Guild Wars 2

Confusion is more than weak enough that we can add it back to the scepter auto, especially with clone death traits gone and the developers having axed the confusion on critical trait. Three illusions and the caster maintaining one stack of confusion each would not be overpowered by any stretch of the imagination.

Could be an NPC, lots do not stick to the weapon and skill restrictions players have. Can’t remember where but there’s an Ele event NPC that uses a hammer, always thought that was cool.

Other option, there is a toy rifle that every character gets on their second birthday, its a non combat rifle, and shoots birthday cake which grants buffs.

Alternatively, they could also add an aura gain effect to Powerful Aura, it’s pretty worthless with how few auras we can proc now. Plus putting it in the water tree would spread the build out more to make your third tree a very valuable choice and lessen the risk of overpowered combinations.

Glenstorm.4059:

Elementalists should have the best access to burn, bar none. I mean, come on.

That said, IMO Ele burns are in a good place right now. To stack them to ridiculous numbers requires people to stand in Flamewall/cross Ring of Fire constantly. There is now also a bigger penalty for not cleansing Drake’s Breath immediately (rather than facetanking it and cleaning it later.) Fire Aura is actually mildly threatening now. Dragon’s Tooth has an obvious windup. And Signet of Fire has a cast time.

There is counterplay to Ele burns, and they should NOT be nerfed.

No way, I’m an Ele main, but my main build for every one of my characters but two are condition builds, and guardians should have the best access to burning. We have two damaging conditions for a reason, we should be reliant on burning and bleeding and be required to use our attunement system for our condition builds rather than just camping fire. But the problem is just as much that bleeding sucks as it is that burning is currently overtuned.

Chill is affecting attunement recharge.

Don’t care what anyone says, or how long it’s been around, it’s a bug.

Autumn.8043:

Actually there is rather a lot of evidence that we are getting a Warhorn (I have to agree with others, it sucks). A Warhorn skin has been datamined with a water/cloud theme, you can find out more on Reddit.

Sadly most of the data-mined sword skills were placeholder dagger skills, so it’s perfectly plausible for them to have decided to scrap that idea and go with Warhorn instead.

That’s like saying this is evidence we are going to get a Raven based specialization. It’s a skin, and nothing more, with no real connection to our specialization. If being ‘wind’ based automatically means its part of our specialization than I expect to be given the full suite of Zephyr weapons upon the release of HoT.

And they were on daggers because that’s how you test new abilities in a game, you put them on an existing game object, its a giant waste of time and resources to create entirely new game objects just for testing purposes.

Bazooka.3590:

Jski.6180:

Conjir weapons aura build is replacing it.

Lol.

Everyone back to d/d cele. Aura is over.

Yup, there was some hope there, for a minute, that we might actually get a second viable build for the first time in three years. ANet sure crushed that quick as they could.

What on earth are you two going on about? There’s no confirmation we are getting a warhorn, in fact the strongest evidence we have, datamined elementalist skills, showed that we are either getting an axe or a sword, unless you know of some way that a warhorn can be a main hand weapon with skills that include slashing and stabbing.

If anything, they need to buff bleeding so it isn’t totally overshadowed by burning, and rather than nerf anything, buff mob and boss HP scaling. This will also have the added affect of not affecting PvP balance, where conditions really haven’t been shown to be a problem yet.

I don’t understand, where has it been confirmed that the thief is getting the staff? Because otherwise, I see no reason for this thread.

They’re only available for purchases between the initial HoT announcement and the release of the prepurchase, because that announcement stated, without any room for interpretation, that you had to, note, had to, not could; purchase the base game beforehand to play the expansion on its release. Heck that was even in the tag-line of the last sale they held, the one in which the game was purchased for you. Sorry but in what world is false advertising not a totally justifiable reason for a refund?

Don’t care about the character slot, I’m satisfied because they are giving refunds to the people that have purchased the game since HoTs announcement, at which time they clearly stated that you would need to have purchased the base game beforehand to play HoT. That was just wrong, in every way, and left thousands of people feeling as if ANet had flat out conned them, which they pretty much had.

That said, I’m still not prepurchasing the expansion, and I prepurchased the base game. What they’ve show so far, hasn’t shown the game to be worth $50, especially since half the features they are adding are guild related things that the base game should have launched with or at least had patched in. Maybe release or more previews will change my mind, or maybe I’ll be waiting for the inevitable sale price a few months after initial release.

Cecilia.5179:

Conncept.7638:

We also have four damaging conditions without burning, while Eles have two, with burning.

Scratch that, come Reaper release, we will have five damaging conditions.

Burning is better than our four conditions when it can be applied in good amounts and the user can do more than slowly die from lack of real defense. Plus, if the ele puts on a sigil of Doom, then the most important aspect of poison is covered for them.

And we can add confusion through perplexity runes, see how that works? You do not ‘balance’ by assuming one class plays with a handicap and one does not, presumably if any Ele and Necro face each other, they will both have appropriate runes for their build, whatever those may be.

And no, having burning does not make a condition build inherently superior. I started this game and played for nearly the first two solid years on a condition elementalist before finally trying out a condition necro. The advantage in condition damage the necro has, is so beyond a condition elementalist that it isn’t even possible to compare the two. If you’ve ever lost to an elementalist, its been a hybrid damage ele, not a condition ele.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Others are offering a pre-order, which is not the same thing and will not gain the benefits of the actual pre-purchase.

That’s a massive influx of support tickets just waiting to happen.

We also have four damaging conditions without burning, while Eles have two, with burning.

Scratch that, come Reaper release, we will have five damaging conditions.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Conncept.7638:

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Not sure if sarcasm. I’m supposed to take the word of non-Ele users that immediately run cantrip meta about diversity?

Reading comprehension for the win.

Disagreement for the win. Since the specialization notes came out I knew I was specializing in Fire and Air at least, while leaning towards Arcane for my third line (and I’ve almost never traited in Arcane). Mostly I was just peeved that someone can so easily dismiss 3/5 of the lines and claim that that’s a problem that needs to be addressed. It sounds like they just didn’t add anything shiny and new enough to draw players away from their comfort zone.

Like I said, reading comprehension.

My main(ish) character is an earth spec’d condi ele. And I’ll still run his crapshoot condi build unchanged after this patch. However, I run that in spite of its efficacy, not because of it.

This thread is not about my personal taste in builds, nor yours. It is about how obvious the need is to change the ele class mechanic to allow for a proper workable baseline as compared to the other classes, to allow build options outside water/arcane to be equally viable choices based on playstyle and taste, instead of compromises on the one single method the ele has for gaining any reasonable amount of defense.

Sthenith.5196:

Well, some of the traits they changed are good (combined as well) , some are ‘meh’ and some….downright ‘yukk.’

It allows for build diversity, but most, as usual, will follow a certain meta again or hang on every word the theorycrafters will dish out. Same old same old.

Its more than a meta. Every class has a meta, the ele on the other hand is completely borked by design. We have the lowest base armor and health, and no defense in our class mechanic. And the only time we’ve ever been able to get a developer to speak up about the subject, he scoffed at the thread in question and stated “You just don’t understand our design goals.”

He was wrong, we totally understand their design goals for the Ele. Far better than he in fact, well enough to know they need to be changed. The ele is never going to both be balanced and have build diversity with such an enormous disparity between its own baseline defense and that of the other seven classes.

Either the ele will have enough active defense choices to have build diverstiy, in which case they will stack them for a single overpowered bunker build, they won’t have that choice and will have one reliable method of active defense, or they will have no choices of active defense and no build. We have seen the developers cycle through this twice now since launch, and yet they still won’t admit their design goals for the ele may have been flawed from the start.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Not sure if sarcasm. I’m supposed to take the word of non-Ele users that immediately run cantrip meta about diversity?

Reading comprehension for the win.

I have several of the items that were only available during the first holidays and other exculsive events.

And I’d be perfectly okay with ANet making them available again to whoever, in whatever amount, for whatever time.

Because I am not so pathetic a person as to see himself as some special snowball because he happened to win a lottery prize. There is no pride to be taken in gaining something by random chance. You earned nothing, and are owed nothing.

Both streamers that previewed the upcoming Elementalist changes, showed the viewers how to select the water/arcane trees and slot cantrips, and then skimmed the remainder of the new traits and pointed out why nearly every one of them was worthless. Except the earth tree of course, which they labeled worthless as a whole and completely ignored.

And the saddest part, even though one of them clearly had very little idea what he was talking about, not being an Ele main or even having read most of the recent announcements, they both came to the exact same obvious conclusions about the classes build diversity problems. Both a vet player and even a complete noob ele, can, with a few minutes of observation, come to a better understanding of what is wrong with the class, than the developers have in nearly three years of live development.

Yeah, honestly there is nothing new, I wish we got the guy who did engineer to work on our class. Not that all his changes were good, but at least he had the balls to make some real changes, instead of giving us the umpteenth balance patch with nothing but changes to arcane/water bunker builds.

Gray.9041:

Conncept.7638:

Correct, currently the expansion comes with the base game rolled in to it for ‘free’ regardless of which package you purchase.

unless you already have the base game, in which case you only get the expansion – a much lower return for the same amount of money.

Hence my use of ‘free’ and not free.

Unloveableone.6082:

THave you ever created a work of art? A painting? A musical piece? A game? A story?

How would you feel if your hard work and what you’ve dedicated a year or two to, was ridiculed and hated before it was even released?

Yeah actually, career artist here, second generation after my mother who was a classical portrait and landscape artist.

And you know what she taught me?

If you can’t take critique, keep your art, to yourself.

Critique is as much a part of the artistic process as concept and creation. Unless you are somehow an immaculate and perfect artist, basically unless you are God Himself, your art warrants critique and you should accept and consider it gracefully regardless of how and where it is given. My greatest artistic mentor once told a student that he didn’t have what it takes for an art career, the kid said he appreciated his honesty, walked out of class and over to the administration building, where he immediately changed his major. And there have never been any hard feelings between that student and the professor. The kid may not have had the artistic talent, but he had the artistically driven mentality that accepts, rather than takes offense to, critique.

Unloveableone.6082:

You don’t want to pay the full price for the pre-order?
Don’t. That is your choice. But they owe you NOTHING.

Completely false, they do owe people something. They stated for six months, since its first announcement, that the expansion would require the purchase of the base game. They owe people who purchased or supported the game, based on that, another means to purchase the game for a price comparably fair to those who are getting the base game rolled in for free. If they had never made any such a statement, then you would have a point, but since they did, they have an obligation to keep their word if they want to maintain the respect and trust of their playerbase.

Unloveableone.6082:

How would you feel if when you announced that it was ready for purchase, people spat on it. People lashed out at you on not only your official accounts, but your personal ones to.

But being complete jerks about all of this is revolting and reflects poorly on us as a community. And think of the devs. They have feelings too. And I’m sure many are upset right now. This may just be an expansion to you, but it’s much more than that to them.

Now all that said, this is completely deplorable behavior and I hope ANet takes just action against the accounts who have done this. Those are their private, not professional, accounts. This is like showing up at someones home and screaming in to their house from the street about the dealings of the business they work for, and worse, doing so when you don’t even know the persons opinions or involvement in the incident in question. In real life, this would be considered harassment, possibly even assault, and I wouldn’t even scoff at a permanent ban for these people.

However, as for you, OP. You are a completely despicable wormtongue for having made this thread as an underhanded attack against people whose opinions you disagree with. Rather than supporting your opinion with any amount of logic or evidence like a civilized and intelligent person, you have attempted to vilify those you disagree with with emotionally charged stereotyping base on a tiny subset of people that the majority of those who share the opinion you disagree with, would never have anything to do with.

I respect the majority of the people on these forums who share your opinion, even though I don’t agree with them, but not you, you don’t give any, and you don’t deserve any it in return.

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Tyloric.7520:

I still disagree with you. I believe $50 to be a fair price, and with all the threads out there you really didn’t need to make another one.

Fifty dollars being a fair price is a matter of personal opinion, no real reason to argue that point beyond stating why and what of your experience causes you believe it is or is not a fair price.

The real point now made by PC gamer, reddit, these forums and who knowa where else at this point, is that whatever the price is for HoT and the base game, it is only fair for there also be a lower price for HoT alone.

That “real point” is every bit as much opinion as the “fair price” comment.

No it is not, it would be, if ANet hadn’t advertised the expansion as requiring prior purchase of the base game for over six months. But they didn’t, they stated on their home page, at every convention, in their FAQ, in game, and here on the forums that to own HoT you would have to have previously purchased the core game.

ANet themselves made this not a ‘matter of opinion’, they made it a fact, they created this problem. They created expectations in order to sell a product (the base game), and then broke those expectation in order to more easily sell another altogether (the expansion).

It is a matter of opinion that there be a lower price point for HoT alone. If it were not a matter of opinion it would not be possible to hold an opposing opinion. What is/is not fair is always a matter of opinion.

No it isn’t, denial of plainly obvious fact is not an opinion, it is willful ignorance. They told people that this expansion required previous purchase, and it does not, and therefore, based on the expectation they set, the only fair option is that there be a purchase option where the base game is not included.

Fair is always a matter of opinion.

I do believe that the bit about announcing the need the base game and selling it right up until the announcement that the core was included was a misstep. I beljeve that it was a mistake. Fortuately Anet seems to be attempting to correct the mistake for those who purchased after the announcement that the base game would be needed.

Well yeah if you are of the completely ridiculous opinion that the definition of fair doesn’t include keeping your word to the person receiving fair treatment, then sure. But to most of us, that’s not even a point of debate, its a matter of fact that the commonly accepted definition of the word ‘fair’ requires that you keep your word to the person you are attempting to give fair treatment.

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Tyloric.7520:

I still disagree with you. I believe $50 to be a fair price, and with all the threads out there you really didn’t need to make another one.

Fifty dollars being a fair price is a matter of personal opinion, no real reason to argue that point beyond stating why and what of your experience causes you believe it is or is not a fair price.

The real point now made by PC gamer, reddit, these forums and who knowa where else at this point, is that whatever the price is for HoT and the base game, it is only fair for there also be a lower price for HoT alone.

That “real point” is every bit as much opinion as the “fair price” comment.

No it is not, it would be, if ANet hadn’t advertised the expansion as requiring prior purchase of the base game for over six months. But they didn’t, they stated on their home page, at every convention, in their FAQ, in game, and here on the forums that to own HoT you would have to have previously purchased the core game.

ANet themselves made this not a ‘matter of opinion’, they made it a fact, they created this problem. They created expectations in order to sell a product (the base game), and then broke those expectation in order to more easily sell another altogether (the expansion).

It is a matter of opinion that there be a lower price point for HoT alone. If it were not a matter of opinion it would not be possible to hold an opposing opinion. What is/is not fair is always a matter of opinion.

No it isn’t, denial of plainly obvious fact is not an opinion, it is willful ignorance. They told people that this expansion required previous purchase, and it does not. And therefore, based on the expectation they set, the only fair option is that there be a purchase option where the base game is not included, and logically, since it will contain less content, it should cost less.

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Tyloric.7520:

I still disagree with you. I believe $50 to be a fair price, and with all the threads out there you really didn’t need to make another one.

Fifty dollars being a fair price is a matter of personal opinion, no real reason to argue that point beyond stating why and what of your experience causes you believe it is or is not a fair price.

The real point now made by PC gamer, reddit, these forums and who knowa where else at this point, is that whatever the price is for HoT and the base game, it is only fair for there also be a lower price for HoT alone.

That “real point” is every bit as much opinion as the “fair price” comment.

No it is not, it would be, if ANet hadn’t advertised the expansion as requiring prior purchase of the base game for over six months. But they didn’t, they stated on their home page, at every convention, in their FAQ, in game, and here on the forums that to own HoT you would have to have previously purchased the core game.

ANet themselves made this not a ‘matter of opinion’, they made it a fact, they created this problem. They created rigid expectations in order to sell a product (the base game), and then broke those expectation in order to more easily sell another altogether (the expansion).

Correct, currently the expansion comes with the base game rolled in to it for ‘free’ regardless of which package you purchase.

Tyloric.7520:

I still disagree with you. I believe $50 to be a fair price, and with all the threads out there you really didn’t need to make another one.

Fifty dollars being a fair price is a matter of personal opinion, no real reason to argue that point beyond stating why and what of your experience causes you believe it is or is not a fair price.

The real point now made by PC gamer, reddit, these forums and who knows where else at this point, is that whatever the price is for HoT and the base game, it is only fair for there also be a lower price for HoT alone.

Axelwarrior.9084:

Conncept.7638:

Axelwarrior.9084:

ANet never guaranteed to you at any point from whenever you bought the game to now that you’d be able to have characters for all classes at once.
Why would you make that assumption, then?

They’ve also never stated they are going to give content in the expansion equal to its price tag of the game as compared to the base game. But that logically falls well within the area of reasonable expectation for any consumer looking to purchase the game, hence the E-War raging across the internet about the price tag.

There are certain things that don’t have to be advertised with any product, things like functioning as intended, undamaged, and containing all necessary parts and accessories for use. Having a character slot, for the new character class the expansion is going to give you, is not an unreasonable assumption, and falls in the same area.

So, if I were to assume upon purchasing the core game that I’d have all character slots necessary for all the professions, I would be right complaining to the forums about that not happening?
Or maybe that’s not enough. Maybe I would have assumed that I’d have 40 character slots, because it’s normal to me that I’d have 8 professions of each race. Or maybe even 80 slots, because I also want both genders for each combination.

I say ‘reasonable expectations’, you immediately start making statements, which show by their obvious sarcasm that you yourself believe to be not only unreasonable but completely outlandish, and yet you expect that to be an argument in your favor? Leave your outlandish emotionally charged drama to your afternoon soaps where it belongs.

We both have the same definition of reasonable expectations, you just showed that yourself by specifically outlining what you believe is not reasonable, I’m just being logical about it and you, well, aren’t.

Axelwarrior.9084:

ANet never guaranteed to you at any point from whenever you bought the game to now that you’d be able to have characters for all classes at once.
Why would you make that assumption, then?

They’ve also never stated they are going to give content in the expansion equal to its price tag of the game as compared to the base game. But that logically falls well within the area of reasonable expectation for any consumer looking to purchase the game, hence the E-War raging across the internet about the price tag.

There are certain things that don’t have to be advertised with any product, things like functioning as intended, undamaged, and containing all necessary parts and accessories for use. Having a character slot, for the new character class the expansion is going to give you, is not an unreasonable assumption, and falls in the same area.

Treeoflife.4031:

Conncept.7638:

I agree, because they take up slots which could be filled by players who actually do something that contributes to a victory for their server.

And its not good, if it doesn’t contribute to a win. Remember back when there were stealth builds that could twoshot near anyone on the map without granting them any ability to respond. Yet you never saw those builds in PvP, why? Because the stealth buff makes it so they cannot contribute to the win condition, and therefore the builds were ‘bad’, worthless even, regardless of any other factor.

So a roamer is someone that “takes up space….does nothing to help the server….and contributes to the decline of the server?”

As opposed to players that don’t know what half of their skills do and mindlessly follow around the Karma train aka PvE and die bc they dont know what they are doing while also rallying half of the enemy blob. Also due to the density of players within a single area contribute to the vast majority of lag in WvW?

Little confused. Bc when i roam i kill trash players on their way back to the Karma Blob. Report locations of blobs. Flip camps kill yaks and put swords on towers and keeps. Pretty sure some roamers could be considered to = 5 or more Karma Train zombies. But hey whatever think what you want. Enjoy the K Train!

Pardon me, but your ignorance and self-superiority is showing.

I don’t join any ‘k-train’, because I haven’t been in WvW for a year, you know what they say about people who assume?

And I haven’t participated in that long because literally zero changes have been made in that time and even further back to address the issues about WvW that I listed.

And that is exactly what I see them as, issues, errors in the design of the game mode. I never once stated I like or support that zerging is the only method to contribute in WvW, or that I like that roaming isn’t a viablle method, I stated that that is how the game mode works, and its true whether you like it or not. Camps that take you minutes to flip are flipped by a zerg in seconds, and more frequently at that. When you prevent a player from getting to a zerg, you’ve prevented an inconsequential +1 from contributing to the zerg, while simultaneously being an inconsequential +1 that is missing from your own zerg. Not to mention you’ve prevented a complete idiot from joining the zerg anyway, no one who knows what they are doing respawns until the entire zerg is wiped, with no scaling in WvW rezrushing is always more effective than running from spawn.

Laraley.7695:

Sorry, but this is the stupidest post I’ve ever seen. How about you actually let everyone play the way they want? If you want to do some pve train in wvw, leave the people interrested in fighting other players alone.

Y’know what’s really stupid? When someone jumps in to the middle of a conversation and makes giant assumptions and leaps in logic totally ignoring everything that took place before they were paying attention.

I’ve never stated that people shouldn’t play WvW, play how you want, you are not required to satisfy other peoples needs to compete in order to play the game. I play plenty of non-meta builds in PvP that I admit, completely suck, but I play them knowing that and play them regardless because they are fun.

Nonetheless, I would never claim those builds are competitive. And if you had actually read the conversation before jumping in, you would know that the subject at hand was the claim that Ele condition builds are competitive in WvW. My response to that, was that it didn’t matter whether they were viable, balanced, or even grossly overpowered, because no amount of balance is put in towards WvW roaming, because it is, by the very design of the game mode, a non-competitive contribution to the game mode.

Actually ANets been quite active on the forums lately, just not on this issue…

Linnael.1069:

Conncept.7638:

Linnael.1069:

Conncept.7638:

Dahir.4158:

People have been using condi builds for ages. It’s nothing new.

Yeah, I’ve been one of them, earth spec’d Elementalist main since launch, regardless of that fact they are still some of the worst builds in the entire game.

Um. Dire signet ele running 6/0/6/0/2 is notorious in wvw roaming for being just as ridiculous as condithief/mes. earth has been good for a long time.

No one cares about WvW roaming. The game isn’t balanced around it to any degree, WvW is meant to be a simulation of war, it isn’t meant to be balanced or fair, its meant to reward every advantage one takes, especially numbers. Meaning the efforts of one person make absolutely no difference anyway, and no matter how much WvW roamers claim otherwise, except for reporting enemy movements, roaming has no effect on the game modes win condition and therefor isn’t a problem no matter the build.

Bad roamers are the number one reason why a server population declines over time. Crap roamers means a crap experience for new players when they keep getting poached off the tail by the other servers.

I don’t give a kitten whether its balanced for or not. He said it wasn’t good, it was good.

I agree, because they take up slots which could be filled by players who actually do something that contributes to a victory for their server.

And its not good, if it doesn’t contribute to a win. Remember back when there were stealth builds that could twoshot near anyone on the map without granting them any ability to respond. Yet you never saw those builds in PvP, why? Because the stealth buff makes it so they cannot contribute to the win condition, and therefore the builds were ‘bad’, worthless even, regardless of any other factor.

Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365:

Josh Davis.6015:

Depends on how you look at it. I read this post, crafted a build in about 5 mins on our dev branch in PvP (clerics, monk runes, etc), and it does pretty well. The skill pulses the heal 3x in one channel. I was doing 159 ticks with no boons on my target, which is 477 healing in one channel. I applied 5 boons to my target, and that turns into 243 ticks (729 over one channel).

John is talking about the new med kit healing blast skill, a completely non-damaging heal skill on a non-damaging kit which is the redesign of an existing heal skill on an existing kit, which has no interaction whatsoever with EIF or the bomb kit, nor will have any such interaction after its redesign.

That skill does not retain nor even remotely resemble the manic aggressive support playstyle you get from running EIF and the bomb kit, honestly so obviously so that your post isn’t even on topic with the thread. I’m not sure if you posted without reading the OP, don’t know what EIF is, or you are just a pretentious jerk for kicks and giggles, but in any case your post is contributing nothing for or against my suggestion, so please elaborate with your own thoughts that are actually on topic with the thread subject or remove your post.

I think I have a solution to retain the essence of the Elixir Infused Bombs playstyle without full on returning or recreating the trait. It is a compromise which would require minimum changes to the developers upcoming plans, but which I believe would satisfy fans of the original EIB builds.

Simply change bunker down by removing its critical hit requirement.

EX: Bunker Down – When you strike an opponent, you have a 50% chance to create a med pack and a mine at your location, on a 2 second internal cooldown.

EX 2: Bunker Down – When you strike an opponent, you have a 50% chance to create a med pack at your location, in addition to a mine on critical hits, on a 2 second internal cooldown.

By removing the critical hit requirement for the medpack you open this up to be a real support option. And moreover, a support option which, much like EIF, would reward you for the manic in-your-face playstyle many people have always love about the bomb kit, but don’t see as an option any longer since EIFs removal.

With the critical hit requirement on the other hand, it will never be a true support option, because the investment in precision will just never be worth it to a support build. Either there would have to be a lot more options for support driven critical hit procs added alongside bunker down, or its critical hit proc would have to be increased to make the investment worth it. Given those two options, removing the critical hit requirement seems like the best route.

Addendum: Not sure how the ‘new’ med packs are going to scale, or what uptime a 50% proc would give the trait, so I can’t say for sure any of the numbers I’ve given would be balanced. However the idea itself can definitely be balanced, since if needed to, they have the option to make the trait drop ‘mini’ med-packs as compared to the med kit, similar to how the current bunker down drops miniature mines as compared to the mine gadget.

Linnael.1069:

Conncept.7638:

Dahir.4158:

People have been using condi builds for ages. It’s nothing new.

Yeah, I’ve been one of them, earth spec’d Elementalist main since launch, regardless of that fact they are still some of the worst builds in the entire game.

Um. Dire signet ele running 6/0/6/0/2 is notorious in wvw roaming for being just as ridiculous as condithief/mes. earth has been good for a long time.

No one cares about WvW roaming. The game isn’t balanced around it to any degree, WvW is meant to be a simulation of war, it isn’t meant to be balanced or fair, its meant to reward every advantage one takes, especially numbers. Meaning the efforts of one person make absolutely no difference anyway, and no matter how much WvW roamers claim otherwise, except for reporting enemy movements, roaming has no effect on the game modes win condition and therefor isn’t a problem no matter the build.

No, because if its not an expansion, its the core game, and if its the core game, I already bought and paid for it! In which case, where’s my copy?

Dahir.4158:

People have been using condi builds for ages. It’s nothing new.

Yeah, I’ve been one of them, earth spec’d Elementalist main since launch, regardless of that fact they are still some of the worst builds in the entire game.

I played my ele on pretty much one tanky condition build for nearly the first two years after release, beat nearly ever dungeon path with him, got my first world completion, the majority of my PvP ranks, and the whole first season of the LS on it.

Until the day finally tried out a condition necro.

My gosh the difference, I felt like I had been playing a blind paraplegic for the last year and a half. So I tried out a condition engi, then two more condition necro builds, a condition ranger, and finally a condition guard. Excepting the guard, which still felt slightly better, since building tanky actually does something on a guard, every single one felt like the F16 blowing past my Ele’s balsa wood Biplane. Every single build I tried was just unequivocally superior in every single way.

Nowadays, I can barely manage to pick up my main and most loved character, and I play every single character save my inventory mule more than him. Hopefully the condition changes fix that, but unlikely, since the developers seem to insist we not get any changes to our class that could open us up to anything save madcap swapping sustain builds.

WatchTheShow.7203:

Conncept.7638:

I’d be okay with 40 honestly, at least if the expansion is big enough.

Fifty bucks on the other hand is the price of a full game, and if they want to charge that, it should be because HoT adds as much content to the game as it launched with, something we all know isn’t going to happen.

This is incorrect. New copies of games are currently priced at $60.00. If you’re getting them for $50 then you must know someone in the black market or have a coupon.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Witcher-Wild-Hunt-Digital/dp/B00WV7Q1ZI

http://www.gamestop.com/ps4/games/batman-arkham-knight/113909

http://www.gamestop.com/ps4/games/uncharted-4-a-thiefs-end/116405

http://www.gamestop.com/ps4/games/dead-island-2/115526

Witcher on PC, $49.00. Two of the others preorders, one is a PS4 console exclusive.

There is always going to be some variance in price as well as pre-release and release price gouging, there are still plenty of $50.00 games out there.

ArrogantHero.4965:

People on these forums are complaining about the value of the GW2 expansion. I believe that everyone is titled to there opinion, fair enough. BUT if you have ever went to go see a movie when it first came out YOU ARE A HYPOCRITE!!! You say GW2 expansion cost too much but you will spend $10-$20 to see a 2 hour movie.

At least we don’t make asinine assumptions, because no, in fact, I wouldn’t ever pay 20 dollars for a movie. Firstly because a new movie is only $9-$12 where I live, and second because I always wait for them to go to Redbox or the dollar theatre.

ArrogantHero.4965:

Ashen.2907:

ArrogantHero.4965:

Pockets.3201:

To be fair, I don’t think the trip to the movie theaters is worth it either.

At home I can eat what I want while I watch and I don’t even have to wear pants.

How much do u spend on the movies? Because unless you paying something low the value is much lower compared toGW2.

Value is completely subjective.

If value is subjective why do people feel they’re entitled to a price drop?

Because value is not entirely subjective, but based on experience, circumstance, and environment. I look at the last few times I’ve purchased an expansion, and comparing what this expansion offers, with what those offered, and then 10-20 dollar price hike between them, this expansion is clearly not worth it. Unless of course, it comes out with way more features than they have previewed so far and far more content than its development time would suggest it could have.

CMM.6712:

All of this rage would be so much less if they would’ve just included a character slot. WHY ANET DO YOU KEEP SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE FOOT? WHY?

Even then, I don’t bloody want a character slot, I have no use for one, I already have eight, and if they give me another if anything I’ll want a refund for one of the ones I already have. What I want is to buy the expansion and the expansion alone, without getting less for my money as compared to a new player.

Honestly, there is no way its going to be worth $50 bucks, I can’t say ‘I know’, but everything I do know about game development says so.

The only game I can think of that charges $50 for an expansion is the latest WoW expansion, and that is massive, just like all of WoWs expansions, as most of WoWs expansions have in fact added as much content as the vanilla game released with. And only this most recent game cost as much as the base game, the previous cost 10-20 dollars less than the vanilla game.

So why is it not possible that ANet has a similarly grand expansion on the horizon, one worthy of fifty bucks and a preorder? Because of time. I can guarantee you Warlords of Draenor was being worked on for years before Mists of Pandaria was even released.

ANet on the other hand had no plans whatsoever for what to do after release and spent a year and a pinch after launch running around like headless chickens fixing things that weren’t ready for release, planning and preparing for the LS, and figuring out ways to gate players and content so that they would stick around long enough to make some kind of end game. They’ve spent, at most, two years on this expansion, I would wager less; and there is no way an expansion with that development time has content worth what they are asking. They’ve barely expanded their staff, and seem to be handling their time, money, and development resources terribly. It just isn’t possible that this adds as much content as the base game given the circumstances under which it has been developed, but it sure is being priced as such.

In short, there is no way I’m buying this expansion unless they change the price to one I know its going to be worth instead of suspect it won’t, or its release shows it to have content worth that price tag, a near impossibility in my opinion.

bigbobpataki.4796:

daksh.2176:

50 bucks and no character slot?
Time to renew my wow membership

Spend nearly $50 for 3 months of content in the games worst xpac or spend $50 for what will probably be roughly 2 years of no sub required content? Makes sense, go for it dude I think you’re on to something.

Oh and have fun spending $50 on their next xpac.

At least they tell you the truth about what they are going to charge you, intead of selling you something, advertised as a sale for an upcoming expansion, for $10, and then three months later giving what they sold you away with the expansion, for free.

I’ve been playing since the BWEs, and this pricing sucks for everyone who owns the game, but I honestly feel the people who got the shortest end of the stick here are the newest wave of players. I mean, they just flat out got conned out of 10 bucks by ANet, there is no other way of looking at it except as theft in broad daylight.

I’d be okay with 40 honestly, at least if the expansion is big enough.

Fifty bucks on the other hand is the price of a full game, and if they want to charge that, it should be because HoT adds as much content to the game as it launched with, something we all know isn’t going to happen.

Ferever.7014:

I thought WoW was more expensive with expansion and on top of that a monthly sub to?

Yeah, WoW is also designed to be addictive over enjoyable. Let’s try not to follow their example please.

Oberon Vex.1389:

Conncept.7638:

Oberon Vex.1389:

CrimsonDX.4821:

Taglor Anwamane.9468:

This is nothing short of an insult to every single one of those who have been loyally playing for so long. They’re giving new players the expansion practically for free in comparison!
And it’s not as if they’re offering a full game’s worth of content, either.

Get off your high horse.

Given the amount of free content they have given us since launch, this is nothing. Certainly far less than what we would have paid in total subscription costs since launch

+1.

While the execution is perhaps clunky, the value of the price is something we the customer cannot know until we play. It is entirely possible the new campaign against Morde will be as expansive and lengthy as the one against zhaitan — whether in entirely new maps or revisiting older ones with new instanced story areas.

It is possible that the content of the expansion is fully worth the 50$ price tag — which lets be honest, is pretty kitten common for an expansion of a AAA MMO — so please can we shelf the outrage for a bit? Until we KNOW it’s not worth it?

Finally: no one is forcing you to pre-order. If the price is outrageous to you, or you cannot stomach that they tacked on the core game so that new players dont’ have to shell out $110 to get into the game, then do not pre-order the xpac. Wait for launch. Wait to see if they lower the price, or offer a discounted “Account Upgrade” version in the gemstore. Or — and just hear me out on this one: wait until more information about the expansion is available and make an informed decision. Boom.

Load of bullcrap and you know it.

I support most of ANets decisions but this regularly parroted claim about how we ‘deserve’ to take every dishonest monetization decision ANet makes up the kitten without complaining, because of the living story, is a great big steaming pile of crap.

I have never played an MMO where the developer don’t continue putting out content between expansions, regardless of whether it is free, purchase, or pay to play. And there are games that push out far more content between expansion than GW2, the LS has been nothing special when it comes to between expansion content, and it is no justification for ANets many and varied poor monetization decisions.

Pretty sure I didn’t mention anything about LS. Perhaps you meant to quote the user I quoted? Or at least include my points in your dismissal… :/

Lol, you’re right, no idea how but I completely yoinked the wrong quote. Tis fixed.

CrimsonDX.4821:

Taglor Anwamane.9468:

This is nothing short of an insult to every single one of those who have been loyally playing for so long. They’re giving new players the expansion practically for free in comparison!
And it’s not as if they’re offering a full game’s worth of content, either.

Get off your high horse.

Given the amount of free content they have given us since launch, this is nothing. Certainly far less than what we would have paid in total subscription costs since launch

Load of bullcrap and you know it.

I support most of ANets decisions but this regularly parroted claim about how we ‘deserve’ to take every dishonest monetization decision ANet makes up the kitten without complaint because of the living story, is a great big steaming pile of crap.

I have never played an MMO where the developer don’t continue putting out content between expansions, they have to if they want to keep their players, regardless of whether it is free, purchase, or pay to play. And there are games that push out far more, and better, content between expansion than GW2 has. The LS has been nothing special when it comes to filler content between box sales, and it is no justification for ANets many and varied poor monetization decisions such as the one the forums are lighting up about today.

MoonStoneX.9245:

Conncept.7638:

Yeah I’m certainly not buying it at this point. Why is there no option to buy the expansion and only the expansion? So they can charge us all for the same game twice! This is the most dishonest BS ANet has pulled yet.

The Expansion is $49.99 (Standard) if you buy it on a new Account that doesn’t own the Core game you get the Core game for free. Now I am not defending the price just wanted to clear that up. I for one think this is far to expensive for the amount of content that they have shown us up to this point compared to other MMOs hell even Guild Wars 1. I mean come on we don’t even get a single free Character Slot for buying the Standard Edition?

No, read the announcement again, the basic ‘pack’ is $49.99 for the expansion and the base game, regardless of whether or not you already have the base game, with no option to purchase the expansion minus the cost of the base. Meaning, you are paying for the base game, again, whether you like it or not. And I prefer not, I will not be taken advantage of by ANet or anyone else, and unless they change this, I will not be buying the expansion.

And what is this BS about $50 dollars being the standard for an expansion? Every expansion I can think of for a major title is $30-40, with some being as low as 10 or 20.

Yeah I’m certainly not buying it at this point. Why is there no option to buy the expansion and only the expansion? So they can charge us all for the same game twice! This is the most dishonest BS ANet has pulled yet.

And no, more charaacter slots would not justify, I already have eight and don’t need five more, and if I ever do want another one, I’ll buy one, not buy the entire game over again. The only honest thing to do here is sell the expansion in a standalone package.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

This is the buff because of the removal of stats from trait lines. We’ve known about it for months now… Sorry you missed the memo I guess…

No if you read the whole patch notes you would note that white to exotic gear is getting about a 30% buff, while ascended gear is getting a 100% buff, this is blatantly creating artificial power creep to force players in to a gear tier that ANet gave their word would always remain optional and never increase.