Guild Wars 2

Astral Projections.7320:

Obsidian.1328:

The problem is ANet suffers from a lack of genre specificity. This game pulls skins from every point on the style spectrum. As a result, there’s a lot of different styles to choose from, but each of those individual styles are generic or have minimal variety. They went for quantity over quality.

Don’t forget buttcapes. They went in for that also.

Makes you wonder if the artists get a bonus if they design buttcapes or floor length skirts, open in the front.

I happen to like buttcapes because I don’t feel like looking at my character’s hindquarters all day, tyvm.

Tom Gore.4035:

I can completely imagine the conversation between the vendor and the player character.

“Hey! I’d like to buy 100 Icy Runestones.”
“Sorry, only selling one at a time.”
“Err… okay. Give me one.”
“Are you sure? These things are like super expensive at one gold per stone, and only used to craft legendary weapons.”
“Yes I know that. I’m going to craft one and I need 100 Icy Runestones, among a lot of other stuff. Just give me that.”
“Alright then. There you go, one Icy Runestone for one gold. Anything else?”
“Yes. I still need 99 more.”
“Sorry, only selling one at a time.”
“You said that already. Just give me the next one.”
“Are you really sure about that? It’s one GOLD per stone!”
“NnnnngrrrlllllAAAAAARRGGH!!”

Hahahahahaha.

Olba.5376:

Vol.5241:

We just had an assassination already, I doubt they’d do it again so quickly.

A kidnapping? That I could see.

Considering that Jennah is a Mesmer and can apparently use telepathy with Logan, I don’t think a kidnapping plot against her would last very long. Like, maybe 20 minutes?

That apparently didn’t stop Logan from thinking she was dead at the start of CM story – and it wasn’t even her telepathy that put a stop to that – it was Zojja.

Tolmos.8395:

There are a lot of terrible, TERRIBLE armor designs in this game. The worst of them, IMO, are the ones from the black lion trader. The only set that is even remotely acceptable is the original medium armor you could buy for gems. But the light(clown) armor and the heavy armor? Holy crap. And of course the new steampunk armor that could have been awesome but instead looks terribad…

I eventually decided they did it on purpose. They want everyone to run a handful of armor sets, so they make the rest as terrible as they can

The Aetherblade armor (light and medium anyway) sets do indeed look terrible, but they contribute some very good parts. The chest, leggings, and boots for the light Aetherblade armor look great, for example. The leggings in particular provide one of the few examples of pants for male Elementalists.

All that constitutes is a model for a single halberd skin. That’s the easy part – and we don’t even know how badly this model would clip with existing armor skins. Minis don’t attack, so it doesn’t imply that there are even halberd animations yet, much less skills associated with them.

Wolfheart.1938:

Nuka Cola.8520:

I’ve made bunch of threads suggesting stuff that would improve this game.

Except those “improvements” (like 10 additional trait points) were shot down by people that wouldn’t have liked them. So where you see “improvement”, others see the game getting worse. And while it’s easy for you to invalidate others opinions by telling them “kitten you casuals”, it’s not as easy for reasonable people.

I remember a guy suggesting that dyes should’ve given you a resistance to particular kinds of damage, and I’m sure he believes his suggestion would’ve improved the game. See where I’m going? Because I’m not, it’s late in here.

That suggestion….. XD

Tengu first. They’re more unique (Kodan are similar to Norn), have more customization potential, a more fleshed out culture, a longer history with the series, and their own established racial city. It would be a crime to NOT include them.

Best
Mad King
Super Adventure Box
Bazaar of the Four Winds
Wintersday
Flame and Frost Arc
Dragon Bash
Aetherblade
Secret of Southsun/Last Stand
Cutthroat Politics
The Utter Crap That Was Lost Shores
Worst

Listing Lost Shores as anything but last is just horribly wrong. The event was a poorly optimized and poorly tested crapfest of lag and bugs that was unfortunately also used as a free trial to the game – likely turning off thousands of potential players. In addition, the finale was obnoxious, un-fun, and gave out RNG precursors at a rate that was high enough to trivialize them at the time, but low enough to kitten the community off, and with good reason. All it gave us was a badly designed, under-rewarding zone (despite its beauty) that is a veritable ghost town, even after they tried (and failed) to breathe life into it through the living story.

PvP

Game types other than conquest.

Change in development focus from conquest to base destruction (ie: Guild Wars 1 GvG or moba-esque pvp).

Make 5v5 the standard team size for both tournament and non-tournament PvP.

WvW

Optimization.

Bug/hack fixes.

More features that discourage zerging / encourage small group (approx. 5-10 player group) gameplay.

More achievements – including some infinite achievements and easier-to-get achievements.

PvE

Ascended armor/weapons.

More stat nomenclatures.

NO (and I mean ABSOLUTELY ZERO) additional vertical progression after Ascended gear.

Improved rewards in the open world.

Journal that allows characters to go back and re-experience personal story missions at their leisure, including any new missions that get added to any point in the timeline.

Guilds

Ability to view the last time each member logged on.

Removed representation as a system.

Players now simultaneously earn influence for all guilds they belong to.

Additional chat panels for each guild you are in, allowing you to participate in all 3 guilds at once. These would be separated from the main chat tab (and each other) to avoid confusion.

PvP tab – includes the ability to play Guild vs. Guild.

More Guild Missions.

General

More skills, traits, and weapons for all professions.

More hair and face options.

More armor and weapon skins.

Additional weapon types.

Tengu race.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Poledo.3256:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Conncept.7638:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Let me take a guess. GEM STORE 800gems.

Better than

RNG CHEST,120 gems, 0.00000001% drop rate

yes, but what about adding it to the game and no gems involved? You know, how it used to be in gw1? Why is it that every time an armor is added its automatically has to do something with gems? wtf

Free game makes money how? That’s right, you wouldn’t have any new content without those gems.

Hmmmm lets see, it sold over 3 million, it already has BUNCH of gem store items and no a single new armor was added since the game came out that isn’t on a gem store again. Even if they had no gem store, the 3 mil games sold alone made them a tones of money for new content but nope, gem store is in the game, has a tone of overpriced things in it and they’re making boatload of money over their 3million initial sales.

Which allows them to hire more staff and pump out free content at a faster and more steady rate than any online game in history has ever managed to do. Those bi-weekly updates you’re benefitting from? Joe Blow over there funded those with his purchase of a Krytan medium armor skin and name changer.

Seriously, stop complaining about the gem store. Not one item in there is required to play the game, enjoy it, and compete on the same level as everyone else. They aren’t selling you power. They’re selling you cosmetics and convenience, both of which are perfectly acceptable. And to top it off, you can trade gold for gems, allowing you to obtain any item in the gem store without spending a single cent on gems. That’s WAY more generous than most cash shops, including the one in Guild Wars 1.

Oh, and box purchase only models are not self-sustainable over the long-term. Guild Wars 1 (which was hugely successful) provides plenty of evidence towards this fact.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Stormcrow.7513:

I took my like off because the facebook page moderators will delete ANY negative comment, even if it is valid and well represented.

this is pathetic but Microsoft did the same after E3 X1’s ****storm by deleting everything negative on their official youtube page but there was so much negativity from everyone that they just blocked all comments lmao. Mods deleting negative comments (this was on this forum as well but i noticed it got better, you can at least be negative/give reason why you dislike something and not be 100% moderated and message deleted) just shows how many people were disappointed with gw2 and how much it failed to deliver.

By this logic, every single MMORPG is disappointing and fails to deliver. All of them, including WoW, Rift, Lotro, because every single MMORPG’s game forums are predominantly negative.

So what you’re really saying is all MMOs suck. Because I’ve not found a single MMORPG with official forums that are predominantly positive.

No. Just no. WoW’s forums are about an equal balance of positives/negatives. Rift’s forums are pretty positive, because most people are happy with the direction that Rift took.

People complain about Guild Wars 2 for a reason. Sure there are some people that complain about nothing, but if there are complaints every single day on the forums, and people agree with them? That’s a signal that Anet did something wrong.

Research before you say something. Not all forums are predominantly negative.

I think that you’re interpreting forums in a direction that favors your bias. If you actually look at our forums and other forums, you’ll find a healthy balance of positive and negative everywhere. Hell, look at the forums for League of Legends – THE most popular game in existence. You’ll find pages and pages of rage threads every other day. In fact, you’re more likely to find negative threads than positive threads there.

Why? Forum posters are generally those who aren’t satisfied with something in the game. Satisfied players rarely have a need to post, and therefore rarely have a reason to post.

Even here, we’ve got a balance of positive and negative – a healthy one in which both sides can and sometimes do make valid points, even if these valid points are typically lost in a veritable ocean of idiocy and fanaticism.

No, the forums are not in a bad state. No, the forums are not an indicator or poor game quality or some perceived mistake on Arenanet’s part. They’re just a developer looking to serve their community to the best of their capacity. Occassionally, they do make mistakes (ie: Ascended Gear), but the overall direction of the game is one that is healthy and has potential to improve the game and minimize the impact of their November update.

Also – most of the negative threads are in regards to irrelevant issues in the first place (such as RNG gambling for OPTIONAL SKINS), rather than important issues such as the general state of the game, the direction of PvP, reward scaling, etc.

Hard to disagree. This forum has a bunch of fanboys like Vayne who enjoy cotton candy content and “press F to collect free reward”. To those people, when you state something negative you’re instantly a troll because they (the minority) enjoyed spamming F collecting free rewards. If those people went back playing games on their facebook, this whole forum would be very negative and anet would have no choice but change their updates. #dealwithit its the truth, truth you, Vayne and some others certainly not wanting to believe.

You seem to have twisted my statement into one supporting the negative side of the forums – which it is not. It was neutral – and, if anything, I side with the overall positive side. Both sides have their blind fanatics who call their opponents trolls. Hell, YOU just did pretty much the exact same thing that you give a bad rap to the “fanboys” for doing.

And for the record, I like Vayne a lot more than I like a lot of the overly-negative drama-queens in this forum who explode at every little thing they perceive as bad and seem to be under the impression that the sky is falling in Guild Wars 2. It isn’t. In fact, Arenanet is HIRING more staff, rather than firing them – that’s a strange occurance in the MMORPG world, and one that points to a healthy game, rather than a failing one.

Nurvus.2891:

Point One. (Guild Wars 1 had the better skill system, less randomness, and no trash loot.)

Okay, Guild Wars 1 definitely had a superior skill system, especially in terms of customization, but you make two wild (and incorrect) claims in here.

“There was very little randomness in combat.”

My kitten . Try critical hits (which were available to everyone at a lower activation percentage, and relied upon by Thieves for both damage and energy management), blind (90% miss chance), all skills that have a 50% failure rate when below a certain attribute level, and pretty much every block-based skill in the game. Shield of Deflection, Aegis, Guardian, Pensive Guardian, and Shield Guardian are prime examples (Aegis and Guardian being two of the most important skills in the game – a HUGE factor in winning based on random occurance), and that’s JUST naming the random Monk abilities. Sure, Guild Wars 2 has significantly more emphasis on random numbers (often to unacceptable degrees – ie: Engineer elixirs), but to claim that Guild Wars 1 had “very little randomness” is just plain silly.

Also, there was plenty of trash loot in Guild Wars 1. There were mob trophies (even if there were collectors for these) that generally ended up as merch fodder. There were vendor/salvage trash whites, blues, etc. There were plenty of bad rare items – especially in Prophecies and Factions where there was no ability to change the stats of a rare with different upgrade parts.

Point 2 (We don’t want players to grind.)

This is subjective. No, you don’t have to grind for anything, unless you honestly count having to choose between dailies/monthlies, WvW, FotM, or Guild Missions to get ascended gear as a grind. You don’t need that legendary skin or that mystic forge skin – you just don’t want it, and you can eventually get it without grinding CoF p1 until all the other grinders know you by name.

“Fun” is entirely subjective. I have tons of fun in the open world (and the game in general) by simply playing the game how it was meant to be played (which is to say, however the player wants to play). My income might not be top-notch, but I never feel like my experience has betrayed the manifesto in any way, shape, or form.

Point 3. (We want you to feel like a hero).

Arguably, this part is true. I’ll give you that. The personal story died with your mentor and became Trahearne’s personal story +1 sidekick. In fact, I’m not really going to bother arguing the point except to say that I do not feel that the repeating nature of Dynamic Events betrays the idea behind this part of the manifesto – and they already stated that they intend to add more Dynamic Events over time, while slowing down the cycles on other Dynamic Events in the area.
—-

I think the game has a great potential and I hope ANet keeps up at full steam.

My thoughts in bold. I had to summarize your sections to keep within the message body length.

Sylentir.8913:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Sylentir.8913:

Engineer has the advantage of literally being able to fill any role. By changing your spec and gear, you can do:
~Long-range AoE crit damage
~Long-range AoE condition damage
~Short-range AoE crit damage
~Medium range hyperAoE condition damage
~Medium range AoE crit damage
~Melee PBAoE bruiser (Part tank, part damage)
~Pure control
~Pure support
~Pure tank
~Support/tank
~Control/tank

That’s not a unique advantage. Nearly every (if not every) profession is capable of doing this (even Thief). It’s an integral part of the game’s design and one of the main reasons why Guild Wars 2 is an amazing innovation on the genre.

I’ve yet to see a tank thief, a support warrior, or a condition anything guardian. Every profession is versatile, but they do have optimal builds and ineffective builds. When I see a thief, I immediately assume that they’ll be very mobile, very squishy, and very hard-hitting in melee. When I see a warrior, I assume that they’ll want to get up in my face. When I see a mesmer, I assume that they’ll constantly use clones to confuse me. When I see a ranger, I assume that they’ll actually fight from range. When I see a guardian, I’ll assume that they’ll be a pain in the kitten to kill. While I’m not right every time, these assumptions work 90% of the time. You cannot make any assumptions for an engineer. It is impossible to tell how an engineer will play until you see them start to use abilities.

That’s a matter of mindset – what kind of player does this profession attract? Generally speaking, players who pick Thief do so because they want to be mobile and burst targets down hard out of stealth. This does not mean that this is necessarily the optimal way to play – in fact, tank/bruiser Thieves (those using stealth-based Shadow Arts traits alongside maxed out Deadly Arts or Critical Strikes) are every bit as effective thanks to fantastic healing and condition removal alongside their stealth (and they still put out great damage).

When I see an Engineer (in PvE) I generally assume they’ll be nade spamming, because that’s one of (if not the) most common builds for the class. While it can be said that Engineer is one of the more non-stereotyped classes, this is because Engineers still have the stigma of an underpowered/underappreciated class – they don’t have a “role” for groups because groups often opt for other options. This is not to say that the Engineer is not a versatile and powerful class.

Sylentir.8913:

Engineer has the advantage of literally being able to fill any role. By changing your spec and gear, you can do:
~Long-range AoE crit damage
~Long-range AoE condition damage
~Short-range AoE crit damage
~Medium range hyperAoE condition damage
~Medium range AoE crit damage
~Melee PBAoE bruiser (Part tank, part damage)
~Pure control
~Pure support
~Pure tank
~Support/tank
~Control/tank

That’s not a unique advantage. Nearly every (if not every) profession is capable of doing this (even Thief). It’s an integral part of the game’s design and one of the main reasons why Guild Wars 2 is an amazing innovation on the genre.

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Stormcrow.7513:

I took my like off because the facebook page moderators will delete ANY negative comment, even if it is valid and well represented.

this is pathetic but Microsoft did the same after E3 X1’s ****storm by deleting everything negative on their official youtube page but there was so much negativity from everyone that they just blocked all comments lmao. Mods deleting negative comments (this was on this forum as well but i noticed it got better, you can at least be negative/give reason why you dislike something and not be 100% moderated and message deleted) just shows how many people were disappointed with gw2 and how much it failed to deliver.

By this logic, every single MMORPG is disappointing and fails to deliver. All of them, including WoW, Rift, Lotro, because every single MMORPG’s game forums are predominantly negative.

So what you’re really saying is all MMOs suck. Because I’ve not found a single MMORPG with official forums that are predominantly positive.

No. Just no. WoW’s forums are about an equal balance of positives/negatives. Rift’s forums are pretty positive, because most people are happy with the direction that Rift took.

People complain about Guild Wars 2 for a reason. Sure there are some people that complain about nothing, but if there are complaints every single day on the forums, and people agree with them? That’s a signal that Anet did something wrong.

Research before you say something. Not all forums are predominantly negative.

I think that you’re interpreting forums in a direction that favors your bias. If you actually look at our forums and other forums, you’ll find a healthy balance of positive and negative everywhere. Hell, look at the forums for League of Legends – THE most popular game in existence. You’ll find pages and pages of rage threads every other day. In fact, you’re more likely to find negative threads than positive threads there.

Why? Forum posters are generally those who aren’t satisfied with something in the game. Satisfied players rarely have a need to post, and therefore rarely have a reason to post.

Even here, we’ve got a balance of positive and negative – a healthy one in which both sides can and sometimes do make valid points, even if these valid points are typically lost in a veritable ocean of idiocy and fanaticism.

No, the forums are not in a bad state. No, the forums are not an indicator or poor game quality or some perceived mistake on Arenanet’s part. They’re just a developer looking to serve their community to the best of their capacity. Occassionally, they do make mistakes (ie: Ascended Gear), but the overall direction of the game is one that is healthy and has potential to improve the game and minimize the impact of their November update.

Also – most of the negative threads are in regards to irrelevant issues in the first place (such as RNG gambling for OPTIONAL SKINS), rather than important issues such as the general state of the game, the direction of PvP, reward scaling, etc.

Nightarch.2943:

Why does all the heavy armour helmets have to suck so much. Could we just this once get something along the lines of a mask like the light armour’s acolyte? Or even just wearing the water respirator on land would satisfy me.

I don’t know. Maybe you can have light armor quality headwear when light armor gets heavy-quality everything else.

Eremoo.2785:

I can’t for the life of me decide still, there isn’t a class that I look at and say “Ok i like this class and it has everything I need/want”, feels like there’s always something missing..gonna have to pick something and accept the fact it won’t have everything I want

I recommend having a Necro, Guardian, Elementalist, and Mesmer. They will fill virtually all of your needs for all game types and each of them has a fun, unique feel with a completely different support offering than the others. With 5 starting slots, that opens up your 5th slot for anything you want, and you can always trade gold for gems to have all of the professions without spending an extra cent.

Edit:

You should probably start with a Mesmer though. It will get you into pretty much any PvE group, as well as being powerful in sPvP/tPvP and in-demand in WvW.

Gauradan.8361:

maddoctor.2738:

I laugh as well, a buggy mess like all Bethesda games is coming and somehow people think it will offer any kind of challenge for Guild Wars 2? Yeah right.

Except the game isn’t being developed by Bethesda. Don’t let facts get in the way of your ignorance, though.

ZeniMax is a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media – associated with Bethesda. You should really get your facts straight before fact checking someone else.

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

It’s the same thing as it being developed by Bethesda. It’s still likely to fail because of incompetent developing – this time WITHOUT the ability to mod everything and do the developers’ jobs for them – and more and more potential players have lost interest in the title with each passing information leak.

The ONLY thing that will lend the title immediate popularity is its TES IP – and that won’t stop it from potentially meeting the same fate as SWTOR.

It really depends on what flavor of support you want.

Necromancers excel at dishing out conditions (especially bleeding, poison, cripple, chill, blind, and vulnerability), spreading conditions, removing conditions from allies and transferring them to foes, and Fear. They have healing and boons to support allies with, but not in large supply.

Guardians are very versatile support. While yes, they will almost always be dishing out damage in the front lines, they also bring in boon support, potent healing, and projectile reflection – wall of reflection is arguably the most powerful skill in PvE. You’ll always be able to get a dungeon group.

Elementalists are a versatile class with a high skill cap. They bring in huge boon support – frequent access to almost every boon, while also providing fire, water, ice, and lightning combo fields (as a staff ele). Regardless of weapon choice, you’ll have group healing ranging from reasonable to great. You also have access to auras, which have a variety of powerful effects and can be shared once you put 30 into Water for the Grandmaster trait.

Mesmers are mostly self-centered. They don’t have a ton of support options, but what they do have is very potent. Area quickness (Time Warp), area boons and conditions via staff, projectile reflecting bubble, portals, area condition removal – and all of these count as ethereal combo fields (which are possibly the best in the game). Also, you can trait your illusions to provide boons to allies (specifically regen and vigor). With the Mesmer, you just have to bear with the dreadfully bad early levels (approx. 1-30 or 1-40) until your traits give you a huge power boost and allow you to become one of the best professions in the game. Sword/Focus with a Staff as your secondary is pretty much the staple build of a Mesmer for all intents and purposes.

Rangers have reasonable support options through Healing Spring – the best PvE healing skill in the game – Warhorn boons, combo fields from traps, excellent crowd control from pets and weapons, and a variety of conditions. Similar to Necro, and I’d generally recommend the Necro instead.

Engineer support is primarily through crowd control – which tends to be under-appreciated in PvE because of the Defiant buff on bosses. They have some area healing and combo fields and blast finishers, but yeah, pretty much just crowd control and damage.

Warrior support is dull in that it is fire-and-forget. You’ve got shouts which give potent healing, condition removal, and boons, and you’ve got banners that you can drop down and (hopefully) remember to pick up and use their boon-granting skills. They just aren’t meant to be a support profession so much as a numbers-based tanky dps.

Thief support is rare, but can be potent. Venom-sharing is effectively an offensive + lifesteal oriented support option. You also have plenty of aoe stealths and blinds, as well as a very spammable blast finisher on the shortbow.

As for your question on roaming, it tends to be done by Thieves, Rangers, and Elementalists, and Mesmers but can be done by anyone. Mesmers have the lowest out-of-combat mobility in the game, but they usually take Runes of the Centaur to alleviate that.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Gilavin.2145:

ArenaNet seriously needs to respond to this problem :
Why Medium Armor is always a trenchcoat ?
And Phoenix Armor looks amazing on a Female whlist on Man its…meh.

On male its not “meh”, its top three ugliest armors in this whole game and this game has a lot of bad looking armors in opinion. On females its yet another pole dancer’s armor tho, but this time around its an exotic pole dancer’s armor

I disagree with that statement so hard. It’s easily one of the best and most unique male light armors thus far, with the exception of the mask. I was tired of getting poorly done dresses and impractically frilly garments.

The temporary content from the living world is fine. In fact, it’s probably the right direction for the game. Why? Because the permanent content we already have is more than just sufficient – it’s excessive. With an exception of a few areas (WvW, CoF, temples on high-pop servers, Queensdale farming, and map bosses), there is a extreme lack of players willing to play existing content. The world as a whole is a barren desert, devoid of intelligent life, despite its beauty and surplus of fun and interesting content. Most dungeons go unplayed, sPvP dies a little more with each passing week, and most of the open world is a ghost town.

The problem is not a lack of permanent content. There has never been and will never be a lack of things to do. The lacking factors are polish and rewards. The majority of under-played content is under-played solely because of its lack of rewards as compared to other content. Other areas, like Orr or Southsun, are unpopular because of poor mob design (excessive crowd control, reef drakes, the Dredge in general, etc.) or a lack of events as compared to other areas of a comparable level (Frostgorge Sound).

Temporary content from the living world is a godsend when done correctly, as it allows Arenanet to stimulate activity in otherwise inactive regions, while also providing story context for eventual permanent changes to zones or dungeons that need love.

TL;DR:
We have enough permanent content. In fact, we may have too much permanent content. Adding much more will only cause the player-base to spread even thinner.

Castaliea.3156:

That’s a small kitten SoR zerg…. used to the 50-60 groups blocking out the whole sceen….

50-60? Psssh. If there’s less than 100 people, it’s practically a scouting party for SoR. Seriously, how do they ever even lose with their numbers?

Kamui.3150:

Having them ALL be “Recharge on crit” is kinda a bad idea as well. It works with Fresh Air since you’re already at least +300 points into Precision. And it’s also kinda silly to have them all have instant recharge abilities as well, at least IMO. Main issue with the Alacrity skills is that they’re really limited since they only work on one attunement, and aren’t going based on equipped weapon. Eles get stuff in the Arcane line for their weapon specific stuff (except for Focus, which is something that could help it somewhat). I have some general guidelines that probably should be followed for the 20% CD reduction traits. If it’s JUST the -20% CD? It can be Adept, if it’s -20% CD and some special ability (e.g.: Warrior’s “Axe Crits give bonus Adrenaline”), or it works for multiple weapons, then it can be a Master trait, IMO you shouldn’t have a -20% CD trait EVER as a GM trait unless it’s something really kitten. A good example of this? Written in Stone. The way it is in Blackrose’s merged bit above is a good example. Something like the “Glyphs give you a boon based on attunement” one could probably do fine in Master tier.

I still stand by my idea that the Alacrity skills, if they’re going to remain a Master tier trait, should also work for any utility skills also aligned with that element. Potentially you could also have them boost the attunement recharge rate of that element by 20% as well, but it may be too powerful with both of those.

It could be a merged trait in the master tier – 20% faster recharge + 5% damage increase in that attunement or 10% damage increase and 10-15% faster recharge.

I was really considering merging, upgrading, or outright removing all +damage% in x attunement or +recharge% traits in x attunement traits.

Vick.6805:

/signed

I ended up deciding to pay more for the Dragon Bash candy on the TP just so I wouldn’t have to sit at the vendor for hours clicking “buy” AND CONFIRMATION MESSAGES for 20k individual purchases.

Oh, and Thirst Slayer is giving me Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

They should have renamed the achievement line “Wrist Slayer.”

silvermember.8941:

I am going to borrow an idea I saw in the PvP forum by DiogoSilva and say we merged and create the following traits:
Pyromancer’s Alacrity + (fire equivalent of fresh air) = 20% CD reduction+ recharge on crit.
Aeromancer’s Alacrity + "fresh air*= 20% air + recharge on crit
Aquamancer’s Alacrity + (water equivalent of fresh air) =
Geomancer’s Alacrity+(earth equivalent of fresh air) = 20 spell reduction + recharge on crit.

so that it benefit other weapons set and people that want to focus on specific attunements.

Even as grandmaster traits, some of those could be stupidly strong – namely water and earth. Essentially permanent stability or constant spam of AoE heals (in fact, you could do both in the same build).

Going to have to pass on that idea, even if it sounds cool.

I redid the earth traits. What do you think?

I made a rework suggestion for it (along with the air magic traitline in general) in my thread a while back.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/My-redesigned-Air-Magic-line/first#post2481914

Korval.3751:

WelshCat.1306:

A good idea to bring in “buy stack” or “buy set amount of”, rather than me just pretending to play guitar hero on my mouse for 16 hours. While am on this subject, how about an consume “set amount” too. Buying food, opening boxes and thirst slayer would be much faster, giving us more time to play your game.

/signed although I think your screenshot example is wrong. No one with over a half a million karma is going to blow it on 7 Karma bottles of Raven’s Best! I mean come on! :P

Thirst Slayer.

16 hours is a huge exaggeration, given that enough potions to earn 400k karma (with karma booster) can be popped, the orrian jewelboxes bought, their potions used, and the process repeated until no karma is left…. in about 10 minutes.

That said, it still seems like a necessary feature that should have been implemented at launch, so +1.

Poledo.3256:

Would love to play as a Kodan. I don’t see why Tengu is popular personally, I really dislike them.

Just because you dislike something doesn’t mean others won’t love it. I personally detest the Norn – especially with the way they redesigned their body shapes from GW1 to GW2 – and desperately want to have a Tengu Ranger. Taste is subjective.

+1.

Now that the system exists, it should be used for all event items.

The Tengu are the most likely, given that they have a long history with the series, intelligence on par with the other races, a fleshed out, unique culture, and their own racial city. Even their dialogue, which indicates they are waiting to see if they can trust the other races, hints towards eventual playability. They are also one of the most demanded races, alongside Kodan, Largos, and Skritt.

Kodan is reasonably likely, even if they are just a bit redundant with the Norn. Really, they’re what the Norn SHOULD have been.

Largos is a strong candidate as well. They aren’t as polished as other races yet, but they are prominent and unique and have a clear reason to ally with the other races when they decide to take the fight to “Bubbles” the underwater dragon.

Any of the minor races (Skritt, Quaggan, Hylek, etc.) are potential, but unlikely candidates.

Centaurs are possible when we get to Elona, as Elonian centaurs have been shown to be more friendly than Tyrian centaurs. They would require more animation and armor work though – I’m just going to write them down as “possible, but unlikely.”

Personally, I’d love to be able to play as Djinn when we get to Elona.

Earth Magic

Earth is mostly solid, aside from its rather underwhelming minors and a bad grandmaster. I focused on these things while also moving some traits around, merging a couple traits, and making a few new ones that should solidify Earth as an alternative durability line.

Minor Traits

Adept – Like A Stone
Gain a shield that absorbs 2 damage per level (160 at level 80) when you put an ability on cooldown while in Earth Attunement.

Master – Rock Solid (moved from Master Major)
Grant stability for 2s to nearby allies when attuning to Earth.

Grandmaster – Rolling Stone
Gain might when you perform a dodge roll.
Notes – 2 stacks for 5 seconds.

Adept Traits

Obsidian Focus
(Unchanged)

Earth’s Embrace
(Unchanged)

Serrated Stones
(Unchanged)

Elemental Shielding
(Unchanged)

Stone Splinters
(Unchanged)

Strength of Stone
(Moved from Master tier).

Master Traits

Geomancer’s Alacrity
(Unchanged).

Geomancer’s Freedom
(Unchanged).

Diamond Skin (moved from Grandmaster)
Gain 10% of your Toughness as Condition Damage.

Anemia
When you inflict bleeding on a target below 50% health, inflict an additional stack of bleeding for 3 seconds.
Note – Once per hit, not per stack of bleeding inflicted by said hit. For example, Churning Earth can proc one stack off of this, while Stone Shards can proc up to 3.

Grandmaster Traits

Written In Stone (Merged)
Keep passive effects of signets when you activate them. Signet cooldowns are reduced by 20%.

Sandstorm (new)
Swapping to earth creates a cloud around yourself that blinds and inflicts a stack of bleeding on foes for 5 seconds with each pulse. Pulses 3 times in 3 seconds.

Air Attunement

1 Slot (MH) – Shocking Shell

Deal mediocre damage to and inflict 1 stack of vulnerability on your target for 5 seconds. Good rate of fire.
Range – 600.

2 Slot (MH) – Wind Aura
Gain an aura of favorable winds, increasing the speed of your projectiles and causing them to deal bonus damage (that scales with power). The numbers are high enough to turn your otherwise weak Shocking Shell into a heavy-hitter. Lasts 3 seconds.
Cooldown – 15 seconds

3 Slot (MH) – Chain Leaping
Become lightning and leap towards your target (requires a target foe). Coming into contact with a foe deals high damage to them and allows you to bounce off of them, automatically seeking out the nearest other target. Bounces up to x times. If your target is the only foe in the area, this leaps to and hits them twice.
Range – 600
Cooldown – 15 seconds.

4 Slot (OH) – Twister
Spin once, dealing high damage to foes near you, while knocking them back.
Range – About 200
Cooldown – 30 seconds

5 Slot (OH) – Windborne Bullets
This skill disables your other off-hand skills for the duration and constitutes a channel, but you can still use main-hand skills. Rapidly fire off wind-enhanced bullets with your off-hand pistol that knock foes into the air and keep them airborne, Devil May Cry style. Low base, but very high scaling. Like a regular channel, opposing crowd control can interrupt it.
Range – 600
Duration – 2 seconds
Cooldown – 60 seconds

Earth Attunement

Slot 1 (MH) – Shard Shot
Shoot a bullet that deals low damage to and bleeds your foe.
Range – 600

Slot 2 (MH) – Shatter Shot
Shoot a bullet containing many stones that burst on impact with your target, dealing high damage to and inflicting several stacks of bleeding on foes around them.
Range – 600
Cooldown – 10 seconds

Slot 3 (MH) – Rolling Stone
Rapidly roll towards your target, surrounded by stone. You deal high damage to foes in your path and push them away. Requires a target foe.
Range – 600
Cooldown – 15 seconds

Slot 4 (OH) – Stone Shell
Fire a bullet that deals high damage to the target and inflicts weakness on them for x seconds.
Range – 600
Cooldown – 20 seconds

Slot 5 (OH) – Stone Storm
Disables your other off-hand skills for the duration and constitutes a channel, but you can still fire off main-hand skills during the duration. Rapidly fire off bullets with your off-hand pistol that bleed the target and deal considerable damage. Like a regular channel, opposing crowd control can interrupt it.
Range – 600
Duration – 2 seconds
Cooldown – 45 seconds

Dual Pistols, aside from being incredibly badkitten, could be used to unique effect on an Elementalist. In my concept, I have made them a 600-range burst damage weapon with high offensive mobility, best suited to glass Eles.

They carry a unique mechanic in which each pistol can individually channel spells – allowing you to channel two spells at once! This works by disabling the spells associated with that pistol, but not those of your other weapon.

Pros
High burst.
High offensive mobility.
Very high power scaling – excellent for those going with any Power primary set, but especially Berserker Eles.
Strong cc and offensive utility.
Skills are reliable and easy to land.

Cons
Relatively close range – 600.
Low base power – poorly suited for Bunker Eles except for those speccing condition damage.
High cooldowns and low dps from 1-slot skills make the weapon poorly suited for long fights.
Low defensive utility and no boon access without traits.
Poor escape, due to the foe-targeting requirement on all mobility skills.

Trait

Attuned Pistols
While wielding pistols, every 5th shot grants you might.

Fire Attunement

1 Slot (MH) – Hot Lead
Fire a heated bullet that deals low damage and burns the target briefly. Good rate of fire.
Range – 600.

2 Slot (MH) – Explosive Round
Fire an explosive round at your foe, hitting them and foes near them for high damage.
Range – 600.
Cooldown – 10 seconds

3 Slot (MH) – Vulcan
Disables your other main-hand skills for the duration of this skill, which constitutes a channel. Off-hand skills can be used during this duration. Fire off bullets in a cone several times. The closer foes are, the more bullets that will strike them. Scales exceptionally well with power. Can be interrupted, just like regular channels.
Range – 600
Duration – 2 seconds
Cooldown – 15-20 seconds

4 Slot (OH) – Blackpowder Bullet
Places a debuff on the foe that triggers the next time they are burned, dealing high damage to them and other foes, also knocking the other foes away from your target. Debuff lasts 10 seconds.
Range – 600.
Cooldown – 30 seconds.

5 Slot (OH) – Intense Heat
Effectively a foe-targeted aura, this places a debuff on the foe that damages them and other foes near them each second. This triggers aura-traits, giving them to YOUR allies if they are within range of that foe – this does include aura share, which hurts foes around your allies (but not the allies themselves).
Range – 600
Cooldown – 45 seconds

Water Attunement

1 Slot (MH) – Chilling Shot
Deal low damage to your target and chill them for half of a second.
Range – 600

2 Slot (MH) – Ice Shell
Shoot your target with a powerful ice bullet that freezes them in place for 1 second and deals considerable damage to them.
Range – 600
Cooldown – 15 seconds.

3 Slot (MH) – Water Slide
Disables your other main-hand skills for the duration and constitutes a channel. You can use your off-hand skills while performing this skill. Slide forward on a wave of water, healing allies you pass through, while you continually shoot your target for the duration for considerable damage. Requires a target foe. Can be interrupted, just like regular channels.
Range – 600 (attack portion), Leap distance is based on how long you channel – you travel about 450 units per second.
Duration – 2 seconds
Cooldown – 30 seconds

Slot 4 (OH) – Tsunami Shell
Send out a bullet that spouts water in all directions as it flies, healing allies it passes near until it strikes a foe for high damage.
Range – 600
Cooldown – 45 seconds

_Slot 5 (OH) – Sub-zero Shell
Shoot your target with a bullet that debuffs them for 3 seconds. Each second, they take damage and are chilled for one second. At the end of the duration, the bullet explodes, dealing high area damage and another 2 second chill to the foe and foes around them.
Range – 600
Cooldown – 60 seconds

DarksunG.9537:

Jae.5138:

I personally really like them. Maybe they’ll come out with something you guys will like in the later patches.

If we complain every time they throw us a bone, we’ll never have nice things

“Throw us a bone”? If they hand these set out for free, yes, that’ll be a bone. saying you don’t like a PRODUCT is not is not saying you don’t like a GIFT.
But if they make a product most ppl don’t like, they should CHANGE THE PRODUCT.

And who is “most people.” A couple of nay-sayers in this thread? Is that supposed to be representative of the community as a whole?

I LIKE that Phoenix armor. I WANT that Phoenix armor. If this product that I WANT is changed because of a few entitled forum posts, I would be seriously angry, and I’d bet there are plenty of people who want all 3 of these armors that would feel exactly the same.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

The fall of Abaddon is kinda vague…or did Anet confirm whether it meant the battle between the six gods or when kormir became a god.

There is no way they were referring to when Kormir became a god. This content already exists in GW1 and would be uninteresting.

At any rate, Thaumanova is great and all, but it just doesn’t compete with GODS FIGHTING EACH OTHER!

As an important mechanic with long-term effects, it’s unfortunate that election results will end up being relatively inaccurate (except in the case of a landslide) because of requiring support of both candidates to get all achievements. If, for example, it takes player x longer to get the homeland support achievement for Ellen than it does for Evon, more support will be given to Ellen, regardless of the player’s intended choice.

It would have been better to only allow support of a single candidate with more achievements, larger achievements, and/or achievements of a higher value for the individual candidates. With that, each player’s “vote” would have been clear and identifiable, rather than a mix of support between two candidates with the assumption that the player will actually keep playing and supporting his/her chosen candidate long enough to render their necessary support of the other candidate irrelevant.

Safer Saviour.9685:

Light armour male is just… and afterthought. It’s so similar to sets we have already and it’s got far less love and detail than Kasmeer’s set. Sad.

What? The pants -might- be similar to other light armor sets we already have, but the chest, shoulders, and boots are entirely unique and have plenty of detail.

KeresLee.5192:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

it won’t be only on pvp right?

God I hope not. I want to look like this:

That is one sexy looking …mesmer? +1

Ele actually. It’s all in the preview and I just really, really love the new Aetherized pistol skin.

(And I will totally erect a statue in Anet’s honor if they let Elementalists dual wield pistols WildStar style.)

JUN YANG.4328:

it won’t be only on pvp right?

God I hope not. I want to look like this:

^ I really think Conjure’s 1-skill not burning charges should be baseline, not a trait.

Brutal Arts.6307:

Oh look, some wonderful armor for heavy, and for mediums we get…

More trenchcoats.

To be fair, at least the trenchcoats look good. To make male light armor look good (or even not terrible), you have to experiment with combinations until you find just the right one.

Edit – This Phoenix set looks great, though. As does your new “trenchcoat.”

Ehecatl.9172:

I like some of your fire suggestions like noxious fumes and pyromancer’s puissance becoming a minor trait. Sun Spot being a blast finisher especially as it leads to more interesting elemental combos. Though completely changing Persisting Flames would utterly wreck my heavy fire build. Honestly Persisting Flames is a pretty solid grandmaster trait overall, it gives access to loads and loads of Fury in a trait line that normally doesn’t have it. And while I could still get Fury with your change, I’d have to physically run into my Static Field, and this is a skill I typically want to use on a ranged group.

Field Mastery might also be a bit awkward, as it’d stack with traits that also reduce said skill’s cast time. Might be prudent to give it an effect instead, like perhaps what you had for Field Expert minus the extended field duration?

Your other fire changes would certainly make it an effective condition line however. Combining Burning Precision and Burning Agony would give us near constant Argony up time, which is only made stronger with the line’s access to fury. Cauterize and Burning Agony could be switched in position though. Give Fire a grandmaster condition trait similar to the necro’s Dhuumfire. And give offensive support eles an option in the master tier to increase their own survivability.

Field Expert could be reworked to work with Blast Finishers instead of with entering combo fields. It would probably be better that way anyway. The goal was to create synergy between Fire Magic traits and all attunements, which is why I reduced the effect and made it apply bonuses to all combo fields. The reason I didn’t originally write is as a Blast finisher trigger is that a likely result would have been the need to create boon bonuses for all combo field types – not just those the Ele has access to.

I rather like the idea of swapping Cauterize and Burning Agony, though I was more afraid of Cauterize being OP in combination with current sustain options than I was about Burning Agony – worst case scenario is that Burning Agony could be given a 1s cd to prevent Burning Precision crits with a scepter triggering frequent double stack Torments.

Guild Wars 1 PvP was popular because it was varied, skill-intensive, and interesting. Guild Wars 2 PvP is unpopular because control point maps are generally unpopular and all PvP maps are control point with some gimmick tossed in to make them feel “different.”

The number of games (as in all games, not just MMORPGs) that really pulled off control point style PvP can probably be counted on one hand.

Rewards have almost nothing to do with it, as Guild Wars 1 PvP was actually less rewarding, and yet more popular, even with a smaller community.

When WildStar, another NCSoft title which looks to have quite a following, releases, Anet should celebrate by giving dual pistols to Elementalists, much like how Aion’s NA release was accompanied by a wing emote in Guild Wars 1. This is, of course, to match the Spellslinger class in WS, which is essentially an Elementalist using pistols.

Neko.9021:

In PvE you should go full Berserker gear. The system is balanced around Berserker gear and so you’re better off killing mobs before they kill you.

I prefer a more balanced set. I’m intentionally avoiding glass cannon, as I also intend to use the same gear for WvW.

I’m looking for something like PvP Valk gear with power primary and a bit of toughness, healing power, and crit damage. Basically, something to round out my damage and sustained durability.

What would be the best answer to this? Perhaps Cleric’s with Cavalier’s accessories or some strange combination of Knight’s, Cleric’s, Cavalier’s, and/or Berserker’s?

Valkyrie is a great pvp set with excellent potential applications for all professions, with particular value on classes that rely on sustain (such as the Elementalists, tank-spec Thieves, Guardians, or Rangers). The closest PvE equivalent is the port of Cleric’s gear (named Cleric’s gear), while PvE Valk is Pow/Vit/Crit Damage.

This would be a 4-stat equipment, offering a Power primary, average toughness, reduced-value healing power, and half-value crit damage.

For example, let’s compare a Paragon’s Amulet to a Berserker’s Amulet with jewel (Ascended Values in parenthesis).

Berserker’s

115 (126) Power
79 (85) Precision
8% (9%) Crit Damage

Paragon’s

115 (126) Power
79 (85) Toughness
39 (42) Healing Power
4% (5%) crit damage

Nikkinella.8254:

I like it. Seems pretty balanced and would open up a lot more build options. Do you think you could do one for fire as well?

Air is relatively easy because it’s issues are relatively limited, if severe. Fire is rather difficult to fix because frankly, what isn’t wrong with it? But I’ll try.

Fire Magic

Fire Magic as a line is very selfish and tends to synergize poorly with other trait lines, with the exception of Fire’s Embrace for the two signet builds (20/x/30/x/x and 20/x/x/30/x). The goal here is to solidify Fire Magic as a line by focusing on Combo Fields and Conjures.

Minor Traits

Adept – Noxious Fumes (New)
While in Fire Attunement, poison the target and nearby foes for 1 second every time you inflict burning.
(Goal – Solidify Fire Magic as a great choice for condition damage + anti-bunker. Synergize better with Lingering Elements and with non-melee weapons.)

Master – Sunspot (Improved)
Now constitutes a blast finisher.

Grandmaster – Pyromancer’s Puissance (Moved and Reworked)
Gain 1 stack of might for 5 seconds when you strike a burning foe.

Adept Majors

Lava Tomb
(Unchanged)

Ember’s Might
(Unchanged)

Burning Precision
(Unchanged)

Internal Fire
(Unchanged)

Spell Slinger (Reworked)
Gain 2 stacks of might for 10 seconds when you use a utility skill.
(Goal – By nerfing the numbers and making it apply to all utilities, more build variety could be created).

Fire’s Embrace (Moved from Master)
Gain a Fire Shield for 3 seconds when you use a Signet.
(Might need to be nerfed to 2 seconds with the move).
(Goal – To create more variations on Signet builds and Signet Aura Share builds).

Master Majors

Pyromancer’s Alacricity
(Unchanged)

Conjurer (Reworked)
Conjure weapon bonus stats are increased by 50%. Conjures recharge 20% faster.
Note ~ Stat bonus also applies to allies who pick up the extra conjure.

Field Mastery (New)
Skills that generate Combo Fields recharge 20% faster.

Burning Agony (New)
Apply 1 stack of Torment for 2 seconds when you inflict Burning.

Grandmaster Majors

Field Expert (Reworked from Persisting Flames)
All combo fields you create last 20% longer. When allies enter one of your combo fields, they gain a boon based on the field:
Fire = Might
Lightning = Fury
Water = Vigor
Ice = Protection

Cauterize Wounds (New)
Heal slightly when granting might to yourself or an ally.
Note – Roughly 100 base, with a very low scaling.