Gotejjeken.1267

Curious, with what weapons/traits?

No? Used to have renown hearts, jumping puzzles, reasons for exploration. Core, HoT, and PoF were all complete expansions--but PoF started a big change in mounts. It's not hard to blow through new areas (and old) in minutes now with a Skyscale because it can go anywhere. This for me is a big change that facilitates boredom--just skip all mechanics (bounce mushrooms, zip lines, etc.) and use a mount. SoTO is a living world season sold as an expansion. That's far different than 11 years ago when the living world not only made permeant changes to the world, but it was also free as long as you logged in once every month or two. That is, standard formula is facetious at best because the formula has changed many times now: base game + free LW (core), expac + free LW (HoT-PoF), expac with no LW (EoD), monetized LW as expac (SoTO). Essentially what I think OP is getting at is they'd like something other than PvE to be a focus. Considering the age of the game that's probably unlikely, but who knows--there have been plenty of games to shakeup what they are doing (including GW2 in the LWS1 days).

Not all Gen 2 lege's. The 'true gen 2' or original ones (Nevermore, Chuka, Astralaria, and H.O.P.E.) don't require the mat sink. I also don't like this spin of everyone comparing the lege relic to a gen 2 when you all know you went the rune copout method; can't let that taint the vision for the new players. It's a ridiculous amount of crystals no matter what way you look at it.

I may not have gotten far enough in the new stuff (stopped after getting new weapons), but so far Nayos just feels too disconnected from rest of Tyria. I daresay need more than just random rifts hunting in Tyria to drive the point home as right now the entire xpac feels like a bottle episode of a TV show. Just the main character doing things with other characters in a location that has zero to do with anything else currently happening. Like, Inner Nayos looks super unique to me and may be among my favorite art styles the game has, but I can't remember a single thing going on (or tell most of the characters apart by name) as it's seeming to aim for some GoT style Kryptis drama but the gravity of it is missing. Lot of that might be due to the piecemeal nature of it, hard to judge an unfinished story really.

Yeah, for better or worse GW2 has always been 'pay to win' in this way. Before the 'omg it's not gacha with waifu girl summons and random super stat items so not pay 2 win!' brigade comes--I will just say this, there are no core specs that hold up to e-specs at this time. You can play core specs and weapons, but they will always be behind on any balancing, as all of that is done with the paying in mind. Fun fact too, if you go to the WvW notary and use the scroll but haven't done the steps--it just disappears, and you have to do it through the story anyway. It was unclear to me if you had to get to the step in the story and not want to do the 5-min treasure hunt so just go to WvW and buy it from the notary or what---but yeah.

They say no child left behind in my country but... Comparing the date on that topic and this one, it seems children were left behind at one point or another.

More just hitting the big red button as I see a giga chad venting and claiming to be a steve... Anyway, you ran into a bot. Could have been worse, there are bots that just auto-zerg mid and cost team games--only seen that a few times in unranked though. I mean actual bots too not perma-bronze players that act like bots, 'call target' on you, ping the map 200 times a second, and still zerg mid 1v4.

A Simply Steve IRL then? Sadge. 🙃

Bro, you're a Giga Chad...enough toxic should emanate from you that it would make Toxie the Toxic Avenger cry.

Yeah, it seems very close; lose the extra CC from Wyvern but the F2 will actually hit all the time instead of based on how far the pet is (as we know E. Wyvern likes to go through things). Slightly less HP than Wyvern but the other pet skills I think are just straight better. It's a good pet; leading to some funky daze builds that I kind of wish it didn't because we know what they do to ranger once they find out what these builds are 😶

I would say I said 'good' but that is somewhat mean spirited--so will just leave it at that's not my cup of tea. Mostly because no CC at all on the weapon set and it's all projectile--I also don't see how that is any better than just going straight condi; just swap sword out for MH dagger (then you can run either shared anguish or ambidexterity as you'd have enough poison gen with dagger on each set). Anyway.

I don't disagree, so here--gonna bump this topic with a screen of my own: https://imgur.com/a/i7L0J6c Red was almost entirely alts in plat+, and I asked and confirmed my team was entirely silver (s3 to be precise; I was the lone gold at ~1400 atm). Which is why I ask if the gold in your game was Rambo, because as a g3 I can't possibly carry to a < 100-point differential since it's impossible to keep any nodes to begin with. In addition, rallies keep games far apart too--was a DE on other team that must have rallied 3 times in a row because my team was getting insta-nuked. The kicker is it is a -16 point loss for me, and I guess a +6 point win for the other team as I found that out as well by asking about top/bottom duo dynamics with one of the opposing players....

I'm surprised Dolyak Stance has lasted this long without a nerf. It's the most overloaded ranger skill by far and I suspect they don't touch it as they use it for LI entry into ranger, and doubly avoid it now they made sure soulbeast is nowhere near any competitive meta. Which is why I'm so confused at people saying no one uses Shared Anguish when every Soulbeast uses Dolyak Stance, and a good amount of the time offensively to get stability on demand. Not just stability but SIX stacks of it, unlike the mere one Shared Anguish gave. They should have just buffed SA to 2 stacks or something and changed Empathic Bond to be condi clear on pet swap in beastmastery. As it could easily replace Natural Healing, and sort of belongs in BM anyway because of the pet swap CD reduction. Then you can still put Carnivore in EB's GM spot without damaging ranger in the way they are right now.

I don't even think it matters...take Druid for instance. Even if you would take guards stab time down it doesn't make Druid a good support, and now that they nerfed both the heal trap and the glyph and also cut out a source of stab generation in Shared Anguish...it really isn't a good support. New weapons won't change that either, since maces just make Druid a better duelist, not support. What makes good support now is not only stability, but as others have said, the additional things like projectile hate, aura share, etc. I think to counter that they'd need to look back at strips/corrupts and unblockables before they just nerf stability.

I for one really don't want another CA type situation, it's too punishing on down and at the start of matches in sPvP. It's so bad that in close games you are essentially going to lose if the druid goes down as it will be 4v5 for much longer than most other classes waiting for the bar to fill back up. That, and ambush on swap is pretty ideal--if anything they should just make that standard. I haven't waited for the unleashed icon in ages, as don't tend to camp one weapon set so I know when I can swap is when I can use my unleashed ambush. This of course differs slightly in PvE where you want double ambushes so have to wait for the icon, but that's only one mode. But regardless, I think you speak more to adrenaline, which is a super punishing mechanic that would be best left just on warrior. As adrenaline functions like old CA form did where it depleted OOC, and to base all cantrip around that would just promote one-shot builds (with the ambush being just like berserker's primal burst). Anyway, I'm not opposed if the pet is dead/downed then the ranger gets the ambush skills centered around them. You are losing some damage from not having the pet and a ton of utility, so being able to 'self-unleash' as a last-ditch effort seems fine. Especially since no one competent is going to go out of their way to self-kill the pet because there are still swap traits around that.

A 3.5-year necro should be a 35-hour dishonor.... Actually wait, this goes back to 2017 when a mod actually responded to anything in this forum...that's kind of amazing, so maybe only 30-hour dishonor.

This has been like the third topic in three days on hacks, and the only one currently remaining. A 'we're looking into it' would be great.

Ele is kind of like ranger, if you see one they're probably good at the class. Same kind of holds for non-mechnist engi too. That's been the case for me at least. Even if I see another ranger or two on other side, chances are high one is decent and the other probably won't throw the game. That goes to 'hero ball' specs like spellbreaker, mes, or thief that just run far, spam chat how they are holding 2v1 all game and die over...and over...and over. Thieves in particular are everywhere (guard and necro without fail in any given game, and not far behind is thief) and most of them aren't great; but with DE, I do agree that projectile denial removes most of the threat there. You aren't going to catch them and probably won't kill them but holding a node for more than 5 seconds is more points than a kill anyway (even less time if you have 2+ nodes).

You can leave though? At least I've been able to--you queue up and then someone doesn't accept (which seems way longer than 30s btw) and then it goes back to 'in matchmaking queue' instead of 'waiting on players'; when it does that, just leave the queue and wait like 5-10 min. I also will leave Q 99% of time when my actual wait time has gone past the games estimated--usually I will then immediately get a match or if that happens 2-3 times then just wait it out as any match would be a bad one. In general, it appears queues do not work at all in GW2. In sPvP they don't act like a queue because if you leave/join you don't wait any longer like you should have if it was a queue and you got out (aka a line; or first in first out). It's almost as if it is working like a stack, so when you leave you are popped off the top of it and then join you are pushed back on top instead of at the end (last in first out). But WvW is clearly a queue where you are waiting for someone to leave a BL and then you can enter; but even that has visual bugs where it doesn't know someone left--so if you re-queue you just go right in but have to manually do it like the games internal counter breaks or something. For sPvP, transparency would go a long way--forget the anonymous 'queue' and just show who is readying with acct name and all, like--well most other games on the market. What it needs to be is a lobby, which the 'lobby' in the game fails at as you can Q from anywhere in the game. If it were an actual lobby, you could see who was filling it, what rank they are, and their name so you would know who isn't readying. That doesn't 100% solve top whatever's alt queuing, but it would go a long way into finding out what kind of situation you are about to be in. Of course, you couldn't leave the lobby once put in without dishonor (just like now), but knowing names and ranks could help report process monumentally.

I know Trevor plays in plat (and typically stays there the entire season) and obviously runs Shared Anguish or we wouldn't be posting in this topic--I've also played against him...I'm not sure I've played against you. I also know Paper Roll as a roamer in WvW who runs it--I don't know of any YT channel where you post vids? You can say 'rarely' run it all you want--the point here is we do run it. I don't care if power builds currently don't run WS, they usually use GS and have access to a whole bunch of things condi builds don't (like a block); it literally has nothing to do with how useful on demand stability is.

Why even pad your post count to reply to me with this utter ignorance? 😂 No, actually you know what--please show me your 'good' roaming condi druid build using cele stats.

From your screenshot it's...500 to 411?! Either those are some terribad top 20 players, especially when 4/5 of them are in duo--or something is off here 😂. Like, is that gold player John Rambo? I really want to know names now in your screen--as a gold carrying that hard is actually hilarious and does more to prove everything is working than it does to prove what you intended.

Switch over to sPvP for a bit. If you turn chat off and observe, it's the same as SF--you will learn mechanics far better there as it's 70% of the mode to fight other players and not ~20% that WvW is. Reason people say WvW is 'endgame' is that you are expected to know every game mechanic, and all of them are busted because it uses PvE modifiers (for the most part) in a competitive environment. You won't learn anything on your own and you will die super fast without knowing why because 40 people, a 5 man coord gank group, or two thieves will wreck your day and nothing you can do without that 12 years of experience.

Yes/No for me there; I included stuff like Trailblazer and Marauder as cele really isn't a huge difference on some builds IMO. For me and roaming Druid, cele does nothing as only boons I really have are swiftness and fury (because WK and Skirmishing gives it, not because I actually want it). Also, expertise does little as bleeds get cleansed fast--and then condi damage on cele is lower than trailblazer because of its equal stat nature. Same goes for my power untamed roamer--Marauder/Dragons is way better than cele as again not a ton of boons aside from various little ones unleashed state gives and of course the elite-but those boons aren't' going to outright save you like some super boon heavy classes like WB would, so cele falls short for me again. Old boonbeast would be a nightmare with cele and there I would say it is best in slot, but they nerfed that so bad it doesn't really exist anymore. Anyway the tldr; is the 4-stat's belong in there because there are some definite outliers that still have a place far above anything else. There needs just to be a clear distinction between DPS/Tank/Healer as the 'trinity' is at least better than these jack of all trades nightmare builds we have.

Because apparently it doesn't exist for roaming when I use it any time I'm in WvW...roaming. Trailblazer/Marauder/Cele are the ones that need hit from roaming perspective, and minstrel for blobs. All of them besides Marauder have tough/vit which shouldn't be a stat combo in a competitive environment. Marauder is only problematic as it's a straight better Berserker's and so Marauder/Dragon mixes are nearly just as bad as celestial for roaming.