Guild Wars 2

Masteries replace the need to add levels.

GW2 is a game where raising the max level wouldn’t actually add anything to the game. It would just be a less interesting xp progression mechanism than masteries.

Maybe just have the 80+ levels be cosmetic, one for each mastery you max if people just want bigger numbers. We don’t need any more vertical gear stat progression.

GW1 get through two campaigns and an expansion without raising the cap, and it was fun to play through that content because it was designed to be challenging rather than designed to make you grind for xp and replace gear.

I’d prefer to see GW2 going forward do the same thing. Leveling to max in GW1 was really just so you could learn to play your class, same as in GW2, and there’s no good reason to break that formula since masteries are a much better ongoing character advancement system.

Krysard.1364:

PopeUrban.2578:

Two classes with large EHP pools and invulns/stability don’t need a way to stomp faster.

Thief did, as he’s far more likely to just die if he has to hang around to stomp, and he has no invulns or stability to stomp in the middle of a fight.

Thief can easily stomp if needed thanks to stealth/blinds. Not the best profession doing this but he have good tools for

Right, but a DD specced thief (the one that has this new elite) is encouraged to not take those stealths and blinds in favor of more evasion. Thus, it makes perfect sense that he might want to use this elite in stead of taking a stealth that is counter to his new build, or being forced in to offhand pistol.

The whole point of Daredevil, is, after all, to meake a stealthless thief a viable option, and a stealthless thief wouldn’t be able to stomp with just the blind from his staff.

Keep in mind it’s a cleanse on evade not on dodge

This means it triggers on any evade, not just evades from dodge. This includes d/d and s/d 2, sb 3, any outside source of evade granted by allies, and probably a couple more I can’t think of right now.

It’s actually a very powerful trait, especially considering it stacks with a 400+ heal on evade, and if it were downgraded to minor they’d have to ICD it in to uselessness.

As is it’s a solid choice when compared to the other options. If you’re running a stealth build, it’s probably not a priority for you, if you’re running in a group with a lot of outside cleanse, again, probably not a big deal.

DD actually has a place in a lot of stealth builds, and I can see viable */p stealth gank builds that would still take SA with it and wouldn’t benefit quite as much, but would get tons of utility and damage from the extra damage on interrupt. I can see staff builds for group fights that would rather have the extra end and staff damage to keep from getting spiked and rely on allied cleanses. Builds that don’t need cleanse on evade are typically geared to get more use out of stuff like withdraw, shadowstep, and SA.

This trait seems to be the option for the heavier dodgetank style builds as a way to allow them to skip withdraw and shadowstep since they have the option to take the mobility from staff or a dodge replacement in stead.

Acrobatics needs help.

Core specs retain the ability to use 3 core trait lines. Some builds just don’t work without that third core trait line.

Elite specs force a trait line, giving you some mechanical changes, but locking you in to the spec trait line for your third. They need to run another balance pass on the core trait lines to make sure it’s still attractive to run 3 core trait lines for some classes, but the idea is that taking an elite spec is going to lock out out of certain core build options because of the trait line.

Two classes with large EHP pools and invulns/stability don’t need a way to stomp faster.

Thief did, as he’s far more likely to just die if he has to hang around to stomp, and he has no invulns or stability to stomp in the middle of a fight.

Dagger storm is perfectly fine at what it’s supposed to do. It grants projectile reflect, a buttload of whirl finishers, procs a massive number of hits for signet of malice against groups of foes, and is a massive sustain buff when using SoM.

It is intended for use on a large number of targets at range, so it’s less useful in small fights, just like BV is less useful in large fights.

If anything is just needs either more stability stacks or a shorter CD, but the basic function of the skill is fine as it is. It also might be a good idea to give it back its old cancel ability, allowing the stability portion to keep running even if you dodge out of the spin.

It’s an excellent counter versus range, and it’s weak to melee, but it is not in any way a bad elite functionally. like any skill you have to use it when it’s situationally appropriate. Would you use heartseeker on a full HP target, or headshot on someone not using any skills, or the new elite in PvE?

You shouldn’t expect every skill to be good in every situation. Daggerstorm is a great skill in the situations it is designed for and might just need a little tweak to its stability or cooldown.

All the enemy would need to do is walk somewhere near the smoke field, as the trait that grants the leap finisher also deals damage, which would cause the thief to reveal themselves.

It’s a more initiative efficient way to maintain combo stealth, but it’s harder to keep from revealing yourself, making it a better option for p/p than d/p or s/p looks like.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Ensign.2189:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Yet Daredevil gets 150 Endurance (which what Feline Grace was) and a whole plethora of other source of vigor, endurance, and evades.

Daredevil gets +50 endurance up front and +50 when you steal. There are traits to give a modest amount of endurance when you use a physical skill and when you use initiative on a staff skill (which is an evade-light weapon). There are 0 sources of vigor and no additional evades from the traits.

I’ve rephrased that already. I thought when I posted “other source” it was understandable that I meant other traits. See my correction above.

Daredevil does not give anything even remotely close to the same amount of evasion as the old Acrobatics – if you bother to do the math, new Acrobatics plus Trickery plus Daredevil (that is, all three trait lines) is still well behind what old Acrobatics plus Trickery did, and roughly on par with what old Acrobatics did on its own.

Let’s do the math.

Feline Grace effectively refunds 15 endurance, thus the cost of 50 endurance per dodge effectively now cost 35 — which allows for roughly 3 dodges with a full endurance bar. Three dodges costs 105 endurance under Feline Grace, meaning after dodging twice, you have to wait a bit before you can perform the 3rd dodge.

Now tell me how the old Feline Grace is better than having 150 endurance?

In fact, the +50 endurance up front and +50 endurance on steal, when combined with the trickery recharge, is barely on par with what the old Feline Grace did on its own – and they don’t play anywhere near as nicely with vigor as Feline Grace did.

Feline Grace on its own allows for 3 dodges — 150 endurance allows for 3 dodges.

Which part is confusing here?

Claims that Daredevil is the old Acrobatics are highly exaggerated and not grounded at all in what the new traits actually say they do.

Nobody is claiming that. The claim is, Daredevil is what Acrobat is supposed to be if ArenaNet have been honest and not have told us that they nerf Acro to control the number of evades, when in fact they are bringing some of the mechanic back as an Elite Spec.

Feline grace was more effective on virtue of the same math that commonly makes damage resistance a superior option to more HP in other games.

Feline grace effectively makes every dodge cheaper, which means every incoming source of bonus end (like those from dagger, signets, and vigor) count for a greater potion of a single dodge.

The new line does not increase effective end. It increases raw end. it’s basically the difference between having high armor or high HP.

Old feline grace was overly much armor. new feline grace is not enough hp regen, and DD is a bigger buffer with some nice heals.

Well, I mean underwater combat in general is only half finished in most cases. Breathers were designed for a different game, a game in which it was a mechanically viable choice to use a split rune set and make the breather change your 4 rune to better fit the underwater weapon.

I wouldn’t expect to see underwater seriously looked at before an underwater expansion.

@Vincent

You literally said this was directly aimed at persecuting the customer.

That is the basis of your argument. Literally “they nerfed acro so they could sell it back to us”

Despite all evidence presented to the contrary, which you have refuted with nothing more than “I believe they are liars until something makes it in to the game”

My toxic comments are an illustration of the logical process that leads to your conclusion. Just because B happens after A does not mean A caused B.

I’m not being toxic for the sake of being toxic. I’m doing it to hold a mirror. Apperently I just don’t own a clear enough mirror to allow you to recognize your reflection. Thus, I apologise for those comments as they were wasted words that accomplished nothing.

The fact remains: Every expansion that adds build options is just as pay to win as this one. Any other belief is a fabrication. WoW expansions are all directly pay to win in the worst way. You are literally 10 levels behind before you buy them. SC2 expansions add new units on top of existing ones.

Even Anet’s own stance on making campaigns truly optional in GW1 ultimately didn’t work that way. I’m going to assume you were around for the release of factions and actively playing PvP. Tell me you could play competitively on a prophecies only account a week after factions release.

You could get by, and perhaps fill a meta role if you were the only guy on your team without it, but by and large options = power.

It’s absolutely not okay that acro can’t stand on its own. You’re trying to burn down DD in stead of taking the far more sensible approach of buffing acro’s functionality so it’s a viable alternative to SA on a non-elite built. We even have a thread currently talking about that which I notice you haven’t contributed to.

It seems you’re more interested in complaining than offering suggestions to remedy the problem.

Again I ask you, if you were in charge, what would you do to fix acro so it can stand on its own in a post HoT world?

Vincent, did you seriously just say an expansion was a “pay to win” mechanic?

Also, your previous $50 purchase of the base game is going free to play according to the IGN early reveal.

That’s right, this was all a huge ploy to get you to spend $50 on their game and then give it to everyone else for free.

They’re also in collusion with your power company. Given the evidence it is clear that daily login rewards and achievements exist solely to make you turn on your computer and paw money to your power company. Anet probably gets a cut of that.

I mean it costs power to run the computer, and you have to run the computer to get your login reward, thus it follows that the only reason login rewars exist is to make you waste power, right?

It’s impossible that it isn’t a direct causal relationship aimed at persecuting you, the customer.

It’s fine to say it sucks that acro is redundant now. It does suck. Your position that the spec (and the expansion for that matter) are blatant cash grabs with total disregard for the customer is a whole other thing.

Go play some Archeage or browse the app store on your phone if you want to see what shamelessly milking the customer without regard for the quality of your product looks like.

This ain’kitten You just have a massive persecution complex.

This is not the game’s problem.

This is your problem, which you should consult a professional about.

If you can not gamble responsibly, you shouldn’t walk in to casinos.

Solos content not intended for solo play.

Gets upset balance changes prefent him from exploiting broken content.

Rants on forums about PvP.

Old stability wasn’t just problematic for PvP.

Those mobs strip boons.

Put raids on a GW1 style mission progression with multiple secondary objectives and unique drops and I’m sold.

Content progression is good, but only when you’re not required to repeat content you’ve mastered in to infinity.

maddoctor.2738:

PopeUrban.2578:

Works like this:

In most MMOs you grind because your equipment sucks.

In GW2 you grind because your equipment is ugly.

Sucky equipment prevents you from doing content.

Ugly equipment does not.

Thus, the loot acquisition rate in GW2 is built around encouraging you to do a wide range of content rather than farm the highest gold per hour so you can rank up to the next tier.

If you’re grinding content you find boring to maximize drops, you’re choosing to do that. The game isn’t preventing you from going and doing other content that you find fun.

Only in a lot of those other MMORPGs you do not in fact “grind”, as in repeat content an insane amount of times, in order to get your gear, but there are loot distribution systems that allow you to get what you are looking for after a set amount of runs (no token grind either).

The problem in GW2 isn’t the reward system itself but the way the loot is distributed, the fact that everyone rolls on their loot. Which is great in the open world and when you play solo, but it’s really punishing if you play with a group, especially a close group of friends. You see, in other game systems every time a member of your party gets an item, because of the distribution, you are one step closer in getting it yourself. If you have the worst luck, you will get what you are after once everyone else in your team (that also wants it) has it.

In GW2 that’s not the case at all. You might run content a million times and still not get what you are after, while your friend might run it less than ten times and get the item twice. If we didn’t roll at least for valuable account bound items (that have no monetary value, can’t be sold) it would be completely different and not feel like a grind. In other MMORPGs they want their boss fights to feel rewarding so they ALWAYS drop awesome loot, next it’s up to the team that killed it to distribute it among themselves.

The difference is simple: in other games boss mobs always drop awesome loot but in limited quantities so players have to distribute it. In GW2 since everyone rolls on their own loot tables, it feels like a grind and praying to the RNG gods to get anything, in order to keep items rare.

What, precisely, are you trying to get to drop that isn’t tradable?

Literally the only thing I can think of that behaves in this manner are world boss drops and fractal skins. Fractal skins are being reworked to function on a token system. World boss drops are supposed to be excessively rare, and are simply alternate variations of crafted ascended skins with some sparkles.

If you’re bemoaning the impossible drop rates of precursors, yes, you are correct, however the HoT crafting mastery exists specifically to remedy that problem.

See, they used the system you want with fractal rings. You can drop the one you want, or you can save tokens and buy it. The problem then became everyone ended up with reams of duplicate untradable rings. Anet’s solution (and rightly so) is the upcoming ascended salvaging system.

The difference is that unlike a rolling system it removes the possibility that you don’t ever get the item you want because nobody in your party looted it this run, and thus you make no progress.

What you’re asking for is a return to the dark ages of DKP/Need/Greed/I can’t get the item even though I ran the dungeon 800 times. That is a HORRIBLE system as unlike the token system, which ensures you get exactly the loot you want, it creates a system where your entire tight knit group either ends up with reams of useless and untradable duplicates because everyone’s rolls were bad, or a lootsplosion system in which you end up with so many duplicate items that they’re meaningless as rewards.

Tokens, on the other hand, always have a built in continual sink for people that have already collected the set so that no matter what, there is always an intrinsic and unique reward for running the content.

I like running dungeons in MMOs. I like it more when the dungeons are challenging and have a good payoff. Loot distribution systems for bind on pickup items create an active disincentive for people to run content that they’ve already got their items from.

GW2 has dungeon problems, but none of them are related to the loot system. The problem is that the tokens don’t have enough compelling consumable sinks, and the content is both sparse and easily exploited for speed runs, the token costs are too high, and there is no chance to randomly loot a desired item to shortcut the token progression.

Silverwastes and dry top are shining examples of how they’re reworking the open world design to encourage and reward people well for zone play using the same token distribution system they used for dungeons. Silverwastes allows both purchase and drops of its content specific items, and the “bad drops” are still a pretty kitten handsome reward in and of themselves. not once have I left a silverwastes cycle and thought “man, this loot is bad”

The collections and season 2 mastry achievements systems are another great example of loot distribution systems that work well with GW2’s framework. They flip the formula and grant unique rewards for a wide range of content. In fact, the s2 mastrys should be the gold standard of how to add replayability to instances. Combining them with more random event systems in instances will create content that is just plain more compelling so you want to run it because it’s fun and not just for the shiny stick at the end.

I understand that you want to luck your way in to epic drops more often, but it’s just not how Anet operates the game. The loot system is built around salvaging and wide TP use where it doesn’t reward account bound items. Loot is on a slow burn just as it was in the original game because just as in the original game loot isn’t as mechanically important as other games.

Thinking of loot as the end goal is just not how GW2 is designed. Loot in GW2 is designed as a showy trophy, and showy trophies are meaningless when they’re easily achievable.

We don’t need a better loot distribution system. We need content hard enough to justify its special loot.

I think your problem is that you expect “good loot” to come primarily in the form of a single AMAZING item in a bag full of total trash. The current system in stead awards “good loot” primarily as a handful of “good” items in a bag full of trash, and allows you to use the trash to craft your own AMAZING item.

I’d much rather prefer to keep pulling in 10 or 11 rares per run and one or two exotics a week than pulling one exotic a run.

GW2 is not an item-centric economy. It is a material-centric economy, and items that live outside that economy already have a good fundamental system. That system just needs minor tweaks in a few places, and more importantly we need more challenging content to create non-tradable items that derive their worth from the difficulty of the content rather than the length of the grind.

Tokens and personal loot rolls aren’t the problem. Easily exploitable content with overly large token costs is.

They’re holding off the cinematics and staged screens so they have a more impressive PAX presentation I bet.

Or, alternately, no news outlets had time to do an interview because they are too busy prepping for PAX.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

PopeUrban.2578:

They nerfed acro because they felt it was overpowered in the current meta (I don’t agree with them for the record) but they don’t feel it is overpowered in the new meta derived from every other elite spec being in that mix.

I doubt this to be factual since the new Elite Spec of other profession has nothing that can deal with 24/7 evasion from the Thief’s Elite Spec.

Endless evasion is a problem in the current meta and it will stay as a problem in the new meta. Nothing will change and the end result is a major nerf to the new Thief’s Elite Spec.

What a Warrior’s Berserker Spec will do against something they cannot touch except to QQ until the Thief is nerfed again?

They also probably shifted acro to an e-spec so that it can’t combo with future ranged elite specs that would end up overpowered when combined with it, since by design you can not combine elite specs.

That’s a lot of assumptions there.

They didn’t “nerf acro to sell it back to us”

Sorry but that is a fact. You’re just cherry picking which “facts” you like to call fact.

If they will release the Elite Spec without the need for expansion, just like what other MMO does, then sure, I believe you — but to gate something we’ve paid for when we bought the Core game behind a fifty dollar pay wall is proof that they “nerf acro to sell it back to us”.

They nerfed acro because they felt it was unbalanced in an arena full of nothing but other non-elite specs. They added the elite spec because they felt it was balanced in an arena full of their other elite specs.

That’s not even remotely true. None of the Elite Spec from other professions can handle a 24/7 evader. This Thief Elite Spec is too good to be true and a lot of Thief players can see that. If they release this as is, it is inevitable that it will get a major nerf where the profession is useless again.

They knew they would get this backlash and they did it anyway because in their opinion it was healthier for the game in the long run. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen. I hope it is true, and the build limitations implicit in the elite spec design allow previously unthinkable build variations and styles for every class, including ours.

The latest blog revealed that this Elite Spec is designed for PvE, fine I get it. However, once this spec is used in PvP, without separating the two game mode, this spec will suffer once the balance team “tweaks” the numbers. This is always been the case that’s why a lot of the Thief’s skills, traits, attack animations, and many other bugs exists in PvE. As long as it is balanced in PvP, they could care less what’s going on in PvE even though their own Dev cannot even survive a Fractal run because the numbers are balanced in PvP, but severely underpowered in PvE.

Well thought out post, but its still based on a pair of massive assumptions that have no grounding in reality.

I’m not cherry picking facts when I say that:

A – You can not combine elite specs with other elite specs.
B – This is an evade focused spec
C – This was designed for release at the same time as the other specs

There is literally no other logical reason to take from acro and add it back unless, as you suggest, it is a blatant cash grab.

If you truly believe that was the sole intent here, I wonder why you’re playing the game. I wouldn’t be financially supporting a company with such sleazy business practices, and in fact anet has shown repeatedly that it would rather make customers feel like their money is well spent and engender good will to encourage them to spend money than to wring it out of them by making the alternative an incomplete game experience.

Take a look around the achievements and new level up system granting more black lion items, the LW content, the way S1 rewards were added to laurels in stead of the gem store, and the inclusion of a free black lion item once a week from login rewards.

Take a look at how, when people raised an issue about thebundle price of the expansion they added a char slot to existing accounts that buy it.

Anet makes mistakes, and they screw up balance, and they’re often out of touch with their player base in terms of balance and mechanics, but they’re not actually out just to screw over their customers for a quick buck. Their business model is not sustainable if people don’t WANT to spend money on gems, and people that feel cheated out of their money do not want to spend money on cosmetics and fluff items.

Killyox.3950:

So rev with staff vs thief with staff is what? Monk sparring training ?:D

Sounds like a meeting

of the joint chiefs of staff

Kicker.8203:

Sorel.4870:

Oh my god. S/P will maybe be a thing finally.

It needs more than that. It is not flexible enough and you cant cast pistol whip face to face only if u pair it with a teleport utility because u get CCd evaded etc. Problem: not flexible enough for PvP.

Solution: Separate the stun part and the evasion part so if you precast the stun part in the air you can activate the evade part at any time.(giving an evade on an almost 1 sec delay(its more than 0.75s)is ridiculous) or you should be allowed to dodge while casting the windup (althought its weird mesmers can already do that with sword 3).

I dunno, traiting the new block skill might be just what you need to pull off pistol whip. It won’t be easy mode, but with an 8s cooldown on the util when traited, and the PW animation taking around 2 seconds, you could stealdaze>activate block>pw

when they come out of the daze they have to blow a dodge, as if they hit you they’ll get knocked down by the reactive portion of the block. If you make them blow their end early by harassing with headshot (traited for interrupt damage) then it’s a pretty secure hit.

It’ll still be weaker than other sets for 1vx but potentially a strong option for 1v1.

Doggie.3184:

kuben.9826:

Doggie.3184:

Lots of Orange is all you need

Just use hellfire hands and shoulder, rest is meh or too high AP lel

But I’m a tree.

You’re also already ON FIRE.

babazhook.6805:

My only issue is I have to now wait until the release of HOT to use on existing characters.

First up will be my d/d shamans condition build traited into DD for lotus training. I rarely stealthed with this guy relying on dodges so the playstyle already honed.

I hear ya, I’ve got a d/d carrion/mad king/SoM build that has been waiting for something like this for a long time. I might actually be able to not have to swap builds for PvP now. SoM heals + heal on evade + lotus training + an 8s stunbreak/block? Spin to win may actually work in PvP again.

Mot to mention, with this stuff I might actually give P/P another shot. That interrupt trait, all them dodges, and being able to combo in to stealth from black powder?

Hilarity ensues as p/p hybrid is actually able to kill people maybe?

Heck, you could even play P/D and not be stuck with a totally predictable rotation.

Works like this:

In most MMOs you grind because your equipment sucks.

In GW2 you grind because your equipment is ugly.

Sucky equipment prevents you from doing content.

Ugly equipment does not.

Thus, the loot acquisition rate in GW2 is built around encouraging you to do a wide range of content rather than farm the highest gold per hour so you can rank up to the next tier.

If you’re grinding content you find boring to maximize drops, you’re choosing to do that. The game isn’t preventing you from going and doing other content that you find fun.

@Treeoflife

As another poster pointed out before, the new heal seems to be intended for use while stealthed, giving you an option other than withdraw that synergizes with the spec.

Either take withdraw for an extra evade, or take the new one for an end refill+heal in stealth, allowing you to use a short stealth (like blinding powder, a combo on a non-staff set, or stealth from trap runes) to heal/condi clear without having to take SA and wait, basically letting you recharge your main defense (endurance) and heal all at one time and be set up to jump back in the fight, sort of how HiS on stealth builds lets you heal and activate your main defense (stealth) and be prepared to jump back in.

The extra HP on full end is likely there to make it more useful when using it in a longer stealth.

Gray.9041:

stof.9341:

Gray.9041:

but other classes don’t give up a trait for it – they get it in their minor.

All the minor traits that apply to dodge either get a very small benefit or a rather long cooldown on it.

I mean their class mechanics.

Chronomancer’s Continuum Split
Dragonhunter’s New Virtues
Reaper’s Reaper Shroud
Tempest’s Overloads
Herald’s Facet of Nature
Berserker’s New Burst Skills

all of these are available to them through the first minor trait. compare this to an extra 50 endurance… it’s not exactly comparable…

(also, before you say an extra 50 endurance is a big thing, we used to get a trait which refilled 20 or 30 endurance on dodge roll – effectively giving us an extra 50 odd endurance. so we get an old trait, while other classes get stuff like Reaper Shroud or Continuum Split…)

You’re looking at it wrong.

All trait lines are automatically maxed since the trait update. All e-specs require taking their trait line to gain the benefits of the spec.

You should be looking at how it compared to the total trait line granted by other specs.

The minor is +50 end, but the overall trait line adds so much more utility to dodging, a thing we can use far more frequently than any of the other mechanics that it compared extremely well.

It’s being gated behind GM traits because they designed the minors to be extremely powerful to compensate and it gives us the option to select between three mechanics so we can choose the one we like.

It’s also worth noting that these new dodges aren’t just “buff traits”

As written they’re massive replacements. They don’t have an ICD and deliver like 4x as much as any comparable trait on any other class (including our own dodge traits, which we can still stack with these)

Combine that with the fact that we are getting far, far more endurance gain than any other class ever with just the base line, and gain approaching stupidity if you go all in with acro, d/* auto 2, signet of agility, and the new +10 on physical use trait, and it’s absolutely as build shifting as the mechanical changes to other classes. Remember, those traits have no ICD. They happen every time you dodge

Everyone can “use dodge” and everyone “has dodge traits” but Daredevil sets up thieves to be the only option if you want to make a dodge build

Seems to me like they are creations of corrupted plant matter. The mordrem wolves aren’t really corrupted wolves as much as they are a mordrem minion using the remains of a wolf as a vehicle.

This is unlike risen, in which the entity itself is corrupted by the dragon’s energy (Zhaitan can only corrupt animal matter) but rather that the corrupted entity is indigenous plant life, and because plants are by their nature largely non-animate Mordy favors using the structure of more animate materials to give them some additional mobility.

Think about a Mordrem wolf like a Risen driving a car, basically, and look at the other risen through that lens. Some are grown around a corpse, some are grown inside one, some don’t use a corpse at all, and some use pieces of several different corpses.

Like most of the other dragons, Mordy seems to have the ability to create minions from scratch, but it is likely more difficult to do so than corrupting existing matter within his sphere of influence (plants) This is similar to how Zhaitan deploys a much larger number of corrupted risen than organically grown tendrils, eyeballs, and other “non-corrupted” minions.

It’s likely that creating minions takes some of the dragon’s power no matter the dragon, and the largest portion of that is used to create their champions (which is why champions commonly appear to be “made” rather than “corrupted” in most cases) While they find it easier to create larger armies of lesser minions by using a fraction of their power and leveraging environmental materials as the “hull” and the material they create themselves as the “engine”

So the new spec line is all about the dodge and evade. How could we keep acro still on theme, make it viable without the spec, and keep it from being filled with redundant traits?

Range modifiers and as urug said, move speed.

I propose building acro around increasing range modifiers for melee abilities and utilities. For example, a trait that adds +distance to all leaps, a trait that allows steal to be used without a target as a shadowstep, a trait that adds +attack range to all melee weapons, a trait that adds more speed the less init you have, a trait that allows you to treat side strikes as rear strikes, a trait that increases the cone angle of melee weapons, a trait that increases the maximum number of targets for melee attacks, etc.

Alternately, what about ICD traits that interact with jump? Like blind when jumping over a target, additional jump height, granting the ability to jump over aoes, protection or stability when jumping, allowing attacks while jumping, additional damage while at higher elevation than the target, ICD evade on jump, etc. You could have gms be a choice between attacking while jumping, icd stability while jumping, or ICD jumping granting AoE immunity, maybe a minor with delayed heal for any fall damage taken (so you could effectively ignore any fall damage that wasn’t fatal) maybe a trait that deals damage or a condition when an attack against you is obstructed, and… IDK… other stuff focused around jumping and environmental interactions?

Maybe combine the two ideas to redesign the line around incorporating jump and extra range as a legit defensive mechanism?

I think skins should be allowed to “expire” over time, and never be re-introduced.

Limited edition skins encourage the creation of new skins, and encourage players to participate in content that rewards them rather than encouraging just hoarding gems or gold.

I’d much rather see a GW2 five years down the line in which many players have skins that are no longer avaliable than one where every skin can be picked up by every player, as it makes the appearance of characters much more unique.

Path of Exile does this on a regular basis and it’s one of their primary funding models that allows them to offer so much content for free, and it’s pretty awesome to run in to veteran players with skins you just can’t get any more. It’s a nice reward for those veteran players to show how long they’ve been around, and adds incentive for the developer to keep developing cool skins so new players have a lot of cool options.

There’s nothing worse than an MMO in which everyone looks the same, or one without legitimate collectibles.

Played since release and I only personally know of one person that ever got a precursor drop (not counting the people that got them farming the original megakarka event in the first LS event)

My advice to anyone that wants a precursor is simply to spend their time stockpiling legendary crafting mats in stead, and wait for the precursor crafting masteries in HoT.

The Masteries should be infinitely more fun as they’re all sort of thematic quests/scavenger hunts, and they don’t have the potential to waste your time.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this game, it’s that you should never ever do anything with the intention of it rewarding you with a randomly dropped precursor.

Tiger Ashante.1792:

Lazze.9870:

Does your Aqua Breather have the rune?

Ugh darn, no it doesn’t, i forgot aqua breather replaces the helmet under water so geez, we have to have 7 runes!. Well tnx for pointing that out, i’ll see if that fixes it.

Technically everybody has to have 7 runes for any build if they want them to work underwater.

You may want to check any alts you play as well!

Anything with fire on it, or anything the same color as fire.

Sky’s the limit!

Tarkan.5609:

PopeUrban.2578:

Kocoff.7582:

Auesis.7301:

The mysterious 12th trait has been found – and I was right. It’s a 3rd type of dodge skill with power damage. Potential DPS increase for PvE use and just monstrous in general for anything else. This hits about as hard as a frontstab!

man 1,147 damage for target 5 every 3/4 of a second…. WTF

A true incentive to evade aggressively. But I don’t think it’s better than an Impaling Lotus, let’s hope, with the way the traits are organized, we don’t get to choose between those those two.
Impaling Lotus: http://imgur.com/a/Ee6t8#8

are we ready for this or na?

my gut tells me the dodge traits are all 3 GM options and will be balanced accordingly. One power offensive, one pure defensive, and one condi offense/defense mixed. That lets them make the effects for each much more powerful and unique, and balance them in a bubble because they can’t interact with one another.

I think they are gonna be in the same tier, but not necessarily GM’s.
Why? When Anet first announced Elite Specs, they talked about a GM that would remove a condition on dodge. I immediately thought about how Thief could use that and it happened.
It may have moved down (as it doesn’t seem like a good GM, useful yes due to condition cleanse lack but not good enough for a GM) but it may have stayed a GM.

Honestly, now that trait lines are all maxed all the time it doesn’t really matter what rank traits are in as much as it matters what else is on the same tier. They could do away with the entire nomenclature of ‘adept, master, grandmaster" or swap all the GM traits in every line for the adept traits and it wouldn’t change anything at all.

Them being all adepts or all GMs is functionally the same exact thing. You can only choose one.

You can pop up the mastery achievments for the episode in question by clicking the header.

Mastry achievements are avaliable once that character has completed the episode, and like all achievements are account based.

In addition, when re playing any episode you’ll see three gold crown icons in your buff monitor, one for each achievement you haven’t finished yet. Mousing over them will tell you what you need to do to unlock the achievement.

Each achievement has its own loot chest, and if you achieve complete mastry of an episode it grants you the mastry chest, which is a piece of ascended jewelry.

Think of them like secondary objectives from GW1. They’re things to give interesting replay value to the missions and add optional challenge with associated rewards for people who are willing to tackle them.

Kocoff.7582:

Auesis.7301:

The mysterious 12th trait has been found – and I was right. It’s a 3rd type of dodge skill with power damage. Potential DPS increase for PvE use and just monstrous in general for anything else. This hits about as hard as a frontstab!

man 1,147 damage for target 5 every 3/4 of a second…. WTF

A true incentive to evade aggressively. But I don’t think it’s better than an Impaling Lotus, let’s hope, with the way the traits are organized, we don’t get to choose between those those two.
Impaling Lotus: http://imgur.com/a/Ee6t8#8

are we ready for this or na?

my gut tells me the dodge traits are all 3 GM options and will be balanced accordingly. One power offensive, one pure defensive, and one condi offense/defense mixed. That lets them make the effects for each much more powerful and unique, and balance them in a bubble because they can’t interact with one another.

Plant turrets everywhere.

Turrets would have essentially an inverse of the engi mechanic. In stead of amplifying the turret for a burst of increased function, you’d burst the turret to “hide” it, burrowing it under the ground to heal itself until you’re ready to grow it again, and re-growing would cast a one shot AoE when it comes up.

Plant turrets would be primarily defenseive, using effects that target allies in stead of enemies, with perhaps one AoE turret that is offensive (the elite?)

So, where the engi uses turrets primarily to keep enemies down and protect a ranged firing position, druid would use his to keep allies up and reingforce a melee fighting position.

Basically, Engis want to stand inside their turret bunker, but druids would want to stand outside of it, letting their pet and allies dish the damage and keeping them up with supportine staff skills. You’d also have the base spec’s bow and melee options if you want to go melee in the turret field.

That’d get me to dust off my ranger again. I used to love spirit spam solo ranger/rit

Cynz.9437:

Auesis.7301:

It’s almost as if Elite specialisations are capable of enhancing existing aspects of the profession, like every single other one that was announced.

yeah too bad they had to actually destroy meta build just to they can sell spec…. lol

it is like: hey let me break your leg so i can sell you wheelchair super duper diamond pro 7000

Let’s face some facts here.

If you’re invested enough in the game to care about what is and is not a meta build, you were going to buy any expansion that included new build options anyway.

MMO developers do not add new build options to the game and balance around the people that choose not to pay them for their work.

It’s like complaining blizzard “paywalled” SC2 players with each expansion’s new units.

When expansions or DLC release, any competitive meta is developed around the new content. This is true of every competitive game on purpose, because that content is intended to disrupt the meta.

They nerfed acro because they felt it was overpowered in the current meta (I don’t agree with them for the record) but they don’t feel it is overpowered in the new meta derived from every other elite spec being in that mix.

They also probably shifted acro to an e-spec so that it can’t combo with future ranged elite specs that would end up overpowered when combined with it, since by design you can not combine elite specs.

They didn’t “nerf acro to sell it back to us”

They nerfed acro because they felt it was unbalanced in an arena full of nothing but other non-elite specs. They added the elite spec because they felt it was balanced in an arena full of their other elite specs.

They knew they would get this backlash and they did it anyway because in their opinion it was healthier for the game in the long run. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen. I hope it is true, and the build limitations implicit in the elite spec design allow previously unthinkable build variations and styles for every class, including ours.

Remember that even after the dragons there’s the question of mursaat, the fact that many GW1 evil gods and demigods have never been killed, but simply banished or imprisoned, and the fact that the mists is actually the in game explanation of a vast multiverse that could contain worlds as complex as tyria, but utterly new and alien to anything we’ve experienced thusfar.

Basically, they’ll keep making expansions until they stop making money or want to completely throw out the core design and replace it with something else (like GW1>GW2)

Thief is not an assassin. Thief is a rogue.

Some rogues are assassins, some are skilled gunslingers, some are mobile and evasive brawlers, some are brutes that favor dirty fighting.

Elite specs are about adding specificity to an archetype, not pigeonholing the archetype in to a single role. They’ve also said they’d like to eventually add every weapon to every class with elite specs, giving many more build and style choices to all professions.

Expect to one day in the far future to see rifle elementalists, scepter thieves, dagger engineers, focus warriors, and pistol guardians despite how “off theme” those choices might be. Elite specs are supposed to be “off theme” as they represent a shift away from the base class in to something else.

They explained as much when they game was released.

Dailies are also “permanently missable achievements” if your gripe is missing out on achievement points. So are event achievements.

Luckily, the way achievement points are designed there’s never really a cap on accruing them, just a delay. There will always always be a way to get more achievement points.

The achievement points granted by these new achievements are not more impactful than the extra nonsense you get with the shiny editions in stead of the base edition.

You people will complain about literally anything, no matter how insignificant.

Has anyone yet realized the only reason we’re complaining about the spec names is that we’re not distracted enough by actually playing the spec to not care?

Like, when was the last time you complained about trait or skill names? You didn’t, because you didn’t care what they were called when you could just click the button and see how awesome or useless they were.

Once HoT releases, nobody will care what they’re called.

Timing was deliberately slower paced for CoH, but they nailed the staff animations pretty good for the powers.

Man i miss CoH

Dhalik.3842:

babazhook.6805:

Not all bad but I can think of many better.

I would prefer Shadow Lord.

Of curse the spec itself would have to be known first before coming to a proper name.

Ooooh. “Shadow Lord” sounds awesome. Maybe when they do the step above Elite Spec…ULTRA ELITE SPEC! lol. No but seriously that name is cool and I would have liked “Shadowmancer” even. I never cared for the profession name “Thief” as it was, because it kind of pigeonholed me into thinking my character as an actual thief, although originally I wouldn’t have seen him that way.

Anyway, I’m excited to see what ANet does with this E-Spec…hopefully it’s great and fun to play.

personal opinion:

“Shadow Lord” and “Shadowmancer” Both sound like something a junior high english student would write in to a fantasy short story. It’s just word salad. Slap two words together because you’re too lazy. It’s like calling the base class “Stab Master” in stead of “Thief” Entertaining if you’re deliberately trying to be funny, but groan worthy if you’re trying to maintain a more direct and serious tone.

Such a spec would need a bit more class. You know, “Deceiver” or “Phantom” or something.

As for Daredevil, I don’t have a problem with the word itself. It just seems inappropriate for the signature weapon/staff. I imagine a daredevil much less as an evasive wushu-staff martial artist and more as a pistol slinging, bomb chucking, dive through windows and explosions kinda guy. Seems to be more fitting as the name of an engineer spec.

If it were up to be I’d call the new spec something with underworld tones that emphasizes the blunt and physical nature of the spec alongside the implied martial arts feel.

Enforcer, Marauder, or other terms that would seem in place in the sentance “The yakuza sent a gang of _ to rough up that guy for protection money.”

I agree with most.

On the subject of Deathblossom though:

Keeping the bleeds and increasing the evade is the best option. Condi d/d is a stable thief build for pve and the real issue the skill has is lack of utility due to its animation lock making the evade useless in pvp.

Keeping the bleed and upping the evade to sync better with the animation would make it retain a useful function for d/d power builds without eliminating the thief’s only solid aoe condition/hybrid build, as it seems staff is headed for a power aoe route.

As a guy that plays such a hybrid, and has done so successfully for quite a while (within the strict limitations of where it’s viable to use) I’d hate to see any weapon, dagger included, lose a core condition application skill that actually gets built around.

I’d even be okay with leaving the damage exactly where it is and increasing the init cost if the evade was usable in pvp, as the new elite traits shore up a lot of the condition DPS loss you’d otherwise incur by making it less spammable.

If we’re talking about making it useful across the spectrum of d/d then the evade rather than the damage is where heavier adjustments should be placed, as evade is a tool useful for both the hybrid and power gank specs in equal measure.

I like how people are saying “It’ll just get nerfed and be useless”

You know, as if this isn’t a clear indication that they’ve decided that the nerfs to theif evasion were heavy handed and that they consider this to be a viable counter in a world where all the other elite specs live.

Do you really think they’d nerf acro, then design acro 2.0, if they were going to just return us back to the status quo?

Their thinking probably went like this:

Acro is “too good”

Old Acro style wouldn’t be “too good” as an elite spec since they couldn’t combo it with other elite specs we have planned (gunslinger, shadow mage, other ranged style E-Specs)

They’re going to complain about acro being made redundant.

We’ll just try to explain to them why.

They’ll hate it anyway.

They’re thieves. They hate everything we do. Compile and release.

That’s kind of the point. It has a couple big hitters and some multitarget defensive skills.

S/D is not in fact superior in every aspect. You can not chain cast S/D 2 to move further than its listed range. It does not synergise as well with signet of malice and our life on hit traits. It requires a target. It can only hit 3 targets within very close range compared to 9 total targets along its path of travel. Flanking strike is unwieldy at best due to its lock on nature, and its flip effect leaves you more vulnerable. S/P is tantamount to suicide in any fight where your target has a friend with ranged attacks.

As I said before, S/* is a superior choice for 1v1s, but staff is clearly a superior choice for blob warfare.

It really is a different in playstyle. Sword is precise and controlled, and geared very well for harassment of a single target while evading his friends. The cleave doesn’t really matter as much as the mobility+damage baked in to staff 2 and staff 5.

They’re not at all randomly put together skills. The consistant theme is high damage over a large area, more focus on mobility, and defensive conditions and condition removal rather than a lockdown methodology intended to secure single target ganks.

Staff looks to be very good at what it does: deal big damage quickly to a bunch of people and get out. Its identity is “The AoE Weapon.”

Whether or not playing an AoE style is attractive to you is beside the point. If you like S/D why should you want a weapon that’s essentially just a copy of the role S/D already fills?

What would you have done with staff that made it a unique weapon with a strong identity?

Ragion.2831:

Staff is pretty good, i can see it working mostly because of the dash, however they need to do something about that range, perhaps make it 450

The tooltip says 450.
http://i.imgur.com/RnETtcs.png

treizebee.2091:

Why would anyone take Staff with Daredevil instead of S/D?

S/D autoattack is better, faster, same cleave.
S/D gap closer is 2-way + immobilize and condi clear. Staff’s is a worse heartseeker.
S/D evade keeps you on target, boon rip instead of soft-cc clear.
Both their #4 skills are the same you could say.
And for both their nuke skills. Would you rather take a high damage leap or a high damage stealth gaining skill. On a thief, the choice is pretty clear.

Imagine, for a moment, a world in which there was a viable thief build for wvw blobs.

Staff looks to be designed around a hit and run aoe style. The init abilities are the burst, and the auto is intentionally awful because you’re supposed to be using 5 and 2 along with traited dodge and the 8s block/stunbreak to zerg-dive with it and live to tell the tale and maybe even kill someone.

Sword will still be a much better dueling weapon, but staff doesn’t seem built for small fights or staying on any one particular target as much as hitting all the targets a couple times and then using those fancy new utilities and dodge traits to get to your back line where you can regen initiative.

That’s actually one thing I like about what we’ve seen of this spec. The stuff in it doesn’t see to be a “use all these things to make the build we designed for you” as much as “here are some things to make new builds with and shore up some holes in old builds.”

Now if they could have done that without nerfing acro to the ground it would have been better but hey… I’m not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth here.

babazhook.6805:

Staff skills are fine outside it might need a tweak to damage on the AA.

It has a gap opener, two short ranger gap closers, a leap a whirl. It can apply weakness, blind a knockdown a cripple and break Immob. It will play very differently and each and every one of its skills will get usage.

I like the overall design.

As to the heal as garbage I will have to wait and see it in action but I see it having great utility in a stealth build where you can use it to heal up while stealthed allowing one to drop shadows Rejuv. It has an excellent cooldown of only 20 seconds meaning one can trait to be able to run this every 16 seconds only a couple seconds more then traited withdraw.

In other words using a stealth build you can stealth to regain a huge chunk of health AND endurance. That not garbage.

You know, I hadn’t looked at it from that perspective. I retract what I said. It’s a bad heal for non-stealth builds, but actually a pretty good alternative to HiS for SA builds now that you mention it.

Get a burst in, run initiative down, cnd or leap for stealth, and be ready to go in for another burst Immediately rather than hiding and waiting for your SA traits to do the work.

Heck, it might actually make stealth builds playable without SA at all since it could do a lot of what SA does within the shorter timeframe of non-traited stealth.

Excellent post!