Guild Wars 2

Wings of Resolve: distance still affected by movement impairing conditions; still queues after current skill casting.

on a side note, Smite Condition is working on my end w/ new patch in spite of what I’ve been reading on the forums.

Specializations

Herald: Still felt good as it had last BWE. I don’t feel like the Glint stance changes overall gameplay as much as it adds a stance that complements pretty much any play style. Because of this, I have a hard time seeing a situation where I’d play revenant w/o Herald. If I’m a tank, I’ve just got dwarf stance relevant to me. If I’m pwr dps, only Shiro. If condi, only Mallyx. Taking the herald tree is a meaningful change, but I don’t think it changes play style so much as makes things better for the existing revenant play style. I don’t have a problem with this myself, but I know I’d never play rev w/o herald.
As far as changes, I can only speak about demon stance. Displacement was missed, especially in the raid if it would have done what I think it could. I didn’t miss self-condis too badly, but there are now traits that I will never use as a result. I did very much miss condi transfer on elite. W/o condi transfer, I did not feel there was enough benefit for having it deplete my energy bar quickly. Still like demon stance, but can’t find use for elite.

Reaper: Still felt good as it had last BWE. Changes to shouts made them more desirable, which made me enjoy reaper that much more. Definitely changes play style in a meaningful way. Very well done.

Chronomancer: First time trying it, so no previous reference. Seemed effective and challenging, especially when trying to incorporate the F5 shatter. It changes play style quite a bit while maintaining key aspects of mesmer.

Druid: Didn’t play this in group situations as a healer so much as trying to find other other ways to use it. I liked it a lot, and did feel useful when I happened by some group content and threw out some healing. Worked well as a condi/support for me. Only used dazing glyph, which I found very useful. The others didn’t seem crazy appealing to me. Would like to suggest that staff 3 gives evasion during travel. Druid did change play style in a meaningful way as well.

Scrapper: Buggy gyros were going after enemies when they should be sticking to me, but I loved them anyway! Covering the map with lightning fields that dazed and caused weakness was fun and helpful to other group members. I think hammer needs a small damage boost. After many duels with a friend, we both felt like there was no way to put out enough pressure while maintaining survivability. Neither of us were able to win a match as scrapper against the other as a non-scrapper. That said, it was fun and felt very different from standard engi.

Creatures I heard from someone that it was a bug that cause some creatures to be easier. Either way, I had really liked their difficulty in the last 2 BWE events. Was disappointed at how easy they were this time around. I know that one bug I did notice was beetles able to take damage from all sides rather than only front. Creatures are still fun and very diverse, but preferred where their difficulty was previously set.

World: Events are great. The occasional bug aside, they are all engaging, fun, and pull me into the world more.

Masteries: No complaints here. Felt like meaningful progression with optional yet very desirable benefits. It seems like a good framework, and I look forward to getting into them, especially the lore-related bits.

Stronghold PvP: UI seems fine. Easy enough to understand. The map is nice as a change of pace to the usual point holding maps. Can definitely be frustrating when you’re with a team that doesn’t know the map as well as the other team, but I think that will change over time. Because the experience of this map is so different from the others, I’m worried that it wouldn’t receive many votes when it pops up. This has been the issue with courtyard as well, where people tend to avoid voting for it in favor of traditional point holding.

Bugs: No screenshots taken. Just Faren’s event seemed to stop on the sword-training portion quite a bit, and the aforementioned beetles taking damage from all sides rather than the front.

Raid: Not on the list, but it’s got to be mentioned. I thought this one got knocked out of the park. I loved the fight mechanics that discouraged everyone going zerker and encouraged a diversity of play styles instead. I loved the difficulty, where the solution was often clear, but difficult to achieve. I loved the 3 mobs leading up to the boss that trained you on how to fight it. And I very much loved the journal entries around the map and character dialogue found when exploring it. When I saw that wall, I really wanted to get to it, and there was a way to do so! The fact that my character remark on the wall as well made me grin. Didn’t form a squad myself, but the UI seemed effective from my perspective. Very excited about raids.

TY for the the great work. Can’t wait for HoT to drop!

Hey there, I wanted to add myself to the list of folks lamenting the demon stance changes in the most thoughtful way I can.

I can understand the need to change displacement mechanics, but golly gee those were awesome. Making it a dark field w/ chill totally changes how it will be used. For instance, it can no longer be used to peel for a downed ally, and it can no longer be used to keep melee off you while using hammer (at least not in the same way as it was before)… and what’s wrong with disorienting a few people?!

The issues with self-applied condis is valid, but it was another great and unique mechanic that will be sorely missed. However, I can’t see how the removal of condi copy on the elite is necessary. It’s an expensive elite to use, and even at -7 or -6, you’d still only be able to execute a few skills other than your #1 before it’s gone. The payoff doesn’t seem like it will be there for that kind of upkeep. Additionally, I don’t think partially normalizing torment damage with a trait is a good solution in the situation as a whole being that the changes are going to take a way a lot of depth of active play for the stance, and offer a solution via passive play by making a quirky condition behave a bit more like… well, other conditions. The trade off changes the play style quite a bit.

I hope I’m not coming off as too alarmist or critical. It’s just that the last two weekends with the demon stance rev were so kitten fun! Your initial designs for demon stance were awesome. If changes absolutely must happen to self condi stacking/copying and displacement, it would be a shame to execute those changes in a way that would dumb down what had been one of the most complex and rewarding play styles in the game. For what it’s worth, I’d rather keep them as they were and deal with he occasional unwanted cleanse rather than lose those unique aspects of the profession. Besides, I would always have an other stance if it got too frustrating in a given encounter.

I was playing a herald w/ mallyx and glynt last beta weekend, and I’ve to say that the condi damage I was putting out was fantastic. Note that mace #2 also adds some burning, so it’s not like we’re married to only stacking torment. The thing to consider also is that those torment stacks last pretty long compared to a bursty pile of burning. I was thinking of my torment stacks more as sustained damage, and the occasional addition of 3-4 burning stacks from mace2 as a small burst. I see no need for a change to the condi setup on the weapon.

That said, I’m really disappointed about the loss of condi spreading. It was pretty much what was guaranteeing that I’d be rolling rev as soon as HoT comes out. I agree that there should be something implemented to keep condis from being cleared while embracing the darkness, but even if nothing was done other than to bring back the condi spreading, I’d still take that….

Ahoy there,
Background on me is that I’ve been playing casually since 2013, have all current classes as 80s, but have not spent a lot of time w/ warrior or thief. Am very familiar w/ everything else. What I love best about gw2 is the variety of content. As such, I’m down with the spvp, wvw, dugeons, fractals, and open world content. Here goes…

Reaper

Tested using Bersker/Marauder, Carrion, and Valkyrie stats with some different builds that synergized with each one. Played all extensively in Verdant Brink, WvW, and Spvp

Reaper Shroud is the bee’s knees. Feels well-tuned as both a power or condi spec. I don’t see any need for changes.

Shouts are more fun than I thought. I found a lot of use for ‘nothing can save you’ and ‘suffer’. On the other hand ‘rise’ and ‘your soul is mine’ are much more situational, which left me very reluctant to equip them on my bar most of the time in open world or any form of pvp. The base heal on ‘your soul is mine’ versus its cooldown isn’t bad, but a tough trade for some of the other options. I’d love to see ‘rise’ have a minimum of 2 jagged horrors summoned. I think that might be enough to give adequate incentive to use it without making it overkill in a 1v1 situation.

Great Sword… normally I disagree with all the complaining from the necro forums, but I have to agree on this one. I don’t mind that it’s slow; I like the idea of reaper being a slow, cumbersome death machine. The pay off is really lacking though, especially in a condi spec or using valkyrie stats when I didn’t have 25 vuln stacked on target. Not just that, but I found it very hard to use berserker/marauder stats in both PvP and PvE. Part of the necro’s attrition is it’s ability to kite a bit, or at least move out of danger. When you’re constantly pursuing, your going to have to eat a lot more damage. I had a lot more trouble surviving than I do with my normal berserker necro spec. Were I to make a suggestion or two, I’d say the damage on this weapon absolutely needs to go up, and that an on-cast defense may be a good idea for some of the skills (e.g. a block during gravedigger cast, or stability on #1 chain).

Traits are all looking great except for Deathly Chill. With approx 1350 condi power, I was hitting for under 400 a pop with this. Against a mobile target, I wasn’t getting a lot of chills out, especially given the speed of GS #1 chain. This could use a pretty hefty boost methinks.

Revenant

I didn’t mess with builds much because I LOVE MALLYX. Therefore, I found a carrion stat spec that worked and rolled with it all weekend. That being the case, I can’t give as much detail as with reaper, but I enjoyed it very much. It is an extremely complex class to play given that you’re managing 2 bar swaps as well as an additional resource. The other legend I used with my spec was Shiro. I found that it synergized well, especially using Impossible Odds to get those stacks of torment on fast.

The only mild frustration I had was that as carrion spec (or any condi spec), there is no feasible weapon option other than mace/axe. I used hammer a bit to give me a range option, and was very glad to see those skills tuned some since last time. This, however, could only be used for a couple openers before going in to do the real damage. Once I’d switch to mace/axe, I could pretty much never find an opportunity to switch back out of it until the fight was over. If some other weapon had a way of stacking some kind of condi, that would sure be swell!

Verdant Brink

Love the day/night cycle! Love the depth of detail to everything in it, and the verticality really makes it fun to explore. I deliberately avoided gliding and mushroom jumping as much as possible to force myself to always have to take the long way.

Some of the monsters out there (ahem, veteran smokescale) might actually be a bit too rough. In one of my best moments, I managed to take one of these out 3 smokescales, one being a veteran, with the revenant. Most of the time, I had to run for my life. I got the mechanics, but they are still invulnerable to damage after they walk out of their smoke cloud for a few seconds, and I feel like it could have a longer cooldown than it does. Everything else was challenging, but very enjoyable! Thanks for making me have to work for my victories in the open world, it’s really refreshing and much more fun than just plowing through everything as some kind of demigod.

Events were great when they were working properly, but it seemed that there was a lot of bugs in that department. Lanathir (spelling?) seemed to stop at some point in the ruins and refuse to go any further with no particular objective that needed completion. Another time, the snipers didn’t seem to want to shoot at the mordrem vinetenders. They just liked the view I guess. When things were running, it was a blast.

Thanks for a lovely weekend of sleepless nights! Hope some of this was helpful.

Played power wellmancer also, but with reaping and blood. The damage great, was plenty survivable, and did well in spvp, wvw (except against an infinite sustain d/d ele) and fractals. After all the complaining on these forums about heal skill and elite transformation nerfs, I’m finding everything seems flat out better. If some heals weren’t nerfed a little, I could easily see how things would get out of hand w/ blood magic. Have yet to see how things feel without blood though… also its kind of nice have 2 utility effects. All in all, I’d buy Robert Gee a few rounds.

I feel like I’m the only one making a review post that isn’t angry and alarmist, but I liked just about everything I saw. Didn’t run into any bugs, content was fun, exploring the area was great! Map is beautiful. Also appreciated the out-of-cutscene dialog that my character was speaking. And most of all, love how the character development has improved around the end of season 1, and am very glad to see that quality continuing into this expansion.
Revenant was pretty fun to try out. The celestial stat setup up left it feeling kind of weak, but I guess that’s the best way to explore different ways of playing the thing with one set of gear. Found some good synergy within the limited weapon/legend/trait options, and am eager to see what other options will look like for them! The only thing that put me off about the test was the rev’s damage on hammer skills 3 and 5 (no issues with the other weapon set). #2 at max range has a good hit to it, but I found it difficult to get that kind of situation set up almost all of the time. Meanwhile, #3 and #5 both look like they’d pack quite a punch, and while I appreciate that they both have strong CC, that they were barely better than an auto attack made the weapon as a whole feel a little bleh. That and how hard it was to get the most out of #2 made it hard to dish out much damage in hammer. Maybe they’ll feel much more worth using with different stats, but that’s how it felt with the test setup… then again, I’d probably just double swords and Shiro my way through the expac.

I don’t see any problem with the game’s mood. Guild Wars has always been a little bit of a gloomy franchise. That’s one of the things that kept me coming back to it. This sounds like a personal preference issue. You can’t please everyone, and I know that I for one wouldn’t be keen on a lot of upbeat content disrupting the mood of the story. Just make a charr w/ pink dbz hair and be your own comic relief.

A build I use that you might like is 4/4/6/0/0 power/crit based PU. Weapons are gs and sw/sw. You’ll have plenty of survivability as well as good pressure with some burst. If you want to hit very hard, 6/6/0/0/2 with both mantra gm traits and all mantra utilities will make you crazy Mr Glassy McBurst. In a 1v2 (which I lost), I downed a hammer warrior in the first 5 seconds of the fight with the second build. Course if anything actually hits you…

One thing that makes my experience different is that most of the zergs I get involved with are not with my own guild, so the expectations I’m dealing with are lower.

That being said, I feel like I bring something to a large battle. I usually run a glam/confusion build (yes, I know that they’re nerfed into the ground, but I’m stubborn), and I don’t feel useless. Dropping an aoe that will cause multiple enemies to loose boons, miss their next attack, hit themselves w/ projectiles, etc. while our side keeps on truckin makes me feel special. CS is very effective both defensively and offensively. Then there’s mass invis for a moment for everyone to breath or revive, or timewarp, which I think is the single longest source of quickness in the game and has a massive radius. No, I’m not melting faces, but I’m not just sitting on the sidelines wishing I could could play too.