[Elementalist or Mesmer?]

I haven't had to level a class in years, but of the 2, I would choose mesmer. I tend to go melee (though GW2 sees me using range a lot), so my ele uses hammers, which you wouldn't get until 80, but something about mesmer with the GS is really fun.

 

If you're having a tough time deciding, maybe take both into the PvP lobby, and test out their elites to see which one you will like the most, and level that base class first. One of the best things about GW2 is being able to jump into the new story release with any max level character, so if you do decide to change classes later, you can easily swap characters if you like to have options.

[I miss playing ranged elementalist]

21 minutes ago, MarzAttakz.9608 said:

Have you played Hammer Untamed? That flows, what we got is garbage in comparison.

I have not, yet. I was looking at it last night, though. It was mostly the Cele gear, and the "GW2 enh shaman" that drew me to the spec. I do tend to follow weapons. I loved DH since its release because it could use LB/GS, I love reaper for the GS (and vindicator for the same reason, though I tend to go with condi renegade). I've only recently gotten a legendary hammer, so I've been going through the specs. I also want to try scrapper.

[Best runes for a Catalyst?]

3 hours ago, Skyroar.2974 said:

I like Rune of the Elementalist for this reason. +175 power, +225 condition damage, and a condi duration buff that equals 150 expertise, coupled with Sigil of Strength for +/- 10-15 free stacks of might overtime (up to +300-450 power/condi damage).

Celestial gear gives enough toughness, vitality, healing power and boon duration for all your needs.

Yeah, the stat set has always been interesting to me, but until catalyst, I never really played it. I like the jack-of-all-trades, elemental feel of catalyst.

[I miss playing ranged elementalist]

To be fair, all the "caster" weapons were given at the start. Their only options are guns, bows, or melee. That said, a p/p ele, like the "black mage" in ff13 would be cool. Magically charged bullets is a cool concept. 

 

Side note: I love the hammer playstyle. Feels like an old school enhancement shaman with actual flow, made for GW2, though I am a melee main in all games, so I am biased towards those builds for sure. GW2 is where I see most of my range, but even then, it's something like SB rev, or LB guard, that is still mostly melee. 

[Best runes for a Catalyst?]

48 minutes ago, luigrein.8514 said:

Seconding celestial with traveler as a good cheap generalist option. Taking it in to raids will probably mean you are tanking, which you may or may not want, but is doable.

For open world/solo crap, I run Cele cata with full power/condi damage. I don't feel the need for any other stats for solo play, and it's fun to have a good balance of strike/condi damage, with decent boon uptime, high health, and good toughness. Probably not optimal, but works well enough for me. 

[Attunements]

On 3/10/2023 at 8:57 AM, Snorkar.9048 said:

I’m having issues with changing attunements since most builds require changing attunements often and I can only put two main elements with keybinds, since changing attunements are needed how do you recomend to keybind attunements to change them fast? I’m mostly playing celestial catalyst 

I run the same setup on all games now.

Move with the mouse (action cam helps)

Q w e r f (t if needed) for the core rotation (exclude w when needed for movement)

A s d for strafing and backpedalling

1-8 for CDs/power attacks (or utility abilities in GW2)

F1-f8 for defensives (not needed here)

Z x c v S+c S+v for things like attunements and heals

Mmb auto run

A mouse with at least 2 side buttons is helpful.

Mb4 for rolls/movement

Mb5 for interrupts or weapon swaps

S+mb4/5 for other utility like stuns (or in GW2 for the action cam toggle)

~ for mounts (also my number pad for all the mounts in GW2)

 

It might not be the most optimal, but I don't need to move my hand very much, most of the time. This setup always ends up working very well for me, regardless of the potential ability bloat some games have. I always seem to have enough keys to have a comfortable rotation. 

[A Reaper Build That Has No Problem Getting Hit: The Immortal Valkyrie]

On 11/24/2022 at 1:52 AM, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

if you want more hp just change your zerker gear for marauder. Small dps lost, big hp boost.

This has been my approach to everything. I'm not doing anything that would require that extra 5-10% damage, so I like having more wiggle room for my (inevitable) mistakes.

[Why do you only care about raids?]

6 hours ago, vares.8457 said:

No. Open World legendary armor would hurt the game. Very few Open World players would get it so it would also be a waste of resources. 
You can already get all legendary weapons and three trinkets in Open World, that’s enough. 

Easy there, I wasn't even suggesting that it happen. Only that I would like it, and would definitely get it. I then went on to say it was unnecessary. You're pointing your efforts at the wrong person.

[Why do you only care about raids?]

I would love an OW legendary set. I would definitely get it, even if it looked like the starting gear. I like to play around with different builds, and it would be nice to be able to do that more often.

 

That said, I have yet to find anything I can't do with exotic gear, ascended trinkets, and a mix of legendary, ascended and exotic weapons, mostly ascended from the specialization collections, which are pretty solo friendly. 

[Decade enhancement station (and food), add repeatable source of proof of legends/alternate source of the buff or delete please. [Merged]]

On 8/23/2022 at 7:38 PM, lodjur.1284 said:

I certainly hope so, as of right now i would say this utility creates some pretty huge theoretical fairness issues. In a way that this game has previously avoided.

Back in early WoW, vanilla or BC, I got these potions that made you immune for 10 seconds from a quest. It had no level restriction, so I saved them for some max level BGs. They weren't tide turning, but I know people raged when I was immune for 20 seconds (on my pally), while still able to attack, lol. 

 

It can be unfair for a time, but it will eventually fade away, save some of those weirdos like myself who save thing for way too long, just to be one of the last to take advantage.

[Anyone else play a specialization that they suck at?]

10 hours ago, Shrike Arghast.3856 said:

I'll go first: I'm currently maining a Weaver, and I am flat out terrible at it. I cannot remember the skills, I routinely forget which elements I'm currently using (thus swapping to bad combinations on the next change), I am constantly dying even in PvE because I forget that the thing is a glass cannon with absolutely zero sustain. Overall, I'm just bad. But I really, really like the aesthetic, and the playstyle is almost a siren's song - aggressively baiting me with "wow, this might be really cool if you keep at it!... too bad you suck, though."

I can't be the only one doing this.

I picked up elementalist to play catalyst (because it reminds me of GW2's version of an enhancement shaman). I'm not great, but I've improved greatly over the last week, and it's really starting to feel like a melee/mid ranged jack of all trades. I like my utility now, but I'm going to play around with the augment abilities tonight. 

 

The best advice I can give to anyone wanting to learn a new class, is go out in the world and play. I've been running the decade event on my cata, doing bosses and lots of events, and it has helped to understand when I can camp an element, when and how to heal/kite, and how to rotate to break bars (though, not a lot of cata for that).

[Make Ele Fun: 5s attunement cooldown baseline]

I just got into elementalist recently, even though I've tried for years (feeling like a GW2 enhancement shaman with catalyst helped a lot). The rotation is fairly straight forward once you start to get into it, and swapping becomes easier. That said, I have a feeling the swaps would start becoming far more hectic, making the class too chaotic for the average player. Even in situations where survival is the goal, you're still waiting on ability CDs. 

[Returning Player Remembering Why They Quit]

On 5/28/2022 at 4:02 PM, Malthurius.6870 said:

So, I've been around since the betas and was hyped up on the game before it launched (was very active on the MMO-Champion forums). I quit somewhere during Season 4 and it was mostly due to anti-consumer monetization practices. Let me break it down and air this out because a lot of this is still unacceptable.

1. The Gem-Store has way too much developmental focus. A huge portion of content is developed for the Gem-Store and when I quit the most egregious example of this was the mounts. It was one thing for them to be only earnable via RNG loot boxes (thanks for fixing that I guess? It's still kind of trash that the selectable item costs more and the RNG one even still exists). The entirety of the mount skin system is predatory and frankly disgusting.

 

The basic issue I have with this is that all of those items in the gemstore should be obtainable via specific in game accomplishments like achievements, or at least a larger portion of them. I want goals to work towards, and the generic goal of grinding gold isn't as fulfilling as working towards a specific goal. A middle ground would be to have both: skins in the gemstore, but also obtainable via specific achievements or tasks; kind of like how you can buy legendaries or you can go through the motions to get it via collections and content.


2. Build templates are a sin; a blemish, a pestilent blight. For anyone who engages in at least 2 game modes, this is almost nothing, in fact, it's worse than nothing. Spec templates should just be free. I'm more accepting of armor templates because they function as additional storage for armor items which was a big hog of space before. In fact, just remove Spec templates entirely and just make build loadouts character based instead of account wide, and give all the slots for free.

The worst thing that build templates did is that it took away the split of your character's build loadout between PvE and PvP. You have to go through the trouble of switching your build whenever you switch modes, or use one of your precious slots to get a sliver of the convenience you had before this feature was implemented. What's worse is that it muddies the PvP culture: people are more likely to just run their PvE build than engage in building something for PvP, and what's worse about that is that the player is also likely to run into an annoying disjoint if any of their traits or skills are balanced differently. This system is actively bad for getting new players into PvP. As a middle ground, can we at least have separate templates for PvE, PvP, and WvW.


3. Black Lion Chests and skins from tickets are kitten for the same reason mounts are. It's actually the exact same issue as mounts except a little more tolerable due to the skins being purchasable via gold (but the mounts can also be bought with gold because gold and gems are exchangeable currencies). Why aren't these hundreds of skins obtainable in some way in game? Greed is the answer. They're so predatory to the right mindset too.

 

 

The more I think about these terrible anti-consumer issues the more upset I get. This game would have been leagues better if the gem store didn't actually exist and we just had to pay a monthly fee; imagine it... for the low price of 15$ a month you could have had 8 armor template slots, 32 build templates per character, 10 bag slots on all characters, 500 bank slots, all mount skins, armor skins, weapon skins, gliders, novelties obtainable in game via achievements or specific rewards (with maybe a handful reserved for a reasonable real money shop), and unlimited character slots. a 10,000$ value just for 15$ a month from the player base.... wowie. kitten this f2p model.

Overly-dramatic post, making mountains out of molehills. 

[[Suggestion] Add a vanilla/free game mount for new players. (before steam release if possible)]

On 5/2/2022 at 1:39 PM, Erise.5614 said:

I mean. To be fair. It's fine to leave new players wanting and looking forward to a certain unlock.

So long as the experience in the moment is solid too it's all good. People starting out really aren't the problem when we are talking mount unlocks. 

Personally I'm most concerned about story chronology. Pushing players into story content far beyond where they are within the story, leaving them confused by what's going on. But also having it recommended to go through that to unlock the best gameplay features asap. It has a risk of having them disengage with the story and ultimately loose interest more easily. Not a huge risk. So there is a valid question whether it's worth it or how much effort should be put into it. But potentially reducing that is a more valid goal than getting level 2 players onto mounts asap. No matter what form that may take.

It doesn't seem much different from instanced content like dungeons, raids and fractals. You just keep killing the same big enemies over and over somehow, even though the story would only tell it once, or going back through LW episodes. If you look at it like you are a new adventurer, starting off in the current timeline (most recent story added), and that there are "magical" ways to send you back to relive the past, it isn't as jarring.

 

One thing I've always thought would help is having a rundown of all the stories the way LWS1 used to be. If people could spend 15 minutes getting an ingame rundown of everything, people who haven't been through everything could decide if they want to catch up, or play the story, without feeling like they've missed something important to the overall narrative.

[Black lion keys is not fun]

12 hours ago, Serenity.5914 said:

I used 55 black lion keys and no drop Winged Reverie Skiff Skin. I used Gold key and still no skin. I really like that skin, but i cant get it. Its not funny. Its not a casino game. I think its a problem when you spend time, money and got nothing. :(

You're right, this isn't a casino, it's a video game. That didn't stop you from spending money on something in a video game that is pure RNG, then getting mad when RNG happened. Pro tip: if you don't like RNG, don't feed into it.

[Warclaws were added to the game with a single purpose in mind]

7 hours ago, Aodlop.1907 said:

To flood the pool of mount skins with ones most players aren't interested in, so they have to buy more gems to get the skins they do want.

 

This mount's so similar to the jackal it might as well just have been a jackal. Make the jackal usable in WvW, disable its blink, give it the Warclaw's ability in this game mode.

If anything, that would helped to give the Jackal some form of relevance. 

And the jackel is just like the raptor. Just remove everything that makes it the jackel, and give it everything it needs to be a raptor. 

[Guts greatsword from Berserk]

8 hours ago, Lottie.5370 said:

Tormented Greatsword has a similar shape, but tbh the sword you posted just looks like a large ugly chunk of metal.

Standard buster sword.

[Locking new weapons behind Elite specs was a mistake.]

17 minutes ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

If they "unlock" the new weapon from the spec, their balance work will quadruplicate lolz.

 

imagine offhand warrior pistol #5 on a berserker... or the elementalist sword, will be a huge mess.

 

 

Not gonna lie, though, I would have fun with GS herald, or maybe a GS/SB power renegade. That said, I like the idea of the weapons being tied to the specs.

[Would you like content retroactively added to old maps?]

On 5/4/2022 at 2:59 PM, Aodlop.1907 said:

Something like new collections that reward unique sets of armor, like in Jahai for example.

Would you like such things to be added to base PoF maps even years later for example?

 

I think it'd be a neat way to make every map more alive and relevant. What are your thoughts?

I'm always down for more content. I'm totally into meta events, so anywhere they'd like to throw one, I'm gonna try it out. Jumping puzzles do not interest me, and wouldn't be done beyond parking an alt, considering the loot was good. It also depends on the maps. Some are just not fun to move around, and deal with the enemies. Also, would like to point out HoT is old, so are you asking about vanilla stuff, or just anything before IBS?

[This game needs to rely less on players using third party websites for information.]

On 5/1/2022 at 5:46 PM, Aodlop.1907 said:

Where is that next Skyscale egg? I'll check on Google, then go back to the game, then back to Google again for next one.

What about this collection from a LW episode? Oh yeah, back to Google.

Oh, and when is that next big event or world boss? Guess I'll check on the third party event tracker.

 

Can't you just add a big circle on each map, and when we mouse over it, it displays a timer so we know when to go where?

You could also add a neat little list of the 5 current/upcoming big world events, world bosses or map metas to occur.

As someone who sometimes doesn't know what to do in the game, I know that'd be super useful for me.

 

Honestly I just want to play GW2 without having to close the game so much to get data elsewhere. It's a thing for every MMO I think, but more so with GW2.

 

Thoughts?

I use the world boss portal thing I bought with gold converted to gems when it was on sale, and set the options to tell me 10 minutes before a boss starts, and port me there. Pretty sure there is a meta event one too, but I could be wrong there. 

 

As far as collections go, they aren't quests, and shouldn't hold your hand. They offer the absolute best rewards, and they aren't mandatory. 

 

The game you're looking to create #oesnt promote exploration, just like WoW has far less people out in the world looking for new things. They follow the arrow, to whatever it is. This game is better than that (in that aspect), and I would like to keep GW2 from becoming a mindless walking simulator. If you need direction at all times, download taco.

[I've spent $150 on keys in the gem store...]

On 5/3/2022 at 2:39 PM, Odinius.9826 said:

Sure, but I felt screwed over and I feel really sorry for everyone that has to feel this kitten.

No one has to "feel this kitten." You chose to spend money for a CHANCE at a skin, because in the past you've been lucky. I've seen people on YouTube open hundreds of boxes, and get a few lame skins, nothing worth while. What did you expect opening a ticket to do? Did you think it would change anything at all? It seems like you feel entitled to that skin because you spent so much money, and the fact you complained to the people in charge about how you didn't get what you wanted. Just because this is a video game doesn't mean the same rule of chance don't apply. 

[Some treads in the first two pages seem all un-related but they are just different views of the same thing]

On 5/3/2022 at 12:24 AM, Granrey.8920 said:

I will list some of them:

EoD mastery points annoying

This game needs to rely less on players using third party websites for information.

 

How would casuals prepare to clear Kaineng Overlook

 

 

The game seems to fail on : in-game teaching by the game app and by players.

 

The game does not encourage or promote  these things.

 

For instance, I used to play a game in which every 10 levels, the player was encourage to go to a certain dungeon with a squad.  This dungeon was like a graduation day to continue his journey to the next 10 levels. The other team members were players way higher up (about 10 levels above).

 

the noob only had two jobs in this dungeon :

1)  giving the npc at the entrance of the dungeon an special item that the player only gets once. This is very important

2) to "watch and learn" his role by seeing his team mates playing the dungeon. At some point he will be the one leading other players to it.

 

Questions and Points:

A) why would higher ups bring this guy to the dungeon?

because without him, the drops and exps are not good (the item the noob gives to the NPC is what makes the difference for the drops and exps at the end). In other words, the game is rewarding higher ups for helping noobs.

 

b) this also encourages to learn the mechanics of the dungeon and players teaching other players how to play their role in the dungeon  and both getting rewards for it. On our game we could use a currency to help with mastery points.

 

c) higher ups would even camp at the entrance of the dungeon waiting for noobs to arrive for their graduation dungeon. Meaning they are looking forward to have him on the squad.

 

d) it would also create friendships and networking among players as you typically want to go to these special events with friends that helped you to get there in the first place.  This means that often and not you have high level friends who would help you on other missions in the game with the hope you would invite them to your graduation dungeon activity.

 

Btw, I don't want to mention the name of the game because people tend to get biased because of the game itself rather than staying on topic on the point. 

 

Just making my contribution on how to deal with these challenges.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People will make alt accounts (and bots will swarm) and sell that one time thing, possibly for real money outside of the game, because the item scarcity, and it's usefulness are too much. This is not a good suggestion at all. Your heart is in the right place, but you didn't think this through.

[Remove the fishing mini game]

What exactly do you want fishing to be like, OP? Not sure if you've ever watched deep sea fishing, or seen anyone catch a tuna, but it's not just casting and reeling. Fishing is fine.

[What does the balance patch schedule look like currently?]

28 minutes ago, Avatara.1042 said:

They will balance pvp when they update WvW.

So, like, never? I guess they added that mount 3 years ago. I don't expect too much anytime soon.

[[Suggestion] Add a vanilla/free game mount for new players. (before steam release if possible)]

14 hours ago, Ironhide Wolf.3275 said:

TLDR: Suggestion, add a mount to the vanilla game that you can get in a starter city ASAP, no masteries required. (maybe even before steam release if possible.)

 

Long version:

I know development is going strong in so many areas, and dev-power is likely in short supply, BUUUUTT...
First impressions to a new player need to be GW2's/Anets/Community's best foot forward, especially when taking a steam launch into account. Starting areas have received very little attention since launch. Would be great to see this content get some polish love, and a super early mount is this topics suggestion on one way to do that.

I've been seeing new players having done some research into the game use their level 80 boost strictly to get a taxi to PoF for a quick raptor mount. I've also watched quite a few "Im new to GW2" YouTube videos and Twitch streams lately and noticed those who didn't grab a mount feel like the game is a bit slow traversing Tyria on foot. some say they may have quit if they were not "Surrounded by such an awesome community"(love you guys, community and dev's). But, the vast majority of new players won't be streamers or content creators. So, I feel like this might be a hard but possible thing to do to keep a higher new player retention count upon a steam release. 

I was thinking it would be neat to add a mount to vanilla/free GW2 that a player could obtain as soon as they get into their racial starter city. No mastery points required. Maybe even have a little mission to retrieve it, IDK. It doesn't have to be as fast as a raptor or be able to jump like a springer. Maybe give it a little extra movement speed on use of its Endurance bar skill like a sprint button for a mount. Just something that is fun to ride and moves the player around Tyria quicker than a Herald blasting the Facet of Elements for 24/7 swiftness. Maybe even add the ability to mount up in early missions.

I know Anet is playing around with the speed at which players level up. IMO, I don't think the leveling speed is the game speed issue that new players experience, its traversal speed compared to the GW2 Veteran they see flying by on a raptor or even a siege turtle. "Awesome! When do I get a mount!?" ... "2 expansions in, kiddo." ... *Watches the excited glimmer in their eyes dry up on stream*

IMO this would do a few things.

- This would increase new player retention, resulting in a higher possible customer pool for the Anet and a higher player count for the rest of us to game with.

- This would allow new players to retain their level 80 boost and use it on a character they really want to use it on rather than blowing it just to get a mount asap. Or allow players to experience the game spoiler-free but also have the speed that a mount offers.

- This would also give Anet another mount to monetize skins from for a higher revenue gain.

A win-win depending on how much dev time and resources this could take.

 

__________________ End of suggestion__________________

I have a couple other suggestions like every other player out there, but I wanna see where this specific one goes. 

Hope a dev gives this a little skimming over if the 'tldr' elevator pitch was good enough xD.

 

Been playing Guild Wars since early GW1 days, but this is my first time using the forums. So im sure I did something horribly wrong.

I tried searching for a topic like this but couldn't find any after searching a few pages, so sorry if this is a double-post, or if I messed up some other forum etiquette.

 

PS. For the love of the legions, don't make it a Horse. #TeamHorsesAreNOTReal

- Felan.

Mounts were created to pass through specific barriers in the game. The game functions beautifully without mounts pre PoF. Mounts are there to intice people to buy PoF (though I'm not sure what draw HoT has anymore outside of easy, initial gliding). F2P players should have the perks of something meant to draw in money. There are many F2P games on steam that have a perk to paying money. SWtOR, and FF14 are  the first to spring to mind.

 

F2P is meant to be a starting place for the game, not an end. Mounts are far from neccessary to progress through the F2P part of the game, since they didn't exist until an entire expansion past the F2P content. It WOULD make things faster, but the point is to make people consider paying for the extras everyone else had to wait for for years. It's not to bring everyone onto equal footing. Simply being on steam does not mean everything needs to be available for free. The F2P version of GW2 has a ton of content, and does not need more to make it worth while. 80 levels of hearts and exploration, plus the original story, is a lot of content.

 

The last thing we need is a ton of bots following TACO around on mounts, reducing the value of map completion, and mounts in general. There are already mounts that don't see much representation. Adding a new mount for the base game not only takes away from the PoF purchase, but also diminishes the point of buying expansions for the perks added with it, or prior. The mount you are suggesting isn't a neccessary part of traversing g the world, and only serves to take away from the open world, new player experience of GW2, for a simple convenience of doing everything faster.