perilisk.1874

> @"Thornwolf.9721" said:

> as it turns out even the citizens of divinities reach share xenophobia.

Not moreso than other races, really. There's a lot of hostililty to charr and centaurs specifically, but they're currently at war with centaurs, and the adults making those comments have spent most of their lives at war with charr in a conflict that not only spanned centuries, but which resulted in the complete destruction of one civilization, the almost complete destruction of another, and that indirectly caused most of the political troubles of the surviving kingdom. It's true that humans themselves caused a lot of their own problems, but only as a result of the assult. The charr currently represent a very real and existential threat to the survival of humanity in Tyria (the continent).

> The gods a parallel to greek gods, they are neither good or evil but are whimsical. The ONLY RACE they care about are the humans, so when and if tyria goes to explode I promise the humans will be whisked away by their gods but the rest of us will be left to fend for ourselves

That isn't true, either. They do have a special relationship with humans, but they also have followers in other races, especially the forgotten (and probably the quaggans, by another name). It was prevalent in GW1, but they dialed it back in GW2 mainly to let each playable race have its own religion-equivalent.

I'm inclined to think that her purifying ability is a remnant of the magic in the Forgotten ritual used to free Glint (but now backed up with the power of an Elder Dragon).

If draconic corruption is analogous to a virus, with the Elder Dragons as Patient Zero (well, One through Six; I would baselessly speculate that Ma Tyria was Patient Zero), you could think of Glint as someone that gained immunity and shared the antibodies with her scions, and Aurene is now producing those antibodies to cure external corruption.

Hmmm... maybe Zojja bounced back quickly after HoT and decided to mount an expedition against this dragon, sort of like Braham with Jormag. She even told us all about it and invited Destiny's Edge and the Commander to catch up and help once we were able. Unfortunately, it cursed her with its horrible magic, and now everyone has practically forgotten she ever even existed. She's actually been traveling with us the whole time, occasionally seen or perceived, and then immediately forgotten.

> @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> You _want_ blues and greens as event rewards? :o

Well, a blue unid'd gear could theoretically contain exotic gear. I mean, if you've been playing long enough, the only direct rewards that are useful are ascended, legendary, and cosmetics. Everything else is just currency.

Some balance issues and overpowered combinations could best be addressed by ensuring that each skill effect is governed by, at most, one attribute (may also help with gear variety). So, some specifics...

## Damage:

First, split direct damage into Basic Damage and Piercing Damage. Also, split conditions into Ravages (damaging conditions) and Debilitations (the rest).

**Power** would govern Basic Damage, which would correspond to most ordinary direct damage, especially cleaving/AoE attacks.

**Precision** would govern Piercing Damage, which would include most (extra) direct damage from critical hits as well as single-target spike damage, and which would ignore some or all Armor (but not Toughness)

**"Ardor"** (formerly condition damage) would govern Ravages. Mostly buffing damage, but maybe playing a role in duration if it makes more sense for the condition.

## Control:

**Ferocity** would govern Hard CCs. Diminishing returns with the actual effects, but linear scaling on breakbar impact.

**Expertise** would govern Debilitations, but would not affect Ravages (damaging conditions).

## Support:

**Concentration** would still govern boons. Regeneration would scale to level, but not healing power. Retaliation damage would either scale to level, or to damage dealt by the attack being punished.

On a slight tangent, Might should split into two boons (Might and Fervor), Might to boost Basic Damage, Fervor to boost Condition Damage, with Fury being reworked as a boost to Piercing Damage.

**Healing power** would govern most healing except regeneration or healing tied to a different attribute (e.g. healing based on damage dealt) and barrier.

## Sustain:

No change to **Vitality**

No change to **Toughness**. That said, it would be nice to eventually have some new mechanics that let Toughness play a role in active or group defense abilities. Hopefully making it more effective than armor against Piercing Damage should increase its value as an attribute.

## Other:

There is the question of critical hits, since precision would now (solely) govern the damage, but not the chance. As an initial step, they could simply pick a decent chance (say, 15%) and assign it generally to each skill. But in the long run, not only should critical chance be tweaked per skill (even to the extent that some skills always or never critical), but in some (many?) cases, RNG should be replaced with conditional checks like those used in GW1. E.g., a skill that always counts as a critical for mechanics if it interrupts an enemy, or strips a boon, or hits an enemy that is on fire, etc.

> @"Ryukai.6524" said:

> Maguuma Jungle (Asura/Sylvari) - 4 Bosses

> Kryta (Human) - 3 bosses

> Shiverpeaks (Norn) - 2 bosses

> Ascalon (Charr) - 1 boss ;_;

>

> (Not including the 3 'Hardcore' bosses)

I would be fine with downgrading the stupid pirate to Ordinary Boss to make room for a Charr boss...

> @"Tukaram.8256" said:

> Another 'mix PvP & PvE' post... No, thanks. That sounds like a horrid mess.

Technically they did that on the new map. Didn't see anyone complain.

The Searing, the Cataclysm, and the Jade Wind were all massive, genocidal acts of widespread destruction.

It's true that the Searing had more survivors, and that life bounced back, but it took a while, and Ascalon still looks like crap in a lot of places (though some of that might just be pollution from Charr society).

The Cataclysm seems the most destructive of all, from a terrestrial perspective. However, clearly sea life was able to colonize the continent in short order, so not a total loss from a natural perspective (say, relative to the Brand or something).

The Jade Wind was at least as omnicidal as the Cataclysm. The affected areas have been somewhat recolonized by people and terrestrial life as of GW1, but of course they've had an extra two centuries, versus the Searing, so it's hard to compare.

However, I agree with those that argue that the Searing was the willful, broadly accepted act of one society against another, whereas the Cataclysm and Jade Wind were the acts of individuals (who were under malign supernatural, rather than social, influences) against their own societies and which don't meaningfully implicate those societies.

> @"Bellefon.1259" said:

> > @"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:

>

> > ### Necromancer

> >

> > The scourge elite specialization has also undergone a significant change such that its shade skills will only fire around them when they do NOT have a shade up.

>

> > This change creates a choice between whether scourges expose themselves to some melee risk but charge in to affect foes around them, or whether they hang back and summon a shade near their foe and are unable to affect themselves with shade abilities (unless they also place one on their own location). We'll be keeping a close eye on the results of this change and making adjustments accordingly.

>

> This change seems to punish scourges for using their unique elite specialization mechanic. It discourages using shade skills at range, and seems to favor scourges as melee fighters without having good melee skills. Fighting that ranger? — don’t shade them or lose significant defense from arrows and pets. Chain stunned by warrior/engi? — won’t be able to activate shade on yourself due to cast time, therefore locked out of all F shade skills until other shades disappear.

>

> Shroud is the infamous "second health bar" that compensates necros for their lack of mobility/blocks/evades. Scourges don't have shroud, but rely on barrier, the 5-second health bar topper. Placing a shade anywhere but on top of the scourge is a 15-second lockout from having any local use of shade skills = less barrier = less defense.

>

> Hoping this gets a harder look before release, but if not, then please also consider:

> 1. removing the 1/2 sec cast time to Manifest Sand Shade (F1), allowing faster re-positioning, making the choice one of "here or there but not multiple locations";

> 2. removing the 1/2 sec activation delay that was later added to shade skills (F2-F5) to compensate for time needed to reposition shades; and

> 3. maybe modifing Manifest Sand Shade (F1) to be a single-shade toggle (eliminating 3 shades): press once to place, and while shade still exists, press again to remove shade, thus making necro act as the shade — thus giving a controlled choice about where shades activate.

>

> One more thing: I have to assume, without testing, that since Garrish Pillar (F4) won’t activate near the scourge if they are not on an active shade, or have no shades active, seems like traited Transfusion won’t activate either?

>

> Experimentation is fine. I can’t judge Death Magic yet, so I'm open to exploring. Maybe it will be awesome, maybe a one week experiment to experience baseline leather-class armor.

>

> Rather than have to think about sitting in my shades, thus limiting mobility further, sadly, I’ve already begun to train myself to never press F1 again.

I think it would have made more sense to shrink the PBAoE effect in size and target cap for each shade deployed. No shades=big PBAoE, 1 out=medium PBAoE, 2 out=small PBAoE, 3 out=no PBAoE. If the tech permitted, just having all shades and the local effect share a target cap would be ideal.

Wait, you would take a day off of work to play a rehashed annual festival content?

Between strike missions and build templates, they're starting to getting rid of the obstacles to having more GW1-style content.

That is, like OW, public strike missions are just show up and play -- but unlike OW, where each event might involve anything from one solo player to a zerg, there is a fairly consistent group size. Large enough that you can push players toward adopting specialized roles and that a couple of bads can be carried, small enough that each person can see that their contribution matters, and (if they design their encounters well) the battlefield can stay legible rather than being a giant smear of special effects.

Unlike raids, but like GW1 bonus objects (or bronze/silver/gold in adventures), the difficulty isn't so much "pass/fail" as it is "fail/pass/excel/master". There's the ability to push people to do better, without people feeling like their time was wasted if they fell just a bit short of ideal.

But none of that will actually deliver on a reason to try different builds until they actually commit to deliver challenges that require diverse tactics to overcome, which mostly means fighting enemies like you would fight players. I don't mean obnoxious gimmick abilities like OHK autoattacks or 15-second evades or uncounterable stealth, and definitely not "mechanics" in the raid sense of one-off abilities unrelated to the general combat system. I mean:

* Trading single big enemies for coordinated groups of elites (for boss-level encounters) or veterans (for minor fights)

* Increase enemy action rate, so that punishment abilities like confusion make sense.

* Utilize enough CC so that stunbreaks and stability make sense, but not substantially more than you would permit players to have.

* More enemy movement and positioning -- at least being smart enough to stand in good circles and avoid bad ones, and to utilizing flanking attacks.

* Use of support abilities and healing, use of combo fields.

* Use of mechanics like boon and condi conversion, boon stripping, condi cleanse

* Use of active defenses (including dodging and endurance, so weakness/vigor play some role!) -- but similar to what a player has. Ascalon ghost blocks are fine, 3-hour branded griffin evades are not.

Which mechanics are present/emphasized should vary by encounter, the better to promote shaking up your standard skillset, but pure non-reactive DPS should be hard countered in nearly every case. With build templates, it should become easier for public strike groups to sort out roles on the fly based on whatever composition they got.

That sort of design really doesn't work for OW at all since it requires a certain amount of specialization and coordination which is impossible to achieve with a solo player or two, and irrelevant for a zerg, but it could work well for strikes.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Bloodstealer.5978" said:

> > Or are we all just trying to read way more into some small detail in what is only the prologue of a new LS chapter... errmm SAGA.

> Don;t consider this chapter alone. Think about how he is being presented _since he first appeared in LS1_. I mean, even when they show us his "norn" sides, it is being done in such a way that those traits are exagerrated and ridiculed. He is fearless? That's not because he's brave - it's because he's stupid. He is proud? Nope, just stubborn (and, again, stupid). He rises to the challenge? that was just goading, and he is so easy to goad. Like a Norn, he drinks a lot? Maybe, but he's a lightweight and can't hold the liquor. His whole presentation since the first year of the game is overwhelmingly negative.

>

> When Anet uses most other characters to move the story along, they do it in such a way, that those characters for the most part, at the very least don't look worse for it. In case of Braham, he _always_ does.

>

Haven't they done that pretty broadly with the Norn, though?

> @"Game of Bones.8975" said:

> I don't play PvP and Scrappers (at all) or WvW and Warriors (much) so I have the unbiased view of 'it doesn't matter to me one way or the other.'

>

> How long has this been a _thing_? Just like the Scourge in your example has playable options, you also have the option of target selection with your Warrior.

>

> What is an acceptable solution to you? Are you asking to remove the 50% altogether or reduce it to a lower number? All your post told me was "It's bad, don't do it again."

>

> I enjoy reading posts, like yours, where players are active and point out discrepancies the play-testers may not have noticed or run across. To me that's only half the post, the other half is a workable solution or two showing you have put that extra bit of thought in how to make the game better for everyone. Then people can debate whether your problem/solution is a workable one.

Well, if the +50% damage only applied to the barrier itself, that would probably fit the intent of barrier-shredding, without necessarily being a punishment mechanic for something players can't easily control.

Eh, I like Braham. I didn't like LS3 Braham, but mostly because I never really bought any of it as legitimate character development. It was jarring and unjustified, and so I blame the writers instead of the character.

> @"Gop.8713" said:

> Not always. Usually if it can be sold on the tp it must be bound in order for it to count towards a collection. Otherwise we could just pass one item around the tp and everyone could complete the collection off it. The good news is if you sold a collection item in the past, there are likely fewer players who have not completed the collection now than there was then, and there are likely more examples of the item in the world. So you can probably buy it back for significantly less than you sold it for . . .

I guess I was thinking of one-off items, but yeah. Of course, if you right click an item, it will show the associated collection, if any.

> @"Tukaram.8256" said:

> My problem with it is not knowing which items are in a collection. I wonder how many I sold, without right clicking on it to notice it was part of a collection. They should at least auto-add to the collection...

They do?

Tough it out and see what they do for build templates.

> @"Loesh.4697" said:

> > @"perilisk.1874" said:

> > > @"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

> > > victim complex

> > > talking about 'one blood' or 'one people'

> > > violent and militaristic

> > >

> > > the concert could have been any extremist right concert, just replace 'charr' with 'white people' or 'aryans'.

> > >

> > > Am I the only one who gets a strong national socialist at 33 vibe from all this?

> >

> > I think you were probably supposed to. That said, One Charr isn't inherently hostile or charr supremacist. The idea that the Charr legions should work together instead of at cross purposes isn't really that different from the Pact, until you consider how Bangar intends to utilize that unity. In some regards, then, Bangar is positioning himself as an anti-Commander, especially if it is Bangar that Jormag is addressing as "Champion" in the trailer. Perhaps the season will see him assembling an anti-Dragon's Watch as well?

>

> I'm unsure how I feel about that. The notion of one charr, one blood, one nation. As well as warband above self, Legion above warband, and Charr above Legion as well as Charr above all seems awfully similar to _Volk_ in concept. Volk isn't strictly bad at a glance, but when you pump up nationalism to the degree where you believe in this singular Charr above all, this abstract concept of Charrdom that you must fight and die for, it gets really scary really fast.

But a warband isn't a family, and a legion isn't a tribe. Going from Spartan to fascist isn't really much of a leap, so it's hard to lay it all on the shoulders of Bangar or even to treat it as a new development. If anything, it's the relative openness of the Iron and Ash Legions and Pact Charr that is the new development for their society.

> @"JUN YANG.4328" said:

> > @"Destinypath.2105" said:

> > > @"JUN YANG.4328" said:

> > > > @"Destinypath.2105" said:

> > > > Ah geez, figured the achievement points would be a rougher route haha, guess I'll have to figure that out then. I'd totally be down with spending a little amount of cash to buy the season, i guess my only concern is whether or not I'll actually be capable of earning the skyscale. Especially given how new I am. The Reddit guide seems very helpful, I'm just wondering if there are complications or things I could do that'd screw the whole thing up I guess? Never really done such an in-depth quest, but it seems like it could be fun a bit, I'm mostly just in it for the dtagon.

> > >

> > > it depend how new you are. if you are really new to the game. the biggest challenge for you is karma. normally new player dont have that much karma. and its hard to find the way to farm it. if you check on wiki. it may only need 5k karma on first collection achievement. however on map currency collection if you dont have enough karma . it will take you long time on this stage. the quicker way for this collection is do renown heart quest everyday and spend karma to buy 5 token on NPC. specially "Kralkatite Ore" you can buy 25 token from each NPC . or the only way is to do meta on map and mining.

> > >

> >

> > I see-- currently I have almost 7,000 karma

>

> in this case you need lots of work on that. only spend karma on first achievement. then run meta on dragon fall to collect " mistborn mote" dont waste karma to buy that token. you can get that really easy. dont rush. run meta once or twice to reach daily reward on that map. you will receive 1~2 sip of liquid karma as reward around 1.5k per bottle.

> the good thing for dragon fall meta. is you can get lot of item from it. keep following the leader. remember all the skyscale location. you can rent from it. also after meta is killing champion time. that also is the good time to get karma and mistborn mote.

> once you have enough karma spend on " kralkatite ore" on reown heart first. ( can saved time to run around for collection)

> if break down all the currency collection.

> for me:

> "kralkatite Ore", "Misborn mote" is the easiest

> "inscribed shard" and " Lump of Mistonium" need bit of running around to collection and mining ( one character still can do the job)

> "Difluorite Crystal" and " Branded Mass" i need to buy portal scroll and use all my character to assist. so i found that the hardest.

>

>

You can purchase bonuses that give karma on kills on the LS4 maps, but that's just trading one resource shortage for another. However, you can get it in Jahai for "free" (time cost in completing some achievements, I forget which), so that might be a good option.

> @"runeblade.7514" said:

> > @"Julia Nardin.9824" said:

> >Primordus isn't really an option, and he knows nothing about the Deep Sea Dragon. So.

>

> I kinda wish he went after Primordus. The Charr once worshipped the Destroyers, now they mastered them.

Well, that didn't really last very long, on account of the Destroyers being more interested in body count than having worshipers or servants. Ironically, Jormag would have been right up their alley. He seems to corrupt the will to corrupt the body, and does so through a vaguely worship-like connection (hence, the Svanir are corrupted through treating it as one of the Spirits of Nature and communing with it or whatever; humans could probably be corrupted if they treated it as they would a god).

> @"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

> victim complex

> talking about 'one blood' or 'one people'

> violent and militaristic

>

> the concert could have been any extremist right concert, just replace 'charr' with 'white people' or 'aryans'.

>

> Am I the only one who gets a strong national socialist at 33 vibe from all this?

I think you were probably supposed to. That said, One Charr isn't inherently hostile or charr supremacist. The idea that the Charr legions should work together instead of at cross purposes isn't really that different from the Pact, until you consider how Bangar intends to utilize that unity. In some regards, then, Bangar is positioning himself as an anti-Commander, especially if it is Bangar that Jormag is addressing as "Champion" in the trailer. Perhaps the season will see him assembling an anti-Dragon's Watch as well?

From my terrible, stupid, casual PvEr perspective: fix WvW with more PvE.

Say we throw in a new map with very different mechanics, though tweaked to hopefully score similarly to the other three normal maps overall.

1. Every tower and keep starts at a basically empty state. Even once captured, they provide no war score, and capturing them counts for pretty much nothing in terms of achievements, XP, and so on, until they reach the first level of upgrades (which is equivalent to what you would get just for capturing on other maps -- fixing walls, respawning some defenders). When towers and keeps are captured, they revert to their base unimproved state -- however, any remaining NPC defenders still have to be cleared out, rather than changing teams. There is no timeout on capturing/recapturing; however, there is no benefit to constantly flipping ownership since an unimproved tower or keep counts for jack.

2. Every camp starts occupied by NPCs that need to be cleared out. Once captured, players can complete an endlessly looping camp-specific DE (or maybe a looping chain, for variety's sake) that will spawn a caravan. Periodically, NPCs will attack and try to recapture camps, and caravan production is halted until all waves are cleared. Camps provide no war score, directly. Once captured, they will spawn (or respawn, as necessary) defenders with every caravan produced.

3. Whenever a caravan hits a tower or keep, it spawns a DE. Successfully completing these DEs is the only way to produce war score (it is not produced on a timer), and is also required for the caravan to count towards the upgrade level. The higher the upgrade level of the tower or keep, the more difficult the DE, and the more war score provided on success. Each keep has its own specific chain of DEs, similar to HoT camp metas. There is a level above the highest upgrade level that just repeats, for producing more war score.

4. NPC defenders are (re)spawned as DEs are completed. They do not respawn automatically over time. At higher levels, completing DEs will (re)spawn NPC patrols (for towers and keeps), and an NPC assault team (keeps only), the latter of which will try to take the closest camp that isn't held.

5. Ruins serve a dual purpose on this map -- while the NPC assaults on camps are random, each ruin your team controls reduces the impact on your team by 20%. Control them all, and NPC attacks are disabled on your camps. The attacks aren't prevented, though, just re-directed to the other two teams.

So... it encourages players to de-zerg, and actually focus attention on hunting down caravans (which shuts down war score production), or defending and building up areas (which is needed to get war score). It's inviting to players who come from a PvE background, since they can reduce their exposure to PvP by focusing on DEs are camps, towers, and keeps, while more PvP-oriented players focus on trying to capture sites.

> @"Thor Isaiah.3027" said:

> I know, I'm pretty late, to comment on this thread. But how do you stop the amps from overloading? I've completed the concert multiple times, from start to finish, and either I'm blind as a bat, and can't find the small event, or I'm or I'm missing it, somehow.

It's not a super common event, usually in the third song, I think. It has a gear icon, IIRC. You hit the targetable object with CC to break its bar.

Personally, I'm curious about the monetization side of it:

1. Will we receive any gear+build template slots for free?

2. Will gear+build template slots be purchased per character (like bag slot expansions) or per account (like additional crafting licenses)? I expect the latter, but you never know.

3. How much will additional gear+build template slots cost?

4. Will we have an unlimited number of client-side build-only template slots (like build templates in GW1 or certain GW2 addons)?

> @"Julia Nardin.9824" said:

> Now the Pact appears to have their very own Elder Dragon at their command. Bangar's charr. He's military-minded to begin with. The folks who have compared this to an arms race are exactly right. If there's _any_ way for him to subjugate and/or ally with an Elder Dragon, he's going to try so he can protect his people via mutually assured destruction. Primordus isn't really an option, and he knows nothing about the Deep Sea Dragon. So.

Sounds suspiciously like the Charr trying to get their own gods for military advantage, which didn't go so well. Enough so that even historically-minded characters in-game should be able to make the connection.