Bast.7253

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said:

> True.

> They drove everyone away so I guess they got what they want in the end, again.

>

> What I don't get is why they have to play their meta AT builds in Unranked. What is the point of styling on a bunch of new people and/or people trying to test builds/have fun?

Yeah. I've been trying a renegade build and chrono build tonight and all I keep getting is high ranked people playing meta builds acting like their life depends on it.

I don't know. It's just not fun anymore. Even in unranked you get a match where you either steamroll the other team your get steamrolled. There are very few that are close and it seems like it's the same 30 people over and over again.

Can we have one an event where nobody is allowed to play necro?

It would be really nice to not get a match with two reapers for once.

> @"Brimstone Jack.3462" said:

> Scourge has made minion master builds fun again.

If only it came with an army of Awakened or skeletons instead of the minions we currently have. :(

Is duo queue+ of legend/high plat players.

I guess they're the only ones left playing this game mode and it's only going to lead to turning away more.

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> Grenades are the biggest offender to this imo.

> "Oh look a holo...oops my entire teams dead instantly".

>

> Also I'm having a lot less fun now that scourge is in every game. Boring class to fight that I just sit out of melee range with and spam shortbow..wow so interactive and exciting.

Scourge isn't that exciting either. I ran this cheesy minion build and it pretty much played itself. Obviously I could have opted for a less braindead build but it felt like it was significantly more efficient than the others I tried.

And yes, I've dealt with a lot of toxic holos since pof. You can tell who the really good ones are (I'm not one of them) because of how they combo their abilities. The vast majority just win because they're pumping out so much damage that they kill things easily and think they're god's gift to the pvp community. It's all build carry. I know because build carry is the only way I've made it to where I have. (Which still isn't far. lul)

I've seen multiple for scrapper. But if you run the cheesy flamethrower build with perma stab and busted damage and might stacks there really isn't any scripting involved. Maybe for movement with an occasional toolbelt reflect or incendiary ammo and healing turret pop. Otherwise it's just 11111111111111 and profit.

The fact that it even still exists is just a testament to the current state of this game mode. I had a scrapper the other day running a different build somehow daze/interrupt every ability I had for like 3 minutes straight. I mean he's pretty good at holo anyway, but what a terribly annoying thing to fight when they're running around with countless reflects, perma stab, and barrier that takes up half their health bar. :angry:

Soulbeast seems like it would be a pretty bad choice for a bot though. Core ranger or druid on the other hand.... I guess any class can be really though, just depends on how much scripting the person writing the program wants to do.

I don't know if you've played World of Warcraft but I tried it out for the first time in years awhile back and they had a whole pvp event weekend where you were literally going up against a team of AI bots. It was pretty insane how intelligent they were. And the combat isn't nearly as intricate as can be in GW2 so I imagine the potential in GW2 could be much higher.

Are you saying there's something wrong with a class that can do high melee and ranged damage, keep high vuln, poison, bleeds, and burns on someone, stealth, cc lock, block, heal to near full in the span of one stealth, become invulnerable, have easy access to quickness and high might, not only cleanse conditions but convert them, spam high damaging aoe attacks, and.. should I continue?

I mean the whole kit is broken, the damage is broken. Given that it has been the entire length of this expansion and they're doing nothing to address grenades in the upcoming balance patch I think it's safe to assume this is the golden child class of Arenanet.

Random changes that affect nearly nothing about the current state of pvp as expected.

Random ele nerfs for a build nearly nobody plays anymore, pistol skills on engi, and some random warrior adjustments. And what, ONE of the grenade kit skills? Not the toolbelt skill, or any ridiculous traits.

Pretty sure they're just trolling at this point.

> @"Taril.8619" said:

> The concept is neat.

>

> The execution is terrible.

>

> It being a toggled self-root is really clunky and makes it feel awful in all game modes (This is before you add in the fact that it outright nerfs you in PvP/WvW due to janky coefficients and init costs... Like pretty much everything Thief has these days...)

>

> Honestly, for me, I think I'd prefer it if Kneel was a unique Thief weapon skill in that it had an actual cooldown and it would cause your next ability usage to become significantly more powerful. Meaning, it wouldn't mess with the flow of combat so much as you'd only Kneel for one shot every so often while the effects could also be more impactful.

Oh, I do like that. Maybe having a utility instead of a weapon skill that has like 2 charges or something and empowers your weapon skill to do the kneeling equivalent and roots you until those abilities are finished? Like kneel - buff - skill 2 does immobalize, etc?

Does anyone like this mechanic? It's always felt kind of clunky to me and the uniqueness of it doesn't really seem to outweigh the fact that it makes the spec inconvenient in nearly all game modes.

If you had the option would you keep it the way it is or try to get the separate skills baked into one? Other than the velocity increase and curtain on skill 4, what's really the benefit of it anyway?

Turmp 2020.

> @"Rukia.4802" said:

> > @"Rufo.3716" said:

> > They refuse to do anything about balance or cheaters in this game. Yet I come on the forums and call the devs idiots or say something bad about ANet, my post gets removed and I'm banned for a week. Just shows their priorities.

>

> GW2 forums are a snowflake safezone.. I've been banned for such trivial kitten you wouldn't believe . I don't care anymore, stopped caring ages ago, just randomly noticed I was unbanned a few months ago when I had to login to my acc to get authenticator removed. There is a meme somewhere where dude got banned for 'negative feedback' or some such , its actually gotten better believe it or not.

Or you get a warning for mentioning nobody in specific, literally saying "that person" or "some ranger" is apparently against the rules. Hell, this will probably earn a warning.

Maybe it's a bot screening words in posts and auto-generating warnings. Idk. Pretty crazy though.

Just fought a 4 man premade of plats in unranked.

Sad.

Remove any group queues outside of 5v5 in all game modes imo.

And if we're going to balance pvp let's just remove the choice to pick a class. Just make everyone play necro. This class ruins this game mode and always has.

Whatever the changes are they won't make the game mode any better. Right now we have 2+ necros every match, condi revs, and condi thieves taking the stage but even if they do something about those the builds that would otherwise be way overperforming like grenade spamming holos that need their damage nerfed will just wind up dominating again. Then it will be another 6 months until we get a patch fixing those.

If they make any changes I think they will castrate rev, MAYBE touch condi thief again, do some weird unnecessary changes to mesmer to further destroy it, and buff Engi and Warrior. Except the buff to engi will be written as though it's a nerf, but leads to something else being exploited to its fullest and being 10 times worse.

I really think warrior is going to see a lot of changes and become king after this next patch. That's not wishful thinking because I don't even play warrior, just a gut feeling.

> @"aelska.4609" said:

> Balance patch will not arrive soon, but it will definitely look like this:

>

> "XXX prevalence in group content has been quite strong as they offer significant support options to the point that they were crowding out other builds. In particular, SKILL YYY had a bit more condition damage than was healthy, so we've sought to tweak that down while retaining its overall playstyle by removing some of its boon generation. We're also reducing SKILL ZZZ condition application and increasing WEAPON ALPHA damage in PvE as the best melee damage option should not be a ranged weapon."

>

> With the actual patch looking like

>

> * SKILL YYY: Fixed tooltip to match the correct effect.

> * SKILL ZZZ: Reduced burning stack from 2 to 1 but increased burning duration from 1s to 2s.

> * WEAPON ALPHA: Increased power coefficient from 1.05 to 1.10

>

> I'm so hyped!

This is most likely. I think you're forgetting a few things though.

Random weapon rework of a weapon nobody uses and likely still won't.

Offensive mesmer traitline being reworked.

Holo/engi traits getting reworked only to lead to a build that's equally as busted and still has some cheesy passive damage on dodge effect (and probably some kit rework like elixir gun while mortar and grenades still hit like a truck and go untouched.)

Scourge getting another nerf despite practically nobody playing it anymore.

I'm guessing we will see Bear in the next half of Drizzlewood, as we got the ceremonial outfit but didn't have anything in the map related to it.

I'm definitely ready to move forward from the Charr politics. I think a lot of people were excited to deal with the Charr stuff, but it feels like with both Norn and Charr stroy being crammed into this saga neither one of them are really getting fleshed out that much. I guess we've gotten a decent amount of Charr stuff but it feels like it's extremely focused on select individuals. Nothing about the ghost problem, not really much about culture outside of the prologue. I guess there ultimately isn't too much to dive into with the Charr but I'm a sucker for origin stories and I guess that's one thing I always look forward to when we dive into race-specific storylines like this one.

I'm hoping we'll get something more substantial with the Norn and co. moving forward.

It does suck knowing you're an average player, successfully downing people repeatedly or 2v1'ing on a side node only to see your team consistently dying with no other caps. :(

Some you just can't carry.

Unless maybe you're a really really good thief and can consistently get kills and spend the entire match constantly moving. Or are a bunker troll build that can lure 3+ to a side node.

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> Try a brand new build that's bad and a weapon that's bad, get against 2 people with the monthly tournament winning buff.

>

> Fantastic matchmaking, btw.

It's usually the same people over and over from my experience in the unranked games. Anya is usually duoing with another person and then there's Mattjones or something I've seen quite a bit. I think it has to do with playing time though. My hours seem to match theirs. If you really are struggling with going against higher ups like this frequently I'd consider friending them and waiting until they've queued. It's sad to have to queue dodge in unranked, but it can be a pretty miserable experience going up against really high rated players. Especially when you get the team full of other people just playing around with wonky builds or that are just new. The game is still winnable but you wind up having to find something that can counter whatever builds they're playing easily enough to balance out their skill level. lol And then you're stuck playing something you don't really want to play just to not waste 15 minutes in a blowout match.

I could never get into it but it's one of my favorite things in the game coming across random role players in the open world. I try to stay back a little and not make it obvious I'm watching but I just find it charming to come across. A lot of effort goes into some of these conversations and some can be a bit boring to listen to, but you get the occasional group that's really getting into it.

I definitely agree.

1. The masteries this season are dull, tedious, and have little impact for what it takes to accumulate the special action key. They're nice in large metas like Drizzlewood where you want to quickly clear mobs, but they're not exactly game-changing. I feel like they will also be pretty difficult to incorporate into later maps/expansions like the tunnel shooting one, oakheart essence, or jumping mushrooms, etc. They have a tendency of doing this for most living seasons though.

2. The story - The worst part imo. The prologue was cute and felt reasonably fleshed out, but then we get to Bjora and have a boring escort with a couple semi-interesting story instances. The second half of Bjora we grind some events, do a story instance, and that's pretty much it. Now, in Drizzlewood we had... completing events to fill a bar, a puzzle story instance and the final instance. The story is incredibly short and feels like it's gone nowhere. We haven't really dove into any interesting lore and it feels like it's just been pressing F and reading a bunch of dialogue for an hour. We could be visiting Jormag or learning more about Norn/Kodan/Jotun and exploring ancient cites, but instead we're just chasing some idiot power hungry Charr and dealing with a Charr version of Braham.

3. The rewards - so many skins and items being locked behind rng loot boxes from chests or strike missions.

4. Strike missions - the loot boxes you get from doing the 3 crystal weekly turn in are generally just a few pieces of unidentified gear. The prophet shard system seems needlessly convoluted and extravagant. I'm not sure why they can't just have ONE color of prophet shards. There are also things like Khan Ur Visage and the combat tonic from the prologue or the ceremonial outfits that I had hoped would be able to be bought with prophet shards giving some extra incentive to keep replaying the strike missions outside hoping for good luck on chest turn ins, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I think the best parts of this season so far have been Drizzlewood, the map and meta, the Vision of the Past was really good and I look forward to seeing what they do with those.. hopefully make them less Charr-focused and really take it as an opportunity to immerse us in something other than a mechanism to drive the most forefront part of the story forward... and the tree decorations from Drizzlewood. I love that they're consistently adding decorations even if they're sometimes a little disappointing like the statues...

All in all it's just been a very slooooooowwwww moving story and feels like everything that's happened so far could have happened in the span of one episode, not 6 months or however long it's been now. It just makes me wonder how long they plan on dragging out this saga. I think if they didn't announce the expansion people would be a lot more disappointed with the current season. I think people have just accepted that "expansion level content" isn't really a thing and are just anticipating the actual expansion, whenever it's coming.

> @"Makuragee.3058" said:

> I dont think this skin will never be obtainable at all, there actually a lot of skin that art made to be wear. At the best it could be a new skin for the engineer mortar.

But are those skins previewable in the wardrobe? Because I could understand that if it wasn't.

Remove weapon swap from Mirage and reveal on phantasm summon. No more pistol 4 or greatsword 4 from stealth. While you're at it give holo's a 1200 range reveal aura that pulses 2k damage.

This is the way.

I noticed this Stone Cannon skin in the wardrobe but I checked the wiki and it looked like it was unobtainable.

There are so many skins that I feel like I'll never get this season due to rng and it's really disappointing. The Khan-Ur mask is 4k on the trading post. Why? Why is one of the few skins released during an episode so rare that it's worth 4k gold on the trading post? (Might be a little less than that but still insane.)

I hadn't gotten the Ice Golemn helm after multiple weekly strike mission chests, map chests, meta events, etc. I wound up buying it from the Trading Post because it was only 1g so I guess my luck is just really bad and it seemingly dropped for everyone else so readily that people were selling it for 1g?

Anyway, really not liking all of these skins being locked behind luck and I'd really love the stone cannon rifle skin but I'm guessing it isn't even obtainable?

I don't do the strike mission 3 crystal chest unlock religiously, but I've done it probably 5 times and I think the only item I got outside of a few unidentified gear was a bear ceremonial armor choice? MAYBE a raven armor chest?

Drizzlewood seemed to be a bit better as I've gotten several of the Charr masks and bought a helmet pretty cheap, but can we drop this model moving forward in future episodes and stop locking these skins behind drops? Feels like kind of a waste of developer time making all of these skins for only a few number of people to actually get them. If you want people to replay the episodes and work towards them, maybe add them as a guaranteed currency exchange for strike mission crystals or something?

Really hoping they add a reasonable obtainment method for this stone cannon skin though. Call me a size queen but I love ridiculously oversized weapons in mmo's.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > @"Taril.8619" said:

> >No-one knew of a remaining egg until it was convenient for the plot for there to be one.

> Except anyone who played GW1 and saw Glint's eggs.

> >Also, "No other Elder Dragons have known literal children, nor seem to be in the mood to have them" that's a lot of speculation.

> Nothing about that is speculation. None of the Elder Dragons we have encountered, which is all of them except Bubbles at this point, have made any sort of verbal or physical desire to have children. And the uniqueness of Glint, and her children, has been a major plot point throughout the game thus far.

> >Good thing we did too, given that she hatched not long after! Wow, what a coincidence!

> Nothing about what you described was coincidental. Glint's whole master plan was to use herself and her children to replace the Elder Dragons. Her children would, you know, have to be hatched to do so. They constantly hammer in that Glint planned most of this out ages ago. If its part of a plan, it isn't coincidental.

> >What's the source for them having recreated it and that being the reason for its existence?

> Literally all of episode two of LWS4, and part of episode 3 as well. Gorrik even going after how they found ancient samples(aka dead scarabs) and have been trying to recreate it. Its even a big deal in Long Live the Lich where Gorrik mentions that the scarabs Joko used to attack Amnoon where not the full scarab plague, but only 2nd generation scarabs, and he would need the third generation ones to actually do so. And he only got that at the end of Long Live the Lich because he first used the Inquest to make the first generation scarabs, and then used awakened Inquest to make the 2nd and 3rd generation ones

I don't really agree with the Children bit. As the Elder Dragon plot has progressed we've been seeing more and more personality from the elder dragons and learning more about their motives and thoughts. When we were dealing with Zhaitan we just thought he was an evil baddy. When we learned about Mordremoth we got hints from him about the impact of us challenging him, i.e. the imbalance during the Dragon Stand meta fight. After we killed him we learned about their connection to Tyria and their purpose. Then Kralk comes, we fight him, and we learn about the torment that drove him to behave the way he did. We learn he has a family and care for said family.

Until we found out the importance of keeping Kralk alive the plot with the elder dragons didn't need to be any more complicated than simply killing them. Know we know their importance, and thanks to Kralk and Aurene that they're more than just forces of nature and actually sentient methodical creatures.

We don't even know WHY Jormag wants to connect with Aurene. For all we know it could be for procreation purposes as Jormag is non-binary and again, we don't know how they reproduce.

Sure, it could be because it was Kralk, Aurene, and Glint, but we could just as easily learn something from Jormag about children/family/scions and even more on the origin of the elder dragons in general. We don't even know how the Elder Dragons reproduce.

I just think at this point in Guild Wars 2, assuming ANYTHING solid about Elder Dragons is kind of a fool's errand. The writers can change direction at anytime and given previous Guild Chats it seems that they don't even entirely have their own direction for them mapped out. They might have some vague overarching plot outline, but it seems like the vast majority of the details are made up as meshed together however they see fit.

We haven't really had any need to learn about more Scions because we've already had Aurene. Now that she's ascended and more connected she might lead us to more.

I think we'll be concluding the Charr bit pretty soon. Perhaps even during the release of the second half of Drizzlewood next episode. We may still have a few pieces here and there resolving the leadership after that, but I think we'll be concluding Bangar and Ryland's involvement pretty soon.

I had really hoped going into this season that we would have a lot more lore development on certain things. Hoped to see a bunch of Jotun/Norn/Spirit lore exploring new areas with a few unexpected things in between. I.e. The mysterious rune area that we had in GW1 related to the facets and such.

I'm still hoping for that as we move into areas in the North we haven't been before.

I like Charr but I'd be far more interested in learning about their origin story and the resolution of the Foefire than be involved in their militant-focused politics. It's just not overly interesting to me and doesn't feel like something anyone other than a Charr should be involved with. I'm sure the same could be said about some of the human-centric political plots we've had in the past, or the forced joining of The Shining Blade.

The plot so far has felt like a really drab mixture of House of Cards and Game of Thrones, with emphasis on politics. I guess I'd just rather learn about the origin of the Spirits and ancient magics or the interworkings of The All and the mists.

Perhaps it's yet again an issue of the delivery method of the episodes. Even "closer" together it's hard for me personally to get excited about a bunch of episodes that feel like they aren't as impactful without being played back to back within the same time frame. With them being released every few months it just feels like I've been constantly waiting for something to happen, and we're just now getting the reveal of the "Frost Legion" that we were already expecting anyway?

On top of that the plot is extremely focused and short to begin with. Last season we had the introduction of the Olmakhan and where are they now during all of this Charr mess? Where is Rox?

Where is 90% of our guild? It's just Rhytlock, Crecia, Bangar, and Ryland. I imagine Jora will show up next episode, and potentially Braham, but Majory and Kas, Canach, Taimi, everyone seems to have just been ghosted from the plot. I don't know if this is because of the lay offs last year and certain people not being there anymore or if they're just really wanting a more focused plot.

I was also hoping the Visions of the Past would be an exciting opportunity similar to fractals to get completely different viewpoints and historical perspective. I.e. We play as Aesgir and live his interaction with Jormag firsthand. We play as a Kodan far back in history or some Norn during their exodus. We play as a Jotun during the height of their civilization, or learn more about the scroll that Braham used on Eir's bow and how it got where it did.

But it seems like it's just going to be as focused as the rest of the story and only exist to move the plot forward or introduce something for the next episode.