Guild Wars 2

Ello ArenaNet, I’ve got some feedback for you on this weekend event, as you requested. Though I was selected to participate in earlier stress tests and such, I was unable to attend because of time zone issues (I currently still reside in Japan, but only for a couple more weeks). This was the first time I actually got to play any of the expansion content (except for the revenant profession, this is the second time I got my hands on it).

Elite Specializations:
This is by far my favorite part of this weekend test. As Angry Joe said in his review of GW2, the game play is the most important part of any game, and this just expanded on it in a great way, and we still don’t have the other 5! I’m super excited to see what the other 5 will be.

• Tempest: Overload is awesome. It just plain is. The earth skateboard is fun to use and the fire tornado is as effective as I was hoping and somewhat expected for the parameters of this game. It’s not too OP or too weak, plus the obvious tell and long cast time makes it easy to interrupt/avoid (fair tradeoff). The new shouts are also handy. I can see myself using them in place of one or two of my staple utility skills. The warhorn skills are also all right. I can definitely see an elementalist using it for a support/hybrid build of sorts. The damage is ok, but the utility is where shines. Overall I say you guys did a good job with the tempest. It feels balanced and enjoyable. I will still prefer staff, but overload only adds to my repertoire of destructive power.

• Dragonhunter: It’s about time the guardian got a more viable ranged weapon! It’s not a weak weapon, either! The damage output is satisfying (for me at least) and plays well enough that I will definitely be using it on my second guardian. The traps are really good, too! Although, it pains me to say that the traps are better than the ranger’s, purely by raw damage output. Ranger traps are definitely better suited for condition builds (which are actually viable now). I don’t use thief traps so I can’t really compare. The new F1-F3 skills are also great. F3 has proven itself invaluable against those kitten ed snipers.

• Reaper: I know I’m not alone when I say this, but reaper rocks. No seriously, it plays really well! I never thought I would find myself wanting MORE chill duration. I was able to make a build that capitalizes on the chill/vulnerability of the reaper and it was fun. The greatsword damage is great, too! Again, not too high and not too low. It feels good. The necromancer’s healing skills in general always feel a little underwhelming (I know, life stealing is supposed to supplement it), but I still found myself struggling to get my necromancer’s health as high as I would like after a heal. The new shouts add some interesting variety to the pool of skills, but they also felt a little bit slower to cast than I would like. More than once I found myself interrupted just before I could use a shout. I wish they were instant cast like the warrior’s shouts, but I suppose it’s only fair since their affects are a little more varied than a warrior’s.

• Chronomancer: Mesmer is not my strongest class. I can play the class well enough to enjoy general PvE content, but nowhere near good enough with the class to really capitalize on the awesomeness that is the new F5 skill, Continuum Split. Mesmer is already a complex class that requires genuine skill to play extremely well, and the chronomancer line just adds to that beautiful chaos. I can totally see how a skilled mesmer can wreck house more than it already does. I will just have to do more damage and kill them faster, I suppose. The new wells are fitting for a mesmer, and THANK YOU for making them ground-targeted by default. Seriously, you have no idea how much of a good thing that is for players like me. The shield skills are also quite fitting for a mesmer. I found myself using Tides of Time often and found I really appreciated what the skill did for me and my fellow players. I just might use it as my permanent new off-hand for my mesmer. Besides, anything that gives me MORE of a reason to use The Flameseeker Prophecies is a good thing. I didn’t make that legendary to not use it, and now I can probably pass it on from my warrior to my mesmer and still feel good about it.

I do have one suggestion for the chronomancer. The class-specific bar above the weapon skills looks weird with F5 situated right above F4. Would it be possible for your UI design team to make it so that F5 is next to F4 to the right rather than above it? I know I’m splitting hairs at this point, but the UI would look a lot cleaner that way. It really does stick out like a sore thumb as it is now.

Verdant Brink:

• Story: I really like how the story started so far. I expected the rift between the surviving pact members and the Sylvari, but what really surprised me was the character dialog so far. I fully expected it to be full-on stupid racism and hatred against the remaining Sylvari, instead there was a willingness to give them the benefit of the doubt by the player character and some of the NPCs. Thank you for not making it so I had to kill some surviving pact members just because they were blinded by hatred. My characters’ voices are awesome to hear. Please keep that sort of quality voice work coming. Rytlock’s entrance was also highly appropriate. It kind of reminded me Vegeta from DBZ Abridged, saying “I’m back, kittenes!”

• Map: At first I felt a little overwhelmed by the scale of the map because I knew there was an upper level, a mid level, and a lower level. After playing it for a bit, though, I was able to get the feel for the place and felt more comfortable roaming around and doing stuff. The new gliding is kittenING AWESOME! I was up on a really high area and in the distance there was a large group of players doing an event. I wanted to jump in and help them, so I did. Before, I would have had to backtrack all through the winding pathways and numerous stairs. Now, I was able to simply glide across a rather large ravine and get there in time to help without missing out on the event. It took me all of about 7 seconds to get to a place that would have probably taken me about 3-5 minutes to reach by simply running. I can hear the WoW fanboys crying “GIMME A MOUNT!” but please keep ignoring them, ArenaNet. I have not gotten to use the bouncy mushrooms yet, but I imagine that they will work great in tandem with gliding to quickly traverse these maps WITHOUT a mount. That’s just smart design right there. Now, if only we could get a screw attack or a hook shot to go with that… :P

The events feel good for the context of what’s going on in the game world, but these bugged out events…. I get that this is a beta, but Verdant Brink has been available to the public for quite a while now. I expected a little more polish, but then again I’m going to give you guys the benefit of the doubt and say that it was actually worse in previous tests and things have improved since then. There is a broken bridge that players can walk across any time. The escort event with Laranthir is always bugging out at the exact same spot (we all know what I’m talking about so I won’t get into details), and that grub/feeding event will not progress. I imagine it’s supposed to work like the Orr Invasion in that the players will have to make the events progress to reap rewards, which a great idea, but it all comes crashing down when any one of the events gets bugged. It brings everything down to a grinding halt, and that’s not fun.

Some of the creatures in the map are… well…. they hurt way more than they probably should. Some foes hit so hard that they can make quick work of a group of players.

• Take the mushrooms, for example. When they die they explode, and the explosion deals like 8-10k damage. It’s also AoE. Now take note that the shrooms also have an extended agro range (just like the Risen Acolytes in Orr). Now imagine fighting one, and in your dodge dance you agro the other 2 nearby because of their long agro range. You kill one, it explodes, and your endurance is too low to dodge out of the explosion because while you were fighting the one, you were dodging the attacks of the other two. You’re dead. Even if the exploding shroom doesn’t kill you, his two friends will finish you off with ease.

• Next we have the shadowscales. They seem to hit harder than player revenants do with unrelenting assault. You dodge and avoid less than half of the assault. If you don’t dodge again immediately you are still taking at least 5k in damage, and that’s just one skill. I would expect that kind of damage from a champion boss, not a regular foe.

I get that you guys want to encourage players to play together rather than adventure alone, but come on. The first couple of weeks, maybe even months, there will be plenty of players logged in to these maps to work together, but after a while the maps will eventually go back down to being loosely populated. I’m not saying I want to be able to solo ALL the content in the map. I’m saying a player who is playing alone, however briefly, should not have to worry about taking on several creatures at once that were clearly designed to take on zergs when they are simply trying to get from one area to another. I can’t tell you how many times I got killed just while trying to run to group up with other players. Some of the creatures, namely the mushrooms and smokescales, need to have their damage toned down a little. Snipers hit hard, but we can at least use reflects on them.

Revenant:
I feel this needs input that is separate from the elite specializations. The new Shiro abilities themselves feel good, but their damage feels underwhelming. The play style is fun, though. The healing skill feels very weak, unfortunately. I activated it and attacked quickly (with quickness) to recover my health and the healing I received was so low that my entire heal was completely negated by a single attack from my foe (granted, the foes already hit plenty hard but that’s another story). The class itself feels good, but the damage output feels low. I would expect at the very least unrelenting assault to have damage that is somewhat comparable to hundred blades.

Outside of dual swords, staff skill 5 feels less viable than it was in the previous beta. Before it functioned like warrior spear 5. As it is now, I hit my target once or twice before I keep moving forward, leaving my target behind and hitting just air. Maybe if my foes were nicely lined up for me (they almost never are because yeah we are all constantly moving around) I could do some damage to all of them. Would it be at all possible to make staff skill 5 deal its damage like warrior spear 5? The pushback can still be viable if it is changed to trigger only once every second rather than on every hit.

That’s all I have for now. I might add to this later.