Guild Wars 2

Valkyrie
Zealot
Paragon

all better than Dragonhunter, in order of preference.

Valkyrie in particular I like due to the changes to the virtues. You throw a SPEAR of light for F1, you get WINGS and fly into combat for F2, and you SHIELD your allies with F3. Spear, Shield, Wings, sounds like Valkyrie to me.

Azan.6094:

Putting aside the drop rate and other conspiracy theories – I’m reading this thread (and other similar) and see a lot of complains about the way ANet decided to distribute beta passes. And I find a lot of them really immature :/

I like that they decided to do this this way. Last time it was said that they are going to choose “among active players and loyal customers”. Meaning: among these that spend the most time and/or money on gw2. Ofcourse I did not get in…

Well, I have a job and other responsibilities in rl – I’m already spending in this game more time than I probably should. What I want to say is why should I be penalized for having a life outside the game?? I’m sure there are a lot of people who can play only few hours a week, they would never get into beta because compared to these who spend 10+ hours PER DAY they are not considered “active”. So yes, I think this idea is much better.

Besides, hello people – it’s BETA! You will get all the content and more then the HoT will come out. Shees, you complain like they are giving out free copies of the game….

no. RNG is stupid way to do it.

#1. You’ll get people who won’t be able to even show up for the test, because they’ll have work or be out of town, etc. That’s a waste of an invite.
#2. Some people just farm those areas for the amber weapons, luminescent armor, or just for gold and have no interest in beta, they may get portals and cannot trade them or give them away, another waste of an invite.
#3. People are getting multiple invites, and again, cannot give extras to other people.

as for “it’s only a beta” there are a few reasons why it’s not just something to brush off.

#1. This is our time to see changes in effect before they go live, if something completely breaks the game for us, we can give feedback on it and hopefully get it changed to where it doesn’t do that. You know how when changes are announced people forsee problems with it and then a bunch of people say “well it’s not even in game yet u don’t no if its relly dat bad” or “don’t cross that bridge until you come to it”, yeah when we have no say in the matter and those changes hit and we cross that bridge, there’s a pretty strong tendency that Anet won’t remove the bridge once it’s built and people crossed it, and if they DO fix it, it’s going to take at least a year for it to come as a part of a feature pack. Fiery Greatsword went from being a powerful, fun elite for damage, to something that is only used to mimic 2 warrior GS abilities for “mobility”, as people predicted ahead of time, but hey, “just wait and c, it’ll still b gud anet said so!” right? Now they’re talking about giving the same treatment to our other 2 good conjures.. But anyway, for ANY change or new content added, betas are your time to tell the devs “this doesn’t fly” and you have a much better chance at getting it changed before it launches.

#2. This game isn’t getting any new content or things to do until HoT pretty much, that can be a long time of nothing but the same stale content every day. Being able to participate in betas is at least something fresh. Because for those of us not getting to do beta, what’s our motivation to play? “NEW ESPORTS TOURNY! COME WATCH THE ACTION ON TWITCH!”… yeah…

Ugh, that’s the worst part of this RNG part.. people will get multiples, and they can’t sell or give away the extras or anything.. just vendor for 25 silver and doesn’t that mean someone else doesn’t get an invite, are they limited?

I have to ask, does magic find affect the chance of getting a portal? If so my farming of Dry Top for geodes is probably counterproductive..

Yeah, when I see gravity well that’s essentially what I wanted Tornado to be. But now that mesmers are getting it, that means Eles won’t get anything like that and Tornado will continue to be garbage.

When Jon Peters talks about each class getting “something cool” I guess for Eles he means “something that looks cool when you’re idling in Divinity’s Reach”. Cause that’s what’ll happen with conjures and that’s basically what Tornado is.

I guess we’ll see but I thought I remembered them talking about specializations and they said it wouldn’t be a straight upgrade, that there’d be sacrifices made.

It seemed in the stream Robert never used any glamour skills though he did talk about using a reflect against the bristleback. It would have seemed obvious that feedback would have rekt that mob but he didn’t use feedback, nor any other glamours.

Either mesmers are giving up glamours or mantras.. because they can still use illusion and phantasm utilities.

Giving up glamours would be rather huge, you’d lose timewarp, which would have been a rather huge thing to continuum shift and time warp twice in a row.

Chris Cleary.8017:

I’ll go ahead and comment on this thread, as it seems to be the most recent of the HOM ones.

I’ll try to explain this without getting too technical, and some parts are probably going to have to be left out.

The bug that caused players to unlock achievements/skins/titles and achievement points was caused when the GW1 server that stores the HOM status talks to the GW2 server that controls new character creation. Basically it was sending bad data to the GW2 server, and unlocking achievements that should not have been unlocked.

This means that there were multiple problem points that need to be cleaned up. The first thing to be cleaned up was the bug that caused this to happen, and that was fixed within a few hours. However, the removal of the rewards is an entirely different problem.

We don’t have the tools to easily mass remove achievements/titles, which means it’s something that has to be developed. Unfortunately, this came at a time where our resources are tapped to the max, so it’s taking longer than we would like to fix this.

Thankfully (lol), when the HOM rewards bug was happening, the actual HOM was not accessible, and those players were not able to claim any other HOM entitlements…so the damage was somewhat limited.

We are working on this, I assure you, and we will remove the rewards from players that should not have received them. I do not have a timeframe, as modifying accounts at this type of level is not something we would ever take lightly, and as long as we keep a majority of the entitlements locked there is less for us to clean up.

Speaking of GW1 and security, there’s apparently been a mass wave of bans going on in GW1, false positives for RMT trading (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/anyone-else-just-got-perma-t10536365.html), and I’ve been reporting the same RMT spammer in the same location every day for over a week and he’s still there spamming.

Is GW1 automated to the point of even GM actions where only automatic bans are working, or is there still a few actual you know, people still working there to handle this kind of thing.

Snowball.3497:

I was assuming all stats would be put to 1000 from the current 926. I just logged in and realised healing power is not part of these base stats, wrong me

If I remember correctly did Jon say that the stat the 7% was based of was subject to change, so let’s hope for that

Hopefully. Because only celestial eles will ever have any healing power.

If it was from a stat that we normally would have 1000 of base, 70 ferocity is better than nothing. Really though as a staff ele, what the hell adept trait will I take? None of them are that useful because I don’t attune to air often so the super speed is .. well, minimal benefit, staff only has 1 reliable aura, I suppose you could be dumb and take the fire aura on signet use adept trait in fire instead of burning on crit .. but otherwise, you’d have to blast finish your chill field, or take tempest defense and get stunned to have an aura for the aura trait.

Quin Marino.6384:

I’m honestly shocked (bad pun, I know) that air training’s 10% modifier didn’t get merged into fresh air. In my opinion, Ferocious Winds needs to be removed (this trait just won’t ever be worth bringing in any game mode, ferocity is just too weak of a stat and healing power has no synergy with it), Bolt to the Heart should be moved down to adept tier, add 10% modifier while in air to fresh air, and then find a new grandmaster trait as an alternative. Otherwise I can’t see fresh air specs ever being worthwhile to run in pve or pvp.

Yeah I don’t see many fresh air eles having a substantial amount of healing power anywhere.

Jerus.4350:

Devildoc.6721:

I wouldn’t just say nerfed I’d say run into the ground. I didn’t notice how hard hit D/F was until I started looking at the air traits again.

I think there’s not even a “spirit” of that build left when so much damage has been stripped from it.

Yeah I was like “hey it’s not that bad, we got the water tree instead of earth and BttH” but losing Air Training too!? Ugh. And is vital striking gone as well? If so we’re losing like 26-27% in modifiers and gaining 2% per boon, which could add up to a bit, but not 26%!

Well Vital striking is there it’s in the Aquamancer trait that reduces water skill cooldowns..

But the loss of Bolt to the Heart and Aeromancer Training is pretty huge, Bountiful Power will not make up 30% damage.

I wouldn’t just say nerfed I’d say run into the ground. I didn’t notice how hard hit D/F was until I started looking at the air traits again.

I think there’s not even a “spirit” of that build left when so much damage has been stripped from it.

Best use of conjures now will be for sitting around bored at the mystic forge in Lion’s Arch or the Dwayna Statue in divinity’s reach, just like we do with flame axe and earth shield now.

You’re right. D/F fresh air builds got wrecked with the bolt to the heart change.

Staff campfire build is pretty much the only thing left now.

zombyturtle.5980:

So with no more stone splinters and air training my current ele build will take a 20% dps nerf from traits. Not so fun. But then again I haven’t studied the traits that extensively and I am no buildcrafter.

Have I missed something? What will ele get that compensates for this dps loss?

PvE ele btw, not that interested in wvw or pvp

Aeromancer only worked when you were in Air attunement, but stone splinters is gone so this IS a 10% dps nerf for some eles.

Laraley.7695:

With all the PS warriors around and prestacking…people will just run staff.

and people do that, they are both viable alternatives, if your group has 2 warriors 1 runs gs dps build, the other runs ps build, if your group has 2 eles 1 runs staff, the other runs scepter/focus LH, if you have 2 of each well.. you’ll figure it out but it is nice to have 2 meta builds per class in that situation so there’s options, not a lot of classes have multiple meta builds currently.

Change to LH may remove one of Ele’s meta builds. D/F is decent, but it’d probably just be better to have 2 staff eles than have a D/F.

Fade.1743:

It isn’t in its current form. Seeing as utilities and traits are getting a look over to be more viable, do you really think that weapon skills aren’t as well?

Possibly, but if you change scepter into a full condi weapon you kill S/F fresh air builds.

For reference: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_S/F_LH

Scepter isn’t really a condi weapon though, it has 2 autoattacks that are condi based (earth and fire), water is just weak across the board it’s just low damage, and air auto being a channel is just .. bad.

The rest of the skills are all burst and scepter has great burst damage, it’s just in any prolonged fight its damage falls off because those 2 and 3 skills aren’t off cooldown yet and you’re using terrible autoattacks.

Fade.1743:

Devildoc.6721:

Fade.1743:

Lightning Hammer was boring as hell and you only used it for the auto-attack.

Remember that the nerfs and buffs are being considered in conjunction with the Elite Spec. Which we only know is called Tempest and MAY wield a sword that’s an actual melee weapon. Considering that possibility, I can see why LH was brought down.

It absolutely kills scepter builds that focus on stacking might though, because scepter sustained damage is A WkittenL.

Since the advent of Phalanx Strength, Staff Ele meta, and Zehlyn’s D/F build, what life did Scepter builds have in PvE? They had the burst of LH, but that was not unique to Scepter.

Now, remember there are a lot of changes coming to condition builds and Scepter could be retuned to be our Condition weapon (since Burning now stacks as well). We also don’t know the full range of changes made to Ele and the entire game.

Until we get into an actual beta weekend event, there’s NO reason to judge the future of the profession based on changes that aren’t finalized. It’s an exercise in futility at this point. Once a large playerbase gets to interact with everything, THEN we should look to judge and critique how things ACTUALLY play rather than how we THINK they’ll play.

We saw how well “just be patient it’s not live yet” worked out for Tornado, Stacking Stability, and Fiery Rush, didn’t we?

Jon Peters talks about builds that are “lost in spirit”, here is one potentially.

If Lightning hammer is gutted too much, eles won’t be viable for might stacking anymore, because stacking might is best done with scepter, but scepter personal damage is low. Lightning Hammer is used to make up for the low damage of scepter. If the damage is too much lower than what a staff ele can put out, you can kiss might stacking eles goodbye, because people will not take a Scepter Ele into dungeons just to stack might and do terrible DPS, it’s too much of a sacrifice to make.

So please don’t give LH the “fiery rush” treatment.

Fade.1743:

Lightning Hammer was boring as hell and you only used it for the auto-attack.

Remember that the nerfs and buffs are being considered in conjunction with the Elite Spec. Which we only know is called Tempest and MAY wield a sword that’s an actual melee weapon. Considering that possibility, I can see why LH was brought down.

It absolutely kills scepter builds that focus on stacking might though, because scepter sustained damage is A WkittenL.

Yeah well, you can see the treatment when something is “problematic” when you look at Fiery Rush. Nerfed into oblivion.

Yup, seems like anet agreed with OP, or maybe we just agreed with what Anet was already planning on doing.

So with upcoming nerfs to Lightning Hammer and Ice Bow to bring them “in line” with Flame Axe and Earth Shield, that basically means they’re being smiter’s booned and taken out of play entirely, because nobody uses Flame axe or earth shield, so OBVIOUSLY the way to deal with ice bow and lightning hammer is to make them not be used too.

Not only does this hurt staff ele PVE (who uses ice bow), but it absolutely cripples Scepter might stacking ele PVE (who uses Lightning Hammer to make up for the terrible sustained damage of scepter)

Why couldn’t they bring Shield and Axe and Greatsword UP to Bow and Hammer’s usefulness, instead of reducing them all to the status of Fiery GS, which is now used for “mobility” great, an elite slot wasted for whirlwind attack and rush, 2 normal warrior weapon skills.

Another question… with the transition from skill points to hero points.. how does this affect skill points for the mystic forge and legendary weapons?

Question 1 (most important): How does an elite specialization getting an offhand weapon with only 2 skills balance with an elite specialization getting a 2hander with 5 new skills. Offhand weapons tend to have really long cooldowns so they have less overall impact.

Question 2: Some of the traits that are getting culled are actually ones that are getting used and traits that are remaining are ones that people would have preferred seen culled. From the example of water magic that we saw today, one of my favorite traits, vital striking, is getting culled, why and where can we make up that 10% dps loss?

Metas are 6/4/0/2/2 or 6/4/2/0/2 (your choice of more damage at range as long as you’re 90% health or more or more damage within 600 units) for staff. Both rely on persistent flames. I don’t do staff for pvp except wvw.

BlackBeard.2873:

The whole class is balanced as though every build has mandatory (and OP traits) in arcana. Without those traits, the class is a joke, while with them it is competitive. This is terrible design, honestly.

It’s like saying “you can choose from all these customizations for you car…You have the customization that adds and engine and wheels (arcana), and customizations that will put a nifty spoiler on there or give you an extra cup-holder (other lines).” There isn’t REALLY choice.

A lot of meta builds only go 2 in arcana for PVE (just for blasting staff really)

When you put it that way I kind of agree. It also makes the radius of individual meteors larger (without making the total area larger, increasing the chance that meteors hit), it really is detrimental to use staff but not blasting staff, I rarely do it, and only in PVE.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

In this pre-expansion period, players are anxious for content to help pass the time. I think a WvW tournament would help invigorate the WvW scene, draw in a few otherwise apathetic PvE’ers, and give everyone a small boost of AP and some of those Hero’s and Mistforged Hero’s skins to boot.

It would be a good chance to get a final rush of players into the Mist War before the current borderlands get pulled out for the new one, and it is probably one of the least-demanding forms of content that could be implemented.

So, how about it? Would anyone else like to see another WvW tourney?

Yes please. Something I can participate in. I’m getting tired of all the sPvP esports tournaments where we’re somehow supposed to be excited to go watch something on twitch rather than play the game.

This isn’t even Anise’s outfit. The skirt is different and there’s no mantle.

Blacktalon.5681:

Devildoc.6721:

Blacktalon.5681:

I really feel that Legendaries need to be more powerful. More stats, some type of specific power to that item( Ex. Thunderfury had 40%ish chance to proc 5 tornadoes that would attack closest targets, drawing a lot of threat), and overall more damage. IMO, a legendary should do more than 5% extra damage and stats.

That’s not how Guild Wars works.

If you make legendaries more powerful you take them from being optional grinds to necessary grinds if you want speedrun groups to take you in dungeons or want to be on the same level as other players using them in wvw.

Even if you only did procs on legendaries, you could make them pve only procs. It doesn’t have to influence PVP or WVW.

Still does not fit with the spirit of Guild Wars, where statistically people are on an even field, for both pve and pvp, it’s just style and cosmetics that separate the people who have spent more time and money from those who haven’t.

If you don’t think the skins and projectile effects and particle effects are enough to warrant the grind, don’t do it. it’s optional.

Blacktalon.5681:

I really feel that Legendaries need to be more powerful. More stats, some type of specific power to that item( Ex. Thunderfury had 40%ish chance to proc 5 tornadoes that would attack closest targets, drawing a lot of threat), and overall more damage. IMO, a legendary should do more than 5% extra damage and stats.

That’s not how Guild Wars works.

If you make legendaries more powerful you take them from being optional grinds to necessary grinds if you want speedrun groups to take you in dungeons or want to be on the same level as other players using them in wvw.

TwanBr.8340:

It does need to have its own queue yes. It won’t be as enjoyable as it has been during this public beta if it doesn’t have a separate queue (due to other builds and team setups, getting fed up with other game modes; or the other way around, getting fed up with Stronghold if you prefer Conquest).
I would rather wait longer for my queue for this to pop than to be forced to wait even longer by having to wait full matches of Conquest before being able to play Stronghold.

Yeah it’s gonna end up like courtyard where people vote AGAINST it so you don’t get it when you want it.

I think this might be my favorite pvp map/mode out of all of them but it makes me sad that when this beta event is over, and the expansion goes live, it will be in the regular unranked queue mix, with skyhammer, courtyard, and spirit watch. I dread to think of how many times I’ll have to queue, vote, and go through matches just to play 1 stronghold match, when I’d prefer just to be able to queue for a ranked or unranked stronghold match by itself.

I too like that anet devs have good visibility and you can follow them and see that they actually play the game quite a bit. Too often with MMO’s you question changes that are implemented in the game and feel like “do the devs even play this game? Why would they do this?” When those devs do play they’re on secret accounts in private guilds and often in invisible mode or something, and the only “devs” you ever see in those games are just GM’s, moderators, not actual developers. But here at Arenanet, you can easily see Hugh Norfolk, one of the PVP developers at Arenanet, in heart of the mists, queuing for matches, playing PVP, maybe even on your team or against you, and it’s encouraging to see that the devs are playing the same game we are, and they’re a friendly sort.

I try not to bother them too much but from time to time I might axe a question.

I don’t see why they’d try to restrict something like that, it has no combat applications, and the amount of loot containers you get doing content makes it so that clicking through all of it is obnoxious.

Should just have a “use all” option in the right click menu.

this game has so many QoL improvements, but they dropped the ball with how many containers you have to click open in your inventory.

mtpelion.4562:

Unless they put in a detect/block feature for very fast keystrokes, it is most likely related to your rebind software, not GW2. Did you check to see if the rebind works outside of the game?

Yes, I did. I’m thinking the game now detects if a button is pressed too rapidly.

I used to open stacks of bags by binding my mouse scroll wheel to left click so that I could just spin my scroll wheel to chew through a stack of loot bags or luck all at once without getting carpal tunnel or breaking my mouse’s left click.

But it’s not working anymore. Is it just me or did they make a change for everyone?

reapex.8546:

Devildoc.6721:

So what about the other story mode dungeons? It’s relatively hard to find a group for those now because people just farm explorables (hopefully SOMEONE in group has unlocked explorable..), and they’re required for some traits.

Just advertise with the LFG tool

I’ve advertised for over an hour at a time with no results for HotW story and CoE story.

The new trait acquisition (well I guess it’s not new now it’s almost a year old) is junk.

The announcement of HoT was done at a time for maximum hype and yet was poor planning for actual pacing of the game. Ideally it would have been announced sooner and with more living story updates to keep players occupied until shortly before release.

Instead we finish off living story and have had nothing but 1 festival and a bunch of esports tournaments to keep us occupied until HoT launch.

Sorry but that doesn’t really hold interest.

Most of your playerbase wants to play the game not watch stupid esports tournaments on twitch. Most of your playerbase couldn’t possibly care less about esports.

We need something for us to do, not something to watch on twitch between now and HoT launch.

BobbyStein.2315:

F.A.Q.
Q: I’ve never beaten the Personal Story step “Victory or Death” because it required me to play in a group. Are you making any changes to the final fight against Zhaitan?
A: Yes. With this release, we are changing a few things about the final Personal Story step “Victory or Death.” For starters, the instance has been modified to support 1–5 players so you will no longer need a full party to complete it. We have converted the story mode of “The Ruined City of Arah” dungeon to be a Personal Story step, so after this update goes live, you may only play it once as part of your Personal Story. We are also unlocking the explorable mode of this dungeon by default so access will no longer be gated by story mode completion. We are also updating the Ruined City of Arah Dungeon Track to be unlocked by story mode or explorable mode completion. Additionally, the “Master of Arah” achievement is being updated to only require completion of explorable mode paths. Please note that the core gameplay and structure of this story instance has not been changed—the difficulty has been adjusted to allow for solo play and will therefore be more accessible for players.

Q: Can I reset my character’s Personal Story progress, or revert my story progress to an earlier state?
A: No. You cannot reset your character’s story progress, either partially or fully.

Q: Why can’t I reset my character’s Personal Story progress?
A: The Personal Story was not designed to be replayable. Attempting to adjust a character’s story progress introduces a wide variety of bugs across various content and game systems. We investigated different solutions for partial and full story resets. In all cases, the changes led to unpredictable results in many different content types, including permanent blocking of story progress.

Q: If I can’t reset my character’s Personal Story progress, does that mean I can’t play certain parts of the restored Personal Story?
A: That depends on what Personal Story state your character is in when the Personal Story restoration goes live. Consult the scenarios above for more details. Also, all newly created characters will be eligible to play the restored Personal Story in its entirety.

Q: How long do I have to advance my character’s story past “The Source of Orr”?
A: While we haven’t set a release date at this time, we can confirm that you will have at least 8 weeks from the time of this posting to complete “The Source of Orr”, should you want to advance to step 1 of chapter 8, “Temple of the Forgotten God.” Otherwise, as stated above, you may miss out on much of chapter 8 with this character.

Q: What new voice-over is going into the game?
A: We wanted to update some key lines for several characters in the Personal Story, including those of Trahearne, the Pale Tree, Tonn, and Apatia. In some cases, we are merely re-recording the existing lines to get a more appropriate delivery to match context. In other cases, we are rewriting character dialog to better fit a particular scene.

Q: What should I do if I encounter issues after the Personal Story restoration goes live?
A: If you are experiencing any issues regarding the Personal Story restoration content that aren’t listed above, you can contact Customer Service for help.

Q: I have more questions about this update. Who can I ask?
A: Feel free to post your Personal Story restoration questions in this thread, and we will do our best to answer them in a timely fashion. You can also consult the Personal Story pages on the official wiki for information about each chapter and story step.

We’ll be posting more information closer to release. Thanks for your patience and all of your excellent Personal Story feedback over the past few months.

So what about the other story mode dungeons? It’s relatively hard to find a group for those now because people just farm explorables (hopefully SOMEONE in group has unlocked explorable..), and they’re required for some traits.

Faereilos.5106:

When Anet released free, bi-weekly content people complained there was too much to do. Now Anet is working on the expansion that a lot of players wanted (and willing to pay for), people complain there’s no new content. It’s impossible to please everyone…

It’s about pacing really.

Biweekly content for 3 months and then a 6 month gap or more is terrible pacing.

Instead you could have gone content every 6 weeks and never had a really long gap.

thefinnster.7105:

anyone else getting fed up waiting for something else to do ?
just what exactly are Anet doing with all that income from gem sales atm ? surely not useing it for heart of thorns coz i thought we where paying for that on release

i for one am refusing to buy any more gems till you lot start with the regular content again your just taking the kitten with this lack of content you want that income from gem sales but your not willing to give us anything for it and don’t dare say your spending that money on HoT production coz if that’s the case i want it for free since we have already paid for it

Ive said it before and ill say it again Anet has handled the whole HoT production/release badly mebey next expansion you will remember The 6P Principle (Proper Planing Prevents kitten Poor Performance) get it together Anet give us something to do

They really dropped the ball, instead of announcing HoT DURING Living story and then continuing to add new content while we waited, they announced HoT at the END of living story and expect to hold our attention with gem store sales and ESPORTS tournaments.

Because of this all I’ve been doing lately is dailies and then logging out to play something else like TESO.

I couldn’t care less about watching esports streams on Twitch, I’m here to play a game not watch other people play a game, but all the content is stale, I’ve done all of it enough times that it’s just lost its charm.

and it’s going to be this way for another 6 months.

Nothing but freaking Esports tournaments.

Ricky Da Man.5064:

My problem with ESO is it sways too much to the MMO side..

The combat (while you can block and swing your sword etc) Is all about the skill bar, that is about as anti TES as it gets..

They changed the way ultimate is generated so that now you have to weave in normal attacks to generate ultimate so you can use your elite skills.

The whole game is level gated..

This much is true and I do think TESO would have been a prime candidate for a levelless system (just having skill line levels and skill levels instead, they DO have skill levels and skill line levels but they also have character level on top)

Entire zones are blocked off by quests.

You can tell you haven’t played since beta. Due to feedback in beta they removed the quest gating for going to different zones within the faction’s areas. When you get out of the tutorial in coldharbor now you spawn in the 2nd or 3rd zone’s capital city, with the option of going back and doing the starter islands (generally a good idea to gain xp, but not necessary if you don’t want), and you can also travel to any of that factions’ zones freely. You can’t go to the other faction’s zones until you finish the main story (and then you do one faction’s zones, followed by the next), and Cyrodiil has a level 10 requirement, and Craglorn has a VR1 requirement, and Coldharbor is quest gated (and the Fighters Guild and Mage’s Guild final places (earth forge and eyevea respectively) are quest gated). But commonly if I make a new Aldmeri Dominion character, I will run/ride from Vulkhel Guard to Rawl’Kha in Reaper’s March (level 40ish area) with ease, and I’ll run around and snag overworld skyshards to give myself a boost in skill points, just because I can.

NPC’s are static lifeless objects..

NPC’s move around at least within the building they’re in. Not as much of a routine as single player TES game NPC’s, but more than most MMO NPC’s that actually do stand rooted in place. Heck the NPC’s moving around and looking in different directions is very important for being able to steal and pick lockboxes.

Enemies are static lifeless objects..

This is true of essentially every MMO’s NPC’s, with the exception of event enemies. Guild Wars 2 is no less guilty of having mobs just standing there waiting for you to kill them for xp with no real purpose, just mobs standing there in the middle of nowhere spaced about 10 feet apart to make sure you can’t get immersed in the game because it’s too obviously a game rather than a real wilderness area (how often do you go out in the woods and see wolves and bears every 10 feet?)

the zone layout is bad, you should have access to all of your alliance zones from the first starter zone..

As I explained before, you do. This was true even at launch. It was only gated off in beta. They listened to beta feedback on that.

Rin.1046:

GW2 did not drive me to ESO or visa versa. I have started playing ESO recently only because I enjoyed the ES universe and I played the demo, which I enjoyed. I am level 8 so far, and I am finding it fun. Whether it remains fun at max level I do not know, but the game is large enough to keep me occupied for a long while, especially as I will not be commiting as much time to it as I do with GW2.

I have no intention of leaving GW2 for ESO, as I feel GW2 is a far FAR superior and more entertaining game. But ESO is enjoyable and is a fun enough distraction for when I fancy playing something different for a while. It will never replace GW2, but I will continue to play ESO from time to time.

Only problem with the “max level” of TESO is that it’s currently a rather long process. Like, you can play through your alliances’ zones fairly casually and enjoy them, and then you get to the end of the main storyline, hit level “50” (actually VR1) which is the “level cap” (and it eventually will actually be the level cap), but you’re not max level yet, people won’t take you in raids, you’ll be underpowered in veteran dungeons, and in PVP, because many people will be the equivalent of 13 levels higher than you.

You have to go through the process of questing through the 2 other alliances zones as well, to reach VR10.. and then you’re still not done, cap is VR14.. you can do all the quests in Cyrodiil and get somewhere in VR11… and you’re still not done. You can get with a group and do all the quests in craglorn short of the 3 trials.. MAYBE hitting VR12.

Still 2 ranks short.

All you can do at that point is soul sucking grind.

That’s the worst part about the current game.

However ZoS is doing something rater rare, if not unprecedented, and they’ve been moving in this direction since launch actually because people have not liked the Veteran Rank system. They’re removing it, effectively lowering the cap down to 50 (with the Champion system then fully replacing it as a horizontal progression system). I’ve never seen an MMO actually lower its level cap after launch. This means that once you complete the initial set of zones and finish the main story, You’ll have the OPTION of going into the other 2 alliance’s zones (for more xp in the champion system), or you can jump into PVP and be on the same level as other people in the map, or into craglorn.

You’ll still gain benefit from champion points yes and need to gain more, but, you’ll be able to wear the high level gear and be considered the same level as the bosses for damage calculation rather than having a random miss chance added to all your attacks and be crit on every attack you take.

This makes the Cadwells silver/gold lines go from instead of being required (unless you just aoe grind mobs from VR1 to VR14), to being optional Solo Player end game. (along with new soloable DLC zones they’re planning on releasing)

So there will be end game for solo PVE, group PVE, raid PVE, and PVP, which I’m looking forward to.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Devildoc.6721:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Devildoc.6721:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Devildoc.6721:

ronpierce.2760:

Why in the world are people afraid it’ll break PVP? Full stacks of bleed can be washed off like its nothing, let alone the incoming Resistance Boon. Not to mention, I don’t know anyone who can “easily” stack 25 bleeds in a realistic pvp setting alone. So essentially this will just make it so people can play together. If you get that many stacks from being ganged up on, it’s fine to die… Power players would have had you killed seconds sooner.

100 stacks of bleed will kill you before you can cleanse them on many classes. 1 tick and you’d be dead on an Ele, Thief, or Guardian even, it’s about 13000 damage a tick at that big of a stack with a good amount of condi damage.

And the equivalent amount of focus from non-condition builds wouldn’t kill you before you can cleanse an immobilize? The highest bleed skill in the game is Flurry (warrior sword burst) with 12 bleeds. To hit 100 bleed stacks, you have to have 8 Warriors simultaneously bursting you at a minimum (including the bleed on crit trait).

I’m sorry, but if you eat 8 burst skills simultaneously, you should die stupidly fast. It doesn’t matter what those skills are.

read my edit. This is the situation that concerns me. It’s epidemic when used on a legendary or champion keep lord while the other side is trying to defend it. It’s impossible for 1 person to stack 100 bleeds, it’d be very easy for 40 people to stack 100 bleeds, they’d be able to do it in just a few seconds, and then the epidemics start one shotting people.

Then perhaps some effort would start being made to supporting the Lord. Cleanses work just as well on him as anyone else. In the case of lord defenses, I have never seen a situation where both an Epedemic could copy that much and there were players around for those conditions to be copied to that weren’t going to die in a couple seconds anyway.

@tigirius.9014: Not sure Chill matters who’s stack is who’s, since the condition’s effectiveness doesn’t scale with anything.

I’ve been in plenty of zerg vs zerg fights right on the stonemist castle keep lord, where warriors are bannering to keep him up and fighting in that room with arrowcart support, etc.

I can easily see situations where epidemic is just one shotting people with the unlimited bleed stacking.

Three things:

1. Are the Lord’s condition stacks getting high? Most of the time when there is a defending zerg, the answer is “no.”

2. Are any within 600 range of their allied Lord? Typically, if the condition stacks are getting high, the answer is again “no.”

3. Are any that would get conditions transferred to them not going to die rapidly to even 20 stacks of bleed + burning and poison? Given the Lord is the focus of the heaviest fire, the vast majority of the time, the answer is “no.”

The answer to all three of those has to be “yes” for Epidemic to kill the way you are suggesting will be a problem post-cap removal.

aoe condition cleanses are limited to 5 targets and will target players in your own group or other players before targetting an NPC, so yes, condition stacks can get high on a legendary boss while your zerg is defending it. Remember there’s a lot of ways to stack bleed., even autoattacks stack it.

GummiBear.2756:

Devildoc.6721:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Devildoc.6721:

ronpierce.2760:

Why in the world are people afraid it’ll break PVP? Full stacks of bleed can be washed off like its nothing, let alone the incoming Resistance Boon. Not to mention, I don’t know anyone who can “easily” stack 25 bleeds in a realistic pvp setting alone. So essentially this will just make it so people can play together. If you get that many stacks from being ganged up on, it’s fine to die… Power players would have had you killed seconds sooner.

100 stacks of bleed will kill you before you can cleanse them on many classes. 1 tick and you’d be dead on an Ele, Thief, or Guardian even, it’s about 13000 damage a tick at that big of a stack with a good amount of condi damage.

And the equivalent amount of focus from non-condition builds wouldn’t kill you before you can cleanse an immobilize? The highest bleed skill in the game is Flurry (warrior sword burst) with 12 bleeds. To hit 100 bleed stacks, you have to have 8 Warriors simultaneously bursting you at a minimum (including the bleed on crit trait).

I’m sorry, but if you eat 8 burst skills simultaneously, you should die stupidly fast. It doesn’t matter what those skills are.

read my edit. This is the situation that concerns me. It’s epidemic when used on a legendary or champion keep lord while the other side is trying to defend it. It’s impossible for 1 person to stack 100 bleeds, it’d be very easy for 40 people to stack 100 bleeds, they’d be able to do it in just a few seconds, and then the epidemics start one shotting people.

So epidemic is the problem? well why should all condi builds be hampered to not allow full effect because of ONE skill? quite simple if a target has well lets say more than the 25 of a condition, it only copy 25 stacks, nice and easily fixed (there will OBVIOUSLY be tweaks to some condi skills and specially condi-using skills, just like there were changes to stab skills when they introduced the new stab mechanic

Yes, Epidemic is the main problem.

Relatively short cooldown and it copies all conditions from target to 5 nearby targets.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Devildoc.6721:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Devildoc.6721:

ronpierce.2760:

Why in the world are people afraid it’ll break PVP? Full stacks of bleed can be washed off like its nothing, let alone the incoming Resistance Boon. Not to mention, I don’t know anyone who can “easily” stack 25 bleeds in a realistic pvp setting alone. So essentially this will just make it so people can play together. If you get that many stacks from being ganged up on, it’s fine to die… Power players would have had you killed seconds sooner.

100 stacks of bleed will kill you before you can cleanse them on many classes. 1 tick and you’d be dead on an Ele, Thief, or Guardian even, it’s about 13000 damage a tick at that big of a stack with a good amount of condi damage.

And the equivalent amount of focus from non-condition builds wouldn’t kill you before you can cleanse an immobilize? The highest bleed skill in the game is Flurry (warrior sword burst) with 12 bleeds. To hit 100 bleed stacks, you have to have 8 Warriors simultaneously bursting you at a minimum (including the bleed on crit trait).

I’m sorry, but if you eat 8 burst skills simultaneously, you should die stupidly fast. It doesn’t matter what those skills are.

read my edit. This is the situation that concerns me. It’s epidemic when used on a legendary or champion keep lord while the other side is trying to defend it. It’s impossible for 1 person to stack 100 bleeds, it’d be very easy for 40 people to stack 100 bleeds, they’d be able to do it in just a few seconds, and then the epidemics start one shotting people.

Then perhaps some effort would start being made to supporting the Lord. Cleanses work just as well on him as anyone else. In the case of lord defenses, I have never seen a situation where both an Epedemic could copy that much and there were players around for those conditions to be copied to that weren’t going to die in a couple seconds anyway.

@tigirius.9014: Not sure Chill matters who’s stack is who’s, since the condition’s effectiveness doesn’t scale with anything.

I’ve been in plenty of zerg vs zerg fights right on the stonemist castle keep lord, where warriors are bannering to keep him up and fighting in that room with arrowcart support, etc.

I can easily see situations where epidemic is just one shotting people with the unlimited bleed stacking.