Guild Wars 2

I totally agree with the OP. Gets really old being the red-headed step-child. nerf after nerf, is all we’ve had. Why is everything balanced around PVP anyway?

Besides, when do devs even bother to read the ranger forum? Let alone respond. Irenio tries, but I’m guessing other devs say “No, Rangers/Druids cannot have nice things” Pish Posh!!!!!

+1 to the OP and others who’ve posted about the constant nerfs of Druid/Ranger. I wake up in the morning and wonder what Anet has nerfed for the class, It was difficult enough to get used to the idea of being a healer class as a Druid, but once again some devs have made it so that other classes do it better.

I noticed the exact same thing on my DSL connection (same speed). The amt of data was huge for the expac, much larger than 3.5g, and took nearly a day when released. I’m glad I don’t have to pay per gig/dl <smile>. I don’t know much about how it all works, anymore, but resume download I do recall (I’m an old lady). Can’t log in now anyways at least for tonite. time to sleep…..

Thank you Anet for changing this to 250 HP. So many people were farming COF as well as WvW/EOTM to get their hero points up to world completion totals, normal Central Tyria HP does take a fair amount of time. I was loathing having to do the remaining 200HP in the new maps on 14 chars, to experience the elite specialization.

That was totally depressing, to see a fight go on for over a minute and not enough AF to go into CAF, and then it just drains away. Beyond ridiculous!

Not giving up on my ranger, have spent 3.5k hours on the class and it is natural as breathing to me. However, I’ve given up on the Druid, the most illogical elite that they came up with. There are too many problems to fix, there are threads elsewhere. But, I’m doubtful Anet will change them.

Congrats on getting the job done so quickly, after 1 day. So now the Maguuma Wastes are like the leftover toxic creatures in Kessex Hills. Pointless. Only reason I got HoT was to see the story continue, like what happens to our mother, the Pale Tree, I see the egg Caithe took. Should’ve just waited for videos like this and bought FFXIV’s Heavensward, where I could fly on a gorgeous dragon. An F for storytelling Anet.

Welcome news, indeed. When the Druid elite was announced as a dedicated healer, it seemed totally illogical to me, that the only class who is required to have a pet (minion) which was responsible for a large percentage of the ranger’s DPS, would need to keep the pet alive as well as 9 other players. Now I’ll be able to concentrate more on my group in a raid, and less on my pets. Thank you Anet!

RL age? Am old enough to collect SS and old enough that I could be my adult children’s grandmother. But I do have a wonderful grandson to whom I’m teaching gaming.

Gamewise? 7,149 hours and 39 minutes over 1,053 days. Yeah, I have alot of free time.

It would be nice if they would explain their statement, unlocking in the jungle, as I was erroneous in thinking that we would be able to unlock elite specializations with just hero points whether or not we were playing HoT. Was hoping that my main w/map completion, who has all specialization & skills unlocked and map completion, would be able to unlock her elites (not that I really want to be a Druid), but I did pre-purchase HoT And I know many people, myself included who’ve been getting hero points on various alts, for the last little while. Some clarification would be in order.

Today, I’m grateful that I made my legendary a couple of months ago (yes, I had to fork out 20$ real money for more gold for the precursor – after sitting on all my gifts for 2 years), since this new way is way too tedious and complicated for me.

Well, Anet created the dungeon farming when they introduced the set amounts of gold per dungeon path, quickly said players could do only that path once per day. Am certain the gold (liquid asset) was in response to people complaining about getting only crap loot, in addition to the tokens (which at that time could purchase exotic bis gear, though not salvageable). Reminds me of the bonus (shaky) chest with a guaranteed rare introduced – people farmed the same event (for example the Maw which spawned quickly) over and over to get the ectos from salvaging. Shortly, thereafter, only one bonus chest per event per account a day. Oy!

Ranger #1 (my main)
Stalker : Chilam Bolam after a Mayan God since the world was supposed to end 12/21/12
his name has stayed for 3 years despite switching pets
Ice Drake: Ice Ice Baby from Vanilla Ice

Ranger 2: her name is Beeste
Stalker: Beauty
Jaguar: Dark Beauty

Ranger 3: Feral
Stalker: Feral Kitty
Jaguar: Feral knight

Ranger 4: Rox lookalike
Carrion Devour: Frostbite (what else?)

Well, since I have 8- 80’s all classes of Sylvari (even deleted 4 toons after “Seeds of Truth” to make them), I’d say I’m pro-Sylvari haha. Have at least one of each other race, too. Will be interesting playing thru with them all.

p.s. death to the meat sacks…

As another poster said, Colin Johansen during the big expansion announcement said if players hadn’t made a Sylvari PC, now was the time to do it. And during Pax Prime in July, the Narrative Director, Leah Hoyer, said in an interview that there’s a distinct possibility that Sylvari PC’s can be turned by Mordremoth.

First day of BWE1 (no beta characters made yet), while logging into Lion’s Arch, I heard a deep gravelly voice say “You’re mine”. It was kind of cool, but it startled me LOL

Could be real, since one of the game designers joined DnT quite recently.

Am sure it will be hero points, we don’t know how many the elites will require. Have heard numbers from 150 to 250 from various players.
Here is a map of only Hero Point Challenges thruout the game. (I’ve got 15 toons to finish up on since only 1 of mine has map completion). So that is what I’m doing before HoT is released. Not doing hearts/POI’s

Map: http://gw2maps.ch/?mapId=418

When I logged into GW2 the first day of BWE1 in August, on my main, a Sylvari Ranger, I distinctly heard a deep gravely voice say “You’re mine”. This was in LA, before making any Beta characters, and a tad disconcerting. A few days later I watched a video with Anet’s Narrative Director, Leah Hoyer, from Pax Prime who said specifically that Sylvari PC’s can be swayed/taken over by Mordremoth. She obviously didn’t go into any details.
I’d be more than a little miffed if my main of 2.5k hrs. was lost to me. However I imagine they’ve taken this twist into consideration. In the Personal Story, can’t remember which episode/chapter, someone had found a way to turn a Risen Chicken corrupted by Zhaitan, into a normal chicken. Perhaps there will be a story/quest that the PC can follow who’s been claimed by Mordy where we have to do x, y, and z to protect ourselves, or there might be a reward of some resistance or protection potion.

I do like your idea of an open world event, as long as the rewards are good for those that protect Sylvaris.

But, I’m sure they already have planned something. It will be interesting. Incidentally, I have 8 Sylvaris , 9 when Revenant is released LOL

I love my Asura Ranger as well, she’s sassy, takes no guff from anyone. Love equipping her with a Greatsword and going up against Giants, Ettins, Jotuns, even Sons of Svanir Norns, where she only reaches maybe their knees, and watch her jump and kick butt. Love all the weapon animations, and I’m glad that my Stalker/Jaguar look huge next to her. The things she says crack me up as well.

I have 4 Rangers, had 5 with different races, but had to delete the Norn since her clunky running drove me crazy. <g>

Since the last Elite Specialization for the Rangers (Druid) will be released at TwitchCon next week, I’d imagine BWE3, the final Beta announced for HoT, will be held the first weekend of October. However ArenaNet hasn’t said definitively when it will be. The first two BWE’s were the first weekend of the month.

After 3.5k hrs. playing ranger, it is beyond wonderful that an actual Game Designer, Irenio Calmon-Huang, plays my 2 fave classes Ranger and Engie, and is leading the development of both the Scrapper and the Druid. Prior to this there wasn’t a single dev who played Ranger consistently and they were unfamiliar with the problems within the class, despite all the threads in Ranger forum. Perhaps we will no longer be the red-headed step-child.

Infinite harvesting tool, bunny ears, and magic carpet. But it isn’t going to happen

Apophis.2498:

I did not read every post in this thread, so forgive me if this has been brought up.

When looking through the forum on Rangers, there was one data-mined image for the Druid spec that only depicted three animals: Bear, Wolf, and Raven(or some predatory bird). Then I recall watching one of Wooden Potato’s videos that had footage of the first press beta for the GW2. In that video he mentioned that at one point ANet had the idea of the ranger controlling 3 pets at the same time.

Data-mined image
http://i.imgur.com/mxeqJcc.png

WP vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZNDw1BBBTM

Additionally, that-shaman data-mined the skills for the Elite specialization as a Druid had symbols and glyphs (such as an elementalist’s) I can picture the staff skills such as immobilize with vines, poisonous flowers growing, and other nature based skills, and the utility skills being conjure a bear, wolf, predatory spirit to attack (and not assume the shape of a predator similar to Norn’s racial skill).

In one of Wooden Potatoes most recent vides at 1:32 he shows Anet’s HOT Specialization data mined image with the Druid included:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2sJr2DnvdU

And in the image there is no pet visible, just the Druid.

In my dreams, I’d love to see a dodge skill for Ranger’s current pets, since the pet makes up 35-45 percent of Rangers total damage But that will never happen

While I’m glad the release is in October, rather than December, I find it a more than a little disconcerting that we Rangers and Engies will have perhaps one Beta event to test and give feedback, and give Anet time to balance the classes, though I’m truly not surprised. Anet abandoned Rangers long, long ago. remember 6/25/13?
I’d had great hopes when they hired Dave Mark for AI development, that perhaps our pets would be addressed (as in giving Rangers the ability to control (i.e. make them dodge) our pets since we’ll never be free from them. From the data-mined info for Engies, they will also have to deal with AI with respect to their drones.

Looking towards the Druid specialization, all I see in my mind’s eye is a slightly different reiteration of the Norn racial skills. Either our staffs will pump out an animal (Bear, Raven, Wolf, Snow Leopard) or we will turn into one of them, depending on the key we pick.

With 4 rangers and 2 engies, I’m quite disappointed, but won’t give up playing them and trying to make them work. To be fair Engie is in a fairly good place in comparison.

Not sure why, but I can still log into my beta characters, and the beta should have ended 24 minutes ago.

Like others have said, Betas are for testing by players, who then give feedback to the devs so changes will or can be made.
However, there will be fun to be had, and it’s something different to do

Knox.8962:

Some condition engy material for reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UeNcqdSJI8

DNT’s Nike! knows his stuff, been following his guides for a long time. Never thought I’d hear a condi build out dps’ing power. LOL Note that this guide is for fights lasting 14s or longer. Looking forward to trying this out.

Zero Day.2594:

Hi guys,
I see you’re generously feeding a troll. Can I get some food too? I’m just passing by.

Yes, they are either military or police issue, judging the way the person refers to summons (, i.e. pets, minions) as subordinates.

Just for funsies, I dusted off my lvl 80 necro as a MM, and yes, the working of a minion perhaps 50-60% of the time is still an issue, the biggest issue why I stopped playing MM as I did early on. At the least Anet could give Necro MM’s an F1 skill which would command the Elite Minion to attack the PC’s target, rather than stand there and look stupid. Tbh, I’ve only about 800 hrs. on Necro in the past 2 years.

As a side a note (I’ve 3.5K hrs.) as a Ranger, and whilst gathering lumber in Mt. Maelstrom last week (pet set on guard), my idiot Stalker just stood there while a host of Risen attacked, this happened subsequently at the next node, so I killed him <g>. I survived, of course. still it was rather disconcerting. Would love to be able to make my pets dodge, move or do something at times, considering that 40% of my damage depends on them.

Rangers are the only class who HAS to deal with pets, no if ands or buts about it. Anet has said on several occasions that rangers will have pets, no matter what. The AI and the lack of control over them is irritating, but since 30-40% of a Rangers total damage is from their pets, Rangers have no choice. Necros do have a choice to run Minions or DS. I would love to be able to micromanage my cats or drakes, choosing when to dodge, as well as where. But, I don’t believe Anet can do it currently. So, we rangers swap when necessary, choose the best pet for the encounters. <smile>

Obviously, everyone likes different aspects of the game OP

PVP: played in beginning with guildies, learning my main’s class. Boring
WvW: In the olden days before AP Chests, we had to earn badges of honor for the Gift of Battle. Played enough WvW to last a lifetime. Besides the objectives never really made sense to me. Capture a camp, leave, find another without leaving personnel behind to keep the original one captured, and so on. rinse and repeat.

PVE: Exploration, dungeons, rampages with guildies, levelling all my girls, gathering, crafting, farming world bosses (who cares if I’ve done the Maw 2000 times, or 1k Jorlag, either for that matter.)

In the end, it’s all repetitious. LS has made it less so, whatever floats anyone’s boat.

It could be quite interesting if Sylvari PC’s were able to be turned, especially with 8 Sylvaris (9 when Revenant available in HOT). I’d deleted 4 lvl 80 humans after “Seeds of Truth” last year, so I could have at least 1 Sylvari per class (all now lvl 80). Always wanted to be in the Nightmare Court, being a minion might be better.
The cynic in me says that if that does come to pass, the Gem Store will have a Potion of Resistance Recipe for 800 gems to prevent our characters from turning LOL

Anet hasn’t figured out how to fix their broken pet/minion mechanics in 3 years, and I doubt they care any longer. Ele, War, and Engie are their “pet” classes which they continue to buff (used to be Guardians). Rangers (required to use idiot pets) and necros who have a choice will always be at the bottom of the barrel, so re-roll or accept it.

There are still 6 classes left to “showcase” their elites. Yes, we know that Druids have staffs, but nothing of what the staff will do as a druid. At the rate we are drip-fed info, and the amount of info to go, much of which is probably not ready anyway, and not including the elite discussion I don’t believe the expansion will be out until early 2016. Makes me wish that I’d not pre-purchased and spent the money on another game’s expansion. C’est la vie.

It can take 2 or more hours to update your account with a beta slot. Bought mine thru gem store in game and it took an hour and a half. It might be different if you bought thru the website.
I haven’t seen this on the subreddit yet so I thought I’d share what I just read on the pre-purchase FAQ.
“All accounts that become eligible by July 9 will have their free character slot applied by July 10. Eligible accounts that are upgraded with a pre-purchase serial code after July 10 will receive their slots on a weekly basis after that.”
Arenanet will also
“…begin refunding accounts on July 12, 2015, and approximately once per week after that until the first week of August. Once your refund is processed, it may take up to five days to appear on your statement.”
Refunds apply to purchases of the Guild Wars 2 core game where
“The core Guild Wars 2 serial code was purchased from buy.guildwars2.com or in-game and applied to your account between January 23, 2015 and June 16, 2015
The Heart of Thorns serial code was pre-purchased from buy.guildwars2.com or in-game and applied by July 31, 2015”

Just bought the expac an hour ago and my beta slot is there. Here’s the official words from faq here at gw2
I haven’t seen this on the subreddit yet so I thought I’d share what I just read on the pre-purchase FAQ.
“All accounts that become eligible by July 9 will have their free character slot applied by July 10. Eligible accounts that are upgraded with a pre-purchase serial code after July 10 will receive their slots on a weekly basis after that.”
Arenanet will also
“…begin refunding accounts on July 12, 2015, and approximately once per week after that until the first week of August. Once your refund is processed, it may take up to five days to appear on your statement.”
Refunds apply to purchases of the Guild Wars 2 core game where
“The core Guild Wars 2 serial code was purchased from buy.guildwars2.com or in-game and applied to your account between January 23, 2015 and June 16, 2015
The Heart of Thorns serial code was pre-purchased from buy.guildwars2.com or in-game and applied by July 31, 2015”

My main is ranger, despite all the issues with the lousy AI of pets . Wish they were more controllable, as in I could make them dodge out of AOE. And even if the elite specialization when it’s revealed is that the ranger turns into an animal (like the norn racial abilities) I’ll continue to play her (them).

But I’ve 80’s of all classes, so I can change if necessary for whatever content. With over 3k hrs. as a ranger it’ll take awhile before one of the other classes could be considered my main.

Like others have said, 7K hours (6,969 precisely), zero precursors. RNGesus hates me. LOL Have all gifts for the one I want made awhile ago. Hopefully, with HoT I can get it done.

Total Characters: 15
- Mesmer 3 – 80, 65, 21
- Guardian 1 – 80
- Necromancer 1 – 80
- Ranger 4– all 80’s
- Elementalist 1 – 50
- Warrior 2 – 80’s
- Thief 1 – 80
- Engineer 2 – 80’s

After LW S.2 episode “Seeds of Truth” I deleted 4 80’s to make 8 Sylvari’s.

Randulf.7614:

I thought they already stated a few months back there will be no alternate personal story for Revenants?

If I can find it, Ill post the dev comment on it

You are correct, that during one of Colin Johannsen’s interviews following one of the Pax events earlier this year he stated that the personal story is only based on race, and that they would rather spend their resources on developing Heart of Thorns, and the LW content of HoT. (sorry, I don’t recall just who the interviewer was) Yeah it messes with the space-time continuum, but so did doing a personal story instance in Lion’s Arch after it was demolished, since the PS supposedly takes place 2-3 years prior to Scarlet’s rampage. :/

ronpierce.2760:

pandorasbox.6340:

ronpierce.2760:

We estimate tomorrow, give or take some time.

Some time? It has been almost 6 months since announced at PAX. I know patience is a virtue, but I only have so much of it. Currently the expansion is in TBA form. TBA could mean tomorrow, it could mean winter 2016.

Telling us Q4 2016 would be better then this.

I’ll do you one better, Q3 projections show a quadruple earnings, and they slipped up saying summer release and the pre-patch will be in 1-3 weeks handling the specialization changes. Long story short, expect between July and September and you’ll be golden.

Very true, and since ArenaNet is a business, controlled by NCSoft ( who has to answer to the shareholders) NCSoft might just be thinking that Anet is technically incapable of releasing within the time frame. And if I were a major shareholder in NCSoft who was given the 3rd quarter when I would receive increased dividends, I would be clamoring for a change in staff who could get the task at hand completed. Or who knows, maybe they were asked to delay until a later date.

What I do know is that the uncertainty of a confirmed date of release has helped me decide between ArenaNet’s HoT and FF xiv’s Heavensward. ymmv

62 yr old disabled grandma here, played alot of Pong in my day, then Nintendo, followed by PS1. GW2 is much better than sitting on the porch watching the grass grow LOL.

Thank you so much dascott.6078! Very sweet of you. This mother of 2 and grandmother of 1 wishes all the mama’s out there a great day, as well.

3k hrs as Ranger: To the OP, Rangers are maybe 4th on the current class DPS list, but they still have the stigma of no one really wanting them in dungeons, as well as necros. Ele’s are tops for DPS currently, and can solo champs quite quickly. Sure, rangers have great single mob burst damage with the #2 LB skill, preceded by #5, followed up with sword. but we really lack on multiple mob damage . And like Sourde Noir said, every class can solo Champs, some will take longer and many can do it better.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

When I read the OP, I was thinking they would be considering themselves on the young end of the spectrum.

Now I am depressed.

Yes, ‘older’ people play this game. And, evidently, some ‘ancient’ people, as well.

Welcome to Tyria.

Who you calling ancient? LOL tbh, I’m old enough to be my daughters’ grandma. C’est la vie! haha

62 here, with 6.8k hours since 12/12

About 10 hours total, nada. I’m thinking that since I got into the first Stress Test, that those accounts are null as far as getting into this Closed Beta. I’d love to be proved wrong, tho LOLOL

I for one would hate to see the traditional tank/healer/dps enter GW2, but I’m beginning to wonder if that is what the game is heading for, at least in HoT based on Jon Peters’ interview of 4/23 with MMORPG

MMORPG: Specializations seem like a way for roles to be further defined in party situations. Will we be seeing support, crowd control, healing, and all those traditional roles with each different specialization?
Jon Peters: Yes, specializations tend to fill a specific role. However, part of us realigning the skill and trait system is that we’re trying to make sure the normal professions—not just with specs—have more specific roles for players to play, and more distinct playstyles to fulfill those roles. Part of our combat system is all about having the ability to change roles during combat if you need to by weapon swapping. That way, everybody can make parties and you don’t have to wait for a specific profession. Anyone can pick a specific role and try to play that way. Specializations are a way for characters to still do this, but to go a bit deeper into the control and support roles in particular to reinforce more of that kind of gameplay with this system, and with the types of new creatures and content that we’re building into the game. How these work and play out will become even more apparent when we introduce more challenging group content coming to the expansion.

I, for one, do NOT want a trinity in GW2. Not necessary. Who wants to wait an hour (as in FFxiv) to run a dungeon as a DPS? Or
, if you’re a tank class, get kicked from a dungeon if you don’t know it? Been there, done that. If Anet changes GW2 to a Trinity, I’ll be gone. It is, and has been for the last +2 years one of the reasons I still play.

There’s no reason to get rude about it. It is a PITA to get map completion in the Borderlands and EB. Spent 3 nites a week for 4 months to get 500 Badges of Honor, yet did not get map completion done. Even with my guild, it was get this camp, run here get this, yadda yadda. No one wanted to take the time for map completion. (This was before the handout of BoH from Anet in the AP Chests). I’m slow at vistas and such (I’m old, literally half blind, so sue me) and couldn’t do it back then. I keep hoping my server will be dropped a tier (we’re always 3rd place), but we haven’t been dropped It’s just plain tedious.

Well, there were 20 episodes of LS 1 (my favorite of the 2 seasons of LS since it was open world and not instanced and the story got to me, from refugees and esp. the destruction of Lions Arch) from January 2013 thru March 2014, which didn’t count a month of the first SAB in April, Bazaar of Four Winds, another SAB in Sept, Tequatl Rising, Blood and Madness for Halloween and Wintersday 2014. Yeah, it was temporary, but it certainly was fun.