Guild Wars 2

Will Stronghold affect the personal Leader Boards as well as the Guild Leader Board? If so, won’t this ‘cause players who worry about their rating to not PvP with a weaker guild they’re a part of and preventing the accurate estimation of guild strength?

Invulnerability makes you “unhittable”, like an infinite uber-block that’s not a block. So while condi can’t be put on you, any leeches biting into your skin when you put on that armor stay there.

PorceleinEve.2973:

Quells.2498:

Show us where someone from Anet told you the base class isn’t a specialization

That’s easy, that’s the part were rangers are NOT getting new traits, new heal, new ulti, and new utilities spells. That’s what specializations are getting right? New prof mechanic, new traits, skills, a new weapon. So if ranger isn’t getting that, it’s not a specialization.

Playing with words…. we’ve already established that having ranger as base and one spec is a choice. Some don’t find it a worthy one to make, others feel that that isn’t enough to choose from and others are ok with it. Let’s not repeat ourselves…

Druid isn’t getting new traits, new heal, new elite, and new utilities either~ It’s just being added, and the Druid is only a package of traits and skills and a weapon.

Anyway, Ranger isn’t a “specialization”, but it isn’t any less than one, therefore choosing to be a Druid might not be the best idea for some, as it could sacrifice aspects of the Ranger’s “all-round”-ness that some might prefer or perhaps they don’t like the playstyle of the Druid mechanic in comparison to the Ranger mechanic.

Velociraptors? Velocity+Raptors? Raptors that have speed?

Thieves are the anti mesmer[countering illusions] and the anti glass cannon[killing quickly]. IP Power Shatter is both, so it’s too be expected. Condi Shatter, Condi PU, and CI Lockdown can handle thieves to a certain extent, though they still counter us to a lesser extent.

PorceleinEve.2973:

A Massive Headache.1879:

psizone is completely right.
Also, to me, the people saying 1 specialization isn’t enough is just whining, and lame whining at that. It very much is a choice whether you can understand that or not. The druid will offer a playstyle that ranger does not already cover. Not a necessity, just a nice touch

Well in the same light, the people saying 1 specilization is more than enough are just easily content and naive individuals without imagination, works both ways I guess… If choice in an of it self is the goal here, please by all means petition anet to remove weapon switching competely, then you’ll get to make the choice what weapon you’ll equip for your next fight, so as another poster said “you are nealry every moment to moment choosing” between your weapons. Wow, choice. Make engineer kits, “unique” only one can be on your utilities. More choice. Give elementalists 120 seconds on their stances. That way every 2 minutes they can make a choice. Choices, choices everywere.

Seriously though, let the people who don’t like something to not like it. And be glad that you do. You’ve already won. What are you afraid of? that anet will listen and add another specialization and omg the sky will fall?

Have a nice one guys

I don’t think there’s anyone saying it is more than enough. What I think people are trying to say is that this is expanding gameplay, that it’s enough for now, and people who don’t understand that they’re receiving benefits and painting them as shackles are being a bit spoiled or ignorant or both.

And sure we’d all like another specialization, but it isn’t about to happen on a whim and it won’t help to grief ANet on it.

PorceleinEve.2973:

Thaddeus.4891:

Before HoT. You are ranger. After HoT, you are either ranger or druid. Maybe that’s not enough expanding for you, but are you really saying that there isn’t any expanding here?

Before HoT i was a ranger. After hot i can be either what i was before, or lose part of what i had in exchange for something else. I don’t consider that expanding yes. It feels like this: Imagine i could offer you the ability to fly as a human. You say great, let me have it i wanna soar up the skies. I reply, no problem buddy, now, let me just remove your arms and legs and we’re done. Would you consider yourself expanded then? Cause I would not. Technically i offered you 2 choices. You can either continue to use your arms and legs, or you can now fly armless and legless. I, personally, wouldn’t consider this “expanding” my abilities as a person, nor would i consider it a choice. It’s totally matter of perception I guess. Just be happy you’re on the side that finds the choice offered enough. And not on the other one.

If you could freely choose between having wings or limbs, sure, expanding. That’s why it’s a choice to specialize and not a pigeon hole. Let’s say they gave us two specialties: Druid and Spirit Master, both have everything Ranger+more. Would this not, instead, limit your choice by forcing you to either specialize or get left behind? That’d be unwanted vertical progress when many[won’t speak for majority, but at least I and others] prefer the horizontal progression ANet’s doing with “Ranger or Druid”[Like saying that adding a new profession isn’t expanding gameplay because you can’t be the Revenant AND the Ranger at the same time]. We level, we get to 80, we get to decide what we want to be between two choices. And we can assume that ANet will have a greater ease adding them[specializations] from the initial 2 paths of each profession.

Mesmer: Chronomancer, taught by Mist-Traveling Mursaat
Ranger: Druid, taught by… druids?
Necromancer: Reaper[or whatever], taught by Marjory?
Engineer: Rocketeer, scavenged flying bits of the crashed Pact Airships.
Thief: Guerrilla/Assassin, taught by frog people.
Elementalist: Zephyrite, taught by Zephyrites[specialize in air magic]
Guardian: Zealot? No good idea on this one, but might make sense to have a defensive/support class specialize into offense/control. Given the jungle setting, it might be a more fire-based gameplay.
Warrior: Again, no idea, no hints. Warrior’s extremely well rounded, but I discussed an idea that Adrenaline could instead turn into a strategic buff, such as different levels of quickness or speed or attack bonus when used, and it would drain slowly like Death Shroud. This would emphasize less on the warrior’s weapon prowess and more on their physical mastery.

I just went with my usual name that I use for games. I felt that Mesmer was a “I don’t give a s**t” kind of profession, being a mage that wields swords like it’s nothing and chooses to shoot laser beams instead of slashing with a GS. If you pick something elegant, concise but cool sounding, you should be fine in any standard.

If you need a last name, like Nighthelm suggests, something to do with the mists, mystery, illusions, deceit… stuff like that.

•What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?
I have this bad habit of assuming power shatter.
•How do you feel about your odds of winning?
With my usual MtD, I’m fairly confident 80% of the time. Condi is a mesmer’s usual weakness, so I feel at ease stacking on them.
•Strategies and tactics
Use stealth to avoid initial burst and Chaos Storm to start the fight, getting the first hit and starting condi pressure. The various defenses of MtD with stealths and blocks can avoid the shatter combo. If Lockdown, attempt to stay stealth and avoid AoE CC like Into the Void or Chaos Storm. Main point is is to keep up the condition pressure and the mesmer tends to go down, as most don’t have more than one cleanse and once they’re out, so long as you can get hits in, they’ll go down.
•What skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?
Chaos Storm and Decoy. The AoE from Chaos Storm is very powerful in pressuring a mesmer, even if it doesn’t hit, it becomes a shield they avoid to avoid CC and hindering condi. Decoy helps to shatter faster and cover yourself while disengaging clones and phantasms.
•How do you feel about Mesmer in general?
An easy fight for a condi build of any kind, probably.

I’m curious how this is done. Do they break the map? Since it’s a warrior, he might’ve done some kind of hardcore parkour with leaps.

I’m good with my more passive, defensive condi weapon.

It’s one of few forms of counterplay to stealth. Suck it up, deal with it, as we all do every once in a while when that happens.

Unsure if any of you guys understand why it happens with Necro minions. I’ll explain it now if you don’t get it: This was unintentional, but was accepted by ANet as a fun quirk to the game. The intentional affect was to have minions die on the Necro going Lich, or else the Lich+Minions would become OP. It is assumed the code never specified Lich and now actually works on any transformation, which wouldn’t mean anything since it was meant for necro’s transformations… except mesmer can transform others. This created the unintentional, but allowed, effect of moa killing minions.

No stealth will, for the most part, ruin thieves. You sound a bit salty, so I’ll tell you how thieves are countered: AoE. If whole teams stealth themselves, that’s called coordination, and gives a tactical advantage. Also, pretty sure one team won’t be able to simply stealth-run to Lord, or else there’s a whole other problem than stealth on the map.

Don’t go jumping the gun like that Penguin guy, asking for things to be nerfed out of nervousness and speculation. I assume ANet’s balance team isn’t so naive as to not consider stealth when they built this map, yeah? At least complain after it’s out.

I think every race might have their own thing. Humans could go see Canach in DR, Charr going to check out Rytlock’s new ghostly powers, Norn doing something, Asura doing something, and Sylvari dealing with greater numbers of Nightmare court. Don’t think sylvari will be a special exception, but they are in a very central part of the story right now, so it could be thought of an “interesting story” to check out.

Revs aren’t OP. In PvP, I hardly ever see them! If they were, in fact, OP I’d suspect they’d be everywhere. Disproven~

We’re the second least mobile class I think, down with Necro and Guard. It’s supposed to be one of our weaknesses, but maybe we could get a specialization to let us run faster? Who knows.

Dasenthal.6520:

BrunoBRS.5178:

CureForLiving.5360:

Nova.8021:

I always hated the reasoning why Logan was hated. Rytlock was essentially kittened off that Logan chose Hos over Bros and he threatened to kill him over it. How messed up is that? Like no one has done what Logan did before.

You mean sacrifice an opportunity to destroy an Elder Dragon, save Glint and make the world a better place (with 1 less monarchy, so that’s a triple win)? Yeah I’m sure we’ve all done that at one point.

people tend to forget what “1 less monarchy” would mean.

human/charr war would still be ongoing, the corrupt ministry (who, might i remind you, has connections to the white mantle) would take over, and ebonhawke would’ve fallen. if logan hadn’t held the branded off long enough to keep the queen from being overwhelmed, most, if not all, of humanity would have been gone by now.

but yeah, snaff died, how dare that logan.

If I recall corectly , he didn’t exactly do much…. Jennah did most of the heavy lifting.

^^ Basically he acted the knight in shining armor when the damsel wasn’t in too much of a distress.

I hate Logan for having no backbone. Characters who are too easily influenced are a bit… annoying. It always seems like he can’t make his own decisions, which is where all the others tend to come out on top. Hell, even Trahaerne.

Knighthonor.4061:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIsgotF-AXw

There’s your answer.

Pretty fast auto chain. Whole thing takes about 1.7 seconds.

What’s your answer because I can’t see that video right now

Melee.

Warshade.2984:

Gulesave.5073:

Roda.7468:

Personally, I REALLY would’ve preferred mainhand pistol, because C’MON!!

The purpose of the specs is to completely change up the professions and how they play, though. Pistol on main-hand wouldn’t really add anything new – it would feel like the same old mesmer. The shield is part of a fully reimagined mesmer that looks to me like it’s been designed to handle multiple targets, (aoe field illusion & knockdown shatter).

The Focus isn’t all that dissimilar from what we know of the Shield thus far…

We don’t really know anything about the shield, only that there’s an AoE skill and that it seems to have to do with time. Other than that, it’s all speculation.

Melanion.4892:

SobeSoul.6910:

PvP builds are not selfish. Warriors, eles, and eles all heal teams. And all can condi clear allies. Guardians too depending on spec. Mesmers and thieves provide boon ripping and other utility to teams. That leaves only two classes on the selfish side. Necros and rangers.

On the other hand there’s nothing really wrong with having a selfish oriented build in a team if the other four members are providing team oriented utility. It would be the same as the focus parties in gvg. Like Zoose playing fresh air scepter over d/d for DoD in tournies.

I know some gvg guilds have PU mesmers and SA thieves. Those builds are as selfish as anything in spvp.

Most gvg players who enter spvp have little understanding of strategies and end up losing games they shouldn’t. I know the gvg tags. There’s some gvgers who can do both well, as they’re plenty of spvpers who go into wvw and do fine.

You seem to have missed the point. What I’m saying is that the playstyle is more selfish, not the builds. Often the builds are very similar, actually (for mesmers and thieves, at least).

I’ll give you an example: thieves and mesmers that excel at pvp are generally not as good at larger group play because that’s how they’re used to playing. They make excellent roamers in wvw, for the most part, but IN GENERAL they don’t have as much awareness of the trains in a gvg or larger scale fight. When I say selfish, I mean that they use their escapes more selfishly. I have played with some thieves who are really good at 1v1s and roaming and pvp, but you put them in a 20v20 and it’s a whole different story.

There are some guilds that are really good at pvp who have tried to get really competitive at gvg, and they get pretty good, but then they hit a ceiling. Maybe it’s because of the mentalities of each player, maybe it’s the playstyle, but that’s just the case. They do not to as well in larger fights. Maybe it’s too minimal for most people to see the difference, but that’s just the way things are.

Another example would be 1v1 skill. To pvp, you don’t need to be able to 1v1 very well at all. Of course, you need to have a build that can survive long enough that your team can rotate to you or you need to know when to pull out of a fight. The same goes for gvgs (as we call them in the wvw community). You can be great at a 1v1 or in pvp, but you need to know how things operate in gvgs. Some of the “best” gvg guilds out there arguably don’t have the best players, but they don’t need them. I’ve heard that gvg players (I think it was even in a link posted here). You don’t need to be the best individually skilled players when it comes to larger fights, but you need builds and synergy to overcome that deficit.

I hope that’s clear… although I thought my last post was fairly clear and here we are…

Well, I just want to correct you on one of your points: the example you used of mesmers and thieves is quite biased in a sense. As the game was balanced for smaller battles, so too were these two classes specifically. Mesmer illusions melt in the mass AoE of large fights like WvW GvG, and thief itself can’t well survive being caught in 3-10 different AoE at once at all times. At best, these guys can learn to run around the back and attack enemies from behind. While possible, I’d like to point out: isn’t that unfair? It’s unfair that these classes aren’t given the option to play to their advantages while all others are. That’s a point where GvG TDM falls short and where Stronghold might cover.

Just my opinion, of course, but correct me where I’m wrong.

So it seems like we only get one specialization this expansion, but no telling what we’ll get beyond that, so I’d like to throw an idea out there for fun: Make-Your-Own Specialization!

Here’s one of mine:

The Fast Caster!

• Gains access to the Main Hand Pistol.
• One of its special new mechanics is an alternative way of utilizing illusions as resources. When you double click, or signify through certain methods, a skill, you can Fast Cast it by killing off one of your three illusions[IP not included, as it is not shattering]. This makes the skill instantly cast, or gives you a second of quickness at the moment of cast to increase the channel speed.

What are your dream subclasses for Mesmer?

JUN YANG.4328:

thanks for the answer guys. that make sense now.

1. so if i want go for higher damages. i need to use all mantra skill. right.
2. this trait skill sound helpful. specially PVP. so is not CD right.

2. Has an ICD of 60 seconds

1. It makes a difference, but you’ll have to pay close attention.

2. It still affects you, but it will mirror it back at the opponent.

Tricare.2946:

Rym.1469:

2. It’s eassier to commentate on less players and their individual skill is more visible.
.

This right here is one of the big reasons it’s going to exclude lots of people yet again.

Individual skill.

If I’m in a 10-20 man guild, I’m only going to want my 5 best players to play. I don’t want to lose any matches.

How is your individual skill representing a guild achievement?

This isn’t deciding the best guild, but the strongest, and by that means the guild with the strongest PvPers. Let’s assume Stronghold will be 8v8[for various reasons, but that’s another discussion]. Large guilds have numerous advantages on in this now: They have a larger pool of players to make numerous teams with which will all work individually to contribute to the guild’s LB ranking. The second is having a larger pool of players to which they can find strong PvPers, meaning more likely to create stronger teams. This alone is enough of an advantage for large guilds.

A guild is a group of individuals that come together to help improve their individual skill or their team work. A zerg is not a team, it is a blob. Do not confuse telling a blob what to do with team work.

Now, large guilds have their own advantages, but so do small guilds that have learned to work well together. This creates the balance that the massiveness of large guilds can overwhelm with numerous teams, but can also dilute individual skill while small guilds can learn to excel on an individual level. This balance, however, is still very tilted to large guilds, but doesn’t make it impossible for small to medium guilds. Do you have a problem with this, and if so please state why you think it’s unfair that small guilds have a chance to compete fairly on the Leaderboards?

Hm, thought this might be the case, but hoped it wouldn’t, though I guess there are reasons for this. Despite it, there may be pros and cons to specializing so it might not be forced on us, and they leave room to expand specializations as well as add new weapons to classes.

Over all, somewhat sad, but not too disappointed.

It’s different enough to not be the same. Any idea you ever had has probably been thought up already, so good writers, designers, and whatnot learn to not get caught up with being “100% original”. “10% original” is actually quite good in most cases to have one thing become one’s own creation and not a simple copy.

Point is: No, they won’t give you other professions specializations. Specials are supposed to be extension classes of the main class, therefor a Ranger can’t extend its abilities to a Chronomancer, lets say, because the Ranger had no time-space magic or related abilities to begin with. Dervish has little to do with Ranger’s abilities lore-wise, so it’s very unlikely it’ll be getting it[Like most people said, it’ll probably be a Reverent thing].

Reverence.6915:

I have all level 80s and play my class depending on what’s required in WvW or sPvP (usually bunker guardian, elementalist or warrior). Where does that put me lol

Correlating class choices with Myers-Briggs in a video game is really stretching it due to many people playing a class ‘because it’s OP’, or because they were told to (play your healer for raid/play your warrior, we need a banner).

You must have multiple personalities!

JLHiggs.6258:

Whatever Mesmer is, it’s going to use shield per the announcement video. Necromancers get great swords and Engineers get hammers.

As stated, there’s no telling how many specials there’ll be per profession[I’m guessing 3]. OP does have to add that engi will be using hammers, though.

Very curious to see if you update this to include Reverent, and how you’ll judge those that keep at it after the “gotta try that new profession” period is over and filters out the Rev mains.

I’d like to add something to mesmer: Tricksters. The kind of person that likes to shock or surprise people, to do something unexpected and see their reactions. Likes to show off their cleverness.

My reason for picking mesmer is because of the idea of illusions, being able to outsmart and manipulate the enemy, acting as the mastermind.

Agree on the other mesmer stuff, of course: Having portal is great for starting parties in hard-to-reach locations.

I have a question about Stronghold and entering it as a guild: Will this affect an individuals personal ranking on the PvP Leaderboards or will it only be affecting the Guild Leaderboard?

I’m hoping it only affects the Guild LB, or else there’ll be cases where a guild wants to GvG, but the better players may be reluctant as it could drag them down with it. I’m not one of those top-tier players, of course, but would still like to play with those people in the guild just the same without feeling like I’m being a huge burden on them.

Inquisitor[Mesmer]: Using various conditions or boons to punish actions by enemies. Dagger?

coglin.1867:

From the video, the engineer with the drones, struck me as a minion mancer necro with robots.

The drones weren’t shooting things[nor seemed to have guns attached], so I think it might either be a skill or a mechanic. In the case of a skill, the drones would likely have a specific purpose to perform, acting as a buff to the engi or something on those lines, like maybe flying mines to crash into people. If they’re a mechanic connected to the special, they might be multipurpose resources, which is less likely.

I’m hoping this will be 8v8 to 10v10. It will be big enough that it isn’t simply normal PvP, but not big enough to be able to zerg the map. It’s also a good number in the case of smaller guilds and large guilds with a limited PvP subsection.

Favorite part about this is the use of hirelings/soldiers and hired-heroes. I don’t see it as cannon-fodder so much as ammunition for support builds to turn into something more lethal.

You guys are too rigid. The “a” in “a new weapon” could’ve meant “for each specialization, the profession will get a new weapon they hadn’t had before” in which the likely case of us being presented with more specials equals us getting more weapons.

Don’t dig too much into the specifics of ANet’s grammar and try to think of the less dumb thing what they wrote could mean.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Eventually, in grand total, I’d like to see 5. One themed to each trait.

But with HoT, I’d expect no more than 3, and think 2 is most likely.

I hope it isn’t just 1. Why? Customization. I don’t want to be shoehorned into a single progression for my characters just because. I don’t want to be stuck with " either progress as this, or don’t progress at all."

And in the end, capping at 5 works best, IMO. It’s the top amount of thematic specialization I can think of without delving outside the professions’ themes or niches, and it avoids eventual balance troubles with too many possibilities.

Just start out with 2, with the other 3 sketched out and ready to implement for future feature batches.

Hm, true originally I wanted 5, but I read someone else’s post about this and found it made much more sense. A specialization will unlock new mechanic[s] to the class, meaning maybe an extra F1-4+ buttons to use. New Heal/Utility/Elite skills. And, new Traits. Some people are thinking of it as a whole other window, but I find the idea that we’ll simply have new traits locked with the prerequisite of a certain specialization. This’ll mean specials don’t have to be constrained to a single trait line, but I do hope they don’t feed us a meta in their placement of these special traits.

Given how they said you’ll get new mechanics, it isn’t exactly stated you’ll lose your old ones. Possibly, this might give you a new “Shroud” which fills your F2 button and gives you more skills as well as a new way to think about the distribution between your Death Shroud use and your other “Shroud” use.

Hm, here’s my theory on this. Specializations are so professions can go deeper into a certain aspect of their capabilities or game mechanics. ANet released the game with the wish to recreate the Holy Trinity[DPS, Healer, Tank] into what I’ll call the New Trinity[DPS, Support, Control]. In this sense, I think it would make sense for 3 specials per profession to exist to fit into each niche of this Trinity.

I can’t imagine them doing just 1 special per, or there’d be no specializing about it. While many people have come to this conclusion because ANet hasn’t given or shown information about other specials in their announcement, I think that’s reasonable in that they simply didn’t want to be too unfair or show favoritism towards one profession by giving them more than the others. Rangers were used only as an example and will probably showcase the possibilities of what it can be, a medium armored class wielding a staff being odd and unorthodox up to this point. Thus just because they didn’t show more than one doesn’t mean they only have one per profession.

Those are just my thoughts.

Alternative thought on the mesmer skill we saw: Timed explosion? Maybe the clock is actually a timer that indicates when the shattering effect, or whatever it is, will happen? Or perhaps it has more to do with timing, in which the longer it’s not activated by the mesmer the more damage it will do?

Just some thoughts, since there’s no proof it’s actually a CC ability.

On the off chance there’s 5 specials per profession, you might see a specialization for each trait line, like a Fire Master, Air Master, Earth Master, Water Master, and Arcane Master, each gaining more of what the line specializes in, meaning pure damage, pure control, pure tankiness, pure support, and whatever the Arcane line is[I’m not an ele…].

Or, there could be 3-4 which combine the lines, such as Magma, Steam, Mud/Wood/Plant, etc. which could also be cool.

Elementalist is probably the hardest to guess, but my personal opinion is that it’d be cool for you guys to have a MH sword~

Weapons that might fit warrior that it doesn’t have could be Dagger or Pistol. An offhand dagger to act as a secondary weapon, or offhand pistol for the same reason. Unsure how it’d specialize though.

Maybe if we get MH Pistol, it’ll be Duelist or Fast Caster, something reminiscent of GW1’s mesmer’s who specialized in minimizing channeled skills, so quickness focused or at least with numerous 1/4s activation skills.

Abbadon.

Derigar.7810:

I feel a Revenant is a fresh breath of fresh air for a profession. It feels and plays differently from other professions, and that’s all I ever wanted.

Of course, A chronomancer would’ve been good too… Haha

Chronomancer is a speculated specialization for Mesmer, given the clock-like skill used by the shield mesmer in the trailer.

Is when it’s coming.