Guild Wars 2

I think the thing I love best about this thread is that in the time it’s been running you could have MADE a piece of exotic armor and be well on your way to having a weapon done too if it uses wood. I haven’t bothered with final assembly, but I’ve made all the time gated mats for my gloves while following the drama. Just need helm and shoulders and one more weapon.

6 armor slots and 2-4 weapons. It just NOT that high a level of expectation from most people planning to be playing for a year or more.

xarallei.4279:

Sulfarius.1756:

On a more serious note I do agree that at times it feels like across the board base heals might be a bit too much but I also feel like it’s harder to balance while keeping the philosophy of “you don’t really need a healer to do stuff”… even tho raids look like you do in fact need a healer, but we’ll see!

-10% heals across the board might sound small, but I think it would have a huge impact. For better or for worse.

If they want to do this exclusively for raids I might be ok with this. But outside of that? No. Because the rest of the game you are supposed to not have to lug a healer around to do content.

Gearing for a couple hundred points of heal power is not “lugging a healer around with you.”

It is putting a boot on the Zerker’ metas neck and pressing down.

Zatoichi.1049:

after they are figured out…zerker

Zealot/Keeper’s baby!

Ok, gathering feedback from around the forums (including other profession boards where getting blown up by our traps has been very painfully recognized) I’m seeing a small tweak that might add to DH gameplay~

• Spear of Justice. Add, “If target is still tethered at the end of the timer they are pulled to the DH.”

Basically it gives the DH another forced movement skill to get people into their traps while allowing the other player the opportunity to see the pull coming and react.

It also makes the tether-chain animation make more sense and be more intimidating .

Jaxom.7310:

merchantchuck.4875:

If Anet makes True Shot look like this:
[insert awesome here]
Then I will be satisfied in every way.

i will accept this as well.

((raises hand)) Sign me up!

That plus maybe LB #4 needs a mushroom cloud FX when it lands.

Nike.2631:

((looks at dungeons))

((looks at open-world farming festivals- er, I mean “events”))

The Devs for this game don’t have the slightest idea what “top tier” players are capable of. Let them tune it for “all ascended” gear… If the first raid boss hasn’t been reduced to a roflstomp within 3 months that people are doing in all yellows just because they’re bored I will be STUNNED.

Hmm. Players killed it a man short in 5 hours.

Yeah. Not finding GW2 “challenging” group content all that intimidating.

I really wish I could transplant this entire thread to the Guardian forums where the caterwauling is incessant that “DH traps are terrible” and “I’ll never use them. Would uninstall first!”

Glad you’re all enjoying them. I know I am…

((places trap))

babazhook.6805:

My own take on why all this “reveal” being added.

Both the engineer and the ranger were given early access to the ability. in spite of ALL the complaints those classes made about stealth they did not put them on their utility bar because as most put it “There better skills to use”. In other words the power of stealth was overstated.

Pardon? You think there aren’t 1.3 million Rangers out there with Longbows and therefor stealth? You’re saying PU Mesmer wasn’t a juggernaut?

Professions that have access to stealth consistently load it. I can hardly wait to smirk and repeat the Thief mantra “Stealth isn’t OP, L2P noob” while on my Runes of the Trapper Dragonhunter.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The best healing in the game being available without using any healing power; this is not good for the game.

You need to apply that particular mind-set to EVERY HEAL IN THE GAME.

The absolutely awful healing power coefficients on every heal skill has been a huge leg holding up the stool that is the ‘Zerker meta and it’s needed to be kicked out from under that chair since launch. For most self-heals heal power is meaningless. And I don’t use that word lightly. Its worse than meaningless actually, because those points could be put somewhere — ANYWHERE — else and contribute more to your impact in play.

Reduce level contributions to heals slightly. -5% would be felt. -10% would be glorious. Increased heal power coefficients to replace that loss at some modest number and allow healing power focused builds to actually reap some sort of benefit. You’ve done it with conditions recently to punish people without any commitment to condition damage. Its a mystery why a similar pass hasn’t already been done for healing power…

Skeletor.9360:

The fact is that thieves need stealth to stay alive.

Super Unicorn says “neigh”.

There have always been durable builds for Thieves, but nobody wants to actually give up some of that sweet, sweet offensive mojo to actually put stat points into defensive stats and build for a longer encounter. The addition of settlers armor was a huge boon to Super Unicorn and while the build has been forgotten by the meta crowd it’s also been regularly passed over when the Ghost of Nerfs Present has come to call and occasionally even gets buffed. Daredevil plays straight into Super Unicorn’s strengths with its low reliance on stealth and self-healing thought a high volume of small hits. Lotus training is glorious when you’re leaving clouds of caltrops in your wake and running Signet of Malice with no worries at all about being revealed. I walked into the jungle and burst out laughing at how completely safe I was even in the midst of what some where howling were over the top poop-storms.

Maybe the next Thief Espec will be hugely stealth focused with off-hand mace as the new god-king of CC, but until then there are ways to leverage what we’re getting if you play the game that IS and not try to pound a round peg through a star-shaped hole.

Tabootrinket.2631:

About the weapons on physical skills :
Is it possible to put the weapons in the stowed position during those animations ?
Having them disappear during those sequences make them feel incomplete.

+1

Ohoni.6057:

If it’s getting a little late to discuss it now, then that’s their problem because this is something they should have thought about a looooong time ago. Hell, they’ve had three years to work on new classes, they should not be in developing them in panic mod weeks before launch. I have zero patience for trying to defend the existing state of things. If you like them, then fine, that’s your position, but there is plenty of reason for others to expect better, and respect their right to that opinion as well.

That pre-supposes they agree that they’re doing it wrong in the first place. No developer pushed a spec through to the coders thinking it sucked. The fact that the Daredevil has three Grandmaster traits that all key off of swapping dodges for super dodges doesn’t make it the Daredevils’ class mechanic. They’re just the GM traits and for once they actually have some elegant symmetry. This is classic “give a mouse a cookie and he’ll ask for a glass of milk” behavior from players claiming anything otherwise. ‘Are they good enough to be GM traits?’ has been in dispute and you’ll notice there’s been action on that front. But if there were any plausible chance they were going to become some kind — any kind — of toggle they wouldn’t be getting stronger, they’d be getting weaker as iteration continues.

The real question isn’t any of our preferences playing armchair game designer, but how the spec is actually performing in-game. If the Daredevil is underperforming it’ll get some nudges upwards, but even that is hard to prove without tools & data that they will never share with us. But nudges aren’t total overhaul of the design, and that’s where most of this fantasizing keeps leading.

Ohoni.6057:

This is non-negotiable…

You’re right. There will be no negotiations.

Because its not happening.

By the six, people we’re EIGHTEEN DAYS FROM LAUNCH. Thief is NOT going to be the only class that gets a new and untested UI to swap Grandmaster traits just because their three traits are similar. There isn’t a class in the game that couldn’t capitalize on exactly that kind of functionality and Daredevil is no special snowflake in that regard. Open your build panel. Click on the other trait. Boom, traits swapped. LIKE EVERY OTHER CLASS.

I’d say save the ultimatums for something that can actually be done, but at this point, maybe just save the ultimatums period.

((looks at dungeons))

((looks at open-world farming festivals- er, I mean “events”))

The Devs for this game don’t have the slightest idea what “top tier” players are capable of. Let them tune it for “all ascended” gear… If the first raid boss hasn’t been reduced to a roflstomp within 3 months that people are doing in all yellows just because they’re bored I will be STUNNED.

Ragnarox.9601:

It is good but need few improvements. Plus it’s totally diferent gamestyle.

Which is something many of the other professions are intensely jealous of .

Farzo.8410:

Making it too obvious, people will see what we are firing.

I want them to see it coming. And even more so I want them to get angry when it hits them .

Great image. So much Quincy love going on with the DH. I have all the parts to make Aether banked (along with a Wintersbite and a Chaos longbow skin)

While I don’t expect to see core profession get new weapons with the advent of elite specs, the list of cool, thematic mixes of profession is endless. My top picks for each profession~

• Engineer — Mace. The little one handed hammer perfect for making adjustments to persnickety hardware.
• Elementalist —main-hand Sword. Lots of fun mage-swordsman archetypes.
• Guardian — terrestrial Spear. Paragons. ’Nuff said.
• Mesmer — main-hand Pistol. Woo-hoo! Hexslingers!
• Necromancer — mainhand Pistol. Mmm… Deadshot.
• Ranger — Rifle. Modern hunters lurking in the underbrush.
• Thief — off-hand Mace. Give me some skull-thumping thug.
• Warrior — main-hand pistol. The Pact is filled with pistol + warhorn tacticians. Gimme.

Black Box.9312:

As a PvE-turned-PvP player, I don’t see a reason to take DH in either game mode.

Try hitting something with your auto-attack. Blindness in this game often clears up quickly .

So once the melee furball gets rolling on the control points in PvP traps might as well be shouts – they fire instantly after the half second cast time (1 second arming time seems to have ben removed). It is a thing of beauty.

(And Fragments of Faith rocks like a ting that rocks very much indeed in solo or team throw downs.)

Traps need a little more tuning, some bad traits need to get mugged in a dark alley and LB #5 needs some speed training but all in all I can’t wait to get on with doing my DH-thang on Live with permanent rewards (got an ascended chest in WvW on my DH… that was just a bit agonizing)

Heh heh hehh heh hhhehhhhh.

The seeds have been planted.

Soon, it’s harvest time.

Anyone have an estimate on how many players bailed out of the game because of the mere existence of the Aetherpath in the Twilight Arbor?

‘Cause we have “challenging content” right now a lot of people can’t complete. It maybe doesn’t see a lot of use, but I don’t think its driving people out of the game…

((shrug)) What PvE is hard? DH still has access to the utilities that make Guardians desirable in fractals and no one has seen the raids yet in meaningful fashion. So what PvE are you saying Dragonhunter sucks at?

Arnath.2319:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Traps aren’t bad, and no, wells wouldn’t be better.

Traps are disgustingly bad.

Well I did my part to load the metrics up with how incredibly easy it is to land them in all modes of play. I’d like a few more whistles and bells on them, but ‘bad’ they demonstrably are not. And the people who need convincing put a lot more weight on what happens in-game than they do on random forum commentary.

Amaya.1483:

I have played every profession now til satisfaction and ever other profession besides the Berserker, which felt just ok, was amazing. The Synergy of all the new Elite traitlines was so fun, everything fits in.

Really? You found 8 out of 9 Especs suit you perfectly? That’s amazing. Sound’s like HoT is a HUGE SUCCESS then, assuming you’re the center of the universe.

I’m shocked you played them all and didn’t notice a single issue regularly being reported… Sure, Herald is grossly overpowered (I’ve come to expect that from its lead dev…) and therefore amusing/fun. But lets get a little more non-farcical lay of the land.

• Elementalist/Tempest. Horn skills are limp, Overload mechanic runs counter to everything about the class’ fast cycling attunements, Worst Elite skill of any Espec hands down… Twice. And is rightly accused of bringing nothing new to an already flexible and potent class.
• Engineer/Scrapper. They got spirit weapons… Let me say that again… they got spirit weapons. We’re talking the worst of the worst of Guardian tools. If you think that’s cause for celebration over there, you’re mad.
• Necromancer/Reaper. Largely entertaining as a chill/tank but not a single Necro player thinks its going to make them more popular in group activities. Its just another melee class with terrible team support.
• Ranger/Druid. You could power a small city on the nerdrage surrounding a pure healer role being thrust on players that have been trying to be taken seriously as ranged DPS for three years. Synergy between lines you say? I DEFY YOU to point at how anything in the druid works with the Ranger class mechanic of having a pet.
• Thief/Daredevil. The complaining about the lack of increased endurance inflow LITERALLY NEVER STOPS.
• Warrior/Berseker. SSDD — same skill, different day, Heck their new utility line is a re-paint of a line they already have.
• Mesmer. Ok, there is one existing profession that’s sitting there like a cat with a feather poking out of the corner of its mouth. Good for them. Something to do now that they broke PU’s neck.

This grass is greener crap needs to STOP. The funny thing about being in a good place? It means our branch/sub-classes should not be better, and given only a few hours of play had better be a bit worse than our most highly tuned alpha predator builds. Dragonhunter is shaping up and with practice will be a deadly competitor in every mode. If you don’t want to play it, FINE. But quit fantasizing that you represent the center of some universe that’s dragging the rest of the playerbase along in its wake.

If you find yourself pining for Ranger’s stealth shot, I just tried out Runes of the Trapper in WvW on my DH. Amazingly good fun.

Black Box.9312:

GreyWraith.8394:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Traps aren’t bad, and no, wells wouldn’t be better.

Not “bad” per se. Just a niche mechanic that doesn’t fit GW2 gameplay well, which is why Rangers and Thieves rarely use them. It doesn’t matter how much they are buffed either; as long as they operate the way GW2 traps do there will be better choices in 99% of situations.

This, exactly. It doesn’t matter how strong you make the traps, because they represent a playstyle that just doesn’t exist in GW2. Combat is fast. Combat is mobile. Combat is dynamic. Traps, on the other hand, are none of the above.

Combat is filled with melees who blunder over my traps just as fast as I can drop them.

They turned out to be almost painfully easy to hit people with them. The half second casting time really smoothed out mid-brawl drops.

They didn’t reuse the dragon armor – every Elite Spec gets only one new piece. For Dragonhunters its the asymmetric glove. The new bow is ok, but there are lots of good bows to choose from so I’m not too concerned about it one way or the other.

So, can we get the pet/self grow a little larger in general?

Have now played in all modes and gotta say I’m having a great time.

Traps synergize more with greatsword than bow – but anyone who has actually played a range class in this game knows you can’t keep at range forever so the GS/traps portion of the fight is coming. For all I’ve been told over and over players will avoid them… they don’t. Same notes as before – need cleanse on Purification drop and trigger, stunbreak and light field on Test of Faith, and MORE COWBELL on Dragon’s Maw. Whirl finishers on first and final pulse of Spin-to-Win would also add style.

New puncture shot arrows look better but could still use a light trail like Focus #4. There was also some discussion of letting them bounce freely like Thief shortbow one. This could make it a lot easier to use in the chaos of a small sPvP fight. Yes, the new tech is cute but the reward is not commiserate with the hassle.

Longbow 5… I’ve landed it on players now, but they had to be really, really preoccupied with another player up in their grill. This has to land the CC component faster.

I’m trying on not just laugh in the face of people saying true shot needs to be mobile. It works great if you plan far enough ahead. Pick your firing position with care and reap the rewards. IF for some reason this still seems under-tuned the most interesting suggestion I’ve heard put forward is to make it unblockable. Could also use a deeper sound and (much) larger arrow, just as a courtesy to the poor shmuck downrange. And to let them know, “yeah, I DID get that off, self-root and all. Eat it.”

Like the strategy required to use the cast-time virtues. Less spaz/twitch gameplay and more evil scheming. Still wish Wings of Resolve had more range. Or at least more range when traited. f3 needs shorter cooldown. No news on that front.

Traits. Bit of a mess in there. You can pick your way through the minefield but the KB-on-LB-shot is not a winner and the traits hanging off of it are similarly meh.

Even with this weekend’s feedback, I don’t see Dragonhunter getting a perfect launch for my tastes, but it’s fun and playable already. Work out what you really want the LB-traits to do and simplify the dependencies between those traits. Get Pure of Sight out of the mandatory and into the optional path… Its a great trait if you’re running longbow (and some of the optional LB-orient traits are not great, so win-win)but it’s something we should be able to skip if we want to double down on a melee/trapper setup.

Clock is winding down. Lets see how far the final push can take us .

I support giant tiny dinosaurs.

Sykper.6583:

Do they really have these encounters so tightly tuned?

Yes.

…Because at one point they thought dungeons would be challenging content too.

Show us the new armors so we can make an informed choice on which type of hall to claim!

Kill.3458:

So thief’s survivability is regulated to other people because we can’t mitigate damage ourselves? We already have super limited party support outside of SR and Venome share so i’m not sure what your on about?

Not Thief. EVERYBODY. If you’re not bringing healing in some form, then party wipe.

That healing can be coming from the thief. Everybody has options to self-sustain that go beyond dodges and your simple self-heal. But somebody is gonna have to actually bring those things in the future, either for themselves or for their teammates so those teammates can stay in hard hitting configurations.

The Thief is not being singled out and the Daredevil is not being singled out. “You won’t be able to dodge all the damage” is a very broad statement and it impacts every profession and party composition in particular. Because if you can’t dodge it all you’ll either need extra heals from yourself or the guy next to you. And you might want to look at where you can squeeze in a little more Toughness.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

IDK about a stun break on traps.

Boon support in the form of AOE regeneration, protection, stability or fury however could work fine.

Stun breaks are just to much of a have to have it when u need it type of thing to rely on an enemy triggering the trap.

I’ve always pushed for a stunbreak on placing the trap, not when it goes off .

Thing is we shouldn’t even have to have this conversation. They learned a long time ago that having all the stunbreaks in one skill type on a profession was a huge problem and redistributed them so most lines had one and very, very few had two. It ought to be part of a checklist by now that ‘your new Espec isn’t done yet until you’ve chosen a skill to be the stunbreak for that line’.

And while I think the Dragonhunter traps gain identity by not relying on damaging conditions and doing direct damage instead, I’m completely on board witht hem giving some condition clear via one of the Guardian’s most iconic mechanics – the light field.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Hey fellow Engis,

I am reading here and the ranger forums heavily. As others have called out (accurately), working on the last two elite specializations to be revealed is taking up the vast, vast majority of my time, even with assistance from the rest of the team.

This weekend you’ll be able to test out a lot of the theorycrafting (some of which had my eyes widening – in a good way) that you’ve been doing and offer even more awesome feedback.

Things you’ve brought up, like the Scrapper’s lack of a stunbreak on either their utilities or traits is getting acted on, as well as a few more changes to core Engineer and bugfixes.

Ok, see that? I try not to indulge in comparisons between the professions, but there is fundamental philosophy at work here and it needs to be applied uniformly.

Put A Stunbreak On One Of The Traps. Test of Faith is a good candidate, because even as an active supporter of Dragonhunters getting traps, that one is garbage as things currently stand.

Kill.3458:

Thief dies anyway because apparently you cant dodge all damage (thanks for that lovely piece of info during the twitch stream…)

You do understand what was said was EVERYONE DIES unless they bring more active healing somewhere in the party composition, right?

And depending on how powerful or skilled your healing contingent is EVERYONE may want to back away from the ’Zerker gear and invest in a little more sustain via Toughness or Heal Power.

ProtoMarcus.7649:

Little Observation:

All Ranger Main-hand and Dual Handed Weapons have at least one skill that also applies an affect/skill to the pet

Except Staff as Druid. Is it by design or was it forgotten?

As long as the heals actually work on pets, I’d say that aspect is covered .

You need only look at the Elementalist changes to see that they’re trying to prune the current Might-stacking ecology back a bit from “25 or you’ve failed”. I’d expect see more Might generating/sharing traits tuned down in the near future. Ranger’s not being singled out on this front.

I said it of the recent event and it bears repeating here: you need an in-house ‘hostile tester’ whose job is not to just validate the content works if it’s run exactly as the designers envision it being approached, but instead ACTIVELY tries to break content.

This is another example of an idea that was rubber stamped as not crashing the game when it should have been given intense scrutiny (and re-worked) long before it reached the public eye.

The constructive criticism to be gleaned is “improve your testing process”, because this is becoming a habit. You have 5,000,000 players, most of them linked by the internet. The worst case scenario is the only scenario that’s gonna matter and it will spread like wildfire.

Wild Idea of the Day:

Give the Air Overlaod AoE 5 target Taunt with a 600 range. Nice tornado/suction effect as all the enemies come zipping towards you.

Taunt and Resistance are two areas the vanilla Elementalist definitely doesn’t’ cover yet.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Whenever you gain an aura, gain resistance.

Well that’s clean. Bordering on elegant.

(‘elegant’ is high praise btw)

Recently revamped and run up to 80 to become my permanent Daredevil .

EdwinLi.1284:

They already stated the Leader of the Pact must not be a member of any order or else one will be seen above the rest. The three Order leaders also have shown they are unable to work together due to their own bias beliefs as members of their own Order. Even before the Pact is formed they doubted any attempt to work with the other Orders would work.

That would be the aforementioned idiot ball. They’ve shown themselves unable to work together TO CREATE A JUSTIFICATION for the leafy messiah. At this point he’s served his purpose — they’ve all had a chance to ramp down those prejudices in the face of experience. He’s also demonstrated the sheer folly of overcommitting their individual resources to the Pact where they can be destroyed en masse.

Seera.5916:

So should it be the Whispers leader and anger all those who prefer Vigil or Priory? A non-order pact leader is the only way to go unless you want to force all living story steps to require personal story completion. Because otherwise how do you assume they have an order? Plus, it keeps the other orders from thinking that the order of the pact leader gets preference with regards to missions, supplies, and glory.

There’s little demonstrable advantage to there being a SOLE LEADER at all. The three Order leaders can manage the highest level policy and they can assign Pact taskforce commanders to individual tasks. Having Trahearne continue to lead everything after the action moved out of his theater of expertise lead (unsurprisingly) to disaster.

You might try comparing attacks weapons with a similar range when making comparisons. In no small part because all ranged attacks suck compared to their melee equivalents. That’s overlooking the little detail of initiative-based cooldowns and immunity to the slowdown from chill.

…Not the Body Shot isn’t terrible, but you just compared a cat to a pumpkin on the basis they’re both orange .

EdwinLi.1284:

I’m questioning if these people who want Trehearne to die even know what it may lead to.

A better story? More emphasis on the individual Orders and the choices WE made rather than all road lead to Orr?

Unless they already have a new character ready to replace Trehearne as the Pact Leader I doubt he will ever die.

They do and always have: The leaders of the Orders, who get handed the idiot ball so that we can have the one true leafy messiah.

Once Trahearne is the raid boss we’ve all seen coming, the Pact can go back to what it should have been all along – an alliance of 3 diverse but dedicated factions fighting the dragons.

They’re increasing the spread between Exotic and Ascended stats to 10% with HoT. Anyone who thought “Challenging Content” meant it would be designed so you can do it comfortably while missing the top 10% of available effectiveness was fooling themselves.

Greek.4396:

Druid = REAL backline support

Dragon Hunter was all but an illusion

When the new car smell is finally let out and people have an actual chance to kick the tires the Druid’s monomaniacal focus on green numbers is gonna wear thin fast.

The one thing is does incredibly well does not excuse the many things it does not at all..

That’s just weird to me. If you’re acquainted with archer gameplay from other MMOs, the Dragonhunter promises to be a beast, mixing ranged hard-hitting “turret” style shots, the ability to swat down other missiles, ranged area-denial with an ally buff component, an a multi-target cage. We get three extra signets as a class mechanic, a great pool of weapons to play against the longbow, several powerful lines of utility skills (meditation, shout, and consecration), and (drawing on existing lines) some amazing traits for every role. Multiple sources of cripple and some interesting traps will make it harder for foes to close and give them some reason to regret doing it.

I’m looking forward to having a great time with the Dragonhunter. And while people here are eyeing the Druid enviously, don’t think for a moment there aren’t Ranger players eyeing us getting longbow/traps gameplay without the ball-and-chain that is bad pet AI and feeling equally envious of us.

The DH traits need some realignment and the traps need some QoL to provide a stunbreak and some condition cleanse but if it gets those DH is going to be a smooth launch that can build popularity over time as more people get a feel for what it offers.

Pluton.7364:

please keep passive effects when we activate them and increase colldowns if you must…

^^there problem fixed and now we gona see ppl actualy use them

That makes a WORSE problem – no trade off, less risk, and very little reason not to just mash and mash again.

Virtues are like Signets – activating them carries a price and that price makes the decision important.

They have a use: dump them in the mystic forge for promotion.

It takes ~16 to produce a yellow and 16 of those to produce an exotic. Many of those are mediocre, but some are quite valuable as the forge and pre-nailed to certain exotic drops are the ONLY way they enter the game.