Illconceived Was Na.9781

(emphasis is mine)

@Tommo Chocolate.5870 said:Interesting, Renegade runes give Condition Damage and Ferocity, which seems like a weird combination. Is it really better than Berserker runes? Sure, zerker's runes can be a good choice, depending on build and team comp.The point I was trying to make is that there's a reason certain combinations are meta. If there's a good reason to deviate, by all means, don't follow the meta blindly. But in the absence of a specific reason, remember the reason these builds are popular: because they are extremely efficient at what they do (terms & conditions apply, of course).

What's fair got to do with it? If a franchise re-uses characters, then I only care about three things: Integration: Is it important to the story? Would it have been equally (or more) interesting if a new character was invented to fill the role? Or is it just fan service? Canon: Is it true to the original character? Or does it ignore everything we already know about them?Implementation: Ignoring the above, how good a job did they do? Is the character part of the fun? Is their script moving or dull? Does the voice acting make it better still or undermine the character|story?On that basis: Joko: 3 points. Definitely important to the story, true to his character, and (on the whole) more fun than using a new villain. Super fun, too; great lines and wonderfully acted.Lazarus: 0 points. Fan service, not true to what we know about it, and would have been just as interesting if Balthazar had impersonated anyone else. Livia: 1 point. Fan service, but true to her personality in my opinion. The actual use of her in the story? A waste (and plus: where is she now? No credit for introducing or re-introducing important characters and then ignoring them.)Koss: 3 points. Well integrated to the story; it wouldn't have been the same with someone else. Fit his personality to a T. And even though I didn't love the VA, I thought they supported a good script.

If you just DC'd, please include your location (country & state/region/province) and (if known) the map IP address that you were on (most won't have any idea). Are you NA or EU? Also mention your internet service provider. This could be something happening between ANet and you, rather than a problem at ANet's end. (Or it could be an Amazon Cloud issue... or sure, a problem with ANet.)

Working for me. Location: US west coast, ISP = ATT. NA region.

I personally don't think it's trash. However, for the effort, it's just as easy to setup a Viper's build and easier to setup Berserker's. And both are much, much more fun to play, once you get used to active defense rather than passive.(And again: it's easier to learn how to do that when you're glass.) The one place that I think Celestial sometimes shines is WvW. There are builds now (and have been others in the past) that make use of multiple stats. Durability is important because against human opponents, glass is too brittle. If you have two ascended sets, I'd want one to be Viper's + Renegade and the other Zerk + Scholar's (or Strength). If you have three already made, sure, hold on to celestial for now. Or if you have just two sets now and no immediate plans for the second, then leaving one celestial while making the other Viper's is okay, too. Again, I encourage you to drop yourself in the deep-end with glass, even at melee range.

As a generic rule of thumb, rephrase the question: Power: why wouldn't you take Berserker's prefix plus Scholars suffix?Condi: why wouldn't you take Viper's gear plus (most of the time) Renegade runes? (Trapper + Nightmare for some)Similarly, it's worth asking, "why not run one of the many builds recommended by Snow Crows, Discretize, or MetaBattle? For any exception (for which there are plenty), there's always a good reason; if you can't think of it, then those are always good or great choices. (With more experience, some of the reasons become obvious and some are obvious in hindsight, after someone mentions the idea.) One common exception: budget. Strength runes are a cheaper|weaker version of Scholar's (although the price difference is minor these days) or when people are in a situation in which they know their health is less than 90% too often. Similarly, Rabid is often a decent budget option for exotic gear, while people are saving up to finish an ascended Viper's set.

+GDPR. They had to deal with the spam of information requests. (reddit) Good point. I'm sure that generated a lot of hard-to-parse tickets.

Regardless of the circumstances, I would hope that ANet would take 5 minutes each week to post the current status, even if it's just, "nothing has changed. We hired and are hiring more staff, training them, and working on the backlog." In theory, it often takes 3 months to clear a 1-month backlog, after hiring enough staff (which can take ages all on its own). In practice, though, to us as customers, it just looks like this is the new normal. I'm sure that they are aware of how horrid this is for all of us (ANet & the community), that they are doing as best they can in trying times, and that they do have a plan to return to the old 1-3 day turn around. I'm not asking for any promises; I would just like for them to take a little time to acknowledge the situation. I'm very sympathetic to how difficult this is for ANet (I have been in those shoes). I'd like to see some public sympathy for how difficult this is for players.

I strongly discourage you from running celestial in T4 Fractals for a DPS role. If you have trouble surviving, work on learning the mechanics better or doing better on your footwork (being at the right place). Celestial is a major reduction in offensive stats. While of course it's true that a live wet noodle does more damage than a dead glass cannon, neither is something that other PUGs want to see in challenging, instanced content. If you really feel that you need some extra defense while working on mechanics/footwork, then swap a few trinkets (as few as possible). Technically, the "optimal" choice is using the lesser pieces of armor, but then you'd have to spend extra on runes, whereas trinkets are easily replaced through LS3 maps (and the infusions can be recovered for a modest cost using the infusion extractors). So for Sword Weaver, for example: Zerk armor + scholar runes (or strength, if you're not at 90% HP often), zerk weapons, zerk trinks except maybe Valk or Soldier accessories.

If ANet was going to invest on population alone, then they woudn't add a data center in Sydney or Melbourne; they'd put it in Jakarta. Obviously ping would be a lot better, but it would still be roughly as bad as someone from ANet playing in the EU region. But obviously, national population isn't the important criterion. It's how many new players and new sales would they get. And it doesn't take much research to learn: there aren't these massive gamer populations just waiting to spend money on GW2 if only the ping was more reasonable. Sure, adding a server local to Australia would mean more people; it just won't be enough more to justify the cost. So yeah, ping is bad for those on the other side of the world from ANet HQ. And yeah, more people would play if it that delay could be reduced. But in the end, it's still a business decision that ANet has thoroughly researched: for now, it remains too costly for too little benefit to too few people to justify the decision. The good news is that ANet does keep trying to figure out better ways to transfer data, to decrease the costs of starting up servers and maintaining them. And they've made some progress. So it could happen. It just won't be soon.

They also said there will never be mounts and that the trait system was originally the reason why they removed the dual class system of GW1. They never said there will never be mounts. They went out of their way to say nothing about mounts. And after mounts were in the game, they said they had planned on including them from long before launch. They just hadn't figured out how (plus needed new tech to make it possible to do it, GW2 style). And they removed the dual class system of GW1 because it was a nightmare to balance. Which is why there are fewer skills overall, why elite specializations can't be combined, and why we can only equip 3 trait lines. That is, removing the dual class system of GW1 was a reason for introducing traits. Still, they also haven't said there won't be a GW3. They've said that they have plenty of plans for GW2 and see no need to start over any time soon.

PS it's not possible for any of us to claim that there is (or isn't) enough population based on our own observations. We just see too few maps, too few worlds, too few instances. Remember that not only does WvW have to have enough population for a minimum of 9 worlds (so that there are at least 3 match ups, not just one), but there need to be enough people to support the metas going on all over Tyria. And it's not just enough people, it's enough new people to justify the expense of making it happen, the disruption to NA & EU of losing OCE, and all the contingency plans in case things don't go well. tl;dr it's not just about being able to physically run the game from an OCE server; that's the easy part.

I agree: it's crazy and maddening that there ever was a backlog longer than a week and worse, that it's been months without sign of things getting better. On the other hand, what can we expect ANet to do? Hire more people? They have said they have done this. It unfortunately takes time to find good staff and bring them up to speed on the oddities of the game (and how to help legit concerns without giving freebies to the undeserving).Prioritize account issues? They say they do this.Deny more requests? Well, yes, that would help, but it would be maddening in an entirely new way. Personally, I'd rather wait.Investigate requests with less rigor? That, too would help. But it would mean more 'scams' getting through. Again, personally, I'd rather wait.Given the situation, acceptable or not, what else can they do? (one thing not on my list, but I hope they do: do a better job of anticipating responses to sales and mass suspensions, do a better job of preparing for returning vets who can't remember account details — it's hard to have the right amount of stuff for the busiest months, without overpaying during the quiet ones, but surely there is a better balance than we have seen in 2018)

In game: botting, yes. (Goes to the same team as investigates any sort of 'hack' in the generic sense.) Or if you have details (times, dates, screens), you can start a support ticket. In-game issue → Report another player.

NA IP address 35.169.158.36Server time: roughly 04:30 UTC.No mordrem event.Wait time for Alpha Beetle was ~8 min (apparently, I had just missed it). Took about 5 minutes to die because everyone was being solicitous of each other. What are the times/IP for the people who aren't finding it available?

Regarding the move to a Virginia datacenter ...Overall, ANet's data shows better ping/uptime for more people than before, slightly worse for a few, and (as with any transition) far worse for a fraction. Additionally, in many cases, the increased latency isn't because ANet is using Amazing/AWS, but because of the transition; apparently some networks are slow to update to recognize the change. Further ReadingStephen Clarke-Wilson, on his own ping from Seattle (spoiler alert: his route goes through Dallas (location of old datacenter) on the way to Virginia (location of Amazon AWS) )Same guy, on ping for ANet devs](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7doj1l/anet_can_we_please_get_an_actual_way_of_checking/dq0g4ax/)Also same guy, explaining why the change to Amazon is temporarily affecting people's connection (ISP/backbone issues, not the servers themselves or their location)Stephen Clarke-Wilson commenting more recently about ping (on r/guildwars, but the ideas still apply) (poster's note: I made some minor formatting changes)

ANet has nothing to do with the routing. ISPs and backbone service providers are responsible for that. And, since demand for streaming services continues to go up more quickly than they are able to increase capacity, interruptions and spikes are going to become more frequent. Never had any problems with the Texas servers before they moved to the Amazon data center. That was a mistake.First, that's not routing. And second, sure, some people ended up with more problems after the move. But more people ended up with better results. And some of the differences are coincidental. That is: if Amazon's VA servers are located such that Comcast is the local provider, then recent Comcast issues on the East Coast would have affected many people west of the Rockies, whereas there haven't been similar issues affecting Texas. Keep in mind also that ANet is located farther from Virginia, too. So they aren't likely to have decided to move unless their network people thoroughly vetted the negative possibilities, as well as the hoped-for benefits. I'll post some specific developer comments on the change to Amazon below.

ANet has nothing to do with the routing. ISPs and backbone service providers are responsible for that. And, since demand for streaming services continues to go up more quickly than they are able to increase capacity, interruptions and spikes are going to become more frequent.

I think alot of people dont take into consideration that WvW will have to be oceanic players on all 3 sides aswell. More than 3 sides, otherwise it's the same match up week after week after week after week after...

The alpha beetle spawn should be independent of the mordrem events; I've seen them both up at the same time. Unless they changed something in the last update, it shouldn't matter. The Alpha Beetle event cooldown is somewhere between 10-20 minutes, so if you've been there for 20, don't stay. Exit, do something else, and come back later. Silverwastes instances should be changing rather frequently. (I saw at least 2-3 today around reset.)

Glad you got the item, which is the most important thing (for now).

I had it, too, but it went away after yesterday's update.I've only had it the one time though. @Lord Dumpling.7914 if it happens again, also use the in-game /bug reporting tool to tell ANet about it. That provides the QA team with additional diagnostic info that might help them track down the cause.