still gives me goosebumps after so many years.
Final Fantasy VIII intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q09quI356sQ
Sidenote: I like gw2 soundtrack but in my second toon i mostly played Arcana in my PS (after lvl50 story)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Whips-New-weapon-idea/first
(edited by Denial Of Service.5732)
Looks very nice. Too bad it’ll probably be extremely unlikely to drop.
celestial items still have more stats on them than other sets, you and everyone else who are complaining about this are doing so completely without merit. If you bought celestial stuff for the paltry magic find gain, that’s your own fault
Class balance:
Overall we’re looking to provide more builds for all classes, across all game types (PvE, PvP and WvW). We’re also looking to improve support potential for many classes. A lot of players have asked for this style of play to be stronger, so we’re looking to make it a more viable option.
These are some HIGH LEVEL previews, and you’ll still see number tweaks, trait fixes, and bug fixes for each class in the actual release notes, but we wanted you guys to have some transparency into the release:
Warrior
We’re looking to improve shouts so that support via shouts is more viable. This means moving Lung Capacity to Tier 1 so that you can take it along with Shrug it Off and Vigorous Shouts. The Warrior is in a pretty decent place overall right now, and sees play in many types of content, as well as in PvP/WvW.
Guardian
We increased the power of many support skills which weren’t seeing much play. We reworked Purging Flames: it now removes three conditions from allies in an area effect around the guardian on cast while still burning enemies (enemies that enter or exit the flames are still burned). Once the skill has been cast, it then reduces condition duration for allies who remain in the consecration’s area. It’s hawt. Literally. All meditation utility skills are now instant, and Focused Mind now grants fury on meditation use.
Ranger
Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.
To help Rangers support allies, we increased the ability ranger pets have to support allies. For instance, the Bear condition removal isn’t strong enough, so we’ll be improving that. Moas and Fern Hound will also be improved.
There will also be # changes to some of the Ranger weapons.
Thief
Venomous Aura was very difficult to use, as the radius was fairly tight. We’ve now increased that radius a bit, so that it’s easier to share venoms with allies without huddling closely together.
We’re also looking at shaving the efficiency of Flanking Strike slightly, so that it now only removes 1 boon instead of 2.
Also, pistol main hand may see one of its skills reworked to better support allies. We have multiple prototypes that we’re trying out, so we’ll have to see which we settle on by the next release.
Engineer
We did some reworks on the Elixir toolbelt (f-bar) skills. These just didn’t have enough cool play to them, and we wanted to improve them. Like:
- Elixir S toolbelt is now guaranteed stealth.
- Elixir B toolbelt now guarantees Stability along with the random current effect. Base recharge increased to 30 seconds.
We also did QoL (quality of life) improvements to skills that saw little play.
And finally, Engineer turrets will attack the Engineer’s target. They still take time to rotate to face the target, and they still have their respective cooldowns when firing. But this means the Engineer can focus damage on a single target by using their turrets.
Elementalist
We’re working on the staff in an effort to make it a stronger support weapon, and we also improved the conjure weapons so that they’re stronger for support. You’ll see improvements to all 4 of the conjure weapons to make them stronger and better for support.
We also increased the healing on Water Blast, the radius on Geyser and we reworked
Unsteady Ground to make it function more like line of warding.
Mes
To stay in line with the support theme, we wanted to find ways the Mesmer could support allies. We looked at Mantras, and just didn’t feel they were quite strong enough to do this, so we made some improvements.
Power Cleanse: We wanted to add some condition support, and made it so that this skill can remove 2 conditions from 5 allies.
Power Break also saw an improvement, as it now grants stability to nearby allies.
Nec
The Blood line underwent some tweaks, as it’s something that Necromancer players often feel is a lacking trait line. Vampiric Precision, Vampiric Rituals, Vampiric Master have all seen improvements.
For QoL (again, quality of life) we also improved the Life Force meter to show the actual bar better (moved slightly so it’s not competing with the skill icon for UI space), and the bar now shows your current Life Force amount, and the tooltip also shows current/max Life Force available. It makes it much easier to see how much Life Force you have, and lets you plan your engagements better.
“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer
(edited by JonathanSharp.7094)
Hey guys, here are some of the improvements you can expect to see for the October 15th release. Let us know what you think about them and we’ll take this into consideration. Some of these may not make it in for that release, but I wanted to give you guys a high level preview of what we’re working on and give you an opportunity to give us your feedback.
Trait tooltips
Traits will now have tooltips in the same way that skills do. This means that you’ll be able to see EXACTLY how long an effect lasts, what its cooldown is, etc. We want this system to be as transparent as possible for our players, so that they can make the best decisions when creating their profession builds.
Skill tooltips as they pertain to traits
As traits impact a skill, we’ve also made it so that as skills are impacted by a trait, the skill’s tooltips adjust accordingly. Again, we want players to be able to see these details in their builds, so that they can build their characters exactly the way they want! We’ll be using different colors to show this so that it’s easier for players to see!
Other Misc. fixes:
Tab Targeting Improvements
- Now prioritizes Champs/Legendary, then players/clones, then everything else
- Deselecting your target now resets tab selection history (aka, you’ll start tabbing through from the beginning if you deselect)
- Can now tab target if your character can see the target (Was dependent on camera before)
Floater Improvements:
When you cause condition damage, all damage of a given type (burning, bleed, poison, etc.) will be grouped into a single # with an icon, making them much easier to read. This also allows players suffering from these conditions to more easily see them, and know when they should use condition removal. Note that this is an option, so that you can disable it if you want to (and return to the old system).
Better fast cast ground targeting:
We split this into 3 different options; so that players can more easily cater how ground targeting works for them.
- Double tap to cast
- Press the button to cast
- Release the button to cast
SO GET YO CAST ON!
Pet HP split between PvE and PvP
We wanted to make pets and summons more viable in PvE/WvW while making sure they didn’t become too strong in PvP.
Launch will now be stun breakable
We felt it made it sense to let stun breakers also help you when you are launched, since this is consistent with how stun breakers respond to other control effects.
/end of post 1
“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer
There isn’t a -1 button 
This is quite possibly the dumbest post I’ve read to date.
No, Guild Wars 2 does not need more gated content. It needs less.
“ Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game: armour pieces, potentially different potions – a lot of that is still up in the air and we’ll finalise a lot of those reward systems as we get closer to release. And those come off of things like the bosses at the end of dungeons – the raids.”
Colin, Eurogamer, September 2011. So in a grand total of 2 years they did a 180° turn on this important game design choice. I wonder what’s in store for 2014.
“You can’t have more than 10 HS decks because that would confuse people”
“30 fps is more cinematic”
I never realized how much I hated the idea of the “gear treadmill” until today. I thought it might be fun to boot up GW2 and kill stuff as I haven’t been able to play in a couple months, been at the police academy.
It was at that point I realized that all the weapons on my warrior that I spent so long running dungeons for were now the equivalent of what rares used to be……………..do you know how crushing that is? What do I have to look forward to? An extremely large grind for just a single weapon, forget the fact that I’m warrior and use like a dozen.
This isn’t an I quit post or anything, it’s just a post from a guy that is extremely disappointed with the path you (Anet) has chosen to take this game. I know my sole opinions means little, but hopefully I’m not alone in my sentiments.
Assuming everyone uses a one-handed weapon, off-hand weapon, and two-handed weapon, you need 1,500 Empyreal Fragments. Then there’s two underwater weapons. That’s 2,500 Empyreal Fragments.
The best way to get all of those fragments is dungeons. Each dungeon gives 20 Empyreal Fragments. That means all the ascended weapons require 125 dungeon runs. Assuming each dungeon run takes 15 minutes, that’s 31.5 hours of gameplay just for Empyreal Fragments.
If someone wants to do it through jumping puzzles, it will take an average of 625 jumping puzzles to get 2,500 Empyreal Fragments. Assuming each jumping puzzle takes five minutes — a very generous estimate — that’s more than 52 hours of gameplay just for Empyreal Fragments.
As a comparison, it takes 84 temple events to get 2,500 Dragonite Ore. That’s 21 hours of gameplay at most.
Is this intentional?
Colin Johanson to Eurogamer: “Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game: armour pieces, potentially different potions – a lot of that is still up in the air and we’ll finalise a lot of those reward systems as we get closer to release. And those come off of things like the bosses at the end of dungeons – the raids.”
(edited by Lopez.7369)
For a long time we had a lot of karma and it was good. People had so many they needed conversion by Orrian boxes so we could make some gold from it.
Yet there was another great thing about it.
Orrian temples armors which had some hard to get stat combos like prec/though/con.dmg or power/vit/though were in there.
Now after the nerf we just have to grind karma through events for many hours cause there is no way one can spend months waiting for an armor (and you could get one after like 1 month of dailies with monthly before) good way getting karma for those 2 combos that are great on necro and guardian and they can’t be crafted.
Also doing all daily for a 600 karma (less than 1/10 of jug which is like ~6500) is a joke compared to getting the same amount in mini-games that is accurate for them. No karma in at end of a dungeon and champ boxes. Karma nerf hurts even more in doing dailies when you don’t really need laurels anymore. Daily just loses almost all meaning.
I have to say that was a terible move…
(edited by Septemptus.7164)
First of all, I checked the first 3 pages, and didn’t find anything, if a topic about this is already up, please redirect me.
To the point: there is a huge flaw in the design of the Ascended Weapon boxes. I realize that Anet figured out from Fractals that having random weapons drop for you is undesirable and people didn’t like it.
Now they implemented a system where you can get an Ascended weapon box with fixed stats that make you pick your weapon. For example, you can get a Occam’s Weapon Box, which let’s you pick any Ascended weapon with Rabbid (or Carrion? I dunno, doesn’t matter) stats.
There lies a big flaw in this design though, which honestly is even bigger than having a random weapon drop of which you can pick the stats: if you get the wrong stats, the weapon is essentially more useless than any other weapon.
If I got a Cleric’s Ascended Box, I would literally never open it, because I have absolutely no use for a Cleric’s weapon. A blue lvl80 Berserker weapon is literally more useful to me than any Cleric’s Ascended weapon. The only reason I would use it is if they opened lvl50+ Fractals and I would need the AR, other than that, I wouldn’t even bother.
Which is why, to me at least, having random weapons of which you can pick the stats is a better design than a random stat of which you can use the weapon. Because, at least an undesirable weapon can still fill some function on some character, whereas an undesirable stat wouldn’t even be considered by me. An exotic of more desirable stats will ALWAYS be more useful than an ascended weapon with other stats.
I’m not asking for random weapons though, since that design also doesn’t work, but to me it would be better if they either implemented both systems, where you can get either of them, a random weapon with choosable stats, or a random stat with choosable weapons. Or have a token-like system where you can exchange some ascended token for a box of your choosing.
“People wanting content where Berserker sucks should remember that it needs be so hard
that they will cry, not just a river, but a huge ocean.” – Wethospu
Hmmm another statement i found by Linsey Murdock. Since i do not have direct access to ask her questions i figured i would post on the forum for some feed back. I googled your name and came across this website (See below link)
“http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:Linsey_Murdock”
“My official title at ArenaNet is Game Designer. I started out working on Guild Wars at the tail end of development on Factions as a quest designer and spawner. I continued in that role through Nightfall, EotN and the BMP. Then I went to work on GW2 events for about a year while continuing to do projects for GW1 on the side. In May 2008 I was tapped to head up the newly formed Guild Wars Live Team which I did for 2 years. Now I’m back on GW2, working on the Story Team.”
Below is her statement on how they wanted to make a “Sense of Satisfying Progression” rather then “gear grind”.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/
“We have always worked hard to create a sense of satisfying progression rather than gear grind and this new item progression initiative is no exception. By adding challenging new combat mechanics to end-game content and ways to mitigate those mechanics through gear progression for high-end players, we can add personal progression without making the game feel like an endless treadmill of gear that is just out of your reach. Original Guild Wars fans may recognize that we took a familiar approach to our new progression”
By Linsey Murdock on November 13, 2012
My Question. The original intent for GW2 was for players to get to max gear (exotic) at which point you begin to play for the content (as opposed to playing to gear up). you seem to have completely given up on this idea, so now we play to gear up???. Once we’re done gearing up, will you introduce the next level of gear? Or will we begin to play for content?
As a “Original Guild Wars fan” i feel like GW2 is going in the complete wrong direction with ascended weapons.
Tribulation Mode Shortcut Eagle is working as intended. Shortcut Eagle has an acute sense of justice, and skipping Tribulation Mode is not very justice-ey.
Its official! Guild Wars 2 is officially pay to win. Infinite coin and tribulation mode makes it so. Sorry if you don’t see it that way but I do. Even world 2 zone 2 on infantile mode is way too hard for majority of people “who end up running out of continue coins (pay for this kitten kitten Infinite Continue Coin to keep playing)”. I speak for my guild and the things they have brought to my attention. I love SAB and have Distinction in Applied Jumping. But World 2 zone 2 seems a bit too long and too hard for most people and not enough baubles to make it worth the effort. When we can just farm World 1 easy peasy and get several bubbles in just one run….
Guild Founder
Is it too hard? Respect the awesome work
in Super Adventure Box: Back to School
Posted by: Joshua Valentine.6417
I believe the ramp-up in difficulty has something to do with the Infinite Continue Coin in the gem shop.
-adjusts tin foil hat-
Jade Quarry Forever.
Read the below quote from Mike O’Brien, President of Arenanet.
Two things to understand before reading:
-Ascended gear is mower powerful than exotic. To debate otherwise is silly.
-You do not need ascended gear for most content — This is not the point!
“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Discuss and tell me how time-gating a new tier of weapons and gear that has better stats obeys what Mike O’Brien said in his quote.
Seriously, it’s simply bad design to reward failure. Why bother completing an invasion when you can just fail and farm champions all day?
sigh this game really is made for casuals.
Too late……………………
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro
Ascended Weapons.. ascended Gear.. buff for more HP and other stats in WvW..
@Arena-Net.:
Please do not destroy this game!Please no things like in World of Warcraft, no itemspiral!!! Guild Wars 2 is a wonderful game for PvP (WvWvW), because there is no itemspiral, no buff you get when you play more PvP (WvWvW) than others. It’s a wonderful game because you need skill! And thats why I play this game. I have a chance when I play three times a week against players who played every day five hours. And that makes Guild Wars 2 be one of the best MMO’s ever! So please Arena Net, don’t destroy the game with those alterations!
Why do you tout with this, and now you want to take it in the game? The reasons below were the reasons to buy this game. And now you change it? In my opinion the game will be destroyed with this.
So guys, don’t let this happen. If some guys want an itemspiral than why you play GW2? Make no sense. Arena Net, you had created a game which is different than normal MMO’s. And thats why I love it.
And whats next? Healers and Tanks? You cannot advertise with something, and then after a Year add things you never want to!
At least, sorry for my bad english :P
Momekas Namu
(edited by MandJ.8965)
You can post an encyclopedia on how terribly designed ascended acquisition is in GW2 and every word of it could be objectively true and heralded as visionary in the MMO field and it wouldn’t make a kitten difference. The only thing that will impact on ascended item acquisition in GW2 is if people stop playing.
It’s clear that the biggest priority driving ArenaNet’s design this year is metrics. Just like how CNN will run the Miley Cyrus VMA story and give it top prominence on their site so they can boast to their advertisers and investors that they had lots of page views that day (and they milked it with an evolution of Miley Cyrus image gallery), ArenaNet will use every time gated trick in the “not fun but effective” book of kittenty MMO design to push their daily log in metrics. The two week low quality updates (some of them are great), the temporary content, it’s clear the company isn’t driven by a desire to create a revolutionary and great MMO, they want to push their metrics so the higher ups think they’re doing a good job. In ArenaNet’s eyes, 1,000 people playing the game because they absolutely love it and it’s the best experience being offered to them, that 1,000 people isn’t any where near as good as 10,000 people who may not be enjoying themselves but they are logging in every day to charge their quartz crystal or hit the “craft” or kill 10 rats for their daily.
(edited by Shiren.9532)
Maybe give option get these items free without any work. Those who like to grind could grind sake of grinding.
That makes sense to me.
<rant>But you see grinders need a reason to grind. And it can’t be a long grind for a legendary or a skin, it has to be just the right kind of grind.
Also grinding isn’t fun unless you make everyone else do it to. How else can you show your l33t skillz?
</rant> <disappointment>
oh man.. talk about decisions you’ll regret
The build is in fact so strong that it can reset your account password under certain circumstances.
I know another one that deletes your character, but I can’t share it unfortunately.
Believe it or not I know all that. It doesn’t change the fact that GW2 was still heavily marketed to folks who were sick of classic mmo’s and sick of the grind. And while I know mmo’s aren’t static, the game launched with easy to acquire BiS gear coupled with literal YEARS of messaging that the game wasn’t going to come out with a new tier of gear every couple months. And literally 3 months after launch, they introduced a new tier of gear. They’ve wisely held off the next round for another 9 months, but here we are again.
They “excused” themselves by saying Ascended gear was planned to be in the game at release, bad excuse but still an excuse.
3 months after release they introduced Ascended Rings and Ascended Backpieces in Fractals, 2 months later (5 total) we got Ascended Amulets with the Laurel change, 1 month later (6 total) we got Ascended Accessories with the Guild Missions. Now 6 months later (12 total) we get Ascended Weapons through crafting.
They are adding Ascended quality gear in either new, or old activities. There is a good possibility that Ascended Armor will come from Dungeons (I can dream, can I?)
There is no indication that they will release a new tier of gear anytime soon.
I once had a buddy start nailing my ex as soon as she became my ex. When I confronted him about he said “Ah, but I told you I wasn’t interested in dating her.” This is what the ascended excuse feels like. “Well we never said there would be no gear progression.” No, but you messaged pretty heavily that people who aren’t into that should play your game.
As for the deets of when ascended pieces came out, thanks for the clarification. I quit GW2 not long after the first round. and came back in June when it looked like things had maybe settled, and I could acquire them without doing fractals. Depending on the implementation, this could be the final nail in the coffin. My Elder Scrolls collection will be here in a couple weeks, and that should be able to mostly tide me over till ESO comes out next year.
It doesn’t matter that each batch of ascended gear is all part of the same gear tier, because each batch is still a new tier of power creep. Therefore, rounds of power creep have still entered the game at a pretty normal pace compared to EOMMORPGotM, (roughly quarterly) it’s just that each round is comparatively small, and has no higher difficulty content to accompany it.
No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
dunno about you guys but i’d hope to have multiple characters with multiple viable builds before i turn 90 years old .