Guild Wars 2

Genavelle.9516:

Miku.6297:

I play PVE because I enjoy it. Everyone’s definition of “fun” is different, if you have more fun in pvp/wvw then play there:)

Unfortunately, we can’t. Anet has turned WvW into PvE for the week, and it sadly looks like they plan on making WvW permanent PvE Ktrain with the new maps in the expansion.

Here’s a question: How would PvE players feel if PvE land suddenly became PvP-able? If people could just run around and kill you while you’re simply trying to do whatever makes you happy. Now realize that that is exactly how every single WvW player feels right now.

Dude, hyperbole much? WvW was basically PvE from the get-go unless you were unfortunate enough to stumble upon an enemy roamer or zerg. If you wanted to take a keep/outposts and get champ bags, well get in the zerg. If you want to do anything truly beneficial- unless your against two vastly unpopulated servers so you can leisurely siege a door by yourself as if you were in PvE anyway- get in the zerg. I’ve done WvW for a few weeks, went back to PvE because PvE is WvW without the stress of conflict interactions between two opposing human groups. Essentially WvW was, is and will be what you are using as an example to kitten PvEers off. To be honest the KTrain in EotM is much more WvW-ish because enemy zergs come across each other a lot more often. All my time in the borderlands and mists was spent AVOIDING the other zerg while at the same time capturing points.

As for on topic, I play PvE because I care about the story well as a way to relax- much like reading a book. Both of which are missing from WvW and PvP.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

Einlanzer.1627:

I actually think the answers to both of your questions are a matter of common sense. It all has to do with how quickly you outlevel gear. If you get new gear every 5-10 levels out of 40 instead of every 5-10 levels out of 80, you have more of an opportunity to stay in the same gear longer, meaning it’s more worthwhile to experiment with different builds and themes without wasting nearly as much money.

Dynamic leveling is not relevant to what I’m talking about. I’m not suggesting any changes to that system.

While I have long thought the best way to go is abandon “level’s” entirely and go to a a different progression system (like, say, GW1’s skill collecting) I have to disagree with the above point.
Replacing gear every 10 levels getting to 40 means 5 sets (starter then 4 replacements)
For 80 it’s 9 sets.
This means you have more than double the opportunities to try a different stat set/skill set/playstyle.
Yes none will be fully recognized until you hit 80 but you can get a pretty decent idea.

I hate replacing gear that much myself, my warrior was still using 55 greens when she hit 80, as she was character #7 or so and I was just powerleveling at that point.

Uh… you do realize if they lowered the level to 40 they’d probably balance so that you’ll be wanting/needing to change your gear every five levels instead of ten, right? If everything is divided by 2, then level 40-50 zones would be 20-25 zones. 50-60 would be 25-30. Thus, you’d probably want level 20-25 gear fro the 20-25 zones and level 25-30 armor for 25-30 zones.

So, you wouldn’t be saving on how often you’re swapping out armor/runes/weapons anyway.

Not only that, but you’d have just as much time to swap around different builds. Cutting the level cap to 40 would not increase the time it takes to get to 40. It would take just as long to get to 40 in the new system as it takes to get to 80 now. Unless you’re thinking of quadrupling the experience needed for each level when you cut the cap in half, essentially making you play as long as it would take to get to 160.

Simplest fix: you can wear your gear for 20 levels instead of 10. Voila, your issues are solved and you don’t require a massive overhaul of the entire game (which would hinder most everyone else who is fine with and/or like the current 80 level system for your sake). I mean, you can play how you like here. I won’t judge you if you wear your armor for 20 levels, heck I might even do that with my Revenant just to see if its more challenging.

fruitycutey.9057:

Well, I used tomes and dungeons to get an alt char to 80 and I’m not seeing any Hero Points when I go to the tab.

Have you unlocked all of your skills and traits?

If so, you shouldn’t have any.

If you 100% map complete (Including WvW, Southsun, Silverwaste, and Drytop) you should have 214 hero points.

Most things that disappear rarely come back but the Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic is one of the more frequent re-releases. I think it comes around once or twice a year. As for when it’ll come back, that’s completely random and up to the whims of the devs. It’s a subtle marketing gimmick to get you to at least log in (beyond daily log in rewards) every day to check the gem store or to check the website, or read the news when you boot up the program (uncheck the auto-play to do this) to see if it has come back to the store.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Basandra Skye.4031:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Food for thought.

A while ago, a poster posted the results of opening ~11,800 champ bags. He had one Asc. armor drop. That’s a drop rate of 85/10,000 of a percent. In 2722 hours I’ve gotten 1 Asc. armor, 0 precursors.

OK, at that low rate, it’s entirely possible that the precursor drop rate is higher than that for Asc., maybe even much higher. I presume the rate in the MT has to be higher, or no one would waste so many rares/so much gold. However, it’s enlightening to know that drop rates in that range even exist.

Keep in mind it merely took him that many to get ONE ascended box. It could take him 1/10th as many to get the second, or 10 times as many to get the third. It’s also discounting where among that number he got the ascended chest. Hardly a viable set of data to determine the real drop rate. It is, however, a good snapshot of his rng at the time.

11,800 is a pretty large sample size. Also, where in the sample the single occurrence took place is not relevant to whether the sample size is sufficient to generate confidence. Feel free to offer other examples of similar size with different results, if you can find them and if you really want to have that conversation.

It’s also food for thought to consider that, if a similarly sized sample produced 10x the drops (the outcome if it took 1/10 the bags to get 1), the drop rate would change from 85/10,000 for a percent to 85/1,000 of a percent. While that is a higher drop rate, it would still be considered to be abysmal by many players.

I’d just like to point out that 1/11800 is equal to 0.85/10000 or a 0.000085% chance and this is for an ascended chest (which probably has a higher drop rate than a precursor), not 85/10000. So even at 10x miracle drop rate we’re still looking at 8.5/10000 or 0.00085%. Both are abysmally low rates and after seeing those numbers only cemented my decision to never bother with looting ascended gear or precursors. That’s 85ppm for crying out loud (out of 1 million chests, 85 are ascended) I’m likely not going to see 10,000 chests in 6 years of my casual playing since I care more about the progression of the story than the gaudy bling the game offers. Ideally, however, the person who did that test should do it ten more times, or have ten other people repeat it (peer review), to have a defensible drop rate.

I’m guessing it is more or less permanent, hopefully, like the Mawdry II if you unlocked S2. And I’m pretty sure the Empereal Star will be back this Wintersday as well if you missed it last year.

Saddly if you don’t have S2, Mawdry II it is locked behind a grind AND a gemstore purchase. Compared to the star and Princess, Mawdry II is a real pain to get which is why I’m dragging my feet about it.

Of course it could just be a limited time thing too, I hope you get an Anet response to clear it up.

Nate.3927:

can’t you just buy those boxes with bandit crests anyway?

Unfortunately, and for RNGesus only knows why, the coat box was not put in as an option at the vendor. I at least think it was the coat boxes, I know one of the set wasn’t directly purchasable.

I got all three of mine, but I was there for silk scraps while working on ascended light armor more than the coat boxes.

Likewise.

I just really wish there were more options for pants (perhaps some with upper thigh plates on them).

I believe we still get those rewards, don’t we? If not, then yes it is worth it. Collecting all the Hero Points might let you spec into an Elite Spec the instant HoT goes live (unless there’s some grindy way to unlock it beyond getting hero points). Not to mention you need, no matter what, if you ever plan on making a legendary (even if that goal is ten years from now). Plus, each zone when completely explored gives supplies and gear. The high level zones even give exotic gear (completely trade-able, salvage-able unlike the PS). Mid level gives rare.

I seem to recall getting some of those shards for the MF that replaced SP for 100%ing a zone too. I didn’t pay too close attention though since I don’t really use the toilet.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Covered and sexy are not mutually exclusive, kentaine. For example: The Aetherblade armor set is indeed covered, but the pants are skin tight and the chest accentuates the breasts very much. Many of the “covered” armor chests have an accentuated bust and waistline, which makes them look quite sexy (especially when mixed with other sexier choices).

Honestly, I’m happy with most of the armor choice (not including the medium armor selection). I think there are definitely plenty of sexy options (and skimpy options) in the game. I wouldn’t care if they added more armor options, though. But there is a good variety already.

I’m overall happy with them too (especially since I mix/match), just tired of the people who argue skimpy is the only way to be sexy, or sexy can’t be ‘practical’ or that GW2 has too many skimpy sets. I wouldn’t be against adding more of all varieties (skimpy, sexy, ‘practical’, tin can) either.

Ringsound.7806:

ppl who want sexualized armors are playing the wrong game
there are tons of Korean, Japanese MMO offer that
and i like GW2 heavy armor set, it doesnt make sense a heavy armor showing so much skin and provide huge defence

Who said sexy can’t be practical?

Carapce chest piece is one of my favorites, full coverage AND sexualized because it fits like a corset. Kurzick was another of my favorites in GW1 (butt floss and all) because it was also practically full coverage and WAS full coverage if you went with Kurzick elite.

GW2 has skirts, skirts and more skirts. Some of them do make you character even look like a can of metal (Forgeman and Fire Legion anyone?).

Carighan.6758:

The one objective part of armor criticism is how >50% of the female armor is insanely skimpy. This looks stupid for light or medium armor but downright idiotic for heavy, as there’s no way this’d be any help in combat.

Now, even then it’d be acceptable – if the male armor looked similar. For many armor types, male and female armors don’t look like they’re part of the same set. Plus as I said, it looks stupid.

Except this isn’t being objective at all. I’ll list skimpy (truly skimpy at least by GW2 standards which is much more modest than every other fantasy (besides ESO and AoC) MMOs I’ve played) sets, blended sets and full coverage sets for you concerning armor (I won’t touch medium, that’s just 99.9% trenchcoat ugliness)

Skimpy (6) Which is: 12%
Grasping Dead
Gladiator
Barbaric
Pit Fighter
Zodiac (I guess, since it doesn’t actually show skin)
Flame Wrath

Blended (6) Which is: 12%
Priory
Whisper’s
Vigil
Scallywag
Phalanx
Braham’s

Covered (38) Which is: 76%
Ascalonian
Council
Nightmare
Forgeman (tied with ugliest in my opinion)
Flame Leagion (tied with ugliest in my opinion)
Koda
Inquest
Commander’s
Avenger’s
Protector’s
Chain
Militia
Scale
Splint
Tempered
Draconic
Illustrious
Worn Chain
Heavy Plate
Dark Templar
Studded Plate
Armageddon
Chainmail
Worn Scale
Reinforced Scale
Banded
Guild Defender
Heavy Scale
Glorious
Glorious Hero’s
Heritage
Hellfire
Radiant
Carapace
Luminescent
Atherblade
Primeval
Rampart

Please stop perpetuating the myth that GW2 heavy armors are skimpy. The reason you think they are is because the skimpy armors are preferred so you’re really seeing the same ones over and over again. Asking for variety should not be so opposed.

I debated about carapace and lumi given the one thigh you can see a little bit of, but over aesthetics (especially from behind) give the feel of full coverage to me.

Coulter.2315:

Eurhetemec.9052:

What turns average gamers into good gamers is engaging content that’s personally challenging to players, and rewards enough to make you want to keep trying and improving.

Exactly, since people now are finding the content challenging (as opposed to before when it was not challenging) you now need to improve.

You missed the whole ‘personally’ part of personally challening, didn’t you? Teq is not personally challenging. It’s group content and cannot, therefore, be a personal challenge. Getting the achievements at Teq (aside from succeeding) is a personal challenge but not actually beating Teq.

No matter how much I improve my game play, I cannot affect the outcome of the 25% of players at Teq who still just sit around auto attacking or AFKing because it is an open world event. No amount of reasoning, yelling, name calling, or blocking has gotten that 25% (I’d say it’s closer to 5-10% though) off their behinds in the past and it won’t happen now.

If you aren’t a monk, though, I would say monk is the best secondary class to begin with since it gives you access to a lot more heals than the other classes do at the start. And if you go with E/Mo you have a lot more energy than other classes in case you need to use those skills on yourself or henchmen/party members.

E/Mo (Elementalist Monk) was my first character, but GW1 isn’t like other MMOs in that it’s very difficult to do pretty much anything solo, unless you’re level 20 in low level zones or really know what you’re doing with the hundreds of skills and thousands of skill combinations. Look for henchmen (be sure to get healer monks first) to help when you go out where the monsters are.

W/Mo (Warrior Monk) was another favorite of mine.

As for campaigns, I liked Factions the most but Nighfall has superior henchmen called heroes (henchmen with customize-able skill trays and better AI) that you can unlock by doing the story.

To begin with, though, I’d say Prophecies. And E/R is a good one to go with (gives you the ability to have a pet once you find and unlock that skill) as well as a good regen skill (troll unguent). Again the biggest issue of dying a lot is not having the correct henchmen (if you have any at all) with you. On an E/R you’re probably going to want to take 1-2 melee henchmen and a healer in Ascalon. 2 healers, 1-2 melee and mesmer/ranger henchman in Shiverpeaks/Kryta/Maguuma/Crystal Desert (when party size goes up to 6). 2 melee, 2 healers, 1-2 ranged and a mesmer/ranger in Southern Shiverpeaks/Ring of Fire when your party is up to eight.

You don’t get any henchmen until after pre-searing Ascalon, henchmen are found in each of the cities and outposts (usually near a door out into the instanced explorable areas).

Linken.6345:

But fractals are pve.

And you got pve in WvW aswell.
Like the ruins for bloodlust you need to capture one take afew seconds.
Land claimer you need to kill one bronze ring npc marked as a flag.
veteran creature another bronze ring npc.
5 guard slayer total of 5 bronze rings
disrupt the supplies. you need to kill a dollyak that walk bettwen objectives, it dont even fight back while walking.

Keep, tower and camps can be harder to do alone. ( usualy there are plenty of people around to help cap stuff)

as usual there are 2 easy 2 hard each day if you got a 80 on the account.

I’ve been ganked, camped and zerg-rolled doing every one of those WvW dailies.

Instanced PvE (Dungeons/Fractals/Personal Story/Living Story) and open-world PvE (harvesting/exploration (vistas, PoIs, HPs)/creature kills/events) are as different as WvW and PvP so I- and probably the OP- don’t understand why the conflict oriented play style had two sets of dailies to choose from and the non-conflict oriented play style did not.

I propose adding another option that has this:

Complete a dungeon path (generic)
Complete dungeon story (generic)
Complete a fractal (generic)
Complete a fractal (rated: 1-9, 10-15, etc)
Complete a personal story instance (or LS if you have those unlocked and/or are out of PS on your characters)
Earn dungeon tokens (5, 10, 15)
Earn fractal relics (5, 10, 15)
Complete ‘x’ dungeon path
Complete ‘x’ dungeon story
Complete ‘x’ fractal
Earn Pristine Fractal Relics (1, 2, 3)
Visit your home instance (level 9 and lower daily only)

That’s about as many PvE choices we have now. Possibly even more.

Then replace the fractals and zone specific events with some of the older ones that were removed for open-world PvE:

Earn Hero Points (5)
Level Up (1)
Kill ‘x’ of ‘y’ creatures
Complete ‘x’ events in ‘y’ region

I’m in the same sense of endearment to the game, but haven’t pre-purchased because I still haven’t found a retailer I can pre-purchase the boxed standard yet. A list of approved retailers for this would be beneficial.

I believe, like the core game itself, only the deluxe version will be available to upgrade to if you buy the boxed version. I bought the boxed version at release, upgraded to deluxe for $20 worth of gems a year or two after. I couldn’t upgrade to the ultimate or collectors edition (since it had a boxed version with actual, phsyical gifts) though. Perhaps, since HoT’s Ultimate edition is only digital prizes they’ll reconsider letting you upgrade to it at a later date.

Edit: Quoted the wrong person…

I haven’t yet, because I’m not sure where to pre-purchase a boxed version (I like having a physical copy). It is much nicer that the character slot will be granted, but if I have to wait until after launch there isn’t much skin off my nose since I bought a slot for a Rev long ago anyway… though the lack of veteran perks (I don’t do Betas) for standard to pre-purchase compared to newcomer was a reason why I wasn’t even considering it before.

What are the authorized retailers for this? I’d like to pre-order/pre-purchase but the last thing stopping me is not knowing where I can go to do so.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is similar to the issues I was having trying to buy $100 worth of gems several months ago. I never figured out what the issue was, especially since buying two sets of $50 at the same time had no impact on my finances or raised any flags to my CC company. Their bank or whatever might just not be able to process $100 at once when dealing with your bank or CC provider.

I’m not sure if that previous issue was resolved, I haven’t bothered buying any more gems since LS stopped updating.

dsgb.5017:

Ok all help me understand this a bit, the standard which includes the core and expansion. So if I was to purchase the ultimate package, does that mean i get another core game that i could give to my son or no?

Ultimate is the standard package plus gems and random bits of code that some how equal about $25-$30.

You’ll have to buy at least two standards to get one for you and your son. Or one deluxe and one standard, or two deluxes, or one deluxe and one ultimate, or two ultimates, or one standard and one ultimate, or two ultimates.

FYI, don’t get the deluxes. The only thing worth it on the deluxe version is the character slot ($10 in game store). Overall the ultimate is the best deal, but pricey if you’re getting this for your son and yourself.

What standard equals is- if you don’t already own GW2- GW2 + Expansion.

If you already have an account it is only the expansion (no core game included for gifting or whatever).

Essentially GW2 will no longer exist by itself after HoT’s release (except for those who have not bought HoT). Instead the game will be Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.

Everyone is a winner, even the losers. That’s what the generation before me decided for my generation, remember? Of course Anet’s and/or NCsoft’s marketing division deserves praise for this decision! How else would they feel pretty without their blue ribbon?

I’ll buy the new standalone game GW2:HoT … when it inevitably goes on sale for $30 or $40. Heck, the game might be released in time for Black Friday specials and only be $10-$20 instead. It’s definitely worth it then.

If you’ve maxed out on slots, buy another one since one won’t be included for the Rev.

Buy LW Season 2 to get caught up on half of the story leading to HoT.

Knighthonor.4061:

The thing is, nightfall and factions were more standalone versions of stock GW1. Their true expansion didn’t have character slots, and wasn’t as feature heavy as the standalone games were.

Last I checked, HoT is essentially a stand alone game since it does not require the purchase of the core game. It’s even so much a stand alone version of GW2 that 90% of its explore-able content and probably 70% of its story content IS Guild Wars 2.

Trajan.4953:

OMG it’s just a way to let new players in without squeezing them like other MMO’s do.

Settle down.

Here’s another way to do this:

Core game = $10 (permanently, no longer only for sales)
HoT = $40

New players spend the same amount as they would now, and the veterans don’t feel like they’ve taken it up the kitten.

Wow… I should be in marketing.

They’ve gotta do this though. They’re trying to be WoW, haven’t you seen the price for HoT yet? 6 months after HoT they’ll introduce Dragon Hunter Gear (it’s high concept) which is 5% better than Ascended and takes 10x the materials to make.

Stark.1350:

Rabidd.9458:

Save your money and buy Witcher 3. THAT game is worth $50, and you get to play it now.

Yes, pay $50 for a game that actually ends after, what.. 60 hours?

How many thousands of hours have you gotten out of GW2?

I paid $40 bucks for spore… I’ve probably played that as much as GW2 to be honest and its expansion was $20 and added about as much content as I’m expecting in GW2 by what I’ve seen thus far. Sure it was buggy as hell, and did very little to appease the Spore veterans but that’s what HoT is looking like and Spore’s servers (still going mind you) are emptier than Bloodstone Fen in GW1.

Then again, I’m more of a casual and not a farmer so I haven’t even logged 1,500 hours yet in three years.

$60 is what I pay for the full game. And GW2 came with 5 character slots, a massive continent, and a functioning gem store (that a lot of people have obviously been paying into otherwise GW2 would have gone under two years ago)… a character slot is $10, so why am I not getting even ONE character slot with less than a quarter the content that GW2’s core had? Why is ANYONE okay with this?

So much of this could have been worked around too. Great, buy HoT and get an account if you are a new player, woopie! But what would have worked just as easily would have been make GW2 core permanently $10 and charge $40 for HoT. If I were in charge of marketing, I’d probably be fired if I made the decision to link the two and charge our already existing customers extra because it’s easier for new accounts.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Basically it’s like this:

1. Want expansion? Pay $50.

2. Also want extra goodies and a character slot? Pay $75.

3. Also want 4000 gems discounted to 50% of the price? Pay $100.

Don’t even worry about the core game nonsense. Basically, you’re buying the expansion. If you don’t have the core game, then they are just giving you that for free so you can still play with everyone else as the expansion by itself is not a usable product. If you already have the base game, then you’re just buying the expansion.

I too share some concerns that the content may be a little light, but it’s more than just extra PvE story missions they’re putting in there. We haven’t quite seen everything that’s going in yet.

It would have been just as easy to make the expansion $40 and permanently put the core at $10 in their shops. I’m sorry, them tacking on “includes the core GW2” to justify charging $10 more is bullkitten since my alternative marketing idea would have made a lot of the sourness go away at the price AND them tacking on the core. The original GW1 expansions were $40 at release, and they were stand alone games with entire continents as well as dozens of skills added and (except GWEN) two professions each.

HoT is looking incredibly anemic now… but then again I was of the mind that I’d be willing to pay $40 for the xpac, maybe $50, but them adding in the core just kinda tipped the scales away from 50 for me. I already own the core, I payed full price for it and then some for the deluxe version. I’m kittening kittened off that they are double dipping without actually giving me anything to compensate.

Well it’s over 40$ unlike the GW1 expansions… not getting it, especially since that extra 10$ is wasted on anyone with an old account. Needless to say, they should fire whoever thought up of tying the core game to the expansion in the marketing department. It would have been just as productive to charge 40$ for the xpac (I would have bought it) and permanently make the core 10$ in the shop.

I kinda feel like an kitten for convincing my younger brother to finally buy it too because he, like me, now has to pay twice for the core game if he wants the expansion.

Maybe the boxed version will be 40$, I might buy it then.

I know of two ways:

Crafting all professions to max (400 for chef/jewelcrafting, 500 for the rest) using XP boosts and a few tomes of knowledge/writs of experience/level 20 birthday xp scroll (maybe).

80 tomes of knowledge, or 60 tomes of knowledge and a level 20 birthday scroll.

Pretty much impossible for a brand new account to do this in one day, though. The 80 ToK (if gathered from daily alone without any from PvP or WvW) takes 8 months if you log in religiously to gather. Even more can be obtained if you like PvP from their reward tracks and daily AP gathering or from daily AP gathering in WvW. Every character you’ve had for at least 365 days will get you a level 20 scroll. And, unless you drop some real money for a bunch of gems, crafting is gonna cost too much for a new account.

My warrior tends to kill things faster than my Elementalist, unless I’m focusing on playing the Ele by constantly switching attunements to chew through the 4 attack chains with varied conditions it has to offer. Which order you start in helps too. Water has some nice vulnerability, and I think air does as well (been a long time since I played my Ele… well any character really since I’m in the phase of limbo I get into between an announced update (HoT) and its release), coupled with bleeding from earth and burning from fire can quickly eat through enemies. Not only that, but the fire dash, air charge, air jump back and any other utility skills I’m trying at the time give more mobility to the D/D elementalist than I can get out of my warrior too.

Also, try some of the conjured weapons if D/D isn’t doing it for you. Icebow makes quick work of a lot of encounters if it isn’t on recharge, same with the FGS and lightning hammer. For a while in PvE I ran D/D with the Icebow, Lightning Hammer, Stone Shield, and Fiery Greatsword. The D/D gave me 25% speed boost (trait) instead of a signet, and depending on how I felt I’d kill at range with IB and FGS or get in the thick of it with D/D, LH, and SS. Essentially I had 8 different sets of primary skills to choose from. I guess that’s another thing Ele has going for it over Warrior, just how many different skills are at your disposal.

Dante.1763:

Coulter.2315:

Dante.1763:

I could care less about WVW

couldn’t*

Honestly cant tell what the point of that was.

Saying ‘could’ care less means that you care, but have the capacity to care less, ’couldn’t’ care less means you’ve bottomed out with interests and have no lower to go.

I couldn’t care less about Beta announcements, honestly I was expecting something that the general population would be interested in and not just those who spent days and days farming for a precursor… I mean Beta portal drop…. in Silverwaste. (Should have just done the random e-mail thing like most Beta’s I’ve ever heard of.)

So, basically we took a week off of Elite Specs to learn about something that really means very little to the general playerbase since many didn’t try for a portal, many more weren’t lucky enough to get a portal, and only a select few actually got into it. On top of that, even if I had gotten a portal from casual play, it would be wasted on me because the 6 hours of playing don’t really mesh with my typical schedule in the middle of a work week. So…

Most people didn’t really try for a portal (I gave it 2-4 hours the first day, not a single drop posted in SW in that time).
Many who tried, did not get a pass (hence the postings of ’I’ve been farming in SW for x hours and not a single portal while blahblah’s gotten 2-3, accounts must have rigged chances’).
Some who got a pass won’t be able to fit it into their schedule (especially the lucky casuals who didn’t really care to get a pass but were in SW for after-work stress relief, hopefully).

But that’s how all Betas go anyway, it just is usually under the radar since the testers are randomly, and discreetly, chosen through e-mail lottery instead of in game grinding.

Ephemiel.5694:

If i start seeing yellow axes around or rainbow swords, i’m blaming you guys!!

Have you not seen the bows that shoot neighing unicorns, pistols that laugh or whatever, and giant surfboards on sticks that are bright yellow and black depending on the time of day?

Yellow axes and rainbow swords should be the least of your concerns if this actually happens, but I don’t see it happening any time soon if ever.

Genlog.4983:

there is stile a big problem for new players and returning

that miss out Scarlet ( like me QQ )
now i see you have a very big cap between the last dragon and living story 2

you be trow in a pit with new NPC that you think who the ……. are they and they call you boss o.O ??

i hope Anet have a solution for this
its realy hard for players to understand what is going on

2-3 more years down the line they might finally get to making S1 available as well, since it’s on the proverbial table.

Palador.2170:

dietzero.3514:

That datamined stuff contained dagger and axe attacks, and also had 5 skills for each attunement. A one-handed sword would have 3.

Incorrect. For melee weapons, you have three attacks built into the auto attack. Add in skills #2 and #3, and you have five skills, not three.

A Greatsword would have had 7 attacks, instead of 5, for the same reason.

Or maybe Ele gets sword for main and off-hand, probably not since it is a stretch of what ‘one weapon’ means but I can dream. I want to wield Jormag’s Breath and a FDS on my Ele at the same time.

Maxwell.7843:

Maybe I’m the minority, but personally I think the name fits well with the theme, which is “adapting to the jungle”.

I loved yesterday’s Ready Up by the way, it was very informative.

As far as tying it to that is concerned, yes it makes a LOT of sense… however that would mean the other 8 professions should be named like-wise to give a sense of cohesion between all professions and HoT.

Since Elementalist (tempest, jungles aren’t known for these. Monsoons maybe, but not tempests) and Mesmer (chronomancer, which has absolutely nothing to do with a jungle besides time pass in a jungle like it does everywhere else) already do not fit this pattern, the only other one that does so far is Ranger but Druid fits with it’s parent class, new weapon, and probably mechanics. Even if half are jungle themed names this cannot be the singular basis of naming the specs because it is at odds with the other half of the professions. Furthermore, the name would still be better applied to Ranger or Warrior since it would tie into the jungle theme AND the parent profession, though Dragonslayer would be better for Warrior than hunter.

It is a bit meaningless in general other than bragging rites to a degree. I can’t really see what else it could provide though, assuming they reward properly for obtaining them (not just 1 or 3 AP like a lot of the ones released in S2, S1 my AP shot up like crazy the limited amount I played of it, but S2 it basically crawled at daily pace- not an elitist, I just want the skins and I have very little left to do beyond dailies and sitting around waiting for dungeons to welcome a noob. That and grinding kills/captures in PvP and WvW which I don’t enjoy at all) along with chests worth opening.

I like how people keep calling the utility skills ‘traps’.

Sure, they go off when some red creature steps into them but then again so do Necromancer marks… which are essentially necromancer traps but aren’t called that because traps aren’t magic-y enough and are ground targeted. Since guardians already HAD symbols (which generally aren’t ground targeted) they called these ‘traps’ even though their names sound more symbol-like to me. The only thing that makes them traps is the .5 second set-up and .5 trigger times which is faster than some of the symbols Guardian’s already have that take a little bit to cast (mace anyone?) due to needlessly slow animations to account for cast times. So, essentially these traps act like symbols when in melee, even faster than some symbols.

Actually reading the skills/traits, very little really ties this to ‘Dragon Hunter’ beyond 3/13 skills and 3/12 traits. Basically 24% of this Elite Spec is actually a Dragon Hunter. The rest is Guardian 2.0 because the traps look more like Symbols with a slight alteration to their mechanics, the longbow has nice- though divine/spiritual instead of dragon/hunter inspired and somewhat generic- attacks, and left field reasons (Witch hunter comparison back peddle of big game hunter [which sounds, in my opinion, too ranger-ish]) to be called ‘Dragon Hunter’ instead of something more in line with Guardians.

Looking at the Chronomancer – 9/9 skills are arguably named around the class’s theme and the 2 traits given to us are as well. So far, 100% of Chronomancer is actually Chronomancer (this will likely go down with the release of the other traits- unless of course the devs on the Mesmer’s spec keep up the good work). Even taken very literally 7/9 skills are time oriented and 1/2 traits released are which is still 72%.

I get the feeling the two specs are being designed by two very different teams with very little directional cohesion for the DH and a considerable amount for the Chronomancer. I kinda get the feeling DH was named that because the lead liked the name and didn’t give a kitten about how it would actually tie into the pre-established themes of what a Guardian is.

If it’s lore fueled- then most likely it’ll be because Braham Eirsson becomes Braham Dragonhunter (this fits Norn naming patterns) for whatever reason, thus forcing all Guardians (human, sylvari, charr, and asuran) to have a spec named by Norn naming traditions for last names, unfortunately I’m not Braham. And only one character of mine- oddly enough a Guardian- is a Norn. But she’s Yulia Lightseeker because she’s searching for a way to forge the lights of the far shiverpeaks (like the Aurora Borealis) into a weapon to fight Jormag, not Yulia Dragonhunter. He can be Dragon Hunter all he wants, I’d rather be something that feels more Guardian even if I just continue referring to myself as a Guardian and forget I’m specced into DH.

Basically what I’m getting at is that it is all well and good to name a spec after its weapon and mechanics, but ultimately it should clearly- with very little room to wiggle- relate to its parent spec which is why Dragonhunter just doesn’t do it for me for Guardian. For Warrior or Ranger I could buy it, but not for Guardian.

Skill set looks great, it actually made me consider a trap build and even consider looking at the traps more closely for my Thief and Ranger.

Basically I love the mechanics, I love the new weapon choice, and I love the animations/art of the skills… but the name is really, kinda, lackluster for me. I can see myself just calling it a DH Guardian instead of a Dragonhunter where the others presented so far I could see myself proudly stating I’m a Chronomancer, Tempest, or Druid. That’s kind of a let down, though I guess it means the DH Guardian feels more like a simple extension of a Guardian than something else since I’m doing my best to ignore what DH stands for and just play my Guardian.

I suggest this:

Profession – Seraphim
Elite Spell – Radiant Prison
Hunter’s Ward – Ward of Censure
Hunter’s Determination – Seraphim’s Balance
Hunter’s Fortification – Seraphim’s Aegis
Big Game Hunter – Chains of Judgement

All that is left is redoing the item skins and suddenly you have a class name that fits not only thematically with the weapon/skills but the parent class as well. It’s actually kinda sour that so little of the specialization actually ties into its name compared to the Chronomancer. Three out of thirteen skills (virtues, traps, shots) and some skins that could have just as easily been Dwayna or angelic themed. I mean the traps aren’t even traps. They’re Purification, not Trap of Purification. Fragments of Faith, not Fragments of Faith Trap. Etc… Yes they function like traps but the names sound more like wards or wells to me. The names as they are don’t convey the sense of a ‘trap’ like ‘Flame Trap’, ’Viper’s Nest’, or ‘Trip Wire’.

The skills just don’t feel hunter to me.

Edited for traits

Generally I’m not too thrilled about the Guardian Elite Spec like I was the Mesmer (even though I play the former and not the latter), but I could ignore all of that and put off any comments about first appearances until the video show casing it if it were not for the name.

I wanted Dragon Hunter as a title, not a profession name. Seriously, why isn’t this a title already? I wanted to be Dragon Hunter [insert name] on any character I wanted, no matter if she/he wielded the elements as weapons or ran around popping in and out of hiding while spinning around with daggers and pistols.

Any name- well maybe not any name, Photonbuster is probably just a tad worse than this- I’ve seen suggested would be better than this since they’re all generic, stereotypical class names in the end. The difference is this would have been a great title that is generic enough to fit all classes as well as incredibly lore appropriate.

I would have liked to see something like this:

Dragon Hunter – Defeat Tequatl, Zhaitan, and the one at Claw Island in the PS to obtain this title.

Dragon Trapper – Defeat Mordremoth (dungeon, raid, whatever), the Wyvern (World Event), and some unnamed lieutenant to obtain this title (PS).

Dragon Culler – Defeat Jormag (dungeon, raid, whatever), Jormag’s Claw, and some unnamed dragon to obtain this title (PS).

Dragon Abater – Defeat Kralkatorikk (dungeon, raid, whatever), The Shatter, and some unnamed dragon to obtain this title (PS).

Dragon Router – Defeat Bubbles (dungeon, raid, whatever), and two unnamed dragon lieutenants to obtain this title (one as world event, the other in PS).

Dragon Extinguisher – Defeat Primordius, his two lieutenants to obtain this title

Dragon Slayer – Defeat the Six Elder Dragons and preserve Tyria to obtain this title

I don’t understand the hate.

Dragon Hunter is a great name! I cannot wait to use this title on my warrior and ranger.

Wait, it isn’t a title?

Well BLEEP.

Harvest.2506:

Kentaine.4692:

Harvest.2506:

All I could find was one for general class names. Got stuff like Legendary Witch Heretic, and Imperial Hell Templar.

I’ll take Imperial Hell Templar

But it has to be one word.

I’ll take Imperielhelltemplar!
[/quote]

I’ll take ImperielHell then that’s still better than DragonHunter[/quote]

Or if we must have dragon… how about:

Dragonaire… wait that’s a pokemon. I was trying to squish dragon and legionaire together.
Dragnel? Dragon + Sentinel? Why can’t we create a word? Why do these words have to exist in the languages of our world already?
Dragoon? Well those were typically mounted, but it’s theorized the name stemmed from their firearm… guess that would work better if/when Guardian gets rifle.
Dragnet for when we get fishers as a profession!

Harvest.2506:

All I could find was one for general class names. Got stuff like Legendary Witch Heretic, and Imperial Hell Templar.[/quote]

I’ll take Imperial Hell Templar[/quote]

But it has to be one word.

I’ll take Imperielhelltemplar!

I like:

Avenger – and no, I did not think of the earth’s mightiest heroes first. If I was playing Marvel Heroes Online I would have.
Seraph- an actual lore profession, though it was strictly human but that was before the melding of races, orders, and to a lesser extent kingdoms to form the pact
Vindicator
Arbiter
Justicar- that’s actually in GW lore also, so what if he was evil from a certain perspective 250 years ago
To a lesser extent Seeker (but that’s because of my own dislike for the Sword of Truth series which admittedly was pretty good up until book 5 or 6 when it turned into the same book written in different ways).

I’d even take seeker over the mashed together dragon hunter, whoops. I did that again. Dragonhunter. Even if I played a male Guardian I’d prefer Valkyrie to Dragonhunter. No duh I’m a dragon hunter! What have I been doing for the past 2.5 years if not hunting dragons?

Dragon Hunter should be a title, not a profession. I’d be happy with that (kill Tequatl, the one in the PS at Claw Island, and Zhaitan to get it)
Dragon Trapper (kill Mordremoth/Wyvern/any other dragon lieutenants of Mordy’s)

You have many years to come up with others for the remaining dragons.

Dragon Slayer could come later for all elder dragons defeated

Alasteir.7031:

Genesis.8572:

Alasteir.7031:

You can bet your kitten that the dragonhunters in other fantasy settings are not the Paladin archetype. At least for the most part.

Since when have knights and holy warriors fighting dragons not been done to death? In D&D – the granddaddy of all tabletop RPG and computer/video gaming – dragon-hunting paladin archetypes are exceptionally common.

When the description of the Dragonhunter is that of a big-game hunter, you get a different connotation that those archetypes, especially with the lore of the Elder Dragons being Natural, and not intrinsically evil, or demonic. If something has been done to death, and you want to do it, the least you can do is make it as original as possible. Every solution proposed so far just makes it more overdone.

Like, if those random name generators that you find online gave you the option to list a name for a paladin archetype, pretty much all of the solutions other than Photonbuster would probably come up.

Hold on! Gonna find me one of those generators!

I dunno, but an avenger class going after a dragon seems less frequently done then a dragon hunter- sorry, dragonhunter- class going after a dragon.

And why do those names instead of dragonhunter come up? Because they fit the theme and lore of the class you asked for. Dragonhunter is so left field, it’s too left field.

Besides, if your argument is ‘those are over done’ we should rename warrior, thief, elementalist, necromancer, and ranger as well. Possibly even guardian and mesmer… though I think those might be the two professions I’ve heard the least in my gaming experience.

Why I like the new trait system:

Core specializations open up more seemingly set in stone themes to RPers who have more than one of any profession. Not only that but now I get 3 grandmaster traits to try out when before, since I wanted stat bonuses more, I rarely put 6 into one line and if I did it usually went into whatever increased power. I think separating the traits from stats was a brilliant move to open up MANY more build varieties when combined with the armor. Before if you wanted max damage you put it all in power, now you can put it all in any of the traits you thought might have been interesting to try but sacrificed to get more power. Not only that, but with stats ONLY being on armor if a glass cannon wants to survive longer they’ll HAVE to lose their pure berserk armor instead of putting more into toughness/vitality trait lines, thereby getting rid of Zerk meta. Will this happen? Possibly, only time will tell.

Skills and traits are now unlocked by leveling AS WELL AS exploration, meaning that even if I Tome of Knowledge up to 80- not that I ever have or ever will- I’ll have hero points to unlock skills AND traits without having to run all over the world to get even one trait. So already this is way better than the current trait system that gives you a whopping ZERO traits if you level to 80 this way. Is it better than the current skill system? Depends on how much it costs to advance the skill lines and how freely the hero points are given (is it just SP that grant Hero Points- HP? HeroP? Heroints? Hoints? Peroes?- or will we get 1/4 or some other fraction for PoIs, Vistas, and WPs too?)

A purely cosmetic reason: There’s interesting art on the Trait/Skill lines and the Core Specializations.

This is also a step towards how traits worked in GW1. Nobody put traits into all magics and expected to be a decent Elementalist at anything. Instead you went at least up to 9 in fire (if you had a Req. 9 fire staff of course) but more than likely you maxed out fire, a bunch into energy storage and put a little into your secondary profession. So, at least as a GW1 gamer… Yay for nostalgia’s sake!

There are some downsides of course, 2048 hero points on that water page and to go from rank 10-11 is 25? That makes me worried that there very well could be a considerable grind to unlocking more than just the traits but skills as well. Not knowing how frugal the game will be with hero points, however, I will try to hold off on letting that bug me too much. Also, and as always with future features, the Jury is still out on if these changes will actually be better or worse than what we have now.

I assume that this will be more acceptable, possibly even work better for some people, than what was before because the lines are no longer connected to a boost in stats as well.

Had the 4 extra points come with 40% extra in whatever stat then I could see some massive issues of being unbalanced to give ammunition to whiners.

As for me, I’m looking forward to having my Sylvari Elementalist spec into Fire/Water/Arcane and my human Elementalist to become the new elite spec. I’ve often wanted more than one grandmaster trait in my builds, but vary rarely even went with one because I favored spreading them out more. Now this gives me three, yeah I lose the spread out points but those were always more for the boost to stats than the traits generally and those boosts will be given to my base stats and the armor I choose now.

Unlike most MMOs, GW1 was not designed- except for those who really know what they’re doing- to be played alone. Luckily they included NPCs who will follow you around if you cannot find a PC team called Henchmen, and if you have Nightfall there are the far superior Heroes you can customize.

I’d be annoyed, my favorite trait is the one that gives my Warrior (and to a lesser extent, Engineer) a speed increase so I can equip more useful runes… Of course I opted for the traveler runes on my main warrior because I wanted to use a bow and just swapping to my bow and forgetting to swap back was annoying because of the decrease in speed. My other warrior is melee only.