Guild Wars 2

DarkForcE.9210:

Sounds interest to me. What if I go Marauder armor and zerker accessories + weapon

I know dps will loss , but gain more survivability while maintain dps from zerker gears

You’ll basically get a midpoint between Marauder and Berserker. Which is perfectly fine.

Here’s the thing: you do 0 DPS if you’re dead. If you need to lower your offensive stats to get some more Health so you don’t die, that’s a DPS gain for you, because you’ll spend less time on the floor.

Ghin.1653:

While the intention might be aimed at dps, as it stands the only two classes who give barrier at present. Having one only be a selfish barrier is kind of dumb. While the main intention can certainly be dps (which is still lacking according to above reports), once again ele is supposed to be the jack of trades with regards to flexibility, so I would still like to see barrier share and some better sword melee work, the 130 range is just freaking brutal and sad for ele.

Also really wanna make a build that plays on those lightning strike when cc.

I agree that sword needs some help (not sure if today’s stress test build will have updated numbers or not).

But part of the problem was definitely your gear. Cleric and Zealot gear are not going to give you good damage no matter what profession or spec you play.

Ghin.1653:

Ill take the plunge and try Zealot gear when i get the funds. Ele and weaver gets plenty access to ferocity anyway, shame we can’t get critical heals.

I’m not sure if you realize how much extra damage piling on Ferocity adds. You say Elementalist and Weaver get “plenty of Ferocity,” but they really don’t, not compared to what you get with gear.

In the open world, if you want survivability and good damage at the same time, you want Marauder, not Zealot or Cleric or any other Healing Power stat set.

As for roles, ArenaNet’s stated goal for Weaver is pure DPS. Tempest has much more support options than Weaver, so if you want to do a support build, go Tempest. You don’t get barrier, but you get lots of boons and heals.

Hana.8143:

Well, even the zerker version is kinda weak, but the condi build is good, so should I complain or be happy ? I don’t know anymore. Please, end my suffering

I’m personally holding out hope for sword to get some direct damage buffs before PoF’s release, so complain away.

Ghin.1653:

Well for one, I didn’t expect it to take 20 freaking minutes to make it out of the starter map with cleric gear. Cloth Melee isn’t supposed to be squishy and take spike damage, your already light armour, all it would take is a quick burst against a REAL enemy with assassin or rampager gear on (like a boss targeting you or load of condi stacks), thief has stealth and dodge, mesmer has stealth and illusions (mirage with the dodge), the answer to EVERY damage problem should not be power crit vs condi (or condi crit).

Condi scales fine on ele without crit, so very much that Power should too without demanding it be a crit hit. Crit is EXTRA. That shouldnt amount to a 17-18 minute clear time difference. I guess ill just someday test zealot ascended gear on ele since beta didnt provide (though again i shouldn’t need to crit for that much of a combat difference).

If you don’t want to go full glass cannon in solo PvE, use Marauder, not Cleric or Zealot. Marauder gives you Power, Precision, Ferocity, and Vitality, which basically gives you a somewhat weaker version of Berserker but with more Vitality so you don’t die nearly as quickly.

Note that, in group PvE, Power and Condition Damage DPS builds are equally glassy. Power uses Berserker (Power, Precision, Ferocity), while Condition Damage uses some combination of Viper (Power, Condition Damage, Precision, Expertise) and Sinister (Condition Damage, Power, Precision), depending on the profession and build. Neither has survivability stats. Pure Condition Damage, with no Power, Precision, or Expertise, is going to do low DPS, just like Power will without any Precision or Ferocity.

The problem you’re having is that you’re using kinda crappy stat sets.

apharma.3741:

Sword does a lot less than main hand dagger, less damage on the auto chain, while the number 2 evades are nice I can’t really say it’ll be better. Neither can I say that weaver offers something I consider worth the trade off for the number 3 skills on dagger, shocking aura, frozen burst, magnetic leap and burning speed are just far more useful.

It’s worth noting that it’s likely balance will be changed significantly by the time PoF launches. The stress test build from yesterday was the same one as the elite spec preview build from a couple weeks ago, but they’ve said they already have a different one.

In other words, I’m holding out hope that sword got some buffs.

In the stress test, I got pretty good results from a full Zerker Weaver using sword/dagger and spending most of my time in fire and air. I have no idea how it’d be for sustained DPS in a group setting, but for open world, it had good burst and survivability for taking down groups of enemies.

I like dagger for open world PvE, but it remains to be seen for group PvE and PvP for me.

That said, I suspect focus will be better for group PvE if you’re doing a condition build. If you’re going power, I think dagger will win out.

You can hit 100% burn and bleed duration with:

- Viper weapons, trinkets, and back piece
- Superior Sigil of Agony
- Two Trapper runes and four Nightmare runes
- Burning Precision and Weaver’s Prowess traits
- Rare Veggie Pizza

After that, it’s just a question of what stat set you put on your armor. Sinister and Grieving are the most likely choices, and we’ll probably have to wait for release to know which is going to be better.

I think Weaver is definitely going to need sword buffs if sword is supposed to be viable for PvE. At the moment, it’s strongly inferior to dagger for condition and staff for power, and it doesn’t look like going hybrid with Grieving is going to make up the difference.

That said, I definitely wouldn’t expect that beta weekend numbers are going to be the same as release numbers at all, and I hope that sword will get some number buffs by release.

Ganathar.4956:

Agent Noun.7350:

mygamingid.5816:

Outside of Meteor Storm, Staff is really weak on 4 & 5 skills, making it a poor choice for Weaver builds. Grieving will be great for power builds looking to increase condi damage on the side, but it’ll be difficult to top Vipers and a condi-focused rotation under the current build.

Why not Sinister? You can easily max burning duration with traits, runes, and sigils alone, so Sinister lets you pile on the Condi Damage even more than Viper. Or are we trying to maximize bleed duration as well?

True, all you need is a set of runes of Balthazar and some burning duration food and you get 100% burn duration because the traits give you the other 40%. You could replace the food with a sigil of smoldering but that would be a waste imo. Just run a sigil of force and a sigil of bursting.

I am interested in finding out if sinister or grieving gear will be better with such a setup though. They both have the potential to work.

Same, that’s my main question: whether we’ll want raw condition damage or to supplement it with stronger crits. I’ll be really interested to see how that shakes out once we can do actual DPS testing.

My guess is that Sinister will win out, but I’d prefer Grieving to be better just because I enjoy Power builds and would love a functional hybrid.

mygamingid.5816:

Outside of Meteor Storm, Staff is really weak on 4 & 5 skills, making it a poor choice for Weaver builds. Grieving will be great for power builds looking to increase condi damage on the side, but it’ll be difficult to top Vipers and a condi-focused rotation under the current build.

Why not Sinister? You can easily max burning duration with traits, runes, and sigils alone, so Sinister lets you pile on the Condi Damage even more than Viper. Or are we trying to maximize bleed duration as well?

typographie.1742:

I think it’s very possible Arenanet is trying to position the Weaver to be a hybrid of the two. The more I think about it, the more I think that could be awesome. But I’m not convinced they’ll be able to get the balance just right to make us want to actually play like that. If building for pure power or pure condi is even slightly superior, everyone will probably just ignore the other entirely.

I think if any elite spec can actually pull of a true power-leaning power/condition hybrid, it’s Weaver.

Others have pointed out that it’s trivial to max out Burning duration without a single point of Expertise, which frees you up to wear full Grieving. But rotation-wise, I think there’s potential for a Burning-focused Weaver to still use basically every attunement in some way. If you use sword, every dual attack that involves fire attunement causes Burning: fire+water is Twin Strike, fire+air is Pyro Vortex, and fire+earth is Lava Skin, and all of those cause Burning. They also all have long enough recharges that you might (and I want to emphasize “might” here) actually want to cycle through attunements to work all three of them into your rotation.

I’m envisioning something like starting in earth/fire with Lava Skin, going to fire/fire and using Primordial Stance and fire weapon skills, then starting to go to like water/fire, fire/water, fire/fire, air/fire, fire/air, fire/fire, etc. You’d always want fire to be one of your active attunements, and probably stop in at fire/fire regularly to ensure that and to refresh Elements of Rage, but cycling like that would let you use all of the dual attacks that cause Burning while also letting you use CC skills from other attunements without having to give up your ability keep Burning active.

I’m not nearly as expert at this as others, though, and clearly none of us have been hands-on yet, but a build like that could be pretty fun, I think.

What I’ll be interested in is to see if optimal Weaver rotations also include Bleeding. I suspect the focus will stay on Burning—there’s a reason condi Tempest sticks to Burning and not Bleeding—but who knows?

Eldar.5146:

Weaver is clearly a Power Spec

How so? Sword, at least, has a ton of ways to apply Burning and Bleeding, and Weaver’s traits and utilities provide a lot of condition support. For example:

- Primordial Stance is a utility that blasts out conditions at regular intervals and can be maintained for a long time.
- The Weave Self elite skill boosts your Condition Damage, not your Power, Precision, or Ferocity.
- Weaver’s damaging traits focus about equally on Condition Damage and Power. Weaver’s Prowess gives you bonus Condition Damage when you change attunements, while Elemental Polyphony gives you Power if you’re attuned to fire, and Elements of Rage gives you Ferocity (and also a flat damage boost) when you double-attune.

I’m not saying you can’t be a Power Weaver—I have no idea yet—but to say it’s “clearly a Power spec” seems way off to me.

lLobo.7960:

On Pve it will most likely be power/condi hybrid.
100% burning is already easy with traits+runes+sigil+food, so you can get the new grief stat on your armor and do high condi and crit dmg with fire/air/weaver.

Do you think Weaver will have enough Burning uptime to get by on Burning alone, or will Bleed need to factor in, too? I think that’s going to determine whether you can use full Grieving or if you’ll need some pieces of Viper in there as well.

If there’s enough Burning that it can be your sole (or, at least, very heavily favored) source of condition damage, then yeah, full Grieving and use traits/runes/sigils to max Burning duration. Hell, you don’t even need food for that. But if there’s not enough Burning to do great DPS with that condition alone, Weaver will need at least some Expertise to help with Bleed duration, too.

Azukas.1426:

No it doesn’t. I can’t advocate for a DPS buff on this class when you’ve got 2 other game modes where they do not need a DPS buff.

I also don’t want my class’s abilities drastically nerfed in those other 2 game modes b/c a few PvE only players want to play selfishly.

I don’t think people are looking to “play selfishly.” I think people are looking to actually be useful. With the Alacrity nerf, Chronomancer simply doesn’t provide the level of support that would justify its low PvE DPS.

And it’s not like they haven’t done some subtle splits between PvE and PvP balance in GW2 already. Buffing autoattack and maybe Blurred Frenzy damage in PvE only should not be impossible.

It’s interesting to see this, because to hear high-profile GW2 YouTubers or people on Reddit talk, you’d think Mesmer is one of the most important professions to bring with you on a raid. But if you look at the actual numbers, they’re not actually that important at all.

Which is sort of a bummer. I’m fine playing a support class, but I want to feel like my support actually matters, rather than just sort of being there. If our support isn’t going to get buffed, then the numbers definitely support a DPS buff.

ANet likes us! They really like us!

There is some Druid stuff in one of the Auric Basin event chains, with a charr scholar who is really eager to learn the secrets of the druids. I’d have to play the chain again to see if we actually learn anything, though.

Remember that you’re going to need full Maguuma map completion for any of the new Heart of Thorns legendaries. Your work in unlocking all of the hero points isn’t truly wasted if you want any of the new or upcoming legendary weapons.

As for whether the change is warranted:

Honestly? 250 hero points is not a small amount of hero points if you haven’t done full central Tyria map completion (and newer players definitely have not). I had map completion, but a lot of people in my guild didn’t, so they couldn’t use their elite specs at all until they’d already fully explored Verdant Brink and Auric Basin, and even then, they were only half-unlocked. If you don’t have Tyria map completion, 250 hero points is still more than half of the hero point challenges in Heart of Thorns—that’s lower than before, but it’s a lot more achievable for the average player.

You have to remember, long-time players like us (I’ve played since the headstart weekend) who have map completion aren’t the entire playerbase. While 400 hero points wasn’t a ton for us because we had about a 200-point head start, many, many players didn’t have that.

It’s a difference in how people see the elite specs. Some people see them as a “reward” that we earn by (mostly) completing Heart of Thorns, and that’s a valid point of view. Others see them as an integral part of our characters that our characters are “incomplete” without—and that’s a valid point of view, too. Because there wasn’t a level cap increase or a new tier of gear, it felt jarring for some people to suddenly have to go out of their way and either grind WvW or beeline hero points to “re-complete” their characters. I can sympathize with that.

Obviously, I think this is a good change, especially because we’re still going to need all of the hero point challenges done in Maguuma for another thing in the game (HoT legendaries). Masteries are our long-term character progression, along with legendary weapons and armor, raid masteries, etc. Let elite specs be a new toy for us to use while we get those.

If that’s a precursor, I can’t wait to see the legendary version.

Nick.9572:

So I guess you are saying you are an immature player. Fair enough.
The point was never that you get your elite specialization immediately. It’s something you progress towards, and get new skills as you explore. This is a game. You are not supposed to automatically win. It is supposed to be a challenge.
But whatever. Everyone is used to participation trophies these days, so I guess everything should be made super easy so no one cries about having to do something hard to complete their character.

My point is that, well, it kind of still is. 250 hero points is still quite a lot, and if you didn’t do core Tyria completion, you’re going to need to do quite a few hero point challenges in Heart of Thorns to get your elite specification. But to be fair, I also don’t think I’d call the process of getting them a “challenge” so much as—well, if you really want your elite spec, it feels tedious, because you’re either grinding WvW for Proofs of Heroism or rushing to do as many hero challenges as possible; if you don’t, it’s kind of just something you ignore and get whenever.

I think this change means that people can play Heart of Thorns using their elite spec, not to get their elite spec, and I think that’s okay as an old-timer myself.

It’s sort of a core disagreement between people who see elite specs as a reward for exploring most/all of Maguuma and people who see elite specs as a necessary part of their character without which their character is incomplete. Because we didn’t have a level cap increase and there’s no new gear tier, a lot of players weren’t prepared to have to really work to “re-complete” their character by unlocking their elite spec.

Nick.9572:

Would it make me sound old if I started complaining about kids these days always expecting immediate gratification?

Maybe? But, I mean, I’m old, too.

I think making it easier to unlock elite specs is a good move. Ultimately, I think it’s good that players can more easily explore all of the HoT zones using their elite spec rather than exploring all of the HoT zones to get their elite spec. There are plenty of other long-term goals to work towards.

One of the disconnects between people who thought it was fine and people who didn’t was how they thought about elite specs. On the one side, people who thought it was fine thought of them as a reward—you work to unlock them to enjoy the new skills and traits. Those who thought it wasn’t fine thought of it as something their character was incomplete without, and after so long of having a “complete” character (and knowing that we wouldn’t have a new tier of gear or a level cap increase), it was jarring to suddenly have to put in some serious effort to “re-complete” your character.

I think 250 hero points is an okay compromise. It’s still quite a lot of hero points for someone who hasn’t already done central Tyria map completion, but it becomes something you’ll unlock halfway through HoT rather than most of the way through. (Assuming you don’t just run WvW trains for Proofs of Heroics anyway. )

Keikami.6247:

Tommyknocker.6089:

Keikami.6247:

I’m 10 points away from maxing a Tempest… now I feel like my effort has been trivialized.

On the other side of the coin you have me, sitting at home watching a movie because most of my guildies are strangely absent this week.

At least with this change I can finish my specialization on all my characters even if there is nobody around to help me.

I am sorry if it annoys some players, but at least it should bring back many of the forum warriors to the game.

#waitingonpatch

Not annoyed. Its just that my elite now feels less important and less significant than what it really was intended to be.

Another thing to note is that they’ve suggested Maguuma map completion will be necessary for the new HoT legendary weapons, so if you were planning on going for any of those, you were going to need to do those hero point challenges anyway.

Keikami.6247:

Agent Noun.7350:

Keikami.6247:

I’m 10 points away from maxing a Tempest… now I feel like my effort has been trivialized.

If it helps, you’ll get those points back and have a 150-point head start on maxing the next elite spec that comes out (like players who did core Tyria completion had a 200-point head start with this crop).

YAY? I get to wait 3 more years for this magical head start that everyone’s going to complain about then too? Just feel like my effort is unrewarded…

Sorry, I’m just trying to be positive.

I don’t know what to tell you. I can say that I thought 400 hero points was too much and 250 is a decent balance, so I think this is a good change overall. If you were only getting the HoT hero points to unlock Tempest, then yes, I’m sorry that your efforts weren’t needed. I suspect many players are going to get all of them anyway, much like we kept grabbing hero/skill points in core Tyria to do world completion even after hitting level 80 and unlocking all of our skills.

It might also help to know that they’ve suggested that Maguuma completion will be necessary for the new HoT legendary weapons, so you also have a head start on that—you’ll probably need to do all of the Maguuma hero point challenges to craft a HoT legendary.

captaincrash.6528:

So you beat the base game and think you deserve all rewards in the expansion?

I think the problem people had is that they didn’t think of the elite spec as a “reward”—they thought of it as something their character was incomplete without. It felt like having to level up again, even though the level cap wasn’t increased. That’s why it chafed people so badly.

Keikami.6247:

I’m 10 points away from maxing a Tempest… now I feel like my effort has been trivialized.

If it helps, you’ll get those points back and have a 150-point head start on maxing the next elite spec that comes out (like players who did core Tyria completion had a 200-point head start with this crop).

captaincrash.6528:

Heart of Thorns is getting nerfed already? It was so nice having long term goals in the game, please don’t give in with absolutely everything. The elite specs were fine the way they were…

The problem with elite specs was this:

1. If you hadn’t done core Tyria world completion on a character, you may well have needed all (or the vast majority) of the hero points in Maguuma to unlock that character’s elite spec. That would mean that you were not going to get to truly use your elite spec (especially poor Daredevils) until you had already basically explored all of Heart of Thorns. That’s not fun. People wanted to explore Heart of Thorns using their elite spec, not explore Heart of Thorns to get their elite spec.

2. The only way to avoid that was to go do WvW to get hero points, which works for some, but feels grindy and unappealing to others.

This is the best possible solution. Elite specs still require a pretty high number of hero points, but now you can mostly unlock it if you’ve done core Tyria completion, and if you haven’t, you’ll unlock it fully about halfway through Heart of Thorns, not the whole way through. It’s a much better balance.

Loki.4139:

Source? /15 characters

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/heads-up-iteration-incoming/

BrotherBelial.3094:

This is a good start, not just get rid of the masteries gating the story, and we can all be happy.

In the end, I think some level of mastery story-gating is necessary so that they can have us use masteries during story missions (especially gliding). They’re removing the worst one, at least.

This is the best change I could hope for as a PvE Mesmer. Really, really happy about this.

Scrapper is a better name than Forge.

Whether it’s a good elite spec or not depends entirely on whether the gyro drones have decent AI. That said, I do think it’s kind of odd how many elite specs are adding “new roles” to professions that basically already play that way. Engineers get a “new role” that makes them want to stay in melee? They already do—the rifle is best at short range. Tempests get a “new role” that provides front-line support? Dagger/X Elementalist is already great at that.

Even though activating a shatter causes all of your illusions to shatter, each illusion shatters individually. To do what Fay described, you’d have illusions standing at varying ranges, then activate Diversion. Each illusion runs in and shatters, and each one that shatters applies one second of Daze individually.

To put it another way: shattering with three illusions gives you three separate shatter bombs that all go off on their own, rather than combining into one big shatter bomb.

My dream scenario would be to have the circles we have right now for clones, and then weapon icons for phantasms. A little sword for the Phantasmal Swordsman, a little pistol for the Phantasmal Duelist, etc.

My feeling on the new Phantasmal Avenger depends entirely on how its melee attack works. If it leaps in and out like the Phantasmal Swordsman does, I think it’ll be an excellent PvE phantasm and workable in PvP. If it stays in melee range, the poor thing is doomed.

If the Avenger leaps, though, I could see the shield replacing off-hand sword in most PvE builds. You’d be trading some damage for the Alacrity and a superior block, but who brings a Mesmer to a dungeon for DPS anyway?

This looks fantastic. I’m especially excited for the changes to Echo of Memory/Deja Vu and the Wells. The new Gravity Well should be tons of fun, and the new Well of Eternity will probably become my open-world PvE heal of choice.

Seriously, you just keep nailing it with Chronomancer.

I guess what concerns me is that these events are clearly aimed at new players, especially the ones brought in by F2P. It’s sad that they might think something this uninspired and grindy is representative of GW2, when it really isn’t, especially given what we’ve seen of Verdant Brink.

ArenaNet, you can do better than this—we know that for sure. Why would you put your worst foot forward so soon after welcoming in a bunch of new players?

chemiclord.3978:

Fernling.1729:

What worries me is the fact that there were people in /m talking about how much fun they are having doing it and that they don’t even care about getting no rewards. Are people really so easily entertained? This is the epitome of terrible gameplay.

Here’s gonna be a shocker to your MMO-reward-driven mindset.

Sometimes… I mean, just sometimes… people can have fun without a tangible “reward” at the end. Sometimes it really IS the journey that’s more important than the destination.

Yes, I know… that runs completely contrary to the conditioning MMOs have driven into your skull over the last fifteen years. But it’s true. It really is.

Your argument would make sense if these events were any fun to play. For example, the Silverwastes events are pretty fun, and I also enjoyed the Verdant Brink previews even though I wasn’t being rewarded (temporary beta characters).

These events, however, are not fun to play, and also not rewarding, and are therefore doubly bad.

Ryou.2398:

Mikkel.8427:

Sigil of speed? It has no icd, so you can stack yourself 2+ mins of swiftness just by killing stuff. If you use it with SoI you never really need to think about swiftness again… and you can share it.

Also, you can go into your options and turn down your Dialog Volume.

Uh no its called sig of inspiration and it gives you speed every 10 seconds with a random buff I have no idea what your talking about.

Sigil of Speed is an item that you can put into your weapons. It grants you Swiftness whenever you kill an enemy (10/14/20 seconds depending on what level Sigil you have).

I love All’s Well that Ends Well now. Gravity Well has been nice in open world PvE and Well of Calamity is really good.

Repairs are free, so they don’t serve as a gold sink. Every dungeon has a repair anvil easily accessible next to a waypoint. If you die in WvW and don’t get resurrected, the waypoint where you spawn will have an anvil near it.

What purpose does armor damage serve at all, at this point? Can we just get rid of it? It’s a hassle with no actual gameplay purpose anymore.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Agent Noun.7350:

I was under the impression that each wing would be three bosses, with trash/exploration/other stuff in between.

Each wing will be three encounters, at least one of which is the final boss. I expect that those encounters will vary, and may each have some kind of mini-boss associated with them, though.

The blog post says three bosses, not three encounters: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/raids-in-guild-wars-2/

Steven Waller

In the first Raid wing, players will face three awesome, diverse, and very challenging bosses as well as an epic event that will leave players literally running for their lives.

But, I mean, that also says nothing about whether there will be any encounters between each boss fight, so I’m not saying you’re wrong.

Please make a video.

Jerus.4350:

I really hope there is some way to pause and come back where you left off. Or at the very least that they’re going to completely rework the instance system such that when it bugs or DC’s you, you’re not required to start all over. And of course, like your suggestion so you can do it in chunks throughout the week.

Yeah, I agree. If we assume that a wing will be somewhat long, then having places where you can stop and pick up again later would be crucial.

Part of my suggestion is that it lets you do that on an individual level. If you and your group are doing a partial run, and you complete part 1 and part 2, then later in the week, you could join an entirely different group for part 3 if your original group can’t get back together. The “reset” would be individual, not group-based.

Meanwhile, there would also be an option for people who don’t want to have to go through a loading screen/area transition after each boss and want to do the whole dungeon at once, which I think is definitely valuable and something I’d want to do, too.

Solomon, you won’t even be able to enter the zone where the door to the raid is without Heart of Thorns. Masteries are not the only part of the raids that is HoT only—the whole darned thing is HoT only from start to finish.

What you’re asking is for them to develop a core game raid to release at the same time, and given how long it’s taken them to develop this one, that’s pretty unrealistic.

Rising Dusk.2408:

That’s how it already is. You will either do one wing or you might do all wings. Anyway, I would expect a well-oiled group to complete a raid wing in about an hour. If you’re wiping horrifically or otherwise just practicing, it will obviously take far longer (up to infinity if you never win).

I was under the impression that each wing would be three bosses, with trash/exploration/other stuff in between.

If a well-oiled group can complete a raid wing in about an hour then I think that’s already an excellent time frame and my suggestion above isn’t necessary. So clearly I hope you’re right!

Hey there, GW2 PvE friends! Let me start this off by saying that we obviously have no idea how long raids will take. It’s possible they won’t be very long at all and this suggestion won’t be needed. It’s possible they’ll be super long. We just plain don’t know. So please read my following suggestions with that in mind!

Anyway, let’s assume they’re going to be pretty long. Just for the sake of argument.

What if I want to raid, but I can’t schedule a two-hour block of time?
I don’t know, maybe I have young kids or something. I don’t personally, but some of my guildmates do, so I naturally care about whether they can come raid with me without, y’know, neglecting their kids.

My suggestion? Not an “easy mode” and “hard mode,” but rather Full Run mode and Partial Run mode.

When you first enter a raid, you and your nine other pals get to pick whether you’re in for a full run right now, or whether you want to tackle the raid in chunks.

Full Run Mode
Maybe we can tall it “Marathon Mode?” Who knows. Name doesn’t matter. Here’s how it works: exactly how raids are described right now! Each wing is one continuous dungeon from start to finish, with no loading screens or area transitions (that aren’t normally there—we haven’t seen the raids yet, so maybe there already will be some, I don’t know). You and your party just do the raid, and at the end, you get your reward. Sweet!

Partial Run Mode
Alternative names include “Chapter Mode” or “Mini-Wings” or who knows? I’m clearly bad at naming things! Anyway, how this works is it lets you do a third of the dungeon at a time. You do the first part of the dungeon, ending with the first boss, and then there’s a portal afterwards that takes you outside of the raid. The next time you walk up to the portal, you have the option of starting right where you left off—like a bookmark.

What’s the value of this? Well, let’s imagine that the raid, all told, takes like 90 minutes for a successful run. (Total guess. We don’t know how long it’ll be yet.) But, dang it, you have kids, and you know you’re probably only going to have 30-45 minutes of uninterrupted playtime before you’re going to have to run off to do something else. So you get together nine other likeminded people and do the first third of the dungeon. A couple days later, you and your pals can get together again for another 30 minutes and do the second third. And again for the last part a couple more days later—as you have time! You don’t get the full weekly reward until you down all three bosses, but you also are under no pressure to do it all at once. Cool!

Why is this a good idea?
I think it presents a really good compromise. If you want a long, uninterrupted raid experience, you and your group are free to do it as one dungeon. If you can’t commit to that, you can still raid and still get the same rewards—you’re just going to do it in smaller pieces.

How could it go wrong? Well, it would ask ArenaNet to design the raid in three discrete chunks, I suppose. But I bet they’re doing that already. All this would require is putting a portal after the first and second bosses, where I bet there’s already only one path out of the room. And maybe it’s the kind of thing that wouldn’t work for some raids, and that’s fair. But it’s an option that I think is worth considering!

But hey. Maybe it won’t be necessary and a raid will only take as long as a fractal run does now (for people who already know what they’re doing). That’s also cool! But I thought I’d float this idea just in case it sounds like a good one to some people.

Basically, stealth and shatters overrides phantasm viability by a long shot. To a PvP Mesmer, phantasms aren’t going to live long—they’re there to do an attack or two, them be shatter fodder. That the torch phantasm sucks isn’t nearly as big of a negative as it might seem, because it shatters just as well as anything else.

The Prestige, meanwhile, is one of only two sources of on-demand, instant stealth that the Mesmer has, and stealth is really, really good. That alone rockets the torch to the top of our available off-hands for PvP. I think if other defensive options for the Mesmer were more viable compared to stealth, you’d see a lot more variety—personally, I adore the off-hand pistol in PvP—but stealth is just so good that you’re giving up a ton by not having access to The Prestige. It’s usually not worth the trade.

Inverse.2967:

Yeah sure that would make all people in the “guild progression race”-faction cry because it would take away their game, true. Yet I really can’t care less about that, because the world first progress race is entertainment for just a couple of player groups, it is one time only and generally there are lots of games already on the market for that kind of competivity.

I guess I just don’t understand why the inclusion of a single raid, that we haven’t even seen anything from and designed by a developer known for being obsessed with making content accessible, makes everyone jump to the conclusion that GW2 is going to become a game that caters exclusively to hardcore raiders. It’s a massive jump to make.

Raids are not necessarily going to be as they are in other MMOs. Take a look at the elite missions from Guild Wars: Factions and you’ll probably get an idea of what they’re like—longer dungeons with larger group sizes and that’s about it. I see nothing at all to get worked up about, and there’s no indication they’re going to take away from anything else in the game. They won’t even have a gear treadmill, and Colin reiterated the commitment to making sure you can do them with any profession combination.

As for the thing about raids being part of the living story, remember that they call their whole story the living story. I’m willing to bet that what they mean is “the raids will have stories,” not “to do the main story you have to raid.”

Many Pesky Monk.3140:

ProtoGunner.4953:

OP: they were preparing the expansion the past year, so that’s why we didn’t have a lot of updates. ‘Abandoned’ is a very strong word and isn’t true. It’s true for the dungeons, which is strange and sad, but we know that since about 2 years…

That makes sense, thanks!

Also, did they give a reason why dungeons were abandoned?

They haven’t actually acknowledged that dungeons are abandoned. I think they want to leave the door open to returning to dungeons at some point but have no plans to at this time—that’s my guess, anyway.