Guild Wars 2

Fay.2357:

Mak.2657:

Fay.2357:

Why should autos be exempt from this trait?

Imo PB was really OP. You can chain interrupt to deny enemy autos for dozens of seconds, even for minutes (with some gaps).

Yeah, that’s hilariously inaccurate. This is exactly what I’m talking about. If your enemy did absolutely nothing other than mindlessly spam autoattack, maybe you could chain interrupts to keep it disabled. If your enemy operated with just a tiny amount of skill and strategy, that wouldn’t be possible.

Power block was overpowered against awful players. Anet likes to coddle awful players, so now power block is useless.

Yesterday I had to prove to a friend of mine that indeed powerblock didn’t work at all on thieves (weapon) skills, he didn’t believe me when I told him the story of how it was nerfed just after being added to the game :°)

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Even though I always find mesmers a little bit lackluster, some videos on how intense mesmer battles can go always motivate me. Its more about the adrenaline rush that keeps me in mesmer, rather than easy domination over the battle etc.

Vash’s GS shatter tactics with many intense fights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3fUhFuUP-E

Bamf Joe’s 4 men against a zerg starting from 3:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVgGyZMLK_Y

While these videos show amazing outnumbered battles, I can say from first hand experience that things doesn’t always go as pretty as this. But nonetheless fighting and surviving by the skin of teeth is a very enjoyable experience for me, its like overcoming a challenge and you’re rewarded with big satisfaction.

5vX (my friend Culego PoV)

5vXvY (my PoV)

mesmer definitely fun in small scale

Location: North Italy
Time and date of incident (plus time zone): starting from 19:00 GMT, February 26, 2015
Game World: Ring of Fire
Brief description of what you’re seeing: severe packet loss (people blinking around, skills not activating, chat delay, etc).

The game is completely unplayable again… sent my pingplotter log to the aforementioned email address, hope it’ll help you fix this.

Didn’t work for me.

Just ignore metabattle for WvW/Zerg. The builds posted there are horrible and totally unworth playing.

What kind of fights are you facing in WvW? Roaming? Zerg? Organized groups?

Fay.2357:

Some of the nerfs were justified. Most of the nerfs were heavy-handed, poorly conceived, poorly executed, and overall awful decisions.

I think the two prime examples are the glamour/confusion nerf – nerfing both the trait AND the confusion damage at the same time – and the blurred frenzy nerf – increasing the cooldown and changing invulnerability to evade at the same time.

And I agree that it really feels like nobody plays mesmer in ANet when you see a nerf like the one they did on sword Swap. It was something nobody complained about, and nerfing it made impossible to use the skill in most situations.

Edit: but hey! They increased confusion damage in PVE! Because PVE is all about condis right?!?

Loved that you showed a lot of weapon combinations, but you really need to work on the stomping :P

Me Games Ma.8426:

I only listed what i found in the patchnotes under “Mesmer”

Yeah, some months ago I started a spreadsheet to keep track of all the nerfs, but it was too depressing and didn’t keep up doing it :P

Caeledh.5437:

Menaka.5092:

You don’t need to level up to “judge” any profession in GW2. Just finish the introductive tutorial (up to level 2) and jump in the pvp lobby. There you can tinker all the base traits, all the weapons and utility skills.

I strongly disagree. Some traits can significantly alter how a profession plays. Theorycrafting from the wiki can give you some idea but actually I’ve found actually playing with them with is necessary to get an accurate feel for a profession.

Used to be easier back when you could get at least one GM trait by level 40.

I… don’t understand what you are saying here. I just told him to go to the pvp lobby and actually play with the traits. Where did I mention something about “theorycrafting from the wiki”?

I leveled up all my mesmers before the change, so I only miss the “new” grandmaster traits on some of them, but from what I’ve seen leveling up other characters, in sPVP you have access to all basic traits (1-12) for all traitlines, and that’s more than enough to get a picture of the class.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Menaka.5092:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’m pretty sure we aren’t getting a way to apply Taunt, and if we do it will be in some weird out-of-the-way form.

Slow vs Thieves, however, will be glorious. If the grandmasters in the Chronomancer tree are good enough, I’m going 2/6/0/0/0/6 for sure.

Don’t think it will be an actual tree added to the current skill trees.

I think it will be something as a side that lets you choose between new traits.

I say this because all of the existing trait lines also grant stat bonuses & every stat already has a line.
If they created a new one that had stat bonuses as well it could be horrible for balance. (imagine a thief being able to dip into power, precision, condi damage or ferocity twice.)

Then again I could be wrong.

Maybe the new traitline takes the place of a old one (same stats, different minor/major traits).

Eh don’t think so.

The way they made it sound, it sounds like something completely new that you unlock after level 80.
Having it be in the regular trait lines would mean you had access to it leveling up.

From what I understood about the whole specialization thing, it seems like something you can activate/deactivate while off-combat that swaps out a lot of your stuff (utilities, traits, class mechanics); it would make sense to swap a traitline out when you are using the specialization and swap the “normal” one in when you are not using it.

Me Games Ma.8426:

1. Illusionary Duelist, Phantasmal Swordsman, Phantasmal Mage, Phantasmal Defender, Phantasmal Disenchanter, Phantasmal Rogue, Phantasmal Warlock, Illusionary Mariner, Illusionary Whaler, Phantasmal Berserker, and Phantasmal Warden: These skills must now be cast in line-of-sight of the target. These skills now behave as normal attacks that the mesmer must connect in order to summon the phantasm, and they will fail if the mesmer is blind or the ability is cast on an invulnerable target.

I … remember the pain. We used to be able to kill people and siege on the walls…

Me Games Ma.8426:

1. Mind Spike: Reduced the base damage by 20% ((This skill does an additional 50% damage to targets with no boons.))

This one I still don’t understand.

Me Games Ma.8426:

1. Into the Void: This skill now has a 1-second recharge before it can be used after placing Temporal Curtain.
2. Phantasmal Warden: This phantasm will now properly try to enter the attack range of its target before using its skill. (all of us who played after that patch know why I listed it with the nerfs)

These two changes rendered focus useless for like 9 months.

Me Games Ma.8426:

1. Blurred Frenzy: This is now evasion instead of immunity. This means it will be affected by retaliation. Increased the cooldown to 12 seconds.

This one has really been painful. You can easily take more than 33% of your health by using it in a zerg.

Me Games Ma.8426:

1. Power Block: Fixed an issue that caused this trait to set skills with zero recharge on 10 second recharge; namely auto-attacks from creatures and players, as well as thief initiative abilities. This trait will no longer trigger through stun immunity effects such as Stability and Defiance. (Hey, Power Block what a nice…. ohhh!)

This was so unwarrated… of course it going through Stability was a bug, but interrupting stupid thieves with that was actually effective and fun. So, they made it useless. Thank you, ANet!

Me Games Ma.8426:

1. Illusionary Leap: Fixed a bug that allowed players to swap places with their clone after it was destroyed.

This removed a lot of skilled play from mesmers’ toolbox (and made it pretty much impossible to use Swap in zergs).

Also, I think you forgot to mention the 50% damage nerf on Confusion that killed the WvW glamour builds.

PH Law.4063:

mesmers with high bursts = shatter mesmer = requires multiple skills and probably the hardest playstyle out there = weak condi cleanse

lets be realistic mesmers are only decently playable because of phantasm and if they nerfed phantasms well then mesmers r useless

mesmers right now are jack of all trades masters of none

i mean they nerfed confusion a unique condi to our class (gave it to everyone else because anet loves equality!)…nerfed PU (a kittentier version of SA)….ileap was never fixed and nerfed (you cant trade places if your clone dies)…nerfed debilitating dissipation…nerfed our blurred frenzy (it isnt invulnerable anymore its blurrrrrrr)…nerfed decoy and desperate decoy (trait) which btw i always though it was special that mesmers could use decoy even when revealed thinking it was special to our profession because u know mesmer deception illusion trickster…and on top of that we have to waste 4 trait points on dueling because 98% of mesmer builds now must use the one thing we all need to generate enough clones to do anything is deceptive evasion…so uhm HMMMMMMMMMMM wonder why mesmer is still the least played profession…….
oh and our traits are scattered all over the place not making any lick of sense…

forgot to mention the insta-nerf to powerblock (has literally been in game for less than 3 days I think) because of thieves crying

Ross Biddle.2367:

Me Games Ma.8426:

Ross Biddle.2367:

I’ll add that, you’ve offered buffs to confusion skills etc as they stand. The other way to go about it is to redesign confusion instead.

Exatcly!
Do you have any interesting idea though? Whenever I try to come up with a rework of confusion my mind is an endless empty space. I think that’s the case for most of Anets employees as well :P

Sure. Minimize the number of applicable stacks across the board. Maybe even have a single “stack” applicable at a time, like blind. Up the damage by 10,000. Heavily reduce the current duration, though allow it to be stackable. When the target under confusion uses a skill, he nukes himself for a heavy amount of damage and clears the stack.

Think of it as a window a little wider than your chance to proc halting strike on an interrupt. Only it’s per-emptivly applied instead of reactivity. Target can wait it out, or cleanse. Otherwise he eats.

Mes would keep all their current means of application. It’s just that the duration of each would be much smaller.

Mesmer can trait to have the damage powered off of power instead of condi, and can crit.

So we’re talking 3-5k confusion ticks depending on how you want to balance it, which might mean adding a small internal cd (like 1s), with a 1-2s window (duration) to proc the effect.

Or whatever, I just came up with that now.

I was thinking pretty much the same. For the damage, what about the full condi damage from the player? 1 stack is, say, 2000 damage. 2 stacks is 2000*2, and so on…

Lower maximum stacks to, say, 3… and the base duration (not including traits/food) must be very short, under 3 seconds.

I would really love what StickerHappy.8052 was suggesting but that would require a huge rework, while the slight change in mechanic, and the minimal changes to damage/number of stacks and duration would be a lot easier to implement.

Tought exactly the same thing. Seems like they’re opening up PVE for more build diversity: lockdown and burst will become useful.

evilunderling.9265:

discosoc.6510:

Just a funny side comment here, but I appear to actually do more damage when I’m in a downed state. It’s like a DPS cooldown.

It might be worth just popping into the SPvP hub area and fighting a couple of the sparring NPCs just to get a feel for what you’ll be able to do at higher levels.

For a really “in at the deep end” approach, you could even try levelling exclusively through SPvP. You’ll have access to all of the mesmer’s toys while there, although that route would leave you a little shafted when it comes to traits for PvE and WvW.

This. You don’t need to level up to “judge” any profession in GW2. Just finish the introductive tutorial (up to level 2) and jump in the pvp lobby. There you can tinker all the base traits, all the weapons and utility skills.

You won’t have the full spread of traits (some needs unlocking) and gear (in pvp is a bit different) and the damage is a bit lower than what you can achieve in PVE/WvW, but it’s a lot better for testing the class

I’m gonna throw this here just to tickle your imaginations: instead of running towards the target, the clones stand still and the target is forced to attack them with autoattacks, one at a time.

Wouldn’t it be beautiful?

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I’m pretty sure we aren’t getting a way to apply Taunt, and if we do it will be in some weird out-of-the-way form.

Slow vs Thieves, however, will be glorious. If the grandmasters in the Chronomancer tree are good enough, I’m going 2/6/0/0/0/6 for sure.

Don’t think it will be an actual tree added to the current skill trees.

I think it will be something as a side that lets you choose between new traits.

I say this because all of the existing trait lines also grant stat bonuses & every stat already has a line.
If they created a new one that had stat bonuses as well it could be horrible for balance. (imagine a thief being able to dip into power, precision, condi damage or ferocity twice.)

Then again I could be wrong.

Maybe the new traitline takes the place of a old one (same stats, different minor/major traits).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

What’s interesting is that Taunt is NOT a condi, but rather a status effect like daze/stun/knockback. It can be cleansed like fear, however, but I’m curious to know if it will work through the Resistance boon. What’re your thoughts?

This sounds confusing… Fear is a condition, so it would be countered by Resistance.
If Taunt is NOT a condition, then I would think it would be countered by Stability and cleansed with a stun removal instead of condi removal.

First thing: remember they balance around s/tPVP, they never balanced the game around WvW (and it already shows). So, yeah, this will probably change the meta a lot.

Second: we don’t know what else will change, how many charges the current skills will give and so on, panicking is useless right now. We need more info. We’ll probably get more info before the expansion comes out (maybe already during PAX).

This, alongside with Resistance (nullify conditions effects) will change the WvW meta a lot to say the least.

King Amadaeus.8619:

Spooksie.4930:

O.O

Wow? Those kinds of shenanigans are that pervasive?

I guess that answers my question on whether or not the mode is worth playing.

Servers have been buying guilds for a while, the end game is 9 servers full of players and 15 barren wastelands full of people screaming “SERVER PRIDE”.

HoT may slow or hasten the process.

Best description of WvW I read in a long time. Sadly.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• Making information easier to find and more informative ( /cough Mesmer build archtypes. How to shatter sections)

the leveling guide might use some love (you mentioned PVE, not sure if it’s included)

also, the WvW section is marked as “under construction”, maybe that’s why we don’t see many mesmers in wvw ^^

(nah, I know that is because we’ve been pretty much useless in big fights for more than one year after the glamour/confusion nerf up to september balance patch and we sorta fell off the wvw radar)

Luna.9640:

I really hope so – getting quite bored.

HoT open beta coming soon after PAX, I don’t think they’ll start a tournament at the same time.

I think Osicat and Vashury videos should be on top of your watchlist if you want to learn shatter

John Smith.4610:

pdavis.8031:

John Smith.4610:

Rauderi.8706:

Have you had any moments where you look at the market reaction to something you consulted with and said to yourself “I done kittened up”?

Bloodstone dust. Nothing like checking numbers after a meeting to see how much something has increase and there’s 10 more digits than you were expecting.

10 more digits!? Holy Clam Sauce Batman!!!!!
Thats quite a bit.

Other than Mawdrey, have you considered another Bloodstone dust sink? Maybe some new recipes or something?

Also what about the global economy ramifications of making Bloodstone Dust, and other ascended crafting mats vendorable?

I would be less concerned with the global economic ramifications than the fact that adding a vendor value isn’t an elegant solution, you should get something for that material that isn’t 2c, because 2c never feels good and just adds to the money supply.

edit: double post for forum formatting

Allow us to use Bloodstone Bricks for in game housing!
Or even to buy upgrades for the Guild Halls…

This is from February 12 evening (about 20:30 GMT), hope it helps.

Statistiche di calcolo per 475 secondi...
            Da orig. a qui   questo nodo/collegamento
Hop  RTT    Persi/Inv.= Pct  Persi/Inv.= Pct  Indir.
  0                                           ali.fastwebnet.it [192.168.1.136]
[internal Fastweb network]
 10    8ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  10.254.9.145
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 11  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  93-63-100-97.ip27.fastwebnet.it [93.63.100.97]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 12    3ms     1/ 100 =  1%     1/ 100 =  1%  62-101-124-74.fastres.net [62.101.124.74]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 13    6ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  62-101-124-73.fastres.net [62.101.124.73]
                                4/ 100 =  4%   |
 14   35ms     5/ 100 =  5%     1/ 100 =  1%  mno-b2-link.telia.net [213.248.88.233]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 15   55ms    26/ 100 = 26%    22/ 100 = 22%  ffm-bb1-link.telia.net [62.115.142.144]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 16   50ms    26/ 100 = 26%    22/ 100 = 22%  ffm-b11-link.telia.net [62.115.137.121]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 17   30ms    85/ 100 = 85%    81/ 100 = 81%  ncsoft-ic-306349-ffm-b11.c.telia.net [62.115.43.74]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 18  ---     100/ 100 =100%    96/ 100 = 96%  206-127-157-86.ncsoft.com [206.127.157.86]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 19   37ms     4/ 100 =  4%     0/ 100 =  0%  206-127-158-1.ncsoft.com [206.127.158.1]

My VPN that goes through the Netherlands, today was routed through telia as well, so it had the same problem as my normal connection…

Later I tried WTFast, it was a bit better, but it still had some blinking around and “pauses” where everyone was running in a straight line.

Location: North Italy
Time and date of incident (plus time zone): starting from 20:00 GMT, February 11, 2015
Game World: Ring of Fire
Brief description of what you’re seeing: severe packet loss (people blinking around, skills not activating, chat delay, etc), skill lag and random disconnections.

The game is completely unplayable. Again.
Guess ArenaNet and NCsoft have bigger problems than caring about their customers.

we’re still waiting for stuff promised in 2012… 5 months is nothing

Location: North Italy
Time and date of incident (plus time zone): starting from 20:00 GMT, February 8, 2015
Game World: Ring of Fire
Brief description of what you’re seeing: severe packet loss (people blinking around, skills not activating, chat delay, etc) and random disconnections.

Just my semi-daily report. The game is completely unplayable.
Will ANet/NCsoft/WhomeverIsInCharge fix this?

Played today since 6 am GMT and had absolutely no lag or packet loss. So either Telia has not enough infrastructure in place for prime time (when the lag/packet loss happens) or they activate some kind of filters – maybe for P2P traffic, it won’t be the first provider doing that – that affects GW2 during prime time.

ArenaNet, NCsoft, can you talk to these guys and sort things out? They are giving you and your customers horrible service quality.

Location: North Italy
Time and date of incident (plus time zone): starting from 20:00 GMT, February 6, 2015
Game World: Ring of Fire
Brief description of what you’re seeing: severe packet loss (people blinking around, skills not activating, chat delay, etc) and random disconnections.

Just my semi-daily report. Yesterday was a little better (still bad, but I could play 50% of the time), today is completely unplayable.

Location: North Italy
Time and date of incident (plus time zone): starting from 20:00 GMT, February 3, 2015
Game World: Ring of Fire
Brief description of what you’re seeing: severe packet loss (people blinking around, skills not activating, chat delay, etc) and random disconnections.

 13   34ms     9/ 100 =  9%     3/ 100 =  3%  mno-b2-link.telia.net [62.115.37.213]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 14   59ms    15/ 100 = 15%     9/ 100 =  9%  ffm-bb2-link.telia.net [62.115.142.154]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 15   49ms    12/ 100 = 12%     6/ 100 =  6%  ffm-b11-link.telia.net [62.115.138.17]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 16   16ms    81/ 100 = 81%    75/ 100 = 75%  ncsoft-ic-306349-ffm-b11.c.telia.net [62.115.43.74]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 17  ---     100/ 100 =100%    94/ 100 = 94%  206-127-157-86.ncsoft.com [206.127.157.86]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 18  ---     100/ 100 =100%    94/ 100 = 94%  206-127-157-102.ncsoft.com [206.127.157.102]
                                0/ 100 =  0%   |
 19   16ms     6/ 100 =  6%     0/ 100 =  0%  206-127-159-84.ncsoft.com [206.127.159.84]

I don’t know who is in charge for this, but please – I beg you – get rid of Telia.
Please… let me play with my friends

they should just add an item to craft 10 superior sieges at a time and one for 100, make them cost 10 and 100 skill points and add the recipes to the mystic forge…

I would love Hammer.
Or Shortbow (as an excuse to craft The Dreamer).

Coyote.7031:

This is a fair point, I just started playing and while choosing my home server I think the majority of them said “Very High”. I didn’t notice any full servers, but I’m sure they were there or hidden since I can’t chose them. I had been told server don’t matter much, so I was confused if servers don’t matter, why am I choosing one and why are they “Very High”? I understand that WvW is one of the reasons to choosing a server, but no where on that server list does it tell me anything about WvW or the servers I’m choosing. It seems odd to me to keep information external. It also seems odd to me that they charge for server transfers when the only reason you’d want to change is WvW. I’m sure it’ll make more sense when I become more experienced. I can see people switching teams constantly becoming an issue, but there are other ways around that.

The truth is: we don’t have official informations from ANet about the state of WvW.

We don’t know how many people are on average in each map for each server, we don’t have a web or in-game interface to check which guilds are on which server, what kind of coverage each server has… it’s nearly impossible for a new player to pick a server with WvW in mind.

developers and artists are better off working as… developers and artists, you know?

This has been asked since the server transfer stopped being free. ANet changed the pricing based on WvW rank before season 2, but never again after that.

It’s just ridicolous that costs more to transfer to some low-tier servers, than some mid or high tier based on PVE population.

My favourite is Indigo!

PariahX.6970:

Can’t we just say instead “for another layer of WvW gameplay consider joining your community voice chat”.

This sounds like a way more sensible approach to get people on the community

lil devils x.6071:

It is not possible to type everything in Map chat that needs to be said, not to mention commanders refusing to do so because of spies from other servers. They really do not want everything typed in map chat because the spies see it too.

What prevents “spies” from joining TS as well?

I realize it’s impossible to command by typing during a fight, but this sounds like a silly excuse and borderline paranoia

lil devils x.6071:

The Number one thing a newcomer to wvw needs to know…

You bring up some valid points, but this video series is not about WvW in general, it’s intended as a quick introduction to fighting in WvW for newcomers that may be disoriented about what’s going on.

As you point out, voice comms are fundamental for organized groups, but we made these videos thinking about new players that may have never joined the community TS (if the server they are playing on has one). The objective is to make these players a little more self-sustaining, so even if they don’t join TS they can carry their own weight during the fights

We think it’s a more inclusive approach and in the end it’ll prove more effective than scaring away people, shouting at them because they are not on TS

DarkSyze.8627:

Thank You! Menaka. for the lesson video.

You’re welcome

TyPin.9860:

I liked those videos. Only the texts should be a longer time there. It is sometimes impossible to read them in real time (at least for me^^).

Yep I’ve been told it’s too fast. I made the videos with the idea that anyone wanting to study them would just pause to read whatever they wanted, but due to feedback from the viewers I made the text panels last longer from the third lesson (and that’s why that video is a lot longer than the other ones)

Kanebrake.6192:

Well done. Good foundation to help people get started. You should do ones on following the commander, using voice comms, gear/trait selection, etc.

Also I think you’d have a better impact actually speaking about things instead of just putting notes up on the screen.

Thank you for your feedback!

What do you mean with “following the commander, using voice comms”? What would you like to see in that video?

Gear and traits, I can put some links to the builds we’re using. I think it’s totally unnecessary to make a video about each build, it would be super boring and less effective than checking out the build on a build editor.

About the voiceover, we tought about that, but: I’m not a native speaker, so my english and accent aren’t the best. Many other players like me are not native speakers and reading is a lot easier than listening, I think the notes are the best way to communicate with the biggest audience possible!

ProTech.8402:

My main problem is with the focus on defending. What I enjoy the most is large scale open world fights, and most of the people on my server shares this sentiment. I never heard from people that it was so exciting to sit on a tower for hours escorting dolyaks and building/refreshing siege. What I can understand from the snippets of information is that defending will become more important now for points. I don’t want to play in a WvW where every server turtles in their keeps with kittenloads of ACs as this is the best way to get the points.

Speculation: I think towers/keeps/etc will give more points the longer you hold them or T2/T3 keeps give more points.

Escorting dolyaks, building and refreshing siege: boring.

Fighting inside the keep, when all the walls and gates are down and enemies keep streaming in from everywhere: fun.

Defending ain’t boring. Siege wars are boring.

We’ve seen a lot of newcomers to WvW during this weekend, and I wanted to share a few videos our guild made that show how to fight in WvW:

The playlist is on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZEY9_9csrc&list=PLjwow6z_cLGa2bZjcs0ZmFLMmdhbUWTtL

Each lesson is just a few minutes, but we hope we covered most of what’s going on during the fights.

More videos are planned, with Lesson 4 being about Boons and Boon stripping and Lesson 5 about how to damage your enemies greatly, even if you’re not playing in an organized group!

All feedback will be greatly appreciated

See you on the battlefield!

Sorry for resurrecting this, but it happened and had to post it :°D

I think the wording was quite clear, a specialization gives access to a new weapon.

But they didn’t say how many specializations will be in game when HOT arrives, and this mechanic really feels open to more expansion: develop a new “theme” per class and add a new weapon/skills. It’s a platform they can build on for years to come.

Dondagora.9645:

Alternative thought on the mesmer skill we saw: Timed explosion? Maybe the clock is actually a timer that indicates when the shattering effect, or whatever it is, will happen? Or perhaps it has more to do with timing, in which the longer it’s not activated by the mesmer the more damage it will do?

Just some thoughts, since there’s no proof it’s actually a CC ability.

Timed explosion would be extremely lame considering engineers can do the same with a toolkit, without any cd (bomb kit autoattack)

From the few frames that were shown on the trailer, the map seems massive (and that’s good, as long as there’s enough people to fill it up), and I bet the designers learned a lesson or two from EOTM and the ruins redesign, so we’ll probably see more use of vertical space and hopefully less slanted terrain (that is horrible to fight on).

Most importantly, the map is a borderland, so we’ll actually get to play it, to “feel” it like WvW, unlike EOTM.

We can only hope all the other issues – population imbalance, PPT, abysmal rewards – get addressed as well.