Ferelwing.8463

Agreed, if I get perfect boons I make 24k but overall it's a complete DPS loss. I had already accepted that I would take a dps loss if I had to save the group from a wipe but that's a temporary loss overall. The loss of spirits and the change to all condi builds is a major nerf. I attempted to test the "buffs" on power builds (DH and Core) and I was not impressed.

This happens when the group wipes and you don't "/gg" together and coordinate your return. It's annoying, especially in tier 4's.

So far, I can still enter in a party but squads are still not working. It's becoming an increasing pain point for practicing different buffing strategies.

Having the same problem still as well... It's still a problem. Nearly impossible to help raid training or getting a good feel for a comp now.

Yes, we tried from there and only 1 member would get into the area, I saw the "green star" for instances in the room. Then watched as my squad tried to join but would get booted before finishing the load. They did not get the invite screen to join up either. If we dropped into 2 groups of 5 we could get in.

Yep, kept happening.

In our case it now no longer accepts squads at all and behaved like a Dungeon instance. We kept getting a "kicked" message when attempting to enter the instance.

Our squad went in to do some training, we couldn't go in as a squad. It insisted we were in a party, would not give us the recommended 10 players. We could go in separately but we couldn't leave and return with a new test build. This meant we couldn't run two different classes to train new buffing players on how to buff the DPSing players on the golem. It still says it accepts "10 players recommended" but now behaves like a Dungeon accepting only 5.

Why didn't they put it into the bugs on the main site vs via twitter which not every player uses... I had no idea what was going on till I got here.

If we were still on the maps that didn't require mounts because of distance... I'd be fine walking because it's frustrating to have them go on cd and not having them when you need them most. Dismounting with the dismount combat ability is ruined when you can't just start into a fight without first "wait, hold on a sec.. gotta summon my cc pet." Talk about feeling unprepared when going into the "test".

Is WvW going to be allowed to get the event reward track unlocked?

Try loading out of this chapter into a previous chapter and then going back and doing it again (that's what some people on the other post have found that works). Anet is aware of the problem and will be putting in a fix.

There was another person who reported the same thing in a different location on the forum. Anet is aware and looking into it.

I don't see the node either and I bought the portal scroll as well. I was curious if anyone else saw the book... I started to wonder if those of us who can't see the nodes also don't get to see the books... I've bought both portal scrolls. I've had this happen a couple of times, I thought it was just me...

Honestly, I think it starts with boon share first and how many boons/stacks of boons can be pumped out and then it moves to boon corruption. I can understand in the PVE zones the need for boon and boon corruptions to be used on mobs but in WvW, I think the problem is widespread. Going down to the basics on how many boons should be shared and how much corruption to give would be an excellent start. Basically, there's too much power creep and while that is fine in PVE because the base-line mobs are kinda over-tuned in some places, it's not fine when playing PvP or WvW. A meta I would be interested in (even if it's a pain) would be one where every class had a place in group raids. Currently, some classes are over-represented and other classes just aren't welcome. While there is the option of inviting scouts/roamers into squads for participation, in my experience only some commanders actually do this. Generally, if they're not with the commander then they're not welcome. Some classes just aren't welcome in squads period because they have very little to offer. I would love to see that change. I think a truly balanced meta would give each class something to offer to the group as well as options to roam/scout. I agree with some of the posters about the FB issue. I play a lot of Firebrand, and sometimes I'm staying in game way past when I want to because the need for stability in groups There need to be either other classes who offer it or perhaps we could introduce food that can give stability or something else (potions etc). A bandaid to the problem would be offering food, as in a new one created by Grandmaster chef's or something. Also, one of my biggest complaints is the perma--stealth and that so few classes have the ability to break it. Having the traps is practically useless in certain maps (mostly the red map). Nothing is more annoying than a thief/mesmer running all over your base when you have a full squad and can't isolate them to kill them (admittedly this is more a red-map thing than any other map). Either make it so you can drop more than one trap or do something about the perma-stealth.

I have to agree here. I have played all of the classes and I quit playing Scourge because there are no re-positioning tools, if you screw up even once you are dead and useless. I have more deaths on my scourge than on all of my other toons combined. So I just stopped playing scourge and moved to classes where I could re-position quickly. It is absolutely not a face roll class in WvW. In fact I would argue that because of it's lack of mobility it is the least "face roll" of the classes that I've played. I agree that the condi spam and absolute zone control provided by Scourge was a real pain especially in close quarters but it was a harder class to play. And to you i can just say that you are blatantly lying, take a look at fleshwurm, spectral walk, sand swell and finally trail of anguish, those are all repositioning tools, 3 of them being teleports.... You return back to your "initial position" not to a different position ie: the direction your entire zerg went to vs say when I play ele and I just mist form directly to where my team went or as a firebrand where I use merciful intervention to shadowstep to my closest ally and provide "healing". Spectral walk is a tether, it takes me precisely back to where I started from when I initially cast it. While I suppose on a "technicality" you could call it a re positioning tool, and under some circumstances it could be useful.. IE: I cast it before the zerg starts the fight and then I use it's ability because my zerg ran towards the exact location I was when I cast it. Because it only takes you to the precise place you were when you cast it, in reality it's not a particularly useful one. Fleshwurm is the same skill as spectral walk, I guess it could be used if you're doing jumping puzzles? In WvW though, spectral walk and fleshwurm are super telegraphed and easy to counter. So why you'd recommend that? Not sure, also why Necro has 2 of the exact same mechanic I have no idea either, but there ya go. Sand swell, is a short range portal that doesn't even compare to any other portal, I could see a basic argument for using it but due to the short range of it and the whole "condi-spam" problem of other classes plus the massive aoe's (which scourges contribute to) again, it's not really as viable except when you're running to somewhere. Yes, it allows short "re positioning" but it has to be within a certain range and when you're in a zerg you're rarely running it, you use trail of anguish instead because it offers stab and speed. Out of all the skills mentioned only trail of anguish is really useful. But yeah sure, I guess on a technicality you could remotely call the other two "teleports". Do I use them? Did I use them? Not really because I was usually dead before then but again that boils down to my lack of skill at proper positioning when playing a necro vs being able to do the same as my firebrand or ele. I have better skills and more leeway with those two classes. I spent a lot of time dead as a necro. My experience of course isn't the only experience out there and I'm 100% sure there are necro's out there who did not have the problems I did but, saying a class is a "faceroll" class because it has AOE spam ignores the skill of the people who had to focus on their rotations and positioning. Scourge isn't an "easy beginner class" to play in wvw unless perhaps you've already played classes that had even more tricky rotations and positioning issues... I suppose if that's your experience then perhaps I could see it being "easy" or "faceroll".

I have to agree here. I have played all of the classes and I quit playing Scourge because there are no re-positioning tools, if you screw up even once you are dead and useless. I have more deaths on my scourge than on all of my other toons combined. So I just stopped playing scourge and moved to classes where I could re-position quickly. It is absolutely not a face roll class in WvW. In fact I would argue that because of it's lack of mobility it is the least "face roll" of the classes that I've played. I agree that the condi spam and absolute zone control provided by Scourge was a real pain especially in close quarters but it was a harder class to play. I admit, I played Blood Scourge and I wasn't good at positioning. I managed to live longer and play better as Tempest and FB because of the ability to re-position Scourge/Necro have no re-positioning tools, if you are not immediately in the right place you are dead. I also agree that the insane amounts of scourges with tons and tons of shades was a pain because of the zone control they offered to WvW and we all agreed that something needed to change. But, I am sad that instead of these changes being a WvW only set they are going to hit PVE as well. I am also disappointed that instead of compensating the Necro for taking away sustain (again) by adding re-positioning to the kit they are taking a class that has to think about placement and positioning and add more "think about whether you want to place things and whether or not you can move fast enough to avoid the oncoming zerg". Playing Necro in PVE however is fun, but it has traditionally been unwelcome in most late game groups (raids/fractals etc). It was nice to finally be considered "helpful" in the late game content and I am sad to find out that the class is going to no longer be useful in late game PVE anymore. I really do think it's time for GW2 to start recognizing that PVE and WvW/sPvP want different things than PVE. They need to separate it and they need to really focus on what each class is meant to do then optimize it for that vs playing whack a mole.

I just wanted to come on and agree with the general sentiment here. I think the biggest problem that WvW is having currently when it comes to balance is that the balance team really needs to take a look at what they think each class/spec should be doing and how they work with the other class/specs. They should then be spending their time creating a space for that AND working around that overall picture. IE: If you created a class you intended to be a support/utility class, then focus on making that support/utility the focus and give it the synergy needed to work with the classes that it is intended to compliment. If you make a damage class that you intend for it to pump out tons of damage then make it so that the damage that it does has it's synergies with the utility/tank classes. Taking each class separately and not viewing the whole picture as a large scale group has been where the problems lie. The classes and elite specs should have their synergies well defined and if you are releasing different utility/damage classes per expansion then be certain to make sure that each of the classes whether they are tank, utility or damage each have their roles defined and their synergies coordinated. Right now it sort of looks and feels like everything being done is reactionary vs by design. The look and feel of each elite spec doesn't feel like it's designed around a type of synergy but instead to allow classes to wield a weapon that was missing from their core class. Don't get me wrong, I love the elite specs and find them fun to play but it feels like more time should have been taken in determining how each of these specs would interact with each other, in each of the different game modes and what that elite spec was expected to do in a group. I would personally love to see dev's start discussing which specs are meant to fill which roles and how best to make that happen. Give each spec viable and defined roles that they are intended to fit into. The "jack of all trades, master of none" box isn't a good guide when it comes to balancing and having PvP and WvW means balancing. I think that sitting down and defining what each spec's role is supposed to be then balancing that spec towards the intended play-pattern of that spec would help ease a lot of the frustration in WvW and PvP modes. If you want to give each elite spec two options for play-pattern that's fine too but then there needs to be discussion on how best to express those options and what the trades will be for choosing them. Each spec should have it's own specific identity and it's own specific niche it's meant to fill in a group setting complete with an optimization that gives it that space to succeed. The system is amazing for the amount of creativity it creates but the problem is that if the entirety of the class isn't taken into account as well as it's over-lap/synergy with the other classes/possible builds. Then you're going to continue to have a problem with balance. You won't be able to please everyone (obviously) but if you're going to have a situation where players face off against other players then it's in your best interests to decide what elite spec is supposed to offer what to each group and then make sure that is viable for that elite spec. If you want to have each class/spec continue in the Master of None category then the headache of WvW and PvP will continue. In many cases it would make sense to separate PvP and WvW gameplay styles from PVE because PVE needs to be more flexible, but WvW and PvP need roles to be better defined. Currently, from what I've experienced so far most specs feel a bit all over the place without a clear identity that shapes what they are supposed to do in a group. While that leaves room for creativity it also means that balance often feels haphazard and frustrating for everyone (I suspect it's just as frustrating for dev's). TLDR: The balance team needs to take each of the Elite Specs and Core builds together as a whole and define for themselves what each of these specs/cores are expected to do in group play. Then optimize their power based on the intended play pattern for the elite specs/core builds. You can tweak the damage ratios/frustrating aspects of the specs as you go but each spec really does need a clearly defined role, it does not need to be nor should it be able to do everything in PvP or WvW. I can see the need in PVE but PvP and WvW have different needs.

I want 181 if it's still open! Ferelwing.8463 (NA server)

I thought it was just me... I have 2 screens. I have wondered if perhaps that's part of the problem..

Basically, changing stats is one thing. Transferring gear between characters and changing stats on top of it is way too much of a hassle for most people to actually do that. Eeven people with legendary gear usually just get an additional (ascended) set for that. I was trying to point out that the stat choices in PVE are binary. Before I set foot into WvW I thought the majority of the stat combinations were obsolete and useless. It surprised me that Anet even offered them because I couldn't figure out who would need them. It was either Condi or Zerkers. After stepping into WvW it was an eye-opener and I find myself experimenting with different stat combinations, the problem being that I'm still working on the Legendary set in WvW so having 3 toons that I play exclusively in WvW with several different ascended gear sets (based on what I will need based on server population and what kind of build is needed at the time..) has made a mess of my inventory and bank space. Legendary Armor will be a space saver! WvW and raids are completely different. Raids are instanced content played by a maximum of 10 people, so the stat choices are very limited; you need to compress as much as possible everything the squad needs (DPS, support, etc). A celestial DPS would not deal enough damage, and if DPS started using hybrid gear (gear half supportive half damage), things like dedicated healers like druid would become a waste. But druids not only give heals, you know. Druids are necessary because of the insane amount of utility and damage buffs they give, and that will never be covered by any hybrid or self-sufficient build. Same with chronos. I agree that it's sad that the build diversity in raids is so little, I really really do. Aw, come on. Raid meta is twice as diverse as the WvW one. 95% of everything you'll find in a WvW squad is Scourge, Firebrand and Spellbreaker. But WvW is not just zerging, you know. Roaming builds are much more diverse. And raid builds aren't diverse, you can't just come up with something completely unique and get it to be usefull. It's either a heal build, a boon build, a condi build or a condi build. Yeah well, you can "roam" in the open world PvE on literally anything. Raids are organized cooperative play for a larger number of players, it only make sense to compare it to WvW squad play. GvG or zerging, in either case the meta is very restrictive. Umm... Roaming in WvW means something completely different than it does in PVE. Roaming means going out and running into other enemies whose builds you won't know till the encounter starts. Skill, build etc can determine whether you make it out (knowing your escapes etc). Open World? You don't need defensive stats and you're actually punished for taking them. I'd say Zerging is the only time it gets restrictive and it completely depends on the guilds/servers etc but even then, PUG's don't care as much and some guilds encourage their members to try different builds out so we can optimize towards what we're trying to do. I have lots of builds as a result. I'm well aware what does "roaming" stand for in WvW, even I don't actively do it. The point is, it makes no sense to compare highly organized to (almost) unorganized play in terms of meta variance. Obviously the unorganized one will be much more diverse. But a much more sensible comparison would be organized vs organized, as both game modes feature this. And then you see the same type of restrictive meta in both. If you really think that the minmaxing of pve raiding against an AI from snowcrows can be compared to the blatantly laughable "metabattle" wvw builds against human opponents, then you are probably ignorant about what wvw is about, zerging or no zerging. And if you think WvW zerging compares to the actual skill and even playing field provided by SPvP it's blatantly laughable. WvW, especially roaming wvw, comes waaaay closer to spvp than pve comes to wvw zerging, but I would supoose you know that already. Spvp stats are more limited, so in a way, builds should tend to get More predictable. Spvp has its own beauty, it is of course harder to play because of human enemies who can change their playstyle according to the environment, positioning, everything. But then, again, I would supoose you already know that. So, I cant really see the point of that strawman argument you just pulled off, there. I'm going to have to disagree a little, roaming may be more like sPvP but I'd argue that quite a lot of fight guilds are made up of sPvP ranked players and they're more likely to be the front line/midline of any well composed zerg. sPvP players have an advantage over those coming to WvW from PVE in that they already know which classes to focus immediately and how to avoid some of the incoming damage. Most highly skilled sPvP players only get downed when they get hit with the cc chains that are more common in WvW and not able to be pulled off in sPvP due to numbers. We've all experienced that chain Firebrand pull after pull after pull that lands you right under the bubble and on top of all the scourge circles. If you've got any invulns left you might get out of it but generally speaking you're low enough that Ranger/Holo is more likely to just finish you off. It's more common when defending a base though then in a full on zerg. I'd argue that they're ok in a blob/zerg on the whole but they sometimes get overconfident and get downed/killed (to be fair though anyone can get to that point especially if you've managed not to die in the previous encounters). Now, I would say that just because sPvP teaches you what to expect from enemy classes it does not overall mean that you're "better than" any of the other types of players. Your skills are specialized to fighting, other people specialize in supporting that. I can pull up to 5 players to me in a fight, I will prioritize those with the highest skill level (or the Commander/Lieutenants) when I'm in a zerg. I don't do it to be mean but I have limited resources/time/choices so I have to prioritize who I can save and who I can't. This kind of play style isn't easy and it's completely different from "fight" oriented play-styles. Positioning is key because if I try this tactic and I'm too close to the enemy everyone I just tried to save will die and so will I. If I'm too far away then I won't be saving anyone. That style of play is hard to pull off but I enjoy it because of the difficulty. I like to play a lot of mid-line support classes because my twitch skills are never going to be peak again so while I know what to do and where to be, if it requires a twitch reaction time I just have to accept my fate. I know how to corrupt boons, where to place shades etc.. If I'm running an ele then I'm running condi cleanses and am that boon support. At the same time I'm also part of the AOE damage that's used for zone control (both my scourge and ele are both supportive and zone control). It doesn't mean I can't fight, just means that I know I can be beaten by someone who is younger and faster than me. If I come across someone like that, I will wisely not take that fight (if I'm not already dead). Strategically retreating and alerting someone with faster reflexes that someone worthy of their skill is around is my general response. I'm not above teaming up with someone else though to take them down (It is about protecting territory after all, but I'm aware of my own limitations).

Well then I'll wait until the shinnies become the bigger problem of WvW and we can see multiple posts of 93 pages about that subject to make it look important, and obviously outside the Raid/dungeon/fractal subforum because it simply doesn't belong here and of course it doesn't belong on this thread. Can we close this "parenthesis" about WvW now and return the thread to the actual topic? At least I will, this is not only off topic, but pointless too. To be perfectly honest, this thread has seen nothing original after maybe the 15th Page. Everything else is just repeating same stuff over and over again. Yeah, pretty much.

Basically, changing stats is one thing. Transferring gear between characters and changing stats on top of it is way too much of a hassle for most people to actually do that. Eeven people with legendary gear usually just get an additional (ascended) set for that. I was trying to point out that the stat choices in PVE are binary. Before I set foot into WvW I thought the majority of the stat combinations were obsolete and useless. It surprised me that Anet even offered them because I couldn't figure out who would need them. It was either Condi or Zerkers. After stepping into WvW it was an eye-opener and I find myself experimenting with different stat combinations, the problem being that I'm still working on the Legendary set in WvW so having 3 toons that I play exclusively in WvW with several different ascended gear sets (based on what I will need based on server population and what kind of build is needed at the time..) has made a mess of my inventory and bank space. Legendary Armor will be a space saver! WvW and raids are completely different. Raids are instanced content played by a maximum of 10 people, so the stat choices are very limited; you need to compress as much as possible everything the squad needs (DPS, support, etc). A celestial DPS would not deal enough damage, and if DPS started using hybrid gear (gear half supportive half damage), things like dedicated healers like druid would become a waste. But druids not only give heals, you know. Druids are necessary because of the insane amount of utility and damage buffs they give, and that will never be covered by any hybrid or self-sufficient build. Same with chronos. I agree that it's sad that the build diversity in raids is so little, I really really do. Aw, come on. Raid meta is twice as diverse as the WvW one. 95% of everything you'll find in a WvW squad is Scourge, Firebrand and Spellbreaker. But WvW is not just zerging, you know. Roaming builds are much more diverse. And raid builds aren't diverse, you can't just come up with something completely unique and get it to be usefull. It's either a heal build, a boon build, a condi build or a condi build. Yeah well, you can "roam" in the open world PvE on literally anything. Raids are organized cooperative play for a larger number of players, it only make sense to compare it to WvW squad play. GvG or zerging, in either case the meta is very restrictive. Umm... Roaming in WvW means something completely different than it does in PVE. Roaming means going out and running into other enemies whose builds you won't know till the encounter starts. Skill, build etc can determine whether you make it out (knowing your escapes etc). Open World? You don't need defensive stats and you're actually punished for taking them. I'd say Zerging is the only time it gets restrictive and it completely depends on the guilds/servers etc but even then, PUG's don't care as much and some guilds encourage their members to try different builds out so we can optimize towards what we're trying to do. I have lots of builds as a result. I'm well aware what does "roaming" stand for in WvW, even I don't actively do it. The point is, it makes no sense to compare highly organized to (almost) unorganized play in terms of meta variance. Obviously the unorganized one will be much more diverse. But a much more sensible comparison would be organized vs organized, as both game modes feature this. And then you see the same type of restrictive meta in both. If you really think that the minmaxing of pve raiding against an AI from snowcrows can be compared to the blatantly laughable "metabattle" wvw builds against human opponents, then you are probably ignorant about what wvw is about, zerging or no zerging. And if you think WvW zerging compares to the actual skill and even playing field provided by SPvP it's blatantly laughable.sPvP has some really good skill. I can tell someone in WvW who is highly ranked in sPvP the skill difference is immediate (and they're my favorite players to keep alive in a blob/zerg because they're the most effective at what they do). I'm working on getting better at it but my twitch skills are way past their prime. I'm better as a supportive style player still. As long as I'm alive the most effective members of the group aren't going down and if it's a choice between getting them up and possibly going down, I'll take the risk. I'm more likely to survive if I bring up a skilled player than if I try to save someone who is constantly getting downed (downed penalty was fun, but it made me have to completely change my playstyle for a week). I would argue that there are different skillsets required in WvW other than just fighting but if you're roaming, you have to be able to fight and if you meet someone stronger you better know how to escape.

You could follow them around but you're more likely to die. You can manage it if you're really fast and can keep track of where the commander is. If you see the commander backing up, you back up etc.. But the fighting relies on excellent communication and reflexes of the squad. While some players are really good at following visually, there's information being passed in the coms that are missing if you're not there. Map calls and or calls that are only given in coms. If the call came via com you miss it so you won't know that commander just told everyone to wp to garri for instance. All of a sudden you're alone in enemy territory possibly facing an oncoming squad. Not a fun place to be in. Some commanders do not tag up if they're running a guild squad with coms to prevent people from following them and "messing up" the plan. Especially if they're running guild missions. It comes up but not as much as the current problems with WvW. Mainly we're focused on world/server balance issues and class balance issues (AOE spam, Boon Spam and Condi spam plus the need for more options to deal with said spam). Not to mention other QoL problems (sieges, walls, etc) After you get through those issues the topics of QoL come up. Mainly rewards for tiers (lack of them), lack of shinies etc. If you check out the "lack of rewards" part for tiers, you'll see the comments about lack of shinies and the complaints that PVE gets the nicest/best shinies.

Except for the fact that you're playing a scripted encounter that can (by your own words) be taught to you by watching vid's and practicing it until you know everything you're supposed to do by heart. Except I play both type of organized content and I never saw any basis for the haughtily attitude pvp-ers have toward pve content.You encounter the pvp attitude in response to the PVE superiority attitude (both are wrong). Each requires a different skill-set and is a different specialty. Neither is better than the other per se, just different. sPvP and WvW get annoyed when PVE insists that they're "better" than everyone else because they take on Bosses with scripted flows that can be memorized. I'm not denying that it's hard, nor that learning the pattern requires skill. I'm just saying that just because you can do that doesn't make you "superior" or "better" than I am. I think both sides are reacting to a perceived "superiority" complex. I can acknowledge it takes skill to figure out the timings and rotations to do a scripted encounter. I admit, I get annoyed when someone compares that scripted encounter to the unscripted free-flowing reactionary type of play that I am skilled at and pretends they are the same thing. I also get annoyed when the person who spends time on scripted encounters tries to imply that my ability to know where to be and flank the enemy/supportive pull a downed tank/save a commander or know which of the team to try to save/which to leave behind etc requires "less skill" or is "not as good" as their ability to survive their scripted encounter. I would like the same courtesy that I extend returned. Both require skill but they're not the same skill and neither of them is really comparable when you get down to it. They're different not better/worse. Again, they have similarities sure and you might be able to cross-over and use some of those skills in both contexts but to compare them and pretend that it makes either side "superior", it's not a good comparison and it's not a fair one either. I can say till I'm blue in the face that I'm better because I can do that, but it doesn't make that statement true anymore than you can claim that because you do Boss encounters all the time you are better than me, that's also not true. Both are different specialties and can't really be compared side by side because while (similar abilities) they require different skill-sets. The problem comes about when one side starts to act as if their skills are superior to the other because of (insert random reasons here) and then the other side gets offended and retaliates (Both groups of players do this whether or not it's an intentional attack doesn't matter. It's the perception that gets the whole thing started). When I said PVE builds were binary you took that as an attack on PVE. I was just pointing out that the way PVE plays (the way it's coded) makes those builds make more sense. I got irritated when you tried to claim WvW builds were just as binary (they're not as pointed out). I probably took offense, because I have no idea if you actually meant it as a slight or not and I felt you were misrepresenting WvW as a whole from an outsiders perspective. (You might have felt the same way). The loaded words used to describe other players of the game also contributes to it "casuals" is a big one. Grouping an entire group of people together and then using terms to insult them is rude and it sets off the situation as well. When someone starts insulting other's as "casuals" it creates that "us vs them" mentality that then sets up the "PVE vs WvW/sPvP". When a member of a Raid calls a player in WvW a casual, it insinuates that you are better than they are. It doesn't matter what mode they're addressing. That attitude is what sets some of off and then it starts the silly "contest" as to who is actually better. Neither side can win that argument because they require different skills. I used PVE to describe the entire PVE population, not specifically Raiders. When speaking of Raiders I was specific. At the same time, I couldn't help but notice the attitude thrown at anyone who played different modes or even open world (which is why I reacted in a way that was defensive). It makes it super easy to be elitist when someone else comes off as if they are superior. Perhaps I was reading into it and if that's the case I'm sorry and if you thought I was trying to be superior I'm sorry for not being more clear. I was trying to point out the differences in the modes and why some of Anet's decisions bothered me. Not claim that my preferred mode was "better than" PVE or Raiding. Bringing it back to the whole reason I started in this thread to begin with (I wrote to Mad-doctor). I have family who bought the game and wanted to play together. We played together on EQ, it had more instanced content that we could all join together and play in. Unfortunately the only instanced content that supports the entire group is Raids. I don't want to exclude any members of my family from playing and they experience lag when playing in Open World. If there were a training mode with less pressure that would let the younger members of the family "level up" (learn the moves and have fun with it. Not get frustrated and start raging) I'd be all for it. If they added a different type of instanced content that could accommodate that many I'd join that instead. I was trying to see if perhaps there would be something like that for those of us who have family who need to be "gently" taught how to do things and are willing to learn but aren't the best when it comes to repeated failures (4 hours of wasted time that involved raging teens was NOT fun for anyone involved). Right now they log in for LW's and expacs. Once they get the basic stuff (not even all the skins) they quit. Since we'd have to split into 2 groups to do Fractals etc and when everyone is on everyone wants to play together... Well can you see where I'm coming from?