Guild Wars 2

while I think with the current options it would be nicer to have all 5 displayed and then you use some form of checkbox to pick three, this won’t work in the future as more and more elite specializations will be added. The current form on the other hand is pretty good as far as scalability is concerned.

I think pretty much every single player supports build saving though.

I did some non-80 dungeons with guildies and other friends. I actually found that I had a much easier time through it than I have in the past pre-patch.

I agree with yams. My guard build lost almost all of it’s vitality and most of it’s toughness with the trait changes. I now find myself dealing crazy DPS but at the same time I am super glassy. Once I make some changes to my trinkets I expect to be able to find a happy medium that works for me.

nexxe, the wings are now floppy and no longer static. This applies to both black and white wings. Now I do personally prefer the holographic dragon wings, but seeing as I don’t own those, I will stick with my black/white wings

fall damage is a percentage of health i believe, so changing gears does nothing. Just put on the fall damage trait and you’re good to go

I actually like the new one so far. Some of my builds are completely broken and will have to be scrapped, but I’ve already found other builds that are fun to play that I also feel is viable.

but it isn’t being ignored, I saw a guildie with a tanky spec live for a very long time against 7 people in WvW just last night.

I have no idea what build you’re running, but it’s possible that it was just a bad matchup against the builds your opponents were using.

Also full glass thieves have always been able nearly one shot even tankier builds if they can get the jump on them, so no real change there. I mean prior to the trait changes, I’ve had my full PVT guard get insta-downed by a full glass thief with max stacks and boons because he took me by surprise.

Obviously some things would be broken with a change this big. But the meta will change as well and it will take time to tell whether or not the builds that are dominating right now are outright broken or if people just need to learn how to counter it. Personally I’m using this as a chance to redo all my builds since some have become significantly stronger, while others looks like they’re no longer viable.

I agree, it could be that your ppt is high since you have 10 people in OCX while the other two servers you’re matched up with only has 1

he’s not a moderator. He’s the volunteer WvW specialist.

top 5 servers all have well populated OCX/SEA

SoS sometimes has a lot, but sometimes also have pretty much no one depending on the day of the week. Not sure about the rest.

the elite shout and signet are both really nice. Personally I almost never use the tomes and felt that guardians prior to this basically had only 1 elite. Now we actually have options.

Leo.6817:

Nate.3927:

Leo.6817:

So if you buy a t-shirt today at Target for $20, then 2 years later, random person A buys the same T-shirt that is on sale for $10, then Target is being unfair? They are not getting more value than you, you’ve been playing this game sans subscription fee for x number of years. In that time you have managed to accumulate more in-game resource than they have. Experienced content that have now been permanently removed that they can’t experience as a new player. Given the chance to obtain skins that are now no longer obtainable. Received the LS2 updates for free, while they would have to pay around $20 to unlock all of that.

Your arguments don’t even make any sense anymore, that T-Shirt at Target would never be ‘free’ 2 years later, it would still cost something, the core game now evidently does not cost anything for new players if they buy the expansion, and yes they do get more value then me, they will ALSO get to play the game subscription free for years to come, seriously your entire argument is “You got to play for longer, that is your reward” which makes NO sense whatsoever, if -you- are happy with that as your reward for being a loyal customer and supporter of the game then fine? Good for you?

One look over the forums suggests that the majority of said customers are not, so we being the majority and you being the minority, please explain how ‘everyone’ is wrong and only you and a few select individuals are ‘correct’.

If you don’t actually enjoy playing the game, then why are you even here?

Wow…really, I mean it really is not that often I find someone either this horrendous at logic or just lacking the ability to read before posting.

Not once did I say I do not enjoy playing the game, not once did I mention anything in relation to my enjoyment of the actual game, only about this whole expansion, free core game and price situation…seriously, I’m starting to think you are just trying troll now.

ok let me give you a better example. If you buy a car for $20k today, then two years later a new version of the same car (the base game) is being sold for $15k, but this new model comes with better seats, improved headlights/braking whatever (the expansion). Were you ripped off? No you were not, you have used that car for two years as a mode of transport. You got to use that car to go to some one-off festival last year that will never happen ever again. You got to use your car to go on a road trip with some friends, if you didn’t have that car you would’ve had to rent a car or go hitchhiking instead etc. In the same way the game has given you x years of enjoyment. It allowed you to enjoy content that is one-off and will never come back. You have got your money’s worth in the form of experience.

Leo.6817:

So if you buy a t-shirt today at Target for $20, then 2 years later, random person A buys the same T-shirt that is on sale for $10, then Target is being unfair? They are not getting more value than you, you’ve been playing this game sans subscription fee for x number of years. In that time you have managed to accumulate more in-game resource than they have. Experienced content that have now been permanently removed that they can’t experience as a new player. Given the chance to obtain skins that are now no longer obtainable. Received the LS2 updates for free, while they would have to pay around $20 to unlock all of that.

Your arguments don’t even make any sense anymore, that T-Shirt at Target would never be ‘free’ 2 years later, it would still cost something, the core game now evidently does not cost anything for new players if they buy the expansion, and yes they do get more value then me, they will ALSO get to play the game subscription free for years to come, seriously your entire argument is “You got to play for longer, that is your reward” which makes NO sense whatsoever, if -you- are happy with that as your reward for being a loyal customer and supporter of the game then fine? Good for you?

One look over the forums suggests that the majority of said customers are not, so we being the majority and you being the minority, please explain how ‘everyone’ is wrong and only you and a few select individuals are ‘correct’.

If you don’t actually enjoy playing the game, then why are you even here?

shogei.8015:

Tofu.1978:

gw2 is a great value but they should have been able to understand that people do not like feeling like someone else is getting a better deal no matter how good the deal they are getting is or that they aren’t getting something they are paying for. Its a human behavior problem more then the value proposition that I think most are upset about. It was just careless packaging on their part. Logicaly gw2 is a great value being subscriptionless.

There is also the assumption, generated by both GW1 precedent and other MMOs, that an expansion with new classes should come with a character slot to put that new class into. Veteran players need to shell out an extra $10 or delete one of their existing toons. Since toons get gifts as they age, this is a painful thing to do and most will avoid it. So the veterans will end up paying $60 for an expansion and one slot while new players will pay $50 for an expansion and five slots.

or you know, pay ~150 gold for a new character slot? Gold that you can earn in game. You’ve had more than 2 years to earn that gold and gold farming has been made easier than ever with the SilverWastes

Leo.6817:

Nate.3927:

Leo.6817:

yanipheonu.5798:

Worst case, you have something free, but useless

Uhm, no, you will NOT have anything for free, unless you plan to play on a new account starting from level 1, you wont be able to make use of the free account, the ‘core’ game and the expansion come bundled together, as one account, so you either add it to your existing account which upgrades it to Heart of Thorns and you lose that free ‘core’ game, or you start a brand new account all together.

At least get it right if you are just going to blindly lash out everyone in such an immature way.

Did you fail to read his post? He said free but useless. It matches his example, he got Bioshock for free, but already owns it, so it’s useless.

Now if the core game came as a separate key, then you got something for free that isn’t useless. There’s a difference there.

I’m personally fine with the pricing. Would I like it cheaper or with one character slot? Of course I would, that would be better value for money. But the pricing is fine as it is too.

And to those comparing this to Heavensward, do remember that FFXIV is a subscription game. So you are paying the price of Heavensward and then you’re still paying a subscription.

This pricing is still a better deal than all other MMOs that I’m personally aware of.

No I think you simply do not understand the concept of “You are not getting anything for free if you want to upgrade an existing account” He can give that second bioshock game to a friend, I cannot give that ‘free core game’ part of the bundle to anyone because it will be -gone- the moment I upgrade my account to Heart of Thorns.

So -No- you do -NOT- get anything, not even something useless.

I think you seriously fail at logic. I don’t know the specific of the Bioshock deal, but IF he gave that to a friend, then that automatically becomes non-useless. His Bioshock game is useless because he either cannot or does not want to give it to another person. Maybe the game is on the same disc as the newer Bioshock so he can’t give it to anyone, or maybe for some other reason, like it’s a digital copy that is linked to his account. The free copy of the base game you receive with a purchase of HoT is useless because at this point all signs say that we cannot give it away to another person.

Leo.6817:

It is unfair because some people (new players in this case) are getting more value for their money than you are.

So if you buy a t-shirt today at Target for $20, then 2 years later, random person A buys the same T-shirt that is on sale for $10, then Target is being unfair? They are not getting more value than you, you’ve been playing this game sans subscription fee for x number of years. In that time you have managed to accumulate more in-game resource than they have. Experienced content that have now been permanently removed that they can’t experience as a new player. Given the chance to obtain skins that are now no longer obtainable. Received the LS2 updates for free, while they would have to pay around $20 to unlock all of that.

It is unfair because to all the people who supported the original game since release date they are receiving a poorer deal than people who have never touched the game before.

It is unfair because we as human beings have this unwritten understanding of “You scratch my back I scratch yours” with each-other, and this thing called ‘loyalty’ which is being utterly disregarded in the current situation.

Practically every other MMORPG out on the market right now rewards its veteran players in some way, it treats them as important core blood and doesn’t make devalue their money by asking them to spend the same amount of money a new player will, but giving the new player -more- than the veteran.

Really? Those same MMORPGs also make you pay a subscribtion fee. IF this was a sub game, I would agree with you. But it isn’t.

You might like to use $50 bills as toilet paper and it might make you mad us peasants dare to be disgruntled over how much value we make, but you are the minority here, perhaps a bit of respectful silence is wise.

Leo.6817:

yanipheonu.5798:

Worst case, you have something free, but useless

Uhm, no, you will NOT have anything for free, unless you plan to play on a new account starting from level 1, you wont be able to make use of the free account, the ‘core’ game and the expansion come bundled together, as one account, so you either add it to your existing account which upgrades it to Heart of Thorns and you lose that free ‘core’ game, or you start a brand new account all together.

At least get it right if you are just going to blindly lash out everyone in such an immature way.

Did you fail to read his post? He said free but useless. It matches his example, he got Bioshock for free, but already owns it, so it’s useless.

Now if the core game came as a separate key, then you got something for free that isn’t useless. There’s a difference there.

I’m personally fine with the pricing. Would I like it cheaper or with one character slot? Of course I would, that would be better value for money. But the pricing is fine as it is too.

And to those comparing this to Heavensward, do remember that FFXIV is a subscription game. So you are paying the price of Heavensward and then you’re still paying a subscription.

This pricing is still a better deal than all other MMOs that I’m personally aware of.

For the people complaining about the size of the expansion. First how exactly are you measuring the size? For example if you think of it as “I only play WvW and I only play necromancer. Trait changes, one elite spec and borderland maps overhaul is not worth $50” you would probably be right. But if you look at it from the point of view of a person who plays all parts of the game, pve, wvw, spvp, crafting, belongs to a guild etc. Then you will see that the price is fine.

MC Hammer and Camper

if eotm player cap is a guide, the number is somewhere between 70-80 per side

well i assume the new siege weapons at least will require new ability lines

dragonhunter abilities actually look quite powerful, my only issue is the name

Timeuser seems like the most fitting name.

I bring my necro to dungeons all the time. It’s true I get kicked by the “10k+ AP, Full Asc Zerk” type groups, but those types of people are idiots anyway. They spend 30 mins waiting for their ideal party so that they can speed run the dungeon, meanwhile I join a regular group of reasonable people and we finish all 3 runs before the other group even gets a full party.

glicko system

15chars

Powerful? Yes. Overpowered? No.

Complaints like “doesn’t help if they’re stealthed” is equivalent to “doesn’t help when the enemy saw us coming and prepared a trap for us”. It has more to do with your group being unprepared than anything else.

RlyOsim.2497:

As an aside, the original post here was to continue this discussion, not to share my own views.

Personal opinion:
Beginning to think a lot of posters in this thread don’t run with organised/semi-organised WvW groups: do people understand the amount of damage zerk necros put out + a melee/FP group hitting an immobilised target?
There’s not much “counter play” to been hit by that in under 2 seconds.

Group synergy is great and all but a, lets be honest here, stupidly simple to perform synergy such as venom&wells is totally broken in a risk-reward sense.

To each their own of course but I would urge people that don’t really understand the issue to spend some time in even a semi-organised environment (reset with teamspeak for example on your respective eb’s) and perhaps you might change your mind.

the simplest answer is don’t stand in their wells. Which is what you would normally do anyway. I do run with a guild as well as with pugs. Sometimes I’m on TS, sometimes I’m not.

Condi clear + dodge back(maybe twice) or a utility/weapon skill that moves you backwards(many classes have them).

Have I been caught in them and died due to it? Of course I have, but 90% of them time it’s because of one of these reasons:

a. Wasn’t paying attention since I’m also watching tv at the same time
b. Didn’t listen to commander and was nowhere near tag
c. Lag spike

Try to get your group to practice predicting enemy movements instead of just reacting to them. As an OCX player, I deal with bad lag all the time, our OCX commanders are the same. We quite often would pre-emptively move out of an area before the enemy even drops their bombs and venom wells.

venom wells are fine. Seriously, there are so many counters to it, like others have mentioned Null Field and Healing Rain are both good examples of a way to counter them.

If the enemy’s group composition is beating yours. Compliment them on their sneakiness, and come up with a counter.

part of the problem is that some people actually think that the name is Dragon Hunter and not Dragonhunter.

The first is not as bad as the second.

I prefer Dratini myself.

But in all seriousness, Anet should do a poll of what the name should be.

ReaverKane.7598:

kitten … Traps? Why Traps?
I was kinda excited about the whole longbow thing, but traps? Even the heal is a trap? So i have to sit in the trap wait for someone to come near me so i can heal? Kinda reminds me of getting the enemy heals on ARAM in LoL. Sure you get the heal, but more often than not you also get more damage than what you healed.
On paper its a really lame concept. I mean, at this point, although my first character was a Guardian, i play mostly on my ranger, and i can’t remember the last time i used a trap.
I’m going to wait for the Stream though.
Love the virtues… I mean come on, why not shouts? Traps, Really?

And honestly, the name? Could be Booger Picker, i wouldn’t care… But Traps?

Booger Picker is an objectively better name than Dragonhunter.

Eggs.3142:

Arewn.2368:

Eggs.3142:

Chronomancer literally means a Mancer of Chrono, a Practicer of Time. A Time Controller. I just, im really agast at how there’s so much outrage against the timplicity of Dragonhunter when Chronomancer was the same thing. Is it just because its Latin? Dracovenotar sounds wierder to me.

“mancer” is typical suffix for different types of magic practitioners. Like necromancer, pyromancer, etc.
Chronomancer feels like a “proper” name as a result. Where as using a two word descriptor like “dragon hunter” sounds a little uninspired.
It’s honestly not a big deal, I just think they could have found something more appropriate and better sounding.
Like if necromancers get shouts and are called “Banshee”, that would be cool. Thematically appropriate and speaks to what they do/what skills they got. But if they were called “Voice commanders”, no matter how appropriate of a descriptor it is, it doesn’t sound like a good spec name.

Imagine if warriors were called “Weapon Fighters”, engineers were called “Gadget Users”, mesmers were called “Illusion mages”, etc.
They all work as names, it’s just not a very appealing naming convention to follow.

All of this is just a language problem. We just happen to be on the lesser side this time in English. Like to me, an English speaker, the word Hunter sounds lame. But the word Jager sounds AWESOME. Its got a soft j (and an umlaut if i could remember the code for it) But to a German speaker, Jager might sound pedestrian, and they might prefer Hunter for the exotic englishyness.

Same reason people get tattoos in Asian languages. Get truth written on your arm and its lame. Get truth written in Kanji and you think its cool.

Are you sure it says “Truth” ? Quite often it actually says “stupid” or “eggs” or “table” etc

Can I just correct the OP here, the name is Dragonhunter. Not Dragon Hunter. Dragon Hunter while it would not be a great name, is perfectly fine and acceptable. Dragonhunter on the other hand just sounds stupid.

Valmir.4590:

I actually like the Dragon Hunter (even if, for once, his name is cooler in French than in English). It is actually what an Elite specialisation is about : a whole new way to play a class. If you want to play a melee guardian, you’ll get the new “normal” attributes, and it seems to be better (with more synergies between the branches) so its fine, but the DH basically bring support to a whole new level (there is a reason for why one of his skills destroys enemies arrows, I’m certain).

I agree with those who think that the DH isn’t as flashy as the Chronomancer, but it was a given : the magical classes will have flashier and more impressive looking specializations, but what I care is less the flash and more the bang. And the DH is definitely the equal of the Chronomancer here. Both seems to require a lot of hard work to reach their full potential and their peak is achieved through a timely work with other characters.

Dragon Hunter would actually be fine, not great but fine. The problem is, they called it the Dragonhunter. Not the Dragon Hunter, but the Dragonhunter.

I mean Dragonbane would be fine and Draconnier actually sounds cool. Why not just call it Draconnier in English as well.

a name is important, why do you think people in the real word make up fancy new names for their jobs? It’s to make themselves feel better. Dragonhunter is seriously not a great name. Is it the worst name possible? I suppose not, but it’s not a great name. To begin with that should be two words, not one.

Also the French name is actually kinda cool, I really wish they would use the French name for the English name as well. Draconnier. That’s so much better.

lordkrall.7241:

Dharmz.8205:

Yeah it is too early to say how this specialization will play out… It has interesting concepts/mechanics, we will have to wait for the livestream…

The one thing I’m a bit skeptical of…is the name. I mean Dragonhunter? They could’ve named it Warden or something. Sounds so cliché…

Why do people keep talking about the name being cliche?

How is Warrior, Ranger and Engineer any less cliche?

the cliche factor I can ignore, it’s more the fact that it’s Dragonhunter instead of you know maybe Dragon Hunter instead? Just adding a space already makes it a little bit less offputting. Still not great, but not as bad.

yeah that name I mean the abilities I will reserve judgment until I see more of them. But that name… >_<

they’ve already nerfed precision before, I remember way back closer to launch when my warrior at level 30 had something like 95% critical chance

from what I remember 64 slots is the max that you can get by buying slots from the gemstore. That doesn’t mean that that’s the actual max as far as the backend code is concerned..

“you’re different from me, therefore I hate you”

pretty much

- All of the classes have a very high skill ceiling.

- Warrior and Ele have the lowest skill floor. As in it’s very easy to bring yourself up to the level of neutral or small credit to team.

- Mesmer, Engineer and Thief have the highest skill floor. As in if you don’t know what you’re doing, you are a rally bot and a liability to your team/side.

hackers are bad and all and I agree that they should be banned. But why are you using gold for siege weapons?? Why not just use badges.

I seriously doubt Justiciar, that seems to have too much of a White Mantle theme. I can see Herald though, because the word Herald does have a connection with the angelic theme going on.

As somebody who has 2 CEs I actually don’t support this idea. Beta access from a random drop in SW/DT is just as random as Beta invite from picking random newsletter subscribers. Stop whining, seriously.

1) For convenience I agree, but then you get the really sensitive people who are like “we have more people, we did most of the work, why are you claiming this?”

2) As with no 1, I agree for convenience sake, but then what about other buffs? What if somebody else has claimed and they have MF buffs and combat buffs etc, but no supply buff. Should another guild be able to claim over that? It will get a bit complicated unless the rule is simplied to something like “If a guild has no buffs running, other guilds can claim over them after x minutes/hours/whatever”.

3) Yes
4) Yes
5) I don’t see this as a need, but would be nice to have
6) I’d say no, since siege are not account bound.
7) Would be useful
8) No. That just encourages elitist behaviour.
9) No point. If the enemy seriously outnumber you to the point that they have enough supply and people to put down a ridiculous number of rams or catas, they’re going to take it anyway. No need to put an arbitrary cap on the number of siege.
10) Don’t really care either way tbh since won’t really affect me personally.

i think they’re just looking for an easy way to get the Ultimate Dominator title.

if you think 150-200 is bad, try living with 300 as your best ping, and averaging 400

Andy Warhol.6250:

Aidan Eighthrain.8612:

You, sir, are a breeder of assisted PUGs and low Commanders. I hope you enjoy being ran into by clearly organized groups on your server.

I was just playing the game minding my own business. There were a couple of them, and one kicked me as I was finishing up a quest involving attacking flame legion attacking a fort or base. Me being ‘kicked’ didn’t seem to make a difference though. So, I really don’t understand what all that was about.

umm you mean somebody used the /me emote to kick you in PvE…

MiniEquine.6014:

Since the new trait system will be shuffling the traits around a little bit, it’s sort of comparing apples to oranges, but there are very significant changes to the customizability of builds. From my post elsewhere:
Okay, NOW it should be good.

6/4/2/2 yields the most results with 19,627,920 different combinations
3/3/3/3/2 yields the least results with 7,776 different combinations
66,713,226 different possible trait combinations with the current system
196,830 different combinations with the new system
99.7049% reduction in trait combination by switching to the new system.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9KAc7ghxmrxsq0bkWNALddKMkETmdQ1dW-eS7Xa8Hc/edit?usp=sharing

There are currently 20,724,390 build possibilities that only use 3 trait lines (about 1/3 of the total)

Your first point I agree with. Which is part of why I don’t understand some people’s complaints. If the traits are getting moved/merged/removed, then yes your build will change, but it will not necessarily become worse.

With your second point, I don’t follow your numbers, and won’t bother trying since I’m not in the mood for maths right now, but I’ve said this before elsewhere. 20 million possible trash builds are just that, trash. How many of those do you think actually gets used? Very few.

Will builds change? Of course they will, every single balance patch changes certain builds. Will you be worse off? Based on the info provided so far, except for a few very specific builds that are run by almost no one, the answer is no.

I will use the example I used before with the other person’s build, is “reckless dodge” truly so core to his/her build that losing that minor trait and gaining 4 more a net loss to his/her build? The answer is most likely no.

Now if you guys have complaints about specific grandmaster or master traits that are worthless. That quite possibly valid (again I am not a theorycrafter), but that’s completely separate to the new trait/spec system.

Your complaints so far is basically along the lines of “Nobody should be allowed to wear armor, because some armor skins clip badly with Charr tails” . It’s a ridiculous complaint. Complain about the specific armor skins/traits that are causing clipping issues/are useless don’t complain about armor in general when it works perfectly fine for most things.