Guild Wars 2

I saw the title, and I figured that was me too.

Anet, it was too late, but I tried at least telling you how bad your new maps were. Yes, they are beautiful. I respect the effort you put into making them look nice.

….That’s it.

They are just about unplayable. I’m glad I’m on a mid-tier server. The rush to EB is going to be insane on high-pop maps. I mean, NSP already queues it, but it’s not terrible.

Actually, once people get everything from HoT, what will you do?

I played for a few hours. The map looks pretty.

I never even made it to most of the map, though. The map feels too big, and with all the twisty paths it takes forever to get anywhere. Some of the environment effects are really not fun, too. Like, they make me not want to play on the BL.

The Oasis was fun, though. Honestly, if the BLs were nothing but the Oasis event, and there was a smaller cap size to compensate, it would be a really fun map.

Since that’s not the case, a suggestion would be to stagger the oasis events in a predictable manner from one BL to the next, so that there’s almost always one going on at any given time. Maybe tone down the reward, too, so that it’s not worth zerging over it. It was fun to play, but eventually we had nearly 3 map queues in the oasis, which was pretty ridiculous.

Though, it is revealing to see that in one day, they have 600 posts about this blunder.

Please end this and let us play again.

It’s possible I’m misunderstanding the arming step. I understood it to be the normal 1/2 second to cast, then an additional 1/2 second spent arming it. If that arming phase is just a “timer” after cast, that’s not as big of an issue.

1/2 second cast time is how the non-trap, pre-“balance” version of HS currently works. The new version will likely take significantly longer to cast, and will likely root you in place while casting.

It’s the “arming” step that is the issue, mostly. From the way they described it, this was a process of crouching down and setting the trap. That’s how it worked in GW1, and it’s what it sounded like they were describing for the new traps. It’s why traps were only used in special circumstances in GW1- “cast” times were too long and they left you too vulnerable and rooted in place.

Stopping and crouching down to set a trap for anything longer than the current 1/2 second would be unusable in a fight against other people. Even at 1/2 second, which is highly unlikely, having to stop movement while setting the trap would be a deal breaker if you went into combat with that as your heal skill. This game is way too fast paced for that when you play against other human beings.

I just want to alert the devs to a build option that might lose viability in many game modes.

Making healing spring a trap makes it nearly impossible to provide aggressive support as a ranger.

As a trap, which the ranger has to take time to set, then trigger, I’m afraid healing spring is going to be useless in actual combat that is not PvE. There might be no reason to take anything other than Heal as One or Troll Unguent. This in turn would make the addition of the additional blast finisher less valuable. It could ultimately take away one viable support option, and make using a warhorn questionable.

With healing spring the way it is, a “frontline” ranger with a warhorn can provide a very fast healing burst and minor condi removal to his team, while remaining in the fight. Or, in the case of a duel, the ranger can drop healing spring, blast it, swap weapons and leap for a really nice burst heal. It’s really versatile, but it has to be there when you NEED it, and you need to be in position to make best use of it.

Kind of like how the longbow was made a viable choice partly by nerfing shortbow, I fear that nerfing healing spring might be an attempt to make spirit rangers and shout rangers more appealing support options. Perhaps even druid.

But in fact, this nerf potentially threatens build diversity. Please reconsider the mechanics of making healing spring a trap. Perhaps leave it as a trap, and require that it be triggered, but let it keep the current 1/2s cast time. It’s not unheard of to have skills of the same “type” with different cast times: signet of the wild takes 1s to cast, but every other signet is instantaneous.

I think it will depend on what mode you’re playing and what your personal style is.

But, I think Marksmanship is at least as much of a given as WS for a melee ranger, so I personally don’t think WS/NM/BM is the route to consider.

We’re basically talking about greatsword, and in my view, you want to manufacture burst/spike damage with that weapon. Marksmanship currently offers the best route to do so, while also allowing you to build tanky. You can sacrifice precision and go with more cavalier/valk as your “offensive” items because you are going to get crits when you need them. Similar to running an intelligence sigil under current rules, only (possibly) better: applying fury will apparently refresh opening strike, which will also cause auto-crit and +25% damage. So if you build ferocity and combo it wisely with something like maul, while giving yourself plenty of fury sources, you should be able to manufacture decent spikes on demand. Precision becomes more of a dump stat.

So, with that in mind, right now, I’m thinking Marks/WS/NM. The advantage of NM on a melee ranger is the area weakness. You can dive with greater impunity, basically, and REALLY disrupt a backline like (I feel) you’re supposed to. It’ll still be risky, and you will need to time things right. You’ll need to get to the backline before taking damage, so that it procs where you want it to. But if you do, they’ll be in bad shape. Weakness is strong.

That’s my theory-crafting so far. So basically yes, part of it is that you can build less precision and still get crits, and make them hit pretty hard, while also being relatively tanky (min/maxing as you say). But that’s actually possible to an extent, currently.

However, the traits as shown so far can enhance that style of play beyond where it’s at right now. They’ll probably nerf it completely though, cuz LB+Anet=<3

Disclaimer is that I’m not talking about PvE. I also am curious to see what druid has to offer. But unless the druid traits and weapon skills are jaw-dropping, I don’t see it really fitting into even a supporty melee build. We’ll see.

Pet swapping is getting some pretty nice buffs in HoT. Just in Marksmanship alone, Beastmaster’s Bond has good synergy with Remorseless. However, this got me thinking that there’s a potentially missed opportunity with Moment of Clarity, if it stays mostly as it is.

For me, I usually use a wolf and a drakehound. Obviously for the actives. However, they also have a knockdown, which I’ve come to appreciate.

Even though we can’t control it directly, the fact is that canines use their knockdown skill “immediately” upon swapping, if it’s not on CD. Simple AI can be good. I’ve gotten fairly decent at manufacturing knockdowns, roughly on-demand.

In fact, due to the weapons I use, I end up getting most of my interrupts via my pets, whether it’s from my wolf’s F2, or via knockdowns. Which brings me to my point:

Moment of Clarity does not currently trigger attacks of opportunity when my pet does the ‘rupting. Why should it not? It’s a relatively small thing, but I feel that skillful use of pets is precisely the kind of thing that should be rewarded and encouraged.

It’s unclear what impact these changes will have on solo play.

While the oasis event sounds like you’ve at least put some thought into roamers and their ilk, some questions arise:

-In what ways specifically does the oasis cater to roamers, ambushers and gankers?
-Are the roamers (etc) the ones you foresee hunting down these dinosaurs?
-How long does the event take?
-Most importantly, what do roamers and gankers do when the oasis event is inactive?

The post from Tyler likened capturing shrines to capturing sentry points, saying a solo player will be able to handle it. Currently, solo roamers capture entire supply camps, if they want to contribute to their team’s efforts and provoke a response (the latter is often the main objective).

-Does this mean that supply camps will be harder now?
-Given relative ease of movement for defenders on a map they control, will response times be significantly lower?

Tyler’s post also mentioned that the paths are “windier,” and we’ve also been told that towers will pose significant impediments to movement. Swift movement across the map is essential to a roamer, but it’s also important to have options.

-Just how much slower will map travel be, if you’re forced to go the long way?
-How many alternate routes will there be for any given A-B?
-Will there be many escape routes? (Aside from fancy air-shrine jump pads)