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Author Topic: Is this game dead or?  (Read 382272 times)
Threash
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Reply #840 on: February 24, 2014, 07:29:29 AM

Advice for what? leveling? grab a good tagging weapon (mainhand axe rocks) and head to LA, i'm racking up the levels on my 50s ele right now.

I am the .00000001428%
Pennilenko
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Reply #841 on: February 24, 2014, 07:41:12 AM

Advice for what? leveling? grab a good tagging weapon (mainhand axe rocks) and head to LA, i'm racking up the levels on my 50s ele right now.

I do not play enough to know what area acronyms stand for. My ranger is 33 or 34 and I haven't done any group content yet. Not entirely sure what I should be doing.

"See?  All of you are unique.  And special.  Like fucking snowflakes."  -- Signe
Threash
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Reply #842 on: February 24, 2014, 07:45:19 AM

Lions Arch, the big event that everyone is at.

I am the .00000001428%
Tmon
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Reply #843 on: February 24, 2014, 12:20:34 PM

nobody at ArenaNet, not the dev/writer(s) involved, or even the professional voice talent or the recording director know how to pronounce "quay". Where's a great facepalm gif when I need one?

It's okay. They consistently didn't know the difference between "golem" and "Gollum", either. I think I bugged it like twenty times in beta and it still drives me absolutely bananas.

I turned off the sound about an hour into launch, I don't think I've missed anything.
Fordel
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Reply #844 on: February 24, 2014, 01:46:47 PM

Step 1: Go Train Two Drakes, preferably River and Marsh, but any two Drakes will do. They are the only pets that cleave and they are nearly as tanky as bears.

Step 2: Pick a Ranged Weapon, I prefer Longbow, but Shortbow and Axe are both serviceable.

Step 3: Get a Sigil of Fire for your Ranged weapon. This will cause a AoE damage proc on a crit. Your secondary Sigil should be Bloodlust or Perception (these are stacking power/crit buffs when you get kills)


Gear wise, Prioritize Power and then Crit if at all possible, but Power/Crit gear is usually quite expensive on the Trading Post. You can get pretty good leveling gear from the WvW zone, it's just on a Karma vendor. It's Power, Vitality, Toughness. You can get lower level foods and oils (from the Trading Post) that buff your crit rate up really really cheaply, do so.

Your heal should probably be Healing Spring, it's one of the best heals in the entire game. It does several things. First it has a direct heal portion, that heals both you and your pet. Second is drops a heal over time field that anyone inside of it will get healed, this field will also remove harmful conditions on every pulse. Thirdly, this field is a water field, where you or friendly players can use special attacks called finishers to trigger additional healing and buffs.

From a practical stand point you can just drop it and stand in it and good things happen to you and anyone near you.


I just use Signets for my utilities, which for leveling is perfectly acceptable on almost every class. Signets are utilities that have always on passive buffs, with more powerful active utilities on Signet use (which turns off the passive buff till the signet recharges). The one thing you need to note on Rangers, is the ACTIVE abilities of signets do NOT effect you, just your pet. UNLESS you spec into Signet of the Beastmaster, a 30 point talent in the Marksmanship Line. There are four Signets and 3 slots, any 3 will do, but I prefer Stone, Hunt and Wild.

I don't remember when you get your Elite Skill, but I prefer Rampage as One, it's straight forward and powerful.


Talent Wise, I usually go 30/20/20/0/0 but this is like, almost entirely preference and play style in regards to leveling.

30 Marks for more overall power, Arrow Piercing (which lets your arrows shoot through targets, like a line AE) and Signet of the Beastmaster so my sig actives work on me.

20 Skrimishing for more crit stuff and Quick Draw, which reduces the cooldown on my bow abilities.

20 in Wilderness survival, the first 10 is purely for the fall damage talent which I spec on EVERY character and the last 10 for Shared Anguish and Companions Defense. One is a passive stunbreaker and the other adds a defensive buff at the end of my dodge roll.




The general gameplan, is send pet onto mob, shoot mob with arrows, collect loot after mob dies. As you get more comfortable with the game, you shoot many mobs at once and collect many loots after they die. When that becomes boring you can wade in with a Greatsword or something to entertain yourself  why so serious?

Swap your pet BEFORE they die. When you swap after they die, the swap cooldown is 60 seconds. When you swap before they die, it's 20 seconds. As long as your pet can live 19 seconds, you can tank anything in the entire game by just swapping. This lets you solo mobs and events you honestly have zero business being able to with almost zero risk to yourself as if your swap chain fails, you are already like 50 meters out and running  why so serious?

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
Stokowski
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Reply #845 on: February 24, 2014, 02:51:49 PM

nobody at ArenaNet, not the dev/writer(s) involved, or even the professional voice talent or the recording director know how to pronounce "quay". Where's a great facepalm gif when I need one?

It's okay. They consistently didn't know the difference between "golem" and "Gollum", either. I think I bugged it like twenty times in beta and it still drives me absolutely bananas.

I turned off the sound about an hour into launch, I don't think I've missed anything.

"Minatar" and "sintar" instead of "mynohtor" and "sentor" used to bother me, but I assumed it was just an unfortunate Americanism, if a little exaggerated. But quay? Quay!? That's just old-fashioned ignorant.

-----

EDIT: I agree with everything in Fordel's post re levelling a ranger, with the possible exception of Healing Spring as your heal. Consider Troll Unguent (sp?) too. It's not group/ally friendly and has no continual HoT, but mathematically it is the stronger heal. Try both, see which you find most suits you.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2014, 02:56:53 PM by Stokowski »
Fordel
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Reply #846 on: February 24, 2014, 03:19:27 PM

Troll Unguent is very strong on Tank/Condition builds that abuse Empathic Bond and Heal gear. It's just one big Massive HoT for you and your pet, but that's it. It has no condition cleansing or combo field or direct heal or anything.

It's an ideal SPvP and Solo Roaming WvW heal/build thing, but sorta meh for leveling. It's just a pure sustain thing for builds that focus on outlasting shit.

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
Pennilenko
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Reply #847 on: February 24, 2014, 03:45:49 PM

Awesome Ranger Tips
You sir are amazing! That is exactly what I was fishing for information wise.

"See?  All of you are unique.  And special.  Like fucking snowflakes."  -- Signe
Lantyssa
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Reply #848 on: February 24, 2014, 05:26:40 PM

I do Healing Spring for land and Troll Ungent for underwater.  Spring has the advantage of being a field, so with my axe bouncing between targets and Empathic Bond it can end up greatly boosting the heal on the pet.

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
Rasix
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I am the harbinger of your doom!


Reply #849 on: February 24, 2014, 06:12:12 PM

As for ranger's current place in WvW, I hear this a lot in teamspeak/mumble: "is that a ranger or an arrow cart?"  However, they're pretty nasty solo if they can get the jump on you from ranged. 


-Rasix
Fordel
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Reply #850 on: February 24, 2014, 06:19:00 PM

The way you can tell the difference, is the Arrow Cart spam can actually kill you.  why so serious?



and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
murdoc
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Reply #851 on: February 25, 2014, 07:53:48 AM

The way you can tell the difference, is the Arrow Cart spam can actually kill you.  why so serious?


+1

Usual TS convo as a battle starts "Someone just go quickly kill the Ranger so we can focus on the rest".

Have you tried the internet? It's made out of millions of people missing the point of everything and then getting angry about it
Kageru
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Reply #852 on: March 17, 2014, 04:03:11 AM


Having accidentally encouraged some RL friends to start playing I ended up doing some dungeons.. I'd wondered whether there was hidden depth to the class mechanics and it turned out to be the expected lack of depth. The lack of class identity and synergy means that combat feels very zergy and quite unsatisfying. Mobs are made challenging through the use of cheesy and annoying abilities to restrict mobility because they can't be tuned to a "tank". Thanks to PvP balance the class abilities and builds are unsatisfyingly "over-balanced" for PvE use and lots of classes have terrible gaps or limitations in the number of builds that work. Unlike GW1 where you could mix and match a lot of skills to make something that works you feel very constrained here. You can trait into a skill category, like wells or venoms, but with only three skills and 2 of those often being weak or situational there's little variation in both builds and play-style.

The big story events have the same problems. The current living event boss mobs are amazingly hostile to melee or condition using builds (which is lots of classes) which is mostly frustrating because the class designs simply aren't flexible enough. You just never seem to hit the sweet spot where all your abilities fit together and support the class identity and play style you want.

The idea of "no trinity" has, as always, largely translated into "everyone's a DPS". It can be fun looking through the forums for suggested builds that aren't purely focused on DPS stats (berserkers).

But worst of all extending the range of skills would seem a good way to grow the game. Adding new weapons or variant weapons, or making the skills locked to them and free skills more flexible and varied, would allow the game to grow. But the dream of "sport-PvP" means they are scared shitless of making any substantial changes that will upset that balance.

I love the world, I loved the "more the merrier" and dynamic atmosphere of the levelling experience, but I wish they'd focused more on how to keep people interested long term.

Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
MediumHigh
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Reply #853 on: March 17, 2014, 12:34:52 PM

They can never have sports pvp cause no one cares about captured point. Anet will hold position for another year or three before finally "reworking the arena".
Kageru
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Reply #854 on: March 17, 2014, 01:37:19 PM


It would be enough that the decouple the skill balancing. I'm pretty sure GW1 had the ability for skills to have alternate mechanics when used in team PvP. I wish they'd kept that in GW2. They already have a lot of skills that don't work underwater.

Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
Fordel
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Reply #855 on: March 17, 2014, 02:01:06 PM

They do the same in gw2, many skills don't work the same in the SPvP arena's as they do in the PvE/WvW ones.

and the gate is like I TOO AM CAPABLE OF SPEECH
MediumHigh
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Reply #856 on: March 17, 2014, 02:08:27 PM

GW1 had so many skills and ultimately way more control of your skill bar that some skills being more useful in pve verse pvp mattered less because you had a depth of options. Later on anet introduced PVE-only skills but anet resisted that route for a long time because the assumption was pve'ers shouldn't experience too much of a culture shock when getting into pvp.
Kageru
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Reply #857 on: March 17, 2014, 11:41:03 PM


As if they don't... the pretty casual gamers I'm playing with would be obliterated (and sworn at) by the veterans still active in PvP if they accidentally wandered into PvP.

Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
Spiff
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Reply #858 on: March 18, 2014, 03:59:54 AM

I once hoped the combo system would provide a lot of the depth that seemed lacking at first glance, but it's just too limited and often awkward to do so.
That's in part because they insist it has to be a group mechanic mostly, but the timing and positioning it takes to consistently combo almost requires Voice-Comm and even then it's often more hassle than it's worth.
One of the reasons I never enjoyed any class as much as my engineer: they can do some decent combo'ing all by themselves (despite A-net trying their best to make it as difficult as possible).

Is 1 mesmer and a bunch of warriors still the 'best' way to do dungeons btw? Because that right there was one of the biggest "your balance has failed!" signs-on-the-wall I've ever seen in an MMO.
Kageru
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Reply #859 on: March 18, 2014, 01:34:08 PM


As far as I can tell. And gear balance is "Full berserker" (DPS armor / weapons) for virtually every class. Thankfully since I'm grouping with casual gamers we don't speed clear and the class selection is erratic.

The guardian has a reasonable design intent and most of the traits suggested builds. But the necromancer is impressive in that you can see the potential but it's just so hard to make it work. The weapons have lots of limitations, the useful abilities are on long timers, DoT's are heavily limited by the tight debuff cap, and the traits are a mess. And too much of the already restricted skill and trait selection is in the "no one ever picks that" category. Such a waste.


Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
Threash
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Reply #860 on: March 18, 2014, 01:57:41 PM

The lack of trinity works fine in pvp but it's like they put zero thought to what to replace it with in pve.  This is not the game to play if you enjoy dungeons, luckily that is the thing i enjoy the very least.  My two legendaries i took longer getting the dungeon tokens than everything else just because i had a hard time forcing myself to run them, and i picked the two easiest ones CoF and HoTW.

I am the .00000001428%
Lantyssa
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Reply #861 on: March 18, 2014, 03:04:10 PM

We completely gave up on dungeons.  They were impossible for our 'casual' friends and they were frustrating enough for me who is reasonably decent.  Then they 'improved' them and we couldn't even finish Ascalon Catacombs anymore.  If that wasn't bad enough, the limited-time event dungeons kicking our ass at the end made us completely give up.

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
Modern Angel
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Reply #862 on: March 18, 2014, 06:12:52 PM

I like them. I just hate the culture around them, with the insistence on Berzerker gear when it's just not necessary.

I can't complain too much about the game from a money to satisfaction ratio. I hated the Scarlet Briar stuff but I've gotten tons of playtime. They'll easily get me back with an even halfway compelling plot post Scarlet horseshit.
Tannhauser
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Reply #863 on: March 18, 2014, 06:38:05 PM

We completely gave up on dungeons.  They were impossible for our 'casual' friends and they were frustrating enough for me who is reasonably decent.  Then they 'improved' them and we couldn't even finish Ascalon Catacombs anymore.  If that wasn't bad enough, the limited-time event dungeons kicking our ass at the end made us completely give up.

Ayup
Threash
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Reply #864 on: March 18, 2014, 06:43:43 PM

I like them. I just hate the culture around them, with the insistence on Berzerker gear when it's just not necessary.

I can't complain too much about the game from a money to satisfaction ratio. I hated the Scarlet Briar stuff but I've gotten tons of playtime. They'll easily get me back with an even halfway compelling plot post Scarlet horseshit.

It's not necessary, its just optimal.  Why fight for 15 mins when you can fight for 10? the only difference any other gear makes is to needlessly prolong the fight.

I am the .00000001428%
Setanta
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Reply #865 on: March 18, 2014, 11:02:25 PM

Before I gave up this game I was pugging 5-6 dungeons a night and then moved on to pugging 11-20 and 21-30 fractals (2 brackets for a relic each plus a chance at rings etc). I was running in power/precision/toughness gear on my warrior and swapping in bow/rifle for some of the fights. Likewise a shout spec guardian. Everything else was zerker and TBH, the speed runs wern't that hard even though my specs//gear wasn't optimal.

But it was tedious.

It stopped being fun when I ended up with over 2K dungeon tokens (except Arah, fuck Arah).

Living story doesn't make up for a massive flaw in the game design - the class mechanics and their lack of flexibility in dungeons. I don't see the problem as a lack of the trinity, it's very much a case of DPS racing against poorly thought out NPC mechanics that aren't challenging at all. Which means there's no real challenge and no real fun, even in fractals where the difficulty increases (this may be a limitation of my experience, I only got to L38 fractals).

GW2 is to GW1 as Diablo 3 is to Diablo 2. Shinier, more refined (and both of the sequels with shitty storytelling) but with a dire need to go back and look at what made the originals truly entertaining. Blizzard are getting there, Anet I'm not so sure.

"No man is an island. But if you strap a bunch of dead guys together it makes a damn fine raft."
Modern Angel
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Reply #866 on: March 19, 2014, 06:42:08 AM

A substantial portion of the old magic can be recaptured by adding in a lot more skills, making elites worth a fuck, and increasing synergy. Figuring out builds and sorting through the sheer variety on display in GW1 was delightful. I have no idea why they nixed it, other than an obsession with balance.

And, again, I like the game. I like the game a lot. But I also play like once a month for a few hours to do the newest content. I wish I liked it more.
Sir T
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Reply #867 on: March 19, 2014, 10:05:42 AM

I've been playing pretty constantly for the last few weeks. I started a Gaurdian,leveled up my ranger, which was ok, and then I've started an elementalist which I'm having a blast with.

Last nioght a bunch of guys on my server started a Quaggan march from Vigin keep to Divinity's reach. There musk have been 50 guys at one point trotting along with about 5 guys running around dealing with Mobs. It was a blast and the comments we got from players along the way was just priceless.


Hic sunt dracones.
murdoc
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Reply #868 on: March 19, 2014, 01:44:36 PM

I basically just WvW at this point, with the odd venture to check out any of the Living Story stuff. I have a baby Ele on the go that I level when guildies/friends are playing alts but that's about it. Still enjoying the game a lot and log in most days.

Have you tried the internet? It's made out of millions of people missing the point of everything and then getting angry about it
Kageru
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Reply #869 on: March 19, 2014, 01:45:07 PM

A substantial portion of the old magic can be recaptured by adding in a lot more skills, making elites worth a fuck, and increasing synergy. Figuring out builds and sorting through the sheer variety on display in GW1 was delightful. I have no idea why they nixed it, other than an obsession with balance.

I'm assuming this is because the PvP side of the house screams at them any time they suggest it. Balancing for "e-sports" is the death knell for interesting PvE skills and synergies I suspect.

Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
Sir T
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Reply #870 on: March 19, 2014, 02:04:11 PM

"Balancing" for PVP has wrecked every single game it has been attempted in. Its utter BS. CHESS isn't balanced ffs. However the PVP trolls basically fill up forums with Garbage about it. They regard Forum warrioring as just as important as PVP itself. They seek to shape the game to the way they want it and different factions to "balance" the game in favour of their preferred class. The one of the MANY problems with this is that they only regard one thing as important - DPS. So they will pretty much like a hive mind shape the game to favour their high DPS High armour Warrior classes because who gives a fuck about wierdos who actually like playing a support Staff Elementalist (like me). And if a game is not that reliant on DPS>all then by God they will make  DPS>everything even if they have to turn the forums to dogshit to do it. Not very deep down its the one and only thing forum warriors care about and thats the only thing that balance means to them.

And if they try and change it they will unleash the howls of the demons of hell on forums and in Emails and twitter and in-game chat and God knows what else. Its all PVP to these losers.

STO has uniquely made the decision to largely ignore the PVP warrior crowd after a while and focus on good PVE content and fuck balance, and its a better game for it. And even then I heard people bitching when I showed up in a cruiser to an STF.

I would much rather a heavily PVE game that had a WvW system for those who want to enjoy this, but which would basically say "we only care about PVE content. If you enjoy the PVP have at it but if its "unbalanced" then tough titties." Someone like me would find that refreshing and would accept that.

I haven't tried PVP yet but I look forward to trying WvW once my elementalist is leveled up. I'm not going near Berzerker gear though.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2014, 02:07:31 PM by Sir T »

Hic sunt dracones.
Zetor
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WWW
Reply #871 on: March 19, 2014, 02:35:32 PM

Well, in my experience wvw is one of the things where a support elementalist really shines, and you definitely don't want berzerker armor there (I use full PVT, but I'm sure other combinations can be just as useful). Ditto for world events / zerg pve, the extra survivability definitely helps.

The dungeon subculture in GW2 is... appalling, however. I don't think even the worst LFD/LFR dungeon runs were as aggravating as trying to pug something in GW2. I wouldn't even blame the players (and their elitism or noobness or whatever) -- while all the hurfblurf about "lol bearbow rangers / cleric guardians", "l2dodge, scrub" and "zerker or GTFO" on the forums is eyeroll-worthy, the hardcore dungeon runners are just using the most effective methods to get through the content in as little time as possible. It's just that I find said content shit in the first place.


edit: though I'll say that trying to run HOTW as my first dungeon in 4+ months probably didn't help. Apparently yesterday's patch stealth-buffed the troll miniboss to have the same moveset as the troll in AC after it was buffed. The resulting slaughter was hilarisad. I just wanted some polar bear symbols for my legendary axe that I'll probably never make anyway, demmit!
« Last Edit: March 19, 2014, 02:38:50 PM by Zetor »

Sir T
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Reply #872 on: March 19, 2014, 02:59:32 PM

Yeah I was just bitching in general and making generalisations, sorry. :)

I actually fell in love with the Staff  Elementalist in Lion's Arch. I went there as a lowly level 4 Elementalist and after a bit of frustration I finally got the staff out to try it, and it was pure love for 20 levels. Ohhhhh, I see.

Hic sunt dracones.
Sjofn
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Truckasaurus Hands


Reply #873 on: March 19, 2014, 06:02:05 PM

Support staff is really fun in WvW (imo), and you will find that while the dungeon people are all ZERKER OR NOTHING, the WvW people will cringe at you if you're in zerker gear, because you will explode in about two seconds.

God Save the Horn Players
Kageru
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Reply #874 on: March 20, 2014, 01:58:14 AM


I don't think they balance that much for WvW, and WvW is a lot more tolerant of build variety. It's the small team competitive pre-made PvP that drives the issue.

Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf?
- Simond
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