Guild Wars 2

OK, So I do not post on the forums a lot, but since I have been with Anet since the start, I figured I would give some feedback on the forums….

I came on here and it is mainly negative!

So, I thought that I would pick out the things I have enjoyed about beta and give them feedback on that, feel free to do the same.

The map: Apart from all the shades of brown (I jest) it is a very complex and pleasing little map you have let us play in!
The switch between day and night in the map seems to give some variety and change in the way you play the map, but I feel this could be emphasized even more in the creatures behavior? Perhaps this is already there and I did not notice but something like stat increases when it is night etc?

The map, overall is lovely and has loads to look at and find. The detail in the area is gorgeous. Well done Anet!

Adventures: Now this is something I was looking forward too!
They are marked in such a way with the flagpoles that you run to it too see what it is!
They are fun little mini games that have player rewards.
One thing I would ask is what happens once you get your first set of mastery points out of them? Do you get to repeat or get some other kind of reward?

The pit adventure is just insanity but good insanity! Lots of fun!

Chronomancer: Now before I say my thoughts on the build, I am not one of these players who knows every stat and build off the top of my head. I find a good build that works for me and I play it and usually succeed at most parts of the game with a little help from my ascended shinies…
My main toon is mesmer, so instantly I made a beta mesmer.

I use a zerk/shatter build with GS+S/F in PvE so set up the toon exactly as my main.
I then changed to the shield as I wanted to see the skills.
I then set up the chronomancer traits to help benefit my shattering.

So I was running dueling, illusions and chronomancer with GS+S/Shield.
Overall, it works amazingly.
Not going to lie, I was not daft on switching out some illusions etc for the wells but changed my signet of inspiration for the second well which does cripple and something else.
I swapped out for the new well elite also instead of TW.

The build rocks! I would just love to try it out in fractals and Tyria!

Mushrooms (bouncing): Fun and make life easier to get around but I thought some of them would lead to areas you otherwise could not get to…not found that yet.

Overall, Good work Anet!

I finally completed the first Gliding Mastery (duh, should have done the story on alternate characters sooner – as many events are stalled or abandoned), and I enjoyed gliding very much. It seemed to have a very low learning curve, so I don’t think it needs a lot of work.

I like the Map Rewards, but as many have posted, they could use some kind of indicator that you have earned each one. I suggested, in another thread, an auditory cue.

I enjoyed fighting the mobs in Verdant Brink on a character created like my main. I didn’t do so well with one of the new Elites (Dragonhunter).

The art/scenery, etc. is great. I especially enjoyed the tree village. I wish the events there worked more often.

Mastery lines give something to work toward; I like that. I am looking forward to many more lines.

Overall, I am happy with my purchase, and can’t wait for release. =)

Thanks, Devs for all you do for us!

The two event chains (itzel and laranthir) are AWESOME and night cycle feels lacking when compared to day cycle.

I took my revanent into fractals, bringing over full ascended gear I had saved for the event. We rolled swamp (thank god bloomhunger), snowblind, dredge, and the molten duo. Overall I had an amazing amount of fun with the class and, despite having some personal suggestions, I feel that conceptually the revanent is extremely solid.

• revanent still doesn’t have underwater skills, which is fine but limiting.

• snowblind is god awful if you don’t have enough stability of reflects at level 50. Unrelenting assault gets you killed against the ice elementals.

• shiro’s elite, jade winds, is absolutely amazing against trash mobs. Use it whenever possible for its high damage and long stun.

• I got a fractal longbow, which I’ve been wanting on my ranger for ages. Blahghghghg.

I must say I LOVE the story part so far. I have been playing it tough since the first beta stress test and found it rather lacklustre in the beginning but now it is starting to shape up! With a lot of characters actually talking to each other and arguing about the best way forward it kind of feel real. As a player I just longing to play the rest and also find out what happens with the, at the moment, closed choices you get.
I was also glad to find out that Rythlock entered the scene and was not upset with my Sylvari character

Another thing I find amazing is the graphics. I love how real the world feels and the Temple of Ameyalli in Verdant Brink is probably one of the most beautiful places in the game. I hope we get som story/events going on here.
I looking forward to see more of the world

RubiBayer.8134:

juniterio.1245:

The two event chains (itzel and laranthir) are AWESOME and night cycle feels lacking when compared to day cycle.

That’s true. Colin talked about that on Friday’s PoI. This isn’t a fully functional version of night–it’s an early iteration.

Does that mean what you accomplish during the day will actually impact the map during the night? I vaguely remember someone, likely Colin, saying something like that during one of the very early announcements for the expansion. I got the impression that the more successful that you were during the day, the better equipped you would be during the night cycle. The map we’re currently seeing doesn’t feel like that.

your character finally having audible voice on story instances woot!. been feeling like if my character had took a vow of silence since the defeat of zhaitan

I liked the first story instance a lot, the events seem to be interesting too.

Tora.7214:

your character finally having audible voice on story instances woot!. been feeling like if my character had took a vow of silence since the defeat of zhaitan

YES! This was great. It finally felt like my character was really commanding and involved in the scene.

Ayrilana.1396:

RubiBayer.8134:

juniterio.1245:

The two event chains (itzel and laranthir) are AWESOME and night cycle feels lacking when compared to day cycle.

That’s true. Colin talked about that on Friday’s PoI. This isn’t a fully functional version of night–it’s an early iteration.

Does that mean what you accomplish during the day will actually impact the map during the night? I vaguely remember someone, likely Colin, saying something like that during one of the very early announcements for the expansion. I got the impression that the more successful that you were during the day, the better equipped you would be during the night cycle. The map we’re currently seeing doesn’t feel like that.

Right now, the further you get in the event chains = more initial rally points to defend at night, and atm there isn’t much reward for that (though that might be what the “Security Level” meter that shows up at night is for, but I haven’t seen a map get more than halfway up the first level)

juniterio.1245:

The two event chains (itzel and laranthir) are AWESOME and night cycle feels lacking when compared to day cycle.

Yeah, when they work (:P) both of those chains are fun and well-focused. Sadly I haven’t had a map that pushed the Itzel chain far enough to fight the wyvern (last one got close, but apparently events stop spawning when the countdown to nighttime comes up?) but the colossal vine that tops the Laranthir chain is a fun and unique challenge.

I do really enjoy the itzel village BGM. I just wish it wasn’t overridden by the standard or combat BGM constantly, it’s a nice shake up from what we’ve grown used to.

I’m just gonna say, you can release Chronomancer whenever you’re ready. Mesmer’s my main class, so I’m a harsh critic. I set up my builds for soloability, AKA builds for defeating Liadri. Here’s what I finally settled on with the Chronomancer being introduced:

Weapons: Greatsword, Sword/Shield
Utilities: Well of Eternity (Heal), Mantra of Resolve, Blink, Well of Calamity, Gravity Well (Elite)
Trait Lines: (1 being the top chooseable trait, 3 being the bottom)
Domination 2 1 1
Dueling 2 3 3
Chronomancer 2 2 2

It was just flat-out awesome! I felt like a boss and started laughing at enemies as I dropped a well, shattered illusions, tossed down my elite, and watched them melt. It was great. Only vets needed a second round (in Verdant Brink). I did miss my decoy and have a few seconds of stealth at the click of a button. The 25% increase in speed from Chronomancer helped make up for not having my usual focus, and the last skill on the shield was magnificent. All the damage! The first shield skill, had I not been able to move while blocking, would have been a problem, but since I could, it was like casting an illusion with the bonus of blocking.

Final opinion: It’s awesome! I love it! You guys did an awesome job! The only thing that could make it better is a 4th utility slot. But, then, even base mesmer needs a 4th utility slot because of all the utility they have in general. I’m really looking forward to when it’s put out. My favorite class just got better.

Tempest.

Amazing.

I love the new map and the 1st part of the story was good..

I love that right out of the gate people are getting owned by the Snipers. i laughed out loud cause i didn’t see it coming and bam insta downed first time through

the day/night cycle is great.. I’d love to see how it progresses through the map

Gliding is awesome, it feels like it will be much more involved as you go..unlike say flying in WoW where u just jump up and go afk for 20 min

overall I’m very happy with the beta.. and have no issue with bugs as..it’s a beta..some people aren’t seeming to get that.. or are too self entitled to care i dunno?

the events are fun and fresh, the scenery is great..can’t wait to see the canopy and roots

Thanks for the BWE, it was a blast! Still enjoying it to the end.

i may add more here later, but the greatest part of this was the Tempest! I don’t main a ele, so I thought that would be a brief portion of my game time, but I’m absolutely in love with the class. Now, I must get an ele ready for HoT…

Here’s what I’m enjoying so far:

Stronghold – Still love it. I wish the ability for people to jump in and out of doors to kill NPCs was addressed from last time, but this game type is still really awesome. I just want to say that I really appreciate the PvP devs stepping outside of Conquest and doing something as risky as this. I think it’s paying off.

Reaper – The feel of this specialization is pretty great. I’m not usually a huge necro fan, mechanics-wise, but I really enjoyed Reaper. The GS could use some love, but I think if feedback is taken like it was with Rev in the last beta test, it should be much better next time.

While I didn’t get into a lot of stuff with the current beta, it’s mostly because of 1) that I don’t want to get too spoiled on story stuff and 2) that the elite specializations I am most interested in are yet to come. However, I’ve been really impressed with how this beta has been handled. I love the gear options for beta characters and multiple beta character slots. Thank you for this!

The new map is fun, when you’re in a group. Unless you hop onto a zerg it can be a real pain getting through the map safely. Even with jump mushrooms and gliding.

I’ve been playing mostly in PvP, but had a foray into the storyline.

First as a mes main, Chronomancer is fun to play in both PvP and PvE. Wells need some adjustment to make them more useful for PvP and no doubt WvW. Overall a very good job was done on Chrono, from the skills to the animations, definitely competes with the other mes specs creating some hard choices for builds.

For the storyline the map looks very nice and has a unique feel to it, and the part of the storyline I played was enjoyable.

What I wasn’t too happy about was the over the top damage from trash mobs, some of those guys are hitting close to unbuffed PvP players and I was using the intial armour set with spread stats. If I was in zerker the damage would have been ridiculously high. Another thing is there are too many enemy aoe damage rings appearing, I find it fairly irritating when you are also fighting melee to constantly get Aoe’d. Presumably the map was made with the assumption that it would always be full with other players, maybe this needs to scale down if the map is not so full.

The mastery system; I like the concept of vertical progression. It might be worth making it clearer how spending the points work. I had 2 unspent points, but was gaining exp for a particlur mastery, so I thought the first lvl was already unlock. Presumably the track unlocks at the end of the progression which seems odd to me if I’m already earning experience for it. Shouldn’t the unlock be at the beginning of the track. Also, I maybe wrong (I didn’t play for so long) but it seemed I had to select a track in order to gain experience for it. If this is the case, that would be annoying to have to select the track you want to level every time before gaining experience in it.

I like trying out the new Elite specializations. Especially the Tempest (yeah, it feels weak in comparison to the other specializations but i enjoyed playing with it).
My main character is an Ele so i was particularly interested in that.
Also Dragonhunter is very funny to play. I love the bow on the Guardian!
Also i like the feel that the map give us. Night and Day cycle, Rally points and so on. It feels very much alive, more alive than the other “normal” maps.

Siren Aradia.5863:

Tora.7214:

your character finally having audible voice on story instances woot!. been feeling like if my character had took a vow of silence since the defeat of zhaitan

YES! This was great. It finally felt like my character was really commanding and involved in the scene.

yeah lol, and i didnt realized it was my character speaking until it said he had to think the desicion over (since female charrs use the same voice i though it was Rox speaking), saw the bubble coming from my character, my name on the chat window, and even his mouth moving

i am loveing soo far beta and i realy love the gliding ye it has soom bug and ye i one see more beta and i am loving ad sec lvls for glider got t 3 gliding soo far i hope the will allow in next beta full map

Love everything (all the PvE and new professions) except Tempest!
Tempest is terrible in my opinion (elite is useless, overload mechanic doesn’t work, shouts overlap traits, new trait lines is bad, warhorn is worse than focus or dagger offhand even as melee). It must be improved tremendously before the release.

In comparison Chronomancer is amazing.

The story bit was slightly more enjoyable than usual… Well, the new dialogue system at least; the pact soldiers acting like finding out where the captives were kept was a big surprise despite being like 30 yards away was still kind of daft, but I’ve come to expect that with the limited scope of the maps and how many chapters tend to be crammed in each… The progression of the fights worked reasonably well too. Rytlock’s intro didn’t wow me, but at least it worked with the encounter.

Other than that, the only things I’ll give notable points to are gliding and masteries as a concept.
The former was rather enjoyable, and in a better (or at least more complete) map, it would provide a lot of opportunities for exploration.
The latter… I’m kind of on both sides of the fence on actually. I like the tiers of masteries and that I’m earning new abilities and such as I play, but I still feel tying them to XP diminishes the distinction of each track, and I’d like to see more specific activities in the jungle associated with them. Maybe at least lock tiers behind ‘quests’ of a sort rather than (or in addition to) mastery points? I don’t know. I found myself enjoying the progression to unlocking them (despite how frustrating the XP gain was this weekend), but at the same time, I think they could have more flavour.

Actually, I suppose I’ll also give a thumbs-up to Revenant. I wound up enjoying the class far more than I expected I would thanks to Shiro/Hammer. Impossible Odds was pretty great both in-combat and out (even if I’d have preferred a copy/paste of GW1s for authenticity’s sake), and it’ll be a shame if it gets nerfed. Hammer was far more fun than S/S and Staff to me, though I didn’t give staff much of a go admittedly. Not surprising since I generally hate melee, but I was pleasantly-surprised at how effective it was.

RubiBayer.8134:

I meant to reply to this yesterday and got distracted… well, playing around in Verdant Brink. This kind of feedback is important as well, because while we have to find what’s broken and we need to know what could be better, we also need to know what you do like and what we should keep doing.

That helps us make HoT better just as much as anything, so thank you!

Sometimes we players can only report the broken stuff so this gives people the chance to let the team know what we do like!!

Valiare.9231:

I’m just gonna say, you can release Chronomancer whenever you’re ready. Mesmer’s my main class, so I’m a harsh critic. I set up my builds for soloability, AKA builds for defeating Liadri. Here’s what I finally settled on with the Chronomancer being introduced:

Weapons: Greatsword, Sword/Shield
Utilities: Well of Eternity (Heal), Mantra of Resolve, Blink, Well of Calamity, Gravity Well (Elite)
Trait Lines: (1 being the top chooseable trait, 3 being the bottom)
Domination 2 1 1
Dueling 2 3 3
Chronomancer 2 2 2

It was just flat-out awesome! I felt like a boss and started laughing at enemies as I dropped a well, shattered illusions, tossed down my elite, and watched them melt. It was great. Only vets needed a second round (in Verdant Brink). I did miss my decoy and have a few seconds of stealth at the click of a button. The 25% increase in speed from Chronomancer helped make up for not having my usual focus, and the last skill on the shield was magnificent. All the damage! The first shield skill, had I not been able to move while blocking, would have been a problem, but since I could, it was like casting an illusion with the bonus of blocking.

Final opinion: It’s awesome! I love it! You guys did an awesome job! The only thing that could make it better is a 4th utility slot. But, then, even base mesmer needs a 4th utility slot because of all the utility they have in general. I’m really looking forward to when it’s put out. My favorite class just got better.

I feel exactly the same. I am overjoyed with chronomancer. It’s effective but not OP

I Love the cut scene at the end of the story instance. That was brilliant.

I also like that if you play as a sylvari the Pact soldiers question why they should trust you. It’s a small thing, but it makes a big difference, it’s nice to see this addressed.

It’s surprised me but I’ve also enjoyed using the warhorn on my ele. It didn’t sound very exciting, but the skills are fun to use.

The good things.

1. The new map.
2. The masteries. Especially gliding! It was a lot of fun!
3. Having my character talk in the storyplot. I felt like I was a real part of the story now!
4. The day and night sequence!
5. Difficulty of mobs and even the mobs in the storymode!
6. Map rewards!
7. Chronomancer!!! <3
8. Map details. If you look around. . . everything is so detailed and beautiful. It looks like a map fully stocked with adventure and fun!
9. Speaking of adventures. . . Found some and loved it.
10. That adventures encourage masteries. Such as being able to use jumping mushrooms.
11. The time it took for me to achieve 1 mastery.
12. The frog NPCs.
13. The amount of bees that spawn xD
14. GLIDING! DID I MENTION GLIDING?

Overall there were a few hiccups this beta but I had a great time. Thanks for it! And I can’t wait until the next one! <3

i’m very happy with how the mobs behave, they seems so much smarter than their counterparts in the rest of the known Tyria.
They have improved a lot from the Closed Beta. Great job!!
Having them to smart choosing their targets individually , surround you, smart dodging (when an sniper evaded the grave digger from my reaper i was like whatt?? ) feels more like a very enjoyable game. Also make much more harder to skip content wich is good.

It’s such an improvement that when i went back to Siverwastes the mobs seemed disappointing.
Please, please apply this new AI to other mobs in the rest of Tyria, so can enjoy the rest of the game the same as HoT.

The 3 specializations i tested they looks very nice.

• The reaper is amazing. the feels, the looks everything about this spec is so nice. A lot of fun playing it. My favorite at this point. It needs some fine tuning: i would speed up a little bit the GC#1 chain, it’s too slow even to use it in PvE. I’d reduce the cast 1/4 so would end up in 1/2 and 3/4 secs. Also the class should have much more access to chill in the GS skills and in the RS attacks. Maybe if we use Reaper the Dummfire would apply chill instead if it has to be in a trait. Also the shouts should give more support/utility. The damage is really low and the utility provided could be better for the CD they have. A good example of a very good shout is the one that cast jagged horrors. Really cool shout that one.
• The Dragon Hunter also a very polished spec. Very nice to play with much fun, the traps are really useful contrary to what i thought. The LB is really cool and the skills also. The fine tuning i see here is to improve the speed of LB#1 to 1/2 cast. the dmg is ok but the same as the reaper the AA is too slow. the healing trap is really difficult to use, i would change the concept to be activated by health of any ally or yourself instead an enemy. change the healing to healing pulses for a short time and if an enemy steps in while the pulses are active cast the blind and the rest of the effects.

I’d just like to add that the one thing i feel is missing from the day cycle is that there are no events for those who are not following the event chain, so maybe adding some small repeatable events from time to time for the people that aren’t following the zerg or for those who got on the map late might be a good idea.

Thanks for the beta weekend, I greatly enjoyed it!

Love the Reaper! only thing I can’t put anywhere, why he got shouts… IF only we’d have a new rune set, that could benefit from it, and wouldn’t make reaper a tank. If the reaper stays this way, I’m only going to use maybe 1 shout.

Most likely going to ‘upgrade’ my mesmer to chronomancer once we have the chance

I like the new map so far, I was constantly flying around and then falling off of the map with glider :P

However I had some problems with the bouncing mushrooms… sometimes I’ve ended up dead after landing. Started the jump at full health, no conditions on me, whatsoever, but just dropped dead on the other side, or took way too much damage. Is this intended? Shouldn’t this work as you take no damage from jumping? many times you cannot even control the jump.

I love exploring and this map gets it right. Gliding and mushroom jumping is so much fun and they make getting around very enjoyable. They also feed my exploring nature and allow me to get to places that may seem out of reach. The graphics are gorgeous and the sounds just right. A+

I’m loving the Chronomancer and Reaper. Just can’t get enough of those two so far.

The new mobs, though challenging sometimes (stop killing me smokescale!), have cool animations, sounds and artwork.

The Itzel village is just perfect. Great sounds and feel to it.

Back to beta testing!

Xillllix.3485:

Love everything (all the PvE and new professions) except Tempest!
Tempest is terrible in my opinion (elite is useless, overload mechanic doesn’t work, shouts overlap traits, new trait lines is bad, warhorn is worse than focus or dagger offhand even as melee). It must be improved tremendously before the release.

In comparison Chronomancer is amazing.

Tempest is supposed to be used as team support. I started to know what it is supposed to do after like 4 games of sPvP.

The healing especially is very strong with Tempest.
Eye of the Storm is a really great shout, the sad thing though is that I dont wanna use it on my bar, but rather take the trait.
Aura shareing can be really strong if needed, since you get alot of access to aura via Tempest and can share them when useing the Water line trait.
Almost every skill on the Warhorn imo has uses, except for the #5 Air attack. It just don’t fit with the support of Tempest. I would like it to change into a moving orb with a like 180 radius aoe around it that deals damage instead of the small balls of energy it currently does.

The fire shout “Feel the Burn”? Can’t remeber what its called right now, is really not that usefull. The burn should be atleast 2-3 stacks, since the burning aura is less usefull imo than Magnetic Aura, Frost Aura and Static Aura.

Also “Flash Freez” is a bit boring. The Frost Aura is good but the chill is boring. Have not used it at all so can’t say much more about it.
“Rebound” is nice I guess, but doesn’t feel like an elite skill, its powerfull when used on the right skills, but again, its boring.

But as I wrote earlier, Eye of the Storm is good, and so is “Chock and Afterchock” or just “Aftershock”. “Wash the Pain Away” is also really good, heals for a good amound and can be used to heal an allie for alot also, like the support from it.

The overcharge is fun to use. So far I like the Water Overcharge the most, and also Fire Overcharge. Earth is usefull at times. Air Overcharge with power damage is probably good, haven’t tried it much yet on a glass build, only played alot of ele in pvp as a bunker/support setup.

In pve I also did enjoy running around and useing the cc from air #4 and water #4, healing allies, and stacking alot of burn, and be able to share ALOT of might.

Overall its fun to play but looks boring from the outside. And its only really usefull if you wanna go for support and not selfis bunkering or damage, since the other core lines does that better. Can’t wait to see what the Challening Content will be and if it will be really valueable there, also when the pro pvp’ers get to use it to show how to use it really well.

I love the ambiance, the detail, and the verticality of the zone. It FEELS enormous, and the first time I saw day switching to night, the countdown terrified me. I was all alone in an area with no other allies around with less than a minute ticking… I panic’d a bit because I wanted backup but had somehow ventured just a LITTLE too far away into the jungle for that. It was a great feeling.

I love the new mobility options and some of the new mob mechanics. I personally have not had much trouble with any of them besides the smokescale (and I say keep them because as noted above, I like a little terror).

The differences in the story between sylvari and other races is terrific. I hope there is much more of this and that it gets a little deeper than just a few ambient sounds and voices.

The new map rewards is fantastic (though it is not very clear how they are awarded or cycle from the UI alone… I would suggest mail distribution or something to make it more explicit. Those that have been following the site very closely have an idea of how they work, others have no clue. And I’m still not sure if there is a specified number of events that will always give you the reward, or if it’s random-ish, and I also got a map bonus from doing a world boss which I didn’t realize was intended until it happened).

All in all, I found it to be a very successful beta. My only issues were thematic ones regarding the Chronomancer spec. (Here’s a link to my concerns… I know people will be disappointed if some of the more powerful traits disappear, but I really don’t feel like it’s a cohesive spec the way it is now https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Chrono-shatter-traits-do-not-seem-thematic/first#post5364825)

I ran through Verdant Brink on three characters

The first was a Minion Master Reaper. Reapers are LUDICROUSLY tough when their minions have access to lifesteal, and all the mobs in VB that are immune to damage in some way have lifesteal get through that, manking it a surprisingly effective choice. And smokescales, at that point, are completely laughable because their damage is so spread out.

then I ran it woth a ranger. This was because I felt that VB needed a test with something that’s already in game, to see how comparable it is. In a weird way, I feel my ranger (power signets and beast mastery build) is much more powerful there than in Core Tyria. It also mitigates smokescale alpha strikes by having a second body on the field, and due to the lower health (but higher damage) of enemy creatures, it feels quite powerful. I really like it. Buggy events keep causing problems, though; I kept trying to get pact soldiers to rally points and they’d consistently run around in circles like chickens with their heads cut off. I imagine that’s a quirk of the new combat AI, which is meant for actual combat, interacting oddly with the “Carrier” AI. Best look at that.

Revenant I had a considerable amount less fun on for some reason. I tried both Zerker/Shiro with a hammer and Rabid/Mallyx with Mace and Axe. It felt good, but just not as good as the other two characters. Can’t really say why.

On the whole, the map is beautiful, and is great for people gliding. Kudos to the sound and music teams.

Tonight we WvW raided with 2 Tempest Elementalists, not on warhorn but on staff and it was freaking awsome. Heals were good, and good support skills. I still don’t like the warhorn itself. Don’t like the sounds nor animations. The overcharge skills could be somewhat bigger and wilder, it is an overcharge.

Ele eliteskill is just rubbish..you really need to get with something better.

Revenant was pretty amazing although on some points my Ele still feels stronger.

PVE map looks amazing and creatures were sometimes almost hardcore, like walking in a dungeon which I liked alot. Hope you will not nerf the pve creatures.

I do however am a bit scared, giving us 25% of the map, how fast will I have explored the other 75%, cause this 25% went pretty fast. I don’t know if there will be more maps. But if it is just 1, I will have my thoughts with it.

Haven’t tried Necro and Mesmer, I hardly play them now, so I have to get in to that completely.

Guardian longbow looked good, but didn’t liked it at all with all the traps and stuff. It fell weak. Didn’t even end the tutorial with it….

Gliding was awsome..

But I don’t understand why I can’t join my guild and I can play with my guild as such, nor wvw raids there is not option to join it as such.

I’m not very skilled with stats and traits and such…so it’s hard for me to complaint or compliment on stuff. But think people told enough bout that.

Some of the highlights:
- Events, esp. in Dry Step Mesas
- Dragonhunter traps and longbow
- New enemy types – cavalier, sniper, stonehead and more
- Tempest overloads (esp. that you stay in attunement, and how you air becomes more useful suddenly on staff) and AoE auras on shouts
- Reaper greatsword (so much more active and less aggressive than dagger, like it) and Rise!
- Itzel lore and habitation, feels alive
- Stronghold’s NPCs

Now on to some Verdant Brink feedback.

The part of Verdant Brink we get to play is cool! I like the small amound of verticality on just the floor we have right now, and its gonna be much cooler when we can go to the roots and the top level. It really make use of the glider and the jump shrooms. (I have a picture of what I belive is The Pact Flag Ship high up in the skies! Will be a link to a imgur).

When the events work, they are great! The way that each (Currently the two Outposts) have a lot of events which makes up a story about that area is great. Help the Itzel gather food, hunt wild life, restore faith, and lastly help the Nuhoch get revenge on the Zintl Hylek for the Wyvern attack (I did not get to this part ever, since each time we get close, night time is near. I think when the counter appears, all events stop proceeding. Could be a bug? But if its supposed to do this, I would like it to atleast let me know we where to late instead of just stopping, looking like its bugged.)

Other than the few bugs on events, its cool, and the mobs are more challening than the rest of core Tyria. REALLY like that! Keep that up, and even go back and bring the core game more in line with how it works in HoT areas! Huge thanks to creature designers, and the AI team and everyone else involved with this!

A thing I don’t like is that the Champion spawning in events like the Zintl Hylek beetle riders, have a HUGE breakbar which is impossible for a pug to coordiante to bring down.
I heard from MattVisuals and WP’s stream that after the first burn phase on the Wyvern it melted. This is weird to me since the random Champions as part of events should be easier than a Wyvern in terms of the Breakbar, and right now its like its the other way around. It needs some tweaking, but the difficulity is great (I haven’t fought the Wyvern, so I dont know about that fight sadly Will have to go there in the remaning time.)

I like how at night time it changes how you play the map. Its all about upgrading the rally points that you secured during day when you do the outpost events, and progressing the security level.
(I have never seen it above 25% so far, so dont know what it actually does for us).
I like how Glider and Mushroom and possibly other masteries help you get to places with Supply you need to carry back to get rally points, and finding and escorting the scattered Pact memebers back to a rally point.

I would like to know what happens and why we should progress the security level, since right now I have no idea.

Link to imgur: http://imgur.com/a/6iZBQ#0

I enjoyed:
The New Dialogue thing – while some parts didn’t play, the whole non-cutscene dialogue is a lot of fun, and far less distracting.

Revenant:
Shrio – both dual swords and shiro’s slot skills are fun, but leave the user pretty glassy, and it’s easy to die.
Staff – I liked the melee staff, and if the supposition of thief staff is true, this gives me a very good feeling.

Visuals – a lot of the animations are gorgeous, even the ones whose mechanics I don’t like. I tried all 4 elite specs and the revenant, and all the new skills looked amazing. even the tempest, who bored me to tears, had good looking skill animations.

Reaper – the new shroud is amazing, the shouts are not bad, and the greatsword, if lacking damage, is otherwise fitting and fun. an excellent addition to the class

Chronomancer – as above, all the additions to the mesmer are pretty awesome, and I’m looking forward to playing more after launch.

ImLegion.4018:

I do however am a bit scared, giving us 25% of the map, how fast will I have explored the other 75%, cause this 25% went pretty fast. I don’t know if there will be more maps. But if it is just 1, I will have my thoughts with it.

Are you sure you explored it all? I thought I’d seen everything. Then I found an Itzel temple, a fungal cave, an eagle raptor aerie, a view into a closed off section of the map, an abandoned Itzel village full of spiders, and a ravine with a door in it (that I had to die to see, but hey, it was part of the map).

i really love the new map. I think its very detailed and pretty in its own way. I cannot wait to fully explore it when HoT drops ( fingers cross for this year).

Although I really dislike tempest out of all the other classes I tried (except dragonhunter since I haven’t fully tried it yet). I feel tempest is easily interrupted when overloading and instead of swiftness, we should get stability while channeling . secondly, earth overload isn’t that great and should become a sandstorm with blinds and it might be worth using more. the traits itself feels a little lacking and there aren’t many good traits to really want me to take tempest as a trait line. As for warhorn, the skills are fun but I don’t see them as viable because there aren’t and blocks, reflects or evades. if they were to add that, it would probably be worth taking imo. I truly hope the devs consider this and any other feedbacks and make tempest great

Hands down, Reaper was more than I could have ever hoped for. It’s gameplay, combo’d with how I currently play necro…. MIND BLOWN. I have no complaints about Reaper.

What bothered me was the Verdant Brink being the buggiest map I’ve ever played on. I understand it’s a Beta but I played on the first Beta and the Wyvern fight and fellow guildies of mine did not. I was so hopeful that we could all experience it but that did not happen. Events getting stuck, imcomplete, unclear as to what needed to happen to progress… All of these made VB pretty much unplayable and ultimately disappointing.

One thing I was super excited for was to try out the map rewards but again, was met with uncertainty. Perhaps instead of getting the added rewards in loot it should use a similar system to silverwastes, where when an event completes you get a wiggly chest on the side to let you know you got said reward.

Dragonhunter was something different but it didn’t feel complete. I was excited to try out the LB but like I said, it felt lacking and incomplete in terms of damage and exactly how it would better work in a party/dungeon situation.

Hopefully these can help to only make things better. My guild is very excited and growing anxious over the waiting for HoT, as I’m sure everyone is. Keep up the great work and let’s all get this expansion out!

I like how for the first 14 hours no one seemed to show interest in this thread, then a Red replies and everyone is interested :P

The way the events work, when they work. I like the Colossal Vine concept where you need two separate teams to take it down.

At first when I tried out on the revenant I got owned, but when I made a character exactly the same as my main ranger. I can easily kill the mordrem.

RubiBayer.8134:

Can you try to be more specific? We are really using this beta event as a true beta, so in a beta testing environment, what you are kind of saying is “My elite skill and overload mechanics are not functioning at all”, and I know that’s not what you mean.

The impression I got is that tempest has no niche. The overload mechanic is currently pointless as it imposes enormous drawbacks in return for doing the exact same things you could’ve done normally, only weaker and easier to interrupt.

The warhorn is competitive with dagger and focus on its own merits, but is generally similar enough to dagger that it doesn’t justify taking the tempest spec. Furthermore, its trait is largely useless as aoe stunbreaking is really not as strong a mechanic as people think.

The shouts are generally just trait caddies. On their own there’s little reason to take them, but with soldier runes, tempestuous aria and elemental bastion they can become somewhat useful. The problem is that by this point you’re only using them for the bonus effects and not their own abilities.

i am ad sec loveing the beta and gliding ifen if most evend bug out but ifen soo it more fun more u play but if small part it get old fast soo i am try to find way to get top ship middal map and realy close ad sec

I finally prepurchased HoT (I knew I would eventually) and I have been having loads of fun with the beta.

Even though there are supposed to be three tiers to Verdant brink, even the middle layer that we are on now has a lot of verticality to it, which I love. I was worried that the map would mostly just be three flat layers, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

Gliding has been really smooth and the mastery system itself has been fun to progress through simply because the game has a sense of progression again. (though I do think the masteries are going by a little too quickly. I’d like to see them take longer so that sense of progression lasts.)

The use of our character’s voice is a huge improvement. I didn’t think I’d care much about it at first, but it honestly makes playing a lot more engaging.

Events have been a lot of fun and I can’t wait to see what the night cycle is going to be like once it’s had more work.

The only thing I’ve had a problem with is Tempest. I didn’t think I would like it to begin with, but it’s been better than I was expecting. However, It’s just not satisfying. Rebound’s effect should last longer, but it also doesn’t really feel like an impactfull elite skill because we can’t see the effect. I do like the overloads a lot, though I do think they could be a little more powerful. The fire overload (inferno, I think) doesn’t have the visual effect that it needs. There are other things, but I’ll probably put them in a different post. I tried to be specific, so I hope it helps!

The beta itself is really well done, so two thumbs up for that.

(also, this isn’t really related to this post, but I can’t figure out how to equip the HoT glider skin. can anyone tell me how to do that? thanks!)