Has UB only really changed the prejudice?

Ok, maybe break through was not the best term to use, more like bypass. What I'm trying to say is that although it does not allow a player to play their profession, it allows them to play as their main character, regardless of profession. If Johnny wants/needs to pug mission xyz, he might have to make a sacrifice of not playing his profession in the way it was meant to be but rather to change into something else.

Thanks for clearing that up

Just to be a pain, I'm going to pull out the guild/alliance card:

If Johnny needs mission xyz and can't get a group do to the PuG mentallity, then why doesn't Johnny call on his guild/alliance? I mean, that's what Guild/Alliance mates are for. And if a group can't be found-you always got Heroes and Henchies-unless you're one of the really new people and only have either Prophecies and Factions-in which case you're playing your class the way it's supposed to be played.

Saying you need UB to get into a group is a crutch.

This flaw is just horrible design on Anet's part. Ursan fixed it partially by making it so overpowered that bad aggro couldn't stop the team. The real solution should've been fixing "elite" areas like DoA so they arn't ridiculously designed. The cave at Gloom is a perfect example of how idiotic elite missions are: they can't provide a real challenge by using enemies with good AI and fully-viable 8skill bars....it's just easier to take advantage of the people's ignorance and punish them with masses of lvl28+ monsters after they make one small mistake.

The 50% miss there in HM is a very good joke too.....nice way to discourage the use of melee/attacking classes and encourage the use of other braindead methods to win.

I also blame Anet for this. The "tutorial" areas of all 3 chapters are shit - they teach newer players nothing. I've always wondered why Anet hasn't ever taken the time to provide good viable builds for each class ingame. What's needed is a real tutorial/training area for players. "Newer" players arn't even the only ones that need it....the way this game was created, you can play for ages and still be a bad player getting away with horrible builds. Then, as soon as that player decides to do an "elite" area, they know absolutely nothing and never make it into groups.

The quick easy solution: Ursan. With GW2 on the way I'm sure it's saved them lots of time.

Ok, using personal examples this time...

A few weeks ago, our guild tried to get a group together for The Deep. We all logged onto our main characters since just about everybody needed the darn statue. However, once everybody logged onto their main characters, we soon realized just how many actually had Cavalon mapped on their mains. Ended up being about half of us actually had it...

Embarrassing and maybe not too common perhaps but it can and does occur. Now if I really wanted to, I could have just simply loaded up my ursan build and joined an Ursan pug for The Deep but instead we worked a bit that night to try to get people as close to Cavalon as we could before calling it a night.


In the case of heroes, yeah... I'm sure a lot of people here reading this are good at using heroes, micromanaging them but not everyone can. I admit that I include myself in the latter part of that, even though I have played the game for two and a half years now.

Personally, you cannot escape elitism in online games, and double for MMOs. It's always going to be there, and if it isn't, that means everything is equal, and that's be just plain boring.

Even if all classes were created equal and there were no godmode builds, there is still the prestige of high class armor and weapons. If we didn't have that, then there'd be no satisfaction left in the game. (said with PvE in mind. PvP is a different story.)

It's hard to create a game with a minimum/no ammount of grind and still make the game satisfying to play after you reach the maximum level. It's something that hasn't truly been done in MMOs (That I know of, anyway), and I think ArenaNet has been been doing a better job then we give them credit for sometimes.

I agree with this, you are going to either bow to one form of playing or another and we all remember the other way wasn't fun either. At least with Ursans everyone CAN get on the bandwagon. Everyone can play in every area and this was the cries of the many (mesmers, rangers, assassins, paragons, dervishers) before. I hope they never change Ursans and those that want to play holy trinity builds just find themselves a guild or a group of players dedicated to playing that way daily. Shouldn't be hard to do just advertise online at one of these forums I'm sure you'll get many replies as there just seems to be soooooooooooo many that hate Ursans.

Agreed, in a way, but that is, and will always be the majority playerbase's mentality.

I don't use Ursan.

Why? Simple really:
Testing my limits with what I can do and cannot.
Why bother owning everything when it does nothing but let the bored become even more bored with lackluster "challenge" awaiting them?


I never thought of it that way. Now a light has shined on me to further a reason to be lacking in care about GW2.

I always advertised for rits, paragon, mesmers

Anyway Ursan users (for the most part) are more elitist than the silly tank & spank groups we used to have! At least in those you could have a mesmer, rit or whatever.. sure it wasn't common but my groups always accepted them In an ursan group, you are either ursan or hb monk.. thats it. Awesome variety!

The other night, some guildmates and I were doing a HM Mission in Kryta. Normally we prefer to run the typical Ursan setup: in this case, 4 ursan, and 2 monks. But a loyal guildie had no Ursan who had any access to that mission. So, he brought along a splinter ranger, and lo, it worked as well--or better--than the straight Ursan action.
We let the ursans control aggro, and then he blasted away.

My point, elliptically: an open-minded group might just be willing to take one of our formerly snubbed classes, even if NOT an Ursan--because jeez, who the heck needs that many bears anyway?

But to answer the OP, sure, the elitism has really always been there (as a ranger or rit in DoA, as a healing rit trying to explain that I was AT LEAST as good as a monk, as a mesmer, as a friend of assassins everywhere; I've seen this, been the victim, been the victimizer, etc...). It's moved somewhat, to the rank system...but some it HAS faded, because people realize that one R10 Ursan might well compensate for one R6 (or 5, or 2, or not at all).

We've been there lol.

If I could micro better, I'd give Hero Battles a shot .

There are alot of great, if not out right excellent, hero builds that require little to no microing.

I think you hit the nail on the head. but I 100% disagree. Most people think if there's no ursan, they can't do any elite areas which simply is not the case. All professions mesmers/assassins/paras can do all those areas. The speed of ursan may be faster but seeing the fastest elite times, non ursan is just as fast. it's just that people don't even try or want to do non ursan.We cleared uw with assassins in our group uw with sins. The biggest proof is in fastest time elite thread.

I see elitism in ursan groups where they REQUIRE r10 ursan. I have r9 and refuse to max it but have been rejected from groups before. elitism is there.

only area i see acceptable for ursan is doa because it makes it extremely faster.

Yes.

Guys in my alliance without Ursan because they don't own GW:EN can't get into PUG groups for anything anymore.

Ursan may let "professions that never get in" go somewhere, but it doesn't matter people people have multiple characters/professions. Can't get into Urgoz with your mesmer? So... make/use a ranger. Furthermore, playing a mesmer or a sin etc as an ursan defeats the point of playing one. You aren't actually a mesmer if you are running Ursan. You're a warrior.

I think it was created for the professions that got screwed. The only time a ranger is useful in DoA is for trapping. Assassins are basically dead on start and mesmers are in the same category. The skill has good and bad sides, but if you think about it the good outweighs the bad because this skill has changed the economy so that people other than 600/Smite monks and other solo and dual builds can get Obsidian armor and other high end things. There's a lot of people that hate this skill because of what it did to Ectos, Shards, and other valuable items.

You can H/H almost all of NM and it's not usuable in PvP. I don't think it's that big of a deal that this skill was made. It also speeds up boring things like vanquishing and helps you clear elite mission areas quicker. I mean if you know you have beat them before and know you can do them then why not use Ursan? It's logically better.

lol, wut? You post about not needing to use Ursan, than you show your team with an imbagon? Pot, kettle. Kettle, pot.

Just want to deal with this last bit: Both what Nightow said, and my response, have been said many many times.
The solution we'd like to see is an overhaul of mobs and skills: Full 8-skill bars in an 8-critter (or larger) mob with mixed primary classes. The Charr mobs in some places in the North, the mandragor groups, and so on--these are good starts. Torment Demons also make a nice challenge in both modes: look at the mobs and skill bars. Now, I know that they're amped up to level 28 or so--so tune them down a couple of levels, diversify the skill bars, and do what PuGs and human groups do: add a second monk (Seriously...a mob of 7 critters, and only one monk? No wonder it's easy sometimes...). 2 lvl 24 monks, a full-skillbar paragon, ranger, 2 eles, 2 melee attackers, with some skills to really hurt--especially skills that hurt unconsidered player skillbars. Know that Dervs like to run enchants? Keep the enchant strippers around.

The Undead mobs in Shards of Orr, either normal or hard, are good examples of this balanced group, but they have that one obvious exploit: durrrrr, they're undead. They at least pose a challenge: blinders, 2 monks in the groups, painful melee attacks.

Just my 2 pennies about this.

/end hijack

@Thizzle -- Rangers are also used in DoA for Famine.

Trapping/rituals that's what I meant. I didn't say they were totally useful, but I know what happens first hand if you want to do anything other than trap or set up rituals.

in case you didn't know ursan blessing is a different skill than Save Yourselves.
http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
has all the info you need. Ursan = no profession + monks
Paragon + other professions.

again you don't need paragon to do any elite areas in GW except doa.

I won't explain the difference as it's obvious and been discussed in fastest time thread. look it up.

Yes and no. Yes, in that most ursan parties ONLY want an ursan, no others need apply. Prejudice? Absolutely. However, beyond that it doesn't matter what you are (which is good if you like playing sin, or mesmer, or rit, or whatever class is "out" and usually has a hard time finding groups) and UB is an easily aquired skill that you basically WILL get if you play through eotn. Unfortunately, that means you have to buy eotn.