Having been playing a lot with Beastly Warden on my BM ranger I can say that it looks like taunt is going to be a major counter to stealth. If it’s an AoE effect that doesn’t need a target, like Beastly Warden, and the thief is caught in the radius they’ll start attacking whatever taunted them, breaking stealth.
Between taunt, reveal, and a strong channel skill a ranger has a fair few tools to counter thieves if they choose to take them. If more professions get access to AoE or otherwise targetless taunt that could be the counterplay we need.
Yeah, thats the point. All professions got alot more of damage and condi application, but our pets got…150 attributes adjust(and its not applied yet btw)? Our pets need a way to cleanse their condition, otherwise they will die very fast. With a dead pet, we lose like 30% of our efficiency as ranger. Just a question, does Wilderness Knolowdge trait remove conditions from pets? It doesnt give pets the fury, so i imagine it doest remove conditions…
As far as I can tell it does not. If you want to cure conditions from your pet you need to use an AoE condi clear like Healing Spring.
Heal as One is definitely bugged. Cost me a fight today as I failed to cure the doom stack of bleeds on me when I used it.
I did some testing of spirits today. Only played a few matches but this is what I found.
Water Spirit is still terrible. The passive healing isn’t enough to deal with the damage you’re receiving even with high healing power and perma regen from other sources. Then when you need the active heal the amount of healing done is barely enough to even be noticeable. The personal active heal needs to be strong enough to save you in an emergency.
Storm Spirit makes little sense. Why is an immobile entity giving you so much swiftness? It can’t be used to kite because of the limited range. At best this will make you get to the next fight faster with stacked swiftness. It needs to do something else beside provide swiftness.
Sun Spirit was pretty decent. Little extra damage from burning is always nice. Might wasn’t even noticeable but I’d still take it for the burning stacks.
Stone Spirit is actually really strong. With protection duration runes it basically gives perma protection to everyone in the radius. This is a pretty strong utility for the investment of a single trait and some boon/protection duration. Unsure if your +duration benefits your allies too, but even without it that’s pretty high protection up time for your party. Downside of course being that the spirit can easily be sniped.
Spirit of Nature is still strong. The passive heal is good and the active that let’s you revive allies and cure conditions is still great to have.
Ultimately what I did was take Heal as One and Protect Me over the Water and Storm spirits in a settler’s build and traited shouts to provide swiftness and regen, which did the job of providing regen and swiftness better than the spirits could while giving me a strong emergency heal, a stun breaker, and some damage immunity. Sun Spirit for damage and Stone Spirit for sustain. It worked out pretty well.
I only played a few matches with it though. It might be good enough to become a niche ranger support bunker. What really kills it is the long cast time to summon spirits. 4 seconds is a lot of time to spend setting up.
It IS worth noting that spirits only have a cooldown of 20 seconds still. From what I understand it was suppose to be changed to 30 seconds, but it wasn’t. Maybe a bug, or maybe Anet took mercy on spirit builds.
I’ve noticed my pets are dying a lot faster too. Though I have a feeling that’s a result of the insane burning stacks flying around everywhere that our pets have no way of handling and that we can’t even see.
It’d be nice if we could see the conditions on our pets.
Bestial Warden is my choice. I love Zephyr’s Speed too, but the control that Bestial Warden gives you is excellent. I like options, and that’s exactly what Bestial Warden gives you. Options in what pet you want to take to benefit your playstyle. You don’t need a wolf for the control anymore. Any pet can be given this trait and be effective crowd control.
Birds have become amazing because you can taunt enemies into their burst or use them as an interrupt in a sticky situation. You can’t have to give up the high pet damage for control anymore.
My River Drake is able to reliably land his F2 now. It’s a lot of fun, and I can only imagine the frustration of my opponent as they rush me only to pause, turn around, and stare directly into my drake’s mouth as he charges up his lightning.
I imagine I’m just not as good at avoiding the condi bursts as you. Plus condi rangers who’s burst comes from the auto attack is a pretty big challenge with so little cleansing.
That being said I switched to Heal as One and am really enjoying it. I’m tankier and more mobile, and am providing decent group support. I decided to go with Runes of the Soldier so my shouts cure conditions too, which gives me enough to get by. One thing I noticed is Heal as One may not work with those runes though, because I had 10 stacks of bleeds on me from a ranger that didn’t get cleansed by my shout. And so I died. Might be a bug.
Drakes for me is mostly a preference thing. I like them aesthetically and I like the cleave and the multi-target nature of the F2 when I’m trying to prevent a stomp. And I tend to fight in the fray a lot so having a tanky pet to switch to is a big benefit. My bird is mostly for 1v1 or 2v2 fights.
I agree that Quickening Zephyr is amazing now. The lack of the healing penalty means you can finally take it and not worry about hindering yourself, and the super speed has been a huge help in escaping an unwinnable situation. And as you said this is a very aggressive build, and there isn’t a boon quite as aggressive as quickness.
It’s amazing how much more viable shouts became with the simple addition of Heal as One becoming a shout. You still get the perma regen and swiftness the shout bunker build use to enjoy but don’t have to sacrifice a utility slot for the otherwise useless Guard.
oh my god yes. this is what im running now, it’s not my build at all got it from Heim and blitzkrieg. I adjusted pets and utilities to suit me. signets aren’t the way to go imo. but ive been wrecking with it. should work for wvw frontlining too with gs/s/a and two bears.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Jo-g;1sEFx-r2NDV-0;9-62;1Y_b;0257157246;4IN06U;1bRm8bRm84a
I haven’t even optimized it yet. when things settle down, and if no one else does it, i’ll probably do a guide. maybe im being narrowminded now, but I think this is the new hotness as far as power builds go. oh and it’s survivable as kitten.
u can do various things like Lyssa runes, SoS, SoR, u can even take out QZ but I wouldn’t recommend it. brown bear is for condi cleanse and Protect Me, snow owl just eviscerates things. there’s just no need to go marauder/zerker if you time your fury procs well, but know that most of your burst will be coming from GS and the bird. LB is more of a utility weapon in this build.
would anyone be able to maximize the stats for wvw? I think I wanna start gearing up for it.
Wow, I’m using almost the same build. Only I’m using Healing Spring for a condi clear burst (Which can be blasted with Clarion Bond) and Sic’ Em for my shout (There are so many thieves out right now. I might go for Protect Me once there are less thieves in every match). I’m also taking Refined Toxins over Shared Anguish to layer some poison over my pet’s spike at the start of the match. I’m using a river drake rather than a bear though. Twice now my drake has nearly one shot an attacking thief with a 7-9K Tail Swipe that they didn’t avoid.
I might try out Heal as One as you are using for pera swiftness and regen. My only issue is that’d take a huge chunk of my condi cleanse away, and I’m not convinced the brown bear’s 1 condition per 20 seconds is enough. How are you managing with that?
Don’t forget Quickdraw Bonfire and Beastly Warden on a Drakehound.
If they go on point. A mesmer or ranger or engie can just kite you outside of the point.
That’s why I bring a shortbow for range. It has pretty good condi pressure on it’s own. A mesmer isn’t going to be much of a threat at maximum range where I have all the time in the world to react to their shatter attempts. Haven’t seen any engineers boasting over 900 range burst all day. Didn’t their grenade range get nerfed? A ranger with a power longbow I’ll give you could be a threat, but I can use line of sight to avoid his burst or time my dodges well. Plus my build boasts close to 3K armor and a rather substantial regen uptime from the traited Healing Spring alone.
Seems to me as long as I pick one of the points that has easy access to line of sight the ranged problem isn’t so severe. And all the time that fighter takes trying to bait me out from behind cover is time that could be spent doing what they are suppose to do. Find an in progress fight and +1.
Granted there’s always counterplay and the meta hasn’t even begun to settle yet. As for right now myself and others are having great success with the new, more potent traps despite lacking the ability to throw them.
Looks more like we’re getting an animal army rather than shapeshifting. Nice art, though.
I didn’t think of Shapeshifting when I saw the three pets, I thought of Alpha Strike.
It would be pretty epic if that was the druid elite. I can just imagine sending out both bird pets for a single burst. That target would be quite dead.
Looks more like we’re getting an animal army rather than shapeshifting. Nice art, though.
You’re missing my point. The Elder Dragons were in no way, shape, or form a necessary eventuality in Tyria. They were specifically invented for the GW2 narrative. So most of what you said up there is irrelevant. While the written lore for them is not bad, the reason for them even being here in the first place is wrong. It’s the same reason they have mad scientist Asura, drunk viking Norn, elvish Sylvari, steampunk Charr, and vanilla fantasy humans…because Dragonz are kewl!! It’s a simple popular fantasy flavor thrown into the Tyrian narrative to feed the masses.
It’s putting marketing ideals above narrative continuity. ANet wanted to appeal to as many players as possible and they knew that if they threw in all these ridiculous fantasy tropes it would work better. That’s what’s wrong with the initial GW2 writing.
I’m curious, but where do you get your facts? What source do you have that definitively proves that Anet only created the Elder Dragons to appeal to a crowd and not because that’s the sort of story they wanted to explore with their next installment of the franchise?
At any rate this is a futile discussion. You’re clearly set in your belief so there isn’t anything to discuss.
It’s still a thing because it’s not overpowered and Anet is aware of that. The build got a few nice toys to play with that will make it more effective than it was before the patch.
Now whether or not it will be viable once everyone figures out what’s strong and what isn’t remains to be seen.
BW is amazing. And now that sic ‘em is a viable skill, I’m slaughtering thieves wholesale. They all plop down a black powder and just keep heart seekering through it to no avail. That probably won’t last long, I’ve already run into quite a few rangers using RT, although most seem to still be using Guard as their shout.
Once the other professions get their kitten together will be the final verdict though. I ran into a thief who was very close to 1-shotting gaurds in WvW. No idea what he was running, but it was terrifying.
Early today I ended up in a 1v1 with a thief. Poor thing caught my drake’s Tail Swipe for 9K damage! She lost 90% of her health from one hit from my pet. The whole battle lasted about 6 seconds, and half of that was the thief trying to get some distance to heal. Even a weak rapid fire was enough to end that.
Our pets are definitely threats again.
I’ve been playing around with Remorseless and BM builds, as well as the new traps. Loving all of it. The damage we can put out is incredible for how tanky we are.
Kind’a miss the toughness on the Valkyrie amulet though. I end up with a lot of vitality but no armor… Makes me uncomfortable.
I’m running a variant of the Remorseless Greatsword build Serbent posted a while back. No Quickdraw, but my river drake’s opening Tail Whip is hitting for around 7K as my Maul hits for 3K with the Soldier’s amulet. Pretty nice burst, especially if followed up with Lightning Breath+Taunt and a Muddy Terrain+Hilt Bash. It adds up fast.
I like it. We’ve only just begun to play around with it so I don’t see how you can claim it’s OP. Definitely strong compared to what we use to have, but I’ve seem some thieves putting out some nasty damage too. We’ll see.
Running with triple traps I can nuke the Niflhel beasts in about 13 seconds flat. I don’t see how anyone can survive a triple trap set up on a point without some incredible reaction time, a stun breaker, and some really good condi cleanse.
The way I used traps before the patch got incredibly strong. Trapper ranger may well become a solid meta point holder depending on how things go. Drop traps on point and just wait. Someone comes in and you use Entangle after the spike trap knockdown and well… That enemy will almost assuredly be dead unless they manage an escape.
The charr have a long, long history of taming nature. Back in GW1 they took giant devourers and turned them into some of the first siege weapons. There’s multiple quests in the charr territories that involve charr finding new and creative ways to use the local wildlife. And while the charr are all about industry, they take great care to keep the environment healthy and thriving. Just look at the difference between Flame Legion controlled territory and Iron. Iron keeps their lands beautiful and lakes pure with machines to filter the water and lessen the impact their factories have on the environment, where as Flame’s water is filled with tar and all the green was burnt away a long time ago.
I mean, this is a race of creatures who taught their cattle how to do battle. They taught their COWS how to fight. The charr have a way with animals.
pretty sure the taunt stops.
but I have to tell you guys, BW is everything I was hoping for. it’s responsive, it’s instant, range is decent. makes 2v1’s really easy =) bird just eat through light/medium armor, aoe blinds, weakness. it’s too good.
That sounds exactly like I had always dreamed it would be. This makes me so happy.
Perhaps my drakes will be able to reliably land their F2 for once. I can’t imagine how effective I will become…
Yes, Túrin Turambar is one of my favorite Tolkien characters. His fate is the ying to Tuor’s yang. But Túrin isn’t the only tragic hero Tolkien delivers by any means. And his tone, while certainly darker, never left the confines of the original setting, style, and language of the First Age.
Of the First Age, no. But compared to the Third Age? It’s dramatically different. Children of Hurin and The Hobbit are so different in tone that were you to give both to someone I doubt they’d come to the conclusion that they are the same world outside of both including dwarves and elves.
No, I’m saying you should never do so based on marketing or pride.
It’s interesting that you think “It lets you tell new stories you couldn’t do with the old world.” Do you mean the Dragons here? Or technology? Because I’m not sure why one would need to have it be set in the future in order to tell new stories. Please specify what “new stories” you are referring to, because the Tyria of GW1 was still largely undiscovered. There were whole swaths of land like west Maguuma, Janthir, and the Blazeridge Steppes and beyond that were referenced to and could have easily been expanded upon with new stories and races.
Explain to me why ANet, with all those leagues and leagues of available space around the old human kingdoms to work with, decided instead to carve up human space and dole it out to the new races? If the answer is racial parity, then that’s a marketing decision.
Explain to me why they had to kill off the gods, advance the clock 250 years, and turn magic into something that is dissected in a laboratory? If the answer is simply wanting to make Tyria your own by inserting your own narrative concepts into the story with little regard to original thematic intent, then that is a pride decision.
Neither decision is a good one.
Because GW2 is a sequel, not another chapter. The expansions of Guild Wars were all chapters that were connected by an overarching plot that came together in Nightfall. Then they used Eye of the North to set up the next installment in the franchise, which was the sequel to Guild Wars, GW2. Or perhaps more accurate, it’s a second series that takes place after the first is at an end. The entire point of the second series is to show the world and how it’s changed from the first, and to follow a new storyline in this newly developed world.
As for what stories they couldn’t do.. Technically nothing. If the writers wanted to they could’ve had A man named Reginald Bottombroke appear out of a time machine to warn Tyria of an impending doom from a thousand years from now that’d be invading Tyria with space age technology and giant riding worms with lasers on their heads. That’s the thing about being a writer. You can do anything. However, you have to ask if what you’re doing makes sense.
That is where the timeskip comes in. Without it the Elder Dragons rising from their sleep are just new enemies to be killed, no different from the Titans or the Margonites. But WITH the timeskip the dragons have a history interacting with the playable races. Zhaitan has been slowly spreading death for over one hundred years, and his name is known to everyone in Tyria. Jormag is known as the dragon that stole the Northern Shiverpeaks from the Norn, and Kraalkatorrik caused the Brand and murdered Snaff, bringing ire from the charr and asura. Primordius has had the last 250 years to wipe out the Asuran civilization, forcing them to start again on the surface.
The narrative of GW2 simply wouldn’t work if it took place directly after Guild Wars. The races need to be intimately familiar with the dragons for the dragons to feel like a worthy enough threat to put aside old hatreds, and you couldn’t fit the dragons into Guild Wars lore without some MAJOR retconning or just having them arrive suddenly with no proper foreshadowing or history behind them.
The way it was done was very effective. Bringing in Primordius at the very end of Guild Wars to show what the future held, and then releasing GW2 and the information of the history between the two games so players can get an idea of what they’re dealing with. Guild Wars ended with a “The End..?” moment, and GW2 answered the question mark at the end before bringing us to where we are now.
Now you might not agree with how the world evolved over those 250 years, I don’t agree with some of the changes either, but to say Anet’s ONLY reason for the time skip was marketing based seems a bit presumptuous. The time skip clearly has value to the story they are trying to tell, and gave the writers more freedom with the lore between the two games to get everything in position for the beginning of GW2.
I’m thinking we might see more use of Traps with longbow. With 1,500 range, you can try to force a target to come towards you. If they don’t, you outrange them.
That’s the theory on paper anyways … I want to get to playtest everything … #impatient.
Not to mention how immensely satisfying it would be to lead your opponent around and hit them with the perfect Point Blank Shot right into your traps.
Point Blank Shot → Spike Trap Knockdown → Rapid Fire → Enemy burning and bleeding while being peppered with arrows. Maybe you got a canine. Another knock down! Oh yes. It would be a good day.
Joke is on you, Heimskarl. This would be a fantastic traitline, but might make us a bit overpowered. I mean, you’re basically giving us instant access to our downed state. Take that into a lake and you’ll be unbeatable!
Setting them where you are doesn’t work in practice. Otherwise everyone would skip 6 in Skirmishing and take something else.
That is, setting traps does not work mid-combat. You’d have to be asleep to go into them. Throwing them works because you can lead your opponent into them. Even with arming time, you can position them so at least one hits.
In SPVP place the traps on the capture point. The enemy will have to run into them if they want to capture it, and if they choose not to then it just becomes easier for you to contest/keep the point. Plus you’d be surprised how many players in the general SPVP community are dumb enough to charge a ranger they KNOW places traps on the node. Like, I’ve had people charge me three or four times in a single match in almost every game I’ve played as a trap ranger.
In WvWvW you’ll probably have trapper’s runes and so can turn invisible while laying down the traps, so the enemy won’t be able to see where they are. Then you just lead/fear/knockback the enemy into the traps as you see fit. The arming time will likely work better with this set up since you won’t risk being immediately revealed after placing a trap.
Now granted it may be harder to land your traps, but to say it’s outright impossible before even trying with the new set up is a bit dramatic.
I am actually fine with this. I never liked the idea of THROWING a trap. How does that even work?
With this change you’ll set your traps down where you are and plan where you want them before a fight starts, just like before. Spike trap having a knockdown is a pretty huge buff to it’s area denial ability and guarantees an extra pulse or two on your opponent. Imagine the control chains you could pull off with that.
yep. I was also thinking we wont be tied down to canines as much…any pet will work with BW, as it’s a pbaoe cast.
I think Drakes will be pretty great with it, since they have a hard time lining up their F2 skills at times. Having the player run directly at them while they channel it will be awesome.
This is what I’m looking forward to. I love our drakes, but it’s so hard to land their F2. What’s worse is their F2 is a game changer if it lands, so that being more reliable will be a huge quality of life improvement. Only downside is I have to pick between a reliable F2 burst and a quickness F2 burst. Though I don’t mind that so much. I like build diversity and both have their advantages.
That’s not the same thing. The Silmarillion was written after the Hobbit to provide a background story. It explains the world of The Hobbit and LotR.
Furthermore, it’s hardly in the same novel form; it’s more like a series of short stories appended with maps, chronological data, a glossary, and family trees all included. It’s kind of like a mythic history book.
Also, Having GW2 set 250 years in the future wasn’t something that was in any way an inevitability. ANet purposely set it 250 years in the future(trivia: a nod to inventory stack limits) so that they could do all those futuristic steam-punk, magi-tech, laser-ship themes. In other words, since the GW1 ‘verse couldn’t realistically support all that stuff they simply advanced the clock so that it could. It’s really that simple.
And yes, old Bullroarer(I think) knocked off a goblin kings head with a wooden club to invent golf.
Other people addressed the first bit so I’ll leave that alone.
Have you read Children of Hurin? It’s a novel that takes place in the First Age and I must say, it’s tone is much, much darker than what was in Lord of the Rings, and most certainly darker than the Hobbit. We’re talking eternal torture, incest, and suicide levels of dark. Still a great read though, and I wouldn’t say it betrayed the franchise by being different given it was set in a different, much darker time.
So you’re arguing that you should never advance the age a story takes place in because it’d bring fundamental changes to the world? That’s an odd stance to take. I love seeing how much the world of Tyria has changed over the past 250 years. That was probably the smartest thing they did when designing the game, and the very first thing I focused on when moving from Guild Wars to GW2. I went to all my favorite zones to see how much it had changed. The evolution of a world is a good thing. It lets you tell new stories you couldn’t do with the old world.
I’m saying GW2 is a poor reflection of its roots because it strayed from the original narrative. Good or bad writing isn’t the real issue here, it’s authenticity and style.
I dug up this post I made two years ago of how Middle-Earth would pan out had it been done like GW2 from GW1, imagine the Uruks as Charr:
That seems pretty similar to a GW2 style reboot to LotR, it even has a cute little funny at the end. Any writer could easily connect all the lore dots(and invent new ones) to make it happen. The question is should he or she. If you think all that mess above is perfectly fine, I’m afraid we don’t have much more to discuss. If you don’t, then you at least have an idea of where I’m coming from.
Yes. He should. If the story is to continue after a massive, century spanning time skip then the world will obviously have evolved. Look at the distinction of Middle Earth between the First and Third ages. It’s thematically different to an extreme degree.
The First Age had concepts like the Silmarils and origin of the stars, and had a heavy focus on the divine beings of the world such as the Valar and Maiar. There were the Two Trees of Valinor that bore fruit that eventually became the Sun and Moon after a giant spider god tried to devour the tree’s light. It had entire armies of balrogs fighting the ancient elves, wars that shaped the very landscape itself, and a dragon so massive it’s death toppled the three largest mountains of Middle Earth. A dragon that was slain by a lone half-elf riding a magic flying boat through the sky.
The Third Age is dramatically different. The war between good and evil is fought between men and orcs in much the same way as a normal war would be fought. With soldiers and war machines, not creatures of immense magical power. The struggle was one between mortals, guided by the divine who scarcely got involved directly. Smaug was the last dragon and he was barely the size of a house fly to Ancalagon, which is absurd if you think about it from the perspective of the Third Age. Hobbits would have been VERY out of place during the First Age thematically. Rural farmers without a care in the world wouldn’t work in a war between gods and immortals, and indeed they didn’t come to be until some time in the Third Age if I’m remembering right. Maybe late Second Age.
Naturally any continuation to a new age would see a similarly dramatic shift in content. Perhaps not machines like your scenario suggested given the major theme of the Third Age was a war against the progress of industry. A theme Guild Wars did NOT have and so isn’t applicable to whether or not GW2 works as a sequel. But it isn’t beyond the scope of possibility that orcs, without any more dark lords to control and coerce them, might settle down and try and form their own civilization. Or that in time old hatreds may simmer down and fade into distant memory.
Also, the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit books all had humor in them. A lot of light hearted humor actually. It’s part of their charm, and what makes the more dramatic moments in the series really stand out. So a future installment having a few jokes wouldn’t be out of place at all. I mean, do you know how the game of Golf was invented in Middle Earth?
@Harrier and OneKlicKill
The npcs are there for a reason. What you want is a death-match map, but stronghold will never be that.No, it’s not that I want Stronghold to be a death-match map, I don’t want a map of its style further bogging down the Spvp queues. It should be moved to a WvW queue because its a format geared to their style of play.
A new gamemode that is enjoyable for WvWvW players as well as SPVP players would draw more of the much larger WvWvW crowd to SPVP, thereby helping SPVP’s crippling population problem.
Besides, it doesn’t really fit in the WvWvW queue. WvWvW is not about short five man team matches, it’s about massive scale battles that span entire weeks. Stronghold is an SPVP gamemode that has WvWvW elements.
…and that is why it is wrong.
Really buying in to what you are saying is akin to intellectual theft and censorship. It doesn’t matter who owns what rights or who calls the shots now, it’s simple honesty.
Either you personally don’t care about right and wrong, or the word “canon” is just another way to say “legal ownership” and shouldn’t be used in regards to any form of authenticity.
Right and wrong? Theft? No. George Lucas willingly sold the rights to his property to someone else for money. He willingly gave up creative control. There was no theft involved. When you as the writer choose to give up the legal rights to your intellectual property that is your choice and you know the consequences.
Now there are situations where a creator is forced to give up their creation to a larger company through legal loopholes and a more impressive army of lawyers, and those cases are tragic. However this is not one of those cases. There was no dirty dealings. It was a simple trade.
All that stuff up there just means that whosoever controls the narrative rights, regardless of anything else, determines what is and isn’t lore. By that rationale, anyone, and I mean anyone, who is given the keys to the Star Wars ‘verse could write a book about Leia and Chewie’s secret affair, and love child-Wookie, behind Hans back, who becomes a Sith Lord called Harry, that has a fetish for Nerf burgers and hair perms. And has pink fur.
And no one could raise a finger in protest.
That’s got to be the silliest excuse for literary authority I’ve ever heard.
That is exactly how it works, actually. George Lucas recently sold the rights of Star Wars to Disney. Know what the first thing they did was? Change the canon. They threw out all the extra source material that wasn’t the six movies and declared it a separate canon from their own so they had more room for creative freedom.
Now Disney is coming out with a comic series, a new cartoon series, and a new movie to begin their own canon for the Star Wars Universe. The true canon is the Disney canon. The old EU material is considered a separate thing not relevant to the official Star Wars Universe.
(edited by Ehecatl.9172)
By that rationale, only the most current writing matters then.
Sure glad Terminator Genysis is coming out, I hear Cameron was all /sadpanda at the obviously non-canon Rise of the Machines and Salvation. He even wants you to pretend those two never existed, even though he did not write/direct them…nor Genysis.
I’m so confuzzled!!
Not true at all. All the writing matters. Old lore is still lore, but it does take a back seat to new lore. New discoveries added to the world. Back during Prophecies, a game written 100% from the human perspective, we didn’t know that Ascalon belonged to the charr first. Later on, with new insight from the charr race, we do. This in no way contradicts the old lore. It’s a simple addition to what we already knew, such as that humans were brought to Tyria by their gods and not native to this world.
What you’re trying to say is that everything we learn in the games after Prophecies isn’t canon because it wasn’t written by the same guy, but that isn’t how canon works. That writer doesn’t own the franchise, he only worked for the people who did. He ultimately left the project and new writers were brought in, thus they have the same degree of creative control over the world as he did. If new writers want to expand into areas of the lore that were left blank beforehand they are fully in their right to do that, otherwise we’d never get new stories.
Why is there an argument about the canonicity of GW2 lore? It doesn’t matter what the writer of Prophecies originally intended. The Guild Wars franchise isn’t a single story. It’s a continuous story that draws in smaller stories written by multiple writers over the years, each story branching off and exploring different aspects of the lore and occasionally introducing new information that we didn’t have before.
In this case Ascalon belonged to the charr before humans settled it. That is 100% canon fact. It doesn’t matter when it was written, all that matters is that it’s considered canon to the Guild Wars universe.
except two things;
-One, when you pick up kits or other objectives in the game they at minimum prevent you from using only weapon skills and at worst prevent you from using any other skill that you would otherwise be able to use. Now most bunker builds are tanky but also rely on CC, regen, and invulnerability/block skills to be unavailable which they would not have assuming bombs were made to work like other in game objectives and kit
items.
-Second bunkers like all builds have plenty of counter play; boon strip, poison, counter CC and though the counter play is less then reliable it still can work given proper skill and coordination.Those two points aside I agree with the above part of your post, that my changes would mean the rise of bunker builds as bomb carriers which if you ask me is good and with those will arise counter builds/work arounds that will eventually make a meta around the new game mode. It’s good to have a sort of ‘template’ or ‘meta’ for roles in game-modes like this, as they make them easier to understand to both viewers and players as well as giving a good base for teams of PuG’s to go off of for basic tactics.
1. Even without any skills the bunker can still actively move to avoid enemy AoE fields and use the dodge function to avoid major burst. Things that the NPCs cannot do. The bunker also has more innate defense from stats and passive procs. It would be all but impossible for a team of three players to snipe an actual player with the bomb kit so long as the player has his full team to support him. You can, however, snipe the doorbreakers. The harder it is to keep the thing that destroys walls alive the less effective a lord rush strategy is. If you put the means of destroying gates in the hands of a thinking player you make it much, much harder to pull off a snipe tactic and thus make the game mode heavily favor the simple lord rush tactic.
2. The bunker bomber still offers less counter-play than doorbreakers from a strategic point of view. It’s a lot easier to keep a player alive than an NPC on a set path.
As for making a bunker meta role, how boring would that role be? You’d give up all weapon skills and utility skills for the ability to attack doors while your teammates do all the fun work. You’d give up what makes up 90% of your build for the ability to… PVDoor.
Personally I’d much rather fight other players for control of the lane by killing/protecting the NPCs than to have a player dedicate their entire build around fighting inanimate objects.
He who zerks the fastest wins the mostest.
I was in a match with a scepter ele on the opposing team. He had more than enough burst to nearly one-shot everyone on my team; we didn’t have anywhere near enough to hurt him…
he literally spawn camped us by himself….
…..lesson learned.
A full zerker can kill the adds, a full zerker can take out the other team’s bunkers, a full zerker can kill the lord. The team with the most zerkers wins.
If you’re not going in there with a full zerker burst damage spec, then you’re doing it wrong.
…if anet wanted to end the zerker meta they failed miserably.
If one player was able to lock down your entire team with a zerker build I… I’m so sorry. You and your team probably shouldn’t do PVP ever again.
Meanwhile I used a condition trapper ranger and 3v1ed two longbow rangers and a minionmancer for an entire match because I was too tanky to easily burst and none of them had proper condition cleansing skills in their builds. Their NPCs died and any time they tried to approach me they got condi bombed and died.
how bout two more:
-delete all NPC’s sept for the ones in lord chamber and make the current door breaker spawn points instead spawn a bomb/bomb kit that the player has to carry to the door.
-make the supply center a capture point that you mus hold to get pick up supply from (you can still get it from dead players though).Both make the game mode less pve’ish and encourage more actual PvP as well, as streamlining a few of the confusing mechanics for newbs.
Giving the players bombs will just result in something like a full bunker warrior or guardian using the bomb kit and laughing as they destroy your walls with absolutely no counter-play. Just get your whole team and rush the Lord. The enemy team won’t be able to kill a bunker supported by four players before all the walls are taken down and the enemy team is in the lord room.
Strategies would boil down to;
1: Rush lord and hope you can out DPS the other team.
2: Rush the enemy team with your full team and risk the entire match on a single team fight. If you lose they’ll burn down all your walls before you get back leaving you at a steep disadvantage.
With the current set up two or three players can pretty easily burn down the doorbreakers even with a five man team supporting them. Especially with a solid trebuchet shot. You wouldn’t be able to do the same snipe tactic against a player who’s actively resisting you.
I disagree with you.
I played a few variants of the longbow ranger and a trapper ranger with shortbow and axe/dagger. Both were very effective, but I tended to win more games playing my trapper ranger than longbow.
The reason for that was the traps allow for more AoE pressure, and conditions can’t easily be cleansed from the doorbreakers which meant any NPCs that walk through the traps are doomed to die. Combine that with a krait runes empowered Entangle and the doorbreakers aren’t getting passed you regardless of how many players are trying to protect them.
If runes of the trapper became available in SPVP such a build would be a powerhouse on this map.
Well…you shouldn’t have won if you couldn’t kill lord or have more points by the end or the match.
The timer should be longer, though.
The points are kind of a weird, nebulous thing that isn’t well defined ingame. I don’t know what earns more points or why. What I do know is that they still had an entire wall to break down and we were in their Lord room with half their team freshly dead at my hands. I don’t know how the enemy team had more points, but my team was objectively winning.
It’s like if the timer ran out in Conquest and the game tallied the personal score from each team and decided on who won that way regardless of who was actually closer to victory.
I don’t see how people can play Stronghold without fighting other players. So long as both sides don’t attempt an early game Lord rush at the same time you’re going to run into other players and have to fight them.
I actually had more intense PVP in the defensive lane than offensive. Yes, my main goal was to kill the NPCs, but doing that doesn’t make the enemy players magically disappear. You’ve just had to blow your defensive skills to keep yourself alive while you burn down the NPCs where as your opponent was allowed to freecast on you for a while. You’re at a steep disadvantage, and if the attacker kills you there will be a window where his NPCs won’t have opposition. Likewise if you manage to kill the NPCs and have the opportunity you absolutely want to kill the enemy attacker so that they aren’t around to keep attacking you when the next wave of NPCs show up.
If anything the PVP is more intense because both sides have to use their resources to fight around the NPCs. The attacker has to lay down healing skills and defensive utilities to protect them while the defender has to switch target between the NPCs and the enemy player periodically as the fight progresses, switching between throwing out control skills on the attacker and damage on the NPCs while trying to stay alive. This gets more complicated if the guards haven’t been killed yet. It also leads to the possibility of pyrrhic victories where you managed to kill the enemy but lost a ton of supply worth of NPCs because you let the fight draw out too long and several waves of NPCs got slaughtered.
As far as number 3 goes, what if tengu archers moved to defend your team’s gates rather than push in the offensive lane?
Many people complain that they aren’t useful because players can kill guards faster and they do negligible damage to players. However if they served a purpose of manning broken gates to reinforce defenses and had a damage bonus against doorbreakers like normal guards do it’d be a way to force the enemy to back track and patrol their defensive lane to make sure their doorbreakers aren’t getting picked off by newly spawned tengu archers.
I’m getting into games in about 1-2 minutes every time. Longest I’ve had to wait was 3 minutes.
Your queue is bugged.
The timer is rather annoying. I’ve actually lost a game I should have won because of it.
We had broken into the enemy Lord room and were fighting him. The enemy team were at our castle gate but I was there preventing them from getting inside. After me and the other defender wiped the three guys they had pushing we started heading to the enemy lord room to help with the final push. Then BAM! Time out! You lose despite being only a short push away from victory and the enemy still needing to take down a whole gate.
That’s only happened a couple times to me. People have it in their heads that the absolute best, be all end all strategy is to rush the lord and never do any defense at all. This works great when the other team is doing the same strategy, but is a bit risky if the enemy team knows what they are doing.
I did try that, that’s why I made this post. When you defend, you have two options: go tanky so the enemy players beating on you while you attack doorbreakers don’t instantly down you, or: go glass cannon so you can take out the doorbreakers quickly.
There’s a third option. Go condition heavy. NPCs don’t cleanse conditions on themselves and condition damage gear usually gives you pretty good sustain from armor or health.
I played a trapper ranger for several fights today with a lot of success in the defensive lane because of this. The conditions will kill the doorbreakers and any zerker build that goes against you pretty quickly, and you still have enough sustain to last against bunker or cele builds long enough to use the wall portals to escape before they can down you.
I was able to use my ranger’s Nature Spirit rez on our Lord to revive him before a stomp. So it seems revival skills certainly consider the NPCs as allies.
Well this thread got trolled into the ground.
They used a quote from Ventari along with an image of a centaur that looks like Ventari. Seems to be this week is focusing on Ventari specifically.
Plus so far the art for the specializations have all used playable races. It’d be weird to use centaur now.
As others have said it looks like it’ll be a control/support weapon, which I am fine with. I’d like it to open up a bunkerish area denial playstyle using vines and poisonous flowers to punish enemies in the area. What I’m really hoping for are more of out animal spirit skills like Maul or Serpent’s Strike. Those are my favorite ranger skills because of the neat animations.
I hope that staff will be mainly a hybrid utility weapon. That way power builds can make use of it for it’s defenses and crowd control skills and condition builds can use it to stack more bleeds/poison on the target for damage. Sort of like how Entangle is useful for both power and condition users because of how it functions as both a condition stacker and hard crowd control.
It would be pretty epic to lay down some vine fields that stop the enemy from pushing through so you can snipe them with your longbow or stack them full of conditions with your shortbow and the vines themselves.
Chill is fine. It’s very strong compared to cripple, true, but chill as a general rule has a really short duration, and only a few builds are able to stack long duration chill. Usually they have to build around the condition to do it.
When chill starts getting applied at 6-12 second duration per skill it’ll be too strong. Right now chill barely flickers on your bar for longer than 4 seconds at a time.