Guild Wars 2

Necromancer Elite Specialisation: Defiler

Necromancers that follow the path of the Defiler debilitate their foes with Hexes and a cursed flame, as well as craft weapons out of spectral energy, allowing them to punish their enemies while bolstering their allies’ offensive capabilities.

Mechanic: Hexes

Weapon: Main-Hand Torch

The torch is a mid-range weapon (600 range) focused around manipulating enemy boons and conditions.

Utility Skills: Spirit Weapons

The Command ability of the Spirit weapons consumes a % of the weapons health in exchange for applying a buff to up to five allies around the weapon.

Legendary stuff is being put in Tuesday along with Raids.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/enter-spirit-vale-on-november-17/

Oh how I wish you could dye the CoF armour flames.

The way I see it is that the game is an MMO. Now, before somone pipes up with the “but that doesn’t mean that you have to play with other players”, you’re right.

However, the main advantage of an MMO over single player games is the ability to play in a group. Personally I think most of the content in an MMO should be based around group play. Otherwise, what’s the point of developing an MMO if you’re going to create the majority of the content for solo players?

I speak as a primarily solo player myself.

I mean, you’re complaining about something that’s been in the game since the beginning. Dungeon armour was unattainable by the solo player. Fractal rewards were unattainable by the solo player. Icy Runestones were locked behind the Claw of Jormag. What’s the difference now?

As for guild halls – key work being guild – they marketed them as group-orientated content when they explained how they’d be unlocked.

lordhelmos.7623:

1.) Content designed for groups only, leads solo players to believe its too hard. For them it is.

As a casual – and by casual I mean I’ve played since the beginning, and yet haven’t completed all of the dungeons, my Fractal level is 3 and the only piece of Ascended gear I have outside of the laurel gear is the Shadow of Grenth – solo player with very little time myself I completely disagree.

Quite a few of the events I have been able to do solo or paired, outside of the map meta events. I’ve also been able to traverse the game as a solo player. Sure, I had to change my builds up a bit to increase my survivability, but that’s healthy for a game.

lordhelmos.7623:

4.) Mastery system needs a review

While I think you’re being a bit dramatic, I do agree that the Mastery system progression, thematically and mechanically, doesn’t make much sense.

lordhelmos.7623:

You need a public test server.

The flip-side of this is that you’ll get people who use this test server not to test the content – both for bugs and gameplay – but to simply preview the content.

No, a lot of the issues could be brought to light with clearer communication rather than a test server.

Azathoth.2098:

Thank you so much for your answer!
Does this still work the same way with HoT and the new way of crafting Legendaries?

I haven’t the foggiest sorry.

I’d assume so if they haven’t added a collection for it.

The original recipe is here.

Well, Eternity is – or was, the last time I looked – made by combining Twilight and Sunrise, rather than having a process like all of the other legendaries.

apodelaman.6215:

TheDaiBish.9735:

That’s so far out right I’ll have to travel to England.

As well as what Indigo said – who’s pretty much bang on the money – if there aren’t enough players to do these events, they would have to be toned down, unless the players that are playing leave because they’re not making any progress themselves.

Personally I’ve found a lot of the events doable with a small group of players. Everyone’s mileage may vary on this however.

No, ‘corporate greed’ would Anet selling insta-Mastery XP and insta-Elite Spec unlocks, and raising the requirements to levels higher than they are now to pretty much force you to buy them to get them in a reasonable amount of time.

Calling out corporate greed has nothing to do with being either left or right. be seeing you.

It’s a figure of speech. It’s means you’re far off track with your point and it doesn’t make too much sense.

That’s so far out right I’ll have to travel to England.

As well as what Indigo said – who’s pretty much bang on the money – if there aren’t enough players to do these events, they would have to be toned down, unless the players that are playing leave because they’re not making any progress themselves.

Personally I’ve found a lot of the events doable with a small group of players. Everyone’s mileage may vary on this however.

No, ‘corporate greed’ would Anet selling insta-Mastery XP and insta-Elite Spec unlocks, and raising the requirements to levels higher than they are now to pretty much force you to buy them to get them in a reasonable amount of time.

Test.8734:

…BUT, apparently, if you have bought GW2 at release for $60,00, then bought HoT for $50,00, and asks now for a refund of your $50,00, ArenaNet will shut down your entire account.

Yep, instead of just removing your access to HoT, looks like they will invalidate your entire $110,00 purchase when refunding your $50,00.

It sounds dishonest and illegal, but that’s what I have been told ArenaNet is doing.

Good luck.

Turns out that’s wrong. In one of the other threads a person that got a refund said they still had access to their core account.

You need to unlock the 3rd tier of the precursor crafting.

We knew this would be the case when they had the week where they were releasing the blog posts on guild halls.

Not to mention a guild is a group of people by definition anyway.

PrinceKhaled.5104:

Anet employee? because no one just randomly post something like that in the middle of this hero points rage!!

It’s almost like there are some players that are actually enjoying it and want to express that.

It’s available to everyone. If you go into the keybinds, you can assign a toggle.

From the Halloween page:

Collect tattered bat wings to start the process of building a wonderful bat-themed shoulder piece.

Not sure what else is involved sorry.

The wiki is maintained by the community, not Anet themselves.

I’d assume boon duration:

New stat combinations:

• Six new stat combos are available in Heart of Thorns.
• All have four stats and have boon duration or condition duration (or both!).
• All are obtained from playing in the various Magus Falls maps.
• The new recipes use oiled weapon components to craft.

Official answer is no one knows yet. After all, each legendary has it’s own components alongside the standard components.

However, feel free to speculate from this:

“The Mystic Tribute is a new version of the Gift of Fortune and contains a greater variety of trophies and mystic objects than the Gift of Fortune. That is particularly true of the trophies that will be required for it.”

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Looking at it from a high level thei decision had to be made based on maximizing monetization of the cash shop. Forcing players to grind so they would have incentive to buy boost items in cash shop. Perhaps this is how they are paying for the F2P accounts by taking from the rest of us? I’m not sure but it seems that way

How would boosts help you exactly? Unless there’s a boost I’m missing that doubles or triples the amount of Hero Points you acquire from a skill challenge, there’s nothing in the cash shop that will help with unlocking the elite specs.

OP: No, it’s not false advertising. They said when they introduced the new specialization system- back in April, might I add – that Elite specs would be using the same system to unlock the skills, traits and cosmetics.

Kronos.2560:

Ayrilana.1396:

Kronos.2560:

You forgot to add along side with making hero points in new area 10 per, instead of 1. Dungeons are getting gold reward nerfed to incentivize new content also!

Basically they are worried the new content sucks so they are forcing us to play it. At least that is my take on it. (otherwise why would you do soo much to force us to play there?)

They’re not forcing you and you’re making the mistake assuming that the only reason they could be making those changes is to get more people to play the expansion areas. There are more possible reasons than just that.

If I want to play the elite specializations they are forcing me. The entire world completion gives 200 points, you need 400 to unlock elite specialization (the only place to get the rest is new zone or wvw for months).

Plus the question of would you do dungeons if they gave you nothing??!?

We don’t actually know how many points it costs to just get traits and skills. For all we know 200 could be enough to unlock the traits and some of the skills.

As for the ‘would you play if dungeons giving nothing’, they’ll still be giving rewards, so there’s no reason to ask that.

• The new map reward system will incentivise players into old maps for guaranteed access to harder to get mats (lodestones, eyes etc).
• Tyria Masteries (Fractal, for example).
• 1st Gen precursor and crafting.
• Fractals
• Dungeons
• Guild Missions
• Holiday events

As for the dungeon nerf, my understanding is that the rewards were being spread out between dungeons, fractals and the new content, as opposed to just raising them rewards in order ro prevent too much inflation.

Because having heroes do ‘evil’ things like burning down orphanages makes a lot of sense.

Blood is unlikely because of the game rating, by the way.

Is that 400 points in total or 400 points just for the skills and traits?

The reason I ask is because I think someone said before that the weapon and armour skins were at the end of the track to be unlocked so all the functional stuff could be gotten first (I think it was a PoI, but not too sure), in which case it wouldn’t be 400 points to unlock the track, skills and traits.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Lankhmar.8752:

…or why on earth you just died horribly again, and again…oh and again.

There’s a combat log, both an on-going one in the chat box and one that you can access when you die.

A combat log you can access when you die? Aside from just the chat stuff??
I’ve never heard of it, how does one open it?

Well, it’s SPvP only, which is what I was quoting them on. Apologies if that wasn’t clear.

Lankhmar.8752:

…or why on earth you just died horribly again, and again…oh and again.

There’s a combat log, both an on-going one in the chat box and one that you can access when you die.

Lankhmar.8752:

> Fundamentally there’s no learning curve
> no important tips like “did you know necromancers can transfer conditions to you” etc.

Aren’t these sort of contradictory?

Learning and getting to know what each class can do and what they’re likely to bring into the fight is a learning curve.

Lankhmar.8752:

Why even have a crafting system when it boils down to throwing things into the mystic forge?

1. Ascended weapons and armour, some sigils and runes and consumables (food, potions, sharpening stones etc) uses the crafting system.
2. A lot – if not all – of the MF recipies also use the crafting system to make the components.
3. Crafting has some unique weapon and armour skins of its own (Godskull, for example).

A Norn walks out of a bar.

EnlightenedNavigator.8296:

It’s not a matter of balance or anything like that. It’s just a matter of adding new skills to the game.

Whenever new skills are added to the game, it IS a matter of balance though.

In terms of PvE, whatever you implement it’s going to manipulate the threat list, whether directly (taunt) or non-directly. That’s how the AI works and decides who to attack – your Challenges would have to push the person issuing the challenge up the threat list in order to stop the Challenge getting out of hand for the mob.

Now, as a encounter mechanic I think it’d be great in a fight with multiple bosses in one fight.

Anka.5086:

Something just dawned on me, what if we had in-game mechanic to rate players at the end of a dungeon. Just like in MOBA games. And at the end of the month top 50 players rewarded with something random or their names announced on Gw2 forums for being good players of the month. Perhaps that would be an incentive for players to treat each other with respect and patience. At the moment I don’t think there is anything to encourage bad mannered players from changing their attitude.

A system like that could be gamed.

Not to mention if someone is doing these things, their name on the forum or a small reward – and the reward would have to be small to disincentivize gaming the system – isn’t going to change the way they act.

I disagree, and I’m saying this as someone who was here from the beginning but hasn’t done every dungeon or gone past Fractal level 3.

1. A lot of them things you mentioned (kicking without explaining, leaving after one failed attempt, kicking if you don’t have a certain gear of tier or a certain achievement) are also prevalent in a lot of other MMO’s.

2. Veteran players don’t have a responsibility to newer players; after all, this is a game and not a job. Ideally more experienced players will take the time to explain things, but if they don’t want to for whatever reason – for example, they’re part of the speed-running community, they want a quick run because they need to go – it’s their choice.

3. It’s the new player’s responsibility to explain that they don’t know the tactics of the content and ask for a quick explanation. After all, only the player themselves know if they’re unfamiliar with the content.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Trinity, or better, roles is what makes a role playing game great.

The role in *role*play doesn’t refer to combat roles as you’re implying.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

In serious MMOs for lets say a 12 man raid, you needed 1 tank, 1 off tank, 1 healer for the group, 1 healer for just the tanks, 2 support classes (1 buffer 1 debuffer), 2 ranged dps and 4 melee dps. Everyone of course needs to know exactly what he’s doing or the whole group will wipe because of 1 person. This is what makes a game great. It gives you the actual satisfaction that you acomplished something, and not just facerolled another instance.

Well, firstly what you’ve described there isn’t the Trinity, since you’ve described 4 basic roles.

If everyone is focused on doing their own thing, how is that any different to playing solo if you don’t have to consider what your team-mates are doing? How is the group automatically failing because of one person ‘great’? After all, in GW2 if someone falls I can always hold the boss off long enough with Immobilize for my fallen ally to be rezzed because I’ve put that into my build. How is that not teamwork?

I used to heal (both tank and raid) and 99% of my time was focused on what I was doing, with the other 1% focused on on my team-mates because of some encounter mechanic that wasn’t dependant on the Trinity.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

What we have at the moment on GW2 is not actual content. 99% of the instances are like: Skip 80% of the mobs, and the ones that can’t be skipped, you pull to a corner and AoE them down. It requires zero skill, zero effort and zero team co-ordination.

That’s more down to rewards, the skipping. Not to mention what you’re describing is the trash rather than the boss encounter. In every MMO I’ve played, dungeon trash has always been easy to beat when you outgear the instance.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Atm GW2 is basically a game that requires no tactic or thinking, and all you have to do is just barely know the current meta. If you do know it, you can faceroll every single instance or encounter while being semi-afk playing with 1 hand.

So what you’re saying is that you don’t need to know any of the mechanics of any of the fights and you can still beat them?

If you want this to continue because you’re too lazy actually playing a challenging game, that’s fine, but please don’t say trinity is what makes a role playing boring…

But in essence Vayne is right. If you have to choose between Tank, Healer or DPS – or Control, Support and DPS as is in GW2 – the variety in builds goes right down to a grand total of 3. After all, if we’re talkiing about basic roles, GW2 could have any amalgam of:

• Movement Control (Cripple, Immobilize)
• Damage Control (Weakness, Blind)
• Healing Control (Poison)
• Direct Damage
• DoT
• Boon Stripping
• Healing (Healing, Condition Removal, Regen, Reviving)
• Offensive Support (Might, Fury)
• Defensive Support (Protection, Aegis)
• Field Provision

I don’t get why people are so stuck up on the fact that you need the Trinity to create engaging encounters. You don’t.

The Trinity, in essence, is only possible because there are 3 mechanics constantly needing attention: threat; outgoing damage and; incoming damage. Regardless of what else is going on in the fight or mechanics unique to that particular encounter, them 3 are a constant and will appear in every fight, thus keeping the players of these individual roles busy.

Taking that into consideration, GW2 could easily have encounters – both open-world and instanced – that required a bit more than just damage. All they would need is multiple mechanics that would need to be tending to happening at the same time.

This would open up more build diversity – since, unlike the Trinity, the encounters aren’t bound to needing a tank, healer and DPS – and at the same time, this would allow groups to choose their method of approach; everyone bring a little of everything an rotate that way or have a group where each player builds to combat a specific mechanic.

The beta doesn’t start until noon Pacific Time.

Nope. It’s something to do with WvW this week.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/learn-about-guild-objective-claiming-on-points-of-interest/

Orpheal.8263:

I stay at it, that a condition which reduces Endurance Regen is an ABSOLUTE MUST for this game!!

Weakness already does this though…

Burning

Reduces Boon Duration applied to the target by 10% / 33% and increases intensity (Boon Duration reduction is flat but damage stacks, like Poison, and damage would be reduced to reflect functionality).

Bleeding

Make this a slow tick and low damage condition, but CR only removes a set amount from the stack instead of the entire stack, making it easier to stack and giving constant pressure.

Diba.4682:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Couple that with the fact there will be multiple bosses meaning the mechanics would have to be watered right down since, theoretically, there won’t be anywhere near enough cool downs to blow to constantly attend to them 9 mechanics because everyone is so thinly spread out to ensure they’re prepared for every situation.

Not necessarily, for one, not all professions have the same accessibility to ability types. I dont think warriors have any boon stripping mechanic and it would be silly if you are trying to strip boons to equip the trait that gives 3% more damage per boon. That means dont roll a warrior because he has no valid build for this fight. Same goes for reflection, etc.

My point exactly, in reference to who I was replying to.

The required counter mechanics would be so thinly spread out amongst the party they couldn’t make the fight mechanics too strong since there’d be no reliable way of dealing with them.

Thinking outside the box a little, that trait would be helpful if the Warrior was taking a damage role to help keep up the damage up when boons were on the target. Other than that, the only boon stripping they have access to is Sigil of Nullification.

However, that is assuming there is only one mechanic to deal with.

myself.2143:

Anet should lock builds as soon a the group enters the raid. Then make each boss use 2 or 3 random mechanics out of a list of 10 or so. This would promote a group to bring a little of every thing so they could cover all the bases.

Maybe it’s not a perfect solution, but it’s better than what will become of raids: after a month or two every boss will be analyzed and each class will have the most efficient spec for them listed to easily down the boss.

While I agree randomized boss mechanics would be a good addition – adds longevity and keeps the content fresher for longer – tying it with build locking is a terrible idea since it basically comes down to chance if you have enough of what you need in order to beat the mechanic, rather than learning where you went wrong if you do fail.

Couple that with the fact there will be multiple bosses meaning the mechanics would have to be watered right down since, theoretically, there won’t be anywhere near enough cool downs to blow to constantly attend to them 9 mechanics because everyone is so thinly spread out to ensure they’re prepared for every situation.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

I’m not talking about Specific raids… Yes WoW had xpac specific raids but there were also others that could be done without xpacs…

And slowly over time they’ve started taking them and revamping them for higher levels. What does that tell you?

The thing is, in terms of investment, spending resources adding content to the core game nets Anet no money while having to spend time, money and resources on producing it.

I suppose I could have worded it better. Raids are an expansion feature for GW2, much like Garrisons were for WoD.

What about a Gambit system like in the Queen’s fights?

For example, conditions applied to you last longer, damage taken increased by x% etc.

Then, for every gambit on you, you gain X% exp, gold, karma and MF for every kill (to a cap). However, if you have a gambit on you, becoming Defeated resets the buff.

Diba.4682:

There, he gets a bit of what I am talking about. I am not saying raids should be about a single build… in fact the opposite. I am saying that adjusting a build to meet circumstances will not improve diversity but will still preserve the problem that there is only one build that gets you through a certain circumstance. I want multiple builds from multiple professions and all are viable, though to work as a team there would need to be compatibility of strengths and weaknesses -communication, -skill, etc. This means as a raid there are roles that need to be filled, but as individuals you don’t have to be swapping into a cookie-cut-build that is the “best” for the circumstance. This is already a problem, and if they add this feature (as according to my suspicion) they will only worsen it.

The problem with what your asking is that if multiple approaches in terms of builds are viable, the less impact certain mechanics will have.

Have a boss that get’s stronger the more boons it has? Unfortunately you won’t be able to make him that strong in case you get players who don’t want to incorporate boon stripping into their build.

At the end of the day, weapons and traits are tools to be used. It’s not a big issue if they shine in some situations and are less effective in others; regardless of what you say, that does create build diversity, not on an indiviual fight level but within that full raid run, since your constantly tweaking your build to get the most milage out of it.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Yeah but in no other MMO is something as fundamental as raiding xpac only…

You sure about that?

You couldn’t do ICC without WotLK.
You couldn’t do Slaver’s Exile without EotN (while not strictly a raid, comes pretty close).

Raiding has been locked behind expacs for quite a while now.

Raiding is content. For HoT, raiding is content that comes with the expansion, just like how new dungeons and raids come with expansions for other games.

I think the main problem with build locking in GW2 is that if you want players to play more specialised roles for certain encounters and you want mechanics based around what the player can deal with to matter, you’d have to limit the scope of what mechanics you put into a single run.

For example, if you have a boss that is constantly applying boons to itself and gains a buff based on how many boons it has, you’d need a few people to rotate on the boon conversion / boon stripping. The next fight then boon stripping isn’t a mechanic you need to worry about. Suddenly all of the boon stripping skills and traits bought by the players focused on that mechanic – and there would have to be multiple players focused on that mechanic if the mechanic was something that was happening constantly – have reduced effectiveness.

The flip side of this is that players don’t have specialised roles and everyone takes a little of everything that’s required for all 3 bosses and rotates that way.

Something is stirring in the jungle…and making its way straight to Central Tyria…

Maybe an event for the beta weekend?

Avascar.9237:

Matazeruz.7498:

Wipes tear

All the way man. weep

You know, did they ever give a reason for taking that login screen out?

There are no new tiers of gear. This is something they mentioned a while back (along with no level increase).

Precursor armour – exotic tier – will be the reward for completing raids, so I can’t see you needing Legendary/Ascended armour, though that is pure speculation on my part.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Gynok.1756:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Seems a little low to me. It is an elite spec made for progression, not a casual lazy give it to me for free on launch day spec.

Grinding low level zones for hero challenges doesn’t sound elite to me either.

You can’t grind hero points, and they can be gotten primarily through HoT zones, which are all level 80… so… yeah.

You sure you’re not confusing Hero points with Mastery points? Because you can currently get a lot of Hero points in the Core maps while we have no idea how many Hero points will be in the new maps.

Of course you can “grind” Hero Points, if that’s all you focus on doing is going from one point to another.

Ascii Red.4029:

Its hypocritical to say levels and gear are not being increased so this means content is not being invalidated and at the same time introduce an entirely new system of progression.

Lightbringer was a single skill, masteries are much much more.

It’s really not.

Level 80 is still the maximum level.
Ascended / Legendary is still the top tier.

These Masteries are progression tied to a specific area of content. If you level up gliding, you don’t suddenly invalidate Fractals, and if you level up the Fractal mastery, you don’t suddenly invalidate dungeons.

After all, a few title tracks in GW were like this:

• Lightbringer (damage reduction and damage increase to Abaddon and his servants. Also improved 2 skills)
• Sunspear Rank (improved 11 skills)
• Allegiance rank (improved 10 skills)
• Asura rank (max energy increase in Asuran territory. Also improved 12 skills)
• Deldrimor rank (damage and health gain against Destroyers. Also improved 14 skills)
• Ebon Vanguard rank (armour, adrenaline and energy gain against Charr. Also improved 12 skills)
• Norn rank (max health increase in Norn territory. Also improved 12 skills).

What I would say, however, is that Anet are wrong in saying they don’t have an attunement process if Masteries tie heavily into raids and being able to complete them.

Chrispy.5641:

Yunielesca.2850:

They’re working on another expansion, that’s the only explanation I see.

300 persons, 3 years, 3 YEARS to make 4 maps and 1 raid?
How on earth is it possible?

Do you really want someone to answer that question?

4 maps, 1 raid AND 2 guild halls, 1 new profession, 9 elite specs, 1 new WvW map and 1 new SPvP map – which, even thought HoT isn’t needed for, still had to be created – mastery system, precursor and legendary crafting. Since, you know, not every developer was working on maps and raids.

Possibly that they haven’t been working on the expansion for 3 years? Even if they have, if you’re going to count that, you’ll also need to count the rest of the stuff that has been put into the game – temporary or permanent – in them 3 years that had to be created too.

That’s not even debating the fact it’s very unlikely that the 300 people you mentioned are all working on creating the expansion content, since the total number of people working at Anet also includes customer service, QA, bug fixers and the like.

WindGodGirl.6405:

You must own the expansion and be level 80, I believe. After that, I’m a little fuzzy on the details.

This.

In terms of obtaining them, you use Hero points like the current specs.

Kaleban.9834:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shattering_Blow

1. “Summon a rock in front of you”

2. Unless Berserkers are Captain Falcon, they’re not punching hard enough with a Torch to create shock waves.

3. Physics, in case you weren’t aware.

4. Also, based on what you just described, that PERFECTLY fits Earth bending, not exactly a Guts/Berserk style move is it?

1. I’ll give you that one then, though that could easily be changed to fit the theme more.

2. Regular Warriors are strong enough to create tremors by hitting the ground (mace 5), crack the earth around them (Hammer Burst), send people flying with a shockwave created from a stomp (Stomp) and go on a Rampage, punching people and throwing rocks. Is it really that far out of the realm of possibility for you that Berserkers are a lot stronger than regular Warriors physically because of their ‘no kittens given’ approach to fights and so can manage these feats?

3. Also, I’m aware of physics. I just don’t see what they have to do with this topic since we’re talking about a game where physics are ignored on a regular basis anyway.

4. Guts and Berserk is one portrayal of what a Berserker is; it’s not a standard that has to be adhered to. Also, Bending is more based around kata and rather than traditional magic. To suddenly see an Elementalist start doing kata to manipulate elements it’s already able to would be jarring to say the least.

Kaleban.9834:

What I mentioned, by way of the Bender concept, and comparing the design of the Berserker to that of the Tempest, is that ANet doesn’t have a coherent design system. I.E. non-magical warriors summoning rocks, Torch slams causing earth ripples etc.

Them non-magical Warriors aren’t ‘summoning’ rocks in the way you’re implying though.

They’re using brute force to create them – the Torch skill 4 being conceptually similar to Mace skill 5, except hitting the ground so hard it causes the ground to fracture, and causing a rock to jut out by stomping before punching it – thus it fits in with the theme of the spec; brute force.

Just like how conceptually the Tempest fits thematically in with the Elementalist (which had attunements in the first game in case you weren’t aware).

Test.8734:

AESOkami.1072:

Is pre-purchasing HoT right away a good idea or not?
Please let me know as soon as you can. It could save me alot of money.

LOL, no.

Wait a few months and you’ll be able to buy it at a discount, as soon as the bad reviews start pouring in.

Save your money. This isn’t going anywhere but down.

You know, you could put them psychic powers of yours to better use. Like predicting natural disasters, or maybe telling me what tonight’s lotto numbers will be.

I mean, of course there’ll be some bad reviews – like most games – and no doubt the price will drop in the future – like most games. But until we know the entirety of the expansion and how well things are implemented, it’s a bit premature to go spouting off about how the expansion is going to suck.

OP:

Only you can really decide that.

Is the character slot, title and beta access worth taking the risk that the expansion may not contain much of the content you enjoy?

Personally I’m waiting until I know the full contents of the expansion.