Assic.2746

Sound Effects I mostly like the sound effects. I have one issue though with the humming aftercast sound on skills #1 and #4. It's too loud. When I tested it with quickness I could only hear a near constant hum. The sound of a ghostly bullet being shot is perfect but the 'whoosh' sound after that is not the kind of ASMR I enjoy. I really like Skill #5 sound effect. I can tell without looking that it is charging and when it reaches next level. Visual Effects Skill's #2 visual effect loses its track while moving. It doesn't update frequently enough. Skill #3 looks just like Symbol of Wrath. I hope it gets some Bullet/Flame theme during development. Skill #5 I really like it. The visual effect of this skills looks kinda epic. Skill Overview Skill #1 doesn't feel good. It's blant spam. Skill #1 should have more interactions with Skill #3. Eg. Using Skill #1 while standing on the Skill #3 gives you boons or heals you slightly. Pistol/Pistol needs more skill combos. So far it has only damaging combos Skill #3 -> Any multi-hit skill. There is a room for more options. Skill #2 doesn't fit main hand pistol. It's a staff beam. Not even a projectile. Skill #3 so far doesn't feel very exciting. It's just another wariant of Willbender's Justice. Pop it -> unload skills you can. Skill #3 is a symbol yet it doesn't grant any boons making pistol a bad choice for a condition-support hybrid build. Skill #5 Love it! It actually enables reactive gameplay. I can fully charge it or release it early if I need to.

It looks fun. I really like playing Silverwastes meta and this maps seems similar. It would be nice if outposts could be claimed by guilds which would cause guild's emblem to be displayed on the map and on flags around the outpost. Just something to show some guild pride.

We are basically going to reach tier 5 in half of the event's duration. OP makes a good point - on weekend the game is gonna be flooded with players, but the event will cap at tier 5. We need to push the event at least to the tier 8. But I would argue that even tier 10 is possible. ANet please add at least 3 more tiers and add Verdant Brink to the mix! I get that Auric Basin is rewarding enough and this meta is very popular, but VB deserves some attention as well.

There are two major reasons GW2 doesn't have viewership on Twitch: ANet doesn't release content often enough.Content they release is not engaging.2 hours of story every 3+ months. That's not gonna make streamers stick. They play the story and a bit of the new map and then they are gone until next release.WvW alliances are still far from being finished. It has been close to two years. Excluding Warclaw WvW hasn't been updated since HoT. PvP balance updates are slow and don't change anything. Raids were to release more reguraly in Season 4... 1 raid in every 260 days. New fractals are not challenging. And I don't even talk about CMs. I feel like I'm playing a story dungeon which you cannot fail. ANet prefers to captitalize on the story content which doesn't have any future instead of focusing on replayable and selfsustaining content: PvP, WvW, Fractals, Raids. Original Guild Wars still has viewership on Twitch close to 70-100 on average. Are those people playing story? NO. Those people play PvP. Content which is engaging. Do you guys think that in 5-10 years when GW2 will be in maintenance mode people will create alts and replay the story? NO. They will leave in search of new games. Only PvP and WvW players will remain because for them the game is already in maintenance mode and has been for a long time. They won't see the difference.

Pure of Sight If all longbow skills had 1500 range then this trait could have additional damage boost 20-25% for 900-1500 range. Which would improve the damage of longbow but not scepter. To me it seems like Symbol of Energy is kinda underwheling because you have to aim at your feet almost every time. This skill could be similar to Rifle Butt - warrior's rifle skills which pushes back an enemy. A melee attack which knocks back or dazes enemies and puts symbol of energy below our feet.

Dragonhunter virtues have casting time, are no longer instant and can be interrupted.Virtue of Justice active effect is different. Your allies will no longer apply burning with their next attack. There is a tradeoff.Virtue of Resolve is different. You will only heal your allies inside small AoE radius. Wings of Resolve radius is 240 and Virtue of Resolve radius is 600. And this skill can also be interrupted and won't heal at all. So there is a tradeoff.Shield of Courage does indeed grant shield on top of aegis to allies but it has 33% longer cooldown and again the radius is smaller.DH virtues are not better. You get completly new active effect and not anything on top of the old ones. Have you even read the tooltips for DH virtues and compared to core virtues? DH is more skill/position based. You practically cannot fail with core virtues because of high their radius and instant activation. I don't see why core guardian should get new skills to tradeoff when there is no need for it. You don't get 3 more virtues as DH or FB. You get replacements.

Dragonhunter virtues have casting time, are no longer instant and can be interrupted.Virtue of Justice active effect is different. Your allies will no longer apply burning with their next attack. There is a tradeoff.Virtue of Resolve is different. You will only heal your allies inside small AoE radius. Wings of Resolve radius is 240 and Virtue of Resolve radius is 600. And this skill can also be interrupted and won't heal at all. So there is a tradeoff. Shield of Courage does indeed grant shield on top of aegis to allies but it has 33% longer cooldown and again the radius is smaller. Every elite spec gets new utility skills and weapon... I don't get that argument. Dragonhunter does not get any additional skills on top of standard virtues. And what is more those skills are not strictly better than regular Virtues. Active effects are different and have smaller areas of effect.

Why are you guys so excited about the alternative virtues?! We already have alternative ones for Dragonhunter and same for Firebrand. Don't you want something fresh? You want 3rd elite spec which does the same thing - replaces core virtues with alternative ones? C'mon

It only applies 1 stack of vulnerablity and most mobs die to a few hits. I don't see this trait being useful in any format and definitely not in competitive ones. Gotta admit I didn't consider this combo, but after checking it out on golems I couldn't even stack Vulnerability above 16 stacks while hitting 5 targets constantly. Stuff dies too fast.

When mousing over / comparing items currently equipped stuff should be more pronounced. It's grey letters on the dark background. I have recently watched a few new player experience streams on twitch. And people get confused too often about this. The solution is also very easy - change the size and colour of two words. It might prevent new players from getting confused and maybe even deleting better equipment.

Whatever will it be I would really like the new elite spec to retain the core virtues. No more alternative versions. 4th virtue could be interesting. Spirit companion which would be like a pet for ranger. You could choose 1 of 3 by picking a different grandmaster trait. Kinda like daredevil does it.

I have my own wishlist of DH tweaks: Longbow Hunter's Ward Slightly increase the initial damage of this skill. All in all I think that longbow is a solid weapon for Dragonhunter with decent numbers. Hunter's Ward damage should be increased cause of long casting time and the final effect often being negated by Firebrand's stability spam. I don't think Deflecting Shot needs any buffs. It's already a good skill. Traps Light's Judgement Increase damage dealt by this skill. Most traps are useful in specific game modes. Only Light's Judgement stands out because of its low damage numbers. Traits Dulled Senses Enemies you disable are crippled. Enemies you cripple are also inflicted with stacks of vulnerability and lose swiftness. This trait has now internal cooldown. Dulled Senses is an utterly bad trait and it works only on knock back (Wards, Dragon's Maw and Deflecting Shot). The other adept traits beat this one completly. Renegade has the exact same trait but it works with every hard CC and additionally grants Kalla's Fervor. I don't think that DH needs any buffs or nerfs. It's a balanced elite spec with purity of purpose: physical damage, lots of cripple, kiting, crowd control. It has its trade-offs. New virtues are no longer instant cast, no longer affect everyone around but require positioning. Skills and traits that I listed just seem bad to use.

I would really like the next elite spec to maintain the core virtues. I like DH's ones which are more skill based than tomes which are more about spamming your skills. I think 4th virtue or additonal mechanic on top of virtues would be nice. We already have: Core Power Guardian,Core Condition Guardian, Power Dragonhunter, Condition Firebrand + Quickness,Healer Firebrand.To think of it Guardian has really high build diversity. It lacks only a proper evasive/thief-like elite spec. I would also like to see something that replaces meditations in competitive scenerios. Almost every Guardian build uses them because of short cooldowns, utility, potent healing capabilities and condition cleanse. UNLESS devs come up with something fresh like boon hate for Warrior. Perhaps high vitality spec or a permament companion (similar to ranger's pet).

Also after Deadeye has been introduced into the game devs should really reevaluate Longbow's damage and adjust the middle trait lane (dulled senses, heavy light) to serve as a base for a proper high range damage build.

Stability we get from Heavy Light is kinda useless. I would rather get a few stacks of Might or Vigor or even Swiftness. Dulled Senses is even worse than that since it only works on KNOCK BACK. And the effect is weak.

New profession mechanics are more appealing to existing players. While new races - Tengu would make an excelent selling point for GW1 Veterans as well as already existing players. ANet constantly incentivises players to return to core areas to slay some world boss, get an item needed for legendary gear etc. Why not just add new race with new more polished starting areas which would implement better AI, mechanics and generally be a little bit more challenging? I went for a more hardcore open world content because what's the point of having fancy new elite specs when mobs die to a few hits anyway. You can even test them in open world. But if I could choose more than one option I would pick first three starting from the top: profession mechanics, tengu and more challenging content. Especially meta events. I am starving for a new HoT like map-wide metaevent because PoF haven't introduced any of them. I have been a huge fan of WvW until PoF came out. Firebrand and Scourge kinda ruined it for me. There is too much AoE spam on the ground and squads are mainly build out of those two specs. Melee fights do not exist anymore. I hope for some major changes to AoE spam in WvW. I would like to see a new borderland map which has a central objective which keeps the fight going. A map with flat terrain, easy to navigate.

I don't really think we will ever get another support based spec for Guardian. Firebrand is kinda all over the place: Condi DPS,Boon spam (Might, Fury, Quickness, Regeneration, Aegis, Stability, Retaliation, Protection & Resistance on demand),Healer.Fortunately ANet started adjusting Firebrand and shaping it into: Condi DPS +Quickness, Fury provider,What will the next elite spec for Guardian look like in my opinion:Spec focused on evasion and power damage. With core Virtues and additional profession mechanic on top of it. Wielding dagger/sword as an off-hand weapon. Very similar to Sword wielding Thief. Bonuses for evading attacks. More ways to obtain Vigor. Takes less damage from skills that are not directed at him - AoE etc. (Ranger pet mechanic). Which can allow Guardian to participate in fights unlike Thief.

I can't imagine guardian with a pistol.

I don't like how Mastery System is being handled in the open world. Press 'F' to channel... this is so shallow. I understand the lack of time/resources to make all mastery points interesting like the Sous-Chef one. Isn't making masteries cheaper and not adding braindead 'channel' ones better? Second thing Hero Point System. The game gives us more Hero Points than we need to unlock elite specs. I get that there can be some spare Hero Points. But there is way too many. I have both elite specs fully unlocked and 403 Hero Points left. I can unlock next elite spec once expac 3 hits without even playing it. It completly devalues the system. I am afraid that masteries are going in the same direction. They are being thrown at us and once new expansion hits all what's left will become useless. 20+ spare Central Tyria Mastery Points, 40+ HoT ones. It's barely 6 months past PoF and I already have 13+ unspent Mastery Points (haven't even touched Vabbi & collections). At least Mastery Points are unique to the expansion unlike Hero Points. Unlocking elite specs in PoF didn't feel interesting compared to my HoT experiences because of spare Hero Points. This is gonna snowball in the future if not adressed and solved.

So once again it just boils down to the shinies.

That's the thing @Grogba.6204. This thread is not about how to make raids more accessible for players. People here keep cultivating the idea that raid difficulty is the problem where in fact getting into the raid group is the problem. From what I see no one here actually cares about how to improve the raid LFG which locks players out of raids even though they spent a lot of time in game, they have the experience, they have the gear, they know their profession etc. Do you really believe that Raid Infantile Mode is a solution?I don't. And as a proof of that we have Super Adventure Box Infantile Mode. Do people use it to learn normal mode?No. People play Infantile mode to get their daily rewards. It is not entertaining. I get that people watch players having fun while raiding, failing, laughing about it and trying again. And they believe that if ANet added an Infantile cloud over the boss, leading stright to the reward chest they would have the same amount of fun... If you are going to quote anything from this posts then quote entirety of it.

Indeed. Like in every thread concerning raids. The same mantra being reapeted by the same people. It's obnoxious to see someone spamming the same arguments over and over. It's disrupting the discussion. Posts of people who actually have something new and fresh to say drown in this sea of copy pasta. People don't recognize the problem with raids which is: early game does not teach players about the importance of crowd control skills and "the art of damage mitigation", training runs organized by guilds are very occupied; people don't start training runs on their own, guilds which organize training runs are not well advertised (recruitment),some people are not interested in learning raids instead they want ANet to give them a fish (legendary armor) instead of a rod,high entry requirement to get into experienced groups - amount of KP/LI,boss mechanics are not introduced before the fight anymore; it was implemented very well in Forsaken Thicket, but in Hall of Chains only Statue of Death does it,(this is subjective) devs should have followed the design of Bastion of the Penitent which is probably the most popular raid wing on LFG - bosses have easy to read animations & there is not much visual noise, failing a mechanic on Cairn/MO/Samarog may result in your death, but not in a complete wipe of your team,there are no raid dailies incentivising players to reapeat challenge motes & kill bosses more than once a week, which means there is a lot of players on raid LFG right after the reset and during weekends, but in the middle of a week this number drops,Completing easy mode gives you nothing. People still won't take you into their group because you have no actual experience with the real boss.

I feel obligated to mention how much better the first map of LS4 is better than most of the LS3 maps, which after a few hours turn into brainless resource farm. Domain of Istan is very similar to my favourite map - Silverwastes. There are mapwide preparations for the metaevents, chest trains, races, some resource farm - meteorites. I look forward to other episodes.

I have a few important things to mention after I went through some of the posts in this thread. 1. Mount skins can be treated as rewards for playing the game. You don't have to spend $$$ to buy mount skins. We have to remember that gold to gems is a thing! 400gems is roughly around 90~110g (wait till prices drop). And you can easily get that much in 3-4 days if you follow some guides. These days it's much easier to get gold than karma or laurels or guild commendations (though guild mounts could be a thing) or even completing a collection. It is more convenient for a player to get 100g than to farm 200k karma etc. 2. MO did not make an empty post. How many people read it to the end? Where he points out that yes they will not change the mount licenses but listening to the feedback they will focus on releasing standalone mount skins and thematic skin packs like Halloween skins and possibly Wintersday or SAB skins. 3. Putting the game and the devs in the bad light because of the minor gemstore release. I am really disgusted* by the websites and youtubers which have not covered HoT release, PoF release nor any LS release or have not done any GW2 coverage since the game release in 2012. But they are covering such a minor thing like mount license RNG aspect. Only because adding more fuel to that fire might bring them some subscribers. I wonder how many people who watched the video or read an article checked for other GW2 related things on the website/channel. I did. How can you trust the opinion of a person who hasn't played the game for years or not played it at all!? 4. Demands are not feedback. I feel like because devs communicate so activeley with the playerbase both on forums and on reddit, players believe they can force devs into making changes. Either you change it or we gonna put you in the bad light. This happens every time: HoT release, raid release, when legendary weapons went on hiatus, legendary armor release and on and on.

I voted for Dragonhunter: Using longbow is on of few ways of poking scourges in this meta. A bit tired of this insane area control. Axe is useless.Mobility.Firebrand can be easily striked down when playing a more offensive build. You often have to waste your tome as a Firebrand to cast 2-3 skills.I dislike some of the FB traits.(PvP perspective)