Virtuality.8351

(Reposting due to quoted post being removed) Just in case that those people you know in need of help are new to this game: tell them to change their key setting and set A/D key to strafe left/right instead of turn left/right by default. It makes the control of movement tremendously easier. Sometimes it is not really the problem of of the player but the problem of the control setting. I'd suggest people with problem completing any content really should first review their own key-bind layouts and spend some time to find out what works for them. Hope this helps! For reference this is my own setup: WSAD: move forward/backward/left/rightSpace: JumpE: Dodge1~5: Weapon SkillsZ/X/C/V/B: Professional MechanicsQ/R/F: Utility slots, left to right.Shift: HealCaps Lock: Elite`/Mouse Button 3: Change weaponCtrl: Draw/put away weaponsAlt: Turn camera (not character) 180F1 ~ F8: MountsShift + F1 ~ F5: Change build setCtrl + F1 ~ F5: Change equipment setAlphebetic keys on the right half of the keyboard: shortcut for different windows/panels, chat and etc. As a rule of thumb, I'd recommend to: For movement and combat related controls, assign the functions to keys that you can easily and precisely reach with your left hand. For example, the E, Shift and space key are the three most immediate keys for my left hand when laying my middle finger on W key, so they were assigned life-and-death functions such as Dodge, Heal and Jump (to overcome terrain features in combat). Then I assign the rest according to function priority and key immediacy. Also, single key is usually easier and faster than key combination. For non-movement/combat related hotkeys, assign those on the peripheral keys instead of the most immediate ones for your left hand, such as F1~F0 and the right side of the keyboard. Use Ctrl/Shift/Alt key combinations if available options are running out.

Edited to add: You're the post I quoted so that I could expand on your points. Especially when the entire PoF content has to be played on three different characters, in order to progress the banners achievement - which is locked behind selecting three different factions to support when in Ammoon. It is beyond silly to expect those three characters to be out of a list of only two viable options. Additionally, the story is a key point of difference for GW2. There is an expectation that players will play the story. Statements like "l2p" miss this point. The end-game content, which is specifically designed to be difficult, is raids (and fashion wars). The story should be easily achievable for casual players with any build/profession. Making the story difficult to finish means that a key selling point of the game is restricted to purchases who will "l2p". As well as raids, PvP and WvW cater to the higher end of players who have "l2p". When there is an order of magnitude difference in DPS between many casual players and the raiders, even having the story difficulty pitched at the mid-point between these two ends creates problems for most players. You don't alienate most of your players if you want to stay in business. I agree more with kharmin here actually. As for stories, I believe they should be achievable by all professions (though not necessarily easily as they have always been), but certainly not with every build (as they arguably have been regarding the difficulty, or rather lack thereof). One of the core promise that GW2 has made and been successfully keeping since launch, is to allow players to modify their builds easily, so that players can switch between different tactics to deal with what they are facing. And now with the build templates, it is so easy for players to create new builds specifically for what they have problem to tackle down, and then switch back what they feel more like running, that I hardly see any reason for the developers to take into account all possible build combinations while designing story levels. In fact some story levels actually suffer from being too easy. For example, I remember, years ago ,when I decided to create new characters of professions that I have not yet tried out and complete the core stories with them leveled straight up to 80 with Tomes and in exotic gear. Oh boy, that was a hellish experience. The combat of the entire Orr arc was so easy, even for me as someone entirely new to the class, that it became tedious. The Eye and the Mouth were both trash, and the final fight against Zhaitan was a complete joke. Imagine that, while the story keeps telling you that this is the threat that may destroy all civilization in Tyria, the final battle just feels like the opposite of that. I mean, for goodness' sake, at least give us the difficulty equal to the fight against Balthazar. Though I gotta say that when it comes to dungeons, I agree with what you say. The dungeon stages was really not designed for players still leveling up, while they were meant to be played while the players are leveling up progressing through the story. Though understandable, it was still a shame that the developers decided to completely avoid touching it anymore due to technical reasons. The difficulty of the dungeon stages really should have scaled with the member of the party with highest level instead of requiring players to max out at 80 and acquire proper gear first. Did you read the bit where I said, When there is an order of magnitude difference in DPS between many casual players and the raiders, even having the story difficulty pitched at the mid-point between these two ends creates problems for most players? People on this thread, handwaving away that people need to "git gud" or need to "l2p", are missing the point. These players are still an order of magnitude lower in DPS in open world as well. Having the open world and the story instances too hard, for many players, doesn't make logical sense, at least for keeping a player base. And I say many because the distribution for DPS is not normal, in a statistical sense. While the arithmetic mid-point between the bottom and top DPS (inside level 80 areas) I estimate to be somewhere in the range 15-18K, there are many many more players under than mid-point than there are above it. The distribution is heavily right-skewed. Looking at open-world content where I have been in a squad and running ArcDPS, almost daily for over a year, the median DPS was around 10K, and that was with people stacking. So if open-world and personal story content is aimed at even the 15K DPS player, it's going to be too difficult/disheartening for many players. And that's the problem. Back to builds. I continue to ::headdesk:: at games that implement a system where people can select any one of a number of builds, when only a couple are viable. I'm not talking about simply adding or removing more breakbar skills, I'm talking about wholesale build changes where a limited number/combination of profession specialisations and traits are basically the ones that are viable. So everyone is pushed to using the same small set of cookie-cutter builds, where a number of specialisation combinations and trait combinations are never used in viable builds. For efficiency, the game could simply include pre-built builds that have been assessed as "best in class" (or, at minimum, not be kitten builds) for the current game build and let people simply select the one they want. First of all, for the record, I am by no means an elitist player. Out of all my 10 characters, only one runs the so-regarded meta build for Fractals. All the rest of them run sub-optimal builds in terms of DPS. And I do not even do Raids. Now, I agree with your observation on the distribution of player performance, but the way you put it in your argument is the part that I do not understand. Correct me if I misunderstand you, but It seems to me that, in your mind, DPS is the one and only viable mean for players to tackle down a problem presented to them, which I'd argue that in reality is entirely not the case for the majority of non-Fractals/Raid contents. Simply refer to the video posted by AliamRationem above. Or to put it in other words, it seems to me that for you the only means to increase content difficulty is (or, as you might rather say, has been) to raise the DPS check for players even further, which is not the case either. Content difficulty can certainly be raised via mechanics and other means instead of simply the blend DPS check. And in case you missed it, people primarily complain how the jungle is so difficult to survive instead of how they feel inadequate with insufficient DPS. As for builds, though I am of course limited to my own experience, I have yet to learn any build completely not viable for any content. Even for Fractals and Dungeons if you can find a group of people who are willing to run with you in non-meta low DPS builds, chances are that you will eventually grind the boss down as long as you can survive it. The reason meta builds are as such in PvE is more often that they are more "efficient" in terms of the time needed to complete a certain content, so that less time is wasted on the grind, than that they are the only few tactics that actually work. DPS is an important metric for HoT and PoF. For players doing <10K with berserker gear, they are going to be doing so much less if they use alternative gear (e.g. soldiers) and add in more defensive traits). I have seen many players doing between 2K and 6K, including those with HoT and PoF elites. DPS is important. One thing that decreases your DPS is being downed. Another thing that decreases your DPS is being dead, and having to be revived or to WP. Blinds, etc, also reduce DPS. So I am using DPS in a possibly more generic way than others do. Why is the jungle so hard to survive? One either kills things, or moves past them. A problem with increasing the mechanics is that people like me, with higher ping, have to predict what is going to happen ahead of time because I often have to counter something before I see it on my screen. This occurs on even relatively basic open-world content, like trying to jump over Tequatl's waves. With fluctuating OCX ping, it's a bit hit-and-miss for me. In more advanced content, I get hit with things I don't even see coming. Predictive dodging is a "thing". And if people are having problems with current content, I'm not sure that increasing the difficulty level of mechanics is a good alternative. W.r.t. the video posted earlier, to which you refer and which was posted after my comment, that is ONE profession using ONE build, which has a particularly large number of counters/damage. It cannot be extrapolated to other professions. Which then comes back to my point that certain professions/builds just have more viability than others. This then shifts the problem somewhat onto build rather than player skill. And yes, off-meta builds are viable, but only when played by people who know what they are doing. Meta-builds are meta-builds for a reason. And the players who are having problems with content are unlikely to be in that category. And then we return to the implicit point that people need to "git gud" or "l2p". We know that certain builds require more skill level to play well, e.g. weaver, which again illustrates the fact that the ease of playing content depends on the profession and build. And while a number of you here are arguing "look, everyone can do it if they try", that's assuming that other people aren't trying. I don't know the content that is presenting the most difficulty. I have assumed it is problems with being attacked by multiple mobs, and that the people don't have gliding and/or mounts. Maybe they're having problems being caught up with a returning mob train that another player created. We don't know what skills they have or haven't unlocked. Gliding and mounts make bypassing mobs trivial in HoT. But not all players have those. However, I am simply guessing here, along with everyone else. I believe we need to clarify the usage of the term DPS here. The general usage of this term is to describe the potential damage overtime one may achieve with a certain build with a more or less predefined skill rotation in the lab. In your text, however, it now seems to me to be the de facto damage overtime one manages to output regardless of their build in a real combat scenario. And since people tend to run glass cannon in the open world, it may serve as a metric, or at least an indicator, to measure how well one performs. If that is the case, then I see now where you are going with this. The video was brought up to serve as an example that even a build with subpar potential (though as it turned out, also real-world) DPS can be utilized effectively against difficult opponents in the game. But since we were using the term DPS with entirely different definitions in mind, there is no point to dig into this further. So, now, here is the things that I do not get. In kharmin's comment, is is stated that: To put it in other words, that is: All professions should be able to manage all contents.It is OK if certain content is easier for some professions than others.Not all builds should be able to manage all contents (at least not necessarilywith ease), since "content can and arguably should make one change their build to have an easier time".In your comment, though, you brought up the point that, certain contents, for example, ...which is not an expansion of kharmin's point but rather the opposition to that, and also the reason why in my first comment I pointed out I agreed with kharmin more. As for latency and ping spike, while I too play from somewhere with unstable connection, I wonder if the technical issues can be at least alleviated by the developers via technical approaches instead of design consideration. As I mentioned early, current core story levels actually suffer from being too easy, and the same goes for HoT open world contents if the difficulty is to be further reduced. It just seems to me nonsensical to negatively impact everyone's experience with bad design decision to solve a technical issue. And while this might sound to you like telling people to "get gud/l2p", still, I gotta say that predictive measures is a thing regardless of connection quality. And by the way, in case anyone has not learnt it: it is easier to dodge the waves Tequatl causes by jump toward the ripple than just jumping up. Hope this helps.

Edited to add: You're the post I quoted so that I could expand on your points. Especially when the entire PoF content has to be played on three different characters, in order to progress the banners achievement - which is locked behind selecting three different factions to support when in Ammoon. It is beyond silly to expect those three characters to be out of a list of only two viable options. Additionally, the story is a key point of difference for GW2. There is an expectation that players will play the story. Statements like "l2p" miss this point. The end-game content, which is specifically designed to be difficult, is raids (and fashion wars). The story should be easily achievable for casual players with any build/profession. Making the story difficult to finish means that a key selling point of the game is restricted to purchases who will "l2p". As well as raids, PvP and WvW cater to the higher end of players who have "l2p". When there is an order of magnitude difference in DPS between many casual players and the raiders, even having the story difficulty pitched at the mid-point between these two ends creates problems for most players. You don't alienate most of your players if you want to stay in business. I agree more with kharmin here actually. As for stories, I believe they should be achievable by all professions (though not necessarily easily as they have always been), but certainly not with every build (as they arguably have been regarding the difficulty, or rather lack thereof). One of the core promise that GW2 has made and been successfully keeping since launch, is to allow players to modify their builds easily, so that players can switch between different tactics to deal with what they are facing. And now with the build templates, it is so easy for players to create new builds specifically for what they have problem to tackle down, and then switch back what they feel more like running, that I hardly see any reason for the developers to take into account all possible build combinations while designing story levels. In fact some story levels actually suffer from being too easy. For example, I remember, years ago ,when I decided to create new characters of professions that I have not yet tried out and complete the core stories with them leveled straight up to 80 with Tomes and in exotic gear. Oh boy, that was a hellish experience. The combat of the entire Orr arc was so easy, even for me as someone entirely new to the class, that it became tedious. The Eye and the Mouth were both trash, and the final fight against Zhaitan was a complete joke. Imagine that, while the story keeps telling you that this is the threat that may destroy all civilization in Tyria, the final battle just feels like the opposite of that. I mean, for goodness' sake, at least give us the difficulty equal to the fight against Balthazar. Though I gotta say that when it comes to dungeons, I agree with what you say. The dungeon stages was really not designed for players still leveling up, while they were meant to be played while the players are leveling up progressing through the story. Though understandable, it was still a shame that the developers decided to completely avoid touching it anymore due to technical reasons. The difficulty of the dungeon stages really should have scaled with the member of the party with highest level instead of requiring players to max out at 80 and acquire proper gear first. Did you read the bit where I said, When there is an order of magnitude difference in DPS between many casual players and the raiders, even having the story difficulty pitched at the mid-point between these two ends creates problems for most players? People on this thread, handwaving away that people need to "git gud" or need to "l2p", are missing the point. These players are still an order of magnitude lower in DPS in open world as well. Having the open world and the story instances too hard, for many players, doesn't make logical sense, at least for keeping a player base. And I say many because the distribution for DPS is not normal, in a statistical sense. While the arithmetic mid-point between the bottom and top DPS (inside level 80 areas) I estimate to be somewhere in the range 15-18K, there are many many more players under than mid-point than there are above it. The distribution is heavily right-skewed. Looking at open-world content where I have been in a squad and running ArcDPS, almost daily for over a year, the median DPS was around 10K, and that was with people stacking. So if open-world and personal story content is aimed at even the 15K DPS player, it's going to be too difficult/disheartening for many players. And that's the problem. Back to builds. I continue to ::headdesk:: at games that implement a system where people can select any one of a number of builds, when only a couple are viable. I'm not talking about simply adding or removing more breakbar skills, I'm talking about wholesale build changes where a limited number/combination of profession specialisations and traits are basically the ones that are viable. So everyone is pushed to using the same small set of cookie-cutter builds, where a number of specialisation combinations and trait combinations are never used in viable builds. For efficiency, the game could simply include pre-built builds that have been assessed as "best in class" (or, at minimum, not be kitten builds) for the current game build and let people simply select the one they want. First of all, for the record, I am by no means an elitist player. Out of all my 10 characters, only one runs the so-regarded meta build for Fractals. All the rest of them run sub-optimal builds in terms of DPS. And I do not even do Raids. Now, I agree with your observation on the distribution of player performance, but the way you put it in your argument is the part that I do not understand. Correct me if I misunderstand you, but It seems to me that, in your mind, DPS is the one and only viable mean for players to tackle down a problem presented to them, which I'd argue that in reality is entirely not the case for the majority of non-Fractals/Raid contents. Simply refer to the video posted by AliamRationem above. Or to put it in other words, it seems to me that for you the only means to increase content difficulty is (or, as you might rather say, has been) to raise the DPS check for players even further, which is not the case either. Content difficulty can certainly be raised via mechanics and other means instead of simply the blend DPS check. And in case you missed it, people primarily complain how the jungle is so difficult to survive instead of how they feel inadequate with insufficient DPS. As for builds, though I am of course limited to my own experience, I have yet to learn any build completely not viable for any content. Even for Fractals and Dungeons if you can find a group of people who are willing to run with you in non-meta low DPS builds, chances are that you will eventually grind the boss down as long as you can survive it. The reason meta builds are as such in PvE is more often that they are more "efficient" in terms of the time needed to complete a certain content, so that less time is wasted on the grind, than that they are the only few tactics that actually work.

Out of all four staff skill #5 of each attunement, Healing Rain and Shock Wave feel rather underperforming at the moment. Maybe rework them into the following: Healing Rain CD:30 35Call down a healing rain on the target area, granting regeneration to allies and curing conditions once every three seconds.Regen (4s): 1,560 HealConditions Removed: 1Number of Targets: 10 5Pulses: 6 3Duration: 6 secondsRadius: 480Field: WaterRange: 1,200 The number of targets is increased to match its effect with its radius. After all, having 480 radius while only able to affect 5 allies is pretty pointless. Shock Wave CD: 30 25Create a shock wave that launches your target into the air and then bleeds and immobilizes them.Launch: 0Combo Finisher: Blast Physical ProjectileRange: 1,200Radius: 240/360/480Damage: 808 (2.0) / 404 (1.0) / 202 (0.5) in PvE or 1 (0.01) in PvP/WvWBleeding (20 s /10 s /5 s): 440/220/110 DamageImmobilize (4 s / 2 s / 1 s): Unable to move.Number of Targets: 10 5 Instead of a piercing projectile, this skill now creates a point-blank area of effect of 480 radius with the effects decrease exponentially further away from the elementalist #CuzPhysics This proposal is CC0 so feel free to take it :D

Alchemy is chosen primarily for Might stacking in PvE. You have 3 passive traits that grant you access to Elixir skills in Alchemy and with HGH you get quite some Might just out of this core specialization alone. And you stack Might with your hammer auto attacks too. (By the way, the weapon is actually quite survivable with an evade skiil (#3), a blocking skill (#4) and a CC skill (#5) built-in to help you mitigate incoming damage.) And the most important benefit of all the might stacks only kicks in until you unlock Impact Savant, which grants you Barrier based on the amount of damage you deal against your foes. Together with Thunderclap and Shredder Gyro you will stack up quite some defense, particularly when fighting against multiple opponents. But to effectively achieve all these, first you still need to be properly equipped to deal at least decent damage. As for Stability, run Bulwark Gyro and Elixir U. If you still feel like not having enough, throw in Elixir B for its toolbelt skill, which also grants you Stability, or alternatively Blast Gyro for also tis toolbelt skill, which breaks you out of stun. And if CC still troubles you, run Tools as your third specialization for Reactive Lenses. And if that still does not help, maybe you need to either prioritize on bursting down enemies that can CC you, or if no avail, to block/evade inbound CC attack. The builds you see posted online are not designed for people still struggling to unlock the entire elite specialization with half decent gear. My recommendation would be to switch back to what you used to run and feel comfortable running until you unlock everything and acquire at least a full set of exotic level 80 equipment. (Also, ascended trinkets are easily available if you have not.) There is really no point for you to run Alchemy at the moment since it probably provides little to no synergy to your current build.

The floating animation in stationary is extraordinarily beautiful though... In WvW, people would precast during Burning Retreat (#4) for better positioning or simply Lightening Flash to safety to fully channel the skill. The class still performs reasonably well in open field if properly handled.

No, I do not believe they should. While considering any further increase in skill range, one must also consider the radius of the AoE skills. Meteor Shower, for one, extends the effective range of staff for at least a couple hundred units. The same goes for Healing Rain. What staff needs is to scale up the number of targets to match the feel of the scale of both its visual effect and function, radius primarily. For example, Healing Rain really should have affected 10 allies instead of 5, and the same goes for many other staff skills just as well. (Never mind Meteor Shower though since each fiery rock has its own number of targets and it already out-spike most classes in WvW and in PvE against foes with extensive hitbox.)

Edited to add: You're the post I quoted so that I could expand on your points. Especially when the entire PoF content has to be played on three different characters, in order to progress the banners achievement - which is locked behind selecting three different factions to support when in Ammoon. It is beyond silly to expect those three characters to be out of a list of only two viable options. Additionally, the story is a key point of difference for GW2. There is an expectation that players will play the story. Statements like "l2p" miss this point. The end-game content, which is specifically designed to be difficult, is raids (and fashion wars). The story should be easily achievable for casual players with any build/profession. Making the story difficult to finish means that a key selling point of the game is restricted to purchases who will "l2p". As well as raids, PvP and WvW cater to the higher end of players who have "l2p". When there is an order of magnitude difference in DPS between many casual players and the raiders, even having the story difficulty pitched at the mid-point between these two ends creates problems for most players. You don't alienate most of your players if you want to stay in business. I agree more with kharmin here actually. As for stories, I believe they should be achievable by all professions (though not necessarily easily as they have always been), but certainly not with every build (as they arguably have been regarding the difficulty, or rather lack thereof). One of the core promise that GW2 has made and been successfully keeping since launch, is to allow players to modify their builds easily, so that players can switch between different tactics to deal with what they are facing. And now with the build templates, it is so easy for players to create new builds specifically for what they have problem to tackle down, and then switch back what they feel more like running, that I hardly see any reason for the developers to take into account all possible build combinations while designing story levels. In fact some story levels actually suffer from being too easy. For example, I remember, years ago ,when I decided to create new characters of professions that I have not yet tried out and complete the core stories with them leveled straight up to 80 with Tomes and in exotic gear. Oh boy, that was a hellish experience. The combat of the entire Orr arc was so easy, even for me as someone entirely new to the class, that it became tedious. The Eye and the Mouth were both trash, and the final fight against Zhaitan was a complete joke. Imagine that, while the story keeps telling you that this is the threat that may destroy all civilization in Tyria, the final battle just feels like the opposite of that. I mean, for goodness' sake, at least give us the difficulty equal to the fight against Balthazar. Though I gotta say that when it comes to dungeons, I agree with what you say. The dungeon stages was really not designed for players still leveling up, while they were meant to be played while the players are leveling up progressing through the story. Though understandable, it was still a shame that the developers decided to completely avoid touching it anymore due to technical reasons. The difficulty of the dungeon stages really should have scaled with the member of the party with highest level instead of requiring players to max out at 80 and acquire proper gear first.

Uh, No thanks. I already got the content that I want. And I am at least for now satisfied with its current difficulty with neither the intention to take it a step further nor by doing so to negatively impact others' experience. And the supposition is clearly based on internal coherence, reference and logic instead of telepathic nonsense, so you won't have a sleepless night with your restless mind wondering a hypothetical question.

Originally a response posted under the thread "HoT = Dark Souls ? Casual Gamer perspective.". Though since I took the time to write this up, I think I might as well start another thread here and see how people feel about it. - Late for the discussion, and I do not mean to criticize, but I think the "Dark Souls" single-player-game analogue tells something. For me, the entire HoT experience was about having a group of people (be it friends, guildies or random pugs) working, exploring, fighting and surviving together in a hazardous area toward common objectives. The contents never seem to me intended to be solo-ed, and the difficulty actually promotes collaboration between players—just look at how much more often someone puts on a commander/mentor tag in Heart of Maguuma compared with in other areas, or how much more often someone request for help in map chat. And while this is all gonna sound like "it's not a bug but a feature", do hear me out. The expansion is supposed to be the anti-power-fantasy after the huge fiasco the Pact just experienced during the initial stage of their expedition into Maguuma, where you end up having to navigate yourself through debris, wreckage, and uncharted territory of dense tropical vegetation. You are supposed to feel powerless. The expansion is the GW2 version of Vietnam War, where the military might and air superiority ultimately fail, and you as a soldier on the ground alone with a broken command chain (or rather, at least in the story, the second-in-command with a shattered force) have to figure out everything yourself. That means, to communicate, to organize and to coordinate and work with whatever of the army is left—or in effect, marking yourself on the map and speaking up in party/guild/map channel a lot. And to further add to that: the VB night meta (and also the daytime meta before rework) is in my opinion one of the best community content in the game. Yes, compared with other contents, it takes massive effort to coordinate when everyone basically scatters all over the map. Heck, it might even take a guild just to do that. But there is also beauty in it. In fact, all HoT maps have the same vibe. And despite the difficulty, players make progress too. I do not mean just that you gradually learn new skills and traits along the struggle, but in a greater sense. For example, in VB, players have 5 outposts to guard, each with multiple camp sites around to be defended. Everything requires organization by the community. In AB and TD though, things are getting better and players are separated into only 4 divisions for the meta events. In DS there are only 3 lanes left (though originally planned to be 4 and later cut to 3 due to budget and schedule limitation). The effort ArenaNet put in to tell the story via all possible means to me is just a rarity in all MMORPGs, and as long as one gets through the initial stage, they can definitely appreciate it. All these being said though, I did have friends who could not stand the frustration and quit the game entirely. So in another way I can feel the pain. HoT was certainly not the best daily recreation after work, considering just how much frustration it can bring, but probably something to be emerged in for several dedicated hours, say during the weekend, to properly experience it. After all, this was the first time ever in GW2 that the open world feels dangerous, and the content was definitely not designed for players who prefer to solo everything they encounter. However, it still seems to me that to further reduce the difficulty—be it the mobs, the navigation, the hero point or the boss fight—would only destroy the vibe that the game tries to tell through every mechanic and interaction with the players as part of the storytelling. So, please, don't make HoT maps any bit less hardcore. It is supposed to be this way and should remain as it is.

As I mentioned I have very little experience with Scourge, so pardon me if this sounds ignorant, but I am skeptical of the efficacy of additional boon duration for Stability since it is single stack and can easily be ripped off. This is the part that I do not understand. Mechanically, conditions from all sources are sorted into the same pool based on each their own type. That is, the Burning effect a dedicated Burn Dragonhunter applies is stacked with the Burning effect their Heal/Support Firebrand fellows apply, and both will be cleansed together with a single cleansing skill. Furthermore, cleansing and conversion prioritize newly (re)applied condition types. Therefore, in a group vs group scenario, the more often a condition is reapplied, the more likely it is cleansed compared with other conditions. (And this is also true for Might and other boons of course.) And therefore, if you are running a condition build in a zerg fight, you'd prefer major conditions either to be short but able to be reapplied at an insane rate so that you still get ticks in-between the tiny cleansing gaps (This is, at least if I understand correctly, how Burn Guard works; the build simply does not give a damn about condition duration), or you want your condition to be uncommon and thus not as frequently reapplied and thus less likely cleansed. That is, there are overall very limited skills and traits across all classes with access to your major conditions. They probably should not be present in the conversion table either, or at least their respective boons should be just as uncommon. This is why despite all the cleansing, chilling and immobilization is at least comparably so much more effective in a group fight. Chances are just that they might get screened by multiple other reapplied condition types the moment they are inflicted on your opponents. Also notice that, the condition must last through the tick in order to deal damage. If it get cleansed without making it to the tick, no damage will be done. So even if it were an uncommon condition type, the additional fractions of second derived from a 1 s to 2 s base duration is pointless. Not to mention it is a common type. The chance for it to last for a second tick without getting cleansed is just so small and even if it does the damage will only be a fraction of a full tick. And this is also another reason why chilling and immobilization excel in the scenario. They come into effect the moment they are applied on your opponents. All in all, Burning duration enhancement for Scourge makes little sense to me. It is a condition type that is so frequently reapplied and removed that I just do not see much benefit coming out of the duration. That being said though, this is all theoretical but empirical. I'd very like to learn the overall percentage of damage done by Burning and spike potential of this condition in real fight and make more accurate assessment from there. But for now, I see no way adding 42% boon and condition duration would make Celestial Scourge perform significantly better in WvW. Agreed.

Well to be fair Power Daredevil per se is not a terrible DPS. The thing is simply that every other meta DPS build brings more than just DPS to the table. That being said though, I always say that, while other classes bring utilities and stuffs to a fight, the scout brings you the fight itself. Now, I don't know about your server, but in my experience there were times when enemy groups avoided engagement and aimed to capture objectives against minimal resistance. You know, either pug groups with number but less organized and/or build synergy with a losing streak, or guilds groups that are individually outnumbered by you, but collectively outnumber you so much that they can hit multiple objectives across differently maps at the same time and wreck your home BL simply because your group cannot be in different places at the same time. And this is where the thief class shine. You track enemy movements before they reach any objectives, put supply traps along their path to reduce their siege capability, and disable stuffs like God so that your groups can deal with enemy groups in SMC first before rotating to save your home BL tier 3 Hills. Without you, your group might only get one fight and could not make it to the other. That along justifies a spot in the squad and participation share designation. The only downside though is that you get only one fight yourself, instead of two like the group you serve, which is one of the reasons why I eventually quit playing Thief in WvW entirely and went for other classes. Still, I enjoyed what I did.

I have never played Celestial Scourge in WvW, but I wonder if the duration for boon and condition really matters that much. After all, they are stripped and reapplied so freqently that the enhancement just does not seem to me impactful.Of course there are exceptions where boon duration matters. For example, if you are pumping out Stability for your group, you'd better get some boon duration gears, since Stability is comparably much less frequently refreshed and thus easily screened from stripping/corruption by other boons that refresh much more often. In such a case boon duration can really come into play. But for Scourge I just do not see anything comparable.

As a fellow who also used to main thief in WvW, I find the best utility the class provides is its ability to deploy Trap and Trick consumables. I cannot recall just how many siege engines and shield generators I have disabled under stealth with Quickness, buying enough time for our map-hop task force to rotate or even forcing an entire zerg to abandon siege. Or just how many times I ran ahead in stealth and planted Supply Removal Traps in front of the whole zerg. Or how many times an enemy zerg in perfect stealth got revealed prematurely by the Stealth Disruptor Trap I layed down. Those were good old times. At least until the introduction of Warclaw and replacement of Stealth Disruptor Trap for Target Painter Trap. I like the new target painter toys though. They make it much more easier to relay information of enemy movement while scouting. And you still disable stuffs like a boss as long as enemy shield gens do not cover each other.

I like it. On top of your proposal I'd like to add in another function for the guardian to periodically gain Might while having Aegis on them, in order to retain its current function for people who enjoy it. As for the changes in Virtue skills, I really doubt ArenaNet would allow us such luxury to enjoy their active effects while retaining the passive ones at the same time. Maybe bind the charge effect with their associated traits as a balance factor? I mean, we do have one grandmaster tier major traits for each virtues. Also, if ArenaNet is going to rework the Virtue spec, please also look into the hammer trait and skills!

Late for the discussion, and I do not mean to criticize, but I think the single-player-game analogue you choose tells something. For me, the entire HoT experience was about having a group of people (be it friends, guildies or random pugs) working, exploring, fighting and surviving together in a hazardous area toward common objectives. The contents never seem to me intended to be solo-ed, and the difficulty actually promotes collaboration between players—just look at how much more often someone puts on a commander/mentor tag in HoT maps compared with in other ones. The expansion is supposed to be the anti-power-fantasy after the huge fiasco the Pact just experienced during the initial stage of their expedition into Maguuma, where you have to navigate yourself through debris, wreckage, and uncharted territory of dense tropical vegetation. It is the GW2 version of Vietnam War, where the military might and air superiority ultimately failed and you as a soldier on the ground with a broken command chain (or rather, at least in the story, the second-in-command with a shattered force) have to figure out everything yourself. That means, to communicate, to organize and to coordinate and work with whatever of the army is left—or in effect, marking yourself on the map and speaking up in party/guild/map channel a lot. That being said though, I did have friends who could not stand the experience and quit the game entirely. So in another way I can feel ya. The content was definitely designed for players who prefer to solo everything they encounter. However, it still seems to me that to further reduce the difficulty—be it the mobs, the navigation, the hero point and boss fight—would only destroy the vibe that the game tries to tell through the mechanics and interaction with the players as part of the storytelling. And to further add to that: the VB night meta is in my opinion one of the best community content in the game. Yes, compared with other contents, it takes massive effort to coordinate everyone scattered all over the map. Heck, it might even take a whole guild just to do that. But there is also beauty in it. In fact, all HoT maps have the same vibe. And despite the difficulty, players make progress too. In VB players have 5 outposts to guard, each with multiple camp sites around. That's all pretty disorganized. In AB and TD though, things are getting better and players are separated into only 4 divisions for the meta events. In DS it's only 3 lanes (though originally planned to be 4 and later reduced to 3 due to budget and schedule limitation). The effort ArenaNet put in to tell the story via all possible means to me is just impressive.

Most builds would lack the necessary DPS or damage spike to kill an opponent with Celestial, so it will hardly be OP in that sense. At best the combination will shine in attrition combat. However, attrition takes time, and in WvW when combat lasts for too long, chances are that someone would swoops in on the warclaw to gank you, or your allies swoop in to gank your opponents. And even if you find yourself in a fair fight that is not intervened, be it equal number or you tanking multiple opponents yourself, chances are that your opponents will disengage and reset the moment they find that they cannot win in the attrition against you. That is what I mean by the term "broken". Any build that is geared in Celestial will not likely be overpowered in the sense of its burst potential, and will likely expose itself to the broken aspect of the game mode. That is why I do not consider it of much concern. If I remember correctly, I said something equivalent to that Celestial is nearly not used anywhere, instead of that it will not be used anywhere. For me, personally, I plan to use it in open world PvE contents with my Tempest.

Not in PvE since people will eventually go for meta setups for organized contents. As for open world contents, balance is not really of concern. And I'd argue that it would not be OP in WvW group combat either due to the prevalence of stripping, cleansing and conversion. The only two scenarios which might be of concern is WvW small scale roaming, which is already long broken and really not the emphasis of the game mode, and structured PvP, which possess an additional array of attribute combinations (more than 10) for Celestial to compete against. And for reference, not a single existing PvP build on metabattle.com utilizes Celestial.

Out of nearly 40 PvE attribute combinations we have, only a handful is commonly used along players and less utilized in niche builds. The rest are just there collecting dusts, and Celestial has certainly been one of the neglected majority. Maybe by adding these two new attributes, we can see the rehabilitation of its usage, as back in 2012-2014? Anet please!

and how will you remove the boonball exactly? nerfing damage is easy. but what about protec? will it give 16% damage reduction instead of 33% ? Reduce its spamability.Same with condis. Both of them can be applied too quickly and too easily. They need cooldowns so people have to think rather than spam abilities. ...which I believe will not address the "boon ball" problem the OP is concerned with, since Dwarf/Dragon Herald will easily make up for the loss of Stability. Personally though, I'd be glad to see in every sub group there's a Herald, or at least demand for one.

This is not a problem derived solely from the significance (or instead you might say dominance) of the Firebrand class in WvW. In every single serious WvW guild that I know, there are designated builds that the members of the guild are required to comply with or to at least adapt from. Now, I do not know about your server, but in mine, there are plenty of chances to join an open squad for individual players who prefer neither to join a dedicated WvW guild nor to run a build designated by someone else. I myself for one have been doing so for years, and while my build has never been meta by any means, I contribute to the group in my own way and get recognized for that. And I believe new players who are not (yet) affiliated with any dedicated group can as well achieve the same thing with ease, provided that they have put into some effort to study it and know what they are doing with their own builds. Or alternatively, if they are too lazy to do so, they can of course join an existing guild and go along with the designated builds that someone else designed for them.

Ah I totally forgot to put on the ICD number. I'd imagine it to be the same as before, which is 20 s in PvE, and 30 s in PvP. Thank for pointing that out! I'll update the post now.

Ah yes that was my original idea. After digging into the whole thing further though I changed my mind and proposed something different. Thanks for pointing out the inconsistency! (And sorry for the trouble if what I proposed here gets implemented :( )

THOU SHALL NOT SINK!Just bumping the thread up again for the banner bearer idea. Anet please!