Guild Wars 2

__________________________Weapon Skills__________________________
Axe Skills

• Rending Claws
  Increase range to 900.
• Ghastly Claws
  Damage (10x): 1,340 (2.880)
  Life Force: 15%
  Range: 900
• Unholy Feast
  Pull nearby foes and gain retaliation for each foe you strike.
  Damage (3x): 544 (1.6)
  Retaliation (2s)
  Range: 600
  Recharge: 30s

__________________________Soul Reaping__________________________

• Foot in the Grave
  Gain stability while in Death Shroud
  Stability (3s)
  Interval: 3s

___________________Reaper’s Shroud and Greatsword__________________

• Infusing Terror
  Shroud yourself with dark armor that grants protection. You may shatter this armor to fear foes around you.
  Duration: 8s
  Protection: Applies 2 seconds of protection every second for the duration. Total protection duration of 16 seconds.
  Recharge: 20 seconds
  Fear (2s)
  Radius: 360

• Reaper’s Grasp
  Create a spectral dome around you and your enemies that foes cannot escape from. Apply a condition to enemies within.
  Duration: 5s
  Radius: 400
  Poison (10s)
  Recharge: 30s

Note:
The only reason I mentioned the reaper part is because I mentioned several skill changes that ending up being similar to reaper skills. With the axe skills I simply increased the ranges of the #1 and #2 skill and included two more attacks with the #2 skill.

With the #3 skill the damage is increased to meet the increased recharge but the overall damage should be the same but the number of attacks made have been increased. This indirectly increases the damage of these skills when paired with the vampiric traits in the Blood Magic trait line. #3 also gains an AoE pull which can be paired well with the warhorn, or with the changes to the Reaper skills, but it still retains the ability to stack retaliation equal to its duration but loses its boon corruption and cripple effect.

Most of the traits that affect “Life Blast” specifically are already in the Soul Reaping trait line, two out of three traits, so why not make a few alterations instead of making the pierce baseline. Such as move “Last Gasp” from the minor Master trait slot to the major Adept trait slot. Then change “Unyielding Blast” to Shroud skill 1 has a radius of 240 centered around your target and apply 1 stack of Vulnerability for 10 seconds, maximum of 5 targets, before placing it into the minor Master trait slot.

Then possibly allow Dhuumfire to proc on all enemies that are hit with Life Blast, maybe reduce burning duration to 2 seconds if it is far too strong, and place a light ICD, 1/2 to 1 second, on Reaper’s Might to prevent multiple stacks of might being generated instead of 1 stack,.

Roughly, I believe that it would allow 3 Life Blasts to hit almost as hard as a 4 second Lava Font in the same amount of time. Of course, that is assuming you are within 600 range or less of the enemy and not counting the travel time of the projectile.

Note: Fairly long post ahead.

In my opinion, the reason dungeons, and PvE in general, are easy for people is because we know how each and every enemy will attack. We know their animations, whether or not the attack can be reflected or blocked, the conditions required for the enemy to use that attack and how often it can be used. Anything that cannot be nullified or countered through skills can be nullified by dodging at the correct time.

Changing the mechanics of the encounters will not change anything permanently because once those new mechanics are figured out people will go back to using berserker equipment because active defenses and strategy gives the tools we need to nullify key attacks of any enemy as long as we have the information needed to do so.

The reason toughness and healing power do not scale well is most likely because of the many different sources and therefore can be stacked to a high degree. Sigils, runes, trait points and traits, equipment stats and weapons all can give additional stat points. In addition to the skills and boons that scale off of healing power and that both healing power and toughness reduce enemy damage in different ways they have to be balanced based on the upper-limit of stackable passive defenses.

Potentially, if you remove all equipment based stats so that the only source of stats are from traits points, lines, traits and runes it would be easier to balance them because there are fewer variables and the scaling of toughness and healing power can be improved. Equipment would only scale the trait stats by a multiplier, so exotic would multiply the trait stats by 1.00 and ascended by 1.05 and so on as well as be there for non-stat sigils, for runes and infusions in the case of Ascended.

Potentially, with such a system you could just change a few trait points from the more offensive trait lines to a defensive trait line if you are taking a lot of damage and going down a lot without having to change to a different armor set or rune set. Then if multiple areas within dungeons are randomized so that enemy type/number/composition is not the same every time you enter a dungeon then that would make things a little more interesting. Such as a dungeon spot having a chance of spawning enemies that do heavy ranged damage, or heavy damage melee, or enemies with reflects and so on. Needing a little more party adaptability, or so in theory. My opinion of course.

Of course it could always be a miniature if the golem never disappears.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Miniature_Servitor_Golem

The servitor golem has the same model and color scheme as the Inquest Mark I Golem.

The intention of the New Players Experience is good but as others have mentioned the implementation of it is lacking. I have recently created multiple characters to check experience the NPE and there are some good and some bad things about it.

Good Things - Bundling of the personal story so each arc can be started and finished at a specific level. The dodge tutorial to get the chest in beginning areas was entertaining as well.

Bad Things - Level gating of all underwater, downed and regular skills. The removal of content throughout the beginning areas and the removal of the “Greatest Fear” story arc. No sense of progression until the later levels in terms of character abilities.

New Player Experience
When I leveled my most recent characters under the NPE I did not find the experience to be enjoyable and I found myself wanting to constantly use Tomes of Knowledge and Experience Scrolls to speed up the process so I could have access to all my skills. Having access to a large amount of skills can be daunting for some people but being locked out of the vast majority of your abilities is boring and only unlocking them after many hours of playing is monotonous.

Greatest Fear story arc. Honestly, the removal of this particular story arc is something I do not mind. The stories were enjoyable as they provided more content and implemented various characters that showed up throughout the arc before culminating in a final battle/episode type thing.

The problem I had with the removal is mostly because without it you progress directly from creating the Pact to the Battle of Fort Trinity. It is jarring because you go from the Pact in its infant stages, discussing the usage of an old ruined fort to be used for the Pact and giving it the name of Fort Trinity, to a finished Fort Trinity. Then another jarring jump to “Against the Corruption” which made me wonder what I missed because the “Greatest Fear” plotline is what provided valuable information, progressed time and eased the story through the major events.

Improvements
Traits – Starting at level 6 and every 6 levels after you get 1 trait point until level 72. Then 1 trait point at level 76 and level 80. At level 40 you unlock Master level traits/trait area and at level 80 you unlock the Grandmaster traits/trait area.

Equipment – At level 10 and every 10 levels after the player can choose 1 piece of Masterwork armor with stats of the player’s choosing. This piece of equipment will level with the character with its stats being updated every 10 levels. At level 70 and level 80 the player instead chooses 1 Exotic Weapon with the stats of their choosing.

Beginning Personal Story Area – For example, the Sylvari “Dream”, the Norn “Great Hunt”, the Charr “Ghost Battle”, the Human “Centaur Raid” and the Asura “Inquest Attack”. Expand this area slightly by having a calm before the storm type scenario where the storm is the events your character is plopped into after the beginning cutscene.

Basically, place 1 Vista, 1 Point of Interest, 1 Skill Point Challenge and the Dodging tutorial thing in that area. Create a few dialogue options with various npc’s in that instance to give it a Guild Wars 1 Pre-Searing feel to it. Use prompts and NPC’s so that a player can discover the PoI, complete the Skill Point Challenge, the Dodging tutorial and when the player completes the Vista events will progress to the existing events.

Such as a Human player seeing the Centaurs coming, Sylvari players seeing the first boss from a distance with Nightmare hounds approaching and the Asura seeing the Golems attacking when they use the Vista. With the Charr simply have them in the bar or training area with their warband, talking with them and so on and when they progress to the Vista have them see the ghosts start attacking and the Norn area only needs a skill point challenge, PoI, the dodging tutorial and a Vista as it is already a calm type of scenario.

Personal Story – Everyone: Use the Living Story Season progression method and allow a player to replay the Personal Story events that they have already completed. Additionally, include the Story part of the dungeons to be included as a side-quest/part of the Personal Story at the appropriate levels without requiring a party of other players to complete it.

Essentially, this means improving the npc’s in the Story-map of the dungeons only. Explorable dungeon maps will remain untouched. Finally, do the same thing with the Victory or Death dungeon and final battle. This is mainly to allow players to experience the entire story at their own pace while still having the opportunity to invite others into the story if they wish. Explorable dungeons, Fractals, World-events and everything else would still require other players of course.

In my opinion the Dream is the mind of Mordremoth and the Avatar of the Pale Tree is essentially creating a hidden area within Mordremoth’s mind that allows the Sylvari to grow without the interference of Mordremoth.

Zhaitan gained knowledge from those that he has corrupted and anything experienced by one of his risen is shared with him. The Dream acts in the same manner. Everything experienced by a Sylvari connected to the Dream is passed to the Dream which allows new sylvari to gain access to a small portion of that knowledge.

The problem is that when the PC Sylvari awakens they meet the Shadow of the Dragon. This means that Mordremoth is slightly aware that there is something within his vast mind that he is not fully aware of. As he awakens and gains further access to the area hidden by the Pale Tree he gains more access to the knowledge gathered by the Sylvari. Which would explain why Mordremoth knew about the gathering during Season 2.

Additionally, in my opinion the Sylvari are the minions and not specialized units. They are basically the equivalent to the regular risen of Zhaitan and are meant to be the shock troops. Much like the regular risen they would not be collecting, finding or eating magic. Zhaitan used specialized units to do such things, the Eyes and Mouth of Zhaitan, which he kept quite close to him within Orr or kept under tight guard.

Basically, for Mordremoth the Heart of the Maguuma Jungle is where we will find Mordremoth’s equivalent to Zhaitan’s Eyes and Mouths, if there is an equivalent. Though so far Mordremoth has been shown being able to gain magic from the ley lines through roots and tendrils. Though I would like to point out that neither the Dream Sylvari nor the Pale Tree has ever been corrupted so there would be no need to free them from corruption. The Nightmare Court is a little iffy though.

As for the OP, the Sylvari do not seem to mind the various temperatures as much as mammal-based species. Though they are aware of it and will often state the differences it does not actually cause negative repercussions. Based upon the various Sylvari NPC dialogue and comments in the Shiverpeak areas.

No, I said that the active for Signet of Vampirism is on par with the other healing skills.

Technically, the conditions for the group healing aspect of the signet is easier to achieve than Well of Blood. Since all you need to do is attack during the 6 seconds the ability is active, there is no restriction to the range your party members have to attack from and party members are not required to stand in a specific location to take full advantage of the healing. Additionally, the signet provides extra damage when a Vampiric Mark is consumed.

However, if you have a healing power stat of 850 then the party heal of Well of Blood equals that of SoV, if SoV is fully traited and you have 450 healing power, and if you have even more healing power then Well of Blood has better group healing and a better initial heal. Simply, Well of Blood is a defensive healing skill while SoV is an offensive healing skill.

Personally, I use CC if I will be regularly afflicted with more than two conditions, Well of Blood if I have a high healing power stat and Signet of Vampirism for most other situations. Mostly, because I have no difficulty consuming the necessary amounts of Vampiric Marks and I use a main-hand dagger. Using Life Siphon with SoV covers the lower initial heal part of SoV and I am able to remain mobile.

Which information provided would make it difficult for someone to be effective?

As I mentioned if you encounter two conditions or more then Consume Conditions is the better healing option and since you normally do encounter more than two conditions in PvP then that would naturally mean you would use Consume Conditions.

However, the keyword with SoV is if you can “guarantee” the consumption of all 25 Vampiric Marks. If you are able to guarantee that then the group healing aspect, the active heal part, will be on par or outclasses the healing provided by Well of Blood. It is fairly simple to do that in PvE though in PvP you can never make that guarantee on a regular basis.

The reason I did not mention the passive is because the active is already on par with the other healing skills, if traited, and the passive always seemed to be a secondary effect. On its own the passive is lacking because while it does heal for 370 health, at 450 healing power, when you are hit it is weak against multiple attacks and spike damage which is common in both PvE and PvP.

The internal cooldown for the passive essentially makes it so that you have to use it and that you cannot depend on the passives effectiveness, unless you stack the various vampiric-based traits and skills. Personally, if they changed the passive into being affected by Bloodthirst, turn it into a lifesteal, remove the internal cooldown and reduce the healing to 150 to 200 then I would find the passive to be useful.

Revival abilities pretty much just raises someone from a downed state and as davis mentioned we already have Signet of Undeath.

Personally, I rarely actually use such abilities because they have fairly long activation times and a small radius; which means that you rarely raise more than one person, while with the long activation time you would typically not have enough time to use the ability before the person is defeated.

Now if revival skills were given the additional ability of raising someone from a defeated state into their downed state then they would be quite useful. Like how in Guild Wars you could avoid wipes by using Rebirth to revive dead party members and teleport them to your location without re-aggroing the enemies that killed them in the first place. Very useful during events that cause many player deaths.

Signet of Vampirism is a fairly good healing skill but unlike Consume Conditions it does require a few specific traits to shine.

The Bloodthirst trait from the Blood Magic line increases the siphoning damage and heal of SoV and Signet Mastery from the Spite line decreases the cooldown. Typically, if you can hit once a second for 5 seconds with SoV’s active then it would be on par with a Consume Conditions that consumes two conditions.

In terms of group healing, and a party of 4 + you, an untraited SoV is on par with Well of Blood if each member of the party hits once every second for 5 seconds. A traited SoV under the same conditions heals for more than Well of Blood and on a much lower cooldown. Additionally, SoV provides damage for each Vampiric Mark consumed.

Simply, use Consume Conditions when you encounter many conditions or do not wish to trait into the Blood Magic line and Well of Blood for group healing. Though it would require 4 points into Blood Magic if you wish to reduce the recharge time of wells. To make the most of Signet of Vampirism you would need at least two points in Blood Magic and two points in Spite to maximize the potency of the skill.Though to make the most of SoV it needs to be placed on an enemy that will not die quickly though on the other hand there is no limit to the amount of people that can consume a Vampiric Mark charge. Otherwise, Well of Blood is easier to use for group-based healing.

Finally, all of the above is based upon a healing power of 450 which can be reached without any healing power equipment though it does require a large amount of power, Death into Life Master level minor trait and 5 points into Blood Magic. Personally, I use Spite – 4; Curses – 5; Blood Magic – 5 with Dagger/Warhorn and Axe/Dagger. With Warhorn 5 you can proc the Vampiric-based traits quite often and typically keeps you above 90% health to make the most of Scholar’s runes.

I do believe that this was planned for a long time based upon a few things. The Mordrem we have encountered seem to be the specialized units of Mordremoth as they do not appear in large numbers and typically have a major strength/weakness, which is similar to the units of the other dragons. The dragon-sylvari seem to be the ones that were meant to be the rank and file soldiers of Mordremoth because they appear in great numbers and can be created quickly.

As I have stated before, several times within this thread, the Avatar of the Pale Tree seems to be protecting the Sylvari from Mordremoth’s control and influence. As several have mentioned the Sylvari do resemble the Norn in that there are the Norn, the Sons of Svanir and then the Icebrood. With the Sylvari we have the Sylvari, the Nightmare Court and then the Modrem. Basically, the Nightmare Court turns others to their cause, twisting their personalities/minds closer to that of the Mordrem but are not touched by Mordremoth as of yet thanks to the Avatar of the Pale Tree.

Now if they come close enough to Mordremoth or willingly follow the Dragon then they will begin the corruption phase until they eventually become Mordrem. So the Sylvari are similar to the Norn but are more susceptible to becoming Mordrem because if they get close enough to Mordremoth they are placed under its control, as seen in the trailer. However, the only reason the Sylvari have a choice is because the interference of the Avatar of the Pale Tree.

Appearance. This can be seen mostly in the fern hounds. The fern hounds are the non-corrupted and untwisted version, the Nightmare hounds of the Nightmare Court are the twisted versions and the Mordrem wolves are the twisted and corrupted versions.

Dream. The Dream shares information from those in the waking world and those within the Dream through their experience, using the Pale Tree as a medium. This is very similar, or I assume it is, to the methods of other dragons. However, for the Sylvari it is not a hive mind because the Avatar of the Pale Tree either cannot or does not wish to control the Sylvari and would rather them having free will to make their own decisions.

However, without the Avatar of the Pale Tree interfering with Mordremoth’s control, not creating a safe zone within the Dream, the chance of free will would be gone and likely it would become a hive mind like with the other dragons. My opinion of course.

As I mentioned in my long post on the second page chances are the Pale Tree and the Sylvari began as blank slates. No thoughts, memories or personalities of their own until an imprint is created. In our Sylvari’s situation that imprint is from the Avatar of the Pale Tree. For the Mordrem that would be Mordremoth as they were within its sphere of influence. For Malyck and the tree he came from I would assume that an imprint was not created yet.

Because of the Pale Trees’ distance from the sleeping dragon and therefore being outside of its sphere of influence the dragon was not able to imprint itself onto the Pale Tree. Meaning Mordremoth did not corrupt and mold it in his image…unlike the the Mordrem. So no need for a ritual to purify the Pale Tree, unlike Glint who was under the influence of her elder dragon for many years.

Simply, the Avatar of the Pale Tree used Ventari’s Tablet as an imprint for itself and the Sylvari that grow from it. Of course, that is my opinion. Though I do look forward to seeing how the origin of the Sylvari and the story turn out. Maybe the purpose of the egg is to bind the Sylvari to Glint’s child and raise it to be like Glint. Would be a way for the Sylvari to fight against Mordremoth since dragons do not seem to be able to corrupt minions of other dragons.

Spirit Weapons basically operate as a cross-between weapon spells and binding rituals from the original Guild Wars ritualist profession. They can attack independently of the Guardian and allows for a strong command skill, when compared to their regular attacks at least, but they are quite fragile so they tend to die quickly.

Bow – regular attacks removes conditions while the command skill heals a selected area.
Hammer – regular attacks cause damage with knockback on the last attack while the command causes solid damage, knockdown and is a blast finisher.
Shield – creates a shield of absorption which absorbs projectiles and the command grants aegis, causes weakness and is a stun break.
Sword – regular attacks cause damage and command causes vulnerability and damage.

Make spirit weapons impossible to kill but have a limit of one activated at a time or reduce their duration to compensate. Additionally, link the spirit weapons regular attacks to the attacks made by the Guardian and the “Command” skills would remain unchanged. It increases control of the spirit weapons, avoids the problem of their fragile nature and does not require any change to the traits.

Essentially, it allows them to have a similar function to the weapon spells the ritualist had in Guild Wars. Of course, such a thing is just as unlikely as the Necromancers having access to party-based Guild Wars spells like the elite skill “Order of the Vampire.”

Long Post Ahead:
According to the “Movement of the World” it is mentioned that Ronan found a cavern filled with seed-pods, one of which he stole, and guarded by hostile plant creatures. The seed he stole would eventually become the Pale Tree.

Since hostile plant creatures seem to be common in the Maguuma Jungle, as part of the natural wildlife, most people assumed that the Pale Tree seed was a natural occurrence and not connected to any of the dragons. At this point the allegiance, origin and nature of the Pale Tree and the Sylvari could have been taken in one of several different directions.

Those being that the Sylvari were a natural occurrence brought on by the high amount of magic within the Maguuma Jungle and the impending rise of the dragons. Basically, that the dragons were a disease and the Sylvari were Tyria’s solution to destroying the dragons once and for all. This theory was helped by the fact that so many of the Sylvari opposing the dragons and that the Wyld Hunt of a Sylvari PC was originally thought to be fighting and killing the dragons. Of course, there were many other theories.

However, the direction taken is that the Sylvari and the Pale Tree were supposed to serve Mordremoth. Considering Mordremoth controls plant creatures and the cavern the Pale Trees’ seed was found in was guarded by plant creatures, it can easily be said that Ronan encountered the Mordrem rather than natural occurring plant creatures. Now the explanation of why the Pale Tree is no longer connected to Mordremoth can be fairly simple.

That being the Pale Tree growing away from the influence of the sleeping dragon Mordremoth. As can be seen with the Mawdrey backpiece it is possible for a seed associated with a dragon to be purified and when grown outside the influence of the dragon it would not be naturally hostile. Considering the Pale Trees’ seed grew outside of the influence of Mordremoth it can be argued that the Pale Tree did not have to be purified first.

The Avatar of the Pale Tree. With the dragon sleeping and not being under the dragon’s area of influence the Pale Tree simply used Ventari’s Tablet to pattern a personality, mind and goal which is represented by the Avatar. The Shadow of the Dragon entire purpose when it first appeared seemed to be to destroy the Avatar of the Pale Tree. The Nightmare Court seems to be targeting the Avatar to turn it to Nightmare. The most likely reason is that without the Avatar, the Sylvari born from the Pale Tree will no longer be protected from the Nightmare or Mordremoth. Meaning they would become dragon minions once again.

The Dream. Most likely the dream is the mind of Mordremoth which if left unchecked would allow it to directly indoctrinate, control and direct the Sylvari. The Avatar, the mind of the Pale Tree, is what shields the Sylvari from Mordremoth’s mind and control. Remember, the minions of the dragons seem to begin from a central point and then spreads as the dragon awakens and as it gains more magic; and therefore more power. So the Avatar is able to resist Mordremoth’s control until it gains enough power to overwhelm the Avatar.

Simply, as the Sylvari move further away from the Pale Tree and closer to Mordremoth the more susceptible they become to being controlled by Mordremoth. Which explains the ending cutscene of the most recent Living Story episode. As for the Dream I always assumed the Avatar is an overlay or shield for the Sylvari, but when a Sylvari is born close or during the Night Cycle they are very close to the borders of the shield. Which explains why Wynne was able to see that the Sylvari were supposed to serve Mordremoth as she was most likely born near the borders of the dream and is most likely the only one that ventured that close without losing control of her/him self. Except for the Avatar of course.

Basically, the Avatar lied to the Sylvari and tried to guide them toward what it believes to be a better goal. As with all lore within books, games and anything else the information found within is not necessarily fact. It could be the opinions of characters within the game/fiction, lies or information that is correct from a certain point-of-view. Just because one source within the game contradicts another source within the game does not mean it is a retcon. A retcon would be something like replacing Destiny’s Edge with Quaggans and the development team saying that Destiny’s Edge have always been Quaggans. At least all of this is my opinion anyway.

This may be a long post.

Let us start with the problem. Players enter into the area of an event and the event scales in difficulty. If a player dies within the event area they are still counted as part of the event scaling along with all the downed and living players. So unless the dead players leave the area the event retains its high-scaled difficulty.

Considering it takes a long time to revive dead players and when you are outnumbered by enemies that are actively trying to defeat you, meaning little to no time to revive, that would mean the living players are not able to revive the dead. Additionally, for the dead if they waypoint they do not receive the reward for the event so it is in their best interest to stay within the event area, because even if the event fails at least they still get part of the reward.

Possible Solution #1: Scale up the surviving players based upon the amount of dead players, the difficulty of the event and the amount of surviving players.

Meaning: If an event is scaled to 20 players and roughly half of them are dead then the surviving players gain bonuses to damage, defense and other aspects to help them survive the event and possibly completing it. The more players that die the greater the bonus is for the survivors with the bonuses decreasing as more living players enter the event area. Basically, the surviving players become stronger to handle the high difficulty.

Possible Solution #2: Introduce new enemies, or utilize existing enemies, that when killed raises a defeated player into their downed state. This means it will be easier to revive the player for the living or allows the possibility of the downed player rallying.

Meaning: This solution would be the easiest one to utilize and control. The reason is that typically you can assign conditions that when fulfilled will spawn that enemy and you can control which events you wish to have them appear in. The conditions that they spawn would be in the higher-scaled difficulties with a higher chance of them spawning as players die. This would allow surviving players the chance of getting dead players back into the event while they can focus more on surviving. At least that is the basic idea.

Personally, I am against auto-way-pointing dead players because it takes control of the character away from the player and punishes them for not wanting to utilize the waypoint system in a particular timeframe. Additionally, if people knew players would be auto-ported when they died then chances are surviving players would not mind letting downed players to fend for themselves, at least in PvE, because the survivors would benefit either way.

In the current system the survivors want to keep people alive or prevent them from entering the defeated state because if they were alive they can help with the event and if they were defeated it would increase the difficulty for the surviving players.

From what has been mentioned, the basic sentiment is that players want a way to level alternate characters without having to replay the same content over and over. That is understandable considering that by playing the game you reach level 80 by the time you reach Orr. Which means the only activities you have left are high level dungeons, exploration, fractals, Season content and world events/bosses. So roughly 70% to 80% of the game is completed by the time you have access to absolutely everything.

For reference in Guild Wars: Prophecies you reached the maximum level, 20, about 60% through the game, in Factions about 30% through the expansion and Nightfall about 25% through. Of course, Guild Wars was not an MMO but I found the information interesting.

As for the suggestion, would it not be easier to have an account-bound service, such as more character slots or bank/inventory expansions, which stores 10% to 20% of experience gained by post-level 80 characters to be used on other characters on the account? Roughly, this would mean that you would need to gain 200 to 100 levels over all of your level 80’s, which is why it is account-bound, to gain enough experience for a level 1 character to reach level 80. Basically, you need 254,000 experience to gain a level at level 80, I believe, and roughly 5,000,000 experience to go from level 1 to 80.

This way when you reach level 80 you benefit from gaining experience, other than a continued source of skill points, with 10% to 20% of the experience saved to an individuals account. Simply, continue playing and you will earn experience for other sub-level 80 characters. The experience accumulator suggestion, from my understanding, simply redistributes levels from a post-level 80 to a sub-level 80. Sorry everyone for the long post..

Honestly, I would see outsourcing support role aspects to the pet and damage to the ranger to be detrimental.

Pets have both damage and support skills which can change depending entirely on the pet chosen and the traits a ranger chooses, which I find to be quite nice. Additionally, even though pets are not exceptionally strong you can easily maintain a constant stream of damage regardless of circumstance.

The reason is if the pet is being focused on then those enemies are not focusing on you which allows you to maintain damage on that target and if an enemy is focusing on you then that allows the pet to maintain a constant stream of damage. This allows the ranger to recover more easily and buy time for cooldowns while still defeating enemies.

The point of the ranger is that the profession can adapt to the situation easily. If our pet is defeated we suffer a bit of a damage drop but no significant difficulties and if our pet was more support based then we just lost a little support. But if the support role was placed more on the pet it would make the ranger much more vulnerable than a slight decrease in damage.

I could see having one the Moa’s “Harmonic Cry” shifted to the F2 or being able to switch a single skill from a pets skill bar to be placed as the F2 so that we can control it.

Question, each point in Beastmastery increases pet attributes by 50. For pets how much damage mitigation does that provide a pet, how much damage and critical chance as well?

Adzi, I never mentioned having two active pets at one time in case that was directed at me.

Personally, I have never had any problems with pets surviving as I can typically keep them alive long enough for a pet switch if they are in danger of being defeated. However, there are situations that is very difficult to save your pets from which usually consist of a heavy damaging attack or many area attacks.

Heavy damage attacks by bosses typically give enough time to pull back your pet. But in the case of many area attacks it becomes problematic because the pet comes directly to the owner when you select “Return to Me.” In many cases they tend to run directly into one of the area attacks. In those situations “Return to Me” is not suitable and often requires the use of a pet switch.

If both pets die then the ranger is partly responsible but the ranger is deprived of their class mechanic for a period of time and lose part of their damage. That is something that no other profession has to deal with. The closest would be the Necromancer’s Death Shroud but they to deal with a 10 second cooldown and 10 second activation rather than a 50 second cooldown.

I do believe that pets are one of the stronger class mechanics already but that is because that it brings indirect durability to the class when it comes to damage mitigation. At least I could survive situations that would have defeated many of my other characters.

What I typically do when encountering a heavy AoE situation is simply switch pets. Return to me is fine when trying to extract your pet from single AoE circles but when there are multiple area attacks then it becomes inadequate because pets come directly to you rather than try to avoid the attacks.

The easiest solution would have “Return to Me” teleport your pet to your location. Exactly like what happens when you switch pets except the pet is not switched and their health is not reset.

The biggest problem with pets is not their attributes, except for condition damage and healing power even when traited, as they are quite good. However, in the few situations where both our pets are killed we are without a class mechanic. With other professions you can manage your class mechanic cooldowns fairly easily and choose when to use them for the effect you want.

With rangers when a pet dies it is placed on a 50 second cooldown. Once again that is not bad since you have another pet. It becomes bad if your second pet dies soon after making it so that you are without a class mechanic.

My personal preference would remove the death cooldown but also remove the full pet health on switch. Specifically, when a pet is “killed” then they are automatically stowed. When stowed they regain health from healing skills, Signet of the Wild and Natural Healing. Of course, you would need to be able to see the health of both of your chosen pets so that you can manage them more efficiently.

There will be no forced cooldown on pet death but only the 20, 15 if traited, second cooldown on pet switch. So as long as a pet has some health and the pet switch cooldown is not in effect you can switch in a pinch even if the pet you switch to does not have a lot of health. It would seem more forgiving in places where there is a lot of damage and area attacks. Combined with “Return to Me” teleporting your pet to you then it should help with pet survivability and usage. My opinion of course and this is mostly from a PvE perspective rather than one from a structured PvP background.

In my opinion build diversity between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 is about the same. This will be long and is my opinion.

In Guild Wars your attributes determined the potency of your skills with they being improved by placing a limited amount of attribute points in your primary or secondary class attributes and being able to increase your class specific attributes by using runes on your armor.

Additionally each class had a main attribute, such as Strength for a warrior or Fast Casting for the mesmer, which only that class had access to with it providing useful bonuses to all areas of their skills. For example Strength provided armor penetration and Fast Casting increased activation speed of spells and recharge times for mesmer spells. Each class also has access to all their minor attributes and the minor attributes of their secondary class, such as Elementalist/Monk and so on.

However, builds in Guild Wars typically had a lot of structure. For example, many warrior builds typically consisted on 4 attack skills, 1 increased attack speed stance and a resurrection skill. The other two were either cross-class support skills or skills that increase the damage or potency of the other skills.

In Guild Wars 2 the potency of your skills are mostly determined by the attributes provided by your equipment while traits provide additional functionality to your skills, improve cooldowns and essentially determine your strengths and weaknesses. However, you have access to 10 weapon skills at one time, or 20 if you are an elementalist, 3 Utility skills, 1 Elite skill, 1 healing skill and your class mechanic. Additionally you do not need to slot a skill to resurrect your allies.

Basically, in the original Guild Wars terms it would be like having access to two or three skill bars and being able to use them all reasonably well. Yes, there are fewer skills in Guild Wars 2 and you do not get to choose each, individual skill but we have access to all the skills that we need and the trait system provides variations that the Guild Wars attribute system could not. The skills we have access to also function in any content but the problem is that they need to be balanced so that they all are optimal. We do not need more skills…we need ones that work well and work well with the other professions.

Conditions. Even in Guild Wars conditions have always been support damage. Bleeding, Poison and Disease were health degeneration while the rest impaired the enemies damage capabilities and movement while in Guild Wars 2 that seems to be the same for the most part. In terms of Open World and condition stacking I would think it would be fun to have condition combos much like how there are boon combos which give effects similar to Curse and Hex spells from Guild Wars. That and more variations of enemies that are heavily resistant to specific types of damage.

Traits were not implemented to be changed often or constantly which is why those that retrain your traits are only available in certain places which require a traveling fee to reach that location and an additional fee to retrain your traits which is already quite low.

You can already change your major traits quite easily so in my opinion I disagree with the idea of allowing access to a way to reset your traits without visiting a retrainer npc.

However, instead of the current idea would it not be easier to just create a version of the Merchant Express consumable item that summons a Retrainer npc that your party is able to use. It would be much easier to implement that way though I still disagree with the overall idea.

I have to say that your heart is in the right place however I would have to disagree with a few things that were mentioned. After playing through the personal story many times I would agree with smekras in saying that your character is only one of the many champions that fight against the elder dragons.

This is quite important considering as you play through the personal story you are either accompanied by your races Destiny’s Edge member, a friend, a mentor or alone. During the Pact missions it makes it seem like you are an elite operative that specializes in small unit tactics which is quite similar to how the members of Destiny’s Edge are handled. All the members of Destiny’s Edge are also important and influential characters however they are always the second-in-command or basically the people a race or group goes to in order to make sure a difficult task is completed successfully.

Mentors
Next, I disagree with the idea of the mentors being brought back so they can die in the final battle. As much as I dislike our mentors fate on Claw Island I do admit that the dialogue, timing, their voices and many other such things were done well at that time as it was unexpected and the event had impact. In my opinion if we ever see them again it should be in a storybook that allows you to play through a few select missions as the mentor, telling more back-story on them, with it ending with their last stand on Claw Island.

Destiny’s Edge
I liked how their interactions with each other were relegated to the dungeons rather than the personal story though that is my opinion. The reason is that the personal story is mostly about your characters rise from an exceptional no-body to a champion that is on par with Destiny’s Edge. Think of it this way, the story dungeons tell the story of Destiny’s Edge while the personal story tells the story of your character with them uniting with you during the last parts of the personal story. As for making the story mode dungeons more accessible for those interested in the story then I agree though I disagree with making them a requirement.

Trahearne
Finally, we have Trahearne. His story is fine for the most part though the problem with him is not just the droning voice it is mostly about his overexposure. Seeing a character every so often is fine though if someone is forced to see, and listen to, that character constantly then people will start hating the character. So all that would need to be done would be to make him appear at major battles only with his orders being relayed through other npc’s to the player. That way there is no overexposure and it would give other npc’s more purpose other than cannon fodder.

Ironically, Trahearne reminds me of Rurik, Togo and Kormir from Guild Wars.

Zhaitan
I agree with revamping the Zhaitan fight, the actual appearance of those that we recruited for the Pact and Order being in the last battle and the personal story rewards. I mean if we receive unique armor for our race and order choice you would think something as important as the defeat of an Elder Dragon would warrant a unique skin. I would also agree with the idea of having a few additional stories to be placed that connect a decision you made in a previous arc to the story arc you are currently in.

I do believe if storybooks were brought from Guild Wars then they could be used for the aspects of the personal story we would want to see more of like our mentors and Trahearnes history with the Orders. It should be noted that all of this is my opinion since the OP was well thought out though I think that such a overhaul would take more effort than its worth. The way the Living World is working at the moment makes me think that they are being used either as distractions or a way to lead the story to the next dragon or major event.