Dyllethia.5786

The kind of Speed Clears you're thinking of are very different from how they were in GW1. Speed Clears in most games just consists of blasting through bosses with highly optimized group builds. GW1 Fissures of Woe and Underworld were maps with events spread out in all corners of the map that normally take full groups to complete while grouped up. Speed clearers would go in with the normal amount of people (Or in some of our cases half the normal amount) and we'd split up the events, one or two people per event, and finish the map in 1/10th the time. Highly optimized Solo/Duo builds and a great deal of mechanical knowledge of the events that you were tasked to do. You would ignore everything else except your task, running to it right from the start, and by the time you were done with your task everyone else would be finishing their tasks and the map would be cleared. There's just nothing in any game that I've played that even compares to GW1 Speed Clears; and no way they'd ever come to GW2 given how much they love their time gates and making sure the Hard Core players can't get too far ahead of the Casual players (Daily/Weekly reward and DR are the worst). (Edit: Only thing I could even think to compare it to would be the Deep Stone and Thaumanova fractals. I've seen pug groups and casual players struggle with both of these fractals where myself and other skilled players can easily solo them. If the maze room in Deep stone was available from the start instead of needing to do the side rooms first you'd have one person do the maze while you'd have two on Spider and two on Ele. By the time each of those was done you'd converge and do the elevator and final boss. Thaumanova has the four events that can be done nearly at the same time [if Sub 6 spawned as soon as the fractal opened]. You'd have one person do the heat room, one on the laser room, one in the labs, and two on Sub 6. Heat and Laser room would most likely be a Mesmer simply because of portals/blinks, Labs would be anyone who has pierce, and Sub 6 would be two with high burst. By the time Sub 6 dies the other rooms would already be in center and go right up to the boss with Sub 6 group joining slightly after. Now just need to turn this into 10 man content with several more events. Would still be "easy" enough for casuals to complete in a reasonable time while allowing more mechanically skilled players to split off in pairs to complete it much faster.)

To clarify: I did not mean he does it specifically at 5% intervals, just that he does it enough that it might as well be every 5%. It's way too frequent, in any event, that it makes the encounter unfun. Especially when you factor in how often the meta occurs.

The problem OP most likely has isn't the mechanic itself, but the frequency of it. Have done the meta several times now and have this same issue with it. The boss is already a damage sponge; having him go into an invuln phase every 5% just makes the encounter feel worse. Nothing about the encounter is hard, it's just unnecessarily long... Which makes it incredibly tedious....

Really not understanding what you're talking about.... I run Alac Mirage for Fractals and Strikes and have no issue maintaining 100% uptime on Alac while keeping my dps around where a boon support should be (More dps than Chrono on some fights). Running Staff/Staff and full Rit (no Sig of Insp.). Mirage also has the added benefit of maintaining 100% alac uptime outside of combat and between phases where Chrono requires a target. Run deceptive evasion and you will have absolutely no issue maintaining 2 - 3 clones while in combat. Only time mine usually die is when I shatter them and I'm usually right back to 3 right after they shatter.

Once in place the only thing that would cost over time is VA. Wardrobe is a small drop in the bucket when you consider they are wasting their time on adjusting every armor piece just for Charr; why not add a couple more races that share a similar mesh? On top of that: Raids, Strikes, and Fractals appeal to a small amount of people and there are no returns on them. In fact you have to keep making them or adding to them to keep them relevant so people keep playing them. A new race on the other hand would get that small number of players to buy character slots, build slots, equipment slots, etc. There is a return on new races vs no return on adding to current systems. I, for one, will be dropping cash on eight character slots, full bag slots, and all equipment and build tabs for all of them if they gave me Tengu. Small drop in the bucket, sure; but how many players out there would do the same if not just more character slots for new races. Those are returns they'd get. And who knows: some of the people who don't play Charr might play a different non-humanoid race if it appeals more to the animal or fantasy being they like; Not everyone likes steampunk Cat-cows. To add to this as well: Fishing was a system they had to add completely from scratch that has no returns outside of Skiff skins and Fishing Polls if people buy them. Minor amount of players enjoy fishing in game, but how many of them are buying the skiff skins and poll skins? Large drop in the bucket in development for minimal financial returns. And before you say "They don't have to keep putting resources into it over time". That begs the question: how many more of these sort of systems do you put in the game that small amounts of players want to participate in with very minimal returns on them vs investing in something that there has literally been a post on every month pretty much since the game dropped showing that there is a good number of players who want to spend money on such a feature? Also: Would almost be better if they hired on more VA's. This would have a bigger impact on future expansions as a whole for those that want to immerse themselves in the game with the ambient dialogue as we wouldn't have 50 NPCs around the world sounding like a variation of Braham or Taimi.

@TheeBlackDeath.5692 As someone who's been asking for Tengu since they first announced playable races, and as I planned on making the monthly "Playable Tengu" post since we're now heading away from the Dragon story line into micro story expansions: The sad reality is that with just under 50% of the player base playing Humans, at roughly 419.5m hours played, with the next race being Sylvari at 146.5m (a humanoid race, but plant), followed by Asuran at 142.3m (humanoid, but with the added small and cute feature), then Norn at 136.8m (Human, but big and clunky), with Charr trailing in behind at just 93.3m total hours played. (Numbers according to GW2efficiency). With the majority of people, when asking for new playable races, want something that is either humanoid (Kodan [humans with bear heads], Largos [Blue humans with wings], Dwarves [Small humans]) or something that's cute (Quaggan and Skritt) says a lot about what the majority of people want: more humans. This was also an issue when Charr were originally announced and they weren't coming with an "Up right" posture that some of the Charr in GW1 had. People don't want interesting, fantasy, bestial races to play; they just want more of the same differently skinned humans. Was about to say Anet wouldn't put the effort into something that not even 10% of the player population would play; but we have raids, fractals, and strikes, so.... My hope at this point is that they end up bringing "Guild Wars" back into GW2 and we end up with some major Faction vs Faction story line that introduces a few new races at once. Two bestial races (Tengu and some Merfolk type) and one humanoid race so the base players don't feel left out. Myself, for one, and a good chunk of people in the community that have popped up through the many "Playable Tengu" threads are of the same mind that we don't need the full story line to be playable (which would cut down on a lot of needed VA work); we just want to play as our favorite land dwelling Avians. And, again, with the new expansion stories the way they are they could more easily do this. Side note: I do find it odd they would add so many new Tengu models for EoD when the majority of Tengu we saw back in GW1 (In Cantha) were the Sensali and Angchu. We didn't have the Crane or Owl looking Kestrels. There was no need for that unless they have further plans for them.

This was actually one of the bigger arguments FOR Shortbow Mesmer back in the day. Thematically Dreamer fits Mesmer AND just imagine 3 clones firing off unicorns; oh the neighing would be maddening!

I'm assuming you're talking about PvP and WvW as Shortbow is used for the Viper build in PvE.

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We have this... It's called "Shortbow". I'm excited for Scepter. Hope it's a mid-ranged power/heal weapon. Having the auto change based on legend wouldn't be so bad either. (Heal/support for Ventari/Glint/Viktor, power for Shiro/Jalis/Archemorus, Condition for Mallyx/Kalla) In any case I just hope Revenant never gets a fire arm thrown on them; I would like one of the magic professions to remain a pure mage class (very salty about Mesmer Rifle....) Think they were just pointing to the fact that anet seemed to be hinting at pistol as a weapon choice for Rev, nothing about the actual legend. As we don't know if we're getting another trait line (and in this case legend) to come along with the weapons or not it will most likely just be the weapon. Scepter works well as it would be the base line "Revenant" weapon where all others are tied to legends; a weapon to channel pure Mist energy and could be tied to the Invocation line.

Pretty much, yes. It was the idea I had for Bow on Mesmer way before Renegade Shortbow was ever a thing. Love Shortbow on Renegade so why not change it a little and throw it on Mesmer? It's not supposed to be an elite spec weapon this time so it doesn't need to be completely different from what currently exists. Could also be, lore wise, what inspired Renegades to use shortbows the way they do.

Honestly hate the fact they ever put fire arms into the game. If they had just stuck to leaving them on the classes that aren't magically focused I would've been fine; but Rifle on Mesmer is pushing it. Especially considering Mesmer is supposed to be a more elegant "mesmerizing" class. Been asking for Longbow or Shortbow since HoT. Longbow that would actually work opposite Greatsword in that it would actually be a melee or mid range weapon. Either bow firing illusionary arrows from behind the target with the auto attack and having a skill that, instead of knocking back to range, knocks enemies back towards you. Skills 2-5 would be more "dance" in spectacle like how Bladesongs kind of make the character twirl around or float. Hammer would've been great as a mid range heal focused weapon so Mesmers could finally fill that niche properly. Auto could summon an illusion near the target that would whirl attack applying protection and providing a small heal to allies near it. The phantasm could be a targeted AoE that would spawn, do a slam with the hammer for a targeted healing and provide a blast finisher to combo with a water field that could be placed on another weapon skill. (These could also apply to Mace MH and OH combo) I just absolutely hate the idea of pushing firearms onto magic classes; especially one that is pretty much marketed as the "Magic Swordsman" type class. Was gross enough when Necromancer got Pistol, and it's absolutely disgusting that Guardian is getting duel pistol (way out of theme for a "Guardian") and Mesmer is getting Rifle (nothing about Mesmer says "Let me just pick up this boom stick and go be fancy").

Yeah. Been playing Alac Mirage for my group in Fracts for a while now and had to swap back to Rev after this nerf. Would watch the Alac on myself fall off every couple second and whenever I looked up to see how the party was doing there'd be no alac on any of them, and if there was it'd be gone before I could apply more. Trying to chase people down to give them 1s of alac just doesn't work. Tried Alac Chrono, and the Alac uptime is definitely there, but it just doesn't have the space for utility, boon, and a reasonable dps compared to most other Alac classes (Or Mirage before the nerf). And forget trying to run the short lived, wonderful, Heal Alac Mirage... Can't keep up Alac while constantly dodging; forget trying to throw a mantra cast in there....

Other problem with this is that it's 100% on self with only a maintainable 3 seconds. The point of a boon support is to maintain it around 90%+ of the time on allies. This is not possible now unless you are always stacked within 600 range; which is not going to happen a lot of the time. Compare this to the classes that can burst stack several seconds of alac while everyone is stacked before you have to separate and Mirage is not viable.