Guild Wars 2

I think something that would help in a small way would be to remove conditions from weapon skills and put them on traits. Either that or allow us to select from 2 versions of a given weapon skill; one for power and one for condition. Also remove DoT conditions from minor traits. This is basically aimed at removing “side effect” conditions from power builds, thus removing low-duration and low-damage conditions from power builds, and allocating them to “real” condition builds.

This way a warrior trying to get some precision from Arms won’t ruin a necromancer’s bleed stacks from the bleed proc. Of course this won’t completely solve the issue, but it might help…

TheFallenAngel.1320:

Dusty Moon.4382 – Ppl will always grind, I do not understand what u mean by “what lvl of reward they wanted.” Its suppose to be same reward after lvl 20 but with bigget chance, so You got me confused here.
Xenon.4537 – Not knowing drop rates is pretty frustrating to everyone that value his time and effort. Second promoting positive energy by hiding actual numbers makes me think something is wrong, if information like that can’t be given, somethign fishy might be going on, like controlled dropping and all sorts of gimmicks.

Just because something is frustrating doesn’t necessarily mean it needs changing. Nothing “fishy” is going on. It should be expected that the devs control drop rates in order to properly balance the game. It’s not a gimmick. It’s simply making sure 10,000 precursors don’t accidentally drop from a level 5 moa bird. Besides, in most games I know the drop rates of items are always figured out by community effort. I can’t recall any developer officially listing drop rates.

And again this topic is NOT targeted to ask for increase OF ANY KIND. psl stop commenting on that for no reason.

I’m not sure what the point of this thread is if not to suggest changes to drop rates. If you don’t want them changed, what’s the bother? There’s no use knowing the actual drop rates other than to create further frustration. If Anet published the actual official drop rate of Dusk, it would probably further discourage anyone from trying to obtain it. If they officially posted drop rates for fractal weapons, it would probably create many more complaints. Essentially Anet has nothing positive to gain from telling us exactly how unlikely we are to get certain things. It’s nothing but bad news to the ears of the community.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Yet, Frostgorge Sound is accessed directly from Wayfarer Hills. There is a precedent of Level 80 zones being directly connect to even starter areas.

Oh I didn’t realize that lol. Its been forever since I leveled a character without crafting.

I expect a whole new set of maguuma armor in the gem store and maybe 1 recipe for a backpiece in-game. Or a weapon or two. Overall underwhelming as far as loot goes. I expect the map itself is going to be the highlight of this release.

@Anet
It would be nice if yall would add more in-game armors and weapons to collect…

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Draknar.5748:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Kurrilino.2706:

They already confirmed waypoints and hearts in the new zones.

I think I missed this. Where did they confirm this?

As post 80 content, I would have thought we wouldn’t see hearts in the maps….

May not be post 80 content. For all we know it could be a 50-60 zone or something. With level scaling it would make no difference, in fact, most of the time I’m in non-80 zones anyway.

I would like post-80 content though, but if it wasn’t 80 I wouldn’t really care. New zone is a new zone.

ponders

I suppose that’s possible, but from what I inferred from the twitch stream, that doesn’t make sense. Although, my impression could be wrong.

If they are treating LS2 as continued story, that you can’t even access until you’re 80, then having a lower level zone doesn’t really make sense to me. I would expect it to be all max level zones, which presently don’t have hearts.

shrug I guess we see what we get.

I think what makes it likely to be a lower level zone is that it’s connected to a low level zone. It would be pretty jarring if someone was leveling in Brisban at level 15 and walked through a portal to a level 80 zone. This could be solved by a warning message or a locked door, but who knows. Assuming they release the entire maguuma over the next few months in multiple zones, they could progress the maps from 15 to 80 in sequence. Each zone would have to cover like 20 levels though.

I would actually like to see a little more racial tension in the story of GW2. It felt like it really enhanced the flavor and atmosphere of the books, Ghosts of Ascalon, and Edge of Destiny. It’s not about enjoying racism itself, but rather appreciating the struggle against racism. It’s something I think many Americans can identify with. Not sure about other countries.

That said, I don’t necessarily want to see core game mechanics emerge in the form of Horde vs Alliance. It depends on how it’s done. On one hand I enjoyed the Kurzicks vs the Luxons in Factions, but the whole red vs blue thing has been done to death in MMOs over the years. I think what made Factions work for me was the inherent neutrality of the player, the ability to switch sides, and the story of trying to bring the two sides together to defeat a common foe. Whether it’s Shiro or Mordremoth, I think it could work as long as Anet does it right.

data.4093:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Gotta get those totem axes

just lol.

The single most useful item in the game lol… I think I used mine on every character for the majority of my GW1 career.

Anet already told us they only plan to do feature patches once every 6 months. They want to keep content and feature patches separate. Don’t expect any new skills, traits, classes, game modes, etc any time soon.

If you are confused about the difference between a feature and content, a feature is something like the wardrobe system, banks, the account wallet, different game modes, etc. Content is stuff you spend time playing, such as dungeons, quests, personal story instances, dynamic events, etc. Features are things that enhance or make the gameplay better. Content is the stuff you do while engaging in gameplay.

At some point between July 1st and July 15th you are going to have to locate your computer and press the login button.

There are one million, two-hundred and nine thousand, six hundred (1,209,600) seconds in 14 days. If you simply cannot find a way to set aside 5 of those seconds to press the login button, then you are just going to have to pay the two dollars and fifty cents when you do find the time to log in…

And I am sorry, but I just can’t find any sympathy for someone who can neither find time, nor afford to spare a few shekels to unlock this optional content.

DeWolfe.2174:

FrostSpectre.4198:

Should it be more punishing?

Why should anything in a video game be punishing???? Punishing game are not fun games. Please use another term?

I would argue that punishment is a great thing in games. For example the Souls series is built on punishment. It’s what makes those games so amazing. If you don’t like it, that’s your right, and your problem. Some people prefer a challenge. Without punishment or consequences, challenge becomes irrelevant.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Dungeon Vanquish

No need to change anything. However, I’d say that dungeons and mobs would need to be retooled before this is implemented.

Yeah, I imagine they would need to simply replace all of the mobs with generic ones, or even new ones designed specifically for vanquishing. For example there’s a lot of gravelings in AC that despawn when you get the scepter pieces. For vanquishing there would be no scepter pieces, just an open map and mobs to kill. Furthermore it would be more fun is the packs of mobs were more interesting, such as special patrol patterns, more diverse group comp (like enemy healers) or some such things.

serapheles.5409:

Seconded.

First off, why not second a post that isn’t so ignorant.

This game wasn’t set up for open world vanquishing,

No it’s not, that’s why I tried to come up with variations of existing things in GW2 to make it plausible.

and I dislike the idea of creating instances just for parties.

This is a silly opinion. You make party instances every time you do a dungeon or join a pvp match.

Dungeon vanquishing, however,

See this contradicts the previous statement.

or perhaps vanquishing something we don’t yet have, appeals to me.

Indeed if they came up with a new type of content that we could vanquish, like a… zone of some sort full of non-respawning monsters… that was an instance because, well, you cant have non-respawning monsters in open world…

I mean, you see where the logic is heading here?

Sorry, I’m very nit-picky. :P

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Xenon.4537:

Amnariel.3659:

Yesterday I’ve done all the bosses from 15:00 until Karka queen and 1 Exotic and 5-6 yellows…Really?I was so close to delete Gw2 by anger…but there’s nothing better outside right now…I hope they not put hopes in that to keep the game alive…110% magic find and Banners at nearly every drop.

How many yellows and exotics would have been satisfactory to you? Keep in mind if they significantly increased the drop rates, the market would be greatly affected. Exotics are the best gear you can get before ascended. They are meant to take a little effort. If every average joe got 10 exotics per day, at the end of a month exotics would cost a few silver and there would be no point in playing any of the content. Just open the TP and you’re done with the game.

I don’t do all world bosses every day, but I usually do at least one and/or a temple event or two every day or so and I can’t really remember the last time an exotic dropped for me while doing that. I certainly don’t get even one exotic every day, and usually only get a yellow aside from the bonus chest one out of every few events. My MF is usually about 150% or so including buffs. One exotic and 5-6 yellows seems lucky. ;-)

It would be nice to know drop rates and/or more specifics about what influences them though.

Yeah it would be nice, but I think I remember Anet mentioning they don’t want to publish drop rates for some technical reasons. There was a lot of heated feedback regarding diminishing returns early in the game’s life. I think it had something to do with botting, farming, and/or balancing the economy.

I think it’s also important to promote as much positive energy as possible. If you go and list the official drop rates of things that are 0.00001% it’s really discouraging and demoralizing. It creates a negative atmosphere. Better they keep things a mystery and allow those rare moments to be extra special. That way when you do get an exotic it feels better.

And like I said, if they increased exotic drops, they would become cheaper due to increased supply in the economy. Getting an exotic would be just like getting a rare is now. And getting a rare would be like getting a green is now. Ecto prices would plummet. Inflation would increase because now that those items are cheap, more gold is produced, or at least less gold is spent trading those items, so less gold sinkage. I’m sure an actual economist could explain it better.

Amnariel.3659:

Yesterday I’ve done all the bosses from 15:00 until Karka queen and 1 Exotic and 5-6 yellows…Really?I was so close to delete Gw2 by anger…but there’s nothing better outside right now…I hope they not put hopes in that to keep the game alive…110% magic find and Banners at nearly every drop.

How many yellows and exotics would have been satisfactory to you? Keep in mind if they significantly increased the drop rates, the market would be greatly affected. Exotics are the best gear you can get before ascended. They are meant to take a little effort. If every average joe got 10 exotics per day, at the end of a month exotics would cost a few silver and there would be no point in playing any of the content. Just open the TP and you’re done with the game.

If there isn’t a new zone on day 1, I’ll just play GW1 until the do release the new zone.

Vanquishing is an activity in GW1 where you turn on hard mode and attempt to kill every single enemy in a zone. It worked in GW1 because zones were instances, and enemies did not respawn until you left the instance. For this reason, it is assumed that vanquishing simply can not exist in GW2 because uses a persistent environment.

I am here to challenge that notion! * slams hands down *

I have several methods of implementation to suggest. Hopefully at least one of them will sound appealing to Anet.

Guild Vanquish
This is a type of guild mission where a guild leader, officer, or whoever has access can walk up to a gold icon thingie (like that of a guild puzzle) and start the vanquish. It will teleport him in to an instance of that zone, and guild members can join his party to ferry themselves in. The zone can hold as many guildies as a normal open-world zone, but it’s detached from the megaserver so that randoms are not placed on the map, only people joining through parties.

The vanquish itself is a timed event. Your guild has 1 hour to clear the zone of enemies (the time can be more or less depending on the zone). The enemies won’t respawn in this map instance, but they will scale much like dynamic event bosses. So if your guild zergs, even a lowly veteran will scale up and become tough to kill. If your zerg is super strong, this might work or it might not. You can also try spreading out into small groups. The idea is to make it so that a guild group of 10 can complete it if they are good, but allow for up to 100+ to participate with a scaling that keeps it challenging.

Personal Vanquish
This is a vanquish activity that you or a party up to 5 can start by talking to a certain NPC in each zone. It will give you a special buff/debuff which adjusts your stats to make the enemies more challenging; sort of like gambits in the queens gauntlet. You might get a speed buff but also take more damage. The metrics for completing the vanquish are a little more complex in this version because it still happens in the open world. One objective is that you have to find and kill a certain number of a type of enemy, like ogres or flame legion or devourers. Next you have to locate and defeat a certain number of mini-boss-like foes which only become hostile during the vanquish; sort of like guild bounty.

The differences for this version is that it is not a guild activity, and it is confined to the zone in which you activate it. It does not necessarily have to have a time limit, but that’s not off the table. Instead of guild commendations, you earn points toward a reward track similar to the pvp reward tracks. Vanquish 3 zones and you earn a rare chest. Vanquish 12 and you earn a random exotic. Vanquish all zones in the game and you get a title. Previously vanquished zones may be vanquished again for other rewards.

Dungeon Vanquish
Last but not least! This is a new type of dungeon path. Rather than skip trash mobs and speed run to the end, the goal of this activity is (you guessed it) to kill every single enemy in the dungeon. For this unique path, all routes through a dungeon are opened, and the main bosses are not spawned. Instead its all trash mobs and mini-bosses (like the troll in AC). This type of vanquish is designed specifically for 5 players, and can be done for a daily reward at the end, much like any other dungeon path. The difference is that there is a timer for gold, silver, and bronze reward levels. Gold may be 30 minutes, silver 60 minutes, bronze after that. You can keep going back and trying to get gold as much as you like. There’s also a title for vanquishing all dungeon paths on gold.

Let me know what you guys think!

Chord*

/fifteen

I realize this isn’t definitive proof, but it’s as much a “yes” as I’ve learned to accept from Anet. Here’s the screen shot as promised.

I’ll return to this thread on July 1st; either to apologize, or say I told you so.

Happy “speculation.”

“Go for the eyes!”
Utility skill (guardian or warrior). The next 5 attacks by you and nearby allies are guaranteed criticals. Cooldown 40 sec.

“Make your time!”
Elite Skill (warrior). Your next burst skill costs no adrenalin and instantly recharges. Cooldown 120 sec.

Aura of Thorns
Utility Skill (guardian). For 8 seconds, attackers that strike you take 1 stack of bleeding per hit. Cooldown 20 sec.

Avatar of Balthazar
Elite Skill (guardian). Your base power is tripled, and health and armor are doubled. You wield a holy great axe with unique skills. Lasts 30 sec. Cooldown 180 sec. (basically a melee version of Lich form for guardian)

Unyielding Aura
Elite Skill. Allies in target area are revived and teleported to your location. Grant regeneration, protection, and vigor to yourself and affected allies for 15 seconds. Cooldown 210 sec.

Edit: Nvm forgot about the signet. Oh well.

Whatever. This argument is pointless and off topic. Believe what you want to believe. The evidence is blatantly obvious. Anet could probably spell it out in legalese and you would still be unsure.

Mesket.5728:

I WILL AVENGE YOU!

we warriors need an elite shout

Lol.

“I Will Avenge You!”
Elite shout. You scale up just like a world boss depending on the number of dead players within 1200.

Maybe that will fix the dead players issue! That would be hilarious for a day.

Sleazebag.9427:

i want illusionary weaponry back for mesmers – for the duration you would ignore evades and blocks but you’d get the damage cap or just a percentage based reduction on all your abilities, maybe remove debuffs and other additional effects from them for the duration too i guess.

maybe splinter weapon too to add a temporary cleave to non-cleave single target attacks. much higher cooldown than in gw1 of course

all of the more unique necro and mesmer debuffs would be welcome too, especially the necro ones

I like these ideas.

Illusionary Weaponry:
Elite skill. Duration 10-20 sec. Your attacks deal exactly X damage per hit and ignore evade, block, and other forms of mitigation. Does not affect your phantasms. Cooldown 180 sec.

But the weapon spells for necro is my favorite!

Splinter Weapon:
Utility skill (necro). Grant yourself and nearby allies a Splinter Weapon. The next X hits also hit enemies within 120. Cooldown 40 sec. You may only be affected by 1 weapon spell at a time.

Wailing Weapon:
Utility skill. Grant yourself and nearby allies a Wailing Weapon. The next attack interrupts your foe. Cooldown 30 sec. You may only be affected by 1 weapon spell at a time.

Spirit Light Weapon:
Healing skill. Grant yourself and nearby allies Spirit Light Weapon. You heal for X amount per second for 10 seconds. Cooldown 30 sec. You may only be affected by 1 weapon spell at a time.

Resilient Weapon:
Utility skill. Grant yourself and nearby allies a Resilient weapon. You have +X vitality and +Y toughness for 10 seconds. Cooldown 50 sec. You may only be affected by 1 weapon spell at a time.

Weapon of Aggression:
Utility skill. Grant yourself and nearby allies a Weapon of Aggression. You gain quickness for 5 seconds. Cooldown 60 sec. You may only be affected by 1 weapon spell at a time.

Xinrae’s Weapon:
Elite Skill. Grant yourself and nearby allies Xinrae’s weapon. You block the next attack and steal X life from your attacker. Cooldown 90 sec. You may only be affected by 1 weapon spell at a time.

Weapon of Fury:
Elite Skill. Grant yourself and nearby allies a Weapon of Fury. You gain +X precision and +Y ferocity for 10 seconds. Cooldown 180 sec. You may only be affected by 1 weapon spell at a time.

New weapon spell traits too!

Wielder’s Remedy:
Weapon spells grant regeneration and remove 1 condition.

Renewing Memories:
Weapon spells recharge 20% faster.

Spirit’s Strength:
Weapon spells grant X stacks of might.

Wielder’s Boon:
Weapon spells last 20% longer.

Vampiric Weaponry:
Weapon spells steal health per hit while active.

I would love to see weapon spells added to necro as a whole new line of utility skills. They would drastically improve necro pve group usefulness. The only problem is that they don’t always fall neatly in to Anet’s little boon/condition system. That was the reason they originally got rid of hexes, they wanted to simplify things and thought that hexes were too complex and could be easily approximated with conditions. Unfortunately this has been extremely limiting and they have been forced to add new conditions and unique skills with special effects…

Lishtenbird.2814:

I started my anime “career” with Elfen Lied. I know what gore is.

You don’t know what gore is until you’ve visited a certain image board for a while…

Everyone knows which board I’m talking about. And if you don’t know, trust me that’s a good thing.

Iason Evan.3806:

Xenon.4537:

Iason Evan.3806:

Xenon.4537:

I talked to a dev a couple weeks ago when they first showed the portal screenshot. I asked if that means we are getting a new zone. His words were something like “Well, that’s what a portal usually means!” I’ll post a screenshot when I get home. I’m not sure why people are so hesitant to believe we are getting a new map. It’s pretty well confirmed we are.

My concern isn’t that we are getting a new zone. We are getting a new zone. My concern is when will we get a new zone? I don’t think it’s gonna be this update and I totally hope I am wrong.

Well we are at the very least getting a story instance which takes place in an area we have never been to before, as evident from the thorny tangled roots, dusty canyons, and strange new devourer monster thing. The living story journal system is designed to have purple star markers on the map which you walk up to and press F to enter just like a green personal story star. This leads me to believe the story instance we enter must be in some type of relevant persistent map. This would be consistent with all of GW2 design thus far. Meaning there should be a new open world persistent map which you enter, and then a purple star in that map somewhere which you interact with to do the story. On top of all that, the release is titled “The Gates of Maguuma Open July 1st.” What would be the point of a gate opening if we can’t walk through it?

It is “Gates of Maguuma” in yellow text at the end of the trailer with “Open July 1st” in white text. I take that to mean “Gates of Maguuma” is the name of the update and we get said update on the 1st, not that we get a new zone to go into on the 1st. Like I said, I hope I am wrong.

I not only hope you’re wrong, I just know you’re wrong lol. There is just no logic behind showing portal screenshots, showing actual footage of a new zone, AND calling it “Gates of Maguuma” and then saying it will be open july 1st… ALL to simply give us a non-update with nothing new besides some kind of minuscule setup to a subsequent patch. Text color is completely beside the point. Reading all of the context Anet has given us up to this point, it’s just obvious.

The writing is on the wall, and it’s pleasantly easy to read for once.

Galphar.3901:

Why is everyone obsessed with getting Cantha and Elona opened up for us? IF/When it happens, it will most likely be in the form of an expansion that you’ll have to pay $70 for. We have plenty of map space in Tyria that still needs to be opened up and will probably be opened up for FREE in the form of LS updates. I’d much rather the devs focus on the parts of Tyria not open yet and FIXING the things wrong w/ the game(Rangers not living up to ANet’s discription, pets suck, new trait system driving away players, etc).

Why would it be $70? Unless you’re talking about some sort of limited special edition?

And the LS updates have been underwhelming at best as far as “an expansion’s worth of content” is concerned. We have 1 new zone since launch, and it’s only very recently (over a year since it was added) became fun. If Anet were to add a new zone only once every two years, it would take them decades to release an expansion worth of content. And that’s not counting new races, skills, dungeons, etc.

Season 2 had better be drastically different. Your expectation of free content delivered piecemeal every month hasn’t even come close. The starter zone of Factions was 5x larger with more content than all of the last two years of living world.

Iason Evan.3806:

Xenon.4537:

I talked to a dev a couple weeks ago when they first showed the portal screenshot. I asked if that means we are getting a new zone. His words were something like “Well, that’s what a portal usually means!” I’ll post a screenshot when I get home. I’m not sure why people are so hesitant to believe we are getting a new map. It’s pretty well confirmed we are.

My concern isn’t that we are getting a new zone. We are getting a new zone. My concern is when will we get a new zone? I don’t think it’s gonna be this update and I totally hope I am wrong.

Well we are at the very least getting a story instance which takes place in an area we have never been to before, as evident from the thorny tangled roots, dusty canyons, and strange new devourer monster thing. The living story journal system is designed to have purple star markers on the map which you walk up to and press F to enter just like a green personal story star. This leads me to believe the story instance we enter must be in some type of relevant persistent map. This would be consistent with all of GW2 design thus far. Meaning there should be a new open world persistent map which you enter, and then a purple star in that map somewhere which you interact with to do the story. On top of all that, the release is titled “The Gates of Maguuma Open July 1st.” What would be the point of a gate opening if we can’t walk through it?

Morfedel.4165:

Which portal is this, xenon?

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/get-ready/

This one.

I talked to a dev a couple weeks ago when they first showed the portal screenshot. I asked if that means we are getting a new zone. His words were something like “Well, that’s what a portal usually means!” I’ll post a screenshot when I get home. I’m not sure why people are so hesitant to believe we are getting a new map. It’s pretty well confirmed we are.

All I could think of after reading “Duke Nukem” was the opening sequence of Duke Nukem 3D with that kickin’ rock sound track. Only the visual was Braham watching the Zephyrites get shot down, cracking his knuckles, pumping a shotgun, riding an asuran rocket into the Maguuma Jungle, crash lading on top of a devourer, and saying “kitten , those alien kittens are gonna pay for shooting up my ride.”

Golems use an alchemagical discombobulatory cosmothurgical medium to store, process, and utilize seismocatalytic supercolliding kenomitosis particles. It’s all quite simple really.

So did anyone notice anything hidden in the teaser? I noticed there’s some bamboo where DE2.0 are standing right here. Zephyrites possibly resettling in the Maguuma? Who else uses bamboo?

Also there’s a red Southsun drake to Taimi’s left here. Hurray confusion enemies! I wonder if the root’s shes looking at could be a jumping puzzle :O.

I do hope this devourer-ish monster is a new world boss! By the way, if you pause and look closely: behind him in the distance through the dust there appears to be a wind rider, or some such floaty monster. Mildly interesting.

I think my favorite part though is right here. Direct your attention to center screen, where you can see an NPC walking into a railing like a kitten . It’s at 30 seconds. 30 / 10 = 3. Halflife 3 confirmed.

moony.5780:

Hello people of Tyria

What do u whish and think what should be in an ingame desert?

For me…i think it would be nice if there would be some sandstorm events, where u need to search a shelter and hide
also i think it would be nice if sometimes while u walk u get stuck..and get pulled down by the sand and find ur self in a ruin or something

What ideas do u have to make it more interesting to run around in the map ? (can also be generall..not only the desert or dessert <3 )

As long as there are plenty of happy faces, I’m in!

ZudetGambeous.9573:

As far as I know there is no way to “unscale” and event. Once an event is scaled up to the next level it stay there until completion, failure, or it upscales again.

I don’t think there is a downscale mechanic actually put in place. Of course it is pretty much never a problem since when more players show up the event is usually popular and good for loot.

Does anyone have any confirmation that an event can actually go back down to lesser scaling if people leave/die?

People have used… things… to see boss health bar numbers. They’ve confirmed that events scale all the time, up and down, constantly. In fact this is how they found definitive proof that dead players still scale bosses.

Oh by the way (a little off topic) this is also how we know that many players just don’t run good builds. The boss health scales by a percentage. It doesn’t matter how many people attack a boss. It’s health will go down at the same percent rate if all those players are running proper builds and playing properly instead of half-afking. However, what we see happen is the boss dies slower as more people show up. All those extra people are running crap builds and not engaging their full dps rotation. #OpenWorldContent

calyx.9086:

Xenon.4537:

Rym.1469:

Ray of Judgement is already in game, on Guardian’s Focus #4. It looks like a flashlight

When I tried guardian for the first time in the beta, the thing that turned me off immediately was what they did to Ray of Judgement. I was originally on the fence between choosing ele, guardian, or mesmer as my main. When I saw how RoJ went from the glorious heavenly energy blast… to this… insignificant, laughable, bouncy blue thing that you barely notice… I just instantly deleted my guardian and never went back. What a kitten shame. How on earth did the design meeting go for that skill? How could they possibly think that Ray of Judgement should be treated in such a way? They took one of the single most iconic and powerful offensive skills of GW1, and turned it into one of the most grossly underwhelming, almost useless and completely forgettable skills in GW2. .

This just shows how little you understand about GW2 combat roles and how stuck you are in the past.

Ray of Judgement is one of the most useful skills a guardian has in PVE and is a blind that allows for active mitigation of of damage from enemies.

Maybe it doesn’t measure up to it’s namesake in GW1, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it is a heavily used, extremely useful skill.

Okay, maybe I’m not an expert on guardians. As I said I deleted my guardian in beta and never played one again. Maybe the skill is useful, but that’s not really the point. Using RoJ in GW1 felt like using a BLU 109 Bunker Buster. Just the name of it sounds impressive, and the results were devastating. Using RoJ in GW2 feels like when you whip out a pocket knife to open a beer or trim a fingernail. Comparing the two is just silly. The GW2 skill doesn’t deserve the name “Ray of Judgement”. More like “Pinch of Pixie Dust”. Would suit the actual effect of the skill better.

@ Dusty Moon

That’s an interesting find, but again I say nothing is impossible. If you take that book into context, I believe it is meant as exposition to show Cantha’s xenophobia. They perceived a threat and decided the best thing to do was close off their borders and defend themselves. Zhaitan’s naval presence stopped trade, so it wasn’t worth it for Cantha to maintain ties. They are also very far to the south across a vast ocean. Sending aid to fight the dragons isn’t worth it to them. Dragons aren’t attacking Cantha as far as we know. It was hard enough getting people to cooperate right here with the Pact. There’s no good lore-based reason never to return to Cantha. Anything can happen to the lore. See Scarlet as an example.

And if you’re thinking the devs put that book there as a secret message that they actively plan never to release a Cantha expansion, I think you’re seeing things that aren’t there. If it were truly part of Anet’s mission statement to never release Cantha, they would say so. Just like they said they would not add a subscription fee. There’s simply no good reason from a business standpoint to 100% deny potential new revenue from an expansion. And there’s no good game design reason to tease at something that is completely off the table. The very existence of your example suggests Cantha is on Anet’s mind. There are also numerous references to Cantha in recent releases.

Xillllix.3485:

…the worse of GW2, Anet is scared to change it.

This pretty much sums up everything.

For me…

Best:
- Combat system.
- Character builds.
- Basic gameplay.
- Gorgeous environments to explore.
- Music.
- Great lore established from previous game.

In essence, a great foundation.

Worst:
- Severe lack of substantial new content.
- Severe lack of meaningful titles or achievements.
- Lack of prestigious items that aren’t simply gold grinds.
- Lack of great challenges.
- Severe lack of new pvp maps and game modes.
- Apparent lack of attention to pvp feedback (do they really think people like skyhammer?).
- Lack of good new lore.
- Lack of exploration of past lore.
- Lack of balance updates.
- Lack of attention to dungeons.
- Lack of attention to poor mechanics such as Defiant.

In essence, poor use of the great foundation the game started with.

Aquarius.7948:

This was just me sharing my ideas… not expecting it to happen.

Yeah… Its good to post ideas, but I think a lot of people are just tired of asking and not receiving. The Cantha Thread has 2234+ replies, 137196+ views, has been consistently bumped to the front page every week since the game launched, and yet Anet doesn’t seem even remotely interested in pursuing it.

I think the tl;dr of this thread is this:

Don’t bother going for a legendary unless the precursor just happens to fall in your lap one day.

Dusty Moon.4382:

The Emperor has closed off Cantha to the outside world so we will not see Cantha until the Emperor dies OR all the Elder Dragons are dealt with.

We won’t see Cantha anytime soon.

Nothing is impossible. It’s fiction after all. They can make up whatever they want.

Certainly an elder dragon could attack Cantha, and Cantha could call for our help. Or a new enemy could take over Cantha and attack us, forcing us to retaliate. The old emperor could simply die and the new one open Cantha for us. An asuran temporal vortex could bend space/time and teleport Cantha on top of Orr and replace it while adding lolipops and rainbows. Anet could literally pull anything out of their bum and make up a reason for us to go to Cantha.

Anet has to actually want to take us to Cantha. I’m not sure why they don’t want to. There’s plenty of overt support from the community for a full fledged expansion. They seem to be on some idealistic crusade to make Living World the “next big thing” in MMOs.

Warning: Rant ahead. Directed at Anet mostly.

I’m sorry, Anet, but the Living World just doesn’t hold a candle to what GW1 had. I’ve recently gone back to work on GWAMM, and I’m still not even 30% of the way done with GW1 after 8 years. I’ve got 8 characters there who are not even close to complete. My main still hasn’t finished hard mode missions. My main hasn’t even fully unlocked all skills or fully specced hero gear with runes, etc. There are countless titles I have yet to finish, ALL of which actually MEAN something in that game.

Contrast with GW2, where I have 7 characters all 80 with full exotic with ascended trinkets, all traits and skills unlocked. I’ve finished the personal story and cleared every dungeon. I have dozens of titles and achievements for which I barely had to lift a finger to earn. They mean almost nothing. In fact that’s the reason I went back to GW1 for GWAMM. It’s one of the only titles in GW2 that actually means something. And it’s meaning is entirely based on a different game. That’s just sad. All of this over the last 2 years, which by the way I earned 90% everything in GW2 within the first year.

So basically there’s roughly 8 times more substance in GW1 than in GW2. After 8 years of GW1 I’m still learning new things about it, and I feel like there’s still way more content ahead of me. In GW2 I feel like I finished it a year ago, and I’ve been waiting for something new ever since.

I’m kind of with Woodenpotatoes on Cantha. He says he is sure Anet will announce an expansion within a year. I’m of the mind that if they don’t announce something by then, I’ll probably quit all together. Literally the only reason to log in after July 1st will be for 2 seconds to unlock each episode every 2 weeks. It remains to be seen whether the episodes will even be worth doing.

I think Danikat pretty much has it. Event’s should scale with the living. I also think there should be a big flashing popup message to waypoint if you stay dead for longer than 30 seconds.

Rym.1469:

Ray of Judgement is already in game, on Guardian’s Focus #4. It looks like a flashlight

When I tried guardian for the first time in the beta, the thing that turned me off immediately was what they did to Ray of Judgement. I was originally on the fence between choosing ele, guardian, or mesmer as my main. When I saw how RoJ went from the glorious heavenly energy blast… to this… insignificant, laughable, bouncy blue thing that you barely notice… I just instantly deleted my guardian and never went back. What a kitten shame. How on earth did the design meeting go for that skill? How could they possibly think that Ray of Judgement should be treated in such a way? They took one of the single most iconic and powerful offensive skills of GW1, and turned it into one of the most grossly underwhelming, almost useless and completely forgettable skills in GW2. It is literally not even close to the same skill and should not be named as such. I want them to rename it and bring back the original Ray of Judgement in a form which actually preserves the original spirit and intent of the skill.

And don’t even get me started on Spiteful Spirit… This is not even remotely close to this, Anet. Please try again.

VodCom.6924:

Grenth’s balance is an example of broken external balance : since lots of monsters are hp bags, this skill will deal insane amounts of damage in PvE.

I realize Grenth’s balance would be broken in its original form on bosses like Tequatl. I couldn’t think of a good way to preserve the intent of the skill while making it balanced in GW2. Obviously the devs would have to rework the mechanics a bit. As someone else said, putting a cap to the health swap based on the player’s max health would probably do the trick.

On a related note, I found it very difficult to find good suggestions for necromancer because many of it’s original skills were hexes or special effect spells which just don’t fit in GW2’s system of direct damage and conditions.

Fragility is broken internally : it is a much more reliable way of dealing damage in a hybrid build : all you have to do is spam short duration conditions that keep being applied and wear off. No need to shatter, no need to build for condition duration, you just have to launch chaos storm and auto-attack with the staff and you wreck somebody in pieces.

The main reason I suggested Fragility is to make condi mesmer more viable. Right now they are useless in PvE and passively annoying at best in PvP. You bring up a good point, but that could easily be countered by a 1 sec internal cooldown, just like chaos armor, etc.

In summary, nothing is impossible. They just have to figure out the nuances of balancing.

Edit: Looks like I have to add this disclaimer for the tl;dr people.

Any skill suggested should be altered in such a way that it is balanced for GW2 while preserving the original spirit of the skill. GW1 and GW2 are obviously different and skills must be balanced differently. That doesn’t mean we can’t bring them back. It just means they need to be rebalanced.

I’ve been playing GW1 lately to work on my GWAMM title, and I am amazed at how many people still play it. I never realized how much I missed it too. Anyway, I wanted to post this because there are tons of skills in GW1 I feel would be awesome in GW2. Many people have been asking for new classes, weapons, and skills to be added to GW2. Well I think many GW1 skills would fit right in with minor tweaks. Anyone please feel free to suggest your own favorite GW1 skills!

Necromancer:
- Jagged Bones
Utility skill. The next time one of your minions dies, it is replaced with a jagged horror. Cooldown 20 sec.

- Cultists Fervor
Utility Skill. Gain quickness for 8 seconds. You gain 1 stack of bleeding every time you use a skill while under this effect. (transfer the stacks, or eat them!)

- Grenth’s Balance
Elite Skill. If target foe has more Health than you, transfer half the difference from that foe to yourself and nearby allies (divided equally). Cooldown 210 sec.

- Verata’s Aura
Elite Skill. Sacrifice 33% of your max health. Take control of target foe’s minions. All of your minions die after 20 seconds. Cooldown 210 sec. (this would work on things like rock dog, elementals, and spirits, as well as necro minions)

Mark of Fury
- Weapon skill (for some new unnamed weapon). Deal X damage to enemies when triggered. Allies gain fury and might.

Cacophony
- Utility skill. Foes in target area take X damage when using a shout. Lasts 8 seconds. Cooldown 40 sec.

Vocal Minority
- Utility Skill. Enemies in target area cannot use shouts. Allies using shouts in the area gain might and protection. Lasts 5 sec. Cooldown 60 sec.

Atrophy
- Elite Skill. Target foe’s highest attribute is reduced by half for 10 seconds. Cooldown 180 sec.

I tried to list necro skills that might help improve their group utility

Mesmer:
- Signet of Humility
Elite skill. Target enemy’s elite skill is disabled for 20 seconds. Cast time 2 sec. Cooldown 180 sec.

- Arcane Mimicry
Elite skill. Copy target’s elite skill. Cooldown based on that skill.

- Fragility
Utility skill. Foes in target area take X damage every time they gain or lose a condition. Lasts 8 seconds. Cooldown 30 sec.

- Power Drain
Healing skill. Heal for X amount and daze target foe for 1 second. If you interrupted them, heal for an additional Y amount. Cooldown 20 sec.

Elementalist
- Master of Magic
Elite Skill. For 15 seconds your attunement swapping has no cooldown and your weapon skills recharge 20% faster. Cooldown 210 sec.

- Arcane Echo
Elite Skill. The next skill you use recharges instantly. Cooldown 90 sec.

- Mark of Rodgort
Weapon spell, Fire. Foes in target area are set on fire for 3 sec every 3 sec. Lasts 10 sec. Cooldown 40 sec.

- Rodgort’s Invocation
Weapon spell, Fire. Deal X damage to nearby foes and set them on fire for 3 sec. If they were already on fire, they take Y additional damage. Cooldown 50 sec.

- Sliver Armor
Weapon Spell, Earth. Gain 150 toughness and retaliation for 10 sec. Cooldown 30 sec.

That’s all I got for now.

CureForLiving.5360:

Elstar.7864:

“all you need is an organized group” + “open world event” + “megaserver” = “epic fail”. especially when there is no way to select a proper instance by yourself.

Argument is invalid when you consider most players pug it. The system of instancing is useful only if you already have a organised group (a guild or something similar) that’s been pre-organised to do the event. In such a case ANet offers the ability to start the event whenever you like. Meaning your guild doesn’t need an instance they just need to do it at some other time.

Actually no. My guild spawns it manually, and we always have to play Join Wars 2. Because the sheer number of guildies loading in to a map causes more and more pugs to be thrown in with us. Finding an empty map to begin with is nigh impossible. There’s always at least 30% capacity. The whole point of the megaserver system was to bring randoms together and eliminate empty servers. Tell me how a guild finds their own instance when the system is designed to keep instances full and delete the empty ones?

Dusty Moon.4382:

The Guilds fought for the 6 Gods. Now that they have left and the Dragons have re-emerged, it is a battle against them.

Please ACTUALLY do some lore research before asking a ridiculous question like this.

It’s a legit question. The title of the franchise doesn’t really connect that well with the gameplay honestly. The lore goes out of it’s way to make an explanation which is really only acceptable in the case of GW1. GW2 is so far removed from the idea of warring guilds that the title almost makes no sense. It should have been called Dragon Wars.

Edit: Imagine if they would have named it Star Wars Episode 2, but it takes place in 1920’s Earth and is a story about gangsters and prohibition. Confusing, right?

Anubis.9346:

don’t even bother to write that thread again because they don’t give a frack

This is the unfortunate truth. Anet wants to tell the story of dragons and Destiny’s Edge V2. There’s no room for wars between guilds anymore. The only way for this story to make sense is for everyone to unite against their common foes: dragons.

They could introduce guild wars (and real GvG) through an expansion into Cantha or Elona in which it is our job to stop two or more warring guilds (Kurzick guilds vs Luxon guilds, Kourna vs Istan, etc) and convince them to unite against a dragon. But that would be way too awesome for LS2… I have a feeling we won’t get anything that cool for at least 2 or 3 more years… If ever.