Guild Wars 2

I’m hoping the blog post was simply badly worded, with regards to:
1) If the core game masteries are included in the price of the core game.
2) If players of the core game will still have the ability to earn unlimited numbers of skill points (through some existing high-level content?), or if there is a plan to revamp the Mystic Forge to compensate?

Yes, I found Smoke Bomb – but options are good.

Thanks for the help, all.

I’ve just recently started getting into the Engineer class and still figuring out what all my skills do. So many new toys!

On Flame Turret, the overcharge is listed as a Smoke Field, but I haven’t had any luck getting the combo to trigger. I’ve tried leaping through the turret, blowing up the turret, blowing up other turrets near it, with/without an enemy targeted… If it’s a smoke field, I should be able to covert this into stealth, right?

Does this combo field simply not work? Or is there some timing trick to it that I haven’t stumbled on? Help!

In the story trailer @ 1:15 it sure looks like a sylvari ganking someone with a two handed spear. Not to mention all the impaled bodies up to that point.

I trust that ANet can make an interesting expansion pack without having to resort to adding a pointless level/gear gate on the content.

eldenbri.1059:

The spike trap seems to not break stealth when I try it in controlled tests. If I put the spike trap directly on the target, it triggers and I go into stealth after that. If I use it in a WvW fight, it seems like the stealth is often broken. What are the possible reasons? Can someone walk into the spike trap after it’s been triggered and get damage?

A target walking into the trap after it is set will break stealth.

On initially dropping the trap, there is a small time delay before stealth takes effect. This allows you to drop a trap directly on a target and then slink off under cover, provided you do no further damage which would break that stealth.

I don’t really see the point in changing anything. Nerfing point blank shot will do nothing for the Engineer Kegs and Mesmer Waves that are far more annoying. At least with a single target knockback you have some hope that it will be used for something constructive.

Shagohod.5140:

What about to the west where there are 3 pretty distinct “lanes” that seem to converge on a single point that, as of now, is behind a wall of vines?

That seems like an ideal place to put a dungeon entrance, with a boss fight in story mode.

Wait… we have to make a chart this time?

Perhaps you are intended to collect 2 Warrior Pieces as a crafting component for Glowing Warrior Gear?

Poisonwell.1209:

WoW: strong game but population is focused on teens and child, cartoon graphics.
Lineage 2: grind game, population is focused on mature people, dark graphics
League of Legends: very popular game but with bunch of kids, there are exceptions of course, same cartoon graphics. I know this is not a mmorpg.
GW1: Very popular long time ago, focused of all ages. very detailed graphics and colorfull.

GW2: For better or worse, “None of the above.”

They’ve made changes to base health / damage and pet skill cast times. They’ve also fixed bugs (no more ninja kitties attacking people inside keep walls, or self buffing with continuous 3 hours of regen/fury). They’ve also reduced the pet-tether distance… so no more mauling people from 3k range.

While there are rare situations where a pet simply can’t survive, most cases it does fine, especially if traited with guard or signets.

Most, if not all, of the traits in the beastmastery line have been revamped since release.

AI is the same.
Players got a little smarter about which pets to use when, although you will still see the KB spamming bearbow from time to time.

I don’t recall actually having that much fun at Dragon Bash. It was one of the first living story patches, and thus mostly a bunch of post-office type activities. If they do bring it back, I hope it is with a major revamp.

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

I would like to throw 4 Anet Developers into the Mystic Toilet.

Not worth it, IMO. Only a 20% chance of getting a green developer back, and chances are you wont be happy with the stats.

This argument is only valid when there is a serious debate on the forum if MH Axe has higher DPS than LB.

So 29 charges? Let’s even round that up to 30 and say that your character can change clothes an entire 5 times in it’s lifetime @ that rate. And that’s not counting weapon skins or backpacks. As a limited resource, the majority of people will tend to conserve them.

Now imagine what infinite-transmutation charges means… This makes practical changing your characters appearance just because you feel like it, as often as you feel like it. You don’t have to save for those 5 special events in your character lifetime…. you can wear a tophat because it’s Thursday, or because it matches your Wintersday weaponry better than the mask you wanted for Halloween. You can change your armor skins, decide you didn’t really like it, and change back… just because you felt like it.

So yes! Bring on the unlimited transmutations! For Freedom! For Fun! For Antler Wednesday!

I just spent time making a character that seems thematically correct and looks right to me. Then my wife deletes it and makes a character she is willing to be seen in public with.

One man’s trash.

If it was on the TP, I’d pick it up in a heartbeat.

It’s the same as the Engineer “Slick Shoes” buff. There’s a note about the speed cap on the wiki for the Engineer skill.

Can’t it just be fun?

He’s right you know.

I think Ranger Teleport Skills should be removed from the game completely. Skills like…um… eh… you know… um… well, all of the teleport skills.

Also, Ranger perma-stealth should be capped to 3 seconds AND have a debuff preventing you from restealthing, AND you should have to attack your target first before you stealth. Anything longer than 3 seconds, I could have forgotten that the ranger was out there, shooting at me.

I also think that this Insta-Kill skill that he is complaining about should be changed to a channeled damage over time, and probably add a cool-down between 8 and 10 seconds. Maybe even we should go back to pre-patch damage, so that a Guardian can just stand in one place and out-heal longbow damage again. That would probably be a well balanced system.

Eggyokeo.9705:

did you miss you back stab, and they swung there big scary sword at you. next time you see a massive bear fly at you you should get out of the way

It’s a screen shot of that one time he wasn’t one-shot by an OP Zerk Rapid Fire Ranger spamming “2”. Jokes on him though… Maul is on “2” as well.

Gedekran.1487:

Added three more albums.
http://imgur.com/a/JhIdm
http://imgur.com/a/hvpaW
http://imgur.com/a/WnGw2

One thing to note – those guys were going to every instance of Frostgorge, flaming anyone who wanted to complete the event, and then screwing the people farming it as well. Every instance of the map, for hours.

It all comes down to around 3 people who were there with no other intent than to interfere with as many other players as possible. That isn’t playing the game in any sense. That’s harassment.

If you genuinely need to get it done – go there while Jormag is on timer.

I’m not sure how much patches have changed things, but these are the go-to charts for me.

http://i.imgur.com/RYj5h.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/UAwyv.png

As far as advantages – yes. Even playing solo, using combos makes a dramatic difference.

I don’t think that anything will change with Rapid Fire, at all. It works as intended, and the change between pre/post patch isn’t as big as people make it out to be.

What is a huge change is Signet of the Wild. This had to be heavily traited before, and mutually exclusive with RtW. With the patch this skill has cemented itself as meta, and I would wager most people pop the signet just before using RF.

SotW, I expect some adjustment to happen soon.

The Wiki Entry didn’t exist when I blew the 50 Ecto’s on making these. :/

The only thing “Ineffable” seems to describe is the cost of making them. Account bound or no, the cost is so far out of line with the alternatives that making them is never a good idea.

What about full spec’ into Marks to pick up Remorseless? Opening Strike+Trap=AOE Vuln+Stealth… next pulse of the trap triggers Opening Strike again…

Rangers are the melee evade specialist class. Not a bug.

I would revert the Flame Elemental world boss to Beta, and then use this as the model for all other champion and world boss encounters. Remember in beta how we used to scream “SPREAD OUT!!! DONT STAND ON THE KITTENING BRIDGE!” as it vaporized whole raid groups in a single AOE? How there were minions of that world boss, and even those guys could AOE-OHKO? Screw this “confusing to new players” nonsense and bring back “if it looks like it can eat you, it probably can”.

I would make dodge a standard capability on all AI’s, and improve the AI such that they use it properly. I’d increase the effect of vigor, and add Endurance Steal abilities to Mesmer and Thief.

Gold/Karma/EXP for basic mob kills in Borderlands shall be increased by a factor of 5×. Skill locks, Trait locks, Level gates do not apply in any WvW zone. World Bosses shall now appear in Borderland zones at randomized intervals. Leveling in WvW shall be the fastest method of reaching max level.

A new set of siege gear will be introduced, requiring 10 supply to build. Siege equipment shall now be enabled in PvE zones.

Other AI changes:
* Mobs being hit by an AOE will predict the AOE and scatter dodge.
* Mobs that are allied together will now call targets and attempt spikes.
* If a sufficient number of allied mobs are killed, a new event called a “gank group” will be formed. These are significantly higher level mobs with improved AI over the standard group, which will hunt down and kill any players with a significant kill count vs. the allied faction. This replaces the diminishing returns loot system.
* If a faction of allied mobs are left unchecked, they will increase in power and attempt to conquer surrounding areas.
* Downed State / Finishers shall be enabled for any mob of Veteran level or higher.

Tharomir.6985:

Here’s an idea. Why don’t you just turn auto attack on? Then you only have to press it once and then just sit back and watch as your character swing his sword. And then swing his sword. And then swing his sword. And swing his sword again until the mob is dead.

Sometimes I think you pick the strangest things to complain about.

It is on.

It’s that the option of pressing “2” is locked until a higher level, and I literally have nothing else to do except push a button unnecessarily.

When they announced this change I initially thought that maybe I should restart an alt to take advantage of the leveling rewards.

After bringing up a character 1-15 since the new patch… yes, the leveling experience is awful.

The game at the beginning is reduced down to spamming “1”. The initial game has less substance than most Facebook f2p/p2w apps. Assuming your attention span isn’t completely shredded by the time you make it out of the introduction mission, the following levels offer nothing in terms of customization. No skills, no traits, no off-hand weapons. And then going around Queensdale, most of the environmental weapons have been removed as well.

The general feel of the low level areas is that the number of events has been slowed down, again. Around level 8, I ran out of level appropriate content. I had to get power leveled through some level 15 events in order to get myself up to 10.

The 3 Black Lion chests that dropped and the pop up suggesting I should buy Gems to open them made me want to log out.

It just isn’t fun. They’ve taken some of the best content in the game turned it into a mindless grind.

Big surprise: The Mad King repairs the lion statue this time.

Bigger surprise: It’s fully automated with watchwork technology and proceeds on a murderous rampage.

Not a surprise: The statue workers, completely apathetic after 2 continuous years of repairing the kitten lion statue, give up and head to Queensdale to get blue blind, paralytic drunk.

What would really be nice: the search bar in the inventory panel should be able to search for any text within the item description, including the base type, rune, and skin name.

If I want berzerker stats, I should be able to just type “zerk” and find it, regardless of the name of the item, skin, or rune.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Considering there really is no good way to obtain keys currently, if this does in fact remove them from story rewards, it’ll feel like an intentional slap in the face.

1. Pull out credit card
2. Open Gem store
3. Buy pack of Black Lion Keys

Keys are supposed to be their main source of RNG revenue… it was never intended for people to get them for free.

Nope. Not going to happen. Not for me at least.

I’ve spent a bit on gems in the last two years, but I’m not going to spend real money on anything short of a sure thing. And that’s the entire reason why I key farm.

I’ll buy convenience items.
I’ll buy skins.
I’ll buy toys.
I’ll buy musical instruments. And, oh yes, I will have them all.

But I will never buy an item if the price is negotiated after I’ve already started spending.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The intent of the Renown Heart system was originally to help players find event content. They also provide a decent method for us to give the player some context and awareness of what’s going on in the area. There are probably a few issues in that design which we could discuss. We could also let it suffice to say that hearts do not make the best repeatable content the game has to offer.

On the topic of keeping players engaged with open world content, I think this goal may be for more approachable from a different angle. Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

I really want to play the event chain in an area, but if it hasn’t started yet?

Hearts are like having a magazine in a waiting room. You’re really not interested in back issues of Home and Garden, but it’s better than counting dots on the ceiling.

Swapping pets would make the buff disappear, yes – so it’s mainly useful for a Masters Bond build.

Can I feed it my dentist?

I’m going to take wild guess and say the repair crews are going to find a sudden and desperate need for elder wood logs before that happens.

It would be better with two rangers.

Eh? That doesn’t look like a damage build. Some sort of condition removal spammer?

This is closer to meta than what you have:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNMQNBMhNakRlSWbXxVFuWDsHULDgAmbHMCeritIjfOZ2D-TVCEABEt/ABHBgEV/ZLlgGcIAYS5nEPAg20HAwJAAA-w

Frost/Spotter
Fire field / warhorn + Mighty Roar for dmg boosts
Spring / warhorn for burst healing
+dmg on full stamina, flanking & boon = +25% damage
Boon mirroring for your pet.

RagNoRawk.3625:

Polygamy pls

No Polygamy, however there is a 5 pt achievement for marrying 500 different people.

sage.6947:

Increase the refresh rate for stamina to that I can dodge ever 3 seconds. I believe combat would be better if the stamina refresh rate were faster.

If you’re just going to mindlessly spam evade ever 1.75 seconds anyway…

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Power_Stab

Maybe something like this, replacing Signet of Beastmaster with Predator’s Onslaught.

The main benefit of P’O that I see is the +5% damage for pets. Build has the standard Frost/Spotter, plus Torch/Warhorn/Roar for might stacks. Pet should build up a nice stack of might on top of the +5%, and then Signet for another +25%. PvE obviously.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBHhx+1IjKlsWxirKctGIPQWXIQFudC5LbG/cysH-TxRGABA8EA2Z/hhU+lwJAosDCAgq/IlSQA-e

Prysin.8542:

Read the Wind will not be a direct damage buff. Sure you will, theoretically, do 10% more damage, however Predators Onslaught adds another 5% to pet (remember, that furball is like 30% of your DPS, so whatever bonuses you sink into the pet matters, a lot)… So while RtW is 10% total boost, PO is 15%….

And with the extreme ease of maintaining cripple through barrage, its a no-brainer why you should take PO in PvE atleast. In PvP, RtW all the way.

Theorycrafting ftl. Wish we could jump on a test server and blow up some golems.

Taking into account the pet is 30% of your damage, the actual damage bonus provided by PO would be the weighted average of the two bonuses, not the sum. 10% Hero + 5% Pet = 8.5% total, not 15%.

Taking a 10% attack speed bonus would be a multiplier bonus on any other +dmg’s, rather than additive, so even if they are both “10%”, attack speed will have a bigger impact than a simple +dmg.

As a Grand Master trait, investing enough points to have Predator’s Onslaught is mutually exclusive with a lot of the other +dmg traits. First off, if I’m bow focused, then Read the Wind is probably a better damage buff – so Predator’s is really geared towards melee skirmish builds.

If it’s a melee build, then I’m at least 4 deep in Wilderness for Martial Mastery, and a good chance that I’m 3+ deep in Skirmish (free swift & fury). 2/3/4/0/0ish…

I could go 6/4/4/0/0 – for the +20% with Endo and vs. Cripple…
Or I could go, 4/5/5/0/0 – for potentially +30%, Endo + Flanking + High-Health
+5% for boon is out of reach in terms of trait investment.

The extra power isn’t going to make up for a 10% damage, so perfect world straight damage build we’re probably better off not taking Predator’s since we can potentially get better return on opportunity cost.

It’s a little unique in that it blanket raises pet damage. Maybe if I was going for a Pet Might stacking build, I’d take it?

I’d love for a rune / stat swap system… that’s one step closer to build templates.

WTB Unbreakable Transmutation Locket

I’m currently leveling an alt and feeling the frustration here. Many of the trait unlock requirements aren’t really achievable when you have enough points to enable the trait skill.

I’d like to see the trait unlocks in a similar manner to Personal / Living Story quests. One quest line per skill line, where the quest steps are reasonably achievable to start around level 20 to unlock minor traits, and challenging to a lvl 80 at the grandmaster level. These would run as a parallel to the personal story, like training missions to seek out trainers, hostile creatures to learn skills from, or skill artificats, and what not.

The unlocks could be organized then so that they make sense in a story progression, rather than random events attached to skills. This would also ensure that the trait challenges are level appropriate for that tier.

It’s not a vine, it’s a cutting.

The priory intends to stick toothpicks in it and suspend it in a cup of water in an attempt to grow their own Elder Dragon.