Blood Red Arachnid.2493

> @"Yggranya.5201" said: > > @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said: > > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > > > @"kharmin.7683" said: > > > > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > > > > Personally I wish they were toughter on this though and players caught using bots and hacks like that are never allowed to come back to the game. > > > > > They deserve to be perma-banned. > > > > > > > > > They never reveal the actions that are taken, but I'm pretty certain perma-bans do occur. > > > > > > > > > > Positive that perma bans are rare and usually only done for extreme cases. > > > I'm pretty sure most bans are x amount of days/months which really isnt much of a deterrent for people willing to use 3rd party hacks. > > > They pay a subscription for that software so getting banned is not going to stop them using it over and over again. > > > > > > > That is... not true. If you've ever gone digging into the history of these forums, you'll find a graveyard lying just below the surface. Every once in awhile I'll go looking for an old post of mine, because occasionally I'll say something smart that I want to reference. Each time I do this, I'll come across a years-old thread full of names that I recognize, but haven't seen in awhile. Some I like, some I hate, but whatever reason I decide to click on a name to see what they're up to, only to see those dreaded red letters and a last post made years ago. > > > > We call it the memory hole. We're so inundated with media that we don't realize when somebody has dropped off the face of the earth. We don't see these banned people, largely because they aren't around to be seen. > > It is completely true. If botters who are so obvious that a person who has never played a game before would realize that they surely can't just stand there all day, every day, and that reporting them is useless, then there can be no other explanation. Obviously anet doesn't give a kitten. I mean, i should have been permanently banned from these forums for a while now, but that hasn't happened yet since the reported posts are automatically removed, which means that the "moderators" are just bots as well. No one at anet cares one bit. Only way to get banned is being racist/sexist or something else obvious, and spreading it around a map for all to see, and even that isn't a certainty. Otherwise, nobody wants to remove a (hopefully) paying customer. I was referring to permanent bans being rare. People assume they're rare largely because they aren't visible. Also, the moderators aren't bots. They have a few stock accounts that they pilot to hand out moderation. They copy/paste from a script in an attempt to make the moderation as impersonal as possible. But make no mistake, they are people.

Don't know about soulbeast, but out of the two remaining I've always found Dragonhunter to be much easier than Holo. Holosmith has a massive glaring failure point if you get the heat management wrong, and also the constant kit/weapon swapping requires keeping track of more variables and requires a lot more key presses.

> @"DoomNexus.5324" said: > Condi players incoming: > "yOu ArE nOt SuPpOsEd To FaCeTaNk BuRn, YoU kNoW?!?11!" > or > "jUsT dOdGe!" > > Nah.. I know what you mean, my death info board is dominated by like 60k burn almost everytime I die.. I think burn is the single most broken thing in sPvP.. Way too many procs possible for some specs imho.. Like... I'm not requesting burn dmg nerfs across the board, just the burn stack output of some specs. > But I don't think that's related to skyhammer tho. at least I don't see why the nodes there would be any different than on other maps, quite the opposite maybe, since you have kite and no-tp spots around every node it could actually be better than other maps.. You probably just got really unlucko with the enemy team stacking burn specs. But... you haven't disproven those arguments. You just wrote it stupid. Maybe if you could somehow demonstrate that their burning is unavoidable or oppressive, then those arguments would go away.

> @"Teratus.2859" said: > > @"kharmin.7683" said: > > > @"Teratus.2859" said: > > > Personally I wish they were toughter on this though and players caught using bots and hacks like that are never allowed to come back to the game. > > > They deserve to be perma-banned. > > > > > They never reveal the actions that are taken, but I'm pretty certain perma-bans do occur. > > > > Positive that perma bans are rare and usually only done for extreme cases. > I'm pretty sure most bans are x amount of days/months which really isnt much of a deterrent for people willing to use 3rd party hacks. > They pay a subscription for that software so getting banned is not going to stop them using it over and over again. > That is... not true. If you've ever gone digging into the history of these forums, you'll find a graveyard lying just below the surface. Every once in awhile I'll go looking for an old post of mine, because occasionally I'll say something smart that I want to reference. Each time I do this, I'll come across a years-old thread full of names that I recognize, but haven't seen in awhile. Some I like, some I hate, but whatever reason I decide to click on a name to see what they're up to, only to see those dreaded red letters and a last post made years ago. We call it the memory hole. We're so inundated with media that we don't realize when somebody has dropped off the face of the earth. We don't see these banned people, largely because they aren't around to be seen.

Depends on what you're going to do. Personally, I have two to three on each profession. At the bare minimum, for PVE you'll want a Berserker set on every toon. From there, pick sets depending on what you're going to do. In no particular order: (1) Condition set. Viper/Griever for general PVE and Raids, Traiblazer and Dire for WvW and champion solo-ing. Though condi builds are worse for general PVE, they do generally provide alternative tactics on each profession that can come in handy from time to time. (2) Buff/Heal set. Harrier for PVE healing, Diviner for pure boon duration in all modes, and Minstrels for WvW or Raid tanking. Having a good buff or heal set can carry a large group, so these are the sets I go to whenever I tag up. Know that not all professions have a good healing or buff build, so you'll have to pick and choose those depending on which profession you're playing. (3): WvW specific sets. These are things like Marauder, Marshall, Plaguedoctor, Soldier, and so on. WvW builds are more niche, and they'll require stat prefixes that don't have much of a place anywhere else.

It's not the size that counts. It's how you use it! But seriously, a lot of the skins and models in this game are so large that they look off-balance. They're so big that they're overpowering at times. Like I'm not carrying a sword insomuch as a sword has me attached to it at the base.

I'm all for making the CMs weekly. For one, it would go quite far for community health to not have that CM carrot dangling in front of their face every day. Burnout is a serious issue, and saying "just don't do it" doesn't change that other players will keep doing CMs and get burned out anyway. This would also re-integrate the pool of players: the 200KP players won't have as much incentive to segregate themselves from the rest of the fractal community. Having their skills and experience just hanging around regular fractal groups will make it easier for newcomers. I'm not for increasing the rewards for CMs sevenfold, but I would be for increasing the rewards of the regular fractal dailies slightly, since we no longer have to balance income around the assumption that CMs will be run every day. As for account bound infusions... I'm not for it, much for the same reasons that everyone else isn't.

I use it rarely. There are times where my hands hurt so much that I can't bring myself to bother mashing all of the skills. On those occasions where I just want to one-hand it, I equip Harriers and auto-attack everything to death with a specialized hammer build.

When I'm by myself I use the combo fields all the time. In my limited play I am using Engi and Ele, and they both really benefit from them: Consecutive Daze spam from Scapper Water blasts and leaps in Holosmith I have an Earth -> Fire combo for groups of enemies on Weaver to stack might I have a water -> earth combo to heal with Weaver If I crit I follow up with air. While zerging in WvW I'll run Arcane Wave to blast swiftness in lightning fields. I've got years of experience playing around with these combo fields. They're second nature to me.

I briefly considered Mesmer for WvW. I only ever made half of the build, because eventually I just went with ele. It looked something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PigAE/lVw8YcsNWJOKXaNdA-zRJYiRBfZ0WBEbCo2A-e The theory is simple: stealth up with torch + decoy, summon two more clones with mirror images, and then in stealth go for the full chrono burst against a group of players. It involved using Phantasmal Berserker as much as possible, with the hopes that 8 swordsmen all chasing people down would do some damage. Would it work? Probably not. I never tested it, so I don't know what it'll do in WvW.

I still have a soft spot for the Molten Duo. Even though they aren't as hard now as they were when I had to fight them with a bunch of uplevels in masterwork gear.

In WvW I just use the FGS on my sword weaver. It... wins me fights, largely by surprising enemies but also because it fixes the Weaver's lack of ranged options. Once it is dropped I start jamming on all of my attunements for their buffs and to spam Fresh Air. Players forget how much damage it can do. There is one detail About Perfect Weave that hasn't been brought up yet: Bolstered Elements used to give Stability on Stance. This made Perfect Weave much better in the past.

For hand health reasons, I've found the Rev to be much easier than the scrapper. With the changes to battle scars it is now easier than ever. Just run a power herald in full berserker gear with Glint + Jalis and the Thrill of Combat trait. You'll gain about 300 health per second by just attacking, +150 per target with vengeful hammers (max 450 additional), and an additional 150 per second with regeneration. Getting 600 health per second is enough to out-heal most encounters in the game. Using a similar build (before the battle scars buff), I once face-tanked the Clockheart from the Twilight Arbor Aether Path. It is pretty good at playing solo, but it doesn't upscale well for organized groups.

> @"Spartacus.3192" said: > > @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said: > > Negative Duration food isn't super good by itself. The main thing it helps with are those short bursts of temporary conditions, such as weakness, chill, immobilize, fear, vulnerability, and so on. A lot of people don't know this, but there are tons of conditions out there that only have 1 or 2 second durations, so the negative duration food will have an impact almost immediately. > > > > You can stack negative condition duration, sometimes to be quite high. For example, a Mirage with Renewing Oasis (-20%), Lemongrass Soup, (-20%), and Resistance Runes (-25%) can get a total of -65% condition duration. Cutting away almost 2/3rds of condition duration is quite substantial. All of those short bursts and nuisance condis will fall right off. This is... a trick that's only available to 3 classes at the moment (Ele, Mesmer, Ranger), but it is still worth considering. > > > > Incidentally, Mesmer also has a negative stun duration on the Signet of Humility. A mirage with that signet, melandru runes, and a Bowl of Roasted Lotus Root could get themselves to -80% stun duration. I wonder if anyone has ever tried that. > > % doesnt stack additively. It stacks multiplicatively. So 20%, 20%, 25% is (80%*80%*75%=48% final duration) ends up as a 52% reduction in condition duration. You know, this is something I wonder about. I can't find listed on the wiki how negative duration bonuses work. I assume they worked additively because that is how positive duration bonuses work for condition duration, but if you have a source on this let us know.

For PVE? Go with Deadly Arts. It has a bunch of pure damage traits, and also the combination of Mug + BQoBK is useful for hordes of weak enemies. For PVP/WvW? I'm not sure. I think all of the deadeye's are running Shadow Arts.

Negative Duration food isn't super good by itself. The main thing it helps with are those short bursts of temporary conditions, such as weakness, chill, immobilize, fear, vulnerability, and so on. A lot of people don't know this, but there are tons of conditions out there that only have 1 or 2 second durations, so the negative duration food will have an impact almost immediately. You can stack negative condition duration, sometimes to be quite high. For example, a Mirage with Renewing Oasis (-20%), Lemongrass Soup, (-20%), and Resistance Runes (-25%) can get a total of -65% condition duration. Cutting away almost 2/3rds of condition duration is quite substantial. All of those short bursts and nuisance condis will fall right off. This is... a trick that's only available to 3 classes at the moment (Ele, Mesmer, Ranger), but it is still worth considering. Incidentally, Mesmer also has a negative stun duration on the Signet of Humility. A mirage with that signet, melandru runes, and a Bowl of Roasted Lotus Root could get themselves to -80% stun duration. I wonder if anyone has ever tried that.

Go for berserker gear. The overall performance boost when going from masterwork to exotic is quite large, so while it might seem scary going with berserker stats at first, you'll find yourself to be quite durable. Also, the raw power it gives will let you rip everything's head off. It is really easy to change utilities and traits, so if you find yourself having trouble surviving you can swap out a few of those for more defense. Going for berserker lets you kill things faster, which gets you more loot per play session and lets you do more things in a day overall. The only thing you'll find yourself having any trouble on is soloing bounty champions and some other group events. For those, you'd have to go for a completely different set and tactics that exist mostly to solo bounties.

Looks like I'm the only other one here who actually wants more PVE-like events in WvW. My idea is to make gigantic monsters that roam the map, who give rewards for being killed, and also add the option to lure these monsters into camps/towers for some additional play options. Basically, make them wandering hazards that players would have to work around.

On Kit-less? Sword leaves rifle in the dust.

There's a video for the old version [here,]( ) but that was a few balance updates ago. Basically it looks like this: Gear: Full Berserker Weapons: Sword + Pistol Runes: Scholar Sigils: Force + Impacting Utilities: A.E.D., Laser Disk, Photon Wall, Rifle Turret, Prime Light Beam Specialization: Explosives: Glass Cannon, Explosive Temper, Big Boomer Firearms: High Caliber, No Scope, Modified Ammunition Holosmith: Solar Focusing Lens, Crystal Configuration: Eclipse, Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit The Rotation is.... only marginally simpler than standard sword holo. You're still doing the following: Photon Forge Mode to 149 Heat, using Skills 1, 3, and 4 for damage. Sword 1, Sword 2, and Pistol 4 until you get to about 75 Heat, in which case you go back into photon forge mode. Spam the toolbelt skills whenever they're off cooldown. Photon Wall and Laser Disk above 50 heat. The only real difference between the two is that the kit version has you popping into grenade for Shrapenl Grenade and Poison Grenade every few seconds.

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said: > > @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said: > > snips > > yeah i see what you're saying. doesn't make sense to say professions are weighed unevenly if all professions get the same compensation but w/e. what do you think about the 15k hp base for all professions idea (should be 2200 armor base too imo), do you think it could help with this learning curve? They would be compensated for their differences. It would just be at the competitive level. As for normalizing base HP, I'm largely indifferent to it. My knowledge of PVP is mostly historical, and historically the base HP has little to do with overall profession performance. There's been times when Ele and Guard were meta while Warrior and Necro weren't. Mesmer and Thief trade places in the roster all the time, and it rarely has to do with which one has more HP. It comes down to a variety of factors (boons, invulnerability skills, mobility, CC), but skills overall have more of an impact than raw stats do. I learned this the hard way, back when I would main necro pre-HoT and would get thrown around like a ping-pong ball. All that extra health didn't matter, because I spent the whole time stunned. That extra health goes down surprisingly fast when focused or burst down, so going from 15k to 19k meant I lived through 2-3 more attacks. In theory Anet could normalize health/armor and adjust everything else around it. But, Anet likes their professions to have flavor, and making everyone have the same stuff just makes the gameplay between professions bland.

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said: > > @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said: > > Lets cut to the chase and be straight with people. The real question here is "Should Anet balance a profession in PVP around peak performance, or average performance?" This is an old question. So old, in fact, that I remember it being discussed when Grouch was nerfing engineers over and over again because he was an excellent engineer player who would body the competition regardless. I don't think we ever got an answer. > > > > Personally I say we should balance around peak performance, for a couple of reasons. Number one, the people who care most about balance are the hardcore players who can afford to put endless hours into practicing their profession. Everyone else below that level has different concerns, like learning how all of the professions work and how to navigate the U.I. Second, good design at the top tends to trickle down into other modes, whereas broken design at the bottom tends to ruin things the further you go up in the skill ladder. Third, you can't tell someone to work around broken design at the bottom because those problems will be magnified at the top, but you can tell somebody at the bottom to git gud, because that is when their profession will start to shine. > > whats the difference between peak performance balance and broken design at the bottom? i think i understand what you're saying on paper at least. lets take head shot for example. bad players spam it and waste it, but anyone with middling skill can shut out any other skill with high cast time. so yes, better players make better use of it obviously, but its also kinda broken if you can get that much shut down potential with one skill. same goes for shadow shot, it shuts down all kiting and mobility. same went for the old 3 ini sb 3, the best sustain tool teef had. on and on for all professions. > > imo its better to balance all professions around average performance and balance general gameplay around peak performance. professions should be easy to pick up and fun to play so new players will want to play them. general gameplay is kinda already there except for some outliers which will always exist. The difference is that to make things balanced for newcomers, casuals, or the average player, you'd have to make it so all of the little difficulties that each profession has is over-compensated for. Basically, you'd have to make it so, in the hands of a casual, that the thief or the ele would be just as good as the warrior or necromancer. I call this broken design, because it means that the professions are purposefully weighed unevenly, just to deal with their learning curve. Profession experience can only diverge as players get better at the game. Competitive PVP would become dominated by one or two professions, because those professions would need to be overpowered to deal with their learning curve.

I don't know how Teapot's build works, but generally condi is bad for fractals. Enemies don't live long enough build up condition damage, let alone spread it with epidemic (with maybe two exceptions). I have encountered some power healers, though. They run Harriers.

> @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said: > > @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said: > > > @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said: > > > So either quit, or it's balanced. It still works at top level, so practice. People will scream about "balance should be determined by how class functions at top level" but get upset when it actually happens. > > > > No they don't. **To argue for top-level balancing they have to understand skill ceiling.** Those are the people telling everyone else to "git gud" when something gets nerfed. > > People not understanding skill ceiling doesn't stop them from arguing that nerfing what they personally find annoying is top-level balancing. > You've confused two things. Arguing for a top-level balancing philosophy is different from believing that a player is at the top level. Their arguments for their annoyances can have merit, too. Looks like you've decided to just declare people hypocrites without actually checking first.

> @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said: > So either quit, or it's balanced. It still works at top level, so practice. People will scream about "balance should be determined by how class functions at top level" but get upset when it actually happens. No they don't. To argue for top-level balancing they have to understand skill ceiling. Those are the people telling everyone else to "git gud" when something gets nerfed.