Guild Wars 2

Breaking this chain before it even starts:

Just to echo some of the other people, astral force is generated way too slowly with “standard” ranger weapons, way too quickly with staff. Once you finally do have access to astral form, the skills themselves feel clunky and hard to land. Also too many heals, almost no damage. The cond removal wisps are a good idea, but again, too hard to actually use effectively, both because of the clunky targeting and the delayed effect. The daze skill is great, altho a shorter daze but a faster cast/faster drop of the actual beam would be preferable. Not losing all astral force when leaving the form is a must, add a cooldown to the transform (like deathshroud probably). Self root on astral skill 5 just further adds to the “uncomfortable” feel of the entire form.

Wyverns straight up can’t hit anything that’s even slightly moving. Pets in general have problems with moving targets, but wyverns are on a different level. The tiger f2 is really nice for melee stacks, but kinda pointless outside of them. Smokescale and bristleback are great and an example of what a melee pet and a ranged pet should’ve been all along.

Glyphs need a rework, probably just a complete overhaul of their effects. Glyph of empowerment could be a good group buffing effect, when comboed with Frost spirit, Spotter and Sun spirit. But it would need either a longer duration on its effect (10-12 seconds, on a traited 16 s cooldown seems ok for a 10% damage boost), or a larger damage increase (20% for 6 seconds on a traited 16 s CD). That one can be salvaged with number tweaks, but the others probably need a lot more. The idea behind the elite glyph is pretty creative tho.

GW2 pvp isn’t an esport that’s for sure, and probably never will be, but the combat is nicer than most other MMO’s. But comparing that combat to a moba style is really not possible, it’s like saying football is better than skiing because they use a ball.

I prepurchased the expansion without noticing the whole “core game included” clause. I did it because in the 10 years I’ve been Anet’s customer I never once felt like I’m getting a bad deal, and I just flat out trusted the company.

But for the first time in those 10 years I kinda feel cheated now (even though I’m fully aware it was my own fault for not reading through the offer carefully), not because new players are getting more value for their money, but because veteran players are getting treated differently, like we’re something that is a given, instead of a precious resource they should be building upon. I won’t look for a refund, because I doubt I’d even get one, nor will I stop playing, but I’ll definitely look closer next time I buy anything, since Anet stopped being the company I can just trust with my money without a second thought.

There’s this cave with bears and bearcubs in Queensdale. I kill all of them whenever I run past that area.

As far as spvp goes this will be a great mid point fighter. The AoE damage, more durability than normal power necros, lots of chill, AoE weakness shout, nice vuln, high crit chance in tanky gear, sounds great overall. Not sure it will do much for the PvE meta but it will at least be stronger than the current dagger build.

GW2 lacks two things to be considered e-sports – a proper PvP mode and enough of a playerbase so that words like “top”, “mid” and “bottom” tier even get some meaning. The second would come if the first was sorted out. Stronghold won’t help in that regard. The other issues like the questionable downed state, uneven distribution of various game changing mechanics across professions (invulns, stealth, etc.) are just secondary problems that could come into play if the PvP mode itself was better. The best you can do here is have fun and not worry too much about balance, even in the so called top tiers. Often times that means not playing rangers unfortunately.

Since quickness will be a boon that stacks duration, popping the well and timewarp at the same time to provide the group buff during the continuum shift will probably be the new PvE meta. Will have them both up and rdy for the next fight as well, overall way more group quickness compared to now, only gated by the F5 cooldown.

Misguided.5139:

Hey folks, I’m a noob, so apologies if I’m missing something obvious, but if you are using supreme justice and permeating wrath, you are giving up a lot of utility in the form of condition cleanse as well as a stun break/stability. I’m curious how people are compensating for that. Are you using Save Yourselves & Contemplation of Purity, or is this intended as a more offensive build with less utility? How about the stun break & stability (which seems pretty useful)?

The burn damage if not immediately cleansed is too crazy and those traits make it even crazier, so you don’t need as much defense. Elite + shelter and contemplation of purity is good enough.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

When Wynthyst died, Anet added a gravestone for her under the name Thyst in Ebonhawke.

I was very sad to read the OP and give my condolences to the friends and family but this was an even bigger shocker. I had no idea Wyn died.

No damage

Shiro legend and that specialization better be over the top, cause this is currently worse than necro in PvE.

I feel bad for people that actually payed for the story. It’s driving me nuts and I got it just for logging on during the weeks it was active.

I guess I’m one of those rare people that plays the ranger because it’s a pet class not in spite of it. I actually enjoy watching my pets’ position, health, etc.

Thief wasn’t and won’t be losing out on a ton of DPS for using a single or even 2 blind fields during a trash fight, guardian isn’t losing anything at all, ele was losing vuln stacks from air attuned glyph, but those are plentiful anyway. Compared to losing free might on the pet, which will become even more important now that fortifying bond can’t be taken together with Companion’s might is a pretty big deal. Especially when you combine that with the fact that fury will be pretty much nonexistent on pets after the patch, making jaguars even bigger than they already are for single target damage and drakes still being the only real option for bigger groups, I just don’t see a single blind trait being a good enough reason to replace any of those two with an eagle/hawk.

The actual traits work as intented just that the tonic being reusable in combat breaks it. Remove that option and this isn’t an issue.

Nah, only guardians and warriors get to have useful party wide boon application. It is known.

In all seriousness, frost spirit is good as is, the GM trait should be completely overhauled to offer something not boon related. Like 100% on all spirit effects, or an extra spirit effect for all of them. Something that is a unique buff. More boons are boring design.

EDIT:
Making the GM into proccing something similar to the spirit active skill each time the passive procs would also be nice – a blind whenever you proc the passive burn, a 1 sec chill when you proc the 10% dmg, etc.

Yep, after seeing the amount of charged quartz I’d have to wait around for, I just deleted my Device and forgot about this thing. I can put in the farm time without a problem, but I refuse to wait around for no reason at all.

They should’ve just nerfed Icebow as it was announced. The buff to it was completely out of left field and unwaranted.

A ranger instead of the second ele would offer spotter, long water field and frost spirit, an engie would offer superior vulnerability stacking, a ton of blast finishers, long fire field and some blinds. Mesmers and necros would still lag behind unfortunately (other than the possibly unintended slow effect on bosses from Time Warp).

But regardless of what the other professions can do, a single elementalist utility skill ends up being so powerful that it trumps multiple benefits from another profession and pretty much makes at least two eles mandatory.

Slow on every third crit makes the already fairly strong, yet beginner level in terms of skill needed, GS power build too viable. That one needs an ICD.

The wiki is hosted by Anet (altho the content itself is player-made) and the TP is basically just a site you access from in-game, so yes.

HotHit.6783:

But that also makes our condition build stuck with no condition removal, so we lose all condi wars.

Err no, the new SotF combined with troll unguent also being a survival skill and the passive proc sharpening stone trait getting rolled into SotF means a ton of cond clear. Add to that the fact that we can get 3 grandmasters overall, and the shout regen/swiftness trait becoming adept… Survival/cond/beastmaster builds will get the biggest buff in history of GW2 when this goes live. If druid ends up being about support/passive regen healing as well, oh maaan…. My favorite cheese build is getting an extra serving of mozzarella.

EDIT:
On topic of EB – it will still be used in trap builds and basically all other builds that didn’t use SotF in the first place.

Hoping to win the lottery and buying the tickets required every week doesn’t equal effort once and if you finally do win it. Someone earning the same amount of money by running a casino doesn’t invalidate your “efforts” of buying lottery tickets weekly.

That just means more blind/aegis is needed, which makes the already heavily favored thief/guardian another step ahead of ranger/necromancer/engineer. Or if the attacks really become so fast that it’s hard to keep most blinded, the new slow becomes king, and mesmers are pretty much the only choice then (that we know of so far, other specs might get good slow applications).