Guild Wars 2

timmyf.1490:

UnbentMars.9126:

raids which have been stated to have a 15% chance drop rate for an ascended box per boss (so ~2 group members will get ascended loot per boss per week). Even at it’s height, fractals were nowhere near that rate.

I just looked up KING’s droprate research. I’m seeing 4.2% weapon, 11.9% armor, 11.7% skin.

Now, you can definitely argue that a Fractal 50 takes a lot longer than a raid boss – or at least once people figure all them out and start farming them – but let’s not be misleading about the droprates in Fractals.

I don’t think you are reading that properly. Armor and weapons are all well below 2% in that data, with weapon boxes topping out at 0.3%. 4.2% is for golden weapon skins, not ascended weapons and 11.9% isn’t even in the table… maybe you are looking at the ring droprate?

Hannelore.8153:

Ignore your starting area. find the central hub where everything converges, then you can easily access all areas of the map without much problems.

Don’t attempt map objectives without wallows and updraft. You should also have at least a week of roaming experience on the map, too. Otherwise, you’ll find it extremely frustrating to find things if you haven’t already memorized most of the travel routes, amount and type of enemies in each zone, etc.

^This. Leyline confluence waypoint is vital to getting around TD.

Celestial gear is just not that great. The power is just way too low, vitality is not that great of a stat, and neither is healing power or condi dmg (unless you are building for condi, but then you wouldn’t use celestial at all). Basically, celestial siphons too many important stats so you can have points in those stats that are much less important.

Things that can help if you are having trouble getting downed while using an overload:
1) spec Air/Earth/Tempest. Earth gives you an insane amount of protection from using skills/overloads.
This might be the only thing you need to do, but
2) if you are still having trouble while in full zerkers, consider using cavalier’s armor for the extra toughness.

I personally play in lazy-mode (well, as lazy as one can be in the HoT maps at melee range). I took a build from Vernificus (sp?) on this forum, and I really like how tanky it is while retaining good damage overall (roughly 20% less dmg than a full glass/scholar build but you have WAAAAAY more survivability).

The build is Air 1 3 2, Earth 3 3 1, Tempest 3 3 1. Utilities are mostly shouts for the auras, though I also use glyph of storms to help burn down bosses. Use dagger/warhorn. Dagger is zerk, warhorn is knights(both are ascended), armor is cavalier’s (exotic), trinkets and back are all zerk (ascended). Runes are Scrapper, sigils are whatever you personally prefer, and the food I use is Nopolitos Saute (70 tough +10% boon duration) and the cheapo precision oil (5% of toughness/3% of vit).

This build is definitely not the top dps, but I think it is about as close as one can get when trying to balance survivability that noticeably helps, especially when trying to complete overloads AND retain good overall damage.

Also, I think the warhorn gets crapped on a bit too much in this forum. Yes fire 4 is horrible and air 5 is meh, but man… Water is almost OP in how much you can heal even without any healing power. Just press water 5, water 3 to blast and water 4. Easily gives you 2/3’s your HP back.

Vukorep.3081:

Bhima.9518:

I also think you are overvaluing the condi dmg but I don’t have the time to actually test it..

I’m not trying to say condi dmg is superb compared to raw dmg, im saying that condition dmg stat scales the elementalists burning and bleeding in a much better way power does to raw dmg.

Meaning 100 Condi dmg stats will make eruption deal far more dmg than with 100 power.
And since in both cases (100 condi or 100 power) the skill can crit, you will need quite a high critical dmg % to make it equal.

Example:
Eruption with 1100 power and 0 condi dmg = 537raw dmg. 1584 bleeding dmg
Eruption with 1000 power and 100 condi dmg= 489raw dmg, 2016 bleeding dmg

The eruption with 100 less power but 100 more condi dmg deals 384 total dmg more

If eruption crits ,and has 200% crit dmg the results will be as folowing:
100power =1074 raw dmg +1584 bleeding dmg = 2658 total dmg
100 condi = 978 raw dmg + 2016 bleeding dmg = 2994 total dmg

On crit with 200% critical dmg, the 100 condi dmg still managed to deal 336 more dmg.

One would need to have +1015 power in order to deal 112 dmg more than you would do with +100 condi dmg (on a non crit hit)

Again, im not trying to say condition dmg and condition skills and builds are superior and overpowered. I am showing how Power stat and Condition damage stat scales raw and condition dmg on elementalist skills.

Obviously im not taking into consideration that eruption has a 6 second cd, and a 12 second bleeding duration. Why? Because im not trying to show some super efficient condition meta build and im also not trying to show some sort of dps comparison between power based builds or condition based builds.

Again, im just showing how the 2 stats, Power and Condition damage effects various skills, and how those stats scale the raw and bleeding/burning condition damage up.

Not sure your example really helps your case though because it is the BEST case scenario skill for a direct damage ele with some condi dmg. Its also not a skill we use very often for damage (normally used as an initial opening blast finisher to get might off of a lava font at the start of a fight… then you rarely use it again if at all during the fight). The vast majority of staff damage (at LEAST 80% of the total damage) comes from lava font, fireball and meteor shower. So while condi-damage can produce overall better dps on specific abilities, when taking the actual rotations of direct damage staff into consideration, those abilities are basically a rounding error in the total damage of a fight.

Syraxis Windrunner.1973:

I decided I wanted to craft a new set of exotic wanderer’s armor. I worked to get all of the recipes, and once I had them, I found you need 60 linseed oil to craft a full set of oiled pieces to make the exotic armor. which means I need 1200 flax seeds just to make a set of armor with exotic stats.

I feel like I have no choice but to park every character I have at the flax farm and do nothing but farm flax, so I can have the armor.

I get that flax is the new hotness, and we need flax for everything, but can we maybe ease up a little bit on it, so that this doesnt become guild farms 2: the flax chronicles?

Yes, the material requirements for some exotic stat distributions are ridiculous. Another big offender is Zealot’s. You need 3,000 watchwork sprockets to make a full zealots armor, or purchase the Watchwork Mechanisms on the TP. Each mechanism is 18g50… multiply that by 6 and, not even including the other material costs, you are looking at over 111g for this exotic armor. Absolutely ridiculous.

Ayrilana.1396:

Keep in mind that ascended armor only provides roughly 2% DPS increase without infusions if you go berserker. What you get out of it compared to the cost isn’t worth it. Content also will not be so tightly tuned where the 2% difference will be required.

^This. Don’t waste your time with Ascended Armor if you don’t want to grind for it. The priority for Ascended has, and always will be: Trinkets, Weapon, Back, and lastly armor. With only a 2% increase in stats for the armor, your time/money would be better spent getting alternative Ascended trinkets/back and weapons for other builds/characters.

Soldier’s is sort of passe at this point. Better to go with Cav. Also, I find it easier to make the armor the variable than the accessories/back (unless you are using full ascended armor). Cav armor, zerk trinkets/back. I don’t find vitality that important, as toughness acts like vit in most situations (sans condi shower) and with a lower health pool, your heals actually provide more of your total HP %.

I also think you are overvaluing the condi dmg but I don’t have the time to actually test it..

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s recommended. You can still beat them in exotics but you have less room for error. Fortunately armor provides such a small boost relative to the rest which means you shouldn’t stress out over ascended armor.

And since there always seems to be that one person who makes the inevitable mistake about percentages, I’ll correct them now. A 2% DPS loss for each of the 10 players on an individual level does not equate to a 20% DPS loss for the group.

True, but the equivalent over 10 people is like having 10.2 people doing damage instead of 10 people. Basically like having 1/5th an extra person total if everyone did 2% more damage. Its definitely not game changing by any means. its basically the equivalent of 20% more damage for ONE person total over 10 people.

Regardless, I’m glad Ascended armor isn’t that big of a deal. Now we just need better drop rates from fractals on weapons (15% like before the patch would be nice).

grahf.7540:

Got a link? I don’t see any Tempest w/ Cavalier/Scrapper on metabattle.

Bhima.9518:

Phantaram has an interesting spvp tempest build that i think is on metabattle. Could probably adopt it for roaming wvw as well. Ele for roaming as tempest looks to be pretty good on paper because you can build to be somewhat tanky (cavalier’s + scrapper runes + huge protection uptime) yet still put out some good damage with overloads.

Phantaram’s spvp build doesn’t use scrapper or cavs. I’m not too confident that scrapper runes would be great in WvW as I think Trooper would work a bit better for a tempest for the condi cleanse. Scrapper works well in PvE though.

I dunno… I find the tempest fun. It may not be as overall useful as say a rev, but it feels a bit more interactive. I like Rev, but to play optimally you kinda just snooze spamming sword 1 in Glint until energy dies, then swap to Shiro and pop impossible odds to then……. spam sword 1 again.

Neko’s build works well. If you want a bit more lazy, swap the zerk armor for cav and maybe a zerk weapon to knight. Reach that 1700 toughness and just face tank most things.

Bumping this so others with this problem can post in here and/or maybe get an answer to this.

Run builds that allow heavy protection uptime. Now you basically have 40% more HP than you had before. Air/Earth/Tempest builds allow you to run pretty glassy and still stay alive relatively easily.

Don’t worry about gear too much while leveling. Look for Power, Precision, ferocity, toughness in that order of importance.

Make sure you buy cheap food (use the TP > Other > Food Effects). A good one that is REALLY cheap is Strawberry Ghost though it requires level 25 (gives you 15% bonus EXP)

Make sure you also buy cheap Utility (use the TP > Other > Utility Effects). There is no cheap 15% exp buff for utility (only a spendy one), so just pick a cheap one that will boost either power or precision and give you 10% bonus EXP.

Another tip while leveling in the open world: If you see Yellow mobs (ie: dolyaks, deer, stag, etc.), chances are no one has killed it in a very long time if at all. GW2 has a sliding bonus XP scale that increases the longer a mob has been alive in the open world. So when you are sort of off the beaten path, and you see yellow mobs like these, or even mobs in general that you think people haven’t dealt with, slay them all. The bonus exp alone in a group of say, 4 or 5 mobs will be worth more than doing an entire dynamic event.

Phantaram has an interesting spvp tempest build that i think is on metabattle. Could probably adopt it for roaming wvw as well. Ele for roaming as tempest looks to be pretty good on paper because you can build to be somewhat tanky (cavalier’s + scrapper runes + huge protection uptime) yet still put out some good damage with overloads.

I purchased the Airship Essence to unlock the tab. It worked once, and it hasn’t worked since (been a few days now). Is this only supposed to be a 1-time unlock for 100 airship parts, meaning you need to keep purchasing it everyday? Seems a bit ridiculous if this is true.

Verificus.4320:

I run the FA build with D/Wh. I think WH is quite good unlike most other people. Earth is awesome with reflects and blinds, water has a great water field and also regen, fire has a very long duration fire field and extra might stacks + sharing fury aswell. Only thing that is a bit meh = air. But when you’re in air you are either auto-attacking or using OLA. Now that we have acces to party wide magnetic aura with Aftershock I don’t really see the added value of Swirling Winds anymore, water and fire are quite abysmal too on a focus and earth is about the same. Although I prefer blinds over an invulnerable that doesn’t really do much for your party. Dagger offhand is still great but I don’t think it has a place in PvE when you have WH and Focus. For gear, I was using full Zerk at first but later switched to a more defensive set-up.

I do completely oppose all this ‘soldier gear’ crap I see everyone blabbering about. I’m pretty sure the way I’ve set up my gear is alot better. I run with cavalier’s armor and scrapper runes, knight’s weapons and zerk trinkets. I run an aura set-up with Air/Earth/Tempest. Giving me high uptime on Vigor/Fury/Might/Protection/Regen/Swiftness. I went with extra boon duration from Fried Golden Dumplings (which stack extra might in combat along with sigil of strength to keep your might stacks high) and Bountiful Maintenance Oil, for extra precision and more boon duration. 50% total. Which is more than Fire/Air/Arcane builds had using strength runes. Mandatory for this build is either Sigil of Accuracy or Fire signet. If you don’t need the 3rd utility skill than obviously signet is better as it will allow you to run with Sigil of Force.

This build can easily be adapted into a more support type build by switching air to water and being a bunker/healer role or you can switch out earth for fire in standard old content like fractals for more damage multipliers and easier to maintain fury in groups(permantent fury in this build requires good timing of shocking aura, sand squall, your sand squal proc from trait, whichever shouts you have slotted and possibly rebound. E.g. a good way is to, after might stacking, start with shocking aura > glyph of storms > OLA > switch earth and use sand squall as fury is about to drop off and get 7,5 seconds again + the extended duration squall gives. Then usually Shocking Aura is back up. If it’s not you might want to use the 1 aura you slot. E.g. if you were using Arcane Wave before I’d say Aftershock is better now as it does more than just damage and blast finisher. But Feel the Burn is also good. Alternatively you can time rebound to coincide with the rest by using it 5 seconds before your boons are gonna fall off.

My stats with his build are, unbuffed (off the top of my head, as I’m not in game right now):
~2400 power
~55% Crit chance
~205% Crit Damage
~2900 Armor
50% Boon Duration
17% extra baseline damage reduction
100% fury/regen/swiftness/might/vigor uptime
~85% protection uptime with which you take another 40% less damage.
Added side-bonus: On conditions when health is above 90%. Very useful for running around the jungle.

I suppose at the end of the day, a Zerker build can achieve better results provided you are able to stay alive. And this build could very well do that too with Zerker gear. I chose this build as it feel it is a very minimal DPS loss. It allows me to have 25 might, 25 vuln and 100% fury in a solo situation with very minimal effort and able to upkeep during combat. Something my staff build couldn’t do. So I hardly notice a damage difference. In fact, I’d say OLA spam is much better at dealing with all those highly mobile creatures than Lava Font is. I’m also very positive I deal both more damage and have more survivability than Zerk/Soldier builds. I mean who needs vitality anyway when it’s so easy to cleanse conditions in PvE situations. It’s not like you’re going to get hit with 30 burn stacks. It isn’t PvP/WvW. Vitality also makes regen less strong and makes it harder to keep bonuses like Scholar/Water/Diamond skin active. I think it’s a bad stat for PvE. Toughness isn’t great either unless you stack alot of it, which I’ve done. Switching to earth puts me over 3k armor and at that level of toughness your really start to notice. Smokescales hardly put a dent in me and instead of getting oneshot by pocket raptors they now need to hit me as a group 3 or 4 times. By that time they’re all dead already. This build also made it alot easier to solo groups of vets and do hero points with champs by myself. If I never die I can keep doing high sustained DPS and they drop like flies. When the raids come I’ll see how I’ll change this. It all depends on what role ele’s will have in raids, if they are even brought at all (something i’m not sure of). But for now, for high level Fractals and Jungle roaming I use this build and it works great. For everything else I still have my trusty zerk staff build.

Only regrettable thing about this build and tempest in general is that Warhorn (while being better than focus imo) needs some major fine tuning. Air skills are awful and Fire skills are good but just not impressive. They could use a bit more oomph. Another annoying thing is that while I think charge up time for Fire and Air Overload is totally fair and appropriate (especially considering Fresh Air spam), I feel it kinda defeats the purpose of Water and Earth overload. No one is going to stay in those attunements for 6 seconds to use those skills. It’s just bad. They are both great overloads but are never used because Air is default for D/x and Fire for Staff. I don’t see why we can’t just split it up. Why do all overloads need charge ups, for Lore/consistency? That’s just bull. Balance should come first. I’d say nerf Fire’s OL damage and make it focus more on Burns and Might stacking and remove the charge up . Keep OLA the same and simply remove Water and Earth Overload’s charge up and leave the skills as is. For both staff and d/x builds this means they are simply two skills on a 20 second cooldown, but that can now be used on demand. For Fire this means a DPS loss for staff but give something to staff it never had before and that is the ability to keep 25 might up solo. Right now OLF is better than Fireball. So make it about equal then. For Fresh air builds nothing changes as they still have to wait 6 seconds (which I feel is fair since it’s really really powerful). All specs gain access to good Water ad Earth Overloads. I imagine this will not change anything in PvP either as you still have to choose between ingivorating torrents and stab on overload. I don’t play sPvP as much as most so I wouldn’t know how OP it would be to give stab to overloads baseline along with this new change but hey, I’m just looking at it from a PvE perspective.

Your gearing and build works great. I tried a variant with what I had (soldier’s armor, zerk weapon and trinkets) and, it wasn’t as tanky, nor did it hit as hard. I got cav gear but kept one of my weapons zerk (other is knights), scrapper runes, and I use the bowl of Nopalito Saute as food (pretty cheap for 20% boon duration). Has been working great in open world pve and fractals in the 40’s… haven’t tried higher yet, but I have no doubt it will be fine.

Thanks guys!
/15 charrrrrrr

So, I was going to reset some stats on my ascended dagger, but I wanted to yoink the infusion first. I went to use the infusion extractor, but it warns: Warning, the item will become soulbound once you use the extractor.

So I wasn’t sure if this meant the infusion will be soulbound, or will my ascended weapon now become soulbound or both. Does anyone know? Thanks!

I rate it a 9 on fun factor. I really enjoy the new maps (except for Tangled Depths… confusing as all hell), the new meta events and the new builds. I’m looking forward to doing some WvW and fractals in a few months once they iron those out.

elikal.7356:

I dunno exactly why; I used to love GW2 as one of my most fav. MMos ever. And I played a lot, so I have good basis to compare. But somehow I simply did not feel the magic when I returned. Just a few impressions.

First, all skills of all classes have been so completely reworked, that they are kinda beyond recognition. I have 9 max level chars, one in each class, I spent a lot of time to learn and improve, to have best gear and to know the best rotations in my chars, and here it was as if everything I worked to learn was taken away. I know classes are reworked now and then. I went through a lot of changes in my years in WOW. Or EQ2 or LOTRO. But I can not remember ever returning to a MMO and found all classes changed so much, that essentially all I had learned was out of the window.

I know this is your opinion but… did you really play WoW for that long? The sweeping character mechanic changes right before an expansion were WAAAY more extreme than what Anet has done with GW2 before HoT and even after HoT. What’s funny is, I find the class changes to be one of the best parts of HoT. GW2 has largely kept the class mechanics (and meta) stagnant for the past 3 years. Its a relief and a new injection of fun to have new things to try out and master.

Taygus.4571:

Silmar Alech.4305:

Usually, I’m the first who complains that content is too difficult. But especially the last 3 episodes are fine from my point of view. Not the achievements (the centaur boss achievements are nearly impossible without expert help), but the normal story is ok.

I spent far too much time in down state, that I gave up.

It’s far too much for me. And my problem with it, is that..to just experience the story…a little easier would’ve been nice.

I play games for the story and for an easy going experience. I generally avoid challenge. (I have enough in rl, I don’t need a game for that.)

and zax, you’re missing my point. I don’t like that anet is increasing the difficulty of the encounters.
Even if I know how to do something, doesn’t mean I can do it, and even if I can, it doesn’t mean it;s something I want to do more of.
(also, I’ve never participated in SAB)

I suppose I just hope anet… considers an easier option. with progressing difficulty for those who actually want it.

What class, spec and gear are you going in there with? I haven’t found the LS to be difficult though it can be slightly challenging at certain points. This forum might be able to help you do it solo (which is what you want to do) if you let us know what class, spec and gear you are running with.

Auric Basin
Verdant Brink
Dragon’s Stand

Not even listing Tangled Depths because I hate that zone.

The principle of the OP’s argument is sound. For too long, Anet has made getting Ascended gear as mostly a craft-moar endeavor. Your chances of getting ascended gear from either boss events like TT or Teq or Fractals is VERY low (on the order of less than 5%). Luckily, they seem to be addressing this to some degree with the collection achievements that allow you to collect parts for an ascended weapon. After reviewing these achievements they seem quite doable… takes about the same as pure farming for crafting mats, but at least it has variety. Hopefully Anet continues to offer other avenues to get ascended gear like this.

I’ve been playing in VB with this build… it is VERY effective. Even though its bunkerish, the damage isn’t bad and mobs die fast.

On its face, HoT is a light in the content department in terms of pure geography/group PvE content. But, I think its pretty obvious that the living story will also continue, and we will likely get new zones ala Dry Top/Silverwastes as time goes on. And then that story/content will lead to new fractals/raids and likely, a new expansion (hopefully on a 2 year cycle max instead of 3).

Draconus.9823:

Jordo.5913:

yeah, i’m planning on switching out of zerk

Marauder stats look like they were made for Daredevil imo

+Power
+Precision
+Vitality
+Ferocity

I just gotta figure out how to get the inscription….it’s not on exalted, itzel, or exalted vendors….so maybe it’s the Dragon’s Stand vendor?

Just talk to the Leatherworker trainer. It’s in there with all the other inscriptions. I’m on my phone, so don’t remember the exact mats, but, at least for now, it’s cheaper than zerker to make.

This is not even remotely true. 30 thorns is already 30 silver… and then 3 ebony orbs = 6g. That’s 6g30s already for one insignia… without including the ecto/gossamer costs. The material requirement is way too high for this. Should only be one ebony orb as it is a very rare drop from Orrian Saplings (ancient log trees) plus 30 thorns is a pretty beefy number.

The difficulty of HoT’s open world is definitely more than what we’re used to but, for the most part, it just takes a little research on some builds, and a little practice learning the mechanics before you’ll be blazing through it in no time. Now Tangled Depths… that zone just needs to DIAF. I can’t stand that place.

Auric Basin is easier than Triple Trouble which actually requires a guild to take charge and explain all the mechanics before hand. The game is what, not even a week old? Give it some time for a greater portion of the population to understand the meta event fights. Just like Teq seemed REALLY hard back in the day, but is now on complete farm mode. People will get used to it.

There is an adjustment period for playing HoT versus the old Tyrian content. But, just like when the new Teq came, people complained that it would only be doable by a fully organized group. For a short time that was true, but the playerbase overtime adjusted to what the fight takes and now, Teq is on complete farm mode. The same thing will happen in HoT’s open world content. It just requires a bit more overall focus and skill right now, but if people stick it out for a just a bit… learn how to build their characters in a playstyle that works for them and the content, they will be able to overcome the increased difficulty and get completely used to it.

Expansion overall has been fun and I welcome the HP change for my alts. Auric Basin is the most beautiful looking zone in any MMO I have played. The Artistic direction and execution in this game always impressed me, but this expansion has raised that bar. So far, I feel quite pleased with this expansion and I look forward to slowly working my way through it with 4 other alts.

PopeUrban.2578:

Bhima.9518:

PopeUrban.2578:

Bhima.9518:

PopeUrban.2578:

The fact that it does add so much in terms of a different way to play your class is exactly what makes it elite.

That is functionality that core specs simply don’t have. Core specs slightly alter the core class. Elite specs radically change it and offer options that are simply not there without them.

Gotta take all of this in context because, there are a lot of things here to parse. First, there are PLENTY of core specs that play drastically different from one another. I gave you the example of a staff ele spec versus a dagger/dagger ele spec. They play very differently, using different traits, weapons, heals and utilities. As does a bunker guardian versus a zerker meditation one. The reason why its easy for us to disregard the diversity we already have available is because we’ve had this exact same diversity for the past 3 years. That is a VERY long time to have played basically the same specs for, and the balance patches have made some changes here or there over the years, but have not fundamentally changed how the classes play.

I mean, take WoW as an example. There was a 2 year gap between Vanilla WoW and the Burning Crusade. Right before the xpac dropped, Blizzard fundamentally changed a hell of a lot of things about how each class played. In GW2, we’ve been playing with the same mechanics for about 3 years… that is a VERY long time to be playing the same systems. This I think is the reason you and others feel these elite specs are so special. And they are special simply because they are a long overdue, much needed injection of gameplay diversity. That doesn’t mean the older specs aren’t already diverse, they have just been played to death for the past 3 years is all.

Right, however a staff ele doesn’t need those traits to simply equip a staff, use utilities, use an elite, or use attunements. Those things all work exactly the same with minor buffs to extra conditions, effects, etc. no matter what three core lines you take. You don’t need to trait fire attunement to use fire attunement, or even for fire attunement to be decently effective on a given build. You don’t need to trait for staff for staff to be decent at doing the job it does.

Taking those traits to build a staff or d/d ele doesn’t fundamentally change the elementalist playstyle. You can run d/d on a staff trait build and you still get, aside from the staff trait itself, a completely usable package of benefits.

They make it more efficient, but it’s still only a slight alteration compared to "now you have these new mechanics, a new weapon, and new skills, but the catch is you can’t combine them with other such packages.

It has a much larger effect on the build than taking an existing spec, as existing specs, once learned, are either traits or lines of skills, not both plus a weapon.

The mechanics of dagger/dagger gameplay are VERY different than zerker staff. While you CAN play dagger/dagger even with a zerker staff build, it will feel extremely clunky, as you will not be able to swap attunements easily and you won’t have the Evasive Arcana mechanic (which, I would argue is just as fundamental to dagger/dagger play as Overload is for Tempest). Likewise, you can play a zerker staff with a dagger/dagger build, but it will feel VERY suboptimal since, for the most part you just camp fire with other attunements used as extremely situational.

Again, I think most of the same-y feel of the original core specs is simply a casualty of the amount of time we’ve already played them.

I understand your viewpoint, but it is from a backward-looking lens, while what I’m saying is more from a forward-looking one.

Honestly I feel like the expansion would have been better if they simply had spent the time to develop revnant better and released with no new classes and two elite specs per class. Rev is really only a grab bag of mechanics that would have worked mostly fine as elite specs for existing classes anyway, and It’s my personal opinion that releases intended to “expand” a game should be less about requiring you to start it over again and more about actually expanding upon existing characters and content.

I think most of the new specs are sort of a grab bag of mechanics already in the game. Its just how they are implemented that make them feel new, fresh and fun. Also, the Revenant’s legend system/energy system feels very fluid. It feels like a version 2.0 class for this game, at least to me.

But yeah, if the option was two new specs per class or one spec per class and the Rev, I’d take two new specs ANY day.

The vast majority of complaints are not regarding the difficulty of the map content. The majority of the complaints were in regards to the huge timesink wall for elite specializations. That has since been resolved to most people’s satisfaction. That 68+ page thread was not about how difficult a champion, event chain or the mobs in Maguuma are.

PopeUrban.2578:

Bhima.9518:

PopeUrban.2578:

The fact that it does add so much in terms of a different way to play your class is exactly what makes it elite.

That is functionality that core specs simply don’t have. Core specs slightly alter the core class. Elite specs radically change it and offer options that are simply not there without them.

Gotta take all of this in context because, there are a lot of things here to parse. First, there are PLENTY of core specs that play drastically different from one another. I gave you the example of a staff ele spec versus a dagger/dagger ele spec. They play very differently, using different traits, weapons, heals and utilities. As does a bunker guardian versus a zerker meditation one. The reason why its easy for us to disregard the diversity we already have available is because we’ve had this exact same diversity for the past 3 years. That is a VERY long time to have played basically the same specs for, and the balance patches have made some changes here or there over the years, but have not fundamentally changed how the classes play.

I mean, take WoW as an example. There was a 2 year gap between Vanilla WoW and the Burning Crusade. Right before the xpac dropped, Blizzard fundamentally changed a hell of a lot of things about how each class played. In GW2, we’ve been playing with the same mechanics for about 3 years… that is a VERY long time to be playing the same systems. This I think is the reason you and others feel these elite specs are so special. And they are special simply because they are a long overdue, much needed injection of gameplay diversity. That doesn’t mean the older specs aren’t already diverse, they have just been played to death for the past 3 years is all.

Right, however a staff ele doesn’t need those traits to simply equip a staff, use utilities, use an elite, or use attunements. Those things all work exactly the same with minor buffs to extra conditions, effects, etc. no matter what three core lines you take. You don’t need to trait fire attunement to use fire attunement, or even for fire attunement to be decently effective on a given build. You don’t need to trait for staff for staff to be decent at doing the job it does.

Taking those traits to build a staff or d/d ele doesn’t fundamentally change the elementalist playstyle. You can run d/d on a staff trait build and you still get, aside from the staff trait itself, a completely usable package of benefits.

They make it more efficient, but it’s still only a slight alteration compared to "now you have these new mechanics, a new weapon, and new skills, but the catch is you can’t combine them with other such packages.

It has a much larger effect on the build than taking an existing spec, as existing specs, once learned, are either traits or lines of skills, not both plus a weapon.

The mechanics of dagger/dagger gameplay are VERY different than zerker staff. While you CAN play dagger/dagger even with a zerker staff build, it will feel extremely clunky, as you will not be able to swap attunements easily and you won’t have the Evasive Arcana mechanic (which, I would argue is just as fundamental to dagger/dagger play as Overload is for Tempest). Likewise, you can play a zerker staff with a dagger/dagger build, but it will feel VERY suboptimal since, for the most part you just camp fire with other attunements used as extremely situational.

Again, I think most of the same-y feel of the original core specs is simply a casualty of the amount of time we’ve already played them.

Bridger.9245:

Looks like this might be a bug :\

Another bug that you should deal with is getting your new Tales of Tyria episodes on podcast already

PopeUrban.2578:

The fact that it does add so much in terms of a different way to play your class is exactly what makes it elite.

That is functionality that core specs simply don’t have. Core specs slightly alter the core class. Elite specs radically change it and offer options that are simply not there without them.

Gotta take all of this in context because, there are a lot of things here to parse. First, there are PLENTY of core specs that play drastically different from one another. I gave you the example of a staff ele spec versus a dagger/dagger ele spec. They play very differently, using different traits, weapons, heals and utilities. As does a bunker guardian versus a zerker meditation one. The reason why its easy for us to disregard the diversity we already have available is because we’ve had this exact same diversity for the past 3 years. That is a VERY long time to have played basically the same specs for, and the balance patches have made some changes here or there over the years, but have not fundamentally changed how the classes play.

I mean, take WoW as an example. There was a 2 year gap between Vanilla WoW and the Burning Crusade. Right before the xpac dropped, Blizzard fundamentally changed a hell of a lot of things about how each class played. In GW2, we’ve been playing with the same mechanics for about 3 years… that is a VERY long time to be playing the same systems. This I think is the reason you and others feel these elite specs are so special. And they are special simply because they are a long overdue, much needed injection of gameplay diversity. That doesn’t mean the older specs aren’t already diverse, they have just been played to death for the past 3 years is all.

ChrizZcE.5981:

Divine Flavor.2016:

Somehow, I don’t think this one’s got the legs that the Elite Spec issue had.

If we cry loud enough then Anet will change it.

Pretty sure most players are OK with the difficulty of getting a legendary as it is completely optional in every sense of the word optional. Plus, for the past 3 years, we’ve all been conditioned already (and Anet has been consistent on this) with the difficulty in obtaining Legendaries. The new spec is an entirely different beast and trying to make them analogous is horseshoes and hand grenades.

Tommyknocker.6089:

PopeUrban.2578:

Runiir.6425:

As has been said multiple times, don’t call it elite. It is not “elite”. Elite is a title given to an alpha class, as in…if you are a reaper you will slaughter every single individual in PvP that isn’t also an elite of some kind without even trying. THAT is elite. This is nothing more than another option, that frankly shouldn’t cost a single HP more than any other spec line.

It’s not elite because it makes you OP. It’s elite because of the level of what it grants you compared to core specs. It’s elite because you would be OP if you could take two of them at the same time.

It’s an “elite specialization” not a “specialization that makes you elite”

Now all you need to do is tell all the others this gem. I have been trying all day to tell players that it is not intended to make you a god of the <insert X class here> but it seems many still call it an elite thinking it is so.

I still think another term would have been better though. I just call it your specialization now.

“Elite Specialization” is a fancy Marketing term to add a little extra buzz to offering new specs in the expansion. Hey, Marketing works on everyone… it just works even more on some rather than others.

PopeUrban.2578:

Runiir.6425:

As has been said multiple times, don’t call it elite. It is not “elite”. Elite is a title given to an alpha class, as in…if you are a reaper you will slaughter every single individual in PvP that isn’t also an elite of some kind without even trying. THAT is elite. This is nothing more than another option, that frankly shouldn’t cost a single HP more than any other spec line.

It’s not elite because it makes you OP. It’s elite because of the level of what it grants you compared to core specs. It’s elite because you would be OP if you could take two of them at the same time.

It’s an “elite specialization” not a “specialization that makes you elite”

Again, this doesn’t make any sense since, well… we have no idea what future specializations will look like, nor do we know if, when they do come, we will be able to take the new spec and a spec from HoT. I ask you, what does the new spec grant you compared to the core specs BESIDES just another way to play your class?

captaincrash.6528:

Yeah this blows, elite specs had a level of prestige to it, something to work towards, have mastered your character to get.

Now you can complete the old content and basically have it finished. Zzz.

You are equivocating on the word prestige with desire/demand. No really… elite specs in less than 2 months time will NOT have ANY level of prestige to them. They will just be what they already are, another way to play your class. Prestige in GW2 is not a class mechanic, it is high level sPvP success, Tier 1 WvW, high level fractals, Legendaries and soon to be raiding. Those things will always be prestige in this game, a new playstyle, although desired, is not a badge to wear as prestige… Wielding Eternity is.

SuinegTsol.1729:

I wanted to play revenant with hot, but without hearld it just sucks, so i “farmed” those hero points about 24h to finally play the class like i want and in a way i think its competitve for group content.
400 Points for a class, that “don’t work” without them is rly tough, so i understand the step to make it easy to access.

But you should at least reward those, who did it the hard way. (title/mini/…)

A bit hyperbolic as, while I want to play herald, I’ve had a lot of fun and great success (in PvE mind you) running dwarf/Shiro hammer/sword/axe. Axe 4 is actually alot of fun right after sword 3.

ols.4263:

agree, elite unlock should not be done easily, game experience in the long run will suffer.

This is the new meme around here, and I want to squash it with some reality. You and others feel that, by making this faster/easier, it reduces overall playtime in the long run because you can get your spec sooo fast now. What you and others here fail to understand is that, Anet has already been down this road of making things difficult/time consuming to unlock and they realized (likely through actual data analysis) that prohibitive gating of content REDUCES longevity in this game, not increases it.

By reducing the barriers, especially for alt play, the game actually increases longevity in the long run. Hell, just look at the Mastery system: its account based! This is the reason Anet has ALREADY made changes in this direction over the past few years including: Making WvW Ranks account based, making Fractal personal levels account based and making Ascended gear account bound. Now, the point isn’t that things need to be account based, the point is that the barrier for play on other characters should be low as that is the easiest way to dramatically increase gameplay diversity. Once you understand this, you will understand why Anet has made this change.

Geneticide.6987:

CuteLilKittenHugz.2064:

I really think you guys are so grateful for a change – any change – that you’re missing a few things that point to this not being much of a compromise.

1) Hero points are still account bound.
2) They are still gated behind some masteries.
3) You are still forced to spend Hero Points on ALL your skills and utilities before you can even unlock the elite spec.
4) The elite specs are all earned in a linear fashion – which means you MUST spend your hero points on traits AND SKILLS that you may never even use.

As it is, 250 HP is easier to swallow versus 400 HP, true…if you only have 1 or 2 alts to grind. But once you hit 4-5 alts and up… this is still a HUGE amount of grind.

100% agree with this.

This works for a few characters, but when it comes down to it, it’s still 25 HP locations. I’m sorry, but the thought of grinding these out on my alts is completely offputting. I have 28 fully geared, functional level 80s that I made to add flavour to my playing experience. I mean, there is NO way I’m going to do it on all of them, but even considering every profession grinding 25 of these gated, unsoloable points makes me not want to play. Of course, nobody should change things just because of one person(arguably the majority), but bear with me here. They only cut it down by 15. And this is not factoring the amount of HPs per map, nor does it factor that many of these HPs cannot be solo’d and are mastery gated. So you STILL have to pretty much do most of the maps, just not 100%. People are so happy they were noticed, that they aren’t recognizing what they actually got. I’m not saying I don’t welcome lessening the burden, it’s just that it changes very little to the overall issue people were upset about; people waited 3 years using the same old boring builds with the same old boring skills and wanted to play the new content with the new spec. It defeats the entire purpose if you STILL have to do most all the content just to be able to unlock it, right? Am I missing something here?

Now I know GW2 has historically been a VERY alt friendly game, and that is by design because it increases its longevity without having to add new content. But, you gotta admit, you are definitely on the outlier side of things with 28 level 80’s. I expect most faithful players of GW2 to have between 3-8 total level 80s that they play regularly… 28 is definitely a rounding error in terms of number of people that actually have that.

Also, this compromise will make it relatively easy to get the new spec on at least 3 characters no problem. Pick the 3 you want to play the most, get those specs, enjoy the game then go back to unlocking the specs on a few others. By then it won’t feel like a chore to unlock a few more characters.

PopeUrban.2578:

Tommyknocker.6089:

Can we just stop calling them "elite specs " FKS (for kittens sake)!

They are alternate play style, they are no more elite than any other extra trait line with a new weapon. Continuing to refer to them as elite is a misnomer and propagating the fact is just getting asinine at this point. Unlocking them should be an accomplishment yes, but no more so than unlocking your other trait lines/weapons/utilities IMO.

They are elite specs specifically because you can only ever take one at a time, and unlike core specs the actually confer more mechanical changes and grant skills and weapons you can only use when equipping them.

They may not feel particularly elite now, but once the second spec is released that term will make a lot more sense. Their power is extreme enough that taking two would be OP. That’s what makes them elite.

They’re elite not because of any raw mechanical power they add, but because of the level of what they add to a character compared to core specs. They’re simply “better” than core specs because of the shift in playstyle they can add to a character, a thing that core spec lines don’t do.

You are talking in riddles with no facts to base them on. The only thing that makes these specs actually special is that they (many of them anyways) change the way your classes actually play… and after 3 years of the same way to play our classes, you can understand why people consider these as “better”.

And you are wrong because the core specs DO bring shifts in playstyle (a D/D elementalist plays a whole hell of a lot differently than a staff Ele, A condi Thief plays differently than a direct damage one etc.)… the difference is that we’ve already played those playstyles ad nauseum for 3 years already.

ChrizZcE.5981:

why force us to grind out 19 mastery points and a massive amount of xp in Tyria if we want the new HoT legendaries?

This design decision makes absolutely no sense and IMO is even worse than the HP fiasco.

I want to play the new content and not be forced into grinding Vanilla GW2.

I love HoT, but this sucks any sort of joy out of the game for me.

Really… you are going to complain about having to go into Tyria to get a Legendary? You should likely already know that, once you decide to go down the path of a legendary, its gonna ask you to do things you may not want to do. You have two options: suck it up and go for it, or just ignore the legendary entirely. The treasure hunt for Legendaries is a whole hell of a lot better than mindlessly grinding dungeons or playing arbitrage on the TP to buy it. Just accept that as the cost of entry to obtain the most elite stuff from the game.

I would prefer a combination of outfit and skins. As in, the functionality of a skin (aka: can apply only one piece instead of the whole sh-bang), but the transmutation cost should go away completely on skins you buy with gems/real money. Every purchased cosmetic piece should act like outfits in this situation (or like the Achievement Point skins), and the skins you find in game should retain the transmutation stone mechanic.

wolfram.8291:

Please please please ANET. Stand your ground. Weren’t Masteries and Unlocking Elite Spec supposed to take longer than getting to level 80 in the base game? Why are you folding to the elite spec complaints and not doing anything about the mastery farming?

They are folding on a game mechanic that promotes playing one main character… that is all they have done. They are being consistent by making this change, as it is consistent with other changes they have made throughout the past years to make the game more alt friendly which increases the longevity of the game. Get off your EQ horse.

Selkirk.4218:

still too high but something that is at least workable. reason has prevailed…to a degree.

It may be a little high, but honestly, 250 is easy enough to get on a few characters quickly. Then you can play the game on those characters for awhile and by the time you want to play a different character, getting another 250 HP won’t feel that bad either. I’m OK with it.

wolfram.8291:

Nope, all these people saying it was the right choice are here because they complained enough and now are getting their way. Most people who were happy with it probably didn’t bother defending Anet on the forums against this “I WANT IT NOW” attack. Anet should have stood their ground. I think the should reverse it and make it take more hero points cause I was able to max it out in 2 days which isn’t long enough for me. Go back to 400 points required and make the hero challenges give less points.

The reason they are changing it is obvious:
1) As Colin rightly pointed out: It was too much of a shock to their customers that originally expected to be able to play as their new specialization to actually have to grind out 200-400HP.
2) Look at the history of this game. Anet originally makes things gated behind character progression (just look at the original fractal personal level, Ascended gear, and personal WvW Rank points) but soon they realized that these mechanics actually REDUCE instead of increase the longevity of the game because they are barriers to a more diverse play style through alts. They have changed all those systems to be account based precisely so people can enjoy this content on a variety of different characters and builds.

This new change to the HP grind is exactly in line with the direction they have been trying to go that increases gameplay longevity by not gating your alts too much.

Maybe not the best solution, but it is very welcome compromise overall. Shouldn’t be too difficult to do this for a few alts as well. When can we expect this to go live is the real question?