Guild Wars 2

Labjax.2465:

Chipofsalt.4673:

1) You don’t need your elite spec to play through HoT.

With very few exceptions, you don’t need gliding either. But the zones would be a lot less fun without it.

…..

Chipofsalt.4673:

5) Keeping them character bound keeps it in line with non-elite specs.

And making them cost 400 HP (e.g. either all 40 HoT HP or 20 HoT HP and 200 Tyria) does not keep them in line with non-elite specs.

Read my above posts.

Also compare it to GW2’s predecessor. In the first Guild Wars, it took A LOT of effort or wealth to unlock all of your skills by the time EoTN was released. How is the decision to make elite specs time consuming to obtain any different of a move?

hurrado.2346:

Because you seem to be in your own little world where other players don’t matter, here is a response for your broken argument:

……

And entitlement MY kitten This is a game, not saying they should be instantly unlocked, but maybe like a story quest, a few WVW rank ups, a reward track or two in PVP would seem fair, and it’s not like many players didn’t pay REAL MONEY THAT THEY EARNED WORKING A REAL JOB to play the elite specs, to some that is really all they wanted, they did not want to grind for months on end as a casual player. Hardcore players will have their elite specs as soon as possible after launch regardless of what the devs do, thats just how it works, why screw over casual players that make up much of the player base of GW2, that have work and lives outside of playing non-stop. It just doesn’t make any sense to me

And, personally, I am getting fed up with people having this assumption that I should have to play the new zones to get my spec, I enjoy playing PVP, I hate playing PVE, I tried to play the expansion to see if I would enjoy it, I enjoyed gliding around and seeing the new zone, that is it, the group events were boring to me, and to imagine doing them to get the specs on all my chars is nonsense.

To argue that its fine as is, is just absolute ignorance.

/rantoff.

You seem to be confusing something. There is more than one way to run an MMO, and just because I believe in the less popular opinion does not make me any more or less correct than you are. Saying my point is coming from “absolute ignorance” is simply myopic.

Of course players matter. If Anet chooses to cater more towards the hardcore players, sure they’d lose some casuals, but they would also gain a different player base.

I didn’t say it’s fine as is. I said it’s fine WITH the assumption they would make hero challenges easier.

Also, look up the word irrational. Stating 1 + 1 = 3 is irrational. Stating the sky is green is irrational. Stating spaghetti is my favorite food is an opinion.

Look up FF14. Their newest expansion is gated behind hundreds of MSQs.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

It comes down to the majority feeling the Elite Specialization should be something we can enjoy the new content with and play though vs receiving it as an end-game award. The Elite Specialization is irrational as an end-game reward because the Elite Specialization introduces a new play mechanic that’s exclusive to Heart of Thorns. Unique items, skins, etc… make sense are end-game rewards a new play mechanic makes absolutely no sense as a end-game reward. It’s beyond irrational, it’s asinine and horrible design by any game design theory you want to apply.

Given the overwelming anger over this many of us have requested ArenaNet provide some rational as to why they have provided unique play mechanics for each class and then have decided to make locked down until end of game. They have elected not to address this question.

How is it being an end-game reward irrational? It seems more to me that’s your interpretation.

HoT answered many complaints that people had towards vanilla GW2, and that was its lack of endgame content. Now that Anet added an answer to it, people still aren’t satisfied.

Any modern MMO you look at has a similar model. End-game content is largely a grind fest once you learn the mechanics. The issue is more that people feel betrayed that Anet is moving away from catering to casuals.

For my second point – a lot of you are arguing about the “elite” wording that Anet used when defining the new specialization content. The new specializations unlock not only a new trait line, but they also unlock a new weapon and spec specific utilities. As a comparison, add the cost for an entire trait line for the revenant and add it to the cost for the corresponding utilities. When you compare this value to that of the elite spec, it isn’t too monstrously outrageous as many of you are hyperbolizing.

So my original question remains unanswered for this point: Why should they be cheap (that is, how would making them cheaper positively impact the game and its mechanics?)? “Because I paid for it” is not an answer.

A lot of your other answers (specifically to my first and third points) are reiterating something I already wrote. People believe they are entitled to having their elite specialization from the get-go, and are complaining they need to work to unlock it. My belief that they should be worked towards comes from a traditional MMO/JRPG background. This is a matter of interpretation, which is why this concept is so debated right now on the forums.

I understand that people feel betrayed that Anet is moving away from catering to casuals (as was their vanilla GW2 mantra), but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. HoT is certainly catering more towards the hardcore group with this new release.

Will they change the cost for elite specs? Probably not too soon. It wouldn’t be too surprising to see hero points for HoT be made easier so they can be soloed though.

With all of the redundant posts on this forum regarding elite specializations being gated behind a heap of prerequisite hero points, I thought it would be fun to play devil’s advocate. Ultimately, I think the issue isn’t the number of points required to unlock them, but the nature of how difficult the HoT hero challenges are.

Here’s why I believe the hero point requirement should not be changed:

1) You don’t need your elite spec to play through HoT.
2) It’s an elite spec – it shouldn’t be cheap by its nature.
3) It incentivizes map completion and/or WvW participation.
4) You don’t need the entire line unlocked for it to be used (or even useful).
5) Keeping them character bound keeps it in line with non-elite specs.

Most of the complaints I’ve seen about the hero point requirements seem to come from our culture of entitlement (I should get it now – or at least sooner – because I want it now).

That all said, I do think there is a HUGE problem with the fact that it’s almost impossible (or in some cases very difficult) to solo the hero challenges in the new zones. If someone is serious about unlocking their elite specialization, they should be able to do it with or without their friends and guildies.

It doesn’t matter what you go for first time-wise. You will need the same amount of laurels either way. I would suggest going for trinkets first, since they are much easier to obtain.

Do not use laurels to make gold. If you’re going to get ascended armor, you should spend laurels on the ascended crafting recipes that you need.

stephoa.7082:

I understand how the liquid rewards are affecting the economy and why it has to be balanced out. But at the same time, consider that perhaps the economy is not their main target and it is in fact the dungeon community that they’re trying to get rid of (they said they wanted to deincentivize dungeons). They received backlash from removing TA fwd up awhile back and this time around, instead of directly removing content, they are simply making sure no one plays it lol. To me, that is almost as bad as removing content. Sure, we don’t know how bad the nerf is going to be, but at the same time, they have said that it’s going to be “much less” rewards with no compensation through tokens or material drops. A lot of the people I know do dungeons because it’s fast, it’s varied (so many dungeons, so many paths) and it gives them enough gold for their time. I personally do dungeons for both reasons — if I have a good team, I do them all, get a good amount of gold while having the fun of my life. If I don’t, I rather not do them.

I’m not sure I agree with the first part. To be absolutely frank, the dungeons we do currently have access to are not impressively designed – they are not challenging, and the only thing remotely impressive about clearing them is rapid completions.

Anet will not be removing dungeon armor, so there is still incentive to run those dungeons, just a little less so after HoT.

That said, Anet has not released a new dungeon or a new dungeon path since aetherpath, so I can’t really say I’m surprised to hear them confirming what most of us have been thinking. Ultimately, the question becomes what they will do with fractals and raids in order to shift player interest. As this has yet to be seen, I don’t believe we have enough sustenance to formulate an argument either way for these upcoming dungeon changes.

There are a few issues with this build that stand out to me. Whether or not you agree with my analysis is up to you, but I’ve been playing necromancer since the game was released so I hope you at least consider my input.

First, if you’re intending to focus on condition damage and survivability, don’t use only wells. As a condition necro, you absolutely need to have epidemic (utility) and scepter – you need AoE condition spread from epidemic and reliable conditions from scepter in order to get the most out of condition damage necro. Staff is fine and offhand is your choice, though I like using warhorn for the speed buff.

As far as other utilities go, signet of the locust is useful for roaming in PvE or WvW, corrupt boon is useful in some PvE fights and in PvP. Some wells are OK as well, so long as you have epidemic. If you want more advice on utilities just say so.

Secondly, your armor. Carrion isn’t that good for necromancers. Either go berserker for pure damage, or rabid/dire for condition damage. If you go rabid, get that trait that applies conditions on critical. Dire is good if you want an insane amount of survivability without sacrificing conditional damage. The reason why I don’t like carrion is because it’s one of those hybrid armors that doesn’t get the best of both worlds. Either go to one extreme or the other, but you aren’t doing yourself any favors by getting carrion armor. Another benefit to using dire/rabid is that it gets toughness, which synchronizes very well with the rune of the undead, which gives you condition damage based upon toughness (7% toughness -> condition damage).

As for traits (besides the one I mentioned, the one that applies conditions on crit) get the entire line that gives you condition damage. The rest is up to you.

Vayne.8563:

…Of course, I make my own entertainment and have a great guild.

This guy knows. What people don’t understand is that in order to have fun in an MMO, you need to create your own story/goals. If you wander around aimlessly, of course it won’t be any fun for you.

I also started on DR, but I’m still there.

Simply transferring servers won’t fix the ultimate problem of there being too many underpopulated servers (I wouldn’t really say any of them are dead or close to it though). What they need to do has already been suggested: a merger between servers with low populations.

Transfering/guesting only offers a short-term, individual solution.