Guild Wars 2

I’ve played GW2 since launch on my previous PC, but took a break about a year ago. Since then I have a new PC (running Win10 instead of the previous Win7). Recently came back to the game in advance of PoF. Overall, I have found GW2 over the years to be a very stable and well-coded game (well, friends of mine who know more about coding have told me so). Crashes have always been super-rare for me.

I’ve been having sporadic issues over the past week with logging in and having the character select music play, but the screen stays black (I’ve given it over 10 minutes to make sure it wasn’t just network lag or anything, but the screen never changed from black). I can still see the mouse cursor over the black screen, and it is responsive. But when I try to alt-tab away, or ctrl-alt-del to bring up the Task Manager, it’s like the non-responsive GW2 window is still there as a clear overlay to the screen. It prevents me from actually clicking on or interacting with any other windows on the screen, even though I can see them. In the end, I always have to restart my PC to get things back to normal.

I haven’t yet needed to open a support ticket, because in each case, when I’ve restarted the PC, I’ve run the -repair option on the GW2 executable, and after that the game has loaded up without incident. But I wanted to post about it, in case this matches with other people’s experiences, or if it would help the devs troubleshoot the issues.

I don’t know what the track names are, but there is a particular musical cue that plays in Verdant Brink during the day….and oh, wow, is it gorgeous!!!! I agree with all of the compliments shared so far for the composers of HoT….they did an amazing job!!!

Woot, thanks for the head’s up!

ANet, you guys are universally awesome. While I know you’re not going to please everyone with this change (see the above thread for evidence), the mere fact that you continue to listen to the community and were willing to make a change so quickly after the HoT launch is a credit to your flexibility and your understanding of the community you’ve created. Many kudos!

Nevermind, ignore this post. It helps to read the skill descriptions COMPLETELY before posting a bug that isn’t really a bug. :P My apologies!!!

Thanks, Vertixico, I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to try in VB! Now if we can just find those bulls…

It’s not just Predator, several of the new legendary precursor collections are bugged in some way. Be patient, there are a lot of bugs to correct with HoT, I’m sure these will be seen to eventually.

I also reported a bug about the seven ambient mosquitos that I killed (across several different maps) not counting for this collection. AND I have no idea where to look for the wild bull.

Clearly not a Firefly/Serenity fan.

Also, if you were trying for no spoilers, big fail on the thread title…I’d honestly recommend you change it (if it will let you).

Fair point, roman

Just noticed this myself and went searching for an answer on the forum.

It does seem a bit limiting that only the “power” and “condition damage” specs are available underwater, but neither of the durable/support specs are. Haven’t gotten to try Glint yet, but if that’s also unavailable underwater (as someone above said), that’s even more disappointing.

However, from my perspective, that’s a separate issue from the problem of legends not automatically swapping from land to water setups when entering the water, and vice-versa. I agree, it should be exactly like Ranger pets, or the utility skill setups that all other classes use. Set up an underwater build once, and every time you go underwater, the game automatically equips those legends & utilities. Same when you go back on land.

Honestly, this “missing feature” feels very much like a bug (or something someone forgot to include in the code). As opposed to the limits on which legends will work underwater, which could be a “feature” (similar to how any utility or elite skill could be designated “land-only” on another class). We may not love the limitations, but I do think they make sense. A centaur is very land-based, as is a dwarf. Glint, however….one would think that a magic dragon would require the laws of physics to bend slightly…

Not to be a downer, but I hope I never, ever hear or have to deal with Dougal again. In my opinion, that first novel was the worst (depressing, poorly written, just not fun to read), and I never liked Dougal’s character. He was wooden and uninteresting. The second novel (Edge of Destiny) was light-years more fun and and better-written. Therefore I’m hoping that we get to fight alongside the Destiny’s Edge characters whenever we get to take down Mordremoth. I like Braham, Rox, Taimi and the other new characters a lot, but I was disappointed that DE didn’t have more of a role in the past two Living Story seasons.

So please, for the love of all that’s fluffy, NEVER bring back Dougal!!!!

I have no idea if this counts as “bug” or not, but figured I’d post just in case.

Playing a Charr revenant in VB (doing defend events at night), I was feeling sometimes like my skills weren’t hitting enemies. Sometimes I could tell they were hitting (seeing dmg numbers, enemy health bars going down, etc.), but randomly I would see a skill animation go off, but without any of the above indicators that I was hitting. This seemed to happy mostly with Sword #3 (the multi-teleport-hit skill), which autotargets, so there shouldn’t be an issue of range.

That sounds very cool…like something that would make this map more fun to explore for me! I remember the epic Black Moa scavenger hunt with nostalgia, too.

I didn’t miss any of that, actually. I’m also very aware of why Orr is “heart”-less, since I’ve been around since GW1 and followed the development of GW2 since the beginning (even the dry years when they told us nothing). ;-)

I was just hoping that the new zones would still be enjoyable for me despite the similarity to areas I didn’t like. And to be fair, there WERE things about those zones I liked! Visually I liked how they brought a new feel to the game (we didn’t really have any natural desert environments before), and I liked the living story episodes that led characters through the new zones. I just didn’t like their WvW-like cycling event chains. It goes all the way back to the GW2 “manifesto” video, where they said they wanted players to feel like their actions in the game world really mattered (“save a village from centaurs and it stays saved,” or something to that effect). I feel like that sense of overall progress has been lost with the rapid event cycles in the newer zones. Honestly, events cycle in ALL the zones, but the addition of renown hearts helped to mitigate that sense of failing to make permanent progress. And the cycles of events seem to be much quicker in the new zones than the original ones.

I guess it seems to me that GW2 launched with three very distinct and separate game modes by design: PvE, PvP, and WvW; but more and more over time, the devs are trying to make PvE feel and play almost exactly like WvW. And for those who enjoy WvW, I’m sure that’s not a problem. But personally that’s always been my least favorite game mode, so I’m not very happy. To each their own, of course. :-)

The thing is, Zenith, I don’t have an issue with dynamic events in and of themselves. They can be really fun content, and they can provide a lot of rewards to players.

My issue is when those events are being relied upon as the ONLY engaging content in the zone. It wouldn’t matter if Anet had 1,000 top-tier devs working on content for that zone…if all they are adding is more DE’s, the zone will still end up feeling repetitive and grindy, with no sense of progression or accomplishment because the event sequence resets every hour or two.

Bridget Morrigan.1752:

The enemies are dense. Which is fine if you’re going for “hard” content, but kind of just feels like work and not play. I mean, I can still run through stuff, that’s not really the issue, but it’s kind of taken the joy out of exploring the map for the map’s sake. I’ve always been one of those PvE-ers that liked going through each map to see what it looks like and see what each little pocket of story is, but this is like enemy, enemy enemy without history, context, meaning. It looks like there should be some meaning, but I’m not finding it. I’d like to know where the centaurs went, where the druids are, are there pockets of White Mantle running around? I know this is supposed to be enemy territory, but where are the handfuls of asura studying dangerous things? What do the old strange buildings mean? Where are some of the old ruins? So much of GW2 maps were satisfying to GW1 players because of the layer of history and story that ran through them all, plus hints of new things to come. Here…well, maybe there is that stuff, but I’ve got too many enemies in my aggro bubble to pay attention to it if there is. And I think maybe there isn’t.

THIS. EXACTLY THIS. You explained my dissatisfaction with this map beautifully. It’s a lovely shell filled with movement and noise, but no depth, no soul. Previous areas of GW2 (prior to Dry Top & Silverwastes, that is) always felt very realistic to me, because there were those layers of history, and lots of renown hearts, events & just NPC’s to give you a sense of all the personal details that add up to a world that feels like it’s alive.

Verdant Brink is vibrant, but it’s not alive.

I should preface this by saying that I did NOT explore any of the VB area available in the first BWE, so I have no masteries or experience with the zone to carry over to this weekend.

That being said, I am EXTREMELY disappointed with the design and overall feel of the portions of VB we can access this weekend. I’m a PvE player through and through, and I’ve spent years now exploring and re-exploring the world of GW2 on over 20 characters (alt-oholic), and loving it. I’ve tried and utterly failed to love what I’ve seen so far of Verdant Brink. I’ll try to avoid being long-winded by bullet-pointing my thoughts.

PROS:
+ Visual aesthetic (overall pretty to look at)
+ Creative new enemy types that fit into the aesthetic of the map (love to hate the pocket raptors!)
+ I didn’t get to try out any Adventures yet, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and call them a positive feature for now, until I can experience them for myself

SO-SO (NEITHER GOOD NOR BAD):

• Map verticality. Annoying to me (I’m a great 2D thinker but not a great 3D thinker), but it’s different & interesting, and I’ll probably get used to it.

CONS:
- Scenery is visually too “busy,” hard to sort out where to go & what is going on
- Reliance on repeating event chains, like a horrible mashup of the worst parts of Dry Top & Silverwastes
- Seemed to be a lack of random enemy mobs NOT associated with events (I realize that this could have been the result of so many people in the map…hard to say)
- No renown hearts or vistas (that I found) to give a sense of “accomplishment” about progressively exploring the map…those are my favorite parts of exploring GW2 :-(
- Minimap is almost useless for figuring out how to get from point A to point B, due to the map’s verticality
- All the narrow paths in many areas seemed very linear, and made me feel almost claustrophobic
- Like DT & SW, map design itself seems to punish solo exploration (unless you happen upon a zerg)

My biggest complaint is the similarity to Dry Top & Silverwastes, and the lack of “exploration benchmarks” in the form of hearts and vistas. It basically includes everything I hated about the newer zones (sandstorm timer is like the day/night timer in VB, and the revolving door of events, very WvW style, is like SW…and I hated all those things!), and leaves out everything I’ve loved about exploring GW2 for the past 3 years (hearts & vistas). I’m aware that many people may disagree with me, but personally I’m saddened by what feels like a lost opportunity to expand upon the game I’ve loved for years.

I realize that the Orr zones are also similar to these features, so maybe this is just Anet’s vision of high-level content, and if so, I suppose that’s been consistent from day one. If so, I guess it’s just not for me. :-( I’m sure I’ll love playing a Revenant or two through the base game like I have all my other characters, but I was really looking forward to some new scenery that would give me the same old fun!

Um, guys? The OP was just giving his feedback on the BWE, like all the rest of us.

You can disagree with him, and that’s fine, but it’s really not cool to jump all over him and assume he can’t play just because his opinion is different than yours. You know nothing about his build, what class he’s running, or even what part of the BWE content he was playing when he posted this feedback.

The devs will weigh all the feedback they receive, not just one side.

I had to post this right away, because I’m really excited to report that for me, the Dragonhunter elite spec is ACTUALLY FUN NOW!!!!! I was very disappointed by this spec last BWE, so I was nervous to try it again. I’ll be completely honest, I don’t know what has been changed. But my overall impression is, this is the new “tactical spec” for GW2. Everything about the new weapon & skills seem designed to make the player really think ahead about enemy encounters, and use positioning to their utmost advantage. LOVE IT.

Here’s how things feel now:

Longbow:

1. feels like “more” than a typical autoattack, what with the need for careful positioning for a “bounce,” and does appropriate damage for an autoattack. Love the audio cue for when a “bounce” successfully happens.
2. is okay, might want to increase the damage a little bit to make the charge-up time feel more “worth it” when the damage is compared to #1. Lovely animation!
3. feels a little weak for a skill halfway across the bar, but clearly its use is more control than dps, so I’m okay with it. Again, the abilities of the skill feel tactical, and I LOVE that it’s a “landing strip” ground-targeted skill, rather than autotargeted!
4. is just a thing of beauty. Visually, tactically & in terms of damage, it is just beautiful. Don’t change a thing here!!!!!
5. has awesomeness roughly equal to that of #4. I really love the visual animation for the “monster pen,” and it gives the same satisfaction as good old staff #5 always has, of watching enemies lick glass and bounce off. Haven’t tested it enough to see if it can trap multiple enemies at once, but I hope so (maybe with a limit of 3 or something?).

I think the cooldown on the trait that adds knockback to longbow skills (GM: Heavy Light) could be a bit shorter. Right now it kicks off very randomly once or twice during encounters with a 10 sec cooldown…if the cooldown were a bit shorter (3-5 sec?), or if it had NO cooldown but was only triggered by one longbow skill (I’d suggest #3 perhaps?), I think it could be used more deliberately, and fit in better with the spec’s overall tactical feel.

Traps:
Overall, traps just somehow feel more fun and useful than in the previous BWE. I came away from them last time feeling underwhelmed, but this time I can really see their potential to change the Guardian into something much more tactical (yes, I keep using that same word….not sure how else to explain it).

Purification: Haven’t really used this enough to have a clear opinion yet

Procession of Blades: The balance between the duration of the trap (once it’s triggered) and the duration of the cooldown seems a bit off. It’s a long wait to re-use the skill for only a VERY brief moment of usefulness. Maybe consider doubling the animation (having the blades spin around twice) to increase the duration of the trap. It would be okay to decrease the damage somewhat to balance out a longer duration, IMHO.

Test of Faith: This one is great. It’s actually in comparison to this that PoB feel too short. Cripple works well, damage seems balanced, and nice animation.

Light’s Judgment: The ability to lay down so much vulnerability is really nice. Also very pretty, although I could see it adding a lot to the unpleasant “visual noise” of a busy combat situation. Duration felt good.

Dragon’s Maw: Again, fits in swimmingly with the tactical focus of the spec. Was able to “suck in” 4 grizzly bears at once, then hit them with PoB and Longbow #4…..just gorgeous. Can’t wait to figure out the timing to use it together with Longbow #5 to increase the “stuck” time for enemies inside.

One trait suggestion: swap the positions of Dulled Senses and Zealot’s Aggression within the trait line. Dulled Senses has great synergy with Heavy Light, but when forced to choose between DS and Hunter’s Determination, HD will win out every time. Allow us the chance to choose both for a really cripple-heavy build!

Ganathar.4956:

The effectiveness and the fun factor of an elite spec do not depend on the amount of weapon skills that you can obtain. If that was the case, Elementalist would actually be in an amazing position with 8 weapon skills on warhorn, even though it is an offhand. Reaper also gets 5 weapon skills from GS and 5 from the new deathshroud. That must be the best elite spec, right?

Well… If you look at the feedback in these forums, you will see that Chronomancer, the spec with the least weapon skills, is the best so far. This is because the functionality of the new class mechanics and the trait lines are by far more important. When you trait into an elite spec, you are forced to take the traits and the class mechanic, while you don’t actually have to use the utilities or the weapon.

Imo, having a one-handed weapon does have advantages besides the shortcoming that you mentioned. It may have less skills, but it has more potential for combinations because you can use it with another weapon of your choice. My only gripe with all of this is that Anet decided to add no main hand weapons whatsoever, if the datamines are to be believed. What’s wrong with main hands? Is there some sort of design problem?

Edit: looks like some posters beat me to it with some of my points

Obviously, I’m not advocating new weapon options just for the sake of numbers…you are correct in that the implementation and synergy of any new weapon option is more important. And I will also say that I believe ALL of the new elite specs we’ve seen (including Chronomancer!) could use some serious work on their trait lines.

However, I’m just reporting my opinion based on my short time trying out each new elite spec this weekend. While they are all clearly works in progress, I found the Tempest and Chronomancer to be largely “more of the same”….meaning that the classes did not feel sufficiently different from the their core classes to be really effective as elite specs. As I’ve said several times, it felt like playing with new toys in the same old toybox. For all their flaws, Reaper and Dragonhunter felt like I was playing a different class that felt somewhat familiar. Reaper was still a necro, but different. Would Tempest/Chrono be effective core specs? Sure, possibly, with a few tweaks. Are they worth being seen as something “special” or “elite?” No. And that’s the disparity I’m making this suggestion to address.

Diovid.9506:

1. This has been brought up by many others already.

2. The chronomancer is a good place already even without a new main-hand weapon.

3. The tempest is not the best place it could be but that is not due to lacking a new main-hand weapon.

4. The dragonhunter and reaper are not in a better place than the chronomancer.

5. Unlike the reaper and dragonhunter, the chronomancer and tempest actually have more skills available to them at the same time than their base classes. In the case of the chronomancer this is due to their F5, in the case of the tempest this is due to Overloads.

6. The tempest’s warhorn doesn’t give 2 new skills like the off-hand of most profession but 8 new skills due to attunements.

7. Giving a main hand and an off-hand to an elite specialization is actually something entirely different from giving a two-handed weapon to an elite specialization because the amount of weapon-set combinations with a main-hand and off-hand is much higher (i.e. they can be combined with eachother but also with core weapons). Thus the balance of a new main-hand + off-hand is more complex than the balance of a new two-handed weapon.

1. I stated in my original post that I suspected that would be the case; I still want my opinion to be heard.

2. Chronomancer is in a “good” place, yes, but it doesn’t feel appreciably different than a core mesmer. That’s one thing that I think an additional weapon would improve.

3. I disagree; I think one reason the Tempest isn’t where it could be is because the existing mainhand weapons of the Ele don’t entirely lend themselves to the new playstyle introduced by overloading attunements. Dagger ele’s are better off just staying dagger ele’s (they are in a very good place!), and scepter ele’s aren’t as well suited to the upfront playstyle needed to make good use of overloading.

4. Agreed. I think that DH and Reaper also need work, but they are sufficiently diverse from their original core classes that the need is more of tweaking skills & traits than adding new utility.

5. This is true, Mesmer shatters and Ele overloads are in addition to existing skills & class mechanics, rather than reworks/replacements of existing mechanics like the changes to DH virtues and Reaper shroud. This doesn’t address my other concerns, however, which is that elite specs are supposed to make fundamental changes to how each class plays, not just add new toys to the toybox.

6. Admitted and agreed, I hadn’t thought of it this way when I made my original post.

7. I agree, the depth and complexity of adding split weapons sets to a class is much greater. That’s actually one of my points in favor of this suggestion, because I believe that those two classes in particular could benefit from having the additional gameplay options that a new mainhand weapon would provide. Is it more work for the devs? Without a doubt! Is it worth it to players and to these classes? Absolutely!

Gray.9041:

with mesmer, you might have a point. except that Chronomancer plays really well.

with elementalist, you’re forgetting that while all other classes get 5 skills, ele gets 8. the attunement system means an elementalist weapon is worth 4 similar weapons on any other class. Ele did get the short end of the stick, but not because of fewer (actually more) weapon skills.

This is a fair point that I hadn’t considered. Although, I still think that adding another mainhand weapon for Ele would unlock so much new potential for the class, of which Warhorn & overloading attunements have only scratched the surface.

I really like this suggestion. I mean, think about it…the core systems of this game have been through a number of revisions since release, and the ones that have been successful (yes, I’m avoiding look at you, Mr. Complete-World-Exploration-to-Unlock-Traits!) are the ones that have simplified and slimmed down the game experience, leaving us free to just enjoy playing in this lovely world.

Boosters? First there were a bunch. Then a few more. Then there was dust that made many into two, and now all of that is by the wayside, and there are a total of, what, three different boosters I think?

Skill points? First you only got them from skill challenges in the world. Then from challenges and level-up. Now we get so many from level-ups that there’s no need to do the hero challenges in the world unless you’re a completionist (which I am).

Weapon skill unlocks, PvP skins, PvP titles/progression/rewards, WvW skills….all of these things have gone through multiple iterations and eventually come out LESS complicated than they started.

TL;DR – I agree with the original poster 100%, and think that his suggestion is very much in line with how the design philosophy of GW2 appears to have evolved over time.

I have been thinking about this for a while, and decided to post my thoughts. Apologies if this has already been said by others!

I think there is an inherent disparity in the new weapons enabled for elite specializations. Here are the elite weapons we know of so far:
Warrior: ?
Guardian: Longbow (2 handed)
Revenant: ?
Engineer: Hammer (2 handed) this is not formally announced, but a pretty sure bet
Thief: ???
Ranger: Staff (2 handed)
Elementalist: Warhorn (offhand)
Necromancer: Greatsword (2 handed)
Mesmer: Shield (offhand)

I’m assuming it’s clear that the Elementalist and Mesmer have gotten the short end of the stick here. Every other announced profession is getting an entire new weapon skill set (5 skills total) from a two-handed weapon, while the poor Ele and Mezzy get just two skills from a new offhand weapon. Although there are still 3 elite specs unannounced, this is pretty clearly unequal.

My suggestion is, why not ALSO give Ele and Mezzy each a new mainhand weapon? I really like what I got to see of the Tempest and Chronomancer skills during BWE1, but I also have seen a number of posts that state exactly how I felt when I played these classes: these new specs are fun to play, but don’t feel like they make sweeping changes to the core class…in other words, it feels a lot like playing a core Elementalist or Mesmer, just with a few more toys in the toybox.

My specific suggestions:
1. Sword for Elementalist. I think this could end up synergizing really well with the up-front melee focus of the new warhorn and overload class mechanics. It could be an alternate melee option alongside the mainhand dagger, but perhaps with more mobility/defense skills built in (I’m thinking skills along the lines of Mesmer sword #2 and Ranger sword #3), to avoid simply replicating the full-on melee DPS of the existing dagger skill set. It would also give a broader array of weapon combinations for the Ele, which is now blessed with 3 offhand weapons and only 2 mainhand ones.

2. Mace for Mesmer. I’m specifically envisioning this as either a super-defensive mainhand choice (similar to Guardian mace), or as a scaled-down version of Revenant’s hammer (that is, a traditionally melee weapon that is instead used in a ranged/thrown way). I don’t know why, but there’s something oddly appealing to me about the idea of a Mesmer throwing a big stick at an enemy and summoning a clone next to the target when the thrown mace hits them. Plus, it would give a better mainhand ranged option than the scepter, which is a pretty niche weapon only useful for specific builds. And again, this would somewhat even out the Mesmer’s tendency to have far more offhand weapons (pistol, focus, torch, sword, and now shield) than mainhand ones (sword, scepter).

TL;DR – It would be more fun and more fair if ALL professions’ elite specs allowed access to a total of 5 new weapon skills, either through two-handed weapons, or a combination of mainhand and offhand weapons. Tempest with mainhand sword and Chronomancer with mainhand mace would be awesomesauce.

Thoughts?

Loki.4871:

Whining time: I don’t like how Sword skill III ‘holds’ the camera back while you teleport around. It can be a bit disorientating, because you watch yourself in the distance and then the camera moves over to you, so I found myself looking the ‘wrong’ way or even in the ‘wrong’ place to where I expected.

With respect, I have to completely disagree with this comment….I LOVEDLOVEDLOVED how Revenant sword #3 worked with the camera. Somehow having my perspective stay where my character originally was made the image of my character teleporting among a small group of enemies and hitting everything in sight feel even more kitten than it would have otherwise. Please keep this camera setup!!!!

I’m bummed that I only got to play in the beta for a few hours (stupid RL), but wanted to give my feedback. Keep in mind, this was my first experience with HoT content, and I didn’t go to VB at all.

Revenant:
This class is just FUN. Took me a little while to get used to (there’s a reason we don’t normally get to start characters at lvl 80…), but then really liked it. I found it a little more difficult to love the mace out of all the weapon choices…it just didn’t feel as unique or as fun as the other weapons. I liked it a bit better once I split up the swords though (using M/S & S/A instead of M/A & S/S). It’s clear that some balancing is still needed (sword skill #3 was super fun and ridiculously OP….I enjoyed it while I could, because I foresee a damage nerf in future betas!), but overall the class is coming together. There was no real explanation of the energy stat, however, so that was somewhat confusing. I had some issues with Sword skill #4 not being able to kick off its secondary effect…it felt broken to me, but it also could have been me not understanding how to trigger the secondary skill to become useable.

Tempest: Pretty fun! I see a lot of people saying it’s underpowered, and I agree that the overcharge cast times need to be reduced a bit, but I had more fun in 10 minutes on a Tempest than in all the other times I’ve played an Ele in the past few years. It’s just never been a class that suits me well, and I’m hopeful I could enjoy it a lot more with this new spec. Warhorn skills were pretty universally fun. I liked all the shouts EXCEPT the elite one….I honestly didn’t see it do very much, since it’s primarily a party buff. I usually prefer to see elite skills either (1) make a massive temporary change in how my character plays, or (2) take huge chunks off enemies’ life bars. This one kind of did neither, and it fell a bit flat as a result. I can’t remember any feedback about the trait line at this point.

Reaper: Awesomesauce on a stick. I really enjoyed the verbal element of shouting death threats at enemies!! ;D I found the GS skills a bit non-intuitive, honestly, but still had fun playing around with it. It was almost like GS skill #2 should be moved to a different slot…? I dunno, but that skill in particular felt weird, even though I know it probably should have felt powerful. The trait line was a bit odd…can’t remember in more detail than that, sorry. The update to Death Shroud was VERY welcome!!!!! I’ve always hated DS, which is a bit part of me not playing necro very often, but this updated version felt meaty and terrifying….I actually felt rewarded for becoming a black death spirit. ;D

Chronomancer: My existing mesmer is going to ROCK that shield and those wells!!!! Darn you, ANet for making me learn a whole new mezzy build!!! It was a really cool experience when I realized I had forgotten to open one of the gear boxes on my test mesmer, and had equipped the shield without a mainhand weapon….I was still able to kick Mordrem tail using just the shield, the wells & the phantasm from the shield skill #4. Felt like a kitten!!! Trait line seemed overly slanted towards shatter builds, which I guess sort of makes sense given the addition of the 5th shatter skill, but for those of us who don’t love to shatter, it was hard to work out how to integrate the CM trait line in with other lines that cater to perma-illusions….under those circumstances, the CM trait line kind of shoved you into a very specific set of traits. It would be nice to see only one shatter-related trait per category, for more build variety.

Dragonhunter: I was actually pretty disappointed with this elite spec. Guardian is an all-time favorite class of mine, and I really wanted this spec to rock….but it didn’t. The longbow skills felt underwhelming. For me, it seemed like a combination of low damage and too many “utility” skills on the weapon (if that makes sense). Plus the speed of the hits paled next to the recent speed buff ranger longbows got. The traps were alright, but they didn’t seem different enough from each other for me to even remember what all of them were. It was just “heal trap” and five “damage traps.” Finally, I found the trait line REALLY frustrating. I’m used to guardians having incredible synergy among their trait lines, and while the DH trait line was okay, I didn’t really see it combining and synergizing well with any two of the existing lines. I think this spec really needs to be looked at again on a number of levels.

I have been wondering about this for a while now. Why do so few of the Black Lion weapon skin sets include underwater weapon skins? I know the chaos set does, but that’s almost the only one (and I think it IS the only one still regularly available for purchase with tickets). Am I really in the minority for liking to have my weapons all “match?” It makes me a little crazy that I can have a lovely set of rare weapon skins on land, but then a mis-matched underwater set. Is there any chance we could ever see an update that goes back and adds spear/trident/harpoon gun skins for Lovestruck, Tempest, Pact Fleet, and all the other skin sets that lack them?

And before people object, yes, I’m aware that would make the achievements for complete sets that much harder to get. And since I already know I will never have enough tickets to complete any/all of these sets, I don’t much care. I care more about having access to weapons I will USE with my characters.

Here’s hoping we can see some underwater skins for these sets someday?

BigfootArisen.6509:

Katai.6240:

The requirements for the early traits are a bit too harsh. By the time you get your first Major Trait slot, I think you should have at least 6 different traits unlocked just for playing the game up to that point.

Just giving a point as they are now every 5 levels starting at 15 and going back to 40 Master and 60 Grandmaster would be perfect. Make adept traits unlock in a reasonable manner and the system would be fine. Great, even.

This. This exactly.

I’ve played with the new trait system for a few weeks now, wanting to give it a fair shake before making up my mind. I agree with most of the feedback here. To summarize:

- Some of the new tier III traits are awesome. Others are downright dumb, and seem more appropriate to tier I or tier II. Some are clearly in the wrong trait lines, making them impossible to effectively use in builds. I have the most experience with Guardian, so I’ll just point out that people might actually be able to use Amplified Wrath if it were in the Radiance line with ALL THE OTHER BURNING-RELATED TRAITS. That’s just one example, there are lots more. I know I’m not alone in feeling like Grandmaster traits should be pretty universally awesome (even borderline game-breaking) to make it a really hard choice, and something to focus a build around.

- Making us wait for traits until level 30 makes the levels 20-30 EVEN MORE of a grind than they were before (and that’s always been the “grindiest” part of any character leveling, imho).

- Trait points now come too infrequently at low/midrange levels for me to feel rewarded by them.

- The exploration requirements for tier I traits are far, far too difficult. It honestly makes me wonder if there was an error in the update, they are so far out of whack. I also have to add, I LOVE exploring in this game. Map completion is one of my favorite activities, and I try to do everything in a map (not just for completion, but champ events, etc.). And with that being my favorite part of the game, this system is too harsh for me. Now, 100% exploration of Queensale, Snowden’s or Metrica for a tier I trait? Sure. But not of Blazeridge, which puts a tier I trait out of my reach until at least 15 levels later.

- Unlike many people here, I do want to point out that I LIKE the idea of rewarding world exploration with additional character-specific unlocks. Of course, I’m a dedicated explorer, so naturally I would like to be more rewarded for doing what I enjoy. But I’m seriously questioning whether traits were the right choice for that reward, and even if they were a good choice, the way this was implemented initially was very poorly thought through. I feel like character development has suddenly been restricted with this ridiculously elaborate and multi-tiered bottleneck, where before it felt smooth and organic.

[FINAL SUGGESTION]
Make trait points 1 per every 4 levels starting at level 24 (assuming I did that math correctly). Revert Master traits to open at level 40 and Grandmaster at level 60. Adjust the exploration requirements for major traits so that Tier I traits can all be acquired by doing activities (exploration, dungeons, events, etc.) in zones under level 40. Tier II traits unlock in zones under level 60. Tier III traits unlock in zones under level 80. Note that these breakpoints now perfectly match up with the Master/Grandmaster unlock levels! Keep the no-cost trait resets, since the economy is now balanced around that. And for the love of all that’s fluffy, re-think which of the new traits is in which line, and buff up the ones that aren’t as impressive so they are worth buying a full line of traits to get them.

Honestly, I don’t believe LA should be rebuilt. I think it should become a new explorable zone where we can continue to fight Aetherblade/Molten/Toxic foes. I say that mostly for emotional reasons….in that I think it would cheapen the impact of a Living Story to say that it can be easily undone once the “story” itself is told. I think that players need to be shown that this world is truly LIVING, in that it grows and changes and makes mistakes and constantly becomes something it didn’t used to be….and in real life, what is done cannot be undone. It can be built upon, but never undone. Can a 30-year-old “undo” 10 years of growth and change and become his 20-year-old self again? Clearly, that would be silly (though some people might think it sounds wonderful, I suppose…..personally I wouldn’t do something like that for the world, and I’m older than 30!).

Does the game need a central hub city for players to congregate in? Absolutely. Does that city have to be LA, or even located in the current map location of LA? Not necessarily. I think it would be amazing for the devs to make the really BOLD choice to continue to evolve this world in new directions, not just “threaten” it with change only to undo it a short time later, like some meaningless sitcom where every problem ever imagined can be wrapped up with a neat little bow in 22 minutes….

I don’t post often, but I wanted to chip in my $.02 on this new armor set.

I kind of hate it.

And yes, I know what the people who like it will say: just don’t buy it if I don’t like it (I won’t). But hear me out.

I don’t mind the blue skin tone, and the armor design itself is lovely. What irritates me about this set is that it takes away everything that makes my GW2 characters UNIQUE. If the armor just dyed my character’s skin blue, that would be one thing, but it completely eradicates their face and uniqueness by replacing it with a textureless default model. It would be like replacing one of the family members at the dinner table with a department store mannequin. Which, needless to say, would be weird and off-putting. ;P

I wouldn’t mind previewing a version that lacked the blue mannequin parts, because I love the Zodiac weapon set and would adore having a similar armor set for my guardian who wields those weapons. But I worked very long and kitten that sylvari guardian….I love the way she looks and want to show that off to myself and others when I play her. I don’t want to look like every other female sylvari character using that armor, no matter how pretty it might be. To me, that defeats the whole point of playing a game like this, which allows us to express ourselves through highly unique and customizeable “alter egos” in Tyria.

climbs down off soapbox Thank you for listening.

Some guildies and I were running a fractal earlier tonight, and got the Grawl on round 2. We were doing really well until the shield went down on the Grawl Shaman. I guess I got a little too enthusiastic in getting to the shaman to start taking him down, because my character (a Norn guardian) somehow clipped through the walkway of the shaman’s altar and ended up stuck inside the rock.

I was able to contribute to the fight with short-range skills, because the shaman was right next to me, but that also prevented my sword #2 teleport from bringing me OUT of the rock…..because I was already right next to the shaman. Once he was down, I even tried jumping into the lava below, but couldn’t get out of the rock no matter what I tried.

The rest of the party went to take on the Elemental boss without me, but I was pretty bummed about missing the chests for the rest of that round. Then I realized…..I still had an unopened gift from Scarlet sitting in my inbox!

I’m sure you can see where this is going. Grabbed the present from my mail, popped it, and promptly died…..which allowed me to continue from a checkpoint and finish the rest of the round.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Scarlet Briar saved my life (sort of) by trying to kill me. Guess she’s good for something after all. I like to think that she’s sitting in her Fortress of Solitude (or wherever she hangs out when she’s not terrorizing Tyria) gnashing her teeth in fury because her evil plan backfired so horribly.

I guess I had an opposite issue….I noted some progress on my survivor achievement an hour or so ago, as I had just hit 200,000 (it popped up on the screen and notified me). I’ve never put any effort into this title, so I was a bit pleased.

Then just a minute ago, I finished the title by hitting 500,000 (2nd of 2 tiers). Keep in mind, those two notifications only occurred about an hour apart (probably less), and I’m a lvl 80 character who was going back and mapping Metrica Province at the time. I find it HIGHLY unlikely that I earned 300,000 XP in a starter zone within an hour or less, even with rewards scaling up slightly for me being much higher level. I’m grateful for the achievement being complete, but I’m also left feeling like I didn’t really earn it.

This event still seems to not work as intended. We got to the same point, the Veteran Harpy Matriarch’s orange health bar under the quest description got to 50%, and then she disappeared and did not return.

I noticed, however, that the red health bar above the Veteran Harpy Matriarch’s head during the battle (before she disappeared) actually went from full to zero (dead) before she disappeared. So perhaps it’s an issue where the event thinks she has more health than she actually does? So that when the VHM dies, the event doesn’t realize she’s been killed?

Yeah, I know, just a shot in the dark. But the event IS still broken.

I noted this issue today (and have once in the past, perhaps a month and a half ago). I went searching for a thread about it just to make sure it wasn’t related to the increased vertical FOV thing I’m testing out…

I don’t PvP, so it’s a minor annoyance, but it’s definitely annoying, as it makes it nearly impossible to target a specific enemy when there are several in front of me.

I’m not sure my issue is the same as the OP, but I’ve been having similar issues over the past few days. I get regular (like, every 5 minutes) disconnects from the server. Usually error 7 or error 58. I have followed the procedure to open the required ports for the game. Maybe 1 out of every 4 disconnects results in (or is caused by?) my entire home’s internet connection going down for a minute or two. The router itself doesn’t go down or restart, because the home network stays up, but the connection from our home network to the internet goes down.

I’m curious to know what ISP the original poster is using? I’m on AT&T DSL broadband, and we’ve been wrestling with them for several weeks ever since we moved to another state and transferred our service. At this point I honestly don’t know whether the issue is our internet service or GW2….this is the only MMO that I play, and by far the most intensive internet use I have, so it could be a service issue that only becomes obvious during the intensive internet use by GW2, or it could be a problem caused by GW2 itself.

Can anyone help me shed light on this? It’s maddening to be effectively unable to play because I can only stay logged in for a few minutes before getting booted back to desktop and having to start over. And during the first holiday event, too!!!

This guy still doesn’t allow trading post access. He doesn’t even show a “press F to talk” prompt, the prompts I see when I stand next to him are either from the merchant NPC to Jaklan’s right, or the Seraph guard to his left. Hope this can get fixed soon!

I found a strange graphical bug in Blazeridge Steppes. The NPC’s (merchant and others) at the Kinda Fort waypoint are “duplicated.” There seems to be roughly 4 or 5 copies of each NPC standing inside of one another. I’ve linked a screenshot showing the glitch.

http://flic.kr/p/dbLbsQ

Yoda, sometimes I’ve noticed that the names of my pets revert back to their original “Juvenile [Animal Name]” instead of the names I’ve given them. I can’t explain when or why this happens for sure, but it often seems to happen when I’ve been swapping different pets in and out of my active pet slots.

Your pet names should have always been blue after you charmed them, though. Blue is the text color used for members of your current party, and since your pet is ALWAYS a party member, that’s the color they ought to be. I think green names are used for uncharmed juvenile animals because that’s the color used for a non-hostile NPC.

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere…I tried searching for “gathering” and found hundreds of threads, but couldn’t find this referenced anywhere.

I remember before launch one of the devs mentioning that there are plant “farms” in each explorable map, which are clusters of roughly 7 gathering nodes for a single kind of vegetable in close proximity. I have found several of these in game (strawberries in Snowden Drifts, lettuce in Queensdale, the floating farm in Metrica Province, etc.).

My question is this: perhaps 2-3 real world days ago, one of my characters gathered all of the lettuce nodes in the field outside of Beetletun. Ever since then, NONE of my characters have been able to gather any of those nodes again. Now, I understand that there are respawn timers on gathering nodes, but I thought that (a) the respawn times were typically measured in hours, not days, and (b) the respawns were character-specific, not account specific.

Obviously I may be misunderstanding how the respawns work, but it seems odd that none of my other characters have been able to gather lettuce again for multiple days of playing, despite lots of zoning in and out of the Queensdale map. Anyone have an explanation for this?

The skill challenge in Gendarran Fields, “Defeat Klakka the Brainy Pirate” was not working a short time ago when I was in that map. Klakka was not present on the deck of the half-sunk ship, so I could not interact with him to start the skill challenge, nor fight him to complete it.

Thanks!

Kaveck, I had a similar experience. I just went back to my sylvari necro earlier today, and was playing through personal story (lvl 1-10, white stag). The voiced dialogue for the other NPC’s in conversations played SOMETIMES, but not always. It was about 30% working, 70% not in most conversations. My character’s voiced dialogue always played correctly. As you said, the dialogue text was visible on screen, but the game was silent (and there was no lip-synch, although some hand gestures were apparent) while the other character in the conversation was “speaking.”

I didn’t realize that this was a new bug, I assumed it was unique to the white stag storyline, since this is the first character I’ve gone through that part of the personal story with (my first sylvari chose green knight).

Hope this helps!

Ghertu, I think you underestimate the long-term value (and by that I mean the value of these things over the lifespan of the game) of things like mystic stones, fine transmutation stones, and convenience items (like the bank & trading post access items).

Are any of those things NEEDED to play the game? Of course not. But I suspect that the longer the game is played by more people, the more people are going to start to “depend” on those items to play the game in the way that they want.

Of course, only time will tell for sure.

I’m sure that someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that is the “Commander” icon attached to people who have invested in the squad commander training book for their character. I suspect that this icon is intended to be extra-visible so it can serve its intended purpose in the busy WvW zones.

That said, I agree that the icon can be distracting and immersion-breaking in PvE, although I’ve also seen squads used helpfully in some of the Orr zones that require greater coordination among players to be successful.

I’m equally grateful for the Krytan armor skin, which actually looks like something a “roughing it” ranger would wear into the swamps and mountains of Tyria. I don’t mind the trenchcoat look for medium armor in general, but it seems like nearly every set is a variation on a single visual theme (long coats). The Marksman medium armor set is a second-favorite for the same reason.

I would also like to cast a vote for a heavy armor skin similar to the Elite Templar armor (for warriors) from GW1….something clearly heavy, metal, and protective, but also slim (no skirt-tents!!!) and with elegant curves to it. My female norn warrior really wants to be able to look a little sexy in her heavy armor.

+1 for me, too. I’m reasonably happy with all of my current characters, but I’m not-so-secretly hoping that additional “hair packs” and “face packs” and possibly “tattoo packs” will someday (soon?) be available in the gem store, which would nearly necessitate makeovers for existing characters who want to take advantage of the new looks.

I wouldn’t mind playing a bit more with my warrior’s look, though….she’s the only one I’m still uncertain of, but since she’s made it all the way to level 26, the idea of making minor tweaks isn’t enough to make me want to reroll.

I was also disappointed with the Profane armor and how it discolors dyes. I previewed a Midnight Ice dye on that armor set (a very deep, dark blue-black shade), and it turned to a medium grey on this armor. Deep reds go very light and orange-ish, too. VERY disappointing, especially for an armor set that I paid gems for. I’m hoping that this is just some kind of texture/dye bug, and not an intended aspect of the armor skin?

I played through Timberline Falls for the first time last night. The area seems to lack the polish that the rest of game has (from my experience) received. The depth blur bug has already been reported, but I also encountered the following issues:

a. The heart quest in the Rankor Ruins was….incomplete? The description in the upper right of the screen mentioned being able to repair golems, but there were no golems around to interact with. The only way to complete the heart was to find “artifacts” (typically weapons) laying on the ground and put them into storage crates. The respawn time on these artifacts was absurdly low, leading to a lot of frustrating running around. Finishing that heart for the zone completion reward was a VERY tedious grind, so I’m hoping it gets fixed soon!

c. The norn moot heart (top left corner of the zone) also seemed to be partly bugged. Picking up buckets of water and throwing them on passed-out NPC’s did not advance the heart, nor did it “wake up” the NPC’s, despite the heart description stating that this was one of the tasks for the heart quest. To be fair, I’ve noticed inconsistent results in similar quests in other parts of the world, where throwing water on sleeping NPC’s sometimes does nothing to wake them up or advance the task, so it may be a more widespread issue, but this one was consistently not working.

Hope all this info helps!

Ditto for me, thankfully someone in the zone suggested turning off depth blur, and it removed the issue. The problem really made the textures look poor and low-res, despite me playing on max appearance settings.