Guild Wars 2

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

Snip

The decision to implement the New Player Experiment system came from tens of thousands of usability testers

Snip

Tens of thousands…..Oh….My….Goodness….I feel so bad for those usability testers ;/ Guild Wars 2 is already one of the easier games to pick up regarding skills. Sure the Fields and Finishers are a bit of a hassle to learn but that’s probably the hardest thing in the game to learn.

Skills? Hah, hell no.
Traits? They were a bit confusing but if you took more than 5 minutes of brain activity you could figure out how stuff worked.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

The Skald – a heavily armored bard class that utilizes the shouts that are a common theme to the heavy professions while also packing the ability to weave complex battle arias. Clear inspiration from the GW1 paragon as well as traditional bards.

Done and done.

I want that so bad. Also able to equip a focus so I can put The Minstrel on that fella! Also would be a great time to implement new weaponry, like a battle banjo!

Well truth be told. I am kind of starting to understand why dungeons are so hard with random people. Maybe I joined groups which are Arenanet’s target audience. Perhaps skill nr 9 and 10 were too much to handle in Ascalonian Catacombs and that’s why Senior Kohler is wrecking face so hard :P

Let’s see how the collection stuff turns out though, it’s already upsetting the market pretty hard, especially for miniatures.

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

Undeadkemea.4865:

OMG HALF LIFE 2 CONFIRMED?!?!? :O

even released in 1998

Hahahahahaha so kitten y of me, I mean nr 3!

OMG HALF LIFE 2 CONFIRMED?!?!? :O

To be honest, I am quite surprised by the amount of mentally challenged people that are playing Guild Wars 2. Appearantly it is such a big group that a relatively simple system has to be changed and locked further. I thought this crap would end after the trait system was changed.

The trait system is good, at the core. Chasing down certain things to get traits is a good feature, one we all loved in Guild Wars 1 where we had to hunt down our elite skills. The downside is that they locked it away at almost halfway through the leveling process. I would rather have more trait stuff unlocking at level 10, to gather some novice traits and continue from there…Oh well.

Sad day for alts! :P

MUH ENTITLEMENT!!!!!!!!!!

Oh sorry, that’s how the opening post sounded like….

Get good in PvP if you really want the armorset that bad. I know I will be getting the “n00b” version of that armor through the reward track someday. If the tournament armor looks like the best armor in the game….well…time to get my gear in order :P

I’m all game for a Fractals Armorset. That would be terrific. A reason to hop back into fractals for me haha! Hell, I am back in the game just to chop wood for foxfire clusters…

Wow, I felt really bad for the speaker. Watching and listening to that felt pretty bad. It looked like he was a bit pressured into doing the presentation instead of enjoying it xD Oh well, chance missed perhaps.

I just wanted to say that I almost never log on to reply or create a thread. This thread however inspired me to do so.

Most of your ideas are absolutely gold and I really think those should be implemented. The gathering items with a bonus is a fun thing to have, maybe gamebreaking because it gives the owner an advantage to others which isn’t what the gemstore should do (although they have boosters in there). The 1% increase in MF, GF etc. should not be implemented. That is clearly pay to win and that’s a big no no.

The way you handle the gemstore chests and keys is absolutely magnificent though, and if Arenanet does that, I can instantly drop the 500-ish euros I have been saving up for games and the like (call it my entertainment money). The current way of the gemstore feels bad and the system you described could make it work.

I also argue for removing gold to gems and then being able to sell gems on the trading post. This would look like buying materials, instead of buying 100 copper ore you are buying 100 gems for x amount of gold. This will make gems even more valuable and the gemstore system you described would increase the demands by people big time. Remember, having 100 people buying an item of 100 gems is worth more than having a few people buying highly priced items. Sure it would look nice on paper gaining big numbers instantly but the smaller impulse purchases would really make a lot of money.
This way Arenanet would have a potential bigger income because more people have the incentive to buy more things since they are cheaper and the mentality would change.

The character customisation seems like a really nice idea but I think that would be too much work with an already existing game. I’d rather they focus on other parts of the game or creating actual new and lasting content or designing armors and weapons which we can earn through in-game activities Note: not an achievement point barrier but things like new dungeons

I would like for as many people as possible to read this thread and comment aswell for I think this would make for a better game and I find it quite sad to see so many of my in-game and real life friends literally flying away from Guild Wars 2 to Wildstar, of which I am sure we GW2 players funded quite heavily aswell with our microtransactions.

It would be an entirely optional thing ofcourse! And how I see it implemented is that you buy a book from the trainer which then resets your progress.
This way you have to get the book and then consume the book from your inventory.

I understand this is interesting for a small amount of people, I just think it would be a very fun way to get back in touch with your character again and make every trait feel special.

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to say I really love the new trait hunting system but I think it would have been nice for people with pre-patch characters to reset their traits/map completion to get back in the other zones to hunt their traits down. Sure you can make a new character but there are people who feel a deep connection with their existing characters and do not feel the need to make yet more characters.

Note that this is a purely optional thing if it were to be implemented. Each character would have to go to their respective class trainer and they would be given a 1 time only option to forget their entire map completion and traits.

Let me know what you guys think! I would be super thrilled if this were to happen!

Hello everyone!

I’ve read and thought a lot about the upcoming wardrobe change and I think it will be a very great addition to the game, only the thing which has came up between me and friends/guildies is the following:

Should there be a charge cost to changing your skins at all?

I and the people I have spoken with all think this may be a missed chance to make the wardrobe system really terrific. As far as we know the charges for changing skins will be newly transformed transmutation stones and crystals, which cost gems.
For a game which has horizontal progress as end-game situation we think it is a really restricting thing to have.

There is also one sole reason for it to cost gems and that is to make more money. However I think there will be a bigger barrier to buying more armors while the charges cost gems aswell. Sure it may sound nice on paper to have extra profits but think of the people with more than 1 or 2 characters. I know I would buy more armorskins if I could equip them on more characters without any additional costs (the 10 euros for an armorskin is already pretty pricy in my opinion, but that’s what it is).

The wardrobe is a great feature and it looks really nice so far. I have 160 transmutation stones and like 8 crystals left, so I will be good for a while, but I am thinking about those who haven’t had the chance to save up all those stones and crystals.

let me know what you guys think, I’m looking forward to some responses

p.s. english isn’t my first language so if you filter out some mistakes, say so, so I can improve my english!

1 Ranger
2 Thief
3 Necromancer

Give these professions some love please! <3 :P

Forzani.2584:

If a thief runs away from a duel, you won.

A worn out cliche that is laughably used by Thieves to prove they are balanced.

Nowhere do I mention that thieves are balanced by running away, it’s more like the other way around. If we have to run away from someone, that means we cannot kill that person. Stealth and player disability to figure out where we are on time helps us get away. When a skilled person (aka usually a person who has played a thief before and understands the concept) will down and kill a lot of thief players when they go into stealth. This is because they know what thieves usually try to do in stealth.

This is adressed to Burnfall for his interesting ways of wording things and concluding a certain so called percieved truth!

Dude….you rant on and on in Thief forum and now you go about blabbering here? Ok fine, to answer your big question about where a wooden stick (I have no idea why you would call a dagger a wooden stick) hits more than a metal rod (Mace and hammers, yeah I get that) in real life. The answer to that is no where, but you probably already knew that.

Back to MMOs which utilise weapons etc. This is coming from my own history of MMOs which started at Knight Online, went into Warhammer Online, Guild Wars 1, Rift, World of Warcraft. Each and every MMO a dagger did more damage when compared to other melee weapons. You asked for damage, not sustained damage.

Of the classes which utilised daggers in those MMOs, they did not have the highest sustained damage but they had the highest burst damage or highest non-specified damage. Why did they have that? Usually the classes wielding a dagger wore a lower tier of armor than the usual warriors in those games.

Use that common sense of yours, if a heavy armored guy had the highest damage combined with the highest amount of survivability which his armor and class usually made sure of…where is the balance in that?
Also to get back to the common sense regarding weapons, a dagger is a more precise weapon, you can attack faster. The drawback is that is has such a short reach compared to swords/axes/greatswords and the like. It is only logical that someone with a dagger inflicts more damage when he gets close, since he can aim for the vital parts a tad easier and faster.

n guild wars 2 we have the warrior with high survivability, high mobility (granted that’s tied to the sword and greatsword only), high sustained damage output, high burst (Hello Rifle/Axe/Greatsword/Longbow/Hammer, I am not sure if hammer still counts after nerf).
What does the thief have? High mobility (granted that is tied to shortbow ports and 1 utility, almost no access to swiftness), Low survivability (Calling the use of stealth survivability in PvE is correct, seeing the mobs disengage. In PvP and WvW it doesn’t count as higher survivability because the players can still AoE the crap out of the place where the thief could be. We don’t get invulnerability when going into stealth, play a thief and find out), high burst but lower sustained damage.

I just don’t get your eternal hatred towards thieves man, really. Have we killed you that many times over without you being able to figure out we still take damage while stealthed? If a thief runs away from a duel, you won. Sure it may be annoying to notice the thief to stealth and run away but let me tell you, it is way more frustrating than being able to SEE a warrior FLY AWAY with his greatsword/sword and not being able to catch up with him as a thief using heartseeker/steal and/or ports. before the warrior hides in a tower.

P.S. The warrior = the holy trinity in 1 class. It can heal/do a ton of damage/support with CC. GJ Anet :P

Clockwork Bard.3105:

Dear Assassin’s Reward,

It’s not you; it’s me. I’m just not that into you.

We had a lot of fun together, but this just isn’t a grandmaster relationship. You expect too much from me and aren’t willing to give back in return. I need a trait that isn’t so needy and understands my needs.

I’ve met that trait. Her name is Pain Response. She knows what this is. It’s not a commitment. It’s just a little healing on the side while I’m going out for Feline Grace.

I wish you the best and hope you find the build that’s right for you.

Sincerely,
Clockwork Bard

P.S.
I was never into Hard to Catch. I have no idea where you got that idea. She’s really random and just causes more problems when ever she tries to help.

Brilliant :P And too true! Pain Reponse is SO much better than AR

^
Pretty much sums it up :P

Hmmm well if I look at the items, I would have been happy and willingly spend a lot more money on gems if everything was halved, aka 5 euro for 800 gems. I know a LOT of people who would instantly start buying gems when that would happen.

Hey guys!

I just noticed 800 gems are 70+ gold at the moment. I had to save up a while from my dungeon running for the 83 gold I have currently and that will go down the drain for leatherworker now :P

I personally think 100 gems for 5 gold is a fine place, what do you guys think about that?
Also what do you guys think about the current conversion ratio?

And that’s exactly why it’s bullcrap. Venom Share isn’t overpowered enough to warrant these numbers in my opinion. Venoms on a base cooldown of 35 seconds or hell, even 30.
That would make them useful.

Throw in a stunbreak on one of the lesser used venoms and BHAM!

But this goes against arenanet of systematically destroying Thief viabillity and build diversity, so I suppose I shouldn’t have mentioned it.

Aye I suppose the regeneration MAAASSIIIIVE BUUFFFFFF!!!11!1!!11 is indeed noticeable. I tried it out and I quite liked it.
But this MAAASSSIIIVE BUuUuUuffFF!11!1!!!!! came with GAMEBREAKING NERFS so I would still call it a nerf in general.

Another sad day for thieves on balancing day.

haha yeah true true. Luckily I already have a soldier and magi armorset. Time to get some soldier runes and pretend my signets count as shouts!

Assassin’s Reward should have never been put into grandmaster tier. It’s still barely noticeable.
Oh well. Anet did a great number on us today, another step closer to deleting the Thief from character creation!

cries in a corner

Menzies, stop bro!
They are systematically nerfing Thieves into the ground. The nerf on Shadow Return has been such a good hit for Anet!
I mean, who really wants to get out of a stun anyway? Aren’t we supposed to be lootbags when using non-stealth builds anyway?

The thing is, when we use more stealth builds, we will get more cries of new players which will result in nerfs to stealth! Don’t try to rob them of their next nerf target, have a heart! :P

Oh right!

Infusion of Shadows now gives 2 initiative. Thank for that buff anet! It works so much better now than back in the days when it gave 2 initiative!

P/P and warrior rifle or nothing alike. One is useless and the other is viable and has interesting skills.

Keep maining your warrior, kitten just went down on the Thief today. The nerf to Oppertunist 15 point trait in critical strikes made it even harder for a P/P thief.

P/P lacks speed on autoattack, lacks a way to get out of melee reach in their weaponset. If those 2 things were implemented, I would love to play a hybrid gunslinger. For now and in the far future we will not have an awesome gunslinger :P

Everyone do it!

0/0/10/30/30

wooooooooot! :P

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

You could just “shadow return” back … oh wait

LOOOOOOOOOOOL

I’m just so sad they moved it to grandmaster tier. the 35% healing power scaling was a START to make it a slightly less horrible MASTER tier trait….the next step was for it to give a better base healing per initiative spent. But I don’t get money to balance things so what do I know about it? :P

Well, first of all don’t trigger all venoms at once. Leeching Venoms triggers only on 1 stack of a venom even if you have all your venoms active and proc multiple venoms at once. I suspect this is to counter burst…most likely it’s bugged and Anet is leaving it for what it is.

The Venom heal NEEDS a lower cooldown for sure for it to be competitive with Withdraw/Hide in Shadows….the developer reasoning for giving it 45 second cooldown was because “all other venoms have a 45 second cooldown aswell”….that’s just kittening BULLkitten…. sadface

Y U NO LISTEN ANET Y U NO LISTEEEEN xD

lol fine, second hardcounter then :P

Well, the thing is, it’s only above 90%. Yeah sure it shafts condi necros really really hard. You have a hardcounter in a 1 versus 1 now.
Not the best way to go about balancing but hey. Atleast you don’t have to be scared for Sword/x thieves now, they are all gone! :P (maybe some stubborn ones, just stun em and be done with em! xD)

Hi guys.
I am a Thief main and would like to share my thoughts about your utterly messed up sad and poorly designed heal (see what I did there?)

I think a siphon effect on each hit (wat datamined version showed) would have been extremely OP combining it with the blood magic and all. Fine, they removed the Siphon effect but the ICD killed it outright. I would have been fine if it didn’t have an ICD.
For the activated version….eh….maybe if you get your team organised and use it at a rare critical decisive moment…

So as I said in my special condolences thread, I’m sorry for your loss :P

P.S. I really wanted to play a blood magic necromancer. They were my favorite caster in Guild Wars 1. Sadly Blood Magic necros aren’t really…well..they aren’t really anything at all xD
I think they fired all of the people who worked on GW1 and recruited newly graduated people for GW2. Probably cheaper on the income scale and this is their first gig.

^

Wrote this sentence so it could be posted!

I used about the same thing in WvW just now only with shadowstep being Roll for Initiative. I am not quite sure about the venom heal yet. It’s atleast less crappy than advertised :P

the 4 second swiftness is really….uhm….well….we all know Warrior is the alpha class in the game. It only needs some magic attacks and able to use scepter/staff and we have no need for other classes anymore!

+1 on it working like WIthdraw/Roll for Initiative. This is coming for a Thief player. I tried out Lightning Reflexes and cried a little on the inside xD

And then it waved back at the rangers, pointed and laughed while enjoying permanent vigor :P

They actually stated in the livestream that Venoms “were nearly there” in their current state….soooo no hope for improvement in traits from what I hear :P

ronpierce.2760:

When poor squishy thieves have pitty for you, its time to take a step back and reassess. T-T Thanks, Mr. Squishy-thief, our losses are deep. My apologies back that your heal has a silly long cooldown and doesn’t help most (if any) popular thief builds in PvP.

I thank thee for that. I am honestly pretty sad about our new healing skill, especially since the balancing is revolved around a 30 point grandmaster trait. Kinda forces you to take it so you can use it as developers intended but yeah, the necro heal is just….lol….I’ll unlock it on my necro just to try it out but I can’t see anyone in their right mind using either the Thief or Necro heal competitively xD

Shadowstepshare would be cool, if it wouldnt get a silly long casttime, the appeal of venoms is that they are insteant, atleast to me. And a stealth on venom activation would be super cool.

Don’t take the power line venoms into trickery. Power buffs condition damage and our normal damage so I’d like to keep it in there, it has nice synergy. Having to go shadow arts and then trickery would demolish our DPS heavily :P

For our F skills, I still like the idea of having pockets to store stolen skills in. Much better than our current system of steal > use or throw away to steal again.

Hey everyone!

The livestream yesterday made it clear that all our venom skills are balanced around our 30 points shadow arts trait Venom Share. The new heal skill gets the 45 second cooldown because “every other venom has a 45 second cooldown” and because of our grandmaster trait Venom Share. Also the leech effect isn’t that strong combined with the base heal. The devs showed that it can pack some nice healing IF you are in full cleric but even they themselves mentioned “crazy thieves” with cleric gear, so I assume they aren’t intending people to try that out seeing they joke about it. Also all hits need to land for it to heal for that decent amount of HP versus cooldown.
45 second base cooldown, able to get interrupted, stacks remove on miss(blind), evade, invulnerable and blocks will make the healing pretty hard to utilise, again when you compare cooldowns with Hide in Shadows and Withdraw plus their extra effects on usage.

I’d like to point out that the venoms on their own aren’t really that great, and for them to be viable, you need atleast 4 traits (2 grandmaster and 2 master tiers). That’s 60 points down just to be able to use venoms and not completely suck with them.

Quick Venoms is MANDATORY when using venoms. The effects of the venoms wear off incredibly fast, and having to wait 40 seconds after 5 seconds of attacking and using venoms, is just wrong. Especially since they do not have that much of a gamebreaking effect. They do not help with survivability like our other utilities do. They have no stunbreak and no condition clearing.
A base cooldown of 30 seconds (24 when traited) would not be a bad idea at all and I do not consider that overpowered if you look at the current effects and the time it lingers.

Residual Venom isn’t mandatory BUT really really really really helpful. I think the trait on its own is lackluster for a grandmaster tier and I would like to see Quick Venoms absorbed into this one.

As for our 2 venom traits in Shadow Arts line, I don’t understand why the venoms are in the shadow arts line….Maybe the skill/trait team was out of ideas of where to put them? Anyway on to what I think about the traits

Leeching Venoms could use a little buff. It’s currently only rewarding people with 4 venoms. Taking it while having only 1 or 2 venoms isn’t going to do anything amazing, just like Assassin’s Reward which isn’t all that great as the 10 december patch leads us to believe.
I think this trait is fine as a master tier if they add Potent Venoms, the one that gives might on activation, into this one. Either Potent Venoms in this or a buff to the heal it gives, in my honest opinion.

Venom Share is strong when everybody stands near eachother and gets ready to kiss eachother and prepares for a grouphug session. In a serious TPvP match you will NEVER EVER get to use it on 3 or more people. They are far too spread out for that and have their own jobs to fulfill.
My suggestion is that Venom Share actually goes to the Adept tier!
Why? Because of the promised build diversity! If I would pick Shadow Arts line for my stealthing and see Venom Share in adept tier, I could still contribute to my team instead of selfishly go invisible like it is now. Plus it makes no sense to go all out in Shadow Arts for Venom Share since you almost pack no stealths when using a Venom support oriented build.

Jon Peters mentioned a LOT of “Ifs” in the twitch stream chat yesterday. IF everyone is close, IF everyone hits with their attacks, IF everyone times it correctly and the likes.
Maybe the current Thief community doesn’t know how to properly use a Thief Venom Share build, even after a year. Maybe the skill ceiling is that much higher than we thought it was. I do not know.

However with the changes made for 10 december I would really like some insight where the developers think the Thief is right now and actually what our role is!
Our burst is getting mediocre in serious PvP settings (WvW is basicly PvE) and I don’t think our sustained damage is all that scary considering how squishy we are in return to deal that sustained damage.
Also our survivability is getting lowered with the cuts into vigor and Assassin’s Reward getting the buff it needed but then upped into grandmaster tier, which is undeserved.

TL:DR
Please rework the venom traits. Please do not balance your skills around a 30 points trait, this forces you to take that trait to make it work as intended and please explain what the role of a Thief is currently.

Also, fellow Thieves, please share your thoughts

Hail, all great necromancers of Tyria!

I wanted to take this time, as a thief player, to say I am really sorry for your loss regarding the healing skill. The datamined version looked so good and when I saw it yesterday on livestream, the only thing I thought was: “kitten , Thieves didn’t get the shortest stick!”
I thought we would get the crappiest heal from all 8, but your version with an ICD….just wow :P
Apart from siphoning being already pretty lackluster. I tried to get my guild wars 1 vampiric necromancer back, but it just won’t work.

So once more, my condolences!

I will try the heal out just for the sake of trying it out, but the argument on livestream trying to justify the standard cooldown being 45 because “all other venoms are 45 seconds” is just….errr kitten .
If this would have been 35 or 30, I would have taken it over hide in shadows (which actually removes conditions!!!)

I think the leech effect could have been made higher as a base to balance the risk/reward factor. It depends on you hitting stuff so if you DO manage to hit something and predicting dodges and the likes, you should be appropriatly rewarded, seeing this heal has NO other advantage.
HiS stealth, remove life-draining condis, Signet promotes ranged and lots of rapid attacks for high sustain(note, relatively :P) and Withdraw has a low cooldown, removes CC-related condis and has an in-built evade.
Skelk Venom has nothing apart from the fact that it can be TRAITED to be shared to party members in kissing-range.
I think a higher leech effect would have been a good idea when you think about the fact that you HAVE to trait for your healskill to make it work.

AlexEBT.7240:

Auesis.7301:

Here’s the in-game code: [&BxJVAAA=]

4 hits, 1.3k heal. kitten CD.

You have got to be kidding me……..i can’t…well….this at least proves that it’s a good thing i jumped classes.

This is the exact idea I am getting. Even a 1 second cast time to activate it so it can be INTERRUPTED aswell?….Basilisk venom I can understand but this….

I think as John mentioned that the Thief heal would certainly shake things up…yeah it does but in a really negative way. GEE GEE! :P

Well, I’d be happy if Residual Venoms and Quick Venoms were combined and put in master tier. Keep Venomshare 30 points in and put the Potent Venoms into Leeching venoms. That would be decent.

In its current version, I think Assassin’s Reward would be suitable for a 10 point major trait. Increasing its heal scaling by 35%, I do not know what numbers we will be looking at, still probably lower than 150 hp per initiative spent, will MAYBE increase its usefulness to a 20 point major trait.

I thought arenanet wanted to reward thieves for sticking to a fight? I think moving this to grandmaster tier without even checking how the community reacts to the 35% heal scaling will be a terrible idea.
With the sword nerf coming up I see this as an extra blow.

2k base heal on level 80 per tick without healing power, then we’ll talk stack removal on miss/evade/blocks :P

Well I am a venom lover as a thief but as a HEALING SKILL I think the heal venom should be unblockable and go through blind.
A heal like that should actually be able to land instead of being able to be blocked.
We need to be IN combat to actually get healed. We need atleast 20 points in Deadly Arts for a cooldown reduction (It has the highest cooldown of all our heals, completely unjustified) and preferably 20 points in Shadow Arts for more healing.

I just wish venomshare range was like 600. Residual Venoms + cooldown in one trait, venomshare and leeching venom in 1 trait. Perhaps have the newly combined Residual Quick Venoms trait moved to master tier so we can actually grab something defensive (which venom thieves need since we have no stunbreaker on venoms and a lot of stealth).
The idea of venoms are awesome, but just like traps, they aren’t as awesome as the concept is. Although traps are just utter rubbish xD

edit What I mean with unblockable is that stacks don’t go away on blocks/evades. Stacks only go away after a succesful hit.