Guild Wars 2

The huge egos have mainly left to screw up other servers, and we’re left with some who think it’s a good idea to force everyone to use TS by not having a visible tag on the map, so casuals who might have boosted numbers try out wvw, see nothing happening, and go back to pve.

In this way we will continue to drop, hopefully lose the remaining egos and eventually stabilise after the bandwagoners and bandwagon guilds have all left.

It’s interesting to note that the guilds that moaned about bandwagoners most are the same that have gone to bandwagon other servers- I’m sure those servers will learn to appreciate having the huge egos on their TS:-)

Tier 2 much better at dying, the figures prove it! Must have very short fights as they all die at the first push then swarm back like lemmings…

I got the endless bottle today from a drop, but not sure where as wasn’t really paying attention- and almost merched it before I noticed! Not sure how rare it will be, so a quick 400g later my wvw consumables fund is looking a lot healthier:-)

It’s not the time limit that is the problem, it’s the fact that already people are experiencing problems getting anyone to help at the champ bosses within a reasonable time scale.

For people with limited time and a real life, waiting 30 minutes for someone to come along (by which i mean, asking in map chat, guild, etc ) isn’t what we class as ‘fun’ or ‘challenging content’. We call it ‘frustrating’ ’tedious’’not fun’ and after a while ‘log off and go play something we enjoy’.

Given that some of them can be a real pain to reach telling people to go do something else and come back later isn’t really an option either.

Why they felt they had to gate these behind champs is anyone’s guess.

Raids are supposed to be the challenging group content- I’m all for making those with difficulty settings from hard to near impossible and will relish the challenge.

We still have a few more ego to remove^

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

. I’m trying to run a soldier burn DH, and I can still win the tough fights against champs or several elites.

Cheese build with auto condi cleanse, huge OP burn uptime, heavy armor user, passive heals/blocks/regen/aegis and a huge heal..you’re playing a tank, no wonder your finding it easy against elites and most bosses.

Maybe to make bosses more of a challenge they should make them immune to burning.

I laughed at another’s suggestion to play a ranger..how exactly will that help anyone who isn’t a ranger get the HP’s they want on their non-ranger class?

It’s enough of a challenge to even reach most of the HP places for me..it’s not fun for me to stand around waiting for others to turn up to do some random champ spawn to clock up the 2500th HP needed to open the elite skills on my 10th toon, nor do I consider it fair to ask some poor guildie to waste his valuable time coming to help at a HP for the 100th time.

Can I solo some of the champs on my mes- yes, if I time everything to break the bar and get very lucky on dodges. If I don’t then I die, and spend a long time finding an uncontested WP to respawn at and then 30 minutes getting back to the HP to die again- and you think doing that 10 times is any sort of ‘fun’?

I consider fighting other players fun. Pve mobs are just dumb and gating it behind dumb mechanics doesn’t make having to get the HP’s to unlock skills to use in wvw any more than a grind for me.

Xeno.4610:

Saephaan.7285:

This desert bl killed wvw

Maybe this is a wrong conclusion? New PvE maps caused it, not new BL map. We really need to wait few weeks until people get bored with new PvE content and get back to WvW…

The fallacy of this argument is that if people were wow’d by the new BL maps they would play them in preference to grinding in pve land. Clearly people took a look at the new BL. said ‘meh’ and decided to level up their masteries in pve land or just not bother playing- or go to EoTM or EB where there is at least some action and some chance of clocking up some wexp.

Jayne.9251:

. If you only have a handful, you can go roaming and you will NEVER find smaller scale fights..

There, fixed that bit for you. Roaming has become utterly boring as other roamers can easily avoid your squad if you have numbers or engage and wipe you if they are 2-3/1. It’s entirely possible to run around the BL in circles and never see an enemy (who might be above or below you, etc).

The new BL don’t promote any sort of fight at all- unless you sit in a tower at prime time near enemy spawn in their BL for a couple hours when you might earn 300 wexp and no drops at all in defending the tower until they come in and wipe you.

GW2 needs something that GW had, and that’s HM (Hard Mode). In hard mode they could make every HP a champ that requires at least 3 people to be near it to even trigger, takes ten minutes to kill with a 5 minute timer unless you trigger your skills in exactly the right way, dodge to the micro second and happen to have the requisite skills to remove it’s bar so you can do significant damage- which only certain classes have on a regular basis.

Oh, and just for fun, all regen type heal skills are nerfed in hard mode so no more passive on tick heal effects, as well as all passive condi cleanse.

That would satisfy the die hards who think just because they exploited to 40 mastery points in two days, ran around the map in blob and finished it inside a week that others should suffer when the map population has died off and there is literally no one around to help out on a HP which took 10 attempts and 30 minutes to reach (not all of us have young reactions or memories any more).

Kinda wish I’d exploited to get 40 mastery points now to be able to move around the maps easier and walk through poison, etc.

morrolan.9608:

gebrechen.5643:

They tested those maps. Did nobody tell them that they are too big?

Yes overwhelmingly so.

It’s wvw. They don’t listen to feedback from players, only from fanboys and streamers- and the streamers told them how pretty it was (which was the bit Anet decided to run with) but a little big. Then they ignored anyone who pointed out too big, too complex, too many walkways, walls, paths inside the buildings and all the other fluff that might look good but makes even finding an enemy (or your own comm) difficult.

That’s how we ended up with the new Deserted BLs.

Dancing Face.4695:

Now i get why it’s “Desert” Borderland. Anet already knew it would go this way, they are genius.

They just forgot to add the ‘ed’ on the end..

Three of us on our whole BL late this evening, fighting no one, didn’t even see an enemy in the hour I was there, cleaned up the last caps and whole map our colour- t1 at it’s finest.

Only q was ‘1’ for EB, but when in, no one around there either. It’s quite hard to level up wvw ranks when there’s no one to fight with,,,

A lot of people have reported this issue already, which is partly why they have lowered some champs to veterans at HPs to quieten down the complaints.

The problem is that most people have now moved on from the first map and it’s getting harder to do events – as time goes on, masteries will get harder and harder to unlock. Add that to the few running around with 40+ mastery due to exploits and it’s all a bit of a mess.

If your not good at remembering maps (as stopping to take a good look with M usually means a mob spawns and kills you), not good at puzzles, or not good at flying or not good at vertical maps and figuring out where the hell to go, then the 4 new maps are an exercise in frustration.

The gating will become worse and worse, new players entering VB in 6 months time won’t like it at all, trying to run between contested wp and having to run clear across the map if they fall too far, etc. Add that to having to kill mobs to get exp or try and complete events on your own, and it’s not going to be much fun.

Separating the mastery exp bars between areas was a marketing ploy to force players in to the jungle maps, but it’s not going to make for a happy experience for those late starters.

Also having the log in issues..oh well, play something else.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

The chest, containing Proofs, being account bound is a bug. Earning specializations (skills and traits) is intended to be character progression. Ex: If you want to fully train up your warrior, you actually need to play your warrior for some amount of time. I say some amount of time since Tomes of Knowledge have allowed players to bypass a lot of existing character progression.

So basically, you think it’s good game design to force players to play on a toon in order to get the elite unlocked for the odd occasion when they need to log in that character, rather than be able to use their favoured toon and pass across HP’s to their less favoured wvw toon.

Have you thought of what this does to organised parties? fights? oh sorry, we’ve got no eles as everyone is levelling wvw points on their rangers this month?

And what use are spare points? Great, I can now play my main toon to my hearts content and never pass across spare points to a little used wvw alt, so i end up with a main (in theory) with a pile of useless spare points whilst my other main doesn’t have them.

What about swapping toons – logged out of wvw to swap from one class to another when it’s needed, rejoin end of queue, just so I can attempt to game the system and get the chest on the toon I need points for?

Earning MASTERIES is character progression, being able to use skills (without some stupid gated grind) isn’t , it’s just frustrating to wvw players, who are already quite a rare breed.

Please get a wvw player or two (not one of the fanboy/streamers) on your team so you can understand the players point of view and stop making elementary mistakes and bad design decisions.

Thanks.

It’s a shame that this wasn’t even thought of before launch. ‘looking at’ as in trying to write something or ‘looking at’ in the same way many bugs in wvw existed for years before being fixed? would be nice to know whether it’s being actively coded rather than on a list of ‘get around to after HoT reports no bugs for a month’.

How do I transfer a rank up chest?

Aeon.6397:

Can you PLEASE stop.
First, Because of all the nerfs already I’ve basically finished all the content in less than a week.
With the exception of a few more masteries. Don’t ask for easier mobs or easier events, learn your class, learn how to move, stop ruining the game for higher skilled players. Run in a group if you really need too. Join a guild, do ANYTHING just stop asking that this gets easier.
Second, stop running your mentor tag and your commander tags if you dont know what you are doing. I just did Dragons Stand with 5 other commanders that had no idea what to do and attacked the invincible spitfire for roughly 5 minutes. While the people onmy tag laughed and did the escort.
Third, Yes, i agree. HoT is difficult. But where is the fun in something you can solo? or rush through? In HoT (not including tyria) Im already 40+ just playing running around with guildies.

So, just to clarify, you rushed the content, used exploits to get to 40+, had no rl at all since launch, and now you’re here moaning?

It’s sad that you rushed though so much that you failed to see the real problems with the maps and HP’s etc, which is that having to solo a champ mob (for instance) isn’t that much fun on certain classes with a timer involved, and standing at a HP waiting or calling for 30+ minutes for anyone to come help whilst you burn through boosters isn’t much fun either.

And of course comm and others will tag up, not all will know what they are doing but at least they are trying- rather than stand there and laugh at them for 5 minutes whilst doing what needed to be done. Perhaps next time try sharing your knowledge rather than being a kitten?

I have 0 crafting on most of my toons, and one that has them all.

Another fine example of Anet not considering things properly. There is no reason not to make them account bound rather than soulbound- after all, you worked for that rune and should be able to use it.

Hopefully to account bound, otherwise it’s a royal pain in the kitten having to play an occassional toon full time to get the required HP so it has the required build when it is needed, rather than being able to progress through playing the major toon(s).

Nemesis.8593:

Besides the nerf to the required HP to unlock the full specialization… i’ve just been to the 2nd HP challenge only to discover that it too has been modified… the champion which was suppose to spawn is now just a veteran.

If the contents gets systematically nerfed, people will rush through it… and one month from now they will complain they will not have any content to play. Furthermore there will be a far greater gap between raids… and the new open world content, unless of course raids will be nerfed into the ground as well… in which case i really do not see a future for this game.

I have soloed 90% of all HP champions so far… with two players it should be no problem what so ever.

Heart of Thorns has been amazing so far, don’t take it away from us… please… stahp…

/beg

Soloing champs isn’t possible for a lot of different classes and builds. Sure, if you run a ranger most of them can be done, it then becomes a question of whether you can kill it within the time limit- which isn’t easy solo and relies quite a lot of getting lucky with bursts and avoidance.

Considering it’s the first week and it’s already getting hard to find anyone to help at HP’s, Anet have made the sensible decision to adjust the mob difficulty at HP’s so they are achievable when the mob population thins out. By any class. This is a good thing, and if you can’t see that then your ‘experience in utube/streaming’ didn’t teach you anything other than how to try and self promote.

They have also sensibly lowered the 400 HP grind to 250, which is still a grind to unlock something that was touted as being available on day one. For people with multiple toons who didn’t have any spare HP it’s still a grind. The gating of many of the HP’s behind cheese mechanics such as masteries means it turns into a grind to get the masteries to get the HP’s.

I’m not a fan of running around mindlessly killing pve mobs in ‘events’ to get the exp to fill up that mastery bar, as it’s not what I want to be doing, which is playing wvw with my elite spec on my toons (which doesn’t count exp towards…), so for me the whole release has been one long put off. I force myself to log in and get it done, rather than look forward to logging in to play and have fun during my leisure time.

My issue is more with everything that then gets in the way if you happen to fall off or die going for a mastery of HP point.

Contested waypoints on a map with so few meant at one stage I had a choice of respawning at the start of the map or bottom left corner- either one means 10-20 minutes of running, mob fights or avoidance or just not being able to get back towards the HP that I was trying to get to.

On the plus side, I finally worked out how to reach a mastery point on the first map- to discover it’s surrounded by poison that needs the mastery before you can get a mastery point…/sarcasm

Excellent news. At a stroke reduced my total required from 4000 to 2500. My highest toon had 60 to start, most others seem to have little to none (legendary crafting sucks them up).

Managed to get one 10 point HP and 4 wvw levels tonight in 5 hours, so should only take me another 650 hours of game play or so to unlock those elites, at an average of 1.5 hours a day, about a year and a quarter.

I’m still aggrieved that elites were locked away behind HP as that wasn’t how it was sold at all, and in beta we had it unlocked at start which gave a completely false impression of the maps and skills that would be available.

For a wvw player, this is still a lot of work for something that was sold as being there on day one, namely a new class and new skills.

Masteries are find locked behind a massive grind, as they are not essential outside the ares you get them.

corwen.5798:

Ansau.7326:

From my experience, it can take around 150 WvW levels to get the entire elite specialization. Bonus chests are only given at the start of every matchup, and its only 3 or 4 rounds of extra chests. And about the ratio of proofs, each chest can give from 2 to 4 proofs, but most of the times you’ll get 2.

Finally someone almost gets it^^
400 HP required for full elite spec & 1 HP requires 1 proof.
Best case scenario: every chest drops 4 poofs, it’ll take 100 WvW ranks.
Worst case scenario: every chest drops 2 poofs, so it’ll take 200 WvW ranks.
On long term you’ll average at 3, so 134 WvW ranks is what it’s gonna take in average.

Except this is Anet RNG, so expect an average nearer 2 then 4…

200 ranks at an average of 2 an hour (3 if booster in eotm)= 100 hours of k-training, per character. That’s about 2 months per toon, times 10…and if the badge requirement stays in I’ll run out of badges way before then.

Texas.9547:

let me quote myself, I know words are hard. “I have 10 toons by the way, 6 of which i had atleast 170 hero points on before the expansion started”

if you had a few hero points before the expansion dropped then you dont need to get all 40 from the maguma jungle

To answer your question though let me quote myself again "gliding and jumping mushrooms and updrafts ". Those 3 masteries alone were enough for me to get hero points spread across 3 maps to unlock my elite specs

Also if you come up just short of what you need cause of some mastery you dont wanna get like updrafts cause really i only needed updraft for like 5 of the hero points, then you can go to wvw to get those few you couldnt get without updrafts

Also theres guides on dulfy.com now if you are having trouble.

Though if your trying to finish the story, none of this will really help you.

Starting from 170 would make it quite easy to run the maps and just cap the easy ones once you had gliding, updraft and mushrooms opened- you only need 23/40 to complete.

It’s the other 17 that are gated behind masteries that will cause a lot of problems and turn the whole thing into a massive grind.

Well done for getting there so fast.

I’m hoping this is a bug as it’s the only reason for me to grind out Tyrian masteries, and wvw is where it would eb most useful.

So, ran into a HP that is guarded by 3 vets that can practically one shot you in the air before you even land.

Then spent 30 minutes at the spot, asking politely in map chat for assistance as two of us were wiped pretty fast. Popped tag as well so people knew exactly where we were, no response, about from ‘doing events’.

This, after less than a week, tells you how bad it’s going to get to try and complete these HP in a couple months when the maps will be pretty quiet.

I don’t even want to be there- just want the elite spec for wvw, you can keep your masteries.

I can’t even muster the effort to log in an alt a/c to sit on nodes all day- when I can gather just as much running around in pve anyway.

20 minutes respawn is just fine, if people want to just camp them imagine the fun when your map is q’d because 40 farmers are sitting on it- Anet’s metrics will tell them the BL are a great success!

So let’s see: wvw gets shiny new maps, and the reason people would rather do other things than play in them is because there are other things to do?

You would have thought people would have rushed to see the maps in all their glory and be dead keen on playing them to the exclusion of anything else ‘elites? nah, this map is so awesome I’ll stay here and do the pve grind some other time!’. Not heard a single person say that.

Quite clear from over here in the real world that the maps have failed to excite either the hard core wvw ‘rs or the casual ones, and they might return to them when they ’can be bothered’. that doesn’t say much for increased participation in wvw, when even the hard core aren’t playing.

And Bakes seems to think if we grind grind grind and force ourselves to play on the new map enough we might start to like it? Sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me…

So, getting 200 or 400 or however many wvw levels is required for enough proofs is, in your experience, the fastest way to accumulate points? really? How many wvw levels are you making in EB or the new BL right now per hour? Without boosts, we’re not pay to win players.

Chrono.6928:

Aytheist.9476:

Solo players cannot advance in the new content, and any decent publisher would disclose such a fundamental change prior to taking your money.

where are you at? I’m decently far and so far have solo’ed every story and exploring maps. A couple of skill points have champ bosses but even solo the game allows and usually has players around also doing it. While not as easy as the core game its not impossible either. Just requires some skill.

ps: dodge and animations are more important now. Changing traits and skills too. Using more range weapons than before. Doing it on my squishy thief but having 3 bars of endurance helps ^^ We aren’t meant to just run through everything and never fail. We are suppose to learn and play better. If anything I’m enjoying the challenge.

ps2: if still having trouble I would recommend minion type classes. With the 90ish% damage reduction to minions by aoe (unless targeted) they are very strong right now and would help “solo” as they take the pressure off of you.

So, you play cheese stealth class so you can skip most of the content to reach places others can’t get to.

Then you suggest people switch from whatever class they need HP’s on to play minion type class? How exactly does that help anyone who wants the elite spec on their, say, ele? Guess we’ll all have to dust off our rangers and necros then- except those aren’t the toons I want the elite specs on…

Could care less about the masteries really, but gating elite specs behind this massive grind and then facing having to do it all over again on deserted maps when no one is around to kill a champ guarding HP’s doesn’t appeal.

Standing around on a map fighting off enemies whilst asking in map chat for an hour for people to come to a HP to help isn’t my idea of a valuable use of my limited leisure time.

Oh, and champs aren’t that hard if you play minion necro or ranger, seeing as minions now have a huge buff in pve. Sadly those are two of the classes way down on my list of wanting to get the elite spec for.

But if we all switch to ranger or necro then there would be less people complaining it’s too hard, as the pets can absorb 50 times more damage than you can….

Tongku.5326:

-new Lords (NPCs) – much improved, still needs to scale up more vs. map que (or close to it) size blobs, especially on damage / special ability parts, the Lords just dont do enough vs full map blobs, they are fine vs small and medium size groups but not 50+. This goes about double if its a gari Lord, it should kill at least 25%-50% of a blob.
-Sentries – Great improvements, but can they also scale better vs medium size and full map blob groups ?

So you basically are asking for a massive pve boost to the Lord so that it wipes players, giving a huge advantage to the defenders and forcing the attackers to come in overwhelming numbers in order to both counter the enemy zerg and the Lord?

Lord should take some time to down to allow defenders to get there, but not be so powerful they mean instant death or mean that you need twice as many players as the defenders just to take down the Lord.

Let’s keep pve where it should be. No need for Teq waves coming out of a Lord, if you want that go do some pve events. wvw is supposed to be massive player battles, not massive pve event.

Lesser rewards means less people. Most aren’t that concerned with the PPT, they are there for the fun fights, caps, and rewards.

You say it promotes roamers and small groups, but then point out barricades stop them. You don’t say how it promotes roamers. In fact, most roamers have said to me that they can now roam forever without ever running in to an enemy and it is terribly boring.

Auto upgrading is bad for the smaller server, and those with less coverage. You turn up on the map which is totally enemy colour and everything is t3, making small groups and roamers unable to achieve very much at all, so they log off and go play something else.

The boosts are just more pve clutter, 90% damage reduction makes for great fun when you’re defending a dolly as a thief- but then most people will just ignore dollies as they take way too long to get to and move too fast.

Defending is now more a case of being lucky and happening to be within range of the enemy in time to rescue whatever is being attacked.

Narrow ledges and choke points are causing a lot of ‘stand back and wave at each other while building shield generators’ fights where unless you have superior numbers it becomes first to push loses.

Chrono.6928:

Drivrius.6159:

It’s so people would be forced to play the horrible new content.

GW2’s core game was a fun, casual friendly experience.

Were soloing your story quests was simple, with plenty of WPs and exp to get to cap.

HOT thou? It has mob density that all but forces a group just to get to the few and far inbetween WPs, HPs that spawns champions require masteries or are guarded by groups of vets, events that spawn all over the place with enough mobs to eat you alive in seconds.

The mobs in HOT exist in 3 forms: does large area damage, knocks downs, does large aoe damage and knocks down.

I tackled the new content with Cavalier armor on, I’ll try Sentinel next because Cavalier is simply not enough to survive in HOT, but then again I get the feeling HOT is not meant to be soloable since not only do the mobs hit hard enough to kill you very quickly they also have plenty of hit points and vets are plentiful.

Are mobs currently over tuned? Should I stop trying to solo my story line?

All in all HOT feels like an entirely different game from GW2, it’s more like a hardcore “die at the 1st mistake” kind of game then the casual friendly game I liked…

Very disappointed in the new content, I’ll do it once to know the story then never again.

Tip from a seasoned fractal player. Get better. Its not about armor its about knowing what to dodge and the encounter mechanics. Sorry you can’t breeze through it the first week with a greatsword and zerker armor lol. Anet said be prepared to try new armor, utility skills and change traits often. Its actually not kittence you learn.

Now if only they had brought in templates for builds, so I don’t have to write everything down on pieces of paper (then lose them, very annoying), so switching builds and equipment wasn’t such a complete pain…like, oh I remember, GUILD WARS had. It’s just a shame the only thing linking the two games is a shared name.

Changing traits becomes very tedious when you want to swap between builds as you have to either have a great memory or write them down every time, for multiple classes. After a while it just gets discouraging.

Dislike. Takes way too long to find a fight, and if you happen to die and have to port it’s a very long way back. If you’re running boosts to try and level up some wvw levels to try and get the elite before Xmas 2020 then these new maps are a no-go. Stick to EoTM and clock up the levels in there, you will go slightly less crazy.

Should have listened to the feedback from guilds instead of fanboy streamers who would probably tell you stampedes of elephants in wvw would be a great mechanic if you suggested adding it…

One map with three sides and 120-150 cap per side would have been great. Oh well.

Forced myself to do some pve after boring EoTM karma training for an hour, feels like a grind not a game.

Yep, It’s very annoying having several slots taken up by these as i earn them on different toons but want to use them on one.

Exterior Knight.5132:

Reaper Alim.4176:

5 since A Net is going to force WvW players to PvE and map complete to unlock the class they’ve already paid for. Awesome graphics, gameplay is fun.

I just feel like A Net since all the WvW players a message as such… “Master say you WvWers do PvP or no new spec line for you. You want that new spec line you’ve paid for right? Well better get to the PvEing and Map Completion then master demands it!”

I’ll give GW2 post HoT a solid 5 as I take my business else where. I’ll be kitten to be a game dev slave. My money my enjoyment not my money dev enjoyment. Point and point.

Actually you can unlock your elite spec completely in WvW, you get certain items that you trade to vendors and then the item you get from the vendors completes a random hero point instantly, you don’t even need to leave WvW

Yep, perfectly right.

Just grind out 400 wvw levels on the toon that you want the elite spec for. That won’t take long at all, right?

I’ll be generous and give it 1/10. Bought it on the basis would be able to play the elite specs and skills, and then work on masteries, badly disappointed to find elites time and exp and hero points gated behind all sorts of pve rubbish.

mulzi.8273:

The WvW dailies need a rework. Not only is the the Vet daily not working but the camp daily is not efficient anymore when compared to the other dailies. They need to make it one camp now.

In the time it takes to walk to 2 different camps and flip them, I can play TWO full PvP games on two separate characters, completing all 4 sPvp dailies. That is just ridiculus.

But back on topic, I roamed WvW yesterday, killing every single vet i came across, including shrine bosses, and couldnt complete this daily.

Someone report it on the ‘bug’ section then. I’m sure it will be fixed within the year, after all, they obviously spent a lot of time making sure wvw was good to go. Missing the obvious box that pops up every day just goes to show if you entrust your beta testing to fanboys and streamers they miss the obvious- not to mention the fact the map is terrible.

Kalan.9705:

Dawdler.8521:

Diru.4531:

Notsoperky.2348:

I feel the removal of guard buffs was a bad idea. As an excuse they offer ‘barrier to entry’ and then turn around and say ‘go make 400 levels for your elite’.

Yeah that change and the reasoning was pretty silly. It only hurt low health pool, non-bunker players. A new wvw player is going to die in 1-5 seconds to a regular wvw player stacks or not.

Since the extra power was removed, its all fair.

This was rarely seen as an issue in 1v1 anyway, where specs and counters is what win the duel.

The far more unfair scenario was say 50 vs 50 fully buffed, one side looses and wipes for one reason or another but they decide to clash again… But now its the eqvivalent of 40 vs 60 because the winners remain buffed with guards and stacks while the loosers are effectivly punished by loosing guards, stacks and probably players, as if dying wasnt enough.

I am not sad to see that go.

The new guard line improve combat vs NPCs more than the old… which was kind of the point to begin with.

That’s a good point. It’s more the sense of getting nothing in return for guard buffs being deleted, in a game mode that has been very badly supported and rewarded since release. Plus some gear combos don’t work as well since its gone and you miss the stats.

Low HP and low armor classes miss it more- so guards and warriors don’t notice, but back line players do.

Try the difference between full elite spec and non-elite spec on certain classes (mesmer and ele, for instance) and the difference there is way more than the guard buffs ever were, and yet elite specs are now hidden behind a huge exp grind and 400 points for each toon you want to play in wvw…

Yes, not adding any sort of new thing for using wvw rank points that you already have smacks of ‘cater to the casual pve’r’, who is more likely to have his elite spec than a wvw player anyway!

Thanathos.2063:

I see your complaints.
However, it’s Day freakin 2 of HoT.
It’s so enervating about all those complaints that they will be gone in two weeks. In fact, most of you will complain about getting new content as fast as possible because you already finished most of it.
Patience isn’t the worst thing to have.

I got 214 hero points at the start. That is enough to get a playable elite profession since 60 points are enough, technically. You can play them on HoT maps and upgrade them from time to time after getting new hero points.
However, you could say “I didn’t start with 214 hero points, my char has only 5% world completion”… well, why bothering with end content then? I can understand the complaints from WvW’ers, but if you wanna use them in PvE, you shouldn’t complain that you have to play the core PvE first (what isn’t needed, since there are 400 hero points in HoT maps)

I had 60 or 75 on one of my toons, and 15 on one other. The 75 unlocked beign able to use one thing on the elite spec, but selecting the elite spec is completely pointless as all the skills are gated behind the other 340 odd HP points. And that’s for my most well off toon.

Most of them have 3% map completion, so it’s a nice hour or so of running through the core, 20-30 minutes of the same non click through chat (oops, story), and using wvw builds in pve as it’s too expensive to swap runes and armor around for 9+ wvw lvl 80’s.

Then potentially let’s say 4000 HP to unlock- and that’s after getting through the time/exp gates for each toon – toons I don’t want to be on or anywhere near pve with.

As a wvw player, combined with the new BL disaster, it’s put me off logging in at all- just the thought of all that grinding doing something that appeals not at all in my valuable leisure time is enough to make me log off and play something enjoyable.

That’s the rub- my leisure time is supposed to be enjoyable. If I wanted mindless gated grind I’d go back to a Korean MMO.

DistantStatic.6098:

Coyote.7031:

TRon.2610:

And be stuck with kittens like you, kitten no!

I always find people who make posts that say something like “GET GOOD!!! GET A GROUP!!!” amusing. You think if they were so big on grouping and the social aspects of MMOs, they’d say something like “Why don’t you run with us? Send me a tell in game!” But nope, lets just be rude to people on the forums. XD

Because they actively refuse to group. 9/10 times they are always saying “I don’t want to play with anyone”. This is also not the point of the post. The point of the post is THEY DO NOT WANT TO PLAY WITH OTHERS.

LFG all hero challenges, will die a lot and spend a lot of time running back after falling off paths, dying to one shot mechanics or timing out on events, be available to run my multiple wvw specced toons over the next few months.

I’m not sure how many people will be willing to help for the 500th time after someone asks in map chat for help on a hero point only to find after an hour of trying to help that they are 3m exp short of opening some dumb mastery that is required to progress to that hero point- in fact, I doubt many people will replay the maps once they have achieved their own masteries so it might become a real struggle to gather even 5 people to attempt some of the time mastery challenges.

What’s even worse if that even in wvw to obtain elites will mean playing that toon for hundreds of hours or bringing it into pve, when it might only be needed for 2 hours on a reset but needs the elite to fit the build spec for the raid.

I see 6-12 months from now ‘hero challenge boosters’ or similar being a drop from BL chests..

HaxTester.9816:

At the minimum, if I wanted to unlock all of the new, nine specializations, that would be 3,600 hero points. To unlock specializations in all of my sixteen level 80 characters, I would need 6,400 hero points. For reference, I have only 1,000+ spirit shards, which is basically converted skill points scrolls. And yet I need 6,400 hero points, 3,600 at the minimum. In the three years I have played the game, I have only collected 1,000+ skill point scrolls, yet I need 3,600 hero points (and more). Think about that. Arenanet, please be merciful.

As another poster above said, it’s only a grind if you have to repeat the same kitten you don’t like doing on a toon that isn’t suited to pve over and over and over…oh wait….

misterdevious.6482:

There ARE nodes for all kinds of resources in the new map, contained within the keeps/towers/camps. I think they were called Synthesizers. An ore Synthesizer could give you all different kinds of ore.

They were removed sometime yesterday because apparently they were bugged/exploitable.

Probably go the way of the orb then, that has only been removed temporarily…

I feel the removal of guard buffs was a bad idea. As an excuse they offer ‘barrier to entry’ and then turn around and say ‘go make 400 levels for your elite’.

And what exactly did we get to use wvw ranks on (besides the bubble, whatever that even is..). there is even less to spend them on than before.

It’s quite clear they don’t want dedicated wvw’rs. What they want is casual wvw’rs who mostly play pve and dedicated spvp players, and they are hoping that the new wvw pushes more people towards the ‘esport’.

There is nothing more offputting than sitting here thinking of logging in and thinking I have to go to pve to grind out skills in order to eventually return to wvw, also to have to do that grind another 8 times if i want to be on a level playing field with the one toon pve player that got their elites all unlocked.

I think I’ll get some work done instead- it might be a grind but at least I get paid for it.