Guild Wars 2

Is there any picture out there that shows glyph of storms or lightning flash equipped on a character? So far, we only have screens of Ether Renewal, Conjure Lightning/ Fire, Mist Form and Tornado.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

It kinda feels like they are dumbing things down once again to cater to the lowest denominator.

They are making the UI and mechanics simpler, cleaner and more elegant, which is great for newcomers and casuals, but they are doing it by stripping away illusion of choice and troublesome features, and by making options more impactful and meaningful, and balancing easier.

Good game design is a lot more than an unreasonable number of filler options.

silvermember.8941:

Tempest seems to described Tornado than a specialization.

Some job classes from other MMOs have been called Tempest before. And it seems unrealistic to me that we would get an entire profession reward track for a single elite skill.

Dand.8231:

The pros greatly outweigh the cons

Quoting this for emphasis.

It seems like a waste that they made Powerful Auras only work with weapon skills at the same time they decided to give frost aura to soothing wave/ ice. It would have made for some great synergy there, but perhaps they do not want to balance both traits around each other. If so, Powerful Auras will need some sort of direct buff instead.

Scoobaniec.9561:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Scoobaniec.9561:

[&B7tqAAA=] < this is the olny one i havent seen before on ele list

I can’t check on the code right now. :O What’s the effect?

Checked others closely and it does seems its a completely new skill (dindt replaced anything) In fact its just another placeholder.

Yeah, it’s just another MH dagger placeholder skill…

Thanks for the screen.

Scoobaniec.9561:

[&B7tqAAA=] < this is the olny one i havent seen before on ele list

I can’t check on the code right now. :O What’s the effect?

Scoobaniec.9561:

So it seems that leaked skills on sword and dagger was modified if we use the code ingame now.

Sword:
[&B9JsAAA=][&B/dsAAA=][&ByduAAA=]
[&B9RoAAA=]
[&B0toAAA=]

Dagger;
[&BxFvAAA=] – doesnt work anymore
[&B5tvAAA=]
[&B8JpAAA=]

Sword became 100% power weapon with projectile deflection on 2cd! Number 3 still has 15cd but now it also have listened number of hits (7) which fits what we have seen in the trailer.

Dagger became a cc weapon with knockdown and 600 range pull

Staff and shield remain the same. Added pic

Could you or anybody else check on other leaked skills, like shiro’s stun or even ele’s sword skills?

They said several times that the new skill technology they have is going to affect some existing professions and existing skills.

The stat system is shallow.
The enemy AI is shallow.
The enemy skillset is shallow.
Condition cap is broken in non-solo content.
Game is balanced mostly around PvP.

The flaw with the stat system, is that most of them are passive by nature in a game with active combat. Those stats make sense in traditional models where you can not avoid damage, but in a game full of active defenses, they are nothing more but tutorial tools. GW1 did it best, by having its attribute system directly affect active defenses as well.

The enemy AI and skillset are shallow, because they’re mostly predictable and same-y. The same dps rotation works against most of them. Stacking is a thing. Boon stripping, condition cleansing, stun breaking and the like are a rarety, because there’s no incentive to bring them most of the time. And if enemies could actually kite you, suddenly, conditions, ranged attacks and other tools would actually be more useful and a real alternative to pre-determined dps rotations.

Condition capping is broken because it literally makes your conditions do almost nothing when in group content. It is the anti-thesis of everything that GW2 stands for.

Balancing being done around pvp is obvious, but then again, what else could anet do? It would be pointless to attempt to balance the pve meta before the core enemy/ stat/ condition issues are fixed.

The thing that annoy me the most about outfits, is that most of them look so good. I’ve been collecting armor pieces for 2 years, and yet most of them are really ugly. And then I look at outfits, and wonder: why can’t they make armor sets look as good as outfit? Technical limitations? Is GW2 forever doomed to have ugly armor pieces?

Scoobaniec.9561:

Hope so as specializations doesnt bring all that much to waste a week per one specialization when in reality there not much going for them from my pov. 1 new weapon, 6 new skills (heal, 4 utility, elite) and new traitline with slighty modified class mechanic doesnt cut the problem base classes suffer from.

In the CDI threads where the concept of sub-classing was discussed, some anet’s devs were very interested on the idea of quests/ adventures being required to unlock sub-classes. So that may very well happen, and if so, who knows, maybe specs will bring new lore, in addition to the new adventures, to the world as well. And, perhaps, we’ll also get spec-themed armor sets for each one of them too? I don’t want to hype it too much, but if Anet once thought they could dedicate one whole week for each spec, then it’ll probably be a bit more elaborated than merely “some new skills and some changes to existing skills”.

Scoobaniec.9561:

DiogoSilva.7089:

The one time I chatted with Roy Cronacher in-game (revenant’s designer), he said they would probably reveal 2-3 specs each week, and only after that would they show everything else about the revenant. But it was clear to me that no definitive plans were set in stone yet.

I believe someone said each spec will take a week.

Anet did, during HoT’s announcement. Several weeks later, Roy replied to my question in-game, saying that they were aiming for 2-3 per week (if my memory isn’t wrong, it could have been 1-2 instead).

Akagami.9861:

i really hope the riffle thing with thieves is as fake as it can possibly be. It’s a dumb idea…

We don’t even know what thieves specialization will be. If it gets to be called “Sniper”, then a rifle would make perfect sense. Just like a magical staff might seem weird on a Ranger, but it makes perfect sense on a Druid.

The one time I chatted with Roy Cronacher in-game (revenant’s designer), he said they would probably reveal 2-3 specs each week, and only after that would they show everything else about the revenant. But it was clear to me that no definitive plans were set in stone yet.

Ghotistyx.6942:

The art team put polearms into the trailer and its been confirmed that there are no new weapons (that weren’t there already)m let alone polearms

The art team put a revenant wielding a bladed staff. From data-mining, we already know revenants are intended to use staves at melee range, so what we have been shown is probably true. The art team just trolled us with the skin they choose. They could have easily put in the staff’s scythe skin, and players would all be screaming “scythe confirmed!” instead.

So far, their marketing trailers have been very consistent on showing profession-themed armor skins on their respective professions. So if we see a thief-looking character wielding a rifle, chances are, that is a thief wielding a rifle.

Rhialto.8423:

This thread is a massive necro. No comments for a year until a couple of days ago.

It’ll be interesting to find out, though, if Anet has taken any idea from this thread or not.

skcamow.3527:

Would this in some way negate the need for the mantra mastery trait, or would that still be useful for longer fights? I could still see a use for it, but it’d be even less useful than current.

If the solo purpose of Mantra Mastery was to make you wait a few less seconds before going through the whole cumbersome process of wasting the remaining charges to recharge the whole thing anew, then that trait wouldn’t have much of a purpose in the first place. The QoL change should come in regardless of that trait. But anet could always add a small extra functionaly to MM, like, prepared mantras auto-regenerate their charges faster while out of combat. So, say, the default could be 1 charge every 10 seconds, and the trait would make it go for each 8 seconds.

BlackDevil.9268:

The only way to make other (mostly grandmaster) traits viable is to make them as powerful as IP. I honestly doubt if this change will equal IP.

Just look at ele. The only way the little build diversity came to exist is when they added another powerful grandmaster trait.

I’d say the most restrictive thing about ele’s traits is Elemental Attunement (Arcana’s master trait that’s worthy of a grandmaster by itself).

The entire profession is balanced around that trait (in pvp).

I agree that charges should regenerate after combat. That would be a massive QoL change to me, and the main reason why I dislike mantras has to do with how many unneeded button presses I have to go through after each battle to make sure I start the next one with all of them fully charged.

However, this QoL change should only apply to mantras that are already charged, of course (AKA, mantras where you have at least 1 charge left). If you had used all charges, you would need to prepare them again, no matter what. Auto-regeneration would ONLY occur if you had at least 1 charge left, and out of combat. It’s purpose would be purely for a QoL change to take away unneeded button presses out of combat, and not as an unintentional buff.

We’ll probably still have some “smaller” blog posts about the remaining topics for general world content:

• “Challenging group content” in HoT,
• Enermy AI changes,
• Fractals masteries,

Before we get full blown information about specializations and guild halls.

But to be honest… I REALLY want to know more about specs. It might change completely how I plan to spend my time in the game before HoT comes.

As someone who does not understands very well how ladder systems work, can anyone enlighten me on what is the difference between the current testing ladder and, say, for example, League of legend’s ladders?

Many.8419:

what we know this is going to be collection grind and some crafting, stop denying other customers’ right to voice opinions

it’s cool you like it however I dont understand why should I like it because of you

Having to hunt foes and explore and participate in world activities is not grinding to me.

There’s something that I didn’t quite understand in the article. Will Dry Top/ Silverwastes be changed in any way, or will they remain the same as they currently are?

EDIT: Also, I hope that map bonuses have some flavor behind them. Example: snowy maps should offer glacial cores more often.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

BFMV.3198:

Most likely thief with rifle because they showed engineer with a hammer. Why would they show an engineer with a rifle in a HoT trailer??

Also, thief has no land range 1200 weapon.

I think it fits well, and I hope it is sniper inspired

While I’m not against thieves getting rifles, your logic here is flawed.

They showed other non-specialized classes in the trailer too, so that very well could be an unspecialized engi just as much as it could be a specialized thief. I am actually leaning more towards unspecialized because the specialized “hints” where much more distinct. The engi with drones and its hammer, the mesmer with its shield and new skill with butterfly effects. This was a very brief flash of an indistinct medium class with no tells.

Hints for Guardian’s longbow were also quite hidden, yet they were found and are hard to deny now. A spellcaster with a MH sword and a non-mesmery theme was also present in the trailer, and we know necros are getting a greatsword instead, so some people thought it would be the elementalist’s new weapon. Several weeks later, and we got a leak confirming that eles will indeed get a MH sword.

I’m not saying this confirms anything, but anet’s videos have been full of very small hints already.

Elementalist’s specialization will probably be called Battlemage/ Spellsword (the second name’s the coolest of both). The community talked about it in the CDI thread where advanced classes were discussed, and now the ele is getting a melee weapon.

Sword’s skills are probably an early prototype of what turned out to be their current Mace skillset. Anet was probably testing which weapon would fill the condition playstyle they wanted, and mace was the clear winner. Thus, mace’s skills were already officially announced, while sword’s weren’t yet.

On a side note, OH Dagger’s existence and its quickness skill are so Shiro-esque, that I bet the revenant’s specialization will be Shiro+OH Dagger.

MH Sword applying the same conditions in the same skill order as MH Mace (plus a might-stacking third skill for both)

=

Placeholder skills that are still being tested out.

There’s no reason why Anet would add two MH weapons that are almost identical copies of each other.

That being said, I wouldn’t mind a might-stacking, condition sword, but considering how mace already fulfills that exact role, ya, revenants will certainly need (= get) something different.

nightblood.7910:

I just think LB is going to be too slow and out of place for the class.

Specializations are meant to significantly change the base class (apparently, you don’t need to enjoy a ranger to be able to enjoy playing with a druid), so it’s hard to judge what is “out of place” and what isn’t, until we get real news on specs and how they work.

Great news. Playing WvW for fun is one thing, playing it for map completion was a nightmare. I’ll finally have a stronger incentive to explore the world with my alt characters, knowing they won’t have to go through the dreaded WvW nightmare.

Glint will be the third, for sure, after NCSoft’s unintentional leak and its removal.

Apparently, specializations are going to be a much bigger thing than what players may think. There’ll be a whole week devoted to each one of them.

Revenant’s utility skills feel like what you’d usually expect from weapon skills (AKA, much more interesting and playful than other profession’s utility skills). So I’d say the Revenant uses about 3 weapon sets, instead of the common 2 weapon sets + 1 filler, high cooldown set.

@ DevilLordLaser,

I agree with your analysis. I’m not sure if you dislike the new design philosophy, but I’d say its flaws are also its virtues. The revenant is generally a more restricting profession. But. If we look at the current state of balance, which profession isn’t? The revenant is simply more open-minded, more honest about it, and thus, its builds are easier to grap and to identify.

I also prefer more meaningful trait choices for a more restricting profession, than less meaningful trait choices for a more customisable profession that, ultimately, its level of customisation is relegated to picking the strongest utility skills and sticking with them at the expense of any other.

Specializations will probably work like that too. And, as time goes on, the level of customisation of the new system will increase, as new specs get to be added into the game.

I just noticed in the videos released today that there’s a projectile coming out of the hammer’s AA. I didn’t notice it before (or maybe it wasn’t there, not sure, it’s a bit subtle), but it looks better now.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Imo i dont see anything wrong with current animation. I bet it will look amazing on charr. But what you suggest then? Look at staff ele – they dont even use staff lol!

At the very least, the projectile should come out of the hammer, instead of simply popping up at the target instantly. Kind of like Guardian’s scepter AA (but with a different animation, of course). That, or the swinging animation should be less physical and more magical, like Guardian’s Staff.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Actually i like that autoattack from hammer. Im really happy that they didnt made it similiar to mesmer gs auto as i cant stand it personally. If they ever going to make this hammer float like mes gs i wont touch this wep with a stick.

They don’t even need to make it float (although I personally would enjoy that). Just have the revenant do something more interesting than simply swinging through the air. It currently looks like they are trying to catch a dodging fly.

ronpierce.2760:

I’m hoping it and Drop the Hammer (name and effect) are both place holders. They are rather generic and leave much to be desired. I think they need to add more mist feeling to the attacks and in general just have a better visual execution. Just my ¢2

I don’t mind Drop the Hammer as much, because it has at least an unique effect, although I agree it could have been something more. The AA, however, I find it really bothersome, especially because that’s what we’ll be seeing most of the time.

Caeledh.5437:

DiogoSilva.7089:

…the Revenant is simply swinging their hammer through the air…

I get to choose the hammer I throw. Happy with that. Most projectile attacks are set graphics.

Good incentive to get a cool looking hammer skin.

But the skin incentive also applies to Mesmer’s GS, and that one has an unique animation nonetheless.

…Needs a different swinging animation.

It’s a very unique weapon, much like Mesmer’s Greatsword. However, the GS set a great precedent with its own unique AA beam and floating sword. In comparison, the Revenant is simply swinging their hammer through the air, which just seems lazy and cheap.

I mean, if a random flying rabbit is wandering by without being targeted, revenant’s hammer will simply pass through it like wind. Random flying rabbit’s flight might get disturbed, for sure, by the swirling air. Their body is light and easily carried by the wind. And it is good for the preservation of flying rabbits. But it doesn’t fits revenant’s deadly theme. No one will take a revenant seriously anymore.

“Dude, the guy’s right in front of you. How haven’t you smashed his face already?”
“What I cannot physically see, my hammer cannot physically hit.”
“Sure, dude. You’re not gonna get along well with babes.”

Atherakhia.4086:

Karl, does it stack in intensity? Like say 5 engineers got around and tossed elixer at the same time? Would each get 15 for 4 seconds?

Yes, it stacks in intensity. Karl has said that in his post.

Isn’t 10 stacks of stability nearly impossible to tear down in a 1v1 situation, or is that intended?

With that high number of stacks, it seems like stability will retain its current effectiveness on duels, but will be generally weaker on team fighting. Not that I think this is a bad thing, just noting.

Lack of consistency is what usually breaks immersion. It happens when the illusion of believability is lost.

For example, spending your time in Kryta, and suddenly traveling to Charr’s and Asura’s hometowns can be incredibly immersion-breaking, because there’s no consistency at all. All that’s left now, if for the next race’s region to have space ships. :P

We can use examples from other games. FFXII’s Ivalice, for example, has several similarities with Tyria. A medieval-looking world with a technologically advanced small race that builds warp portals, airships and futuristic buildings, nature races that live on magical trees, etc. But what FFXII did better, was to maintain consistency between all different locations. When you go from Rabanastre to Archadia, you can see which town is the most advanced, but they still feel like they exist within the same world. High tech exists alongside medieval buildings everywhere in the world, at different rates for sure, but they do. There’s no such thing as crossing a border, and suddenly, instead of LotR-esque Divinity’s Reach, we find ourselves now in Star Trek land.

Well, swords and magical weapons are among my favourites, so I would like to see Revenant get some of them:

1. MH Sword
2. Off Hand Sword
3. Greatsword
4. (Melee) Staff
5. Scepter
6. Focus

I also wouldn’t mind to see them with bows or guns/ rifles. In fact, the profession I play with (elementalist, guardian, mesmer) do not have access to these weapons, with the exception of mesmer’s off hand pistol.

And yes, greatsword please. I don’t care if it’s cliché or over-used. Twilight/ Sunrise are the only legendary skins I like so far, and greatsword’s attack animations are usually some of the most visually impressive and fluid.

rfdarko.4639:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

GoldenTruth.2853:

…I’d like some clarity in what happens to mobs when you deplete their defiance bar….

I believe we’re still balancing the broad-reaching solution but yes, a significant stun will be applied. Pretty sure we’ll be releasing more details through our channels real soon.

My concern is this – from what is being said, emptying the defiant bar results in a certain outcome, specific to the boss, rather then the system we have now where stripping defiant allows a CC of our choosing to go through. The current system gives groups more options.

For example, on mai trin, you man want to use your defiant-less window of opportunity to deep freeze her and get a burst of damage off, or you may want to use it to position her into a blue electric field. With this new break-bar system, it sounds like we would not be able to use our cc skills directly on the boss. Rather, they would serve only as a means to wear down the bar to achieve a scripted “vulnerability” event.

To me this makes fights less dynamic. There’s less tactical options because the game is basically holding your hand, saying “now spike cc, now burst, now dance around and avoid damage” rather then you controlling and making those opportunities yourself.

The break bar system will probably be better for zerg events where coordinating 20-50 people to any nuanced degree is an unreasonable expectation. But for 5 man content, I fear this will change encounters for the worst.

That’s my main concern as well: each cc’s effect nuances are completely irrelevant.

What if I want to control a boss’ position with launch, fear or taunt? What if I want to blind a boss so that his confusion stacks can still tick off? Etc.

I hope we get bosses designed around CC’s innate effects. Bosses where position and movement control matter, for example. Something like this:

Kiting Boss
Super hard to catch with melee options.
When defiance bar is emptied, he is no longer immune to movement-impairing control for 10 seconds.
Said boss would have condition cleansing and stun breaking skills so that, within those 10s, players would need to immobilize/ fear/ launch/ taunt several times, or even force the boss to have those skills on cooldown before the defiance bar is emptied.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Each legend has it’s own playstyle focus but so does each trait line, similar to the current professions. Traits are there to reinforce and augment your base selection of skills as you see fit in your setup. If you use jalis. but want to be more tanky you can opt for the retribution line, but if you like jalis and want more damage you may opt for another trait line.

Keep up the discussion of active vs. passive traits though as it’s good feedback and something we talk a lot about internally.

What about making traits that upgrade specific skills individually, much like how the beta trait system used to work pre-launch? Skills are naturally active, so having more traits that change how active options work would give you a LOT of room for designing new traits (and for replacing older, less healthy ones).

Trait Examples

1. Elementalist’s Shatterstone also applies chill on shattering.
2. Mesmer’s Blurred Frenzy inflicts more hits.
3. Guardian’s greatsword leaping attack (forgot the name) has half the cooldown.

I see you guys doing this for profession mechanic skills, or very broadly for utilities. Mesmer’s reflection focus trait is an excellent exception. Why don’t we see this more often? Is it because it goes in conflict with the trait system’s “universality”? Is it because it would be more restricting than what it seems to be?

The problem with passive vs active effects, is that the trait system is passive at its very core. Traits are all about “general passive boosts”. Trying to put active effects into a passive system feels restrictive to me, even more so when there’s so many traits, and when you probably want to add new ones over time.

In my opinion, you should redesign the system’s core functionality and turn it into a “skill upgrade system”, and then minimize the amount of passive boosts it would offer. Something like, 1 trait line for each weapon set, 1 traitline for utility skills and resource skills, and ONLY 1 traitline for passive boosts. Or, passive boost slots would exist somewhere along other trait line’s paths.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Test.8734:

Based on what (little) information we have, that’s still useless in the current GW2.

The issue isn’t that we can’t interrupt the bosses. It’s that there’s no point in doing so. All bosses have slow attacks that can be dodged quite nicely. Why take CC skills and reduce your own DPS if you can just take more damage skills and dodge the boss’ big attack, instead of interrupting it?

Notice that the thing with the Wyvern is not that it has a strong, single attack – rather, it has been built so interrupting it also makes it more vulnerable to damage, which is something CC doesn’t do to any other boss in the game. In the end, it’s still about DPSing the boss faster, with CC helping in doing so, instead of interrupting a boss to really prevent it from doing something.

The current bosses in the game could be adapted so there’s actually a point in interrupting them… But let’s be real, ArenaNet is never going to rework so much of the original game.

From what I understood, and I might be wrong, if you interrupt the wyvern’s flight, you are not merely interrupting a single attack. You are interrupting an entire raid sequence while he is in the air, which I assume it means that you are preventing a massive amount of red circles and a stance that would make him incredible hard to target with melee weapons. A traditional, melee zerker party would probably get toasted while dealing little to no damage input in that scenario.

Exactly. The extra damage is a bonus. The actual reason you are CCing the wyvern is to prevent it from igniting half the battlefield while you can’t reach it.

However, I’m worried if a decent group can simply manage to avoid 100% of those epic/ dangerous gameplay scenarios. I hope there’s some additional, secondary mechanics that attempt to distract players and increase margin of error, so that timing CC doesn’t becomes as trivial as spamming it on target calling every single time.

The new defiance system is going to be applied to old bosses, but they’ll probably not get anything else. Anet said they don’t have time to update existing fights any further.

Test.8734:

Based on what (little) information we have, that’s still useless in the current GW2.

The issue isn’t that we can’t interrupt the bosses. It’s that there’s no point in doing so. All bosses have slow attacks that can be dodged quite nicely. Why take CC skills and reduce your own DPS if you can just take more damage skills and dodge the boss’ big attack, instead of interrupting it?

Notice that the thing with the Wyvern is not that it has a strong, single attack – rather, it has been built so interrupting it also makes it more vulnerable to damage, which is something CC doesn’t do to any other boss in the game. In the end, it’s still about DPSing the boss faster, with CC helping in doing so, instead of interrupting a boss to really prevent it from doing something.

The current bosses in the game could be adapted so there’s actually a point in interrupting them… But let’s be real, ArenaNet is never going to rework so much of the original game.

From what I understood, and I might be wrong, if you interrupt the wyvern’s flight, you are not merely interrupting a single attack. You are interrupting an entire raid sequence while he is in the air, which I assume it means that you are preventing a massive amount of red circles and a stance that would make him incredible hard to target with melee weapons. A traditional, melee zerker party would probably get toasted while dealing little to no damage input in that scenario.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

GoldenTruth.2853:

…I’d like some clarity in what happens to mobs when you deplete their defiance bar….

I believe we’re still balancing the broad-reaching solution but yes, a significant stun will be applied. Pretty sure we’ll be releasing more details through our channels real soon.

I have some questions for you.

1. How will traits like “while target is CC’d, deal 20% more damage” interact with bosses? Or they won’t at all? If if it’s the later, is it possible to have bosses’ cc immunity work similar to the new boon, resistance, where effects are still applied even if they do not work? If so, this could make “while CC’d” traits more meaningful in PvE.
2. Now that defiance will also be available on players, is it safe to assume that professions are going to have traits that directly interact with defiance? It would certainly be a lot of fun if control builds could sacrifice damage traits for something like “Your CC makes defiance bar deplet 10% faster. You gain X boon or apply Y condition if bar is fully depleted”. Is Anet considering those options?
3. Are there any plans for bosses designed around CC applying its intended effects? Like, fights designed around immobilize actually immobilizing, or blind merely blinding?