Guild Wars 2

Altie.4571:

They aren’t gear gated because you can attempt it and possibly beat it without X gear.

She said SHOULD, not MUST. Reading is essential.

Yeah sure, it is like:

You should not kill people.

I kill people.

I get arrested and tell them you said should not must.

Playing semantics will not help, the raids are designed around ascended gear and I am fairly sure that the raid mastery will push ascended gear way further away from exotic as we see it now.

We will see on the weekend…

So the raids are :

1. Gear gated
2. Mastery gated
3. Skill gated

Thank god ANet decided to make them easier to access as you do not need any attunements…

lol

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

SkiTz.4590:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

SkiTz.4590:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

SkiTz.4590:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

lordkrall.7241:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I think too many people forget this. Probably because many play the game 40+ hours a week like it is a job.

sigh

So, why not give everyone everything for just simply logging in then?
It is not a job after all, thus everyone should just get everything from the start, right?

Yes Krall, lets give everyone everything and completely negate the entire reason to play what so ever. /sarcasm

Seriously, no one asked for, or even implied, that. Quit shoving words in other people’s mouths because you can’t comprehend the basic point being made.

This is exactly what people are asking for/ They want raids to be doable immediately upon hitting level 80 and getting exotic gear. This takes less than 30 hours of playing the game to get to this point.

Do you honestly think someone who just bought the game 2 weeks ago should be able to complete raids? Because the only thing that separates someone who bought the game 2 weeks ago from someone who bought the game 3 years ago is ascended gear, a solid guild, and experience.

It has already been established that the people in this thread think casual players should be able to beat raids, so there goes the experience part. It has already been said they should be able to pug them, so there goes the solid guild, and now people want it to be done in exotic gear.

So yes that is exactly what they are asking for, and it is absurd.

No one is asking to make it easier which is what both you and Krall are implying. Content can be done in a challenging way without requiring an additional tier of gear.

If they have the skill set, why the kitten does it matter when they started playing? Why does it bother you that joe schmoe picked up the game 2 weeks ago can raid because he’s just “good.” This kitten should have nothing to do with whether or not you have GEAR, rather whether or not you have SKILL.

SKILL > TIME!!!!

Ugh talk about lack of creativity.

“How do we make it harder George?”
“Uh… give the boss some one shot hits, up his HP, up his defense, and give them a new tier of gear to chase to compensate a tiny bit”

Please people. This kitten is WoW (and every clone since) all over again.

Lemme know when they add another tier above Ascended, than I can believe the bolded statement.

Until than, you are ridiculously overreacting.

Anet CLEARLY stated raids were going to be the endgame ppl were asking about. They said it a while ago in the HoT reveal that this was content made specifically for ENDGAME CHARACTERs.

Not for anyone to create a character and a week later, poof, they can now accomplish everything.

Its an MMORPG. There is grind in every MMORPG.

Deal with it or leave.

The only ppl whining about this are the ones that are hellbent on making sure they don’t have to do ANYTHING to get access to 100% of the content anet decides to create.

News flash, 90% of the things anet has added in this game for the past 3 years required little to no effort to do, to progress, etc etc.

You gonna seriously think they are gonna start making it where everything they add is going to require a grind now??? get kittening real.

You open world pve lovers are getting plenty in HoT.. anet is at least trying to give EVERY type of player what they want…. whether they be casual, hardcore, PvPers , WvWs, etc etc

Stop your bs whining and demanding anet create 100% content that you can access immediately.

They have, to a limited extent, told us that there won’t be a tier above ascended. So long as they hold to that stance and don’t change it, as they have their other views over the past 3 years.

However, the point is that the top tier of gear was exotic. Ascended came after, and we were told time and again that it wasn’t necessary for anything except fractals. Now, lo and behold, it looks like it might be required for raiding as well. So much for those assurances that it wasn’t necessary for anything except fractals.

Yes raids are one end game, but they could be that without the ascended requirement. Because now that supposedly optional gear is again being forced in our faces. So much for being optional right? How long before they simply balance the expansions as a whole around ascended armor? Still optional right?

I don’t mind grind. I’m well aware that it’s a necessary component of any MMO. That’s not the point here.

Oh, and just so you know. I HAVE ASCENDED GEAR. Technically speaking, I could be right there in line with the rest of you when the wings open. So assume some more.

Since when did raids becoming REQUIRED or FORCED onto every single player?

The entire kittening content known as RAIDS ARE OPTIONAL, THUS ASCENDED IS OPTIONAL.

Its not designed FOR 100% of the players to have IMMEDIATE ACCESS to.
There’s nothing WRONG with making content for players who have grinded and played a long time.

Anet took the stance of “if you wanna play and complete raids, you have to wear this tier of gear” Anet is allowed to make restrictions if they are waranted… which they perfectly as seeing how this is THEIR VISION OF ENDGAME….

They are only actually optional depending on how much story is actually tied to them, and how much that story matters to the greater scheme of things.

I did not state that raids are required. I did state that by them requiring ascended gear, the supposedly “optional” gear is again being forced into our faces. There is a difference.

As for ‘thier vision of endgame’ puhleeeeez. They are giving us raids because the traditional mmo base whined incessantly. They have given us a bit of their own spin on it, but even that is quite close to the standard raid set up (gear requirement, weekly lock outs, grindy prepare to play).

no way!??! anet is making a business decision to create content to attract NEW TYPES OF CUSTOMERS to the game?!!? WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT!?!?!?

Except that’s not what the game was billed as. There are numerous games out there for those types of players. Anet billed GW2 as something new, something different. Instead, they are simply turning it into another clone. One component at a time.

Unfortunately, GW2 will likely run into the same issue as all those other games. Those people that whined that wanted these things still won’t be happy because GW2 is not whatever ‘x’ other game they desire, and they’ll end up leaving anyway. We’ve seen it time and again with the other clones out there. I’m not sure if that just kittenes me off or makes me depressed, because I do love this game.

Weclome to the Metrix ™!

This is another of these steps from ANet. Let’s see what the next shiny thing will be they promote and then forget about…

Hey, as long as I get a full set of ascended armor and weapons of my choice while playing through the new open world story line, I am ok with that.

Unfortunately, I do not even know what stat will fit best for my druid, so we will have to wait and see…

lordkrall.7241:

Raids is a single VERY minor part of the game. The vast majority of the content will still be fully possible to do for everyone.

Fair? So someone that plays for 10 minutes a day should have the exact same things as someone that plays 10 hours a day? Why should anyone bother playing any more than 10 minutes a day if everything could just be done and accessed with that time?

I love this thread. I REALLY do.

It reminds me of the early days of WoW. The elitism, the entitlement, all is back.

I love how this tweet gave the Manifesto the last final blow, here we go, sorry 99%, you are too casual for this content.

If you did not grind your back off, or you are a newer player, god forbid you rolled a new character or own the wrong armor stats, you are too casual.

This thread shows the rapid decline of the forums and this will happen in the community ingame too with raids being the new shiny thing.

I hope I have enough popcorn for all the drama – well played ANet.

Look, for the first time since the druid spec has been announced, I am torn on which other two traitlines I am going to choose.

Marksmanship is just so overpowered in PvE that is looks like an obvious choice.
Since the WHaO change I am actually considering going with Nature Magic instead.

For the first time, I feel like I have a choice, any change to WHaO will ruin that. At least I won’t have to worry then which way to go.

Will it get nerfed for the sake of PvP, probably. Is a nerf necessary in PvE, probably not.

Zaeglamesh.6187:

I wanted to thank you for this guide, I found it very helpful, and whenever someone of Reddit wants to know what to do when leveling a Mesmer, I suggest they read this. I also wanted to ask, any plans to make a write up other classes?

Glad I could help. I have no plans on writing any other leveling guides (been asked this quite often) as all other professions I’ve leveled were pretty straight forward.
Mesmers are a bit hard to understand early on and just smashing your weapon skills is not very efficient, that is why I thought helping new ones would be beneficial.

skcamow.3527:

This should honestly be stickied …

I updated my guide especially for our new mesmers with the expansion around the corner and now F2P and maybe I have helped one or two (well I did as I got some tells ^^). No idea if the guide is to niche but I never expected it to be stickied.
As long as I bump it from time to time or someone points an asking newbie towards the guide (as I am no longer that active on the forum), it should work out this way too.

Still got to update those boosters, but the new ones are fairly simple, so people might figure them out by themselves.

Bryzy.2719:

I don’t need to argue anymore. We have a spec that can be a healer, most of us have what we want: http://strawpoll.me/5609519/r , QQers will have to wait their turn for the next Espec.

56 votes by now, this looks totally valid.

Wow, best joke in strawpoll history ever.

But there is a grain of truth in there, ANet loves the Metrix™. Maybe the Metrix™ told ANet that raids need dedicated healers and that it did not know what else to do with the broken ranger.

Now ranger is still as broken as before and has one more thing to offer that is niche before the expansion goes live. Great, looks like everything is fixed.

Healing Is Overrated

Bryzy.2719:

Good job the Druid traitline isn’t designed for old world content then

Sorry, but this view is extremly naive.

Let’s analyze the situation with a case study:

Case 1: A main healer is needed.

Case 2: Content is easier with a main healer.

Let’s go with Case 1:

If a mainhealer is needed for any PvE content, the ranger/druid might have a chance to be involved. Unfortunately, ANet pointed out that the philosophy is “Bring the player, not the class!” and therefore we have to accept, that other professions will bring enough healing to keep the raid alive.

What does the ranger/druid offer:

Healing, minor condi cleanse, spotter, frost spirit.

What does the other possible healing classes offer:

Mesmer/chronomancer: Healing, boon sharing, alacrity, double time-warp, reflects.
Guardian/dragon hunter: Healing, aegis, all kinds of usefull boons, reflects
Elementalist/tempest: Well you get the picture
Revenant/herald: I won’t even start

So ranger/druid will be sub-par in any healing scenario, unless you want to be proud of super over-healing, because the profession simply doesn’t offer much useful stuff.

Now Case 2:

If healing is sort of optional, raids will be a learn2play issue and the druid will be the worst of all new specializations and worse than any vanilla profession. It will be useless beyond help.

Do you get the picture, this is why rangers should be worried.

zinkz.7045:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

zinkz.7045:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

zinkz.7045:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

The only place that druid might be usefull is raids and possibly only for a short amount of time.

You might not play PvP or WvW, but others do.

Read title, rethink your post.

I edited my post.

So your excuse it that old stuff has been bad so it is ok that the new stuff is bad too?

You are one that thinks its bad, not me, as long as is of use in PvP, WvW and new PvE content that is all that matters, no point in trying to cater to the broken failed PvE of the “old world”.

For what we know from the beta weekends before, the new open world will work perfectly fine without a healer spec.

How is the new world any better than the old one for rangers if healers are not needed.

Unless all you want in PvE is raids, but clearly you have games with better options if you want the trinity and raiding and being the healer. And we don’t even know how raids will work out for druids.

If this doesn’t look a bit grim for the ranger’s new specialization, than what does…

zinkz.7045:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

zinkz.7045:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

The only place that druid might be usefull is raids and possibly only for a short amount of time.

You might not play PvP or WvW, but others do.

Read title, rethink your post.

I edited my post.

So your excuse it that old stuff has been bad so it is ok that the new stuff is bad too?

zinkz.7045:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

The only place that druid might be usefull is raids and possibly only for a short amount of time.

You might not play PvP or WvW, but others do.

Read title, reevaluate your post.

While people might or might not like the new profession mechanics for the professions besides the druid, they all have three things in common:

- they have a damage component that can be adjusted
- the traits have synergy and offer support and damage
- they are all having a use in old world content

Druid on the other side:

- CA is all about healing, switching to it will ALWAYS be a loss damage wise unless they completely rework it, which makes it super situational
- the trait line is all about healing, so no use for it in PvE unless you want to heal
- CA has zero use in old-world content – running druid there actually hurts your group

The new druid mechanic and traits are just so incredibly narrow that all rangers who look any further than the release of HoT and has been playing GW2 before should ask themselves, how can this work.

Druid is useless in the old world. Druid might be useless in the new areas. The only place that druid might be usefull is raids and possibly only for a short amount of time.

I don’t want to “wait and see”, I want to bring up obvious concerns before the release.

I clearly prefer things fixed before they go live, or at least they can start working earlier on the stuff and it might not take 3 years + to make the specialization worth traiting.

Maybe everything will just work fine, but for now, feedback may save us a lot of trouble later on.

If no healers are needed, what is a healer good for?

It is simple, healing alone will get the ranger/druid get kicked out of groups sooner or later as:

a) If a pure healer is not/no longer needed the druid will be worthless

and

b) the ranger is not in the meta now and as the ranger won’t change this won’t change in the future, so noone will invite a ranger if no healer is needed.

Give us a second aspect with a damage or buffing setup or both so the druid/ranger has a future and not just a short spark when things are new and exciting.

The healing aspect is great, don’t get me wrong, but the druid is just not complete.

evilunderling.9265:

A good ranger will justify their slot far better than a merely-decent member of any other profession, even if other professions “do more damage” on paper.

So your answer is that you got to be better than the other players, otherwise you won’t get a spot? What if two players are on an equal level – the ranger will not get the spot because he/she is not good enough?

Dradiin.8935:

If yer playing a ranger, yer not in the Meta to begin with, so i am not sure why you think this is even salient to Rangers.

Face it, Druid or no Druid, Rangers will more than likely not be Meta when it comes tot he elitist players who refuse to look outside the box of… faster faster faster, number numbers numbers.

And you say rangers have not been in the meta, so it is ok that druids are not in the meta either?

What kind of discussion is that? Rangers should just accept their fate to be subpar and get used to be ignored unless they are better than anyone else?

C’mon, that makes no sense…

Look, this is not rocket science.

The druid trait line is a one-trick-pony. Strong healing is all it has to offer. If you don’t want to go for healing, there is literally no reason to spec into it unless you want to be less efficient in what else you want to do.

1. Rangers don’t offer anything special
-> they are not popular in groups

2. Druids offer strong healing,
-> if strong healing is needed they will be popular in groups
-> else they are not popular in groups as they do not offer anything more useful than the basic ranger

3. Conclusion: If strong healing is not needed, neither classic rangers nor druids will be a popular choice.

I want to see how ANet is going to ship around that simple conclusion with their raids. Knowing ANet for quite some time now, I don’t expect this to happen.

Elitism will spill over to the casual raiding.

People will try to copy whatever they see on youtube, and if a profession is missing, it will have a hard time to get into raid groups for that reason.

We will see, but I am sure that all raid encounters are designed to work without a druid. They might be easier with one in the beginning, but as soon as they have been beaten, the ranger/druid will drop out of the meta again.

The ranger will be as popular as it is now after the raids are on “farm”.

If every ranger has to start his own raid groups to actually get there, than this is not a very satisfying solution, sorry Stalima.

coax.2951:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

The druid trait line has very little to offer for anything else but healing. So as long as you choose it you run at 2/3 of your potential for damage. Other classes can trait three lines of choice and still off-heal perfectly fine.

They will do more damage, heal just as fine and are more flexible in their trait choices.

Rangers will have to kitten themselves for off-healing. Their damage will be even worse than now. If you do not specc into druid though, you offer as much as you do right now, and we all know how that went.

If I look at all the variables, it seems pretty grim on the long run with just healing as selling point for druids.

So, which of the current meta builds for all classes has healing on par with the druid?
Oh right, none.
It’s a trade off, lose some damage (nowhere near the 33% you’re suggesting), gain a ton of support.
You can easily ditch Beastmastery for Druid in the A/T sinister build and the standard berserker builds. The damage loss will be a little more for power builds than it is for the condi build since you lose the quickness on pet swap, but that’s about it. A bit less ferocity on your pet, that’s not that big of a deal.

On the point of “other classes can heal just as well without sacrificing dps”.
That is utterly wrong.
What does ele have? Geyser, which heals for around 2.5k on a 20s cooldown and around 350 on water autoattack. Healing Rain has regeneration.
Guardian only has Virtue of Resolve, which heals for around 1.6k on a whopping 50s cooldown. You could also use the elite signet, which is a full heal, but either you or the ones you want to heal will probably be dead by the time you finished the 4s cast. If guard would switch to staff, his dps would be laughable.
So what else do we have? Revenants maybe. Exept Revenant dps will also go down by a lot simply because you have to slot ventari as one of your legends instead of Shiro/Mallyx.
Engineers healing abilities aren’t worth mentioning at the moment exept for Healing Turret.

So lets compare that to druid’s F5 skills (the numbers are baseline, without healing power at all):
Tidal Surge heals for 4850hp and is a water field.
Lunar Impact heals for 3k.
Autoattack heals for 800hp with a really fast cast time, you’ll probably get off around 1.5-2 of these per second.
Seed of life heals for 500 and removes conditions.

In a 10 second time window, you could get off 2 Tidal surges, 2 Lunar Impacts and a whole bunch of autoattacks. Even if nobody blasts your water fields, that’s a TON more than any of the above can dish out.

You totally missed the point, go read the first post and find the premise.

This is not about how good druids can heal vs. others.

Shoe.5821:

you also don’t need to druid spec to use a staff

Of course you will need to spec into druid to use a staff.

coax.2951:

The burst healing you get from your F5 is great, even without healing power at all.

Rangers might very well be wanted, even when the community figures out how to do these raids with a lot more offensive approach, since you could run a full dps build and dish out some burst heals with your F5 when needed.

Why wouldn’t you want something like that? Decent dps, offensive support with frost spirit & spotter, defensive support with your F5. Sounds like a good package to me.

The druid trait line has very little to offer for anything else but healing. So as long as you choose it you run at 2/3 of your potential for damage. Other classes can trait three lines of choice and still off-heal perfectly fine.

They will do more damage, heal just as fine and are more flexible in their trait choices.

Rangers will have to kitten themselves for off-healing. Their damage will be even worse than now. If you do not specc into druid though, you offer as much as you do right now, and we all know how that went.

If I look at all the variables, it seems pretty grim on the long run with just healing as selling point for druids.

TJgalon.5012:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

TJgalon.5012:

As someone who always partner with a ranger, and played it some before, They do damage pretty well. Just because some player believe one way is better then the other, does not mean it always like that.
Step 1 don’t listen to the meta, is how I play. I may check it out for dea, but in the end, I have to play my way, or I wont be playing well. I still manage to pull my weight and f that means it takes an extra minute to take down a champion then so e it.

Your mindset is honorable, but you will be in a thight spot.

ANet opened the can of worms know as “raids”. If you think “play the way you want” is a thing there you might be in for a surprise.

I am not worry about it, as i am sure I can easily find other player to play. more so it new, everyone going to ant to try it, and I will, win or lose. It learning.
Also we really no clue how raids will work, and I am willing to adjust, but I can’t see the “meta” being the only way.

It is not about the meta “being the only way”.

You are in the meta or you are not. If you are not, people will always tell you you can still do all the stuff, if you find other mercyful people that drag you along.

I am personally tired of excuses. I’d clearly prefer to be and stay in the meta.

TJgalon.5012:

As someone who always partner with a ranger, and played it some before, They do damage pretty well. Just because some player believe one way is better then the other, does not mean it always like that.
Step 1 don’t listen to the meta, is how I play. I may check it out for dea, but in the end, I have to play my way, or I wont be playing well. I still manage to pull my weight and f that means it takes an extra minute to take down a champion then so e it.

Your mindset is honorable, but you will be in a thight spot.

ANet opened the can of worms know as “raids”. If you think “play the way you want” is a thing there you might be in for a surprise.

Shoe.5821:

why do you think a ranger could not be an off-healer?

zealots equipment exist, as does celestial.

staff/bow or staff/sword/x are totally plausible builds

Oh they can be. But other off-healers have higher DPS and group support. Why would you take a ranger/druid?

Hey there, like many of you I love the new druid elite specialization. Even though I think the druid was intended to have more than one aspect, for now all we got is our healing form.

While this sounds promising with the more difficult content we get in HoT – including raids – it will fail to help the ranger as a profession in the long run.

Sure, when everything is new and exciting and people do not know what to do, groups will take rangers as healers into the new content. They will excel at healing, noone will come close.

But this will only be for a short time frame. Soon, players will figure out the new content, and even if there is some unavoidable damage here and there, a pure healer will sooner or later be obsolete. Off-healers will shine, like classes that fill the primary role of a damage dealer with enough heals to keep a group alive.

As long as rangers damage stays mediocre, they will lose their spot in raiding on the mid to long run. Unless ANet manages to keep dishing out progressive raid content fast enough (which I do not believe, they said 6 wings a year, which means more or less two raids annualy) we will see groups looking for everything but rangers/druids again.

A solution could be a second aspect that would boost damage. Call it Avatar of the Wild or something and give the druid an option to spend the extra bar on something different than healing. Glyphs would change too, so this should be possible.

Maybe I am too pessimistic, but I fear that we soon enough have all those discussions about the PvE meta and how rangers are not part of it again.

The simple fact is that dungeons have been dead meat for years.

Now people who have been doing nothing else but abusing the terrible dungeon AI for all that time fear that something more complex will replace the lousy gameplay we had in dungeons.

Really, if you think GW2 dungeons are fun and the raids should build up on what we got there, I really hope you will get disappointed.

I am ready for different roles to take in raids, be it three or more. I love healing , I love tanking, I love to do damage and I love to support my team.

What I don’t like is buffing up and then DPS the kitten out of stuff. Every. Single. Time.

Hope ANet is getting raids right, somehow.

The great thing about playing the non-existant druid specialization is, that – compared to other specializations – you still earn loot and achievements.

Clearly overpowered and unfair – but as we all know this follows rule #2 of MMOs:

“Exploit early, exploit often.”

Thaddeus.4891:

Can you please stop using reputation instead of mastery. You just look silly now.

A mastery implies that you advance in a task by doing the very same. Traditional mastery systems include crafting, as you process through crafting levels by – wait for it – crafting.

If we talk about masteries, let’s say gliding and mushroom jumping, you should advance in these masteries by – wait for it – using your glider and jumping on mushrooms. You master stuff by doing it.

But

You are not mastering “Masteries” in GW2:HoT by doing them. You gain xp on a chosen xp-bar, let’s say gliding. You will never have to even touch the glider, you can just level the whole thing by killing boars.

There is no mastering involved, as even if you are the crappiest glider in the whole Maguuma jungle, as long as you earned enough xp by doing random stuff, you still have “mastered” it somehow. It’s a bit like buying a title, like Ph. D. for money and claim that you are smart.

This on the other hand, is how all reputation systems work. The difference is that you are not doing the task you want to improve, but doing stuff for the “task” to improve your rank.

So in the end, the “masteries” in HoT are simply (mis)labeled reputations. Like we say “professions” instead of “classes” or “boons” instead of “buffs” or “conditions” instead of “debuffs”… ANet loves to name stuff differently, for whatever reason…

Bandit.8279:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Get ready to grind some masteries before you enter the raids. Doesn’t sound like content gating at all, does it.

Took me only a couple of hours through normal varied game play to get my gliding unlocked. After BWE1 I had made significant headway into Gliding, Mushroom and Itzel Lore.

The fact that masteries can be completed doing what you want to do in-game made it feel like anything but grindy.

With all due respect, you made it to the first unlock of one mastery, which is not that impressive.

I suspect you will need more than one reputation (mastery) high enough to use some special abilities. The glider alone will need the skill for catching an updraft, which is sort of down the road.

Colin specifically said they will give players time to grind reputations (fill up masteries) before they release the raids.

The content will be gated, and people late to the party will have a rough time to catch up. Well, they can enter the raid at least, but for what…

If the raids require more than one mastery to be maxed to succeed, it is worse than what we have as attunements in most other MMOs for raids…

nexxe.7081:

I don’t mind these changes, because it’s a form of content to keep veterans around, and giving them something to do. Look what happened in the past.. everyone left because GW2 was too casual. There needs to be a balance, and HoT is providing that.

This is pretty much speculation. I wouldn’t be surprised, if ANet ignores raids after their first installment like they did with dungeons, fractals, guild missions, world bosses etc.

And while they say you can just walk into raids without attunement, you still need the necessary masteries to proceed.
So there is actually an attunement, because what is entering a raid good for, if you can’t go anywhere but down.

Get ready to grind some masteries before you enter the raids. Doesn’t sound like content gating at all, does it.

PopeUrban.2578:

What’s important is that the design goal of GW2 is that every class can fill every role if they choose to build for it, and that class will have a unique flavor and playstyle for that support, dps, or control build.

That’s perfectly okay, as it allows sane people to go “okay, we need one more DPS, you there, you’re a what, engineer? what’s a good engineer DPS spec? Okay, can you run that today?” in stead of “Well, we need one more DPS and all we have online is five tanks. guess someone needs to reroll warrior”

Or someone has to craft/buy a whole set for the new role he might have to play, learn to do so and actually want to do so.

Raid leader: “Hey ranger, we are short of support which means you will heal today. Get your healing gear on.”

Ranger: “I got no healing gear sorry, but I am really good at dam——”

Raid leader: LF1M support

Yeah, can’t wait to see different professions getting pigeonholed into what people think is the best they can do. I love the smell of elitism in the morning.

And running around with countless different gear sets in my inventory, sounds like fun.

Seisus.6591:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Masteries are just like reputations, it is like people calling “Coca Cola” “Coke”, doesn’t make it a different pop..

That is your opinion. I would say masteries are more similar to the increase in level cap most expacs bring to other MMOs.

Player: “Hey Mister Frog, can you teach me your language or any other useful stuff?”
Mister Frog: “No, you are unknown to my tribe, go kill stuff in my name, and you will be rewarded!”

Player: “I killed lots of stuff, tell me your secrets!”
Mister Frog: “Here, take this stick as reward, you have done well and are now known to our tribe!”
Player: “A stick, but what about your language?”
Mister Frog: “Kill more stuff in my name, and you will get a higher reward of our tribe.”

Wow, really doesn’t look like a reputation system to me, how could I even come up with that idea…?

Thaddeus.4891:

GW2 will have a reputation system ???

Legendary in WoW are a superior tier of gear, but it’s not the highest. The only thing in common with GW2 Legendary is the name.

GW 2 will have a trinity in the future? 110% that the answer is no.

Get the picture?

Masteries are just like reputations, it is like people calling “Coca Cola” “Coke”, doesn’t make it a different pop.

And it seems like you have missed the live stream announcing raids, Colin Johanson wants to have a word with you about the trinity…

Actually watch the video if you don’t get the picture…

Draknar.5748:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

—snip—

Dude, you might as well have just said:

1) GW2 allows for players to play together over Internet, just like WoW, coincidence?
2) GW2 has different classes with different strengths/niches, yet another striking similarity to WoW.
3) Unique rewards require completing unique content, spookier and spookier how similar to WoW.
4) A system that requires you to progress some kind of “bar” to unlock abilities or “skills”, WoW 2.0 amiright

No joke that’s how relevant your points are.

This topic is about what GW2 has now and what it will have in the future.

GW2 has no raids now.
GW2 has no (established) trinity now.
GW2 has no legendary items gated now.
GW2 has no reputation system now.

WoW has raids now.
WoW has a trinity now.
WoW has legendary items gated now.
WoW has a reputation system now.

GW2 will have raids in the future.
GW2 will have a trinity in the future.
GW2 will have legendary items gated in the future.
GW2 will have a reputation system in the future.

Get the picture?

Vayne.8563:

Until you’ve played the raids, you can’t really know that they’re the same as raids in other games. I suspect they’ll be quite different.

That said, the game is different for a lot of reasons. The fact that it doesn’t have static events is a big one. Everyone can still rez everyone else. Combo fields don’t exist on most games. The way guild halls are being done is different.

I’ve played lots of MMOs. And yes, I’ve played betas of HoT and this game doesn’t feel like most other MMOs to me.

Your mileage may vary.

I don’t know Vayne. I have to admit, the title is a bit of an eye-catcher, but that aside, I have raided before WoW, in WoW and after Wow. I actually love raiding if it is done right.
As you might remember from my posts in the past, I am also OK with a trinity and reputation grind is better than logging in and being without a carrot on a stick.

On the other side, combo fields are more of a curse for GW2 than a great mechanic (everyone melee stacking yay!) and everyone rezzing everyone is sort of a lame mechanic because it is trivializing a lot of things IMO. I am also not entirely sure if guild halls will be that great of a feature on the long run, I would clearly prefer personal housing.

You are right though that we have to wait and see for the full release on how much GW2 will lose identity if at all.

Disclaimer: I do not mind the direction the game is going. Copying other successful games is quite common in this industry. I just feel like the development of GW2 with the new expansion is a step closer to the old-fashioned way – be it for good or bad.

Heart of Thorns is around the corner, and ANet surely tries to make it sound unique and innovative. But if you take a closer look, this expansion is a move back to the older days and away from the “rebel” image GW2 had since the Manifesto was released (no discussing the Manifesto please ^^).

While some stuff was labeled with different names, they are still just more of the same old same we have seen over the last two decades (for the better or worse).

Raids: Well, nothing to say about that. Hard content for bigger groups offering the fanciest rewards. We have seen this before in other games.

Trinity: Tank/Healer/DD, Control/Support/Damage, it is actually hard to see a difference. People will be locked into a role to make raids work. Replacing one trinity with a different one is just a camouflage. The fact that ANet is actually talking about a trinity is slightly irritating in the first place.

Gated Items: The fanciest items will be locked behind raids (legendary armor) and difficult group content (legendary backpiece). While people will tell you that you don’t need them, it is still a fact that the nicest, most convinient and most prestige items are locked behind raids and high level fractals. They are for the elite, which is being established in the process of creating raids btw.

Reputation Grind: Yeah, I know, ANet calls their reputation system “Masteries”. But hey, masteries are pretty much the same as a traditional reputation grind. You earn mastery for the frog people, they give you special rewards. You earn reputation for the frog people, they give you special rewards. Look, no difference.

Druids: Just kidding here, I love druids.

There are more additions, but I think you get the point. We are moving into the direction of most other MMOs out there.
With rep grind, raids and trinity as well as raid gated items being actually promoted as new core mechanisms of GW2, the game has moved away from it’s former image of being made for a more casuals crowd towards an elite audience. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing – and only time will tell.

But with all these additions, GW2 starts to feel way less unique, and that’s the part that sort of irks me.

Just wanted to push the leveling guide to the front page, just in case some of our new play for free mesmers need some guidance.

On a sidenote, did anyone test if the new boosters work together with the old boosters? Still need to update that part.

Release date of HoT.

Looks good.

Try the Lazy Kai build in my signature. I still like it best in open world.

Things don’t take forever. They just happen in GW2.

Dynamic events = <3

Not going to PAX Prime, but it can’t hurt to tell you what I like.

Kidel.2057:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Druids with kits for shapeshifting.

It is about time.

isn’t that pretty much the norn racial skill set?

Nope.

Norns got crappy short duration elite skills on a long cooldown.

A kit is something different, read the wiki:

“A weapon kit is a skill type that replaces the currently equipped weapon (and its skills) with a special weapon. Device kits can be equipped and stowed instantly, allowing characters to switch back to their original weapon. Kits scale damage based on the rarity of the player’s equipped weapon. "

Druids with kits for shapeshifting.

It is about time.

Well, at least for open world, the change of Illusionary Reversion will cause two things:

1. Everyone will still have to pick Dueling for Deceptive Evasion
2. People will pick Improved Alacrity or Danger Time over Illusionary Reversion, as it is usless if you have Deceptive Evasion anyways…

Goodbye build variety, welcome back Deceptive Evasion.

Edit: Maybe it can still work with Chronophantasma, if the respawned phantasm works as illusion which it should, and alacrity gives enough CD reduction on double-traited GS to bring Mirror Blade CD down fast enough. We will see.

Dear lord, new boosters…
Not sure if I should even update again…

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

When they release fractals in November 2012, I ran four of them on level one in less than 45 minutes.

When they released AQ20 and AQ40, it took the best guilds weeks to beat all of it, and even on early farm, AQ40 took around 6 hours for an experienced raid groups.

And there was Naxxramas too, only shortly after AQ, as a player you got literally drowned in content, while in GW2, they just gave you enough to keep logging in ever two weeks to visit the gem store.

Not that I want to glorify WoW, as I got bored eventually and stopped playing, but in matters of real content released, GW2 should be hiding in the shades…

even if most people doing fractals for the first time could complete 4 in 45 minutes (and i think on average thats definitely not the case) there are 14 different fractals so accounting for 11 minutes each thats 3hrs worth of content which is the same size as that raid you mention so it still wouldnt be true that the update you mention (which I guess is probably the largest one of the bunch) is “bigger than all fractals and added dungeon pathes and mini dungeons added to GW2 together”
and that means that certainlly your statement “Every single dungeon and every single raid added to WoW that you listed is bigger than all fractals and added dungeon pathes and mini dungeons added to GW2 together” isnt true.

at best based on this one example you could argue 1 single WoW update is more or less as big as 2 Gw2 updates but then again for every single update WoW releases Gw2 release an average of 3 – 6 in the same timeframe.

No argument that WoW raids are much more difficult than any content released by Gw2 perhaps with the exception of revamp tequalt and Wurm. But just cause a guild failed to finish a raid and then they’re forced to wait a week in order to try again after which it they may fail again and have to retry a few times it doesnt mean the content released is weeks long. If a successful run takes 3hrs to finish it means its 3 hrs worth of content.

Well you seem to have not been there back then when in WoW people complained about too much content in every update, because they were not done with the stuff from before.

Compared to the complains here, that people couldn’t do the content because it was gone before they had a chance to log in (holidays and stuff). Makes me smile. One could say there was too much content, but that would be sort of a stretch.

It doesn’t matter, GW2:HoT will be compared to other first paid expansions of premium titels. This includes WoW:TBC, LotRO:MoM and AoC:RotGS.
I liked them all for what they were, so I won’t be too picky. They were all cheaper but also part of a sub based game. No sub should never be an excuse for mediocre content though, so I will calculate the higher prize of HoT as sub fee.

Go through the expansions and what they offered, and you should get a good picture of what at least I am expecting. I would pay $50 if HoT would be close to one of these.

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Every single dungeon and every single raid added to WoW that you listed i bigger than all fractals and added dungeon pathes and mini dungeons added to GW2 together.s

Ahn’Qiraj alone probably has the size of the Silverwastes…

Sure GW2 might win in numbers, but this is like saying I have ten times more 1 cent coins than you 100 dollar bills, so I have more money than you…

I have no idea how big Ahn’Qiraj is but that being said i found this full run on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGxkhfDNP8

Its 2hrs 50 minutes long I am also ignoring pauses in between while they set stuff up, like there is a whole 10 minute of standing still “doing nothing” at 1:09:00 and 10 minutes for photos at the end . .

And this is a full run of echoes of the past:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2lYEozZmSk

1hr 10 minutes. That doesnt include the 1/4 of silverwastes and the events there in released with the same update. I am sure that provided another hour of game play alone.

So no Ahn’Qiraj itself isnt as big as all 4 updates that unlocked the silverwastes its as big as 1 update from what I am seeing.

as for fractals, each fractal is about 30 mins long. which makes that raid you listed as long as approximately 5 fractals certainly not “bigger than all fractals and added dungeon pathes and mini dungeons added to GW2 together”

That’s only half of Ahn’Qiraj, you missed the “Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj” part…

And not even the most elite guilds ran it that fast when it was new and exciting. Who takes 30 min for a fractal anyway? Total beginners thrown into a 30+ fractal?

Fine. But 1/2 of it ? Youtube disagrees… Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj seems to be 20 – 30 mins long based on a number of runs I saw on youtube.

Why do you really need to believe so hard that Gw2 barely released any content? Yes sure now top elite guilds can easily speed run fractals in far less then 30 mins. I assume elite top level guilds in WoW can run your raid in a fraction of the time now too. In fact no need to wonder.. here’s a solo guy running that nearly 3 hr long raid in 24 minutes flat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2yel8p2kFI

We’re talking content releases here, ie content that is level appropriate and that people dont yet know how the mecanics work so there is a learning curve + the short cuts are not yet know. Speed runs dont apply in this argument.

When they release fractals in November 2012, I ran four of them on level one in less than 45 minutes.

When they released AQ20 and AQ40, it took the best guilds weeks to beat all of it, and even on early farm, AQ40 took around 6 hours for an experienced raid groups.

And there was Naxxramas too, only shortly after AQ, as a player you got literally drowned in content, while in GW2, they just gave you enough to keep logging in ever two weeks to visit the gem store.

Not that I want to glorify WoW, as I got bored eventually and stopped playing, but in matters of real content released, GW2 should be hiding in the shades…

Galen Grey.4709:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Every single dungeon and every single raid added to WoW that you listed i bigger than all fractals and added dungeon pathes and mini dungeons added to GW2 together.s

Ahn’Qiraj alone probably has the size of the Silverwastes…

Sure GW2 might win in numbers, but this is like saying I have ten times more 1 cent coins than you 100 dollar bills, so I have more money than you…

I have no idea how big Ahn’Qiraj is but that being said i found this full run on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGxkhfDNP8

Its 2hrs 50 minutes long I am also ignoring pauses in between while they set stuff up, like there is a whole 10 minute of standing still “doing nothing” at 1:09:00 and 10 minutes for photos at the end . .

And this is a full run of echoes of the past:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2lYEozZmSk

1hr 10 minutes. That doesnt include the 1/4 of silverwastes and the events there in released with the same update. I am sure that provided another hour of game play alone.

So no Ahn’Qiraj itself isnt as big as all 4 updates that unlocked the silverwastes its as big as 1 update from what I am seeing.

as for fractals, each fractal is about 30 mins long. which makes that raid you listed as long as approximately 5 fractals certainly not “bigger than all fractals and added dungeon pathes and mini dungeons added to GW2 together”

That’s only half of Ahn’Qiraj, you missed the “Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj” part…

And not even the most elite guilds ran it that fast when it was new and exciting. Who takes 30 min for a fractal anyway? Total beginners thrown into a 30+ fractal?

Every single dungeon and every single raid added to WoW that you listed is bigger than all fractals and added dungeon pathes and mini dungeons added to GW2 together.

Ahn’Qiraj alone probably has the size of the Silverwastes…

Sure GW2 might win in numbers, but this is like saying I have ten times more 1 cent coins than you 100 dollar bills, so I have more money than you…