[Crafting Booster]

its entirely unnecessary given cooking isn't that hard or expensive to level to 400. And going to 500 takes around 50g if you had ongoing foresight to simply stock pile daily crafts and random materials. If you even thought you might have to do crafting, you should already be doing this on the regular. Without that, it gets more expensive..... but ultimately pointless if you weren't already been in crafting hell for other reasons.

Alt farms are something of a paradox. If you do it for money/gold, then theres no point in putting that much effort beyond simple login/daily loops. If you actually play them, then you should already be doing the things that make the process fairly trivial, as a byproduct of efficiency. The more you try to scale up, the more time it consumes, and doesn't take much to turn into your entire play session. At that point, what are you gaining gold for? If its for the sake of getting gold, or funding someone else, buying gems (with job or investment money) and converting to gold is a way more efficient per hour of effort.

I know some will tell me I'm wrong, or its "preference" or subjective, etc...... but the logic that supports it is almost always an infinite loop. The justification for a Crafting level booster, as is typical of many "bypass" fee, is a direct byproduct of the activity its attached to being a substantial and arbitrary waste of time. If it wasn't, the effort barrier to pay out would be low enough that people would simply be motivated to do it.

[Whats Preventing You From Quitting The Game]

I find the biggest issue is the whole market eroding around me. GW2 is suffering that same decay, but its still holding on to the laurels of game's overall structure and combat system. The growth isn't really happening, but the casual aspect the keep doubling down on is effectively making a game version of Netflix. ..... in short, its no longer Engaging, but has a reached state of passive zen that lets it eat up time and attention without much to think about. Occasionally something happens that generates a reaction on its novelty, but inevitably falls back into our same tired, familiar, comforting routines. Its entertainment junk food.

And the only reason this game has a hard time being replaced, despite the animosity the players have against the devs over the years, is that this state of being is so stupidly normal, the various choice of games out there is like picking what theme and color you want for your smart phone. Innovation is reduced to a novelty, and everything want to be whatever is the dominant trend. Every time something truly interesting happens, every other game goes all-in trying to get piece of the money, and saturating the market to the point where we're sick of it, and right back where we started.

WoW dominated the market for a long time on sheer the force of an older iteration of social networking, before "social networking" was a thing. Once that player base stagnated into boredom and mindless decay, social groups started to break down, and now the game struggles to stem the slow but steady bleed out. Other games offer nothing but a new coat of paint, yet all the same problems.

The dystopia is real.... searching for meaning and value in a sea of overly commercialized, aggressively monetized, and all too easily forgotten titles; wearing the husks of nostalgia (for some, from a time they themselves have never lived), living a tortured, superficial existence. For every gem that is found among the ashes of our landscape.... for every ray of hope that gleams through soft grey of the foggy air..... born is the memory of what could be, before it too is consumed by whole. Always the same, yet forever different. The youth of this time have much still to discover, and far more to lose.

But for me....... I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Blood Eagles warships on edge of the wilderzone frontiers. Warp beams glittering in the dark near the Gates of Auraxis. All those moments will be lost in time. But there are no more tears left to be shed. All I have left.... is the memory.

[Still no mention of zojja?]

@Ayakaru.6583 said:

@"Metasynaptic.1093" said:This is what happens when you can't attract your voice actors back.

Which is something i don't care about.Get a different voice actor, then. Happens all the time.

And in this case it can even be explained, trauma can change a person's voice

That doesn't explain Rox. Like its reverse Trauma since shes really getting into the olmakhan life. "I woke up one day and now I sound like someone doing an impression of me".

People don't appreciate how hard it is to back fill actors in an existing role, without it coming off as a total asspull. Its discriminatory as hell, but there is clear merit to a Disney Park hiring practice, where you have to look like the LAST GIRL that played that character you're auditioning for. So you can imagine its hard enough to find someone that remotely resembles a character.... but you also have to be fairly close in appearance to the person you're replacing, so the kids don't immediately realize whats happening. And kids are pretty sharp when it comes to things like this.

Voice acting has a similar problem, but made a thousand times worse by the fact that the pool of talent is small to begin with..... and much of that talent has very distinct signatures that are not easy to replicate. Even up and comers have this line where they are mostly indistinct early in their careers, and eventually does or develop something that all their past and future works are compared to. A hand full are talented enough to reach Chameleon status (the equivalent of what Gary Oldman does in movies), but its insanely rare.

This is much bigger problem then people realize. Both Rox and Glint's voice changes were immediately noticeable, and made worse by the fact that the current actors sound strained trying to be "close enough", while still trying to retain a natural sound. The writers have an easy out with Zojja, since "Golem Vessels" have basically been a thing since the game's launch, and the distortion can mask some of discrepancy. .... But its still hampered heavily by the fact that Felicia Day's voice has a very distinct pitch that bleeds through distortion, the same way Debbi's voice does with Taimi. They'd have to do something convoluted, like time shifted reverb or non-natural speech flow, to cover it up. Option B is a Text to speech approach with a completely different voice actor, but you lose Day's A-class arrogant snark.

Frankly its often better to phase out characters then to replace the actors within a given continuity. And given the general audience's current obsession with Consistency, once the find something they like (or at least don't hate), trying to continue characters by swapping in new actors would have to have vastly superior results to have a real chance of acceptance. In long form stories, like the ones this game is now leaning on, casting is as important as good writing. And given Anet's history of inconsistently fulfilling both in their post launch story arcs, that crap shoot in overall quality has repeatedly been point of contention every release cycle. The Heightened frustration comes from the fact that we know they're capable of real gems in their story telling; but they're painfully scattered among plot holes, pacing issues, editing mistakes, misfires in viewer direction, and the general disconnect between Player and Commander. Case in point.... many people during the Balth fight in the POF finale, didn't realize Kralk was there for most of the battle. On the other hand, Joko's "save the world from you" speech was absolutely pitch perfect by having all the advantages of cut scene; and represents something we all wish would be the trending norm, rather then a one off out of left field.

Doing something just for the sake of filling in, and not giving the attention and care needed to make it good, is arguably worse then letting it sit in limbo for eternity. Modern day audiences, gamers and movie goers alike, have a very delicate relationship with Expectations. And the similarities between the 2 groups reveals mountains of examples that garner both positive and negative responses. Trying to understand what drives these is what creates that conflict between the media's value as art, and the value as product. Taking that for granted, and assuming something better then nothing, is whats lead to many of the decisions that shaped pop culture into the volatile power keg it is today.

[Uncertain horizontal progression(Professions)]

@Lily.1935 said:

@Anchoku.8142 said:

@Lily.1935 said:Most of what you're talking about is content and balance which is very off topic. Please keep it on track. This is specifically about the professions and their horizontal progression.

I apologize for going off topic. Your questions are good for casual speculation but Necro and most other professions I can think of do not need another Elite. There are no giant holes in profession capabilities, anymore, that need a specialization to fill a role so I look elsewhere for "horizontal progression."

"Where do Elite specs stand," you ask? They are done. Your suggestions can all be implemented without the scale of the last two expansion pack releases in core skills, racial skills, and so on. I thought, from your post, you were getting a sense of that.

There

is

no more worthwhile horizontal profession progression. That was my point. Sure, you can make a Thief play like a Necromancer or a Guardian play like a Thief but that is not a progression of any sort in my book, anymore. It

was

horizontal progression the first time but not now. If you want progression, look elsewhere. Elite specializations will happen, probably, but they will not feel like "progress" in the game. I realized that speculating on them is a waste of time and the next "Elite" will really be a grind that leaves me bored at the end when the novelty wears off... and we will get the opportunity to do it 9 times, maybe.

I would rather Arenanet fix Death Magic and other deficiencies in core professions than invent some new specializations that cause a new rash of imbalance issues. Two elite specializations is enough for me. Working on more means Arenanet is

not

doing something to make the game better That is my perspective on character progression: Fix the stuff that is bad/broken/outdated about the professions as they are and spend the bulk of the time available on game-changing updates.

You mention necromancer as being covered but I can tell you for sure that is far from the truth. I'll focus on thos since it's my main in GW1, GW2, D&D and Diablo III. To suggest that the necromancer comes anywhere close to covering all of its themes properly is grossly wrong. I can't play a zerg down minion master, I can't play a minion bomber, I don't have the sacrificial blood mage that uses it's own health as a resource, or the aggressive support that the necromancer was known for in gw1. We have a strange Dervish like spec and a disk priest that has more similarities to gw1 ritualist protective spirits build than anything close necromancer's even normal potential identity.

Minions in gw2 are utility in every sense of the word and if the minions were removed and replaced with their command skills only, most would hardly notice or care.

Not even close to everything is covered. 3 elite specs is a solid number to end on but some professions can go as high as 5 or 6, necromancer easily being one of them. Especially when we compare these classes to classes of other RPG games that function similarly.

Themes is NOT the issue though..... Especs exist to fill a lot of functional gaps in the Core classes (which was by design), so they can manipulate the buildcraft meta to help them fit into various game modes. With the exception of thief, each class has 7-9 build concepts that should be viable across the overall game meta. Core supporting at least 2, and each Espec supporting 3. Thief is the exception, because its support options are very obtuse in nature.... primarily being stealth and debuff, rather then direct group DPS buffs. In fact, Deadeye Marks used to BE a secondary vulnerability debuff; and then quickly canned since it was a major DPS increase in Raid scenarios.

But the point here is that each Espec should internally support 3 distinct roles, and the interplay with core enable hybridzation to fit more specific needs. The big reason this has been failing is due to how the game's stat system and Trait bonuses overtly rewards overstacking damage; often in an arms race to counter act a Percentile based offensive/defense scheme.

Conceptually Core Necro does 3 things that gives it major similarities to Warlock archetypes.... Debuffing, Crowd Control, and defense nullification. This is on top of the Minion master builds, sacrificial power, vampiric boon, and "death mitigation" (which lowers lethality for allies) features found in its kit- all of which are classic Necro/DeathMage type abilities. From a mechanical perspective, Reaper is Melee Brawler that used to have very strong condi builds in addition to its surviving power builds. Scourge is mechanically designed as a Area Control/Area Denial, which makes it a powerful vehicle to turn any other ability into an AOE ability if the Devs wanted to. Scourge is also a thematic and mechanical vehicle for Awakening (even if temporary) as a game mechanic, making that a huge game changer in PvP.

But the reality is Core Necro support builds are almost non-existent, since they've been built to overly selfish, their debuff AND buff abilities lack potency, Crowd Control (like most of core) is extremely limited, and despite the potential for huge amounts of interplay with Downed state, its barely explored. This lack of viability in Core is whats been limiting every Espec in every other class as well. Guardian, Ele, and Mesmer all have a long history of strong presence in every meta.... and that is almost entirely attributed to their Core design having exceptionally good interplay between traits, skills, and profession mechanics. Shatters are a major vehicle for Mesmer effects; and the recent crippling of Chrono to make shatter use harder to set up, had a major ripple effect in how the builds could actually be used. Guardian skills always double as support, and even the more selfish DragonHunter can still provide group support with its core skills. Ele does just about anything you need it to; and so could Engineer if the Dev's hadn't struggled for so long with its skill bar layout. Both of those class's designs make the perfect vehicle for any straight forward job you can imagine. Area damage, area fortification, area denial, debilitation, group support, shutdown, mobility, the list goes on. And ultimately the difference between them is how their skills and traits effectively work with each other. Engineer struggled for a long time with its control scheme, and many of its skills mechanical implementation (a lot of tacked on restrictions), while the Ele easily flows from skill to skill in sequences.

The potential for a LOT of things is already there...... all you have to do is shake that "1 class, 1 theme" stigma that makes a lot of the Trinity RPGs as stagnant for growth as they are. On the surface Especs might LOOK like they're just acting in lieu of a new class.... but in reality they have a flexibility that compounds the insane build/role potential that already exists with GW2's buildcraft. The so called "lack of identity" is clinging to an outdated method of thinking. People can learn multiple things, and combine those skills to produce results greater then the sum of knowledge of each individual discipline. This is greatly evidenced with what the player base has already been able to do with the kind of obtuse limitations imposed by Dev balance and Encounter design. Even more so in GW1, which was far more mechanically driven in how its skills worked.

[WvW "One man army" classes and builds for solo play?]

There general issue here is that Roaming builds for PvP and camps are tuned for mid-threshold spike damage, and general sustain. The problem here is that Tower Lords being Champs make them closer to PvE in terms of stats, which makes them hard for most roaming builds to compensate for. Burst oriented builds have a higher skill floor against lords, since you need to avoid their attacks; and despite roaming builds being made for sustain, the champs simply hit too hard (and too often) to tank for most builds.

But its not entirely hopeless. Like mentioned earlier, Condi Mirage is stupidly overpowered for small fights due to how its damage is delivered, the evasions, and the ability to sink all your stats into Dire or similar. This low cost investment into both high defense and condition damage, on top of the countless defense abilities of mirage, makes them well suited for the longer fights Tower lords tend to pose. Mirage can also afford to be a more proactive with defenses, since misdirection is a lot more powerful then people give it credit for. If you learn to Possum you can also trick players into thinking you're one of the clones, and force them figure out which one you are. On low tier servers, where even the roamers are terrible, possum combined with Stealth skills is enough to make you so threatening, weaker roamers will avoid actively avoid you.

Option B is a Marshals/Crusader Sword/Dagger Weaver. Its a pure melee build, and harder to learn due to skill navigation. But in the hands of a half decent player, they can sustain against most of the popular roaming builds. In the hands of a good player, its damn near immortal.

[New Classes/Elite Specs ideas]

Gooooollllleeeeeeeeeeemmmmmmmem Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiideeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeers!!!!

[tankes]

@RedShark.9548 said:

@steki.1478 said:

@RedShark.9548 said:

@steki.1478 said:You can tank on any meta support or generally any healer.

I dont think you can tank pve raids etc as warrior or revenant, im not rly into that, but ive never heard of them as being played as tanks.

Which is weird since they are heavy armor and get outshined by a light armor class. I think thats what the op was trying to say.

I dont get the last sentence tho.

You're forgetting that armor type has absolutely no value outside of RP and visuals.

Mesmer isn't a tank because no other class can avoid taking damage that well. It's a tank because you can do your original role (support) while tanking without losing absolutely anything. Other classes would need to change weapons and traits which will benefit only them, but mesmer doesn't need to.

Im not rly forgetting it. Its just common sense that a heavy armored unit could negate more dmg than a dude in a clothrobe. Ofc common sense is not appliable in gw2, because of magic n shizz. But the op probably used his common sense.And i also think that mesmer has still the most tools to negate dmg, even if others would change gear.

The ultimate irony here is that this "lack of common sense, cuz magic and shiz" basically exposes the illogical structure of classic "Tank and Spank" Trinity Comps.

Evasion builds ARE the Ideal archetype for a Tank, based on the flawed logic of how raids are normally designed.

Damage mitigation just reduces damage.... thus damage of enough magnitude and volume can easily overwhelm it, and has to be healed. This is the foundation the Hard trinity that everyone seems so fond of. Evasion is the penultimate defense, second only to "no hit box". It even outclasses most types of immunties, as there are a lot of "On-hit" mechanics that are still applicable, even if the strikes do no damage themselves. (Case in point, Ranger Stone Signet and Warrior defy pain still being vulnerable to Condition application).

Evasion IS "Damage avoidance", and inherently means no damage is taken, no effects are applied, and thus does not tax the healer. Its also a flat mechanical effect, so no amount of numerical fiddling of damage values can possibly overwhelm it. Its also superior to blocks, as many games have other mechanics that bypass or interplay with blocks. Evasion is so damn powerful, some of the newer bosses in various game modes are given attacks that bypass Evasion. Mesmer's Shared Distortion trait was nerfed down to only giving aegis, because it was able to bypass 1-shot mechanics in a couple of HOT raids for a whole group. Sparcus in the Boss Blitz has lava walls that bypass all known defenses, always dealing a huge amount of damage if you physically pass through it. Having seen what they did to Continuum split, I wouldn't be surprised if future raids also have specific mechanics to directly shutdown Distortion/Evasion as an option.

Ultimately the only reason Evasion is rarely useful in WoW-esque type games is how the combat, and by extension all the defense options, are governed by probability. The designers of those games manipulate that probability to do whatever they need/want it to do..... hence why RNG has become an increasingly overbearing and aggressive element of RPG-like games in the wake of MMOs. And evasion in boss fights can be controlled entirely on the Dev's side via probability and modifiers. But in action based games like GW2 and Tera, the mechanical nature of, and ability to actively control, all of our defenses make them reliable enough to counter any applicable threat or attack by way of player action.

If you look the structure of a typical Raid boss, the tank role is an extremely dumbed down version of PvP. You have an enemy that fixates on one target, only attacks once every few seconds at most, and usually has its damage potential loaded almost entirely into a single strike. It also doesn't move of its own initiative, or does a simple "follow" of the tank (it can be done- but historically PvE players are almost incapable of cooping with a mobile target). It doesn't try to avoid attacks, and only really survives by a combination of a massive HP pool and secondary mechanics to control their vulnerability profile. A GW2 world boss is effectively what a Raid boss IS without those secondary mechanics and environmental hazards. The Boss tank is also a 1v1 engagement from the player perspective, letting them focus all their attention on timing defenses and managing resources. Thief could reasonably do this job as well, except its defenses operate in a way that aren't conductive to keeping a boss stationary (see note about mobile bosses above). Being a PvP Duelist class at its core, and heavily built around damage avoidance, Memser is incredibly well suited for this type of fight situation.

But this only covers one of the reasons Chrono dominates that spot. Chrono takes this 2 steps further by having its Support skills not being in direct competition with what it uses to tank, and the support side of the build itself offers both Alacrity and Quickness in a single party slot; a Boon combination that doesn't exist in any other build to date. This gives Chrono a 3:1 Role Compression (Tank, Boon, and Area Control), where any other class could barely manage 2 at a trade off. It was arguably 4:1 at the start of HOT, since Signet of Inspiration could replicate (and maintain) a full set of boons once sparked from the party.

It takes a minimum of 3 supports to do what Chrono Tank does in 1 slot. 2 Chronos can cover all major boons for a party, except the 25 might stacking. The next closest party comp just to get Quickness and Alacrity is 2 FBs and a Renegade, which is 3 slots for the foundation of the party comp. You still need a Might Stacker and Healer build, which is usually compressed into Druid since the Sun/Frost Spirit/Spotter buffs are unique to, and brought by a Ranger anyway. Splitting the Druid would means the Boon stacker is probably off-DPS, and a high possibility of needing 2 full healing builds instead of a supplemental one for the split group.

While various party comps are POSSIBLE and viable, Druid and Twin Chrono allows you to build a party for ANY raid wing with only 3 Mandatory slots, leaves you 7 slots for DPS and/or fight specific builds, and is universally compatible with any hybrids needed to help party suvivabilty. A Party without Twin Chrono needs roughly 5 slots doing some kind of support job, and much more heavily distributed..... which means only certain build pairings are viable, on top of the fact that some of those builds aren't viable in certain fights.

The circumstance that allowed Chrono to accomplish this, just lends further evidence to how convoluted and arbitrary conventional Raid boss design actually is in its quest to "be difficult". HP Soaking is an antiquated method. Where its prevalence was once a technical necessity, its decayed into an ever escalating game of numbers that players have become increasing efficient at overcoming. I dare say that if we ever get a Raid boss that knows how to fight like a PvP player, you'll quickly see the team comp morph into GvG strategies. And I welcome that day; as we'll finally see a PvE fight that takes proper advantage of the game's combat system.

[Weave Self should benefit power builds as well]

Can we get something that not just another damage modifier? I'm so tired of seeing ideas that exist to make camping fire better then it already is.

[Anet wants to make Scrapper worse, again]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@redwing.9580 said:in wvw the nerfs to stealth gyro where needed, (both in the increased CD and the now increased reveals in the game from swapping tool belts around) though I do not agree with the condi gyro cleanses, scrapper on its own has enough cleanses but the issue comes from anti toxin that basically doubles themNeeded why? What is the roamer scrapper competing against? Nothing thats what. Every other roamer has as strong or stronger builds. What is the zerg scrapper competing against?

Kitten scourges

.

If you want a nerf to anti-toxin I dont disagree (short icd like every other rune would be fine). If we want to reintroduce the detection pulse to actually counter zerg stealth pushes I dont disagree either. Loosing the chemical field would be yet another blow to condi scrapper

but I can live with that

. The utility in detection pulse takes precedence IMO. But the nerf to the gyros themselves are not needed. Not after what Anet did to the trait line.

But Purge Gyro is NOT the vector to do it in. The problem I, and from the looks of the forums a lot others, the way they're doing it is following the same fundamentally flawed logic that lead to us into this situation in the first place. Trying to place Detection pulse on purge gyro is emblematic of the fact that they are ONLY looking at the current meta builds, and trying shuffle things around within them. Its the first thing I noticed about almost all the changes..... they're trying to nerf them as hard as possible, but just enough that people won't develop different builds in response. None of it tries to address the real underlying problem of how Offensive scales in WvW, or that overwhelming defense is the only thing that has any chance of sustaining through it. Its why Boonshare and Stab spam got started in the first place. Is also why when Firebrand cleansing was reigned in (when they increased cool down on tomes), Purge Scrapper was pull out of the attic to fill that role as counter force to Scourge. Its an old build... but its the first time in a long time that being able to cleanse 15+ conditions a second was a practical necessity.

No one I've seen has pointed out that both Scourge and Scrapper changes is metrically balance.... That is a HUGE red flag, because its assuming Antitoxin as baseline,just lowering the overall conversion rate, and doesn't address the fact most of the damage from Scourge right now is Power based. While I agree that Sand Savant is the root of Scourge's ability to indiscriminately damage everything like a lawn mower..... I'm also torn over the fact that what Sand Savant does is currently the one thing that truly makes the shade worth using.

[Potential Future Balance Changes]

@Vova.2640 said:

@Chaba.5410 said:

@Vova.2640 said:

• Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW.
  - I suggest leaving the gyro as it is and nerf Purity of Purpose trait instead. And Also take a look at antitoxin rune. Too many synergies there.

Disagree. Nerfing the number of pulses, possibly looking at the rune is the best solution. Nerfing Purity of Purpose would just remove Scrapper entirely since it would have no differentiating purpose from other classes and skills that cleanse conditions.

See the problem is, the way scrapper is right now, no other support class besides firebrand, who is being used thanks to all the stab and aegis it provide, is viable.Scrapper is killing support diversity (along with firebrands yes).I would be down if another class gave this many boons and heals like scrapper, while leaving scrapper as it is.I would also be down if another class gave this much stability and/or aegis like firebrand and firebrands left as they are.

But the problem is there isn't anything else. Only other class that has been used as support was tempest, and tempest has both mediocre healing and not nearly as many boons as scrapper + no way to give stab not aegis to allies. Makes it an inferior choice even to scrapper.

But heres the problem...... Offensive AOE in general scale faster then any of the supports. Its a fundamental fact, as old as WvW itself, you can NOT balance a scaling issue with Player count by by trying to reign in individual classes.

Scourge is at the top of the offensive meta because it directly nullifies Boon sharing. Boon Sharing was king of the previous meta, because it was the one thing that finally sustain through the AOE bombs of the Pirate ship meta. Pirate ship meta became a thing because ranged Stuns were absolutely devastating to Melee classes. Corrupts, Boons, Stuns, Stability, all represent things that scaled massively compared to sPvP (with its 5 man limit).

The skills that could survive, in spite of those, are all things that IGNORE SCALING.... which, through the irony of allowing the rest of the class to function normally, becomes a reversing force in any given meta. Spellbreaker's main function in WvW is Winds, which was strong because it wholesale interferes with Stability- and that only has value if its allowed to be delivered. The only reason that had happened with Warrior has to do with all its Immunity effects, since its the only thing lets them cut through all the AOE to place a Winds in an advantageous spot. Its other boon ripping abilities were merely opportunistic. By making Winds interruptible, by typical AOE bombs no less, the whole class rapidly fell out of the meta and those slots replaced with more group Stability and Stun Breaks. Winds can still work IF it lands, but thats total crap shoot if the SB isn't invis or manages to come up from behind.

You'll notice this same trend with other immunity skills. They go toe to toe with every meta, because they aren't subject to scaling limits, and thus always capable of keeping pace with the unlimited potential of offensive scaling. Resistance did a similar thing, but on a group wide scale, in the months leading up to POF. But its value is measured in direct reference to what it counters (ie Conditions). Stacking stability is of supreme importance in all the metas (basically everything since the Stab change) to counter the absolute decisiveness of AOE CC bombs.

Guardian is the lynch pin of WvW, precisely because of its reliable access to stability, in a large enough amount to even matter. Pulsing Stab fails universally, because its not matching the fact that 5-10 hard CC per second is common in Zerg fights. 10 Stacks is something of a soft immunity to hard CCs due to how stab consumption is capped. But with Guard's ability to push out enough stab to deal with the CC aspect of bombs, you can build an effective group comp around this foundation.

And to absolutely CLEAR here..... Guardians are "NOT the CAUSE". Like Spellbreaker, Purge Scrapper, Support Mes, and Tempest, those support builds rose to dominance because the were the only things proven to keep pace with the incoming damage/effects of 20-30 AOE skills at any given time. They are the response/symptom the damage capabilities of any given meta they are opposing. And to really drive home the point of how heavily skewed this entire fundamental problem with offensive is...... there was a point in Boonshare and Pre-pirate ship meta, where it was a viable strategy to cluster into a melee ball, in order exploit the 5 target cap of AOE damage skills as a form of distributed damage reduction. It was a calculated gamble, based on the size and comp of opposing teams, but one I've seen leveraged successfully in a number of server match ups. But as average outgoing damage increased, various defensive options lost viability.

As fights get bigger, more things become functionally inadequate. The ONLY way to fix that, is to do something that strategically mandates smaller groups, and reduce the value of "aggregate power" of focus fire. In the kind of Numerical game GW2 operates on, immunity windows are the ONLY thing that can properly fill that role. Changing the target cap, or making damage distribution a thing, can change how fast thing scale, but not really solve the focus fire problem. A case where this is proven is the Jubilee Boss Blitz; where bosses scale faster the more players attacking it. I don't how this could be applied to player groups.... and currently I'm skeptical its even possible.... but redesigning the NPC side of WvW with this in mind, does give incentive to form smaller teams, and spread over different areas of the map to maximize (the now more valuable) coverage.Fight blobs would need a different solution.... one that might only be possible through a larger number of smaller maps, justifying smaller pop caps for each. This, at least conceptually, lends effectiveness to better group comps (and GvG in general), by making it harder to vastly outnumber an enemy group without costing you precious map slots.

If you've made it this far down, its should be obvious by now that WvW balance isn't possible via direct changes to classes. They have to fundamentally change how WvW as a game mode operates in way where amassing zergs is detrimental to victory.

[Lack of stability. (I know, how original)]

@Dadnir.5038 said:Nobody enjoy being on the losing end. Yet, in a competitive gamemode, ultimately there is a need for a winner and a loser. It's not fun to be CC chained but it's a legit tactic to use to get rid of a foe and it's natural for them to be rewarded for their teamplay.

Stability is one of the weaknesses of the necromancer, we've known this for 7 years already. Is this necessary to complain about scisor beating paper?

Let me see if I got this right.....

Rogues are Scissors; Warriors are Rocks; Hunters, Paladins, Priests, Druids, Monks, Mages, and Shamans are Paper; Warlocks are mushrooms.

Paper beats Rock; Scissors beats Paper; Scissors also happen to beat Rock. Until Rock hits 60 at which point Rock becomes an unstoppable killing machine, and then also beats Paper;

and would beat Scissors; But it can't find Scissors, cause Scissors are invisible. So Scissors beat Paper, and avoid Rock, and that is called... Balance.

[What is currently your most favored Necro build for WvW?]

Power Reaper build with SPEED RUNES. Reaper's Questionable durability in a zerg aside, there is something intensely satisfying with being able to catch up/outrun enemies on foot. Short of being hit with Chill, its practically permanent super speed.

[Graphical nitpicking: Rifle projectiles (and many others) don't start at your character]

Thats because theres animation metrics that handle all that, and the majority of skins don't adhere to them. And you haven't mentioned the much more obvious Deadeye rifle shots that fire at angles from the barrel. It gets even worse in kneel, because the torso pivot is incredibly limited in that state.

And I'm totally unsure if Mesmer's Scepter 3 is supposed float out of their hands, or if its the one longest standing, and highly consistent animation error in the game.

[Maybe one day Engies would get a Dual weapon as a weapon]

@"Dawdler.8521" said:To plug the idea I've repeated many times:

The engineer should get a free weaponswap kit as additional class mechanic.

That way you can have for example rifle/flamethrower + 5 regular skills.

The difference would be that the "weaponswap kit" has standard 9s cd, while the "skill kits" work like now. Obviously cannot have sigils on it either.

In practice it free up 1 skill for all engies and allow everyone, even builds normally without a kit, to have a kit. Makes every engineer more engineery.

But only having 1 kit kills off a lot of Core Engineer's utility. Thats all they have. I'd advocate for "Tool Kit" to be Core Engie weapon swap, but leave the others as utility slots. That at least fixes at least 1 of 3 problems, short of redesigning all the kits and the tool belt functionality to make them interplay, rather then stack. Or they could even make it their F5 since they're practically getting rid of Elite tool belts as is.

[Maybe one day Engies would get a Dual weapon as a weapon]

@Matoro.9708 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:Wait... you mean like hammer for scrapper?

He means a sort of swap that the Deadeye Rifle has, but leads to literally gaining a different weapon like a kit built in.

So hes just looking for Flip skills? Half the engineer utilities are flip skills. Kits are flip skills.

[Map population cap changes?]

I don't understand why roamers don't focus on getting a Roaming specific game mode/map, rather then coopting the existing ones that never benefited it correctly to begin with. All lowering the map cap does is make the zerg smaller, and pushes even more incentive to blob with what little's left, because of siege dynamics. EotM was specially made for ignoring PPT defense, and yet fight guilds avoid it like leprosy.

Theres a much deeper problem in how structures factor in to the game mode that creates all these tertiary issues that the community incorrectly fixates on. Siege weapons, scoring, the capture process, the fact that fortifications don't hinder enemy movement, the entire logistics system thats basically roamer Whack-a-mole, and where the only advantage to splitting up teams is distraction.

The only way to accomplish what you think you "might" by reducing the pop cap, is only going to happen when the difficulty of taking/defending Structures is inversely proportional to the number of players on assault or defense. Something that is mathematically impossible with how this game handles things like damage and target caps.

Its only when taking structures is more mechanical then numerical, will teams actually have real incentive to split up for success.

[Ty for killing wvw more...]

@Mil.3562 said:I am still a little confused over ascended food. Do they give stronger buff than normal food? Like how much more?

I thought they only last longer and not stronger.

They give 2 stats, 1 effect, and 3 or 4 XP boosts..... one of which is WxP, which is the hardest bonus to get in the game.

[In Depth Suggestions on How to Bring Guardian Hammer Back to Life]

@Genesis.8572 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@Antycypator.9874 said:Hammer could be a nice and fun weapon, but it's too slow. I would remove protection symbol from hammer (or move it to 5th skill) and just make it faster on aa chain.

That'd kill what makes hammer unique, and would need additional modifications to boot. Having the symbol on autoattack makes it useful in a lot of situations.>The problem with having the symbol on AA is that it encourages a lot of AA camping instead of utilizing more dynamic skill synergies, which makes skills 2-5 of the hammer fairly underutilized and an overall boring playstyle.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Genesis.8572 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@Antycypator.9874 said:Hammer could be a nice and fun weapon, but it's too slow. I would remove protection symbol from hammer (or move it to 5th skill) and just make it faster on aa chain.

That'd kill what makes hammer unique, and would need additional modifications to boot. Having the symbol on autoattack makes it useful in a lot of situations.>The problem with having the symbol on AA is that it encourages a lot of AA camping instead of utilizing more dynamic skill synergies, which makes skills 2-5 of the hammer fairly underutilized and an overall boring playstyle.

This.

Put the symbol on Hammer 2, make it an 8s CD and last 4s, gives 2s of Protection per pulse. Make Hammer AA 3 immobilize foes struck for 1s, make it AoE. Make Hammer 3 Mighty Blow, CD increase to 8s, Reduce Recharge by 50% if it hits an immobilized foe.

Make Banish teleport to targeted foe and knockdown for 3s. Reduce cast time to 1/2s. Increase base damage by 50%.Make Ring of Warping a ground targeted skill with 1200 range. Instead of keeping foes from crossing the line, make it pulse slow and Chill. Make it pulse damage as well (on the order of what a symbol would do).

I would power balance the AA to have a single pulse symbol to benefit from traits, and make the whole use case more mobile. Hammer's main issues stem from it being a Point Brawling/Boss Tanking weapon, but nowhere does the game really allow for "tank and spank". Making the AA single pulse gets around that main problem, and then retune the other skills for a reverse lockdown fighting style. This retains aspects of its Point Defense purpose, but improves the area denial potential in WvW, and allows it to be mobile as a whole.

1: Change the cycles timing and damage loading of AA to 30/30/40, with the final hit being single pulse symbol with increased protection duration.2: Retain blast finisher, but slightly increase range3: Change it from a projectile to a 600 range Circle/Cone Cascade, 3 target. Inner Circle Immobiles, Cascade 1 cripples, Cascade 2 Blinds. This changes its purpose to a flexible setup for Banish.

4: Banish unchanged5: I"m not sure what, if anything, needs to be done with Ring of Warding.

For a while I was debating if 3 should also have a Reflect feature like Air-Blast from Flamethrower. Completely underutilized feature.

[Any way to turn off the "Fired Up!" "Charged Up! " character dialogue]

"A little to the left aaaand...."

[Condi weaver open world]

I've been dorking around Marshals/Crusader mix and Signet of Restoration. My only gripe is that you have to stay super aggressive to keep the healing going, which turns into an issue when you're running sword and the fight is AOE heavy. Damage output is nasty if you can keep the attunement rotation speed up, but the ramp up time is noticeable on tankier enemies.

[Why are the lesser organizations (like Flame Legion or Ascalonian Ghosts) aggressive to everyone?]

Dredge are Xenophobes. Grawl, Harpies, and Hylek are tribalistic and territorial. Elemental are effectively beasts. Krait are straight up jerks with a superiority complex. Centaurs are trying to win that title from the Krait. Largos are trophy hunters; and adventurers make grand prey. Ettins are Ettins. Trolls are Trolls. Skritt are kind of hit and miss, largely due to how their IQ works.

But Chickens..... pure evil. Burrowing Chickens are apex predators.

[Help understanding which Profession to pick]

In part 2,

I can make one obvious recommendation that would runs in line with you're mind set, but is probably the best way to teach you the game's support design in the most straight forward way possible......

Roll a GUADIAN. Doesn't matter what race you pick, most of their racial skills range from effectively useless to occasionally entertaining. Theres no stat bonuses or class limits tied to race, so go with whatever tickles your RP fancy.

The reasoning for Guardian is simple..... its the perfect embodiment of the game's support concept, built in-line into everything it does. All of its skills do double duty, and even its offensive skills have defensive applications. If you build for damage, you can still support allies on a mechanical level. If you build for Defensive support, you become a zone of fortification for allies in a fight. If you go Offensive support, you boost the damage output of allies around you. And unlike most classes, you can hybridize and adjust these mainly through choice of skills and traits. Its only in extreme builds that you need deep stat investment; as most situations (stat wise) allow you to run an offensive baseline with a dash of defense for safety. Active defenses are so powerful in this game, that you should never need to soak damage if you can avoid it... and guardian has access to a lot of it.

Now in earlier levels (everything under 60), the game doesn't really threaten you with incoming damage. You can afford to take hits, and often have to since most classes don't function properly until you reach level it. Gear stats have relevance, but aren't truly significant (and not worth real investment) until level 80, when the entire core line is unlocked. In the mean time, you prioritize power and precision as desirable stats so you can kill things, and can easily rely on your utility and weapon skills as your means of defenses (in addition to learning to manage dodges). Guardians have very low HP by design, but stops being an issue as you get better at managing your defense and control skills. And don't fall into the trap of relying on Defensive stats to pad your life span..... you mix some in, but over allocation in early game makes you complacent with it. Once past level 60, things hit HARD. Things hit Fast. And those Things also have friends. You only afford full defense or support builds when you have a friend(s) with you to deal the damage for you.... And all of that stuff is all post-80 content.

Oh and its need to be pointed out that all the Story missions work on the assumption that the NPCs are useless without you, and you are the main source of damage for most of those fights. Yeah.... NPCs are pretty weak on both sides, until you get to the expansions.

As for specific skills to go for.....
Weapon choices:
Offensive- Greatsword, Sword, Scepter, FocusDefensive- Shield, HammerSupport- Mace, Staff

You have 2 weapon load outs you can swap in-combat (which gets unlocked at some point in leveling), on a 10 second cool down. One set you want to have an offensive main hand weapon at all times. The offhand (if open) is flexible. The second weapon set can be whatever you feel you need as secondary. Scepter and Staff are your only ranged options. Note that if you take staff, its designed to support OTHER players. While you can use it to help heal yourself, your stuck having to kite for 10 seconds... which is a lot of time for mob groups to go to town you. Note that the Defensive and support weapons gets more effective when playing around allies, but when by yourself, the Offensive weapons are your best option. My go-to combo is GreatSword - Sword/Shield in open world and leveling, and break out the staff for group events and world bosses (where other people are guaranteed to be around).

Utilities:Healing - Shelter is the recommended skill. It heals for less overall; but learning to utilize the Blocking aspect of it to avoid damage, while healing yourself at the same time, teaches you how to maximize the effectiveness of your skills. Most players only think one action at a time..... but as you get better at leveraging skills to do multiple things at once, you'll notice your combat effectiveness skyrocket.

Slot 7-9: In the early game, Signets and Meditation are your strongest options. Smite Condition, Bane Signet and Contemplation of Purity should be the first 3 you should go for. It'll take you a while to get enough points to unlock them, but starting with Smite condition gives you a much needed condition clearing skill for the early game. if you need low hanging fruit, Sword of Justice is cheap damage supplement for 1 skill point. When you access to traits, you want Valor and Zeal, as those improve your Meditation skills and overall damage respectively. Once you level enough to have 3 trait lines active at the same time, you start playing with other combinations as you like. Just keep in mind that raw healing isn't nearly as useful as boons, since all of them have flat effects or are purely mechanical, and thus don't need any stats to scale off of. Protection and Aegis boons are defensive gold if you can predict attacks, or cast them as AOE fields start showing up.

Elite slot (10): On guardian this is more supplemental utility, and rarely has any build that demands something specific. If you have nothing in mind, Signet of Courage (if you have it unlocked) does small passive AOE healing ticks, but the Mega Heal on cast can be very satisfying as you find opportunities to use it.

That covers you to level 80. Once you get to Elite Specializations, the entire dynamics of Guardian shift like an earth quake. Firebrand is what you want to get next. It takes everything Guardian does good as support, and cranks it up to 13. Its also here you can start running more support oriented builds without running into the damage dichotomy of Core Guard and Dragonhunter. I run a Hybrid Burn/Support Celestial build, and it is an absolute monster on all fronts. Enough outgoing damage via burning to deal with solo activity, but easily sustains a whole group in the more difficult meta events in HOT and POF. I could change the stat distribution now that the newer support combos are live.... but I'm too lazy to get around to it.

[Help understanding which Profession to pick]

To further expand on everything so far, you have to realize GW2 is more action oriented (more in line with Tera and modern MOBAs) then Classic Archetype "MMORPGs".

This creates 4 major differences that Players coming out of other games have trouble getting over:

• The Builds have much smaller skill bars, which plays into....

• The game's trait/effects mechanics are very nuanced, but its vastly overshadowed by Damage floaters (which is generally why it takes a long for players to realize how the buildcraft works, or why it works)

• The game is heavily centered on reactive game play. Dodges are king, defenses have to be timed, and many effects are short lived. Raids are the only exception to this, as the entire game mode is explicitly designed and managed around DPS metrics. In other areas of the game DPS is universally useful, but doesn't have as aggressive benchmark requirements.

• 4th is the soft trinity philosophy. The game's entire working premise is dismantle the Hard trinity that most games base their entire class systems around. As a result, all classes are capable of building for Damage, Control or Support. There is no baseline Healer requirement, and each class is capable of full autonomy by default. This is driven primarily to allow Open world roaming to be done solo, and plays best at the game's "Ad-Hoc" method of cooperative grouping. (This is very different then PUGS seen in other games)

To understand everything, you have to first understand the Attitude the game's design promotes in the community. Central to all of this is how Drops work. In this game, each player rolls loot separately for EVERYTHING. Drops from kills, Meta event rewards, dungeons/raids, chests, literally everything is handled independently. This ONE fact of its design means players are almost never in direct competition for rewards (outside of a few badly designed events), and its ALWAYS beneficial to everyone, including yourself, to casually coordinate tasks with surrounding players, or the map at large. If everyone understand the drop mechanics, everyone gets a chance to tag, and everyone gets more loot. If you're greedy, you not only hurt your allies, you also directly hurt yourself. Exp works the same way; and its the only MMORPG where mob farming for Exp is entirely counter productive.

Its from this that the Independence capable of each class starts to make sense. The only place where this concept fell on its face is the Dev's using classic Mob AI behavior, which has been the root cause of why raw DPS trumps much of the game's mechanics. Dumb AI, compensated for by oceans of HP and massive, slow attacks that eat huge chunks of your health if they land. Defensive stats don't outscale enemy damage fast enough, but a dead mob does 0 DPS.....

This doesn't discourage players from using Support builds; but through a lot of trial, error and optimization, we've learned to incorporate support functions into DPS builds for higher surviability at minimal cost to damage potential. Any part of the game which operates on numerical scaling is invariably flawed by its link to DPS scaling... hence Damage's universal usefulness, and how everything seems to feed into it. But there are areas of the game, particularly PvP and WvW, where mechanical advantages are more important then damage scaling; and its in these areas that dedicated support builds can shine by overriding damage output. PvP has bunker builds which exist to contest points, while World-vs-World has an entire group infrastructure built around condition management. Raids and Fractals (which is structured group content) utilizes similar principles, but operates more like a classic trinity encounter.

A support build in an Open world context is described as moderate DPS build with group support elements baked into it. You can kill random trash mobs you encounter efficiently; but in the larger scale meta events, you increase ally's aggregate power by buffing(boons), clearing conditions and effects, shielding attacks, crowd control, breaking defiance on Champion mobs to counter them, debuffing the enemies, or acting on event related mechanics. The average open world event tends to look like chaos from the outside, but a large percentage of players are juggling tasks to prevent the event from failing, and tagging mobs as they go.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of how the this game does things differently, often better, yet struggles in areas in a way that a lot of people don't understand in modern MMO landscape.

but moving on...........

[What is most diverse class (has most playstyles)]

The most divergent? Revenant. Doesn't mean their effective, or interesting to play.... merely that they have the most mechanically diverse builds out of all the classes.

Runner up is Ele. This class is a historical treasure box of unorthodox builds. And even despite the beating its taken by the balance team, each weapon combination and Espec plays to different types of strategies. The Meta might keep pushing Staff (because damage), but Sword Weaver and Scepter Tempests are completely different animals when seen in action.

The reason Guardian comes up in everyone's list is due to Core Guard's premise being universally effective across all game modes. And unlike Necro, Thief, Warrior, Rev, and Ranger, its not purposefully crippled in some aspect to counter balance its archetype. In fact, it used to be staple in Raids.... and the only reason it got ousted is because every other class was forced (by Dev balance) to overspecialize for a best in slot role, and Guardian never really got that treatment. Funnier still, it took them trying to kill off Chrono to force more Renegade/Firebrand pairs, to bring them back into the meta.

But for purposes of the thread... I would say that Ranger is has the most "practical" play style dichotomy. And most of that comes from Druid being the only non-Core support focused spec, thats completely incompatible with hybridization after the GM trait changes.

[The problem with Cooking and Discovery]

@NigthMaremoon.7185 said:The problem with chef is that some recipes require way too much stuff to make a single dish, is so resource heavy, not even making weapons require this much stuff to do a single thing.

@"Jayden Reese.9542" said:It's bad cause the food you use to discover alot of items you can't deposit so unless it's in your inv you won't see it on the list for discovery. I got thru the cooking to 500 with a lot of help from google cause I had no clue.

Thats only a side effect. The underlying issue is the number of dead ends in the crafting process, the low desirability of mid-tier items, and inability to salvage (which sort of got solved with the Composter, but that has its own issues).

Gear components have a very straight forward production model. But cooking, by its nature, uses a lot of intermediary steps to accommodate the fact that its designed to condense a LOT of varied resources into a SINGLE output. You see this model in legendary crafting, which converts well over 3 dozen different materials across 6 item types until you get the final product. The only reason its easier to internalize is the more single threaded nature of having a Center piece item that drives the other actions you take. For Gen 2.5, you make Curios. Those Curios become shards, Shards become weapons, weapons become Precursor, and the Precursor becomes the legendary. Yet there are multiple side items you need, some of which are worthless once created.

Food doesn't really have that organizational benefit, since only 2-3 steps in the process produces something you consider valuable. The paths are also a lot more complicated, and irreversible. Hence why Wet Bakers, Poultry Stock, and Pepper mix, and its underlying components are all valuable- but every variation of food stuff OTHER then the high demand foods are worth less then half the components used to make it.

MMO Cooking's near universal flaw rests in how it mimics gear production models. You have very distinct outputs that exist to complete the "table of things" that need filling out; and that need is driven entirely by the "stat" combinations it supports.

An arguably better format for consumables can be found in LOL, where items have distinct traits or mechanics that are universal in nature, despite different builds leveraging them differently. In fact, the model for Sigils would had been much better as consumables, since those effects have much more opportunity to want changed to match an encounter, yet sigils in the gear system are too inflexible to do this. A redesign I would consider is removing direct damage modifiers from Sigils, and retool their effects to be vehicles for Consumable effects. This way Sigils mirror the way a build operates, and the consumable effects create the power gain. This greatly reduces the sheer number of permutations, and allowing them to focus on the variations that actually get used. It also has the benefit of scaling like the rest of the game, rather then existing distinct tiers where everything except the top gets readily ignored.

To compensate for this change, Gear upgrades have to have their overall stat gains reduced (and rune sets refocused on effects), move most damage modifiers to consumables, and stat gains for Utility consumables increased (with a modification). To deal with over optimization, you also need to setup utility consumables to convert between Support, Offensive and Defensive stats, but never within their own sphere. So power food has to gain off defense or support stats, and visversa. Offensive utilities will still be in highest demand, but its possible to tweak the ratios to limit the power cap in any given direction. It also gives support some much needed additions that Gear simply can't, given its stat structure.

The reasoning for all of this is pretty obvious in hindsight of RPG games in general. Permanent boosts always get investment priority due to their overall return on investment. But by shifting that power to consumables, you create an opportunity cost where they get used far more often in general play as long as the price is reasonable. Gearing can still be relatively expensive; but unlike gear, consumables SINK wealth out of the system at a steady rate when they are standard practice. GW2 got this in reverse- and as a result, we avoid using the vast majority of consumables because most don't make enough of a difference to be worth upkeeping, and the few that do are just too expensive to run outside of group content.