Guild Wars 2

At present the illusion counter counts every illusion a mesmer has out, even those commanded to shatter but are still running to their target which in some situation make take a while.
While the game does allow you to have more active illusions out besides those running to shatter, the illusion counter does not reflect this. Until all running illusions have shattered, it is not possibly to see how many active illusions you have out besides actually counting them on the map.

This is just very impractical and really there is no reason for the illusion counter to count illusions ordered to shatter. Please consider changing the illusion counter to more accurately portray how many active illusions a mesmer has out.

Full agreement. Especially about conquest being a poor choice of gamemode and balancing being to infrequent/bad. Wasted potential indeed.

The map design is just awful. It really does look like it was designed for a team deatmatch arena shooter, not gw2. The map is just way too cluttered and full of narrow passages. You could implement a flat circular map and it would be better than courtyard.

I’ma +1 this, if only for fluffdragon’s posts being awesome.

More or less completely agree with the OP. Pure power builds have been far too effective for so long largely due these two sigils.

Quite honestly if the devs can’t manage to balance the sigils, which is fair there’s a lot of them, I’d rather they just all be removed.

I like to think the upright ‘humanlike’ charr we saw in gw1 were those who underwent ritual body alteration while growing, much like for example real life tribes using neck rings. It’d make sense since all the upright charr were mostly shamans.

I’ve only been playing necro for a little while, no real amount in pvp but I’m starting to get a grasp on how the profession (is supposed to) work.

The first thing that really stood out to me, and which to me seems really counterintuitive to necro supposably being a durable profession, is that you can’t heal in deathshroud. No healing at all not even from the healing minion. Strange.

If you ask me necro should retain their heal and utility skills and gain healing while in deathshroud. That should make them a lot more durable. At the moment deathshroud feels very restrictive and frankly favors glass cannon builds more than anything.
I do feel that the siphon on the third chain of the dagger auto attack would need toning down though. Dagger auto attack spam feels rather strong.

I like Time Catches up, the slow movement speed of clones running to shatter has always been a significant weakness and basically forces any mesmer that wants to shatter reliably to generate illusion in melee. I think something like this (though perhaps not super speed) should be baseline on mesmer.

Red Jay.2516:

People are now just complaining for the sake of complaining. What is next? Dragonhunter killed my puppy?

Nah, more like Dragonhunter killed my pet Drake. :p

Here’s mine:

Temple of the Silent Storm
Legacy of the Foefire
Battle of Khylo
Forest of Niflhel
Spirit Watch
Skyhammer
Courtyard

Personally I like more spacious maps with room to manouvre. Not a big fan of obstructions everywhere.

From best to worst designed, rank the spvp maps based on your opinon.

Just curious on what the forum goers consider the good maps. Hope it’s not against the no poll rule.

Hmm n1 isn’t very popular at all I see. Not that it was unexpected, having so many cooldowns available is very engrained in the present gameplay. But well, I did promise controversy after all.
Don’t dismiss it immediately though, I invite you for a little thought experiment on how the current weapon swap and my suggested one would change gameplay. It might seem silly at first, but give it some thought.

That said, the game has been balanced around having all those cooldowns available and if it were to be changed it would have to be accompanied with a lot of cooldown adjustments. Highly unrealistic I realize. Still, could play around with some sort of middle ground, something like reduced cooldown recharge for swapped out weapons. There’s a lot that could be played around with.

I think the main reason why I find the current weapon swap system and cooldowns to be missing something is because the initial design was to have endurance cost tied to skills. The removal of this I believe is the biggest reason why n1 and 2 feel off to me, as though it was (justifiably) removed but not compensated for, as though the current design lacks something. I would argue that it was the removal of that resource management that made the game more spammy and less indepht.
But well, that’s a bit of a tangent, just wanted to elaborate on my opinions.

alberte.2685:

2 The game rewards are very bad.

If even asian players think the reward system is bad, well ANet I think it’s fair to say it really is bad.

No offense intended of course.

Something I thought would be a cool plot development is if the pale tree faded for good and Caledon forest and The Grove were to be completely taken over by the new Mordremoth’s court (I mean it’s always been the goal of the nightmare court, suddenly they have the means).
The remaining non corrupted sylvari make an exodus to Orr (since the sylvari and the wyld hunt to cleanse orr were prominant) where a new pale tree sapling is growing the place where caladbolg cleansed the source.

It would tie up some plot elements nicely, and we get to see an Orr return to its former beauty under tending of the remaining sylvari.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Exedore.6320:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Maybe Sigil of Energy needs to be looked at, but if so, you have to realize how dire the Necromancer straits are when it comes to active evasion.

Rather than rely on a sigil, necromancer needs its skills and traits improved for self-defense.

Hey that would be phenomenal. I’m 100% on board with that.

But if that doesn’t happen, Sigil of Energy is something I literally can’t play without.

Indeed, necro always struck me as more of a naturally tough scholar profession, akin to warrior. If their design worked, they should not need to dodge that much.

Guys it’s a fantasy world, no need to compare to the grim reality of medieval witch hunting. In a fantasy world you can have things like pure evil and complete justification for hunting that evil down. And even if the story goes into a more morally gray area, that can still add a lot of flavor to the setting.

Shiren.9532:

(who aren’t as black and white villainous like Caudecus and his bandits)

I would dispute that! Caudecus is the victim is a vicious pro monarchy propaganda machine that extends even to the story narrative! Any dissidents to the rule of the queen are branded is nothing but bandits and persecuted! Truly, he is the champion of democracy for Kryta and the only hope against the opressive nobility!

But yeah, apart from that good post.

Laraley.7695:

Thief has way much more acces to vigor than a zerker warrior.

How does Thief have way more acces to vigor than a warrior? A warrior can run offhand warhorn for a 10 second vigor boon on 20 second cooldown. The only reliable source of vigor thief has is Vigorous Recovery, warrior also has Vigorous Focus. If anything, a warrior could probably have a higher vigor uptime than a thief is he wanted.

kdaddy.5431:

This is a choice i made to have more dodges, you shouldnt take away peoples choices to simplify the game for new players.

It’s not strictly a matter of simplying though.

You must ask yourself, does the oversaturation of endurance promote me to time my dodges at just the right moments, or does having a dodge every five seconds in addition to any other skill I can use to avoid damage mean you get to use it often enough to just spam it. Likewise does it allow for interesting counterplays when you know your opponent can dodge every five seconds?

You are right that elementalist probably has the most acces to vigor. I would argue however, that this is also the reason why elementalist is in such a weird state of balance where d/d just keeps on getting nerfed. That’s beside the point though that all classes have the same endurance regeneration and most have some trait that grants them a high vigor uptime.

Laraley.7695:

I agree with you. However, it’s not this simple. Imagine a zerker thief and zerker warrior. The warrior won’t have to dodge so much due to highest hp and armour pool and healing singet. The thief will have to dodge much more than the warrior due to lowest hp pool, lower armour. Now tell me what is more skilled? Having more dodges and timing them right? Or benefit from passives and then time less dodges right?

Technically speaking this has little to do with endurance and vigor. Thief has a lot of skills that evade, that’s part of the design of the class. Where a warrior is naturally tough, a guardian has a lot of blocks and invulnerables, a thief has a lot of evasion skill. If anything, I think more emphasis should be put on evading through skills rather than dodge.

One thing I can’t quite understand is how some can’t identify with a character that isn’t the same sex as them irl. It seems strange to me that it’d create such a divide. Personally when I make a character I like to envision them with a part of my own persona, whichever sex they are.

Besides that ANets thought process on the name does not make sense, it also doesn’t match the concept they gave at reveal. The dragonhunter is supposed to be tyria’s version of a witch hunter according to their explanation, but then apparently not according to “a ferocious big-game hunter that specializes in ranged combat and back-line support” which sells it as a monster hunter.

Guys if possible please refrain from discussing profession balance. The thread is about the core combat gameplay.

Ojyh.9842:

It’s not a matter of how many people are saying this or that, but what they actually say.

No truer words! Regrettably, modern memetics disagrees.

Jekkt.6045:

point blank shot is not such an unbalanced skill as you make it look like, you can predict and dodge it at the same time, if you count the cooldown you can even anticipate it, it’s the same with overcharged shot. skill doesn’t only mean that you can dodge animations but also predict them.

I was not implying it is an overpowered skill, only that it has a bad animation. It’s only an example.

Since a lot of stuff is being reworked how about a controversial topic regarding core combat gameplay and how it could possibly be improved upon.

There’s a lot of things you can say gw2 did right or wrong when it comes to the combat but in my opinion the biggest flaw is how spammy it is. Here’s 3 suggestions that could tone down spam and promote more skillful play.

• Weapon cooldowns freeze when said weapon is swapped out.

Getting to choose two sets of weapons is great, it adds more customization and allows the player to swap weapons as strategically appropriate. The situational aspect is definately a boon however I find that weapon swapping is instead used to cram more cooldowns in a rotation, promoting spamming rather than strategy and taking away value from a weapon’s 1 attack. If weapon cooldowns froze when swapped out, swapping weapons would be a strategic choice foremost.

• Endurance is too plentiful and dodges too frequent. 2/3 current endurance regeneration, tone down vigor.

For there to be skillful play, a game is required to have a certain amount of predictability. In that sense dodge is another factor to predict and outplay; were dodges not so spammable. At some point dodge becomes a spammable evade and instead of predicting dodges a player resorts to throwing as many skills at their opponent and hope some manage to get through. The natural endurance regeneration is too high and vigor too available. All the good builds have high vigor uptime for a reason.

• Less fire and forget instant skills

It’s extremely hard to see and predict what’s happening in this game, especially for new players. There are a lot of skills with very short and unclear animation that practically cannot be recognized in the heat of battle. Nevermind that short animation skills also lend themselves to fire and forget fast spamming, it also makes it hard to counterplay. An example of a good weapon skill with clear animation is warrior longbow’s Pin Down, a bad example is ranger longbow’s Point Blank Shot.

Discuss!

Yeah there’s too much fancy baroque draping clothes for light armor. Even the heritage light armor they transformed from a suit to heavy draping robes. Some classy/simple attires would be a welcome change.

Why necro though?

You’re also not a dragon slaying hero in real life, so I don’t see why your ingame sex needs to match out real sex. It’s an rpg for a reason, you can play the role of any character the game lets you create.

Personally my characters are 50 50 male and female. I like to alternate.

Gilburt.9146:

I don’t understand why specializations are anything more than a fighting style. A Chronomancer is merely a mage that manipulates time, they don’t by definition have to have any particular goals or ambitions. Why does my guardian, when he chooses to specialize in combat with traps and a longbow, all of a sudden have to adopt new background and ideology that I don’t identify him with?

This right here is important. It’s the reason why

The origin of the dragonhunter is a more subtle nuanced version of this. Guardians fight for justice and the dragonhunter faction believes justice is the eradication of dragons and their minions […]* We had other generic names in mind but felt like it was important to have a mix of spec names that are generic fantasy, more Tyrian fantasy, and more high concept.

Is not such a good idea.

Players get invested in their character and their story is. Picking a name that is not generic enough beyond the playstyle of that specialization will shoehorn their character into a background they did not initially chose. I think big game hunter is very far from what a guardian player chose.

Was also not such a good idea.*

Genesis.8572:

-snip-

Thank you, have all my internets good sir or madam!

Actually to give my post more substance, I would really advise ANet to take this criticism and change the name. It might be a small part of your upcoming expansions, but it is what you’re going to be drawing players in with. If the poor name and theme discrepancies are any indication of the creativity going into the expac, players will be less inclined to purchase.

Dace.3985:

On the stream, the way they talked about Guardians fitting the role of witch hunter, my immediate thought was Inquisitor.

Ah I thought that was indeed their intention.

Witch hunter and demonhunter wouldn’t work as the game has neither really, so they make it dragonhunter. Problem is that theme works with witches and demons etc being unholy, making hunting them a holy matter. Dragons…doesn’t work.

First alternative name to pop in my head was Inquisitor which fits well enough but it has the problem of being a very catholic term while the guardian is supposed to be a religion neutral profession. Spiritual maybe, but not religious.

I think the best option while staying with the same theme is my other suggestion, Vanquisher. The word is often used in the way of ‘vanquishing evil’ or whatnot. Should work.

Another alternative if they really want to keep the hunter part is make it a more generic Fellhunter. Fell as in “a : fierce, cruel, terrible b : sinister, malevolent <a fell purpose> c : very destructive : deadly <a fell disease>”. In other words, a hunter of things malevolent.

Mo Mo.1947:

New spec name suggestion:

Ghostpunch Rangescreamer. Fits the spec just as well as Dragonhunter.

I fully endorse Ghostpunch Rangescreamer and find it fits the specialization theme far better than Dragonhunter. Bring on the Ghostpunches!

Also, this thread has become a jumbled mess. ;_;

Valkyrie is too female to fit an entire specialization. Can you image Braham Eirsson (or Braham Dragonhunter) being a valkyrie? Just doesn’t work. :p

You could shorten it up while still going for the same theme, something like Valkyr.

Alice.5360:

Jelle.2807:

Valmir.4590:

This name sucks as hard as the Dragonhunter and it means nothing.

‘Tempest’

That name is fantastic on so many levels. It’s a raging storm! There are firestorms, sandstorms, windstorms, lightning-storms, rainstorms! It’s so perfectly elemental!

Not implying it’s a bad name. I was countering the point that Arbiter means nothing and is not related to the specialization. Tempest doesn’t strictly describe an elementalist specialization either, but it’s still good.

Since I’m posting anyway, my favorites for guard spec are Arbiter, Vanquisher, Avenger, Vindicator. All fairly culture neutral and in line with the guardian theme.

Valmir.4590:

This name sucks as hard as the Dragonhunter and it means nothing.

“Tempest”

Erukk.1408:

Though, I reserve the right for everyone to complain if the necromancer gets the Ritualist spec outside of a Cantha expansion.

Highly unlikely, Revenant is already doing the channeling spirits of the dead thing.

Jaken.6801:

The so called dragonhunter, is nothing more than a guardian using his strenght and equipment to shoot armor piercing quick arrows. His focus is on a strong one hit impact.
In return he shoots slower.

Yes, he is like a balista, but it is something other classes do as well.

Huh, when you put it like that I can’t help but see the resemblance between the Guardian specialization and DS1’s Dragonslayers, knights who wielded massive greatbows capable of piercing dragonscale. Maybe that’s where they got their inspiration for the name.

(Dragonslayer would already be substantially better than Dragonhunter)

Mhm I must agree that names which are basically synonyms for Guardian, while having a slightly different flavor to them, aren’t ideal for a specialization that is supposed to sound distinct. Clearly the idea ANet is going with is a more of a holy warrior that seeks to purge evil, rather than protect people from evil. The demonhunter dragonhunter comparison is fair, but the name dragonhunter still sucks. xD

Here’s another name, what about Vanquisher.

I’m liking Avenger and Vindicator. Really feeling it with those names, especially in a more offensive themed version of the gurdian.

Rauderi.8706:

Is it sad that we feel the need to workshop this?
Yes.

Let’s do it.

In the very least, I hope to see something represented in game that defines the Dragonhunter in lore. It’d be easier to accept. Seeing as the Dragonhunter is about ranged support, I could see Logan being pansy enough for it.

Hah no, not Logan. Most likely Braham will find Eir’s bow, or at least be inspired by her to take up archery himself. Thus, guardian with bow.

Here my contribution:

Lighthunter
Seraphim
Herald
Inquisitor

I think most will agree with me that the name Dragonhunter kind of sucks. Let’s throw some ideas for a better name at ANet and hope they’ll consider changing it.

I hope Anet considers a story arc between the dragon campaigns revolving around the introduction of a new race at some point. Any story arc that involves the politics and interaction between the races would be nice as a change of pace between killing dragons.

That said there’s a lot going to happen in caledon soon, if the pale tree is truly fading as she claims. Might even get conquered by mordrem courrt. It could definately force the tengu to make a choice, though if that were to happen it seems more likely they’d stay safe behind their wall.

Either way, me I’d rather play a kodan than a tengu lol.

Indeed they should implement the bane as a pvp deathmatch map, anything other than the atrocity known as courtyard. Could be very good as dueling grounds.

Wanze.8410:

JackSpacer.4320:

A nice even playing field with no terrain to hide behind. A true test of one’s skill in combat!

Kiting in and out of line of sight plays a big part in combat, i dont know why you would want to render it useless.

Should it though? I agree that it has its place, but in many of the pvp maps it’s just excessive. Again, courtyard which looks like it was designed as a map for a freaking shooter.

Sounds like you’re opposed to the idea of a meta in general. I can sympathise with the sentiment. As far as I’m concerned, meta is for simple people who can’t think for themselves, and a sign of imbalance in a game.
Sadly, it has become intended design over the years.

Dante.1763:

dietzero.3514:

This. Not sure why people are saying Charr call humans mice. Something I am missing in the Charr story?

Also, if Mordremoth can attack the mother tree at the grove, he can attack anywhere.

If you listen to the NPCS around the world you will often hear them call Humans Mice. In Guild wars 1 EOTN they did as well if i remember correctly.

Seconded. Charr call humans mice. Probably a nod to how charr used to prey on and eat humans and them being felines and all.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Mostly hairless: check
Sharp teeth: check
Used to live underground (until flushed out): check

Naked Mole Rats that learned to stand up and wear clothes.

Thems a dredge right there. :P

Well I did get that info about asuran architecture from the wiki, and I suppose it might be incorrect. Though their older structures using the same assets may also well be laziness/an oversight.

The wastes ruins are heavily hinted, by npc dialogue, to have some relevance to the coming story. Make of that what you will.

Though I suspect arguing these things with you is fruitless.

Haven’t read all replies so sorry if been answered already.

The asura’s modern aboveground architecture is inspired by the ruins they found when they came to the surface. Most likely the ruins we’re seeing in silverwastes and such are from the same civilization.

I remember some lore tidbit that there used to be an ancient civilization west of the maguuma jungle, and the ruins we find, and the ones the asura found, are remnants of it. Might be from a civilization before the previous dragon rising, possibly mursaat given the HoT intro we’ve seen so far and the fact that rata sum is an anagram for mursaat. We’ll see soon enough I suspect.

Iris Ng.9845:

Very well done. She looks like an original character.

Donari.5237:

That one’s amazing. I think you got exactly what you intended. Wonderful dye choices as well. Bravo!

Thank you

I just made a necro, a human noble. I thought I’d dress him up real quick. I’m thinking of getting him a monocle, but those things are so pricy. :o

So far aurora chest and legs, t3 human gloves. Need to find a good set of boots!

A lot of people go to the forums to vent their frustration and provide feedback on things they think need improving.

Unless I’m missing a major announcement, the game has always been buy to play so nothing changed there I think?

Come the patch I will try out

Illusions: 3 6 9
Dueling: 2 5 9
Inspiration: 3 5 7

For a more tanky condi shatter build. Disenchanter is a bit too inconsistant, so I’m curious to see if shatter and torch skills can keep me condi free.