Guild Wars 2

Nobody cares about the cosmetics grind in the grand scheme of things. People get upset about RNG, which is fair, but nobody freaks out and quits over not getting a free legendary. It’s meant for people who like doing those things.

Elite specializations are not, though. They’re not cosmetic or slight changes. There are meant to be even more later. The amount of time it takes to unlock it per character is just too strenuous for people without a lot of game time.

Your 48 hours is different from mine. Since Friday, I’ve only had enough time to complete two of the story episodes and one hero point challenge, and have barely made a dent in masteries. At the rate I’m going, it’d take me six to eight months to unlock the elite spec for only one character. That’s way too long “waiting to have fun”.

There’s no logical reason behind why you think it’s okay to make the game inaccessible to other people. We should all be entitled to have fun. And trust me, there’s plenty of content to do for those who have the time and like to devote themselves to completing new things.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Maelstrazza.6750:

Hell, I played EQ and FFXI – I can talk grind all day.

Some may not feel this new system is a grind. Many do. Ultimately it’s up to ANet as to what sort of game they wish.

In any case, after all the volumes written – I still have yet to hear anyone discuss how having Elites upon release would destroy the game. Opinions on that are yours, truly, and we’re all allowed them, of course.. They may differ from mine. As I stated previously – I am waiting for someone to show how giving us the Elites mainly right-off would have caused so many problems that it would ruin the xpac/game.

I do kind of agree. Make them cost 200 instead of 400 and halve the value of the hero challenges in maguuma. So you can either unlock the spec through map completion of the old content or the new content.

If they are to reduce it, might as well keep it lower. You need like 40% map completion’s worth of challenges and PS finished to have around 80 of them. I don’t see a reason why they can’t be 100 or less even with the current 10 pt. values as to allow for future development room and keeping Tyria still relevant in the grand scheme of things while not making anyone feel that the grind is too huge. Skins can be extra at the end for completing maguuma’s challenges via achievements. I get that people want to be rewarded, but the people who do so typically either want the experience or the looks to show it. Increasing accessibility doesn’t diminish the value of completing the content, and making the skins achievements still requires the work to look the part. I don’t think anyone has complained they want the skins for free or care if they weren’t freebies (like legendaries). It’s just the specializations themselves.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

Lots of passionate feedback and discussion in here on either side, and a friendly reminder that constructive feedback helps us make better games (please do keep it constructive!) We don’t always get every detail perfect the first time, but I like to think one of our strengths is we’re always open to and listening to feedback from our community and making good decisions based on that feedback.

Ultimately, we’re thrilled with the parts of HoT everyone is enjoying. Your passion is awesome, and it’s part of why we all love creating this game. In particular, in game we’ve seen a really positive reaction to the game from folks who are busy playing, which has been really cool to see.

While we never like to rush and make snap decisions, in particular with a game that’s basically been out less than three days; I think there are some fair points in here for us to discuss. Much like other feedback about HoT, we’ll be discussing this as well!

Thanks again!

Most of the arguments and justification for feedback have been stated so many times already that it’s pretty much just boiled down to a list of “sign me up for the complaint list” rather than bringing new discussion. People are clearly flustered because pretty much all of their time, effort, and anticipation has been nullified.

I think it goes without saying that this isn’t something that needs to be looked into so much as it is something that needs to be changed altogether. Clearly there’s a massive upset, so acknowledging the need for change and expressing something will be done is much more important for damage control in the short term while a solution is devised.

While I mean no disrespect, I strongly advise resolving this issue ASAP as it seems (based on forum threads, reddit, personal experience in-game, etc.) that this is a tipping point for the game very much downwards if nothing is done quickly as to keep players around, bolster short-term sales, and perhaps start re-gaining some consumer trust. Whether or not I can speak for other people here, I don’t know, but I’m definitely holding back on any subsequent purchases from ArenaNet despite literally having planned to have charged gems a few days after the expansion prior to the expansion’s release. It’s also raising huge concerns over the legitimacy and accuracy of what is stated by your company vs. reality based on the massive difference between the content we were marketed and what is now available in-game.

I do commend your staff for a seamless release. Only thing to go down was the wiki for a short period :p

I’d suggest making the elite specs still require hero points, but only 60 or maybe even 100, just for the skills and traits. The cosmetics should be locked away which is fine, because they’re cosmetic. Cutting the HP cost also lets you develop more elite specs during the period of HOT’s release without needing to add more hero point locations, add a new currency, or inflate them again or add new content to allow for expansion into the future. This way, unlocking all of them requires a bit more completion, but accessing only a few is quite reasonable and acceptable for those not interested. Recall this system is a framework; best to keep it as consistent and sustainable as possible, no?

I understand the communication policy is to keep it close and not say much, but I think this is a situation where you’re gonna have to bust out the stops. I say this as someone also worked in the MMO industry, and I wish I had done so much better when I had the chances to.

Oh on a side note, it might also be wise to tone down some of the champion hero challenges to be a bit more solo-able. The champions are still super easy to blob down, anyways, but are nigh impossible for solo players as the baseline stats are just too high.

They stated for me they would deactivate my account if I went through with it. Just e-mail support. Hope you’re luckier than me as it seems many others have had success.

Divine Flavor.2016:

give HoT a bad metacritic score.

I didn’t even think to do this. I just posted my thoughts now – Slivyr. Thanks!

Funny, because they told me that if I was to be refunded my money they would disable my account entirely until I re-purchased HoT.

Vayne.8563:

DeceiverX.8361:

And this is why we have complaint threads on the subject.

The reasons for the gating are arbitrary and at no real benefit except to force more people to play the new maps for longer periods of time.

Actually you don’t know that the reasons for gating are arbitrary. You only know that reasons have not been offered, which is a completely different thing. You may believe they’re arbitrary but I guarantee you Anet discussed this long and hard. I know this company for a long time and they have reasons for everything they do, even if they don’t share those reasons.

My kids used to think I made arbitrary decisions because they didn’t understand my reasoning, and sometimes, I didn’t explain it. But my reasons are virtually never arbitrary no matter what they thought.

Arbitrary, per Merriam-Webster:

: not planned or chosen for a particular reason : not based on reason or evidence

: done without concern for what is fair or right

They did this before with the map completion for trait unlocks, elite skills at level 40, changing/increasing the trait acquisition levels, etc.

And then they proceeded to revert because they recognized their decisions had no legitimate context or evidence for why it would be necessary outside of the belief they needed to make the changes on the basis that they wanted to simplify the game.

On what bases are these conclusions drawn? Why are they releasing content doing exactly the opposite of what they are advertising it/their game as? Why have we seen such dramatic shifting of numbers datamined in previous patches versus now with no testing?

Strictly speaking, I would completely argue their decisions are arbitrary because the only logical basis for implementing the systems this way would be to increase player-time spent in-game, which reasoning can then also be argued as arbitrary due to the massive shift of intentions of the game and their primary audience and subsequent income source not agreeing with this, for it is not a business requirement or shift necessary for the sustenance of the company or well-being of the game and company as a whole.

The latter definition is completely true for what has occurred based on how they marketed and sold the expansion and their intentions of the game as a whole since the manifesto that was released two years before the game was released.

So no, claiming their decisions are not arbitrary is not accurate based on the very definition of arbitrary.

It was announced several days ago as an option at a merchant who sells Hero Points in WvW.

The problem is it requires 200 WvW ranks to complete per character + 7k BoH. Even on a very active EoTM, this will take a very long period of time to do; much longer than doing 100% MC in Tyria and 20 hero point challenges in Maguuma.

MatthewMedina.5419:

Good news, bad news.

Good news: with the sampling of people of all races and genders who’re experiencing this problem, we’ve ruled out the dialog not working for one or two of these combinations.

Bad news: It seems there’s something more sinister at work here. I’ll throw up a flare and see if I can get some coding support to look deeper into this.

Small dev note: We care greatly about your play experience and we are working as quickly as we can to get all of you unstuck. Please be nice to your devs who are coming in over the weekend and forgoing time with their families and loved ones to ensure that these issues get resolved as soon as we humanly can. Thanks!

Yea, dunno who’s idea it was for the 23’rd, but this is why we release code/ship updates on Tuesdays >_<

I do hope some authority has seen the elite specialization HP complaint thread, though. I feel like ignoring that is very much not in ANet’s best interest.

Contact support at the top of the page. Odds are they’ll give it to you.

I’ve already gone through support attempting a refund. They will tell you that they will disable your account access in general if you do; your entire account is now held behind that $50 paywall.

Disgusting business, really.

runeblade.7514:

DeceiverX.8361:

Because they don’t actually have a real argument?

Neither do you.

Read my post history?

And this is why we have complaint threads on the subject.

The reasons for the gating are arbitrary and at no real benefit except to force more people to play the new maps for longer periods of time.

Unloveableone.6082:

mrstealth.6701:

Unloveableone.6082:

RedBaron.6058:

I really hope ANet sorts all the issues with HoT.

I would love to try it.

But right now it seems a waste of money.

Sort it out? They don’t need to sort anything out.
There is nothing wrong with it. Play the game or don’t.
That’s your decision, not theirs.
The game is finally challenging and has some real progression going for it.
And the whiners STILL flock to the forums.

A lot seem to disagree, and see problems they think should be addressed.

I wouldn’t really call it real progression, aside from the elite specs themselves. The masteries are mostly gating, instead of progression. You gain some new exploration abilities with gliding and mushrooms, but the lore masteries are just there to slow down content consumption and make it seem like there is more to the expansion.

Even the process of unlocking the elite spec is gated behind the mastery system, or by wvw ranks and badges. The general expectation was to play though most of HoT using your new elite spec, not having to play through the majority of HoT just to get your new elite spec. Currently, it seems that fully unlocking a single elite spec takes about half as much time as it would take me to get a new character from 1-80 just playing pve. That’s a lot of time for just a spec/trait line, a new weapon, and a few new skills.

No. The vocal minority disagree. I have yet to hear a SINGLE person in game complain about it. And gating? It’s not gating. You don’t know what gating is.
Needing to play the game to progress is not gating.
I’m already on Part 4 of the story. I love it. I wish it was slower so I wouldn’t get done with it so fast.
Stop being lazy and just play the game.
You casuals have had 3 years to instant win everything. It’s time this game felt like GW again. And it does.
So PLEASE. If you don’t like it, just leave man. Because this is amazing. And the rest of the community agrees. We just don’t come to the forums to show as much as you negative nancys

Except the rest of the community doesn’t agree; if it did, there wouldn’t be a 50-page thread of complaints and many other threads filled with complaints.

I’ve alsoo seen TONS of complaints in map chat in various regions about the topic in the ~2 hours I’ve had time to play since the release. Dunno what you’re on.

The decision to make the specializations locked behind masteries has no context and no logical argument behind it aside from people “agreeing” with the grind.

Nobody is asking for story or map completion for free. The people who want to do that are going to do that anyways.

People just want to play the game as they want to. I don’t understand why people have a problem with this.

60 Hero Points for the line for traits and things, Map completion on HoT maps for the skins etc., a reward track for each skin part in PvP, or 30 WvW ranks and 1k BoH per piece as well (assuming 7).

Substance E.4852:

Nemesis.6938:

maybe it would be an idea that if you unlock ONE elite spec fully that you get some kind of account wide buff that increases hero point gain by xx% (i’d say 50) so that you can unlock further ones faster?

All they need to do is make it cost as much as any other trait line. Not more than all of them together.

The Maguma HP’s should be a way for people to unlock the elite spec on an alt that might have very little map completion while playing HoT.

Never a necessity for everyone regardless of completion status.

Would also let them release more elite specs during HoT’s future without worrying about more map markers/challenges. Not like elite specs are a framework or anything to be expanded upon in the future.

Because they don’t actually have a real argument?

And that’s precisely it; the entirety of the release was misleading and none of this info was conveyed in the past to allow for feedback before release.

Elite specs were available with no investment to grind through events and/or masteries and non-soloable hero points during testing is why, so everyone could play at their own pace in their own preferred game mode.

Lord Kuru.3685:

DeceiverX.8361:

For real?!

Awesome! Now things are normalizing much, much better to allow for balanced conditions in WvW.

Oh wait, new armor stat combination has +condition duration. This makes things objectively worse.

Nice job screwing up something else, ANet.

It seems their intention is not to nerf condi duration: they know a lot of people want to play builds with condi duration so they lock it behind the paywall of HoT in order to drive sales.

You might be on to something. I mean it does slightly help in that full condi must at least sacrifice some of the defenses it used to have.

But scumbag marketing/design is definitely apparent with this expansion due to the hero point/mastery grind for even making some of the new stuff attainable.

Considering the game was developed and sold on the principle of “no grind”, and ANet has been extremely vocal about this philosophy, why are they playing this game and why are they advocating for these changes when the “no grind” mentality was working so well?

There should be no gates on specializations.

If people want to play the jungle content, they should be allowed to use the elite spec to clear it. If they don’t, they shouldn’t be punished for not doing so. It’s not like elite specs are integral to the story at all.

Arguing for the spec gating is the same as arguing for WvW being required for map completion.

I’m pretty sure map completion is going to take the same amount of time with or without the elite spec.

The people who complain about running out of content are completionists, and they got an amazing treadmill to use. Why is there something wrong with doing the content with the new elite spec? The people who want to do it all are going to to it anyways.

Everyone else is just forced into a crappy situation. I don’t understand why people are supporting this. Using the same logic as people supporting the gated content, WvW maps should be required for map completion, again. I mean if you want to get your reward, you need to camp WvW to capture that keep now, and work for it, right?

It’s pointless and stupid to gate the elite specs like this. Everything else is whatever (though the HP champions need a tone down baseline for solo play and way better scaling to make group training way more punishing while also rewarding and promoting smaller group adventures with close friends.

For real?!

Awesome! Now things are normalizing much, much better to allow for balanced conditions in WvW.

Oh wait, new armor stat combination has +condition duration. This makes things objectively worse.

Nice job screwing up something else, ANet.

Reaper is the reason I bought the expansion. Most fun I’ve had in a while when playing it during the BWE events. Unfortunately I cannot play it live as I will never have the hero points unlocked in the foreseeable future due to the time constraints on my gameplay and the time I do have in-game being very sporadic and usually short in duration.

Raids are not yet released. A lot of the features of HoT have not been included at launch.

If it is not on the authorized retailers list, then do not purchase it from there. They’re cracking down kitten fake keys and banning accounts.

As far as it’s worth it, no. Not at all. At least not yet. Wasted $50 IMHO. Wish I’d waited. We’ll see if I keep playing the game in general since all support for the base game has been dropped into the future as well.

Not sure how long you’ve been gone, but D/D ele has been out-doing warrior at literally everything for like the past year.

Test.8734:

Drennon.7190:

Take this for what you will, but I just want to know when the old philosophy of “We don’t make grindy games” flew out the window.

A lot went flying through the window.

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun”

And then HoT is basically a couple hours of new content hard gated by massive grind.

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward.”

HoT is entirely about preparing to have fun by grinding before being able to use specializations.

When asked about GW2’s release date, the answer was, “When it’s ready”

Meanwhile, HoT got released with legendary weapons to be added “later”, the raid to be added “later”, the new squad system to be added “later”, and so on and so on.

ArenaNet turned around and shot most of what they claimed was their “basic design philosophy”.

IMO, that’s a sign of how much they deserve to be trusted.

Precisely. +1

DaShi.1368:

Xernth.8561:

Its so simple.

Don’t gate what lets you personalize your character abilities. (how you play)

Gate status symbols, achievements and progression intended to provide very long term benefits (masteries).

I’ve never seen a game expansion do such a terrible job of recognizing this concept.

Remember the previous trait system where you had to unlock traits. Did Anet actually think about how they could make it worse with elite specs?

It seems like it, yea.

Frost.1503:

I have dona the pre-order for support the game and for sure I like gw2 (not HoT).
I think all people play this game for have fun and yes I have a lot of fun in PvP.
They are asking to me to do PvE for have the new Elite Specialization (460 hero points X 9 Char).
Why am I asking for the Elite Specialization if I do Pvp?
Becouse I do also the event of guild like Fractal, WvW, Guild mission, ecc….
If I can’T reach for each one of my char 460 points I prefer have my 100 euro back and do somethings else.
They did somethings like this before with the traits. The difference is that you before needs to go in a determinate place for receive the trait now you must go in a determinate place in the map for take the Hero points for buy the traits.
I’M not asking to have the new Elite Specialization for free (100 euro). But have it in a easier way and have the possibility to take it also in pvp.

You can only get your money back if you let them disable your account and prevent you from logging back into the game. I’ve tried this already just to have vanilla content access due to the expansion being so bad. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t necessarily like to get my account access revoked entirely.

My signature has never felt so relevant :P

Xernth.8561:

Its so simple.

Don’t gate what lets you personalize your character abilities. (how you play)

Gate status symbols, achievements and progression intended to provide very long term benefits (masteries).

I’ve never seen a game expansion do such a terrible job of recognizing this concept.

And here we have a winner!

People are complaining because a lot of people don’t have the time to waste to unlock this content which was largely the reason they paid for the expansion to begin with, and/or they hate the notion of even playing PvE in such a face-smash way to optimize play-time for rewards instead of going at their own pace.

I’ve had so little free time to even complete the prologue story. I don’t understand how people have so much time to be able to make so much progress without having any responsibilities in the real world.

This is why you’re seeing people complain; the content used to be designed to let people jump in and jump out and play on their own schedules. The elite specs are not designed in such a way, and seeing as they have no pertinence to the jungle theme, it makes no sense to wall them off like this.

Baclavaman.9054:

I m about to, the elite specs were the selling point for me, now they are behind a grind fest so yeah….

As I mentioned above, you can’t unless you decide to quit the game forever, as they disable your entire account if you do, until you buy HoT again.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Don’t have time? Does HoT or the elites expire in a certain time period and I missed that memo? Last time I checked, time was something we had lots of in this particular game. Just work at it a little bit as you have the ability to.

Real life tends to get in the way for some people.

Mathematically, it’d take me over a year to complete a single elite spec line. That’s kind of stupid if you ask me.

You can’t spend it; influence has been completely retired as a system.

Nvm.

Support just responded stating that if I want a refund my account will be de-activated with no access to the vanilla game.

Welp, kitten .

Raziel.4216:

DeceiverX.8361:

the fact that yes a very sizable number of people seem to agree with this notion.

Proof?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/elite-specializations-how-many-hero-points-Merged/page/40#post5643684

Kal Spiro.9745:

Did you seriously drop $40-100 for nothing more than an elite spec? I mean, that really seems kind of excessive.

Was no one excited for the game itself?

[/quote]

Yes. I did actually spend that money solely for the elite specs. I could care less about any of the maps, items, story, etc. I play this game for one reason and one reason only: WvW with my friends.

I’m sorry if people don’t value their time. Unfortunately, I do, because mine is limited. If I can’t enjoy the game at the rate I’d like to or in the way I’d like to, then there is no reason to play it at all. Since elite specs were the sole joy I got out of the expansion, and I was completely fine with dumping $40-100 on elite specs (that’s like two months of gems for me normally), I don’t see how you can view that as “excessive”.

No, I’m asking if anyone’s had luck getting their money back, not to complain about the expansion, yet people are disputing whether or not “people are getting screwed over” despite the fact that yes a very sizable number of people seem to agree with this notion.

So if you do not agree with me and don’t have an answer, the door is over there to the thread to leave. I respect your opinions that you like the content, and that’s fine. I do not believe I received my $50 worth by the blatant denial of elite specializations on the limited play time I have.

I don’t need to reiterate what has been stated so many times on the 40-page monster thread of complaints.

Now that we’ve been officially screwed over, I’m glad I can confirm all of my suspicions about HoT being a terrible release with the elite specializations. Hope I get my $50 back. Anyone else do this and have any luck, or are we screwed out of cash?

Not really surprising if they have, only because the China launch was so poor that they only really had the option to grow or stop bothering :P

babazhook.6805:

babazhook.6805:

DeceiverX.8361:

babazhook.6805:

DeceiverX.8361:

babazhook.6805:

DeceiverX.8361:

Jana.6831:

DeceiverX.8361:

Going to have to agree somewhat. Even if you know his location if he himself isn’t braindead he should be able to survive almost anything.

I frontline glass cannon thief without any defensive traits or abilities in 40v40 and usually come out alive. I have been asked by commanders in server chat/TS how I stay alive and have been frequently used as an engage signal for the rest of the blob to follow after I am first to dive in. I quit solo roaming recently because it become a matter of extremely cheesy and unfun build decisions and frankly, I think D/P and SA are extremely boring, passive, and easy ways to play the thief and the game itself.

If people die playing dire thief to any extent in anything less than 25 people, or mesmer, they are straight bad.

I still kill dire thieves, although it’s easier to do it with a stealth trap, yes, but 4 experienced people should be able to kill them.

Not sure what your zerg experience has to do with it, but I’m doing the same actually – you have to know how the zergs will move and I don’t know how I can tell, experience or instinct, no idea. Guess it’s the same with D/D as well, there’s not much time to think.

You’re fighting really bad dire condi players then tbh, granted most of them are because of the fact they typically use it as a crutch to get free kills. A friend of mine used to run it before I taught him D/D signets. He went from being able to solo pretty much anything under a 7v1 to dying to almost anything. He’s since become quite distinguished in my book and plays a more generic D/D and D/P build these days, but for funsies he went back to dire conditions recently for a day. I watched him solo 15 people down and never drop below half. I tried the same for shiggles and lasted only a few seconds. We swapped, and our success flipped almost identically.

Really, anyone playing dire conditions has no excuse to die unless massively outnumbered by an army of mesmers all coordinating ranged stealth stunlocking and reveal traps.

And the other day I was on my elementalist when I ran into a dire p/d condition thief. I was not set up for damage but for healing support for zergs and was just running about resetting siege.

He had no chance whatsoever of ever defeating me. Nothing he had in his build could ever get past all the healing I had and the diamond skin.

When he did come out of stealth I could attack and wear him down (even as he wore dire) faster then he could wear me down . I was not wearing dire. His dire armor was not saving him. He would stealth and reset when he got near death and recover his health.

We could have fought forever me with no stealth and no dire and he with his stealth and with his dire and not gotten anywhere. That is the nature of builds structured around bunkering and sustain.

You can also get a whole pile of people trying to kill two eles who just team off one another switcihing to water in sequence . They do not need stealth or dire.

I’ll say it again, bad thief.

Really. Maybe he couldn’t kill you in particular being based to counter his build, but there is absolutely no way in hell I’d argue you should have rightfully been able to whittle him down if he played even remotely decently.

I don’t think people understand just how completely absurd dire gear is when played by any half-competent player, especially paired up with the unbelievable defense SA gives.

Well you would be wrong. He recovered from stealth not from his dire. If he did not have stealth he would have died in time because his heal can not keep up with the damage inflicted on him. It is as simple as that. If dire was as powerful as you claim no theif would ever need stealth. Dire does nothing against a condition build that Shamans does not do. The toughness on dire and vitality on dire does not give a thief more health or damage mitigation thhen what a warrior gets in solders. I can kill warriors that wear soldiers. The difference between a warrior and a thief is the stealth not the armor.

one of my current theif builds uses a blend of Shamans/Apothecary. Along with SA this guy every bit and more survivable then is your thief in dire.

I have no problems killing people in stealth. You should learn to read a post. I stated that the elementalist I was using was setup for zerg fights so as to offer healing support rather than for damage. Even at that when the thief in question came out of hiding wearing his Dire armor I outdamaged him significantly with just attacks that need a target to be used.

In order to defeat him in stealth I would need to get more damage into the build.

The stealth offers more protection because many ele attacks need a target and those that can be used AOE fashion have to hit harder because they easier to dodge and when you do it you have to make it count.

And if he was that bad as to die in dire gear, he would have died even with the stealth while playing squishier.

Unless of course, you don’t personally know how to play against stealth. And based on the fact you can easily kill a war and not a thief who is healing for pretty much the same amount while stealthed, it doesn’t sound like you know how to.

Stealth itself is only problematic on trapper thief. Otherwise it’s usually the effects associated with it like PU and SRejuv that make it over the top. Invisibility is really easy to counter once you learn how to play it and subsequently against it, though.

You obviously did not read my post. I have no issues fighting a person in stealth. I stated that I was using a build that was based around zerg support and healing rather then damage.

I pointed out that even with this low damage build compared to a thief wearing sure to maximize his conditions, when he did come out of hiding I damaged him far faster than he could me.

In order to be effective against a thief that uses stealth I would have to rely on AOE attacks coupled with stuns and the like to ensure he remained locked in that area. Since I was low damage the build in question was ineffective against a stealthed opponent as you have to make those attacks count.

I used this as example to show that other classes can make builds that are hard to kill just as a thief can.

One more time my low damage built to heal build would defeat said thief if that thief did not have stealth in spite of his Dire armor. Stealth saved him.

My ele was not in dire and could not be killed by said thief. My ele does not have stealth. Ample heals , diamond skin and oodles of condition cleanses played the major role.

Now if a mob of people showed up from the other side a thief would be able to escape such a situation better then an ele but there nothing wrong with that. There has to be advantages to picking a specific profession. For a thief one of those is stealth access.

The problem of stealth is being overstated,

I never said you shouldn’t have killed him or that he should have killed you. I said he never should have died to begin with. Please tell me if that same build can go toe-to-toe with a soldier’s warrior and win with relative ease. The warrior with HS is statistically tankier with better healing than the thief while stealthed.

AOE isn’t the be-all-end-all to counter stealth. Knowledge and skillful play against stealth are. I would estimate around 75% of my kills against thieves occur using single-target single-hit skills against them while they are still invisible. If they are particularly good, they will trick me. Otherwise, they almost always die unless they spam Shadow Shot’s blind as soon as I get near. Unless you were playing a scepter (which I doubt since you mentioned support), I really don’t see why you’d be unable to attack him.

I hate stealth. I really do. Frankly, I only use stealth because I have to for backstab to be usable. I’m a thief main and frequently request nerfs to the bonuses gained from being in stealth (across both the thief and mesmer classes). I can tell you now, though, that the problem with dire trapper thief isn’t the stealth/invisibility itself but the stats gained from dire gear and trapper runes offering way too much synergy. Think if the mesmer got traps in its elite spec. Would it be balanced as well? I don’t think so. Actually, it’d be mathematically better for them than thieves. The runes shouldn’t offer stealth, and dire gear is OP. End of story. Now trapper thief isn’t OP and if the trap buffs are substantial on the runes as an alternate effect, more traps become better.

They don’t need it. They’re still EASILY operating on their huge sales success at launch. Their studio hasn’t grown, but shrunk, since.

HoT was announced too early and not fleshed out enough to warrant any kind of third party hype. Too much information was withheld intentionally and ANet has a history of doing this. Leaking this info or being first to the scene gets clicks as some people above mentioned, and ANet doesn’t want anyone at all to know what’s going on with their game it seems. As such, it’s not worth anyone’s time to try and write “news” about nothing happening.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

OneKlicKill.4285:

Idk, it seemed like more would be coming in the future. Seemed like that was something eluded to. But its 100% not happening if they force the HP issue currently.

Actually, you’re presuming that there won’t be a combined 800 HP with HoT.

HoT could easily be providing 600 hero points -

No. Colin came out a few days ago and stated there are exactly 40 HP locations in the expansion, and that completion of the elite spec line requires 400 HP.

Omega Zoa.3859:

DeceiverX.8361:

Lazy? BS. How many hours a week do you work? I bought this game because it could still be fun with a packed schedule and not leave me in the dust as a consequence for my life taking priority and requiring most of my time and effort.

I work about 38-46 hours a week, will work more with Christmas coming up with peak. I never claimed you as a person are lazy I ment in game, the whole concept of unlocking perks for your class is too hard please give it to me on a silver plate is dumb..plus this is a free mmo..not like you are forced to squeeze in 40 hours of gameplay a week to get your months pay, slow and steady, what’s the rush?

I’d love ~40 hour work weeks again. To put it simply, my free time to play usually hovers about fifteen hours per week, which is often spent doing things like… laundry and cooking. Some weekends I get to indulge more, but unfortunately this isn’t common.

And that’s it; when I have the time to entertain myself and indulge in playing video games, I don’t want to have to work in the game to get to the fun parts. If I wanted to work to get to the “fun parts” of things, I’d just spend all of the rest of the time I have working to retire sooner. And even further, I do like to do other things with my free time than dedicate myself to a single online game.

And then, being an old person at the end of things doesn’t really sound like fun, either.

While yes, there should be a certain amount of “work” for things – accomplishments, titles, skins, and the likes – this game was designed around play-ability being number one and the achievements as mentioned above being nothing but achievements, which were intended to let some people go as far as they want to, and play the game in any way they wish to get to those goals in due time. I’d like to think of unlocking things being more appropriate to aesthetics and minor details rather than preventing access to an entire way of playing said content.

While I’d be okay with 400 HP to unlock the specializations account-wide, it’s just the need to put forth such an immense effort per character feels completely unnecessary and arbitrarily labor/time-intensive, not to mention account-based systems would scale better into the future with yet-released specializations. It’s not like the story progression gives any reason for the specializations to be unlocked, either. The gating is just arbitrary for people to be locked into playing the new content.

Omega Zoa.3859:

“Years” well again right back you you have no knowledge as well..for all you know it will take 1 to 2 days. Honestly this whole ordeal has blown out of the water, as a community we have become really lazy over the course of 3 years of no progression and have really gotten used to having everything unlocked for us the whole concept of actually working to unlock perks for your class? What heresy!

EDIT: also the whole arguement of alts is just..no..in the end alts are characters that you have to progress as well..just because they are alts does exclude them for a free pass or content made easier.

Except we do. Each mastery requires 16 million exp to max out, and you need 200k experience to level up at level 80, and dungeons will not provide HoT mastery experience. All of this is information that has been announced and confirmed by ANet staff or was available in the BWE’s. Therefore, basic math dictates that in order to max out a given mastery, one must level up 800 times per mastery.

So a HP is locked behind a maxed glide and then a maxed mushroom hop. Looks like you need 1600 level-ups to get it, only attainable by doing events in the HoT maps.

That is indeed one hell of a grind, even while the masteries are account bound, and still doesn’t change the fact that one has to still run around and collect them all or do map completion in Tyria multiple times over, which again, is repeating the same task for each character in a very similar way over each similar map.

Lazy? BS. How many hours a week do you work? I bought this game because it could still be fun with a packed schedule and not leave me in the dust as a consequence for my life taking priority and requiring most of my time and effort.

Omega Zoa.3859:

Paulash.5814:

Omega Zoa.3859:

Sigh…people forgot the meaning of “grindwall” Each HP will have some tweak to it and it’s not all located in one spot repeating over and over again for days on end..I played a mmo where I frikkin cut trees for 2 months just for a cape..that is a grindwall…this? Not even.

Eyyy, fellow Runescape veteran

Eyyyyy, buying gf amirite?

But honestly this is not bad. With a little bit of time you will unlock everything m8 not like it will take you weeks on end. Maybe a day or 2

It’s bad when you have to do it for each character beyond the first, though. Then it’s repeating the same tasks over and over.

There’s also no knowledge about how many will be quickly accessible. It’s entirely possible many of them will be locked behind masteries which may take months or possibly years to acquire fully.