Guild Wars 2

Exciton.8942:

Quickness buffing is something that is very likely to be given to other professions.
Engineer sounds like a good candidate.

Absolutely. Not that quickness was ever a “mesmer only” thing, it’s just that Anet seems to want quickness to be the only thing chrono is good for.

Levetty.1279:

Somebody should tell all the Revs that have come here to whine that this board belongs to thiefs.

Xenon.4537:

• Thief gets something kinda similar to clones in a future elite spec.

They already do.

Thief has ambush and thieves guild, but I mean an actual elite spec mechanic centered around generating thief doppelgangers.

So the latest balance patch they gave away yet another “mesmer unique” thing to another class. Was anyone honestly surprised? Do you really think they won’t give anything else away? My predictions for the future:

• Warrior gets high uptime quickness on one of their banners in a balance patch.
• Engineer gets alacrity on one of their elixirs in a balance patch.
• Elementalist gets alacrity in their next elite spec.
• Necromancer gets confusion in their next elite spec at higher effectiveness than mesmer.
• Ranger gets something very similar to moa in a future elite spec.
• Thief gets something kinda similar to clones in a future elite spec.
• Guardian gets a sort of defensive version of phantasms in future elite spec.
• Someone gets a portal.

What are your thoughts? What else does mesmer have to donate to this giveaway extravaganza? What do other classes have that they can (but won’t) give to mesmers?

P.S. – I’m not QQing here, I’m just speculating. I honestly think this is where the game is heading. Whether it’s a good thing or bad thing, who knows.

I seem to remember predicting this over a year ago but I can’t find my post… I’m not surprised in the least Anet did this. Look at their track record.

• Confusion was a mesmer thing
• Moa was a mesmer thing
• Torment was a necromancer thing on shroud 5 skill at first

I’m sure there’s more examples. This stuff is typical of RPGs. They introduce a mechanic or ability that is unique to one class, then later on they spread it around for balance reasons. It’s like entropy. Homogeneity among RPG classes always increases over time. Don’t be surprised when engineer gets alacrity on one of their elixirs. Don’t be surprised when warrior gets a quickness banner. Maybe a year from now chronomancer will be completely replaceable.

Ithilwen.1529:

I’m apoplectic. ANET has once again given away Mesmer’s signature ability.

First confusion, then Moa and now alacrity. By giving alacrity to Revenant … anet more-or-less invalidated the Chronomancer specialization.

I’d like anet to explain there apparent bias against Mesmer.

I seem to remember predicting this over a year ago when mesmer first got alacrity. It was too good to be true even after they nerfed it.

Anet should go back and study their design of the final boss fight of season 2. IMO the Shadow of the Dragon was the best designed story boss fight they’ve ever made. It had a great arena, great balance of difficulty, great story, NPC allies actually help via mehanics, great conveyance of mechanics, etc.

There were some other good ones in season 2, but that one is the most well-designed overall IMO. Season 3 on the other hand doesn’t even come close. In fact I can’t think of any season 3 bosses that come close to season 2.

Anet isn’t as big as Blizzard, so you have to temper expectations unfortunately. They tried very hard to deliver big exciting content packs with living world season 1 and 2, but it just wasn’t enough. People wanted a real expansion to hold their attention, but then HoT for whatever reason didn’t have as much content as expected. All we can hope for is expansion #2 is a lot bigger.

Mounts are a bad idea for this game… Unless its done differently to other MMOs. It would need to be a situational function similar to how they added gliders. For example people like to cite the junundu from the papaya leak. Well the junundu wurms were more of a combat vehicle only usable in the sulfur sands of the Desolation. You could only ride them in that area, and they had specially balanced combat skills with specially balanced packs of mobs tailored just for that part of the campaign.

Soooo… people who think the junundu wurm leak is somehow proof of mounts, you might want to adjust your expectations. It’s more likely we get another version of the glider mastery designed for the new expansion, not a traditional mount that you pop anywhere to run faster.

So we have a lot of “eaters” in the game now… Herta, Mawdrey II, Princess, Sentient Aberration, Sentient Anomaly, Sentient Oddity, Star of Gratitude. This seems like a bit much. I propose we make a legendary eater-of-things.

Introducing the Quantum Singularity. Nothing, not even light can escape this bottomless vortex of pure energy. It counts as a legendary item. It can be fed 250 of each bloodstone dust, dragonite ore, and empyreal shards 5 times per day. That’s 5 stacks each per day.

How do you get it? By crafting it of course! As a legendary item it will require a little bit of work, but not too much. I don’t know what exactly the recipe will be, but it will include all 7 of the “eaters” I listed above. You combine all of them along with some ectoplasm and dark matter and whatever else Anet wants to justify this glorious savior of inventory space. You can keep this one Quantum Singularity in your bag or shared slot. Never again will you have to throw buckets of bloodstone dust in the trash just because Herta is full for the day. And you won’t have to use up 7 slots for all these eaters. One slot to rule them all.

Also in the future any eater Anet adds to the game can be thrown into the Quantum Singularity to increase the number of daily uses by 1.

Mesmer…

Because it was such a unique thing in a video game back in gw1, and it was the last one to be revealed for gw2 and had a lot of hype and speculation leading up to the reveal. There have been times I’ve been pretty disappointed with the lacking strength (dps) of the gw2 mesmer compared to other classes, but I stick to it because I love the theme.

• Pure arcane/chaos mage
• Mind tricks and telepathy
• Mysterious
• Manipulate the fabric of space and time

I’m holding out in hopes that one day mesmer will have a cool elite spec that puts their dps on par with elementalist (or at least in the top 4 dps classes…)

This is a great thread for more Boott’s bad builds.

Fluffball.8307:

Xenon.4537:

Fluffball.8307:

I’m not seeing anything worse than a trait that applies a conditional cripple once every half a minute. I win.

It’s not that terrible in pvp…? Maybe? I can imagine it might help finish off someone low on health who is trying to run away. It’s a lighter version of https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Panic_Strike

Find me a ranger who has ever used this in favor of the traits it is up against, or even if it was against nothing, and I’d agree. If you’ve never played PvP or ranger before, it sounds like a reasonable trait. It’s beyond useless.

Yeah I’ve never really played pvp ranger. I don’t even know what the other 2 traits are in that tier lol.

Fluffball.8307:

I’m not seeing anything worse than a trait that applies a conditional cripple once every half a minute. I win.

It’s not that terrible in pvp…? Maybe? I can imagine it might help finish off someone low on health who is trying to run away. It’s a lighter version of https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Panic_Strike

Sounds pretty cool actually, though changing skills 6 and 7 doesn’t sound right as thats the heal and 1st utility slot. Other than that it sounds cool. Reminds me of enhance shaman from wow, but that’s not really a bad thing.

The coffin sounds a bit silly to me. I would expect them to add a straight up Vampire spec rather than a hunter. It would come with more life steal abilities, but the cost is some of the shroud abilities would actually drain your base health as well as life force and maybe do extra damage if you have full health. This would make vitality useful for DPS creating a niche for underused types of gear.

If they add ritualist I hope they add some slight synergy to minions. In gw1 ritualists had the spawning power stat which greatly increased the health of summons, including necro minions. They also had spells like explosive growth and boon of creation to augment minion creation.

Zenith.7301:

… I think they cannibalized ritualist into the revenant…

Why do you think this? Did you play ritualist in gw1? I’d genuinely like to get to the bottom of this common opinion.

I mained ritualist in gw1 and I honestly don’t see any similarities at all between it and the revenant.

All I can tell is:

• They both start with the letter R
• They both use magic associated with the Mists
• They both use blindfolds

The gameplay isn’t even remotely similar. The mechanics of the old rit are closer to engineer. (spirits = turrets, ashes = kits, weapon spells = elixirs)

BDO’s combat system is certainly… flashy… I didn’t enjoy it. It was too spammy and facerolly. You can’t even move in certain directions without activating a skill you may not want to use yet. It appeals to people who want to see lots of numbers and swords slashing around quickly with lots of slashy slashy sounds. I would say BDO is more like ninja gaiden 2 while GW2 is more like diablo.

Shaman.2034:

The second greatsword skill, Mirror Blade, doesn’t create a clone while under the effects of the Endless Miniature Tonic. It also doesn’t destroy any illusions when the mesmer has three.

I can also confirm that when using the miniature tonic Deceptive Evasion does not generate clones. I really hope they fix this tonic because I need it. I NEED IT.

All anet needs to do is adjust the loot tables a little to bring up the leathers in question.

As for how hard it is to survive here, I have no doubt the community will find a way. Maybe a thief duo with stealth skills? I’m pretty sure you could easily perma stealth and then it’s no problem.

I think anet figured someone would put on a commander tag and lead 100 guardians in there with loot staff and perma protection making you face tank the damage. Has anyone actually made a serious attempt to efficiently farm this or is it just a bunch of solo people getting rekt and giving up?

I really hate the gamble boxes… It’s a cynical cash grab that feels extremely unrewarding. The drop rates for decent items is abysmal to the point where you need to drop twice the price of the retail game itself just to get something good.

That said, at least the items in the chests are cosmetic and convenience stuff. I haven’t felt even remotely compelled to buy a key since the first wintersday 4 years ago (I just had to have Foostivoo… $60 usd…) I understand Anet needs to monetize the game somehow in order to keep it afloat. I just wish they would offer claim tickets and permanent bank access and merchants and stuff like that for a set price even if it’s a really high price. It just seems more honest that way.

It would be nice if there were some special pets that are only cosmetic but show off an achievement. The black widow spider from GW1 was very special because you had to do a difficult mission in underworld with a team to get one. IIRC it was the only spider type pet you could tame in the game.

I would like them to fix some of the revenant animation loop blending. On asura and charr some of the animations with staff look REALLY bad when strafing. But I won’t hold my breath… animation in general seems to be expensive and Anet have almost never spent time revisiting animations that are already in the game. If anything they just take the animation out when it becomes a problem (see human female idle). I think they employ like 2 or 3 animators in a company of 300, and those animators are probably focused entirely on the expansion.

I really think the devs ought to study dark souls if they want to design challenging solo boss fights that are actually rewarding. It’s difficult to design such a fight. The key is to exaggerate telegraphs and keep the pacing of the mechanics tight, but within the limits of the player’s ability. For example you can’t expect the player to dodge more than twice in a short period (daredevils excluded). If the enemies can do enough continuous heavy damage to kill you despite dodging and popping defensive cooldowns, then you obviously put too much in there. The difference between the Caudecus fight and the Shadow of the Dragon fight is that when you die on Shadow, it’s your fault for missing a telegraph or dodging too late. When you die on Caudecus it’s because you used up all your dodges and have no more cooldowns and yet he is still hammering you.

Vegetation.6419:

Story was good and all, but I didn’t like how my character was bootlicking the queen. I mean, I agree with the White Mantle and the separatists (in real life I mean). At the same time, I do understand that storywise you can’t really make the player chose sides, but I don’t like playing a diehard loyalist. Maybe I would have liked being more neutral? I don’t know really.

Haha I agree with this. Down with the queen! Seriously I would love to see war break out between the humans and charr. I miss the racial tensions that used to exist back in GW1. It makes cooperating with allies more important when there’s a societal stigma against each other.

The final fight with Caudecus is frustrating in a bad way.

• The room you fight in is really small
• Caudecus never stops spamming the floor with little aoe bombs
• Caudecus sometimes randomly knocks you down for a good 5 seconds resulting in massive damage from aoe spam
• The camera jitters around a lot due to it scraping the edges of the room geometry which induces headaches and further frustration
• There’s a veteran jade bow on top of all this who deals massive damage
• There’s lots of little bloodstone suicide bomb adds
• I think I saw some white mantle hammer guys at one point
• There’s so much aoe, particle effects, and projectiles flying around I can’t see what I’m doing.
• The room is too small to see what is going on with all the effects piled up and enemies running about.
• I broke all my armor suicide running into the room because Caudecus would sometimes just 1-shot me the moment I loaded in.

Honestly I’m not epileptic, but this was the worst case of sensory overload I’ve experienced in this game. This fight needs a bigger space and the mechanics need better conveyance. There’s no telegraph for Caudecus’s stun attack. There’s so much going on it’s nearly impossible to keep track of my footing while dodging the jade bow shots and grabbing bloodstone shards to break the shield. Too many mechanics. Too many adds. It’s just a circus of colorful spastic crap filling my screen.

Personally I feel the fight designs have been going downhill recently. The last time the living world story actually had a solid boss fight was the Shadow of the Dragon in the episode Point of No Return before HoT. That was a really great experience not just because of the space, the pacing of the mechanics, etc. It was great narratively as well because even though you get separated from Braham, you still feel like he is part of the story and the fight because he helps you from outside with shield spells which play into the mechanics. Despite my team mates being in the same room with Caudecus I didn’t feel like they were even there. They offered no gameplay input and no narrative input during the fight, so they might as well not even be there. It would actually help with the clutter if you removed Anise and Canach from the room during the fight.

I write this only as constructive feedback so hopefully Anet can design better boss fights in the future.

Inb4 git gud

I just got this and tried it in combat. It seems that Deceptive Evasion does not work while this tonic is active. I’m not sure if other traits are disabled but it’s possible.

Ok so from personal experience which you can read here it is possible to lock yourself out of Noran’s treasure room.

DON’T USE THE EXIT PORTAL until you have opened your bags and used the oil on your key. The oil comes from the first chest guarded by a vet spider. If you leave the underground before using the oil, your key becomes useless for re-entering the underground.

I know it sounds simple but I’m not the only one who didn’t see the oil in my cluttered inventory before using the big shiny purple portal… >.>;

It also doesn’t help that the achievement you get for completing this little activity is called “ITS A TRAP” making me assume the chest is a trap? Or a joke or something? It’s not the end of the world, but you will have to wait till daily reset if you do what I did by accident. Anyway this could all be fixed if Anet just makes the oiled version of the key work on the front door.

Ok so here’s an update since the reset…

1. I still have the oiled key from before.
2. I did the heart quest again and bought a fresh un-oiled key (so now i have 2 keys)
3. I was able to enter the underground area.
4. When I got to the first chest which contained the oil before, I did not receive new oil. The chest only gave me some junk loot. No oil this time. I wonder if that’s because I have the oiled key from before?
5. I continued to the end and was able to open the chest with the old oiled key from before. The new un-oiled key is still in my inventory.

So it seems you can’t open the chest more than once per day because you can only get the oil once per day. If you screw up and ruin your key, there’s not much point in saving it.

Ok so here’s my story…

1. I help Noran with his heart quest.
2. I buy “Key to Noran’s Secret Chest” from him for 0 karma.
3. I go through the underground area and find the first chest.
4. I DID NOT KNOW about the oil. I DID NOT use it.
5. I get to the final chest and it says “you need Noran’s oiled key”
6. Confused I leave through the exit portal.
7. I wander around outside still confused. I ask in map chat whats up?
8. They tell me to use the oil which I finally find in my cluttered inventory.
9. I use the oil on the key.
10. I try to re-enter the underground area, but it says I “need Noran’s key to enter” and it won’t let me in…

Question… now what? Apparently you need oil to open some locks, but the very same oil prevents opening other locks…

Dear non-developers…

Please take some time out from GW2. Take a deep breath. Maybe play some Overwatch or Mincraft, or Bingo or something. Anet will get the patch out in due time. The end of the world is a long way off. The game will still exist tomorrow and the day after, and the week after, etc. You will have plenty of time to enjoy the patch when it’s ready.

The most common complaint I see is that everyone is upset that they “wasted” their time today waiting and that Anet should have made this announcement 8 hours ago. Seriously how do you know what goes on in the studio? Maybe Anet had no idea 8 hours ago that the delay would be this bad? As someone who is actually familiar with modeling, animating, and the basics of working in a game engine, I can tell you it’s not always that cut and dry. None of us have any idea what the details are because Anet never told us what exactly they had to fix due to the snow storm. Any number of things could have gone wrong causing them to have to revert to an older build that isn’t ready for release yet. Any number of bugs could have been sitting in there waiting to be fixed while the snow storm prevented Anet from working. You just don’t know, and it is VERY difficult to make a clear call on just how long a bug will take to fix until you’ve actually spent time troubleshooting it.

We don’t know what the exact nature of the setback is. All we know is a snow storm caused it. Giving a clear ETA on such issues is never that easy. It’s not fair to attack Anet when they have been working around the clock all day and will continue to work around the clock all night. They didn’t waste your time. You could have spent your time doing whatever you wanted. Anet didn’t force you to stand in Lions Arch all day. That was your choice.

“… outrun a centaur.”

I agree with you. Anet didn’t cause the snow storm, and it’s not fair to be ripping into them for “wasting your time” when you could just as easily play another game or go outside for a day. The game will still exist tomorrow. They will get the patch out in due time. Patience and stuff yo.

Unfortunately this thread is just going to attract the toxic people since the other thread got locked…

Lol I’m always the one with the unpopular opinion…

Twyn.7320:

I appreciate the delay but you really should’ve made an executive decision regarding the snowstorm and the unforeseen setbacks earlier to prevent people from wasting their time doing nothing, like taking time off of work which they won’t get back.

You mean like the time Anet employees have been spending trying to fix this issue that was out of their control to begin with? Time they won’t get back either? Relax man, they are working on it.

We should start a go fund me to send Anet some hot cocoa or a space heater or something.

The transmutation charges came from an older system of transmutation stones. When the game first came out you had to physically combine two armor pieces together to convert the look. So you would take your stats from one piece of armor and the appearance of the other and fuse them together into a new piece of armor (destroying the two originals).

Trans stones were originally meant to be a big monetized feature of the gem store. The only way to get them otherwise was through map completion which took a long time. Since then they changed it to charges when they added the wardrobe system (which is way better and I don’t think people give anet enough credit for it) and added more ways to get charges via pvp.

So yeah… I dunno how much people even pay for this service with real money anymore. I actually kind of like it costing some sort of resource because it makes my outfit feel more “real” or like each decision to change feels more important. I would feel less attached to my character if it was this free revolving door of infinite armor skins.

Might I humbly suggest (on my knees begging) that you make the magic carpet toy also into a glider skin so that I can truly live out my fantasies of being Aladdin? Thanks Anet!

Yeah, unfortunately it looks like they cut some corners or missed something when setting up the animations for HoT. They don’t loop perfectly all the time because you’re talking about dozens of different loops per race having to seamlessly tween together. They were probably too rushed to take the extra time to really iron it all out. Don’t hold your breath for a fix either. Game animators almost never get the chance to go back and fix these things when its already been shipped.

Patch notes prediction:

- Removed everything except auto attack, Facet of Nature, and Impossible Odds. Because you literally don’t need anything else.

I just want revenant to do something besides auto attack 90% of the time.

Whatever it is I hope its more fun to play than the current revenant… There needs to be an active energy management system instead of just dumping energy and then auto attacking 90% of the time.

I still say the energy system itself needs and overhaul to make it actually interesting to use. As it stands there is little difference between energy and initiative (thief). Both resources passively regenerate over time. The thing is at least Thief has skills and traits that fundamentally alter their playstyle and allow them to gain more initiative through smart play. Revenant doesn’t. Revenant just auto attacks all day until their energy comes back.

Sigh… I tried so hard not once, but twice and commented in numerous other threads. However, no one seemed interested in solving the true fundamental issues with Revenant as a class.

And now everyone is waking up. The cool-aid wore off and you are all wondering why the class isn’t as fun as you initially thought…

I don’t believe these elite spec leaks for a second. My money is still on mainhand pistol for mesmer.

Edit May 2, 2017:

Looks like at least some of these were legit…

OP ask yourself what niche would this class fill in the combat meta? What would they do differently that any other class can’t already do?

Next ask yourself why would we need a whole new class when the thief already has its roots in martial arts? The thief came from the GW1 assassin which was THE martial arts class of the Factions expansion in Cantha.

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

I sincerely doubt they would to this kind of armor which is usable only by humans: asuras have furr-ish stripe-ish thing, charr have furr, sylvari have leaves and norns already have tattoos.

But I would love it for my characters!

I don’t see why other races can’t have scars or tattoos. Check the Tribal set on a charr. It puts a white paint pattern on top of the fur.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tribal_armor

How DARE Anet pay their employees to build a whole new map and charge MONEY for people to access it! How VERY DARE they! A whole new map for TWO DOLLARS? Anet should be giving everything away for free! Who ever heard of game developers needing money for their hard work to put food on the table! Outrageous I say!

(I’m just assuming the price is the same as before? 200 gems per episode I think? Which is like $2.50 USD? Or Like 60 gold or something so you don’t even have to pay real money? First world problems much?)

Okay I’m being facetious here… LS means Living Story right? So when people say “LS2” or “LS3” they are talking about Living World Season 2 or 3.

Wait a sec… Living… World…. Season…

Or maybe it’s Living World… Story?

L…. S…. Where did the “W” go?

Seriously though I just find it silly that everyone seems to have adopted the initials “LS” when Anet has always referred to it as “Living World” not “Living Story”. Even the words “living story” sound weird out loud, and when you really think about it doesn’t make any sense. The reason they called it living world is because they were trying to make the world of GW2 seem alive through frequent updates and changes.

So start using the initials LW3 or LWS3 if you must! Darn… whipper snappers…
shakes stick*

/rant

Mea.5491:

Xenon.4537:

Once I’m done loading into map 1, I switch from group 1 to group 2

Wait, what? You’re not supposed to “load into” map 1 (lobby). You just drag yourself to lobby to switch to an other map (2+) so people don’t join the wrong map.

Example: If you are in group 2 and instantly jump to group 3 without dragging yourself to lobby, then someone who wants to go to 2 will end up in 3 because of you.

I meant that group 1 isn’t really a map group… it’s the lobby right? So that must mean group 2 is map 1? I think you just illustrated my point that the lobby system is a little confusing.