Guild Wars 2

Con’t after 20 second flood conkittenol

So now mobs aren’t completely stupid, there will be fights that can make good use of all available mechanics, so what about that final box? Easy, boost rewards for doing the other stuff. Literally add more rewards given at the end for simple things like clearing trash, doing those odd events that sometimes are off to the side, add a couple challenge options for even more rewards… Challenge motes? Gambits? And for those who really take the time and go all out, their rewards should scale to Saturn’s rings to reflect this, guaranteed extra loot, guaranteed rarity boosts (doesn’t speak to value ofc, but it excludes a lot more of the available junk for RNG to vomit at you), more tokens, more raw cash. Throw out all concept of trying to “keep the economy” on this one, as a full clear with challenges could potentially take several hours, and without serious reward, people won’t bother with them.

Wooden Potatoes had a video talking about his thoughts on a “gambit-like” system for making dungeons more difficult, I’m only on board with maybe 50% of them, but it’s great food for thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld-geUCvebE

So fights harder to face roll, more mechanics involved, but not absolutely required (they just make it a lot quicker), and you will now see boat loads of rewards for spending time doing those extra things. Maybe have a “do over” limit or “1 shot, win or lose” on the challenge motes idea, to require that you move on if it doesn’t work out. Now just ask yourself, just because I can, is it a good idea to risk potentially a lot of extra loot?

It’s a boatload of extra work, but I honestly I think it can be done with our current “soft roles,” again the issue is that it most focus on player skill, the hardest mechanics do not need to be the “end of all, bring counter or die” and in fact they shouldn’t ever be anything more than “you must deal with this one way or another.” And then they absolutely must reward you like crazy for doing the extra things, succeeding at the harder challenges, and of course, finishing the dungeon after all that.

And finally, a real hard NO to trinity. I think Anet didn’t know what to expect groups to do when they built our dungeons 3 years ago, and now they do know. I feel the strengths of my suggestions above can be applied to our existing ones, or worked into any new ones they have planned, and I hope to see some of it eventually enter the game.

Current dps speed run meta exists as it is for several reasons:
First, just because you can.
Second, all the rewards worth anything are in the final box, and because you can full out dps it, it means the final box is all that matters, and speed is all that matters and therefore dps is all that matters.
Third, lack of need for other mechanics, condition application/removal/manipulation, boon strip, hard CC (aka incoming break bars… so some hope there)
Lastly, dumb mobs. (AI being worked on, but we shall see)

I feel the fixes will have to be from the ground up, starting first with the rather stupid mob AI. It needs to understand what it’s got, if it has range, it needs to pie that corner and stay at range, and kite like crazy when you do come at it. This alone will push the skill requirement for stack and smack quite high. GW1 had some of this behavior, if too many mobs were stacked, the AI would simply hold a few back, melee or ranged, and if you charged the healer, the thing would happily kite you across what felt like the whole map through every other mob group if you couldn’t catch it. Fighting this as full glass actually requires skill. And mob AI when the game was launched (or at least during the BWEs) behaved a lot like this, but most players were unable to cope and (I hope more importantly) it caused a lot of extra server lag.

Lack of mechanics that don’t pertain to dealing damage. Well that’s an outright lie right there. Boon strips, slows (in HoT), poison (healing debuff), hard CCs to prevent certain skills (HoT break bars), chill, immobilize, cripple… all the stuff that effects movement speeds will become important the moment the AI is fixed, in GW1 the only thing that would stop a kiting mob was to snare it (with simple immobilize and knockdowns it would start running again the moment the CC wore off). Break bars and slow will come with HoT so there is a chance some of this has been looked at. And then boon rip/conversions, condition cleanse/convert… this exists in a very limited way in a few areas already. However, you don’t need to make it a 100% requirement for a fight, you only need make it so the fight is that much longer and/or harder for ignoring the mechanic. Poison and it’s healing debuff falls under this category. And since so many boons and conditions are dichotomous, having them play major parts of an encounter only makes classes that deal in conversion that much more desirable. Super simple example: heavy application of weakness (this could become a stacking condition with its current base effect, but then also start to impact your power), as part of fighting, it gets inflicted upon the party, converting this to might would be great, similarly a boss that buffs up the might like crazy having that turned to weakness would make good use of an underused aspect of play, and this could be further impacted by mechanics that make the simple boon/condi interplay far more pronounced, boss deals 300% more damage to foes with weakness or when boon’d with might and maybe even takes 200% extra damage if converted, etc…

5001 character limit post split -.-

If you’re asking Anet directly, I assume their answer would be (even if silently):

ALL OF THEM NAO GEMS TO GOLD GOGOGOGO!

Although how much of the gem store revenue their NCSoft overlords actually allow them to keep is another question entirely. :/

Sorin.4310:

Haven’t you answered your question in your post? You admit that you don’t gain enough knowledge by using tomes. So yes, Tomes will ruin the experience.

Are you asking if it will ruin it for everyone? No, it won’t.

I disagree with this in that after I finished my first 80 of any of the classes, I had nothing but real bad lazy habbits and in several cases, a really bad taste in my mouth from not having any clue how the thing was really meant to be played. Mesmer especially in this department, almost nothing of how it’s skills are truly supposed to work translates to PvE in general, let alone leveling. And I’m only now starting to work up the courage to go die horribly a lot to try and L2Mez proper.

So while there is a certain amount to be learned in the leveling process, you’re going to also hit level 80 still not knowing much of anything about your class, partially due to limitations on how many builds you can mess with given fairly limited resources for such things while leveling and the incredibly unstable nature of your gear (having to buy new or change somewhat frequently because of how fast you outgrow it).

Basically you are correct that somebody at level 80 will have no clue what now to do or how to play, but I say they are already ahead on the learning curve because they will have the build freedom that somebody bent on starting from level 1 will not.

However, if I wasn’t already burnt out on 20 level 80s across 2 accounts now, there could be some pleasure to be had in doing cold from the start. That, I think is the biggest thing to contemplate when deciding whether or not to insta-80 your Rev:

Will you have fun with this new class in the leveling process? Or is it just going to be a massive chore?

As you may have guessed, my personal answer is the second.

Not the weapons as much as the other things that come with the elite specs:

So far we have details on mesmer, guard and necro.

Of the 3, guard appears least likely going to get me to swap, no matter how much they dress it up, it still looks like just a petless ranger (trap ranger at that) to me. I’ll play it some obviously before I say for sure, but right now it’s easily the least interesting looking.

Reaper is a definite maybe. IF AND ONLY IF it’s anywhere near as powerful as touted, I’ll be making that change. And right now it looks like my Reaper’s build will most likely be a GS carrying, zerker wells necro.

Mesmer, without question will be my elite spec. Shield or not I don’t care. I play mostly solo PvE, and Mesmer is easily the least powerful and most complicated of the entire lot to bring up to max power. Even the Engineer before the core spec’s patch wasn’t so horrid for making simple solo play. Ultimately what decides it for me and the Chronomancer are the wells. My Mesmer will turn into a pink necro-like thing when elite specs drop, and I’m okay with this as long as it is as capable as my Necro is now of running Kamikaze into a group of 5-7 mobs (level 80 pve and wvw both I can get away with this) and melting them all seconds. It’s not the best m37a1337sP33dZ01Rkr build on earth, but it’s both simple and effective enough for what I do. And I hope to have a Mesmer with something so simple available soon.

Why do things feel like they do?

Mallyx, the “Necro” guy: It was a great grape ape at the end of the creme de la creme elite mission of GW1, The DoA, or Dead on Ari…err, Domain of Anguish. My guess is that they are using the conditions system and Mallyx’s skill set to try and mimic as many of the DoA’s environment effects as possible, and likely a few of the abilities of some of the bosses to include Mallyx. (I never spent much time in DoA myself)

Jialis Ironhammer: King of the Deldrimor (good) Dwarves. The Deldrimor faction almost always came across as either Warriors, Monks or Rangers, and that specific combination of warrior’s later supportive version the Paragon and monk (dedicated healer of GW1) is the combination of skills and themes that makes today’s Guardian class.

Ventari: Well, what I’ve seen of him, he is a call back almost specifically to Monks of GW1, being very highly slanted towards healing and a bit of crowd control. A kind of Prot/Smite (pre-cast midigation and ofc damage/CCs) Monk mix maybe?

Then Shiro and Glint via datamining but whether either or both are true or not remains to be seen… none the less:

Shiro the Betrayer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HED8z-LurqM
Assassin (GW2 Thief) big bad guy of GW1:Factions. His skills were unique to him specifically, but they still followed Assassin themes, shadow stepping (teleports), healing via damage, and rapid attacks. If he is indeed a Revenant legend, I expect to see some of this.

Glint:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Glint
Champion of the Elder Dragon Kralkatorik, freed from her master by the Forgotten in Arah, saved several races from extinction during the last Dragon Awakening, died trying to slay her former master. This creature is a thing of extreme high magic. Though the majority of it was highly defensive in nature, indeed her only actual “attack” iirc was a basic ranged auto attack. The rest focused heavily on what GW2 would generically call “retaliation” or possibly “reflection” though that mechanic didn’t exist at all. She also had a very powerful healing skill called Crystal Hibernation. So if she was made a legend, her skills would be highly focused on all forms of damage reflection, retaliation and likely the “protection” boon. A “bunker” build as such.

Those last 2 are pure speculation ofc, we don’t even know if these things are even what’s actually being developed, these are just educated guesses based on the game history of the legends for which they are named.

Krazher.7816:

Not necessarily ranged, since it’s not new, guardians already do it.

The problem here is that guardians suck underwater for doing range with the spear. I get that it’s supposed to be some kind of paragon throwback, but range is the reason they can swap to a trident.

That Guardian spear auto, single throw, single hit, and 3/4 of the rest of the skill on the stupid thing are melee ranged, and skill 5 is a pull into melee range. While I appreciate the throw back (pun, deal with it) to the Paragon, why this passed ‘GO’ I’ll never understand.

Melee combat underwater, where it’s available, should always be way harder hitting than ranged simply to reward those who take the 15 minutes to learn how to stay in melee range with their target, instead of choosing the lazy way.

All that said, I don’t care if the Revenant’s spear is ranged only. Simply though, whatever the case for it may be, it needs to be designed 1 specific way or another. I happen to like the idea of the Rev having multiple abilities that will pull things into melee range for a very hard hitting melee spear auto, given that they don’t have a second weapon to dump ranged options onto. This could also be done with the underwater utilities, though I think my ultimate dream is that ALL classes have separate underwater specializations that activate along with the aquabreather and aquatic weapons, the Rev in this case having separate aquatic legends also to account for this. Though Mallyx and Margonites/Abaddon by extension already have lore ties to the sea, so some of them may translate.

Dibaryon.7469:

OK “fair enough”.

But: “During this test weekend, you can create and play a revenant beta character anywhere in the existing game”. Anywhere in the existing game can be simply interpreted as: the game we’ve already got. There’s no reference to an instanced world that’s an exact copy of the one we already have. They’d make it clear, if it were to happen that way.

Besides, we’ve already seen a revenant in Lion’s Arch: so we have proof that it’s possible to have a beta character in the existing game. As a matter of fact that, it could be the game’s developers testing the revenant in the existing game for the sole purpose of making this beta weekend.

First to the Revenant in Lion’s Arch, that was done for publicity by Anet. The Revenant exists in the DAT file, data miners, who post on reddit among other places, having found the Ventari legend before he was revealed are solid enough proof of that. Thus creating one and running around in the live world is just a trick of programming flags, or permissions specifically in this case.

The reason ultimately that I ask if the Revenant will actually be on Live with everybody, is for clarification. I’m not arguing for or against, I’m simply curious how they are handling this particular test.

As I said, there are potential logistical issues putting an unfinished character, who will not be allowed to keep anything they gain, into the Live environment. If this thing is on live, as people have asked, why should I not keep the gold and tokens earned in a dungeon? If I don’t want to use the Revenant armor skins, how are they going to deal with transmutation charge use?

The logistics question has already been handled in other BETA events by Anet (in layman’s terms) taking a screenshot of your wallet and hero panel info and applying it to the segregated beta server upon it’s opening. While it’s possible to maintain this in a mixed environment, I question why I should bother trying the Reventant during this time? I won’t keep anything I earn, loot, items, AP etc, while the group I’m with likely will. Somebody else would certainly be playing one, and while the other Revenant betas have had them with limited gear, still compared to other classes, they seemed weaker (mostly because they were, and still are incomplete), so my reward for carrying them is that I get to keep my loot while they get none? What if I have a brain fart and do my dailies on this Live-mix Rev who doesn’t keep progress?

Again, curiosity and a couple potential concerns, If it’s done in a separate environment, fine, if it’s done mixed with live that’s okay too, and hearing it would say to me they will have also thought through these kinds of things.

Apoteka.6471:

For me it sounds like the live server with all players, because if its a beta server imagine how funny it is playing wvw,pve with only Revenants as everyone try them out wohaa.

Over the course of a whole weekend, even in a segregated environment, some group of people will likely begin testing party compositions, indeed I’d be shocked if people like DnT or such didn’t have a complete readout on whether what’s presented is meta worthy, and maybe even the best weapon/legend/gear combos with the optimal skill rotations…

Dibaryon.7469:

There’s no reward in game (except for a precursor ) that I’d rather have, instead of the chance to try out the revenant in any game mode.

The sum of all fears in this thread is exactly this, or something of similar value/rarity will drop for us on our Rev: T

The preserved queen bee, the fractal weapon we’ve been grinding for since they came out, that Sunless weapons chest, the Halloween ghost dog mini, god forbid anybody kitten s out, opens black lion chests on their Rev and can’t keep a permanent hair kit…

Morfedel.4165:

Inimicus.7162:

Did I miss where it said these beta characters would be in the Live world with people who are not also part of the beta?

While the idea is exciting, and might spur more prepurchase sales, it would make far more logistical sense to have a segregated beta ‘server’ environment.

If someone from Anet has said the Revenants would be in Live with non-beta players, I’d like a link.

Or you could just go read the announcement where they announced the upcoming beta was about revenants in the world with the rest of us.

“During this test weekend, you can create and play a revenant beta character anywhere in the existing game: PvE, PvP, and WvW! We’ll also be opening up our new Player vs. Player game mode, Stronghold, to all players who play in the queue for Unranked PvP over the course of the weekend.”

“In the existing world” does not strictly mean beta characters and live characters will be intermingled, it only means that the betas will have some form of access to all existing content.

Did I miss where it said these beta characters would be in the Live world with people who are not also part of the beta?

While the idea is exciting, and might spur more prepurchase sales, it would make far more logistical sense to have a segregated beta ‘server’ environment.

If someone from Anet has said the Revenants would be in Live with non-beta players, I’d like a link.

Bandits in Queensdale.

There is an explorer achievement cave/hideout on the North edge of the map near the garrison, and that cave on the West side.

Bandits/pirates, I assume they fall under the “outlaw” category and thus the loot tables are the same.

To follow are a series of pics that show a bunch of my (potentially) favorite shoulder skins both as they are, and as they would look if put in symmetry.

FIRST OFF I AM NOT ASKING THE EXISTING ONES BE CHANGED, only that symmetric options be added.

Second, they do not need to be exact redo’s of the existing ones, but the skins I’ve selected happen to be my…peeves.

And lastly, since the characters I play most are Norn female, the shoulder armor issue has been a thorn in my side since launch. Norn female shoulder armor mimics the comical ape-like form of the Norn males, 9/10 times resulting in bad sizing (sized 2-3x larger than they should be), and/or bad placement (floating well off the character’s actual shoulder).

Sadly, the asymmetric ones don’t appear to suffer this so badly, but I have yet to be thrilled by an asymmetric armor design yet made for GW2.

For the record: Removing 1 shoulder from a symmetrical armor is exactly not NOT to make asymmetry. If you want to do asymmetry, it must still be balanced across the entire armor design. Asymmetry is a complex balance. A balance, but not a congruency, and again that balance absolutely has to conform to the entire set, and from all angles given the 3D perspective. So PLEASE keep this in mind from now on when creating asymmetry.

Again, I am not asking for the removal of anything, only the addition of these options, or even brand new pieces with similar designs, nobody needs to lose what they have/like to make this happen.

DarkWasp.7291:

ScribeTheMad.7614:

I keep seeing what looks like a water mask being worn outside of water, is this an actual thing I can get my hands on?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Air-Filtration-Device_Skin

It’s dyeable too.

So are the underwater aquabreathers (except the consortium ones), but the only way to show it is to preview them and then preview dyes, even the Benthic one from Teq, released well after launch shows dyes in preview.

Lord Kuru.3685:

LOL. OP was in September! If it hasn’t been fixed by now, it’ll likely never be fixed.

I’ve been waiting on my favorite hair’s clipping to be fixed since launch… And for the return of the removed spvp armor sets, and for the Bunny Ears to come back, and SAB, and for weapons and/or back items to get dye channels to finally get some properly matching outfits, and for Anet to stop “designing” asymmetric armors by taking a symmetrical one and removing 1 shoulder, and for the male/female armor differences in shoulders, helmets, gloves and even sometimes boots to have gender neutral versions added, and for Anet to make a Zodiac armor redo without the blue skin…

Here’s the hair though, GL with the idle animations

The new Dwayna outfit in the gem store is the kind of thing that belongs in the outfits category and is nice looking as an outfit.

But one thing I noticed about it was that it’s hair has it’s very own dye channel. Oo

So the suggestion: Wigs as individual helmet skins, using 1-3 dye channels for the hair and any accessories like headbands, circlets, crowns and tiaras, even earrings that may be included?

Simple reasons, color options will be vastly expanded and easier and cheaper than hair kits, current hair options don’t need to vanish, and the wigs offer the possibility of having a few similar hair styles across all races.

Marko.1895:

Dark Saviour.9410:

If they let you dye them, they couldn’t just use recolours as new skins though. And where would the sense in that be!?

They could always just rework those items so that some parts cannot be color changed. Spinal blades for example, make everything dyeable cept for the “glowing” bits on the blades…

This is basically how they did it in GW1, some weapons could not be dyed at all and all the choices made in this regard made enough sense. And it wasn’t limited to simply weapons with/without particles. They never let you dye particle effects, but often, like the firey dragon sword, other bits were open to dyes like the hilt.

Also OP: the new weapons and back item are not matching an ‘armor’ they are matching an outfit which makes it even worse -.-

What’s funny to me is that I get the feeling the next round of elite specs aren’t ready to present.

And while a rebuilt LA is interesting, I think they already spoiled this one hardcore so unlikely at best to be the main part of this week’s reveal imo.

Best guesses:
-Interim Stories not relating to HoT to explain large changes to several areas including Skrittsburg of Brisban, LA and the Black Citadel (think BC was optimized), random new NPCs in Charr lands like the Separatist who’s having second thoughts, or that Ash -Legion Spy guy.
-Guild halls
-Challenging PvE content
-Release date of personal story, condi overhaul and/or specializations (all of which they said they wanted to release before HoT)
-Finished Engi normal specs (TBD OP needs nerf)

Oddly, if I understand this song correctly, it makes even more sense being used in HoT than it did during the Zhaitan campaign.

I’ve heard several times it’s meant to be the Pale Tree singing to the Sylvari, who now face threats from a dragon that seeks to take their minds from them AND extreme mistrust from their allies because of the actions of Scarlet, Aerin, and word coming back from the destroyed pact fleet. Remember they also took a great many non-pact soldiers on that attack too, further weakening the other races.

So I could see it coming back if it’s really the Tree singing a reassurance to her children now, as Sylvari face the sum of all fears.

Norn
Female
Hair clipping

You’re clipping criteria excluded hair in regards to armor, but this one has existed since launch and is still one of the most blatant clipping issues around. Should have 2 pics, 1 comparing the identical human version, which appears rooted to the character and doesn’t clip, and some pics of a Norn thief, including while swimming, where the hair hangs clear through her.

I love the turncoat guards, this bug at least is hilarious xD

Sytherek.7689:

Inimicus.7162:

LS2 lacks all the epicness of LS1. No other way to put it, they wanted this one to be repeatable as this was the largest single gripe about LS1, so they chose to instance it all into a story arc that ultimately landed in an expansion. The story is a nice shoe-in and hopefully the expansion will be epic. But LS1 and LS2 were not designed with the same goals in mind at all. For what LS2 is, however, it was done well by the end and my own major gripe about that is that I would have preferred waiting until the entire zones were finished instead of having the weeks of cooling off with only snips of the zones coming in at any time.

LS1 was disjointed and erratic in quality and was very weak on cohesive story telling. It had grand scope and world-affecting events, though.

LS2 had far better story-telling, but felt smaller and less grand.

I enjoyed LS1 more than LS2.

A combination of the two approaches in HoT is what I’m hoping for, along with a good “fix” to make LS1 available again.

Very true about the disjointed story. And don’t forget the epic bugs that frequently arose from their short release cycle. xD

MiniEquine.6014:

At first I was willing to completely dismiss the argument you have, but now I have changed it to a partial disagreement. In looking at all of the current staff skins there are no skins that are really suited for melee combat. They should at least implement some basic design staff skins that look like what you want.

This ultimately is why I’m asking they hold off on what appear to be staff plans with the Revenant in HoT and add the polearms later. I feel the polearm weapon type for both martial and magical use would be cleaner as a category of skins, while opening up more possibilities for some really awesome weapons and moves.

The stupid huge weapons thing, my personal feeling is that its a fashion born of far more cartoony media (more than just games). I don’t expect it to ever go anywhere.

High concept name right here:

The Thing.

Test.8734:

Ralanost.8913:

I hate when MMORPGs mess with old content to keep it up with the current story. It messes with the old story. Like going through the personal story on a new character and Lion’s Arch is wrecked before Scarlet ever showed up. It’s stupid and inconsistent. Just leave it alone and make new content. Leave old content alone.

Interestingly enough, the Living World was supposed to be all about changing the world. See the destruction of Lion’s Arch fountain a billion times, the Tower of Nightmares, the new Teq, and so on.

Until ArenaNet decided it didn’t work, and tried using the Season 2 model.

Until ArenaNet decided that also didn’t work, and tried using the “season 3 in a box” HoT model.

Is it me, or do we see a pattern here? Does anyone else think that HoT also will not work?

Season 1 model failed because the releases were epic, but only existed for a few very short weeks. And compounded by being unable to relive them at all. It isn’t that they couldn’t rerun them if they still have the codes around somewhere, it could be done any number of ways, either some deus ex machina “HEY WE GONNA RERUN THIS FOR FUN” announcement and they put it back live for a week or two in a festival like setting, which any LS1 story step is actually a candidate for this. Or a bit less shoehorned; putting the largest bits like dungeon paths or mega bosses AS A WHOLE into FotM as a special rotating festival-like happening. Just because we enter via FotM does NOT mean it need be limited to a 5 man group. These are my 2 best ideas for bringing them back, again… it wasn’t that they just outright sucked, it was that they were here and gone so fast and could never be replayed. And in several cases (Kessex, LA) they smashed some otherwise quite beautiful zones -.- or made them worse depending how you feel. >.>

LS2 lacks all the epicness of LS1. No other way to put it, they wanted this one to be repeatable as this was the largest single gripe about LS1, so they chose to instance it all into a story arc that ultimately landed in an expansion. The story is a nice shoe-in and hopefully the expansion will be epic. But LS1 and LS2 were not designed with the same goals in mind at all. For what LS2 is, however, it was done well by the end and my own major gripe about that is that I would have preferred waiting until the entire zones were finished instead of having the weeks of cooling off with only snips of the zones coming in at any time.

Tachenon.5270:

Like Red Jay said a few posts up, like I said myself, long ago — use the unexplored other half of Orr to carry on with what happens after the end of the Personal Story, accessible only after one has completed the Personal Story. Leave the current ‘Pre-PS’ portions as is. Something for everyone. Hooray.

Oddly, that entire block of Orr is flown over during the Arah story mode. We just don’t get to see much of the ground. We were supposed to however, apparently the Zhaitan fight was meant to be finished on foot after we blew him off the tower.

Some others have mentioned the story instances, their incoming personal story changes are going to address this somewhat, where old story instances will take place in the zones of the time they were made. So when you meet Tybalt, it won’t be near the burnt out bank in an empty street where he keeps on shushing you so that the people who aren’t around won’t hear… you will meet him in Pre-Scarlet LA once more. They have spoken directly to this.

How to mesh a cleansed Orr with the old stories?
1. You can leave it as is, forget it even still exists. (worst case imo, I would love to see the SW event chain system brought to Orr, and living world is a perfect excuse)
2. You can tell the player that they are playing a story that is not up to the current timeline of the zone, and alter open world steps accordingly.
3. You can replace the Orrian Zhaitan undead with some other undead from a nearby continent like say…. Palawa Joko, the undead scourge of Vabbi coming north to see what all the hubbub is about now that he doesn’t need fear the dragon anymore. (my favorite)

Arewn.2368:

I completely agree with OP.
Melee staves (hit-you-with-it style) are incompatible with the staff design in GW2. In GW2 they are magical implements and highly decorative in design.
These are NOT bo staves, or anything of the like.
This isn’t a matter of “realism”, it’s simply nonsensical. Imagine making a sword who’s abilities fire arrows, bow-style. Or a hammer who’s abilities are all focused around slicing/cutting.

If ranger/druid staff has an ability or two that uses the staff to smack at an enemy, that’s fine. But it shouldn’t be implemented as a primarily hit-you-with-it style weapon.

A melee/bo staff would be a cool addition to the game, but this would not be the way to do it. Do it properly if at all.

First, ty for seeing to the heart of my post.

Those last 2 bits:
For the staves we have now, at best they could be like that 1 scepter block skill, however the retaliation attack would need to be ranged to make sense with the skill setups that staves have anyway.

And I agree that a true melee staff form would be wonderful, but it would ultimately have to be separate from these ornamented status symbols (2 handed scepters) that we have now to work. And I think rolling applicable staff fighting moves into a polearm weapon type is the closest we can get without making a gigantic muddled mess of our weapon categories.

Gibson.4036:

No, I didn’t miss it. I was trying to summarize what I got out of it. Melee vs. ranged autoattack, magic weapons can look like martial, but not the other way around. Went back to look at it again, and I’m not seeing anything different.

You aren’t reading all my posts.

Inimicus.7162:

INB4: Channeling magic through a melee weapon to deal ranged damage as Mesmers or even Revenants with their hammer, no different from using a scepter/staff, it is only a substitution skin that does something kind of unusual, but even in the context of magic isn’t as far out of bounds as repeatedly smashing somebody with a princess wand, or the winged staff.

Gibson.4036:

It’s far more than a scale issue. Look at that Pearl Broadsword. It’s not only ridiculously big, it’s a spatula. Rescale it more “realistically” and you don’t get a realistic sword, you just get a smaller spatula.

I have also addressed this in more ways than just the rescaling. Again, read my other posts, because you missed this one:

See comment about greatswords if they were rescaled. Ever see that excrement in the final fantasy series? http://pspmedia.ign.com/psp/image/article/101/1011746/dissidia-final-fantasy-20090806045530233.jpg I’m fairly sure this is one source of that entire fad.

VocalThought.9835:

1: “They have mace and scepters, they should have staff and pole-arms”- Noooo, because you have classes that already use both maces and scepters. This argument would only make sense if you wanted a character to use staff for both melee and to cast spells, then having a staff for magic and pole-arm for melee would make sense.

Recheck the reasoning I gave. Then go compare mace and scepter skills. My argument here holds.

VocalThought.9835:

2: “Having a spell caster use a melee weapon to channel spells is ok, but having a fighter class use an object meant for spell casting to hit someone, shouldn’t”- WTH! You mean to tell me that if I come across a spell book, that I can’t smack you with it. You might not want me to, but it can happen. I believe hitting someone with a staff is more realistic than shooting a beam of light out of a great sword!

That last part, what are you people even trying to argue with this anyway?

To the rest:

Inimicus.7162:

INB4: Channeling magic through a melee weapon to deal ranged damage as Mesmers or even Revenants with their hammer, no different from using a scepter/staff, it is only a substitution skin that does something kind of unusual, but even in the context of magic isn’t as far out of bounds as repeatedly smashing somebody with a princess wand, or the winged staff.

VocalThought.9835:

They don’t need a new weapon type for a pole-arm because, so far, none of the classes that were recommended to use the staff for melee combat currently weld a staff hence, they can just adjust the animation for those classes, instead of coming up with a new weapon, using the skins they already have and creating new ones over time!

Part of why I suggest they finish/reintroduce the Polearm (which is still in the game btw) is that it would be a weapon anybody could use, with or without magic.
http://www.gw2db.com/items/25664-whispering-polearm
They apparently have been hunting down all their old polearm codes and making them come up blank when entered into chat. I should point out also, the Watchknights of living story 1 carried “land spears” (Seraph Spear) that had an item link also marking them as polearms.

flipyap.5789:

Cant believe you don’t want there to be melee staff because “physics”. Seriously its a fantasy game with magic and you have a hard time grasping someone using melee with a staff?

What argument are you trying to make? That this is a fantasy game and nothing applies unless you or the devs want it to? Magic in GW2 is presented as being able to alter the rules of a world otherwise based highly around the one in which we live. It gives Anet, and other fantasy genre book/movie/game makers a lot of leeway in their designs, gigantic creatures, floating rocks etc. However, some rather basic assumptions can be made. And in this case, the staves we have are not designed for melee combat. See maces vs scepter comments (and it’s more than 1).

Instead of making a distinction in the types of staves, or leaving as is and looking as bad as the Greatsword category’s Buster Sword/butter knife/spatula…thing… finish an old weapon category and make it martial. Casters can use martial weapons as I have stated, and people with no magical affinity at all can as well.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Thieves will eventually have to get some sort of ‘acrobatics’ themed elite specialization, less centered around stealth and way more about evades.

And to have a proper acrobat, you’ll need a staff.

How can you do a Pole Jump without the staff required to use as a pole?

Polearm, just be careful not to get caught on the head

Simply Harbinger could do, the word has an ominous connotation.

If Marjory and Belinda are possible guides:
Soul Leecher
Soul Enchanter
Soul Harvester
(using life force aka souls as a kind of ‘energy’ for your attacks)
Blood Wraith
Envoy (taken by lore)
Wraith
Dark Enchanter (to bring back some of that low budget 1980s flare)
Spirit Keeper
Spirit Binder
Soul Binder
Soul Keeper
Blood Reaper
Reaper
Blood Hunger
Dhuum Shadow
Dhuum Acolyte
Dark Templar
The Not Dragon Hunter >.>

Had to, sry. Ran out. But my guess is that it will have something to do with harvesting souls (redesigned or repurposed life force?) to power attacks.

Diablo II paladin-style shield-bash insanity? That would be excellent

And I run a spec with dual axes as main weapons cause maces are not nearly hardcore enough. Though I admit to carrying a GS in the off slot for that undeniable (boring as all kitten) I WIN button.

People are thinking daggers or pistols as the only martial weapons left that the warrior doesn’t actually carry. Shortbow is also possible but the sb/lb thing already doesn’t work for Rangers. So probably pistol or dagger.

Rytlock has been seen with a pistol before, and carrying it as a weapon, not simply that Charr racial skill, in the super early personal stories (because npcs are allowed to break the rules like that).

And dagger brings the possibility of some kind of brawler.

Gibson.4036:

Not ignored. The answer seems to be it’s okay for a magic user to use a physical weapon to channel magic through, but it’s not okay for a physical fighter to thunk someone with a weapon designed to channel magic.

Again you miss the mace vs scepter argument which addresses this.

RabbitUp.8294:

I can count a lot more than that. There are skins that feature no baubles of any kind, just a wooden stick with a metal head.

How’s this (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/0/04/Guild_Pillar.jpg) not a good enough polearm?

There are even 2 or 3 scythes available.

True, but off target. “Melee staves” as such would not have all the ornamentation that the staves we have in our wardrobe do. So I’m asking the staff we have now be kept as a caster only weapon, and they wait until they have finished the polearm weapon type before adding in long hafted melee weapons.

You are listing possible candidates to be put into a polearm weapon category, which is what I would prefer to have happen rather than simply adding animation to our caster staves, which by their shapes would not be martial/melee weapons and if one attempted to use such things in combat, they would find themselves making moves more befitting of a polearm.

Gibson.4036:

What exactly defines the line between a regular skin and a “joke” skin?

Are the pearl weapons joke, or non-joke skins?

See comment about greatswords if they were rescaled. Ever see that excrement in the final fantasy series? http://pspmedia.ign.com/psp/image/article/101/1011746/dissidia-final-fantasy-20090806045530233.jpg I’m fairly sure this is one source of that entire fad.

What’s a joke weapon? Ask yourself which weapons were made with whimsy or humor in mind and which ones were made with that not so humorous, but still pervasive attitude that they need to be carrying the biggest most flashy thing they can get their hands on. Think of the nuclear cannon, Big Bertha or the Tzar Bomba built during the cold war. For these people it’s all about the size and shine, and while watching this is somewhat humorous to me personally, I don’t think over sized weapons were all done with giggles in mind.

Ehecatl.9172:

I can count the number of greatsword skins that would work for practical combat on one hand. Most of them are blatantly over sized, weirdly balanced, blatantly dangerous to the wielder, or have so much ornamentation that they’d be completely non-functional. Usually ALL of these things at once.

I can’t explain people’s fascination with designing (and using) 10?×2? butter knives that happen to carry the greatsword classification, in fact I personally lump these into the joke weapon category also. Absolute nonsense. However, I could make the argument that many of them, if scaled back to more reasonable sizes would actually be within the realms of plausible if you could make an IRL counterpart to them. While I don’t like them in the least, I can tolerate their presence as being an RPG culture thing since the “Buster Sword” first appeared.

Best guess its a size thing, but it’s not my thing so I can only assume.

Walhalla.5473:

So Staffs as Meelee Weapons are not realistic? Ever looked at the Greatsword Skins?. Most of them are giant oversized Paddles and would be useless in combat if we are going for Realism, and no these things are not Joke Skins or are you saying that 80% of the Greatsword Skins are Joke Skins?

If we compare the more realistic Skins to the Staff Skins than well I don’t see a Problem with Staffs being used as a Melee Weapon. Proportionwise the Staffs are one of the most realistic Weapon Skins in the Game. They only seem small or thin due to Weapon Skins that are clearly oversized

Where is the Problem with Staffs as Melee Weapons? It’s not like they would break easily in a Combat.

Scepters vs Maces.

Same principals apply to staves vs polearms, which is why I am asking they wait on hafted melee weapons until polearms are ready.

Keyce.8137:

@ OP

You wanted polearms, yes? Isn’t that what spears are right now?

I would loooooove to have thief spear on land. BRING ON THE LAND SPEARS!

More than just spears, the spear is a specific type of polearm but not the only one. Polearms include other weapon heads mounted to long hafts, like axes, picks, spear tips ofc, and even sword blades and more exotic stuff on some. The skills in melee combat with such a thing would mostly be defined by motions to use the weaponry mounted on the sides of the half rather than the tip. Which would put thrusting moves to a minimum, and basic spears would me mostly out of the question for realism (though not likely to be left out since spears are rather iconic). Don’t forget there is always a shot at play with the butt spike.

MattyP.6954:

A quarterstaff/bo is not a Polearm, does not handle like a Polearm in combat, and basically has nothing to do with Polearms.

True. But for those who want a melee staff weapon, this suggestion is more of a compromise.

MattyP.6954:

1. We don’t have size distinctions for other weapons. As an example, swords encompass long swords, short swords, rapiers, and scimitars, and they’re all considered swords (the assumption being that they all are functionally identical; eg not greatswords). The distinction between long staff and quarterstaff is unnecessary

You’ve repeatedly missed one of the key arguments then. See my thoughts on mace vs scepter as it relates to staves vs polearms.

MattyP.6954:

Melee =/= martial. You can have melee-range magical attacks.

This is a red herring as there are already examples of spells being applied in melee range or via melee weapons, and is not the issue at hand.
I was responding to a comment about he guard’s staff auto attack which an intermediate range attack, outside of “melee range” but not in league with bows or guns.
Use of the word ‘martial’ is to describe that a combat weapon that will be used in melee combat, be it a staff/polearm or any other, isn’t going to have all that fragile looking decor of caster weapons like our current selection of staves, or scepters. Refer to my posts where I speak of the differences (and visual similarities) between mace vs scepter skins in reference to this.

MattyP.6954:

For the realism aspect… well, Quip shoots bubbles., and there’s a greatsword skin that is literally a collection or rocks that are suspended in some sort of Greatsword shape by… magic maybe?

Remember what I said about joke skins? Or my comment about 10 foot long butter knives? Please refrain from using troll statements as arguments, and read my comments as this has already been gone over.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I treat guardian staff as a melee weapon: I only use it for close range combat. Pretty much every weapon in this game is used to channel some form of magic — thus they are each some sort of “focus” (in the traditional, not the GW2 sense) and I don’t think there’s any special connection between how the weapon gets used on planet Earth (or traditional fantasy lit, media, or games) and how it gets used in Tyria.

• Revenant hammers are ranged. (And guardian hammers do more than localized physical damage.)
• Mesmer greatswords are ranged. (And guardian GS do more than localized physical damage.)
• Ranger warhorns summon birds.
• Elementalist daggers shoot flames and bolts.

Tyria need only be self-consistent; it doesn’t need to be consistent with Earth lore (nor, in my strong opinion, should it).

The guard staff auto attack reaches out far enough beyond the reach of the weapon itself, while it isn’t truly “ranged” it certainly doesn’t fit the bill of “melee” either.

And taking a normal weapon and causing it to do weird things with magic isn’t the issue. The normal weapon becomes a stand in weapon for a caster weapon. See Age of Conan’s Tempest of Set class, who carries a polearm instead of a staff. Taking magic and using it to throw a hammer farther than it should ever go being simply thrown or channeling a pink death ray through a greatsword, or causing your GS to release a small storm of swirly blue death are all within the realms of possibilities because these things don’t blatantly exceed a reasonable (even within the realms of fantasy) expectation of performance with the items in question. Again, staves as we have now are fancy ornamented caster sticks, and should remain there. To take the “Staff” into melee combat, it would be best suited to place martial staff skins into a category that holds other long hafted weapons. Since we already have hammers, this would then be polearms, which in practice are more true to form of martial staves than hammers would be, and while a vanilla staff isn’t regarded as a polearm in the same way spears, halberds and naginata-like weapons are, if there is a name that could include all non-hammer, long hafted weapons with or without pointy/stabby/hacky/slashy bits, that would be even better.

MattyP.6954:

I completely agree—realism should be the ultimate goal with weapon design in this game. I can’t have my giant cat monster hit that walking, talking tree guy over there with a flimsy-looking magical staff, it has to be a dense, hearty battle staff.

Inimicus.7162:

I understand there is a great degree of fantasy and artistic license in all this. I’m not asking for full on realism, as that would be rather ugly and boring. But given the role of the items we are speaking of, I do feel a deep desire for the things to have a visual identity that generally matches that roll, or comes close enough.

Gibson.4036:

Other than the issue of having to generate a lot of new skins or having a limited variety of melee staff skins, making them two distinct weapon types also has an impact on loot tables, creating one more type and decreasing the chance of getting one your character can use. It also means designing and adding an additional new legendary.

Post is about why staves should not be melee weapons, and asking instead they wait and add polearms. They could put martial staves into the polearm weapon class, which, though limiting, is not totally out of bounds for the style of use.

The loot tables are a non-issue. As it is, if you open a loot box that isn’t required by hard coding to yield more, your average result is still, and likely will always be, about 2 blues and a green, maybe 2 greens. On the TP a new weapon type would spike in price in the short term, but eventually level out for blue/green gear if you are worried for people leveling.

They already are designing and adding new legendary weapons. They recently added yet another set of weapon skins to the BL vendor and yet another outfit. It’s just another skin, they do this often, and the collections for making it are completely arbitrary to what they make you go find, which means there’s no need to have to design anything else to make it a reality. Being a newer weapon, they don’t even need to “make up for the extra legendary skin” that the weapons we had since launch will have.

Gibson.4036:

Seems like the simplest approach, rather than making melee staves a completely separate weapon from caster staves, would be to introduce some plain melee staff skins for you.

My thought is that if it’s a distinct weapon, either ArenaNet has to get busy and make a ton of melee staff skins or restrict melee staff users to a very small range of visual options.

If they do a half dozen melee staff skins with the introduction of melee staff specializations, but keep them as the same weapon as caster staves, then every user can decide for herself whether she wants to thump people with a Bo or The Bifrost.

Throwing plain old vanilla staves into the staff category would be okay, as GW1 had a basic Bo staff skin, but not as melee weapons, it doesn’t resolve my beef. For what it’s worth, they later took that Bo skin and put it onto a scythe weapon (polearm) and it looked good, better than scythes in many ways.

If they want to mix some skins between polearm/staff for start that’s fine, but only ones that can be reasonably excused for use in place of a melee weapon. Of which there are few. And for functionality, melee staff skins (to be use in melee combat) would fall under the polearm category. Back to scepters and maces, another distinction between the two currently is that scepters auto cast ranged skills, maces do not auto at range, and indeed only 1 mace skill I can think of even reaches a long distance beyond melee range. Staves currently, similar to scepters are ranged weapons (even at melee range), and again, they are ornamental caster weapons as they exist now, leaving room for a martial counterpart, that would include a whole lot more than just simple staves. The caster weapon type could carry simple staff skins (actual simple staff skins), but the caster weapons we have now, just don’t look right for being used as bashing weapons.

And to creating new skins… They would remove the melee staff thing in HoT, and add polearms and such later. They are capable of making a bunch of skins and releasing them all at the same time, happens every 6-8 weeks or so (not sure exactly tbh) with BL weapon skins. And they wouldn’t need retrofit any of their BL claim ticket weapon sets to add these things unless they are just jonesing for a way to bring them back.

Knighthonor.4061:

Oberon Vex.1389:

There are several reasons to think this.

1. It would be the first Scholar class to gain access to them.
2. The most obvious choices for shouts already have them.
3. Npc Necromancers have leadership roles (Trahearne and Marjory)
4. It would address the issue of party-support that Necro’s lack in.
5. Lastly, the existence of a set of skills from GW1: Orders.

Orders were a series of skills that Necromancers could use to apply specific effects to allies that triggered on landing a hit on the enemy. While I do not expect the exact effects to be applicable in GW2 gameplay, the name type would fit very well for a shout skill.

These were the GW1 skills:

Order of Apostasy: all allies remove an enchantment (read: boon) whenever they attack. 5s duration, lose 15% of your life-pool whenever a monk enchantment is removed.

This could be implemented as is to let every ally strip one boon for a total of 5 removals.

Order of Pain: Allies deal increased damage on attacks for 5s.

Could be a generic Might buff or vuln?

Order of Undeath: Minions deal increased damage on attacks for 5s, lose 2% max health whenever a minion attacks.

Not likely applicable, but the name could be re-purposed for a heal ability.

Order of the Vampire: allies steal X life on attacks for 5s.

Another possible heal ability.

So. Just sayin.

Necro’s will get shouts.

The problem with this theory is the role of the GreatSword… Is the Necro Elite Spec melee damage?

if so, it makes sense for their utilities and heals and elite from the Elite Spec to fit that role they trying to fill. Which I assume would be AoE damage. Physicals fit that, umm kits could fit that….conjures could fit that,,,,meditations could fit that, Manipulation could fit.

but how will Shouts address whats Necro’s missing?

Necros currently lack in the raw dps department in PvE. The other general gripe is that they can’t (reliably mind you, it’s technically possible though in practice not) stack might, or possibly add fury, who knows.

Those are the three biggies, melee cleave dps that scales well with max might, and might/fury stacks for the party.

They can do almost anything else, and would be far better if a number of their cooldowns got halved as they are at this moment (wells). But that would probably break them in other areas.

Shouts are a potential way to provide party-wide buffs, although having somebody go from the goth/emo vibe of Necro lore, to an angry shouting person would be rather strange. More likely if a Necro got shouts, it would be like the warrior’s “Fear Me!” or “On My Mark!” which place effects on the nearby enemies. Though this would likely not help them in the short term, there is potential play in it if it acts like thieves most recent healing skill, which puts an effect on an enemy that buffs (heals atm) allies for striking said enemy. Or in this case, grants/applies (at same time?) whatever the boon/condition may be.

Invictus.1503:

@OP – you just posted the exact same post in another thread talking about Revenant weapons and is on the front page at the time of this posting. This new thread seems a plea for attention at best. The topic is found here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Revenant-Weapon-speculation/first#post5054260

As to the topic, the primary point I can see is that you believe that the only viable “melee staff” is a plain stick. Although I do not disagree with you, there are a number of appropriate staff skins to be wielded. However the primary opposing argument to this is simple:
- Look at the existing skins we have for GS and Sword. Most of them are extremely awkwardly balanced to the point of being completely useless in combat (and some are wooden or even rubber).
-There are a large number of bows that could not function within the laws of physics.
-There are a few dagger skins that are held backwards (meaning all attacks would hit the enemy with the hilt).
- Many of the more decorative skins across the board look like they’d shatter if ever used properly (The Moot comes to mind as one).
- Finally, don’t get me started on how I can fire an obvious six-shooter hundreds of times without ever reloading.

I’m not saying all of these things are horrible or should be changed. I’m just saying that if you want to limit one weapon (melee staff) to realism and physics, then you can’t exclude all the other weapons from such logic. Personally I’m all for these things in a game, including the melee staff.

After writing it there, I felt it was important enough to be made into it’s own thread.

There are joke weapon skins that I don’t even consider when asking things like this, this includes The Moot, in spite of it’s legendary status.

I can’t explain people’s fascination with designing (and using) 10′×2′ butter knives that happen to carry the greatsword classification, in fact I personally lump these into the joke weapon category also. Absolute nonsense. However, I could make the argument that many of them, if scaled back to more reasonable sizes would actually be within the realms of plausible if you could make an IRL counterpart to them. While I don’t like them in the least, I can tolerate their presence as being an RPG culture thing since the “Buster Sword” first appeared.

The bows… yea, to go with armor and many other things… For those, as long as they are bow shaped, and not turned backwards and used like those klingon crescent sword things, I don’t mind them existing. I see gw2 staves being used in melee in this same light actually, though if they made a polearm weapon type, the moves might actually be close enough to add that silly klingon thing there. (Tho i’d rather not, only point out it’s possible)

Holding daggers underhanded is “cool looking” but outside of some specific circumstances, you will better served to carry your blade overhand. This applies to swords too. (I’m looking at YOU GW1 Tengu…)

As to the decorative skins… This is the hardest one to answer tbh. Yes, the more realistic but decorative skins would not stand up in combat, but then again a lot of us run around with not 1 scar or bruise, half naked, wearing flowing pink and/or snow-white garments that never get dirty, bright pink and purple hair/eyes, play non-human characters, create and play magazine quality models, and some of us can go into total stealth, in the middle of combat, while people are watching and while our torches and incinerators are still very much lit……

I understand there is a great degree of fantasy and artistic license in all this. I’m not asking for full on realism, as that would be rather ugly and boring. But given the role of the items we are speaking of, I do feel a deep desire for the things to have a visual identity that generally matches that roll, or comes close enough. In this specific case, staves as we have them now, being used as polearms or possibly hammer stand-ins, is nonsensical enough that I can’t readily write off just how weird this is going to look. If it comes to pass, and I say again, I hope they hold on this until they have something that can look more fitting doing it.

RabbitUp.8294:

Gibson.4036:

That’s what his outfit seems designed for.

Just to clarify, I’m not judging anything in any of those pictures for worthiness, just for ridiculousness in combat situations.

I suppose I should remove the Norn. He could be carefully calculating his look to inspire awe and terror.

;)

Don’t worry, I know you weren’t judging them, I was just poking some fun. I know immersion can be important, but honestly, if I saw that Norn walking past me, I would crack a smile. It’s a game, people want to have fun, I would only hope he was using the Princess Wand to compliment that outfit

I’ve followed Ronald Mcdonnald’s evil twin as he commanded an Eotm train more than a few times…

I get that some people want to look silly, but it isn’t as if there’s no room for silly in a polearm weapon type…. I can think of all kinds of things one could put on the end of a pole for a joke… GW2 Banana Spear to match Banana Scythe of GW1?

So many of you ignore the maces versus scepters argument. And there are several references to joke skins, which by nature excludes them from talk about form and function. I’d love to watch somebody do the Asura Hundred Blades animation with the nearest IRL counterpart to the Greatsaw…

In this case there are 2 items, maces and scepters that are distinguished from each other, in spite of being aesthetically the same, and would ultimately would be used the same way, and to the same ends, in melee combat. But they are separated. The scepter is a pure caster weapon and aside from 1 skill I can think of (Mesmer scepter block), never actually sees use as a true “melee” weapon. And the mace remains a melee only weapon, even when infused by whatever magic the Guardian and soon Revenant both possess. Why then should melee pole weapons (be it martial staves or polearms) be rolled together into a caster weapon set?

And again, go back to the skins themselves, scepters, even the joke skin princess wand somebody mentioned, are magical ornaments for casters to focus their magic through, and they look more like ornaments than something I would make a habit of bashing people with. Maces are bashing weapons and generally look like things you would want to use to bash somebody. Again, 2 weapons who’s looks are generally defined as being arm’s length or less, and generally ending with something fancy on the opposite end of where they are held.

Maces and scepters are segregated by looks according to their function, and it makes sense a weapon meant for striking things should be different also from what amounts to a longer scepter skin. The existing skins of staves are at least as ceremonial/ornamental as their shorter scepter counterparts, and only about 3 MIGHT be, useable (visually balanced enough for use) as staves, in melee combat. Ultimately it’s about preserving some distinctions about how a weapon “looks” whether actually realistic or not (10 foot long butter knife greatswords), and how it functions. Staves have not been designed with the looks for melee combat anymore than scepters have, and I wish that separation be preserved by splitting “long rod” weapons (staff/polearm/hammer) the same way they did “short rod” (mace/scepter), by leaving the melee attacks to weapons that look like they belong in a melee weapon category.

Best case scenario is that they will turn staves into hammer stand-ins, which would save the potential for polearms later, but even this would still look really awkward, for all the same reasons.

INB4: Channeling magic through a melee weapon to deal ranged damage as Mesmers or even Revenants with their hammer, no different from using a scepter/staff, it is only a substitution skin that does something kind of unusual, but even in the context of magic isn’t as far out of bounds as repeatedly smashing somebody with a princess wand, or the winged staff.

I am reposting this from a reply of mine in a different thread to plead with Anet NOT to add melee staves into Guild Wars 2. Ever.

The staves we have right now are basically decorative 2 handed foci/scepters and are simply not designed realistically to be used in melee combat.

First and foremost, look up the Bo staff. That is a real combat staff, a straight stick. That is all a martial staff should ever be. At the very most it may have metal bits on the end, but otherwise it MUST be a balanced and boring and otherwise plain as plain can be, long rod.

Adding ANYTHING more to said rod in melee combat removes all reason to keep calling it a martial staff. That extra anything, wherever and whatever it may be, instantly changes how the weapon must be wielded. And thus, polearms.

There are examples of casters in other games using polearms in place of staves, characters with magical affinity using spears/javelins and other weapons in conjunction with magic, and now lately, they just announced the Guardians will have a magical attack that uses a spear as its projectile animation.

Adding polearms eventually will solve the issue of our current staff selection being overwhelmingly too ornamental and imbalanced to make working melee weapons, and will add a weapon type that easily crosses borders between magic and non-magic users.

Adding melee moves onto staves now, however, would have Anet adding everything they need for a polearm weapon type into their game now, and poorly jury rigged to a selection of weapon skins that don’t fit the bill properly. It’s like scepters and maces, actually many of our scepter skins could be used as maces, and maces be used as scepters. Functionally, if built for combat, they are nearly identical items. Indeed, a short stick/rod is indistinguishable whether it’s a mace or a scepter. Clearly scepters are more ornamental in design and not usually used to bash people the way maces are. Exactly the same situation here with staves and polearms, the GW universe has defined staves as really big scepters, these things are ornamental and not designed to be used as melee weapons. Spears/tridents have been sent underwater only, and can stay there for functionality purposes, but the land spear/polearm is ultimately the mace to the staff’s scepter. The split allows for the differences to be accentuated and expanded on for skin diversity that defines how different these things are in practice.

So I plead: Don’t make the melee staff mistake now, it will be irreversible. Please wait for later, make polearms and do it right.

I feel the need to plead with Anet NOT to add melee staves into the game. Ever.

The staves we have right now are basically decorative 2 handed foci/scepters and are simply not designed realistically to be used in melee combat.

First and foremost, look up the Bo staff. That is a real combat staff, a straight stick. That is all a martial staff should ever be. At the very most it may have metal bits on the end, but otherwise it MUST be a balanced and boring and otherwise plain as plain can be, long rod.

Adding ANYTHING more to said rod in melee combat removes all reason to keep calling it a martial staff. That extra anything, wherever and whatever it may be, instantly changes how the weapon must be wielded. And thus, polearms.

There are examples of casters in other games using polearms in place of staves, characters with magical affinity using spears/javelins and other weapons in conjunction with magic, and now lately, they just announced the Guardians will have a magical attack that uses a spear as its projectile animation.

Adding polearms eventually will solve the issue of our current staff selection being overwhelmingly too ornamental and imbalanced to make working melee weapons, and will add a weapon type that easily crosses borders between magic and non-magic users.

Adding melee moves onto staves now, however, would have Anet adding everything they need for a polearm weapon type into their game now, and poorly jury rigged to a selection of weapon skins that don’t fit the bill properly.

So I plead: Don’t make the melee staff mistake now, it will be irreversible. Wait for polearms and do it right.

EDITED for better boots, still needs work

Please don’t crucify me for pulling the parts of this pic from absolutely all over the place without recording where…other than the way it’s put together/edited none of it is mine xD

But I’ve always had a thing for hand bras and skeleton-themed armor, couldn’t find a decent set of skeletal hands that I could easily work with for the bra, and it needs properly themed boots, but those are also very difficult to find, the ascended heavy boots are close enough for this though I think

But here it is:

Rauderi.8706:

Inimicus.7162:

Do you post this reply on each every 2 weeks? If it was an issue you cared about I bet you would wouldn’t hesitate to open one of your own.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Searching-the-Forums/first#post4701411

Problem solved. A little research can save a lot of unfriendly backlash.

Serious design flaw that the rigs are all different, this can be fixed with work, and would be easier to monetize afterwards.

A little work? A lot of work? Completely re-hiring the original development team to redesign each and every piece that exists so they all fit pretty and clean together between armor weights?

Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen, no matter how much ghost profit is predicted. Outfits open up development work to 100% of the population, instead of a fraction of those with specific armor weights.

To be honest, I have no problem with extending the existing designs into separate pieces and sold by armor weight. No problem at all. I have a problem with the incessant bite-back that happens every time an outfit is released. Because the argument never changes. This notion of “stop all outfits” is disingenuous and reeks of poor behavior.

So, as has been said in many threads before this one:
ANet, please do release armor sets parallel with your outfits. Those who love to mix and match their gear would very much appreciate it. We even promise not to whimper (too much) about clipping. ( Except for Charr, which you seemingly hate ;_; )

..Okay, so that last part was editorializing, but y’all get the idea. Petition to add things that enhance gameplay, not take them away.

A lot of work. And they wouldn’t “rehire the original team” so much as set a new group to making a new one.

And again, what’s there is there and not everyone is asking outfits to be discontinued/deleted, I think most people realize they have their place and like you, want to see armor sets thrown into the mixer here also.

My specific beef with this one is as above, so I’ll not repeat it.

And them poor Charr, my Charr Necro was meant to wear the light t3, but when i got it, I saw the tail clipping right out of the legs as if it was some lowbie chainmail armor and was heartbroken for a while. Had to go a long way to get around, but at least now he’s a mean, green killing machine!

OPs last post was yesterday and the L2Dodge rage continues xD

Previously deleted for an attempt at humor that failed to fly, so sans that:

Best fix I have is that when wearing a hat like this, the hair style is taken into account in so far as

start
if NOT BALD
then put crew cut hair texture on the head, use player defined color
end if
if BALD
then put bald texture using player defined skin parameters
end if
stop

I would be impressed beyond words if they made one that included long hair/beards hanging out of the hat without clipping the way the Norn males of GW1 did.

BUT WAIT: There was a post by That-Shaman on the reddit that he had found some kind of new SAB looking giant bug monster, so the thing isn’t removed entirely from being worked on. If anything, it’s likely a side side side project being worked on during off hours by a few.

No new content? There is that farce of an outfit they just put out. ><

As for reopening Worlds 1 and 2 as they existed before, the best possible explanation I heard for this not happening at the moment was the possibility that changes either recently or in the near future could be effecting their ability to simply “reopen it.”

Also consider that they may be working on it as part of their Adventure system, which was stated as possibly giving rewards on older content like jumping puzzles, or possibly SAB? Which would make it part of something they are working on for HoT. And while I would love a confirmation one way or another, Anet keeps tight lipped about absolutely everything until they bork a livestream and leak something.

Just a voice of reason from a fellow SAB addict WHOS BEEN JONEZING FOR OVER A YEAR NOW…. Y-Y

BTW the World 2 stuff, it was crammed in with a boatload of other meta achievements to do also. And though the worlds were long, I would say they were actually in keeping with the 8-bit games they were meant to emulate, though probably as more of a later level kind of length than world 2/4. :/

Aerinndis.2730:

Neural.1824:

Satenia.9025:

Try killing them… you might be positively surprised about their loot table.

This is a great point too. I’m surprised at how many T6 mats I get off of the trash mobs in SW while running around with a chest train or doing pack bull events, etc.

This here. I am amazed at how many folk I see just run past, usually dragging their aggro into everyone else as they go…. I have gotten some pretty nice stuff out of those trash mobs. They are definitely worth killing no matter where you are. Anything that gives you something to salvage, sell or craft is worth killing.

I got my Beta Access Portal from a random mordie wolf that an entire chest train zerg had simply gone running past xD

radioAspen.6829:

I’d be fine if they just adjusted it so that clicking yes/no didn’t make me need to reactivate my salvage kit to resume salvaging.

THIS OMG THIS. This would fix the issue well enough. It would make me stop long enough to look and see wtf it’s on about, but it wouldn’t make me waste still more time scrolling my inventory back up to get the kit since the random rare is ALWAYS like 12 scroll wheel rotations away from where the errant click was. T-T