Guild Wars 2

BlackDevil.9268:

• #2 I don’t know what I find worse: The immense long casting time or the poor range of the skill. Since when is 480 a thing? This skill needs to be much faster on activation time (0,5 seconds) or be 600 units range. Either way it also needs a buff on the burning. Increase the burning to 2 burning ticks instead of 1. With the current damage modifier on burning this skill certainly needs a big buff. Another thing I’d like to change to this skill is the cd and the duration of the field. It doesn’t feel like it can be combined with stuns or immobilizes too much due the short duration. Increase the cooldown to 8 seconds and increase the time of the field to 6 seconds.

I’d take your stronger mace#2 but instead of balancing it solely by recharge, I’d up the energy cost enough to sting (15e), allowing you bursts damage from this one at the expense of utility skill usage (just played mace/mallyx, and the mace felt like it consumed too little energy;, unlike staff which has too high energy costs and hammer which is about right).

edit: played some more, learned what the energy is good for on the utility skills, understood why current mace energy costs are fine.

Lack of weapon swap is great, gives a more distinct feel to builds (not that wishy washy works at all ranges kind of builds). Just need the utility skill to be able cover the weakness and support the strengths better, e.g. possibility of AoE cripple (like on the circling hammers) to help the hammer, and another mobility skill somewhere so that unyielding anguish isn’t the only.

I was surprised that it affects the Skritt Burglar, who otherwise has tons of immunities.

So many good suggestions from BlackDevil…I hope a lot of it gets implemented.

Vengeful Hammers: while cripple on it would help loads, what about making it a trait instead – “Vengeful Hammers and the Reflexive Summons hammer have a chance to cause cripple” (just throwing out a thought). There’s a lack of interesting traits currently.

Turning Hammer#2 into a stun go a long way towards making hammer more fun to play. It suffers 2 things at the moment – 1) too much range depence to use use support skills that have a limited range, and 2) too little stun/chill/knockdown to keep enemies at a distance for more than a few seconds, then they’re right next to you. And a CC heavy splaystyle (that includes makes hammer#3 better, so you have a reason to apply chill) would make the weapon feel better in a support build (hammer fits ventari since you can get a better view of where you place the table if you’re ranged).

Hammer#5: I’ve gotten hit by it and managed to hit enemies with it, so the need for change isn’t as great as the rest of the hammer skills, the OPs buffs seems a bit much.

On staff#2: I’d remove the first part of the chain rather than the second, before applying a buff. When playing, I sometimes felt like: I want to just slam my staff down and damage enemies around – and the second part is the PBAoE. Plus the first part of the chain has a doesn’t have as good animation.

I think the Jalis elite halves damage (only tested against 1 enemy). So worth the energy cost, you just can’t use it at its current stats anywhere where activation time matters, hope it gets a bit shorter activation time.

I didn’t have problem hitting things with the staff, range wasn’t the problem. Low damage and mobility was. Disagree with point 3: set choices is a selling point of the class, and I wish its traits were like that too (few, important choices, changing a theme each rather than just a detail each).

On suggestions:
Forced Engagement: replace slow with protection – to feel tankier, currently Jalis feels like support
Pain Absorption: add another self-condi (e.g. bleed), lower energy cost – it feels rather weak, and hard in solo play to combi the mallyx abilities
Energy Expulsion: lower energy cost and activation time – this skill never felt worth using when I played, always wanted the time and energy for something else

Mallyx has ranged condi damage and mace is melee condi – works ok together
Jalis has melee power damage and staff is melee power – works well together
and hammer is ranged power damage – what legend and which skills when I don’t need healing?

Being in range for jalis spinning hammers and the road means my hammer#2 skill does little damage.
or I can use mallyx torment and confusion skills for damage and forcing enemies away, but I wouln’t have condi damage stats since it doesn’t benefit my weapon.
People’s preference/recommendation on which of these to stay on in solo PvE play? (or event group play too if you’ve opinion/advice, though there I could play support)

Sun Spirit got a fair bit of buffing: added 3×5s of burning on active, reduced to 8s recharge from 10 on passive, spirit death on active, 2 more seconds of blind duration. The passive and blind buffs doesn’t help much, but both buffs to the active do, it’s like a trap but visible (PvE mobs don’t care) and without trait requirement to work well (the death change helps because you can reposition it).

I have a feeling it can be slotted in to most PvE condition builds, giving you 5×5s of burning every ~25s (proc for you and pet, then use the active) which is about the same as flame trap (which traited gives 3×4s burning every ~13s), but scales with allies and still has a use through the passive when mobs don’t wander into range.

I like the defense line suggestion, partly because of cleansing ire as minor, partly because moving spiked armor out of minor means less of that annoying boon around.

Not so fond of the fast hands suggestion, that’s forcing a playstyle on every warrior that should be an optional thing.

Revenant staff looks quite like the ranger greatsword, but with more healing. The forced srafing on Rejuvinating Assault is a nice touch. Surprised at the short range (130).

I think the numbers on Punishing Sweep/Debilitating Slam need to go up, not much point in using these two with current balance (similar to autoattack damage, trading healing for weakness condition) especially with the energy cost. More damage there would also solve how the weapon has a too high healing to damage ratio – with current numbers, risk of fights where you can neither kill or be killed (well, the PoI showed the demonstrating dev both kill and getting killed by the training NPC, so maybe not a problem) .

The said Warding Rift was anti-prjectile, but from the block messages in PoI and the tool tip it looks like a block skill that also help adjacent allies. Wish I prefer to an antiprojectile skill.

Surge of the Mists looks trick to use for gap closing, much like Burning Speed. Plenty of uses for it – gap closer, out-of-combat traveling, escaping, interrupting channels in Stronghold.

Links to skill lists:
http://dulfy.net/2015/06/05/gw2-revenant-ventari-legend-livestream-notes/
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_revenant_skills

Looks like a second ranger specialization to me – it’s perfecly fine to name a pet-less ranger specialization something-hunter. Not keen on the dragon part though, like the posters above I feel it’s too specific, and surely these white magic hunters target other nasty creatures as well.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Stock standard Frost Spotter will still use NM for Fortifying Bond too, you just get to pick up Strider’s Defense and Protective Ward at the same time.

In the frostspotter thread that popped up after the reveal, I saw people were preferring WS (for Peak Strength) or BM (for Zephyr’s Speed) over NM.

I can see a use for the traits in the other four lines (maybe not honed axes given how good the other 2 grandmaster traits are, and trappers defense, and so and so about trappers defense), but can’t see much use of nature magic now that spirits and shouts don’t need it. Is it for pet-focused builds? Or some future druid builds? I guess if the protection grandmaster trait is the ranger and not the pet it’s a great bunker specialization, but that’s a big if.

What kind of builds will use Nature Magic once (core) specializations are introduced, anyone theorycrafted any?

Xaylin.1860:

I like the general direction but as others already pointed out those skills don’t feel like elites yet. Even if the cooldowns were low the effect aren’t impressive enough.

Light of Deliverance is pretty impressive by itself though, it’s just a matter of activation time that makes it useful often or rarely depending on how long it is.

I like suggestion of adding knockdown to “Feel My Wrath!” though, that would add a need for timing and more elite feel to it.

I really like that Signet of Courage idea, adds play on passive mode (you can run up to people to share it’s heal) and makes it less niche since you still benifit even if the full heal can’t be used. I used the tome for light of deliverance anyway.

Tomes have a problem of giving too many skills but too little time to learn to use them. Still, I wonder if it weren’t a better idea to keep tome of wrath but add skills from the other tome (e.g. the daze) and condense it down to fewer than 5 skills. It’s fun to use it after all, and once burning will stack it might actually be useful for damage. Still needs a heal on it, since the current version is rather suicidal, which could be taken from the other tome, so a tome with:
Conflagrate
Heal area or Protective Spirit
Pacifism or Judgment
Zealot’s Fervor

A quickness shout with low recharge might be nice in a shout build, but on it’s own it’s sounds too simplistic to be all that fun.

You don’t really need marksmanship now that longbow base properties get buffed, gives room for beast mastery.

Here a theoretical build for the greatsword trait, which adds in a bit of pet condi:
Skirmishing: sharpened edges – spotter – quick draw
Wilderness survival: expertise training – peak strength – wilderness knowledge
Beast mastery: rending attacks – two-handed training – beastly warden
weapons: longbow, greatsword
skills: full survival

And a theoretical build for the axe trait:
Beast mastery: resounding timbre – wilting strike – honed axes
Wilderness survival: ambidexterity – shared anguish – empathetic bond
Skirmishing: sharpened edges – trappers expertise – strider’s defense
weapons: axe, dagger, sword, torch
skills: shouts and traps

Zenith.7301:

My real problem is losing boon sharing with the pet. It should be baseline not tied to nature magic. That trait is essential for extending aegis and protection so you can run double jaguars on fractals and make their upkeep in melee much better.

Wouldn’t taking Bark Skin or Natural Healing solve the same problem?

Immobile spirits and lower CDs: sounds great, hope it make spirits less boring (it’s like the least engaging ranger build atm imho) – engineer turrets after all are fun to use, as you have to think about placement.

Arming time on traps: love it, more trap feeling! Bit short though.

Beastmaster line looks great – finally a focused line for pet stuff.

Marksmanship is a lot of odd traits, but at least you don’t need it anymore now that longbow got the key traits (the 1500 range and the arrow speed) as baseline. The call of the wild trait could be annoying to use out of combat – having to time 30s between swaps instead of being able to enjot scenery.

Pets need some rest too. When they’re stowed, or when the other pet is used, they hang around out of sight but within earshot, doing what pets do when you leave them to their own devices. It’s least that’s what I hope, rather than that they are stowed in those same magically expandable bags together with spare weapons and armour… poor pet.

Maybe pets can use gliders too? Following you behind your back, so you can’t see them.

Looks like one exit to other zones in mid-north (Utugi’s) and one in SW corner.
I wonder what the SE ruins are. Quarrel Falls? Ventari’s Refuge?

Laraley.7695:

Adrian Guardian.9480:

You’re sure it’s not this: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stealth ?

Dude, people been reporting players going invisible for a while now. Myself I’ve seen invisible ele and necro when no one else was around.

It is a bug.

sorry

You’re sure it’s not this: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stealth ?

theorycrafting:

Staff – good direct damage (sum of 310 on auto chain), cleave with the longest reach of the melee weapons (i.e. strong on AoE) sice sword probably only does small damage at , lots of crowd control. Staff #4 is very support-focused, and looks a bit suicidal if you don’t stack up on defense from utility skills beforehand.
Sword – potentially as much direct damage as the staff (sum of 319 on autoattack if the third attack hits four times (60+60+33+33; maybe the 33 is only at 130-300 range though taking it down to sum of 220), slightly faster stated attack speed) and some minor condition damage, but no cleave. I suspect this will be a good leveling weapon, I’ve found other single-target hybrid damage good at low levels.
Mace – half as much direct damage (sum of 135 on auto chain) with cleave, minor might stacking, some mobility, and most importantly permanent burning and poison. Good for personal storyline with all that AoE? The least group-oriented weapon given the non-stacking conditions.
Hammer – revenant version of ranger longbow, but with more combo abilities. I expect to see this weapon a lot in open world group content.
Axe – if the enemy is moving and there aren’t more utility mobility skills, this offhand will be very important for being able to hit anything.
Dagger – defensive like the ranger dagger. Direct damage is 19 dps, similar to the 17 dps on axe.
Shield – I wonder what the 6 second 3 stack effect is on shield #5… anyway it’s support, with big heal numbers and massive recharge (30s and kitten. I guess it’ll be good for running in and saving some key NPC (escort and defense events).

That sword is way more direct damage focused than the mace.
With a rough calculation comparing the numbers as they are (and arbitrarily assuming one auto chain per 2s) I get a 0.6 conti-to-direct damage ratio for sword and 1.6 for mace; the same calculation for warrior sword gives 0.8-09 and for necro scepter 1.8. Meaning the revenant mace is nearly as pure condi as the pretty extreme necro scepter, whereas revenant sword is mostly power-based.

Was that the character that used a serpent strike-like animation, but in orange and minus the snake head, just after using the fire dagger autoattack? (could have been a dodge though with some weapon skin animation) edit:ignore me, was just Fiery Whirl at 1:11, nothing to do with OPs observation.

At 3:00-3:02 there’s a charr dressed in black with a dagger, leaping and stabbing twice. The animation has a bit too much blue glow to be heartseeker – can anyone tell from the armour if it’s a possible revenant?

Random speculation:

Perhaps the thief specialisation will be like sniper-camper style: with access to a rifle, a fair amount of stealth (esp. if they get a camouflage skill) but low mobility if steal gets replaced by something else.

The second-hand comment on classes with offhands getting something else sounds like there’ll be more than the mesmer specialisation getting an offhand. Elementalist is a possibility, they’re lacking a reason to play single-attunement, so maybe something like locked in-combat (or with huge recharge) attunement swap but with weapon swap added? Ele offhand… I guess warhorn is pretty magical.

Interesting mesmer discussion above.

The character to the right is probably a thief though, but it’s carrying a shortbow.

The character in TexZero’s shreenshot loks like it’s activating fire attunement at one point.

Maxzero.4032:

Adrian Guardian.9480:

It’s good that they make professions different, and the other ~8 are already overloaded with little choices.. I for one prefer when skills come in sets and builds are easy to put together, instead of having the vast majority of random builds very sub-optimal, so happy to get a profession with a bit more fixed loadout, with more big choices and fewer small choices.

I feel the same way. In many ways the Revenant is like a reverse Eng/Ele. Instead of a large number of specialized skills it has a smaller number of more flexible skills.

A lot of high level Eng/Ele play consists of rapidly switching through Att/Kits using one or two skills from the skill bar before going to the next skill set. Due to long CDs they often can’t sit in one skill set for two long.

Revenant has rapid skill usage as well except it’s with skills that can be used rapidly in succession with a variety of effects.

If you played D&D is seems very much like the old Sorceror v Wizard debate.

For the record I always preferred the Sorceror.

You’re right about ele and engi.

I did play D&D (neverwinter nights). Never liked the wizard. Sure enjoyed the sorcerer.

It’s good that they make professions different, and the other ~8 are already overloaded with little choices.. I for one prefer when skills come in sets and builds are easy to put together, instead of having the vast majority of random builds very sub-optimal, so happy to get a profession with a bit more fixed loadout, with more big choices and fewer small choices.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Jalis
Mallyx
Shiro
Glint
Saul D’Allesio
Master Togo
Turai Ossa

Those could actually work in terms of allowing different gameplay, like
tank+CC – Jalis
condition damage – Mallyx
rogue theme- Shiro
guardian-like close – Saul D’Alessio
heals and turrets – Master Togo
brute-force fighter – Turai Ossa
Glint is the difficult one – the GW1 glint was tank+CC which is what Jalis already does. There’s the aspect arena skills though, which are aspected to glint, they’re mobility+CC.

Agile Sound.7516:

Anyway here’s my question for everyone what do you think makes someone or something legendary and why would Anet choose that said Legend to be used by the Revenant?

Connection to the original Guild Wars is the theme of the class. So familiarity among GW1 players would be one reason. The other reson would be to fill a gameplay role, e.g. they would’t pick another tanky legend when they have Jalis already or another condition damage one, but rather take a rogue (like Shiro or Vizu), support (like Togo or Mhenlo) or summons-based (like Oola or Kuunavang).

I’m all for Master Togo, he’s not just a GW1 hero but also ritualist, and I’d like skills like that (edit: like getting spirit of recuperation and vengeful weapon as utility skills). Guessing there’ll be 2 underwater legends – anyone has ideas? (I only see The Leviathan listed in this thread, unless pirates and margonites count as sufficiently sea-bound)

The downed skills don’t look that strong: no self-res unlike ranger and warrior, no mobility skill unlike ele, mesmer, thief. And the interrupt is single-target. I’d place it with necro, just below guardian but above engineer (at least the interrupt moves the enemy away a fair distance, and the slow should help prolong the fight as much as guardian and necro’s heals).

Skill flavour: I’m guessing elemental and plant on the staff, and animal and plant on heal/utility/elite. Based on lots of existing utility skills being elemental while several weapon skills already do animal-flavoured magic (winter’s bite is the only elemental).

Staff: Support and AoE. Hoping it’s direct damage since axe/torch already provides condition AoE damage. And a direct heal somewhere since rangers can already provide constant AoE regeneration.

An animal transform skill somewhere isn’t all that unlikely. Would be nice with something to compete with sword DPS but which doesn’t lock you in place.

F1-F4: Maybe druid will get new F2s (maybe as spells even) with less damage focus and more support/CC?

nebelun.3594:

I hope we see more of the d&d druid/controller and less of the typical wow Druid.

Haven’t played WoW so don’t know what that druid is, but I’ve played neverwinter nights (D&D 3.5) and druid was my fav class there.

Vert.5041:

The only think a staff can be without making something else obsolete would be some sort of support/aoe soft cc weapon. Due to this being the case and us not getting an awesome melee bostaff (Martial Mastery) like weapon I would request Anet to give us lootstick. I would totally be okay with re skinned guardian skills.

Totally agree with you including the process of elimination, and a remodelled guardian staff would do just fine.

Combat>Exploration>Lore>>>Legends>Fractals

Combat: if there are special skills to tear bark off enemies that work like defenses in the mass effect series (two layers of enemy HP, where you have special skills that can reduce the outer layer fast, but normal attacks work against both), then combat because that system was fun.

Exploration: more places to visit! and less frustration maybe from falling off canopy.

Lore: more storytelling?

Legends/Fractals: only when I’ve maxed the other 3. The precursor weapons themselves might look nice.

’Let’s guess specialisations’ looks like a fun game

*Warrior – Commando or Enforcer
Two directions I can think of: one is a more civilian version of an armed and armoured person: like gendarme, police or even mob enforcer; the other diection would be a less magical/nature version of ranger, by whatever name.
*Guardian – Paladin
Guardian is pretty much the D&D cleric, so why not something like the more physical class in D&D?
*Revenant – Lich or Ritualist
A revenant is an undead that kills by mundane means as far as I know fantasy lore, and a lich is an undead magic-user, so those two could go together. I’d prefer a comeback of GW1 ritualist lore though
*Thief – Scout
They’re both stealth archetypes, and rifle would fit a scout
*Engineer – Mechanist
Teaser video looked like it had mechanical summons
*Necromancer – Soulbinder
Don’t know the name for the archetype, but come across fantasy stories with people that raise dead or talk to spirits who also use giant swords to bind souls.

Others have already said spellblade for ele and chronomancer for mesmer, don’t know enough about the archetypes to say anyting more than it sounds reasonable

Would like to see:
Shapeshifts as utility skills. Like turning yourself into a drake to be a frontline AoE bruiser, or spider for ranged combat, CC and traps, or a stealthy jaguar, or a supportive fern hound or raptor.
An elite that summons multiple animals, preferably CC and support animals.

That might be about dyngeons, they’re a niche part of PvE, and from what I hear people there prefer melee on more or less all classes.

In general PvE, the strongest builds combine one ranged weapon with one melee weapon. In simple terms: if the ranged is a bow, it’s your primary (meaning eqipped >50% of the time) weapon and you use the melee weapon mostly for tough targets you need more defense against and for AoE. With axe as ranged it’s the other way around, use it for AoE, frontloading and to avoid enemy AoE, but use melee as primary. sPvP works much the same.

I’m not 100% convinced of Fluffballs ele numbers.

GW1 Fort Aspenwood was awesome – GW2 Stronghold mode cannot fail. NPC escort, supply running and choosing how to spend it, gates, pushing into enemy base to kill key NPC… sounds like it’s got everything that made FA good, assuming there’s no silly restriction like guilds or pre-mades.

Every now and then you see someone complaining in the ranger subsection that their dual bow character is forced to have a pet… so I guess a missing archetype in the game is archer.
So speculation: warrior get an archer specialisation which gets a shortbow, a new class mechanic based around arrows (thus forcing minmaxers to equip a bow if they choose the subclass), and generally makes the subclass like the petless GW1 ranger builds.

Fewer juvenile animals in starter zones now, but there are still a few, like the raven at raven riddle area in wayfarers and the whiptail devourer which is periodically (depending on event chain) there at devourers mouth on ashford plain.

scerevisiae.1972:

Adrian Guardian.9480:

Survey is missing options… I mainly find the support skills on land pets lacking.

um, that would be either “skills are too weak/underpowered” and/or “lack of depth”.

True, that’s what I ticked (well, missed the depth one).

Bows never quite fit the magical aspect of the ranger, I wonder if they, or one of them, are something that druids give up compared to rangers.

Survey is missing options… I mainly find the support skills on land pets lacking. Birds’ quickening screech is a skill you usually hope the bird won’t use, moas’ healing skill never seems to activate. Pigs’ environmental weapons can be fun but pigs overall aren’t that strong. Would have been nice with a support pet with ranged attacks. Jellyfish are well designed though.

Problem is the dependence on a GM trait, I think.
Random suggestion: Remove the trap potency trait, move the double duration to default, move the recharge reduction to Trapper’s Defense (that currently pretty weak adept trait), and make the replacement GM trait unrelated to traps.

hophopcool.7618:

Hiya,

rangers are OK but for new players Guardians are much better and easier to understand

I made both a ranger and a guardian first day, and have played them in parallel. I liked guardian better at first because of the lower complexity, but ranger grew on me by mid-level, for the same reason.
I tried out the first 5 levels of ranger play just now, it’s gotten much better. You get to start with a longbow (instead of that axe that does little damage and aggros nearby neutral mobs), and two rounds of pet health buffs means not even the cats/dogs/birds die as long as you heal every now and then.

@OP: When it comes to lvl 80 balance: don’t worry so much, it gets upended every 6 months (next time is 2 months from now).

My take at it, for what it’s worth:

Pros:
*Among the strongest in open world PvE
*good defensive support if you build for it, which is helps for defense/escort events
*ok offensive support if you build for it
*Good single-target damage, whether you choose to use direct damage or condition damage
*Has some easy to pick up sPvP builds
*Decent survivability by default (PvE), good self-heals
*Great at long range
*Strong in downed mode
*It’s fun

Mixed pro/con:
*ok access to melee options, but one of the two makes your character throw itself off cliffs if you’re not careful
*Pet controls take long time to learn (can be positive though, gives PvE learning longevity)

Cons:
*Very little group support by default, you have to build (i.e. make sacrifices) for it
*Weak (maybe weakest, though not dramatically so) in WvW and sPvP
*Poor area effect options
*Can’t chain hard CC
*Hard to maintain constant soft CCs

You survive longer with greatsword because of the higher mobility and longer range, plus the evade spam helps.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Belzebu.3912:

• Sword have better DPS and allow you to an off hand weapon, but GS have close enough damage and is way less clunky to use, pick your poison.

17% dps difference =/= close enough

When the mobs align just so, greatsword actually outdamages than sword. Also, see Fluffball’s chart.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Has anyone done the math to figure out how much the damage shifts when fighting multiple opponents? That 5 man maul does some pretty decent damage.

If the difference is 17% for single-target, they’d break just even against 2 opponents and greatsword would do 6-7% better against 3.

17% is resonable, when I calculate (nothing as fancy as including traits) I get it to 14% loss for greatsword AA+maul vs. sword AA , and 20% loss for greatsword single-target when path of scars and counter throw are counted in.