Guild Wars 2

When you have a world famous poem beloved by millions for more than 150 years you too will be the subject of the occasional pop-culture reference.

Until then enjoy the tip of the hat to one of the greatest spooky tales of all time.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Did people really expect a post-80 progression system to not be time-consuming? This is a bloody MMO. MMO’s are, as a genre, massive time sinks. The business models used involve ongoing revenue whether via sub or store. Thus, the developers’ goal is always going to be to design systems to keep players playing. Not to mention that a lot of players like having longer-term goals.

You take your logic and put it somewhere dark. And sticky. Yeah! dark and sticky.

We don’t want no logic running loose ’round these parts!

Celestial form took like 4.2 minutes after Guards had their Tome of Courage pickpocketed by those tricksey Rangers. The rest is just FX work.

…Distracting us with their dancing bear was just dirty pool.

Heavy
Orichalcum
Projectile
Ejector

Kitty.1502:

Nike.2631:

To be fair it’s been a constant request since the first time the skills were revealed. We’ve been beating that drum close to half a year now. Not so long compared to Rangers, but maybe it will nudge the baseline enough all trap-setting classes can benefit.

Thats cute, 6 months. We have been asking for fixing for 3 years.

I highlighted where I already acknowledged that in case you skimmed over what I wrote. And I’ll point out that ALL the new specs are getting the kind of attention that would help ALL the existing professions. Sorry the big kids aren’t getting a cake with their names written in frosting on it too, but we work with what we’ve got.

The real issue isn’t what happens launch day, which is by design a media spectacle focused on the new professions… It’s whether or not the Devs vanish back into their Fortress of Silence after proving they can mange to talk to us every few weeks and make some real progress on troublesome elements of the professions.

Andred.1087:

Narrrz.7532:

I’m actually really looking forward to having a proper ranged power weapon on my guard.

Why? Ranged on a Guardian should only ever be used when pure melee is just not an option.

Guards have this amazing technology called “weapon swap”…

Fact is with the recently re-vamped Pure of Sight DH has a real shot of actually beating core Guard for raw damage output. The builds and combos that are gonna be floating around by Turkey Day are going to be fierce.

When you press the button it leashes you to targets within 400. The leash doesn’t snap until they move beyond 600.

People cracked it in five hours. This IS the easy mode.

‘Fangs snapping at your tingly bits’ mode will come 6-8 month later when this is all a tragic farm.

Hey, Guards will be happy to see Engis get a stunbreak gyro as soon as you hand over the sweet cooldown-starts-when-summoned that our gyros (spirit weapons) have been in dire need of for the last two years. Win-win, right?

Honestly you’d think after seeing the need to spread stunbreaks across skill lines that lead to the big shuffle shortly after launch looking over new lines to find which one might be most suitable to be a stunbreak would be part of the process by now.

My Asuran Ranger (Wrangler Sorjji) named her semi-autonomous bio-utility units in the most scientifically precise manner possible… Subject 1 to 17. Her current most promising experiment at any given time (because it would be bookah-ish to “have favorites”) holds the unique title “Weaponization Demo”.

The current titleholder is a moa.

/Wash voice

“That part will pretty definitely happen.”

/Wash voice

If you think Dragonhunter is anything less than a beast you haven’t been keeping up with the changes. There’s evidence mounting its flat out max DPS for the profession and brings some devastating utility on the side.

I’ve been holding off hero point hunting on all my 80th level alts to flow those easy XP into core Tyria masteries. I’d like auto-loot asap. Even before touching the Meguma tracks.

400 in two different professions for the Legendary gifts. Crafting is part of the Legendary journey and one of the few parts you can’t(directly) buy your way around. (You can of course buy your way to 400, but you still gotta push the buttons personally)

Llethander.3972:

Kolisch.4691:

Do dragon hunter traps have arming times like ranger and thief traps?

Yes.

Actually, if they did during BWE3 it was imperceptibly short. I was dropping traps in the middle of the fray on point at mid and I have no recollection of ever thinking “please go off before they leave, please go off…” They just did, seemingly instantly and without fail.

Either way it’s a mechanic that should be unified across all skills with the trap tag.

Astralporing.1957:

Nike.2631:

Yeah, they unabashedly dropped that like a hot rock when they found out how many players would get to 80, put max progression gear in all their slots, play around another day or three and NEVER LOG IN AGAIN.

Which was dumb, because the majority of those people left for completely unrelated reasons. Mainly just because they ended up not liking the game in general. Happens for every game out there (and is especially visible with MMORPGs)

Well when it’s your company and you’re holding the financial livelihood of 300+ families in your hands you can make the call you think is best. Hopefully you’ll have more data, more professional knowledge of the industry, and more experience than a player armchair quarterbacking your decision years later when time has proven your decision may not have been the single best but your company is still tens to hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the black.

The bottom line of most MMO’s is “Do you find the moment-to-moment gameplay enjoyable?” Because if not, you really shouldn’t be shackling yourself to what ever time-stretching delayed gratification system this or that particular publisher has dreamed up.

If you like the gameplay, then the periodic delivery of shiny is just a bonus.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

You will be able to level it with tomes like you can with other professions.

You know this. I know this. Folks coming and going would know this if your team built and stickied a “HoT GAMEPLAY FAQ” at the top of the HoT boards we could direct our fellows to .

Ashen.2907:

Just responding to the comment that Anet, “NEVER,” said anything of the sort.

They said an awful lot about the role of Ascended as a long duration undertaking. They said more than they intended to about how it was a slap-dash reaction to experience gained once they went live. They can claim they were planning it beforehand until the cows come home but you need only look at the wildly different implementations of rings, the rest of the jewelry, and then armor/weapons to see they were figuring it out as they went along.

Not sure that I can agree that having everyone on an equal power base is toxic.

Losing an overwhelmingly large segment of your playerbase because stat progression stopped dead at Exotic is the toxic part. Legendary skins-without-stat-advantage as a motivator to either pay-a-ton-of-money or putz-around-grinding-whatever failed, and they cobbled together a vertical progression-based hook to stay, and each phase they unveiled took longer and longer to complete.

Ashen.2907:

From September 27, 2011 Source

Colin Johanson: Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base.

Yeah, they unabashedly dropped that like a hot rock when they found out how many players would get to 80, put max progression gear in all their slots, play around another day or three and NEVER LOG IN AGAIN.

Add it to the massive list of ideas that a bunch of people who had never done an MMO before boldly announced would be a part of GW2 that they either couldn’t actually bring to fruition or proved flat-out wrong in the face of the market reality.

The true testament to ANet’s skill and survival instincts was how fast they jettisoned some of those high-minded and utterly toxic ideals.

Quarktastic.1027:

(1) +25 Power
(2) +10% Chill duration
(3) +50 Power
(4) +15% chill duration, 25% chance when struck to cause an AoE frost nova (cooldown 90 seconds)
(5) +100 Power
(6) +5% damage to chilled foes

How’s that?

Honestly, I’d say it’s insufficiently different from the existing Superior Runes of the Ice~

(1) +25 Vitality
(2) +10% Chill Duration
(3) +50 Vitality
(4) 25% chance when struck to cause an ice nova. (Cooldown: 30 seconds)
(5) +100 Vitality
(6) +20% Chill Duration; +7% damage against chilled foes

I’m still reluctant to promote more (6) +damage% runes and doubly so when the 1/3/5 stat is offense-oriented.

Axialbloom.8109:

Every Tempest will have overloads. Not every Tempest will have shouts or even auras. So you should link Aegis to overloading.

Except it’s NOT following the pattern of existing runes to make sets that are unusable for all but one profession .

Toughness is good, but you might need a damage increase somewhere as well.

The aura duration on slot four is made up. It’s the first thing I’d drop making edits. Direct damage buffs are kind of my choice of last resort. Though with the 1/3/5 being Toughness I’m less reluctant than on Runes that have an offensive stat for their core.

Archon.6480:

Ranger attacks skills and utilities follow a general pattern of being like other classes attacks skills and utilities, except they are weaker, slower, and less useful.

As I expounded on back in the Ranger CDI, it’s not that Rangers are singled out for abuse/neglect, its that they specialize in areas of the game that are weak, often by design. All ranged classes/builds damage output sucks compared to their melee counterparts but Rangers are the most likely to push for a ranged build anyway. All the pet AI game-wide is crippled because they won’t turn up the range of their “melee” attacks to catch moving targets exploiting the laggy AI but Ranger pets are an unavoidable hunk of class performance shackled to AI control. It says a lot the new Espec IGNORES both of those aspects of the core profession to try and branch out into some area of performance that won’t get them kicked in the junk. Again.

I understand all hands have been turned to making HoT a sexy event for GW2 to bring in people and show off some razzle-dazzle with the new professions. A byproduct of that has been the best Dev/Player communication in the class boards in the history of the game, hands down…

…I REALLY HOPE that doesn’t just dry up after the 23rd.

Mcrocha.3891:

Most defensive trap is Frost Trap/would be the only one that could reasonably get it. Others have too short of cds. Spike Trap is a maybe, but it’s already very good, no reason to make it a must take.

Seems soundly reasoned.

Edit: assuming our traps don’t get a balance pass in the future. Which is most likely not likely heh.

I wouldn’t be so sure. We saw a very deliberate effort to normalize traps between the three professions that have them. They only need to carry that principle forward a little further…

Forgive me while I laugh at the drum being beat for half a year. Happy for the DH community though.

Dragonhunters have been endlessly denigrated, ridiculed and belittled for having traps — in no small part because it makes them like Rangers. You have to think the Devs noticed the whole skill category has a stink on it. It’s been a long wait for Rangers but if their traps (and thief traps) get re-tuned to something truly competitive, we all win.

nekretaal.6485:

Did you just make those runes up? They look real but I was hoping for something better.

nekretaal.6485:

Whew. Would prefer critical damage runes, or even damage modifier runes (like ogre) over precision runes.

I think when I present them as a group I’ll switch to power for 1/3/5.

As to flat damage buffs, while there is an UNRELENTING appetite for ‘moar deeps’, I’d rather new runes offer something that isn’t pure damage and move speed runes make it easier to get into range during combat while providing some overland travel convenience.

Mcrocha.3891:

No reason to not add it.

That’s my feeling also.

So what’s the weakest Ranger trap?

DH gets it after 3 BWE lmao.

To be fair it’s been a constant request since the first time the skills were revealed. We’ve been beating that drum close to half a year now. Not so long compared to Rangers, but maybe it will nudge the baseline enough all trap-setting classes can benefit.

Axialbloom.8109:

You have made a weak shout set, not an overload set.

Looking at existing rune effects, what would you suggest as being “Overload-y”?

Given Elementalist’s basically non-existant access to Aegis, that seemed like a nice addition to the toolbox and a good solution to being more reliably able to execute an overload in hostile circumstances without stepping on the toes of the stability-while-overloading trait.

I’ve been working tirelessly in the Guardian board trying to shape the Dragonhunter into a solid competitive alternative to an already strong class.

I’ll be the first to say the Dragonhunter traps in their most recent incarnation are beefy. I think that if they are left at that level off effectiveness after as few months of live data gathering, then the Thief and Ranger traps should absolutely be looked at with an eye towards greater impact when played skillfully. And specifically 1 trap for each of those professions should probably gain a stun break on placement.

I know waiting a couple months sucks, but I’m just not confident the DH traps are going to go un-nerfed and Devs and Players alike shouldn’t rush to point to them as baseline.

But the addition of a stunbreak probably can go forward while we wait for more data.

ekarat.1085:

The problem isn’t hard content. The problem is how players blame each other when they fail hard content. They’re awesome, but that other guy is to blame…

I try to own up to my blame ASAP — it dramatically improves the odds of the group sticking together to make another attempt. If you get out in front of it there’s a lot of personality types that don’t enjoy rubbing it in.

Nike.2631:

We’ve already seen content scaled for exotic gear in a post-ascended world is not a challenge. It’s boring.

Astralporing.1957:

Well, then there exist an obvious solution to both problems – make ascended easily obtainable.

Which would defeat the purpose for which Ascended was introduced to the game — to give people something to do after they collect a full set of exotic gear. The description of intent that ascended gear require time in between exotic and legendary spans was quite explicit at the time.

That’s why in content that’s about skill (sPvP) all gear is made easily accessible to everyone.

And if that were the Devs desire we’d just be using our sPvP specs inside the raid instance. Which would hardly take any new code at all.

Which is probably the solution you should be asking of them. It would get rid of prep time entirely.

I propose that purple is the color of crystal dragon manifestations in their natural state… something which Mordremoth’s influence would likely return Glint’s egg to… before incorporating it into a new commander-husk.

ImdA.4701:

Am I the only one who finds this staff super awful ? xD

I wouldn’t say it’s a minority of one, but it’s definitely a minority .

I’ll bite. How do you think anyone has shot footage of the post-fix version?

Nicely done!

You’ll know in a week .

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

They should just make Spirit weapons a ‘toggle on’ skill, make them invulnerable and then balance the damage to suit, no harder than balancing the damage of any other utility skill.

Problem with that is they’d lose the command-skills. The button couldn’t be used to command them because it’s also the toggle off button .

Where’s all this free crit chance coming from?

I was thinking Precision could help drive chilling nova and the Curses line has several proc-on-crit effects that would appeal to condi-Necro/Reaps. But swaping it to straight Power might be simplest.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Glint was never linked to purple, but blue.

Um, the Branded disagree.

Unfortunately ferocity does nothing for condi builds. I haven’t followed closely enough – is Reaper pretty blatantly a power-based damage thing?

Awesome. An average of 70 days to get one RANDOM ascended chest assuming you’re consistently and successfully farming each boss. You can build an entire set of armor + weapons in that time and get the stats you want.

I think people can probably hold on to their ascended crafting materials a while longer yet.

I’m sincerely hoping it doesn’t leave piles of colored poop in my wake. The aura of ravens is far more thematic.

Astralporing.1957:

Maybe because people would rather like that content to be about skill. Yes, i know why raiders would prefer it that way – it lets them pretend to be skilled, when the real difficulty lies in a completely different category.
Grind is not challenge. It’s just boring.

And here I thought the genuinely skillful would relish the challenge of something that tests them to the utmost rather than being trivialized by having a higher tier of gear than it’s designed for.

We’ve already seen content scaled for exotic gear in a post-ascended world is not a challenge. It’s boring.

I want a fight that takes BOTH skill and preparation.

Not just no but HELL NO.

Might stacking has reached the level of rampant absurdity. We don’t need it to be more advantageous.

Anchoku.8142:

Front line is Reaper playing a rock to be tripped over while Daredevil, Berserker, Scrapper, and Tempest zoom all over.

I prefer to think of Reapers more as a black hole from which not even light or tens of thousands of HP can escape.

PopeUrban.2578:

Maybe we could invent some kind of volume or token system to ensure fair access, and award those tokens based on a measurement of average time spent to read one page of forum posts or something?

I automatically win all such systems. Now where’s my vendor to trade them in?

Well, keep in mind that clearing raid content has nothing more to offer (other than convenience of stat-swapping and prestige) to the all-ascended participant. So groups that start there won’t accrue stat-advantage any further, just experience. When they’re strong enough and stable enough it’ll be easier to bring along skilled-but-under-geared folks and they will get some nice pink box drops that bring them up to gear-parity.

My attitude about ‘homework’ becomes much more relaxed once most of my composition has the encounters on farm mode .

((but you still have to bring your consumables!))

My zerg-leader cheerfully wears full Keeper’s.

My drawer-full-of-knives Guard for dinking around in PvE will probably stick to mixed Zerk-Celestial.

phys.7689:

Nike.2631:

I’m sure there will be groups that cater to your inability to do your homework.

Just not mine.

Of course, i dont really expect anyone to let people in exotics in on their serious attempts at beating raids.
but do you really think creating interesting challenging content should be about doing your homework, or writing your times tables 20 times?

I do. And I realize this in an unbridgeable gulf in our expectations and perceptions. Which is why it’s good the system allows groups of both sorts to form. And say all you like about the fairness of it, the group with better gear will progress faster, all else being equal.

do you really think someone who writes books will find much purpose in writing the definition of the vocabulary words 5 times for a month?

did you know irl they realized that having non challenging homework/classwork often lead smarter students to disengage and lose interest?

If you are designing a course for intellegent students, you test them, or give them difficult tasks. You dont give them wrote repetition or accept them into high end programs based on their attendance records.

Believe me I am aware of the joys of being ensnared in public school navigating a curriculum designed for goldfish. HOWEVER, as I’ve matured I’ve also gained an appreciation for the value of persistence. There is a lot to be said for the personality types who can do exactly that, and that sort of steadiness in the face of adversity is a desirable trait in a raid group. Like I said earlier, if you can’t manage the commitment of a whole 39 log-in days to bang out a set of armor, I’m not expecting much from your attention span in an environment where you can only earn rewards once a week. Find a group more to your liking.

The system allows those free spirits to try it. It also allows me to look at them very skeptically. All parties are well served.

AzureSky.3175:

Kevan.8912:

what part of the expansion features am i missing that ascended would become easier to obtain? O.o

Raids.

Those things you can only get loot from once a week?

Does anyone, and I mean ANYONE think a piece of ascended gear is an automatic drop for downing a raid boss?

Yeah. I thought not.

Zalani.9827:

Trapper runes could be interesting.

Trapper runes are gonna be huge on Dragonhunters in WvW. I totally want to see that in sPvP also.

People have been bad mouthing traps relentlessly. I want to shove those complaints back down their throats.