Guild Wars 2

SlayerSixx.5763:

Well then. That changes everything in my books then. ANET said there are another two specializations incoming in the future? Augh, I’ve missed so much.

Just to cover our bases, every trait line is now considered a specialization. We get to pick 3 specializations, or 3 trait lines. Dragon Hunter is an elite specialization. There is only one slot to put elite specializations, which is the same slot as the third regular specialization we get access to. So to directly answer your first question, yes, you can combine Dragon Hunter and Virtues, and you still have one regular specialization to choose (zeal, radiance, honor, valor).

Once we get a second elite specialization, I expect it will be mutually exclusive to dragon hunter, but not any of the other regular specializations.

The elite specializations don’t replace anything. They just take up one of the three specializations you have access too.

Let’s not forget mace’s trait gives CD reduction. Just wanted to reiterate that.

As for the others, you get fall damage jumping off walls in wvw (and the new bls have tons of verticality). In PvP I’m sure there’s places you can proc the trait too (I just don’t know them off hand, but every map has somewhere I can think of)

Protective reviver also doesn’t require you to solo rez people fully dead either. There are plenty of instances in every game mode that you can revive downed, or flash a rez to get the bubble and have it be perfectly useful. It’s certainly a trick I use as a mesmer, finding some random npc every 10 seconds to proc my feedback on revive. Are they the sexiest minors? Probably not, but they fit the bill and do what they’re supposed to.

Yo, Black Box. We get it. You know more than everyone. You yourself are untouchable when it comes to criticism, and so we must all step away and let you rain down your facts upon our minds. Woe be unto Anet for seeing the whole picture, and knowing the math, and being in charge of making design decisions for they are all worthless beneath your gaze. Let not the wretched doves of forum goers say nay against thy doings, for what is a counter-opinion, but dross against thy winds.

But I digress #hotopinions #HoTopinions

I’m of the opinion that if every weapon set had a symbol, Zeal wouldn’t need symbol majors. It feels like if you want to go symbol dps, Hammer/Mace+focus or torch is going to be your best bet. That works perfectly for a Zeal-Honor-X, giving you some additional party support along with your straightforward damage.

In Honor, Invigorating Bulwark adds some healing power (which usually isn’t very important), but also reduces Mace cooldowns heavily increases damage. Empowering Might for the major and of course our friendly symbol trait, and you still have another line to squeeze out as many damage modifiers as possible.

Zeal really just needs the rest of the weapons to play nice with it.

A rank:
Hammer- high damage, high utility. Very satisfying.

B rank:
Staff- great utility, low damage but not crippling, great for tagging/chipping

Mace- deceptive damage, good utility. Mace 3 needs a toggle to end early and needs to survive ranged attacks. Mace auto 3 needs to cleave damage, but not healing (thief and necro dagger tech)

C rank:

Greatsword- good burst and leap. Overall feels clunky with after cast lag. GS5 has great mechanic with binding blade dot

Sword- good sustained damage and movement options, but feels lacking. Sword auto 3 should be 3 quick succession waves to keep hit count the same, but reduce obstruction. Sword 3 should become a symbol with same functionality.

Scepter- great damage potential. High chance for a lot of damage to miss. Scepter 3 needs a slight cooldown reduction or 1200 range. Smite needs to become a symbol. Scepter aa needs projector finishers, possibly very slight homing.

Focus- overall pretty good. RoJ isn’t Jesus beam, but good condo removal and blind application. Focus 5 is strong, but landing the damage feels gimmicky, and the blocks may/may not always be best put to use. Traited focus is definitely good.

Torch- good burst and burn application. Torch 5 is great for allies but lack luster or dangerous for yourself. T5 needs supreme justice and permeating wrath to excel. T5 could also remove one condition from yourself and allis every three hits.

D rank:
Shield- missing some key parts to make it more useful. Cooldowns were addressed, but are still too long for the effects. Shield 5 needs to not root and maintain the bubble after movement. Adding projectile destruction and maybe reflection to shield 4 and 5 respectively could give it a strong anti-projectile niche. Shield skills granting aegis on use would also provide a niche for shield.

Hopefully i haven’t forgotten anything. That would be embarrassing. Longbow will probably be A or B ranked.

Every symbol has some ally support. Mostly boons (prot, regen, swiftness, retal, vigor, etc.) or healing in the downed state’s case.

Honor’s symbol trait provides larger symbols. More area for damage, but also more area to help allies so that’s a wash. It also provides longer symbols. More damage to enemies, but also more time/opportunity to help allies so that’s also a wash. However, the third aspect is straight healing, which is only support.

Symbols aren’t going to save you from aoe bombs. I don’t think that’s the intention on the dev’s or player’s part. However, there are many cases in every game mode where you can place a symbol with an enemy and ally inside, and where there’s no enemy aoe. Most enemies won’t willingly stand inside a symbol, and so with larger and longer symbols, you’ve denied a larger area for longer, thereby providing your party with area denial support, and the straight support you get from the boons and healing. If the enemy places their own aoe on your symbol, then they’ve just made a nice play by making it dangerous for everyone. Their own aoe doesn’t remove the threat of yours. I know you know all this though. You’re much more involved in PvP than I am.

It’s also not so much that Honor is a supportive symbol line. Honor is just a supportive line alone, and that one trait allows your symbols to be much more supportive. Combine Zeal and Honor, and your symbols become very powerful tools.

Defender’s Dogma – no change needed. It’s a way to proc more burns, which we’ll need for burn uptime now that they don’t stack in duration. Admittedly it is a weird trait, but it’s fine for its effect and position.

Piercing Light – better yet, “Traps hits inflict bleeding. When you use a Virtue, reduce Trap recharge by 3 seconds.” Active skill recharge is all the rage, and this instantly gives synergy with Radiance and Virtues, and to a lesser extent Valor.

Zealot’s Aggression – Longbow doesn’t need a -20% recharge, as it’s already been designed with the the reduction in mind (4s instead of 4.75, 10s instead of 12, 15s instead of 20 (extra second taken off)). The only thing Longbow needs is #5 reduced to kitten (60 -20% with an extra 3 from rounding to a more “flat” number). A 60s reason skill is abhorrent. There are multiple elites shorter than that, even if it is strong.

Big Game Hunter – no change needed, like you kind of realized. Plus, the 15% is only for you, while the vuln is potential party support.

The only trait that really needs work is the one the Devs already mentioned, and we don’t really have an idea on what that might be.

They only joked about wanting to changed your build I’d it was untouched. What they did say, is if the sprit of your build is gone, key them know because they could try to bring it back.

For almost every build, the sprit is still there. The only build I can think of that didn’t survive in spirit is elixer bombs for engineer, and perhaps ricochet unload IP sustain thief, although you can do ricochet unload and unload IP, just not ricochet IP. For many builds like Medi 2/1/6/1/4 or something, the blind on VoJ every 28 seconds or vigor on crit were not pillars that the build was built on. Medis are the only real pillar, with absolute resolution as a support. With the new traits, you can fully form the virtues pillar while keeping your main Medi pillar, and you still have another line to go into. Every build in the future is going to be much better than the current offering because of the stronger choices we get to make.

At first I wasn’t going to like this thread because it sounded like the same needless complaining we’ve been plagued with, but it hit on something that involved the class as a whole, and not just the trait lines.

Zeal is the symbol damage line and honor has symbol support line. That makes sense. However, I’ve long been a proponent of every weapon having access to a symbol. Symbols feel like an integral part of the guardian, just like clones and phantasms are integral to mesmer. Every weapon set for mesmer gives a clone and a phantasm.

Scepter and sword should have symbols. Smite is already really close. I’d be willing to trade some damage to make it work with symbol traits. Symbols usually have a beneficial effect. Smite’s big effect, other than damage, is proccing VoJ quickly, so the hit count could stay the same (16 hits in ~4 seconds). If not, perhaps a burn proc each pulse, or something else.

Sword could have a symbol placed on Zealot’s Defense and have it renamed to Symbol of Deflection, and allow it to destroy/block projectiles as it currently does. Not all symbols have to last 4 seconds as evidenced by Symbol of Protection, so a 2s base would be fine. Considering all the nifty new skills Anet has shown off, I know they have the tech to make this happen (or something else).

(On the subject of Scepter and Sword, the Scepter auto attack still isn’t a projectile finisher, but still has all the “disadvantages” of projectiles. Likewise, Sword’s projectiles are problematic. IMO, sword AA should be 3 quick succession waves like staff 1. They keep the 3 final hits for VoJ procs, but lose the liability for reflection and obstruction. If Zealot’s Defense stays the same, the projectiles should at least be finishers. And if i could just for this in, Mace 3 needs to continue to block at range and have a toggle to end early.)

Anyone else remember that excellent 14/14/14/14/14 cele meta? Way back before the cele stat buff and when trait lines were 30 points.

Good, meaningful build choices right there. So sad to see them go.

Black Box.9312:

Sigh… People assuming they know what I think and mean, when really they don’t at all.

Explain better then. Understanding is a two part road. You can’t control how someone is going to comprehend your statements, but you can control how you articulate your thoughts.

Dragonhunter probably for the aesthetic Anet was going for the best, and I have yet to see any options that would better represent that aesthetic. Would people rather have the name be Arbiter, Inquisitor, Paragon, or something else? Or would they rather have an elite spec that actually invokes the feelings and aesthetic of the replacement names.

Dragons Maw creates a ward, so unless you have stability, your sick in there for the duration. If you do have stability, then now you’ve popped it, and a later CC will take effect. In PvE the ward might not be a big deal, but there’s probably going to be better options for that. In small scale PvP formats (or potentially even zerg fights) it could cause some problems.

Fiery Wrath used to make sense (and still largely does) in Zeal due to the condition duration. You don’t care so much for the damage the burning is doing, just that the target having burning (which is an innate ability of the guardian to apply) allows you to deal more physical damage. Retal in Radiance works due to the synergy with Radiance 3 (recharge VoJ on kill) and Virtues 3 (virtues apply retal on use), and the synergy of retal and Radiant Retal. It can make sense to swap them, but I think they’re just slightly more fitting the way they are now.

Guardian has a lot of synergy, but sometimes it’s not quite in your face.

You are not penalized for DH’s third minor trait. Not everything in a build had equal worth to everyone. Torch, Focus, Hammer, WoR, perhaps spirit weapons can all benefit from 10% damage at >600.

Just because you seem to not be able to make things work doesn’t mean everyone else can’t either.

A) are you killing things?
B) are you dying?

If you answered yes to A and no to B, then there’s generally no issue

I’d just like to take a moment and say, I’m so glad we have Jesus Beam back. I’m also glad we have 5th level Cleric spells in Blade Barrier, and the meat grinder that is the bane of all Dwemer ruin explorers.

Maybe you’ve just got some… HoT opinions (see what I did there? Okay). I think it’s well designed. But hey, I’m not the one digging in your toolbox, so it’s not my issue.

Genesis.8572:

Vizardlorde.8243:

You mean reliable range right? cause AFAIK nades are 1500 range traited but only work effectively on large targets like jormag cause of the spread.

Isn’t grenade range being reduced for HoT?

Yes, the trait and skill overhaul which changes nades to 900 range (among many other things. You should check it out) will happen before hot does. So especially when talking about elite specializations, you should keep in mind the non-elite specializations and how those changes will affect and be affected.

Or maybe, you’re looking to tighten/loosen bolts where there aren’t any.

Hammer is a safe weapon in general, particularly paired with gs. Scepter is always good for range or large hit boxes for smite.

I personally like hammer, as the damage is high, and it’s useful in dungeons and wvw, allowing me to keep the same weapon for both modes.

Aeolus.3615:

How is DM the anti engi? ill just keep at nade range or use flamethrower, isnt maw placed aoe near guardian place? can be noticed by sound and animation?

Because engineers don’t have a lot of stability, and the Maw is a ward, not just a stun. Nade range is 900 while scepter or longbow is 1200 and flamethrower is even less. Traps are invisible to enemy players (I don’t understand why so many people forget, it’s not like the mechanics have changed ever) so you won’t know what is there until you’ve already activated the trap, and I doubt the majority of players can reactively dodge on a half second activation, particularly when the animations aren’t instant either.

Consider zeal and/or honor lines. Zeal offers retal and damage on aegis, while honor offers a heal on aegis and shouts, allowing you to take advantage of SYG as stab and stun break, perhaps even Healing Breeze depending on how it interacts with the trait. It really seems like Frag is going to be your heavy use utility in battle, so might as well make the most of it. Virtues also seems like an option, and although it doesn’t necessarily mesh with aegis the best (or maybe unscathed contender is sufficient for a different purpose), you do get a condition cleanse and stun break/stab out of it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Found-a-solution-to-get-better-Fps

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/guides/basics/guild-wars-2-tweak-guide-0

https://m.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2tqf66/guild_wars_2_performance_guide_how_to_get_the/

A6 with a 270 is fine, 4790k is absolutely golden. Your CPU and GPU are more than enough. It’s likely a combination of graphical settings that is eating more bandwidth then you want, and parked cores IMO.

Even in conquest, just one duration trap (the meat grinder or Jesus beam) will be sufficient to make their presence known. Even Blade Barrier will work well if you place the outline of the trap to cross through the middle of the contest point. That’s a technique used by hybrid guardians running purging flames, as the mechanics are interchangeable. Fragments of faith also pairs well with any aegis trait, and could be the basis of some interesting playstyles. DM is basically LB5 without needing the longbow, and you could even pop that mid fight after someone has used their escape options to control the fight for point.

Just because necro shouts are best use with 5 enemies doesn’t mean it has to be a 1v5. You could have 4 allies with you. They also, as of the current information, have other, nasty ways to gain much longer lasting might, a la spamming ds1 and hitting chilled enemies. All the elite specs should be interesting, and I’ve basically reserved at least one of each profession to take advantage of them. Some builds might even double dip depending on what exactly is offered.

South America has essentially the same timezones as the US. Anet is based on Seattle, which is PST, so even then, some of these times can be inconvenient for EST people.

Regardless, there are 3 separate blocks of time, so hopefully at some point many players should be able to log in to Anet can record some data.

That being said I won’t be able to participate regardless, as I need a new CPU, and that doesn’t arrive until Wednesday.

I have essentially the same graphics card. It’s not the GPU that’s your problem. Much of the game is CPU based, so likely that’s your bottleneck. Intel CPUs generally perform better in this regard as most games are single thread, where Intel excels. However, even if you have an AMD CPU (as I do, 8350) you should still be fine.

A potential issue for either brand of CPU is that the cores are being parked, or turned off when they aren’t needed. When that blog rolls around on screen, for CPU now has to open up the cores again to push the new info through. This takes some time, and can be a cause of heavy lag during play. There are some applications that can unpark your cores, which will eliminate that unparking time. There also might be settings you can change on your motherboard during startup that will have a similar effect. Check out some guides or get help if your unsure how to do either of those things.

In my case, I technically might get 11 fps during a large 3 server fight, but my effective fps is more like in the 40s. I can still fluidly see everything and react to it the entire time. Before unparking my cores, when a large blob would appear, my fps would shoot down to 5 and I’d basically lose control of my character until my CPU caught up, at which point I’d be okay. However, the process would repeat every time a new blob appeared, or running around the hubs in LA, or the like. The first minute or two of an engagement are crucial, so you could see how this is a problem, and I’m sure you’re experiencing something similar. Between that and some graphical settings (Shadows set to none, and I like character model amount set to highest, but quality set to second lowest. There’s a few others that have a big impact), you should be able to run sufficiently well in wvw blob fights.

These people know what’s up. Traps are invisible and they aren’t just one and done deals. It will be riskier once they know you’re full traps no doubt, but then each time they reach a capture point, they’ve got some decisions to make. Are there traps there or no? Are all the traps there, or just some, and which? Is the guardian there? Are other players there? You can make some mixups, you don’t have to use the same strategy every single time.

I’m not saying full traps is the be all end all either, just listing some possibilities.

The very first clip intrigued me. With 4 traps that thief disintegrated, and though the guardian would be left without 4 skills, I could see that kind of #yolo defense to be deadly if the guardian could hide. People would have to be careful of any “empty” point, lest there be 4 traps and a guardian hidden behind some environment.

I don’t think the times had been replaced at that point, so DM was probably the best bet to show of the possibilities with such a skill. JI to DM was a good combo, being essentially a JI to RoW.

Also, DM does have the slow effect

It would only be fair to think of alternate names for the other professions if we’re doing this thought exercise.

Honestly Chronomancer is probably going to be the most fitting name of the nine. Fateweaver (changing fate by changing time) was the best I could do without making it needlessly uninspired.

Banshee isn’t particularly gender specific despite the mythology, and male characters currently can use skills like Banshee’s Wail, or Valkyrie armor. You could make a reaper without shouts, but it’s hard to make a banshee without something sound based.

We don’t know enough about Tempest and Druid for me to really start thinking, but I’ll be sure to think of alternate name for each specialization.

Congratulations, you’ve discovered “Specializations!”.

And as far as virtues go, you still get everything you had before. All the passive traits and effects still work, all the active traits and effects still work, you still get boons, the extra damage, the condition removal and stability… Everything still works and you get more with DH.

On one hand, Anet creates the themes, on the other, we’re not quite on topic.

I’ll play ball though. Let’s assume that Dragonhunter is no longer a possible name. Although Dragoon would be the next best fit, it would probably sound to close to Ff14 territory, and I’m going to try and be more creative. Warden would probably be my first choice. You’ve got a literal ward with longbow, and traps to help keep your area under control. The total package of the DH mechanically seems to look at point control, which plays directly into the theme of being a Warden.

In addition, my alternate names for Chronomancer and Reaper would be Fateweaver and Banshee respectively.

I mean, it’s not like there’s a large variety coming from the “I can’t possibly fathom how this could work” side either.

Having to make official statements is effort though. The physical typing might not be much, but the entire process in making an official statement is much more than you’re giving it credit for. I also mentioned though, that they would still have to police and monitor the threads even if they did shut the discussion down, because people seem to not be able to keep everything in one thread by themselves, and I could almost guarantee there would be a new explosion of posts if Anet really did try to end discussion. However, that’s not their style anyway. Anet prefers to keep discussion available regardless of the content (unless it breaks forum rules).
There have been many, many posts about trying to change Guardian base health, and for 3 years that’s been “ignored” (in a loose sense). There hasn’t been prompted discussions about it, or changes in the game addressing these points. The answer is still “if you want more health, get more vitality”. The newish trait follows exactly that. Get 300 more vitality by taking this trait. Base health remains as designed.

Honestly, keeping quiet and actually working on development is much better. Multiple people don’t have to go through the process of getting official statements out, individual employees don’t have to risk being crucified by some angry members of the community, and they can reserve the right to change their minds at any time without the angry members of the community blasting them for doing what they think is best just because something changed along the journey.

Not entirely, since it takes effort to post on the forms, and no effort to ignore calls for a name change.
All they’ve had to do is post their explanation and merge some threads. They could’ve outright said “not changing it” but I’m sure they believe we’ll be able to draw our own conclusions based on their explanation. Also, they’ll need to merge threads even if they said no, because people generally are incapable of not flooding forums with duplicate posts.
The biggest thing I think is that they stay uncommitted, which in my view, is a better PR stance than to commit, find a better option, and have to deal with community backlash for not delivering on the previous decision. People here seem to love jumping down Anet’s throat for any little thing they do or don’t do. Better to just not say anything.

They don’t lock threads when they no longer care for them.

to begin with

You linked me to page 16. Of course one something gets to be around 16 pages they’re going to look for a place to put it all.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Please keep your feedback about the name in this thread so that devs can read all your thoughts.
Thanks.

Still not a request for feedback. Not does reading the comments imply they’ll act on them. Just because the feedback exists doesn’t mean it was wanted.

No, it’s many opinions against many opinions. The only opinion that really matters is Arena Net’s, and last time I checked, they weren’t asking for our opinion to begin with.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Why not the Dragonslayer?

Slaying and hunting are two very different things. To use points from some other arguments, the elite spec hasn’t really done much to embody the slaying of dragons. However, you don’t have to have slayed dragons to be able to hunt them. You can make it for personal duty to hunt down (e.g. find) the dragons, and therefore be a dragon hunter. Likewise, you can hunt dragons and not have the Zeal and Virtue, the sense of Justice, required to be a Dragonhunter by specialization. The same way you can fight in a war, and be a warrior, but not have the drive or use your Adrenaline to be a Warrior.

I voice my opinion to keep the name as Dragonhunter.

Also, nor everyone is a medi guard in PvP. Hammer guards in wvw also enjoy the trait

GW1 lasted for 7 years before GW2 became the next big thing. Were currently approaching 3 years with just one dragon dead. At that rate, we could expect to be finished in 15 years.

Toxsa.2701:

Ragnarox.9601:

and where is LB 20% ? They missed it I guess.

Maybe that’s intended, considering some of those skills have super low CD, or very strong effect?

I believe this is the case. With the exception of LB5, the skills look like they be already been -20% ified. Lb2 is 4 seconds, compared to Hammer’s 4 3/4 seconds when the cooldown is reduced. 12 and 15 seconds also look like they’re just rounded to the best looking whole number. The anomaly is LB5, as it’s currently 60s, and I don’t really think a 72s base skill is really all that great. 60s isn’t that great. I’d prefer to see it at kitten , which would be much closer to a 60s base with 20% reduction (48s).

Zerg Buster:
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgIGVAXUArQ~
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJAr/ksApZI8DBA-TFSEABhs/QwnAAR0DAg5vCeAApqEMG1fIT5HpAgYNA-w

Required utilities include Procession of Blades and Lights Judgment. Helpful utilities include renewed focus, SYG, Merciful Intervention, Shelter, Purging Flames, or similar skills.

Mostly carrion with maybe some rabid or settlers of needed. Optional runes include trapper, krait, flame legion, or similar. Weapons include scepter/torch and longbow.

Place your traps where you can guarantee the zerg will walk over them, like behind gates at objectives. Once they pop, the fun don’t stop. Don’t neglect to drop Smites, LB 4s, and LB 5s on top of your trap placement for the extra VoJ procs. LB 5 is particularly good as it drops wards, keeping your quarry inside the kill zone.

This is currently built around the potential change to Permeating Wrath, which will allow it to proc based on target location instead of your location. If that doesn’t happen, the build can still work, it’ll just be much riskier and be more likely you become a suicide bomber before an engagement. Judge’s Intervention will be a necessity to proc PW, or you could replace PW with another Virtues trait for hampered aoe burn application.

How can you prove they don’t care? Did you ask each of them?

What makes you think you know Anet’s “type”? Like, do you study the psychology of corporations?

How have you determined there’s a vast majority against the name? Have you counted all the unique names and properly assessed where they stand on the issue?

Have you considered maybe " the rest of the world " is getting 12 when ArenaNet is the one getting 3? And where is the proof they’ve done this numerous times?

The DH line gives barely anything towards having a condi spec. I don’t know why you’d think it would be a good idea to call it as such. The big reason condi will be more accessible is because of the multi hit traps, but the core of the builds already exist in current traits, Amplified Wrath to name a big one. Hybrid guard is already viable, and condition guard could be too with the changes to burning. We saw burning ticks for 4k in the stream. That’s an acceptable number to hit for condition ticks

Likewise, just because mes has wells doesn’t mean they’re mixed 1:1 with necro. Mes gets shield access, and could just as easily be construed as warrior or engi. Specializations aren’t 1:1 secondary professions, but rather a way to create brand new playstyles for each class. Just because dragon hunter has a longbow and traps doesn’t mean they will play at all similar to a ranger with lb and traps.

Some people seem to like to say what is and isn’t in their arguments. I tend to speak in the realms of possibility, even if it means playing the devils advocate (this of not one of those times). Using phrases like “the majority of guardians” or implying such is just not kosher unless you can prove you have a majority support. (Not calling anyone out specifically, just commentating on a meta or conceptual level)