Blizzard jumped the shark

[raspberry jam]

What does that have to do with anything? Thief is more difficult than necro. Mesmer is more difficult than guardian.

That has nothing to do with whether or not gw2 requires more intelligence than gw1 in order for one to be successful.

Your question that I quoted was "It took brains to be good at damage in gw? ****."

Nothing about GW2 in there. I do agree with David though that so far GW2 is rather brainless, at least if all you want to do is to deal damage. There are other things to do, but the question is if those things are actually more efficient. I'll still wait because there's no way of truly knowing yet.

[Alaris]

So far I managed to take out foes several at a time with guardian, ranger, elementalist, necro, and mesmer. I get the impression that soloing foes is for noobs.

Does it take brains to kill multiple foes? Yes, some. You need a good build, better movement, better use of skills. Using my brains to fight with mesmer certainly made a big difference in both survival and damage.

Now I am confused with people comparing brain usage across games. It's an MMORPG. Try Orcs Must Die, if you want rpg-like with brain usage. But more to the point, what kind of brains are we referring to? Encyclopedic memory of what special abilities foes have? Situational awareness? Good knowledge of how to best use your build?

[raspberry jam]

So far I managed to take out foes several at a time with guardian, ranger, elementalist, necro, and mesmer. I get the impression that soloing foes is for noobs.

Does it take brains to kill multiple foes? Yes, some. You need a good build, better movement, better use of skills. Using my brains to fight with mesmer certainly made a big difference in both survival and damage.

Now I am confused with people comparing brain usage across games. It's an MMORPG. Try Orcs Must Die, if you want rpg-like with brain usage. But more to the point, what kind of brains are we referring to? Encyclopedic memory of what special abilities foes have? Situational awareness? Good knowledge of how to best use your build?

Mastery of all steps of the OODA loop for the full context of the game.

[Alaris]

Mastery of all steps of the OODA loop for the full context of the game.

I meant specifically. What skills are you asking for?

[raspberry jam]

I meant specifically. What skills are you asking for?

I'm not asking. You asked, and I replied.

O1 is Observe, "become aware of a threat or opportunity", and O2 is Orient, "put the observation into the context of other information", so yes, encyclopedic memory of abilities of foes is part of "brains", as is situational awareness. D is Decide, "make the best possible action plan that can be carried out in a timely manner", in other words you need good knowledge of how to best use your build as well.

However, those things are not enough. For example, good knowledge of your own build only applies to the personal scope. Expectations about the builds of your teammates, the tactical situation on the battlefield (not as in awareness of the current situation but as in awareness of expected future situations), etc., all matter.

Example: GW1 GvG match, flagstand slog-out, one team is getting creamed and whoever is calling the shots say to retreat across the ice. This is an attempt to force the other team to stand on ice, which is disadvantageous. In response, the other team can choose to change their tactics, or not. And that response will yield other decisions, both on the personal level, small team (you and the people most close to you) level, and full team level.

GW1 have seemingly much more structure of this kind than GW2 does.

[Alaris]

Thanks for info.

Agreed that more of that would be good.