Guild Wars 2

I think this link needs to be posted on this forum for everyone who has voiced concerns about the upcoming feature patch. It will help you create the best builds for your favorite professions in every game mode, and you will even be able to prepare builds for future possible balance and update patches.

Some reflections on concerns about the new traits:
– For every profession, players who main them are complaining about their new traits and wishing they had traits similar to those of another profession. If you feel like your current profession is the worst profession in the game, don’t continue playing it and hating yourself.
- The feature patch hasn’t been released yet, and people claim to know how strong (or weak, rather) all the traits will be. On the other hand, ArenaNet has actually played with these new traits while in development, giving them significantly more insight into the balancing and available builds.
- PvE requires no “balancing.” You fight against a computer. “Balance” changes to PvE are done purely for the purpose of making the game challenging but beatable, a circumstance that releases endorphins in the brain and creates feelings of enjoyment and satisfaction. That being said, it makes a lot more sense to balance new features around PvP game modes.
- ArenaNet tends to keep new developments secret until they are almost ready to be released. As upset as the community is over the upcoming patch, it tends to become more upset when promised something that is never delivered. Given the presence of reds in various posts on this forum, it is clear that they have seen ALL of the complaints being posted, and they are likely working on balances in secret.
- It seems a lot of people are comparing ArenaNet’s development speed with League of Legends. League of Legends is a great game with frequent balance patches, but Riot Games also seems to have a larger development team focused on a smaller spectrum of challenges. Guild Wars 2 has three dimensions of travel, multiple different environments, more skills and skill interactions, a virtual economy, etc. And, if you clicked the link, you’ll know that they’re trying to hire more developers.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

I’m really pis… unpleased right now, because this 6. trait looks like a mistake to me, one person alone would do. The next personwould notice this misery and fixes it. But there are 300 ppl over there, and atleast 30 should have looked at the traits. And noone of them realized that 6 traits you would want to use in one traitline as LB ranger are a little bit too much.

This isn’t a mistake. It forces you to choose certain trade-offs when planning your build. This allows for more variation in builds you see in the game, which is something all MMO designers strive for. Not only that, but it’s significantly easier to balance within the profession and against other professions. For example, it’s easier to estimate a balance between range increase and additional precision than it is to estimate a balance between range increase PLUS precision and something else. Along with this, it’s easier to balance against other classes if they know you are always limited to 2 of the 6 longbow skills instead of being able to grab all 6 and superpower your 1.5k range arrows.

Theoretical. I usually plan builds without condi removal to test a bunch of things at once because I know at least one of them will get swapped out for personal survivability.

I see what you’re saying about damage to damage time. Yes, time between one attacking hitting and the next one hitting is probably one second. I’m saying that the time from activating a skill to the attack landing decreases. You can start channeling the next skill as the current projectile flies. This skill isn’t meant to increase DPS; it makes it harder to dodge. However, also consider the likelihood of a target moving to a lower damage tier on your Longbow 1 decreases.

Safi, that was only one example. This trait should affect all of the projectiles from your longbow, including every single shot fired during Longbow 2.

And here’s a theoretical sPvP build I’d be willing to try with the new Survival trait: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMAQJATRjEqUyaLLesQ1agYpQQ9ppgTWy9w/oCAp8kC0WF-ToAA1CoIKSVkrITRyisFNEZJC

Atherakhia.4086:

Where are you getting your longbow numbers? From damage to damage, longbow right now is 1 second total time. Projectile speed wouldn’t have any impact on DPS. Piercing Arrows is also beneficial because it ensures you’ll hit what you’re aiming at instead of being body blocked. But even if you didn’t run it, you’d alsom certainly prefer spotter don’t you think?

As for survival of the fittest, the issue is there’s little reason to go NS at all unless you plan to run spirits or shouts. There’s nothing in the other traits to help with survival skills…

As for poison, it’s not encouraging their use in any way. Poison would have always been used regardless of this trait or if you spec’d condi or not for the healing debuff alone. The issue is, for a GM trait, it’s only increasing damage by a single bleed tick.

Longbow 1 channel is 3/4 seconds. Travel time to target at 1200 range is about 3/4 seconds (no, I haven’t measured it with a stopwatch, but it’s certainly not 1/4 second). And like I said, you rarely line up targets in sPvP, so being blocked isn’t an issue that often. Spotter is nice if you have specific tPvP strategies, but otherwise self-reliance is incredibly valuable.

You’re certainly right about going into NS for Spirits and Shouts, but this trait opens up a new option for going into that line. Gaining fury doesn’t seem intuitive, but when you consider half of vitality builds are also based on power, a free 20% chance to crit can do wonders. Add that on top of Quickening Zephyr, Lightning Reflexes, and Muddy Terrain, and you gain some decent utility combinations. Presumably this trait also works in combination with Survival skills that trigger automatically, such as activating Sharpening Stone from the Keen Edge trait in Marksmanship.

As for poison, I guess this was based off of some forum discussion.

I’m not saying these new traits are the greatest things ever, but in every MMO I play it seems that most players are unwilling to experiment with new builds and play styles. People assume that unless a new addition is obviously overpowered, it must be complete garbage.

A lot of new traits seem to be designed with sPvP in mind, since they’re trying to encourage more players to join in. In terms of these new GM traits:

Read the Wind: reduces reaction time against your skills about 33% at 1200 range (estimating travel time drops from 3/4 sec to 3/8 sec, that means total time from skill activation to damage for the Longbow 1 drops from 1.5 sec to just over 1 sec). Given that people are constantly moving in sPvP, piercing shots are nearly impossible to line up consistently, so this is definitely a nice alternative.

Strider’s Defense: 1h sword and greatsword are decently common amongst sPvP rangers, so being able to melee and block incoming damage from other enemies at range will be useful.

Poison Master: Encourages the use of poison. This means very little in PvE, but poison reduces all healing and regen by 33%, making it great for sPvP and WvW.

Survival of the Fittest: You’re concerned that Spirit rangers and Shout rangers won’t use it?? Maybe that’s because it’s meant to improve Survival skills…

Invigorating Bond: ANet has been trying to improve the functionality and diversity of support builds for several months. This seems like another addition for that purpose. Without numbers, I can’t say more.

Server: Gate of Madness (US)
Area: Gendarran Fields, Broadhollow Bluff

After the first launch pad up to the Aetherblade hideout, the spinning disc doesn’t launch you forward over the gap. It shows the animation, but you just stay in place.