[Struggling trying to gear/get my foot in the door as a healer]

7 minutes ago, RavensSorrow.6128 said:

I hope you didn't take that as I'm frustrated at you but at the game. It's dumb that it puts you in a position so unprepared for HoT and then guides tell you Ascended is easy but you have zero maps unlocked so you struggle. It's a weird system where we are now. The game does not prepare you in skills or equipment for what comes later. They try to fix this bit by bit but the core game is so lacking. I hope that clears that up.

I'd like to reiterate this. I personally play new games quite slowly, almost entirely solo. I spent a long time learning a few classes, then learning 1x meta build and 2-3 other builds of my own making, then acquiring 2-3 full exotic gear sets mostly through solo dungeon clears. Exotic gear came so easily along the way, because I wasn't in a rush.

But this was when HoT was the only expansion released, and before living world season 3 was out. So even if I took it quite slow in the beginning, I had so little to catch up on. Fewer maps, fewer currencies, and even fewer traits/specs to learn. Even if the game was not good then (just as it's still not good now) at teaching all this stuff, there was just less to learn. I could reasonably learn everything at a very slow pace, and once I caught up, I became a "veteran" and only had to learn what each expac added as they came along.

I can understand how players starting now don't feel like they have the luxury of taking it as slow as I did. There's a lot more content now, so many more choices that feel like you could be making the wrong choice.

Here's the magic of GW2 though - there is never a point where you Must do the "Right" Thing, Right Now. In fact, the greatest disservice you can do is commit too early to just one idea of how to play, without even knowing how to make it work for you. I think the best approach is to not be afraid of deviating from your initial ideas to meet the challenges of the game. Once you crack the code, so to speak (of learning how to balance killing vs staying alive), you might be surprised at how effective "healing" builds can be in solo combat.

But give yourself the chance to learn, which in turn comes from playing without following some other dude's guide like it's the bible. Read your tooltips, get gear piece by piece, learn attack patterns, learn your timings, etc.

[Struggling trying to gear/get my foot in the door as a healer]

On 4/20/2024 at 6:45 AM, ChrisTheEnby.9046 said:

The problem is when it comes to MMOs, dungeons and raids and stuff like that is typically my favorite content. The open world is just something i have to stomach to prepare for instanced content/raiding

This is about half your problem right there. GW2's instanced content has been... uneven at best. The first instanced content (dungeons) were officially abandoned quite early on, and the system that replaced it (fractals) is getting extremely slow updates. They finally added a third system (raids) during HoT, but raids are now pretty much officially dead as well. The game is on its fourth system now (strike missions), and those are getting updates for the foreseeable future, although some of the more recent updates are perhaps questionably in quality.

It seems you're just trying to push too hard into a game that you really don't understand. You're still missing basic information like the fact that PvE is on megaservers (so it's not that people on "your server" are selling Harrier's for 14g, it's 14g everywhere), and have yet to make peace with the idea of needing dps in this game to solo. If you add me to your friends list and ask, I'll gladly carry you through literally every single expansion hero point and soloable dungeon, but it sounds like that's not really the experience you want.

Correct me if I'm wrong though - like I said, I'll gladly help you out so you can get some hero points, get some coin, and get past this phase of "the game isn't allowing me to do what I want right now."

[Thoughts about GW3 [Merged]]

As long as GW2 can be kept 'alive' to the extent of the original GW, zero complaints from me. I play the vast majority of GW2 solo anyways, although I have to admit I'll miss giant meta events from time to time. As for whether or not I'd dive into GW3, at this point it would have to be pretty impressive to get my money.

[A class that can handle the jungle]

Minion necro can solo the Guano HP (which is the vampire one from VB you're referring to) so long as you know how to cc it. the immob minion, chill minion, and flesh golem are more than enough to drain the breakbar, and you can always run staff for more chill and fear.

I make most of my brand new necro characters full condi minion builds, so they can easily solo every single expansion HP, including the ones on your list. All it takes is knowing how to cc, when to cc, and when to pop into shroud for emergency survival. Outside of that it's just trying to help your minions secure the kills a bit faster.

[GW2 has serious design flaws]

GW2, in my experience, is one of the most generous games out there when it comes to providing information to players. It's why it came as such a pleasant shock to me that they included something like the Griffon collection, which was a complete secret that players stumbled upon during the early days of PoF.

To the OP (and those agreeing with them), I suggest attempting to just... learn your way around the UI?

[Big Fail! Pistol is the worst weapon.]

On 3/2/2024 at 11:34 AM, Terminsel.5728 said:

Because it's the jack of all trades, in some ways, it's blocked from being the master of any one thing.

Agreed. The moment ele gets just a little too good at just a few too many things, it becomes something of a monster in competitive. Which is a shame, since with skill splits it's theoretically possible to have a weapon perform exceedingly well in pve but be nerfed more properly in competitive... but what we get instead are weapons that just kind of don't work anywhere.

As for my own experiences with pistol, it worked surprisingly well with my meme earth-bleeding build; it seemed much easier to reach 40+ stacks of bleed. Switching to water for heals-on-hit felt okay, but the real disappointment was that fire stance wasn't that much better than earth on dps, which is ridiculous given how heavily burning should outperform bleeding with the right stats.

[WvW are you supposed to just die???]

14 minutes ago, Quasidivine.2591 said:

The learning curve is soo steep that it really isn't worth it.

GW2's competitive modes suffer deeply from this, yes. Ironically WvW was supposed to be the "safer" competitive mode, because unlike 5v5 in sPvP, there was supposed to be less individual pressure when you run in a massive WvW group. But if you happen to be outnumbered (which of course happens all the time, especially to a new player), there's precious little to learn from getting curbstomped. 

Only lessons: don't defend, and run from any uneven matchup.

[Class suggestion for easy run through main story and couple of quick queries]

For your parameters, I highly recommend minion necromancer. You'll want to start with gear that combines condition damage and vitality, and as you level, keep going for those two stats but also favor sets that add a bit of power as well. That +condition, vitality, and power combination is the Carrion stat set others have already mentioned, and can serve you decently well at/around 80.

This is how I'd run your build at level 80, primarily using scepter autoattacks. Although I have Ritualist stats, Carrion will still do okay. Doing so will consistently keep a stream of healing and barrier on you, as well as allowing you to apply (admittedly small) amounts of bleeding compared to other more tryhard builds. That said, it's enormously safe, with up to 33K HP with your minions constantly tanking for you and cleansing you of conditions. Also, if you ever want to do anything more than just autoattack, you do have access to higher level gameplay like corrupting boons and cc.

[Please add character restart option]

4 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

The devs have commented on similar things in the past. Resetting progress, changing story choices - the code can’t handle it and it would lead to permanently broken characters

Which isn't to say someone at Anet couldn't find a way around the issue, but it would likely require a lot more effort than it's worth. I, too, would like to replay personal story (perhaps even redo some choices) on some of my characters, but I accept that may never happen due to the coding issues.

[It's kind of wild that Thief has gotten nerfed almost every patch for years.]

On 2/7/2024 at 5:27 PM, kash.9213 said:

Check out the latest theif/DE thread in the WvW forum. People seem to think Death's Judgment is deleting people in a flash out of nowhere. 

I meant in PvE. Like I said more big numbers coming out of teef in any of the competitive modes probably isn't going to happen (and if it does, won't stay that way for long).

[It's kind of wild that Thief has gotten nerfed almost every patch for years.]

10 hours ago, AlphaReborn.1567 said:

Guardian has multiple meta builds for most elite and core specs, and several variants for each in almost every game mode, yet continues to get buffs and skill reworks.

Aside from outright favoritism, I think at least in sPvP centered around conquest guardian's fundamental design makes it hard not to be easily useful there. Among other things, conquest favors classes that can have an extremely strong presence on the node (big high IQ surprise there, I know). The way I see it, guardian from day one has really excelled in having a strong presence (significantly helping allies in the area, severely punishing enemies pushing into the area, etc.).

Thief is both mechanically and thematically the opposite - it's all about not being obviously and oppressively present, but instead choosing fights extremely carefully, finding good opportunities to dogpile on targets while minimizing risk to the thief, and generally being quite effective at exploiting where the enemy is not around. None of these things line up well with heavy clashes - a problem that's even more exacerbated in the non-roaming large scale clashes in WvW.

While I don't see a bright future for thief's ability to stand face-to-face in combat combat in competitive, I do think Anet needs to look at PvE thief. In a lot of other games the rogue archetype has one thing GW2 thieves don't have as much of: big 'ol nuke "assassination" type moves. Sure, we have stealth attacks and stuff like Death's Judgment, but it never feels quite as dramatically effective as it does in other games, at least to me. 

[Would "intelligent" mobs counter power creep?]

20 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

As a very casual player, I know that I can improve.  I have done some research to try and at least have my skills, attributes, armor and weapon sigils all be somewhat similar to maximize the most I can from them without spending a ton of gold on the better gear/sigils.  I've even crafted a few ascended items.  I just happen to know my limitations and that I don't have the time/energy to commit to gearing up and playing at a level that some "better" players believe that I should.

Which, again, isn't what I was talking about, and is a perfectly valid way to play the game (not that you need validation from anyone anyways). You have made a decision about how far you want to push things, and nobody should impose a "well you should be pushing past that."

I just think that if one can't be bothered to ask very simple questions and obtain extremely attainable answers (which again, @kharmin.7683, is a criticism you've shown doesn't apply to you), one can't sincerely say that one wants to improve their gameplay. Nobody needs or should improve their gameplay, so why pretend like you are? I personally think it's a social holdover, many of us have been socialized into thinking that the statement, "you don't actually want to improve" is always some sort of personal attack. It's not. This is a game. Not wanting to improve is fine, but I don't like the longstanding accusation that it's objectively difficult to find various avenues of improvement.

I guess I'm pushing harder on this than anyone needs to because I see this "it's hard to even know how to go about getting better" as a longstanding misconception of the game. I consider GW2 very generous with information for the most part. Sure, you do need arc to measure a lot of metrics, but enough games natively lack such a tool suite so I don't hold that against GW2. I believe GW2 truly does have a low barrier to entry in many respects, and I don't like to see anything that runs counter to that narrative. Of course anyone is free to disagree with me, but that's just my take on it.

[The Skyscale Epidemic in Open World]

2 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Why?  If the player is engaged with the content, skyscale or not, then participation should count.

Disclaimer: I don't do this and am not advocating that it is the way to do content; rather, I'm against anything that disallows legally using what the game provides.

I'm 100% on board with your disclaimer sentiment. To test fireball shortly after I got it, I went to Drizzlewood for the first time in ages and did the meta normally. Then, only on the first phase of the final fight, I tried fireballing to see what kind of damage it could do. To my pleasant surprise, it could easily crit for 10-15K per fireball since you can hit all three targetable points with one fireball.

The numbers were of course not very impressive, given the slow rate of fire and that you'll quickly run out of ammo even using Bond of Vigor for refills. So I dumped all the fireballs and headed down to the surface to offer more legitimate contribution. 

That being said, I can see a lot of new, inexperienced, or in general less combat-proficient players being outperformed by the fireball (thanks to the get-pushed-around mechanics all over that fight). As such, if someone who has trouble dealing with all that knockaround wants to float and fireball their way to a better performance, I think that should be a valid option. Not the option I would personally choose, and I'd always recommend learning to grow out of it, but I'd still rather have that option present.

[Would "intelligent" mobs counter power creep?]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

You seem to treat this game as some sort of Serious Business one needs to put effort into researching before they can be considered to care about it. That's not the only approach however. In fact, it's not the only right approach either. It's just the way you like to play, which is not shared by everyone.

And you seem all too willing to commit the common error of scope creep when things don't go your way. I certainly don't consider the game Serious Business, and I actually agree with your contention that most people aren't into metrics, improvement, etc. You simply made a contention earlier that "most actually do want to [improve] (but have no idea how)," and I sincerely disagree with that one concept. I think all the behaviors and preferences you advocate for (which I also agree represent most players) show that people don't actually want to improve their gameplay, they just want better outcomes. Which is fine! Just don't pretend like this acceptable majority of players actively desires improvement.

As you say this game isn't Serious Business for most of us. The amount of "research" it takes to improve is absolutely minimal. We're not talking about comparing meta rotations for the most complex class and then practicing them to reach benchmark numbers here. It can literally start with the question: "could I be doing any better in X/Y/Z context?" That can lead to "how do I know how I'm actually doing in X/Y/Z context?" If you're too shy to ask in chat, you can just ask Google, which might lead you to lurk the forums/reddit. If you feel up to it, ask ANYONE in-game - be it your guild, or even just map chat randos - and you'll get the stock answers of snowcrows for builds/gear and arcdps to measure how you're actually performing. That's it. Literally all it takes is the capacity to formulate the question "how do I get better?" and then to Ctrl+V that into a box. Some "Serious Business" this "research" is.

My point is that if one can't even be bothered to ask such easy questions and pursue such shallow knowledge (and thus remain ignorant of how to even improve), I sincerely question one's alleged desire to improve. All your bluster about "waaaah you're so sweaty, most people don't want to play like you" only seems to further contradict your earlier contention that "most people actually do want to [improve]."

[Would "intelligent" mobs counter power creep?]

18 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Remember, most players do not use Arc, do not read forum or reddit, or visit snowcrows site. They have no idea where they are compared to others (or to what is actually possible in game).

I think this essentially proves @Gehenna.3625's point, and I share their non-optimism. If a pve player actually cares about their performance, there is a high probability they would have sought out and installed arcdps (the only other option is the combat log, which... is just hard to use). The fact that the vast majority of players don't use arcdps is, to me, a clear indication that the same majority of players don't actually care about performance. They might pay lip service to the idea, or respond affirmatively when asked if they want to improve, but in reality they've likely not even considered taking a concrete step toward improvement.

And I don't want to make this just about arc (although arguably I could, given that there's really no other set of performance measuring tools that come close) - all the other resources could be great first steps, and they are widely known and discussed in-game. The fact that most players will never touch any of those is, again, a sign to me that most players don't actually care about getting better at combat.  They're interested in better outcomes, but not increasing their own contribution to such an outcome.

[Games update notes... What !? Weapon]

7 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Thank you!  I don't like the new MH sword, either.  Took away a lot of game play for me.  MH sword is so brain-dead to me now.  No creativity or planning the leaps and evades in and out of combat.  A change that literally no one asked for.  Boo!!

While I've made my peace with the new sword setup, it's mostly because of those braindead reasons you talk about (you get BIG numbers on power builds for both sword 2 and 3 now, and you can still use 3 as an evade-on-demand if you so choose in melee range). It would have been nice, in my opinion, if we got some of these number boosts on the old sword that was a bit clunkier to use, but I at least had to think about it.

As for the weaponmaster on sub-80 characters, sad to say I have no intention to try that, ever. I don't level characters anymore, I just spam scroll+tomes to insta-80. Others have mentioned having some better ranged options on some sub-80 characters, and I that's about all I can think of in terms of benefits.

[Would "intelligent" mobs counter power creep?]

Short answer to the OP: no, I don't think it would effectively counter power creep. As others noted, I think it will make encounters too hard for low skill players, and offer nothing other than an annoying delay of the inevitable for skilled players.

I think the easiest solution to offer players some semblance of I-need-to-maybe-think-for-a-sec challenge is the teams of mobs a number of people have already noted. While HoT may have introduced some of the more devastating mixed teams of mobs into OW, Anet was doing teams of mobs in dungeons long before that. Even the humble Ascalonian Catacombs in story mode has some surprisingly effective mixed teams. There's 3 elites in one hallway that if you're not careful and are running a glass build without really knowing what you're doing, can cc then dogpile you pretty easily. There's another team of 15 normal mobs along with a boss - these normal mobs of course die when you touch them on a glass build, but there's enough of them (and they spawn in waves) and suddenly your 6 stacks of stab is instantly gone (or your measly pulsing stack of 1-2 stab) all while you're getting loaded up with condi and some power hits.

The mobs individually in these groups seem to follow a fairly set pattern, but their ability to really ruin your day when they work as a team forces you to do something - bring a bubble, full counter, more than 1 stunbreak, LoS, etc. Once you do that something, the fight becomes super easy. But you still have to do something other than blindly faceroll if you're soloing this stuff.

[Anet you watch Twitch?]

5 minutes ago, Gendalfs.7521 said:

Would you do events in WvW short and rewarding enough to participate in them? Like open world bosses but in WvW environment?

Nope.

I think a big part of why dedicated WvW people are so attached to that mode has to do with how un-casual the commitment is. Most people that I know who enjoy WvW aren't just popping in and out, and are 100% not there for the rewards. We've seen it before - putting a reward PvE players want into WvW only results in 

1. PvE players showing up, being salty that they're "forced" to do WvW, then leaving anyways, and
2. WvW players hating having so many useless, un-dedicated PvE carebears clogging up the queue and just being bags for the enemy.

I'm not saying Anet shouldn't be interested in making the competitive modes more attractive to more players, but just having one mode imitate another seems bad.

[Connecting the pieces wvw]

What part of the story sends you to WvW? I'm pretty sure it's not story, but likely some other achievement that's sending you there.

Nvm I'm dumb - it was in the thread title. I've been so accustomed to season 1 not being accessible anymore that I automatically exclude it from all story-continuity considerations.

[Darker and more serious story]

1 hour ago, River Valley.2396 said:

There are places where you can see (or at least imagine) things that happened in that map's past that had emotional weight and stakes.

This is a big part of why I find the expansion/LW maps far less charming than the core ones, over the long term. A well-designed ruin with maybe a vaguely worded text box - that's all it takes to give off the "I can imagine things happened here" vibe. And it doesn't have to all be ruins and ancient history either - something I often refer to is a random, fully furnished house you can walk into in Rurikton. It's just one house, not like every single door in the entire city is openable or anything. And yet, a single space like that can really go a long way in making the world feel like people actually live in Tyria, instead of the entire game world being a one-dimensional backdrop for the player to pass through.

But as people have noted in the thread, that kind of stuff just isn't going to happen anymore. Some of it is the release schedule, as @Konig Des Todes.2086 noted; individual maps just don't get that sort of attention (even in the core maps, it feels like attention wasn't evenly split). I suspect though that @Harper.4173's idea is even more significant - the kind of people who cared to actually tell those less-lighthearted stories or do the environmental storytelling just aren't around anymore.

It's a shame, really. I think environmental storytelling - while certainly more challenging than a more direct storytelling style - nonetheless would allow Anet to more easily escape the Marvel-esque style it seems stuck in now. Oh well.

[Darker and more serious story]

5 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

GW2 also does a lot more heavy lifting with map storytelling to aid the main narrative and I don’t think it gets the credit it’s due as a result by the players.

The core maps do this quite well, but I think the environmental storytelling has really lost a certain measure of depth over the years as well. Sadly I think the level of care that Anet can afford to put into little corners of the map not related to some meta event or reward... just isn't feasible anymore given the scale of the game and what players have become accustomed to over the years.

[Why are Rangers a melee profession? -.-]

4 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Ah yes, the Ranger. You must look at it's cousin class the Melee'er whos prowess in melee dictates that even with typical ranged weapon they have must be used at melee range for full effectiveness...

Now I feel cheated by Anet no longer making new elite specs, what a lost opportunity! Welp, in my head I'll make my warriors all Melee'ers instead.

[Tip To Increase Media Presence]

On 1/4/2024 at 3:50 PM, Omega.6801 said:

Isn't what individualizes the content in your meaning the individual that creates the content? And by that the game does not need to be adjusted as long as there are individuals that create individualized content?

I agree, and OP doesn't seem to subscribe to this perspective at all. I don't play WoW (never have, probably never will), but some of the most memorable content I've seen about MMOs are longform WoW videos from creatorswith interesting (usually hilarious) perspective. And they're just playing classic WoW - no hardcore, no nothing. Just the same quests, dungeons, raids, and whatever else everyone has to do on the journey to level cap. What makes that content interesting is the creator's narration, perspective, and editing skill. There's no needlessly complicated concept of finding-the-individual-within-the-collective-experience required.

I think the only widely marketable things about GW2 are its combat and great consumer value. Don't get me wrong, I love so many more things about this game, and am heavily invested into it. But in terms of making content that might actually mean something to someone who doesn't already love this game, I'm not sure anything else is really going to connect.

[A hacker purchased a lot of things in my account with lots of credit cards that arent mine]

Just now, neco.2568 said:

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1083851857442656368/1192686454086836365/Screenshot_3.png?ex=65a9fad1&is=659785d1&hm=9e6045867ce5efc912a35dca35f2832bd7e334add595f9067d81aa977d5aee77&=&format=webp&quality=lossless

this one was the real support who said

they said they wont answer me until the chargebacks are cancelled

Then it's pretty clear you're out of luck, sorry for your loss. It's a hard lesson to learn, but an important one I guess - learn to recognize scams, and don't be so willing to just hand out all kinds of information to people you don't know. First tip: pretty much zero businesses of this scale will send email from a domain that is not their own. Even if it's actually a Gmail account underneath, businesses pay Google to have the domain appear as email@their-business.com

[A hacker purchased a lot of things in my account with lots of credit cards that arent mine]

9 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Man, I thought it was the younger generation that's supposed to be more tech savvy than the older folk...

You got scammed hard.

Yeah I was kinda worried about this when OP just straight up put out his entire email address into the first post. Was hoping that was a thing of desperation, but it seems like their nose for scamming is just not developed.... like at all.

@neco.2568 I guess there's always a slim chance that if you let (real) Arenanet support know you got phished (but somehow managed to retain control over your logins anways?) they might be able to let you back in. But if you tell them the story in the way you told it to us (not understanding what key things like chargebacks are, not really giving a good sequence of what happened when, etc.) I wouldn't expect them to help you.

Best of luck with the process.