Curse

StormDragonZ · Feb 20, 2012, 03:58 AM // 03:58

When I first started, I said to myself that I don't want to use other skills from other classes simply because I wouldn't want to diversify my attribute points unless everything was equal or in equal power.

Also, what exactly is a holy hand grenade and how does it pertain to this thread?

Veldan · Feb 20, 2012, 07:36 AM // 07:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackbirdx61

Or the Fact that even with a +7 Attribute, and a +7 Weapon; you're still nerfed; just not as badly as you would be with a +6 Attribute and a +7 Weapon; because you need 12 in an attribute to get the full value out of any weapon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

I don't have much experience with non-caster classes in GW, but it's pretty obvious that if you're using a weapon for auto-attacks as well as skills, you need as many points in its attribute as possible. To be precise, you need 16+ in an attribute to get the full damage potential of any weapon's auto-attack, with its requirement being the minimum (usually 9).

True. To be more precise: At 12 points there's a "soft cap" in weapon damage, meaning any point after 12 gives less benefit than points up to 12. There's still a benefit though. Also, after 12 your critical hit chances and critical damage multiplier keep going up. This is significant, for example at 12 your crit multiplier is something like 1.4 while at 16 it's 2.0

I have always found this system weird and not beginner friendly. One reason is that it's never explained ingame and you need a wiki page to find the info. The main reason is that there's just no point in having weapons say "requires 9 ... mastery" if your damage is actually crap at attribute level 9. This is very misleading, and I don't get why it was never changed.

Gabs88 · Feb 20, 2012, 07:44 AM // 07:44

Primary profession is for primary role and secondary profession is there for utility.. Whats really so wrong with that?

Outerworld · Feb 20, 2012, 08:22 AM // 08:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by StormDragonZ

Also, what exactly is a holy hand grenade and how does it pertain to this thread?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOrgLj9lOwk

Blackbirdx61 · Feb 20, 2012, 03:09 PM // 15:09

If I may you seem to have completely missed the point I intended for the thread and gotten un-necessarily defensive in your replies.

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the game mechanics really reward specialists (IMHO) - the player who pours 30 Points into Divine Wrath (not really an Attribute) so they can spike folks with their Holy Hand Grenade in PvP; will do well, the Player to spreads his Attribute points to thin will not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

Erm, that's pretty standard for any game out there. If you spend some points into this and that, you are not good at anything and only mediocre at two or more options. Just take a look at Diablo 2 -

The point is not that whether rewarding specialization is standard in MMOs or even if it is a 'better' or 'worse' than a more Generalist option. The point was and is - the Expectation is raised that the game would reward the player - Say Wammo's they seem to have been particularly promoted with a more diverse tool box; but the reality has turned out otherwise.

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Or the Fact that even with a +7 Attribute, and a +7 Weapon; you're still nerfed; just not as badly as you would be with a +6 Attribute and a +7 Weapon

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What do you mean by "+7 Weapon"?
You get all the bonuses from your weapons even if you do not meet its requirement, except for its auto-attack damage, or Armour/energy in case of off-hand items (in short, the item's 'primary statistic'). So if you want to use a staff for additional energy and other bonuses, you don't need any attribute points in its line - the only drawback is that you won't deal 11-22 damage by wanding, which you shouldn't be doing in the first place, as any class.

Again the point is that if you invest 7 points in a 7 Str Req sword the expectation is raised that you get the full say 14-22 value for the sword, not that you get 14-22x a.7 Nerf on the sword; its not only counter intuitive, IMHO; this one is actually misleading. So again if a newer player should be advised of this hidden nerf.

And while it is not best play to use the Auto Attack on your 14-22 Wand very often that too is misleading; because when you pick it up on a drop; especially as a new player you can be forgiven for thinking that should be useful. My r/Elm taught me soon enough to keep casting as much as possible. (Honestly it makes me nuts when I see my Henchies Wanding but that’s for a different (AI) thread.

The point of the Thread was not to Dis the Game.
So your line by line Debunking was off point... sorry if the Question offended you, but honestly you didn't get it.

The point was, for the benefit of other new players; myself included mostly; more to point out those area's where the Game, or Game Lit says Go Left - but the Player is in point of fact better off going right. Any tips in that way would still be very welcome as you obviously have a great deal of experiance with the game.

Blessings BB.

BladeDVD · Feb 20, 2012, 09:16 PM // 21:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackbirdx61

The point is not that whether rewarding specialization is standard in MMOs or even if it is a 'better' or 'worse' than a more Generalist option. The point was and is - the Expectation is raised that the game would reward the player - Say Wammo's they seem to have been particularly promoted with a more diverse tool box; but the reality has turned out otherwise.

I think you may be misunderstanding the point of the tutorial. The game does reward having a more diverse tool box in that the challenges you face are not always best met with higher damage (holy hand grenades, so to speak). Sometimes a good interrupt or condition or hex removal is more important, and access to second professions allows all members of the team to bring utility skills as the situation calls for.

That said, and it's been a while since I actually read anything in the tutorials, if they are giving the impression you can do more damage by spreading your attribute points too thin, then that would be bad. But I don't think they do, and it should make sense that the game is very skill (and I mean Frenzy, Spiteful Spirit, Firestorm, type of skills, not how well you do something type of skill) based and having more points in a particular attribute line will result in more power to the skills in that line. So it should make sense that too much diversity will lead to a jack of all trades, master of none type of problem.

Admittedly, people frequently get carried away with build diversity, but I think that's more a problem of not paying enough attention to tutorial information rather than paying too much attention to same.

Quote:

Again the point is that if you invest 7 points in a 7 Str Req sword the expectation is raised that you get the full say 14-22 value for the sword, not that you get 14-22x a.7 Nerf on the sword; its not only counter intuitive, IMHO; this one is actually misleading. So again if a newer player should be advised of this hidden nerf.

If you meet the requirement, you are doing very close to the rated damage on the weapon. R12 actually ends up with you doing more than the rated damage.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Damag..._calcul ation

I doubt that most people in the game are aware of how damage is calculated. That info on the wiki was reverse engineered by the players, not provided by Anet (at least I'm pretty sure it was...it was on the unofficial wiki which predated the official one by a few years).

And like I said, the game is skill based, so you will want to have as many points in your main attributes as possible, taking points away only because they allow you to do something more important than the loss in effectiveness.

Also, you can easily put max points in a single attribute and have plenty of points left to still run two other attributes effectively. A 12/9/9 split is very common on my elementalist builds as I build energy efficiency into them so 9 in e. storage is usually plenty for them, leaving me 9 to put in another attribute for utility/party support/special dungeon or mission needs.

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And while it is not best play to use the Auto Attack on your 14-22 Wand very often that too is misleading; because when you pick it up on a drop; especially as a new player you can be forgiven for thinking that should be useful. My r/Elm taught me soon enough to keep casting as much as possible. (Honestly it makes me nuts when I see my Henchies Wanding but that’s for a different (AI) thread.

Every little bit of damage helps. But usually you should be activating skills to be most effective, not sitting around wanding things. Henchmen generally had pretty bad bars until NF came out.

Quote:

The point of the Thread was not to Dis the Game.
So your line by line Debunking was off point... sorry if the Question offended you, but honestly you didn't get it.

The point was, for the benefit of other new players; myself included mostly; more to point out those area's where the Game, or Game Lit says Go Left - but the Player is in point of fact better off going right. Any tips in that way would still be very welcome as you obviously have a great deal of experiance with the game.

Blessings BB.

MMOs generally have a lot of stuff to learn to play most effectively and they don't usually spell this stuff out as they try to keep people playing as long as possible, so having more stuff to learn about the game is almost a "feature."

Seriously though, you're right that these kinds of details could have been conveyed better to new players, but I feel they're mostly either invisible to the player (just meeting the req for a weapon vs having r12) or easy enough to learn through general play or asking others in the game...which is another type of activity that MMOs like to encourage. Although all the faq and "remember to search" reminders in the Newcomer forum is certainly a strong argument in favor of your overall point!

Rod Adams · Feb 20, 2012, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Some of the things the game does a bad job of teaching:

- Pulling and aggro management in general.
IMO, this is consistently far more important than having the right builds/team, etc. I moderately strong team w/ good aggro management will outperform a much stronger team with poor control. However, I can't remember the number of times I've had a new player be dumbfounded that my casters all have a flatbow/longbow handy in a weapon swap slot.

- How Runes and Insignias work.
Frankly, the simple phrase "non-stacking" just doesn't convey "only one rune of this entire class will take positive effect, but all the negative effects will happen." There's no clear distinction what things are grouped together for "no stacking" and which aren't. And then explaining how +AL insignias are per piece, but most others affect the whole character. And then of course the whole balance of extra attrs vs health loss thing.

- Attribute Point Quests are too hidden.
I've seen too many players who are starting to vanquish, or working on other endgame content, who then ping 10/10/9, 12/10 or the like attr splits, because the never noticed they were missing the last 15-30 points.

Blackbirdx61 · Feb 20, 2012, 11:57 PM // 23:57

Blade DVD

Quote:

I think you may be misunderstanding the point of the tutorial. The game does reward having a more diverse tool box in that the challenges you face are not always best met with higher damage (holy hand grenades, so to speak). Sometimes a good interrupt or condition or hex removal is more important,

That part I do generally get, but I certainly need a good bit of work esp in terms of Hex removal, not even sure if my Mesmer Henchie is really doing Anything; much less pulling his weight; Still I make no claims I grok it all; If I did there would have been no point in starting the thread; thanks for your thoughts, really.

Rod: Thanks for the above, thats exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to prompt when I when I started the thread. : ) And Ironically I just got my #### handed to me over agroing a band of Mantle thinking that mission was pretty well done and I was just playing out the string to the end credits; well the end credits were mine. LOL Blessings, BB.

TraceIrving · Feb 21, 2012, 12:48 PM // 12:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rod Adams

- Attribute Point Quests are too hidden.
I've seen too many players who are starting to vanquish, or working on other endgame content, who then ping 10/10/9, 12/10 or the like attr splits, because the never noticed they were missing the last 15-30 points.

This is definitely the most annoying thing I found. Two whole levels worth of attribute points that could easily be missed by people less active in the community (like me).
I only stumbled across one of those quests by chance, which is the only reason I even know that the max attribute point total is 200. (That and PvP characters having more than PvE seeming off I guess).

But at the same time, theres a part of me that likes these things in the game, that give the game a sense of adventure and reason to explore by not telling you about them. I guess it's only really a problem when you get into the more hardcore parts, but by then, you should probably be sort of into the community anyway.

MithranArkanere · Feb 21, 2012, 01:13 PM // 13:13

As for the 'hidden' quests, remember the Imperial Guide.

I always wished there was a list of 'priorities' for all quests. And one NPC would tell you the next priority available quest in that list for that campaign.

Let's call that "Xunlai Representative", bringing back those old lost NPCs.

"They'll use their network of chests to contact each other, and anyone with a request."

Mechanically, there would be an internal list of all quest by priority. First the 15-attribute quests, then the primary quests, and then the secondary quests, chronologically.

Whenever you talk to them a Xunlai Representative in each region, they'll tell you to go to the NPC that gives you that quest, and they'll have one of those green icons over them for as long as there's non-repeatable quests left to do in that campaign.

That would also save time for those of us that want to do all quests but find it really annoying to check the missing ones by using just the Wiki.

Dzjudz · Feb 21, 2012, 04:54 PM // 16:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by pakhavit

My first impression of secondary profession

Ranger / Elementalist

I will be super, long-ranged, damage dealer with my super natural area effect spell and my bow attack. Hell yeah, my fire storm wipe all ice elementals foe.

*Leave pre-searing*

Oh god, why.....

I started Guild Wars back in 2005 as an Elementalist/Ranger with that in mind, Fire + Bow. I think I used that all the way to the end of Prophecies too

. At least he's GWAMM now

.

MisterB · Feb 21, 2012, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by BladeDVD

If you meet the requirement, you are doing very close to the rated damage on the weapon. R12 actually ends up with you doing more than the rated damage.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Damag..._calcul ation

The additional damage comes from customization if you read the description and the formula in the link provided. Remove that bonus, and you get 15-22 at R12. Granted, not customizing your weapon is dumb if damage is your goal.

Blackbirdx61 · Feb 21, 2012, 08:42 PM // 20:42

TraceIrving Said

Quote:

But at the same time, theres a part of me that likes these things in the game, that give the game a sense of adventure and reason to explore by not telling you about them. I guess it's only really a problem when you get into the more hardcore parts, but by then, you should probably be sort of into the community anyway.

Not against that at all per se, but I did stumble on a perfect example of what I'm thinking of last night; I was working through Riverside Province and one of the Objectives is 'Avoid detection on your way to the temple." So I'm trying to Stealth around for the first half of the mission so as to not set off some general alarm and trigger some End Mission credit;

But the reality seems to be it's just a clumsy way of warning the player(s) not to over Agro the Mantle; by the end of the Mission I was just chewing through them with Double Dragon Blazing; and 'Claudia' could have been seen from the Moon.

I'm Actually planning to play through the last couple missions again without DD on the Skill bar as it's just too powerful for the content; it was nice to play walking nuclear weapon (Sort of gives you an Idea of what Godzilla feels like) but it was not particularly challenging. BB.
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Oh BTW - Thanks for the Attribute Tip; I had no clue and I expect I'm a good few points shy there. BB.

Not New · Feb 23, 2012, 07:53 AM // 07:53

I had a avid gamer friend.. who tried to play guild wars..
He was so turned off by the tutorial (pre-searing).. he thought the whole game was was like that..poor guy
He told me it was counter intuitive to not have Pots (potions).. I laughed at him.. and tried to explain about player skill and not mindlessly clicking pots for LOLZ GoD mode.. I have a feeling this issue turns allot of (WoW fanboys) away from Guild Wars (at least it did when the game came out in 2005)
Coincidentally it is the reason why i loved Guild Wars...and seemed completely natural to me.. I hate clicking pots just to play a game. ( or buying into them)

Maybe the people that have a hard time in this game are still in the WoW mindset...I find almost everything in this game really easy to figure out... Indeed I wish there was more challenging side quest and mini games to play.