AliamRationem.5172

It's good to have options!

Interesting. Hadn't thought of separating the maces. I like the flow of sword/axe, mace/mace but that could be good, too.

As a rule, I hate pet classes and prefer melee play styles and while this being GW2 there's no reason you have to adhere to a play style you don't like, ranger has always been haunted by that bearbow image for me. In any event, I recently started playing the class and found that the melee bruiser style of Untamed really suits me! So, I thought now that I'm feeling comfortable with it I might share my progress with my open world build as I seem to have gone a bit of a different route than SC or Hizen have with their open world builds. Here's a quick video clip with a full build link in the comments.

You'd think it would be obvious, right? What is the thought process here? Oh, B2P? That's pay-to-win because you have to pay for it. Subscription-based? Also, pay-to-win because you have to pay for it. If all pay structures fit the definition of "pay-to-win", then what is the point in even having names to describe them in the first place? It's all just pay-to-win!

No. The reality is you're interpreting that definition for yourself when it already has a definition which is not what you want it to be. GW2 is B2P, my guy. Facts.

So, because you want to interpret the words "pay-to-win" literally instead of using the commonly understood definition of the term "P2W", you get to institutionalize what P2W means objectively to everyone? Sure, bud. Whatever you say. 🙄

I think making a distinction between buy-to-play, where you pay for the full features of the game, and pay-to-win where you have to keep making microtransactions to realistically compete is more useful than describing both as "pay-to-win" on the basis that you have to spend money. The pay structure is completely different and it's much easier to tell what you're getting with a buy-to-play game. That's why pay-to-win has the negative connotation that it does.

I've tried the gazelle but not the polar bear. CC isn't much of an issue because I'm playing untamed with sword/axe and maces. But I doubt the pet damage is very significant either way.

I think the overall difficulty of open world content in the expansions is fine. I don't think that it's gotten all that much easier (aside from personal objectives like hero points) since HoT. If anything, I'd say the roving bands of ranged enemies that spam conditions and CC and often include elites in EoD are tougher than most of the normal enemies you encounter in HoT. SotO took a bit of a step back. Enemies seem to have more health, but are generally less threatening, which I don't feel is an improvement.

Is it really that frustrating to just look around instead of trying to figure out how to make a straight line from A to B on a map? It should be pretty obvious within minutes of exploring Tangled Depths that you just can't do that. But the moment you stop trying and use your eyes, you start finding things. Why is that updraft there? Why are there enemies over on that random ledge? Where does that cave entrance lead? Is there something in this pool of water? I think what they did there was really great and underappreciated.

It was a nightmare because you didn't know your way around. Like all the other maps, TD only requires updrafts and bounce mushrooms to access nearly the entire map. You can't full map complete, but it's no barrier to participating in most events and unlocking most objectives. That's just the reality.

I don't see the XP or mastery experience as an issue. You can walk on foot to every waypoint as well as accessing the next zone. There are plenty of mastery points available along the way and unlocking gliding, updrafts, and bounce mushrooms will allow you to access the vast majority of every HoT map. I also didn't mind the combat. Of course that's just me. I wasn't in any rush. I just enjoyed exploring the zone and unlocking the initial masteries felt impactful. It only became an issue due to the use of pointless filler masteries. Unlocking poison mastery, for instance, just felt like the game wasting my time.

That moment where you watch the cinematic and then set foot into the war zone of verdant Brink was probably my favorite early memory of this game.

Just my opinion, but I think they had the right idea, but being their first attempt at it they made some mistakes. Filler masteries and extreme mastery XP requirements being an example of that. I thought Verdant Brink was an amazing experience and I spent quite a lot of time just exploring that map, unlocking what I could, and completing the story before setting foot into Auric Basin. I think this is how they intended this expansion to be played. They clearly expected players to take their time. But this goes against the core model of rushing around map completing with take-it-or-leave-it events that aren't required for anything. So unless you enjoyed the exploration and associated mastery progression, HoT probably felt restrictive. Especially if you also hated the combat.

I think one problem with GW2 is if you're going to focus an MMO on open world solo and casual group content, you have to accept that players seeking any sort of challenge will quickly get bored. HoT, with the introduction of raids and more difficult open world content seems an attempt to address that. Naturally, not everyone is going to agree with that strategy. In particular, I think the freedom of GW2's build system sometimes works against them and new players in HoT is a perfect example of that. I can't tell you how many times I see a core staff elementalist with very low MP in the jungle and think "Oh, this guy looks like he needs help!" The addition of celestial gear to the boost helped a little, I think. But new players probably have to rely on outside resources if they want an easier time with HoT.

What would you use as the second pet to go with tiger? I've been using tiger and jungle stalker, the stalker seems nice for solo with that big might boost entering combat. I can't really tell what pets are doing outside of the basics of the tooltip, though.

My CM group doesn't gg at this boss, but I don't see why it matters enough to require a PSA.

I agree with the criticism of the HoT masteries and that mounts just make HoT better. But for me the difficulty and exploration were key reasons I decided to try GW2 in the first place and I can honestly say I never could have gotten into this game in its core state.

Do you just pull random nonsense out of a hat for these posts? You think multiple map instances are full of players because of legendary crafting? And the most popular part of the game according to you are the consistently dead maps with nothing going on? Okay, champ. Whatever you say.

So, according to your own words, PoF is an example of how they got it right. Yet that place is a ghost town and even the metas don't get completed aside from a literal loot pinata. But zone in to tangled depths and chances are the regular events are being progressed. Unlike PoF, those events actually provide pretty decent rewards and give you a reason to participate. Likewise all HoT metas remain popular to this day and you'll usually find multiple map instances completing them. So are you sure you have it right? Because it seems like you don't.

Have you thought about playing something more your speed? I'm thinking a nice board game. Maybe Candyland? Yeah, that's a nice one. You just move along a linear path until you reach the end and even the bad guys are pretty friendly, so you won't have to flip out and start calling people names just because they like different gameplay than you do.

If you ask most people if they enjoy exploration they'll say yes. But what some of them actually mean is they enjoy map completion, and actual exploration where you have to stop relying on your map and actually explore gets in the way of that. Fortunately, the game world consists almost entirely of maps that are easy to complete, with only HoT and a few maps outside of it as exceptions. I think we could stand to see more interesting map design.

At the time, many players found the combat overly difficult even after the correction. Power creep and the popularity of extreme sustain solo builds have resolved that issue for most players. Many players also didn't enjoy the gated exploration via the mastery system. The mount system has resolved that issue for most players. And if what you say is true, the players who really couldn't stand HoT are mostly gone anyway. So what reason do we have to believe HoT-style maps wouldn't be positively received at this point in time?

If you're expecting soulbeast to be as high sustain in solo play as untamed, I don't think it's going to happen on a power build. Untamed has that native ability to unleash pet for 25% damage reduction, an amazing 50% damage reduction elite utility, and can slot restorative strikes for incredible healing. Soulbeast doesn't have as much on offer defensively, but if you run it with maces as a swap and take wilderness survival with the carnivore trait I imagine you should still be pretty sturdy. But power untamed will probably still have higher sustain and damage for solo play. Edit: Figured I should add that I'm also new to ranger, so it's possible I just don't know how to soulbeast properly. I'm just going on what I've tried and what seems obvious in terms of available traits and such. Feel free to educate me, ranger gurus!

It's also worth noting that you can solo dungeons as they are. As F2P your build options are more limited, but people were doing it before expansions released and there's been quite a bit of power creep since then. If you're interested, try looking up some videos on how it's done.