Guild Wars 2

Hynoris.3684:

but they got a no clipping allowed policy that makes then choose the latter option because its Way easier to work around.

• No clipping allowed
• Charr

Pick one.
Edit/on topic: I don’t mind the skin releases. Though all these over the top armors and weapons get boring after a while, kind-of like a WoW syndrome.

If you do group support in group events you are doing it wrong. All you should focus on is damage, tagging as many mobs as you can, and blasting fire fields, when possible. You get nothing for healing, you get nothing for applying group protection, regeneration, or might. You get rewards for damage and damage only. The fewer players you have to compete with for the mobs, the better. You can rez them later.

To put 50 dollars into perspective: 40-50 loaves of bread, or one hard disk, or half a CPU, or 1 hard disk.

Also, that weird gray looking heavy armor (similar to LA guard armor) every other new character is wearing. I need a toggle switch for. They are ugly.

Sometimes it happens. I have a top notch internet connection aswell, so I’m sure it’s server side.

I [math.supremum(percentage)]% disagree with OP.

GW2 is just either face-rollingly easy, or kittened in most aspects of pve. Enemies often wait five seconds between attacking, bosses too, and you can avoid most damage with blocks. I still don’t see regular enemies using 3 or more skills from a profession with comparable attack speed, aside from maybe some nightmare court enemies.

So yeah, more challenging, active content is what I support

Would play with:

• Paladin: Mending+Breeze+Healing Hands (think of a longer-lasting Defiant Stance)
• DragonPuncher: It’s not even high concept anymore, it’s shrooms tier. (loving it)
• Double Horns: Vuvuzela power

Would not play with:

• Spess Mehreen (I’m neither bald nor a hair-etic)

boomersooner.4612:

I’m confused what does OP mean?

Try reading it then.

And again: I support a rescale of dungeons for repeatable solo play, that scales with the number of players (both in rewards and in difficulty)

Duke Darkwood.4237:

The main reason they wanted to avoid the Trinity is that, in Trinity-centric games, it’s not so much about the trinity itself, as it is how it affects the players’ mindset.

First off, the NEED for each corner of the trinity. You could not go anywhere without one of each role.

Second, the lack okittennowledgement (partially tied into the “everyone is too absorbed in their part of the fight”) – You’re so busy watching enemy aggro as the tank, that you don’t actively acknowledge the healer keeping you alive, for example.

Which leads to the blame: If the tank DOES die, whose fault is it? Clearly the healer’s, and no one else’s. If the DPS dies, it’s either the healer, failing to keep them alive, or the tank, failing to hold enemy attention. And if enemies start going after the healer, it’s the whole front line’s fault for failing to stop the enemy.

And then there’s the entitlement. This is what happen when the lack okittennowledgment I mentioned earlier meets the other player’s ego. Why are they not praising the tank for holding the enemy so well? Where’s the love for the DPS, who did the actual killing? And the healers…. hoo boy! Without the healers, everybody dies – they hold the power of life and death, and they can WITHhold that same power!

It’s just a few months before I joined GW1, but there was once an…. incident… in that game. One that lives in infamy in the minds of all who were there. It was the Great Monk Strike of Thunderhead Keep. (Which brings us back to my FIRST point, about how difficult it is to function without all parts of the trinity!)

Guild Wars 2 consciously chose to avoid this. And it succeeded at that goal – for all the talk of a “new trinity”, you can essentially do all group content with pretty much any mix, provided everyone knows what to do in that content.

It’s not a perfect system, I’ll admit – the aversion of the trinity has led most to take a soloist attitude to the game, even, to an extent, when doing group content.

Haha. Reminds me of looking for monks. (for that reason, playing a monk was always rewarding, even more when duo-monking with my father)

Unfortunately, removing the trinity only removed those two roles. For most modern groups to function effectively, you need might stacking, you need battle standard, you need capped vuln on foes, stealth and portals for skipping, reflects for bosses, etc.

You don’t ask for a monk or a n/rt healer, you ask for a thief or a mesmer. You don’t need a tank, you need reflects. Same deal, less choices.

However there are ways to have multiple equivalent meta compositions with different gear, without making trinity strictly necessary (or even close to optiomal)

Eurhetemec.9052:

Thaddeus.4891:

I never felt any of those ‘’players work together ’’ because of Holy Trinity. As a tank, I was doing my job, almost ignoring the rest of the team. As a healer it was the same, but I was looking at my side bar to make sure I was keeping everybody alive.

This is very true, but “Trinity” games aren’t necessarily like that – the reason modern ones often are is because of how specialized/narrow characters have become.

I mean, go back in time to say, Dark Age of Camelot (for a long, long time the 2nd-most-popular MMO after EQ). In PvE it was technically a “Trinity” game, in that you had characters who primarily did damage, characters who primarily got monster attention, characters who primarily healed, but because the characters were much less narrowly specialized, you had considerable overlap, and people could often switch roles or occupy multiple roles – for example, look at the Warden – primary role is likely healer/buffer, but they were also tough enough to off-tank easily, and did significant enough damage that they needed to focus the right target.

You also had large groups – 8 people – so there was room for characters who weren’t overspecialized.

I could go on, but I think you get the point – it wasn’t this mindless “I only think about what I’m doing” deal that most modern trinity games are (though, tbh, if you are a tank who does not think about what the healer is doing, you are a total bad of the worst kind – and a lot of tanks are horrible bads of that kind). If you have a much looser situation, where you technically have tanks, healers, etc. but there’s a lot of crossover and hybrids and so on, and groups large enough to make that work, then it doesn’t have to be that way.

Not saying GW2 needs to implement any of that, but it’s worth knowing.

WoW has ultra-narrow specs and literally no hybrids in the real sense anymore (though it does have some talents which encourage thinking about others). SWTOR had groups so small that it was basically “specialize or screw everyone”.

Eurhetemec, you are pretty much describing GW1.

And I agree. Any tank who isn’t paying attention to how the group is in terms of energy, health, cooldowns, how safe it is to continue, is just doing the bare minimum of tanking, and often that’s not enough.

The point? Tying active defenses to stats (let’s say: Aegis skills to toughness, swiftness skills to vitality, and vigor to healing power). That would turn the meta around for sure. Whether it means dedicated roles(3dps2support), or multiple similarly optimal hybrids (bloodspike)* depends on the details and fine tuning..

Except that you most likely won’t find cutscene watching story mode players anymore.

Tried that for CoE, waited half an hour for a group to get together, someone changed the LFG without looking, and I got raged on by another warrior who joined.

Eh, I’d rather it not influence WvW, and I’m all for functional stuff to play towards as well. (Mastery tracks especially)

And.. sorry for my outburst, and best wishes to you IRL.

The difference between viable and optimal is much more pronounced in wvw. As said before, the stats from ascended can make the difference in 1v1 scenarios, the number of people with ascended can make the difference between zergs, worlds, etc, so at the very least, this difference has to go from WvW.

I don’t really mind it in PvE actually. (although, limiting it (the bonuses over exotic) to fractals/fractals+dungeons could open up possibilities for introducing other types of content-specific gear, but that has to be evaluated on it’s own, and is much less of an issue, as it is said above

New? I started in 2012 october, but never mind that, or that I had other problems (weak-ish computer, university, one year without stable internet, and a ton of assignments) that prevented me from doing the grind everything out every (other/third/however you felt like) day all of you did, plus, the supposed easy tells often lag me 0.5-1 second (which is clientside because I get the hit number before the enemy starts up the animation)

Level 5 necro, I knew it was worth it!

This idea is bad because resurrection is a key part of the game. In fact, resurrection should be encouraged more than leaving/walking back from a wp. Delay the downscale of “gone” players by a minute or two, that way if you res a player, you’ll be beating the fight sooner than with them being away.

I support soloable dungeon story modes, but not at the cost of them being repeatable. If I want to shoot Zhaitan down for the third time on my warrior, let me relive that moment. If I want to kill the Lich, Abaddon, or Shiro, I can pop into a gw1 character with th appropriate mission, pick a group of heroes and have at it in less than 5 minutes.

What’s so hard in scaling down a dungeon and leaving it a dungeon?

Conski Deshan.2057:

nolop.8095:

HoT is the perfect opportunity to up the stats of exotics to be on par with ascended items.
Having no equipment spiral has always been one of the best things about GW.

So why not take this chance to even out the playing field and adjust the stats to one base level.

Now you might think the stat difference is rather small and has no significant impact. But if you compar it to other games like WoW, wich is pretty much the poster child for an endless gear treadmill, you can see the stat increase is about the same as in WoW, percentage wise.

If ANet comes through with their promises of “truly chalenging PvE content” I can’t help but wonder what this content will be balanced around.

If it’s balanced for exotics the hardcore crowd will just plow through the contend and be disappointed because it’s no challenge.
On the other hand if it’s balanced around ascended gear we will have a hard split in the community, at least in dungeons ect.

I’d be very interested to know how people who have all the ascended stuff would feel about a change like this.

First off NO.

Secondly , your suggestion is to literally take away the reason people worked to get the ascended , with no compensation making what could potentially be several hundred hours of their game-play time worthless? Why would anyone who values their time accept that.

Third: It has been in the game years now, they’ve said they won’t introduce any more gear tiers, it would be best to just accept that ascended is here to stay and get over it.
It’s not unfair as you can just make your own set as can every player on a WvW map so regardless of the stats being negligible or not it’s a moot point.

Finally: I would expect HOT hard content to be designed for at least ascended quality, it’s meant to be super hard content (which people seem to keep forgetting means the vast majority are expected to fail/ be unable to complete it). Anyone at that stage in the game has likely had plenty of opportunity to make it and if they haven’t it’s an opportunity cost they voluntarily took.

1. No to your no. Ascended should not have better stats. In a game made for “having fun” rather than “preparing to have fun”, low-to-no grind for working gear and accessible pvp, there shouldn’t be any need for this sort of grind ascended currently has.

1. Except for fractals. Ascended should be the exotic+ gear for fractals. Just like how masteries are meant for certain regions of the game, instead of invalidating previous content and achievements. In the same vein, ascended should not, in any way, be different from a similar exotic in WvW (and maybe open world.), but reward those who play fractals a lot. (I’m on the fence about dungeons)

That way, you get the best of both worlds. Reward for your grind, and a game based more on skill than time played.

so, do we keep the replayable arah story?

so, we totally called the name or we totally called the name?

Thaddeus.4891:

Boro.7359:

Well, if we stack aegis, we could might as well stack blind, and if one class can’t stack one then maybe they can stack the other, so perhaps that can help alleviate the issue.

Stacking aegis is a terrible idea. The goal behind aegis is to time it well. You don’t want to waste it on a small attack that save you 1k of hp, you want to keep it and time it well on the big attack that will save you 10k of hp. If you can stack them, there is no skillz needed.

But I like the idea of skilled healing skill. Healing of block, small ground targeting healing skill (with a target not bigger than 100-200 range), maybe directional healing, stuff like that. But it doesn’t change the fact that active defense is superior than healing AND doesn’t need stats from gear. 1 skill can block a 10K attack, while you probably will never heal for that much with 1 skill and you need to sacrifice much dps to get that active defense, while you gonna need to sacrifice a big portion of your dps to get that high heal.

Not unmodified aegis mind you, but one that big hits can remove multiples of, and possibly still hit hard enough to reduce your HP quite a bit:

Basically:

• Stacks of aegis.
• Attacks have an aegis removal strength.
• If you have more aegis stacks than the attack’s strength, you are unaffected by the attack.
• Else, you take reduced damage. (let’s say, aegis_removal_strength*10 in % of the damage)

It would still be skill based, and many skills that give one aegis right now could end up giving us 5-10 stacks depending on traits and gear.

And we have reaper confirmed. (Keep up the pressure folks, them devs will cave in )

Zackie.8923:

MiniEquine.6014:

Genesis.8572:

MiniEquine.6014:

I was hoping for something different with the Longbow as well, but this spec will be here for people who want to play it. I mean, the DH is not exactly the same as the Ranger; no pet, traps have different effects, and you can still slot regular Guardian utilities instead of the traps. Not every elite spec is going to be one everyone wants to play, but maybe the next Guardian elite spec will make you fanboy over it (and hopefully more people than this one has too!)

What were you hoping from the guardian longbow spec?

My idea for it would have been a ranged, angelic semi-support class. The Longbow would essentially have an auto-attack (the one they have is fine) and up to four “Mark” skills (mimicking the Necromancer’s marks but with Guardian symbols, though probably not triggered by enemies, maybe triggered by allies? o.O), which would pulse condi clears, regen, aegis, protection, stability, quickness, and healing to allies with maybe an opposite effect to enemies. The utility skills and heal would be a new set of channeled shouts, almost exactly like the anthems in GW1. These would do sort of what the Longbow does, but with varying intensity and at point-blank range instead of 1200 units away. The Elite would temporarily transform you into a “Paragon of Light” or “Spirit of the Paragon”, changing your weapon to a spear and giving you wings (with float? they added it to Chronomancers) for a short time and granting you abilities similar to that of the Paragons. Spears would be thrown, in the same way.

I am not entirely sure if the name of the class could be Paragon though, as they didn’t really use bows, but the Elite skill would be the embodiment of the idea behind it.

Anet please hire this person to develop the guardian

++1 agreed. That way we won’t feel they are ursurping the rangers (I have one that leveled from 10 to 20 from her own birthday present because it’s so boring), meanwhile Guards get everything.

Plus, I’d love to see the not-so-imba-gon return, short-range chants are a good way to promote stacking (wait what? why not single targeted that allow us to target allies?)), and these ranged support symbols could be a fun thing to play.

What if instead of hp they scaled up a mix of hp and toughness? I mean sure, lowbies in weak gear would still be penalized, but they could at least try something with conditions (especially if condi-cap gets higher in HoT)

Well, if we stack aegis, we could might as well stack blind, and if one class can’t stack one then maybe they can stack the other, so perhaps that can help alleviate the issue. (and stacking blind on enemies is a whole different thing, as you are trying to position them instead of your allies for maximum AoE/skill effect, not to mention one is tied to boons, the other is to conditions, two important parts of the game.)

As for the GW1 pic, yeah, I forgot there are people here who can’t identify gw1 skills by their icons :/
So the solution: all rits have the same healing skills and attributes, all are contributing to damage, although the Communing rit does it passively.

notes:

• skill 5 is a targeted heal for 100hp (36 hp sacrifice if there aren’t any spirits within range)
• Skill 6 is an item spell that increases maximum hp by 80, self-heals for 160 when dropped, and has a 22 health sacrifice when used (30 if recast while held)
• maximum hp by the level the builds were designed for is 220
• Skill 5 has 4 second recharge, skill 6 has 15 seconds.
• The “build” is a collation of builds that could be used by lowbie canthans for the Minister Cho’s Estate mission, the first mission in that campaign.
• There are blocks (Rt/E skill 4), Blinds (Rt/Mo skill 2), Weakness (Rt/N skill 4), Damage Reduction (Rt/Mo skill 4) and interrupts (Rt/Me skill 1 and 2),

Most meta hero builds in gw1 (and by that I mean those created for Hard Mode) don’t have characters purely dedicated to healer: They either offer defensive or offensive support (N/Rt Curses Resto, Rt/any SoS resto, N/Rt Icy Veins/curses resto) Similarly, most controllers are specced to damage (Ineptitude mesmer, Panic mesmer), and even the “dedicated dps” (SoGM rit, most player builds) offer group support through skills like “Save Yourselves!” and Ebon Battle Standard of Honor, control through knockdowns, or just not being as much pressure on the healers through blocks and blinds.

Harper.4173:

Jockum.1385:

Thaddeus.4891:

Now explain me how because I don’t see it. How can Soldier gear give roughly the same results???

Increase soldiers gears dmg. I suggested that a few pages ago.

I think people want to play different roles. So its not just about gear.
A healer is no option since dmg is more important than healing. If a fullcleric would do – let say – 90% dmg of a fullzerk, fullcleric would be an option. Healing is atm very helpful in GW2 – but the lost dmg is usually not worth it.

If I did no misstakes a fullberserk got roughly twice the effective power of a fullcleric. Thats a huge difference. To bring an example: a rune which turns 90% of healing power into power would reduce the dmg gap. If I did no misstakes it would result in ~85% dmg of a fullzerk. So healingbuilds or tanky equip would become better and are more welcome. Most PUGs don’t care about 10% dmg – potions, buffood which nobody uses;)

GW2 should be compared to hack’n slays, they got a similar gameplay.
Hack’n Slay healers do dmg, there is no trinity or fullhealer in (most?) hack’n slays since everyone needs to bring dmg. GW2 is the same, you don’t want to sacrifice huge amounts of dmg for being a bit more tanky or get better heals. Most bad groups got not enough dmg which causes trouble.

So basically make it easier for people because if the damage of let’s say healy/tanky gear is increased you’re basically dealing a lot more damage while still having the benefit of a lot more healing and tankiness than a berserker player.

You’re asking to be rewarded more for less active and less skilled play.

Also another mistake you make is thinking GW2 has or should have a healer.
It does not and should not – each person has his own healing skill so a healing archetype is not needed.

If you’re healing (outside of a few niche situations) you’re not doing anybody any good since you’re doing something that is redundant. I already have my OWN healing skill and can manage my own HP.

So instead of doing something useful you’re just doing what I’m already doing by myself – which is not needed.

-Not at all if healing is made to be part of the “Skilled Play”. Defiant Stance is one such a healing skill (sort of Mark of Protection from GW1) A Protector’s Strike that healed on block instead of damaging would be similar.
-Skilled healing spells, along with increased mob attack frequency, could push a more defensive meta.
-Tying blocks, blinds, controls, and interrupts to stats could also force a shift towards a balanced approach. In an example system, a boss would gain a certain amount of defiance when using an attack that needs to be broken through before interrupting it. Higher interrupt strength can help in that. To compensate, a boss doesn’t gain defiance upon that interrupt. (only when idle) Aegis could be stacked (higher support power characters could apply more of them), but bosses could burn through stacks, but lose a percentage of damage for each level of aegis removed.
-As a quick challenge: find the healer in the picture below

Rune of Superior Vigor. Everyone must have one.

edit: Probably Traveler’s.

Daywolf.2630:

or #3 make Orr 3x more challenging but generally don’t change the theme. Make temples about impossible to defend, but 2x more challenging to invade (like it once was). Generally, put it back to early launch state before it was noobified and kittenized. Would be epic..

/support, although something needs to be done with the scaling. when going for balthazar temple, and the mobs don’t die immediately, pact morale sinks faster than a haftless axehead. Oh, and rewards should be appropriate

If they keep it, the “high concept” will likely become a meme to the point nothing they say can be taken seriously.

Gollum (because fingers)

And any of those high concept names.

Don’t forget the best shout: “This won’t end well”

Thaddeus.4891:

Devildoc.6721:

Thaddeus.4891:

So you want that a DPS character can’t support and a Support character can’t DPS?

essentially yes, I mean they’ll contribute some damage but their primary role is to do something else.

Well there is plenty of MMO like that. GW2 is build around another concept. Both are good, they just don’t target the same public. GW2 sprend the responsability to the whole party. Everybody need to participate to the support and dps side of PvE.

On the plus side, you don’t rely on other to complete a specific content. You don’t need to wait for a tank and won’t wipe because your healer is a noob. But if everybody do their part you can do incredible things.

On the minus side, you don’t rely on other to complete a specific content. Everybody feel less important and special.

Personnally, i prefer this way and GW2 is good for me. Other ppl prefer the other way and other games are for them. I don’t go on the forum of other game and push to change the game at its very core.

And guess what? We already have that in GW1. You know, the game that actually went out and changed everything and challenged how MMOs can be played. Sure, monks were the cornerstones of PvP, and most of PvE. But guess what? Rit heals were on par (and eclipsed) monks, and they could after the spirit buffs manage both spirits, offensive support, and powerheals. Necromancers could slot prots or heals, they performed fairly well thanks to soul reaping. Elementalists could go oldschool with Ether Prodigy, or off the walls crazy with Enchants and Ether Renewal, support IWAY-style builds with Ether Prism (it was similar to Shelter for Guardians, except it restored energy instead of health), or lately even turn themselves into energy batteries with Energy Boon (batteries that could put out nice healing)

The only reason Monks dominated the meta (in healing) was that they could compress the most into one bar (and because protting, healing, and cleanses were best left for a single person to handle, to reduce multitasking), and a few of their elites were outright broken (RC and WoH postbuff, Light of Deliverance post NF release till it was nerfed to death, LS, Healing Burst, PnH) and for a normal spell, Divine Boon was crazy useful as well.

But more often than not, there were team compositions that could eschew monks for more “distributed” sources of defense and healing. Good examples are Barrage/pet, early PvP Bloodspike, AoTL/Deathly Swarm spike, and later heroway builds that came the closest to what we have in GW2 (healing mixed up with either damage, control or offensive support).

So yeah, calling wolf Trinity is a wrong way to go. The ability to have roles does not necessarily mean a forced tank/dps/heal, and naturally, increasing your damage should have strong trade-offs in both control and support fields.

/post eaten by closing a browser tab…

I agree that healers have it badly in this game, especially given how crucial they were in gw1. That channels to there being no decent shutdowns, and how pretty much everything can be blocked/blinded/dodged, even a field of fire directly under your feet.

By the way: were you a prot or a redbar monk? Protting style of gameplay still somewhat works in a few places, but red bars are the thing of the past.

Interrupting, Reactions, Prots. From the last document I could make out, there aren’t any of these, and the game is more about trading blows and using up our encounter/daily powers than actively recharging skills, which I find to be a bit of a miss, given how the game is based around these active defenses.

If the Dragonhunter was more of an “Evil meet sword SWORD MEET EVIL!” type of class (a’la witch hunters as the current defense stands), perhaps it’d have been better to emphasize that aspect during the presentation instead of this ranger-copy thing we have now?

Barrage/pet has been nerfed in GW2.

Reading this thread, and based on my experiences, these are what I think could help with dungeons:

1. Random spawned enemies are something I agree with, it makes things a lot less stale. It’s the mainstay mechanic of roguelikes, and makes each run unique. This randomization however, doesn’t help a bit if the enemies are the same (just with a different model) in regards to the tactics that need to be used. Enemies need to be unique and interesting. This leads to:
2. Unique enemies, and enemy groups: Think of gw1, where every race/faction had an unique theme with it’s group builds. Examples below.
3. Rewards scaling with kills, number of explored parts, etc, so while speedrunners can have advantage in one way (boss chests), doing a full clear should be more or less equivalent in other ways.
4. Varied content: Escort, defend the NPC, Defend multiple NPCs, carry items, collect items, Last stand, CC the enemy couriers entire paths can be based on this kind of gameplay, even better they don’t need any champ/legendary bosses for this to work.

GW1 examples from the lower levels:

• Charr had Wild Blow and Shatter enchantment to punish stance/enchant users, focused on hexes and energy denial, but had little in the way of conditions, and no condi/hex removal.
• Stone Summit was more balanced, had monks immune to knockdown with condi/hex removal, snares from both water elementalists and cripple, interrupts from carvers, and empathy + shatter from mesmers.
• Krytan undead focused on conditions entirely: Poison rangers, cripple from grasping ghouls, deep wound from mesmers who also had hexes that dealt damage when a condition was applied to an enemy, blind+weaken+CA eles…

The list goes on. Giving groups a stronger identity that can potentially not only slow down but almost break even with players who don’t build specifically to counterplay it, without resorting to making it a hp punching bag, is what makes a game of skill. If the problem of players just switching builds to counter each group becomes too excessive, just make sure the pressure is kept up (players can’t break combat)

A few personal examples:

on the day I did tequatl for the first time, I volunteered after the shard emptied, and surprise, the big chicken was just finished with his morning cereals in the new map, and all ready to spread death and decay. I was the only living thing in the whole zone by the way. We rallied everyone on the map, and not even that was enough, we weren’t as much a zerg as a few people surviving as long as possible. That was a whole new experience and I enjoyed it.

Two days ago in CoE story, we failed to keep Zojja on her feet countless times in the golem room, our zerking, bad computers and our stacking left us vulnerable to whirling golems, magnetizer hard pulls, golem AoEs, and only after changing half the party, bringing interrupts, stability, reflects, and spreading out did we manage to pass that part. Our reward? 50s at the end of the story part, and one hell of a fight to remember. (but ofc people cried about the event being broken, that goes without saying)

Hold on a second please. Where do I sign up for development?

Cavalier was both a paladin themed and dragon/demon-specific kit in AD&D

Plus, it’s worth mention how they gushed about the “iterative approach” before the game was released, so let’s hope they just iterate over it and give us a better name.

Indeeeed! Indeed INDEEEEED!

Also Logan the Guardian of Healthy Teeth!

Duck Hunter sounds good.

(Other than that, I’d rather call it monk, and Tadaa, backline support with long range, plus a happy GW1 crowd!)

Seconding bunny thumper. Not liking Dragonhunter.

btw: anyone reading the first designing-of article can note the sudden lack of developer enthusiasm about the name and how it felt exactly spot on for them.

to arenanet’s responsible design people: Just iterate over it please. Give us sentinel or avenger or something more natural than this.

(btw, Coincidentally while digging for oldschool stuff on pvx, I found that one of the barrage/pet builds was a Paragon/Ranger with Anthem of Flame. So yes, there’s precedence for good stuff as well)

Not if you keep murdering everything that comes your way. (mind me, I only went there with heavy armor professions) Just don’t forget to log out/relog/swap characters every so often because diminishing returns.

metric tons of hours on the first day, one hour on the second day, scream of joy when it happened on a random mob during a random event, then buggered off to Orr to join a shore farm train, get Berserker’s Power trait, and give the game a little rest.

Then I continued celebrating the GW1 birthday by busting out a vintage “Prophecies mode only” character and running it through most of Nightfall for proofs of legend.

in the end, the actual diversity is going up on both high level play, which is all that matters on the long run, thanks to more trait fombinations reaching the potential of the current few meta ones. the PHIW crowd also gets a relief thanks to no matter how they choose, they will likely be more effective with content than before.

As for actual, optimal combinations: it’s going to be 3 per trait line, 3 traitlines per build out of 5 possible, thats 2520 different builds per profession. (sans elite specs)

Strange: luck smiled on me on this second day, got it literally 30 mins after logging in.

RNG is also called random number god for.

I’m personally thinking of it as a death knight, which pleases me to no end (even though I’m not a wow player and never will be).

From what we see, Chronomancer boosts up parties with alacrity (think of Blood is Power, on conset steroids from gw1), can spike twice, laugh at recharges with one skill… pretty nasty. Though, I have yet to see what the mesmer’s true potential is, being level 20 and all…