Guild Wars 2

I think Arenanet is better off improving the Desert BL maps. The Desert BLs are great, they just need to be less difficult to travel from point A to point B. Verticality works great on the Air keep, but having it on the rest of the map makes it hard to navigate.

The Desert Bls are a great addition to GW2, and should be improved on instead of discarded. A lot of these people are joining the hate bandwagon and think that bringing back the Alpine solves half of the problems for them. Alpine borderlands are stale and boring, we’ve been playing in them for hundreds/thousands of hours. WvW needs fresh stuff, and an improved desert BL would be the best choice.

The Desert BLs have great mechanics that disencourage mindless zerging (like shrines) and they’re an amazing feat from GW2’s designers. Discarding them would be wrong.

friday vrijdag Freitag Vrydag perjantai P??alima ???viernes

Most of the stuff has already been mentioned, but I’d like to add that WvW needs a population balancing system that can only be achieved through something similar to the megaserver tech. But in a way that we have actual control of the maps/instances.

This means that WvW should work with Factions. Three or Six or Nine different factions (the number of factions depending on what would work best according to the player population) merging for example: 1 T1 server with two T2 servers and 3 T3 servers, etc. Each faction has to be balanced at least once p/ year, and has to be balanced according to Time Zones, Population, Server Tier, and others.

- This way we don’t need Alpine or Desert BLs to rotate, we could actually have both of them in game;
- It would solve Nightcapping/population balance as the criteria to balance factions would also take into account time zones;
- There could be some sort of league system identical to PvP to decide rewards/progression. Personal reward tracks could also be part of it;
- Borderlands would never be deserted as this merges a lot of servers into the same faction;

Arenanet would have to introduce a multi-guild system (guild factions?) that would get together/ have group mechanics in some way, and that’s probably the big issue with it (design wise, and maybe tech wise) as one of the most fun things in WvW is getting together with people from your server and making bonds with those groups of people, which is something that could never happen with a megaserver system similar to EOTM.

edit: organizing information on the text

DGraves.3720:

“LIGHT SABERS !!! We need them!!!”

I am sure the threat of physical violence I want to express is against the ToS. I also can’t tell you to “shut up you kittening kitten!” I guess I just have to express my content in one word:

No.

Don’t give into the darkside, it will be ok bby.

Metherlance.9204:

Dibaryon.7469:

Easy buddy! I don’t want the game to change, just a light saber themed weapon. One weapon skin won’t break GW2, it will be OK. Besides it’s very possible to have a similar weapon with Asura technology

The point is that we already have similar weapons – the plasma weaponset. Why retrod the same ground purely because one person wants to roleplay a Sith in a game that has nothing to do with Star Wars?

Not to even touch on the fact that if the weapons (I highly doubt Anet will ever release just a single weapon skin for a single weapon type) are too similar to Star Wars ones, there’s the entire issue of copyright infringement.

So why waste time making colored or slightly different variations of already-made weapons when we could get different weaponsets that haven’t been done yet?

We have a disco ball legendary and you’re worried about a request for a weapon that is similar to the ones of star wars. I can give you a pretty solid reason why I made this request: because I want it and I’ll buy it, and many others will also. If it sells it’s not wasted time, and it will sell.

Power.2957:

If they wanted to maximize profits from the gemstore they’d rerelease the skins players have been begging for for years, e.g. aviator sunglasses, bunny ears, etc.

That’s basically to create “false” scarcity and be a lot more successful when they’re reintroduced in the game. We’ve seen that before, so I believe this is the reason why.

Metherlance.9204:

Why MUST you make a Star Wars-like character in a game that has absolutely nothing space-related? There is, keep in mind, a Star Wars-based MMO out there. If you want a Sith, go play that. I’m all for adding cool weapon skins to the gem store, but we already have the plasma weapons and a few other beam-like weapons. GW2 is GW2. If you don’t like the setting, that’s okay – but don’t expect the game to change just for you.

Easy buddy! I don’t want the game to change, just a light saber themed weapon. One weapon skin won’t break GW2, it will be OK. Besides it’s very possible to have a similar weapon with Asura technology

Of course they can’t exactly copy a light saber, there are always problems with copyright stuff. What I’m talking about is stuff similar to the plasma weapons, as OtterPaws pointed out! Something similar to this:

https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xaf1/t51.2885-15/s320x320/e35/12534631_512496508931551_450283705_n.jpg

:3

Capes are a completely different business, Arenanet has stated that it involves technology that is currently inexistent in GW2. But I’d love to have those too.

I like the mastery point system. It’s a great alternative to the gear treadmill + level cap other MMOs do. It can be improved, and designed to accompany the main story+ map events progression so that it doesn’t feel like a chore, in future expansions/releases. There’s lot of room to work with and it’s great to have XP going torwards something new and useful.

I don’t think this would be good because there are a lot of good 3rd party software that is already dedicated to this kind of stuff, and some are even freeware. Besides, it would put even more load into Arenanet servers and that’s something that we don’t really want, since it would end up affecting our gameplay.

Furthermore I like how we’re not pressured to use voice chat in game, like in other games, since I’m personally not always into talking with strange kids on the internet.

I know it’s unrelated to the GW2 Universe, and that there is already an MMO with the franchise but… LIGHT SABERS !!! We need them!!! I really want to make a Sith (red light saber pls!!!)!

I think Arenanet should board the Star Wars train, it’s more than just a franchise (and indirect competition to GW2), it’s pop culture and it’s back for the new generations.

If this selfish request of mine actually makes it through the dev team, I sware I’ll buy some skins from the gemstore without using the gold transfer.

So you used a condition build with a power weapon and everyone melted and you had good survival? I’m sorry but I feel very skeptical about this. Maybe my MMR is too high for these kind of builds to work(? idk).

S/f with marauder is a decent build . Doesn’t stand a chance with 4/5 of the most used professions in PvP at the moment though.

Let me put this into perspective when I mentioned the problems I believe that exist with the profession atm. By using either s/d or s/f either with paladins or marauder I really have a hard time focusing on defending a cap as I have to coordinate all of my CCs and heals so I don’t get beaten by the currently preferred compositions.

So the next step for me was: let’s understand the new elite specs better by playing them for a while, so I can survive better and counter them a bit better. So I went to metabattle, grabbed a druid build and on the first couple of times I played with it in PvP I went 1v2 with 0 problems sustaining. I can support my allies and hold a cap without even thinking about positioning. I can spam my CCs, heal at the same time while my pet crits enemies for 5-6k. This is where I realised I was really trying hard to survive on elementalist (which I’ve played for 3k hours in hardcore/semi-hardcore WvW guilds, speedruns in PvE, and more than 80% of my PvP matches), while I had absolutely 0 experience with druid and I was effortlessly playing better.

It could just be me though, but I still feel it’s very underpowered against a lot of builds.

Fresh air is not a support build, and druid far outshines support in PvP when compared to an auramancer (that’s my experience anyways).

I agree with not making it on swap as it promotes mindless gameplay. Having fury on swap is good on ele, because we can change attunement before we finish casting an attack so we can get the attunement bonuses + effects of fury.

Getting a specific boon tied to the attunement is also a good idea (as it already exists with the arcane specialization), as it can actually be played to react to certain situations.

I still stand by the old blinding ashes coming back in signets (if traited in the fire specialization), so we can have a competitive alternative to cantrips. We currently have conjures, signets, glyphs, cantrips,arcane and shouts. More than half of them only have use in PvE or certain niche PvP situations in WvW. Signets have started to have some in PvP (excluding the healing signet), and this would be a great addition that doesn’t really break the game.

Another thing that can work is having reduced attunement swap as baseline. I keep coming back to the arcane trait line just because of that. It would be a lot better to have the reduced attunement swap as a base profession mechanic. This way we’d only use arcane specialization for the extra boon duration + elemental attunement + evasive arcana (which would still be a strong combination) and it would also make builds without the arcane specialization a lot more viable.

Dont’ craft wupwup ascended armor, it’s not worth it. A full set of celestial ingsignias take 30 days to craft, you’re better of making an exotic set. This way you can salvage it with a BL salvage kit, retrieve the insignias and change your runes if you happen to want to change your build (which you will in WvW).

Ascended weapons + accessories is enough for WvW (armor will grant a minimal damage increase – something like 3% ).

If you really want to craft ascended armor, just craft berserker because that’s what you’ll need for fractals.

You something that could work just for the sake of being different? Having blinding ashes work on signets when activated (for a certain period of time, like 7(?) seconds with non stackable duration). This way we could have a decent alternative to cantrips.

*And have great sinergy with the earth specialization at the same time.

Yeah but the thing is if we look at what the elementalist has at this moment, it just sucks at melee range against other professions. The only way for a melee build to work is if we rely on stats and choose a build based on toughness or healing power. But if we do that certain profession builds are unkillable, if you’re playing against similar skilled players (either because they outsustain ele or because you’ll just lack damage). I mean a paladin druid outsustains an elementalist anytime, a scrapper can outsustain an elementalist (and any profession for that matter), even a viper reaper, which is a very offensive build, can outsustain us with sheer life force + damage output.

If we were talking about thief or mesmer than this discussion wouldn’t make sense, but in the case of the ele we have no evasive mechanics like 1,2k range teleports that break stun or stealth, so we need more than a mist form (that we can’t attack with, unless we use evasive arcana or half overloading an attunement and having it on CD for 20sec).

The old blinding ashes could provide that sustain, not from stats but from profession mechanics, which elementalist really lacks at the moment. Either they rework how auras function, since it’s a mechanic unique to the elementalist, or they rework protective boons on traits/utilities. I think the easiest way to do it is through boons though. Elementalist biggest strength was always relying on boons, which is great because boons are can be stripped/corrupted, so we’d always have a counter no matter which stats we’d chose too. Auras on the other hand, may be a lot more difficult to balance since we can share them with allies and other profession mechanics can’t affect them (and there are counters to stealth, so that wouldn’t be fair either).

PowerBottom.5796:

Grimreaper.5370:

I haven’t been playing this game much anymore but off hand dagger doesn’t seem to be meta anymore, D/F mercenary tempest seems pretty kitten strong though.

Offhand Dagger was IMHO the by far best choice in the last meta, cuz we had almost no powerspikes abd at least in the later half of the season, very little projectiles. Offhand Dagger offered more mobility, burst and sustain.

In the current meta, this might change though, even though I really don’t like offhand focus.

@Topic: It’s hard t say if the old fire traitline from the D/D-ele heyday will be strong in the current meta, since after HoT-release, builds just got so much stronger than before and there were some pretty big changes to the meta in general. But my concern would be that it’s gonna be too weak, definitely not too strong, so why the hell not? :P

This would help the profession a lot, because if the objective is to have tradeoffs within certain builds, then having the old fire specialization line would be good for an elementalist that wants to spec for raw power, with minimal melee sustain.

For a light armor profession that has the smallest HP pool (the same as thief’s), it’s hard to sustain without healing power or sheer thoughness stats if we don’t have access to evasive mechanics/invulnerabilities as strong as other professions have.

The old blinding ashes+might on cantrips would be a great way to bring back the fire specialization and bring the elementalist more in line with the rest of the professions. At least that’s my opinion, I’m just sharing this to see what everyone thinks about it.

Sorry if I sounded arrogant, but you’re very welcome to prove me wrong. I’d be thankful for that.

If you think I’m wrong or if there’s something else to discuss feel free to do it, it’s what forums are for. I don’t mind being wrong at all, everyone is welcome to agree or disagree if they have constructive criticism. “Stopped reading here” does not bring anything to the discussion unfortunately.

I should add that any build works well against inexperienced players. So if you read that there was this one guy with a certain build that won a 1v2, that’s not representative of the current situation and should be interpreted as an exception to the rule. I can easily make a video and put it on youtube with a condi elementalist in PvP (just showing the wins), and just because I can do that it doesn’t mean that it’s viable.

After trying out several builds in PvP, since the last balance patch, I’ve come to the conclusion that the nerfs to elementalist back in the d/d “meta squared” meta have hurt the profession really bad, and that it became pretty much bottom tier without them, especially without the celestial amulet (which was an excellent decision to remove from PvP).

The only “viable” build at the moment is fresh air, and it’s underpowered against half of the professions/builds. Staff is a gimmick unreliable build that is very strong in WvW, but can easily be countered in PvP and high level matches.

• Skip this part if you already understand why the old d/d cele meta^2 build worked so well

First let me explain why the old cele meta was so strong, for those that didn’t know the build. The water specialization provided acess to vigor+regeneration in cantrips (all of the utilities that were used with this build) and whenever regen was used a condition would be cleansed. This would provide near immunity to conditions if you knew which skills to use. Regeneration would in turn provide a lot of sustain due to the celestial’s amulet healing power, along with the healing signet.

Vigor, along with the sigil of energy, would fit the elementalist’s playstyle really well due to the arcane specialization grandmaster trait (evasive arcana), that would provide healing on water attunement, CC on the air attunement (blind), damage + condition damage on fire and earth attunements, and increased survivability through dodges. Arcane would also provide extra boon duration, and a strong baseline trait that provides a boon specific to the attunement used (on swap).

Along with these traits, by using the * fire specialization*, blinding ashes (a grandmaster trait) would blind enemies when burning was used, which in turn would increase the survivability even further.

The d/d weaponset, along with one of the cantrips (lightning flash) and the fire GS elite skill, would provide this build with very good mobility.

It was perfect survivability with no tradeoff, except for power. This is what made this build overpowered: Elementalist had access to 3 might stacks whenever a cantrip was used, access to blast finishers and fire fields. This would compensate for the lack of power that the celestial amulet didn’t provide to other professions/builds, and would fit the elementalist hybrid condition+power based damage like a glove. This extra raw power + access to the strongest condition in the game (burning) would be further enhanced by the condition the extra condition damage provided by the celestial amulet and permanent 15-25 might stacks (which increase power+condition damage) during a battle, especially due to the Rune of strenght/hoelbrak that everyone used with this build.

By removing/nerfing blinding ashes , aura duration, might on cantrips, increasing cooldowns on defensive traits that provided vigor/frost aura when crit damage was used on you, along with d/d condition duration/stacks, made the d/d build a lot more in line with the rest of the builds. When HoT was released, a lot of elite specializations + revenant made it to top tier, but elementalist still not being the preferred in “meta” compositions was still viable and new builds like Staff Tempest emerged and were still viable.

Then the bunker meta estabilished, and everyone used the celestial amulet on lots of builds which made Arenanet remove all of the “bunker” amulets for the health of the game. Which was a great decision and refreshening for the PvP meta. I loved that they made this decision, and that we’d have a chance to make/theorycraft a whole new meta again.

Along with the new profession balancing patch, came a buff to fresh air. The balance team purposely buffed fresh air, because they knew (if they understand how elementalist works, which contrary to “popular” belief I do think that they know their professions) that would make elementalist have 0 “viable” builds in PvP against all of the other professions, especially agains the new elite specializations.

Which brings us to the conclusion to this wall of text: the fire specialization nerfs have to be reverted. Outside of fresh air there is no other viable build. Elementalist has no viable condition builds, weak support builds when compared to other professions, no bunker builds, nothing.

Please analyse from a balance stand point what does the elementalist have right now. If we chose an offensive amulet (paladin/marauder for example), we’ll lack sustain because we’ve got no healing power to sustain our regen/healing signet. If we chose an amulet with healing power we’ll lack damage and we won’t be better than other professions supporting our allies. We have no reliable offensive condition build even with the “expertise” stat. Warhorn is in a weak spot in PvP at the moment, as we have to support our allies in melee range and with a slow casting offhand weapon we sacrifice our survivability a lot (it works fine in WvW and it’s great for PvE raids, but has no place in PvP).

If a profession is locked to stats to be viable, then there’s something wrong with the way it works. The only unique mechanic on this profession is Auras. Mesmer has clones/phantasms, Thief has stealth/mobility, Necromancer has condition application/boon corruption, Ranger has pets, etc. Elementalist could be redesigned to be based on auras, this would be a great way to start. A profession viability shouldn’t be tied to stats.

P.S.: I’ve been having fun with s/d and s/f fresh air (either with vanilla elementalist or tempest), and I can win a lot of fights. But against players that have 3000 hours invested in one profession like I do, it’s impossible to win with the elementalist’s current state in PvP. The only place where I can actually have a chance is in WvW where I can mix my stats and making it less weak. I’ve been in a couple of PvP matches where my teammates say we’re handicapped because I’m using elementalist: this is how far it has become bottom tier in PvP (but yeah, they are right to a certain extent).

" Shrine buffs. They’re a good concept, but if you triple-cap shrines, their associated buff (no lava dmg, no fall dmg, etc.) needs to linger for 5-10m so the people that put effort into capturing them will actually get to use them. As it is, half our group died mid-fall due to an Air shrine flipping on the way down. Hilarious, sure, but if it stays this way, who will bother with them? "

I really agree with this, there should be some sort of cooldown (a small one, like a 10 sec cooldown), with a timer that is shown on the current buff. So that the team using the buff is not completely caught off guard.

I had absolutely 0 problems flipping a camp. I don’t even know why he’s even mentioning the “Ascended gear creep” because we all had exotic gear in the beta.

And the difference between exotic and ascended gear is absolutely negligible. Your food and utilities make a lot more difference than ascended gear.

This map is a paradise for roamers. Taking the shrines can give your team an enormous advantage at a given time. The only thing that sucks is keeps and towers being automatically upgraded. I’m still convinced it’s not the best idea ever, and that there should be a different solution to this (even though I loved the new map).

hahaha XD creepyyyyy

First of all I just want to congratulate the environment artists that worked on this map. There’s so much detail built into it it’s amazing! I can’t find words to express how brilliant it looks, it’s really well done in so many levels. If the future PvE maps are like this, it will take the expansion to a whole new level.

Some of the things I enjoyed:

-The new keep lord’s mechanics are more complex and superior when compared to the old NPCs. They’re actually hard to kill, and the turrets around them make it even harder ( fire keep for example );

-It’s a map that encourages playing in small organized groups, and secondary objectives are decisive in a fight. Those buffs are amazing, but they’re easily capped with 2/3 players attacking a shrine. But what’s special about this is that the shrines are really spread out in the map which makes players have to separate themselves from the rest of the main group.

-The equilibrium between some vertically constructed areas and traditional horizontal map areas. When I first saw the trailer it really gave out the impression of EOTM 2.0. It’s nothing like it, there’s a load of space in the map for zerging but those small trails around the air keep are great for zerg busting. There’s a LOT more opportunity for strategy in the map and it’s amazingly well done. You can’t tell by watching a stream: only after you actually explore it yourself you can see the amount of places that the map actually has to offer.

-The new map’s mechanics: the shortcuts we can take when we own a keep (either to escape or to get in faster), the shrines’ individual buffs that are a treat to roaming players, the new buffs we get when we own the 3 shrines, first aid kits, small teleport pads in our BL main keep, the new siege, the oasis event, the revamped keep’s NPCs, the quantity and quality of spots where we can build siege to attack and especially to defend a tower or a keep, the zerg busting/ambushing spots, and others that I can’t even remember right now. It’s brilliant and it makes the older map look so boring. Even those kitten dust mites that knock you off cliffs are fun!

Some things I feel that could be looked at:

-The earth keep (the main keep in the BL) has teleport pads in some places, and they don’t have a cooldown. I can spam “f” as much as I want and the teleport will always be instantaneous. I believe that this should have a cooldown similar to the mesmer’s portal entre utility skill, so that defending players think twice before using the teleport pad and putting themselves in danger of ranged attacks.

-Supply depots inside keeps. It was hard to find them! All of the keeps are huge and maze like, I had a hard time finding them. It would be a lot better if we could see them marked on the map (with a small icon).

-Attacking a sieged keep will be a nightmare for slightly outnumbered servers. This is a problem we already face in the regular borderlands, but the defending players have to coordinate upgrades and manage supplies. On the new BLs keeps and towers are automatically upgraded, so we can basically just build loads of siege with little worries (with the exception of saving some for repairs). This on top of the new defense/buffs mechanics will make a huge pain for attackers to get in. I don’t know how this will affect servers that lack coverage in specific times of the day/night, but it may become a big disadvantage. Servers with good coverage can basically sit on their butts and the keeps/towers will just self upgrade. Maybe some sort of extra buff to outnumbered players could balance things up a bit: like siege costing 30% less supply or something similar.

-Finding where the keep’s gates/walls on the mini map/world map (when pressing M) was confusing. I’m sure that after we play a few hours on the map it will stop being a problem, but nevertheless it’s a pain to try to understand where are the gates/walls on the mini-map/world map.

-The oasis weapon needs a better animation. I was amazed when I climbed those golden stairs for the first time. It’s so epic, but when the canon fires it just goes like “pew pew”. It’s an OP canon that can destroy gates and that’s only avaiable every 3 hours!!! It needs a better animation, it needs to be more flashy.

-Superior arrow carts have the same animation as regular ones. Although not really important, the superior ACs have more “pipes” from where the arrows should come off, but the arrows only come from the middle of it, just like in the normal ones.

Bottomline: I like the change the map looks amazing, I’m really looking forward to it. There are terrain exploits ( I didn’t find any, but I can see that some players posted them on the forum) and the buffs need to be carefully looked at, but overall it is great.

A 1 week match that counts torwards the general WvW score would be the perfect way to test the map. This way we could actually see how the players adapt to the new map’s mechanics.

If the client is as big as the original game there will be no stress test :[

Same problem here: downloading at 2KB/s.

Several important points have already been addressed on the previous posts, but I’d still like to highlight an important issue with the Revenant.

When it compares to the other professions that don’t have access to weapon swap, the Revenant is/feels very limited in CC, damage and evasion skills. Other players have already discussed this in greater detail, but it basically needs a weapon swap or the ability to channel more than 2 legendary stances. Three legendary stances would be great, so that we can match the 3 specializations accordingly.

Yep, one of the reasons why it looks like a slow caster.

Not worth reporting as a bug IMO, because this is just a beta version after all. Let’s keep up the feedback so the devs know which problems it has.

The Revenant’s uniqueness should focus on being a class without condition cleansing (or with minimal condition cleansing). Using resistance to its favor, transfering conditions, sustaining with conditions/increasing damage output while being affected by conditions.

All of the mechanics are already there, it just needs more polishing.

I’ve noticed in the beta, and especially on the original trailer, that the revenant has some sort of shadowstepping abilities. This could be one of the revenant’s main mechanics (using mists power/animations).

It could fill a gap like this:

Mesmer (light): deceives and confuses (main theme); deceives by using clones/phantams and stealthing
Thief(medium): ninja-ish + ability stealing + bursty (main theme); stealthing and shadowstepping
Revenant(heavy): invokes legends from the past (main theme), stealth-ish skills, shadowstepping/teleports (like the axe skill) and condition managing

(I know engineer and ranger have stealth abilities, but it’s not part of their core mechanics)

This is not a 100% objective review, but here’s what I think about playing with the revenant for a couple of hours.

PROS:

-Detailed skillbar animations,
-I love the new swapping utilities+healing skill+elite mechanics. It’s unique and it’s well done
-I like the idea of self inflicting conditions on a profession (adds more play to it)
-the lore behind the revenant
-The whole legendary stance switching and the skillbar animation is the best I’ve seen in a profession
-Legendary Centaur stance is great for a hybrid tanky/supportive role in PvP/WvW. Really awesome the way I drag the tablet and regen allies along the way. It’s another example of how different this profession is, but in a very good and unique way.
-It’s a profession with loads of potential if well polished;
-looks really awesome

CONS:

-Very low damage from the weapon skills (stats are similar to the other heavy professions, but the problem is the weapon skills damage);
-Resistance duration + How conditions affect positively the Revenant should be very carefully looked at. This should be really well tested against other classes. As of now it doesn’t seem as strong as it appears to be;
-Too slow against bursty classes. I was attacked many times by a thief in WvW, and despite his cheesy build (with full WvW and Bloodlust stacks) I was going down too fast without being able to counter his damage. There’s too much opportunity for foes to interrupt my skills, this has to be looked at;
-Not enough skills synergy. I can use the guardian’s judge’s intervention while casting an attack with hammer without interrupting the judge’s intervention skill. Similar to the elementalist’s lightning flash while casting weapon attacks. I can’t do this while using the Revenant’s frigid blitz and searing fissure at the same time, and because it’s a slow caster I have no chance against fast casting professions (despite both of them being weapon skills, we’re using an energy bar and this could perfectly work);
-Unyelding Anguish seems like a good idea, but in practice it’s not. I can’t control it, and I don’t know where the enemy is going. The animation needs a bit of work, because it’s confusing and it looks like the opponent is rubberbanding;
-Needs to apply more stackable conditions. I really want to make a condi-revenant but so far there are no traits or weapon sets that allow me to do one that works. In the future perhaps?

Heavy armoured Necromancer? I have a necromancer and I have to say that I can’t agree with this statement. The only thing I can see in common is the stance that has utilities self inflicting conditions, and because it’s a slow skill cast type of profession.

I did play it on the last beta, and playing it felt like playing a mixture of guardian with conditions (with mace+axe).

Hammer seemed similar to guardian/warrior (in cast time/damage), but it’s different because it’s ranged(and focuses on building roads instead lol)

Instead of focusing on condition removal you have resistance which is a completely new way to play things. Instead of weapon swapping you swap utilities, heal skill and elite skill. The necromancer’s mechanics revolve around using the death shroud as opposed to these things.

It’s really different of any profession we’ve seen so far in many aspects.

EDIT: I didn’t even mention the new unique way to play Staff, that comes with the Ventari legend.

Summer ends in the 22nd of September!

Inimicus.7162:

Morfedel.4165:

Inimicus.7162:

Did I miss where it said these beta characters would be in the Live world with people who are not also part of the beta?

While the idea is exciting, and might spur more prepurchase sales, it would make far more logistical sense to have a segregated beta ‘server’ environment.

If someone from Anet has said the Revenants would be in Live with non-beta players, I’d like a link.

Or you could just go read the announcement where they announced the upcoming beta was about revenants in the world with the rest of us.

“During this test weekend, you can create and play a revenant beta character anywhere in the existing game: PvE, PvP, and WvW! We’ll also be opening up our new Player vs. Player game mode, Stronghold, to all players who play in the queue for Unranked PvP over the course of the weekend.”

“In the existing world” does not strictly mean beta characters and live characters will be intermingled, it only means that the betas will have some form of access to all existing content.

OK “fair enough”.

But: “During this test weekend, you can create and play a revenant beta character anywhere in the existing game”. Anywhere in the existing game can be simply interpreted as: the game we’ve already got. There’s no reference to an instanced world that’s an exact copy of the one we already have. They’d make it clear, if it were to happen that way.

Besides, we’ve already seen a revenant in Lion’s Arch: so we have proof that it’s possible to have a beta profession in the existing game. As a matter of fact, that could’ve been the game’s developers testing the revenant in the existing game for the sole purpose of making this beta weekend.

EDIT: In addition to all of that, this is a BIG incentive for the rest of the players to pre-purchase the expansion. Imagine playing the game as usual and seeing revenants all over the place: It’s a very smart business move, so I doubt they’d pass out on all of that and make a separate instance for us.

Sorry if I sound too blunt, but the purpose of trying out the revenant is all about trying out the revenant. If you guys want to play the game because of the rewards (whichever they may be), you can always pick your original character. This is about being the first players using the revenant in the maps/game modes that we’ve already got! It’s an aweesomeeeeee opportunity and a privilege.

There’s no reward in game (except for a precursor ) that I’d rather have, instead of the chance to try out the revenant in any game mode.

SacredNightshine.4270:

You mentioned that loot acquired on the beta character will be lost. Does this also apply to dungeon tokens and dungeon chest drops?

According to the CJ’s post: yes you won’t be keeping any kind of rewards.

The only exception is playing stronghold with our original characters.

Crossaber.8934:

To my understanding, a beta slot created character (probably can only create Revenant), will not able to access any kind of bank, trade post, in game mail etc. Therefore no matter what we collected with the beta character we will not able to store/retrieve from bank , send or receive from mail. I believe we won’t be able to loot gold either. Therefore the character got stat swap exotic gears that we don’t need to buy anything to test out different build.

If that’s how it works then it’s fine, but there’s no official information on not being able to access banks or vendors while using the beta character slot.

Apoteka.6471:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Crell.6401:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/announcing-the-guild-wars-2-revenant-and-stronghold-test-weekend/

Since this will be a test in the live-game world including WvW/PvP..

Will we be gaining currency and things for our live account? or will these still be ENTIRELY walled off characters?

You’ll have a beta character slot you can use to create a Revenant. When playing with a beta character: all progress, items, etc. you get will not be saved once the event is completed.

You can however use your existing characters to play Stronghold, and will continue to earn rewards/progress that is permanent on your account.

-CJ

Colin lets say we do World Bosses on Revenant and get something like Sam or Pendant of Arah or any high value item, so we cant keep it put it in bank or sell it for live Account is that correct?

Thx in Advance

That’s the problem I raised on my previous posts. People can go around it and store it in the bank/guild bank and sell it on the BLTC. Would be nice to get information on this.

That’s my “worry”: that people can break the system by doing stuff like that. One could even sell an exotic for 10 copper on the BLTC for someone else to buy it and send him to another character.

They have to lock a ton of systems like, guild bank, player bank, mails, the BLTC , etc so that people don’t do anything. Which may be kind of a pain for the devs. Might as well just let the revenant play out as a normal character: since we’re not going to new areas anyways.

If they really plan on keeping the loot locked, than I hope they think about all of these things.

EDIT: The easiest thing to do is probably making everything soulbound (even materials that you get from drops), and deactivating the ability to loot from the mail system, so that people don’t complain later about sending stuff to the beta char slot and disappearing and blablabla. But the bank/guild bank/BLTC is still a problem.

Are we going to be able to access our bank with the revenant ? Are we going to be able to send in-game mails with the revenant? If we can send mails: if we send something with the mail to another player is that same item going to disappear after the beta test is over?

I main ele (have been for the last 1,5 years). Here’s my opinion after they introduced the patch.

After playing against other eles, using a medi guard and a shatter mesmer, what I find OP about eles is burning and the healing rate: which provides them amazing sustain.

D/D ele is not that tanky: just look at the stats. What makes it “tanky” is the signet (that’s used by the majority of players), the healing power, the “perma regen” from cantrips/water attunement and “perma vigor” also because of cantrips and sigil of energy (that most players also use because of evasive arcana).

Here’s what I think that should be changed:
My opinion based on being on the both sides of the fight is that they need to nerf burning (that affects all professions), and weapon sets that are not entirely designed for support should have their healing capabilities nerfed (for example: cleansing wave). This way we could justify the elementalist’s raw power+condition damage hybrid build that the celestial amulet provides, but without 3-4k healing from a single skill. I believe that a small change like this should be enough.

Ultimate edition <3

So… another thread about this… Well, see you in HoT

That’s actually a very good question, because WvW hosts 200-300 players maximum. And when it does, and all of the players are on the same spot, everything goes potato mode. If a developer could answer this, it would be awesome.

GoldBerg, I mentioned open world instanced content. It would like a “dungeon” but not in a dungeon! How cool is that ?

edit:

There is “zerg” content, and there’s organized content. We’ve already had a taste of it : Silverwastes’ VineWrath. This could be the next type of open world content we get, and I’m more than happy to get this and I prefer this to “dungeons”.

It’s up to you mate, and I respect your decision. (webtoehobbit)

But do bear in mind what I’ve said when the expansion comes out, remember all of the “free” content that we has been given to us because of HoT. I also think they screwed up their HoT pre-purchase announcement, and some things are not fair, but there’s still lots of things that haven’t been revealed yet and we should make a final decision when HoT is complete.

P.S.: I never mentioned anything about anyone leeching the game, I’m just trying to show people here that HoT is not as void as it seems.

webtoehobbit I think Arenanet made a mistake on throwing free content to GW2 base game for free (including Living World). It was really awesome of them, especially because they don’t have a subscription based system but now it’s bitting them in the butt.

Because of it, now everyone thinks that way: what am I paying for? And I’m afraid you’re technically correct on that one. If one buys a product, then the price tag on that product should be about what that product has to offer.

But everyone knows that GW2 is not like this.

If you look at the new stronghold map, the WvW maps, the Guild Halls (that will probably be base game too): all of those features are all on the pretext of HoT (they were advertised as such). But these features took time from the developers to put together/work on and they’re for free, for the reasons I mentioned above. This is what’s making players say that there’s no content in HoT. In reality there is a ton of content, but technically there is very little.

This might be just me, but because of all this “free” content, I’m more than happy to pay that amount of money for the expansion.

“Officialy GvG” I think what you have in mind is the GW1 GvG system.

GW2 is a completely different game, and this will be our Guild VS Guild system. There’s probably more to it than an arena to brawl (as they’ve mentioned in the presentations) and again, this will be GW2 GvG: it will be as real as GvG GW2 can be. Comparing it to GW1 or to other games GvG is fine, but this is just as “real” as it will be.

You’re missing the point obastacle. These features you’ve mentioned were advertised in the pretext of the HoT expansion (check the first trailer).

Why do you think they decided to make WvW maps included in the base game? I’ll tell you what I think: so that we didn’t have half of the population stuck in old maps and the other half in the new maps (for example), and probably because of technical complications that would arise from this.

It’s probably the same with the rest of the content they’re putting on the base game. Don’t forget that these features are actually HoT features/content.

Even though you forgot to mention Guild Halls and GvG (which is a ton of content, from what we’ve seen from the trailers/interviews), and that WvW maps aren’t just maps but include completely different mechanics to the point where it will make it a completely different game, it was nice of you to make such detailed comparison.

Now this question might seem a bit hollow and completely unrelated but: how much costed a soda in your contry 10 years ago, and how much does it cost now ? In my contry it has almost doubled the price. Do answer this, I’m sincerely curious.

The point is: prices are not the same they were 10 years ago. It makes absolutely no sense to make such a comparison: not just in games, but in about everything (for various reasons).

An expansion for 44,99€/ 50 dollars isn’t cheap but it’s completely fine and acceptable when you take into account that they’ve added free content throughout the 3 years of this game’s existence without a subscription fee.

Besides I don’t think that 10 dollars will be an impediment for people (in general), that enjoy this game (Now), that want the new expansion. If those people payed €40-60 for the original game, I think they’ll pay for €44,99 for this expansion as well. They might not pre-order it, but they’ll definitely buy it when it’s out. GW2 is still totally worth it.