Guild Wars 2

Yeah, so far, both Elder Dragons are technically being fought throughout most of their story. They’re not just big enemies, but forces of nature. Unlike a human enemy, capturing their territory and destroying their army is directly weakening them.

Like the original poster, delivering that finishing blow in an airship fleet is the sort of thing I want to see with future fights.

I’d personally like to see Primordus and Jormag confronted at the same time, with a fire and ice theme. You could do a lot of cool things with that finale, anywhere from a fight about getting them to finish each other off, to some sort of split fight with a Kodan fleet using ice against Primordus while, I don’t know, we steal some crazy Flame Legion stuff to deal with Jormag.

I mean, I feel like Kralkatorrik should have some sort of closure for the Edge of Destiny story, and Jormag should have more closure for the Norn, but I’m just brainstorming.

The thing about Mordremoth is, we’ve been fighting him since the first season of Living Story. Scarlet was essentially his avatar from the beginning, and we worked hard to survive his awakening in season two. Season two ended with the typical second act ending of leaving the heroes at their darkest moment (the destruction of the Pact fleet). Heart of Thorns is the final act of the story that began with the seasons, where the heroes finally pick themselves back up and win.

Confronting Zhaitan with a massive airship army was an awesome climax, but I’m impressed with the different ways they’ve been confronted.

In hindsight, we were lucky. We didn’t know much about the Elder Dragons yet, but Zhaitan was a corpse. A corpse isn’t exactly resilient, making his body weaker than the others, especially Mordremoth, whose body is so large you’d practically have to glass the planet to beat him that way.

Likewise, while the mind was one of Mordremoth’s favorite weapons, just because you use poison doesn’t make you immune to it. Mordremoth is a force of nature. His mind is big. Really big. He can control all of the Mordrem and could control all of the Sylvari. The Pact lost less because of the reach of the vines, and more because of the betrayal they weren’t expecting. But while his mind may be big, being a force of nature means that Mordremoth’s mind is also relatively simple. It’s a good weapon, but it’s not good armor, especially since he leaves himself open through those he is attacking.

If we keep going down the line of Elder Dragons at this pace, I at least hope they remain clever with details like that, but I think part of that can easily be not having us go down the list like that.

It would be interesting if we had to reluctantly team up with Palawa Joko again to finish off Kralkatorrik, or we get down there only to find that Palawa Joko’s already taken care of it, and now he’s the bigger threat, with the Desolation as his equivalent to Orr or Maguuma.

To be fair, most races have been having cultural problems since launch, including humans. Sure, most things that are added to the game tend to fit humans and there have been the occasional references to the other cultures from Guild Wars 1, but it’s still pretty token. Humans are just one giant vague super culture now, which detracts from something GW1 did really well, and it doesn’t really make much sense (especially with how completely we’re cut off from Elona and Cantha).

The reason humans have so much though is because GW1 was entirely about various human cultures. Aside from the Charr (who started as “always chaotic evil” hordes), the rest of the races weren’t invented until the end, and the different races came at the cost of deep and varied cultures.

Asura and Norn got hit especially hard in GW2, because what did define them, golems and shapeshifting, were relegated to gimmicky racial skills.

I’d agree that Norn got hit the hardest though. They were introduced as these heroic giants. Each Norn could take on a whole army all on their own, and each was a legend. Their “army” was just a handful of people. Now Norn are treated as just another race that is no more powerful than anyone else (this makes sense for gameplay, but is a problem for lore characters).

Seeing Norn soldiers casually in various armies contributing little more than anyone else has completely destroyed one of their most defining aspects. And the Norn need distinct defining aspects more than the rest of the races, since they do just look like large humans on the surface.

The other major problem they face deals with customization. Most Norn I see run around with some combination of armor or character customization that fails to have the nordic/celtic aspects that make the Norn distinct from the GW human cultures. A lot of people also tend to play small Norn or large humans, so there’s almost no difference between the two, especially when you consider the armor and character designs most people go with.

A female Norn shouldn’t look like a beauty queen, and a male Norn shouldn’t look like some shaved marine. They should look like Valkyries and vikings. Not saying people shouldn’t play what they want to, but those two designs seem way more popular than the berserker look the race is supposed to have, which has completely diluted the Norn culture.

Every moment spent managing your inventory, even to toss stuff, is a moment you’re not playing the game. The fact that you can pay to somewhat offset this issue is mostly irrelevant. Inventory management is not fun for most people, so it drags the game down for them slowly but surely. It’s not generally overt, but it’s a battle of attrition. A better inventory is a better game.

Isn’t Sword the most directly damaging weapon? If it needs a buff, doesn’t that mean every other weapon needs one as well?

Illusion durability is still key as well. I don’t know why there can’t be a pet AoE resistance kinda thing for them like other MMOs do. There should be a way to counter a Mesmer’s strategies, but right now you can severely handicap a Mesmer without even trying thanks to how weak Illusions tend to be.

Also, I had a clone get rooted on their way to Shatter on a Modrem. That shouldn’t even be able to happen. It’s an Illusion. It’s not really there. It’s a visual representation of the stuff Mesmers did in GW1. I think Illusions need more durability based on that idea.

Making the basic attacks on weapons better still need to happen though. The very mechanic of Illusions means that there will be situations where, no matter how durable, they won’t replace a reliable weapon for basic gameplay (not saying Mesmers should have no weaknesses, but I think you know what I mean).

If I could be more bold with my Specialization, I’d do it more like this. The idea is a Mesmer who crafts Illusions inspired by their cards instead of based on themselves.

Specialization Mechanic: Cards
Instead of being able to summon up to three Illusions, you can summon up to a certain amount of illusionary Cards that are added to your “Hand”. You can visually see how many cards the Mesmer has in their Hand because they slowly orbit around the Mesmer.

All Illusion summoning skills now add a Card to your Hand instead.

Cards do nothing innately, but the F skills, new utility skills, and Traits would react to them.

Destroyed or Shattered Cards add to a Discard number (up to a limit). Cards in the Discard do nothing innately, but utility skills and Traits may reference them.

New Weapon: Card Deck
Unlike my previous version, this has nothing directly to do with the orbiting cards. It’s just a new weapon in the same theme as the Specialization, that could easily be given to other classes as well.

[Skill 1]: Sleight of Hand: Throws an illusory card from the top of the deck, exploding upon contact with a foe.
Topdeck: Throws a second card with the other hand, dealing damage.
Fan of Cards: Throws a fan of cards with both hands, dealing damage in a cone in front of the Mesmer.

[Skill 2]: Hall of Mirrors: Three larger cards appear in front of the Mesmer for a duration. A projectile that hits the Mesmer from the front is reflected and destroys one of the cards. A destroyed card deals damage to enemies in an area around the Mesmer.

[Skill 3]: Swirl of Cards: Release a swirl of cards from your deck, pulsing Confusion to nearby enemies and adding a Card to your Hand.

[Skill 4:] 52-Card Pickup: Scatters your deck around you. Allies that run over cards are slightly healed and granted random boons. Enemies that run over cards are slightly damaged and inflicted with random conditions. Whenever a card is picked up, it is added to your Hand.

[Skill 5]: Sleeping Vortex: Drop a floating card at the target location that projects a magic circle below it. An enemy that passes into the magic circle causes the magic circle to shatter, pulling all nearby enemies into the center of the trap and Crippling them.

Utility:

[Heal]: Shuffle: All Cards in your Discard are added back into your Hand (up to your Hand limit). You are healed for a base amount plus how many cards were in your Discard.

[Utility 1]: Razor Flush: Sends cards in all directions around you. Deals damage based on how many cards are in your Hand.

[Elite]: Deck of Nightmares: Your Hand begins to violently swirl around you. Enemies who touch the swirl are Feared. Damage and Torment are pulsed to nearby foes. Each pulse expends a Card from your Hand. This ability ends once you have no more Cards in your Hand.

Shatter:
[F1]: The Knight: Shatters a Card in your Hand to summon a Phantasmal Knight. The Knight charges forward and heavily damages and Cripples target foe before dissipating.

[F2]: The Magician: Shatters a Card in your Hand to summon a Phantasmal Magician. The Magician deals damage and applies Confusion in an area before dissipating.

[F3]: The Knave: Shatters a Card in your Hand to summon a Phantasmal Knave. The Knave counterattacks the next attack against you and then Stealths you before dissipating.

[F4]: The Healer: Shatters three Cards in your Hand to summon a Phantasmal Healer. The Healer grants Regeneration to nearby allies and rallies downed allies before dissipating.

[F5]: Death: Shatters five Cards in your Hand to summon a Phantasmal Reaper. The Reaper hovers over target foe, applying Torment upon summoning and pulsing Vulnerability over time before dissipating.

Extra Details:
The new Phantasms have unique appearances not tied to your character. For instance, the Reaper appears as a stereotypical depiction of Death, hovering over the enemy wielding a scythe. They still appear transparent and purple, however.

I’m not sure what to do with existing weapons that have abilities that only summon Phantasms. I’d say they add extra Cards to your Hand, but that may feel like a waste. I guess the Specialization could also reduce the cooldown of those abilities to help balance it out. Obviously, many existing Traits dealing with Illusions and Shatters would have to be tweaked when in this Specialization, but hopefully not majorly.

Also, I don’t mention too many numbers. I’m bad with that. So unless something’s really off, assume a longer cooldown or a number that makes it more balanced relative to the rest of the spec.

This is what I was worried about at first. Key Mesmer flaws being fixed for the Elite Specialization and leaving the base class in the dust. Luckily they showed us the Swiftness Signet first, and this should be fine.

After the skills, and now this, I’m definitely going Chronomancer. I’m afraid I’m not skilled enough to optimally use all the fancy time stuff, but the Specialization covers pretty much every issue I had with Mesmer, so I’m still going to be way better off playing it.

I had a hard enough time trying to flesh out my main idea, but I’ll bring up a couple of other themes I’d like to see used.

1) While I firmly believe that Main Hand Pistol should be baseline for the Mesmer, if there was a specialization with it, I’d call them “Duelist” and use a foppish noble dueling to keep their honor as the inspiration.

2) Another Mesmer Specialization I’d like to see is a stage magician. Playing off all the clichés like hiding things in hats, turning inanimate objects into birds, sawing people in half, making things appear to disappear, etc.

Note: Most of my uses of shatter are to describe the visual effect, not the shatter game mechanic.

Specialization: Duelist (I couldn’t think of anything better at the moment.)

Weapon: Tarot Deck (Not literally, but I thought that name would give a properly Mesmer feel.)
When in combat, the illusory cards emerge from the deck and form an orbiting circle around the Mesmer.

[Skill 1]: Sleight of Hand: Throws an illusory card from the top of the deck, shattering upon contact with a foe.
Topdeck: Throws a second card with the other hand, dealing damage.
Fan of Cards: Throws a fan of cards with both hands, dealing damage in a cone in front of the Mesmer.

[Skill 2]: Defensive Hand: Three of the orbiting cards stop in front of the Mesmer and become large for a duration. A projectile that hits the Mesmer from the front is reflected and shatters one of the cards. A shattering card deals damage to enemies in an area around the Mesmer.

[Skill 3:] Hall of Mirrors: Summons a large illusory card to float over the ground at the Mesmer’s current location. If an enemy passes through the card, it shatters, dealing damage to them and summoning a clone.
Card Break: Shatters the currently floating card, dealing damage to nearby enemies and summoning a clone.

[Skill 4]: Phantasmal Oracle: Summons a phantasm who reads your allies’ fates in the cards, granting evasion to allies when it attacks.

[Skill 5]: 52-Card Pickup: Scatters your deck at the target location. Allies that run over cards are slightly healed and granted random boons. Enemies that run over cards are slightly damaged and inflicted with random conditions.

Utility: Traps

[Heal]: Shuffle: Throws cards around your current position, leaving magic circles below them. Next time you are attacked, you teleport to one of the magic circles at random and are healed. Also turns a condition into a random boon.

[Utility 1]: Illusory Chains: Drop a small floating card at the target location that projects a magic circle below it. An enemy that passes into the magic circle causes the magic circle to shatter, Immobilizing them.

[Utility 2]: Reflecting Circle: Drop a small floating card at the target location that projects a magic circle below it. When an enemy walks onto the magic circle, the card is shattered and three clones spawn around them.

[Utility 3]: Swirl of Cards: Drop a small floating card at the target location that projects a magic circle below it. An enemy that passes into the magic circle causes the magic circle to shatter, releasing a swirl of cards that project confusing images, pulsing Confusion from the center of the trap.

[Utility 4]: Sleeping Vortex: Drop a small floating card at the target location that projects a magic circle below it. An enemy that passes into the magic circle causes the magic circle to shatter, pulling all nearby enemies into the center of the trap and Crippling them.

[Elite]: Deck of Nightmares: The Mesmer throws cards out that hover over the Mesmer and nearby allies. Each ally with a card pulses Torment to nearby foes, and any enemies that get close to the Mesmer are Feared for a short duration.

Shatter: Card Trick
Effect: Does the effect of one of the other Shatters (F1-F3, chosen randomly), before cards scatter at your location that resummon the illusions that were shattered.

Extra Details: I’m not sure how much Elite Specializations can change, but if I could change more, I’d actually do this Specialization a bit differently. I’d make it where all abilities that currently summon Illusions instead summon “cards” that orbit you like in my current description. In this version, the F skills would instead shatter one card at a time to summon things from them. Each F ability would then be more like choosing a different kind of Phantasm.

I was trying to combine several various card fighter clichés I’m fond of, but I’m not really versed enough in this game to be that daring with it. I wanted to do something more where the cards themselves mattered more, but I was torn by the fact that you could use other weapons, so I just tried to heavily theme everything instead.

I also want to point out that, Mesmer is not getting a “second health bar”. Chronomancer is. That’s important because if you nerfed these things across the board, the Mesmers who haven’t specialized in Chronomancer would be completely destroyed. Of course, we have no reason to believe that Elite Specializations lose anything, but it’s something to think about (and not necessarily because of this, but balance in general going forward).

Fay.2357:

Heh. You’re roughly 5 months too late for this one. That ship has sailed.

Is it though? I’m not saying anyone should get their hopes up, but I don’t think you should ever give up the fight. Especially since, it seems to me that a lot of things the forums have thought Arena.net have ignored over the years were just things they were waiting to put altogether for this expansion.

Finally, it’s good that Chronomancers didn’t get Main Hand Pistol. Remember, Specialization weapons are only for those Specializations. I firmly believe that Main Hand Pistols belong baseline for Mesmers. They didn’t seem like they wanted to add to the base professions this time around, but there’s definitely room for it for several of them, so it can definitely still happen.

I imagined Main Hand Pistol Mesmer as a sort of foppish duelist before, but the bullet time thing is a good point as well.

Like it or not, every class has a theme. Shield feels weird to me, but I at least get the clock thing. I think Rifle really would have been a stretch.

Main Hand Pistol is something that should be part of the base class. That’s the thing about Shield. It’s not a Mesmer thing, it’s a Chronomancer thing. Rifle could end up being a thing, but it needs a slightly different theme.

I just want to say that some overlap may be entirely intentional. If there are no hard choices, then there aren’t really options so much as there is “the right way.” That’s not to say mutually exclusive situations are innately fine though.

I’m a bit confused by Master of Fragmentation and Maim the Disillusioned being on the same tier. I have a ton of the shatter traits and Maim the Disillusioned on my Mesmer right now, and it still doesn’t feel like it really does anything to anyone most of the time. Now, there will obviously be some rebalancing, but it still seems weird to choose between “a bunch of buffs to shatter” and “just Torment to shatter.”

The other thing that baffles me is the Inspiration tree.

All of the Minor Traits deal with Phantasms. Persisting Images and Protected Phantasms are buffs to the Phantasms themselves, and Phantasmal Healing encourages you to keep them around.

However, one Adept Trait, two Master Traits, and one Grandmaster Trait deal with shattering illusions. Of course, you can choose not to take those, but if you do, you can’t choose to not take the Minor Traits. In other words, if you want those shatter Traits, you’ve essentially got some dead Minor Traits on your hands, don’t you?

I’m only looking at the summaries, so tell me if I’m missing something.

All of Inspiration’s Minor Traits are Phantasm buffs. You get all of those automatically right? But then the Traits you choose later in the Specialization… many of them involve shattering Illusions. But you don’t typically want to shatter Phantasms. Is that intentionally anti-synergistic, or am I missing something?

This is finally getting me excited. Specializations sounded intriguing before, but I only really play Mesmer and the impression we were getting of “Chronomancer” didn’t seem like something I would care too much about personally (obviously once there’s some real info on it I might love it, but without that it wasn’t drawing me in). This also answers my questions about what will happen with the original/base professions to keep them up to date.

In a reorganization like this, there are surely going to be some lost choices that will be a bit disappointing, but overall this is addressing many important overarching problems that I think will lead to a better system in the long run.

My absolute first impression of this map is that it doesn’t explain itself well enough. I had read about it before, but didn’t really remember much, and the summary it always pops up at the beginning didn’t do a lot to help. To a player new to the map, the icons mean nothing, so talking about the Barracks don’t help much, because I have no idea where these things are. The Supply is bad because I don’t even remember it having an icon, and when I went there during the Waiting for Players phase, I still didn’t notice anything right away.

So right off the bat, my two suggestions are:
1) Make the icons more evocative.
2) Give the Supply an icon, and put some lights near the Supply in-world or something.

Otherwise, my experience in the map was as miserable as usual. Gigantic skill gap meaning we couldn’t get near any objective without being swarmed by the entire enemy team who would destroy us in seconds.

If Thief gets Rifle, I hope it’s some sort of pirate. Someone who steals by raiding a place and looting everything instead of one who steals by stealth.

Does knowing that Christmas falls on December 25th every year kill the hype for it? If anything, a release date gives you a target to be hyped about instead of burning yourself out wondering and then forgetting about it.

Gaile Gray.6029:

leman, I feel sure you’ll find that the concern you’ve expressed has been and will continue to be a focus of the entire dev team during the process of development, testing, polish, beta testing, balance, more polish, and so forth. The last thing an expansion pack would be intended to do is to put one profession at the top of the pyramid, where all others are “inferior” in some sense.

I have every confidence that all the other professions will do just fine playing in with, and against, a Revenant.

I wouldn’t expect it to be intentional. I can’t speak for anyone else, but my concern isn’t even strictly power based. Just having a more modern class with more modern design sensibilities risks making the existing ones feel old and unfun in comparison, and the only confirmed changes to existing professions we have are through Specializations, which are supposed to be optional.

My question would be, are there any tweaks coming to existing professions aside from Specializations? Not even overhauls or anything, just quality of life issues. Will old things that the Revenant has similar aspects of get updated to match the Revenant (for instance, with projectile or camera behavior)? Will flaws (not trade-offs, but flaws) be addressed outside of Specializations?

For instance, Mesmers are infamous for having the least reliable movement speed in the game. Now, if the guesses are true, and the Mesmer Specialization is going to be Chronomancer, then I think it’s pretty safe to assume Chronomancer will have more movement speed options, but will that mean base Mesmer won’t be addressed as a result? Will the answer to movement speed problems just be “change to Chronomancer?” Movement speed is often crucial in this game, if for no other reason than just keeping up with the rest of your allies.

Normally I wouldn’t question this so much, but with the implication that Specializations will be the only place existing professions are really touched, it leaves a concern.

Eh, more like my theory got a bit mixed up there. To clarify (hopefully), we know we’re dealing with the Mursaat, and there are implications that it’s not an antagonistic relationship (at least openly). The Mursaat may have been villains in the past, but pretty much every evil they ever committed was for selfish reasons. They were one of the races that faced the Elder Dragons in the past, so wanting Mordremoth dead would fit their past characterization in a way that actually lines up with our motivations for once. So, I’m expecting some help from them against Mordremoth, and that might be the help we get.

However, the end of Season Two showed that Divine Fire works wonders against Mordremoth’s minions, and that binding force might be the only way to take down a dragon that already controls the land and clearly can’t be assaulted by air. While Divine Fire has so far been connected to abstract Ascension rituals, its description in Guild Wars 1 calls it a power of the six gods. Thus, I’m guessing getting Divine Fire from the gods themselves might be something we need in order to beat Mordremoth.

So those were kinda two theories crossing over each other. We know the Mursaat will be there, and they’ll make sense as situational allies, at least. However, the Divine Fire makes me wonder if we’ll get much more truly divine allies.

Just to throw one more theory out there, I think at least one god may have already returned (Disclaimer: This isn’t some solid belief based on any evidence, it’s just my favorite possible idea explaining oddities I have found elsewhere). As I fully explain in a recent thread about Queen Jennah, something is really suspicious about her and Countess Anise.

What if they were Lyssa?

This isn’t unprecedented. Lyssa lived in disguise among the humans before Arah was completed.

That’s not the only parallel. While in disguise, Lyssa brought them hope and helped them forget the past. Jennah is very popular among the people and her peace treaty is attempting to heal the past. For all we know, she may have even returned to give us hope as the Dragons awake around us.

Lyssa is actually two twins, goddesses of Illusions, and the patrons of Mesmers. Queen Jennah and Countess Anise are both extremely powerful Mesmers that have shown powers well beyond mortal Mesmers (imitating an Elder Dragon in Jennah’s case and disguising herself as a completely different race and potentially even hiding her age in Anise’s case). Jennah seems very illusory herself sometimes, which would make sense if they were a goddess that is both one and two people.

Lyssa is also the goddess of beauty. Jennah is very well known to be amazingly beautiful, but Countess Anise is apparently also a striking beauty. Lyssa is supposed to be so beautiful that men will die of thirst because they were too enraptured by her. Meanwhile, Logan has been completely enraptured by Jennah in a way that has gone beyond normal love. They have formed some special psychic bond that has not been replicated by any other couple or Mesmer that I know of.

That might sound crazy on its own, but something is definitely not right about either Countess Anise or Queen Jennah, and with all we’re seeing from Guild Wars’ past come back, I can’t imagine that they’re just going to leave the gods out of the story forever.

This is something that concerned me as well. Certainly, the Specializations will build on new ideas like the Revenant, but where does that leave the base classes? Specializations are supposed to be a trade-off, not an upgrade, so the base classes should be just as viable, but if they’re left out of new mechanics like this, many of them may become obsolete just as a side effect. Hopefully, things like this and Resistance dealing a huge blow to already weak Condition builds means there will be a pass on existing stuff.

Based on what the word Revenant means and the theme of their powers, it would seem weird if the Legends weren’t dead people, regardless of how the Mists work. I don’t think Jalis being dead means that the dwarves lost though. He could be the only one that died for all we know, doing something epic like breaking one of the Dragon’s teeth or something. ;P

It seems to me they haven’t figured out the remaining Legends or the exact number. Keep in mind, those trait lines currently match up to the given Legends, but they’re not named after them. I’d expect it’s more that certain lines are designed with certain Legends in mind, but there’s nothing stopping you from mixing and matching like any class, depending on what you’re trying to do. In other words, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some overlap like current professions have with their trait lines.

I don’t expect we’ll get too many, around five I’d guess, but that’s simply because of the comparison they made to healing and elite skill choices.

I just hope the remaining Legends feel a little more Legendary. This is a great chance to introduce new fans to some of the iconic heroes of Guild Wars’ past. Mallyx wasn’t even relevant to you if you played Guild Wars 1 if you weren’t hardcore (I had never heard of him until the PAX announcement), and he just looks like some beast. At the current rate, the Revenant won’t be the profession that channels old heroes to new players, it will be the profession that transforms into stone and shadowy beasts.

Rurik has to be there unless there’s a plot reason not to have him. Gwen was a popular character from the first game that would make a logical Legend. Shiro seems like a great choice as a memorable villain and someone who, lorewise and by the real world definition of the word, was a lot like a Revenant. Perhaps picking some legendary examples of each race would be a good idea too. Jora for Norn, Vekk for Asura. I personally would love to see Togo, but his last known state may or may not make that impossible.

What would be really cool is a Legend based off the Guild Wars 1 player character. It could use the Hall of Monuments to pick a name for players who have that, and just go for something based on our titles like “The Chosen” for people who don’t. Optimally, such a Legend would be different for each old profession, but that would be a lot of work and potentially cause you to prefer a version of the Legend that doesn’t match any past character. However, there is still one solution. The Legends change utility skills, not the weapon skills, so instead of making them profession based, the Legend could instead be based off of more universal feats we achieved. Things like Ascension, becoming Closer to the Stars, Lightbringer and Sunspear ranks, that were more tied to who we were in the story rather than our professions.

“ Countess Anise: Now that this messy affair is out of the way, I feel fairly certain that the Queen will attend your summit. “ – Party Politics

“ Kasmeer Meade: Oh, I don’t think the queen would be interested in—
Countess Anise: Nonsense. Now go. Say pretty things to my guests, and enjoy yourselves for the rest of the evening.” – Party Politics

“ Countess Anise: You must visit more often. The party wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun without you. The queen sends her gratitude as well. She can now attend your summit. I’ll be here as well, though…incognito. “ – Party Politics

“ Countess Anise: Well, let’s just say I’m confident we can convince the queen your value overrides your father’s misfortune.” – Party Politics

“ Kasmeer Meade: She relayed our invitation to the queen and, surprisingly, replied quickly. Queen Jennah will attend the summit!” – The Waypoint Conundrum

Countess Anise seems pretty confident in her ability to speak for the queen. Yes, they’re close, but Kasmeer (who surely knows that) still points out that the message was relayed surprisingly quickly.

Anise is seen without Jennah, but Jennah is never seen without Anise. Even in Caudecus’ Manor, which is a common counterpoint, Jennah explains that she’s distracted because her handmaiden is ill and resting in the manor, which Jennah is never seen too far from. If she isn’t talking about Anise, it would seem quite strange that the hyper-competent bodyguard who even foresaw Scarlet’s attack wasn’t at Jennah’s side while attending a party hosted at the home of a known rival, formally if nothing else.

You may be wondering how Anise would be creating illusions of someone else. Well, at the World Summit, Anise reveals that she can disguise herself as a completely different race, and Canach wonders at the possibility if even her normal appearance is an illusion. Also consider that it would be pretty coincidental for both Anise and Jennah to have powers well beyond the average Mesmer, unless it was actually just one legendary Mesmer concocting two identities to mask themselves.

Keep in mind, I’m not saying that there was never a Jennah, or that there definitely isn’t anymore (Anise could just be a Padme situation), but something fishy is definitely going on with the leadership of Divinity’s Reach. It’s all circumstantial, but even circumstantial evidence carries weight when there’s enough of it and it all points in the same direction.

To be honest, I can’t say I believe it’s all malicious. Jennah could do a lot of damage by deciding that the peace treaty was a bad idea after all, for instance, without raising suspicion. However, it could easily be a case of someone being dodgy and hiding evidence of their innocence to one crime, because it’s proof of guilt for something else.

For instance, I always thought Anise and Jennah’s railroading of Logan after Scarlet’s attack was a bit inappropriate considering the circumstances and their relations (and that was one of my earliest story experiences). It makes a lot more sense, however, if you consider it from another perspective. What if Anise didn’t expect an attack, and Scarlet did kill the “real” Jennah, and that’s why they didn’t let the queen’s personal champion in on any of it? Then, to quickly cover up the truth of the queen, Anise quickly summons another Jennah and pretends it was her plan the whole time, having Jennah back her up to quickly deflect any questions.

Because, if we take Anise’s word at face value, then Jennah was okay that, if an attack never came, an illusion would do her entire Closing Ceremony. And if that was true, why have the real her there at all and at risk? In that case, it would make a lot more sense to have Anise with the fake Jennah at the ceremony, to keep up appearances and not arouse suspicion, while the real Jennah is in a secret location guarded by Logan (who, if anyone asks, if off on Seraph business).

That’s not the only place the leadership of Divinity’s Reach is suspect. The conspiracy in Party Politics was in no way resolved. Anise’s defense during Party Politics is paper thin. Witnesses claim to have seen her, Jennah, and Scarlet conspiring. The whole point of the story was to disprove this, but you “resolve” this with only a claim of evidence and it involves a major conflict of interest. When you confront Anise about it, she instantly dismisses it.

“ Kasmeer Meade: Countess, Minister Estelle is claiming that you were there, at the secret meeting. She’s implicating you.
Countess Anise: Nonsense. I was at no such meeting. I did, however, receive a mysterious message signed only with the initial E.
Countess Anise: The note said that Estelle was in a bandit gambling parlor when she was supposedly spying on our queen.
Countess Anise: Reminding her of this will be enough to make her drop her lie faster than Faren’s dignity.” – Party Politics

However, there is no more to prove that she’s telling the truth over anyone else. As is pointed out by the player, you don’t actually have that note, instead, Kasmeer aims for a bluff. This bluff “resolves” the issue, but if you pay attention, it actually does no such thing.

“ Kasmeer Meade: So much for subtlety. You were busy gambling with some ruffians.
Minister Estelle: Keep your voice down! That’s a baseless accusation!
Countess Anise: Is that so, Minister Estelle? Perhaps you and I should speak privately and sort this little mess out. Please follow my guards. I’ll be with you shortly.” – Party Politics

Anise never actually gives you the chance to bluff. Estelle understandably denies the association for the sake of reputation, but before anyone gets to mention evidence of it to gauge her reaction, Anise conveniently shows up to arrest her and take her away. In other words, a suspect who accused a witness of being another suspect, arrests the witness on nothing but her own word of evidence she never provides. That’s either a horrible misunderstanding of justice, or Anise has something to hide.

Keep in mind, you had to do this because Jennah wasn’t going to be allowed at the summit due to the suspicion, and a concern that it would lead to the gathering being attacked. Well guess what, you clear Jennah and the World Summit is attacked. That doesn’t prove it was her, but Trahearne still suspects an inside job, and we have yet to discover who that was.

Let’s get some more Anise quotes in here:

“ Countess Anise: Noble intentions don’t interest me. What I need is a sharp instrument. A knife that can be employed before anyone realizes it’s struck.” – The World Summit

“ Countess Anise: I want you to learn what you can about the Pact’s plans. Follow them to their staging area.
Countess Anise: I need someone there I know can get the job done, and I believe you may be that someone.” – The World Summit

Those don’t sound like the words of someone secretly watching the Pact’s back. That sounds like someone ready to stab them in the back.

You might be wondering why I keep quoting Countess Anise. Well, it’s because she certainly seems to be the one actually pulling the strings in Divinity’s Reach, to the point where I question if the Jennah we’ve interacted with is real at all.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

And to complete what Dadnir said: Specialisations will change the class mechanics and the way a class feels completely. Something along those lines was stated by ANet and it made me think: The warrior’s specialisation might actually be able to use magic. I know that most of us would like to see the warrior remain true to his non-magical style, but it is a possibility.

Yeah. Specializations are altering the class in some way, not simply improving it, and Druid shows that they can slightly retheme a class as well.

Now, I wouldn’t expect Warrior to get overly magical, as Guardian is already kind of the magical warrior, but even if the Specialization adds a basic weapon, it will be because of a new theme, not simply because it’s a weapon not currently accessible to the existing Warrior theme.

Well, since this means Dervish is unlikely as its own class, I hope this means Dervish becomes a Revenant Specialization that allows them to channel the gods instead of legends and rethemes their attacks to be more whirling.

Yeah, it’s a new CC. The thing to remember is not that GW2 ignores the trinity, or that we’re all DPS, it’s that the trinity is an artificial enforcement of something that is much more fluid realistically, and GW2’s goal is to play it that way.

And it’s not just real life. Before MMOs, did you read any fiction where a warrior could literally force a target to attack him over his party with just a nonmagical word? And he had to because he could take a dragon stepping on him, but the rest of his party would go down if the monsters so much as looked at them funny?

Yes, there are people who can take more hits than other people, and there are people who focus on keeping their allies healthy, but those aren’t hard and fast roles within a system that pretty much has to be run that way or fail. In a real war, there are armored units and medics, but nothing magically forces people to attack the armored units exclusively, and if they managed to ignore them they wouldn’t instantly win.

GW2 isn’t saying that you can’t take more hits or assist your allies. GW2 is about a situation where you’re all in the fight together, and you have to approach each enemy tactically, not with some etiquette that the dragon will only attack the only guy who can take it.

I really hope the Revenant gets access to more… iconic? Legends. I’m really not sure why they picked Jalis, though maybe it’s foreshadowing for something (he had a key role, but I’m assuming there won’t be too many legends to choose from, and there are a lot more memorable characters). And I can’t help but feel Mallyx was chosen as a shout out to hardcore GW1 players over anything else. I had never heard of him before PAX because I wasn’t a hardcore GW1 player, and he’s just a monster in design. Which isn’t to say he’s not iconic, but by iconic I mean iconic to the story, not iconic to the players.

I get the idea of the Revenant pulling from heroes and villains, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been more iconic to the story. In my opinion, the legends should be characters like Rurik, Mhenlo, Togo, Koss, Melonni, Khilbron, Shiro, Morgahn, etc. The main heroes and villains. Obviously, some of those might have reasons to not be a part of the class (Togo being in Tahnnakai Temple for instance), but if the rest of the legends aren’t pulled from a list like that, I’ll be extremely disappointed.

It was probably a really bad idea to call this Taunt. Provoke, at the very least, would have incited less direct comparisons. Speaking of, maybe calling this Incite would have been better.

I appreciate the thought of using a word for its literal definition than for its industry expectation, but it may not have been the best idea. Based on the description, this is a positioning ability, not an aggro ability, and positioning is something that perfectly fits Guild Wars 2’s current combat system.

Palador.2170:

It seemed clear to me. Basically, the conditions continue to run, but Resistance negates the effects while it’s up.

This is mostly unambiguous, I’ll admit:
“Conditions currently on you have no effect; stacks duration.”

It’s just that the description works in either instance, and being able to just ignore Conditions will pretty much obsolete the already flawed system unless a Condition overhaul is in the cards, so I wanted to be absolutely clear.

Okay, thanks. I’m used to Status Effect being used to describe things like Poison in other games, so it seemed really weird to differentiate that from Condition in the blog. I get it now though.

VodCom.6924:

You already have the response for these two questions in the blog post :

While resistance is up, you ignore all effects of all conditions applied on you. This includes damage AND forced movement.

Taunt, is the exact opposite of fear with two tweaks :

• you are forced to run towards your opponent instead of running away
• you can still use your auto-attacks whereas you couldn’t with fear. Stun breaks work the same.

Sorry, my wording was bad on the Resistance question. What I’m wondering is whether Resistance will put Conditions on hold, or simply make you immune to them, it’s really hard to tell from the wording. It says a Fear would resume when Resistance comes off, but that could mean whatever’s left of a Fear resumes, or it could mean the Fear was actually on hold during the Resistance. Immunity seems more likely, but that will be a huge blow to already problematic Condition weaknesses.

As for Taunt, I get how it works, but it calls Resistance a Boon and Slow a Condition, while calling Taunt a Status Effect. I thought Fear was a Condition. Are Status Effects something new, or just something I didn’t know had a name? It just seems weird to me that Fear is a Condition and Taunt isn’t.

I don’t have a lot to say about the class itself. I really need to play it myself to get a feel for it. Talking about so many new things at a time makes it really hard to gauge.

The new effects, on the other hand…

Resistance: Does this temporarily suspend conditions, or just ignore the damage while Resistance is up? If it’s the latter, this better be a hint that the Condition system is going to be overhauled, otherwise conditions are going to become pretty much obsolete.

Slow: I get this, an inverse Quickness. There’s a Specialization I’m sure everyone expects will get this. I’m a bit concerned though. Debuffs like this in games are rarely fun to be on the receiving end of. In PvP, it’s already hard enough to get certain abilities off before getting downed.

Taunt: What does Status Effect mean? If this is just temporary, like Fear, then this will be great in PvE. This game doesn’t need a tank, but sometimes positioning enemies is still necessary, but there’s no real mechanic for it yet. If that’s how it is, they probably should have called it something else, like Provoke at least, to avoid comparisons to the trinity. What worries me about this is PvP. It’s nice to see a Taunt given PvP applications, but it’s never fun to lose control of your character. Fear is already in the game, but that causes your character to do something that’s, on some level, smart (run from the enemy). Also, just because it’s already in the game doesn’t make it okay to proliferate it all over the place. That’s the biggest danger of such effects.

I don’t know if the human gods will return, but I feel like we might have to go find out where they are. Mordremoth destroyed the Pact fleet like it was an annoying fly. There’s no way a ground attack would be any more successful. The Living Story has shown us one other possibility: Divine Fire.

Now, I’m not aware of a direct connection between the gods and Divine Fire, but it was described as such in Guild Wars 1. Combined with a few other old plots, such as the bloodstone in Maguuma, lead me to believe that the gods aren’t just gone from the story for no reason. The Mursaat are being played up, and they’ve face the Elder Dragons before, but Ascension was used against them before as well. If we’re going to fight more Mordrem like we did his Champion, we’re going to need a source.

Mushroomz.4280:

The Apostate was indeed a Margonite, but why would he know about the all or the eternal alchemy? I’m curious if this is another hint pointing at Abaddon’s actions had something to do with the immanent rising of the dragons. It’s always been thought the gods had no relationship to the dragons, and it’s possible they didn’t immediately, but I just don’t see how with evidence… like GLINT, how they couldn’t have known.

I’d be surprised if the disappearance of the gods wasn’t tied to the Elder Dragons in some way. With the way things have been going, we might need to find out what happened to them in order to get their help.

They aren’t Dragons themselves, but, between his sphere of influence and his war with the gods over sealing magic away, is it possible that Abaddon was a Dragon Champion? He supposedly wasn’t the first god in his role, so usurping that could have been the first attempt in subverting the new rule of the gods. It would explain how he would have such information to give to his servants. Those servants, the Margonites, are a sort of branded human that once lived in the area the Deep Sea Dragon is popularly believed to be resting. The Searing, the Cataclysm, and the Jade Wind all left those areas ripe for nearby dragons (Kralkatorrik, Zhaitan, and potentially the Deep-Sea Dragon respectively). He orchestrated the release of the Titans, who devastated the Mursaat, neighbors to Mordremoth and ancient enemies of the Elder Dragons. Side effects of those events also left the dwarves weakened against Primordus and potentially gave Jormag more allies. (I missed most of the not-strictly-campaign-story lore in GW1 so forgive me if I’m missing something important.)

Last thing, it says it’s probably a metaphor at the end of the book, a metaphor… for what? Is it simply the obvious?

It just means that the world wouldn’t literally tilt and dump everyone off of it.

Personally, I’m a fan of the idea that defeating each Elder Dragon simply causes the remaining ones to absorb that power, meaning that it wouldn’t literally be impossible to kill them all, but it would essentially become that way. To me, that’s more interesting than simply making that power immutable, because it leaves the Dragons technically defeatable while still creating a logically growing threat that can’t be dealt with the same way every time. It also still sort of fits the metaphor, as tipping the scale off balance into one Dragon would result in such a power that it might as well throw everyone into the void.

Some of the comments in this thread about the egg and Tequatl do make a good argument that the power just re-manifests in a new Dragon (or equivalent). I don’t like this idea as much personally, but it’s not too bad. Trying to find alternatives like Glint is not a bad little plot that can be taken it different ways each time. This one does have a harder time fitting into that All explanation though, since the power can’t really be thrown off balance if it just immediately looks for a new host, but an explanation for that can certainly be given.

Considering gravity is already a built-in timer for a glider, I don’t see the need for an endurance bar.

It’s impossible to say yet since Druid is the only one officially announced, but I’d certainly bet that the Specializations will all be themed to something currently relevant to the story, even if it isn’t Maguuma Jungle specifically. Also note that the popular Mesmer guess, Chronomancer, was originally going to be a profession in a GW1 campaign set in the same part of the world, so a lore connection is more than likely.

It makes sense if you think about it. The GW2 classes are all a lot more archetypal than their equivalents in GW1. If Specializations are themed, then it will be a great way to give us something that really makes us feel immersed in the current expansion’s region without having to justify whole new classes every time like in GW1.

Electro.4173:

Plus, I just don’t think it would really fit the description they’ve given of specializations, where they say its like a secondary class / sub class. If you entirely change something as huge as the profession mechanic, then its more like a completely new class altogether, not a secondary.

Actually, like I said, the first thing they said was that “most importantly” Druid will give Ranger “new profession mechanics” that “fundamentally change the way that Ranger plays”.

But the base mechanics of each profession, Necromancer gaining and using Life Force, Rangers using pets, Mesmers using illusions, Elementalist attunements… I really don’t forsee them going anywhere.

The thing is, many classes seem to have two different mechanics. Mesmers have Illusions and Shatter. Thieves have Steal and Initiative. One of these could easily be changed without touching the other, and it may not even have to be the equivalent between classes.

In the case of Mesmers, I bet that either we’ll either get different shatters, or be able to do something else with our clones. Literally every weapon can summon illusions, so those aren’t going anywhere.

That’s actually the exact reason why I think it’s possible. Mesmers are worried that they’re just getting two new skills since their new weapon appears to be Shield. If Illusions are replaced, then every weapon would at least have some tweaks, so the Specialization wouldn’t just be “Mesmer with two extra abilities.”

With that knowledge, that is not the way to go about improving character progression.

That’s because they’re not progression, at least not in the typical sense. The new progression is the Mastery system. Specializations are a trade-off, a “side-grade”, as it were. They’re like a more drastic version of having a different build. It’s still vague on how much they are a trade-off from the base class (especially compared to potential future Specializations), but they’re not intended as a strict upgrade.

I just want to state that, my speculations might accidentally get someone else’s hopes up, but I’m not hyping myself. Specializations sound cool, but I pretty much only play Mesmer, and while Chronomancer sounds like a neat idea, it doesn’t sound like what I want out of Mesmer anyway, so big or small, I can’t oversell this to myself. What I’m enjoying is the speculation.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Not sure why more towards the map story is a bad thing per say.

The concern has nothing to do with the story, but about variety and gameplay. It’s not that Orr sucked because the undead area was filled with nothing but undead. Orr sucked because fighting nothing but the same obnoxious undead enemies just isn’t fun. The logic of the story doesn’t matter if no one’s enjoying themselves. Which isn’t to say that the logic should be thrown out either. You can make the variety logical, but the variety does need to be there.

I’m not sure we need to be that concerned, as I feel the newer areas have done a better job at being engaging and feeling more fair than Orr, but it’s something that does make me a bit nervous. The Modrem have access to some pretty annoying mechanics that would be frustrating to deal with on a wide, saturated scale.

I’m a little concerned that the challenging content might go overboard in a misguided attempt to appeal to a vocal minority, but overall the new features sound great to me. My biggest worry is that quality of life won’t get much attention.

Guild Wars 2 is a great game that’s had some really brilliant iteration over the years, but that iteration hasn’t always been thorough. There are a ton of inconsistencies and leftover confusions that may not seem like much on their own, but really add up, and it really hurts the appeal of the game to new players. A lot of ones I was even taking for granted are being brought to my attention now that I got a couple of new people into the game.

Honestly, I think I would be happy with an expansion that did nothing but clean those things up (I mentioned several on a separate thread I posted not long ago, but that was before I started playing with new people). Few things bother me about a game as it ages than all the little loose ends, and they really are a detriment to bringing new players in, which is necessary for a healthy, long-lasting game.

Mo Mo.1947:

I wasn’t even aware the Desert Rose was available in any capacity for months. Why is there a sudden complaint about this among many discontinued items?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me it’s because I don’t play often and use the wiki when I want to quickly look up something I don’t recognize, and I see nothing on the wiki saying it’s no longer available. I’ve found the wiki to usually be an efficient resource for this kind of thing. It certainly was in Guild Wars 1. I even used Google when I started getting suspicious, and I couldn’t find anyone saying it stopped dropping there either. It made sense that you won’t be able to purchase it from vendors that require a currency that is no longer obtainable, less obvious that it’s no longer an extremely rare drop from an activity that is still in the game (especially considering all of the season one rewards now on the laurel vendor).

I’ve seen the Fervid Censer on several vendors, but I got that one when it was new. I haven’t seen the Desert Rose anywhere but the Trading Post, and it’s disappearing there as well.

Edit: It is apparently on vendors that use the old currency, but that’s only for people who were playing back then and might still have some of that currency laying around.

Well that’s a shame. Did I miss something on the wiki, or has it just not been updated?

Is the Desert Rose skin no longer dropping in the game? I could find nothing to suggest it has been completely removed (just some of the more event-specific paths of obtaining it). However, I am well on my way to completing all of the Southsun Survival achievements and have not seen it, and when I check the trends on the Trading Post, the supply has dropped considerably and is going slowly but surely down. I understand that it’s supposed to be rare, but the Trading Post statistics especially makes me question if it’s gone beyond that.

I think something like a story instance would be best. The Elder Dragons shouldn’t feel like normal, commonly respawning bosses.

I don’t understand the complaints about Zhaitan though. Do you really expect that personally slashing a creature the size of a mountain would accomplish anything? Keep in mind, Zhaitan was scaled down from canon for performance issues. Kralkatorrik spanned a Guild Wars 1 zone. These things could squash an army without even noticing they were there. Confronting one of these things with a fleet of airships is one of the only things I can imagine actually working. The problem with Zhaitan wasn’t that we blew a colossal creature away with anti-dragon-powered siege weapons, it was other pacing and context issues.

Their abilities look ghostly, misty, and gray, but based on the profession art on the website, which is done in the style of the other color-coded profession artworks, I’m going to go with Red.

Dante.1763:

Inepts skills: ALL Racial elite skills, and if i remember right, almost every single Racial regular skill is bad too.

Honestly, I want them to remove Racial skills and find a better way to implement that idea. Having racial abilities be too useful leads the playerbase into choosing a race for the mechanics, not the race itself, which I think Arena.net wanted to avoid, and intentionally made the skills a bit weak because of that. That just makes them pointless though, and it means that a lot of the racial flavor is just missing, particularly for Asura and Norn.

Maybe Specializations is the answer? A Golemancer Specialization for Engineer and a Spirit Shaman Specialization for… Ranger? Warrior? It’s just a huge shame, because most of the time I can’t even tell my human and norn companions apart because there’s nothing racially distinct about norn in gameplay and most players seem to try to avoid customizing them as huge viking warriors for some reason.

A pass on all of the skills would be nice though, not just racial skills. Because, yeah, there are several classes where the choices are barely even a trap. Even a really casual player who doesn’t do any ability comparisons could tell that some just aren’t worth it over others.

Geneaux.9547:

Jesus, we don’t need new weapons. That just adds more work and awards little, like the whole new race thing. We need more weapon versatility and usage amongst classes. Hence, specializations. Its the reason why many GW1 die-hards refuse to continue GW2 but have taken interest in HoT as of late. They love horizontal progression.

They add plenty. More variety. More flavor. Something new to try out. And it may not be progression, but it’s horizontal. There’s never “too many races” for me in any game (well, unless it just doesn’t make sense, like a real world modern day game wanting anything other than human), for instance, because I care about the idea, not the mechanics, and races are similar enough in this game to not run out of mechanical ideas. Development time wise it’s also smart, because it’s something truly new that can attract new blood to keep a game alive in the way that something like Maguuma won’t, because while it may be awesome, those players won’t have the frame of reference to be able to appreciate it yet.

Personally, I think Thief + Rifle = Corsair

It would still keep Steal (or rename it to Pillage ;P), but would replace Initiative and the Trickery Trait line. They would still be thieving criminals, but they would be more direct about it. It would be a tougher, less stealthy version of the class that’s about raiding the enemy for their loot with their buddies instead of sneaking in to take it without anyone knowing. After the destruction of Lion’s Arch, more pirates will be out in the world again instead of settled down, too, so there would be opportunities to have this Specialization taught.