Guild Wars 2

I don’t know about removal, but trimming it would definitely be advised, especially for Citadel Bombardment and orders from above.

Bombardment already has a 15s cooldown and lack of any physical damage component holding it back. 40 energy is just too much especially since we need that same energy for weapon skills and utilities.

Orders from above are basically 4s alacrity on 20s cooldown. 6 if traited.
Now let’s remove the magic and look under the hood.
4s “alacrity” = 1.33s shorter cooldowns for those affected. Once every 20s. Would you pay 30 energy for that? I wouldn’t.

Hey elva – running it on vine – can you tell me if it works with HoT?

From personal experience – Kingstone is kitten. I wouldn’t buy a roll of toilet paper from them, let alone a piece of hardware.

In raids chronomancer is the tank, simply because of his crazy utility (quickness, invulni and alacrity for party). Be sure to check current build at metabattle.com and get good practice with it, as chronomancer is not the easiest class to play.

Generally in raid pugs no one will want your tank unless you’re chronomancer. If you want to be something else and tank (which is possible) you’ll need a group of friends or a guild that’s not a raid meta cult, and that may prove a challenge.

But if you find such group then necromancer, guardian, revenant and elementalist can all prove to be very viable tanks. I most cases using their Heart of Thorns elite specs. Heck even the ranger can tank some as druid.

Since some raids are quite serious, be prepared in terms of gear (full ascended preferred), build, and raid boss mechanics. You will need all 3 in most cases.

I can imagine the suffering OP went through. Though i disagree with him, as i love HoT, but i can imagine what happened.

If you “finished” HoT then i feel for you. If you try to strong arm you way through the maps instead of slowly uncovering the jungle by yourself and taking it in one bit at a time then obviously you’d hate it. You just run a marathon at full sprint instead of pacing yourself.

HoT is not about completing a map in 1h then crossing it off the list like core Tyria. It is about exploration, checking out many hidden spots and reaching before inaccessible ones as you unlock the mastery. Doing an adventure when you had your fill of mobs, gliding above cloud levels not giving a kitten about anything happening below, just getting lost on the map and seeing where you’ll end up, or conversly putting your mind to mapping it and not getting lost too much.

Also i can imagine the horror of pure breed spvp-er coming to a HoT map which requires a proper build, gear and often someone else do to the event, unlike core Tyrian maps where you can run half naked with mismatched stats and still get things done.

But what really gets me is “Why?”. Elites are unlocked from get-go when you’re in spvp. You don’t have to do PvE masteries to get’em. Even WvW has alternative to going to HoT maps if you need your elite unlocked. If you don’t like it, don’t do it!

Ah ty, that’s a painful, albeit helpful bit of information for my theorycrafting

Druid is not getting replaced because of religious belief “he’s the best” without looking at the bigger picture. If we put emotions aside and focus on numbers the answer might be much less druid friendly then one thinks.

But for now that is a “might” as we have yet to get the finalized specs with known new runesets, gear stat sets and access to all of that in PvE. So for now i’ll hold my horses on further discussion.

Unfortunately i missed much of spec preview so i gotta ask the question here.

About manifest sand shade (#1 profession mechanic). I know it creates shades and is on ammo system. But it also occupies our shroud auto attack spot. So once shades are placed and recharge is on cooldown – is it unusable, or still can be spammed, just this time not placing a shade, but causing their auto attack and related traits on it to trigger?

It’s weak if not traited, but with signets of sufferring it becomes a very strong sustain tool – 50% more healing and most of all working through shroud makes it a real worthy competitor to consume conditions.

It changes your shroud from “delyaing your death for a dozen of seconds or so” into actual “healing base hp while in shroud to go back into the frey once it’s down”.

Astralporing.1957:

Let’s say that: druids do 2k damage, chronos do 6k damage, ps do 15k, dps do 20k (notice, in a respectable group the numbers can, and often are higher).
That means, that to replace GotL buf, any druid replacement would need to do additional 20k dps while not impacting healing negatively. Just to replace GotL alone, without factoring in spirits and Spotter.

That’s… not very likely to happen.

And, as i already mentioned, my dps estimates were actually quite conservative, so the actual dps numbers that the replacements would need to do would be higher.

You might get away with replacing one druid, because GotL is 10-man, but one (barring some nerfs to those buffs) will have a secure spot in the meta for at least the duration of PoF meta.

Erm…. first off about your math that is, well ..off.
The damage of group you used as example is 126k base.
Druid’s buff is 10% of that. 12.6k. You can’t maintain grace up 24/7 mind you, cause it’s CA exclusive and avatar has it’s cooldown. Unless you got two druids.

So 2k + 2k (two druid’s personal damage) + 12.6k (gotl, 100% uptime).
The replacement needs 16.6k to send both of these boys and their grace of the land home. But if we’re talking two druids why not kick them both out?
If we take for example 2 scourges, assuming they will do around 20k damage each with healing gear (healing power + condi), druids and their buffs are flat out destroyed, spooters, spirits, graces be kitten ed.

And let’s remember – condi + healing on druid doesn’t work. Both condi and healing require access to utility slots and weapon. Compromises make you a mediocre condi whith real kittenty healing and hardly any utility.

No so with Scourge. Necro’s party healing was never tied to a weapon, or utilities save healing skill maybe. Scourge’s “heals” are mostly tied to his F1-F5 skills, traits and healing skill. There’s nothing stopping him from having real condi setup on his weapons and utility slots while still putting out respetcable barriers and occasional burst heal with transfusion or life from death traits. Curses + scrourge + blood magic and you’re golden.

I’m also pondering the renegade, but i’m not that experienced with this class’ capabilities (especially in terms of what you can really put out with energy limiting stuff). Still he does have the ability to have a lot of condi on weapons and F2 skills, while having nearly all the healing on his utilities (ventari). In a raid setup when might generation and generally offensive boons and buffs are covered by your team this may work…but i know too little to speak solid numbers.

“Irreplacable”? They’re quite replacable once you become aware that they replace druid’s own abysmal damage. You don’t get those for free, you get those at expanse of one good dps-er.

Now if we get a healer that can do respectable damage himself, then we’ll be cooking with gas and have a real druid replacement.

So far scourge seems to be #1 competitor for the role, but who knows what else might surface. Maybe firebrand or ventari renegade will have few things to add on their own.

I would like to see a mechanized compound bow, with bit of jungle camouflage, sorta “Rambo HoT bow”, or “this gen’s Predator (the rifle)”. I mean the serious mechanized theme, not trying to make a bow into a rifle, mind you!

They are summons. That means you can give them boons. That jalis stability road is about to get a brand new reason to be used

Sorry i’m not vid maker (yet) but i can give you a rundown of what was fixed over time with HoT:

1. map rewards system – early on it was merciless grind, and rewards were chained to doing full map meta, which if you dcd was lost without any mercy.

Now it’s far more lenient – you get rewards as you do events, map meta reward is only chained to ending events, not the full 1h+ event chain (outposts to map meta). Also much easier to level higher tier masteries.

2. Xpac price obviously went down to a fair level.

3. Living story chapters added 6 new maps, most of them good (minus lake Doric, everyone hates that one). Now base HoT + ls maps feels fair, and not content starved.
Btw still get Lake Doric – it has most useful mastery of all if you’re not a PvE pro – #5 skill for downed, very powerful in certain necrotic hands.

4. They dug themselves outta dirt with 2nd generation legendaries. We’ve been getting steady stream of those every LS release and much like raids it’s not tied to HoT alone. They’ll keep coming regardless of which xpac is current one.

5. Raid wings were added as promised, we currently have 13 total raids inside 4 raid wings. Also legendary armors are no longer a “to be” feature, but recently landed and are a thing.
Even more recently (due to complexity of their visuals and player backlash on them) World vs World and Spvp legendary armors were also introduced, but these are functional upgrades of already existing ascended ones. You get no new visuals here, but you do get full legendary utility (free stat swaps on the fly, ability to replace upgrade componets without losing them).

6. Also legendary backpacks are a thing now in each game mode.
You got Ad Infinitum for fractal frequenters
The Ascension for spvp maniacs
And Warbringer for WvW carnage fans.

Oh and there’s a disgustingly pink legendary accessory for Living Story owners.

7. They added two new spvp conquest maps – Revenge of Capricorn and Eternal Colliseum. Both are HUGE for an spvp map, so you better have your mobility skills ready.

8. Fractals were upped to level 100. They added some new ones too. Generally they had a small rewamp, biggest part of which is that you no longer are forced to do 4 in a row, but just one, and randomness was cut out. Each fractal level is tied to specific fractal and you yourself choose where you go (given your or party member’s fractal levels allows to open it).

Unfortunately Guild halls still seem to be ass (albeit the guild hall armor and weapons are beautiful).
And balance issues are still here such as elite specs being waaaay stronger then base in most cases, necros and revenants being shafted in raids, chronos and warrs being the polar opposite – everyone wants and needs them. Oh and raid healer spot being monopolized by druids.

But as a guy who got HoT about a month after it’s launch i will say “go for it” It looks to be far less then it really is – there is a huge amount of replayability and fun there, lots of stuff to do, especially if you get bored of the usual map meta (adventures, collections, gliding for fun and views, legendary crafting, trying out new builds, mastery point hunting, raids).

Short version:

soulbeast – great design overall, love the versatility and new depth.
But the stances are outta whack.

Bear stance – it’s good functionality wise, but a stance should not have a cast time, that’s counter-intuitive.

Dolyak stance – bugged out, does not work.

Griffon stance – 1 might on evade (not dodge, evade!) is ridicously weak. Well at least there’s no icd on it. Also quite large cd.

Moa stance – no complaints here! Love the moa!

Vulture & One Wolf Pack – you put internal cooldowns on them preventing burst. But then you also give them short duration, preventing them from being a sustain damage utility, since burst is already out. Leaving us with very underwhelming result, especially for elite, which has huge cooldown given it’s duration. At least vulture has manageable cooldown.

renegade – loved it, though as some mentioned energy costs are gonna be a nightmare, and serious sustain issues (quirky heal, not much soft cc to kite, no special movement mechanics, like for example shiro’s dodges or shadowsteps).

firebrand – love the new recharge on mantras. Tomes are in need of rework. Both mechanically (one page cost on each skill) and visually (old guardian elite tomes were EPIC visual wise – bring them back!!).

holosmith – how did this broken damage get into preview? This needs some serious nerfbat.

Agreed with Dadnir. Making a spec condi/power etc as it’s primary design is bad. A spec should be focused around a given playstyle, with traits giving multiple ways to do so.

In that regard reaper is hands down best elite spec in HoT. It’s not about type of damage, but about being a melee frontliner that cleaves, chills and gets stronger the more numerous the enemy is.

Being able to do it as power reaper, condi reaper, tank reaper etc is proof of excellent design. Which still could use some love for power numbers, but not at expense of killing condi side of it.

Another good spec that follows this healthy design is the renegade for Revenants. As much as they kitten about their new legend skills, a good look at traits shows no particular damage type is enforced. Both condi and power builds benefit from renegade which is about strong dps and offensive support for allies at expense of his defenses (certainly not herald level).

I wouldn’t bet on that. Firstly a lot of ppl here are heavily underestimating the power of condi renegade. Let’s revind a bit to last balance patch.

Core condi rev. 30k+ condi damage. Now add 20% to that with traited kalla’s fervor. 36k condi damage easy. That’s already very solid condi damage.

Secondly barrier scourge’s dps will not be as high as you believe it to be. His condi traits and barrier traits tend to compete for same spot. Also shades aren’t free – they need life force. And life force generation on condi necro has never been good. Just check out necro forums where they say to go dagger on scourge, because LF generation.

Lastly barrier itself is not all it’s cranked up to be. Maximum value you can receive scales off your own vitality. Tanky guys can get beefy barrier, but squishies can’t count on huge barrier numbers (up to half of their max hp as i recall). But to even get there, necro would need healing power. So…know any stat sets with condi damage, expertise and healing power? I don’t.

Scourge can go condi + healing power, sure, but he won’t get any expertise then. A huge drop to his dps.

Meanwhile kalla elite works outta the box for renegade and the more they hit (and in raid setting they’re under quickness almost 24/7) the more they heal, no matter their max hp.

Not saing scourge will not be viable as off healer – but not to the point where renegade or herald will have no room to compete.

Copper Salvage-o-matic and put that sucker into your shared inventory slot that you got with lvl 80 booster (once you use that booster up). You’ll thank me later.

Then permanent harvesting tools (mining, logging and harvesting) so you can collect your wood, minerals and ingredients as you go. Trust me, over time it’s gonna really grow on you.

Using normal ingame ones is extremely unconvinient. Run outta them in middle of event or hostile map and either you’ll end up giving up on collecting your nodes (and even worse forgetting to resupply for next time) or having to go back to merchant and losing event or wasting a lot of time.

Next would be character slots or pass to a special crafting zone (for convinience). You will do a lot of crafting soon, trust me. By pass i mean permanent 1k pass, no them 2 weeks and out you go ones.

I think healing renegade will be a thing, if used smart.
He can be a druid replacement, but not the kind you expect.

Rather then being a healer, the renegade can be dps + offhealing via elite.
This will allow someone else then druid, someone with real personal damage to take the main healer spot. Thinking scourge, or dps+heal guardian.

Everyone is hellbent on druid damage buffs, but let’s not forget druid himself is rock bottom dps. These things are there to compensate for his own wet noodle damage.
Kick druid out, put someone with real personal damage in his place and you may find out druid is not that meta anymore. With renegade’s support a dps healer can be a thing.

otto.5684:

What you are saying is redundant. You explain what renegade does. Everyone posting here understand what it does and understand it is a buff to PvE condi damage. That is all what it is and does and that is the problem. It is just the same build using the same weapon (mace+axe) doing the same thing with slight group support.

New elites are supposed to open new builds either thematically or in play style and renegade does neither on top of being close to useless in PvP. It needs major work to be release ready, and probably some major restructuring of utilities functionality and costs.

I said clearly that it’s also a buff to power specs. Again, no one’s arm-twisting you into using shortbow or kalla legend. Just grab the line and enjoy extra ferocity, crit chance and 3 new F skills. There’s something for non-condi in each tier of the line.

Also if herald is “the only” spvp spec, then that’s still one more spec then we had so far for raids. There he was kiter for w4 at best and that’s it. Worse then a necro even. Renegade will change that, and i believe it’ll happen on both power and condi fronts.

If there is any gripe i have with renegade it’s Revenants lack of hybrid weapon. One that does decent condi and power damage. Renegade is build for hybrid damage (so much free crit chance + ferocity) – he could equip viper’s and have very strong power damage still. Alas i see no weapon in his kit that could take advantage of this massive opportunity and that saddens me.

otto.5684:

The main comparison for now is with Herald. Yes, Kalla is a buff to condi damage in PvE group setting. In every other shape or form Herald is much better, especially in PvP. In addition, Kalla has too many utilities that will end-up not being used due to functionality and energy cost. The new weapon is borderline useless.

Again, there are 8 other new elites specs, that we dunno where will they stand when the dust settles. We do know where the 9 HoT elites stand. I can assure you renegade cannot compete with them. Not even remotely. And its not just numbers adjustment. There are some major functionality problems with Kalla. Explain to me how will you fight a DH or Chrono with Kalla?

Agree to disagree. First off Renegade does not chain you to Kalla. Or the shortbow. Only thing you’re chained to as renegade is the elite spec line and wholly optional F2-F4 skills that don’t take away anything from core Reve.

Renegade is also a boost to PvE power damage not just condi – 33% crit chance when endurance is full + 300 ferocity from traited kalla’s fervor stacks talks. And for all the eternal complaining bout energy costs, stacking fervor requires 0 energy. Just crit with your autos and you’re already on your way there, more so if you flank them.

Also the much hated Kalla utilities can end up being very useful in PvE setting. Razerclaw’s edge bleeds are basically huge free condi damage boost if they are calculted off your condi damage and duration when allies apply them. 50 bleeds in total to grab.

The elite is also impactful – it’s like vampiric presence only you know…meaningful.
Even if we scratch the damage part (cause upkeep cost will lower yours), the healing coefficient is quite nice and renegade with all the bonus crit chance and ferocity can go into unusual stat sets like for example crusader (power, toughness, ferocity, healing power), to ramp it up to around 500 health healed per hit per ally.

That’s a huge breathing room for the healer, who can get far more offensive if renegade is serious about his elite.

As for DH or chrono – how you’re gonna beat them as renegade? Answer: you can’t beat what doesn’t exist. And that’s pretty much what you’ll get once spellbreakers, soulbeasts and scourges hit pvp with all the boon and block hate. Dragon Hunsters are practically toast once these guys roll out. You’re not expected to beat everything with one single char. You don’t go duelling a thief (given they know their stuff) as a necro, or trying to 1v1 a zerk warr as a ranger.

While not as bad as dragon hunters, chronomancer also aren’t gonna have a field day when a soulbeast or spellbreaker jumps them. One will be able to outsustain their damage without losing capture point for a second, the other will rip every boon they have and tear them open a new one th moment they try to block. Scratch that, both can. Now both warr and ranger have on demand unblockable time frames

You’re not expected to handle each and every profession and their build. As for herald’s superiority in pvp you may wanna hold off your horses for reasons mentioned above. Tons of boons? blocking? On herald you’re not that far from being in same kittenty situation as DH and chronos. You too won’t enjoy a visit from your friendly neighbourhood spellbreaker, scourge or soul beast.

Meanwhile renegade has some nice non-boon defenses like condi damage reduction, life leech, or ample cc. It’s not perfect, but i think ppl give it far too little credit.

Has anyone forgotten here how core reve is able to output 30k condi damage now?
And renegade sure doesn’t look like a downgrade in terms of conditions.

And power builds are gonna get even sweeter – tons of extra ferocity and crit chance on renegade talk. Don’t like Kalla? Don’t take her. Don’t want shortbow? No one’s forcing you. The traitline alone is huge to push revenant far ahead in dps compared to what it was just recently.

Now will he be garbage or not compared to other classes – that remains to be seen. But lets remember that this beta prieview is far from balanced (hi holosmith damage) and there will most certainly be changes, if not to renegade himself then to others.

I like that 20 strikes vulni summon. Combine it with bleed one and you get some nice extra damage from it alone. I only started my renegade test (after getting my machine in order) but i feel a lot of critique is undeserved. I see what they’re doing with renegade and it seems well planned and synergetic.

I have a question regarding stances as i was unable to join the spec testing weekend.
So the two things that itch me about stances but can’t answer them myself:

1. Do they affect my pet by default as well? So both me and pet get stance effects, or just me, if it’s baseline untraited stance?

2. When affecting allies with grandmaster trait on – whose stats does it use where applicaple? Mine or their own? For example if they got my vulture stance on against low health enemy – is it my condi damage & expertise or theirs that decide the damage of poison stacks their blows blows now inflict?

Also my feedback on stances (from wiki sadly):

1. Moa looks great!

Really liking it and it may be a big breath of fresh air in raids – it greatly supports burst boon casts. Take a herald + soulbeast and for 4s your party has 100% bonus boon duration! Imagine PS warr getting the boot and ppl blasting a fire field instead. Few would complain as fire fields are max dps in terms of whirl/projectile finishers, while blasting one under said boon duration is might for 40s!

2. Griffon looks horrid.
No idea why such a long cooldown on it. The might should be 3 stacks at least, if it’s on evade on a stance with such huge cd.

3. Vulture stance could really use longer duration. 20% uptime for a stance that provides a continual rather then bursty effect is kinda low.

4. Bear stance
It’s there cause they needed a stance on healing skill and that’s about it. No stance should have a cast time! It should be more like warrior’s heal – you gain aura (warning enemies that you’re in healing stance) and receiving major healing if you get struck/do damage. Could be combined some damage reduction for it’s duration.

5. Dolyak stance.
This one’s tough. It looks excellent, a lot of good stuff going on here. But it still lacks one thing, especially given it’s purpose – a non swifness movement speed buff. I can see it being used as panic button, when your regular movement increasing traits/boons are down, and you’re being crippled hard or kited to oblivion. You press that button to outrun them, one way or the other. That feature could be very useful.

Perhabs you could replace retalliation with that movement speed buff, and place pulsing retal on elite, so with some boon duration you could actually give party a lot of retal.

6. One wolf pack.
8s duration on 60s cooldown. Really a-net? x_x

It’s effect looks good if not for the lousy uptime and 1/2s internal cooldown. If this is to be a real elite (and not another “who slots that thing ever?” like druid one) it needs a lot more duration or the icd removed.
Also i would put retalliation on it, be it a single long lasting cast or pulsing one.
As it is, even when shared it will lose to core ranger alternatives like SotP and Entangle.

7. Leader of the Pack trait

Given current stance durations, i think 50% duration for allies is too harsh. Even in organized raid runs not everyone will catch on when you share a stance in half a second and make the best of it for “amazing” 3s or less they got left.

Not to mention the nature of ranger stances which due to icd on some of them are defensive or sustained damage, not burst. This is horrible considering very small time windows for them which are a thing for burst not sustained damage.

Anywhoo things like elite, vulture stance and even Moa stance should last longer on allies when shared. Ergo 75%.

I agree with Siegfried that we’re missing a lot of what come with launch – that being especially race specific gameplay. Their own dedicated zones, personal stories and general feel.
I mean sure they’re all still there, but those of us doing xpacs are stuck as general commander without 1/100th of the starting zones asuran snark, norn brawls, human ranting on flop eared rats and their attitutde, charr military regime and legions competing with eachother, or sylvari making the life of poor asura gate operator a living hell with questions about golem’s feelings.

Seriously i remember when i used to just sit around in rata sum or metrica province to not only admire the view but see all the fun, snarky and humorous dialogues between the only non-bookahs of Tyria.

I really miss that sort of content in expansion…

As an experienced HoT player i will say that you should appreciate Tangled Depth’s complexity. When other maps are done (and there’s a looot to do in’em) it’s TD that will keep you busy with it’s complexity, yet at the same time amazing beauty and unexpected paths. This one is truly great once you give it time and take on the challenge of truly discovering it.

Also nothing funny about the impressions you got when first time visiting VB. What you said is very spot on. Feeling of epicness and completely new possibilities is exactly how i felt first time I entered and wasn’t dissapointed.

This is also exactly why i’m so underwhelemed by Crystal Oasis. VB is how it’s done, Crystal Oasis would be a good starter zone for let’s say 6th race in core game, not an expansion map.

If there’s one thing a-net bad at it’s making a sale. Here are few simple effective methods to get these xpac sales going and players wanting.

1. Time Trials.
No. Not betas. Not demos. No gutted content. Just time limited access to the whole thing, bells and whistles included. That’s how you guys sold me core game in 2 days.

Removing parts of gameplay, makes the experience washed down, less attractive, and giving off wrong impression of the final product. Is that what you want? People walking away saying “meh, not impressed.”?

With time trialed full version, you are giving players accurate assessment of what’s to come, throw everything at them with far greater chance to hook’em. They started their spec weapon collection. They got themselves their new pet. They unlocked an armor skin. They saw epic part of map #3, which they can’t get to yet, cause mastery! So much more to do, if you buy and continue on after the trial period!

2. Remind core tyria players of xpac – *THE FUN WAY!

Add events in core Tyria when you can rent a glider and do some cool HoT style gliding minigame. With updrafts, ley line gliding, leaning etc. Remember, core players only see regular glides. They don’t see updraft puzzles, ley lines to glide on and the real fun that it brings once you venture into maguuma.

Better yet – make a “Jungle Preparation camp” where you can try things the HoT style. Some mushrooms, a small map that has a lot of verticality, how to read a map for hints if something is way up, way below etc.
Few itzel NPCs here, few Nuhoch there, Exalted in between.
A small slice of maguuma for regular players to bite into and see if they’re up for it, and prepare them better.

Since it’s only limited to this zone and it’s events you can add things like “automatic glider”, “jump boots” etc that act like HoT masteries, letting players know that they will learn all these in the jungle without need for any assistance and be able to use them whenever and wherever possible.

That is what I’d do to get ppl to not forget about xpac and experience stuff for themselves rather then rely on word of mouth.

3. Keys to maguuma/crystal desert.

You just returned from 4 moths break from GW2 and find out that xpac trial and discount were 1 week ago? Wouldn’t you get kittened if that happened to you? And it’s not uncommon to see ppl going on such breaks.

How about if instead you got a nice mail saying, “Dear player, the vast jungles of Heart of Maguuma/sands of Crystal Desert await brave adventurers to take on their deadly challanges and help Pact forces push forward!”

“Here is your key to maguuma/crystal desert which you can double click to start your 24 hour trial period, during which you can enter it’s respective zones and partake in any of it’s activities!.”

Better yet is that time is counted only when you’re actually online and in xpac maps. There are ppl with not that much time (work, other real life stuff) that would end up getting maybe hour or two outta two day regular trial. But making it bound to actual time spend in xpac zone you’re letting them get a real feel of it and a chance to get hooked!
Such key would obviously be account bound.

You could also occasionaly make a gemstore key sale, with limitation of one key per account (to prevent gem exchange from going batshit crazy), and on set time intervals (if you used one gemstore key, you cannot use another for set period).
So that the players who got the free key but are still on a fence can get another shot, but this time for putting some $ in a-net’s wallet (via gem exchange).

How much time a key would give is up to you, numbers suggested here are just a rough idea.

That’s the 3 things i would get to get players hooked, lined and sinking into xpac purchase.
Bottom line – if you don’t let them experience the real deal, instead keeping it behind gates 24/7 or giving a watered down experience, they will walk away, forget it or rely on outside reviews, instead their own hands-on and get dicouraged, as these tend to be…mixed.

Nick.6972:

I think PoF proved that players are more interested in GW1 related expansions than new areas – HoT.

Cantha needs to come back.

It hasn’t proven anything yet, it’s not even out. And i’d rather have new zone that aren’t limited by designs of old GW1.

Sorry for not being the intented audience (i have HoT and love it), but i will provide few possible reasons, given by common sensical reasoning:

1. They moved on and didn’t get the memo.
Early HoT has had it’s fill of serious issues too numerous to list, that certainly did drive many away from purchase, and some of them did not care to look back. They’re already long gone from this game, despite a-net fixing and improving a lot of those to the point where it’s extremely good and fun in current form.

2. Bad reviews. More over the online reviews did not help. No one trusts IGN & friends, they’re known sellouts. People look for player not professional reviews. And the former tend to be extremely biased (lots of 10s and 0s for one title). Even after all the good changes lot of them are still negative cause regular players aren’t the most distanced and cool headed bunch.

3. Casuals. GW2 is the casual friendly MMORPG. HoT is not. It’s challenging, demanding your time, attention, coordination and wits. I gladly picked that gauntlet up, but for many it may have been betrayal of what they wanted from their friendly and chilled Fashion Wars 2.

4. money!. Not every GW2 player lives in USA or Germany. A lot of poorer folks here too for whom $50 (initial HoT price) was a hard pill to swallow. If they weren’t around to bump into discounts and unlock LS3 chapters for free, chosing to buy HoT now would really rack up their bill.

50$ instead of $30 if they want the HoT + PoF bundle, and that’s without living story chapters.
And while the latter can be bought with gems, xpacs need to be purchased with real life money, period.

Played first demo, couldn’t second (gfx card died, sadly of all times now is the one my lappy needs a replacement if i’m to play anything).

The Crystal Oasis is a do not buy, wait till they prove not all xpac is like that map.
HoT’s Verdant Brink is amazing – the moment you enter you know you’re no longer in Cansas, Dorothy. Completely different, vertical layout, jungle that went ape on your fleet and you see wreckage all over the place, the hard mobs, the feeling this is enemy turf and you’ll have to fight for each centimeter of ground, slowly and steadily gaining mastery of the jungle to learn it’s secrets and become it’s master.

With all the hidden places, hard fights and insane replay value you truly do feel that you slowly turn from city rat into a jungle native that slowly starts to feel at home in jungle more then anywhere else. That feeling was epic and extremely well conveyed.

Crystal Oasis? I felt like my main problem and raison d’etre was to find a goat to milk after securing my raptor. No feeling of epicness, danger, challenge, discovery and deep vast unfriendly yet beautiful world that you’ve to conquer day in and day out.
Masteries cut down instead of expanded, every-mmo and it’s mother feature “mounts” being the primary selling point, some convinience (identification, bounties) but nothing groundbreaking new, map that looks like core Tyria add-on, instead of something worthy of being “the next thing after HoT”.

Total flop to me.

I’m a big fan of duels as an idea, less so doing it myself.

Duel means no teammates that blame you (or you them) for everything. No one will hate on you for a loss because only you lost, and if you win, you know it was 100% you.
That’s what i love about duels.

That being said GW2 doesn’t fit too well for them. We have 1v1 monsters (good thieves, druids, eles) along classes that are terrible at it (necro). We’d be seeing only fraction of professions in such game mode as those weaker make up for their weakness with team utility which means nothing in a duel.

So for you xpac players out there – when was the last time you felt like your own character and not "commander’?

I speak of your charr calling some human meat meat!
Or asura ensuring his pact bookahs that despite their inferior intellect and bookah-level senses he is there to see this through!
Or sylvari overhearing subordinates forseeing fall of Tyria as it’s most powerful military force is being ordered around by a salad!

Ah wait! Nvm, a-net already killled “Commander”!
When i start xpac i hear i gotta do what i gotta do cause drumroll Kiel said so!
So remind me here, am i a commander of Tyria’s greatest military force or Kiel’s errand boy?

On second thought, don’t answer that. It’s too depressing to know…

Step backward.

- less masteries
- no HoT verticality
- no glider love
- no outposts only hearts v 2.0
- no groundbreaking new feature (like hot glider and verticality)

I was very dissapointed. GW2 succeeded because it dared to innovate. Here I get some QoL changes (indentification, bounties) and game being afraid to break out of standard MMO tropes…

OP, you’re panicking too much. They will 100% not give you pay to win kitten.
They will sell it to you for money See? Your worries were unfounded:)

dude, kitten personality test, play what you like!

I wanted to be a terror spreading frontliner voodoo priest and so I become reaper main!

But different strokes for different folks!
Think what you want to be, then skin it and find a skillset that matches your theme and go for it!

…probably not.

Rangers, Revenants are pretty happy if you ask me.
Necromancers are also happy. To burn some tiers under a-net’s hq that is

OriOri.8724:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I like the changes of elite specs. What i don’t like is imbalance in doing so.

Chornomancers being tanks is ok.
Chronomancers being only tanks that matter is not.

I know that this has been explained to Zeft before, multiple times, so I really don’t understand why he insists on still bringing it up, despite having been explained why he is so wrong.

• Chronomancers are not the only tanks that matter.

• Chronomancers are not the only class that can tank.

The reason people want the chrono to tank is twofold:

1 – They can still perform their alacrity/quickness rotation while tanking = they aren’t just a useless spot in raids that does nothing but eat the attacks without dying

2 – They lose the least amount of DPS by switching their gear over to tank since their DPS is so low to begin with.

This is why chronos are the tank, not because no other class can. its just that chronomancers sacrifice the least of any class in order to tank

Your “explaining” failed to meet most basic logical cryteria, that’s why. As it does right now.

1. Chronomancers are the only tanks that matter in raids. Go do LFG, try joining a pug as non-chrono tank. I wonder how that’ll go. Sure there may be some few nice ppl out there, but majority will be “sorry, chrono only!” and i’m talking really nice scenario here.

2. I left my own lines about chronos in quote above so you can’t make up any more stories about what I say.
I didn’t say only chronos can tank. I said only chronos matter in current raid meta and that’s wrong.
The fact that there are others who can tank (reapers, guards, eles, revs even druids) only adds insult to injury for those that are supposedly able to take up the role but get the boot cause no quickness+alacrity+distortion.

But raid bosses are taunt immune…

I like the changes of elite specs. What i don’t like is imbalance in doing so.

Chornomancers being tanks is ok.
Chronomancers being only tanks that matter is not.

What elite specs should do is provide alternative roles and playstyles to core classes (staying true to their theme), but not set iron clad meta of “this spec is best for the role out of all professions, and all elites specs!”

AliamRationem.5172:

Or is this core Tyria all over again where we just run around bumping into events that just feel like a grab for a little experience and loot and not much else?

Core Tyria actually has meta events for most parts that react to players succeeding or failing them. That was the big selling point of core GW2. Maps like Harathi Hinterlands or Straights of Devastation are proofs.

So that makes demo map less then core Tyrian ones in that regard:/

I come from the group of players that vastly enjoyed HoT and it’s verticality. It had issues, sure but these were more content-creation pace and sales related then game itself.

That being said I was bored outta my skull with the demo. Firstly things i do appreciate:

1. giving my character sets of armor and trinkets to cater to my own preferred build (more or less).
2. giving me a shot to experience PoF first map first hand.
3. That sous chef mastery point – most ppl complain but whiners will wine. Put my back to it, tried couple of times and got it, was fun Especially the crying of sous-chef applicants, i could swear that was tongue in cheek to all those players whining about it being too hard

Ok enough buttering up. Now the bad parts:

1. Hardly any verticality.
Sorry but it feels like i went back in time to GW2 launch and core Tyria. I do not appreciate that. GW2 is about innovation, not taking steps back. HoT innovated, and as usual when you change something you will make enemies. But it’s worth it. Now i feel like instead of pushing for innovation you run back to core Tyria with tail between your legs.

2. No outposts.
Outposts in HoT are awesome – you get several ways to do map meta, each telling a story and guiding you through jungle’s density. Here it’s just “hearts v 2.0”.
I’m not feeling it.

3. No glider love.
Gliders are extremely popular among players, we love’em. There’s a huge gap between “you can glide in this map” and “this map has gliding sections”. The latter including gliding puzzles and places to just soar above whole map and be uncontended king of skies! Well, not in PoF sadly:/

4. Who’s Kiel’s she-dog? You are!
Excuse me, am I a freaking Pact Commander, or some lionguard janitor? Why is “Kiel said so” used as explanation why i’m landing here and now without any of my say in it? What’s next, some Vigil recruit telling me to go clear up 3 undead near a pond before i can board my own kitten ship?

Ps. Proud i voted Evon Gnashblade in election, knew i made a right choice, but majority is Kiel’s she dogs!

5. Too castrated
You blocked to much stuff, and it’s biting you in the kitten How do I know any HoT map is vertical and has lots of hidden places? Because there’s stuff in there teasing you constantly to find it! Especially Hero Points! You search up, below, around and inside, eventually discovering a kittenton of stuff!

And in demo? My new elite specs aren’t enabled, so why should i care? “Moving on.” (with who knows how much stuff undiscovered).

6. You didn’t watch your Hitchkitten
When i entered VB i got greeted by scene from jungle nightmare, then a huge vine appears threatening nearby pact camp and things only wind up from there. Plus you begin with grabbing a sniper rifle and scoring some mordrem headshots!

PoF – after your lord and master Kiel tells you what you can and cannot do via “your” subordinates, you face a normal fight with Balthazar’s herald, run around a village putting out fires and ressing ppl. Then you accidently click on Kasmeer and wish she’d shut up 5 seconds later, while Rytlock who’s supposed to actually have interesting stuff to say doesn’t care to talk longer then said 5 seconds.

And then you land in queensdale 2.0…oh the tension!

7. No elite specs!
So i run around “Queensdale 2.0 The desert strikes!” using my….core or HoT build. So feels old on the map mechanic side, feels old on the combat side….yeah, great way to get my adrenaline pumping.

8. The mounts.
So PoF’s “innovation” is basically feature of every kitten mmorpg out there. That’s the “new” that’s supposed to replace the glider. Not seeing it. GW2 = glider. That’s a strong sales point.
Mounts? That’s generally a single tick on a check-list of your standard boring WoW clone features.

9, Where’s the BIG & NEW?
Asides questionable novelty of mounts and bounties (which aren’t that strong a feature) rest of “new” seem to be item system polish (items for easier salvage and inventory stacking)….and that’s it. Rest as said something of a mix-up between core Tyria and LS3. Where’s the distinctive feature that you only get in GW2 Path of Fire?
HoT had mastery system for the first time, along with gliders and amazing vertical maps. That was fresh, that was…hot.
Here – you tell me, i can’t find a kitten thing.

10. Why am I getting less?

No matter how I look at it, demo shows me that in PoF instead of getting more as advertised i get less then in HoT.

Less masteries, less adventures (2/3 of map i saw 1 adventure, in HoT there were more), less event density, no outposts, no glider sections (updrafts, ley lines for gliding etc), less innovation, taking a huge step back to core GW2 map style.
Nothing truly new that doesn’t make you say “been there, done that” unlike vertical maps and gliders at time of HoT’s launch.

Overall i’m very underwhelmed by this demo. I don’t feel sense of purpose, encouragement to explore, feeling of GW2 only innovation waiting to pull me in and show me once again that this game dares to go where no others did!

That is my opinion from playing the demo. Dunno how full xpac will look like so can’t say. But this definitely did not get me hyped.

Well said Ophidia. Unchained events, no real glider sections, rather flat map – i feel this is queensdale 2.0 in the desert. Something that could be accepted as core GW2’s very safe 1st expansion.

But not after HoT that dared to innovate, gave us gliders, vertical maps, masteries, adventures, outposts and incredibly beautiful lush and deep environments you just wanna loose yourself in.

I dunno as for rest of PoF, but the part shown in demo was quite unimpressive, especially given how lots of stuff got blocked (no elite specs, only raptor mount etc). A demo should hook you, grab your by your ….you-know-what and leave you salivating for more.

Here it got me wondering at best, not salivating. Lotta stuff gone (outposts, glider sections, verticality), others trimmed down (masteries, amount of adventures maybe). What’s left is mixture of a core tyria map with LS3 “redoable” hearts map style, that doesn’t leave me begging for more.

My bad then i guess, but as i stated clearly (which you nitpickers love to miss), it’s not about money. I already purchased both base and HoT when they were fresh.

The point is that because of the sales model PoF cannot respect HoT masteries and those of us who enjoyed gliding sections, mushrooms etc are now to be stuck with mounts in new xpac, like it or not (I don’t).

And no, Being able to just “glide down” is not real gliding sections. Real gliding sections are maps with updrafts, where you actually have to navigate and use your masteries to get to your desired place with glider. PoF is same as core Tyria in that regard. Yeah you can glide, but these maps were never designed for it. Puzzles are around mounts, not glider.

Had they made PoF a natural extension of HoT, mount lovers would lose nothing, while gliding fans wouldn’t feel left in a mud with zoo they didn’t ask for.

Hope dies last, doesn’t it.

Gliding was a great feature of HoT and they know it. If PoF maps were glider friendly they would be quick to announce it as a sales pitch.

Just as you can glide in core tyria. But i mean real gliding sections, with updrafts, glider puzzles etc. They wouldn’t have to be glider exclusive – mounted players can get to given point their own way, glider lovers their own.

But because of that decision of theirs gliding exists no more then in core tyria maps and that sucks.
Something they should’ve considered given almost everyone loved gliding. There was a lot of stuff where HoT didn’t please the crowds, but gliding was not one of them.

You done ….. it up.
I like 30$ pricetag (albeit being european i’ll have to shell out 30 euros, ouch). But that’s cool. Not overpriced like HoT was at launch.

What’s not cool is going back on your policy “New xpac makes previous ones free”.
Now don’t get me wrong – just the fact you’re reading this means i’m not a free player. I personally purchased both core and HoT.
But the place you goofed bigtime is in gliding.

Many players love gliding. Many love mounts (not me though).
But guess what? If you kept your old promise you could’ve made maps with gliding and mounts in’em. HoT crowd would be happy, mount lovers would be happy.

But now cause of “Player can have PoF without HoT” policy you couldn’t do that and made your desert that much more..arid (pun intended).
Now you’re gonna end up with one crowd happy (yay! mounts!), but another displeased (where are my glider sections?!).

Inconsistency can bite you in the ass for sure..

Topic starter here.

This is the very issue here, this isn’t progressing, this is a step backwards,cause players whined. In a regular MMO that may be the solution, but this is GW2. The rpg that dared to innovate and break with old tropes.

Now giving in to them instead of innovating futher is the sure way to make GW2 another bland MMO.

I forgot to mention in opening post how sorely dissapointed i am at lack of outposts. These were a great progression for living world mechanics.
Instead of one meta-event that’s sometimes too long and the same, you got a couple of outposts to choose from, each with it’s own part of the story and being enough for full meta chain rewards.

After you did them all, you always had a choice which way suits your meta event clearing best. Also how they had a meaningful story and exploration to them. Going with npcs quite far at cases allowed you to explore the jungle maze with some guidance from them. That was a huge step forward.

Sure, there were technical issues (dc and lose your progress), but technicalities should not butcher a great idea. The band aid fix they applied actually works, and despite it’s simplicity really cured the situation.
Now we’re back to hearts.
These may be good for LS maps where you hop in to harvest, have a little fun, clear a heart or two and off you go.
But for core xpansion maps that are to deliver a story to me and challenge me with their size, complexity and depth that a no-go.

I seriously feel I’m playing queensdale 2.0, and that’s the most boring GW2 map for me in the whole game!

Also not getting anyone calling VB “claustrophobic” That map is pretty big even if we look at it as flat terrain. When i glide across these huge chasms or along the mountain wall in the northern part or just above clouds, at no moment in time did i feel “it’s small af”. I did feel “kitten this is epic, best kitten in MMO EVER!”

Well, i’m gonna play the devil’s advocate and in this post here give my negative feedback on PoF demo. For now extremely early impressions, later on maybe more balanced onces.

1. Map is flat as pancake. No updrafts:// VERY BAD start.
Moment i entered Verdant Brink in HoT was: “Holy kitten, what verticality! What’s down there? what’s up there? How do i get there? Lemme at’em!”

Here i feel like i’m playing a bigger core GW2 map. Extremely demotivated.
“Do i have to? Man get me to Verdant Brink and stop torturing me!”, is what my brain was saying.

2. Events happening outside town seem normal. Again huge BAD START. In Verdant Brink you got sniper rifle start, very fun, gets you to good vista and started into first outpost’s meta-chain. I felt guided into the metachain and that was fun, as along with doing it i discovered the mazy jungle.

3. Gigantification of environment. Things being far apart (cause mounts need their purpose) does not mean you have to instantly make things gigantic all around. Like that personal story mine exit that felt more like i was leaving some mine run by giants, making a kittenroach’s exit on my raptor…

4. Camera bugs. When i started adventure to deliver supplies camera bugged out in middle. When i mounted my raptor it would stay in that place watching me ride off into the sunset …until i dismounted when it started caring about catching up with me as it should.

Giving a-net credit of trust after HoT got turned into super awesome expansion with constant fine-tuning I will probably stand corrected, quite possibly by myself as i play more.

But what i am saying is that the start is EXTREMELY UNENGAGING.
HoT did it right – the moment you entered verdant brink jaw dropped and it just kept you snared and entangled for the ride with good engaging start, clear guideline, awesome visuals and extremely fun challenging to navigate maps. Not to mention heapton of mastries.

Masteries being mounts only is another huge “You done you-know-what” from me. But we’ll see as I play more.
And let’s be clear here. It’ll take A LOT to convince me any mount can even begin to compare to awesomeness of flying with glider, especially with all the cool glide masteries in place. No furball can replace freedom of the skies!

I like the new lich. Especially #5 that gives us real sustain in the form and real menacing presence.

The self – destruct minions look absolutely disgusting (art wise)…I love it:)
The aa is still same…that could use some work. I wouldn’t mind it being weaker damage in exchange for faster projectile that actually hits it’s targets..