Skotlex.7580

One could argue that one of the reasons to have a dedicated stunbreak f-skill is that currently those utilities are overload in the revenant kits. In assassin it doubles as a dodge/retreat tool, in demon, it absorbs and counters conditions, and in dwarf it grants nonstripable damage reduction (though, as mentioned above, due to cast time it's pretty much impossible to take advantage of both in a single cast), and ventari doesn't even has one due to the nature of the kit (which requires all utilities to have low CD and the ability to reuse them quickly if needed). The cost can't be standardized until all these utilities are of actual equivalent utility. Also, it's hard to state that a change like this would be a buff, as it would mean revenant gets access to a single stunbreak on a single cooldown, all other classes can build with multiple stunbreaks in mind, revenant can't. The kit is fixed, so it's not even that they have the freedom to slot offensive tools where the stun break used to go. The only advantage is that the stunbreak would be available regardless of energy, as long as the CD is up, which probably isn't really that much since there are some complaints that the game is heavy cc oriented currently, for which a single stunbreak hardly suffices.

I've been thinking for a while on this issue. What makes revenants unique is their energy management system. Like thiefs, who manage initiative and can spam weapon skills as long as they have it, revenants would be able to use their utilities with nearly no cooldown as long as they had enough energy. Also, revenants had plenty of access to stun breaks, via their utilities and legend swap (when using invocation), on the downside they had limited cleanse access. Their design intentionally made them strong against cc, and weak against conditions. However… ANet philosophy regarding gameplay has changed, stunbreak access has gone down across the board, and this includes revenant. No longer can one stunbreak when swapping legend, and the utilities that do it are expensive, meaning that in practice playing aggressively generally means the revenant can't stunbreak at all. So, because stunbreaks must be scarce, then revenant utilities which do them either have long cooldowns, high energy costs, or both. So why not move the stunbreaks out of utility skills? If none of the revenant skills had a stunbreak, then they could have their costs reduced, and energy management would be mostly used for offensive or utility purposes. So, where would the stunbreak go if not in utility slots? I think it belongs in the f-keys, as all of those are by design cooldown based. What do you all think? Is the revenant okay in its current state regarding stunbreak access? Or how else it could be improved?

It's been mentioned a few times before. The powercreep is not about the actual damage numbers attached to skills, but how damage modifiers stack up. The tooltip for a rune may state it does 500 damage, but in practice, after all modifiers are taken into account, it does more like 3k, and that's also why the difference in DPS between average players and good players is as much as 10x, it really shouldn't be that much. If ANet wants to bring damage under control, rather than messing with the base damage numbers, they should drastically reduce the amount of damage modifiers available. Change as many of them into base stat bonuses, and we'll all see damage plummet across every scenario, rather than later finding out we found outliers which didn't get toned down (see forum complains after the damage rework patch).

There's something to keep in mind regarding vertical progression: when it exists, pretty much everybody is tied to it, as one needs to properly max out your character before anything else. This is why in most mmos players state that the real game starts at end-game. If GW2 had something like that, every player would be tied to that threadmill, and not working on it is awful because one is left behind by those who put the time effort first (imagine this happening with your guildmates or friends). Avoiding the treadmill means that your friend that just joined the game can accompany you into the latest content as soon as they reach 80 and gear up. In a certain way, the biggest boon of not having a gear treadmill is that players aren't so distant from each another that they cannot partake in the same content together. Granted, it shows who's new to the content at hand when you notice those players who keep going down and need your help. :)

When they reworked phantasms, it was explicitly mentioned that it was to encourage a more active gameplay, because up to that point the optimal DPS for PvE was to have three phantasms up and to never shatter or use clone invoking skills, which meant mostly holding 1. Granted, now the gameplay revolves around shattering often, usually as often as possible (my chronomancer basically has to spam clone/phantasm and shatter as often as possible with three clones to keep up permanent alacrity and quickness). On a different topic, ANet has decided for quite a few elites that they don't want CD reduction traits, they were too simple and mandatory for the most part. At some point they may rework the rest of traits so they don't just reduce CD, but do something more interesting so that they may be viable even when not using their intended weapon/utility. So, to OP, I'll just say it is very unlikely that the points addressed will change, as ANet has stated their reasoning behind the changes. On the other hand, mesmer has been very complicated balance wise for competitive modes, and a good chunk of the playerbase considers them gutted beyond uselessness currently. It is likely they may try some future adjustments so that the class will get better representation, but considering the current weather after the last huge rework, it may still take a while. PvE wise, mesmer is just fine, at least their elites are, IMHO.

There are two class tropes which I really miss in GW2. The first is a brawler/monk type which fights with gauntlets (oh how I wish I had this). Best reference for one would be the Tales games (Farah, Senel, Jude, Velvet to a certain extend). Sadly, we'll never get new weapon types in GW2 so this is not happening. Closest would be dual wielding foci, as a few of their skins seem suitable for melee fighting. The second one is an actual dual sword class. GW2's design makes this unfeasible as main hand skills are split from offhand ones, and even if thief could get dual swords, only skill 3 would use them together. For reference, take the warrior class from Tera: every skill uses both swords, and it's a thing of beauty to behold the attack animations.

I play with a controller only, all nine professions, I don't feel limited in any way. however, I do think the controller experience works best with action camera turned on, give that a try. there are a few settings to deal with aoe placement as it was previously mentioned. I personally also use a shortcut to enable/disable "stick ground skills to target", as a few classes it's better to manually place aoes on your allies rather than the enemy (like my chronomancer's wells). Granted, it is a bit of a handicap to use this setup against highly mobile targets that constantly move out of your sight, so it's not recommended for PvP and WvW roaming.

I've been thinking about this topic. Due to the way the elementalist is designed, it's really hard to come with an actual profession tradeoff. For Weaver it works because all elements go on the same cooldown, which makes it impossible to play it as a normal elementalist. Since tempest is designed around the concept of staying in an element to channel its power, maybe they could play with attunement cooldowns. The default is 10 secs to return to the attunement one is leaving, and 1.5 secs before changing to another one. So, instead of 1.5, it could be 3 seconds that one is forced to stay in the new attunement before swapping again. Though a change like that alone would be an overall nerf to the class. Then why not also reduce the cooldown to return to an element to eight seconds? Well, they could mess around with the numbers to achieve the sort of balance they desire, but seems to me that changing cooldowns is pretty much the only way left to add a tradeoff to the class profession mechanics.

I'd totally be onboard for a remake of elementalist staff 5 on earth to make it drop a huge rock on enemies. :D that skill is the most disappointing staff skill with such a long cooldown...

Dumb question perhaps, but did you open a ticket? Revenant is probably the buggiest class when it comes to templates, so having a character where you can reliably reproduce crashes might help ANet figure out how to fix it. Just make sure the ticket is detailed enough so they can reproduce it at their end (as in, give character name and which changes specifically are causing the crash, eg: trying to change any of the three traitlines, or one in particular?). Also, don't keep opening / bumping your tickets, just be patient while it goes through the support queue (as doing something else may end up pushing the report back to the beginning of the queue).

The upgrade that the op wants is to separate fashion from gears. The game was designed with gear transmutation in mind, but this kind of change could be designed. So it'd be possible to change the looks / dye section and have it have multiple tabs, and these would override your worn equipment. The forefront advantage of this would be that your look can be preserved when changing your gears for no cost, that would also be a boon to characters which are levelling up. The downside... is that now you'd have o buy dye/skin templates from the store on top of build and gear templates, and one would need even more keyboard shortcuts to change templates. Well, it'd need polishing, but I think it'd be a nice thing to have.

I'd be happy if rage skills reduced berserk cooldown when used outside said mode. Then their benefit makes senses either way: use during to extend berserk, or use outside to recover it faster. For competitive modes, it's all about ensuring headbutt connects in order to start dishing damage. If berserker could reliably and quickly jump into its mode at engage, then that would probably be too strong.

I do public strikes every day, it usually works out except for boneskinner and whisper. There was one day when my public group couldn't handle the fraenir, and a lfg group could handle it just fine on their second try. For the most part, people with experience go into the lfg and it tends to go smoothly, usually. Public strikes is more like playing the lottery, and some people actually prefer it that way. However, it's rare when a public strike can get the gold rewards. So, to op, yes, time slice probably plays a role. People don't like idling around waiting for several minutes. If you can only do strikes at such times, use the lfg, since it allows everyone to engage in other content until the squad is full, father than wasting your time in the waiting Hall.

Stow weapons is used all the time in PvP to bait enemy dodges, so it'd have a significant impact there, at least. It's technically a lame thing, but it's part of the game mechanics now, and changing it would upset quite a few players. If it were my choice, I would have designed weapon stow to queue up like skills do (so you stow after finishing the animation of whatever it is one is doing).

In your position, my first step would be to get raptor and springer mounts, as they make travelling much more enjoyable. Then I'd get into pof (or hot, if you don't mind the difficulty) and starting getting those hero points to fully unlock all specs, of all my characters. Then I'd theory craft around to try each class and spec, until I decide what I want to stay as. Then I'd start looking into gearing that up (will probably need to get access to a few ls3/4 maps, although the current map, bjora marches, also has a couple of ascended trinkets). Depending on what stats you desire, this may take a while (if it may take too long, take an intermediate step, such as wearing gear stats available at the trading post until acquiring the desired ones). Once that is done, I would go into the wardrobe (at any crafting station) and start browsing looks to set up the character. This process goes hand in hand with the wiki, as I need to keep in mind what's needed to unlock the skin I want. Again, if it's too difficult, I can either opt for another, easier to acquire skin, or plan ahead your journey into acquiring said skin (and use a replacement until then). Now, after all that is done, then I'd consider my character "ready", and then I'd decide what I wanna do each day (be it fractals, story, achievement hunting, metas for gold, crafting for gold, or whatever).

This is unavoidable when first loading into a map. Afterwards, my suggestion is to mount up before warping, that way the skin will be already loaded and you won't be stuck. Option 2: even if stuck on the ground, the minimap shows your actual position, make do with it to maneuver your character until the mount model loads. Option 3: buy a mount skin. for some reason those have loading priority, but not your own default skins. ANet could fix this if it would hold the player in the loading screen while loading the environment of the target wp. Watching everything load up as you stand there looks so unpolished.. granted, veteran players prefer that over waiting a few more seconds on a loading screen....

Make varietal seed pouches. That's how I got an alt instantly from 475 to 500 in cooking.

by default characters have three build slots (traits and picked utilities) and two equipment slots. You can, at the very least, have two completely independent builds (eg: full power berserker, and a condition spellbreaker). Just make sure you assign shortcut keys to select them while out of combat, and make doubly sure to not end up with the wrong build / gear combination (in the example above, would be the condition gears combined with the power setup traits).

Drytop is the only map that plays that way, and mostly (only?) on the southern/east part of it that has all that mountain/canyon design. Those crystals were introduced with the bazaar of the four winds festival, and they were meant for races and other such festival events. Lorewise, they belong to the zephyrites... and surprise, these are the guys that crashed in this map. So it was sort of logical to incorporate such crystals as part of the map design. Fortunately, that doesn't happen again. HOT may have more vertical design, but going up is a matter of taking air drafts or leaping mushrooms, so there's less freedom than getting stuck with a jumping crystal and not knowing where to jump to. Ps: you can collect multiple types of crystals and have all the three skills available until they run out. I can only imagine the horror if there were a crystal based jumping puzzle in drytop....

The only times when I've noticed that the story marker is not there, is when I am outside core Tyria while my active story is still the zhaitan's arc. :(

Maybe you are undergeared. Scaling down is a joke for Max level, fully decked builds, but if one is leveling up, having a messy assortment of gears and then getting scaled down could result in content being even harder than higher level stuff. Just my theory. Though, generally speaking, it's harder to go undergeared if one does the personal story, as the rewards do a good job of keeping the character properly geared while levelling.

True story. Just look at engineer kits, because each one has access to five skills, the class had to be balanced around an engineer in full kit build. End result: by themselves kits are pretty lackluster and playing the profession becomes "playing the piano" because of how one can simple swap in/out each of the kits. It'd much rather have a way to disable the second conjure in the ground (or make it a choice rather than mandatory), as picking up your own conjure can be extremely difficult in a crowded fight. Some sort of ammo system would be best.

I'll just say that my most memorable metas have been those where we had low numbers and where it was difficult enough that we barely managed to succeed. It's more an issue of players being able to be mass downed / revived, no matter how strong the enemy is. I think the tangled depth meta did it right with the blue donuts of doom: if a player was caught on one, it was nearly guaranteed death, and quite some downtime to return. Sadly, even the penalty for dying has all but disappeared thanks to mounts. I am thinking that event failure for metas shouldn't have to do with death itself as much as timers running out for not doing the mechanics. Anyway, I'll do content if I come across it or there's some achievement I am after. Generally speaking I just wanna have fun. :P

I was thinking something along these lines. The current system is acceptable for people who change looks sparingly, but if a player is a real fashion addict, there's no amount of charges that will suffice. There are many ways in which an endless charge could be designed. Since these cannot be sold/traded, outright replacing the regular stones would get complains of wasted rewards. So it'd be better if it worked as some kind of complement to the current system. For instance, make it a portable shop item that sells transmutation charges at.. say, 1g each (probably a reasonable price people wouldn't complain about). It could also include other currencies as karma (hmm, 50k karma for one charge?), so the item would double as a sink. As long as ANet gets creative with it, it could be a popular item without breaking the game, and also would generate some income if it were a gem store sell (I would instant buy it even if it cost 2k gems).

Fixing the performance issue is probably beyond what ANet can do, as it probably goes back the whole way to the basic structure design of the game. what is feasible is to reduce map capacity numbers until performance doesn't halt to a grind when three teams clash. But then these forums would be full of complains about how this mode doesn't feel "massive" enough and the huge queue times, so they wouldn't win anyway. The lack of performance is tied to the amount of number crunching that needs be done for every single hit, as conditions and boons all influence heavily these numbers in a dynamic way. If damage/reductions multipliers were fixed for each player at engage time, it'd be a lot easier to have massive level engagements with reduced overhead. however, if one considers that even each bleeding tick must be calculated individually per player source, since their might boon amount might have changed, then the battle computations scale up horribly. Could we even fathom a WvW in which there are no might or vulnerability or other short term temporary damage modifiers in order to improve performance?