The Guild Wars 2 Thread

[Ulminati]

Maybe they should just spec into HS spam and relieve some stress

All those delicious elementalists with 13k HP and base toughness

Only elementalists you see in tourney are running tank specs. The only real glass cannons you come by are warriors and rangers. Which is why hs/critspam is worthless. Most of the real important fights in tourney are battles of attrition around the control points. So it's more important to be able to stay alive and pump out consistent dps over a longer period.

 

[Ulminati]

Another example of bad information is the lack of differentiation between Heal Over Time and single Heals.

Heal over time = regeneration. Single heals = heal.

In short, turns out it's an utter shit skill without any use, since only one of the Virtues is ever worth activating, and even then it's a stretch as it's just an Aegis (the other two just have shit actives, with Justice providing a weak Burning attack when it passively provides a Burn condition on every fifth attack, and Resolve provides valuable passive regeneration or a shit-heal).

I lol'd. The other two virtues are fine to activate, it all depends on your build. Try 15 points into radiance. Your Virtue of Justice will refresh itself after every kill and activating it gives AoE blindness and vulnerability to nearby enemies. Virtue of Resolves heal scales pretty well with healing power and can be specced to remove 3 conditions. This can be a lifesaver in PvP after you've popped Save yourselves in a teamfight and find yourself poisoned, burning and with 12+ bleed stacks. Also, the bonuses on your virtues in the 5pt virtues line only come into effect upon activation.

In general, it seems Elite skills are just plain shit compared to regular skills. The only half-usable one I've tried out so far is Tome of Wrath, and that's only because it's 20 seconds of Retaliation. Bear form is like my regular greatsword wth slightly better attack and lots of health, but none of the heals (which means it's fairly useless due to how fucktardedly high damage usually is, and no genius thought about putting in inherent damage mitigation on such a transformation).

Tome of courage is a gamechanger. 2 second daze and a full heal for your entire party wins teamfights in PvP.

Anyway, I'm currently running a Norn shoutmonkey and reached level 35 (and on my way to Hoelbrak the server connection was fucked). Seems to me that Shouts are practically mandatory for Guardian tanking

You can do a meditation tanking build too if you run the skill that makes meditations heal you. Mind you, if you're tanking greatsword is a really weird choice of weapon. You'd be way, way, WAY tankier running shield/mace for the protection on #4 and heal on #2 in M/S or the protection in your autoattack chain on hammer combined with snares, knockbacks and walls to keep stuff off squishies. You can do a tanky support build too if you spec into improving your symbols. Making them heal, damage enemies, give enemies vulnerability and whatnot.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Yea, in many ways the game is a lot less informative (about what happens in it, in its website, and about maintenance) than STO for example (where the patch notes can be checked at the website with a single click, maintenance is announced on website and launcher, and server status is shown on website and launcher). One thing that really bothers me is that there doesn't appear to be a way to add username to come after the character in chat.

Another example of bad information is the lack of differentiation between Heal Over Time and single Heals. This is especially bad because it means some abilities are a lot less useful than they seemed. Another good example of wattheshit level of vagueness in ability descriptions is Renewed Focus, which is a Guardian elite skill where the description gives you the impression that it gives you temporary invulnerability and recharges your Virtues... When in actuality you are only invulnerable while you charge the skill (can't do anything else during this time), after which you are just like before but your Virtues have been recharges. In short, turns out it's an utter shit skill without any use, since only one of the Virtues is ever worth activating, and even then it's a stretch as it's just an Aegis (the other two just have shit actives, with Justice providing a weak Burning attack when it passively provides a Burn condition on every fifth attack, and Resolve provides valuable passive regeneration or a shit-heal). In general, it seems Elite skills are just plain shit compared to regular skills. The only half-usable one I've tried out so far is Tome of Wrath, and that's only because it's 20 seconds of Retaliation. Bear form is like my regular greatsword wth slightly better attack and lots of health, but none of the heals (which means it's fairly useless due to how fucktardedly high damage usually is, and no genius thought about putting in inherent damage mitigation on such a transformation).

Anyway, I'm currently running a Norn shoutmonkey and reached level 35 (and on my way to Hoelbrak the server connection was fucked). Seems to me that Shouts are practically mandatory for Guardian tanking (seeing how Shield of the Avenger only affects projectiles and Sanctuary's cd is too long to be useful) due to having a ridiculously powerful array of effects, shortest cooldowns and healing effects. I'm currently running Save Yourselves, Hold the Line and Stand Your Ground (turns out it's great for PvE as well, seeing how dangerous knockdowns and stuns can be, and how powerful Retaliation is) with Signet of Resolve (seeing how Shelter is far too weak to be useful and Healing Breeze is weaker than Signet even without Signet's passive bonus) and Tome of Wrath (Bear Form and Renewed Focus tried out), with Greatsword as main weapon and Mace/Shield secondary. Currently have three traits put to 10 for 10% extra damage against Burning enemies (Zeal), 20% faster Shout recharge (Honor) and 5 in Virtue for passive boon boost. Will aim towards trying out how Zealous Blade fares (Zeal Grandmaster trait, makes each Greatsword attack self-heal) + Greatsword Power for +5% damage with it. Otherwise my plan is to raise Valor to 10 for 5% of Toughness added to Precision, Virtue to 10 for 25% extra Retaliation time, and raising Honor to 20 (trait effect would be 20% faster two-handed skill recharge, or the additional Heal effect to Symbols).

You can check the build here: http://www.gw2builds.org/view/78400....2-3.8.10.12.3-30.0.10.20.10-3.5.12.10.7.8.12

Signet of Judgment is there as a placeholder for Save Yourselves.

The game just isn't that great is it? i keep rerolling to find a class or zone that will click with me.

 

[Mangoose]

In short, turns out it's an utter shit skill without any use, since only one of the Virtues is ever worth activating,

You activate Virtues to help allies you are teaming with. They are not for soloing. Stop being antisocial.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The game just isn't that great is it? i keep rerolling to find a class or zone that will click with me.

Yea, in terms of mechanics and gameplay it's lightyears behind Champions and STO. In terms of revising the MMO mold, it doesn't even get into the same galaxy when compared to those two.

 

[Ulminati]

In short, turns out it's an utter shit skill without any use, since only one of the Virtues is ever worth activating,

You activate Virtues to help allies you are teaming with. They are not for soloing. Stop being antisocial.

I tried to talk him into PVP. No dice.
Mebbe we should do a KKK run of AC. Plenty of oppertunities to pop all 3 virtues there.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

In short, turns out it's an utter shit skill without any use, since only one of the Virtues is ever worth activating,

You activate Virtues to help allies you are teaming with. They are not for soloing. Stop being antisocial.

I tried to talk him into PVP. No dice.
Mebbe we should do a KKK run of AC. Plenty of oppertunities to pop all 3 virtues there.

Based on the tooltips, I'm highly doubtful of your claims (assuming the descriptions aren't just bullshit), since the heal seems negligible at best, worthless most likely.

Also, there is major issues with the heal layout, and I was not talking about Regeneration. Issue is abilities like Healing Breeze, where the game does not inform you that the Heal listed is the TOTAL heal, not heal per tick (it should list heal per tick instead). This is a pretty basic error to make in the tooltips, in general the descriptions suck and it shows elsewhere too, the Wiki of the game is very unhelpful most of the time.

Regarding Tome of Courage, I am actually saving up for it, since I don't really have anything else that's needed any time soon.

As for Greatsword tanking, the theory I have currently is that due to the paramount importance of DPS in 99% of the situations present (I've only found the mace preferable in Group bossfights, but in those I generally cycle the two because the Mace/Shield loses its usefulness very rapidly after healing is done), and assuming whirl attack heals on all ticks, I'd presume it will actually be a better source of healing in a number of situations. Still, remains to be seen, and removing trait points won't be much of an issue.




(PS: I am willing to test PvP if you lay out how it would benefit me. No, playing against other players is not even an argument for it for me.)

 

[Angthoron]

Heal total is one big + icon, Heal on tick is many small ++++es.

 

[Mangoose]

There's nothing wrong with the heal tooltips, Vaarna. They are consistent. There is no "CONVENTION" of how to list heals, whether total or per tick. This is also besides the fact that accurate tooltips are not REQUIRED for a game. You can also figure things out using experimentation and observation. Stop being a pussy.

For example, you want to know how useful the Aegis of Resolve heal is? Go up to someone. Target them. Pop it. Watch the buff icon for time, watch the on screen damage display for healing. If you hover over the buff icon the tooltip might even be different.

Go do some PVP. You have to realize that the entire gameplay isn't optimized fully towards PVE. That means skills are of varying use based on situation and environment, whether soloing or dungeoning or PVPing or WvWing. By the way this also applies to the Virtues.

 

[Ulminati]

Heck, even virtue of justice Vaarna is so contemptous of activating does like 5x burning duration on activation. That's 25 autoattacks a minute. If you're doing PvP where everyone is running around, you're not likely to land that many. If you have JUST ONE TEAMMATE near you, it's the equivalent of 50 autoattacks worth of burning. If you have 2+ teammates activating it is pure gravy.

And that's BEFORE you count in the traits in radiance that'll make it blind, give vulnerability on blind and refresh VoJ on kills. VoR can be traited to give further regernation on activation which is pretty goddamn useful in a 3v3 trying to cap a point.

Seriously, go to the heart of the mists. There are practice targets and practice NPCs you can try stuff out against. and a combat log that'll tell you the numbers.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Heal total is one big + icon, Heal on tick is many small ++++es.

Issue is that the game uses a fucktarded system of saying the total healed instead of healed per second like any sensible designer would use (since that's the only information you'll give a fuck about). Bigger issue is that with Virtue of Resolve the tooltip is either a liar or the active ability is just uber-shit useless.

Go do some PVP. You have to realize that the entire gameplay isn't optimized fully towards PVE. That means skills are of varying use based on situation and environment, whether soloing or dungeoning or PVPing or WvWing. By the way this also applies to the Virtues.

PvE is the where everything should be balanced first and foremost, PvP is tertiary in the list of grand concerns for MMO design (General Gameplay, Content, and PvP as a distant third).

For example, you want to know how useful the Aegis of Resolve heal is? Go up to someone. Target them. Pop it. Watch the buff icon for time, watch the on screen damage display for healing. If you hover over the buff icon the tooltip might even be different.

Listing out all the primary functions of each ability is basic UI stuff. It's amazing such a fundamental aspect slipped the devs' grasp. As an example, disregarding the flavour texts Champions Online already has ten times more information on each ability when you pick it.

Heck, even virtue of justice Vaarna is so contemptous of activating does like 5x burning duration on activation. That's 25 autoattacks a minute. If you're doing PvP where everyone is running around, you're not likely to land that many. If you have JUST ONE TEAMMATE near you, it's the equivalent of 50 autoattacks worth of burning. If you have 2+ teammates activating it is pure gravy.

And that's BEFORE you count in the traits in radiance that'll make it blind, give vulnerability on blind and refresh VoJ on kills. VoR can be traited to give further regernation on activation which is pretty goddamn useful in a 3v3 trying to cap a point.

Seriously, go to the heart of the mists. There are practice targets and practice NPCs you can try stuff out against. and a combat log that'll tell you the numbers.

I forgot about the Allied application it had. However, I hate people in overworld so fuck them. This did get me thinking that speccing 5 Radiance is possibly worth it in the shoutmonkey build, since Blind on activate will increase tankiness slightly and is 5 points away from the shit stat gains from Virtues trait tree. (EDIT: Another thing I pondered was changing Greatsword Power to the Focus recharge ability, as Focus seems a good combination with Mace on paper, in some ways better than shield)

The effectiveness of sword-heal vs Resolve booster is to be determined. According to wiki, Absolute Resolve at max level is a ~25% improvement to the passive regeneration at max level, so at the very least the base healing rate of sword-heal has to exceed that. This of course depends on how the sword-heal functions (again, this would be a LOT more functional if the tooltips and UI weren't a pile of shit).

Issue with having to go to separate training location is that you shouldn't have to go there to try everything out, you should be perfectly able to theorycraft with just the info you can get, and then test if things work in practise like they work on paper (we do this a LOT over at STO, and we have a lot more fruitful discussions and experiments BECAUSE THE INFORMATION IS THERE). Problem is, GW2 is totally balls when it comes to explaining even the basic functions to you. I mean, it's not very hard to write down "makes greatsword attacks heal X(%) on attack[, max Y heals per second].

 

[Mangoose]

Issue is that the game uses a fucktarded system of saying the total healed instead of healed per second

Nothing wrong with that, as long as it is consistent.

like any sensible designer would use

Any sensible person would be able to figure shit out themselves instead of whining just because tooltips are not detailed enough. It'd be one thing if ALL information was hidden from you. But it's not. Combat log is there. Stop being a pussy.

(since that's the only information you'll give a fuck about).

Get a calculator. Divide total heal by duration. Profit.

Bigger issue is that with Virtue of Resolve the tooltip is either a liar or the active ability is just uber-shit useless.

Figure it out yourself: "For example, you want to know how useful the Aegis of Resolve heal is? Go up to someone. Target them. Pop it. Watch the buff icon for time, watch the on screen damage display for healing. If you hover over the buff icon the tooltip might even be different."

PvE is the where everything should be balanced first and foremost, PvP is tertiary in the list of grand concerns for MMO design (General Gameplay, Content, and PvP as a distant third).

Sorry, nope. GW2 is a WvW/PvP game just as much as it is PvE.

GW1 is famous for having excellent PVP.

This is why other games balanced around PVE suck in PVP.

God, what is it you retards and your preconceptions and prejudices? No, there is no fucking set priority list for a fucking game. If a developer wants to prioritize a specific aspect, then they can fucking prioritize that specific aspect.

Listing out all the primary functions of each ability is basic UI stuff.

It is not. It is handholding stuff. And I'm not saying that negatively; just that it is helpful in that manner, but it is not required.

As an example, disregarding the flavour texts Champions Online already has ten times more information on each ability when you pick it.

For example, go play other games such as Darkfall where you have to figure out everything yourself. Final Fantasy XI IIRC was the same way. And plenty of other games that relied on players to experiment, datamine, and collaborate to establish a database of how mechanics work.

Have you not played Morrowind? Do you play computer games?

 

[Excidium]

The skill tooltips on GW2 are overall terribly vague, much like many of the trait descriptions. That's just bad design.

 

[Mangoose]

It's only hidden if

(A) There is no other way of calculating the mechanics (e.g. combat log)
(B) There is a combat log but you are retarded.

There's nothing shitty about the design. Both giving detailed tooltips, not giving easily found information, are valid design choices. Unless your audience is retarded, I guess.

It's just shitty , and defending that makes you look retarded.

That's funny, because I'm only responding because whining about it makes you look retarded.

Don't dismiss this just because you disagree with his every other point.

Other points? The only point I'm here is because some retards can't figure out how much healing a skill does simply by testing it out for 5 minutes.

 

[Mangoose]

Constantly editing your post because you have to constantly revise your statements is retarded.

 

[Mangoose]

God I'm so confused in Quake 3 I can't figure out how much damage each gun does HALP

Jesus Fcking Christ. Use your Fcking brain.

 

[Excidium]

I'm trying to figure if you're dumb or just like shitty games where you need to theorycraft to even figure out what exactly shit does

 

[Mangoose]

Why is a game shitty because you have to theorycraft to figure out what shit does?

If I were dumb, wouldn't having to theorycraft be something I would dislike?

So you're saying, in essence:

Dumb people like to figure stuff out.

Smart people hate theorycrafting.

Please explain the above logical disconnect.


Edit: Also tell me how to figure out how much damage rocket launchers do in Quake 3 because I don't liek to theroycraft man and I cant just shoot seomeon and see how long it takes them to die.

Edit 2:

Main point - If you aren't given explicit detailed information but are given the tools to figure out said information, then you are a fucking retard if you whine.

 

[Mangoose]

I'm trying not to laugh that the two parts I quoted from you are now edited out.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's only hidden if

(A) There is no other way of calculating the mechanics (e.g. combat log)
(B) There is a combat log but you are retarded.

Except you need to do more than that. You also need to see how quickly it scales by attribute level. You need to see whether it scales linearly or exponentially so you can extrapolate. You then need to figure out how an ability scales vs armor. So basically you need to do about 5 or so individual tests and perform a decent amount of math. For each fucking skill and trait. This is just stupid. GW1 provided every single piece of information needed. This isn't even considering the number of skills that have descriptions which are flat out wrong. Being forced to experiment on every skill of the game isn't theorycrafting, it's just a time waster. Theorycrafting is logic and math.

Why am I even wasting my time? This is the guy who didn't even know you could dodge arrows by moving manually.

Maybe they should just spec into HS spam and relieve some stress

All those delicious elementalists with 13k HP and base toughness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ

 

[Ulminati]

Step 1: Go to heart of the mists
Step 2: Pick up a steady weapon, placed there SPECIFICALLY for theorycrafting
Step 3: grap 2 differnt amulets so you can try with 2 values of stat x
Step 4: Go to the combat dummies
Step 5: Post on the codex to inform Average Manatee he's still an idiot who hasn't got a clue

If you don't like the heat get the fuck out of the bakery. You combine all the worst traits of autism without any of the smarts to go with them.

 

[Ulminati]

Also, seriously Vaarna. You don't need to be a tank to solo. Tanking is for group stuff. Events, dungeons, PvP. If you just want to run around solo you're never going to meet bigger groups of enemies than you can comfortably handle twice as fast as a class cannon triple meditation build. Sword/focus or Sword/torch baller builds. Maximum crit. Maximum Deepz.

 

[Angthoron]

Step 1: Go to heart of the mists
Step 2: Pick up a steady weapon, placed there SPECIFICALLY for theorycrafting
Step 3: grap 2 differnt amulets so you can try with 2 values of stat x
Step 4: Go to the combat dummies
Step 5: Post on the codex to inform Average Manatee he's still an idiot who hasn't got a clue

If you don't like the heat get the fuck out of the bakery. You combine all the worst traits of autism without any of the smarts to go with them.

Why go through all that trouble? Just apply your signature to this situation.

Vaarna_Aarne
Thing is, not every game has to subscribe to the same mechanics that one game has since spread across the whole genre. Yeah, DPS/HPS counters are convenient, but they don't need to be everywhere in order to make a game playable. Granted, it takes longer to learn when terminology/approach is different, but that's what adds to the fun (at least for me it does, your mileage may vary). The HPS mechanic, for example, can be looked at in this light: Some heals have 2 components, 1: Major heal, 2: Minor pulsing heals over time. Now, what's this "over time"? How many pulses? Simplest way is just to look at tooltips, and if there's stuff missing from them that you find essential, just hit the skill. It should pulse through, and you should get the idea of how many times it does this, and with what intervals. And there you go, you just got over your issue.

So yeah, this stuff with tooltips makes it unfamiliar, yeah, but definitely not all that frustrating. Also, if confused about a mechanic, better to just ask bros/random people, more often than not you'll get a pretty good idea about stuff with it, it's not like most people will go out of their way to mislead you about something like that.

Unless you ask dumb questions like "What is a pipe", in which case "Two half-pipes put together" is a fitting reply.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Step 1: Go to heart of the mists
Step 2: Pick up a steady weapon, placed there SPECIFICALLY for theorycrafting
Step 3: grap 2 differnt amulets so you can try with 2 values of stat x
Step 4: Go to the combat dummies
Step 5: Post on the codex to inform Average Manatee he's still an idiot who hasn't got a clue

If you don't like the heat get the fuck out of the bakery. You combine all the worst traits of autism without any of the smarts to go with them.

Why go through all that trouble? Just apply your signature to this situation.

Vaarna_Aarne
Thing is, not every game has to subscribe to the same mechanics that one game has since spread across the whole genre. Yeah, DPS/HPS counters are convenient, but they don't need to be everywhere in order to make a game playable. Granted, it takes longer to learn when terminology/approach is different, but that's what adds to the fun (at least for me it does, your mileage may vary). The HPS mechanic, for example, can be looked at in this light: Some heals have 2 components, 1: Major heal, 2: Minor pulsing heals over time. Now, what's this "over time"? How many pulses? Simplest way is just to look at tooltips, and if there's stuff missing from them that you find essential, just hit the skill. It should pulse through, and you should get the idea of how many times it does this, and with what intervals. And there you go, you just got over your issue.

So yeah, this stuff with tooltips makes it unfamiliar, yeah, but definitely not all that frustrating. Also, if confused about a mechanic, better to just ask bros/random people, more often than not you'll get a pretty good idea about stuff with it, it's not like most people will go out of their way to mislead you about something like that.

Unless you ask dumb questions like "What is a pipe", in which case "Two half-pipes put together" is a fitting reply.

Issue is not the mechanics themselves, as like I said before GW2 isn't exactly doing anything new, it's mostly just doing a half-way aping of Cryptic's gameplay model. What I have a problem with is that the information I want so I can plan ahead is simply not there, and to a lesser extent with messy way other information is told (a good example is that Regen is total healed, not per pulse; but neither of these is specified). There is no question about the fact that when it comes to tooltips, GW2 is pretty bad. It's not so frustrating when you're doing stuff, since at least you gain limited information. However, the fact you are taking shots in the dark for a large number of skills and traits is extremely frustrating, Zealous Blade being perhaps the best example, as its tooltip is insultingly bad and it's an endgame trait ability.

How it should be, is that I could look at all the skills, each with a tooltip that lays out its function. Then I can proceed to think of a variety of builds, and have a very good idea about what they do and how they work just there. THEN I can go and try out one or maybe a few more at a testing area, and see which clicks the best with me. In STO our main problem is that there is no testing area, but luckily the tooltips and game itself gives an extremely generous amount of information on the mechanics at work in each ability and how each skill affects what. This is the basic layer, the one that SHOULD BE SHOWN PROPERLY, after which you can have the more advanced layers that are there for minute optimization and tricks where you do some extra work (going by STO example, looking up how Power Levels affect systems and creating your own optimized presets). tl;dr: You shouldn't have to make pure guesswork regarding your build.

As for questions, I've got one that will cause destruction and mayhem: What is an RPG?



(Also, I'm starting to have a suspicion that they have all of this shit explained indepth in their strategy guide)

 

[Average Manatee]

Defending shitty skill descriptions. I think I've seen everything now.

Being able to test them isn't the point. Do you want to test every skill in the game? Yes? Then you are an idiot. No? Then you miss out on vital knowledge. At least, it would be vital if the game had worthwhile PvP like GW1. In GW2 you just spam shit and don't care all that much I suppose. BTW, you have to do this for each skill every time Anet releases an update because they won't tell you how a skill is updated (and half the time they conveniently forget to mention what was updated).

Then there are skills that are flat out inconsistent with each other. Corrosive Poison Cloud puts down an AoE that inflicts multiple conditions for 5s. With any other pulsating AoE this means that the targets would be hit by those conditions every second and rapidly stack the condition. Except it doesn't, because unlike every other AoE skill Corrosive Poison Cloud pulses once every 5s.

Also, if anyone can tell me what the formula for the rate of GoEP's chance to trigger is I would love that btw. To get a baseline estimate you would need a sample size of a hundred or so tests. Then you would need to try out different forms of stat/level/buff enhancement with further sets of tests to figure out whether they affect the scaling. For one skill.

I'm sure you retards will still defend this though. Anet should just put "This skill does stuff" for all skill descriptions I suppose.

 

[Ulminati]

The only vital knowledge here is the fact that you're a retard Manatee. Everyone says so you're just too stubborn or too dumb to pick up on it.