Guild Wars 2

Zanthrax.6538:

Concept (1) – Format: “Open World or Instanced”
-snip-

First of all, im going to say – brilliant composition. definitely worth the read, and im going to reply to it per point of yours. I think thatll be most orderly.

1. Format

I agree that instanced raiding sounds way better.
One thing that you havent touched on is the often debilitating problem of AFK-ers/people who clog “map instance” space, but dont partake in the event. Often these people will even scale the event, making it much harder to complete because they dont contribute anything. With instanced content, not only is player amount easier to regulate, but AFK-ers will also be much less of a problem. Instanced raids also allow people to raid with only people they know if they so wish to, making raiding with your guild alot easier. So in the end, i think instanced is vastly superior to open world bosses, and the pro-s heavily outweigh the cons.
That being said, i think it would be a very nice feature to have to be able to get random members of the community with similar interests to join the instance – even if they aren’t in your guild. This would also provide the added benefit of allowing people to invite friends who aren’t part of the guild to join them.

Zanthrax.6538:

*Concept (2) – Size of raid. "

-snip-

Concept (3) – Encounter Design.

These are the kind of mechanics that should be played into with GW2’s combat system and this doesnt even REMOTELY touch on what can be explored by way of jumping puzzle platforming, pressure plates as someone else mentioned, splitting up raids temporarily, environmental weapons. So many reasons GW2 would kick butt with raids.

2. Size of raid
I agree that a set amount of people would make it easier to balance, although i think 10-15 people would be slightly too few for raids. The way i think of raids, theyre really big things, co-ordinated group efforts – there should be a serious distinction from the “group of friends” parties we have in dungeons, and the way dungeon bosses work. Dungeons seem like more something that would fit the “helping guildies level alts” idea.
If a suitable “LFG/topping up” system could be found, i think raids of around 30-50 people seem like a better size. Theres also the possibility of just adding different difficulties, upping the levels, amount of damage bosses do etc when you choose to enter with more people. A tuned version of the scaling system, you could say.
“Raids” definitely isnt a fixed concept though, and if there are multiple different raids, they could be designed for different amounts of people. The LFG system could help smaller guilds top up the higher man raids, or perhaps smaller guilds can cooperate to join together for the larger raids. Especially cooperation of smaller guilds seems like a nice idea to me. The larger a raid is designed for, the more cooperation.

3. Encounter design
I agree that we could really use some new mechanics here. This is a big part of why i was referring to the prime hologram earlier – it really had quite alot of fun mechanics that needed to be taken into account.
I love the spirit of the ideas you’ve put forth here. Rather than just a boss that needs killing with a few special attacks that need dodging, the encounters could really be made very fun. Jumping puzzles to get further, and especially the parties teporarily splitting up and taking care of different things is a concept i love, because youd still need coordination, but for a small while, youre suddenly in a smaller group and need to change your decisions because youre suddenly in a whole new strategic situations. GW2’s system has so many brilliant things that i think could really be used to make raids awesome.

-more coming-

I think it’s important for any future raid content to keep it challenging despite the Zerk meta.

As mentioned in Light Guardian Jack’s proposal, i think there were a few good examples of raids in Season 1.
I’m going to take the Prime Hologram for an example here. I think this is a good representation of what a raid could look like in Guild Wars 2, and i think is a good example to point out what i think are great parts of a raid.
It wasn’t exactly instanced, but it was close enough.

First of all, its not just a tough boss. It really takes into account fun parts of the Guild Wars 2 combat system, and even though i only played engineer, i really felt like my profession came out well. I had different skills to balance, more offense, more defence, where can i get vigor/dodge for the AOE’s, do i want immunity from the Green holograms explosions, etc.

It also requires organisation and teamwork. You’re depending on your team, on multiple different minds working on this as a group. To get the holograms down to the right level required people to actually think, and it made the event much easier if you had competent leaders at the top.

These two points, i.m.o., work together marvelously. On a micro level, you have every person’s individual skill – doging, dealing damage, situational awarenes are all very useful in the event. There’s multiple different roles you can fill as any profession, and the choices in weapons and utility come out nicely. As engineer, i had to choose between might and blast finishers, projectile negation, heavy DPS and support – all these roles had a necessity for them. You can see yourself matter in the fight.
On a macro level, everyone coordinates, and the fact you’re doing a joint group effort is really obvious. The event would go horribly wrong if everyone just DPS-ed the first person they saw, and it requires a certain amount of strategy, which i think is ideal for guilds.

That leaves the point of accessibility. A serious potential problem with this is the amount of people you’d need for this kind of raid, and the organisation required might reduce accessibility. People should be able to organise and play this content when they feel like it. I think adding the raids to LFG still sounds like a good idea. Another problem i was thinking of is that some people might not want to be an active member of a guild, and this would cater to these people too. The raids could maybe be startable by guilds only (i’m not sure if the intent is to focus raids on being a mostly guild-thing, but i’m getting this impression), with the ability to “top it off” with LFG players.
Even without this limitation though, i think it would still be something that’s much easier to do as a guild – as i mentioned above, i think a good raid should have teamwork and organisation as an integral part (much like the Crown Pavilion and the Hologram took coordinated effort to get the most out of it) – and with a guild starting it, that’s the way it’d be.

I’ve got another idea brewing, but i need a bit more time to think it out.
In any case, still loving the CDI’s and happy to get back into them ^-^

ninetales.5208:

Why is it so difficult to give female asura a sweet dress which covers its chest (no bewb window, please)? I am aware of the ‘lore’ but our characters are extremely well-travelled and have met with many different races and cultures, our asura could easily have become interested in the fashion of another race! .

You know, with all the words i wrote in the previous post, i never managed to convey this. But I really, really like this way of doing things – Asura lore would stay Asura lore, but we could still have some cute dresses (with covered chests, please) from the fashions of other races.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Here’s an update for you:

It’s clear that quite a lot of you would like to have greater flexibility in using the Currency Exchange. Our intention when we designed the new interface was to streamline large volume purchases, which make up the majority of transactions.

In light of your feedback, we will update the Currency Exchange so that you can decide how you want to use it. We will keep the new streamlined system and also offer a new “Custom” button on the panel that you can use to exchange any increment of gems or gold.

We anticipate rolling this out soon. Stay tuned!

~~~~~

Sorry for the delay in posting this, but out of respect to our international community, we wanted to be able to post in several forums at once.

Being in touch with your community, done right.
I absolutely love the way communication is ramping up. People come at you with torches and pitchforks, and instead of just letting the thread fester, you stay here, calmly giving out news, indicating you’re listening and rewarding constructive feedback and suggestions.
This is what i wanted to see a few months ago, and this is what i’m seeing, and i just wanted to say thanks <3

Gaile Gray.6029:

dace — I wouldn’t want you to think that this has been a static thing, that there’s been no movement on this. There’s been assessment, analysis, and discussion. The devs have considered changes and some they’ve outright rejected where others are still in the running and need assessing in relation to the bigger picture that I mentioned earlier. If there aren’t details to provide overtly — and right now there are not — there is activity happening covertly. So I would say that progress has been made.

CDI on this? I don’t know what Chris Whiteside’s schedule is for CDI’s, and I know his bandwidth is stretched thin. (He has a boatload of stuff on his plate, that for sure!) However, I’ll ping him about that and he can consider if it would fall into the CDI format, and if so, when.

Thanks for the suggestion.

It sounds like something that could do nicely with a CDI – seems like lots of good suggestions could come from the community. But indeed, he’s already been doing so much lately – its awesome to see the CDI start up again, and i’m already really glad with whats been done so far.

I’d also just like to add my support to this notion, since the endless berserker meta in PvE is tiring me out. It would be a real relief to be able to rely on condi’s for damage too in PvE – it would open up so many fun builds for meta use.

I personally love the way they bounce everywhere when you start and stop running :P.
Currently going to do a bit of.. research ^-^

Gean.1279:

I guess it was… “reach and flexibility”?

Ohmygod what animation is that xD

Good point really. Indeed, like with the witch outfit, Gem store doesn’t care much for lore. Theres also quite a few people (even myself, sometimes) that would like to see their asura in a humanly-considered feminine outfit – it does seem like a missed opportunity.

But Charmmy, i totally agree. We need a bit more diversity in Asura outfits – on females particularly, but also on males. The perpetual “coat and pants”, of which alot look pretty similar, is /really/ starting to tire me out. There’s barely even a simple jacket to find anywhere. And feminine outfits are still very well possible without having to have a character that has breasts. It just.. wouldn’t need a “boob window”.

And i totally agree with your last posts Radiantbliss – Noble does look pretty masculine and could have done with a female version of the outfit. And some consistency would be nice – at some points, i have to agree with the general opinion – it just looks lazily done.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Wolfineer and/or www.twitch.tv/wolfineer has awesome guides.
www.twitch.tv/rintheyordle i’ve also known to play quite a bit of GW2 and she plays engi most of the time, but right now she’s on a GW2 hiatus.

If you need guides, go for Wolfineer ^-^

radiantbliss.6875:

Yeah. I am perpetually disappointed with how they approach asurans when it comes to females. There are so many limited options for those wanting a more female appearance.

And just because there are few physical separations, doesn’t mean everyone wants to look like an asexual/male. I love playing my asuras. It’s just really hard to put together an outfit that isn’t so abysmally masculine.

I love the current noble dress. I’d spend the money in a heartbeat if it had the same appearance for females of other races. This actually just comes off as anet being lazy and not wanting to create the female version of it on asuras.

Arani.4068:

This is something I hope a dev can answer. I am curious as to why Asura are limited to the male option of the noble clothes, and on most armor skins honestly. Their armor in general has little to no variation between the males and the females. Are dresses not part of their culture, is it just difficult to create for Asura, what’s the deal?

The answer to both of these questions is pretty much the same – this isn’t part of Asura culture. There concept of “female appearance” is nearly nonexistant for Asura, and they’re “sexualised” differently than humans. For Asura, the attractive points are ears, and most importantly mind. When you’re looking for “female appearance”, you’re limiting yourself to your human definition of female, which doesn’t apply to Asura. They have very little physical differences, and they don’t have a traditional human “pink-is-for-girls” type attitude, so making specific female clothing just doesn’t make sense to them. For them, anyone can wear any clothes they like, and males and females wear the same kinds of clothing. Theres no “masculine” clothing and “feminine” clothing – there’s just clothing.
As Arani said – dresses just aren’t a big part of Asura culture.

Zaxares.5419:

While I generally like the fact that Asura females are not sexualised in the way female humans/Norn/sylvari are, I do think it was a wasted opportunity not to be able to see one run around in the Noble Count outfit. She’d have been adorable. XD

Despite the lore… i have to agree to this :p. Although i’m a big fan of lore, i kinda share this standpoint. A few things borrowed from other cultures wouldn’t do harm is what i’m thinking.

I think adding a “100 gems” option, a “custom” amount box, and keeping the history graph, would make this a great system. Its nice to be able to see just how much commonly-traded gem amounts go for, but i think at least the 100 gems option would be a very nice change.

Also, gem prices are continually rising, from what i see. If im going for something that costs gems, i tend to buy them around a low moment as soon as i can afford 100, so i’ll pay less than if i have to save up for 800.

Awesome guide ^-^.

Noticed a small error though – theres a light field on toss elixir R too, which you dont mention in your combo fields area

Cute ^-^. I’d give her an 8/10 abouts. The eyes look a little bit strange, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. She looks cute in the bottom outfit :-). And them ears are so FLOPPPYYYYY.

This is Vanni, my ele. I don’t really have any flattering pictures, so its just the loading screen right now. Not sure how to add multiple attachments :/

That’ll strongly depend on wether you PvP, WvW or PvE :-).
PvE, yes, you’ll usually run zerk.

Its a bit difficult to explain in a forum post though – add me in-game and i’ll give you a few tips, tricks and hints to set you on your way ^-^. I can also give you a few builds i consider to be nice, as well as point out what i consider to be the most useful utility skills to you.

What kind of builds do you like to run?

Allright – lets assume i want to be a triple kit engi. Now i need to choose my elite skill. I’m an Asura – this leaves:
Elixir X – welll yeah, but blocking out all my utility skills? No thanks.
Mortar – kitten am i gonna do with this against a thief?
Power Suit – same thing as Elixir X, also UP
Summon (either) Golem – these things mostly tank, are easy to evade, and a competent enemy knows to focus me instead.

This leaves me with… supply crate. Which i like.
Hence, the only viable option for a triple kit engi is to run Supply Crate. And if i have to trade my elite’s cooldown in a 1v1 for a kill and free access to a point? Give me one reason i shouldn’t.

If you’re going to call anyone who uses their Supply Crate to kill you a turret engi, you might as well call every engi a turret engi.

robertul.3679:

Yea engineer is a cool class but don’t jump on the hype train “you can do everything!”. That’s like saying mesmers can also do everything but in the end they are veil/portal bots.
About PvE. You can stack around 9 might with current meta build, basically cap stealth if you bother to swap utilities and offhand shield, the vulnerability is pretty OP but it has a slower ramp up time than ranger’s so in very short fights the bearbow will outshine you, bringing projectile mitigation means wasting an utility slot..and your dps isn’t ele/thief level but it’s pretty decent. Also because a part of it is bleeds it has a bit of ramp up time too.
Remember that you only have 2 utility slots available because you need a dps kit and those slots usually are occupied by other kits. Casual carebears will tell you “kitten kitten remove condis with elixir c!” without understanding that you sacrifice a lot for that. Same for elixir u or elixir r or whatever.

First of all – with my elixir B, sigils, HGH and juggernaught, im pretty sure i’ve come close to stacking 25 stacks of might on myself all by my own when wielding my FT build, while still doing competitive damage.

I still think engi’s are very versatile and useable nearly anywhere. Yes, you sacrifice things for using specific elixirs, but im pretty sure i can always select two elixirs for every PvE situation that will give me just what i need. For Mae Trin, i’d swap to C and R, for Sorrows Embrace golems, i’d swap to B and U. Yes, you might not go 100% of the speed you possibly could with a better classed party. But its very much decent, and doable, so i still think you can catch for missing most classes in a party. With Cleansing Formula 409 on your main elixirs and toolbelt skills, you can clear quite alot of condi’s. Toolbelt also kinda makes up for the lack of the third utility slot – while a warrior can use one adrenaline empowered attack every now and then, i can deploy a water field + regen, convert two condi’s, cure one and add a stack of might on all my teammates in an area, place a projectile negate/reflect also adding a stack of might and curing a condi, and throw a significantly powerful grenade barrage.

rogerwilko.6895:

PvE (dungeons) wise:

What Good options except Grenades (I dislike the lobbing) and Bombs (I find the idea of planting bombs that only damage the baddies silly) are there?

1). In the past one could make a rifle discharge build work (kinda). Is that gone?

2). What about Power + Condi Mix? Say Elixir gun + P/P? Would that come close to grenade spamming?

3). What about FT for Single Target? What kind of numbers do you guys see?

I don’t believe you’ll ever come anywhere close to grenades with an elixir gun and pistols, i’m afraid. The elixir guns main point is constant weakness as long as you keep shooting it – pistols are mainly condi based, and generally condi’s are less efficient in PvE if the meta is anything to go by.

FT recently had a buff though, so i believe its very much viable. I can’t get on-game right now so i can’t give you an exact number, but im pretty sure its at least a competitive option, especially when you consider the might you can apply and the fact you can stack 10 stacks of might on yourself after letting Juggernaught ramp up.

Rifle discharge… i dunno – never tried it. Sounds interesting though :-). Although, to be very honest, i’ve never really seen an engi who doesn’t run at least one kit.

Well, the idea behind the traits is to make it like a quest. You see a trait you like, you want to use it, so you go on a little quest thingy to go unlock it :-). The skill point/gold method is a shortcut, a way out, so you’re not forced to go do this, but the original idea is that you go find your traits in the world, rather than buy them. I’m pretty glad with this system – it encourages exploring the world of Tyria, and it also adds a few extra things to do. You’ll undoubtably run across a few hearts on the way there, so you can gain some experience on the way, and its fun content to do while you’re lower level :-).

Im a bit disstatisfied with the new weapon system though. I tried introducing my brother to Guild Wars 2 again during the free week, and frankly i realised that the game was a bit dull during the earlier levels. I think it was a better idea to give people the weapon skills as they learn to use a weapon, so they have time to get accustomed to them. The way it stands, you have to wait a pretty long time to get to use your weapon skill 5 even if you’ve been using that weapon for a long time, while you could also suddenly have a whole weapon of new skills if you decide to switch after that without it introducing you one by one.

Personally, my big problem isn’t that i want to know whats about to come – but whats about to change.
I like surprises – i like the current approach for teasing living world. I don’t have to know whats happening in the episode beforehand – say attack on Lion’s Arch was brilliant. I really felt involved, because i learned everything through playing the game content, not from the website beforehand.

What i think is the bigger problem is transparency about current things that are considered issues by the community – things that are generally disapproved of. This is much less specific towards actual content that’s going to happen in the future, and hence, its not really spoiler-able. What im talking about is things like the “lack of permanent endgame content”, “outfits not having individual pieces”, Town Clothing tonics, Engineer Hobosacks and Super Adventure Box, (okay, i know SAB has had a reveal, but its a pretty good example looking at the past).
Rather than wanting to know whats going to happen with it, i think the transparency that would be nice here is one of “We don’t like this – please tell us whether you plan to fix it, and if not, why you will not”.

All of the above are honestly stress points for me. I’ll take the clothing tonics as an example. I used my “common” town clothes very often – i’d dyed them a nice shade of blue and black, and i’d run around lions arch with them and my dance book, getting away from the feeling of combat for a bit. People would join me in dance parties and we’d generally have a good time.
Now, my town clothes come undyable, in the form of a tonic, which prevents me from using any other “transformation”. This is a big sore point for me, yet i’ve never seen it adressed – i’ve never seen an official reply from Anet stating they could change it back, or why they wouldn’t (these things were items before – i currently can’t imagine it being super hard to turn them into an outfit, or skins that you can apply to armour).
This is where i think transparency needs fixing – not for the actual identity of the future content, like whats going to happen in it and could hence have spoilers, but for future changes to current content. Fixes, rather than spoilers.
Hobosacks – another prime example. They currently annoy alot of people, and we all feel left in the dark with them with no official response from Anet on it for almost two years. Okay if they dont get fixed, but at least tell us why.

Most people i’ve met know, and i do too, that development of things can take a long time, but i’m willing to wait, as long as they can live in peace knowing that the issue is known and will be adressed sooner or later.

Also – i must have missed that announcement of SAB. Just wanted to show my gratitude here – this is exactly the kind of thing im talking about. The community, me included, obviously wants SAB back. For me, it doesn’t matter that it could be a long time away. I know its eventually going to be continued now, and thats enough for me.

Indeed – they don’t look half bad, and the toggle is a fun option. But i myself would still much, much prefer being able to mix ‘n match over any of the advantages outfits give. Like on of my current favorite in-game skins – profane.
I just don’t see the necessity of forcing these things into outfits – they’re doing the designing for the entire thing anyway – why not give us the option of adding the individual pieces as skins to the wardrobe when we buy the outfit?

Artaz.3819:

Um, you do realize that if you don’t actually select the target, the grenade ‘1’ autoattack could function exactly the same way with the ground target reticule?

This would then satisfy BOTH the ‘veteran’ engineers and the ‘i want spam’ newer and veteran engineers.

The problem is that this is probably a new tech ‘feature’ level item and could be added to all ground AoE attacks. Afterall, engineers aren’t the only ones with a problem targeting with ground AoE…

Well, the problem with this is that i /do/ want everything else to go to my target :p. As i said, running grenade kit isn’t just about equipping it and spamming the 1 skill. I regularly swap back to my pistol/shield to take two stacks of Defiance off with the 5, or to apply a blind or poison that’s about to do an annoying attack/heal, all of which need targetting.

On top of that, i like to see exactly what conditions are on a specific monster and how much health it has, both of which are pretty hard without selecting it.

Well, i have mostly PvE experience in the “role” part. I could give you the WvW/sPvP builds i use, but its harder for me to gauge my effectiveness there, also since i don’t have too much experience.

In PvE.. well, as mentioned above, the engi is one of the most versatile classes around. Don’t have a guardian in your party? Take an engi, they’ll cope. No thief in your party for stealth in AC? Ask your engi. Not enough Ele’s for DPS? Engi’s can do it. You can take any role within a matter of 5-20 seconds, depending on wether you want to retrait or not (if you’ve been absent since before April – traits are now freely reconfigurable).

Engi’s can compensate for the absence of a lack of many currently meta features. They won’t do it as brilliantly as some other classes, but they can cope. As stated above, nade engi’s with their vulnerability compete with ele’s for strongest DPS in the game. The current meta doesn’t really need it, but engi’s can pop out some nice healing too with their water fields – running healing turret in PvE is a really strong AoE heal.
They do lack stability though – only four seconds on “Toss elixir B”. While this is useful for small situations like running through the Sorrow’s Embrace golem pulls, it can’t really be relied on for long periods of time.

In short – engi’s currently make for great DPS and have some awesome support abilities, but their tanky sides are a bit lacking. Nevertheless, they’re currently very much a competitive class, and i really enjoy playing them :-).

Main features of note in PvE are:
-Grenade kit with Grenadier trait for high DPS and vuln stacks. Great at long range, too.
-Bomb kit for up close damage competing with Grenade kit and fire fields for might stacking (+ a blast finisher if you dont mind knocking enemies around).
-Throw elixir U gives reflect/projectile negation for corner stacking
-Throw elixir S, combined with smoke field on bomb kit, for a long stealth
-Throw elixir C now turns two conditions into boons on all allies hit, very useful against NPC’s that like to stack bleeds like Mai Trin
-Healing turret for high AoE heal and water fields. I usually use shield 4 to proc the f1 water field for even more heal.

On a final note – if you’re just coming back, read the September engi balance changes. There’s been quite a few buffs, most notably to flamethrower arguably even making it a viable choice for PvE scenarios.

Okay, im gonna cut back to the original topic :p.

I think all we need is a new mob AI. This game has pretty challenging content. Two days ago i was in CoF p3 (Rhiannon) with my guildmates, and it was challenging – it was fun. We were all level 80 with quite some experience, and we wiped multiple times. We needed some form of strategy to complete it.

The problem is, people find ways to break the content and make it easy, and Anet doesn’t fix them. Most notably, i think Anet should do something about stacking. Prevent people from stacking all the mobs in one spot and AoE-ing them to oblivion under the cover of a guardian’s reflect wall, and all of your (in my opinion reasonably challenging) dungeon content comes back out. When was the last time you were in SE p1 and fought those three golems out in the open, and Tazza in her little room with Troop Commander Kaeyi present?

1. Do you think there is already enough challenging content that requires strategy and coordination in this game?

Not personally. Yes, there is alot of fun and challenging content, but i’d still like to see more. I’m really hoping the CDI on raids leads to something fun, and for raids to actually be implemented into the game. I also loved challenging content like the Crown Pavilion and the Prime Hologram and hope we’re getting more of this content back as permanent content.

There is already quite some challenging content though, people just find ways to break most of it.

2. If Anet did design more challenging content, would there even be enough players to play it?

I think so. If there are rewards that are scaled to the difficulty of the content, definitely. Knowing this community, i think plenty of people would want to spend time and effort to do challenging content if they were appropriately rewarded.

3. Is the zerg mentality too strong to even prevent some development?

No. Yes, the zerg mentality is strong, but as we’ve seen in the Crown Pavilion, there are definitely ways of preventing people from zerging up, and the community will adapt. I’ve personally been in charge of gold crown pavilions multiple times, it was really fun to do. At first it was difficult to get people to follow, but once people understood how the content should be approached, people were glad to follow the commanders advice to victory instead of zerging up.

4. What would more challenging content in GW2 look like?

Something like dungeons really, raids, or like the Scarlet’s Prime Hologram. Either something that needs a big coordinated effort from a group that consists of more than just attacking specific things at specific times, or a dungeon style 5-man-party thing that prevents people from stacking and forces them to actually use skill to fight.

The latter already exists i think, but faced with easily rushable dungeons, many people avoid the harder things because they’re less rewarding.
The former… well, i think one very important feature would have to be that its not timegated. Tequatl is a big step in the right direction for this kind – its challenging, needs alot of people, needs competent commanders etc. But your big problem is that the entire thing is timegated, and people can only get rewards from it once daily. This means that after every kill, everyone gets their rewards, and the entire crew disbands, with all the people and commanders going their own way. Yes, Tequatl is killed in one of the instances most of the time, but theres many other places where it isn’t. If the timegate were to be taken off, competent commanders and active crews could continue to do this, new people replacing those leaving, instead of assembling everyone just for the single kill.

Im pretty happy with the emotes so far. I just really wish we had a few more :p.

Roleplaying is something i really enjoy, and i use these emotes a whole lot. Theres alot of fun you can have with them – i’ve had great times hanging out with random people while we werent even talking just with these emotes.
Guild wars 1 had a whole plethora of emotes – things like sorry, beg, attention, facepalm, etc, and i’d love for more of these to come to GW2.

I completely agree on the symmetry thing xD. It annoys me so much whenever i find a cool armour skin but its missing one of its sleeves.

I play an Asura engi, and while there are quite a few cool armours, the lack of variety is still sometimes annoying. Pretty much every piece of chest armour is a trench coat.

There’s alot you can do with dyes too though. I actually wear a studded leather chestpiece (that’s level 10 loot armour) almost all the time, but dyed in midnight sky with royal blue trimmings, it doesn’t look half bad.

Make sure you look around on the TP though. A large part of what i wear is Nika’s armour, which is exotic loot armour that you’re unlikely to find anywhere just adventuring yourself.

I agree that there could be better armour skins, but if you look around long enough and make combinations, you can usually find something you like :p.

I seriously agree on the costumes thing though. I really think they should let you customize and dye the seperate pieces so we can actually integrate these into our outfits rather than have to wear the entire set as a whole.

Bloodgruve.6038:

OP, I’ve heard that there are some programable game pads n keyboards out there that let you hold down a button like a ‘turbo’ repeater. May help…

Even some gaming mice – i just recently bought a new mouse, and one of the ones i was considering had two buttons indented into the main left/right buttons that made the mouse automatically repeatedly click when pressed.

You’ll notice it does this spinny thing where it winds up, spinning faster, and then slows back down – this is what applies regen to all allies in the area. The overcharge does exactly the same, but it adds a water field and a healing effect.

But yeah – overcharge before the first shot, and it’ll be pretty much instant. This is what i use the majority of the time – i plonk it down, instantly overcharge, and blow it up for blast finisher the moment the water field comes down. This way, i can use it to get a big heal on myself even while im running forward with swiftness.

Small tip – you might know this already, but the f1 also has a water field, albeit a very brief one. Timed right, you can put a blast finisher into it (like your shield 4) for an extra heal.

I personally think its also part of the identity of the grenade kit. Grenade kit is ground targetted – thats part of what makes it so special. Its the reason i can function pretty much as a mobile mortar in WvW. Thats why i think it should stay this way. Not only for the identity, but also that it’d totally mess up quite a few engi’s WvW and PvP.
Also, as said before, grenades have airtime. I regularly throw my grenades from close to max distance – 1500 range units away. At this range, it easily takes two seconds before my grenades get to my target, more than enough time for it to walk out of the auto-target. The only reason i still hit these on moving enemies is the fact i can predict where they’re going to be.
Grenades aren’t just about “Oh this is the highest-damage kit.” and using that to dish out insane damage.

My engi is Asura – i tend to just pick whatever optically pleases me personally most, which is often not what is generally accepted. My chestpiece is skinned to a level 10 studded leather vest xD (which i then of course dyed in sufficiently epic jet black).

I personally prefer Asura. Besides being my favorite in general, i think Asura have one really big point going for them and that is that the hobosacks don’t look as ridiculous on them as they do on the other races :p. And lets face it, as engi you’ll be spending quite some time with a hobosack on your back.

Hey :-)

I main engineer, and in WvW, the versatility really comes out.

First of all, i still find the toolkit you have in your build already very useful. The shield allows you to run unharmed through pretty big groups of enemies at times (like when you need to get into a besieged tower) or allows you to retreat to a safe distance, and the magnet allows you to pull in people for free lootbags.
In a large force? You’ll definitely want to go for grenades, in my opinion. With the grenadier trait, you’ll have an amazing 1500 range, more than almost any other attack in the game. The kit itself does awesome AOE damage. I run my PvE zerk build, making for some insane damage from a safe distance. The poison and bleed grenades are a nice effect to throw into enemy zergs for the DOT (which keeps people in combat, too), and you can stack weakness on them too. The 1500 range frost grenades help you to catch people running away from the front of your zerg.
To these two, i usually add rocket boots. Speedy kits keeps my swiftness up, and rocket boots allow me to catch up to any point in the zerg i want to. It allows you to pull in/freeze more enemies for free loot bags, and makes for a great getaway/positioning help when your zerg gets flanked.

Healing skill is healing turret for maximum healing to nearby allies. I usually run a pistol and shield here, because the shield allows me to proc the f1 water field with a blast finisher for more heal, and gives me another 1.5s or so of block.

I doubt this would work very well – for the simple reason that most people don’t constantly play Asura.
I personally love Asura as a race and most characters i play are hence Asura (so far, every character of mine to exceed level 10 has been Asura). But most people will have an Asura they play on, and then maybe a human, a charr, etc.
People also have a tendency to put their loyalties mainly with one guild. Most people have one “home” guild where they spend the majority of time representing, often where their friends are, and people they know well that they regularly do things with. If you’re going to make an “Asura only” guild, you’re forcing people only to rep when they’re actually on their Asura character, making it unlikely that many people will choose your guild for “Home guild”, or spend alot of time in it.

Its an okay build :-). This is the brilliance of engineers – theres soo many different playstyles. Many arent as effective as you could be, and neither isbthis one, but its still funcyional, and thats whats important. Whatever works well for you and you have fun playing, is a good build.. As mentioned above, watch out for your knockbacks in group scenarios.

One thing that bugs me a bit is that you dont have a kit. Engi main weapons are pretty lackluster in my experience, not dealing all too much damage on their own and not having weapon swap. I almost always have at least one kit on my toolbar – they eo way more damage, or it at least feels that way. In any case, it gives you a second weapon skill bar which is always nice.

First of all yes, muchbto my squeals of excitement, FT has been buffed to what i consider viability. Its not more damaging than nades i think, but its still awesome.

Most importantly: 33% damage boost on AA, blast finisher on 2. Small cast time increase on 3, but nothing too big. Napalm deals damage per tick aside the burning applied.

Conditions, sadly, still kinda useless in PvE. Meta is still zerk, as was to be expected.

PvE, engis are as variable as ever. I suggest Wolfineers FT/rifle power build for a FT build – its a prepatch (the engi buffbcame with the september feature pack) build hut still applicable imo.

In WvW engis are very useful too, in my opinion. Grenades are still awesome when running in zergs – you get 1.5k range allowing you to blast enemies from walls and distance, allowing you to even run zerk builds for ridiculous damage without too much danger. I complement this with tool kit, for the 3s block and magnet pull – magnet pull can pull fleeing enemies within reach of the very front of your zerg, giving you a very easy loot bag. Some skills now also cripple even without the trait. Last skill i use rocket boots for rapid repositioning or fleeing – along with speedy kits, very few people can catch you.

In roaming, engis act much like in PvP with the exception you cant bunker up. Not many changes gere, apart from the viability of flamethrower in builds. Condi builds, SD builds, all still works pretty much as previously. Fun thing to note is that Analyse, from utility goggles, now also provides 6s of revealed, making it easier to catch thieves if youre prepared. Elixir R also removes immobilise and AED removes damaging conditions.

Ameno.6813:

After using flamethrower for so long only for the 2 skill nuke and the utilities I feel really dirty camping flamethrower’s AA for damage now. Especially when I’m so used to switching back to something like grenades where everything is a skill shot.

If you’re using FF you basically NEED to be using Juggernaut right? Otherwise it feels like a waste, and it also feels like a waste if you’re not camping FF when using this trait.

Anybody else have conflicting feelings about the updated FF?

Well, thats the fun part of playing Engi. You get to choose what playstyle you want.
FT is more targetted yes, less skillshots. Im glad for the buffs though – previously FT just wasnt viable in PvE and people would even blame engineers for using them instead of grenades. Now, they have competitive damage and a low-CD blast finisher.

I ran a FT-power build even before the patch, and i still have fun using it at times. Try wielding a rifle in your main hand, and then traiting 0-6-0-6-2, with rifle and FT damage and CD traits (along with speedy kits, or anywhere else you want those 2 points). In this build, your rifle 3-5 and sometimes 4 are part of your sequence – quickly swap back to your rifle to roll them off. You can use elixir B to gain stability to use the 4 without penalty, and it adds extra might and boons. 5 is very nice damage, and 3 is on a low cooldown and, in short range, nice damage too.
As engi, im constantly swapping out my other two skills.
Your FT2 is a low cooldown blast finisher, so if you dont have a staff ele in your party, you can run bomb kit to provide a bunch of extra combo fields. Also pop your FT4 down for another fire field to finish. Your 5 has absolutely no cast time, so just cast that whenever its off cooldown. Blind may not do very much in PvE, but its better than no blind :p. And, say, in Mai Trins fractal, magnet is great for moving her around, so put that in one of your skill slots and use your FT3 and rifle 4 to whittle down the CC block, then position her in lightning fields with your magnet.

Hey. I spend alot of time on my engi, and im a bit special for builds.
It all very strongly depends on what kind of PvE-er you are. Me, im a freegoer. In many situations, ill disregard whatever is meta in favor of what I think is fun to play. I wont do stupid things (or well, not all too often ;-) ), but often ill take something I think is fun, like FT, when the most damaging option (grenades) bores me. Rather than the most efficient option for my other two skills, ill also take fun things instead.
That’s the question you gotta ask yourself. Are you a meta-goer, who has fun following the meta and finishing dungeons as fast as possible, or are you more like me, preferring to have more variety in your builds possibly at the expense of some clear speed?
FT is very much /viable/, yes, especially now with the extra damage and blast finisher. Its not the best option though. I run it though – I have an on-crit might sigil, and along with juggernaught, I can hit 25 stacks of might all by myself in the right circumstances. As said, juggernaught is a bit selfish, but its not too bad. You can take bomb kit and have very quick fire blast fields.
I personally run FT on a FT-rifle power build for PvE, using my 3-4-5 on the rifle plus FT 2 for some nice damage in quick succession. Traits will go to Juggernaught, and CDR+damage traits for rifle and flamethrower, along with my traditional Speedy Kits.
Wolfineer has a nice guide/build on this. I even run the Knights armour in PvE sometimes, for situations where we lack a guardian or need tankiness rather than damage (say, standing on the buttons in the Dredge fractal). As i said, i enjoy playing with parties who do everything just a bit less strictly meta, and sometimes we end up dying a bit.

Hey
I main an engineer, and i love it. Theres really so much you can do as an engineer; often when a party misses a particular piece of utility, i can provide it. I play mostly PvE though, so most of my advice is PvE oriented.

My first advice is to disregard the numbers. If you look exclusively at the numbers, they’ll tell you to run grenades and potentially bomb kit. While this is fun for a while, the great thing about engis is their versatility. With so many options, its much more fun (at least to me) if you don’t limit yourself to wha does 100% the most damage. There are a lot of builds you can alterne between that still give reasonable damage while being more fun to play.
My skill bars are usually based around a single kit; at this point this is usually either ala flamethrower or grenades. I almost always have at least one kit on my bar since engi base weapons are pretty lackluster in damage and kits are what make engis fun a lot of the time.
My healing skill in PvE is always healing turret, except in extremely elixir oriented builds. Place, immediately overcharge, and explode when you see the water field generated. The turret and overcharge give nice heal, the water blast finisher adds some extra on top of hat, and the overcharge cures two conditions, too.
As mentioned above, my first skill is usually either the grenade or FT kit. FT just got a big buff imo, which im really liking. For FT, I pair it with a rifle. Rifle 3-4-5 and FT 2 give a nice burst of damage, and rifle 3 and FT 2 are on short cooldowns. Pretty fun to play, and doesn’t need ground targeting like grenades do. Keep the blast finisher on your FT in mind with the fire fields and your healturret-toolbelt water fields. Traits include Juggernaught and damage/cd boosting traits for rifle and FT.
Grenade kit I usually take with pistol-shield, because of the utility, CC and blast finisher on the shield, all of which nades lack, unlike FT. I spend most of my time on grenades here, switching back only when I need something from my shield or to quickly pop off a 2-3 to add poison and confusion (useful against bosses that like healing up). Grenadier puts me at 1500 range to throw my grenades, usually turning me into a form of mobile high-damage mortar.
Then, the two remaining skills. As I mentioned, engis are marvelous here. I very often swap these out in between combat. The standard kinda is Elixir B and Elixir U. Elixir B gives all kinds of fun boons, and stability when thrown. Elixir U gives quickness for Improved damage, stunbreak, and, for me the pivotal point of the skill, a projectile negate or potentially guardian reflect wall when thrown. I use this very, very often when a party lacks guardians but still want to rush a dungeon, notably SE p1 which I do very frequently.
But as I said, these are very, very swappable. If I need dodge, ill quickly replace one of them with elixir R. If I need stealth, bomb kit for the combo + elixir S will do it. Often I run a second kit here depending on my mood or situation. Really, engis are extremely versatile. AoE healing? I got that, and with elixir gun, lots of it, too. Poison? Got that. Reflects? Kinda, but yep. Stability, combo fields, condi cleanse, vuln stacks, high amounts of CC, high-accuracy ways to get enemies in a specific spot, we’ve got it all. Even a light to light up dark areas.
Hope I helped you a bit. If you want my specific traits and sigils, theyre a bit extensive and odd, but just ask.
Final tips – I love speedy kits (permaswiftness really) combined with invigorating speed (vigor whenever you get swiftness). Also, take on swap sigils. Everytime you wield/stow a kit, it counts as a swap.

I’ve got to admit, this is something i’ve been worrying over most – this communication gap. Frankly, on the topic of SAB, i don’t mind if it stays off a while. Seeing some actual developer talk on the forums, replying to our questions and concerns, aside from the usual customer support banter, is a serious relief. I love how the commander tag system was revised because of community feedback, too.

Thanks a bunch for these posts, and looking forward to the CDI’s :-).

The thing is, whatever form of interrupt you put on a boss, its going to be able to be broken. For example, i mainly play two classes these days – Engi and Warrior. If hard CC interrupts a boss every time, bosses would become incredibly easy with a 5-man warrior team wielding hammers and maces.
In the most extreme case, say, hammers and dual maces and kick, each warrior would have 5 crowd controls on cooldowns ranging from 15-25, plus two CC burst skills. Between the five of them, they can interrupt the boss’s attacks more than once every second. Although this would probably make the boss fight rather slow to complete, it allows you to pretty much avoid taking any damage at all from any boss from the moment you allow hard CC to actually interrupt a boss everytime it is used.

And its not just warriors. I main engi, and i can get a similar, albeit less effective, crowd control build.

I’ve been living off my own collected Slabs of Poultry Meat in all honesty.

I like the fact there are some rarer items, items that can’t just be bought off the TP easily whenever you need them. It adds challenge, it adds diversity. It creates some end products that are actually high value and worth working for. It’d be a bit of a bore if every recipe were easily accessed cheaply on the trading post.
That’s why i love chef – it’s so much less predictable, much more fun to train without a guide, and its the one skill i don’t just end up buying level 400 off the trading post.

As mentioned above, same goes for linen. Linen is harder to gather since most people don’t salvage it from loot they get at high levels anymore, and aside from that it just drops from loot bags. But once again, i think its good that some materials are rare or harder to aquire.

Arenzo.3298:

does rifle have a blast finisher like shield?, if not he should still run pistol shield
because might stacking is good

Nope, no blast, just a leap finisher.
Might stacking isn’t particularly needed though. The current meta has more than enough damage in builds to get through dungeons. I personally like the hard crowd control skill on the 4.

I also run a Rifle/FT build sometimes which relies heavily on the damage from rifle 3-kitten rifle is definitely still viable.

Don’t feel like you [U]have[/U] to follow the meta. There are a lot of different, good builds that will output decent damage, yet some might be more fun to play for you, so don’t hesitate to play with those, even if they’re not 100% what people expect as meta engi. The class has so much variety you can use.

It would seem like not too huge of a fix, so im wondering why it hasn’t been put in yet. Its not like any new models or skins need to be developped, or anything balance is related. It could be as simple as adding a toggle or giving standard back items priority over the hobo sacks.

Then again, the multi-tool kit goes particularly well with the hobo sacks, and this would ruin that a bit, but that’s a minor issue.

Rauderi.8706:

Trial accounts are usually limited in their interaction with full members. Often times, they can’t trade/mail, as a way to hedge out their influence on the economy.

Problem is, goldspammers can use free accounts to whisper/map chat against TOS with very little consequence.

You could deny them map chat privileges, and even deny them whisper priveleges to accounts that haven’t added them or something. Its a trial account, so some restrictions are normal i suppose, especially to avoid active problems like this.

Zaxares.5419:

Agreed. Even if SAB may not be coming back for a while (an understandable business decision, which I can accept even if I don’t like it), there’s no reason why Moto couldn’t open up SAB with the existing worlds for people to play through again in the meantime. Make the blue SAB skins available as drops and purchasable again with Baubles, and I guarantee you’ll still get a healthy amount of players in there farming for the skins.

This is an opinion i’ve been hearing around very often, and i personally stand by it. I don’t mind the fact they dont want to fit SAB in LS, it might very well not fit well. It is indeed an understandable business decision. But we/i see no reason to not put the previous content, the first two worlds, back in as permanent content.

Do they still read the thread though, you think?

I usually take a single flame turret along with my grenade kit. Its not a ‘full turret build’, but i do use a turret, because turrets are part of what defines an engineer, in my opinion.
When i first made an engineer, i was told there would be turrets. I love turrets – the strategical options are often really expansive. However, in PvE, especially in the current meta, turrets just simply aren’t very useful, even a bit underpowered if you ask me. So i play with a turret there where it can actually be productive – in sPvP.
Also, i just like having a flame turret in my build to plonk down when i start a fight. Its useful without having to go all ‘full turret cheese’. So partially that, partially cause i just want to use the turrets that i was told i would have when i started playing engi.

Vayne.8563:

First of all, EotM was a big project, there’s no question about it. Anyone who doesn’t think it was a big project isn’t someone I’d even bother debating. Because it wouldn’t be worth it. It was a major undertaking. There’s a lot going on there.

Drytop is also a big project and we haven’t seen the whole map yet. Again, if you don’t think its’ a big project, that’s fine. Everyone can make up their own mind.

But you see, EotM has been finished for a long time and so the devs that worked on that would in theory be working on other stuff. Because you know, they don’t just stand there after their big project is done. Same with other big projects, including the wardrobe and megaserver. Those are projects done. Those people move on.

So Anet had said at an interview they had about seven teams working on big projects.

I know you don’t like the game and you want to belittle everything done, but in reality you don’t really know anything more than anyone else about what’s going on in the background.

Anet could have been working towards an expansion for two years, squirreling away stuff the whole time. You really have no idea.

But it means that between those expansions the content we’re getting is pretty kitten ed good, even if some people don’t appreciate it.

Its good content, and i appreciate every bit of it, but i just don’t like the way they put their focus. I don’t think they’re working ‘too slow’, just that its going into the wrong things. What the game desperately needs in my opinion is new [U]repeatable[/U], end-game content. Things you can keep doing after your character is level 80 and you have a full set of ascended gear. All of their content has either been temporary or do-it-once. If you look at Dry Top, its great content and all, but once you do LS and finish your vine?
What i’m thinking of is things like the Marionette fight, the Prime Hologram. That kind of stuff. You can do it multiple times per day, you can keep doing it as long as you find it fun, and it keeps being rewarding. Tequatl is a reasonable example of this, albeit slightly hard to defeat. But again, its timegated. Its not worth it for me to try and organise more than 1 Tequatl, or any world boss, run because its not rewarding for anyone anymore beyond the first time you do it!
This is why everyone loved SAB, and why so many people want it back. SAB was fun to do, challenging, repeatable as often as you wanted to, and it had fun, unique rewards. Add that to the fact its got things to do besides combat to complete it, and it makes for the best piece of content i’ve seen yet.
This is the kind of content i’d like to see. I don’t care if they would have to focus all of their development on it for half a year (assuming they informed us they’re working on a big project instead of staying deadly silent). If theres something with unique rewards, that pays off to do again, even stays fun, that, i’d love to have. Not content that leaves after two weeks leaving almost nothing to do remaining in the game from the update, or areas you complete once and are done with. SAB would have to be completed countless times to be done with it and have all the rewards.

While i think 300G is a bit much, i don’t think its particularly outrageous. What i do think though is that it’s a silly thing that a commander tag needs to be bought with “PvE” money, which isn’t really easily earned in WvW. There should be a way for WvW players to get it by doing WvW.

Im against the ‘limit tags to people experienced in WvW/PvP’. I have a tag – i saved up for quite a while to get the 100G for it – and i use it often. I’ve been at the lead of a gold Crown Pavilion multiple times using my tag, i’ve used it in Guild Missions, i’ve used it to lead trains. I’m really happy i have the tag. But im only Bunny rank in WvW. Commander tags shouldn’t be limited to those who’ve done alot of WvW because theres more uses for the tag than just WvW.
100G was a nice entry level – it prevents random people from getting tags easily, and thus prevents maps from getting spammed with tags continuously, and makes sure those ‘commanding’ have put in some effort to get there, while still allowing everyone access. The only problem here is that it’s hard to get gold in WvW, so it’d be nice if they were buyable with Badges of Honor or something similar.

About the colours, im divided. On one hand, 300G is alot, but on the other hand, a few more gold sinks in-game wouldn’t hurt – inflation is pretty bad right now. It is a bit silly to have to pay to be able to have other colours though, especially if it stops being just vanity and actually becomes useful.

Heh – commander Blue Dorito Guy xD. Guess we’ll be having green and yellow dorito’s now :p.

Chalky.8540:

I’m hoping for:

• Giving us something to do with our infinite stacks of bloody ascended crafting materials
• Trading interface enhancements (buy orders values in the list! search for backpieces! search by price! intelligent initial values for buy/sell prices rather than npc prices!)

Interested to see what WvW changes are in store for us, but I have the feeling it’ll be the stuff revealed on ZAM and that’s it. Multicolour commander tags and golem mastery with one of the most useless top tier mastery rewards I’ve ever seen.

I’d definitely appreciate coming out of a siege golem with a full bar of health instead of being downed.

But yeah, i’m appreciating the down-to-earth permanent content there is in Dry Top now, but it still isn’t particularly repeatable. I’m seriously still hoping for some more end-game PvE content, something repeatable like dungeons or maybe a Prime Hologram-esque boss fight. Sadly it looks like focus is heavily on non-PvE parts here.

Excited to see what changes will come to WvW though, and definitely looking forward to the changes to Engineers.

I’d really like this idea – this’d really be a great quality of life improvement (also for Lightning Flash please). I like both options to be honest, but right now its annoying to have to guess the max range at which i can blink everytime, or scan it out with the pointer.

On the side, can someone explain me why Blink was made to just be a ‘walk really quickly’ rather than an actual ‘teleport’? As much as i like blink, the fact it won’t cross gaps is a major letdown for me. When i first bought the skill, i thought it’d be a teleport – i specifically bought it to do things that you can’t just do with walking, like scaling steep cliffs and teleporting across gaps.

I’ve heard they’re working on a second feature pack of sorts.
In any case, as much as Dry Top seems very fun to me, i’m really missing the big large-scale events like Scarlet’s End and the Crown Pavilion – things that took (organised) group effort to complete.
Although, i do like the fact we’re getting permanent content that stays after the Living Story now.

Maybe they’re taking a break for a feature pack or something? I’ve also heard rumors about Super Adventure Box. And do note that fall isn’t extremely far away :p.

Khisanth.2948:

Spyritdragon.6048:

Sebulon.7683:

Well the other living story items are on the laurel merchant, no matter how hard they were to obtain. :S So I wish there was a way to obtain this item too, it doesn’t have to be easy I just want a way to be able to obtain it.

This i think is an okay way to handle it.
The items are pretty expensive for cosmetic items – 15 gold and 25 laurels isn’t nothing. It takes a while to get – its effort and pretty grindy. This way it still takes effort to get all these things (although i do think the items that were hardest to get should be the most expensive here), yet they aren’t unobtainable just because people weren’t there at the time. Being there would have been a much more fun way to get them than just grinding gold and waiting for laurels again, but they’re still obtainable.
I have most of the S1 rewards i would want, bar the SAB items, so i’d be okay if they were for sale at the laurel merchants for a pretty hefty fee (i.e. takes effort).
I don’t like the idea of having them in the gem shop though.

At 25 laurels they would require a bit over 5x(takes around 30 minutes per daily and around 45 minutes to grab all the heirlooms) the original time investment. Seems like more than enough of a “late fee”. The original also cost 10g so 15g isn’t that big of an increase from there.

Putting it in the gem store would definitely be more problematic.

Yeah, what i meant is – they should be proportionate to what they cost earlier. It makes little sense for the Baby Dolyak Tonic to be the same price as, say, the Mask of the Night.

Sebulon.7683:

Well the other living story items are on the laurel merchant, no matter how hard they were to obtain. :S So I wish there was a way to obtain this item too, it doesn’t have to be easy I just want a way to be able to obtain it.

This i think is an okay way to handle it.
The items are pretty expensive for cosmetic items – 15 gold and 25 laurels isn’t nothing. It takes a while to get – its effort and pretty grindy. This way it still takes effort to get all these things (although i do think the items that were hardest to get should be the most expensive here), yet they aren’t unobtainable just because people weren’t there at the time. Being there would have been a much more fun way to get them than just grinding gold and waiting for laurels again, but they’re still obtainable.
I have most of the S1 rewards i would want, bar the SAB items, so i’d be okay if they were for sale at the laurel merchants for a pretty hefty fee (i.e. takes effort).
I don’t like the idea of having them in the gem shop though.