Guild Wars 2

While I like the sentiment behind the suggestion, I do not like the suggestion.

There should be incentives to include players in content, but this suggestion is too extreme. The fact that it would be a non-repeatable bonus is probably the main problem, with the ‘greater rewards for sub-optimal play’ being a close second.

In the current form, this suggestion wouldn’t work, as ‘elite raiders’ would not in fact include inexperienced players, they would instead (if the rewards from raiding were good enough) create alts and run them to the raiding location to fulfill the same function. If this bonus was account bound, you would solve some of this issue, but then you run into the second pitfall: it is non-repeatable.

Perhaps you would incentivise new players being exposed to new content, but eventually you will run out of a reliable stream of ‘new players’ that will provide this added bonus. This will change the already toxic “zerk or kick” problem into a worse problem: “bonus or kick”; which would exclude players who chose to learn how to run the raids properly and enjoy this content in favor of those who may never run the content again. It is possible new players exposed to raids may enjoy them, but their experience that made them decide that is flawed because they received extra rewards in that first run. It is not wise to alienate the fanbase of certain content in favor of players who are not guaranteed to continue using that content.

Lastly, rewarding sub-optimal play over optimal play is anathema to any game design I have ever heard of. It would foster poor practices in the playerbase and likely lead to more toxic community interactions. This is not to say that there should be no rewards for the less skillful or commenting on whether raid rewards should be accessible from another method (that would be off-topic), but rather that degrading the experience for those players that have learned how to do something properly — just so that others who have not invested the same amount of time and dedication can receive the same rewards — is a bad choice for the longevity of any game.

If a player wants a reward from a certain type of content, that player will do what it takes to get that reward. It is unfortunate that some community members may exclude others from certain groups, but most any form of incentive will not truly correct this behavior. Any incentive system will be gamed by those elitists to their own benefit and the net result will likely be the same: inexperienced players will still get the shaft (by those elitist groups). The end result is those elitists will gain the bonus just as often as the inexperienced and there will be no real reason to include the inexperienced, so long as there is some work-around to achieve the bonus (which there almost always will be).

I am not saying this is right. I am not saying that I don’t want incentives for including more of the population into difficult content. I am saying that players that purposefully exclude others will continue to do so, as is their prerogative in the game.

I think Gw2 has a great community overall, and there are plenty of guilds, groups and players that are supportive and inclusive. There are, of course, elitists in the game, but overall I think the percentage of these players is far, far fewer than in other contemporary games.

My thoughts? No ‘Halloween’ event on halloween. In-fiction the destruction of the pact fleet will have disrupted daily life. Not being paid any attention, the Bloody prince/Mad king will storm onto the scene sometime late november/early dec and we’ll have a ‘nightmare before christmas’ sort of deal with these characters getting their revenge over being spurned.

I think it will be a good year.

Healix.5819:

If they were going to do a head start, it would have been listed as one of the bonuses when purchasing it.

Or if not this, then IGN would have bungled this out as well.

It isn’t just on staff. Many of the new animations are seriously lacking. I am generally happy with the functionality of most everything they have presented so far, but several animations are laughably poor.

The Tempest had such potential in terms of thematic possibilities and while I do have some concerns about the mechanics, the animations of these skills is a total face plant.

The thief staff 5 could have done an interesting VAULT as the skill is named, but they chose to have the character do a superman leap.

Thief staff 3 doesn’t make any sense from a physical point of view (you are immediately leaping away in an opposite direction as you strike your foe, there is no follow through, thus this strike would be exceedingly ineffective from a realism standpoint).

The fist flurry could have been an interesting martial arts combo, instead they just alternate left-right punches.

Bound has you do a backflip when travelling forwards… how does this make sense??

I realize that this is beta, and I don’t want to be overly critical — i love this game — I just want more polish on these abilities. It is the little things that make great games. The functionality seems perfectly fine to me in 99% of the instances of new content. It seems fun. It just doesn’t LOOK fun. Skill animations are your presentation for the vast majority of content in an MMO and it is a shame that sub-par work has slipped into an otherwise AAA title.

Shiro- Dual swords.

FUN! Very fun. I quite enjoyed both mainhand and offhand sword, but personally I found axe to be a better offhand. You CAN separate someone for your burst with offhand sword 5, but the added shadowstep on axe 4 is too strong, plus the aoe cc on axe 5. Sword 3 is very engaging, and I love that it can follow teleporting targets. I didn’t find much use for sword 2 however, as between the three shadowsteps available to my setup, I didn’t find it necessary to snare (and the chill duration is exceedingly weak).

Shiro – Legend skills

Shiro is a very powerful skill bar. The heal is quite useful and allows for extra damage, and feels just about right. The evade is exceedingly strong as it not only is an evade but also refunds a dodgeroll — this may need tweaking, as you can theoretically always dodge. The shadowstep is quite useful in a couple different ways, though I found myself relying more on my Axe 4 and saving my shiro shadowstep incase i needed to bust through a block. The quickness maintenance skill is also very very strong — I would suggest increasing its cost slightly or at least keeping an eye on it.

Jade winds… is overpowered. I like it, dont’ get me wrong, and I think I find it to be the most impactful of all the revenant elites so far, but I can’t help but feel like the revenant got a better version of chilled to the bone. Yes, it doesn’t have the chill after effect, but its a quicker cast and a longer stun, and it can be cast twice. Personally I’d suggest increasing its cost to 60 energy and/or increasing the cast time to 1.5s.

Shiro- Traits

Not fair.

There is only one obvious path. Everyone will take Assassins Presence, Ferocious Strikes and Swift Termination. The only deviation is if there are two shiro spec revenants and one can then take rapid lacerations. The only reason to take nefarious momentum would be if a bug existed to toggle into and out of Impossible odds to stack might — the other two skills are too situational to waste the energy.
While the traits are functional, there are not fun to ponder over and there isn’t really any choice which subtracts from the experience.

Shiro/Revenant – Final notes

Revenant is quite fun to play however I find it odd there is only one ranged option right now. Additionally it is quite possible that “Displacing Torment” is one of the trolliest skills for pve there is. It is highly disruptive of any organized play; the ability will be very useful in sPvP, but could give Revenants a bad name in other places. I feel like players are more or less forced to choose shiro as one of their legends in order to do anything — even with the changes to mallyx, there is still some pretty serious kink going on in terms of functionality, and this clumsiness is pretty prevalent in the other core specs as well. It works and it is fun, but doesn’t come off as polished. The shiro kit is well designed and powerful and is a clear winner in my opinion. I can see myself running Ventari in a support spec, but I can only ever see Jallis as a secondary legend. Mallyx is functional, but not for me.

Tempest – Overcharging.

I… Liked the concept. Not terribly sure about the execution. Firstly, most of the animations were exceedingly disappointing to me. The only one I liked was the Water Overload. I know you need to re-use assets, but the warrior whirl/dredge flame tornado mixture was such a let down. The Air overload was terribly basic and while the earth overload had such potential, it was a flop. If you wanted to re-use assets I would have chosen to repeat the whirl/turn that the ranger uses at the end of swoop so that the animation is more lively, and you could have scaled down the tornado elite animation and made it fiery instead of that really see-through one from the dredge fractal. The earth animation is much too rigid and blocky — it would have been much more impressive (visually) had they been sort of hunched on it as if they were surfing and the roiling earth resembled a wave (with a somewhat more substantial trail left behind you).

All this said, the actual effects of the overloads are decent, though as you are frontline support, and these overloads are point-blank, the cast times are really long. You have the least armor and the least health available in the game, and these require you to stay on target for between 4-5 seconds not doing anything else. Yes, elementalists have good access to the protection boon, and even a trait that boosts it now, but they are still quite vulnerable to burst damage if they don’t go cele.

Tempest – Traits

They aren’t bad, but there are a few strange mishaps, such as latent stamina triggering on entering water attunement. This is unprecedented for a specific attunement being required in a different specialization. I can understand why you don’t want vigor on ALL swaps, and that unique effects based on attunement is an arcane thing, but it is very odd. I don’t have legitimate complaints other than the continued spreading of all the aura traits about the various elementalist specilizations.

Tempest – Last notes.

Tempest was probably my least favorite of the revealed elite specs. I enjoy support roles, but I found it clunky. I don’t usually play elementalist, and this may very well be part of my unease, but I think the tempest needs a bit more polish to really cement it as a valuable support option.

Tempest – Warhorn

While the skills were perfectly functional I can’t help but feel that the current two off-hands feel more impactful. Dagger offhand brings a lot of damage to the table in addition to a more active playstyle, and focus offers a lot of personal bonuses. Warhorn does excel at what it was designed for (group support) but the problem is that both mainhands do NOT particularly help here. Scepter is a mid-range weapon but most of the tempest abilities are point blank — you can use scepter pointblank and in many cases you have no choice but to do so, but generally ranged skills are slightly weaker than melee ones and this makes a disconnect. If you choose dagger mainhand you are presented with fewer party support tools than scepter would give and are split between being a dps character and a support character which felt really odd as well — but your abilities are all in the same range bracket. On top of this most of the animations were somewhat lackluster (and this is a recurring problem with other tempest skills).

There is nothing particularly wrong with warhorn, it just doesn’t really have a place with the existing main-hands.

Tempest – Shouts

Firstly, I was surprised that more than one elite spec got shouts. I’m not saying they aren’t useful, especially as a party -support mechanic, but I think I would have been more interested if they were something else -- that said, there is zero chance of complete redo’s at this point so it is what it is.

Again the heal seemed pretty good, especially if you paired it with shout traits or trooper runes.

Both Feel the Burn and Flash-Freeze are odd. The burn and chill applied is paltry at best. I would suggest changing the amount of these conditions applied based on proximity to the elementalist with 3 stages: those at the outer range get 1 stack burn/2s Chill, then a middle range giving 3stacks burn/3s chill and a point blank range giving 5 stacks burn/5s chill. Secondly, the fact that these shouts hand out auras steps heavily on the Water magic lines toes. This does give you a way to share auras without investing too heavily in your traits, but it presents an irritating choice if you DO choose to focus on auras.

Eye of the Storm is still under consideration. With many more group cc skills coming into the game, I suspect that this skill will be quite useful, but currently I don’t feel its as impactful as it could be. I would suggest it granting 2 stacks of Stability for 5s in addition to its current effects.

Shock and Aftershock is a little odd to me as well. Personally I would have preferred a 2s knockdown instead of the imobilize, and again, the fact that it gives out free auras is irksome to my planned auramancer setup. The high cd would allow for the hard cc as is.

Rebound. Ah, rebound… This skill has great possibility, but I’m not sure what to think about it. On the one hand, it is a low recharge elite that is heavy support in group scenarios (considering it can effect allied elite spells) but on the other it feels much more like a mesmer type of skill than a elementalist one. I know that there is an element tied to each shout, and that ‘arcane’ needed to make an appearance, but this doesn’t feel quite right. As a quick fix, I would apply “allies next attack deals 50% bonus damage” as well as changing the name — “rebound” has a minor negative connotation that your foe has momentarily gotten the best of you — I would suggest (with my addition to the skill) renaming it “Feel the Power!”. As an alternative to the +50% bonus, you could also make it a point-blank aoe arcane explosion that deals critical damage to 360range.

Dragonhunter – Traits

While good, Dragonhunter traits focused more on dragonhunter-exclusive uses (or at least it seems that way). There may be a few subtle bonuses that could apply to other builds, but overall there seems to be just two main setups for Dragonhunter: DPS (with strong reliance on longbow) and a supportive setup that guardians already have great success with.

Dragonhunter – Last notes

While Guardian is not my main, I found it interesting to play the dragonhunter. I didn’t like it nearly as much as the Chronomancer or Reaper, but it was serviceable. I can see a very strong support setup using it.

Dragonhunter – Longbow

While I felt odd using a longbow on Guardian, I did have fun. That said I had a few issues. For one, the auto attack felt strange. I don’t really reconcile a ‘bouncing arrow’ attack similar to a thieves shortbow with the archetype of the guardian, so that was a big disconnect. I get that you wanted a condition for the application of cripple, but again, the bounce doesn’t fit with the name nor the guardian. I would suggest making the attack simply pierce, and if it damages 2 or more targets, all are crippled (but reduce the duration to 1s); this would still allow for perma-cripple if you are able to meet the requirements, but the flavour would be more in-line with guardian.

Next, Deflecting Shot was very odd to use as well. It is pretty buggy as to whether or not it will destroy the projectile. I would suggest changing its effect to be more akin to wall of reflection but moving forward (not quite as large, but bigger than the current iteration) hopefully this would increase the viability of the skill. I like the addition of the ‘line-nuke’ aiming rather than being a targeted skill.

True shot and Symbol of Energy are both nice additions to the Guardians lineup.
Hunter’s Ward felt like a neutered Barrage for the most part. I know that it has a powerful control aspect, but the fact that this only occurs at the END greatly reduces its effectiveness against players. I would suggest either upping the initial damage portion, or reducing the cast time to 2s. This would either make it more beneficial against players from a damage perspective, or easier to hit while still giving time to counterplay.

Dragonhunter – Traps

The heal was nice as a ‘prepared’ heal in that you could rig an area to your advantage, and the numbers were nice as well.

The utilities had some issues for me however. First, Light’s Judgement’ was pretty much useless to me. It only applies 1s of revealed so this isn’t anything that a thief or mesmer would fear! I know it applies it 8 times, but any player with any sort of common sense would immediately leave this area . Secondly, while it is great that guardians get access to vulnerability with this skill, I feel burning is better suited to the skill’s flavor and the guardian. This would also help give credence to condi-guards.

Next, test of faith. I don’t like this skill. It doesn’t do anything if they do not leave the area. Granted, most players will seek to leave a trap, but you need to have at least one other trap (procession of blades or Light’s judgement) to make this even remotely viable, and this takes up two utility slots. My personal recommendation is to make this the elite, and drastically change the functionality to: “Knock down affected foes for 3s and apply 10 stacks of Vulnerability for 5s.”

Procession of blades is a great damaging utility, pretty solid, nothing against it nor do I think it needs tweaking.

Fragments of faith. Oh lord. This skill is so strong.

This skill allows a 1v1 against the guardian to be pretty much a sure win, due to the free 5 or so blocks it gives in addition to the normal amounts of blocks that guardians get. While I love this skill and how strong it is, I would recommend changing it so that if you walk over a ‘fragment’ while having aegis, you still consume that fragment. As it is now, you can just stand on a fragment with aegis, get the aegis block, and then regain aegis a second later. And they last a lonnng time too. I would make the duration of these pickups shorter to make it more of a group utility skill rather than an overpowered dueling skill.

Dragons maw is an odd elite. First it gets slow, which is odd for the guardian. Next it has a unique cc mechanic. Personally, I would make this a utility instead of an elite, and change it to an immobilize instead (though keep the ‘pull you in’ part).
All the utility traps could probably use a reduction to 35s cd.

Dragonhunter – Virtues

I quite liked the changes to the virtues, though I found the Shield of courage to be odd. It blocks attacks, but due to the range of the wall it produces, it doesn’t block melee attacks. I think the wording should either be changed to denote its functionality as a projectile destroying wall, or decrease the distance from the player that the wall exists so that it can actually mitigate melee attacks

Chronomancer – Shield

Well done, both skills are strong, novel and impactful. I enjoyed the alacrity phantasms very much. I also liked the 5 skill, but can’t help but feel it is on a slightly too large cooldown — I would suggest shaving it to a base 35s CD and keeping the current time reduction condition and amount.

Chronomancer – Wells

The heal is a great addition, and I fully enjoyed the lower cd on it.
While Mesmers have probably one of the best kits in terms of utilities, the utility wells will likely see use in both dungeons/hard-pve and sPvP. Well of action and Calamity both will likely see some use in pve encounters featuring larger numbers of foes, whereas precog and recall will likely see a moderate amount of use in sPvP. The numbers on these skills seem about right.

The elite could possibly stand to have a 2s cripple per pulse to give a little more flavour and control, but otherwise was well received

Chronomancer – Continuum Shift

Insanely powerful.

I feel this ability is something you definitely want to keep an eye on. With 3 clones out, you have enough time to cast your elite, use mimic, cast another utility twice… and then do that all again after you swap back. You can get 4 uses out of a utility before it goes on cooldown, and this is something that needs to be watched. Alternately you can get a grand total of 6 uses out of mantras before recasting them. I love this mechanic, and I dont’ want you to change it, but I do urge you to keep in mind the possibilities this creates in terms of future content and balance passes.

Chronomancer – Traits

I think most of these are spot on. However I’m not terribly fond of the adept ‘Alls well that ends well’ — I’d suggest changing it to condition-to-boon conversion instead of removal.

Next, Improved Alacrity is somewhat of a joke, it is 33% which sounds decent, but all instances of alarcity give you 1s of it. Meaning you get absolutely nothing out of this trait, as you appear to need a full second of it for it to apply it’s effect — I may be incorrect on this, but the current iteration feels very weak for a master tier trait.
Lastly, the grandmaster ‘lost time’ is a bit clunky. I suspect you want to get away from flat ICD timers, but this trait promotes glassy builds smashing the keys, which doesn’t fit the mesmer at all. You want to slow the foe, but you need 5 crits? I’d suggest either changing it to “Slow foe on crit, 5s ICD” or having it a flat “every 5th hit slows foe” rather than crits. The % chance of critical hits (in addition to enemies actively dodging/defending) makes the cooldown of this trait very unreliable. You might get back-to-back procs one time then not be able to apply it again for a long time depending on positioning and the flow of battle, making this a pretty situational trait.

The two clone generation traits in this spec are insanely powerful, and I run both. I quite enjoy them, and I no longer feel inhibited from using my shatters aggressively.

Chronomancer – last notes

Great work again. Chronomancer is very fun to play and quite powerful. The Continuum shift will need to be watched and tweaked, but overall a great addition.

Reaper – Greatsword

I found the greatsword a bit clunky, but this was mostly on the auto attack and gravedigger. I realize you want to make these ‘big meaty hits’ but the animation of gravedigger is very distracting and breaks the flow of combat. I would suggest reducing the cast time of Gravedigger to a 1s cast time to start; this would still give enough telegraph and notice to players, while making it feel more realistic to the reaper player. The auto attack chain was decent, apart from the final portion: Chilling Scythe. I found the animation for this attack overly telegraphed. I realize that chill is a strong control condition and there needs to be some form of telegraph, but having the length of the sword turn bright blue in ice (in addition to a 1s cast time) to be over-done. While there are more important attacks to dodgeroll, anyone who wanted to would be able to dodge this attack from a mile away. I recommend either shaving the cast time to 3/4s like the first two attacks, or changing the animation to a somewhat more subtle version — perhaps a frosty trail in the style of twilight (just for the final swing)? Or perhaps just a chilly burst when the third hit connects?

Reaper – Shouts

While most of the new shouts are well made mechanically, I found that most are very situational. That said, several could be very strong in certain situations — “Nothing can save you” in particular is very strong for a direct-damage reaper in a PvP situation. That said, I would like a small modification to two shouts in particular. The new heal “Your soul is mine” underperforms somewhat, right now it mainly serves as a convenient life-force generator, but it is somewhat lacking in the healing department. I would like if the damage this shout causes is added as healing as well, or counts as lifesteal — meaning if you hit 5 targets you get another 1k healing out of the skill.

The elite shout ‘Chilled to the bone’ could use some minor tweaking as well. I love the flavor, but in all honesty, the name of the shout doesn’t fit with the rather malevolent nature of the other shouts — perhaps something along the lines of ‘Your blood runs cold"? Additionally, the revenant elite ’jade wind’ is in effect a stronger form of this elite due to the fact that it can be used multiple times with a longer duration in the same time frame. All this skill currently has is stability generation (which we necros really need) and a long duration chill. I don’t want to make it overpowered, but keeping in mind jade winds and the 2s cast time, I feel this skill could use a little love. Perhaps shave the cast time to 1.5s or give a frost armor aura to the reaper, duration depending on number of foes struck?

Overall, the shout’s mechanics are good, however a major flaw (to me at least) is the voice acting. I only played a human male reaper, but the intonation of almost all the shouts was way off base. Only ‘suffer’ sounded like it had any sort of malice in the voice, with the remaining shouts being belted out in a rather perky/chipper voice that didn’t fit at all.

Reaper – Shroud

So. Much. Fun.

Seriously, this form is amazing, and I fully expect reaper to be my new main once HoT goes live. Great job. My one small complaint is to do with the way that Death’s Charge works. I dislike that you can pass through targets and continue for a great long distance. I would recommend having it either stop forward movement on reaching your chosen target, or have it propel enemies along with you like revenant staff 5 does.

Reaper – Traits

I enjoyed almost all the reaper traits, and while it would kitten my current set up, I might suggest moving Decimate Defenses into the grandmaster slot, perhaps dropping blighter’s boon down to the master tier. DD can give you an easy 50% crit-chance (due to the vast array of vulnerability inflicting abilities necro has) and I personally think it is more impactful than blighter’s boon (though I do quite enjoy the healing in reapers shroud). I suppose you could drop reaper’s onslaught down, but most other ‘increase attack speed’ traits are grandmaster tier.

Reaper- Last notes

This new spec is both powerful and fun to play. I can’t help but feel that it would be better if chill still impeded mobility skills, but the spec is a great success. I think this will give necros the leg up they need to compete with other classes in all game modes on a more level playing-field.

HoT General – Masteries

The masteries system was a nice touch, and I like that the player chooses which perks they want to go to for first and that this will impact their experience of content. While I did not play enough to reach higher ranks of the different lines (I don’t think I recall hearing anyone that did as the amount of experience to unlock is substantial) I’m both curious and apprehensive of the vendors from the various Maguuma cultures. These perks are generally more than halfway down the list and would require a sizable time investment to reach. This content was not available to me to experience this weekend, but I’m worried that people would either feel obligated to max a cultural chain to gain access to strong consumables from these cultural merchants, or feel ripped off from the grind producing rather paltry rewards —since there is no mastery reset (which I agree with) you could self-cripple your experience by sticking to one line. That said, this is merely a concern, I’d prefer the system to stay as it is: we players rarely get the chance to make impactful choices about our experience and I’m keen to have these perks apply to my live account.

Hot General – Gliding

Terribly buggy. For me at least. I have rebound my jump key to ‘C’ due to the configuration of my keyboard (it has a built in gaming pad on the left side) and my dodgroll to space. This combo made it extremely difficult to pull out my glider for unknown reasons. The button to get it out was still space, but it rarely deployed — so I got acquainted with the ground multiple times to my consternation. I would suggest either having an option to bind it, or simply have it deploy when pressing whatever button you have assigned to ‘jump’ while in mid-air. This problem may have stemmed from the fact that the button was bound to dodge-roll specifically, but I would appreciate some polish on this mechanic before launch.

HoT General – Character

Having the player character converse with the surroundings was excellent. I enjoyed it much more than the old-style cutscene conversations (though I never liked those). It was much more organic and I found myself much more interested in what npc’s had to say. I attribute this to the context the conversation takes place in — while in the open world you are still immersed, whereas in the old-style cutscenes the blurred backgrounds and cut-up portraits was an instant break from immersion that made the storytelling disjointed.

Verdant Brink – Map layout

The new map, or what we were able to play of it, is excellent. The layout is superb although somewhat constricting. I liked that more content is squeezed into smaller spaces while still conveying a grand scale and for the most part you couldn’t tell that a screen or two in a direction would be very different, however I found the linearity of the map to be somewhat irritating. For the most part there seemed to be only one or two paths to get to certain areas/events and though this was opened up somewhat after unlocking gliding, it takes some getting used to after the rather open fields we are generally playing on in vanilla.

I love the verticality of the map. Even though it is one ‘biome’ there is plenty of up and down movement and a good assortment of field types (cave, meadow, forest, cliff etc). However there are many small little crannies and areas that don’t appear to have any real purpose at the moment; I assume there will be events/adventures/content for these areas that wasn’t included in the beta event. I do realize there needs to be a certain amount of ‘wasted’ space to make it somewhat realistic and to convey a sense of travelling distance, but considering the largely linear nature of the paths between event hubs , some of these off-shoots seem out of place.

The map reminds me greatly of areas of Cantha in GW:Factions, where you might see a ‘path’ on the minimap but in reality that route is blocked by smaller debris or a mis-identified smudge on the map being a wall. While some might cringe or be annoyed I found it very nostalgic (Factions was my favorite campaign) but to others newer to the franchise (or those that didn’t play or like Factions) might not look so favorably on this. Personally I love it as the map means less! It becomes more important to know the layout of the zone and it is more immersive and brings a base level of thinking into how you will move about the zone. I highly doubt that any mapping changes will be made, but if possible I’d ask for a few more paths to different major centers in future maps — not the open fields, but perhaps a couple more routes. This may be solved once we gain access to the other two biomes, but I think it is something to keep an eye on in a general sense.

Verdant Brink – Events

While there were a few bugs (notably the Itzel event with the food baskets) the event chains were decent, however there was at least one quite unpleasant step in the Itzel chain: Placing the Wyvern eggs. Gathering them wasn’t much of a chore as the jumping puzzle-esque path made it novel, but the subsequent event where you needed to place them about the tribe’s village was exceedingly tedious. I would recommend a pretty heavy overhaul of this portion of the chain: the number of eggs needing to be placed needs to be looked at, and there needs to be other things to do during this time! Whether that is defending egg-carriers (I can’t say I recall any hostiles ever showing up to prevent the eggs being placed) or giving a bundle-item to perform a task helping the ‘infiltration/sabotage’ (knocking out hylek guards with Itzel blowdarts, creating distractions to lure hylek defenders away from egg placement sites etc).

The wyvern summoned at the end of this stage was also exceedingly easy to beat. I’m aware this isn’t the big wyvern fight, but there was zero challenge to this encounter. The group I was with was able to burst it down to 10% before it took off and then it landed shortly after and promptly died. I would prefer if the encounter used some more mechanics to prevent stacking on the poor wyvern, or perhaps have the eggs we planted hatch and produce smaller ‘adds’ that help the larger wyvern. Perhaps make these baby wyverns give the larger wyvern a stacking buff as they die? As the larger wyvern is ‘enraged’ at the loss of its young?

The laranthir quest was good overall, I don’t think I have any particular issues with it.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

meeflak.9714:

I feel like all the negative feedback to the warhorn is unwarranted. We dint know anything about the spec. And unlike any other class to get an offhand, we will be getting skills for every attument , well already be getting more skills then any other class would with a mainhand, Idk. I’m not worried about it.

-snip-
It is just objectively the worst outcome.
-snip-

Really? do you know for a fact that it is not main-hand Warhorn?

Kitsune.1902:

Oberon Vex.1389:

Ventari feedback

Ventari’s base amounts are too high. In full zerker gear, the tablet passing through you heals for 800, meaning a net gain of 400 health/second without building any healing power. If you do go for healing power, you get a net gain of 550 hp/s, and this isn’t including any ‘on-heal’ effects from runes/traits. This is too much healing to the group/second without building for a support role. I suggest lowering the base amount and perhaps upping the healing power ratio to compensate so that it is still a decent group utility skill — if you build for support. Another possible fix would be to leave the current effect but increase the cd on the Ventari heal to 5-8s which would put it more inline with the passive healing abilities of other classes and cut down on the next problem:

adept trait blinding truths. every time you move your tablet (every 2s) 5 enemies are blinded for 5s. leading to a huge amount of damage mitigation.This trait either needs an internal cooldown (suggested at 5-10s ICD) or to be moved to the grandmaster slot.

About 5000 / 10 seconds, 10,000 / 20 seconds. I don’t know if that really breaks anything. You’re assuming there that people actually stay where you can use your tablet on them constantly and effectively. Guardian can go pretty high with healing power too if you really focus on it, although I don’t have any exact numbers. With ranger, without any particular healing power focus, I can throw out 2k per 10 seconds from healing spring and about another 2k per 10 seconds from constant regeneration, so about 8,000 / 20 seconds. And ventari – unlike my ranger – is fully support oriented. So I don’t see a big problem there.

As for the blind, it sounds effective, but thief can be pretty efficient blind machine too if you go that route (e.g. sword/pistol). The duration itself isn’t much of an issue since it ends on the next attack, but 2 second cooldown sounds pretty strong. Can’t say much more without actually trying it out on practical situation.

My main concern was that these numbers were in zerker gear. If you spec for healing, sure, splash it out, enjoy. But the numbers for group healing are a little high for zerker stats. This is also without using the other ventari skills for group healing (#8 heals for about 1500 to the group in zerker, and #9 heals for 400 per removed condi (up to 3 removed).

I really like Ventari and staff, but its base values are not quite what I expected — though it may make Zealots gear a thing.

Nephrite.6954:

Oberon Vex.1389:

Nephrite.6954:

You don’t have to worry one bit if you’re in spvp cause you either reset quick or spawn back fast when killed. The frustration of being Sic em and mauled down by some pew pew ranger in open field isn’t the best experience in WvWvW. Fine shortbow3 but what if you didn’t bring a weapon that evades or if shortbow is on cool down. Those guys are just scrubs but if you go head on against a truly good player with a tough build/class to fight against, hmp! You will feel hopeless, without a doubt.

So, are you complaining about a skill designed to be counterplay against stealth, working as a counter to stealth? Imo, if you are against a build/class that is designed to be effective against stealthers (Sic ‘em, Analyze etc) then yes, you SHOULD be at a disadvantage, otherwise that is not a viable build path on that other class. Don’t forget that those skills are for a special purpose and are inferior in-slot to many other utilities if used in a general sense against all non-stealthing classes. IE: those classes have taken a hit to their general effectiveness to be able to deal with stealthers.

Also: if the players are of a similar skill level, it is NOT an insta-kill ability. Thieves can have the highest level of mobility which will render melee useless in those 6-8s of revealed, and that same mobility can (if you are a good player) help you LOS to mitigate ranged dmg. On top of this there are many skills that the thief has that provide extra evasion (Death blossom, Withdraw, Roll for initiative, Evasive shot, Flanking strike).

There is no such thing as ‘CAUGHT’ in an open field in a 1v1 scenario, for a thief. Unless you are totally unaware that another player has been running towards you for the last 10s, you have plenty of time to disengage via stealth — before the enemy is in range to use Sic ’em or such. You are choosing to fight that ranger/engi in that terrain, and that is a poor choice made by you. If you think the enemy might be packing these skills you should instead refuse to fight until you can position in terrain better suited to you: forests, hilly/rocky areas/ruins etc.

I have no sympathy for those who want to be able to 1v1 any profession/build without changing their own set-up or tactics. Every profession should have a hard time against another profession that has built to counter them.

All that said, I would enjoy thieves getting a vitality buff — atm I feel I need to go Condi to have better survivability. I enjoy condi thief, but thematically I like direct damage as well as the general playstyle.

Yes scrubs run Sic em all the time. So why aren’t we given something to counter play other classes? Stolen items? Right… I’d expect you to kill engi with gunk. Atm the thief is almost countered by every class, placed at an obvious disadvantage. See you’ve even said that added vitality would be nice ==. You know I’d really like to duel you with my engi and show you how much of a pain ANALYSE can be. Death blossom pshhhh Flanking Strike? Are you even aware of the new patch? I agree with what you’ve stated about terrain but once you get on other classes you don’t even need a hill to gank other player of equal skill. Basically the thief is at every single disadvantage in terms of duels. (provided that they’re dueling experienced players of course)

So every ranger using Sic ‘em is a scrub? Every engi with analyze? Seriously? Do you always throw a tantrum when someone disagrees with you? These skills are niche abilities to counter stealth — most people do what I do and swap them in as soon as I see a thief on the horizon, *why wouldnt’ they use these skills*? I play thief as well as Ranger/Engi, I know how the skills work. I know from experience that thieves can still out-play based on positioning and evasions, from both sides of the engagement. Being unwilling to use evasion skills when they are needed is like being unwilling to dodgeroll, you deserve to take that hit if you don’t actively counter it. I’m not saying constantly deathblossom, but if you are stuck revealed and are out of dodgerolls and have big hits coming in? Why would you not use it?

Yes, I would like it if thieves got a vitality buff, but my reasoning for this has a lot more to do with the condition dmg changes and the changes to thieves condi removal rather than the revealed effects of Sic ’em and Analyze.

And seriously? “Duel me bro”? lol.

Ventari feedback

Ventari’s base amounts are too high. In full zerker gear, the tablet passing through you heals for 800, meaning a net gain of 400 health/second without building any healing power. If you do go for healing power, you get a net gain of 550 hp/s, and this isn’t including any ‘on-heal’ effects from runes/traits. This is too much healing to the group/second without building for a support role. I suggest lowering the base amount and perhaps upping the healing power ratio to compensate so that it is still a decent group utility skill — if you build for support. Another possible fix would be to leave the current effect but increase the cd on the Ventari heal to 5-8s which would put it more inline with the passive healing abilities of other classes and cut down on the next problem:

adept trait blinding truths. every time you move your tablet (every 2s) 5 enemies are blinded for 5s. leading to a huge amount of damage mitigation.This trait either needs an internal cooldown (suggested at 5-10s ICD) or to be moved to the grandmaster slot.

Runewolf.8456:

Idk about others but when mesmers have higher hp, higher burst potential, and more invuls and other damage mitigation than us, I don’t think getting both a HP and damage mitigation buff would hurt anyone especially since we’re supposed to be THE burst damage class and lord knows we aren’t gonna get a damage buff.

Really? Last I heard, Elementalists were supposed to be designed as the highest damage class. Thieves are supposed to excel at mobility/evasiveness, which they do.

Nephrite.6954:

You don’t have to worry one bit if you’re in spvp cause you either reset quick or spawn back fast when killed. The frustration of being Sic em and mauled down by some pew pew ranger in open field isn’t the best experience in WvWvW. Fine shortbow3 but what if you didn’t bring a weapon that evades or if shortbow is on cool down. Those guys are just scrubs but if you go head on against a truly good player with a tough build/class to fight against, hmp! You will feel hopeless, without a doubt.

So, are you complaining about a skill designed to be counterplay against stealth, working as a counter to stealth? Imo, if you are against a build/class that is designed to be effective against stealthers (Sic ‘em, Analyze etc) then yes, you SHOULD be at a disadvantage, otherwise that is not a viable build path on that other class. Don’t forget that those skills are for a special purpose and are inferior in-slot to many other utilities if used in a general sense against all non-stealthing classes. IE: those classes have taken a hit to their general effectiveness to be able to deal with stealthers.

Also: if the players are of a similar skill level, it is NOT an insta-kill ability. Thieves can have the highest level of mobility which will render melee useless in those 6-8s of revealed, and that same mobility can (if you are a good player) help you LOS to mitigate ranged dmg. On top of this there are many skills that the thief has that provide extra evasion (Death blossom, Withdraw, Roll for initiative, Evasive shot, Flanking strike).

There is no such thing as ‘CAUGHT’ in an open field in a 1v1 scenario, for a thief. Unless you are totally unaware that another player has been running towards you for the last 10s, you have plenty of time to disengage via stealth — before the enemy is in range to use Sic ’em or such. You are choosing to fight that ranger/engi in that terrain, and that is a poor choice made by you. If you think the enemy might be packing these skills you should instead refuse to fight until you can position in terrain better suited to you: forests, hilly/rocky areas/ruins etc.

I have no sympathy for those who want to be able to 1v1 any profession/build without changing their own set-up or tactics. Every profession should have a hard time against another profession that has built to counter them.

All that said, I would enjoy thieves getting a vitality buff — atm I feel I need to go Condi to have better survivability. I enjoy condi thief, but thematically I like direct damage as well as the general playstyle.

The gear didn’t make you not able to survive in AC. How do I know this? Because I ran it last night on my lvl80 venomshare condi thief. OH, and I was the only lvl 80 in the group. Every one else (some good RL buddies) was between lvl 30 and 77. No one had difficulties, I think there were only something like 3 total deaths. In fact, the run was pathetically easy, the entire group commented on how fast bosses were being downed.

WE DIDN"T NEED TO SEPARATE VASSAR AND RELENA.

I’m not saying there aren’t issues with the changes, but overall the changes have made content WAY easier.

Furthermore, we knew about these changes for a long time before they were implemented, and most people realized that they may need to exchange a piece of armor or two to maintain their current stat spread. If you didn’t prepare for a change you knew was being implemented, then it is NOT Anet’s fault.

Al Masone.1274:

I’m gonna try and suggest something new for the class, just because
New necro only condition:
Rot (or call it what u want)
a percentage (10% or more) of the damage you take doesn’t affect you instantly, instead it makes you rot over X seconds. Deals 33% less damage while in death shroud
Counts as a condition for related traits and abilities
Nothing brand new, I don’t know if any of the other classes already have something like that, but in other games there is something like it.
could be implemented as a trait or as an ability effect. I’d prefer the second option. Well of power or well of darkness could apply it, as could poison cloud and plague signet

This wouldn’t be a condition… it would be a boon. Conditions do not have positive effects. Unless it takes 10% of the direct damage you take and apply it again over time, it wouldn’t be a condition.

As a class effect it could be implemented but they are already very anxious about making the class too tanky. Additionally, if this effect were a trait it would become a mandatory grandmaster, cutting down on build diversity.

It’s a decent idea, I just don’t think it would be implemented.

babazhook.6805:

Zephyra.4709:

I picked up my condi thief a few days ago after patch etc. I like it even more.

Melted faces

Why?

- basically a venom share thief now (poison + torment + bas venom)
- improvisation trait sometimes lands on venoms and boyyyy when it does the aids are REALLLLL
- when I use a heal skill it places a trap (immobilize etc)
- despite flat 30% boon/condi DURATION being totally wiped from old trait lines I’m still sitting at 60-70% condi duration
- Torment Runes are hilarious (I got sick of Krait and wanted to try out torment)
- instead of daze on steal I have confusion as it is now a DoT condi

Basically this build is the queen of aids and it works for me. 60% of the time I don’t even use SR because my 2nd wep set is D/P.

My only problems so far:

- constantly swapping out movement speed signet for SR when enemy is near or if I have time
- trap ranger (because 2 on you at the same time with 8 burn stacks + a plethora of other god-knows-what condis on you is not fun)
- little to no stun breaks save for P/D skill #3 which is the lol factor of this aids build (torment is fun)
- other condi classes in general

It’s a fun build. I like it and I’m having fun.

Curious. Do you trait pressure strike in there? With d/p off hand and basi venom you got some good interrupt access. With them torment runes I know the torment off the 6 bonus is quite long. Which heal do you use? If it hide in shadows you can place that trap from respite right at the guys feet and load torment on him> rather nice.

I run a similar set up, and I do take pressure striking and perp runes in addition to bewildering ambush. I mostly just roam with small groups and we are very effective.

I generally use SR, Skale Ven and Spider Ven and Basi but I’ll take thieves guild if I only have 3 buddies to ensure I get the full effect of the venom share — meaning that every engage I am personally responsible for pumping out 20stax of torment, 20 stax vuln, 30 stax poison, 10 stacks confusion and roughly 10 stax bleeding on target in a VERY short timeframe. Pretty much anyone not capable of a full cleanse just gets bursted. Oh, and 6 stax of might to the group for 20s.

IMO, condi thief has never been stronger, but hey to each their own I guess.

“You want to weigh in on this one Oberon?”

“Nope.”

“…You sure? I’ve got this 10ft pole!”

“Nah, I’m good.”

Ephemiel.5694:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

To clarify: $50 is the price of the expansion. We included the core game as a free bonus to make it easier for new players to get into it.

Can i ask why you decided on $50 when expansions like Heavensward are actually cheaper?

Seriously? This is like asking why Brand A is 10$ cheaper than Brand B when they sell similar products.

They are different games by different companies. They are allowed to have different prices, and they aren’t even that far off. On top of that, FF14 is subbed, so the you are actually paying MORE for FF14….

Conncept.7638:

Oberon Vex.1389:

CrimsonDX.4821:

Taglor Anwamane.9468:

This is nothing short of an insult to every single one of those who have been loyally playing for so long. They’re giving new players the expansion practically for free in comparison!
And it’s not as if they’re offering a full game’s worth of content, either.

Get off your high horse.

Given the amount of free content they have given us since launch, this is nothing. Certainly far less than what we would have paid in total subscription costs since launch

+1.

While the execution is perhaps clunky, the value of the price is something we the customer cannot know until we play. It is entirely possible the new campaign against Morde will be as expansive and lengthy as the one against zhaitan — whether in entirely new maps or revisiting older ones with new instanced story areas.

It is possible that the content of the expansion is fully worth the 50$ price tag — which lets be honest, is pretty kitten common for an expansion of a AAA MMO — so please can we shelf the outrage for a bit? Until we KNOW it’s not worth it?

Finally: no one is forcing you to pre-order. If the price is outrageous to you, or you cannot stomach that they tacked on the core game so that new players dont’ have to shell out $110 to get into the game, then do not pre-order the xpac. Wait for launch. Wait to see if they lower the price, or offer a discounted “Account Upgrade” version in the gemstore. Or — and just hear me out on this one: wait until more information about the expansion is available and make an informed decision. Boom.

Load of bullcrap and you know it.

I support most of ANets decisions but this regularly parroted claim about how we ‘deserve’ to take every dishonest monetization decision ANet makes up the kitten without complaining, because of the living story, is a great big steaming pile of crap.

I have never played an MMO where the developer don’t continue putting out content between expansions, regardless of whether it is free, purchase, or pay to play. And there are games that push out far more content between expansion than GW2, the LS has been nothing special when it comes to between expansion content, and it is no justification for ANets many and varied poor monetization decisions.

Pretty sure I didn’t mention anything about LS. Perhaps you meant to quote the user I quoted? Or at least include my points in your dismissal… :/

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.

Ok. Then don’t apply the upgrade to your account and enjoy your new base game plus HoT in addition to the acct you have played for years.

If you buy the product and then choose to apply it to your account, that is on you. You are the one throwing away your new (free) copy of the game. That is your choice.

Phat Stackage.5329:

Illyria.9306:

You just lost any players that were planning to come back to the game for the expansion. There were so many people that had left the game and then got back on the hype train for the expansion and are immediately going to balk at the fact that they have to buy the game all over again. And then, you have the people that bought the game recently because they heard about the expansion and assumed that they would need the core game to experience the expansion, now they are faced with the idea that they are going to have to buy a game that they already paid for in the last couple month all over again…

Well said. this pretty much sums up the wide spread anger.

Except you don’t. The price of the expansion is 50$ — a price that is on par with any other high-end MMO expansion, and spot on what many people were speculating. What people can’t seem to under stand is that they included the base game FOR FREE so that new players don’t need to shell out $110 to play all the content that is available right now.

No one would be ‘outraged’ if the price was 50$ for the expansion without the ‘base game add-on’.

No one was outraged when they sold the base game on special weekends for exceedingly low prices. This is exactly the same.

Why do people feel the need to rage at something that doesn’t effect them in anyway??

CrimsonDX.4821:

Taglor Anwamane.9468:

This is nothing short of an insult to every single one of those who have been loyally playing for so long. They’re giving new players the expansion practically for free in comparison!
And it’s not as if they’re offering a full game’s worth of content, either.

Get off your high horse.

Given the amount of free content they have given us since launch, this is nothing. Certainly far less than what we would have paid in total subscription costs since launch

+1.

While the execution is perhaps clunky, the value of the price is something we the customer cannot know until we play. It is entirely possible the new campaign against Morde will be as expansive and lengthy as the one against zhaitan — whether in entirely new maps or revisiting older ones with new instanced story areas.

It is possible that the content of the expansion is fully worth the 50$ price tag — which lets be honest, is pretty kitten common for an expansion of a AAA MMO — so please can we shelf the outrage for a bit? Until we KNOW it’s not worth it?

Finally: no one is forcing you to pre-order. If the price is outrageous to you, or you cannot stomach that they tacked on the core game so that new players dont’ have to shell out $110 to get into the game, then do not pre-order the xpac. Wait for launch. Wait to see if they lower the price, or offer a discounted “Account Upgrade” version in the gemstore. Or — and just hear me out on this one: wait until more information about the expansion is available and make an informed decision. Boom.

most xpacs are $50 or thereabouts for big-title MMO’s. I’m fine with the price, so long as the content of the xpac is on par with those other MMO’s. So far we’ve only seen a small slice,; perhaps there is more coming, perhaps the story and events will take us back into current zones, who knows? I’ll save my outrage until I know for a fact that the price isn’t worth it.

As for including the base game? This is just good marketing. It lowers the initial cost for new players to get into the game. I would not be surprised AT ALL if they offer a reduced price ‘account upgrade’ in the gemstore after launch — it is the PRE-ORDER that is $50. You do not have to get it now. You can get it at launch for likely a different price (higher or lower, who knows).

Vayne.8563:

So what you’re saying is, to paraphrase, because Anet isn’t giving us information, people are right to analyze every syllable, blow it out of proportion and then blame Anet for saying stuff.

The problem is, the more people do this, the less likely Anet is to say stuff, and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

If we are mature enough to not play the blame game (which is counter productive anyway) and to relax a bit and just take things in stride, take a reasonable approach instead of breaking out pitchforks immediately, we might in fact not be in the situation we’re in. It’s the chicken and the egg thing.

Anet was, at one point, somewhat more up front with us. At some point they decided to tell us less. I’m guessing that’s a reaction to the unreasonable over-reaction of a small but vocal percentage of the fan base.

I disagree. How Anet is handling information dissemination is directly at the root of the issue. They are being very closed-mouthed about topics and revealing very little information to cultivate mystique and excite their players. They are actively inviting speculation by giving us tiny glimpses of what may be coming. Are they responsible for the content of that player speculation? No, not at all. Players themselves are the ones over-hyping, but Anet IS feeding it and making it happen, on purpose — it’s part of their marketing and development strategy.

Ashen.2907:

Oberon Vex.1389:

My issue is that ‘extra cool’ should be so for EVERY player. Every player would be happy with that info, or about guildhalls, or about how they will handle difficult content in HoT, or any number of other things that have not been announced and will impact EVERY player.

Not possible.

I for example, don’t really care about the very things that you describe as being what you (or your fictional every player) were interested in. The information that was released was of far more interest to me than any of the things you mention.

While every player has their own opinion, and perhaps I mis-spoke by saying ‘every’, I find it really hard to believe that you don’t want to hear about any of those things listed. You don’t want the new traits/specialization patch? You don’t want customizable guild-centered maps for your guild? You don’t want to see anything outside of WvW?

I can accept that there are players that ONLY play GW2 for WvW, and any such players definitely have as much need for new info as any player that focuses purely on any other aspect (PvE or sPvP), but even then the announced changes are not only limited in scope, but based around a policy that is systematically dumbing the game down.

Ideally they would be increasing complexity of the game while making the UI easier to use and understand, but they seem to be taking a different tact.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Oberon Vex.1389:

Satenia.9025:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Heck, we could even have a Braham and Taimi storyline too, seeing how much they care for each other. The sky’s the limit!

What do you guys think? Does the upcoming Chapel sound like a great idea or what???

Uh… I think we’ll have a legal problem here.

And a pretty massive logistics problem

There shouldn’t be any legal or logistical problems. The Chapel is being built offsite, and airlifted to the island.

I thought the internet had ruined all of us, I was mistaken. Flee this place, lest you be corrupted :P

Satenia.9025:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Heck, we could even have a Braham and Taimi storyline too, seeing how much they care for each other. The sky’s the limit!

What do you guys think? Does the upcoming Chapel sound like a great idea or what???

Uh… I think we’ll have a legal problem here.

And a pretty massive logistics problem

Vayne.8563:

Okay one person said one thing on one podcast and everyone is thinking great things are afoot.

I don’t get this at all. People wonder why Anet says nothing ever about anything. This is why.

Because they did say great things are a foot. If you accept that their usual podcasts are ‘cool’ then logically they are saying next week is going to be ‘cooler’ than this week. I do not find the WvW changes they listed cooler than elite specializations. It is PR-speak, but this is also why there are people who’s sole job is public relations.

I would have loved to see them do something with the mercenary camps in WvW, perhaps give them upgrades or allow them to build racial siege equipment or make them do an event that other players contest…

What if they made the dredge have an event where they tunneled into a nearby tower? Or have the Ogres bring a massive battering ram that does more damage? There are many things they could have done to make WvW more complex and interesting, but they did nothing of the sort — they made it simpler and less skillful.

The Content of this Week’s News

Lion’s Arch Rebuild

Excellent. I’m excited to see this happen! I love that GW2 has dynamic development that leaves persistent changes in places like L.A. and I’m very happy to see that tradition continue.

I’m a little less happy about the current implementation. Don’t get me wrong: I love that players can vote on the names of landmarks, that is 100% top shelf, thanks Anet — what I’m disappointed about here is that there doesn’t appear to be any playable content to go along with these changes. I know it’s early days yet, and I’ll hold out hope that there will be a little mini story-arc with the consortium or something, or perhaps a dynamic event in L.A. similar to the holiday events or something, but pleaaaase don’t just have npc’s working in the background and suddenly poof we have a shiny new LA. We, as players, have been spoiled by the constant content updates and we’re in a dry spell — we are all dying for something new and shiny to play with, not just look at.

WvW Ability Changes

I am… undecided on whether I like the thought of these changes. On the one hand, it’s great that the over-powered buffs are gone, but on the other hand… it sets a disturbing trend. Anet has been very clear that it wants to attract and cater to new players and to make learning the game fun and easy, however I’m a little disappointed that they are doing so by nerfing long-time players. Don’t get me wrong, Applied Fortitude and Strength were really strong and required a massive time investment to get — I agree that there needed to be a change to remove and/or limit this time-gate for WvW. The issue is: players earned those buffs, and now those players who did spend the time to acquire those buffs have nothing to show for it. Yes, they can invest those points into other things, but they have lost something they chose to get, and I think that’s a bit unfair. In my opinion, a better solution would have been to keep the buffs, but make them at 5 ranks into their respective lines, and perhaps nerf the specific number of stats they give.

I am concerned for GW2’s future, as long time players need to have rewards for their time investment. I agree that new players shouldn’t feel beholden to take certain traits or abilities, or be overly disadvantaged against a long-time player, but we need to have some things to work for. We need challenging content and we need difficult to acquire or limited-time skins to feel rewarded for our loyalty and time investment.

WvW Upgrade Changes

Again, undecided, but I have some serious concerns over this one. I am from a small server that is fairly low on the ratings (IoJ) and I think these changes might just kill WvW for my server. When upgrades took resources and gold, there were always at least a few paper towers that could be easily flipped. With the proposed changes most everything will be fully upgraded and I am concerned over one server dominating the matchup. As I said, IoJ is a small server, and there are times when there are very few people running about WvW — if it only takes an hour or two, by the time my server has another zerg going, everything will be fully upgraded and we’ll have a disproportionately hard time to regain our territories. I like that this will advocate a more active playstyle and rewards defensive play, but I’m unhappy that it also rewards inaction.

Nothing is required from the players to upgrade objectives anymore. There is no choice or strategy, just hold the line and get those dolyaks through. I’m interested to see how WvW will change, but I’m a little disheartened that it is becoming more simple.

Closed Beta

Woot, pure hype for this! Of course I can’t participate as I didn’t get a portal for my efforts on that event, but the lack of an NDA will make me happy with news next week

Warning: wall of text about one player’s personal opinion.

I am somewhat disappointed with how information was presented this week. The subjects discussed and the particular information isn’t my issue (though I do have some concerns over some of the WvW changes) but rather how and when said information was presented. Now this is just the opinion of one person who has played off-and-on since beta and it may very well be that I am alone in my disappointment — after all the particular information may be along the lines of what a considerable portion of the population want — but this topic is more or less an open letter to Anet so let’s get started.

Semantics in Gaming Media

My first issue is with the phrase ‘extra cool’. This phrase was used at the end of PoI last week to tease us about the following week’s information. My problem is that it means different things to different people. For some, this week’s info is dead on that ‘extra cool’ description but is not for me. If we consider the Elite Specializations as ‘cool’ I am expecting something more interesting than the next elite specialization.

Now, if any of you popped into my other topic this week, you’ll know that I postulated a rather outlandish thought — one that was quite unrealistic by any measure but an example of what I thought ‘extra cool’ could mean. For those who did not pop in, I thought perhaps they were announcing the date of the specializations patch for Vanilla with updated numbers for trait tooltips. There was no information to corroborate this, I was wrong, that is not my issue. My issue is that ‘extra cool’ should be so for EVERY player. Every player would be happy with that info, or about guildhalls, or about how they will handle difficult content in HoT, or any number of other things that have not been announced and will impact EVERY player. There are players who do not touch WvW and for them this week is a total let down. For the record I DO dabble in WvW, though I wouldn’t consider it a main focus of mine, and I found some of the changes interesting, others disheartening.

I realize that as livestream hosts covering a game that is in development they have to say things to keep people interested but please be careful with how things are worded! This leads me to my second issue:

Closed Door Development

I get that you are still making the game, I get that plans change… But what is the use of keeping us in suspense? There is no logical reason that I can think of to not disclose next week’s topic at the end of each friday’s livestream. I say this because everyone who is interested in GW2 will be watching/listening/reading about that info next week anyway! If we are straight-up told what to expect one week from now, there can be no complaints due to vaguely worded comments (as above), and you can still keep whatever internal schedule you have.

Furthermore, the suspense of being in the dark every week is stressful! We are all fans of the franchise and fans of this game, but it is physically impossible to be excited for 6 months straight, so why try to keep the same level of tension? My understanding is we are still a couple months at the least from launch (which is a completely arbitrary guess based on exceedingly limited information and more than one assumption) so I don’t understand the theatrics. After a certain number of dramatic reveals players will become numb and their interest will fade to an average level. I understand company policy, but we fans are going to be buying the xpac anyway :/

Double presenting information

We were told last friday that the information THIS week would need a full livestream to present. Ok. Sounds good, we’re getting a highlight on some new feature, great. However, the contents of this week’s Ready Up were already presented on thursday in the blog. There were perhaps 2 clarifications, but the exceedingly large majority of the information was contained in the blog post, verbatim. Even to the bullet points.

I know a livestream is a different medium, but it would be nice to get either new, more specific information or details, or perhaps a case study on a particular reason for a particular change. Personally, I felt my time was wasted watching this week’s Ready-Up. There was no new information and while I am somewhat intrigued by the idea of the theorycrafting duels (I do love me some theorycrafting), I can think of several other things I’d prefer to see in terms of GW2 news.

Justine.6351:

What is spanner?

a spanner is a wrench. It’s referring to utility consumables like maintenance oils and sharpening stones.

Ephemiel.5694:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Ephemiel.5694:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

Ephemiel.5694:

I actually asked them in their Facebook if this ended up being the “surprise” they had for this week and all i got was a snarky comment from Rubi Bayer saying that they’ll only show specs when they’re ready.

That was actually me. I sign my posts with RB. Rubi signs her posts with RB2.

What you asked was whether the Lion’s Arch info was the reason there was no specs reveal. To pit these two pieces of information against each other misunderstands the game development process and the fact that we have different teams working on different features. The folks working on Lion’s Arch are not the same people we have working on profession specializations. As I said on Facebook: we release information when we’re ready to do so. If we haven’t revealed something, it’s because we’re not ready yet.

I merely asked if that was the reason, there was no need to say a snarky comment at me at all about “we reveal stuff when they’re ready”.

By the way, since you “don’t reveal things if they’re not ready”, i’ll assume that means you don’t have any other spec ready to be revealed and whatever news Anet has for us is simply a way to take this week’s time while another spec is fully ready to be shown?

Sounds to me like you attitude deserves all the snark it receives.

“We release information when we’re ready to do so.” is not the same thing as “We reveal stuff when they’re ready.”

It means that when we’re ready to tell you, you’ll get told. None of this is “ready,” Hell, the Engineer wasn’t even in engine when they revealed specializations. But they were ready to tell us about them, so that’s when.

You asked if they were revealing something, but they’re not ready to tell us what they’re revealing, whether or not it is LA. They will tell us what the big surprise is on Friday, maybe before but probably on Friday. That’s when they’ll be ready, and so that’s when we’ll find out.

I asked if the Lion’s Arch survey thing was the something and she never answered, instead she simply said what akin to “we’ll tell you when we’re ready, shut up”. Please don’t be a drone instantly saying i deserve snarky comments simply for asking.

Wow, ok, slow down there buddy. A dev stating Anet’s official stance on revealing info is no where near the personal attack as you are making it out to be.

That said, I would be massively disappointed if this LA patch is all that they meant when they said a ‘big surprise’. I mean, sure its nice LA is finally gettin rebuilt, and the world is changing, yadda yadda yadda; but considering there doesn’t seem to be any playable content to go with the news, I really don’t think there is any reason for them to have deviated from their reveals for this.

To me, this means the live-stream on friday will be the surprise. Likely Guildhalls, but perhaps announcing the launch date for the specialization patch with the finalized traits — engi’s had a lot of TBD’s and necro was getting major revamps in the Blood and Death Magic lines.

I don’t think it will be announcing the beta. I say this because not everyone will be IN the beta, and for those thousands of players not lucky enough to be involved, it is not going to be worth the same value — aka non-beta players would undoubtedly much prefer the next reveal.

Donari.5237:

Oberon Vex.1389:

Any information on the week it launches will be overshadowed, so why compete with it?

Because we can handle more than one small piece of information at a time and contribute to more than one thread’s stream of thought?

The point isn’t that we wouldn’t receive the information. The point is everyone will be playing with their new toys and there will be less enthusiasm for the spec reveal. As much as I’d like it to be the spec system patch, I realize its unlikely at this point — however I do think they will dedicate a full week to that patch in terms of news.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

On what basis are you assuming this?

I’m afraid not many people will give this post any thought/credibility without some kind of evidence to support your conspiracy.

They have stated the spec system will be live before HoT, and whenever they introduce it, that will be what players are focused on — rebuilding due to the trait and stat changes.

Any information on the week it launches will be overshadowed, so why compete with it?

As many of you know, there won’t be an elite specialization reveal this week. Some people have put forward other interesting ideas as to what they might do, such as outline guild-halls or another special feature of HoT. But what if they are patching in the specialization system??

Silv.9207:

To apply 25 stack of vulnerability you need 5-6 seconds (if you’re not interrupted) with also the new shout skills. In that 5 seconds you don’t deal damage (or low damage) and the enemy can attack you and clean conditions.

With the actual meta builds (and it will still remain like it is, if there’s not a very big change in all the game mechanics) use a build that focus all on 2 conditions is a bad idea. A condi build can work because work on 5-6 conditions. But if you play as a dps and focus on chill and vulnerability, every class can clean you conditions or prevent them (block, blind, immunity….).
And there’s much better class to strip boons, like mesmer and engi.

1. Applying your vuln will take 2s (3/4 cast for Reapers Touch and 1s cast for “Nothing can save you”) maybe milk it to 3 with aftercast and any delay on your individual client-side.

2. This build relies on chill and vuln, but those are not the only conditions it applies. The build uses Signet of Spite and Reaper of Grenth to cover your important conditions. If 10s (due to the cover conditions from SoS being 10s durations) of 100% crit chance isn’t enough to kill your enemy while they are chilled, then you probably aren’t going to win anyway.

I’ll allow that total set up time will edge closer to 5s if you do the full combo (Reaper’s touch → “Nothing can save you” →Signet of Spite →Reaper of Grenth. But in all reality, you don’t necessarily NEED reaper of grenth on, and many won’t have it (due to not being human).

I don’t agree that engi’s are better boon strippers, and that’s not terribly on topic in any event — this is a necro build. The build has 2 boonstrips that will remove a combined 5 boons every 35s.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

So basically OP if everything is stacked in your favor and your opponents mouse has stopped working in a game mode not meant for 1v1 balance…? i’m not too worried lol.

Not particularly…? the build can apply its 20+ stax of vuln within a second or two and proceed from there. There is as little set up for it as there is for other meta builds, and counter play is limited to clutch condi removal and kiting :/

Sigmoid.7082:

Balekai.6083:

xDudisx.5914:

What will you do against players using -97% (40% food, 25/20 melandru/hoelbrak , -33% trait like doged march, geomancers training etc..) ? Or automated responses engi?

He could take condi duration + power food instead. That would get that 97% to 57% and 37% for chills, while still maintaining his condi application somewhat. Vulnerability stacks would be around 3.5-4.5 seconds against an anti-condi build compared to 8-10 seconds (?) usually.

Not to mention if its carrion gear there would still be s lot of power damage going out.

Think reapers natural enemies will be classes that are extremely ranged like GS mesmer and ranger.

Mmmm this build is a power spec. I do think there will be some very strong Condi reaper builds and hybrid will be viable as well, but this build uses chill for a snare and Vuln for the damage increase. It has a decent amount of other cover conditions as well, so I’m not overly concerned about reductions. Having Runes of Ice and being reaper spec means +50% chill duration, and you could further increase this with a Sigil of Chilling to increase to +70% chill duration if everyone and their mother takes the -movespeed condition duration traits (which may very well be the case now that traitlines don’t have stats). And as Baelkai mentioned, the condi-duration food is a viable pick too -- in which case even with your -97% gear and traits, you are still getting a net increase on incoming chills of +3% duration (as condi-duration caps at 100% and I dont’ think it factors in any % reductions before that cap. You MIGHT be lucky and see a 13% increase if so though).

Every build and option has counterplay, and in all honesty, the mobility condition duration traits/runes is a pretty minor fix for this build, though straight removal would be problematic as it would allow you to be kited and drop your dps if they remove vuln.

Resistance should be a minor inconvenience to this build (and necro’s in general) due to the large array of boon-strip that we have available. I can fully see Necro’s becoming a major condi threat with the introduction of another unique condi dmg (chill) and other classes getting resistance boons. The only other classes that get boonstrip are thieves and mesmers, so that means any other class that wants to run condi specs will need to invest in sigils of nullification or be at a extreme disadvantage against any class that is able to have moderate resistance uptime.

LughLongArm.5460:

The new and improved terromancer can kill a thief with 1 lucky fear.

Not even lucky. The RS fear is PBAoE :O

I think Reaper works better for Power builds on paper, but Dhuumfire with RS auto will be pretty brutal — it attacks faster than DS, and uses an arc/zone instead of a line so you will most likely inflict more burning overall in group fights.

I’d prolly go something like this for a hybrid reaper:

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQG7AKkBaw~

or this for a straight condi:

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQG6AKsBaw~

Well… if you know the thief is near you while stealthed, you could always just RS 4 about the place and down him (if he’s glass)

@FoeFaller It may very well be possible, but there ARE tools to force the close ranged fight. Lots of chill application for snare (including a ranged option via Focus 5), a ranged immobo from Dagger 3, a pull on GS, a pull from your utilities (if you take Spectral Grasp), and a fairly short cd leap in RS. I’m not saying its not a serious weakness of the build, but I’ll need to play it in game to definitively say the above isn’t good enough for the average fight.

Dagger/focus feels right to me because its good at stacking life force and has high utility while still leaning to a power spec. Warhorn might be an option to have decent upkeep of swiftness, but due to the dependancy on Decimate Defenses, I wanted to have as much vulnerability as possible. So to keep focus that limits ranged weapons to axe and scepter, of which only axe would be relevant for the gear choices, and I don’t personally like Necro Axe. I suppose you could drop GS for Staff, but GS is new and shiny. It’ll take some actual experience with the reaper to sort it all out, but I think this build is a decent starting point.

@WhiteCrow This specialization has been stated by devs to be good vs large numbers but weaker to individual combat due to the nature of the utilities. I made this build to highlight the fact that it is the player’s choice of utilities that dictates its efficacy vs certain enemies/groups rather than a flat answer of “reaper isn’t good in 1v1”.

Vizardlorde.8243:

So a wvw dueling build? Racials ar not allowed in pvp.

Yes, this build is geared for solo roaming / small group play in WvW. There is also food mentioned. I did give two options to replace the racial though, so I’m not sure why you couldn’t run this in sPvP using one of those options.

Weapons: Soldiers GS + Dagger/Focus

GS sigils: Sigil of Strength + Sigil of Force
Dagger/Focus Sigils: Sigil of Strength + Sigil of Bloodlust/Cruelty

Armor/trinks: Cavalier’s
Rune: toying with the idea of Runes of Ice, but Runes of Strength and Traveller’s will both be good alternatives (depending on actual play).

Heal: Consume Conditions

Utilities: Signet of Spite, “No one can save you!” —third slot is your swing slot, so whatever you prefer, I’m going to be trying Spectral Grasp first, but I suspect there will be enough chill generation without it and I’ll end up swapping to Spectral Armor or a well for general use.

Elite: Reaper of Grenth. If you are not a human choose either Flesh Golem or “Chilled to the bone” — this build focuses on Reaper’s Shroud for damage so any transform skill will kitten you. I personally do not like the Golem and I have no real idea on how the new elite shout will work in game, and the goal of this build is small fights where Chilled to the Bone won’t be as effective.

Foods: Sweet & Spicy Butternut Squash Soup, Furious Sharpening Stone

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQBqAa0BWg~

Atm, this set up will give you 2.3k power, 3k armor, 20k HP, 4% crit chance and 212% crit dmg.

General idea is to amass life force while holding back two of your vulnerability skills. Focus 4 and Greatsword 3 will both put 12 stacks of vulnerability on your target, though ideally you would use one and then “No one can save you” to strip 2 boons (and thus apply another 10 stacks of vulnerability) and then pop Signet of Spite to cover your stacks of vulnerability and go in to Reaper’s shroud and go ham. If the foe fails to either a) dodge your vulnerabilty inflicting attacks or b) does not cleanse them before you can cover with Signet of Spite you will have 100% crit-chance as you go to town on their face in Reaper’s Shroud.

With the traits in this build, you will be constantly re-applying vulnerability in RS from you auto (which also gives you might, life-force and healing) and passively via proximity due to the Death Shiver trait, so you will maintain a high level of crit chance.

The reason for not building crit chance is so you can gain more defenses while still maintaining high direct damage. Yes your foe can remove vulnerability, but this is difficult due to the conditions you will be passively covering it with (chill and poison from Reaper of Grenth) and the fact that you have 4 abilities that apply a decent number of stacks of Vulnerability — so eventually, even if they are on the ball, your 4 cooldowns will overcome their condi-removal unless they have based their build around condi removal or have access to mass cleanse via Null field or similar.

You are sustained by Blighter’s Boon as every attack in RS will heal you, while your health pool is protected by being in RS. If you do not detonate Infusing Terror (Reaper Shroud #3) you will also gain further healing, in addition to having decent stability for your larger RS attacks.

I am going to look into replacing Chilling Nova (Reaper trait II) with Relentless Pursuit (Reaper trait III), but will try II first.

This build is meant to focus on being IN RS most of the time, but I may need to add a few zerker pieces (or perhaps swap to a maintenance oil) to give enough crit chance out of RS — When in a small group where your teammate can give you fury, it will be alright, but Decimate Defenses will not be enough on its own and certainly won’t be reliable.

They designed the utility skills to work in large groups, but the traits, weapon skills and F1 skills are insanely strong for small group play too.

Thoughts? Criticisms?

Vizardlorde.8243:

Oberon Vex.1389:

In all honesty? Yes. The only game mode that these utilities will be weak in is sPvP. These skills will be very strong in PvE and in zerg fights — in fact I fully expect Reapers will be mandatory for any guild wanting to do any sort of zerg busting. The only lack-luster skill is the heal, and I only say that tentatively as I’m not 100% sure how epic the reaper shroud will be (and thus, the importance of life-force gain). These skills will be viable in any game mode where you can expect to be out-numbered.

“Rise” + “Death Nova” in a zerg situation? the little jagged horrors will die instantly in the AoE, triggering bursts of damage and poison stacking (which if you take death magic, will also increase your defense).

“You are all weaklings!” is a great source of weakness — its not high uptime on its own but that is aoe defense for your fellow zerglings. The +20 stax of might is gravy for a follow up skill and will allow you to hit a disgusting “Gravedigger” in the middle of the enemy zerg to mow down your foes.

“Suffer” is a good defensive shout with condi transfer and chill application (due to Cold Shoulder trait), though the chill isn’t all that long.

“Nothing can save you” is a great boonstrip that caters to power builds: if you take the Decimate Defenses trait you will get +20% crit chance when removing two boons IN ADDITION to making your attacks unblockable and the +10% dmg you get from the vulnerability. This skill is freaking epic.

The elite “Chilled to the Bone” is going to absolutely smash zergs — 2s stun on 5 targets plus heaps of chill and equally long RESISTANCE boon on self. You will have no problem tossing this out in a zerg even if you don’t have stability because odds are the 2 people that notice YOU and what SKILL you are using will not have the time to process this before the effect goes off, simply due to the chaotic nature of zerg fights and dealing with 10+ enemies at once.

I know numbers might change, but kitten, these skills are strong and give the necro a defined role in two out of three game types :/

Or you could drop 2 wells and a sprectal wall from a safe distance and have better results without putting yourself at risk. And 5 people dont make a zerg, wall has limitless targets and well durations allow them to hit multiple targets if someone dies or moves out of them.

Not really. While specwall is great in a lot of ways, it forces those targets to run away from you and thus your zerg; this will be better if you are a Reaper, as those foes will also be chilled, but it remains a weakness in terms of the skill’s use in an offensive manner.

And well’s are zone denial weapons — no one person is going to stay in a well for any length of time if they are not heavily controlled via stuns/immobo so you can’t expect their full effect to be placed on a particular foe. In this way the shouts are superior — while they may not effect as many total targets (due to enemies entering and leaving the well) they DO totally effect 5 targets: 5 targets lose boons and get 10stax of vuln, 5 targets get condi’s and chill etc and there is VERY little counterplay. Foes effected by your shouts are hampered directly and are easier to kill whereas you may end up dealing more total damage via a well, but that damage is split into small packets amongst a much larger number of enemies and thus is fairly ineffectual (by yourself).