eldrevo.1746

Do you play on NA or EU? EU What team were you on during January 12-26? What team were you on during January 26-February 2? Can't remember honestly, new names are sort of forgettable. I think both times I was in the group of same 3, first time blue, then green. The group was one with Phoenix Dawn in it. Don't take it for granted though, my memory is really cloudy here If there is a day of the week and time of day you usually play, what are they? Played through most of the week in the evenings, roughly between 7PM and 1 AM CET, and on weekend afternoons (11 AM - 4 PM) Did your world restructuring matchups feel more or less balanced than your regular WvW Server matches? WAY more balanced and fun. There was more action everywhere, back-and-forth between teams, multiple commanders / zergs between different maps at most times, healthy roaming set up too. A lot of communication and chats The moment beta ended, it was back to hardcore organized zergs sweeping half the map, gods of pvp on overpowered builds 1v5ing peepo roamers like me, usual good stuff. Beta was definitely an improvement. Did you select a WvW Guild for the beta? Just checked, it seems I had a meme tag guild selected, where everyone else had left already. Oops! Was your guild part of a larger alliance guild? No Were there usually commanders around during your normal playtime? Yes, usually multiple over several maps. At lease one or two at most times. Way better than regular sutiation on my server Which week felt most balanced and enjoyable for you? Both were pretty good What part of world restructuring felt the most well executed? Don't know what to tell. Everything was great for me as a solo / public tag player. Maybe the extra rewards event played a role here too, attracting more different players instead of hardcore wvw veterans What part of world restructuring feels like it has the most room for improvement? I still don't quite get what should I do to play with people I want. For example, I have a couple of new / returning players who picked a random server on character creation, and I have a bunch of specific guilds I'm not sure they fit in. Or maybe I have a committed wvw friend who's in a hardcore-ish wvw guild that may not want me. While in the current system I see a solution in changing servers (paywalled but still there), with World restructuring, as much as I want it out as soon as possible, I am still a little lost.

HOLY KITTEN AINTNOWAY OUR PRAYERS ARE FINALLY ANSWERED BRETHREN And overall a nice round of fixes there! Especially excited about Willbender and Untamed, there is hope it'll stop being so clunky to play. A little hope for druid too, though it's sad Heal Druid is sort of bullied out of Alacrity option by having to spam Celestial Avatar only to keep Alacrity instead of using it for healing (for which the third grandmaster trait also buffs CA immensely). Maybe it'll be better to change the Alacrity application to "Give Alacrity when you give Might / Protection (or some other boon that might require some investment)"? Or make it something pet-related to engage with the Ranger's profession mechanic without attaching it to CA?

To all critique of scourge changes and removing the identity of specs... I agree some of the changes look weird, but I see the scourge will still have strong barriers, good rez power and pretty unique mass downstate pull. If these things are at least noticeably stronger than some other specs, I'd say we are still fine in terms of diversity. The balance team has to walk a fine line here, and I don't think it hurts to try bold new things instead of claiming something unplayable on first sight and immediately colling for a full revert.

P. S. Oh, and I agree about the concerns of homogenizing professions. Please be careful with removing and toning down unique things that are iconic for professions. They may be a pain to balance, but if everything will end up playing and feeling samey, the game won't be as fun anymore.

First of all, this patch is huge! Shoutout to cmc and the balance team for the hard work as well as commitment to take the risk! The more moving parts, the bigger the chance something will break. I for one won't be mad if some of the changes won't arrive in 10/10 quality because of that. Now to the changes themselves. Cooldown reduction traits I dig the idea of loosening up trait / utility choices so I like this decision overall! However, most of the CDR traits were stripped of their most juicy part without getting something in return, so I can't see the reason they would be picked at all. I suggest giving those traits some counterweight buffs in the future or reworking them completely. And to be honest I still like the fantasy of specializing on a certain skill type / weapon, so I'd rather see some buff to these traits. Ranger WOO YEAH BABY I am a DPS druid main now! As a long time WOW druid main, this was one of my biggest issues with Ranger and I'm so happy to see it gone! Blood Moon and Eclipse sound cool both from gameplay and fantasy standpoint, and one could only hope DPS druid could also get altered visuals to Celestial avatar abilities too. Untamed changes make me hope it will become a little less messy, though the whole unleash and ambush mechanic remains in its wonky state. We'll see how it rolls I guess. I loved the old Alac Untamed, it was fun even though it wasn't healthy. Spirit changes look a little complicated but are overall great. Sword finding its own place makes me happy, though it's a bit sad if the second skill of Serpent strike (with a dodge on it) has to go, that was pretty cool. And if we are still expected to bring the offhand Axe for power set, it becomes a little weird. Can we expect some buffs to OH Dagger and Torch? Their skills feel outdated anyway. Thief While other professions received some pretty straightforward reworks, Specter and Deadeye feel just weird and unnecessarily complicated to me. Random AOE quickness baseline and trait that kills the random? Weird, and doesn't really play into the spec fantasy. AOE support but still tied to one target tether? I dig your commitment to the spec's theme there but I hope it won't get wonky gameplay wise. Overall hyped to try these changes and see how they work in practice, especially compared to other boon supports. One of the thief's issues is that some professions do the same job while being much easier and safer to play, and I see this unnecessary trend going here. Other things I don't play as much Quick Herald changes are welcome, it's funny how we 180 from the spammiest kitten in the game to upkeep-and-AFK playstyle. Alac scourge changes seem unhinged enough, hope the spec ends up being valuable. Sadly there's no love to harbinger, it's still a bit bruh to play. Quickness Berserker adjustments look like great design, even though 'giving boon on burst use' can feel a bit too straightforward. Still happy to have more utility slots (would also like the obligation to slot as many Rage skills as possible lifted at some point). Alac willbender in me is still sadge. I know you intended it to be a meme, but hey, maybe it's time to un-meme it?

I can appreciate the will to shift from epic stories of battling the world-ending threats at impossible odds to smaller, more personal stories. But this is not how you do it. GW2 is known for scale and spectacle, things being big and epic, with smaller moments tucked safely in between in smaller numbers... Maybe it's better to keep it this way?

Excuses ex machina. We don't even have a "Thanks but no" option.

I just want to add that reflecting on death of ANY of our comrades was overused to death already. Tower of Nightmares, HoT Mordremoth fight, that Shining Blade nonsense in LWS3, dying in PoF, literal ghost army in LWS4, multiple Glint Lair visits... I just feel like the Commander would've dealt with that already. We had our lowest of low in LWS4 with Aurene. Sure we got jebaited there, but still I doubt anything would shake our character since then from the story perspective. The last LWS4 episode was so empowering and hopeful (and even IBS and EOD were not quite mentally heavy on the Commander) so I have a strong desire to call BS on trying to make us weak and traumatized again. Also, this 'the commander never has time to rest and process things' assumption doesn't fit well with some expansions or seasons having year-long gaps in the in-game calendar. I appreciate the writers fitting a day off in a tea house in the main story line, but I don't feel it's the first time our Commander had such an opportunity since the start of the story. IMO the whole Gyala Delve story drives away from the really important thing: a proper send off to Soo Won. The last Elder Dragon of the original six. The impact her death had on canthans at large. And of course, more time with Aurene would be great. Maybe even exploring her trauma of having to kill her grandpa and grandgrandma, remaining all alone in the world of mortals. Reflecting on our bond as Scion and Champion and how it may have changed over this time. I'd happily have two tunnels instead of real maps if the story would properly delve into something that.

Well, races and genders aside, we get a third plane character we've had like 3 lines of dialogue over the last third of EOD story, a token character that feels awkwardly shoehorned into any scene they are in (despite the efforts to build the Gyala story with them in the center) and finally a character of an older cast, although one of the most controversial. I was totally okay picking someone 'inappropriate' to how I see my character's romantic preferences (considering the genre restrictions of the game) and thankfully the story had an option to keep the distance and not make it weird... But even then, I feel like there could be a lot of better options from the perspective of our story and acquaintances as the Commander.

Reaper, Berserker and Holo changes are very welcome! Power Dragonhunter too, however I'm personally not a fan of getting back to Big Game Hunter. I'd like to see Heavy Light buffed accordingly to remain an option, or some other traits being buffed instead. Still no buffs to Willbender Offhand sword in PVE, it could use some love! And the Phoenix protocol change is weird to me. I can see the logic behind it, but it begs a compensation elsewhere, preferably something that can help Willbender to provide some alacrity without hitting enemies. The spec was controversial and unwieldy already, straight nerfing it will only kill it further. And I'd love to see some buffs to Condition / Alacrity Specter. Since the shroud nerf (dictated by PVP but affecting all game modes) it's not great and needs help. Hyped about changes and Quickness Deadeye next patch though!

Yeah... I too feel like the plot of us reflecting on deaths of these characters have been largely overused. We've already dealt with our order allies in HoT finale, we've had enough of Eir and as much as I like the character of Almorra, I've always felt that the Commander had little to do with her and her death (unless you chose Vigil and even then you didn't interact with her enough). There's also other characters such as Mai Trin that we could've spend a bit more time with. But maybe they should've choose another thing for the Commander to grief? End of Dragons is literally about us fulfilling our ultimate destiny and the uncertainty of whatever we should do now that Elder Dragons are no more. It's about the tragedy of Soo-Won, about Aurene having to carry her weight now. Why isn't any of this in the story? Why wouldn't we delve into these things?

I think WoW had a good approach to such things back in the day. They did some sort of adventure rotation. Each weekend, there was a new thing, either a funny PvP mod, an old dungeon throwback, or a mini event / adventure such as a fashion contest (and minigames like keg brawl or crab toss could be thrown in too). This made all of these things exciting because each of them happened only every few weeks and didn't last too long, they also were pretty busy most of the time they were on. This would require some work on Anet side, but I could definitely see these smaller events and activities benefit from such a system.

First of all, thanks to Roy 'Roy' and cmcW for the preview! Overall changes look mighty fine across all classes, but I'll focus on the ones I play the most 🙂 GENERAL One of common themes was making cooldown reduction of certain skill types baseline, detaching from respective traits. While I can see these changes as legitimate buffs, I feel that I'm going to miss the interactions and synergy between traits and skills when crafting a build. Different skill types, weapons and traits / traitlines affiliated with them is a big part of GW2 system design to me, and the more of these systems are interconnected, the better, right? Right..? I'm very curious where does this point fall in your modern balance philosophy. Oh, and without CD reduction all these traits will feel straight out nerfed and low value, so not giving them anything in return is also not cool. GUARDIAN Sword, Focus and Greatsword buffs are of course very welcome and hopefully they will be enough to make Power specs more competitive. However, I'm slightly concerned these weapons will outshine Longbow and Offhand sword again, so Power Dragonhunter and Willbender risk losing their iconic weapons if you'd really want to push the DPS to the highest. I hope it's not the case but I'd still love to see some damage buffs to Longbow and especially Offhand sword in PVE. Utility and quality of life improvements on Greatsword and Hammer look very exciting! The only thing left unfixed is good old Greatsword 4 aftercast. Please guys, sweaty benchmark enjoyers bully me for not stowing GS4 in my rotations, can we unbully the poor peepos like me and fix that? ^^; Sword skill CDs detached from Right Hand strength are welcome, I guess, but the trait becomes sort of bland without them. Just a small boost to stats, and guardian is already overcapped on crit anyway so precision is not really sought after. Can we maybe have something more exciting there later? With that said, a lot of other traits in Zeal and Radiance might be underused and can see some buffs or even reworks. Dragonhunter buffs are also looking strong. I doubt someone will use those other traps anyway, but good effort! Heavy Light inner CD reduction may be dangerous but I'm excited about trying that trait again so looking forward to the change. Hunter's Determination rework also sounds fun, but maybe a bit weaker than before overall. Maybe adding a stack of Stability or Aegis (or even something wild like Resistance or Superspeed) on top of stunbreak will help? And of course Firebrand mantras! I'm absolutely happy to see you guys caring about skill identity and aesthetics so I welcome the return of good old stuff. Hopefully voice lines on charging come back as well! Though as an afterthought, the auto-charging (as convenient as it is) may be a bit weird and inconcenient from roleplay perspective. If I want to cast the gorgeous charging animation while hanging out in a city, is there no way for me to do it after the change? THIEF Signet trait change looks dangerous, I wish it was valuablt in PVE (no chance against a crit trait though). More Deadeye buffs are lovely, I feel that I'll have a blast on my Rifle / Dagger build. Shadow Meld change in PvP/WvW is justified but still questionable. Purity of Purpose is a very fair point, but I've always considered this skill as a Rule-breaker. Deadeye is THE stealth spec for thief, and having its elite skill actually counter its biggest weakness made a lot of sense to me both thematically and functionally. You guys are not shy of breaking the rules when it makes sense, and I feel it's exactly the case! As a nice compromise, Shadow Meld can EITHER give stealth or remove Revealed if it's present. Oh and while we're at it, may I ask for some QOL around Stealth and Revealed? When playing Deadeye in high-pressure PVE can be hard to keep tabs on Revealed uptime and wasting a Stealth ability into it can be very punishing. If Revealed and Stealth had more visible telegraphs (think screen tints) or Stealth skills were unusable / refunded when cast into Revealed, it'd help less experienced thief players like me tremendously. P. S. More Might and Protection on Specter is amazing, I've been asking for it for quite a while!

One of the biggest reasons I love GW2 so much is the sheer amount of work, love and attention to detail put into player's skills and flavor about them. The voice lines on using skills, receiving boons and conditions, custom animations on almost every skill in the game also unique to some races, incredibly well done icons and even unique skill range indicators we use for ground targeting... You know, that sort of stuff. It makes the combat feel alive, it makes the professions and elite specs feel unique and powerful. On release, GW2 had set a very high bar in terms of quality and flavor, then only raised it with HoT and PoF... But then something seemed to change. I won't get too deep into EoD elite spec design that feel cheaper than that of PoF (consider amount of thought and effort put into stitching Soulbeast together and then look at Untamed), it may be a topic for another time (please please please give next expac's specs more love). Right now I wanna focus on flavor. Mainly animations and voice lines. Remember how rich core animations were? And how in HoT most of elite specs had a whole bunch of brand new animations and effects, sometimes up to a insane amount (I see you here daredevil)? Well, now it's mostly reuse, be thankful if your spec has at least some new moves and handn't ripped another older spec of their unique stuff (I see you here vindicator). For rant's sake, when I saw the newest Kneel changes, I was both happy but also 'Please, tell me you'll add a proper crouch walk animation later and not leave it like that.' Anet, I really hope you will. Some later animations do not really stend up to the standards you've set up earlier. Then there are voice lines. Remember how important they became from the game's first days? All these memes about outrunning a centaur, feeling six feet tall and showing this rose's thorns? Remember how none of the new boons added since release got their voice lines? There's quite a lot of them now, from quickness and alacrity to resistance and resolution. The latter is a special sore spot, because we got rid of retaliation for that, only substracting from the current amount of chatter without adding anything back. Anet, my rose called, she wants her thorns back 😞 Then there's skill flavor, crucial to feel the fantasy behind your character. Remember the times Firebrands had to charge their mantras? Usability wise, it sucked, I don't miss that gameplay at all. But with the charging remove, guess what was also gone? Right, a cool animation and a set of lovely unique voice lines! There is a ton of ways to reintroduce both (from making the charging useful i.e. pulsing effects like tempest overload to adding a chance to activate the voice line on using a mantra charge), and it's sad that they were just gutted instead. Anet, I'm happy to see the positive trend of getting the fun stuff back, can we have this too? The next thing is less significant but still feels like a downgrade. Remember pressing Hammer 5 or Function Gyro on Scrapper and seeing a unique ground targeting area? Staff 5 or Longbow 5 on Dragonhunter? Scourge Shades? Citadel Bombardment on Renegade? Basically each Elite spec having their own emblem on all ground targeted skills? Forget that, we still have Virtuoso using Mesmer's art on elite, same for Willbender F2 and Dragonhunter. Anet, please. It's not the biggest thing in the world, but details do matter. Do you have any skills or flavor you'd like to have back? Let's discuss or just rant because that's what forums are for after all 😛 P. S. Forgive me if this post ended up too negative. I love GW2 and I feel like its direction is doing better than ever lately, huge respect to everyone responsible for that. I just want to be sure the game keeps up to its own standards and we'll have quality stuff ahead (as well as maybe having some good stuff back from the void).

Funnily enough, I absolutely see this point work on paper, but from the build crafting perspective, the opposite is true. Competitive offers far more variety in builds and roles than instanced PVE (not counting open world cos you can do whatever there). Power Specter or Firebrand? Works in pvp/wvw, trash dps in fractals/raids. Tanky builds with defence-focused traitlines? Key role in PVP, popular in WVW roaming, obsolete even when tanking raids in PVE. I myself am more of a PVE player, but I like my builds having some sustain, utility and all that good stuff that I must replace with plain dps or boon buttons if I want to clear a strike mission... But all that is still welcome in those toxic, unloved and content-starved hellholes I was usually tending to avoid 😅 I'd say, any content with a Failure state introduced can become toxic. You can lose a PVP match and it might sting, especially if you end up with impression that your noob team ruined the game for you. You can fail miserably in instanced PVE, and your own performance can be crippled by support players not being good enough. You hardly can fail in Open World PVE (Dragon's End was the latest, largest and loudest exception to that rule and it was nerfed to the ground) and the cost of failure in WvW aint that much and it's harder to blame certain people in it, that's why I believe these mods are far less toxic. Again, I myself was surprised to find that competitive has more uniqueness and diversity when it comes to professions and elite specs. When I do a little roaming in WvW, I know that thieves are uncatchable menaces, except deadeye that also has a lot more stealth and a sniper rifle. I know rangers can beam you from a mile away, mesmers can explode into an army of dudes and oneshot you out of the blue. Necros are chonky killing machines, guardians have a ton of boons. There are specs with traps and trapper runes, there are tanky bruisers and squishy assassins, every profession has its unique defensives I have to play around... When it comes to PVE, I have specs that do damage and specs that give boons. That's it. Each profession has a DPS and a boon support option by now, and most of them do their stuff in a pretty similar way. I can log on a herald and give quickness by spamming facets, or on a scrapper and spam gyros. I can play six different guardian builds over three four specs including core, and the rotation will be pretty much the same. I don't care that deadeye is a ranged thief spec cos I'll sit in a melee blob anyway (except kiting on Quadims, the reason I got into PVE with my thief in the first place). I play 3-6 professions in endgame PVE at the same time, and I honestly don't care what to bring for another fight, a scourge or a virtuoso, a vindi or a soulbeast or a spellbreaker. I simply take the one that's not sitting on a chest somewhere so I won't have to park it again afterwards. My guess here is that PVP allows the game's rich and complex combat system truly shine, while in PVE it comes down to very simple tank-and-spank most of the time, and good half of the specs' identity is lost somewhere between the DPS golem and the fractal speedclears. Oh, and in open world the class identity doesn't matter a kitten as well because you can achieve success there without ever putting any skills on your bars. Though I hard agree here. Not only we need more diversity, but also the ways to engage with it meaningfully across all game modes. While I'm not certain your suggestions are the best way to save competitive (it's much more complex issue than that, involving reward structure, social aspects, game mode rules and more), I agree those 'cornerstone' game modes should receive at least some love to keep things fresh. Anet is slowly pressing on with alliances and further system reworks, but more content can also be very welcome there. While PVE, for a change, could shine even brighter with a lesson or two brought from PVP encounter structure and complexity.