Guild Wars 2

Good
- Knows that the profession is more than a one-trick pony.
- Masters multiple ways of playing the profession, can play all at once.
- Knows how to use their skills in more ways than one (e.g., Leap Finishers).
- Are able to react quickly, e.g., should a Thief get a jump on them from stealth.
- Can interrupt with relative ease, purposely, not wasteful.
- Knows when to shatter, and when to leave illusions out for pressure.
- Dodges as avoidance, not to wastefully create clones for one all or nothing burst.
- Has a good understanding of how other professions plays.

Bad
- Never uses Leap Finishers to create, e.g., Chaos Armor.
- Dodges wastefully to create clones for an all or nothing burst setup.
- Overly relies on stealth and are not capable of surviving without it.
- Never takes the time to learn how to interrupt with intent.
- Gets stuck playing a single way, never branching out.
- Has no idea what the other professions are doing to them.
- Follows a (atypical) rotation. Becomes predictable.
- Isn’t playing Chronomancer (—Ok, fine, not really.. can it be Oct. 23 yet?)

SyncTrizon.2453:

Actually Signet of Inspiration and Temporal Curtain do stack. Just gain the Swiftness from Temporal Curtain before the Interval of Signet of Inspiration.

But otherwise, I feel like Temporal Curtain’s Swiftness should be buffed a bit.

Any Swiftness stacks with the overall short-duration Swiftness you can gain from Temporal Curtain. It’s the other way around that’s annoying, and that helps make it feel relatively useless within places like World vs. World, or when there is anyone else able to provide Swiftness for that matter, in any game mode.

Silver wrote near-perma Protection in the first bullet point above the sentence stating perma Regen + Protection + high Might, as in.. perma Regen, and (near-perma) Protection, and high stacks of Might. I don’t see “PERMA protection” in there. The sentence doesn’t necessarily even say permanent Might for that matter.

As for how to gain rather consistent Protection? There’s this trait you see, that gives us Protection whenever we gain Chaos Armor, and we have a few fields that we can leap on to gain that, as well as a few options for leaping. I believe we additionally have this skill on our Staff that allows us to apply Chaos Armor. As for that trait, I believe it is called Chaotic Dampening. If not, it should totally be called that.

And if you didn’t get that I were advocating lockdown Mesmer being underrepresented (and why), and how they can re-channel their Mantra(s) rather easily, that it’s rather ridiculous to insist on staying on-point if it gets you killed.. and well, nowhere mentioning bunkering, then yeah… Forum Diversion? Irregardless, if someone are dutying bunkering with their Mesmer, and enjoy it, all the more power to them. They know if it works for them or not, and they may play it in a way that’s not conventional.

I agree that I find it annoying in how it doesn’t stack with pre-existing Swiftness. I understand that they don’t want you to just run back and forth through the field, which is why it has the limitation in the first place, but there must be better ways of resolving that. Only triggering once per x amount of seconds. Create a new conditional that states you can only gain an effect out of a line within x amount of time. If you run through a line field, it adds the conditional, during it’s existence, you can not gain the effect of running through the line field again, before it ticks off.

I do see how it’s a perk that it doen’t have a cap on the amount of targets that can pass through it. But it’s still annoying having it feel absolutely useless in say WvW, where there’s a huge number of sources blasting Static Fields and throwing down Swiftness fields. It’d be nice to feel like you can contribute a bit, beyond pulling people off walls.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Yeah, you can use distortion, just remember your no longer tanking the point then. Idk what you think someone standing infront of you does. Cause it does nothing at all. As for distance, that also means your not doing your job and holding the point. CC is a option for cc’s that have a cast time. But not all ccs have a cast time. And a block from a enemy guardian to stop that totally screws you over. Or multiple ccs from different people. And as for waiting for when there is no ccs up, GL, cause you will be waiting for like, the entire fight lol.

Force people off the point with a Chaos Storm? Any slightly clever individual knows they do not want to stand in that, more so when facing a lockdown Mesmer.. Something it’s a shame you never really see your pros play I might add. Though I do understand why, considering lockdown is not something that you can just switch to and be instantly good at. I’m well aware that it takes time, several months even, to learn the ropes, refine and actually become good with that way of playing. Just like it takes time to get decent at Mesmer in the first place. So yes, I fully respect that those that have their interests invested towards competing in tournaments, the “pros”, aren’t exactly all that up for being bad (and practically anyone that’s just starting out with doing lockdown is quite bad, for quite some time) and a liability to their team, while they become efficient with that mindset. Over time, you start to pre-emptively interrupt skills you want though, at a rather great success rate. Initially, it’s hard, many skills are instant, and it takes time to get it to be second nature to interrupt specific things and to not go trigger happy and waste them. Luckily, most players adapts the same exact playing patterns, so it’s easier to counter <insert x profession here>.

As for tanking the point. Sometimes, taking and controlling a point, is not all about you standing on it. If you win a fight because you weren’t insisting on standing in harms way all the time, and you can capture that point, then it doesn’t matter that you moved off it for brief moments. Even your pros, which you so often seem to refer to, knows that, and you can easily see them not focusing all their efforts about standing on the point, but rather on winning the fight, then standing on point. Sure, stepping into the circle is important too, but not dying it more important. You’re of no use dead.

E.g., you may have lost the point for 6 points ticked over to the enemy team, then you ended up killing whatever opposition that was there and take it back for the duration of, let’s just say 20 points, to your team. Who benefit in that situation? The opposing team that managed to decap and tick 6 points? Or you who’s controlling the point currently while the opposition was sent back to their spawn, giving your team 5 points (or more, if there were additional stomps performed) in addition to the points ticking in while you’re in control. Hopefully, if applicable to the match and situation, you were clever enough to send them off just after a 15 second window (:01, :16, :31, :46), to capitalize on the time they are kept out of the match.

CC to re-channel can be from one interrupt with Chaotic Interruption, Power Block, Confounding Suggestions and Furious Interruption for some added speed to aid you further. So what do you mean with “cast time”. Our interrupts are instant (unless you consider Chaos Storm or clones needing to travel for Diversion—don’t forget that you are a source of Diversion too). A block from a Guardian, as in a Aegis, is not something to worry about, your illusions will likely peel that away anyways, if it was on-demand, then they are more often than not out of it for over a minute, besides a few traits (e.g., just be ready for it at 50% health, or after they block). If you mean through skills (e.g., SoW), you can- and will want to peel it to avoid the explosion. If they are using Shelter, by all means, channel up a Mantra without care. They aren’t posing a threat at the time. You had no reason to move anywhere.

And if there’s multiple people there, and you are alone, you are in trouble regardless. Most professions are, even the almighty cEle is going to face some trouble when they get outnumbered. Actually even more so when there’s a +1 in a lockdown Mesmer to harass them. You can perhaps survive long enough for your team to assist you, but if they delay on that, you are faced with the choice of either eating dirt, or trying to tail it out of there because it’s futile, and you’d rather they didn’t get the +5 and benefit of you being taken out of the fight for x amount of time.

LightOfMercy.3516:

Does anything go through blur?

You will get interrupted if you hit someone with Shocking Aura in example. Or if you try to run through area of denial fields (Static, Warding, etc.). Retaliation will hurt you when you hit on people, but they basically made Retaliation tickle.. so whatever. So.. yeah, not much will actually hurt you, unless you are already loaded up with conditions.

Ross nailed it right off the bat. There is more to Mesmer than simply shattering, and Mesmer is a profession that doesn’t truly shine before you got access to all its Traits. Also, it is the most glorious profession ever to embrace Lyssa’s bosom, so there’s also that. We are fabulous.

You can center yourself around shattering, sure, but you can also focus on Phantasm damage, and maintaining Phantasms. Or, you could step into the world of the lockdown-, the interrupt-Mesmers. Then again, perhaps you want to be more of a hybrid between these styles, a Mesmer that focuses on interrupts and also allows the Phantasms and clones to do their work before they get shattered.

Also, keep in mind what it is that a Mesmer does. They control the minds of the weaker professions (—"Mesmerica! Meow yeah!") and enemies. Through illusions, they make them think there is a enemy presence there. Once the enemy is defeated, the illusion breaks, as a blank mind can’t be controlled. But what about damage that hits multiple targets? Well, your mind control over one individual spreads the same fear into their nearby allies. Anyways, I highly recommend you to stick it out. It does get better.

Multiple mantras might seem like a bit of a hassle to maintain, but one, even two are not that hard to channel up safely (it’s just annoying when you got multiple, in my opinion. Those not phased by it, all the more power to you, I salute you for your perseverance). You can easily cover one (if you feel it’s worth it/not a waste at the time—assess the situation) with a Distortion. Or through LoS, ally body blocking/guarding, distance created from kiting, CC through lockdown, waiting until you know there’s no interrupts coming your way (reading your opponent and thus recognizing when they are out of options to interrupt you—you know, what most decent interrupt-oriented Mesmers have conditioned themselves to do), etc.—There’s a few options to be had.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Absconditus.6804:

Silverkey.2078:

why does “45” “s” get kittenized?

I think it is because it reads it as “a buttocks” in 1337 speak.. or something. The filter is overly sensitive. I can’t imagine what else it would triggers on it for, and regardless, for it to trigger on that word is just ridiculous at any rate. Oh no, someone wrote a slightly cruder word for buttocks on the internet, or a wild donkey, call the censorship police! Like i said before, I bet by next year, all we can read on the official forums are paragraphs of kitten. “Kitten kitten kitten, kitten.. kitten kitten kitten kitten. Kitten! Kitten kitten.”

Back to the well, why use the well for a resurrect, when you could much quicker push out a banner, or Signet of Mercy, Glyph of Renewal, Signet of Undeath, Toss Elixir R (from slotting Elixir R), Nature’s Renewal (from sacrificing a Spirit of Nature) for that matter. We are the only ones with a semi-terrible revival skill (out of the professions that has one, out of which only Thief does not), which places them back into downed state if there’s no opponents finished off during the window. Yes, these revival skills has a much longer recharge, but fourty-five seconds is still a rather lengthy recharge nonetheless (and I guess in that sense it’s not totally unbalanced if it truly is 3s of basically evading anything thrown your way as a team standing on it).

Just relised you either edited your post or I didn’t see there was more to it. In a pug pvp match those are certainly viable options IF you play those classes. but in pug servers your teammates aren’t gonna do a quick rez. This idea is strictly for more organized groups that work together and are on TS. Most of the resurrects you listed have a long cast time and thus can be interrupted. In tournaments most of those will just get interrupted again and again. As for toss elixir B, engi needs kits to be effective and thus grenade kit and tool kit are taken. For your third slot you need a stunbreak or you will be targeted again and again in a team fight and get massacred. Thus, slick shows is taken. I would say it actually probably does a better job of securing stomps and rezes. And ranger normerly isn’t taken, not to mention the spirit has like 0 health.

But, you are saying a Mesmer should take the well in an organized team, sacrificing a slot. Why can’t the organized team figure out what they want to sacrifice themselves across other professions for a more potent resurrect? It’s not as if the Mesmer couldn’t potentially take something more selfish, the same way the Engi, Ele, Ranger, Necro, Warrior (well, maybe not Warrior, a lot of those do run banner) or Guardian would. Mesmer’s are often under the disillusion of needing Decoy as an example, which I know is not the case. The same is highly likely for the other professions, I don’t run half the skills you mentioned when I play my alts. People are just stuck in some rut of an idea that you must have certain skills on your bar, or you can’t function. They all use the same cookie cut build they got from someone else. I call these skills crutches, band aids that allows you to not become a better version of the player that you currently are.

Additionally, using the revival skills are honestly not that difficult. That can be resolved with positioning and/or body blocking by other team members. I know Ranger isn’t taken normally, Necromancer isn’t either when it comes to it, that doesn’t change they have an option for revival. And I already said the recharge is long on those skills, but so is 45 seconds if you think about it. The upside is that the well has more applicable use, way more potent than for a team resurrect. Evading nearly anything that comes your way for 3 seconds as a whole team is huge, and I hope that is not how it functions. On paper that seems stupid powerful. But.. as I said before, I’m all for trying it before I chalk it up as broken. Oh, and remember that at the time of us being able to use this well, the other professions will have their new skills and traits to toy around with as well, plus there will be an entire new profession available.

Silverkey.2078:

why does “45” “s” get kittenized?

I think it is because it reads it as “a buttocks” in 1337 speak.. or something. The filter is overly sensitive. I can’t imagine what else it would triggers on it for, and regardless, for it to trigger on that word is just ridiculous at any rate. Oh no, someone wrote a slightly cruder word for buttocks on the internet, or a wild donkey, call the censorship police! Like i said before, I bet by next year, all we can read on the official forums are paragraphs of kitten. “Kitten kitten kitten, kitten.. kitten kitten kitten kitten. Kitten! Kitten kitten.”

Back to the well, why use the well for a resurrect, when you could much quicker push out a banner, or Signet of Mercy, Glyph of Renewal, Signet of Undeath, Toss Elixir R (from slotting Elixir R), Nature’s Renewal (from sacrificing a Spirit of Nature) for that matter. We are the only ones with a semi-terrible revival skill (out of the professions that has one, out of which only Thief does not), which places them back into downed state if there’s no opponents finished off during the window. Yes, these revival skills has a much longer recharge, but fourty-five seconds is still a rather lengthy recharge nonetheless (and I guess in that sense it’s not totally unbalanced if it truly is 3s of basically evading anything thrown your way as a team standing on it).

I’m not convinced the duration has not been tampered with when each pulse is supposed to give 1s of Blur. It seems a bit rash to give each pulse on a 3s well, immunity to anything but such things as, e.g., Retaliation and/or Shocking Aura. Even if it’s on a Fourty-Five Seconds (“a kitten ” is kitten.. ok then.. WHAT?!—by this time next year, we can only read “kitten kitten kitten kitten kitten, kitten, kitten kitten” in our posts. This is getting ridiculous, ArenaNet…) CD. We’re talking about 5 targets having the benefit, not just one Mesmer. If it isn’t adjusted accordingly, then it’s downright overpowered and most likely considered mandatory for clashes on points, never mind for resurrecting. 3 seconds of straight up immunity is huge when you can cover so many people at once. Also I’m not sure why I had 9s in my head. Still, I think it needs adjusting, but I’m open for trying it out before screaming bloody murder.

Don’t be afraid of shattering your Phantasms. More so if your CD are over and you can summon up a new one. And keep in mind a simple rule, unless you got 3 Phantasms out, a clone won’t overwrite one, they’ll overwrite another clone.

Ok, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Yes it’s 3 seconds, out of 9 in total. 1 second every 3 seconds. Even if your team is decent, if the other team is decent, well, the other team can work around that with, e.g., just one Mantra of Distraction placed right as the Blur goes away. You have a generous 2 second window to deal with the evades.

Also, a lot of resurrects would mean that you have a lot of team members downed in the same location. The well isn’t that large, haha, you sort of make it sound as if it’s gigantic. And, if your team at the time suffers from downed players on a regular basis when faced with team fights, it is most likely having problems beyond what the well can fix. But sure, the well seems interesting enough, though as Chaos says as well, there’s other interesting wells to select from as too.

Well, well, well, seems we get to write well a whole lot with our new wells.

This is as others say, a very valid bug fix. It just means we need to use further skilled play to use it effectively. Mesmer has always had a high skill ceiling, and I would imagine most Mesmer’s are happy with that. And, keep in mind that we can very likely find ways to use the intended way for this to function, to our advantage as well. I’m sure we can figure out instances where we want to see it destroyed by an enemy, and place it in harms way purposely to do something really quickly. You may not think that to be the case now, but give us some time to experiment, and you might be surprised at the plays we make out of Chronomancer and its quirks.

Zenith.7301:

No. No more interrupt traits, these are terrible for PvE.

You do realize mesmer interrupts are on longish cooldowns besides the offhand sword offhand and don’t work on mobs with defiance bars, right?

This is a problem with the underlying mechanic of Defiance and/or the Breakbar. Something ArenaNet sorely needs to look into further. It’s not alright that a key mechanic (let’s face it, interrupts are a key mechanic to the Mesmer profession, and it has been since our Guild Wars days) is rendered useless, due to the fear of trivializing encounters when multiple sources of interrupts gets together to fight a boss in the open world. We need a way to trigger these traits, even if it doesn’t actually halt what the target is doing, that or, every single enemy with Defiance and/or the Breakbar, needs to have attacks that can be interrupted, e.g., auto-attacks. The Mesmer has way too many skills and traits revolving skilled play through interrupts for this to be neglected. They fixed Conditions (to an extent), now go fix Defiance/the Breakbar.

Well, since I am not shackled by Decoy, as I haven’t touched the skill for the better part of a year, if not a bit longer now, I can give up Decoy, sure. I don’t run stealth, and can contest far better thanks to it. It also helps with my interrupts, since I can get the pressure I want directed on me, and my illusions are allowed to live that much longer, doing what they do before I shatter them. But this is besides the point, on topic;

How this would be a free resurrect(?) I don’t see. “Blur”, nor Endurance equals a resurrect, so.. what do you mean? That you might not be interrupted for 1- out of every 3 seconds, when trying to resurrect a team member that went into Downed State? I do think the well seems mildly enticing, sure, but as for which skill I’d replace, I don’t know. Maybe Blink, I don’t really need it when having Phase Retreat as an alternative. I know I won’t replace Mantra of Distraction, I love my interrupts way too much, but I guess I might swap away Null Field, it’s the skill I tend to replace the most as-is, depending on what I want (e.g., if I want to put Portal into my setup).

Actually, a mini-backpack would be rather neat. Though it’d be a mini, sort of.. so.. it’s complicated? Maybe if it’d have some animations for jumping up on your shoulder when idle or something. Speaking of Miniatures, I still want a Miniature Me that is the player model (copies the exact model, Outfit and/or equipment used) and mimics everything you do in a miniaturized form.

I didn’t feel there were too many at all. They are rather easy to overcome anyways and hardly take much longer to kill. If anything, when you are engaged with multiple foes, it makes it smarter to take out the squishier ones first, then focusing on the Veteran(s), unless it makes more sense to focus the Veteran due to it being more of a threat in the skills it does (e.g., if it were a Tormentor). You know, strategic combat over the current mindless whack, whack, whack mentality that people even still bring with them into the BW zone. Smokescales are a perfect example.. it states right on their info that they evade while in their mist, but some people still try to whack, whack, whack at them in the middle of the mist—when all they had to do is take a few steps in any direction to pull them away from it, and kill them in an instant. Smrt. So smrt.

As a Mesmer, I am instantly switching to Chronomancer. Even more so for WvW, where Wells will be good for becoming all that more useful to my allies. And since I never use the unnecessary stealth (crutch), I have no problems swapping to Shield instead of /Sword or Pistol either. #5 is just too good as a interrupt Mesmer. Oh, and the juicy additional interrupt trait(s) for Chronomancer is enticing too.

I wouldn’t be against it, that’s for sure. That way you’d have one backpack for sPvP, one for Fractals, one for general PvE and exploration, and if they’d find a way to make one for WvW as well, that’d make one for each kind of game type.

I guess it depends on how much other things is required for the sPvP/Fractal ones. Are they self-contained within the content they are advertised for, or do they branch out into the other game types as well, like current Legendary equipment?

I have both the Selfless- and Thoughtless Potions, and have wanted a way for players to get this again for the longest time. I hate having to answer that it’s not available anymore, when people ask me about the halo I tend to wear at all times. No, I do not need to be a special snowflake. It does not devalue it to me if everyone else can have it. I still appreciate it for what it is, a nice looking halo floating above my head.

It’s not as if these are handed out like candy either. 450 tokens and 10 Gold is quite a hefty cost, more so than I wish it were. At most you can get 15 tokens per hour (30 min for the meta event, then you have to wait another 30 mins for next map) + 20 Daily Map Bonus once a day. For three hours, you can at most get 105, and then another 3 hours is going to only net you 45. For six hours investment, you get 150 tokens, out of 450 needed. Only hardcore grinders with plenty of will and time will do that.

But yeah, I wish it were easier for people to obtain, even if I have them both and it’s somewhat rare to see the halo/horns anywhere. Not easier than it were for me to grind them, but easier than what this event is presenting as a way.

If you don’t got one, get a cooling deck with fans to put under your laptop. It raises it for increased airflow and helps with cooling down the unit. It can also have the added benefit of making it more ergonomic to use the keyboard by tilting it towards you. This is obviously more for using it as a desktop replacement (which I started using mine as—the 980M with 8GB GDDR5 VRAM is simply amazing when considering it’s a laptop GPU).

My laptop tends to run around 60°C in mostly all games (i7-4710HQ). But that said, your reported 70-85°C shouldn’t be something to worry all too much about. It’s worth noting that GW2 is very GPU reliant, same as GW was. This has a benefit of it becoming more stable overall though. E.g., my old desktop has a fried GPU, but can still run GW and GW2 just fine, where as every other game will cause it to artifact and bleed textures.

Also, I don’t game in a “hot” room and always make sure it’s at a comfortable level by properly ventilating my home (I tend to leave the front door open to let the air flow around the rooms), the higher the ambient temperature of the room, the hotter your PC will run. It’s also uncomfortable to sit in a sauna and game.

I have perhaps disconnected 3 times, over the course of 3 years. I can’t say there’s too many server issues with the game. I play from Norway, it’s not as if I live next to the server hub. Maybe it’s better here on the EU side though.

Edit: Ok, moderator(s), calm down a bit with all the moving and merging, huh? This is a discussion as far as I can tell, so why in the world was it moved out of General Discussion? I don’t see anyone requesting Account- and/or Technical Support in here.

Nope, only you can decipher your thought process on this one. Sure, Shark on a Stick is straight forward spear, I’m so Goth it Hurts is not. Nor is Electric BBQ, there’s both Bolt and Meteorlogicus which has lightning in their theme (and I guess trident could technically be seen as electric eels, though they aren’t necessarily). Pony Bow is straight forward, shortbow. Fire Alarm Trigger is not, could be Rodgort, could be Incinerator. I Carry My Wealth on My Back is again not really descriptive. Can be any two-handed one, Eternity, The Flameseeker Prophecies. Not a Torch could be Rodgort, but it could be everything else too. Rainbow Cricket Bat makes no sense when Rainbow Stick is pretty obviously staff. Mesmer makes no sense either.

No, sorry, your idea of clever names for the legendaries likely only fits your way of thinking for a majority of them. Please update, fun was denied.

Easy fix to make this a plausible event?

- Make the required events within the meta for maximum tokens 10, not 20. There is no plausible way of reaching 20 without being a selfish jerk and speeding around the map tagging one-two enemies before speeding off to the next event. This does not promote working together at all.

- Make each event within the meta spawn a Champion at the end that drops additional tokens (+ a champ bag perhaps). An incentive to stick with the event until the end. You can more often than not reach 10 events within the 30 minute window. 20 is impossible unless you zip around and don’t contribute for more than tagging. That’s right.. not contributing gets you max reward output. Backwards much?

- Make it a shorter wait period between maps. Waiting half an hour doing nothing is terribly boring. Sure, it’s nice that they rotate, it’s nice that it has a tiny window for players to gather up, but 30 minutes is just too long. At the very least make it every 15 minutes, meaning if it, e.g., started at 1pm, it ends at 1:30pm, and it starts again on the next map 1:45pm, lasts until 2:15pm, starts again at 2:30pm for the third map, etc.—we can figure that out just fine. Or just have a timer that states when it starts on the next map.

- Lower the Gold cost. This is clearly an event for new players. There’s no way they can afford 10 Gold, not to mention multiple times. It’s already grindy enough.
____

Personally I don’t need/want any of the rewards. I have all the skins, I got my Selfless- and Thoughtless Potions. But I sure want to see people able to earn stuff without being frustrated.

Go into sPvP, either purchase a Custom Arena yourself, or jump into a empty one from the list (note that you may get interrupted). With HoT, Guild Halls may very well serve that function to some extent too. You can also duel in WvW if on separate servers. But a straight up /duel, no, no such thing. And yes, I too aren’t entirely sure why. They could make it so you can’t do it within certain city limits, a radius if you like.

No, the obvious answer is not “Why not?” to me.

Wings as backpacks are cosmetics, they bring nothing to the table in terms of gameplay. As you say yourself, we don’t magically gain the ability to fly by using cosmetical wings on our backs. A mount, if it’s not necessary to bring movement speed with their implementation, and that they are purely there as a cosmetic gimmick, well, then they already exist in the Riding Broom (or technically the original, the Enchanted Broom) and Magic Carpet. I’m sure more variations of these kinds of gizmos will be introduced over time. Who knows, maybe they can add a unicorn or a ground hovering bat without them actually increasing your speed. Nothing wrong with that. I’m all for it.

Consider that the footsteps of a Legendary can be something to make you feel “epic” as you travel around too, Ghost Wolf. E.g., like those of Eternity. Or use a tonic and turn into a moose. Be your own mount.

It’s not a new subject. And as per usual, I shall reply with the standard “Why?” question. With the way the world is populated with Waypoints in every nook and cranny, barely a stone toss away from one another, why do we need mounts? A mount would obviously be considered necessary to speed up the player, right? If not, then you have two mounts already in the game, a flying broomstick and -carpet. But if it needs to speed up the player, you completely negate the effect of one of our Boons, Swiftness, and stats through Utility/Traits/Runes providing Movement Speed. So again, why? Can’t you collect skins as-is? Or perhaps Miniatures (though since they are not possible to completely collect, I don’t see why anyone would bother themselves with collecting them). You could collect the Mail carriers. Finishers. There’s plenty of things to collect besides a mount. A mount which honestly feels very out of place and unnecessary when there are so many Waypoints.

This was clearly a rushed event to give the F2P players a taste of the kind of events Guild Wars 2 has on offer in the future. We’re in a event-drought currently leading up to Heart of Thorns, and they likely figured they needed to push something out, to show that the game does have events too. And then they failed miserably in their execution. No F2P player can feasibly afford 10 Gold on the rewards for one. And it started out not even functioning properly.

I got 5 “tokens” from the first meta-session of 30 mins I did, then nothing the second one I went to, but still.. going by the one where I actually got an reward; five, for 30 minutes invested and not cheesing it by tagging and running (which you are actually promoting, meaning that no event is feasibly getting completed within the broader meta). That means it would take 90 sessions of grinding these metas to get a Selfless- or Thoughtless Potion (luckily I have both already, but I have wanted and expressed a desire for there to be a way that newer players can obtain these too, for the longest time in fact), each meta taking 30 minutes, for a total of 45 hours spent over the course of 4 days that it’s available.. I mean, what? That has to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever encountered. Are we some sort of a-typical F2P grind MMORPG now? I thought ArenaNet said the F2P change wouldn’t make things worse.. but this sure feels worse than previous events.

You are NOT showing your game off to the new players as being as good as it has been. F2P players are just going to get some sort of warped “this game is kitten grindy” view from this, and likely figure they don’t want to buy into it and become a B2P player. It’s like you purposely decided to take a dump on to your own calves, Anet. Pretty dumb.

Edit: Please note that I am “upset” with the execution of this event because I want the game to be as good as it can be. To attract even more customers that buy into it. It frustrates me as a player to see blatantly obvious frustration implemented. This is just that. Anyone should be able to see that this event is not a good execution on showing the new players how great the events of Tyria can be. Lessen the cost of picking up a reward for one, 10 Gold is a lot to a new player, and this is obviously meant for them more so than us Veterans who has most-, if not everything on offer. And reward more tokens for participation. Reward them from drops in the events within the meta, say from Champions that could spawn after you complete the objective. Give players an incentive to stick to the event they are at, not just run off tagging as much as possible. The event itself isn’t a bad idea, the execution of it is.

You can always find someone to open that gate for you. First, make sure you are in the American district, that’s where most players are these days. Then just write “New to the game, could someone help me with the gate?” and you’re undoubtedly going to get some help. Outside of this first tutorial area, you are not reliant on anyone for mostly anything, as you can use Henchmen and Heroes to get through the entire game. Even some of the harder content can be done with heroes.

I can’t say I became a fan of Staff at all. Nor a lot of the Daredevil utility skills. A bare few was fun, and I liked the dodge trait(s)—well, mainly the blossom one. Otherwise, I was very underwhelmed by Daredevil after having played something as amazing as Chronomancer (now nerfed, and probably equally underwhelming when released).

One of my pet peeves with Ascended is the lack of a jewelry upgrade slot. I do however not mind the Defensive, Offensive and Utility slots for Infusions. I’ve invested heavy into gaining just the right stats, and as such, made several Omni-Infusions, far more expensive that the simple +5 stat +5 AR infusions (which are still valuable mind you) that I’ve populated other slots with. I don’t mind that it is a Gold sink, because the game needs some sort of sink to float money into. This is a way to “gate” progression as well, and gives you something to work towards.

All I want is Lv.80 upgrade slots added to the jewelry, especially when they’ve added such things as the Poly-luminescent Undulating Refractor (Black)—something you are denied from using on your Ascended trinkets. Boo, I say, boo!

Yeah, here in Europe the tax has been showing since day one, it’s just been included in the checkout. When I bought Gems for 50€ as advertised as the cost, it charged me 50€. Does it work similarly in the states where you see some tax added? If so, what is the problem?

If I can have unique and cosmetically larger illusions for my Mesmer/Chronomancer, I don’t see why not. Why not simply ask for new pet models to collect in Heart of Thorns? I somewhat expect that there will be. The tiger in example is there, so I don’t see why a Ranger can’t tame one as a pet.

I can’t say that I found any of the enemies to be unfairly difficult. I do however, see a whole lot of people completely ignoring tactical combat, and still mindlessly attacking. Take the Smokescales as an example; people keep fighting them in their mist. It clearly states that they are evading when within the mist.. so why aren’t people pulling them out of it? All things considered, these things are actually rather squishy once you counter their survival mechanics and move them. It’s a good combat design, but one that oh so many people have frustrated me with when I’m running around these past BW’s—they keep them inside their mist.

Tells on enemies are across the board easy to notice. I am able to interrupt practically everything that is not featuring the Breakbar (and I am not a big fan of it, just as I am not a fan of Defiance). On the note of the Breakbar (and Defiance), why is it that certain enemies are completely designed to be immune to interrupts? There are a number of traits that my Mesmer (or now Chronomancer) has, that is revolving around the ability to interrupt a target. I need to be able to interrupt in order to trigger such effects as; Vulnerability, Quickness, Slow, Weakness + Damage, to recharge my Pistol skills, Immobilize + gain Might + apply one more random Condition and Boon. Why am I being prevented from actually functioning to my potential? Wouldn’t it be a better design to make at least the auto-attacks interruptable? I can understand that it is in order to create some sense of difficulty when there are a large number of players involved in an encounter, but to make enemies practically immune to what I would consider partially a core mechanic to the Mesmer profession (we have the largest amount of traits revolving it, and a good amount of interrupt oriented skills)? Why? Your combat designers must be capable of thinking up a better way. Such as certain skills being uninterruptable, if not all but the auto-attack. Don’t completely negate a professions capabilities of being relevant. The Breakbar is benefiting from interrupt builds, sure, but it doesn’t trigger interrupt effects such as the ones I listed above. This is a huge problem as I see it.

Also, the beetles—another annoyance since Season 2. They are so stupidly designed that the illusions are not capable of dealing damage to them from all orientations. Again, a profession is vastly kitten by a quite frankly stupid design decision. Illusions are mind-implicated effects, right? So why in the world would they be bound by some sort of physical shell? Isn’t the entire underlying idea of the Mesmer profession that they torment the mind of their targets to create these illusions? Isn’t that why they break when the target is defeated? Why in the world aren’t the criteria to create the illusion when facing the target, but otherwise, when shattering (not incl. the now inherent Illusionary Persona) they will still hit, and the same goes for their attacks, regardless of where they are hitting on the beetle. Unlike the Ranger, a Mesmer can’t plausibly rotate (as you would if you were a tank in a “trinity game”) the beetle to make their pet capable of hitting. At best, we can perhaps do that for one of our Phantasms. We have lowered personal damage, because we have 3 sources of additional damage (clones for conditions of some sort), which are due to a silly design choice, neglected.

But overall however, I am very happy with the difficulty of the new zone that we’ve been shown in these past beta events. They require some strategic reaction, such as taking out Tormentors asap. and so on forth. A bit more thinking behind the combat. Aside from flaws with the Breakbar (and Defiance as it is), and certain silly design decisions such as the beetle taking damage only from its nose, the enemies present a good challenge, but none that can’t be overcome. I think for the most part, players just need to learn how to deal with them efficiently. And how to react to clear tells. I haven’t seen a single enemy that didn’t have a very obvious tell for hard hitting attacks. Mesmer aren’t the tankiest of professions (though not the squishiest either), and I haven’t had huge issues traversing the jungle. If anything, the little mushrooms can be a bit of a hell-nugget to deal with. But I’ll figure them out. I’m sure I will. Please, for the love of Gaben, do not dumb down the encounters just yet. Players need time to adapt and learn to deal with them. But do look into how certain mechanics gimps certain professions key mechanics though.. that’s just unfair design and asking for professions to be shunned as less useful by the community.

I think a lot of times people aren’t necessarily aware of it. Your character model may not have loaded at the time of them going AFK for a while on that spot. If you move a few feet over, and they move over you again, then it’s purposely done, of course. If they do it on purpose, I just guess they’re green with envy of how awesome you look.

Steam doesn’t want a cut of the micro transactions in Guild Wars. Nor in a whole lot of other Free/Buy to Play games that has their own in-game stores and payment services. EA’s way of distributing their DLC was horrendous by the way, absolutely horrendous. No clue if it’s still as bad, but did you ever buy the DLC for the original Dragon Age? It was such a stupidly convoluted system just to get some DLC activated. This caused a whole lot of Support tickets to Steam Support, when it was supposed to go to EA Support (which was/is equally as terrible as the convoluted DLC system they use(d)). I wouldn’t be surprised if that is what caused the split in some way, and incidentally that I have not purchased a single EA game since. Their loss, not mine. Rarely do I buy games if they are not on Steam. Guild Wars 2 is practically the only exception I’ve made in a long time.

If they can get Guild Wars 2 F2P on to Steam, the added exposure is undoubtedly good. Sure, people probably know about the game, so I wouldn’t say exposure in that sense. But having it a few clicks away through everyone’s “favorite platform” is likely more of a trigger for; “I’ll give it a go, why not?” than when they still need to go through the official website.

One of the problems however is that the Steam Community Hub is often used by the Steam users, regardless if the game has their own official forums (—guilty as charged). E.g., complaints about WB Games titles, such as MKX and B:AK, went mostly on to the Steam forums for the PC versions. WB didn’t seem to monitor that at all (and still seem to be doing a poor job). And I guess this would be cause to some problems for ArenaNet in terms of user feedback, unless they designate someone to communicate and update on the Steam Community as well, or find a deal with Valve on how to make it just link directly to the Guild Wars 2 Forums.

Strictly speaking, it’s not necessary. I have my Guild Wars 2 client added as a non-Steam application and can take my screenshots and share them through my Activity Feed just fine. I can Shift-Tab to open the browser while seeing the action in the game behind it, and use the community features such as the chat, with friends not in the same game as me. I can even use the VoIP when I’m too lazy to set up something else.

The only thing that’s not really there, is the Steam Community, which is not really necessarily something ArenaNet would want, as it’d fragment their community more than say unofficial forums and such do (though I guess, they would sort of get a good indication of where F2P players comment on things, considering they can’t post here on the official forums), and such things as Steam Achievements (I guess it’d be fun to see all (non-temporary) achievements in-game be unlocked on Steam as well for all to see, though very few people truly cares about that), as well as Steam Trading Cards; emotes, backgrounds and badges. Those kind of things.

I guess the ease of exposure and being just a few clicks away, might bring more players into trying it however. More so than announcements around the web regarding it being Free to Play, but only available through the official site. There are perks to Steam too. The absolutely massive user base is one.

“Within the open world of the Heart of Maguuma, you’ll earn and build two new armor sets with unique looks for light, medium, and heavy armor, five new weapon sets, and over 60 unique additional item skins, miniatures, and more!”

—36 unique armor skins belonging to two sets, spread over three weight tiers. 95 new weapons skins belonging to five sets. And an additional 60+ combined total of skins, miniatures and more. There’s also 3 Legendary weapons to start pursuing, with an additional 16 to come (obviously) as we continue past Heart of Thorns release. From what I’ve gathered, these also have unique precursor skins, meaning there’s an additional 3 skins at release to get together with those as well, and an additional 16 to come, as they release more Legendary weapons. Then there’s the Legendary armor just announced, and who’s to say that they don’t take on a unique appearance based on your profession? Those 3 different weight tiers can suddenly become more than 3 different sets of unique skins. Also, there’s two Legendary back pieces announced, the Fractal one and the sPvP Leagues related one. There’s one new profession, with a Specialization, and Specializations for every existing profession. And 4 maps with 3 layers to them would be more like 12 maps. With a day / night cycle that changes the encounters and enemies. There’s the Masteries, Adventures, and so on forth. I think you’re underselling the potential content that comes with this expansion. Keep in mind there’s still no subscription fee. There’s still no necessity to dip into the Gem Store and spend real money. You can still convert Gold to Gems as well.

I think the value seems about right. Especially considering I’ve played for well over 5000 hours so far over the past 3 years. I doubt I’ll struggle with getting my moneys worth out of Heart of Thorns.

From what I heard some F2P players complain about, one very valid concern, should it be a genuine limitation, is how they are not able to Join friends in their various overflows. Playing the game with friends is obviously more fun than being frustrated from being separated because maps puts them in different instances. If it legit is a limitation to the F2P accounts, hotfix that asap., ArenaNet—they need to be allowed to play with friends, and grouping up through the ability to Join on one other is critical with the game’s underlying Megaserver and overflow system. I think the /map restriction is fine. They can whisper people who do talk in /map, or if they spot a Commander, and so on forth.

While doing homework, you should be doing your homework. When you’re done with your homework, you can do whatever you want. That or you could just continue to push out your hit songs and make so much money that you never need a degree to fall back on. You are Taylor Swift after all. Yup.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Absconditus.6804:

There’s crosses on the Guardian starter shoulders / head piece as well.

Actually it’s an Ankh, not a cross.

With the latin meaning being a cross with handle. Ankh, cross with a handle, same difference. If we’re going to be pointing things out I mean.

Dawdler.8521:

Same reason why all the HoM awards arent available in the gemstore.

I’ll say it again, you can buy the Guild Wars Trilogy and Eye of the North expansion, play and enjoy it, while you unlock every Hall of Monuments reward, even today. There is no time limitation on the ability to do so. I’ll even recommend people who like GW2 to do so, you’ll likely grow more fond of the universe and it’s lore.

Shinzan.2908:

Absconditus.6804:

It’s 10 man raids. Chances are we will be more than capable of using LFG to do them. Sure, initially raids will be challenging, but I doubt we can’t PuG through them after a little while.

Sure, just like you can PUG dungeons… if you are full zerker, already done it before, and are willing to exploit.

Or just like you can PuG dungeons, without being full Berserker, without having done them before, and without being willing to use cheese exploit tactics. What kind of groups you join is up to you. I never aim to join any cheese runs when I do dungeons/Fractals. I make a conscious choice to join those that are described as casual, for fun, no skips and so on forth—or if none are to be found, I’ll start my own. I have more fun in those, even though I’m more than capable of partaking in the elitists runs, again, I simply don’t see the fun in it. Game, fun, yup, I want those two things to correlate.

As long as it’s possible, I’ll for sure be using LFG to throw myself at these raids when my established friends are not available, be that due to being at work, or other real life obligations. I have a lot of spare time, I sure hope I won’t need to wait for fun, only for it to be had during a timed window where people are available for raiding. I also want to meet new, dedicated and skilled players through these raid attempts. I don’t mind wiping, and I want to get to know more actual “hardcore” players like that, beyond the ones I already know. It’ll be helpful as more raids release in the future, to have a wider selection of friends to do these raids with, no matter what hour it is in the day. A casual player can be just as skilled, and exert far more patience than your average supposed “hardcore” player in this game. One wipe due to whatever reason it may be, can throw some people off balance and make them rage quit in an instant, no words said. Raids are certainly going to test these kinds of players if they are actually challenging, and I sure don’t want to associate myself with “their kind”.

There’s crosses on the Guardian starter shoulders / head piece as well. But you’re the one that decides to tie it to some sort of real world religion, from within a virtual world, a place where they worship their own religious beings, depending on race. E.g., Six human Gods, the Eternal Alchemy, and so on forth. The game itself is not promoting any kind of real world religion, you are.

Get mad about anything fictional in relation to vampires while you’re at it, they tend to use crosses as a way to ward off the foul fiends—crosses which are tied to a real world religion. How dares Van Helsing carry a silver cross! It’s appalling! Or get angry at the word and inherent design of a crossbow. Ironically, your name is somewhat religious in its nature as well, Highness, even if you may not be aware of it.

I would advice you don’t read all too much into things. Especially fictional things. It makes life all the more easier and enjoyable. You got something for free.

I have never felt the need to be a special snowflake based on some limited exclusivity. I am not a fan at all of the timed kind of exclusivity, which pretty much means nothing in terms of how dedicated you are. They aren’t prestigious at all. I will much rather have rewards that everyone can obtain at their own pace, but that requires some hard work / dedication / skill to obtain. Heart of Thorns seems to be bringing just that.

- sPvP Legendary Backpack (higher sPvP League ladder ranks)
- Fractals Legendary Backpack (higher Fractal levels)
- Legendary Armors (challenging Raids)
- New Legendary weapons (Masteries and various in-game mini achievements)

The Luminescent set is far more prestigious to me than some of things which I have that are for whatever reason no longer obtainable by newer players (e.g., my Selfless- and Thoughtless Potions, two items I hope to see put on the event vendor for future / current players to obtain). Luminescent’s a set of equipment (skins) that requires dedication. And while it’s not all too hard to create, the very notion of collecting every piece of Carapace armor, for every weight class, etc., makes it something that not everyone will want to pursue. Just like a Legendary.

On the notion of Legendary weapons, sure, they may feel rather common these days, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still items a majority of players look at with desire. There are more have nots, than haves, when it comes to the Legendary weapons. I feel there’s plenty of prestige and crazed dedication shining through on my Mesmer, when I can with pride wear every single weapon it can carry as a Legendary. They may not be uncommon to see these days, but it’s uncommon to have as many as I carry. Even my Twice-Told Legend title is prestigious, irregardless if someone wants to reason that it’s not worth it to pursue it. It’s still an option for everyone to pursue after the fact, but nonetheless I have a very uncommon title under my character name. Again, a display of my dedication and perhaps stupidity to some.

Royal Guard does not make me feel prestigious. I don’t need it to stay exclusive to us “Veterans”. You could have owned the game a single day, less than 24 hours, for less than 1 hour even, and still get it, as long as you owned a core game copy prior to it becoming Free to Play. It’s no indication of being a Veteran when you think about it. I am more than happy with having gotten an outfit for free, even if it is made available through the Gem Store at a later date for everyone to have. Keep in mind that over 5 million people have the Royal Guard outfit, going by their statement that more than 5 million copies of Guild Wars 2 has been sold to date. It’s not uncommon either.

I find it a bit silly to be obsessed about having timed exclusive things. Because, at some point, you, nor anyone else will really care. Do you care that I used to have a ghost tiger mount in WoW? Arguably, at least for a good long while (—I think by now they’ve made them available again, I dunno, haven’t played it for over half a decade), it was the hardest to obtain and most valuable thing in that game, as it was from a very limited print of a TCG tie-in that became unavailable? No? Exactly, neither do I.

Personally, I don’t ever feel like starting to play a MMO if I weren’t there throughout its release. Why? Because I hate being left behind everyone else with their timed exclusive event items and all that jazz which I may want, but are unable to obtain. I am quite certain I am not the only person who hates feeling that way, in fact I know I’m not, as I’ve seen comments such as “I’ll be so far behind everyone else” being used as an excuse to not play games, including Guild Wars 2, time and time again.

I want Guild Wars 2 to challenge that tradition and be a better MMORPG for it, a game open and welcoming to new players, without them needing to feel as if they’ve missed out on oh-so-much stuff. It’s why I want Season 1 of the Living World re-playable. And I want new players as well as current, to be able to obtain everything someone else has obtained (and I’ve obtained pretty much everything there is to obtain that’s time limited), as long as they go through the same hoops the haves had to go through, so that they can join their ranks from the have nots.

Astra Lux.2846:

I think of it like the Guild Wars legacy rewards. It was something that you worked for, but also a nice throw back/send off sort of thing

A perfect example. You can to this day still go play Guild Wars, and unlock these rewards. It simply requires the dedication and will to do so. This is not time limited. You are perfectly able to buy the Guild Wars Trilogy and Eye of the North expansion, and unlock your HoM rewards in Guild Wars 2 today. In fact, I recommend any Guild Wars 2 fan that never played Guild Wars to do so at some point. Guild Wars is still a great game.

I don’t quite understand ArenaNet’s thought process behind removing them in the first place. Why reduce the amount of enticing products on offer? We’re talking about a virtual store front here, digital goods. By their very nature, they have a endless supply and equally endless amounts of virtual shelving.

If it was to clean up the store inventory a bit, that’s a sorry excuse. There’s ways to categorize things further, based on Outfits, Transmutation Skins, further separated into Head, Hands, Feet, Shoulder, Backpack filtering and so on forth.

I absolutely think they should bring them back, together with the various other items they decided to remove over time. Have sales, but don’t limit availability to try stipulate some artificial sense of urgency. The lowered cost alone during a time limited sales period creates that urgency just fine. By having the goods available at all times, you obviously entice further spending within the Gem Store. There are more things for players to look at, and over time, that one item they may not have wanted way back when, may suddenly become all the more interesting, be that due to new equipment coming out, a new hairstyle/face type, or otherwise. Long term sustained sales, typically beats short term bursts where x amount of players may not be able to scramble together funds in time to purchase them, or are even actively playing, at which point they’ll hang on for a while, hoping for a new sale perhaps, or they’ll be overpowered by their (lack of) patience, and purchase it at its regular pricing.

It goes without saying that you price it at what you intend to gain from it during the sales periods, making the discount semi-artificial, and you bank on inpatient consumers purchasing your goods when they are not on sale, having missed a opportunity, or not being aware of them ever being on sale in the first place. There’s nothing immoral about that if it’s fairly priced. Plus again, digital goods, within a virtual world. There’s no manufacturing costs after development. There’s no shipping costs. The list goes on. I don’t see what ArenaNet possibly has to lose on that.

Gorisek.2678:

I think the only spammers are pvp and pve, the only really competitive stuff is GvG where every skill matter more then anything

Yes, I agree completely. It takes far more skill to circumvent the AoE cap by balling together, than it does to PvP with 5 players, a situation where every skill designed to hit multiple targets, can hit every player, if they don’t spread out strategically that is. Oh wait, no, I guess I don’t agree that Guild Wars 2’s player-made Guild vs. Guild mode requires oh-so-much skill. It’s mostly, like with anything else within World vs. World these days, exploiting a weakness in the game, the 5 target AoE cap.

Let’s be honest here, GvG, in GW2, is mainly about sticking together as a train, with a few harassers—blasting water and fire fields, while keeping Stability up as much as possible. That is the basic strategy to every single GvG engagement. Everyone does it. Some people also do think that Veil helps in any way, shape or form though, because nothing is more unpredictable than a huge train of players running in a conga line, making it quite obvious what the tactic is before the last guy is through. Nope.

I have nothing against people enjoying GvG, I am glad people find ways to keep themselves entertained within the game, but don’t try to sell me on it requiring more skill than other modes. GvG is practically as brainless as zerg clashing in WvW.

If ArenaNet at some point makes offensive skills have no cap, then we can talk about it requiring skill. I really wish they would too. As the next step, now that there’s a near impossible to reach ceiling on Condition stacks. Want to know how to circumvent massive pain from multiple sources of AoE skills hitting at the same time? You spread out. I know, it’s genius. Who’d ever be able to come up with that idea?

But you do not need to go through the story, if you don’t want to. You can make a new character, ignore the story completely, and do whatever you please to hit Lv.80. You can equip them, still ignoring the story entirely whilst doing so. And you can continue to play the alt(s), again, ignoring the story. If you don’t like to be reminded that it’s not completed by having it tracking in the top right corner, take a look in the Options. They got you covered.

What you’re proposing with a single profession change, makes little sense to me truth be told. If anything, this would need to be a Gem Store only thing, you pay or you don’t get it. In the venue of name changing tickets and makeover kits. If you can swap a profession on a character for free, they already lost a potential character slot sale. For that matter, we can convert Gold to Gems. They have provided us with means of keeping the game completely free beyond the initial purchase (F2P players can’t do this, so they still need the initial purchase to have this option). I’m all for them adding a Gem Store option for changing up the profession however. By all means, there’s nothing wrong in that either. I just don’t see it being financially sound to provide it once for free. And while I like freebies, I do understand the game needs revenue, again, because we don’t need to pay any subscriptions. The FF games has their subscriptions coming in from every player, every month. GW2 has players buying into the game, and potentially spending money in the Gem Store. Many converts Gold to Gems, which is of no value to ArenaNet, financially. Now they have Free to Play players as well (—welcome!), who may never spend a single penny on the game.

Keep in mind that you can level up without running around in PvE too. You can level up from Tomes, sPvP, World vs. World, crafting, and so on forth. You have multiple ways of gaining higher levels within the game.

I doubt we’ll see any sort of profession changing capability (beyond Specializations), akin to the FFXI and FFXIV MMO games. Now, I loved that about those two games (second to their crafting systems), but by this point in GW2’s existence, I guess it doesn’t really make sense to push for such a change, as most of the player base have an alt for everything already—plus, let’s face it, this is a business decision, and a sound one at that when we are not required to pay a subscription fee. Alts equals character slots sold. They rightfully wants us to buy more slots in order to have a character for each profession, if not more. There’s nothing wrong with that.

There are perks to alts as well mind you, with how Birthday gifts (such as year 3) gives you certain things that may be worth getting more than once (e.g., a Select-a-Dye™ consumable—more alts, more rare dyes to select from). And with so much of our equipment and items being Account Bound, with an easily accessible Account Bank, moving things from one character to another is not all too much of a hassle.

I think the system works as-is. And from a business standpoint, since we do not pay a subscription fee, I do not see it being the smarter thing to do. GW2 is a business that I want to see thrive. If that means I have to buy some character slots, by all means, I will.

So your speculated size based on some concept-trailer with various artsy camera angles deems it too small. Perhaps complain about the size if you feel it’s too small once the actual feature is in the game? It seems a bit rushed to start exclaiming such things before we have even seen it ourselves. You did see the trailer, right?

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns – Welcome to Guild Halls

There may very well be more than one kind of arena available. Who’s to say there’s no smaller ones for 1 vs 1 duels? Perhaps that is what you are seeing in your screenshot?

Danikat.8537:

Magnuzone.8395:

When they announced Hot they clearly said that there will be no level cap increase, and one reason for this was that they didn’t want to diminish our efforts by introducing new armor that is better than ascended. I especially remember that they said something like “In HoT your current best armor will still be the best armor available”

And now they do exactly that. Players that want the very best will start chasing legendary armor and scrapping the ascendeds. After spending a looot of gold making ascended armor for their characters. Good job Anet. One fail after another.

Legendary armor will be like legendary weapons – same stats as ascended and a fancier skin. Not a new tier.

With the incredibly handy bonus of being able to swap stats outside of combat at will. That is one of the powerful perks to a Legendary. Besides nice looking skins. But yes, there is absolutely no stats difference between the values of something Ascended and something Legendary, that is correct. So in that sense, complaints like the quoted user is a bit overly exaggerated.