Guild Wars 2

Cyrill Faust.9340:

phys.7689:

spoj.9672:

The thing is the wells still do more than the shouts for groups of trash. And the shouts are terrible for single targets. You would use 1 shout max with 2 wells for trash pulls. If the shouts had blast finishers they might be a little more favourable.

yeah, but if you have that trait, you can basically chain shouts on groups.
35% reduction per group of 5,

this means 3 shouts on big groups recharges all shouts

so you can use the elite a lot, in large groups.
elite
suffer
you are all weaklings
heal shout
elite again

anyhow, i do think the shouts could be improved on your targeted enemy. While in groups they may be pretty good, alone they are really really weak
your soul is mine

I think you misread the shouts only effect their own cd not the cd of other shouts.

ahhh well that killed my shout hype.
they probably need to be tuned then.

Zetsumei.4975:

Well its nice that our siphons work in shroud but i think its just distracting us.

I just think it won’t work, we needed that defiance bar and lockdown mesmers are just going to rip us apart. I thought our saving grace was if they made all shouts stunbreakers but they didnt.

Its cool and all but i think the reality is that is just will not work as they expect it to. Typical necro tbh looks good on paper but just gets destroyed by interrupts.

Another this is that they talked about the big wind up paying off in trade for big damage but I just didn’t see enough base damage on the skills apart from #2.

you get pulsing stability per second for 8 seconds, on a 20 second cool down.
thats pretty good stability up time.

deSade.9437:

I see that.
I suppose that must be it – the role of the class, how it’s been designed by anet.
Selfish, leeching from its other partymates – benefitting yet not contributing; a parasite getting health when eles and guards give it boons; might only to itself….
/disgusted noise

I can’t do it. I hate selfish classes, I hate them. I hope some necros do find it enjoyable, though. It looks like it could be fun to play. The animations are impressive.
Sure play it for fun – just not on my a** – because I can’t see anything else good coming out of it in dungeons.

its not that necros give nothing, its that the current encounter design doesnt favor dmg reduction on bosses.

they have good weakness, good chill, good fields for both, blinds, and they will help with sustains and heals (if they want to) but since most dmg is avoided, these things dont seem that big to players.

lets see how enemy behavior/encounter design changes in high end games, then we will see.

Oh yeah, and they probably need to mess with combo fields, most underperform except for blast.

spoj.9672:

The thing is the wells still do more than the shouts for groups of trash. And the shouts are terrible for single targets. You would use 1 shout max with 2 wells for trash pulls. If the shouts had blast finishers they might be a little more favourable.

yeah, but if you have that trait, you can basically chain shouts on groups.
35% reduction per group of 5,

this means 3 shouts on big groups recharges all shouts

so you can use the elite a lot, in large groups.
elite
suffer
you are all weaklings
heal shout
elite again

anyhow, i do think the shouts could be improved on your targeted enemy. While in groups they may be pretty good, alone they are really really weak
your soul is mine

spoj.9672:

Looks really strong and fun. And some of those traits are really nice. Like the might when hitting chilled foes (gonna be good for soloing).

The biggest things are the sustain and stuff working through DS. The shouts are incredibly disappointing in PvE. Except for the heal. The elite could be good if the cast time was a bit shorter.

But it still comes down to damage numbers. I really like the DS attack speed and the GS skills though.

well the shouts are really super strong on multiple targets, especially with chilling nova combined with vulnerability crit stacking.

the crit stacking alone could be pretty interesting for armor stat choices, if they had some good power ferocity stuff, but all you can get is vit.
power ferocity healing might be interesting if it existed.

Thaddeus.4891:

I just saw the numbers for the Necro GS.

The auto-attack hit for 646 with a cast time of 0.75sec. It seem high but keep in mind that all the numbers they gave us from the expansion are high. Just to give you an exemple, the auto-attack of the Dragon Hunter’s longbow is 574 with the exact same cast time.

The GS #2 which is suppose to be the hard hitter does 1520 damage with a cast time of 1.25 sec and a cooldown of 8 second. The Dragon hunter Longbow #2 hit for 1641 dmg have a cast time of 0.75 and a cooldown of 4 second.

It’s soon to have a jugment on these number since it highly dependent of what are the stats when they took those picture. We’ll have to wait to test the actual coefficient, but unless they did the lifestream on a zerker Dragon hunter and a soldier Reaper, these number seem pretty bad for PvE.

Not that high direct damage and focus on chill, no damage modifier from the new trait line. It seem that the Reaper is suppose to be PvP oriented and won’t help the necromancer at all in PvE dungeon. Maybe the Reaper’s Shroud and shout will make a difference?

it has no cooldown under 50% though, and true shot has a movement lockdown. Also the 646 646 760, if this is using the same amulets, it would end up being around 300 300 370 for AA.

It seems really powerful honestly.
the real problem i see with the set is the defense is pretty low.
The shouts arent too useful against single enemies.

fun factor though looks way higher for me personally.

Tim.6450:

phys.7689:

the point of those minions is mostly to die, and supply you with life force, which makes you more powerful/harder to kill through reaper shroud.

jagged horror gives no life force on death.

hmm, that kills the fun.

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

They’ve ‘ignored’ (to be read as ‘Not addressed in ways forumgoers like’) a huge number of things over the years, Necro hasn’t particularly stood out in this regard.

Classes simply haven’t changed that greatly over the life of the game (with a few bold exceptions). They’ve been tweaked up and down a few times, and there have been very few big things (notably some of the new trait 13’s), but that’s about it.

.This is one of those things where people keep telling each other something and as the snake eats it’s own tail, the story grows.

And this demonstrates why me and you can’t ever see quite eye to eye even if I enjoy our conversations

I simply can’t forgive them ignoring the fact that they designed this profession counter to their overall design (active defense being king). That’s not even to mention it’s lack of group synergy, and mediocre damage even in it’s top builds.

because they didnt envision active defense being king.

there are whole traitlines armor sets and styles built on toughness because they thought it would matter.

which, overall, i dont think they thought about it that deeply. They were doing a lot of new stuff, they couldnt see that far ahead.

Ohoni.6057:

Aaaand this is the reason we can switch between core spec and elite spec within seconds out of combat (and hell, we can easily reequip weapons more suited for single target, too). Going to a worldboss/boss without adds? Switch weapons and/or your Reaper spec.

Noooooo. If I have to switch out of a spec to fight open world content then what’s the point of switching into it in the first place? That’s my question, what is the point of this class, when from the description so far, it seems to just be doing the same “smacking around clustered groups of mobs” thing that the existing build does.

I’m not doomsaying here, I’m hoping the expanded information tells me why I’m wrong here, I just don’t see it based on what they’ve said so far. for now, the only role I can see for this spec is defense in PvP, and I couldn’t care less about that.

because they arent that good at smacking around clustered groups,

this is melee smack around, which is generally faster with more damage, it also should come with added durability, and what looks like a more powerful Death shroud.

Bhawb.7408:

Defiance bar acts just like HP, not every way to “damage” it is equal, and not every defiance bar takes as much work to decrease. They can always change it.

yes, they said different types of CC will have different effects, and different CC durations. which means the gunshot will be fairly weak at .25 seconds

Aktium.9506:

Roe.3679:

Aktium.9506:

Roe.3679:

Especially nothing slower than what we already have.

You say that like Necro’s current slow skills and slow everything isn’t already a problem.

It sure isn’t ideal, but it works for me. And my point is more that people are acting like we won’t land a single attack because it’s going to be THAT slow when that is clearly not the case since the description already applies.

When the class simply doesn’t allow you to react to for example a Thief who rolls up to you and starts weaving Pistol 4 between attacks to daze you before you can get anything off because everything is slow to activate or cast it’s a pretty big problem I’d say.

You realize if you get a defiance bar, you realize those pistol 4 will barely move it, since its only .25 seconds.

defiance during DS+ and big dmg DS moves, along with chill/etc.

yall are thinking past tense, its perfectly possible to make some pretty big changes.
the real problem is even if this build is good, yall need more from the core traits/weapons/utilities than yall currently have.

Navi.1032:

Ohoni.6057:

My first reaction to seing the Reaper was “cooool!” I mean, I really like it.

My second reaction though was, “what use is this?” It seems to be built to be good when fighting a tight pack of weak enemies. Well I already do just fine against a pack of weak enemies with my Scepter/Focus condi Necro.

What use will the Reaper have against single large targets, ie world bosses? That is what ALL characters need to be designed to fight, not trash mobs. What skills and traits will Reapers have that will make them a serious contribution to open world boss fights, when the enemy is largely immune to things like Chill and Fear.

Pretty much how I feel as well.

It looks great but is there a purpose to it?
Elite Specializations were supposed to bring a new playstyle to the class were they not? What we can see of Reaper so far is that you can do an AoE power build, that is neither new nor exciting.

I was hoping Death’s Charge would have a Whirl Finisher or something but it seems to make a Poison Combo Field instead, doubt it will do both.

• Still no support options that are useful in current game.
• Still minimal boss support.
• Reaper is forced into Chill.
• ‘Rise’ Shout seems counter intuitive, summon a bunch of minions that will then go and single target mobs, probably requiring minion related traits to work effectively.
• Not expecting Combo Finishers or Fields from the Shout traits, so hopefully something from the Greatsword

The main positive for me right now is trading off Death Shroud for Reapers Shroud. Just have to wait and see what else it brings.

the point of those minions is mostly to die, and supply you with life force, which makes you more powerful/harder to kill through reaper shroud.

the playstyle change is not just about melee, but trying to create a class that plays like an unstoppable force. Essentially, when you get close, this thing is supposed to eat you alive.

trading death for reapers shroud is a huge change. with 10/7 second cooldowns, you can spend most of your time in reapershroud if the class is made to survive in melee.

overall the feel/playstyle will be totally different, if they can achieve their goals.

problem is the core necro still feels pretty disjointed/weak.

Vayne.8563:

As I see it, there are two things a lot of people here seem to be ignoring. Yes, the uptrend in sales over last quarter is marginal, but last quarter was also the Christmas season which means beating it in the next quarter can be misleading. Most games don’t beat the Christmas quarter at all, because ‘tis the season’.

And let’s not forget, a lot of the sales we’ve seen are at 25% of the price of the game that originally launched 2.5 years ago. In order for a sale today to match a single sale, two-four copies would have had to been sold. So that 3% is pretty kitten ed good.

Without new content it’s even more surprising, since we are in a content drought.

Six million dollars a month is pretty good for a 2.5 year old game, particularly one that’s not had an expansion.

Now, some people in this thread have drawn the conclusion that the expansion path, instead of the cash shop path, is THE way to go, because sales have tapered and the expansion is bringing more cash in…even just the expectation of the expansion.

This is a bad conclusion to draw. No one is saying that the expansion isn’t something you should have in addition to a subscription or cash shop. The expansion is obviously going to bring in more numbers.

However when Guild Wars 1 managed this with just an expansion every year, the entire complexion of the genre was different. Competition was minimal. Guild Wars was the only MMO type game at the time without a sub. There was very little competitive. More to the point, the entire industry has changed back then. Games cost more to make. Shelf space for computer games back then was how they sold. That’s not true anymore. Shelf space for computer games has gotten smaller and smaller over the years. Having that boxed product for a computer game at this point only minimally affects sales.

At the end of the day this game is successful in sea of games that have been less successful. Even Blade and Soul which made more money this quarter, reached that height by releasing the game is a brand new area.

Some people are arguing the game would be MORE successful if it was done differently, but no one knows. And that it’s successful at all in this climate is telling.

the last xmas quarter was a record low, i would hope they could outperform that.

Behellagh.1468:

Never said expansion is bad. I’m saying the model that GW used isn’t as effective anymore in an age if digital distribution.

And since the game’s underpinnings are very different than GW2, there was no chance that GW2 could deliver a similar amount of content that each GW campaign did every 6-12 months. We got an 80 level true MMO vs three 20-level hub/instance quests MMO.

Sorry you are all comparing apples to emus here.

digital distribution benefits as much or more from having a new product “in stores” impulse buying has only increased with the advent of digital sales.

some of the most profitable games use gw2 old models, and they make tons of cash. check call of duty 10 dirty OPs underdark.

and i agree, they have, up to this point not been able to make content fast enough to use expansions.
However, i think they have a more concrete plan now, and the content pipeline may get better.

They basically have their new formula
new Zones
mastery for special skills/progression PVE within the zone
new specializations (they should add some proffesions, but they dont wanna) for overall mechanics and new car smell.

with that as a basis, they can have a much more directed and therefor faster content pipeline.

things missing
small group content design/pipeline/accessibility
large group content design (though they say this is in the works)
more new car smell(new charachter animations, new functionalities, etc)

Windsagio.1340:

In you guys opinion, what kind of damage/debuffs/special would they need to put on the shouts to make them meaningful?

truth is, they cant really get there with classic buffs anyhow, other classes already large bonuses to the stats people are looking for.

they would need something unique and new, but i say that overall thats a dead end. Changes in encounter design and boss mechanics are a bigger deal for what necros bring to the table.

Behellagh.1468:

The point is that before the shift to digital purchasing, it was essentially free advertising having a box on the shelf. GW’s “new” campaigns kept the brand up in front of eyes of potential customers looking for a new game to buy. A new “expansion”, that campaigns weren’t really, drives sales of the original.

The loss of this vector of getting eyes on product is a big hit in terms of driving purchases. Since shelve space is a limited commodity, what was on the shelves were a mix of what’s new and what’s popular. It’s curated, yes by upfront money from distributors but you didn’t have a near unless number of games to choose from via digital download. Sure Steam recently added curated selections and try to guess your preferences and show you similar titles but that doesn’t replace walking down an aisle of PC games and having an interesting title or box art catch you eye. Or having a chunk of shelf space with a large number of the same title facing you, universal sign of “I’m new”.

So how many GW players started with a later campaign and back filled? So instead of their 1st title being on display for only a few months you have each campaign keeping the brand “Guild Wars” front and center for two years. Then you had the combo box sets appearing for several more years. All of that is free advertising of the brand. All of that drive player sales.

What we have now are a few shelves in stores that use to have multiple aisles for PC gaming. A potential player has to come here to buy the game since it’s not on Steam or any other PC digital distributor of games. GameStop didn’t even carry the box but sold you a serial number for download. Sure you can buy it from Amazon like everything else but again you have to be looking for the game first. Once off the shelve it’s out of sight out of mind.

This is a different era for selling PC games. What helped sales with GW doesn’t exist anymore. You aren’t getting impulse buyers at full price. You aren’t keeping a brand in front of people for years every time they visit the store. Therefore popping out an expansion every 6 to 12 months may work well for those already playing but it won’t drive new people to the game. Not the same way as before.

BTW I am the OP of this thread.

the “box” props still exists. Now , instead of seeing boxes in an aisle, people see reviews, features, and ads in their favorite online stores/websites. The expansion/dlc/new game sales are still showing having a new packaged (digitally) product brings in sales.

Now if you think expansion is bad for picking up new players/getting return players, you know whats worse? gem store, because only people playing see it.

anyhow the point, and it is true, if gw2 could continue to sell boxes to the initial purchasers as well as gw1 did, every year or so, they would have made more money than gw2 current business plan did.

The main flaw in the theory, is gw2 has not shown in the past the ability to create enough content/upgrades to compete with what gw1 brought to the table in terms of campaigns.

honestly i think necros main problems lie in the core stuff, not so much the elite spec

keep in mind they didnt say shouts would have no team utility, simply they are more focused on dmg than other shouts, which currently do no dmg, so its not hard to achieve that

spoj.9672:

When they said that they were probably thinking more about PvP or if you build tanky in PvE.

well tmr should show the entire hand one way or another

spoj.9672:

phys.7689:

spoj.9672:

phys.7689:

spoj.9672:

Iris Ng.9845:

phys.7689:

Iris Ng.9845:

I wonder if necro will have more than 5 enemy-cleave restriction considering their attack will have a huge windup and scale up with the more enemies they cleave. Hmm… hmm…
On the other hand, the pulse rate of blinding utilities is not reliable when mobs have fast attack rate. From the look of the new mobs (i.e. dinosaurs) in the demo, maybe chill (and slow) will be a new form of protection.

yeah, i think enemies are going to have more skills, higher attack speed, more mobility.
focused bursts will probably require breaking the bar first.
essentially, im thinking those things alone will change the meta a decent amount.

I don’t personally care as much about meta as about interesting game play. If it is fun to play, we may be lucky to see a few new solo record here and there, along the line of what Sandy has achieved with his mesmer. We all play the meta for gold, but only fun play will last and inspire. Necro needs that face lift.

Problem is soloing doesnt look like a favourable thing with active defence still not being addressed. Thats always been the barrier which prevented me from doing loads of solos. That and the abominable solo dps. Maybe ill do some easy solos with the better damage. But i dont really feel too proud with setting the bar low like that.

chill dmg mitigation could be large, combine that with say protection, and some decent heal over time, or vampiric skills, and you may end up a lot more survivable.
we ll see tmr, but the concept they talked about is like horror movies, hard to kill, with big deadly moves.

its unlikely they would throw them into the mix as a brawler without some ability to mitigate damage.

Damage reduction doesnt work so well on bosses unless you go for defensive gear. So no im not optimistic with just those traits. Perma chill doesnt stop lupi from hitting you every 2-3 seconds. In groups we will be fine because we always have been when we get carried by classes with group defence. Solos less so.

And even if the damage reduction was good enough. We dont have enough sustain to supplement it. This is exactly why necros can no longer solo lupi. Im not optimistic about real active defence. But we shall see.

mitigation defense is just about number crunching.
lets say chill reduces dmg by 50% throw on protection 33%

2000 dmg becomes 660.

combine this with death shroud, evasion, regen, etc you may be able to survive indefinately with well timed chill applications and other active defenses.

Where are you getting the prot, regen and where are you getting the other active defence? Im telling you right now as i have tried it out its not enough if we get more fights that require as frequent avoidance as current lupi.

The chill damage reduction will probably be 10% just like putrid defence. And 2k damage is pretty weak for a boss hit.

i doubt it will be 10% unless chill uptime is dramatically increased, and i doubt they want it dramatically increased.

point is, saying mitigation is ineffective doesnt make sense until you know the numbers.
and we dont know a lot about the numbers yet, or the effects of the other skills.

heres the thing they straight up said they want this to be
" slow but seemingly unstoppable horror monsters"

if they are made out of paper, they wont generate that effect.

based on the design intent, its fairly certain their survivability is going to be dramatically increased, and since it wont be due to superior movement, it will have to be due to mitigation/negation.

spoj.9672:

Yeah it might be useful with slow and blind on trash pulls with rapid attack rates. But that doesnt mean ele wont be able to do that. Frozen ground and glyph of storms is a lot of chill for a trash mob burst.

what makes you think certain bosses wont get rapid attack rates?

spoj.9672:

phys.7689:

spoj.9672:

Iris Ng.9845:

phys.7689:

Iris Ng.9845:

I wonder if necro will have more than 5 enemy-cleave restriction considering their attack will have a huge windup and scale up with the more enemies they cleave. Hmm… hmm…
On the other hand, the pulse rate of blinding utilities is not reliable when mobs have fast attack rate. From the look of the new mobs (i.e. dinosaurs) in the demo, maybe chill (and slow) will be a new form of protection.

yeah, i think enemies are going to have more skills, higher attack speed, more mobility.
focused bursts will probably require breaking the bar first.
essentially, im thinking those things alone will change the meta a decent amount.

I don’t personally care as much about meta as about interesting game play. If it is fun to play, we may be lucky to see a few new solo record here and there, along the line of what Sandy has achieved with his mesmer. We all play the meta for gold, but only fun play will last and inspire. Necro needs that face lift.

Problem is soloing doesnt look like a favourable thing with active defence still not being addressed. Thats always been the barrier which prevented me from doing loads of solos. That and the abominable solo dps. Maybe ill do some easy solos with the better damage. But i dont really feel too proud with setting the bar low like that.

chill dmg mitigation could be large, combine that with say protection, and some decent heal over time, or vampiric skills, and you may end up a lot more survivable.
we ll see tmr, but the concept they talked about is like horror movies, hard to kill, with big deadly moves.

its unlikely they would throw them into the mix as a brawler without some ability to mitigate damage.

Damage reduction doesnt work so well on bosses unless you go for defensive gear. So no im not optimistic with just those traits. Perma chill doesnt stop lupi from hitting you every 2-3 seconds. In groups we will be fine because we always have been when we get carried by classes with group defence. Solos less so.

And even if the damage reduction was good enough. We dont have enough sustain to supplement it. This is exactly why necros can no longer solo lupi. Im not optimistic about real active defence. But we shall see.

mitigation defense is just about number crunching.
lets say chill reduces dmg by 50% throw on protection 33%

2000 dmg becomes 660.

combine this with death shroud, evasion, regen, etc you may be able to survive indefinately with well timed chill applications and other active defenses.

Knighthonor.4061:

so Ranger, Warrior, Necro been used as secondary.

leaving, Guardian, Ele, Mesmer, Thief, Revenant, Engineer for the remainder secondary classes.

interesting. I assume no doubling over.

Classes left to be revealed are

Warrior
Thief
Ranger
Engineer
Elementalist
Revenant

interesting…

said it in some other thread

theif/engi, with gadgets rifle

warrior/thief venoms dagger

spoj.9672:

Iris Ng.9845:

phys.7689:

Iris Ng.9845:

I wonder if necro will have more than 5 enemy-cleave restriction considering their attack will have a huge windup and scale up with the more enemies they cleave. Hmm… hmm…
On the other hand, the pulse rate of blinding utilities is not reliable when mobs have fast attack rate. From the look of the new mobs (i.e. dinosaurs) in the demo, maybe chill (and slow) will be a new form of protection.

yeah, i think enemies are going to have more skills, higher attack speed, more mobility.
focused bursts will probably require breaking the bar first.
essentially, im thinking those things alone will change the meta a decent amount.

I don’t personally care as much about meta as about interesting game play. If it is fun to play, we may be lucky to see a few new solo record here and there, along the line of what Sandy has achieved with his mesmer. We all play the meta for gold, but only fun play will last and inspire. Necro needs that face lift.

Problem is soloing doesnt look like a favourable thing with active defence still not being addressed. Thats always been the barrier which prevented me from doing loads of solos. That and the abominable solo dps. Maybe ill do some easy solos with the better damage. But i dont really feel too proud with setting the bar low like that.

chill dmg mitigation could be large, combine that with say protection, and some decent heal over time, or vampiric skills, and you may end up a lot more survivable.
we ll see tmr, but the concept they talked about is like horror movies, hard to kill, with big deadly moves.

its unlikely they would throw them into the mix as a brawler without some ability to mitigate damage.

ash wavekiller.7619:

we will see..i have seen ele class getting weak and more weak lol since gw2 released..and mesmer keep getting stronger and stronger..Disappointed play ele as a main.

you live in bizzaro world.
ELE is dominant in every game mode right now. mes is dominant in none

HotHit.6783:

Engineer doesn’t have enough buttons, so their secondary will be Ele as all of their toolbelt skills are being replaced with kits that have the old toolbelt skills in them. That’s 6 new skills each with 5 new toolbelt skills as well kitten extra weapon skills from the hammer for a total of 41 entirely new skills.

But in all seriousness now, the Reaper seems to be a Necro/Guardian. Warrior is all about their weapons, physical prowess and direct combat. Guardian is all about the massive impact on the battlefield and Area affecting skills, not to mention their primary weakness is that they’re, if not slow, the least mobile profession.

uhhh definately necro/warrior, they are more martial than guardians.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Kal Spiro.9745:

It’s interesting, but I’m not convinced. I’m concerned about slow attacks in modes outside of PvE.

That was my first reaction. It’s not that easy to hit players with fast melee attacks, and while most mobs won’t remove chill, players will. Heck, most mobs won’t even kite.

they will probably get a lot of chill access, or fear. This is supposed to be one of their defensive conditions now.

which, i know people hate chill, so that wont go over too well.

Iris Ng.9845:

I wonder if necro will have more than 5 enemy-cleave restriction considering their attack will have a huge windup and scale up with the more enemies they cleave. Hmm… hmm…
On the other hand, the pulse rate of blinding utilities is not reliable when mobs have fast attack rate. From the look of the new mobs (i.e. dinosaurs) in the demo, maybe chill (and slow) will be a new form of protection.

yeah, i think enemies are going to have more skills, higher attack speed, more mobility.
focused bursts will probably require breaking the bar first.
essentially, im thinking those things alone will change the meta a decent amount.

spoj.9672:

It needs to be very high damage in addition to the vuln application. And by that i mean higher than staff ele. At the very least it should be comparable to ele and thief.

i think the changes to condis are, and enemy behaviors are whats going to make necros meta.
This spec is more about offering a totally dif playstyle that to be honest necro was missing completely before.
And its probably going to be OP under 50% health.

spoj.9672:

Havent addressed any of the core issues from what we can see. Only hope is for the damage to be higher than a staff ele. Which is kind of unlikely.

its probably going to hit like a truck.

Its probably not going to be the party supporter, but it will likely be one of the highest dps fighters.

anyhow, based on what i have been seeing with all these elites, and some changes to the core, i think monster behaviors are going to shake things up.
i dont think the meta will be the same regardless.

Morsus.5106:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Weapon – Greatsword

• Slow attacks with big damage modifiers

Sounds easily interruptable.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Utilites – Shouts
snip

• Effectiveness based on how many opponents are hit

So it’ll be useful in Courtyard where the enemy tends to zerg, but not very useful when you don’t have many enemies on you at once. Roamers with interrupts will love fighting Reapers lol.

they will probably be the class that can trait a defiance bar.

got to see it in play, but this one seems like it will have a very strong playstyle difference, really expands necro.

now i have to ponder if i should make a new necro… asura with GS doesnt really excite…

Atherakhia.4086:

Well this certainly sounds like it will resolve the problem we had with no viable 3rd line to invest in for our power builds.

I’m eager to see the video tomorrow. From what little we’ve seen so far, it seems like our lack of stability and how vulnerable we are to blind is really going to hurt now.

Hopefully ANet thought about this and will give us at least some options to handle these things.

they will probably be the class with the defiance bar trait.

makes sense for the unstoppable force reaper they are going for.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

This seems odd to me… you want to maximize chill usage, yet this is clearly a power based build. I’ll probably pass on this, but maybe some of the shouts are useful to condition users. I’ll reserve final judgement until I see the live stream. Not even a mention of the elite skill, wonder what it does…

A little disappointed that they didn’t do more with the DS, they made it sound like they are just replacing the effects and ranges of the skills, but again I guess we will have to see what the other skills are.

I wonder if this build would be good with sinister gear…

there is no stat for chill, condi duration isnt on gear.
DS is totally different now? changing every skill in DS is about as much as something can be changed.

yes its not heavily condi based, but necro already has conditions down, condi changes should happen in the existing specs, not the one thats supposed to provide a different type of gameplay.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

Belzebu.3912:

How can we compare with the ranger’s traps if we don’t know how they’ll look like after the update?
Devs said that they will be changed to compensate the time to setup that will be added, but nothing else was said.

It states the numbers will be updated once we get the opportunity to get in game

rough comparison, assuming similar scale ups, your rng numbers off by 2-2.5

one thing that makes it clear the DH is using some power amulets,
is 1hand sword autoattack hits for 648 and bow AA doinf like 548-590.

since sword AA via wiki is like 269 you know DH bow AA would be at least lower than that, probably around 220-240

this totally alters all the data, and you start too se rng traps are actually now bad at all, especially with changes to intensity stacking.

you start to see that
ranger long bow AA outdmgs DH at greater than 500 range

long bow 2 does like 2x the dmg of true shot, though it has a channel

rng longbow 5 does like 2.5 the dmg, with half the recast time, though DH has some strong control.

traps:
flame Vs Procession

175 per pulse versus 193 per hit. but blade hits faster than 1 pulse x10
burning per pulse though makes a big difference.
with half the recast time, 2 fire traps outdmg blade.
however blade is burst, flame trap requires the enemy to sit in the fire.

and thats the big difference id say, ranger traps are basically slow dmging/controlling area denial, whereas DH are actually more trap like, decent quick dmg, or big control

Your numbers for damage are way off, you compare tooltips with stats to the wiki base tooltips

honestly thought it would be a little higher, but eh whatevs.

Azure.8670:

My god wildstar is doing awful. Great game too. I was on their forum yesterday and they had white knights claiming the numbers for q1 would be through the roof because so many players were coming Back. Wow.

whatever they are experiencing recently would be considered q2. q1 ended in march

Windsagio.1340:

Avol.9761:

Ok look, if a another player gets more abilities than me as a guardian, because he bought heart of thorns, and i still have the standard abilities, than the player who bought heart of thorns has a better variety of ways to defeat me, plus he is automatically more versatile than i am. So that is pay to win my friend, paying for more abilitties and a better class set, is pay to win. Screw that, i regret buying this game.

Back the old question: When has buying an expansion in an MMO become an undue burden?

Yes he is probably stronger than you. The elite specs so far are pretty powerful.

So what? That’s how MMO expansions work. And trying to frame it in catchphrases doesn’t cover that truth.

they cant make them stronger without messing up much more than just spvp. it would be a mistake to do so.

dietzero.3514:

They are not all soldiers…why do you think that? The Vigil are all soldiers, sure, but the other two? No.

Now Dragon hunters? Yes. Everyone in the pact is a Dragon hunter, because that is the very purpose of the pact, and that is what everyone is striving for. From the scholars back at the Priory, to the Whisper spies scattered everywhere. All Dragon hunters.

P.S Guardian says: ‘ME SPECIAL DRAGONHUNTER!’

not everyone is going to like every name, such is life. You dont like it, that is all.

Avol.9761:

Ok look, if a another player gets more abilities than me as a guardian, because he bought heart of thorns, and i still have the standard abilities, than the player who bought heart of thorns has a better variety of ways to defeat me, plus he is automatically more versatile than i am. So that is pay to win my friend, paying for more abilitties and a better class set, is pay to win. Screw that, i regret buying this game.

thats like saying someone owning more cars will win a race.
so jay leno can beat everyone?

if you regret it thats fine, you simply wanted more than they were willing to give for the price you paid. thats no ones fault

Brother Grimm.5176:

One possibility is that PvP WILL allow for use of the Elite Spec line even if you don’t purchase HoT (to keep the playing field even). Face it, the code has to be in the game for you to play against it in PvP, so what’s the harm in allowing PvP players (that they are trying to increase) get a free “taste” of HoT?

Not saying it’s gong to happen, but it would certainly remove any “NOT FAIR” and “PAY 2 WIN” whining that could crop up in PvP discussions.

they already said that it will be unlocked for pvp if you purchase HoT
lol is very profitable with buying champions or whatever they are called.
best they could hope for is a reduced price spvp only unlock.

its not pay to win, but it is pay for new content. Which i think is ultimately the best model, because it encourages them to make new content.

If i have to pay for anything, new good content is the thing i would most like to buy.

reality is nobody can do anything without money, and if you enjoy a product, you should be willing to pay them something for it.

Genesis.8572:

RabbitUp.8294:

They implied this won’t happen, since the whole point of adding types to everything was to implement rune support for skill types, similar to the existing Rune of the Trapper.

I’m worried then that elite specializations will just be adding further profession homogenization.

you call it homegenization, but its actually more like variability.

If they could do it all at once, it might be homegenization, but since they cant, its more variability.

I think in the long run, its a bad idea, not so much for homegenization, but more just because its going to get boring eventually, if they never add new skill interactions.

but since they said they might bring tomes back as a specialization, i think for this set it will just be other jobs skills, in a future release, hopefully they will break some new ground, with weapons, and charachter animations as well.

Toxsa.2701:

phys.7689:

Toxsa.2701:

phys.7689:

Toxsa.2701:

phys.7689:

Toxsa.2701:

Sebrent.3625:

If I can’t even fight him on the point, then he’s won. He can LOS you until you threaten the point, in which case you just did what he wanted … walked onto the traps and closed to melee-ish range with a ranged weapon … not a good way to start a fight.

This is what trap rangers did till nerfed which for a time threatened Tanky Guardians in the sPvP meta … but when you threaten one of the three “top dog” classes, you get nerfed … so the nerf hammer came.

I’m going to wait to see how the numbers settle for Guardians and see if the Ranger traps revamp actually puts our traps on-par as they currently are not. I’ve never hit someone that hard from a single hit from my traps.

Imagine that blade traps, place 10 of them in WvW choke point like door or EB corrider. Pops 3k damage when walk through, x10 = 30k just to get over it.
Lasts 10 seconds, hit infinite targets, and whole zerg will walk right through it without being able to see it (unlike well). Imagine the panic when 50 man zerg ready to charge in EB lord room and everyone dies from those traps.

Combine this with a group of LB Guardians spamming 4 and 5 on a large group of enemies on 1200 range, trapping many people in and do huge damage…

Ranger NEVER EVER would be able to do this with their traps or LB or any weapon. Ranger’s trap are worthless against zerg and only trigger once. Barrage it’s a suicide skill that does wet-noodle damage and kills yourself faster than killing opponents. Very minimal AOE skills as compare to Guardian’s LB. True shot hits wider than any of the piercing arrows, infinite range cripple, etc.

Time to move on to true “ranger class”. Good that I have every classes lv80 to deal with kittens like this.

it would fail like all the other aoe skills, because it only hits 5 targets.
10 ele could hold that same area more easily if it wasnt for the 5 cap.

How would it fail when there’s no target limit and lasts 10 seconds for whoever travel through? It’s way better than wells or any of ranger’s trap. Better yet, unlike wells, you can’t see traps. Zerg would walk over a tons of blade traps without knowing they’re there.

where does it say it has no target limit?

Static field doesn’t mention it either, but it hits unlimited targets as long as anyone pass through. So does Ring of Warding and so on. All fields work like that, there’s no reason blade trap doesn’t.

those are skills that proc on crossing, trap damage is aoe, not crossing dmg, as far as i know

https://youtu.be/Ypl3N-lQsNg

Watch the streaming before you comment on anything..
Guardian’s new traps function differently from ranger’s. It generates a certain “field” on it, that either damage foes or heal allies. It procs multiple times in the duration, just like Necro’s fear wall, static field, and so on.

oh you mean that one trap specifically.
yeah that might work but since its triggered by crossing the line, you cant hit them with multiple traps, because the first one they cross will push them back.

Toxsa.2701:

phys.7689:

Toxsa.2701:

phys.7689:

Toxsa.2701:

Sebrent.3625:

If I can’t even fight him on the point, then he’s won. He can LOS you until you threaten the point, in which case you just did what he wanted … walked onto the traps and closed to melee-ish range with a ranged weapon … not a good way to start a fight.

This is what trap rangers did till nerfed which for a time threatened Tanky Guardians in the sPvP meta … but when you threaten one of the three “top dog” classes, you get nerfed … so the nerf hammer came.

I’m going to wait to see how the numbers settle for Guardians and see if the Ranger traps revamp actually puts our traps on-par as they currently are not. I’ve never hit someone that hard from a single hit from my traps.

Imagine that blade traps, place 10 of them in WvW choke point like door or EB corrider. Pops 3k damage when walk through, x10 = 30k just to get over it.
Lasts 10 seconds, hit infinite targets, and whole zerg will walk right through it without being able to see it (unlike well). Imagine the panic when 50 man zerg ready to charge in EB lord room and everyone dies from those traps.

Combine this with a group of LB Guardians spamming 4 and 5 on a large group of enemies on 1200 range, trapping many people in and do huge damage…

Ranger NEVER EVER would be able to do this with their traps or LB or any weapon. Ranger’s trap are worthless against zerg and only trigger once. Barrage it’s a suicide skill that does wet-noodle damage and kills yourself faster than killing opponents. Very minimal AOE skills as compare to Guardian’s LB. True shot hits wider than any of the piercing arrows, infinite range cripple, etc.

Time to move on to true “ranger class”. Good that I have every classes lv80 to deal with kittens like this.

it would fail like all the other aoe skills, because it only hits 5 targets.
10 ele could hold that same area more easily if it wasnt for the 5 cap.

How would it fail when there’s no target limit and lasts 10 seconds for whoever travel through? It’s way better than wells or any of ranger’s trap. Better yet, unlike wells, you can’t see traps. Zerg would walk over a tons of blade traps without knowing they’re there.

where does it say it has no target limit?

Static field doesn’t mention it either, but it hits unlimited targets as long as anyone pass through. So does Ring of Warding and so on. All fields work like that, there’s no reason blade trap doesn’t.

those are skills that proc on crossing, trap damage is aoe, not crossing dmg, as far as i know

Zephyron.7081:

After watching the DragonHunter in action I have some suggestions:

1.
The new Virtue of Resolve should be a LEAP NOT GROUND TARGETED. Please just make it so that it acts like a leap.

2.
The new Virtue of Justice would be so much cooler if when connected the DragonHunter could pull the enemies closer like Scorpion from Mortal Combat.

3.
The name DragonHunter is horrible. Simply, 5th grade bad. Someone dropped the ball on that one! LMFAO

Other Overall Suggestions:

4.
As for Ground Targeting, make it optional for all characters, not with traits, but in settings. For example, a player should be able to right click on a skill and choose (when applicable) ground targeting or not. If the skill is like a Necromancer’s Well, then the Well drops wherever the Necromancer is standing OR if the skill is a leap or a shadow step, then (without ground targeting) the skill should simply re-position the player forward “x” amount of range.

Players should play the way they want to play. Make Ground Targeting optional in order to appeal to all types of play styles. This is not a L2P issue either. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that having to click twice for one skill is slower than clicking only once. As for the fast cast option, that is still dependent on cursor positioning, which is cumbersome and does not fit the fluid combat style of GW2.

5.
Skills should work while in the air. If I jump or leap, then I should still be able to chain skills while in the air. With the new verticality of the HoT expansion, I would think this must be crucial in order to make the world feel more immersive.

has to be ground targeted, its primarily a heal.
secondarily a movement skill
only damage when its traited, so thats the only time it would have a target.

Toxsa.2701:

phys.7689:

Toxsa.2701:

Sebrent.3625:

If I can’t even fight him on the point, then he’s won. He can LOS you until you threaten the point, in which case you just did what he wanted … walked onto the traps and closed to melee-ish range with a ranged weapon … not a good way to start a fight.

This is what trap rangers did till nerfed which for a time threatened Tanky Guardians in the sPvP meta … but when you threaten one of the three “top dog” classes, you get nerfed … so the nerf hammer came.

I’m going to wait to see how the numbers settle for Guardians and see if the Ranger traps revamp actually puts our traps on-par as they currently are not. I’ve never hit someone that hard from a single hit from my traps.

Imagine that blade traps, place 10 of them in WvW choke point like door or EB corrider. Pops 3k damage when walk through, x10 = 30k just to get over it.
Lasts 10 seconds, hit infinite targets, and whole zerg will walk right through it without being able to see it (unlike well). Imagine the panic when 50 man zerg ready to charge in EB lord room and everyone dies from those traps.

Combine this with a group of LB Guardians spamming 4 and 5 on a large group of enemies on 1200 range, trapping many people in and do huge damage…

Ranger NEVER EVER would be able to do this with their traps or LB or any weapon. Ranger’s trap are worthless against zerg and only trigger once. Barrage it’s a suicide skill that does wet-noodle damage and kills yourself faster than killing opponents. Very minimal AOE skills as compare to Guardian’s LB. True shot hits wider than any of the piercing arrows, infinite range cripple, etc.

Time to move on to true “ranger class”. Good that I have every classes lv80 to deal with kittens like this.

it would fail like all the other aoe skills, because it only hits 5 targets.
10 ele could hold that same area more easily if it wasnt for the 5 cap.

How would it fail when there’s no target limit and lasts 10 seconds for whoever travel through? It’s way better than wells or any of ranger’s trap. Better yet, unlike wells, you can’t see traps. Zerg would walk over a tons of blade traps without knowing they’re there.

where does it say it has no target limit?

Crimson Clouds.4853:

From what I understand, Revenant is the last profession to be added. They will be adding new specialisations in the future though, so it could be possible that we’ll see some “monk-like” aspects in a future specialisation.

I doubt we’ll ever see a class that fights with open hands/fists. We require weapons for their stat benefit and sigils and I doubt they’ll introduce something like brass knuckles as a weapon (for many different reasons).

It could be possible for a future specialisation to be given dagger (or mace) mainhand+offhand and have animations that look like close-combat fighting and with close-combat style names. Use weapons with small skins and it will look more convincing.

Oh- also, it seems like we’ll be getting bo-staff melee style combat with Revenant, so there’s that to look forward to.

they can make a weapon look like anything.

h2h weapons could look like knuckles, tattoos, energy around the hands, gauntlets, or whatever

It needs a class! bo +h2h +focus + maces
mechanics will leaps/fall dmg
combo based fskill mechanics
weapon skills all change based on which position in a combo chain you are.

backstory the evolution of a canthan martial system based fortifying the body with protection magic, and then forging the body as a weapon itself. Similar to many historical martial arts, in part developed due to the limiting of other weapons, and more offensive magics.

Steele.8230:

I would love to see gw2 bring forward a monk. I’ve talked to other characters in the pvp lobby and the topic is always quick to get people saying they want the monk also and what traits he/she would have. You guys have been so great at balancing characters, I just know a monk would be a lot of fun with spin kicks, jumping side kicks, iron palm, iron skin, etc.
Enuff said!

gotta call it martial artist, because in this world monks are healers.
I agree it would be a great class and promote it every chance i get.

Toxsa.2701:

Sebrent.3625:

If I can’t even fight him on the point, then he’s won. He can LOS you until you threaten the point, in which case you just did what he wanted … walked onto the traps and closed to melee-ish range with a ranged weapon … not a good way to start a fight.

This is what trap rangers did till nerfed which for a time threatened Tanky Guardians in the sPvP meta … but when you threaten one of the three “top dog” classes, you get nerfed … so the nerf hammer came.

I’m going to wait to see how the numbers settle for Guardians and see if the Ranger traps revamp actually puts our traps on-par as they currently are not. I’ve never hit someone that hard from a single hit from my traps.

Imagine that blade traps, place 10 of them in WvW choke point like door or EB corrider. Pops 3k damage when walk through, x10 = 30k just to get over it.
Lasts 10 seconds, hit infinite targets, and whole zerg will walk right through it without being able to see it (unlike well). Imagine the panic when 50 man zerg ready to charge in EB lord room and everyone dies from those traps.

Combine this with a group of LB Guardians spamming 4 and 5 on a large group of enemies on 1200 range, trapping many people in and do huge damage…

Ranger NEVER EVER would be able to do this with their traps or LB or any weapon. Ranger’s trap are worthless against zerg and only trigger once. Barrage it’s a suicide skill that does wet-noodle damage and kills yourself faster than killing opponents. Very minimal AOE skills as compare to Guardian’s LB. True shot hits wider than any of the piercing arrows, infinite range cripple, etc.

Time to move on to true “ranger class”. Good that I have every classes lv80 to deal with kittens like this.

it would fail like all the other aoe skills, because it only hits 5 targets.
10 ele could hold that same area more easily if it wasnt for the 5 cap.