Guild Wars 2

You despising casuals in daoc and jumping at their mentions of impact on the game was a tell

Every time I play Guild Wars 2, Ill play the shit out of it for like a week or two and then just get bored to fucking tears with it. This conversation just reminds me of that fact.

RobXIII said:

For some reason I would roam solo as a cabalist in a stealther heavy frontier. One time a Hibernia bard and some other class I can't remember jumped me. To be dicks, they hit me with the full 1+ minute mez, then followed up with that stupid stun all while laughing and prancing around like gay elves. Nothing like losing control of your character for 1:20 seconds when all they had to do was DPS me down.

But that was the day they introduced RR abilities. So once every 30 minutes or so I could have as many quick casts as I wanted for 10 seconds or something. I lifetapped down both of those fucks and within minutes they accused me of hacking on the DAOC forums (IGN I think?).

That game was fun for everyone but the caster classes. Without quick cast, if a ranged even targeted me it would interrupt me. So buggy.

Click to expand...

I played a Skald and I want to say I remember my little crew from EQ did this to people. If itemization wasnt complete shit and the User Interface wasnt absolutely horrible - DAoC would have retained a shit load more people at release. We all enjoyed the hell out of RVR. I want to say its because Mythic was a turd company with limited choices on talent being out here in fucking Virginia of all places. Virginia isnt even in my thought process for places to find excellent coders and I fucking live here.

the lowest I know for End of Dragon is 25% off. PoF and HoT are much cheaper during sales

Tank would be running around switching guard and taunting. Felt pretty active in regular scale. In mass the hold the line play was OK. I feel like a lot was right in that game by land of the dead launch.

GW2, I just couldn't get through the PvE questing. Had a great time try harding the bgs with pals on the free weekend.

RobXIII said:

I was going to check out GW2 just to see how WvW stuff is going, relive the old DAOC days. But the only real guild doing it on my server demands you run a specific meta build. They also want access to your GW2 API to confirm your build lol.

Sounds neat, but no.

Click to expand...

Hell, just hop on to WvW and start running with a zerg. It's what I've done whenever I decided to dip my toe into WvW.

I've been playing GW2 every day to some extent for 3+ years. All I do is run around, do dailies, and slaughter shit. It's a fun time waster. Jump in, jump out -- no massive time commitment. It works for me.

I do enjoy the build theory crafting. I don't do it myself, just follow the various guides out there. Lord Hizen on YouTube puts out some impressive builds.

RobXIII said:

I was going to check out GW2 just to see how WvW stuff is going, relive the old DAOC days. But the only real guild doing it on my server demands you run a specific meta build. They also want access to your GW2 API to confirm your build lol.

Sounds neat, but no.

Click to expand...

Fortunately that isn't the one and only way to play wvw.
A lot of organized/gvg guilds will demand you run certain meta builds/classes, some take this very seriously, some also don't. Unfortunately running as meta as possible increase your chance for success in fights, especially if you're running in heavy numbers it can be almost unstoppable. It's very hard for groups to run under a certain amount and be able to smash other bigger organized groups. I see it every day when a 20-25 man group tries to take on a 40-50 man boon ball group and get absolutely demolished, one or two fights is enough to chase the smaller group off the map. Or even numbered fights like full squad 50v50, the one with the best tight group comp usually wins. Of course a lot of it comes down to the competence and positioning of the commanders involved as well, a lot of them are lazy and just want the boon spam to carry them so they stand in spots too long and eventually the aoes overtake them.

Having said that, those type of groups aren't on all the time, so there's still plenty of room to run small group/roaming/pugging as well. There's nothing stopping you from running along side those groups on your own either, other than if they're hiding the group with hidden commander tags while doing guild runs, but even then oj's are dead giveaways where groups are on the map. In fact Maguuma is a server known for it's clouding, which is practically every player on the map is a roamer/ganker with the ability to sync with those around them and pick apart groups, even the meta heavy groups, who mostly hate fighting Mag due to not being able to lock them down in clumps for aoeing. If nothing else you can also switch servers too, pretty cheap to move to most NA servers right now.

Personally I don't run in squads, as I tend to want to do my own thing with my own build at any given time, and as a mesmer I can easily switch from being a roamer, to a group boon stripper by switching out a couple skills or template that takes 2sec. It's also like playing the game on hard mode trying to survive fights sometimes from other gankers and groups without having the minstrel support up your ass healing and cleansing, pretty hairy in smc sometimes playing like this.

Balance is still an issue for me in this game, especially how much they've nerfed boon stripping the past couple years, which has only helped those meta heavy boon ball groups, further increasing the divide between those organized groups compared to small organized or pug groups, where you're practically forced to run the same perfect comp in order to beat them, as the 5 target cap doesn't help. And also their balancing doesn't seem to have any boundaries for handing out skills to other classes/specs, as seen by their guardian willbenders being made like thieves with all the movement they have on top of all the defense/support their class already had. Or them trying to make more "low intensity" builds where auto attack does a ton of damage which they hope would help bring up the skill ceiling on damage numbers for strikes/raids, their mechanist and engineer rifle rework being the latest examples of such. But overall I still love wvw, and I love messing with groups with pulls, so many times I've yoinked commanders off walls only to see their entire zerg follow them out, and defending the objective came down to one simple skill. Being a meta slave bot to a commander isn't the only way to play it.

WvW roaming can be fun too,. Or brutal, some really good solo players out there (not me). I will follow a zerg for a while and then run off and do other things. Sometimes join a small group for a few objectives, fights, or go solo. Lots of options with all the different classes and elites. Will join a squad if invited, but I stopped tuning into the Discords years ago. Some kid yelling PIN! PIN! PIN! gets old after a while.

Joined a WvW guild a few years ago and they taught me the basics. But that guild is gone and I forgot most of it anyway. Just stay close to the commander, that usually is enough.

New expansion announced, Aug 22 release, preview weekend this week june 29 - july 2. I have no hype because today they also released one of the worse balance patches.
New expansion brings elite weapons unlocking for all specs and new weapons for each class (like warriors getting staff). Runes 6th bonus getting split, 6th will be a stat bonus, extra effect bonus will now be a separate thing called relics, which you will now have to do content to collect.

I really enjoyed the original GW2 zones and leveling, but I went back and tried the expansions and couldnt stand them. The mounts are pretty amazing, but running around in a zerg for all 3 zones and having mostly group content running from point to point for 20 mins per event wasnt my cup of tea.

I bought the last expansion last year, and haven't even played it yet. Usually there a couple years between these.

Guess they scrapping the free LW updates, and just gonna go with the DLC route between big expansions? Priced at 25$, seems that way, or they just gonna do smaller releases from now on.

Cynical said:

I bought the last expansion last year, and haven't even played it yet. Usually there a couple years between these.

Guess they scrapping the free LW updates, and just gonna go with the DLC route between big expansions? Priced at 25$, seems that way, or they just gonna do smaller releases from now on.

Click to expand...

Their current plan is to do smaller annual expansions from here on out, rather than the larger expansions with 2-5 years in between with Living World that they've done to date.

New update hit yesterday, 2nd chapter in the story of the "Secrets of the Obscure" expansion

I did a break of over 1 year of GW2 and I am happy back and enjoy it after having a derail with ESO. Just the art style is so much better than ESO, so even that the dungeons are subpar I am having a blast again with my Condition Mechanist with pistols

The new bonus system with the Wizard tower (completly avoiding pay2win in this area) is also an easy way to get some ascended gear for alts with just playing the parts you like ( if you are not in a rush)

cradeg said:

New update hit yesterday, 2nd chapter in the story of the "Secrets of the Obscure" expansion

I did a break of over 1 year of GW2 and I am happy back and enjoy it after having a derail with ESO. Just the art style is so much better than ESO, so even that the dungeons are subpar I am having a blast again with my Condition Mechanist with pistols

The new bonus system with the Wizard tower (completly avoiding pay2win in this area) is also an easy way to get some ascended gear for alts with just playing the parts you like ( if you are not in a rush)

Click to expand...

Thanks for the chapter info, I try to get them when they are free. Bought the expansion but really haven't done much yet, got lost in Starfield. Due for another GW2 run though.

My last run I picked up Vision, one of the legendary accessories. That was quite a bit of work, fun though.