Guild Wars 2

Anet asked the testers to check out these areas during the next BWE (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-second-beta-weekend-event-begins-september-4/). I’d thought I post it up in bullet form so its easier to read, and add a few that are no brainers, but still work for a checklist. I’d suggest keeping a notepad beside you as you test.

Specializations

• Were they fun?
• Did they Change how you play your profession in a meaningful way?
• How were the improvements to the previous Specializations? (Dragon Hunter, Tempest, Chronomancer, Reaper)
• Feedback on new specializations, as well as any changes to the old

Creatures

• How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?

World

• With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?
• Do the new events bring you more into the world?
• Are the new events challenging, meaningful, and interesting?

Mastery System

• How is the progression?
• How is it using the mastery abilities in the current area?
• Is the mastery system providing a meaningful area of progression?
• Do you care about experience and mastery points?
• Does it provide a good framework to add more masteries in the future?
• Do you want to learn as many masteries over time to overcome challenges later in the future?

Stronghold PvP

• Feedback on the new UI
• Feedback on Stronghold itself

Bugs

• Report and notify any and all bugs using in game system as well as boards. Take screenshots and describe as best as you can

What not to worry about

• Map reward system

What about the WvW stuff ? Provided the new map is open for play.
Your final point is something to worry about in regards to WvW. It’s a good list but try not to cherry pick the parts of the game that are important to you.

Random.4691:

What about the WvW stuff ? Provided the new map is open for play.
Your final point is something to worry about in regards to WvW. It’s a good list but try not to cherry pick the parts of the game that are important to you.

…..

you do know this was all from their blog post, right?

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-second-beta-weekend-event-begins-september-4/

No I wasn’t, your topic is misleading. I assumed (incorrectly) that this was a list you were presenting.

The new WvW is not open for this beta I think the new WvW map will just get stress tests on new clients like they have been doing.

Random.4691:

No I wasn’t, your topic is misleading. I assumed (incorrectly) that this was a list you were presenting.

I included the link to the blog post, since I can only have so many characters in the topic, hopefully now people will read the initial paragraph and understand it better, and not be mislead.

Thank you for this. Would you be willing to bump it the day before the beta begins so it’s freshly available? It’s a very useful reformatting to help focus feedback commentary, at least for me. Feel free to quote this post as a reason for the bump if needed

Mark Katzbach.9084:

I would also like to thank you for summing up all of these points. This is a great list, and to make sure it remains visible through the next Beta Weekend Event, I’m going to go ahead and sticky this thread.

Also, thanks to everybody for keeping in mind that these betas are indeed meant for testing and our developers will be reading and making changes based on the feedback they receive from these weekend events.

cool! thanks a lot Mark!

What boggles my mind is why you do not add polls in-game after completing an event, or after a combat encounter. It’s strange why you don’t do this.

Derigar.7810:

What boggles my mind is why you do not add polls in-game after completing an event, or after a combat encounter. It’s strange why you don’t do this.

Strangely, they did. For once. During first GW2 closed betas… it was simple and helpful.

Valento.9852:

Derigar.7810:

What boggles my mind is why you do not add polls in-game after completing an event, or after a combat encounter. It’s strange why you don’t do this.

Strangely, they did. For once. During first GW2 closed betas… it was simple and helpful.

Indeed it was.
But truth is, most of my guildies didn’t fill them, and most the people that I know didn’t either. They all said something stupid like “someone else will do it anyway”.
Personnaly I find this system quite usefull actualy.

Where is the best place to post feedback to the OPs bullet points?

I will post the feedback right here, in a few hours. I think this is the better place to keep the feedback organized, always within the format proposed, of course.

I elected to post a Masteries-focused thread and to add to existing threads on mobs/events. I went to the profession forums to put specialization feedback in each thread dedicated to that.

I suggest doing that, simply because a full answer to any one of these stickied questions is a wall of text all by itself

Posting here since this is where I took the list from.

Specializations
Same as the first HoT BWE, I main ranger and am waiting on the Druid spec. While I did play a little mesmer, it was mainly for insurance via portal while exploring the map with friends, so I’ll leave the feedback to those better qualified.

Creatures

How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?
The mobs seemed easier this beta, although that might be because I had some experience from the last BWE. The dagger-hylek’s (shadowblade?) stabbing attack was dangerous, but had a good tell to it. I think the Mordrem tormenters were in the last BWE, but I don’t remember the torment stacks…Honestly, that homing ball of tormented death that is their attack got me quite a few times. Smokescales and snipers are in a nice place with fairly low health to compensate for their damage.

The beetles seemed to be a little too restrictive on what’s considered their “front”. There were a few times while I was fighting them that I thought I was in front of them, but through either their animations or my positioning I was still hitting for 0.

The Legendary wyvren’s breakbar needs to scale better. I only saw it take to the air once, otherwise the breakbar was down almost as soon as it appeared.

This might be a bug, but one of the times I fought Diarmid, it just stood/walked around and didn’t do anything. It’s a great encounter when it does fight, but it’s kinda ruined if she just stands there.

World
With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?

Yes. The events weren’t bugged for the most part, so I think we got a good feel for them. The dialogue during the noble’s event chain was great. I didn’t run the other one as often, but the times I did went smoothly for the most part.

One thing that needs looking into is the amount of time it takes to gather enough ship salvage in the ordinance corps event chain. The event probably runs twice as long as it should. Even with mushroom bouncing and gliding, running supply back and fourth gets tedious after what feels like the 20th time.

As I said above, the legendary Wyvren needs a larger breakbar, so that the zerg has a decent chance of failing to break it. I’d like to actually have to deal with the consequences of failing it a few times.

Do the new events bring you more into the world?
Yes. While they hylek event chain last BWE gave us interesting info about those living in the jungle, this section of the map seemed more focused on the survivors of the crash. These events did a good job of detailing the struggles of the survivors.

Are the new events challenging, meaningful, and interesting?
Yes. There was usually a couple people downed at events, which is good to see. It means that the events are proving a challenge and helping people get better.

That said, the Legendary Wyvren fight needs a bit of tweaking. Aside from the breakbar being too small, the fire carpet mechanic is completely invalidated by the fact that there is no fire under him. The entire fight can be safely completed by staying behind its tail and inside the “character circle” that shows its position. Please make the wyvren stand in a fire field at times so that players can’t just camp behind it the entire fight.

Mastery System
How is the progression?
The pacing is at a good spot right now, contingent on new masteries being added at a fairly regular rate. The constant stream of events in VB mean that there’s going to be a lot of experience to gain quickly. I think I was getting a million experience every 2-4 hours? Not blazing fast, but not an endless grind either. People are going to have all the currently announced masteries completed shortly after a week has passed. The majority of the playerbase will probably take 2-3 months, maybe less.
How is it using the mastery abilities in the current area?

I focused on gliding for this beta, making it to advanced gliding. (I cheated on the last quarter of the bar and farmed new characters, but I wanted time to try the mastery out after I had it) Both gliding and mushroom bouncing make the map a whole lot easier to traverse and eliminates a lot of the bottlenecks the paths lead you into.

Is the mastery system providing a meaningful area of progression?
Stealth Gliding – The ~2 seconds of stealth this mastery gives you is a little underwhelming. It’s not enough to get through a mob’s aggro range, it’s barely enough to break aggro if you’re at the very edge of the Mob’s leash…I think it could do with an increase
Advanced Gliding -The infinite glide was great, along with not closing the glider when you reach the end of the endurance bar. The only disappointment I had was that I wasn’t able to divebomb like in the guild hall trailer. Is this something that we actually can’t do, or is it like diving goggles in that you can only do it from a specific point? If it’s at all possible to make divebombing a thing, please do!

Do you care about experience and mastery points?
Yes. It’s a lot of fun to work out how to get to the mastery points, although most of them seem to be “find a high point and glide for it”. Not sure how to mitigate that, but I expect there’s more like the mushroom cave that you can’t glide to.

Does it provide a good framework to add more masteries in the future?
Yes. See last BWE feedback.

Do you want to learn as many masteries over time to overcome challenges later in the future?
Yes. See last BWE feedback.

Stronghold PvP
Didn’t play stronghold
Bugs
Diarmid sometimes forgets to fight and just walks around for an extended period of time.

Noble Event Chain: Jasmina doesn’t wait for the first champ hylek stage of the event to die. (Location: after walking down from the cliff, past the first hylek ambush, to the green grassy area after the small bridge) I only encountered this once, late saturday night with a small group doing the event. I assume it’s because the group didn’t kill the spawned mobs fast enough. The result of this bug is that Jasmina walks away from the fight and when she gets to the vigil camp One-eye doesn’t spawn.

Related: There’s an eyepatch in game guys…at least make it look like One-eye only has one eye…

Specializations
• Were they fun?
Tempest – I main an Ele so, I found Tempest to be very fun to play. I’m not very technical when it comes to stats and such so, I just picked something comfortable for my play style.
Berserker – Love it! Extremely fun to play and (for me) easy activating the “bezerk” mode. I enjoyed this very much
Chronomancer – My second time playing this spec and I found it rather fun with using wells and the shield skills.

• Did they Change how you play your profession in a meaningful way?
Not really.

• Feedback on new specializations, as well as any changes to the old
Tempest is still op but so is my Ele, I see nothing wrong with it (I’m pve only)
Berserker is just fun to play! So much rage =]

Creatures
• How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?
I found some creatures to be easier than others such as the frogs that just stand there and take damage. I would like to see more movement like the mobs in Silver Wastes for reference. The stealth mobs are a nice touch and had me a bit confused and trying to run away (lol).

World
• With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?
Day – The day time events are fun however, the Tent event, was not as challenging as only one or two mobs spawned near the tents. Also, fighting the Wyvern for the first time wasn’t easy but once people figured out the fight it was too easy. Even though people still died lol.

Night – The night events are fun however, if people don’t know how to get around the map or to bring supplies, it can be a challenge. I found out that running alone in the jungle at night isn’t a good thing! You will definitely need two to three people with you if hunting down supplies on the paths.

• Do the new events bring you more into the world?
Yes, because the jungle is confusing (as it should be) and finding the event and following it does help with opening the map. The mini map helps a bit but I still use the big map to look around and zoom in. However, my friend and I did get lost on several occasions but I’m not surprised. We are in a jungle and if jungles were easy to navigate people wouldn’t get lost.

• Are the new events challenging, meaningful, and interesting?
Some events are challenging such as holding the Rally Points. Meaning and interesting, yes.

Mastery System
• How is the progression?
At first, I thought the progression was a little slow however, once I started to play both day and night cycles, find Mastery Points and gather, it moved rather quickly for me. I unlocked the second tier of gliding and the second tier of mushrooms. I wasn’t trying but just ran around exploring and doing events.

• How is it using the mastery abilities in the current area?
Gliding by itself is a life saver however, it wasn’t until I unlocked mushrooms did I find both to be useful. I ran into an area where I knew a bridge was located but it wasn’t there, just a mushroom. So, I unlocked mushrooms and that made getting around faster and easier.

• Is the mastery system providing a meaningful area of progression?
Yes.

• Do you care about experience and mastery points?
Not really, I don’t focus on it. I just play and get excited when I “level up” or receive a new Mastery Point.

• Does it provide a good framework to add more masteries in the future?
Yes, the framework is good.

• Do you want to learn as many masteries over time to overcome challenges later in the future?
Definitely!

Bugs
• Report and notify any and all bugs using in game system as well as boards. Take screenshots and describe as best as you can.
See attached screenshot. I found a blue Asura under the Corpse Grove on the same branch as the Mastery Point. Also, a coupld of floating Mordi Minions

Thank you for clarifying the questions. First off, I have to say that even though the particular elite specialization that I’m looking forward to is not released for beta testing yet (Druid), I still ended up making a ranger to play in Verdant Brink this weekend and enjoyed the experience very much. As I spent the majority of my time there, I will answer what I can based on what I did test.

Creatures:

How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?
The new creatures, from the mysterious Coztics to the bloodthirsty jungle mordrem have certainly revitalized the need to think through your strategies several skills ahead of time. You need to react quickly and preserve cool downs, but this doesn’t make them impossible beat in the right setting. This is what many will remember the Orrian maps to have been like when they first explored them around level 70. Over time though, aside from major world events, group combat on maps such as Cursed Shore have in general become mindless grinds, only to be expected after repeatedly farming them post-level 80. Upon arrival in Verdant Brink, you really do feel like you’ve run blindly into enemy territory and you’re the one being hunted. Even the adorable mushroom soldiers are deadly! You do not want to stay long in their habitat. Overall, these mobs make for engaging group fights, even more so than in the Silverwastes, which I’m sure was one of the main goals for this expansion.

World:

With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?
Do the new events bring you more into the world?
I found that both event chains at the two new outposts included something more than just fun. At the southern outpost, we reunite with Lord Faren: still weird, still funny. There was outright humor throughout this, from nobles worrying about their shoes getting ruined to Flirty Faren having roped in yet another hopelessly clingy woman, and of course… the loincloth, or more accurately, the Speedo. Again, he’s ever-the-weirdo, and I love it. No matter how many times I farmed mastery experience out of this chain, I didn’t grow tired of the conversations. They were well scripted. Up north, there was a different underlying feeling: death. The tones with these NPCs were somber, as they should have been with the things they’ve seen. This is where I really started to notice that the war on Tyria has had an effect on even the smaller creatures. The quaggan in charge of the northern outpost has begun to use the word “I”, and her quaggan comrade is calling her “ma’am”. The events here naturally bring about more urgency to pitch in for the sake of protecting others, which is a great contrast to the southern events.

Are the new events challenging, meaningful, and interesting?
Both chains lead you to an area of the map with interesting points to the personal story and the world. The wyvern in the south is an formidable boss, and killing it is satisfying, however the bombing of the Blighting Tree in the north could use a bit more oomph. The explosion is barely audible or visible (perhaps a mastering issue?), and the ending to this chain is disappointing at best, for how positively challenging it is to complete. The NPC suggests, “Let’s get out of here!” almost as though you are in danger if you are too close to the explosion, even showing the timer for how long you have to get yourself out of range. Nothing negative happens to you if you’re standing in the middle of it though. Nothing. Wouldn’t it be interesting to feel like you NEED to resurrect or buff your allies and move out before the tree explodes? Even if I died every time, I would find that event pretty exciting just because it would be more realistic.

Mastery System:

How is the progression?
Understanding that the event chains we get in the beta are going to be done once as parts of an even larger chain for the region, I felt that the mastery progression was going as it should. I farmed the two outposts and nighttime events enough to complete the few usable masteries that I wanted in time for the Druid to be tested. Basic gliding was finished in the first beta weekend, but I now have three mastery lines in Itzel Lore and two in Gliding. Getting to this point took about 17 or so total hours of a lot of farming on a very small portion of the region. Even so, I knew that these outpost events were not going to be repeated in the same way later on, which means you won’t be watching Faren sword fighting in his underwear a thousand times each day, unless, for some reason, you really felt the personal need to cherish it.

How is it using the mastery abilities in the current area?
As I’ve been preparing for the next beta, I spent a little more time in Verdant Brink than most of my friends, probably to the point of almost burning out. To get started, Basic Gliding, Bouncing Mushrooms, and Updraft Use are the most important to achieve first, respectively. I pushed my progression a little further to acquire Lean Techniques in gliding and Blazing Speed Mushrooms in the Itzel Lore, and although they were nice to have, they weren’t as necessary as the others were in the current zones we’ve been given. Knowing this helped me plot out what I’m going to progress through first when it counts. Also, the blazing speed was not so blazing for how cool the description sounded. The boost either needs to last longer or be faster. It’s only 7% faster than a normal swiftness buff, and so the result made it seem like more of a filler mastery and an obstacle to something better, rather than something to aim for.

Is the mastery system providing a meaningful area of progression?
Well… of course the masteries are going to mean something as progression. It’s achieving something after level 80 that wasn’t there before, and you are doing great with this expansion, but it sounds like the question you really want answered is this: “Is the mastery system providing enough content as post-level 80 progression for the amount of money you spent on it?” Since we haven’t seen everything, before we can answer, we may ask, “When will the next expansion come out? What is the total amount of content we’re getting?” As neither of those questions are able to be answered yet, I suppose the generic answer to the first is that there could always be more, and with further expansions, there probably will be. For Heart of Thorns in particular though, I’d like to see a couple more truly excellent mastery lines available inside of the Heart of Maguuma section alone that make a player say, “That’s gonna take forever! But you know what? It’s worth it!” I’m someone who likes to feel like once I’ve unlocked an entire map, I still haven’t explored it.

Do you care about experience and mastery points?
Absolutely. Out of the few descriptions that we can read in beta, I thought they all sounded like something that I will want for my character(s) and that I will have fun working toward. I just want to see more of them involving Maguuma.

Does it provide a good framework to add more masteries in the future?
Yes. Please do.

Do you want to learn as many masteries over time to overcome challenges later in the future?
Spending as long as I did in Verdant Brink, I definitely want to achieve as many as I can with the future in mind. I already had that planned, and it makes farming even in a small area less tedious. This question does bring me to my final hope for the last beta weekend: Please give us another part of the map. Even if the map is as small or smaller than the first, please give us something new. I keep seeing the usual, “Anet doesn’t want to show too much!”, which I totally understand, but showing one more piece for one more weekend can’t be giving too much away if the new zone is truly as massive as it’s been hyped up to be through marketing.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this long review. Again, involving our feedback for the content you release is one of the biggest reasons why I love this game and its creators. Looking forward to next time. FOR TYRIA!

Sincerely,

Adrienne

Specializations

• Were they fun?
  —-I tried the Reaper and the Bezerker specialization during this test. They were both quite enjoyable, and fun to play.

• Did they Change how you play your profession in a meaningful way?
  —-The reaper I played in a similar way to my necromancer, utilizing a full condition spec, which played pretty similar, with the biggest difference being melee in reaper shroud.
  —-The Bezerker changed my play style significantly. I tried out a hybrid burn/bleed spec, which was quite fun, and different from how I normally played Warrior.

• How were the improvements to the previous Specializations? (Dragon Hunter, Tempest, Chronomancer, Reaper)
  —-I did not play the first beta weekend so I can’t comment on how it was compared to then.

• Feedback on new specializations, as well as any changes to the old
  —-Reaper was a lot of fun, but it’s main mechanic, chill, suffered from significant problems. My grand master build defining trait gave my chill damage, but I quickly learned that chill doesn’t work on bosses. This rendered my build pretty much useless in any big fight, which was very sad. Additionally chill capped at a very low 5 applications which meant I couldn’t keep chill on my target because all my applications were for only 1-3s with very long CD’s. So even though I could apply 15-20 chills, only 5 of them mattered, meaning I couldn’t keep chill on my target reliably as a condition user (Scepter/Dagger & Staff). In group battles this was even worse because other reapers, elementalists or a number of other classes would apply chill as well meaning even on enemies chill did work on, my chills did not work because they were at the “cap”.

Finally the damage on the GM chill trait felt low for a grand master trait. It did less than the master level trait terror.

Creatures

• How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?

The new mobs were much more interesting than previous mobs. They used varied abilities, dodged, evaded and made combat much more engaging than before. My biggest complaint here is that their attacks are not always very visible. All attacks should give you the opportunity to dodge, move out of the way. Some attacks did this very well, but others have no indicator at all except very hard to see nearly invisible arrows, or random damage spikes that as far as I could tell came from nowhere.

World

• With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?

The event chains were a lot of fun. I wouldn’t change anything about the events themselves. The issue I ran into was the number of events. Day light seemed to last about an hour, yet the event chains only took about 30 minutes to complete. This left the map completely void of anything to do for 30 minutes. There were no extra events, no side events, no repeating chains, just stand by the WP and AFK. Most people logged out or left the map once finishing the chains. There is no reason to stay on the map and no reward for doing so. Even if the event chains are perfect, the content as a while will fail if more events aren’t added.

Mastery System

• How is the progression?
  Progression is good while you are actually progressing, however due to the lack of events there was long stretches of time where I was making no progress at all and ended up just leaving the map.

• How is it using the mastery abilities in the current area?
  Using the masteries are a lot of fun. I managed to get gliding, updrafts, and bouncing mushrooms. The map opens up and becomes a lot more accessable after you have bouncing mushrooms and gliding. Before you unlock those however the map is fairly tedious.

• Is the mastery system providing a meaningful area of progression?

Yes, the progression is meaningful and interesting, and a great way to keep the content exciting as you explore with things you’ve unlocked.

• Do you care about experience and mastery points?

Experience is much harder to come by than mastery points, and as such I didn’t really care about the points. By the end of the test I had nearly 20 mastery points, yet I only managed to get enough experience to use 2 of them. There needs to be more sources of experience as mentioned above. When I was doing events the pace of advancement was good, but once you run out of events the progression just stops.

• Does it provide a good framework to add more masteries in the future?
  Yes

• Do you want to learn as many masteries over time to overcome challenges later in the future?
  Yes!!!

Stronghold PvP

• Feedback on Stronghold itself
  Stronghold is getting better as strategies develop and people become more familiar with it. The biggest problem I have right now is the respawn time. A good team can easily keep you stalled at the keep gate until the end of the map because there just isn’t enough time after killing their team to break down the gate or get into the lord room. The enemy just respawns, zergs the door breakers, killing them nearly instantly then dies again. By the time we get more door breakers near the door the enemy is back and kills them again.

Ok..so after reading some of the newer things you want to add to the game i went along and decided to give this game another try, in buying the standard version. So here’s my impression so far.

Specializations
Were they fun?
I honestly think most of them were lackluster or irritating to use. Skill transition was clunky/laggy…it wasn’t smooth enough for most classes. Thief …the spec completely rushed. Should have been sniper. Necro seems cool. Dragon hunter….attacks are to slow honestly..it feels like it takes forever to shoot something. Makes me not want to use that spec. Warrior….it’s ok but doesn’t feel “cool” or “epic” at all. Thief is boring..100% not gonna go that spec. Tempest seems lackluster and Chronomancer I didn’t try. Not the biggest fan of Mesmer class. All in all nothing made me feel like I took my character to the “next level” and make me say “omg I finally did it"…because most specs are “meh”. Again check clunkyness lag and skill transition between them.

Did they Change how you play your profession in a meaningful way?
I would have to test them even more. If the clunkyness of the skills would be solved I might use them even more. I did play them a lot during a limited time period…that being said no, I can’t say for sure if it will be gamechanging for me.

How were the improvements to the previous Specializations? (Dragon Hunter, Tempest, Chronomancer, Reaper).
No comment here, I didn’t get to play the last beta. This was my first.

Feedback on new specializations, as well as any changes to the old
Read statements above.

Creatures
How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?
Some were a bit to difficult honestly… I know it’s an mmo but getting shut-down hard by some vets in the map is a bit overkill on the difficulty level. Apart from that good job, I found most mobs interesting, fun and diverse. Apart from checking some of the difficulty levels of some of them, it was really fun to fight them. Good designs, good&fun mechanics. Hope to see more in the future.

World
With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?
Yes they are…and are group orientated I really liked them. The only fear I have is of dead maps. Having almost all events require groups (because of obvious difficulty stuff) would make solo play when the map is more or less empty a bit of a struggle and irritating. Maybe besides “upscaling” events you should also see the “downscaling” and base difficulty. All in all had a lot of fun and the events are way more “group cooperation” orientated then before. Thumbs up.

Do the new events bring you more into the world?
Well yes because if you want to finish a chain you need to travel half the map with the groups/zergs. So yes…it’s kinda forced but it’s well made and doesn’t make you feel dragged around (at least I didn’t). Thumbs up

Are the new events challenging, meaningful, and interesting?
Challenging?….hmm..a bit I guess? I do have a lot of experience and “challenging” is a big word for me. The only challenge is having enough numbers. Maybe raids will fill that for me…BUT they were interesting. Meaningful? Yes..because of having actually talking NPCs now (which I STRONGLY suggest you make for everything in the future) now you actually care and feel what’s going on (voice, intonation, etc.). You feel more connected to the event and NPCs and make you have feelings like “caring”….imagine that….in gw2. Interesting? Yes…different events with different mechanics and all that. Definitely interesting.

Mastery System
How is the progression?
The mastery progression asks too much exp from my POV considering the number of masteries there are and in the future will be added. They should be lowered or you risk another WvW achievements scenario. Make the game fun not tedious. Don’t lower too much tho.

How is it using the mastery abilities in the current area?
I just got gliding and mushroom jumping. Those 2 are fun. Have to get more to give you a real answer. I suggest for next betas just unlock everything and see ppl use them fully OR dramatically lower requirements for testing purposes. Better for beta testing.

Is the mastery system providing a meaningful area of progression?
It does give you “something” to do other then nothing…so yes anything is better then nothing.

Do you care about experience and mastery points?
Considering how boring this game is yes I care about them.

Does it provide a good framework to add more masteries in the future?
Yes and I hope you do. Sooner or later ppl will finish them and will get bored again. Masteries should be something that players always work for. That being said I repeat…the requirements for maxing out masteries IMO is WAY to big. It’s better to add more masteries/stuff in general, rather then get lazy and make 1 mastery very difficult to obtain….That will just make you feel like everything you do is like a korean endless grinder. Not a very good feeling isn’kitten

Do you want to learn as many masteries over time to overcome challenges later in the future?
I am one of those ppl who wants to have everything unlocked so yes.
Stronghold PvP

Feedback on the new UI
Don’t care

Feedback on Stronghold itself
Don’t care

Bugs
Report and notify any and all bugs using in game system as well as boards. Take screenshots and describe as best as you can
Bongo the One-Eyed has 2 eyes. I am heavily considering a refund if this is not fixed urgently. Jokes aside, the time-to-wait in order to start the next event in a chain should be reduced. I saw a lot of times ppl prematurely leaving. Even i did that…i saw the event finish, the NPCs talk..and then 10s of nothing as if it was all over. Check that please.

What not to worry about
Map reward system
I am not worried…I am very worried. GW2 has one of the most lackluster and useless rewards of any mmos so far….so tread carefully this topic.

Specializations
• Were they fun?
o Specialization was fun. It made me feel that there is a more define role for each class. Instead of every class can do it. In a way, it feels the Meta class will change for the better.
• Did they Change how you play your profession in a meaningful way?
o I changed the way I played my Mesmer when the update increased the recharge rate of vigor, so I changed the way I played the Mesmer. Now that the chronomancer uses the shatter skills to help the people around you gain alacrity, I’m going back to how I use to play my Mesmer.
• How were the improvements to the previous Specializations? (Dragon Hunter, Tempest, Chronomancer, Reaper)
o I can’t answer this question well because I wasn’t interested in the BWE, also I was lost. Didn’t know what I should be doing. With the added BWE Achievements, I had a direction to move towards, and actually played the BWE.
• Feedback on new specializations, as well as any changes to the old
o I don’t have any feedback comparing what I experienced the first time versus the second time.
Creatures
• How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?
o I found the new changes to AI settings was fun and refreshing. The AI are doing more, more dynamic moveset. The increased attack power and HP isn’t my idea of challenging group content, but I still found it real nice because it increases more social game play as it takes more players to help each other to get something killed, and also help get more hits on a mob to get credit for the event.
World
• With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?
o Yes, it makes the map more active, instead of a specific location is doing this dynamic event, and the other parts of the map are completely dead.
• Do the new events bring you more into the world?
o Yes, because there are places I need to reach, in order for me to get this achievement, get the event to reach to the end.
• Are the new events challenging, meaningful, and interesting?
o After repeating the events 3-4 times, it got a little tedious. At first, I was quite interested in what will happen next, but after I got to the 3rd or 4th time, I lost interest, and didn’t bother repeating it again. In terms of challenging, as I mentioned above, I felt that the AI settings are refreshing. I just don’t find increasing the HP and Attack damage of a mob is “challenging” content.
Mastery System
• How is the progression?
o It takes too long to train 1 mastery, especially when it is the start of a long chain.
• How is it using the mastery abilities in the current area?
o As I mentioned above, it took too long to train 1 mastery, especially the start of a mastery. I only had the opportunity to play around with the gliders, but wasn’t able to do the mushroom bounce.
• Is the mastery system providing a meaningful area of progression?
o The master system proved very meaningful as it will help make accessing locations easier. But with that being said, I like the fact even though you don’t have the mastery learned, you can still go to those said locations to do the events.
• Do you care about experience and mastery points?
o The experience it takes to gain the mastery takes too long. In terms of the required number of mastery point to begin the chain, I didn’t get far as I couldn’t get enough experience to train the mushroom.
• Does it provide a good framework to add more masteries in the future?
o It is a good start, but tweaking the required experience points would definitely make it more enjoyable.
• Do you want to learn as many masteries over time to overcome challenges later in the future?
o Yes, but as I mentioned above, I would like the experience points required to level the mastery to be reduced, so it doesn’t feel like a grind at the start.
Stronghold PvP
• Feedback on the new UI
• Feedback on Stronghold itself
Bugs
• Report and notify any and all bugs using in game system as well as boards. Take screenshots and describe as best as you can
o I don’t know if it was a bug, or intended mechanics of the game. When I played my chronomancer, I was able to get the effects of alacrity using the shatter skills without having any illusions or phantasms out.

Specializations

• Were they fun?
  - Reaper and dragonhunter were great fun. While I’m hardly a thief player, I did enjoy daredevil. Tempest is ok, but mostly because of the base class – it adds little by itself. Not a mesmer player and chronomancer was just more mesmer, so didn’t enjoy it much (though slightly more than standard mesmer). Berserker I didn’t enjoy much even though I like playing warrior – too much keeping track of timers and bars and combos, and general feeling that my warrior was an elementalist.

• Did they Change how you play your profession in a meaningful way?
  - Dragonhunter brought a ranger feel, but with guardian melee to it. Tempest got to to run in more to use overloads, and to use air attunement more. I used shround much more on reaper than otherwise on necro because it has more fun skills (I don’t enjoy the standard death shroud).

• How were the improvements to the previous Specializations? (Dragon Hunter, Tempest, Chronomancer, Reaper)
  - Reaper had the biggest changes to how they felt, and it really helped. Tempest and dragonhunter felt the same, though traps and overloads were more ok in numbers now, e.g. fragments of faith got a long enough aegis duration which was an irritation before.

Creatures

• How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?
  - Difficulty is generally fine. Pocket raptors are too easy.
  Most are fun. Mordrem snipers and teleporting frog archers are great. The mushroom type enemies (esp exploding omes) are so and so. The mordrem cavaliers are not fun to fight, takes foreverand I’m mostly waiting around for them to do something, and they have oversize health bars that just drags out the encounter – I found myself avoiding those fights just like the mushroom ones.

World

• With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?
  - I like them

• Do the new events bring you more into the world?
  - Yes, they tell stories

Stronghold PvP

• Feedback on the new UI
  - The loading graphic is pretty, the hero symbols are clear, the downed lord symbol is hard to see when is health is low

I’m not quite sure why this thread is as devoid of feedback as it is…but to rectify that to some extent:

Specializations
• Were they fun ?
-I played the Reaper, Berserker, and Dodgedevil during the beta. I am such an awful Elementalist player that my feedback on the Tempest would not be useful, the Chronomancer is pretty much done so far as I’m concerned, and I’ve lost interest in the Rev and thus avoided the Herald. I’ll get into more detail below, but in short:

REAPER: Yes
BERSERKER: Yes
DAREDEVIL: No

• Did they Change how you play your profession in a meaningful way?
REAPER: Enormously. The greatsword is fantastic fun to play and makes me approach battles much differently than either the dagger or the axe, my previous weapon preferences. The improvements to Gravedigger were amazing – Gravedigger might be my new favorite thing. The weapon performed much better overall, though with crappy beta gear I still had some issues reliably maintaining Chill in PvE. A few of the shouts made their way onto my bar, though the zone didn’t heavily encourage their use.

BERSERKER: To some extent. The torch is a nice addition and combo’d very well into my existing Warr set-up – Flames of War into savage Leap into weapswap into Whirling Axe was highly amusing and reasonably effective. The berserk mechanic was fun and the traits supported multiple build types quite well. It wasn’t so much a revolutionary change in the Warrior as it was a handy new set of tools, but that’s fine. I played a Sinister hybrid Bleedwarr anyways, the Berserker was a natural fit for me.

DAREDEVIL: Yes and no both – and that’s the problem. When I tried Daredevil with my typical S/P PvE build, I found myself using neither the weapon nor the utilities nor the elite, and the traits were lackluster. The funky dodges screwed with me more than anything. When I specifically rebuilt the beta character as a Lotus Training condispammer with P/D and Uncatchable – as Daredevil-y a build as Daredevil could get – it started taking me a year and a half to drop anything, and I was a lot less safe doing it. Disappoint. Perhaps it’s simply because my existing Thief build does everything I want it to nicely and it’s difficult to swap stuff out without rebuilding it completely, but…well.

• How were the improvements to the previous Specializations? (Dragon Hunter, Tempest, Chronomancer, Reaper)
See above

• Feedback on new specializations, as well as any changes to the old
REAPER: The Reaper’s defenses are still too weak for what it’s trying to do. I can’t reasonably engage multiple targets, and thus maximize my giant sword and my shouts, because when I try I get dropped like a sack of bricks even with Rise!. This spec feels like it desperately needs some Protection somewhere to go with the whole unkillable-movie-monster theme, and also to help it do the mass brawling ArenaNet is very heavily encouraging it to do. Otherwise, keep it up – this spec started great and has only gotten better.

BERSERKER: I think the Berserker’s in a pretty decent place right now, and headed in a good direction. The Rage skills were surprisingly fun, the spec fits well with the rest of Warrior without conflicting with it, and it just felt good to me. Natural, intuitive, and fun to play. Good job, team.

DAREDEVIL: I see where the team wanted to go with the Dodgedevil, and I like the intent, but it just didn’t gel with me. I think it may be as much a case of me needing more time with it as anything else, but it wasn’t an instant “yes, more please” for me like the Berserker and Reaper were, or the Chronomancer from last BWE. The staff is also garbage. Like no rly, have someone redo that completely. UGH, so bad…anyways. I feel like the Daredevil mixes poorly with the rest of the Thief – either you make a Daredevil OR you make a Thief. The playstyles of the one don’t mix well with the other. Suppose we’ll see next time.

Creatures
• How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?
Better than the base game, not as good as the dinosaurs. The monster Hylek, the Crushers and Floppers and stuff, were entertaining if fairly straightforward to work around. I liked those. The smaller Hylek…maybe it was just me – probably it was just me – but a number of their abilities seemed arbitrary and random, and their tells were difficult to spot. The ‘evades projectiles” especially had no rhyme or reason to it – just ate two-thirds of my ranged shots for no reason, unpredictably. They felt less like lethal new jungle threats and more like the newest * Alliance enemies. The baby wyverns were an interesting concept, but I found them super-easy to play around and not much more challenging than base Tyria enemies. The Mordrem Court seemed watered down, which was depressing. I SUPER wanted to use the new ‘Rise!’ on a pack of mini raptors and pretend I was running an underground [rooster]fighting ring, but I did not get to. Sadness.

World
• With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?
They’re borked is what they are. I encountered only a few of them, and one of them was Faren breaking the game by trying to be a swordsman. Never saw that one complete. Noble escorts are the same as any other escort, and the Pact tower defense – really, ArenaNet? :P – missions were good but also pretty harsh. I tried a few solo and just could not kill enough frogs fast enough. Which is cool in its own way, and those were easily the most fun I had with events in BWE2, but still.

• Do the new events bring you more into the world?
Not…really? Events keep screwing up and bugging, I’m not going to pass judgment on their immersion until they WORK.

• Are the new events challenging, meaningful, and interesting?
[i]Pact tower defense? Mostly yes, not really, and maybe. I have no idea what Pact towers do or why I should defend them, except that doing so let me kill a butt-ton of Hylek so hey that’s fun. I’m assuming they did something if I defended them successfully. Trying to manage dealing with the big suckers crushing the tower whilst avoiding all the little suckers being jerks around me was interesting, but not in an immersive, THIS-IS-TYRIA! way.

Mastery System
• How is the progression?
Feels about right so far. No complaints.

• How is it using the mastery abilities in the current area?
Gliding is sheer awesome. The bouncy mushrooms…less so. They feel very twitchy, the prompt area for using them feels too small. I feel like you should be able to bounce off them from the ground next to them – run up, hit Interact, bounce. I fell off more than one cliff trying to hit the bounceshroom sweet spots. Only other thing I unlocked was Itzel merchants, which I did not get to use. Jerks.

• Is the mastery system providing a meaningful area of progression?
I think so, yes. It’s an interesting concept, and a gripload better than +10 level cap.

• Do you care about experience and mastery points?
I surely do. I’m disappointed I didn’t make it to zoomshrooms during the beta, I was starting to edge fairly close.

• Does it provide a good framework to add more masteries in the future?
I don’t know – does it? Are you going to, or are you going to wait three more years then try a different system completely? Sass aside, yes, I believe so. This feels like a great place to add things for new zones – a Silverwastes mastery track, for example, would make perfect sense to me. Do it up.

• Do you want to learn as many masteries over time to overcome challenges later in the future?
Currently, yes. We’ll see how it works out in Live, and whether you guys keep your promise and stick to this as your progression model. I think it’s got a lot of promise. Let’s see where it goes, eh?

Specializations

Were they fun? Varies by class, but I would like to see more than one specialization per class in the relatively near future, and not simply with each expansion, with years between. After all, the specialization system has the potential to really rejuvenate build customization, but it will never achieve that if there’s only one specialization and your only other option is to just not take it.
Did they Change how you play your profession in a meaningful way?: To some extent. It really depends on the class. Berserker makes warriors use their burst skills much more frequently, for example, but with guardian I didn’t feel that the trap skills, trait lines, or the bow was really any sort of improvement upon what I already had. It was just different, but not better in any definable way. It feels like some specializations were just much better thought out as a clear concept of what it was meant to be, while others seemed more or less to just be mixing various aspects of other classes with no clear goal in mind other than being different from what was previously available.
How were the improvements to the previous Specializations? (Dragon Hunter, Tempest, Chronomancer, Reaper): I didn’t notice much change, but I mostly used reaper. I did notice that I would go to a target instead of flying through it with that one death shroud skill, which was a major improvement given that every fight in HoT is at the top of a cliff.
Feedback on new specializations, as well as any changes to the old: The new specializations seem well balanced, though the staff fighting on daredevil could stand some tweaks to just make it more…user friendly.

Creatures

How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?: The difficulty varies by enemy. Generally speaking, all of them abuse their mechanics to teh point of annoyance. One of those smokewolves is fine, but fighting 2 or more becomes a major chore as they keep laying down evade fields for each other. The same is true of anything using conditions, or knockdowns, or any other mechanic really. You can only reliably fight things 1v1 because each enemy abuses it’s mechanics to such an extent that when you have multiple enemies, it piles on too fast to do anything about it. Tons of conditions and heavy hits being cast on you as you are knocked down repeatedly and have no chance to escape does not make for very fun or interesting gameplay.

World

With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?: Generally they are fun, but when this content becomes obsolete due to a new patch or expansion, all of it will become virtually impossible. The difficulty is far too high for a small handful of people to get anything accomplished.
Do the new events bring you more into the world?: Into a small section of it, but not the world overall.
Are the new events challenging, meaningful, and interesting?: The endless repetition does take away from it somewhat, as it always will, but the fact that events are not just random standalone bursts of activity and are parts of larger chains instead is a welcome addition.

Mastery System

How is the progression?: Slow. Seeing as this is a beta and all progress will be wiped, it should really have the experience amounts required reduced so we can actually test all of these masteries and make sure they are in fact working. The speed would be acceptable if this were not a beta
How is it using the mastery abilities in the current area?: Interesting.
Is the mastery system providing a meaningful area of progression?: Yes
Do you care about experience and mastery points?: Yes, but at the moment, it’s too much of a grind to truly test them. Not everyone has the entire weekend to grind out masteries.
Does it provide a good framework to add more masteries in the future?: Yes, I could see many more masteries being added in the future for many various aspects of the game
Do you want to learn as many masteries over time to overcome challenges later in the future?: Yes, but that’s less the system and more my playstyle.

Bugs

Necromancer Minions are wiped out upon using bounce mushrooms. If a necromancer uses minions, they will be forced into combat without having any summoned.

Specializations

Were they fun?
Didn’t really have enough game play to tell. I have honestly been using the Beta’s to test lev 80 builds so I can figure out how to make ones that can survive and i like to play. Looking forward to building my Revenant. Love the warhammer use with the Rev. Also finally built a thief that works, so went and made a new Thief to play. Deleted my original lev. 80 thief because she was useless in Lev. 80 zones a long time ago.

Did they Change how you play your profession in a meaningful way?
I was so confused why my Warrior got a torch at first, made the Char twice to get it worked out after doing on line research. Then finally got to use the Char. Sadly I am a reward based player, so I tend to play for a bit, then go back to doing Dailies, etc. for rewards. Plus after the first Beta and I lost my Beta Chars, I erased my Chars after the second Beta, only to find they would have remained for the third. I was sad to learn that info after the fact.

How were the improvements to the previous Specializations? (Dragon Hunter, Tempest, Chronomancer, Reaper)
Feedback on new specializations, as well as any changes to the old
No comment.

Creatures

How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?
Yes and no to the excitement. I am having troubles figuring out how to make a Char that won’t die over and over. So for me they are hard. (Playing GW2 1 year)

World

With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?
Yes? Still feel like a chicken trying to find a flock so I don’t have my head cut off while opening up the test map with Lev. 80 Char I am still trying to get the feel for.

Do the new events bring you more into the world?
Seeing Faron at the last one sure did tie things together more, Lol.

Are the new events challenging, meaningful, and interesting?
Didn’t get to play enough on this last one, but the previous Beta, Yes.

Mastery System

How is the progression?
Didn’t get to progress this last Beta. I kept remaking Chars, trying to make a better one, so then I did the beginning over and over, and over. That got boring. With all the other, up to Lev. *) perks these Beta toons get, why couldn’t the Mastery have been built in too? Then I could of tested it, and had something to look forward to earning in the HoT release later. That would of been more fun for me.

How is it using the mastery abilities in the current area?
Would have liked to have known. Seeing Bouncy mushrooms I couldn’t use or ‘test’ was frustrating.

Is the mastery system providing a meaningful area of progression?

Do you care about experience and mastery points?
Yes, I do care about both those things, I am a rewards based game player, otherwise i would just watch TV like most people.

Does it provide a good framework to add more masteries in the future?
Can’t comment.

Do you want to learn as many masteries over time to overcome challenges later in the future?
Yes.

Stronghold PvP
Sorry, Never got to try it out.

Feedback on the new UI
That is my Fav. upgrade so far. I was so confused for the last year of trying to learn how to make successful Lev. 80 Characters. Beta has been a great opportunity for me to test builds, but unfortunately it kept me from your goal of testing the environment.

Feedback on Stronghold itself

Bugs

Report and notify any and all bugs using in game system as well as boards. Take screenshots and describe as best as you can

Does it appear to anyone else that characters are now being marginalized (just like GW) into well-defined positions (front line, mid-line and backline)?? I note that the Druid is now “the healer” in a group, with little (if any) real combat ability while acting in that role. As a Ranger, there’s versatility that’s missing in the Druid. However, in “real life”, Druids were “masters of nature” working with earth and air, creating and modifying plants to serve for food, shelter, clothing, AND DEFENSE/OFFENSE (think mazes to confound enemies, thorns and poisons, insects to attack). I don’t see any of this in the game that’ sin any way utile to the Druid or the group. The same “appears” to hold true for all of the other “new” classes. How about opening these “new” character classes “world-wide”— let ANY character “choose to be” a Revenant, Druid, etc. And let the new skillsets vary based on the ORIGINAL class. A lot of work, yes, but maybe a VERY viable alternative.

thief class was my first profession, and is still technically my main—though Mes is a close second.

baring in mind the lag was monstrous, I’d like to add some feedback—in the hope you may find it useful.

First things last, the story is engaging, and I look forward to delving deeper into it on release. Great job.

Okay, to play mechanic. Playing daredevil for the first time—with staff/shortbow.

First impressions:

1) ‘Impaling lotus’ on dodge feels clunky, and is not as satisfying as ‘death blossoms’.

I don’t know whether it was a race thing—assuming the animation may be different, I was playing norn/thief).

I had seen it presented as enabling the assignment of ‘death blossom’ to dodge, and I was impressed. But the new animation for norns is poor. Sorry guys.

2) I found ‘dash’ disappointing also.

I think if you extended the animation, so the evade remained .75s, but the Avatar covered more distance—similar to ‘withdraw’ (—with a sound-effect tweak to better convey the rush of air)—that might help with the feel.

Also, the ‘s’ key retreat rotates the Avatar away from the target, which I assume this is intentional. However, it does mean that my back is now presented to the attacker—who is still within striking distance; and, I have to rotate the camera to see where i’m going—not very thief-like imo^^.

3) Love the ‘fist flurry’ with ‘palm strike’—though again I would tweak the sound-effects to give it a-little more POP.

4) Staff generally doesn’t feel as substantial as sword or dagger.

Again, I think tweaking the sound-effects might make it feel more substantial. Getting technical, the absence of a smoke field is conspicuous.

I ran Staff without any deception or shadow arts traits; and I also felt a Shortbow was needed for mob fights—and tbh, pistol didn’t sit right with whole the premise of a staff, imo.

Obviously, I didn’t think to capitalise on the multi-target damage potential—thinking out loud. But with no blinds and (3x) .75 evade/dodge, the trade-off between survivability and DPS is marked (yes—I am inclined toward obsessive compulsiveness! And thinking about max-min builds does help—honest^).

I do like the fact that ‘weaken charge’ is a flanking move, and that you are facing the right way (behind the opponent) and can continue your rotation. Of course, this opens up an obvious synergy with flanking strike—’haste’. Nice xD!

Okay. That’s me done. I hope this helps. GW2 is still #1—keep up the good work.

Specializations

Were they fun?

Interesting but not so much fun as I would have liked. I tried two. The Druid and the Tempest. I guess I might like the staff skills of the druid if I play in a dungeon and want to do a lot of healing but for pve I cant see myself utilizing the staff much. The tempest was ok. I did enjoy using the overcharge ability but not so much the war-horn.

Did they Change how you play your profession in a meaningful way?

Not really but too early for me to judge.

Creatures

How is the difficulty of the new hostile mobs, and are they fun and exciting?

Just reskinned versions of other baddies. They were ok.

World

With the Opening of two new outposts, we are adding in a bunch of new events. Are they fun?

For me no. I miss the heart events, its more orderly and predictable. I find this new way of doing story and events too confusing and unpleasant. I never enjoyed dry top or silver-wastes events. I like to finish an objective, complete a map and move on. This whole thing of staying on one map and repeating the cycle over and over feels very frustrating and pointless. It also doesnt feel like GW2 but a different game. I would think the new maps and stories should merge seemlessly with the original map and worlds so we can explore to gain world map completion using the new maps too. But they are outside of everything as this expansion appears to be too.

Do the new events bring you more into the world?

Not for the time I played which was about 2 hours.

Are the new events challenging, meaningful, and interesting?

Not really, I was confused running around and wondering what everyone was doing. I joined in with a few battles but didn’t experience anything exciting or meaningful, from reading other posts I am wondering did I do my exploring in a time between events? I felt confused and displaced, even after getting around the whole map in the dark (day night cycle I don’t like, I mean who works/runs around at night? I prefer to do my world exploration in daylight as I would in rl)

Mastery System

How is the progression?

I didn’t understand or get to progress any masteries. I had points but didn’t get to use them which I found weird, maybe a bug? I was unable to make progress or spend my points.

Do you want to learn as many masteries over time to overcome challenges later in the future?

Id like to try to.

Thank you for making this thread. My feedback for Anet
Specializations
-Daredevil. Does not feel very unique; however, because of that will mesh well with other thief set-ups. Only specialization that did not change the wayI play profession.
-Revenant. I think it would be better without weapon swap. Being able to swap both sides of the bar is a bit much IMO. Otherwise its great.
-Druid. Unique but exclusive. Cele form is cool; however, I would rather see some of the healing skills replaced for some interesting utility based skills. The wall that coverts dmg to healing should be 1:1.
Scrapper. Couldn’t figure out the gyro that rezs and stomps. hammer felt weak. Felt a little redundant to have a reflect and block on hammer. Gyros felt week and only efficient in very unique situations. Too little health for gyros means little to no use vs bosses with AoE.
Dragon Hunter: fine.
Beserker: really great. Maybe increase the range of some of the rage skills.
Reaper: great. GS #5 often does not work. Not too different from original warrior gameplay but the subtle changes are very enjoyable. Feels much stronger than regular warrior.
Tempest: should be able to use all shouts (and other instants) during overload.
Chronomancer: no complaints.

Creatures:
Fantastic. Nailed it. Great animations, abilities, and aesthetic. I really enjoy the concept of the break bar but make it neccessary. More often than not you could dps without concern for the break bar. When there was a break bar, more foten than not you only had to break it once. The best fights wyvern/axemaster consistently used the breakbar mechanic. My recomendation: give mobs more hp, make the break bars easier to break but neccessary to break. Tetrad fight felt a little small and congested when you have a bunch of people on the platform. But was awesome. Can’t comments on raids but from the streams ive watched you nailed it. I’m not a huge fan of the enrage mechanic because I worry about people in exotics not being able to avoid the enraged timer. Please give incentives for these awesome champs.

Mastery System
…….gliders and mushrooms were cool but……that was it. All the communine points were bugged. Very upseting. So i cant comment on progression. Please do not make this too easy and make the later abilities/masteries feel as rewarding as mushrooms and gliding do. really do enjoy the concept and could chase masteries for a long time.
Stronghold PvP
—still enjoy it. Make archers more potent.
Feedback on the new UI
lol

I know you said not to worry about the map rewards…but
Scale the difficulty proportionate to the reward. Ex. defending an Orr temple is worth more than one t6 mat. Give us a chest rather than sneaking it into our inventory. More UI so we can search easily for materials throughout tyria map.

Thank you all.

Specializations
Were they fun?
1. Druid;
- I really like the glyphs. I like them so much I replaced all of my slot skills with these new skills. Because they are so good it encourages me also to play the Druid cuz when I change into my celestial form I can use the “special form” of these glyphs which is a good thing.
-The staff on the other hand I don’t like. The Ranger lacks a good melee weapon but has a good ranged weapon, the longbow. I’m not going to use two ranged weapons so that means I’m going to have to switch out my longbow in certain situations because the celestial form recharges fast with the staff but very slow with any other weapon. I would have liked the staff if it was a melee weapon.
- The skills on the staff (dps wise) suck. Skill 1 does little damage. Skill 2 throws a wisp out which looks similar to a Guardian skill and also lacks dps. Skill 3 I’ll hardly be using unless it is to try to run away. Skill 4 is good accept it’s a shame the attack doesn’t hit a person if he/she is on a wall (WvW), I’d like to see those vines crawl up a wall and hit my opponent. Skill 5 is only usefull if someone uses projectiles and most people (and npc’s) use melee weapons so that skill is not going to be used a lot.
- The staff is mostly good for A BIT of support. I hardly feel usefull using it healing and dps wise. It is however good for recharging your celestial form which is great seeing as how using that form is very usefull.

2. Reaper;
- It’s nice to see the Necro finally being able to do some good dps damage.
- The shouts are good and usefull. Nothing to add here.
- Greatsword skills and Reaper Shroud skills are good too. I really like that there’s finally a reason to use a shroud to attack instead of using to tank like the Death Shroud which I and others hardly ever used skills of.
-Recharging Reaper Shroud is good on a greatsword but pathetic using other weapons. When I noticed how slow my dual daggers and staff were recharging it I hardly if ever switched my weapons. This needs to change. I really want my other weapons to be able to contribute in recharging my Shroud or else why switch if my greatsword and Reaper Shroud are more usefull then my other weapons.

3. Daredevil;
- I felt very limited in traits (the Thief traits, not the Daredevil trait line) when using this. I want to use it’s new slot skills and a signet. However the traits are based a lot on using venoms, tricks, stealth, etc. It took me a lot of reading and testing out to come to the conclusion that for my play style I needed to use the Acrobatics and Trickery trait line cuz I want to have a dodge class that can attack a lot.
- Aside from that I really like the class. Finally I can use my “Thief” (Daredevil) without having to use stealth and burst damage, which seems to be the only good thing about Thiefs, in order to be usefull. I want to fight my opponent face to face which I can now do with the Daredevil instead of hiding in the shadows and stabbing people in the back like a coward.

4. Scrapper;
- I like the Hammer. The engineer really needed a melee and it’s a lot of fun to use.
- The gyro’s are very usefull and the toolbelt skills you get from them are amazing.
-My only problem is the Blast Gyro. Why do I have to throw a dart for it to go and explode on someone? That’s so lame. Why can’t I just first summon the Blast Gyro (so it stays next to me), secondly choose a target (as in how you normally target someone in game) third command it to go towards my target and explode and fourth have the choice to explode it early. This gives me more control of it, is more fun to use and doesn’t look stupid compared to his gyro brothers and sisters seeing as how they don’t need to rely on a dart to do something.

5. Dragonhunter;
- The traps are so satisfying!!! Nothing to add there
- The bow is good. It’s not really significant but it is good. My only problem with it is the skill “Deflecting Shot”. That it can blind enemies is fine but it’s ability to block projectiles is hardly usefull. I’d rather see that get taken out and an increase in the time that enemies are blinded. If I want to block projectiles I can just use “Wall of Reflection”. At least that reflects and stays longer then a arrow that just passes by…
- “Wings of Resolve”. Please increase the distance to 1200. 800 as a distance is simply pathectic.
- Give it a trait that gives it a 25% speed boost. Running slowly around is painfull and Guardian/Dragonhunter loses to many skills in order to have swiftness. It’s why I stopped using my Guardian. I had to use 7 skills (5 of those skills because of switch in weapon (staff)) in order to have a satistfying speed on my Guardian. THAT is really bad.
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Did they change how you play your profession in a meaningful way?
Short answer; YES!!!
And they were all (the 5 that I wanted to try out) a lot of fun!!!
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Mastery System
I had to check the internet (GW2 wiki) to find out how to get mastery points. That’s ridiculous. To have no idea how to get it and then when you get it there is no explanation of what it does and how to use it. I said to myself I guess I’ll try and figure it all out when the expansion gets released cuz this is not something I want to spend time on.

Fwiw, the difficulty of the jungle creatures seemed a little underwhelming compared to BWE2. I’m sure this has been mentioned already though.

only 1 thing i had to add i dunno if someone brought this up in the past or here
for tempest ,, allow us while channeling overload to switch to another attunement
while channeling air overload to switch to water
there was a trait we used to play with that allowed us to cast and switch attunement but u removed that and you guys added that to basic class mechanics , pls allow us to do the same in the tempest cuz it really feels weak
also only stability on earth overload regardless of the immob at the end , its kinda useless ( maybe add 0.5 sec immob to each enemy u hit ? )
ty for your consideration