Guild Wars 2

PLAYER CHARACTER
MALE CHARR voice filter not applied or wrong voice file

• pick up pact supply “better get this to a rally point on the double”
• drop off pact supply " one less rally point to worry about"

• beta story cutscene (forgot which one, it was one of the lines he says on the way to that wrecked pact camp where Laranthir is)

REVENANT PvE (mostly 4th September’s BWE Verdant Brink)
GENERAL REVENANT

• MISERY SWIPE (Mace #1’s first of chain skill) looks silly when recast over and over, especially while moving.

• RAPID SWIPE (Staff #1’s first of chain skill) looks silly when recast over and over, even moreso while moving.

• PRECISION STRIKE (Sword #2) still fires it’s missile even if the enemy is beyond it’s range (450) and proceeds to miss (out of range!). It feels quite dissatisfactory when that happens.

• TEMPORAL RIFT (Axe #5) could maybe use the same treatment as the Reaper’s Grasping Darkness (Greatsword #5) as it currently fires in front of the player character and not at the direction of the targeted enemy.

• GLINT and VENTARI Legend icon on the boon bar doesn’t have a black border like JALIS’s or MALLYX’s.

SPECIFICALLY HERALD

• INFUSE LIGHT (#6 twice) being a damage inversion ability, i liked that i can run through a huge damage field and proceed to heal up to full HP without ever spec-ing into healing power.

• FACET OF DARKNESS (#7) I find myself turning this on from time to time to stack up the duration of Fury to be 20s, then using it’s active portion with less meditation, then activating this facet when the Fury duration runs low on a crit-spec.

• GAZE OF DARKNESS (#7 twice) acting as a stunbreaker sometimes makes the thought of using it tough. I find that I use this to either blind an enemy, reveal an enemy or to break a stun but never all three at once. I find that fair, like one of those “pick what you want to solve out of these three problems” abilities.

• Can leave FACET OF ELEMENTS (#8) on to traverse the map with constant Swiftness, i like this traversal capability.

• I liked using ELEMENTAL BLAST (press #8 twice) when starting to engage the enemy, I think that putting the movement-impairing Chill at the second pulse is a nice decision which makes catching up to a moving enemy a game of prediction/making-sure-it-happens. The cast time seems OK in that it’s not an instant awesome but it IS a more planned action than the rest.

• BURST OF STRENGTH (#9 twice) feels a bit strong as a set-up skill, but the potential of this ability does depend on being able to hit the enemy with it’s not-so-long range. I do feel awesome when landing both strikes and proceeding to use a high-damage skill right after, but 20 stacks of vulnerability just like that.. that’s something i don’t think i’m used to.

• CHAOTIC RELEASE (#0 twice) has this dragon which appears as you cast the knockback that follows the orientation you’re facing. I could spin around and turn this dragon wherever direction I want for the few seconds it casts. While the knockback would miss because of too much spinning on my part, it was very entertaining. I think it’s orientation could use locking upon cast to prevent the dragon from spinning too much.

NPCs
BONGO

• “last person i wanted to see” intonation sounded like a sitcom disappointment rather than spite
• “i can’t afford to lose another” rather than “i don’t want to lose another one”
• “i never see you again” intonation sounds like annoyed roommate than commanding officer of a Pact detail
• Bongo the One-Eyed has two eyes. not sure what to make of that

FAREN
APPEARANCE

• has the same model as Lord Faren in Southsun Cove’s temporary event?. He wears an underwear but not a loincloth despite describing his wardrobe as a loincloth. (i for one roll my eyes at the thought of seeing a different model of Faren where instead of this underwear he wears a legit loincloth, but that.. that can sell if sold as a separate mini. not one i’ll buy personally)

MINISTER MERULA
COMBAT

• uses fists to combat Verdant Brink’s wildlife. probably a certified professional, not sure what to make of it.
• throws rocks? throws -something-..
• when HP reaches zero her pose turns to that pose you get when viewing things in a model viewer. i think a stunned pose fits better for when her HP is depleted

BARONESS JASMINA
APPEARANCE

• looks like Ellen Kiel, tough like Ellen Kiel, but that can’t be right. (but it can cannot be wrong either.)
• uses two Apidae, which are supposed to be account bound but i don’t think i’ve seen her on Dry Top..

ENEMIES
Adolescent Electric Wyvern

• player character gets tinted in the colour of dark yellow/green after being struck by the laser from this wyvern’s maw for an indefinite amount of time. (disappears when character relogged in)

EVENTS
PERPLEXED NOBLES EVENT CHAIN
@Bongo’s Bungalow

• Pact soldiers plays death animation, and then walks back to their hut to which they despawn. i liked the notion of Lord Faren winning against these Pact soldiers and them rolling on the floor in dramatic agony at the awesome-ness of Lord Faren’s swordmanship but regardless usually in the open-world PvE defeated sparring NPCs play the downed animation than the death animation.

• When fighting Bongo the One-Eyed, the one who speaks the “i move so fast, i’m an army of one” just stood idle as the other Bongo were being fought. he sounded pretty proud of himself, so maybe have that Bongo use a /laugh and give him an indefinite Distortion buff (until defeated?) to justify hitting the others but not the one talking?

@Highland Ruins

• at the end of the Outpost event chain up on Highland Ruins, GERTRUDE speaks “The cooks at the estate will be so glad that all seven tea sets survived without so much as a chip.” but does not finish since she boards the ship prematurely before finishing her line.

tl;dr
this BWE hella fun
this BWE i had too much fun

Specializations

• Were they fun?
  yeah, i like these concepts of a specific playstlye specializing in certain aspects of the game without forcing the player’s hand that they “gotta be this now mwahaha!”.
• Did they Change how you play your profession in a meaningful way?
  i spent most of my relatable profession-specialization time as a Necromancer-Reaper, and yeah, the new Shroud twas implemented does cement it quite clearly the Reaper encourages being this figure who takes down their foe with not just the forethought of a necromancer but also with the chilling presence that prevents their enemies to escape their oncoming doom. As a power-centric necromancer it gave pretty good options for staying in melee range and incentives to fight more than just one enemy at a time.
• How were the improvements to the previous Specializations? (Dragon Hunter, Tempest, Chronomancer, Reaper)
  Reaper’s Gravedigger (Greatsword #2) feels way better. The risk that was returned to it (8s cooldown or none at all) made for more careful choices for bigger rewards than the last iteration’s awkward skill rotating. Grasping Darkness (Greatsword #5) required less focus to pull off compared to last iteration’s aiming system. The Reaper Shroud’s Executioner’s Scythe (#5) felt more forgiving than the last, and I don’t run off cliffs anymore as a Reaper with Death’s Charge (Reaper Shroud #2).
• Feedback on new specializations, as well as any changes to the old
  Nightfall (Greatsword #4) has a new animation where the player character whirls, but no actualy whirl finisher. I personally liked last iteration’s stab-the-ground Nightfall. Nightfall also could use borders to indicate it’s actual AoE range in terms of clarity than the swirly lines that move right now.

Creatures

• How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?
  The Bladedancers as a champion culls melee fighters who blob in front of it. That’s quite the new sight. They ARE fun, excitement was had, and will probably be had on the next encounters. There’s also that frog who eats airship parts.. or that Diarmid fellow. If at all, the new hostile mobs DO hit hard, but the telegraph of their attacks are also not quite un-obvious. Getting downed from their attacks (except for Diarmid, who’s very mean) felt more “ah, that was it’s attack” rather than “what was that knockdown? why does it look like a normal bite?”. There’s also Diarmid, who could fire faster than an arrow cart! Had a good laugh before using the waypoint again.

World

• With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?
  While it was more or less “defend this” or “kill that”, I do very appreciate that when the event branches (Ordnance Corps tower building) they do not fail, only delayed. This made me feel better as an early player who attended to the event while the other players are busy doing their own things.
• Do the new events bring you more into the world?
  Both story of Shashoo and Jasmina do tell firm stories. but what I valued was the sense of a moving story that these events shared. These fellows were determined to survive, and we were there from dawn till dusk. There was definitely a sense of companionship while staying and struggling with their endeavors.
• Are the new events challenging, meaningful, and interesting?
  Challenging in terms of game mechanics introduced within Heart of Thorns, yes. Meaningful.. perhaps not at this stage of the BWE. Interesting? Yes, this is a whole new level of design compared to the open-world events that was introduced in the past year. To be meaningful, I believe, would maybe require the night cycle to be more than what it is currently on BWE2.

Mastery System

• How is the progression?
  Still slow, still liking it.
• How is it using the mastery abilities in the current area?
  It helps. I really like how the map’s waypoints allow for easy gliding towards it’s key locations where players may potential be defeated while in on-going events.
• Is the mastery system providing a meaningful area of progression?
  Yes. Being able to glide gets you to ease from a lot of falling damage. Being able to bounce on mushrooms also really helps but never a must unless efficiency is the new fashion’s hot topic.
• Do you care about experience and mastery points?
  EXP not so much, mastery points a little bit more. I do value both of these but the voice-acting, the terrain, and the interaction against the new mobs bring more value to me (not necessarily in that order) than the two currently.
• Does it provide a good framework to add more masteries in the future?
  The whole EXP thing, yes. I think I’ll be OK to be doing this whole Mastery system again when the next expansion/mastery comes out, for as long as the content implemented is up to the standard.
• Do you want to learn as many masteries over time to overcome challenges later in the future?
  Yeah. I want to be awesome someday.