[Bandit Death Mark cannot be acquired]

It comes from exotic bags from bandit champs all over the game (Embroidered Coin Purse). I guess all the bandit champs (the bounty ones) in vanilla maps will drop a bag but I am sure you can get it from any bandit champ anywhere. 

You can just kill vanilla bandit champs with mentor tags so more people join perhaps with marks and you might get the mark but maybe the Executioner will spawn anyway. The mark doesn't guarantee the spawn, only increases it and it can spawn without mark also.

[[WvW] R.I.P. Reaper]

While Scourge is probably objectively better for squad play in most scenarios, I still prefer Reaper unless I know we won't get much melee play. That melee burst is just so nice.

Roaming? Yeah well you can't have everything.

[Opinions on EoD?]

It was worth my money. I never expect Hot or Pof level.

It does seem some parts are somewhat unfinished. New Kaineng is just lacking, the new mob variety seems low with lots of rehashed void mobs and lack of good, long event chains. 

Jade bots are just needles busy work and huge power creep. I hate silly time sinks like that. I think they should remove the buffs outside of Cantha again.

I am enjoying new elites though. Some more than others, but that was the same with previous expansions. New strikes are good and if they continue in this direction, great. Maps while not as immersive are still fun to explore and offer a few mini dungeons with 2 good metas (Seitung and DE).

I am just afraid the new content seems a bit uninspired. Both Hot and Pof were such great expansions with great amount of details, atmosphere that just made it into a world you immerse into. Eod maps are just that, maps. More like living world maps and LS4 even surpasses them. 

I don't really play for story, hardly follow it and almost never repeat it. But in Hot and Pof I still felt that I have a goal, an enemy to conquer, people to save and everything ties into it. Even outside of story instances, on the maps themselves. In EOD I am just killing some humanoid factions that maybe are more interesting for gw1 players but not fo rme and THE VOID (completely non relatable enemy). 

[These forums are hilarious]

2 hours ago, Incantus.8549 said:

Amazing how apparently every single profession forum thinks their profession is utter garbage and not viable. Especially amazing as I've been pretty much steamrolled by at least one person from every profession when I tried pvp and WvW recently. And looking at fractals at least in the group finder there doesnt seem to be any professions missing either?

Yes, specific profession forums are pretty much reserved for qq.

In general it's really hard to get reliable information on the forums as you will get answers from a broad range of players that play different types of content. Specific game type forums (instanced pve, spvp, wvw) are better since you will get more focused answers but even there you might get conflicted or even dead wrong answers. Your best bet for good info are dedicated sites that put a lot of theory and testing behind their info. Example of such sites are snowcrows for raiding, discretize for fractals, guildjen, hardstuck. And even there you might notice discrepancies between sites.

Also keep in mind asking a question like "Is guardian good?" will not give you good answers. This game's build and gear variety has great depth and the game has different game modes that play out and require completely different approach and builds. Which means you have to be much more precise with your questions.

Generally all professions are good and you can make them all play how you want in open world. And for more competitive modes the meta changes over time. But guardian in general is a class that has good variety and has one of the best track records in all modes.

[Guaranteed method of driving up player engagement and pushing content.]

12 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

(This is one reason I once suggested having a market under the glass dome in Lion's Arch where each week copies of different vendors from around the world come to the city. It would give them greater visability and make it easier for newer or casual players to find out what they can get with all those currencies, while also filling up an empty space. But it just got merged into the QoL dumping ground thread so I assume Anet didn't like the idea.)

Thats a great, fun idea. It would really feel like a true market place with people browsing. 

[The Attribute Problem, or, Why Power is Always Lagging Behind]

1 hour ago, Andifulated.3482 said:

Outside of Virtuoso, on-crit abilities aren't really utilized or necessarily built into as the condition weapons that apply hits are generally rather slow in attacking or don't/can't crit (So the extra conditions on crit wouldn't really matter) or the class can place so many sources of strike damage that can crit down that it procs the effect off cooldown even with low crit chance (See guardian symbols on firebrand).  While there is a minimum amount of precision you'll need on condition builds, it's only ever actually needed to push 100% on a couple builds.  Not to mention that Firebrand also gains a lot of crit chance from just having burning & fury.

But all condition build also deal power dmg. It varies between builds but its not insignificant. Many power builds deal practically no condition dmg. 

[Would you like a map that uses masteries from different expansions?]

There are a few maps, areas that do that already. Like mentioned Dragonfall has various options. You can use LS3 gliding skills during Dragon's End meta.  I do hope they add more Griffon adventures. 

[Warrior or Revenant for pvp / Raids / OW]

Warrior has had a few very strong spvp and pve dps builds since EOD launch. A few rather OP. And is always sought after in WvW squads.

But Revenant just has so many options. OP builds come and go but Revenant is one of those classes that is always doing good in all modes.

[What is better for instanced pve en group events?.]

10 player will give 10 different answers. And even if a class is really strong or overpowered today it might change with the next patch. 

Dont worry about it and play what you like. 

If you need to compare classes, compare how versatile they are. But even here most can cover many different roles. Maybe thief has less choice and warrior second. But that doesnt mean they are bad at what they can do. Elementalist and mesmer while versatile can be quite tricky to play but thats my personal opinion and I acually love elementalist. 

Both guardian, especially Firebrand and ranger have always been very solid classes. 

[What is better for instanced pve en group events?.]

I wouldnt say anyone is better, its more about versatility. 

Firebrand can play as dps, quickness dps boon support, quickness healing support. 

Soulbeast youre stuck with dps. But if you expand to druid and untamed you can also play as alacrity dps boon support and alacrity heal support. I dont know if alacrity soulbeast is a thing. 

[GW2 should finally add "inspect gear" ability to examine other players' cosmetics]

I don't think gear inspection is necessary or would even add anything useful. It is very useful in wow for example where you need a certain gear score to be even capable to perform at the required level. Here getting best gear is very easy.

I don't think gear inspects would become gate keepers for entering squads anyway. We have kill proofs and those are much better and stricter assessment if you want to gate keep potential liabilities in your squad.

If players started using gear inspects as the requirement to enter squad it would be actually easier for inexperienced players because getting best gear is easy. But they wouldn't because again, kill proofs.

Gear inspects would only become a toxic tool with bad players. Those that actually don't understand what is required to clear an encounter, don't understand the difference between exotic and ascended and don't understand builds. Players that look at some site, copy build and this is their holy grail and don't understand compromises that can be taken based on your play style, that builds are often fluid and sometimes have to be adapted for specific encounters.

I wouldn't mind inspects though. But I would be more interesting inspecting players that perform really well but run an unexpected setup.

[Why keep it simple when you can needlessly complicate it?]

My only gripe is Mantra of Potence. You spam it regardless in pve. And I dont think its ever relevant in pvp. 

[The cadence and scale of the balance patch seem insufficient to address long standing issues]

On the other hand we often complained how Anet does these big sweeping changes where builds go from best to dead in one patch. 

So small changes might be better if they keep them up regularly. 

[EoD gear locked behind strike missions]

3 minutes ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

Thankfully the rest of the OW people will read this thread , where Raiders are saying the OW don't need the 2 stats (no new OW optimization/fun combo is allowed in OW) .

No one needs these 2 stat combos. No content is gated behind these 2 stat combos and not much if any at all efficiency is lost without them. 

Dragon's especially has quite limited usability especially in high end group PVE.

That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with gating a few equipment pieces behind certain content, especially because partial gating of stat combos will most likely be time limited and follows the past patterns.

We are not even talking about stat combinations but about 2 specific equipment pieces, achievements. You can get alternatives through other means and from the top of my head only 1 of the rings is gated behind group content. If 1 off-set ring (or exotic instead of ascended) is such a problem for anyone I don't know what content they are playing that would require such min-maxing.  

[EoD gear locked behind strike missions]

4 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

In this game it is.

It clearly is not. Unless you count strikes as baseline content which I guess they could be. 

Maybe it would be better worded that you think it should be. 

5 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

That's a way of thinking taken straight out from a vertical progression game. GW2 is not a vertical progression game.

No that is a way of thinking from a progression game. Be it vertical, horizontal or any kind of progression. Something not being vertical doesnt mean everything should be given to everyone baseline. Besides new stat combos don't increase character power, only distribute stats in a different way. I'm sure author can make a build with combination of other stats that performs equally or close. 

Also there are other means to acquire those stat combos without doing group content.

[EoD gear locked behind strike missions]

16 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Providing rewards for endgame content is not a bad thing. Locking them behind this content however may be. Especially when we're talking about baseline utility kind of rewards.

Best in slot ascended gear for specific builds is not baseline utility. Everyone can play just fine without those stats at this point even in the hardest content. So if someone is not playing the hardest group PVE content, the latest BIS is definitely not baseline utility. 

[The iterative process ruins this game potential]

1 hour ago, Gibson.4036 said:

There's an important distinction to be made between "surviving" and "thriving". By all means, people can make the case the game is still thriving, but I'd expect a higher threshold than "there's still content being released and people are still playing".

Its 10 years old mmo game that is going well and doesnt have a huge IP and giant studio behind like warcraft, final fantasy, star wars, tes. I think thriving is completely fitting here. 

[What class for archievments hunting and doing collections?]

If you dont plan to have alts play a class that you like the most. Any will do for ahievs hunting. But there are also quite some achievements that are class specific.

Its really easy to have alts in this game. 

[Some Silverwastes achievements involving the Vinewrath Champions are impossible?]

Sometimes less players is worse because of scaling. Often 5 players will kill a champ or leggy much faster than 50. Not sure this actually counts for vinewrath but I just did it 2 days ago and we were 3 or 4 inside and burned the middle boss so fast he barely managed 2 attacks. 

[Fahl missing and cant start "Fend off the leviathan"]

Its an event, its not always active. You can check Seitung and Kaineng lfg for levi farms. You will have a hard time soloing it (maybe impossible).

[Necro, rev or druid? End game - all modes, hard to choose]

Rev can basically cover all roles with exception alac heal in pve right now. Healing quick rev might not be the most common but I think its perfectly viable. Its also one of the pillars of WvW squad play either as vindicator or herald and I am sure you can make a good roaming build. spvp you have vindicator and herald, both at least viable if not meta. Condi herald might also be an option (I like it even though its not on the top now).

I think rev right now is probably the most versatile class out there. 

Druid is meta as an alac heal in pve. For other roles you will have to look at other ranger specs. spvp ranger is great, druid is currently not the best option but I'm sure you can make it work. WvW was always a problem for rangers in general. While there are plenty good roaming specs out there, the class design just doesnt favour squad play. 

Necro has plenty of viable builds for all modes. Its a bit of a funny class in pve. You can play it as dps or quick dps np. HSCG is funny though. Its a super carry build which not many players will want in a group unless its a specific encounter. It doesnt bring any quickness or alacrity to the table which really limits him but when you need a true support carry, its the strongest build out there (for example Boneskinner strike). 

[Living World.....Gone?]

11 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Honestly I thought IBS was pretty solid until the final portions.

First 2 or 3 chapters of IBS were great. Top quality delivery and introduction of a new 10 man mode which has been a success. Strikes really are coming along nicely. Yeah the initial Strikes were kinda basic but they keep getting better. 

Some people complained about Forging Steel as a mandatory story group content. Which I get, maybe not the best move. But the instance has quality production and while a bit long with some drawn out parts to be successful as a Strike Mission, there's a lot of lore and dialogue and unique mechanics in there.

[Living World.....Gone?]

50 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Considering that one of the reasons they mentioned for doing that change is an admission they are no longer capable of doing multiple projects at once (even LS, much less an expansion), i'd seriously expect a massive reduction in content amount.

I would expect the same amount as now but at a more steady pace, without the drought before and peak at expansion release. From the company organisational pov I think that's good. 

[GW2 should finally add "inspect gear" ability to examine other players' cosmetics]

14 minutes ago, Farohna.6247 said:

That's quality armor!

Thanks!

 

You can inspect my gear and build and kp. That's fine.

But my looks? No way, top secret.

[Living World.....Gone?]

I think t definitely makes sense from the business point of view. LS chapters went by quite unnoticed outside of the game so a lower cadence with more content that passes as an expansion is better marketing in my opinion.

Yeah we will need to pay for content now. But that is completely fair by me. And players that were giving hard times to new players that were complaining about LS prices even though they never really paid for the content themselves, well they will  finally be able to say we paid for it so you should to 🙂 

As far as elite specs. I'm completely fine if they keep the cadence they had, so roughly every 3 years. Of the 27 elite specs we have there are still some I barely touched.