Guild Wars 2

This is such a thoroughly discussed thread that I’m afraid I didn’t read through all the posts made so far, so hopefully I ’m not just repeating what others have said. But anyway…

I find SOME of the voice acting disappointing, but I don’t think of it as bad most of the time. Trahearne is… a rather special example of cringe-worthiness. I respect a lot of what Anet has done (or at least tried to do), but letting the leader of the Pact have such consistently unpleasant delivery is quite a shame. I don’t know what it is with a lot of these games, but it seems like lots of devs go out of their way to make your story allies as unlikeable as possible. Mystifying.

As for Nolan North being more plain than his usual witty self for this game, I believe Anet wanted to avoid casting every single human male player as the same archetype he usually voices. Since the game does urge you to think of your character as having some personality that you decide on, they probably thought it best to have the voicing be more general so more character types could fit into it with some imagination. Which might raise the question of why they got a voice actor with such an established style, but eh, I’m just glad another voice actor I like is in the game. :P

I admit that I haven’t looked through the many posts made so far to see if anyone has said this already. However, I must express my complete disagreement with the idea that putting a cast time on the sword’s Shadow Return will matter in “only 2 situations.”

I am very PvE-centric in my playing style and experience, and the greatest usefulness of Shadow Return on my S/P (formerly S/D) thief is being able to teleport away from attacks during the moment’s notice I have to dodge them. I use this tactic all the time as part of my regular combat style, and the instant cast is vital. Since there’s a small but crucial delay where I have to wait before doing other skills after basic-attack slashes and the Pistol Whip evasion, I need to be able to activate Shadow Return immediately. The reason I switched away from S/D was because I had to wait to finish my last sword slash before I could start the tiny dodge period on the dual-wield skill. I’ll be out of options if the other sword skill takes even longer to do.

I also think Shadow Return’s stun-counter function was already balanced by letting it be activated during stuns without breaking them. Removing that little help is totally not necessary. My loadout (in addition to Signet of Shadows and Shadow Refuge) has Roll for Initiative as one stun-break every 60 seconds, which for a fragile class is way too little in big conflicts, PvE and PvP alike. If I filled my bar with stun-breakers, I wouldn’t have the movement speed or emergency stealth that help me avoid stuns in the first place. Venom builds will be even worse off; I can’t see how those who use swords are supposed to compensate for losing their main source of stun-escaping. It would be disappointing to see this pressure put on Thieves to integrate stun-breakers when the initiative change (for which I give the devs a hearty thank you) is intended to help a lot of existing builds do better.

As much as I’m focusing on the practical aspects of having a cast time, it’s also just a lot more fun to be able to zip around a battle with instant teleports. It lets me feel like the uncatchable specter of death that Thieves should be when played well. Putting a delay on Shadow Return, even just 1/4 of a second, would kill that feeling entirely. If I have to interrupt myself for a moment every time I shadowstep back, I’ve suddenly gone from effortless assassin to struggling wannabe who either can’t slip any attacks in, or gets hit by everything just before the quick escape. Or who just doesn’t use shadowstepping anymore.

Someone else suggested reducing Shadow Return’s range and/or up time after Infiltrator’s Strike. I agree that these would be better reductions to make to the skill. In fact, reducing up time might be handy after combat.

Now, all of this being said, I understand that PvP is extremely important for the devs to consider. As a mostly PvE player, I have less insight into how Shadow Return balances against other players. I’m just urging Anet not to make one experience more fun at the cost of the other.