Guild Wars 2

It quite slow healing. I was actually expecting a 30 Tactics warrior with a banner and Cleric’s gear…

The other thing, looking at your traits, I’d be tempted to drop the strength and max discipline for the +20% crit damage and faster weapons swaps.

Depending which thread you read, rangers are either utterly useless or totally overpowered.

My Norn ranger in Hoelbrak.

My ranger in a combination of Rayna’s and Tier 2 Cultural.

In defence of the thief I don’t really have so much of an issue with perma stealth. Once I know I’m in battle with a thief I know I’m in for a fun fight that could go either way, and yeah okay they’re a pain to finish sometimes but that’s their privilage, much like that mesmer you stomped was a clone and the real one is 10ft away in a bush recovering their health, or there’s the ele who vapor forms into a tower or whatever. No big deal.

The issue is getting blown up on what I thought was a hardened target (warrior), running a little extra Vit/Tough specifically to survive spikes without giving up everything in the attack department. I had to sit back and imagine how an engie or ranger would survive that… not gonna happen if they don’t see anything, right?

Some of this I’m sure is down to the server physics in WvW, because the thief player’s client is going to have a time advantage between them sending the commands to the server and the server telling the target’s client they’re in combat, then the target has to respond and their commands have to make it back to the server before they die. The thief player might get to enjoy an extra second of time to execute their attack because of this and that’s enough.

Then of course there’s the infamous culling in WvW which means that patch of grass over there has 20 guys standing in it but you can’t see any of them because of the 20 guys you’re with and the other 20 guys up on a wall who you can see. So you see one guy in the previously empty patch of grass and go over there, only to have to bail out as fast as possible (often on fire) once the truth dawns on you that you’re in the middle of an angry horde of invaders.

Back in beta I remember that there was a sort of white paper doll with a black outline that was used for models that were loading in and I kinda wish there was at least that in WvW.

Here’s how a warrior with 2,400 armour and 23K health fares in WvW vs a Backstab Thief in one simple picture.

At no point did either a thief or a red name tag render on my screen and as far as I knew I was moving through an empty field under swiftness spamming savage leap / whirlwind / rush. I was downed before my client even registered combat! Full health -> downed-> stealth stomped and I saw and heard nothing at any point. This is Tier1 WvW so no surprise some of these guys have this down to a very fine art.

I mean c’mon. If my client registers something I can react to before I die, maybe I can counter it (warriors have lots of options). I had zero chance.

This version of Auriel is my warrior.

UnicornViolet.3081:

I was just wondering if most of you agree that Asura are a better race than Norn for looking cool, but that Norn have a prettier starting area?

No to the first, but they are cute for guys with pointy teeth. (you have noticed how sharp and pointy they are right? for stripping flesh from the bones of the unwary?)

Hard call on starting areas. I love both! Rata Sum is easier to use than any other city though. The layout is just great! For trading and crafting and banking it cannot be beaten. Every city has enormous character though and I like Rata Sum, Hoelbrak and that “pit of weakness” Divinity’s Reach (as one Norn woman in Hoelbrak puts it, lol).

DR is I think the prettiest city but it’s painful to use. Great to explore, just a pita to use. Hoelbrak is a bit less painful but Rata Sum has everything nice and compact and a waypoint bang in the middle of the utilities.

Eliminating the self-root on attack would help a lot. Combat is pretty clunky and poor quality for a Guild Wars game </3. As for better elites, my guardian does mainly use the Norn racials (Wolf→PvE/Snow Leopard→WvW, some niche PvE requiring stealth / dash).

My warrior, mesmer, ranger & ele pretty much use their class elites. Just remember that every Norn has access to stealth, fear, dash etc regardless of class

In a purely wild and unreasonable fantasy I’d give the transform blowout on shapeshift into were-form, infinite duration like an engineer kit / weapon swap and make the cooldown 20s. A red-mist full screen post-processing effect is also a must plus a bonus of increased power if your character is drunk at the time. Hilarity ensues.

From Norse mythology and other games (AD&D I think) Norn are a sort of half-giant (which is purely descriptive, not that they are related per se).

In GW2 their culture is very much in spirit with the old Germanic culture of adventure, heroism, hunting and generally living life large and free. They are the polar opposite of the Kodan, who irritate my Norn enormously with their pithy tripe about “balance” and “harmony”. Ugh!

Triumph! Glory! Large beers and larger women! THAT’S the Norn way!

I kinda wish there wasn’t even a duration and it was more like an engineer kit toggle between humanoid / wereform, but that would be silly. Lots of fun though.

I’m with Terra Dactyl on the usefulness factor in WvW. Snow Leopard is godly for the dash and stealth. How is my guardian getting into that tower with a zerg outside unnoticed? Stealth kitty dash GOOOOOOOOO!!!! Boom, now I’m in with my blueprints and supply defending what might have been an unmanned / lightly manned tower or keep. Zerg escape likewise, transform→ steath → dash into the horizon, towards whichever objective seems most useful. It’s true that the form isn’t great at actual fighting, but for movement utility it’s pure gold. I’d like to use the ability more often, but ArenaNet have said they don’t want racial abilities totally blowing class abilities out of the water so I’ll settle for what we’ve got :P

In PvE I’m actually a big fan of werewolf. Skill 2 is a huge lifesteal that hits multiple foes, skill 4 is a shout that buffs your party with 20s+ of Fury and Regeneration, plus there’s the blowout that will interrupt a cluster of mobs. Skills 3 and 5 are also cc oriented, you get an aoe fear cone on 3 and a knockdown on 5, both of which I’ve found useful over and over again. As I understand lifesteal, it gets buffed by healing power (not 100% on this, would like a confirm / deny) so wolf form is a bit stronger on that cleric geared support character than a pure DPS type. My big gripe with wolf is that you can’t walk and chew gum on it… every attack roots you to the spot, unlike Snow Leopard which can move and fight. Wolf is very tanky though thanks to the lifesteal and cc abilities. Again I’d love to just shapeshift into this and go back and forth at will like an elite weapon swap. Not gonna happen but it would be fun

Only forms I don’t really get are bear and raven. Bear seems to have some fans, so I guess I overlooked it because wolves and leopards are more in character for my toons. I don’t know what raven is for. I want to love it but it seems a bit slow and fragile </3

TL;DR Weapon/Kit-like form switching would be too sweet, sadly. Snow Leopard and Wolf are very strong in their particular niches.

Okay! I’ve finally woken up after an epic night fighting for SBI in our borderland. We all got very excited ~11 hours ago when SBI took the lead and we all got a bit misty eyed. Epic peoms were composed and skalds sung of our glory! But it was just a momentary lull. When the SoS blitzkrieg happened it got pretty crazy trying to hold onto just about anything! xD

daesedai.3708:

I read this as wanting a Hot Costume Collector and wondered what sort of NPC the OP had in mind.

Let me help. This one

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Candysmith_Marley

Hello ArenaNet. Long time Guild Wars 1 fan and player here.

I played Guild Wars since release and admired the fact that there was never any power creep at all. Lots of added variety carried the game for 7 years. I have 9K hours logged in (crazy!). I’m in my mid 30-s and I have a lot of experience with games, even joining the industry 13 years ago as a hobby turned into a career. ArenaNet’s philosophy was pure gold; games would be about fun, players would be respected as human beings with real lives. Eliminating power-creep is core to those principals and it’s worth fighting for!

Ascended items are a betrayal; as unthinkable as a Guild Wars sword that did 15-23 or a 16^50 weapon bonus. If there’s going to be power-creep by design, then for heaven’s sake restrict it to the new endless dungeon.

I am not motivated by numbers. I play a game to have fun. End of story. Other games are competing for my time and for other players’ time, so when ArenaNet moves the goal posts on max stats in Guild Wars 2, the fun is damaged and people move on. For some of us, stat chasing and scraping maxed gear together is a barrier to fun. We want to get maxed and play for fun in WvW or by doing dynamic events or exploring or doing jumping puzzles or crafting or playing with crazy new dye combinations! There are so many ways to have fun that don’t involve chasing numbers, so please don’t ram this down our throats.

Level the power of Ascended and Legendary with Exotic. Keep the agony resistance for Ascended if you really want it, providing there’s no advantage outside the endless dungeon. But please, no stat advantages. You’re just wasting our time, and we hate it.