Guild Wars 2

There’s a huge disparity on the amount of effort that went into the graphics for each legendary weapon. Now I’m not saying that all the Legandaries are necessarily bad, but even for the legendaries that are ok, they still pale in comparison to the Greatswords. It’s terribly obvious just by looking at the list of effects on each weapon that the greatswords got more than twice the attention of any other weapons. What’s going on ANet? Why ya gotta make the greatswords so much better than anything else?

I mean, if all of them had the same amount of attention I’d expect Incinerator’s blade to explode or extend and impale its target at certain points in a player’s attack animation. I’d expect The Dreamer to have special sound effects and glows around it. I’d expect Kudzu to have leaves falling off the player’s body and thorns exploding off their target. I’d expect The Predator to actually fire energy bolts and not just sound like it’s firing energy bolts. I’d expect The Bifrost to add rainbow effects to staff projectiles. I’d expect Meteorologicus to actually have a freaking effect at all.

Here’s a list of the effects we know of for each of the legendary weapons. Compare them and decide for yourself whether the same amount of effort was put into each weapon.

SUNRISE:

• The blade is a window into the sky at sunrise. You can look into it and see clouds in the distance.
• Moving or swinging your weapon leaves a painterly afterimage. This trail also acts as a window into the sky just as the blade does.
• The blade is surrounded with a soft yellow glow.
• The player’s body is surrounded with a soft blue aura.
• The blade gives off a burst of light when drawn.
• The player’s footsteps leave a window into the sky at sunrise on the ground.
• The blade and its afterimage are surrounded in sparkling stars.
• Mirror Blade, Binding Blade, and Whirling Wrath are altered slightly, the player throws Sunrise rather than an illusionary sword.

BOLT:

• Unique sound effects when slashing and striking.
• A very annoying buzzing sound that plays whenever you hold it.
• Lightning surrounds the user’s body when the sword is drawn and in the main hand.
• Lightning surrounds the weapon when it is drawn.
• Leaves trails of lightning when slashing.

THE BIFROST:

• The staff is surrounded in swirling ribbons of rainbow.
• Pieces of rainbow fly off in all directions.

THE JUGGERNAUT:

• Drawing the weapon causes the player to be covered in liquid metal. The color of the metal changes with the dye on the player’s armor.
• Running down its spine is a thermometer shaped tube containing the Vial of Quicksilver used to craft it. The quicksilver shifts in response to the player’s swings
• Swinging the weapon causes it to spill and splash quicksilver.

METEOROLOGICUS:

• Meteorologicus is a planetarium whose planets and clouds move.
• Has a small glowing effect.

FROSTFANG:

• The arm holding Frostfang is covered in ice.
• The user leaves icy footsteps.

THE PREDATOR:

• New audio when shooting making it resemble a sci-fi energy weapon.
• Purple burst at the barrel when fired.
• Grenade Barrage fires glowing purple projectiles.

INCINERATOR:

• Blade is composed of a shaft of flame resembling that from a welding torch
• Player’s footsteps leave fire on the ground

THE DREAMER:

• Player fires unicorn heads instead of arrows. These projectiles leave rainbow trails.
• Tassles on the weapon sway with the player’s movement.

KUDZU:

• Player’s footsteps leave flowers on the ground
• That’s it?

It’s very hard to finally see what you have spent hundreds of hours on and be… disappointed. It’s even harder to take when you look at what other people have gotten for the same effort. Frostfang is a disappointment.

Shrug dev plays warrior with greatsword, what else is new

There are also 2 legendary greatswords compared to 1 of each for other legendaries

I’m at 40 clovers and after long debate I decided to reroll to profession that can use greatsword because wtf is the point of getting legendary that looks worse than regular exotic?

I can’t wait to see the Flameseeker Prophecies.

There’s only so much you can do with a shield. lol

Harbinger.8637:

I can’t wait to see the Flameseeker Prophecies.

There’s only so much you can do with a shield. lol

Not at all. For example, they could make it so that Shield Stance, Magnetic Shield, and Shield of Absorption cause the pages of the book to fly out and create a barrier around the player. Of course, I strongly doubt they actually did that. My money is on them just making the book glow and turn its pages and leaving it at that.

Harbinger.8637:

I can’t wait to see the Flameseeker Prophecies.

There’s only so much you can do with a shield. lol

I dunno, I thought shield was kinda cool, it has animation of page flipping book

You seem right about the pages….
Was hoping for more.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Flameseeker_drawn.png

The Flameseeker Prophecies is a golden shield with a decorative book on it. When the shield is drawn, the book will light up with a blue shine and start flipping through the pages.

The only video we’ve seen of The Flameseeker Prophecies is the developer video, which is why I didn’t include it in the OP. Once we see someone actually make one and look at all the effects, we can start feeling sorry for them.

With the exception of the greatswords and the juggernaut, it pretty much feel like a complete waste of time.

Bolt and bifrost aren’t that bad actually, especially bolt, but it’s still not even close to those 3.

And yet Sunrise and Bolt are horribly ugly, with cheesy “please look at me” effects while Bifrost, Kudzu, etc., are stylish and elegant.

Bifrost: Rainbow footsteps. Rainbow glow around the character.
Kudzu: Arrows leave petals in the air

Hoping the Devs look into this. It’s painfully obvious only the greatswords were worked on in detail. I mean… there’s 3 (don’t forget Eternity!) with great particle effects in comparison to one of every other type with minimal particle effects. What’s the deal?

Incinerator is even welding torchy in nature instead of being like a magical flame, too mundane =( They could have at least made it a green flame (or anything that matches the player’s dye) with a fancy hilt =)

it seems like there is a divide in the leendaries, on one side is weapons a warrior can use, andthe other side is stuff you’d find in a toybox

there is NOTHING in the legendary list that would fit a necro, thief, or engineer

warriors get frostfang and the three greatswords
guardians get flmeseeker propecies
mesmers get bifrost, quip, and the minstrel
rangers get howler
elementalists get incinerator and meteorlogicus (and bifrost to a far lesser extent)

where are the darker weapons?
where are the non rainbow shooting bows?
where are the guns that won’t make me embarrased to use (or at least, let me use it PROPERLY, sniper rifle != shooting from the hip)

yeah, as a necromancer I really don’t feel the bifrost. Originally I was gonna get it, but now that I’ve watched the video again, the rainbow effects are too prominent. Hopefully this Halloween update will give us another alternative for legendary staffs.

Legendaries were designed with certain professions in mind. Predator is obviously designed for Warriors, who actually aim down sights so it looks like they use the scope. And actually use their Rifle as a long-range weapon, fitting for a Sniper Rifle. Their adrenaline ability is even a carefully aimed shot from a crouching position that deals massive damage.

Then the Engineer, who shoots from the hip and never looks down the scope. And doesnt use the Rifle as a ranged weapon, but as a shotgun. The closer to the target the better.
A sniper rifle is completely counter intuitive and immersion breaking on an Engineer because of the way they use it.

Only two classes use Rifle, and the Legendary clearly fits one and not the other.

For those thinking the OP is talking about Legendaries that have never been crafted:

• Here is a video of the Predator. Watching the video in high definition, the rifle does look rather nice, with a very detailed texture; I also laugh at the comment about “firing a sniper rifle from the hip”. However, it’s IMO lacking if compared to the greatswords or the hammer or the staff, due to the lack of secondary effects. It should either have some kind of footsteps or, preferably, give some kind of aura to the character. ArenaNet should have added a faint blurred aura around the character, similar to what we see in that other Predator

• Here we have pictures of Frostfang. I would need a movie to have a more educated opinion, but for now it feels like a disappointment. One handed weapons are already harder to see than two handed weapons, so having all that work to craft a Legendary one handed weapon instead of a two handed doesn’t feel like it’s worth it. The one handed weapons should be extra awesome to compensate… And Frostfang isn’t. The frozen footsteps are interesting, but the lack of particle effects is just too much. The skin itself doesn’t look that nice.

• Here are pictures from Meteorlogicus. Like the axe, I still haven’t seen a video, but the pictures look disappointing – I would expect more effects like bigger clouds, rain, thunder and so on.

The greatswords, the hammer, the staff and the sword are IMO great. A guy has crafted the mace and promised pictures here but if I were going to craft a Legendary right now, I would avoid the one handed weapons.

Erasculio.2914:

For those thinking the OP is talking about Legendaries that have never been crafted:

• Here is a video of the Predator. Watching the video in high definition, the rifle does look rather nice, with a very detailed texture; I also laugh at the comment about “firing a sniper rifle from the hip”. However, it’s IMO lacking if compared to the greatswords or the hammer or the staff, due to the lack of secondary effects. It should either have some kind of footsteps or, preferably, give some kind of aura to the character. ArenaNet should have added a faint blurred aura around the character, similar to what we see in that other Predator

Judging by that video it might supposed to have foot prints and is a bug, as when the engineer uses jumpshot an effect is left on the ground similar to the statis around the gun…Or I can hope >_> not sure how submitable it is

Edit: Nevermind :l Just the normal launch from jumpshot….Ah well, i can dream?

Then you look at the fact that there are in fact THREE greatsword legendaries. Twilight, Sunrise and the two combined, Eternity or something.

There is a lot of favoritism going on..

As the crafter of The Predator, the rifle you see in that video, I must say I am happy with what I received. There is no doubt about it and I dont regret it.

However I must attest to what is being said here. The level of effort put into some of the weapons just isnt equal. The engineer gets 3 weapons he can pick from, only 1 of which is a 2 hander and that is the rifle.

For the purposes of the skills, rifle is practically the only viable weapon in wvw as condition damage from the pistol scales very badly with pve gear ( a topic for another time and another place).

The point is, Engineer for example isnt given much variety. I would expect the few weapons we can have to be astounding. And yet the warrior can have TWO greatswords, as well as the hammer, as well as my rifle, as well as the axe, as well as the shield, as well as the mace, as well as the longbow, as well as the sword.

What I am saying is that warriors had a lot of variety to choose from, and hammer is just as viable as greatsword in wvw for example. So why did the warriors get even extra work on a weapon that is unique to only 2 classes (Warrior and Guardian).

In any case to offer constructive feedback rather than complain.

A legendary should have
1. Detailed texture and particle effects to appreciate the art

2. Something to make it noticeable outside of combat. When I am not in combat, nobody can really tell that my rifle is a legendary rifle. Yet everyone knows twilight is because of the constant animations. What I ask is that every weapon do something out of combat. In the case of the rifle, the purple plasma that occurs at the tip of my gun during fire, should coat the entirety of my armor, or be left in the wake of my footsteps. As such even when I am just walking around, everyone will know that I am wielding a legendary, as it should be.

3. Something in combat that makes it clear you have a legendary. This can be a defining characteristic. At the moment when a twilight/sunrise is swung in battle there is a trail of texture left all over the place, when you are hit by sunrise or twilight you know it. Now the other weapons not so much. I cant speak on behalf of the other classes and their legendaries, but in the case of mine on my engineer. An idea could be when you drop supply crate, instead of just dropping a crate, if you are wielding the legendary, you cause a sci fi beam to appear from the ski and beam in your supplies. Exactly like how beaming works in sci fi movies. This way when you use supply crate in battle, a massive beam from the sky would port in your kit and EVERYONE on the battle field would know that a legendary weapon is within the area, just like with sunrise/twilight. The thing with such a change is its easy, I know you have the animations for it, just take the animation for Ray of Judgement from GW1, everyone loved the holy beam animation, you can just do the same here for supply crate and you just made the weapon super epic.

Anyways just my 2 cents, I would still have my rifle over anything, and I certainly wouldnt reroll what I love to play just to wield a different skin.

Another thing to note that I think could be important on the pistol and rifle are that they both will or have special sound effects, which I think isn’t really all to well especially if you tend to play with volume off and isn’t as rewarding as a visual thing which would always be present

Well… i am a pistol lover, still waiting to see Quip, however, it looks so ridiculous.
and i guess the effect will be even worse than Frostfang .

ATM, i guess is impossible for Anet to remake those Legendary, but only to add some more effect.

I Strongly Suggest Anet make another set of legendary for us to choose.

Greatsword should not be the only weapon having choices.
not many people love such a toy gun….

ForTe.8462:

Well… i am a pistol lover, still waiting to see Quip, however, it looks so ridiculous.
and i guess the effect will be even worse than Frostfang .

ATM, i guess is impossible for Anet to remake those Legendary, but only to add some more effect.

I Strongly Suggest Anet make another set of legendary for us to choose.

Just saw Quip in action on Stormbluff Isle, Shoots confetti, flowers AND rainbows. Makes a party popper sound when fired as well as a squeel noise like from a rubber ducky. Soft purple glow (might be from some other effect). No footsteps.

Personally, I love it and is my favorite of all the one-handers.

Jujube.4981:

ForTe.8462:

Well… i am a pistol lover, still waiting to see Quip, however, it looks so ridiculous.
and i guess the effect will be even worse than Frostfang .

ATM, i guess is impossible for Anet to remake those Legendary, but only to add some more effect.

I Strongly Suggest Anet make another set of legendary for us to choose.

Just saw Quip in action on Stormbluff Isle, Shoots confetti, flowers AND rainbows. Makes a party popper sound when fired as well as a squeel noise like from a rubber ducky. Soft purple glow (might be from some other effect). No footsteps.

Personally, I love it and is my favorite of all the one-handers.

Ah well, thz for informing , it he in LA? i just jump to Stormbluff Isle couple hours ago

I agree with this notion and one of the biggest reasons that this may be sadly true is the fact that everyone is mostly interested in the twilight and sunrise as opposed to other legendary weapons.

Personally, weapons like the incinerator lacks so much details even though it has the base of a great looking weapon. I also think that adding effects wouldn’t be enough and I suppose a lot of REMODELING needs to be done to weapons like incinerator’s handle or the scepter.

Too bad aegis visual effect ruins flameseeker shield on a guardian. Aegis/retilation visual effect should be disabled in PVE environments.

I would like to hear a Dev respond to these concerns. Many legendaries are clearly lacking in comparison to the Greatswords and Staff. Did they simply put minimum effort into weapons they don’t personally like or something?

Well , the bows are the worst legendaries i think . Their concept is great , but they made them bad . Really bad . Major letdown .

Calcifire.1864:

it seems like there is a divide in the leendaries, on one side is weapons a warrior can use, andthe other side is stuff you’d find in a toybox

there is NOTHING in the legendary list that would fit a necro, thief, or engineer

warriors get frostfang and the three greatswords
guardians get flmeseeker propecies
mesmers get bifrost, quip, and the minstrel
rangers get howler
elementalists get incinerator and meteorlogicus (and bifrost to a far lesser extent)

where are the darker weapons?
where are the non rainbow shooting bows?
where are the guns that won’t make me embarrased to use (or at least, let me use it PROPERLY, sniper rifle != shooting from the hip)

Incinerator kind of fits thief (especially charr), but yeah =( While I love the unicorn bow I think there should be more variety. I was originally going for the dagger but… that bow ^_^

Oh, and predator fits engineer perfectly.

I see a certain pattern here which is what I assumed happened:

1. Artist comes up with some really fancy designs for some cool Greatswords. He calls them Dusk and Dawn.

2. Development team is impressed and thinks they deserve to be more than just another weapon skin.

3. Game Designers conceive Legendaries.

4. Art team is tasked with creating additional Legendaries so every class and weapon is covered.
_________________________________________________

The clue is that you can tell the Greatswords were born from Inspiration while the others were not. Instead someone was tasked with designing them and hence they look and feel less original.

Let’s hope that future patches will make the legendary weapons better.

Dee Jay.2460:

The clue is that you can tell the Greatswords were born from Inspiration while the others were not. Instead someone was tasked with designing them and hence they look and feel less original.

This. And while obviously a developer will refute this statement, as they have to for PR. I do ask simply, why is it that not ALL legendaries have footsteps and auras and yet the greatswords do?

As a legendary crafter myself, I am directly asking the developers who may or may not read this, why does my legendary weapon (The Predator) not have any aura/footsteps to discern me from everyone else? I dont mind not having one, but then I dont see why other skins should. And yes that sounds vain, but the entire premise of obtaining a legendary is that you are seeking a vanity item. Legendaries should be equal, not some legendaries more defined than other for no specific reason, unless a developer can give a direct and reasonable reason.

Flower footsteps, lightning body, metal body, rainbow bullets, etc etc are all well and good. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. I don’t have a problem with any of the flavors, to each their own.

What concerns me is that they’re not all created equally, as the title indicates. Look at something like the scepter.. which is a faint glow and moving parts. It is nowhere near as distinguishable as the other legendarys. Nice skin, sure. But if I were hoping for one thing for all legendarys to have in common, it would be that WOW effect that stands out. And they don’t all have that.

Someone who has not previewed and researched what legendaries looked like would not be able to tell half of these weapons are “legendary”. The whole concept (even mentioned in the Dev blog) is that when you see one you know that this weapons is without a doubt legendary. If I came across someone with meteorlogicus, frostfang or incinerator (side from footsteps) I honestly would not have even noticed if I didn’t know before hand what they all looked like from previews.

There’s a reason why the legendary “trailer” video by Anet showed Twilight, Sunrise, Bifrost, Juggernaut and Flameseeker. They are the only ones worthy of being called legendary.

@Agemnon
“Oh, and predator fits engineer perfectly.”
you would think so… but engineers use rifles as shotguns, they would be firing a SNIPER RIFLE from the hip >_<

Calcifire.1864:

@Agemnon
“Oh, and predator fits engineer perfectly.”
you would think so… but engineers use rifles as shotguns, they would be firing a SNIPER RIFLE from the hip >_<

Good use of that scope n’ stuff

Anet gives us animations and effect equal to Sunrise, Twilight and The Juggernaut…. PLEASE!!!!! :´)

I agree, that most of the legendary weapons could use a “cooler” makeover. Really hope arent look into this

I actually want the dreamer effect on quip. But, meh. I originally wanted to get flameseeker but it’s so expensive (comparatively) and the halloween skin seemed much cooler. =P

maybe they’ll give more effects for the legendaries (or godforbid they release a “new” set of legendaries :|) in the future? It’s free to hope

A guy with bolt posted on guru saying that they adjusted bolt so the buzzing is only about 2 seconds when you draw it out and goes away. Also the slashing effects have changed also. He says its much better than before.

I can confirm that. A guildie of mine has bolt and it looks so good now + no lame perma buzzing

Since i am a Ranger and a bow fan i do get disappointed, throwing the great swords next to the bows:< all the greatswords skills get cool effect, and the things leave a freaking awesome trail behind them, the dreamer has a rainbow effect, and kudzu footsteps:/ like comeon kudzu should have at least some nature looking effect, and the dreamer.. not unicorns, stars, awesome cool looking stars, that tends to be what u think when u try to visualize a dreamer right? bolt looks great, but i can say even…
Meteoroligicus is lacking on the effects, does it even do anything other than sit in ur hand and have planets on it? give these weapons some like.. awesome effects, bigger particle effects for bows or something? or a full body aura like bolt? just sayin alot of legendaries look like they be lackinxD Not that this is the #1 issue right now, class fixes should be #1 but this should be on the list

If you were a GS warrior, you’d change your mind about thinking that all the dev’s are GS warriors….

More likely they’re GS guardians. GS guardians don’t self-root themselves for 3.5 seconds every 6 seconds. GS guardians can also dodge-roll whenever they like, whereas GS warriors cannot dodgeroll out of #2 #3 or #5, all with long cast times. GS warrior is the self-cc weapon set.

But yes, Twilight and Sunrise are on a completely different level of greatness when it comes to legendaries.

It is very obvious the legendaries were designed with warriors in mind. It’s not just the greatswords. Whoever did the work on them played a warrior or was asked to design them for a warrior. The non-warrior weapons tend to be pathetic in comparison.

This is true. There are some exotics that should be classified as legendaries… and some legendaries that could be classed as exotics. LOL

I guess it’s just a case of different strokes for different folks.

Nothing to do with opinions tbh. Anyone can see with a bit of common sense Greatswords have received way more love than most of the other legendaries. Like the skin or not, one can still compare GS effects, detail, particles etc to other weapons.

Greatswords do look cool but something else to consider atm is this:

Forging and equipping a Twilight or Sunrise alone does not unlock the equipping a legendary achievement… only the Eternity will unlock the achievement… so although the swords look cool… anyone who is chasing them has to work twice as hard to unlock the same achievement as any other legendary.

I’m not sure if this is a bug or not.

Aphix.9846:

Nothing to do with opinions tbh. Anyone can see with a bit of common sense Greatswords have received way more love than most of the other legendaries. Like the skin or not, one can still compare GS effects, detail, particles etc to other weapons.

The Halloween skins proof this perception to be even more valid. Anet needs to start accepting that some of their weapons do need work. Besides, they are legendaries and they should be recognizable when someone walks by you.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/71900-legendary-focus-the-minstrel/ . lawl what a joke of a legendary, might aswell create spirit links, costs a whole lot less and looks a whole lot better.

since apparently i cant edit my own post, i also wonder how some of these wep were "ok’d " to be legendary………..no offence to whoever developed them but……….i am disappoint lol.