extra two "required" boons are involved in builds. It's possible to balance the game in many different ways. Just because Quickness and Alacrity (and maybe boons in general) are changed, doesn't mean the balance will be worse.

Depends what build I'm running, but typically it's ~50% with full Celestial and Traveler Runes. This was pre-patch, but looking at the maths and new design, it should be even easier now.

Why? What about most Quick/Alac builds (the ones other than FB or Mech) makes them better to use with dps builds rather than healers? I ask because I haven't found this to be the case; I find it very easy to keep up permanent (or near-permanent) Quick/Alac on heal builds like Renegade, Tempest, and Catalyst, and it's gotten even easier over the past few patches. Harbinger and Chrono aren't the best healers by any means, but it's still very easy to keep up Quick/Alac on them. I also found boon upkeep easy on the pre-patch Druid, Specter, and Scrapper heal builds.

Ahh, yeah totally fair. Personally, I wouldn't mind if some builds could provide a boon or two permanently as long as they had to sacrifice a ton of other stuff to do it. But yeah, my second choice that's barely behind the first would be the same as yours. If Quickness and Alacrity are going to be kept as powerful as they are, it only leads to balance and design problems, and eventual homogenisation, if any build can keep either one of them up permanently for a whole group.

I voted "No", not because I don't think there's a problem (there really is), but because I love the feel of going from unbuffed -> buffed. I know those of you who mostly Raid/Strike with groups that organise Quick/Alac before you even start may not know what I mean, or may not agree with me if you do, but the type of gameplay I'm referring to is very common in solo or pug OW, Dungeons, <T4 Fractals, WvW, and even PvP to some degree. It's the type of gameplay that GW2 was initially designed around; you pick what you feel like playing and then just go and play it, sometimes happening across other adventurers or joining a group in LFG, or maybe inviting a friend or two from your friends list and guild/s. The boon system, including Quickness and Alacrity, are so much fun when you play like this. Trying to work various boons into your build is such a big part of this game, like: - Playing into your strengths, eg. high Vigor uptime for a Daredevil - Covering your weaknesses, eg. high Protection and Regeneration uptime for a melee Guardian - Or pumping your group in key moments, eg. group Quickness when you break a defiance bar I don't know what percentage of the playerbase plays like this, but I am always able to find groups or just run into others as I play who are playing this way, and that's during off peak as I live in Australia. I've even been creating Raid groups lately that cater to this "midcore" type of player, who does want to optimise a bit and help the team, but also doesn't want to hyper-focus on 100% optimal groups because it's draining and limits build variety. SO, I would prefer for Quickness and Alacrity, given how powerful they are and how much extra fun they can bring to the game, to instead not be able to be kept up permanently by single builds. They should be some sort of burst, allowing you to get out a Meteor Shower easier, or maybe activated during a defiance bar break to really dish out the damage. Perhaps they could even be partly tied to defiance bar breaks, to encourage more cc in builds; the more damage you deal to a defiance bar, the more Quickness/Alacrity you get from it when it breaks (on top of the damage boost). But still, if this can't be done, then yeah I'd prefer them to be removed from the game rather than be poorly-baked into every class because they're so powerful that people feel kitten without them.

Are you saying that you would prefer some professions be able to provide 100% Quickness or Alacrity (or even other boons) uptime to a group, but others not? If so, why? How would this work? Are you suggesting that some professions should just be boon builds, or are you more suggesting that things like Might be easier for Warriors to apply (because Warriors and Might = strong), whereas Alacrity be associated with Chronomancers (because Chronomancers and cooldown reduction = time), etc? Or am I completely misunderstanding you here?

@Ashlin.3708, I sort of understand how you feel, as I experienced some similar feelings when I first started playing. But now the only times I ever die to cc is when I make a major mistake, or just didn't realise a specific encounter had a lot of it; both instances are very rare. Can you link your build? Typically, if you're soloing stuff, it's important to have a more jack-of-all-trades build if you don't want to get completely countered by certain mechanics. And sadly, Revenants don't really have much access to Stun Break or Stability.

Where are you getting the idea that you need to memorise rotations? Not judging you btw; I honestly would love to know where you're getting this from, because you can play all content without memorising any rotations. Source: I recently crossed the 1600 hours-played mark and have never spent time memorising rotations. The only content in the game that I haven't spent much time in is Raids and Strikes; I'm only just starting them now. And even with them, the priority is to learn the mechanics and coordinate them with your group. You will likely start to learn what order to use your skills as you play the game; just spend a little bit of time reading your skills as you go, and seeing how they work. As long as you're actually using your skills, and have a somewhat-functional build (ie. don't gear full Zealot's and then focus on Condi damage), then you'll be fine in 98% of PvE. Raids are harder for sure, but even then, you can get through them with suboptimal gear, build, and no memorisation of rotations, provided you coordinate and complete the mechanics. So yeah, my advice is just: Give it a shot. If you're struggling, dying, not contributing in any way, then it's likely not to do with you not having memorised rotations. It's much more likely that you're not avoiding damage, or your build is too suboptimal, or you're just not making use of your skills. Feel free to add/whisper/mail me if you'd like some guidance! I recently started taking first time Raiders and new players through some Raids, and despite none of us knowing what is going on, we're all having a blast and slowly getting through the content. I've even taken brand new and underlevelled players through some Dungeons and early Fractals just us two; yes, that means having 60% fewer players in our group than we're "supposed to". I believe in you 🙂

Hey! Yep, I'm not doing specific static group runs, so I'm always looking for people; it's more of a general "join whenever you can/want". I'm just seeing if pugging Raids with basically no organisation is even possible. So far, we've completed W1 and W2, both Emboldened. Here's the video of the 2 hour W1E run, if you're curious. I intend to try W3E this weekend. Feel free to add and whisper me in game and I'll make a note to whisper you when I start. I live in Australia, so my times will typically be my mornings about 8-11am UTC+11 on Saturdays and Sundays. Sometimes I do Friday, Saturday, or Sunday nights, 8-11pm. If you're east coast US, then I believe that will be your 6-9pm on Friday and Saturday, and 6-9am on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, respectively. There's no 100% set time though, because the idea is just to jump in and give it a shot whenever you can, or create and lead the same type of group during times that better suit you. I'd love for this to be a normal thing everyone does, similar to Fractals.

I'm on mobile, so apologies if this isn't the one I was referring to, but I believe WP's Tempest in some of his HoT videos showcase things like extra effects on Overloads. eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YXGS95LOf8

I don't think they're game breaking, nor do I think Quickness and Alacrity are game breaking. I think there are too many permanent exponential scaling mechanisms in GW2, leading to this issue where not having one of them cuts your dps by such a drastic amount that players feel like they'd be crazy to not have them... which is why we are where we are. My point was just that you can remove the worst offenders, sure, but players will find the next best thing to optimise. Part of the fun of theorycrafting is working out how you can optimise, and trying to minimise what you have to give up in order to reach the optimal level. Removing Quickness and Alacrity from players' hands entirely would reduce a decent amount of the exponential scaling, sure, but what roles and builds players are after would likely just switch to Might + Fury + whatever (maybe Vuln). And then players will find the optimal build, and then everything else will be "unviable" compared to it, and then we'll see the same issue where players are only asking for that one build. And then ANet would have to either make all classes output the same Might/Fury/Vuln/whatever, or look at removing them... and thus the cycle repeats. What I'm asking for instead, is balancing build and combat mechanics so that you can't just do everything, and if something is very powerful, it comes with high opportunity cost; this actually ties in with ANet's own Holes in Roles section in their Balance Philosophy: So why not lean into this? Some builds can provide 20% Quickness uptime, but they don't have the ability to provide much Might. Swap some traits and a similar build provides 30% Quickness uptime, but gives up 5k dps. Quickness still a problem? How about making its maximum duration only 10 seconds then. Or it could stack intensity up to 2 stacks, for 25% per stack; now it's more mechanically similar to Might in terms of application, yet still provides that super fast blasting feel, but only temporarily, and you have to time your application better. There's just so much design space that still retains the full boon system while also allowing for class identity, which are both, imo, two of the best systems I've experienced in any game, and a huge part of what keeps me playing GW2. Sorry, I don't get what you mean by this? Yes, thank you. I was pretty sure this was the cast, but I only started playing 18 months ago, so I don't have personal experience with how the old metas used to be; I've only heard about them. I agree that it's deeper, but that's why I'd argue that we shouldn't keep going the direction of showering boon application on everyone just because the issue is difficult to solve. I believe the community has to be okay with some level of imbalance; that's going to be the case in any game, and frankly is part of what keeps things interesting; you have a unique experience every time you play, even if that means it's sometimes harder and sometimes easier. However, I also believe there's so much more room for unique class identity without homogenising boons. If one or two things are too powerful, the answer isn't to make everything that overpowered; it's to nerf those one or two things lol.

But if Quick and Alac were removed, then players would move on to only caring about the next best thing for dps, which would be Might and Fury. And we're back to having all classes must be able to permanently upkeep some offensive boon. A subset of players will always work out the optimal strategies and share the knowledge online, and then a ton of the playerbase will just follow suit. The vast majority of the playerbase doesn't execute a perfect rotation, like, ever. Hell, most players don't even run pure meta builds. Or are you referring to only min/maxing Raiders? Having temporary access to Quick/Alac would only negatively affect the tiny sliver of the playerbase who are unhappy unless they are executing the perfect rotation, and honestly, they'd probably adjust their comps and eventually optimise groups that allow for more static rotations. For everyone else, the contrast between the (relatively) slower gameplay without these boons and the quick gameplay with the boons would be fun af. Most players love feeling powerful, and the best way to do that is to give them a burst window where they wreck face; this is why gamers love Meteor Shower, or the dodge-burst window in Breath of the Wild, or... Couldn't have said it better myself. How many players have been asking for more adaptive/reactive gameplay? Games are more fun when there's more diversity of gameplay loops and encounters, not less.

Am I the only one who would love having Quickness and Alacrity as temporary boons? I love how it feels to have them now, and the contrast between not having them and then having them is stark and noticeable. The boost in power is fun, but it becomes meaningless when it's permanent. It's already like this in PvP, and sometimes when playing solo or in very small groups in PvE/WvW, and it's so much fun. Why can't classes be designed so that they can provide these boons temporarily, but no individual build can provide either of them permanently, and there's quite an opportunity cost to doing so? It would create interesting hybrid roles, where someone in your group notes that they can provide some Quickness with their build, so they will apply in a burst window (eg. when breaking a Defiance Bar), but maybe they can't provide enough for the full burst phase, so you have to actually consider giving up some personal dps in order to provide more Quickness to your group. Sure, roles would be less defined, but wasn't that the original design philosophy of GW2? Soft roles, hybrid builds, and diversity, instead of "dps or support, and quick or alac"? I don't want everything to be defined by these two boons either, but surely there's a middle ground between "permanent both" and "remove them from the game".

As someone who only started 18 months ago, I read this and thought "... wait, what?" Then I checked some old videos. Omg YES PLEASE.