Guild Wars PvE: More based on skill than time?

Obviously the number of hours you spend grinding is not going to give your character an innate advantage over anyone else. However, do you feel that skill really can set one apart from another? (Remember, only talking about PvE here) If so, how can you really shine? If you feel like you've saved the party, singlehandedly won a mission, saved your team's butt a few times, do you care if people notice, or is it all self satisfaction? I mostly nuke, I've played GW for almost 2 years, over 2 million exp (very little farming, very little PvP)...some of you may recognize my name from playing with me in game. I normally quietly do my job, sometimes feel MUCH more useful than others (going pyro, and then seeing very small groups or single monsters is not a good feeling). Sometimes I'll hear a 'nice job nuking!', 'nice wards!', etc, from appreciative players. However, I rarely find myself typing out appreciation to anyone besides monks. It's pretty obvious whether or not they're doing their job, but when a mob goes down, it's all a team effort - whether or not one person truly outshines the rest (NOTE: I am not implying that I outshine ANYONE.) I can't really say for myself that in the past year or so I've gotten 'better' or more 'skilled' at my profession, but how could I even know for sure, if I play in large groups? I guess this is kind of just a suggestion for GW2 - please give us a way in PvE to attempt, at least, to make ourselves more noticed, more highly regarded in the PvE environment!

I've found that I can sit back and let heroes and henchies do the work, so it is a team effort.
In parties of 8 it can sometimes be hard to tell if anyone is really good. It's more obvious if they are really bad.
I'd say it's more skilled based game, but the fact that content is geared towards large party sizes dilutes the skill requirement a single individual must have.

I really do think theres basic and good skills you need to have in PvE that can be acquired through experience and knowledge.

But gaining experience and knowledge takes time too doesnt it?

I would like some areas with party size limit of 4 again.
Those party sizes really show who is skilled in the party. I find them more fun.
It might be why hard mode old ascalon is considered pretty fun to PUG.

I agree with that - myself, a monk, a tank, and a MM tore through the first mission, and it really felt like we all contributed and did our jobs correctly.

One of the things that really saddens me about the game is the lack of small group content.
I know you can hero and hench if you don't have friends on, but sometimes a fantasy world is more interesting to explore when the battles are on a smaller scale most of the time and only occasionally you get the epic battles. The small group battles from EQ2 and WoW were my favourite. I duo often in those games. You really stand out in them and things are less chaotic allowing for more finesse in your group strategies.

Well, I play an Assassin most of the time. 3.2 million experience and counting.

Whenever my guildies ask for something, whether it be help capping an elite to going through an area and wiping it out, and I offer my help, they accept immediately.

My guild leader announces to my alliance pretty regularly that I am a beast lol. That's pretty gratifying. I've actually gotten several people INTO sins through showing them my builds.

PUGs still call me names. Then wipe and blame the monk. Usually its the Echo Mending Whammos that are the most vocal. They are so 1337.

And while I consider myself skilled, I know there are many better players out there. I suppose there could be a little "feedback" button after a mission, allowing you to rate those you played with, and perhaps there could be a positive feedback title (a negative one would be open to abuse and griefers) that would denote the best PUG players? A PvE version of Fame.

Nice suggestion but would also be abused - just play around with your friends, and give them positive feedback every time!

Since they have normal and hard mode implemented, it's quite possible to use that system to create a smaller party size experience. Just click the button and the party size is reduced and all the content scales accordingly. It won't be any easier it'll just be designed for small groups or even a very skilled single player to play.
I think it would allow a lot of people who prefer to solo or duo some challenging fun.

Okay, I normally don't fall in love with my ideas so fast, but I'd love a button for a mode to scale content and party size to allow me to duo/trio areas with my friends.

Yeah, I just meant that upon cmpletion of the mission, each player can give positive feedback, or NO feedback. +1 or nothing.

That way no one can be griefed, such as Whammos blaming monks. In that way, the truly outstanding PvE'rs would be having a good time, and this sort of thing would only be able to be done after a mission was completed.

I don't think it would be abused, perhaps the title doesn't count towards "Kind of a Big Deal" and the only people who would care would be PUGs. Your friends would already know how good you are!

Guardian and Vanquisher = Skill

Skill Hunter and Cartographer = Time

It's pretty much both since you need to have a huge time investment to get enough gold to properly outfit all your heroes with weapons, runes, and inscriptions (ie: with expensive runes like Superior Vigor).

Or bad.

I've heard (smallfont)pleasedon'tflameme(/smallfont) that in WoW you can get stats on the amount of damage you've done. I don't know how that works, but I'd love to see at the end of a mission some kind of rank based on direct damage, damage from your enchantments/hexes (like OotV), amount of healing done, etc ... difficult to implement I know, but would be very cool.

More like:

Vanquisher = Skill.... and a $@%&-load of time!

Vanquisher is like the cartographer title, only you kill mobs instead of hugging walls. Skill? Not too much. Skills? Maybe.

There are third pary programs for WoW and Everquest 2 that allow you to parse all the combat data that appears in the combat log and tally how much damage was done, taken and healed by each person and what skills they used the most.
It's quite useful, but I'm not sure it could be done easily in GW because I haven't seen any combat log feature in this game.

Edit: I'd also like to note that the parser programs are often used to fuel the fires of discussions about imbalances between the professions! lol

Hard mode has actually showed me that there are a lot of talented people out there. The rare ocasions I got my mesmer into a party, rather often they said that things would go smother, or that bosses were a joke. That's nice to hear, not for pride, but looking how mesmer are not in the pve spotlight because of the holy triad. Now, more than ever, you can notice people who know to pull, to kite, to regroup, to combine skills with each other before the mission. PvE has indeed got to a level where you see skill. Campfire is an example where you can see detailed builds and procedures to do a certain mission. People are thinking a lot more now.

As a side note, people will always appreciate some appreciation; whenever you see anything worth mentioning, do so, people will like it, just like yourself would.

Guardian and Vanquisher titles I think will not only require skill but a bunch of time.

Having had a bunch of time on my hands before, my main char has skill hunter and the 3 cartographer titles - mostly done with hench and NF done with hero/hench. And have the 3 protector titles, so Guardian here I come - wouldn't want anyone to think I lack a bit of skill at this game.

I disagree on the skill hunter. I got my legendary fairly easily. Just finish the game normally then buy loads of sigs, hop on GW wiki and cap them one by one.

I've gotten 10 Elonan areas vanquished, and it does take a huge amount of time, but you get a lot better at dealing with the enemies. Sending youre minions in first to take the heat, hit and run tactics, using scrolls to remove DP.

The real problem is that the Dervish, Elementalist, Warrior and (Channeling) Ritualist bosses are way too strong. They can kill in two spells or hits which is lame, not fun, especiialy when you cant control youre prot henchman to give you prot spirit.