Guild Wars 2

I gave up on LotRO because they kept kicking out level cap increases with expansions and it wasn’t just leveling and regearing, but you also had to level up a new “legendary” weapon each time too. Real pain in the butt to get attached to something and then have to throw it away, especially when it has its own leveling system you have to grind up. They also started putting in things like, relic removal scrolls to preserve your hard earned relics from your legendary weapons…. only available in the cash shop.

The worst insulting slap in the face though.. was that the expansions would launch without any new instances or raids, the whole expansion was just a new book quest storyline and 10 more levels. At level cap you were just supposed to grind skirmishes instead.

Get bent Turbine. Seriously.

The game was good up until just before they released Isengard and then I just lost interest. replacing end game legendary weapons once was forgivable, but now if I’d continued with that game I’d have had to replace them 4 more times now.

Aragorn did not replace Anduril once he got it. Frodo never replaced Sting, Gandalf carried Glamdring for over 60 years. The whole point of the system was to have a legendary weapon like Anduril, Sting, or Glamdring, and it would level with you, and be its own quest hub, yadda yadda. Great idea, horrible implementation.

I’m happy to see that GW2 values the effort to create a Legendary Weapon in this game.

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.

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 actually, that’s with very MODEST amount of condi damage (1700, relatively easy to obtain, just an average figure to account for some of the stacks having very low condi damage while others have higher)

Higher amounts of condition damage will begin to one shot the medium health classes, and the low health classes even without being zerker. And mind you that’s ONLY the bleed, there’d also be burning poison, stacks of torment, and confusion all on top. Probably capable of killing anyone but a full soldiers or sentinels warrior in 1-2 ticks.

This is in a situation of using epidemic on a keep lord in WvW, it’d basically 1 shot 5 people for each necro casting epidemic.

Shiren.9532:

Nike.2631:

Reward after effort.

Radical!

The comparison the devs made was Metroid. In Metroid (at least the ones I played) you find hidden parts of the world (and some not so hidden) where an upgrade is obtained which allows you to go back to past parts (or progress to future parts) by utilising your new upgrade. This is similar to Zelda games, where you find a new weapon or ability and it has a unique mechanic which allows you to progress or traverse obstacles you couldn’t before.

Notice nowhere in there did I say you need to grind out experience or kills with your new abilities before you can use them? The ‘effort’ that precedes the reward is obtaining the upgrade in the first place. In the Stress Test area, some of the Mastery Orbs were decently challenging to acquire. I consider that to be effort, and these are the Orbs in the very first area of the expansion, obviously later ones will be more difficult.

Personally I found the Mastery System to be one of the weaker features of the Stress Test. Before the expansion, and even now after playing it, I am not convinced that grinding exp after unlocking a tier with Mastery Orbs is the system GW2 deserves. It feels like clunky old MMO design, stuck in the past with grind that is completely unrelated to the Masteries you are unlocking.

Ability progression works really well in other games without the extra grind GW2 is currently using. I know we are bringing an adventure/action/exploration system into an MMO, but I believe there is probably a better way to go about it. Mike O’Brien talked about how rasing the level cap was the easy way out and not particularly compelling. I agree that Masteries are a much cooler idea, but I think experience grind tacked onto Masteries is the easy way out and it could be better.

Yeah the effort and challenge should be in acquiring mastery points, rather than throwing an xp grind on top of it. When you’re cycling around grinding or repeating events over and over for xp, I’m not having fun, I’m not having an adventure, I’m not exploring, I’m grinding, I’m just “going through the motions”

When I’m exploring and trying to find out how to get to an orb that looks “impossible” to get, I’m brainstorming, I’m thinking, I’m trying things out, I’m engaged with the content and if I figure it out, I feel success.

There’s no feeling of success from repeating events over and over for xp.

Vavume.8065:

It would be to easy if you didn’t have to get a level of xp per mastery point, I mean, you can get a mastery point very easily, flying 100 meters to a shrine thing, or completing a challenge that takes 2 mins, without the xp grind you would have everything unlocked in no time.
I’m fine with the way it is now, although they need to nerf the xp gain from the wyvern kill, getting half a level for a quick kill that u can log out and do again on a diff overflow instantly is just to much.

There’s a lot more mastery points needed if you’ll notice the mastery points needed to unlock skills begins to increase, like WvW traits, and some mastery points will be harder to earn. They have a few that are easy to get but did you get all 3 orbs in the demo? Every class but Revenant couldn’t get 2 of them and even Revenant could only get 1 of those 2… that we know of anyway, maybe in the full version there’ll be higher points to glide off of to make the trip or updrafts you can use or something. But for now I could only get the easy orb, and the one from bronze on the vine torching, and the starter one they just give you.

I’m sure it won’t feel like they’re just throwing them at you.

Like I said it might be better once the full expansion is out and there’s a lot more ways to get xp. This demo provided us with very few ways of acquiring xp so it felt more grindy (I was literally grinding pocket raptors in between wyvern kills for xp because the other events gave no xp)

Still, I do much prefer that when I spend skill points on a new skill, I can slot that skill on my bar and start using it. I like that when I spend a trait point, I immediately see the effect (that is the one good thing about the new trait system, spend 1 trait point and at least get a minor trait effect rather than needing to spend 5).

It wouldn’t be as exciting to spend the skill points to unlock a skill, slot it in your bar, and then have to gain enough xp for it to actually be usable.

Remember Arenanet threw out the old way of unlocking weapon skills, partially because it felt grindy.

Hopefully this doesn’t translate to PVP or WvW, conditions are already quite powerful in those modes, but they do need help in PVE. in WvW it could be really bad.

A zerg of players stacks 100 bleeds on stonemist keep lord while the defenders are trying to hold it, and then necros just start casting epidemic.

Pretty much instant killing 5 people at a time.

Not really feeling this aspect of the mastery system. When I unlock a new mastery skill by spending points in it, I want to use it, not grind until I gain enough xp to level to be able to use it.

Maybe it’ll be better when the game is actually out, but this first part many of the events weren’t giving xp and only the wyvern event gave substantial xp.

Mirta.5029:

sorudo.9054:

GW2 has absolutely none of that, what are you complaining about anyway.
the quests are dynamic (unlike dynamic events in GW2), the story is interesting (unlike GW2’s personal story) and the world is actually immersive (again, unlike GW2).
at least you have 2 guilds and you can join both of them, in GW2 you can only choose one and have no access to any of the other two. (this is NPC guilds, not player guilds )

if anything ESO actually has a true battle system, in GW2 all we have is “press button and auto pilot through enemies”.
it has the player skill part done right, GW2 is more like WoW where everything is based on gear and levels, skill has nothing to do with it.
i am quite skill-less with a warrior but i take down enemies blindfolded, try that in ESO and you’re dead regardless of your gear.

ESO: more skill based, just as GW1 is.
GW2: more gear based, just as WoW is.

just one question: what are you smoking?

GW2 is gear based, even though it’s a horizontal progression game? -_-
In what part of the game are you running into major gear differences pray tell me?

Also in ESO run a vamp/ werewolf combination, stand in Cyrodil and laugh at those silly 30 people trying to take you down.

Vampire and WW are mutually exclusive.

piano man.1672:

I just bought ESO because of B2P and, although I still believe Guild Wars 2 tops for MMOs on the market out there, ESO probably comes second.

It’s a nice break while I wait for HoT to come out. Then I’ll be stuck on that for months.

this is how I feel too. I think both games are worth playing and both games do some things better than each other but largely both do most things better than most games on the market

maddoctor.2738:

Mirta.5029:

And someone else already asked – how do you avoid grind in an MMO? How do you make sure that a player gets absolutely everything running content just once, but then stays to continue playing for years and will be patient enough to wait months until you produce more content?

The only way to keep a game interesting without using grind is to allow the players to make content. Player made content can keep a game going for lots of years.

Problem with the “sandbox” arguement is 95% of the time that’s just open world PVP. There’s nothing to do in the world itself so people just PVP.

maddoctor.2738:

Beldin.5498:

Devildoc.6721:

But anyway I’m rather frustrated with Anet right now because they’re literally expecting to hold our attention with Esports tournaments until HoT.

Thats what we got because of people always crying : give us an expack .. LS is crap
i’d rather have an expack every x years instead of that.

Would be interesting what happens if ANet stops LS also after the release of HoT
and when the first people have rushed through it in 2 weeks, and we get no
more updates for the next two years ^^

It’s a matter of bad timing really, according to what the devs themselves say, the expansion was under development for a very long time and the LS team(s) weren’t working on it, but rather the rest of the company.

I doubt they will scrap the LS concept completely. Although lots of players were crying about it “we want expansions, not LS”, there were loads of players who actually preferred the LS system. I think we will get a new LS a month after HoT is released.

I think the better way they could’ve done this would’ve been to announce HoT BEFORE LS S2 even started. Announce the expansion, then start releasing LS S2 to bridge the main game with the expansion. Players would buy the game (or return to it) to play the bridge storyline of S2, then once the LS S2 is over, they would jump on the expansion.

I hope they follow this tactic with future expansions, it leads to less gaps in their release schedule.

Yeah it was bad timing.

They waited until the end of LS season 2 to REVEAL the expac, great for hype, bad for the actual game.

They should have kept doing LS updates up until maybe a month before HoT because as I understand it the Living World team is a smaller team not actually working on HoT.

They could have interwoven things like SAB and WvW tournaments to help keep people occupied mixed with LS updates then.

Before someone calls me a hypocrite for wanting a wvw tournament while complaining about esports tournaments, let me clear this up:

WvW tournaments I get to participate in I get to do stuff.

Esports tournaments I’m just supposed to tune into Twitch and WATCH people do stuff.

Screw that.

Mirta.5029:

Devildoc.6721:

But anyway I’m rather frustrated with Anet right now because they’re literally expecting to hold our attention with Esports tournaments until HoT.

having played other MMOs I kind of expected it… The closer you are to an expansion, the less updates there will be as your main working force is focused on the expansion. The way that I see it, it’s a prime opportunity to get all the achievements that you haven’t, or play some other games

yeah, as I said before I’ve mostly been using this time to play ESO.

But anyway I’m rather frustrated with Anet right now because they’re literally expecting to hold our attention with Esports tournaments until HoT.

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

I have yet to see an MMO that didn’t feel like it launched too early.

Investors want to start seeing a return on their investment and so the game goes live whether the actual devs thinks its good to go or not. Every MMO company, that I have seen, starts accepting money when they know their product is not ready. GW2 was no exception.

I’m not sure you can compare the Guild Wars 2 launch with the ESO launch. There’s not being ready and there’s not being ready.

Guild Wars 2 had issues for sure, but at least the combat worked. ESO was far more deeply flawed at launch that Guild Wars 2 was and most people you ask would say that Guild Wars 2 had a relatively good launch.

The only really negative thing I remember from GW2 launch was the TP was down for the first few weeks.

Otherwise, relatively smooth.

ESO launch was a disaster, duping bugs bank wiping bugs, etc. The first impression was so bad that it poisoned people’s opinions of the game to this day.

See this thread a majority of the negative remarks are based on beta/launch experience.

Vayne.8563:

Devildoc.6721:

Vayne.8563:

ckotoc.5421:

Eso is buy to play now like gw2.

Not quite exactly like Guild Wars 2, there’s still an optional subscription.

The “subscription” is more or less an automatic purchase of cash shop currency every month. You pay $15 a month, you get $15 worth of “crowns”, and there are some perks on top of that. It’s a little different than other MMO’s with optional “freemium” subs that I’ve encountered where you pay $15, they temporarily uncripple the client (the F2P accounts are often extremely crippled), and give you $5 worth of cash shop currency per month. Here your entire subscription payment is exchanged for the value of crowns you would have purchased if you weren’t subbing but just buying crowns. It’s like if Arenanet were to add an option to automatically buy 800 gems a month for $10 a month, and then added some minor bonuses to it like 10% increased xp from kills.

Whether you subscribe or decide for yourself without subscription to spend $10, you get 800 gems, just the recurring subscription adds a bonus on top I guess.

Still, wholly unnecessary, as the game client and accounts, like GW2, are not crippled and requiring a freemium subscription to have full functionality.

The game isn’t going to be to anyone’s tastes, I hear a lot of complaints about the combat, which I like since it’s more action oriented (plays like Oblivion, with right mouse blocking left mouse attacking, holding down to power attack, and manual aim no tab targetting), and it does not play much like a standard MMO at all, so if you go in expecting an MMO like experience being able to tab target and autoattack your way through, prepare for disappointment, but the business model is fair.

I encourage more MMO’s to go B2P, as it’s honest.

B2P is a store saying “we made this product, would you like to buy it?” you buy the product, you enjoy the product free of future obligations.

Subscription is like mafia, they sell you some property, and then charge you “protection fees” every month. They might promise other things to go with the protection fees, like landscaping or other amenities, but you’re still handing them money hand over fist on a regular basis and they can decide whether or not to deliver on those “promises”

F2P is like an auto-shop/used car dealership, where they GIVE you a car for free but it breaks down in the lot, they tell you they can fix it, but it’s going to cost you, then it breaks down again a few feet down the road, they tell you they can fix it, but it’ll cost even more, so then they sell you on a “service plan” to pay money on a regular basis and fixing the car is “covered”, until you stop paying, then the car will mysteriously break down again.

But it was a sub for a year. It wasn’t ready, they knew it wasn’t ready, and they charged monthly for it. People talk about Anet making cash grabs all time, but if they ended up with half a million players paying for that time, they’ve made a whole lot of money at $15 a month, knowing they were likely to go free to play before the game launched on console anyway. I’m absolutely convinced that was the plan. And that, unfortunately, does not make me want to support that company.

You can say that you like about Anet but they were buy to play from day 1 and until the Living Story Season 2, you didn’t have to pay for content at all. I don’t know about you,. but I played a lot of the season 1 content and had a ball with some of it.

They probably never should have gone sub, I agree fully. They should have delayed launch and gone B2P from the getgo

Mirta.5029:

Devildoc.6721:

ESO if they circle around you you have to spin around to try and re target them, and if you aim outside the brackets you will miss.

actually that’s true even for tab targetting MMOs.

Want action combat? See Wildstar, Tera and Blade and Soul. ESO’s aiming is not even close to the amount of effort you actually had to put into aiming in their RPGs and might as well be tab target with the amount of space for error you’re giving. And it really really breaks immersion when you see your arrows turn mid air.

Tera had great combat (great art too but aside from that nothing was great about it), never played Blade and Soul.. Wildstar…

from what I remember about it every attack was like a 90 degree frontal cone with range. I don’t think it deserves to be mentioned in the company you mentioned it with. Nothing was great about Wildstar except its pre launch viral marketing. I call it Viralstar for that reason.

ESO’s aiming is not a perfect recreation of the single player TPS/FPS combat, but I still prefer it over sticky targetting.

Mirta.5029:

Devildoc.6721:

and manual aim

that’s an outright lie now. While it’s true that you can’t tab target, your shots will hone in on whatever was in the middle of your screen, which means that you’re still locked onto a player, rather than aiming yourself. And what I mean by “was” – if you shot and your target moved, your arrow, or magic spell, or whatever will make a turn mid air to still land on target. Some of those are quite sharp turns too.

Hit boxes are big but you must still aim within the hitbox. If you hit tab, it’ll put brackets around the enemy indicating the hitbox (it’s not the same as tab targetting in the more familiar sense, in this case, it picks a target to prefer if your attack would possibly hit many targets. Without a bracketed target, your attack will hit the nearest target you’re aiming at, with brackets it’ll hit the bracketed target, this is for instances like PVP where multiple targets may be dogpiled on each other)

In a practical sense, you have about a 15-30 degree angle you need to be aiming in (depending on distance), where in an MMO like GW2, or FFXIV or WoW, you just have to not have them behind you, that’s like a 180 degree arc no matter the distance. In fact the further away they are the more likely you’ll have them in front of you to be hit. In ESO, the further away they are, the narrower the arc becomes in which you have to aim to be able to hit.

It’s not quite FPS, in which there is no hitBOX around the target, but it’s more of a manual aim than a traditional tab target system where they just have to be not behind you, that and once you’ve targetted them they stay targetted. ESO if they circle around you you have to spin around to try and re target them, and if you aim outside the brackets you will miss.

Mirta.5029:

Devildoc.6721:

No, it went B2P this week. Same business model as GW2, buy the game play sub free, cosmetics in a cash shop.

The way it honestly should have been since launch.

Really it was like subscribers were paying for beta, the game is now what it should have been at launch for the most part.

Still want to see spellcrafting and the PVP side of the justice system get added for it to really be complete though.

the catch is, unless you’re subbing, you won’t get any content patches. So you either sub, or pay like 10£ every time a patch comes out. Which is not true for GW2.

I missed the Memo where HoT is going to be free. How about you give me a source on that.

Yes there’s a grace period for Living Story Season 2 questlines but after that grace period they sell that content piecemeal too.

I don’t have a problem with the game selling new zones/content.

In fact, if that’s what it’d take to get Arenanet to push for new content, I’d gladly pay for new content.

I never considered them under an obligation to deliver free content on a regular basis when I was not paying a sub.

Vayne.8563:

ckotoc.5421:

Eso is buy to play now like gw2.

Not quite exactly like Guild Wars 2, there’s still an optional subscription.

The “subscription” is more or less an automatic purchase of cash shop currency every month. You pay $15 a month, you get $15 worth of “crowns”, and there are some perks on top of that. It’s a little different than other MMO’s with optional “freemium” subs that I’ve encountered where you pay $15, they temporarily uncripple the client (the F2P accounts are often extremely crippled), and give you $5 worth of cash shop currency per month. Here your entire subscription payment is exchanged for the value of crowns you would have purchased if you weren’t subbing but just buying crowns. It’s like if Arenanet were to add an option to automatically buy 800 gems a month for $10 a month, and then added some minor bonuses to it like 10% increased xp from kills.

Whether you subscribe or decide for yourself without subscription to spend $10, you get 800 gems, just the recurring subscription adds a bonus on top I guess.

Still, wholly unnecessary, as the game client and accounts, like GW2, are not crippled and requiring a freemium subscription to have full functionality.

The game isn’t going to be to anyone’s tastes, I hear a lot of complaints about the combat, which I like since it’s more action oriented (plays like Oblivion, with right mouse blocking left mouse attacking, holding down to power attack, and manual aim no tab targetting), and it does not play much like a standard MMO at all, so if you go in expecting an MMO like experience being able to tab target and autoattack your way through, prepare for disappointment, but the business model is fair.

I encourage more MMO’s to go B2P, as it’s honest.

B2P is a store saying “we made this product, would you like to buy it?” you buy the product, you enjoy the product free of future obligations.

Subscription is like mafia, they sell you some property, and then charge you “protection fees” every month. They might promise other things to go with the protection fees, like landscaping or other amenities, but you’re still handing them money hand over fist on a regular basis and they can decide whether or not to deliver on those “promises”

F2P is like an auto-shop/used car dealership, where they GIVE you a car for free but it breaks down in the lot, they tell you they can fix it, but it’s going to cost you, then it breaks down again a few feet down the road, they tell you they can fix it, but it’ll cost even more, so then they sell you on a “service plan” to pay money on a regular basis and fixing the car is “covered”, until you stop paying, then the car will mysteriously break down again.

Magnnus.5169:

Devildoc.6721:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

It took me two beta trials to know ESO’s fate. It’s also the first game, I did not buy after I tried the beta when the game went live. Ever.

The fate was going the same business model as GW2.

It’s also changed in massive ways.

The last patch log was 80 pages long.

Do you still need a subscription to play? That’s a deal breaker for myself, and many others. Even if the game improved, most won’t be willing to renew a subscription just to find out.

No, it went B2P this week. Same business model as GW2, buy the game play sub free, cosmetics in a cash shop.

The way it honestly should have been since launch.

Really it was like subscribers were paying for beta, the game is now what it should have been at launch for the most part.

Still want to see spellcrafting and the PVP side of the justice system get added for it to really be complete though.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

It took me two beta trials to know ESO’s fate. It’s also the first game, I did not buy after I tried the beta when the game went live. Ever.

The fate was going the same business model as GW2.

It’s also changed in massive ways.

The last patch log was 80 pages long.

In fact this image has never been more true than now:

Coalwhite.2571:

This has to be said.

I haven’t played GW2 for about a year, maybe a bit more. I reached end-game back then, played around and after a while gave up because I got bored and lag was pretty bad back then (this was also around the time the trading shop was down for a few days for Mac users only). Then ESO was announced and I was like: suck it ArenaNet, Bethesda is going to take all your players.

In any case, fast forward almost a year and despite seeing tons of new and exciting GW2 news I decide to buy ESO Online now that it’s finally B2P. This thing costs 60$, and there’s no refund – but I think: hey, how bad can it be – it’s from the guys that made Skyrim.

ESO is so darn uninspired it made me upset! I’ve logged 25 hours in the game, around 13 of those are install hours o_O

Battle is a drag, the in-game world is boring to explore and the skills are not adding to the battle at all yet. Lore is great though, I’ll give them that. But really, there’s no strategy and hitboxes are deplorably bad. After about three days of frustration and boredom I can no longer force myself to play it, and am downloading GW2 as I type this.

Maybe because I’m older or have just played more games, but I look back on my time with GW2 and I remember excitement, mystery and great, challenging combat. Glad to be back, let’s hope the magic hasn’t faded (…. and that they didn’t stop working on the Mac client!!!!)

Anyone else come here from ESO?

Funny, the opposite is true for me.

I only log into GW2 for daily login rewards and daily achievements right now. There hasn’t been any new content for GW2 since the Festival of the Ram which was essentially just a handful of dailies as it was.

I’m sorry Arenanet but Esports tournaments are not going to hold my interest. No matter how much Esports GARBAGE you try to stuff down my throat the only response you get from me in regards for it is me vomiting it back up on your shoes.

Is there really nothing new to come until HoT? How long is that going to be?

I’m glad I now have another sub free option I enjoy, so I’ve been playing ESO, which I’ve always liked I just didn’t like paying a sub. I like the new justice system they just added, and unlike GW2, they’ve added 2 new dungeons (1 veteran version of an old dungeon that expands upon the dungeon so much it’s actually new since you go THROUGH the portal into the Deadlands that is the end encounter of the old dungeon, 1 entirely new dungeon), 1 new raid, a new zone, since I was last subbed about 6 months ago.

That content is also permanent, unlike most updates in GW2.

I mean seriously, the last update before this botched camera update we had was just to REMOVE content.

MrSilver.5269:

EDIT:

The consensus from this thread is that staff air is in need of a buff, and not water.

The suggestion is that air 3 should be given a blast finisher instead of the original suggestion of ice spike in the water line.

Anyone else agree?

staff air is probably its weakest link but it’s a strong kit, that said even air attunement is pretty decent aside from #3 which honestly the problem is the projectile moves too slow to be reliable for anything but pushing something into a static field that’s encircling it (if they dodge they’ll dodge into the static field and the same point is achieved anyway.

The only real weakness to the kit is 1v1 PVP fights because when there’s only 1 person involved it becomes easy to dodge 95% of staff’s damage which is ground targeted aoes, but in group PVP, WvW, and PVE, it’s an excellent weapon, one of the most valuable multi purpose weapons in the game.

So if anything changed air #3 I’d be pleasantly surprised but otherwise I think staff is fine as is and it doesn’t really need any more blast finishers, if it had more blast finishers there’d never be a reason to use scepter, ever.

makku.2508:

Devildoc.6721:

FrownyClown.8402:

then why come on the forums and complain about it?

Because the class needs “elite” skills that are actually worthy of the slot. Currently there aren’t really any. There’s 2 skills that should be utilites not elites, and 1 skill that is a complete joke.

If you’re implying FGS should be a utility skill, please don’t give them ideas. Unless they also give us an option to use utility skills in the elite slot, that is. I’d rather “waste” my elite slot for the get-out-alive emergency mobility skill instead of sacrificing a cantrip for it.

FGS is not a good enough skill to warrant its cooldown and elite slot anymore.

Some guild mates were bragging about it on Monday, they usually log in every day, now I haven’t seen them since..

Bacon.4918:

Devildoc.6721:

From what I can see so far their solution is throwing out bans for simply making a character on the day of the patch. Seems like you’re going to nail a lot of people who were not attempting to exploit that way.

What makes you think they are going to ban people for this?

I’ve seen screenshots on other forums and sites.

Auren.9142:

I’m kind of disappointed to see sword. Ele already has a melee weapon set and it defines PVP meta. I would have liked to see a strong ranged option instead of the support focus of the staff and gimmicky nature of scepter.

Uh, staff is like living artillery. It’s one of the highest personal DPS weapon setups in the game and is THE highest damage ranged weapon in the game (in the hands of a 6/4/2/2/0 Ele)

Dagger is 450 range, mid ranged skirmish weapon, while scepter is also a mid range at 900.

What we lack is an actual melee range (under 200 range) weapon except conjures.

From what I can see so far their solution is throwing out bans for simply making a character on the day of the patch. Seems like you’re going to nail a lot of people who were not attempting to exploit that way.

Kodiak.3281:

Devildoc.6721:

I’m gonna tell you right now that at least for PVE and WvW, the meta builds only go 2 in Arcana

There are other traits that can be just as useful as 4-6 in arcana that can be worthwhile not speccing deep into arcana for.

what?

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Staff_Backline

Heh, I haven’t had to go with more than 2 in arcana in like, a year and a half.

I go with a lightning rod variant but I actually put into fire or 2 into earth instead of 4 in arcane. IMO more than 2 in arcane isn’t worth it unless you’re going into a celestial PVP build.

Naevius.3185:

Therodin.2970:

It did not give all the points and titles, it gave 39 points and the gwomm title only. But that seems like more evidence to me that they forgot to unlink it from some specific persons account.

Ah, someone had said it gave everything, but fair enough. And I think the end of the tutorial is where you get the mail with the HoM portal stone, so that is likely where the code checks the link.

The stone spawns in your inventory immediately on creating a new character, you have it before you even get your mail for your hero’s band and banker golem (if you have deluxe)

John.8507:

Others got it by accident, some have some created a new character and done this on purpose.

It has been discussed in chat, and here, so mostly now the only people doing this now are taking advantage of the bug. To instantly get 10000 ach points is very wrong and like others have said should be removed.

I think the most you could get was 400, people said they got up to 39/50 + GWAMM with the bug (I already had over that so I got the 50 from GWAMM only)

Ana.2415:

I didn’t ask to ban these people. I just want Anet fix it and remove the tittles and items to them.

Anyways if you only need to create only 1 character to get all, ok is not an exploit, but if you need to create more than 1 character to get these titles and items, its obviously an exploit. (I don’t know if only 1 character is needed or not, so I can’t say if its a bug or exploit).

Key farmers create and delete several characters in a row, That is routine for them because you get the key from doing the level 10 personal story quests.

I created 3 characters 1 right after another trying to get a black lion ticket scrap because I have 9 of them, I didn’t notice the bug until it was being discussed in guild chat hours later.

BlackBeard.2873:

For any melee specialization that locks you out of arcana to be viable, the trait-line/spec will need:

-Something better than perma-vigor
-Something equivalent than 6.5s prot, swiftness, regen, might every ~10-11s
-Something competitive with the healing, cleanse, and blast you get from evasive arcana
-Access to lots of free fury (losing the arcana 1 minor)
-Access to even more gap-closers and soft-cc than d/d ele. If it is locked into melee range, it NEEDs a way to stay ontop of its enemy even MORE than d/d ele or else is laughably kitable.

I highly doubt these things will happen. I am not excited about this specialization at all.

I’m gonna tell you right now that at least for PVE and WvW, the meta builds only go 2 in Arcana

There are other traits that can be just as useful as 4-6 in arcana that can be worthwhile not speccing deep into arcana for.

IMO just make tornado not a transform but a targeted AOE, it’d be worthy of being an elite then, just as an area denial skill.

I’d be happy to just see geodes and crests go to the wallet instead of taking inventory/bank space..

Lawful.5314:

MaXi.3642:

Dennis.3068:

Devildoc.6721:

The specialization is what enables people to use the new weapon.

Source???

https://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/en#section-specializations

“With profession specializations, you’ll unlock access to a weapon previously unavailable to your profession”

no specialization = no new weapon

If the sword weapon is melee, i sure hope the Specialization will bring extra innate survivability to the class, aka increase its HP Pool, its Toughness, Armor rating, ect.

according to at least some of the leaked skills, some of them will restore endurance, meaning that you’ll be able to dodge more frequently. I imagine they will maintain that Ele is one of the highest skill requirement/skill cap classes, focusing on not being hit but if you do get hit you’re probably dead. Think of it as playing the game on Dante Must Die mode.

serenke.4806:

Devildoc.6721:

serenke.4806:

Devildoc.6721:

serenke.4806:

I don’t care about the leaderboards but not earned titles/APs have to go, there can be no discussion about options. It has to go.

Did you pay attention to what I was talking about? if the AP’s are taken, they’ll get them back (probably through dailies) in 5-40 days, and get a second reward chest. Say they hit the 10000 AP chest with this bug. They got 400 gems, laurels, 30 gold, a bunch of karma, total makeover kit, an instant level 20 scroll, all sorts of things. They then spent that 30g, the laurels, the gems, etc. You set them back to 9600 AP, in 40 days, They’ll get that 30 gold, 400 gems, 10 laurels all over again.

I paid attention and to be frank, i don’t care about technical possibilities or if every anet employee has to sit there for a week manually checking and rolling back, but this has to be fixed for the reasons that others before me mentioned.

This should never even have happened in the first place and after all of the mess-ups that anet did where i just shrugged and said that “well, they made a mistake, to err is human” i cannot really tolerate this one.

So you want those people to get double AP chests. Good thinking!

There’s no perfect world solution where everything goes back the way it was without screwing something else up.

So your solution is that everybody who has gotten those things the proper way should just suck it up and smile because there is no perfect solution? And yes, if it can be solved by giving certain few people double AP chests and rewards, i don’t care, it’s just gold/gems and only a few accounts compared to every random keyfarmer running around with GW1-specific titles.

No my solution is taking the titles but rolling over the AP into dailies, so it counts against their daily cap, this way nobody has to get rolled back days worth of progress, nobody gets double AP chests, and the most benefit anyone gets out of this bug is some daily achievement points that everyone will eventually cap on anyway.

Damage has already been done, the best solution is to find a way to minimize the damage caused without causing more damage in the process.

Dennis.3068:

MaXi.3642:

Dennis.3068:

So even if they take the attunement swaps away from us while in the specialization, i am pretty sure we will still be able to use the sword outside of the specialization , so of course it needs skills for every attunement.

I’m pretty sure new weapons are ONLY for specializations, that’s the reason why they introduce them, because they don’t want to add new content for current classes, they want to separate it a bit and balance it partially spec by spec as they will add more, not everything together…

I really dont think so. We will still be able to use our other Weapons inside the new specialization. Otherwise Mesmers would run arround with only 2 weaponskills^^ so why not the other way arround. Also there are swordskills for all 4 attunements. And the devs said, they are gonna change the way the F1-F4 skills work.
But yeah, perhaps we use the sword only in the specialization, but i dont think so

The specialization is what enables people to use the new weapon.

Coldtart.4785:

I thought specialisations were supposed to bring things that the profession never had before. We already have daggers for all-purpose melee and no real way to do ranged dueling or skirmishing, only fire support really. S/F is as close as it gets but it’s more like a shotgun set similar to engi’s rifle.

Daggers are mid range. 450 range, where scepters are 900 range, staff is 1200 range.

We’re actually lacking a true melee that isn’t conjured.

serenke.4806:

Devildoc.6721:

serenke.4806:

I don’t care about the leaderboards but not earned titles/APs have to go, there can be no discussion about options. It has to go.

Did you pay attention to what I was talking about? if the AP’s are taken, they’ll get them back (probably through dailies) in 5-40 days, and get a second reward chest. Say they hit the 10000 AP chest with this bug. They got 400 gems, laurels, 30 gold, a bunch of karma, total makeover kit, an instant level 20 scroll, all sorts of things. They then spent that 30g, the laurels, the gems, etc. You set them back to 9600 AP, in 40 days, They’ll get that 30 gold, 400 gems, 10 laurels all over again.

I paid attention and to be frank, i don’t care about technical possibilities or if every anet employee has to sit there for a week manually checking and rolling back, but this has to be fixed for the reasons that others before me mentioned.

This should never even have happened in the first place and after all of the mess-ups that anet did where i just shrugged and said that “well, they made a mistake, to err is human” i cannot really tolerate this one.

So you want those people to get double AP chests. Good thinking!

There’s no perfect world solution where everything goes back the way it was without screwing something else up.

Part of the reason I say this is because if they have to go through on a case by case basis and ROLL BACK players, it’s going to take time. It’s not going to be a simple thing of rolling back a half an hour, or an hour, but days, weeks, maybe months. Weeks of people purchasing gems that they may not get refunded for, weeks of achievements and drops that they’ll lose, and no not everyone affected by the bug deliberately triggered it, consider how the bug was triggered, many innocent people triggered it accidentally just creating new characters

Now you think they should apply heavy handed punishment for what? For making a new character and completing the tutorial?

I have a feeling we’ll lose the arcane skill line and instead get a melee oriented skill line, with a way to replace the vigor in the arcane line.

The only real confounding thing is that there are traits in air and water that are tied to using arcane skills, there’s a water trait that procs vuln on arcane skill usage and an air trait that procs increased ferocity on arcane skill usage, and I anticipate losing those skills.

also, speaking of Ele Sword and Gandalf, if any anet devs are lurking this, please please let us have a move like the finishing move Gandalf uses on the Balrog (raising the sword up to the sky, getting it struck by lightning, then stabbing the enemy)

It’s a shame we won’t be able to wield a staff as our offhand with a sword mainhand.

Spambot.3625:

eles have so many skills, cant make all of them useful :^)

personally I never thought of using tornado either, it’s just there, thats all

They all SHOULD be useful though, even if situational

We have nowhere near the number of skills of GW1 we really don’t have room for joke skills especially not joke elite skills, we already have racial skills for that.

Aomine.5012:

Devildoc.6721:

Aomine.5012:

Devildoc.6721:

Here’s the thing about rollback, while I think removing the title from those who haven’t earned it may be viable, I think trying to deduct achievement points may be disastrous to attempt. Some people may have crossed thresholds where they got achievement chests, they may have already spent the laurels, karma, gold, perhaps even gems, used some of the items or put some on the TP

You can’t take those back, and if you take the points away, you allow them to earn a second achievement chest.

IMO, let the achievement points stay, and add them as daily achievement points (eventually they will cap out on those anyway), and remove the title.

This avoids them earning a second chest at that achievement level, while still taking away the prestige title. Getting an achievement chest early is probably the least amount of damage done in the long run.

No.. I’m a competitor on leader-board (Top 50) and I cannot allow people get like 400 free AP without doing anything…

You should take up a hobby, seriously.

But really, if you try to futz with AP and reward chests, you are opening a can of worms.

Either people are going to get 2 chests for the same AP level, doubling up on currencies from the reward, or you’re going to be trying to reclaim laurels, karma, gold, gems, gemstore items, etc that are already spent. That’s going to be a mess. They may never be able to fix that adequately. Rolling back someone’s account completely may be another mess because people will have spent money for gems for total makeover kits and black lion keys, and the backup may be from far enough back as to be unjust for someone who’s only crime would have been to not be keeping track of their AP and making a new character.

Dw about me, I spend more time on forum than playing the game for now. Usually I just finish some PVP daily and do some WvW then I log off because there’s nothing much to work for anymore :P (except grinding money, which I’m not interested in it)
My hour spent in GW2 is just about 5k hr, which is by no means high compare to many people that I saw. (some even got like 10k hrs..)

No, I mean taking something extremely minor and non competitive as something competitive just because it has a leaderboard.

If you need to compete over THAT, you need to get out more.

serenke.4806:

I don’t care about the leaderboards but not earned titles/APs have to go, there can be no discussion about options. It has to go.

Did you pay attention to what I was talking about? if the AP’s are taken, they’ll get them back (probably through dailies) in 5-40 days, and get a second reward chest. Say they hit the 10000 AP chest with this bug. They got 400 gems, laurels, 30 gold, a bunch of karma, total makeover kit, an instant level 20 scroll, all sorts of things. They then spent that 30g, the laurels, the gems, etc. You set them back to 9600 AP, in 40 days, They’ll get that 30 gold, 400 gems, 10 laurels all over again.

Aomine.5012:

Devildoc.6721:

Here’s the thing about rollback, while I think removing the title from those who haven’t earned it may be viable, I think trying to deduct achievement points may be disastrous to attempt. Some people may have crossed thresholds where they got achievement chests, they may have already spent the laurels, karma, gold, perhaps even gems, used some of the items or put some on the TP

You can’t take those back, and if you take the points away, you allow them to earn a second achievement chest.

IMO, let the achievement points stay, and add them as daily achievement points (eventually they will cap out on those anyway), and remove the title.

This avoids them earning a second chest at that achievement level, while still taking away the prestige title. Getting an achievement chest early is probably the least amount of damage done in the long run.

No.. I’m a competitor on leader-board (Top 50) and I cannot allow people get like 400 free AP without doing anything…

You should take up a hobby, seriously.

But really, if you try to futz with AP and reward chests, you are opening a can of worms.

Either people are going to get 2 chests for the same AP level, doubling up on currencies from the reward, or you’re going to be trying to reclaim laurels, karma, gold, gems, gemstore items, etc that are already spent. That’s going to be a mess. They may never be able to fix that adequately. Rolling back someone’s account completely may be another mess because people will have spent money for gems for total makeover kits and black lion keys, and the backup may be from far enough back as to be unjust for someone who’s only crime would have been to not be keeping track of their AP and making a new character.

Pirate Pete.9564:

I dont know about fixed or not, I cannot even log in. Hangs trying to get into game

Remove sweetfx if you have it.