Guild Wars 2

IF the new weapon really is rifle, then I would expect the redesigned primary mechanic to work well with it. Focusing on ranged attacks makes me think Steal is getting replaced altogether, or changed to not leave us in melee range.

Honestly, I’d be happy just tapping F1 to drop into stealth. It’s probably more complicated than that, though.

And the big question: will they still use initiative? I think yes, but there’s no guarantee.

The clock ability very well might be the chronomancer’s version of illusions. The knockdown at the end is possibly a shatter effect. I think we’re looking at a crowd-control spec, which is absolutely perfect to contrast with the base dueling spec we’ve had for almost three years.

I am excite.

Roda.7468:

Personally, I REALLY would’ve preferred mainhand pistol, because C’MON!!

The purpose of the specs is to completely change up the professions and how they play, though. Pistol on main-hand wouldn’t really add anything new – it would feel like the same old mesmer. The shield is part of a fully reimagined mesmer that looks to me like it’s been designed to handle multiple targets, (aoe field illusion & knockdown shatter).

My bf just pointed out that there could be more than 4 legends available – slottable sort of like ranger pets. That would be a cool way to include a lot of legends. They could be categorized for functionality, just with different aesthetics and on-activation abilities.

I think they’re all going to be non-player races. So far we have a dwarf and a margonite confirmed. It would be unbalanced to have just one or two player races represented. (Unless one of them is slot that’s different for each race, but I wouldn’t count on that.

Glint is highly possible from the dragon animation in the trailer. Ventari seems like an obvious pick, but they don’t seem to be going with all the obvious picks, so…

It’s possible this spec will feature AoE field illusions to replace the clones and phantasms. Maybe one of the F1-4 skills bursts all your bubbles with a knockdown effect?

Considering that the current mesmer is so single-target focused, making the spec into an AoE build would fit right in line with the whole “completely changes how you play the profession” thing.

As far as I can tell, specializations will completely replace the main (F1-4) mechanic. Shield mesmers probably won’t use illusions such as phantasms at all. It’ll be something else, something new.

I think it will depend on the specific Mastery. Some could be jungle-only, others could be universal.

I think the entire primary mechanic (F1-4) gets replaced. That would mean that every other skill and trait linked to the primary mechanic would have to be replaced as well.

For example, the Druid gets new F1-4 skills, and all pet abilities are replaced with abilities tied to the new mechanic.

Channel Prince Rurick? Why would I want a skill that makes me bumrush mobs alone and die every five seconds?

Jokubas.4265:

Chronomancer for Mesmer? Not that it’s the Utopia class, but there was a giant clock. ;P

Ooh, I hadn’t thought to call it Chronomancer. You’re probably right. I wonder if that means we’ll get Summoner, maybe via Elementalist?

I hope they throw in as many references to Utopia as possible, really.

This is the exact version of specialization I wanted and pushed for in the CDI. So happy! Oh my gosh, I have to make so many more alts now…

Einlanzer.1627:

Seabreeze.8437:

Gulesave.5073:

I definitely like the idea of increasing the rate of fire on the auto-attack when the offhand is also a pistol.

But will Anet really give auto-attack its own properties and attack speed when you have a pistol in your offhand? It’s not like they’ve ever done it to any other weapon sets…

Everyone screams about how much it will imbalance P/D to just give the autoattack a straight buff, but I’m not really convinced it’s much of a problem. P/D gets its damage from so many sources that a modest buff to Vital Shot alone would have a much bigger impact on P/P than it would on P/D.

Still, if they’re that concerned about it, they can buff only the direct damage part of it instead of the overall rate of fire.

Or, just build proper stealth into the P/P build – that’s a decent buff to the autoattack, right there. It could be a secondary activation on Black Powder, maybe: “Disperse your smoke cloud to stealth yourself for 1.5 seconds.” That’s just enough time to pop off a Sneak Attack.

As an added benefit, this would give P/P wielders a use for the stealth-related minor traits they can’t currently use, but often have to take regardless.

I definitely like the idea of increasing the rate of fire on the auto-attack when the offhand is also a pistol.

As for Unload, I recommend refocusing it to improve the other skills instead of replacing them. The main activation could be replaced with Hylek Cartridge, giving you stacks of Hylek Venom that give different specific bonus conditions on each other pistol skill. Unload would then be an optional secondary activation, rapidly firing a number of shots equal to the number of stacks left, but without any additional conditions from the venomous powder.

Here, Unload can give you some burst hits, but at the cost of bonus condition application.

This might be good for mapping and running general world events in PvE. You’ve got multiple-target ranged tagging and low-maintenance survivability. Just don’t try to solo any champs, and stick with a group if you go to Southsun or Silverwastes.

Corana.9837:

Signet of Vampirism is a fairly good healing skill but unlike Consume Conditions it does require a few specific traits to shine…

All of that is helpful for using the signet’s active ability, but I notice you never mentioned the passive. Without a useful passive ability, a signet is just a half-powered regular skill.

Now that I’ve thought about your hero panel more, I see that what you’re trying to do is turn the Equipment tab – which currently had just a select few other nuggets of info – into a full Overview tab.

I would heavily recommend keeping the two concepts separate. If you want to make an Overview tab, make it its own thing, and with a specific functionality in mind. The purpose should be provide slivers of the high-level info while guiding the player to each pertinent tab.

This could be accomplished pretty easily. First, spread out the tab icons to fill the whole left edge. Your Overview tab will then be divided into rows matching each tab, highlighting select info from each. Clicking on a row is the same as clicking on a tab icon.

This would give players a concise hero hub, providing just the most important details and guiding them to easily discover the proper tabs.

If you want to include things that aren’t internal to the hero panel, (like a guild banner image that opens the Guild panel when clicked), you can theoretically make space around the edge somewhere.

Yup, as posted above, outfits are the only way to get the same look for all three armor classes.

Also, they can do things with an outfit that simply can’t be done with armor. You can make things flow from one body part to another much better when the clothing doesn’t have to break cleanly into pieces at specific places.

This was even more noticeable in GW1, where the outfits had looks that were completely different than what was possible with armor.

They’ve said for a long time that gear stats won’t go higher than ascended. The only reason ascended was even released after launch was just because it wasn’t ready, anyway – if I remember correctly, they always planned on having it in there.

I’ve made a couple good stabs at crafting a GWRPG from scratch. It’s a fun puzzle. The franchise started as a hybrid of Diablo and Magic: The Gathering, after all. So the less you expect it to play like D&D, the better it’ll be.

I’d say scale the drop rate of the most-desired drops according to how long you’ve been on that instance of the map. This can be worked into a tweak of the existing buffs on the map. Helping from the beginning should maximize odds to get what you want at the end, and should definitely have better odds than instance-hopping for the same period of time.

Very nice panel designs, although they hardly look like they belong to the same game as one another. Sticking to the style book is a big deal. In this case, I would say either stick entirely to the existing GW2 style guide, define some specific alterations to it, or create your own new guide from scratch – and then make sure you follow whatever you pick, in every panel you design.

Aside from that, I think your Hero panel can be slimmed down.

The section headers just distract the user, and can be removed. Guild is a similar concept to an order, and they should be represented side-by-side, and in a matching style. Clicking the guild banner should open the Guild panel, and clicking the order banner should redirect to the story journal. You could even throw in a PvP rank emblem with similar functionality, if desired. Similarly, clicking the character’s title could redirect to the Achievements tab instead of directly offering a drop-down.

All the visual customization options can be moved into a single style/customization subtab; you don’t need the drop-down here. Dyes and wardrobe can share screen space. Minipets, couriers, and finishers can be wardrobe slots like equipment, and don’t need their own screens.

As for lore, ArenaNet has a strong preference for letting the wiki handle it. Instead of creating a whole new shebang that has to be re-filled with data by a writer, how about designing an in-game panel for the wiki itself? It could port in the body data from the wiki site, but use the same web display tech as the Black Lion?

Altogether, you have some nice concepts. Keep it up.

Torvic.8256:

And at least in my mind, my GW2 ranger (as is his sister, obviously) is definitely of Ascalonian ancestry since he’s a direct descendant of my GW1 ranger.

The fun thing about ancestry over 250 years is that your original character makes up just around 0.1% of the new character’s ancestry from that period. The other 99.9% don’t necessarily have to be Ascalonian.

Yeah, the secondary professions in GW1 one of the big things that broke the game so hard they had to end it and make GW2. I don’t think they’ll be making that mistake again.

Your race is your secondary instead. The skills are fewer and weaker so it’s pure flavor fluff and doesn’t cause balance issues.

Specializations are more likely. The idea was pretty popular in a CDI a while ago. If you play D&D, it’s kinda like prestige classes, instead of multi-classing.

So now I need to have keys taking up an inventory slot for any character who wants to visit their home instance? That is not an attractive proposition.

I’ve only seen a couple threads recently, aside from this one. And everyone after the OP in those threads always shouts NO.

Don’t forget about Utopia!

Myraiya.4052:

Rangelost.4857:

Gulesave.5073:

Rangelost.4857:

I do NOT want my asura and charr females to dress up according to human standards of a specific culture.

They. Already. Are.

Masculine =/= neutral. Masculine = masculine. Your asura and charr females are dressing according to human standards specifically set on males.

What I mean is that human female armor is designed to accommodate (and sometimes focus on) prominent breasts and wide hips, dresses especially. Putting a large and skimpy froo-froo dress on an asura or a charr — species who do not share these human physical traits — would make no sense whatsoever. And I’m not even mentioning the difference in cultural standards for these races…

i don’t think charr or asura should really have sexy armor. I actually love how non-sexualized they are. and i can’t imagine charrs in a dress. they would punch it to pieces lol. (i would if i was a charr). However, because asura look cute i can kinda imagine people wanting to dress them really cute as well. but perhaps they should look more into the ribbon direction than the bedroom direction.

I pointed out the same sexualization problem earlier, and that charr and asura would probably find those factors ridiculous. That’s why I suggested mixing elements from male and female humanoid sets when determining the charr and asura sets.

Keep in mind that most of the fashions in the game are clearly not designed by a charr or asura. Compare against their racial armor and you’ll see that most of they’re stuck wearing carries little to none of their own racial aesthetic. What some call “froo-froo-ness” should be no less odd to them than the human masculine idea of dressing to look as straight and rigid as a plank.

I ask only that people don’t assume the men’s clothes are gender neutral just because they are not sexualized, nor that it would be hard for the artists to appropriately mix design elements from both gendered versions of a set when redesigning it for charr and asura.

And of course, if we could start getting some sets that aren’t unnecessarily sexualized in the first place, maybe this whole process would be easier.

Syione.3046:

Has anyone noticed that the dragon you fight is the same exact dragon you fight as a sylvari in the dream.

If you read one of the books under the Priory, it specifically mentions that this is the same dragon, yes.

Rangelost.4857:

I do NOT want my asura and charr females to dress up according to human standards of a specific culture.

They. Already. Are.

Masculine =/= neutral. Masculine = masculine. Your asura and charr females are dressing according to human standards specifically set on males.

If folks could take a pause from thinking of cultural masculinity as default, and cultural femininity as “other,” this discussion, (and SO many others), could take a huge step forward.

Aside from bossoms, I think they go with male sets because they’re designed more around functionality. Most of the feminine armors lose significant functionality for sexuality, which I’m pretty sure the charr and asura appropriately view as ridiculous.

Non-sexualized feminine elements, (which are sadly rare), shouldn’t be fully left out, though. Building a charr or asura set by mixing pieces of male and female armor should be well within the scope of the game. Yes, that includes butterflies.

More importantly, how did she, Wynne, and Faolain get in there the first time?

I believe he did in fact move on the HoH. And remember the version we met in Ep8 wasn’t Turai himself, but an echo. So, he’s probably still in HoH.

It made me think more of the way hyper-corrupted norn turn into full monsters. I think the troll-ish thing might have been a hyper-corrupted mordrem sylvari.

I think those closest to the Pale Tree will maintain her protection. Soundless and Nightmare Court are definitely vulnerable. Those sprouted from the Shadow Tree, or whatever it’ll be called, were probably corrupted fully from birth. Except Malyck, but he very well could have been corrupted since we last saw him.

Ahem.

NPC’s getting weapons does not mean we will get them. Nightmare Courtiers have been using whips since launch, and we still can’t use those outside of environment weapons.

Also, things seen in cinematics or art do not always cross over into the game proper, e.g. horses.

Exroyal.9053:

Nah m8, Sylvari dont have that type of gear on nor do they float.

The sylvari of the Pale Tree might not, but let’s not make too many assumptions about those belonging to the, errm, Shadow Tree, or whatever it’s going to be called.

A lot of PvE content is designed around every character having a ranged option. For example: mordrem thrashers.

This would be easier to integrate into the Preview panel. I don’t think most people need to see the option in their UI, but a chatline command like “/preview charactername” should do the trick.

Check the map on the wiki against your map, and walk yourself right on top of where the heart markers should be.

If you aren’t seeing hearts at all, click the eye icon, (I think it’s in the lower-left), to turn them back on.

Meh, this could be anything. It might be a full expansion, or a mini expansion, or a spinoff product, or even a repackaging of the base game with all S2 episodes unlocked.

Anchoku.8142:

SoV does damage with its siphons.

Only if you get hit. You would need to take a lot of (preferably small) hits for the passive to pay off.

Ironically, your best chance to use this optimally is against another vampiric necro, since they’re built to deliver the constant flurry of small hits you need to make SoV work.

I’m not sure condition damage needs to be buffed outright, but there has to be simple solution that lets us use our conditions more while reducing server load.

One possibility would be to reduce things down to a single stack of each condition per player. Re-application would buff that stack instead of applying a new one. It would take some heavy math ahead of time to balance out how that works, but I think standardized multiplied durations could stand in for a player’s stacks.

For example, Bleeding could multiply at a 1 second rate. If you’ve applied just 1 second of Bleeding, damage for your tick will be normal. If you reapply and get your current remaining duration of Bleeding on the target up to 25 seconds, the damage of your next tick for that one stack will be equivalent to 25 stacks on the current/old system. If you don’t reapply after this, then the following tick would be 24, then 23, etc.

The big problem with SoV’s passive is that the opportunity for life stealing is small. Necros try not to get hit too often. And in PvE, the slow enemy attack speed will actually have a negative impact on your healing ability if you use this.

The simplest fix would be to buff the numbers: steal more health from attacker per proc. Or, it could steal from the attacker and other nearby enemies: one attacks, you steal from them all. Or, add a second condition: steal from nearby enemies every time you dodge. Or, remove the condition that the enemy be attacking you: steal health whenever a nearby foe uses a skill.

It should at least give us more total procs over time than Well of Blood, if it’s to be worth using.

My newest thief desperately needs a staff to use as a melee beating stick. I’m imagining a mobile combo that bounces you between multiple targets like a humanoid dancing dagger/arrow. Throw in a tormenting knockback, a stealthing shadowstep, a skill that turns the enemy around, and an allied thief summon that’s different according to what stolen item you’re holding.

DeWolfe.2174:

What I believe could help is having a choice for each weapon or each individual weapon skill of either DPS or DPS/Condi. This way we can customize builds to a far greater extent. Also, it could remove some of the washing out effect of condition damage. Stacking caps at worlds bosses and any mega HP creature needs to be adjusted.

Rebalancing each skill into a non-condition version would take a lot of unnecessary coding. Also, I don’t feel it would have a good impact on the community and build diversity. The zerker debate doesn’t need this added on top of it.

I would rather play with useful conditions than no conditions.

Hmm, I forgot about the conditions-on-objects problem.

Of course it doesn’t make sense to make a weapon rack bleed, but no less than it makes sense to inflict bleeding on an elemental. To me, this ties in with the crits-on-objects problem.

I say just convert all incoming conditions and crits on objects to stacks of “Cracked.” One stack of Cracked is the same as a few stacks of Vulnerability.

Increasing the condition cap would require a lot of work. It might not be necessary, though.

The biggest problem with the cap isn’t that things are dying too slowly, but that players aren’t getting credit for the damage they would deal. What if players could get credit for mitigated condition damage?

The game could show us the total mitigated damage from a failed condition application as a single specially marked tick, and then give us credit toward rewards as if the damage had actually decreased the target’s health.

Would that work?

I wouldn’t say that xenophobia is any reason to keep them out of play. The asura are downright genocidal sometimes, and hated having to come above ground with all the chaos of nature and other peoples. But the dragons left them no choice except to mingle and cooperate.

Pulling the tengu out of their comfort zone only presents interesting opportunities for storytelling.

I’ve been wanting this for two years! Tome is at the top of my list of new weapons I want added, right next to non-aquatic polearms. Actually, those are the only two, but still…

It should be two-handed, for extra visibility of animations and skins. I’m imagining powerful non-projectile ranged attacks, (like necro scepter 1), and AoE, with long channels. Maybe even skills that work like reading a story, where you get different effects popping at different points during the channel; the last effects would be strongest, but most vulnerable to interruption.