Guild Wars 2

the bigger issue for me more than story being mastery gated, is the hero points being mastery gated.
masteries were supposed to be the long term system, they shouldn’t be gating anything!
least of all the elite specs we are so eager to play but can’t because of mastery grind-walls.

i’d wait to see if they change the godawful “masteries” which are holding the story and specializations hostage.

if they don’t allow you to play the story and specializations without grinding millions upon millions of mind-numbing xp then i’d whole heartedly not recommend buying it.

webtoehobbit.4201:

What did you all expect? Insta elite spec? Insta ALL masteries? (which are ACCOUNT WIDE if you didn’t know) Did you want to log in to see the final cutscene of the game? Cmon guys, just settle down and go play this expansion we have waited so long for!

what i personally expected was to log in, and hunt down 31 hero points over several hours (maybe a day or 2) to unlock my elite spec and then work through the story,
after that focus on masteries, instead what we have is…
MASTERIES.
you can’t unlock your elite spec because the HP locations need MASTERIES to get to.
you can’t progress your story because you need MASTERIES to progress.

what are MASTERIES?
a million+ xp grind.

i’m now in the same boat as everyone else, stuck behind a five million xp grind before i can continue to enjoy the game…

“grind free philosophy”
“play your way”
honestly i think Anet are trolling us with these “masteries”.

the maps, mobs and events are great, but the mastery system is freaking HORRIBLE.
if they want to make it a long term system then they shouldn’t hide content behind it.

i need 100 more hero points for my reaper grand master trait (without it my build wont work so i’m not even playing it until i get the grand master)
and i’ve decided to just go back to vanilla tyria… the only HPs i have left asre stuck behind toxic fields, impassable mordrem/chak walls ]
or the worst…over leyline bridges requiring rank 5 gliding!!!!

again, well done on the beautiful maps, the challenging mobs and the nice and busy events, but hero points hidden behind mastery grinds is a REALLY bad idea.

400 is fine but they shouldn’t be trapped behind the long-term mastery grind.

if we could just log in and do 40 hero points, thats cool, but instead you’ve got to grind every single mastery.

you could ask if a druid could be so kind to keep you healed for a minute,
but yeah, like so many hero points Anet thought it’d be fun to stick it behind the mastery grind-wall with the intent that you’d do that hero point after getting the poison mastery.

400 is only 40 hero challenges, and thats in the extremely unlikely event that you start from 0,
what ruins it is that the majority of those hero points are locked behind the mastery system, which is designed to be a long term system.

40 accessible hero challenges would be fine, locking them behind mind-numbing mastery grind walls isn’t fine.

it is pretty bad that the majority of them are locked behind the mastery grind.

want this one? better level up mushroom hopping!

oh, you found a way to reach this one without rank 2 hylek mastery?
we just won’t let you click it.

40 hero challengers in itsself is perfectly fine, sticking it behid a grindwall is pretty bad form!

still the mastery grind is probably my only negative point about HoT, i love the new mobs, love the new story, and absolutely LOVE getting enchanted armour!

mine did that first time, then i downloaded and installed the whole patch (not just until “playable”) and it worked.

its honestly like people are expecting to dive in day 1 with a full elite spec, full set of legendary armour and dualwielding the new legendaries…
honestly folks stop complaining so much that it might take you a couple of days to unlock your elite spec…
why are you in such a hurry to run out of content? XD

for once i’m happy that theres progression!
i can’t just pull out my 200 tomes and instantly 1-80 and then instantly buy my characters exotic armour and unlock every skill i could want.
theres actually a game to play to progress your character!

eisberg.2379:

Watch, they’ll bring back Tribal armor as a reward in PvE in HoT. Watch Liewec.2896 and people like him blow a fuse.

i won’t blow a fuse, i’ll just slowly shake my head at ANET f%%king up one of the what…5 cool things from the past that are no longer obtainable,
atleast i can still wave around my greatsaw that you don’t have.
you better start moaning for them to re-add that, we wouldn’t want rare things in GW2 would we!

tim.1280:

They gave people like two weeks notice to spend all of their glory… They also warned that fractals would be reset.

How are these things the same as bringing back various weapon and armor skins that were unintentionally taken out of the game.

2 weeks haha…
you were told FIVE MONTHS BEFORE HAND and then constantly reminded over and over, last time someone made the same silly claim you did i dug up a ton of posts from the news feed, but i can’t be bothered doing that now, b ut yeah, your “2 week warning” was actually half a year, half a year in which you could have quite easily gotten Tribal if you wanted it, instead you decided not to bother, and now you’re here complaining about it.

zombyturtle.5980:

I had no idea the skins would disappear and felt no pressure to get them immediatly. As far as im aware there was no warning. The only info anet provided us was that pvp and pve skins would be merged.

If there was a post stating specifically pvp exclusive skins would be disappearing, please link it and ill reconsider my argument about bringing them back, but until then I see no reason they shouldnt return.

as i told the other guy, last time someone claimed there was no warning i spent about an hour digging through the past few years of news posts, the earliest you will find being late november (5 months before the patch), which warned that all pvp materials and rank chests would be removed from the game

so…
1. we have a set only obtainable via pvp rank chests and pvp crafting materials,
2. all pvp crafting materials and pvp rank chests are getting removed.

they made no mention of the skins being added to pve, they said that your characters appearance would carry over to whatever mode you were playing, but they never once said that the pvp/pve exclusives would be available to acquire.

zaced.7948:

PS: Those items were attainable without any bigger effort back then.

then why didn’t you unlock it back then instead of waiting 2 years and then complaining that you couldn’t be bothered unlocking it like those of us who did. >_<

Sizer.3987:

few angry trolls who want them to be exclusive so they can feel good about themselves.

you consider it trolling that we want our heirloom rewards to retain their value?
have you ever played an MMO before?
i can imagine someone like you rolling up in oldschool WoW and saying “hey i like your armor! what its not obtainable anymore?! BUT I WANT IT!” [thow tantrum]
past-rewards are one of the things that keep a good MMO going, if you can’t accept that then you should go play a single player where everything is always available to you.

you’d have hated GW1, they had exclusively obtainable skins each year, you had to be there to get it, SHOCK HORROR right?

zaced.7948:

anet said they would transfer ALL the skins and simply forgot those that could only be achieved with the old pvp system.

they never said anything like that, the closest they got was something akin to “skins you unlock will be useable in all parts of the game”.

Justine.6351:

I don’t recall them saying “yeah we are arbitrarily removing these Armor sets that are trivial to get”. All I remember them saying is that burning up the pvp mats would be a good thing as the mats would be removed.

the set was only obtainable via pvp crafting and pvp rank chests,
its kind of obvious that when they remove all rank chests and pvp materials that the set would become unnobtainable, i didn’t have the full set until they announced the removal of the pvp mats (in 6 months time) so i quickly made it, i didn’t think there was any miscommunication or shock.

they gave you about half a year of notice before they became unnobtainable, if you couldn’t be bothered, too bad, if you weren’t playing back then, too bad.
but its not like it suddenly went “AWOL”…

i hate this “special snowflake” argument because you couldn’t be bothered when you had the chance and want to ruin it for those of us that did.

instead of calling people “special snowflakes” how about next time you want something limited, you go and earn it instead of coming back 2 years later when you’ve finally decided you can be bothered.

signed,
one of those “special snowflakes” that took the time to unlock Tribal, Greatsaw, Super weapon skins that you folks are always trying to ruin.

martaug.1762:

Funny Liewec, I don’t see a single post saying pve players want your pvp stuff. I assumed they were talking about bringing back pvp rewards for pvpers.

Ful disclosure: I’m strictly a pve’er and think that pvp’ers getting exclusive stuff is fine, just as long as it isn’t any stronger than what a pve’er can earn.
Different look? that’s cool

you’ll see a new “GIVE ME TRIBAL!” post atleast twice a month.
there was also a “give me stalwart” post several days ago,
i’m glad you’re fine with exclusive pvp heirlooms, most people apparently aren’t!

so many PVEers in here to say “i disagree, give me them all!” what a shock…

we earned them, they didn’t, they want them anyway.

when was the last time you saw a PVPer turning the tables and moaning to be given wings of the sunless, or any of the countless PVE weapon skins that never made it to PVP?

Burtnik.5218:

Some people doesnt understand meaning of leather armor i guess.

i thought by “leather” you meant the “medium” weight armours in general.
“cloth” “leather” and “plate” are quite common terms for the usual 3 weight classes in MMOs, (those were also the terms used in GW1 iirc) sorry for the confusion!

Fat Disgrace.4275:

you can make some good medium/leather armour combos work.

see ^^^

faster channel, i approve!

Killer-i’ve played pvp since beta,
hit dragon way back when they removed the pvp materials.

Achiever-(kinda) i like collecting rare things that few players have, Tribal armour, Greatsaw, Super Pistol are just a few examples.

Explorer-who doesn’t enjoy a good “lets escape the map!”

Social-oddly at the bottom, i usually lone wolf pve or solo queue pvp

each weight class has very few “sexy” options at the moment,
though Light certainly is winning!

fir sexeh medium armour you’re pretty much stuck to a human with T3 chest and either viper skirt or vigil leggings XD

if Failhammer and Campyard are in the wheel and instantly get a ton of picks then you know you’ve got an unranked premade.

The have been a bit of a problem at the moment,
too many of them are playing unranked for cheap victories.

if campyard gets its own queue then failhammer should get one too,
or just remove both from the unranked rotation, problem solved!

as the others have said, its entirely based on your weapons
i use dagger+warhorn on a wellomancer and i love love LOVE blood magic siphons :-3

warhorn 5 alone hits 5 targets around you every second for 10 seconds (50 hits)
so when you have 3 different traits offering you about 150 health stealing total it really adds up!

tldr: if you’re ticking off lots of damage then life siphons are great, if not, then avoid it.

this video comes to mind

created a char and levelled them to 80,
completed the whole personal story and season 2 LW in under a week.
2 chests 0 keys.

years ago i got 2 keys in quick succession in the Gendarran Fields beast arena event,
never had a key since.

i think kit engi has the highest skill ceiling

i forgot about the split, this explains why i keep seeing PVEers saying how bad it is while i’m churning down half of the HP of everyone around XD

it is a pretty stupid move,
“hey we’re making something new and we want players to play it!”
“shall we make it attractive to them so they WANT to play it?”
nah lets just ruin the alternatives so they have no choice.

Reaper, easily!
it just seems so well made,
the slow heavy hitting skills are amazing, both functionally and aesthetically,
reaper form is AWESOME, and the amount of synergy between other necro traits opens up the doors to soooo many new builds.

my runner up (though a lot of people would disagree) would be daredevil,
jumping around spamming leap slams for 10k aoe crits is just hilariously fun

warrior was the biggest letdown imho, it just seems to be designed by someone who doesn’t play warrior, low damage and burning on greatsword? HELL NO!

my runner up for disappointment would be dragonhunter.

the one i’m most interested to see how it plays out is ofcourse Druid,
a dedicated healer is something we were told not to expect
so it’ll be interesting to see how they fit in to the game, especially with raids coming.

good point, and yes it should!
you should also write this in the necro forum and also in the BWE3 feedback thread in the necro forum

cakeonroof.7385:

Willing to swap BOTH skyhammer and spirit watch for a single raid on the capricorn

capricorn actually had everything bad for PVP in it,
1. a cannon
2. NPCs
3. it went one step further and threw in mandatory water combat.

Anet need to learn to make simple maps,
theres a reason Forest and Foefire are picked by 7 out of 8 players every game,
no gimmicky fall damage, no cannons, the NPCs are merely objectives to cap.
just a bunch of capture points, simple.

endless combat tonics!

i don’t mean like the miserable Watchwork tonic with its 5 minute duration and 30 minute cooldown…

30 minute duration NO cooldown! like it was in GW1!
going through the entire game as a mini dragon (i gave my char a dragony name and i used dragon themed abilities) was amazing and refreshing!

remove 5uckhammer and campyard from unranked rotation
make reward tracks reset on completion.

skyhammer is an abomination that should never have made it out of testing,
and certainly shouldn’t be in the unranked rotation.

there was a skyhammer hate thread with over 2000 posts of us all releasing our visceral hatred for the abomination, but Anet have simply ignored it and people have eventually stopped trying…
now we just hope that noone picks it, since a 9v1 vote can still land you on the map that 99% of the playerbase utterly despise.

Drakortha.6974:

i vote for Skyhammer as much as possible because i find it refreshing honestly.

i hope you end up on my team so you can enjoy a refreshing 4v5.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

FEAR the reaper…

i’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!

i wouldn’t just yet.
i’m hoping Anet won’t make the mistake of rereleasing the 2012 skins,
but i wouldn’t put it past them.
so save your gold incase they make the mistake.

Well of Madness
casts taunt on enemies inside, but here’s the fun part, the taunts are on eachother!
button mashers will end up killing their allies >:-3

my fixes (for unranked)
*remove Skyhammer and Courtyard (these 2 maps should be hotjoin/practice only)
*lower timer before the match (most people don’t hit “ready” anymore)

i’m currently using scholar, but i’m torn between scholar, strength and my favourite all rounder Pack (nice power, nice boost to crit and fury 50% of the time)

strength might be the best since i plan on running with a Strength Sigil too for more Blighter’s Boon procs, but at 13g they’re also extremely expensive, 2 strength runes cost more than 6 scholar/pack.

as there were 3 light classes, 3 medium classes and only 2 heavy classes it wasn’t a huge stretch that a 3rd heavy would be added, and thematically i expected something "deathknight"ish so a “ghostknight” (which is how i’d describe rev) is’nt far off
there are still new class possibilities, but they’ve just made the armour weights per class balanced, so i doubt they’ll want to make it 3, 3, 4.

its pretty good, plus necros don’t really have a decent alternative,
all of our other skills are long cooldown bursty skills which aren’t very useful in pve.
except maybe lich for the odd boss.

i win! (or lose! :P)

elite druids, elite gladiators, and scar please!

i agree, i’ve recently instantly levelled 2 chars to 80 and i still have around 100 tomes..
however i only have something like 20 transmutation charges.
(which i’ll burn through really quick if HoT has nice weapon/armour skins)

perhaps they should give you a chest (similar to the weapon/armor skin chests)
that lets you pick either a BLC Key, transmutation charges or tomes.

Corelion.7460:

Just don’t buy outfits, you are hurting yourself. Outfits need to disappear and make them armor sets so we can choice what pieces we want.

^this
i’d have bought absolutely EVERY outfit by now if i could pick and mix parts,
but currently i only have a few.
Anet are missing out on big bucks from this, both from selling outfits and from selling more transmutation crystals.

it was a pvp reward for the old system, but it was available at a rank that noone ever reached (dragon) so noone currently has it.

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

ignore the negativity, Unload was one of my favourite skills already and now it hits like a truck with a wookie on top!

AoE! i made a build based around the aoe slam dodge and the staff 5 (it was last BWE so i’ve forgotten the names of both) but it was very cool, staff 5 is an AoE that crits for 8k, very very tasty.

a bad reaper can do good,
a good chrono can do better
thats the issue here, reapers are very easy to play and own with, they’re the new hambow.
but they also have a lower ceiling than a chronomesmer,
a master chronomancer is practially a god.

the staff animations should be the standard staff animations used for ele/necro/mesmer/guard etc
if they’re holding it like a hammer for the idle then it could be a bug,

also the reason thieves got new animations is because they’re using it in a new way (as a melee weapon) the druid is just casting spells so they should have the standard spell casting animations