Guild Wars 2

Dear Irenio,

Well well well. I am VERY impressed with the Scrapper. In the last month I’ve started really getting into engineer. So the reveal on the Scrapper had me excited and a bit nervous. However, the minute I started playing Scrapper I absolutely fell in love. So much so that it may easily oust my thief Daredevil as my main character!

Here’s my thoughts from extensive Scrapper play in WvW this weekend.

Hammer
I really enjoyed every single hammer skill. The feel of the weapon and the incredible damage are fantastic good fun. It took me a bit to get used to using #3, #4 and combing off of #5. But I got the hang of it.

My only concern is hammer #3.

• the bouncing was a bit erratic, as already mentioned
• but it was only an issue when I had something targeted. open world movement worked as expected — it propelled me forward in the direction I was facing in an approximate straight line.
• when I had a target the bouncing often missed, which was disappointing. and which ended up with less damage out put.
• but when targeting someone in a group, the wild bouncing was wonderful for hitting multiple targets
• I would prefer this be a blast finisher. This would synergize better with the healing gyro’s tool belt skill for group utility and I would cut down on the feeling that I need to run rocket boots in order to give out group heals. Not to mention make it more competitive with Healing Turret. Edit 10/6/15: Nevermind! I would much rather it stay a leap for the Dazing Strike! But, I still wish the Scrapper had a blast finisher somewhere in the skills!

Gyros
I used every one of them at the start and found them to be great fun. I too noticed the AI problem of them not following or targeting well. Eventually, I ended up settling on the Healing Gyro and the Shredder Gyro.

1. Function Gyro: I totally frickin LOVED this gyro. I’d yell out in teamspeak “Gyro Stomp!” to let my team mates know I had it covered. Sadly….it’s so gosh darn slow. I can stomp faster than it can! lol It should stomp as fast as the Daredevil elite, in my opinion. Also, I never once noticed it giving me a rally option for my allies.
2. Medic Gyro: LOVE the tool belt skill. Mainly used this gyro for that. Once the follow AI is improved, the gyro itself will be more useful. Healing was good on it. But Healing Turret is stronger in WvW, with the healing AND condi cleanse. Unfortunately, I prefer using the gyro more, as I don’t like the turret being stationary.
3. Bulwark Gyro: used it a little bit when solo pulling camps. Eventually stopped using it because I wanted other skills on my bar.
4. Blast Gyro: This was good extra damage, sadly hampered by the AI issues. Wish it would daze or stun when it detonates at it’s target.
5. Shredder Gyro: I used this the most for the whirl finisher for condi cleanse off my mortar kit light field and since it stayed in one place. Ironic actually. lol
6. Sneak Gyro: A super cool gyro. But it is hampered by the follow AI. The plus side of this gyro was that you could dip in and out of it’s circle in order to get de-targeted by an enemy mid-fight. But for moving the group around in stealth, it wasn’t so great. I swapped back to Mortar Kit and/or Supply Crate eventually.
7. Gyro Self-Destructs: I didn’t use these much after the first 30 minutes. Mostly would forget about them. I guess because they all do the same thing. What if they each did the daze plus something else thematically tied to that gyro? For example: Purge Gyro clearing more condis, Blast Gyro causing cripple, Shredder Gyro causing a blast finisher, Bulwark popping protection or retal, Medic popping regen of better yet a condi cleanse. Then these would be more compelling to use and easy to remember. Adds more depth to the gyro. Oh and another thing — would be great if gyros cause their destruct effect whether I trigger their self-destruct or they are killed.

Traits
I honestly loved every single trait. And this line synergized SO WELL with all the other trait lines. So much so that I had great trouble picking which other 2 to pair it with, because everything fit so well. This is excellent design that will allow for quite a variety of great builds: uber bunker scrapper, hybrid bunker damage, support, CC, everything.

All in all a super fun time and I am excited to experiment with different builds when it comes out!

I vote Scrapper “Best Darn Elite Spec Design for Core Game Classes!”

Thanks for such great work on our behalf!

corwen.5798:

Luto.1938:

Just a couple things to wish for with Daredevil:

- Please revert bound dodge back to leap finisher! It is much more useful as a leap finisher for those of us using x/p or even staff. It’s a great way to apply stealth and without it x/p is back to only being able to stealth when swapping to short bow..

Dude, it is a leap finisher, the text’s only wrong.

Actually, it IS a blast finisher and Karl has commented in the past the the blast on leaving a field is currently broken and being worked on. Once they fix that, Bound will be a true blast finisher and you’ll be able to do all your stealthy stuff off of pistol #5 and such. Fear not!

Now, I wish Vault was a blast finisher too. Then we’d really be cookin in terms of group utility and more!

I got to use the Squad UI a bit more today and noticed that the broadcast box width is a bit too long for my laptop screen and that this UI element is not adjustable in height and width — like the squad and subgroups are themselves.

This really cuts into my field of few and I can imagine a number of people would appreciate this either being less wide, or be adjustable. Thanks!

I am still loving the Daredevil alot. Sadly, not as much as Scrapper this weekend — Daredevil sort of pales in comparison to what the scrapper has in terms of damage and utility. But still very fun. Hoping for some solid tweaks before launch.

Here are a few comments from the hour+ I spent Friday night checking out the changes. (See Edit section below for additional, more thoroughly tested comments.)

1. Evasive Empowerment – buff duration is too short
In principal, the change is better than it was for BWE2. In practice, the 2 second duration is too short, and thus, the trait is hard to use and feels disappointing. For example: I’d be fighting moving around, then I Dash dodge roll out of incoming damage and attempt to Vault back in. Between the cast time and travel time the buff usually wears off. Especially with the bug on Vault where we are landing short of the center of the targeting circle. Bound probably works better with this trait than Dash. But just 2 to 3 more seconds on the buff would make a HUGE difference.

Any chance this can be “on evade” instead of on dodge roll? That would boost overall damage much more consistently and pair well with weapon based evades and skills like Withdraw and Roll for Initiative. Such a chance would more closely approximate a static damage bonus and reduce the negative effect of distance and situationality.

2. Staff damage still feels low
Especially compared to Scrapper! LOL And especially when not using most of the new Physical utility skills. I’m very happy with the damage for now

3. Most of the Physical Utility Skills are too situational for WvW/PvP
The only ones I plan on using consistently are Impairing Daggers and the Elite chain. Impairing Daggers is reliable, good damage, and great utility. Fits my play style and WvW environment perfectly. The Elite is just epic good fun in WvW and PvP. Sadly, as much as I love Fist Flurry in PvE, it’s just not reliable in WvW.

4. Make Escapist Absolution part of the Driven Fortitude minor trait
These 2 traits go hand in hand really well. If one drops Shadow Arts to pick up Daredevil — which I did because staff has no stealth related skills and is more about being in the thick of it with lots of evades — then Escapist Absolution becomes the go-to condi removal trait in a Daredevil build. But it’s competing against 2 good damage increase traits. This just seems imbalanced to me. Merge it with the minor and gives us another Master trait in it’s place.

Anyhooo….perhaps more thoughts later. I’m going to mess around with it more today.

Edited 10/5/2015:
I spent a ton of time yesterday and today working on getting my daredevil spec down and practicing with different aspects of it that I had previously dismissed. Eventually, I really got in the zone with it and was seeing some incredible damage numbers with the WvW build I ran (balanced stats non glass-cannon using CS, Trick and DD trait lines). Which, btw, was a stealth-less build — an interesting challenge for me!

For example:

• regular 6-8k crits with Vault; even a 10k crit once with tons of might from a Revenant
• consistently good damage from all staff attacks (better than I’m used to with d/p)
• great damage and utility from Impairing Daggers
• WvW camps melted!
• got the rhythm of the elite chain down better and the huge satisfaction of the near insta stomp!
• Even tried out Bandit’s Defense for real. I decide NOT to hold out any hope for the knockdown. Instead, I simply used it as a stun break/damage reduction/get out of trouble spell, on a wonderfully short cooldown. It ended up taking a permanent spot on my bar. Go figure! lol

Only additional comments for Karl and the team are thus:

1a. Definitely extend Evasive Empowerment buff
…by enough to do 1 Dash and jump back with a Vault (once Vault distance is fixed. see next item). Would also still love to see this “on evade” rather than “on dodge”.

1b. Vault travel distance is short when ground target set at full range.
I ran a few test with this using static objects around me — bushes, grass clumps, dead players :P — and consistently was NOT landing at the center of the targeting circle. I would land inside the targeted area, but on the outer edge closest to my departure point. This made getting a Vault in after a Dash quite difficult. Maybe Dash is traveling too far? I didn’t test this. But quite often I would Dash backwards and attempt to Vault back to a mob my friend was fighting and NOT land on the mob. Some oddities there.

5. Love the Dash animation.
Very smooth and cool too. Thank you!

6. Staff #2 reduction of distance messing up the flow of chaining skills
I understand that you reduced the range for staff #2 to improve the feel. Sadly, this made chaining quite rough. For example: I often tried to kite by Dashing backwards, or using staff #3, then rushing forward with staff #2. It never worked. But it feels like it SHOULD work. And given the skill facts, I would guess that was the design intent. I adjusted by running forward a bit. However, between that odd flow and the Vault coming up short, the rhythm was a bit off still.

7. Staff 4 range indicator broken?
It would indicate I was in range, and I’d cast it, but then it wouldn’t hit the target. Very odd. Great skill though. I’d often use it to blind stomp someone.

8. Still hoping for personal finisher to be used with the Elite combo
Not sure if the tech is in place to do this, as the scrapper function gyro doesn’t use it either. But it would be epic!!

9. Channeled Vigor and Survival
I am glad to read from a few days ago that the team is still evaluating changes for this heal. I would still love to see it trigger the large heal and endurance regen when endurance is low. It makes no sense to me, in a spec that encourages regular, skillful use of dodge rolls, for a heal to encourage the exact opposite. The heal should support and reward the use of endurance during times when it’s most needed —- low endurance and emergency healing. When endurance is full, it should give less healing and little or no endurance regen. Especially because this spec does not encourage the use of stealth. So when someone like me drops the Shadow Arts line to use the Daredevil line, thus greatly diminishing the value of stealth to survival, survival becomes more of an issue.

As I’m sure you’re aware, most thieves are very used to stealth as our main survival mechanic. Almost every thief I know is used to taking the Shadow Arts line, with Shadows Embrace and Shadows Rejuvenation. Daredevil is clearly an intended departure from that, shifting the survival from stealth to evasion. I’m ok with this. But this takes alot to get used to.

For example: i dropped the SA line and used NO stealth in order to push myself to adapt. What a challenge! The loss of Shadows Embrace made me feel like I HAD to take Escapist Absolution for my damaging condi cleanse. But it is much harder to get this cleanse to happen, than it was to just go into stealth and wait out the 3-4 secs for the cleansing, while also gaining health and init regen.

So without stealth or the benefits of the SA line, it feels like survivability goes down some. I certainly cannot escape outnumbered fights as well any more. Dash helps, as did Bandits Defense, but they seemed to just prolong the inevitable. That alone is a asking a HUGE adjustment of the thief community.

Channeled Vigor TLDR: Essentially, it would be great if the Daredevil heal can do a better job synergizing with the mobile, evasive play style of the spec, so we can get out of trouble quickly and/or back in the fight refreshed — just like stealth has provided for us for years. If this is accomplished, and you also do something like I suggest in #4 above, then this will GREATLY enhance survival and sustain in combat plus hugely support thieves who choose not to use stealth in their daredevil builds. Then I will undoubtedly use this heal!

Conclusion
All-in-all, despite some quirks, bugs and stuff clearly being still worked on, I can confidently say I will miss my Daredevil very much for the next few weeks! :P I’m glad I stuck through the challenge of trying to figure out this spec — one that is clearly designed to be a very different unfamiliar play style for thief. I look forward to using it when HoT drops and wish the team great success and low stress as the days countdown. Thanks for such a great effort!

SUGGESTION

In the recent blog post on the new Squad UI it is stated “Calling a target (default CTRL+T) is currently squad-wide, but will be changed to work within a subgroup at launch.”

For WvW there are many situations where it would be beneficial to be able to choose either squad-wide or subgroup or BOTH. If this is not already being considered, please strongly consider it.

I realize there may not be enough time by Oct 23rd, but if it launches with sub-group only and no squad-wide option, that would be highly sub-optimal and potentially confusing.

Thanks for the wonderful new UI and I hope it shines and exceeds expectations. Certainly stoked to try it out this weekend!!!

Karl McLain.5604:

Yo!
Vault: Reduced initiative cost from 6 to 5. Reduced cast time from 1 second to 3/4 second. note: We’ve discussed leaving the initiative high and giving this ability an evade component at the beginning or end. Feel free to let us know what you think.

As someone who was very happy with the feel, play style and damage of the staff (in the build I ran) during it’s maiden voyage in BWE2, but objective enough to see that some improvements would be needed, I’m quite pleased with the list of changes to timing and damage you’re proposing so far Karl.

As for your questions around Vault, here are my thoughts:
- evade on approach (beginning)
- 5 initiative & slightly lower damage, since the lower cost would increase number of uses
- or 6 initiative and keep the damage as is
- make it a blast finisher

I feel this last point is really important. Staff, as an AOE weapon, could bring such wonderful additional utility to a group (specifically thinking in WvW) if Vault was a blast finisher. Thieves NEED another weapon-based blast finisher so that they are not cornered into just using the shortbow. And staff is the perfect candidate.

To that end, the Bound dodge should be a blast finisher too.

Lastly, with the Impact Strike combo, showing our personal finisher instead of an underwhelming, un-fun spike in the ground, would be a great added touch.

Keep up the great work Karl. I’m greatly looking forward to checking out the next iteration in BWE3!

Noct.2718:

Personal finishers on Elite skill or riot.

Couldn’t agree more. It’s quite anti-climatic to not have your personal finisher animation with this move. Still love the move though. :P

MY DAREDEVIL FEEDBACK

Dear Karl and Daredevil Team,

Let me start by saying that I LOVED the Daredevil from the get go. I’m very pleased with how it feels and plays. In fact, I was having so much fun both in Verdant Brink and WvW that I found myself playing 90% of the time with staff and not weapon swapping, which was surprising.

Here are my detailed thoughts about Daredevil traits, staff and slot skills, in that order. Please forgive the length (was a QA tester and UX/UI designer in former life lol) and any typos along the way.

TRAITS
I am quite pleased with the design of all the traits, my favorites being A1, M1, M2, GM2 and GM3. I enjoyed working with different combinations of these traits and can see many viable builds from it. I have 4 main trait suggestions/comments:

1. Dash – Animation Problem:
The start of this animation on this skill is NOT smooth. my character would stop momentarily, as if to wind up for the rush, then move forward. this was particularly pronounced with increased movement speed (traveler runes or swiftness).

2. Dash – Condi Clear:
It would be great if this cleared immobilize as well. Then it would be in line with Withdraw and Roll for Initiative, thus reducing the desire/need for using either of those and maximizing Escapist Absolution (M2). Although I just noticed that the Staff 3 clears immob. So, maybe this point is moot. Still…would be nice.

3. Bound – Should be blast finisher:
Given the AoE/cleave theme of this spec, this really should be a blast finisher. As a blast this would bring added value to this skill AND increase thieves’ value in group comps (I’m thinking WvW here, but this would be true in any content area I imagine).

4. Grandmaster Traits as Stances
I’ve seen it mentioned that the 3 GM traits should be made into stances as part of the Daredevil mechanic. I really like this idea. I envision the design for it being similar to the
Revenant legend swap. The Daredevil would have the 3 dodge skills as stances and the F3 key would cycle through each one. There would be no CD out of combat and a typical stance/attunement swap CD while in combat. This design allows for ease of use and quick preparedness for differing situations. For example: I could use Dash while running across a WvW borderland, but the minute I see a foe or get attacked, swap to Bound or Lotus Training if needed OR just stay in Dash if I need to get away or clear the Dash related condis.

STAFF SKILLS
Really happy with the staff skills except #2. Loved the feel of staff and the play of it. Even liked how mobile and “moving around the combat field” it felt. Four main suggestions on staff:

1. Staff #2 (Weakening Charge) – Animation Problem:
At first it was kittening me off, because I had the expectation it would work like Heartseeker (no target: move in direction I’m facing; target: move toward target). I enventually figured out how to use it in more of a directional sense, but was never really sure it was working. Mostly this is because, like Dash, the start of the animation is not smooth. You stop, wind up, then go. Not effective.

2. Staff #2 — Movement falls short of 450:
Seems more like 400 range. I tested this. Had a friend stand on me, then I used Heartseeker (also 450 range). Another friend stood where I landed. I rotated in position and swapped to staff, then used Staff 2. Came up short of my 1st friend. Tested it multiple times. All same result. Now, this could be because the animation start is messed up. But the distance moved is definitely less than 450.

3. Staff #5 (Vault) – Should be blast finisher:
Just like Bound, this should be an blast finisher. Both or either of these as blasts would significantly increase the value of thieves in group comps and open up new possibilities and roles for them. From a WvW perspective, two such roles that could be theorycrafted would be front-line thief and combat medic thief. Not sure if those would work, but having Bound and Vault be blasts, would open the possibility.

4. Staff #5 – Needs an evade:
I realize this may not be the intent and may never occur. But the tell on this skill is SO visible and the damage and contribution of it is so vital to the playstyle, that it almost requires having an evade. Imagine Death Blossom without an evade. That would be horrid and weird. And that’s the signature move of dagger/dagger (imho). Vault also feels like the signature move for staff. Edit: I just noticed on gw2skills.net that Staff #3 has an evade. I would rather you take the evade off Staff 3 and put it on Staff 5 where it’s more needed.

SLOT SKILLS
I tried each of the new Physical skills and found I liked most of them but not all.

1. Channeled Vigor (Heal) – Larger heal should be when endurance NOT full:
This wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. LOL The heal amount was pretty good, compared to our other heals. And the endurance regen was quite nice. However, I think the larger heal on this skill should occur when endurance is NOT full. For 1 that is when you need the regen of endurance. For 2, that when you need a larger heal the most. The way it’s currently designed encourages holding onto your endurance for the clutch heal. But the entire spec is designed to spend endurance. If this change is made I will definitely reconsider using this heal. But by the end of the BWE I had gone back to Withdraw because it just brings more to the table for me (because of Trickery M2, Daredevil Minor2 and Daredevil M2).

2. Impairing Daggers – Great skill!:
Loved it! Very effective in combo with a steal (or port) and Fist Flury, Impact Strike or other hard-hitting skills. Damage seemed really good and the immob and slow were awesome!

3. Distracting Daggers — Situational Use Only:
Cool skill. Highly situational. But plays nicely with Trickery M3 and Daredevil M3 traits. I would swap into it for situations that require, but not use it regularly because of the low damage and preference to take Daredevil M1 or M2 traits instead. Nice to have in the toolchest though!

4. Fist Flury – Great skill, bit tough to land. tooltip unclear:
Loved this skill. Hard to get it to fully execute. Which is why I started comboing it with Impairing Daggers and my daze on Steal. Tons of damage. But I wasn’t clear on how much damage the Pulminary Strike was going to do from the tooltip. Is that what the “Second Strike” meant? That’s not clear.

5. Bandit’s Defense – I struggled with this, not sure I’ll use it:
Theoretically, a great skill. In actuality, I’m not so sure. The stun break was nice, as I’m not used to having one on my thief. And the low recharge was awesome. But I don’t typically enjoy the “block something then do something” skills. I find them hard to pull off, especially at melee range. I can see it maybe working well with Fist Flury to follow. I will require more testing of this. But at this moment, plan to use a stealth-related core skill instead of this one.

6. The Elite Chain – Didn’t Use My Chosen Finisher:
This skill is pure awesomesauceness and epic good fun! I LOVED it. When I successfully delivered it. LOL It seems to take some timing and extra skill — akin to having to learn how to Cloak and Dagger well — but I expect to get better at this with more practice. Two main gripes about this. (a). The 300 range caused me to rush toward my target, or just forward. It was VERY disorienting and odd. Even caused me to run off a cliff once in Verdant Brink. LOL. Not sure if something can be done about this. Ended up being convenient for closing in on a kill. But is it really necessary to move me? (b). In WvW, it seemed as though it didn’t show my chosen finisher. Just slammed a spike into the target. Finishers in WvW and sPvP provide such a fun personal flourish that NOT seeing mine was anti-climatic and disappointing. Hope this gets fixed!

A FINAL QUESTION
I realize this isn’t the design intention but leveling as a daredevil would be so fun! Even leveling with just a staff — no elite spec line or elite spec skills needed — would be pretty darn fun. Will this be possible? If not, no biggie. Just wanted to ask from wishful thinking. :P

Thank you Karl for such great work on this elite spec! I am really stoked about the future of Daredevil and greatly appreciate all the hard work you and the team have done on behalf of our fun and enjoyment!

Dear Anet,

This has been my first beta weekend for HoT and so far I have tried the Daredevil and Dragonhunter elite specs and I thoroughly enjoyed playing them.

In fact I loved playing the Daredevil so much that I want to have the experience of leveling as one! I might even want to level a Reaper (because I sort of hate Necro core specs and weapons, but would probably level one as Reaper if I could because it seems aligned with my play style).

However, it is my understanding that you plan that Elite Specs will not be unlocked till level 80, per a prior blog post. This is rather sad face.

So, I humbly and wholeheartedly implore that you PLEASE reconsider this decision and allow Elite Spec lines to be available at level 21 when we first unlock the trait lines. That would be awesome. It would also allow for REALLY learning the class — the subtleties and ins-and-outs that are required for mastering these elite specs (in some cases). And it would be a complete blast, plus create tons of new depth to the game experience for everyone!

Anyways, that’s my petition. I hope it happens. I won’t scream if it doesn’t.

Thanks for listening!

Tyler Bearce.3427:

• The “Yakslapper” title will remain, but the requirement is being reduced to 2500 yaks.

2500 for Yakslapper is just too low. I’m at 5900ish and I am proud to be working slowly toward 10k. It’s something I’ve been looking forward to earning over time. This nerf devalues that. It won’t feel special to folks unless they’re short of 2500 already.

IMO anybody can get 2500 in a few short months or faster. Heck, a player can easily kill 25 yaks a day (or more) and have this done in 100 days. A good roaming/havoc group kills 25 yaks in an evening. I can personally kill 10 or more an hour.

Admittedly, with the new desert BLs, travel times will go up and thus number of kills will go down. But still…2500 seems way too low.

A great title like Yakslapper should be unique and special.

Personally, I am pretty darn stoked to get my hands on the Daredevil this weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed everything they revealed during the POI and I think this spec is going to be a solid contender in many ways.

My only questions/concerns/feedback so far are in 3 areas (@Karl):

1. Channeled Vigor (the heal)
a. Can you move while channeling it? If it locks you in place, I would never use it as that defies the whole “mobile, highly evasive” nature of this class and elite spec.

b. Please reconsider the design on the larger heal amount. The bigger heal should be available when endurance is NOT full — at moments of low health and low or recently spent endurance — which is when you would most need all the features of this skill. Otherwise, this heal would promote holding onto your energy, which is the complete opposite of the point of this spec. And another reason I would never use this heal. How it feels and plays out this weekend will provide more input.

2. Vault (staff 5) and Bound (grandmaster trait)
Since Anet has stated that the staff is more of a cleaving AoE damage type of weapon, I believe that these skills should be BLAST finishers and not leaps. This brings them into perfect alignment with the AoE nature of the spec and brings more group utility and support to the table. This way thieves would have a stronger appeal and value in group comps (like large WvW groups or small coordinate havoc groups, or dungeons or raids, etc) and would be able to bring something other than shortbow to the table.

Once I get my hands on the spec this weekend, I’ll have more input. But these are my thoughts ahead of time. Thanks!

INTRODUCING VIPER SQUAD [VPR]

Name: Viper Squad [VPR]
Gameplay Choice: primarily WvW; some PvE and sPvP
Server: Gate of Madness (NA) (required to join)
Active Time: 8pm till midnight EST, frequent day times as well
Contact info: sirjarros.4107
Other info: Teamspeak 3 required; New and veteran players welcomed!

Welcome new players to the land of Tyria and the experience of Guild Wars 2! I am Sir Jarros Drake, founder and leader of Viper Squad. I’ve been playing GW2 on Gate of Madness since the game launched in 2012. I have played every class type and am proud to say that thief and guardian are my beloved mains. I also love teaching new players all about the game!

WHAT IS VIPER SQUAD?
Viper Squad [VPR] is a small, friendly, helpful and casual one year old guild. We are a relaxed and coordinated WvW strike team focused primarily on strategic small group play (ppt, supply denial, etc) and small group fights. We also like sPvP and a smidge of PvE at times. Our primary focus is on having good clean fun and building friendships in all we do!

We keep the +5 Supply buff running most evenings, a plethora of guild catapults and have developed a number of uniquely efficient and fun strategies for WvW small team play. Guild missions are also available, if desired. Most Friday evenings we participate in the weekly WvW reset event and enjoy coordinating with a few other guilds on the server during the week. We also have a few members who play SWTOR as well.

OUR GUILD MOTTO
Peace & Quiet, Fun & Friends, Kind & Casual

IS VIPER SQUAD FOR YOU?
For certain people, choosing a guild is not an easy thing. Especially when you care greatly about the kind of “fit” you’ll have in that guild; the social culture of the group, as it were. Because VPR is small, we care alot about finding folks that are a great fit – after all, we’ll be playing together a lot and having many great shared experiences on the battlefield – and hopefully making friends for life!

The best type of person for our guild is someone mature with an open mind, open heart and chill, relaxed attitude. A player who loves Guild Wars 2, loves small group socializing and team play, is a great team player and/or eager to learn the ropes. Silliness and goofiness are greatly welcomed, as are a fun, light-hearted sense of humor. Most importantly, someone who remembers that we’re here for our own enjoyment and it’s not all serious business.

Drop me a line if you’d like to learn more and I’ll tell you the story of how we got started!

“We play because we love the game. We stay because we love the people we play with.”

Dear Anet,

I main a pistol/dagger condi thief for WvW small group roaming and the pistol bounces on my auto attack and stealth attack plus increased range are a huge benefit for keeping up aoe bleed pressure in a small skirmish, kiting a foe or foes, soloing camps, annoying a zerg while I defend a tower, and most importantly (in WvW or PvE) ensuring I’ve tagged enough targets to increase my chance to rally when downed. Taking away Ricochet isn’t just a reduction in damage for both p/p and p/d builds….it’s a COMPLETE play style change and a huge reduction on the fun factor, as others have already stated.

Here’s why I think it should be baseline.
Point 1: mesmer and engi pistols bounce by default, why shouldn’t ours?
Point 2: mesmer pistol range (including clones) is getting increased to 1200. (What? Why? this makes NO sense to me!)
Point 3: strafing fire with a pistol makes sense, due to their light weight and high maneuverability. even more so with p/p

Conclusion: Ricochet (both the bounces and the increased range) should be baseline to remain consistent and balanced with the other pistol use classes, but more importantly with the upcoming increased ranges of many other weapons (ranger, warrior lb, mesmer pistol, etc).

Hell, I’d even be fine if they only baseline the bounce for auto attack and Unload and extend the range for all pistol skills. If not baseline, then at least having it be a viable choice somewhere in the specializations. But I prefer baseline.

Please don’t leave us hanging on this Anet. Thanks!

Josh Davis.6015:

Sorry for the delay. Enjoy. :)

MESMER

• Pistol skills used by you and your illusions have had their range increased to 1200

Dear Josh (and devs),

If Mesmer is getting a pistol range increase to 1200, and you’re removing Ricochet for thief (which included the range extension and not just the bounces) and Rifled Barrels for Engineer, why aren’t Thief and Engi pistols getting the same treatment for their range extension trait? Heck both warrior and ranger long bows are getting their range increases added by default.

It just strikes me as unbalanced and inconsistent when some classes are getting the increases for those weapons and the other classes that use the same weapon type are not. Especially when all classes are loosing the choice to extend their ranges.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The one I don’t like is the change on Cripple and Chill. Cripple is a hard counter vs leaping Warriors and Guardians…after the patch, they can just ignore them. kitten soldier class QQing so hard not liking all the Caltrops all over the place.

well, I hear you on this one, but I personally think it won’t be that big of a deal. here’s why.

The change only effects the movement distance of the spell itself. NOT the characters movement speed. Sure, they’ll be able to leap a full Leap of Faith or sword leap, but once that leap is done, they’ll still have cripple or chill on them. Chill would be even less effected, because of how it extends recharges.

The ONLY scenario you’ll need to be concerned with is the warriors taking the new Warriors Sprint, which will not only give them a 25% movement speed while using melee weapons, but will also allow movement skills (like the sword leap or Bulls Charge or hammer burst skill, etc) to clear movement impairing conditions.

I’m still not worried about it though….thanks to lots of cripple, evades, bleeds and torment too!

Cynz.9437:

i am more worried about weakness affecting condi dmg….
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Concerns-about-condis-suggestions/first#post5137078

Cynz….you got it wrong. Weakness is remaining unchanged. It’s Vulnerability that was modified. Currently Vuln only increases incoming physical damage. With the change, Vuln will also increase incoming condition damage. This change will make Vuln more valuable and possibly even more deadly than it already is.

Geneaux.9547:

The only things that we can say that are likely slated very soon is the LA rebuild and/or PS update. Everything else, especially Specializations update, Trait overhaul, the Heart of Thorns expansion, is still ways off one way or another. They are very big changes to the game, and they require time… time we have definitely not achieved, imo.

We’ve only seen three specs so far(Mesmer(Chronomancer), Guardian(Dragonhunter), Neecromancer(Reaper)), aware of the names of two more(Ranger(Druid) and Elementalist(Tempest)), and the remaining three are still shrouded in mystery(Warrior, Thief, and Engineer), both literally and thematically. I don’t see these changes coming any time soon to be honest. I think people need to learn to wait, in general, instead of rehashing the same pointless speculation and rumor threads over and over. Our prediction power is no greater than what that_shaman, or anyone, can grab from the gw2.dat file

I believe you are confusing the Elite Specializations (Chrono, Dragonhunter, Reaper, etc) with the complete overhaul of the Core Specializations (our current trait lines). They clearly stated (I believe it was in their twitch stream summary of the core spec changes https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/ready-up-core-specializations-summary/) that the Core Specs overhaul would be released BEFORE HoT comes out and the the Elite Specs would only be available with the expac.

So, it would appear that today’s blog post about the changes to LA and the Core Specs coming in the next update can indeed easily be interpreted as “coming soon” and definitely before the expac. Especially since, based on the video I linked, most of that overhaul appears to be done.

And I agree that Giver’s gear could certainly use an overhaul. I’m doubtful it will happen in the Feature Pack. But, if it did happen, that would certainly open up some more options for boon duration builds!

I was asking a general question, but so that other posters know where I am coming from, I main a boon support guardian with 100% boon duration (what I personally call “The Boonsta” build lol) and am wanting to plan for any changes that may effect this build. Currently I use the 2 x Water, 2 x Monk, 2 x Traveler combo to reach 45% just from my runes.

That said, I am hopeful that they will keep it possible to reach 100% boon duration. Mostly because of what I saw in the Ready Up regarding the Balthazar rune reworking. The new version actually has 45 burning duration. So if they are reaching 45 for burn, then it’s completely possible to do it for boon in one rune set.

I just want details and infos!

Dear Anet,

Regarding the rune changes in the April 15 Feature Pack, the one thing that was not covered in either the blog post or the Ready Up was exactly how Boon Duration builds would be effected by the changes.

Will it no longer be possible to reach 100% boon duration?
If it will be possible, then how will we reach 100%?
Because currently Giver’s gear is sub-optimal compared to combining runes.
Will there be a NEW rune(s) oriented toward accomplishing this?

Kindly provide some clear and relevant information on how maxing out boon duration will work come April 15th. Without more information it would appear the upcoming changes are reducing our ability to reach 100%. And I want to have a chance to plan my alternatives if this is the case. I certainly hope it’s NOT the case.

Thanks!

Thanks for posting this Parmeus. I’ve been using a 0-0-20-20-30 build for a bit now and was looking for something with a little more punch and initiative regen. So I’m happy to find your post and learn about the Signets of Power and Signet Use traits.

My main question now is this: what stats are you stacking for you gear and why? (For PVE and PVP)

I’ve been using the Cariron set (condition dmg/power/vitality) for the high condition dmg, but I don’t like the vitality much and would rather have precision or toughness or more power.

I’d appreciate your — or anyone else’s — thoughts on gear for a Bleed build like yours.

Thanks all!