Guild Wars 2

In Verdant Brink, the Updraft south of the main/starting Pale Reaver outpost is actually outside the zone boundry. The warning shows up the moment you hit it, and you die while flying up for moving around out-of-bounds too much. There is one tiny spot on the Northwestern corner of it that is in-bounds, and lets you take advantage of it, but I’ve only managed to hit it once out of 3 attempts.

Personally, I’m enjoying it quite a bit. I’m one of those newbs that can’t function without auto-targeting enabled so having a brand new camera/targeting system that lets me get around some of the problems with simple auto-target is a big plus. The fact that my character turns and runs in the WASD direction I set for them and not strafe or backpedal (as long as I’m not using a skill of course) turned out to be one of those things that I didn’t think was a big deal but turned out to be a massive QoL bit that I never knew I wanted.

That said, I do have a couple of issues with it. At the moment, they pretty much revolve around locking targets and the difficulty of knowing when a target is locked (or that I have a locked target) As far as I can tell, there is no difference in the UI between a target that I have locked and a target that I have “just” targeted because that was the last thing I hit when I didn’t have a target, which can be annoying when I think my cursor is close enough to snap to my target, only to find out it isn’t. When there are a lot of enemies that are close together, it can also be really difficult to tell whether I’m close enough to hit my locked target, or if I’m going to instead use that skill against a nearby target instead.

So, a couple of things I’d like to see are

1. A new icon to show when you have a locked target/that a specific enemy is your locked target.
2. Some new target cursor state (perhaps a different color) to denote that your skills will be aimed at your locked target.
3. a toggle key that we can keybind that ignores enemy targets when we lock, to better target allies. I play an Engineer/Scrapper, and the most common combat scenario that has me pop out of action camera is to better target downed allies to send my function gyro to.

Thanks for reading.

All Reaper Shouts appear to be usable as soon as the specialization is unlocked, was able to use “Rise!” and get a shambling horror to spawn even though “Your Soul is Mine!” was the only skill I’ve unlocked so far. Didn’t seem to be the case when I first logged on to my engineer to unlock Scrapper.

Personally, I’m kinda glad that I’ll actually have to earn the elite specializations I want when HoT comes out, and not just be able to dump all my points to unlock everything for it in the first 5 minutes. Will make earning that last trait/reward more meaningful.

Though that does bring up a question: I know that there are other, not-trait things that are unlocked in the elite specialization (like the weapon and armor skin) are those going to be interspersed with the other stuff, or will we be earning those after unlocking all the traits and skills?

Doesn’t revealed have a shorter duration in WvW than it does in spvp?

Very little wuv roaming/dueling experience here, but maybe with a large window to fight back, trapper runes won’t be as bad as they are expected to be.

I think the lack of Dire is that it would be the ultimate bunker amulet in general, not specifically because of what profession X or Y can do with it. Condition damage by it’s nature scales up as the fight wears on, and the extra toughness and vit of Dire would extend the fight even more than what Rabid, Carrion or Settler could do.

Certainly not just because it’s vit and toughness on the same trinket, that combo already exists with Soldier and Sentinel.

Sagat.3285:

mistsim.2748:

Burtnik.5218:

mistsim.2748:

morrolan.9608:

You’re adding trapper runes but not Dire stats? Why on earth not?

are you kidding me? necros bro. even engies would become virtually unkillable.

Wait..Arent conditions a problem olny in low tier?! I dont see a reason to not add them, after all conditions are low tier problem..why people suddenly are so scared at adding dire stats in?

because necros would become godly. simple as that. they synergize too well with vit and toughness. the condi damage is moot. at least right now, their godliness is kept in check by cele stats, and they rely on might stacking for damage.

But necro has poor condition damage they rely on transfer and corrupt. What godliness are you referring to?

CiS is still competing with SRej.

Eh, I could see it, especially now that scepter 3 applies torment and Corrosive Poison Cloud is a projectile blocker. Add in Reaper and Soul Reaping specs for RS Dhummfire AAs and a pulsing stability skill, then toss a Warhorn in there somewhere, fill out the rest and you could get a pretty sturdy bunker that can dish some good (though maybe not great) condition damage, and a Dire amulet would be the perfect fit for it.

Nice to see that the gyro I enjoyed the most is the one getting the stunbreak

As for why the change from “start on cast” to “start on death” I’m guessing it’s so having the gyro get destroyed soon after activation does not become too punishing. Especially since, baring whatever the systemic change hinted at in the OP is, is what is pretty much expected to happen. Having the CD start on cast means that there must be a greater emphasis on balancing the skill based on the user getting the full duration out of the gyro, which can leave those times where it dies in the first 3 seconds even worse than before.

Mentioned this to someone in a PM last week, and the guy thought it was important enough to tell the world, and since it’s going to be the Scrapper mechanic at launch whether we like it or not, figured he’s right…

Anyway, if you’ve ever felt frustrated during the BWE trying to target an ally through enemies and skill FXs, especially in PvP, there are keybinding options for allied targeting. This includes a Target Nearest Ally, as well as an allied version of tab-targeting. There is no default keys for these function, and this is probably the only mechanic in the game that requires in-combat targeting of allies, so don’t feel bad if you have been completely unaware that such an option existed until now.

It’s not perfect (perfect would be keybind options to target specific party/raid members) but it’s a start.

Prisoner.2419:

bazul.4506:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Sneak Gyro needed a cooldown that was longer since it would otherwise have potential 100% uptime, so it now has a cooldown of kitten , up from 30s (its 30s duration remains).

Well wishes,
~ Irenio

just interest how long is a kitten in seconds?

Probably 45.

Also, I’m curious about the rocket charge leap thing. I don’t think the issue was when the finisher effect was triggered, but rather that the effects were only triggered when your leap ended with you within a field, rather than triggering when leaping through a field like other leap finishers (IE, triggers when leaping from inside to outside of a field as well as outside to inside and inside to inside).

That’s what he means by moving the check to the start of the leaps, now it will trigger a finisher should you be in a combo field at any point, not just when the skill ends.

Veneratio.1980:

Was super pumped when i heard we were getting hammer but i was super disappointed after trying it. I find Skill #2 and #4 pointless. Would much rather more CC abilities rather than what we got. I assume #3 will get fixed but it’s pointless working as it is now.

The Scrapper line and the hammer offer nothing to my condi build (which i love) so i spose i’ll just be staying a regualr old Engineer

Well, there is the poison field with Purge Gyro’s Toolbelt, and most of the whirl combos you’d get with Shredder inflict conditions.

But I agree, needs more condi love, as it is Scrapper is a pure straight damage spec with practically nothing to give for condition build. I’d like to see something like Shredder inflicting bleed, or Blast Gyro inflicting burns (or perhaps counting as an explosive for things like Shrapnel)

Ohoni.6057:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

I’ll be checking what we can do on the AI side to help the appropriate gyros keep closer to you – this feedback and that rocket charge felt erratic are high on my list for today and tomorrow as modifying animation and AI can take a lot more work than other changes.

I trust that you’re going to do your best on this one, but I have serious doubts that anyone’s best could be enough. AI is just notoriously buggy for this purpose, and I really can’t imagine it being good enough. I mean, if it were possible then why wouldn’t it have worked well enough in beta? I think you really just need to scrap the AI on most of the Gyros and just hard lock them to the player’s anchor, 1:1 movement, no independent thought. I move 300 left, it moves 300 left in the exact same instant. I jump, it jumps, like a costume affix, not like a minipet.

I think a lot of us would prefer that, but most likely the best answer we can hope Irenio can give is somewhere between “Not a chance in hell” and “Not until after Christmas.”

Haralin.1473:

Defense Field has not the 240 radius testet on small asura

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t actually last 5 seconds either.

Played about an hour or two, here are my thoughts so far:

Hammer: Wonderful. I’m sure I’ll come up with a complaint or two before the weekend’s done, but right now it feels good, versatile with it’s defenses and leap/whirl finishers, but also (at least when traited) has enough power that I feel good using it as my primary weapon, rather than the backup to ’nades or some other kit.

Function Gyro: Right now it seems a bit buggy, and the functionality almost entirely PvP. I know I’ve summoned it a couple of times to res people in open world, only to have it bounce around between people/targets without accomplishing much of anything (though it one case, it turned out because it had finished helping to res the initial target, and went on to start ressing others, which was awesome). The usage feels a bit clunky too. What bugs me the most, however, is how you are unable to use it to res NPCs, only players. While I can understand why you might not want it to be able to do that for, say, Stronghold, that really denies it its most useful non-group functionality for PvE; ressing event-critical characters before their downed state causes a failure, like the fort commanders in the Silverwastes, which makes it pretty much useless for the loner PvE, outside of those couple of mobs that have a downstate. If it could do that, and perhaps even one or two more things, that would really make be excited for this Gyro.

Medic Gyro: Going without Healing Turret’s condi cleanse is hard, but the fact this is an Instant-cast heal skill (meaning not only you can’t interrupt it, but a Scrapper could still cast it even when stunned) plus the protection and mobile water field of the toolbelt skill makes it a tempting alternative. It’s kinda frustrating, however, for the gyro to go off to find new people to heal when I’m still in the thick of things. While I understand the logic, I feel like the skill would work better if it tried to keep you in it’s range at all times, not just when you are hurting.

Bulwark Gyro: Feel like this is one of those Engineer skills you pick for the toolbelt skill it has, not the skill itself. Bulwark seems to work well when you’re by yourself, but bring a couple more allies that are taking hits and it usually goes kaput long before it provides a worthwhile benefit. The Toolbelt skill, on the other hand, is awesome. Mobile Reflect Bubble? Yes Please! Though you might want to check the tooltip for it again, because I’m pretty sure it doesn’t last anywhere close to 5 seconds.

Blast Gyro (Tracker): I feel like this is the epitome of the Gyro skills; Doesn’t last long, doesn’t need to last long, and has a great payoff when used properly. Feel like the tooltip needs some clearing up though, can’t really tell from it if both the tracker and the explosion are unblockable, or just the explosion (though I seem to recall it’s just the explosion) Only two nagging things about it; One, feel like the toolbelt needs to do more (almost want to say stunbreak, but that would make it the AoE version of Slick Shoes’ toolbelt, and that might be too much of an overlap) and Two: why do you have a skill called Blast Gyro when it doesn’t even have a blast finisher?

Whirl Gyro: I feel like this one is solid in the idea, but lacking a bit in execution. I feel like this has more to do with the functionality of Whirl finishers than the skill itself: The combo effects feels (though I’m not sure it actually is) too random to be excited about a skill that pulses almost 30 of them in half as many seconds, and therefore makes the direct damage it does feel too meager for something that won’t even chase down enemies from the spot you summon it from. The lighting field and daze from the toolbelt is pretty nice, however, if a bit lackluster. My other suggesting for the specialization’s stun breaker.

Purge Gyro: I’ll admit I haven’t really tried this out yet, so keep that in mind. I like the idea of stacking weakness with the toolbelt’s poison field and the leaps from Hammer 3, but I can’t help but feel like if I wanted a skill slot dedicated to cleansing conditions, I’d go for Elixir C instead.

Sneak Gyro: Probably my least favorite of the bunch (barring some revelation with some more Purge gyro testing) which is kinda disappointing considering it’s the elite skill. Considering the most common applications for stealth for non-thieves, this gyro, more than any other, needs to be able to keep up with the Scrapper at all times, yet it’s all too easy to walk out of it’s AoE and loose stealth even with no IMS traits or effects (which an Engineer, especially a Scrapper, is in no short supply of) The fact that the gyro itself remains visible also greatly impedes most of the commonly-held applications for stealth, especially group stealth: you can’t use it to skip mobs in dungeons, you can’t use it to secretly scout in Wuv, or to hide your havok squads movements from scouts. You can’t use it to sneak up to bunkers to backcap in spvp, or as a reliable escape tool (though that last bit was hypothesizing, haven’t tried Sneak Gyro in spvp yet) The livestream mentioned losing aggro from mobs when they can’t see you, which is nice… but that’s just one scenario where the skill is worthwhile, and that doesn’t seem enough to justify giving up an elite slot for. Granted, again I haven’t tried this in PvP yet, so maybe the AoE revealed from the toolbelt is worth it on it’s own.

Couple of ideas here:

First, I know you keep saying over and over that it couldn’t be an overheat issue, but I’d try doing a full cleaning of your CPU fan and heat sink; make sure the fan is clean and blowing as hard as it can, clean out the heat sink of any dust, probably even give your CPU a new coating of heat sink compound (which is pretty cheap). GW2 tends to be more CPU heavy than GPU heavy, especially compared to other top tier games, so something like Skyrim might not have any problems, but GW2 might be pushing your CPU juuust hard enough to cause issues.

Second one is; How old is the hard drive GW2 is on? IIRC the GW2.dat file is actually a compressed form of all the games files, which it then decompresses the needed files during gameplay. If your hard drive is several years old and/or an off brand, it might be too worn out to keep up with the demand. Again, AFAIK this is something GW2 does that most other games don’t, which my be why you don’t have an issue (yet) with other games but have issue with this one. If you have multiple hard drives, you might try moving the game’s files to it (even if it’s some slow-kitten backup drive that has you suffering from pop-in graphics for five minutes every time you load a new area) and see if problem persists.

Finally, it could still absolutely be a PSU issue; I’ve had two Power Supply failures and the very first sign was random shutoffs without bluescreens or lockups. I’d look for something that tracks power usage and see if GW2 draws more juice than the other games you can play just fine. Could be a new PSU is in your future whether you like it or not. On the other hand… it might just need it’s innards cleaned, PSU get full of dust too, and some heat tracking software forgets that it exists.

Robert Gee.9246:

One of the reasons we are more conservative about axe when it comes to balance is because axe uses a unique attack action in our game that cannot be avoided using positioning. Normal melee attacks have an attack arc and normal ranged attacks use projectiles. Enemy players can use positioning and movement to avoid these attacks. Axe 1 and 2 by contrast just hit you when you are in range regardless of your positioning. While some utility skills (like Corrupt Boon) also use this targeting method, it’s rare on weapon skills and thus we are wary of buffing it too much.

As for the animation on axe 1, it was changed because of an exploit with cancel casting that allowed players to get significantly more damage from the skill by continually canceling it. At the time I tried to just adjust the original animation so we could keep it but due to its construction that ended up not being feasible. The resulting animation looked extremely choppy and didn’t sync well across races. You are always welcome to make suggestions on alternate animations you’d like to see, but going back to the original animation at this point is extremely unlikely.

What if axe AA was made a chain skill, like scepter? Would the counterplay possible with that (since breaking LoS long enough/CC’ing would make the skill chain reset, avoiding the big final attack) mean you could go a little crazier with the damage numbers? Might even be able to bring the old animation back for the middle part of it, as long as the damage from doing the whole chain was better than canceling at that attack.

As awesome as 9s weakness sounds, I’m pretty sure that’s not going to be the actual duration when HoT goes live, probably not even for the BWE. Engineers frankly have enough stuns and dazes to keep 100% weakness uptime with that duration, and I doubt ANet would be OK with that.

Nilix.2170:

Liewec.2896:

were you watching the same stream as me?
triple leap finisher evade,
block attack, reflect attack,
tons of daze from lightning fields

500 health per second from super speed (and lads of access to it),
250 per second from swiftness
(lets hope they stack!)

tons of stability

lets not mention that every 30 seconds you and your finisher bot can both stability stomp.

its gonna be very fun trying different builds!

It was 105 for swiftness and 470 from superspeed and yes, they do stack. So if you’re running Streamlined Kits, and swap to Tool Kit, you’ll get Swiftness (10s) + Super Speed(2s), and you’ll get a +575hp for the first two seconds, 105 for the rest.
He did say that it scales with healing power, but you know how healing power scaling is.

The Master traits look really nice on paper so far. I’m probably going to be running Expert Examination over Rapid Regeneration or Mass Momentum (All that alliteration…)
9s of weakness + 5 stacks vuln with no ICD? That’s like an immediate buff to Supply Crate.

Forget supply crate, You know that the leap finisher combo for lighting fields is a 1s daze right? And with all those lightning fields, we’re getting a skill that’s 3 leap finishers in a row.

Arantheal.7396:

Foefaller.1082:

I know the MMORPG article compared them to spirit weapons, but after thinking about how they were explained, the concept I get in my head is closer to mesmer clones.

Like, you use the Purge Gyro, it floats around for a while cleansing conditions, and it disappears. Perhaps one of the damage Gyros flys out to an area/target, does a few attacks, and then disappears. IMO the reason why Mesmer clones have worked fairly well, whereas turrets, spirit weapons, minions and pets have had a constant struggle of reiteration, is that clones are by their nature much more disposable than other forms of AI skills and mechanics, making it a lot easier to find that balance of sturdy enough to not be worthless, but not so sturdy that players develop an unhealthy reliance to them.

I’m hoping that Gyros have a One-and-done nature to their effects that does not rely on having to survive any more than 4-5 seconds in order for the skill to be worthwhile.

True, completely forgot about mesmer clones in my post.
So I guess this game has 2 examples of viable AI. Both which profit from short life-span & on-death effects. I wonder why…

Well, you did mention phantasms, which in my mind is part of “Mesmer Clones” but considering you obviously speak from WvW experience, I can see how that might be a very different (and undesirable) form of player AI in your view.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

That’s also why the healing turret actually works; you drop it, overcharge, then either explode or pick up.

Which honestly, has always been something that’s really bugged me, I wish Healing Turret had something that made keeping it up desirable, even if drop→ detonate is still the common tactic, but until they figure out a way to do it that doesn’t involving nerfing, I’m content with Healing Turret being used in the way it is now.

I know the MMORPG article compared them to spirit weapons, but after thinking about how they were explained, the concept I get in my head is closer to mesmer clones.

Like, you use the Purge Gyro, it floats around for a while cleansing conditions, and it disappears. Perhaps one of the damage Gyros flys out to an area/target, does a few attacks, and then disappears. IMO the reason why Mesmer clones have worked fairly well, whereas turrets, spirit weapons, minions and pets have had a constant struggle of reiteration, is that clones are by their nature much more disposable than other forms of AI skills and mechanics, making it a lot easier to find that balance of sturdy enough to not be worthless, but not so sturdy that players develop an unhealthy reliance to them.

I’m hoping that Gyros have a One-and-done nature to their effects that does not rely on having to survive any more than 4-5 seconds in order for the skill to be worthwhile.

Xyonon.3987:

My expectations:

Drones will stick to your body and will be untargetable and be most likely like mesmer mantras, just that they get chrages or rather ammo with our heat. Something like that :’D
#believe

Please let me be right :<

Mine “like X skill type” hope is signets, float around you with a passive effect, then you “deploy” them as an active effect.

Anchoku.8142:

Great sword damage seems good enough right now but it needs more LF generation, particularly on Aa. The skills could also use a bit more range. Reaper’s low mobility means pulls and AoE range are crucial.

Not with how Blighter’s Boon works atm, if you’re willing to give up Reaper’s Onslaught. Let those Phalanx Strength Warriors and Revenants running Glint give you the LF generation your need

Cerbeius.7129:

Nice to see that GS might be a thing in PvE (being a PvE’er myself), but I’m afraid I’m too hooked on my Dagger in mainhand… will I ever let go?

I think they buffed GS AA damage from the last BWE, making it the best AA chain and therefore the best direct DPS weapon necromancers have, Shroud notwithstanding. Dagger still has the superior LF generation though, and that’s before you even consider your offhand options.

Holl.3109:

And IDK why everyone is suddenly getting all excited about necro’s gaining life force from objects… This has always been around and numerous necro’s have done it in tourneys. So can someone explain? :o

It’s because Reapers can become very good bunkers with the right traits (namely Chilling Force + Blighter’s Boon) People who play other professions have noticed, do not like it and have started screaming for action (already a 130+ post about it on the PvP forums) the LF from environmental objects bug/exploit/tactic is an attempt to explain/avoid blame as to why Reapers suddenly have scaleable sustain without blocks or evades ANet has always said they (were suppose to) have in a way that does not get Blighter’s Boon nerfed.

What was the elite people were running in spvp as a reaper?

‘Cause it seems to me that the thing that keeps Gravedigger from being great (or if you already think it’s great, OP) for pvp is the Necromancer’s very small pool of non-fear CC and immobilize abilities, to root the target in place to keep them from dodging a Gravedigger. Chill on Fear helps, but I don’t think it’s quite perfect for the this. For immobilize, you have dagger 3 (which would mean all melee. On a Necro. in PvP.) or a Bone Fiend. For stuns and knockdowns, you have Flesh Golem, “Chilled To The Bone!” and RS 5, and of all of those, a Flesh Golem knockdown is the only one I see catching someone with the awareness to dodge a Gravedigger.

Wait, they’ve finally found a way to make Necro’s legit tanky without blocks/evades/reflects??

IS THE BWE STILL ON!? I HAVE TO SEE THIS FIRSTHAND BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!

That’s what I get for sticking with VB the whole weekend…

Anyway, seriously now, I hope they wait until after the next BWE before doing any sort of knee-jerk nerfs to this (and not just so I can have the chance to go Tonberry on soloq pugs in spvp) Just to see if this might be a LTP issue. As it has been mentioned several times before, the prevailing strategy in group fights has always been “Shoot the Necro first” and Blighter’s Boon as it is on its own throws that idea out the window. I obviously can’t speak about the 1v1 situation with any experince (since I’ve admitted I haven’t done any PvP for this BWE) but with the loudest complainers being those who are bringing condition builds to fight a Necromancer, I wonder if they can elaborate how their current experience with Reapers compares to their normal experience fighting Celest Signet Necros.

If they do think BB needs a nerf… I think there is already a precedent for traits that activate X number of times in a second. That sounds like the best way to go if the current version proves to be untenable without giving it a hard ICD.

Also, Ithilwen? I get the feeling you don’t know what a Diamond Skin Ele actually is. Which is understandable, since they are semi-rare atm. Diamond Skin is an Earth Magic trait that makes Ele’s Condi-Immune (as in, conditions cannot be applied on them) as long as their HP is above the 90% threshold. Coupled with some of your classic Celestial Water/Arcana traits to keep HP above that level, and it’s basically the closest thing to a hard counter on condition builds as exists in the game.

Nate.3927:

1. Masteries are account bound
2. I’m fairly sure you can level them up through exp you get anywhere. You simply need to unlock them by getting mastery points in the relevant region. So I can go to HoT, unlock the track I want, then go back to WvW and level up the track while playing WvW.

Devildoc.6721:

You seem to forget that kills offer literally the lowest exp amount that you can possibly get in game. Ressing a dead NPC gives more xp than killing a mob that just respawned, mining a mithril node gives more xp, discovering a new recipe in crafting, finding a POI, viewing a vista, all of these give more xp than killing mobs.

So sure, you can get bonus xp, but it is on the lowest source of xp in the game.

3. False. You can go from 2-80 in 6-8 hours or so using killstreak booster + other boosters you may have.

2. is wrong. You can only gain XP towards a mastery while in the region that Mastery track belongs to. It’s why noone this BWE has, for example, gain xp towards Gliding while testing out builds for fractals and Wuv.

He’s borrowed the glass eye Captain Magnus was trying out when Lion’s Arch was first rebuilt :P

Danel.8573:

Exalted Temple

we don’t have confirmation on the true nature of these beings. Their color theme is close to the Mursaat’s, but they don’t have legs. Instead they have a tail-like lower body part and their city seems to be called the Forgotten City…

Krait in GW1 were brightly colored feathered serpents that could transform into several differnt forms.

Krait in GW2 are basically naga by a different name, and I don’t mean mythology wise, I mean they look more like the Naga you fought in Factions than the Krait you fought in EotN (Note that the krait pic is the one that looks the most like krait in GW2, other form of krait included a winged lizard with no hind legs, one that had wings in place of arms, and a krait that had two sets of arms and walked on legs)

Basically, what I’m saying is that “close, but not quite” is close enough for me to believe that Exalted are Mursaat (or a faction of them at least) until Anet has confirmed otherwise.

spoj.9672:

I would remove BiP from your list if I were you. The new version of that skill is basically staff guard 2.0, only worse (or better depending on your perspective).

On the flip side, you should add Boon Removal on the list. For Mesmers too if we’re going to be honest. I would be extremely disappointed if enemy boons are not a factor in raids, and those two professions might as well be the only ones who can do it for all the options that they bring.

OP’s Note: I really, really wish I could make the thread title “Habitual Pugger discovers One Weird Trick that beats Mai Trin Every Time!” but alas, it’s too long Moving on:

Celestial, Nomad’s or Soldier’s gear, for you and you alone!

Let me explain.

Mai Trin chases the player with the highest Toughness. Horrik also always targets the player with the highest Toughness when firing his lightning field shot as well.

Thanks to the prevailing MetaZerk philosophy, if you bring a set of Celestial or preferably Soldier’s armor to put on for Mai Trin, 98% of the time that will make you the player that Mai and Horrik will target to the exclusion of everyone else.

No need to herd the kittens into the field, because Mai Tran will chase you into them every time.

No worries about ressing players after bombardment phase, you can alway make sure Mai is as far away as possible.

Want to get through the damage phases even faster? Pick the corner farthest from where Mai spawns as your area for the bombardment phase. Once it ends, she will shadowstep to you, Horrik will shoot a lightning field at you, and Mai will stay right next to you when it lands.

For the past three months, I have prepared for Mai Trin in this way, and in that time, the fights have been quick, efficient and painless, rarely wiping more than once and often beating her on the first try, even in parties where the rest of the group have 3k AP or less.

While the basis should work with any class (Light and medium armor professions should probably stick to Soldier’s or Nomads stats instead of Celestial, and/or bring more than just a set of armor in it in case the party Warrior and/or Guardian isn’t in 100% Zerker gear.) those with a ground-targeted reflect or AoE projectile destroyer work best with this. That will allow you to block or reflect any shadowshots Mai Trin tries to use in the last instant by dropping it between her and the player farthest from her when the lightning shot has been fired. In most cases though, I’ve never found it necessary.

So dust off that old Soldier’s set you thought you would never use again after Hammer Trains we dead in Wuv and Teq and the Wurms became crittable, you finally have a use for it.

Pridedemon.3041:

Kheo.2504:

Hmm. Yeah, can’t see how BECOMING A LIVING FIRE FIELD MIGHTMIGHTMIGHT would be of any help to power builds.

GG Anet.

A single warrior running phalanx build with 2 staff ele’s in a dungeon group has near 100% of 25 might stack uptime, i don’t see what this new build brings to the pve scene.

Its a condi heavy build for spvp, ele’s and guardians can already inflict upwards of 10 stacks of burning in an extremely short period of time on you if you are not careful so i don’t see this as game-breaker either.

…and even if you take the two eles out of the picture, I’m not seeing torch outdoing Phalanx Greatsword in the party might department, especially when the Primal Burst for GS will have it’s own fire field to combo off of.

If you’re going to try a condi warrior build in PvE, you’re going to have to switch to longbow now and again for burning, you’re not going to do enough condi damage with s/s alone to justify the sinister gear.

My bet is Engi today, Ranger next week, and BWE2 with some of the CGC they show at PAX being announced the last day of August.

Even if I’m wrong about the timeframe, I’m 99% certain that at least one more epic spec, probably two, will be announced and playable for the next BWE.

Monk Tank.5897:

Why people throw away good money on an exotic dog muzzle is beyond me. Cant wait for ascended rebreather, don’t really care what it looks like i will most likely hide the skin anyway.

…except that you can’t hide underwater masks. Even if you’re wearing an outfit, they still show up to replace the headgear.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Foefaller.1082:

Still, I think it has a place in a world where a buffed Reaper GS exists. Dagger’s 6% LF every 2 seconds on it’s AA chain is better than 5% LF every 2.5 second, which is what GS will be able to do the next BWE, and that’s not even talking about warhorn, which IMO still has the single best LF generating skill in Locust Swarm.

Plus, if the enemies in Verdant Brink are a taste of what’s to come in HoT, PvP is not the only place the slowness of GS’s AA chain will be a concern.

Dagger is 8% life force every 2.1 seconds (part 2 generates 2%, part 3 generates 6%) for 3.81% life force/second. Greatsword will generate 5% per target every 3 seconds for 1.67% life force/second. Greatsword potentially gets more (at 3 targets, 2 targets is 3.33% life force/second), but in single or double target situations, dagger is superior at generation. Even at higher numbers of targets, dagger can generate more due to being paired with warhorn.

Thanks for fixing my mistakes on the numbers. It looks like, at least for single targets dagger is even better at LF generation than I thought!

Kain Francois.4328:

-Part 1-

I’m strictly a PvE player, so my feedback will be towards that game mode.

>

The original intent here was to make GS feel like more of an AoE weapon while dagger felt like more of a single target weapon.

This sounds nice on paper, but Dagger doesn’t have much single-target weapon. Instead, I look at as a Defensive weapon focused on Death Shroud, which generates a massive amount of Life Force between dagger auto-attack, and our focus or warhorn off-hand. Furthermore, Life Siphon (Skill #2) on Dagger is a powerful RANGED ability that can restore a massive amount of health when combined with Blood Magic, further playing into the theme as a defensive weapon. Dark Pact (Skill #3) synergizes with Life Siphon perfectly for its 3 second channel, allowing you to safely restore health when fighting melee enemies. Dagger is a defensive weapon, and it is awesome at what it does.

It has high consistent damage, but it shouldn’t be balanced as the Necromancer’s highest single damage source, since other classes can deal higher higher consistent autoattack damage than us. (Thief Dagger auto, Guardian Sword auto, etc…)

However, I do emphasize that as a defensive weapon, our Daggers interact with our profession mechanic more than any other weapon, and the defensive nature of our weapon set plays majorly into the class identity. Daggers generate life force like no one’s kitten!
>

Greatsword Auto Attacks – Fixed incorrect range facts. These attacks have the same range as normal Greatsword Attacks. Added lifeforce gain to all hits 1/1/3. Increased damage of all attacks by approximately 20%.
Fading Twilight – Adjusted animation speed to smooth out attack sequence for non-human rigs.
Chilling Scythe – Increased chill duration from 1.5s to 2s.

Will have to test this out ingame before I could give any feedback. I don’t like how it gathers so much life force, because I feel that is walking on the domain of daggers and warhorn.

Yeah, being told that dagger AA is suppose to be the apex of Necro direct dps is a bit of a downer.

Still, I think it has a place in a world where a buffed Reaper GS exists. Dagger’s 6% LF every 2 seconds on it’s AA chain is better than 5% LF every 2.5 second, which is what GS will be able to do the next BWE, and that’s not even talking about warhorn, which IMO still has the single best LF generating skill in Locust Swarm.

Plus, if the enemies in Verdant Brink are a taste of what’s to come in HoT, PvP is not the only place the slowness of GS’s AA chain will be a concern.

Hammerguard.9834:

AegisFLCL.7623:

Nice to see the majority of feedback and suggestions made it through. There are two issues you’re likely to have complaints about though…

1) The blast and end damage on Death’s Charge is too high for it’s cd and mechanic; at least from a PvP perspective

2) Chilled To The Bone is now almost as quick a cast as Jade Wind, has double the damage, and has in general more utility. I guess the long CD offsets some of that but I do feel the changes to this were in the wrong direction.

1) It’s literally their only movement skill.

2) Revenants can use two elites…

Not only do Revs have two elites, a Rev in Shiro stance that AA’s and nothing else can fire off Jade Winds as frequently as once every 10 seconds. Even when I was using other skills during the BWE, as long as I didn’t touch Impossible Odds I was still able to use Jade Winds about every 15-20 seconds in a fight, which is insane for what it actually does.

Revenants are the only profession that was created with the idea of Elite Specializations in mind, so IMO it’s not surprising that their first elite spec synergizes so well with the rest of the class.

IIRC, for condition builds, the general rule of thumb is:

PvE: Sinister
sPvP: Rabid
Wuv: Rabid or Dire with Dire/Rabid trinkets (as in, trinkets that have a mix of Dire and Rabid stats, which ironically enough, 3 of the possible pieces are Shiro/Factions inspired)

…and while there are definitely variants for this, nothing I’ve seen from Revenant seems to change it for them.

That being said, I think I might hold off until at least tomorrow before you start changing all your ascended zerk into Sinister. Roy has promised to post the changes planned for Revenants based on last weekend’s testing this Friday, and it might include changes that will make you want to keep that zerk set.

Kaiden Valor.7163:

I believe the Flameseeker referenced in the name “Flameseeker Prophecies” was Khilbron so to call the elite spec Flameseeker wouldn’t be that lore based (in fact it’d sorta be weird from a lore perspective).

I’m not a huge fan of Herald, but it works.

That has been the prevailing theory since GW1, but with the last LS season 2 chapter involving the acquisition and use of Divine Fire (which was in GW1) Makes me a tad uncertain if Flameseeker was refering to Khilbron and the Titans.

That being said, there is a small GW1 nod to calling the Revenant’s epic specialization Herald; Herald’s Insignias were an armor upgrade that increase that piece’s armor rating when holding a bundle, which primarily meant when using one of the Item spells of Ritualists, the profession Revenants are thematically inspired by.

I liked how Anet didn’t use Shiro’s old VA from Factions :P I also liked how he basically starts off hating the idea of being called on (“I demand you release me!”) to start digging the idea that he’s basically one half of an unstoppable killing machine (“Together, we are without equal.”)

skowcia.8257:

Energy on weapon skills is fine. People just want to spam skills without putting any thought into what they doing. Already covered up that stuff in rev changes thread.

Plus, only one weapon skill costs more than 15 energy, and that’s Sword 4’s chain at a whopping 20 energy. You know how long it takes to regenerate 20 energy? Four seconds, and the majority of weapon and heal skills cost 5-10 energy, meaning you are only waiting 1-2 seconds for the energy regen. You literally regenerate the energy cost for Hammer 2 during the aftercast.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Removing this from being stickied since the beta has happened with these changes. Feel free to keep posting here, but I’ll be making another thread like this with changes I’m making due to feedback from this last weekend.

Not Revenant related, but could you also bug the other profession devs to post their own tentative changes to the epic specializations based on the weekend’s feedback?

On one hand, you could argue that it boils down to whether you want to be the classic midline condimancer (Spite) or a melee condi build (Soul Reaper)

On the other hand, unless Deathly Chill gets a boost, the only “real” choice of a Condi Reaper is going to be Dhummfire with a (fixed) Reaper’s Onslaught as your GM trait, and try to find the vuln you’d get from Spite elsewhere.

Silverkey.2078:

Zenith.7301:

Problem being your condi reaper, who pays in a minor for the privilege to equip a greatsword, doesn’t even make use of it. So you’re essentially trading shrouds. It’s a weird choice because the condi necromancer is more of a midliner or sits at elevations instead of wanting to swoop into melee range on reaper shroud to take advantage of the synergies you proposed.

The RS is enough reason to use condi. With dhuumfire, terror, poison and chill, each RS skill has a condi associated to it. Then, you probably have hybrid builds possible using sinister/rampager/carrion which could benefit from the GS.

But in any case, it’s not because you are allowed to use GS that you have to. Ideally, there should be something for everyone in every trait line. So I don’t see any reason to prevent condition reaper build to exist.

Finally, currently a condi build does not stack condi strong enough so you have to play defensively and thus stay at range. But if chill becomes a stronger condi, with fire, terror being fairly bursty, there is nothing to prevent you staying in melee range.

Not to mention that Death’s Charge is a multi-hit skill, which makes it a better pairing with the Path of Corruption trait than Dark Path currently is if you’re going for a hybrid build. Plus IMO a couple of the shouts, YAAW and “Nothing Can Save You!” in particular, are just a few tweaks away from becoming compelling options for nearly any necro playstyle.

livlaender.8790:

actualy the excuse for shouts having casttime was, that they would be to strong without casttime

after testing reaper and shouts i cant imagine where reaper shouts would be to strong without a casttime

At the very least, having a 2sec cast time on “Chilled To The Bone!” is a bit silly in a game in which Jade Winds exists.

The number of Rally points there are to defend at the start of nighttime increases the further you progress in each of the event chains. If you check the map at night, there are several “lost rally points” strewn about the map. Since completed events are what add to the “Security Level” bar, holding multiple points will probably be important.

Don’t feel bad about not noticing it though, since the Itzel chain usually bugs out before it gets far enough to unlock any of them, and the Laranthir chain bugs out before only unlocking the one in the central plains.

Sword 3 will end if the target you teleported to dies or is killed by your hit (which is probably intentional), even if there other targets within the skill’s range. (which is the bug)

EDIT: Some last-minute testing suggests that this might only occur if the target you were going to teleport to dies before you actually hit it, was able to kill those raptor swarms with Sword 3 on my own with no interrupt, but once another player came along, that’s when the skill would sometimes end prematurely on a monster death.

So, played some more and realized that the ramp to the plateau above the Temple of Ameyalli PoI isn’t blended into the cliffside, but just down a canyon that can be very hard to notice your first time through the area. Still think there needs to be a couple more graphical tells on how to get around the map though.

The balance between Reaper GS and Necro Dagger I want to see is something kinda like Warrior GS and Axe- 1h weapon technically has the better dps with it’s AA chain, but the GS’s larger range and burst skills keep it competitive, especially for trash mobs or taking advantage of weapon swapping. Right now it’s not there, the GS doesn’t have enough good abilities (3 and 4 are pretty, but 2 is weak for it’s cast time and 5 is just unwieldy) to justify having a weaker AA chain that dagger. I’d like to see a shorter cast time on the final strike of the AA chain as well, the importance of chill for Reaper is just too great to have to depend on such a slow attack the majority of the time.

As for shouts, YAAW is actually pretty good, with it’s might stacking and AoE weakness, as well as having a shorter base cooldown than any other Necro stunbreak. In fact, the only stunbreak that I think I would prefer over YAAW is Plague Signet, and that’s only for pvp (and this is a PvE feedback thread) “Chilled to the Bone!” is a pretty good elite too, but could use a shorter cast time and cooldown. Other than that, the biggest change should be making the rest of the Reaper shouts more like “Nothing Can Save You!”, having a larger chunk of their effects become baseline, and less emphasis in having to hit 3+ targets to make the skill worthwhile. YAAW should always give might, “Your Soul is Mine!” should generate Life force on it’s own (or at least more life force with the first target) and “Rise!” and “Suffer!” should always spawn at least one minon and remove at least one conditon, respectively.

I’ve had it happen to me too, and I’m in NA. I think the problem is that there is no fall damage immunity on those bouncing mushrooms yet. The one that goes from the Plateau south of the Itzel village to the village kills me 9/10 times, with the 1 leaving me with a fraction of my total health.

There have also been several shroom jumps where I have completely missed the ledge it was trying to launch me to, with predictable results. That usually only occurs when I’m not standing on top of the mushroom before activating, so I’m not sure if the bug is with the launching or the activation area of some of the mushrooms being too big. Still, even when it seems to work perfectly, I still take some amount of fall damage on landing about 50% of the time.