Guild Wars 2

Iris Ng.9845:

I foresee the death of staff guard in dungeons and fractals.

you think people are going to use this spec a lot?

why standing in front line when you can heal and support from the back line?

Iris Ng.9845:

why standing in front line when you can heal and support from the back line?

^
It not a matter of if, its a matter of when.
1) Holybow
2) Healbow
3) …..?

… trapbow?

To be honest i think we should be greatful that staff may be replaced by longbow in the pug meta. :>

Although i dread the rise of the staffbow (relevant to druids aswell).

spoj.9672:

To be honest i think we should be greatful that staff may be replaced by longbow in the pug meta. :>

Although i dread the rise of the staffbow (relevant to druids aswell).

BearStaff*(?) also gonna happen. But theres a chance staff being a melee. One can dream ;x

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

I’d be ok with seeing LB as replacing staff in ‘weapons to eyeroll to’.

I have little hope for longbow being any good, but traps could be legitimate if they have strong damage components or really awesome trait interactions. Additionally, I’m hopeful that the elite specialization trait line will at least be pretty good. If it’s really just an attempt to enable the condition Guardian then it will be trash, though.

Honestly, I’m kind of sad about this (and especially about the name). Chronomancer set the bar so high and this was a major letdown for me.

Thinks of it this way:

Guardians aren’t meant to be xciting, they’re just meant to be

The worst thing about it is the name. Like really, Dragonhunter ? Inb4 new roleplayer favourite..

At least the ele spec name is cool, chrono is also okayish..

Rising Dusk.2408:

I have little hope for longbow being any good, but traps could be legitimate if they have strong damage components or really awesome trait interactions. Additionally, I’m hopeful that the elite specialization trait line will at least be pretty good. If it’s really just an attempt to enable the condition Guardian then it will be trash, though.

Honestly, I’m kind of sad about this (and especially about the name). Chronomancer set the bar so high and this was a major letdown for me.

I actually really like it, no disappointment here at all. Guard is as solid of a profession as they come. And with the new traits even more so. We have damage builds, we have more tanky builds, we have solid mixes with solid support. If we lacked anything it was condi and solid soft-CC… sounds like that’s what they brought us. May not suite PVE very well, but again, did guard need anything in PVE? I mean outside of trying to maximize damage with Ele stacking a guard is always a welcome sight in a group.

Personally what I was hoping for was a more offensive offhand, something with some real oomf, but with the new torch trait we may already have that more offensive option to bump focus out when it’s not needed. So I think it’s a good move to fill in the gaps with the specialization.

Chronomancer had to be what it is becuase mesmers simply lacked across the board with their impractical mechanics and weak damage, so I’m glad they got that boost through an amazing specialization.

I hope they follow this idea with Necros and give them some of that support they lack. And then for Ele who doesn’t really lack anything, I hope we can just get a competitive option to staff but with a more fun rotation Warrior a DPS option that isn’t facerolling the keyboard would be nice also. Engi, well I don’t really give a kitten because Engi looks awesome as is!

Jerus.4350:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I have little hope for longbow being any good, but traps could be legitimate if they have strong damage components or really awesome trait interactions. Additionally, I’m hopeful that the elite specialization trait line will at least be pretty good. If it’s really just an attempt to enable the condition Guardian then it will be trash, though.

Honestly, I’m kind of sad about this (and especially about the name). Chronomancer set the bar so high and this was a major letdown for me.

I actually really like it, no disappointment here at all. Guard is as solid of a profession as they come. And with the new traits even more so. We have damage builds, we have more tanky builds, we have solid mixes with solid support. If we lacked anything it was condi and solid soft-CC… sounds like that’s what they brought us. May not suite PVE very well, but again, did guard need anything in PVE? I mean outside of trying to maximize damage with Ele stacking a guard is always a welcome sight in a group.

Personally what I was hoping for was a more offensive offhand, something with some real oomf, but with the new torch trait we may already have that more offensive option to bump focus out when it’s not needed. So I think it’s a good move to fill in the gaps with the specialization.

Chronomancer had to be what it is becuase mesmers simply lacked across the board with their impractical mechanics and weak damage, so I’m glad they got that boost through an amazing specialization.

I hope they follow this idea with Necros and give them some of that support they lack. And then for Ele who doesn’t really lack anything, I hope we can just get a competitive option to staff but with a more fun rotation Warrior a DPS option that isn’t facerolling the keyboard would be nice also. Engi, well I don’t really give a kitten because Engi looks awesome as is!

well one thing they mentioned, is that they want the specs to have a higher skill cieling in general.
warrior was always a little too basic for me, perhaps they can get some more interesting mechanics.

Jerus.4350:

I actually really like it, no disappointment here at all. Guard is as solid of a profession as they come. And with the new traits even more so. We have damage builds, we have more tanky builds, we have solid mixes with solid support. If we lacked anything it was condi and solid soft-CC… sounds like that’s what they brought us. May not suite PVE very well, but again, did guard need anything in PVE? I mean outside of trying to maximize damage with Ele stacking a guard is always a welcome sight in a group.

Personally what I was hoping for was a more offensive offhand, something with some real oomf, but with the new torch trait we may already have that more offensive option to bump focus out when it’s not needed. So I think it’s a good move to fill in the gaps with the specialization.

I guess that’s somewhat logical, I’m just really disappointed that there’s nothing new for guardians. It wouldn’t be an issue if we actually got new content, but playing the same class with the same abilities, beating the same old content for another year (at least) is just terribly disappointing, especially after seeing the chronomancer. Atm I don’t see a reason to buy HoT, that’s for sure.

cranos.5913:

Jerus.4350:

I actually really like it, no disappointment here at all. Guard is as solid of a profession as they come. And with the new traits even more so. We have damage builds, we have more tanky builds, we have solid mixes with solid support. If we lacked anything it was condi and solid soft-CC… sounds like that’s what they brought us. May not suite PVE very well, but again, did guard need anything in PVE? I mean outside of trying to maximize damage with Ele stacking a guard is always a welcome sight in a group.

Personally what I was hoping for was a more offensive offhand, something with some real oomf, but with the new torch trait we may already have that more offensive option to bump focus out when it’s not needed. So I think it’s a good move to fill in the gaps with the specialization.

I guess that’s somewhat logical, I’m just really disappointed that there’s nothing new for guardians. It wouldn’t be an issue if we actually got new content, but playing the same class with the same abilities, beating the same old content for another year (at least) is just terribly disappointing, especially after seeing the chronomancer. Atm I don’t see a reason to buy HoT, that’s for sure.

But, again, you didn’t get “nothing new for guardians” you literally got everything you lacked, it just doesn’t hold up in dungeon content (at least what we’ve seen). I hear ya though, new content is ALL I desire, the professions I play I already love, especially with the new traits (for most of them, ele/war = zzzz)

Jerus.4350:

But, again, you didn’t get “nothing new for guardians” you literally got everything you lacked, it just doesn’t hold up in dungeon content (at least what we’ve seen). I hear ya though, new content is ALL I desire, the professions I play I already love, especially with the new traits (for most of them, ele/war = zzzz)

I get nothing new to play around with in dungeons/fractals though. I was rly hoping for a bigger change, maybe an F4 ability. It’s just a shame imo, nothing to make it fresh again.

I dont see how you get nothing? You dont know for sure. The new f1 looks like it could be good for spammable damage. Some of the traps could actually be good. And maybe there will be some nice new utility aswell. You dont have enough info to make such an assumption yet.

In fact all the virtue upgrades are pretty nice (remember all the virtue traits should work with them still). They might not be worth the tradeoffs in most situations though.

What you people appear to be forgetting is that we recently had a developer for the chronomancer in the Points of Interest….

PLAYING WITH A STAFF MESMER.

So this guardian specialization will go in 2 possible ways:

Either the encounters and boon/combo mechanisms really changed in this xpac, or this is the case where developers think a ranged support specialization is remotely relevant to PvE.

Also don’t knock longbow, who knows all staff weapons suck except ele staff so the guardian longbow might be that one exception with a hideously strong cleaving autoattack and lava font/potent aoe.

People celebrating Chronomancer, when they brought PvP garbage into PvE by making the temporal rift killable so every encounter with aoe spam may interrupt your continuum split immediately.

Also a dumb internal cooldown on not shattering phantasms and it needing a trait for such a functionality that should be baseline in PvE. All for PvP purposes.

I think you people will have to accept at some point they balance this game PvP/WvW first and PvE is not a priority.

Zenith.7301:

…
I think you people will have to accept at some point they balance this game PvP/WvW first and PvE is not a priority.

I never understood how you can think you are able to balance both game mods pve and pvp (and wvwvw?) at the same time even so they are so different to each other. Why not make it yourself easy and say there are different versions of a skill with different stats for each game mode?

BlueLouMarini.5986:

Zenith.7301:

…
I think you people will have to accept at some point they balance this game PvP/WvW first and PvE is not a priority.

I never understood how you can think you are able to balance both game mods pve and pvp (and wvwvw?) at the same time even so they are so different to each other. Why not make it yourself easy and say there are different versions of a skill with different stats for each game mode?

It took them years to even increase the necromancer dagger from single target to a still mediocre 2 target cleave, while leaving most of the terrible traits alone even until this expansion. Their “big” ranger patch was an underwater patch, the pet is still garbage and doesn’t scale with ascended stats upgrades or shares boons without a trait.

Given that picture, do you earnestly think they’re gonna take on the workload of maintaining and balancing skillsets across different formats given that even in a single format their balancing pace has been glacial?

Their promised precursor hunt 4 months into release turned into a 3 year affair hidden behind the paywall of an expansion pack.

B2P games are notorious for their lack of emphasis on systems and class balancing. Look at ESO it’s an exact copy of this scenario.

RSLongK.8961:

Staff Guards + Bearbow = HolyBow?

They call them Buffbow on reddit

spoj.9672:

I dont see how you get nothing? You dont know for sure. The new f1 looks like it could be good for spammable damage. Some of the traps could actually be good. And maybe there will be some nice new utility aswell. You dont have enough info to make such an assumption yet.

In fact all the virtue upgrades are pretty nice (remember all the virtue traits should work with them still). They might not be worth the tradeoffs in most situations though.

Babe, tell me you REALLY think some traps are gonna be used in fracs instead of wor/syg/retreat/hg.
They just wanted to please carebears. Again. kitten crappy and uninspired phiw condi build with a kittenty name for roleplayers.
Thank random deity for acctbound ascended gear….

deSade.9437:

Babe, tell me you REALLY think some traps are gonna be used in fracs instead of wor/syg/retreat/hg.
They just wanted to please carebears. Again. kitten crappy and uninspired phiw condi build with a kittenty name for roleplayers.
Thank random deity for acctbound ascended gear….

How can we know? We have no idea what these traps will do.

I know maybe its not meta, but give a lot control that maybe the developer found usefull in testing other things( like with meta he would have passed the entire POI dodging and dpsing and was not needed), and why, pls why, tell me what is wrong or to be buffer in staff mesmer, its one of The class best weapon with a lot of utility, and pls tell me why you needed to caps that…. Really cant stand such affermation completely out of reality and narrow minded like this… IT show only disgust for majority of player choices and game design… like you know and if we dont we are trash… Sorry maybe im taking this too personally, but that claim shows a very bad attitude…

What you people appear to be forgetting is that we recently had a developer for the chronomancer in the Points of Interest….

PLAYING WITH A STAFF MESMER.

So this guardian specialization will go in 2 possible ways:

Either the encounters and boon/combo mechanisms really changed in this xpac, or this is the case where developers think a ranged support specialization is remotely relevant to PvE.

Also don’t knock longbow, who knows all staff weapons suck except ele staff so the guardian longbow might be that one exception with a hideously strong cleaving autoattack and lava font/potent aoe.

People celebrating Chronomancer, when they brought PvP garbage into PvE by making the temporal rift killable so every encounter with aoe spam may interrupt your continuum split immediately.

Also a dumb internal cooldown on not shattering phantasms and it needing a trait for such a functionality that should be baseline in PvE. All for PvP purposes.

I think you people will have to accept at some point they balance this game PvP/WvW first and PvE is not a priority.

Perma immob guard. DPS traps. A DPS elite? Theres definitely real possibilities of it being ok in some situations. Assuming you dont need a full loadout of current utilities. And the virtue upgrades could be pretty strong.

Either way i dont really care. Guard is fine as it is in the meta. It doesnt really need anything. This is just new flavour stuff to play around with. That and i dont really play much guard so it doesnt bother me as much. One less spec to rush to try out.

The guardian specialization really seems to cater towards pvp and wvw more than pve. However i imagine the specialization might be good for difficult (lol) content by being able to cc bosses and things like that.

deSade.9437:

spoj.9672:

I dont see how you get nothing? You dont know for sure. The new f1 looks like it could be good for spammable damage. Some of the traps could actually be good. And maybe there will be some nice new utility aswell. You dont have enough info to make such an assumption yet.

In fact all the virtue upgrades are pretty nice (remember all the virtue traits should work with them still). They might not be worth the tradeoffs in most situations though.

Babe, tell me you REALLY think some traps are gonna be used in fracs instead of wor/syg/retreat/hg.
They just wanted to please carebears. Again. kitten crappy and uninspired phiw condi build with a kittenty name for roleplayers.
Thank random deity for acctbound ascended gear….

Well yeh. BUT WINGS!!!!

I can take pretty screenshots. That’s good right?

cranos.5913:

Jerus.4350:

But, again, you didn’t get “nothing new for guardians” you literally got everything you lacked, it just doesn’t hold up in dungeon content (at least what we’ve seen). I hear ya though, new content is ALL I desire, the professions I play I already love, especially with the new traits (for most of them, ele/war = zzzz)

I get nothing new to play around with in dungeons/fractals though. I was rly hoping for a bigger change, maybe an F4 ability. It’s just a shame imo, nothing to make it fresh again.

the changes to the f skills are actually probably more powerful/skill based.
im assuming these will be slightly more powerful since they must be aimed, and can probably be interupted/prevented

aimable burn beam, instead of pbaoe
aimable leap/cure/dmg instead of pbaoe cure
aimable block all for short duration vs pbaoe 1 block.

thats a pretty big deal, but i think the biggest factor is that guardians class mechanic had the least to do with the class, so altering the class mechanic doesnt change much.

it was basically just 3 signets that werent called signets.

ehh, I use my virtues quite often, the Aegis one is one of the biggest strengths of the guard. Justice blind spam can be amazing, And cure from resolve can be huge against things like Arahp4 Lyssa or even AC’s RUmbles if your team sucks at dodging/bursting.

But, yes it’ll be interesting to see and play around with, just looking at what we’ve seen I doubt it’ll make a play for PVE content, but that’s fine.

Jerus.4350:

ehh, I use my virtues quite often, the Aegis one is one of the biggest strengths of the guard. Justice blind spam can be amazing, And cure from resolve can be huge against things like Arahp4 Lyssa or even AC’s RUmbles if your team sucks at dodging/bursting.

But, yes it’ll be interesting to see and play around with, just looking at what we’ve seen I doubt it’ll make a play for PVE content, but that’s fine.

Sicne you can slot in and out, the extra block/reflect field will be nice for smoe fights.

Seems the new specialization has dps increase traits, at least 25% increase. How does the aegis wall work, is it actual perma aegis or for the duration or?

looks like guard will be able to vuln stack significantly ?

the vuln trap wont be enough uptime, but the 10 sec vulns from the gm trait are quite nice. since you can put out a bunch more hits than just what a warrior autoattack accomplishes.

oh and those burn ticks. very eye catching.

What i’m worried, that 1s vulnerability, will mobs still have unshakeable? The mobs will have half a second of vulnerability every second? Sounds weird.

im under the impression that unshakable will be replaced by a generic defiance bar, so theres that

Well this sells it:

Big Game Hunter: Striking an enemy tethered by your spear of justice causes vulnerability with every attack and increase 15% damage dealt. This will boost your allies’s damage as well with all the vulnerability stacks.

Guardians get their very own vulnerability now.

Light’s Judgement vs Well of Suffering

http://i.imgur.com/cToYsZy.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Suffering

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Im seeing a trend of godly overpowered skills on the new specs so far. But im willing to bet necro doesnt get anything anywhere near that amazing.

I’m glad that the bow is not boring For those who missed ReadyUp, you can read and watch it again on Dulfy’s site.

http://dulfy.net/2015/05/08/gw2-dragonhunter-ready-up-livestream-notes/

Yea i’m noticing a huge power creep with both, they really going to turn this into pay to win unless they balance normal skills accordingly.

Gyler.8150:

Yea i’m noticing a huge power creep with both, they really going to turn this into pay to win unless they balance normal skills accordingly.

How is it pay to win, the power is not available through the cash shop or a gold grind, and the power creep is tied to specializations and all of the classes are getting one.

Did you really think they would make specializations optional? Keep dreaming they’re a large part of this xpac’s character progression.

Also lol at True Shot, people were whining about rapid fire in PvP, True Shot is basically a Rapid Fire with 1.75 less seconds of cast time, more damage, baseline piercing and not retaliation bait. Oh and less than half of rapid fire’s cooldown.

Hi rangers, they had to make some other class better at longbow than you. And it is hardly likely that your druid staff will be better than ele staff.

p2w is about having to spend money in the “gemstore” to gain power, it’s not about buying an expansion pack that has power creep.

The direction they’re going with HoT is just horrible IMO. I can’t help but feel that it goes directly against some fo the core ideas that made this game great. Power creep on this level will completely kill off any fun left to be had in old content unless they update it (we know that’s not going to happen).

I’m getting less and less hyped abuot the expansion every time they post something, I wanna see the content and whether it’ll actually be worth playing or not.

That powercreep is starting to be the story here ><

Jerus.4350:

p2w is about having to spend money in the “gemstore” to gain power, it’s not about buying an expansion pack that has power creep.

The direction they’re going with HoT is just horrible IMO. I can’t help but feel that it goes directly against some fo the core ideas that made this game great. Power creep on this level will completely kill off any fun left to be had in old content unless they update it (we know that’s not going to happen).

I’m getting less and less hyped abuot the expansion every time they post something, I wanna see the content and whether it’ll actually be worth playing or not.

Um, you’ve been facerolling 2+ year old bugged dungeons with garbage AI, surely it’s of little consequence how more trivial they get considering all of them are trivial.

Just hope the new content is actually interesting and not just open world PvE farm land with 2 new dungeons and and 1-2 fractals for the next 3 years.

Zenith.7301:

Jerus.4350:

p2w is about having to spend money in the “gemstore” to gain power, it’s not about buying an expansion pack that has power creep.

The direction they’re going with HoT is just horrible IMO. I can’t help but feel that it goes directly against some fo the core ideas that made this game great. Power creep on this level will completely kill off any fun left to be had in old content unless they update it (we know that’s not going to happen).

I’m getting less and less hyped abuot the expansion every time they post something, I wanna see the content and whether it’ll actually be worth playing or not.

Um, you’ve been facerolling 2+ year old bugged dungeons with garbage AI, surely it’s of little consequence how more trivial they get considering all of them are trivial.

Just hope the new content is actually interesting and not just open world PvE farm land with 2 new dungeons and and 1-2 fractals for the next 3 years.

I’m more worried about fractals which can still be entertaining if you aren’t completely synced up with your group and running it perfectly.

Right all professions are getting specializations, if you get the paid expansion. For those players who don’t or can’t get the expansion, they will be getting a bit left behind compared to the new professions.

Examples being chronomancer quickness + alacrity + phantasm blowout fire sale or the guardians 15% partywide damage increase + walking aegis / wall of reflect + insane traps.

It was to my understanding specializations were going to compete with the normal professions, but so far its hard to see how.

Gyler.8150:

Right all professions are getting specializations, if you get the paid expansion. For those players who don’t or can’t get the expansion, they will be getting a bit left behind compared to the new professions.

Examples being chronomancer quickness + alacrity + phantasm blowout fire sale or the guardians 15% partywide damage increase + walking aegis / wall of reflect + insane traps.

It was to my understanding specializations were going to compete with the normal professions, but so far its hard to see how.

Holding the p2w term to the strictest of interpretations just clouds the term though. Mudflation and power creep is something that most MMO’s deal with. p2w it typically reserved for things beyond the typical power creep from expansions/dlcs though. It’s when a power increasing purchase outside the normal advancement of the game is allowed that p2w becomes a real problem. Yes those who don’t purchase the expansion will fall behind, but that’s to be expected in most MMOs, only because of GW2’s original design is it a bad thing. GW2 had the idea that all content would still remain “playable” even after leveling and advancing your character, this is what allows them to have less new content and still be an ok game. Now with this power creep though any old content will fall into the “too easy to be entertaining” category. So I wouldn’t call it p2w, just bad/inconsistent design.

p2w would be like a gemstore 20% exquisite sigil of force. Though even then, you could argue that it’s not really p2w considering you can buy it with gold. So more if say the collectors edition of HOT came with that sigil.

Yeah P2W doesn’t really apply.

My big question is that they have a pretty clear choice here;

Numbers are all provisional, and they can nerf the numbers on the elite specs.

The real question is a ‘which do they want?’ —

A game where you choose your spec, including an elite spec, or

A game where you choose amongst (eventually) multiple elite specs?

They’re 2 very different directions to go, and both are viable imo.

~~~

As a subpoint, I’m not too worried about difficulty. Dungeons are a joke, and if they keep the linear scaling on fractals post-50, we’ll need some special specs to continue to perform anyways.

spoj.9672:

Light’s Judgement vs Well of Suffering

http://i.imgur.com/cToYsZy.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Suffering

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Im seeing a trend of godly overpowered skills on the new specs so far. But im willing to bet necro doesnt get anything anywhere near that amazing.

well does more dps per tick, (according to the database which may be wrong)
does 2 stacks which lasts 5 times as long
shorter cool down,
has a field
casts 4 times faster,
and has no activation time

honestly doesnt look that crazy.

Gyler.8150:

Right all professions are getting specializations, if you get the paid expansion. For those players who don’t or can’t get the expansion, they will be getting a bit left behind compared to the new professions.

Examples being chronomancer quickness + alacrity + phantasm blowout fire sale or the guardians 15% partywide damage increase + walking aegis / wall of reflect + insane traps.

It was to my understanding specializations were going to compete with the normal professions, but so far its hard to see how.

You’ve had 2+ years to set aside 40-50 dollars. You get no sympathy there.

phys.7689:

spoj.9672:

Light’s Judgement vs Well of Suffering

http://i.imgur.com/cToYsZy.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Suffering

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Im seeing a trend of godly overpowered skills on the new specs so far. But im willing to bet necro doesnt get anything anywhere near that amazing.

well does more dps per tick, (according to the database which may be wrong)
does 2 stacks which lasts 5 times as long
shorter cool down,
has a field
casts 4 times faster,
and has no activation time

honestly doesnt look that crazy.

The trap is 25 vuln for 10 seconds.

WoS is a max of 12 stacks for a few seconds right at the end of the wells duration. And its only 6 second duration. And the total damage isnt much lower. But the damage wasnt what i was referring to.

For vuln stacking the trap is an elite level skill. Glyph of storms is a good utility slot. WoS is necros best utility slot, but not a good utility slot overall. Its incredibly weak compared to alternative similar skills. This is basically a common occurence for necro across most of their utilities, traits and weapon skills.

People are reading the tooltip wrong. They think it only lasts 1 second but that’s because it’s a pulsing effect. So it’s 25 whopping stacks 10 seconds.

And particularly 10 seconds of revealed which is gonna get so much thief QQ it’s not even funny.