Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[PACOX]

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BTW this thread has been so much better than reddit. Those are some angry people over there. I ask the same questions and just get down voted and told nothing meaningful aside from to go copy meta builds...which I am lmao.

Yeah the GW2 subreddit is weird. Its like they get offended when people ask questions. A lot of the more helpful people and people who dont just sit around and complain all day left for the discord.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I've found /gw2g/ on /vg/ to be quite helpful.

[Nyel]

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/s...nd-uncensored/

Anet goes into the background of Tyria's premier smut lord that accumulated a cult like following.

Love it when developers take time and do stuff like this. Adds a lot to the world you're playing in.

[PACOX]

Anet put out another one of their dev blogs, this time focusing on Kasmeer and Marjory

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/i...r-and-marjory/

In a world where people aren't above monetizing certain themes I've always appreciated how organic and natural the relationship between the two characters has been.

One of things I've always liked about Anets style is they have a very diverse cast and setting and they don't care if you notice or not, some that goes all the way back to GW1.

[Edge-]

Anet put out another one of their dev blogs, this time focusing on Kasmeer and Marjory

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/i...r-and-marjory/

In a world where people aren't above monetizing certain themes I've always appreciated how organic and natural the relationship between the two characters has been.

One of things I've always liked about Anets style is they have a very diverse cast and setting and they don't care if you notice or not, some that goes all the way back to GW1.

Kas and Marj are like, one of the best relationships I've seen in gaming in general, much less MMO's. It's not some weird simpy shit with Logan. It's not some toxic relationship or a fairy tail perfect relationship or anything. It's not "who they are" as characters, either. It's just a part of their overall characters, and you see the highs and lows that would come with a relationship in these circumstances in Tyria.

Like, ignoring that they're a gay couple for a moment, it's simply a healthy relationship between two people that care deeply about each other while not glossing over the hard parts (arguments, loss, spending time apart etc) or focusing too much on the good bits (really love the early sequence in EoD where you can "listen in" on their private conversation). That it just happens to be between two ladies isn't the point of their relationship, it's just a relationship.

I will always love them for their wintertime outfits and stuff. Seeing Kas in her full getup all excited for the holidays and super into them...and then Marj just tossed on a scarf to make Kas happy because she doesn't give a shit. Very on-brand for the two of them.

[Ghost of Cow]

Kas and Marj are like, one of the best relationships I've seen in gaming in general, much less MMO's. It's not some weird simpy shit with Logan. It's not some toxic relationship or a fairy tail perfect relationship or anything. It's not "who they are" as characters, either. It's just a part of their overall characters, and you see the highs and lows that would come with a relationship in these circumstances in Tyria.

Like, ignoring that they're a gay couple for a moment, it's simply a healthy relationship between two people that care deeply about each other while not glossing over the hard parts (arguments, loss, spending time apart etc) or focusing too much on the good bits (really love the early sequence in EoD where you can "listen in" on their private conversation). That it just happens to be between two ladies isn't the point of their relationship, it's just a relationship.

I will always love them for their wintertime outfits and stuff. Seeing Kas in her full getup all excited for the holidays and super into them...and then Marj just tossed on a scarf to make Kas happy because she doesn't give a shit. Very on-brand for the two of them.

Yep, hard agree.

The part about Logan, too. He was the first thing that came to mind as being on the other end of the spectrum on this topic. His situation is just maximum cringey m'lady shit.

[Edge-]

Yep, hard agree.

The part about Logan, too. He was the first thing that came to mind as being on the other end of the spectrum on this topic. His situation is just maximum cringey m'lady shit.

Yeah, I dig Logan as an archetype, but he sucks. I don't know him from GW1, my intro to the lore was basically reading Destiny's Edge a long time ago before GW2 came out and he was...ok. Boring, but that's the archetype. But everything with him and Jennah is just omega cringe. I get the kind of relationship they were kinda aiming at I think - lovers who desperately want to be together but can never be (or at least Logan being in love and realizing the tragedy of his situation). But the expression of it through the OG story was just...ugh. I'm very glad they moved on from that and we have better relationships.

As much as I can't stand Brahm as a character for the most part (kinda glad he noped outta EoD), him and Rox were another example of a good, non-romantic (I think? I don't recall much in the way of hints but it's been a while) relationships that similarly have highs and lows.

Credit to Anet, they have their misses (everyone does), but I quite like the relationships they've built between many of the characters over the years. Especially as we've moved away from the old Destiny's Edge crew (I think Ritlock and sorta Caithe are the only ones still hanging around nowadays).

[Edge-]

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a...ate-june-2022/

More updates! TLDR for some of the stuff -

New cursor options so it's hopefully easier to keep track of it during hectic fights if you don't play with the action camera.

NO MORE REPAIRING! No more durability on gear, so the chore of repairing for free will be done. Anvil/repair kits will still exist and will grant bonus life/defense for 12 hours when used. VERY NICE!

New mechanic for raids that picks one a week and provides teams with a buff that stacks each time they're defeated to help them down raid bosses. And new experienced/training tags for LFG.

Story mission boundaries are chilling out and won't kick you if you go out of bounds anymore, it'll just push you back towards the mission.

Bunch of stuff about the June update including expanded boon access, and each class seems like they took a look at one area to improve (i.e. guardians get signet improvements, warriors get a banner overhaul, ranger gets spirit skill overhaul)

I'm continuing to really like this new, more communicative ArenaNet.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Still waiting for them to add controller support.

[Svifnymr]

Yeah, I dig Logan as an archetype, but he sucks. I don't know him from GW1,

He's just descended from Gwen, he wasn't in GW1, so you didn't miss anything I think.

As much as I can't stand Brahm as a character for the most part (kinda glad he noped outta EoD), him and Rox were another example of a good, non-romantic (I think? I don't recall much in the way of hints but it's been a while) relationships that similarly have highs and lows.

Credit to Anet, they have their misses (everyone does), but I quite like the relationships they've built between many of the characters over the years. Especially as we've moved away from the old Destiny's Edge crew (I think Ritlock and sorta Caithe are the only ones still hanging around nowadays).

The main issue I have with Anet is they tend to just assume you'll care about the characters simply because they're there. Then they write stuff based on the idea that you actually care if some irritating NPC falls off a cliff. Same way you're not allowed to just select "smack some sense into this idiot" when the NPC's are being dumb. Overall they're fine though. Only thing I dislike with Kasmeer is that her initial appearance with Southsun and such, she was a stronger more confident character and lost some of that. Marjory has always been cool and I still have the little click item with her little cutscene bar thing.

[PACOX]

Lots of interesting changes. Very interesting changes to the state of the endgame meta. Already see some experienced players complaining but the changes obviously arent geared towards that very small percent of players. Nor does it really change much for those players besides lower the barrier of entry into raid/strike stuff.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

"Balance patch" lol

Ranger players with thousands of hours of playtime had created numerous, indepth posts on the Ranger subforum explaining the issues with Ranger and proposing various solutions. Now the discord leak has come out and we have confirmation that the dev didn't even look at the forum. He doesn't even play Ranger. He glanced at the fanmade wiki to see what a Ranger ability did and nerfed the class based off of that. The Spotter trait is now useless (in a meta based around stacking buffs). Leader of the Pack and One Wolf Pack have been nerfed to the ground. RIP Soulbeast. Druid is still useless outside of raids. Untamed still hasn't been fixed. Meanwhile, the dev pet project Mechanist gets better and better. Mechanist proves that Anet knew how to make a good Pet spec, they just never bothered with Ranger (the PET class!) for 10 years. Oh and any posts on the official forums calling out the bullshit are deleted.

[Edge-]

"Balance patch" lol

Ranger players with thousands of hours of playtime had created numerous, indepth posts on the Ranger subforum explaining the issues with Ranger and proposing various solutions. Now the discord leak has come out and we have confirmation that the dev didn't even look at the forum. He doesn't even play Ranger. He glanced at the fanmade wiki to see what a Ranger ability did and nerfed the class based off of that. The Spotter trait is now useless (in a meta based around stacking buffs). Leader of the Pack and One Wolf Pack have been nerfed to the ground. RIP Soulbeast. Druid is still useless outside of raids. Untamed still hasn't been fixed. Meanwhile, the dev pet project Mechanist gets better and better. Mechanist proves that Anet knew how to make a good Pet spec, they just never bothered with Ranger (the PET class!) for 10 years. Oh and any posts on the official forums calling out the bullshit are deleted.

Anet has already addressed a lot of it, and folks are losing their minds. Lots of bad changes like killing banners and all, but it's clear that they know they screwed up and are going to post dev notes for the patch and are working on a second round of updates. I don't follow balance too much, but this is hardly the first time Anet has fucked up a balance patch and pissed off the community.

Amusingly, this "drama" got me back into the game again so I'm back to working on the story and kicking myself for dropping it. Did not expect to see Canach return, and he was delightful. Granted, it helps I play the "golden child" spec/class of firebrand so I don't have to worry about it getting screwed.

Outside of the balance disaster the rest of the patch largely seems good though, just sucks for folks who actually raid and shit to have to deal with a lot of the changes.

[PACOX]

The drama from the leaks is a whole lotta bull. People thinking they are can balance a game, stuff that should be leaked when said in confidence, missing context, etc.

Now this actually patch that got released. More bullshit. A lot of stuff is broke, not working as intended. Bugs out the ass. Skills not working as intended. Yup. That's on top of some weird balance decision (excluding inflated numbers related to bugs), which turns weren't as bad as reddit farmed karma on but still questionable. Anet has addressed most of it. They haven't touched on some bigger bugs, though.

I don't really feel like doing any of the 10-man stuff (though I heard the new CM strike they put out is one of the hardest pieces of content from Anet yet) until the bugs are fixed. I know a lot of people who shied away from the content are now jumping into it now, which isn't a bad thing. The devs want to make more 10 man content, they can't if less than 5% of the active playerbase is touching the content.


Its hard to shift through actual criticism and the bullshit, espcially as someone who is just passing by. A lot of it is coming from a specific group of players. Within that group comes valid criticism, but also comes egos who overvalue whatever status they think they have. They don't want to see things like raids become more inviting to most of the game. Maybe 5% of the game raids, and that me being extremely generous. Anet is trying lower the threshold for players to get into raids (and CMs), but in their attempt overtuned some things and introduced bugs. They put way too much into the patch TBH, too much stuff under the hood at once.

- - - Updated - - -

"Balance patch" lol

Ranger players with thousands of hours of playtime had created numerous, indepth posts on the Ranger subforum explaining the issues with Ranger and proposing various solutions. Now the discord leak has come out and we have confirmation that the dev didn't even look at the forum. He doesn't even play Ranger. He glanced at the fanmade wiki to see what a Ranger ability did and nerfed the class based off of that. The Spotter trait is now useless (in a meta based around stacking buffs). Leader of the Pack and One Wolf Pack have been nerfed to the ground. RIP Soulbeast. Druid is still useless outside of raids. Untamed still hasn't been fixed. Meanwhile, the dev pet project Mechanist gets better and better. Mechanist proves that Anet knew how to make a good Pet spec, they just never bothered with Ranger (the PET class!) for 10 years. Oh and any posts on the official forums calling out the bullshit are deleted.

Untamed is actually one of the better options fo alac dps now. Sadly you'll have to completely ignore Mechanist because its busted now. What you wont do is run pure dps Untamed, which does roughly the same amount of damage as a alac Untamed, so...your group will expect you to run alac.

Turns out, dps warrior wasn't hit as hard as people thought with their 'big brain' napkin math.

Guardian has been Anet's baby since launch. People bringing that up now are just trying to farm outrage.

The stuff that got deleted on the forums is due to people acting like buffoons, not the criticism.

[Geckoo]

The patch itself is a mess and has brought toxicity levels from the community that i didn't expect to find in Gw2... but part of me believes that the devs earned it.

I'd love to know what was their idea with warriors because it feels like they didn't even try or whatever they had in mind is certainly not what warriors wanted. This is probably the only case that i feel like they should go back to the design table to figure out what banners should be and how they should work.

Everything else seems to be a matter of tunning and some minor changes here and there just to make sure that some stuff is both viable and competitive.

The problem is that everything orbits around quickness and alacrity. They've been trying to expand the specs providing those boons for some time but they can't manage to bring them closer in terms of efficiency, so mechanist and firebrand are ahead of everyone else by far. Both specs are very easy to play, extremely efficient and bring more stuff to the table in terms of utility so they end up being versatile specs that simply do their job better and easier than everyone else does.

There will always be a meta and a lot of people will go there, but i'm personally happy as long as the non-meta builds that can provide those boons are not only perfectly viable, but competitive enough or at least with some niche situations where they shine above the meta builds.

For example, with this patch druid is actually pretty close to those two builds, it isn't there yet because it doesn't have as much utility as those two, specially stability. But the fact is that druid still has some situations where his toolkit is the best suited for the job and is certainly competitive enough in any situation.

Now... how about a revenant healer with the ventari changes? how about quickness herald healer? is that viable and competitive? can it manage to perform his role both as healer and boon provider in an efficient way? could that build be good for cardinal adina or boneskinner both being encounters that highly benefit from ventari's bubble?
If the answer is -probably not-, then they need to keep tunning stuff and revisiting traits to make sure it is, because in the end if it's fun to play and is competitive people will be more open to not follow the meta blindly.

[Theangryone]

The engi rifle is ridiculous and I’m going to enjoy the living hell out of it in WvW until it’s nerfed

[PACOX]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topi...-update%C2%A0/

Follow up on the patch.

[Edge-]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topi...-update%C2%A0/

Follow up on the patch.

Was just coming to post this.

I still like this more transparent and communicative Anet. Yeah, update was shit, but their response to the shit update has been pretty good so far and they seem like they genuinely want to make it right.

Nice quick changes that they can make coming out soon, a schedule of when to expect the next few sets of changes and when the next balance patch is scheduled for, design notes next week, and patch notes (with comments!) for today's hotfix.

[Fantazma]

Still waiting for them to add controller support.

I play GW2 with controller. Just use steam.

The best experience in the world is playing with a dead-eye thief using controller.

[Edge-]

Finally finished EoD, very much enjoyed it overall. Nice story, good pacing, they picked most of the best characters to bring back (<3 Canach). I know it's all about dragons, but it felt like a less dragon-focused expansion than previously, which is nice.

Now doing the mastery grinding and working on achieves and unlocks, eventually will go for the turtle but still have a ton of crap to do now. Zone meta's seem fun so far, done them for all but the first new zone, I just wish that you could find events on your map easier, especially in Dragon's Stand.

Finally messing around with willbender on my guardian and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. Really like the mobility it brings with sword/sword and greatsword combo (following a metabattle berzerker build with a few minor changes like swapping the sword summon for the stun) and it's got some crazy burst potential. But the lack of a good ranged option (which I didn't have before when the build was dragonhunter since bow sucks) and some of the squishyness/lack of utility will likely make it a secondary build while I stick with firebrand.

Just so much to do, trying to go zone by zone to focus on specific tasks/achievements and whatnot. Really like a lot of the explorable ones like the lantern achievement that unlocks after you 100% a zone.