Guild Wars 2

Inimicus.7162:

There was a story I’ve had floated past me that they never added the swim animation for the golem, and even 3 years in likely have yet to remember it -.-

The rig is clearly the same as the trolls, and I’ve never seen a troll swim anywhere in the game. So I’m pretty sure they just didn’t have a swim animation at launch, and in three years no one has bothered to make one.

They have however somehow made the time to make swim animations for multiple tonic transformations and miniatures. As well as jump animations, while the asura and norn racial elites are still magnetized to the ground.

Gemstore > gameplay.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Conncept.7638:

And here folks is a prime example of inverse ignorance, a malady commonly found on the internet, wherein a person can know more about something because they know nothing about it, because, obviously, if you don’t even know the breadth or depth of the subject, let alone the actual content, it must be small, simple, and easy, right? Like arguing a subject they know so little about they don’t even know what the word mechanic means in context of the argument.

Did you not read the interview? The introduction of overcharging is an entirely new mechanic. It does not exist in the game as of right now. You are acting like a child.

Have you ever read a single word on game design? Clearly not.

This is not a new mechanic, it is a group of abilities, with a big cooldown, on top of a new button, with a new name. We have a group of abilities on a single button, in two different ways, by stacking attuning procs, and in glyphs; so that’s not a new mechanic. We also have abilities with very large cooldowns, for very big affects, they’re called elites, and everyone else has them. Not a mechanic period, so certainly not a new one. And we also have have attunements already, and their cooldowns can be modified. So again, not a new mechanic.

Recharges, cast times, pre and after cast, interrupts, control, stability and stunbreakers, the break bar, quickness and slow and recharge resets, cast time modification, damage over time, damage on proc, direct damage, healing reduction, damage reduction, defense reduction, movement reduction, damage over time removal, proc removal, effect removal, damage amp, defense amp, amp removal, evasion, endurance, invulnerability, block, line of sight, targeting, targeting interception, obstruction, reflect, critical, melee and ranged, projectile or not, AoE, multitarget, single target, pets, pet management, pet command, pet sacrifice, transformation, passive or active, passive then active, toggling, charging, health, death shroud, resource gain, resource management.

The list goes on and on and THESE are examples of mechanics. They don’t ‘just do something’ that the class hasn’t done before, they provide the game with something it wouldn’t otherwise have.

You don’t know the bloody difference between a mechanic and an ability, and I don’t have a second more to waste on a childish know-it-all.

To every one else, the fact remains that this isn’t a new mechanic, we already have abilities tied to our attunements in any choice of traits. Even every single ability which modifies ability recharge and cast times treats our attunement like abilities, for good and ill. The presence of a new button and a new name does not a new mechanic make.

However, to those lambasting ANety for this, ANet did not ever state that new mechanics would be given with every single specialization, that would be insane. They stated they would bring a new or expanded upon playstyle with each specializations. The question just remains, until we get more info, of whether the tempest successfully accomplishes either.

Dahkeus.8243:

Eh, face it: They call it a rifle, but looking at the skills, it’s really more like a shotgun.

Except players have asked for the auto to have a shotgun effect for three years, and the developers have completely ignored them, choosing to leave it as sort of a shotgun and sort of a rifle, but really not as good for either.

One of the biggest gripes I have with this game is that the developers seem to have no problems with sporks, design pieces that go too far, in too many divergent directions, and ultimately fail in each.

It needs to be a rifle, or a shotgun, or somehow swappable between the two, like with a GM trait choice or something. But never both at the same time.

Palindrome.8904:

Conncept.7638:

Morfedel.4165:

Conncept.7638:

lordkrall.7241:

Yeah, I will log in now and protest with all my shouts I have on my Elementalist!

I suppose we are completely ignoring the fact that the Overcharged Attunements that are a thing will lock you out of said attunement for x amount of time? That will very much change how the Elementalists is played, since you can just go around aimlessly changing attunements with that and so on.

That’s not a new mechanic though, a new direction, a new anything really. It’s just a more extreme version of our existing PBAoE damage and support mechanics found on DD. They basically took what we had, made the strengths stronger per attunement and the weaknesses weaker per attunement, then handed it back to us claiming its ‘new’ when it isn’t.

That said, DD is fun, this could be fun, but ‘new’, it is not. And until we get specifics, not only on what they are adding with the Tempest and how it will work, but on what they are changing on the base elementalst mainhands, I will withhold final judgement.

Chronomancers got a new shatter. Usingthe above logic you could say the same. Of anyof them really.

What? No, you can’t say anything similar of the chronomancer.

Shatters are a group of mechanics, under a single ability type. Meaning that dozens of traits, and abilities, which the base mesmer has which affect shatters, will affect the new ability. Also, it provides a new mechanism for play, a mechanic, that neither the previous shatters nor any ability of the core mesmer provides.

Most importantly, it isn’t just bigger effects for situationally higher CDs, which is something we already SUFFER through with RTL, and most certainly not a new mechanic, let alone an overly welcomed one.

I don’t think the Mesmer skill is actually classed as a shatter. The recent update modified some trait text to specifically call out the f1-f4 skills as being affected. In other words, the new f5 is excluded from some such benefits.

Are you sure about that? We know it shatters your illusions, because it gives you time on Continuum Split equal to the number of shatters. If they choose certain traits, and specify that these only work with shatters 1-4, that would make some sense for balance reasons. But I have a hard time believing they would just flat out take away the shatter ability type from it.

Morfedel.4165:

Conncept.7638:

lordkrall.7241:

Yeah, I will log in now and protest with all my shouts I have on my Elementalist!

I suppose we are completely ignoring the fact that the Overcharged Attunements that are a thing will lock you out of said attunement for x amount of time? That will very much change how the Elementalists is played, since you can just go around aimlessly changing attunements with that and so on.

That’s not a new mechanic though, a new direction, a new anything really. It’s just a more extreme version of our existing PBAoE damage and support mechanics found on DD. They basically took what we had, made the strengths stronger per attunement and the weaknesses weaker per attunement, then handed it back to us claiming its ‘new’ when it isn’t.

That said, DD is fun, this could be fun, but ‘new’, it is not. And until we get specifics, not only on what they are adding with the Tempest and how it will work, but on what they are changing on the base elementalst mainhands, I will withhold final judgement.

Chronomancers got a new shatter. Usingthe above logic you could say the same. Of anyof them really.

What? No, you can’t say anything similar of the chronomancer.

Shatters are a group of mechanics, under a single ability type, do not confuse an arbitrary label with a game mechanic. Dozens of traits and abilities which the base mesmer has, already affect shatters, and will affect the new mechanic because it shares the shatter ability type with existing mechanics. Also, it provides a new mechanism for play, a mechanic, that neither the previous shatters nor any ability of the core mesmer provides.

Most importantly, it isn’t just bigger effects for situationally higher CDs, which is something we already SUFFER through with RTL, and most certainly not a new mechanic, let alone an overly welcomed one.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Conncept.7638:

That’s not a new mechanic though, a new direction, a new anything really. It’s just a more extreme version of our existing PBAoE damage and support mechanics found on DD. They basically took what we had, made the strengths stronger per attunement and the weaknesses weaker per attunement, then handed it back to us claiming its ‘new’ when it isn’t.

Flat out lies. It is the very definition of a new mechanic; a new weapon, and a way of utilizing that weapon that no other Elementalist weapon in the game does.

And here folks is a prime example of inverse ignorance, a malady commonly found on the internet, wherein a person can know more about something because they know nothing about it, because, obviously, if you don’t even know the breadth or depth of the subject, let alone the actual content, it must be small, simple, and easy, right? Like arguing a subject they know so little about they don’t even know what the word mechanic means in context of the argument.

Ellye.9123:

For me, a core part of playing Elementalist has always been to constantly switch between stances. Whenever a stance comes out of cooldown, I’m switching to it.

Tempest wants me to stay in the same stance for a long while.

That’s certainly a change in playstyle.

In fact, I probably won’t be playing Tempest myself exactly because I really, really like the constant switching of stances. But it does seem really cool – and, more to the point here, that’s another sign that it is indeed a different playstyle.

But y’see, that was never supposed to be the elementalists only playstyle in the first place, the developers have made that pretty clear at this point with additions like Stone Heart, Pyromancer’s Puissance, and Soothing Power. It was always intended that we be able to choose builds which focused on multiple, specific, or all attunements.

But the developers were just never willing to go the distance to make that possible, they were never willing to make the mechanical changes that would make it possible

And to be honest, I still don’t think they have even with this specialization. Even if the warhorn, shouts, and every single trait available to the tempest are all fully dedicated towards rewarding staying in one attunement and/or swapping less, that won’t change the two trait paths you have with almost zero traits that reward doing so.

lordkrall.7241:

Yeah, I will log in now and protest with all my shouts I have on my Elementalist!

I suppose we are completely ignoring the fact that the Overcharged Attunements that are a thing will lock you out of said attunement for x amount of time? That will very much change how the Elementalists is played, since you can just go around aimlessly changing attunements with that and so on.

That’s not a new mechanic though, a new direction, a new anything really. It’s just a more extreme version of our existing PBAoE damage and support mechanics found on DD. They basically took what we had, made the strengths stronger per attunement and the weaknesses weaker per attunement, then handed it back to us claiming its ‘new’ when it isn’t.

That said, DD is fun, this could be fun, but ‘new’, it is not. And until we get specifics, not only on what they are adding with the Tempest and how it will work, but on what they are changing on the base elementalst mainhands, I will withhold final judgement.

Durzlla.6295:

Personally i’ll probably be trying out an Earth, Water, Tempest spec, maybe do Earth, Fire, Tempest, maybe air over fire… I really like the earth line, and the tempest seems awesome so those two i’ll be trying to get to work together pretty badly…

This is what I would like to do as well, always loved the earth spec and the idea of an earth mage.

Unfortunately the Tempest looks like it is going to suffer from the same problems as all content concerning the earth element has since launch, 99% focus on tanking even though it is supposed to be a tanking and CONDITION tree.

I cannot freaking believe that something that requires you to SIT IN EARTH ATTUNEMENT FOR AN EXTENSIVE PERIOD is STILL not going to apply a single bleed!

MauricioCezar.2673:

Can anyone provide a link with confirmation of such thing? Seens completely out of sense the new weapon be hard-tied to spec lol. How are we supposed to match future weapons (As i.e sword+warhorn) if only 1 elite spec is allowed?

It is not likely the new weapon have some super awesomeness skill that makes it be restricted.

I can’t tell you where, but they have stated that weapons are tied solely to specializations, and you can only use one specialization at a time, and it wasn’t any interpretation, it was flat out stated in as simple language as that.

Simple fact is, they cannot have a variable build system and just continually expand the breadth of options, doing so decreases build diversity overtime by creating combinations that weren’t meant to happen between new and old content. MTG proved this a decade ago when they changed their tournament format to the last three sets and core set.

This is why, in the sub-classes thread where specialization came from, many players agreed that ANet should add sub-class content at the cost of certain base class content. Because they had to limit it somehow, and the options were either to take from the base class content as a control mechanism, or just flat out not allow the sub-class content to interact with each other. Unfortunately I must admit most players spoke against removing content as a cost, because most know jack-squat about game design and can’t see far enough past their noses to realize there had to be a control mechanism, and that by refuting one, they were supporting another. So in the end, this is what player feedback stuck us with.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Conncept.7638:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Ward, mantra, symbol, marks, spirits, are all class specific. It is unlikely to almost impossible you would be getting them.

Wells were class specific.

That is why I said unlikely. They needed damaging aoes and they couldn’t apply it to glamours, wells in gw2 are just area of effects with damage. As one said earlier you wont be getting weapon skills as utilities. You have no contact with spirits in your lore. This leaves mantras, which yes could get the well treatment, but unlikely unless ele has a glamour issue too.

Honestly I don’t think much anything is unlikely, save those things which thematically cannot fit another class, mechanics be kittened. For example, I stated above I doubt that we’re getting glamours, because ‘glamour’ is by definition solely connected with beauty and illusions. But I would say that of so few things that nothing else even comes to mind at the moment.

A lot of the stuff you are naming, though mechanically specific, isn’t strongly connected with any theme specific to that particular class in which it exists.

Wards, for example, are traditionally used by any magic user. Mantras, used in philosophy and martial arts, yet used here by an illusionist, so not even connected with their real world counterpart for any point of reference. Symbols and marks, just a written character, could fall anywhere. Spirits, when rocks and weapons can contain a will of their own, pretty sure you could justify a ‘spirit of’ just about anything.

nearlight.3064:

Conncept.7638:

Pretty clear on most of them, only hiccup I noticed is with the elementalist, who has a totally different body type than compared to the core ele. The core is this compact squat athletic body, specialization is your typical models hourglass.

But shes had three years to change her diet/excercise patterns and hairstyle.

She’s trim in both pictures, what I’m talking about has more to do with bone structure. Everyone has a chest>waist>hip ratio, at least when healthy, that lends itself to one of several different body types. She went from a column to an hourglass, there is no amount of diet and exercise that can pull that off.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Ward, mantra, symbol, marks, spirits, are all class specific. It is unlikely to almost impossible you would be getting them.

Wells were class specific.

Pretty clear on most of them, only hiccup I noticed is with the elementalist, who has a totally different body type than compared to the core ele. The core is this compact squat athletic body, specialization is your typical models hourglass.

Definitely like the idea of giving us a full suite of skills before specializations. But at the same time, as rangers just found out, certain skills types and mechanics don’t mesh, like heals and traps… man alive is that a terrible heal now. Was my favorite on my ranger before the patch

Nouitra.1378:

The " stance " idea is quite nice in general. However I already see the problem with ppl that can keep you always at a distance. Shouts got some minor range of around 600 if I remember correctly. Stances would only work if you would fight in melee range. Necros does not have the mobility to make a good use of stances unless there would be some stability / stun breaker/ swiftness stance. Also the other thing is how long the stance would last and how it would be activated. We can go further with your idea, tweak a bit of stance effects and maybe make them usable while you are in Reaper form.

Yeah that’s definitely a part of it. This makes the reapers strengths stronger, our area where we are very dangerous and cannot be escaped, would be even more dangerous and inescapable. While simultaneously our weakness would become weaker.

We do have some help already though, Death’s charge and Infusing Terror are a marked improvement in pursuing targets over Dark Path and Doom. Plus, the reaper seems like it is really going to love Spectral Grasp, its everything the reaper wants in one fairly low CD package.

That said I could definitely see making some of these better, in particular, the ultimate, which in the end is just an AoE CC for team fights. That could be made in to a much more important clutch ability by becoming a high CD and risky, but high reward, pursuers stance. And I see no reason why they wouldn’t be usable in reaper form, not able to be activated obviously since they’re utilities, but certainly able to be proc’d.

When the reaper was revealed, a lot of people pointed out how shouts would fit another specialization better, particularly some kind of Banshee or death wailing specialization.

What I never saw anyone point out, was how poorly they fit the Reaper.

Just hear me out for a second and think about it.

The reaper is meant to embody the unrelenting unstoppable pursuer, in mythology how Death is often presented pursuing everyone and inevitably catching up with them. And in our modern day this inspired a lot of our horror genre villains like Freddy and Jason, who went full circle to further inspire the Reaper.

What doesn’t fit any of that? Dialogue, speech, shouting. From Death himself to Freddy and Jason and even newer additions like Slenderman, horror icons are all typified as silent pursuers. You hear heavy footsteps, heavy breathing, the ruffling of worn blood encrusted clothing, the clank and whir of weapons and other horrific implements, but these iconic characters are typified by very little if any dialogue. And what dialogue they have, is heavy and personal, stated right in the face of their victims, not shouted.

Because of this, I would suggest changing the skill type given to reaper from Shouts to Stances. The majority of the functionality would remain unchanged, but would be stretched out in stances that better serve to keep the enemy near you once you have them in your clutches, rather than applied instantly in shouts that can be easily cleared and juked.

Heal

• “Your Soul is Mine” – Heal yourself and strike foes around you, absorbing life force for each foe struck.
  Changed to:
  Consuming Stance – Enter a stance where you gain life and life force whenever you damage an enemy.

Utilities

• “Nothing can save you” – Damage foes around you, converting their boons into vulnerability. Your attacks become unblockable for a short time. The duration increases based on the number of foes struck.
  Changed to:
  Relentless – Enter a Stance where your attacks become unblockable, and you periodically convert enemy boons in to vulnerability.

• “Rise” – Damage foes around you. Summon a jagged horror near each enemy struck.
  Changed to:
  Overwhelming – Enter a stance where you summon a jagged horror whenever you damage an enemy.

• “Suffer” – Damage foes around you and chill them. Transfer a condition to each foe you strike.
  Changed to:
  Inescapable – Enter a stance where you chill foes around you, and transfer conditions whenever you damage an enemy.

• “You are all weaklings!” – Damage foes around you inflicting conditions on them and giving you boons per foe struck.
  Changed to:
  Insane – Enter a stance where you inflict conditions and gain boons when you damage an enemy.

Elite

• “Chilled to the Bone” – Freeze all enemies around. Gain boons for each foe you freeze.
  Changed to:
  Death Himself – Enter a stance where you freeze enemies and gain boons whenever you damage an enemy.

TLDR: Start at the first word, and read until the last. It’s not that long.

magestik.4132:

What about minions,
where they can spawn little tornado with different effects,

Would love minions… but on a different specialization, like an animancer, golemancer, or summoner. Something which could be centralized around the minions, rather than them being tacked on like it would be with the tempest. For this same reason I’m disappointed the Reaper is getting shouts, which should have been saved for some deathwailing banshee spec, they could have made the necro affects any number of other things that would have fit better, physical skills or stances for example.

I’m betting on…

MORE CANTRIPS YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!

But in all seriousness I’m betting we’re going to be getting a new skill type. The only thing I could think of that would fit a ‘storm mage’ would be Wells or Glamour’s. While glamour’s would functionally fit, they’re really particular to the Mesmer, and I don’t think they would give two classes wells in the same wave of specialization updates.

skullmount.1758:

Really hope the shoulder armor ring is symmetrical…

And I really hope it isn’t, there are so few asymmetrical pieces of light armor.

pdavis.8031:

Conncept.7638:

pdavis.8031:

Conncept.7638:

This is scamming in my opinion, and either way you can report people for it, support has all the tools to see where every piece of gold in the game goes, report him, encourage others to report him, and let support do their job.

How is it scamming? A scam implies that you are giving something in return for something else. In this context a scam would be if he was saying “If you give me X gold, I’ll give you Y gold back when I finish making this item and sell it.” but then never does.

So if you choose to contribute to a charitable organization, then find that they never intended to use the money given them for the charitable purposes they advertised, by your own definition, that’s not a scam?

Is he asking for money?
Is he making promises that he is using said money to buy Bolt?

And by my own definition, yes that would be a scam, but running around saying “Only 7g till Bolt!” is neither asking for donations, nor making any promises that said gold is only to be used for such and such a purpose.

I never stated that the charitable organization asked for money, or that they had to.

When I was a kid a young girls parents made national news because they had shaved their daughters head, claimed she had cancer, and then accepted donations from the community. Note, accepted, not asked for; neither did the parents ever claim they even needed money for her cancer treatments. The local community started collections without being asked, and people donated without being sought out.

So, by your definition, because they were not asked for the money, it is completely justifiable, those parents did not scam anyone? Because the jail time they wound up serving, and loss of custody over their child, would say otherwise.

pdavis.8031:

Conncept.7638:

This is scamming in my opinion, and either way you can report people for it, support has all the tools to see where every piece of gold in the game goes, report him, encourage others to report him, and let support do their job.

How is it scamming? A scam implies that you are giving something in return for something else. In this context a scam would be if he was saying “If you give me X gold, I’ll give you Y gold back when I finish making this item and sell it.” but then never does.

So if you choose to contribute to a charitable organization, then find that they never intended to use the money given them for the charitable purposes they advertised, by your own definition, that’s not a scam?

This is scamming in my opinion, and either way you can report people for it if you suspect that it is. Support has all the tools to see every inventory item and TP investment, and where every piece of gold on an account came from and goes. So report him, encourage others to report him, and let support do their job.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Conncept.7638:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Remember, warhorn is not giving you two extra weapon skills, it’s giving you at least eight different weapon skills, if not ten, if Tempest gets access to a new attunement via F5 skill!

That’s not going to happen, seriously, how does anybody think that’s going to happen?

A fifth attunement would require new skills for every existing weapon, meaning that would be 25 new weapon skills for a single specialization.

EDIT: I think? 10 for the warhorn for all attunements, two for each off hand for 4 total, three for each mainhand for 6 total, and 5 for the only twohander. Yup that’s 25.

Well, why wouldn’kitten After all, the Elementalist doesn’t have weapon swap. I only said if – if the new specialisation gets a new attunement.

Well they said one of their goals for specialization was to create a pipeline that allowed them to consistently and more frequently update the classes, even between expansions and major content updates, without the muss and fuss of their previous additions. And twenty five new skills is a lot to add to the game so regularly.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Remember, warhorn is not giving you two extra weapon skills, it’s giving you at least eight different weapon skills, if not ten, if Tempest gets access to a new attunement via F5 skill!

That’s not going to happen, seriously, how does anybody think that’s going to happen?

A fifth attunement would require new skills for every existing weapon, meaning that would be 25 new weapon skills for a single specialization.

EDIT: I think? 10 for the warhorn for all attunements, two for each off hand for 4 total, three for each mainhand for 6 total, and 5 for the only twohander. Yup that’s 25.

RoseofGilead.8907:

I was also hoping for sword, but warhorn goes better with the Tempest name than sword does. Oh well, hopefully it’ll be a neat specialization.

Yeah as much as I wanted a sword, have to admit that thematically the warhorn fits better. Just hope it isn’t yet more bunker/support skills with insanely disproportionate cooldowns, we have enough of that crap already.

Welp, looks like we’re getting the warhorn after all. I was rooting for the sword personally.

Genesis.8572:

In reality what the class needs, regardless of whether it has a weapon swap or not, is customization which work toward the classes mechanics rather than those themes specific to each legend. That way there can be crossover, options, and synergy between legends, weapons, and traits rather than just four clear undiverging paths up the customization tree.

This is indeed beside the point of weapon swapping.

Way to totally skip half of what was said just so you can be spend your moment in the spotlight as an aloof pretentious prick.

You missed this.

Conncept.7638:

This whole class is designed around dependency rather than synergy, to the point of rendering the very customization system moot. You know how ANet just took out dozens of traits because either people took the weapon/utility skill the trait affected and the trait, or neither? That’s exactly what they are doing with this entire class so far.

It is pertinent to weapon swapping, because with the current weapon skills, all the addition of weapon swap did was further cement that overdependence in place. Adding weapon swap ‘as-is’ has trivialized the choice of your second legend as much as the first. They might as well combine weapon swap and legend swap at this point and be done with it, because that is exactly what players are going to do. That’s even what the developer did in the livestream, never used a hammer skill in Shiro stance, never used a sword skill in Jalis stance.

But wait? Why is that a bad thing? They can just generalize the weapon skills later right?

Except you also ignored this.

Conncept.7638:

Genesis.8572:

Conncept.7638:

And honestly, this hasn’t made that big of a difference and the class is still disappointing, so far as customization is concerned this rose the Revenants four build decisions up to… FIVE! I can hardly contain my excitement.

I certainly don’t think that the Revenant is close to done, as I agree that it needs more build variability via its trait design and utility options. Weapon skill flexibility was simply one of the issues.

I really hope you are right, but a lot of the developer comments really sound like they are totally okay with the revenant launching with this pitiful level of build customization.

The developers have already stated that the legend selection is meant to be the customization option of the Revenant, in stream and on the forums. They do not currently nor have previously shown any intent to generalize skills and traits, add utilities, or increase customization in any way. That is something we have to convince them is needed. And this change was a bandaid solution in hopes that they won’t have to.

So no, it isn’t innately a bad thing, and the revenant could have good build diversity with or without weapon swap; however it is related in this context, and something we should all be wary of, because of the direction its taking the design of the class and the fact that the players are blindly supporting it without realizing what it very likely means.

I really only had three builds on my engineer, my pistol build, my bomb build, and my flamethrower build. Can’t even use bombs for anything in the entire game, pistols don’t even have anything to build for anymore, and flamethrower is still good, but my particular build for it is gone.

And I’m no doomsayer whose just written of the class in resistance of anything new, I’ve spent literally hours and hours of play over the last several weeks trying to find something I like playing that works, but there’s nothing left, I don’t even know what to do when I log in to my engineer anymore.

And the worst part, everyone told ANet they were removing builds, when they asked us to give feedback after the very first livestream where they were previewed the new system. And they completely, ignored, everything.

___________________________Heal Skills___________________________

• Well of Blood
  A new alt+click option that auto-casts ground targeted abilities at your feet, for use on dagger builds.

• Summon Blood Fiend
  A trait that gives blood fiends and bone minions the ability to use their actives without dying. Responsive actives, consistent AI.

___________________________Utility Skills___________________________

• Spectral Wall
  Gain life force based on the number of times it causes fear.

• Spectral Walk
  Gain life force base on the distance travelled.

• Spectral Grasp
  Gain life force based on the distance pulled.

• Spectral Armor
  Traited to grant stability.

• Signet of Undeath
  Either a new active that is useful to DS DPS, or a buff to the passive to make the unusable active worth it.

• Well of Power
  A new alt+click option that auto-casts ground targeted abilities at your feet, for use on dagger builds. I would say needs to pulse stability, but theres good reason we don’t have that much stability. So I would prefer this be changed to pulse resistance, and give us stability somewhere else.

• Well of Suffering
  A new alt+click option that auto-casts ground targeted abilities at your feet, for use on dagger builds.

• Well of Darkness
  A new alt+click option that auto-casts ground targeted abilities at your feet, for use on dagger builds.

• Well of Corruption
  A new alt+click option that auto-casts ground targeted abilities at your feet, for use on dagger builds.

• Blood is Power
  Should apply an additional 2 stacks of bleed.

• Bone Fiend
  Responsive actives, consistent AI.

• Shadow Fiend
  Responsive actives, consistent AI.

• Bone Minions
  A trait that gives blood fiends and bone minions the ability to use their actives without dying. Responsive actives, consistent AI.

__________________________Weapon Skills__________________________

• Axe Skills
• Rending Claws
  NEW NON-SUCKY ANIMATION! Or just the old animation back. At one point they were planning on having the auto attack hits lower the CD of the other two skills. That sounds awesome and I can’t understand why it didn’t make it to live.

___________________________Elite Skills___________________________

• Plague
  Needs significantly increased durations on all conditions. Right now, the scepter auto is literally a better option in every case except when wading in to a massive group of enemies, which is itself, a horrible option.

• Flesh Golem
  Responsive actives, consistent AI. The ability to enter water.

_________________________Shroud Skills_________________________

• Life Blast
  Needs one more higher tier of damage at point blank range.

• Dark Path
  Should not be a projectile.

____________________________Spite____________________________

• Unholy Fervor
  Should be an increase of each stack of vulnerability like the Mesmer’s Fragility Trait.

• Unholy Feast
  Not worth a GM, DS is used just as much for dueling as it is for teamfighting. Meaning this is often a 15s CD GM that provides a whopping 3s of retaliation. That’s sad. I would recommend combining it with unholy fervor, or adding “Rending Claws grants 3% life force” to synergize with Unholy Fervor.

___________________________Curses___________________________

• Plague Sending
  Needs to work at higher conditions, there are very few IF ANY fights where I want to pop a healing skill five seconds in! Increase the number of conditions needed to proc, or make it delay until you are below a certain health threshold.

• Master of Corruption
  Either remove the extra conditions, or buff the recharge up to 50%.

• Weakening Shroud
  This just isn’t worth being a GM. It’s not bad, just not worth taking over any other GM in the game. It might be, had you guys not killed shroud bounce builds, but ya’ did, so it is.

• Parasitic Contagion
  Heals 10% of condition damage by default, heals an extra 1% per 250 points invested in healing. This is a great chance to emphasize healing on the necromancer.

_________________________Blood Magic_________________________

• Blood Bond
  Again, like Plague Sending, there is almost no situation where I need a heal five seconds into a fight! Increase the number of conditions needed to proc, or make it delay until you are below a certain health threshold.

• Vampiric Rituals
  This just isn’t worth a GM, you could buff it but wells are already pretty powerful. I’d recommend just bumping it down to a master and making Vampiric Presence in to a GM.

_________________________Soul Reaping_________________________

• Foot in the Grave
  Just, not even worth, well anything, I could not imagine any situation where I would take this trait. Change to “When you enter deathshroud, gain stability based on how full your deathshroud is, up to three stacks.”

Genesis.8572:

Conncept.7638:

It wasn’t needed, they could have designed the class with or without it just fine.

As the Revenant stood? Yeah. It needed some form of skill #1-5 variability.

Yeah, but the reason that variability was needed in the first place was not to create more build options, but because of how all the weapon skills are shoehorned in to being combined with one specific trait path and set of utility skills. Which is a monster of a design issue all on its own.

As things are, this change really hasn’t even helped diversity at all. On the livestream, once the developer got in to actual combat, how did he build? Ogden legend>Ogden trait line>Hammer//Shiro Legend>Shiro Trait Line>Swords. How much you want to bet that if he had gone Shiro and Ventari he would instead have been wielding a staff with the centaur trait line instead of the hammer and ogden line?

This whole class is designed around dependency rather than synergy, to the point of rendering the very customization system moot. You know how ANet just took out dozens of traits because either people took the weapon/utility skill the trait affected and the trait, or neither? That’s exactly what they are doing with this entire class so far.

In reality what the class needs, regardless of whether it has a weapon swap or not, is customization which work toward the classes mechanics rather than those themes specific to each legend. That way there can be crossover, options, and synergy between legends, weapons, and traits rather than just four clear undiverging paths up the customization tree.

Genesis.8572:

Conncept.7638:

And honestly, this hasn’t made that big of a difference and the class is still disappointing, so far as customization is concerned this rose the Revenants four build decisions up to… FIVE! I can hardly contain my excitement.

I certainly don’t think that the Revenant is close to done, as I agree that it needs more build variability via its trait design and utility options. Weapon skill flexibility was simply one of the issues.

I really hope you are right, but a lot of the developer comments really sound like they are totally okay with the revenant launching with this pitiful level of build customization.

We don’t need a weapon swap, we do need way more mechanical changes than the developers are apparently willing to put in the time and work for, but a weapon swap isn’t one of them.

Genesis.8572:

But what about all those poor people who claimed that weapon swap is not needed for the Revenant, have proposed overly-complicated weapon-swap alternatives, or have threatened to cancel their pre-orders if Revenant gets it?

It wasn’t needed, they could have designed the class with or without it just fine.

And honestly, this hasn’t made that big of a difference and the class is still disappointing, so far as customization is concerned this rose the Revenants four build decisions up to… FIVE! I can hardly contain my excitement.

Silverkey.2078:

Well but we have even less access to torment. What I would like is for staff to apply some confusion and/or torment. Currently the scepter and shatters are our only reliable sources of both conditions.

Honestly I really don’t see torment as something that suits our base class, we’re tricky, even vindictive, but not dark and torturous; it is definitely something I would like to see on a darker themed mesmer specialization. And the staff already has a niche that a lot of players like as the chaos weapon.

Confusion on the other hand is the iconic condition for our class, in fact at some point in Alpha we were the only class to have access to it, similar to how necros were with fear. Now engineers, warriors, and thieves all have more direct access to confusion than we do, while most of ours is indirect application squirreled away down some trait path or other.

And in my opinion, that is totally fine for most confusion builds, namely the prismatic understanding line of builds, which are meant to be indirect application because of their use of stealth.

BUT, the scepter was always meant to fill a different niche, that of an area control flooding tactic. Basically get a ‘clone factory’ going, and punish your opponent for picking wrong between you and your clones with confusion damage. However such a tactic was too punishing with the old confusion on the scepter auto, not punishing enough with the clone death traits (which relied more on Deceptive Evasion+Vigor and utilities than the scepter auto for clone generation), and now with neither confusion on the auto nor on clone death the tactic isn’t punishing at all.

(And sorry for bumping an old topic, I meant to get back to this sooner but finals got in the way, then a road trip, then fourth of july weekend… it just kept adding up)

Basandra Skye.4031:

Conncept.7638:

Anet statements on it are:

1) It is not against the rules or the Terms of Service so long as it is only for in game goods.
2) The ONLY economics ANet regulates are those that go through the Trading Post or the Gem Store. So if you get cheated, be it when buying or selling, you’re out of luck. They may ban the abuser, but you won’t get your gold, items, or rewards back.
3) You can’t use the LFG tool, absolutely no sales are allowed, that includes selling paths.

1: correct
2: incorrect as far as anet’s response. You scam, you WILL be punished
3: REALLY incorrect, and that’s with Gaile’s sticky to read;

Our policy: Players may use the LFG Tool only for the formation of a group.
Players may use the tool to sell a spot in a group, but they may not use it to sell or trade items or for any other unintended purposes. Doing so will result in an account infraction.

I did state that anyone who scams could be punished, I didn’t say will because that works under the assumption that the report system is flawless or that group ownership and obligation for provided services are always clear cut, none of which is true. And in either case, you ARE at risk of losing whatever you offer, ANet will not give refunds or any compensation whatsoever for being scammed outside the TP and Gemstore.

Didn’t know the reds had posted about it either, as I don’t buy or sell myself, just have guildies that do, most of which don’t frequent the forums and so have old information, I’ll bring this up next time they’re selling.

Anet statements on it are:

1) It is not against the rules or the Terms of Service so long as it is only for in game goods.
2) The ONLY economics ANet regulates are those that go through the Trading Post or the Gem Store. So if you get cheated, be it when buying or selling, you’re out of luck. They may ban the abuser, but you won’t get your gold, items, or rewards back.
3) You can’t use the LFG tool, absolutely no sales are allowed, that includes selling paths.

Jitters.9401:

All you did was read every trait line and pretended a thief had access to all traits at the same time. I have zero movement speed.

Yes I have read every trait line, maybe you should try it sometime and you might actually have something worth contributing instead of proving yourself a fool by denying blatantly obvious fact concerning a subject you “claim” to be an expert on.

Jitters.9401:

You need to l2p and l2read before posting such garbage

You need to learn to spell. And make your own intelligible arguments while you’re at it, as evidenced by your following statements.

Jitters.9401:

Watch this. It is a link to a fight where my group was outnumbered. Near the end when i shadow refuge you will see how much aoe hits us and how big an aoe radius can be. Ps. The voice isn’t mine. My buddy who was on ts.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-e6ixUMCc.

Watch this video. A zerg stops my taking of stone mist. When i shadow refuge you can see how much damage i take. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_poGo6mWygc

Shadow refuge is just a big target sign saying hit here. But it can still be useful.
Cool thing huh? I can refute your false statements with video.

Seriously? So you should be able to fight or escape five times your numbers because of one stealth skill? That is your standard for balanced? Your opinion on balance is null and void after such a statement. And once again, one single skill out of a half dozen that give stealth. No other example of stealth has any such counter, as such you still have failed to provide one single thing that directly counters stealth as a game mechanic.

Jitters.9401:

However, the black powder heart seeker combo should give 4 seconds of stealth then 4 seconds of reveal even if no attack was made. That is the one thing that should be implemented for that one skill. If done right, i can remove all conditions and be full health every time i decide to de stealth and attack.

Once again, poor, misinformed, short sighted game design. Mechanics need clearly designed responses, not individual skills. The game will blow up in to a convoluted mess where victory or defeat is decided by build instead of play if they design counterplay on a skill by skill rather than mechanic by mechanic basis.

Jitters.9401:

Pps. Stealth on steal is broken and has been broken for a long time. So like I said. Only 2 reliable stealth skills.

The mechanic is broken, anyone with a modicum of design sense, heck anyone with a modicum of common sense, can see that.

Jitters.9401:

You HAVE a thief. You just don’t PLAY it. Big difference.

I play thief. At level 10 i went straight to wvw. I have 2 reliable stealth skills. Shadow refuge on 60 second cooldown. Blinding powder on 45 second cooldown. That isn’t a small amount of cooldown.

And you know how much I play my thief how? TADAH! You don’t.

Jitters.9401:

The comment of any aoe skill is kitten rights applicable. Shadow refuge shows everyone where you are. I’ve been hit with tons of aoe damage. The worst is when i get feared (necro fear. Ranger pet fear warrior fear) or knocked out (like the mesmer great sword knock back ) and into reveal with a 60 second skill on cooldown. A lot of melee weapons cleave or just hit multiple people.

That’s one skill of a half dozen available to the thief. So lets make all stealth skills drop a field, THEN you’ll have a point about AoE, it would be a legitamite and logical mechanical response to the stealth mechanic, but currently, that works on one single skill, and you have made no point whatsoever. In fact if anything you prove the point of how stealth needs counterplay as a mechanic, not forced in some slapdash form or another onto each and every individual stealth skill.

Jitters.9401:

I’ve also been revealed by engineers, and stealth ttraps. Wow. So many ways to hit me or reveal me from stealth.

And an even better argument than that which I provided, in favor of my stance. You just blatantly stated that either (A) People bring a specific skill to a fight useful for countering stealth and ONLY stealth or (B) They have no counter. That is the DICTIONARY DEFINITION OF BINARY, either one or zero, how much people choose to use that 1 and 0 is entirely beside the point.

Jitters.9401:

Dashes on every main hand weapon? Hahahhahahaha.

Inflitrators Arrow
Infiltrators Strike
Heartseeker
MH pistol is the only exception, and it still has one given the correct offhand.

Jitters.9401:

Second highest movement speed? Hahahahahahaha

Highest MS: Superspeed
Second Highest MS: Fleet Shadow
Third Highest MS: Swiftness Boon

Jitters.9401:

Like I said. You have a thief. You don’t play one.

Oh really now? Because I would assume such an expert as yourself would actually know the thiefs traits and abilities, as you have proven not to. How many things have you claimed thieves do not have in your post, that a few seconds of searching the wiki proves they do?

Zalladi.4652:

Any chance you could provide the sources to where you found these?

I can.

Source

NoTrigger.8396:

Conncept.7638:

Not a chance, so long as there is the dodge system, and that system can even be supplemented with higher energy regen and extra evades, there is no way most (or possibly even any) fights are ever going to require a dedicated healer.

fights probably will require healing. not healing in the sense of dedicated healer, but in the sense of everyone works together to keep everyone alive.

I know, but that’s what he is saying, that if healing is downscaled and becomes more dependent on building for healing power rather than having it innately, fights may then require one person dedicated to healing the party rather than everyone taking care of their own healing, which I think is untrue. So long as we have the dodge system, nobody is required to take enough damage in any fight that a dedicated healer will ever be necessary.

Narrrz.7532:

This has the potential to set up a ‘requirement’ for dedicated healers, ie, those who sacrifice all damage to enable their allies to live longer and thus deal more damage (to make up for the damage the support cannot provide)

this in turn sets up a situation where people are forced to sacrifice their preferred playstyle in order to make play in any way possible. That’s not good design and i’m glad GW2 has never crossed that line.

Why i would like the healing power stat to be more useful and rewarding to those who choose to invest in it, i don’t think that this suggestion is a step in that direction.

Not a chance, so long as there is the dodge system, and that system can even be supplemented with higher energy regen and extra evades, there is no way most (or possibly even any) fights are ever going to require a dedicated healer.

Odyssey.2613:

TL:DR

Dear Anet,

Please nerf rock, paper is fine.

Sincerely yours,
Scissors.

Someone doesn’t know how to count.

Revealed>stealth>?

Where exactly is scissors in your copy-pasted bandwagon analogy? Nothing can be done about the revealed mechanic, and only revealed can do anything about stealth. Stealth and reveal are binary mechanics, they affect each other at a 1:1 ratio with nothing else completing the circle. Rock, paper, scissors is the basis of good game balance, each mechanic having responses to it equal to its efficacy and availability, both of these mechanics have entirely lacked that element of design since their very inception.

Timiok.1048:

I agree to what you mean, we need at least 2 skills that have reveal on each class.
However your example seems a bit overpowered.

Reveal is a binary mechanic that adds nothing whatsoever to combat and the very last thing we need is more of it.

We need a redesign of stealth that has some actual play to it between opponents.

starlinvf.1358:

Stealth counter…. every AOE damage ever

And this is possibly the dumbest statement on this subject, ever.

This works in other games, because they have costs for their abilities, usually mana, meaning they can have spammable AoEs metered. We have no such thing in Gw2, the biggest ‘spammable’ AoEs are piddly little 300 diameter autos like Lightning Whip, Greatsword Swing, and Fireball.

Meanwhile, the thief has the second highest movement speed in the game so long as they can maintain stealth, and dashes available on every single mainhand weapon which are just as wide as every AoE save Combustive Shot and Meteor Shower.

Yet, are they overpowered? No, in fact if anything thieves are a little weak as anything but worthless WvW roamers. But that is what happens when you get a year and a half long string of nerfs due to how poorly designed one single mechanic is.

And before anyone pulls more BS “U dnt play thief yer jus a hater”, I do play the thief, I have an 80 of every class in fact. And anyone who legitimately explores the thief class instead of just exploiting cheese builds can easily come to the conclusion that this class is never going to be as fulfilling to play, fun to play against, or balanced as it would be were stealth to be redesigned in to a mechanic with more give and take between opponents.

Unfortunately this still hasn’t been made clear by the developers.

At launch, it was only power damage, because of technical constraints.

However in the last feature patch on June 23rd, they made vulnerability able to affect condition damage, and since vulnerability increases that damage by a percentage, that technical constraint has clearly been overcome. Logically one would assume that now all percentage increases of damage would affect condition damage, but it hasn’t been outright stated by a developer or been included in any of the patch notes, so nobody knows.

1. Honed Axes does not decrease the cooldowns of the offhand axe skills, only the mainhand.

2. Not necessarily a bug, but definitely unintended functionality. Quick Draw does not work with the fifth axe skill Whirling Defense, because the reduced recharge effect procs on the resolution of the skill, and Whirling Defense takes longer to resolve than quick draws window of availability.

3. Light on your feet’s condition duration increase doesn’t work, period, not sure how no one has noticed this. It does not update your stats or the skill facts for your conditions, which made it confusing at first, but my testing shows that all condition durations are true to the skill facts, so it isn’t just failing to update the skill facts with the 10% increase, it is failing to give the increase at all.

1. Honed Axes does not decrease the cooldowns of the offhand axe skills, only the mainhand.

2. Not necessarily a bug, but definitely unintended functionality. Quick Draw does not work with the fifth axe skill Whirling Defense, because the reduced recharge effect procs on the resolution of the skill, and Whirling Defense takes longer to resolve than quick draws window of availability.

3. Light on your feet’s condition duration increase doesn’t work, period, not sure how no one has noticed this. It does not update your stats or the skill facts for your conditions, which made it confusing at first, but my testing shows that all condition durations are true to the skill facts, so it isn’t just failing to update the skill facts with the 10% increase, it is failing to give the increase at all.

Also posting this in the bugs forum, figured people would want to know so they don’t use these traits expecting output they won’t give.

I’m still betting soothing power isn’t a bug, but a typo, it’s supposed to say that it increases soothing mist to 200%, not by 200%.

Your first image contains scrapped designs. After player feedback they decided that giving the Sylvari too human looking skin with plant-like colors was really uninteresting, and just made them look like some kind of alien Easter egg humans. That’s why you see stronger leaf, bark, moss and other plant-like textures on all of the currently available Sylvari skins.

cursE.1794:

1) burning itself is already borderline op right now so even without firegrab it’s worth applying

Yeah… there’s no borderline there, its twice as effective as any other condition, and four times more effective than bleeding, a condition which is its exact mechanical duplicate. It kicked the borders butt and built itself a nice little home on the far side of the line.

That said, if it does get nerfed, bleeding needs to be buffed.

Not with how hideous the new animation is it’s not.

expandas.7051:

I started playing the game last year, so I’m a bit lost. Did scepter used to inflict confusion instead of torment?

Yes, waaaaaay back in beta. And yes, it was insane in PvP and was removed before the game even launched. And the scepter basically sat for a year and a half or so with neither conditions nor power scaling before they finally tacked torment on.

But the developers always stated they like the scepter being the mesmers confusion themed weapon, and would like to see it return one day, but it just wasn’t possible under the old confusion.

I believe it is not only possible but ideal under the newly redesigned confusion. For perspectives sake, with maxed out condition damage, four stacks of confusion deals about 300 damage per second, and a little over 600 damage per skill activation. Meanwhile, we’re seeing guardians that deal 4000 damage per second with six stack of burning.

ronpierce.2760:

Alekt.5803:

Do you know how overpowered Air Signet would be with that?

So have it shorter, like 2-3 seconds. nbd.

Or just put an ICD on it, like 90% of the new traits already seem to have.