Guild Wars 2

But… I don’t want an expansion?
Like, I don’t really see the point “let’s have many months of content drought, then pay money for a new box, and then get all the content we would have gotten anyways, but in one big drop off instead of progressively over time”.
So.. instead of having dry top released over the course of a month, we’d get it all at once?
Or do people think because it’s called “an expansion” it will somehow magically be fundamentally different and better? what a laugh, that’s obviously not going to be the case, you’re just asking for it to be packaged differently. That’s it. People will blast through the content again, just like they did at release and just like they do with every patch, and then go back to complaining.

Proposed change:
In the event that this skill misses, removes 3 conditions from the mesmer.

Just that would be enough imo. Maybe reduce the base CD to 40/35 seconds as well. The big problem is that if you’re depending on this skill for your condi cleanse, then it really can’t be something that can “miss” and just not remove conditions. It needs to, at the very least, remove three conditions on use no matter what. Whether that be in the form of transferring the condi to an enemy, or as just plain condi removal in the event that you miss.

Kadj.6725:

Fans. Not foci, but actual fans. I feel like fans would work great for actual leaps/evasive or movement skills – a more acrobatic/kinetic playstyle.

Among existing weapons… we need more melee options. Even though we use staff/scepter at point blank range, I don’t consider them such. So I’d second dagger for a 1h weapon, but we also have a deficit among 2h for melee, so… hammer, maybe? I can’t think of a better instrument to shatter things with.

Spear (on land)?

We have a lot of nice off-hand weapons though, be nice if we could take advantage of them. Scepter buff (heck, rework) would be an obvious way to go for that.

Better not be Kasmeer….
Not sure who, but one of the writers has an annoying habit of focusing on one character and making them way too freaking special. And Kasmeer is really starting to feel like that character this time around.
You can make your characters heroic through their actions, but relatively normal otherwise. The land of Tyria already confers specialness to it’s inhabitants through magic and strength the likes of which isn’t seen on earth, there’s no need to make them fart special out of no where for nonsensical reasons.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

It has been explicitly stated by the devs that Zhaitan is dead. He is dead. Dead dead dead.

@ Nabuko, the dragons absorb energy, they don’t necessarily naturally possess it – so yes Zhaitans energy is leached back into the world, but that doesn’t mean it goes anywhere specific. It just means there is now more magic in the world, it’s not too different to how the bloodstone was created which limited magic etc.

I thought it was confirmed that Zhaitan was defeated, not dead. I’ve looked around and can’t find any actual sources of a dev saying he’s dead, though I do find them saying he’s defeated. That’s an important distinction because “defeated” is much looser, it leaves room for interpretation. If Zhaitan has been “defeated” and not “killed”(is dead), then that makes his fate malleable.

Perhaps I’m wrong though, so if you have a source for “devs confirmed he’s dead” please provide it.

Another ugly oversight. This is a previously unknown elder dragon, and our characters somehow know its name off the top of their head?
This isn’t like Zhaitan, Jormag, Kralk, and Primordus, who have been around since before the game “started”, and as such we can assume our characters learned their names while “growing up” or w.e. This is new and current, we need our character to actually come across the information in a way that makes sense.
Same thing as our “vacation” from the Pact. That should have been established at the time it happened, not thrown in a year later as an “oh btw”.

Angel McCoy.1832:

RyuDragnier.9476:

About those last spoilers Angel, have you thought that maybe you should make it so there are multiple fronts, and that the pact is also hot on the heels of the other elder dragons?

We have lots of conversations here about the many places we could take the story, and ultimately, it comes down to what we think would be the most fun. We can only make so much content, so we have to carefully choose which content we make.

If we split our attention to two storylines, then neither one gets our full attention.

We, like you, want the most bang for your buck!

Could we get occasional in-game mentions of the activity and war-fronts of the other elder dragons?
I agree with you (as I think most people will) that splitting your efforts won’t get you the best bang for our buck, but in something that’s supposed to be a “living world” it feels odd that we don’t hear about the supposedly perpetual threat of the other dragons and the battles that go on against their minions in the background.

It’d be really great to get the occasional new dialogue from NPCs that hints towards what’s happening in the fight against the other EDs (particularly Kralk and Jor, since we, the player, recognize them/their minions to be a rather active threat to us since launch). It would also be a great opportunity to potentially foreshadow long-term future content.

blitzkrieg.2451:

“Summon an illusion that leaps at your target, crippling them. After the initial leap, the clone will execute the Mind Slash sword chain.”

Your thought of what you think it SHOULD be is irrelevant. It was bugged in the sense of how it should have worked mechanically based upon the description and it was fixed as such.

Like I said in my latest post, I agree with you but you’re referring to positive vs negative bugs , they’re both the same though – they’re bugs.. Anet does this kind of bug fixing with every class if you look at the history of what works and doesn’t work for every class. It’s not right but the developers are just extremely bad at fixing bugs that limit the professions and are excellent at fixing bugs that give positives to the professions, not just mesmer but it just so happened to mesmer with iLeap so it’s gotten the most attention but they do this with EVERY class.

You point about the descriptions doesn’t make for much of an argument, the tooltips lack plenty of information, get updated all the time, and have unclear language in places. They convey the basics idea behind the skill, along with some numbers, and then the player is left to discover the nuances of how the skill works.
Swap’s description: Swap locations with your clone. Immobilize nearby foes.
I can have three clone, all of which would fall under the description of “your clone”. It’s not unreasonable to expect to swap with another clone if the Illusionary Leap clone was already dead based on that description. After using the skill, you’d discover that to not be the case.

Your point on positive and negative bugs is also rather irrelevant. Bugs affect balance and consideration needs to be taken when ‘fixing’ them, especially when they are long standing bugs (that most people actually think are intended in this case).
You can’t just squash bugs without consideration for the ramifications it will have, and then justify it behind “because it’s a bug”.
Furthermore, there’s been a very strong trend of so-called “negative” bug fixes for the mesmer for many many months now. Most people will understand nerfs that result from bug fixes. What the mesmer community is struggling to accept is the fact that this has been so strongly the case for mesmers. Even the patch the devs said would buff us as a result of the “many” bug fixes they were supposed to bring didn’t really do anything good for us.
I play other classes, I’ve “mained” both a mesmer and a warrior with pretty equal focus between them since beta (though I play my warrior more now, don’t think I need to explain why), and I’m not alone in this. People know other classes have to deal with nerfs that result from bugs (and nerfs in general), the problem is that the mesmer is getting the short end of the stick.

Never spoken to you, but I’ve read tons of your stuff. Sad to hear you won’t be around much anymore, your posts and presence on the forums were always nice motivators towards playing.

Are you kidding me….
It’s like every patch is another slap in the face. Illusionary Leap BUG?! You want to talk about Illusionary Leap BUGS and THAT’S what they ‘fixed’?
I didn’t even realize that was ‘broken’. It’s not the biggest deal ever, but I can certainly say it happened often enough that I appreciated it.
Sometimes it feels like they’re only willing to fix bugs if it’s to act as a nerf. Even the patch that was hyped as “we’re fixing bugs instead of buffing you because the bug fixes will act as buffs” april patch ended up as none-sense.
I mean, bug fix, that’s great and all but geez, mind hitting some of the bugs that we actually want fixed?

Sarrs.4831:

Arewn.2368:

Perfect example: Nexxe.
He doesn’t like this release format and is expressing as much. Many other people do, and more still will be converted and start liking it.

Statistics, please.

You like living story. Fine. Cool. Good for you. But unless you have statistical evidence, arguing that “many other people like it” is silly.

I said many, not majority. Many could be a dozen people, many could be a hundred people, many could be a thousand, many could be a million. I used positive language because I have a positive outlook on the matter, I did not say anything that would require statistical evidence.

Perfect example: Nexxe.
He doesn’t like this release format and is expressing as much. Many other people do, and more still will be converted and start liking it.

Worth noting is that even if they front-loaded and put out an expansion worth of content that delivered everything “we” wanted, the forums would still be plagued with dissatisfaction and complaint.
Mostly because there is no “we”, people want different things and there will always, always be someone out there who didn’t get what they wanted, how they wanted it.
That’s what forums essential are (or at least one of their prime functions), a place where people come to gripe about things.

What?
So… your problem is that stories contain adversity and turning points for the main characters? that victories come at a cost? that the villain was always one step ahead through the arc?
I don’t really see a problem with any of this, it seems pretty standard if anything. I guess you just want more clear-cut victories sprinkled in?

Great idea. I was recently thinking it’d be great if runes worked similarly to dye (old character bound version), but I like this idea even more.
It would still require you to get a rune for each slot, per character, but would give us much more flexibility when we want to change them. Especially for the more ridiculously priced runes.
Equipping runes, rather then applying and consuming them, is another good possibility.

I think making exotic runes mystic-forgeable would help balance out prices immensely as well.

Over the course LS2, I’d like to see a couple new maps added to expand the world. I’d also like to see a new dungeon(path) added every 2 to 3 months. The situation with dungeons is just dreadful, we’ve barely gotten any new ones to play since release. I also wouldn’t mind seeing occasional new (or revamped old) world bosses, but they definitely should not be the focus as a repeating content type, they should be relatively rare additions.
And in general, story instances were nice and I would like to see more of those (personal story style perhaps).

I recently started leveling a Guardian, it’s not 80 yet but it has been fun thus far. Decided to go for a spirit weapon build (yea they suck, but why not? it’s just leveling) and I’ve actually found it kinda cool to adventure around and go for the traits I want (this coming from someone who’s been playing since beta).
Admittedly some have been annoying (map complete ones in particular should probably be swapped for something else. Perhaps a player-triggered named elite spawn you have to kill somewhere?), but over all I think it’s a good addition.
If you explicitly LIKE outright leveling as you’re major in-game pass time, which you seem to indicate that you do since you’re an altoholic, I don’t really see why you’d dislike this system. It’s just more goals along the lines of what you’re already doing, i.e the leveling content.

The only thing I really dislike about the new traits is the pacing, it’s too back-loaded. 1 point every six levels from 30 onwards, then randomly 2 points starting at 66? should have been the other way around. Or, ideally, just an even spread of 1 point every three or four levels from 30 till 80. I’m fine with not getting traits till 30, since you’re unlocking other stuff up till 30 (weapons early on, utilities, and then finally elite at 30), but the pace at which you get trait points thereafter is bad.

Mace #2… is weak? I mean it’s not amazing, but 10sec cd on a block is pretty nice, and the counter’s damage is respectable. Not really my idea of top candidate for buff.
At any rate, this is a “problem” that can be mirrored for literally any profession. The meta builds are “strong” (thus the reason they’re used) and alternatives are looked down upon as “weak”. And I say “problem” because you can run alternative builds without much issue, it’s just a matter of getting used to/good with them and then finding where you can excel with them in the current meta environment. I don’t run any meta builds and get along just fine, and I’m certain I’m not alone in this.

Rym.1469:

I believe that “end-game” s not the right word for the highest level content. Wildstar’s “Elder game” describes it better.

I see a content like this as something you are ready to take part in when you’ve already leveled and geared your character, know how to play your class already and know basic PvE mechanics.

I don’t want to copy whole thing to give my opinion because I already did : in the signature below

“End Game” is just a moniker for “stuff you do at level cap”. So… yea, end game.

From a development point of view, I don’t think it’ll happen. Next patch is 3 weeks away.
From a story/lore point of view, it’s completely sensible and consistent that it’s not happening, even without Arena Net saying anything or making up justification.
Lion’s Arch hosted the event last time, Lion’s Arch is now destroyed and doesn’t have the means to host it. Furthermore, the party who hosted it has bitter memories of the event. Two of their members were assassinated and enemy pirates infiltrated their city.

No thanks to heroes/henchmen. I don’t think I want encounters that are bad enough that NPCs can handle them (a la GW1).
They (heroes/hench) could have a place, but if we’re talking about end game that is in any way supposed to be challenging for a group, then no. I don’t want Anet to ever have to stop and think “but can a group with NPCs do this?/can our NPC AI handle this?”, when designing group content.

Many of the ideas the OP presents are already in game, he even provides his own examples of them. Boss Blitz fitting the third category. It’s just a matter of doing more of these things, and tuning the difficult/adding more fight mechanics.
By the sounds of the talk about season 2 LS, they’re moving towards this anyways.

RedCobra.7693:

or you could just make it leap, like the savage leap the warrior uses, this skill could then be used without having to target, giving the mesmer a bit more mobility out of combat

This seems like the best solution, and I don’t really see why it’s not in use. Warrior’s have savage leap, swapping places with a clone that used savage leap wont ever bring you somewhere a warrior can’t already go, so it should be perfectly acceptable. Savage Leap uses targeting to leap straight to an enemy, and doesn’t have any really pathing problems (a few oddities here and there, but it’s an enormous improvement over ileap and would make the skill actually usable).
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen NPCs use Savage Leap (or some equivalent), so attaching it to something AI controlled shouldn’t be a problem either.
Clone appears instantly, target’s the players target, uses savage leap, player can then swap places with the clone.

Wow, literally want I’ve been wanting all through season 1.
In fact, I made a thread several months ago asking for exactly what they’re adding (though that’s not to say it was “my idea” or anything as ridiculous as that).
This is great, can’t really see anything wrong with it. They even plan to add the season 1 stuff to it later down the line. It’s permanent, it’s replayable, you can do it at your own pace, the journal allows for more clear and concise tracking, and they added a means for those who missed the time sensitive stuff to “acquire it”, and for pretty cheap at that (kinda reminds me of dungeon defenders content, get it for free if you’re there for it’s release, or pay a bit if you want it later).

When ever I see a thread like this, I’m always torn between two feelings.
On the one hand: nobody cares. It’s just a game, if you’re done playing it then stop. You’re only making yourself feel an undeserving sense of bitterness toward the game by playing when you’re unsatisfied by it. I’ll say it again because it’s important: it’s just a game, play it when you feel like playing, don’t when you don’t, don’t ever again if you don’t ever feel like it again.

But then on the other hand: thanks for the valid feedback. Considering companies often times survey people who are leaving, I’m sure they appreciate what you said.

Nope, I disagree completely and support the opposite of your point.
Mindlessly following the blue tag while doing something else is not what I want from this game. The game needs to be challenging enough to require people to start paying attention, communicating, getting organized, and playing beyond just spamming 1. That’s a terrible culture to develop in a game, and I’d like to see it do a 180 from that.

As a warrior/mesmer main, I have to say warriors should be one of the lowest (if not the lowest) priority for bug fixes. Our bugs are nothing compared to many of the other professions.
It’s great if they fix stuff, I appreciate it and am happy, but I really think Anetshould spend their time elsewhere.

I agree, it could use a bit of a buff.
Stun break would be cool, but keep the cast time. Would turn it into a great counter to any combo that starts with a stun.
The base heal is just too abysmal, personally I feel that if they’re to change anything, it would be this.
Cooldown could maybe go down to 30 seconds, but I feel it’s the thing that is least viable for a change. First because of the synergy with stance traits. Second because I feel they shouldn’t increase the availability of invincibility effects.
Duration would do well to be increased to 4 seconds(base). 3 seconds is just too small a frame to work with on a skill that has such high cooldown and such low payoff when it fails (which is particularly bad considering this is our heal skill we’re talking about). Do note, I’m distinguishing between availability and uptime, thus the reason I find duration increase ok, but cooldown decrease not.

Obviously I’m only proposing ONE of the above would be changed.

Mikuchan.7261:

What he’s saying is that during non-festival times, they will have to remove all the people and the Zephyr Sanctum because it flies to other places and trades with them in the story.
If they keep the map open by then, it’s going to be an empty husk with nothing inside of it, kinda like Southsun, but much worse.

To have such an area accessible in the game hurts it alot, especially for people that don’t know why it’s so empty.

I completely understand that. What I specifically said in my post though was to not remove that stuff in the fist place (and went on to justify why). If they reaaaaaaaally feel that the Sanctum is just something that doesn’t make sense to keep in, then fine, ill give you that one even though I still disagree. But what about the Crown Pavillion and SAB?
Not to mention the problem of content like the Marionette, Tower of Nightmares, Attack on Lions Arch, etc, being open world stuff they “can’t” keep around.
They need a solution for all this content that ends up either inaccessible for long periods of time, or in the trash can.
If I feel like doing a gambit in the Crown Pavilion, why should I have to wait an undefined period of time for Arena Net to more or less arbitrarily decide to put it back in the game. That’s fun and rather unique content that I could be enjoying (read: could be keeping me in your game), and instead I cant. As a result, I go and play another game.
This is bad for the player, bad for Arena Net, bad for the image of the game.

Cygnus.6903:

I would need a lot of balance, because your giving the warrior a choice.

Ehh.. Some damage tweaks across most of the weapon abilities would probably be needed, and MAYBE a few cooldown changes depending on the redundancy cause by the added abilities.
For example: if GS got a defensive burst ability, perhaps they’d add a second or two to whirlwind’s cooldown to compensate.

I’m quite happy with both the amount and quality of content GW2 puts out, my only problem with it being the temporary nature of much of it.
I have played a number of MMOs, both triple A and cheap-o kmmo grinders, and find GW2 to be pretty high up there for content release.
While this isn’t some formal study or anything of the sorts, I’ve also gone through (trying to be as objective as I could) and compared the content released in an 11 months period for both WoW and GW2, and felt GW2 put out at least as much(if not more) content then WoW.
So… yea, I’m happy with it.

MatthewMedina.5419:

The content in the Cliffs last year was all very specifically designed to support the story of the election that was happening between Ellen Kiel and Evon Gnashblade. It really wouldn’t have made sense to keep the map open without turning much of that content off, and that would have left the area feeling very empty and lifeless. There are other reasons beyond this, but for maps like this, which are based around a festival or a special event like the election, it just couldn’t have worked to keep it open year round. It’s only a few more days until you all get to play in the map again. I can’t read into the future, but we love the gameplay and the bizaare atmosphere of the bazaar, so I believe it will continue to be a setting we can return to when it fits with the story we’re trying to tell. :-)

Or you can just leave it in, content and all…
I don’t see you removing the Great Jungle Wurm just because scarlet and her probes are gone. I don’t see you removing Arah, just because Zhaitan’s dead and it’s been nearly 2 years since the events there transpired. I don’t see you removing TA Aetherpath, just because we’ve stomped out the forces there and Caithe no longer has a reason to be there. I don’t see you removing the personal story, just because the events are far in the past at this point. I don’t see you closing the path to South Sun Cove, just because the karka and consortium there have been dealt with. I don’t see you shutting down the Straights of Devastation, just because we’ve already done the events there and the lore the related to is long since over.
The reason you gave just isn’t an actual reason. It’s akin to saying “because reasons”, and then removing it. I can understand in the case of yearly festival (wintersday and the like), or for things you plan to permanently re-implant in a better format (Atherblade Retreat, removed and then reintroduced permanently in FotM), but for some things it just leaves me scratching my head. It’s cool content that we could be playing, and that you could add to later if you wanted to mess with it. Instead we sit in a game that is that much emptier as a result of it being removed.

Cygnus.6903:

Carpboy.7145:

If they add an offhand burst, then 2handers need two burst skills as well

This.

But the river of tears will drown all warriors.

There’s no real problem with that. Two bursts for 2handers, perhaps one offensive one defensive. Or what ever really.

A bit of re-balancing might be in order, but considering both bursts would share the same resource (which gets completely drained on use), I don’t think it would be that big a deal. Might actually make Signet of Fury’s active useful for a build or two.
If nothing else, it would make our profession ability a lot less brain-dead boring.

No need for a counter, I never gave a position myself. I’m curious about what can be said about the state of mesmers based on the performance of “the pros” in the ToL.
The builds used, how effective they were, how often they were used, what role they fulfilled on the team, etc.
You see a lot of random claims and grumbling going on by hotjoiners and pvp-nobodies on the forums. Now we have a fairly objective and recent “measuring stick” in the form of the ToL to reference and base some discussion on.

For example, in what you posted we see that many of the “cheese builds” that the community often deems “OP” didn’t get used by the tournament winner. That implies that the builds in question aren’t as “OP” as many people would have you think, and the ToL now acts as a somewhat objective measure of that.

Was interested in hearing what people thought about how mesmers did in the recent Tournament of Legends.
I watched 5 or 6 NA matches, only saw 1 Mesmer, mostly used for portal (to great effect when they did though).
On the other hand, I heard Mesmers were used a lot more in the EU tournament.

What can be said about the state of Mesmer pvp balance after seeing “the pros” in this tournament?

Pyroathiest.4168:

No, you’re wrong about that. All spammable projectile finishers are only a 20% chance, making them unreliable. 100% finisher skills are on comparable cooldowns to the blast finishers.

I’m well aware. Even if the spammable ones only trigger one fifth of the time, that’s still more often then you can blast, which (I imagine) is why the effect is weaker relative to what you get from blasts.
Even excluding that, the 100% chance projectile finishers are still more accessible and plentiful then blasts. Not by nearly as wide a margin on their own of course, but more plentiful they remain.
As I said in my original post, I agree that there are a lot of underwhelming ones though. The unreliable ones in particular need looking at in my opinion (whirls and 20% projectiles). Perhaps get rid of 20%projectiles and proportionately buff 100%projectiles. Whirls just need to hit more reliably and their effect needs buffing in some instances.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Arewn.2368:

The effect of blast finishers are significant because blasts are generally fairly long cd and low accessibility.

Mmmmmno.

Warrior
Earthshaker: 10 seconds.
Arcing arrow: 10 seconds.

Guardian
Mighty Blow: 5 seconds

Elementalist
Dragon’s Tooth: 6 seconds

Thief
Cluster Bomb: No cooldown, 3 initiative

Engineer
Engineer doesn’t have spammable blasts the same way that these others do, but they have just so many of them. Blasts on shield, blasts on every turret, blasts on kit skills, blasts on gadgets, engineers have insane blasting ability.

So all of these classes have either massive access to blast finishers, extremely low cooldown blast finishers, or both. Now lets look at the others.

Necromancer
Putrid explosion is really the only decent blast finisher they have, though putrid mark can be used as well. Overall, necros have pretty bad access to blast finishing.

Ranger
Ranger has no good low cooldown blast finishers, but the one (non-pet) finisher they have is pretty strong. Call of the wild is a blast finisher as well as an aoe fury/might/swiftness.

So while necros and rangers don’t have the insane access to blast finishers as the other classes do, they still retain on-demand blast finishers that can be effectively used.

Mesmer
The prestige: A skill with a long cooldown that blast finishes on a 3-4 second delay.

….ok. Not only does mesmer have no access to a spammable blast finisher like cluster bomb or mighty blow, they don’t even have access to a blast finisher that can blast in a reasonable amount of time. If you try to blast a water or something with the prestige, half the time it’ll be gone by the time the blast actually hits. Mesmer is the only class in the game without anything even approaching basic access to a blast finisher, end of story.

Giving us access to one is not going to be the end of the world, and saying that blast finishers are rare or on long cooldowns is probably one of the most absurdly wrong statements I’ve seen this week.

All is relative. Blast Finishers are next to non-existant compared to the availability of projectile finishers.
Furthermore, in your own post you showed that literally half the classes don’t have very good accessibility to blasts.
If that was the “most absurdly wrong statement” you’ve heard this week, you’ve either been going around with your proverbial ears plugged, or been around people who are nearly always completely correct in what they say.

Zepidel.5349:

combo system in this game is messed up, only blast finishers matter or make much of a difference.

Take away the crappy projectile combos no one will even make a peep.

The effect of blast finishers are significant because blasts are generally fairly long cd and low accessibility.
That said, other finishers are useful. Leap for heal in water or stealth in smoke. Added burns on projectiles through fire fields for condi builds. Stuff like that.
There are admittedly a lot of underwhelming ones though, but I’d prefer to see them brought up to par rather then gotten rid of.

Crossplay.2067:

Here’s my 2 cents.

• Keep the root. The animation is awesome but, like Pyro said, it needs purpose.
• Increase the aoe radius. Mesmers are in desperate need of more aoe attacks.
• The attack pulses damage and converts boons into vulnerability
  – Only one boon per pulse
  – If enemy has no boons, slight damage increase
• Channel only pulses twice normally (starting pulse and one after the first second)
  – Can be held up to 5 seconds if the players holds the button down
  – Last pulse shatters the illusionary sword and is a blast finisher

On a related note, if you go with the “hold key to lengthen channel” mechanic, there are other skills that would benefit from it too. Elementalist’s Churning Earth immediately comes to mind. It would be great if the channel pulsed Torment every second instead of cripple, since the earth attunement is more about condition damage.

30 second cd?
I mean, that’s an awesome idea, but it offers ALOT for a number 3 weapon skill. I’d imagine they’d give it quiet the hefty cd.

It’d be nice to see a large set of traits that changed specific skills on weapons. That’s the kind of customization I want out of the trait system. I’d rather see that then new weapon skills.
As such, my vote goes to new weapons.

Any chance we can see this reversed for clarity’s sake?
In other words, you enter the number of gems you would like to purchase and it tells you how much it will cost.

Lankybrit.4598:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Look up what WoW added between release and the first expansion. Just google it. There is a wiki.

Compare it to GW2, than you might understand why people are upset.

Look up how much you had to pay to play WoW between release and the first expansion, and you’ll understand why you shouldn’t be upset.

Answer: not very much content between WoW launch and TBC launch. Grinding the same small pool of content for ridiculous numbers of hours doesn’t make the small pool of content any bigger.
Blizzard is brilliant in their use of the skinner box, and their ability to extend their content pool’s life-cycle. That doesn’t mean there’s actually all that much content there though.
I got curious at one time and decided to go point for point comparing what content was released in GW2’s LS to what content was released in Cataclysm over the same time span(making sure major WoW patches where included in the time span. Picked cata because that’s when I quit). They released a very comparable amount of content, WoW’s content was just heavily gated and forced a lot of grind, making it appear like more.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, and it’s clearly well managed by Blizzard, but let’s not pretend there’s more there then what there actually is.

We could discuss content quality as well, but that will just devolve into subjective moaning. My presence here should answer the question of what I think of the quality though.

My friend started spvping for the first time recently.
Mesmer was the class he hated the most for the first couple days, and would primarily rage about it. But that was it. After those first few days, he learned the difference between a clone and the player, picked up a few tricks, and stopped having major issues with enemy mesmers.
Quite a bit of it is an L2play issue I feel, and the case with my friend demonstrates this wonderfully.

Spear introduced as a land weapon.
I want that more then anything…. Freaking games always denying me of my favorite weapon, sigh.

Swim.6830:

Dagins.5163:

@Swim
Mesmers are good at interrupts, but interrupting in this game is a pain in kitten, because there are no castbars, and animations (especially on asuras) are usually unreadable. This makes majority of people going for low-risk-low-reward clone/stealth spam builds, complaining about getting low rewards all the time.

Yeah that seemed obvious from all the people defending the class.

I personally know several mesmers that are good enough to make the class look overpowered, and I have never had ANY issue fighting as a mesmer. I have no idea why people are considering this class underpowered…

A good player on an inferior class can beat a bad player on a good class. That doesn’t diminish the need to buff the inferior class though.
The upcoming Tournament of Legends should be telling of the state of pvp balance, so we’ll have a fairly objective point of reference soon enough.
Certainly more useful then random forum-goers war-stories of “a friend of mine is good though!”.

MINKZILLA.6023:

up scaling ruins the sense of progression a lot. for one you dont feel any more powerful becasue at level 1 or at level 80 you still fight the same monsters in the same zone. A lot of the fun in leveling is getting stronger and fighting things you couldn’t before.

I dont get that feeling in this game as much, but in Runescape that was a huge deal. I would run around a ton and find things that would 1 to 2 hit me, and so I would go grind because I wanted to see what was past them, or what they dropped, or just to kill them. It was great fun

You’re still unlocking traits, abilities, getting new armor, etc. so the prgoression is still there. And you’re not fighting the same thing since you have the freedom to go where ever you want.

Could do some real-world testing:
Heart of the mists → 6/0/0/0/6 with amulet of choice→ turn on ‘Heightened Focus’ only and test damage → turn on ’Berserker’s Power’ only and test damage → compare damage output.
Both add 15% of their respective multiplier, same amulet, same traits, same runes (none).

Lord Kuru.3685:

NSP has/had a great community that developed over time. The OP’s temple zerg is/was a great example. Oh well, I guess Anet saved a few bucks.

I’m assuming you’re implying that the mega server has somehow reduced the number of servers Anet has to run, and as such saves them money. I’d just like to throw in that it doesn’t necessarily work that way, and it is very doubtful this has saved them any note-worthy amount of money (if for no other reason, it at least cost them to develop the mega-server system in the first place).

If you’re running shouts, where are your stun breaks coming from to proc Rousing Resilience?

I still find plenty of groups that barely maintain 10stacks of party might. This trait will be useful.

CptAurellian.9537:

Pack might be interesting for PvD/PvP, but not for PvE. You don’t want to get hit in most group content, so the 4th bonus is moot. Either go for strength, if you play an LH ele and probably some few other builds, or go directly for scholar as usual.

You don’t want to get hit does not mean you don’t get hit. You’ll inevitably be proc’ing the 4 set even in PVE.
At the very least, the many encounters where the default strat is to stack around a corner will find the 4 set used.