Guild Wars 2

It’s funny whenever you have ragers tell you that you suck, then they’re on your team and you keep them alive. As much as I’d like to see the enemy team eat you alive for revenge there’s a moral imperative of basic sportsmanship to prevent that from happening. It’s always players who actually don’t know what’s going on who rage the most, like dragonhunters who try 1v2’ing a revenant and druid. You know who you are.

It isn’t forgiving in the slightest but if I can minimize mistakes I should watch stuff blow up then disengage and add some defense where appropriate. I’ve downed people on this build but stomping isn’t safe since you’re going down soon too most likely.

you can literally be one-shot by unrelenting assault. it does 12k to light armor 0 toughness

Is that assuming all hits crit? Either way it’ll hit hard but I’ve had some close matches on it.

I’ve beaten people with Dan in Ultra Street Fighter 4 so I know if I have a handicap going in I’ll develop more skill in the long run to cope with bad defense. Unlike Dan however my build has some redeeming qualities and while getting focused isn’t fun being so squishy forces the player to be more aware of his mistakes and with sufficient skill I feel the build has potential to be quite rewarding. When I go back to aurashare I’d likely take this awareness with me.

In the picture I’ve seen that we had two druids and support has diminishing returns past two. In other words three support builds really isn’t ideal. Two is great, three is redundant, but with Mender’s aurashare I normally have some offensive utility anyway so…

While we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here’s what I see for Guild Wars 3:

1. Scrapping the level system entirely since it’s pointless.

2.Very similar mechanics and control scheme to Phantasy Star Online 2 crossed with Team Fortress 2 (their ranger class has a decent first person shooter mode anyway) so a controller would be ideal overall and hopefully by then will be way more sensitive as a very light tap on a controller does nothing while slightly more effort makes a cursor drastically fly in another direction. Sniping in Dark Souls wasn’t fun for this reason.

3.Simplified skillsets and classes to accommodate the movement scheme. Perhaps certain classes split up and balanced accordingly. For example the Elementalist is broken up into the Pyromancer and Aquamancer. The Pyromancer knows Fire and earth magic whereas the Aquamancer knows water and air magic as one example. Within the context of the game would be balanced. Engineer would also be a split class between inventor and canoneer. One focusing on gadgets and the other on turrets. Sustain elements of the engineer would be given to both classes. Mesmers would no longer exists as the last Mesmer was killed off in between the GW2 and GW3 timelines in a noble sacrifice. She was a Pengu (or Tengu if Anet decides not to canonize the Pengu I personally think a penguin variant of the Tengu would be cool), who are a playable race this time around.

The builds and ability numbers may be simplified but the game isn’t going to be simpler per se, rather the complexity will shift more towards tactics, positioning knowledge, improvisation due to dynamic AI not following the same routines and randomized dungeons ensuring each experience is unique, and reflexes.

5.Very instanced and mission based.

As for story and lore:

1.The dragons were essential for maintaining order and as beings that consume magic keep a magic surplus in check. All the magic that isn’t being consumed attracts even more dangerous cosmic horrors to Tyria, original creatures with some Lovecraftian influences.

2. There are no more world governments and the “apocalypse” has come. In this post-apocalyptic Tyria the Sylvari no longer exists while the humans are in a worse off state than before with the exception of a pirate group, whose formerly rogue islands are now ironically the closest thing to a state Tyria currently has.

3. In between the GW2 and 3 timelines the Charr and Asura forged an alliance and greatly weakened human and Norn kingdoms. Now that those two races are rendered irrelevant on the world stage they no longer see a reason to ally themselves and are now therefore fighting each other.

4. Vampires and werewolves are now prominent, as the new creatures with godlike powers but are too strange to properly call “gods” or “demons” corrupt beings into those forms with their strange new magics.

5. You must work with the pirates, rogue Asura (because the Asuran councils are corrupt and power hungry the rogue Asura are good guys), and feral Charr (as warbands no longer exists due to Charr society having been wiped out with a hard reset button on their culture and now aspire to freedom) to find the root cause of this corruption, cleanse it, and fight the otherworlders one by one.

Sometimes there’s another Tempest in the group so we’d have a glut of support (very rare but still happens) so I’d switch to DPS. Here’s what I’m experimenting with:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdn0XC9XiFYCeOAcYiFCAjoJUEGCup2XbtNoAEAWAA-TJhMABAs/QznAgkLDA6DAAA

It’s for PvP. I’ve noticed that my survivability is downright atrocious, but I know the correct disengage spots so I can get back into the fray (albeit with Lightning Flash and/or Eye of the Storm on cooldown). All elements are part of the rotation but fire is the star of the show as the expertise and baelfire runes . Sigil of transference (I run this on my aurashare build too) is so wash the pain away and water overload’s healing isn’t gutted too badly.

I almost beat even some Chronos with this build but usually whenever I engage them (since I seem to be the only one interested in retaking home instead of joining the pack who’s chasing some thief across the map) there’s a point when I’m forced to disengage so maybe I can incorporate more cleanses and L2P better. Daredevils personally give me way more trouble than Chronos however especially with this spec. I’m fragile with this build and know it so I suspect the skillcap is quite high. It isn’t just enough to disengage with focus but precise about it.

Tl;dr: A glass canon build that offers nothing in the way of passive defenses, maintains some aurasharing properties, but adds very strong pressure if played very well.

If it’s Jormag then can we get introduced to a new race (not necessarily playable) called the Pengu? They’re essentially Tengu but with penguin features (beak, black and white, smooth, and has flippers) and they can even be introduced in the Woodland Cascades. Remember how Silverwaste was an entry point into HoT and came out before the expansion was released? Well what if Woodland Cascade will be the snow expansion’s Silverwaste? Woodland Cascades could use Northern California and Oregon as an inspiration for animal and plant life. There would be big redwood trees, centaur-icebrood alliances, stuff like vinewrath but with different bosses and mechanics but stick to the same basic lane idea that isn’t on a strict schedule, etc. Basically Silverwaste with some mechanical differences and mob types and vertical with villages like Itzel villages but with squirrel people.

Alternatively, the icebrood could be attacking the centaurs and they need our help, but we don’t trust them due to their raids against humans. Other races like Charr and Asura are willing to give them a chance. There are just so many possibilities just leading up to the Far Shiverpeaks. Then while there snowboarding minigames! ^_^

And how could John Smith even be a credible villain? His hero cred is too solid, it was he who made silk and leather of all tiers worth selling on the tradingpost! It was he who reduced droprates meaning less of a market glut!

It’s not just the time commitment, but other people are sharing that time. If you screw up then you’ll bring everyone else down with you and that’s too much pressure. Then there’s the issue of getting rejected just because of your gear (even if it’s reasonable for the role you’re playing) and traitlines even if they haven’t seen your mechanical skill.

True; I’m not a one man army (yet).

Since celestial isn’t forbidden from PvE or WvW why not make a nearly full set of celestial with some ascended Viper’s armor pieces for good measure on a Tempest? That way you get a respectable amount of passive defensive stats (toughness, vitality), active (healing power), condi, and power damage while the viper’s pieces (maybe body armor or leggings plus boots or headgear) and take good runes like Balthazaar runes for burning duration to stack with the expertise and a sigil of transference for the 10% extra healing power, which doesn’t sound like a lot but the longer a fight lasts the more significant a seemingly small boosts becomes. If a fight lasts one minute for example the 10% extra healing power is insignificant whereas a fight that lasts an hour means people’s health will creep up more over a longer period of time assuming good cooldown management. From 100% friends can be knocked down to 30%, you use water overload, they’re up to 80%, they get knocked down to 25%, wash the pain away brings them back up to 82%, they get knocked down to 32%, water overload brings them up to 27%, etc., so it’s creeping back up to max health over a long period of time. That’s with air and fire (especially as it has the burning you’re mainly speccing for) damage in between and perhaps an occasional obsidian flesh to stay alive and magnetic grasp and leap to get in range of a certain mob group without needlessly blowing lightning flash and wait out to aurashare reflect for good measure.

Soothsayer.9206:

Hlord.5940:

Darknicrofia.2604:

musu.9205:

http://academygamingnet.com/guild-wars-2-class-tier-list-april-27th-2016/

this stupid nonsense :
quote “Recent changes have been all buffs for the mesmer, which has only make this class even better than it was before. Running the same meta build, Flow of Time’s increase in alacrity uptime has only made this stronger which puts mesmer at the top of the charts.”

and it ignores the fact that mes has trash damage in team fight also is countered by war , condi necro , and DH even DD could beat a condi mes on its own .

and its titled as By Storm & Pro Leaguers

more ridiculous it puts tempest below chronomancer lol in A tier

and this is following the trend mes hate in pvp forum i wonder if some so called pro team intended to make false info to make mes nerfed into ground again hint there is only few good mes in pvp tournament and not every team gets one .

srsly , i would like to see any team in tournament without a tempest or rev . If they really see mes being that powerful , please run double mes or more vs another team with equal skill .

this kinda of article matter nothing , since now they calling mes S tier , later in tournament they run tempest ,rev ,scrapper and war .the words have no consequence in those peoples mind and hence why they never ever tried to prove their words by facts and action .

honorable mention :scepter condi mes was totally dominating pvp!

are you kittened? pro league teams don’t run double mes because you’re not allowed to class stack.

if it was allowed, EVERY single team would run double mes, double rev and an ele.

It was allowed, before no stacking rule, and no one, well maybe one team did bring one mesmer and they lost.

I’ll even bet that no one read the recent update note for mesmer but once they heard there was no nerf every one one yell op.
They buff scepter that no was using
They buff off hand sword which no one was and will be using
They try to normalize flow of time by increasing its duration from 0.75 sec to 1 sec per clone and people forgot about the last nerf, nerf alacirty by 50%

Basically nothing change for mesmer for the metabattle condition build

Well stated, and don’t forget, even after the no stacking rule, not every team had a Mesmer and some of them still won.

Maybe because they took moa instead of gravity well? I have to confess that I haven’t watched, but moa is the metabattle elite skill whereas gravity well has a shorter cooldown, zones perfectly on points, is AoE, reliably baits invulnerability and teleports, dark combo fields for reliable blinds, and can be traited to give allies alacrity. Moa is quite strong still but gravity well looks stronger and is less risky.

If there’s a total overhaul of underwater combat (at least in any new zones) why not greatly simplify it towards a first person shooter mode but still allow for mouse movement (doesn’t really interfere with aiming) like action camera does? As for the dragon fight why not force him above water temporarily by setting bombs then repeating the process again but under stricter conditions (less time to do the puzzles while people have skills on cooldown and lowered health from fighting the dragon)? Alternatively people can just use FPS mode against him where he’d be moving a lot and players would have to keep headshotting him. Since he’d be faster than players and hit them hard they have to make educated guesses where he’s going to be instead of simply trying to follow him. Yes, I think an underwater temple maze would be ideal for this scenario while an underwater vent would be ideal for the first.

In underwater mode people will have three abilities on their underwater weapons but no CC as creeps won’t have them either. That’s one way I can think of for rebalancing underwater combat, instead of an MMO underwater we can play a FPS underwater complete with headshot mechanics.

Alternatively, any meta or story event where you can’t get around needing to be underwater could be like a railed shooter where you’re always moving forward, can move your mouse to move your sub, and use mouse buttons for attacks.

Flumek.9043:

Darknicrofia.2604:

musu.9205:

http://academygamingnet.com/guild-wars-2-class-tier-list-april-27th-2016/

this stupid nonsense :
quote “Recent changes have been all buffs for the mesmer, which has only make this class even better than it was before. Running the same meta build, Flow of Time’s increase in alacrity uptime has only made this stronger which puts mesmer at the top of the charts.”

and it ignores the fact that mes has trash damage in team fight also is countered by war , condi necro , and DH even DD could beat a condi mes on its own .

and its titled as By Storm & Pro Leaguers

more ridiculous it puts tempest below chronomancer lol in A tier

and this is following the trend mes hate in pvp forum i wonder if some so called pro team intended to make false info to make mes nerfed into ground again hint there is only few good mes in pvp tournament and not every team gets one .

srsly , i would like to see any team in tournament without a tempest or rev . If they really see mes being that powerful , please run double mes or more vs another team with equal skill .

this kinda of article matter nothing , since now they calling mes S tier , later in tournament they run tempest ,rev ,scrapper and war .the words have no consequence in those peoples mind and hence why they never ever tried to prove their words by facts and action .

honorable mention :scepter condi mes was totally dominating pvp!

are you kittened? pro league teams don’t run double mes because you’re not allowed to class stack.

if it was allowed, EVERY single team would run double mes, double rev and an ele.

Exactly this.
When DD ele was at its worst, we saw 4 dd ele +1 thief pug win against a known team.
Next week they limited it to 2 or 3x per team.

That doesnt change the balance facts, that one build is so above the rest it occupies several slots.
Mes and rev are just too good in overall 1v1s, living long in 1v2, killing fast in 2v1and generall y good in 3v3+ teamfights + having mobility, with mesmer moa even able to instantly kill in a teamfight.

The ele is still a crazy OP healer, its just in A-tier since compared to what i wrote above, ele “only” stalls fights and doesnt want 1v1s. It also requires minimal coordination, so soloq is plagued with revs and mesmers more.

Why avoid 1v1’s? I know Tempest is better off as a teamfight healer but sometimes you have teammates that run around together in a group of 3 going after one person so that leaves you to retake home or go far. Sometimes it’s empty, but if someone’s on it you have to 1v1. I’m having trouble with Chronos whenever I spec fire, water (for the aurashare and cleanse mainly), and Tempest, use Balthazaar runes, and run Viper’s amulet (normally I only go this route if the team has another ele or we’re support heavy) when I’m running scepter and focus or dagger and focus. Even as a standard aurashare Mender’s Tempest (with the cure chill and burning upon dodging trait) they’re trouble. It isn’t even moa or the double shield that’s the ish but the continuous flow of clones and gravity well baits lightning flash or stone flesh too well.

Gatvin.6510:

Ok, so far:
Skyhammer: Great! I kind of miss the sheer silliness of old skyhammer, but this map is actually a playable and fun pvp map in all respects. I’d just keep an eye on a couple of wierd pockets made by the wall around the map. they’re unreasonably good for obstructing ranged attacks. It rarely comes up, but they are there.

Spirit Watch: Also great, feels like a different Temple of the silent storm. Did find a glitch though. If you’re in Death shroud when you pick up the orb, it will drop you into your normal skills instead of “ball mode”. Not sure if other toolkits do that too, but either way I don’t THINK that was intended.

FoN: Excellent change. It was always tough to tell what strat people were going for before, and this cleans it up nicely.

On a Spirit watch I remember a warrior on the enemy team running the orb. Warrior with its healthpool and heavy armor is the best class to run the orb given the orb locks all classes out of their weapon and utility skills. On my Mender’s Tempest with soldier runes I was able to down him before he could get to a node. I would apply chill to him with all my available dagger/chill weapon skills, switched to air, used swirling winds just in case one of their ranged decides to go for a nasty sneak attack, then I overloaded to down him, but he was low enough anyway. I even baited dodges so the chill application more reliably hits.

What are we to take from this? Where were his and my teammates? They were off fighting on nodes which enabled the 1v1 obviously heavily in my favor due to the orb mechanic locking him out. I’m not even traited for damage at all and runese of the soldier gives no offensive benefit. What this experience illustrates is the orb runner needs a buff and it wasn’t fair to my opponent that he was on the best orb running class and was downed by a balanced (“balance” here referring to role rather than objective usefulness relative to other classes as I still have some decent offense but don’t specialize in it) with support emphasis Tempest.

Palador.2170:

Agemnon.4608:

Why not? Each expansion should be harder than the last. If people’s skill threshold were raised with HoT after dealing with mobs with better skills, AI, and stats then they’re logically ready for the next level. It should always be possible with the tools a class is given to effectively deal with such challenges. It also makes players feel more accomplished after clearing metas and exploration as it would confirm that they’ve reached a level of skill to do so.

Not everyone’s skill threshold DID go up with HoT, though. And others may be near their limit. You also have to take into account that some people that join the game in the future or come back after a long time may want to skip HoT and go right from the base game into the new expansion.

Other MMORPGs sometimes make things tougher in expansions, but then make the characters tougher so you grow into being able to deal with it. But here, they’re trying to keep a top on our power levels. If things get tougher each expansion, eventually not even the best players will be able to deal with it.

Maybe not tougher in the sense of having more stats (in the first place maybe slightly) but better AI and different patterns, abilities, sync with their layouts, healing, dodges, and/or crowd controls. Like the Honor of the Waves storymode final boss could have mechanically similar mobs that are normal, vet, and elite tier and part of why he seemed tough was his skill set. Now imagine three mobs with a skillset like that near a chokepoint where you can even risk falling off and has better AI, but still beatable by a single player assuming approximately single player scaling.

Julischka Bean.7491:

Agemnon.4608:

This is all hopes (as opposed to what I think will happen)

• Metas similar to Orr in that they have no fixed time for spawning and creeps themselves actually drop loot.

• A desert setting influenced from the Outback and Southwestern America with maybe some sandy ones without all the shrubs, bushes, and cacti.

• Alternatively, a tropical archipelago setting with a Caribbean 16th century pirate theme where you have either boating or surfing masteries for exploration and surfing minigames. Not necessarily heavy on underwater combat.

• If it’s a cold area theme then a snowboarding minigame perhaps with iceskating masteries.

• Just as many masteries but fewer of them gating exploration and travel.

• Slightly tougher mobs than HoT.

• New elite specs that give something up in the base class but does something else even better. Increases diversity and keeps power creep reigned in.

Slightly tougher mobs than HoT?? Oh my. I would not buy the new expansion if that is the case….

Why not? Each expansion should be harder than the last. If people’s skill threshold were raised with HoT after dealing with mobs with better skills, AI, and stats then they’re logically ready for the next level. It should always be possible with the tools a class is given to effectively deal with such challenges. It also makes players feel more accomplished after clearing metas and exploration as it would confirm that they’ve reached a level of skill to do so.

Torolan.5816:

Less Zojja please. Less smurfs in general please. I will never forgive them that they cost me the chance to play a Tengu samurai from the start.^^

Why not blame Sylvari instead?

Zojja has a good voice actress and is a character we can’t help but like.

If Zojja gets killed off then I want Marjory and Kasmeer killed off too. They’re wooden characters that contribute nothing. I vaguely remember then from LS 2 and their dialogue mostly just getting in the way of the real meat of the story, namely the quests and achievements. Braham is dull too.

Alekt.5803:

Still wondering why Revenant had tier 2 health when considering the 2 heal skills + heals on weapon skills, + heavy armor + protection uptime.

Protection is a boon that adds bonus mitigation, requires an elite spec, and has zero energy growth if you have the facet on.

Yannir.4132:

So basically a jumping puzzle pvp map? I like the idea but never gonna happen!

Yep. If you’re on the third floor you can even jump down on platforms. They’re high enough where even max speed buffed characters (quickness, haste, superspeed, signet of shadows or air, and no valid path to target for them so one can’t cheese their way to the third floor via shortbow 5) can’t reach so they’re a one way trip to the second floor if needed…or maybe some kinda drop elevator for those who control the top floor node? There are even nicely angled walls to create ganking opportunities en route to nodes but if caught can be knocked back down via point blank shot, gust, or a similar skill.

It will have three floors:

• The second floor is where the starting area and two medium sized nodes are. It will be a wheel shaped room in the middle where you can fall to the first floor by getting knocked down by pendulums that do modest damage. The pendulums swing on the narrow walkways towards the nodes and the stairs that lead up to the third floor. There will be lots of walls to force players to the middle so they can take a walkway to either a node or the third floor. There are five doors: team blue spawn, team red spawn, two sets of first floor, and one set of stairs for the third floor. I even designed some maps in paint (forgive me if they’re bad I’m a lefty)

• The third floor is smaller overall than the second but not too much so. It has some normal sized walkways that are somewhat maze like and a node bigger than a normal node but smaller than the Legacy middle node. Can be knocked off as the node is essentially a floating island. The walkway towards it is narrow with speedy pendulums.

• The first floor is the floor no one wants to be. There are two sets of stairs leading upwards but it’s a maze with ice and damage spikes.

I apologize for the it being seemingly asymmetrical in places. It’s actually supposed to be a mirror on both parts. The third floor is a spiral staircase since the third is directly above it by ten stories. I put in lots of chokepoints and even a new pulsing reveal in the area around the node (but not on the node itself). To avoid the map becoming too linear I made the second ring from the innermost play an important role since a direct bridge to the node would render too much of the map unnecessary.

Edit: Remember black isn’t a wall. Just imagine the starting areas being surrounded by mostly gray lol!

Power ele and thief are ultimately broken. They take as much skill as any other broken bottom tier profession.

Power (marauder?) Tempest seems weak because much of ele’s damage comes from burning, which is universal in the fire attunement across weaponsets. Dagger, scepter, staff, focus, and warhorn all inflict burning, which is the highest damage (but shortest lasting) condition in the game. So if you’re going for a DPS Tempest then mercenary sounds more ideal than marauder due to powering up the burning you have.

This is all hopes (as opposed to what I think will happen)

• Metas similar to Orr in that they have no fixed time for spawning and creeps themselves actually drop loot.

• A desert setting influenced from the Outback and Southwestern America with maybe some sandy ones without all the shrubs, bushes, and cacti.

• Alternatively, a tropical archipelago setting with a Caribbean 16th century pirate theme where you have either boating or surfing masteries for exploration and surfing minigames. Not necessarily heavy on underwater combat.

• If it’s a cold area theme then a snowboarding minigame perhaps with iceskating masteries.

• Just as many masteries but fewer of them gating exploration and travel.

• Slightly tougher mobs than HoT.

• New elite specs that give something up in the base class but does something else even better. Increases diversity and keeps power creep reigned in.

Zephyria.6103:

polearms would be great…but my warrior hankers for a greataxe more.

I think greataxe can work as a greatsword or hammer skin. So not its own weapon type but a skin.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Guild Wars 2: End of Time

The mysterious Elder Gods who created the dragons reawaken after countless millenia and return to devour everything, including the dragons.

Now the remaining dragons must unite with Tyria to fight the Elder Gods in the most totally awesomenest battle of all time… because if they lose, there will be no time, no universe, nothing.

Cue Michael Bay explosion outro.

If that ends up canon someday then it’s way early for that arc lol! That may even have to wait until Guild Wars 3.

Sinmir.6504:

So many complaints about the Mesmer. As my Mesmer is pretty much my main character the last thing I’d like to see is a nerf.

If everything that’s overpowered is brought in line you could still shine on it. You’d still have portal for important plays, shield and the cooldown reset to go for another one, and lots of great zoning, support, and control skills via the wells. That’s not even counting confusion and other conditions. Last time people said Mesmers were leaving the meta I said they weren’t, and the moa condi Chrono was meta. One ability (an ultimate at that) being brought in line isn’t going to compromise your class’s inherent strengths.

Suppose you positioned each of your 9 keyboards in two spirals so that each 1 key was within the fingerspan (is that a word?) of each hand?

It is now if it weren’t before. As long as it’s a logical sequence of sound with understood meaning it’s a word. I don’t care about the red underline underneath it.

The 1 key on a single keyboard assuming homerow is quite a stretch for the pinkie lol!

The ideal number of bearbows on separate clients then increases to 10, or even more depending on how dexterous you are with your toes.

I’m tridextrous (Wait…I did precise deliberate character aiming and very subtle and precise wrist movements playing SAB tribulation with the mouse which is a right handed peripheral so I might even be a quadradextrous in some ways lol!) so I may give it a shot

Of course, you may need to include the cost of 10+ computers vs the potential gains to be had controlling 10+ clients in your bearbow math.

I don’t think so lol! One GTX 1080 will be expensive enough.

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

We should fight a bunch of heroes that defeated another elder dragon off in a different part of the world.
They can be just as self-centered and egotistical as the (seemingly) majority of player characters are, and the entire reason we have to fight them is because there can be only one super-special snowflake in the world!

I was actually working on a post where there’s a counter group to Destiny’s Edge lead by a Krait Duchess (who hates whenever people breach noble protocol, there’s hardly a better way to establish the bad guy side’s royalty and nobility than them having a problem being addressed other than “Royal Highness” “Majesty”, “Right Honorable”, etc. implying a false sense of superiority due to arbitrary social divisions) with a Kodan, Hylek, Dredge (Moleton Friedmole may be a good name since he was kicked out of the Dredge for holding extreme views in the opposite direction to give evil libertarians representation to balance out the evil communists), and centaur would be really cool. They’d defeat an elder dragon off screen (that didn’t happen in the post I was working on admittedly) not because it’s the right thing to do but because they view the dragons as a competing force for power.

They’d essentially be the five man band’s (TvTrope’s term doesn’t necessarily have to have five people per se) evil counterpart.

Razor.9872:

Moa can be dodged, blocked, and blinded.

In addition to massive telegraph.

While it normally is well telegraphed one should remember that Mesmer has stealth and can obstruct itself in teammates’ particle effects or even in bushes depending on the map.

Yannir.4132:

Agemnon.4608:

The way I proposed though avoids a lot of work redoing lots of unique weapon skills for a weapon set change. As long as big damage (power and/or burning) and nice AoE reveal access get in there somehow.

This is basically a non-issue. No rework has to be done to weapons for an elite spec. Unless the spec is specifically about that. That’s why we get new weapons. The new weapon is designed for the spec, the others are left as they are.

I thought about that but figured that a sage pyromancer would be very OP since it’ll have access to water healing skills (though the lack of wash the pain away would prevent it wait, of course!) Maybe it could be like tempest like mentioned above but instead of the ability being specific to the element it’ll be specific to fire. But then it’s essentially Tempest with different skills. Nothing wrong there objectively, but people look forward to mechanical changes accompanying a spec while replacement keeps power creep in check since instead of having it all plus some new mechanic you give something up to be superior in another area. Core game traitlines need to be looked at again (for all classes) to take into account elite specs and sync with them.

Air skill: AoE Reveal and power damage field lasting four seconds.
Water: Cleansing field that grants five stacks of might with modest burning application. Lasts a second and a half.
Fire: Stacks burning and some power damage.
Earth: AoE Reveal and stability plus modest power damage. Lasts three seconds (stacks reveal the longer a foe stays in its radius up to 30 seconds of reveal max)

I do think that if it’s Kralk then a really interesting plot twist would be Snaff knew he was going to die and told Logan to save the Queen because she’s ultimately needed to defeat him as her innate magical potential is greater than Snaff’s. Snaff would have deliberately targeted a specific part of Kralk’s mind to temporarily neutralize the spreading of the branding, knowing he couldn’t outright defeat him.

It would be cool summoning Snaff’s ghost and Zojja discovering her hatred of Logan is misguided, as he followed Snaff’s orders. Snaff would have hid the fact he was making a deliberate sacrifice however since he knew Logan would needlessly get himself killed with Snaff if he thought there was a risk of Snaff dying.

I sometimes write potential scenarios for the fun of it and here’s one:

Zojja: This is getting ridiculous, we came all the way out here and…(cries) I miss Snaff so much!

(Logan sneaks away slowly, knowing he’s a trigger that’ll just exacerbate Zojja’s sadness and he wants to comfort her but can’t knowing he’s largely blamed for Snaff’s death)

Shadowlynx Leftpaw: I’m really sorry for your loss. We’re out here explicitly against the Asuran council’s wishes under the pretense that it’s “too dangerous” and, “a quaggan can’t handle himself in these parts” but we’ll overcome!

Ironfin (The chosen one and also a Quaggan): Seeing the cute genius cry makes me sad, coooo :( I have the sword ready for the ritual!

Exalibur(placeholder name): You’re ready but what about me?! Why does no one asks me if I’m ready?! Being swung all day gives me the worst migraines!

Ironfin (head is down): I’m sorry…

Exalibur: Ahahahahahahahaha! Made you feel bad! Since I know you need my magic how about…

Zojja(interrupts): Just get in place already!

Exalibur: Yes ma’am.

(Snaff’s ghosts is summoned)

Snaff: Why if it isn’t my old apprentice Zojja! And Logan! Were you successful helping the queen? If you’re going to defeat Kralk one of these days you’ll need some of her magical expertise as she’s the only one powerful enough to do the job I tried to…quite humbling really, that a human has a higher aptitude than me in this area. I took some great risks to temporarily contain the branding by targeting a specific part of his mind…

Logan: Snaff… you told me you knew you’d make it and off him! Why didn’t you let me defend you!?

Snaff: I knew otherwise though, knowing you you’d stay by my side and needlessly die with me.

Zojja: But…so all this time I hated Logan for…nothing?

Snaff: Precisely. And he felt so bad and responsible for my death too!

Pirate theme elite specs for a water themed expansion. Not necessarily water combat heavy like many are presuming. like I said in another thread what’s wrong with traversing a tropical archipelago where the underwater parts of the dragon fight are puzzles instead of combat or other solutions such as forcing him to emerge above water, destroying an underwater volcano surrounding him with lava, or fight from submarines though that last would have to be careful not to feel too much like the Zhaitan fight. It would be surrounded by lots of ocean on beautiful tropical (and maybe ugly volcanic in places) islands. The potential is rich in masteries and minigames like surfing (boating seems like a more credible traveling mastery than surfing) and volleyball. A rock throwing minigame to kill jellyfish and a water skiing minigame sounds fun too.

• Thief: Mercenary. The focus is on tracking down foes and high burst damage. There’s even a skill that allows you to see through stealth (similar to the HoT mastery line as opposed to reveal which isn’t personal). Lots of teleports with different effects as well as CC. New weapon rifle (mostly melee with some cool ranged attacks and CC).

• Elementalist: Navigator. Gives up fire, earth, and air attunements and focuses on water. The first skill set is the equipped weapon slot while two slots are universal water abilities that are the same across weapon sets. Healing, cleansing, reveal, and to a lesser extent chill are the big themes of this class. The fourth skill is a pet’s special ability. The pet is a dolphin who can float over land who even talks and knows some magic. New weapon short bow.

• Guardian: Corsair. His focus is on healing and defense such as giving nearby teammates shield effects and can be traited to strengthen one or the other. Basically auramancer but gives shield of wrath instead of auras. Has burrow mechanics (like dredge and wurms, may trait for condition cleanse upon burrowing) to add a new defensive dimension for playable characters. New weapon rifle.

• Ranger: Captain. Focuses on pets and boons and the new parrot is the best pet in the entire game as it stealths, reveals, and does high burst damage. Double pistol weapon set and lots of reveal skills.

• Engineer: Cannoneer. Newer and better turrets with a pirate flavor are the theme of this class. Gains warhorn.

• Revenant: Buccaneer. Gains double pistols. Core revenant can already do lots of things well so it’s hard to give it a legend that would add to the class without being redundant. Both Glint and Shiro have amazing CC and Glint’s boonsharing utility is excellent. Likewise Mallyx is an awesome condition spec while Ventari is a healer. Maybe not the best healer but it counts as a healing and support spec. Another legend could add stealth or summoning creeps, but that would make Revenant too overpowered.

• Warrior: Raider. Gains shortbow for mobility. Is an alternative version of the Glint Revenant with boon upkeep being the theme of the class.

• Necromancer: Swashbuckler, gains one handed sword. Gains stealth capabilities and vastly improved mobility. I don’t know the class that well so I can’t really see what could be added to it. After gaining enough lifeforce can become a ghost pirate.

• Mesmer: Privateer. This is a very hard class to add on due to the bass class’s nature. Maybe give up the illusion and clone mechanic for more direct damage and teleports?

More of my ideas can be found here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/New-Elite-Spec-Idea-Pyromancer/

Base elementalist has always been an expert of most (well, a jack of all trades at and near launch and even back then it was better than most people thought) but a master of none. This extreme focus on one element transforms the elementalist into a jack of most trades and a master at two, namely reveal and burning in the pyromancer’s case. The pet idea might get scrapped but to be completely honest I wanna see a red furred lion with a fire mane in the game in some way shape or form since it just sounds so cool! The weapon skills stay the same as far as the fire attunement goes (so staff will still have access to meteor swarm, lava field, etc., but not static field, gust, etc.) but two (or three if a pet would be too much given to it) new fire attunement slots are given independent of weapon equipped. There’s still some light cleanses, healing, and CC in them (I did say jack of most trades, not lacking in most trades after all) but the overall meat of the skills are DPS (power and burning) and reveal.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/New-Elite-Spec-Idea-Priest/

Although in hindsight survivalist sounds like a better support spec for a thief. A mobile initiative based Mender’s healer who gives up some offense for small scale healing but still good offensively sounds like a logical step for thief. Survivalist has a gritty nature explorer vibe to it so thief can stay true to its mundane roots and support via natural rather than supernatural means. The substance would be no different from priest except as far as scepter stuff goes but the window dressing different to be more appropriate for the class.

Edit: changed Necromancer’s swashbuckling description as gutting wouldn’t be fair due to the swashbuckler’s skills only being relevant while in swashbuckler shroud.

the only thing keeping druid in s-tier was the relative lack of counterplay to Search and Rescue thanks to it’s range, and it getting nerfed (along with the various other nerfs druid has gotten before this patch) imo cements it as a well balanced profession.

Revenants and tempests had decent counterplay to it due to phase traversal and staff 2 and 5 or sword 5 and lightning flash with fire or air overload. Search and rescue is a great skill but druid has lots in the form of dazes, disengage, longbow pressure and interrupts, and good pet skills via smokeskelk and bristleback.

Reaper has lots of fear access and boon corruption and lots of conditions such as weakness, poison, cripple, and others that just wreck if left unchecked.

Tempest may be weak vs. daredevil but overall it’s simply incredible. I’ve mained it and druid the past season and the disengage (especially with eye of the storm slotted though I sometimes take aftershock instead) and sustain (party and self) is simply insane. I remember hitting far a few times, bailing after holding two far at bay, then the team wins the 4v3 at mid and I swing around to where I’m needed. Usually I join the mid fight however.

Stentorian Goat.7241:

Keep thinking about the rest, but please don’t even consider adding a pet. It’s been such an anchor holding down rangers ever since GW2 arrived, and I’m ready to say that pets just don’t fit in a game where mobility and dodging are important. Elementalists don’t need that burden added even in a specialization.

Alright then. I thought the pet mechanic was kinda unorthodox for Elementalist so I left it on the table to avoid a net gimping. The fire lion could still be great for rangers.

I’ve stopped reading here. Simply put this is too short sighted, the core elementalist have ton of traits that make use of attunments. An elite spec can’t possibly discard 4 traitline out of 6.

I’m going off a philosophy of giving something up to obtain excellent results in another area. The guardian going from base guardian to dragonhunter already has his virtues swapped with DH abilities so we already see this implemented on a class.

• Fire : when you use it again when in fire attunment, create a blast of flame
  - Air : when you use it again when in air attunment, create a fiery wind
  - Earth : when you use it again when in earth attunment, create a magma pool
  - Water : when you use it again when in water attunment, create a liquid flame*

Maybe that could work like the air attunement giving reveal and water cleanse and burning? The way I proposed though avoids a lot of work redoing lots of unique weapon skills for a weapon set change. As long as big damage (power and/or burning) and nice AoE reveal access get in there somehow.

sinject.4607:

i’m a legend-ranked thief, one of the only 3-4 good ones

[+] – gain in tier
[=] – no change in tier
[-] – loss in tier

s-tier:

• chronomancer [=]

a-tier:

• herald [-]
• druid [-]
• scrapper [-]
• daredevil [+]
• tempest [=]
• beserker [++]

b-tier:

• reaper [- -]
• dragonhunter [-]

balance is the best it’s been since launch.

SAB = Super Adventure Box. I see what you did there ^_^

Only thing I’d change is putting Tempest and Druid under S-tier [=] and reaper back into A-tier [=]

There are people who solo’d dungeons, which are intended to be five man content. If anything core Tyria needs a buff across the board (AI, stats, and abilities) to HoT levels upon release and undo HoT creep nerfs.

I’d like to address the strengths and weaknesses of the various points made here.

Scaling? In truth, level scaling is not only not “stupid” – in my book it’s very clever indeed.

Depends on how it’s justified. Does each zone represent a different place in time? Presumably, and it works on that front rather than a pointless Skyrim style where leveling is usually avoided or modded to stay low level.

Firstly it means that the whole open world potentially remains as meaningful playable content even when your character has maxxed out – rather than, as most games have done, leaving you staring at vast expanses of de-clawed park land that you could safely wander through naked

While overpowering lower level creeps isn’t fun it does show that the character meaningfully progressed. It shows you how far you come and face way bigger threats than those previously threatening creeps. Their swords are made of iron, and while that’s threatening to a regular level 3 guy to a level 100 it’s practically nothing.

(and as an aside, need I point out that the real world is not quite like that?)

Magic isn’t real in the real world either. Besides, it is but on a lesser scale. If you work out enough you’ll go from a chump to a champ, you can train in a martial art to gain proficiency that way, no longer being a neophyte white belt but a seasoned fifth dan black belt.

And secondly it means that GW2 is a game in which characters of very different levels can play together in a meaningful way, instead of lower-level ones effectively being useless appendages.

I can see the strength of that, but I think we shouldn’t even have levels.

It’s not perfect – both heavily-scaled-down and heavily-scaled-up characters tend to be a little disproportionately strong – but that’s an issue with the tuning, not the concept. Once you realize why it’s there and get used to it, it’s one heck of a lot better than the older, frankly kiddy-game, wish-fulfillment alternatives.

If we scale everything up to level 80, update stats, skills, and AI across the board, and erase level indicators then we’d have perfect scaling since the very concept of scaling isn’t relevant anymore with one flat level across the entire game. A strength of getting rid of levels is you aren’t restricted by a region’s level range (you scale down but very rarely up) so you aren’t forced to grind events within one map so you can go to another if you feel like it. T1-6 mats would also be on all gears’ loot tables and crafting could achieve its much needed overhaul (needs to take less time to level a discipline). Rarity tiers would still exists, and EXP could unlock the ability to wear higher tier armors (being locked out of blue until we have a certain mastery level for example then unlock green, yellow, orange, and pink purple unlock together) with more mastery points to accommodate the need for them.

Maybe krait aren’t “minions” per se but rather worshipers like the Sons of Svanir are for Jormag? The sea dragon is very clearly canon and like I said a possible scenario is it getting killed off screen without the player’s influence (preferably by a Quaggan uprising).

Even underwater combat has not been touched/improved from the start of the game.

It could be radically updated or (more likely as underwater combat is globally unpopular across games and even genres) not involve underwater combat in the first place except for manning some torpedoes in a submarine or doing things that aren’t mechanically combat (like a puzzle) to force his head above water for us to use land battle mechanics, then repeat the process. It’s combat that people don’t like about underwater content and the sinking, floating, and getting hit from all over (there could be 10 of them but there’s only one of you) while adding a whole new axis to manage.

People do however love tropical island settings and pirate themes in general, so traversing between an archipelago’s islands can add a credible mastery line via boating or surfing. Karka can also return.

While I like how the new Skyhammer doesn’t have that wonky camera at mid anymore there still needs to be something nearby for kiting purposes. Also, the bouncy platforms are still too slow, they should be tweaked to assume one is in combat speed.

Spiritwatch is worse than ever since you’re locked out of your usual abilities. This means if someone is carrying the ball they’re effectively in a 4v5 in favor of the defense. Where the ball carrier is, is where you effectively want to be whereas where you are is where the ball carrier doesn’t want to be. Since you have access to your weapon skills and utilities you have a much bigger choice in the matter. I only carried the ball once this season and dropped it upon discovering I don’t have my abilities anymore and would be too far disadvantaged in terms of mobility and skillset.

Because the rares and exotics that you get from story mode achievements are relevant.

You get ascended trinkets for completing a chapter’s achievements.

I believe both density and mobs themselves need buffing. Core Tyria zone mobs should be buffed to HoT levels across the board from AI to skills to power.

I think we need to get rid of levels entirely, scale everything up to level 80, have T1-4 drops always drop in their appropriate zones as they’re not tied to level anymore, then radically rebalance mobs and density to a state similar to HoT. As far as trait progression goes add more mastery points so you can unlock them and explore on your time and pace and not forced to slow down and grind. At least new players have it better since they can PvP for tomes, but I was here since beta.

HoT mobs have decent AI and some threatening abilities especially in big enough numbers. Imagine if centaurs and seperatists got more abilities and higher stats being as threatening as a mordrem sniper or shadow reaper? Everyone says core Tyria is too easy so why not buff it?

As far as equipment goes all equipment is now effectively level 80 and crafting is reworked to accomodate it. Like linen stuff could have different stat sets and rarities than silk (which would craft rare tier stuff) while jute makes basic tier and EXP values needed for crafting being adjusted to account for no more sub-80 equipment.

You have to remember that a class isn’t just judged on its 1v1 potential, otherwise Power Shiro would be undisputedly top tier.

Here’s my list:

Top tier:

1. Mender’s Aura Tempest. Their air and fire overloads remain strong enough to make stomps and rezzes unsafe while maintaining good healing and cleanse potential. A well timed obsidian flesh can ensure a safe stomp. Despite being relatively weak in 1v1 (overloads can be avoided and waited out, wash the pain away can be interrupted)it more than makes up for it in disengage (eye of the storm, lightning flash, and earth overload are great) and team fight support via healing, zoning, and aurashares.

2. Scrapper. Their dueling potential is superior to the Tempest as they have more interrupts and better damage while still keeping great mobility and defensive options. Their overall healing is weaker than Tempest however, but gyros add lots of good team support putting scrapper in at a close second.

3.Chronomancer. They can slow down enemy cooldowns while speeding up allies’ cooldown. Portals also mitigate low mobility classes’ weaknesses. Lots of confusion and torment stacking, excellent 1v1 potential. A tactical moa form can also turn the tide of a critical teamfight, perhaps too well…

Mid tier-

4.Power Shiro. The boon sharing is great and is almost top tier but alas, there are three classes and power Shiro lacks the group healing and utility to displace chronomancer. Excellent in duels and still has great boonsharing utility. Lots of great interrupts, AoE CC, reveal, and burst damage. Self healing however is kinda lame.

5.Mender’s Druid. Longbow is a great ranged weapon, but lots of projectile hate means its use needs to be strategic and careful. Staff is the weapon of choice and has some great healing abilities. The real meat of the class however is its CA form and its awesome cleanses and CC via black hole and solar beam. A strong dueling class. Pets can do some nice damage if you know how to use them. Tempest overall has more utilities.

6. Reaper. Their condition damage is simply sick. You can cleanse a condi bomb only for it to be replaced by a similar condi bomb. A very strong dueling class and the longer a fight drags on the higher their advantage becomes as the enemy needs to focus on healing and conditions while a second HP bar means reaper can afford to play aggressively as the tankier you are the less risky aggressive play becomes. I don’t have one myself but I’ve seen what they can do. Having defeated some on Power Shiro however I must say that aggressive play with the correct skills being dodged leads to an advantage for the reaper’s opponent. Without careful and accurate play however the Reaper should win. Heavy access to chill (still a strong condition) means the Reaper can watch a chill get cleansed and reapply it to ensure he’ll get in melee range.

Low tier:

7.Berserker. Good at duels and if they can manage their defensive cooldowns well and spec tanky they can last quite awhile. Otherwise don’t offer much in the way of group healing or support.

8.Daredevil. Has a heavy onus of skill so it’s more important for him than his opponent to be skilled as dueling mistakes can be quite unforgiving. Still has top mobility and decap and +1 potential, but not much in the way of teamfight support other than poison field.

9.Dragonhunter. I have defeated some dragonhunters in duels on my teamfight oriented Tempest and traps are easy enough to avoid. While a good anything can be trouble is still squarely a bronzestomper. Once players figure out the gimmick then most Dragonhunters become harmless. The class needs some buffs but admittedly has some decent crowd control. With the proper buffs has potential to be the best or second best zoner (behind A well oriented Chrono as wells are quite strong especially Gravity Well and the CD can be reset) in the game with his traps by creating unsafe stomps, rezzes, and discouraging opponents from certain areas like stairs on the way to a side node in Khylo or near waterfall in Legacy.

You wouldn’t be fighting him on land, he’d be in the water whereas we’d be either on boats or islands. What if his weakness involves getting his head above water so we can strike it?

Patrick.2987:

Anet just has to make team size up to 9 and keep the no stacking professions rule. This would make balance irrelevant.

You would need to rebalance maps, scoring, and objectives to accommodate teams of 9 though.

Frediosz.2718:

There will be no underwater dragon – look as skins from BL and you will notice that there were no underwater weapons skins for a long time now.

Plus Underwater combat requires a total rebuild – so another no.

Deal with it.

Underwater combat needing a total overhaul and being a risky move was addressed in the third point whereas the second comes to terms that he could very well be killed off screen (i.e., playable characters have no hand in his defeat)

The first point strongly implies that we can still fight the water dragon with our land abilities. What’s wrong with an archipelago theme? We’d just be surrounded by water and surfing on it, not actually going in it.

We don’t know what the next expansion is so this is about his whereabouts and potential story in general. Anet seems to be abandoning underwater content, but there’s still room to introduce him to the story.

Scenario 1: He’s there but underwater combat is still downplayed.

• Why not have his expansion’s areas be tropical islands where mastering surfing is needed to progress? Imagine: a lion themed charr wearing fiery plate armor and uses a guitar (my idea for the next legendary greatsword…would put lots of that Maguma Burl to great use since burl is a high quality guitar wood) as a weapon surfing…is having that much cool in a game even legal?

That way you still keep a seafaring theme. A Caribbean pirate theme combined with quaggans would make for a great expansion! And we can have a new hub that has the same aesthetic as the old Lion’s Arch!

Scenario 2: He is killed off screen, thus making the next dragon an even bigger threat as he’ll absorb his power.

Example off-screen story: Quaggans are sick and tired of being pushed around by Steve and his krait lackeys. A Quaggan version of the Pact forms and they have help from a group of dwarves previously unknown before. In very ancient times way before the Guild Wars 1 timeline there was a landmass that sunk into the sea through powerful magical warfare.

The land had a magical sword that no man nor even a god of destruction could rend asunder. It was a weapon that is only wielded by those it deems worthy; those of especially pure heart and intention. How it was manufactured is shrouded in mystery…until the dwarves and quaggans study its properties to mass produce weapons with its absurdly high quality. The dwarves gather some titanium and orichalcum and form them into an alloy and craft weapons out of them. The next step in the process involves the use of ancient Asuran technology doing some femto-engineering (smaller scale than nano-engineering) to replicate the exotic matter as highly powerful computers very rapidly manipulate each subatomic particle of each precrafted weapon optimizing it into a whole new material whose hardness, durability, and sharpness is way insane. By “manipulate” I don’t just mean rearrange but magically infuse each subatomic particle to ensure that the old sword of legend’s material can be replicated and mass produced for harpoon guns, spears, axes, bow and arrows, rifles, etc., and of course more swords. In addition to these the quaggans also went through intensive technical training…even an unbreakable sword many times harder than diamond is useless if you lack the technique to use it properly after all, and wise, ancient dragons are no dummies. The star quaggan in the off screen arc obtains the sword as it deemed him the chosen one.

Scenario 3: Radical underwater combat revamp.

The biggest problem with underwater combat is the density of mobs that can float or sink you. Sometimes you think something is in range but it really isn’t. Managing the Z-Axis can also be a hassle. This is the least likely scenario I see due to underwater combat’s very core nature and the time and resources needed would make such a revamp quite risky. I think it can be done, but it sounds like quite a difficult job.

Crossaber.8934:

Agemnon.4608:

Their claws and weapons didn’t magically become less lethal.

They do if you become sufficiently durable. In Dragon Ball for example Goku becomes stronger by the season. If Super Saiyan Blue Goku went back to the first episode Raditz would be so far outclassed that he’d endanger himself by hitting him.

Levels in RPGs are the equivalent of DBZ power levels. Sure you don’t gain enough stats to become a moon buster but a base toughness of 5 may correlate to an average person whereas a base toughness of 20 means you’re bulletproof to regular bullets, but still as fragile as a wet paper bag compared to endgame level dragons.

But how to justify levels from a lore standpoint in Guild Wars 2? Maybe we can justify it as we’re back in time and each level represents a different place in our timeline whereas level 80 represents us in the present at our strongest. The polar bears of low level zones are no longer dangerous to our present selves, but they’re dangerous to our past level 10 selves and whenever we visit that map we’re effectively going back in time canonically.

It is the reason i stop reading dragonball combat right after the first super saiyan mode is out. The story us getting stupid, the number of the energy level is overdone. I love the 7 dragonball series where fighting tactics is important, instead of unlimited powerceep in the story.

The level scaling is perfectly fine, reason?

A traditional mmo a maxed lv player is limited to have meaningful combat in endgame zone only, while GW2 a maxed lv player, the whole game any map can have meaning combat. GW2 have some flaws, but this is a feature that make GW2 GREAT.

I’m not saying the scaling isn’t fine I’m just giving a logical reason for it. When we’re in a lower level zone we’re effectively back in time in a place in our history when we were weaker.

“Yaaaah. No. Power level bullkitten has no place in a traditional fantasy setting.”

Then why even bother having levels? What about there not being a Bible for MMOs?

Yes, and for the previous two seasons in fact.

Their claws and weapons didn’t magically become less lethal.

They do if you become sufficiently durable. In Dragon Ball for example Goku becomes stronger by the season. If Super Saiyan Blue Goku went back to the first episode Raditz would be so far outclassed that he’d endanger himself by hitting him.

Levels in RPGs are the equivalent of DBZ power levels. Sure you don’t gain enough stats to become a moon buster but a base toughness of 5 may correlate to an average person whereas a base toughness of 20 means you’re bulletproof to regular bullets, but still as fragile as a wet paper bag compared to endgame level dragons.

But how to justify levels from a lore standpoint in Guild Wars 2? Maybe we can justify it as we’re back in time and each level represents a different place in our timeline whereas level 80 represents us in the present at our strongest. The polar bears of low level zones are no longer dangerous to our present selves, but they’re dangerous to our past level 10 selves and whenever we visit that map we’re effectively going back in time canonically.

To keep story mode achievements and fractals relevant.

Redenaz.8631:

But if we don’t have a lion statue anymore, what will get destroyed now?

That statue served as an important safety measure / lightning rod, and it’s foolhardy not to rebuild it. You mark my words!

Hopefully the entire place. I really loved the original Lion’s Arch because it had that Caribbean 16th century pirate theme going on. Now that it lacks character, substance, culture, and is way sterile I don’t like it anymore. At least Divinity’s Reach and Rata Sum maintain a special character to them. You have some nice plants and color in Rata Sum at least so there’s no reason to chill in Lion’s Arch over it.

Cedric Ambidexter.9174:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The last time one of my max levels got killed by a low level mob…….I’m not sure actually when that was. Probably from doing something like yolo-running into a group of vets and friends. Other than that, you really shouldn’t be dying that often in the low level areas. I suggest you check your traits and your build.

I’m not in any danger of dying “often”, or “quickly”, in low-level areas…well, I think.

I can easily kill those npcs, but it’s the fact that I saw my health bar draining to somewhere mid-way which shocked me. It just shouldn’t be allowed.

I’m level 80, the monster is level 15!

Maybe the issue was lag or rendering so you were hit with the attack before it registered on your monitor?

Yannir.4132:

The name would fit a guardian much better than a thief, I think you still need to rethink the name. Explaining the name doesn’t help, it needs to fit.

Guardian already has some good healing options but they need tweaking to be competitive against Tempest. Elementalist already being a class that’s versatile enough to do everything is hard to add to so on that front it’s best to take something away but make another aspect superior to its base form. Dragonhunter replaces virtues so maybe something can be done there.

Maybe rifle survivalist would be a better thief healing spec after all since it’ll keep thief a mundane (no magic theme) and not every skill has to do some kind of damage. Number 2 could be a cone AoE burst heal that costs enough initiative to balance it. Rifle as a melee weapon but ranged heal in any event has interesting potential.

Or if we’re keeping to the holy magic theme then inquisitor since that sounds like something with thief like traits of cunning and stealth while still being connected to an order and the name itself screams hard counter to condi magical based specs.

My revenant has a mix of Braham’s pieces, bunny ears, Honor of the Waves, and a Silverwaste bodyarmor piece. The last one is an alternative look with the hand armor hidden and the dye used on the sleeves almost matches the skintone.