Teratus.2859

Yes, I would be ok with that. If something like a DPS meter is to be validated within the community then it must be something integrated into the game itself. Reliance on 3rd party software for features like this (such as ArkDPS) is not and should not ever be pushed as a mandatory thing by the game or the playerbase. Until Anet actively put a DPS meter into Gw2 then no matter what anyone says, DPS is utterly irrelevant and the vast majority of players should continue to not give a kitten about it and play however they want to. If my DPS is so important then give me the tools I need to improve it. Otherwise I just don't care, and I never will.

I pretty much agree with all of that. I'm not denying those paths are longer and more inefficient to farm rewards though, I agree they are. All i'm really saying is that because of this change the population of players that will continue to run those paths will mostly be made up of people who want to run them because they enjoy them, rather than people forced to run them for specific rewards. Which in my view also comes with the possibility of more casual players running those paths because they enjoy them than reward driven hardcore players who don't and just want to blast through them as quick as possible. Which could make those paths far more enjoyable for new players as well. Ultimately what I would love to see though is Anet actually improving all the dungeons, maybe adding hard/challenge modes to them, time trail rushes with leaderboards and new rewards/achievements for them like maybe ascended elite variants of the dungeon armours and weapons etc. I think a lot of players would love something like that.

On that at least we mostly agree. Though I don't think it's as much of a majority in Dungeons. I'd argue most people who still play dungeons in Gw2 do so because they want to/feel like it more than anything. That is certainly my reason for doing so and these changes will not affect that. I will say that it is a valid concern regarding lower populations in some paths although I don't think it's going to be as apocalyptic as you seem to think. It may lower the hardcore players interest as they do tend to be purely reward focused when it comes to content but it will unlikely affect the casual players interest all that much. If casuals are still going to run Arah etc for fun then it won't be a problem for new players to find groups. If anything it'll be easier since they won't have to deal with stricter hardcore players as much, thus avoiding potentially negative experiences that could turn them off the content. Which is exactly what killed my interest in dungeons back in the early GW2 days and what ultimately killed raids as well.

I keep seeing this point "no reason to do X content again" in this discussion. Sorry but if that's how you feel about specific content then all i'm getting from you is that you never cared about that content in the first place and you never enjoyed playing it. You only cared about the rewards it offered which have not changed, so why complain? If you really like/enjoy that content then you will continue to play that content for that reason alone. If you only care about the rewards.. well Anet just made that easier for you so again.. why complain?

I prefer to get them but only on characters I have full ascended setup's on. Base infusions only offer +4 while WvW offer +5 so on a fully geared ascended character having +5 WvW infusions equipped instead of +4 will be like having a couple of extra infusions equipped. It's a minor benefit but it can help get that extra bit of crit chance or boon/condition duration that you need.

First guess would be it's a rare reward for beating the real thing. Total speculation though, i've never seen the mini before.

I agree but only in the case of it being done as the original idea. It's too late at this point unless Anet is willing to actually replace existing festivals which I can't see them doing and I doubt many players would be a fan of either. At least there is some racial element to some festivals though. Dragon Bash is a very Norn based festival. Super Adventure Box, obviously Asuran. And the Festival of the Four Winds has been merged with content from the Queens Jubilee which makes this festival very Human themed. And of course there is Lunar New Year as well which is a Canthan festival and again very (but not exclusively) Human themed. Wintersday and Halloween are multiracial all the way although Wintersday being restricted to Divinity's Reach has given it a bit of an unfair Human bias in recent years. I prefer the old Wintersday setup where there Tixx would travel around all the major cities, I don't know why they changed this. If they were going to choose any city to exclusively host this festival in though it should be Lions Arch, not Divinity's Reach.. that would be the least bias option. Although personally I would actually prefer if the location of this festival changed every year, and maybe had some racial themed element's to it depending on which city is hosting it. It would be cool though if we did have Charr and Sylvari themed festivals too, but that ship very likely sailed a long time ago. That said in some form we have actually had 2 Charr themed festivals in Gw2 although they are not festival events in the same way Halloween etc are. The first is Meatoberfest which you could even argue is the first festival ever seen in Gw2 since it is a heart based event in Diessa Plateau. And then there was the big celebration festival we saw at the start of the Ice Brood Saga in Grothmar Valley which featured the Metal Legion band (Easily still the best event in Gw2 by far :D) as well as other Charr themed events. So in a way the Charr have had something in the way of Festivals. That leaves the Sylvari as the main race that has had nothing (to my knowledge) in the way of Festivals. But their race is still very very new to the world so it's understandable that they don't really have much in the way of history and tradition to base a holiday/festival around. Not that they don't have anything at all to create one though. They could easily create a Ventari Day or Traherne day or in general create a festival based around honouring the sacrifices of Sylvari that have fallen doing their part to save Tyria. The fallen leaves festival, or Festival of the fallen leaves has a nice ring to it.. or something like that. Warriors/Heroes/Legacy of the Dream festival.. another few possible names.

Mmmm scrapped story for HoT as we all know. But frankly that's not entirely a bad thing since it leaves the door open for a different story to be told. Gw2 is entering a pretty interesting phase for story development thanks to various retcons over the years so it's at least possible that Malyck's story will be revisited some day. For me my biggest story interest atm is what the hell is going on deep in the unending ocean now that we know the Water Dragon was not! the monster responsible for the horrors that drove the Krait, Largos and Karka from the depths and that had also been terrorizing sailors crossing it. Retcons and cut content don't have to be the end of a story ^^ sometimes they lay a foundation for an even better one.

Necro can get by well with many stat combos in PvE so I wouldn't worry about that. As far as mixing Zerker and Soldier goes that's perfectly valid for most PvE content. Necros can achieve a great balance of power and survivability fairly easily, it's one of the classes biggest strengths.

I could also only find the same "Prototype Golem" as the people above. I have soloed all of the dungeon stories in gw2 and Caudecus Manor is definitely one of the harder ones to solo, second hardest in my own personal opinion, with the hardest one being Honor of the Waves. Enemies do a lot of damage in that dungeon so I would not recommend trying to solo it unless you were doing it as a personal challenge. I strongly recommend you make a LFG advertising a beginner run or lore run and getting a group to help you out. Especially if stressing out about the game is triggering real health problems. I have a thing with my lower back and adrenaline myself, adrenaline rushes cause me to experience pretty severe physical pain in my lower back for several minutes and can sometimes be so bad I can't stand up or even walk until the pain subsides... it's not fun 😞. As Linken also said as well, it would be very helpful if you say what region you play on as well since you may be able to recruit some helpful players here to give you a hand. *edit: Just saw your response saying you are NA. I'm on EU so sadly I cannot help you, but hopefully you can find some NA players here and on the LFG willing to give you a hand.

Yes I've also thought about this for a long time as well. Anet could drastically cut down the amount of pets if they replaced the individual pet creatures with species categories instead, which would also allow for drastically expanding the diversity of skins as well. For example instead of 8 different Cat pets we would simply have a Feline category. So we would pick Feline, and after that we would pick a skin from the list of cats we have unlocked/tamed. Then we would pick which of the 8 Feline F2 skills we wanted and which Archetype we wanted. This would allow us to have a Ferocious White Tiger with Mighty Roar if we wanted, rather than being forced to take a Stout White Tiger with Guardians Roar. We could then either tame or buy pet packs in the gem store which would add a few more feline skins which already exist in game to the list such as the Alpine Stalker, Fire Stalker, Earthen Stalker and Sand Lioness. Without having to add more skills and abilities to the mix and bloating the pet list with more cat clones which only have very slight differences. You could do this with almost every pet type in the game. Canines, Drakes, Sharks, Moa Birds, Devourers, Jellyfish, Spider, Wyvern, Birds, Pigs and Bears. While the singular categories like Smokescales, Iboga's, Jacaranda's etc remain as they are and simply get more skin options added. It would cut down the current 59 individual pets to 21 species/family categories while also allowing more skin diversity to be added to expand the amount of pets the Ranger can have in total. Plus it opens the doors for more species to become pet candidates down the road. For example, Raptors, Skales and Skelks have long been on my pet wishlist since as far back as Gw1 XD Not to mention some Gw1 pet species that never made it into Gw2 could finally make it into GW2 as new pets such as the Dune Lizard, Crocodiles, The Lurker Crabs, Rollar Beetles and Giant Rats.

Even something that simple would be enough tbh. It's a shame such a dominant part of the Ranger profession is restricted by such a silly limitation. Imagine Warriors not being able to see their Adrenaline bars and the only way you would know how full it is is by having to rely entirely on the damage you're doing to figure it out. Probably not an impossible feat but it would be extremely impractical and inconvenient XD

Missed this, sorry to reply so late. I'm not sure tbh. I know both players do exist, although i've personally not had many encounters with those who hate LI builds. Plenty with the other though XD If I were to guess I would say that people who hate LI builds probably feel like those builds diminish their own efforts.. basically they have to try hard to get their DPS numbers up where as someone else is just autoing and still doing high DPS. Maybe they think it lazy.. or that players who are not putting in the same effort they are shouldn't be able to play the hardest content.. I can't say for sure. The way I see it though Gw2 is not a hardcore MMO for the hardcore MMO player.. It is pretty much universally agreed by this community that Gw2 is a casual focused MMO. And by being a casual focused MMO, I believe there should simply be no bar's (be they mechanical or player enforced) that prevents anyone from playing any content in this game, nor prevents them from playing it how they want to play it. LI builds are imo exactly in the spirit of what Gw2 represents and has always encouraged. Playing the game how you want to play it! And the accessibility they provide to many people just makes them even more awesome and welcome in this game as far as I am concerned. So I can't agree with anyone who would complain about LI builds, regardless of their reasons.

Hehe i've had similar thoughts about how ship combat could be implemented in gw2 although i'm not the biggest fan of the concept. I could definitely see it working though if they added new siege that could only be built on water and was basically a skiff with a canon. Could use it for transport as well as light naval warfare and support. A War Submarine could also replace the current Golem siege as well. Bigger ships could be constructed at ports which would replace keeps and would require huge supply costs to make. They would sail along set paths much like dolyaks and would require multiple players to man these ships similarly to how we had to man the canons when we fought Zhaitan back in the Arah Dungeon. Players on canons, players in the ships bowels running ammunition to the canons and healing players while repairing damage to the ship and water expulsion systems using their own supply stocks to do so. When the crews supply runs out the ship will sink after taking too much damage, and you could only board the ship at the port, so once it sets sail that's it your stuck with the crew you have and maybe some limited man overboard ability which could pull a few players out of the water or something. Towers and Camps could be the same as they are, although located on islands now with turtles replacing Dolyaks as supply runners. We'd probably need a mount replacement for the Warclaw too since that's a land mount. Although I would not be opposed to giving the Warclaw the ability to swim on the surface of water only.. with the same mobility diminishment as it has on land so it doesn't outshine other mounts in PvE. It could really be a lot of fun if it were done right. Although the current state of Gw2's underwater combat is the biggest negative in a map like this which is why I can't see something like this happening without some major upgrades to the underwater combat. Specifically build and weapon diversity which are the only real things imo that hurt underwater combat these days. If we had more usable weapons and skills underwater, it would basically fix that almost completely if you ask me. It's something i've wanted for a long time and have asked for repeatedly.. but I just don't think Anet care that much about this area of the game which is a real shame because Gw2 does have the best underwater combat in any MMO by far and if they expanded on that it could be phenomenal.

This is mine, although it is still currently untested in it's complete form. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwEcEWoMDmKrlxycxU7SNaXy9CD-zRRYwR3eOsyIiUtiqyyTQI/t87yG-e I've only played with a core variant using Marksmanship and Command skills instead of Untamed and Cantrips as I don't have the spec unlocked on the specific character I will be using it on yet. I will note though that this is a heavily themed build, the objective being to invest entirely into the Untamed's core Beastmastery and Nature Magic concept of a spec designed to share power between Pet and Ranger. So this build focuses heavily on self buffing and sharing boons between Pet and Ranger Via "We Heal as One" and Fortifying Bond to increase overall damage output and survivability for both Ranger and Pet alike.

Simple but long overdue request. While I can see what active buffs my pet has, I can only do so if I make my pet my active target. Lets face it, this is just very impractical and annoying in basically every scenario where it is actively useful. Players can always see what buffs and enhancements they currently have above their utility skills, everyone knows this.. And I say it should be the same for the Ranger's Pet as well. Especially since Ranger's and their pets are designed to work together and even have skills and traits that function based on the concept of sharing boons etc. Even in Gw1 we had this ability. Our pets appeared in the party menu and could have pop out boxes that showed all skill buffs and conditions/effects that were placed on them in real time. Gw2's pet system deserves the same ability. Please make it so Rangers can always see their pets current boons, conditions and durations on screen like they can with their own. It will be such a huge QOL improvement for those of us who like playing with our pets and want them to be more involved with our builds instead of just some meaningless AI companion that we don't really care about. Especially those of us who actually like the concept of Beastmastery, which is a major part of the Ranger profession.

I would agree. Even the fact that something could weaken her to that point would be a point of concern. What would happen if she was hit again in such a weakened state?.. would the machine draw out her very life force?.. Dragons are connected to magic in this franchise after all, even most of the lesser ones. Perhaps Aurene is "immortal" in the same way Joko was, via magical lich means. But if her magic can be extracted from her by a machine leaving her in a crippled and weakened state (which we know for a fact it can) then I would argue that under the right circumstances there is a pretty strong possibility that she can still die. Oh he made sense for the plan, that's not what I meant. What I was criticizing was the convenience of Aurene taking on the job alone when there was never any indication that she nor any being in the world could handle that task.. not even her own mother and brother, and not even Soo-Won who basically created the All in the first place when she split the void in to the 6 domains of magic. Aurene despite the odds was basically the miracle baby, becoming exactly what we needed when we needed it upon her ascension. (hence my poor choice of words when I referred to her as a deus ex machina) And that made her a convenient plot device rather than one part of a bigger story which imo would have been more interesting. In this case having to find multiple replacements for the last 3 dragons while being powerless to actually do anything about them until said replacement is found. Vlast, Kuunavang and the Pale Tree all being potentially viable candidates and could have had interesting stories built around them becoming Elder Dragons.. and then there is also Albax as well as potential for new original characters or idea's to act as solutions, either temporary or permanent. The Pale Tree in particular becoming an Elder Dragon would have been really interesting to see if you ask me. Perhaps the Asura or Joon could also figure out a way to recreate something like the bloodstone and use that to seal a dragon's power away rather than unleashing it on the world upon it's death.. even as a temporary solution that could be revisited later or possibly in a Gw3. After all it was a mortal race that created the original bloodstone to hide magic from the Elder Dragons.. So it's well within the realms of believability that someone else could figure out how they did it and replicate/improve upon the concept to contain an Elder Dragons magic instead.

It was heavily implied that there was a limit to how many dragons could die before the world go boom, and that each one that died threw the world even more out of balance. Glint also had many eggs, but only 2 of them actually survived.. which was coincidentally irrelevant since Aurene was written so could just do it all solo, making Vlast unnecessary to the plan in the end.. if not a potential detriment as it was well established that Vlast lacked the same nurturing traits that made Aurene bond with mortals, a factor that we're lead to believe was essential to help her deal with all the power she was absorbing and controlling. Not to mention that it is also well established that Vlast actively didn't want to play his part in his mothers legacy but felt like he had no choice due to the importance of it. Had Vlast become an Elder Dragon it's possible he would not have been able to handle the power because he lacked that bond, he had no mortal champion and he never wanted to replace an Elder Dragon in the first place.. which would have likely resulted in him eventually being corrupted and going bad just like his Grandfather and the other 4 corrupted Elder Dragons. Not even Soo Won who literally split the void into magical domains and created the All could regulate all that magic by herself, hence why she created 5 other Elder Dragons to help her balance it. To just blatantly write that Aurene can do what every other being in existence cannot "because reasons" is incredibly miraculous and difficult to believe. Not to mention as someone mentioned earlier in this thread the ridiculousness of having the entire world's existence dependant on the wellbeing of a single living entity.. especially one that was even in this very expansion nearly killed by a mortal!! and a piece of technology.... No joke.. any insane psychopath out there who wants to end the world and all existence can literally do so with a literal push of a button.. I mean it literally almost happened in EoD XD And then of course there are all those of evil intent who would just love to capture the only thing keeping the world alive so they could enforce ultimate power and control over the entire world under threat of an apocalypse should the world not submit to their will. Suffice to say the concept of "The One Elder Dragon" is just incredibly convenient and ultimately bad and it does conflict with earlier story that suggests multiple dragons are needed for the balance, which not only is something that was at the very least hinted at but is also a far better, smarter and more believable way to end this story. Anet it seems simply took the easy way out with Aurene becoming essentially a deus ex machina.. And while I am content to say yes I do still love this game and I do still really enjoy the story overall I simply can't ignore that there are plenty of areas where the story is very weak and could have been written to be significantly better and more believable. This part of the story specifically is just in my opinion, one of the few biggest areas where I believe the ball was tossed out a window for convenience, time or other factors. I have no memory of that, nor can I find any info on that being how he obtained the mirror. The only info I can find about Balthazar after being freed is that he hid himself on Tyria and somehow learned that the White Mantle were trying to revive Lazarus, which he then assumed the form of with the mirror. There is no mention of him recovering the mirror from Orr nor where he spent his time while hiding, although it's probably fair to assume he hid among humans as an old man for a time as that would have probably been his best disguise without the mirror. Specially since he did learn of the White Mantle's plans and I find it unlikely he would have picked up that information in Orr. That said that all dependant on whether the "old man" form that Balthazar used was a form he could assume at any time and not another illusion created by the mirror. If the mirror was responsible for that form too then Balthazar most definitely had the mirror while he was chained up in the mists, and we could only conclude from that that he either stole it and hid it before he was imprisoned or that Lyssa give it to him for some unknown reason. Lyssa being the only God he did not condemn upon his death however does beg questions.

Can't say the same from my experience. Those skills do get plenty of use in other content for sure but I don't see it much in open world PvE. I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I've actually been revived by one of these skills as well.. and it's almost always been a Warrior Banner that's done it.. and maybe once or twice a Necro. In all the years i've played the game I have never been revived by Search and Rescue, though.. outside of myself I don't even know any players that take that skill in OW PvE. If by "actual DPS" players I assume you mean people who are very familiar with the game and can hit top tier DPS numbers then yeah they probably do out DPS the majority despite going down. Although the bulk of glassy players I see that go down in the open world tend to do so repeatedly and spend most of their combat time on their behinds lol Kinda funny when you revive a bunch of people and they just charge right back at the boss and go down again within seconds. Personally I prefer to not go down at all myself which is why I will only play glass cannon builds that can sustain themselves somehow or also possess some kind of survivability factor. DPS should always take a backseat to survival, and support is by far the king in this game not DPS. Which is something I am glad to see people are recognising these days.

I rarely use it tbh, mostly because I just don't notice when my food buff expires and I have to manually go into my inventory to use another one. I've seen a good few people asking for some kind of HUD upgrade so we can have a clickable food box next to our skill bar and in all honesty if we had something like that I would probably use food more often. Especially if I could set it so that it automatically consumes a pre set food item once my current buff expires. But I don't see them adding something like that so I will likely continue playing as I do and just forgetting about food buffs most of the time.

Biggest lore mistake for me is the throwing out of Elder Dragons need replacements and instead just having Aurine be our one solution to everything win button. But there are a lot of little nitpicks with the lore and story and things either being tied up in an unsatisfactory way. Such as Lazarus the Dire for example who played no real role in Gw2 what so ever and was basically spawn camped and removed from the world.. wasting a potentially interesting and classic Guildwars enemy we could have had a whole story arc built around. And of course Primordus who is by far the most wasted villain in Gw2 in my own personal opinion and I still feel the sting of this one. And then there are things that have been flat out forgotten about or just ignored. Like why did Balthazar have Lyssa's Mirror? Will we ever get an in game/universe conclusion to Malycks story and the existence of other Pale Trees? And where the kitten is Magdaer!!! ? xD

We have very similar experiences it seems. I also have an Archer Ranger as my main who has used a LB since the earliest days of Gw2 ^^ Although i've not kept the exact same build since then, i've refined and improved it many times over the years but never changed that core Archer theme I been going for with him. He's just a better version of what he always has been since the early Gw2 days ^^

All core classes are viable for all content in the game. It can easily be argued some specs are better/more efficient than core for completing certain content and that's true. But if anyone ever tells you "that" class cannot beat "this" content then that is just flat out wrong, so feel free to ignore such claims.

Indeed. I wish there were more creatures in the open world like the executioner. Specifically I mean event creatures that actively target downed players and try to finish them, denying revives. I do enjoy skills/traits that focus on reviving players, specially ones that pull. But it's rare I get to use them in the open world so I can rarely justify taking them on my skill bar. The Executioner is one boss that does let me play around with those abilities, specially when the people around me are your typical super DPS glass canon's who seem to be allergic to dodging lol

Legenday Bandit Executioner you mean?.. that's an easy solo.