Guild Wars 2

Asura lore would also be welcome. I’d be interested to find lost Asura cities in the Depths of Tyria.

Norn lore is a bit harder. Though I can see the basics for expanding general shiverpeaks lore concerning the history of the Norn, Kodan and Jotun.

The revenant skills do not seem to have a skill type.

In a sense the skills that cost 25 skill points are getting buffed because with the new trait system they will cost the same amount of hero points to unlock as all other skills.

Shiren, I agree! A guild wars 2 version of the Scarlet Crusade would do amazing things for the story and would totally fit the current suspicions towards sylvari. It would also fit with the power vacuum that no doubt came into existence due to the defeat of the pact. I’d love to see tensions between what is left of the pact and this new group of radical dragonhunters, with one side being pro-sylvari and the other side being anti-sylvari.

Whatever they are called and however they might function, gameplay-wise they will fall under the skill type ‘trap’.

LeBub.9053:

There are a few questions bothering me regarding the Elite Specializations:

Will they be available to ALL Players in GW2?
Even those who decide NOT to buy the Addon?
I mean, it should be for every Player but its not really clearly stated (yet).
So, are the Elite Specializations part of the New Trait system and will they be available for all existing Classes with the Release of the Addon?

Elite specializations are only available for those with Heart of Thorns.

If thats the case, how does Anet want to balance WvW and PvP?

Anet has stated that they will try to make elite specializations as strong as normal specializations so that those with Heart of Thorns will have more options but not better options. Whether this will actually turn out to be true or not remains to be seen of course (and probably requires several balance updates after Heart of Thorns releases).

Edit: By the way, the new trait system will release before Heart of Thorns.

You know there is a sticky on the topic right? https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Increased-Bleeding-Stacks/first

I also dislike the name but not enough to actually influence my enjoyment of the game or my perception of this elite specialization. If the dragonhunter is fun to play, I will play it. If not, then not.

You missed their new elite skill: Dragon’s Maw (no details though, aside from it being a trap).

I dislike the name. That said, I can see myself playing one.

Bezagron.7352:

Okay just one bump.

Was wondering if anyone else was interested in the design of the new Specializations Panel & “What functions other’s might what from this new Panel?”

Could this be an indication Build Template’s are coming with the expansion as well?

What are others thoughts?

Arenanet has already stated that templates won’t be coming with HoT.

Baldrick.8967:

Any news on making pets viable in wvw, or will it be ignored in favour of the spvp ‘e-sport’ (lol).

Zerg combat, whether in PvE or in WvW, is inherently difficult and inherently unimportant to balance. I agree with Anet’s decision to focus balance around 5-man PvP and around 5-man dungeons/fractals. Be glad things like the AoE cap exist.

Astralporing.1957:

ronpierce.2760:

jessiejay.3625:

Dont suggest such a bad idea. Critical chance is fine the way it is.

There are enough nerfs in this game.

I disagree. The new trait system is the biggest power creep the game has seen.

…where? All i can see is a nerf to stats, and a removal of some builds (without making remaining builds any stronger).

Remember, they straight out said, that the base stat upgrade, and increases to stats on armor will only make up for part of the loss from removing stats on traits. Part. Not all.

You are not seeing here an increase in power, but a hidden stat nerf.

How about the fact that a lot of traits have been buffed and that you can now take 9 minor traits and 9 major traits for a total of 18 traits vs the previous 14 traits?

Edit: In addition several traits have become baseline.

The best time to introduce them into the story is whenever Anet feels like it. I mean I can say that dealing with either Bubbles or Primordus is the most likely lore-wise but in the end, Anet can write the story in whatever way they want. So.. the Tengu will be introduced when Anet wants to introduce them.

Usually when people ask this, I suggest them to read the following links (and click on any links they find interesting):

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lore
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Timeline
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lore
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Timeline
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Movement_of_the_World

Baldrick.8967:

Just doing a quick check- where did Eagle Eye go for Rangers? No more range increase for rangers?

I might have to do a complete check and see if any of my builds have survived at all under this new system of restricted choices and limited trait lines.

Keep in mind that many traits were combined and that some traits have become baseline. For example, the Elementalist trait blasting staff is now the default. The same goes for Eagle Eye (at least according to Dulfy: http://dulfy.net/2015/04/25/gw2-core-specializations/#Ranger).

The combination of utility/healing/elite skills, traits and changed/added profession mechanics (such as an F5 ability and alacrity) together are far more important than whether or not you get 2 new weapon skills or 5 new weapon skills.

That said, I do remember Anet saying that those elite specializations that do not get a 2-hander will be compensated somehow. How exactly can’t really be answered until we can properly compare for example the chronomancer to the guardian’s elite specialization.

segman.3560:

Jordo.5913:

It’s not going to be called Paragon, it will probably be some type of Angel or Archangel.

The wings are too obvious to be connected with its name.

The same thing for the Chronomancer, you could see clock faces/gears inside the shield.

No, it won’t be called angel or archangel. Such cliche entities do not exist in this universe.

Actually there are some references to angels, at least in GW1. In addition, there are quite a few statues of angelic beings (including but not exclusively statues of Dwayna).

That said, I don’t thing anything too angel-related is likely either, if only for the reason that such a specialization wouldn’t fit Charr, Asura and Norn at all. I think they will go for something a bit more broad/vague, which can be seen as angelic but is not literally angelic.

You could pretty much ask the same thing about any weapon and any profession. The answer lies in gameplay, more than in lore. Though of course theme of the profession does play some role in why each profession has access to it’s weapons. I can see most Guardians prefering more nobel/honorable weapons over pistols and rifles. However, that is only ‘most Guardians’ and not ‘all Guardians’.

Seyta Hamon.8071:

Am I the only one who doesn’t want the spec to be called Paragon? If they use it then the original Paragon class is permanently locked out if Anet ever expands into Elona. Personally I am hoping for the name top be “Exemplar”

I think the chances of them adding any more professions after the Revenant are very slim anyway. We have 3 of each armor class now and there is not a whole lot of room left to be filled, either thematically or role-wise. Besides, Anet has stated that they will continue to add elite specializations in the future. So whether or not the Guardian gets an elite specialization called paragon, there will probably not be an actual paragon profession.

The wings are similar to the wings Paragons in GW1 had when using skills. If the Guardian elite specialization is indeed the Paragon, then I can see them getting banners as their utility skills. I would’ve said shouts but they already have them.

penelopehannibal.8947:

I’m against getting new races for mostly the reasons ArenaNet have already said, because it would be a huge overhaul (An entire city, new storyline etc) at very little skill difference. But also because we already have five playable races, which is four more than we got in Guild Wars 1

I would however, endorse new racial tonics. Particularly Tengu & Largos tonics!

While I can see where you’re coming from, I would hate Tengu tonics. As many resources as adding them as a race it might take, I really want to have a Tengu city and a Tengu storyline. A Tengu tonic would greatly diminish the chance of that ever happening.

Uden Reavstone.3426:

Suburbian.1023:

What kinda bothered me was that there was no mention of a new race… I was kinda expecting Tangu or Kodan, that would’ve been so nice. So is this completely off the table or is there still a possibility to play with a, let’s say, Kodan Revenant?

They did mention new races at PAX South. They clearly said that they are not making any new playable races.

They clearly said that they are not making any new playable races for now.

Edit:

Shacknews: You’ve added a new profession, however you did hold off on adding a new race. What led to this decision?

Johanson: For this one, we looked at what we would get out of adding a new race and what benefit it actually brings to the players from a gameplay standpoint. It’s very limited in Guild Wars 2. A new race adds a racial skill or two and a little bit of story, but it doesn’t give that much meaningful gameplay in the grand scheme of things. The race is more context for the early story that you experience. So we wanted to focus things that would provide a lot more gameplay and address parts of Guild Wars 2 that we felt like we really wanted to be able to make a better experience and grow. So right now, we didn’t feel that a new race was a key need for the game, whereas the other things that we’re adding really provide fundamental building blocks for the future.

phys.7689:

DanteZero.9736:

In terms of build diversity, I don’t care for having some insane number of available build options but only using maybe a handful of genuinely useful builds. I would rather have a smaller number of manageable and more useful builds. If HoT were to reduce the amount of possible builds down by a factor of 10 or so, then I would expect the each of the remaining build possibilities to be incredibly useful. In short, I want quality, not quantity.

not clear here, are you saying you would rather have 10 good builds out of 20 than 20 good builds out of 100?

I’m pretty sure, he means he’d rather have 10 good builds out of 20 than 5 out of 100.

To be fair, Arenanet is adding guild leaderboards to SPvP sometime in the near future which at least makes small scale GvG a thing.

Uden Reavstone.3426:

Oh my god! Yet another one of these topics! For the who knows how many it is now time, the name was to do with lore! If you don’t believe me, look at this wiki article: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars

Actually, the GW1 was made as with GvG in mind. PvE and the lore were added to make it feel more immersive and to serve as a tutorial but endgame was always meant to be GvG (at least initially, over time the focus shifted more and more towards PvE). Thus it is likely that GvG determined both the name of the game and the lore of the game.

Edit: To clarify, in the context of GW1 GvG meant 8 vs 8 organized pvp matches (somewhat resembling the upcoming Stronghold SPvP map). GvG did not mean large (15+ people) guild groups fighting.

Titan.1206:

Also concerned about the class-specific recharges getting halved… Hope there are plans to address this.

Half the class-specific bonus has been made baseline, the other half you get when taking the related specialization (arcana, beastmastery and so on).

VaLee.5102:

Diovid.9506:

Some of those traits have been made baseline. For example, the larger AoEs for staff ele trait is now the default.

Any source on that? Or was it on livestream?

It was on the livestream. Here are the notes: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/33qrg0/specialization_ama_livestream_notes/

VaLee.5102:

Also I noticed they removed the damage boost for weapons in the traits or stuff like larger AoEs for staff eles and there’s no replacement for that.

Some of those traits have been made baseline. For example, the larger AoEs for staff ele trait is now the default.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Thanathos.2063:

Well, this may seem a bit like an artifical connection, but “Utopia” can be interpreted as “unseen” – possibly leading to mursaat? Kinda weak argument, of course.

Utopia refers to a paradise of some sort. Nothing ‘unseen’ about it.

Just a small correction there, Konig, there is some discussion about the meaning of the word ‘utopia’. It might be related to the greek ‘ou’ and ‘topos’ meaning ‘no place’ or to the greek ‘eu’ and ‘topos’ meaning ‘good place’. Possibly utopia is related to both, it meaning something like ‘a good place that does not exist’ or ‘a good place that most people don’t know exists’.

dexer.2173:

Its already confirmed that luck-Accounts exist!

I know someone (under 5k total hours played) who got 30+ precursors from >> ONLY DROPS <<

If i would tell u how much Pres he got from the Mystic Toilet… u just wont belive it…

Even if that’s true, how exactly is that proof? Streaks can happen due to chance.

Devata.6589:

However looking at your statement. To believe it’s the case you would want a lot of data (thats pretty much impossible to get) however to believe it’s not the case Anet’s word is just fine. Isen’t that a little strange as well?

It’s not like they never before said things weren’t true and turned out to be true after-all.

That’s shifting the burden of proof though. The people claiming that there are cursed accounts and lucky accounts made the claim before the opposite was claimed, so the burden of proof lies with them.

I think it’s probable that they calculate it as 10 * (1 + .66 – .66), which is actually the same as what Thanathos said.

Devata.6589:

Again, I don’t say that is the case but it can be true and you can’t simply ignore the possibility.

Except as others have noted, Anet has stated that this isn’t true. That, combined with the fact that there are psychological mechanisms that could explain the experience, means that you have to come up with more than just ‘it is a possibility’ to seriously consider it. We would need raw data and lots of it, then we need to do statistical analyses. Until that time I consider people to be paranoid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion

FrozenChinchilla.5249:

Would be better to just make the elite skill flexible. Leave all the others as utility only.
The elite skill would be elite OR utility.

On the one hand I agree with you (if by ‘elite skill’ you mean ‘elite skill slot’) since I often dislike the options for elite skills for various builds (for example Guardian elites…). On the other hand, I imagine that doing this would mean several traits and skills would have to rebalanced since it would open up a lot of additional options.

Palindrome.8904:

Also, using your logic, people that only do PvE content should have the option to pay less since they aren’t interested in the new WvW borderlands.

Except the new borderlands (like the new SPvP map) is not a part of HoT, it is coming as a free update for everyone.

I, as a PvE player, completely understand where PvP players are coming from and fully support the idea of a way to only unlock access to the elite specializations (and possibly the revenant), without paying for the rest.

If it is going to be open world, then it should be at the level of Triple Trouble and the Twisted Marionette.

I’ve seen this speculation pop up several times over the past week or so, along with the name ‘Banshee’. An argument made in favor of it that gets mentioned is that Necromancers currently lack group support skills and that shouts could give those to them.

I wonder though whether the ‘all shouts’ elite specialization might not actually still be guardian or warrior, even though they already have access to them. Nothing is preventing them from getting more shouts, right?

Let’s just wait until we have actual data on skill casting times, skill cooldown times, traits and so on.

Yes it’s supposed to be better. That’s why you’re only allowed to have one elite spec.

Nope. They have quite clearly stated that elite specs should not be better than normal specs. You should still have a reason to not take the elite spec according to Anet. Besides, they don’t want people with HoT to be stronger than people without HoT, neither in PvE nor in PvP.

I doubt Anet will be at E3. As far as I remember Anet has only once been to E3 and that was before GW1 was even released. Anet will be at gamescom though.

I hope so. Concerning Chronomancers, Anet did say the following in one of the articles:

It was a unique challenge to find an interpretation of time magic that fit within the lore of Tyria while also providing engaging gameplay hooks.

So they seem to want the elite professions to fit the game lorewise. And even in Guild Wars 1 mesmers had access to the trait line Fast Casting and skills like Stolen Speed and Echo. Maybe there is some connection between Chaos and Aether on the one hand and Time on the other. If so I hope such a connection is debated.

Concerning Druids, there is a group of creatures in the guild wars universe called druids (conveniently living in the maguuma jungle):
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Druid
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Druid_%28group%29

Edit:
Something that also interested was the fact that the Nuhoch are alchemists and use hammers while the Eningeer elite specialization will be able to use a hammer.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

While all these sound epic, I’m asking the Devs to consider how this will affect the meta for WvW and SPvP.

You think they wouldn’t unless you asked them to?

There doesn’t seem like many ways to counter the control of time, except for really high cool downs or major drawbacks to prevent constant use.

How can you possibly tell? I’d wait until we have actual data on things like casting times, cooldown times, traits and so on.

I thought that the Chronomancer was ridiculously upgraded from Mesmer already. From what I understood there should be more specializations just for Mesmer as well

There will be more than one elite specialization for all professions, eventually. HoT will only give us one elite specialization per profession.

in which case, if they are all that overpowered, then it’s probably just true that all specializations are going to be horribly broken.

The way they have presented them however is that there should still be a reason not to take elite specializations. Especially since they do not want people without HoT to be weaker than people with HoT. At the same time since the elite specializations are fresh and make use of newer technology they of course seem enticing to old players, as they should.

Stars.2179:

I would vote for having a specialization that increase stats and skills for the ranger AND get rid of that pesky pet when specializing in that specialization. A lot of time the pet is a hindrance to ranger’s game play really.

This won’t happen since so many traits (including minor traits) in all core specializations rely on your pet being there. Not only that but there are also healing, utility, elite and even weapon skills that depend on having a pet for at least part of their functionality.

The most elite specializations will do for rangers is alter their pet and f-skills somehow.

I actually quite enjoy underwater combat but two things needs to change:

1) More healing / utility / elite skills need to be useable underwater.
2) We need seperate trait choices for on land and underwater (because several traits don’t do anything underwater or are significantly weaker underwater).

The summary of the stream in which this was explained says the following:

Most skill and trait unlocks will cost five Hero Points. While the numbers should not be considered final or absolute, Jon estimated that it will require roughly 465 Hero Points to unlock every trait and skill available to a character. The process of leveling to 80 will award about 400 Hero Points, so players will only need to complete a fraction of the available hero challenges to have enough points to unlock everything. The system is designed to give players access to skills and traits much faster than in the current system, with the number of Hero Points gained from leveling set to increase at higher levels.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Where was it said there would be a reduction baseline? I thought they said the baseline would be 10, as it is now, and would be reducible to 8 if you spec into arcana, which is how it is now.

It was said that half the bonus will be baseline and the other half will be given if you spec into arcana.

Eponet.4829:

Out of interest, have they said what will be happening with the profession specific stats like burst skill recharge rate, pet attribute bonus, and steal recharge rate?

Half of those bonuses are becoming baseline and the other half you get from specializing in the related specialization (i.e. beastmastery for rangers, arcana for elementalists and so on).

Eponet.4829:

Or the attributes that have very little if any gear options like Condition Duration and Boon Duration?

I think it was said that the duration of conditions and boons will be changed somewhat in order to compensate but don’t quote me on that.

Britannicus.4782:

Diovid.9506:

Doing something like this will eventually require all warriors to be norn, all spellcasters to be asura, all rangers to sylvari and so on, both in PvP and in dungeons/fractals.

The implementation would have to be remarkably lazy for this sort of imbalance to occur.

I don’t know. I think that no matter how small the differences in power might be, players will still find them and make a big deal out of them. Again, Anet anticipated such behavior and designed races accordingly.

I hope this is the case but I’m not really expecting it.