voltaicbore.8012

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> Yeah except clearly its not irrelevant, else it wouldnt have lead to you making such a blunder.

What blunder, other than continuing to humor your discussion?

I don't care about being able to play a Tengu, but I just want to get into the Dominion of Winds. That would be enough for me.

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> Yeah except neither the context nor the goalposts were shifting. This is what it was about from the very start. This is just you backtracking after you made the error of not looking at what the context was. Weak logic is what youre doing.

I'll concede that I didn't pay close enough attention to matching the exact context, because it's irrelevant for the use of the skills in question. Even if the context is specifically out-of-combat rotation between points... it's the same thing. Sword 3 (and yes, an about face before doing it if you're not already oriented properly). About face. Sword 2.

You conveniently continue ignore that you failed to account for the fact that an about face is always necessary to use two moves (which are oriented in opposite directions) successively to continue moving in the same direction.

Not that any of this really matters, I admit. You have your excuses for not recording, and we all have objective reality for not caring about some crackpot theory that thief mobility isn't head and shoulders above other classes' mobility in spvp.

To be fair, people are consistently missing the point that OP _never_ asked for them to be killed, just removed from the story.

I just feel cheated by the Saga so far. It's been all about the Charr civil war and Rytlock's family drama, and the entire Norn people and the kitten SPIRITS OF THE WILD have been reduced to laughable sideshows. I was extremely excited when I realized I was going to get to talk to Wolf, and had a blast listening to the corrupted spirits roast Braham. But since then they've all been effectively silenced, and seem to have absolutely no narrative agency. Owl, the one spirit that stood against Jormag and paid the ultimate price for it, also seems like a wasted storytelling opportunity thus far.

All this just magnifies my indifference to the Rytlock/Crecia/Ryland nonsense. Sure, your cub is doing something dumb and might get killed. Guess what, a lot of people's cubs are out there doing dumb things and getting killed. If my character doesn't see Rytlock as a particularly close friend, I don't see why my character should find this drama at all compelling, and thus I, too, would appreciate not seeing them anymore.

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> The context is rotating around the map, so that doesnt work either. Again, odd context to use this, but you do you.

Ah, the ever shifting context/goalposts. Okay, I'll do me. You do you, which apparently includes weak logic and bad rangering.

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > @"voltaicbore.8012" said:

> > > @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> >

> > > Yeah except thats not how you phrased it. You said "sword 3 and about-face sword 2". Implying sword 2 is the one that evades backwards, if you meant that they both need about-face, youd either mention it on both, or not at all.

> >

> > Nope. I was just describing what I usually do in combat. I try to play with escape in mind, so if I'm against someone on a node that I think has a good chance of pushing me into escape and reset, I already have my back to a direction I can evade out to. So the sequence becomes:

> >

> > (1) sword 3 (no about face needed because I'm already oriented properly), followed by

> > (2) about face, followed by

> > (3) sword 2.

> >

> > Nice try.

> >

> >

>

> Odd that you would use that in a context about out of combat mobility, but sure, I guess.

Makes even more sense out of spawn, then. Since you seem to require that level of explanation, here it is:

(1) since there is a nice countdown timer before match start, I make sure my back is to the gate. then

(2) sword 3, followed by

(3) about face, followed by

(4) sword 2.

The point is, you seem to think you're being clever by saying that "about face sword 2" somehow implies that sword 2 is the backward jump. This idea of yours is completely invalidated by the fact that sword 3 and sword 2 are in opposite orientations, so to use them successively always requires an about face in between.

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> Yeah except thats not how you phrased it. You said "sword 3 and about-face sword 2". Implying sword 2 is the one that evades backwards, if you meant that they both need about-face, youd either mention it on both, or not at all.

Nope. I was just describing what I usually do in combat. I try to play with escape in mind, so if I'm against someone on a node that I think has a good chance of pushing me into escape and reset, I already have my back to a direction I can evade out to. So the sequence becomes:

(1) sword 3 (no about face needed because I'm already oriented properly), followed by

(2) about face, followed by

(3) sword 2.

Nice try.

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > @"voltaicbore.8012" said:

> > Also, as it pertains to the ranger MH sw2 cast time, it really does matter. The very sticky delays on both sword 3 and about-face sword 2 for mobility really cut into that combo's ability to move rangers across the field. I've practiced that opening many times in many matches, and guess what? Teammates just running in a straight line out of spawn can easily match me, and outright beat me if they have swiftness. What you dismiss as a mere cast time animation is 100% relevant here, as it significantly slows movement.

> >

>

> Yeah Im gonna easily call kitten. Actually, why are you talking sword? I ended up not using sword in any of the comparisions. For that matter, why are you using about-face on sword 2, its sword 3 that evades backwards.

I only mentioned sword because early on in the thread (prior to any demonstrations), you mentioned ranger sword as if it would help in the foot race. When @"Trevor Boyer.6524" correctly pointed out that the wack animations on the associated sword movement skills invalidated your point, you just essentially said "eh not really it's still fast." I merely wanted to add that I've extensively tested (short of using macros, I can't help but see them as cheats and refuse to get into them) using them out of combat, and the clunky animations do indeed prevent that sword 3-2 combo from being the super movement skill you seemed to think it is. Just running in a straight line seems to match it, and running with swiftness beats it.

And your comment on about face just reinforces the point that you don't know how to use that combo. Sword 3 is indeed the one that evades backwards, so no matter what after you use sword 3 if you want to keep moving in the same direction, you about-face and use sword 2.

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"kharmin.7683" said:

> > Ok, I disagree. Your statistics are not credible in that they do not account for all accounts. Only Anet has this information. At any rate, I'm not going to argue this further with you since we cannot agree on a common ground from which to even begin to debate.

>

> What do you mean they do not account for all accounts? They are the official leaderboards and they contain data from every account in the game.

I think @"kharmin.7683" is just misunderstanding your point, doc. You're clearly arguing that the available data strongly suggests that a big chunk of people quit the game well _before_ HoT was a thing, but khar seems to be thinking that you're one of the people blaming HoT itself for the quitting.

I've also taken a look at the leaderboards, and noticed the same things you did, @"maddoctor.2738", and came to the same conclusions. An absolutely staggering number of people seem to quit playing before experiencing even a small proportion of what the overall game has to offer. Just on the path to my first level 80 character (no xpacs purchased at the time), I think I ended up with 4K AP just from going to different places and trying different things. I certainly don't believe HoT drove away as many players as the complainers claim it did.

I actually think they were planning to do an expansion all along, but were hoping that we'd fall for the "oh the Saga _is_ your new expansion" nonsense so they'd have a bit more time and goodwill to work on the real expansion. Since none of us seemed to take the bait, they probably rushed out an announcement and perhaps accelerated the timetable.

But either way, the way they went about things annoys me. If I'm right and they really were planning an xpac all along, it irks me that they thought we'd swallow the Saga as some sort of reasonable alternative to a real xpac. If others are right and they _didn't_ plan on doing an xpac until the Saga blew up in their faces, then.... there are some serious competence issues at the studio.

Along those same lines, I think any player expecting that they'd make good on their new balance cadence fell victim to their own wishful thinking. Absolutely nothing we've seen so far from ANet indicated that they'd be able to keep that commitment.

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> Oh, [do they now?](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Quickening_Screech_(soulbeast)). Yeah thats a load of kitten. And you use it while merged. And then there are stances or warhorn or whatever.

> That "weird animation" is called a cast time. Its still faster. And sure, as I said, its redundant anyway. Youre ahead. And sure it wouldnt be good for 1v1s or teamfights. But neither is thief, is it? The point is to have a hypothetical thief analogue that can move across the map if they were horizontal.

I get the feeling you don't really run rangers in spvp? The entire array of stuff you're talking about seems to combine pets and weapons that would never appear all at once in a practical spvp build. At this point you'll probably just say "well this is about a hypothetical foot race!" But to me, that only reinforces the idea that thief mobillity in realistic/practical spvp situations is not nearly as disadvantaged as you make it sound.

Also, as it pertains to the ranger MH sw2 cast time, it really does matter. The very sticky delays on both sword 3 and about-face sword 2 for mobility really cut into that combo's ability to move rangers across the field. I've practiced that opening many times in many matches, and guess what? Teammates just running in a straight line out of spawn can easily match me, and outright beat me if they have swiftness. What you dismiss as a mere cast time animation is 100% relevant here, as it significantly slows movement.

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> We can do it in pvp, in wvw, in a pve dungeon, in a plane, on a train, it won't matter. The Thief will always win.

I'd put my money on you, solely because Uno seems not to have played rangers recently.

> @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> The games in a seriously bad state, the other night had the same 2 players not duo q'rs in my team 3 matches in a row, that's a very sad sign of the state of the games population lol.

That's even happening in unranked for me, which is a bit concerning.

Adding my 2 cents to OP's sentiment: I don't think thief is nearly as bad as you make it sound, but guardian is pretty strong atm. You said it yourself - you like fights. No surprise that guardian is more your speed, whereas to excel in spvp on thief it's more about knowing how maps work and how to best disrupt the enemy team (whether that be rapid +1s or decaps).

But yeah, the current 'balance' doesn't feel good at all.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > @"anduriell.6280" said:

> > Aaand it looks so goood.

>

> That sentence is why it doesn't showcase any futur e-spec.

I agree. Rangers aren't allowed to have nice things.

Either way, I'll be back in here if/when the new ranger e-spec comes in. If OP is right, I'll gladly praise his foresight and admit I was wrong to doubt. If he's wrong, I will very gladly tell him he was dumb for getting his hopes up. I _am_ a jerk, but at least I try to be fair.

> @"Azertah.5804" said:

>

> I'll note here thanks to the results of the toxic commander. I've stepped off from doing forging steel strike at all anymore, I just dont want to go trough that experience anymore seeing how toxic people can be even in strike missions. Can't even imagine how bad the situation is in raids.

Heh I had no idea how old this thread was until you noted it, OP.

It really isn't that bad in raids. Given the hassle of filling spots, I find most raid commanders only kick when it's absolutely apparent that someone needs to be replaced. And in training runs (which do happen quite frequently), there is no kicking of this sort, only for the extremely rare case of super toxic behavior.

I agree with those who've noted that (1) the commander was likely wrong to kick you, especially without explanation, but (2) your repeated re-joining is the only thing to blame for all your wasted time *after* the initial kick. The writing was on the wall - not worth rejoining such groups.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"voltaicbore.8012" said:

> > > @"Tayga.3192" said:

> > > What if armor and weapons were stat selectable

> >

> > This would be cool, but would probably run counter to design pretty hard. I have tens of thousands of AC tears, and I'd just spam buy those armors for selectable boxes. I think new players would often end up doing the same, spamming the easiest paths to earn currency for selectable armor.

> That would still be selectable _exotic_ armor. So, nothing to be excited about. At this point making the current dungeon gear be stat-selectable would not be a bad idea at all.

>

True, it wouldn't be a gamebreaker. It would just be out of line with how long it takes to get a stat selectable exotic piece from, say, the end of a pvp reward track. Then again, pve rewards do come faster as a general rule, so I guess that wouldn't be too much of a stretch either.

I'd still find another source of selectable exotics exciting, always nice to have another path to easy buildcraft. I'm still lacking a light legendary armor set, so for maximum laziness I still have to dip into my supply of Crystal Desert Armor Boxes to try any builds that incorporate 4-stat combinations.

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> So, am I understanding you correctly? You've come up with methods for data collection and testing...but then decided not to actually collect any data? That's remarkable! And you spent an entire year _not_ collecting data while meticulously following your carefully thought out methods? Truly amazing.

^ This.

I thought OP's setup was promising, then realized it was nothing but a setup, and a weird plea for others to actually do the meaningful work for him. It doesn't matter if OP actually did the mystic toilet test for a year or not - failure to collect meaningful data wasted all that time and effort. Congratulations.

> @"Tayga.3192" said:

> What if armor and weapons were stat selectable

This would be cool, but would probably run counter to design pretty hard. I have tens of thousands of AC tears, and I'd just spam buy those armors for selectable boxes. I think new players would often end up doing the same, spamming the easiest paths to earn currency for selectable armor. Not sure the dungeon looks are all good enough to entice ppl to run them for skins. So yes, more people might run dungeons, but probably just the same ones. Right now, as dungeon frequenter is pretty much the sole major reward, that at least enforces 8 paths.

> @"Yellow Rainbow.6142" said:

> Or at least combine lfg for dungeon. I feel like it will help.

Combine? as in have an LFG for anyone looking to do every single dungeon? I guess that could work since people can specify what they're doing in the description, but with the number of people who just don't seem to be able to read LFG listings, I vote against this. I'll get 10000x more random joins with no clue, and it'll take 10 mins just to herd them to the dungeon (even with offers of TP to friend, many new folks don't even have them). No thanks.

Boss' armor looked waaaay to light armor-y to evoke ranger for me.

Thematically mace makes more sense to me than hammer as a blunt weapon or a shield offhand. Of the sort of ranger fantasy archetypes available, I feel like ANet consistently leans hard on the nature/hunter/beastmaster aspects of the class, and although I know hammer ranger was a thing in GW1, I just don't see a place for it in GW2 ranger themes. Same goes for shield - to me, shields are tied quite closely to organized combat, and feels like a departure from the naturalist hunter with beast friends thing we have going on. A mace, however, is pretty much a one-handed club, which is among the most ancient hunting weapons out there. And yes, hammers could essentially be described as just really big clubs, but they're two handed weapons in GW2, and thus to me lose their "it's just a club" feel.

What I _really_ wanted was a Huntsman (or some more ungendered name to suit our times) spec with rifle, but that ship has long since sailed with Deadeye, I think. Also, the rifle would be yet another single target dps weapon, which the class doesn't really need imo.

> @"skarpak.8594" said:

> -snip-

>

> so don't even remotly take the word grind again in your mouth in the gw2 context. you get 2 millions exp in less then 30 mins. deal with it.

Lol hello fellow BDO sufferer - you clearly know what's up. You forgot to mention they're releasing a higher tier of horse beyond the t9 "dream" horse, which I'm not even going to bother looking at until I have about another 200 hours of solid money grinding under my belt there.

I think the biggest thing GW2 players don't know is how permanent and durable everything you grind in GW2 is. Mastery is account wide, forever. Every new character you make benefits from every single one of your masteries from the moment of creation. Unlocked dyes are yours to use forever, without even consuming a transmutation charge. There is no such thing as an RNG gear drop or gear enhance - every improvement you choose to make is a 100% sure thing, and it remains yours forever until you change your mind. I actually think this is a two-edged sword for ANet; because the game rarely does anything (outside of massive and sometimes unwelcome balance shifts) to invalidate player progress, it's incredibly safe to just walk away from the game for long periods of time. On the other hand, there's no other game I can think of that is as easy to come back to and still enjoy the fruits of everything you've built up over time.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again to anyone who will listen: GW2 is the single most generous player experience out there, for a title of this scale.

As for the original topic of the thread, I think others have already covered ways to get the 2 million skimmer mastery xp done quickly. I realize raw speed isn't everything for everybody, but the point is there are options out there. Even playing more casually, you can build those points doing a huge variety of tasks in PoF maps, and you can seek out a few of the higher-yield activities if you care to ask or look it up.

As an avid BDO player, I very loudly stress that there is absolutely nothing in GW2 that amounts to that game's level of grindiness. The BDO devs literally release new "grind spots" as "content", and BDO players are happy to have it. Even for something as basic as improving your gear to maybe the equivalent of Rares in this game, BDO forces you to grind for resources and _then_ has the balls to make the upgrade RNG and even bunp your gear _down_ a level. For trinkets in BDO, failed upgrades actually destroy the item... necessitating another grind just to buy the item again (trinkets are among the most massively expensive items in that game)... all for just another chance to roll the dice again and have it blow up in your face.

If you personally know any BDO player who considers GW2 grindy, then either (1) they don't know how to play BDO, (2) they don't know how to play GW2, or most likely (3) both.

2 million xp for the skimmer mastery bar to fill was a big step up from what I felt accustomed to, but it could be filled in a couple hours of relatively laid-back play. I think it was fine.

> @"kraai.7265" said:

> Dude, why? What steers gw2 players to keep making excuses to defend this game? It's so hard to accept our beloved game is trashed?

I'll refrain from giving a point-by-point rebuttal, because I actually agree that the current meta is not fun, and I don't want to contribute to the impression that I like it. I just want to note that you seemed to miss my point - I'm not saying that aoe spam on nodes is fun, but I'm saying that summit's engagement with spvp isn't a good criticism of it.

And yes, I am aware he watched Teapot's video. I sub to Teapot but missed it when it first dropped, so I ended up watching it through the "summit reacts to Teapot" version. He was dismissive of the importance of stacking boons (just assumed that getting 25 might was, for practical purposes, unattainable), railed at needing to possibly add a keybind for about face, and many other basic things that you should care about before you assessment of GW2 spvp should be taken seriously. I just don't think he cares for the depth of consideration you need to win fights in an mmo setting (which is again, perfectly fine), so his dissatisfaction with spvp means nothing to me.

But again, I feel like saying much more will give the impression that I'm defending the current meta, which I am not. I used to play GW2 almost exclusively, but lately I've been in BDO about 90% of my game time and only pop in for spvp dailies and some light gold farming on GW2. I consider the source of the current problem the severe damage reductions from the February megapatch. Even at the height of scourge madness at PoF launch, I could deal with a scourge from a safe mid- or long-range because it was possible to apply enough pressure to scare one into making mistakes that I could capitalize on. Now, it's much more difficult for a plat 1/2 grade player like myself to unseat even a half-awake aoe bunker fast enough to make the fight worth it. This is what I also hated about pre-nerf side bunker weaver - it could be fought against, but it was often smarter to just rotate out.

So I agree that it is bad design to have a meta where the right answer is to not fight something at all. I just disagree that anyone should care about how summit felt about GW2 spvp.

> @"kraai.7265" said:

> In this game that doesn't apply, broken builds are just broken, when skilled players grab those builds they ruin pvp for everyone who reaches past gold 2 from gold 2 to silver 1 all players just copy paste those builds and somehow climb, and the only players who play this game for fun and for choices, are stuck below silver 1 with meme builds they create, summit1g exposed this by trying the game a few weeks ago, the first 20 matches he had a great time, as soon as he was stuck in a match with somewhat decent players using those stupid builds it was all over for him, he left so fast anet couldn't even reach the patron stuff for him. And not because he was beeing mauled by more skilled players, he left because he quickly realized he had no future in this game because he wouldn't enjoy playing those annoying aoe builds.

Eh. I doubt, with his mindset and approach, summit would have stuck around even in a different meta. I just don't think he likes the genre in general, and GW2 in particular (which is perfectly fine, they're not for everyone). His complaints amounted to "why can't my halfassedly built rifle warrior contest points?!?!", which is like someone who brings their rusted out station wagon to a drag race and complains that they can't win. If he cared at all about doing GW2 pvp, he'd at least learn a better warrior build, or figure out some other way to handle the aoes. I, for one, found it highly embarrassing how hyped the community got about some streamer who really doesn't care for our type of game. It was pretty obvious he wasn't going to stick around, at least to me.

As for the aoe meta, I'm not a fan myself, but that's also why I only do unranked. There are still plenty of circles there, but at least it's less dominated by the same small number of builds.

Also, skill still matters. I could blanket the node in aoe, and a skilled player like @"Chaith.8256" could still outplay me on side nodes in places like the Eternal Coliseum or Niflhel. Well, at least when he's not playing some meme juggernaut scrapper build lol. The low damage meta makes it significantly harder for that to happen that it used to, but I've seen some higher ranked names in my unranked matches significantly outplay the faceroll builds, when the latter are being played by weak meta slave players.

> @"paShadoWn.5723" said:

> And do not go into any PvP before reaching lvl 80 and having guildies to team with, there they will maul you and take your body parts as trophies.

Eh the effectiveness of guild teams is pretty questionable, outside of more well-known pvp guilds. Every time I see a guild team on the other side of a match, it's generally an easy win for me.

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> Well yes I was simply pointing out that the argument "other games don't have dps meters so why should this one" doesn't stand very well because the games without them, either place a huge emphasis on gear (like a gear score or similar), lack any meaningful instanced group content where a dps meter would actually be used or the difference between performing good rotations and bad ones isn't gigantic.

I agree completely.

Also, a note to all in the thread about SWTOR: **SWTOR allows for other players to straight inspect your gear**. All it takes is right-click > inspect gear, so DPS meters are totally unnecessary for gatekeeping purposes. As for the game being "fine" without dps meters... if you're only talking about pugging story mode raids, sure. For anything Hard (I think it's called Veteran now) or Nightmare Mode, where the BiS gear drops, very few players are ever going to reach the performance levels required for those without the use of the third-party dps meter. There is also literally 0 build diversity; there are 3 sort of sub-specialties available to every class, and once you pick one of those, the game automatically fills out the vast majority of your traits for you. The few that you _do_ get to choose are hardly a choice at all, given your sub-specialty. You're pretty hard-cornered into doing very specific things.

As intrusive as gear inspections might feel for GW2 players, I'd still prefer that kind of objective observation over the bad old days of kicking based on class or AP alone. The data from Arc frees us from that old regime, and I will never support anything that pushes back in that direction.

Same tip I give to new players - take it slow, learn a class from 0 to 80 without using instant-80 boost. In particular, minion necromancer and longbow/greatsword ranger are still extremely forgiving classes that allow you to solo just about everything with a low risk of death.

If you have Path of Fire, it helps some players to skip ahead to first chapter of Path of Fire so you can access mounts. I personally recommend just doing things in order, but if Heart of Thorns proves too hard for you to play as it was designed, maybe getting mounts will help.