Meva.8327

Thank you for the update. I am logging in as I type, I will check the effects as well and add an edit later. EDIT: It seems the update of the Feast fixed the issues and works as intended. The update notes say: "Interacting with a Platter of Delectable Birthday Cakes now correctly applies its nourishment effect to players who are malnourished, and players can refresh the effect's duration by interacting with the platter. Interacting with the platter will not replace any active nourishments, regardless of their remaining duration. " The new feature is underlined: now the Feast will NOT override other food. My tests: 1. When you have another nourishment buff. The feast nourishment boon does not override the previous nourishment boon. 2. When you have the feast nourishment buff. You can refresh the feast nourishment boon to 30 minutes. 3. When you have the Malnourished debuff. The feast overrides the debuff with the nourishment buff.

Two weeks have passed and no solution. If your estimate is correct, we are now sadly aiming for 8+ weeks before a fix.

ANet has a perfect track record of 15-plus years of permanent struggle with updates and balance. Sadly yes. It shows that the priorities are more on moderation than on fixing bugs. EDIT: On 13/Nov/2023 at 22:30 NYC time we still have the Feast bug.

I have not purchased SOTO yet, hence I can say that it is an issue deeper than just SOTO-based.

Hehehe I get your point: losing ascended food for a cake is super sad and painful. But with the current bug, you will need to spend time with the malnourished debuff in PvE or WvW before reappling the nourished boon from the feast. EDIT: I agree with your EDIT above. It would be extremely nice if non-ascended food would not overwrite ascended ones.

EDITS: 1. If you let the malnourished debuff to expire and interact with the feast, the nourished boon applies normally. 2. Before the update you could refresh any time the nourishment boon, but now you can no longer refresh it. The only way to get the nourishment boon now is to let the malnourished debuff expire and then eat a cake. If you want to overwrite an existing food you cannot do it. 3. Birthday Blaster is working as usual. It grants the same bonuses as the Feast but it only lasts 10 minutes. 4. It is not only a SOTO-based issue. Players with SOTO and without SOTO are both having this issue.

Since today´s update, that is 7/Nov/2023, the Feast of Delectable Birthday Cake does not apply the nourishment boon. I can drop the feast and interact with the cakes as usual. Once I click on it, there is a familiar 2-minute cooldown. However, the nourishment boon does not apply. None of my 14+ toons can get the nourishment boon, regardles of the instance and maps in PvE and WvW. It seems to be a global issue: I asked players in different PvE maps and, to my knowledge, every single one had the same issue.

Just like WoW has WoW Classic, where you could experience the original starting point of the game more than 10 years after launch and 3+ expansions, I would love to see the a "classic" version of GW2 where at lauch there were fewer combinations of everything (runes, sigils, classes/professions, armour sets, boons, conditions, etc). It would be interesting to see how this game has degenerated into boon orgies and has spun out of any balance control. Less is more, but ANet seems to think that poor quantity can hide the fact that quality is lacking.

A guildie tested yesterday this broken herald build whilst I took notes and screenshots. Our conclusion (or rather an "educated guess" due to lack of solid data) is that somehow the compounding effect of several sources of damage reduction were wrongly calculated, which meant 90 to 95% of damage reduction depending of the game mode. This is a quick version of our tests yesterday:

This, absolutely.

Unfortunately, those players are not hacking nor cheating. As shown below, these players are simply using a feature that ANET proudly announced in their June 27th update: It would be hypocrisy to ban players for playing the game exactly as ANet intended. Of course, the fact that ANet failed to test for both IT robustness and gameplay balance just shows the level of competence of their team.

I agree. When I said "quick access" I meant it to be done without any grinding or time gates. I am perfectly fine with INSTANT access: in the end, if you have 6-7 runes you already have access to the second perk of the 6th rune (aka the special effect). If ANet steals that from you that is super bad, Destiny 2 levels of robbery of content. But I am a bit flexible. For example, I would find acceptable a couple hours completing a certain quest to get the Legendary Relic, which could be as a pretext to introduce lore and important NPCs.

ANet could buy time to find a proper fix by temporarily disabling the Herald specialisation: the effect is not only in PvP and WvW, since in PvE heralds are able to solo raids.

Wishful thinking, but I do hope it is the case. IF there is a legendary Relic at lauch AND IF those players who have crafted 6 Legendary Runes have quick access to this Legendary Relic then it is perfectly fine. Very big IFs, I am afraid. But we can dream.

Exactly this. ANet is making a ridicule of themselves with the patch. But they can go deeper in the mud: if they dare to ban players for exploiting the VERY SAME FEATURE THEY PROUDLY IMPLEMENTED then that will definitely be the biggest shame and hypocrisy in video game history. A decent firm (and this happens very frequently in Japan) would call a press conference, say "mea culpa" and apologise.

Open World, meaning easy PvE (no raids, no strikes, no fractals).

I second the comments about having a Legendary Relic for those players with 6-7 Legendary Runes. It is all about fairness: ANet is literally stealing the second perk to our runes, making the Legendary runes way nerfed since the main use for runes is exactly the 6th rune's second perk, which now will be moved to the relic slot.

My understanding is that the second perk of the 6th rune will now be placed in a new slot, namely the relic, completely independent of the runes. For example, Rune of Speed. Its description is: "+20% Swiftness Duration; increase movement speed by 66% when under the effect of swiftness." In the new setting, the first perk, +20% Swiftness Duration, will be part of the 6th rune. The second perk, increase movement speed by 66% when under the effect of swiftness, will be alloted to a relic. I see only two outcomes for Legendary Runes: If the Legendary Runes do NOT include a legendary relic, then this change will completely nerf the legendary runes. If the Legendary Runes do include a legendary relic, then this change will make legendary runes super atractive. I would hold crafting any legendary runes. The second perk on the 6th rune is what most people look for, so it would be way more efficient to have a 1 legendary relic than 6 legendary runes.

ANet has a proven, perfect track record of 15-plus years of balance incompetence, since GW1 beta. This patch proves that their record of non-existent balance skills continues unchallenged. And then, the mini expac SotO will add thousands of combinations (new available weapons, split of runes and relics, new runic perks, etc). It is like a 10-year-old student struggling with basic Arithmetic but thinks they can fare better with College Calculus. Sigh...

Yes, you are absolutely right, Celestial gear gives way more stats points than other gear. That is bad design, and as I argued this effects gets exacerbated by the compounding effect of more and more +x% on stats. That is exactly my premise, namely that power creep is the real issue and Celestial gear just the easy scapegoat. It is the boon orgy and how easy it is to attain and maintain 25 stacks of Might that is the problem. If you can have perma protection that means you are tougher than a Celestial player without the boon. A pure zerk Willbender can get from zero to 750 condition damage with full Might, which means their perma burn is definitely not negligible. It is bad design that a player with zero Healing power can cure more Hit Points (HP) per points invested in Healing Power than a Celestial player (who Invests around 680 points in Healing Power). And both can heal more HP per Healing Power points invested than Minstrel, a dedicated healbot. There are way more stats than Celestial to add Healing Power to a Power build (Zealot with Power, precision and Healing), a Condition build (Shaman with Vitality, healing and condition damage) or a Hybrid Build (Marshal with power, precision, healing and condition damage).

I am afraid you did not take the time and effort to read my post at all, and wrongly assumed I was anti Celestial. Read my post, at least the TLDR. I argue that the issue in GW2, as your video claims, is that there are way too many factors that contribute to imbalances, that Celestial is just consequence of the bad balance and design decisions from ANet, and that shoe-horning every bad thing in WvW into Celestial is wrong. I also claim that that there is a lot of power creep that breaks the balance of the game, to the extent that "nerfing cele" per se is not goint to solve anything. Actually, I do not suggest nerfs to cele but rather nerfs to power creep by adjusting Might, and nerfs to diminishing returns by using a better scaling to healing.

Celestial gear is considered overpowered, especially in WvW. However, Celestial gear is not the CAUSE of all imbalances in WvW but a CONSEQUENCE of ANet's bad decisions overall: gameplay, skill balance, new classes, new food, new stats, easy to generate boons, power creep and diminishing returns. That said, there is indeed a side effect of Celestial gear that probably ANet did not foresee: the compounding effect of several buffs together. In a nutshell, a compounding effect it means that "the whole is more than the sum of the parts". In other words, the more effects you add, the better. I believe that balancing Celestial gear can be done by carefully balancing boons, power creep and diminishing returns for healing. I showcase how Might could be tuned down to bring Celestial gear more in line, without surpassing Berzerker gear in power or Trailblazer in condition damage. I also show how a linear scaling for Healing could make Celestial less overpowered with respect to Minstrel gear. TLDR: Celestial gear benefits much more from stacking different effects and and additions than non-celestial gear. A Celestial player 25 stacks of might has more power than a Berzerker player without might. Same with condition damage: Celestial player + 25 might has more condition damage than Trailblazer player without might. A first balance attempt for Celestial gear would be to reduce the power and condition damage per stack of Might: the number crunching below suggests that 20 power and 15 condition damage per stack should be enough. The diminishing returns in Healing power makes Celestial gear to cure more Hit Points for each Healing Power points than Minstrel gear. Using linear scaling for Healing instead of diminishing returns would reduce the healing effectiveness of Celestial gear by an average of 30%. Let me prove my claims above with a data-driven approach. WARNING: Heavy Maths and number crunching incoming! Celestial armour and weapons were released in vanilla. At that stage, there was no concentration, no expertise, and no ascended gear. When concentration and expertise were added, Celestial gear got them both. But ANet decided to keep the stats for celestial as they were. In consequence, celestial gear got from 7 stats to 9 stats, which means an increase of 29% on all stats points granted by gear. Then ascended gear was added to the game. Each piece grants 5% more stats than exotic. But of course, celestial gear with 9 stats now benefits more of this increase: the joint effect of concentration / expertise and ascended is 35% more stats, which is more than the additive effect of 34%. As you can see, the more "celestial" effects you add, the better you do because of the compounding effect. Now add ascended food to the equation. Celestial food grants 45 extra points per each of the 9 stats: that means 405 (45x x 9) extra points. Compare with (say) power food, that grants 100 in power and 70 in other stat (e.g. precision or ferocity): this means 170 extra points. In terms of extra points, celestial food gives a ridiculous 138% more points than non-celestial food. Now we add sigil effects. One-stat sigils grant a total of 250 (10 x 25) extra points of a given stat, say power. Celestial sigil gives 50 (2 x 25) extra points per stat, for a total of 450 (9 x 50) stat points. This means that celestial sigils give 80% more points than non-celestial sigils. Now let us mention power creep, and in particular how might affects power and condition damage. Let me showcase a full celestial fire elementalist in a WvW borderland. My power in fire attunement is 2,183 and my condition damage is 709. With 25 stacks of might I get +750 power and condition damage. This means 2,933 power and 1,459 condition damage i.e. an increase of 34% in power and 106% in condition damage, respectively. Now let me compare with a full berzerker fire elementalist in the same WvW borderlands. My power in fire attunement is 2,727 without Might. This means that a Celestial Fire Elementalist with 25 stacks of might has 8% more power than a Berzerker Fire Elementalist without stacks of Might. Now let me compare the condition damage of a Celestial Harbinger vs a Trailblazer Harbinger in the same WvW borderlands. My Celestial Harbinger has 1,347 condition damage without might, which becomes 2,097 with 25 stacks of might. My Trailblazer Harbinger has 1,784 condition damage without Might. This means that a Celestial Harbinger with 25 stacks of might has 56% more condition damage than a Trailblazer Harbinger without stacks of might. In other words, playing with celestial gear with full might stacks is better than a dedicated power or condi gear without might. How can we balance the Celestial gear by adjusting Might? We need to set a clear goal for balancing Might for Celestial gear and Berzerker gear. I would argue that Celestial gear should never grant more power than a Berzerker gear without Might. This means that each stack of Might should only provide 20 power, not the current 30. For condition damage, the argument is similar. I claim that I would argue that Celestial gear should never grant more condition damage than a Trailblazer gear without Might. This means that each stack of Might should only provide 15 condition damage, not the current 30. Let me touch the subject of diminishing returns and healing. My Minstrel Auramancer (Tempest Elementalist) has 1,422 Healing, which cures 151 Hit points (HP) HP with Soothing Mist, 308 HP with Regeneration and 1,529 HP with an Aura. My Celestial Auramancer has 709 Healing, which cures 115 HP with Soothing Mist, 219 HP with Regeneration and 958 HP with an Aura. This means that my Minstrel gear has 101% more Healing points than Celestial gear. However, the healing effect is not doubled: it is +31% for Soothing Mist, +41% for Regeneration and +60% for Auras. How can we fix the healing factor in Celestial Gear? I argue that we can bring Celestial gear in line by not using diminishing returns for Healing and instead use a linear scale. For this, we need to use units of Hit Points (HP) per 100 Healing Power points (HPP), that is how many Hit Points we cure for each 100 stat points we have in Healing Power. The diminishing returns means that not all points invested in Healing Power are equal: the more Healing Power you have, the less you cure for each 100 points added. In other words, the stat points are more valuable at the earlier stages of healing Power. Using this unit of measurement, it turns out that, for every Healing Power point (HPP) you have, the Celestial gear cures more Hit Points (HP) than Minstrel. This is an aberration, and the orders of magnitude are ridiculous: Celestial cures 53% more than Minstrel with Soothing Mist, 43% more with Regeneration and 25% more with Auras. To correct this, we could use my Minstrel's 1,422 HPP as base. This would lead to the following new numbers for my Celestial: 75 HP with Soothing Mist, 154 HP with Regeneration and 762 HP with an Aura. With this adjustment, both Minstrel and Celestial gears would cure the same amount of HP per HPP, as intended.

As a D/D elementalist main in PVE and WvW since the vanilla days, I am not happy at all with the changes in Churning Earth. Churning Earth in WvW is lethal in two particular ways: either when you immobilise your foes with Earthen Rush (skill 3 Earth) or when just before the end you teleport into your foes using Lightning Flash. In PVE I use Churning Earth as my highest damage spell. When coupled with Fresh Air (cast Churning Earth then during animation swap to Air to get extra ferocity) it can hit for around 20k strike damage, plus some healthy stacks of bleeding and cripple. Churning Earth is is a nice change of tempo from the normally very mobile and hyperactive D/D rotation. The cripple, bleed and channel seem to "slow down time" whilst you are building momentum for a grand, explosive finale. I have the guilty pleasure of seeing WvW foes going "oh no here comes the big one" and trying to move out of Churning Earth's radius in panic.

Escorting a Dolyak gives 5 minutes of participation if completed.

There you have your answer. Summarising all posts above me: Commanders are elitists: a minimum level of committment is required to join their squad e.g. Know your meta builds, use Discord, obey without hesitating, etc This is needed because the "meta" means optimal results: I do not like it but the meta exists because anything else is relatively suboptimal It is up to you to either accept those 2 conditions (if you can fulfill them), follow the tag without joining, or wait for an open tag that is rookie-friendly to show up. That said, I definitely understand why commanders are asking for a minimum level of expertise and dedication. By joining their squad, you tacitally agree with them. Personally I never join squads, out of respect of the tag. I know I will not be contributing what it is expected, nor I will change my build or class for the sake of the comped squad. Squads are great, simply they are not my cup of tea.