[Harbingers are surprisingly tanky]

Playing against them, their self healing seems to outpace a lot of their max HP penalty.  I'm surprised at how well they sustain considering their heavy DPS pressure.

[Initial Willbender feedback]

I only tried a bit so far, but my impressions are similar.  It feels like you have a lot of skills with dashes that still don’t do mobility as well as something like a thief shortbow 5 or rev shiro port.

 

They mostly all run forward, which doesn’t handle z-axis mobility well and the attacks with them are generally slow compared to the instant hit of things like sword 2 or JI, which feel like better mobility than any of the virtues.

 

Finding good damage is also hard for something that sacrifices so much defense compared to something like DH.

 

The heal seems like it would be a lot better if it was instant or short cast with a buff that negated the next damage instead of a channeled block that really interferes with the flow of combat.

[Do you expect to actually use OH sword with Willbender?]

27 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

We can't know that yet, since we haven't been able to actually test it.

At least to me, reading the tooltip and watching the short performance preview on the livestream isn't enough to decide.

Well, of course.  It's an ask on what people expect at this point in time.

[Do you expect to actually use OH sword with Willbender?]

I should clarify for some of the responses here: I don't doubt that people will be using sword offhand to try it, but I mean to ask whether anyone expects to use it seriously beyond the initial test drive of the elite spec.

[Do you expect to actually use OH sword with Willbender?]

Just a thought here, but the offhand sword for Willbender seems like a bit of a lackluster weapon for the elite spec.  After all, while it is good by itself, one of its major benefits is mobility, which is largely redundant with the virtues and potentially any of the new utilities (not to mention a mainhand sword).  Outside of that, you get damage, which is nice, but is something you can get on other offhands along with utilities such as boons/condi cleanse/blocks.  And that's assuming that you still run a mainhand weapon instead of a 2h weapon like GS or hammer. 

 

If Willbender didn't already have access to so many other movement abilities, Sw/Sw would look like a great combo to use, but as it is...it just feels like potentially one of the weaker combos for an elite spec that already plays heavily onto mobility without necessarily doing as much on the straight damage/utility side.

[The elite spec names make no sense]

Maybe I'm nit-picking here, but in particular with the "Virtuoso" and "Harbinger", there seems to be no connection to what the elite spec is actually about.

 

Virtuoso

noun

noun: virtuoso; plural noun: virtuosi; plural noun: virtuosos

a person highly skilled in music or another artistic pursuit.

 

What does the new elite spec have to do with music?  I mean, it's entirely about blades.  Sure, I mean, they are "psionic" blades, but referencing the blades as being related to sound still does nothing to tie it to music.  Virtuoso sounds like a bard-like elite, but the actual mechanics and everything else is more akin to dealing with psychic daggers.

 

Harbinger

noun

noun: harbinger; plural noun: harbingers

a person or thing that announces or signals the approach of another.

 

What exactly is the necro announcing?  What does this elite spec have to do with announcing anything?  It's a pistol-wielding elixir drinker.  I would at least expect shouts to be tied to a harbinger or something, but how to elixirs/blight/pistols tie to anything harbinger related?

 

Now, "Willbender" isn't actually a distinct word with its own definition, but it is a combination of the words "will" and "bender", which implies there is some sort of domination or manipulation to someone's will.  To me, this implies some sort of psychic domination, which is anything but a "physical" skill brawler, but it's at least vague enough to be able to apply to any sort of powerful individual without saying anything too meaningful about them.

 

Previous elite specs seem to have, at least for the most part, done a good job of naming elite specs in a way that ties to what those specs are.  Good examples are Chronomancer, Holomancer, Mirage, Deadeye, etc.  They aren't all winners, but so far we haven't seen any that make sense with their name nearly at all.  Maybe this will change with the future, yet-unrevealed, elite specs. 

 

Either way, this is just an annoyance to me at the moment, lol.

 

[[UPDATED from BETA] Arken's brief overview of the WillBender]

21 hours ago, Arken.3725 said:

Heaven's Palm:  A melee-focused Hard-cc that provides no actual benefit to the WB with something that's heavily telegraphed?  Yeah, this won't see the light of day in any serious, competitive scene.  Grade: D

 

 

I think this is being heavily underestimated.  The telegraph is obvious, yes, but it's something to be used in combo with shadow steps, like JI.  This is something with some amazing potential at spiking targets in the middle of team fights since it's a short cd that separates support from the target and heavily punishes anyone without a stunbreak available.

[Guardian Elite Spec: WILLBENDER]

It's like Shiro rev, but more mobility and less CC.  Also seems to be capable of a burn condi spec.

[Necro Elite Spec: The Harbinger]

2 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I hope this is a shroud that drains HP instead of being a second health bar.

Posted something similar right after you.  😆

 

At least one shroud ability granting barrier on a decent cooldown (significantly longer than scourge) may still be good to see though since it could at least handle some degree of incoming burst without just being straight up tanky like other elite specs.

[Necro Elite Spec: The Harbinger]

Looks like a more mobile/DPS oriented necro, which is great to see and definitely compliments the existing kit of necro elites.  Shroud could possibly come at the expense of health if used for too long, similar to holo mode and that could be a good way too offset the mobility defense and DPS boost that Necro typically doesn't have since they can tank through damage with shroud instead.

[Kinda afraid to play PvP...]

5 hours ago, The Fear.3865 said:

Basis of PvP :

-> Disable chat

-> Play offline

-> Do not talk

 

Same rules for everyone, newb, pogchamps, streamers : just dont feed.

 

There's only one way to get ban : say some bad words you know.. Just dont talk. 

 

Sad, but true.  People are terrible. =(

 

[What will be the Counter to Virtuoso ?]

I'd be surprised to see Virtuoso have a very strong presence in PvP since it seems very heavily designed for PvE. 

 

All it really seems to do is damage, which makes it not much unlike something like a rifle berserker.  It'll nab some big kills at the start of a match maybe, but once people see it, they'll just shut it down and farm it for the rest of the game and higher tiers of PvP  probably won't see it much at all. 

 

Any sort of projectile defense/reflect looks like it'll break this build too.

 

But it's hard to really say yet since we still don't know about the traits and actual numbers for PvP.

[PvP is, by far, at its lowest state EVER]

Just now, Lucentfir.7430 said:

You should think of it like a gas tank. If you never fill it up it's just going to keep getting lower and lower so it's a obvious but true answer. 

I think rosy-colored glasses are just a serious thing here.  People seem to forget times when turret engis could pretty much win tournaments by stacking 5 in a group and nearly afking with their turrets on points and when cele eles could do all the damage of a DPS role (both power and condi), all the support of a bunker, and have all the sustain of a side-noder.

 

Scourge and trap guards are cheesy now for sure, but I've seen worse.

[What are some class balance you would add right now ?]

5 hours ago, jonesy.1470 said:

Il start. 

 

Ranger. 

Some pets aka river drake landing 9k crits with tail swipe. tone down core ranger a tad.

Holo.

Increase Photon Forge cool down to 10 secs instead of 6 secs.

Warrior. 

Give him his hammer back. 

Necro.

Scrouge mainly. Slower pluses from shades. 

Guard.

Rename traps to something else so they cant use trapper runes 😉

Thief.

I like thief. People need to learn how to decap tho.

Mesmer. 

Bots like them. 

Rev.

Why are they all salad edge lords ?

 

Amulets.

why is the doest a support amulet have 1000 power and precision ? feel like thats an oversight.

 

Ranger:

 - Feels like this class is in a good place.  They're solid side noders and performing well is very skill-based.  No real cheesy builds here.

Holo

 - Sounds reasonable, but I don't have much opinion here.

Warrior

 - Warriors are good side-noders, but hammer definitely needs to return for some sort of good team fight build.

Necro

 - Pulse reduction would just nerf the viability of necros as a whole and wouldn't solve their main problem which is that they do so much without needing any sort of conscious effort.  Their boon corrupts/condi transfers need to have longer cooldowns so that necros are punished if they don't think about what abilities they are using. 

 - Necros also have too much AoE, but that's probably a harder thing to nerf without redesigning a lot of stuff

Guard

 - Trapper runes are definitely a problem

Thief

 - Also agreed that thief is in a good spot, but if there's any profession that's the center of unfair blaming in any PvP game, this is it.  People tend to over-estimate how much thieves *can* decap, as the number of times I've seen people shout at thieves to decap a node where an enemy player is sitting on it is more than I can count.  They also tend to under-estimate the value of thieves for +1 on fights as their unexpected burst on players and securing kills.

Mesmer

 - Not much opinion here.  Still a class with a ton of potential for people that can handle the high skill cap, but often over-shadowed by thieves with their mobility nerfed as much as it is.  Portal nerfs really should be reverted to some degree since portal plays can make for epic PvP games.

Rev

 - I'm biased here since I've been maining rev for a while, but it still seems to be in a good place overall.

[PvP is, by far, at its lowest state EVER]

"PvP is, by far, at its lowest state EVER"...

 

says this forum all the time.  🙄

[So when is revenant going to leave beta?]

Never had that happen to me.  Open a ticket.

[E-spec legend speculation]

21 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

 

Third, revenants are not ritualists, and were never intended to be. 

So, curious: What title do you get when you win 150 rated PvP games as a revenant? 

[PvP Build for Ranked]

On 7/26/2021 at 5:59 PM, Saltlick.8392 said:

Rev is now very weak to condition damage now. With the new patch there is no way to combat the conditions and the healing skills that clear them don't heal that much and are on a very long cool down. The dwarf heal takes a long time to use and it gets stopped  easily by being cc'd. I do okay in 1 vs 1 fights but anything outside of that the rev is now incredibly broken. The class needs to be fixed so it can be used in PVP. It is almost impossible to revive someone during combat because revs are too weak withstand outside pressure. Revs take forever to stomp. Other classes can heal others fast and they get instant stomps or stealth stomps. Rev needs help!!!

Mallyx rev may not be near-invincible to condi damage like it used to, but it's still fine against it and it's still better at handling them than Power Herald or Shiro Ren, which have been meta strong before the resistance change.

 

And rev doesn't need to be strong at reviving.  You're much better served by CCing enemies while your teammate revives or by securing a kill to rally them.

 

Rev is fine at stomping.  Shiro ren brings stab and Herald has blind to counter your basic downed skill CCs.  Even then, it's usually better to just cleave, which is something rev does even better than stomping.

[Revenant elite spec logo? Long bow incoming? Daggers?]

18 hours ago, Elric.4713 said:

I see them going back to the third eye icon again, I immediately think Ritualist.

I definitely see some tie to Ritualist.

 

Look at the GW1 Ritualist logo:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ritualist#/media/File:Ritualist-tango-icon-200.png

 

And the new logo looks like that logo turned on its side and slightly separated by the Revenant symbol.

 

What does this mean for weapon?  No idea as we already can use the staff, but it's possible the logo means nothing in regards to any new weapon that comes with the elite spec.

[How do you feel about EoD after the livestream? POLL]

I'm in the "Somewhat Hyped" camp.  I'm still very much looking forward to Cantha and was, regardless of the first look stuff.  The new Guild Hall looks amazing and the siege turtle/fishing stuff also looks great.

 

However, elite specs are, I believe, the most impactful part of an expansion since it completely changes the way you play in almost every setting (or at least allows for a completely new way of playing) and for that, we still know almost nothing about the new especs. 

 

Things missing which would have hyped me more are:

 - New map or game mode or anything specifically for PvP

 - New Guild Missions or any sort of update to guild-specific events/stuff to do

 

The lack of a new race didn't surprise me much and I've never been in the camp of wanting to play tengu or anything like that.  The new legendaries are also not particularly impressive, but that's not something that bothers me much.

[Reused Weapons on E-specs?]

Definitely possible.  Especially if they either change the skills that weapon has or change the class so much with the e-spec that not getting a new weapon is immaterial.

[Pvp is getting....??]

It's just barely less than WvW got, which is a feature that's been in the works forever, but it'll be done around the time the expansion is, so it's now a feature of that expac?

 

Although, because of how PvP works, the elite specs alone are a massive change-up for all forms of PvP.  That being said, I was hoping for confirmation of something new for PvP in the form of a new map, game mode, etc.

[PvP Build for Ranked]

9 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

I think the change in Torment (now deals its extra damage when the target is *not* moving) had the bigger effect. Glad to hear it's still working for ya, though.

Yea, very true.  I definitely underestimated it until someone on an opposite team was running it and I saw how good it could be.

 

I think one of the major strengths that helps carry it is how much AoE CC you have.  Teams that can dominate in CC have so much of an advantage on the small death match maps.

[No Dev Tracker?]

25 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I dont see it when I use my phone fwiw, but on PC it is right next to the 'forum' link and 'activity' link.

Ahh, yea.  Seems to be missing on the mobile version (or at least hidden very well).

[No Dev Tracker?]

There is a dev tracker.  See screenshot linked below:

 

https://imgur.com/1Ceea2n