Guild Wars 2

phys.7689:

sadly they will probably not add new proffessions, yet the game is still without a martial artist class, how can this be?

That “problem” is easy to solve via a specialization.

CureForLiving.5360:

I don’t think giving the Charr less enemies is a way to ensure peace… Was watching an interview (a bit old https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TKBmx1Pt5k) in which it was made clear that the peace treaty is only with the Iron Legion. Both Ash and Blood are still technically hostile towards the human, So if they were suddenly given less enemies to fight…

I’m not in a position to watch the video right now but we know Malice (the Ash Legion Imperator) actually actively supports the treaty.

Donari.5237:

Hmm, why wait to next week?

Because we had a blog post on the new borderlands map yesterday?

CureForLiving.5360:

Aren’t they going to implement a couple of different borderlands? So far they’ve revealed the desert borderland, so probably next week they’ll reveal the another borderland.

I’ve seen nothing to indicate that there will be more than this one map.

Donari.5237:

It would be nice of them to give us a list of specs. Just the names (and preferably a planned order of blog reveal). That would fuel a few threads full of guesses as to what the specs will actually do

I want the reverse actually: they do not say anything about the different specializations (such as names or weapons) but instead tell us how specializations work in general.

My current guess is off-hand pistol or off-hand dagger. Though I think off-hand pistol is somewhat more likely.

Dondarrion.2748:

They said that if the new weapon is an offhand, you would be “compensated” with new utility skills to make up for it.

Not as far as I know. I remember them saying that if the new weapon is not a 2-handed weapon, the specialization would indead get compensated but they didn’t elaborate how.

OtakuVeritas.7254:

Diovid.9506:

Aveneo.2068:

Unless they give us a Mainhand Pistol and a Shield, I call foul. The other classes get twohanded weapons with 5 skills and we get the shaft again with a 2 skill gimmick weapon.

We already know that each specialization only gets a single weapon. However, specializations which do not get a two-handed weapon get something extra instead. We have to wait and see what that is exactly.

I thought that each specialisation would only get one ‘new’ weapon that the class didn’t have available to them, and that there was the possibility of specialisations using existing weapons.

Otherwise I think the specialisations may be disadvantaged by only having access to five weapon skills because they are unable to swap weapons

Although I may be wrong

Yes, I meant ‘a single new weapon’ instead of ‘a single weapon’.

Aveneo.2068:

Unless they give us a Mainhand Pistol and a Shield, I call foul. The other classes get twohanded weapons with 5 skills and we get the shaft again with a 2 skill gimmick weapon.

We already know that each specialization only gets a single weapon. However, specializations which do not get a two-handed weapon get something extra instead. We have to wait and see what that is exactly.

Thanathos.2063:

That’s one source

One source which comes from Anet (or at least, that’s what BogOtter claims and I see no reason to assume he is lying).

but you can “equip” one mastery path and “train” it via XP if you don’t have enough mastery points or don’t want to spend them.

No, that’s not how it works. You need both points and experience, not either one or the other.

Starfleck.8392:

We know that experience will grant you mastery points like gaining character levels, where in the past it would have given a lvl 80 simply another skill point.

Wrong. Experience does not give mastery points. Instead certain activities (such as map completion and jumping puzzles) give mastery points. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlBFoHs_siY

You need 78 mastery points to max all vanilla + HoT masteries, by the way.

There will be more masteries in the final release (as said in the above overview I believe).

steve.2945:

lets just say, expect it during the fall

I’m guessing end of summer.

Regardless. We know we have at least 9 more weeks to go (one week per specialization) and possibly more weeks for any additional information (such as guild halls). Furthermore Anet has said that the release date depends on how the closed and open betas go (and since we don’t even know when those will be..).

We know we will get 9 weeks of specialization reveals (but we don’t know when). In addition there will probably be a week dedicated to guild halls and maybe one dedicated to the mysterious ‘challenging group content’. Furthermore, closed beta has been said to start very soon after Rezzed.

Nephziel.6053:

How would people without expansion do it?

Doubt it.

Well.. If world completion was different for those with HoT than for those without HoT then that wouldn’t be a problem.

fabd.7026:

TLDR : HoT is going to add even more powers to high level characters. I hope the developers keep this downscale mechanic in mind and downscale character skills and powers appropriately to make the low level events and champions fun for everyone (including downscaled players themselves!).

At least in theory Anet is trying to make it so that HoT characters are not stronger than non-HoT characters. They are not increasing the level cap, nor are they adding a new level of gear above ascended / legendary. Masteries only increase power versus Mordrem and specializations increase the number of options available but not the power of the options. Whether this actually prevents power creep or not remains to be seen of course.

Kenji.6031:

Linken.6345:

new maps would break old ones

Welp, that doesn’t answer my question in the least, but thanks for playing…

What I think Linken was trying to say is that gliders will only be available in the new maps because being able to use the gliders in the old maps would break those old maps. Although Anet did say that this will be the case for now implying that there is a chance it might change in the future (though I don’t think that’s likely).

The completionist in me hopes so. The completionist in me also hates the fact that there is no map completion for South Sun, Dry Top and the Silverwastes.

Tachenon.5270:

Rytlock needs a good bonk bonk on the head. When Big K did his infamous flyover of Ascalon, how many charr caught in his flight path resisted becoming branded? Only one that I know of: Almorra Soulkeeper.

How many sylvari exposed to Ol’ Mordy resisted his draconic influence? More than one!

So, what race is it we can’t trust around dragons?

/e bonk bonk on Rytlock’s head

You do know that’s not really a fair comparison right? Branded charr were not dragon minions but became dragon minions. Corrupted sylvari on the other hand were dragon minions, then gained freedom and then became corrupted. In addition, branded show visual signs of corruption, while corrupted sylvari do not.

That said I will probably disagree with Rytlock’s stance towards Sylvari but I can see where it’s coming from.

Did we really need another specialization speculation thread?

In addition: Do you think that the classes that only got an offhand weapon announced(like the mesmer) will get an additional mainhand weapon so that they get 5 new skills to, or will those just have to deal with less new weaponskills?

No they will not, each specialization only gets a single weapon. However, it has been confirmed that those specializations that do not get a 2-handed weapon will get something extra. What that extra is is unknown.

steve.2945:

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=35818&storypage=2

I kept reading, and apparently, china has been getting updates before we do, and apparently they get HOT the same time we do..which doesn’t make any sense. We have had the game for 2yrs, almost 3. they barely had it for 1.[/quote]
How does this:

For China, ArenaNet has strived for normal patches to come out at or near the same time in China. They will strive to do the same for HoT, but shipping a boxed expansion has a lot more to consider over normal patches.

mean the same as ‘china getting updates before we do’? You sound entitled.

More specializations will come in the future so who knows.. It might be that a future ranger specialization actually removes the pet. However at the same time it seems quite obvious that to Anet ranger = pet so.. We’ll see.

Personally I don’t mind. The very reason why I play a ranger is so I can play a beastmaster. For my non-beastmaster needs there are 7, soon 8, other professions.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I’ve been wondering – will we get new conquest and deathmach maps that aren’t in the stronghold formula?

They probably would have announced it if that was the case.

And speaking of stronghold, is it just gonna be this one map, or will there be more?

Stronghold will just be that one map, for now anyway.

Cause you know…spvp isn’t exacly overflowing with content right now…

Well, you know.. Bug fixes, balance fixes, the Revenant, specializations, new skins, the stability update and so on will of course all be coming to spvp.

And guild leaderboards of course.

I think the Glint legend might actually be tied the Revenant’s specialization. I’m not sure why, just a hunch..

TexZero.7910:

I hope it never even sees the light of day on a console, heck i hope they never even consider developing/porting the game for one.

Too late. They actually did consider it. For one reason or another it was never developed however.

Is playing GW2 with a controller even possible?

I find it hard to imagine myself but I know there are actually people who manage to play GW2 with a controller.

HawkMeister.4758:

Yeah, mastery system is a bit fuzzy for me too.

This is the clearest explanation of masteries I know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlBFoHs_siY

Also dimly remember the thing about regional masteries. So HoT specific and “the others” mainly about precursor creation masteries or something.

Both sets of masteries are still only available for owners of HoT.

Frikken “Skyrim Online” is going F2P this month Anet, hope you haven´t forgotten that.

It’s going buy to play, not F2P. In addition, like GW2, it has a ‘gem store’ (although it has a different name.. can’t remember, crown store maybe?). There will also be DLC you have to pay for (or which you can buy with crowns I think).

runeblade.7514:

Celtic Lady.3729:

What are adventures, exactly? Are they like Rift’s Instant Adventures where you can join from a city map and be teleported straight to the action to do a series of “quests” with a group?

Nope.

They are just repeatable hearts.

Not really since they have leaderboards. Furthermore, several of the examples given for adventures are nothing like hearts, such as jumping puzzles and mini games.

As Many said, a mini-feature pack was scheduled for past tuesday but will be coming ‘soon’. In addition, the expansion pack includes several things which are kinda-sorta feature pack-y.

Also remember that at least the new borderlands map, the new pvp map and the new defiance mechanic will be available to all (i.e. those features will not be restricted to HoT players and thus are feature pack-y game changes).

Edit: No doubt there will also be bug fixes and balance updates of existing skills, traits, runes etc surrounding the release of HoT.

That’s actually a pretty good idea.

Edit: Of course to properly be an advanture they need leaderboards and thus have some competitive aspect to them (such as doing as much of something within a time limit or doing something in as little time as possible).

Engineers with turrets are also kinda sorta a pet profession. As are Guardians with spirit weapons. Turret builds have somewhat of a role to play in PvP I hear but spirit weapons are underpowered.

Knighthonor.4061:

I hate the Leveling experience in this game. its not fun. I have more fun as a max level, because I dont have restrictions on how I want to play.

Forcing us to go through this boring leveling again will be killer.

No one is forcing you to make a new character. Besides, you are free to use tomes or scrolls of experience or whatever.

Things that are at the top of my ‘to fix’ list:

- Build effectiveness against buildings/objects. Builds that rely on critical hits and/or conditions (and/or certain skills such as marks) are disadvantaged right now.

- The condition cap in PvE.

- The stronger conditions gettting overwritten by weaker condition nonsense.

- The fact that we don’t have a seperate build for above water and underwater, even though certain builds do not function or hardly function underwater.

- The fact that certain builds do not function or hardly function underwater.

- The fact that not all stat combinations are present and/or craftable.

- I think 1 trait point should be given at level 15 and every 5 levels after that. In addition, adapt traits should unlock at level 15, master traits should unlock at around level 45 and grandmaster traits should unlock around level 70. I don’t mind the trait unlocking through activities as much as some other people but trait progression sucks.

- The personal story should be changed back to what it was, which we now know will happen in the near future, thank goodness (and I would like some explanation for why it was changed in the first place and why it took so long to change back).

Brother Dulfite.5793:

They have been working on this expansion for years.

Well.. not quite. As I understood it from interviews, Anet only seriously started working on the expansion after the chinese release.

do you honestly think it took hundreds of anet employees to make the living world season 1 and 2 content over the last 2.5 years? They probably had like 20 developers working on that stuff while the rest focused on the expansion.

The rest of the developers worked on bug fixes, balance fixes, testing, the chinese release, the feature patches, festivals, pvp tournaments and so on.

Anet has stated that ‘challenging group content’ will be a part of the expansion but they have yet to announce what they mean by that. They have been quite evasive about it actually.

What will keep us playing after we finish the story 2-3 weeks in?

Pvp, WvW, open world content, adventures, guild-stuff (unlocking things for the guild hall, guild rushes etc), grinding masteries, leveling a Revenant, getting the new legendaries, doing map completion, completing new achievements and so on?

Edit:

In a typical boxed expansion, the majority of the repeatable content is in the form of dungeons/raids. Generally for a $40 expansion you will get 8-10 dungeons with 8-10 additional hard modes, and 2-3 raids. These dungeons are generally what keep people playing the content as they search for new gear and master the encounters…

What exactly is this based on? How typical is that? And if is typical for other mmo’s, how typical is it for mmo’s that do not focus on gear grind? I mean, currently in GW2 it’s not like ‘pve end game’, to the extent that it can be said to exist, only consists of dungeons. It also includes fractals (which, granted, are basically dungeons), open world events (silverwastes, orr temples etc), map completion, creating legendaries, getting ascended equipment, collecting skins, getting achievement points and so on.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Except those with HoT will be able to use their specializations and new class IN WvW and on those new WvW maps

Yes but Anet is trying to make is so that the new profession and new specializations are not stronger than the old profession. Of course, whether they succeed or not remains to be seen. However the goal is that those without the xpac will be as strong as those with the xpac.

those new WvW maps which will be easier to play on if you have the xpac as those maps will incorporate things that can only be used with masteries, which you can only get by getting the xpac.

Are you sure about that? Source?

DiogoSilva.7089:

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

To be fair, there may be other reasons for that. Such as that some of them are not yet in a state to be shown (like the Revenant’s other legends). Alternatively this might just be chosen as a strategy to maintain hype.

I’m not saying they won’t be a big deal. I mean with a new weapon, a new healing skill, new utility skills, a new elite skill, new traits and a changed profession mechanic they sound like quite the big deal.

raubvogel.5071:

sign – want them to swap weapons.

many times in this game you have to face a foe from the distance and sometimes melee so you should be able to choose an switch while in combat.

Like elementalists can? Oh wait..

I’m really hoping for eight legends. Two per trait line, so we can have some real customization. At that level I don’t even care about the limits on utilities, there should be plenty to choose from. Then you just have to come us with reasonable combinations with your weapons.

Not going to happen. A dev said that the amount of healing skills, utility skills and elite skills of current professions gives an indication of the number of legends. So 4 or 5 seems to be the ‘realistic’ estimate.

Zaruna.3812:

To bad, considering i’m about 99% just at WvW, I don’t see this expansion adding anything for me but 1 class.

Specializations?

The new BL? It’s horrible, really nothing people want to pay for, I mean I can go to EoTM and have about the same kind of map to fight on.

The new borderlands will be available for everyone, not just those with the expansion. But… Seriously? How in the world can you tell based on what is released right now?

SnubdubLuskon.1795:

Dhampyr.2813:

I’d like to point out there mention of a lack of water in HoT areas… Seeing that I think it would be a mistake to at it in this expansion

You mean… besides the huge lake that is bigger than Divinity’s Reach?

You mean the one that most likely will not be part of the maps included in HoT? This is the first area of HoT: http://imgur.com/wWLdpTX and I’m pretty sure all of HoT’s other maps will be to the south of that.

Belzebu.3912:

I also think this will be the case, not really sure about the traits, but legend and weapon yes.

Well, since we already know the stats that correspond to the ‘tanky’ trait line and the ‘condition’ trait line, it was a matter of looking at which stats were left.

Probably some variations may exist and be good, like a sword/axe Damage/Condition build.

Oh yes I surely hope so. I hope builds won’t be as restricted as x weapon = x legend = x trait line but that we have good reasons to mix and match weapons, legends and traits.

Nephrite.6954:

O.o will they get a story on how or why they enter Tyria? Or will they be created like the old classes?

It has already been confirmed that the Revenant has no influence on your character’s story.

Knighthonor.4061:

Tanky Legend
Condition Legend
Support Legend
Range Legend
Melee DPS legend

5 legends to come

I suspect it will actually be someting like:

Condition legend (weapons: mace/axe, trait stats: precision + condition damage)
Tank legend (weapon: hammer, trait stats: toughness + healing power)
Support legend (weapon: staff, trait stats: vitality + boon duration)
Damage legend (weapons: sword/dagger, trait stats: power + condition duration)

Just wait for the deep dive.

If GW2 would have a holy trinity, it would be so different that it would be impossible to compare ‘GW2 with trinity’ to ‘GW2 without trinity’. People who ask for the introduction of the trinity do not see how radical that change would be.

Knighthonor.4061:

Diovid.9506:

Achrisos.1360:

My biggest concern is when uspecialize do u still get access to olnew weap or a druid only has access to staff n that’s it?

I am really hoping to get a longbow for Guard to go with my other weap set but would really suck if they got the LB but could ONLY use that lol

That would mean Guardians and Rangers would lose the ability to swap weapons in combat which seems highly unlikely.

However it might be the case that specializations lose access to a weapon type in exchange for gaining access to a different weapon type.

Another idea, what if instead of Weapon Swap, the specialization change their new weapon skills but keep same weapon.

So take Druid for example. It would have two sets of staff skills. 10 total. Weapon swap simply changes between those two.

So you want all specializations to be like the Elementalist?

Tron.3471:

Maybe I’m out of the loop here but what would be the difference between GvG and say WvW or sPvP? Obviously WvW and sPvP are not the same but would would GvG be that isnt already available in those other options?

GvG means different things for different people:
1. Large guild groups (as in 15+ people) fighting each other. This is done in WvW.
2. Guild Wars 1’s guild vs guild mode (stronghold + guild leaderboards comes close to this, but for some not close enough).

You didn’t see this thread on this exact same subject? https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Tomes-of-Knowledge-don-t-fill-Masteries/first#post4865766

Seeing as gaining levels will reward you mastery points instead of skill points, if you have a track enabled

As explained in that thread, this is not true.

What I hope is that the betas are succesful in making sure that everything works as intended and that everything is balanced (or at least as balanced as possible).

TGI FRIDAY.6275:

really? so they expect us to keep playing on the regular maps for another year or so?

Basically. But with the revenant, specializations, new skins, guild leaderboards, revamped stability, rebalanced old skills and traits etc.

Atherakhia.4086:

The more I read about this the more confusing everything is getting…

Have any of you played WvW At all?

In WvW, you level your WXP rank just like you would level from 1-80. Once you level you’re given a point to invest. You need say 5 of these points to unlock a mastery line and get the first tier. The second tier may cost 20. The third 50, the fourth 100 and so on.

Has anyone who is familiar with the way WvW works actually played the demo and can compare the 2 systems?

Just watch Bogotter’s video mentioned above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlBFoHs_siY

It doesn’t quite work like WvW abilities. There are two aspects of masteries:
1) Mastery points which are used to unlock a tier, these mastery points do not come from leveling but instead come from performing specific actions.
2) Exp which is gained from the usual ways through which you gain exp and which go towards whichever mastery line is set to ‘active’ at a given time, this is used for getting from one tier of a mastery line to the next tier.

Achrisos.1360:

My biggest concern is when uspecialize do u still get access to olnew weap or a druid only has access to staff n that’s it?

I am really hoping to get a longbow for Guard to go with my other weap set but would really suck if they got the LB but could ONLY use that lol

That would mean Guardians and Rangers would lose the ability to swap weapons in combat which seems highly unlikely.

However it might be the case that specializations lose access to a weapon type in exchange for gaining access to a different weapon type.