Guild Wars 2

Well, it looks like I won my imaginary bet against myself for a steam punk loggin axe…

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/2dc0aPermanentLoggingAxe.png

Still no news about the weapons (even the ones that are available for preview). I hope we can get them at least on the July release… please?

You don’t need the book, but you can spoil it by reading the plaques.

At least you guys don’t have it as bad as here in Spain where the editorial publishing GWs books is still in the process (or so the say) to publish the second one…

I’m glad the achievement is permanent and you don’t need to read it in a hurry to finish it without spoiling yourself.

I’m really thinking about getting an english copy of this one as it looks promising.

Caedmon.6798:

Even if the damage is minimal,the point is that we’re gonna be punished for moving now…While warriors being in need of more sustain,rely heavily on mobility..and now our leg specialist is being cut down ( Why actually…is 1 sec immobilize Really that Op to be having for a warrior..? ) ,ontop of it we’re being punished for walking aswell..Prob,some kitten will jump in saying,well then just dont move untill the condition is gone…So,we stand there not moving,also not attacking because retal hits like a truck,confusion hitting you aswell…I think in about 4 patches warriors will be just sitting ducks standing around being worthless because were probably gonna be punished for breathing in air aswell.

Leg specialist was limited because you now have a lot of cripple access if you read the whole leaked notes. If they’re right a S/A Warrior can get REALLY nasty, inmobilizing you a lot and getting Fury when applying Inmob too, to then unleash the new Axe #5 that is 50% better than before while the target can’t move or is slowed and you have perma fury.

All of this is if the leaked notes are all right, of course.

Fade.7658:

Skale Venom is on a 30 second CD untraited.

45 untraited, 36 traited in fact so the scenario is even worse for the venom. I’ve been playing a sharer build for quite a loooooong time now and I don’t think I will take this one after the chance. If the charges are aumented to 5 then I will, but not really for the torment but for the leeching (that’s why spider venom is good on sharer builds).

Minos.3450:

They also say this fella is a she so unless Caudecus had recently undergone surgery I don’t see him being the one mentioned.

Well we know he has undergone surgery at least once!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/e/eb/Minister_Caudecus.jpg

This is how he used to look like during beta. Honestly I liked him more before. His current model looks like a buffon, his old self at least inspired wisdom. I honestly can’t take the current Caudecus as a serious pretender for power, I would take a laugh and say no if he tried to order me something.

Kreedz.8127:

but to give it to Thieves & Mesmers also is utterly mind blowing.

If the leaked notes are true:

- The condition isn’t really strong. It hits for 0.75 of a bleed if you don’t move and 1.5 of a bleed if you do.

- The Thief would only have access to it through Skale Venom, and unless the number of charges will change too, it will still be as completly useless as before so you won’t see it too much around. At best (assuming you move all the time) it will be a 4.5*bleed. Considering the Ranger already has a venom (works exactly like venoms, same mechanic, same time active, same cooldown) that applies 5 bleeds without needing you to move it isn’t like Skale would be a big thing.

Most people are screaming about this condition when really it isn’t that strong and there aren’t reliable ways to put many of them on your target. It will be an extra punishment if you move, but not that big of a deal.

They probably are introducting it in small bits to see how the meta reacts.

A possible idea I had to both empower and depower the trait line would be this:

Make Infusion of Shadow return only 1 initiative AND make it the 5 pts trait replacing Last Refuge.

Why it empowers the tree?

- It removes Last Refuge, an obligatory to take trait that kills you more than it helps you, and it replaces it with a synergy with the profession mechanic relating stealth (tree focus) with initiative (profession mechanic) the same way Trickery 5 points trait relates Steal (tree focus) with initaitive.

- It allows for a wider range of traits to pick, automatically giving one of the traits you would pick when building for stealth so you can wast your trait slots in others (blind on stealth, cure conditions on stealth, or some of them plus venom specialized traits).

How it depowers the tree?

- It reduces the efficiency of Infusion of Shadows. It still returns initiative but you may not be able to keep them as high as before for very long time (while still being able to keep it for a very decent amount of time).

I think this change gives and takes enough to compensate and most thieves would end up benefited enough by this (getting rid of LR and getting IoS for free which opens more space o pick traits) to compensate for the 1 initiative per stealth loss.

Gwen trauma with trusting others did never stop. With her position as leader of the Ebonhawke the pressure made it bigger and her rants and screams increased in a dangerous way. One day Gwen saw Keiran saying “good morning” to Evennia that was around (we never see her again after GW1 mysterious dissappearance, but she later was sent to Ebonhawke to help as part of the Ascalon-Kryta treaty), and in her demented state she could only see how the man she risked to trust her love was directing his atention to another beautiful woman.

Gwen went berserker and attacked them with powerful magic vaporizing both of them in a matter of seconds.

She had to be restrained and the others at Ebonhawke told her a different story about what happened when her sanity returned, and never built Keiran’s or Evennia’s tombstones so she wouldn’t remember that traumatic day triggering her berserker state again.

Her descendants were told that new made up story so they weren’t shameful of their ancestor, former honorable heroes until that happened.

Given how Dragon Chests can be traded, and they’re a source for Dragon Tickets I see no reason why the Tickets shouldn’t be tradeable.

It would give every player that dislike RNG items the ability to buy them with money without RNGs (that others took in the process) by paying a price marked by the demands of players that went through it.

I know there are some sets that I wouldn’t like any weapon because they don’t fit my characters, and if a ticked droped to me I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Queen Jenna is a queen, she has power of an ENTIRE CITY. Obviously that makes humans too powerful to play, because she is indicative of all humans, they must all have their own cities to rule over!

Role power and racial power are very different things. While the queen has some impressive mesmer powers, she hardly will strike you with the physical strength and the combined magic of her kingdom (she rules more than Divinity’s Reach btw, she is the human queen of Kryta which extends to other places and even humans in Ascalon follow her lead).

And I’m sure if she orders something weird to every human, more than one won’t answer the call (not to mention that she is still the queen of the lands where bandits live and they oppose her). She has the government, not the equivalent power of all them concentrated on herself.

To put an example, Game of Thrones King Joffrey “rules” the Seven Kingdoms, yet I’m sure he would lose in a fight to every single character in the books.

Zommoros on the other hand seems to be the power source behind the game mechanic that creates the most powerful items in the game. As an individual that puts him in a very high league considering we all depend on him to get the best items in the game. And nothing states that he’s more powerful than any other Djinn.

I can’t find the dialogue about the mystic Djinn cache that Zommoros can access, searching on the wiki for anything containing either Zommoros or Mystic Forge and I can’t find it :S. If that would be true, the term “forge” wouldn’t make much sense.

@Konig Ok I misunderstood the ancient part.

But you misunderstood my point on the Zommoros part. I don’t think Zommoros is comparable to any of the characters you said. Those characters are heroes, they can do things players can do, and some of them can do something extra and have their lore and all, but arguably they’re on the same league than playable characters.

Zommoros is not a regular merchant with lots of resources. Evon Gnashblade is a merchant with lots of resources, but as an individual he would be on the same power league than any playable character.

Zommoros runs the mystic forge. That it’s a forge (a mystic one) means that Zommoros creates all those exotics and legendary items. There is nothing that points to Zommoros being more powerful than any other Djinn, yet he has the power to create the most unique and powerful items in the whole game, basically because he is a Djinn.

If suddenly you make being a Djinn the most common thing in the world (by allowing every player the ability to create one), it doesn’t make sense that Zommoros can create legendary weapons and infuse equipment but playable Djinn can’t. If Zommoros has that power level being a Djinn, other Djinn should have comparable power which would put them many leagues above the playable human races.

As I said, what I could see is a race derivated from them, maybe created by them, being playable with abilities reminiscent of Djinns. But Djinns perse are a long shot due to the reach of their powers given how Zommoros can create the most powerful items in the world or the ability to fly among other things.

Excalibur.9748:

Lokheit.7943:

Shortbow is a great utility weapon. It’s really useful thanks to the initiative system, cooldowns are shared between both weapon sets, so the thing a Thief should look for on his second set is utility and Shortbow is perfect to bring anything the primary set can’t.

It’s great for supporting a team with combo finishers and weakness, and tagging opponents in a event, but it should never be your primary set as it doesn’t cause enough damage for it.

So no, it doesn’t need any kind of nerf. It’s probably the most balanced weapon we got and it could even get a damage boost and still be fine.

And the example of “range reduction” you gave makes zero sense (it’s like you just wanted to start a discussion about something random for the sake of it and right now I feel like feeding the troll answering here). Why nerf the range (which is 900, with the Thief having zero access to 1200 range weapons) makes any sense? Even Rangers can throw axes with their arms at the same distance Thieves can shoot arrows with a bow!

there’s a possible nerf on range of #2 skill from 1200 to 900 tomorrow. gathering opinion to see whether the nerf would be justified or not.

I don’t want to give my opinion on the matter because I <3 shortbow. You know it.

Ok so that’s the reason. About the possible range reduction, we will see, I hope not. It won’t be that big of a difference honestly as Cluster Bomb at 1200 is kinda useless because of its speed, but at least it gives us something to press in those situations.

SB is fine as it is, I was fearing they would destroy Lotus Poison (slamming hard any support build), but if the preview on gw2hub was correct instead of just a small list with some, but not all of the changes we can breath.

Zepidel.5349:

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Zepidel.5349:

If I ever came across a thief trying to play healer/support in a dungeon id probably leave in shame.

A ranger/ele combined with a thief’s clusterbomb can do miracles though.
I don’t run support, but when possible I’d shoot clusterbomb on healing springs
Just wanted to comment on that part :P

Ya i have too many bad experience with thiefs in dungeons using stupid kitten like pistols or trying to run condition/support. They are the reason people dont like thiefs in PvE. A D/D thief out dps a zerker warrior anyday.

On the contrary. All the hate against the Thief in PvE comes for squishy zerkers dying all the time and being ejected from groups because they add nothing (dps while dead = 0, in fact it would be negative dps as you stop your allies dps while they’re ressing you all the time). I’ve never heard hate against support thieves though.

I can tell you I can use my support build and run Arah explorable mode with no one in the whole group breaking a single piece of armor and you see through playing it that your role is a big reason for that. You just need to know how to play your cards and doing so you don’t decrease your overal damage too much (it isn’t like you’re playing cleric gear or anything like that) and you help all your team maintain (and increase) their dps.

Shortbow is a great utility weapon. It’s really useful thanks to the initiative system, cooldowns are shared between both weapon sets, so the thing a Thief should look for on his second set is utility and Shortbow is perfect to bring anything the primary set can’t.

It’s great for supporting a team with combo finishers and weakness, and tagging opponents in a event, but it should never be your primary set as it doesn’t cause enough damage for it.

So no, it doesn’t need any kind of nerf. It’s probably the most balanced weapon we got and it could even get a damage boost and still be fine.

And the example of “range reduction” you gave makes zero sense (it’s like you just wanted to start a discussion about something random for the sake of it and right now I feel like feeding the troll answering here, if it wasn’t because I know you’ve posted around here before I would think that). Why nerf the range (which is 900, with the Thief having zero access to 1200 range weapons) makes any sense? Even Rangers can throw axes with their arms at the same distance Thieves can shoot arrows with a bow!

Edit: When I was looking your past messages to verify you wasn’t just trolling (I had curiosiry given the absurd topic and the short opening post) I found this.

Excalibur.9748:

SharadSun.3089:

Oh man… so much QQ here.

Thieves are still the single most reliable appliers of Weakness, which is now extremely powerful (a flat 12.5% incoming damage decrease: 25% of their hits deal only 50% damage). Shortbow is a liiiittle bit overpowered now, and using an init-regen power/crit build will contribute infinitely more to teamfights now.

Pray tell. How is shortbow OP?

Why did you start this thread? You just wanted to troll the trolls?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Several reasons.

Djinn give a unique view in the story, similar to how the sylvari do compared to the other races, by being elementals. This gives them the ability to give the game a new feel and perspective that other races can’t as easily give.

They are sentient with having culture and history, some of it developed and yet not that much which allows a lot of expanding.

They’re humanoid, which seems to be a requirement for playable races.

And they would easily fit for an Elona expansion’s playable race. Out of all Elonian races, only heket and djinn really work – centaur and undead have too many issues with them both aesthetically and story wise, and then heket woukdnt fit well imo due to the hyleks.

Only real problem for the djinn as I see it would be the race’s age, which isn’t that big of an issue since tengu may be similarly old, their independence and lack of a known or implied united home, though that didn’t stop the norn, and then the armor situation, but who said they can’t wear the armor that other races can? (after all, they can shapeshift – perfect racial skills there).

I see some problems with them as playable though.

First of all is Zommoros. He is part of one of the most integral mechanics of the game, the Mystic Forge. Granted he’s a really ancient Djinn (dating to when Karka were last seen), but nothing prevents other Djinns from being as ancient as he is (and it’s possible that his powers aren’t neccesarily given just for his age).

With thousands of playable Djinns walking around, Zommoros doesn’t make too much sense as the power behind the mystic forge.

Djinns also fly (in fact they are never seen walking as far as I can remember, as their legs have pointy ends instead of feet, which is an aditional problem for gearing them with boots), this is a huge problem given several mechanics of the game.

As you said being ancient (and I doubt Tengu live as long as they do given their organic nature vs their elemental nature) is another problem for them as it makes them too “superior” to the playable races to relate to them on their same level. If anything they could be a race guiding the players through Elona with their ancient wisdom.

To be honest I could see some new race based on them somehow. Something like as part of their possible resistance against Joko, and with their numbers decreasing, the Djinns find a way to create a organic race, able to reproduce with Djinn-like powers. Something like that could be more viable, but I don’t see the Djinn we know as playable race.

Gandarel.5091:

There are some details about being a playable race:

1. Racial capital (Djinns fail)
2. Racial territory, with villages, outposts (Djinns fail)
3. Citizens and economy (Djinns fail)
4. The armor sets must fit and has to have a beliveable dodge-animation (Djinns and centaurs fail)
5. Has to be a social race that often interacts with others and are capable of grouping up with others, from the race or with anyone (this is where Largos fails – skirmishers, avoiding any attention and contact)
6. Has to be unique (this is where kodans and dwarves fail, being similar to the norns and sharing the same territory – the dwarves by mentality and penchant for beer, also looking like mini-norns with their huge muscles and hairs, and the kodan, where’s even a theory about being from the same race as the norns, also, they’ve lost their homelands and are mostly refugees in high-level zones)

While I agree that Djinn are hardly an option, the capital point can fail, zones like the Hidden City of Ahdashim could be perfectly reworked as a Djinn capitol after 250 years. It would be a long shot, but possible.

And I don’t see how Largos fail in that 5th point. They’re shown multiple times helping and grouping with other races. We just haven’t seen to many of them, so it’s normal we haven’t seen large groups of them, but that one doesn’t rule them out at all. We know they have a society, with a form of government and rules that they strictly follow so they are definitely a social race.

Gandarel.5091:

Konig you made a double post :P

“About races, I’d say there’s only four races seen thus far in GW2 that have a possibility of becoming playable, however small:
Tengu, which I’d say is about 95% or more chance
Largos, which I’d give to be about 50% chance
Djinn, which I’d say is about 40% chance
Kodan, which I’d give to be about 20% chance”

Btw you give your %s a bit too optimistic.

Djinn -99999%.
Largos 0.1%.
Kodan 1%.
Tengu 99%.

I agree that his Djinn percentages are far too optimistic (and Zommortos wouldn’t make any sense any more if every player could play as a creature with his same racial features), but Largos have faaaaaar more ingredients to be playable than Kodan. Or to put it in a different way, Kodan have more ingredients to NOT be playable than Largos.

Among the races currently in the game, only Tengu are more probable (and they’re a sure thing) than Largos for playability.

Lots of people crying about Torment when according to Patch notes it’s really really weak.

Basically it does 0.75 times the damage of a bleed, and if an opponent moves, then it does 1.5 times the damage of a bleed.

Our source of torment is going to be (according to those leaked patch notes) Skale Venom, which unless it’s changed it only applies 3 stacks… which in the best case (asuming the opponent moves all the time) it acts like 4.5 bleeds on a 45 seconds cooldown… yay!!!

Considering that Rangers already have a venom (same exact mechanics than venoms) that applies 5 bleeds, it isn’t like our Torment will be something special.

People will cry, of course, but the reality is that torment isn’t such a great condition. I play a venom share build and I’m not sure I will even try it. Maybe if it’s increased to 5 charges I will try it, and not for the torment effects, but for the leeching*5 that is what makes Spider Venom good on sharer builds.

Even if some of our weapon skills got it (I was hopping for it to help P/P, which unlike the melee sets needs some way to control opponent movement and torment would’ve been perfect for them) it wouldn’t be so OP.

Excalibur.9748:

what do you mean? i didn’t see any skill changes in this preview? But yes, lotus poison was spared? ? !?! not sure since it’s just a preview

I really really hope Lotus Poison was spared. It’s the backbone of most Thief support builds and it would be a pity if they destroyed it when it was neither OP ot UP, just a very fine trait.

And yep, it sucks that now Last Refuge is even better at killing you. That trait should be replaced.

I’m thinking that the same way the 5 pts in Trickery gives 3 initiative on using steal, maybe we could get Infusion of Shadow, but returning 1 initiative instead of 2 as he 5 pts SA trait. This way it’s useful, doesn’t kill you and it helps them rebalance the initiative gain of SA users (as IoS is halved) but at the same time easy the access to the trait.

Hard to catch is another one that should’ve been replaced as the random teleport most times endangers you rather than saving you. Maybe it could be replaced with summoning a Thief ally and breaking the stun seeing how the other trait that summoned a Thief no longer does.

The ghost weapons are basically the models wielded by the holograms in the dragon bash. Probably not usable but you can preview them as they’re equiped weapons on those monsters and had to be included.

The hammer probably belongs to the aetherblades too, it looks like what the anchor on their ship would look like.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Even the Tengu present issues though, they have beaks instead of mouths and as we’ve see in Personal Story dialogue pieces that does not lend itself to convincing ‘speaking’. My memory could be wrong, but I seem to remember the Tengu’s beak hardly even moving in conjunction with the voice acting – obviously that’s something they could address if they decided to make them playable, but it’s worth considering.

-edit- Around 9:40 in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG83Hk5kyr0
The Tengu’s beak does go up and down with the dialogue, but as I said, it isn’t very convincing. They also don’t lend themselves well to facial emotion – something that all of the current races are very capable of (I mean yes the Charr look angry most of the time, but they do still have relatively diverse expressions).

About the Tengu, it’s quite obvious that their model is a bit of a placeholder (they even have worse quality textures I think), and once they are developed as a playable race they will have much more detail for that kind of stuff.

I expect them end up with an array of personalization like this: https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSMcbyypioFZZeKCJMsZfKIwLDJ94BB3lfKsEHevNYw6Ex2u8vf

It will be interesting to see how they differentiate males and females. Probably they will go the Charr and Asura route with genderless armors, and probably the females will have smaller heads and chest with thiner necks (male birds usually show their big chest to atract females), the one on the right seems like a good base for female Tengu.

PS: And I hope a duck beak will be included… not that I will use it on my Tengu, but I love seeing the “comical relief” option, like Mushroom Sylvari and Afro Asura.

@Drax to be honest the Dragon Weapons set only appeared less than 15 hours before the event started and it wasn’t even with codes.

I know it because I made a thread to ask for them and tried to keep it alive all the time and I was always searching the internet to find them (in fact I was the first one to post them in this forum when I finally foud them I think in guildwars2hub and they weren’t even the codes, just the preview image probably from them having a gameplay preview of the event).

So I think they now have better security with that. Data Miners found many weapons used by the Aetherblades (including the cannon that is very unlikely to be usable as it’s from a special boss, and the holographic weapons from the dragon minions holograms) because that’s what is implemented right now (they had to as those enemies were in the game). But I still think it’s gonna be a whole set.

I really hope they don’t follow the “random ticket” system as I really want at least the revolver, and if they have a cool shortbow, probably that too, but if that system still gives them money…

I hope they listened to the players and put some sort of dungeon token for them (but with the armors being on the gemstore that would break how dungeon equipment and tokens work so we’re probably in for another RNG scam… I’m just trying to keep hope alive).

I’m also betting on a steam punk logging axe to go with the fused pick and sclerite sickle following the way they’ve been adding things.

@StinVec those weapons are the Ascalon Dungeon weapons. Here are the codes for the known weapons:

Shield: [&AgGuqQAA]
Mace: [&AgGtqQAA]
Scepter(?): [&AgGrqQAA]
Pistol: [&AgGvqQAA]
Sword: [&AgGzqQAA]

Yeah unshakable doesn’t mean opponent.

And the way she jiggles when Marjory tells her to enjoy the festival is far from what I would expect from a villian.

And don’t you dare continue your pervy thoughts on my character’s 2 girls!! (He worships Lyssa, he’s allowed to date 2 girls… right? :P ).

Tulisin.6945:

Want to make pistol all-conditional? Give Body Shot confusion and the dual skills Burning. A major weakness of current thief condition builds is that they rely far too heavily on bleed. And it makes me sad to see high-condition damage/duration thieves with no way to apply that sweet sweet burn pain.

Problem there is spammability. Burning equals to a direct aplication of 8 bleeds on a single hit.

Because of initiative, we would be able to basically keep it on, so no matter how strong the opponent is removing conditions, the second he loses burning, he has it again. This is another of those things we can’t have because of initiative, along with other stuff like long duration CCs. Burning, like long duration CC, must be on something with a cooldown. Blame’s on the profession mechanic that would make them too strong.

Anyway burning isn’t really needed to excel at conditions if there is a good enough way to quickly build bleeds and cover it with different conditions (I cover my bleeds with at least other 3 conditions that are always there, plus others that will ocasionally be there).

Not Carrion either, one of the most importnat sets for Conditions. I refuse to get any ascended equipment for that.

Further proof to this notes being fake, or at least not the final product:

Absolute no single mention to PvP division for skills. We know the progression of the balancind process has become more and more about separating skills into PvE and PvP. The word PvP NEVER appears in those notes.

My only problem with it is like, as Shadow Refuge, if you’re playing with people that don’t know what you’re going to do, they will keep attacking and breaking the stealth, atracting all sorts of AoEs that will kill you too.

Doomdesire.9365:

They should just convert it into a full condition spec if they aren’t going to buff it. One way or the other.

An idea I’ve given before to fully transform it into full condition set:

Unload has a 50% chance to apply bleed on each bullet, and 50% chance to apply weakness (very moderate duration given future changes). Reduce the direct damage proportionally to make up for the added condition damage part.

Right now Unload isn’t worth 5 initiative and synergizes very poorly with the main attack. Make this change and now you have a 5 initiative skill that on average applies 4 bleeds (P/D combo applies more bleeds per initiative used but needs to get close) and 4 aplications of weakness (like 0.5 to 1 seconds per aplication, the idea is that you can only keep it if you keep shooting so it doesn’t become imbalanced) and now you have a full condition set that aditionally works for team utility and defense through its main damage source without being a beast mode set as everything was toned down to make sure it isn’t a curbstomp skill.

Body Shot would still need a change (the new Torment condition comes to mind), but at least this way Unload synergizes with Vital Shot and both are effective on the same builds.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

What does reduce the Aetherblades from being Canthan is the fact that there are norn and char in the pirate group. With a norn being the first mate according to the picture of the mini.

Aditionally there is a post in the official site stating they’re in an alliance with the Inquest. A pity IMO, I would’ve prefered them to be on their own. Being a multiracial organization (and there are Asura pirates out there) there wasn’t a need to aditionally ally them with a racial nemesis.

MakeitNeil.4561:

Finally, I could see at least four new weapons added. Weapons I would like them to add would be the following: Battleaxe, Claymore, Halberd, Lance, Scythe, One-handed Hammer, Shuriken, Crossbow, Pick, Maul, Chained Mace, Chained Scythe, Whip, Throwing Knives/Daggers, Fists, Claws, Poles, and (since I couldn’t think of anything really that good for an Engineer) a Bazooka, perhaps? I don’t know.

Whoaaa whoaaaa stop there! Half of those weapons are the same mechanically! Most in that list are simply different skins of already existing weapons. Absolute no need to add so many weapons when they’re just different skins for existing weapons. Remember that every new weapon requires a whole new set of 5 skills for multiple professions using that weapon.

Claymore? Already in the game. One-handed hammer? They’re called maces in the game. Shuriken/throwing daggers/throwing knifes as a weapon set? Everything you could do is covered by daggers (both ranger and thief throw them and the thief makes them bounce) and you could maybe add some utility skill, but there is no way you make a whole set based on shurikens when we already have daggers covering it. Maul? Already in the game.

Battleaxe has been hinted by developers as a very high possibility (and multiple professions could benefit from it, like Warriors, Ranger and Necromancer, all of them for different roles). And I think Scythe could be added as skins for the Battleaxe without adding them as a new weapon (and there are already Staff skins for Scythe, in the theory I gave of melee staff they could be used as proper scythes if you pick those skins). Crossbow… maybe, but with already 2 types of bows and a rifle… still a maybe. Lances on land are a possibility too I guess.

IMO the most likely because they could be useful for multiple professions are Battleaxe (barbarian Warrior, woodsman Ranger and reaper Necromancer) and Whip (beastmaster Ranger, torturer Necromancer, indiana jones Thief), with already existing weapons being added to other professions (staff for druid Necromancer, bow for “arrows of light” Guardian, Rifle for snipper Thief, etc…).

As others said, Cantha is too far away anyway, though most of those could be added in any given expansions.

I think the way you wrote all this you have been thinking about this and wrote all your thoughs in a hurry, but please in the future divide them better so it’s easier to read and separate from each other

Also most of it doesn’t exactly fit in the lore section (I think you started thinking about the lore behind Luxon vs Kurzick and then included everything a perfect expansion would have for you) of the forum as it’s about the mechanics that a expansion would add.

Firs, just a sugestion, Makeit please divide your texts into paragraphs, wall of texts about so many different things, with no separation are hard to read.

MakeitNeil.4561:

I want to hear your input on the coming expansion. I think that Cantha will be added. I think the addition of Cantha could be used to add world PvP in the particular continent. I like the idea of WvW but the addition of world PvP would be nice.

The thing that makes GW2 stand up is the abscence of threads from other players in PvE, and aditionally anti leech/ninja mechanics and giving everyone the possibility of resurrecting other players. GW2 community is incredibly cooperative with others compared with other MMOs because they eliminated any possible thread from other players in any way. I don’t think open world PvP is a possibility, let’s give that to WvW that already has a conquest system.

Not to mention that Luxon and Kurzick hardly have the forces to fight anything, or that any non-human (and inside humans anyone not related to Canthan ancient history) wouldn’t be identified at all with their causes so fighting for them makes no sense.

Could some new PvP and WvW features be added? Of course, why not. But open world PvP? I say it goes against how this game works.

MakeitNeil.4561:

Also, what do you think the races and classes would be if they added Cantha. I think that they will only add 2 new races and classes in the next expansion. Knowing Guild Wars, I can almost guarantee this. For the two races, I would think that they would most likely add the Skritt, Kodan, Tengu, or Quaggan.

The only one related to Cantha are the Tengu, and we know their capitol is very close to Lion’s Arc because Canthan xenophobic governement sent every non-human away (or killed the ones that stayed).

Aditionally Skritt and Quaggan has a lot of ingrdients to NOT be playable. Kodan have many ingredients too for never being playable, but at least not as many as those 2.

I think if there would be a new playable race specifically related to Cantha at all, a theory I had some time ago is the possibility of a branch of “good” Onis, that may have been kept by Kanaxai’s forces and/or the Jade sea during GW1 but now are free. That’s the only example coming to my mind of a race that would be strong enough and have enough resources to resist against Canthan xenophobic government.

But that’s going into a lot of theorycrafting and wishful thinking on my part, and I think all future races will have their capitol on Tyria, as unlike GW1 where each continent was part of a campaign, in GW2 we will have expansions instead of campaigns, so it makes sense that the new races are part of the core continent.

MakeitNeil.4561:

For the classes, I could see a monk, a dervish, a ritualist, a pargon, a shaman (most likely), a druid (maybe not), or a dark knight of some sort.

Most of those classes are absorbed into current ones. Dervish are absorbed into Human Racial skills (and as others said, they don’t fit with other races). Monk and Paragon were merged into the Guardian.

I’m on the opinion, and I’ve said this multiple times, that giving new weapons to existing professions already covers any possible hole without needing to add a whole new profession with all the balancing headaches that implies (new main mechanics, new whole set of weapons working differently than others, new trait lines, etc…).

The example I almost always give is giving the Ranger a staff with nature magic spells. The Ranger already has a nature magic trait line, the ability to summon spirits of nature, the ability to use nature forces (like lightning or springs) and a profession mechanic related to animals. Give him a staff and you have a druid without needing to add the new profession druid.

There are many other examples for this. Thief + Rifle + Off Hand Sword = Pirate with already an existing mechanic related to pillaging. Thief with melee staff (same way necromancer or mesmer use axes and greatswords to throw magic) and a new family of utility skills related to unarmed techniques and you have a martial artist. And the list goes and goes…

The only stereotype I admit can’t be covered with current professions would be a heavy armor user of the Agression school. I think this might be a good way to revamp Ritualists (as their old mechanics are currently covered) with a mechanic related to spirits chained to him and focused on life stealing.

MakeitNeil.4561:

As for the traits, they will probably add a new trait line for each class and a new slot. I could see there being four slots (Adept, NOVICE, Master, Grandmaster).

I think they would go with adding more traits per level rather than more lines and more levels per line. That requires a lot of job and would be a complete headache for the balancing team given how this game works.

draxynnic.3719:

Lokheit.7943:

curlydim.8461:

Long story short:
How would one get such an armor in your opinion?
What do you think about each set, according to your race and sex?
(My opinion = HEAVY/terrible, MEDIUM/I like it, LIGHT/decent, but meh)

You can find the armors on youtube and the official ANet post.

About how to obtain them, this image matches the art used in Gem Store:

http://i.imgur.com/24SD0QX.png

My opinion is that there are pieces of them that in a mix and match set could look really sweet. The whole sets don’t attract me too much (they look much better on female characters than on my male characters btw, and dyes help a lot too) but there are intriguing pieces.

To be honest I’m more interested in knowing how to obtain the weapons and I hope it isn’t through RNG chests. I REALLY WANT that Revolver!! And if the set’s shortbow is a compound bow and looks as good as that one I will finally drop my Steam Shortbow (I like my bows to be compound bows and I love steampunk!)… So if I’m going for multiple skins in the set I would like them to be available for something reasonable and not random U.U (oh, and the sword looks good too!)

It may not be a full set. The impression I get is that the weapons are the weapons used by the Aetherblades, which will be made available to players through some currently unknown means because, hey, they’ve gone to the effort of making the art assets anyway. I don’t think any of the Aetherblades use bows, so there are probably no bows in the set.

The Molten alliance didn’t use every fused weapon either (they used 8 skins of the 15 total list), yet we got the whole set.

Yeah she recognized my other characters too and they never did her story part.

This is mostly because that story is tracked with the achievements tab instead of the personal story tab. It would be nice to have a “personal living story” tab instead of keeping track of it with achievements IMO.

If only Faren would’ve used a “detect this feature on character” code and recognize his old buddy…

Oldyoung.6109:

it seems like they would be a gem store set though i’m hopeful the dungeon will be permanent and the rewards would be like other dungeons.

not likely but i can hope

This is what I’m hoping too, but the fact they call it multiple times “story dungeon” makes me think it will be like the Facility, with a chance of the Mini First Mate (the guy with the bazooka cannon) and the monocle instead of jetpack as random drop.

At least I think we will get a steam pun loggin axe which may be my first permanent tool :P

curlydim.8461:

Long story short:
How would one get such an armor in your opinion?
What do you think about each set, according to your race and sex?
(My opinion = HEAVY/terrible, MEDIUM/I like it, LIGHT/decent, but meh)

You can find the armors on youtube and the official ANet post.

About how to obtain them, this image matches the art used in Gem Store:

http://i.imgur.com/24SD0QX.png

My opinion is that there are pieces of them that in a mix and match set could look really sweet. The whole sets don’t attract me too much (they look much better on female characters than on my male characters btw, and dyes help a lot too) but there are intriguing pieces.

To be honest I’m more interested in knowing how to obtain the weapons and I hope it isn’t through RNG chests. I REALLY WANT that Revolver!! And if the set’s shortbow is a compound bow and looks as good as that one I will finally drop my Steam Shortbow (I like my bows to be compound bows and I love steampunk!)… So if I’m going for multiple skins in the set I would like them to be available for something reasonable and not random U.U (oh, and the sword looks good too!)

Narcemus.1348:

Cynn stayed because she cornered him into marrying her, lol.

I loved how that part happened (I believe the dialogue only happened in the Hard Mode instance?). We were all resisting hordes and hordes of assaulters and she forced him to make the decission in the middle of everything!! Probably it was Cynn’s plan all that time :P

I’m sure that wedding would’ve been 100times better than Gwen and Thackeray’s wedding!

Honestly I do fine with venoms, it’s more about they buffing Skale and Ice Drake.

The first thing they have to do is break their design rule of “all X next attack based skills are active for 30 seconds and 45 seconds cooldown” (there are ranger and elementalist skills that work exactly like this too, it’s a shared design). It could perfectly change for each separate case (20 seconds cooldown with 15 seconds active, 35 seconds cooldown with 25 seconds active…) and they would be way easier to balance.

If Skale gets the change to torment AND (and only if both happens) it’s aumented to kittens it will be usable (Spider is great on sharer leech venoms for all the damage it gives in kittens of leeching).

About traits I think that putting Quick Venoms and Venomous Strength would be a good start.

Something I was thinking the other day when they mentioned more ways to break stun:

Alchemist Focus: If you have 2 (maybe one with longer cooldown) venoms active you break stun, X seconds cooldown.

As venoms are usable even when stunned, you could either be inmune to your first stun if you have 2 equiped and if you get stun locked activate some of them to break it.

Why this make sense? Well, the Thief just put some very valuable resources on his blades/bullets that he needed time in an alchemy lab to get. He should be very focused that he will use them correctly when they apply them.

And… tadaaaaaa! A new family of utilites gets a stun breaker

Honestly breaking stun is one of the very few things that really affect me playing my Venom Share build, overal it performs really well.

During our investigation of each racial representative we either interrogate or find the corpse of every single representative, but we got no news about the Hylek representative. Why was he left out of the investigation? Am I missing some dialogue about him either voluntarily getting into interrogation, providing proof of his innocence or being assassinated?

I don’t know why else would he left out of this! The frog was the real killer and we accused some pure medic! :P (I know this isn’t the scenario, but I’m curious about him being left out of the process).

jheryn.8390:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

jheryn.8390:

A friend of mine and I were chatting and he said there is a descendant of Mary Malone in Rurikton named Miria Malone.

Mary had no children, given that Nick and . She’s of the Malone family though – likely from Mary’s little brother, Matthew Malone.

Some not mentioned:

There’s a Priory scholar in Iron Marches who’s descended from Kilnn Testibrie, and Bhuer Goreblade is descended from Drub Gorefang.

From the top of my head.

I believe you, but the GW2 wiki clearly states that Miria Malone is a descendant of Mary Malone. Not that the wiki is always right of course. But here is the link.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Miria_Malone

For what we know it could’ve been edited to say that on some player’s asumption. She has been stated to be descendant of her family, but not direct descendant from her acorgind Konig article. As you said the wiki isn’t always right due to players editing it.

Travlane.5948:

@doopslayer yes exactly! ive seen this before. i think they throw this out there for speculation purposes and sponge a lil info back in then revise and finalize.

If this is the case I hope they hear this: Please revert the Lotus Poison change! (among other things… and remove Last Refuge instead of joking about it). There was no reason at all to change Lotus Poison (to the point it’s no longer worth it) when it was just fine and a very good source for support on the profession (and this game is about everyone being able to do every role), not OP at all as you needed to keep using it t maintain the weakness (and the new weakness isn’t SO much better, in fact against non berserkers it’s nerfed, and now it’s how it should’ve been from the beggining against zerkers).

SharadSun.3089:

Oh man… so much QQ here.

Thieves are still the single most reliable appliers of Weakness, which is now extremely powerful (a flat 12.5% incoming damage decrease: 25% of their hits deal only 50% damage). Shortbow is a liiiittle bit overpowered now, and using an init-regen power/crit build will contribute infinitely more to teamfights now.

How exactly? With Lotus Poison ultra nerf (wich means bye bye to that reliable weakness) and cluster bomb range reduction it was quite nerfed.

And as I said, the new weakness isn’t SO much better, and as I said only against zerkers.

DirtyBird.6093:

3) Skale venom change. I think this is pretty cool, the skill sucked before and its extremely clear that anet is nerfing weakness sources/durations across the board. This will be a nice additional source of dps for condi thieves out there. Pistol bleed + sigil of earth + skale venom is going to add up quick.

Torment isn’t that great. IF all of this is true (and we still don’t know if fake) torment is 75% of what bleed do, and if they move, 150% of bleed. Applying 3 torments at best counts as 4.5 bleeds on a 45/36 cooldown, considering the Ranger already has a “venom” (works exactly like venoms) that applies 5 bleeds, I think Skale still needs a good buff before being of any use.

And sigil of earth is better for Necros and maybe (with big question mark) rangers. For a Thief it isn’t worth it to lose the Power of Carrion in favor for Precission on Rabid.

DirtyBird.6093:

Another thing to note is that whirling axe recieved a 50% damage buff so that it finally out dps’s the warrior axe auto attack. I wonder if this will also buff the damage of the stolen axe… if so O_o.

I think it would’ve been included in the notes like other stolen skills did.

If you actually read my comment, I already say that it’s useful to get peak damage in Zerker gear, so I think I realize there is no Power-Power-Power gear.

I said, and you quoted it, that Precission by itself is pure garbage (and it is, it needs you to use 2 extra atribute lines to be of any significant use and even then it doesn’t even add that much). You said my statement was dumb and I proven you wrong on that.

Of course if you’re going to peak damage (something I already say…) it will factor, but my statement reamains true: Don’t use Precission in a thief condition build as it is pure garbage and Power adds much more in its place. My comment was in response to you asking for venoms to work on crits, and I said no thanks, don’t throw precission in condition builds because it’s garbage.

Condition builds get the damage they don’t get from critting through conditions, and they also offer a free atribute line as you don’t need all 3 lines. They may require a bit more time to settle the damage and for rushing content Zerker is the fan favorite, but they’re just right and bringing support builds to a party actually helps a lot.

Anyway back to the main topic, the point remains that the Thief actually has a very good share of utilities to work for the party in PvE, there aren’t “3 utilities and that’s all”, there is actually a very good range of skills you can pick in very different builds and be very competitive in PvE. If you like your signet build that’s cool, and of course there are utilities better for each job and role, but the Thief still has other options.

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

Lokheit.7943:

And Body Shot… when will this skill simply be removed? 10 vuln on 3 seconds is not a solution, I would argue it’s even much worse.

Remember that all bosses in dungeons and all champions have ,, unshakable" which causes vulnerability to last 50% less time. So it basicaly means, that in boss fights this skill would inflict whole 1,5 second vulnerability.

More reasons to hope this is just some trolling…

I was hoping for Body Shot to apply some Torment (that one or Unload, but mostly BS as it needs a complete change to be of any use).

I really hope this (the source of this) is a troll post. Those notes kill a lot of builds that wasn’t even object of QQs and even needed help instead of nerfs, and not only doesn’t deal with some HUGE problems but it also shows that they worked on it to keep them the same (like Last Refuge now being 33% better at killing you yeah!!).

Also if Torment is just a 75% bleed that becomes a 150% bleed when the opponent is moving it isn’t that much of a deal, specially since we can only apply 3 of them for very limited duration on a very long cooldown.

And Body Shot… when will this skill simply be removed? 10 vuln on 3 seconds is not a solution, I would argue it’s even much worse.

So many fail changes… the fact that it’s so extensive worries me about it being real, though as I said there are some points where it’s possible that some mechanics can’t be implemented correctly so it may be fake. I really hope it’s fake.

Ludovicus.7980:

Sylvari: Forest Keeper.

In adition to what has been said, this specific profession is the Ranger (in other languages like Spanish the name given to the profession once translated to english again is Forest Keeper, in spanish it’s Guardabosques). People tend to think Ranger comes from range, but it’s more in the sense of a “Montaraz” (another spanish word that translates to Ranger, think Aragorn before Lord of the Rings books started).

ensoriki.5789:

I believe that cooldown system applies to an Ele regeneration trait when used with a Staff if I can remember.

I can’t find it I will continue the search. Sure it was regeneration? Filtering for that boon doesn’t show it.

And I think it’s very hard for the game to keep track of cooldown on each foe you hit with a condition that others can use but only on your aplications.

Imagine using Choking Gas on a group of 20 in orr (only 5 affected per pulse), then the game has to record a 20 seconds cooldown for each one of them to detect when your poisons will be able to apply weakness again. That consumes a lot of resources.

And 4 seconds each 20 seconds is too much of a nerf for something that was fine. Weakness change isn’t even that great (it simply affects criticals too).

I think this is fake, specially for this:

Lotus Poison: Increased weakness duration to 4 seconds, but it can only apply once every 20 seconds per target.

First I don’t think there is internal cooldowns for each hit character in the game (at least the I remember) so I think this isn’t viable, and second it would be a tremendous unnecesary hit to support Thief.

Also decreasing LR cooldown instead of removing the trait so it doesn’t screw you makes no sense.

I’m not impressed even by the positive changes as they’re poor and not in the direction this was supposed to be.

Source or fake for showing mechanics that I think aren’t possible in the game motor (specifically tracking cooldowns for condition aplications on different opposing characters… like they didn’t have enough server problems with current conditions system).

Zepidel.5349:

V
Lokheit
>Precision is a garbage atribute to get Direct Damage, really, absolutely terrible on its own

you realize how dumb that sounds?

Dumb? Ok this is something I’ve said before and it’s real:

You know that if you do the maths to distribute 1000 atribute points between power and precission and derivate to get the maximum damage scenario, the result is that in adition to giving all the 1000 points to Power, you should substract Precission from your initial 916 (something that you can’t really do, of course, but it’s the MAX scenario) and give them to Power, resulting in a very small percentage of anti-crits (strikes that heal your targer) to get the MAX possible damage on the distribution?

That’s how garbage Precission is to get damage on its own, to the point that substracting from it so some of your hits heal your target still gives you more damage than investing on it and not in Power. If you have to chose between one of them (Rabid versus Carrion), Power curbstomps it.

Precission is only useful when you already have as much power as you can get, and also tons of Critical Damage (meaning wasting 3 atribute lines).

Even when you have the maximum Critical Damage you can get, Power is still muuuuuuuuuuuuuuch better than Precission to get direct damage.

Of course it increases your damage and if you’re in rush mode and won’t receive too much damage you can do it to get peak damage and that’s what most people do to rush things, but Precission by itself is PURE GARBAGE compared with Power. Mathematically it isn’t worth it without already investing in 2 other atributes or having a huge ton of on crit effects (and even then you should get more pwoer to compensate the investment).

So no, I don’t realize how dumb sounds what I said. To be fair with your comment not everyone knows this as not everyone has stopped to do the maths and when they see their critical percentage rising they think it’s cool. And as I said it doesn’t mean that once combined with Power it isn’t viable, you see Berserkers everywhere, but on its own if you have to take one, Power or Precission ALWAYS go for Power.

When they mentioned the new condition that hurts you if you move first I though: this could hurt us a lot… but then I read that we would have access to it and that only Mesmers and Necros would be getting it so this could be much sweeter than it looks like for us!

Everyone else thinks that this could be the saviour of P/P with Torment being added to some of our skills so Pistol users become movement control nightmares?

I doubt melee Thieves will be getting it as the way to deal with them is mostly move so this would be too punishing, but I can see P/P getting a nice benefit from this new condition.

I wasn’t too excited about the future of P/P (my favorite aesthetics set, but terrible for gameplay) but this and other comments got me really interested to see what they did with the set

I hope P/P has been changed to be more condition heavy so I don’t have to change all my exotic Carrion equipment :P

To be honest I see this more as a way to help ranged thieves by controlling target’s movement. I doubt melee thieves will be getting it.

P/P needs a huge boost and this could be really interesting for that build.

I agree that Steal needs a shadow return second iteration.

It would be great to have pockets in f2-3-4 (with shared cooldowns so you can’t spam them, just have some available for diversity) and F1 becoming shadow return intead of the stolen skill being placed there.

Full ranged thieves risk themselves when they steal and using your profession mechanic shouldn’t be counter productive to your gameplay. It’s your profession mechanic!

And with the patch I really hope that full ranged thieves are a possibility and they fix P/P (the new condition seems like something that P/P could use).

The picture in Marjory’s Diary… it’s clearly these 2 pokemon! A friend spoted it and I went to look and they’re clearly them! What’s the meaning of this easter egg? :O Is Charizard the secret new elder dragon!?

Zepidel.5349:

Shadow refuge is great ya especially in the dredge fract / ressing noobs, IN the OP I was thinking more along the lines of straight damage, my bad. However there no convincing me that venom share is not garbage. I see so many people trying to turn what is imo a cool skill/talent no doubt, into something its not. You try and look for everything and anything to make it seem worth it to the point of tricking yourself into some weird spec thats worse than any cookie cutter d/d + sb spec. If venoms were a on crit or % chance to proc on dmg then maybe it would be worth it. But for venom share to be as useful as possible you need to waste all your ultilty slots, go condition spec, and lose alot of other stuff, not to mention getting everyone in range of it is almost impossible during combakittens NEVER worth it.

About the venoms on crit: NO, THANKS BUT NO. Precission + Condition in a Thief (and any profession not named Necromancer, and maybe, with a big question mar, Ranger) is pure garbage so the least we need to combine it the better (Precission is a garbage atribute to get Direct Damage, really, absolutely terrible on its own).

About the difficulty of sharing I can say I’ve mastered the build and you always find ways to share it. I’m not tricking my own mind trying to justify those skills as you say, I’m telling you with this build I’ve completed multiple high end dungeons being by far the most valuable member of the team, protecting them all the time and ressing them. You won’t share it with all the party except for the initial assault on each boss and horde, but during a combat you find it really easy to share it with at least 2-3 other teamates, and the Thieves Guild help to reach the max. Ice Drake and Skale are garbage, I won’t say anything against that, but Spider and Devourer work really well. And could the sharer get some help? Maybe, but it’s a very efficent build.

Anyway, that’s just one example of useful utilities on a Thief from a long list, and from months of experience in high end content using that build I can tell you it does wonders and you do share your venoms with at least 3-4 other players in a group you’re familiarized with, and 2-3 in a PUG. A Shortbow gives a lot of extra “utility” (not utility slots, but spreading Weakness and triggering every combo field with a blast is huge) for team support too. And I don’t think straigthpesonal damage utility skills are the ideal PvE skills, they are more solo and PvP skills in my view as they only help yourself.