Faaris.8013

Well, we've seen examples here of using different builds to prebuff before zerg fights. And I'm pretty sure the serious guilds will soon figure out the new meta that includes more than one build in the setup. It sure makes for more diverse and interesting game play. It will become important if your Revenant in the team can quickly switch from Herald to Alacrity Renegade or not. And it will make your zerg better than the enemy zerg if they don't follow that meta. There will be rotations on the known websites for zerg builds that include proper build/gear switching. There will soon be no doubt about the competitive advantage of using several template slots, I'm not worried about it being a secret. That's fine actually. The issue here is only that additional slots cost money. The zerg with more slots = possibilities to quickly switch around to create meta teams has a competitive advantage. There are only 2 base, free equipment slots. That's not enough to stay competitive with someone who has 6. You are barking at the wrong tree, I almost never post here or elsewhere, pro or contra Anet. I found this important enough to log in and make my thoughts public, and invite to a discussion. It is indeed possible that I'm wrong, hense the title. From what I read here so far, I'm more and more convinced that these templates have been implemented without WvW in mind.

Is this a joke? Have you ever been attacked with this in PvP or WvW?

Can you name a single item on the gem store that gives you a competitive advantage over other players other than the template slots? I'm fine with an infinite number of slots, as long as everybody who participates is treated equally. Anet even made the game so you don't have a competitive advantage using legendary weapons. Not everybody can spend 2500 gold on a legendary weapon, but you get the same stats with cheap or even free ascended ones. And not everybody can spend a few thousand gold to max out the templatre slots either. Also, imagine everybody just traded gold for gems. It wouldn't work, someone needs to buy the gems at some point. Anet is profitting from providing a competitive advantage to players who are able and willing to pay.

If the argument here is that you can always trade gems for gold, then I disagree with the conclusion. If that argument were valid, there could be no P2W anywhere in the game. They could make boosters for WvW that are solely sold in the gem store and your argument would make that OK.

Thanks, you have more fantasy than I have so far. I'm pretty sure when more people get used to templates they will figure out even more ways to get the maximum benefit out of them and an advantage over other fighters. I would even insta-swap from Bound to Unhindered Combatant depending on the fight.

I'm sorry, but did you actually use the build templates or is this assessment just theoretical? You can switch build, skills and gear with a keyboard shortcut. Either before engaging or, if you died and realize, let's say, you need more health for the group at your home camp, you can quickly change everything with a single click on your way back to the fight. You will never be able to do that without build templates in time. Even if you have like 7 armor sets in your inventory and are a fast clicker, there will be no fight anymore when you are done. If it was equal, nobody would ever have invented build templates...

I never bothered with the ArcDPS build templates, so they are new to me in practice. I like the idea and already have some different builds I would like to use in WvW. I would switch depending on the situation and the enemy's class and even rough build. I play mainly thief, and like with other classes, there are different builds that work better in fights against specific classes. My all purpose build used to be staff/PP Daredevil full berserker. There is almost no necro that can beat this, so this would be my preferred setup when I approach a camp and I'm about to fight a sitting duck necro. Now, if I see a Guardian taking that camp, my build is much less useful with all those defensive capabilities Guardian has. If we are similarily skilled players, I'll certainly lose. The idea is to quickly switch to a more proper build before engaging. That makes two build template slots occupied already, I guess you already see where I'm going here. Fighting a Ranger also requires another setup, same with a couple of other classes. Not to mention players want at least a roaming and a zerg build, right? The best duelling build is also not the best build to quickly cap camps. What about Revenants and Guardians, even more templates needed to stay competitive. The point is that you have to expect other people buying all template slots possible and always be ready to have the best counter-build at hand to fight you. If you do not buy more slots, you are restricted to having the same power for only 2 other classes you fight, besides your all-purpose build. In a competitive setting like WvW, it will soon be a significant disadvantage to not have the maximum number of slots. The game was always promoted under the premise that gem store items do not provide a competitive advantages but are mere cosmetics. In the case of build templates, at least in WvW, I don't see how the build templates are merely cosmetics. The more you have, the greater the competitive advantage.

Pretty sure Mike O'Brien stated it was his decision to leave. That is corporate talk when a leader gets sacked. They never officially do, they always "look for new exciting opportunities" or get some other role without executive power but decent payment, until they leave.

Sorry you got sacked Mike, I wish you success in your future endevours.

I wonder if it's the daily reset that breaks the reward track. The reward track appears under the "Complete" section on the WvW tab for me, but I never received the final chest. I haven't monitored the progress bar, but since it started fresh today and the track shows up in "Complete", it's possible that it finished but gave no Grand Icebrood Saga Cache. I didn't finish it with potions either. I should have gained enough reward track xp yesterday to do the whole reward track. Anyway, I switched to some other track now, it's no fun to waste xp with no good rewards. I noticed because I was missing the Mystic Clovers in my mat storage, which I do monitor.

I use staff #3 sometimes right after dismount, when the initial idea was to burst with pistols #3 but I had the wrong weapon set actrive. Otherwise it feels like a waste compared to Vault. Oh, and I guess I use something similar to staff #3 often when I use steal. It's a bug that makes the same movement but while stealing.

As Illconceived correctly stated, we know only about the players we meet ingame. Your statement is not a fact. I'll drop this issue, I'm not planning to switch server and haven't done it before. I still believe punishing all players who switch servers for any reason is overkill.

Yes, that is the case,How are 12 German euros different from 12 French ones? It's literally the same currency. 12 Euros have a completely different value for someone living in Hungary than for someone living in Munich.In fact, they don't have a different "value." They might be easier or harder to come by, but the value is the same. By definition.In case nobody ever gave you feedback on this: you take things too literally. Either you really do, or you troll me and act like you don't understand the difference between the value of 12 Euros for someone who lives in a rich country and someone who lives in a poor country (on average of course). Or the value of 12 Euros in 2002 and its value in 2019. What you are talking about is the nominal value of 12 Euros, which has nothing to do with what we were talking about. If I said "I'm so hungry I could eat a bear right now." you would probably try to educate me on how one person cannot eat a bear within a short period of time, and google for data on eating contests to prove that it would literally be impossible for me to eat a complete bear and that therefore, my statement was completely wrong or a lie or bragging. And nobody would be able to argue against the fact that it is indeed impossible to eat a bear right now. But you would have completely missed the point anyway.

I sometimes buy hero points in WvW for new characters. Much better way compared to HoT champs if you want to simply play the character. And yes, tickets are for ascended and legendary armor, and many people do have the mats to do this. I got the last ascended piece of heavy armor for my alacrity renegade yesterday, diviner's stats or whatever you wish. When I have enough tickets, I'll turn the set into legendary. It's the only way to aquire legendary armor available to the public, and you don't have to deal with the raid community's toxicity.

Yes, that is the case, and that is what Cyninja was implying. That I must live outside the 1st world to think that 12 Euro is "money" because for him, it's "basically nothing". 12 Euros have a completely different value for someone living in Hungary than for someone living in Munich. I stated to Cyninja that since I'm German, my sense of value of 12 Euros fits into the 1st world accordingly. I'll be paying 12 Euro for a single Mass at the Oktoberfest this year. Yet, I would not server hop for 12 Euros regularly. Thing is that "good" is a most subjective feeling people have about something and has nothing to do with rationality or objectively good game design. And I do believe the community is the people you and I meet in the game. Who else should it be? It's always the same players you meet on your WvW server. The same goes for other game modes like Fractals. I've regularly joined LFG groups and met people I've played with before. This is not a game with millions of players. It's always been a mix of things. I'm sure there have been some people willing to pay €480 to move a GvG guild and others who could throw away €1200-2400 to move a larger guild. Historically, though, guilds moved becauseThey follow their GL, whatever he or she wants to do. People (mostly) pay their own way.They agree to transfer, and the guild shares resources to help everyone transfer.The "War Council" of a world buys their loyalty. This is paid for from a shared treasury from many, many guilds. In most cases, it's simply not necessary to buy gems with RL monies, because there's enough gold to go around to do so with in-game currency. 1800 gems is "only" 600 gold, which is little enough for some guild members to make it possible to see to it that everyone can move. Do you have statistical evidence that indicates that these are "most cases" or is that the impression you got from talking with players you met in the game?

You must have missed when I stated that I'm German in my earlier post. Most players I have met are greedy when it comes to spending real money on this game, no matter how much they earn monthly. My guess with WvW guilds is that a whale is paying them off to switch servers. The whales most likely not only pay the switching fee but add some hand money.

It costs money to switch servers, I really don't think many would switch weekly, and these players play for kills and not for pips anyway. Not enough people to make an abuse out of it or have an impact. In this case, the individual benefit of getting pips outweigh the risk of bandwagoneers.

Wow, that's an incredibly stupid rule as far as I can see it. Perhaps they could have added the reason for this. The tier of your server has little to do with your participation for pips.

I've actually been treated like this in real life before. When I was young and travelled per bus through European countries, in the Netherlands and in Italy, we have been insulted as Nkittens and our bus had been thrown at with whatever they had at hand. It's not a knee-jerk reaction, it's a habit. The same happened to my grandfather when he was in Athens when he was young.

Who said thief is bad in SPvP? It's bad in all other game modes.

I guess it's a "quick fix" because sorting this thing out properly takes much more effort. The root cause might be the incredible power creep. The fractal team is not in charge of tweaking the power of classes, so they try to adjust the fractals instead. They thought adding stupid new instabilities and stacking them would help fighting the power creep, but it turns out that doesn't work. It only made some players step away from fractals. The meta groups simply ignore the instabs and most of the mechanics. I was one of those who stepped away from Fractals when they made the big changes to instabs. I played a few fractals recently and was surprised how easy and fast they were done, despite all the instabs. Meta groups have so many perma-boons and dps now, they usually just stand on the same spot, ignoring mechanics and instabs. I quickly realized that my way of doing fractals was outdated. I remember failing at Mai Trin in the past, or not having enough dps to take down Subject 6 before the golden oozes pop up. That's all history now, thanks to the power creep and the fact that mostly meta people keep doing fractals more for rewards than for fun. I see that the fractal team has no influence on the power creep, and it's hard to adjust your content that way. The instabs were a bad idea though, they annoyed players like me who simply stopped doing fractals (which was my favourite content before) and made other players using all means to shorten the time for completion. And now, seeing that their instabs didn't make the content harder, they try to add other measures, like time gates. Still better than adding a non-skippable cut-scene before the end "boss". In a perfect world, they would make the actual fractals harder, or more demanding, or enforcing mechanics. Or simply make the boss fight of Aquatic Ruins feel like a boss fight. The same goes for other boss fights that feel like doing the Fire Elemental or the Great Jungle Wurm world bosses. I get the feeling that the raid team is in a similar uneasy position, the new raid seems to be too easy (haven't tried it myself, that was the feedback of players I know). More internal communication between teams within Anet might help.

I think that sounds much better in theorie than in reality. My guts tell me that underwater content would be ignored by players very quickly, no matter how shiny.

You've probably not played thief for an extended period of time. It's said thief is easy to play and I believed it all the time I played thief. Only when I took some time playing the other classes I realized how much work and attention you have to put into playing a thief to get anything done. I started to understand how people can play well with only using the keyboard for skills. If you play thief and your fingers leave the movement keys for more than 1/10s , you are toast. It's likely that your dps is not sufficient to take down your enemy anyway, even if you run around full berserker with 12k health. medium skill ceiling and low reward fits better.

Thanks, I never read the descriptions. Exchanged them now and put the clusters up for sale.

I think they could easily change the essences now so they can be sold. I have 57 essences I don't need and will probably delete them.