Guild Wars 2

Zetsumei.4975:

rapthorne.7345:

So what I don’t understand is why are the French staff willing and able to change a spec name when you guys won’t change Dragonhunter despite the huge amount of negative feedback regarding the name?

Because it’s a high concept name, you wouldn’t understand.

xDDD

Because the French word translated to “Death Reaper” (Fauchemort), which doesn’t make much sense on fundamental basis. The Dragonhunter isn’t even close to the level of wrong that Fauchemort was, and the biggest point for changing it is that there is a really big thread about it (even if a lot of arguments, on both sides, are not very good).

Honestly, Dragonhunter is meh, but it can work if one doesn’t refuse to acknowledge where it does make sense.

I would have liked the name different too, but I honestly don’t care much about the E.spec name; I’m gonna run around on my Guardian with a bow and do my thing regardless of what they call it.

They are rather intimidating. What’s the scythe used for after all if not for harvesting the wheat in the fields?

Also, this. Dhuumfire? :P

http://forum.agriavis.com/viewtopic.php?id=11242

The main part of the confusion is that GW2:HoT does not “come with” the core game for new players. GW2:HoT is the new core game, so you only get one access code no matter which one you buy. Having bought your account already though, if it was prior to June 16th, you will receive an additional character slot (gem cost of 10 USD), which is the equivalent cost of what the core game on sale was.

Tentain.9250:

So let me get this straight, even though I bought GW2 all those years back; I need to buy it again if I wan’t to make any progress. I’ve honestly stopped playing in the first place because once you reach max level and get all the achievements you wanted there was nothing to do, I’m not buying a second copy of the game just to get back into this; without feeling like I’m missing out on a ton of content. I was actually looking into the game today to try and get my friends to play GW2, because I remembered it being a great MMO; and we were trying to think of games to play, just to see that they were no longer able to just buy Guild Wars 2 on it’s own.

It’s really messed up, paying full price when the game was still young, and not getting as much content as paying full price now; I guess I won’t be getting back into the game, and we’ll just play Terraria instead; as Anet clearly doesn’t want us old members back. Us normal gamers are not made of money you know; and the reason we bought the game in the first place as we thought we were going into a game where you get all the actual playing content for just the price of the game.

Now to suddenly force people to buy both the game and the expansion if they even want to play in the first place; that’s just rude.

The problem you have with what you said is your assumption that you are buying the core game again.

You are not.

This has been stated ad nauseam in this thread.

Evans.6347:

aspirine.6852:

I miss battle scars and Impossible odds

Not to mention meditation of the reaper.
What is this jade dagger shenanigans anyway? Meditation of the reaper already was an offensive heal skill.

This could possibly be explained by our Revenants simulating Shiro or aspiring to be more like him rather than actually becoming him. After all, Shiro was the only one we know of with such powerful abilities. I think it’s pretty realistic, story-wise (and balance-wise!) that we don’t get his most powerful of abilities.

No other legend does this either, as were merely become like them to accomplish our tasks, but they are right there in our minds offering some level of their skills and knowledge (lore-wise).

MattyP.6954:

Darknicrofia.2604:

lol the GS healing is pitiful, 26 heal per attack in marauder amulet, and only 50 in cleric amulet

Per attack or per hit?

It’s per hit. Shout a “Feel My Wrath!” and perform a whirling blades; you’ll deal massive damage over a short period of time and heal for a good chunk.

“Triggers healing on any attack that connects while a greatsword is equipped. Applies to Zealot’s Speed, Smite Condition, and Judge’s Intervention, as well as any damage-over-time effects from other weapons, such as symbols. Does not apply to summoned allies like spirit weapons or to retaliation.” -official Wiki

Edit: Regardless of whether the healing is weak or not, the trait increases GS damage by 5%, reduces GS CDs by 20%, and does add some level of survivability. It’s a must-have if you’re running a GS.

tazzannl.5016:

i can see why you would be concerned by the hammer being the only range but it’s not over yet, i highly doute anet will let us only have 1 range wep for rev but only time will tell….maybe the elite spec will have another range atleast i hope it does present itself :/

The elite spec is likely giving us a shield, so that won’t help much. If the datamined info about the shield is true, then the shield is focused on healing, which is kind of weird but not totally unacceptable.

We may have to wait for the second elite spec to come out before we get more ranged options.

I think the meta is leaning towards a LB/Hammer variant, but there’s certainly nothing stopping you from going Greatsword. If traited, the Greatsword can provide a fairly decent amount of healing whereas the hammer tends to provide mitigation in the form of constant protection.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

nooooooooooooo…… being able to craft legendary luck essences would totally undermine my beautiful collection.

Unless you are capped on Magic Find, you are doing a disservice to yourself by not consuming those EoLs. Consuming luck as you receive it increases your odds of finding rare items linearly, but holding on to luck for a long time does not provide any benefit as the potential to find rare items is being wasted.

Except the Paladin does not do anything with the spirits or the WoW equivalent of the Mists, nor does it deal with applying much in terms of DoTs, nor does it use ranged weapons.

Besides, the Guardian is clearly the closest thing to a “Paladin”, filled with light and fire abilities. Guardians can also “tank”, DPS, and heal.

There is only one trait in the DH line that is an issue and it’s a minor trait. It does something with your attacks beyond 600 range. However, everything is just fine and you can certainly make a melee build work. You could use a greatsword, traps, and even slot Trapper runes to mimic a trapper ranger, among other fun things.

Find a different spot for crows. That may be the best one, but it’s not the only one.

The WvW weapon vendors have a good number of weapons you could choose from, but you may need honor. I suggest running dungeons a few times for gold and buying them from the TP, like Happyfool suggested.

Edit: You could run the world boss train too. You sometimes get exotics from that, but you certainly make money from it.

It sounds like you might have a gambling problem. If you do this in real life with your real money, I highly suggest looking into gambling helplines. Gambling addiction is a serious problem and can be just as destructive as things like alcohol or drug addictions.

CureForLiving.5360:

Well this seems like a perfect opportunity for someone to get out the spreadsheet and do some math.

Somebody did. They lost miserably. The odds are very much not in your favor with this and a few days after release there were multiple threads complaining about it.

Those threads are notably buried at this point, but they exist.

They never restricted ToK before, so I’m not sure what the concern is. In fact, they just added a converter of 20 exp scrolls to convert into 1 ToK (exp scrolls give 1/20th of a level), so I doubt there would be a reason to change this…

choovanski.5462:

MiniEquine.6014:

choovanski.5462:

MiniEquine.6014:

choovanski.5462:

MiniEquine.6014:

choovanski.5462:

MiniEquine.6014:

choovanski.5462:

HGH + FT rocks for cele in pvp. ohhhh bby

I was running celestial before I read this thread, but I have since changed over to Rabid with Runes of Fire. With burning being as strong as it is and condition damage now being weaker until about 700 stat points, you really need that extra kick for your burns to hurt. And boy do they hurt.

This is what I’m running. It works quite well for de-capping, and puts very heavy pressure on 1v1 situations. It’s difficult to 1v2 with, but Elixir X is often very useful as a last resort.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VZ70;2Z-Vv0k5VQkw0;9;4jlk;0256156257;4IN0;3Agk1Agk12U

not bad dude. would run carrion and an intel sigil, or just drop the rifle for p/p tbh. rifle is a waste imo with no power stat, and if burns are your game p/p is the dream.

I could switch to P/P, but then I would lose the immobilize and knockback from the rifle. I don’t think the CD on the FT knockback is low enough, even if it is an AoE KB. Do you think the switch would be worth it with regards to de-capping?

as i said in my edit, grab carrion and an intel sigil if you want to keep rifle. p/p still has an imob and mad burns. if you could land IA and blowtorch on a dude they would probably insta die tbh unless they cleared.

Hmm, alright. I’ll play around with it and see which one I like best. Thanks for the advice!

if you go p/p run sigil of smouldering for another +20% burn duration, and chemical rounds for another 50% duration on your pistol condis. that gives your blowtorch insane burning duration, and gives you +40% with your runes for IA and IP.

Hmm, so drop Juggernaut if I go pistols? IP is really quite good, so I suppose it would mean my survivability is based on my ability to kill them faster than they kill me. Should I try to replace the loss in stability from Juggernaut with something else? Elixir B only does so much.

i run without stab, and its no issue. IP is far better than jug imo. i run egun, and S with the traited S at 25%. thats three stunbreakers, and i got stealth leaps and blinds cc is very little issue if you can kite well.

i always recommend you play aggressively, never let the pressure down.

The Elixir Gun also has 2 elixirs built into it, so it actually seems to be more useful for HGH than an elixir would be. I liked Elixir U, but if they stun me right after activating it, then it is wasted.

Never thought I’d be earnestly running FT/EG in PvP and expecting it to work this well.

Just run TK if you’re running around. The Super Speed boost is nice, even if TK is mostly useless outside of PvP and WvW roaming.

Danikat.8537:

Pandaman.4758:

Alternatively you can go for broke, pick up the $100 Ultimate bundle, and do some creative accounting by breaking down the cost as such: $50 for gems, $20 for two character slots (assuming you qualify for the extra slot), and the remaining $30 is the “actual” price you paid for the expansion. The only benefits you get for prepurchasing would be the cosmetic items and beta access.

That’s exactly what I did.

I buy gems periodically anyway, so by buying the ultimate edition I basically bought my next 4,000 gems in advance (4-6 months worth, depending on how fast they release things I want) and then got the Deluxe edition for about £35, which is what I had originally been expecting to spend on it.

Same thing my wife and I did too. We both needed the extra two character slots so that we both have 9 character slots each, and we got that. We occasionally buy gems, but now we don’t have to for quite a while. I’m down to 1400 and my wife still has 3200 from the Ultimate purchases.

choovanski.5462:

MiniEquine.6014:

choovanski.5462:

MiniEquine.6014:

choovanski.5462:

MiniEquine.6014:

choovanski.5462:

HGH + FT rocks for cele in pvp. ohhhh bby

I was running celestial before I read this thread, but I have since changed over to Rabid with Runes of Fire. With burning being as strong as it is and condition damage now being weaker until about 700 stat points, you really need that extra kick for your burns to hurt. And boy do they hurt.

This is what I’m running. It works quite well for de-capping, and puts very heavy pressure on 1v1 situations. It’s difficult to 1v2 with, but Elixir X is often very useful as a last resort.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VZ70;2Z-Vv0k5VQkw0;9;4jlk;0256156257;4IN0;3Agk1Agk12U

not bad dude. would run carrion and an intel sigil, or just drop the rifle for p/p tbh. rifle is a waste imo with no power stat, and if burns are your game p/p is the dream.

I could switch to P/P, but then I would lose the immobilize and knockback from the rifle. I don’t think the CD on the FT knockback is low enough, even if it is an AoE KB. Do you think the switch would be worth it with regards to de-capping?

as i said in my edit, grab carrion and an intel sigil if you want to keep rifle. p/p still has an imob and mad burns. if you could land IA and blowtorch on a dude they would probably insta die tbh unless they cleared.

Hmm, alright. I’ll play around with it and see which one I like best. Thanks for the advice!

if you go p/p run sigil of smouldering for another +20% burn duration, and chemical rounds for another 50% duration on your pistol condis. that gives your blowtorch insane burning duration, and gives you +40% with your runes for IA and IP.

Hmm, so drop Juggernaut if I go pistols? IP is really quite good, so I suppose it would mean my survivability is based on my ability to kill them faster than they kill me. Should I try to replace the loss in stability from Juggernaut with something else? Elixir B only does so much.

choovanski.5462:

MiniEquine.6014:

choovanski.5462:

MiniEquine.6014:

choovanski.5462:

HGH + FT rocks for cele in pvp. ohhhh bby

I was running celestial before I read this thread, but I have since changed over to Rabid with Runes of Fire. With burning being as strong as it is and condition damage now being weaker until about 700 stat points, you really need that extra kick for your burns to hurt. And boy do they hurt.

This is what I’m running. It works quite well for de-capping, and puts very heavy pressure on 1v1 situations. It’s difficult to 1v2 with, but Elixir X is often very useful as a last resort.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VZ70;2Z-Vv0k5VQkw0;9;4jlk;0256156257;4IN0;3Agk1Agk12U

not bad dude. would run carrion and an intel sigil, or just drop the rifle for p/p tbh. rifle is a waste imo with no power stat, and if burns are your game p/p is the dream.

I could switch to P/P, but then I would lose the immobilize and knockback from the rifle. I don’t think the CD on the FT knockback is low enough, even if it is an AoE KB. Do you think the switch would be worth it with regards to de-capping?

as i said in my edit, grab carrion and an intel sigil if you want to keep rifle. p/p still has an imob and mad burns. if you could land IA and blowtorch on a dude they would probably insta die tbh unless they cleared.

Hmm, alright. I’ll play around with it and see which one I like best. Thanks for the advice!

choovanski.5462:

MiniEquine.6014:

choovanski.5462:

HGH + FT rocks for cele in pvp. ohhhh bby

I was running celestial before I read this thread, but I have since changed over to Rabid with Runes of Fire. With burning being as strong as it is and condition damage now being weaker until about 700 stat points, you really need that extra kick for your burns to hurt. And boy do they hurt.

This is what I’m running. It works quite well for de-capping, and puts very heavy pressure on 1v1 situations. It’s difficult to 1v2 with, but Elixir X is often very useful as a last resort.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VZ70;2Z-Vv0k5VQkw0;9;4jlk;0256156257;4IN0;3Agk1Agk12U

not bad dude. would run carrion and an intel sigil, or just drop the rifle for p/p tbh. rifle is a waste imo with no power stat, and if burns are your game p/p is the dream.

I could switch to P/P, but then I would lose the immobilize and knockback from the rifle. I don’t think the CD on the FT knockback is low enough, even if it is an AoE KB. Do you think the switch would be worth it with regards to de-capping?

Evans.6347:

Orochimaru.4730:

Just dont buy it, it’s the only way anet will listen to us.

That ship has sailed, i’m sure. I think they’ve sold quite a nice number already.

That’s for sure. There were a ton of Revenants in game this past weekend, so it’s almost certain they got a large crowd, especially after the addition of the character slot to all packages.

DancinPuppeh.8421:

I’m not saying GW2 is a bad game, I still believe GW2 is the best MMO on the market to date, but I think it’s a little harsh that new players get the core game free.

By that logic it would be more beneficial for me to create a new account, buy the expansion on a new account and start from the beginning, then sell my excisting account for a fairly large amount of money. Which is a breach of terms and conditions I know. But that is the part I’m unsure of. I doubt the core game is “Free” with the expansion as the devs stated. Cause if so this has to be up there as the worlds most expensive expansion, the cost is only just shy of being able to pre-order Fallout 4… No expansion should match prices of full game releases.

Ah, I know this is just an opinion of mine, but the price that you think is reasonable shouldn’t be reliant on what a new player gets the game for. Ask yourself, and be honest, do you really think it is more valuable for you to make a new account and only play the expansion with that one? You have no materials, no gold, no achievement points, no map completion, no Guild rep, no PvP ranks, no WvW ranks, no dungeon completion, no fractal completion, no gear, and no weapons. A new player is not getting the equivalent of an account that you already have.

The core game currently only exists in the sense that there are still codes for the core game out there, but Anet won’t sell it again because HoT is becoming the core game. It is a different philosophy about expanding the game than most people are used to. New players are not getting two new games; they are getting one new game.

If your complaint is only about the price and the content revealed not being worth it, that is valid. If your complaint is that new players are “getting more”, then it is a bit disingenuous.

Brother Dulfite.5793:

Also, your not just paying for the expansion, but also the free content and living story that comes after it until the next expansion.

“Free content” is interesting. I’m surprised they even call it this, but it’s all about perspective.

If the post-release content is indeed considered “free”, then that means you get awesome value for the initial purchase, far beyond what should ever be expected out of a game.

If the post-release content is rolled into the cost of the initial game, then that means you get increasing value out of the core game over time, which eventually leads to the same point as above.

Like with WoW, the dungeons and raids were essentially there, they just didn’t open them up. But they really only had new dungeons and raids after the expansion hit, so if that wasn’t your cup of tea, tough. With GW2, it’s always been about joining the game and then experiencing the story over time. There will be increases in content to GW2:HoT as time goes one. Heck, look at the landmass west of Rata Sum and Metrica Province; all of that could potentially be where the expansion goes, and we get story with it.

We will have a much better idea of what to expect after this expansion is 100% complete, which is far later than just after it launches.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

If you would kindly direct yourself to the thread with about 6000 responses and tens of thousands of views on this exact topic, you would see that you are not alone. This thread will certainly get merged when the mods see it.

Regardless, your sentiment that the value of revealed things does not match the price point is a valid concern, and you shouldn’t feel forced to buy the expansion. You already own the core game though, and if you still enjoy that, then there’s no stopping you from just continuing to play that. Regardless of what people say, there really is a lot to do in the game.

Orochimaru.4730:

Yeah cos I play it now for the terrible PvE content :P

The PvE is totally uninteresting in GW2, I play for WvW. Hence again why I will not buy this or think it is worth it for me; as anet will do for WvW now what they did for it in the last 3 years: Absolutely nothing!

In general they have done little for it, but they are paying more attention to it now. If all you do is WvW, then I do believe there is little reason to buy the expansion; same with PvP. They are adding the new map (which I heard is quite nice), and I am pretty sure that you are not restricted from it without the expansion.

/shrug

Orochimaru.4730:

Just dont buy it, it’s the only way anet will listen to us.

When they dont get as many sales as they were hoping for they will have to reduce the price to something more reasonable.
The fact that you only get the character slot if you pre-purchase is still an insult and still not enough to justify the price.

The price will most certainly drop, but it will either be during a special holiday sale or after much of the LWS3 content has been released, requiring you to buy the chapters if you want to play it.

choovanski.5462:

HGH + FT rocks for cele in pvp. ohhhh bby

I was running celestial before I read this thread, but I have since changed over to Rabid with Runes of Fire. With burning being as strong as it is and condition damage now being weaker until about 700 stat points, you really need that extra kick for your burns to hurt. And boy do they hurt.

This is what I’m running. It works quite well for de-capping, and puts very heavy pressure on 1v1 situations. It’s difficult to 1v2 with, but Elixir X is often very useful as a last resort.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VZ70;2Z-Vv0k5VQkw0;9;4jlk;0256156257;4IN0;3Agk1Agk12U

Iason Evan.3806:

I added what I meant about pre-order deadline. Character slot stuff. My bad on forgetting that info. When I say deadline pre-order though, most people get what I meant.

That deadline still only applies to you if you bought the game between Jan 23rd and June 16th of this year. If you bought it prior to that, you have up until the expansion launches to get the pre-purchase bonus character slot. As I stated in my comment, it’s an awesome deal if you bought the game within that Jan-June timeframe, at least in my opinion.

If you’re talking about the refund policy because you bought the game between January 23rd and June 16th of this year, there is little reason to not pre-purchase unless you don’t intend on playing the game. You would get your money back for the initial purchase, so you get the pricing that a new player would get (which is actually quite good), you don’t lose your stuff, and you get an additional character slot too.

Otherwise, if you bought the game before January 23rd, Ayrilana is right; you have up until the day before the game releases to pre-purchase.

1) Disable the symbol for mesmers.

No, this is unfair

2) Put the symbol on all of the mesmers clones.

This one actually seems pretty reasonable. Perhaps technically difficult, but it would be fair (as long as the game could distinguish that if a clone dies supply does not actually drop).

3) Disable the symbol for the entire enemy team.

The symbols are not for your allies, they are markers for the enemy to know who to kill first.

I also propose #4, in the similar vein to your #2:

4) Have the symbol disappear for a brief amount of time after a clone is produced (1-1.5 sec) and then have it reappear. This mechanic works similarly to when a Mesmer stealths and leaves behind a clone (like their downstate 2 or their Decoy skill), insofar as, in this case, instead of the Mesmer being stealthed, their icon is “stealthed”.

A downstate Mesmer can be shown to be the player by the red bleeding-out icon above their heads too, which makes stomping them not that difficult if you know what to look for.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

MiniEquine.6014:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Total is such a nice term, it can be calculated, proven and only one result is right. Viable on the other hand is such a subjective term. What might be viable for one person is utter trash to the other. Let’s talk again in a year, when the meta has settled and the number of “viable” builds is down to a select few.

Edit: A “viable” build utilizes all 3 trait-lines to their full potential, leaving no space for different trait-choices. While there are more builds now that are on the same level as the best builds in the old system, the new system has created a few builds that stand out much more, raising the limit of what can be called “viable”.

You just stated that “viable” was subjective, but here you are defining it incorrectly as an objective thing. A viable build is “content can be completed with this build”. That’s it. You could run an entire dungeon solo in Cleric gear with all healing and power stats, because it’s viable.

The word you are looking for is ideal, not viable. And don’t think that these builds didn’t exist before. If anything is going to happen, we will just fall back to where we were where there were only 1-2 ideal builds per game mode (sometimes even less!) for each class.

Well, let me tell you something: The old system had more playable builds than the new system has total builds.

There were not 196,000 different playable builds in the old system.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Total is such a nice term, it can be calculated, proven and only one result is right. Viable on the other hand is such a subjective term. What might be viable for one person is utter trash to the other. Let’s talk again in a year, when the meta has settled and the number of “viable” builds is down to a select few.

Edit: A “viable” build utilizes all 3 trait-lines to their full potential, leaving no space for different trait-choices. While there are more builds now that are on the same level as the best builds in the old system, the new system has created a few builds that stand out much more, raising the limit of what can be called “viable”.

You just stated that “viable” was subjective, but here you are defining it incorrectly as an objective thing. A viable build is “content can be completed with this build”. That’s it. You could run an entire dungeon solo in Cleric gear with all healing and power stats, because it’s viable.

The word you are looking for is ideal, not viable. And don’t think that these builds didn’t exist before. If anything is going to happen, we will just fall back to where we were where there were only 1-2 ideal builds per game mode (sometimes even less!) for each class.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Basandra Skye.4031:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Basandra Skye.4031:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

MiniEquine.6014:

stof.9341:

There’s little point having 66M different builds if only 2 are remotely viable.

I agree completely. They made these changes so that you could alter your build to accommodate your play style better and not punish you for taking that Grandmaster you needed in that one line but had nothing else you wanted, or for losing attribute points because you didn’t take the berserker line 1 and line 2 all the time.

I would bet that there is at least the same number of more-significantly varying builds if not more now than there was prior to the update.

Yes, but the reason for that isn’t the new trait-system, but the fact that condi-builds are now viable as well and the fact that some traits were buffed. Learn to keep those apart!!!

Condi builds were ALWAYS viable, even before the update. Good? Not always. But definitely viable. This update merely made them stronger.

If that’s the case then I can no longer see any increase in viable builds. While I had the choice between about 10 or 20 slightly different builds depending on the situation I’m down to 2 now. Either because the other traits are in lines that I don’t have active or because the traits that were different before are now merged, baseline or removed.

Doesnt mean you have less builds open to you unless you dont take the effort to figure out what the new trait selections you’d use would be.

Then please enlighten me what the new traits for elementalist are. All I can see are old traits that were slightly altered or merged. There is nothing new that I didn’t try already.

Btw: I’m not saying that the new system is bad, I’m merely saying that both the number of total and the number of viable builds is lower now. The main reason for that is, that by merging traits the corresponding different builds were also merged. You don’t have do decide for build A or B now. You can simply have build C, which is the combination of both. But don’t tell me now that |{C}| > |{A, B}|

But you get more of what you primarily need for your build with less of your point allocation. This means that a Fresh Air ele has to take Fresh Air, but they could spec into the Water and Arcane tree and take combinations from those because they already have most or all the tool for Fresh Air from their first specialization choice.

You get to customize your build more in the sense that varying build options either don’t hurt you as much or they simply benefit you more now than before.

I agree with the above poster; if you think there are only 2 builds then you are sadly mistaken. I don’t play Ele, so I can’t help you find them, but your choice to limit yourself to 2 builds is a choice.

stof.9341:

There’s little point having 66M different builds if only 2 are remotely viable.

I agree completely. They made these changes so that you could alter your build to accommodate your play style better and not punish you for taking that Grandmaster you needed in that one line but had nothing else you wanted, or for losing attribute points because you didn’t take the berserker line 1 and line 2 all the time.

I would bet that there is at least the same number of more-significantly varying builds if not more now than there was prior to the update.

States.6387:

~snippy snip~

There was a thread I participated a while back that calculated all the different trait combinations possible and the number of builds available.

The old system had ~66,700,00 different, unique build combinations per class
The new system has ~196,000 different, unique build combinations per class

Most of these variants were lost from the 6/4/2/2 variant no longer being able to be made, which accounted for over 19 million of the 66.7 million by itself.

There are far fewer options now, but having that many options is not at all ideal from a balance perspective. You also can’t just ignore the effects of the traits. Many of the traits got merged together, so if you want to get really technical, what was once in the old system may amount to certain builds now having “more” traits than before. Numbers alone mean nothing without context.

Also, your opinion on Necromancer survival is merely that; an opinion (backed by mere anecdotal evidence at best). There are indeed Necromancers that can still keep Death Shroud maxed, popping in and out as needed and never dying on point. Unless you go out and try the builds they listed, then it would be hard for anybody to take what you said seriously.

Edit: Here is the link to the Google Doc where is have the calculations:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9KAc7ghxmrxsq0bkWNALddKMkETmdQ1dW-eS7Xa8Hc/edit?usp=sharing

rhapsody.3615:

MiniEquine.6014:

Henley, if you want Spirit Shards, just run sPvP. Spirit Chard bags (3 per bag) are located in every other tier of a track (right along-side of Tomes of Knowledge). This is by far the quickest way to get them.

Before now, you still had to relevel your 80 an ungodly amount of times to pull in the proper amount of skill points, so I really don’t see what your argument is.

Before now, you could take a character with little map completion to do skill challenges for skill points.

I’m in a similar boat- I have everything finished for a legendary but I’m 20 spirit shards short. Even after consuming 86 tomes of knowledge. It’s not that many, but the skill point nerf feels very real to me. I realize hero points will probably be very useful later, so I’m holding my tongue on the issue until I see just how important they are. Would be great if they allowed us to trade spirit shards for hero points and vice versa.

In the meantime my choices are to PvP (haven’t been into it lately), or Silverwastes for champ bags. I did get quite a few while recently grinding out the luminescent armor, but my last chest run (50 bags, I get bored easily in there), only gave me two shards.

So now we have Silverwastes, the best all around map. You’re getting constant loot, karma, some obsidian shards, spirit shards… I even brought a level 75 in there to finish leveling and got it done pretty quickly. Can’t wait for the other maps in the game to be equally rewarding…. Sorry for going off on a tangent.

Skill challenges were not an ideal way to do this because of how long it took. You were almost better off just farming for skill scrolls, though completing map exploration isn’t bad and has other benefits.

However, I have had the opposite experience. I find it easier to get Spirit Shards now rather than before, but I also do a couple of PvP matches every day so I am getting no less than 3 per day, excluding any dailies, etc. If you do 3/4 of the PvP daily achievements every day (the profession win gives more track reward), you get 1 Tome of Knowledge, 3 Spirit Shards, and some amount of equipment, sometimes rare or exotic. You can get all these after 1 game if you win and are playing as one of the listed professions that day. Winning with the other listed profession will almost give you about 2 track cycles for rewards.

It shouldn’t be live until 12PM PST (3PM EST, ~8PM Europe, etc)

ScribeTheMad.7614:

Draknar.5748:

Don’t want to farm levels, but also want to be able to quickly get spirit shards to outfit 15 characters in full ascended….

Man, first world MMO problems lol…

Given that you don’t get Spirit Shards for leveling after 80, how is this relevant?

It’s not anymore, but it is exactly what you had to do before the update. The implication by OP was that it was somehow easier to get Skill Points before the change, but this is largely untrue (although does have some merit).

You do get Spirit Shards from random drops, from PvP tracks, from dailies, and from daily logins, so there are many ways to actually get them, including ways that you previously could not get Skill Points from.

Henley, if you want Spirit Shards, just run sPvP. Spirit Chard bags (3 per bag) are located in every other tier of a track (right along-side of Tomes of Knowledge). This is by far the quickest way to get them.

Before now, you still had to relevel your 80 an ungodly amount of times to pull in the proper amount of skill points, so I really don’t see what your argument is.

Hero Points have nothing to do with Auger Stones anymore. There is a set number of Hero Points whereby once all Elite Specializations are revealed in totality (in theory) you should have 0 Hero points remaining.

KallaDragoone.9125:

But wasnt this weekend opened up to ALL pre-purchasers?? Isnt that what it says in the anouncement?

Edit: Didn’t realize OP was talking about the WvW test. OP, sorry, but that’s your fault for not reading the terms. It clearly states “all beta weekends”; nothing about stress tests. /edit

It is. This weekend is officially the first “Beta Weekend”, so anybody who pre-purchased will be able to play the Revenant.

OP, I suggest rereading the announcement about this weekend. Perhaps you will be less upset knowing that a probable majority of future betas will be “Beta Weekends”? If they have a large enough sample size of people who pre-purchased, they can just constantly run the Betas by them; the people who are actually going to play the expansion rather than those who will not or are still undecided.

If you pre-purchase now, you will be fine. You receive your pre-purchase items within ~4 hours maximum (usually 5-15 minutes) after applying the code, and the Beta runs all weekend. You would see a Beta slot pop up after applying the code and everything gets processed.

Rump Buffalo.2594:

You may say “This trivializes loot stats!” Does it though? Are the stats not already trivial for the most part?

Yes, it would. No, they are not.

They did implement the Mystic Forge transmute ability, which costs maybe a grand total of 15g for converting to Berserker with no crafting on your part whatsoever. Loot stats are supposed to be random to some extent, at least within this game. However, although the Mystic Forge changes do trivialize loot stats a bit, I think it’s still a healthy change. People had dozens of unopened chests of ascended gear with junk stats on them that they would never use but couldn’t sell or salvage. Now that we can change them, even bad stats can be useful (for a slight cost).

The stats are also not trivial. Try going against content with wildly different stats (Berserker vs Nomads, Sinister vs Clerics) and you will see that things will be quite different in battle.

Also, legendary weapons have stats that can be switched on the fly. If they introduced legendary armor (though I doubt they will) with the same stats as ascended, like weapons have, then that would be the solution you’re hoping for, I’m guessing. It couldn’t be crafted like ascended armor though, it would have to be done through the Mystic Forge like the weapons.

Rcomplex.2893:

Ok, so that sorta IS what i was wondering MiniEquine; Do we get all the bonuses to our account (like the 4000 gems) within a few hours, or do we have to wait for release?

If you bought the Ultimate Edition 5 days ago and still haven’t received your items, contact support. I happened to get my 4000 gems, Rytlock, glider, etc within about 15 minutes, but it could take longer, depending on server load.

Check your account’s email for anything from them and make sure you applied the code correctly. Somebody from support might be able to help. Hope you can get it straightened out!

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Maybe this whole “core game bundled with the expansion” thing is so they can legally say they sold another copy of the game just for selling the expansion.

Kinda slippery if you ask me.

If a new player buys it, it would count. I’m sure they probably separate their product sales into categories anyway; it’s more organized that way.

GW2 is becoming GW2:HoT automatically for anybody that purchases it. The current client of the game is the same one that will be used in the future. When HoT is officially released, all the HoT content will be available to you just by logging on as you normally would.

No, if you applied the code to your existing account instead of making a new one then your account will be upgraded. At worst, if you made a new account, you would still have your old account, so nothing is getting deleted.

They should have given you a code either through your email or at the end of the purchase that you could apply.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

As I’ve said since launch, when the topic first came up, downscaling is great, nay, fantastic. But it shouldn’t cripple me.

What you wrote is great and all, but it’s not the only argument for the changes. Even though the scaling is heavier than before, many people still feel like this is not “crippling” us. Downscaling doesn’t remove abilities or traits, it only scales their power. The two primary design concerns behind downscaling are:

1) Not trivializing content for higher levels (to some extent), which, for example, is shown as an issue by the Fire Elemental dying in literally 10 seconds.

2) Not restricting lower-level players from enjoying the game because even one or two people are one-shotting area mobs, preventing any participation. Sometimes this is unavoidable, like Yaks in WVW where they take maybe five hits to kill, so most people never see WXP pop up, but it’s also prevalent in starting zones.

I still completely plow through mobs on all of my 80’s (primarily my Guardian, Engineer, or Necromancer) in whatever zone I go to. In some regards, I don’t even know if it has gone far enough. Mobs are still incredibly easy to kill. I really don’t think it’s fair to say it is crippling, but it is an opinion after all so if you think it is crippling then it’s possibly crippling to you.

If you could please not just AFK and auto-attack, that would be just great. If everyone did what you did, the events wouldn’t finish. If you don’t want to play, why are you…?