mojojoeoA block off the park, living the dream.Registered Userregular
edited December 2012
Collected wintersday info via some collector on reddit-
PVE:
All wintersday daily events are on a 24 hour completion timer once activated.
275 new crafting recipes, these are not all wintersday related.
Wintersday themed chests in Black Lion Trading Company.
build snowmen around the world much like pumpkin carving (probably part of the monthly achievement)
Tixx will drop presents from the sky when he flies around Tyria
Plans and materials will be present in said drops.
3 new activities: Winter wonderland Jumping puzzle, Snowball mayhem capture the flag pvp game (this sounds awesome), Bell choir rockband style 3 player per team mini game. (omg)
New scaling dungeon accessed via the golem airship. Each city will have content relevant to the home race and content will build as Tixx flies over each home town. (Dungeon is aimed at a 30 minute completion time) Final instance event is a Horde mode meets tower defense minigame. (This sounds awesome).
WvW and PvP:
Siege weapons will be wintersday themed.
Holiday finishers are available.
So having burned out for a bit on my Mesmer, I'm leveling an Engi. I don't have a ton of cash, but I figure between my shared bank of collectibles and AHing, I can get the components to max out his leatherworking over time. Would you folks suggest leveling tradeskills with the character (i.e. making my own armor as I go) or saving the level ups for the last few levels?
Or does it really not matter, given how the game scales up and down?
But they don't stack with swiftness and Ele has perma-swiftness so it's still kind of useless.
Not useless for Necros who only otherwise have two abilities that give swiftness. This opens up possible options for different abilities. I almost always only use spectral walk for the swiftness. It would take some playing around but I might use locust instead and have that extra damage burst + self heal (even if it's only for ~1k) every 60 seconds. Or I could replace my #8 utility which right now is my situational utility skill and I currently mix it around since there aren't many 'must have' necro utilities. Then I could replace spectral walk with spectral armor and gain protection, keep the stun break (on a shorter cooldown) and only give up a small amount of my speed.
I agree I don't see too many elementalists getting excited over it though.
So having burned out for a bit on my Mesmer, I'm leveling an Engi. I don't have a ton of cash, but I figure between my shared bank of collectibles and AHing, I can get the components to max out his leatherworking over time. Would you folks suggest leveling tradeskills with the character (i.e. making my own armor as I go) or saving the level ups for the last few levels?
Or does it really not matter, given how the game scales up and down?
It scales at your level. leveling a craft from 1-400 will gain you about 10 levels, regardless of whether you start at level 20 or level 60.
If I don't have the money to max out a trade skill to boost levels, I like crafting at the pace of my character. Staying in current gear makes a pretty decent difference, in my opinion. It's more expensive than just buying upgrades off the trading post, but if you're planning to level it eventually anyways, why not?
Collected wintersday info via some collector on reddit-
PVE:
All wintersday daily events are on a 24 hour completion timer once activated.
275 new crafting recipes, these are not all wintersday related.
Wintersday themed chests in Black Lion Trading Company.
build snowmen around the world much like pumpkin carving (probably part of the monthly achievement)
Tixx will drop presents from the sky when he flies around Tyria
Plans and materials will be present in said drops.
3 new activities: Winter wonderland Jumping puzzle, Snowball mayhem capture the flag pvp game (this sounds awesome), Bell choir rockband style 3 player per team mini game. (omg)
New scaling dungeon accessed via the golem airship. Each city will have content relevant to the home race and content will build as Tixx flies over each home town. (Dungeon is aimed at a 30 minute completion time) Final instance event is a Horde mode meets tower defense minigame. (This sounds awesome).
WvW and PvP:
Siege weapons will be wintersday themed.
Holiday finishers are available.
Oh also: great idea I was reading off the forums. Make lodestones available to buy via dungeon tokens. Say 20-30 tokens per lodestone. This would guarantee you to get at least 2 lodestones per explorable mode run. Plus the money you make doing it could pay for a third on the AH since prices are assured to drop if they make them available this way.
So I'm at 207 Arah tokens and I need 210 for the shoulders that I want...
I'm going to try and run one more path tonight, just not path 4 unless I can find a group with 3 greatsword warriors and 1 mesmer, or they fix the boss there to be beatable.
I'll be around for Dungeons Derring Do's
Most of the Boss Fights are about Organisation and Knowledge. Lack either ot those and they become much harder. When they are well designed, many suffer from too much HP for the amount of effort they take, see any Giant Type Boss where Melee can have a fun time dodging him while Ranged sit back and Autoattack for 45 minutes.
Aggro has some specific rules it follows but again specific mobs will only follow certain parts of it. The Champ at the end of Plinx for example pretty much chooses a target and then will chase that one guy till death which can result in either the Champ beating everyone down one at a time or one guy running in circles for a couple minutes while everyone else kills it.
So I'm at 207 Arah tokens and I need 210 for the shoulders that I want...
I'm going to try and run one more path tonight, just not path 4 unless I can find a group with 3 greatsword warriors and 1 mesmer, or they fix the boss there to be beatable.
I'll be around for Dungeons Derring Do's
Most of the Boss Fights are about Organisation and Knowledge. Lack either ot those and they become much harder. When they are well designed, many suffer from too much HP for the amount of effort they take, see any Giant Type Boss where Melee can have a fun time dodging him while Ranged sit back and Autoattack for 45 minutes.
Aggro has some specific rules it follows but again specific mobs will only follow certain parts of it. The Champ at the end of Plinx for example pretty much chooses a target and then will chase that one guy till death which can result in either the Champ beating everyone down one at a time or one guy running in circles for a couple minutes while everyone else kills it.
Well this fight specifically couldn't kill us but we couldn't beat it either.
It involved 5 sparks. Mobs who were invulnerable and would shoot lazers at you. We had to kite the 5 sparks into 5 circles where they'd get 'locked in' thus summoning the boss. The boss would periodically petrify someone which requires someone else to use a 'tear' which is picked up off the ground and thrown at the petrified person to save him. The boss would disappear at 50% and the sparks come back up and you have to kite the sparks back into the circles.
Here's the trick. While she's invisible she regens health. LOTs of health, VERY FAST. After you kite the sparks into the slots, you have about 1.5 minutes to kill her so it's a dps race. If you fail to do it in that time she goes invisible again and regens again. If she gets back over 50% health before you can get the sparks into the circles, she'll stealth and heal AGAIN at 50%. The sparks are glitchy and buggy and occasionally don't get trapped by the circles, or switch targets, or just clip through a statue in the middle and won't go into the circles.
We had 2 mesmers, a guardian an engineer and a necro. We all specced for damage, took dps food and potions of undead slaying. We just could not muster the DPS to beat her after making her reappear. The thing was, with two time warps we effectively 'blow our load' after the first time she reappears, which means if we don't down her then, we'll be doing less and less damage each time she reappears until time warp was back up. As far as I'm concerned it's a broken fight, and is the only fight I've been in, in this game at this point where I've said 'I don't think this fight is beatable except under extreme conditions'.
Apparently most people who do successfully beat it are teams of 4 or 5 warriors spamming hundred blades.
So I'm NOT doing that path again tonight . I'm thinking one of the simpler paths, like path 3.
So I'm at 207 Arah tokens and I need 210 for the shoulders that I want...
I'm going to try and run one more path tonight, just not path 4 unless I can find a group with 3 greatsword warriors and 1 mesmer, or they fix the boss there to be beatable.
I'll be around for Dungeons Derring Do's
Most of the Boss Fights are about Organisation and Knowledge. Lack either ot those and they become much harder. When they are well designed, many suffer from too much HP for the amount of effort they take, see any Giant Type Boss where Melee can have a fun time dodging him while Ranged sit back and Autoattack for 45 minutes.
Aggro has some specific rules it follows but again specific mobs will only follow certain parts of it. The Champ at the end of Plinx for example pretty much chooses a target and then will chase that one guy till death which can result in either the Champ beating everyone down one at a time or one guy running in circles for a couple minutes while everyone else kills it.
Well this fight specifically couldn't kill us but we couldn't beat it either.
It involved 5 sparks. Mobs who were invulnerable and would shoot lazers at you. We had to kite the 5 sparks into 5 circles where they'd get 'locked in' thus summoning the boss. The boss would periodically petrify someone which requires someone else to use a 'tear' which is picked up off the ground and thrown at the petrified person to save him. The boss would disappear at 50% and the sparks come back up and you have to kite the sparks back into the circles.
Here's the trick. While she's invisible she regens health. LOTs of health, VERY FAST. After you kite the sparks into the slots, you have about 1.5 minutes to kill her so it's a dps race. If you fail to do it in that time she goes invisible again and regens again. If she gets back over 50% health before you can get the sparks into the circles, she'll stealth and heal AGAIN at 50%. The sparks are glitchy and buggy and occasionally don't get trapped by the circles, or switch targets, or just clip through a statue in the middle and won't go into the circles.
We had 2 mesmers, a guardian an engineer and a necro. We all specced for damage, took dps food and potions of undead slaying. We just could not muster the DPS to beat her after making her reappear. The thing was, with two time warps we effectively 'blow our load' after the first time she reappears, which means if we don't down her then, we'll be doing less and less damage each time she reappears until time warp was back up. As far as I'm concerned it's a broken fight, and is the only fight I've been in, in this game at this point where I've said 'I don't think this fight is beatable except under extreme conditions'.
Apparently most people who do successfully beat it are teams of 4 or 5 warriors spamming hundred blades.
So I'm NOT doing that path again tonight . I'm thinking one of the simpler paths, like path 3.
Yes I was present for that buggy mess, the Sparks are what break that fight.
So I'm at 207 Arah tokens and I need 210 for the shoulders that I want...
I'm going to try and run one more path tonight, just not path 4 unless I can find a group with 3 greatsword warriors and 1 mesmer, or they fix the boss there to be beatable.
I'll be around for Dungeons Derring Do's
Most of the Boss Fights are about Organisation and Knowledge. Lack either ot those and they become much harder. When they are well designed, many suffer from too much HP for the amount of effort they take, see any Giant Type Boss where Melee can have a fun time dodging him while Ranged sit back and Autoattack for 45 minutes.
Aggro has some specific rules it follows but again specific mobs will only follow certain parts of it. The Champ at the end of Plinx for example pretty much chooses a target and then will chase that one guy till death which can result in either the Champ beating everyone down one at a time or one guy running in circles for a couple minutes while everyone else kills it.
Well this fight specifically couldn't kill us but we couldn't beat it either.
It involved 5 sparks. Mobs who were invulnerable and would shoot lazers at you. We had to kite the 5 sparks into 5 circles where they'd get 'locked in' thus summoning the boss. The boss would periodically petrify someone which requires someone else to use a 'tear' which is picked up off the ground and thrown at the petrified person to save him. The boss would disappear at 50% and the sparks come back up and you have to kite the sparks back into the circles.
Here's the trick. While she's invisible she regens health. LOTs of health, VERY FAST. After you kite the sparks into the slots, you have about 1.5 minutes to kill her so it's a dps race. If you fail to do it in that time she goes invisible again and regens again. If she gets back over 50% health before you can get the sparks into the circles, she'll stealth and heal AGAIN at 50%. The sparks are glitchy and buggy and occasionally don't get trapped by the circles, or switch targets, or just clip through a statue in the middle and won't go into the circles.
We had 2 mesmers, a guardian an engineer and a necro. We all specced for damage, took dps food and potions of undead slaying. We just could not muster the DPS to beat her after making her reappear. The thing was, with two time warps we effectively 'blow our load' after the first time she reappears, which means if we don't down her then, we'll be doing less and less damage each time she reappears until time warp was back up. As far as I'm concerned it's a broken fight, and is the only fight I've been in, in this game at this point where I've said 'I don't think this fight is beatable except under extreme conditions'.
Apparently most people who do successfully beat it are teams of 4 or 5 warriors spamming hundred blades.
So I'm NOT doing that path again tonight . I'm thinking one of the simpler paths, like path 3.
Yes I was present for that buggy mess, the Sparks are what break that fight.
It could be easily fixed if either they removed the sparks and made them something you pick up and put into the circles instead of kiting them. Or if they reduced her regen rate significantly, or reduced her HP by like 1/2
Generally, I find the fights just less interesting. The thing about a trinity model is it gives the player ALOT of control over the fight. This means you can do some complex shit and force them to keep up.
Some of it I think GW2 could probably replicate, but some I'm not so sure and other bits it can replicate but it's just more frustrating in GW2.
I don't know, maybe it's cause I was a tank all the time in WoW and the like, but GW2's aggro system is just chaotic and removes alot of precision from fights. I remember really noticing this my first time through the Dredge fractal. A boss that in WoW would be both super simple and boring and one I could carry a group through no problem becomes a messy clusterfuck instead.
I don't know, fights just feel very spammy in this game. The dodging and the lack of good tells and the aggro tables all combine to make it just a chaotic mess. I'm not sure if it has to be that way or if the fights just aren't that interesting or something.
I think you may have picked a terrible example because that dredge fight? It's only a chaotic clusterfuck if your team makes it one. Organization is key here because of the aggro mechanics. A lot of people do this thing where they play something poorly and then draw their conclusions of the battle based on what they just saw. They never think "could that have gone differently?" "did we screw up or is the fight screwed up?" They just assume it must've been the fight because there is no way it could be their fault.
That's not my point at all.
I, in fact, did the fight later with some guildies and it ran quite a bit smoother. What I'm saying is the way the game is set up, things that in other MMOs would be fairly trivial are quite a bit more involved. As I said, the game makes controlling the fight alot more difficult and that seems to have lead to much more basic mechanics in the fights.
It doesn't feel like they've introduced many NEW ideas in the fights. It's ideas I've seen before and shown here in a simpler form, it's just they are more involved to execute because the way the game is currently designed things that would be simple in another game take alot more effort.
Just because a game is a MMO with swords and fireballs doesn't mean it has to be like WoW. We've spent millions of key presses in this thread and others complaining about the trinity, about how much WoW sucks, about how boring the fights are and how it sucks that you're require to have X, Y and Z class to complete content.
Yet, here we are now romanticizing about how wonderful WoW's Trinity was. Seriously?
Sit tight kids, because I'm about to blow away your bacon.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Guild Wars 2. It's a different game.
Sit tight kids, because I'm about to blow you away:
No one said any of the points you keep arguing against.
Like, you know, people are just talking about the relative feel and complexity and fun of the two games, not saying one should be more like the other.
As in "GW2 boss fights should be alot more interesting. They are boring compared to WoW's boss fights." Nothing in that statement, or the ones like it before, says GW2 should be just like WoW.
Oh so Necro's signet of locus and Elementalist's signet of air are getting boosted to 25% run speed as well
WTB run speed signet for mesmer. Great mobility in combat, pretty terrible mobility in terms of getting from supply camp to keep compared to most other classes, who either have perma run speed through buffs (guardian/engineer) or passive movement speed signets.
Oh so Necro's signet of locus and Elementalist's signet of air are getting boosted to 25% run speed as well
WTB run speed signet for mesmer. Great mobility in combat, pretty terrible mobility in terms of getting from supply camp to keep compared to most other classes, who either have perma run speed through buffs (guardian/engineer) or passive movement speed signets.
Generally, I find the fights just less interesting. The thing about a trinity model is it gives the player ALOT of control over the fight. This means you can do some complex shit and force them to keep up.
Some of it I think GW2 could probably replicate, but some I'm not so sure and other bits it can replicate but it's just more frustrating in GW2.
I don't know, maybe it's cause I was a tank all the time in WoW and the like, but GW2's aggro system is just chaotic and removes alot of precision from fights. I remember really noticing this my first time through the Dredge fractal. A boss that in WoW would be both super simple and boring and one I could carry a group through no problem becomes a messy clusterfuck instead.
I don't know, fights just feel very spammy in this game. The dodging and the lack of good tells and the aggro tables all combine to make it just a chaotic mess. I'm not sure if it has to be that way or if the fights just aren't that interesting or something.
I think you may have picked a terrible example because that dredge fight? It's only a chaotic clusterfuck if your team makes it one. Organization is key here because of the aggro mechanics. A lot of people do this thing where they play something poorly and then draw their conclusions of the battle based on what they just saw. They never think "could that have gone differently?" "did we screw up or is the fight screwed up?" They just assume it must've been the fight because there is no way it could be their fault.
That's not my point at all.
I, in fact, did the fight later with some guildies and it ran quite a bit smoother. What I'm saying is the way the game is set up, things that in other MMOs would be fairly trivial are quite a bit more involved. As I said, the game makes controlling the fight alot more difficult and that seems to have lead to much more basic mechanics in the fights.
It doesn't feel like they've introduced many NEW ideas in the fights. It's ideas I've seen before and shown here in a simpler form, it's just they are more involved to execute because the way the game is currently designed things that would be simple in another game take alot more effort.
Just because a game is a MMO with swords and fireballs doesn't mean it has to be like WoW. We've spent millions of key presses in this thread and others complaining about the trinity, about how much WoW sucks, about how boring the fights are and how it sucks that you're require to have X, Y and Z class to complete content.
Yet, here we are now romanticizing about how wonderful WoW's Trinity was. Seriously?
Sit tight kids, because I'm about to blow away your bacon.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Guild Wars 2. It's a different game.
Sit tight kids, because I'm about to blow you away:
No one said any of the points you keep arguing against.
Like, you know, people are just talking about the relative feel and complexity and fun of the two games, not saying one should be more like the other.
As in "GW2 boss fights should be alot more interesting. They are boring compared to WoW's boss fights." Nothing in that statement, or the ones like it before, says GW2 should be just like WoW.
Yeesh.
Specialize, the Trinity is all about specialization. Tanks take Hits, Healers remove Hits, DPS does Hits. GW2 does not allow you to Spec like that, you can spec to do any of those slightly more but you never lose the other two. Combat in GW2 is a matter of positioning and control, the numbers you put out are secondary.
WoW is mostly about numbers,
Is Threat Highest on the Tank,
is the Healer keeping up with damage,
is the DPS dealing enough damage.
Everything can be calculated out, so yes it is more precise.
So "Why are the boss fights not more like WoW" has a simple answer. They cannot be designed that way.
I'm really interested in what the patch notes will be for tomorrow. I'm unsure it'll make me want to play my ranger all that much, but maybe they will continue working towards fixing the dungeons/fractals/events/story stuff that has been malfunctioning.
As for tonight, I think I'll probably be up for helping folks do some more fractals, since I've been enjoying that quite a bit.
0
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
Generally, I find the fights just less interesting. The thing about a trinity model is it gives the player ALOT of control over the fight. This means you can do some complex shit and force them to keep up.
Some of it I think GW2 could probably replicate, but some I'm not so sure and other bits it can replicate but it's just more frustrating in GW2.
I don't know, maybe it's cause I was a tank all the time in WoW and the like, but GW2's aggro system is just chaotic and removes alot of precision from fights. I remember really noticing this my first time through the Dredge fractal. A boss that in WoW would be both super simple and boring and one I could carry a group through no problem becomes a messy clusterfuck instead.
I don't know, fights just feel very spammy in this game. The dodging and the lack of good tells and the aggro tables all combine to make it just a chaotic mess. I'm not sure if it has to be that way or if the fights just aren't that interesting or something.
I think you may have picked a terrible example because that dredge fight? It's only a chaotic clusterfuck if your team makes it one. Organization is key here because of the aggro mechanics. A lot of people do this thing where they play something poorly and then draw their conclusions of the battle based on what they just saw. They never think "could that have gone differently?" "did we screw up or is the fight screwed up?" They just assume it must've been the fight because there is no way it could be their fault.
That's not my point at all.
I, in fact, did the fight later with some guildies and it ran quite a bit smoother. What I'm saying is the way the game is set up, things that in other MMOs would be fairly trivial are quite a bit more involved. As I said, the game makes controlling the fight alot more difficult and that seems to have lead to much more basic mechanics in the fights.
It doesn't feel like they've introduced many NEW ideas in the fights. It's ideas I've seen before and shown here in a simpler form, it's just they are more involved to execute because the way the game is currently designed things that would be simple in another game take alot more effort.
Just because a game is a MMO with swords and fireballs doesn't mean it has to be like WoW. We've spent millions of key presses in this thread and others complaining about the trinity, about how much WoW sucks, about how boring the fights are and how it sucks that you're require to have X, Y and Z class to complete content.
Yet, here we are now romanticizing about how wonderful WoW's Trinity was. Seriously?
Sit tight kids, because I'm about to blow away your bacon.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Guild Wars 2. It's a different game.
Sit tight kids, because I'm about to blow you away:
No one said any of the points you keep arguing against.
Like, you know, people are just talking about the relative feel and complexity and fun of the two games, not saying one should be more like the other.
As in "GW2 boss fights should be alot more interesting. They are boring compared to WoW's boss fights." Nothing in that statement, or the ones like it before, says GW2 should be just like WoW.
Yeesh.
I apologize if I misunderstood the message. I've gotta be honest though, I still don't really understand the message. I took "messy cluster-fuck" to be a negative thing. If it was, then my point stands. If it wasn't then I'm not sure what it is meant for. I understand you saying that the mechanics wouldn't work in a WoW set-up and I agree with that. But I guess I'm still hazy on the message you are trying to convey. And for that I am sorry!
0
Red Raevynbecause I only take Bubble BathsRegistered Userregular
Basically, we went into a fight and it was a mess (and totally the groups fault). The boss is running around, getting him to stand in one position to get lavaed was a pain in the ass and all that. And what really struck me was "If this was WoW, this fight would be boringly simple. Tank grab aggro, stand under lava.".
It crystallized for me something I'd been noting as I'd gone through the game: most of the bosses were really simple mechanics that were alot harder to execute then I felt like they "should" have been.
Basically, that 1) The game mechanics with the aggro and all that preclude that level of control (not a judgement call here, just an observation) and that this may be the reason for how simple some of them are and 2) the fights are just largely not that interesting, though I don't think that they have to be.
Maybe more later, gotta run.
shryke on
0
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
Basically, we went into a fight and it was a mess (and totally the groups fault). The boss is running around, getting him to stand in one position to get lavaed was a pain in the ass and all that. And what really struck me was "If this was WoW, this fight would be boringly simple. Tank grab aggro, stand under lava.".
It crystallized for me something I'd been noting as I'd gone through the game: most of the bosses were really simple mechanics that were alot harder to execute then I felt like they "should" have been.
Basically, that 1) The game mechanics with the aggro and all that preclude that level of control (not a judgement call here, just an observation) and that this may be the reason for how simple some of them are and 2) the fights are just largely not that interesting, though I don't think that they have to be.
Maybe more later, gotta run.
Hmmm see I think that this makes them MORE interesting. I still think there is much more they can do and the fractals shows that they are learning. My problem with a lot of WoW era fights (from when I played) was even if they did have an interesting mechanic, once you had the mechanic figured out that was it. There was no further interesting aspects. At least here you need to stay on your toes everytime.
I do things this lends to the fact that these fights can get even MORE interesting as more interesting mechanics are added to the fights. And these mechanics will be multiplied in how interesting they are by the randomness of the mobs.
Basically, we went into a fight and it was a mess (and totally the groups fault). The boss is running around, getting him to stand in one position to get lavaed was a pain in the ass and all that. And what really struck me was "If this was WoW, this fight would be boringly simple. Tank grab aggro, stand under lava.".
It crystallized for me something I'd been noting as I'd gone through the game: most of the bosses were really simple mechanics that were alot harder to execute then I felt like they "should" have been.
Basically, that 1) The game mechanics with the aggro and all that preclude that level of control (not a judgement call here, just an observation) and that this may be the reason for how simple some of them are and 2) the fights are just largely not that interesting, though I don't think that they have to be.
Maybe more later, gotta run.
Hmmm see I think that this makes them MORE interesting. I still think there is much more they can do and the fractals shows that they are learning. My problem with a lot of WoW era fights (from when I played) was even if they did have an interesting mechanic, once you had the mechanic figured out that was it. There was no further interesting aspects. At least here you need to stay on your toes everytime.
I do things this lends to the fact that these fights can get even MORE interesting as more interesting mechanics are added to the fights. And these mechanics will be multiplied in how interesting they are by the randomness of the mobs.
Yeah I agree. That's what I like about them. Each boss fight unfolds slightly differently. There's no pattern that the boss follows that the group/raid has to repeat for 20 minutes. It's unpredictable, and more interesting. The whole aggro table where a big bad boss is apparently manipulated kind of ruins an encounter for me. It's no longer a big scary monster bent on destroying us. It's a braindead robot that can't figure out that the dude healing should die first, or the guy standing behind me repeatedly stabbing me in the neck is perhaps a bigger threat than the dude dangling his car keys in front of my face.
So I made a Mesmer, and I have been enjoying the weirdness of it. What weapons should I plan on for pve leveling, and for basic Mesmer spvp 101?
Can't help you with SPvP. For leveling, it's up to your style.
I run staff (condition damage) plus greatsword (precision). Rather unlikely combo but I like it, which is kind of the point. A drawback is it tends to take a while to really get going with the staff part (one of the traits that really helps isn't available for you until you hit 40), and condition damage doesn't help out greatsword so much (unless you're traited for having clones that bleed on crit, which I am).
A lot of people swear by greatsword/dual sword. I've tried it, and it's great, but I personally prefer not being in a mob's face. However, it has great synergy, quite a bit of invulnerability, and slicing up mobs while being invulnerable is always a good thing.
Some also suggest keeping a focus handy, for the swiftness boost. Also, being able to generate clones when dodging can be lifesaving.
Skillwise, Ether Feast will likely be your most effective heal. Mirror Images is awesome. Feedback annihilates ranged attackers. And if you're good at jumping puzzles, Portal Entre will make people love you.
I think predictability is a bit of a red herring. For the most part, boss fights in GW2 aren't fun period. Whether or not randomness makes them more interesting is like discussing frosting on a brick. I'd like cake first, then we can talk frosting.
0
DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
I think predictability is a bit of a red herring. For the most part, boss fights in GW2 aren't fun period. Whether or not randomness makes them more interesting is like discussing frosting on a brick. I'd like cake first, then we can talk frosting.
You uhh.... can;t really say period there. Because plenty of people will disagree. For me, some bosses are boring and some bosses are fun. Just like every other MMO (or game really) I've ever played. However the fun ones in this I enjoy more due to the more active role I get to play.
+1
CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
I think predictability is a bit of a red herring. For the most part, boss fights in GW2 aren't fun period. Whether or not randomness makes them more interesting is like discussing frosting on a brick. I'd like cake first, then we can talk frosting.
You uhh.... can;t really say period there. Because plenty of people will disagree. For me, some bosses are boring and some bosses are fun. Just like every other MMO (or game really) I've ever played. However the fun ones in this I enjoy more due to the more active role I get to play.
So what would you have them do differently with the boring bosses to make them more fun and active like the fun bosses? Change of mechaincs? Terrain? Amount of trash mobs preceding? Environmental weapons? Making specific combos and elemental types do more damage? Phase shifting?
If you're a Mesmer (and especially if you plan to WvW alot) I would recommend rune of the centaur, it gives a 12 second group swiftness whenever you use a heal skill. If you keep a focus in your bags or equipped you can have permaswiftness between the focus and the runes. I put off getting those runes for a while because I wanted something that would help more in combat, but in the end I got the centaur ones and I don't regret it at all, much nicer.
However, Mesmers should still get another speed boost or movement skill. Sucks being the slowest class in the game. My two-birds-with-one-stone solution is to replace the #3 ability on the GS, which is the worst one, with some kind of movement skill.
On bosses: I played WoW through the end of burning crusade and I personally prefer GW2's bosses (mostly, there are some bad ones). Maybe in wow it changed from Lich King on but a lot of wow's non-raid boss fights were just tank and spank with no real mechanics in play beyond that.
There are some bad bosses in GW2 (looking at you Dwayna boss arah path 4), but mostly they're good. Even the ones I hated at first, like subject alpha, I now find fun now that I know the game a little better. And they're getting better at dungeons and bosses both. The only bad one in fractals is the jellyfish, and even that one isn't that bad.
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DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
I think predictability is a bit of a red herring. For the most part, boss fights in GW2 aren't fun period. Whether or not randomness makes them more interesting is like discussing frosting on a brick. I'd like cake first, then we can talk frosting.
You uhh.... can;t really say period there. Because plenty of people will disagree. For me, some bosses are boring and some bosses are fun. Just like every other MMO (or game really) I've ever played. However the fun ones in this I enjoy more due to the more active role I get to play.
So what would you have them do differently with the boring bosses to make them more fun and active like the fun bosses? Change of mechaincs? Terrain? Amount of trash mobs preceding? Environmental weapons? Making specific combos and elemental types do more damage? Phase shifting?
Any of the above would be nice. More specifically most of the boring bosses tend to have too much HP and whatever special mechanics they have tend to be trivial. Cutting the HP of the boss while at the same time making whatever special attacks they have more deadly would be the best. It would become less of a slog and keep players on their toes while still working with the aggro mechanics that exist in the game.
Granted I personally would rather them not spend TOO much time re-doing every boss in the game so they can focus more resources going forward. But the above suggestion would just be a matter of balance that I think could go a long way. Granted I don't make video games so I have no idea how the knitty gritty details work.
EDIT: Also adding more fun encounters in the style of the SE Story boss would be fun to mix things up. They don't even have to be fights, but stuff like that is pretty cool.
DemonStacey on
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
The fundamental problem last Friday was that they had two zergs and we had one. Ours was like 25 of us and 25 or so pugs, they had two of 40+. I doubt they outnumbered us two to one but it was probably fairly close to that. IMO it was an accomplishment to hold onto Hills as long as we did, we wiped I believe three of their assaults on the inner keep before they finally took it.
We should expect this sort of thing if we go to TC borderlands - they have the most participation of any of the servers in our matchup and it seems like they prioritize their own borderlands to defend (this is the dynamic that's developed across WvW it seems - servers try to own their entire borderlands). That doesn't mean we shouldn't go to their borderlands, in fact I think it's a good place to go, but if it's just us on the map (and we had the outmanned buff at both the beginning and end of that night) we should recognize it's gonna be tough.
Also I like the idea of having just maybe five of us split off and cap supply camps and just generally make a nuisance of ourselves. TC in particular responds aggressively to people trying to flip their camps, whenever we attack the northern borderlands one it's not long before like thirty of them are pouring outta that portal. We can use this to our advantage, if we get enough of them playing supply camp whackamole it'll relieve pressure on everyone else.
Also I've heard there's an FA teamspeak server, like for the whole server to use. Does anyone know anything about that?
TC was legitimately bad at defense last week. They may have gotten better or the fact that I play weird hours might have been part of the reason why. Sorry to hear they're giving you guys a stiff fight.
Depending on you guys' numbers, it could very definitely be an asset to have a one-party team of guys who make trouble elsewhere. Takes some of the heat off the main group. I am usually involved in heat deflection over on Maguuma when I get to Wuv, actually.
Wait, what server are you on? TC has been against us for a while.
Also, unrelated: on the Arah path 4 Dwayna boss: uuuugggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh. Worst boss in the game by far.
One where I confuse Tarnished Coast and Crystal Desert. CD was giving us problems over on Maguuma for a while but they are awful at D; I remember Tarnished Coast being quite the opposite, yeah.
But they don't stack with swiftness and Ele has perma-swiftness so it's still kind of useless.
It's a giant improvement for Necromancers who don't really want their offhand tied up with Warhorn / to be compelled to run Spectral Walk, honestly, even if @Dissociater beat me to saying so. I'll happily resume using it in PvE. Obviously Ele's a different situation.
I think predictability is a bit of a red herring. For the most part, boss fights in GW2 aren't fun period. Whether or not randomness makes them more interesting is like discussing frosting on a brick. I'd like cake first, then we can talk frosting.
You uhh.... can;t really say period there. Because plenty of people will disagree. For me, some bosses are boring and some bosses are fun. Just like every other MMO (or game really) I've ever played. However the fun ones in this I enjoy more due to the more active role I get to play.
So what would you have them do differently with the boring bosses to make them more fun and active like the fun bosses? Change of mechaincs? Terrain? Amount of trash mobs preceding? Environmental weapons? Making specific combos and elemental types do more damage? Phase shifting?
There are some great examples: The final boss of story mode COF requires the team to hide behind a shield while the boss rolls flaming balls which break on the shield, then you pick up the shards, run an obstacle course up to the boss and throw them back at him.
Lupicus in Arah is a great boss, he's huge, and impressive, and requires everyone to stay on their toes. The fact that he can down players very quickly means that there are lots of opportunities to play the hero and revive a friend, or leave him to his fate. There's a fight in Path 1 of Arah ex where you have to fight several armored jotun. You can only damage the jotun if you stand in certain pools of light, which put a buff on you which allows you to do damage but also causes damage to you.
Some fractal bosses like the the ice elemental require you stay near fires so you don't catch frost bite. The Grawl bosses are all interesting: you have to knock off an enemy's shield before they can sacrifice a captive. There's another Arah boss where one player at a time has to phase into the same existence as the boss to fight him one on one. While he's really really long, the final fight of Arah story is very exciting the first time.
I guess the keys to what make a lot of these fights interesting are where the players have to interact with the environment in order to be successful, or otherwise increase the scale and make the boss very dangerous. Lupicus is an example of a dangerous boss who doesn't rely on 'cheap' mechanics. The CoF story boss is an example of an interactive boss with lots of parts. The interactive and exciting parts are available to all the players in the group. No one is limited because they have to sit back and heal, or stand in front and tank.
So I'd like to see some of these mechanics applied to current bosses to make them more interesting.
I think predictability is a bit of a red herring. For the most part, boss fights in GW2 aren't fun period. Whether or not randomness makes them more interesting is like discussing frosting on a brick. I'd like cake first, then we can talk frosting.
You uhh.... can;t really say period there. Because plenty of people will disagree. For me, some bosses are boring and some bosses are fun. Just like every other MMO (or game really) I've ever played. However the fun ones in this I enjoy more due to the more active role I get to play.
So what would you have them do differently with the boring bosses to make them more fun and active like the fun bosses? Change of mechaincs? Terrain? Amount of trash mobs preceding? Environmental weapons? Making specific combos and elemental types do more damage? Phase shifting?
There are some great examples: The final boss of story mode COF requires the team to hide behind a shield while the boss rolls flaming balls which break on the shield, then you pick up the shards, run an obstacle course up to the boss and throw them back at him.
Lupicus in Arah is a great boss, he's huge, and impressive, and requires everyone to stay on their toes. The fact that he can down players very quickly means that there are lots of opportunities to play the hero and revive a friend, or leave him to his fate. There's a fight in Path 1 of Arah ex where you have to fight several armored jotun. You can only damage the jotun if you stand in certain pools of light, which put a buff on you which allows you to do damage but also causes damage to you.
Some fractal bosses like the the ice elemental require you stay near fires so you don't catch frost bite. The Grawl bosses are all interesting: you have to knock off an enemy's shield before they can sacrifice a captive. There's another Arah boss where one player at a time has to phase into the same existence as the boss to fight him one on one. While he's really really long, the final fight of Arah story is very exciting the first time.
I guess the keys to what make a lot of these fights interesting are where the players have to interact with the environment in order to be successful, or otherwise increase the scale and make the boss very dangerous. Lupicus is an example of a dangerous boss who doesn't rely on 'cheap' mechanics. The CoF story boss is an example of an interactive boss with lots of parts. The interactive and exciting parts are available to all the players in the group. No one is limited because they have to sit back and heal, or stand in front and tank.
So I'd like to see some of these mechanics applied to current bosses to make them more interesting.
I need to join you on one of these Arah runs.
I still havent actually completed any of them. I would like to see the rest of that place.
If you're a Mesmer (and especially if you plan to WvW alot) I would recommend rune of the centaur, it gives a 12 second group swiftness whenever you use a heal skill. If you keep a focus in your bags or equipped you can have permaswiftness between the focus and the runes. I put off getting those runes for a while because I wanted something that would help more in combat, but in the end I got the centaur ones and I don't regret it at all, much nicer.
However, Mesmers should still get another speed boost or movement skill. Sucks being the slowest class in the game. My two-birds-with-one-stone solution is to replace the #3 ability on the GS, which is the worst one, with some kind of movement skill.
The lack of movement speed on mesmers is soooo annoying.
However, I think I would trade all of my necro's swiftness abilities for some of the mesmer's in-combat mobility and repositioning (ie stealths, decoys, teleports, etc). Once the signet of the locus change goes through for necros, I might try running flesh worm for the teleport instead of spectral walk, and put on the signet.
So far I'm only level 37, 10/10/0/7/0/0, sword/pistol & short bow. Fun but I really have no idea what I'm doing beyond punching stuff. Are there certain skills I should get getting? For optional spells think I'm using the poison that gives you might, some sort of trap that roots/damages, the signet with the move speed buff, and the call two thieves to your aid spell.
So far I'm only level 37, 10/10/0/7/0/0, sword/pistol & short bow. Fun but I really have no idea what I'm doing beyond punching stuff. Are there certain skills I should get getting? For optional spells think I'm using the poison that gives you might, some sort of trap that roots/damages, the signet with the move speed buff, and the call two thieves to your aid spell.
CALTROPS
also dagger/pistol, get to 80 by hitting the 3 key all day long.
So far I'm only level 37, 10/10/0/7/0/0, sword/pistol & short bow. Fun but I really have no idea what I'm doing beyond punching stuff. Are there certain skills I should get getting? For optional spells think I'm using the poison that gives you might, some sort of trap that roots/damages, the signet with the move speed buff, and the call two thieves to your aid spell.
CALTROPS
also dagger/pistol, get to 80 by hitting the 3 key all day long.
Ah, a classic. Reminds me of all the screenshots I have of Monks casting Animate Bone Fiend, a War who wanted to tank SF with Heal Area, Assassins with Vow of Silence, etc.
So far I'm only level 37, 10/10/0/7/0/0, sword/pistol & short bow. Fun but I really have no idea what I'm doing beyond punching stuff. Are there certain skills I should get getting? For optional spells think I'm using the poison that gives you might, some sort of trap that roots/damages, the signet with the move speed buff, and the call two thieves to your aid spell.
For what it's worth, I leveled my thief to 80 using dagger/pistol or sword/pistol plus shortbow.
For most mobs, save champions and those immune to blind like the dredge, I could use skill 5 (black powder) to pulse blind on all mobs in melee range for 4s. I put my first 10 points into the last trait tree (stealing gives 3 initiative and gain 10s fury/swiftness/might). I think I did power next and precision after that. Caltrops on dodge is a good skill, but for simple PvE leveling, I used stealing a lot to help regen initiative, so the buffs I got from doing so helped.
Most of my fights all the way to 80 involved me simply hitting people from the front while they were blinded. For mobs that used ranged attacks, try to hide behind trees or otherwise use line of sight to help them all gather to one spot, so you can keep them blind. When attacking multiple groups, I enjoyed using the sword over the dagger. For single mob fights, I used dagger.
It's not the most exciting way to level, but it's so risk free and easy, I decided to go this route.
However, Mesmers should still get another speed boost or movement skill. Sucks being the slowest class in the game. My two-birds-with-one-stone solution is to replace the #3 ability on the GS, which is the worst one, with some kind of movement skill.
Posts
I want that dungeon. i want it now.
Also..... candy cane ballistas maybe? please?
Or does it really not matter, given how the game scales up and down?
Not useless for Necros who only otherwise have two abilities that give swiftness. This opens up possible options for different abilities. I almost always only use spectral walk for the swiftness. It would take some playing around but I might use locust instead and have that extra damage burst + self heal (even if it's only for ~1k) every 60 seconds. Or I could replace my #8 utility which right now is my situational utility skill and I currently mix it around since there aren't many 'must have' necro utilities. Then I could replace spectral walk with spectral armor and gain protection, keep the stun break (on a shorter cooldown) and only give up a small amount of my speed.
I agree I don't see too many elementalists getting excited over it though.
It scales at your level. leveling a craft from 1-400 will gain you about 10 levels, regardless of whether you start at level 20 or level 60.
If I don't have the money to max out a trade skill to boost levels, I like crafting at the pace of my character. Staying in current gear makes a pretty decent difference, in my opinion. It's more expensive than just buying upgrades off the trading post, but if you're planning to level it eventually anyways, why not?
GIMME NAO PLOX
I'll be around for Dungeons Derring Do's
Most of the Boss Fights are about Organisation and Knowledge. Lack either ot those and they become much harder. When they are well designed, many suffer from too much HP for the amount of effort they take, see any Giant Type Boss where Melee can have a fun time dodging him while Ranged sit back and Autoattack for 45 minutes.
Aggro has some specific rules it follows but again specific mobs will only follow certain parts of it. The Champ at the end of Plinx for example pretty much chooses a target and then will chase that one guy till death which can result in either the Champ beating everyone down one at a time or one guy running in circles for a couple minutes while everyone else kills it.
Well this fight specifically couldn't kill us but we couldn't beat it either.
It involved 5 sparks. Mobs who were invulnerable and would shoot lazers at you. We had to kite the 5 sparks into 5 circles where they'd get 'locked in' thus summoning the boss. The boss would periodically petrify someone which requires someone else to use a 'tear' which is picked up off the ground and thrown at the petrified person to save him. The boss would disappear at 50% and the sparks come back up and you have to kite the sparks back into the circles.
Here's the trick. While she's invisible she regens health. LOTs of health, VERY FAST. After you kite the sparks into the slots, you have about 1.5 minutes to kill her so it's a dps race. If you fail to do it in that time she goes invisible again and regens again. If she gets back over 50% health before you can get the sparks into the circles, she'll stealth and heal AGAIN at 50%. The sparks are glitchy and buggy and occasionally don't get trapped by the circles, or switch targets, or just clip through a statue in the middle and won't go into the circles.
We had 2 mesmers, a guardian an engineer and a necro. We all specced for damage, took dps food and potions of undead slaying. We just could not muster the DPS to beat her after making her reappear. The thing was, with two time warps we effectively 'blow our load' after the first time she reappears, which means if we don't down her then, we'll be doing less and less damage each time she reappears until time warp was back up. As far as I'm concerned it's a broken fight, and is the only fight I've been in, in this game at this point where I've said 'I don't think this fight is beatable except under extreme conditions'.
Apparently most people who do successfully beat it are teams of 4 or 5 warriors spamming hundred blades.
So I'm NOT doing that path again tonight
Yes I was present for that buggy mess, the Sparks are what break that fight.
It could be easily fixed if either they removed the sparks and made them something you pick up and put into the circles instead of kiting them. Or if they reduced her regen rate significantly, or reduced her HP by like 1/2
That's not my point at all.
I, in fact, did the fight later with some guildies and it ran quite a bit smoother. What I'm saying is the way the game is set up, things that in other MMOs would be fairly trivial are quite a bit more involved. As I said, the game makes controlling the fight alot more difficult and that seems to have lead to much more basic mechanics in the fights.
It doesn't feel like they've introduced many NEW ideas in the fights. It's ideas I've seen before and shown here in a simpler form, it's just they are more involved to execute because the way the game is currently designed things that would be simple in another game take alot more effort.
Sit tight kids, because I'm about to blow you away:
No one said any of the points you keep arguing against.
Like, you know, people are just talking about the relative feel and complexity and fun of the two games, not saying one should be more like the other.
As in "GW2 boss fights should be alot more interesting. They are boring compared to WoW's boss fights." Nothing in that statement, or the ones like it before, says GW2 should be just like WoW.
Yeesh.
WTB run speed signet for mesmer. Great mobility in combat, pretty terrible mobility in terms of getting from supply camp to keep compared to most other classes, who either have perma run speed through buffs (guardian/engineer) or passive movement speed signets.
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
Specialize, the Trinity is all about specialization. Tanks take Hits, Healers remove Hits, DPS does Hits. GW2 does not allow you to Spec like that, you can spec to do any of those slightly more but you never lose the other two. Combat in GW2 is a matter of positioning and control, the numbers you put out are secondary.
WoW is mostly about numbers,
Is Threat Highest on the Tank,
is the Healer keeping up with damage,
is the DPS dealing enough damage.
Everything can be calculated out, so yes it is more precise.
So "Why are the boss fights not more like WoW" has a simple answer. They cannot be designed that way.
As for tonight, I think I'll probably be up for helping folks do some more fractals, since I've been enjoying that quite a bit.
I apologize if I misunderstood the message. I've gotta be honest though, I still don't really understand the message. I took "messy cluster-fuck" to be a negative thing. If it was, then my point stands. If it wasn't then I'm not sure what it is meant for. I understand you saying that the mechanics wouldn't work in a WoW set-up and I agree with that. But I guess I'm still hazy on the message you are trying to convey. And for that I am sorry!
Woot! That's going to be awesome.
It crystallized for me something I'd been noting as I'd gone through the game: most of the bosses were really simple mechanics that were alot harder to execute then I felt like they "should" have been.
Basically, that 1) The game mechanics with the aggro and all that preclude that level of control (not a judgement call here, just an observation) and that this may be the reason for how simple some of them are and 2) the fights are just largely not that interesting, though I don't think that they have to be.
Maybe more later, gotta run.
Hmmm see I think that this makes them MORE interesting. I still think there is much more they can do and the fractals shows that they are learning. My problem with a lot of WoW era fights (from when I played) was even if they did have an interesting mechanic, once you had the mechanic figured out that was it. There was no further interesting aspects. At least here you need to stay on your toes everytime.
I do things this lends to the fact that these fights can get even MORE interesting as more interesting mechanics are added to the fights. And these mechanics will be multiplied in how interesting they are by the randomness of the mobs.
Yeah I agree. That's what I like about them. Each boss fight unfolds slightly differently. There's no pattern that the boss follows that the group/raid has to repeat for 20 minutes. It's unpredictable, and more interesting. The whole aggro table where a big bad boss is apparently manipulated kind of ruins an encounter for me. It's no longer a big scary monster bent on destroying us. It's a braindead robot that can't figure out that the dude healing should die first, or the guy standing behind me repeatedly stabbing me in the neck is perhaps a bigger threat than the dude dangling his car keys in front of my face.
Can't help you with SPvP. For leveling, it's up to your style.
I run staff (condition damage) plus greatsword (precision). Rather unlikely combo but I like it, which is kind of the point. A drawback is it tends to take a while to really get going with the staff part (one of the traits that really helps isn't available for you until you hit 40), and condition damage doesn't help out greatsword so much (unless you're traited for having clones that bleed on crit, which I am).
A lot of people swear by greatsword/dual sword. I've tried it, and it's great, but I personally prefer not being in a mob's face. However, it has great synergy, quite a bit of invulnerability, and slicing up mobs while being invulnerable is always a good thing.
Some also suggest keeping a focus handy, for the swiftness boost. Also, being able to generate clones when dodging can be lifesaving.
Skillwise, Ether Feast will likely be your most effective heal. Mirror Images is awesome. Feedback annihilates ranged attackers. And if you're good at jumping puzzles, Portal Entre will make people love you.
You uhh.... can;t really say period there. Because plenty of people will disagree. For me, some bosses are boring and some bosses are fun. Just like every other MMO (or game really) I've ever played. However the fun ones in this I enjoy more due to the more active role I get to play.
So what would you have them do differently with the boring bosses to make them more fun and active like the fun bosses? Change of mechaincs? Terrain? Amount of trash mobs preceding? Environmental weapons? Making specific combos and elemental types do more damage? Phase shifting?
However, Mesmers should still get another speed boost or movement skill. Sucks being the slowest class in the game. My two-birds-with-one-stone solution is to replace the #3 ability on the GS, which is the worst one, with some kind of movement skill.
On bosses: I played WoW through the end of burning crusade and I personally prefer GW2's bosses (mostly, there are some bad ones). Maybe in wow it changed from Lich King on but a lot of wow's non-raid boss fights were just tank and spank with no real mechanics in play beyond that.
There are some bad bosses in GW2 (looking at you Dwayna boss arah path 4), but mostly they're good. Even the ones I hated at first, like subject alpha, I now find fun now that I know the game a little better. And they're getting better at dungeons and bosses both. The only bad one in fractals is the jellyfish, and even that one isn't that bad.
Any of the above would be nice. More specifically most of the boring bosses tend to have too much HP and whatever special mechanics they have tend to be trivial. Cutting the HP of the boss while at the same time making whatever special attacks they have more deadly would be the best. It would become less of a slog and keep players on their toes while still working with the aggro mechanics that exist in the game.
Granted I personally would rather them not spend TOO much time re-doing every boss in the game so they can focus more resources going forward. But the above suggestion would just be a matter of balance that I think could go a long way. Granted I don't make video games so I have no idea how the knitty gritty details work.
EDIT: Also adding more fun encounters in the style of the SE Story boss would be fun to mix things up. They don't even have to be fights, but stuff like that is pretty cool.
One where I confuse Tarnished Coast and Crystal Desert. CD was giving us problems over on Maguuma for a while but they are awful at D; I remember Tarnished Coast being quite the opposite, yeah.
It's a giant improvement for Necromancers who don't really want their offhand tied up with Warhorn / to be compelled to run Spectral Walk, honestly, even if @Dissociater beat me to saying so. I'll happily resume using it in PvE. Obviously Ele's a different situation.
There are some great examples: The final boss of story mode COF requires the team to hide behind a shield while the boss rolls flaming balls which break on the shield, then you pick up the shards, run an obstacle course up to the boss and throw them back at him.
Lupicus in Arah is a great boss, he's huge, and impressive, and requires everyone to stay on their toes. The fact that he can down players very quickly means that there are lots of opportunities to play the hero and revive a friend, or leave him to his fate. There's a fight in Path 1 of Arah ex where you have to fight several armored jotun. You can only damage the jotun if you stand in certain pools of light, which put a buff on you which allows you to do damage but also causes damage to you.
Some fractal bosses like the the ice elemental require you stay near fires so you don't catch frost bite. The Grawl bosses are all interesting: you have to knock off an enemy's shield before they can sacrifice a captive. There's another Arah boss where one player at a time has to phase into the same existence as the boss to fight him one on one. While he's really really long, the final fight of Arah story is very exciting the first time.
I guess the keys to what make a lot of these fights interesting are where the players have to interact with the environment in order to be successful, or otherwise increase the scale and make the boss very dangerous. Lupicus is an example of a dangerous boss who doesn't rely on 'cheap' mechanics. The CoF story boss is an example of an interactive boss with lots of parts. The interactive and exciting parts are available to all the players in the group. No one is limited because they have to sit back and heal, or stand in front and tank.
So I'd like to see some of these mechanics applied to current bosses to make them more interesting.
I need to join you on one of these Arah runs.
I still havent actually completed any of them. I would like to see the rest of that place.
The lack of movement speed on mesmers is soooo annoying.
However, I think I would trade all of my necro's swiftness abilities for some of the mesmer's in-combat mobility and repositioning (ie stealths, decoys, teleports, etc). Once the signet of the locus change goes through for necros, I might try running flesh worm for the teleport instead of spectral walk, and put on the signet.
- Warriors: Increased base movement speed by 30%
- [yourclass]: Decreased fun and effectiveness by 89%
So far I'm only level 37, 10/10/0/7/0/0, sword/pistol & short bow. Fun but I really have no idea what I'm doing beyond punching stuff. Are there certain skills I should get getting? For optional spells think I'm using the poison that gives you might, some sort of trap that roots/damages, the signet with the move speed buff, and the call two thieves to your aid spell.
CALTROPS
also dagger/pistol, get to 80 by hitting the 3 key all day long.
But pistol whip :<
Caltrops are a skill point spell, right?
For what it's worth, I leveled my thief to 80 using dagger/pistol or sword/pistol plus shortbow.
For most mobs, save champions and those immune to blind like the dredge, I could use skill 5 (black powder) to pulse blind on all mobs in melee range for 4s. I put my first 10 points into the last trait tree (stealing gives 3 initiative and gain 10s fury/swiftness/might). I think I did power next and precision after that. Caltrops on dodge is a good skill, but for simple PvE leveling, I used stealing a lot to help regen initiative, so the buffs I got from doing so helped.
Most of my fights all the way to 80 involved me simply hitting people from the front while they were blinded. For mobs that used ranged attacks, try to hide behind trees or otherwise use line of sight to help them all gather to one spot, so you can keep them blind. When attacking multiple groups, I enjoyed using the sword over the dagger. For single mob fights, I used dagger.
It's not the most exciting way to level, but it's so risk free and easy, I decided to go this route.
Funny you should mention that: