Noko Anon.9154

I have had a fantasy for a long while now about revamping the core profession specializations. That is not to say that I want core classes to be on-par with elite ones. I would not want elite specializations to be a side-grade or a trade-off. The dream I have always envisioned is that core classes would be able to adequately fill any given role, with elite specs specializing into a given role. I have also longed for a rework of how minor traits function, in order to make improvements to utility skills more tantalizing. Perhaps most of you will call this a pipe dream, but I want to share this fantasy with you regardless. After all, what we all want to see is a healthier game, and to do that, we need to clean up core specializations to make it easier to construct and maintain elite specs. Guild Wars 2, despite the original developers’ intentions, has four major roles in the game: DPS, support, tank/duelist, and kiter/roamer. While they can be subdivided further, these are the tasks that the community has created for their groups over the past decade. I would like to see each core profession be able to fill out each of these roles in some capacity, should they choose traits for it. I would not want core support classes to have alacrity or quickness on them. I would not want non-soldier classes to have the ability to tank, nor would I want soldier classes to have the ability to kite, in a PvE setting. In PvP, however, I would like for non-soldier classes to have the ability to duel, and I would like for soldier classes to be able to roam. Each of the core classes has five specializations. It would be so easy to focus on each specific spec with a specific set of goals in mind to meet an end-game role. If we use Engineer as an example, Explosives could have traits that promote DPS and dueling, Firearms could promote DPS and kiting / roaming, Inventions could promote dueling and support, and Alchemy could promote support and kiting / roaming. Tools, naturally, would not have a specific focus, but would instead enhance the unique aspects of the profession. The first goal is to give each specialization two major roles to aim towards. If each spec only has one goal in mind, then the spec becomes stale. However, we do not want to give each spec three end-game foci. Traits should be balanced around being with the group, where everyone pulses and shares boons with each other (low duration, high interval boons) and have combo effects happening constantly, and playing solo, where the player can only draw boons from themselves (high duration, low interval boons) and combos happen relatively infrequently. Two competing traits would fill the same role, but have different purposes based on what the player is doing. Think of the difference between a hypothetical Spotter from Ranger pulsing fury to everyone nearby with a 1 second duration every 3 seconds, and a hypothetical competing trait that grants only the Ranger fury for 3 seconds with a 10 second internal cooldown. Consider the current difference between Elementalist’s Persisting Flames and Blinding Ashes, and the respective environments where they are more desirable. That is the goal. It would also be beneficial to rework minor traits to that end. Utility skill traits have long been difficult to balance, the most infamous being Thief’s Deceptions. At the same time, minor traits have either been far too potent (Guardian’s Renewed Justice, up until recently) or not potent enough (Elementalist’s Soothing Mist). My dream would make it so that, by and large, each minor trait in a specialization not only enhances a specific set of utility skills, but would also modify how a profession basically functions. If we use Engineer as our example, Explosives minor traits can support the bomb, grenade, and mortar kits, Firearms can enhance pistols, rifles and the flamethrower, Inventions can improve turrets and shields, Alchemy can support the med kit, elixir gun, and elixirs, and Tools can improve gadgets and the (one day revamped) tool kit. Most of this is already being done, but I dream of it being done in a way that does not force the player to pick and choose major traits to get them to work. Each specialization has three minor traits. My fantasy would be that the first minor trait in a specialization reduces the recharge of abilities of whatever that spec is focusing on. So, for example, Inventions would reduce the cooldown on both turrets and shields, once that first minor trait is unlocked. A player does not have to use turrets, nor use a shield, to get these effects, and I see that as a problem. Each minor trait should be able to provide something that any Engineer can use for their own ends, in a passive, non-intrusive way. This hypothetical first trait, in line with my desire to have Inventions work with both dueling and support, would also provide a passive effect that complements these roles. I do not want minor traits drastically changing play styles, but instead automatically complementing the intended style of the player and their role. I could imagine a minor trait that not only reduces cooldowns, but also grants regeneration when the Engineer takes damage, a hypothetical 3 second duration every 10 seconds, or whatever it needs to be to be balanced. The second minor trait would not only enhance the effects of turrets and shield skills, but would grant another passive buff, such as cleansing a condition whenever regeneration is gained. One does not have to rely on the effects of a specific skill or a specific action to benefit from these first two minor traits. However, the final minor trait would be more active and interesting. In my dream, the final minor trait would grant an automatic Lesser effect, based on what the specialization is, and whether or not the utility skill type attached to that specialization has a healing skill or not. In the case of turrets being tied to Inventions, Healing Turrets do exist, which is a healing skill. As such, the final minor trait would be tied to healing skills. I would want this final minor trait to only have one effect: “Cast Lesser Regenerating Mist whenever you use a heal skill.” It would obviously be a weaker Regenerating Mist, Healing Turret’s toolbelt skill, with an internal cooldown that matches the longest cooldown for any of the engineer’s healing skills, to prevent abuse from a low-cooldown heal. I do not want healing skills, a defensive tool, to be used offensively if I can help it! Even if an Engineer takes Inventions, they would not, and should not, feel pressured to use turrets, or the tool kit, or shields. These minor traits in this specific specialization would complement a dueling or supporting Engineer handily, with the major traits (which I will not go into) helping the player focus on a specific role. With skills tied directly to the minor traits, players would no longer need to feel like they are wasting a major trait to improve skills they would naturally use, either. As a side note, consider Explosives, which does not have any of the skills it supports act as a healing skill. Instead, it would be tied to when an elite skill is activated, with an internal cooldown that is as long as the longest cooldown for the Engineer’s elites. For example, “Cast Lesser Grenade Barrage at your target when you use an elite skill.” A player cannot rapidly shift in and out of the elite mortar kit to get this effect, but it would certainly make elite skills feel more “elite” (and, in this case, stop tying an offensive lesser skill to the player’s healing skill). Firearms would have something similar, tied to the flamethrower: “Cast Lesser Incendiary Ammo when you use an elite skill.” Do note that all of these minor traits would stack effects, making a player’s healing skill and elite skill noticeably more potent with up to three lesser effects tied to it. This is why they need long cooldowns, and why certain specializations focus on healing skills with others focusing on elite skills to split lesser effects, because this suggestion truly is game-changing. I could see minor traits for other professions as well, though not as dramatically as Engineer. Engineer is limited on utility skill types because of its kit system. Every other profession has five different types of utility skills (Mesmer Clones and Phantasms counting as one, Illusions), one for each specialization. I would prefer that the other professions do not enhance weapon skills quite like Engineer does because of this, since they all have a wide variety of weapon skills to choose from that dramatically change their playstyle. For example, I can see Deadly Arts for Thief enhancing venoms with the final minor being “Cast Lesser Skelk Venom when you use a healing skill,” to have more tools to support nearby allies. I could see Soul Reaping in Necromancer improving spectral skills, with its final minor as “Cast Lesser Spectral Grasp when you use an elite skill,” to pull enemies into Necromancer’s AoE elite skills (or chain pull-knockback with the flesh golem). I could also see Guardian having a specialization that improves spirit weapons, with the final minor being “Cast Lesser Shield of the Avenger when you use an elite skill,” to provide a projectile block for the group when using a supportive elite, or give weakness on a target(s) when using an offensive one. And so on. Again, this is my dream scenario. I want to see core specializations reworked so they have a clear identity as to what they are meant to do. They were largely conceived back in 2015, and the game itself has changed much since then. I dream of not having to pick and choose traits based on what skills I am using, but rather pick specializations based on what skills I already like to use. I dream of more variation. If each specialization slightly changes the way a healing or elite skill works, each build now has a profession with a healing skill or an elite skill that is almost unique from the others because of the lesser abilities attached to it. With “cleaned up” core specializations and a better grasp on which directions specs should focus on, then that will help ease tension when trying to balance elite specs, and lead to a healthier game state.

This is another one of my rambling posts, of things that are on my mind. Again, these forums are a means for me to get these thoughts out of my head, and I always welcome feedback to give me a better perspective than what I would have if I were to just keep these thoughts to myself. I'm aware that the November preview is heavy on everyone's minds, so they may be distracted from what I wish to discuss. My goal here is to talk about how our perspectives on boons can be changed, how which boons a profession gets should be tied to what conditions it delivers, and possible changes (primarily with a thief focus) to core and elite specs based on boons shaping their thematic appeal. The intensity of a boon should be directly proportional to however many players are expected to be near the person when the boon is received; fewer players means a stronger boon, more players means a weaker boon. If, for example, a thief was given a trait where they earned swiftness for performing an action normally associated with roaming, then it should be, say, 5 seconds in duration, in comparison to gaining and possibly granting swiftness to a group, in which case it may only be 1 second. (These values are abstract for a reason, to show the inverse relation.) Consider the four major end-game roles within GW2: Damage, support, tanking (“bunkering” in PvP), and kiting (“roaming”). Each of these four roles is varied within themselves. Damage, for example, is separated not just by type (strike, condition) but also range (melee, mid, far). Support is defined by healing, flat damage buffs (spirits, banners), or boons (currently alacrity and quickness). Tanking and bunkering are similar but different, as (to my knowledge) all tanks bring toughness as a stat to draw NPC attention, while bunkers may bring toughness, or else vitality, or else other tools absorb and cleanse incoming damage. Even kiting and roaming are nuanced, since while a kiter may have a clearly defined role in PvE (with various boss mechanics affecting how an encounter works), a roamer can be a decapper, a +1-er, or an ambush predator waiting to find someone running away with less than 50% health to gank. There is one very clear thing about these roles: A kiter / roamer, by necessity, must be a “selfish” profession, because they will be separate from the group during major encounters. Boons need to be reflected in this. There needs to be a difference between personal boons, and party boons. Personal boons are extremely powerful benefits that should be given to a player to reward their timing, foresight, or express a profession’s unique flavor. Party boons are rewards for cooperation, incentivizing proper group-play and teamwork to receive rolling benefits. Vigor, aegis, alacrity, quickness, in my opinion, should all be personal boons, only available from the player themselves. Vigor and aegis represent a player’s ability to properly respond to incoming attacks, in the form of dodges and blocking. A well-timed dodge avoids incoming personal damage, making dodging a personal responsibility. To that end, a profession with personal access to vigor rewards a player for properly timing their dodges. This is, again, all personal. Aegis, while a bit more difficult to time, is still something that should remain a personal action. While I understand the current thematic flavor of providing aegis, or “taking the hit” for another player, it stands to reason that it would be instead much more flavorful, and perhaps more engaging, to have a player grant themselves’ aegis, and then body-block with their own character model an incoming attack to protect an ally. This would be a personal, active decision, and would reward players for their altruism and working with others. Quickness and alacrity are more of an emotional issue. Both of these things have dramatically changed the way that the game is played for the worst, as these two boons have permanently altered how the development team looks at cast timings and cooldowns. By making these two boons personal, certain professions can be brought back from heavy nerfs, while other professions can be designed with either of these two boons as part of its class identity and philosophy (such as revenant, which I will touch upon much later). Remember, roamers and kiters are going to be by themselves. A roamer giving up the ability to share, for example, fury and might to a team because it's investing in giving itself vigor, alacrity, quickness, and so on, makes it weaker with the group. The group wants a party member who is "generous", but a roamer wants boons that let it be "selfish". Boons are where the trade-off originates. The other boons can be shared, some more readily than others, because they affect, specifically, raw damage increases, movement speed and security, and incoming damage reduction. While certain professions might have some of these, it requires teamwork in order to be able to get all of these, which is again something that should be incentivized: cooperation. I would also argue that mesmers, by design, should have access to every boon, while necromancers, by design, should have access to every condition. If that could be baked into their core class philosophies, that would be an excellent starting point, since these two would be specific and unique compared to the other seven classes. Most other professions, meanwhile, only have specific boons and conditions available to them, which is perfectly fine from a balancing standpoint. A class should only be able to receive a boon, from itself, if it can provide the corresponding condition from its weapon sets, with the exception of mesmers and necromancers. A core guardian, to be able to grant stability under this given mindset, would then need to have one of its weapon sets able to deliver a taunt or fear, which would give the profession the opportunity to update certain core weapons. Shield of Judgement, rather than giving both protection and aegis (remember, my goal is for aegis to become a personal skill), could give allies protection while also delivering a taunt to an enemy. By receiving access to this condition, guardians would have a reason to have access to stability, which is a tremendous boon it should be able to share with others. (Let us also consider the synergy that would go into using taunt for, say, forcing enemies to walk into a Consecration field.) It stands to reason, then, that a profession that is able to readily deliver a given condition with its weapon set should be able to receive its opposite boon, either from the weapons themselves, or else from a proper trait. However, not every profession should have equal access to each condition and boon, nor should each boon be something readily available to share between each class. On the contrary, the current state of the game is in a disarray solely because of how far-reaching the consequences boonbots have become in all modes of play. If I am to convince you of certain changes to a certain profession, I need to convince you that changes to the way boons operate are necessary. Let us start by examining thieves. Thieves have access to the following conditions from its core weapon sets: bleed, blind, cripple, immobilize, poison, torment, vulnerability, and weakness. The opposites of those conditions are vigor, fury, swiftness, resistance, regeneration, might, and protection. Can we envision a thief that has these mentioned boons? Quite easily, I would imagine. Thief has a naturally low health pool, and with the vigor, regeneration, and protection, it would make the thief focus on trying to avoid incoming strike damage. Thief would not have an advantage in every single matchup, nor should it, nor should any profession have a perfect matchup against every profession in the game. Moving on, resistance and swiftness would make it very keen on movement, and fury would go well with its high-damage function. Again, the objective is to only keep vigor, aegis, quickness, and alacrity personal; could thieves have a means of naturally sharing its various boons, besides vigor? Yes, quite easily, I would imagine. At present, there’s an unnecessary limiter on how professions can interact with each other when it comes to taking traits. In the case of thief, its so-called design for “selfishness” arbitrarily precludes it from team-based compositions. After all, a thief, or rather any profession, only needs to be “selfish” when it is kiting or roaming, because it is far away from others. Deadly Arts, while perhaps focusing on conditions, could also be a means of having thieves receive vigor and protection. A build could be formed from this idea, that Deadly Arts encourages wearing opponents down from condition damage, while making the most of vigor and protection to reduce incoming damage, in an attempt to outlast their enemy. Even a reworked trait to improve Venoms could give thieves the opportunity to share protection with allies, making Venoms both an offensive and defensive tool. Critical Strikes, in its current incarnation, does an excellent job with promoting the use of fury, though there’s a lack of ability to share fury with others, and Hidden Killer largely invalidates fury and precision in general. Perhaps a solution is to give players the option to choose a ranger for Spotter, or a thief with a similar trait? That is to say, prevent ranger with Spotter from being mandatory for group compositions, while giving rangers and thieves both more opportunities to earn and utilize fury. Losing access to a trait to give the player a very selfish fury, for example–higher crit chance, or incoming healing, or more ferocity–would be a reasonable trade-off to instead provide a pulsing fury to nearby allies. Shadow Arts, as it is now, is in a sort of no-man’s land, but giving Shadow Arts the ability to provide regeneration when stealth is activated (or, perhaps, bringing back Deception buffs) could lead to a more support-oriented thief, or a selfish thief that utilizes regeneration, or even giving the thief initiative when receiving regeneration. The potentials are huge, the possibilities many, on what could be done with it. Acrobatics could focus on swiftness and resistance, in order to maximize movement. Perhaps one trait is very selfish, “when you grant yourself swiftness, you also grant yourself resistance” or some such skill, while an alternative trait is more group-focused, granting swiftness around the thief on an interval. What about might? Given its universal appeal, it seems pointless to try and lock down might to just one trait line, regardless of the profession using it. With a core solidified, elite specs can be looked at to see what the core profession doesn’t have, and what they can be given. Take Daredevil, which in its current form invalidates the Acrobatics line. If Acrobatics was to be the one to focus on swiftness and resistance, what could Daredevil focus on? If it were to be reworked to inflict slow on enemies (“strategically striking at key joints and nerves to severely impede the enemy’s combat capabilities”) while granting the thief personal quickness, suddenly the elite spec explodes as to what it can do. Rapid-fire dodges and dangerous interrupting attacks that slow down the enemy would put it at a tremendous dueling advantage, not to mention its ability to deliver a huge amount of damage in bursts would make it impressive in PvE encounters once a defiance bar is broken. That would give it a very distinct identity from what Acrobatics provides in terms of movement. Perhaps a Daredevil will want to use Deadly Arts to maximize its condition potential, using slows to make it easier to interrupt an enemy when they try to heal, and using poisons to make those heals less effective? Or maybe Critical Strikes, to combine high might, fury, and quickness to maximize damage during a burst window? Or maybe Daredevil might want to actually use Acrobatics, to make the most of its quickness to strike down a target, snared with cripple, immobilize, or slow, while roaming? Suddenly, with the changes to how boons work, Daredevil now has multiple ways to play it as an elite spec. What if the staff, itself, was given slow and quickness access with appropriate initiative costs, promoting the use of the weapon? What if a trait could be taken whereby weapons with dual attacks granted quickness, while weapon skill 3 on shortbow and staff delivered slow? What if stealing could be traited to do both? What if Physical skills could have a trait improvement to do something similar? Consider Deadeye. What if, instead of bringing more and more strike damage with no way to counterplay apart from dodging rapidly, Malice brought burning to thieves’ kit? Hitting your target with a stealth attack consumes Malice and causes an explosion around the target, igniting it and nearby enemies in proportion to the amount of Malice gained. Along with burning, it gains aegis, a tool to prevent being pulled in while at range, or else providing an extra layer of defense compared to the lack of mobility core and daredevil would provide. Now, Deadeye can use Deadly Arts to maximize condition damage along with personal survival, or Shadow Arts to consistently reposition and maintain a proper advantage from blocking incoming attacks while regenerating, or use Acrobatics to stay on the move and try to remain out of reach. The possibilities have expanded. What if the rifle had an option for incendiary ammo, or Sniper’s Cover provided aegis rather than totally oppressive ranged negation? That’s not to mention that the dramatic changes to stealth because the smoke field was too powerful could be reverted, without Sniper’s Cover to leap through. What if marking inflicted burning and granted aegis, to work with other trait options giving steal poison or bleeding, or else other major boons? What about traited cantrips? What about traited dual-attacks? How about Specter, with fear and stability? What if traited wells granted stability? What if dual-weapon attacks delivered fear? What about Siphon? And so on… Think about revenants. Revenants can deliver blind, burning, chill, immobilize, poison, slow, torment, vulnerability, and weakness just from their core weapons. If my logic is to be followed, then a revenant should be able to receive, from themselves, fury, aegis, alacrity, regeneration, quickness, resistance, protection, and of course, might. Immediately one might notice that revenant has access to aegis, alacrity, and quickness, three of the four personal boons I listed earlier. Would that make revenant stronger than thief? Hardly so, because the revenant’s core kit and identity can be built around this. Imagine a Retribution trait line that brings heavier defenses, like aegis and protection; a Salvation line with group regeneration and personal alacrity; a Devastation line with group fury and personal quickness; and a Corruption line offering resistance. Imagine a Corruption line that has the possibility to stack chill, rather than torment, to provide better crowd control and defiance bar breaking, while giving itself resistance to minimize movement-slowing effects; could torment, as a condition, be reverted to the way it was before its “fix” that ruined the thematic appeal? Could Corruption become a viable trait line in PvP encounters while roaming? Notice also that revenant lacks access to resolution. Resolution draws from confusion. Under this proposed model, only engineers and mesmers would be able to provide resolution. That’s not to say only these two would be able to provide condition cleanses; on the contrary, any profession could cleanse itself. However, condition damage is “weaker” than strike damage in the sense that a large portion of it can be removed with a proper cleanse. By greatly reducing access to resolution, condition builds can become stronger, and more viable. I could continue with other professions, but I believe here the point has been made as to what I am aiming for. This kind of an overhaul is unlikely, if not totally impossible… But, again, it never hurts to dream.

WvW blob fights are determined by who can keep the tightest group. The more stacked on top of each other your squad is, the more spread out the opposing damage becomes. This is why you find commanders “waiting for tail” and why some of them send out constant reminders to “stay on tag”. A group that sticks together wins together. This is also why condi cleansing and proving aegis/stability is so important as a healer, and why boon stripping is so important as a damage dealer. If you can cleanse immobilize, slow, cripple, and chill, your teammates can stick to the tag better. If you provide aegis and stability, you can help your teammates avoid getting feared or stunned or knocked down and fall off from the tag. If you were dealing damage, you could use some skills to rip aegis and stability to make those kinds of crowd control effects land. The first blob that splits from the tag will usually be the first one to collapse and fall. Furthermore, one thing left out of the discussion has been the other effect of poison. Poisoning also reduces healing by a tremendous amount. If you don’t cleanse poison, your team also can’t heal effectively. If both squads can stick to tag, then obviously the one with more damage, or the one with better recovery, will outlast the opponent. So, if you dump all of your skills before they’re needed, you could be making things worse for your blob because you don’t have the tools required for a real serious problem.

I'm glad to see most of what I brought up was actually touched upon in the recent communication. It makes me feel like the grumbling we do on here does reach people's ears, rather than us talking to a brick wall.

I suppose the next question would be, is there even is a market for making the game more "intense", for lack of a better word? Does most of the player base even want to have to really practice interrupts and evades?

I realized a short while ago that on these forums, I've spent most of my time complaining. That is a drain, not just on the other players who may read what I post and become demoralized, but also on the creative teams who have provided (some of) us a decade of fun and adventure. I have a habit of writing extensively, mainly because I have much I wish to say. Perhaps while skimming through it all, you might find something that you also find enjoyable... or think I am totally bonkers for liking. I adore the game's UI. The windows are movable, I can have multiple windows up simultaneously, there is an unbelievable amount of customization with what I can have on my screen both in and out of combat, and everything feels like it's right where it should be. Perhaps that's just me thinking that way because I've been playing for so long, but I don't feel stressed with the UI. That kind of freedom is something I rarely see, and it goes to show a tremendous amount of foresight in giving tools to players that they are free to use to their own liking. Nothing is cookie-cutter when it comes to it. By extension, I also greatly value all of the other tools that are available in the menus, from something as simple as auto-detecting my graphics card settings, to toggling how ground targeting works, to whether or not I want to be able to pass through enemies. It's just absurd, in a good way. I love how the mounts work. After so many years of mounts in games just being speed increases, the unique weight and momentum mechanics on the different mounts available made it feel like I actually needed to "learn" how to ride them. The animations are wonderful and organic, it feels right moving around on a mount, and it's just a pleasurable experience all around. Perhaps someone can articulate these feelings better than I can, but I can't stress enough just how good it feels to turn on a raptor, or drift on a beetle. Perhaps the Mad King mini-games this season will help give the new Steam players the same feeling I get, too. Exploring the open world feels like an adventure. GW2 is one of the few games that managed to capture that feeling of wonder I had as a kid when I first entered Azeroth almost two decades ago. Giving players the ability to explore it again and again with a very tangible reward for the effort is remarkable. Adding on to that, I got nauseous going into Heart of Thorns, and I say that in a good way. The overwhelming verticality of Verdant Brink and the spaghetti mess that is Tangled Depths managed to evoke a very real feeling out of me, and that was before I accidentally stepped onto a pocket raptor. It felt good, in a bad way, if that makes sense. Echovald is another good example. At first, I didn't "get it", while doing the story. Like going into Verdant Brink for the first time, it felt like a chore to navigate. After doing meta events to get the XP needed to upgrade Arborstone, I finally "got it", and appreciate its design so much more. Speaking of meta events, the event system is phenomenal. Sure, some of the events are a bit hokey after ten years ("C'mon, we gotta escort the dolyak again..."), but each map has a heart to it... Beyond, of course, those heart quests. The meta events give each map, even the lowest-leveled ones, a real sense of purpose and identity. The game does more to explain its story by showing instead of telling, and while that can lead to quite a bit of frustration for players who aren't on the up-and-up with open world content, for those who are willing to get into the game, it more than makes itself known. Up until GW2, my only knowledge of "open world" content is grinding and farming. Here, there are meta trains, boss trains, and hero trains. The community actively works with each other to help each other out, because there's no selfishness involved with tagging mobs or grouping up. The community is a community, in part, because of this wonderful system. I also like the reward track systems, for both PvP and WvW. I don't ever feel pigeonholed or locked out of specific content because of it. Maybe there was a faster, more-efficient way of doing it, but I unlocked all of the dungeon armor and weapons from playing PvP and WvW, and at the same time got better in those game modes. I didn't have to pick "this or that", I was able to get "this and that". Yet, that doesn't prevent each of the end-game modes from having something unique about it, nor that "legendary" players can get that status by only choosing one game mode. The game rewards players who do everything, and at the same time doesn't penalize players who only want to do one thing. That is care in its finest form, a true sign of respect. I like you all. Oh, sure, there are some real jack-knives among you, but what group doesn't have those bad apples? If it wasn't for your shenanigans, be it gathering up a bunch of identical charr and making a haka dance-line, creating your own secret maid cafes, or those very special commanders who have their script ready to instruct new players on how to navigate Dragonfall, what kind of a game would we have? It would be sterile, boring, unfun, and almost none of us would have the desire to try something new. I don't keep coming back to WvW to keep knocking down Anzalias Pass or capture Danelon Passage when no one is looking, I keep coming back because I'm hoping to "/serve @" taunt someone who thinks they can gank me, or because I get to follow Monkey Masters around while he's getting mad at people for not playing WvW nearly as well as he does. The player base gives me the fun I'm looking for, not necessarily the game's mechanics. Finally, I like you, dev team. I know you're putting in a lot of work. I know it's not easy trying to make one game that is able to touch 17 million active players. I know you've had your ups and downs behind the scenes. I also know that I don't say it enough, but I appreciate each and every one of you, even the ones I disagree with, because we're making a cooperative achievement here. You might be third-place in terms of player count, but you are number one in my heart. We're going to keep going forward together... hopefully, for another ten years, even if some of that time happens in a mythical Guild Wars 3.

I can agree with that. I'm tired of seeing that one necro bot run far in every game match and manage to do well-enough that it hampers the rotation of whichever roamer is on its team.

I appreciate the replies. It's difficult for me to add anything since most of it's agreeing with what I've already said, so I have to ask, what is the "baseline" we're talking about for innate to be functional? Killing champions in the open world, or something a little more realistic?

Before I begin, I want to make it very clear that this long-winded post is mostly me rambling. I have tried to keep it as coherent as possible, but this is where my current state of mind is. It is very much an essay, and I certainly do not expect most people to read this. However, I have nowhere else to put it, and I would just like it out of my system. I want to go over the issues that were finally noticed by the community at large thanks to the mechanist elite spec, the struggles with thief and mesmer serving as a reflection of the whole game, and how GW2 has the capacity to accommodate both low-intensity players, and ones who fully engage with the action combat. At this point in time, mechanist has caused a tremendous amount of grief because it has such a high reward for such a low input. On the one hand, mechanist is a delight for a majority of the player base. There are no complex controls, the builds work excellently, and there is even a bit of fun in how one can customize the jade bot. On the other hand, mechanist causes quite a bit of consternation for “complex” professions, such as catalysts and untamed, who have to do so much more for the same output. I believe that the player base agrees that, no, it is not equitable that mechanist and catalyst perform similarly, but the base is divided on what to do about it. If mechanist is gutted totally, it will negatively impact the low-intensity players. If mechanist was left as-is before the 4th October patch, or other professions were extraordinarily buffed to be on-par with mechanist, then the game state would still be far from equitable for reasons as follows. What most of us realize, but only some of us could put into words, is the understanding of what is proactive, reactive, and innate. Since there may be a few reading who do not understand what I am conveying, allow me to properly define these terms, as I understand them: Proactive: An action, skill, or trait instigated by the player to have a result, and does not rely on outside input to occur; Examples: Weapon swapping, using a skill besides weapon skill 1 (including healing), stunning enemies, dodging, blocking; Reactive: An action, skill, or trait taken by the player in response to an action taken by another player or a mob beyond simple combat; Examples: Interrupting enemies, evading; Innate: An action, skill, or trait that almost requires no input by the player. Chief example: Auto-attacking; other examples include passive traits (“gain X vitality based on Y power”) and passive skills (signets, minions) I would be interested to see if someone can argue successfully against the following statement: An innate action, skill, or trait should be less powerful than a proactive one, and a proactive one should be less powerful than a reactive one. To put it more simply, players should not be so heavily rewarded for so little work. Consider the difference between a dodge and an evade. A dodge can happen at any time in combat, regardless of the circumstance of the battle. However, an evade requires accurate timing of the dodge. The same can be said for a stun and an interrupt. A stun can happen at any point in a fight, regardless of whether or not an opposing player is activating a certain skill. However, an interrupt has much more precise timing, and practicing that timing should be heavily rewarded. Blocking is in a unique position, but I believe it should be categorized as a proactive action. Guardian’s aegis, for example, is mainly passively gained through Virtue of Courage, requiring no player input. Does that make blocking innate? Alternatively, warrior’s shield 5 blocks attacks, and does nothing else. Does that make it reactive? To harmonize these two extremes, it would be best to take the position of it being a proactive action, but will be largely left out of this discussion due to the confusion it may cause. Consider Thief: Acrobatics: Swindler’s Equilibrium, and Upper Hand. Both of these traits require the timing to pull off an evasion to trigger them. Swindler’s Equilibrium requires the use of a sword to reduce the cooldown Steal, and Upper Hand grants initiative, the thief’s main resource, and regeneration. As of the time of this writing, there are only two popular thief builds that utilize Acrobatics, a power sword / dagger core in PvP and a celestial pistol / pistol daredevil in WvW. The former usually uses Swindler’s Equilibrium, but not Upper Hand; meanwhile, the latter usually uses Upper Hand, but not Swindler’s Equilibrium. We can understand why Swindler’s Equilibrium would not be taken, as it requires the use of a sword to put Steal on recharge. This could be something changed to make any weapon set able to earn this effect on an evasion, but it seems very unlikely since Guarded Initiation is an innate skill, requiring the player to, at bare minimum, use their auto-attack to get the effects of it. Upper Hand \, however, might come as a surprise that it is not taken more often since it restores initiative. This is because Trickery as a trait line is so potent, Upper Hand is de facto meaningless. Three extra initiative at the start of a fight thanks to Preparedness and Stealing granting initiative from Kleptomaniac invalidates anything Upper Hand might offer. Stealing is a proactive action (which is able to be turned reactive thanks to Sleight of Hand giving it a daze, though the benefits of stealing still happen regardless of an interruption occuring), and Preparedness is an innate trait. They require less effort than Upper Hand, an entirely reactive trait, to get initiative back, and have so much more of a reward for it. This is partially why, regardless of the build taken, both of them are vastly outmatched against dagger / pistol daredevil, which does not use Acrobatics at all. Next, think about Mesmer: Domination: Furious Interruption and Power Block. Both of these skills rely on precise timing in order to activate their interrupt effects. The former provides quickness, while the latter inflicts weakness and also puts the enemy’s skills on a longer cooldown. As of the time of this writing, Domination as a trait line is taken in a variety of game modes, including PvE. However, in popular PvP and WvW builds (in which interrupts happen) Power Block is only sometimes taken, and Furious Interruption is almost never taken. Instead of Ferocious Interruption, Shattered Concentration is almost always taken because it allows Shatter skills to remove a boon on hit. Removing that boon is not only much more important since it can strip aegis, resolution, protection, might, and so on, but also easier to accomplish than gaining quickness from an interruption. This is one example of the effort involved not equaling the reward. A proactive action, using a Shatter skill, has better results than a reactive action, interrupting an opponent. Power Block is often replaced with Vicious Expression or Mental Anguish. The former, again, removes boons when an enemy is disabled. Most disables do not require the opponent to be doing anything, though it is rather convenient to disable an enemy when they are in the middle of casting something. When that happens, it becomes an interrupt, which Power Block relies on. Power Block requires timing, while Vicious Expression does not. Mental Anguish, alternatively, requires the opponent to not be doing something to get the most out of it. A core mesmer stealth build will instead use stealth, Blink, and Mirror Images to try and gank an opponent who is just standing still, before they can even react, to maximize the effectiveness of Mental Anguish. This is the highest level of non-interaction possible, and while it might be amusing for the attacker, the victim would certainly find this lack of engagement infuriating, up to the point they could leave the game mode entirely. This kind of non-interaction is perhaps better highlighted in rifle deadeye, which demanded numerous changes from non-thieves since the launch of Path of Fire. This brings us to the issue with mechanist. Mechanist is neither a proactive nor a reactive elite; it is an innate one. Its trait lines do not rely on the player to do anything specific to benefit from them. In fact, Mech Core: J-Drive does not require the mechanist to have the bot out at all to receive some benefit, which not even ranger can boast about unless they are a soulbeast melded with their pet. Mechanist also gained signets, which are largely innate skills, though they can be activated with rather potent effects (which goes outside the scope of this discussion). The changes to rifle 1 further promoted the use of an innate strategy by giving it an Explosive effect. The vast majority of Explosives, a common trait line taken with Mechanist, features innate skills. “Glass Cannon: Strike damage dealt increases when above the health threshold.” “Steel-Packed Powder: Explosions cause vulnerability.” “Explosive Temper: Explosions grant stacking ferocity when they hit.” I could go on, but the point has been made. Auto-attacking with a rifle, an innate combat action, piles up on rewards without the engineer being required to do anything, and the jade bot, signets, and Mechanist trait line only exacerbates that. From a totally negative point of view, mechanist is a “no-skill” profession, because a player needs to do next to nothing to be successful with it. Is there anything wrong with an innate profession? Absolutely not, when it is balanced correctly. Again, an innate action, skill, or trait should offer fewer benefits than a proactive one, and a proactive one less than a reactive one. That is the limit of it. An innate build, a low-intensity build, should not be wholly unusable. Guild Wars 2 is a very special MMO because it has the true capacity to allow players with disabilities, specific needs, or other factors to be able to participate in the game to some degree. This kind of inclusivity is in short supply in the genre, but inclusiveness should not consume the total enjoyment of the game. Any innate profession that performs better than one that is not innate hurts the state of the game, and the enjoyment of its players. Consider the popular minion master necromancer. Minion masters are quite common in the open world, and can even show up in some PvP matches. Within those two game modes, it is not the best, but it is viable. Does the existence of minion master negatively affect, say, condition harbingers in PvP? Certainly not, because we would expect the harbinger to do much better than the minion master. Does the existence of harbinger make minion master totally unusable? Again, of course not, because the player base recognizes that minion master has a low skill ceiling, while harbinger has much more room for growth. The inverse of this situation is when issues arise. Mechanist being much more viable than holosmith in PvP before 4th October greatly hurt the latter elite, because holosmith had a higher ceiling than mechanist to achieve the same results in the game mode. Mechanist also hurt other professions fulfilling the same roles (mainly roamers, but also bunkers) because of how little input was necessary to get a tremendous output. Let us return to the thief while we are discussing PvP. For a decade, the biggest complaint for it has been that the thief is unfair in PvP situations. The counterargument is that thief is unfair by design, and the design of thief should be respected. My position is that thief is unfair because it has to frontload itself into a proactive role, because there are no avenues for it to be a reactive profession. The thief has no viable defenses, except for blind, which in and of itself is not a reactive tool. The reward for evading enemy attacks (with the notable exception of Daredevil: Escapist’s Fortitude) is too little. The reward for interrupting attacks (Trickery: Pressure Striking and Daredevil: Impacting Disruption) is too little. The thief has no motivation to play fairly against another class, because the thief, as it is now, has no reward for playing fairly. This is not a flaw with the profession, with stealth, with Steal, with shadow stepping, with blind, or any of the major complaints players have with thief. This is a flaw with how thief has been treated by balancing teams for a decade. If a thief cannot reasonably interrupt a target, then a thief needs to play in such a way where big casts from the opponent cannot happen in the first place, which is usually done by bursting them down. If a thief cannot reasonably evade a target, then a thief needs to play in such a way where any damage from the opponent is superficial compared to their own damage output, which is again usually done by bursting them down. If a thief cannot burst down their target, then they may try to utilize stealth to reset the fight in their favor. If a thief cannot reasonably use stealth, then they may try to blind their target. If a thief cannot reasonably blind their target, they may shadowstep to leave the fight completely, because the thief has no other option. This is how thief has been put into its current position, by constantly taking away incentives to fight “fair”. A solution to helping create a healthier game state is by improving skills, traits, and abilities that promote interaction between players, and between the player and important enemies. (Here I wish to replace interrupts with defiance bars, for the sake of including PvE.) While it is anecdotal, players still, despite the incredibly telegraphed attack animation, die to Soo-won’s Claw Slap. Some players do not even try to break defiance bars on champions, and most times only do so by randomly hitting buttons that happen to break defiance. It may very well be true that these players are just “bad”, but I wish to take a more positive position and say that these players never learned how to evade or break defiance bars, because they never had an incentive to learn how to. Why should an elementalist take Water: Flow Like Water, when Cleansing Wave removes a condition that would certainly have caused more damage than what the healing from Flow would have provided? Why should a ranger take Skirmishing: Strider’s Defense, when Spotter provides such a massive benefit to the whole party for doing nothing? Why should mesmer take Dueling: Evasive Mirror, when Blinding Dissipation would blind and prevent any kind of incoming damage and not just projectiles? Why should renegade take Wrought-Iron Will, when Blood Fury much more easily grants Kalla’s Fervor? Why should a necromancer take Curses: Insidious Disruption, when Plague Sending would remove and send conditions that cause much more damage than Insidious’ torment? Why should a guardian take Virtues: Glacial Heart, when Inspiring Virtue leads to so much more damage? Most professions, in fact, have no benefits to interrupting players, and the ones that do have them have such miniscule rewards for the effort, that they often end up ignored. It is here someone may try to make the argument that skilled players with buffed “reactive” skills and traits will have an unfair advantage against less-skilled players, or players with specific needs. My response is, simply, a skilled player will always have an advantage over a less-skilled one, no matter how many tools you try to take away from them. Taking away tools leads to game state death, and that goes on both sides of the argument. What might happen, then, if thief were changed to have stronger interrupts and dodges? I assure you, you would find far fewer thieves skulking in stealth, even if stealth were back to its pre-nerfed state. What might happen also if necromancer were to lose their minions, or mechanist was nerfed into the ground? Far fewer specific-needs players would have an opportunity to play the game in any capacity. I cannot stress this enough: Do not take tools away, but see that the tools given are calibrated against each other so that innate skills are viable, but proactive and reactive ones are more beneficial.

What I would like to see: Moving enhancements for Signets from Critical Strikes to Acrobatics; Change perspective on Acrobatics so it is less about enhancing movement (which Daredevil already does) and instead proactively reduces enemy movement; in other words, continue the trend of making core trait lines proactive rather than reactive; If Acrobatics is intent on utilizing the sword, then giving the trait line options that can work around it: Benefits for crippling a target (Sword 1); Benefits for immobilizing a target (Sword 2); Benefits for stunning a target (Sword 3 w/ Pistol); Improve the effects of certain skills in core thief’s kit to better make this work. Basilisk Venom as-is should be fine for a trait that grants benefits for stunning, but reworks could be done for a skill such as Caltrops to better incentivize a thief to cripple an enemy.

One of the problems with balancing is that GW2 was intended to be a game where everyone is DPS. There weren’t supposed to be tanks or healers in PvE, which is why everyone has dodges (to mitigate damage and avoid tanks) and a self-heal (so a healer isn’t necessary). GW2 in its current state does have tanks and healers in PvE, and taunt, though quite rare, does exist. This could be a point of contention behind the scenes. Should the game remain focused on the original intent of the dev team in 2012, or should the dev team adapt based on the changes the community has created from the tools given to them? As for class uniqueness, there has to be some overlap somewhere. If a player doesn’t like mesmer, they shouldn’t feel obligated to play one to provide alacrity. At the same time, though, the other individual is correct that giving too many classes alacrity is a great way to homogenize classes and ruin the game state.

The problem with making each class special is that alacrity and quickness, for better or worse, determines who gets invited to PvE content. If only chronomancers had alacrity to share, for example, wouldn’t that severely handicap the game state?

The solution always seems simple, but the problems start appearing when other perspectives enter the discussion. For example, I believe a correct, but not easy, solution is to fully outline what core classes should be able to do. Fractals and WvW only have two roles, but Strikes / Raids and PvP have four: Damage, Support, Tanking / Bunkering, and Kiting / Roaming. Have four of the core trait lines focus primarily on one of these things, while the obvious fifth line improves the class’ mechanics. However, it needs to be a reasonable focus. A warrior, aesthetically, shouldn’t be able to kite, but it should be able to roam. A thief, aesthetically, shouldn’t be able to tank, but it should be able to bunker. After determining what each tree should focus on (with some talents splashed in so they can work in conjunction with other core trait lines besides the fifth one that improves class mechanics), then have your elite specs focus solely on one of those end-game roles. Admit that elite specs are meant to be better core classes, but design the elites so they are only better than core in two avenues. Make a chronomancer have such phenomenal support and self-sustain that core can’t compete, but at the cost of being worse than core with damage and mobility. Meanwhile, give mirage better mobility and self-sustain, but worse damage and support than core, and give virtuoso better damage and mobility, but worse support and self-sustain. Let the trade-off from core not be a handicap on class mechanics as it has been, but a loss of general versatility to precise end-game specialization. It would fully define elite specs at the same time, and would make it easier to adjust the values of their own skills once we know what an elite spec is meant to accomplish. Using necromancer as an example: Spite: Primarily Roaming Curses: Primarily Damage Death Magic: Primarily Bunkering Blood Magic: Primarily Support Soul Reaping: General improvement Reaper: Primarily Roaming Scourge: Primarily Support Harbinger: Primarily Damage Each trait line has a primary focus to it, with the ability to splash in other traits in the line that complement other avenues of play. A scourge, for example, could also have some improvements for bunkering. Overall, compared to core, it would have much better support, some better self-sustain, but worse damage and mobility. But, then the obvious questions comes in to play. “What kind of damage is ‘damage’?” “What kind of support is ‘support’?” “What exactly is tanking / bunkering?” “How do we define kiting / roaming?” That goes outside of the discussion, and I’ve already written so much… But I only share these thoughts because I imagine that you, the reader, have already found quite a few problems with my ideas, which goes back to my actual main point: The solution may seem simple, but there are always problems with them that we ourselves may not notice.

As much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, this specific error is either tied to the cache, or is actually tied to your ISP. Some ISPs have some sort of moderation tool built in to them, such as college campus providers, where there are certain functions blocked while linked to their internet service. For whatever reason, those blocks affect your ability to enter certain instances because your ISP won’t properly handshake with GW2’s Amazon (does Anet still use Amazon?) servers. This is why you can get booted from story instances, dungeons, PvP maps, unique locations, etc. In order to solve this issue, use a free VPN service which will allow you to properly complete the handshake and not lose connection. Some of the connections you can use with a VPN will still keep your ping below ~150, so it will not ruin your in-game experience.

You're talking about three different things. You're saying "bring the player, not the class" while also saying "PvE is too easy" and "PvE doesn't warrant balancing". Whether the content is easy or not doesn't matter, the issues we're discussing are "bring the player, not the class" and "PvE needs balancing". I agree with you. A good player can make a bad build work. (Please note that "can" does not mean "will be able to".) We aren't arguing you on this. We're pointing out that PvE for specter needs a reexamination. To make this simple for you, we're pointing out the difference between "can" and "have to". Players liked playing the old specter. The old specter was a good build and gave thief something new to do. Now, specter can't perform like it used to. The specter we currently have is worse than the old specter. We aren't in a position anymore where someone "can" play a bad specter build, they "have to" play a bad specter build if they still want to play specter. Good, bad, or otherwise, if you want to play specter in its current state, compared to its previous one, it is now worse. How does specter compare to renegades and willbenders vying for the same role in PvE? Worse. Specter is put into a position where some baddies "have to" play renegade or willbender because they can't stand out of the flashing yellow circles and Shadow Shroud can't absorb the impacts like they used to rely on, and good players who want to play specter instead of willbender or renegade "have to" play a bad specter build. A group leader isn't the one class restricting, the current game's balancing state is class restricting by putting players into "have to" positions, rather than "can" ones. Whether or not PvE is easy is irrelevant. We're discussing the feelings of the players, as well as the elite spec and how it compares to other professions in the current game state.

“Anecdote” is not the singular of “data”, and “can” is not synonymous with “should”. PvE classes do need to be balanced with each other or else it creates a situation where only one class is permitted to fill a given role. This creates an artificial scarcity, which negatively impacts the mode. If only firebrand could bring quickness, every team would want a firebrand. That would make FB be a guaranteed slot for PvE content, which would encourage more players to make a FB. That reduces the number of other professions in the game. Fewer professions being played in favor for one class is bad game design. This is why other options need to be made available, like chromomancer, herald, and scrapper, to create more opportunities for other classes to be accepted into a team. Now, perhaps a team wants to prove content can be done without alacrity or quickness. That’s fine. It -can- be done. However, that requires an agreement between at least five people, who then work together to be as efficient as possible for achieving a given objective. -Should- players doing PvE have to deal with a, say, tempest who refuses to bring alacrity, because the content can be completed without it? Of course not. Quickness and alacrity greatly speed up the fighting, and faster fights mean more content is cleared, which is a greater use of everyone’s time. PvE is mostly about efficiency, which is where the struggle to balance the game comes from. Make a profession too efficient, and other professions complain; make it too inefficient as a result, like where we are with specter, and the players of said class will ask for it to be fixed.

Thief has the potential to be spammy, which has a trade-off built into it that was previously mentioned. Every weapon a thief uses shares the same "cooldown" because of initiative. Some builds can make the most of spam; deadeye, in particular, can make the most of spam with Maleficent Seven, which makes sense mechanically. You're kneeling, and you want to kill whatever it is you're focusing from 1,500 away before they get to you. Does this upset other players competitively? Well, yeah. It's not "fair", to them. Yet they don't seem to have any problems with deadeyes when they're totally out of initiative, they themselves survived the first burst by dodging the very clear killer shot and used their own abilities to stop the incoming ranged damage, and the deadeye's escape tools are all on cooldown. Deadeye plays extremely straight-forward, and a failure to adapt is the problem, not anything with the profession itself. If one were to spam (again in PvP) something like Dagger 2 on a daredevil build, even with all of its dodges and escape tools, it's going to get devoured alive by anyone else in the game because it never kept its initiative to time Pistol 4 or 5 to prevent healing or avoid damage. Meanwhile, no one really seems to mind that deadeye is uniquely equipped to kite bosses in Fractals and Raids, sharing a role with mirages who can also function as tanks, and tempests who can also heal, with both of them providing alacrity, which deadeye lacks. Why is that?

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on this topic, but this is what I've noticed on the outside-looking-in. First, let's establish how we got to the present crisis. Elite specializations are, in theory, supposed to supplement something that is lacking in a class' kit. Thief has long been labeled the "selfish" profession without any means of providing legitimate group support, so the solution with specter was to make it very strong at providing support. When specter provided these tools to make it happen, there was criticism from those outside of the thief community for it. Specter had a meteoric rise in PvP (where thief is already loathed) because it functions as both a roamer and a support class in PvP, though it is noticeably absent in WvW groups, and as a roamer pales in comparison to even core thief in that environment. It's very easy to immediately say the typical: "Anet doesn't care about / play thief," or "Thief is broken / busted," or any other statement we've heard the past decade already. The veracity of these statements don't matter. What does matter is that thief finally entered a position where it could start providing real support and no longer be the "selfish" class in PvP, and for whatever reason everyone else complained about it. If we can figure out what the problem is that made everyone so vocally against the elite, then we can move forward. For others who don't play thief, was the durability too much in PvP? Was the barrier too much? If so, why? The other profession with Shroud, necromancer, had very tangible problems that the collective player base could point out as real issues. Death Shroud, the profession's unique mechanic has received two total nerfs to it since the game's inception, and only one of them PvP related: A 2% increase in life force lost per second in PvP (for a total of 5%). Yet, when core signet necromancer existed in competitive formats, Death Shroud wasn't nerfed. Why was Shadow Shroud, in this similar situation? Perhaps an argument could be made that Scourge did, in fact, have its unique abilities nerfed heavily over the years considering how much barrier it was providing, to the point where now it's a joke of an elite spec in competitive formats. Of course, there is the tremendous exception of it existing in WvW blobs with its barriers and boonstrips, which Specter comparatively has yet to properly break in to. So, what we were looking at is an elite, in PvP, that is evidently too good competitively in small groups, acceptable when it's on its own, and not particularly helpful in large groups. Why is this? Specter fit the original intentions of what elite specs are supposed to be. Specter, at least in PvP, which is what this balance patch was supposed to focus on, was only the meta in one aspect of the game, boasting a unique position to both roam (competing with willbenders, heralds, holosmiths, untamed, and soulbeasts, three of which have been consistently in high-level play since PoF) and support (competing with guardians and tempests, both of which, again, having been securely in their place since some part of PoF). The profession did nothing wrong except play well, and unlike other professions, was heavily penalized for it. So, why? Do non-thieves want it to have less damage, and become something akin to druid? Do they want it to have less mobility? Fewer barriers and less healing? What is the competition looking to actually get rid of from specter? I ask these things, because I refuse to believe that a unique skill could possibly be so reviled when core necromancer, the inspiration for it, hasn't been seriously looked at for committing similar "crimes against the player base".

I am of the opinion that until elite specs on thief can’t make use of the extra initiative from Trickery, there will be no need to rework Acrobatics because, 99/100 times, you’re going to be taking any other trait line, Trickery, and your elite spec. If Trickery, or at least the extra initiative from it, stopped being available to the elites, it could encourage thieves to branch out into other trees, and then we can see what Acrobatics is really missing… apart from, of course, being a worse Daredevil line. I’ve been interested in seeing signets move to Acrobatics, but that one single thing wouldn’t make it playable.

With how many changes have come to thief lately, wouldn't the entire profession's traits need a rework? That is to say, why doesn't the Deadly Arts line improve venoms? Why are all of the movement-based utilities, tricks, in the Trickery line instead of in Acrobatics; is it just because of the name of the utility group? Why aren't there any improvements to preparations, and how can preparations be improved (or just used at all) now that wells exist? Why isn't there an option to improve short bow, like how Deadly Arts has for daggers, Critical Strikes has for pistols, and Acrobatics has for sword; would an improvement to short bow that reduces the initiative cost on its skills by 1 be too much? Why do dagger improvements only affect power, and not condition damage? Why do sword improvements only affect evasion, and not interrupts? Why are there only two benefits to thief for interrupting enemies in the entire trait line selection (Trickery: Pressure Striking and Daredevil: Impacting Disruption) when it has such easy access to interrupts? Why is the profession being pushed towards "unfair" mechanics like stealth and shadowstepping instead of being pushed towards rewarding the player for using interrupts and stuns, both of which can have greater cross-player interaction? (For example, regenerating initiative while in stealth with Shadow's Refuge, but no traits in Deadly Arts or CS that reward initiative for hitting hard and precise.) It seems like there's more wrong with the profession than just one of its trait lines, but amazing DPS benchmarks and almost guaranteed secure kills in a PvP environment are obfuscating the real issues. If that's true, though, then why put in the effort fixing anything?

I am relatively new to the game, and did get a level 80 boost ticket. With that ticket, I got a brand new level 80 character wearing celestial exotic armor. The guild I joined explained that this gear allowed me the opportunity to play my profession however I wanted, while working towards replacing armor and weapons to find a niche. This is fantastic, but why would I want to trade off of celestial equipment? Celestial exotic chest armor offers +63 in all stats, for a cumulative value of +567. Comparing that to something like an exotic Marauder's chest piece, which offers a total of +356 (+115 Power and Precision, +63 Vitality and Ferocity) to less than half of the stats that can be improved, or even Berserker's, which only offers +326 total (+134 Power, +96 Precision and Ferocity), makes me ask why anything is chosen besides celestial equipment, when celestial is so much more powerful? It also makes me ask, why isn't armor all weighted the same way? On the outside looking in, a chest piece of exotic Berserker's equipment would ideally have something like +233 Power, +167 Precision and Ferocity for a stat total improvement of about +567 to be like celestial, or a celestial exotic chest armor would be reduced to +37 for each stat to be more equal to Marauder's and Berserkers. With most of these new elite specs, like harbinger or willbender, doing both power and condition damage at the same time, and having all of these powerful boons, it seems like a no-brainer to someone new like to me stick solely to celestial equipment.

I like the idea of Mai Trin being possessed by Scarlet. Could other revenants become possessed by the spirits in the Mist? Could Shiro return to Cantha because a revenant tapped into something they didn't understand? I didn't like that so much effort was put into Mai just to have her killed. That's not a "heroic death". That's insulting. We like good characters. Mai had the potential to be a very good character since she has connections to so many different groups. Severing her thread hurt the potential for more stories. I like the idea of Ankka losing it because she kept killing iterations of her in the Mists. Can other villains still be within the Mists, and can entities in the Mists escape and become their own person? Could there be another Balthazar or Joko in the Mists? I didn't like how quickly Ankka was gone. Again, killing characters isn't mature storytelling. The idea of a Mistblades faction emerging from the Mists because Ankka kept returning and amassing supplies and people is a fascinating concept that now can't exist, unless there's an iteration of Ankka in the Mists that not only succeeds against the commander, but also escapes into the "real". I like Detective Rama. He's very grounded. He does the job that he's supposed to do, but both he and his coworker, whose name escapes me, are sarcastic in the sense that they don't see many crimes, and enjoy their peaceful, idyllic lifestyles, and just don't want to be bothered. It's not laziness, nor is he indifferent to the law, it's that appreciation of tranquility that I enjoy. (At least, that's how I gathered it.) I could have liked Minister Li. The problem I have with Li is directly tied with Joon, so bare with me if I seem disjointed. I want a Minister Li who is distrustful of outsiders. I want us to be purposefully wary of Li because he is reticent towards us, and his dislike of difference and change. I want him to be distrustful of jade technology and the commander because they are different and represent change. But, I do not want him to feel this way because he's secretly a Purist! Were he an old man, whose gut feeling tells him something is wrong, and he trusts his gut with these matters, and makes preparations for these things (such as arresting royalty, or subduing a foreign army), but does not act because he needs evidence first and foremost as the Minister of Security, then we have the foundations for an excellent character. Then, when the fabric of truth and justice are slowly unwoven, and he's proven right, then we can work with the Minister to solve whatever crises arise. Once all's said and done, he can retire, admitting his faults, that he may have been correct on his hunch on one matter, but severely wrong on another, and recognize that Cantha is changing, and it needs a new perspective to lead it. Then he can offer to pass the torch to Rama (who would preferably decline so we can see him in other adventures), and perhaps even Captain Min. As Li is now, he's not a good character, but a shallow caricature of racism and bigotry. I could have liked Joon. The problem with Joon is that she is always right, all of the time. Even when she's wrong, she's still right. I kept waiting for the reveal that Joon is nefarious, that Joon is plotting something, because her condescending attitude and overwhelming smugness make her appear as the haughtiest of asura in human guise. There was no reveal. There was never a time someone called her out on her single-mindedness. Even now with Soo-Won gone, I'm sure that Joon will, in LWS6, have revealed an "even more efficient" form of energy (which, someone will argue me, is okay since Taimi is definitely going to help her with it). Joon is as shallow as Minister Li. The sheer sarcasm at the start of the story of Canthan bureaucracy means nothing if the writers can't put layers upon layers of deception and lies in this land of mystery and conflict with a rich history of political strife. How much more powerful Joon would be if she felt that Empress Ihn was undeserving of the throne, in light of how many wonders Joon has created. How wonderful it would have been for her to view herself as a Canthan Prometheus, giving fire and light to an insipid, backwater, filthy people who don't deserve her genius and intellect. How many times have our writers given us an extremely intelligent woman who single-handedly changes the world, and yet is considered free from blame? This expansion alone even attempted to redeem Scarlet Briar! I could have liked Soo-Won. An elder dragon who, in the past, was full of terror and horror that it displaced krait, quaggan, largos, and all other aquatic creatures, a Lovecraftian monster from the depths who is instills fear in us not just because its a force of nature, but because it's a force we don't understand, had great potential. We didn't get that. An elder dragon who has accepted the idea that its death is possible, and is trying to maintain its existence by giving of itself to the mortal races in a bid to just live one more day--a monster that instilled fear now becoming fearful itself--had great potential. We didn't get that. An elder dragon that was actually just and righteous, but so far weaker than its siblings that holding back the tide against both the overloading of ley energy and the Unchained (and, if it had been thought of, Jade Branded and Jade Mordrem emerging from Echovald as shattered Kralkatorik and Mordremoth energies reverberated throughout the world) is causing it to die, and it begs for us preserve the way of life it has fought so hard to protect, had great potential. We didn't get that. Dragonvoid... Something that could have so easily been lifted from the ridiculousness of the current WoW story, is what we got. I say all these things, things that you will never read, because the issue with EoD is the same issue that has been constant since LWS1. There is no desire to genuinely build up the world, or develop its current "rules system" and mechanics. The writers seem to go for set pieces that look cool, and instead of writing backwards (so there are no loose threads and everything flows properly to a satisfying conclusion), the story is written in pieces. I understand giving everyone a voice on the team, but each voice is singing a different song, so to speak. I understand that the writing team has changed over time, but the writers need to have built a bible that can be consulted and referred to so there is neither contradiction nor overlap. EoD feels like every other story in GW2: A fantastic beginning, destroyed by some silly "tweest" to the plot, and a rushed conclusion that feels neither satisfactory nor earned. Remember, we proved Joko wrong after he delivered his speech about how awful we are by having our dragon ex machina eat him, and that also gave her magical lich powers to completely ruin the impact of All or Nothing.

Vallun makes very good builds. For an open world deadeye, they recommend: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAQxrlNwuYZsNGJW0WnvKA-zRJUiR9fxQJHWE1Wi0aIWRRY7swiyG-e If you have ascended gear, that's just fine, and could warrant swapping pieces out for Dragon or Valkyrie stats in that case since, in exotics, you're hitting a consistent 100% critical hit rate. If you want Invigorating Precision, you can take it, and if you're in the open world, but not part of a meta train, taking Be Quick or Be Killed would offer the best damage and boons possible for rapid killing. For bar-breaking, you can rely on your trust Pistol Whip.

I had no idea. I'm new the game, and had presumed that the only way to get initiative back was through Trickery, through Shadow's Rejuvenation, or through Upper Hand. Of course, I always knew to take Trickery, and Shadow's Rejuvenation was a great option, but Upper Hand wasn't worth the cost of going into Acrobatics, since it's 1 initiative, it costs a dodge, and Daredevil does everything Acrobatics does, but better. I didn't know that Deadly Arts and Critical Strikes had ways of generating initiative, too. If the development team is as (relatively) new as I am, is it possible they don't know what's been taken away from the profession, either?

Would that also address the complaint about warriors losing adrenaline / flow in-between fights?