Yasi.9065

Hi,

is there a way to see if I need to store a weapon for future upgrades in not yet released recipes.... or not?

Are they fixed now? Can I log in my renegade again and... play it? Without having to play "guess which skill hides now behind this icon and skillslot"?

> @"Zexanima.7851" said:

> **TL;DR** Going to be giving PvP a break until further changes. Not finding the current meta at all enjoyable.

>

> This isn't a "Boohoo I'm quitting this dumb game" post but just trying to give a personal account around my experience in PvP lately and why I'm putting it on the back burner for now. Usually I spend about 95% of my time in the game doing PvP (or wvw) but as the changes are settling and a meta starts to form I'm not really having any fun in PvP now days. At first I was really excited for the big patch to shake things up. The first week or so was great. Lots of people trying wacky builds and having to adapt on the fly to what's being played. By now though people have started to narrow down what's strongest and a meta has started to form. Anet has not been moving as fast on the initial updates as I would have hoped either so it seems like things are going to be this way for a while.

>

> So what have I been seeing?

>

> 1. Some of the professions that were the strongest picks before are still the strongest after the patch, even if the builds are different. Firebrand and revenant mainly are still top tier. There are a few that moved up and down though.

> 2. It looks like we're moving into a CC heavy meta which is probably the worst meta focus I could think of. CC takes away player agency and is about the most un-fun mechanic to deal with. Firebrands, revs, scrappers, tempest, and condi druids stacked together make for a ridiculous amount of CC. You can lock down a target(s) for more than enough time to get a kill and straight up prevent them from casting any skills.

> 3. Condi is more prevalent after the patch. While power may still technically be "better" it's much easier to get value out of condi now too. Not to mention condi allows you to build tanky while still doing respectable damage which leads me to my next point.

> 4. There are lots of builds surfacing that are much too tanky(*cough* core necro *cough). I think this one of the reasons people are building with large amounts of CC, to lock down these bunker builds so they can actually kill them.

>

> These are things I've been experiencing in both 2s and 5s and multiple different professions. When going against comps running heavy CC, heavy condi with bunker builds the best option is just to mirror it and try to outplay them. The disparity between what is best and everything else still feels pretty big and this really narrows the field in your options for 'adapting' to these situations. The best builds and comps showing up are not just a hands width better than everything else but leaps and bounds more effective. We can see Anet is working hard and rolling out patches faster than usual. I don't claim to have the solutions either but I just hope Anet will start more patches rolling soon and/or

> a) Constantly keep the meta in flux and changing

> b) Close the gap between what is best and everything else.

>

> Until then I'll just be keep on eye on PvP from a distance hoping for more interesting stuff to happen. Right now it's just not enjoyable for me.

>

Same. After a long pause I gave pvp a try again, tried several builds... but its just too unfun. Gonna wait for further changes, the matches I played were so heavily bunker-cc-lockdown focused... felt like playing season1 over again *shudder*

For every little shit one-time-unlock item we get a confirm dialogue before delete... and when its needed, theres nothing... Anet *NotLikeThis*

Ah yes, and here's some more positivity... so I wouldnt completly waste my time farming those shitty boxes with shitty gear in them, I went for animals that drop 500 cooking meat... got roughly 60 of those and 24 rares... so for whoever that still has to do it... have fun :+1:

> @"Cameron Rich.3905" said:

> Hey there everyone, thanks for taking the time to post your feedback on yesterday's changes. Your thoughts are incredibly important to us, and help us work to make the game a better experience for everyone.

>

> There's one thing I'd like to clarify about yesterday's patch notes: Specifically, the note "Drakkar has gained new abilities."

>

> We should've been clearer with this patch note since "new abiltities" is pretty vague--so we wanted to give you some more information on them. These additions were focused on providing a clear incentive to participate in mechanics by punishing failure, as well as giving you reasons to engage with some of the previously arbitrary mechanics.

>

> The Falling Ice Orbs, for example, have a larger and more damaging attack that fires if no one catches the orb--so when you're performing the mechanic correctly, you're not seeing that punishment skill (way to go, being responsible!)

>

> Additionally, Jhavi's shield in the intermission phase now provides protection from the storm (which deals constant damage if you're outside it), and allows you to go out and attack adds - but that protection only lasts a short time once you leave the shield, so you have to balance grabbing the buff with going after incoming enemies, or pulling them into the shield and damaging them down.

>

> Finally, as some of you have experienced, we introduced a unique flavor mechanic to the fight when the group fails, to make it clearer that Drakkar's influence has won out in the struggle.

>

> With these changes, we specifically wanted players to feel punished for ignoring mechanics, while still allowing for a few people to be the "heroes" of the group and save their allies from certain death. Since this is an open world encounter, it's important to encourage coordination while maintaining accessibility, especially as we get further into this content's life span and more diverse player groups of varying skill levels tackle it.

Good changes :) Fun meta.

The scaling on champ2+3 doesnt seem to not work though? Or it really is because so many run to first champ, the first champ always takes 3-4 times as long as champ2 or champ3.

A slight criticism, the green fields give a dmg buff, but drakkar always despawns after the green fields. Maybe change the timing slightly to give a longer burst phase?

> @"stormseeker.5361" said:

> I saw the 12%, I've also not completed the story because at the moment I don't have the time to do so with work crunch, so i'm not sure how indictative that actually is of how active gw2 efficiency is... However i've done a few of the map achievements when I get the time. With the stress from work, I don't feel particularly enthused to engage strike missions, but they will become harder to complete later due to those people who already finished acheivements ignoring them due to poor rewards. This is the main issue with living world content, you feel the need to complete this content asap, in order to not stress as much later down the line.

Its up to Anet to keep Strikemissions attractive for players to not just jump in a few times for one-time achievements. However, Im pretty sure, if you are in a guild that does things together (not just a guild to get access to guildfunctions), you will always find people to do strikemissions with.

> @"stormseeker.5361" said:

> If these are designed to ease players into raids, then they should be in that category, not story. I never said they should remove strikes, or the challenges, or the achievements. Just move them so people can play the story ones casually, and people who want to get the additional AP can do so without it blocking something as simple as a story journal meta achievement.

They tried that with raids. Now granted, as my list above shows, raids had other problems as well. But not integrating them into expansion/living story achievements didnt help either. GW2 has no geargrind. That means, the incentive to try new content has to be something else. In this case Anet decided to fully integrate them into the living story episode release. Mind you, the meta achievement never was "just a story achievement". It always was about the whole living story episode. Beetle races, discovery, worldbosses... all part of past meta achievements, but not really part of the story per se.

> @"stormseeker.5361" said:

> I also see no reason why you would have an issue with moving the achievements into their own category, as nothing you do or like would be affected, yet more casual/busy players would be able to complete the meta with more ease and less stress leading to a happier playerbase and less of these kinds of threads on the forum.

I do. Because then people wouldnt even TRY strikemissions. No matter if they would actually like them or not. Just the thought of "ohhhh, instanced pve content" scares people in GW2. Anet found the perfect middle ground tbh. Easy strikemission achievements necessary for the meta-achievement. Those achievements are nothing to be scared about. Anyone can do them. Quite honestly, theres more difficult story achievements (whisper boxing for example, if you solo it) or openworld achievements than the ones in strikemissions.

People arent even TRYING them. Instead they instantly run to the forums and complain. If people had at least tried, they would have discovered that the Flickering Light achievement can be solo'ed, that avoiding the shockwaves is easily done when staying ranged / having blocks. That staying alive during a strikemission like the Fraenir one is quite easy when staying stacked.

The fact that those achievements are so low just shows how important it is for Anet to add them to the meta achievement. If they were somewhere in their own subcategory, the majority of players wouldnt do them. Never would even try strikemissions, because of some perceived notion and prejudice about them.

No. This is perfect. And tbh, you still can just not do it. Nobody forces you to get that shiver emote. Its not even a very big one. Its not an infusion or something rare. Its just an emote you might use maybe 10 times in your gw2 playtime.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Shadowmoon.7986" said:

> > People complained that raids are too difficult, so anet took a knee and made easy mode raids called strikes. And still people are complaining about their accessibility.

> That's because they started to make strikes more like raids. It's obvious, then, that the same complains would crop up in such a situation. With the added caveat of raid achievements never being part of the LS meta.

>

> > The reason why they require you to do them for the meta is well to funnel people into doing them.

> They tried that before with legendary armor. We know the end result of that - they did find out that people do not want to be funneled into a content they strongly dislike. And it turns out that raids were a type of content that the majority of GW2 players did not, in the end, find appealing.

> I don't really see why they think in this case it will be somehow different.

>

1. Raids suffered at the start from a quite badly balanced gamemode, no dpsmeter and barely any knowledge about boons, buffs and builds in general. That forced players into playing only a handful of "acceptable" builds that were proven to work. Btw, that hasnt been the case since around W2, but its still in the heads of even veteran raiders to always adhere to "the meta", though absolutely not necessary outside of recordruns or speedclearing. Only arcdps and streamers like teapot are slowly ... very slowly ... doing away with that silly prejudice. To this day Im still seeing raidcommanders that say they prefer having 2 buffdruids over 1 healer+1buffdruid for example.

2. The raid population significantly dropped between W4 and W6 release, partly due to the huge disappointment that was legendary armor (really, you cant dye it black -.- ) and also because W5 was quite a lot more difficult - especially in the beginning - than any raidwing before. Many got frustrated, especially considering they were hyped about getting a new wing, they then couldnt even hope to get past the first boss anytime soon. They didnt leave because they were finished getting legendary armor. PvP legendary backpiece would have been the better analogy here.

3. No easymode, no hardmode in raids, meaning one-size-fits-all, which... surprisingly... doesnt work out so well. Neither for beginners, nor for veterans. Strikemissions are different, you have easymode (grothmar), normalmode (fraenir, kodan), hardmode (boneskinner, whisper). All while still having quite relaxed timers, so that getting the kill on "hardmode" strikemissions still is pretty easy, as long as you put in some effort (aka some organization and preparation). Raids were doomed from the beginning because of this, only those that really committed to raids, got down and put in the time to learn mechanics & skillrotations, were ever successful in raids. Raid rewards - including legendary armor - never were enough incentive for this. After all, you could get the same amount of gold farming silverwasts RIBA and who needs ascended armor anyway in openworld pve. Raids still are quite the commitment.

4. Quite a lot of veteran raiders have given up on gw2 or only come back for a new raidwing release. Because the release cadence of new raids is way too long to satisfy anyone thats really into raiding. So the problem of raid population shrinking isnt that people only raided for legendary armor, but rather that after the first three wings were put out quite fast, the release cadence went to 1 raid per year. Not enough to sustain raiders. Its like 1 living story episode per year and nothing else. Wouldnt keep you in the game either, now would it?

5. Just because the vocal minority of raid-haters is present on the forums, doesnt mean that raids are dead. Im pugging raids every week, and I rarely see the same people. Not so in PvP, where - when I was still actively playing ranked - Id get queued with and against the same roughly 30 people.

> @"Raknar.4735" said:

> > @"Tulki.1458" said:

> > ArenaNet said strikes are meant to be a ramp to raid content. Which means their intended purpose is to improve the average skill of the playerbase. Putting them front and center in LW achievements is how they will do this. They don't want them to be ignored.

> >

> > You have to rise to the occasion to acquire achievements for this episode. That actually sounds fine. They're achievements. Get out of your comfort zone and enjoy improving your personal skill.

> >

> > It's really sad to me that the game is in such a state that players are demanding a moderate challenge be lowered to their level rather than putting in the effort to improve at the game. If you want limited engagement and for everything to bow before you, there are other genres like visual novels and walking simulators that can do that for you.

>

> I mean, you could also do the same, instead of trying to get "high-engagement" modes in this game, why not try out other games that already have that mode? I don't like telling people to play other games, but it seems you're a good candidate, since you're doing the same.

Eh what? So because Anet offers content we enjoy, but you dont, we should go play another game so anet stops making content we enjoy but you dont? Theres absolutely no logic in your statement.

> @"stormseeker.5361" said:

> 

>

> Not all gw2 players are on gw2efficiency but, it tends to be used by the more serious achievement hunters and traders etc in the game. Seems a bit overtuned when less than a quarter of 1% have unlocked the meta achievement. Strike missions really deserve their own category as training raids.

1. Lots of alt accounts on gw2efficiency, for example of my 7 alt accounts, 3 finished the story, 1 got the strikemission achievements - cause why play strikemissions on altaccounts, loot really isnt worth it even logging into them xD

2. Lots of inactive accounts, as you could have easily spotted by the fact that only 12% even finished last story step.

3. Boneskinner strikemission is bugged

4. Kodan mission was only there for an hour or so on release, got patched really fast

5. People are busy farming other achievements first, as you can see by the achievement "Flickering Light" which can be absolutely easily done solo, before tackling the strikemission ones.

6. People dont really know what to do for the achievements yet, for example the jumping shockwaves one last week was quite simple because less than 5 attacks counted as shockwaves, and those you could easily block, so not even any jumping shenanigans needed. Still only a handful of players have that. Im calling that the "dulfy-has-left-effect". No one posted a "how-to" on reddit yet, and the big majority of so-called "achievement hunters" are only capable of following a detailed guide.

7. Take a look at former story releases, the completion rate in general is quite a bit lower than it was for season3 for example.

> @"stormseeker.5361" said:

> It's a good job none of those achievements were tied to the story meta achievement, based on those unlock %'s

Guess what, of my 7 accounts, only 1 has the achievement :o

You have to take gw2efficiency percentages with a grain of salt. Lots of altaccounts (after all, especially for those its really comfy... not having to log in to check something) and inactive ones.

> @"Vinceman.4572" said:

> > @"pfc.9430" said:

> > A good thief will also smooth your run.

>

> The problem is for one good dd out there there are dozens of thiefs that are incompetent.

>

>

Undoubtedly true, but how do you know the thief that joined isnt just such a nugget? I like having daredevils, holosmiths or powerchronos - and yes, even condi fire/quickbrands - in my daily t4+cms fractals runs.

Because lets be absolutely honest here:

Theres only a handful of "pugs" that actually can burst down the bosses in cms fast enough to not make good use of the extra utility those professions provide.

And for normal t4 fractals, that extra utility enables most groups to play without that stupid healbrand and get more dps out of it.

Ofc, if you get a rotten tomato that just plays daredevil because of the perceived easy rotation but doesnt know any of its utilities, then you have to kick him. Easy enough, even if you arent with friends, because most fractal players are already quite intolerant towards those professions.

Pretty sure its (still) simply bugged, half the time the mechanics arent in sync - we tried lighting all torches (and succeeded) but the dmg kept ticking for example.

To bring this to a rest: List of achievements (45) contributing to meta achievement in the latest story episode ->

# Story Achievements (8):

Chasing Ghosts

Still Waters Speaking

Lost Spirits Found

The Hunt Begins

Voice in the Deep

Fire Dodger

Self-Confidence

Whisper Boxing

# Openworld Achievements (23):

Bringing Light to the Darkness

A Hunger for Knowledge

Timber!

Bjora Marches Insight: Drakkar's Lair

Bjora Marches Insight: Frozen Waterfall

Bjora Marches Insight: The Lost Kodan Ship

Shadows Creep

Idolatry

Mystery of the Bjora Marches

Mystery of the Hidden Tower

Mystery of Drakkar's Lair

Mystery of the Labyrinth

Mystery of the Western Marches

Mystery of the Raven Gate Ruins

Luminiferous

Koda Be Praised

Reel It In

Unwelcome Whispers

Lumbering Bears

Beckon the Ice

Unwelcome Whispers

A Bountiful Pastime

Acolyte of the Lost Spirits

# Strike Mission Achievements (14):

Sanctifier (20 strike bosses in sanctum arena)

Whisper of Jormag (4):

Legendary Whisper of Jormag

Slither-less

Reflections in the Ice (easy if you do even remotely okay dps)

Vortex, Interrupted (5x cc bar breaking, easy)

Boneskinner (3):

Hold onto the Light (Very difficult atm due to a bug)

Deathless Hunt

Flickering Light (Very easy, soloable)

Kodan (3):

Flawless Fallen

Kodan Dodger

Break It Up (5x cc bar breaking, easy)

Faenir (3):

Fraenir Frolic

High Shaman, High Stakes

Elemental Elegy (Quite easy strikemission, quite easy to do achievement)

Conclusion:

Yes, you will have to TOUCH strikemissions for this meta achievement. But is it difficult or even undoable for someone with a disability? Absolutely not. You need 37 achievements, 31 are not related to strikemissions. That leaves 6 related to strikemissions.

There is 5 achievements that are easy to get WITHOUT even succeeding in completing the strikemission.

That leaves you with ONE strikemission achievement you have to put a tiny teensy bit of time and grit into. You can go in as a healer in minstrel gear and do the "no downstate, no defeat" achievements. Or you get lucky and finish one of the other achievements on chance.... or you just farm 20x fraenir/twins , which are both quite easy to finish if you join lfgs.

> @"thepenmonster.3621" said:

> > @"sokeenoppa.5384" said:

> > You guys know that you dont HAVE TO get all the achievements right?

>

> I have a very fine tuned Effort/ Reward judgement system and PUGging for an emote fails to make it past the suggestion stage.

>

> I think the main problem people are having is the feeling of being forced to do content. My personal view to having story/ achievements/ gear behind a dungeon, raid, or the like has been, "I don't care enough to bother." But a lot of folks can't shake that completionist drive so this sort of situation always gets their fur up.

Im a completionist as you call it. I do all the achievements. Many I really dont like at all - like those forcing me to play the story instances (often even repeatedly) or running around the world pressing 'interact' every few minutes. Do you see me complaining about being "forced" to do those?

Why is it us raiders are being called toxic elitists, when its actually the other way around. Everytime theres even a slight - and let me be absolutely clear here, the new strikemission isnt even ENTRYLEVEL difficulty of instanced content in other mmorpgs - increase in difficulty theres people running to the forums and reddit complaining incessantly about it. Instead of just accepting it and doing it once for the achievement, or even going with it and giving that something new a try, those people create topic after topic demanding nerfs so they can afk their way to their achievement.

Do you see us raiders creating topics bemoaning the fact that all that devtime is put into animated cutscenes or designing a crystal dragon I still have no clue what even the importance is off, except well... its gw2, so it has to have dragons.

Before I go even more on a rant... in short... just because you dont like parts of an mmorpg is absolutely no reason to go around badmouthing it. If you cant handle doing things you dont like in a game to achieve a goal, then really... mmorpg is the absolutely wrong game genre for you.

> @"Cristalyan.5728" said:

> > @"Yasi.9065" said:

>

> >

> > /edit: Also, please, stop trying to split the community. Strikes are for everyone. **Raids are for everyone**. Story is for everyone. If YOU refuse to do certain content doesnt mean that its exclusive to "labelX players". It is YOUR decision to ignore parts of the game.

>

> Allow me to disagree. While the story is indeed for everyone, the raids are not. Do you remember the statements that the raids are designed to be completed **only by the most ....** players? And that the devs know that this category is not very large?

>

> Yes, I agree with you, the raids/strikes/story can be tried by everyone. But this is not the Olympic Games - only to participate is not all when you have achievements tied to **beating** the encounter. Theoretically speaking, everyone can be an Olympic Champion. Practically .... you can count them.

>

> Unfortunately, the strikes are more and more difficult - this is less and less a stepping point into raids, but more like a raid. And now, included into the story achievement. Mandatory.

>

> So, please stop with your wrong statements. Not us, the players (or the person you answered) split the community. The split has been performed in the moment the raids were released - with that "famous" statement that raids are designed to be completed **only by the best/skillful/dedicated/patient/etc** players. ONLY. The rest were ignored.

I dont like story content. Its boring. Characters have no depth. There is no mystery, no intrinsic detail. Theres no action. Story is NOT for me.

Let me put it as friendly as I can:

GW2 is an MMORPG. If you play this genre you accept:

a) interaction with other players - a lot - via chat at least.

b) that the game doesnt cater solely to your likes due to the vastness of the genre.

You are being incredibly disrespectful with your bashing of raids and strikemissions, just because its content YOU dont like. Many other DO like the strikemissions. Theres also quite a few that like the raidencounters. Just as there are players that like the story.

Me? I accept that. I dont begrudge people liking the story those living world episodes. I just want the same respect.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> Both fun and rewarding. The ratio of each doesn’t matter too much so long as at least one is present.

>

> Example 1: I don’t find grinds enjoyable but I’d do them if I needed the gold. If content had this grind attached to it then it’d have replay-ability. (i.e pre nerf Istan metas).

>

> Example 2: There aren’t any more raid rewards that I care about but I still find most of them fun to play. There’s still replay-ability there for me so long as I continue to find them fun.

This. Id add to that that when the content tips too much towards "not-fun", I wouldnt do it even if rewards would be best in the game (Silverwastes RIBA). While, when content is fun - like the new strikemission or drakkar or raids - I do them as long as there's enough rewards to finance my maintenance costs (food).

So, in a nutshell... replayability means fun. In an mmorpg, fun for me means playing with my ig friends and having challenging not-brain-dead content.

**Story:** Good, not boring, enough combat to keep me happy. Btw, who else hammered the dodge key when a certain arrow came flying? :)

**Map:** The 2nd half of Bjora Marches reminds me a lot of tyria maps. Lots of small events and interactive objects give enough to explore. I especially like all the little jumping puzzles that are not difficult per se, but take some puzzling out.

**Meta-event:** Drakkar is a bit of a hp sponge, but definitely a good meta-event. Not quite as epic as triple trouble, but definitely as good as tequatl.

**Achievements:** Enough to make me come back to this map for quite some time. The "do event xyz x times" achievements I think are a very good idea. Just the right amount to not be annoying, but enough incentive to come back and not just jump/roll/fly past all those events. But even better are all the fight-oriented achievements. Those wanting you to break the cc bar x amount of times, jumping over waves etc. I think they are the best way of teaching a player what to focus on in a fight - at least in GW2. Ive definitely seen the effect already. People not just autoattacking, but actively trying to jump the waves at drakkar etc.

**Strikemission:** Quite scripted and therefore in the beginning difficult, then it will become very easy. Definitely a good strikemission for people wanting to tackle some more difficult content, but still daunted by raids. Difficulty level is absolutely fine. Getting gold is enough of a challenge for raiders. Sadly, its not worth anything except pride and therefor people will just not go for it.

**Rewards:** Imo, we need more accountbound "unique" rewards. The intrinsic value of accountbound rewards is the time spend achieving them. Buying things in the gemshop or trading post doesnt give you that enjoyment. RNG is fine - dont crucify me yet, keep on reading - as long as the content that you have to "grind" is enjoyable. One big part of this is getting small rewards on my way to "the big one". Meaning: exp and drops from killing normal mobs. Its one of those things Dragon's Stand just does right. The reward chests for reaching a progress point, but also tons of mobs to slay that each and everyone give exp and loot. At the same time theres no reason to stall the event and farm those mobs (like istan greathall champs) because everyone wants to finish the event before the timer runs out. Its imo a big flaw in the Jora's Keep defense event that mobs dont give loot. It turns a potentially fun defense event into a boring, just stand in a circle and survive afk event.

And to wrap it up: Sadly still no easymode and hardmode for 10man instanced content. Please Anet, consider adding difficulty settings. You can do this quite easily by adding a npc to each instance that gives either a buff that pulses all boons on the wearer every x seconds (easymode), or a no-downstate debuff (hardmode). Add 2 achievements that track progress on normal mode (no buff or debuff) and hardmode, similar to the dungeon reward achievement... et voila. Difficulty settings with adjusted rewards.

The skill-level of GW2s playerbase is so varied, without difficulty settings, any content is either too difficult or too easy for parts of it. So the releases will always have negative backlash, which in my opinion, no raid/strikemission/fractal deserves. They are all done beautifully, and the bossfights are done better than anything else I get in other mmorpgs - and I tried them all ;p Seeing the lack of difficulty settings hold GW2 back from becoming really grand in that area... it saddens me.

> @"Cynder.2509" said:

> People say that you don't need LI or KP to join. Well, I've seen only groups in lfg asking for those and I've even seen groups in LFG that want LI and KP for the new Drakkar world boss. Like what do you need KP and LI for just a world boss for? So it's right what OP says because so far I've only seen stuff in lfg that has requirements een for world bosses.

Just join and ask if you really need to ping, since most of those are either going for gold (not needed except for pride) or they are just making fun of the kp "system" and are just trolling.

/edit: Also, please, stop trying to split the community. Strikes are for everyone. Raids are for everyone. Story is for everyone. If YOU refuse to do certain content doesnt mean that its exclusive to "labelX players". It is YOUR decision to ignore parts of the game.

Gotta say, this glider had me chuckling.

Either Anet is very self-aware and cheeky... or rather naive. Anyway I love it, its the perfect skin in a f2p game.... especially in lootboxes.

> @"Slowpokeking.8720" said:

> > @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > > @"Slowpokeking.8720" said:

> > > But it's not raid, it's strike mission.

> > And it is easier than a raid so i dont see the problem. Except for maybe w4 bosses 1-3 but even they have higher dmg and instakill mechanics.

> >

>

> Raids and Strike Mission target different groups of ppl.

There you are quite wrong. Strikes are meant to fill the gap between openworld "run what you want, we dont care at all" and raid "meta builds only". The targetgroup of both is players interested in endgame pve content.

What people tend to forget, is that GW2 still is an mmorpg. And part of every mmorpg is character developement, which includes (but isnt limited to) making your character as effective in combat situations as possible aka getting a proper build. Other mmorpgs are even more strict on this. If you neglect your build in ESO to a degree that many gw2 players do, the only thing you can do is maybe some gathering... though you will die often to normal mobs while doing so. And ESO always was a story mmorpg, sandbox mmorpg are even worse in that regard.

GW2 is way too lenient. You shouldnt be able to survive on lvl80 maps without at least a fullset of exotics and a proper build. I digress however.

Strikemissions are meant to ease the progression from being a soloplayer in openworld pve to taking part in instanced organized pve endcontent. Targetgroups are exactly the same: people interested in developing their character in pve past the "pick flowers" stage.

> @"Raknar.4735" said:

> > @"Yasi.9065" said:

> > To make it clear... its not about making things "easier".

> > This is about keeping to the usual indicators. In raids, you get a "ping" when you have to carry out something. And if you are standing in some special mechanic that is dangerous, you get a golden aura.

> >

> > The bomb indicator over head is new, and it is bad. On an asura theres simply no way of seeing it when stacking. And even on a norn its easily missed in the visual clutter that is gw2 cast animations.

>

> But it is already using the usual indicators. Making them more visible /adding even more indicators does make things easier. I guess Anet should just hand out rewards per mail at this point. ;)

I think you just have a different version of the client than me then. Because the only indicators I get are:

- bomb overhead (barely visible on small characters, it "hides" behind every other effect, including the overhead animations from firebrand and renegade)

- chain itself

Nothing else. No audio queue. No text warning. No aura.

To make it clear... its not about making things "easier".

This is about keeping to the usual indicators. In raids, you get a "ping" when you have to carry out something. And if you are standing in some special mechanic that is dangerous, you get a golden aura.

The bomb indicator over head is new, and it is bad. On an asura theres simply no way of seeing it when stacking. And even on a norn its easily missed in the visual clutter that is gw2 cast animations.

> @"Slowpokeking.8720" said:

> I think Strike Mission needs to be casual friendly, it's not raid.

>

> This boss pretty much blocked many casual players from doing it.

>

> I think the biggest nerf it needs is the aoe blizzard, 2 secs is too fast to react when others going on.

There is absolutely no nerf needed. The strikemission has been out for 2 days. Not everything has to be completed in 6 hours after release.

Also, since there's very likely never going to be different difficulty levels to anything in GW2 except fractals, different levels of difficulty per strikemission isnt just "nice to have" but also needed. That way "casuals" - or rather people new to instanced organized content in gw2 - can start with doing the grothmar strike mission, progress to faenir or the twins and then reach boneskinner/whisper level. If you nerf everything to grothmar level, theres no progression and then theres no point in strikemissions.

Now we only need the incentive-trifecta (title, loot, statistics) to keep people trying and everything will work out.

With pugs, 2 qb (1 heal, 1 condi), 1 alacrigade (diviner), 1 bs (condi), 1 druid and rest whatever dps... took us a couple of tries, but dead is dead.

I like that it incorporates several raid mechanics:

- matthias bombs

- sabir up-in-air

- stacking

- chains are a bit like cairn agony circles

What I dont like is the missing extra indicators for the chain - since its a rather big mechanic.

And again the inconsistencies with the telegraphed aoes. Some are telegraphed huge (tornadoes) and do basically no dmg, others like the spikes dont have a telegraph.

Also, this isnt a strikemission I will ever do with unorganized pug grps. It needs organization and people that at least listen. The mechanics are easy enough explained, but if you get that pug that just insists on always standing off to the side and range autoattack, in this strikemission that will kill you.

Id rate it on par with boneskinner, medium difficulty.

Still really wish we could get easymode-buff that pulses boons every x seconds, and hardmode-debuff thats a no-downstate debuff which then triggers on completion an achievement that gives extra loot. Especially on this strikemission, no-downstate debuff would be spicy.

... could we please get a bigger indicator for the chains before they actually spawn? Not just the bomb icon - which lets be honest... with the way gw2 is overly particle-effect heavy just isnt visible enough.

A yellow text in chat maybe a la sabetha bomb? Together with a "ping" audio indicator?

And if we are close to a chain, can we get the golden aura from cairn/vg when standing in port circles?