Aenesthesia.1697

But it is not a free to play game. It's a buy to play game. The fact that they are giving away some content for free doesn't make it free to play. You only have access to what, 50% of the game for free? It's a lot, but not the whole game and the company still wants to sell the game they invested a lot of money, on to pay the wages of the developers and hopefully make a profit.

I think there are several possible niches for the swords in PVE: - Higher sustained damage than GS above enemy's 50% (which would make GS a burst option to pop before going into shroud and then the go to option below 50%) - higher burst damage than dagger/staff, in which case it would replace both as the burst weapon to use before going into shroud - Neither of the above, but a decent weapon for ranged damage. In this case, it would have its use in fights where you cannot always melee, or need mobility, but it would be a subpar option for fights where mele is not a problem, allowing for some dagger/staff use depending on the encounter. I think this is where the kit is at right now. I haven't tested yet whether the damage uptime from ranged attacks offsets the loss in burst from not using dagger, and it's actually difficult to test it in a controlled environment.

Why sword 3? it's a great mobility skill, why does it need to be part of the rotation?

Anyone can enter wvw so what? Look at the alternatives to achieve what you want from a monetization point of view: the game is 12 years old and, to avoid being dubbed P2W, it should have either no expansion, or have all expansions be free, or not tie any new spec, skill, mastery, anything that may affect combat or movement across the map, to buying the expansion. At that point, players wonder what it is that the expansion offers, if they can get most of it without paying for it, and the game dies before the second expansion is out.

OK, so i finally took the swords to raids. While i ended up doing decent damage on Deimos (21k on target), none of my sword attacks ended up in my top 15 most damaging skills. On top of that, I barely used gravedigger, I guess I was caught too much in sword/sword and gravedigger only amounted to 1% of my damage, meaning I could have done fairly better by camping greatsword. There was always the fear of hitting #3 and ending up triggering the oils, or jumping out of the plaftorm. During Matthias, it was nice to use #3 to cleanse and drop the poison, I hate that fight though and always avoid wing 2. I guess i have to get used to them but, for the moment, i only see them as a very convenient (and fun) mobility tool...

yeah, op basically wants to play greatsword reaper without the greatsword or the reaper.

No, you just simply take the game as advertised. GW2 was never advertised as free to play. You pay for the game, you can unlock everything that gives you a chance to 'win'. Fair and square from day one. A pay to win game, on the other hand, may charge you for the game or not, but then offers a substantial advantage to players who pay extra. And by substantial i mean that they can beat the content or other players with the same game, carried by their cash investment. In the case of GW2, you can beat other players based on your cash investment but only because they are not playing the same game. If they don't have the expansions, they just have part of the game you are playing. And, of course, you can gain some advantages even by playing the same game, but having extra bag slots or nicer skins doesn't give you an advantage in any kind of competitive endgame content.

Wrong, the game is, and always has been, pay to play. If you didn't pay, you are just giving it a try. Don't expect to be competitive or have full access if you are not playing the full game.

It's not a pvp weapon. Just a weapon that offers a little more than damage. As such, it's going to be outclassed if your only aim is to hit a golem and get bit numbers. Try dual swords on the golem to see what the actual dps loss is. You might be surprised. Or ask the people that made the builds, they will surely have the numbers. Keep in mind they look for the absolute highest dps possible against a non moving target that doesn't hit back. Convenience or real encounter mechanics are not even in the menu for their builds (and yet, some may include weapon and utility variations for specific encounters).

What the title says. Worst offender is the Wizard's Tower, which can crash several times in the few minutes I go there. I avoid it at all costs. But the rest of the game, too. Even Strike Missions, which is particularly troublesome when it happens near the end of a long fight. I used the Repair several times and nothing has improved so far.

What does it have to do with anything?

Around 3-4k loss after a couple of tries at the golem? Seems quite a lot, but maybe I screwed up my rotation.

I am not sure you know how reaper works anymore? Incoming damage is not a problem while out of shroud. It´s a problem during shroud, because it depletes your life force and that cannot be topped up by a healer. If you think LF generation is enough, you haven´t faced sabetha with a group of randoms that constantly refused to walk away with their bombs. The "actual sustain" of the meta reaper is actually low sustain with low damage, that´s marginally better than the other options. No one takes the Fiend for the healing. Because you stay in shroud longer (actually, you can stay in shroud forever against the golem using Fear of Death), and this build is optimized for reaper auto attacks. Your reaper AA generates might and quickness, so those won´t be a problem for you, and also apply vulnerability. So, you have might and quickness covered, and don´t rely so much on alacrity since you don´t have access to your utilities and the AAs don´t need alacrity. See how boon uptime affects you way less? Then you have incoming damage, which you can try to survive with Signet of Undeath LF generation, and you can even throw in some Fear of Death (since you don´t really want to go out of Shroud ever, making Soul Barbs a bit of a waste). Again, this works in theory. I would have to try if but I updated my necro to ascended before this patch and I am a bit reluctant to spend the gold on valkyrie gear just to try it.

Ah, I fail to see how this build is not good. First, the snowcrows build relies on not being hit while on shroud or your damage goes down the drain. As all builds, the benchmark is tested on a golem that doesn´t do any damage. Now, if i am playing condi mechanist, I know I can tank damage and a healer is going to top me up, so i don´t have to interrupt my rotation. If I am playing reaper, and i get hit while on shroud, I can lose a big chunk of life force and then i´ll be struggling to rebuild my life force pool because the build is optimised to barely generate the minimum required, so I´ll have to either interrupt my rotation to avoid damage if i cannot walk out of it, or suffer trying to rebuild my LF pool for a good part of the encounter. As i see it, this build has superior LF generation, and superior LF pool. Of course it will do worse on the golem where those things are not needed, but the question is: can it do better in a real encounter? I would have to try it but, if playing power mechanist has taught me anything, it´s that most pug players don´t get anywhere near the benchmark and melt like cheese under pressure. An easy to execute but subpar build can outperform any meta under most circumstances, because the meta requires zero incoming damage, 100% boon uptime, no rezzing fallen comrades, and no mechanics that will interrupt your complex rotation. Practice makes perfect, and you can time your skills to nail your complex build´s potential in every encounter, but you seldom see players with this level of mastery in pugs, because pugs don´t provide the stable scenario you need to perfectly tail your rotation to each encounter (someone always screws up and you have to adapt).

Forget the title. Can we get a special mount skin for 10 years of commitment?