Guild Wars 2

Linnael.1069:

pumpkin-headed kings from hell!

That makes me wonder… What will new LA look like during Halloween?!!

Condition duration is the ferocity of Condi builds.
Its crazy how easy it is to increase it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some of the things that give % duration to all condies nerfed (koi cakes), to make runes and sigils that focus on 1 condi more viable.

If there’s anything people should know by now is to not instantly think a weapon can only do 1 type of thing especially when considering how varied they are in the game.

Mesmer has Greatswords that shoot lasers. Revenant has a ranged Hammer. Ranger Throws axes. Necro has Offensive Warhorn skills.
Just cause the skills are tied to a certain weapon doesn’t mean they will behave a certain way. For all we know they get a warhorn and skill 5 on every attunement summons a crazy storm like skills. (fire storms, dust storms etc) and overall isn’t supportive at all. The only logical complaint is that people don’t like warhorn aesthetically, at least when compared to other weapons. Other than that, It doesn’t matter.

On a side note. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Ele got a sword, but its off-hand instead? I can already see the rage lol.

here’s my current spvp build
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-J7kF3;1Fky-t2REF-0;9F-D;1Z_b;0256137036;4U-m6V;15NV05NV01Y

it uses both traps and survival skills. I feel like Troll Unguent, Zephyr, and entangle are enough for trait purposes, and use the rest for traps.

Since the build focuses more on burning and making your opponent miserable w/ blind,weakness, spam and the occasional taunt, I use Carrion.

I love being able to choose where my points go. I decided to make a new character and not spend a single Hero point on utility skills and used only racial skills since those come for free. I saved my points for when I hit 21 and oh my, I was able to unlock a minor grandmaster trait instantly.

Right now im level 25 and already rocking grandmasters! this is so awesome lol. Can’t wait to try out an Elementalist and have fresh air, or Evasive arcana at such a low level.
Leveling is gonna be much funner now, especially on classes like Mesmer that need traits.

Celestial, hoelbrak rune, doom/battle sigils.
Rifle, healing turret, Bomb kit, Tool Kit, Elixir Gun, Supply crate
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgED6AS0BZg~

It feels pretty strong. The new HGH makes Elixir Gun skill 4 and 5 apply 2 stacks of might now too, so you can stack a bunch along w/ bombkit. Also lowers their cooldowns. I’ve experimented w/ mortar kit for more might, but using Supply crate atm cause its much easier to use lol

These 2 traits together give the ranger wayy to much burst damage.
Im critting people with maul for 6k, then waiting 2 seconds to do it again. Add in signet of the hunt and I can go up to 8k. Its like a better backstab that can AoE.
Throw in Wilderness knowledge and now we have constant +25% damage 100% crit hits and condition removal
this is beyond crazy lol. Here’s my build if anyone wants to try it.

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgUB_AKUA7g~

Using GS w/ energy and intelligence sigils. LB w/ fire and lighting sigils. Ranger rune and zerker amulet.
Troll unguent, quickening zypher, signet of hunt, and entangle

Traits no longer increase attributes.
Instead, weapons and armor had their stats increased to compensate.
Your gear matter a little more too now

While i’m not pre-purchasing yet, because i want to know more about the expansion first, its nice of you to do this. It certainly makes the decision easier.
I just hope you reveal the difficult group content stuff before pre-purchasing ends. Thats what will convince me the most.

Pre-order is up

Mesmer gets a new F5 (most likely due to it only getting a shield) and guardian and necro get 2handed weapons and have their existing Profession skills (virtues/shroud) changed into new skills

So I was wondering… What would an Ele get? Its speculated that its going to be a main-hand sword and im not sure about utility skills, but what is there to add beyond that? Now this may sound crazy (and it is), but what if Tempest edits all of your existing air attunement skills (even the skills for other weapons), and your air attunement is swapped out for a ‘Tempest attunement,’ and your air specialization traits will still affect the ‘tempest attunement.’ while you’re using the Elite specialization

This would allow people who always wanted to focus more into 1 attunement to feel like they’re more focused into 1 type of magic, and future elite specializations would allow you to focus on the other attunements (pyromancer, geomancer, etc etc)
and it wouldn’t really be ‘that’ Op, considering that you’re still limited to 3 specializations. So instead of having 3 attunements traited, you would 2 attunements traited, and one of them is much stronger.

idk, just my crazy idea that I had the other night and felt like sharing lol

I wonder how this affects quickness.
Currently in the game leaps are 50% shorter because quickness makes them end faster.
Would they go their normal distance after the change? If so, is this change to prevent the awkwardness that slow could provide? (50% farther leaps lol).

It sounds very random and frustrating, but I feel like this could be a good thing in the future. Once it goes through, mobility skills can feel like, well, mobility skills. They can then be balanced to reflect this. I expect cooldowns to go up. They are in the process of balancing traits and weapons skills, it might just happen.

With the trait changes I can see this going one of two ways.

Condition/Boon Duration get the Critical Damage treatment

By this, I mean that they become an actual attribute. If they do this, they can then release new stat sets that include these and revamp existing ones like Giver’s. The Attribute to % amount could be the same, or slightly higher than Ferocity. Seeing as how they are making condition builds more viable, things like a Condition damage, Precision, Condition duration stat sets can come into the game if they do something like this.

Removal of general Condition/Boon duration attribute

Currently in the game, it is ridiculously easy to build up to 100% general condition duration in PvE. Having 100% to all conditions makes a large number of sigils, runes and traits worthless. Why would you want a sigil that increases your Chill duration, a rune that only increases your burning duration, or a trait that only increases your Poison duration when you can easily get 100% to all? (condition duration does not extend past 100%)
If they were to get rid of general condition/boon duration, then more sigils,runes and traits could become useful in PvE. Builds would be more focuses to a certain condition. Like a Reaper putting an emphasis in chill (sigil of chilling, Rune of ice,) or a Guardian focusing on Burning (sigil of smoldering, balthazar runes)

I really hope thieves don’t get rifle (at least for their first specialization).
I would prefer if they buffed Pistol Pistol as a ranged damage dealing weapon instead of adding a weapon that would replace them.
I would personally like to see Thieves get a main hand/offhand weapon for their Elite Specialization, because of the way their Dual Wield skills work. Would be cool to see things like Sword/sword, Dagger/sword. Or Dagger/shield etc etc.

Karl McLain.5604:

If you steal again without using the stolen item, it will be replaced/overwritten by the new one.

If the item gets overwritten, then having an F2 slot won’t make that much of a difference.
In most cases, Thieves are going to end up still using their stolen item prematurely to get the most out of their skills since it will be replaced otherwise.

I feel like allowing thieves to hold on to their stolen item and not having steal replace it would create more play. That way stolen skills can be saved on the F2 slot for the perfect time, and steal can be used freely, since the skill (especially with traits) is highly multipurposed aside from the stolen items it currently provides.

Takes to long to open? Have you tried holding space bar?
You can open the glider while jumping from a flat surface!
the delay is perfect at the moment. It’s really fun gliding everywhere through small gaps; however, I can see how it may be bothersome to people who tend to hold the jump button and have their gliders appear mid battle.

The only issue I have is that all 3 grandmasters are condition based. I know this is the “condi” specialization, but having all 3 revolve around needing condition damage hinders Curse’s build Variety.

Lingering Curse: a trait that only necros that are condi based and using a scepter will use
Parasitic Contagion: More defensive, but still relies on the player using a condition based build to get the most out of it.
Terror: another trait that relies on condition builds.

The problem here is that by having grandmasters like these, the player is forced to Be a condition necromancer if they want to get the most out of this specialization, considering that all the final options revolve around build type. Other traits like Banshee’s wail, will no longer be part of power builds or else they would be a weak build. Please more variety in the grandmasters. Some traits need to be shuffled around at least.

Here’s hoping they don’t go too crazy with chill. Necros can already have a pretty good chill uptime and would hate to see it nerfed in the future. Would rather see the Condition slightly nerfed than have necro’s ability to apply it nerfed
crosses fingers

The point of weapons having their set of skills is to make balancing simpler. By having a weapon always having the same skills for 1 profession makes it easier to balance and also makes PvP simpler, since you have an idea of what your enemy is running.
If the Devs feel like Mesmers need a melee weapon, they will most likely just give them something like an Axe, or hammer. This way its simple, and mesmers can have a new skillset without sacrificing a trait or something of value in exchange, and their respective skills can be balanced and compliment each other (have their own playstyle). since it doesnt matter what the weapon itself is, just what the skills are.
I don’t see them adding extra skills to current weapons professions use anytime soon. They would most likely add new weapon types before they ever do this (if ever). And if they did it would most likely be a new system (not connected to traits) that would allow you to switch out maybe 1 or 2 skills but not the entire skill bar for balancing/confusion sake.

The following are based off my speculations. So my guess is as good as any.

1. they probably cancel each other out, causing normal speed actions

2. I’m not sure if Quickness affects this, if that’s the case, neither should slow

3. This will most likely be the case. Quickness makes certain things negatively faster. For example, leaps will be shorter while using quickness cause the action ends quicker. It would be funny and interesting if slow extended these. (super leaps anyone? lol)

4. according to the wiki, ‘Skills already in mid-cast are not affected when Quickness is initially applied.’ Unless they decide to change the rules in HoT, it should also apply to slow. Which also means if slow wears off in the middle of casting something, the remainder of the cast will carry the slowed animation as well, sorta like quickness does.

5. Last time I checked, all the channeling traits have been removed in the new trait system. If they make a return, however, I don’t see why it wouldn’t extend their effect.

6. I want to say yes, because the revenant downed skill applies it. It would have nice synergy.

7. It will most likely slow reviving. according to the wiki, quickness increases the speed of reviving, gathering, opening chests, building siege weapons, or communing a place of power. If they’re programmed somewhat the same, then slow should slow down these actions as well.

I would also like to add my own question. Given how quickness is now becoming a Boon, and slow is a condition, I wonder if they can convert into each other.
Like, if someone has quickness and you use boon corrupt, will it turn into slow?
or if you have slow on you, and you use a skill that converts conditions into boons, will it become quickness?
Since they both seem like counters to each other, I think it would be pretty neat if they could be converted into each other.

Eiland.1405:

FalconBeta.9185:

Having the adrenaline on hit be baseline would make any other adrenaline gaining trait/skill useless in PvP

They are useless anyhow, please tell which one of them do u currently use? axe extra gain? the passive 2lines everry 3sec? those triats suck big time and no one is using them for a reason. Sorry but bad argument.

FalconBeta.9185:

There’s no doubting that most warrior builds use fast hands; however, making it baseline would be completely broken and not make any sense. Warriors weapon swapping uses the same mechanic as other professions. Making it faster ‘just cause’ wouldn’t make sense.

Wrong again. every warrior build ever uses fast hand, otherwise just play a guard or ranger, it IS Class defining. I promise you still won’t see builds without it, so this just kitten our build diversity.

Just because Fast hands is a good trait does not make it “class defining”. Add a -5 second weapon swap to any other profession that can swap weapons and tell me it won’t become “defining”. Giving warrior a baseline buff on weapon swapping, a mechanic shared by most other professions in the game, simply because the trait is good is not a good enough reason.
How would you feel if all thieves received a permanent 3 initiative increase, or elementalist gaining boons on attunement swapping as baseline functions? Those are very build defining traits for those professions and I’m sure you wouldn’t be happy with those changes. Heck, Elementalist even got hit hard by now having to choose between Elemental attunement and evasive arcana, Two traits that the best elementalist builds currently use at the same time.
This is the exact reason why I suggested giving warrior an actual mechanic that plays around making weapon swaps faster. a Mechanic that uses warrior’s Class defining mechanic adrenaline. An idea that I got a while back when some other people suggested thieves being able to weapon swap early in exchange for Initiative (since none of their weapon skills have cooldowns), something like this, but using adrenaline, would work well with warrior. Giving warrior passive buffs (that don’t affect specific skills/weapons), like increased movement speed/weapon swapping without it being played around adrenaline is a ridiculous idea.

as for the adrenaline on hit. No, I don’t use any of those other traits. They’re completely useless and are outclasses by Cleansing Ire’s passive (which is why I said having adrenaline on hit would make them even more useless) .
Adrenaline on hit is almost good enough (maybe not in the new system) to be a trait by itself. If it were baseline, then any trait that granted extra adrenaline would forever be pointless in a PvP scenario.

Cant wait to use interrupting strikes with phalanx strength. Interrupt hybrid might stacking warrior, anyone? (Pvp ofcourse)

Cleansing ire is extremely strong. having the condition removal aspect baseline would be too strong. Having the adrenaline on hit be baseline would make any other adrenaline gaining trait/skill useless in PvP. I already think the trait itself needs an internal cooldown as is since rapid attacks can instantly fill a bar.

There’s no doubting that most warrior builds use fast hands; however, making it baseline would be completely broken and not make any sense. Warriors weapon swapping uses the same mechanic as other proffessions. Making it faster ‘just cause’ wouldnt make sense.
A better solution would be to give warriors a baseline ability (f2?) to use some adrenaline for an early weapon swap, that way it would tie into the mechamics and playstle. Then change fast hands so that it makes this ability cost less adrenaline or lower its cooldown

Warrior sprint wouldnt make sense either baseline. As mentoned above, maybe if it were an actual mechanic and not a ‘just cause’ reason.

Also another thing to realize is a lot of times anets description of proffessions cannot be fully realized until you put some traits on them. Heck, their descriptions probably originated from them seeing the traits in the first place

Most limely baseline now. Just not mentioned on stream.

Many traits were maid baseline. Meaning the effects of those traits are now default to the skills.
I wouldnt be surprised if the cooldown reduction and radius increase are default now.

I’m happy with the thief changes actually.

I agree with critical strikes feeling “meh” though. I always thought that trait line was a bit lack luster and one of the only good things about it was executioner. Then again, we can have revealed training, executioner, and that trait that heals on criticals at the same time now. Maybe there’s some cheese waiting to be created there.

As much as I loved it, I think the “nerfs” to acrobatics are fair, and am interested in the new traits.

also trickery steal remains the same cooldown, cause 15% is part of the specialization and the other 15% was made baseline. So all is good for Good ol’ DP.

While I’m sure that the 5% damage trait has been made baseline, I realized that the other Terrestrial thief weapons all have at least 1 trait, but shortbow does not. I’m wondering if this could somehow be added into one of the existing specializations. An interesting trait, like increased projectile velocity or a 200-300 range increase that would make a Thief want to pick away from common traits.

Valaadus.5012:

This is still an issue and is happening every time I log in.

I am on Windows 8 machine if that’s of any use.

same here. it feels like every other time I open my inventory it gets resized

wow that still happens?
I haven’t played an elementalist in a long time, but I remember that being very annoying.
it felt like the projectile trajectory was always slightly off, which resulted in misses, even at point blank range

it looks… weird. I’m not sure if I like it, but at the same time I don’t see it as a “must revert” change. I’ll probably get used to it with time.

runeblade.7514:

FalconBeta.9185:

Archers are far from useless. They deal lots of instant damage to guards.
Heck, i’ve seen 1 archer solo 2 guards at the same time. They’re pretty strong.
The only change i’d add is make them ignore players, sort of like skritt do.
Other than that, they’re fine.

Lol no.

Archers gets easily distracted by players. If there is one defender, archers do 0 damage to guards.

Which is why I clearly stated they should consider making Archers ignore players.

Archers are far from useless. They deal lots of instant damage to guards.
Heck, i’ve seen 1 archer solo 2 guards at the same time. They’re pretty strong.
The only change i’d add is make them ignore players, sort of like skritt do.
Other than that, they’re fine.

maybe make it so that it revolves around doors, guards, and the lord?
I will admit, I was a bit upset when a game ended by time limit and we lost because the enemy team had like 15 more points. It was upsetting because we actually were in the Lord room already, while they had only 2 doors down, and won by points from kills.

Maybe make it so that only guards, gates, and lastly the lord give score?
killing players and farming skritt/tengu shouldn’t add to it.

I actually prefer this over conquest already. Even in its current state I find it funner already.

also, saying things like“if I wanted to kill NPCs I would play PvE” is a poor argument against stronghold. That’s like attempting to criticize Conquest by saying “if I wanted to capture points I would play WvW!”. They’re Objectives, and Player vs Player is just as strong in both.
The objective in stronghold turned from defending a point from someone or capturing a point from someone, to defending NPCs from someone, or Killing NPCs someone is trying to escort. The player Engangement is still there, and giving the reliance on these NPCs and the increased movement, I say its even more engaging than conquest.

Stronghold is great. Much funner than Conquest once you know what you’re doing.
Love using Aoe heals and Stealth on my skritt.
being able to see enemy NPCs makes defending very active. Feels great stopping a wave of 4 skritt. The minimap offers a lot of information and I like how powerful these NPCs can be when left unattended.
its really fun once you’re with people who start dedicating themselves to certain roles (like supply runners)
so far from my experience it seems like the people that don’t enjoy it are people who simply don’t know how the gametype works yet. (do things like attack gates and wonder why they’re not damaging them)

can’t wait to see how intense games can get once everyone is familiar with the gametype. So far i really am enjoying it

I think they will still get the same racial skills, and no race-specific heroic souls.
I believe the existing racial skills will simply be altered based off what the revenant is currently channeling.
Sort of like how Racial skills will actually give engineers Tool belt versions for their f1-f4, I expect racials on revenants having multiple versions.

Simon.3794:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Simon.3794:

is this a better version of berserker stance?

no.

berserker stance is outright immunity.

resistance can be corrupted/stripped, and you can still apply condis to the target, they just won’t work until the boon wears off.

but condition on you still have effect when you have berserker stance on. and such long CD for such short period of effect.

They said they would be rebalancing skills for Stability changes, and I expect them to do the same for Resistance. I expect certain condition removal/resistance skills will be reworked to apply Resistance instead. Like guardian’s Purging flames, and Warrior’s Berserker Stance.

At first I thought it was a casting bar, but im not sure.
Would be neat if it is.

does this mean enemy confusion does more damage too?
People are gonna avoid reef Drakes like the plague now lol. (like they didn’t already)

This is NOT our problem. Something is wrong on Anet’s side that is causing this Bell Choir Bug/lag.
I know this for a fact because I can play on my account perfectly fine without any issues; however, If I play on my brother’s account I have this issue, and only on his account do I get this issue (which i’ve had for a few days now).
As someone above mentioned, it doesn’t matter when you try to hit the notes: on time, before, or after, it’s always a miss and it damages you. Also, if you don’t hit anything, you don’t get damage. Yet, at the end of the round, regardless of what you did, you will get a perfect 100 points, but no presents or progress towards your daily.

I’m surprised Arena Net hasn’t addressed this, it is preventing people from completing their achievements. And like I mentioned in the beginning, this is not our fault or lag on our side. Its on them.

I once played a skyhammer that had 1 vote, and 9 for battle of khylo.
To say the least, I was laughing too hard to be upset. oh and the win was nice too.

While I generally dislike playing the “compare” game, I do think its time for some more PvP achievements.
WvW gets new temporary achievements during their tournaments, and PvE has Living World. In the future, while PvP tournaments are ongoing, maybe PvP could also have temporary achievements, With a meta and everything to encourage people to play.

Also staying on the subject of achievements. In general, just having more would be nice. When Dailies were updated so that we can complete them all that are applicable in PvP, it felt pretty great completing things like Condi applier, condi remover, dodger, kills etc. I think PvP should have Achievements like these, that are long term; However, nothing too specific. I say that because if they add achievements like “get a title/skin if you slay 500 forest creatures”, then we will begin to get players that may ignore actual objectives in an attempt to patten their achievement points. General things like dodges, stun breaks, disables, captures would be appreciated. ESPECIALLY ones for things like when you’re dominating or conquering in game. Those should have some sort of achievement tracking them. (Maybe top stats too?) Sorry for the wall of text.

I don’t think its a bad idea. I can understand that people can be put off from having things restricted from them; however, at the same time there are people that literally have no idea what they are doing, and will have a terrible time going straight into ranked. There’s a reason why many games, especially competitive ones, have ranked play level gated in some way.
It doesn’t have to be some ridiculous requirement. It could be something like “you have to be level 5/10 to unlock Ranked Matchmaking”.
This way newer players at least have a general knowledge of what Maps play like.

I mean, there are people that literally could go straight into ranked play and they only have 1 weapon on, and missing traits with not matching stats on. I’ve seen it happen, and I don’t believe that person should be Punished by having their mmr(or what ever they call it now) be lowered for playing something before he understands it.

Though, I don’t think there should be a class specific requirement, just an account based one, that someone can unlocked ranked play after a couple hours of playing.

if Karma is not an issue, you could always buy invader’s gear from WvW. It has high defence and power. Problem is that it is Soubound, meaning you have to buy them for every character you plan on running.
Another place you can go is heart of the mists. The armor merchant sells Boots, pants, gloves and chest. It’s lvl 0 and white, but its stats are better than anything you can buy on TP at lvl 2. (also account bound)

Same issue here. on my warrior (main), everytime I try to access the story journal game freezes and have to ctrl alt delete logout of my computer.
glad to know im not the only one.

That would be so nice to have! Either the Potions or Sigils (or both? )
if the rest of the updates and or maps added continue the pattern of difficulty, it would come in handy having them.

Couldn’t help but to have a small chuckle.
Looking back, I remember that my mini would actually receive the protection buff.
sounds really lame that illusions don’t, lol.

People complain that the game becomes too simple, or that many things are useless compared the strength of zerking things down. They make the game more challenging and people begin to complain about how they can’t faceroll everything.

I for one, really enjoyed the new update. It had a decent level of difficulty and some interesting mechanics to play with on the last mission. I was able to complete it using Full Zerkers, and as an above poster mentioned, I too died a few times. (which there’s nothing wrong with that) Lots of the times I died was because I didn’t figure out the mechanic currently at first or simply didnt have the right build at the time. But I didn’t have to go and switch my gear, I just changed 1-2 skills and my traits around to be more surviveable and have some condition removal (especially on caithe’s mission)

there was nothing in this update that could literally “down you easily”. most of the time its pretty obvious what will do so, and it can be countered.

as for stuff like retaliation and boon removal, Im VERY happy they’re doing this.
I’m glad enemies use boons and have real mechanics behind them. It makes normally useless skills like Disables, boonsteal, boon corrupt or in general evading/survivability actually very important in PvE. I’m glad that the update actually made me go “maybe I should change some skills/traits”. That’s good, fun gameplay, not Mindlessly zerging everything down.

I’ve been getting Odd lag over the past few days aswell.
It starts of normal, then slowly gets worse.
It is most noticeble in PvP though, where the delay can sometimes be a few seconds long and the occasional lag spike can occur.
and I know its not just my imagination, because ill salvage multiple items then see their output appear in my inventory like 2 seconds later.
game is next to unplayable for me in PvP.

This is an extremely annoying bug, because it basically turns immobilize into a long duration stun.
The other annoying thing about immobilize is how strong it is against people using Ranged Weapons.
If you’re using melee weapons, chances are that when you use a skill your character will rotate and attack your opponent; however, if you’re using ranged attacks your character won’t do anything. Your skill will go on cooldown like if you interrupted it your self and your character will not turn around.
I would be okay with this if it were intentional, but seeing how melee skills can get through this it seems like a bug aswell.