Guild Wars 2

As the title suggests this topic contains my suggestion for a new Thief trait. The idea behind the proposed trait ‘Critical Eye’ is to give Thieves the ability to bring something to their party that will increase their party’s damage output and to increase the value of a Thief in parties, in hopes of reducing the likelihood of Thieves unjustifiably being kicked from parties for their class selection alone. While I understand this will not resolve the issue by itself it is my hope that it will help reduce the number of occurrences.

Critical Eye (the name of course could be anything) would in theory function like the traits ‘Empower Allies’, ‘Spotter’, and ‘Strength in Numbers’. When the Thief enters combats the trait would become active and increase the Ferocity of party members by let’s say 150 points (the amount could be a lower or higher number) who are within a Radius of 600. Thus increasing the damage output of the party as a whole and increasing their value. The trait would compliment the current meta gear prefix Berserker’s, used by a large portion of the community.

For balancing purposes such a trait would likely fit in the Grandmaster tier, though it could be argued that it should be a Master trait like the similar traits. As a Grandmaster trait it would make players have to decide between personal damage gained from Executioner or party damage gained from this proposed trait. Though as a Master trait it would exist as a more meaningful choice compared to others that exist in the category. As the name suggests it would be in the Critical Strikes tree, a tree almost always maxed out by Thieves.

As stated before such a trait would increase the Thief class’s value to their parties, one that unlike their Stealth abilities, and ability to easily apply the condition Weakness will be more apparent and fit into the Speed Run trend. This sums it up my suggestion for a new Thief trait. Thank you for taking the time to read this, your thoughts and feedback are both welcomed and appreciated.

little lee.9014:

5/10

Mine is Flint Grimmclaw, a Charr Engineer from the Iron Legion, he is here to blow enemies apart with explosions and turrets.

8/10
I like the name it looks to be lore-friendly to me and Flint as a first name seems like an Iron Legion name for sure. Grimmclaw, Grimm Warband I take is also not taken by NPCs which is a plus.

- – -

Raska Rageclaw, Rage Warband, Blood Legion. Warrior of Blood Legion, master of the Bladestorm fighting style, and talented enough marksman with a rifle. He is the claw of his warband the first to strike and draw blood. Like his friend Reeva he fights hard and plays hard, if ya know what I mean. ;P

Pulled up the webpage today earlier to check for the patch notes but stopped when I saw the words ‘Shadow Outfit’. My heart skipped a beat. “Could it be?” I wondered. “Finally a decent assassin class like armor set?” With hopes higher than Snoop Lion in Jamaica I clicked the link and then… Face palm. Looks good on a female character that is for sure but a male… nope.

Initially I was very disappointed when I saw that it was not a fully realized map with the works (Points of Interest, Vistas, Hearts, Skill Points, and new creatures, tamable pets). My feelings toward the new content continued to worsen as I found out that I would be forced to traverse an almost insultingly small new zone via the Zephyrite Aspects, something I never enjoyed in previous Living Story content. What topped it of and made me literally stop playing for like thirty minutes was that annoying Jumping Puzzle right off that with horrible collision issues. Utter disappointment met frustration.

After I managed to resist buying a Warcraft time card I went back and focused my attention on the Story aspect of the content and was rather pleased with it. The delivery and pace was an improvement and as it came to its conclusion I found myself wondering if Scarlet had other attentions for her research. While skeptic I am curious to see how it will unfold.

The events are easy enough and alright, if not lacking rewards that made it feel like your time was well spent. The Achievements look easy enough and there is a legendary Llama, what is not to love about a Legendary Llama? The Meta reward was underwhelming though and again begged the question if my time was well spent.

Still feel that is an underwhelming and disappointing introduction to Season 2 giving me little reason to believe that the community will receive anything new or exciting. As others have said there so much lore and content from the original that could be transferred to this game. This content patch could have had a similarly small map but gave players a look at new and or returning creatures from the past, a real zone, a look into the area’s own lore, and perhaps hinted at a new permanent dungeon, giving them a reason to look forward to future updates. Currently all I see is Labyrinthine Cliffs Version 2.0 with some interesting tacked on story with potential and a SAAAAAAAND STOOOOOOORM!

Raska Rageclaw of the Rage Warband, Blood Legion. Ooh-rah!

Am I doing this right?

Raska knows what you mean, in fact he thought we could use more chicken so he brought another.

Azhure.1857:

But first, lemme take a selfie…

Meeeow!

Enjoy… wait that second one is not… Ahh God! The horror!!!

As others have said all three legions; Blood, Iron, and Ash utilize members of every class. A well seasoned warrior clad in armor wielding sharpen charr steel can easily punish the narrowed minded who believe that the Iron Legion is just a bunch of tinkerers and demolition experts whose sanity may be questionable.

There are also plenty of angles to adapt your character’s story to fit within the in-game story options and of course come up with your own lore friendly story that is separate. Despite the fact that I almost never RP in-game, more from a lack of people and time than desire, I still spend more time than I’d like to admit on the character creation screen trying to come up with something I am happy with.

I settled on the following. My charr warrior Mufasa(lore friendly amrite?) Onyxclaw is Iron Legion, though not by desire. His mother an Iron Legion sniper used her resources to ensure her son would be Iron Legion. This was done out of fear that her son would have his life and potential foolishly thrown away in Blood Legion, much like his father’s was. This of course made the young cub who dreamed of following his father’s path spiteful for a time. Still like any smart young cub he focused on his training.

Still determined to be a great warrior he focused on melee combat, while minoring in marksmanship. He wanted to prove his wroth as a warrior so much he often, and still does challenges Blood Legion Warriors to duels and often gets into brawls with them. He was the source of much worry as a cub coming back bloodied and often seeming focused on a choice that was not his. Only when he was training, fighting, or working a anvil did he seem to be at peace.

He as a grown soldier of Iron Legions serves as the front-line defender, stopping any foe who would hope to attack the artillery lines. When the war machine operators need to relocate he covers them. He is also a talented marksman, taking out threats before they reach the lines, yet hoping they get within a greatsword’s reach. Still that age old anger resides deep inside, but is over taken by a desire to continue to prove the narrowed minded wrong, that an Iron Legion warrior is just as deadly any of Blood’s.

Mufasa learned the first rule of using a Fiery Dragon Sword, do not touch the blade.

1. Mufasa Onyxclaw learns the first rule of using a Fiery Dragon Sword, do not touch the blade.

2. He also learned that when a Syvlari is set on fire… there are some ‘effects’.

As many have stated several times most armor when worn by a Charr character will have clearly visible clipping errors or be stretched to fit the model thus reducing the quality of the armor’s appearance. Also many portions of the armor are lost due to the shape of the Charr body, this is seen most commonly in the lower sections of chest plates and the upper portions of leggings, the designs are often sucked into the waistline and are not visible. Other examples are the designs in some of the helmets and the non-Cultural boots, the armor pieces in question often look twisted and distorted. There is of course the ever popular magically floating shoulder pads/ pauldrons.

This is an ongoing issue and affects most of the armor that exists in the game currently, and even is present in their Cultural sets. If you want screen shots I am sure you can dig through the older threads and find plenty of examples, sadly the game is/was down during the time that this post was typed up, so I am/was unable to take screen shots myself of examples. I apologize for my inability.

Fleaman.9864:

Mine is Nailbat Karla, she is a warrior.

8/10

Sounds like the name or nickname of a gang member, bouncer, or gladiator. Which works in my opinion for a warrior. Remind me to never get on her bad side.

Mine is Armand Vancleef, a human Thief. That World of Warcraft reference makes it so… ‘original’ I know, not. I had no luck thinking of a last name that fit with the first that I believed worked for a suave roguish type, and did not want to go with something cliche like ‘Shadowblade’. So I settled for a reference, and even use a red mask that resembles the iconic red masks worn by the Defias Brotherhood.

Here is my Ash Legion Ranger, Maximus Padeous. I broke down and bought the rest of the T3 Medium after trying to mix it with the Krytan set, however, the clipping errors and overall ‘sickly thin’ look it gave my character forced the switch. I am happy with it, I just can not seem to stick to one of the two below dye combos.

1. A combination of Pitch, Brick, and Dijon, for a royal look.
2. More traditional Ranger Colors. Earthen, Pine, Dust, and Graphite for the metal portions on the gloves only to match the rest of the metal.

As others have mentioned the Legions make use of Charr of all professions, not just ones that seem to fit. There is evidence of this in each story line. With that said I know where you are coming from. When I roll a character I try to add some story to them, a sort of habit that developed after role playing a lot. So I can understand your desire to choose a class that ‘fits’ ideally instead of one that is the minority.

My character with the highest personal reward level in Fractals of the Mists is my Iron Legion Charr Warrior. Originally rolled for Blood but was deleted in favor of a Guardian who now collects dust. When I created my current Warrior I wanted another Charr, however, I also wanted at least one in every Legion and I already had my Guardian in Blood. So I rolled Iron.

I reasoned that the firing lines needed someone to defend them, so a Warrior would make sense. As would a Guardian, in fact the Iron Legion NPC soldiers can be seen using Guardian skills. But I already had the 80 Guardian, and did not want to re-roll for the sake of the story in a game where its meaning degrades half way through, and in truth the story in MMOs do not really effect the core game play. Also remember that this game leaves plenty of room for you to create your own story within theirs, for example.

My Warrior wanted to be in Blood but was placed in Iron. Instead of seething he used that anger as fuel. He worked toward mastering all forms of martial combat, while using his weapon crafting skills as a way to relax and re-center himself. He never passes up chance to prove his worth as a Warrior and show up Blood Legion. When the lines are broken and the firing squads are ordered to fall back he drops his hand crafted rifle and reaches for his axes or greatsword. Ooh-rah!

Again any profession will work. If you want something that fits look at the NPCs, or create your own story. To better answer your question with all of the personal fluff here is a list of the legions and which classes I believe ‘fit’.

~Blood~
Warrior – General Soldier/Tactician/Leader/Sniper
Guardian – Defender/Leader/Tactician (Have one)
Necromancer – Support/Minion Master(Might be next toon)
Ranger – Forward scout/Marksman/Tracker
Elementalist – Magical Artillery Strike
Thief – H.V.T(High Value Target) Eliminator
Engineer – Demolition

~Iron~
Engineer – No brainer right?
Warrior -General Soldier/Tactician/Leader/Sniper (Have one)
Guardian – Defender/Leader/Tactician
Thief – Forward Scout/Close Range Support

~Ash~
Thief – Scout/Assassin
Mesmer – Illusionist/Assassin
Necromancer – Support/Curse/Disease Spreader/Minion Master
Ranger – Forward Scout/Tracker/Marksman/Assassin (Have one)

I for one love the Charr, as I do beast races ever since I played Morrowind. From the first time I watched the intro video I knew I’d be rolling a few. I play my three Charr more than my one human thief, and I LOVE my thief. Still I find their current state saddening, and almost shameful. I also have to admit that I too find the lack of armor fixes to be unacceptable. This has been an ongoing issue for some time, longer than I have been playing from what I can gather from these forums. I would be willing to forgive them if these graphical error affected only a few select pieces of armor, like I was able to do in World of Warcraft with my Worgan characters, however that is not the case here.

These graphical errors affect nearly all of the available armor pieces in-game, and worse still they are also present in their Cultural armor sets. How I wonder can a developer claim to be proud of their work when armor designed specifically for a race has clipping errors, floating pieces, and pieces that appear to be completely disconnected? I will grant them that not EVERYTHING looks horrible on Charr, and or has the above issues, the Flame Legion armor is a good example of a appealing armor set that looks good. Still the Charr should not be the only race limited to their Cultural armor sets and a few select sets or pieces used to mix and match. Every single armor set that is being designed or worked on should go through intense testing to ensure that not a single piece conflicts with another piece of the same set, and is at least some what appealing on ALL races. That means Humans, Sylvari, Norn, Asura, and yes CHARR.

I find it hard to excuse this, and even harder to understand why so little has been done. The developers at ArenaNet have proven themselves to be a capable team with a lot of potential. The fact that they are one of the few companies to actually make a successful free-to-play MMO says that, however they can do better and should want to do better by both their community and themselves. We know and they know that they have the ability to do it, it just requires them to reallocate some of their resources. Better now than later after more and more armor designs have been released, thus increasing the time needed to do such a fix.

I for one would be willing to wager that the player base as a whole would gladly forgo the release of new content of any kind in favor of a large update that would address this ongoing issue along with others. I know the team at ArenaNet prides itself on being able to release new Living World content regularly. I also know that each release brings with it the promise of new events, characters, story lines, and of course Gem Store items, which means more revenue. But I think that it is time to put that aside for now in favor of some polishing. After the next release they should dedicate all their resources to bug, glitch, exploit, and graphical error fixing. Show us that they care and appreciate our time spent in their game and most of all the money spent. When the community is happy, not just the 85%, or the 15%, or the 0.00009 %, the whole community when happy spends more money.

Originally I had planned to buy the Tier 3 set for my Guardian using these below colors, that was until I rolled a Warrior and found that I enjoy the class more than my Charridan. Been tempted to buy the Charridan a set of Tier 3 as well, but want him and the Warrior to have a different set. Anyways…

~ ~ ~

I used the following dyes.

Icing Dye – For all of the base metal, except for the helmet. Gave me a nice ‘silverish’ steel color that was not overly polished, and lack the blue tint that you get with the actual Silver Dye.

Fog Dye – I used Fog specifically for the helmet. Dye applied to the helmet will be lighter than the other metal portions of the armor when dyed with the same color. The difference is maybe one shade so if you only want to buy Icing then that will work.

Gold – For the trim I used Gold Dye. Illumination is far too bright in my opinion, and makes the armor appeared to be overly polished. Gold gives you a deep gold color without the extra shine. Antique Gold works too, but like Illumination appears too bright.

Blueberry – I used Blueberry for the more silk like cloth portions on the legs and shoulders. Unlike the more expensive Sapphire Dye the color is not so saturated that it makes the cloth appear to be made of plastic.

Pitch – I used Pitch Dye, primarily because I am too cheap to buy Black Dye for the rougher cloth pieces that lay under the actual armor. I had someone give me negative feedback here because of the use of a darker color, stating it did not match. The purpose of the darker color is make the portion of the armor you actually want to look at pop. If I had went with Blueberry or a ‘whitish’ color it would have distracted from the attractive parts of the armor, the metal and trim being the parts.

You could also use a light to dark brown to make the rougher cloth look more realistic as well. Cocoa is a excellent color. I generally swap between it and Pitch.

~ ~ ~

I originally went with these colors with the intention of giving my Charridan a ‘knight in shining armor’ look. I wanted it to have that ‘shining knight’ look, but not overly polished so that it appeared to be a set of armor that had never seen battle. Despite the fact that the armor went to my Charr Warrior I kept the colors, I guess I fell in love with them while I was drooling over the armor set, slowly hoarding my gold in the hopes that one day I could buy it.

I knew from the moment that I went into the Character Creation screen that I was going to roll several Charr. In fact my first character was originally a Charr Thief, that I sadly re-rolled Human before finding out that I could use any medium armor set I wanted, save for the other races’ Cultural Armor of course. By then my Human Thief was too far along to bother re-rolling again. So I rolled a Charrdian, Charr Warrior, and Ranger.

I think what sold me was the introduction video that is played after you are done creating your character. They had the intense anti-hero vibe going for them. Yes they fought along side the good guys, but they did so in a very brutal manner.

I also love leveling in Ascalon. I find that the NPCs are more memorable than the ones in the other zones. The crazy singing butcher, kids all excited about getting their first weapon or wanting a pet devourer, the cow training mission, and of coruse good ol’ Reeva the Cleava.

Here are my three Charr. Went with the ‘lazy’ background for Ranger to better show his colors.

1. Maximus Padeous, Ash Legion Ranger in traditional Ranger colors.
2. Maximus Radeous in what I call a ‘royal assassin/scout’ color set up.
3. Mufasa Onyxlcaw, Iron Legion Warrior, with helm.
4. Mufasa Onyxclaw, with no helm.
5. Raska Bladebreaker, Blood Legion Guardian. (Want to replace his set with either Vigil or the new Phalanx set.)

BardaTheHobo.9752:

8.5/10, Kapera sounds really good for a Female charr name, original. Dustborn also has a neat ring to it.

I already did my Engineer so I will now do my warrior, then later the rest of my charr (1 at a time, I have 8 haha)
Anyways, Male Charr Warrior: Rragar Ragehammer He is part of the Rage warband, they are so called due to their aggressiveness on the battlefield, his nickname is hammer because he loves to bash in peoples heads with a hammer.

9/10

A lore friendly name indeed. Rragar to me sounds like a Norn name, but is also fitting enough for a Charr I suppose. I would assume he is a Blood Legion Warrior. XD

My two most recent Charr characters are the following.

Mufasa Onyxclaw, Iron Legion, Warrior. ‘Onyx’ being the warband’s name and ‘Claw’ because he is the claw of his warband, the only martial member. As a cub he wanted to be conscripted into Blood Legion but ended up in Iron Legion. Despite being an excellent marksman he takes any chance he can to prove his martial prowess. He often challenges Blood Legion soldiers to either a fight or some for of contest. He desires nothing more than to prove his abilities.

Maximus Padeous, this name is of course not Lore friendly, nor was it intended. Kitius Maximus Padeous is a nickname we use to use for my senior cat Max who died earlier this week. The character was made before he died, roughly a day or so.

He is Ash Legion, which gives me a Charr character in each legion. Maximus, the one above, and my guardian whose name I posted earlier in this thread months ago. Demetri, his faithful Stalker companion is with him always. Demetri being the name of this kitten my sister found and adopted a year or two ago. He use to pounce on Max all of the time, trying to get the old man to play with him.

Ryld.1340:

8/10 I really really like the color combination of the fur and armor. Nice job.

10/10
You really nailed the whole ‘mystic’ look. Very nice, like it a lot.

My Iron Legion Mufasa Onyxclaw in the armor set I was going to use on my Guardian, at least until I found that I preferred my Warrior. XD

My Iron Legion Warrior Mufasa Onyxclaw.

Blackwyn.8127:

Spectre is my current favorite, but the cow finisher is a close second due to it being hilarious.
In the new finisher page, I see that they’re all listed there, including those you don’t own. Does that mean you guys don’t intend to bring new finishers over time? I would love to be able to get new finishers every month.

I personally do not think we will see any new Finishers any time soon since a new set was just released, however, I do believe that we will see more in the future.

Here is an idea for one. ‘Ray of Judgement, ’Holy Smite’, or something else along those lines. They could use Ray of Judgement’s animation from the original Guild Wars, an elite Monk skill tied to the Smiting Prayers attribute. This would give players a more ‘holy’ slash ‘good guy’ type Finisher that would compliment any Guardian on the battlefield.

First off I would like to thank all of the Arena Net employees who had a hand in bringing us this awesome Finisher, it is an ideal Finisher for my Thief. For once my guild mates did not give me the ‘T.T’ face when I hot joined their sPvP match and ended up on the other team and killed them. Instead they all said “Awesome!”

I would also like to ask if anyone else can not help but wonder if the Dark Phantoms (Ghostly versions of NPCs or players that have invaded another player’s world with the intent of stealing thier Humanity and Souls.) seen in both Demon Souls and Dark Souls were the inspiration for this Finisher? The shadowy assassin that appears reminds me of one from my ol’ Dark Souls days. Either way it is an awesome Finisher. XD

Thank you again to all of the Arena Net Employees who had a hand in this. Now all you have to do is give us a katana or a set of the dragon kamas from Guild Wars: Factions and I would love you even more. * wink * * wink *

binidj.5734:

7/10 The first name appears to be a combination of “pet” and “tush” which it probably isn’t … but that’s what leaps out. Like the surname though … very Blood Legion. =)

Sarku Kinslayer, a warrior of the Ash Legion.
Got his name because reasonshe killed his sire in the Personal Story … I was so bowled over by that in Beta that I wanted to recreate and commemorate it when the game went live and Sarku was created for real.

8/10

I like the story behind the name, while it is a bit off, it works well. I like the first name Sarku.

My only Charr at the moment, untill I make a Warrior, is my Charr Guardian Raska Bladebreaker of the Blood Legion. I see him as leader of sorts, he leads the charge, and inspires his warband to do their best. ‘Blade’ being the name of his warband, ‘Breaker’ being given to him as he broken a great many, a master of defense, as is many who walk the Guardian path. I plan to change it to ‘Bladeward’ if I get a name change in a Black Lion Chest.

VolkovTheGreat.8324:

^ This! It would bring money, and if done right, won’t disadvantage anybody, so why not?

At this moment I am hoping that such a feature is not be worked on in favor of new content. I am sure there members of the player base that would love this feature but not at the cost of new content. Now once more content has been added, for example, quests, playable zones, dungeons, ect, then I could see little reason to not release a race change option.

If nothing else I would like to see a Personal Story reset, as I am personally picky about my character’s Personal Story, and would rather not delete say my level fifty-seven Charr Guardian to change his story, but that is another discussion for another thread.

I hope to see more comments on this thread. If we want to see a race change option we must keep the topic alive, and show Arena Net that there are community members that would like to see a race change feature. If we show no interest in such a thing Arenanet has not reason to change their initial decision to exclude one.

I like how your suggestions evades conflict with the Personal Story. I would imagine there are some, both community and developers, who believe that resetting the Personal Story would negate, and undermine both the actual impact of making a choice, and the effect the player feels when making a choice within their story. I know I for one have ruined playthroughs of Mass Effect for myself by reloading the game to cheat tough choice. However this could be an issue if in future content the developers decide to pull elements or NPCs from your Personal Story, and reintroduce them. Imagine your friends’ surprise from your Personal Story or lack of surprise when they find you to be of a different race. It would also be very awkward I’d imagine for the player.

This is why I would push for a Personal Story reset, and the removal of associated rewards for completing the quests within it. While the amounts of Skills Points gain would be very small, and anything gained from the loot would be unnoticeable, I still think it would be a fair enough penalty. Also you could block achievements that are gained that are tied directly to a Personal Story option. Read the second paragraph below this before jumping all over me Achievement Hunters. :P

I was going to write my own suggestion for a Race Change. I would include a preview window, similar to the Character Creation window, that would allow the player to see what their character would look like prior to confirming the purchase, so that the player does not have a reason to complain about being unhappy with that purchase, especially if they decide they do not want to change after all half way in. Something that could be used whenever.

I would also suggest requirements being added before you could use the feature/complete the purchase on a character. Such as the character must be level 80, and or have completed the original story line quests. So this way the developers know more or less that the player has seen a number of armor sets on that character, and gone through enough content to be able to say that they are truly unhappy.

I think those ideas combined would make for a very fair feature that would prove to be both popular, and profitable. Additionally the fact that nothing is gained other than a change of appearance, and a reset of the Personal Story path would keep the Gem Store being fair, one of the things that I applaud Anet for. Players can not buy an advantage over others, and this feature would fit perfectly in with that concept.

I sent a message to a moderator recently regarding this same subject. I suggested that they reset the player’s personal story on that character, giving them the ability to play through that storyline, without forcing the player to throw away all of their time spent on that character. I also suggested that they require the player to have complete a character’s personal story in order for it to be eligible for a Race Change. I feel that those two features coupled with a fair gem cost would be more than fair. I am sure there are more technical concerns involved than just the personal story, however I am sure they could resolve them.

I am honestly surprised such a feature that has proven to be both popular, and profitable in World of Warcraft has not been implemented. That is not to say that I enjoy the sad, watered-down, shell of its former self game that it has become more than Guild Wars 2, however, some of Blizzard’s development choices were unarguably clever, popular, and appreciated by their community.