Guild Wars 2

serenke.4806:

Due to the nature of wvw, the difference is quite negligible really. (even in 1v1s, it’s rare that you fight a really balanced 1v1 in which the small difference could be of importance)

Battles in which both participants are downed at the same time happen all the time in PvP when a 1v1 ends up happening. I can’t imagine that WvW is much different in that regard. A tiny bit of extra survivability is all that one participant would need to remain standing and finish/heal for a decisive win instead of engaging in a downed state war.

Enemies hanging on by a silver of health after a burst is also a common thing. Same deal here. Even just the base damage increase would mean an extra 5% has the potential to make a difference, and in an extremely common scenario, with the 13% damage increase that you get if you factor in the bonus stats from a full set of ascended gear and food buffs, the dps guardians that get instantly reduced to around 1.5k hp, then activate shelter-contemplation on purity-Judge’s Intervention-Virtue of Resolve to heal back up would instead be instantly downed unless they also had ascended armor.

As someone who’s sitting on 35 bolts of damask and 111 silk bolts, I would in no way feel cheated if Ascended gear was made equal to exotics. It would just mean that I wont take a month before I can try out other stats if I feel like playing a different build. With the expansion looking it it’ll make conditions more valuable, it would be even more appreciated.

This then also applies to every single character. If you play every class, that’s 8 sets of ascended armor you need to make. Sigils tend to be fairly consistent between classes, but different classes tend to benefit disproportionately with different runes.

rotten.9753:

Eponet.4829:

Switching elements is already important to the class. Making it baseline would reduce build diversity by punishing elementalists from focusing on one element (Other than fresh air builds) when it’s already one of their weaker options to the point where only one very specific weapon build can get away with it in one particular game mode.

So what about Illusionary Persona? That trait is hardly phantasm build friendly yet it’s going to be baseline.

Phantasms are already the dominant style throughout pretty much every aspect of PvE, to the point where nothing else actually worked. It’s a trait that buffs shatters, which are only commonly seen in PvP.

Buffing an underused playstyle creates more viable playstyles, buffing an already dominant type reduces the viability of anything else.

The only build that anyone ever sat on a single element with was fire with the staff, and that only ever happened in dungeon groups. Every other weapon combination already swaps attunements like crazy. Even staff does if you value CC, healing, reflection, and condition removal.

Switching elements is already important to the class. Making it baseline would reduce build diversity by punishing elementalists from focusing on one element (Other than fresh air builds) when it’s already one of their weaker options to the point where only one very specific weapon build can get away with it in one particular game mode.

Knighthonor.4061:

but wouldnt a charge time on it give enemies time to get out the trap before it pops? that would be a nerf…

I believe that they said it would have the charge up time when you lay the trap, not when it activates. They specifically said that they didn’t want traps to be like grenades, but something that you place ahead of time and fight around.

If you place the trap, and then the enemy walks onto it later, it’ll be instant. If you place the trap on top of an enemy, and it triggers because you put it on top of them, it’ll have the charge up time.

I feel as though thief traps are better than ranger traps. I could potentially use the Shadow Trap in Legacy of the Foefire. I’d never use a ranger trap.

Revenant having a power double sword combination isn’t going to fix warrior swords.

If you just want dual swords in general, Sword/Sword power mesmer is quite popular to tide you over until the expansion.

GummiBear.2756:

very few weapons have 4, and no weapon are used by more than that

One handed sword is.
-Mesmer
-Thief
-Ranger
-Warrior
-Guardian

About 3 hours total.

Why bother with coding teleportation. Just fill in a randomly designated skill challenge after accomplishing X objectives in WvW/Killing Y number of players/Completing X world events/Completing a reward track/beating Z number of Dungeons/Fractals.

ReaverKane.7598:

Humm… Actually, World completion gives a ton of exp, a ton of craft mats, stuff like BLC Keys, Exotics, etc. Mechanically its a very rewarding activity. Exploring the World is fun… If people prefer to run around in packs from point to point, ok WvW for them, but i don’t see much the point of people complaining because they got through the game without playing the vast majority of it.
NOT TO MENTION that for over a year you didn’t have Scrolls of Knowledge to use, and no one complained then.

World completion doesn’t give you those things. Map completion gives you those things. If you look at the context, it was a reply to a post saying that because some people wanted world completion to require WvW maps as well, thus stopping only PvE players from getting it, everyone should have to play the map completion style for traits. The only thing that world completion gives that completing every map other than the WvW maps gives is the map completion bonuses for the WvW maps, and the gifts of exploration, which are useless outside of crafting legendary weapons, which are hardly any more effective than ascended weapons, and thus generally just seen as skins. Whereas traits are an integral part of the game’s mechanics for everything except low level play and SPvP.

No one complained about those things despite a lack of scrolls of knowledge early on because you didn’t need as many skill points and you still got skill points for levelling past 80. All traits at the time were unlocked with a very small amount of gold, which you also got from playing pretty much every playstyle you wanted other than SPvP, who got their own exclusive progression, and would earn gold it if they did anything other than PvP. So, they either didn’t need it, or got it anyway, as opposed to simply the PvP/Map Completion combinations.

If they have a portal event for any new WvW or SPvP maps, the portals will probably drop in those too.

Picking open world PvE players for the open world PvE event does make some degree of sense. I’d rather they had them drop in all non-instanced PvE areas.

Alfcam.6497:

You are all forgetting, you don’t need absolutely every single trait and skill unlocked to start doing HoT content, or continue doing WvW, you can only have 3 lines active at a time, and only 5 skills on your hotbar.

Also, EB has 4 Skill/Hero Challenges, the Borderlands have 3 each, so you already have 13 of them done if you are a pure WvW player, the new Borderlands will probably have 3 each as well, bringing you up to 22, so you only need 43 more.

Doing all the Skill/Hero Challenges in the starting zones will net you 36 points, so you will need 6 more, which you can get in for example Gendarren Fields or Brisban Wildlands, all very low level areas, and close to the major cities if you have no Waypoints unlocked.

You also don’t need more than two weapons, or multiple gear sets. Yet people would probably be annoyed if a second/third/fourth etc. set of exotic gear could only be acquired through grinding PvP reward tracks, and if after first equipping a level 80 exotic weapon, you only unlocked a new weapon type every 10 WvW ranks.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Eponet.4829:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Ok, Ok I do see the issue for those that strictly Wvw or pvp mode players. However, I have zero sympathy for WvWers. Just as they once told pvers to “suck it up” for world completion, I guess it’s their turn to suck it up for hero point hunting.

They already had to for world completion. The majority of the world completion was in PvE areas.

Those ones, that have world completion, aren’t going to have an issue. They will have all their points.

Or they’ll have 1 or 2 with world completion. Because most don’t want 10+ legendaries

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

Legendary weapons do not have the best weapon stats in the game, they are no better than Ascended weapons. They just look more shiny and have the ability to change stats at anytime rather than the permanent choice you make for what kind of ascended gear you make. (zerk, condi, celestial, etc)

Legendaries are equal to ascended weapons.
Ascended weapons have the highest stats in the game
Therefore legendaries also have the highest stats in the game.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Daddar.5971:

All you PvE players who are basically telling WvW players to just suck it up and waste time on pointless and boring ‘skill’ challenges would be singing a different tune if A-net had made your character skill unlocks contingent on getting a certain number of WvW player kills to unlock each skill. Yes, we can do PvE skill challenges, because they require no skill, just a tolerance for hours of boredom. Those are hours we could be in WvW. What ever happened to ‘play the way you want’?

After being told repeatedly to “suck it up” and “mmmmm. Delicious PvE tears” and other comments of this nature because I needed to go into WvW for each of my chars to get 100% map, my well of sympathy for WvW players needing to do PvE content has run dry. I’ve done the necessary skill points on my 8 chars and will do it on my Revenant. WvW players can do it to. (And I won’t even say “mmmmmm. Delicious WvW tears.”)

There’s a huge difference. The main one being:
1) World completion does absolutely nothing for you mechanically, the only thing it’s used for is legendary weapons, which aren’t particularly special other than for their skins. Stat changing is kind of nice, but without Sigil changing, it can’t be used particularly well. It’s still cheaper to just get an ascended copy for every type that you use. If I’m correct, almost everyone should be fine with grinding for skins.

Secondary, but much less relevant point: They already had to go into the PvE world for map completion, and for far more than the WvW side of it included. It would only be an apt comparison in that regard if more than half the hero points could only be acquired in WvWvW, and you needed to play both of them to unlock your traits/skills.

Tertiary point: You’re generalising PvE as a single entity. But within that sphere there are also other playstyles which don’t include map completion in their purview who suffer from it. It was possible to earn your traits from playing dungeons/fractals under the second system.

This doesn’t just hurt WvWvW players, but every single play style other than; Map Completion, 100% sPvP (Or some combination of the 3), and 100% City Roleplayers.

Conditons are effected by crits, kind of. Certain classes (Off the top of my head, mesmer, warrior, ranger) have an inflict bleed on crit effect, and mesmers are getting an inflict confusion on crit which also inflicts torment when enough confusion stacks occur. Thus, high crit chance also boosts their damage via conditions. If you want to touch power crit builds without effecting condition or bruiser builds, look at ferocity, not precision.

Personally, the upcoming changes are making rampager gear look like it could be a viable option for my mesmer.

Perhaps the best compromise is to lock one trait line behind hero points, one behind WvWvW objectives, one behind dungeon completion, one behind fractal completion, one behind sPvP tracks, and the elite behind event completion.

Now everyone’s discriminated against equally!

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Ok, Ok I do see the issue for those that strictly Wvw or pvp mode players. However, I have zero sympathy for WvWers. Just as they once told pvers to “suck it up” for world completion, I guess it’s their turn to suck it up for hero point hunting.

They already had to for world completion. The majority of the world completion was in PvE areas.

If you look at the new traits, projectile reflection is becoming far more easily available than it was before. Given that their major edge is in physical ranged weapons, that should end up being an indirect nerf to them.

They’re not all unusable. I’ve heard that some Norn use the leopard form stealth in WvWvW, and some Sylvari use the turret skill for its temporary invulnerability.

Are we gating the skills behind the dragon events?

Derenek.8931:

That’s just silly. Why would all your characters immediately have all the additional powers and traits from the new expansion without even playing it? Level 80 might be the level cap, but seriously if you never did any skill challenges and stopped playing once you hit lvl 80, your toon wouldn’t have all the core skills, elite skills, and traits unlocked anyway. So why should a character who didn’t have enough skill points to even be maxed out in the first place suddenly get enough points to get all the expansion skills as well?

Have you been reading the previous posts?

People have been able to do that through PvP, Dungeons, Fractals, and WvW. Map completion is not the only part of the game, and the idea of playing how you wish to was core to selling the game.

Forcing people into the map completion style of play in order to unlock things that aren’t entirely map completion centric (i.e. Map completion needed to unlock gliders is fine, as it’s useless for anything other than map completion) goes against that philosophy. It’s like if, instead of getting them from skill challenges, you could only get hero points by raising your WvWvW rank.

I actually wish that we didn’t have multiple races in the first place. It adds a lot of development work to what essentially has no noticeable impact on gameplay outside of unranked and WvW PVP where Asura are overpowered.

In their defense, the last year probably had less content added as they were working and holding onto it for the expansion.

Mine only ever cheats on me for the second and third time putting down that pesky dragon, or when fighting other puppet masters. That slightly younger thief got some attention recently, but all signs point to everyone but me being phased out.

Guess which of us is the only one with a signficant number of skill challenges completed?

commnagrom.8637:

Tachenon.5270:

Seems to me it would take very little effort for the devs to allay — or confirm — the concerns expressed here and in similar threads. It would be a constructive and positive thing to do. Why hasn’t it been done?

because ANET has made them devs not talk about ANYTHING until it was done because of past fiascos

From what I’ve seen, the past fiascos happened entirely because they didn’t talk about it until it was too late for them to be willing to discard it.

heartless.6803:

Only concern I have for trait revamp is that it doesn’t really address anything of what mesmers have been asking for. Clones and phantoms still die way too quickly in pve and are extremely limited to one target. We have almost no AoE apart from clones, which after main mob dies they disappear. Our damage is outright horrid outside of reflects. Chromomancer doesn’t address any of these. If anything it makes it worse, more support more utility and no anything else. Oh well at least I’m wanted for utility.

Domination/Dueling/Illusions seems at a glance to be the obvious PvE set. They actually got some quite significant damage improvements.

Their domination minor trait became a 10% boost to vulnerable foes (Pretty much all the time given that the sword’s autoattack chain applies it), as opposed to when foes aren’t using a skill, which seems as though it wouldn’t apply against bosses all that often due to defiance.

Confusion on clone death was replaced by confusion on a critical hit by either yourself or an illusion, which is much, much easier to apply.

The damage boost for mantras was replaced by a stacking ferocity buff, which, assuming it balances out to a similar value as the current one, should be better as it will effect phantasm stats. Unfortunately, it does conflict with deceptive evasion.

The new adept illusion trait that recharges phantasm summoning skills on shatter use seems as though it may help with the phantasms dieing so often, as you can shatter them before they’re destroyed and then resummon them sooner.

The new minor trait grants might when shattering illusions, and shatters now have two traits that can be specialised in in order to increase their power.

Sword/Sword or Sword/Pistol

Domination:
- Empowered Illusions
- Blurred Inscriptions
- Mental Torment

Dueling:
- Phantasmal Fury/Duelist’s Discipline
- Blade Training
- Deceptive Evasion

Illusions:
- Compounding Power/Persistance of Memory
- Phantasmal Haste/Sum of all Fears
- Master of Fragmentation

A character with that set of traits seems as though they could be quite effective at damage dealing.

Perhaps also interestingly, that set seems as though it quite actively pushes toward Rampager gear (A significant mix of both regular and condition damage inflicted when either critting and shattering (Which is itself a mix of condition and direct damage). Might gain when shattering, which boosts both base offensive stats, and the conditions that it inflicts are bleed [Which is getting its cap increased] confusion[Which is rare], and torment [Which is even rarer] thus, not competing with and overriding the conditions of more specialised condition builds.)

I guess in theory it would work on a condition mesmer.

Condition damage boosts conditions
Precision causes more crits, and under the dueling line, when illusions crit, they cause bleeding
and toughness makes the illusions and the mesmer somewhat more survivable

phys.7689:

Eponet.4829:

I’m concerned because they haven’t seemed to give any indication that there will be ways to acquire hero points outside of map completion, thus forcing a very specific style of play on people if they want to progress.

Say what you want of this system, but at least the skill points and gold can be acquired from dungeons, world bosses, fractals, WvW, and SPvP reward tracks. Ascended gear can be crafted from playing just about every mechanically inclined aspect of the game too.

There needs to be an option to gain hero points from these other sources of advancement. Unlike with cosmetics, this actually impacts your mechanical abilities. Something like rare dungeon/fractal drops that grant a hero point, Reward track progression for capturing structures in WvW, and turning some of the tomes of knowledge in PVP reward tracks into hero point tomes.

Gating mechanical abilities behind specific checklist content goes against their statement that you should be able to just play the way that you find fun and progress through that. Even the current traits and ascended gear that are so reviled didn’t betray that.

im gonna be 100% honest here
I would much rather have a small checklist than something that takes 10-30 times longer to achieve the same result.

I really dont care if there are many grindy ways to do something as long as there is 1 less grindy way.
and make no mistake, getting skill points is way less grindy than the current system.
you really want to compare getting 490 skill points and 43 gold to getting the current equivalent of 141 skill points?
you want to compare ascended which takes 25-34 days or 50-100 hours of grinding gold/mats to something which would take 1 day, maybe 2-3 hours?

I will take this system in a heartbeat over the current one, and its actually less skill points than you currently need just to unlock skills.

yup, before you needed 67 to unlock all proffesion skills after leveling to 80, and now you need 65 to unlock all proffession skills and traits after leveling.

so yeah, still way better than previous, and still better than ascended, heck its even less work than the first system was.

I guess it’s a difference of opinion. I would rather play what I enjoy, and then incidentally eventually achieve the rewards for doing that than waste time doing things that I don’t. Having completed map completion once, and hated every minute of it (and it was more like a month of play). I despise the idea that they’re going to force me to go through a third of it to unlock traits, and probably close to all of it for the elite specialisation, with every single alt.

That’s the problem. It’s a better system for the sorts of people that do enjoy that sort of content, and a worse system for those who don’t. People who aren’t largely effected by it, because it’s what they were doing anyway don’t see why others feel the way that they do.

Besides, I’m not saying that they should retain the current system, but that they should implement ways of eventually achieving it naturally in the course of playing other aspects of the game than just map completion.

I’m concerned because they haven’t seemed to give any indication that there will be ways to acquire hero points outside of map completion, thus forcing a very specific style of play on people if they want to progress.

Say what you want of this system, but at least the skill points and gold can be acquired from dungeons, world bosses, fractals, WvW, and SPvP reward tracks. Ascended gear can be crafted from playing just about every mechanically inclined aspect of the game too.

There needs to be an option to gain hero points from these other sources of advancement. Unlike with cosmetics, this actually impacts your mechanical abilities. Something like rare dungeon/fractal drops that grant a hero point, Reward track progression for capturing structures in WvW, and turning some of the tomes of knowledge in PVP reward tracks into hero point tomes.

Gating mechanical abilities behind specific checklist content goes against their statement that you should be able to just play the way that you find fun and progress through that. Even the current traits and ascended gear that are so reviled didn’t betray that.

Out of interest, have they said what will be happening with the profession specific stats like burst skill recharge rate, pet attribute bonus, and steal recharge rate?

Or the attributes that have very little if any gear options like Condition Duration and Boon Duration?

Will we be getting more gear types added that provide those stats? Will gear providing profession specific mechanics be specifically class based, or will it be a universal stat that effects professions differently like mastery was in WoW?

JUN YANG.4328:

say this to me after you get arah amor and ascended amor.
mix and match armor need to spend time to work on each armor. if you haven’t try. i dont think you got the right to say that.

Panites.6798:

Basaltface.2786:

Fortunally you got nothing to say in the management then, also before i cant add my own touch to my armor and update its appearance and so have my end game id run naked. Ill never wear/buy one of these things no matter how good they may look… I however want my old townclothes system back cause there was atleast some personality in the looks.

Which is your own opinion, which obviously is different to what Anets figures show through people buying outfits. You have over 1000 unique skins in the game yet you cannot be satisfied? I suggest you design your own armor skins with little to no clipping issues with any of the other skins, submit it to Anet so that it is on the same level as every other skin.

Your ideal mix and match will be completely different to what another person likes, look at the players skins today, most consist of arah, cof, lumi and cultural. Or the occasional hipster look.
You have so many choices but you demand more.

Basaltface.2786:

JUN YANG.4328:

anet should make armour skin and outfit balance. this can make everyone happy.

Exactly. One time a skin pack for atleast 1 weight class and the next time an outfit… No objections.

Yes because you dont already have more than 1000 unique skins. Yes balance. AHAH

Arah armor is easy. It’s pretty much an easier to get Glorious Set.

Nike.2631:

If you’re really feeling threatened, go start now. You have months to get ahead of this still.

How is the timing relevant? I feel threatened because I might be required to spend almost a thousand dollars worth of time performing activities that I don’t enjoy if I want to gain my core specialisations and skills, that value only growing with each new update.

Whether I can spend that time now, or later is irrelevant.

Ralanost.8913:

Eponet.4829:

Ralanost.8913:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Ralanost.8913:

If you are leveling a character normally, 25% should be a given.

Yes, if. But we (in this thread) didn’t.

I do all PvE/story on my main, but leveld all my alts (7 level 80s) in PvP which drops both tomes AND skill scrolls.

And players who have leveled all their alts, or even all their characters full stop, in WvW are just as screwed.

What are you talking about? Skill scrolls will still work. You even said yourself that pvp drops them like crazy. What are you worried about?

They specifically stated that when the new system is implemented, skill scrolls and skill points will be converted into materials for the mystic forge instead of into hero points.

Must have missed that. Even so, you have the scrolls now, right? Make sure you use them on the characters that need the extra points now. We still have months before the expansion hits. You can’t claim you won’t be prepared.

We also have no word that we’ll be able to retain our traits and skills that have already been unlocked. For all we know at present, it would just result in wasting gold and mystic forge materials. If they said otherwise, please do tell.

Ralanost.8913:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Ralanost.8913:

If you are leveling a character normally, 25% should be a given.

Yes, if. But we (in this thread) didn’t.

I do all PvE/story on my main, but leveld all my alts (7 level 80s) in PvP which drops both tomes AND skill scrolls.

And players who have leveled all their alts, or even all their characters full stop, in WvW are just as screwed.

What are you talking about? Skill scrolls will still work. You even said yourself that pvp drops them like crazy. What are you worried about?

They specifically stated that when the new system is implemented, skill scrolls and skill points will be converted into materials for the mystic forge instead of into hero points.

Ralanost.8913:

Eponet.4829:

Ralanost.8913:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Because the bulk of SPs will come from levels, the importance of skill challenges has been downplayed, so alt characters won’t need to do something crazy like 100% world completion to get the full legacy set. This softens the problem, and might have been the best solution they have found.

It’s 25% (more to unlock elite specializations) of the world map; that may not sound much, but multiplied with my 17 affected alts, it is a major pain in the butt.

If you are leveling a character normally, 25% should be a given. I used tons of tomes on my mesmer and still have over 30%. So much unwarranted fear. I can’t believe people are getting so worked up about this. They said it will be about 465 hero points to max out a character and 400 of them come from just hitting 80. So every character you have at 80 will have the bulk of their points already taken care of. Chances are we will have most characters with max hero points on day one and tons of the new currency from all the extra points.

I have 1 level 80 character with 189 skill challenges,
2 Level 80s that I levelled to around 60 in pve, with 30 or so.
1 Level 80 with 0 skill challenges
One level 47 with 6 skill challenges
and 3 level 20 somethings with between 0-10 each.

It’s hardly something that you easily get.

Characters that aren’t max level don’t count. You will unlock stuff as you level, just like any other game. Do you not have any skill scrolls sitting in your bank? Even so, with the 80 that has done zero skill challenges, do you not have extra skill points from levels past 80? Even if you don’t, you will be able to unlock almost everything with just being 80. Are you honestly trying to complain about those last 65 points? That is super petty. Whatever builds you want, that 400 points will get it for you. If you are a completionist, get to leveling. There is still PLENTY of time before HoT goes live.

Yes, I’m complaining about having to do a third of world completion on every character just to get access to the traits alone. 65 points doesn’t sound like much, when listed against the 465 that it requires, but that’s deceptive. It’s almost a third of the skill points in world completion.

I thought it would be easy too after hearing that, then noticed that I had four maps completed on my elementalist and still only had 30 or so points.

Yes, I do have skill point scrolls in my bank. Not that many, but some. I’ve been using them to unlock traits. No, they specifically have stated that those scrolls aren’t going to give hero points. So, that’s no use to my characters whatsoever.

Additionally, it doesn’t matter when HoT releases, what matters is that we’re being forced into doing repetetive PvE content with every single character, just to compete with other players.

Ascended gear already favours PvE players who decide to give WvW a try over primary WvW players, but at least at the moment we’re getting skill points and gold to unlock traits/buy the materials to make ascended gear.

Under the new system, you’re forced into collecting a third of the skill point challenged required for world completion just to maintain basic functionality and experiment. This isn’t even including the assumed cost that elite specialisations are going to have.

It’s hardly petty to be irritated that the origional promise of “Play how you want and get rewarded for it” that they sold the game under was broken. If they had instead said that I was going to be put on a strict checklist grind that required me play through boring, repetitive tasks just so that I could maintain mechanical parity with other players, I wouldn’t have bought it in the first place.

This has been the only MMO that I’ve been able to tolerate, precisely due to the lack of mechanical grind. I have nothing against consmetic grind, but when there’s only one specific way to access game mechanics, I am going to complain that there should be a way to access it people who choose playstyles other than map completion.

To put it in perspective, it would be like giving legendary weapons significantly better stats than ascended weapons do, removing the mystic clover recipe and the box of legendary crafting materials, and just making the legendary weapons purchasable for 130 mystic clovers. Another 180 or so if you want the infusion slot.

Ralanost.8913:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Because the bulk of SPs will come from levels, the importance of skill challenges has been downplayed, so alt characters won’t need to do something crazy like 100% world completion to get the full legacy set. This softens the problem, and might have been the best solution they have found.

It’s 25% (more to unlock elite specializations) of the world map; that may not sound much, but multiplied with my 17 affected alts, it is a major pain in the butt.

If you are leveling a character normally, 25% should be a given. I used tons of tomes on my mesmer and still have over 30%. So much unwarranted fear. I can’t believe people are getting so worked up about this. They said it will be about 465 hero points to max out a character and 400 of them come from just hitting 80. So every character you have at 80 will have the bulk of their points already taken care of. Chances are we will have most characters with max hero points on day one and tons of the new currency from all the extra points.

I have 1 level 80 character with 189 skill challenges,
2 Level 80s that I levelled to around 60 in pve, with 30 or so.
1 Level 80 with 0 skill challenges
One level 47 with 6 skill challenges
and 3 level 20 somethings with between 0-10 each.

It’s hardly something that you easily get.

dietzero.3514:

This is from the Elementalist forum:

Quin Marino.6384:

For a celestial ele, ferocious winds is 0.07 * 738 = 51 extra ferocity. This corresponds to about a 0.47% dps boost without fury and a 0.86% dps boost with fury.

For a zealot ele, ferocious winds is 0.07*576 = 40 extra ferocity. This corresponds to about a 0.84% dps boost without fury and a 1.16% dps boost with fury.

For a berserker ele, ferocious winds is 0.07*0 = 0 extra ferocity. This corresponds to about a 0.00% dps boost without fury and a 0.00% dps boost with fury.

So a mighty, mighty DPS increase.

They did say during the unveiling not to get too hung up on the exact numbers (81 damage confusion and all).

The live release could end up being something like convert 25% of healing power to ferocity or something.

Strill.2591:

Raziel.4216:

That means a WvW char will have to farm a lot of PVE content to continue playing the game in the mode that they want to, this goes agaisn’t the “play however you want” philosophy that this game was sold with.

Hence why there are skill challenges in WvW maps.

Except that skill challenge searching in WvW maps isn’t playing WvW for the most part. With a few exceptions (like the castle), if you’re taking up a slot to go skill point hunting in WvW, you’re just a liability.

There’s a reason that WvW map completion was despised by WvW players too in high population servers. It brought in people who didn’t help at all and just ran around to already capped locations when they were available, taking up space that could have housed people who would.

Plus I’m pretty sure there aren’t enough skill challenges in WvW to unlock everything.

Linken.6345:

Eponet.4829:

Maybe they wont have traits at all.

And what else would they have?
I mean considering map icons/harvesting/skill point challenges etc was to confusing to new players I dont see them adding a new system with traits for core lines and something else for elites that would def be to much for our newbies.

What I mean is, perhaps the new specialisation weapons wont have a reduced cooldown trait in the line, and will just have lower cooldowns than they would give with the option to reduce them.

Maybe they wont have traits at all.

I guess celestial builds will get some use out of it?

The other way around would make much more sense though.

Shattered Aegis and Spirit Weapon recharge reduction are in the same tier. The spirit shield is one of the few sources of Aegis for guardians outside of communal defense abuse.

Windsagio.1340:

Present a play style that’s lost with this change NOT a specific build, but a way of playing.

I honestly can’t think of any.

Boon stripping signet mesmer.

My 4/4/4/2/0 signet mesmer’s going to end up having to either not be a signet build, or lose the boon stripping that mesmers do better than most classes, as for some reason they stuck blurred inscriptions in the same spot kittentered concentration.

Dikeido.8436:

3. Do you enjoy fighting in your own guild for a place, be it a 5 man or raid. Because there is already to many DPS and not enough Tank/Heal?

There’s actually quite an odd situation where there’s not enough of everything in raiding, due to the general cutting down on unnecessary healing/tanking as you advance. If I recall correctly, in dungeons and early raids, DPS need to compete for a spot, then tanks tend to start having to fight for positions, then healers start getting cut, then you get a weird case where because you’re cutting the tanks and healers, there isn’t enough properly geared DPS to fill in the gaps.

Durzlla.6295:

I’d argue Protect Me saves more lives, and it’s a stunbreaker and you can get reduced CDs for it +your GS trait in the same line and could double it up and take heal as one as well. It’d put Protect me at a 48s CD that gives regen + swiftness to you and your pet with the trait, same with your heal which would also be 16s and you could take oak heart salve in WS to make your perma regen give you a perma 5% dmg reduction.

Protect me disables your pet from doing anything else and kills your pet. But most importantly, it disables capture point contributions for more than a second or two when signet of stone doesn’t, which is a huge weakness when trying to hold a point.

I think the biggest problem with the beastmastery line is the fact that the greatsword and axe traits are in it. That makes no sense whatsoever. It’s like they ran out of spaces to put them and just threw them randomly into beastmastery.

Will we get new items that give hero points for playing SPvP or find them in player loot bags in WvWvW?

If not, it would be a huge nerf to progression via PvP avenues.

This is awful for the people who choose to level through WvWvW or PvP.

Map completionists have a much better time under this system, but WvWvW has an extremely limited number of skill challenges available to them, and actually going to do them means that you’re taking up a slot for your world without contributing anything.

PvP might as well just not give tomes of knowledge anymore, because the characters leveled through it will be crippled by the lack of traits.

It seems as though this is even more of a step back. Under system 1 I could still play my release date mesmer and thief. Now it sounds as though I’m restricted to just my world completion mesmer. Wonderful.