I’m not sure why anyone would ever complain about people doing events in a chest farm map. Even chest farmers should be happy to do the Breach / VW once it pops. They in themselves give loot, and then you get a bonus to your chest loot afterwards.
It sucks to be the one doing the events in such a map because you aren’t getting much help and are basically just opening up the breach / VW for the people that are only scaling up the events around you, but… yah.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen one or two chest farm maps complain about events too, but I don’t understand the reasoning for it.
Its still going to be very good for Beastmaster builds as Fortifying Bond is there (and there’s also an Adept Trait for a pet stat boost, for some reason).
Also, depending on what they do with spirits it will still be useful for spirit builds, provided spirits themselves aren’t nerfed too badly.
My Charr Ranger has 2 armor sets.
One of them is T3 Cultural Gloves, Helm, Legs, Boots, Chest along with the Deathly Avian shoulders.
The other is the Viper armor set (gem store), minus the helmet because I don’t like the monacle.
I also rather like the Arah armor set, but I still haven’t really done dungeons so that one is kind of out at the moment.
Visually, I kind of just want them to stick with what they’ve done with the other skills really. Necro has some of the best looking attacks IMO, what with the phantom claws and fangs and such. Maybe the GS could be a bit more focused on more physical things, like bone shards, to give it a slightly unique flavor, but I don’t really want them to deviate too much.
As far as the actual skills go in terms of stats, being a cleave weapon is the obvious answer since its something Necro rather lacks (and its a GS). As long as its got cleave and some full AoE I’ll be pretty satisfied with it, I think. Actually, if they made it something like the spear but on land (cleave, melee AoE damage ability, AoE life steal, pull) that would be really neat, I really like the spear skillset.
They’ve already said they’re changing base stats and gear stats along with the specialization system and the removal of stats from trail lines, so we don’t know for 100% certain that Healing Power is going to stay base 0. Maybe its getting boosted up to 1000 starting and all the heal skills are being rebalanced accordingly. Or maybe Healing Power gear is going to give more stats than other gear, so that someone running Healing Power gear would end up with roughly equivalent Healing compared to someone else running Toughness gear.
We really don’t know enough about exactly what they’re doing with the stats to accurately judge the scaling traits, at this point.
I don’t think Symbol of Energy burns with each pulse, I believe it just burns once on the initial start of the skill. Although the Grandmaster minor trait in Zeal does give all symbols a chance to burn enemies per pulse.
As for needing to stand still to get Vigor…. I don’t see a problem with it personally. Its only AFTER you dodge that you need Vigor in the first place. So you dodge once or twice, then throw down the symbol and replenish your energy in preparation for the next dodge you need. Or dodge into the Symbol if someone else puts it down.
There are already symbols that give Retal (Greatsword) and Protection (Hammer), and at least at this point it seems they want to avoid doubling up on any symbol. I mean, eventually they’re going to have to double up if they keep adding weapons with symbols, or at least start doing offensive boons instead of just defensive ones, but right now they still have enough to keep it 1 type of boon per symbol, and even in the future they’ve got Stability and now Resistance that they could potentially use for defensive Symbols, so that’s a ways off.
Hmm. Pleasently surprised. I too was expecting a medium armor class, and specifically leaning towards Thief, since I’m betting Engineer is probably going to be one of the last shown since its probably got less progress done on it (at least based on the fact that most normal specs for most classes are mostly done, but Engie had a bunch of “TBD” type skills) and I wasn’t really expecting Druid yet either.
Which would have been a bummer for me personally since I don’t have a Thief (or a Warrior) so I wouldn’t really get much out of their elite spec being announced. I know it’ll happen eventually, but…
The funny thing is that underwater breathing masks actually do have working dye channels. There was a bug some time ago that would allow you to view (and dye) underwater masks via your normal headgear dye option. It wouldn’t stick or anything, once you accepted, but you could actually preview the underwater headgear with different dyes.
So I really have no reason why we can’t dye them. But whatever.
My Ranger has a Nature vs Tech theme (which is to say, I use both tech and nature based weapons and usually try to have one of each on swap at any given time).
For my primary tech-based option I’m going to be using the Legionnaire Staff. Always loved the way it looks, but have never been able to fit it on any of my other characters. Nice to finally be able to use it. Since I also tend to have at least 2 skins of each “type” on my Ranger (he has so many darn weapons its ridiculous >.<) I’ll may also grab either the Steam Staff or the Adamant Guard staff, not sure which one I like better at the moment.
For nature, I’m going with Melandru’s Gaze. I would like to use the HoM staff, but I don’t own GW1 and I am not going to get it just for a staff, so that one is out sadly. As a secondary, I’ll probably go with either the Ogre Staff or the Wolfborn Staff, again not quite sure which just yet.
As long as tomes are confirmed to come back later, I’m fine with this change.
I love tomes in concept, but they don’t work in their current iteration and its unlikely they’ll see significant changes to make them viable at this junction. However, if they could be reworked in the form of Elite specialization utilities (at least I presume they’d be utilities) then that would allow the time to develop them properly into working, viable utilities.
I just don’t want to lose the concept entirely.
As far as the skills themselves go… the shout seems fine. Not so sure about the Signet, however, as having another source of passive healing when Guardian already has one fully passive heal source through traited Resolve and a few other more active ones (like healing symbols and heals on dodge) may be a bit too much.
The piercing aspect of Life Blast should be baseline, without a doubt. Maybe its just because it was the very first trait I ever took on my Necro, but it just feels plain WRONG to be without it. I have literally never switched that trait off for any real period of time because it just feels off when I do so. It gets eaten so easily without piercing, and it just feels odd for such a strong projectile to just poof out of existence so easily.
The vulnerability, though…. that could probably stay traited. Either fold it into Reaper’s Might since its a pretty similar concept (gradual power buildup while using Life Blast) and add a new Adept Soul Reaping major, or keep Unyielding Blast and add a secondary effect to it in addition to the Vulnerability. Maybe a power increase for each enemy hit by the attack (so it does base damage on the first enemy pierced, and maybe 10% extra on the next enemy, ect), to further encourage smart placement.
The Dragonhunter traps are perfectly fitting for a Guardian. They aren’t mechanical traps using mechanisms and gadgets like Ranger / Thief. They’re magical traps utilizing magical light to attack enemies. Or to put it another way, they’re basically Symbols with a slightly different functionality. Or similar to Necromancer marks.
People need to stop getting hung up on the name “Trap” and immediately thinking they’re exactly the same as Ranger / Thief style traps. They could have called them Marks and it would have been the same difference, except that by categorizing them as Traps they allow combining them with Rune of the Trapper (and who knows, maybe in the future other Runes affecting traps could be introduced).
There is some truth to not comparing Dragonhunter to Chronomancer, but its got nothing to do with the idea that Mesmer is terrible and needs a buff more, especially since the idea of elite specs is that they’re not supposed to be straight buffs but rather options.
The reason the two shouldn’t be compared is because Anet already specifically stated that specs are not being made “one to one”. They want to give each specialization cool stuff to play with, but they aren’t all going to be getting the exact same stuff in the exact same way. Dragonhunter gets a full new weapon with 5 new skills and functionality changes to all 3 of their Virtues. Chronomancer only gets 2 weapon skills and a single new Shatter, but the stuff they are getting is more complex in return.
I do wish that every weapon set was guaranteed access to a Symbol in the same way that all Mesmer weapon sets always have a clone and a phantasm. I mean, yah, Symbols aren’t exactly the Guardian’s profession mechanic like clones are so arguably its not quite as critical, but at the same time there are a number of traits dedicated to them, even in the new system. I think there’s something like 2 majors in two separate traitlines and all 3 of the Zeal minors that are exclusively for buffing symbols, if memory serves? That’s an awful lot of stuff dedicated to a skill type that two of the 1H weapons are missing. It’d be different if there were Utility based symbols, but since they’re exclusively on weapons only, it does create situations where certain weapons clash with some traits.
I mean, yah, it would most likely require a major rework on Sword, but I think it would be worth it for the sake of equalizing Guardian’s access to symbols if they’re going to continue to focus a number of traits on them.
The bow skin is pretty cool, but I won’t be using it since it doesn’t fit my Guardian’s weapon theme. I might consider putting it on my Ranger though, since it does fit his theme, although I already have 4 different Longbow skins on my Ranger as it is, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to fit it even there.
I actually didn’t notice the gauntlets, but yah. Those are pretty neat. Don’t know if they’d fit on any of my characters, but I’ll have to play around with them once I get them and see. My Elementalist does use the Horns of the Dragon helmet occasionally, and the gauntlets appear like they’d match that, but since they’ll be heavy armor that won’t really be an option. Maybe I’ll throw them on my Revenant.
Dragons aren’t really evil. They’re simply forces of nature doing what they’re meant to do. You don’t call a lion evil for hunting a gazelle. So I don’t really agree with your reasoning.
I think the name is silly and unfitting all around. It doesn’t even really aptly describe what the spec does, since most of the abilities don’t even have anything to do with dragons nor would they be particularly effective against them.
I’m not one of the people up in arms going crazy about it, though. Its just a name, and while I think they could have certainly come up with something better, in the end its rather inconsequential.
Perosonally, I do all of my leveling through world completion. I actually enjoy going through the various maps on different characters, and it has the added bonus of getting me map completion rewards as well as skill challenges, which will be important for the upcoming specialization system changes.
The price for trading laurels for T6 mats isn’t going to change even if the price for them on the TP does, so there’s really no reason to stock up on them in advance.
It seems like they were setting up a storyline with Taimi and Brun upgrading Scruffy, and the devs themselves have said that most of the time when they set something up like that its with plans to use it in the future, so I think its definitely possible.
Then again, they could also just have Taimi show up in HoT with a newly upgraded golem and not have Brun appear at all except maybe by name drop.
My Guard uses a crystal weapon theme, so I’ll be using the Zenith Longbow as well as either the Corrupted Longbow or Priory Historical Longbow (I always use at least 2 weapon skins per weapon type).
In fact, I’ve had an achievement chest sitting there shaking on my screen for months now just waiting for the point when the Guardian weapon was confirmed so I could grab said Zenith skin. Just a few more days and I can finally be free of that accursed shaking box!
My Mesmer’s weapon theme is fancy particle effect weapons for maximum distraction and flair. Which there aren’t all that many of for shields, at least not compared to some weapon types. Still, I’ve come up with a couple I like.
The first one being the Dead Stop shield skin, which I had bought way back when it was first introduced but have yet to actually use even to this day. Didn’t fit either of my current shield-wielding characters (Engie uses animal themed weapons, Guardian uses crystals), so I was originally planning on using it for a future Warrior. But now that Mesmer is getting Shield, I think it’ll fit nicely on my Mesmer. It’ll be neat seeing a bunch of clones running around with grinning tombstones. It is a little oversized, which I’m not a huge fan of, but the awesome effect is worth it.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dead_Stop_Shield_Skin
The second one I’ll be using is the Ley Line Shield. I’ve already got a couple of Ley Line weapons on my Mesmer (Greatsword and Pistol) because I really like the pulsing blue aura and general look of the weapons, so one more will fit nicely. And I do quite like the look of the shield, its got a nice size and shape to it. The gaping hole in the middle would be a potential issue if I were using it on a martial class, but since Mesmer uses it magically, ’is all good.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ley_Line_Shield_Skin
I would have probably chosen the Dreamthistle Shield Skin over either of the above (or at least in addition to them) because its probably my favorite shield skin in the entire game, or at least one of them, but ’dat price… lol no.
YES. So glad its going to be Guardian this week. My Guardian uses crystal themed weapons, and I’ve had an achievement chest to claim a Zenith weapon on my screen for months now waiting for the Guardian’s weapon to get confirmed so I could claim the matching Zenith skin to use. I just want that darned bouncing chest gone >.>. I mean, I know there was speculation of it being a bow from datamining and possibly an eagle-eyed segment of the initial HoT trailer, but I’m waiting for it to be 100% confirmed for sure, especially since there are two types of bow.
Also nice that its a spec we don’t know (much) about. We had already seen Chronomancer in action somewhat in the reveal trailer, this one is going to be a bit newer and more unknown.
Glad we’re getting another spec this week too. I was half expecting them to throw Chronomancer at us and then go another couple of weeks before showing more, which would have been a bummer.
I’m dying to get my hands on the Zodiac Greatsword for my Necro once specs hit. Would love to have had Zodiac skins included in the promotion, since I can’t afford the current prices.
It does seem like it would have been the perfect time to do it.
Each beta is an individual thing. Players who qualify for one don’t automatically get into the next one, you have to qualify for each one individually.
https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/91220997?_ga=1.3275252.577708020.1429246909
I was invited to the beta, but I can’t/couldn’t log in during the test time! Will I have another chance?
This invitation is for this Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns testing event only. This does not guarantee access to future events.
Pretty sure all tonics can equip the birthday blaster (as well as any other inventory-related bundle), or at least I’ve never found one that can’t.
As for matching with #1 and #3… off the top of my head, the Plush Griffon, Princess Doll, Toy Soldier, Mordrem Teragriff, and Dust Mite tonics all fit those criteria. I believe that all of the transformations from the Endless Halloween Tonic except the Golem can jump as well.
Now that they’re getting rid of a lot of the “X damage while in Y attunement” traits maybe they will make it affect all traits, since I believe one of the main reasons they didn’t want to make it affect all traits before (or at least the one most people theorized to be the reason) was because it would allow you to stack multiple damage modifiers for insane burst damage. Which I never thought was a very good reason anyway, since you’d only end up getting a couple seconds of stacked mods every 15 seconds with the cooldowns and such, but whatever.
If it is going to remain as-is, though, I agree. It needs to go, its terrible.
Prior to the info I would have agreed 100%. But with the new scepter trait that gives might for Justice procs while wielding a Scepter I’m not sure if I’d actually want this change or not. Smite + AA will proc Justice twice in a couple of seconds even with one target. If Smite became a symbol, then you’d only get that level of Might gain from at least two targets, and even then you’d be getting them much slower since Symbols only hit once a second.
I do think maybe the Scepter trait should be in a different traitline, though. Perhaps the Virtues traitline to synergize with more frequent Justice procs?
It synergizes fantastically with Sharpened Images, so I don’t really see a problem personally.
Phantasms are weapon skills, after all (well, most of them anyway, and the two that aren’t don’t do much damage). So critting with weapons and critting with phantasms aren’t exactly completely separate things.
what?
why not convert it into hero points?
this is ridiculous!
i do not use the mystic forge!
If you don’t use the Mystic Forge, those 800+ points you have are doing absolutely nothing for you right now anyway. So nothing is changing for you. Either way they’re going to waste if you don’t want to use them to craft.
I like underwater combat personally, but you’re definitely not the only one who doesn’t. In fact, I’d say its probably a majority that don’t.
I still think its kinda silly that they cant just go in the order: gauntlets -> pauldrons -> helmet -> boots -> legs -> chest then repeat. by them time very many people would reach that many achievement points there will probably be another more prestigious armor skin.
The reason they didn’t do it that way is poor planning, IMO. When they first introduced the pieces, they only had shoulders, gloves, and helmets done. So they just did those 3, then repeated them a second time.
Later on it seems they decided to finish the sets, but by that point there were already people who had gotten most of the current rewards, so in order to be fair to those people who would have missed chances at other armor pieces, they had to tack the other parts onto the end of the achievement line instead of going in the logical order. Otherwise, people who had, say, 15,000 AP at the point when they got around to adding the boots / chest / leggings would have missed out on a chance for boots and a chestpiece (or leggings) and instead doubled up on shoulders and gloves.
The Beta FAQ page clearly states that each beta event is a separate thing and that access to one does not guarantee access to any others.
So no, previous testers aren’t auto-invited to the next beta. You need to get a portal like everyone else.
They’re changing base stats / armor stats around to compensate for the fact that trait lines no longer give stat points, they’ve already said as much.
So we don’t know for sure if base Healing Power is going to be 0 any more. Its possible it’ll be made 1000 (or whatever the new default for all character stats is) along with the usual base stats, and then the heal skills rebalanced to make up for the difference, which would make it a more appealing trait.
If it were implemented into the game right now as it is, then yah. It’d be absolute garbage. But lets wait to see what changes with along with the trait system before we jump the gun and proclaim that it’ll be terrible then.
Caladbolg is a special weapon. Player Sylvari get to use it if they choose certain steps in their PS as well, regardless of that players’ profession, and with the same skill set.
So no, I don’t think Trehearne was intended to be a hint towards GS Necro or anything like that.
Just one thing I am bit worry about. I hope they remove that minimal range
I doubt it. That will probably be the major weakness of the kit, and a measure to prevent someone from taking the “Heal on Blast Finisher” trait and just healing themselves at melee range to a ridiculous degree if using the trait that gives the #1 skill a blast finisher.
Skill points aren’t going to exist in their current form in the new system. They’re basically being split into 2 things.
~ Hero points, which are used to buy traits / skills. These are acquired ONLY by leveling up and hero challenges.
~ Some kind of currency item which will be used to buy all the current items that require skill points (stuff like Philosopher’s Stones). These will be given via “items from champ bags” which likely means scrolls.
How they’ll convert everything when the patch hits is somewhat of a mystery, but my guess is that they’ll just take everyone’s current skill points, convert them to the aforementioned currency, then award hero points to that character based on level and skill challenges completed (since the game keeps track of challenges separately).
Who knows. Heck, they didn’t even mention for Ranger whether they’re doing the whole “baseline merge” thing they’re doing with most other profession mechanics where half the old profession numbers go to the baseline with the other half in traits, and I didn’t see anything that increased overall pet stats in the traits except for that one trait in Nature Magic (for some reason).
Though I think they did skip a few Ranger traits, so maybe the stats are in there somewhere.
Sadly, they seemed to be having a fit of delirious laughter during the Ranger segment so they didn’t seem to explain stuff quite as well as others.
I really hope they don’t cut them. They aren’t very good, nor are they supposed to be, but they add flavor to the different races. And we need more stuff that does that if anything, not less.
Simply being at level 80 when the patch that drops this new system hits will give you 400 points (at least based on what they’re planning right now) right off the bat. That’s going to be the baseline for a level 80 character no matter what else you’ve done.
That will be enough points to unlock maybe 85% of your traits and skills. Beyond that, sounds like the rest of the points are going to be acquired via skill challenges (later to be changed to hero challenges).
I believe they said you’d need around 65 skill challenges done (out of over 200 in the world) to get enough points to unlock every trait and skill, at least as far as the baseline ones.
So, yah. Get to level 80 and then do around 70 skill challenges and you’ll be in a good spot to get everything the instant the patch rolls out. Can do more challenges in order to stockpile for the Elite Specs with HoT as well if you want, though no word on just how costly those will be.
If you don’t really care to actually play the character yet, I don’t even think you need to worry about doing anything right now. It’d probably be the same difference creating the character now and using Tomes to 80 or doing it after the patch drops. I don’t believe there’s going to be anything grandfathered into the new system or anything like that which would give an advantage to creating now as opposed to then.
(edited by Electro.4173)
Well, my Mesmer runs conditions-on-clone-death traits which are apparently getting completely removed, so that’s going to require a hefty rework. Probably end up keeping the roughly the same traitlines (Domination, Duelling, Illusions, while dumping the 2 points in Chaos since I don’t really care to support) and turn myself into a Phantasm build, I guess.
I think that’s really the only one that’s going to be majorly broken, though. Most of my others seem to be benefitting from the changes, if anything.
I actually thought the new batch of hairstyles for male Asura was pretty nice. Other than the weird cork dred thing (#1).
Considering using the 2nd one on my Asura, though I haven’t decided for sure yet.
Funny that you brought up the Charr because I on the other hand though all the new Charr hairstyles, male and female, are horrid. Not a fan of enourmous hairstyles. The only one that I sort of like is the male one with the chains, but that one is ruined by the fact that the hair itself looks like something crawled up onto your head and died. The chain idea is good though, hopefully they’ll use it again in the future on something a little less silly looking.
Different tastes, I guess.
It takes you further than a normal jump but not further than a normal dodge.
That.
The distance travelled in terms of a dodge vs a jump+dodge is identical. The only advantage you gain there is that you can jump over something while also dodging, but distance-wise its all the same.
A nice website, to be sure.
Would it be possible for you to code some sort of alternate mode where you have bigger screenshots without individually expanding each one, though? Probably not full size, but maybe 2x the size they are right now at least? Would make it easier to browse and see a bit more detail.
To kill them all quickly you’d probably need to have maybe 4-5 groups of players waiting at the portal spawns as soon as they show up. As opposed to the usual, where maybe a dozen players split off from the main zerg and slowly work their way around killing each one in a circle. Ice Bow #4 seems to do a crapton of damage to them (as they do to most things) so you might even be able to get buy with 1-2 people with ice bows per portal.
Sadly, trying to get that many people to do anything other than wait at the SB’s head for the few to clear the portals for them seems fruitless, at least as far as random people go. I’ve been in a few instances where people were attempting to get enough players to move off the zerg spot and take the portals down fast enough, never happens. I guess most of the boss runners already have the achieve and can’t be bothered to move.
I believe entering stealth auto-cancels any and all actions you’re currently taking. A measure to prevent you from auto-attacking and instantly revealing yourself or something.
Hmm. I kind of figured that would be the case.
Is that note on the Wiki just plain wrong in general, then? Or are their actually pets from other classes that DO trigger on-hit effects from Runes? I’ve always thought it was a rather odd feature and questioned whether it was accurate or not, but its been there for a long time.
I’m sure there are plenty of people who only play one character.
Personally, though? While I’m sure I COULD play one character if I really wanted to, I definitely much prefer to play a variety of characters. I have 6 right now, eventually plan to have one of every class, and I swap between them all fairly regularly. Sure, I might be in a mood for a certain character and play them a bit more one week and then neglect them the next, but I rarely avoid a character completely for any real period of time.
The Charr cultural armor boots are going to be your best bet for boots that look “natural” with Charr feet. Some of them even do neat things like put metal over the claws and such.
Speed Training and Commanding Voice do not appear to lower cooldowns on pet skills and F2 skills, respectively.
Commanding Voice definitely works, its just the tooltip that doesn’t get updated properly.
Speed Training is a lot harder to test since you can’t really “make” your pet do a specific attack and the difference is only 10% anyway (why is it only 10% when every other cooldown reduction trait is 20%?), but I assume it would be the same since they probably work similarly to one another.