I don’t see a mega-thread yet so here’s my beta impressions.
Verdant Brink:
I think you already know the major issues here with bugged events.
I also worry for this map, as we push further into the story, I feel much of this will be too difficult to pull off alone, which, due to stalling events and people generally leaving the beta zone, I got to experience, and it was indeed difficult to do alone. Perhaps adding mercenary and or NPC commander mechanics from WvW to this map could aid with that difficulty scale.
Masteries:
Again I can’t really comment too well since events didn’t work. It wasn’t entirely difficult to grind exp, as long as I had boosters going, but it was rather annoying that there is no large exp mechanic like a dungeon, or event chains (again, I realize they weren’t working) to buffer the experience gain. I also tried many times to glide in open world, and even other games I was playing, thanks lol.
Adventures:
I only got to try the bugs in the branches event once, and without mushrooms, so I won’t comment there. The vine adventure is fun, but frustrating, so I hope the mastery points from tier 3 aren’t required to get everything unlocked.
Revenant:
I didn’t play much revenant this weekend, but I am already pretty happy with it.
Dragonhunter:
Wow. This was the first thing I made this weekend, and it was absolutely my favorite. The new virtues are fun, the traps (the two that I really used) were impactful, and longbow didn’t feel too slow to me (though I don’t play LB ranger). With the good does come bad though, Which is mainly this: many of the skills do not turn you (including the auto attack!) if you press them while standing still! Having to physically turn to shoot was really annoying.
Reaper:
Greatsword 5 still needs optimization, often times it wouldn’t cast towards my target when standing still, it’s really fast compared to the other skills, and yet it still missed 90% of the time. The rest of greatsword works pretty well. Shouts: They are pretty fun, though the heal could use a larger base heal I feel. Reaper’s shroud feels fantastic. This is probably the strongest elite spec so far, though like others I fear how required it might be.
Tempest:
Oh boy, this spec needs work. Everything feels slow to me. Warhorn skills are way too slow, Tidal Surge many times didn’t knock anything back because I was expecting it to move so much further. Overloading water feels completely useless, often all it did was lead me to my death. Earth and Water overloads also feel like they last half as long as fire or air, I expected moving on earth to feel really impactful, when in reality I couldn’t even pin down what exactly it did. The shouts also didn’t feel very strong. Rebound can be wasted on auto attacks which is just miserable.
Chronomancer:
Mesmer has been my main since headstart. My favorite class. Now that I’ve played around with it, here’s what I have to say. The balance between impact and cooldown is simply not there. Every time I used Continuum Split, I could barely tell when it would end. A clockwork HUD change (like revenant has) that pulses and clicks and really changes the feel (like shroud skills change the entire border of your screen) would really help solidify that you are shifted. A better warning to when you shift back would be nice too. Now for it’s balance, It’s a 90 second cooldown for a 6 second effect? One of the major issues is that with IP rolled in baseline, you can accidentally pop this skill and it goes on a 90 second cd for 3 seconds of use (hardly enough time to do anything). Please don’t mistake this for me not wanting IP baseline, that was one of the best changes to shatter mesmer since launch. I just think this effect should be longer, especially with the gigantic Achilles heel of the rift being destructible. Returning to the real timeline also does not restore charges of mantras, which seems like a bug. I would also consider possibly a trait to add quickness when you split the timelines, or whenever you shatter, to this spec. The wells you’ve provided have lots of great effects, and they work well, if not for their long cooldowns to short durations. Either up the damage, lower the cooldowns, or increase the durations (maybe 4-5 pulses? or at least a trait to do so). Shield: Love it.
Beta on the whole:
It was a great experience, one thing I would like is if you guys would add a “here’s what we’ve changed since you last saw” thread prior to the event.
I look forward to more changes in BWE2!
- Explorer Bekk