Guild Wars 2

So, didn’t have too much time this weekend, but I just logged in to see what the ravenant looked like, and if my favorite profession was getting anything new and exiting.

So I log in on ele to see what’s the new and exiting weapon we are getting. It’s a… 2/5ths of a weapon bar, just 2 skills for each attunement. Not even a full weapon bar. So you basically have to either use it with a dagger, or a scepter.
If you’re using a dagger in mainhand, chances are you want dmg. Warhorn has none.
If you’re using scepter, you could use Focus just as well. Focus even has 900 range like the scepter that it was designed to work with.

I’m seriously hoping that there would be a new mainhand as well, to go with the warhorn. As it is right now, it’s a huge disappointment. All in all, the trend with the updates seem to be taking away the freedom to play as we want, and streamline us into playing the way we’re told. So not too surprised that the long waited option is just 2 weapon skills/a that are so mediocre I can’t imagine using them on anything interesting, but that doesn’t stop me from being disappointed.

Tempest traitline would be interesting if we still had the freedom to choose trait point allocation on the traitside, having some on all 6 if we wanted. Now it’s just annoying.

On an upside tho, the new shouts are nice. And I rather liked the Elemental Bastion trait as well.

Well, didn’t really have too much time to get familiar with the ravenant, so I won’t say anything about that one way or the other.

the warhorn wasn’t the big “thing” about the tempest. it was the shouts. and the F1-4 overcharges, to another extent. that you put them at the end of your post as an afterthought means you completely missed the focus of the tempest.

nathanjameson.3542:

the warhorn wasn’t the big “thing” about the tempest. it was the shouts. and the F1-4 overcharges, to another extent. that you put them at the end of your post as an afterthought means you completely missed the focus of the tempest.

Either that, or you missed the point I was making
We were told there would be new a new weapon for each profession that would change the gameplay. The Elementalists weapon was incomplete and terrible. That’s disappointing.

Here’s a quote “Evolve your gameplay. With profession specializations, you’ll unlock access to a weapon previously unavailable to your profession as well as new traits, skills, and unique mechanics – all of which will transform your profession into something new.”

I’m getting pretty sick of the same weapons after years of using them. I was really looking forward to something new. The weapons are, after all, the defining part of each build. They’re the skills you’re using constantly. Utility skills are few, and the recharges are generally pretty long. Elite you get to use maybe once or twice per a boss encounter.

You can’t explore or test anything if you are solo in an obvious group area with useless skills you have no time to trigger. “Interrupted” was my entire experience along with death. I only successfully tested dying- very sad I wasted my money for HoT if this is all I have to look forward to. I created 4 toons to run, got them through SW and all 4 were left solo/dead after the story instance. -The earlier earned Beta was fun. This weekend was total crap and I boldly proclaim all your efforts to run the weekend wasted as was my time to jerk with it.

I’m guessing the unique mechanic transforms the profession into something new. Nothing says the transformation is reliant on the weapon only.

Still, if you are disappointed, nothing anyone says is likely to change your mind. Perhaps, another Elite Specialization will tickle your fancy. =)

Good luck.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I’m guessing the unique mechanic transforms the profession into something new. Nothing says the transformation is reliant on the weapon only.

Still, if you are disappointed, nothing anyone says is likely to change your mind. Perhaps, another Elite Specialization will tickle your fancy. =)

Good luck.

Hmm, so you read it as “all of which [together] will transform your profession into something new”?
Well, that could be, but you can hardly blame me for misunderstanding.
Still, you’re right. Can’t fix disappointment by arguing against it. =/

In case someone is wondering what I mean by “less freedom to choose”, lets take a look at the trait overhaul for example.

Old system, you had 6 possible traits on the first tier, 10 possible traits on the second and 13 on the third.
So you could, on a single trait line, create 6*9*11 = 594 different combinations.
New system, you have 3 on first tier, 3 on second and 3 on third. You can create 27 different combinations on a single traitline. That’s hardly anything when compared to the old system.
Now, calculating the total different combos for the old system is a bit tricky, as it was diverse and you could allocate traitpoints as you wanted.
But it’d be considerably more than 594*594*6 = 2117016 combinations (which is what you’d get if your friend had chosen how much to allocate on each traitlines and all you got to do was to select which traits you wanted. In reality, you could select which traitlines, how much and what traits.)
New system, you have a grand total of (5 nCr 3 ) * 27 * 27 * 27 = 196830, which is a fraction of what the old system had. Even if the old system had only 3 traitlines, it would’ve still had ten time more possible combinations to choose from, ten times the freedom of choice.

Even if the old system had more possible options, I use far more variations in the new system. The problem with the old system is it had Borderlands gun syndrome—most of the traits were basically useless and there were a few that were without a doubt your best and only option.

Suffice to say I have much more freedom of choice with fewer possible choices. Less is more.

Ahkaskar.3906:

Even if the old system had more possible options, I use far more variations in the new system. The problem with the old system is it had Borderlands gun syndrome—most of the traits were basically useless and there were a few that were without a doubt your best and only option.

Suffice to say I have much more freedom of choice with fewer possible choices. Less is more.

Ermh, that’s easy to disprove:
1) “Oh, but the traits are overall better in the new system” is besides the point. The old system was better. The quality of traits in the new or old system have no value for this analysis, as you can improve the quality of the traits without gimping the system.
2) Even if the old system only had 9 traits total, you’d still have 3*5*7=107 possible combinations, as opposed to 3*3*3 = 27 that you have now. Not to mention you got to allocate the points as you wanted = even more freedom.
3) Borderlands gun syndrome: In old system, if you had 1-2 useless traits, you still got to choose between 10 pretty neat traits. In the new system, if you have even one useless trait, your freedom to choose is severely diminished.

So once again, less is less.

I don’t get how that’s easy to disprove. The system itself was tied into the quality of the traits as it required limitations to be put onto other traits that could be selected, even across different trait lines entirely. Even the stats were a consideration into the balance of traits.

That large set size also means that there are a lot of cases that won’t get used or tested or even considered as a valid and sensible build. Hence the comparison to Borderlands guns—very very many are completely useless, worthy only to be vendored for change. Did you ever seriously use the Adept traits from all 5 lines? I never did outside of a joke.

If you want to only count the number of permutations, fine—it used to be a larger number than it is right now. But that’s why they changed it—larger numbers are not always better, especially if you have to make each one useful. (Example: look at the personal story and how many choices you have. How much better is the Living World story because they focused on a narrower path? Yes, that’s a more extreme case.)

On the builds themselves, generally speaking they were oriented around pre-chosen sets of traits. As a GS guardian I’d only ever do 20 Zeal at most with two specific traits—Fiery Wrath and Zealous Blade. I’d never touch the others.
My other trait lines were 25 Radiance and 25 Virtues, never touching the GM traits at all, which were always supposed to be the flavor of each trait line. And even then I got stuck with condi damage which did me absolutely no good.

The only variances were when I’d go 20 in Honor for the recharge reduction, which would stick me with a subpar trait in the Honor Adept slot and forcing me to split the difference elsewhere.

So yes, they could have gone and rebalanced the trait lines: Removed the stats, combined traits and removed other excess traits, but by that point you’d have basically what you have now. Except that you’d still not have access to THREE improved grandmaster-quality traits simultaneously and you’d still be hemming and hawwing over the final 5 points in a line vs 5 in some one-off because that minor looks so much more appealing than that GM trait that has nothing to do with your build.

At least now they KNOW you will take that GM trait and they can make it relevant to the rest of the line instead of worrying about someone doing some weird overpowered meta combination.

Fred Fargone.3127:

nathanjameson.3542:

the warhorn wasn’t the big “thing” about the tempest. it was the shouts. and the F1-4 overcharges, to another extent. that you put them at the end of your post as an afterthought means you completely missed the focus of the tempest.

Either that, or you missed the point I was making
We were told there would be new a new weapon for each profession that would change the gameplay. The Elementalists weapon was incomplete and terrible. That’s disappointing.

Here’s a quote “Evolve your gameplay. With profession specializations, you’ll unlock access to a weapon previously unavailable to your profession as well as new traits, skills, and unique mechanics – all of which will transform your profession into something new.”

I’m getting pretty sick of the same weapons after years of using them. I was really looking forward to something new. The weapons are, after all, the defining part of each build. They’re the skills you’re using constantly. Utility skills are few, and the recharges are generally pretty long. Elite you get to use maybe once or twice per a boss encounter.

The mechanic is to overload your attunement for staying in it, making you stay longer in it to unlock a new skill that is actually good and then locking you out of it due to an overload. Its a risk vs reward profession that functions a lot like celestial daggers on the ele. The class is much more supportive outside of the overload, with the overloads being where the dmg is at.

Fred Fargone.3127:

In case someone is wondering what I mean by “less freedom to choose”, lets take a look at the trait overhaul for example.

Old system, you had 6 possible traits on the first tier, 10 possible traits on the second and 13 on the third.
So you could, on a single trait line, create 6*9*11 = 594 different combinations.
New system, you have 3 on first tier, 3 on second and 3 on third. You can create 27 different combinations on a single traitline. That’s hardly anything when compared to the old system.
Now, calculating the total different combos for the old system is a bit tricky, as it was diverse and you could allocate traitpoints as you wanted.
But it’d be considerably more than 594*594*6 = 2117016 combinations (which is what you’d get if your friend had chosen how much to allocate on each traitlines and all you got to do was to select which traits you wanted. In reality, you could select which traitlines, how much and what traits.)
New system, you have a grand total of (5 nCr 3 ) * 27 * 27 * 27 = 196830, which is a fraction of what the old system had. Even if the old system had only 3 traitlines, it would’ve still had ten time more possible combinations to choose from, ten times the freedom of choice.

Not to mention, NO ONE was putting 1-2 pt into a trait line, they had to commit to it. People were also gated and forced into a trait line due to the stats it gave. Are people really still complaining about something that people understood to be a good thing MONTHS ago?!

Ahkaskar.3906:

I don’t get how that’s easy to disprove. The system itself was tied into the quality of the traits as it required limitations to be put onto other traits that could be selected, even across different trait lines entirely.

The new system doesn’t change that in any way. If one trait line has bad traits that don’t fit your intended build, you choose another trait line entirely. This held true for old and new system. Except if a trait line happened to have desirable adept trait in the old system, you had the option to just allocate 2 pts on the trait line.

Ahkaskar.3906:

Even the stats were a consideration into the balance of traits.

If that was the problem, dropping the stats from the old system should’ve been easy enough.

Ahkaskar.3906:

That large set size also means that there are a lot of cases that won’t get used or tested or even considered as a valid and sensible build. Hence the comparison to Borderlands guns—very very many are completely useless, worthy only to be vendored for change.

Yeah, just because you have somewhere close to ten million different trait setups you could use, doesn’t mean you have to try every single one. You just have the freedom to mix and match until you find one that fits your playstyle. As in, freedom to play as you want. Deciding that there are only 6 sensible builds and everyone needs to play them… sure, it guarantees that there are no kittened builds in the play, but at the same time severely limits the freedom to play as you want. You’ll just have 6 streamlined builds and no freedom. Having the option to make a bad choice, is still an option.

Ahkaskar.3906:

Did you ever seriously use the Adept traits from all 5 lines? I never did outside of a joke.

Not quite sure what you… oh, a build only using 5 adept traits? No, but I had the option to do so. Which is good. I also had an option to take 2 adept traits from a single trait line if I didn’t find use for a master level trait but absolutely wanted a Grandmaster. Or if there were two adept level traits that I couldn’t decide which I wanted more, I could just take both. That’s what I’m talking about, the freedom to choose. I don’t have that freedom anymore. That’s why I’m disappointed.

Ahkaskar.3906:

If you want to only count the number of permutations, fine—it used to be a larger number than it is right now. But that’s why they changed it—larger numbers are not always better, especially if you have to make each one useful. (Example: look at the personal story and how many choices you have. How much better is the Living World story because they focused on a narrower path? Yes, that’s a more extreme case.)

That’s the thing, they didn’t need to ensure there are 10mil useful builds. All they had to do is to ensure there are 12 useful traits. Now, limiting the number of builds to 200k, they need to focus on the builds being viable, rather than just traits.
Best case scenario, they managed to ensure that every single one of those 200k builds are viable. You seriously believe that out of the 10mil builds, you can’t find 200k viable builds with just about the same traits as before?

Ahkaskar.3906:

On the builds themselves, generally speaking they were oriented around pre-chosen sets of traits. As a GS guardian I’d only ever do 20 Zeal at most with two specific traits—Fiery Wrath and Zealous Blade. I’d never touch the others.
My other trait lines were 25 Radiance and 25 Virtues, never touching the GM traits at all, which were always supposed to be the flavor of each trait line. And even then I got stuck with condi damage which did me absolutely no good.

The only variances were when I’d go 20 in Honor for the recharge reduction, which would stick me with a subpar trait in the Honor Adept slot and forcing me to split the difference elsewhere.

And that was your choice. You wanted those two traits for the playstyle you were going for. As an Elementalist, I tried quite a few playstyles, mostly staff. I tried some dmg orientated, damage negating longer range artillery, that was pretty fun, I tried some support (which works really well with staff), I tried whole lot of trait combinations and enjoyed quite a few of them. There was freedom to choose.

Now, if I want Singularity, I’m forced to go full Tempest. This means, I need to sacrifice a lot of opportunities I would’ve had with other trait lines. But overloading attunements just seemed like a huge boon. Still, I have to choose between stuff like
Element Bastion – Doesn’t fit the rest of my playstyle.
Imbued Melodies – Not even using Warhorn. Not that I’d be facing too many stunned allies on regular basis anyways.
Lucid Singularity – Merely a resistance to movement impeding conditions, which doesn’t sound like something I’d choose.

And other traitlines have quite poor choices between GM traits, for elementalist anyways.
Like fire: Blinding foes? That’s, okeyish. Except if your playstyle involves staying away from the foes. Guess it’ll work on the few rangers you don’t reflect.
Blast finishers? Yeah, ele has so many blast finishers.
Skills granting might? Well, that’s okeyish.
Earth? Conditions can’t be applied to you before you’re hit for the first time.
Can’t be critically hit, well, that’s nice.
Maintain the passive effects of signets. -Need to use signets.
Arcane? More dmg for each boon? Not really focused on boons
arcane skills cause conditions? Guess I have one arcane utility skill in use.
attunement based spell after dodging? I actually like that trait. Glad it didn’t get culled.

Ahkaskar.3906:

So yes, they could have gone and rebalanced the trait lines: Removed the stats, combined traits and removed other excess traits, but by that point you’d have basically what you have now. Except that you’d still not have access to THREE improved grandmaster-quality traits simultaneously and you’d still be hemming and hawwing over the final 5 points in a line vs 5 in some one-off because that minor looks so much more appealing than that GM trait that has nothing to do with your build.

Exactly. You now have access to THREE improved grandmaster-quality traits simultaneously, that has nothing to do with your build.

Ahkaskar.3906:

At least now they KNOW you will take that GM trait and they can make it relevant to the rest of the line instead of worrying about someone doing some weird overpowered meta combination.

Yeah, that sounds good in theory. Didn’t work out too well for me with my Ele. Hardly have any choice between the GM traits now, most require a specific weapon, utility skill or so. I got 3 traitlines, meaning I won’t be using 3 specific weapons, and most likely I won’t be using 3 different types of utility skills. So I just need to hope the 3rd option for each trait line is even remotely useful.

Fluffy Pillow.3612:

The mechanic is to overload your attunement for staying in it, making you stay longer in it to unlock a new skill that is actually good and then locking you out of it due to an overload. Its a risk vs reward profession that functions a lot like celestial daggers on the ele. The class is much more supportive outside of the overload, with the overloads being where the dmg is at.

I’m sorry, but I don’t quite follow. How does that have anything to do with warhorn being pretty disappointing?

Fluffy Pillow.3612:

Not to mention, NO ONE was putting 1-2 pt into a trait line, they had to commit to it. People were also gated and forced into a trait line due to the stats it gave. Are people really still complaining about something that people understood to be a good thing MONTHS ago?!

Well, that’s easy to disprove. I placed 2 pt into a trait line several times. That granted access to the adept trait, which was sometimes all you needed. 2pt in fire = lava font, which fit well in utilizing the rally mechanic whilst farming mobs as an ele. Sure, my playstyle might’ve been a bit peculiar, but it was effective and fun.

And, as I’m sure you know, there is no monthly fees. Pardon me for taking a break.

Fred Fagone, don’t force it, really. You try to be right on a dialectic level: just to be right.

- In fact Mr. Ahkaskar’s arguments are here: The traits are now sometimes 2 or even 3 old traits in one.

- Having a huge freedom of choice can be counter productive as a lot of the old build combinations were useless and the new trait system is trying to prevent this.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Fred Fagone, don’t force it, really. You try to be right on a dialectic level: just to be right.

Uhm… what? I’m just expressing my disappointment in the general direction the game is going: always less freedom to play as we want.

ProtoGunner.4953:

- In fact Mr. Ahkaskar’s arguments are here: The traits are now sometimes 2 or even 3 old traits in one.

Yes, so basically… because you can now get bundled traits, the new system is better? Again, you could’ve just bundled those traits in the old system, if they truly were just half-traits before.

ProtoGunner.4953:

- Having a huge freedom of choice can be counter productive as a lot of the old build combinations were useless and the new trait system is trying to prevent this.

So, the new system has some 200k builds. Old system had 10mil (well, actually lot more than 10mil). Best case scenario is, that out of those 200k builds, none are useless. Even if that was true, do you honestly believe that out of the 10mil builds, 9.8mil or more were useless?
The thing is, reducing the total number of builds also reduced a lot perfectly good and viable builds. And out of those 200k new ones, not nearly 200k are viable.

Perhaps you could move the “removing the freedom to choose” line away from the “I got a new weapon to choose” line. It makes it look like you have no idea what “freedom to choose” means if you leave it there.

Yeah the warhorn is overall rather disappointing to me as well.

I also don’t care at all for the idea of overloads, so everything involving the ele in HoT has been rather ho-hum for me.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Fred Fagone, don’t force it, really. You try to be right on a dialectic level: just to be right.

- In fact Mr. Ahkaskar’s arguments are here: The traits are now sometimes 2 or even 3 old traits in one.

- Having a huge freedom of choice can be counter productive as a lot of the old build combinations were useless and the new trait system is trying to prevent this.

The very problem with this argument is general, the idea that a build is “useless”, is faulty for one very big reason: Not every player is going to be playing in PUGs, in groups at all, or participating in events where they have to min-max or even be a viable build to succeed.

You know, some people play games to experiment and have fun. No different than say playing Castlevania and trying to beat it with starter gear. Some people will enjoy having unique builds that are available with high customization. To say that something “was useless and thus is no longer needed” its a farce and only applies if you’re playing the game to be competitive, which not everyone will do.

I’m really tired of seeing arguments like that being used.

Fred Fargone.3127:

All in all, the trend with the updates seem to be taking away the freedom to play as we want, and streamline us into playing the way we’re told. So not too surprised that the long waited option is just 2 weapon skills/a that are so mediocre I can’t imagine using them on anything interesting, but that doesn’t stop me from being disappointed.

Kheo.2504:

Perhaps you could move the “removing the freedom to choose” line away from the “I got a new weapon to choose” line. It makes it look like you have no idea what “freedom to choose” means if you leave it there.

Either that, or you aren’t aware of the meaning of the word “trend”.