Guild Wars 2

After successfully defending the bateries, the megalaser fires, tequatl crashes to the ground and becomes stunned/receives extra damage. However, the fire/impact graphic for the laser doesn’t line up with tequatl’s “knocked outta the sky” animation. More specifically, the laser impact appears (in what i assume would be the right place) about 3-5 seconds too early, making it look like it impacts on midair, and then a few moments later, tequatl suddenly bumps into an invisible wall and falls to the ground.

if used on a level 80 character, make it give a lvl 80 experience scroll in addition to the normal rewards, so that if, at some point in future, you wish to make another character, you can use it on them then.

That way the only thing you miss out on by using it as opposed to saving it is the lvl 80 trial.

i noticed that the two pets i’ve had & used forever – A Lashtail & a Carrion devourer, Clicky & Chatters respectively – have their names saved even when i’ve swapped to another pet and back. However, if i try to name another pet, its name is not saved after i’ve switched it out and back.

Does anyone know why?

yeah, i have all toons at 80 and my spare slot occupied by a doubloon JP alt. i obviously can’t use it on her, and it feels wasteful to just take the rewards without the boost, but i may end up doing that regardless. It’s not like i’m short of tomes, so i could insta-80 at least one other toon if i ever felt the urge.

I feel like they should have included a lvl 80 version of the experience scroll thingy if you choose to take the rewards on an 80 character. that way you only miss out on that trial mechanic (and the people who would use it on an 80 would probably not really care about that anyway)

Gardavil.1762:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

ziggystardust.3721:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Well, if you aren’t among the Chosen, you get nothing.

I will not buy HoT. I guess I’m invisible and unworthy of any future consideration.

Doesn’t matter that I’ve bought gem cards worth far more than the cost of that sorry, single demographic, feature sized “expansion”.

So you want to play full game by not buying it? That’s like playing old fifa and complaining of not having same advantages as those who playing new one. I said before…free to play is bad for games.

I am not FTP. FTP can’t post, eh? Whatever.

Yep, some of us can post and have not purchased HoT, I assume because we are purchased original game at launch so we aren’t classified as F2P.

I don’t have HoT, probably never will. I can’t play the game as a level 80, I quite literally do not have the player skill to do so (yes I have tried). I play Core only, what I can of it.

I’m not upset about the new free level 80 promo. I figure if I can’t make it to 80 on my own I should not “cheat” my way there. Besides… no one wants a player in their guild that just got to 80 the easy way even though they couldn’t make it to 80 the normal way. Not fair to those Players who have made it to 80.

So enjoy your new level 80s and the goodies and hopefully the changes are good ones for the Hots Maps. Have fun.

(just curious) but why can’t you play at 80? i’d say that’s where most of the fun is, and if it’s simply a lack of gear or understanding that could be fixed through a little kindness/inks to the right guides, there are a lot of us here on the forums who would be glad to help

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Well, if you aren’t among the Chosen, you get nothing.

I will not buy HoT. I guess I’m invisible and unworthy of any future consideration.

Doesn’t matter that I’ve bought gem cards worth far more than the cost of that sorry, single demographic, feature sized “expansion”.

Why won’t you buy HoT? Just curious.

Simple. I am disabled and play with only my right hand and a single usable digit on my left. Why buy a nightmare? Sadly, platforming and vertical have become the norm, and not an interesting option for those who enjoy that. Single demographic. If you can’t/don’t like platforming, go away.

I can play Core, even though I am gated from an increasing number of options/achievements there, I can’t even enter Dry Top in spite of hours spent attempting it before giving up. And no, I refuse to be “carried”, If I cannot do content myself, I won’t.

Although I did raid in WoW, Everquest, AoC and EQ2, I am too slow and imprecise to do group content now, I cannot carry my weight. I solo in Core. I do have 8k ap and rank 250 in wvw, not much, but I try. AP comes very slowly now. I have 13 80’s and now a 52, I bought another slot again because leveling a char is something to do.

I play core because there is still an option on how I can play. I watched hours of HoT footage, and there is simply no options for me there.

I wouldn’t say no options. i’m assuming you are right handed, and use your (disabled) left hand on the keyboard? Have you ever thought about trying the other way around? (i know it’s hard to learn, i have tried it myself and gave up, but then for me it was just a ‘kittens and giggles’ thing, wheras the improvement of your gaming abilities might motivate you better)

Also: what are you actually asking for? all paid players to get the same thing? i guess that’s not unreasonable. but this way it sweetens the HoT pot, and since i don’t believe it’s possible to buy ‘just the core game’ anymore, it amounts to the same thing for most people anyway.

I understand your feeling hard done by & left out, but you must know that regardless of how much you individually have spent, the total would pale in comparison to the revenue they’d generate from even a dozen new HoT purchases they would not have otherwise gotten. with this addition i know that i will likely buy my friend an upgrade to HoT, since it immediately offers her a way to access the endgame content she is returning for.

And, lastly, what’s the big deal? If you don’t value these (largely gem store acquirable) items at the price of HoT, then like any other gem store bundle, don’t buy it. Think of it less as them giving freebies to people who have bought the expansion, and instead as them expanding an existing gemstore bundle and retroactively reimbursing those who have already bought it. If it still doesn’t appeal to you, well, then that’s fine, isn’kitten i daresay you don’t get upset about not being given the account bump/jump start for free, do you?

By the new patch.

How bout you guys?

Asuaka.1528:

• Racial Gliders
  • Human

“hand of the gods”

It’s a literal hand which either scoops you up (and you sit on it) or catches you by your clothes and lets you dangle from its grip as you glide downward.

When i bought this item, i was expecting it to fit a bit better with the theme of the weapons, with their blocky, holographic parts. It seems as though the ‘feathers’ should be transparent – was this simply overlooked?

Donari.5237:

I believe Narrrz is referring to the fact that there were no fireball changes in the notes, in fact. Some time ago, to reduce the effects glare in combat, fireball was turned into a little mote you fling at the foe. After much feedback as to players not liking it, it remains small even after this big patch. Hence some cynicism as to the point in offering feedback.

I have no strong opinion on the matter myself, though I agree it’s hardly impressive to cast now. I’m simply helping clarify it for you, Daddicus.

Yes, sorry, Donari is entirely right. On rereading my post i realize i could have made it more clear.

In itself it’s not that major a change but for me it’s just served as the straw that broke the camel’s back, because to me it reveals a couple of things i find intolerable:
-The devs are happy to arbitrarily impose non-bugfix, non balance related changes without any call for such changes from the community
-They have no issue with completely ignoring community outcry against changes which are universally or near-universally disliked, and feel no compulsion to address such things or even comment on the subject

To my knowledge, no explanation was ever given for why the change was considered necessary, it was just foisted upon us unasked. In the beginning days of This Thread the posts were quite reasonable, asking for us to at least get an option to adjust particles/ground effects to our individual tastes (and hardware specs) but as you can see, despite its lifetime and multiple hundreds of unique posters, it has failed to attract a single dev post addressing the complaint.

So yeah. Though the change personally ruined fireball to me, what actually drove me to give up this once-great game is that i simply don’t want to be a part of anything which shows such blithe disregard for its playerbase.

I have just one word of feedback: Fireball.
Let me say it again. Fireball.
Fireball.
Fireball.
Fireball.
People (including myself) are quitting the game over this change. It’s seen overwhelming criticism since its introduction but it’s never even been MENTIONED.

Why bother making these feedback posts if noone actually listens to feedback that’s given?

Daharahj.1325:

This change literally made me quit the game. Call me extremist I don’t care, I can’t even look at it, this class just doesn’t feel the same.

Let me know when they change it back.

Likewise, and I didn’t even main ele.
it’s been long enough now that i’ve given up hope. Just gave all my accumulated gold & ectos to the skritt.

Maybe i’ll check back in next year to see what other horrific ways my once-favourite game has been gutted…

This could easily have gone the way of player models. Why not a “maximum particle density” setting? in a teamplay environment, as the number of on-screen effects goes up, the game starts drawing smaller, less complex skill effects.

I believe this even occurs now, as in WvW ground effects have a tendency to display nothing more than the “bad stuff happening here” red circle in any kind of moderate sized clusterfluffle.
This should simply have been given over to player control, instead of this (admittedly typical) ham-handed bandaid.

The two settings could be:
-Player Effect Detail
-Player Effect Density

Right now precursors have basically 4 methods of acquisition:
-Random drop – Huge time investment (on average, & if deliberately farming), Huge RNG factor, No monetary cost
-Mystic forge – Indeterminate time investment, large monetary investment(on average), large RNG factor
-Trading Post – No time investment, Large monetary investment, No RNG
-The new crafting system – Medium-large time investment, Largest monetary investment, medium-large RNG

Whatever category you’re looking to optimise, crafting is your worst option. Would you rather your precursor aquisition be:
-Slow and arduous, but entirely free
-Quick and painless, but expensive
-Highly intricate, extremely expensive and time consuming, with a healthy dose of random chance sprinkled on for good measure

The Mawdrey backpack is how i think this system should have worked. It has scavenger hunt components, some of which require feats of skill, it has time gated components and requires you to buy components with a specific, non-monetary currency. You CAN spend money in order to fast track the process, should you choose to, but by and large its entirely reasonable to acquire all the required materials yourself, albeit quite time consuming to do so.

SemmlerTh.2685:

Narrrz.7532:

SemmlerTh.2685:

People don’t seem to understand the concept. The Precursor crafting is not a cheap way to get your precursor, it’s a non-rng way to get it.

So is the trading post.
It’s a cheap*er* way, and what’smore, requires no time investment.

That’s the thing. People want it to be quick and almost effortless, which is why they basically have to buy most of their stuff from the TP. It was the same thing with mawdrey. People complained, that it took about 200g to craft it (back when foxfire clusters where expensive af). I had to level all crafting professions, and make all the stuff for mawdrey – and I still made 180g PROFIT, because I didn’t buy anything from the tp, at all. Not even for my crafting leveling. It took me about 2 months.

The precursor subject will always be a reason for people to cry. Before HoT people wanted a safe way to progressively work towards your precursor – a non-rng way to get it; something else then saving all your rares and throwing them into the toilet. Now they have, it they complain that it is expensive. Guess what they actually asked for, wasn’t they wanted all along?

They want legendaries to be something that you can acquire relatively quickly. That will never happen, and that’s ok

I’m entirely in agreement. Legendaries shouldn’t be cheap. The precursor crafting journey should be a serious time investment, and not something to be undertaken lightly, or something that should require a great deal of luck.

What it also should not be is expensive, particularly not more expensive than any other method. That’s just idiocy no matter how you stack it.

Would you rather your precursor aquisition be:
-Slow and arduous, but entirely free
-Quick and painless, but expensive
-Highly intricate, extremely expensive and time consuming, with a healthy dose of random chance sprinkled on for good measure

SemmlerTh.2685:

People don’t seem to understand the concept. The Precursor crafting is not a cheap way to get your precursor, it’s a non-rng way to get it.

So is the trading post.
It’s a cheap*er* way, and what’smore, requires no time investment.

Excludee.3850:

Vayne.8563:

Excludee.3850:

Saying something is wrong doesn’t make it wrong.

That’s true but stating my opinion is wrong is ABSOULTELY wrong. I stated an opinion. An opinion which many share. How can that opinion be wrong? It’s wrong to call an opinion wrong.

It’s my opinion that blue is a superior color to red.
It’s my opinion that tank thief is effective

How can my opinions be wrong? What you’re saying is absolute nonsense. Normally I’m not much a fan of people who just say, ‘oh your argument is bad’. But seriously, I’m not sure you’re reading what you’re saying. In fact:

It’s my opinion that you’re not reading what you’re saying. And you can’t say I’m wrong. Because it’s my opinion.

Wut?

It’s my opinion that the sky is red.
Opinions can be empirically wrong.

That said… i don’t agree with Vayne

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Frosty.5401:

Still don’t understand why people are complaining about precursor crafting, obviously it has to be challenging/expensive in order to maintain (or not affect at all) the prices of tp precursors.

What makes the price of precursors so kittening sacred that Anet can’t touch them?

Precursor crafting should take time and effort, but it should not take gold or anything that can be sold on the TP for gold (and when it comes down to it, grinding mats isn’t really any different from grinding gold, and it’s even less fun). The ideal would have been a dichomy: craft your precursor cheaply over a long period of time vs pay a lot more gold to get it instantly, with the forge and random drops as wildcards.

Precisely this.

right now precursors have basically 4 methods of acquisition:
-Random drop – Huge time investment (on average, & if deliberately farming), Huge RNG factor, No monetary cost
-Mystic forge – Indeterminate time investment, large monetary investment(on average), large RNG factor
-Trading Post – No time investment, Large monetary investment, No RNG
-The new crafting system – Medium-large time investment, Largest monetary investment, medium-large RNG

Whatever category you’re looking to optimise, crafting is your worst option.

The visual borifications coupled with the removal of loot and XP from quite a lot of event spawns have knocked my own rating down to a 6/10 now, from an 8 or 9.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Personally I don’t give a darn about my skills looking impressive. I want to be able to see what my enemy is doing, and I am tired of not being able to do just that.

In that case, i strongly recommend you try GW1. It has much better pvp balance.

With all the love, care and hard work put in to make the new HoT maps so visually stunning and intricate, it must really depress the design team to see their baby getting killed by inches this way…

Darksabre Aldarion.4159:

Dear ANET,

I love you very much. It is the truth. You have made a game that I have played for many hours, and greatly enjoy to share with friends.

However, you have ruined an animation I greatly enjoyed by turning it into a joke. When I first heard of the change, I though people were exaggerating. This was not so. It is actually tennis ball sized.

This is not game-breaking, and I am not threatening to leave or anything, but I seriously doubt that any measure of reasoned thought went into the new animation. It is actually more underwhelming than “flare” from GW1…I never thought that this could be true of GW2, but it is.

Please reconsider your animation choices, this was truly a poorly designed ‘fix’ for the visual noise problem.

Sincerely,
Darksabre (now and forever an ele).

I feel much the same way, but i do wonder – how many unambiguously terrible changes am i willing to put up with? when do we draw the line and say, “this is not the game i fell in love with, and it is moving in a direction i do not care to follow”?

Astralporing.1957:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Did you even read your own post before clicking reply? If they didn’t care, they would obviously not have added precursor hunts in the 1st place.

If they cared, they’d have done them right, and not in a way that makes many of us wish we never asked for it.

I think it’s best to just continue asking for what we actually wanted.

ANet has implemented a system to drain mats and gold from the economy, which just happens to have some tangential relationship to precursor acquisition.

I still want a system by which we can acquire a precursor through a simple investment of time, rather than money, and which is not reliant on RNG.
Nothing like that exists in game, so it seems reasonable to continue to ask for it.

Having now actually logged onto one of my eles, i… i… I just feel so inadequate =X

I’ve seen multiple reports of people finding the verdant brink meta unintentionally difficult because of the number of people afking or simply not participating while waiting to raid.

The solution, i think, is to make a separate instance in-between verdant brink and the raid, with its own map chat vendors. It could even be the entrance portion of the raid, just with a portal allowing access to the main raid.

The idea, of course, being essentially that anyone who is wanting to raid would be there, so it would be a much better place to go to find raid groups, hopefully moving afkers out of VB itself.

I feel like the greatsword at least should have a helix-like central plasma beam instead of/in addition to the outer ones.

I agree, though, it’s too wide.

day must be done before night, but as long as you are present on the map at the end of nighttime, after it has reached t4 in both day and night, you will get a blade box (i’ve gotten all 3 now; i always had 200% participation so i’m not sure what the requirement for that is)

As to the how of it, two resources; The first, Dulfy’s HoT Maps Meta timer and the second, your friendly neighbourhood LFG tool. Immediately prior to night (and often well into nighttime) you should see numerous taxis advertising t4 VB night attempts. I’ve done it four or 5 times, and succeeded three.

Jana.6831:

Anyway – in my 2 years here I’ve seen Dwayna’s animations once – everything else looked more of less like the screenshots.

I had to add my own =D

But yeah. The trouble isn’t so much the projectile/explosion itself, it’s the ginky scaling on some models. Normalise them, diminish them or whatever – make the special attack animation overwrite all other effects or temporarily suppress them… whatever. Diminishing the ‘coolness’ of some effects for a very slim practicality bonus is just a straight no-no.

I’d have to say that used properly (#2 can double or even triple hit) Revenant hammer is probably the most powerful ranged weapon ingame right now.

Scrapper hammer is… fun, but my engi is not built for power and it doesn’t really work as a condition weapon so i haven’t been able to very practically kitten it.

War and guard hammer has always felt unutterably bland to me, though…

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

The big problem I have with adventures is that they feel completely out of place thematically and mechanically. Take Shooting Gallery for example. Thematically Verdant Brink is about the survivors of the pact fleet scrambling to organise themselves and defend against the jungles dangers. So why did they set up a shooting gallery while they had to do so much just for their own survival ?

Mechanically, what’s an FPS minigame doing in a tab-targeting RPG ?
If I wanted an FPS, I’d go play an FPS. I own several good ones. Even the bad ones I own are better than Shooting Gallery.

So what about all those people who don’t like story, or different races, or fractals, or whatever else the mastery points are gated behind? Do you honestly expect ANet to give out mastery points like candy, so everyone can skip all of them they don’t like?

Yes.

If there’s anything gaming in general and this genre in particular can teach us, it’s that gating anything of any kind of value behind mini-games is an utterly terrible idea.

The people who enjoy them would play them anyway
The people who don’t feel forced to play them
The in-betweeners like myself are turned off them because of the non-optional aspect

I would be fine with them giving a one off reward for each tier and even a daily bonus, but gating something essential like mastery points is just really, really bad design. Particularly considering just how many are gated behind them, and how diverse they are thematically. Getting gold in any single adventure doesn’t leave you any better equipped to do any other adventure.

Taxi is of course short for taxidermy, as in, we’re stuffing one map full of players

the main fault i find in this fight is that i just don’t feel threatened
there’s no sense of having to use my abilities carefully and be poised at any moment to dodge for fear of my life, and no real sense of urgency.

As i’ve remarked before, from a visual and technical standpoint the fight is fantastic but i nevertheless can’t help but find it… lacking

Shadowphazon.7529:

A holographic energy field between the blades could also be used to justify gliding. As solid light is common in Tyria.

indeed. The aetherblades use holographic fins to steer their airships.

Interesting that they aligned so many other things but dry top doesn’t even overlap with the zone of the previous game.

Ohoni.6057:

there is also a jump pad near the Pale Reavers area

Hmmm, wherabouts is this? I’ve been looking for a way up from the east side of the map for a while, and there looked to be an updraft there that would permit it, but i could never figure out how to get high enough to catch it…

This is all just my opinions. I’m aware that a number of people like the dragon’s stand meta event, and i’ll admit that it was very visually impressive, but…

Mechanically, this map fails, i feel, on a number of counts. You can only jump on board at a very specific time (when the new map cycle opens) – if you don’t do so then, you are S.O.L. – the good maps are either full or unadvertised, and the maps you get put into are insufficiently progressed to make it on time (or just plain disinterested in trying).

Mordremoth, presumably, has been there some time. He’s been eating a lot of ley energy. I find it strains my suspension of disbelief that he doesn’t already have enough power to blitz us anytime he likes, but rather only gets to that point a short while after we finally get to him. Much more likely that he’s been putting all his absorbed power to use, and would only start reserving energy to kill us all after he became aware of our presence.

With that in mind, there’s no good reason why this map should be on a timer, as opposed to a progress bar – a progress bar which would only start to fill once our presence (and actions) became significant enough to alert the dragon.

The fight itself is very visually spectacular, like i said, but it lacks any real sense of Urgency, or even of combating a powerful, nearly insurmountable opponent. Instead of an enraged, overpoweringly dangerous elder dragon whom we must desperately fight to finally destroy, we’re faced with a somewhat testy creature who tries halfheartedly to swat us down, while we disinterestedly prod at whatever piece of him he brings in range, until he finally gets so bored he commits suicide by tree.

It’s… a little disappointing.

Ronnie Hu.1694:

the final Meta need to lower the difficulty and change the NO CC ridiculous. 2 hours of works and fail in 5 minutes because of 1 lane failure. This isn’t fun.

my take on it

The Nuhoch event to defend the beetles while they metamorphose is probably the worst culprit of this i’ve found to date.

An endless stream of mobs, all of which give nothing, and an event which is VERY slow to progress.

A LOT of people seem to get sick of just endlessly murdering mobs to no avail and wander away, which a) means the event takes a long time to get anywhere (or may actually regress; i’m not sure if that’s possible) and b) they likely get nothing for their effort.

This event needs a redesign so that it can be rewarding, imo.

I’m fine with raids being insurmountable except for highly skilled, organised guild groups, just so long as they change the TD meta to be more accessible (or even just more awesome)

Coulter.2315:

Narrrz.7532:

Coulter.2315:

Narrrz.7532:

(and firing into melee, only the person targeted has any warning… )

This is where everyone playing well matters – the target should move out from the group. If I see an Elite Sniper at the back I try to get aggro then face it away from the rest of the zerg – this kind of mob which allows for tactics should be encouraged in design (this is why I do not like people asking for nerfs).

The mordrem sniper isn’t picked out fr you, though, and there may not even be just one. In the time it takes you to notice the reticle and determine where the sniper is firing from, it could easily be too late to move.

I’m giving you tips that work, why would you try and push back when you haven’t even tried? The DS Meta event is a good place to practice and you’ll notice the impact you have disabling or making ineffective as many snipers as you can.

Why would you think i haven’t tried? Those are teh issues i’ve run into.

Coulter.2315:

Narrrz.7532:

(and firing into melee, only the person targeted has any warning… )

This is where everyone playing well matters – the target should move out from the group. If I see an Elite Sniper at the back I try to get aggro then face it away from the rest of the zerg – this kind of mob which allows for tactics should be encouraged in design (this is why I do not like people asking for nerfs).

The mordrem sniper isn’t picked out fr you, though, and there may not even be just one. In the time it takes you to notice the reticle and determine where the sniper is firing from, it could easily be too late to move.

All i would say is that the champs and elites scale a bit hard. The whole “wet paper” thing doesn’t sufficiently apply to them, and they regular wipe out whatever they hit (and firing into melee, only the person targeted has any warning… )

the normal and veterans melt to any kind of sustained fire but those higher ranks could do with being either a lot weaker in hitpoints or somewhat more forgiving in damage.

Edit: alternately, when the target reticle fades, the shot fired could sketch out its path along the ground ahead of time, so you have a moment to realise what’s about to hit you and dodge.

Lagos.6938:

What about Charr Female? She was my favorite VA, and still has a similar cadence but sounds a bit ‘off’. Is it someone else or did Kate Miller have a cold that recording day?

Hmm, really? for a long time the female charr PC voice made me shudder. I still wouldn’t say i like it – she just doesn’t sound like a charr the way the female NPCs do…

Yeah, with the way the camera zooms out i thought for sure there would be a huge boss battle there (Which i kinda feel this expac is lacking? The Dragonstand fight is a little too structured to feel like a proper boss battle, not nearly chaotic enough).

The newness of the event can hardly fail to be a factor, and hopefully it gets easier as players get more accustomed to the HoT content, but i do think it needs some adjustment

More ideas:
The Hive Queen spawns chak eggs constantly and less frequently summons larger Chak lobbers and blitzers. The eggs have little health but must be killed fairly quickly to prevent being overrun by a swarm of Chak.

When the queen emerges, she shatters the leyline pillars and the disturbance disrupts the ley-flows, reedirecting the ley lines overhead, carrying fragments of the ley-pillars up with them. Periodically, she will shield herself and flood the ground level with chak acid (it creeps out slowly enough to run out of). While shielded, chak will begin rushing the cannons from the lanes and the queen will focus on one cannon, bombarding it after a delay and rapidly (but not instantly) destroying it.

To prevent her doing this, some players must take to the disturbed leylines overhead, catching the ley-infused rubble from the pillars and raining it down on her to distract her (break her breakbar). The order of whispers will begin recharging the cannons during this phase; only one must survive to break her shield, every additional one over that will just deal heavy damage to her.

The one in auric basin, at least, only needs lean techniques (if you know what you’re doing)

you’re quite right. that’s the main feature, though there are various places scattered around where a leyline will get you to somewhere faster than the normal route or make an otherwise unreachable place accessible.

like i say, the top level masteries are not must-haves. that would be horrible design. They’re more just little QoL thingies.

i wouldn’t say INCREDIBLY easy or even necessarily easy but i don’t think that’s a bad thing. These zones are endgame, and i think it entirely appropriate that they be difficult.

Some tuning is needed, ofc, but i don’t feel that a solid nerf to the difficulty would benefit anyone.

all the masteries are like that. the lower level ones are typically the most useful. the higher level ones are just required for full completion.

personally, i like the system, and really enjoy leyline gliding.